This week's look at the past week's most interesting security news answers the question of whether Apple's Lockdown Mode does anything that's actually useful? Just how big is the market for commercial "Pegasys-style" smartphone spyware? Why exactly has the Dark Web suddenly become interested in purloined ChatGPT accounts and is "purloined" a word one uses in mixed company? What trove of secrets did ESET discover when they innocently purchased a few second hand routers? And speaking of routers, what was the mistake that users of old Cisco routers really wish Cisco hadn't made, and whose fault is its exploitation today? What's the story behind the newly established Security Research Legal Defense Fund? Then, after a few quick update and upgrade notes, we look at two opposing open letters written about the coming end-to-end-encryption apocalypse, and consider whether I may have just stumbled upon a solution to the whole mess? So, I doubt that anyone's going to be bored this week!