Privacy & Digital Freedom News — 2026-08-19

The daily reading list for people who care about digital privacy — curated headlines with links to the original reporting. Why we track this: every new SIM-registration law, data-broker leak, and surveillance expansion is a reason anonymous connectivity exists.

EFF Deeplinks

• Ninth Circuit Ruling Will Force Online Platforms That Host User Speech to Fight Lengthy and Costly Lawsuits Before They Are Dismissed Under Section 230 — <div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><p>A federal appeals court just made it harder for online services, big and sm…
• Too Little, Too Late: Flock Admits Their Technology Needs Reforms — <div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><p><span data-contrast="auto">Flock Safety, the embattled vendor of mass surve…
• Who (or What) Generates Images for EFF? — <div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><p><span data-contrast="none">We’ve had a few questions from EFF supporters la…
• Dismiss Church’s Trademark Lawsuit Against “Mormon Stories” Podcast, EFF Urges Court — <div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><p>Imagine if McDonald’s could use trademark law to control how you use the te…

Hacker News (privacy)

• The privacy problems hidden in your period tracker
• Flock Defense "No Expectation of Privacy in Public" Is Wrong
• An American Privacy Emergency — Recent and related: Noise infusion banned from statistical products published by Census Bureau - - June 2026 (604 comments)…
• Opening up 'Zero-Knowledge Proof' technology to promote privacy in age assurance

Hacker News (eSIM)

• eSIM was supposed to replace SIM cards, but carriers turned it into a trap
• Cheapest way to keep a UK mobile number using an eSIM
• Implementing automatic eSIM installation on Android
• Been using this Tourist eSIM while traveling, super cheap unlimited data

Schneier on Security

• LLMs and Contextual Integrity — I have been thinking a lot about AI and integrity. Part of that is contextual integrity. I recently found two papers on the topic. &#8220; CIMemories: A Compositional Benchmark for Contextual Integrity of Persistent Memo…
• Hacking Public Wi-Fi DNS to Steal Credentials — Criminals are hacking into public Wi-Fi devices&#8212;at hotels, conference centers, and so on&#8212;around the world and changing their DNS settings. The goal is to redirect users to fake login pages and steal their cre…
• Friday Squid Blogging: Searching for the Colossal Squid — Fascinating video about searching for life undersea. The video basically makes the point that our bright white searchlights are scaring everything away, and that red light is more neutral. That, plus bait to attract sea …
• Upcoming Speaking Engagements — This is a current list of where and when I am scheduled to speak: I’m speaking, signing books, and participating in panel discussions at LAcon V in Anaheim, California, USA. My full schedule is here . I&#8217;m speaking …

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This roundup is generated automatically every day from public feeds. All headlines link to and credit their original sources.