Tag: privacy

Only ‘braindead’ believe WhatsApp is secure – Durov

Pavel Durov, the Russian tech entrepreneur who created the Telegram messenger app,  has claimed there is no doubt WhatsApp lacks any meaningful privacy, after its parent company was hit with a new lawsuit.

In a major class-action lawsuit filed against Meta Platforms, Inc. in a US district court last week, an international group of plaintiffs from countries including Australia, Brazil and India has accused the company of making false claims about the privacy of its WhatsApp service.

“You’d have to be braindead to believe WhatsApp is secure in 2026,” Durov posted on X on Monday, mocking suggestions that Meta cannot read users’ messages. “When we analyzed how WhatsApp implemented its ‘encryption’, we found multiple attack vectors.”

The lawsuit challenges the cornerstone of WhatsApp’s privacy promise: its default end-to-end encryption, which uses the Signal protocol. The plaintiffs allege that, contrary to its in-app claim that “only people in this chat can read, listen to, or share” messages, Meta and WhatsApp “store, analyze, and can access virtually all of WhatsApp users’ purportedly ‘private’ communications.” The complaint cites unspecified whistleblowers as the source of this information.

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America’s war on…sex toys! Pete Hegseth accused of policing troops’ private lives with Pentagon crackdown on use of intimate devices

As US troops carry out high-stakes missions from Venezuela to the Middle East, the Pentagon has waged an unlikely new battle at home: the war on sex toys. 

In its latest culture-war skirmish, the Daily Mail can reveal military officials recently blocked the delivery of sex toys to troops overseas, igniting ridicule and debate over how far the military should police private life.

First came prohibitions on piercings and nail polish for male military members. Then followed a ban on books with LGBTQ+ and anti-discrimination themes in military libraries. 

Then Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth sniped at overweight troops, those with religious beards and chaplains embracing what he deems as new-age beliefs.

Now the Department of War, as Hegseth has renamed the Defense Department, is taking aim at a new target – adult toys. 

In a glaring display of sweating the small stuff, Hegseth’s Navy sent two testy letters to an adult emporium in Toronto slamming it for fulfilling an order to American personnel on a US base in Bahrain.

The items in question: a bullet vibrator and butt plug.

‘Pornographic materials or devices are not allowed into the Kingdom of Bahrain,’ warned one letter sent from the base with the subject line: ‘Adult item identified during X-ray mail screening,’ along with the returned pleasure goods.

Another letter categorized the items as ‘posing an immediate danger to life or limb or an immediate and substantial danger to property.’

The Pentagon has declined comment on the letters, sent over the summer, which the Navy framed as acts of cultural sensitivity meant to avoid offending the conservative Muslim majority in the Persian Gulf island kingdom.

But official customs lists published by Bahrain’s government don’t explicitly list sex toys as forbidden, although they do prohibit the sale and importation of ‘obscene or immoral materials’ that – by either Bahraini or Hegseth’s standards – could apply to personal pleasure devices.

A Navy instructional publication for trainees explicitly states that ‘possession of adult sex toys in the barracks is prohibited’.

The letters have triggered a host of playful social media posts, including sex-toy war stories about which dildos, penis pumps and anal beads current and former US service members have been using to pleasure themselves on overseas bases.

Troops deployed to Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and other Gulf countries face strict social restrictions and limited interaction with locals.

One of our Pentagon sources notes that maintaining mental health among troops has been a challenge in the region, pointing most notoriously to the 2018 suicide of Vice Admiral Scott Stearney, the commander of the US Naval Forces Central Command and the Fifth Fleet based on Bahrain.

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UK Orders Ofcom to Explore Encryption Backdoors

By now, we’ve all heard the familiar refrain: “It’s for your safety.” It’s the soothing mantra of every government official who’s ever wanted a peek behind your digital curtains.

This week, with a move that would make East Germany blush, the UK government officially confirmed its intention to hand Ofcom  (yes, that Ofcom, the regulator that once investigated whether Love Island was too spicy) the keys to your private messages.

The country, already experiencing rapidly declining civil liberties, is now planning to scan encrypted chats for “bad stuff.”

Now, for those unfamiliar, Ofcom is the UK’s communications regulator that has recently been given censorship pressure powers for online speech.

It’s become the government’s Swiss Army knife for everything from internet censorship to now, apparently, full-blown surveillance.

