Professor Ronald J. Deibert
Associate Professor of Political Science
Director, The Citizen Lab
Munk Centre for International Studies
University of Toronto
1 Devonshire Place, Toronto, Ontario, M5S 3K7 Canada
Tel: (416) 946-8916 Fax: (416) 946-8915
email: r.deibert@utoronto.ca

Ron Deibert (PhD, University of British Columbia) is Associate Professor of Political Science and Director of the Citizen Lab at the Munk Centre for International Studies, University of Toronto. The Citizen Lab is an interdisciplinary research and development hothouse working at the intersection of the Internet and human rights. He is a co-founder and a principal investigator of the OpenNet Initiative, research and advocacy project that examines Internet censorship and surveillance worldwide, The Information Warfare Monitor, and the director of the psiphon censorship circumvention software project. Deibert has published numerous articles, chapters, and two books on issues related technology, media, and world politics

He has been a consultant and advisor to human rights and humanitarian civil society groups and government organizations on issues relating to Internet censorship, surveillance and information warfare. He presently serves on the editorial board of the journals International Political Sociology, Explorations in Media Ecology, Astropolitics, Fast Capitalism, and Journal of Environmental Peace, the advisory board of The SecDev Group, The Watston Institute for International Studies InfoWarTechPeace project (Brown University), and is a member of the board of directors of Lake Ontario Waterkeeper.

Deibert's research has been featured in newspapers, television, and radio shows, including the New York Times, BBC, Globe and Mail, CBC, CNN, Al Jazeera, WIRED, and the Far Eastern Economic Review. He was awarded the University of Toronto Outstanding Teaching Award (2002) and the Northrop Frye Distinguished Teaching and Research Award (2002), and was a Ford Foundation research scholar of Information and communication technologies (2002-2004). He was named to the Macleans magazine honour roll as one of 39 Canadians to have helped make the world a better place in 2006, and to Esquire Magazine's Best and Brightest list of 2007.

Prof. Deibert is actively engaged in several different research projects.

His CV can be downloaded here (in Adobe Acrobat format).

The following are descriptions and links to some of Prof. Deibert's ongoing projects.

The Citizen Lab

Citizen Lab is an interdisciplinary laboratory based at the Munk Centre for International Studies at the University of Toronto, Canada focusing on advanced research and development at the intersection of digital media and world civic politics. A "hothouse" that brings together social scientists, filmakers, computer scientists, activists, and artists, the Citizen Lab sponsors projects that explore the cutting-edge of hypermedia technologies and grassroots social movements, civic activism, and democratic change within an emerging planetary polity.

Website: http://www.citizenlab.org

The OpenNet Intitiative

The OpenNet Initiative (ONI) explores the relationship between censorship, technology and resistance using a technical analysis of state-imposed content filtering, blocking and monitoring schemes. As part of its mission, the OpenNet Initiative also acts as a "clearinghouse" that archives, assesses, and rates circumvention technologies produced locally and distributed throughout the Internet.

The ONI is a joint project of the Citizen Lab, an interdisciplinary laboratory based at the Munk Centre for International Studies at the University of Toronto, Canada, the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School and the Cambridge Programme for Security in International Society, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom.

Website: http://www.opennetinitiative.net/

The Information Warfare Monitor

The Information Warfare Monitor is an advanced research project examining how states and non-state actors seek to exploit information and information systems to pursue political objectives through non-political means. The project seeks to examine this emerging dimension of global security on two levels:

Operational Case Studies -- by building a repertoire of grounded, multi-dimensional "case studies" of information warfare operations, and to do so by employing a cross-disciplinary fusion of advanced network monitoring/visualization tools and qualitative social science research methodologies.

Consequences for Global Security -- by using the case study data to assess emerging threats and consequences of information operations on global security in its military, political, economic, legal and human rights dimensions.

Website: http://www.infowar-monitor.net/

The CiviSec Project

The Internet is now an unavoidable necessity for state and non-state actors. At the same time there is a crisis brewing, as governments, corporations, civil society, and militant actors filter, monitor, censor and censure the activities and discussions of citizens worldwide. Although these censorship and surveillance practices take place in the realm of “cyberspace,” they can have real physical consequences as well. Filtering, monitoring and interception make it possible for hostile actors to find confidential and geographic information that may be used to cause harm. This new insecure environment impacts organizations working in countries that utilize Internet surveillance and filtering, creating an environment where organizations feel obliged to limit use of technologies or, due to lack of knowledge, continue to operate in an insecure manner.

The goal of the CiviSec Project is to address issues of Internet censorship, surveillance and infowar on three levels. First, it will address them by raising awareness through advocacy as to the prevalence and consequences of filtering practices and insecure communications around the world. Second, the CiviSec project will develop specific software and networking tools to allow non-expert users to detect filtering and/or insecure communications and to circumvent or mitigate these practices in the safest possible manner. Third, the project will develop online resources accessible to non-technical experts covering both methods and means for securing communications, as well as providing relevant background material. By bringing together software developers, researchers and civil society actors along each of these three levels, the CiviSec Project will create both software and instructional guides that empower organizations to determine their own specific needs and take informed action when implementing privacy and security solutions.

Psiphon

psiphon is a censorship circumvention solution that allows users to access blocked sites in countries where the Internet is censored. psiphon turns a regular home computer into a personal, encrypted server capable of retrieving and displaying web pages anywhere.

Website: Psiphon

POL 108 Global Networks (with Janice Stein) Pol108 Global Networks is an introduction to global politics, with a special focus on the emergence of networks as a new formation on the world political landscape. After reviewing major features and concepts of world politics, the course then analyzes the structure and function of global networks, ranging from transnational corporations to networks of terror and criminality. Throughout the course, we probe how networks challenge some of the traditional ways we think about international relations, including the nature of state sovereignty, global governance, citizenship, accountability and legitimacy.

POL 2240 The Geopolitics of Information and Communication Technologies The Geopolitics of ICTs course is an intensive examination of the ways in which states and non-state actors are contesting the newly evolving terrain of global digital-electronic-telecommunications. Topics covered include Internet censorship and surveillance, information warfare, computer network attacks, hacktivism, and governance of global communications. The course is organized as a series of intensive modules. One feature of the class will be a “hands-on” analysis of censorship circumvention and network interrogation techniques at the Citizen Lab.