November 2022 - cypherpunks@lists.ogf.org

LiDAR sees surge in new patent players
by Gunnar Larson 20 Nov '22

20 Nov '22

https://www.iam-media.com/article/lidar-sees-surge-in-new-patent-players?ut…

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Biden Celebrates 80th Birthday as Democrats Eye Younger Leaders
by Gunnar Larson 20 Nov '22

20 Nov '22

Biden Celebrates 80th Birthday as Democrats Eye Younger Leaders https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-11-20/biden-celebrates-80th-bi…

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[ot][spam][crazy] webcomic psychology
by Undescribed Horrific Abuse, One Victim & Survivor of Many 20 Nov '22

20 Nov '22

since this started for me, i stopped reading my occasional webcomics, and began obsessively checking xkcd often multiple times a day i think of it like consolidation of my small network vices into one huge computerized vice dictator xkcd has been a little wonked itself, but not that badly, but the comic previous to last basically struck my faith in xkcd and randall (the author of the webcomic): https://xkcd.com/2699/ he's saying that discord and slack support user-run instances. meanwhile, he has this box unchecked for signal, and doesn't even include xmpp at all. it makes it look like somebody else is fabricating his comics or pressuring him, or i just have no idea. but of course honestly we are all behaving that way nowadays, and it's generally just mysterious and not clearly explained. [i experienced forceful amnesia around this following middle section referencing xkcd's history, and added it in later when i recovered. i understand it may be a bad idea to share this. anyway, here it is:] randall has a history of supporting open software and p2p systems. this very classic snippet comic shows this: https://xkcd.com/345/ he was discussing major core parts and figures of open systems. [i guess without more thoroughly engaging it and making points, that expression could come across as weak, and informatoin disruption could counter it with further action. likely the issue. on to the rest of my writing:] today's comic tries to contain more classic material: https://xkcd.com/2700/ i don't know if you've run into the issue it mentions, but i've used nul characters in my password, and ran into the many issues this causes. of course this was before the standardization of unicode, and i have since then learned to not do this. it's a classic thing but i dunno what to think after the comic preceding it. [here i wrote a little about the amnesia, and updated this line when i added the bracketed section regarding it, farther above] this leaves me with a confused dissociated comic-checking habit, and a distrust of this webcomic! i don't want to abandon xkcd, ie let it succumb to whatever influence produced the strange output at 2699, but maybe i'm skeptical that it's not trying to mind control me with precision or something, i dunno. i'm not sure! _but_ i often feel like i can _make_ comics like xkcd. nowadays, with mcboss, I am often full of nerdy jibes and jokes. wasn't the same in the past. it's something for me to think about. maybe, when i want to read an xkcd, i could instead make one myself?

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What It Means When Something’s Funny Online
by Undescribed Horrific Abuse, One Victim & Survivor of Many 20 Nov '22

