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11 January 2012

Iran: Khazali was arrested again

Shoorezar reports [fa] Mehdi Khazali, a blogger, publisher and son of a leading conservative cleric and former Council of Guardians member, Ayatollah Khazali, was arrested again last week. He was...

Biometrics in Argentina: Mass Surveillance as a State Policy

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Two years ago, the UK dismantled their national ID scheme and shredded their National Identity Registry in response to great public outcry over the privacy-invasive program. Unfortunately privacy protections have...

9 January 2012

The Arms Race Over The Internet Rages Onward - part 1

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2011's Chaos Computer Congress (CCC) was on his 28th edition named “Behind Enemy Lines”. The 28C3, as it is called for shortness, was thus constituted by a myriad of talks and workshops discussing what is to be behind enemy lines. To put it clearly, this idiom is quite ambiguous: for repressive governments, the freedom fighters are the enemy, and vice and versa.

2011: A Year of Triumphs and Struggle for Bloggers in the Middle East and North Africa

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With all of the social media successes throughout the Middle East and North Africa in 2011, it would be all too easy to overlook the struggles faced by bloggers and netizens throughout the region. But with 126 netizens imprisoned, it would be a travesty.

5 January 2012

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Highlights from the 28th Chaos Communications Congress

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The Chaos Communications Congress is the annual meetup of Germany's Chaos Computer Club, one of the oldest hacker collectives in the world. The programme mixes technical talks from the security and free software worlds with talks about online rights and hacktivism.

4 January 2012

Will Iran Soon Have Its Own “Clean Internet”?

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The Iranian regime may be losing its battle to filter content on the internet, but meanwhile it is trying news things - from slowing down internet speeds, to developing a so-called "national internet" or "clean internet".

27 December 2011

Turkey: No tweets from the courtroom!

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  “Today the judge is more strict” says the tweet, “One undercover police for each row! All monitoring the ones who are tweeting!“ In Istanbul-Turkey, today is the 2nd day...

Egyptian veteran blogger Alaa Abdel Fattah released

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Egyptian veteran blogger Alaa Abdel Fattah has finally been released pending investigation from the Cairo Criminal Court yesterday after being detained for 56 days.   He comes home to his...

23 December 2011

Netizen Report: Remembrance Edition

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Vaclav Havel, a poet, playwright, dissident, last president of Czechoslovakia, and first president of the Czech Republic, died on Dec 18 at age 75. His story and words continue to inspire people around the world to fight against repression. Netizens around the world are doing their best to resist injustice and abuse of power, as events of the past fortnight make clear.

22 December 2011

Iran: Blogger May Face Death Penalty

Several bloggers and news sites reported [fa] that Mohammad Reza Pour Shajari, a jailed blogger , may face charge of ‘Waging War Against God' (moharebeh). A death sentence can be...