August 5-6 – Las Vegas

ICT Watch, SAFENET, and EngageMedia hosted a discussion on digital rights issues and screened “Citizenfour” movie in Jakarta, Indonesia.

Pakistan’s English newspaper DAWN spoke to Citizen Lab Director Ron Deibert regarding the privacy challenges that individual users can face, in light of the fact that our communications are increasingly mediated through the Internet.

In an internal report obtained by the Toronto Star, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) states that the spy agency cannot keep up with threats from state-sponsored hackers. Citizen Lab Postdoctoral Fellow Christopher Parsons told the Toronto Star the report, along with cases like the cyber attack of the NRC by Chinese sponsored hackers, point to the militarization of the Internet.

DAWN Pakistan interviews Bytes for All’s Shahzad Ahmad on FinFisher and cyber crime legislation.

Citizen Lab Postdoctoral Fellow Christopher Parsons spoke to the Ottawa Citizen regarding the hacking of Bell Canada last year.

May 4-5 — Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia

In an article entitled “Fishing in troubled waters,” Pakistan’s English newspaper DAWN highlighted issues surrounding surveillance and cyber crime in the country.

According to state media organization People’s Daily, Apple agreed to Chinese government “security checks.” Citizen Lab Research Fellow Jason Q. Ng expressed concern that this practice may set a trend of compliance to such demands amongst other firms.

Citizen Lab Senior Security Researcher Morgan Marquis-Boire was named on the Young Global Leaders list for the Class of 2015, an organization headed by the World Economic Forum. The community is intended to provide the next generation of leaders with a platform to engage global affairs for positive change.