In the Open · Edition #2

Sep 01, 2026

Updates

From September 2026 Google will block sideloaded Android apps unless developers pay, and hand over government ID. The shift is already happening as Google cut MTE support, GrapheneOS recommends against buying Pixel 11, and apps start blocking logins.

Everything is turning into a surveillance drone. Flock’s CEO publicly announced we should all “compromise” on privacy and pitched Uber, Lyft and delivery drivers to collect license plate data for their network. Meta patents the next step in their smart glasses to automatically record and identify faces. CBP workers are using these surveillance databases to settle their personal vendettas.

The EFF’s response is to eliminate automated license plate reader surveillance entirely.

The EU is mandating age checks via hardware-bound attestation, trusting only “approved devices”. This locks out open systems, like Linux and Android builds. When platforms refuse, regulators sue, as we see in Brazil vs Discord and Pennsylvania vs. Snapchat.

Meta knowingly designed products to addict children and got a $17B slap on the wrist that further pushes age/ID checks, facial recognition, and device-level age signals as the EFF warns, collecting more identity data from users of all ages.

France pushed a <15 social media ban too, but the French court struck it down as a disproportionate hit on freedom of expression and privacy.

Kill the Cookie Banner! - The EU wants browsers to signal your privacy prefs once and skip banners. Trackers are lobbying hard against it.
Firefox 154 adds Startpage in five countries - Native no-tracking search in Germany, Netherlands, France, Austria, and Switzerland, no extension needed.
Europe drafts VPN security standard - ETSI is approving EN 304 620 under the Cyber Resilience Act, giving users a clearer benchmark for trustworthy VPNs.
Anthropic watermarks Claude text - Machine-readable tags embedded in Claude output to meet EU AI Act detectability rules, even after you copy.
Paint embeds hidden IDs in AI images - ‘Local’ Paint generation still sends your prompt to Microsoft, which returns a unique ID baked into the pixels.
X shuts down Nitter for good - Cease-and-desist kills the privacy frontend and public instances, after similar takedowns of XCancel and other proxies.

Tor raises $200k in participatory funding - 580 donors backed Onion Browser, OONI, SecureDrop, and other internet freedom tools via quadratic matching.
French court blocks under-15 social media ban - Constitutional limits still apply: the blanket under-15 ban was ruled disproportionate to speech and privacy rights.
Omacom Foundation launches with $8M - Eight founders pledged $1M each to fund Omarchy’s trademarks, infrastructure, and open Linux desktop projects.
EFF coalition demands halt to live face recognition - Liberty and Big Brother Watch joined EFF to warn Nottinghamshire Police the rollout treats every passerby as a suspect.

Tor Snowflake Volunteer for Android - Donate bandwidth as a censorship-bypass proxy, with Wi-Fi-only and battery controls.
Ente Locker for encrypted documents - E2E storage for credentials and files, with private sharing and emergency pass-on, free up to 100 items.
Privt Voice: local encrypted dictation for Mac - Transcribes on-device via Apple Neural Engine, encrypts with XChaCha20, and never sends audio to a server.
Brave adds email aliases - Create forwarding addresses from any sign-up form so sites never see your real email. Five free aliases to start.
Signal adds automatic key verification - Key transparency and continuous auditing make silent key swaps and interception far harder to pull off.

Brave Accounts keep passwords on-device - Your password never leaves your device or gets sent to Brave’s servers, a rare step up from browser sync norms.
Proton maps what AI assistants know - A plain-language primer on what major assistants retain, plus how Lumo tries to do better.