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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Today, the Citizen Lab is releasing a new report, “Baidu’s and Don’ts: Privacy and Security Issues in Baidu Browser.” The report is the result of many weeks of careful analysis, led by Citizen Lab security researcher Jeffrey Knockel and co-authors Adam Senft and Sarah McKune and is part of Citizen Lab’s interest in analyzing the privacy and…

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Last week, the Citizen Lab in collaboration with Open Effect released a new report, “Every Step You Fake: A comparative analysis of fitness tracker privacy and security.” The report contains primarily the background, overview, methods and technical findings.  A subsequent report will include the policy and legal analysis that the team is presently completing.  Open…

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A new Citizen Lab report was published yesterday morning on information controls during the ongoing armed conflict in Yemen. The report shows in detail how a Canadian company’s technology, Netsweeper, is being used to filter critical political content, independent media websites, and all websites belonging to the Israeli (.il) top-level domain — a major expansion of Yemen’s…

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Today, the Citizen Lab is releasing a new report, entitled: “Are the Kids Alright? Digital Risks to Minors from South Korea’s Smart Sheriff Application.”   South Korea is unique among all countries in having a legal mandate that requires parents whose minor children have mobile phone subscriptions to install a parental content filtering application.  A powerful…

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Update: An open letter to Hacking Team following its statement on the Citizen Lab “Police Story” report August 8, 2014 Dear Mr. Vincenzetti and team, This letter is in response to a statement issued by Hacking Team that has recently come to our attention, concerning Citizen Lab’s report titled “Police Story: Hacking Team’s Government Surveillance…

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I was asked by the Dutch gov to co chair a working group for their next Freedom Online Coalition meeting in 2015.  We have now put out our call for expressions of interest.  This is an opportunity to have civil society input into cyber security discussions.  I’ll do my best to make sure the case…

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  Finally, the day has arrived!  My new book, Black Code: Inside the Battle for Cyberspace, is being published today.  The official website for the book is here.  Cory Doctorow wrote a review of Black Code for the Globe and Mail here.  And there is an excerpt published in the National Post today.  More excerpts…

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