Tag: internet

Apple Expands Age Verification to Singapore & South Korea

Apple’s identity verification demands are spreading across Asia. Starting in late March, the company expanded age verification requirements in both Singapore and South Korea, adding these countries to a growing list alongside the UK, where users must prove they’re adults before Apple lets them fully use their own devices.

Singapore has been partially locked down since February 24, when Apple began blocking downloads of apps rated 18+ unless users confirmed they were adults.

That initial wave also hit Australia and Brazil. But the late March update goes further, bringing Singapore’s requirements closer to the UK model. Apple now requires Singaporean users to confirm they’re 18 or older to download or purchase 18+ apps, using a credit card, a driving license, a National Registration Identity Card, or a Foreign Identification Number card. Passports, debit cards, and gift cards aren’t accepted.

That list of acceptable documents tells you something about Apple’s priorities. Passports are internationally recognized government IDs, but they don’t work here. Debit cards, which millions of adults use as their primary payment method, are also excluded because minors can technically hold them.

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Americans Traveling to Hong Kong Will Now Face ARREST for Refusing to Hand Over Phones, Laptops, and Passwords

The era of privacy is officially over in the “New Hong Kong,” and if you’re an American traveling abroad, you are now a target for the Communist-controlled regime.

According to a recent warning issued by the U.S. Consulate, Americans entering or even transiting through Hong Kong could now face criminal charges simply for refusing to unlock their phones or provide passwords to authorities.

Under newly updated enforcement rules tied to Hong Kong’s sweeping National Security Law, police now have the authority to demand access to personal electronic devices, including phones and laptops, on the spot.

And here’s the catch:

This applies to everyone, residents, tourists, business travelers, and even passengers just passing through the airport.

The U.S. Consulate General in Hong Kong and Macao issued the following alert:

On March 23, 2026, the Hong Kong government changed the implementing rules relating to the National Security Law. It is now a criminal offense to refuse to give the Hong Kong police the passwords or decryption assistance to access all personal electronic devices including cellphones and laptops. This legal change applies to everyone, including U.S. citizens, in Hong Kong, arriving or just transiting Hong Kong International Airport. In addition, the Hong Kong government also has more authority to take and keep any personal devices, as evidence, that they claim are linked to national security offenses.

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FBI Issues Public Alert on Americans Using Foreign Apps

The FBI identified data security risks from foreign-developed mobile apps used in the United States, the agency warned in a March 31 public service announcement.

“As of early 2026, many of the most downloaded and top-grossing apps in the United States are developed and maintained by foreign companies, particularly those based in China,” the FBI said, without naming any apps.

“The apps that maintain digital infrastructure in China are subject to China’s extensive national security laws, enabling the Chinese government to potentially access mobile app users’ data.”

In the Google Play store, the most popular apps include short-form video platform TikTok, video editor CapCut, artificial intelligence video generator PixVerse, and communication app Telegram X. China-based ByteDance maintains ownership of TikTok and CapCut. PixVerse is owned by a Singaporean company, and the developer of Telegram X is based in the United Arab Emirates.

On Apple’s App Store, the top free apps include CapCut, TikTok, and Chinese shopping apps Temu and Shein.

In its alert, the FBI warned users to be aware of the types of data the foreign apps request access to when they are downloaded.

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Anthropic Leaks Source Code for AI Coding Tool in Major Security Breach

AI company Anthropic has accidentally exposed the source code for its widely-used coding assistant Claude Code, marking the second significant data leak to affect the company in less than a week.

Fortune reports that the latest incident comes mere days after Fortune revealed that Anthropic had inadvertently made nearly 3,000 internal files publicly accessible, including a draft blog post describing an upcoming AI model called “Mythos” or “Capybara” that the company warned presents serious cybersecurity risks.

This second leak exposed approximately 500,000 lines of code contained within roughly 1,900 files. When contacted for comment, Anthropic acknowledged that “some internal source code” had been leaked as part of a “Claude Code release.” A company spokesperson stated: “No sensitive customer data or credentials were involved or exposed. This was a release packaging issue caused by human error, not a security breach. We’re rolling out measures to prevent this from happening again.”

