Fort Knox still lists 147.3 million fine troy ounces of gold, but the bigger issue is trust.
Treasury says US deep-storage gold has been audited, yet critics argue that sealed vault compartments are not the same as a fresh public count, weigh, and assay.
If gold backs confidence, why should the public have to rely on old assurances?
#Gold #FortKnox #Transparency #SoundMoney #SelfSovereignty #Finance
A VPN is still useful, but it is not magic.
Wyden’s warning cuts to the heart of the problem: if a VPN hides your real location, government systems may treat that traffic as foreign and push it into looser surveillance rules under FISA 702 or Executive Order 12333.
That does not mean “never use a VPN”. It means understand the tool. A good VPN can hide your IP address from websites, apps, trackers, and dodgy public WiFi. A bad VPN can become another data broker with better branding.
The deeper issue is bigger than VPNs. It is the internet’s surveillance architecture, the third party loophole, and the idea that data loses protection once it passes through someone else’s servers.
Privacy tools matter. So do laws that stop the state buying or collecting its way around your rights.
Do you still trust commercial VPNs, or is it time to rethink the whole privacy stack?
Odysee
Is the Government Running a Dragnet on VPN Users?
Wyden has asked the government to warn Americans that the very tool millions use to protect their privacy may be used as a mass surveillance tool a...
More background:
Wyden, Padilla, Markey, Warren, Jacobs, and Jayapal Ask DNI Gabbard to Warn Americans That Using VPNs May Cause Them to Forfeit their Rights Against Warrantless Surveillance | U.S. Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon
The Official U.S. Senate website of Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon
Congressman Thomas Massie
Reps. Massie and Boebert Introduce the "Surveillance Accountability Act" to Require Warrants for Government-Initiated Searches
#Privacy #VPN #Surveillance #FISA702 #DigitalRights #SelfSovereignty #Encryption
EFF and 18 organisations are warning UK policymakers that online safety cannot be solved by locking down the open web.
Age checks and access restrictions may sound protective, but they can quickly become identity checks for everyone. That means more surveillance, more data collection, more breach risk, and less anonymity.
The real problem is deeper: platform design built around addiction, data extraction, targeted advertising, and profit over people.
Protecting children matters. But we should not accept policies that make everyone less private, less free, and more dependent on platform gatekeepers.
How do we protect people without breaking the open web?
Electronic Frontier Foundation
EFF and 18 Organizations Urge UK Policymakers to Prioritize Addressing the Roots of Online Harm
EFF joins 18 organizations in writing a letter to UK policymakers urging them to address the root causes of online harm—rather than undermining t...
#Privacy #FreeSpeech #OnlineSafety #DigitalRights #OpenWeb #UKPolitics
Age checks, digital ID, and "government by app" are being sold as conveniences and safety measures. But once proving who you are becomes the price of using everyday digital tools, privacy stops being a right and starts becoming a permission slip.
In the UK, Apple now requires some adults to verify they are 18+ for certain account actions, Ofcom says more services are introducing age checks under the Online Safety Act, and the government is consulting on a national digital ID tied to future public services.
Will you accept digital life being gated by Identity checks, or will you push back now?
#Privacy #DigitalID #OnlineSafetyAct #UKPolitics #Freedom #DigitalAutonomy #SelfSovereignty
US age verification just got worse.
A new House bill, H.R. 8250, would push age checks down into the operating system itself. That means the device becomes the checkpoint, not just the website or app.
Once you normalise controls at that layer, it becomes much easier to expand them into broader identity checks, access controls, and surveillance by design.
Do you trust your phone, tablet, or computer to become the new gatekeeper for what you can access online?
#Privacy #DigitalRights #AgeVerification #Surveillance #SelfSovereignty #FreeSpeech
EFF’s point is simple: if lawmakers want to tackle online harms, they should stop feeding the surveillance machine that creates so many of them in the first place.
A privacy-first internet means no behavioural ads, less data collection, real opt-in consent, the right to access, move, correct, and delete your data, and proper enforcement. You do not fix a broken digital world by demanding even more tracking.
How many so-called online safety laws would look very different if privacy came first?
Electronic Frontier Foundation
To Address Online Harms, We Must Consider Privacy First
In this report, we outline how many of the internet's ills have one thing in common: they're based on the business model of widespread co...
