Is someone in Egypt hijacking local internet users’ connection to secretly mine cryptocurrency? Researchers at Citizen Lab found Canadian-made “deep packet inspection (DPI) middleboxes” in Egypt (and also Turkey) that are being used “likely by nation states or ISPs” to “hijack Egyptian Internet users’ unencrypted web connections en masse, and redirect the users to revenue-generating content such as affiliate ads and browser cryptocurrency mining scripts,” the report says adding that it is “likely an effort to covertly raise money.”

The middleboxes are also being used to block websites? The report explains that this type of tech, which is made by Canada’s Sandvine (formerly Procera Networks), “can prioritize, degrade, block, inject, and log various types of Internet traffic,” going further to state that “In Egypt, these devices were being used to block dozens of human rights, political, and news websites including Human Rights Watch, Reporters Without Borders, Al Jazeera, Mada Masr, and HuffPost Arabic.” You can view the full report here. The story is being widely picked up by international news sites, including The Associated Press, QZ, The Register, ETH News, Forbes, CBC, Slate, and Cyber Scoop.