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A new report from Freedom House has ranked Iran the world's worst abuser of online freedoms.

"Freedom on the Net 2011" determined that the five worst countries for online freedom - based on obstacles to access, limits on content and violations of user rights - are Iran, followed by Burma, China, Cuba and Tunisia. (The last entry is certainly changed somewhat by the uprising earlier this year.)

Chinese Hackers Bring Down Change.org in Response to Ai Weiwei Campaign. Chinese government-sponsored hackers took down Change.org with a DDoS campaign after the site registered over 100,000 signatories on a petition in favor of the imprisoned Chinese artist.

Ai Weiwei had been known for his role in the construction of the Beijing Olympic stadium and as China's leading digital activist and a pioneer in the use of blogging and Twitter in China.

Love the future.

Last Wednesday, Comodo Group, the digital certificate authority and internet security, got hacked. It issued issued nine fraudulent certificates for sites run by Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Skype and Mozilla. It looks like the hack that got these certificates was run by the same Iranian cyber army that earlier hacked the Voice of America.

In a blog post, Comodo explained that login information for an affiliate was obtained and used to break into the Comodo server and issue the certificates.

Iran can now track Tor users. Tor users in Iran more than doubled to 2,800 after the 2009 presidential election. Tor, the onion-routing tool that allows users to visit the Internet without betraying what sites they are using, is now traceable by the Iranian security forces. UPI quoted Andrew Lehman, Tor's executive director, as saying the number of Tor users in Iran doubled, to 2,800 after the last election there and the protests that resulted.

The Iranians have employed "deep packet inspection" to follow Web traffic that would not normally be visible. Tor has known it was vulnerable to this type of software but had not yet developed armor against it.

Iran's regime-controlled hackers have broken into a number of websites run by the U.S.government broadcasting organization Voice of America and changed their landing pages. This was confirmed by Iran's semi-official state news agency, Fars.

The sites were reported to have been restored to normal but at last check the main English language site was still hacked.

Sometimes the US government dumps paper pamphlets out of airplanes over places it wants to see people challenge their governments. How 20th century! This weekend the US State Department started something new: Tweeting in Farsi through an account set up to speak to the people resuming protests in Iran.

@USAdarFarsi, as the account is named, now has nearly 3,000 people following it. What is it Tweeting? Calls to support public demonstrations, like in Egypt. Referencing Egypt at this point sounds like a call to overthrow the government, does it not? Decades of historical tension between the US and the Middle East, when it comes to communication policies and technology in particular, give reason to pause before assuming the State Department's social media campaigns will be received as benevolent.

A three-month investigation published Saturday by The New York Times indicates the Stuxnet virus that did damage to Iran's nuclear program may well have been a joint project between the American and Israeli government.

The "Dimona complex" located in the southern Negev desert in Israel, where that country is said to have centered its nuclear weapons program, may for two years have been the proving ground for Stuxnet as well.

While the United States seemed to move from a possible OpenID login to more of a "secure" intranet approach, Russia has moved from commercial software to open source. The two moves may not seem to have much in common, but they do. Control.

Under the banner of security, the U.S. has announced the creation of a "verified" ID program that looks for all the world like a walled, or at least fenced, section of the Internet. Russia has moved to open source not out of a philosophical belief in free software, but out of fear of American software hegemony.

Wikileaks boss Julian Assange arrested in London. Assange was arrested on outstanding rape and sexual assault charges from Sweden. Should Assange prove guilty of assaulting a woman in that country, it will put a severe ding in the public face of Wikileaks, an organization that seems highly centralized on and by Assange.

Should the prosecution prove inspired by pressure by the U.S. and others embarrassed by the release of diplomatic cables, it will probably give the organization a huge boost in credibility and justify the "infowar" in which many of his supporters fancy themselves soldiers.

Stuxnet is a computer worm that can do as much damage as a bomb could in destroying an industrial plant or military installation. The Wikipedia entry about Stuxnet says it is the first discovered worm that spies on and reprograms industrial systems.

Stuxnet's capabilities are clear following its use to attack Iran's nuclear installations. The implications are considerable. Any enterprise that uses industrial control systems could be attacked by the worm, potentially causing as much damage as any sort of explosion.