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Opinion

Privacy Is Like Broccoli

Background filled with numbers from 0 to 2, representing binary code separated by the character 2. Outlined in bright green color is the shape of a piece of broccoli.

If you are just starting the journey to improve your privacy online, you might feel overwhelmed by all the information you recently learned. This is normal, don't panic!

You Can Say NO

Black and white cutout photos of two hands over a blue background. One hand does an offering gesture and the other one a refusing gesture. The word "No!" is printed in the middle.

In the age of facial recognition and age verification, it might feel like our data is being harvested left and right, completely outside our control or consent. Yet, we still have a powerful weapon to fight back against surveillance: The power to say no.

Selling Surveillance as Convenience

Stylized and colorized photo of a large wooden horse standing over a blue sky.

Increasingly, surveillance is being normalized and integrated in our lives. Under the guise of convenience, applications and features are sold to us as being the new better way to do things. While some might be useful, this convenience is a Trojan horse. The cost of it is the continuous degradation of our privacy rights, with all that that entails.

Your Online Life Is IRL

Photo of an illuminated red street sign with the word Internet on it.

If you, like myself, have been inhabiting the internet for a few decades, you're probably familiar with the old adage IRL: In Real Life.

The acronym was used a lot when the distinction between online life and offline life was much greater than it is now. In today's world, can we really keep referring to our digital life as being somehow disconnected from our "real life"?

Encryption Is Not a Crime

Photo of a red key on an all black background.

Contrary to what some policymakers seem to believe, whether naively or maliciously, encryption is not a crime. Anyone asserting encryption is a tool for crime is either painfully misinformed or is attempting to manipulate legislators to gain oppressive power over the people.

The Dangers of End-to-End Encryption

An image showing a burning car

In the digital age, nothing is more important than convenience and easy access to data. Unfortunately, there has been an alarming trend among technologists to implement End-to-End Encryption (E2EE) in their applications, to the detriment of all the important work being done by countless organizations, including the best and brightest intelligence agencies and big tech companies.

No, Privacy is Not Dead: Beware the All-or-Nothing Mindset

Photo of a protest with someone holding a sign saying Fight Today For a Better Tomorrow.

In my work as a privacy advocate, I regularly encounter two types of discourse that I find very damaging to privacy as a whole. The first one is the idea that privacy is dead, implying it's not worth putting any effort to protect personal data anymore. This is the abdication mindset. This attitude is the one that scares me the most because without giving it a fight then of course the battle is lost in advance. Like a self-fulfilling prophecy, privacy is dead if you let it die.

State of the Web App: Current Woes and Promising Futures

The concept of a progressive web app is enticing: an application using web technologies that is inherently cross-platform (since it runs in a browser) and acts like a native app, even functioning offline. Support for PWAs in traditionally locked-down platforms like iOS means that PWAs can give users the freedom to install apps without having to go through Apple’s App Store. But there are problems with web content that PWAs haven't solved.

Where are all the Multi-Party Relays?

Multi-Party Relays (MPRs) are a technology that aims to provide better privacy protections than VPNs do. MPRs showed a lot of promise when they first emerged, but years later there are fewer options than ever. What happened?

Hide Nothing

In the wake of the September 11, 2001, attack on the United States, the US government enacted laws that weakened citizen privacy in the name of national emergency. This sent up many red flags for human rights and privacy advocates.

Move Fast and Break Things

Mark Zuckerberg does not look comfortable on stage. Yet, there he was proclaiming that “the future is private”. If someone has to tell you that they care about your privacy, they probably don’t.

Virtual Insanity

Not so long ago, the world was predicting the end for Facebook. Now it is no more. Gone from the face of the planet – never to be seen again. Except it isn’t.

Facebook has not disappeared. No, not even the damning ‘Facebook Papers’ can shut it down. Mark Zuckerberg stood up on stage, and announced that it had changed its name to: Meta.

Security, Privacy, and Anonymity

We may think that we know the differences between privacy, security and anonymity, however we often mix them up. People will often criticize a product or service as “not private” when they really mean “not anonymous.” Privacy, security, and anonymity often complement each other, but they are not always dependent on each other, and they are definitely not the same thing. A service can be private without being anonymous, or even secure without being private. Which one should you prioritize?

Why I Decided to Run a Tor Relay

Tor graphic

It makes me smile when I come across someone struggling with the decision of whether to get a VPN. It makes me smile not because of the indecision and relative lack of knowledge, but because it wasn't so long ago I was in exactly the same position—perceiving VPNs to be some kind of extreme measure only the paranoid and the criminal resorted to. How wrong I was.

Choosing the Right Messenger

"Choosing The Right Messenger" cover image

One of the most common questions users have when it comes to privacy is about messaging services. It seems almost all of them mention some level of privacy or encryption to entice the user to sign up for their service, but how can you be sure you’re using the most secure, privacy respecting platform?