Kinship Tales

Kinship Tales We preserve stories by collecting high quality recordings, meticulous editing, and curated music.

02/07/2026

The main vulnerability is Webloc tracking through apps. When you install any app—games, utilities, social media—check what permissions it requests. If a video game or flashlight app asks for your location data, deny it. That app doesn't need to know where you are, and your location data can end up sold to data brokers who sell it to ICE. Be vigilant about which apps you install and what permissions you grant. Remember: the data these apps collect isn't just used for ads—it can be purchased by immigration enforcement to track you without a warrant.

02/06/2026

Mobile Fortify is ICE's facial recognition app that agents can point at anyone on American streets. It instantly queries databases with hundreds of millions of images to identify you, check for deportation orders, verify citizenship status, and pull up personal information. Instead of asking for ID—which you could refuse to show—agents just scan your face. ICE believes you cannot opt out of this scanning. If an ICE officer wants to scan your face with Mobile Fortify, they argue you must legally comply. Customs and Border Protection also uses this same tool.

02/05/2026

Paragon is phone hacking spyware that ICE can use to remotely break into fully updated smartphones. This is some of the most powerful surveillance technology available to law enforcement. Once they hack your phone, they can read everything—including encrypted Signal messages, photos, contacts, and all personal data. It's unclear whether ICE gets warrants before using this tool. The FBI has sought warrants for similar hacking tools in the past, but we don't know if ICE follows the same practice when they deploy this invasive technology against people in the United States.

02/05/2026

ICE uses a tool called Webloc to track your phone's location without a warrant. It doesn't get data from cell carriers—it buys it from the advertising ecosystem behind regular apps on your phone. ICE draws a digital map around a protest, neighborhood, or building, sees all the phones there, then follows those phones home to find where people live and work. They can do this without any court order because they're just purchasing commercially available data that apps collect from you.

01/31/2026

Our rent-seeking economy is the direct result of the subscription business model that Big Tech adopted around 2012. Their profits keep going up because we don't own anything and can't trade, share, or resell on a secondary market. We are at their mercy. To change this, I wrote an essay called Going Analog. Link in bio is you want to check it out for free.

01/21/2026

How grassroots activists killed a $150 million ICE contract in 10 months.

Step 1: Identify the target's vulnerabilities. Avelo Airlines had a public brand, depended on ticket sales, needed city subsidies, and was financially fragile.

Step 2: Attack all the weak points at once. Boycotts. Cut subsidies. Protests in 22 states. 40+ groups organizing locally.

Step 3: Sustain pressure. The mosquito strategy—many tiny bites until it's too painful to continue.

January 2026: Avelo ends the contract.

This is the model. Going Analog shows you how to apply it to Amazon, Google, Meta, and the Magnificent Seven. Find the vulnerabilities. Apply pressure. Win.

Read the essay. Link in bio.

Been walking around Seattle with a suitcase full of essays. SeaTac Airport, Amazon HQ, libraries. Giving them away for f...
01/11/2026

Been walking around Seattle with a suitcase full of essays. SeaTac Airport, Amazon HQ, libraries. Giving them away for free.

Met a college student from Chicago who avoided smartphones in high school and wants to share the essay with his professor. Airport strangers thought I was a Jehovah's Witness. Some said "Free essay? How cool!"

Meanwhile, students in New Mexico are voluntarily giving up their phones. Iceland is refusing AI in classrooms. Gen Z is launching boredom movements.

The resistance is forming organically, everywhere at once.

New Substack breaks it all down. Link in bio.

The movement is real. Alignment is next.

12/11/2025

Essay update: going analog.

12/11/2025

PAGE 1: Against Usefulness

50-day reading series. page 1: what six years teaching high school taught me about usefulness and whose terms we're actually serving. spoiler: it's not the students. full essay free in bio 🔗



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