For the rest of us, it's important to be able to look inside of a thing we're using and see that it's not going to fry our machine, or use it to mine crypto, or spy on us.
In a public update, developer Mounir Idrassi reported the account was shut down without warning, explanation, or an apparent appeal process.
“I have encountered some challenges but the most serious one is that Microsoft terminated the account I have used for years to sign Windows drivers and the bootloader. This termination impacts my work beyond VeraCrypt and has consequences for my daily job. Currently I’m out of options.”
This is significant because VeraCrypt is a cross-platform encryption application for Windows, macOS, and Linux. On Windows, it supports system encryption features that require signed components, including drivers and the bootloader.
According to Idrassi, the account termination prevents the project from continuing its standard Windows signing process. Independent reporting indicated that losing signing access could stop VeraCrypt from releasing updated Windows builds before a certificate-related deadline, potentially causing boot issues for some users with system encryption enabled.
In other words, if you’re a Windows user who uses VeraCrypt, you have reason to be concerned. In the newly surfaced GitHub issue, the reporter says VeraCrypt’s DcsBoot.efi appears to be signed through the Microsoft Corporation UEFI CA 2011 chain and warns that this will stop working on June 27, 2026. The issue also says that on some Windows 11 systems, this could trigger Secure Boot warnings or even cause the boot option to be ignored.
So, if VeraCrypt cannot restore its Windows signing path or ship updated signed components in time, the project could face a real Secure Boot-related deadline on affected systems.
Is there anyone in the open source office suite space that has their shit together?
I was looking for alternatives now that I'm committed to migrating away from Microsoft, and it feels like moving from one room where everything's on fire to... another room where everything's also on fire.
Every ChatGPT message triggers a Cloudflare Turnstile program that runs silently in your browser. I decrypted 377 of these programs from network traffic and found something that goes beyond standard browser fingerprinting.
The program checks 55 properties spanning three layers: your browser (GPU, screen, fonts), the Cloudflare network (your city, your IP, your region from edge headers), and the ChatGPT React application itself (__reactRouterContext, loaderData, clientBootstrap). Turnstile doesn't just verify that you're running a real browser. It verifies that you're running a real browser that has fully booted a specific React application.
A bot that spoofs browser fingerprints but doesn't render the actual ChatGPT SPA will fail.
Some will argue that what we do is exploitative, that we are extracting the ideas from open source while leaving behind the people who contributed them. To this I say: yes, that is a reasonably accurate description of our business model. It is also a reasonably accurate description of every company that has ever used open source software without contributing back, which is to say, virtually every company that has ever used open source software. We are simply being honest about it, and charging a fee for the privilege.
Proton has a history of breaking the spirit of its promise to users. Does Tuta?
This marks Proton’s third known disclosure to authorities. They previously handed over a recovery email for a Catalan Democratic Tsunami activist and were forced to log a French climate activist’s IP address via Europol — despite claiming they don’t log IPs by default.
Each case followed the same script: foreign law enforcement pressure, Swiss legal compliance, user anonymity compromised. Like watching the same Netflix thriller where the plot twist stops being surprising.
"One-time license... includes all future updates"
Where have I heard that before?