Surveillance Report: Weekly News For Digital Freedom

Congress now has two site-blocking bills, and one of them would force VPNs and encrypted DNS providers to block websites for Americans. Plus: ShinyHunters hacked the FBI and someone stole 3 million Pentagon personnel records, Chat Control 2.0 stalled in the EU (for now), and Meta's Muse AI agent is already off to an a*muse*ing start to privacy and security. Go Incognito v2 is launching Monday! I'm running a pre-launch 25% discount + a 'Day Zero' badge, just use code V2LAUNCH: https://learn.techlore.tech/go-incognito-v2?coupon=V2LAUNCH 🧡 SUPPORT TECHLORE Become a Techlorian and keep this show growing: ★ Support this podcast ★ 🔗 SOURCES & LINKS View all sources here: https://techlore.tech/congress-comes-for-vpns-plus-fbi-pentagon-hacks-and-chat-control-defended/ ⏱️ TIMESTAMPS (00:00) - WELCOME TO SURVEILLANCE REPORT (00:42) - HIGHLIGHT: MORE VPN SHENANIGANS (07:00) - GO INCOGNITO V2 IS HERE! (09:38) - THEY HACKED THE FBI (11:52) - CHAT CONTROL DELAYED (14:20) - META'S MUSE: TALE AS OLD AS TIME (19:30) - DEFENSE BULLETIN: DATA BREACHES (21:46) - DEFENSE BULLETIN: THREATS (29:10) - DEFENSE BULLETIN: FOSS+ 🎥 VIDEO Watch on YouTube 📰 ABOUT SURVEILLANCE REPORT Your essential weekly tech news podcast covering the latest threats to security, privacy, and digital freedom. Hosted by Henry Fisher from Techlore.

A hacker emailed Revolut pretending to be a government agency, and Revolut handed over customers' passports, IDs, and financial details. Plus: the global age-verification wave forcing even more ID collection (EU, California, Microsoft), OpenAI's rogue AI agents and why I've hit a breaking point with these companies, and the usual run of data breaches, threats, and open-source updates. Correction: it's really DMARC that stops the spoofing, misspoke! Set up SPF, DKIM, and DMARC together. In this episode: Highlight, The hidden cost of handing over your ID: the Revolut impersonation breach, IDScan's confirmed 150M+ license leak, and the Florida DMV/ShinyHunters breach The global age-verification wave: the EU's under-15 proposal, EDRi's critique of the eID wallet, California's new laws (the good and the bad), and Microsoft's new Windows age APIs OpenAI's rogue agents: the German-wiki hijack, 10+ more undisclosed sites, and why Henry's patience with AI companies has run out Defense Bulletin: breaches (AdaptHealth, Berlin, Trezor, Surfshark, Mathspace, Veradigm), threats (Pixel modem zero-day, Chrome, Nightmare Eclipse's exploit spree, a new Android VPN leak, LG TVs), and FOSS+ (Tor, Tails, CalyxOS, GrapheneOS RCS, Control D on Tailscale, Homebrew 7.0, and more) 🔎 EasyOptOuts is the easy, affordable, and effective way to automatically remove your data from people search sites: https://easyoptouts.com Thanks to the EasyOptOuts team for sponsoring Surveillance Report! 🧡 SUPPORT TECHLORE Become a Techlorian and keep this show growing: ★ Support this podcast ★ 🔗 SOURCES & LINKS View all sources here: https://techlore.tech/no-hack-needed-how-revolut-leaked-your-passport-plus-new-age-verification-rogue-ai-agents/ ⏱️ TIMESTAMPS (00:00) - WELCOME TO SURVEILLANCE REPORT (01:04) - REVOLUT + OTHER ID LEAKS (07:36) - AGE BANS & AGE VERIFICATION (12:24) - OUR SPONSOR: EASYOPUTOUTS! (13:30) - CREEPY AI COMPANIES & CEOS (17:48) - DEFENSE BULLETIN: DATA BREACHES (20:50) - DEFENSE BULLETIN: THREATS (26:22) - DEFENSE BULLETIN: FOSS+ 🎥 VIDEO Watch on YouTube 📰 ABOUT SURVEILLANCE REPORT Your essential weekly tech news podcast covering the latest threats to security, privacy, and digital freedom. Hosted by Henry Fisher from Techlore.

