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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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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