April 2022 - cypherpunks@lists.ogf.org

Fwd: [coreboot] Re: Deprecation of the Intel Quark SoC
by Karl Semich 13 Apr '22

13 Apr '22

I may misremember who patrick is, but I was guessing they were a hard worker who was helping the project. below they seem to be complaining? around me addressing only one board? as myself? meanwhile the text where I attempt to discuss a larger approach is unincluded, both in the quote and the reasoning in their reply, as if they simply didn't receive it ---------- Forwarded message --------- From: Patrick Georgi <patrick(a)coreboot.org> Date: Wed, Apr 13, 2022, 6:26 AM Subject: Re: [coreboot] Re: Deprecation of the Intel Quark SoC To: Karl Semich <0xloem(a)gmail.com>, Coreboot <coreboot(a)coreboot.org> Am 12.04.2022 um 23:54 schrieb Karl Semich: > Obviously a way to sidestep all this would be to simply test the board > in question, which is a small investment of money and time. I appreciate that you volunteer to do that for Quark. Can't be too bad, it's a small investment of money and time, after all. Regards, Patrick

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Fwd: Deprecation of the Intel Quark SoC
by Karl Semich 13 Apr '22

13 Apr '22

hi from one confused list to another. the reply to this is very strange. ---------- Forwarded message --------- From: Karl Semich <0xloem(a)gmail.com> Date: Tue, Apr 12, 2022, 5:54 PM Subject: Re: Deprecation of the Intel Quark SoC To: Coreboot <coreboot(a)coreboot.org> Obviously a way to sidestep all this would be to simply test the board in question, which is a small investment of money and time. It's sad that automated testing appears to no longer be ongoing. I might wonder whether coreboot sponsors would support a coreboot-associated automated test lab. The arguments for deprecation in this thread do not appear forthright to me.

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Re: Invitation to quick survey about pull requests
by Karl Semich 13 Apr '22

13 Apr '22

The most important thing about a pull request is whether it introduces bugs or maintenance challenges. Styles of contribution are to make it easier to discern and prevent this. I'm not really active in mozilla/DeepSpeech, certainly not with regard to PR review. Is your work likely to be used for the training of private automated code submission models? On Wed, Apr 13, 2022, 3:22 AM Balthazar West <bwest(a)kth.se> wrote: > Hi xloem, > > my name is Balthazar West and I am doing my Master's thesis in Computer > Science at KTH. The main theme of the thesis is investigating how pull > requests are developed on GitHub and I would like to invite you personally > to my survey due to your activity in the mozilla/DeepSpeech repository. The > survey is linked below, completion time is ~10 minutes and your response is > anonymous. Feel free to share it with your peers as well. If you are > interested in the results of my work, please respond to this email and I > will share them once the thesis is finished. Thank you for reading and > sorry if I wasted your time. > > Survey: https://forms.gle/NEUovJUATRbVGtAX6 > > Best regards, > Balthazar West >

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[ot][spam][crazy] Decision Making
by Undiscussed Horrific Abuse, One Victim of Many 13 Apr '22

13 Apr '22

This is a draft attempt to regrow a rational decision making process in karl semich. Posting to the list relates to the value around parts not disappearing after being expressed. It's 2022-04-12 04:48 ET. Karl is a little confused around continuing to pursue a difficult rtlsdr/logic analysis project. Goals being managed: - [ ] rtlsdr/logic analyser, this is priority - [ ] reduction of expenses. a phone was recently purchased - [ ] EEG logging, nonprioritised, inhibited - [ ] device to do EEG logging on - [ ] txqrapp merge submission [we were not expecting the big dialog. less has been expressed.] STRUGGLE: - it can help meet a number of goals to set up an existing device to do EEG logging on, such as pinephone. - recently noticed a txqrapp obligation. left open after a year or three. _rarely notice this_. it does not look complex to resolve. the topic has strong inhibition -> we would like to do the rtlsdr/logic analyser Doing the radio-logic-analysis project is a huge goal for us that we have spent many long times now trying to defend and stabilise. For some it represents many other goals. We need to be able to take simple goals to completion, to interaction with a normal todo list at all.

