How is COVID-19 affecting tech and privacy issues? A roundup

Surveillance:

India

Will the coronavirus crisis inevitably result in an expansion of the surveillance state in India?

Drone data to play a part in a lockdown exit strategy


Balkans

COVID-19 pandemic adversely affects digital rights in the Balkans


United States

EARN IT bill is the government's not so secret plan to scan every message online

Tested positive coronavirus health workers may share your address to police

ACLU white paper shows the limits of location tracking in an epidemic


Lebanon

What the Lebanese government can do to respect users' privacy while fighting COVID-19



 Access:

United States

Can we all agree now that internet access is a necessity?


India

Kashmir's internet shutdown is preventing people from getting coronavirus information



Political Oppression:

Egypt

Now the Sisi regime has arrested Alaa's family for protesting coronavirus conditions in his prison #FreeAlaa

SumTips: 4 Digital Activists You Should Know

It’s February, which means the 2017 Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression Awards are right around the corner. This week, the shortlist of nominees was announced in four categories: arts, campaigning, digital activism and journalism. Featured below are the nominees for digital activism, recognized “for innovative uses of technology to circumvent censorship and enable free and independent exchange of information”.

• Jensiat: a (heavily censored) Iranian online graphic novel that offers accessible sexual health and cybersecurity awareness and provides access to verified digital security resources. According to Jensiat’s creators, “Our interactions with readers leads us to believe they have picked up what we’ve been discussing, and are incorporating them into their online lives.”

• Bill Marczak: Marczak’s Bahrain Watch promotes accountable and transparent governance by investigating and running campaigns in response to activists’ social media posts. Said Marczak, “There’s many an activist who face serious risks from their government of being beaten up or being tortured just because they express opinions. I think that’s unacceptable and that’s one of the things I am trying to prevent.”

• Evan Mawarire: When Pastor Mawarire expressed his displeasure with the Zimbabwean government by posting a video of himself draped in the country’s flag, people listened. More than eight million people joined a government boycott in response. Explained Mawarire, “I called the campaign #ThisFlag because it encouraged citizens to get involved in reclaiming national pride by condemning the shameless actions of government and its officials.”

• Turkey Blocks: an Alp Toker-led team that monitors, reports on and investigates internet restrictions in Turkey. Turkey Blocks’ successful tools have begun to be utilized elsewhere. Reported Alp Toker, “Our alerts, issued within minutes of detection, have helped Turkish citizens to stay online when shutdowns get implemented and provided the media with enough confidence to report assertively on digital censorship in Turkey.”

Index on Censorship will celebrate the award recipients at a gala on April 19.

Thank an activist, surf secure and stay Rando!

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Want more SumTips? Read on!

• SumTips: 4 Countries Concerned with Cybersecurity in 2017
• SumTips: Davos' 2017 Guide to Business Cybersecurity
• SumTips: 7 Ways to #StandWithStreep

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SumRando Cybersecurity is a Mauritius-based VPN, Web Proxy and Secure Messenger provider. Surf secure and stay Rando!

SumRando Statement on US Refugee Ban

Mapou, Mauritius-  International privacy advocate and Virtual Private Network (VPN) provider, SumRando, reiterated its commitment to offering assistance to people living under oppressive conditions in the wake of U.S. president Donald Trump's decision to ban 134,000,000 people from entering the United States. SumRando’s CEO, Jonathan de Wolff, released the following statement:

“SumRando was founded on the principle that privacy is a fundamental human right. Any effort to prevent marginalized groups from seeking recourse, either through online tools or safe harbour as a refugee, is a step backwards and worrying in a landscape with fewer and fewer options. Turning one's back on people in need is a surefire way to embolden the autocratic regimes they are attempting to flee. If people cannot seek refuge in the United States, generally seen as a beacon for freedom and a leader in human rights for the world, millions of people will suffer.”

"Providing safe access to the internet is one small, but critical way we can assist people in such environments, allowing them to access vital information, organize human rights efforts, and communicate with loved ones. At this time, we ask that those who are willing and able to show their support, to sign up for a year-long subscription to SumRando VPN. In so doing, we can continue to provide safe internet access to those living in affected regions. You can sign up here.

We thank you in advance for your conscientiousness and willingness to promote a free and democratic internet for everyone."

SumRando, based out of Mauritius, provides safe internet access to hundreds of thousands of people in emerging economies around the world, including many who fear for their lives as they live under the threat of terrorism, war, and systematic oppression.

