I read a very interesting story today that I think I want to make a single-episode topic on The Private Citizen in the future (along the lines of the well received episode 14). Apparently the Stasi, the principal intelligence service of the Communist GDR, was able to intercept West German B-Netz mobile phone communications in West Berlin from 1975 onwards.

• Staatliche Hacker: Stasi hörte seit 1975 Autotelefone in West-Berlin ab — Das B-Netz der Deutschen Bundespost wurde spätestens seit 1975 von der DDR-Staatssicherheit abgehört.

This story about the Quad alliance taking on China also needs to be covered, I think:

• “Quad” group seeks to set security standards for global tech industry — USA, India, Australia, and Japan pledge to build own 5G tech, share space data, secure rare earth supply chains, and more
• Quad Principles on Technology Design, Development, Governance, and Use (whitehouse.gov)

Some more stories for The Private Citizen that I should have a closer look at once I have the time:

• Google Report Spotlights Uptick in Controversial ‘Geofence Warrants’ by Police — Digital privacy rights defenders contend that geofencing warrants grab data on everyone near a crime, without cause.
• Zensurvorwürfe: Will Xiaomi vor allem Porno-Werbung filtern? — Warum laden Xiaomi-Smartphones Wörterlisten mit politischen Begriffen herunter? Möglicherweise soll damit auch explizite Werbung gefiltert werden.
• Indictment, Lawsuits Revive Trump-Alfa Bank Story

Guess what? The Hunter Biden laptop stuff was real. And it was actively supressed with counter-propaganda in the media. I mean, it was obvious to me. I went on the record on episode 48 of The Private Citizen saying so. But now we have another good analysis that indicates this. Glenn Greenwald, who quit the publication he founded over this farce, has a good analysis of all the lies and propaganda by the CIA, the Democrat-allied press and the big tech companies on his Substack:

• New Proof Emerges of the Biden Family Emails: a Definitive Account of the CIA/Media/BigTech Fraud

Here we go again. I’ve got more Private Citizen topics than I know what to do with. Well, once I have time to podcast again, I’ll owe listeners some extra episodes, so I’m guessing all of these links will come in handy.

• Lithuania tells its citizens to throw Xiaomi mobile devices in the bin — Baltic state’s cyber security centre uncovers remote censorship blocklist function in Mi 10T handset

This is another topic for an upcoming episode of The Private Citizen, I think:

• Suex to be you: Feds sanction cryptocurrency exchange for handling payments from 8+ ransomware variants — Russia-based biz targeted in Uncle Sam’s crack down on cyber-extortion

I’m writing a review of Icarus and as such will be taking part in the game’s beta weekends once my other work obligations allow it. I’m planning to stream the game on the beta weekends beginning in October and have updated my streaming schedule accordingly.

I’m currently on the road and unable to record any podcasts. But I am working and came across some potential topics for future Private Citizen episodes today. So let me just park a few links here for future reference. They might help you as well, just be aware of the source of each story – obviously something I always carefully examine on the podcast.

• How surveillance capitalism will totally transform the domain name system
• Top German Court Says Facebook Must Inform Users About Deleting Their Posts Or Suspending Their Account, Explain Why, And Allow Them To Respond
• The digital identity imperative

Guys, just a quick update letting you know that there’ll be somewhat less content on this blog for a few weeks. I am quite busy at work and with other things at the moment. Don’t worry if you don’t hear from me in a while. It’s all good and I’ll be back soon.

As promised, I’ve just released an extra episode of The Private Citizen. This is a long one, so I hope you have some time on your hand. Or, you know, just pause it in between.

→ The Private Citizen 86: The Sausage Wars

A discussion with my friend Mike about the current state of Brexit and what it means for the future of the European Union and the geopolitical situation on the continent and beyond.

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I’ve just released another episode of The Private Citizen, hopefully one of a couple this week. In this one, I examine an example of exceptionally bad journalism that hit the world recently. I’ve discussed this kind of thing before, but sadly, the journalistic landscape seems to be getting worse, not better.

→ The Private Citizen 85: The Latest in Despicable Journalism

Again and again, so-called journalists in big media outlets exaggerate or even outright invent stories to scare or outrage the public. The audience just buys it wholesale and never notices when, a day or two later, it all turns out to be complete bullshit. Today’s example: Ivermectin.

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I’ve also updated the album art for the show again. As you can see, I am aggressively fighting for your right to have something to hide!

This week on The Private Citizen, I explain Steve Gibson’s SQRL, which is a really cool solution to the problems we all face with passwords on the internet.

→ The Private Citizen 84: Steve Gibson’s Squirrel

Authentication on the internet is fundamentally broken. Weak passwords, password reuse, data leaks and untrustworthy third parties tracking us while they log us in are the unfortunate reality right now. One man decided to single-handedly fix this mess.

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“Botany Bay”

A postcard from No Man’s Sky

I think the recent Pegasus spyware investigation and so-called “NSO scandal” was quite boring, personally. But people really wanted me to talk about it on The Private Citizen and, you know, I think they are right. It is a really important topic, even if it is boring to me. So I talked about it:

→ The Private Citizen 83: The Conspiracy Theorists Get It Right Again

Pegasus isn’t new. Anyone in the field has known about NSO Group’s spyware and its use against politicians, activists and journalists for half a decade. What’s worth discussing, though, is how the topic has been ignored for so long. Both by the press and by iPhone maker Apple.

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Here’s a little webcomic I’ve been working on:

Why I avoid Facebook like the plague these days? Because as soon as I log on, I see a former colleague of mine (a journalist) post this, liked by a lot of other former colleagues (also journalists):

It’s dumb shit like this that makes me fear for the future of my profession. What exactly are you saying there? That scientists can’t be wrong? If you actually asked a scientist about their job, they’d probably tell you that 95% of their job is being wrong. Also, much like “journalist”, “scientist” isn’t a protected job title. Anyone can be a scientist. In fact, much like being a journalist, being a scientist is a way of thinking more than anything else. Not to mention that there are very different sciences that work very differently from each other.

I don’t understand how these guys think. Are you only a scientist if you have a PhD? Are you only a scientist if you work at a university? And does this then mean you are automatically right about your job and me, a journalist (not a scientist), is automatically wrong? You can’t be possibly that naïve! These guys probably think somebody who’s not a journalist is not allowed to tell a journalist when the journalist is wrong about journalism, right? It’s hard for me to even imagine a more unscientific way of thinking than exhibited by whoever made this meme.

Facebook indeed seems to actively destroy intelligence in people. There’s no other way I have at my disposal to understand this Homer Simpson-esque behaviour. “Ha ha… Look! Smart text on image!” CLICK “I like!”

Tonight, on the The Private Citizen, I talk about breaking news from Afghanistan. Not so much the war or the troop withdrawal itself, but how politicians reacted to it. And why we, as freedom-loving, democracy-affirming citizens can not let this blatant (and dumb) propaganda stand.

→ The Private Citizen 82: The Afghan Disaster

The people responsible claim nobody could have predicted what happened in Afghanistan this week. But their experts did in fact did predict it, which wasn’t exactly hard, and then the people in charge lied about it. The public now desperately needs to understand how governments operate, or it will all happen again. And soon.

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