This report describes how Ethiopian dissidents in the US, UK, and other countries were targeted with emails containing sophisticated commercial spyware posing as Adobe Flash updates and PDF plugins. Targets include a US-based Ethiopian diaspora media outlet, a PhD student, a lawyer, and even a Citizen Lab researcher.

“Cybersecurity and Human Rights in the Online World” will be chaired by Ron Deibert, discussed by Madeline Carr, and panelled by Jon Penney Stefania Milan, and Irene Poetranto.

Deibert is joined this year by French President Emmanuel Macron, whistle blower and network security expert Chelsea Manning, Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland, and San Juan mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz.

Citizen Lab Research Fellow Lex Gill discusses a recent CBC demonstration on NDP MP Matthew Dubé’s phone, which illustrated how hackers could track his location and record his calls.

Ksenia will be studying information controls in the region of Crimea after its annexation and information operations in the context of Russian-Ukrainian armed conflict.

End-to-end encrypted messaging is effective at protecting the content of your messages from being read as they travel across the Internet to your friends and family. This is why the Citizen Lab has released Secure Your Chats: a Net Alert resource that outlines how to safely use end-to-end encryption.

In preparation for the Special Rapporteur’s presentation to the UNHRC next June, the submission reviews some of the barriers to addressing problems of technology-facilitated violence, abuse, and harassment against women and girls; contextualizes the complicated environment within which online harassment operates; and suggests recommendations to address, mitigate, and remedy these issues.

Several Citizen Lab reports have highlighted the digital threats that journalists face. In the past year alone, we’ve investigated three separate cases where journalists and news outlets have been the targets of online harassment, manipulation, and persecution.

In September 2017, I was made aware of an account of sexual assault involving Morgan Marquis-Boire that coincided with a Citizen Lab event, the Cyber Dialogue, in 2014. At Citizen Lab, we take all instances and reports of sexual assault very seriously and this is no exception.

Citizen Lab Research Fellow Lex Gill will be speaking at the University of Waterloo on October 27 as part of their CrySP Speaker Series on Privacy.