December 29 – Hamburg, Germany

Citizen Lab Senior Security Researcher Morgan Marquis-Boire joined the Ars Technica Live podcast series to discuss the rise of what he calls “digital authoritarianism,” an extension of the activities of authoritarian governments into cyberspace, and the steps he says citizens can take to protect themselves.

Senior Research Fellow Bill Marczak was featured in a Vanity Fair article exploring his discovery of the spyware used to target UAE dissident Ahmed Mansoor, detailed in a recent Citizen Lab report.

Director Ron Deibert spoke to CNN International on Citizen Lab’s recent report, titled “One App, Two Systems: How WeChat uses one censorship policy in China and another internationally.” Deibert commented on trends of censorship and surveillance in China, and Asian instant messaging applications more broadly.

Citizen Lab Cyber Stewards Network partner Paradigm Initiative Nigeria (PIN) has released the 2016 Digital Rights in Africa report, reviewing government restrictions on Internet freedom this past year. The report analyzes 11 documented shutdowns across the continent, and a number of legislative developments that threaten digital rights.

Cyber Stewards network Partners hosted workshops, launched reports, and attended programming at the 2016 Internet Governance Forum in Guadalajara, Mexico from December 6-9, 2016.

In a recent speech, Ali Baba co-founder Jack Ma suggested that the Chinese government should use big data to help prevent crime, a view that resonates with the Communist party’s efforts to establish a system parsing citizen information online. Citizen Lab Senior Research Fellow Jason Q. Ng commented on Ma’s remarks in an interview with Bloomberg.

Citizen Lab Senior Research Fellow Bill Marczak and Senior Security Researcher Morgan Marquis-Boire were featured in an episode of Al Jazeera’s ‘Faultlines’ program, in an episode entitled “Crypto Wars: Behind the Encryption Debate.” They discussed attitudes concerning surveillance in the wake of the San Bernadino shooting as well as other terrorist activities.

This report investigates the surveillance capabilities of IMSI Catchers, efforts by states to prevent information relating to IMSI Catchers from entering the public record, and the legal and policy frameworks that govern the use of these devices. The report principally focuses on Canadian agencies but, to do so, draws comparative examples from other jurisdictions. The report concludes with a series of recommended transparency and control mechanisms that are designed to properly contain the use of the devices and temper their more intrusive features.

This report describes how a government targeted an internationally recognized human rights defender, Ahmed Mansoor, with the Trident, a chain of zero-day exploits designed to infect his iPhone with sophisticated commercial spyware.