The Swedish government wants to force encrypted apps to store all messages sent.If the proposal becomes reality, Signal plans to leave Sweden.
The bill aims to give the Swedish Security Service and the police the possibility to request message history from criminal suspects afterwards. For encrypted apps, this would mean a requirement to store all message history. The government wants Parliament to vote on the proposal already in March next year.
If the bill is adopted, the messaging app Signal will state that they will leave Sweden.
– In practice, this means that we are being asked to break the encryption that is the basis of our entire business.Asking us to store data would undermine our entire architecture and we would never do that.We would rather leave the Swedish market completely, says Signal’s CEO Meredith Whittaker to the tax-funded SVT.
– If you create a vulnerability based on Swedish preferences, it would create a path to undermine our entire network.That’s why we would never introduce these backdoors, she continues.
The Swedish Armed Forces have recently urged their personnel to use Signal to reduce the risk of interception. In a letter to the government, it warns that the bill cannot be implemented “without introducing vulnerabilities and backdoors that can be exploited by third parties”.
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More Swedish children than ever before are being diagnosed with ADHD, and the government believes that private care companies are largely to blame for the extreme increase.
– There is a structure here that in practice means that diagnoses are sold for payment, explains Social Affairs Minister Jakob Forssmed (KD).
The government notes that long waiting times in health care have long been a major problem in Sweden – and especially in specialized psychiatric care.
This is said to have led to more and more people choosing to turn to privately funded providers instead – not least for the assessment, investigation and treatment of neuropsychiatric disabilities.
– Today, there are a large number of private providers offering ADHD assessments and medication alongside publicly funded care.We must ensure that people’s patient safety is not compromised by this and, in addition, also analyze how it affects other patients and the healthcare system as a whole, says Minister for Social Affairs Jakob Forssmed.
The Minister is highly critical of the way many private operators work and says that it often seems to be a case of healthcare companies charging patients for diagnoses.
– There are so many indications that these are set in such a way that one can suspect this and it is clear that then it has consequences for health care.
Want to get rid of “opportunists”
– You may not be able to trust these diagnoses when they are made in this way.Individuals do not receive support and help regarding a possible co-morbidity.It is not a person-centered care but a diagnosis-centered care, and it needs to be reviewed of course, he continues.
Forssmed also points out that private healthcare providers often market themselves by promising quick results, that the investigation can be carried out in whole or in part remotely on the internet, or that the patient will even get their money back if there is no diagnosis.
– We need to ensure that healthcare resources are used properly and that it is provided by serious actors and not by opportunists who mislead people into seeking answers in individual diagnoses.
The increase continues
It should be emphasized that the Moderate-led government is basically positive to private care companies – and does not want to ban them from conducting ADHD investigations.
However, it does want the Health and Social Care Inspectorate to carry out a special inspection of private care providers and the Agency for Health and Social Care Analysis to map and analyze the risks of certain privately funded care.
According to a forecast by the National Board of Health and Welfare, approximately 15% of boys in Sweden and almost 11% of girls will be diagnosed with ADHD in the future. Between 2019 and 2022 alone, the number of diagnoses among children and young people increased by as much as 50% – but no concrete reason for the increase has been established.
–We see no tendency for the increase to slow down, says the Minister for Social Affairs.
When Microsoft ends support for Windows 10 on October 14, 2025, charities, businesses, and individuals, among others, will be faced with a difficult choice: continue using the operating system without security updates, switch to the controversial Windows 11 or the increasingly popular Linux, or discard fully functional computers.
For a long time, non-profit associations and organizations around the world have been collecting and refurbishing older computers that would otherwise have been discarded. The devices often come from companies replacing their IT equipment, but also from private individuals.
After refurbishment, the computers are donated to those in need, but as many of these are not Windows 11 ready, the impending death of Windows 10 poses a major problem, Sweclockers reports.
Running an operating system without security updates can leave computers extremely vulnerable to cyberattacks and phishing. Something that particularly affects people with limited technical knowledge.
Microsoft has fixed a large number of security flaws in Windows 10 and 11 in 2025 alone. IT security companies such as Sophos warn of the security risks that arise when operating systems no longer receive updates.
An alternative to Windows is the Linux operating system. Recycling is also a possibility, but this means that fully functional computers are lost.
Several associations and organizations state that they continue to install Windows 10 on refurbished computers despite this and for the time being, as they do not want to oblige customers to learn a new operating system.
Photo: CanStockPhoto
Hundreds of attacks
Casey Sorensen, CEO of PCs for People – a non-profit organization that promotes digital inclusion by providing computers and the internet to low-income people and non-profit organizations in the United States – confirms that it is phasing out Windows 10 entirely and installing Windows 11 or Linux instead, depending on the capacity of the computer, Tom’s Hardware reports.
