Best of simplifiedprivacy.com on Kiwi News
Most upvoted by Kiwi News readers
35 stories from simplifiedprivacy.com have been shared on Kiwi News since 21 May 2024, with 71 upvotes and 9 comments in total. The latest was shared on 16 April 2025. They are listed below, most upvoted first.
Text under a title is an AI summary of the linked article.
- Who decides what to censor? (Farcaster, Nostr, Bastyon, Arweave, and Lens)
The text rejects the spam and censorship approaches of Nostr, Farcaster, Lens, Bastyon and Arweave, proposing instead that each original poster decide which replies are spam. Under this model, end users can toggle a "criticism and spam" filter for replies, on the reasoning that followers trust a poster's judgment on their own subject, which decentralizes the decision to each individual poster. The text criticizes Nostr and Lens for letting client-side reports or follower-based votes silence users, Farcaster for a centralized official labeling list distributed to other clients, and Bastyon's and Arweave's node-based approaches as an illegal-content vote and a passive storage opt-out.
- EU Thugs Demand Chat Control, As US Thugs Promote Encryption
The article argues that the EU is moving to ban end-to-end encryption through the "Chat Control" bill, while the US is urging citizens to adopt encryption after Chinese hackers, dubbed "Salt Typhoon," breached communications systems. The bill, which critics call "Chat Control," would ban end-to-end encryption unless it includes a backdoor for government client-side scanning, and public voting on it is scheduled for Thursday, Dec 12. The article says the bill was originally killed after critics pointed out technical problems with ending encryption, and that the FBI is telling ordinary Americans to encrypt their chats.
- Russian Farcaster: How Bastyon Works (as Russia bans Discord)
Bastyon is a decentralized social media protocol in which posts are blockchain transactions while text, images and video are stored off-chain, according to an interview with lead developer Daniel Satchkov conducted by Simplified Privacy. Every node stores all post data, so any node a user connects to is interchangeable, which the article says is critical for reaching the network across a firewall. Bastyon has no official foundation or development funds, and Satchkov said "everyone chips in." The article also reports a total Pkoin supply of 24 million 375 thousand and a market cap of over 8 million USD at the time of writing.
- Crypto Agorism 101
Digital Agora argues that people should stop spending time on political voting and instead "vote with your actions," using encrypted technology and avoiding centralized services. It recommends self-hosting services such as email on a VPS shared by 2-3 friends for about 2-3 dollars a month, and it warns against privacy services like Protonmail and Custodial Lightning because they encourage centralized authority. On cryptocurrency, it says the real purpose is peer-to-peer cash and that saving only in Bitcoin misses that purpose. It closes by promoting HydraVeil, a VPN, and several subscription channels.
- Tyrany 101: Chrome introduces Digital IDs
Google's Chrome team has rolled out a digital ID feature, announced on its blog, that the author calls a power grab to make Google the overseer of identification through its browser and mobile platform. The feature is launching first on mobile via Chrome. The post cites Chrome's stated use cases of age verification, identity verification with name and address for legal compliance or fraud prevention, and checking eligibility to drive, such as when renting a car. The author argues that a browser is a poor place to store such data from a security standpoint and urges readers to boycott Chrome.
- DoJ ruled Google must sell Chrome
The US Department of Justice has ruled that Google must sell Chrome as part of its antitrust case, according to the article. Some analysts at Bloomberg, cited via MSN, put a potential price tag of $20 billion on the Chrome division. The DoJ also left the door open to selling Android in the future, and CBS News reports that regulators want Google to share data from people's queries with rivals. Evil Google News reports that the proposals extend to AI, including requirements that Google make its indexes, data and models accessible to competitors.
