Whose shield

A law arrives in the language of protection, positioned as a boundary between harm and those exposed to it. What can happen in these moments is less interruption than conversion. The existing practice remains. Its surface becomes clean, its paperwork complete. The activity is now recognisable, regulated, and formally p…

June 21, 2026 · 8 min

When the browser looks back

LinkedIn loads JavaScript that probes for installed browser extensions — thousands of them, including competitors’ sales tools, grammar checkers, and religious or political plugins. LinkedIn acknowledges this, but frames it as anti-scraping and abuse prevention. The question is not whether extension detection happens. …

April 17, 2026 · 3 min

The AI-augmented Panopticon: Surveillance in 2025

In 2025, the financial sector continues its courtship with generative AI, hoping it will finally make compliance less of a bureaucratic slog. According to Global Relay’s State of AI in Surveillance Report 2025, attitudes are thawing: there’s been a 19% drop in firms reluctant to implement AI. Apparently, nothing eases …

May 18, 2025 · 6 min

Governmental ghost stories

In Governmental Ghost Stories, the chills don’t come from creaking doors or sudden screams, but from the slow, clammy realisation that your digital life has more uninvited guests than a haunted manor on All Hallows’ Eve. It’s less The Conjuring and more Yes, Minister meets Dr. Strangelove in a dimly lit GCHQ break room…

February 16, 2020 · 3 min

Data flow: Or, how your clicks go on holiday without you

You might think the internet is a swirling cloud of decentralised freedom. Bless. In reality, it’s a tangled mess of invisible choke points, centralised bottlenecks, and nosy gatekeepers. The SHARE Foundation decided to trace where data from Serbia actually goes, and surprise! It’s not very far before it ends up in the…

November 1, 2019 · 3 min

A metadata murder mystery, without the mystery

Once upon a FOIA, a group of researchers got their hands on 2,000 pages of bureaucratic bedtime reading from Serbia’s data protection overseers. Their aim? To expose the country’s surveillance architecture. Spoiler: it’s less Big Brother, more “nosy landlord with a master key to every flat”. Here’s what they found: Me…

November 1, 2019 · 2 min

TL;DR: Snow, trolls & digital control freaks

Welcome to Serbia’s digital political theatre, where every heroic rescue is staged, every dissenting meme vanishes mysteriously, and every comment section is a gladiator arena for astroturfed loyalists. It starts with a snowstorm, a suspiciously well-timed TV crew, and a future prime minister trying out for the role of…

September 26, 2019 · 2 min

A very special club for spooks who can’t follow their own rules

The UKUSA Agreement alias the Five Eyes (FVEY), because nothing says “trustworthy global surveillance” like a name ripped from a bad spy thriller. Born in 1946 as a cosy little signals intelligence pact between Britain and America, it soon expanded like an overeager book club, roping in Canada (1948), Australia, and Ne…

August 27, 2018 · 2 min

GDPR: The EU’s bureaucratic letter to privacy (that nobody reads)

The GDPR, Europe’s flagship privacy reform, drafted by people who appear to believe consent forms are the pinnacle of human interaction. Born from the 1995 Data Protection Directive (which was about as fit for the digital age as a fax machine), it was billed as a way to “strengthen privacy rights” and “boost Europe’s d…

April 14, 2018 · 3 min