WEBVTT Kind: captions Language: en 00:00:02.220 --> 00:00:10.680 This week's surveillance report covers three cracks in Apple's armor that users should definitely act on, and I want to make sure you guys know how to proceed forward. 00:00:11.300 --> 00:00:22.480 Browsers are quietly getting a little bit less private, a court forcing Google to open the Play Store and that they're not happy with their recent flow, and the usual data breaches, threats, and open source updates. 00:00:22.980 --> 00:00:28.040 Welcome, everybody, to the Techlore Surveillance Report, your essential weekly tech news delivering 00:00:28.160 --> 00:00:33.220 deep analysis on the latest threats to security, privacy, and digital freedom, and of course, 00:00:33.500 --> 00:00:37.820 empowering you to reclaim control and defend your rights. 00:00:38.020 --> 00:00:42.440 So the highlight story I'm breaking up into kind of three unique stories, starting with 00:00:42.440 --> 00:00:46.440 the first one being this tech radar piece, which I think is quite interesting. 00:00:46.460 --> 00:00:48.120 They bring up lots of good points. 00:00:48.400 --> 00:00:50.640 Apple has a couple privacy-focused features. 00:00:50.880 --> 00:00:57.060 The first one is Apple's iCloud Private Relay. This is essentially their VPN-style feature that 00:00:57.200 --> 00:01:01.580 lives inside of Safari. The actual white paper and the methodology behind the feature is very 00:01:01.880 --> 00:01:06.620 impressive, but here's the thing. There is a browser called Silo from the security research 00:01:06.920 --> 00:01:11.100 team MISC, and they discovered some issues with Private Relay, the first of which was a vulnerability 00:01:11.250 --> 00:01:16.360 which involved DNS prefetching, which is a feature designed to speed up browsing, but Safari was 00:01:16.380 --> 00:01:22.960 incorrectly resolving domain queries outside that secure proxy tunnel, leaking users' real DNS server. 00:01:23.180 --> 00:01:27.040 The second leak is through something called Web Transport, which is a protocol designed to enable 00:01:27.280 --> 00:01:32.400 faster communication between the browser and the website. And they found that that exact protocol is 00:01:32.540 --> 00:01:38.280 exposing the real user's IP address, even if they had private relay enabled. They also discovered that 00:01:38.280 --> 00:01:43.460 the passkey system specifically, which allows passwordless logins, also bypasses the proxy and 00:01:43.480 --> 00:01:48.460 reveals users' IP addresses. The second privacy-exclusive feature that was impacted was 00:01:48.620 --> 00:01:53.500 Hide My Email, which again is used to hide your email address from different websites. And what's 00:01:53.800 --> 00:01:57.520 crazy about this is this was discovered from the founders of Easy Opt Outs. They've been a 00:01:57.700 --> 00:02:01.900 recurring sponsor of this podcast, so it's kind of fun to see them discover this issue organically 00:02:01.930 --> 00:02:05.800 in the wild. They said that while they were investigating bounce issues to try to figure 00:02:05.940 --> 00:02:09.440 out why emails weren't being delivered, they noticed that they were seeing the customer's 00:02:09.460 --> 00:02:13.960 real email addresses in addition to their hide my email addresses in the bounce logs. 00:02:14.350 --> 00:02:17.820 They reported it to Apple and after a few months of no resolution, they just went to 00:02:17.820 --> 00:02:20.180 the media because that was the best way to get things done. 00:02:20.310 --> 00:02:24.220 A week after the news came out, they finally got it patched on July 7th. 00:02:24.480 --> 00:02:25.280 So those are the two issues. 00:02:25.450 --> 00:02:29.980 I thought it was kind of fun that these two people who have privacy based projects actually 00:02:30.140 --> 00:02:31.480 were the people who discovered these issues. 00:02:31.660 --> 00:02:34.000 So props to the privacy world for figuring these out. 00:02:34.480 --> 00:02:39.160 But also the tech radar piece has some really interesting commentary of like, hey, 00:02:39.660 --> 00:02:44.840 You know, there are these holes that are starting to open up in Apple's privacy in their ecosystem. 00:02:45.260 --> 00:02:50.940 And also the people that discovered these issues, both Murphy from Easy Optouts and also the MISC team, 00:02:51.160 --> 00:02:53.880 said that like these issues should have never happened in the first place. 00:02:54.160 --> 00:02:54.980 These are pretty embarrassing. 00:02:55.150 --> 00:02:57.700 And also Apple's just not taking this seriously. 00:02:57.730 --> 00:03:00.760 They seem to wait too long to take actually deal with these issues. 00:03:01.420 --> 00:03:03.480 And then it's kind of just leaving their users in the dark. 00:03:03.670 --> 00:03:08.760 So when I see security researchers and people who discover these issues all say the same thing, 00:03:08.920 --> 00:03:13.440 which is they are unhappy with how Apple deals with these issues, how they respond to them, 00:03:14.000 --> 00:03:18.480 and that they don't get them fixed typically in the way that they should until they finally make 00:03:18.480 --> 00:03:23.720 a big scene about it and then Apple decides to quietly fix it. That's a real problem. And so I 00:03:23.860 --> 00:03:28.060 think that's my biggest concern. And it's something that Apple really needs to figure out if they want 00:03:28.140 --> 00:03:34.340 to retain that kind of, I don't know, reputation that they've built up. I mean, Murphy from Easy 00:03:34.540 --> 00:03:38.880 Optouts even said, I'm personally a little surprised the hive my email issue ever even 00:03:38.900 --> 00:03:43.180 into production. I also think that the private relay issue is something that has been this 00:03:43.400 --> 00:03:48.180 recurring issue with Apple that I'm quite annoyed about too, is Apple just clearly does not kind of 00:03:48.380 --> 00:03:55.740 care whatsoever about users' IP-based protection. Even if private relay properly tunneled all of 00:03:55.740 --> 00:04:00.020 your Safari traffic, why is it only in Safari? Like, why can't they enable it system-wide? 00:04:00.340 --> 00:04:04.900 And then even if you get a system-wide VPN, let's say you go with Mullvad or you go with Obscura, 00:04:05.040 --> 00:04:11.500 you go with iVPN, Windscribe, Proton, whichever VPN you pick, none of them right now in 2026 can 00:04:11.760 --> 00:04:16.680 actually guarantee that 100% of your web traffic on an iPhone actually goes through the VPN tunnel 00:04:17.019 --> 00:04:21.340 because Apple still does these random ass exclusions for your web traffic. So this is 00:04:21.459 --> 00:04:25.160 something that people don't really know about or think about. And it's something that I think Apple 00:04:25.340 --> 00:04:30.320 really needs to take seriously. Apple is trying to sell this idea that we deliver this much privacy 00:04:30.340 --> 00:04:36.020 and security to you. And actually, I would say that a lot of it's true. But those little 00:04:36.360 --> 00:04:41.300 differences where they actually aren't meeting kind of the marketing that they imply are major 00:04:41.560 --> 00:04:45.620 issues, especially for people with higher threat models. Where I push back on TechRadar's coverage 00:04:45.840 --> 00:04:49.640 is they say that this is the issue when you just choose one provider to keep you safe. 00:04:49.980 --> 00:04:53.800 I don't fully agree with that. I think there are some situations where I'd say there actually is 00:04:53.900 --> 00:04:58.620 one provider that can do a few things very well. I think Proton's a good example of this. Tud is a 00:04:58.620 --> 00:05:03.420 good example of this. We have some VPN companies that also expand beyond just offering a VPN 