I'm in a country with a huge oil reserve. Olive oil, but still. Should I be worried?

the world is very efficient now. in decades past you knew this was a coup and oil companies were going to make bank, but that was the subtext. now the president just comes out and says it in the first presser.

Also if anyone is interested in the history of the United States' attempts to topple leaders in South America and install more friendly dictators then you can - and I'm not joking here - download the files from the CIA website.

A propos of nothing, this is a really good book on Cuba and its complex relationship with the United States www.adaferrer.net/cuba-an-amer...

People are going to try and lure you into debates about whether Maduro was a good guy or not and the thing is, it doesn’t matter for the purposes of discussing whether violent kidnappings and extrajudicial murders by the US government are ok. No, they aren’t! End of convo.

Let's not get distracted by Trump's outrageous craziness and forget US foreign policy hasn't been great for a long time.

The US has often acted as if it is above international law but with this, while sanctioning ICC staff, it openly considers itself thus.

podcasts

uh holy SHIT?

day one in mamdani’s new york

From last month, by @zoracon.bsky.social at @eff.org, on how age attestation and verification works and why the latter is a bad idea www.eff.org/deeplinks/20...

2025 wrapped. I was active during 365 days, one less than last year. My least active month was February. My most active months were January, March, May and four others.

Happy New Year from Africa! #greatreplacementpractice

I have a terrible memory for recipes and also, someone forgot to renew food[.]com so fingers crossed my Thai coconut rice has all the ingredients it needs.

I just sent out my first digital security newsletter of 2025. Yeah, I know. It's about spyware installed on the phone of a journalist in Belarus and what this means for spyware used against at-risk individuals. Subscribe, or read online here: travels-in-digital-security.ghost.io/30-december-...

Gambazzi, Hamou and Harpaz, who previously were sanctioned in relation to Intellexa. Got removed from sanctions today. ofac.treasury.gov/recent-actio...

For some reason I thought about Aloria today. She was an inspiring woman, and this quote about her mental health struggles will always stick with me: “It’s a long hard road ahead sometimes, but that doesn’t mean that the journey isn’t going somewhere, and it isn’t worthwhile.” A powerful reminder.

Each of these 3000 people was someone's everything.

What, in case they don't give it back?

The Access Now helpline plays such a crucial but often invisible role in the ecosystem that supports journalists and activists who are targeted by spyware (and other kinds of online bad stuff) and I'm very glad to see them profiled.

The Jakarta Method is one of the best books I read this year (it's older; I just bought it this year) and one of my favourite books on geopolitics in general. Highly recommended.

I finally found something to replace my Orkut drinking cup with.

Dean Martin, born Dino Paul Crocetti, son of Italian immigrant Gaetano Crocetti Frank Sinatra, son of Italian immigrants Antonino Sinatra and Natalina Garavanta Merry Christmas to everyone except Stephen Miller and his enablers and handlers

Two decades on, still my favourite Christmas song ftherules.net/2025/12/25/e...

This year, I once again hedged my bets and celebrated Eid al-Fitr, Passover and Christmas.

It’s never too late to choose to care about people www.bbc.com/news/article...

Still getting used to being in a majority Muslim country during Christmas. "She's working on the 25th? Oh really? What does she do?" "Oh, she's in marketing."

My favourite @themountaingoats.bsky.social songs: 1. Waving at You. 2. Color in Your Cheeks. 3. Love Love Love. 4. Lab Rat Blues. 5. No Children. 6. Going to Queens. 7. Cubs in Five. 8. Rocks on my Pockets. 9. Going to Georgia. 10. There Will Be No Divorce.

I love, love The Cords, but I keep being surprised that other people love them so much too. It really sounds like the kind of music me and a dozen others (I'm their 11th most obsessive fan on Tidal) are into. Well, I'm wrong. Also, they are really, really good. My favourite album of 2025.

Reminder that Free Palestine means free as in speech, not free as in beer.

AI tools are being used to subject women in public life to online violence. theconversation.com/ai-tools-are...

Redoing my resume and I've had such a weird career. I love it.

As I'll soon be moving on from Silent Push, I'm looking for work. Full-time, part-time, permanent or contract. Most recently, I've been researching APT groups' infrastructure, but I've done a lot of different things in my million years in cyber. A portfolio of sorts: www.lapsedordinary.net

As I'll soon be moving on from Silent Push, I'm looking for work. Full-time, part-time, permanent or contract. Most recently, I've been researching APT groups' infrastructure, but I've done a lot of different things in my million years in cyber. A portfolio of sorts: www.lapsedordinary.net

I did stand-up comedy for the first time in two years. I had missed it.

Awesome. Now do companies.

Resident.NGO has an excellent write-up of a case where a journalist was interrogated by the Belarusian KGB and then had spyware installed on their phone. The recommendations are sensible and practical resident.ngo/lab/writeups... See also this @rsf.org report rsf.org/en/exclusive...

Mood today.

New blog post for @stopstalkerware.bsky.social: EFF and AV-Comparatives: stalkerware detection is still a mixed bag stopstalkerware.org/2025/12/15/e...

The Trump admin, in its quest to eliminate the entire concept of asylum from the law and get rid of all asylum applicants without hearing their cases, wants to deport a Chinese dissident to Uganda, despite the fact that he has a slam-dunk asylum claim.

Today our team at @silentpush.bsky.social released research we’ve been working on all year – a magnum opus 39-page report on the state of Bulletproof Hosting Providers. Brief thread with some details Read the report @ www.silentpush.com/white-papers...

I just had this weird bug where I tried to look up train times for next month and the year suddenly changed to 2026.

LinkedIn suggesting connections to me: head of Citizen Lab, head of Amnesty Tech, head of NGO Group.

Pronouns: he/they Font: Calibri

Hey, there's a song about the @eff.org on De La Soul's new album www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZRW...

It's not making the news much, if at all, but things aren't going great in Tanzania cpj.org/2025/12/we-c... www.amnesty.org/en/latest/ne...

I know many people have strong opinions on naming threat actors, but I just humbly ask to give them names that aren't ambiguous for search engine alerts. ("Fancy bear" gives results sith teddy bears -- which are cute, but not super relevant -- and there are horses and rockets called Sidewinder.)

Hunting For North Korean Fiber Optic Cables Before we go any further, one thing that I want to make clear is that the word assume is going to be doing some heavy lifting throughout this post. This was a rabbit hole that I recently went down and I probably have more questions than answers, but I…

I have been thinking about this since I read it this morning. I've known Vess for years and I've never found him a pleasant person, but I am genuinely touched by his self-awareness, as well as by the reflections on his life. I will certainly remember him, including a few moments of real kindness.