The Citizen Lab

Ottawa needs a strategy for cyberwar
Posted Jun 30, 2009 in Citizen Lab News by ProfD. 
Ronald Deibert and Rafal Rohozinski

Recently, the Canadian envoy to Iran was called in and admonished by Iranian officials for contributing to the destabilitization of the regime because of support for social networking tools, like Twitter and Facebook. The envoy must have scratched his head in puzzlement.

National Post Comment

Read more here

Psiphon Twitter-Iran and ONI reports on Asia, Iran, China
Posted Jun 17, 2009 in by ProfD. 
There is a lot going on right now on so many exciting fronts. We at the OpenNet Initiative have released three major reports: An Asian regional overview, and country reports on China and Iran. We released these at the ONI Asia regional meeting in Penang Malaysia. Thanks to the ONI team for all of their hard work.

You can read about ONI Asia results here, and the Iran country report here

Second, we have been actively engaged in a campaign to allow Iranians to access the Internet freely via Psiphon, using Twitter and other outreach tools. The Globe and Mail has a report on it, among other media stories.

Iran's emerging 'netwar' :Canadian group helps keep Iranians connected as government blocks websites
Posted Jun 16, 2009 in Citizen Lab News by jaymz. 
As protests in Iran in the aftermath of the national election enter their fourth day, social messaging tools such as Twitter have emerged as new sources of information, even though the site itself has been blocked in Iran. rom CBC

ONI Asia Press Conference
Posted Jun 16, 2009 in Citizen Lab News by jaymz. 
ONI Asia will hold a live press conference at 10.00 MST (UTC+8) and release reports on Internet censorship in China and across Asia. Watch the conference here

Twitter's Activist Initiation
Posted Jun 16, 2009 in NGO by jaymz. 
By accommodating Iranian dissidents the microblogging site has gone from allowing political activity, to courting it. As Twitter's popularity has grown, its users in oppressive foreign regimes have slowly realized the power of the simple microblogging service for organizing political dissent. On Monday, for the first time, Twitter's administrators seem to have acknowledged that power too. From Forbes

Follow #psiphon on twitter for our Iran outreach
Posted Jun 16, 2009 in by ProfD. 
We are engaged in a strategic outreach campaign via Twitter to provide unfettered access to psiphon nodes for Iranians. Search #psiphon #citizenlab

LATEST ONI Bulletin: China's Green Dam: The Implications of Government Control Encroaching on the Home PC
Posted Jun 12, 2009 in Citizen Lab News by jaymz. 
The OpenNet Initiative has released a bulletin on China's Green Dam filtering software. Read it here

Army Orders Bases to Stop Blocking Twitter, Facebook, Flickr
Posted Jun 10, 2009 in Censorship by jaymz. 
The Army has ordered its network managers to give soldiers access to social media sites like Facebook, Flickr, and Twitter, Danger Room has learned. That move reverses a years-long trend of blocking the web 2.0 locales on military networks. From Wired

Google boss says 'no' to UAE censors
Posted Jun 09, 2009 in Censorship by jaymz. 
Google refuses to kowtow to the UAE's demands for censorship of certain websites deemed un-Islamic, the company’s regional boss told Maktoob Business in an interview on Tuesday. From MAKTOOB

Swedish pirates fire a warning shot over internet censorship
Posted Jun 09, 2009 in LawandPolicy by jaymz. 
Sweden’s Pirate Party, which wants an internet filesharing free-for-all, is one of the surprise entrants to the European Parliament after winning 7.4 per cent of the vote. From TimesOnline