Firewalls Don't Stop Dragons Podcast

It’s time to start the official countdown to my 500th podcast episode! I’ve been publishing a podcast every single week for over nine years now, which is a rather amazing accomplishment (if I do say so myself). But the entire purpose of the podcast – as well as my book and my blog – has been to try to improve the security and privacy of as many people as possible. So to celebrate this momentous occasion, I’m going to be conducting an experiment to figure out the most effective way to protect our data and devices. And I’m going to need your help.

In the news: Chat Control 1.0 has been resurrected in the EU; Apple’s Hide My Email is failing to do so; Meta patents a new, creepy wearable device; The Intercept’s Signal account was taken over for months; Papa Johns wants to know when your fridge is empty; Opera Browser has a new feature to combat ClickFix attacks; Google disrupted a residential proxy network; John Deere has been forced to support third party repairs; and the Supreme Court further protected our device location history.

Article Links

Chat Control 1.0 sneaks through the EU Parliament: https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/cyber-security/chat-control-1-0-sneaks-through-the-eu-parliament-letting-companies-scan-user-data-without-warrants-legal-tactic-used-to-force-a-majority-required-re-vote-on-eve-of-parliament-break

Apple Hide My Email bug allows 100% of real email addresses to be discovered: https://9to5mac.com/2026/07/01/apple-hide-my-email-bug-seemingly-allows-100-of-real-email-addresses-to-be-discovered

Meta Patents AI Device That Tracks Your Emotions, Watches You Take Your Meds: https://www.404media.co/meta-patents-ai-device-that-tracks-your-emotions-watches-you-take-your-meds

The Intercept’s Signal tipline username was hijacked for months: https://cyberinsider.com/the-intercepts-signal-tipline-username-was-hijacked-for-months

Papa Johns Can Predict When Your Fridge Is Empty: https://www.adexchanger.com/?p=461783

Opera’s new security feature stops copy paste attacks from malicious websites – Engadget: https://www.engadget.com/2206574/opera-new-security-feature-stops-copy-paste-clickfix-attacks

Google Disrupts NetNut Residential Proxy Network Spanning 2 Million Home Devices: https://thehackernews.com/2026/07/google-disrupts-netnut-residential.html

The Deere Dam Just Broke: FTC Settlement Empowers Farmers Right To Repair: https://fighttorepair.substack.com/p/the-deere-dam-just-broke-ftc-settlement

Justices rule that cellphone location histories are protected by the Fourth Amendment: https://therecord.media/supreme-court-geofencing-ruling-fourth-amendment

Tip of the Week: https://firewallsdontstopdragons.com/celebrating-500-episodes/ 

Further Info

Countdown to FDSD500!! https://fdsd500.com 

Get your FDSD500 merch!! https://fdsd.me/merch 

Hacking the water supply: https://www.wired.com/story/what-happens-if-china-hacks-the-us-water-supply-war-game-volt-typhoon 

My book: https://fdsd.me/book 

My newsletter: https://fdsd.me/newsletter 

Support our mission! https://fdsd.me/support 

Table of Contents

0:00:07: Intro

0:01:07: Quick headlines

0:03:18: News rundown

0:04:40: Chat Control 1.0 is back

0:09:27: Apple Hide My Email exposes real address

0:13:15: New creepy Meta patent

0:19:16: Intercept loses Signal account

0:23:52: Papa Johns knows when your fridge is empty

0:27:54: Opera implement ClickFix protections

0:32:49: Google foils residential proxy maker

0:38:23: John Deere forced to allow user repairs

0:41:06: SCOTUS restricts location data, again

0:46:04: Tip of the Week

0:53:17: Wrap-up

0:55:01: Hacker summer camp

0:55:42: Patron podcast preview

0:56:13: Looking ahead

Our Constitutional rights were written without any concept of modern technology such as cell phones and the internet. Much of our privacy laws are still geared towards the pre-digital age. Even though the internet is many decades old now, the era of traveling with smartphones and laptops is still relatively new and the laws around privacy have not kept up. Today I’ll be speaking with Nathan Freed Wessler from the ACLU about device searches, particularly at the US border. We’ll also talk about how cases relating to location tracking have evolved since the landmark Carpenter case that Nate successfully argued in front of the Supreme Court almost 10 years ago now.

Interview Notes

ACLU: https://aclu.org/ 

Nate Wessler: https://www.aclu.org/bios/nathan-freed-wessler 

My first interview with Nate: https://podcast.firewallsdontstopdragons.com/2022/08/01/now-place-left-to-hide/

ACLU facial recognition suit: https://reason.com/2026/06/11/aclu-sues-after-facial-recognition-falsely-identifies-florida-man-as-a-child-abductor/ 

Travel Insecurity: https://firewallsdontstopdragons.com/border-insecurity/ 

Further Info

My book: https://fdsd.me/book 

My newsletter: https://fdsd.me/newsletter 

Support the mission: https://fdsd.me/support 

Give the gift of privacy and security: https://fdsd.me/coupons 

Get your Firewalls Don’t Stop Dragons Merch! https://fdsd.me/merch 

Table of Contents

0:00:12: Intro

0:02:37: What makes border searches different, legally?