SumTips: 5 Highlights of Snowden’s Twitter Interview

American whistleblower and digital privacy advocate Edward Snowden made an online appearance this week in an hour-long interview with Twitter’s Jack Dorsey. The Periscope livestream remains available; for an overview of what was said, read on:

On government: The government can’t look into your life. As long as there isn’t concrete evidence that you have done something wrong, you’re supposed to be left alone. And this is why in our language we have two broad classes of participants in society. We’ve got private citizens who are supposed to be left alone, very little is supposed to be known about them. And then public officials. These are our elected representatives, high chiefs who are the ones carrying out the government’s will and supposed to be representing us. We need to know what they’re doing (emphasis added). 

On fake news: There is a sad thing that is happening in journalism right now where it feels a little bit like the truth doesn’t matter so much anymore. You get real news stories that are well reported that go out there and nobody in the Twitter realm retweets them. They’re not that interesting; they don’t make you jump out of your seat. But if you put something crazy out there, something that does make people argue about it, something that does make people be offended by it, or interested in it, or go ‘Is that true?’, they will share it, it will expand, people will talk about it, even if it’s not true.  

The problem of fake news isn’t solved by hoping for a referee, but rather because we as participants, we as citizens, we as users of these services, help each other. We talk and we share and we point out what is fake. We point out what is true. The answer to bad speech is not censorship. The answer to bad speech is more speech. We have to exercise and spread the idea that critical thinking matters, now more than ever given the fact that lies seem to be getting very popular.

On joining Twitter: What if you could tell your own story? What if you could immediately get it out there? What if you didn’t have to wait? What if you had your own voice? What if you had your own platform? This is the beauty of the internet, is that everybody is able to participate. Everybody is able to share. Everybody is able to broadcast. And you can be judged on the basis of your ideas. Can the facts that you put forward be confirmed? Is this stuff actually real? When it works as intended, it’s beautiful. Even if you’re facing the most corrupt and powerful bureaucracies in the world, you can still be heard. Maybe not by everybody, but by an extraordinary crowd.  

On making America more private: The first thing is to care. It’s getting easier and easier to try to withdraw within ourselves, within our families, within our homes. A lot of people have very tough lives. They work hard. They’ve got multiple jobs. They get home at night and they don’t want to think about politics, they don’t want to think about the problems that we’re all facing. They just want to watch their shows, forget for a few hours before they have to get up in the next morning and do it all over again, but I think we should consider that that’s something that disempowers us.  

You don’t have to live in a country where every time you dial the phone you have to worry about what it’s going to look like in a database. You don’t want to be in the kind of world where everything you type into a Google search box is known forever and shared with God knows who. We can build that.  

But it’s not enough to believe in something. It’s not enough to visualize that better world. You actually have to stand up for it. You have to risk something. You have to dare. You have to actually act. Coordinate. Talk to the people around you. Organize. And if you don’t have time, if you simply can’t, if you’ve tried and there’s no way to do that, and somehow still manage to have enough hours in the day to do everything you need to do, give resources to those who can. Invest some part of yourself, whether it’s your money, whether it’s your time, whether it’s making phone calls in organizations that actually will fight to make that better, more fair, more free world.  

On the future of surveillance: The police don’t need a warrant to get your metadata from a phone company. They don’t need a warrant to get your metadata in many cases from a technology company.  And this is a very, very dangerous thing. But why? 

It’s not just who you call. That’s the one example we use to break it down because it’s simple. It’s everyone you’ve ever called. Forever. When you called them. It’s where you called them from.  It’s what you paid for, it’s every border you’ve crossed, every purchase you make, every email you’ve sent, every website you’ve visited, everywhere your phone traveled. These things are creating records about you, activity records about you that are far more granular, far more detailed and far more complete than any team of surveillance agents, any team of covert agency operators could create on anyone even if they all work together just to watch one person. But they don’t actually have to target you anymore. This happens automatically. It happens without anybody doing anything at all. It just happens because that’s how computers work. 

This is the central problem of the future. How do we return control over our identities to the people themselves?

Be an advocate, surf secure and stay Rando

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Image credit of BOLDG/Shutterstock.com.

Want more SumTips? Read on!

• SumTips: 6 Reasons the Internet Is Unkind to Indian Women
• SumTips: What to Say When the Internet Goes Off
• SumTips: How to Protect Yourself Online in Uncertain Times

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SumRando Cybersecurity is a Mauritius-based VPN, Web Proxy and Secure Messenger provider. Surf secure and stay Rando!

SumTips: 6 Reasons the Internet Is Unkind to Indian Women

Cyber VAW (violence against women) threatens women daily in India, concludes a recent study by Japleen Pasricha, founder and director of Feminism in India.com. The report, “Violence” Online In India: Cybercrimes Against Women & Minorities on Social Media offers statistics not to be overlooked:

1.    Women in India frequently block or ignore their online harassers rather than report their unwanted behaviors, despite the creation of a Cyber Crime Prevention against Women and Children (CCPWC) portal for this very purpose.