00:05:03.900 --> 00:05:08.980 provider. I would be making this more of an exclusive Apple issue. I think it almost discounts 00:05:09.190 --> 00:05:13.780 the responsibility Apple should be taking if they just say, oh, this is what happens when one company 00:05:13.980 --> 00:05:17.560 does, you know, all these privacy things. And it's like, I actually think theoretically, 00:05:18.230 --> 00:05:22.480 they can do it right. And it doesn't have to be a compromise. So I actually would like to see a 00:05:22.510 --> 00:05:27.100 little bit more blame on Apple here. And what Apple's doing internally, how they're not taking 00:05:27.120 --> 00:05:32.200 security researchers seriously. Clearly, their response times are whack. And there's not enough 00:05:32.380 --> 00:05:35.740 transparency and disclosure on how they handle this. Now, before moving on to the next story, 00:05:35.920 --> 00:05:43.120 just to make it very crystal clear, Apple has not fixed that private relay issue. So if Safari and 00:05:43.300 --> 00:05:48.300 your IP address being safe in Safari is something that is a must for you, definitely stop using 00:05:48.540 --> 00:05:52.980 private relay. And this is unfortunate because it's a tool that I actually have some appreciation 00:05:52.980 --> 00:05:57.520 for and I've used it in the past. But I think in light of this, we should definitely hold off until 00:05:57.640 --> 00:06:01.780 there's more information and Apple decides to treat this a little bit more seriously. The hide my email 00:06:02.060 --> 00:06:07.280 issue is fixed, though, again, I think it doesn't really fully dismiss maybe the longer term concerns 00:06:07.320 --> 00:06:12.120 of how Apple is dealing with these issues. Now, the second story is regarding a vulnerability on 00:06:12.280 --> 00:06:17.020 macOS. I'd say this is more of a typical vulnerability that we'll find in different 00:06:17.220 --> 00:06:21.460 operating systems and software. But it's a screen sharing bug that let remote hackers log in without 00:06:21.480 --> 00:06:25.860 a password. And I think the few takeaways I have to share with you on this one is one, 00:06:26.190 --> 00:06:30.260 get yourself updated because Apple already patched it in Tahoe, Sequoia, and Sonoma. 00:06:30.740 --> 00:06:35.960 Any computer out there, check your screen sharing setting right now to see if that's enabled. And if 00:06:36.060 --> 00:06:40.720 it's not used for anything, turn it off. That's a very easy thing to reduce your attack surface on. 00:06:41.180 --> 00:06:45.420 But the macOS firewall opens the port when you enable screen sharing. Routers and dedicated 00:06:45.640 --> 00:06:49.320 firewalls generally block the port unless configured to override that setting. So just 00:06:49.520 --> 00:06:54.360 check your firewall. The macOS firewall for a lot of people isn't enabled by default. And so this is 00:06:54.580 --> 00:06:59.580 another reminder to check your firewall settings in macOS. If you're curious, go into your system 00:06:59.880 --> 00:07:05.440 preferences, go to network and then go to firewall and turn that on. And if you have a little bit more 00:07:05.640 --> 00:07:10.700 know-how, go ahead and customize it so you can strengthen things a little bit better. And now the 00:07:10.960 --> 00:07:15.520 third Apple story I think is actually where Apple shines a little bit better, especially from the 00:07:15.540 --> 00:07:21.660 security side of things, which is that Apple has alerted tons of people out there that they are 00:07:21.730 --> 00:07:27.620 being targeted by spyware. Some context, if you're new, there are pretty much these, a lot of times 00:07:27.740 --> 00:07:32.900 governments, it seems like, but they are using these spyware attacks where they purchase unknown 00:07:33.180 --> 00:07:39.120 vulnerabilities for, you know, things like iOS, Android, etc. And they individually target people. 00:07:39.530 --> 00:07:44.060 Now, these are typically state-sponsored, and they are typically a lot of money, and it's not 00:07:44.000 --> 00:07:49.360 something that is typically, I'm saying typically a lot here, because this isn't the kind of thing I 00:07:49.480 --> 00:07:56.060 want just, you know, regular person, a teacher, you know, someone who goes to their small business 00:07:56.190 --> 00:08:00.980 in the morning, who is serving, you know, coffee, their cafe, etc. Like, that's not the person who 00:08:01.060 --> 00:08:05.700 needs to be worried about this. But what is concerning is that this specific batch of 00:08:06.100 --> 00:08:12.180 notifications sent out to people who were targeted, which Apple does do, was higher in number than 00:08:12.200 --> 00:08:17.080 normal. So we saw people like iVerify, the cybersecurity firm, and we also saw another 00:08:17.210 --> 00:08:23.720 firm called Access Now, who reported that they saw a good significant bump in what they normally get 00:08:23.750 --> 00:08:29.160 when people start receiving these notifications. So remember, guys, Hide My Email issue was fixed, 00:08:29.210 --> 00:08:33.039 though you can still move to a dedicated aliasing service, which I recommend because that gives you 00:08:33.039 --> 00:08:38.159 more ownership regardless. And there's nothing that Hide My Email is doing that's any more privacy 00:08:38.300 --> 00:08:42.159 respecting those services. In fact, those services are open source and they have some other benefits 00:08:42.180 --> 00:08:44.500 I would say outperform hide my email. 00:08:45.060 --> 00:08:46.600 Private Relay is really hard to replicate. 00:08:46.900 --> 00:08:48.260 It's actually a really interesting service. 00:08:48.390 --> 00:08:50.180 And again, on paper, it's very cool. 00:08:50.700 --> 00:08:53.440 But in light of this issue, you should really proceed carefully. 00:08:53.570 --> 00:08:57.920 Make sure to update macOS for that vulnerability on macOS and also check your firewall settings. 00:08:58.320 --> 00:09:00.740 Enable lockdown mode if you are concerned about those notifications. 00:09:01.130 --> 00:09:04.380 And especially if you got one of those, contact some digital rights organizations. 00:09:10.720 --> 00:09:14.720 All right, coming soon, we have a judge giving Google one week to fix their anti-competitive 00:09:14.900 --> 00:09:19.100 Play Store, and we have France. I actually had some really good news, but before we get there, 00:09:19.480 --> 00:09:23.340 we have a quick story on a couple things regarding your browsers that I wanted to flag, 00:09:23.560 --> 00:09:27.080 which I think are quite important regarding the privacy of all of your web browsing. 