Inform your friends and family about these tools.

#Briar ... https://briarproject.org

"Censorship-resistant peer-to-peer messaging that bypasses centralized servers. Connect via Bluetooth, Wi-Fi or Tor, with privacy built-in."

#Retroshare ... https://retroshare.cc

"Retroshare establish encrypted connections between you and your friends to create a network of computers, and provides various distributed services on top of it: forums, channels, chat, mail... Retroshare is fully decentralized, and designed to provide maximum security and anonymity to its users beyond direct friends. Retroshare is entirely free and open-source software. It is available on #Android, #Linux, #MacOS and #Windows. There are no hidden costs, no ads and no terms of service."

#RicochetRefresh ... https://www.ricochetrefresh.net

"Ricochet Refresh is an open-source project to allow private and anonymous instant messaging."

#OnionShare ... https://onionshare.org

"OnionShare is an open-source tool that lets you securely and anonymously share files, host websites, and chat with friends using the Tor network."

#DeltaChat ... https://delta.chat

"Delta Chat is a decentralized and secure messenger app."

#Bitmessage ... https://bitmessage.org

"Bitmessage is a P2P communications protocol used to send encrypted messages to another person or to many subscribers. It is decentralized and trustless, meaning that you need-not inherently trust any entities like root certificate authorities. It uses strong authentication which means that the sender of a message cannot be spoofed, and it aims to hide "non-content" data, like the sender and receiver of messages, from passive eavesdroppers like those running warrantless wiretapping programs."

#TorBrowser ... https://www.torproject.org/download

"Protect yourself against tracking, surveillance, and censorship."

#I2P ... https://geti2p.net

"The Invisible Internet Project (I2P) is a fully encrypted private network layer. It protects your activity and location. Every day people use the network to connect with people without worry of being tracked or their data being collected. In some cases people rely on the network when they need to be discrete or are doing sensitive work."

#Hyphanet ... https://www.hyphanet.org/

"Hyphanet is peer-to-peer network for censorship-resistant and privacy-respecting publishing and communication. The original Freenet."

#BitChan ... https://github.com/813492291816/BitChan

"BitChan is a decentralized anonymous imageboard inspired by BitBoard and built on top of Bitmessage with Tor, I2P, and GnuPG."

#DarkMX ... https://darkmx.app

"DarkMX is a new decentralized communication app that utilizes Tor hidden services to allow you to easily have an anonymous, reliable, and censorship-resistant presence on the internet. You can chat. You can share files. You can search other people's files. You can keep a contact list and send private messages to your friends. You can create your own custom .onion site, available to anyone with a Tor Browser."

#Decentralized #TOR #AntiSurveillance #Anonymity #Anonymous #Privacy #Filesharing #Networking #Communication #P2P #F2F #PeerToPeer #Censorship #AntiCensorship #FreeSpeech

Mathew Dowd fired by MSNBC for what seems to me a thoughtful answer to the sort of questions MSNBC hired him for.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/matthew-dowd-fired-msnbc-charlie-020835082.html
#MSNBC #FreeSpeech #CharlieKirk #Fascism

VPNs must not face the chop 🚫

Next week the UK House of Lords will debate whether VPNs undermine the Online Safety Act.

Banning or blocking VPNs will shatter security, privacy and free expression in a self-defeating attempt to make the unworkable workable.

Read our briefing ⬇️

https://www.openrightsgroup.org/publications/briefing-vpns-and-the-online-safety-act/

#OnlineSafetyAct #onlinesafety #OSA #VPN #VPNs #privacy #cybersecurity #freespeech #ukpolitics #ukpol #ageverification

The work of Mexican-born, New York-based artist/cartoonist Felipe Galindo (Feggo) is on a list of objectionable art, published by the White House.
https://blog.cartoonmovement.com/2025/08/censorship-alert-white-house-condemns-cartoon.html?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
#Trump #Immigration #FreeSpeech #ThinOrangeSkin

Alt...

cartoon of a US border wall painted on the horizontal with red and white alternating stripes a section of the wall has been cut out and lies on the ground a man is climbing up the section of the wall with the cut out and, over that section, the Land of Promise can be seen in the distance with a dark blue sky filled with fireworks that look like the star field of the US flag

Social media is an "unhealthy online environment" 🤒

The problem lies with the business model that underpins these monopolistic platforms: they promote ragebait to rake in the money.

ORG's @jim told BBC News what needs to be done:

✅ Competition
✅ User empowerment
✅ Decentralisation

Watch Now ➡️ https://peertube.openrightsgroup.org/w/xfGQA53TQ51qB4FPDFFH6p

#socialmedia #freespeech #interoperability #fediverse #federatedsocialmedia #ukpolitics #mastodon #bluesky #ukpol #musk #twitter #x #meta #threads #fedi #grahamlinehan

I have been away from the Internet for at least a couple months. I came to quickly check my feeds and I am sad to have found report of the passing away of a very cool hacker, Thom Miller, known by the handle, Retro Guy. According to his wife Kaylen Miller, Thom died about two weeks ago from pancreatic cancer. He had a years-long struggle with cancer and multiple therapies and surgeries. During all the time of his illness he continued to hack away providing network access and software updates absolutely free to his user base. He was a strong believer in the value of open and decentralized communication for all. His software is simple and awesome, and useful for censorship-resistant communication. (https://gitlab.com/rslight-public/rocksolid-light)

Thom, known as Retro Guy, created the Rocksolid Light NNTP forums and server software. He served the hacker community as a free speech advocate and provider of free speech communication networking. He refused to censor opinions that he found offensive or stupid on the principle of the golden rule. He endured a lot of annoyances to provide service for many. Thom maintained the software for years giving web-based NNTP access to countless users. Thom was always helpful and patient with users needing assistance, even when he was feeling ill and suffering. He pushed through his pain to serve others with something he believed was a necessary tool and blessing for the general public.

I am sad to learn of Thom's passing. He will be missed and remembered. I will remember him by continuing to run his software.

More:
https://news.novabbs.org/rocksolid/article-flat.php?id=1024&group=rocksolid.nodes.help#1024

More:
https://news.novabbs.org/rocksolid/article-flat.php?id=560&group=rocksolid.nodes.announce#560

More:
https://news.novabbs.org/rocksolid/article-flat.php?id=561&group=rocksolid.nodes.announce#561

More:
https://www.novabbs.com/interests/article-flat.php?id=25410&group=alt.obituaries

#obituary #rocksolidlight #usenet #nntp #freespeech #cancer #condolences #networknews #retroguy #novabbs #bbs