20 Nov '22

Now, somebody with closer connections to spy agencies could answer this much better than me, but I can give you some really important basics. When you go to a website on the internet, it's not like you're just looking at the website as if it were an object in front of you. The website content passes through a mass of systems and filters, and each junction something can go wrong. Which junction is likely to be the cause of something wrong has been changing over the years and decades. Important junctions look something like this: You => Your Computer & Hardware => You Local Network and Neighbors => Your ISP => Your Government & The Government of the Website => The ISP Of The Website => The Web Host of the Website => {Wires and Airwaves} => The Datacenter The Website is Hosted At => The Website Content Now, there are actually a number of problems that can happen at _each_ juncture, above. At every single juncture, some malicious party can make something go wrong. [Cypherpunks and hacktivists have been trying to implement cryptographic networking to reduce the number of junctures above, but the efforts have not been successful enough to enter the mainstream. TOR, for example, reduces the number of junctures above.] # You We consider this trustworthy for now. # Your Computer & Hardware There are networks of trojans in the wild that have not been squelled. A trojan is a computer virus that gives somebody else control of a system. It is becoming normal for there to be a dark market where somebody can, at a distance, mutate people's systems so that they display the wrong web content. # Your Local Network and Neighbors This is the space where you can crack other people. When you perform a web request, it goes through physical cables and home routers, and often wifi, that are as a norm generally very poorly secured, and it is possible for you to access the networks of your neighbors and change what they see on the web. There are also trojans that can live inside home routers, and mutate the web and one's internet experience while sitting there. # Your ISP In recent decades, it's come to light that, due to the incredible utility of all the information flowing through them, different bodies have been coercing the providers of internet service, so as to acquire detailed information on what people are doing, provide an alternate view of the internet, or make things harder or easier to access than they would otherwise. # Your Government & The Government of the Website Similarly, it is well known that governments run programs that log and filter web traffic extensively. Not only this, it is well known that governments have many, many employees, and that these employees can change hands. For example, in our government in the USA, we recently had huge political swings where the affiliations of our government employees radically changed, and there has been ongoing conflict in the aftermath. Our government _already_ has a long track record of misusing its power to oppress groups of people its influences dislike, and discussion of that has been suppressed as a norm, more recently. When talking about governments, it is also good to remember that they do not understand this shit. With regard to this list and prominent hacktivists, they have instead been attacking the people who do. They obviously hope that if they harm the hackers, they won't have to worry about the details they don't understand, but the unfortunate result is that they actually get attacked by other governments and groups. So "a government" or "an ISP", is not a simple thing where you could get a sense of whether or not they are logging you or mutating your internet: it is a complex situation where many international parties may have their hands in the mix, trying to assert control of your internet. # Your Website's ISP This is basically the same situation as your ISP, except that here the website's ISP is more likely to be focused around the needs of large corporations or whatever situation the site is hosted in, for example Amazon's cloud. So, you may yourself live in a small neighborhood with very boring network activity, but this website is the center of many, many things. It is much more lucrative for somebody to influence the network traffic around a major host, than a random visitor. # The Web Host of the Website There are a lot of different kinds of web hosts, but the same as the ISP applies: this is a much more lucrative point for a cracker to attack, because many people visit it, and many things happen. A web host usually has some kind of shared infrastructure: many websites, for many different organisations, are usually hosted side-by-side, generally in the same actual systems. When this is the case, it often means that compromise of one website can lead to compromise of all the other websites on the same system. This has been common since the dawn of shared webhosting. A blackhat entity is generally far more interested in gaining more power, than in gaining less. # Wires and Airwaves I want to take some time here to mention the physical layer of communication on the web. When you send and receive traffic on the web, it needs to travel, _physically_ from your machine to the web host and back again. This happens incredibly fast, most parts at a fraction of the speed of light, but it happens over physical media that anybody who can get near the physical media, can log, mutate, etc etc. Ethernet cables for a long time have a been a normal physical medium for endpoints, and it is well-known how to attack them so as to view or mutate all the traffic. WIFI has also been a normal physical medium for much more recent times, and again it is well-known how to attack WIFI, so as to view or mutate all the traffic. The people who implement the cryptographic standards of these things are generally influenced by anti-security influences that want to increase surveillability for people, believing that attacking the people who expose the problems will give them power rather than vulnerability. Deeper into the routing systems, I haven't learned as much about the details, but I can assure you that the situation is comparable, because it is just another physical medium run by a specification that people can look up. When one of these vulnerable physical mediums is used, it doesn't mean that an adversary has to stand next to it and log it: they can hide a small device near it, and remotely access the device, to log all the traffic and even mutate it. I can assure you that this has been done commonly: because you can buy such devices on the internet, and there is discussion about them being used. Regarding airwaves, also note that things are electromagnetic (i.e. almost all technology except fiberoptic cables: that is, router equipment, computers, and copper cables) emits radiowaves that broadcast fine details on its operations. There are also advanced ways to direct radio waves toward them and mutate their operations surreptitiously and without contact. # The Datacenter the Website is Hosted At This is a physical location, run by human beings, who can be coerced and subpoenad to change operations or place hacking devices near. It also has its own wires and airwaves. # The Website Content What I mean here, is a human being who placed the content on the website. This would sound somewhat trustworthy, but unfortunately it appears to be a norm for people who run high-value websites to be coerced or replaced. This is highly visible for websites taken over by out FBI, where they replace it with a fake website after a sting, but it happens in other ways as well. The phrase "mind control" can seem strange to many: but it is quite normal for people of high value to be placed under so much _confusing stress_ and _painful lobbying_ that they actually mutate their websites thinking that it may be a good thing to do so. For a long time it was the norm for reliable websites to place a "canary" message on their site, to share whether or not they were being coerced by a federal body, to change their operations. Apparently when this happens they are ordered not to talk about it. Nowadays, many of these canaries have now performed their function and shared this information, and people are not sure what to do. - In summary, if you see something weird on the internet, please check by physical in-person conversation with a person you already know associated with the strange message. And please check multiple times so they can answer from a relaxed place, explaining what's up, rather than give a knee-jerk reply that could have been primed by an influence. Generally, if there is something clearly wrong with a site, people are actually excited to recover the material and resolve the problem. Because they made the site, and care about it.

