The Guardian and 16 other media organizations brought to light that spyware sold by the surveillance company NSO, Pegasus, has been abused by authoritarian governments to target activists, journalists, and politicians globally.

Pegasus is a malware that allegedly can be secretly installed on a targeted phone with just a missed call, enabling to access photos, emails, turn on your cameras, record calls and activate microphones. This makes it more invasive and dangerous than the algorithms of Google, Amazon and Facebook, turning our phone into a spy in our pocket. Spyware as powerful as Pegasus not only threatens the user of each smart-phone, it puts their social, political and economical connections and democracy itself in danger.

A massive data leak contains a list of about 50,000 phone numbers of potential targets identified by NSO’s clients like the governments of Hungary, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the UAE, Mexico and India. NSO claims to only sell their surveillance technology to governments that have been carefully vetted for their human rights record and for the purpose of tracking terrorists an criminals. Looking at some of the clients one might ask who decides over who these terrorists and criminals are.

In a recent interview with the Guardian whistleblower Edward Snowden states:

The technology cannot be rolled back, technology is not going anywhere … it is going to be cheaper, it is going to be more effective, it is going to be more available. If we do nothing, we sort of sleepwalk into a total surveillance state where we have both a super state that has unlimited capacity to apply force with an unlimited ability to know and [therefore be able to] target [that] force – and that’s a very dangerous combination … This is the direction of the future.

Surveillance technology cannot be rolled back, but it needs to be regulated and legislated. Only social pressure caused by informed citizens has the power to force governments into political action to create the legal boundaries necessary to protect democracy. 

it's this time of year: sunshine, holidays, beach, ice cream... sweet!

to make things even sweeter we just started our summer sale.

50% off everything

enter SUMMER21 for a sweet 50% discount all weekend.

after watching this short film on how much data private companies are able to gather about you (data that we willingly give them in some cases), you might be forgiven for thinking that, never mind some far flung future, we are living in a full-on dystopia right now. - jason kottke

with the rise of google, facebook and amazon in the past twenty years private companies are implementing surveillance and data collection technologies at a faster pace than governments are able to regulate them. these companies are accumulating an unprecedented amount of user data, making huge profits off behavioral monitoring, analysis, targeting and prediction. dr. shoshana zuboff coined this undemocratic, exploitative and little understood practice surveillance capitalism. this new form of exploitation doesn’t only monitor our private lives, it aims to shape, predict, direct and control every aspect of our everyday life.

we are no longer anonymous citizens. not only is our online behavior being traced, we are increasingly recorded on video and audio. while china is the global leader in video surveillance and facial recognition, observing and rating the behavior of their citizens, london has installed an estimated 420.000 CCTV cameras making it a test case for facial recognition in democracies. police and fire departments in the united states have partnered with amazon’s controversial ring camera network.

with tech giants insisting that their technology is too complex to be legislated while  billions are spent in lobbying against transparency and privacy regulations, dr. zuboff makes a point that we and future generations must step up to the colossal challenge of breaking down this framework of total control – that is polarising world-views, increasing fundamentalism, and nurturing echo chambers and distrust – and work on a better future.

during my career as a designer i have always been fascinated by gradients and the three dimensional effects that can be created with them.

minimal design is yet another passion of mine, so i created six new black and white gradient designs, available both as adhesive-free laptop stickers and privacy stickers.

buy more / save more

i just added a shop-wide volume discount that allows you to buy any combination of designs and products at a discount of up to 50%.

this is an experiment and i don't know for how long it will be running, so seize this opportunity to stock up on your macbook decals and privacy stickers.

new shipping options

as of today, you can choose between shipping with or without tracking.

thank you for your support and happy summer!

since the revelations by whistle-blower edward snowden it is well known that intelligence agencies are engaging in surveillance on a global scale by activating other people’s cameras and recording them without their knowledge or consent. 

remote access trojans (RAT) have been used for over two decades to gain control over stranger's cameras and spy on them. 

even cameras built in apple’s macbooks that allegedly couldn’t be turned on without activating the indicator light were hacked, disabling the indicator light while the camera was recording.

many apps ask for permission to access the cameras on your phone or tablet. this means that these apps can secretly take photos or record you. 

why you should cover the cameras on your devices

1. security professionals do it^{1 2}
2. computers, tablets and phones have been hacked before
3. camera vulnerabilities happened in the past and will happen again in the future
4. webcam access can be used by hackers to gain further control over your devices

here's what you get by using a CamTag

1. peace of mind. you can be sure that nobody can spy on you via the cameras on your devices when they are covered
2. a flexible way of protecting your privacy. CamTags are glue-free and can be applied and removed multiple times
3. a personal touch added to your devices. you can style your phone, tablet and laptop with a variety of designs
4. custom branded CamTags to showcase and strengthen your brand

during our kickstarter campaign many backers wished for mixed design sets. we heard you and put together a few more.

what design sets would you like us to add? we'd love to hear your ideas.

just drop us a line here. 

black lives matter – systemic racism unfortunately seems ingrained in our societies. too many black lives have been lost already.

stop asian hate – violent attacks on asian americans are on the rise since the start of the pandemic. from verbal attacks based on misinformation to physical violence, there have been thousands of reported cases recently.

we are against racism and discrimination of any kind. help spread the message with these macbook stickers! 

developing a new product until it is ready to hatch takes longer than one might expect, especially during challenging times like the ones we all are currently facing.

together with our local manufacturing partner we have been testing alternative production methods to further improve our glue-free stickers. the results are very promising and we will share them with you soon. 

since our crowdfunding campaign last spring we finished producing and sending all rewards to our backers. we are happy to announce that CamTag is now available on our website.

we created new designs and will keep adding more on a regular basis. 

Thank you for your patience and great feedback so far! I am glad that most of you are happy with their CamTags.

Hopefully, by now all of you have received their CamTags and had the chance to try them out. In case you haven't received your reward yet, please write me via the contact form to find out what might have gone wrong and solve it.

Issues and solutions

A few backers wrote me that some of their CamTags fell off after re-applying them to their devices.

First, please make sure the camera on your devices is clean and dry. There shouldn't be any residues of cleaning detergent or alcohol left on the surface, because they might attack the adhesive film of CamTag and diminish the adhesion qualities.
Second, please apply and hold your CamTag for a few seconds so that the micro-suction cups on the adhesive film can do their magic and adhere themselves well.

I was notified by a hand full of backers that their CamTag designs started to look scratched and fade after using them for some time.

Unfortunately, new products sometimes show irregularities even after heavy testing. My production partner and I tried out many different printing techniques and protection layers in order to ensure CamTags look great even after heavy usage. Due to the manual application of the transparent protection layer it might be thicker on some CamTags than on others. We are currently testing an alternative production method to solve this issue once and for all.

In case some of your CamTag designs look scratched or started to fade, please write me via the contact form. 

Hopefully this update finds you healthy and happy despite the challenging global circumstances.

The past month felt a little bit like a retreat. I spent every morning putting CamTags into envelopes and printing address labels, and every evening packing CamTags into their packaging while listening to an Italian podcast. I'm not so sure how good my Italian is at this point, but I'm happy to tell you that I managed to pack and send out all your rewards by the end of November.

When will I receive my reward?

In the past weeks I have received great feedback from those of you who already got their CamTags – thank you so much – while others have been asking about when they'd receive their rewards. During the ever shifting global circumstances caused by the pandemic it is not easy for me to estimate delivery dates. I sent out all rewards via priority mail, so in theory they should arrive anywhere in the world within 2 weeks.

Please bear with me as I will do my best to ensure that all of you receive their CamTag rewards, one way or the other.