I welcome opportunities to supervise undergraduate and graduate students, post-doctoral fellows, and other training fellows on projects that focus on the current research priorities of the Citizen Lab, which are listed below.
- Comparative analysis of national-level information controls
- Targeted espionage against civil society
- Privacy and security of mobile apps and social media
- Corporate and public transparency
- Disinformation and digital technologies
Due to the volume of requests I receive, I cannot evaluate proposals or discuss research topics with individual students until they are accepted into one of the programs / opportunities outlined below. Please read the following carefully before reaching out to me.
Graduate Students (Masters and Doctoral)
I primarily supervise graduate students interested in some aspect of information and communication technologies who are enrolled in the following programs:
Masters in Global Affairs (MGA) Program at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy
One of the graduate programs offered by the Department of Political Science at the University of Toronto
I also occasionally co-supervise and serve on the committees of doctoral students outside of political science, including computer science, law, and information studies.
Infrequently, I host visiting doctoral students from outside universities who have their own funds for short-term stays and are doing work related to one of the research priority areas of the Citizen Lab described above. However, these visits must be justified with a clear research rationale that fits with the mission of the Citizen Lab and are contingent on capacity.
Undergraduate Students
On occasion, no more than once a semester, I supervise undergraduate senior theses and independent reading courses.
The Citizen Lab does not offer volunteer positions for undergraduate students, but occasionally hires undergraduate research assistant positions which are advertised on the Citizen Lab website. We also have several undergraduate awards available to intern at the Citizen Lab. These are announced on our website too.
Post-doctoral Fellows
Post-doctoral fellows are expected to pursue research interests that fall within one of the Citizen Lab’s main research priorities (listed at the top of the page), as well as to provide leadership and guidance to junior scholars and researchers.
Post-doctoral opportunities are posted on the Citizen Lab website as they come available. I will periodically evaluate requests to host and supervise post-doctoral fellows from computer science, law, engineering sciences, information studies, and political science who have secured their own funds (e.g., a SSHRC or NSERC postdoctoral fellowship). The Faculty of Arts and Sciences at the University of Toronto also has an advertised post doctoral fellowship program. Again here, only those applications that provide a clear rationale for collaborating with the Citizen Lab and that fit within our mission will be considered and acceptance is contingent on capacity to supervise.
Other Fellowships
Interested students and others should check the Citizen Lab website for fellowship opportunities and application deadlines.
Main Thematic Areas
Comparative Analysis of National-Level Information Controls
This area is primarily about information controls at a national level — e.g., Internet censorship and surveillance, social media regulation, influence operations, disinformation regulation, telecommunications regulation, and so on. The Citizen Lab’s work includes developing new tools and methods for network measurement, analyzing Internet filtering systems, and correlating network interference with political events (e.g., elections, protests, conflicts, etc). We were part of the OpenNet Initiative for over ten years, and as part of that research undertook comparative analyses of information controls in more than 70 countries. A byproduct of this research is the use of network measurement and scanning techniques to fingerprint the vendors of commercial surveillance, content filtering, deep-packet inspection, and other products and services. We also evaluate laws, policies, and norms related to the topics outlined above, on national and comparative bases. Students who are interested in understanding practices, norms, laws, and technologies around information controls at a national level would find a lot to build upon in this area. Citizen Lab works with a network of researchers in the global South, which means that we have good partnerships with groups in those regions and good insight into the situations in the developing world. I am interested in students working on topics related to the majority world who are interested in better understanding practices and policies around cyber security in the global South, in failed and fragile states, and among authoritarian regimes or countries transitioning in and out of democracy.
Examples:
Jeffrey Knockel, Jakub Dalek, Levi Meletti, and Ksenia Ermoshina. “Not OK on VK: An Analysis of In-Platform Censorship on Russia’s VKontakte,” Citizen Lab Report No. 169, University of Toronto, July 26, 2023.
Gary Miller, Noura Al-Jizawi, Ksenia Ermoshina, Marcus Michaelsen, Zoe Panday, Genny Plumptre, Adam Senft, and Ron Deibert. “You Move, They Follow: Uncovering Iran’s Mobile Legal Intercept System,” Citizen Lab No. 163, University of Toronto, January 16, 2023.
