[Commlist] Workshop - Metrics of sovereignty

  Metrics of sovereignty: mixed methods approach to sovereign networks

This workshop, co-organized by DIGISOV <https://cis.cnrs.fr/digisov/>, 
CIS CNRS, Citizen Lab <https://citizenlab.ca> and GEODE 
<https://geode.science>, will take place on *21 May 2025*, from 9:30 to 
17:00, in *Paris 17th* (CNRS Pouchet) and by videoconference. To 
participate, *please register 
<https://evento.renater.fr/survey/workshop-metrics-of-sovereignty-xy1gntlm>*.

Digital sovereignty is an increasing concern for some and a rallying cry 
for others. This contested concept is often instrumentalized to justify 
strict control over internet traffic, infrastructure, and online 
content. At the same time, it is invoked to promote visions of 
technological autonomy. The recent policy shift in the United States has 
prompted the EU and Canada to reassess their infrastructural 
dependencies and accelerate their own moves toward digital sovereignty. 
Meanwhile, countries such as Cuba, China, Russia, Myanmar, and Iran are 
developing sophisticated techno-legal frameworks for national internets.

How can we grasp and make sense of digital sovereignties in all their 
diversity? What analytical tools can we use to trace and understand 
these developments? This interdisciplinary workshop brings together 
social scienists, computer scientists and engineers to share methods and 
frameworks for describing, analyzing—and perhaps even anticipating—the 
global trend toward sovereign networks.

The first part of the workshop features case study presentations 
followed by a moderated discussion. The second part includes hands-on 
sessions introducing software tools for measuring and visualizing 
internet connectivity, traffic filtering, and network fragmentation.


    *Program*

9:30 / Doors open, registration, coffee

9:45 / Introduction by *Ksenia Ermoshina* (CIS CNRS)


      MEASURING (EVERYTHING): CASE-STUDIES

10:00 / *Charlotte Escorne* (GEODE) – /Measuring Mobile Connectivity in 
Senegal: Challenges, Method and Solution(s)/

10:20 / *Jeffrey Knockel* (Citizen Lab) – /New Methods for Measuring 
Automated Censorship on WeChat/

10:40 / *Maximilian Mayer* (University of Bonn) – /The Digital 
Dependencies Index: an approach to strenghtening Europe’s tech autonomy/

Coffee break and pastries

11:30 / *Ksenia Ermoshina* (CIS CNRS), *Bill Marczak* (Citizen Lab) – 
/Inside the Russian sovereign surveillance machinery: a mixed-methods 
study of the SORM surveillance system/

11:50 / *Irene Poetranto* and *Jeffrey Knockel* (Citizen Lab) – /DNS 
Redirection for Censorship in Southeast Asia: Research Methods and 
Policy Implications/

12:10 / *Célestine Rabouam* (GEODE) – /Measuring the evolution of 
technological dependence on satellite and US infrastructure in the 
Canadian Arctic: the case of Nunavut/

13:00 to 14:00 / Lunch break


      WORKSHOPS

*14:00 to 15:30* / *GEODE: MAPPING DATA INFRASTRUCTURES FOR GEOPOLITICAL 
ANALYSIS*

The GEODE research center (Geopolitics of the Datasphere) has explored 
various approaches to understanding connectivity architectures in 
diverse geopolitical environments. As political discourse increasingly 
emphasizes data sovereignty and control over data flows, accurately 
mapping these networks has become more crucial than ever. One of our 
primary and ongoing objectives is to uncover the geopolitical factors 
that shape network structures. The increasing political foci in 
discourses on the sovereignty of data hosting and data flows makes it 
more and more relevant to be able to map accurately these networks. 
Another key goal is to make complex and often obscure datasets 
accessible to social scientists, including Master’s students with no 
prior experience in network analysis.

To achieve this, GEODE, in collaboration with the French Institute of 
Geopolitics and its spinoff Cassini Conseil, has developed several tools 
designed to produce, visualize, and analyze Internet infrastructure data 
through a geopolitical lens.

This workshop will introduce these tools, explaining how they function, 
how they are built, and what data sources they utilize.

 1. *Infrastructure Mapping Tool*: This tool combines data from physical
    infrastructure sources (e.g. ITU, Internet Atlas) with logical
    infrastructure (e.g. PeeringDB), providing a comprehensive
    visualization of network architecture.
 2. *Internet Connectivity Pipeline* (« BGP observatory »): This
    pipeline leverages data from RIPE RIS and Routeviews to construct
    snapshot graphs of global connectivity. To enhance the robustness of
    these visualizations at the Autonomous System (AS) level, we
    integrate third-party data sources, including CAIDA, PCH, and the
    IIJ’s Internet Health Report. We then use the open source graph
    visualization software Gephi (and Adobe Illustrator) to provide
    meaningful representations of the network.
 3. *Traceroute Visualization Tool*: Designed for use with RIPE Atlas,
    this tool offers a clear representation of traceroute data.
    Additionally, we have developed a mobile RIPE Atlas probe that can
    be installed on smartphones, enabling customizable geolocated
    network measurements from regions with limited infrastructure.

*15:30 to 17:00 / MAPPING DIGITAL SOVEREIGNTY WITH OONI PROBE*

Moderator: Elizaveta, OONI

As part of the CNRS workshop on mapping internet fragmentation, we would 
want to propose to investigate OONI data as one of the data sources for 
the mapping of digital sovereignty.

OONI tests websites from local vantage points, identifying server 
locations, collecting information about networks serving the content, 
detecting DNS resolutions, and capturing HTTP response headers. These 
tests are run automatically from thousands of different network vantage 
points all over the world on a regular basis and can be used to map the 
trends and patterns of local internet infrastructure fragmentation.

As part of our new data processing pipeline work we are already 
extracting a lot of metadata 
<https://github.com/ooni/data/blob/main/oonidata/src/oonidata/models/observations.py#L241> 
related to OONI measurements which can be used to analyse and map 
internet traffic. During this workshop, together with researchers, we 
want to understand better how our data fits the ongoing research and 
collect feedback on which data points are currently missing but could be 
useful for various research goals.





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