Pebbles

When the country goes temporarily to the dogs, cats must learn to be circumspect, walk on fences, sleep in trees, and have faith that all this woofing is not the last word. Garrison Keillor

Is your granny far right? conservativewoman.co.uk/is-your-granny…

Bill shock 🐱🐭💸

One in five teenagers in the UK do not express their political views for fear of being “cancelled”. A new survey from the Economist Educational Foundation found that 22% of 15–17-year-olds have stopped themselves from sharing their political views for fear of criticism. Among 10–14-year-olds, the figure is 20%. More concerning still, one in four of the 4,000 students surveyed said they had been told to stop voicing their political opinions at school. The survey also revealed that 44% of 15–17-year-olds would not feel ready to vote in the next election. This is staggering. As the Government pushes ahead with plans to lower the voting age to 16 — enfranchising 9.5 million more people — teenagers should be encouraged to express their views and concerns in an open, safe forum, especially in schools. Nobody should have to self-censor their opinions and beliefs for fear of being ‘cancelled’ — no matter their age. Read more below 👇

Last month, the EU Council wanted to push through voluntary scanning. But they failed! 🎉 However, the trilogue discussions on Chat Control 2.0 start this Thursday. But #ChatControl is a Trojan Horse for citizens and businesses in Europe. Interestingly, not everyone should be monitored: ❌ Government ❌ Military ✅ YOU Make sure your country opposes Chat Control! Learn why: 👉 tuta.com/blog/chat-cont… Chat Control must be stopped: 🚨 Undermines Europe's digital sovereignty 🚨 Weakens everybody's security 🚨 Destroys trust in the European tech industry

I’m fucking done. Sixty years of grinding. A four-year degree earned the hard way. Raising good kids. Paying every tax they demanded. Following every rule. Voting the way they told us to. And for what? A system that mocks us. Politicians who lie to our faces on camera. Empty promises of “better days” that were nothing but bait. They cash the checks. We foot the bill. We built this country. We carried it on our backs. We were the ones who still believed hard work would pay off. Newsflash: It doesn’t. Not anymore. Not for honest, working, middle-class Americans. We’re not blind anymore. We’re awake. We’re angry. And we’re done staying quiet. Who else is finished being exploited? Drop a 🔥 if you’re with me. This ends now.

Hero. Legend.

Hacking the #EU #AgeVerification app in under 2 minutes. During setup, the app asks you to create a PIN. After entry, the app *encrypts* it and saves it in the shared_prefs directory. 1. It shouldn't be encrypted at all - that's a really poor design. 2. It's not cryptographically tied to the vault which contains the identity data. So, an attacker can simply remove the PinEnc/PinIV values from the shared_prefs file and restart the app. After choosing a different PIN, the app presents credentials created under the old profile and let's the attacker present them as valid. Other issues: 1. Rate limiting is an incrementing number in the same config file. Just reset it to 0 and keep trying. 2. "UseBiometricAuth" is a boolean, also in the same file. Set it to false and it just skips that step. Seriously @vonderleyen - this product will be the catalyst for an enormous breach at some point. It's just a matter of time.

Australia banned under-16s from social media. Months later, children are still using it anyway. These schemes rarely work as advertised. What they do produce is more age checks and more barriers for adults trying to access lawful content.

Stolen… then reclaimed 🐱🔥

Breaking the obligation trap – adult children speak on the suffocating expectations of caring for difficult parents hellocare.com.au/breaking-the-o…

My take: I do not need to explain Trump's words. We all know he speaks in bombastic fashion. Anyone pretending he threatened to actually destroy the Iranian people is either dishonest or wilfully stupid. Those asking "who won" - including media outlets like @bbcnews and @nytimes - are mostly doing so because they hate Trump and are desperate to frame this as a defeat. It is a sign of how deluded people have become in the social media age that such a question is even being asked now. In addition - those who say Trump caved to Iran's ten demands haven't even bothered to read the actual Iranian public statement properly - so nobody should be listening to them either. The fact our media is quoting Iranian spokespeople as if they have merit is also risible. This is a regime built on propaganda. Treating it as a reliable source is absurd - so why not tell your audience that? So what is real? Actually - the key message now is to be the adult in the room and wait. There are massive signs Iran has caved. Firstly it promised just two days ago that the age of free travel through Hormuz are over. And hey presto they agreed to it just to get the U.S. to stop firing. Secondly - Lebanon. Hezbollah only entered the war to help its proxy. And it appears Iran has completely abandoned Hezbollah just to get the U.S. to stop. Those are both important tells. But the initial reality will be in the cake. What kind of deal (if any) is struck. When we see that - we can at least begin to judge. Yet even that does not tell us the value of this war. Only time will. History does not reveal itself 12 hours after a ceasefire. The regime has certainly been weakened - what now for Iran and the Iranian people? It will take them years just to rebuild - while those nations that fought Iran will be far stronger then, than they are now. And what about Israel? It's relationship with the Gulf States? If a few years from now, we live in a world in which Iran is no longer a regional threat, no longer holds nuclear ambitions and its proxies have collapsed. If it no longer can hold our economies hostage because oil pipelines lead from the Gulf states to Israel ports on the Med. And if Lebanon is back in control of Lebanon - with Hezbollah reduced to an unarmed political faction. The Middle East will look much safer. Israelis for the first time in their history - will not face an existential threat. Clear winners - and a clear loser - to the war that was just fought. Delusional? I don't know. Is it guaranteed? Also no. But it is far more grounded in reality than the delusional people already declaring that Iran “won”.

