Good Monday, friends of privacy!

This week: private genomics, post-quantum messaging, privacy funding, AI-agent risks, digital censorship and smart-device surveillance. And as a Tool of the Week, wlecome Offline Protocol—an encrypted networking stack that keeps devices and apps connected even without the internet.

Tool of the week

• Check out Offline Protocol, one of many members of Epoch 13

Insights

• Dark Bio releases the Ark Emulator for privately managing and building applications around genomic data
• Session joins Octant’s privacy round to fund post-quantum protection and forward secrecy
• Linux developers propose a shared directory for portable AI-agent skills
• Project Glitch explores how privacy can guide us through AI agents, digital identity and technological chaos
• After getting hacked, Shaquille O’Neal urges people to take personal cybersecurity more seriously

Knowledge

• Delhi High Court expects a decision on SFI Delhi’s Instagram suspension appeal within three weeks
• AI agents hacking real systems intensify concerns about autonomous tools escaping human control
• Court finds that an AI-generated victim video carried undue emotional weight in sentencing
• Tor limits its relationship with Mullvad to technical collaboration amid a funding controversy
• Smart coffee maker floods a home network with 1 TB of traffic in just ten days

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)

• 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