Week in Review: July 28, 2016

DNC Email Hack and Russia’s Involvement

Last week on the day after the Republican National Convention and the day Hillary Clinton announced her pick for vice president on her ticket, 20,000 emails from the Democratic National Committee were posted on WikiLeaks. The emails make evident what many Bernie Sanders supporters had suspected: many members of the DNC were biased towards the nomination of Hillary Clinton for president. However, the emails in no way indicate that members of the DNC used the organization’s resources to aid Clinton or hurt Sanders. The long-term consequences of the emails are likely to have a limited impact on Hillary’s campaign, according to Vox journalist Timothy B. Lee, though DNC chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz did resign after the emails showed that some DNC party officials were “conspiring to sabotage the campaign of Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont.” For many, the most shocking part of this email leak is not their content, but how the email leak came about. According to Motherboard at Vice, there is strong evidence that links the GRU (Main Intelligence Directorate of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation) to the DNC hack. The forensic evidence that links the DNC network breach to known groups associated with the GRU includes “used and reused tools, methods, infrastructure, even unique encryption keys.” While all facts indicate that the GRU was part of the hack of the DNC, it is less certain that the GRU was behind the release of the emails to Wikileaks, though it still is likely. Metadata in the leaked documents show that one document was modified using Russian language settings, by a user named “Феликс Эдмундович,” a code name referring to the founder of the Soviet Secret Police, the Cheka.

Facebook Accused of Censoring Posts on Indian Kashmir

Our Week in Review last week covered how mobile internet services were suspended in Kashmir in the wake of violence after the death of a Kashmir separatist leader. Mobile internet services are no longer suspended, but this week, film makers, journalists, and activists are accusing Facebook of blocking their accounts after they posted images related to violence in Kashmir. Among many Facebook users accusing the site of censoring their content, Professor Dibyesh Anand of London's Westminster University said his posts about the actions of Indian security forces were removed twice, and US-based social activist Mary Scully said her posts were also removed on more than one occasion for violating “community standards.” A Facebook spokesperson in India stated that “our Community Standards prohibit content that praises or supports terrorists, terrorist organizations or terrorism, and we remove it as soon as we’re made aware of it.” Many activists advocating for a separate Kashmir argue that speaking out against the way that Indian forces behave does not necessarily constitute support of a terrorist organization.

Pakistan’s New Cybercrime Bill Comes Closer to Becoming Law

An aggressive cybercrime bill that threatens the freedoms of all internet users in Pakistan is one step closer to becoming law. The Prevention of Electronic Crimes Bill (PECB) was approved by the country’s Senate Standing Committee on Information Technology and Telecommunications this week. The bill was previously approved by the country’s National Assembly and now only awaits the approval from the Pakistan Senate and President Mamnoon Hussain. The bill, which is advertised as legislation to crack down on cybercrime, includes measures that would help the government prevent hacki