evacide

Director of Cybersecurity
@EFF
/ Co-founder of
@stopstalkerware
/ These are my opinions, not my employers’ / I did a TED talk once

Public Key

npub18wn0jd3p7n6u3y7mc46p0hpx3cmtv9k3mu82rc0lhkg3rdyf590s3wshpx

NIP-05 Address

evacide@hachyderm-io.mostr.pub

Profile Code

nprofile1qqsrhfhexcslfawgj0du2aqhmsngud4kzmga7r4pu8lmmyg3kjy6zhcpz3mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduqs6amnwvaz7tmwdaejumr0ds62uuw4

Publishing to

relay.damus.io

nos.lol

Author Public Key

npub18wn0jd3p7n6u3y7mc46p0hpx3cmtv9k3mu82rc0lhkg3rdyf590s3wshpx

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Last Notes

2026-03-22 19:15:56 UTC

For people who are concerned about having their devices seized at US airports starting Monday when ICE "assists" the TSA, EFF has this guide: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/06/journalist-security-checklist-preparing-devices-travel-through-us-border

2026-02-21 23:40:18 UTC

Hacktivists tried to find a workaround to Discord’s age-verification software, Persona. Instead, they found its frontend exposed to the open internet, and that was just the beginning.
https://www.therage.co/persona-age-verification/

2026-02-19 19:56:37 UTC

The most monstrous lie that I regularly tell myself is "I'll get that work done while I'm on the plane."

2026-01-29 22:45:16 UTC

This is your regular reminder that I do not owe you an argument defending a position that you have decided that I hold. Indeed, I do not owe you an argument about anything.

2026-01-11 01:55:23 UTC

Sometimes I read the threads that experienced activists write about how to behave at protests because it reminds me that the kinds of replies I get when I give digital privacy/security advice aren't just for me.

2026-01-09 08:16:01 UTC

We are 9 days into 2026 and my New Years' Resolution to just let people be wrong on the internet is already is truly testing the limits of my willpower.

2026-01-09 07:55:21 UTC

- reply

There is no one-size-fits-all solution for digital safety at protests. You need to decide in advance what your goals are, what is important for you to protect, and what is likely to happen to you, and threat model accordingly.

2026-01-09 07:50:00 UTC

- reply

But if it is important to you to maintain your anonymity at a protest, consider leaving your phone at home, or at least turning it on/off only once you are well out of the neighborhood.

2026-01-09 07:47:47 UTC

- reply

There are other reasons you might want to take a cheap/disposable/burner phone to a protest, such as making sure that if you are arrested, the police don't seize/break/confiscate your main phone.

2026-01-09 07:45:32 UTC

If you don't want ICE to know you were at a protest, taking a burner phone is not going to help you stay anonymous if you go home afterwards. https://www.404media.co/inside-ices-tool-to-monitor-phones-in-entire-neighborhoods/

2025-12-12 23:19:12 UTC

NYT reports that the TSA is giving ICE a list of every person who's to be taking a domestic flight inside the US so ICE can run it through their database looking for targets.
I'm not a lawyer, but I feel like the 4th Amendment has something to say about this.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/12/us/politics/immigration-tsa-passenger-data.html?unlocked_article_code=1.8E8.lG_B.SvLF8g3CXiKG&smid=bs-share

2025-12-03 21:47:00 UTC

I don't dress for the male gaze. I dress for a women who are old enough to be my mother, wear oversized jewelry, and say things like "I'd dye my hair that color."

2025-10-17 18:44:21 UTC

If your protest privacy/security advice does not start with a discussion of threat models, it is probably not good advice.

2025-10-13 04:03:48 UTC

"A soldier knows what to do when they encounter another soldier. But an air-humping frog?"
@sarahjeong.bsky.social on the shitposting/aura farming era of American politics.
https://www.theverge.com/policy/798491/frog-portland-trump-national-guard

2025-10-06 18:06:58 UTC

I deleted my post about the Discord hack because the compromise was a third-party support service and not a third-party dedicated age verification system. Collecting user IDs is still bad and they are hard to protect, but being accurate in my posts is also important.

2025-10-06 17:03:11 UTC

As the prophecy foretold, a major platform's third-party age verification system has been hacked and hackers had access to the government ID images of Discord's users.
https://www.tomsguide.com/computing/online-security/discord-users-suffers-the-first-high-profile-age-verification-hack-and-its-unlikely-to-be-the-last

2025-08-20 21:48:22 UTC

I take it all back, there ARE violent criminals on the streets of San Francisco. They're grabbing people off the street and pepper spraying journalists.
https://sf.gazetteer.co/i-reported-from-an-ice-action-on-sansome-and-all-i-got-was-a-face-full-of-pepper-spray

2025-08-13 18:00:03 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…4dwe Trump will make an all-caps post of Truth Social. it will be devastating.

