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Session is migrating to a brand new network—the Session Network.

It’s a total upgrade to the app's incentive layer, designed to make the network that powers Session more decentralized by making it easier to join and earn rewards.

Here’s what’s happening 🧵👇 2/
First thing’s first: this will not affect the security of your conversations in any way.

It only immediately affects Session’s network and those who operate Session nodes. But down the track, it will enable new integrations and make things in the backend more resilient 🦾

This week, Session is spotlighting another project building decentralized infrastructure capable of powering the next generation of privacy tools: @nymproject.

NymVPN doesn't just encrypt traffic—it uses a mixnet to take your privacy to the next level.

Here’s how it works 👇 First thing’s first: What’s a mixnet 🤔

Unlike a legacy VPN, where all your traffic goes through a single provider, a mixnet breaks up and disguises your connection patterns.

Nym’s network adds ‘cover traffic’ too, further scrambling the signals and resisting traffic analysis.

Welcome to the new Session Beginners Guide.

Whether you’re signing in for the first time or fine-tuning your privacy settings — this series breaks down everything you need to know.

Let's run through the Session basics, from creating an account to sending your first message 📨 1. Account Creation

Session's new onboarding means that setting up an account, or signing into an existing one, takes less than 30 seconds. Instant, private, identity-protected communication.

No phone numbers, no email addresses, no worries 😊

Google sucks.

Here are 6 alternatives to Google products that work great and actually respect your privacy 👇 1. De-Google Your Browsing

If you're using Google Chrome, basically everything you're doing in your browser is tracked, recorded, and sent off to Google HQ and their advertising chums.

This is an easy one — use a privacy-respecting browser like @brave.

🔒 How to Reduce Your Digital Footprint 🔒

Our personal information is more exposed than ever.

Want to protect yourself?

Check out this simple but effective guide to minimise your digital footprint, and make it easier to stop creepy tech companies tracking you online.

🧵 1️⃣ Audit Your Online Accounts

Start by listing all your online accounts, then consider which ones you no longer use.

Deleting old or unnecessary accounts can significantly reduce your exposure to data breaches and privacy risks.

On this day, 6 years ago, the whole world learned about Cambridge Analytica.

Few events have been able to bring the importance of privacy to the forefront of our collective consciousness than this data harvesting scandal did.

Here's 5 things you might not know about it 🧵 1. It all started with a quiz.

Next time you find yourself doing an online quiz to find out which Big Bang Theory character you are (im dennis kim btw), make sure you trust the website.

A Facebook personality quiz was key to CA's ability to gather their victim's data.

Julian Assange founded WikiLeaks in 2006 — launching a platform that would forever change the journalistic landscape.

WikiLeaks' mission was clear: publish classified information for a better-informed democracy.

Let’s look back at what they achieved.

🧵 By 2010, WikiLeaks had released several significant documents, including the video “Collateral Murder”, showing a US military helicopter firing on civilians in Iraq.

This leak sparked immense global debates on military ethics and accountability.

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Stuff used to just be stuff.

Your watch told time, your phone made calls, and your car just drove.

These things are now tech products, and if you're not careful, they will collect and sell your personal information 🕵️

Is you car spying on you? Let's find out 🧵 Today, modern cars are basically smartphones on wheels, embedded with an array of sensors, cameras, and data collection tools.

That data can be shared with third parties and even sold to data brokers. There is no way to opt out.

foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynoti…

Hiding your metadata is kind of our thing 💅

But what is it, why is it so important to protect it, and could you be leaking metadata right now?

Let’s find out 🧵 Metadata is information that describes information, or data about data, and when you’re online — it’s everywhere.

Social media posts, financial transactions, instant messaging… all of these things create metadata. And this information tells a story about you.

The struggle to protect privacy can be traced back to antiquity — a near-endless history of challenging oppression and championing human rights.

Session is proud to carry the torch in the age of digital surveillance. Its time for another privacy history lesson

🧵 Spy networks in ancient China were so infamously feared that the final chapter of Sun Tzu's 'The Art of War' is dedicated to the art of surveillance.

Surveillance has always been a cornerstone of warfare — remember this if someone attempts to justify its use against you.

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Countries that ban encryption and block legitimate services do not care about your digital rights. But we do.

Here’s why Session cannot leave the UK, and will continue providing private communications to the people of the United Kingdom 🇬🇧✊

1/ 🧵 You should be able to communicate online without your conversation being spied on — but in some places, that right is being taken away.

This isn't happening exclusively under authoritarian regimes: the UK’s proposed 'Online Safety Bill' breaks end-to-end encryption.

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Removing SMS is the right move by Signal.

Some will criticise them, but SMS is an inherently insecure protocol. It doesn't belong in a private messenger.

It's part of a bigger problem: phone numbers are one of the greatest plagues on privacy. But people won't let go.

🧵1/ The immediate reaction to Signal’s plan to remove SMS have been negative. For a lot of people having SMS makes Signal an all-in-one secure messaging app.

But SMS is no good. It's outdated and insecure. No technology that calls itself ‘private’ should rely on SMS.

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Have you ever had to hand over your phone number in order to use a private messaging app?

This is a big problem — lets talk about why.

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1/ 🔓 Phone numbers are not private 🔓

This is the achilles heel of many privacy-focussed apps.

Avoiding phone numbers was one of our core design goals from the very beginning, and anonymous sign-up is one of Session’s most-loved features.

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