This appendix contains countries of interest in which Blue Coat devices were located.

This is an update to our November 2011 report titledThe Canadian Connection: An investigation of Syrian government and Hezbullah web hosting in Canada, which examined the use of web servers based in Canada, the U.S., and European countries to host Syrian government websites and websites of the Lebanese political party Hezbullah. Our findings indicate that, while many of the websites we examined in 2011 have changed hosting providers, a number of Syrian government and Hezbullah websites still maintain an online presence through the services of North American and European web hosts.

After years spent as one of the world’s most strictly controlled information environments, the government of Burma has recently begun to open up access to previously censored online content. Recent OpenNet Initiative testing has confirmed these changes, finding a variety of opposition websites, critical blogs and foreign news sites to be accessible after years of blocking. This ONI blog post discusses recent developments in Burma and reports on the results of testing conducted in Burma in August 2012.

In this report, Citizen Lab Security Researcher Morgan Marquis-Boire describes analysis performed on malicious software used to compromise a high profile dissident residing in the United Arab Emirates. The findings indicate that the software is a commercial surveillance backdoor distributed by an Italian company known as Hacking Team. The report also describes the potential involvement of vulnerabilities sold by the French company, VUPEN.

Online freedom of expression continues to be threatened in Vietnam, as recently proposed regulations and the ongoing detainment and harassment of bloggers combine with an already strict regime of Internet filtering to further restrict information openness. This OpenNet Initiative blog post describes these new developments and reports on the results of testing conducted in Vietnam from April to August 2012.

This report, written and coordinated by Citizen Lab Technical Advisor Morgan Marquis-Boire, analyzes several samples we believe to be mobile variants of the FinFisher Spy Kit targeting iPhone, Android, Blackberry, Windows Mobile and Symbian platforms. It is a follow-on to a previous research brief, From Bahrain with Love: FinFisher's Spy Kit Exposed?, that analyzed several pieces of malware targeting Bahraini dissidents.

Research Fellow Jon Penney wrote a paper titled Communications Disruption & Censorship under International Law: History Lesson, which was presented at this year’s Second USENIX Workshop on Free and Open Communications on the Internet (FOCI).

Citizen Lab Post-Doctoral Fellow Eneken Tikk Ringas wrote a brief on the work of the UN General Assembly's Group of Governmental Experts (GGE) in 2012 to address threats to international information security in the Disarmament and International Security Committee (also known as the First Committee).

The Citizen Lab announces the publication of a detailed post analyzing several pieces of malware targeting Bahraini dissidents, shared with us by Bloomberg News. The analysis suggests that the malware used is "FinSpy," part of the commercial intrusion kit, Finfisher, distributed by the United Kingdom-based company, Gamma International.