Denise R. S. Almeida

Inspired by the EU: Sweden eyes open standard for encrypted chat services | Computer Weekly What if your messaging and collaboration app could talk to all the others? Swedish government agencies are investigating the possibility.

🇸🇪 Sweden is exploring open-standard messaging across government agencies.

eSam recommends adopting @matrix.org for sovereign, secure and interoperable collaboration.

Matrix and Element are already in use by Forsäkringskassan and other agencies as part of the SAFOS collaboration platform.

YouTube video by Matrixdotorg Leading the way into CRA compliance: Element’s approach to the incoming regulation

Different experience this year presenting @matrix.org conference remotely. Delighted to be a part of such an open and flexible community.

Here are some of my thoughts on the CRA and its potential impacts on Matrix in particular and FOSS in general: www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-JS...

Really enjoying the panel on social engineering at #DPPC25. This key focus on people and adequate education to build compliant cultures aligns perfectly with my PhD findings around privacy helplessness. Awareness and empowerment are critical in any DPOs toolkit.

Ready for The Matrix Conference 2025! We’re ready for The Matrix Conference 2025 - 300+ participants from 20+ countries and 10+ governments - all championing Matrix-based sovereign, secure and interoperable communications.

🚀 We’re ready for The Matrix Conference 2025 kicking off tomorrow in Strasbourg!

🌍 300+ participants from 20+ countries and 10+ governments - all championing Matrix-based sovereign, secure and interoperable communications. We’re proud to be the anchor sponsor again!

Highlights and details👇️

Where are the folks attending DPPC 2025 congregating here? It seems like the conference organisers are mainly using X which is a shame... @infocommission.bsky.social

Element signs Chat Control open letter Element has joined other European organisations in an open letter to European leaders on the latest developments regarding Chat Control.

Element has signed an open letter to European leaders alongside other organisations.

The Danish Presidency’s CSA proposal risks adding backdoors and client-side scanning – undermining encryption, security, and trust across Europe.

Strong encryption protects everyone. Weakening it protects no one.

Hiding room metadata from servers Every year, Element takes on a small number of summer interns to work on various research and development projects. Internships are a significant part of our culture, and ~20% of the current Element e...

🚀 We’re pleased to showcase the work of our summer intern, Skye, who made a big impact with their work on encrypted state events.

The blog post breaks down the project in detail.

element.io/blog/hiding-...

And now it is truly finished. Today I have passed my PhD viva with minor revisions. It’s not fully sunk in yet and I can’t wait to talk about my findings, but for now some cake and rest will do just fine!

New Element Web and Desktop apps have distinct Element X vibes! The brand new updates of the Element Web and Desktop apps include a major rework of room listings. It brings the ‘laptop versions’ of the Element apps in line with the Element X design on mobile devic...

🚀 Element Web & Desktop just got a glow-up, bringing Element X vibes from mobile straight to your laptop!

✨ New room list filters
🔔 Clearer notifications
🔧 Accessibility & performance upgrades

Version v1.12.0 is live! Try it out and let us know what you think.

Schedule of The Matrix Conference Whether you want to hear how an organization deployed Matrix at scale or learn what the engineers are doing to improve the protocol, the Matrix Conference has a track for you.

🚀 Delighted that the full agenda for The Matrix Conference 2025 is now live!

This year’s schedule is packed with government and public organisations sharing how they use Matrix and Element.

🗓️ View the full schedule: conference.matrix.org/schedule/

can't really begin to explain the extent to which I do Not want to be filmed without my knowledge by someone wearing smart glasses while out and about

Early morning sun rays peeking through clouds over the sea. There is the outline of land in the background and fishing boats in a harbour in the foreground.

Running at close to 90% humidity isn't all bad when it comes with views like this.

Data centres to be expanded across UK as concerns mount The number of data centres is set to jump by a fifth in the coming years, figures seen by the BBC suggest.

But tell me again how I should delete old emails to save water.

BBC News - Data centres to be expanded across UK as concerns mount
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Didn’t Take Long To Reveal The UK’s Online Safety Act Is Exactly The Privacy-Crushing Failure Everyone Warned About Well, well, well. The “age assurance” part of the UK’s Online Safety Act has finally gone into effect, with its age checking requirements kicking in a week and a half ago. And what do you kno…

Didn’t Take Long To Reveal The UK’s Online Safety Act Is Exactly The Privacy-Crushing Failure Everyone Warned About - www.techdirt.com/2025/08/04/d... "exactly the privacy-invading, freedom-crushing, technically unworkable disaster" great takedown by @mmasnick.bsky.social #osa #privacy

a man with a beard is smiling and asking who would ve thought Alt: Meme of Paul Rudd with a beard is smiling and asking who would’ve thought

Turns out the cure for stress can be to just go run some intervals in the sun and sing (scream) along to some Natasha Bedingfield. Who knew.

Bound and printed PhD thesis with a selection of post it notes over the title. Page includes author name (Denise R. S. Almeida) and formal wording: a thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Information Studies, Department of Information Studies, University College London, 2025”

The countdown to viva day has officially begun, which is a perfect excuse for some new stationery shopping. Any and all preparation tips are very welcome! Nearly #PhDone 🤞🏼

stop your doomscrolling and look at space

The importance of open standard federation for chat A genuine open standard is the single most important part of ensuring digitally sovereign communications between multiple separate organisations.

"An open standard is the key to digitally sovereign communications between multiple separate organisations.”

Matthew Hodgson presents with UNICC's Tima Soni at UN Open Source Week about the importance of open standard federation for real time communications.

element.io/blog/the-imp...

The Minnesota shooter apparently used data broker websites to find the home addresses of the people he shot and murdered.

Congress has had years to do something about data brokers and they've sided with the tech lobby over and over again.

Their inaction is deadly.

Two jobs, seven years, one kid, and seventy thousand words later it's finally happened - the PhD thesis is done and submitted!

Centre-right party wins Portuguese election as far right makes record gains Incumbent Democratic Alliance, led by caretaker prime minister Luís Montenegro, still likely to fall short of majority

Devastating to wake up to this sort of news from my country. But it doesn't take spending long in any part of Portugal to understand why this is happening. Meanwhile, the left continues their infighinting and leaving the door open for populism and hate to rise... www.theguardian.com/world/2025/m...

And just like that, in a quiet Sunday afternoon, a PhD thesis was finished. Road to viva begins.

Thank you so much Thib 💚

Don’t remember where I saw this library flyer a while back but it’s great

Completed it ✅ thank you for the donations, it was an amazing boost to wake up to having reached 100% of my fundraising target. Now, it’s pizza time.

Denise's fundraiser for Tommy's, the baby charity Help Denise A raise money to support Tommy’s, the pregnancy and baby charity

Less than 12 hours to go. Half-marathon training alongside full-time work, finishing a PhD, parenting, and some health curve balls has not been without its challenges. It won’t be pretty, but it for sure will have been worth it. Still time to donate if you can: www.justgiving.com/page/denise-...

Thank you for all your contributions to the field and the consistent generosity with your time and words. Wishing you a wonderful next chapter!

"It’s not that OpenAI picked something cute and accidentally the co-founder of that studio hates. OAI picked Ghibli because Miyazaki hates their approach

It is display of power: You, as artist, animator, illustrator, writer are powerless. We will take what we want & do what we want. Because we can"

This made me chuckle given recent events

Cryptography 101

End-to-end encryption is secure because it protects the contents of your communications in transit between the endpoints. If you make one of those endpoints an editor at The Atlantic, no amount of encryption is going to save you from your own stupidity.