#Privacy #DigitalRights #OnlineSafety #Surveillance #DataProtection #EFF
Citizen Lab just exposed Webloc, a Penlink geolocation surveillance system built on ad-based data pulled from ordinary apps and digital advertising. According to the report, it can monitor hundreds of millions of people and give customers years of movement history.
This is the real danger of the surveillance economy. Data gathered for ads can quietly become a tool for state tracking.
How much of your life should be available for purchase?
The Citizen Lab
Uncovering Webloc: An Analysis of Penlink’s Ad-Based Geolocation Surveillance Tech
Location data collected from mobile apps and digital advertising can reveal habits, interests and almost any other aspect of someone's life. I...
#Privacy #Surveillance #ADINT #Geolocation #DigitalRights #Decentralisation
Privacy is not just a personal setting; it is a community practice.
EFF's latest piece argues that good privacy starts by asking a few simple questions together: what are we protecting, who are we protecting it from, how much inconvenience are we willing to accept, and who are our allies?
It also pushes a broader point that people often miss. Secure messaging matters, but so do your social media habits, your cloud backups, your group roles, and your response plan for when something goes wrong.
Privacy works better when communities treat it as shared infrastructure, not just an individual choice. What would a real community privacy plan look like where you are?
Electronic Frontier Foundation
Building a Community Privacy Plan
Everyone's security plans and situations will always be different, which is why we often say that security and privacy are a state of mind, no...
#Privacy #DigitalSecurity #CommunitySafety #SelfSovereignty #Signal #EFF
A teen lies about her age to join Discord. Her account gets hacked. Her dad tries to warn the support because other minors could be at risk
That is the bit that sticks with me. Platforms keep talking about safety, age assurance, and AI moderation, but when a real family needs urgent human help, the system seems to fall apart.
If a platform can infer age, lock accounts, and gate features, should it also be able to respond fast when a child account is compromised?
Ars Technica
Dad stuck in support nightmare after teen lied about age on Discord
Data dump confirms dad's suspicions that Discord knew teen's age prior to hack.
#Discord #Privacy #ChildSafety #OnlineSafety #DigitalRights #TechPolicy
The Third-Party Doctrine is one of the biggest privacy traps of the digital age.
Use a Bank's, phone company's, email host's, cloud service's, or app's services because modern life leaves you little choice, and the state argues that the moment your data touches a third party, your privacy protections weaken. That logic may have started in a different era, but in today's world, it creates a massive surveillance loophole.
Your data should not lose constitutional protection just because someone else stores it for you.
Should using modern Technology really mean giving up your rights?
#Privacy #FourthAmendment #Surveillance #DataBrokers #DigitalRights #SelfSovereignty #Decentralisation
A brutal reminder that most Windows domain takeovers do not start with movie-style hacking, they start with boring misconfigurations that no one reviewed.
This demo walks from standard user to Domain Admin by chaining insecure AD permissions, an ESC1-style certificate template issue, and certificate-based authentication. The scary bit is not that this is clever. It is what Spencer says: these are still among the most common findings in internal pentests.
If your organisation still relies on Active Directory, delegation reviews and AD CS hardening cannot stay on the "later" list.
How many environments would fail over due to a single missed permission?
#CyberSecurity #ActiveDirectory #WindowsSecurity #InfoSec #ADCS #BlueTeam #SysAdmin
Calling public concern about London crime "disinformation" does not fix the problem.
Yes, false narratives and bot activity exist. But that cannot become a catch-all excuse for brushing off real fears.
Even official London sources show serious concerns around shoplifting, theft and sexual offences. If people feel unsafe, they deserve honesty, not spin.
When criticism is dismissed as misinformation, who gets to define reality?
#London #Crime #SadiqKhan #UKPolitics #DigitalID #Privacy #CivilLiberties #Surveillance
US-Iran ceasefire: real relief or just a pause before the next shock?
Right now, markets are cheering the truce, oil has pulled back, and risk assets have bounced. But the Strait of Hormuz is still the real macro lever here. If flows stay disrupted, inflation can stay sticky, central banks stay trapped, and the relief rally can fade fast.
That is why this story matters beyond geopolitics. It hits fuel, shipping, stocks, rates, and Crypto all at once. Bitcoin may be rising with risk assets today, but it is also sitting in the middle of a world that still looks fragile.