An ID-verification company, IDScan.net, appears to have leaked scans of 153 million driver's licenses, then sold on a dark-web market called Nexus. This week I break down why this breach is the perfect example of everything wrong with ID uploads, plus Chrome officially pulling uBlock Origin and AdGuard from the Web Store, California's age-verification bill carving out a Linux exemption, and Florida and Texas stepping back from Flock license-plate readers, plus the usual data breaches, threats, and open-source updates. In this episode: Highlight: 153M driver's licenses leaked via IDScan.net, sold on Nexus, FBI investigating, plus what to actually do (freeze your credit, minimize ID uploads) Chrome officially removes uBlock Origin & AdGuard. Manifest V2 is dead in big-tech browsers (and what still supports it) California's age-verification bill passes with a Linux / open-source exemption, plus EFF's push against AB 1709 Florida & Texas step back from Flock and license-plate readers Data breaches: McKesson (ShinyHunters), Aesto Health (9.5M), Carhartt (12.9M), Manchester Airports Group, Novocure, Hasbro Threats: critical Elementor Pro, All-in-One WP Migration, GiveWP, Plex, Gitea, malicious Chrome extensions, and a "free movies" box you should avoid FOSS+: Firefox 155, Tails 7.12, Mullvad DNS shutting down (switch to Quad9 before Nov 2), Brave email aliases, LibreOffice 26.8, Organic Maps, CalyxOS on the Fairphone 6, and EFF's doxxing-safety guides 🧡 SUPPORT TECHLORE Become a Techlorian and keep this show growing: ★ Support this podcast ★ 🔗 SOURCES & LINKS View all sources here: https://techlore.tech/153-million-drivers-licenses-for-sale-plus-chrome-kills-ublock-origin-texas-kicks-out-flock/ ⏱️ TIMESTAMPS (00:00) - WELCOME TO SURVEILLANCE REPORT (00:40) - HIGHLIGHT: ID BREACH (05:52) - F IN THE CHATS FOR MV2 (08:00) - CALIFORNIA'S LINUX CARVE-OUT (12:42) - TEXAS & FLORIDA DEFLOCK (14:22) - DEFENSE BULLETIN: DATA BREACHES (17:40) - DEFENSE BULLETIN: THREATS (21:24) - DEFENSE BULLETIN: FOSS+ 🎥 VIDEO Watch on YouTube 📰 ABOUT SURVEILLANCE REPORT Your essential weekly tech news podcast covering the latest threats to security, privacy, and digital freedom. Hosted by Henry Fisher from Techlore.

Four positive VPN stories in one week: Mullvad's new multihop modes, Obscura shipping on Windows, Apple quietly patching the iCloud Private Relay leak, and Firefox's free VPN rolling out to Android. Then it gets darker: Flock built an AI tool that turns license plates into names, addresses, and relatives. Meta settled for billions over harms to kids. Plus X sent cease-and-desists that took Nitter and XCancel offline, and the usual data breaches, threats, and FOSS+ updates. 🔎 EasyOptOuts is the easy, affordable, and effective way to automatically remove your data from people search sites: https://easyoptouts.com Thanks to the EasyOptOuts team for sponsoring Surveillance Report! 🧡 SUPPORT TECHLORE Become a Techlorian and keep this show growing: ★ Support this podcast ★ 🔗 SOURCES & LINKS View all sources here: https://techlore.tech/apple-fixed-a-leak-without-telling-anyone-plus-more-vpn-news-and-flocks-creepy-police-ai/ ⏱️ TIMESTAMPS (00:00) - WELCOME TO SURVEILLANCE REPORT (00:40) - HIGHLIGHT: 4 VPN UPDATES (06:20) - FLOCK'S CREEPY AI TOOL (11:15) - META'S SETTLEMENT (14:44) - OUR SPONSOR: EASYOPTOUTS (16:32) - X ATTACKS FRONTENDS (20:48) - DEFENSE BULLETIN: DATA BREACHES (23:02) - DEFENSE BULLETIN: THREATS (29:08) - DEFENSE BULLETIN: FOSS+ 🎥 VIDEO Watch on YouTube 📰 ABOUT SURVEILLANCE REPORT Your essential weekly tech news podcast covering the latest threats to security, privacy, and digital freedom. Hosted by Henry Fisher from Techlore.

