We were very pleased to hear that Psiphon was the recipient of the Economist New Media Award at the Index on Censorship 2009 Free Expression Award Ceremony in London yesterday.
Details here. Although we are proud to win the award, we feel that this award belongs to the others on the shortlist as well. In particular, it is noteworthy that nominee Hoder is still imprisoned in Iran for merely expressing his opinions.
Dear Friends and Colleagues
Please find below a link to Tracking GhostNet: Investigating a Cyber Espionage Network, the second major report from the Information Warfare Monitor – a joint project of the SecDev Group (Ottawa) and the Citizen Lab (Munk Centre for International Studies, University of Toronto).
Tracking GhostNet: Investigating a Cyber Espionage Network
This report documents the GhostNet – a suspected cyber espionage network of over 1,295 infected computers in 103 countries, 30% of which are high-value targets, including ministries of foreign affairs, embassies, international organizations, news media, and NGOs.
The report can be downloaded here.
For security reasons, we have redacted parts of the report until affected parties can be notified by the relevant authorities. A full uncensored report will be released in one week.
A New York Times story by John Markoff about the report is here.
This report is the culmination of a 10 month investigation of alleged Chinese cyber spying against Tibetan institutions. It documents a vast suspected cyber espionage network of over 1,295 infected computers in 103 countries, referred to in the report as GhostNet. Close to 30% of the infected hosts are considered high-value political and economic targets, and include computers located at ministries of foreign affairs, embassies, international organizations, news media, and NGOs.
The capabilities of the attack tools used by the GhostNet system were far-reaching, and include the ability to retrieve documents, and turn on web cameras and audio systems. The investigation was able to conclude that Tibetan computer systems were compromised by multiple infections that gave attackers unprecedented access to potentially sensitive information, including documents from the private office of the Dalai Lama.
While our analysis reveals that numerous politically sensitive and high value computer systems were compromised in ways that circumstantially point to China as the culprit, we do not know the exact motivation or the identity of the attacker(s), or how to accurately characterize this network of infections as a whole. One of the characteristics of cyber-attacks of the sort we document here is the ease by which attribution can be obscured. Regardless of who or what is ultimately in control of GhostNet, it is the capabilities of exploitation, and the strategic intelligence that can be harvested from it, which matters most. This report underscores the growing capabilities of cyber attacks, the ease by which cyberspace can be used as a vector for signals intelligence, and the importance of taking information security seriously by security professionals and policy makers worldwide. We look forward to your comments.
I did an interview in 2007 on the Riz Khan show/Al Jazeera with Mortin Sklar. I never did see the broadcast, but in going through some youtube videos I see someone posted. I am reposting it here.
The program provides an overview of the Lab, our research on information warfare, Nart Villeneuve’s Skype report, the OpeNet Initiative, and our psiphon circumvention software project.
…”What we’re trying to do with psiphon is build a technology that supports that original notion of innovation that drove the Internet,” explains Lab Director Ronald Deibert.
“[T]he guarantee of uninterrupted access to free information” is what is at stake, says Professor Deibert, whose background and training as a political scientist – not a computer scientist – shows through clearly.
The Citizen Lab started in 2001, as a research and development centre for “politically-motivated hacktivists.” Among other activities, it operates the Open Net Initiative, collaborating with organizations around the world on matters of online access, cyber security and Internet censorship.
Read more here.
I recently did a radio interview with Radio Canada International&’s “MASALA CANADA with Wojtek Gwiazda.” Wojtek sent me an MP3 of the interview, which can be accessed here.
In the interview, we discuss the Citizen Lab, the OpenNet Initiative, and the ONI Asia project, supported by IDRC Canada.
Radio Canada International’s Masala Canada show can be accessed here.
Radio Canada’s “Une heure sur terre” did a very nice profile piece on the Citizen Lab recently. Here is a link to a stream of the program. Included are discussions about our research on the Russia-Georgia Cyberwar, Nart Villeneuve’s Skype Report and Psiphon.
I am scheduled to appear on TVO Big Ideas this weekend; details below.
TVO: Saturday and Sunday November 22 and 23, 2008, 4 PM
Repeats Saturday and Sunday at 5 am.
RON DEIBERT
In this lecture, political science professor Ron Deibert looks at the issue of internet censorship and surveillance around the world and the tools being created (like “psiphon”) to empower global citizens to freely share and access information online. Deibert is Director of The Citizen Lab at the Munk Centre for International Studies.
The video can be viewed here:
I am pleased to announce our release of a major investigative report, Breaching Trust: An analysis of surveillance and security practices on China’s TOM-Skype platform, written by Nart Villeneuve, Psiphon Fellow, the Citizen Lab, at the Munk Centre for International Studies, the University of Toronto.
The full report can be downloaded here.
John Markoff of the New York Times has just released a story about the report, which will appear in tomorrow’s paper, but can be found online here.
Major Findings of this report are as follows:
As my colleague Rafal Rohozinski and I say in the foreword to the report, “If there was any doubt that your electronic communications – even secure chat – can leave a trace, Breaching Trust will put that case to rest. This is a wake up call to everyone who has ever put their (blind) faith in the assurances offered up by network intermediaries like Skype. Declarations and privacy policies are no substitute for the type of due diligence that the research put forth here represents.”