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Fabian A. Scherschel

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The Private CitizenThe Private CitizenEpisode 168: The TikTok LawIs the so-called TikTok law a tool to enable the US President to censor apps and websites at will? Yes and no. One thing is certain: This law isn't about TikTok; that's just a smokescreen.2024-04-182h 02The Private CitizenThe Private CitizenEpisode 167: The Death of Serious PoliticsPolitical scientist Brian Klaas looks into why we talk so much about politics, but never actually discuss any actual policy. My critique of his analysis is rather predictable.2024-04-021h 21The Private CitizenThe Private CitizenEpisode 166: The Twitter Files, Part 6Revisiting the idiotic decision to ban Donald Trump off Twitter and what it means for the future of democracy that private companies started to influence public discourse like that and got away with it.2024-03-281h 58The Private CitizenThe Private CitizenEpisode 165: I Ate'nt DeadI explain why this show went on an unplanned hiatus and once again vow to get back into the swing of things.2024-03-241h 06The Private CitizenThe Private CitizenEpisode 164: The Year 2023 in ReviewIn my annual recap episode, I am looking back at the topics that I've covered this year and forward to the changes that 2024 will bring for the podcast.2023-12-201h 10The Private CitizenThe Private CitizenEpisode 163: Back to the Twitter FilesThe reporters from the Twitter Files project just won the Dao Prize for excellence in investigative journalism. Could there be a better time to dive back into these stories?2023-11-081h 28The Private CitizenThe Private CitizenEpisode 162: The Westminster DeclarationWhat do Edward Snowden, Julian Assange, John Cleese, Yanis Varoufakis, Richard Dawkins and Walter Kirn have in common? They are all, despite holding very different political beliefs, very concerned about the future of political discourse in Western democracies.2023-11-011h 44The Private CitizenThe Private CitizenEpisode 161: The EU's Ministry of TruthEU bureaucrats maintain that the Digital Services Act is not a censorship regime, but is meant to save people from misinformation by deleting it from the internet or hiding it from view. Which, in fact, is the very definition of censorship. Welcome to the Cardassian Union.2023-10-151h 58The Private CitizenThe Private CitizenEpisode 160: The Lobbyists Behind Chat ControlIt turns out, that the EU's push to completely abolish digital privacy might not actually be an altruistic move to save children from abuse. Several tech companies, including one headed by Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore, stand to profit substantially from the decision. Which is why they massively influenced it.2023-10-072h 10The Private CitizenThe Private CitizenEpisode 159: Society Is Going to Hell in a HandbasketHow following the exodus of Germany's worst YouTuber to TikTok opened a private hell of lolcows for me. To a point where I don't think I understand society as a whole anymore. What is this shit? And where is it all going to end?2023-09-281h 21The Private CitizenThe Private CitizenEpisode 158: The EU Wants to Abolish Digital PrivacyThe EU wants to establish universal client-side scanning for text messages and photos on citizen's phones. With other words: All cryptography would be useless and hence, nobody would have any privacy in the digital realm anymore.2023-09-201h 37The Private CitizenThe Private CitizenEpisode 157: When Well-Meaning People Make the LawsGermany tried to make its laws against child pornography stricter and it backfired spectacularly. Now, lawyers and judges are desperately trying not to enforce these laws as the government scrambles to fix them.2023-09-131h 24The Private CitizenThe Private CitizenEpisode 156: The Widening GyreI'm back in the saddle. Well, at least partially. An explanation of what happened and some new developments in the Modern Solution case from a few years ago.2023-07-201h 13The Private CitizenThe Private CitizenEpisode 155: The Twitter Files, Part 5The podcast returns with more coverage of The Twitter Files. On this episode, I am discussing how the US government used the FBI to exert censorship control over Twitter and many other tech companies to reinforce government narratives and silence critics.2023-06-012h 16The Private CitizenThe Private CitizenEpisode 154: The Democratic