Please enjoy @nslayton.bsky.social's interview with Curtis Evans, the man in this extremely badass photo. taskandpurpose.com/news/marine-...

Is this what I predicted would happen? Yes. Do I enjoy being right about this? No.

404 Media is suing ICE for documents relating to its $2 million contract with Paragon Solutions. These are the journalists you should be supporting with your subscription money because they are meeting the moment. www.404media.co/were-suing-i...

"Palantir lifestyle brand" is an extremely cursed phrase and I hate it so much. www.wired.com/story/palant...

Obviously, nothing is sure until he's actually released, but I'm so relieved that after six years in prison, Alaa will finally be free: www.theguardian.com/world/2025/s...

This is the vibe I wish to bring to the function.

If you would like for me to come to your conference or convening and give a 45-minute rant about what makes good digital privacy trainings and guides, particularly for high-risk populations, hit me up.

There is a lot of demand for digital privacy and security advice out there right now and lots of people are giving advice and writing guides. I beg them to do a few things: 1. Be explicit about the threat model your advice is meant for.

EFF and the ACLU of Northern California are calling out the San Francisco Police Department for breaking the law and sharing automated license plate reader (ALPR) data with out-of-state and federal agencies. www.eff.org/deeplinks/2...

It is unclear what kind of radical steps I will need to take in order to coax my brain into producing dopamine under these hellish conditions. Bangs? New tattoo?

Something to keep in mind if your threat model includes the possibility that your phone will be seized by ICE. techcrunch.com/2025/09/18/i...

Samsung has rolled out a software update to its smart fridges that will display ads, despite saying they had "no plans" to do so. We're headed for a future where you will have to pay extra for appliances without ads.

The difference between how long it feels like I am free-holding my handstand and the number on the stopwatch is, frankly, offensive.

Spyware industry pockets EU subsidies while snooping on its citizens www.ftm.eu/articles/spy... Great work by @vaspanagiotopoulos.com showing how EU taxpayer money funds a surveillance industry that sells to authoritarian regimes abroad.

So how is OpenAI going to know that a user is under 18? "We’re building an age-prediction system to estimate age based on how people use ChatGPT." openai.com/index/teen-s...

Sometimes my interest in state spying and my interest in stalkerware overlap in weird ways. For example, Kenya arrested four journalists, seized their devices and returned them with FlexiSpy installed: cpj.org/2025/09/spyw...

I have also been busy, but this looks very promising.

I had to spend this morning understanding the phrase "furry meme bullet" and I can confirm that this is the worst possible timeline.

Job alert! Would you like to do good? You could do good.

The easiest part of my job is being fighty and mean to powerful people when they are wrong. The hardest part of my job is being constructive and kind to people with less power than me when they are wrong.

Age verification? *4800 baud handshake noise*

Is ICE about to go buck wild using cell site simulators? Good thing EFF has a project to help you detect them: www.eff.org/deeplinks/20... www.forbes.com/sites/the-wi...

Read this investigation on US tech companies played a major role in designing and building China's surveillance state, by @dakekang.bsky.social and @yaelwrites.com apnews.com/article/chin...

I have spent 18 years working with Cindy Cohn at EFF, defending digital rights. There is no one I would rather fight beside and I cannot imagine this place without her. www.wired.com/story/eff-ci...

Tariffs are here. I have ordered a thing from abroad, had an extra 30% tacked onto the price in tariffs and fees, and now it is unclear if it has been shipped at all, if it will be shipped anytime in the near future, and when it will arrive.

If you are collecting sensitive information about users, like, I dunno...their sexual orientation...you need to take securing user data seriously.

Shout-out to the co-worker who, when discussing new EFF swag for the store says, "Give me your worst ideas. I want only your worst ideas." We are going to have so many thongs, guys.

Israeli spyware company Paragon Solutions has been bought by US private equity so a contract with ICE is cool and good now. I wonder how much of this meant to make up for brain drain from inside of the US govt. USGs biggest advantage for many years was that it built its spying tools in-house.

Nothing will stab you in the heart quite like a review of the goals you set for yourself in September of 2024, when you briefly thought that maybe you would not be spending the next year watching your country slide into fascism and authoritarianism.

This is your regular reminder that if you are developing an app that is supposed to help a vulnerable population, you need to do it WITH CONSIDERABLE INPUT FROM THE PEOPLE YOU ARE TRYING TO PROTECT. micahflee.com/unfortunatel...

You, a normal person: I guess I'll just wear this dress I got 15 years ago to the party. Me, a fashion icon: Behold! I am sporting an archival look.

NEW: WhatsApp has fixed a "zero-click" security flaw in its iOS and Mac apps that was being used to stealthily hack into Apple devices. Amnesty said the hacks were part of an "advanced spyware campaign." WhatsApp tells me they sent fewer than 200 threat notifications to affected users.

Born to give gown advice. Doomed to give digital security and privacy advice.

If you are building a product with a feature that had previously been scrapped because of "ethical concerns" and the company has suddenly decided to just shrug and do it anyway, you are building the Torment Nexus and you should fucking stop.

"Meta originally scrapped the facial recognition feature for the first generation of the Ray-Ban Meta AI glasses over ethical concerns." mashable.com/article/meta...

Listen, I can rise to meet the historical moment or I can remember to eat a sandwich, but you can't expect me to do both.

I have reached the level of angry snark at which I should be not allowed contact with the outside world, so of course I took a press call.

Heartbreaking: Worst Person You Know Just Made a Great Point www.404media.co/4chan-and-ki...

This is your regular reminder that the Citizen app was originally named Vigilante. When an app tells you what it is, believe it the first time. www.404media.co/citizen-is-u...

Stalkerware app TheTruthSpy has a security flaw that allows anyone to reset the password of any user. "the spyware operation’s director Van (Vardy) Thieu said he “lost” the source code and cannot fix the bug." techcrunch.com/2025/08/25/a...

I take it all back, there ARE violent criminals on the streets of San Francisco. They're grabbing people off the street and pepper spraying journalists.

There is a lot of disagreement about what qualifies as a "burner phone," but learning to put together a device that protects your most sensitive data from surveillance and seizure by govts and law enforcement is good, actually.

You will sure be shocked to discover that I have some things to say about AI-powered "smart" glasses that give no indication that they are recording your every word. techcrunch.com/2025/08/20/h...

The founders of the Tea app tried to recruit a female co-founder and face for the app, telling her "Tea has all the safety measures that Facebook lacked and more to ensure that only women are in the group." www.404media.co/how-teas-fou...

I made the mistake of reading the Israeli cybersecurity official gets arrested in pedo sting, released after pressure from the Trump administration story and it's a whole lot of people who describe themselves as leftists ranting about "the Jews."

I talked to 404 Media about devices for tracking and spying on your partner being sold on TikTok. This is not stalkerware, but these are devices for tech-enabled abuse and I think we should be talking about tech-enabled abuse more broadly. www.404media.co/tiktok-shop-...

"Were Olmert a student at the University today, would he be investigated by Columbia for antisemitic speech?" One of many excellent lines in this piece www.columbiaspectator.com/opinion/2025...

ICE is now clean on OPSEC. www.404media.co/ice-adds-ran...

The year is 2025 and the dystopia is so intense that I have spent all of my gown money on cheese.

"This is really the first time, that I’m aware of, where a U.S. court has found that it has jurisdiction over a spyware victim when the spying was done at the behest of a foreign government," EFF’s @davidgreene.bsky.social told @courthousenews.bsky.social.