Good Monday, friends of privacy!

This week, we’re looking at Ethereum’s vision of a cryptographic world computer, decentralized VPNs, wallet scams, access to information, Chat Control surveillance, Zcash’s NU7 upgrade and the difficult governance questions raised by Zano’s blockchain rollback.

And as Tool of the Week, take a look at Omarchy—an open-source, Arch-based Linux distribution built for developers and the age of AI agents.

Tool of the week

• Check out Omarchy

Insights

• Vitalik Buterin outlines Ethereum’s evolution into a cryptographic world computer
• Ambire warns users about a rise in impersonation scams across websites, emails and text messages
• Sentinel previews a fully native dVPN app designed to remove centralized dependencies
• Zakura launches a live dashboard, faucet and guide for Zcash’s NU7 upgrade
• Opera adds automatic VPN protection when users connect to public Wi-Fi

Knowledge

• Transparency International explains why access to information is essential for holding power accountable
• Lyudmyla Kozlovska warns that Chat Control 2.0 could enable months-long scanning of private communications
• S&P Global acquires OpenZeppelin to connect financial risk ratings with onchain security
• Zano rolls back a month of blockchain history following a Gateway Address exploit
• Zano’s head of growth addresses the exploit, rollback criticism and plans to reimburse affected users

Inspiration: Going On(Line) an offering of media from the web

• Get the book The Politics of Privacy: Autonomy and Power in the Digital Age
• 8 more privacy tools experts actually use by Proton
• Check the State of Decentralised Privacy report
• The Digital Independence They Don't Want You To Have by Naomi Brockwell
• Web3 Privacy Now courses in our Academy

Inspiration: Going Off(Line) an offering of IRL events

(new/changes in bold)

• Sep 25–27 - Quellc0d3 - Nuremberg, Germany
• Oct 2–4 - DARK Prague 2026 - Prague, Czechia
• Oct 2–4 - Digital Independence Days 2026 - Hamburg, Germany
• Oct 9–11 - Interfug 2026 - Chemnitz, Germany
• Oct 15 - DC Privacy Summit 2026 - Washington, USA
• Oct 27 - Web3Privacy Now x MozFest Meetup - Barcelona, Spain
• Oct 28–30 - MozFest — Mozilla Festival - Barcelona, Spain
• Nov 2 - Ethereum Cypherpunk Congress #3 - Mumbai, India
• Nov 3–6 - Devcon 8 - Mumbai, India
• Dec 27–30 - 40C3 — 40th Chaos Communication Congress - Hamburg, Germany