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

This post describes our analysis of China’s “Great Cannon,” our term for an attack tool that we identify as separate from, but co-located with, the Great Firewall of China. The first known usage of the Great Cannon is in the recent large-scale novel DDoS attack on both GitHub and servers used by GreatFire.org.

The research findings documented in this report suggest that Hacking Team may have continued to provide updated versions of its spyware to the same attacker who have targeted ESAT journalists based in the United States in 2014, despite reports of use of the spyware against journalists.

The OECD concluded that Gamma International had failed to act consistently their guidelines, which require businesses to do appropriate due diligence in their operations, ensuring that negative human rights effects are avoided.

The 2015 Pakistan Cyberspace Conference, a two day conference (February 26-27) hosted by Bytes for All, convened government officials, human rights activists, media professionals, and business leaders to discuss a range of issues related to cyberspace in Pakistan. The conference sought to encourage government officials to formulate informed policy on cyberspace issues, in light of input from civil society and business leaders.

Citizen Lab Director Ron Deibert delivered a keynote address and contributed to a panel discussion as part of the 2015 Pakistan Cyberspace conference, held in Islamabad.

Independent Researcher Claudio Guarnieri has partnered with Privacy International, Digitale Gesellschaft, Electronic Frontier Foundation and Amnesty International to publicly release the Detekt tool, which allows journalists and human rights defenders to scan their computers for traces of known surveillance spyware.

This report provides a detailed analysis of two products sold for facilitating targeted surveillance known as network injection appliances. These products allow for the easy deployment of targeted surveillance implants and are being sold by commercial vendors to countries around the world. Compromising a target becomes as simple as waiting for the user to view unencrypted content on the Internet.

While there has been much discussion about the use of software described as ‘implants’ or ‘backdoors’ to perform targeted surveillance, this report is about the less well understood method by which most targeted surveillance is delivered: network injection.

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.