CPJ Internet Channel

CPJ Internet Channel | USA

So your Twitter account is hacked? Reset, tweet, pray.

By Frank Smyth and Kamal Singh Masuta/CPJ Staff

That is a bogus @ap tweet.
-- AP CorpComm (@AP_CorpComm) April 23, 2013

More than a quarter million Twitter accounts have been hacked worldwide, the social media company disclosed in February, but Tuesday's attack on The Associated Press's verified account, @AP, had unusual effect. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 143 points after someone hijacked the AP's account to falsely tweet that two explosions at the White House had wounded President Barack Obama. The market recovered, but the hacking--just the latest in a series of attacks on news organizations--sent shudders through a profession that's grown accustomed to breaking its news on Twitter.

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CPJ Internet Channel | China

China decrees use of foreign news must be approved

By Bob Dietz/CPJ Asia Program Coordinator

You have to wonder how this will be enforced, but China's State Administration of Press Publication, Radio, Film and Television has issued a "Notice on Strengthening Control of Media Personnel's Online Activities" (关于加强新闻采编人员网络活动管理的通知). Chinese media organizations have been told to stop posting foreign media news without government permission: "Without authorization, no kind of media outlets shall arbitrarily use media release from overseas media agencies and media websites," is the way Caijing magazine translated it.

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CPJ Internet Channel | CPJ, USA

Working with phone companies on free expression

By Robert Mahoney/CPJ Deputy Director

For more than six years the Committee to Protect Journalists has been working with freedom of expression advocates, investors, and giant Internet companies to promote online freedoms. Absent from the discussions under the umbrella of the Global Network Initiative have been the telecommunications companies--vital gateways to the Internet for journalists and bloggers, particularly in much of the global South. Today things have changed.

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CPJ Internet Channel | Burma

As censorship wanes, cyberattacks rise in Burma

By Shawn W. Crispin/CPJ Southeast Asia Representative

Cyberattacks on news websites and apparent government hacking into journalists' email accounts have raised new questions about the integrity of media reforms in Burma. The New York Times reported on Sunday that several journalists who regularly cover Burma-related news recently received warning messages from Google that their email accounts may have been hacked by "state-sponsored attackers."

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CPJ Internet Channel | China, USA

Drawing lessons from Chinese attacks on US media

By Danny O’Brien/CPJ Internet Advocacy Coordinator

Not every media company is as tempting a target for hackers as The New York Times, The Washington Post, or The Wall Street Journal. Not every company can afford high-priced computer security consultants, either. Is there anything that everyday reporters and their editors can learn about protecting themselves, based on the revelatory details the Times and other targets made public last week?

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CPJ Internet Channel | USA

Yahoo HTTPS mail not a moment too soon, nor too late

By Danny O’Brien/Internet Advocacy Coordinator

I remember sitting with a Yahoo employee in 2009, talking about the lack of protective encryption on Yahoo's Web mail accounts. Like many, the employee had been caught up in the news of how Iranians were using the Internet to document and protest the presidential elections in that country, and had grown worried about the possibility of governments intercepting Yahoo customer's emails without due process. As an immigrant from a repressive regime, he told me, he was aware of how much danger this posed. He said he was going to raise the topic internally.

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CPJ Internet Channel | China

China's name registration will only aid cybercriminals

By Danny O’Brien/CPJ Internet Advocacy Coordinator

China's mounting crackdown on online news dissemination took an extra step today, when the country's Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, its de facto legislative body, announced new requirements on Internet service providers and mobile phone companies to identify their users. The new rules would potentially allow ISPs and the authorities to more closely tie real identities to posts and commentary on micro-blogging sites like Weibo, as well as connect text messaging and mobile phone conversations to individuals.

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CPJ Internet Channel | USA

In Internet freedom fight, why the ITU matters (for now)

By Danny O'Brien/CPJ Internet Advocacy Coordinator

Hamdoun Toure, ITU secretary general, speaks at the group's conference in Dubai. (AP/Kamran Jebreili)

For most of its almost-150-year history, the meetings of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the United Nations' communications standards body, have been rather predictable affairs.

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CPJ Internet Channel | Syria

Syria's desperate move to cut links won't succeed

By Danny O’Brien/CPJ Internet Advocacy Coordinator

The Syrian Internet, like the country, appears to have been collapsing into a patchwork of unconnected systems for some time. I spent time talking to Syrians tech activists this week in Tunisia before Thursday's shutdown, and their reports from the front painted a picture of two different networks.

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CPJ Internet Channel

Dear CPJ: Some malware from your 'friend'

By Danny O'Brien/CPJ Internet Advocacy Coordinator

We talk a lot about hacking attacks against individual journalists here, but what typifies an attempt to access a reporter's computer? Joel Simon, CPJ's executive director, received an email last week that reflects some characteristics of a malware attack against a journalist or activist. There was nothing particularly notable about the targeting. (Like many reporters, CPJ receives such attempts occasionally). The attack failed at the first fence, and my casual investigation into the source was inconclusive. There are no shocking answers or big headlines to draw from this attack. But it does illustrate a contemporary reality: Opportunistic assailants regularly shower journalists with software attacks.

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Committee to Protect Journalists

Defending Free Expression Online

So your Twitter account is hacked? Reset, tweet, pray.

China decrees use of foreign news must be approved

Working with phone companies on free expression

As censorship wanes, cyberattacks rise in Burma

Drawing lessons from Chinese attacks on US media

Yahoo HTTPS mail not a moment too soon, nor too late

China's name registration will only aid cybercriminals

In Internet freedom fight, why the ITU matters (for now)

Syria's desperate move to cut links won't succeed

Dear CPJ: Some malware from your 'friend'

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