0:08:15: What is the 100 mile rule?

0:12:42: How do digital searches differ from physical?

0:19:26: What is digital contraband?

0:23:33: How does ‘in plain site’ work on a phone?

0:26:29: How has the Carpenter decision held up?

0:32:59: Should Carpenter apply to ALPRs?

0:41:29: How does AI complicate matters?

0:47:11: How should we prepare for border searches?

0:59:49: What about privileged or corporate data?

1:03:33: Can I lock my device before I hand it over?

1:05:30: What’s next for you and the ACLU?

1:08:36: Wrap up

1:11:01: Patron podcast preview

1:11:27: Looking ahead

With the 500th podcast and America’s 250th anniversary approaching, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about how we can be better digital neighbors and digital citizens. We’re all in this together. Your security and privacy overlaps the security and privacy of many others. It’s important to improve our own situation, but we need to also realize that failing to do so can put others at risk who may be more vulnerable and have more to lose that we do.

In the news: massive Fortinet breach; feds recover activists’ Signal messages; Visa partners with ChatGPT for agentic purchases; Anthropic models banned for export; US shortens cyber fix window to 3 days; EPIC endorses two new privacy bills; Canada’s spy agency hacks devices to clean out botnet; nearly half of LG smart TVs apps contain proxy SDKs; EFF calls out Amazon for shady Android devices containing proxies.

Article Links

Massive breach spills credentials for thousands of sensitive networks: https://arstechnica.com/security/2026/06/massive-breach-spills-credentials-for-thousands-of-sensitive-networks

How Did the Feds Get Into Anti-ICE Activists’ Signal Messages?: https://theintercept.com/2026/06/17/signal-messages-minneapolis-ice-protests

Visa plugs its payment network into ChatGPT, letting AI agents shop and pay for users: https://apnews.com/article/visa-chatgpt-openai-shopping-mastercard-d769dec86344cb4977c98789e8ec492f

The Fable 5 Export Controls Harm US Cyber Defense: https://www.lutasecurity.com/post/the-fable-5-export-controls-harm-us-cyber-defense

US shortens cyber fix window to three days as AI threats rise: https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/us-shortens-cyber-fix-window-three-days-ai-threats-rise-2026-06-10

EPIC Endorses Federal Bills Barring Worker Surveillance, Automated Workplace Decisions: https://epic.org/epic-endorses-federal-bills-barring-worker-surveillance-automated-workplace-decisions

Canada’s Spy Agency Used First-of-Its-Kind Warrant to Clean Botnet-Infected Devices: https://thehackernews.com/2026/06/canadas-spy-agency-used-first-of-its.html

Nearly Half of LG Smart TV Apps Contain Residential Proxy SDKs: https://spur.us/blog/smart-tv-apps-residential-proxy-sdks

Primed for Malware: Stop Selling Compromised Android Devices: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/06/primed-malware-stop-selling-compromised-android-devices

Tip of the Week: https://firewallsdontstopdragons.com/we-can-do-this/ 

Further Info

Loupe app (Mysk): https://apps.apple.com/us/app/loupe-what-apps-can-see/id6766152470 

Loupe app overview (Techlore): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_n_SpEWtqog 

Free Fable petition: https://freefable.org/ 

My book: https://fdsd.me/book 

My newsletter: https://fdsd.me/newsletter 

Support our mission! https://fdsd.me/support 

Give the gift of privacy and security: https://fdsd.me/coupons 

Get your Firewalls Don’t Stop Dragons Merch! https://fdsd.me/merch 

Table of Contents

0:00:07: Intro

0:00:23: Quick news bits

0:02:46: News rundown

0:05:01: Massive Fortinet breach

0:12:27: Signal data security limits

0:17:58: Visa integrates with ChatGPT

0:23:01: Free Fable

0:30:35: US shortens cyber fix window

0:32:25: New federal privacy bills

0:35:18: Canada spy agency cleans up botnet

0:40:34: Shady Samsung TV apps

0:50:10: EFF on Android proxy devices

0:55:57: Tip of the Week

1:03:02: Patron podcast preview

1:03:27: Looking ahead

Most of the chatbots in the news today are trained on public data (often including copyrighted data). But it doesn’t have to be that way. What if you had a chatbot that could access all of your personal or company data, but hosted locally so that all the data was secure and private? You could ask it all sorts of interesting questions about that data, run helpful reports, and tease out important trends or do in-depth analysis that would be very difficult for a human to do. Basically, there are lots of uses for AI beyond ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude – and done in ways that preserve the privacy of your data and queries. Today we’ll discuss how we can do AI better with the CEO and Founder of Empathy AI, Angel Maldonado.