DelusionMany people seem to think that the democratic system of government extends beyond how the state is run and into civil society. In this episode, I advance the theory that this has caused a lot of people to fall prey to propaganda and misunderstand how journalistic reporting and scientific enquiry should be done.2023-05-191h 32The Private CitizenThe Private CitizenEpisode 153: Another Nord Stream TheoryThe Danes say they have proof that the Russians blew up Nord Stream. But the fact that they want to keep this proof secret makes me think it does not exist and the whole thing is another attempt to distract people from Seymour Hersh's original reporting.2023-04-2258 minThe Private CitizenThe Private CitizenEpisode 152: The Discord LeaksInstead of working with him to uncover hidden government secrets about the US proxy war in Ukraine, The New York Times and Bellingcat sold out Air National Guardsman Jack Teixeira to the authorities. The kid's now facing a lifetime in prison.2023-04-201h 53The Private CitizenThe Private CitizenEpisode 151: Musk Kills the Twitter FilesWhen Substack launched what Musk interpreted as a Twitter competitor, the billionaire tried to force journalist Matt Taibbi to leave the publishing platform behind in favour of Twitter. When Taibbi declined, Musk declared The Twitter Files to be done and dusted.2023-04-141h 20The Private CitizenThe Private CitizenEpisode 150: The Twitter Files, Part 4During the pandemic, Twitter and other social networks censored dissidents and suppressed factually true stories to reinforce government propaganda and the interests of multi-billion-dollar companies with respect to SARS-CoV-2 and vaccines to combat it.2023-04-131h 44The Private CitizenThe Private CitizenEpisode 149: The Nord Stream Cover-UpTo cover up Seymour Hersh's report, the CIA planted a fake story about the Nord Stream pipeline sabotage with the press. Chancellor Scholz might even have discussed this cover-up with President Biden in person.2023-03-281h 21The Private CitizenThe Private CitizenEpisode 148: An Act of WarBefore Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, US President Biden authorised a plan to blow up the Nord Stream pipelines, which the US military executed last summer under cover of the BALTOPS 22 exercise.2023-03-221h 18The Private CitizenThe Private CitizenEpisode 147: LinkedIn Says Fauci Is Spreading MisinformationHorribly broken content moderation practices at LinkedIn make the Microsoft-owned social network actively hostile to scientific progress and press freedom, it seems.2023-03-111h 34The Private CitizenThe Private CitizenEpisode 146: Vaccines Were Never Going to Stop the PandemicDr Anthony Fauci, for a long time the man in charge of the US response to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, has now admitted that vaccines have failed to stop the spread of the disease and were never likely to.2023-02-282h 04The Private CitizenThe Private CitizenEpisode 145: War Never ChangesToday is not the anniversary of the war in Ukraine. That is just one of the propaganda lies by people who are afraid to stand up for peace and fight against murder and injustice.2023-02-241h 00The Private CitizenThe Private CitizenEpisode 144: Dismantling the Russiagate DelusionFor years, corporate media has maintained that Donald Trump was under the influence of Russian agents and that the Russians helped him win the 2016 presidential election. All of these claims turned out to be unsubstantiated. How exactly did the media err on such a monumental scale?2023-02-152h 20The Private CitizenThe Private CitizenEpisode 143: Three Year AnniversaryToday, the podcast turns three years old and I tell the story of how I became a journalist and what I learned in the process.2023-02-051h 18The Private CitizenThe Private CitizenEpisode 142: I Saw the Future in DubaiSome observations on the possible future of society from a recent trip to the United Arab Emirates.2023-02-031h 20The Private CitizenThe Private CitizenEpisode 141: How LastPass Made Itself ObsoleteEveryone needs a password manager these days and many people were using LastPass. Unfortunately, LastPass made some pretty horrible mistakes that mean that these people should look for an alternative now. Here's why.2023-01-171h 31The Private CitizenThe Private CitizenEpisode 140: The Twitter Files, Part 3The Twitter Files show us how cynical the US government tried, and often succeed, to