00:09:27.660 --> 00:09:32.160 So the first one is that there were hundreds of fake Chrome VPN extensions that route traffic 00:09:32.400 --> 00:09:38.100 through a proxy. The specific number was 737 browser extensions that were published on the 00:09:38.080 --> 00:09:42.980 official Chrome web store that impersonated well-known VPN and proxy services. These 00:09:43.220 --> 00:09:48.940 impersonations impacted things like ProtonVPN, NordVPN, Surfshark ExpressVPN, and even Cloudflare's 00:09:49.080 --> 00:09:54.740 1.1.1.1 DNS resolver. What's fascinating is that Google removed more than 200 of the extensions 00:09:55.060 --> 00:09:59.020 related to the identified campaign. Over 500 of them, though, at the time of them writing this, 00:09:59.360 --> 00:10:04.960 were still available in the Chrome web store. Guys, I continue to say this, and I don't know 00:10:04.900 --> 00:10:11.440 how else I can say this to get people just more aware of these issues. Extensions are like crazy 00:10:11.660 --> 00:10:15.940 right now. I mean, the Chrome Web Store, all these big tech companies try to come forward and say, 00:10:16.280 --> 00:10:20.420 you know, the only safe way to get software is through our app stores because we vet things so 00:10:20.600 --> 00:10:25.480 carefully. And then meanwhile, we see stuff like this, or even after they find the issue, 00:10:25.560 --> 00:10:30.459 they still haven't actually removed 500 different things that are straight up impersonating 00:10:30.480 --> 00:10:35.800 legitimate projects. So it is really bad. I would always, especially the Chrome Web Store, 00:10:36.310 --> 00:10:40.440 second guess everything I'm installing. Personally, for me, I almost never install extensions. You 00:10:40.520 --> 00:10:44.620 should try to avoid them at all costs just for privacy and security reasons. But if you do need 00:10:44.630 --> 00:10:48.180 an extension in your browser, which definitely happens, I'm not saying people should just never 00:10:48.420 --> 00:10:53.300 install an extension. But when it happens, go to the official developer's website. So if I'm getting 00:10:53.350 --> 00:10:59.220 the ProtonVPN extension, I'm going to ProtonVPN's website and looking for their download extension 00:10:59.240 --> 00:11:04.240 button and having it redirect me to the Chrome web store. I'm not going to my search engine where 00:11:04.340 --> 00:11:08.940 there could be some search advertisements that takes me to the wrong page. I'm not going to the 00:11:09.020 --> 00:11:14.480 Chrome web store and relying on their search, which may or may not actually give me the right thing. 00:11:14.900 --> 00:11:20.500 I'm going to the actual website that belongs to the verified developer. And that is a general 00:11:20.820 --> 00:11:25.319 thing you should always strive for when you're downloading software. The next story is from 00:11:25.340 --> 00:11:29.620 AdGuard, and it's pretty much just a quick announcement that Microsoft Edge is finally 00:11:29.920 --> 00:11:35.100 preparing to say goodbye to Manifest V2. So a bit of context here, there is an underlying extension 00:11:35.340 --> 00:11:40.740 technology that enables extensions to do things in your browser. Manifest V2 is what we've been 00:11:40.830 --> 00:11:44.880 using for a very long time, and it's what's enabled ad blockers and all these wonderful 00:11:45.060 --> 00:11:51.080 things that we know and have grown to love. But Manifest V3 is the new version, and while there 00:11:51.060 --> 00:11:56.080 are some interesting things that it does. It does a lot to limit things like ad blockers, and it 00:11:56.180 --> 00:12:00.700 makes it a little bit more challenging for ad blocker developers to be able to do the same job 00:12:00.810 --> 00:12:05.540 they did in v2. They say that there still are some restrictions despite their head start with v3, 00:12:05.760 --> 00:12:09.220 which is rule counts are limited. Certain filtering techniques cannot be reproduced exactly, 00:12:09.290 --> 00:12:13.800 and most filter updates must still be delivered with the extension itself. Maintaining functionality 00:12:14.060 --> 00:12:18.300 close to our MV2 version therefore takes more work, while some improvements may take longer to 00:12:18.320 --> 00:12:22.680 reach users. So this is just a heads up. I mean, it's already happened in Google Chrome. Google 00:12:22.720 --> 00:12:27.980 Chrome already has, for the most part, largely ruled out MV2. And it's why we see things like 00:12:28.500 --> 00:12:34.060 uBlock Origin Lite instead now, which is the MV3 version of uBlock Origin. And this is just to say 00:12:34.160 --> 00:12:40.320 that Edge is now following in their footsteps. And so if you want a browser that doesn't do this 00:12:40.320 --> 00:12:46.319 and still supports MV2, Firefox has committed to support MV2 kind of indefinitely. I wouldn't 00:12:46.340 --> 00:12:50.700 expect these browsers to do it forever, but they still do it. The Brave browser still allows it. 00:12:50.900 --> 00:12:56.100 In fact, in the Brave browser settings, if you type manifest, and I'm showing this on screen, 00:12:56.190 --> 00:13:00.720 you're going to see a whole section in the Brave browser settings called manifest v2 extensions. 00:13:01.320 --> 00:13:07.220 And they literally let you actively enable AdGuard or uBlockOrigin, NoScript or uMatrix in the Brave 00:13:07.360 --> 00:13:12.779 browser as the MV2 variants. They actively still support that in the Brave browser. I believe 00:13:12.800 --> 00:13:17.080 Vivaldi does as well. And pretty much any other Firefox fork should as well. Pretty much if you're 00:13:17.240 --> 00:13:21.800 using a browser that's not from a big tech company, you're still fine. And if you're using a browser 00:13:21.900 --> 00:13:27.420 from a big tech company, you're kind of not fine. Coincidence? I think not. All right, guys, we have 00:13:27.560 --> 00:13:31.560 a judge giving Google one week to fix their anti-competitive Play Store. And we have France, 00:13:31.700 --> 00:13:34.900 which had some really good news. But we have a quick message from our sponsor. 00:13:36.760 --> 00:13:42.760 Quick one, go into your email inbox right now and type in unsubscribe. However, many hundreds or 00:13:42.780 --> 00:13:48.420 of results you just got, that's how many companies have your real email address. So the moment any of 00:13:48.420 --> 00:13:53.280 them gets breached or quietly sells you out, it's your real inbox eating the spam, the trackers, 00:13:53.520 --> 00:14:00.000 and the hackers forever. Addy.io is designed to fix this entire problem. The whole idea is you 00:14:00.220 --> 00:14:05.600 stop giving out your real email address and instead hand every single site its own alias that just 00:14:05.860 --> 00:14:11.120 forwards to the inbox you already have. Think like Apple hide my email, except it's open source and 00:14:11.140 --> 00:14:15.480 you can bring it to any email inbox. And my favorite part is that once you get all your 00:14:15.700 --> 00:14:19.760 accounts using an email alias, you can always swap the email provider behind the scenes, 00:14:19.950 --> 00:14:25.080 like moving from Gmail to a private email provider without needing to update every single account's 00:14:25.450 --> 00:14:29.520 email. And it's possible because you're really just putting Addy in front of your email. It's 00:14:29.600 --> 00:14:33.740 like your email bodyguard. This also offers a lot of protection. If a site starts to spam you, 00:14:34.060 --> 00:14:38.100 or you show up in a data breach, or you realize they sold your data because that one specific 00:14:38.100 --> 00:14:42.300 alias suddenly started getting junk, you just deactivate the alias. It's fully open source, 00:14:42.540 --> 00:14:45.980 so you're not trusting a black box. And you can even self host the entire thing if you're that 00:14:46.040 --> 00:14:50.140 kind of person, which I know many of you are. It's on F Droid, there are browser extensions and 00:14:50.240 --> 00:14:53.960 mobile apps so you can spin up a fresh alias right as you're signing up for something. And if you 00:14:54.040 --> 00:14:57.700 want to go all in, you can even use it with your own custom alias. It's free to start and they have 00:14:57.700 --> 00:15:02.320 a crazy generous free plan to get started. Visit Addiio or just check them out down in the description. 00:15:02.540 --> 00:15:04.980 And thank you guys for sponsoring us. Now back to the video. 