- Crypto-Protocols over Pictures | You'll get A LOT of Knowledge out of this
This article surveys several privacy and "liberty tech" protocols, mostly as brief descriptions rather than a single argument. It describes XMPP as well-trusted but says its OMEMO encryption is tied to the domain it is linked to, and says SimpleX's incoming messages are tied to government domains that can be censored. It presents Bastyon as harder for governments to block because home computers can act as nodes, and Monero as hiding data with decoy signers. The article also promotes its own VPN, which it says uses split traffic with fake decoy outputs, and notes the cover traffic is currently manual.
- Google's new AI nuclear reactors
- Why Privacy? Well, Hackers just abused Google.
Google Sheets has a new zero-day flaw, which is cited as another reason to abandon Google Workspace for Linux. The bug lets hackers mass-email by enabling a Python script to masquerade as a PDF on Windows, and hackers have used it to impersonate government officials in many countries. Bleeping Computer reports that Google Sheets serves as a command and control server for infected devices, and a similar technique was used by Chinese hackers a year earlier. Targets reportedly span insurance, aerospace, finance, healthcare and many other sectors.
- Leaked Lies at Google
Google accidentally leaked its search API on GitHub, and the article claims the leaked data shows the company lied about several search practices. According to the article, Google lied that it tracks user clicks as a ranking factor and that it uses Chrome browser data for search, contradicting its sworn testimony to the Department of Justice in an antitrust case. The article also claims Google lied about a ranking "sandbox" for new sites and placed smaller personal sites in a lower-ranked category to favor larger brands. Google later removed the data, but it had already been published under an Apache open source license.
- Be honest, you’re using Big Tech because:
The author argues that people who stay on Big Tech give false reasons, and that switching to Linux is easier than they think. Linux Mint is described as looking like Windows, and GIMP as easier to use than Adobe Photoshop while doing almost all of the same things. The piece also says there is an active community to help, citing a SimpleX room of 600 people, plus Session, the Linux.org forums and paid support companies, including the writer's own.
- New Forced "Real ID" for US
Real ID is being forced on US citizens, according to claims that the Trump administration requires it for domestic flights, with regular driver's licenses no longer accepted. Representative Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican, warns it may be used to "control" Americans and says its power will be realized "when everyone complies." Journalist Derrick Broze argues digital IDs are a first step toward an "Everything app" like China's WeChat, while Whitney Webb links them to Peter Thiel's AI biometric surveillance contracts. The American Civil Liberties Union says the law would facilitate tracking of individuals' data and supports efforts to repeal it.
- New Podcast: Simplified Privacy | Crypto, Farcaster, Arweave, Linux, FOSS, ETH
Simplified Privacy has launched a new original podcast covering topics such as Linux, VPNs, phones, email, VoIP, open source tools, decentralized social networks, and a circular crypto economy. The announcement says the first episode is up and lists further subjects including making a website, persuading friends and family, and advanced privacy tricks. Listeners can subscribe through AntennaPod or Apple Podcasts by adding the show via RSS feed, and the site also points to email, Nostr, Bastyon, RSS, and a Signal group for updates.
- Myths of Privacy: Google caught in lies, but Fingerprinting is way worse than..
Browser fingerprinting is presented as a bigger privacy threat than cookies, and common workarounds such as browser customization, alternative browsers, Qubes, and VirtualBox are called unrealistic. The text says Google's Picasso method can distinguish 52 million Android, iOS, Windows, and OSX clients across browsers with 100% accuracy, and that Cloudflare blocks alternative browsers like Pale Moon, Falkon, and SeaMonkey. It describes Qubes as a heavy resource drain, citing a laptop that was "hardly usable" and a NUC that struggled with 4K video. HydraVeil's app is offered as the alternative, providing isolated browser profiles with matching IPs, timezones, and screen sizes.