Under the Online Safety Act, Ofcom has been handed something called Section 121, which sounds like a tax loophole but is actually a legal crowbar for prying open encrypted messages.

It allows the regulator to compel any online service that lets people talk to each other, Facebook Messenger, Signal, iMessage, etc to install “accredited technology” to scan for terrorism or child abuse material.

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Pakistan Blocks Major VPNs Under New Licensing Rules, Expanding State Control Over Internet Access

Over the past two weeks, internet users in Pakistan have watched their encrypted connections vanish one after another. Beginning December 22, 2025, major VPNs, including Proton VPN, NordVPN, ExpressVPN, Surfshark, Mullvad, Cloudflare WARP, and Psiphon have been systematically blocked across the country, according to Daily Pakistan.

The blackout follows a government licensing framework that, on paper, regulates VPN providers but in practice gives the state the power to decide which privacy tools are permitted.

The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) began enforcing its Class Value Added Services (CVAS-Data) licensing rules in November 2025, nearly a year after quietly introducing the policy.

Under these regulations, companies that want to operate legally must install “Legal Interception” compliant hardware and hand it over “to nationally authorized security organizations” at their own expense whenever instructed.

Any VPN not listed as licensed is automatically subject to blocking by domestic internet providers.

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RFK Jr. Stops Requiring Doctors to Report Patient Vaccine Status

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has stopped mandating health care providers report the immunization status of patients.

Kennedy decided to stop requiring doctors to list vaccinations children have received, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) said in a Dec. 30, 2025, letter to state health officials.

Doctors participating in Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program were previously required to report how many children received specific vaccines by their second birthday, and other shots by the time they turn 14 years old.

Kennedy also eliminated a requirement that doctors report the immunization status of pregnant women, according to the notice.

“Government bureaucracies should never coerce doctors or families into accepting vaccines or penalize physicians for respecting patient choice. That practice ends now,” Kennedy, head of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), of which CMS is a part, said in a post on X. “Under the Trump administration, HHS will protect informed consent, respect religious liberty, and uphold medical freedom.”

Federal law requires that doctors report certain measures while caring for the approximately 78 million people on Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program, and that states convey that data to CMS. The reporting was voluntary when first implemented. It began being mandated in fiscal year 2024.

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Ireland’s Simon Harris to Push EU-Wide Ban on Social Media Anonymity

Ireland’s next term leading the European Union will be used to promote a new agenda: an effort to end online anonymity and make verified identity the standard across social media platforms.

Tánaiste Simon Harris said the government plans to use Ireland’s presidency to push for EU-wide rules that would require users to confirm their identities before posting or interacting online.

Speaking to Extra.ie, Harris described the plan as part of a broader attempt to defend what he called “democracy” from anonymous abuse and digital manipulation.

He said the initiative will coincide with another policy being developed by Media Minister Patrick O’Donovan, aimed at preventing children from accessing social media.

O’Donovan’s proposal, modeled on Australian restrictions, is expected to be introduced while Ireland holds the EU presidency next year.

Both ideas would involve rewriting parts of the EU’s Digital Services Act, which already governs how online platforms operate within the bloc.

Expanding it to require verified identities would mark a major shift toward government involvement in online identity systems, a move that many privacy advocates believe could expose citizens to new forms of monitoring and limit open speech.

Harris said his motivation comes from concerns about the health of public life, not personal grievance.

Harris said he believes Ireland will find allies across Europe for the initiative.

He pointed to recent statements from French President Emmanuel Macron and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who he said have shown interest in following Australia’s lead. “If you look at the comments of Emmanuel Macron…of Keir Starmer…recently, in terms of being open to considering what Australia have done…You know this is a global conversation Ireland will and should be a part of,” he said.

Technology companies based in Ireland, many of which already face scrutiny under existing EU rules, are likely to resist further regulation.

The United States government has also expressed growing hostility toward European efforts to regulate speech on its major tech firms, recently imposing visa bans on several EU officials connected to such laws.

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Indian Supreme Court Judge Says Those With Nothing to Hide Shouldn’t Fear Surveillance

A courtroom drama over state surveillance in India took a striking turn when a Supreme Court judge suggested that people who live transparently should not be troubled by government monitoring.