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The rush is on
by professor rat 13 Apr '22

13 Apr '22

" . . . a16z got into crypto early, leading a $25 million funding round into Coinbase in 2013. By the time Coinbase went public in April 2021, the firm held a 15% stake following 14 more funding rounds. The shares were worth $10 billion on the first day of trading resulting in a 60x return for the company. However, this was several years before Dixon’s crypto fund was launched in June 2018 with $300 million raised in total at the time according to Crunchbase. There have been other notable investments by a16z including decentralized exchange Uniswap, the Avalanche blockchain, NFT creator Dapper Labs, and Ethereum staking platform Lido, all of which have surged in valuation or collateral since. . . " https://cointelegraph.com/news/a16z-s-chris-dixon-tops-midas-list-by-turnin…

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FBI's Massive Illegal Immoral Corrupt Mole Informant Entrap Spy Program Exposed
by grarpamp 13 Apr '22

13 Apr '22

FBI Memos Suggest Agency Had Moles In Media by Ken Silva https://www.theepochtimes.com/fbi-memos-suggest-agency-had-moles-in-media_4… https://publicintegrity.org/accountability/memo-suggests-fbi-had-mole-insid… https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21573520-sensitive-informant-motion https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2022/mar/11/fbi-audit-reveals-agents-r… https://www.theepochtimes.com/fbis-operation-to-infiltrate-right-wing-extre… https://www.theepochtimes.com/patcon-explored-records-provide-glimpse-of-fb… https://publicintegrity.org/national-security/judge-orders-fbi-to-cough-up-… https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21573636-abc-mole-i https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21573640-abc-mole-ii https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21573649-nbc-mole1 https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21573650-nbc-mole2 https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21573651-nbc-mole3 https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21573652-nbc-mole4 https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21573653-nbc-mole5 https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21573654-nbc-mole6 https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21573658-bob-norman https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21573659-defense-team-mole https://www.theepochtimes.com/fbis-operation-to-infiltrate-right-wing-extre… https://www1.villanova.edu/villanova/law/library/specialcollections/alexand… Investigator Roger Charles was combing through records of the FBI’s Oklahoma City bombing investigation more than a decade ago, when he discovered a memo suggesting that someone working at ABC News provided a tip to the bureau a day after the deadly April 19, 1995, domestic terrorist attack. The FBI seal is attached to a podium at a news conference at FBI Headquarters in Washington on June 14, 2018. (Mark Wilson/Getty Images) It appeared that a senior ABC News journalist had been doubling as an FBI informant. The memo made a few headlines in 2011, but quickly passed through the news cycle with little impact and hardly any coverage by major outlets. However, Charles’s discovery stoked the curiosity of his friend, attorney Jesse Trentadue. The Utah resident was suing the FBI for records related to his brother’s murder, and began filing requests in 2012 to see if the bureau had other informants in the media, as well as places such as congressional offices, courts, churches, other government agencies, and the White House. Trentadue said the U.S. government’s response shocked him. “I thought they’d come back and say, ‘We would never do that because that would be illegal and unconstitutional,’” he said. “Instead, they came back and said, ‘Yeah, we do that. We have manuals on that, but you can’t have them because of national security.’” The FBI fought against Trentadue for years in federal court to keep its manuals secret, and was ultimately successful. A federal judge dismissed the lawsuit in 2015. However, Trentadue said the litigation helped him piece together what he calls the FBI’s “sensitive informant program.” According to his lawsuit over the matter, this program is used to place informants in the national media, among other institutions. The FBI has not responded to questions from The Epoch Times for this story, including about Trentadue’s description of the sensitive informant program. The bureau has defended the use of informants in sensitive institutions as a necessary to root out corruption and other crime, while former director J. Edgar Hoover deemed such tactics as necessary to fight communism. But in the wake of a recently released, scathing internal FBI audit—which found special agents breaking their own rules more than twice per reviewed case when investigating sensitive institutions—some lawmakers are beginning to question the bureau’s sweeping investigatory powers. “It has been nearly two weeks since this information was revealed, and the FBI has thus far declined to comment or provide additional transparency,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said in a March 31 letter. “I believe the Senate would benefit from hearing directly from Inspector General Horowitz, FBI Director Wray, as well as any division directors with knowledge of the audit or the errors detailed in it.” Trentadue’s Records According to Utah attorney Trentadue, the redacted FBI audit only begins to scratch the surface of the bureau’s purported wrongdoing. He would know. His litigation against the U.S. government, spanning four decades, has unearthed numerous revelations about the FBI, including details about undercover right-wing infiltration operations and previously hidden