On July 28-31, 2014, we convened the second annual Citizen Lab Summer Institute on Monitoring Internet Openness and Rights.

Since 2012, the Citizen Lab with the support of the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) has been working on building bridges between researchers and activists in the global North and South to form a space of peers for collaboration and organization at local, regional, and international levels. The following is a review of major outcomes in advocacy, litigation and public policy in 2013.

In this report, we update the results of our June 2014 network measurement tests in Iraq in reaction to the ongoing insurgency in the country, and analyze two mobile applications, FireChat and Dawn of Glad Tidings.

The May 2014 coup d’etat in Thailand was the 19th coup attempt in the country’s history. It stands out from previous coups due to the military junta’s focus on information controls. In this report we document the results of network measurements to determine how the Internet is currently being filtered in Thailand and discuss other forms of information control implemented in the coup’s aftermath.

This edition of Social Media Watch deals with top court rulings on digital privacy, social media monitoring, and mobile security news.

We analyze a newly discovered Android implant that we attribute to Hacking Team and highlight the political subtext of the bait content and attack context. In addition, we expose the functionality and architecture of Hacking Team’s Remote Control system and operator tradecraft in never-before published detail.

In this report, we document the results of network measurement tests we ran to determine how the Internet is being filtered in Iraq in reaction to ongoing insurgency in the country. The results identify 20 unique URLs that are blocked on three Iraq-based Internet Service Providers. Notably, none of the 7 websites we tested that are affiliated with, or supportive, of the jihadist insurgent group the Islamic State in Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS) were found to be blocked.

The 2014 Citizen Lab Summer Institute will be held at the University of Toronto on August 5-8, 2014. Submit your application today.

Social Media Watch returns with updates from the EU and US legal landscape, some notable cases of government access to personal data, and an overview of some important reports describing the need for updated regulation in the data economy.