shape how we perceive reality. But they also show those of us that weren't buying the propaganda that they aren't slowly going insane.2023-01-112h 24The Private CitizenThe Private CitizenEpisode 139: Refocussing the PodcastThe start of the new year sees some changes to the podcast. This episode provides an outlook of what is coming down the line.2023-01-041h 35The Private CitizenThe Private CitizenEpisode 138: The Year 2022 in ReviewLooking back at the third year of The Private Citizen and at the topics discussed and issues tackled in 2022.2022-12-281h 16The Private CitizenThe Private CitizenEpisode 137: Tracking Elon's JetResponding to listener feedback on episodes about journalism, Drachenlord, The Twitter Files, the Fediverse, free speech, artificial intelligence and beyond.2022-12-232h 09The Private CitizenThe Private CitizenEpisode 136: The Twitter Files, Part 2The Twitter Files show how the factually accurate Hunter Biden laptop story was suppressed. They also reveal the secret FBI operation targeting social media executives and high-level journalists that led to this suppression.2022-12-211h 44The Private CitizenThe Private CitizenEpisode 135: The Twitter Files, Part 1In a first episode about the Twitter Files disclosures, we look at how Twitter, at the behest of intelligence agencies, catalogued people's speech and selectively silenced some of them. And then lied about it.2022-12-141h 37The Private CitizenThe Private CitizenEpisode 134: Specialised IdiotsIn response to listener feedback, we're delving a bit deeper into the topic of machine learning and its impact on society and our political structures.2022-11-252h 20The Private CitizenThe Private CitizenEpisode 133: A Blessing and a CurseSince Twitter doom and gloom has some people moving to Mastodon, the Fediverse is being discussed even by mainstream media outlets. Is it finally going to take off? Let's discuss some of the problems we are facing here.2022-11-231h 46The Private CitizenThe Private CitizenEpisode 132: Twitter Melts DownWhat happens at Twitter at the moment is only a story because Silicon Valley is finally waking up to the fact that Elon Musk is a horrible and pretty dumb person. And the only reason that Silicon Valley did not know this is because it spent years stupidly convincing itself of the exact opposite.2022-11-152h 07The Private CitizenThe Private CitizenEpisode 131: The New Caste SystemIn a world were computer algorithms decide what is best for us, two groups of people will exist: those who program the algorithms and those who do what the algorithms tell them to do.2022-11-101h 40The Private CitizenThe Private CitizenEpisode 130: The Planet Is FinePeople don't want to save the planet, people are afraid to get inconvenienced and guilt-ridden about their childrens' future. They only care about themselves and it's going to destroy our social welfare societies. George Carlin called it thirty years ago.2022-11-031h 42The Private CitizenThe Private CitizenEpisode 129: What Happens When Elon Musk Buys Twitter?Elon Musk, after a long saga of tweets and lawsuits, is about to finalise his deal to buy Twitter. What does that mean for the social network and also the general political landscape?2022-10-262h 16The Private CitizenThe Private CitizenEpisode 128: Ask the Next QuestionScience-fiction writer and critic Theodore Sturgeon not only invented the Vulcan salute and the Prime Directive for Star Trek, he also pioneered a very interesting approach to critical thinking centred around always asking the next question.2022-10-192h 10The Private CitizenThe Private CitizenEpisode 127: Special Military OperationResponding to listener feedback on episodes about Drachenlord, electrical network frequency analysis, Stephanie Sterling vs. the Domina dev, Nord Stream, fear-based journalism and religion.2022-10-122h 03The Private CitizenThe Private CitizenEpisode 126: The Scourge of Fear-Based JournalismFear is the strongest of all emotions, which means news articles based on fear get the most clicks. Which means out society is going to hell in a handbasket and the idiot journalists are to blame.2022-10-051h 59The Private CitizenThe Private CitizenEpisode 125: What Happened With Nord Stream?Someone blew up the Nord Stream pipeline, bringing natural gas from Russia to Europe, via Germany. Was it the Russians? Did the Americans do it? Why? And what will happen now?2022-09-281h 18The Private CitizenThe