📡 You’re Anonymous—Until You’re Not

Sep 26, 2025

👋 Welcome! Today, we unpack how identity, choice, and protection intersect—and how you can navigate digital spaces with more clarity, confidence, and control. Let’s build better boundaries!

AI & TECH

VPN Crackdown Ahead? – Brits rushed to VPNs — downloads up 500% — after new age checks took effect under the Online Safety Act. While science secretary Peter Kyle insists a ban isn’t coming, he admitted officials are watching VPN use “very closely.” The surge underscores a growing clash: safety regulation versus digital privacy, with millions now masking their online activity to slip past restrictions.

Smarter Chips, Cooler Future – Microsoft is testing a new chip-cooling tech that could reshape AI data centers. Called microfluidics, it uses tiny grooves carved into chips to cool them directly—cutting heat by 65% and boosting energy efficiency. This could help data centers run faster, take up less space, and save on electricity bills. As AI demands grow, better cooling like this might become essential.

Clarifai Supercharges AI Performance – Clarifai’s new reasoning engine makes AI models run twice as fast while cutting inference costs by 40%. Designed for multi-step, agentic models, it optimizes performance using advanced software techniques. As demand for compute grows, this launch highlights how better algorithms—not just more hardware—can keep AI accessible and affordable.

Meta Expands Teen Safety Tools – Meta’s Teen Accounts, with built-in protections and parental controls, are now rolling out globally on Facebook and Messenger. Teens will get privacy defaults, content limits, and screen time nudges. Meta also launched a School Partnership Program for U.S. educators to report safety issues on Instagram directly for faster review and action.

CAREER & WORK

GPT-5 Challenges Human Expertise – OpenAI’s new GDPval benchmark shows GPT-5 performing on par with human experts in 40% of tasks across 44 professions—including finance, healthcare, and journalism. While far from replacing workers, the results suggest growing potential for AI to assist in real-world jobs by offloading routine tasks and boosting productivity.

Social Security Goes All Digital – After 85 years, the Social Security Administration will stop sending paper checks starting Sept. 30, moving entirely to direct deposit or prepaid debit cards. Officials say it’s a step toward efficiency and security—though concerns remain for older and unbanked Americans still relying on traditional methods. Exceptions will apply for recipients unable to receive digital payments.

Mac Users Beware: GitHub Trap – Cybercriminals are targeting Mac users with fake GitHub pages posing as trusted apps like LastPass and Robinhood. The malware installs silently, stealing sensitive data. If you work in tech, design, finance, or IT support, this is a wake-up call to strengthen download protocols and train your team on spotting deceptive installation links.

ECONOMY & FINANCE

Global Debt Reaches Record $338T – The world’s total debt hit a historic $337.7 trillion in Q2, according to the IIF. Driven by looser financial conditions and rising government borrowing in countries like the U.S., China, and France, the surge raises concerns over bond market instability, fiscal strain, and long-term sustainability across both emerging and developed economies.

Europe Pushes Back with Euro Stablecoin – Nine major European banks, including ING and UniCredit, are launching a euro-backed stablecoin to challenge U.S. dominance in digital payments. Based in Amsterdam, the new company will debut in 2026. The ECB remains skeptical, citing financial stability risks, but banks argue Europe risks falling behind in the rapidly growing stablecoin market.

US Economy Posts 3.8% Growth – The U.S. economy grew at an annualized 3.8% in Q2 2025—its fastest pace in nearly two years—driven by strong consumer spending and a shrinking trade deficit. Despite policy uncertainty and tariff pressures, AI-related business investment remains resilient, though economists expect slower growth ahead as labor supply tightens and profit margins narrow.

VC & FUNDING

Juicebox Raises $30M for AI Hiring – Juicebox, creators of PeopleGPT, secured $30M from Sequoia to scale its LLM-powered recruiting tool. Already serving 2,500+ companies, Juicebox uses natural language search to identify overlooked talent faster. Sequoia sees it becoming a default tool for startups hiring in the AI era.

Doorstep Bags $8M to End Delivery Drama – Startup Doorstep raised $8M to solve the “final 50 feet” issue in food delivery. Its app uses phone sensors to track drivers inside buildings, helping platforms like Uber Eats verify deliveries, reduce disputes, and rebuild trust—without GPS, hardware, or privacy risks.

BIG THINK

Mirrors & Masks: Who Do We Become Online?

Online, we often tell partial truths—or entire stories that diverge from who we are. Claiming a different age, using a pseudonym, masking location: these are decisions we make in response to audiences, expectations, and safety. In doing so, we straddle a line between self‑exploration and deceit. The tension reveals something deeper: identity in digital form is fragile, negotiable, and contested.

One factor enabling these shifts is online disinhibition. Recent research in 2025 examines how reduced restraint online—through anonymity, invisibility, and asynchronicity—affects behavior. Recent study questions the assumption that disinhibition simply frees truth, showing instead a mix of freedoms, distortions, and social pressures. Meanwhile, the 2025 Measure of Online Disinhibition gives tools to gauge how much people drift from in‑person norms when online. These works suggest lying about age or identity isn’t just subterfuge—it is entangled with how online spaces relax social boundaries.

But privacy is under even greater pressure. The rise of shadow AI and unauthorized data flows is a 2025 theme. Tools that ingest text or images leak personal information, reconstruct identities, or trace patterns, even from “anonymous” accounts. Entities collecting unstructured data without oversight—known as “shadow processing”—increase the risk that your carefully built online persona can be reverse‑engineered. In such a landscape, privacy isn’t about lying—it’s about control over your data and visibility.

What does this mean for us? First, identity deception online is rarely simple. It reflects pressure, exploration, protection. Second, the illusion of anonymity is increasingly brittle. Systems, analytics, and data linkages chip away at the masks we draw. Yet there is hope: we can push for platforms that support layered identities, stronger privacy controls, and data norms that let people decide what is seen. Understanding the dynamics of disinhibition and shadow data is the first step to protecting dignity online.

Actionable Insights

Audit your persona across platforms — check what you reveal (age, profile, bio) and explore how easy it is for unfamiliar viewers to link you across accounts.
Demand privacy by design — support services or tools that enable pseudonyms, selective disclosure, and minimize unnecessary data collection or shadow processing.

WEEKLY TECH SPOTLIGHT

Two months ago we highlighted Plesk—and the response was clear: a lot of you hadn’t realized how much of the internet quietly depends on it. So we’re bringing it back for those who missed it (and for anyone still juggling servers the hard way).

Plesk is the WebOps platform that keeps hundreds of thousands of servers, websites, and mailboxes running worldwide. For creators, small teams, and side-hustlers, it takes care of the unglamorous stuff—domains, emails, backups, security—so you can spend more time building and less time troubleshooting.

Why we’re sharing again: The Every Path community is full of builders, and Plesk is one of those quiet tools that actually helps turn ideas into reality without getting in the way.

🔥 And there’s more: with our link, you’ll save 10% on Plesk—but only through September 29th.

👉 Activate Your 10% Plesk Discount

JOBS & OPPORTUNITIES

Salesforce Platform Developer Senior | Full Time | Miami, FL | Hybrid

Application Engineer (Cloud) | Contract | Vienna, VA | Hybrid

Software Engineer | Contract | Lewisville, TX | In Person

Solution Architect | Contract | Chicago, IL | In Person

Client Success Consultant | Full Time | Chicago, IL | In Person

Product Security Engineer | Full Time | Plano, TX | Hybrid

Global Business Development Manager | Part Time | Year-round | Hybrid

Have a job or opportunity to share? Post for free here and we will highlight a few each week!

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