Recent Posts
Ron Deibert’s blog.
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✴︎ blogThe Easy and Affordable Way to Undertake Cyber Espionage
I am pleased to announce a new Citizen Lab report, entitled “Nile Phish: Large-Scale Phishing Campaign Targeting Egyptian Civil Society,” authored by the Citizen Lab’s John Scott-Railton, Bill Marczak, and Etienne Maynier, in collaboration with Ramy Raoof of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights. The full report is here: https://citizenlab.org/2017/02/nilephish-report/ When most of us think…
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✴︎ blogThe DHS/FBI Report on Russian Hacking was a Predictable Failure
Russian cyber espionage against American political targets has dominated the news in recent months, intensifying last week with President Barack Obama’s announcement of sanctions against Russia. Cyber espionage is, of course, nothing new. But using data collected in cyber espionage operations to interfere in the U.S. election process on behalf of one of the candidates…
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✴︎ blogWeChat: “One App, Two Systems”
Days are long gone when we used to interact with the Internet as an undifferentiated network. The reality today is that what we communicate online is mediated by companies that own and operate the Internet services we use. Social media in particular have become, for an increasing number of people, their windows on reality. Whether,…
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✴︎ blogWhat to do about “dual use” digital technologies?
The following is my written testimony to the Senate Standing Committee on Human Rights – Canada, which will take place November 30, 2016 at 11:30 AM EST and video webcast here.)* Background For over a decade, the Citizen Lab at the Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto has researched and documented information controls…
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✴︎ blogJust Enough to Do the Job: Targeted Attacks on Tibetans
I am pleased to announce a new Citizen Lab report, entitled “It’s Parliamentary: KeyBoy and the targeting of the Tibetan Community.” The report is authored by the Citizen Lab’s Adam Hulcoop, Etienne Maynier, John Scott Railton, Masashi Crete-Nishihata, and Matt Brooks and can be found here: https://citizenlab.org/2016/11/parliament-keyboy/ In this report, the authors track a malware operation…
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✴︎ blogWhat Lies Beneath China’s Live-Streaming Apps?
Today, the Citizen Lab is releasing a new report, entitled: “Harmonized Histories? A year of fragmented censorship across Chinese live streaming platforms.” The report is part of our NetAlert series, and can be found here. Live-streaming media apps are extraordinarily popular in mainland China, used by millions. Similar in functionality to the US-based and Twitter-owned streaming…
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✴︎ blogWhat an “MRI of the Internet” Can Reveal: Netsweeper in Bahrain
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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✴︎ blogDisarming a Cyber Mercenary, Patching Apple Zero Days
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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✴︎ blogCommunicating Privacy and Security Research: A Tough Nut to Crack
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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✴︎ blogThe Iranian Connection
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…