The Citizen Lab seeks qualified applicants for a Senior Researcher position. Under the supervision of the Director of the Citizen Lab the Senior Researcher will coordinate research projects and undertake scholarly work on the political and social dimensions of information controls. This research area will include but not be limited to the following topics: Internet censorship, mobile technologies, and election monitoring.

Full details can be found here.

The Citizen Lab seeks qualified applicants for a full-time Research Assistant position.

Full details can be found here.

Applications for a 2011-2012 Canada Centre for Global Security Studies-Citizen Lab Post-Doctoral Fellowship are now being accepted. The fellowship will be awarded to a scholar with a project in the general thematic areas of Internet governance, cyber security, or information controls.

The Canada Centre for Global Security Studies attracts top researchers in global affairs engaged in innovative, interdisciplinary work. Fellows receive a competitive annual stipend, work space and staff support, and the opportunity to re-apply for a second year of funding. They will become members of a vibrant community of faculty, post-doctoral researchers, and students with wide-ranging interests in information communication technologies, human rights, and global affairs.

Further details on the fellowship and application process can be found here

The Information Warfare Monitor (Citizen Lab, Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto and The SecDev Group, Ottawa) announce the release of Koobface: Inside a Crimeware Network by Nart Villeneuve, with a foreword by Ron Deibert and Rafal Rohozinski.

This report documents the inner workings of Koobface—a botnet that spreads by compromising the computers of users of social networking platforms and placing them under the control of the botnet’s operators for the purpose of monetization.

The Globe and Mail covered the latest Citizen Lab report, Shadows in the Cloud.

“Research In Motion Ltd., maker of the BlackBerry smart phone, faces increasing challenges to its overseas expansion as developing countries tighten restrictions on mobile e-mail.

‘It’s a reflection of fears of cyber-security and espionage that now extend to mobile phones,’ said Ron Deibert, director of the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab, who helped colleagues uncover a plot against the Indian government that involved computers in China. ‘It’s the type of thing that will become more common for RIM as they grapple with public policy and ethical issues in emerging markets.'”

From San Francisco Chronicle

“The type of steps taken by the UAE are going to become more common in the future as governments struggle to gain control of cyberspace for national security reasons,” said Ronald Deibert, director of the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs.

“Just like Google has had to grapple with the pressures of China and other countries who censor search engines, RIM will find itself the centre of pressures from governments eager to tap encrypted mobile data streams.”

From The Globe and Mail

“As of this writing, numerous major American and European news outlets are reporting that Google is blocked in China, based on the information appearing on Google’s Mainland China service availability page.

However no journalist has actually confirmed with a human being at Google that this information is correct. What’s more, I’ve heard from several dozen people all over China who say that Google isn’t blocked for them when they access it on their Internet connections from Beijing to Shanghai to Sichuan to Hunan.

I have yet to hear from a single person who can’t access Google search in Mainland China. I am collecting people’s responses via Twitter here. Also see the #googlecn tag. For a sampling see here, here, here, here, and here.

The most insane part of this whole non-story is that Google’s stock fell 1.4 percent and Baidu’s stock rose 3.5 percent. What’s even funnier are all the financial analysts who commented to Reuters about the block…funny that is if you don’t own Google stock…”

From RConversation

ATTENTION ALL POL108 2009-2010 STUDENTS!
POL108 Internship 2010: Call for Applicants

Did you excel in POL108 this year? Are you looking to apply your knowledge this summer?

We are pleased to announce the POL108 Internship 2010. The POL108 internship is awarded on an annual basis to an undergraduate student at the University of Toronto who successfully completes Pol108Y: Global Networks.

Application details here from POL108 website.

Nart Villeneuve and Ron Deibert are interviewed in a video regarding “the tensions now involved in doing business with China.”