Part two of the series. Every app can say your data is encrypted and mean it. The question that actually separates them is who kept a copy of the key.

Part one of a short series. The word “encrypted” is on everything now, so it has stopped meaning much. Here is how I actually think about it, no maths and no padlocks.

The short answer is yes, in most cases. Here’s why, what “encrypted in iCloud” really means, and what to do if that bothers you.

An honest roundup of note-taking apps you can use privately, some with no account at all, and how to tell real privacy from the marketing kind.

Apple pulled its strongest iCloud privacy setting for new UK users. Here’s what it did, what changed, and how to keep your notes private now.

Many claim their app is secure, but most of them don’t mean what you assume. Here’s an easy way, to tell the difference, in about 10 seconds.

The three-app shuffle is a habit, not a rule. What changes when a single thing can be all three at once?

Sign-up walls are there to collect you, not to help you. A look at what “no account” is actually buying you.

An honest look at where the default starts to creak, and who should probably just stay put.

Why an app that works with no connection ends up faster, calmer, and more private almost by accident.

The little mark on every Take carries more weight than it looks. Here’s how it earned its place.

Twelve words, held only by you. What a Privacy Phrase is, and why we refuse to call it a seed phrase.

Catchlight and Obie aren’t words we made up. We borrowed them from people who spent a century learning to light a human face, and there’s a real person in one.

Why Catchlight exists, from a broken privacy promise to a name borrowed from old cinema.