–What we decided to do is one year ahead of the cutoff, we discontinued Windows 10. We will distribute Linux laptops that are 6th or 7th gen. If we distribute a Windows laptop, it will be 8th gen or newer.
–To put this in perspective…There were 57 vulnerabilities, 6 of which have already been abused by criminals before the fixes were available. There were also 57 in February and 159 in January. Windows 10 and Windows 11 largely have a shared codebase, meaning most, if not all, vulnerabilities each month are exploitable on both OSs. These will be actively turned into digital weapons by criminals and nation-states alike and Windows 10 users will be somewhat defenseless against them, said Casey Sorensen.
Extended support for a fee
Microsoft does offer an extended security update program called ESU, where users will continue to receive support and updates after October 2025, provided they pay $30 annually.
However, it is unclear how many organizations are willing to pay for the service. In addition, ESU is mainly available to businesses and not to individuals.
Although Microsoft will soon retire Windows 10, the operating system still has over 50 percent of the market. Many users are expected to continue using it after October, which could pose a significant security risk to millions of people.
The Moderate-led government has announced that it will invest heavily in military rearmament in the coming years – and borrow billions to finance the project.
At the same time, Swedish welfare is being eroded, and this time the focus is on sick Swedes, as patients’ co-payments for prescription drugs are being sharply increased.
Although the fee has already been raised significantly in recent years, the center-right coalition now want to see another increase– this time of 30%.
This means that from this summer, anyone who regularly takes prescription medicines will have to pay SEK 3,800 (€345) for them annually – instead of the current SEK 2,900 (€260), before the high-cost protection begins to apply and the medicines become free of charge.
–It’s a big increase and a difficult situation, said Minister for Health Acko Ankarberg Johansson (KD), during a press conference.
– It is necessary to increase the costs in the state budget for medicines to ensure that all patients have access to the treatments they need.But it also requires that patients’ co-payments need to be increased to ensure long-term financing, she said.
Referring to “demographic developments”
The government points out that medical advances mean that Swedes are living longer than before – but that this is by no means all positive, as it also means increased costs.
“The demographic development with an ageing population, the increase in chronic diseases and the increased possibilities for treatment have, however, led to a sharp increase in government expenditure on medicines included in the high-cost protection, and forecasts show that costs will continue to rise rapidly”, it says.
The decision is expected to hit sick and poor pensioners hardest and yesterday protests were also organized in Stockholm where hundreds of people marched under the slogan “Vi vill ha råd med vård” (We want to afford healthcare).
–It’s a pitiful increase from the government’s point of view, so drop it for the sake of pensioners, pleads Curre Hansson, PRO chairman in Stockholm.
– If the government can afford to cut taxes for high-income earners, it can afford to ensure that ordinary people can afford to get their medicine, argues Karin Rågsjö, spokesperson for the Swedish Left Party on healthcare issues.
EU leaders want Europe to arm itself militarily and to do so in a big way – additional defense spending of around €800 billion proposed .
Sweden’s Finance Minister Elisabeth Svantesson (M) is one of many leaders who welcome the development, saying there are many advantages to “a modern European war economy”.
During the Moderate Party’s Sweden Days, the Finance Minister shared her thoughts on how to strengthen Sweden’s defense – and how to maintain or further expand support to Ukraine.
–I realize that what I’m about to say is going to sound a bit drastic, but I envision a European war economy, Svantesson explains.
She admits that for most people the word “war economy” has a very negative connotation and brings to mind ration cards and coffee surrogates – but this time, she claims, it means something completely different.
– This is not what I am after, the modern war economy actually rests on two parts.First, a strong and growing economy – because that is a precondition for a strong defense.
“Fewer communicators – more companies”
The second part, according to Svantesson, is about having “order and clarity” in public finances while being able to prioritize money for “defense and security”.
– Now we are reprioritizing.Aid has decreased, it is still very high, but we can strengthen Sweden’s security and safety.To be specific, it’s really about fewer communicators and more companies.
The Finance Minister emphasizes that Sweden is certainly no closer to a full-scale war today than it was yesterday, but says that it is instead a matter of preparing mentally and highlighting how important it is for Sweden to carry out a military rearmament.
Wants to borrow billions
–You should feel calm, we have economic muscle and a large unit in the Swedish parliament that creates stability, they say.
Despite the “financial muscle”, Svantesson confirms that the government will still need to borrow several billions to finance the initiative.
– We will need to borrow for a few years to quickly reach the levels needed.
