I recently did an interview with a Cyber Security news publication, curiously called “The New, New Internet.” You can read the full interview here.
media coverage
Online Censorship on rise in Middle East, North Africa
CBC News
CBC News has posted a news item about the OpenNet Initiative’s Middle East and North Africa reports, just released. You can read the CBC news item here.
The item also mentions the Citizen Lab’s GNI Monitor project:
“The Citizen Lab, which runs out of the University of Toronto’s Munk Centre for International Studies, announced last month it would examine how closely companies like Google, Microsoft and Yahoo follow their own principles regarding freedom of expression and privacy.”
Announcing the GNI Monitor!
We are pleased to announce a new project this summer in the Citizen Lab, called the “Global Network Initiative Monitor” or “GNI Monitor” for short.
The project’s mission statement can be downloaded here.
The project will combine technical and contextual research methods to measure compliance of both participants and non-participants to the GNI principles, as well as evaluate the GNI process overall.
Related:
CBC News “Tech Giants to be rated on Human Rights,” Tuesday 21 July 2009, More Here
The Wild Wild Web – Canadian Lawyer Magazine
A few months ago when a Canadian research group exposed the GhostNet, a brazen cyber-espionage network, the story briefly made headlines. Most of us marvelled at the ingenuity and nefariousness of the alleged perpetrator, the Chinese government. Some may have momentarily fretted about implications for international security. But the man who helped break the GhostNet story, Ron Deibert, director of the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto’s Munk Centre for International Studies, says the implications are at once more far-reaching and more immediate — especially, perhaps, for lawyers.
Ottawa needs a strategy for cyberwar
National Post (comment)
June 30, 2009
Ronald Deibert and Rafal Rohozinski
Recently, the Canadian envoy to Iran was called in and admonished by Iranian officials for contributing to the destabilitization of the regime because of support for social networking tools, like Twitter and Facebook. The envoy must have scratched his head in puzzlement.
The Iranians’ furor was ignited by the work of our company, Psiphon, which is based in Canada and has actively engaged in a campaign to help Iranians bypass their country’s filters and exercise basic human rights of access to information and freedom of speech. On average, one Iranian per minute has signed up to our “right-2know” nodes — customized websites pushed into Iran that contain access to BBC Persian and Radio Farda — and more than 15,000 have used our service since the crisis began.
However, we have received no support from the Canadian government — not even a note of thanks. As far as we know, the Canadian government does not even have a cyberspace strategy (of promoting access to information and freedom of speech) about which a country like Iran would be irritated. As Canadians, we wish it did.
Psiphon’s activities in Iran are not the first of their kind to generate intense media interest. Just a few months ago, a related project of ours, the Information Warfare Monitor, published a report called Tracking GhostNet that discovered a cyber-espionage system infecting government ministries and embassies in more than 103 countries. The case was splashed across the front pages of newspapers, and produced a powerful curiosity about cyber security around the world that continues unabated.
Continue reading
NPR Here and Now interview
I did an interview with NPR’s Here and Now about psiphon and The Use of Proxy Servers in Iran.
Psiphon, Iran, and OpenNet Initiative
There is a lot going on right now on so many exciting fronts. We at the OpenNet Initiative have released three major reports: An Asian regional overview, and country reports on China and Iran. We released these at the ONI Asia regional meeting in Penang Malaysia. Thanks to the ONI team for all of their hard work.
You can read about ONI Asia results here, and the Iran country report here
Second, we have been actively engaged in a campaign to allow Iranians to access the Internet freely via Psiphon, using Twitter and other outreach tools. The Globe and Mail has a report on it, among other media stories.
Response to Obama’s Cybersecurity Plan on NY Times
President Obama announced the US Cybersecurity strategy yesterday, after a lengthy review. The report can be found here. I was asked, along with Bruce Shneier, James Bamford, Gus Hosein, Mykko Hoppenin, and Marjorie Blumenthal, to give feedback for the New York Times forum.
Hearsay Culture Interview
Dave Levine of Stanford University host’s a regular radio show called Hearsay Culture. I was a guest a while back and the show is archived here.
How Free is the Internet? An interview with Riz Khan
Aired on Al Jazeera’s Riz Khan show, 2007
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.