When the microcomputer first landed in homes some forty years ago, it came with a simple freedom—you could run whatever software you could get your hands on. Floppy disk from a friend? Pop it in. Shareware demo downloaded from a BBS? Go ahead! Dodgy code you wrote yourself at 2 AM? Absolutely. The computer you bought was yours. It would run whatever you told it to run, and ask no questions.

Today, that freedom is dying. What’s worse, is it’s happening so gradually that most people haven’t noticed we’re already halfway into the coffin.

Collaborative office suite, end-to-end encrypted and open-source. - Release 🍁 Autumn release (2025.9.0) · cryptpad/cryptpad

Signal's privacy and security are great, but being a centralized app makes it vulnerable. Element explains to TechRadar why we do need decentralized apps more than ever.

An awesome app I just discovered for browsing reddit links. Like the rest of you I've abandoned reddit but a lot of research on the web takes you to reddit. It's unsafe to browse the main site. This app is fully incognito and doesn't require an account. It's also gorgeous. It could potentially go inactive soon due to an API change. Last update was also in June but they fixed a crash this morning so someone's still working on it.

Probably not much.

• AtlasOS: https://atlasos.net/
• Amelabs Privacy+: https://docs.amelabs.net/privacy/_plus.html

I use a Windows VM for apps not available on Linux and just want to cut out all the telemetry possible.

AtlasOS is installed as a Ameliorated Playbook and makes a ton of opinionated changes that aren’t privacy or necessarily performance related. Disabling the Windows 11 right click menus in favor of the legacy one, disabling window shadows, changing the wallpaper, etc. Privacy+ looks appealing, I wanna know if anyone has tried both and can tell me differences, like if one or the other improves privacy more.

I want to share an interesting cryptography paper which introduces "anamorphic encryption", where the ciphertext encrypts two messages. One is a message to reveal to a dictator, who wants the secret key and message to control the narrative. Behind it lies a hidden message, guarded behind a "double key", which is to communicate messages of intent secretly.

It's kind of like having a duress key to reveal, but instead you can send real messages with the real key.

For instance, an investigative journalist could encrypt a fake message "Everyone is content in our utopia" as a smokescreen to show to the dictator, while true messages like "Minorities are forced into labor camps" can be hidden in the anamorphically encrypted ciphertexts to notify the outside free press.

The authors argue that cryptosystems already in use supports the anamorphic mode, where you encrypt a normal-looking ciphertext which contains the hidden message.

Given that it has been 3 years since this paper, I think there would have been some applications of this technology. Do you guys know of any?

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