November 2022 - cypherpunks@lists.ogf.org

German authorities search BNY Mellon bank in cum-ex probe
by Gunnar Larson 22 Nov '22

22 Nov '22

https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/german-authorities-search-bny-mell…

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How to Hide MetaData in Secure Group Messaging
by Undescribed Horrific Abuse, One Victim & Survivor of Many 22 Nov '22

22 Nov '22

I thought I’d post something that wasn’t spam and went off to look for recent papers. Maybe I’ll do this again or something. https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3548606.3560679 https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3548606.3560679 How to Hide MetaData in MLS-Like Secure Group Messaging: Simple, Modular, and Post-Quantum Secure group messaging (SGM) protocols allow large groups of users to communicate in a secure and asynchronous manner. In recent years, continuous group key agreements (CGKAs) have provided a powerful abstraction to reason on the security properties we expect from SGM protocols. While robust techniques have been developed to protect the contents of conversations in this context, it is in general more challenging to protect metadata (e.g. the identity and social relationships of group members), since their knowledge is often needed by the server in order to ensure the proper function of the SGM protocol. In this work, we provide a simple and generic wrapper protocol that upgrades non-metadata-hiding CGKAs into metadata-hiding CGKAs. Our key insight is to leverage the existence of a unique continuously evolving group secret key shared among the group members. We use this key to perform a group membership authentication protocol that convinces the server in an anonymous manner that a user is a legitimate group member. Our technique only uses a standard signature scheme, and thus, the wrapper protocol can be instantiated from a wide range of assumptions, including post-quantum ones. It is also very efficient, as it increases the bandwidth cost of the underlying CGKA operations by at most a factor of two. To formally prove the security of our protocol, we use the universal composability (UC) framework and model a new ideal functionality ℱmhCGKA capturing the correctness and security guarantee of metadata-hiding CGKA. To capture the above intuition of a "wrapper'' protocol, we also define a restricted ideal functionality ℱctxt CGKA, which roughly captures a non-metadata-hiding CGKA. We then show that our wrapper protocol UC-realizes ℱmhCGKA in the ℱctxtCGKA -hybrid model, which in particular formalizes the intuition that any non-metadata-hiding CGKA can be modularly bootstrapped into metadata-hiding CGKA.

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U.S. Justice Department Steps into the FTX Bankruptcy Case in Delaware
by Gunnar Larson 22 Nov '22