Bill Marczak, Jakub Dalek, Sarah McKune, Adam Senft, John Scott-Railton, and Ron Deibert. “Bad Traffic: Sandvine’s PacketLogic Devices Used to Deploy Government Spyware in Turkey and Redirect Egyptian Users to Affiliate Ads?,” Citizen Lab Research Report No. 107, University of Toronto, March 2018.
Jakub Dalek, Lex Gill, Bill Marczak, Sarah McKune, Naser Noor, Joshua Oliver, Jon Penney, Adam Senft, and Ron Deibert. “Planet Netsweeper,” Citizen Lab Research Report No. 108, University of Toronto, April 2018.
Bill Marczak (Lead), Nicholas Weaver (Lead), Jakub Dalek, Roya Ensafi, David Fifield, Sarah McKune, Arn Rey, John Scott-Railton, Ronald Deibert, Vern Paxson. “China’s Great Cannon,” Citizen Lab Research Report No. 52, University of Toronto, April 2015.
Targeted espionage against civil society
This research area focuses on investigating politically motivated targeted malware and other digital attack campaigns against civil society. This area of research includes reverse engineering malware, mapping attack infrastructure, tracking malware development, and linking contextual information to technical data through investigative research techniques and structured focused interviews. We are interested in better understanding the threat environment facing civil society organizations in the digital arena, especially as their adversaries become better equipped with surveillance and spyware tools. This area can involve exceptionally rigorous technical work (e.g., reverse engineering malware and mapping command and control infrastructure) but can also lend itself well to research that examines the political context around such attacks, the legal and regulatory environment around the control of surveillance technologies, structured focused interviews around specific targeted communities and their responses or defences to attacks, risk mitigation, and evidence of psycho-social harms.
Examples:
John Scott-Railton, Elies Campo, Bill Marczak, Bahr Abdul Razzak, Siena Anstis, Gözde Böcü, Salvatore Solimano, and Ron Deibert. “CatalanGate: Extensive Mercenary Spyware Operation against Catalans Using Pegasus and Candiru,” Citizen Lab Report No. 155, University of Toronto, April 2022.
Noura Al-Jizawi, Siena Anstis, Sophie Barnett, Sharly Chan, Niamh Leonard, Adam Senft, and Ron Deibert. “Psychological and Emotional War: Digital Transnational Repression in Canada,” Citizen Lab Research Report No. 151, University of Toronto, March 2022. [Download PDF]
Bill Marczak, John Scott-Railton, Bahr Abdul Razzak, Noura Al-Jizawi, Siena Anstis, Kristin Berdan, and Ron Deibert. “Pegasus vs. Predator: Dissident’s Doubly-Infected iPhone Reveals Cytrox Mercenary Spyware,” Citizen Lab Research Report No. 147, University of Toronto, December 2021.
John Scott-Railton, Bill Marczak, Siena Anstis, Bahr Abdul Razzak, Masashi Crete-Nishihata, and Ron Deibert. “Reckless VII: Wife of Journalist Slain in Cartel-Linked Killing Targeted with NSO Group’s Spyware,” Citizen Lab Research Report No. 117, University of Toronto, March 2019.
Bill Marczak, John Scott-Railton, Adam Senft , Bahr Abdul Razzak, and Ron Deibert. “The Kingdom Came to Canada: How Saudi-Linked Digital Espionage Reached Canadian Soil,” Citizen Lab Research Report No. 115, University of Toronto, October 2018.
Privacy and security of mobile apps and social media
Projects in this area include uncovering censorship and surveillance in popular applications and social media platforms (e.g, chat apps, microblogs, etc), and evaluating the privacy and security of popular consumer apps (e.g., browsers, fitness trackers, etc). We are particularly interested in widely used apps and platforms that are understudied by security researchers. The goal of this work is to help users make more informed decision about the technologies they use and better understand the way threat actors might exploit privacy and security flaws to track high risk users. Students who are interested in researching how Internet intermediaries (e.g., mobile carriers, applications) affect information controls would find a lot to work with in this area. This area also lends itself well to national comparative analyses of Internet censorship and surveillance in the mobile arena.
Examples:
Jeffrey Knockel, Zoë Reichert, and Mona Wang. “Please Do not make it public: Vulnerabilities in Sogou Keyboard encryption expose keypresses to network eavesdropping,” Citizen Lab Report No. 170, University of Toronto, August 9, 2023.
