Short answer Yes. Free VPNs sell your data. A VPN costs money to operate. If you are not paying, you are the product. Documented cases, including Hotspot Shield, UFO VPN, and Hola, show free VPN providers logging and selling browsing history, device identifiers, and location data. Some explicitly claimed no-log policies. They lied. There is…
Short answer The device had no sensitive messages on it. The worker had been careful. The search lasted 40 minutes. What the agents found was not in the messages. It was in everything else. This is a composite account built from documented cases and the experience of digital security trainers working with humanitarian organisations. The…
Short answer Before you file. Before you change a password. Before you tell your closest friend. There is an assessment that has to happen first, and the order it happens in matters. Acting before assessing is the most common mistake in this situation. Changing passwords before understanding what access exists can alert someone who was…
Short answer If you are filing for divorce, assume your devices are already compromised. This is the operationally correct starting assumption. Shared cloud accounts, email forwarding rules, spyware marketed as parental controls. Access does not require hacking. It requires having been in a relationship with someone who knows your passwords and your patterns. Not might…
Short answer A VPN that does not work in a restricted environment is a usability problem. A VPN that hands user data to the authorities of that environment is a safety problem. Consumer reviews rarely distinguish between the two. That distinction has real consequences. How countries block VPN protocols China, Iran, Russia, and a growing…
Short answer Social media content is admissible evidence in divorce, custody, and civil proceedings in most jurisdictions. It is being used. Routinely. By both sides. Deleting posts after proceedings begin can constitute spoliation of evidence. The time to make different choices is before the dispute becomes a formal legal matter. That window is shorter than…
Short answer Proton VPN is the most audited, most transparent VPN at consumer price. Swiss jurisdiction. Open source. No connection logs, verified under real Swiss court requests. Not the fastest. Not the lightest. The one we would trust if our connection logs could end up in court. We affiliate with Proton. We say that upfront….
Short answer No. But it is an essential part of the stack, and that distinction matters. 1Password manages credentials. It generates strong, unique passwords, stores them in an encrypted vault, and makes them accessible across devices without requiring you to remember or reuse them. For the threat profile most journalists face — credential phishing, account…
Short answer The access was almost certainly set up at some point during the relationship. Shared accounts, family apps, a password typed in front of someone a hundred times. None of it was surveillance when it was configured. All of it functions as surveillance now. Not might be. Probably are. And in most cases, they…
Short answer Mullvad is the most anonymous consumer VPN available. No email required. No identity attached at any stage. Cash payment by post accepted. Swedish police visited their servers with a warrant in 2023 and found nothing, because nothing is stored. Mullvad does not run an affiliate programme. We make no money from recommending it….