"Today, in response to the U.K.’s demands for a backdoor, Apple has stopped offering users in the U.K. Advanced Data Protection, an optional feature in iCloud that turns on end-to-end encryption for files, backups, and more.

Had Apple complied with the U.K.’s original demands, they would have been required to create a backdoor not just for users in the U.K., but for people around the world, regardless of where they were or what citizenship they had. As we’ve said time and time again, any backdoor built for the government puts everyone at greater risk of hacking, identity theft, and fraud.

This blanket, worldwide demand put Apple in an untenable position. Apple has long claimed it wouldn’t create a backdoor, and in filings to the U.K. government in 2023, the company specifically raised the possibility of disabling features like Advanced Data Protection as an alternative."

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/02/cornered-uks-demand-encryption-backdoor-apple-turns-its-strongest-security-setting

"At a press conference in the Oval Office this week, Elon Musk promised the actions of his so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) project would be “maximally transparent,” thanks to information posted to its website.

At the time of his comment, the DOGE website was empty. However, when the site finally came online Thursday morning, it turned out to be little more than a glorified feed of posts from the official DOGE account on Musk’s own X platform, raising new questions about Musk’s conflicts of interest in running DOGE.

DOGE.gov claims to be an “official website of the United States government,” but rather than giving detailed breakdowns of the cost savings and efficiencies Musk claims his project is making, the homepage of the site just replicated posts from the DOGE account on X."

https://www.wired.com/story/doge-website-is-just-one-big-x-ad/

Fascists love to surveil and harass… 😕

"The Italian founder of the NGO Mediterranea Saving Humans, who has been a vocal critic of Italy’s alleged complicity in abuses suffered by migrants in Libya, has revealed WhatsApp informed him his mobile phone was targeted by military-grade spyware made by the Israel-based company Paragon Solutions.

Luca Casarini, an activist whose organisation is estimated to have saved 2,000 people crossing the Mediterranean to Italy, is the most high profile person to come forward since WhatsApp announced last week that 90 journalists and other members of civil society had probably had their phones compromised by a government client using Paragon’s spyware.

The work of the three alleged targets to have come forward so far – Casarini, the journalist Francesco Cancellato, and the Sweden-based Libyan activist Husam El Gomati – have one thing in common: each has been critical of the prime minister, Giorgia Meloni. The Italian government has not responded to a request for comment on whether it is a client of Paragon."

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/feb/05/activists-critical-of-italian-pm-may-have-had-their-phones-targeted-by-paragon-spyware-says-whatsapp

"Paragon’s spyware was allegedly delivered to targets who were placed on group chats without their permission, and sent malware through PDFs in the group chat. Paragon makes no-click spyware, which means users do not have to click on any link or attachment to be infected; it is simply delivered to the phone.

It is not clear how long Cancellato may have been compromised. But the editor published a high-profile investigative story last year that exposed how members of Meloni’s far-right party’s youth wing had engaged in fascist chants, Nazi salutes and antisemitic rants.

Fanpage’s undercover reporters – although not Cancellato personally – had infiltrated groups and chat forums used by members of the National Youth, a wing of Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party. The outlet published clips of National Youth members chanting “Duce” – a reference to Benito Mussolini – and “sieg Heil”, and boasting about their familial connections to historical figures linked to neo-fascist terrorism. The stories were published in May."

"An Italian investigative journalist who is known for exposing young fascists within prime minister Giorgia Meloni’s far-right party was targeted with spyware made by Israel-based Paragon Solutions, according to a WhatsApp notification received by the journalist.

Francesco Cancellato, the editor-in-chief of the Italian investigative news outlet Fanpage, was the first person to come forward publicly after WhatsApp announced on Friday that 90 journalists and other members of civil society had been targeted by the spyware.

The journalist, like dozens of others whose identities are not yet known, said he received a notification from the messaging app on Friday afternoon.

WhatsApp, which is owned by Meta, has not identified the targets or their precise locations, but said they were based in more than two dozen countries, including in Europe.

WhatsApp said it had discovered that Paragon was targeting its users in December and shut down the vector used to “possibly compromise” the individuals. Like other spyware makers, Paragon sells use of its spyware, known as Graphite, to government agencies, who are supposed to use it to fight and prevent crime."

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jan/31/italian-journalist-whatsapp-israeli-spyware