Private CitizenEpisode 124: When Doing the Right Thing Actually Isn'tWhat happens when you're a game developer and you put stupid political statements in your patch notes? Stephanie Sterling makes a video about it and you get banned off Steam. Surely that's a good thing?2022-09-191h 22The Private CitizenThe Private CitizenEpisode 123: Electrical Network Frequency AnalysisCan you tell when an audio recording was made, down to the second, just by the electrical background hum? What sounds like a science fiction fantasy is actually real.2022-08-241h 05The Private CitizenThe Private CitizenEpisode 122: Drachenlord Defeated?Permabanned on almost all internet platforms, Rainer Winkler has been effectively silenced off the internet. He's also being investigated for disseminating illegal pornography. Will he give up now? And is his situation actually a free speech issue?2022-08-171h 52The Private CitizenThe Private CitizenEpisode 121: Bits and Bobs, Part 2Catching up with some stories I've talked about in earlier episodes: Julian Assange, Drachenlord and the War in Ukraine.2022-06-261h 09The Private CitizenThe Private CitizenEpisode 120: Driver Disenfranchisement in the EUThe EU thinks that some lines of code, probably shoddily written, should take precedence over how the actual driver wants to control their vehicle on the road. It's an idiotic idea and it says a lot about the people passing these laws.2022-06-251h 10The Private CitizenThe Private CitizenEpisode 119: Authoritarian Consequences of the PandemicThe media landscape is breeding a generation of citizens that is getting taught to respect the authority of the state above all. No matter what the current issue of the day is, the pandemic, the War in Ukraine or climate change, it all boils down to a very dangerous thing: a citizenry that can't, or won't, think independently.2022-05-261h 41The Private CitizenThe Private CitizenEpisode 118: Non-Fungible BullshitNon-fungible tokens, or NFTs, are a pretty stupid idea. Not only do they legally not guarantee ownership of anything, the very idea they represent is inherently flawed.2022-05-181h 12The Private CitizenThe Private CitizenEpisode 117: Blockchain BasicsBlockchain technology is one of the biggest buzzwords in tech in recent times. But what are blockchains and what do you need them for, really? Spoiler: Not much, actually.2022-05-111h 39The Private CitizenThe Private CitizenEpisode 116: The Left's Fear of MuskI don't like Elon Musk. But I think him buying Twitter isn't a bad thing. The people who do, however, are either unintentionally wrong or they are actively fighting on the side of censorship and propaganda, like the US intelligence community.2022-05-052h 00The Private CitizenThe Private CitizenEpisode 115: A Second Winter War?What does the Russian war in Ukraine have in common with the Russian invasion of Finland in 1939? What is different? And what can we learn from this about how the current war is going?2022-04-271h 37The Private CitizenThe Private CitizenEpisode 114: War and JusticeIn response to some input from listeners, I feel it is necessary to explain some things about how I cover the war in Ukraine and how I feel about wars in general. Let's talk about wars, international law and justice.2022-04-191h 44The Private CitizenThe Private CitizenEpisode 113: Lex DraconisIn Germany, telling someone on the internet that you will hurt and injure them if they visit you at home is apparently a valid defence for actually hitting them now.2022-04-131h 49The Private CitizenThe Private CitizenEpisode 112: What Does Putin Want?What are Putin's war goals in Ukraine? What is the Russian military trying to achieve? And how is it going?2022-03-231h 53The Private CitizenThe Private CitizenEpisode 111: Peak HypocrisyFacebook just made a mockery of the fight against hate speech by admitting that it's okay if you call for the murder of people the political mainstream doesn't like. It's only hate speech if you want to murder the wrong people. What the actual fuck.2022-03-171h 59The Private CitizenThe Private CitizenEpisode 110: Drachenlord on TourGerman YouTuber Drachenlord has sold his infamous Drachenschanze and is travelling in a pickup truck around Germany. Meanwhile, well-meaning people, who have no idea what's actually going on, think he's being bullied.2022-03-121h 49The Private CitizenThe Private CitizenEpisode 109: Agitprop Ahoy!The war in Ukraine has been raging