The most likely explanation is just that the phone’s storage wasn’t encrypted. Most Android phones come with unencrypted filesystems by default - iPhones do encrypt by default although there have been recent legislative changes in the UK which weaken Apple’s default security.

If the phone’s storage is unencrypted, police don’t need to get into the phone - they just open it up, take out the storage medium, and read it using a different device.

Not a lawyer, but it’s also possible that once they were arrested and charged, the perpetrators could be compelled legally to unlock even an encrypted phone.

tldr here is that if you’re concerned about the authorities being able to see something, simply do not put it on your phone. End of.

Manchester UK 😅

I hadn’t heard of the Schwartzmans either, I really enjoy their “Web 1.0 vibes”. Very, well… solarpunk!

The author of the review, Malcolm Harris, also wrote Palo Alto: A History of California, Capitalism, and the World. I’m currently working my way through it - Malcolm is a lucid writer with an incredible breadth of knowledge. It should be required reading for all my fellow tech workers, at least!

I agree with your assessment, but I’m more pessimistic about LLMs as a technology. The Luddites tell us that machines are not value-neutral - we should ask who the LLMs serve.

The core function of an LLM is to enclose public commons (aggregate, open-access human knowledge) in a centrally-controlled black box. It’s not a coincidence that corporations are trying to replace search with LLM summaries - the point is for the model to be an intermediary between the user and the information they need.

Vibecoding embraces this intermediation - to the vibecoder, an understanding of the technology they’re building is simply a cost that must be surmounted, and if they can avoid paying it, so much the better. This is misguided. Knowledge is power, and we cede that power at our peril. Solarpunk is punk, and punk is DIY, and DIY means taking back ownership of spaces and technologies.

I won’t say that it’s inherently wrong to cede that ownership - tactically. Perhaps the OP is building essential tools that their communities can’t access otherwise. But short term fixes a solarpunk future do not make.

SUVs are a fucking climate disaster, electric or no. Good on these activists.