Is Alexa spying on you?

Yesterday MSCHF – the “Banksy” of the internet – dropped the Alexagate, a privacy hat for Alexa.

Like a tinfoil hat to block the aliens from reading your mind, the Alexa hat blocks Bezos from listening to your bedroom banter.

Here’s how it works: The Alexagate uses pulsed ultrasound to jam the device’s microphone. Simply clap or tap the Echo 3 times to unjam the signal. Repeat to reenable privacy mode.

While expectedly tongue in cheek, MSCHF’s 26th drop reflects a growing sentiment: Consumers are increasingly distrusting of Big Tech and perhaps rightfully so as more of our lives, physically and digitally, integrate with technology. The result: Privacy tech is hot rn.

Over the weekend Mozilla quietly launched its VPN service to encrypt your network activity and hide your IP address.

Last month Jumbo announced a massive update (and $8M in funding) to make it easy for consumers to monitor and control their data. The app can notify you when your SSN, credit cards, or passwords are found on the dark web. You can also use it to quickly delete data collected by Facebook, Google, and others.

Hey, a new email platform from the Basecamp team and most upvoted product in June, took a hard stance in support of consumer privacy with email screening and pixel blocking so senders cannot see when (and where) you open emails.

Unsurprisingly, former US presidential candidate, Andrew Yang, is getting in on this. “Today, I’m announcing the launch of the Data Dividend Project. A movement to empower Americans to take back control of their data.” he announced on Product Hunt.

These are just a few recent, popular launches, but there’s a rabbit hole of privacy tech to explore here.

Check if a bitcoin address is likely known to surveillance 👀