Plans for 2025 and Beyond

The next chapter for The Cyber Solicitor

First of all, thank you to everyone who has subscribed to this Substack. It is nice to know that so many people are interested in what I have to say on data rights, AI, privacy engineering and state surveillance. Your support is very much appreciated.

I also want to acknowledge the publications that have been recommending The Cyber Solicitor. These recommendations have been a rich source of subscribers for me. So thank you to:

• Tobias Mark Jensen
  , who writes the Futuristic Lawyer

• Carey Lening
  , who writes Privacat Insights

• Monique Barrow
  , who writes The Privacy Cloud

• Michael Spencer
  , who writes the Artificial Intelligence Survey, Machine Economy Press AI Supremacy, The Quantum Foundry and Artificial Intelligence Learning

• Secrets of Privacy

If you haven't already, make sure to check out all of these wonderful Substacks!

Writing The Cyber Solicitor has been great fun for me, especially this year during which I have taken this endeavour more seriously. I committed to writing every week for 48 weeks, meaning I published 48 posts this year.

And now I want to go to the next level.

The value that I think this Substack brings is providing unique explorations into the intersection between law, technology and society. Such perspectives come from my years of research and professional experience in the space, having worked on a wide variety of projects with different types of clients, from commercial firms to international organisations to national regulators.

There are so many developments taking place in the aforementioned intersection. Data rights law is still evolving, resulting in a complex web of regulations to understand and navigate. AI continues to impact business, governance, geopolitics and many other domains. More software engineering efforts are being put towards privacy-enhancing technologies and other solutions to implement data rights by design. And state surveillance remains as relevant as ever in the digital age.

If you are interested in any of these developments and want to understand them better, then The Cyber Solicitor is for you. This Substack will provide you with the up-to-date analysis you need, whether you are a lawyer, technologist, engineer, policymaker or even just a "normie".

And to continue providing these quality insights, on 17 January 2025, I will be launching both free and paid tiers for this Substack.

With a free plan, you will be able to read the 3 most recent posts on The Cyber Solicitor and occasional free posts.

A paid plan will give you access to all posts on The Cyber Solicitor. Two paid plans will be made available:

• A monthly plan at $10 a month (which is just $0.37 per day)

• A yearly plan at $100 a year (only $0.30 per day)

I will also be offering a Super Subscriber tier at $120 a year. This will give you access to all posts and a new Super Subscriber chat on Substack for Q&As and sharing your thoughts or recommendations on what I should write next.

Down the line I will try to think of additional benefits to add to the paid tiers as I balance this Substack with all my other commitments.

But for those who have already subscribed (as of 1 January 2025), I will be gifting each of you a lifetime paid subscription so that you do not lose access to any content. Consider this a token of my gratitude for your loyalty and support.

In terms of new content, you can expect to see a range of posts coming your way in 2025, including:

• More arguments for why data rights matter (see parts 1 and 2 and part 3 coming soon)

• In-depth coverage of trending AI governance issues akin to posts like Do LLMs store personal data? and Is AI alignment even possible?

• Accessible explanations of various privacy engineering techniques and solutions

• Stuff on state surveillance, including a history of British signals intelligence

Thanks again for all your support. Look out for the first post of the year on Friday 17 January!