- They Update Your Fingerprint Every 5 Minutes | Simplified Privacy
Simplified Privacy argues that browser fingerprinting can track users across sessions and browsers, and it promotes its HydraVeil tool as a countermeasure. The text says Fingerprint's API docs show the service updates a fingerprint every 5 minutes, every hour, and every 24 hours, and that LibreWolf and Brave produced the same unique ID on repeat visits. It also cites a Cloudflare blog post saying its JA4 Signals are computed from the last hour of global traffic, with over 15 million unique JA4 fingerprints analyzed daily. HydraVeil, according to the text, launches isolated profiles that each use a different VPN or proxy IP address.
- Signal's CEO: "We're leaving Sweden" | Simplified Privacy
Sweden's government is pushing through legislation that would force Signal, WhatsApp and all other messengers to save all messages for the government to gather. Simplified Privacy says it has no bank accounts or country registration and promotes encryption-based identity tools such as Nostr, Bastyon, Arweave, Session and PGP. It also points to its earlier podcast on Mullvad, which is based in Sweden, saying that criticism predicted this news from how countries voted on past legislation. The title quotes Signal's CEO saying "We're leaving Sweden," but the text contains no such statement.
- They are Coming For Your Data : How to Protect Yourself | Simplified Privacy
This is a promotional page from Simplified Privacy for its HydraVeil app, which it says creates isolated browser profiles with fake fingerprints to protect users from tracking. The page claims Oracle operates behind many websites through more than 4,600 partnerships, including with TikTok, Google and Microsoft, and that browser fingerprinting can use 70+ factors such as screen size and timezone. It also states that the app's profiles present a fake screen size and browser version and match the timezone to the IP address, and that Oracle makes VirtualBox, which the page presents as a reason to avoid virtual machines.
- NSA Taps Ocean Cables, So Our VPN Splits Traffic | Simplified Privacy
Simplified Privacy, a VPN provider, says its double-layer design with split traffic makes it harder to correlate traffic across ocean cables. The article cites Edward Snowden's leaked documents as showing that the NSA taps ocean cables of other countries, and that the British government did so as well. Its system-wide layer works like a regular VPN, while the second layer uses browser-only isolated profiles that route traffic through different countries. The article says this makes packet sizes seen by the home ISP differ from those on the cables, unlike multi-hop WireGuard from other providers, which it describes as linear.
- Secret Blueprints to Beat Surveillance | Simplified Privacy
A podcast from Shadow Rebel explains HydraVeil, a new VPN that the page says can help beginners resist international surveillance. The page says the technology was built by anonymous engineers who do not speak on record, and it does not name them or offer evidence for its claims. The episode is the podcast version of two earlier VPN articles, one on "Isolated Encrypted Proxies" and one titled "Browsers?! Linux Distros are Negligent!" Listeners are invited to subscribe by podcast, email list, Nostr, Bastyon, RSS or a Signal group.
- Simplified Privacy's VPN: | Initial Release: Live Beta!
Simplified Privacy has launched the beta of its VPN, a Linux app whose anti-fingerprint profiles change screen resolution, browser type and version, time zone, filesystem and cookie isolation. The team says the profiles recreate an environment between the operating system and browser that cannot be detected, unlike Mullvad Browser, which it says "just lies and blocks." Its two-layer split-traffic networking aims to make packet sizes differ between a home ISP and VPN datacenter routers, and the initial release supports Debian-based, Arch-based and Fedora systems. Each profile costs $1 in cryptocurrency, and the team says the app does not require sudo to install or run the browser-only layer.
- Linux Distros are Negligent! | Simplified Privacy
Simplified Privacy argues that most Linux distributions are negligent for shipping stock Mozilla Firefox, which it says includes spyware, telemetry and invasive settings. It names Linux Mint and Ubuntu as examples and says private alternatives such as LibreWolf and Mullvad often break websites or get flagged by financial security, including sites like eBay. The company presents its VPN system, which uses Enterprise Resource Policies on a local proxy to serve browsers without telemetry, as the alternative, and says LibreWolf spoofing gives users less benefit than advertised.