2025-08-12 21:38:22 UTC

It is sometimes necessary, in these difficult times, to spend an hour scrolling through clothing sites, hoping that one of these gowns is going to give you the strength to fight fascism.

2025-08-10 18:52:14 UTC

Even when I don't go to Vegas, the Vegas gossip comes to me.

2025-08-06 17:15:22 UTC

Ron Deibert is absolutely the voice that the infosec industry needs to be listening right now. We are in a moment where fascism is consolidating power and most of the infosec industry is either playing along or is busy bragging about how much AI they've shoved into their products.
https://techcrunch.com/2025/08/06/citizen-lab-director-warns-cyber-industry-about-us-authoritarian-descent/

2025-08-04 19:22:46 UTC

Listen, we are in a terrible and difficult time where the horrors can often feel overwhelming. Lean into the things that bring you joy. If that means that sometimes you're wringing that last drop of dopamine out of watching bad people suffer as the result of their poor choices, you do you.

2025-07-21 18:27:20 UTC

Writing the first draft of my FTC comments and wondering how many times I am allowed to write "fuck no, you shitweasel." https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2025/07/ftc-seeks-comment-petition-vacate-2021-order-related-provider-stalkerware-apps

2025-07-17 23:31:46 UTC

This is just to let
you know
I have taken
the plums
out of the icebox
because fruit is better
at room temperature

2025-07-12 17:20:43 UTC

This is your regular reminder that if you are the smartest person in the room, go find another room. You are not going to run out of people or rooms.

2025-07-10 00:16:22 UTC

I've spent not-insignificant amount of time at protests in the US, looking for signs of IMSI catchers and never found anything, so when I saw this, my ears perked up:
https://san.com/cc/exclusive-evidence-of-cell-phone-surveillance-detected-at-anti-ice-protest/

2025-07-05 21:30:40 UTC

I was feeling entirely too confident and capable, so I decided to train press-up to handstand and now I am going to be suffering through these drills and progressions for a good long time.

2025-07-02 19:51:35 UTC

Every once in a while, someone tells me that an abusive partner left them alone because they were afraid of what I would do if they didn't, and I feel like I have done something right.

2025-06-27 18:52:13 UTC

Website/device age verification is a privacy and security nightmare and everyone who tells you that this is a solved problem is lying to you.
https://gizmodo.com/supreme-court-says-age-verification-laws-for-porn-sites-are-constitutional-2000621265

2025-06-25 03:28:23 UTC

Do I think that the national Democratic Party will learn anything from Mamdani's win? No. Do I think it is important to enjoy a goddamn victory once in a while? Yes.

2025-06-15 18:43:41 UTC

I would like to be Chrisjen Avasarala: impeccably-dressed, running things, swearing like a sailor.
But I am Camina Drummer: barely keeping it together, sort of in charge, with a lot of complicated relationships and a strong eyeliner game.

2025-05-22 19:55:11 UTC

Me, looking at my work calendar: This is insane. No one can do this much work. I'm going to find the asshole that did this and give them a piece of my mind!
Me, looking in the mirror: Oh no.

2025-05-22 19:31:43 UTC

Did I mention that the data broker industry must be destroyed?
https://theintercept.com/2025/05/22/intel-agencies-buying-data-portal-privacy/

2025-05-14 04:07:50 UTC

Q&A from a talk I gave last week.
Q: "What do you think is the biggest threat in cybersecurity right now? Is it post-quantum computing? Is it AI?"
A: Fascism. It's fascism.

2025-04-30 19:14:29 UTC

The only way I can possibly touch enough grass to get through this day is to remove all of my clothes and roll around on a lawn.

2025-04-25 18:57:47 UTC

There is so much bad news out there right now that it is sometimes difficult to even see the wins.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/25/us/politics/trump-student-visa-cancellations.html?unlocked_article_code=1.CU8.qevX.RyotrTomoS1e&smid=url-share

2025-04-24 18:48:01 UTC

For people who are looking to shield their identities in group chats: Signal does not store past handle IDs and 7 days after changing your handle, another Signal user can claim it.

