EP 274.5 Deep Dive. More Moxie in the IT Privacy and Security Weekly Update for the week ending January

Core message

Personal AI, consumer devices, and global networks are converging into a new arena where data, infrastructure, and talent are strategic assets, not just products.

Policy, open-source security, and novel computing architectures provide early but meaningful counterweights to surveillance capitalism and cyber conflict.

AI: privacy vs convenience

Privacy-first AI like Moxie Marlinspike’s Confer uses open-source code, end‑to‑end encryption, on‑device keys, and secure hardware to ensure user conversations cannot be read even by the service operator.

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Google’s Gemini-powered Gmail adds an AI Inbox, thread summaries, and writing aids that mine inbox content to generate to‑dos and answers, while promising not to use email data to train foundation models and allowing opt‑outs.

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Corporate missteps and surveillance

“Worst in Show” critics highlight products like over‑engineered smart fridges, Ring facial recognition, and disposable gadgets as emblematic of poor repairability, expanded surveillance, and e‑waste.

Wegmans’ biometric collection and Google’s outreach encouraging teens to remove parental supervision show how corporate policies can quietly shift control and weaken privacy and safety norms.

Tech as geopolitical battlefield

Campaigns such as China-linked “Salt Typhoon” exploit weaknesses in legacy telecom protocols like SS7, enabling interception of calls and texts from U.S. officials and potentially users worldwide.

Taiwan’s arrest warrant for OnePlus’s CEO over alleged illegal recruitment reflects broader state-backed efforts by China to secure foreign tech talent and IP through front companies and incentive programs.

Emerging safeguards and breakthroughs

California’s DROP platform operationalizes its Delete Act, letting residents issue one verified request that compels all registered data brokers to delete personal data and comply on a recurring schedule under penalty of fines.

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Anthropic’s $1.5M partnership with the Python Software Foundation strengthens security for CPython and PyPI, hardening open‑source supply chains while funding community sustainability.

Sandia’s neuromorphic computing results show brain‑inspired hardware can efficiently solve complex partial differential equations, hinting at future high‑performance systems that are far more energy‑efficient than today’s supercomputers.