- The Tech Behind Our New VPN (with easy graphics) | Simplified Privacy
Simplified Privacy describes a "browser-only WireGuard" design that routes a browser's traffic through WireProxy and isolated artificial network configuration files, avoiding the root access that regular WireGuard requires. The article says WireProxy runs WireGuard through a SOCKS5-style proxy without root access or direct access to networking interfaces, and that Bubblewrap sandboxing is used to isolate those configuration files so applications treat the isolated local proxy as a system-wide proxy. It contrasts this with Portmaster, which the article says requires persistent privileged kernel access, and states that Simplified Privacy aims to be lighter and faster than virtual machines.
- Web 3 Suffers from "Just My One Thing Disease"
Privacy, political, and free speech advocates are portrayed as so narrowly focused on their own cause that they miss the bigger picture and undermine themselves. Libertarian podcaster Dave Smith, whose podcasts Proton sponsors and who tells audiences to buy Protonmail, is said to use Gmail. Journalist Max Blumenthal of The Grey Zone encourages college protesters to boycott Israel, but he is said to use Gmail and Google surveillance on his website, and Google is described as a military contractor for Israel.
- Elite Hushed Secrets to Evade Bans.. Socks5 Proxy vs VPN: What's the Difference?
Socks5 proxies are presented as a way to avoid bans on VPNs and Tor, with the article contrasting them with WireGuard VPNs. It says WireGuard traffic is often linked to datacenter IPs that websites block, while Socks5 proxies forward traffic without encryption, can make traffic appear residential, and are faster. For Tor users, the article argues that WireGuard cannot run in front of Tor because it uses UDP, while a Socks5 proxy placed before Tor keeps the ISP from seeing Tor use, and it says Tor exits can see visited domains but not passwords or page content.
- Linux n00bs 101: Critical Podcast to Switch Over | Secure your ETH!
Switching to Linux is presented as a major step for privacy and freedom, particularly for securing crypto wallets and keeping ownership of one's Nostr identity. Simplified Privacy promotes its Linux 101 podcast episode, which it says explains how Linux works, covers switching methods and hardware vendors, and explains software types in under 10 minutes. The post claims that Big Tech recommendations keep users in their ecosystems and that Linux groups on Lemmy and Reddit censor tutorials that mention cryptocurrency and personal sovereignty. It also promotes HydraVeil, a VPN, and subscription channels including podcast, email, Nostr, Bastyon, RSS, and Signal.
- Bitcoin's Tax Problem. tiny capital gains for real world cash
A guest article by anon-bobo, directed at residents of Fiji and published with a disclaimer that the website does not share its views, argues that spending Bitcoin creates tiny capital gains that are unrealistic to track for daily purchases. It says some wallets do not show the price at which Bitcoin was received, and it describes a Lightning-based route that it claims would let a spender argue that no tax is owed. The article presents Monero as the better option, claiming it becomes untraceable once bought and costs 1 penny to send.
- Google is Totalitarian. {Shocking Whistleblowers}
The article, a promotional piece from a privacy-focused site, argues that Google is totalitarian and manipulates election results, search rankings and users, citing leaks and whistleblowers without verifying them. It says Google employee Dakota Leazer was recorded claiming the company manipulates ad results to favor Kamala Harris, and that Zach Vorhies leaked over 900 pages of internal documents to the DoJ. The piece also claims Google's search ranking favors large corporations over smaller ones, citing a study of HouseFresh and a Tim Wu study on degraded search, and that over 50 employees were fired for protesting AI work for Israel's military.
- SimpleX is under attack by the magazine Wired
Evgeny Poberezkin's comments to Wired, that SimpleX groups were never designed for more than 50 users and cannot support a meaningful social network, contradict his earlier claims that groups could scale. Wired reported that neo-Nazis are fleeing Telegram for SimpleX Chat, and Poberezkin said the company was not aware extremists had been using it. The critique cites his tweet from two days earlier, "We agree that once group can scale, they will help growth," and argues he is distancing his company from bad actors while still presenting as a cypherpunk.
