Politicians in the UK thought that the Online Safety Act would immediately fetter our access to the open internet (and as a side benefit would let them gather vast amounts of information about us). As virtually everyone in the UK immediately began using a VPN, both of these goals failed on day one, leaving those same politicians looking for other means to achieve their censorship and data gathering goals. Unfortunately it looks as though the makers of the most commonly used phone handsets may be out to help them – instead of forcing websites to restrict access, why not get the hardware to do it instead? In the UK, Apple is already requiring some iPhone users to verify their age at the OS level in order to access certain features, and it’s likely that Google and other manufacturers will follow suit. If you don’t want to be part of this vast experiment in censorship and data gathering, what can you do? The simplest answer is @GrapheneOS . It is a privacy-hardened operating system, that will not ask your name, address, or date of birth, and can be installed easily by anyone without special technical knowledge. You can set up separate profiles on the phone (one for extra privacy, one with the Play store installed so you can run most Google apps, for example). Most apps will run fine – although be warned that some banking apps do struggle, so be aware that you may want to hang on to your old device as a ‘doxxed banking phone’…. Steps to follow: 1. Get a Google Pixel phone (check here for compatibility: grapheneos.org/faq#supported… 2. Visit this excellent guide to help you with the installation: piped.video/watch?v=X-CKcQMt… 3. Follow the installation instructions here: grapheneos.org/install/ 4. Either use your own SIM, or if you prefer to be more private, get a KYC free global eSIM here: silent.link/, and look into getting a KYC free phone number for calls here: jmp.chat/ (NB I am a silent.link user but I have not yet tested JMP, so please DYOR). After about 35 minutes’ work, you should have a privacy hardened phone that will never ask your age, name or address, and on which you’ll be able to install and run whatever compatible software you choose, just as nature intended. Whatever obstacles of censorship or invasion of privacy are thrown in our way, remember that there are tools to fight through them, and there are very many people in the world who will help you find the way. Onwards.

There have recently been claims that AI text analysis will make online anonymity untenable. So let me cannibalize a piece of my own anonymity to do an experiment. At some point this decade, I wrote a published document of medium importance to Ethereum - I estimate ~200 to 2000 documents in Ethereum are as or more important - not under my name. Find it. (I genuinely have no idea how easy or hard this is, will be very curious what comes out)

This censorship law is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. The real goal is to enable the UK government to track everyone.

The US government, citing national security authorities, has issued an export control directive to suspend all access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5 by any foreign national, whether inside or outside the United States, including foreign national Anthropic employees. The net effect of this order is that we must abruptly disable Fable 5 and Mythos 5 for all our customers to ensure compliance. Access to all other Claude models is not affected. We apologize for this disruption to our customers. We believe this is a misunderstanding and are working to restore access as soon as possible. Read our full statement: anthropic.com/news/fable-myt…

BREAKING: The UK is drafting a law to scan every photo, video and message on every phone in the country. Tech CEOs who refuse to implement this could face up to 5 years in prison. The proposal would force companies to build device level scanners that inspect content before encryption. That means: • Every image scanned • Every message inspected • Every video analyzed All directly on your phone. Governments and companies pushing these safety” systems already have a terrible track record protecting user data. Last month, Europe’s new age verification app, promoted as a way to "keep children safe," was hacked in under 2 minutes. In another case, over 70,000 IDs and selfies linked to online verification systems were exposed in a major breach. Now the UK wants even deeper access directly inside your device. Once governments force surveillance tools into every phone, they can expand what gets monitored at any time.

AI data privacy is the next hot topic. The global AI data privacy market is currently valued at $12.5 billion. By 2034, this market is expected to grow to $24.3 billion, exhibiting a CAGR of +7.9%. As enterprises seek to integrate AI, regulatory pressure and sizable privacy controls must be addressed. On top of this, skilled professionals who understand both artificial intelligence and data protection law are scarce, creating another bottleneck to AI adoption. We expect to see much more attention on the AI data privacy industry over the next 12 months. AI adoption is accelerating, but we are still early.

AI data privacy is the next hot topic. The global AI data privacy market is currently valued at $12.5 billion. By 2034, this market is expected to grow to $24.3 billion, exhibiting a CAGR of +7.9%. As enterprises seek to integrate AI, regulatory pressure and sizable privacy controls must be addressed. On top of this, skilled professionals who understand both artificial intelligence and data protection law are scarce, creating another bottleneck to AI adoption. We expect to see much more attention on the AI data privacy industry over the next 12 months. AI adoption is accelerating, but we are still early.

LATEST: ⚡ Vitalik Buterin says Ethereum is moving to make privacy native to the network, with three upcoming upgrades targeting censorship resistance, on-chain transaction linking, and private wallet reads.