2025-04-10 21:47:52 UTC

Big Law has failed to stand up to Trump and now infosec is following suit.
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/cybersecurity-industry-falls-silent-trump-turns-ire-sentinelone-2025-04-10/

2025-03-27 18:54:51 UTC

Weird how the jobs that AI-boosters say AI is going to replace never seems to include the management or executive class.

2025-03-25 19:30:03 UTC

I checked in on the Bad Place and discovered that a bunch of misogynists have spent a couple of weeks getting very worked up about a screenshot of a post I made about a decade ago and that locking my account last year has successfully deprived them of further ammo. Everything is cool and normal.

2025-03-24 18:29:38 UTC

Today's OPSEC lesson is this: all of the encryption in the world is not going to save you if you add the editor of The Atlantic to your war-planning Signal group chat.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/03/trump-administration-accidentally-texted-me-its-war-plans/682151/?gift=fXb4ymsFcV2ntAzqIpmYvaCSBCGxAw0GA0n-mECa1x8&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share

2025-03-24 18:27:02 UTC

For people who are concerned about crossing the US border, The Verge and Wired both have useful discussion and advice:
https://www.theverge.com/policy/634264/customs-border-protection-search-phone-airport-rights
https://www.wired.com/2017/02/guide-getting-past-customs-digital-privacy-intact/

2025-03-24 02:32:45 UTC

I laughed when my handstands coach did an hour-long class just on foot/ankle strength and flexibility, but now it turns out that I need all of those drills.

2025-03-20 19:52:23 UTC

You can learn a lot of useful OPSEC lessons by examining the ways in which people get caught, so I'm just going to leave this right here.
https://www.404media.co/how-three-alleged-tesla-vandals-got-caught/

2025-03-19 19:46:33 UTC

If you're critical of the US government and you are planning to cross the US border any time soon, today is a good day to review EFF's border search pocket guide: https://www.eff.org/document/eff-border-search-pocket-guide

2025-03-17 19:09:42 UTC

I rarely tell people to throw their devices into the sea, but you should throw your Amazon Echo into the sea.
https://www.wired.com/story/everything-you-say-to-your-echo-will-be-sent-to-amazon-starting-march-28/

2025-03-03 06:25:39 UTC

- reply

I cannot overemphasize how much of playing defense in US corporations, civil society, and government has been about trying to keep the Russians out of your shit.

2025-03-03 06:13:54 UTC

Listen, I'm not going to pretend that I'm even remotely surprised, but I will tell you that this is a slap in the face to every person in the infosec community that has worked to track and thwart Russian APTs for the last several decades.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/28/trump-russia-hacking-cyber-security

2025-03-02 20:02:08 UTC

Aerial coach: Do you remember this sequence from two weeks ago?
Me: Listen, a lot has happened in the last two weeks...

2025-02-24 07:37:59 UTC

Let it be known that on this day in history, I made it to the end of Duolingo French. There are no worlds left to conquer.

2025-02-20 20:21:36 UTC

A bug in two closely-related stalkerware apps, Cocospy and Spyic, is exposing the personal data of millions of people who have the software unwittingly installed on their phones: https://techcrunch.com/2025/02/20/stalkerware-apps-cocospy-spyic-exposing-phone-data-of-millions-of-people/

2025-02-16 02:43:11 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…q5wq We're all mad and all of us are really angry too.

2025-02-14 21:09:41 UTC

For most of my adult life, Valentine's Day has been the day that I sit down to do my taxes. I have never regretted this choice.

2025-02-11 23:57:47 UTC

My co-workers are badass and I am proud of them.
EFF is suing DOGE and OPM over their illegal sharing of federal employee data.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/02/eff-sues-doge-and-office-personnel-management-halt-ransacking-federal-data

2025-01-15 22:39:08 UTC

I spent most of a decade traveling to authoritarian countries and teaching people how to circumvent internet censorship. I am appalled that this is now something I have to do in the US.

2025-01-15 19:01:36 UTC

For people who are wondering what the TikTok ban is going to look like for US TikTok users if it goes into effect on Sunday, TikTok will be blocking US users, linking to info about the ban, and giving them the option of exporting their data. https://www.theverge.com/2025/1/15/24344299/tiktok-shutdown-us-ban-supreme-court

2025-01-12 20:09:41 UTC

Lots of folks in my mentions going "Haha, the US will just ban VPNs," possibly because they are not experts in internet censorship and they have not been watching this exact same dynamic play out in dozens of countries over the last 20 years.

2025-01-12 19:48:55 UTC

After all of the infosec chatter about how you probably don't need a VPN, age verification has made PornHub block access in most Southern states and TikTok's about to block US IPs. We are entering a new age of internet censorship and you might need a non-shady VPN.