- California just PASSED legislation that requires a Digital ID
The article claims California has passed legislation requiring a digital ID to view social media, though it says how the law would be enforced is still unclear. It says the bill, framed as curbing addictive AI for children, would require identification to use platforms like Facebook and Instagram and would bar companies from sending notifications too late on school nights. It also notes that Apple is rolling out a Digital ID watch, and that California DMV-issued digital driver's licenses now work with Apple Wallet, with half a million people signing up for initial testing. Readers are urged to resist digital IDs by choosing open source protocols and tools rather than voting.
- Make Crypto Off Telegram's CEO being Jailed!? [FIRE investment]
A buy recommendation for Pkoin, the cryptocurrency of Bastyon, a Russian social network described as a "Russian Nostr," rests on the expectation that censorship will drive users to the platform. The case cites Pkoin's 33% price rise in the two to three days before Telegram's CEO Durov was jailed, Telegram being reportedly downloaded about 100 million times in Russia, and a market capitalization of 8 million USD. If 1 or 2% of Telegram's userbase moved to Bastyon, the coin would have to increase dramatically, and a one-year timeframe is set to judge whether adoption lasts.
- Joe Biden's Digital IDs
Per NOTUS, a draft executive order that Joe Biden is seeking to push through before leaving office would require states to issue digital IDs on smartphones instead of physical driver's licenses. The program is described as unconstitutional, insecure and invasive, and a single stolen file could enable rampant fraud that would be difficult or impossible to stop. Tying IDs to one phone would, the text claims, force citizens to buy certain brands, a scheme it compares to the Obamacare insurance mandate that it says a federal court ruled unconstitutional, and it notes that millions chose to pay fines rather than buy health insurance.
- Negligent Google Play is axing its Security Reward Program
Google is ending its Security Reward Program, which paid developers up to $20,000 to find vulnerabilities in popular Android apps. Google says it is "winding down the program due to a decrease in actionable vulnerabilities reported by security researchers." The article argues this is surprising given rising malware on Google Play, citing a Zimperium report that the GriftHorse campaign evaded detection for nearly a year and affected over 10 million victims. It also says Google changed its legal wording so developers must self-report the permissions their apps use, shifting responsibility onto developers.
- Why Arweave is both Censorship-Resistant AND private
Arweave is presented as a system that gives website visitors privacy and gives content creators censorship resistance, by storing content on a layer-1 blockchain and serving it through gateways rather than centralized servers. Storage runs on modified Proof of Work using RandomX, which the article says Monero also uses, and customers pay for 100 years of storage that funds nodes storing the data. The gateway CDN is run by a separate project, ar.io, which uses Proof of Stake with IO tokens, and gateways that serve malicious content can have their stake slashed. The author states a personal disagreement with the voting-based method for judging malicious gateways, preferring a purely mathematical comparison of files.
- Simplified Privacy is now regulated! Just not the gov...
Simplified Privacy, a provider of VPS combo packs, email, DeGoogled phones and other tech services, says it has replaced government regulation with a customer protection scheme of its own. The company states that it submitted a 2 Monero deposit with arbitrator AilliA from XMRBazaar and registered it with its PGP key. Customers receive a PGP-signed receipt for purchases, and if the company fails to deliver or respond with proof of delivery within 2 weeks, AilliA will pay the customer XMR from the deposit.
- Windows PCs get a ‘photographic memory’ by screenshotting everything you do.
Microsoft's Recall feature for Windows uses AI to take screenshots every few seconds and store and analyze them, which the article calls mass surveillance. The article says Microsoft markets the feature as giving Windows a "photographic memory" that stores everything a user has worked on and done. It also says the controls cannot stop the feature from capturing passwords and financial account numbers, and that Elon Musk tweeted he would "turn off" the feature, a claim the article doubts. The article urges users to switch to Linux and promotes the paid services of Simplified Privacy.