Signal Numberless Registration is Here!
Our top stories this week:
- Signal registration without a phone number now available in Android beta
- ClickFix attacks infecting PCs and Macs are going viral
- Meta’s Copyright System Is Being Weaponized Against Albanian Protesters
- How TikTok and Google ended up with information about doctors’ appointments around the world
- Data Broker Radaris Loses Domains in Privacy Fight
TWIP Live 🔴
Updates from the Team
The Ultimate Instant Messenger Tier List
We compared the top instant messengers (and the ones not quite there yet) to find out how they stack up. Let us know where your favorite choice fell, or if we missed anything in the comments!
Privacy Guides
News Briefs
This week we covered breaking stories like Revolut suffering a data breach due to a fake government request, cops using reasons like "LOL" and random keyboard mashing when doing Flock database searches, X Chat disappearing from app stores, and UK rolling out passkeys for government portals. Check it out!
Jonah Aragon
Site Update
This week we merged a bunch of pending updates, including but not limited to:
- Added a guide to disable Windows Recall
- Removed Mullvad DNS
- Removed Haveno-Reto
- Removed Redaris
- Removed specific Arch anti-recommendations
- Clarified Tor & Mullvad Browser capabilities
- And much, much more:
privacyguides
Sources
Signal registration without a phone number now available in Android beta
A long-standing criticism of Signal has been the requirement for a phone number. While Signal does hash phone numbers and allow you to hide them publicly, it's still one more piece of data that could be used to identify you as a user. After recent rumors that Signal was working on a way to sign up without a phone number, it's finally been released into a public beta. The service is extremely limited - it's only on Android and requires Google services - but we hope in the future it will be expanded to more devices (including desktop) and payment methods, including private ones. Hopefully it will also stay affordable, but Signal says prices may change if abuse becomes too prevalent.
AboutSignal
ClickFix attacks infecting PCs and Macs are going viral
ClickFix attacks - wherein attackers use fake CAPTCHAs to trick users into downloading and executing malware - are becoming increasingly common. Reddit is now full of users reporting having been infected, and even state hackers are getting in on the action.
Dan Goodin
Meta’s Copyright System Is Being Weaponized Against Albanian Protesters
Currently, there are mass protests happening Albania over a proposed luxury resort development linked to the Trump family. Unknown parties are abusing Meta's copyright strike system to get protestor accounts banned from platforms such as Instagram. Many of the people submitting copyright strikes admit to being paid to do so, but it's unclear who's behind them.
Ruchi Kumar
How TikTok and Google ended up with information about doctors’ appointments around the world
Despite literal years of reporting from The Markup, it seems that advertising analytics tools are still reporting sensitive medical data back to companies like Google, LinkedIn, and TikTok. This investigation shows how popular this practice has become in South America, even in countries with strong privacy laws like Brazil.
Colin Lecher
Data Broker Radaris Loses Domains in Privacy Fight
And in some good news, data broker Radaris lost a court case and was forced to surrender over a dozen of their domains to the plaintiff. This article discusses the long history of that court case and Brian Krebs' previous investigations into the company. While this is a long way from destroying the data broker industry, it's a huge win worth celebrating.
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