What do you think happens next?
#Iran #USIran #StraitOfHormuz #Oil #Inflation #Macro #Markets #Bitcoin #Crypto #Geopolitics
Apple just moved age checks closer to the device itself.
If adults must prove who they are to unlock normal access, that is not safety; that is infrastructure for control.
Today, it is age assurance. Tomorrow, it is digital ID by default.
Are you comfortable with your phone becoming an Identity checkpoint?
#Apple #Privacy #DigitalRights #AgeVerification #DigitalID #UK
France is showing two radically different faces right now.
On one side, the state is talking digital sovereignty, moving government desktops from Windows to Linux and shifting 80,000 Health Insurance Fund staff onto sovereign open-source tools.
On the other hand, GrapheneOS says it is leaving France after threats, smear campaigns, and pressure tied to encryption and device access.
That contradiction should alarm everyone. Open source for institutions, but hostility towards privacy tools for people is not sovereignty. It is controlled by wearing a nicer mask.
How can a government praise digital independence while treating strong privacy like a threat?
The Nordic Times
GrapheneOS exits France after threats and smear campaign - The Nordic Times
French authorities have attempted to force developers to install backdoors in the highly secure and privacy-focused mobile operating system.
#Linux #OpenSource #DigitalSovereignty #Privacy #GrapheneOS #Encryption #France #SelfSovereignty
Privacy gets treated like a nuisance right up until the day you need it most.
This week's privacy roundup is a bleak one: Microsoft's account suspensions hit key security tools like WireGuard and VeraCrypt, while employers are increasingly being accused of using personal data to work out the lowest wage you'll accept. That is the same old story in a new form: more control for platforms, less power for ordinary people.
At some point, we need to ask whether modern tech is being built for user safety, or for bureaucracy, profiling, and lock-in.
How much more "security theatre" are people expected to tolerate before they push back?
StreamYard
Why Does Microsoft Hate Security? | This Week in Privacy #48 (Apr 10, 2026)
Microsoft is suspending developer accounts for key privacy tools like VeraCrypt and Wireguard, Employers are using your personal data to figure out...
#Privacy #Security #DigitalRights #WireGuard #VeraCrypt #Microsoft #Surveillance #DataPrivacy #SelfSovereignty
Whether you agree with Daily Expresso or not, this row says something bigger about British politics right now: Labour looks nervous, Starmer still faces questions over authority, and the 7 May local elections could become a public verdict on leadership, workers' rights, and where the country goes next. Is this just media theatre, or are the cracks inside Labour getting harder to hide?
#UKPolitics #KeirStarmer #Labour #AngelaRayner #LocalElections #WorkersRights #FairWorkAgency
Stop Killing Games is no longer just a petition people can laugh off. UFC-Que Choisir is suing Ubisoft in France over The Crew, and the case goes right at the heart of the scam: calling something a purchase, then treating it like a revocable permission slip.
If courts agree that games sold to players must remain usable, this could hit far beyond Ubisoft. It could reshape how publishers handle shutdowns, ownership, refunds, preservation, and live service design across Europe.
Are we finally about to test whether buying a game means anything at all?
#StopKillingGames #Ubisoft #TheCrew #ConsumerRights #GamePreservation #Gaming
The UK says this is about online safety, but the pattern is getting harder to ignore: stronger age checks, pressure on encrypted services, and digital ID systems that make it easier to tie your online life back to the state.
The danger is not just what today's government does with these powers. It is the infrastructure they leave behind for the next one. Once privacy is weakened and Identity becomes easier to track across services, that switch rarely gets handed back to you.
At what point does "safety" become a permanent excuse for surveillance?
#Privacy #Surveillance #OnlineSafetyAct #Encryption #DigitalRights #UK
Passkeys are one of those rare bits of security tech that are both safer and easier to use.
Instead of memorising a password that can be stolen, guessed, or phished, your device proves it's really you with your fingerprint, face, or PIN. The site gets a secure cryptographic check, not a reusable secret. That is the shift.
This is exactly the kind of security people actually need: simple enough for everyday users, strong enough to cut down on phishing and password theft.
Are you already using passkeys, or are passwords still your default?
#Passkeys #CyberSecurity #Privacy #DigitalSecurity #TechExplained #SelfSovereignty