00:15:05.000 --> 00:15:16.020 go. The fun thing about Addy.io sponsoring this is it's actually a really good solution to that 00:15:16.220 --> 00:15:21.380 first vulnerability we talked about with Apple, the Hide My vulnerability. So Addy.io is a really 00:15:21.550 --> 00:15:27.020 perfect swap in if you use the Hide My ecosystem. Now, the next story here is that a judge has given 00:15:27.170 --> 00:15:32.680 Google one week to fix their anti-competitive app store download in Google Play. This has to do with 00:15:32.700 --> 00:15:39.320 a story we just recently covered, which is that Google and Epic have this ongoing thing happening, 00:15:39.520 --> 00:15:44.600 and Google finally has decided, hey, we're going to allow third-party app stores inside of the 00:15:44.640 --> 00:15:49.200 Google Play Store. Now, what's quite fascinating is we have a few things happening at the same time. 00:15:49.240 --> 00:15:53.720 We have Google coming forward and making this concept of air quotes, sideloading, 00:15:54.200 --> 00:15:58.640 a bit harder to do. You have to go through this advanced flow, you have to activate developer 00:15:58.640 --> 00:16:03.860 settings, and then you have to reboot your phone, you have to wait 24 hours, and you have to confirm 00:16:04.080 --> 00:16:09.100 that you actually are doing this at your own will. And while they're doing that, they're now making it, 00:16:09.660 --> 00:16:15.880 I guess, in theory, possible to get third-party app stores from the Play Store. But that comes 00:16:15.960 --> 00:16:21.000 with a lot of kind of caveats. You have to pay to get in there, they have to still let you in there, 00:16:21.380 --> 00:16:26.960 and it's kind of Google, in some ways, in my view, still taking a lot more control. Because you have 00:16:26.900 --> 00:16:31.480 to go through some confusing menus, the lawyer showed the court that even searching for App Store 00:16:31.680 --> 00:16:36.340 and Aptoid, which is the first App Store on there, didn't show the intended results like any other 00:16:36.600 --> 00:16:40.740 search. Instead, the Play Store shows an are you looking for banner that links to the third-party 00:16:40.960 --> 00:16:45.800 App Store page. They say another problem is the process of actually installing the store. When you 00:16:45.920 --> 00:16:50.780 finally get to the page with Aptoid and eventually other stores, there is actually no install button 00:16:51.080 --> 00:16:56.860 as you'd get with a normal app or game from the normal store. A view button opens another dialogue 00:16:56.880 --> 00:17:01.200 to actually install. They said this additional step was unnecessary and seemed geared towards 00:17:01.420 --> 00:17:05.780 discouraging users from downloading alternative stores. He said the button must change to install 00:17:06.150 --> 00:17:10.220 instead of view. So that's just one more thing that Google was doing to make it harder. Google's 00:17:10.319 --> 00:17:14.439 legal team agreed to make the changes and they gave the company one week noting they should contact 00:17:14.680 --> 00:17:19.600 them if there's any problem with that timeline. So it should be a little bit easier. Now, again, 00:17:19.750 --> 00:17:24.500 I think that this is maybe winning. Was it winning the battle but losing the war? Is that I think 00:17:24.500 --> 00:17:29.840 that's the right order of things, but they're still ultimately making it harder to actually 00:17:30.060 --> 00:17:33.700 get these app stores away from the Google Play Store, which has its own problems. 00:17:33.920 --> 00:17:35.520 Like, I think, yes, it's good. 00:17:35.760 --> 00:17:39.000 You know, we have things going through the Google Play Store, but Google's really still 00:17:39.600 --> 00:17:43.520 ultimately kind of winning if they're still requiring people to go through the Google 00:17:43.700 --> 00:17:43.940 Play Store. 00:17:44.080 --> 00:17:47.400 What happens to users who use custom ROMs who don't want to use the Google Play Store? 00:17:47.760 --> 00:17:48.640 How do they get software? 00:17:49.020 --> 00:17:51.920 Oh, Google's making that harder and more obnoxious for third-party developers. 00:17:52.040 --> 00:17:53.560 So that's still a net loss, right? 00:17:54.060 --> 00:17:57.620 So I'm still very kind of mixed on this whole story. 00:17:57.810 --> 00:18:03.140 What needs to also be targeted is Google's clamping down of things outside of the Play Store 00:18:03.540 --> 00:18:08.680 as they're opening up the Play Store and requiring these third-party app stores to pay them money. 00:18:08.940 --> 00:18:12.420 While, again, this is a small win, I'm kind of looking at this overall theme 00:18:12.450 --> 00:18:16.180 and trying to figure out how does this impact the broader Android ecosystem, 00:18:16.500 --> 00:18:21.420 and is this really fixing those other concerns that I'm kind of watching for? 00:18:21.800 --> 00:18:25.540 So keep an eye out on this, and I'll be updating the podcast as more information comes to light. 00:18:31.560 --> 00:18:35.660 The next story is genuinely super good news, at least for now. 00:18:36.280 --> 00:18:40.140 France's top court has blocked social media ban for under 15. 00:18:40.480 --> 00:18:43.800 So these social media bans have been popping up all over the world. 00:18:43.820 --> 00:18:48.720 The entire concept is we're not going to actually hold big tech companies accountable. 00:18:49.160 --> 00:19:05.500 Instead, we're going to let them do what they've been doing for years, which is manipulating people, giving them infinity scroll feeds, letting them do scroll, letting them do whatever, giving dark patterns, not being transparent about data collection, doing everything possible to exploit humans and their basic autonomy, right? 00:19:05.720 --> 00:19:11.800 If you're under 15 or under 16 or whatever age we decide, we're just going to not let you on those platforms. 00:19:12.180 --> 00:19:14.800 And that is our solution, apparently, to this problem. 00:19:15.140 --> 00:19:20.840 This is a clear privacy issue because now you're requesting that people upload their ID to the very platforms that are a problem. 00:19:21.200 --> 00:19:24.600 The only way to verify who's a child and who's an adult is for everyone to upload their ID. 00:19:25.160 --> 00:19:28.800 We've seen data breaches as a result of these kind of ID uploads. 00:19:29.170 --> 00:19:36.920 And now it feels like, to me, the individual is being regulated instead of the big tech company who should be regulated in these situations. 00:19:37.120 --> 00:19:48.800 I've been very concerned about this because many countries like Australia, the UK, and even some places in Europe have either proposed, have already put into law, or are getting ready to put this into law. 00:19:49.120 --> 00:19:52.160 And France was one of the recent stories that we've been covering on this podcast. 00:19:52.620 --> 00:20:04.480 But thank goodness, France's top court blocked this bill, saying it infringed upon freedom of expression and delivered a setback for President Macron, who asked his government to rewrite the legislation. 00:20:04.780 --> 00:20:11.700 Macron, I know we have some French listeners, so I hope you appreciate my embarrassing way of pronouncing the French names. 00:20:11.970 --> 00:20:25.380 The council holds that the contested provisions on the one hand disproportionately infringe upon the freedom of expression and communication and on the other fail to provide the legal safeguards necessary to ensure the right to respect for private life. 00:20:25.680 --> 00:20:29.840 Now, this doesn't mean that this is completely gone and it's over in France. 00:20:29.980 --> 00:20:33.440 So I really don't want to celebrate this as an ultimate win. 00:20:33.460 --> 00:20:36.080 But this is a huge win in the right direction, guys. 00:20:36.460 --> 00:20:41.500 And I think it really sets good precedent for the rest of the EU because the EU has come 00:20:41.720 --> 00:20:42.880 forward as a unit. 00:20:43.160 --> 00:20:44.440 And this is a quote from the article. 00:20:44.680 --> 00:20:48.440 They have said that they are planning to seek stronger protections for children from harmful 00:20:48.660 --> 00:20:49.520 social media features. 