for eight years, largely ignored by the West. It is not new. Neither are the policy blunders by NATO and the EU that have led to the current full-scale invasion. Putin is to blame for the war, but the West has created the situation that enabled Putin to wage it.2022-03-032h 23The Private CitizenThe Private CitizenEpisode 108: The Biggest Security Vulnerability of All TimeLog4Shell, a vulnerability in the Java application logging framework Log4J has been called the worst security vulnerability ever. Is that just the usual hype, though? Or why haven't we seen the forecast large scale exploitation of this bug? Is there something more sinister at play here?2022-01-311h 22The Private CitizenThe Private CitizenEpisode 107: Neil Young Is Being a DickNeil Young has had his record label pull his music from Spotify because he doesn't like that Joe Rogan interviews people who have a different opinion than Neil Young. The story of a counterculture rebel turned censorship advocate.2022-01-301h 32The Private CitizenThe Private CitizenEpisode 106: Concluding the Coronavirus Coverage, Part 2Taking stock of the civil liberty and privacy nightmare we have built for ourselves in the pandemic and explaining why I don't think reporting on it accomplishes much at this point.2022-01-192h 09The Private CitizenThe Private CitizenEpisode 105: Law vs. JusticeThe law is not the same as justice. There can be unjust laws and illegal actions can beget justice. So why is it that many people can't tell the difference between these two concepts? And how can we reconcile them in our society?2022-01-151h 18The Private CitizenThe Private CitizenEpisode 104: Triage Is Too Logical for GermansWhen who to save in case of a medical emergency becomes a moral, or even worse, a legal decision instead of a medical one, we all lose. This will soon be the reality in Germany, though, as the Constitutional Court has just passed a very unfortunate ruling in this regard.2022-01-051h 51The Private CitizenThe Private CitizenEpisode 103: The Year 2021 in ReviewA look back at the second year of the show, through the lens of the topics covered and the things discussed.2021-12-302h 46The Private CitizenThe Private CitizenEpisode 102: The Cyberbunker VerdictThe people who ran the so-called bulletproof Cyberbunker in Germany have been sentenced to hefty jail times. But what does the verdict mean for other hosting companies and telecommunications providers in the country? Will they be liable for criminal activity of their clients from now on?2021-12-222h 04The Private CitizenThe Private CitizenEpisode 101: Climate JusticeOn this special episode, Mike and myself are having what will probably be the beginning of many conversations on climate change, climate activism and their impacts on our civil rights and other aspects of our lives.2021-12-163h 01The Private CitizenThe Private CitizenEpisode 100: Let Me Tell You a Bit About MyselfFor the one-hundredths episode of this show, I'm telling the story of who I am, where I was born and how I was brought up, in the hope that it will help you understand my place in the world and my biases as a basis for further episodes.2021-12-143h 31The Private CitizenThe Private CitizenEpisode 99: The Traffic Light Is OnLooking at the plans for the new German government, made up out of the Social Democrats, Greens and Liberals, there are some interesting free speech and privacy implications for the future. Not only of Germany, but probably also for much of Europe.2021-12-072h 36The Private CitizenThe Private CitizenEpisode 98: The German Constitution and the VirusThe German Constitutional Court has decided that the strictest pandemic measures were within the remit of the law. The government is already talking about force-vaccinating everyone. I feel stoicism is the only recourse left for freedom-loving citizens of this country now.2021-12-011h 39The Private CitizenThe Private CitizenEpisode 97: The App Tracking Transparency Smoke ScreenWhat we've been suspecting all along has now been proven correct: Apple's app anti-tracking feature in iOS does precisely nothing to effectively protect your privacy. In fact, it makes things worse. And Apple probably knew this was the case, too.2021-11-242h 24The Private CitizenThe Private CitizenEpisode 96: Discrimination, Enshrined in LawIn Germany, the pandemic emergency has now been declared over by a new law. But instead, the government can now just use