Some further news reports on Citizen Lab, Civiblog, and the OpenNet Initiative.
NOW magazine, a Toronto weekly that covers primarily local issues from a grassroots perspective, has a nice article on our activites. And p2P Net has done a reprint of the Globe and Mail article from yesterday on our Psiphon.
The story has also been Slashdotted
Yesterday there was a good piece in the Globe and Mail about the Citizen Lab’s latest software project, called Psiphon. Psiphon is a circumvention technology that works through social networks of trust. Psiphon is funded by a generous grant from the Open Society Institute, and benefits from our collaborative relationships with the OpenNet Initiative and the InfoWar Monitor.
There have been a couple of news items recently covering the work of the Citizen Lab, the OpenNet Initiative, and some of our other projects — from rather different ends of the media spectrum.
The Toronto Sun‘s Mike Strobel did a great piece on his visit to the Lab and his impressions of our activities. And Jane’s Intelligence Review has a lengthy piece on the OpenNet Initiative’s work on China.
There is a news item today in the CBC news about the grant to the OpenNet Initiative from the MacArthur Foundation. The grant is going to our ONI partners, the Berkman Centre for Internet & Society atHarvard Law School to fund the core ONI activities over the next several years. We are all very excited about the opportunity to keep the project up and running and indeed expand it into new territory. Look for new tools, new forms out outreach and advocacy, and new reports uncovering patterns of Internet censorship and surveillance worldwide.
In an effort to tailor its services to the requirements of China’s Internet filtering regime, Google announced last week that it had created a special version of its search engine for the China market, Google.cn.
Our OpenNet Initiative team put together a neat little search comparison tool that you can access here that allows you to enter in search term and keywords and see the variation in results between Google.com and Google.cn side by side.
by Andrew Mayeda
A University of Toronto research lab and its partners have landed $3 million U.S. to study Internet censorship and surveillance worldwide. The money will go to the OpenNet Initiative, a joint project among Harvard Law School, Cambridge and Oxford universities, and University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab, an interdisciplinary lab that studies the connection between digital media and civic politics.
Here is the full press release. Many thanks to the support of the MacArthur Foundation for the work of the OpenNet Initiative
I just did a radio interview with Tom Ashbrook on NPR’s On Point radio show. The topic was Internet censorship and surveillance worldwide. You can listen to it here. Timothy Wu of Columbia University Law School, Julien Pain of Reporters without Borders, and Declan McCullaugh of CNET were the other guests
We are going to be hiring programmers and software developers for several new phases of research and projects. Below is the first advertizement. Please circulate widely. Application window closes Jan 30th.
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POSITION SUMMARY
Software Engineer
Citizen Lab
Munk Centre for International Studies
University of Toronto
As a key member of the Citizen Lab Development team, the Software Engineer will be programming and testing the software for a new Citizen Lab project, called the CiviSec Project. The aim of the CiviSec Project is to help individuals at risk (e.g., human rights activists) or those who live in countries where electronic communications are censored and monitored, to communicate securely, privately, and anonymously. The position requires a person with prior experience in software development projects, including the management of a programming team, as well as a strong commitment to human rights, such as access to information and freedom of speech. As the job entails working with people at risk, a serious commitment to confidentiality is very important.
The Software Engineer will be responsible for the day-to-day management and ultimate delivery of varied software development projects at the Citizen Lab. As the successful candidate, you’ll work with the Citizen Lab Management Team to determine requirements, keep the development effort organized and on track, and manage developers under your control. This position requires both organizational capabilities and programming skill.
The Citizen Lab is an interdisciplinary research and development lab based at the Munk Centre for International Studies at the University of Toronto. The Citizen Lab’s present research focuses on Internet censorship and surveillance worldwide, and entails partnerships with human rights activists and organizations around the world.
RESPONSIBILITIES
* Analyze project needs and develop clear and concise requirements documents
* Maintain team focus and keep all stakeholders aware of project progress
* Work with developers on projects (requires programming skill)
* Manage bug tracking and deliver finished projects
ESSENTIAL SKILLS AND QUALIFICATIONS
* Prior software development management experience
* Minimum 3 years experience in Python development
* Experience with Subversion
* Experience with TCP/IP and related protocols
* Experience with PKI
Citizen Lab and ONI Director of Technical Research Nart Villeneuve has a great article in the most recent issue of First Monday on the Filtering Matrix Well done Nart!!
The OpenNet Initiative’s Tunisia Report generated considerable coverage, a lot of which features The Citizen Lab’s very own Director of Technical Research, Nart Villeneuve. Nart compiled the list below for archival purposes.
BBC – Controversy dogs UN net gathering (pdf)
BBC – Tunisia slated over net controls (pdf)
BBC – Hungry for net freedom in Tunisia (pdf)
Reuters – Rights group faults Tunisia on Internet censorship (pdf)
Times Online – Read all about it. But be quick (pdf)
VOA – Information Summit Closes Amid Criticism of Tunisian Censorship (pdf)
Inter Press Service – Activists Give a Crash Course in Overcoming Electronic Hurdles
South China Morning Post – TUNISIA: Study says Tunisia centralises web filtering
Le Monde – Les ONG accusent quinze Etats de censurer la liberté d’expression sur Internet (pdf)
Libération – «Le spectre du filtrage n’a jamais été aussi large» (pdf)
OpenNet Initiative – World Summit Opening in a Closed Society: Tunisia’s Approach to Internet Filtering Contradicts the Objectives of an ‘Open’ Information Society