22 Nov '22

https://wallstreetonparade.com/2022/11/u-s-justice-department-steps-into-th… Two attorneys from the Department of Justice in Washington, D.C. have filed an appearance with the Bankruptcy Court in Delaware that is hearing the bankruptcy case filed by the disgraced crypto exchange, FTX, and its related hedge fund, Alameda Research. Both are majority-owned by the scandalized former crypto kingpin Sam Bankman-Fried. More than 100 other global tentacles of FTX are included in the bankruptcy case. The DOJ attorneys that made the notices of appearance are Seth Shapiro and Stanton McManus. The notice of appearance for both attorneys references two noteworthy statutes, 28 U.S.C. § 516 and 518, among others: 28 U.S.C. § 516 reads as follows: “Except as otherwise authorized by law, the conduct of litigation in which the United States, an agency, or officer thereof is a party, or is interested, and *securing evidence therefor, is reserved to officers of the Department of Justice, under the direction of the Attorney General*.” (Italics added.) 28 U.S.C. § 518, reads in part: “When the Attorney General considers it in the interests of the United States, *he may personally conduct and argue any case in a court of the United States in which the United States is interested*, or he may direct the Solicitor General or any officer of the Department of Justice to do so.” (Italics added.) The notices from the Department of Justice were filed yesterday. Today, the following item has been added to the court docket on behalf of FTX: “[SEALED] Motion to Authorize (Motion for Entry of Interim and Final Orders (A) Authorizing the Debtors, *in their Sole Discretion*, to Provide *Indemnification and Exculpation to Certain Individuals*, (B) Authorizing Certain Actions Pursuant to Section 363 of the Bankruptcy Code, and (C) Granting Certain Related Relief) Filed by FTX Trading Ltd.. (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit A # 2 Exhibit B) (Landis, Adam) (Entered: 11/22/2022)” (Italics added.) The ”debtors” are FTX and its related companies that have filed bankruptcy. Its legal standing to, in its “sole discretion,” indemnify and exculpate anyone for potential crimes is preposterous. And to place the details of this absurd request under seal is a further outrage to the sensibilities of all Americans. Reuters has reported <https://www.reuters.com/markets/currencies/exclusive-least-1-billion-client…> that Bankman-Fried moved as much as $10 billion of FTX customers’ money to his separate hedge fund, Alameda Research, through a “backdoor” in its software. Alameda is reported to have lost much of the money on bad investments and efforts to prop up its FTX token (FTT), while $1 billion to $2 billion has just “disappeared,” according to Reuters. The Financial Times reported that FTX held just $900 million “in easily sellable assets” against $9 billion “of liabilities the day before it collapsed into bankruptcy.” The major law firm overseeing the FTX bankruptcy proceedings is Sullivan & Cromwell, which has a host of conflicts because of past legal work it did for FTX <https://wallstreetonparade.com/2022/11/big-law-firm-sullivan-cromwell-did-s…> and related companies. It is also not clear who had the authority to hire Sullivan & Cromwell for the FTX bankruptcy case or who had the authority to hire the new FTX CEO, John Ray III. The pleadings in the case thus far fail to indicate who it was that hired Sullivan & Cromwell or Ray. Yesterday,* Wall Street On Parade* sent an email to Robert Giuffra and Scott Miller, Co-Chairs of Sullivan & Cromwell, and to Andy Dietderich – one of the Sullivan & Cromwell lawyers who is involved in the bankruptcy case as well as the attorney who represented FTX and Alameda in their curious efforts to buy the assets of the bankrupt crypto firm, Voyager Digital, a company from whom Alameda had taken hundreds of millions of dollars in loans <https://www.cnbc.com/2022/08/09/sam-bankman-frieds-alameda-voyager-digital-…>. We wrote as follows to Sullivan & Cromwell: “We’re planning an article for early next week on the FTX/Alameda situation and we’re wondering how Sullivan & Cromwell was appointed to handle the bankruptcy process in the Delaware court. “Our question stems from the fact that the new FTX CEO reports that the Board of Directors of FTX didn’t meet — so it was a non-functioning Board that wouldn’t appear to have the legitimacy to appoint a law firm to handle the bankruptcy. “The CEO until November 11, Sam Bankman-Fried, has been characterized in court filings by the new FTX CEO, John Ray III, as being incompetent at best and a fraudster at worst. So it doesn’t appear that Bankman-Fried had legitimacy to appoint Sullivan & Cromwell. “So, you can see our puzzlement as to whom had the authority and legitimacy to appoint Sullivan & Cromwell. “Our deadline is today at 10 p.m. ET.” We received no response from anyone at Sullivan & Cromwell. We scoured the filings in the FTX bankruptcy case to see if there was an inkling of how a law firm that was attempting to help FTX buy up other firms while FTX was reportedly looting customer accounts got hired for the bankruptcy court case. We found the following interesting tidbits from the new CEO, John Ray: “I have over 40 years of legal and restructuring experience…Never in my career have I seen such a complete failure of corporate controls and such a complete absence of trustworthy