Collaborate Disseminate
In what is being hailed as an historic moment for the environment, world leaders at the UN’s Biodiversity Conference COP15 in Montreal have reached an agreement to ramp up protections of the planet’s precious natural ecosystems. The Kunming-Montreal Gl… Continue reading UN’s landmark nature protections a “Paris moment” for biodiversity
A U.N. cybercrime treaty could give global governments new — and what many human rights defenders call worrisome — powers to prosecute cybercrimes.
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The more we learn about the magnitude of plastic pollution contaminating the planet’s rivers, oceans, and even its mountaintops, the more pressing the need becomes for wide-ranging and coordinated action. In what is being hailed as a historic day, glob… Continue reading UN endorses historic global resolution to “End Plastic Pollution”
United Nations experts on Thursday called for a halt to the sale and transfer of surveillance technology until countries introduce a regulatory framework to address the human rights impact of its abuse. “It is highly dangerous and irresponsible to allow the surveillance technology and trade sector to operate as a human rights-free zone,” the experts warned. The statement specifically singles out the Israeli spyware company NSO Group, which has been condemned for years by privacy advocates for aiding authoritarian regimes in tracking and intimidating journalists, human rights advocates and dissidents. The call for action follows a report from Amnesty International that the company’s Pegasus spyware was more widely used than previously thought. Between July 2014 and July 2021, the NSO group’s Pegasus software was used to target more than three dozen smartphones belonging to journalists, human rights activists and business executives, according to a Amnesty’s investigation with the French journalism nonprofit […]
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Continue reading UN experts join growing calls for moratorium on surveillance technology
The Secure Identity Alliance believes that a trusted legal identity is essential to protecting people’s rights, fostering social inclusion and supporting economic growth. Goal 16.9 of the United Nations Sustainable Development Agenda promotes a l… Continue reading Secure Identity Alliance encourages authorities to ensure the supply of chips for identity documents
The Secure Identity Alliance believes that a trusted legal identity is essential to protecting people’s rights, fostering social inclusion and supporting economic growth. Goal 16.9 of the United Nations Sustainable Development Agenda promotes a l… Continue reading Secure Identity Alliance encourages authorities to ensure the supply of chips for identity documents
Researchers say that suspected Chinese hackers are posing as the United Nations and a fake human rights organization in an ongoing campaign to target Uyghurs, an ethnic group that’s repeatedly been on the receiving end of surveillance and cyberattacks this year. “We believe that these cyber-attacks are motivated by espionage, with the end-game of the operation being the installation of a backdoor into the computers of high-profile targets in the Uyghur community,” said Lotem Finkelsteen, head of threat intelligence at Check Point, which published the research on Wednesday along with fellow security firm Kaspersky. Researchers observed targeting of the Turkic ethnic group in China, Pakistan and China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. In one attack method, the hackers use malicious documents bearing the name of the United Nations Human Rights Council. They also erected a website for a non-existent Turkic Culture and Heritage Foundation, luring would-be grant applicants to download a […]
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ENISA discloses an in-depth analysis of the cybersecurity challenges faced by the connected and automated mobility (CAM) sector and provides actionable recommendations to mitigate them. The CAM sector in a nutshell Today, connected vehicles, environmen… Continue reading CAM sector cybersecurity challenges and how to mitigate them
Human rights advocates are warning that a controversial proposal at the United Nations to counter cybercrime could validate tactics that authoritarian governments around the world have used to criminalize free speech and security research. The Russian and Chinese governments back the notion of establishing a new anti-cybercrime convention, a process that diplomats at the U.N. will begin considering next week. However the wording of the proposal, which calls for curbs on the use of technologies for “criminal purposes,” is vague to the point of potentially enabling further government repression, critics say. A report issued Wednesday by Human Rights Watch, a New York-based advocacy group, details a growing list of so-called cybercrime laws that governments have allegedly used to target dissenters, or infringe on personal privacy. A Pakistani law, for example, enables authorities to block websites used to criticize government officials. In the Philippines, police can collect computer data without a […]
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Continue reading UN cybercrime proposal could help autocrats stifle free speech, rights group says
Diplomats from around the world are convening this week to share ideas about what type of behavior should be allowed in cyberspace, and debate what happens when those rules are broken. The virtual confab, organized by the Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and designed for seasoned and green diplomats alike, began Tuesday morning to discuss how international law applies in cyberspace and different attack methods diplomats may encounter when confronting cyber incidents, Estonia’s Ambassador at Large for Cyber Diplomacy Heli Tiirmaa-Klaar told CyberScoop in an interview. While the gathering will touch on historical cyber incidents that have rocked the international norms conversation over the years, including the sweeping WannaCry and NotPetya attacks, the focus of the so-called cyber diplomacy school is not on instruction about the technical details of cyber incidents. It’s about how to negotiate and shape behavior of other governments. “This is not technical training,” Tiirma-Klaar said. “What is […]
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Continue reading Estonia’s diplomacy training aims to shape state behavior in cyberspace