Three cracks opened up in Apple's privacy story this week: iCloud Private Relay leaking real IP addresses through DNS prefetching, WebTransport, and passkeys; Hide My Email exposing real addresses in bounce logs; and an unprecedented wave of spyware notifications going out to targeted users. Also this week: 737 fake VPN extensions sitting in the Chrome Web Store, Edge phasing out Manifest V2, a judge giving Google one week to fix its anticompetitive Play Store flow, and France's top court blocking the under-15 social media ban on free expression grounds. Stop handing out your real email address. addy.io gives every site an alias that forwards to your normal inbox. Open source, self-hostable, with browser extensions and mobile apps. 🚀 Get started for free: https://addy.io/?utm_source=techlore In this episode: Highlight: Three Apple flaws worth acting on today: Private Relay's IP leaks, the Hide My Email exposure, the macOS screen-sharing bug, and the spyware alert wave 737 fake VPN extensions impersonating Proton, Nord, Surfshark and Cloudflare in the Chrome Web Store, with 500+ still live after cleanup A judge gives Google one week to fix its anticompetitive Play Store flow after Epic France's top court blocks the under-15 social media ban, citing freedom of expression and privacy Data Breaches: CareCloud (3.7M patients), a LiteLLM supply chain attack leaking terabytes of credentials, 3.6M Azure records, RingCentral (1.6M), Sakura Internet, Clarity Check's exposed face database, the French tax authority, SafePal, Trezor, and Pokémon Center Threats: the Evooo1Bot Linux router botnet, Comcast adding motion sensing to millions of routers, Google buying bankrupt Spirit Airlines' customer data to train AI, DDoS attacks on Threema, and a Copilot prompt-injection disclosure FOSS+: Tor Browser 15.0.20, Waterfox 6.7 "Supernova," a native ad blocker in Firefox for iOS, Startpage arriving in Firefox, Brave 1.93's GPU fingerprinting protections, Proton Mail Categories, Proton's AI Paper Trail tool, Ente's post-quantum work, Linux kernel 7.2, the Fairphone Gen 6 Plus landing in the US, SimpleX's equity crowdfunding, and Pine64 halting Linux device production 🧡 SUPPORT TECHLORE Become a Techlorian and keep this show growing: ★ Support this podcast ★ 🔗 SOURCES & LINKS View all sources here: https://techlore.tech/apples-private-relay-is-leaking-your-ip-plus-fake-vpn-extensions-frances-big-win/ ⏱️ TIMESTAMPS (00:00) - WELCOME TO SURVEILLANCE REPORT (00:38) - APPLE USERS SHOULD LISTEN UP (09:04) - IMPORTANT BROWSER PRIVACY UPDATES (13:34) - OUR SPONSOR: ADDY.IO (15:06) - GOOGLE FORCED TO BEHAVE (18:24) - A HUGE WIN IN FRANCE (22:26) - DEFENSE BULLETIN: DATA BREACHES (27:30) - DEFENSE BULLETIN: THREATS (32:30) - DEFENSE BULLETIN: FOSS+ 🎥 VIDEO Watch on YouTube 📰 ABOUT SURVEILLANCE REPORT Your essential weekly tech news podcast covering the latest threats to security, privacy, and digital freedom. Hosted by Henry Fisher from Techlore.