databases. One of Trentadue’s findings that hasn’t received media coverage—until now—pertains to sensitive informants. Documents Trentadue provided to The Epoch Times included the initial FBI memo Charles discovered about the informant within ABC, as well as previously unpublicized memos written by special agents receiving information from ABC and NBC. Among those is a September 1996 FBI memo, reporting that a “confidential source who works for a news agency [learned] that ABC News was going to air an expose in the next few days concerning the OKC bombing.” “ABC will be interviewing a rescue worker who is going to state that ATF had stored a large amount of explosives in the MURRAH BUILDING, which contributed to the explosion. The rescue worker is also going to advise that evidence of these explosives was found by rescue workers, and this particular rescue worker had contacted the FBI with this information, and was told by the FBI to keep quiet,” the FBI memo says. “This rescue worker is currently upset because nothing has been done with this information and he feels the FBI has attempted to cover up the information.” The September 1996 memo identifies the person at the news agency as a “confidential source,” rather than referring to the person by a serial number—suggesting that this source may be different than the aforementioned informant. Trentadue said he didn’t know for sure, nor did he know whether the ABC report referenced in the memo was ever published. Then, there’s a series of FBI memos that also serve as the subject of controversy in another Trentadue lawsuit. These memos describe FBI agents who were allegedly trying to sell surveillance footage of the Oklahoma City bombing to NBC. No arrests resulted from the matter, and the U.S. government says the surveillance footage discussed in the memos does not exist. Trentadue is seeking to prove the existence of the footage in a separate, ongoing lawsuit against the FBI that has been sealed for the past seven years. Putting aside the surveillance footage controversy, the memos show that the FBI was receiving information from within NBC. The first tip from NBC came on Oct. 27, 1995, when a confidential source, whose identity is redacted, said the NBC show Dateline had been contacted by an attorney. According to the FBI memo, the attorney represented an FBI agent in Los Angeles who was seeking to sell surveillance footage for more than $1 million. “It was represented that the video tape would contain lapse photography of the arrival and then departure of a UPS truck. Then a Ryder truck pulls up and a male resembling Timothy McVeigh [sic] is seen exiting the driver’s side of the Ryder truck and then walking away,” the FBI memo says. “Next, a second male is seen exiting the passenger side of the Ryder truck and walking to the back of the truck. The second male then walks away in the same direction as the first male.” The FBI received five more tips through Nov. 7 about the matter—including someone offering to provide a prepublication copy of a story about “negotiations between an unknown Los Angeles Agent of the FBI and ‘Dateline,’” the memo said. Other records suggest that the FBI used reporters as sources of information—whether the reporter knew it or not. For instance, an April 25, 1995, FBI memo states that reporter Bob Norman, of the News Press, a daily newspaper in Florida, called the bureau to provide information. The FBI memo said Norman “advised” a special agent that Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh had connections to Florida’s militia. But Norman, currently an active reporter who has recently written for the Florida Bulldog, said he was simply calling for comment on a story he was writing at the time. “I’m sure the agent wanted me to share my source material and, as his own report shows, I correctly refused to do so,” Norman said in a statement to The Epoch Times. The FBI memo indeed reflects that Norman declined to provide the bureau with a videotape—telling the special agent that “he was not convinced his superiors will approve of sharing this information with the FBI, and therefore he cannot provide a copy of the tapes or further information.” “While I disagree with the agent’s characterization of the reason for the call, this is what journalists do,” Norman said. “We present our found information to authorities in order to get confirmation, additional information, context, denials, etc. It is, in fact, an essential part of the fact-gathering process.” Along with the FBI memos about reporters, Trentadue provided a memo that suggests the FBI had advance knowledge of a new member joining McVeigh’s defense team. A special agent reported at the time that he received information from a confidential witness. Confidential witnesses differ from typical informants in that they often testify at trials. This particular confidential witness identified in the May 1995 memo provided information about a loan shark scam and a “special forces national convention” set to take place in Nevada that year. The confidential witness (CW) also provided information about McVeigh’s defense team, telling the FBI that a woman named Wilma Sparks was joining the team. “The CW advised that WILMA SPARKS is a close associate of the CW and that SPARKS is taking on the responsibility of investigating certain aspects of the investigation,” the memo said. “SPARKS advised the CW that although this was a distasteful assignment, she was willing to accept the assignment to ensure that the case against MCVEIGH will not be overturned due to incompetent counsel.” McVeigh’s lead defense counsel, Stephen Jones, declined to comment on the memo. Trentadue’s Court Case Trentadue used the FBI memos and other documents as evidence to support his Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit in 2012. At the time, