@TotallyHumanWriter with a very nice timeline here of privacy losses on the web. It's a great article, but sad to see the slope we are sliding down.
The leaders of the free world hate anonymity. Mass state surveillance which began with the Patriot Act, has evolved into demands for unencrypted back doors and chat control.
Australia, the UK, and others stifle anonymity and even pseudonymity through age verification. Germany, France, and Spain have openly called for digital verification and “real names on the internet.” This is not incidental.
- 1998 – PayPal’s email verification
- 2000 – eBay’s verified user program
- 2001 – The Patriot Act brings in sweeping surveillance powers
- 2003 – Facebook’s real‑name enforcement
- 2005 – Google phone‑number verification
- 2007 – Twitter’s email confirmation
- 2011 – Reddit’s “Verified Email” badge
- 2013 – Silk Road shutdown
- 2014 – GDPR preparation begins
- 2015 – Uber’s background checks begin
- 2016 – WhatsApp’s phone‑number registration
- 2017 – Instagram’s two‑factor authentication
- 2019 – Real‑ID requirement for developers
- 2020 – COVID‑19 contact‑tracing apps launch
- 2022 – EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA) and Chat Control
- 2023 – UK Online Safety Act passes
- 2024 – Australia bans social media for under-16s
- 2025 – EU-wide age-verification prototype
The timeline concludes with this ominous point:
- 2026 – Global biometric expansion
Countries including Vietnam, Nigeria, and Indonesia are expanding national biometric ID systems, with South Korea requiring facial biometrics for new mobile numbers.
Thanks for sharing.
White Noise (along with Bitchat and other solutions) is a very important project.
Still a bit rough around the edges, but it will develop quickly to off Signal-like UX with added privacy features.
There are plenty more blogs in the pipeline!
of course I'm just stumbling upon this now.
Darn it, yous are so fast!