Recent Posts
Ron Deibert’s blog.
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✴︎ blogGlobe and Mail Opinion: COVID and Tech Insecurity
I published an opinion piece in the Globe and Mail. The link is here and I’m pasting the entire article below. The pandemic has made us even more dependent on a highly invasive technological ecosystem RONALD J. DEIBERT SPECIAL TO THE GLOBE AND MAIL UPDATED NOVEMBER 20, 2020 Ronald J. Deibert is director of the…
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✴︎ blogRESET: Reclaiming the Internet for Civil Society
I am really excited to be the 2020 CBC Massey Lecturer. It was a great honour to be invited and be among the great authors and thinkers who have inspired me over the years, including MargaretAtwood, Ursula Franklin, Jane Jacobs, Charles Taylor, and so many others. The lectures will be virtual this year, broadcast…
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✴︎ blogTestimony Given to the House of Commons on Parliamentary Duties and the COVID-19 Pandemic
The following is testimony provided by Ronald Deibert to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs (PROC) on April 29, 2020. I am Ron Deibert, Professor of Political Science and founder and director of the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy. Our research at Citizen…
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✴︎ blogEndless Mayfly: an invasive species in the social media ecosystem
Bring up the topic of social media and state-sponsored disinformation, and most people think reflexively of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election. As the Mueller report recently affirmed, Russian entities operated a sweeping and systematic social media “active measures” campaign designed to sow division and support Donald Trump leading up to the election. But…
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✴︎ blogCitizen Lab on 60 Minutes
Doing the “60 Minutes Stroll” with correspondent Lesley Stahl Last week, 60 Minutes broadcast an episode entitled “Pegasus” focusing on the controversies surrounding Israeli-based commercial spyware vendor, NSO Group. The episode profiled Citizen Lab’s work, and featured interviews with myself and my Citizen Lab colleague, Bill Marczak. My Citizen Lab colleagues and I published an…
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✴︎ blogAnother Journalist in Mexico a Target of NSO Group’s Spyware
Today, Citizen Lab is publishing a new report, entitled “Reckless VII: Wife of Journalist Slain in Cartel-Linked Killing Targeted with NSO Group Spyware.” This report continues our investigation of the abuse of commercial spyware manufactured by Israeli company NSO Group. Working with our partners in Mexico, we are now able to confirm that Griselda…
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✴︎ blogSubmission of the Citizen Lab to the UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression
In 1993, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights established the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression. The current Special Rapporteur is Mr. David Kaye. Mr. Kaye recently issued a call for submissions on the topic of the surveillance industry and human…
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✴︎ blogSlain Mexican Journalist’s Colleagues Targeted With NSO Spyware
Photo Source: ContraLínea.com.mx Javier Valdez Cárdenas was an award-winning Mexican investigative journalist known for his reporting on drug trafficking and organized crime. As with dozens of other investigative journalists in Mexico, Cárdenas’ brave reporting ended up having lethal consequences. On May 15, 2017 around noon, Cárdenas was forcibly removed from his vehicle and gunned down…
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✴︎ blogSaudi-linked Cyber Espionage Against Canadian Victim Discovered
Figure 1: The Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia to Canada (September 2018; Credit: Ron Deibert) Today, the Citizen Lab is publishing a major new report, “The Kingdom Came to Canada: How Saudi-Linked Digital Espionage Reached Canadian Soil,” by Bill Marczak, John Scott-Railton, Adam Senft, Bahr Abdul Razzak, and myself. Our report details how we discovered…
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✴︎ blogWatching NSO Group
I am pleased to announce a new Citizen Lab report, authored by Bill Marczak, John Scott-Railton, Sarah McKune, Bahr Abdul Razzak, and myself, entitled “Hide and Seek: Tracking NSO Group’s Pegasus Spyware to Operations in 45 Countries.” This report is the latest in a major research area for the Citizen Lab: the proliferation and abuse…