UK threatens free internet, Berlin’s new police powers, Samourai Wallet sentencing, and more!
Our top stories this week:
- British government "encourages" nudity-detection systems, threatens developers for developing end-to-end encrypted apps, and targets VPN providers in latest Online Safety Act debates
- Berlin grants police sweeping surveillance powers reminiscent of the East Germany's Stasi
- Texas sues TV makers for taking screenshots of what people watch
- Samourai Wallet founders reports to prison after money laundering guilty plea
- Mozilla's new CEO wants Firefox to be "AI-First" browser
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Updates from the Team
Surprise Video?
This past weekend, Nate and Jordan crunched out an interview with journalist Taylor Loren about a few distributing laws making its way across Congress. From KOSA and the SCREEN Act to a potential overturning of Section 230, Lorenz disclosed quite a lot of insightful information in her interview.
It is indeed rare that we see someone so passionate about stopping these dystopian age verification and censorship laws in the United States. As always, we are extending a huge thank you to Taylor Lorenz for appearing on Privacy Guides!
What are you waiting for? Watch it here:
nateb
New Articles
Are you impacted by the ongoing RAM and SSD shortage? Even if you're not a custom PC enthusiast, you should be worried about the increased prices of basic consumer electronics like computers and smartphones.
I wrote an article earlier this week about the security and privacy implications of this shortage. If you're planning to buy secondhand devices, self-host for the first time, or obtain a QubesOS-compatible laptop, you should give this a read before making any final decisions.
Kevin Pham
Data Breaches
This week's data breaches include a credit check agency, SoundCloud, PornHub, Home Depot, and a third-party provider for NHS England, among more. More than one were caused be former employees retaining access that should've been revoked after their departure. Take note, sysadmins!
Sources
UK parliament debates the Online Safety Act again, but government set to introduce more invasive measures
Although Parliament is debating the Online Safety Act after a stunning 500,000 signatures on a recall petition, Britain is somehow still speedrunning a dystopian novel.
First, MPs are furious that Brits are using VPNs to dodge age verification laws They're now suggesting VPN providers should be legally forced to ID everyone, in which the Windscribe VPN CEO called it the "dumbest fix" ever.
That's not all unfortunately. A new government report suggests that building encrypted apps like Signal and WhatsApp could be classified as "hostile activity" according to the Home Office report. Apparently, it's a crime to build code now?
Finally, the Home Office also wants Apple and Google to implement nudity-detection systems into your phone. This system supposedly can detect potential nudity and lock you out unless you provide a biometric scan or ID.
Chiara Castro
Jon Brodkin
Chiara Castro
Berlin approves new expansion of police surveillance powers
As for another country, we see Germany's capitol reminisce on the good old days when the infamous Stasi was prowling the streets.
Berlin has approved a new set of surveillance powers for their police force. They now have full legal authority to target cell phones with mercenary spyware, or "Trojans". If this is not possible, police officers are allowed to break into your house to implement a surveillance system anyways.
Are you a Berliner concerned about this new move? Evil-maid attacks may be more common if you live there. Consider investing in physical security measures like a Yubikey or devices with full verified boot.
Ken Macon
Samourai Wallet founders reports to prison after money laundering guilty plea
As of this week, Samourai Wallet co-founders Keonne Rodriguez and William Hill have reported to prison after pleading guilty to building an unlicensed money transfer business. They are to serve 5 years behind bars for their actions.
Samourai Wallet has faced significant hurdles as a Bitcoin wallet and mixing services. CoinGeek states:
Unlike many coin mixers based on the Ethereum blockchain, Samourai was set up to obfuscate the digital trail of BTC tokens and to keep users’ “identity masked.” Samourai also offered a feature called Ricochet, which added “extra hops of history to your transaction” and allowed customers to “[s]tump the blacklists and help guard against unjust 3rd party account closures.”
The DOJ claimed such features were actively marketed to criminals and, in one of Rodriguez’s court hearings, Judge Cote noted a tweet from Samourai’s X account that read “Welcome new Russian oligarch Samourai Wallet users.”
Many in the privacy and crypto communities have asked us about our thoughts on this situation. While we mourn any situation where software developers are punished for developing open source code (See: Tornado Cash), Privacy Guides does not endorse any solution that does not implement privacy-by-design. This is the sole reason why Tor and Monero have not faced similar actions by the government yet; namely, they are sucessfully not tied to criminal activity by design.
James Field
Mozilla's new CEO wants Firefox to be "AI-First" browser
Mozilla has finally found a permanent CEO. Unfortunately, he appears to be all into the AI trend.
Anthony Enzor-DeMeo was appointed in the midst of a massive transition in the browser market. With the rise of AI browsers, it appears that Enzor-DeMeo is eager for Mozilla to take its fair share despite the fact that nobody wants to.
In a blog post, he acknowledges some level of self-awareness by promising that AI will remain a choice for users. But will that be enough to make Firefox profitable? We surely are skeptical.
First: Every product we build must give people agency in how it works. Privacy, data use, and AI must be clear and understandable. Controls must be simple. AI should always be a choice — something people can easily turn off. People should know why a feature works the way it does and what value they get from it.
Second: our business model must align with trust. We will grow through transparent monetization that people recognize and value.
Third: Firefox will grow from a browser into a broader ecosystem of trusted software. Firefox will remain our anchor. It will evolve into a modern AI browser and support a portfolio of new and trusted software additions.
Ram Iyer
Forum Updates
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