August 2026

Book Giveaway

If you watched last week's livestream training on identity theft protection, you probably already made a couple important changes to protect your identity. Maureen's book goes even deeper with dispute letter templates, checklists and more.

How to Enter the Giveaway:

I only want to give this book (Survival Guide to Identity Theft) to people who actually want it, so if you're interested, simply reply to this email and say "I'm interested!"

That's it :)

Once you've done that, you can check out my reaction to the latest controversy surrounding a privacy phone feature that got one guy in BIG trouble.

Samuel Tunick was at the Atlanta airport earlier this year when he was detained and asked to hand over his phone. What he did instead has caused a federal indictment and major controversy online.

​Watch my reaction to the news​

there's always nuance

Hi [CORRECTED_NAME GOES HERE], it's been interesting over the past couple of days to read the different comments on that react video I just linked to above. People definitely have opinions!

Unfortunately, as much as I wish differently, things like this are never "cut and dried." There's always nuance.

We don't know what Samuel Tunick was actually doing. We don't know if there was probable cause or if the claims of CSAM were pulled out of thin air.

In our world today, people tend to assume that the government or law enforcement is always bad, always wrong. And honestly, these assumptions are based on a lot of history proving them right.

But I still hesitate to draw too many early conclusions on something like this. I think it's best to focus less on whether Samuel was guilty/not guilty. Rather, we should ask ourselves:

What timeless lessons can we take away from this?

In this case, I think we can learn a lot about how we cross international borders. It's something we don't think about much, but it seems clear that whether you're traveling to another country or you're traveling back into your home country, your data and devices are most vulnerable at international customs.

This Week in Privacy News

​another AI model hacking story​

First it was ChatGPT, now it's Anthropic's Claude. The company says it discovered unauthorized hacking being done by their model after a proactive review. Is AI suddenly going rouge or is Anthropic just jealous of all the publicity that OpenAI was getting?

--> TheGuardian.com/technology/2026/jul/30/anthropic-ai-claude-hack

​Apple's Private Relay is...not private?​

Security researchers at Mysk have discovered several leaks in Apple's Private Relay feature and all other browser proxies that allow websites to see your real IP address.

--> Privacyguides.org/news/2026/08/05/apples-private-relay-leaks-your-real-ip-address-in-safari/

​attacks on passkeys​

Passkeys are still the highest standard of account security, but the new attack method, named ‘Pass-ta-key’ by Palo Alto Networks, focuses on Google-synced passkeys. The security firm’s researchers showed how a threat actor could use the techniques to take over accounts without needing privilege escalation or user interaction.

--> Securityweek.com/new-attack-methods-enable-malware-to-hijack-passkey-protected-accounts/

Enter to win!

Remember, all you have to do is reply to this email with a message saying "I'm interested!" to be entered to win one of 10 identity theft books.

You've got three days. I'll send out an email on Monday to those who won.

✌️

Josh

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3824 Cedar Springs Rd #801-8170, Dallas, TX 75219
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