Revealed: how Russia uses mobile ‘super-app’ Max to spy on its citizens

The Technology the Trump Administration Could Use to Hack Your Phone

Other Western democracies have been roiled by the use of spyware to target political opponents, activists, journalists, and other vulnerable groups. Could it happen here?

How to prepare your mobile phone for the Russian border: Meduza’s complete survival guide — Meduza

A growing number of Russians living overseas who return to the country temporarily are reporting psychological pressure and mobile-phone searches at the Russian border. These inspections can result in consequences far more severe than travel delays, including criminal charges and incarceration. Understanding your personal risk and exactly how to prepare your devices for the trip can be difficult, as the internet is full of fragmented and conflicting advice. Working with a lawyer and a cybersecurity expert, Meduza prepared this detailed guide answering the main questions on the topic. Is it true that FSB officers have a special machine that can find anything on a device? Do you have the right to refuse to unlock your phone, and is there any point in refusing? And what’s the most effective preparation strategy?

I Decompiled the White House's New App

The official White House Android app has a cookie/paywall bypass injector, tracks your GPS every 4.5 minutes, and loads JavaScript from some guy's GitHub Pages.

Japan’s police to monitor ‘tokuryū’ use of confidential messaging apps

The method involves remote-controlling smartphones and other devices of high-ranking tokuryū members to access communication records and other information.

Chat Control & Going Dark: The war on encryption is on the rise. Through a shady collaboration between the US and the EU.

After Snowden’s whistleblowing in 2013, large parts of the internet became encrypted, enabling private and secure communication. Not everyone has welcomed this change. Most notably, the FBI and other U.S. government agencies have fought what is often called the “crypto wars”, the war on encryption. In recent years, they have been joined by the European Commission. Under the slogan “what about the children,” they try to introduce total mass surveillance of all EU citizens — first through the proposed Chat Control legislation, and later via the Going Dark and ProtectEU initiatives. The goal is to legally mandate spy tools on every European smartphone and computer. The forces behind these efforts have turned out to be American tech companies and intelligence agencies.

‘My social life completely plummeted’: gen Z is fighting back against big tech

From apps that block distractions to stripped-down phones, young people are finding ways to unplug from platforms they say profit from their attention

Stop Bill C-22!

🚨 Bill C-22 forces every Canadian internet provider, messaging app & cloud service to build surveillance backdoors and store a year of your data. Foreign state hackers exploited similar legislation in the US. Shut the backdoor: https://openmedia.org/StopC22 #BillC22

How A Massive Ad Fraud Scheme Exploited Android Phones To Steal Millions Of Dollars

A BuzzFeed News investigation uncovered a sophisticated ad fraud scheme involving more than 125 Android apps and websites, some of which were targeted at kids.

What Comes After TikTok

Last month, the U.S. gave TikTok a choice—either its owner, Chinese artificial intelligence company ByteDance, has to sell it, or it will face a federal ban. As we wait to see how ByteDance responds, more than 25 U.S. states have gone ahead and banned the app from state employees’ devices. And ...

Cambridge Analytica, the shady data firm that might be a key Trump-Russia link, explained

Why House investigators think this company might have gamed Facebook and helped Russia spread fake news.

Bill C-22’s Groundhog Day: Why the Government’s Dismissal of Signal, Apple and the U.S. Congress Concerns Runs Back the Disastrous Online News Act Playbook - Michael Geist

Secure messaging service Signal yesterday became the latest company to warn that Bill C-22, the lawful access bill, could force it to leave the Canadian market rather than comply with provisions it says would compromise its end-to-end encryption and create new cybersecurity risks. Signal vice-president Udbhav Tiwari told the Globe and Mail that the company “would rather pull out of the country than be compelled to compromise on the privacy promises we have made to our users.” The comments are part of a steady stream of similar warnings from Apple, Meta, the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, the Cybersecurity Advisors Network, and the chairs of the U.S. House Judiciary and Foreign Affairs Committees. Despite growing concern, the government’s response has been to launch a misleading social media campaign and repeatedly insist that the experts and companies are mistaken.

Phone Searches at the US Border Hit a Record High

Customs and Border Protection agents searched nearly 15,000 devices from April through June of this year, a nearly 17 percent spike over the previous three-month high in 2022. "The real issue is the chilling effect it has on all travelers."

The Super-Aggregators and the Russians

Facebook is in trouble — again — for Russian ads about the election; figuring out how to deal with them requires first understanding that Facebook, like Google, is a Super-Aggregator. It faces zero…