EFF's Threat Lab confirmed Meta's always-on glasses carry working facial recognition code today. The feature is hidden behind a UI switch, not absent from the device. The exposure problem is the architecture, not the marketing page. https://blackoutvpn.au/blog/meta-glasses-face-recognition-hidden

The FBI is putting $36 million on the table for nationwide license plate reader data through a commercial database, splitting the country into six surveillance zones. https://blackoutvpn.au/blog/fbi-license-plate-readers-nationwide #privacy #tech #security #surveillance

EXCLUSIVE: A worker on the Gold Coast was owed $400 in unpaid wages. He asked for three months. So he bought a domain for $7 and told the world, we interviewed him. blackoutvpn.au/blog/levit8-... #news #australia #tech #technews #exclusive #levit8

Seguritech operates over 188 command centers across 26 Mexican states, integrating cameras, drones, and facial recognition into a cross-border intelligence-sharing arrangement with US agencies. https://www.blackoutvpn.io/blog/seguritech-mexico-surveillance-us-agencies

Azerbaijan has used Pegasus-grade spyware against its own journalists and activists for years, with zero consequences. Now it is building MIRAS, a permanent national surveillance platform controlled by the State Security Service, set to go live in May 2026

FISA Section 702 was sold as a foreign surveillance tool. It captures Americans' communications too, and Congress just extended it without adding a single warrant requirement. https://blackoutvpn.au/blog/fisa-702-warrantless-extension #security #privacy #democracy #humanrights

Microsoft encrypted the Recall database after the original TotalRecall exposed it. A new tool found a side entrance that bypasses the vault entirely. https://blackoutvpn.au/blog/microsoft-recall-side-entrance #technology #privacy #microsoft

An independent audit of 7,000 websites found Google ignored Global Privacy Control opt-out signals 87% of the time. https://blackoutvpn.au/blog/opt-out-tracking-audit #privacy #technology #meta #google #socialmedia

Attackers compromised CPUID's website on April 9 and replaced download links for CPU-Z and HWMonitor with links to their own infrastructure. The installers users received carried a remote access trojan. https://blackoutvpn.au/blog/cpu-z-hwmonitor-trojanized #privacy #cybersecurity #technology

The FBI extracted deleted Signal messages from an iPhone notification database during a 2025 federal prosecution. Signal's end-to-end encryption was never broken. iOS stored the evidence https://blackoutvpn.au/blog/signal-iphone-notification-database #privacy #technology #humanrights

Millions are using AI chatbots for emotional support. That convenience hides a serious privacy problem. Therapy-level disclosures are being logged by companies that store and reuse the conversations. https://blackoutvpn.au/blog/llm-therapy-privacy-risk #mentalhealth #privacy #technology #ai

Russia's attempt to crack down on VPNs overloaded its own filtering infrastructure and knocked out banking payments nationwide. https://blackoutvpn.au/blog/russia-vpn-block-banking-crash #banking #technology #russia

Google Nest routers require cloud services enabled just to assign static IPs or set up port forwarding. Your home network data is being sent to Google whether you like it or not. https://blackoutvpn.au/blog/google-nest-router-privacy #google #technology #privacy

AI-generated slop earns $4.25 million a year on YouTube Kids by exploiting dopamine loops in developing brains. Research links heavy short-form consumption in children to developmental impairment. https://blackoutvpn.au/blog/youtube-kids-slop-problem #socialmedia #technology #youtube

Apple's age verification requirement is no longer a UK-only experiment. As of last week it is live in Singapore and South Korea as well, and the list of countries mandating it is growing. https://blackoutvpn.au/blog/apple-global-identity-checkpoint #technology #government #privacy

LinkedIn silently scans your browser for over 6,000 extensions on every page load, collecting data that can reveal your religion, politics, job hunt, and health status. None of it is disclosed in their privacy policy. https://blackoutvpn.au/blog/linkedin-6000-extension-dragnet

Quad9 is a free, Swiss-based DNS resolver that encrypts your queries, blocks malicious domains, and doesn't log your IP. It's a meaningful upgrade over your ISP's default. It's not a privacy solution on its own. https://blackoutvpn.au/blog/quad9-dns-reviewed #technology #privacy #cybersecurity

Good post on Living Off The Land (LOTL) attacks. Particularly as it mentions the risk of all the binaries included on a fresh Windows install Qubes is a fantastic OS for security. We're also big fans of installing Arch from scratch (we use arch btw lol)

A rootkit called NoVoice was hidden across 50+ Google Play apps downloaded 2.3 million times. It roots your device, survives a factory reset, and clones your WhatsApp session. blackoutvpn.au/blog/novoice... #android #cybersecurity #malware

Apple almost never patches older versions of iOS. It did for DarkSword, and the age verification features baked into iOS 26 are the most likely reason "just upgrade" stopped working as an answer. blackoutvpn.au/blog/why-app... #technology #apple #security

Zimmermann published PGP source code in a book because books are protected speech and the government couldn't ban encryption without admitting it was speech not weapons blackoutvpn.au/blog/how-phi... #tech #democracy #privacy

Every photo you take may contain your exact location down to a few meters. Not just where you were, but when, what device you used, and how the file was created and modified. blackoutvpn.au/blog/your-ph... #privacy #security #meta

Lloyds Banking Group exposed personal data of up to 447,936 customers during a software glitch on March 12. The bank is asking customers who may have screenshotted other users' information to delete it. blackoutvpn.au/blog/lloyds-... #technology #uk #infosec

Police departments promised Flock cameras would not be used for traffic enforcement then used them for traffic enforcement. blackoutvpn.au/blog/police-... #technology #police #authoritarian

A cybercrime group deployed a wiper attack targeting Iran over the weekend. The malware spreads through poorly secured cloud services and destroys data on infected systems that use Iran's time zone or have Farsi set as the default language. blackoutvpn.au/blog/wiper-t... #iran #tech #hacking

GrapheneOS announced it will not comply with laws requiring operating systems to collect user age data at setup. The privacy-focused Android fork says if devices can't be sold in regions due to regulations, so be it. blackoutvpn.au/blog/graphen... #privacy #technology #government

Angela Lipps spent 108 days in a Tennessee jail because facial recognition software identified her as a bank fraud suspect in Fargo, North Dakota. She had never been to North Dakota. blackoutvpn.au/blog/woman-s...

