Also, YouTube lets you make an avatar of yourself, and Andy Beach tells us about the first newsroom strike over AI. Starring Tom Merritt, Huyen Tue Dao, and Andy Beach. Show notes found here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Why Microsoft Blocked Major VPN and Encryption Software

Daily Tech News Show

# Full Transcript

**Podcast:** Daily Tech News Show

## Participants

- **Tom Merritt** (Daily Tech News Show)
- **Huyen Tue Dao** (Daily Tech News Show)
- **Andy Beach** (None)

## Transcript

This is the Daily Tech News for Thursday, April 9th, 2026. We will try to tell you what you need to know, give you important context and help you understand. Today, Andy Beach talks about the first newsroom to strike over AI and why Microsoft is blocking Major VPN and Encryption Software. Not cool, Microsoft. No, not very cool. Keep your cool, Microsoft. I'm Tom Merritt. I'm Tom Merritt Let's start with what you need to know with the big story.

Yeah, so thanks to TechZeexplore for posting about the latest in this saga on our subreddit. We mentioned earlier this week that the developer of the open source encryption app VeraCrypt had his account for signing Windows drivers closed without explanation. And that prevents him from making updates for the Windows version of the app. Now, you may think, well, hold on, I can just make an app and run it on my Windows. Why do I need Windows account to do this?

It's because VeraCrypt operates at the kernel level and Microsoft requires all kernel mode drivers to be signed as a security measure. And to do that, you need a Microsoft developer account to get the credentials. The developer of VPN software Windscribe and also the developer of VPN software WireGuard both found themselves in a similar situation. I'm guessing there's other apps that are in this situation we don't know about.

All three of these developers claim they never received a notification prior to trying to log in to get an update pushed through and finding their account blocked with no explanation. In fact, Windscribe posted on X, We've been trying to resolve this for over a month and getting nowhere. Support is non-existent. Anyone know a human with a brain that still works at Microsoft that can help? A little exasperation I'm detecting there.

Jason Donnenfeld, the developer of the WireGuard VPN, which, by the way, underpins a bunch of other VPN services, told the register that he did the following to attempt to correct the situation. So after he found his developer account was blocked, he was like, oh, how do I appeal? And Microsoft said, just file an appeal through your developer account. And he said, well, I can't do that because it's blocked.

So he filed an appeal with the Azure team for something unrelated and then got them to redirect the appeal to the developer team, which I thought was an excellent workaround. This week, he got acknowledgement that his appeal had been received and it would take 60 days to review. No more information than that. No, like, could you provide this kind of documentation? He's like, I hope I gave them what they need. Donnenfeld then emailed Microsoft Standards of Business Conduct Department kind of saying,

hey, there's people in Microsoft who use WireGuard. So maybe I can get them to respond that way. They refer...

Why Microsoft Blocked Major VPN and Encryption Software

Transcript

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Why Microsoft Blocked Major VPN and Encryption Software

Transcript

Built for investment professionals

Every day you wait, your competitors are findingedge in conversations you're not hearing.

Every day you wait, your competitors are finding
edge in conversations you're not hearing.