8 PSYCHOLOGICAL AND EMOTIONAL WAR Egypt,36 Ethiopia,37 Iran,38 Kazakhstan,39 Rwanda,40 Saudi Arabia,41 Syria,42 and Vietnam43—to name a few—are reported to have used various digital technologies to repress their nationals who live outside their borders. The spread of digital transnational repression is facilitated by the following key features that are unique to this phenomenon: y Low risk and scalable: While digital technologies require some financial or human investment by the government of origin, many forms of digital transnational repression can be relatively inexpensive (for example, social media harassment campaigns, the use of Skype video calls to engage in coercion-by-proxy, or online smear campaigns) and achieved at a wide scale with a significant audience.44 36 Michaelsen, “Silencing Across Borders.” 37 Bill Marczak, Geoffrey Alexander, Sarah McKune, John Scott-Railton, and Ron Deibert (2017), “Champing at the Cyberbit: Ethiopian Dissidents Targeted with New Commercial Spyware,” Citizen Lab <https:// citizenlab.ca/2017/12/champing-cyberbit-ethiopian-dissidents-targeted-commercial-spyware/>; Bill Marczak, John Scott-Railton, and Sarah McKune (2015), “Hacking Team Reloaded? US-Based Ethiopian Journalists Again Targeted with Spyware,” Citizen Lab <https://citizenlab.ca/2015/03/ hacking-team-reloaded-us-based-ethiopian-journalists-targeted-spyware/>; Bill Marczak, Claudio Guarnieri, Morgan Marquis-Boire, and John Scott-Railton (2014), “Hacking Team and the Targeting of Ethiopian Journalists,” Citizen Lab <https://citizenlab.ca/2014/02/hacking-team-targeting-ethiopianjournalists/>. 38 Michaelsen, “Silencing Across Borders”; Michaelsen, “Exit and Voice”; Michaelsen, “Far Away, So Close”; Raphael Satter and Christopher Bing (2020), “Exclusive: Iran-Linked Hackers Pose as Journalists in Email Scam,” Reuters (5 February 2020) <https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iranhackers-exclusive-idUSKBN1ZZ1MS>; John Scott-Railton, Bahr Abdul Razzak, Adam Hulcoop, Matt Brooks, and Katie Kleemola (2016), “Group5: Syria and the Iranian Connection,” Citizen Lab <https:// citizenlab.ca/2016/08/group5-syria/> [Scott-Railton et al., “Group5”]; John Scott-Railton and Katie Kleemola (2015), “London Calling: Two-Factor Authentication Phishing From Iran,” Citizen Lab <https:// citizenlab.ca/2015/08/iran_two_factor_phishing/>. 39 Eva Galperin, Cooper Quintin, Morgan Marquis-Boire, and Claudio Guarnieri (2016), “I Got a Letter From the Government the Other Day: Unveiling Campaign of Intimidation, Kidnapping, and Malware in Kazakhstan,” The Electronic Frontier Foundation <https://www.eff.org/files/2016/08/03/i-got-aletter-from-the-government.pdf>. 40 Ibid. 41 Lizzie Dearden (2019), “Human Rights Activist Launches Legal Claim Against Saudi Arabia for ‘Hacking Phone’ in UK,” The Independent UK (29 May 2019) <https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/homenews/saudi-arabia-spying-phones-ghanem-dosari-uk-spyware-pegasus-a8935331.html>; Eli Lake (2019), “The Dark Side of Israel’s Cold Peace With Saudi Arabia: The Saudis Are Using Israeli-Made Cyberweapons to Monitor and Intimidate Dissidents Abroad,” Bloomberg (3 June 2019) <https:// www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-06-03/israel-s-cold-peace-with-saudi-arabia-has-adark-side> [Lake, “The Dark Side”]; Ayman M Mohyeldin (2019), “No One Is Safe: How Saudi Arabia Makes Dissidents Disappear,” Vanity Fair (29 July 2019) <https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/07/ how-saudi-arabia-makes-dissidents-disappear>; Bill Marczak, John Scott-Railton, and Ron Deibert (2018), “NSO Group Infrastructure Linked to Targeting of Amnesty International and Saudi Dissident,” Citizen Lab, <https://citizenlab.ca/2018/07/nso-spyware-tar>; Bill Marczak, John Scott-Railton, Adam Senft, Bahr Abdul Razzak, and Ron Deibert (2018), “The Kingdom Came to Canada,” Citizen Lab <https://citizenlab.ca/2018/10/the-kingdom-came-to-canada-how-saudi-linked-digital-espionagereached-canadian-soil/>. 42 Daniel Regalado, Nart Villeneuve, and John Scott-Railton (2015), “Behind the Syrian Conflict’s Digital Frontlines,” Fire Eye <https://www.fireeye.com/content/dam/fireeye-www/global/en/current-threats/ pdfs/rpt-behind-the-syria-conflict.pdf>. 43 BR24 (2020), “Lined Up in the Sights of Vietnamese Hackers,” BR24 (7 October 2020) <https://web. br.de/interaktiv/ocean-lotus/en/>. 44 Ronald J Deibert (2020), Reset: Reclaiming the Internet for Civil Society (2020: House of Anansi Press)