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1984: Snowden Drops Disinfo TruthBomb
by grarpamp 20 Nov '22

20 Nov '22

https://twitter.com/Snowden/status/1589606899569377282 The most important video of the year was filmed in 1983. https://theintercept.com/2022/10/31/social-media-disinformation-dhs/ https://www.blacklistednews.com/article/83720/us-court-mass-surveillance-pr… https://i.redd.it/gkdwur2gaux91.png NROL-39 https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/putin-grants-russian-citizenship-us-wh… https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-putin-government-surveillance-edw… https://www.revolver.news/2022/11/edward-snowden-the-most-important-video-o… https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mockingbird https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yErKTVdETpw Yuri Bezmenov w G Edward Griffin https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bkr08ztbt3A JLP - Unbrainwash https://i.redd.it/lx2okwjpg6x91.png Bitcoin Satoshi not Craig Wright “How do the Russians know that the UK blew up the North Stream pipelines in partnership with the US? Because u/trussliz used her iPhone to send a message to u/SecBlinken saying ‘It’s done’ a minute after the pipeline blew up and before anybody else knew? iCloud admin access rocks!”

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Cryptocurrency: WarOnCrypto - Tornado.Cash SW Speech CensorBanned by UST OFAC SDN and their Apologists
by grarpamp 20 Nov '22

20 Nov '22

Straight to the Supreme Court... War on Crypto and Crypto Privacy just leveled up... https://www.coincenter.org/u-s-treasury-sanction-of-privacy-tools-places-sw… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpTrCA3tEKM P.v.Valkenburgh: Code Is Free Speech, Privacy is Valid FreeSpeech Code Gets CensorBanned, no court order. Microsoft Github cancels accounts. https://news.bitcoin.com/eth-mixer-tornado-cash-reveals-blocking-ofac-sanct… https://cryptoslate.com/coins/tornado-cash https://home.treasury.gov/policy-issues/financial-sanctions/specially-desig… https://www.treasury.gov/ofac/downloads/ https://home.treasury.gov/policy-issues/office-of-foreign-assets-control-sa… https://home.treasury.gov/policy-issues/terrorism-and-illicit-finance Charity and Action responds to arbitrary political sanctions. If you're not developing your code speech entirely within the darknets, if you're not operating your apps over I2P/Tor/etc, if you're not outside building the physical P2P Guerrilla Internet, and most importantly if you're not out in the real world fighting back against the Censors and Arbitrary Authoritarian Political Policy, you are at high risk of shutdown. US Sec State Blinken deletes his own corrupt tweet speech off twitter. Clearnet RPC servers blocked and taken down... lol. https://t.me/TornadoCashOfficial https://tornado.cash/ https://twitter.com/tornadocash https://twitter.com/semenov_roman_ https://github.com/tornadocash https://tornado-cash.medium.com/ https://twitter.com/WUTornado https://wutornado.medium.com/ https://dune.com/poma/tornado-cash_1 US taxpayers forced to pay for wasted bandwidth on every page...

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[ot][spam][crazy] email list statistics
by Undescribed Horrific Abuse, One Victim & Survivor of Many 19 Nov '22

19 Nov '22

concept: viewing chart of post frequencies to list as a spammer, I often feel like my spam is intended to "quash" the other posters into stopping posting. hence, information on how much posting frequency change is in response to me, and how much is simply normal, could be interesting. buuuut charts are hard for me. i imagine a large magnifying lens focused on the list, and the list squirming. i am not trying to fry the brains of the mailing list (even if one can become skilled at that)! i was simply curious!

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[important][crazy][draft] Releasing Video Project
by Undescribed Horrific Abuse, One Victim & Survivor of Many 19 Nov '22

19 Nov '22

draft concept Hi, This is a list historically composed of software developers who could resist censorship and surveillance entirely. I would like to make a videostreaming app for people in life-threatening situations to share publicly their situation: WITH OTHER PEOPLE. Please help me produce this app by connecting me with actual software developers interesting in working on it. This is a severe human rights situation. I am capable of making this app myself, _if I can write code freely_, which I do not seem presently able to do. But, it is a simple task to any normal coder. It is comparable to any other app. [/draft idea] Basically, the draft is a callout and request for help around concepts that are severely important on almost all sides of any concern. ----- Of course, this project appears very likely to emerge on its own.