Cybersecurity experts suggest this latest leak could prove more consequential than the earlier exposure of the draft blog post. While the source code leak did not reveal the actual model weights of Claude itself, it enabled technically knowledgeable individuals to extract additional internal information from Anthropic’s codebase, according to a cybersecurity professional who reviewed the leaked materials for Fortune.

Claude Code represents one of Anthropic’s most successful products, with adoption rates climbing rapidly among large enterprise customers. The tool’s functionality derives partly from the underlying large language model and partly from what developers call an “agentic harness” — the software framework that surrounds the core AI model, directing how it interacts with other software tools and establishing crucial behavioral guardrails and operational instructions. It is precisely this agentic harness source code that has now been leaked online.

The exposure creates several competitive and security concerns. Rival companies could potentially reverse-engineer the workings of Claude Code’s agentic harness to enhance their own offerings. Additionally, some developers might attempt to build open-source alternatives based directly on the leaked code.

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FCC Bans Nearly All Wireless Routers Sold in the U.S.

This week, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) effectively banned the sale of nearly all wireless routers in the U.S., in yet another example of the government making Americans’ consumer decisions for them.

Ninety-six percent of American adults use the internet, and 80 percent of them use wireless routers—devices that transmit a signal throughout your home via radio waves and allow you to get online without plugging into the wall.

In a Monday announcement, the FCC deemed “all consumer-grade routers produced in foreign countries” potentially unsafe. This followed a national security determination last week, in which members of executive branch agencies concluded that “routers produced in a foreign country, regardless of the nationality of the producer, pose an unacceptable risk to the national security of the United States and to the safety and security of U.S. persons.”

The Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Act of 2019 empowered the government “to prevent communications equipment or services that pose a national security risk from entering U.S. networks.” The law directed the FCC to “publish and maintain a list of such equipment or services,” and according to that agency, inclusion on the list “will prevent the marketing, sale, or operation of any such new ‘covered’ equipment within the United States.”

Since wireless routers transmit over radio frequencies, they must be authorized by the FCC to be sold in the U.S.; adding all new foreign-made routers to the “Covered List” means the FCC will not authorize those devices’ transmitters, effectively banning their sale or use.

The announcement specifies that this only applies to new consumer-grade devices and “does not prohibit the import, sale, or use of any existing device models the FCC previously authorized.” It also notes that manufacturers who apply for exemptions on new models can be “granted ‘Conditional Approval’ after finding that such device or devices do not pose such unacceptable risks.”

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the ban will likely make it more difficult for Americans to get wireless routers.

The problem is that banning all foreign-made routers means banning practically all routers. Most manufacturers, including the three largest, make their products overseas.

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Apple UK Age Verification Chaos: Users Face Failed Scans, Rejected Passports, and Forced Content Filters

Apple’s iOS 26.4 age verification system is failing UK users who don’t have a credit card or photocard driving license, leaving them with no way to prove they’re adults on devices they’ve owned for years.

The system arrived without warning, without explanation, and without any apparent consideration for the people who don’t fit Apple’s narrow assumptions about what a British adult looks like.

No Warning, No Communication

Apple sent no email. Included no mention of age verification in the iOS 26.4 release notes it shared publicly.

Unless you’d been following the developer beta track, where the feature appeared in February or reading Reclaim The Net’s earlier coverage, the first you knew about it was a prompt on your screen after restarting your phone.

That’s how 35 million UK iPhone users found out their devices now require identity documents to function normally. A “Confirm You Are 18+” label appeared at the top of Settings, and anyone who couldn’t or wouldn’t comply got silently downgraded. Apple’s Web Content Filter switched on, blocking websites across Safari and every third-party browser. Communication Safety is activated, scanning images and videos in Messages and FaceTime for nudity. Features that worked fine the day before now require government-approved proof of adulthood.

A company that controls what software runs on every iPhone it sells decided overnight that UK users needed to hand over identity documents to keep using the devices they already paid for. And it didn’t bother to tell them it was coming.

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The Age Verification Con

Politicians on both sides of the Atlantic are competing to look tough on Silicon Valley. They hold hearings, write bills, and pose for photographs with parents who say their kids’ lives were ruined by social media algorithms they somehow couldn’t pull them away from.

