• Respite to Internet Censorship in India
    By: Cale Guthrie Weissman
    Date: 21 Jun 2012
    The Madras High Court in India has clarified an interim injunction they first granted in April regarding the filtering of websites carrying pirated content. For months there has been confusion as to the extent of this injunction, leading many to think that entire websites were to be blocked. However, the court clarified today that "only specific URLs carrying the pirated content can be blocked, not the entire website."
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  • Syrian rebels targeted using commercial Skype trojan
    By: Cale Guthrie Weissman
    Date: 20 Jun 2012
    A new Trojan is being installed into Syrian activists' computers via compromised Skype accounts. Purported to being from the Syrian government, this attack drops a key logger on infected machines and allows "hackers to attackers to plant key-loggers or extract data from infected machines."
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  • U.S., Israel developed Flame computer virus to slow Iranian nuclear efforts, officials say
    By: Cale Guthrie Weissman
    Date: 20 Jun 2012
    Reports now confirm that the U.S. and Israel collaborated to design the computer superbug 'Flame', aimed at "slowing Iran’s ability to develop a nuclear weapon." Speculation about the joint team has been rampant for last few weeks, but was just confirmed via "Western officials with knowledge of the effort," according to the Washington Post.
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  • The U.N. vs. the Internet: The fight escalates
    By: Cale Guthrie Weissman
    Date: 20 Jun 2012
    With the release of WCITLeaks' documents about the upcoming World Conference on International Telecommunications, debate about the ramifications of the ITU's jurisdiction is becoming more visible. The House is introducing a resolution condemning the U.N. for inserting itself into Internet governance, but some still see the US's responses to this issue as too tepid.
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  • The Dangers of India’s Internet Policy
    By: Cale Guthrie Weissman
    Date: 19 Jun 2012
    With new guidelines to India's Information Technology Act, activists and politicians alike are worried about the future of Internet freedom in the country. The Wall Street Journal interviews Indian Parliamentary member Rajeev Chandrasekhar talking about the current regime's control over Internet content.
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  • Internet content censorship from India up by 49%: Google
    By: Cale Guthrie Weissman
    Date: 19 Jun 2012
    According to Google's transparency report, requests for online content removal from Indian increased by 49% in the second half of last year. Google states that "political comments were a prime target" for countries' removal requests, however, those from New Delhi were not released in Google's report.
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  • U.N. Proposals To Regulate Internet Are ‘Troubling,’ Leaked Documents Reveal
    By: Cale Guthrie Weissman
    Date: 18 Jun 2012
    Leaked proposals for an upcoming conference led by the U.N. agency the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) are causing distress among online freedom advocates. The summit is being held to "update a treaty the countries agreed to back in 1988, before the mass adoption of the commercial Internet, cable television and wireless networking," and includes proposals to update definitions of words like 'spam' and to add the word 'security' to the "main reason for the existence of the agreement."
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  • Google transparency report shows alarming increase in censorship
    By: Melody Zhang
    Date: 18 Jun 2012
    There has been an alarming rise in the number of times governments attempted to censor the internet in last six months, according to a report from Google. Since the search engine last published its bi-annual transparency report, it said it has seen a troubling increase in requests to remove political content. Many of these requests came from western democracies not typically associated with censorship.
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  • School dinner photo ban lifted on nine-year-old's food blog
    By: Melody Zhang
    Date: 15 Jun 2012
    A controversial ban preventing nine-year-old Martha Payne from photographing her school meals has been lifted following a storm of protest on the internet. Due to the press coverage, the young Scottish girl has gotten over 2 million hits on her blog in the past two weeks.
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  • U.S. using technology to aid Syrian rebels
    By: Melody Zhang
    Date: 15 Jun 2012
    U.S. officials reveal that the Obama Administration has been providing media-technology training and support to Syrian dissidents by way of small nonprofits like the Institute for War & Peace Reporting and Freedom House. A team in the Department of State is responsible for doling out Internet Freedom Grants to nonprofit groups and software developers that help dissidents all over the world.
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