Anas Qtiesh

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Latest posts by Anas Qtiesh

Syrian Government Blocks WordPress

  18 September 2011

Syrian Twitter users are reporting that the popular blogging platform WordPress is blocked on ISPs in the country. This move comes amidst a wave of anti-regime protests that's taking the country by storm despite being faced by a brutal governmental crackdown.

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.

Microsoft Compromises Users’ Privacy: No HTTPS in Arab Countries, Iran

  25 March 2011

With the ongoing protestes and violent crackdown from governments in the Middle East, compromising online security could have dire repercussions on the wellbeing of internet users in the region. Email security is a priority and HTTPS should be enabled by default. Gmail does that, while Microsoft allows users to choose to activate...

Syrian Blogger Ahmad Abu al-Khair Arrested This Morning

  20 February 2011

Close friends of Syrian blogger Ahmad Abu al-Khair reported that he was arrested this morning at 5:00 am local time on his way back to Damascus from the coastal city of Banias. Security forces allegedly have also confiscated his personal computers. His whereabouts are currently unknown.

Bahrain Bans BlackBerry Chat Groups

  12 April 2010

Bahrain recently banned the use of BlackBerry chat groups citing concerns over the “chaos and confusion” that would result from sharing and distributing local news through these groups, according to Abdullah Yateem, the Culture and Information Ministry assistant undersecretary for press and publication. With this move Bahrain set a precedent...