The US government said you already have enough privacy and then 153 million driving licences went up for sale on the dark web. In the Tornado Cash trial, prosecutors told the jury a bank account or a Coinbase login was 'privacy enough'. Their expert said the responsible version of the software was a login screen and a database linking every user to every transaction. That is the same architecture used by the company that scans licences at hotels, rental desks and dispensaries. Scans of ordinary people and senior officials appeared for sale on the dark web, along with data that could expose people hiding from abusers. Storm built software with no middleman holding the data: - no company - no server - no identity file That was treated as the crime. Data collection is not the same thing as safety. You cannot leak what was never collected.

LinkedIn

This link will take you to a page that’s not on LinkedIn

London is putting AI behind the wheel while lawmakers debate the kill switch. The Guardian reports London’s first Wayve robotaxis are now live on Uber, while the BBC reports lawmakers are considering emergency powers to shut down powerful AI systems if they become a threat. There is still a human safety driver in the front, Wayve says the technology is “still maturing,” and fully driverless approval is not expected this year. Once cars can scan, identify, track, geofence and remotely respond to instructions, transport starts to look a lot like a mobile surveillance system with wheels. We are embedding adaptive AI into physical infrastructure before we have properly settled who controls it, who can override it, how its decisions are audited or who is accountable when something goes wrong. Once software is physically moving you through a city, this is no longer about transport, it's about control. Who can stop the car? Who can redirect it? Who gets the final say when you are sitting inside it? We’re racing to hand AI the keys while still arguing about where to put the emergency brake. I’ll be keeping my hydrocarbon-powered campervan. It has privacy, autonomy and an off-grid escape plan in one. Clip: Leave the World Behind (2023) Read the full Guardian and BBC articles.

BBC News

Lords call for AI 'kill switch' powers in UK

Its backers say it would provide a "vital safety net" against runaway AI systems such as those from OpenAI and Anthropic.

the Guardian

London’s first self-driving taxis for hire hit the streets

Wayve robotaxis added to Uber app and will have human in front ready to take over if needed – but only 15 cars licensed

Britain is trying to escape the Palantir problem by building a British version of the same problem. The government wants to spend £100m backing homegrown AI firms and embedding them across healthcare, defence and public services under the banner of “sovereign AI”. There is one huge problem sitting underneath that ambition: energy. AI needs compute, compute needs huge volumes of electricity and Britain has some of the highest industrial electricity prices in the developed world. Building a sovereign AI ecosystem becomes much harder when the basic economics push compute towards cheaper infrastructure elsewhere. That creates a scenario where British AI companies win government contracts but still rely on foreign hyperscalers, overseas data centres and external infrastructure to run the systems. The lock-in problem does not disappear. Once AI becomes embedded across the NHS, defence and public services, those systems can become difficult to audit, difficult to replace and increasingly powerful in influencing institutional decisions. A British supplier can still become indispensable. A British model can still be opaque. A British system can still become too embedded to challenge. Britain wants sovereign AI, while the economics of energy make sovereign compute difficult and the rush to embed AI risks creating a new generation of dependency. The country could rebuild the same problem with a Union Jack on it. Read the full article: https://www.ft.com/content/5a10fc78-9a3e-4f12-81e3-dc843b529948?syn-25a6b1a6=1

Palantir’s role in Britain’s digital state is expanding. - £182m NHS data platform (£330m potential) - £240m MoD operational deal - Up to £1.5bn UK defence investment - Former senior officials at Palantir - £50m Met deal blocked over procurement Parliament has already called Palantir’s growing presence an “unacceptable point of weakness”. The real danger is lock-in. Once critical systems become too difficult to move, the supplier gains leverage. My latest for Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/digital-assets/2026/08/20/who-is-gaining-control-of-britains-digital-state/

Britain will spend £109 BILLION on debt interest this year. That is more than: - The entire Education budget - The entire Defence budget - Nearly 4× the Transport budget - More than 5× the Home Office budget - Nearly 8× the Justice budget - Roughly half the Health and Social Care (NHS) budget That is the equivalent of around £3,220 per working person per year, or £268 a month, just to service the national debt. The debt is rising by roughly £4,000 to £4,300 every second. At a time when people are already being squeezed by the cost of living, a huge amount of the tax they pay is being swallowed up by interest on old debt rather than paying for the services they actually use. After all that, the £2.9 trillion debt is still there.

UK National Debt Clock — Live

Live UK national debt, spending, tax revenue, GDP, migration and 40+ economic indicators updating every second.

Snapshot of the live UK National Debt Clock taken at 7:12 am on 18 Aug 2026.

I told Tom Swarbrick on LBC that I pay my beautician in Bitcoin for my eyelashes. It was not the answer he was expecting. She understands the utility, the value and holds it in self custody.

Another government database has been breached. Attackers stole data relating to around 31,000 companies, foundations and trusts from Liechtenstein’s beneficial ownership register. The register was created in 2021 to meet EU anti-money-laundering requirements. It is now offline, and the government has activated a crisis unit. A database built to fight money laundering became a high value honeypot. These registers concentrate sensitive information about the people behind legal entities in one place. When that central system is breached, the consequences fall on people who had no choice about submitting their data. Centralising sensitive information does not remove risk. It concentrates it. Link:

Press releases - Regierung.li

A $38 million Bitcoin hardware wallet failure and Russia’s terrorism charge against Telegram’s founder point to the same uncomfortable reality. Much of what we call digital safety still rests on reputation rather than verification. Coldcard stood as one of the most security conscious devices in the industry until a four year old firmware flaw compromised the seed generation process designed to protect users. Telegram and its founder built a reputation around privacy until researchers uncovered a tracking vulnerability. When independent verification disappears, trust is all that remains. My latest piece in Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/digital-assets/2026/07/31/a-38-million-theft-a-global-manhunt--the-illusion-of-digital-safety/

Lebanon showed what happens when banks and currency policy fail the public. Although the worst of the hyperinflation may have eased, banking distrust, poverty and reconstruction needs remain. So too does the need for self-custody, low friction remittances and money that cannot be arbitrarily devalued. Published in early 2024, the lessons have not aged. Read the full article here: https://www.forbes.com/sites/digital-assets/2024/02/02/lebanons-economic-rebirth-through-bitcoin/

If you’re unhappy with the Bitcoin price, stop looking at the chart and start reading the congressional trading disclosures. Nancy Pelosi’s household portfolio has been beating the S&P 500 and the average hedge fund for years. A $174,000 congressional salary and a fortune estimated at $250 million. * Maybe the real alpha was public service all along. The numbers:

Nancy Pelosi Stock Portfolio 2026: All 412 STOCK Act Trades Analyzed | VertData

Pelosi

Track the disclosed trades:

Nancy Pelosi Net Worth | Quiver Quantitative

View Nancy Pelosi's current net worth. Track their disclosed holdings and estimated net worth over time.

* Estimates vary, with some placing the Pelosi fortune at more than $400 million.

Quantum mechanics keeps forcing me to question what 'reality' even is … and where consciousness fits into it. I’ve tried to articulate some of my recent thoughts in this article. What's your take on this? View article →

What is the best way to post an article on Nostr?

Yikes ... we should all be worried! The Trump team privately warned Andy Burnham against giving Ed Miliband a top economic or foreign policy role. Steve Bannon said they called him a "red diaper baby and self-described socialist" who would damage the special relationship. Ouch!! A senior Trump official also described Miliband as a major point of friction in the transatlantic alliance. Steve Bannon then went on to say: “Burnham could not care less – he appointed this twit anyway.” Full article: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2026/07/21/white-house-deeply-concerned-miliband-foreign-secretary/