How India's Unremovable App Mandate Failed Within Days
Techlore Surveillance Report: Weekly News for Your Digital Freedom
This week's Surveillance Report covers India’s attempt to mandate a potentially invasive app on everyone’s phone, Chat Control updates in the EU with concerns still evolving, half of US states now being age verified, more AI Slop, butt to cloud encryption, and more!
Correction: One of you caught my mistake! The poopinator device is $600 *with* a monthly subscription. Sorry about that!
⏱️ TIMESTAMPS
00:00 Welcome to Surveillance Report
00:41 Highlight: India's Invasive App
08:28 Some Quick Announcements
09:50 Chat Control Updates
14:19 USA Age Verification
19:44 Our Sponsor: Easy Opt Outs!
21:04 AI Slop Continues
25:48 Butt To Cloud (B2C)
32:38 Defense Bulletin
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Episode Sources
Highlight
- https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulation/india-orders-mobile-phones-preloaded-with-government-app-ensure-cyber-safety-2025-12-01/
- https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/1pc234k/a_compulsory_mandated_app_installed_on_every/
- https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulation/apple-resist-india-order-preload-state-run-app-political-outcry-builds-2025-12-02/
- https://techcrunch.com/2025/12/03/after-intense-backlash-india-pulls-mandate-to-pre-install-government-app-on-smartphones/
- https://tuta.com/blog/sanchar-saathi-max-surveillance-apps-india-russia
Chat Control Isn’t Over
- https://www.patrick-breyer.de/en/reality-check-eu-council-chat-control-vote-is-not-a-retreat-but-a-green-light-for-indiscriminate-mass-surveillance-and-the-end-of-right-to-communicate-anonymously/
- https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/12/after-years-controversy-eus-chat-control-nears-its-final-hurdle-what-know
Half of the US is Age Verified
- https://www.techradar.com/vpn/vpn-privacy-security/missouri-to-enforce-mandatory-age-verification-in-three-days
- https://assets.freespeechcoalition.com/documents/MO AV Rule.pdf
- https://techlore.tech/vpn
- https://action.freespeechcoalition.com/age-verification-resources/state-avs-laws/
AI Slop
- https://arstechnica.com/ai/2025/12/microsoft-slashes-ai-sales-growth-targets-as-customers-resist-unproven-agents/
- https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/artificial-intelligence/leak-confirms-openai-is-preparing-ads-on-chatgpt-for-public-roll-out/
Butt to Cloud Encryption
- https://varlogsimon.leaflet.pub/3m6zrw6k2bs2p
- https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/08/zoom-to-pay-85m-for-lying-about-encryption-and-sending-data-to-facebook-and-google/
The Defense Bulletin
- https://arstechnica.com/security/2025/12/admins-and-defenders-gird-themselves-against-maximum-severity-server-vulnerability/
- https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/marquis-data-breach-impacts-over-74-us-banks-credit-unions/
- https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/critical-flaw-in-wordpress-add-on-for-elementor-exploited-in-attacks/
- https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/french-diy-retail-giant-leroy-merlin-discloses-a-data-breach/
- https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/freedom-mobile-discloses-data-breach-exposing-customer-data/
- https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/university-of-phoenix-discloses-data-breach-after-oracle-hack/
- https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/university-of-pennsylvania-confirms-data-theft-after-oracle-ebs-hack/
- https://techcrunch.com/2025/12/02/a-data-breach-at-analytics-giant-mixpanel-leaves-a-lot-of-open-questions/
- https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/smarttube-youtube-app-for-android-tv-breached-to-push-malicious-update/
- https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/retail-giant-coupang-suffers-data-breach-impacting-337-million-people/
- https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/shadypanda-browser-extensions-amass-43m-installs-in-malicious-campaign/
- https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/japanese-beer-giant-asahi-says-data-breach-hit-15-million-people/
- https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/public-gitlab-repositories-exposed-more-than-17-000-secrets/
- https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/french-football-federation-fff-discloses-data-breach-after-cyberattack/
- https://www.404media.co/someone-is-trying-to-hack-people-through-apple-podcasts/
- https://getsession.org/blog/session-protocol-v2
- https://techcentral.co.za/affinity-for-linux-canvas-next-big-move-could-reshape-the-desktop-software-market/274861/
- https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/google-expands-android-scam-protection-feature-to-chase-cash-app-in-us/
- https://brave.com/blog/leo-skills/
- https://blog.torproject.org/staying-ahead-of-censors-2025/
- https://blog.torproject.org/arti_1_8_0_released/
- https://blog.torproject.org/future-of-tor-browser-alpha/
- https://blog.torproject.org/community-day-state-of-the-onion-2025/
- https://adguard.com/en/blog/apple-url-filter-system-wide-filtering-api.html
- https://blog.mozilla.org/en/firefox/bbo-data-war-digital-game/
- https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/google-fixes-two-android-zero-days-exploited-in-attacks-107-flaws/
- https://discuss.techlore.tech/t/great-news-thunderbird-for-ios-is-coming-soon-github-repo-already-there/16074
- https://www.wired.com/story/digital-opsec-for-teens/
- https://www.ivpn.net/blog/v2ray-obfuscation-available-all-ivpn-platforms/
- https://9to5linux.com/linux-kernel-6-18-officially-released-could-be-the-next-lts-kernel-series
- https://www.phoronix.com/news/Steam-Linux-November-2025
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