financial information as occurred here. >From compromised systems integrity and faulty regulatory oversight abroad, to the concentration of control in the hands of a very small group of inexperienced, unsophisticated and potentially compromised individuals, this situation is unprecedented.” Can a group of inexperienced and potentially compromised individuals hire the successor CEO and the bankruptcy law firm for a global crypto firm being investigated around the world? Ray writes elsewhere: “I, John J. Ray III, hereby declare under penalty of perjury as follows: 1. I am the Chief Executive Officer of the above-captioned debtors and debtors-in-possession (collectively, the ‘Debtors’), having accepted this position in the early morning hours of November 11, 2022. I am administering the interests and affairs of the Debtors from my offices in the United States… “In the days leading up to the Petition Date, certain of the circumstances described in Part III below became known to a broader set of executives of the FTX Group beyond Mr. Bankman-Fried and members of his inner circle. Questions arose about Mr. Bankman-Fried’s leadership and the handling of the Debtors’ complex array of assets and businesses.” And there is this: “As the situation became increasingly dire, Sullivan & Cromwell and Alvarez & Marsal were engaged to provide restructuring advice and services to the Debtors…” Again, no specific names of who hired them. And this: “At the same time, negotiations were being held between certain senior individuals of the FTX Group and Mr. Bankman-Fried concerning the resignation of Mr. Bankman-Fried and the commencement of these Chapter 11 Cases. Mr. Bankman-Fried consulted with numerous lawyers, including lawyers at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP, other legal counsel and his father, Professor Joseph Bankman of Stanford Law School. A document effecting a relinquishment of control was prepared and comments from Mr. Bankman-Fried’s team incorporated. At approximately 4:30 a.m. EST on Friday, November 11, 2022, after further consultation with his legal counsel, Mr. Bankman-Fried ultimately agreed to resign, resulting in my appointment as the Debtors’ CEO. I was delegated all corporate powers and authority under applicable law, including the power to appoint independent directors and commence these Chapter 11 Cases on an emergency basis.” Aside from the fact that all night negotiations ending at 4:30 a.m. in the morning are perhaps not the best way to determine the fate of a company and its customers’ missing funds, again Ray makes the claim that he was “delegated all corporate powers and authority under applicable law,” but fails to state the person or persons who delegated this power to him. As for the adequacy of Sam Bankman-Fried’s legal representation, his father may not have been the best choice. Reuters is reporting this morning <https://www.reuters.com/technology/exclusive-bankman-frieds-ftx-parents-bou…> that Sam Bankman-Fried’s parents are attempting to return a deed to FTX for luxury property in the Bahamas that was in their name. As for Paul Weiss, it quickly dumped Sam Bankman-Fried as a client <https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:5LbmN8iwnowJ:https://…> . Ray is clear on the negligence of the FTX Board of Directors, writing: “Many of the companies in the FTX Group, especially those organized in Antigua and the Bahamas, did not have appropriate corporate governance. I understand that many entities, for example, never had board meetings.” Despite the sketchiness of just how Ray became CEO and how Sullivan & Cromwell got to wear so many hats in the FTX debacle, big bucks are flowing to the swarms of new FTX advisors. According to the court filings, Ray will be paid $1300 an hour; the Directors he appointed will be paid $50,000 a month; the new Chief Administrative Officer, Chief Financial Officer, and Chief Information Officer will be paid $975 an hour; and Ray’s employer, Owl Hill Advisory LLC, will receive a $200,000 retainer. We’ve yet to locate the hourly rate at which Sullivan & Cromwell will be paid, but we’ll certainly keep an eye out for it. If there was ever a case where the Department of Justice needs to be actively involved, this is it. ---------- Forwarded message --------- From: Pam Martens <alerts(a)wallstreetonparade.com> Date: Tue, Nov 22, 2022, 10:02 AM Subject: Once Daily Digest Email To: <alerts(a)wallstreetonparade.com> Wall Street On Parade has posted a new item: U.S. Justice Department Steps into the FTX Bankruptcy Case in Delaware https://wallstreetonparade.com/2022/11/u-s-justice-department-steps-into-th… By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: November 22, 2022 ~ Two attorneys from the Department of Justice in Washington, D.C. have filed an appearance with the Bankruptcy Court in Delaware that is hearing the bankruptcy case filed by the disgraced crypto exchange, FTX, and its related hedge fund, Alameda Research. Both are majority-owned by the scandalized former [...] If the hyperlink above is not active, please paste it into your browser and press "Go" to read the full article. You received this e-mail because you asked to be notified when new updates are posted. If you ever wish to stop receiving these emails from us, just email me at pamk741(a)aol.com with the word "Unsubscribe" in the subject line. Best regards, Pam Martens, Editor, Wall Street On Parade

