The End of Windows Local Accounts, EU Drops Chat Control, & More
Our top stories this week:
- Microsoft blocks the ability to bypass online accounts on Windows 11
- Germany confirms its opposition to Chat Control; the European Union withdraws the proposal due to insufficient support.
- Hackers breach Discord support tickets, leaking 70,000 age verification documents
- A group of American investors have acquired the NSO Group, giving a lifeline to the spyware firm after a series of crippling lawsuit decisions.
TWIP Live 🔴
Updates from the team
We are excited to announce our partnership with Bits of Freedom to help maintain FixJePrivacy.nl, a Dutch-language website providing critical privacy recommendations.
If you have not heard of Bits of Freedom yet, they are a digital rights advocacy organization based in the Netherlands. From suing Meta for their unethical feed recommendation practices to campaigning against Chat Control in the European Union, Bits of Freedom is truly awe-inspiring. We could not have picked a better organization to work with! 😅
As of September 2025, we have launched a massive update of their current website. We are not done yet though. Be on the lookout for future recommendations on AI usage and cloud storage!
Interested in learning more? Read our press release for the full details of our collaboration:
Niek de Wilde
Sources
Microsoft makes online accounts mandatory in Windows 11
The latest Windows 11 update preview has removed existing methods for bypassing the online account requirement for Windows 11. This removes commands like ms-cxh:localonly that were discovered to allow for local account creation. Current Windows 11 users are not affected until this update is formalized in the coming months.