00:20:50.000 --> 00:20:53.620 Do you know what would keep children safer from harmful social media features? 00:20:54.280 --> 00:20:57.480 Actually regulating those harmful social media features. 00:20:57.900 --> 00:20:59.800 And all these bans are just pseudo solutions. 00:21:00.180 --> 00:21:03.720 right? Like it doesn't change the platform. Children are either going to get around the 00:21:03.820 --> 00:21:07.980 bands or they're just going to have their parents let them access the service anyway. And now they're 00:21:07.980 --> 00:21:12.700 getting access to the same service as it's always been. Or let's say the child actually does avoid 00:21:12.700 --> 00:21:17.520 the platform until they're 16. So what? They turn 16 and now they're back on the same invasive, 00:21:17.820 --> 00:21:22.140 crappy platform. I really wish that these politicians would actually take the same energy, 00:21:22.390 --> 00:21:27.819 but apply it towards the companies and regulate the freaking companies who are actually actively 00:21:27.820 --> 00:21:32.040 doing all these things. That's actually why I'm a little bit optimistic about this recent stuff 00:21:32.060 --> 00:21:36.700 that's been happening in the US, which is directly targeting Facebook and these other big tech 00:21:37.000 --> 00:21:43.700 companies to say that they are actively making these platforms addictive to children. And they 00:21:43.700 --> 00:21:48.620 are targeting those addictive features and holding the companies accountable for the addictive 00:21:49.060 --> 00:21:53.780 features. I'll also use this as a shameless plug that you can join things like Mastodon. You can 00:21:53.980 --> 00:21:57.800 join things like better social media platforms. We're on these platforms. We have our own peer 00:21:57.820 --> 00:22:02.060 Tube server, these things don't use these kind of exploitive algorithms that are just designed to 00:22:02.100 --> 00:22:06.560 keep you on them all day. The whole purpose is to give you and deliver you a good experience, 00:22:06.920 --> 00:22:10.800 good service, and then you move on with your day. And that's what these platforms could do as well. 00:22:10.980 --> 00:22:15.380 So good job, France. And I hope other countries follow in their footsteps because this was a rare 00:22:15.520 --> 00:22:19.360 France win. I feel like every time I've covered France on this podcast the last couple years, 00:22:19.760 --> 00:22:24.860 almost always it's not for the best reasons for personal privacy, personal security. 00:22:25.300 --> 00:22:27.520 But this is one of the good wins. So good job, France. 00:22:33.520 --> 00:22:37.680 all right and now we're going to get into the defense bulletin this is split into three sections 00:22:38.010 --> 00:22:42.320 the first is the data breaches of the week then we're going to go into the threats of the week 00:22:42.390 --> 00:22:46.800 which is things i want to flag to make sure that you're aware of to stay safe and the third thing 00:22:46.960 --> 00:22:51.140 is the open source news to end on a positive note so the first data breach comes from health tech 00:22:51.270 --> 00:22:55.919 firm which is called care cloud this is a data breach that impacted 3.7 million patients they 00:22:55.940 --> 00:23:01.820 disclosed this back in March. And apparently, we are finding out about it now. The blast radius in 00:23:01.860 --> 00:23:05.880 terms of what was exposed is pretty large. And so if you have any relationship with ClearCloud, 00:23:06.020 --> 00:23:10.100 you should really check out the show notes down in the description. The next data breach is a 00:23:10.300 --> 00:23:14.680 supply chain attack and terabytes worth of credentials, many belonging to the world's 00:23:14.840 --> 00:23:19.780 biggest and most sensitive organizations was exposed in a supply chain attack on Lite LLM, 00:23:19.780 --> 00:23:24.400 which is an open source tool that streamlines AI driven software development. Earlier in the 00:23:24.320 --> 00:23:28.900 episode, I said, I always go to the official website. I download the extension. Imagine if 00:23:28.900 --> 00:23:33.160 you do that, but it's still compromised. That is how these supply chain attacks work. And that's 00:23:33.160 --> 00:23:36.740 what makes them so scary. So if you want to learn more about the story and supply chain attacks in 00:23:37.000 --> 00:23:40.840 general and all the people impacted by it, check out the show notes. Again, I keep the data breaches 00:23:41.060 --> 00:23:45.600 pretty brief so you guys can investigate the data breaches that impacts you specifically. Otherwise, 00:23:45.740 --> 00:23:50.700 this would be a two-hour podcast if I dove into each data breach individually. The next one is 00:23:50.720 --> 00:23:55.780 that a hacker claims that 3.6 million Azure accounts records were stolen from major companies. 00:23:56.080 --> 00:24:00.440 This apparently started July 31st, and multiple posts from someone using the alias The Hat Man 00:24:00.920 --> 00:24:06.020 advertised data dumps from major orgs, including McDonald's, Gap, Vodafone, Tata Consulting Services, 00:24:06.480 --> 00:24:12.080 HCL Technologies, Intercontinental Hotels, and Kindrel. So if you want to learn more about that, 00:24:12.340 --> 00:24:16.320 check it out in the show notes. RingCentral is a cloud-based collaboration and communication 00:24:16.340 --> 00:24:21.200 platform used by over 600,000 businesses. And they also had a data breach, which impacted the 00:24:21.440 --> 00:24:26.320 personal information from 1.6 million accounts. And so if you or someone you know has any relationship 00:24:26.500 --> 00:24:32.400 with RingCentral, check that one out in the show notes. We also have Sakura, which is a Japanese 00:24:32.600 --> 00:24:36.720 cloud and data center service provider, which disclosed that hackers access its sales management 00:24:36.960 --> 00:24:41.600 system where customer contract and membership information is stored. And so if you have ever 00:24:41.620 --> 00:24:45.820 had this internet provider or still do, this is another data breach to look into. 00:24:46.200 --> 00:24:49.480 This one pisses me off because this is one of those services that a lot of people are 00:24:49.680 --> 00:24:52.420 probably in, but they never actually created the damn account. 00:24:52.600 --> 00:24:54.280 And this is the whole data broker industry. 00:24:54.580 --> 00:24:55.500 It's just so frustrating. 00:24:55.780 --> 00:24:57.700 But there's a reverse lookup service. 00:24:58.300 --> 00:25:03.200 This is a people searching tool called Clarity Check, which just scrapes data about people 00:25:03.400 --> 00:25:06.180 that they never consented to directly, at least knowingly. 00:25:06.600 --> 00:25:09.740 And they exposed millions of photos of people's faces 00:25:10.380 --> 00:25:11.860 because they have all this data 00:25:11.880 --> 00:25:13.320 and they weren't properly securing it. 00:25:13.320 --> 00:25:14.820 And it's not just their faces. 00:25:14.920 --> 00:25:18.520 It also exposed people's email addresses and phone numbers. 00:25:19.040 --> 00:25:21.400 These data brokers are just like a bane 00:25:21.500 --> 00:25:22.460 of everybody's existence. 00:25:22.740 --> 00:25:24.860 They're just, they're mosquitoes, man. 00:25:25.000 --> 00:25:26.500 They literally, you don't see them. 00:25:26.820 --> 00:25:27.360 They're there. 