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not seein everyones reply
by ytooR 22 Nov '22

22 Nov '22

Hi Gramp. Can you help me with the above issue. I have tried everything and nothing is working. Thx maybe I just need to sign up different email. Please let me no this hurtful Thanks! Ytoor

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Phil Zimmerman, Jim Bell, and Eric Hughes, oh my
by professor rat 22 Nov '22

22 Nov '22

A non-libertarian, a libertarian and a lapsed libertarian conscripted by dodgy fiat-cuffed shitcoin https://blog.bitfinex.com/media-releases/bitfinex-unveils-freedom-manifesto… Reposts may smell nasty

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Cryptocurrency: Snowden Slams Exchanges Building SpyVeillance
by grarpamp 22 Nov '22

22 Nov '22

https:/moneywreckers.com/coinbase-over-compliance-is-toxic-and-embarrassing-says-edward-snowden/

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[notes][spam] Wikileaks Not Serving Crucial Pages
by Undescribed Horrific Abuse, One Victim & Survivor of Many 21 Nov '22

21 Nov '22

While I'm looking at this, I'm noticing that it's much harder than it has been in the past to find direct downloads on the wikileaks pages. Wikileaks is giving nginx 502 errors. This post from 6 years ago indicates those may happen from a DDOS: https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiLeaks/comments/5bkmaf/is_there_a_ddos_attack_h…

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Richard Weber
by Gunnar Larson 21 Nov '22

21 Nov '22

Madam Superintendent: What happened to Mr. Weber? Gunnar Gunnar Larson xNY.io - Bank.org 646-454-9107

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[ot)[crazy] dissociated weeping regarding communication censorship
by Undescribed Horrific Abuse, One Victim & Survivor of Many 21 Nov '22

21 Nov '22

it’s so confusing that i don’t see comments on randall’s twitter regarding slack and discord and the support of user-run instances

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9/11 Lending Club Board Directors
by Gunnar Larson 21 Nov '22

21 Nov '22

---------- Forwarded message --------- From: Gunnar Larson <g(a)xny.io Date: Thu, Oct 27, 2022, 12:46 PM Subject: Your Freedom of Information Law Request FOIL-2022-089773-018375 2022-089773: “Dear Sir or Madam: Please submit any and all records related to the LendingClub.com September 11 Board of Directors resignation below. The date of the resignation is in question. You may understand the sensitive nature of the date of the resignation. Gunnar Larson Sun, Oct 24, 2021, 5:06 PM to Anuj, Investor, Press Hello there: Thank you very much for the reply. Gunnar On Sun, Oct 24, 2021, 11:36 AM Anuj Nayar wrote: Hi Gunnar On September 11, 2021, in connection with her nomination to serve as superintendent of the New York State Department of Financial Services, Adrienne Harris notified us of her resignation, effective September 12, 2021, from the Company’s Board. Details can be found in the 8k filed on 9/15/21 (below) https://d18rn0p25nwr6d.cloudfront.net/CIK- 0001409970/bbc437e4-2920-4d5d-8e0d-86bca622f0ca.pdf From: Gunnar Larson Date: Saturday, October 23, 2021 at 9:37 AM To: Investor Relations , Press Cc: Gunnar Larson Subject: [EXT] LendingClub: Current Board of Directors CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe. Dear Madam or Sir: Good day to you. Surveying market research, I was wondering if you can kindly confirm, from LendingClub's July 15, 2021 press release: Is Ms. Adrienne Harris currently a member of LendingClub's board of directors? https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/lendingclub-appoints-adrienne-harr… board-of-directors-301335198.html#financial-modal <https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/lendingclub-appoints-adrienne-harr…> [prnewswire.com] Reviewing your website, Ms. Harris is not referenced:https://www.lendingclub.com/company/leadership Bloomberg and other sources do not reference Ms. Harris as a LendingClub board member: https://www.bloomberg.com/quote/LC:US [bloomberg.com] Sending you the very best regards. Thank you, Gunnar -- Gunnar Larson - xNY.io [xny.io] | Bank.org [bank.org] MSc [unic.ac.cy] - Digital Currency MBA [unic.ac.cy] - Entrepreneurship and Innovation (ip) G(a)xNY.io +1-646-454- 9107 New York, New York 10001” Expected due date: 10.27.22. ---------- Forwarded message --------- From: <Carmen.Garrett(a)dfs.ny.gov> Date: Thu, Oct 27, 2022, 12:42 PM Subject: Your Freedom of Information Law Request FOIL-2022-089773-018375 To: <g(a)xny.io> Good Afternoon: Attached, please find correspondence from the New York State Department of Financial Services pertaining to your FOIL request. Thank you. Tracking Number:FOIL-2022-089773-018375

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