Jeffrey Knockel, Christopher Parsons, Lotus Ruan, Ruohan Xiong, Jedidiah Crandall, and Ron Deibert. “We Chat, They Watch: How International Users Unwittingly Build up WeChat’s Chinese Censorship Apparatus,” Citizen Lab Research Report No. 127, University of Toronto, May 2020.
Bill Marczak and John Scott-Railton. “Move Fast and Roll Your Own Crypto: A Quick Look at the Confidentiality of Zoom Meetings,” Citizen Lab Research Report No. 126, University of Toronto, April 2020.
Jeffrey Knockel and Ruohan Xiong. “(Can’t) Picture This 2: An Analysis of WeChat’s Realtime Image Filtering in Chats,” Citizen Lab Research Report No. 122, University of Toronto, July 2019.
Christopher Parsons, Adam Molnar, Jakub Dalek, Jeffrey Knockel, Miles Kenyon, Bennett Haselton, Cynthia Khoo, and Ron Deibert. “The Predator in Your Pocket: A Multidisciplinary Assessment of the Stalkerware Application Industry,” Citizen Lab Research Report No. 120, University of Toronto, June 2019.
Corporate and public transparency
Projects in this area include those analyzing the systems, policies, and practices of telecommunication and Internet companies as it pertains to the handling and sharing of customer data. We are also interested in state regulation of the internet, social media, and telecommunications firms, especially around national security related topics. I am presently supervising PhD students in political science who are exploring the impact of the Snowden disclosures on SIGINT practices, and the norms governing intelligence sharing among the FVEYs.
Examples:
Emile Dirks. “Mass Iris Scan Collection in Qinghai: 2019–2022,” Citizen Lab Report No. 162, University of Toronto, December 14, 2022.
Amanda Cutinha, and Christopher Parsons. “Minding Your Business: A Critical Analysis of the Collection of De-Identified Mobility Data and Its Use Under Socially Beneficial and Legitimate Business Exemptions in Canadian Privacy Law,” Citizen Lab Report No. 161, University of Toronto, November 2022.
Petra Molnar and Lex Gill. “Bots at the Gate: A Human Rights Analysis of Automated Decision-Making in Canada’s Immigration and Refugee System,” Citizen Lab and International Human Rights Program (Faculty of Law, University of Toronto) Research Report No. 114, University of Toronto, September 2018.
Lex Gill, Tamir Israel, and Christopher Parsons. “Shining a Light on the Encryption Debate: A Canadian Field Guide,” Citizen Lab Research Report No. 109, University of Toronto, May 2018.
Andrew Hilts, Christopher Parsons, and Masashi Crete-Nishihata. “Approaching Access: A Look at Consumer Personal Data Requests in Canada,” Citizen Lab Research Report No. 106, University of Toronto, February 2018.
Lex Gill, Tamir Israel, and Christopher Parsons. “Government’s Defence of Proposed CSE Act Falls Short,” Citizen Lab Research Report No. 105, University of Toronto, January 2018.
Disinformation and Digital Technologies
We are very interested in influence operations and disinformation campaigns, and have several active projects ongoing in this area. We typically undertake research on disinformation that intersects with one of our other main thematic areas of interest. We are also interested in the private sector industry that supplies disinformation services to governments and other actors.
Examples:
Alberto Fittarelli, and Lokman Tsui. “Beautiful Bauhinia: “HKLeaks” – The Use of Covert and Overt Online Harassment Tactics to Repress 2019 Hong Kong Protests,” Citizen Lab Report No. 168, University of Toronto, July 2023.
Adam Hulcoop, John Scott-Railton, Peter Tanchak, Matt Brooks, and Ron Deibert. “Tainted Leaks: Disinformation and Phishing with a Russian Nexus,” Citizen Lab Research Report No. 92, University of Toronto, May 2017.
Gabrielle Lim, Etienne Maynier, John Scott-Railton, Alberto Fittarelli, Ned Moran, and Ron Deibert. “Burned After Reading: Endless Mayfly’s Ephemeral Disinformation Campaign,” Citizen Lab Research Report No. 118, University of Toronto, May 2019.