Surveillance

The Google Pixel 9 has just been released, making this probably the best time to snap up its predecessor, the Pixel 8 – a solid phone with years-long software support – and switch to GrapheneOS along the way!

While I’m critical towards the Signal messenger, I understand that network effects are strong and even though many people would much rather prefer a different platform, it’s not easy to get friends and family onto something better. In this brief write-up, I’ll introduce an alternative Signal client to make using Signal at least slightly less troublesome.

Let’s set up and run our own “private Twitter” on Nostr, a simple, open protocol that enables truly censorship-resistant publishing on the web!

According to my analytics dashboard, there’s a 70% chance you’re reading this on your phone. Maybe at home, or maybe while commuting to work, using your mobile data connection, for which you’ve probably signed up on a mobile contract. A contract for which you had to prove that you are you, likely by showing your national ID or passport. A contract for which you have to pay regularly, probably using a bank account that you also had to identify yourself for upon opening.

… and improving your smartphone’s security along the way!

Another day, another eyebrow-raising situation unfolding at one of Europe’s privacy poster child. ProtonMail helping Swiss law-enforcement and Europol in an arrest warranted by French authorities once again shows how little the European turf can be trusted with privacy and why no customer data will ever be truly private under any industrialized nation’s jurisdiction.

Goodbye Google! For the past couple of years I’ve been using the company’s services extensively, but with the amount of scandals and privacy issues it was time to cut ties.