Real-time tracking of internet shutdown

Speakers: Kiran S Kunjumon & Orendra Singh

Track: Security and Privacy-enhancing Technologies

Type: BoF (45 minutes)

Currently, we run the only Internet Shutdowns Tracker(https://internetshutdowns.in/) in India that is released under an open source license. That basically tracks shutdowns happening in all the states and districts all over India. The current challenge we face is the delay in knowing about a shutdown happened and not in real time. We only get to know once it’s published in the news or when we get the reply back from the authorities.

In this BOF, we’ll quickly review our current idea, note the main problems, and brainstorm better ways to get real-time internet shutdown data.

Focus areas we’ll cover Current solution: architecture, data pipeline, and known limitations Challenges: data quality, timeliness, geographic granularity, ethics and contributor safety New ideas: diverse data sources, verification/triangulation, anomaly detection, confidence scoring