The case involved allegations that Telangana’s state intelligence apparatus was used for political snooping, but the discussion soon widened into a philosophical clash over privacy and power.

Former Special Intelligence Bureau (SIB) chief T. Prabhakar Rao, accused of directing unlawful phone tapping during the previous BRS government, was before the bench as the State sought more time to keep him in police custody.

During the hearing, Justice B.V. Nagarathna questioned why citizens would object to being monitored at all, asking, “Now we live in an open world. Nobody is in a closed world. Nobody should be really bothered about surveillance. Why should anyone be bothered about surveillance unless they have something to hide?”

Her comment prompted Solicitor General Tushar Mehta to caution against normalizing government spying. He asked whether this meant “every government will have a free hand in putting people under surveillance,” warning that secret monitoring without authorization was unlawful and incompatible with basic freedoms.

Mehta reminded the bench that the Constitution, as affirmed in the landmark Puttaswamy ruling, enshrines privacy as part of human dignity and liberty.

“The Supreme Court knows the difference between an ‘open’ world and being under illegal surveillance. My personal communications with my wife… I have a right not to be under surveillance,” he said.

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China bans sharing porn on messaging apps

China will expand a ban on sharing obscene materials to include content sent via phone and online messaging apps starting next year.

According to the revised law, anyone “disseminating obscene information using information networks, telephones, or other communication tools” will face up to 15 days in jail and a fine of up to 5,000 yuan ($711). Penalties will be higher if the content involves children.

The wording of the law has led to concerns from media and social networks as to whether it could be applied to private sexually explicit messages between adults, such as sexting.

However, according to multiple legal experts cited by Chinese state media, the legal changes will not affect one-on-one private communications. They argue that the revisions reflect technological development, increasing the maximum fines, while leaving detention periods unchanged.

“China has mature standards and procedures for identifying obscene materials. It is critical to clarify that ‘obscene’ does not equal ‘indecent’,” China Daily cited Ji Ying, an associate professor of law at the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing, as saying.

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Pennsylvania High Court Rules Police Can Access Google Searches Without Warrant

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has a new definition of “reasonable expectation.” According to the justices, it’s no longer reasonable to assume that what you type into Google is yours to keep.

In a decision that reads like a love letter to the surveillance economy, the court ruled that police were within their rights to access a convicted rapist’s search history without a warrant. The reasoning is that everyone knows they’re being watched anyway.

The opinion, issued Tuesday, leaned on the idea that the public has already surrendered its privacy to Silicon Valley.

We obtained a copy of the ruling for you here.

“It is common knowledge that websites, internet-based applications, and internet service providers collect, and then sell, user data,” the court said, as if mass exploitation of personal information had become a civic tradition.

Because that practice is so widely known, the court concluded, users cannot reasonably expect privacy. In other words, if corporations do it first, the government gets a free pass.

The case traces back to a rape and home invasion investigation that had gone cold. In a final effort, police asked Google to identify anyone who searched for the victim’s address the week before the crime. Google obliged. The search came from an IP address linked to John Edward Kurtz, later convicted in the case.

It’s hard to argue with the result; no one’s defending a rapist, but the method drew a line through an already fading concept: digital privacy.

Investigators didn’t start with a suspect; they started with everyone. That’s the quiet power of a “reverse keyword search,” a dragnet that scoops up the thoughts of every user who happens to type a particular phrase.

The justices pointed to Google’s own privacy policy as a kind of consent form. “In the case before us, Google went beyond subtle indicators,” they wrote. “Google expressly informed its users that one should not expect any privacy when using its services.”

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Tor Project received $2.5M from the US government to bolster privacy

The US government contributed over $2.5 million to the Tor Project in its 2023–2024 fiscal year, marking a continued but reduced financial relationship with the privacy-focused nonprofit.

The funds represent 35% of Tor’s $7.28 million in reported revenue, according to newly released financial disclosures.

The funding, primarily sourced through the US State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor (DRL), supports multiple high-impact projects aimed at strengthening internet freedom, especially in regions experiencing heavy censorship. The largest single contributor was DRL, providing $2.12 million. These funds were allocated across several major initiatives, including expanding Tor access in China, Hong Kong, and Tibet; developing a Tor-based VPN client for Android; combating malicious Tor relays; and migrating core network infrastructure to a more secure Rust-based implementation (Arti).

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