00:25:27.400 --> 00:25:29.040 They take something precious from you 00:25:29.140 --> 00:25:32.360 and they just like feed off of you and nobody likes them. 00:25:32.600 --> 00:25:34.600 Mosquitoes are still useful, you know, 00:25:34.720 --> 00:25:39.500 the circle of life and the environment. And there's actually important reasons for mosquitoes 00:25:39.540 --> 00:25:45.180 to exist because other animals feed on them. These things are just straight up parasites that have no 00:25:45.220 --> 00:25:50.360 other benefit to the world. I hate data brokers. And this is another reason why data brokers suck. 00:25:50.640 --> 00:25:56.260 Next story comes from France. Their French tax authority data breach affected 678,000 individuals. 00:25:56.620 --> 00:26:02.940 And so if you are French, I would very much look into this story. The cryptocurrency hardware wallet 00:26:03.100 --> 00:26:10.200 SafePal is warning of a data breach impacting 39,798 customers, specifically that number, 00:26:10.880 --> 00:26:15.420 which was stolen for sale. Now, this didn't impact wallet seed phrases, private keys, 00:26:15.740 --> 00:26:21.040 passwords, bank account information, payment card numbers, etc. But it impacted email addresses, 00:26:21.520 --> 00:26:25.900 names, shipping addresses, phone numbers, and purchase information. My concern with these is 00:26:26.000 --> 00:26:31.660 that a lot of people who might have wealth are storing wealth on these devices. And so when you 00:26:31.620 --> 00:26:36.720 leak the personal information of those individuals, it puts them at much greater risk of further 00:26:36.980 --> 00:26:42.300 targeting and phishing attacks. So if you ever purchased anything from SafePal, well, first, 00:26:42.520 --> 00:26:47.080 welcome to the club because Ledger and I believe Treasure is the next one. Yes, that is the next 00:26:47.220 --> 00:26:51.820 story. They disclosed a data breach affecting nearly 14,000 customers. After ShipMonk, its 00:26:52.040 --> 00:27:01.580 shipping and logistics provider was hacked. Very similar kind of scope of what was attacked. So 00:27:01.600 --> 00:27:05.860 That means using alias emails, like something like Addy.io or Simple Login. 00:27:06.170 --> 00:27:10.460 You can also use privacy.com to purchase them, or you could purchase them with cryptocurrency 00:27:10.650 --> 00:27:14.480 if they support it and try to get them shipped to a private mailbox or somewhere safer. 00:27:14.800 --> 00:27:17.160 And the last data breach of the week before we get into the threats, 00:27:17.560 --> 00:27:21.920 Pokemon Center is notifying customers in the UK and Germany that it suffered a third-party data 00:27:22.040 --> 00:27:24.340 breach after a hacker stole customer personal information. 00:27:24.490 --> 00:27:26.880 So if you want to learn more about that, check it out in the show notes, 00:27:27.040 --> 00:27:30.040 or you probably were already notified if it impacted you directly. 00:27:30.420 --> 00:27:31.860 All right, now we're into threats. 00:27:31.970 --> 00:27:37.340 And this first one is a Linux botnet, which turns routers into traffic relay nodes. 00:27:37.520 --> 00:27:40.720 And fantastic imagery here by Bleeping Computer if they made that. 00:27:41.380 --> 00:27:47.780 But it's a Mirai-based modular Linux botnet malware called EV0001Bot, 00:27:47.810 --> 00:27:52.440 which has been targeting internet-facing gateway devices, turning them into SOX5 traffic relay nodes. 00:27:52.760 --> 00:27:58.200 They've been targeting devices from Alcatel, Netgear, Tenda, Mitsubishi Electric, Telesquare, and D-Link 00:27:58.140 --> 00:28:00.940 across various regions by exploiting known vulnerabilities. 00:28:01.450 --> 00:28:04.200 I would very much look into the story if you want to learn more. 00:28:04.480 --> 00:28:07.920 The main defense that they cite here against botnet malware in general 00:28:08.120 --> 00:28:10.900 is to keep your Internet of Things devices firmware updated, 00:28:11.300 --> 00:28:14.960 replace default admin credentials, turn off remote access panels, 00:28:15.460 --> 00:28:18.520 and replace devices when the vendor no longer provides support for them. 00:28:18.860 --> 00:28:21.160 I think one of the most dangerous things I see over the years 00:28:21.340 --> 00:28:25.000 is people who have devices who haven't been updated in five, six, seven years. 00:28:25.440 --> 00:28:30.040 You can maybe push an old device, I think, for a month, two months, three months. 00:28:30.330 --> 00:28:36.960 But you guys have to remember each month, each year that passes where a device is the end of life. 00:28:37.640 --> 00:28:42.200 It's just slowly building up more and more things that can be exploited. 00:28:42.410 --> 00:28:48.500 I like to think of this as like, you know, if you're running, you have flat ground and the flat ground is good, right? 00:28:48.580 --> 00:28:49.980 We like to run on flat surfaces. 00:28:50.420 --> 00:28:51.460 Hills are tougher, right? 00:28:51.900 --> 00:28:56.720 And so if you keep your devices and they're out of date, you know, you slowly start going. 00:28:56.900 --> 00:28:58.360 The mountain starts to creep up. 00:28:58.580 --> 00:29:01.380 What originally is just a little hump comes Mount Everest. 00:29:01.870 --> 00:29:07.080 And then at that point, you can't really do much in terms of protecting yourself as well, right? 00:29:07.280 --> 00:29:08.280 We can always lock things down. 00:29:08.290 --> 00:29:09.840 You can make them completely offline. 00:29:10.110 --> 00:29:12.020 You can add further multi-factor authentication. 00:29:12.250 --> 00:29:15.900 You can do a lot of things to still make it harder to exploit those vulnerabilities. 00:29:16.250 --> 00:29:18.680 But ultimately, you got to climb Mount Everest, man. 00:29:18.880 --> 00:29:20.700 So keep your devices up to date. 00:29:20.860 --> 00:29:22.020 And this is your reminder to do that. 00:29:22.560 --> 00:29:24.280 Now, this next story is from Comcast, 00:29:24.320 --> 00:29:27.180 who is adding motion sensing to millions of its newer routers. 00:29:27.460 --> 00:29:30.080 It's supposed to notify you when there's movement inside your house. 00:29:30.220 --> 00:29:31.920 And all it does is notify you of the movement. 00:29:32.060 --> 00:29:33.900 So it doesn't really do anything beyond that. 00:29:34.260 --> 00:29:36.680 But there are serious privacy implications for this technology. 00:29:36.720 --> 00:29:38.720 In fact, there was research published about a week ago 00:29:38.920 --> 00:29:43.460 that actually showed that you can identify people 99.5% of the time. 00:29:43.600 --> 00:29:46.040 Fortunately, this is opt-in on Comcast's routers. 00:29:46.060 --> 00:29:47.740 It doesn't just enable itself by default, 00:29:47.920 --> 00:29:50.580 but it should seriously get you wondering about this technology. 00:29:51.020 --> 00:29:54.640 how creepy it is and the fact that Comcast literally says they can disclose information 00:29:54.960 --> 00:29:58.820 to third parties, which means that they can access your information, including internal 00:29:59.120 --> 00:30:03.740 employees. I made a whole dedicated video on this feature where I dive a lot deeper into how it 00:30:03.900 --> 00:30:09.040 works, the research behind it, what you can do and what third party routers look like and why I 00:30:09.180 --> 00:30:13.040 would consider using those in this kind of situation. So check out that video. I put some 00:30:13.080 --> 00:30:17.520 good time into it and I hope you guys enjoy it. This one was another healthy reminder that I think 00:30:17.540 --> 00:30:22.420 people forget about, right? When you have a relationship with a company, in this case, 00:30:22.640 --> 00:30:26.920 Spirit Airlines, you think that your data is only being shared with Spirit Airlines and you only 00:30:26.920 --> 00:30:32.200 have to trust Spirit Airlines. But what happens when Spirit Airlines goes under? Well, what happens 00:30:32.280 --> 00:30:38.380 is Google buys all that data to feed its AI models. Yes, that is the story here. They halted all their 00:30:38.520 --> 00:30:43.880 operations in May, Spirit Airlines went under, and now Google says we want all that data. So they buy 00:30:43.900 --> 00:30:49.100 it. This is not the first time we saw it. I think another egregious example we saw was with 23andMe. 