Governments around the world are rushing to pass “age verification” laws to protect kids online. Sounds noble, right? On paper, sure. But here's the catch: over 400 of the world's top cybersecurity and privacy experts just signed an open letter waving a massive red flag. Their message? These laws might actually be a gift to scammers and a nightmare for your privacy. Here's what's actually happening under the hood. To “verify” your age, these systems want your government ID, a facial scan, or your credit card info. That doesn't just sit somewhere safely — it creates a massive digital honeypot. And we've already seen what happens when these vaults get cracked. Remember the 2025 Discord breach? Seventy thousand IDs leaked. When you force millions of people to upload their most sensitive information to the cloud, it's not a matter of if that data gets stolen — it's when. Here's the part that really stings. The experts (the very same people who helped design the technologies behind age verification) say these systems are shockingly easy to bypass and are not ready for mass implementation. Between VPNs, AI-generated deepfakes, and “verified” accounts sold on the black market, determined kids will get through anyway. Meanwhile, regular adults get stuck in a loop of constant surveillance, and people without the “right” tech or official ID risk getting locked out of the Internet entirely. We’re all for keeping the web safe for children. But trading everyone’s fundamental privacy for “security theater” isn't the answer. Privacy shouldn't be the price of admission to the Internet. Want to see why the experts are so worried and how to keep your data off these lists? Check out our full breakdown of the report on the blog: adguard-vpn.com/en/blog/age-ve…

Will Your Phone Allow You to Read This Article? The real question is who controls the controls. As @Apple has demonstrated: not you. Enjoy what freedom you have while you can. dailysceptic.org/2026/04/02/wil…

I am 28 years old, and I have lived my entire life suffocating under the Islamic Republic. I am writing this from the streets of Tehran, nearly a month into a war, and let me tell you a truth that the outside world cannot seem to comprehend: My biggest fear right now is not the missiles. My paralyzing, everyday terror is walking out my front door and hitting an IRGC checkpoint. It is the sickening knot in my stomach when the people I love step outside, knowing they might get dragged away by these monsters. Nothing is, was, or ever will be worse than this regime. You cannot convince me otherwise. I am bleeding myself dry. I spend every ounce of my energy and money fighting this digital blackout, buying VPN after VPN just to force a connection through so I can be the voice of my people. And what do I see when I finally get online? Analysts sitting safely abroad telling us, *"You haven't tried all the paths yet!"* Are you out of your minds? The last "path" we took, over 40,000 of us didn't come home. On that path, a live bullet flew centimeters past my ear and right past the head of the most precious person in my life. I almost lost my best friend forever on that asphalt. What goddamn path is left to take? Why do you trample on the spilled blood of my compatriots? Why do you spend your time fighting Crown Prince @PahlaviReza instead of listening to a crushed, bleeding nation? Last night, I watched his speech. Do you know what I felt? Relief. The profound relief of hearing an honorable man echo the exact pain and demands of his people, with more precision than anyone else. And I felt pride. I felt absolute pride in the truth, structure, and beauty of his words. Do you know how heartbreaking it is that pride is a foreign, alien emotion for an Iranian today? He gave that back to us. We screamed his name with all our might. 40,000 of our fallen heroes signed his leadership with their own blood. Stop fighting our choice. Listen to us.

"Anonymity is a shield from the tyranny of the majority. It thus exemplifies the purpose behind the Bill of Rights, and of the First Amendment in particular: to protect unpopular individuals from retaliation—and their ideas from suppression—at the hand of an intolerant society."

We can build this dream together Standing strong forever Nothing's gonna stop us now Nothing's gonna stop us youtube.com/watch?v=MVQ9VM…

“I am going to seek a great perhaps; draw a curtain, the farce is played out.” ― Rabelais