· April, 2011

Stories about News from April, 2011

Azerbaijan Deports Swedish Television Crew

  25 April 2011

The Commitee to Protect Journalists reports that Azerbaijan has deported a Swedish television crew which had arrived to film a documentary on human rights situation in the country. “According to CPJ sources and local press reports, plainclothed men detained journalists My Rohwedder Street, Charlie Laprevote, and Charlotta Wijkström at a protest...

The US government forcing twitter to hand over personal data on its users.

  22 April 2011

Adapted from a RWB article. The US Department of Justice is so determined to prosecute WikiLeaks and its leading supporters. “After exerting pressure on Paypal, Visa, MasterCard and Amazon, the US government is now stepping up its harassment of WikiLeaks and its supporters,” Reporters Without Borders said. “The federal government...

Bahrain: Pro-Government Activists are Blogging too

  18 April 2011

Demands for change in Bahrain and recent incidents of violence against those demanding reform is being chronicled by number of bloggers. They present struggle within the country and also how external forces are influencing events. Adding another dimension to the discussion, pro-government and pro-establishment bloggers are also making their side heard online. Suhail...

Spam Bots Flooding Twitter to Drown Info About #Syria Protests [Updated]

  18 April 2011

After recent protests demanding freedom and democracy in Syria and the regime's brutal crackdown started, information warfare has been taking place on twitter. This post attempts to analyze the proliferation of twitter spams bots especially designed to flood the #Syria hash tag on twitter in order to make information about the events harder to find, and stop the conversation about them.

Over the Firewall and into the Fire

  14 April 2011

The Freedom House report Leaping over the Firewall is a new report designed to help users understand, evaluate and select a tool or series of tools for security, privacy and most importantly, for circumventing Internet censorship. As a long time developer with The Tor Project and as a member of the circumvention community, I feel that it is important to set the record straight about a number of issues. My motivation for writing this response is to inform readers of the serious concerns that many people, myself included, have about the recent Freedom House report. I am always pleased to see more analysis of censorship circumvention and Internet security tools, but I have concerns about this report’s methodologies and resulting conclusions. The report in its current form could be dangerous to the users it aims to help.

Middle East Feels Threatened by Bloggers

  11 April 2011

Such has been the role of bloggers and citizen journalists in fueling the region's season of fury against dictatorship, they are being seen as a threat to status quo. Now a campaign of arrest, intimidation and harassment is being launched against them. In Bahrain, cyber activists and bloggers are facing...