00:30:49.560 --> 00:30:55.920 23andMe is the DNA company, and they kind of went under because I think the original founder lady 00:30:56.560 --> 00:31:02.500 lost control or it went bankrupt. And then there was multiple people who wanted to buy it, 00:31:02.500 --> 00:31:07.680 and then people wanted to just buy the data, but then she bought it back. It's very confusing what 00:31:07.920 --> 00:31:11.960 happened there. But either way, there was a long stretch of time here where we were doing coverage 00:31:11.980 --> 00:31:18.360 on this where it was like, oh my God, is this DNA data that people gave to 23andMe, which I would 00:31:18.410 --> 00:31:22.780 still say wasn't a good idea, but is that now going to be sold to just random tech companies 00:31:22.890 --> 00:31:28.000 who just want to buy it? That seems kind of wrong. But guys, there's no legal framework for that. 00:31:28.120 --> 00:31:31.340 There's nothing stopping these companies from doing that. In fact, if you read the terms and 00:31:31.600 --> 00:31:36.180 conditions and privacy policies of lots of big tech companies, they specifically say that your 00:31:36.320 --> 00:31:41.940 data might be transferred to another party in the event of bankruptcy or the business going under 00:31:41.960 --> 00:31:46.720 Or an acquisition is another common example where a company gets acquired by another company, 00:31:47.070 --> 00:31:48.400 and now it's that company's data. 00:31:48.490 --> 00:31:49.580 We saw this with Fitbit. 00:31:49.900 --> 00:31:50.260 Same thing. 00:31:50.460 --> 00:31:54.480 Google bought Fitbit and now took Fitbit's data from all the previous customers. 00:31:55.100 --> 00:31:59.560 So again, always keep that in mind, and it's something to flag before you register for any 00:31:59.810 --> 00:31:59.920 service. 00:32:00.360 --> 00:32:03.400 There was a DDoS attack against Threema, the end-to-end encrypted messenger. 00:32:03.490 --> 00:32:05.880 So this is just kind of flagging that. 00:32:05.990 --> 00:32:10.000 If you are a Threema user, that's probably why that was happening if you had any kind 00:32:10.030 --> 00:32:10.520 of downtime. 00:32:11.320 --> 00:32:14.480 Microsoft Copilot revealed secret input that allowed it to be hacked. 00:32:14.540 --> 00:32:17.560 And so if you want to read about this Copilot attack, check it out. 00:32:17.580 --> 00:32:19.980 We're running low on time, so I'm not going to dive too much into that. 00:32:20.100 --> 00:32:22.780 It's just another example of Copilot being a little bit reckless. 00:32:23.040 --> 00:32:28.220 So I would suggest all of you either use Copilot extremely carefully and limit where it's used, 00:32:28.560 --> 00:32:29.660 or just don't use it at all. 00:32:29.840 --> 00:32:30.520 All right, everybody. 00:32:30.680 --> 00:32:36.700 And now we are in the final little bit of the podcast here, which is the open source news. 00:32:36.980 --> 00:32:40.840 So we have Tor Browser, which is the anonymity privacy-focused browser, 00:32:40.900 --> 00:32:43.680 and they released version 15.0.20. 00:32:43.860 --> 00:32:45.440 There's a full changelog if you want to see it. 00:32:45.440 --> 00:32:47.700 It seems like mostly security updates and minor fixes. 00:32:48.300 --> 00:32:49.800 Waterfox is a Firefox fork. 00:32:50.260 --> 00:32:53.100 They hit version 6.7, which they're calling Supernova. 00:32:53.520 --> 00:32:57.380 It moved to ESR 153 and now features native tree tabs, 00:32:57.820 --> 00:33:00.180 the Nova style, which is, I believe, the redesign, 00:33:00.700 --> 00:33:01.920 and 12 color palettes. 00:33:02.000 --> 00:33:04.280 It also boasts a rebuilt ad blocker panel, 00:33:04.580 --> 00:33:06.600 legacy extension support, a new setup flow, 00:33:06.820 --> 00:33:09.560 and update controls that finally deliver on their promises. 00:33:09.900 --> 00:33:10.840 And it looks very pretty. 00:33:10.940 --> 00:33:12.080 The Radblocker looks really nice. 00:33:12.120 --> 00:33:13.620 I got to say, I'm looking at the screenshot here. 00:33:13.620 --> 00:33:17.820 I haven't personally tested it, but it looks very brave inspired in terms of like what it 00:33:18.080 --> 00:33:19.620 visually tells you about each site. 00:33:19.880 --> 00:33:20.980 So super cool stuff. 00:33:21.440 --> 00:33:26.300 Speaking of Firefox and ad blockers, Firefox for iOS now has an experimental native ad 00:33:26.480 --> 00:33:26.780 blocker. 00:33:27.200 --> 00:33:30.980 It's off by default and you can try it out if you use Firefox for mobile. 00:33:31.200 --> 00:33:35.460 And it uses a filter list based on easy list to block a variety of ads. 00:33:35.700 --> 00:33:37.820 Also, speaking of Firefox, they have added Startpage. 00:33:37.960 --> 00:33:43.080 And so Start Page is now another option you can select easily within Firefox. 00:33:43.640 --> 00:33:48.100 Brave version 1.93 has been updated with GPU fingerprinting protections. 00:33:48.440 --> 00:33:53.420 So if you want the latest and greatest on fingerprint protection, Brave now has some extra stuff there. 00:33:54.180 --> 00:33:57.920 This one I actually saw organically before I saw the story, which is quite rare. 00:33:58.600 --> 00:34:02.460 But ProtonMail now has categories inside of the mail experience. 00:34:02.880 --> 00:34:05.460 Personally, for me, it is not my thing. 00:34:06.020 --> 00:34:10.860 I tried using even these categories in Apple Mail back when it came out. 00:34:11.149 --> 00:34:11.919 I can't stand it. 00:34:11.950 --> 00:34:15.960 I'm an inbox zero kind of person, and so I don't want things split into folders. 00:34:16.220 --> 00:34:19.340 And now it feels like I have to check four or five different folders. 00:34:19.659 --> 00:34:20.639 That's the way I see it. 00:34:21.040 --> 00:34:25.120 But if you are not like me, I know this is something a lot of people love. 00:34:25.120 --> 00:34:26.560 I know this is what Gmail does now. 00:34:26.659 --> 00:34:27.700 It's what Apple does now. 00:34:27.750 --> 00:34:31.659 And I think from that perspective, this is crazy important because now you have those 00:34:31.679 --> 00:34:36.600 categories and they default to primary social promotions, newsletters, transactions, and updates. 00:34:36.659 --> 00:34:41.260 And for the record, this is on by default, but it prompts you and I just turned it off right when I 00:34:41.379 --> 00:34:47.040 saw it. This is not my kind of feature, but I am so happy this exists because I know for a lot of 00:34:47.080 --> 00:34:51.879 you out there, you want this feature. Let me know what you think and let me know how you handle your 00:34:52.000 --> 00:34:56.340 email inbox because I'm quite curious. The next article is also from Proton and I just wanted to 00:34:56.520 --> 00:35:00.619 showcase this new feature. And the reason I found out about this was from our signal group. So if 00:35:00.640 --> 00:35:05.080 you're not already supporting us and making this podcast even better as time goes on and making it 00:35:05.340 --> 00:35:08.960 sustainable, check out how to support the podcast down in the description. We have a fun little 00:35:09.280 --> 00:35:13.380 community. And you guys kind of started playing around with that. And then I saw you talk about it. 00:35:13.500 --> 00:35:18.660 But it's called AI Paper Trail. And it's a new, I think it's new feature that Proton released. 