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Cryptocurrency: Stop Asking For Permission !!!
by grarpamp 19 Nov '22

19 Nov '22

Forget Politics, Stop Asking For Permission And Lean Into Bitcoin’s Utility Instead https:/tftc.io/martys-bent/issue-1281-posture-from-a-position-of-strength/ When one considers the state of the Union today, it doesn’t really seem like there is a viable path to affect change via the political process. Monday night was the inaugural Bitcoin Jawn meetup in Philadelphia. I had the pleasure of being in attendance and participating in the discussion. The topic of the first gathering was "Bitcoin and Freedom," which is very fitting considering that Philadelphia is the birthplace of the United States of America, where revolutionaries thrust their flag into the earth and said something along the lines of, "We will no longer be ruled by an unaccountable despotic king unfairly taxing us while living in a foreign land. We will be free men." As a native Philadelphian, I have always been drawn to the Founding Fathers, what they believed and how they imposed their will on the largest empire in the world to ensure they and their families could live a life rooted in the free will of the individual. During the meet up, the conversation landed on the topic of what can be done to lobby policy makers to protect bitcoin from overbearing regulation. What can we do to protect bitcoin mining from climate hysterics? How can we get a de minimis spend tax exemption? How can we get bitcoin labeled as free speech, which would eliminate capital gains taxes altogether so individuals can transact freely? These were all interesting topics and definitely things I would like to see. However, I couldn't shake the irony that we were gathered in a small pub in Philadelphia and essentially begging for the most basic of freedoms: The freedom to choose what we deem to be the best money for ourselves and spend it as we see fit without fear of retaliation from a despotic government. The Founding Fathers would be shrieking in rage over how the Republic they created has changed. Benjamin Franklin would surely remark, "Well it seems that you all were most certainly not able to keep it." When one considers the state of the Union today, particularly the bloated and tyrannical state of the federal government, it doesn't really seem like there is a viable path to affect change via the political process. The whole system has been corrupted by special interests and an intelligence apparatus that has gone drunk with power. It seems like a completely idiotic strategy to think that lobbying the goliath to act favorably toward a tool that is destined to destroy it is a good way to spend one`s time and resources. Instead, anyone who would like to see bitcoin succeed in defanging a shadow government gone mad with power would be better off spending their time and resources working as hard and as quickly as possible to initiate and fortify a bitcoin circular economy that equips those looking to peacefully escape the goliath and supporting them from a position of impenetrable strength. Asking the goliath for permission to defang it is acting from a position of weakness that is destined to fail. The goliath, understanding its perceived authority in the eyes of its subjects, will probably give subjects looking for permission a false sense of security by saying things like, "Ok, but..." * You can use bitcoin, but you have to report all of your addresses to me. * You can mine bitcoin, but you can only use these approved energy sources and only include these transactions in blocks you mine. * You can use the Lightning Network for payments, but you can only open up channels with channel counterparties on this credentialed list. If this is the route taken by Bitcoiners, it will lead to a dead end that renders bitcoin's value proposition completely useless in the United States. This is certainly a path I do not want to take and an outcome I do not want my children to be subjected to. I want to live free. I want to rid the goliath from my life. I want to have agency over my money. I do not want to ask permission for something I should be able to do freely. Does that make me a "radical" in the eyes of the goliath? Maybe, but I'd sooner change my name to David and take the goliath head-on than bow down and let it lord over me in a tyrannical fashion any longer. I think the founding fathers would have the same inclination and you shouldn't be afraid to do the same. The goliath morphed from an entity that was supposed to represent us and protect our freedoms into an entity that causes great harm and erodes more and more freedoms every single day that passes.

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Democracy: Today's Tyranny
by grarpamp 19 Nov '22

19 Nov '22

On 11/4/22, Undescribed Horrific Abuse, One Victim & Survivor of Many <gmkarl(a)gmail.com> wrote: > i came from occupy wall street, where “direct democracy” was the > thing, no elections, just doing things that everybody agreed to do. No, OWS did not have "everybody" in agreement, else they literally would *all* be doing the exact same thing. Yet there were lots of beautiful free people who said no to whatever things, and if none of them were harmed for it then that would indeed be notable. Unfortunately for democracy worshippers, even their fabled "direct democracy" (democracy without representatives) still does not grant them any authority over others. Same for "social contracts", "constitutions", etc... sans your agreement and signature, not valid over you. Democracy is wrongly taught, believed, and applied, which results everywhere today in deadly tyranny by the majority against those who have done no such harm, wars to become the new majority, ad nauseum. Democracy cannot be fixed because it relies upon the flawed principle that initiating force over others is valid. So quit wasting time repeatedly trying to fix it, and go explore something totally different that hasn't really ever been tried before. > when i hear people asking for anarchy rather than democracy So long as they declare themselves Voluntary, then that is by default better than any democracy as practiced anywhere in the world today. > my country happens to be a democracy. Which, again like all such ones in current practice, sucks, brutally so. "Their very character, tyranny; their figure, deformity." "Any democracy that wages upon the non-participant while said non-participant does not wage upon it... is illegitimate."

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