2025-01-09 21:10:49 UTC

404 Media continues to do the Lord's work. And furthermore, the data broker industry must be destroyed.
https://www.404media.co/candy-crush-tinder-myfitnesspal-see-the-thousands-of-apps-hijacked-to-spy-on-your-location/

2025-01-07 19:32:08 UTC

Someone in my feed with a lot of followers asked for technical advice. I was about to reply with a joke, but first I glanced at the many, many replies. I saw that my joke would not be welcome, so I did not post it. You too can learn from this wisdom.

2025-01-07 19:17:19 UTC

Say it with me: "If you collect the data, you better have a plan for what happens when it's leaked."
Furthermore, the data broker industry must be destroyed.
https://www.404media.co/hackers-claim-massive-breach-of-location-data-giant-threaten-to-leak-data/

2025-01-07 19:01:08 UTC

Elon Musk has conveniently given other social media platforms a playbook for how to suck up to the incoming Trump administration: https://www.wired.com/story/meta-ditches-fact-checkers-in-favor-of-x-style-community-notes/

2025-01-06 20:46:45 UTC

What is Real Time Bidding? How does it enable mass surveillance? Why should you care about it and what needs to be done? My colleague Lena Cohen lays it all out: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/01/online-behavioral-ads-fuel-surveillance-industry-heres-how

2024-12-27 01:13:50 UTC

We may not be living in the darkest timeline, but we are certainly living in the stupidest.

2024-12-20 04:10:05 UTC

Guy who was walking down the street, staring porn that was playing on his phone at full volume: what porn is so important that you could not wait until you got home?

2024-12-18 03:53:54 UTC

I am not sure why Mastodon is the only platform I am on where ending a post with "I am not interested in debating this" gets dozens of replies, many of which are, in fact, trying to debate this.

2024-12-12 01:43:21 UTC

You guys, I have just discovered how much an expert witness gets paid by the hour ($459 on average) and surely this is a mistake.

2024-11-25 22:58:43 UTC

Things that have not changed since the the first Trump administration: the same groups are still in danger and the methods of surveillance are largely the same.
Things that have changed: consequences of failure are more severe, there are fewer checks on power, tech companies excited to collude.

2024-11-24 21:56:52 UTC

So much of my job is this over and over again on a loop:
"So what do you think we should do in order to responsibly build the Torment Nexus?"
"You can't. It's a Torment Nexus. Stop it."
"But the Torment Nexus is inevitable!"
"It's not. You could just not do it. You could stop right now."

2024-11-06 17:48:09 UTC

I know how to fight a long fight. I know how to triage and do harm reduction and how to play defense. But I am also very, very tired and I am going to need a minute before I can get back to work.

2024-10-15 17:46:37 UTC

Seeing all of the Richard Stallman stuff in one place is A LOT: https://stallman-report.org/

2024-09-04 20:26:47 UTC

If you hear a scream across the internet right now, it is the sound I am making while reading the Internet Archive v. Hachette Books appeal, which IA has lost: https://www.wired.com/story/internet-archive-loses-hachette-books-case-appeal/

2024-09-02 19:18:21 UTC

I am waiting on analysis from Brazilian lawyers before I weigh in on how legal Brazilian court's decision to block X is, but I can safely say that the fines for individual users accessing the site over a VPN are crazypants.

2024-08-31 03:26:52 UTC

Today, while I was going down the escalator in a department store, a security guard yelled that he thought I was great on the German news.

2024-08-28 22:56:08 UTC

Am I doing this whole German TV interview with a purring cat in my lap, just out of frame? Yes. Yes I am.

2024-08-14 21:19:01 UTC

I'm bad at taking compliments, so I've started responding to compliments about my appearance with "This isn't even my final form."

2024-08-05 20:07:10 UTC

This is your regular reminder that Google spent billions of dollars a year making their search engine the default while Google search results became increasingly tainted, nonsensical, and useless.

2024-08-01 23:54:20 UTC

After years of being informed that I am in the pocket of Big Tech (alas, without making a Big Tech salary), I would like to announce that, like the Olympians, I am ready to be sponsored by Parmesan cheese.

2024-07-25 18:00:13 UTC

Leaked documents show that the Israeli government is continuing its efforts to cover NSO Group’s ass in the WhatsApp lawsuit.
https://forbiddenstories.org/actualites_posts/israel-maneuvered-to-prevent-disclosure-of-state-secrets-amid-whatsapp-vs-nso-lawsuit/

2024-07-03 19:32:04 UTC

- reply

"I subsist on the blood of my enemies" was NOT AN OPTION, Karen.