00:35:18.720 --> 00:35:25.160 The way it works is you go to your OpenAI or your Clot account, and you pretty much export your data 00:35:25.180 --> 00:35:30.560 from the account and you upload it to Lumo AI. And what it does is it just tells you what does 00:35:30.580 --> 00:35:36.360 your AI know about you. And a lot of people in our signal group were like, holy crap, it like knows 00:35:36.420 --> 00:35:41.220 so much about me. And it's not until it really lists it out in this creepy manner that you really 00:35:41.420 --> 00:35:45.980 understand how it works. Now, of course, Lumo does this in a privacy respecting way. It's from 00:35:46.380 --> 00:35:51.600 Proton. And of course, it's meant to be a tool to kind of like showcase how things aren't as private 00:35:51.620 --> 00:35:52.160 as they can be. 00:35:52.190 --> 00:35:53.760 So maybe you should consider using Lumo. 00:35:53.830 --> 00:35:55.740 So it is partially a marketing tool, of course. 00:35:56.160 --> 00:35:57.520 But I still think it's a useful tool 00:35:57.530 --> 00:35:58.760 to maybe share with friends or family. 00:35:58.980 --> 00:36:01.200 And either way, I plan to run it after I record 00:36:01.290 --> 00:36:02.360 because it looks pretty fascinating. 00:36:02.600 --> 00:36:04.000 Next story comes from Entei, 00:36:04.110 --> 00:36:05.060 who has put out a blog 00:36:05.240 --> 00:36:07.380 talking about their first steps to post-quantum. 00:36:07.520 --> 00:36:09.200 They are end-to-end encrypted photo storage. 00:36:09.370 --> 00:36:11.040 And so they're trying to get ahead of that. 00:36:11.120 --> 00:36:12.360 And again, I think post-quantum 00:36:12.420 --> 00:36:14.880 is something that is nice to have right now in 2026, 00:36:15.200 --> 00:36:17.340 but I'm not looking at this as a must. 00:36:17.520 --> 00:36:18.440 So it's always cool. 00:36:18.600 --> 00:36:20.320 And it kind of shows the bleeding edge nature 00:36:20.980 --> 00:36:22.640 of a lot of the privacy and security organizations 00:36:23.040 --> 00:36:24.980 when they're looking at things like post-quantum already. 00:36:25.240 --> 00:36:27.020 Linux kernel 7.2 was just released 00:36:27.260 --> 00:36:28.600 with a lot of new features. 00:36:29.040 --> 00:36:30.760 So if you are a Linux user, check it out 00:36:30.860 --> 00:36:32.300 if you want to learn more about the kernel update. 00:36:32.780 --> 00:36:34.880 This one I am very excited for, 00:36:35.020 --> 00:36:38.400 but Fairphone has released the Gen 6 Plus, 00:36:39.380 --> 00:36:41.040 which is now available in the US. 00:36:41.560 --> 00:36:43.400 I am very excited about this, guys, 00:36:43.560 --> 00:36:45.260 because I have been wanting the Fairphone 00:36:45.260 --> 00:36:48.400 to be easy to access in the US for a long time now. 00:36:48.900 --> 00:36:50.540 So it's not an entirely new phone, 00:36:50.640 --> 00:36:53.320 but it is an upgraded version of the regular Fairphone 6. 00:36:53.360 --> 00:36:55.460 I was chatting to one of my friends recently about this, 00:36:55.520 --> 00:36:56.780 a European friend of mine, 00:36:57.200 --> 00:36:58.000 and they were like, oh my God, 00:36:58.080 --> 00:37:00.140 it seems like they really tried to make it like an iPhone. 00:37:00.900 --> 00:37:02.300 And it's like, yeah, but that's the thing. 00:37:02.300 --> 00:37:06.160 I think the US is so iPhone heavy that Fairphones, 00:37:06.440 --> 00:37:08.040 again, I'm just guessing here. 00:37:08.200 --> 00:37:09.720 I'm guessing that Fairphone was like, 00:37:09.820 --> 00:37:12.740 hey, so why don't we make a more iPhone-esque version 00:37:12.880 --> 00:37:15.340 of the Fairphone for US users? 00:37:15.900 --> 00:37:18.720 And I think that might be what they're going for. 00:37:18.800 --> 00:37:23.780 And so why I'm excited about this and why I'm sharing it is typically these Fair phones are supported by custom ROMs. 00:37:24.060 --> 00:37:27.520 And so we'll see what the support looks like as we learn more about it. 00:37:27.600 --> 00:37:33.660 But I'm excited to have a repairable device in the U.S. that I don't have to go through tons of hoops to get through. 00:37:33.940 --> 00:37:36.660 SimpleX, the messenger, they've previously sponsored this podcast. 00:37:37.700 --> 00:37:40.040 They are doing an equity crowdfunding launch. 00:37:40.360 --> 00:37:44.120 So you can invest in this on WeFunder and they are looking to raise money. 00:37:45.200 --> 00:37:46.780 I don't think I've ever seen this before. 00:37:46.980 --> 00:37:48.220 This is a first on the podcast. 00:37:48.340 --> 00:37:50.080 There aren't many firsts on this podcast. 00:37:50.410 --> 00:37:55.940 After years of doing this, episode 271, I can't tell you many situations where I'm like, 00:37:56.090 --> 00:37:58.140 okay, yeah, this is a first. 00:37:58.920 --> 00:38:07.740 But I have not seen a crowdfunding investment opportunity yet for a privacy-based tool that 00:38:07.860 --> 00:38:10.920 is commonly recommended throughout privacy circles. 00:38:11.520 --> 00:38:14.060 So if you're interested in this kind of thing, check it out. 00:38:14.680 --> 00:38:21.420 I am going to stay clear of any kind of like financial advice or anything like that, 00:38:21.860 --> 00:38:23.240 just because I feel like it muddies the waters. 00:38:23.520 --> 00:38:29.640 And the last story of the week, sadly, isn't the most positive, but Pine64, which is, you 00:38:29.640 --> 00:38:32.400 know, they make a lot of Linux hardware, specifically their phones. 00:38:32.800 --> 00:38:36.260 The Pine phones are quite popular, but they also make the Pine tab, the Pine Watch. 00:38:36.380 --> 00:38:40.580 They said that they have no plans to continue producing more Linux devices in the near future. 00:38:41.040 --> 00:38:46.780 Even more concerning, the company says the situation may not be reconsidered until after the middle of 2027. 00:38:47.240 --> 00:38:52.680 They're saying this is because of the DRAM and the eMMC shortage, aka the memory slash RAM shortage. 00:38:53.220 --> 00:38:57.060 And there isn't any more plans to continue producing more Linux devices in the near future. 00:38:57.200 --> 00:39:05.020 This is really sad because this is one of the few organizations that's really, I think, pushing the limits of what you can do in terms of mobile devices and Linux right now. 00:39:05.480 --> 00:39:13.960 And even though I don't think they're quite ready for mainstream use yet, this has been, I think, kind of setting the standard for what developers can do. 00:39:14.500 --> 00:39:18.320 And it's just creating and trying to create the ecosystem around Linux for mobile. 00:39:18.330 --> 00:39:19.700 I really hope that we figure this out. 00:39:19.730 --> 00:39:22.940 I hope that they continue when they get things going. 00:39:23.280 --> 00:39:26.160 So very sad news, but I'm still going to try to be optimistic. 00:39:26.290 --> 00:39:29.400 And if you can do something to help support them, please look into them. 00:39:29.400 --> 00:39:30.300 They do a lot of good work. 00:39:30.740 --> 00:39:33.420 And that everybody is going to conclude the surveillance report. 00:39:33.500 --> 00:39:37.220 If this analysis helped you reclaim control, become a Techlorian down in the description. 00:39:37.660 --> 00:39:39.340 It's a huge help for us back here. 00:39:39.340 --> 00:39:40.320 We could really use it. 00:39:40.660 --> 00:39:42.500 We're still trying to develop kind of our perks. 00:39:42.540 --> 00:39:47.480 And so if you have things that you wish that we did that could make it more enticing, please let me know. 00:39:48.060 --> 00:39:49.840 Right now you get access to our 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website on techlore.tech. 00:40:26.040 --> 00:40:28.980 Thank you all for watching, and I'll see you next week for the next Surveillance Report.