all the measures, and more, whenever they want. Not even the parliament needs to approve.2021-11-181h 42The Private CitizenThe Private CitizenEpisode 95: Fuck the EU!Looking at the EU's ban of two tattoo pigments as a good example for the silly and anti-scientific legislation the lawmakers in Brussels sometimes fall prey to. The EU desperately needs to fix idiotic behaviour like this if it doesn't want anti-EU voices to sway the public against the European Project as a whole.2021-11-111h 42The Private CitizenThe Private CitizenEpisode 94: Lord of DragonsAt what point does a person who is bullied relentlessly become responsible for the situation if they keep encouraging it? That's the question we are trying to fathom when looking at the case of German YouTuber Rainer Winkler aka. Drachenlord.2021-11-032h 05The Private CitizenThe Private CitizenEpisode 93: Kinetic OptionsExamining the contemporary forces arrayed against those speaking what they perceive of as the truth, be it Julian Assange or that random dude on Facebook.2021-10-271h 58The Private CitizenThe Private CitizenEpisode 92: Bugs in Our PocketsWhen Whitfield Diffie, Ronald Rivest, Steven M. Bellovin, Peter Neumann, Matt Blaze and Bruce Schneier come together to publish a paper on the security and privacy implications of client-side scanning, we should listen up.2021-10-251h 48The Private CitizenThe Private CitizenEpisode 91: A Not-So-Modern SolutionModern Solution created a software platform that is so ass-backwards and treats customer data so casually, it's almost criminally negligent. Instead of fessing up to how bad they are as a company, they now want to get a security researcher in jail.2021-10-201h 44The Private CitizenThe Private CitizenEpisode 90: Blowing the Wrong WhistleWhat's more in your interest? Stopping Facebook from leeching off the private data of your life to further its monopoly or forcing it to censor your speech? And now take a guess which of the two politicians want to do and journalists are ecstatic about?2021-10-132h 00The Private CitizenThe Private CitizenEpisode 89: The Cult of the VaccineHow can the hope of a new drug that might help fight COVID-19 get turned into bad news? Bad journalism, that's how. Let's look at how Matt Taibbi breaks it down in his exemplary writing on the topic.2021-10-111h 45The Private CitizenThe Private CitizenEpisode 88: Jamaican Traffic LightsWill the recent German federal election be followed by time of horrible uncertainty, that is will it be the country's Brexit moment, or is it actually a good thing? This episode discusses the election result and gives a historic explainer of the German parliamentary system.2021-10-062h 02The Private CitizenThe Private CitizenEpisode 87: Afghaniscam?You expect me to believe that the best funded, best trained, best organised and most experienced military in history left military arms behind in a hasty retreat that are worth more than the annual military budget of all but two countries on the globe? Seriously?2021-09-141h 35The Private CitizenThe Private CitizenEpisode 86: The Sausage WarsA discussion with my friend Mike about the current state of Brexit and what it means for the future of the European Union and the geopolitical situation on the continent and beyond.2021-09-123h 14The Private CitizenThe Private CitizenEpisode 85: The Latest in Despicable JournalismAgain and again, so-called journalists in big media outlets exaggerate or even outright invent stories to scare or outrage the public. The audience just buys it wholesale and never notices when, a day or two later, it all turns out to be complete bullshit. Today's example: Ivermectin.2021-09-082h 00The Private CitizenThe Private CitizenEpisode 84: Steve Gibson's SquirrelAuthentication on the internet is fundamentally broken. Weak passwords, password reuse, data leaks and untrustworthy third parties tracking us while they log us in are the unfortunate reality right now. One man decided to single-handedly fix this mess.2021-09-012h 07The Private CitizenThe Private CitizenEpisode 83: The Conspiracy Theorists Get It Right AgainPegasus isn't new. Anyone in the field has known about NSO Group's spyware and its use against politicians, activists and journalists for half a decade. What's worth discussing, though, is how the topic has been ignored for so long. Both by the press and by iPhone maker Apple.2021-08-252h 02The Private CitizenThe Private CitizenEpisode 