Interview Notes

Empathy AI home page: Empathy.ai

Manifesto: https://empathy.ai/manifesto/ 

Molly vs the Machines: MollyVsTheMachines.com 

The New Age of Ethical Commerce: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_4d4outlFQ 

Reddit LocaLLM: https://www.reddit.com/r/LocalLLM/

Also: https://www.reddit.com/r/LocalLLaMA/

Charlie Bridge: https://charliebridge.com/ 

Proton’s Lumo: https://lumo.proton.me 

Project Gutenberg w/ Empathy.ai: https://projectgutenberg.empathy.ai/library/discover 

Standard eBooks: https://standardebooks.org/ 

Calibre (free ebook manager): https://calibre-ebook.com/ 

Further Info

My book: https://fdsd.me/book 

My newsletter: https://fdsd.me/newsletter 

Support the mission: https://fdsd.me/support 

Give the gift of privacy and security: https://fdsd.me/coupons 

Get your Firewalls Don’t Stop Dragons Merch! https://fdsd.me/merch 

Table of Contents

0:00:18: Intro

0:03:17: Lingo

0:04:12: Why did you start Empathy.ai?

0:08:10: How should we interact with LLMs?

0:13:53: How will AI change the future of work?

0:20:49: Can we limit AI resource usage?

0:30:30: How can we make agentic AI safer?

0:39:19: How do we keep LLM sessions private?

0:47:55: What are the benefits & risks of AI?

0:50:01: What will the world be like for kids today?

0:56:29: How should a layman learn about AI?

1:00:12: What’s next for you and Empathy?

1:01:32: Wrap-up

1:05:34: Patron podcast preview

1:06:29: Looking ahead

In the final part of my series on downloading all of your historical emails from the cloud, we’ll make backups of your archive and make sure we store them in multiple places, following the 3-2-1 backup rule. I’ll also tell you about an interesting open source email archive project that you might find interesting.

In the news: the FCC wants to kill burner phones; the WeedHack malware targets Minecraft players; a new surveillance company wants to add personal radio IDs to our license plate reader data; Apple debuts new parental controls; a 17-million-device botnet has been dismantled; Slate Auto has a cheap new EV that’s got some great privacy features; Meta quickly deletes facial recognition features from smart glasses; FISA Section 702 is allowed to lapse; Signal alums reveal “Encrypted Spaces” tech for encrypted group collaboration.

Article Links

FCC Wants to Kill Burner Phones By Forcing Telecoms to Get All Customers’ IDs: https://www.404media.co/fcc-wants-to-kill-burner-phones-by-forcing-telecoms-to-get-all-customers-ids

Teens are using $5 WeedHack malware to target Minecraft players: https://mashable.com/tech/minecraft-weedhack-malware-as-a-service-report

This Company Will Add Phone, AirPod, and Smartwatch Trackers to License Plate Readers: https://www.404media.co/this-company-will-add-phone-airpod-and-smartwatch-trackers-to-license-plate-readers

Apple’s new parental controls are for keeping Apple out of trouble: https://www.theverge.com/policy/946331/apple-parental-controls-child-accounts-wwdc

Botnet of more than 17 million devices dismantled: https://arstechnica.com/security/2026/05/botnet-of-more-than-17-million-devices-dismantled

Slate Auto gets serious about privacy for its bare-bones EV pickup: https://arstechnica.com/cars/2026/06/slate-says-its-electric-pickup-will-never-track-you

Meta Deletes Face-Recognition System From Its Smart Glasses App After WIRED Report: https://www.wired.com/story/meta-removes-face-recognition-code-meta-ai-app-smart-glasses

US surveillance law to expire for first time after lawmakers reject Trump’s controversial pick to lead spy agencies: https://techcrunch.com/2026/06/12/us-spy-law-to-expire-for-first-time-after-lawmakers-reject-trumps-controversial-pick-to-lead-spy-agencies

Signal Alums Reveal ‘Encrypted Spaces,’ a System for Making Private Collaboration Apps: https://www.wired.com/story/signal-alums-release-encrypted-spaces-a-new-system-for-building-private-collaboration-apps

Tip of the Week: https://firewallsdontstopdragons.com/backup-your-email-archive/ 

Further Info

FCC, submit comment (docket # 17-59 and 02-278): https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/filings/express 

Slate Truck: https://www.slate.auto/en 

My book: https://fdsd.me/book 

My newsletter: https://fdsd.me/newsletter 

Support our mission! https://fdsd.me/support 

Give the gift of privacy and security: https://fdsd.me/coupons 

Get your Firewalls Don’t Stop Dragons Merch! https://fdsd.me/merch 

Table of Contents

0:00:08: Intro

0:01:32: News preview

0:03:36: FCC wants to ban burner phones

0:11:20: Teens using $5 WeedHack malware

0:17:23: ALPRs gain device tracking

0:22:39: Apple’s new child safety features

0:30:47: Botnet with 17M bots disabled

0:36:30: New Slate EV has no tracking

0:47:01: FISA Section 702 lapses

0:55:47: Secure Spaces for secure collaboration

1:02:12: Tip of the Week

1:07:51: Patron podcast preview

1:08:22: Looking ahead