2.    Of the 500 women surveyed, 36% of those who were harassed online did nothing in response. 28% merely reduced their online presence.

3.    30% were unaware that laws existed to protect them.

4.    38% of those who reported online harassment found the legal response to be “not at all helpful.”

5.    15% of respondents reported experiencing depression, stress, insomnia or other mental health issues in response to online harassment.

6.    Specific incidences include:

• A writer, poet and activist threatened with acid attacks and gang rape for tweeting about a Hyderabad beef-eating festival.
• An activist harassed during an online discussion about violence against women; she later left the conversation.
• A journalist and author also known as “India’s most trolled woman.” Her decision to publish an account of her childhood sexual abuse has been met with criticisms including the label “antinational.”

Read the report, surf secure and stay Rando!

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Image credit of BOLDG/Shutterstock.com.

Want more SumTips? Read on!

• SumTips: What to Say When the Internet Goes Off
• SumTips: How to Protect Yourself Online in Uncertain Times
• SumTips: 12 Reasons "Freedom on the Net 2016" Matters

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SumRando Cybersecurity is a Mauritius-based VPN, Web Proxy and Secure Messenger provider. Surf secure and stay Rando!

SumTips: How to Protect Yourself Online in Uncertain Times

[Source: Shutterstock.com]

In 2016, the digital era giveth and the digital era taketh away. Citizens everywhere—from those outraged at the Turkish government to those outraged at the results of the American presidential election—have the power to use the internet to communicate their innermost thoughts, feelings and desires, but also risk persecution if those sentiments fall into the wrong hands.

Digital rights defender Access Now has created “A First Look at Digital Security,” an easy-to-access guide to enhancing security for those who choose to challenge the status quo online:

If you are a journalist:

• Protect your sources; correspondence with editors; time-sensitive research and written drafts.
• Use encrypted emails, instant messenger, texts, voice apps and document sharing daily; a Virtual Private Network (VPN) when on untrusted Wi-Fi; and full-disk encryption when going through security checkpoints.

If you are an activist or blogger:

• Protect your research and data; online accounts; and correspondence with other activists.
• Use two-factor authentication and strong passwords; security checkups offered by social media platforms; full-disk encryption and encryption of flash drives, hard drives and all other sensitive files; expanded short urls; and anonymous chat.

If you are a civil rights defender:

• Protect the financial information of donors and employees; contact information of partners and clients; integrity of your organization; and private documents.
• Use the latest version of available software; strong passwords; a Virtual Private Network (VPN) when on untrusted Wi-Fi; caution with opening links and attachments; full-disk encryption when going through security checkpoints; and discretion in personal postings online.

If you are a student engaged in a movement:

• Protect your personal privacy; online identity and persona(s); and access to information.
• Use circumvention and anonymity tools (including VPNs); privacy enhancing browser extensions; regular clearing of chat history; anonymous chat; separate online personas; and discretion in personal postings online.

If you are you:

• You just might find that everything above applies.

Right now, the election of Donald Trump to the American presidency has much of the United States wondering what exactly is the status quo and what online sentiments will be respected and protected, a state of uncertainty not unlike what individuals worldwide face daily. Check out the guide and if you need more support, the Access Now Helpline is there for you: help@accessnow.org.

Surf secure and stay Rando!

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Want more SumTips? Read on!

• SumTips: 12 Reasons "Freedom on the Net 2016" Matters
• SumTips: 140 Characters Stifled by More Than Space
• SumTips: 5 Current Limitations on African Internet Freedom

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SumRando Cybersecurity is a Mauritius-based VPN, Web Proxy and Secure Messenger provider. Surf secure and stay Rando!

SumTips: 12 Reasons "Freedom on the Net 2016" Matters

[Source: Freedom on the Net 2016]

Watchdog organization Freedom House has released its Freedom on the Net 2016 report. Its title—“Silencing the Messenger: Communication Apps Under Pressure”—leaves little to the imagination regarding the state of internet freedom worldwide. Below are 12 of the report’s findings not to be missed: 

1.    Internet freedom worldwide has declined for the sixth consecutive year.

2.    67% of all internet users live in countries that censor criticism of the government, military or ruling family. Punishable behavior this year has included derogatory statements towards a pet dog belonging to Thailand’s king.

3.    In 38 countries, social media users have been arrested for their posts. In some countries, “liking” a Facebook post has led to arrest.

4.    Arrests based on social media activity have increased more than 50% since 2013.

5.    Only 24% of the internet population assessed is considered “free”.

6.    Uganda, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Ecuador and Libya top the list for most internet freedom lost since 2015. In all, 34 countries have shown a decline in internet freedom.