82: The Afghan DisasterThe people responsible claim nobody could have predicted what happened in Afghanistan this week. But their experts did in fact did predict it, which wasn't exactly hard, and then the people in charge lied about it. The public now desperately needs to understand how governments operate, or it will all happen again. And soon.2021-08-182h 30The Private CitizenThe Private CitizenEpisode 81: Let's Talk About AppleWhat are the new features Apple is implementing in iOS 15 that have privacy and security people all up in arms? And why none of this should come a surprise to anyone who's actually paid some attention and is thinking for themselves instead of just buying the company propaganda.2021-08-091h 43The Private CitizenThe Private CitizenEpisode 80: Biden's Dangerous Cyber JingoismThe US President says it's likely that hacker attacks will lead to a real war and that is something that scares me a lot.2021-08-051h 36The Private CitizenThe Private CitizenEpisode 79: How the German Immunity Passport Was HackedThe certificate infrastructure of the German digital immunity passport, based on an EU-wide system, has been completely undermined by a hack that's so easy to pull off that probably any twelve year old with a computer can accomplish it.2021-07-281h 31The Private CitizenThe Private CitizenEpisode 78: Did You Know That Your Friends Are Extremists?What happens when our media consumption is so fear-inducing that we let companies regulate our social connections? A culture of digital snitching develops that gives companies knowledge that previously only authoritarian governments possessed.2021-07-071h 29The Private CitizenThe Private CitizenEpisode 77: Welcome to the Polizeistaat!The German police can now hack into computers and phones, without the target having to have committed a crime. Even though a Berlin court has just ruled evidence from similar hacks originating outside of Germany to be inadmissible in criminal proceedings in the country.2021-07-061h 35The Private CitizenThe Private CitizenEpisode 76: Censorship Does Not Take PlaceThe German constitution states that censorship does not take place and yet, Germany is one of the most censorship-happy countries when it comes to Western democracies and therefore at the forefront of the brewing culture wars. How can that be?2021-06-301h 50The Private CitizenThe Private CitizenEpisode 75: YouTube's Unfair CensorshipYouTube blocked one of my episodes, insulting my professional reputation and claiming that I was spreading misinformation about SARS-CoV-2 vaccines. They later admitted they were wrong, but refuse to tell me how such an egregious mistake can happen. Let's examine what behaviour like this means for freedom of speech and freedom of the press.2021-06-231h 45The Private CitizenThe Private CitizenEpisode 74: Immunity Passports Are HereGermany has just introduced digital immunity passports as mandated by the EU. How does this system work and what does it mean for civil rights of EU citizens in the future?2021-06-161h 30The Private CitizenThe Private CitizenEpisode 73: A Great Time to Be a PodcasterThe EU copyright reform is now in effect in all member countries and with it comes the horrible idea of upload filters. Let's discuss why this is bad for journalism, already very much on its last legs, and free speech in general.2021-06-071h 20The Private CitizenThe Private CitizenEpisode 72: The Political Implications of RansomwareLet's talk about ransomware. Ransomware is not the problem. People being lazy is the problem.2021-06-031h 20The Private CitizenThe Private CitizenEpisode 71: Zero Trust, My Ass!Cloudflare's Zero Trust Browser is a dumb idea if I ever saw one. Here's why. And as a little bonus, we look at the Mighty browser, which is even more insane.2021-05-271h 47The Private CitizenThe Private CitizenEpisode 70: Targeting Your Citizens With SpywareThe German government wants to put trojans on its citizens' phones and other devices to crack end-to-end encrypted communications. And it wants to do it with as little due process as possible. Welcome to another battle in the Crypto Wars!2021-05-191h 48The Private CitizenThe Private CitizenEpisode 69: The Contraband Corned Beef SandwichThe Gemini protocol, a text-only alternative to normal websites, might be the perfect off-the-grid publishing platform. At the very least, it's damn cool. In an old-school, indieweb kind of way.2021-05-121h 26