Navia Benefit Solutions disclosed a data breach exposing Social Security numbers, dates of birth, and personal information for 2.7 million people. blackoutvpn.au/blog/navia-b...

Investigation into Meta found workers see people using bathrooms, changing clothes, having sex, and entering credit card details. blackoutvpn.au/blog/meta-ra... #meta #privacy #technology

Oof. South Korea's National Tax Service published photos of a seized Ledger hardware wallet with the handwritten mnemonic recovery phrase visible. Someone immediately transferred $4.8 million in cryptocurrency out of the wallet. The funds are gone. blackoutvpn.au/blog/south-k...

UK Companies House exposed business data for five million registered companies from October 2025 until March 2026. blackoutvpn.au/blog/press-b... #government #privacy #infosec

14,000 routers infected with KadNap malware form a takedown resistant botnet that anonymously carries cybercrime traffic. blackoutvpn.au/blog/kadnap-...

"Any method that can be misused to surreptitiously track people's movements without their knowledge is concerning," EFF’s @cooperq.com told @CNET.com. "But so are all of the technologies in modern cars that intentionally violate drivers' privacy.” www.cnet.com/roadshow/ne...

Once again, the Australian Government has made a galaxy-brained move. What wise oracle could have POSSIBLY predicted a surge in VPN downloads. blackoutvpn.au/blog/age-ver... #government #idiocracy #technology

Microsoft security researchers discovered AI memory poisoning attacks where companies embed hidden instructions in Summarize with AI buttons. When clicked, these buttons inject commands into AI assistants telling them to remember companies as trusted sources. blackoutvpn.au/blog/compani...

New York Attorney General sued Valve for illegal gambling through loot boxes while the state runs a lottery that extracts billions from the poorest residents. The poorest Americans spend 6% of their income on lottery tickets with 1-in-45-million odds. blackoutvpn.au/blog/new-yor... #NY #news

Ring canceled its partnership with Flock Safety after weeks of public backlash over surveillance concerns. One of quite a few posts we've done on Flock / Ring's abhorrent privacy breaches. blackoutvpn.au/blog/ring-ca...

Researchers at UC Santa Cruz and Johns Hopkins hijacked self-driving cars and autonomous drones using commands written on road signs. AI systems followed illicit instructions with success rates up to 95.5% in tests. blackoutvpn.au/blog/road-si... #ai #tech #hijacking

Don’t be fooled by Ring’s latest attempt to make mass surveillance and real-time identification the new norm in our neighborhoods. www.eff.org/deeplinks/2...

Amazon launched Search Party at the Super Bowl dressed as a lost dog feature. Every enabled Ring camera in your area automatically scans for targets and reports matches to a central system without the camera owner initiating anything. blackoutvpn.au/blog/ring-lo... #ai #surveillance #ring

Criminals flood small businesses with fake one-star reviews then demand payment to stop the attack. Platforms take weeks to act, leaving businesses losing customers and revenue while the damage is done. blackoutvpn.au/blog/review-...

Windscribe VPN publicly disclosed that Dutch authorities seized one of its servers without a warrant. The company announced the incident on X and confirmed that no formal legal process preceded the seizure. Dutch law enforcement has issued no public statement. blackoutvpn.au/blog/dutch-p... #vpn

Moltbook, a social media platform for AI agents, exposed its entire production database containing user secrets and personally identifying information within days of launch. blackoutvpn.au/blog/researc... #ai #security #tech

Internal documents from Meta revealed during California lawsuits show the company knew Instagram was designed to be addictive and deliberately hid this from parents. blackoutvpn.au/blog/social-... #socialmedia #addiction #meta

Former Google engineer Linwei Ding was convicted on 14 counts for stealing over 2,000 pages of AI trade secrets and transferring them to Chinese companies. He uploaded confidential files to his personal cloud. blackoutvpn.au/blog/google-... #ai #google #china

Security researchers Joseph Thacker and Joel Margolis found that Bondu's AI dinosaur toys left over 50,000 chat logs completely exposed to anyone with a Gmail account. blackoutvpn.au/blog/dont-bu... #ai #technology #infosec

Anthropic's latest model replicated one of history's costliest breaches using only Bash and Kali Linux. No custom toolkits, no iteration, no external lookups. blackoutvpn.au/blog/ai-auto... #hacking #ai #claude #anthropic

Microsoft hands BitLocker recovery keys to law enforcement about 20 times annually when served with warrants. The keys live on Microsoft servers by default, letting federal agents unlock encrypted drives without asking the device owner. blackoutvpn.au/blog/microso... #microsoft #fbi

Over 30% of exposed Ollama servers are in China with nearly half supporting code execution capabilities. blackoutvpn.au/blog/175000-... #ai #ollama #hacking

Signal Foundation president Meredith Whittaker says AI agents embedded in operating systems are destroying the practical security of end-to-end encryption. blackoutvpn.au/blog/ai-agen... #ai #signal #agents