7.    China earned the title of “year’s worst abuser of internet freedom”. Criticizing the government (“spreading rumors”) on social media can be met with a seven-year prison sentence; other punishable offenses include watching videos reflective of the religious minority.

8.    15 countries experienced temporary government shutdowns of internet or mobile phone network access.

9.    Messaging apps, including WhatsApp, Telegram and Facebook Messenger, are increasingly targeted and blocked by governments. Of significance, global internet users are more heavily reliant on app-based mobile messaging than on SMS texting.

10.    13 countries, including Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Turkey, blocked content intended for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) community because of “morality”.

11.    In the past year, digital activism was censored in 20 countries…

12.    …Regardless, “In over two-thirds of the countries in this study, internet-based activism has led to some sort of tangible outcome, from the defeat of a restrictive legislative proposal to the exposure of corruption through citizen journalism.”

The complete Freedom on the Net 2016 report, along with 65 individual country reports, are available online. Be an informed advocate, surf secure and stay Rando!

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Want more SumTips? Read on!

• SumTips: 140 Characters Stifled by More Than Space
• SumTips: 5 Current Limitations on African Internet Freedom
• SumTips: 10 Facts on Encryption and Human Rights from Amnesty International

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SumRando Cybersecurity is a Mauritius-based VPN, Web Proxy and Secure Messenger provider. Surf secure and stay Rando!

SumTips: 140 Characters Stifled by More Than Space

140 characters is not just a tweet limit. 

Human Rights Watch’s latest report, 140 Characters, shares the stories of 140 well-known Bahrani, Kuwaiti, Omani, Qatari, Saudi and Emirati social and political rights activists and dissidents—and the retaliation they have encountered for making their perspectives heard. The report asks their governments to cease their acts of intimidation and harassment against activists and dissidents and to review their laws to comply with international human rights standards. 

The 140 stories of inhumane treatment towards activists and dissidents include:

Bahrain
Co-founders of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR) Nabeel Rajab and Abdulhadi al-Khawaja have been imprisoned for their human rights activism. Most recently, Rajab was put on trial for “spreading false news,” “offending a foreign country,” and “offending national institutions.” Al-Khawaja is currently serving a life sentence for contributing to anti-government protests in 2011. The report includes 29 additional Bahrainis.

Kuwait
Kuwaiti teachers Huda al-Ajmi and Sara al-Drees were arrested on separate occasions for charges including insulting the emir. In 2013, al-Ajmi was sentenced to 11 years in prison for charges she denies; later that year, al-Drees received a prison sentence of 20 months. The report includes 42 additional Kuwaitis.

Oman
Former Omani parliamentarian Talib al-Maamari recently received a royal pardon from a four-year prison sentence for participating in an environmental pollution protest. Al-Maamari was convicted of “illegal gathering” and “blocking traffic.” The report includes 15 additional Omanis.

Qatar
Qatari poet Muhammad ibn al-Dheeb al-Ajami’s 15-year prison sentence was pardoned in March of this year. In 2011, Al-Ajami had been found guilty of “inciting the overthrow of the ruling regime” when poetry that was critical of the ruling family was discovered online.

Saudi Arabia
Activists Manal al-Sharif and Samar Badawi have suffered the consequences of advocating for women’s rights. Al-Sharif’s “Women2Drive” campaign fought for women’s independence behind the wheel, and then led to her own imprisonment. Further activism cost al-Sharif her job as an internet security consultant. Badawi ran away from an abusive father, only to be imprisoned for seven months under the charge of “parental disobedience.” The report includes 24 additional Saudis.

United Arab Emirates
Social media activists Obaid Yousef al-Zaabi and Waleed Al-Shehhi were arrested for their tweets. Al-Zaabi’s punished crimes included the “founding and maintenance of an electronic page on Twitter…disseminating his thought and stories that stir hate and disturb public order.” Al-Shehhi received a two-year prison sentence for tweets critical of government conduct in the UAE 94 mass trial. The report includes 15 additional Emiratis.

Be an advocate, surf secure and stay Rando!

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Want more SumTips? Read on!

• SumTips: 5 Current Limitations on African Internet Freedom
• SumTips: 10 Facts on Encryption and Human Rights from Amnesty International
• SumTips: 8 Must-Have Tips From EFF's Surveillance Self-Defense Guide 

Want SumTips sent to your inbox? Sign up for our weekly newsletter ("Security Tips and News" at bottom of page). 

SumRando Cybersecurity is a Mauritius-based VPN, Web Proxy and Secure Messenger provider. Surf secure and stay Rando!