2024-06-15 17:14:48 UTC

I have been tremendously lucky in my career, but I have absolutely seen men get paid more for the same or less work with the same or fewer qualifications and I have seen men praised as geniuses for behavior that gets me called a bitch.

2024-06-07 17:25:17 UTC

Microsoft says they are making a bunch of changes to Recall to mitigate the many, many security and privacy problems that researchers have found over the last week:
https://www.theverge.com/2024/6/7/24173499/microsoft-windows-recall-response-security-concerns

2024-06-06 23:51:29 UTC

When AirTags first came out and I warned that they were Apple's gift to stalkers, so many Apple fanboys told me that I was overreacting.
https://www.404media.co/email/ce4cec4d-51c3-4101-b2b4-2c9a64aee5e8

2024-05-31 19:05:49 UTC

Who are the "supersharers" of fake news on Twitter? Republican Middle-aged white women living in Arizona, Florida, and Texas.
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adl4435

2024-05-28 22:02:20 UTC

If you, a white person, feel the need to disguise yourself as a black person for any goddamn reason, how about you just don't?

2024-05-22 06:18:55 UTC

One day I will do a massive thread of just the worst digital privacy and security advice that people have given in my mentions.

2024-05-16 21:28:38 UTC

Threat models matter.
When a platform/service/app tells you they are “private” or “secure” always ask “from whom?”
Criminals, domestic abusers, law enforcement, data brokers, and intelligence agencies are all different attackers with very different capabilities.

2024-05-16 19:42:51 UTC

When I talk about digital privacy, there is always some smug genius who shrugs and tells me, "Who cares? We all know we don't have any privacy anyway." Nothing could be more wrong. Convincing you that the fight is already over to the way people in power get you to stop resisting.

2024-05-15 20:29:02 UTC

"Cisgender is a slur" has some real "people pointing out racist behavior are the real racists" energy to it.

2024-05-14 19:42:16 UTC

I see that everything is going fine over at the Hellsite.
https://media.hachyderm.io/media_attachments/files/112/441/143/269/589/043/original/90ef70fec1df7738.png

2024-05-14 18:47:52 UTC

I have spent this week declining work requests that are unreasonable in scope or that make me uncomfortable and I would like a goddamn medal.

2024-05-07 18:25:40 UTC

Buying a new car in 2024 is a goddamn privacy nightmare, part 3591 of an endless series: https://sherwood.news/tech/how-to-opt-out-of-the-privacy-nightmare-that-comes-factory-installed-in-new/

2024-04-15 20:21:56 UTC

If you're the person who stole the package from my foyer, I hope you're enjoying Police and the Empire City: Race and the Origins of Modern Policing in New York.

2024-03-19 18:39:24 UTC

This website says you should send it a photo of your partner's penis and they will tell you if they have an STD, using the power of AI.
This is so misleading, inaccurate, dangerous, YIKES, that I assume it is an elaborate joke.
https://www.calmara.ai

2024-01-12 21:14:34 UTC

You know what I absolutely do not want? A humanoid robot stumbling around my house, using the power of AI to confidently but incorrectly do my chores.
#tormentnexus
https://thenextweb.com/news/1x-humanoid-robot-neo-investment

2024-01-11 18:55:15 UTC

No, I don't want to know your "skincare secrets." Your skincare secret is that you are fifteen years younger than I am.

2024-01-09 19:14:47 UTC

I did not have "unauthorized secret Lubovitcher tunnels" on my 2024 Bingo card, yet here they are: https://apnews.com/article/brooklyn-synagogue-chabad-tunnel-2c03a40c9150bdf6d9d899436789d8cf

2023-12-19 19:49:16 UTC

There have been many stories of companies giving up user data to stalkers and other criminals pretending to be cops with emergency data requests, but this one stands out because it's so utterly shambolic. The stalker submitted his request using a protonmail address FFS.
https://www.404media.co/verizon-gave-her-data-to-a-stalker-this-has-completely-changed-my-life/

2023-12-17 02:28:27 UTC

Men, how often do you think about the Golden Path?

2023-11-17 20:50:03 UTC

OpenAI has just booted Sam Altman as CEO and removed him from the Board of Directors and they are not being shy about their reasons.
https://openai.com/blog/openai-announces-leadership-transition
https://media.hachyderm.io/media_attachments/files/111/427/856/783/735/436/original/9ce56c38ebb37deb.png