Lockdown Mode: Is It Worth It?

Two companies shipped a feature with the same name and almost nothing in common. One costs you nothing and everyone should know the button. The other breaks real things and is aimed at very few people.

Somebody Already Made the List of Who's Watching You

There's a myth that the people watching you are faceless. A volunteer-run project called Surveillance Watch demolishes it with the least glamorous tool imaginable.

Four Ways to get a Private Phone

Four Ways to Build a Private Phone: A Field Guide to Lockdown Mode, GrapheneOS, Cape, and Glacier. A thorough, vendor-neutral look at four distinct approaches to mobile privacy, what each one actually does, where it shines, and where it falls short.

Every Privacy Tool They Used Became Evidence

What two Chinese intelligence officers, an "untraceable" Bitcoin payment, and an FBI double agent reveal about why privacy tools fail

You Cannot Out-Discipline Your Own Paperwork

What the Skripal poisoning reveals about digital privacy, and why the same machine that burned three GRU officers is pointed at you.

The Complete SimpleX Chat Hardening Guide (2025–2026)

SimpleX is the only messenger with no user IDs at all. Here's how to harden it — profiles, relays, Tor, and self-hosting — for real metadata privacy.

Signal Messenger: 2026

Signal is the closest thing to a trustworthy commercial messaging app that exists. End-to-end encryption is on by default, the protocol is open and audited, and the organization behind it collects almost nothing about you.

UTS Control Planes

Five domains you actually control in a UTS environment — and the decisions that govern what you emit.

Building a Self-Controlled VPN Jumpbox in Your Browser

Your laptop should not be the thing touching the internet. Move that job onto a box you own, reach its desktop from a browser tab, and the coffee-shop network never sees the work itself.