The cause is protecting children from social media, and it supposedly polls so well that it has achieved something almost unheard of in modern politics: genuine bipartisan consensus. Republicans and Democrats in Washington. Labour and Conservatives in Westminster. The Australian parliament voted the whole thing through with barely a whisper of dissent.

There is just one problem with the narrative. The tech giants these politicians claim to be fighting are spending record sums to help them do it. And the tool they have all converged on, age verification, is not really about checking whether someone is 15 or 16. It is the architecture for a verified internet, one where anonymous access is replaced by identity checkpoints, and where using a social media account, downloading an app, or browsing a website requires you to show your papers first.

The campaign is presented as protecting children. The infrastructure being built will apply to everyone.

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REPORT TO CONGRESS: GANGSTALKING Who watches the watchers?

A small but legally significant segment of the American telecommunications market consists of privately owned carriers that operate and maintain their own physical infrastructure — including switching equipment, fiber runs, tower assets, and routing hardware. While these providers collectively represent a minority share of total subscribers, their independent control over physical network infrastructure creates structural conditions that, absent adequate federal oversight, enable systematic and illegal surveillance of private citizens without judicial authorization, law enforcement nexus, or public accountability.

This report has been expanded beyond its original scope to address a phenomenon that intersects telecommunications abuse with organized criminal exploitation of individuals: the practice commonly referred to as “gangstalking,” its documented connections to corrupt law enforcement networks, and the use of illegally obtained surveillance data to facilitate human trafficking, coerced criminality, blackmail, and the systematic destruction of targeted individuals’ lives. This report is written in part for the benefit of members, staff, and constituents who may not be familiar with these practices and who may be skeptical of their existence. The evidence base for each section is grounded in documented federal cases, congressional testimony, and peer-reviewed research.

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The Verdict Against Meta and Google That Could End the Anonymous Internet

A Los Angeles jury has found Meta and YouTube negligent in the design of their platforms and awarded $3 million to a plaintiff identified as K.G.M., a young woman who testified that years of near-constant social media use contributed to depression, anxiety, and body dysmorphia. The jury assigned 70% of the responsibility to Meta and 30% to YouTube. Punitive damages came to another $6 million.

The verdict is being reported as a landmark for child safety. It also represents a significant legal mechanism for dismantling anonymous internet access, built in plain sight, with bipartisan enthusiasm and a CEO’s enthusiastic assistance.

K.G.M.’s attorneys built their claim not around what users posted, which Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act largely shields platforms from liability for, but around how the platforms were designed.

Infinite scroll, algorithmically amplified notifications, engagement loops engineered to maximize time on site. The argument treats social media architecture the way product liability law treats a car without brakes. A defective product that the public needs to be protected from.

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NASA Astronaut Responds to Online Panic Over “Tentacled” Object on ISS

A tentacled object seen in a viral photo from the International Space Station alarmed some viewers over the last few days.

A photo of a purple, egg-shaped object with what appear to be tentacles protruding led some users to believe it was an extraterrestrial creature hatching in space.

However, NASA astronaut Don Pettit cleared up those rumors by revealing the object was just a potato.

In a post on X, Pettit wrote, “I flew potatoes on Expedition 72 for my space garden, an activity I did in my off-duty time.”

“This is an early purple potato, complete with a spot of hook Velcro to anchor it in my improvised grow light terrarium,” added Pettit.

One user on X responded to Pettit by writing, “I genuinely thought this was some kind of egg hatching.”

Per The New York Post:

An image of a tentacled growth in space has caused an uproar online with freaked-out viewers imploring astronauts to “kill it with fire.”

Viral photos showed the floating, purple egg-shaped object with tendrils exploding out of it like the poster for the 1979 sci-fi horror flick “Alien.”

Thankfully, the real item isn’t as insidious as it seems. In a viral X post, NASA astronaut Don Pettit explained that the anomaly was an “orbiting” potato, dubbed Spudnik-1, that he grew onboard the International Space Station as part of an ongoing interstellar horticulture hobby.

“This is an early purple potato, complete with spot of hook Velcro to anchor it in my improvised grow light terrarium,” the scientist explained.

Horticulture is not the only thing on NASA’s radar lately.

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman revealed on Tuesday that the space agency plans to spend nearly $20 billion over the next several years to build a base on the moon.

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