Author: Ron

I am pleased to announce a new Citizen Lab report: “Tender Confirmed, Rights At Risk: Verifying Netsweeper in Bahrain.”  The full report can be found here: https://citizenlab.org/2016/09/tender-confirmed-rights-risk-verifying-netsweeper-bahrain Internet censorship is a major and growing human rights issue today. Access to content is restricted for users on social media, like Facebook, on mobile applications, and on…

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I am pleased to announce a new Citizen Lab report: “The Million Dollar Dissident: NSO Group’s iPhone Zero-Days used against a UAE Human Rights Defender,” authored by senior researchers Bill Marczak and John Scott Railton. If you are one of hundreds of millions of people that own an iPhone, today you will receive a critical…

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Today at the Citizen Lab we released a new report on (yet more) privacy and security issues in UC Browser, accompanied by a new cartoon series, called Net Alert. Our new UC Browser report, entitled “A Tough Nut to Crack,” and authored by Jeffrey Knockel, Adam Senft and me, is our second close-up examination of…

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Today, the Citizen Lab is publishing a new report, authored by the Citizen Lab’s John Scott-Railton, Bahr Abdulrazzak, Adam Hulcoop, Matt Brooks, and Katie Kleemola of Lookout, entitled “Group 5: Syria and the Iran Connection.” The full report is here: https://citizenlab.org/2016/08/group5-syria/ Associated Press has an exclusive report here: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/6ab1ab75e89e480a9d12befd3fea4115/experts-iranian-link-attempted-hack-syrian-dissident And, I wrote an oped for…

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This post is cross posted from https://citizenlab.org/2016/07/research-interest/ On January 20, 2016, Netsweeper Inc., a Canadian Internet filtering technology service provider, filed a defamation suit with the Ontario Superior Court of Justice. The University of Toronto and myself were named as the defendants. The lawsuit in question pertained to an October 2015 report of the Citizen Lab,…

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The world of “Big Data,” “The Internet of Things,” or simply… “Cyberspace.” Whatever we choose to call it, never in human history has something so profoundly consequential for so many people’s daily lives been unleashed in such a short period of time.  Certainly, the printing press, the telegraph, radio, the television, were all extraordinary.  But…

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Today, the Citizen Lab is publishing a new report, entitled “Be Calm and (Don’t) Enable Macros: Malware Sent to UK Journalist Exposes New Threat Actor Targeting UAE Dissidents.” The report is authored by Citizen Lab senior researchers Bill Marczak and John Scott Railton, and details an extensive and highly elaborate targeted digital attack campaign, which…

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Earlier this week, I was fortunate to have a lengthy conversation with Edward Snowden.  The chat was held at Rightscon and moderated by Access’ Amie Stephanovich, and it is archived at the RightsCon website here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGDqXokPGiE We covered many topics, and I learned a great deal about Ed’s positions, and also his eloquence and passion. …

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“Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time, it’s enemy action” – Ian Fleming, Goldfinger The Citizen Lab is releasing a new report today authored by Jeffrey Knockel, Adam Senft, and myself, entitled: “WUP! There It Is: Privacy and Security Issues in QQ Browser.”*   The report is a continuation of the research we have…

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Citizen Lab is releasing a new report today entitled, “Shifting Tactics: Tracking changes in years-long espionage campaign against Tibetans,” authored by Jakub Dalek, Masashi Crete-Nishihata, and John Scott-Railton. Tibetans have long suffered persistent cyber espionage.  Being perceived as one of the political thorns in the side of the Chinese regime means that all those sophisticated digital…

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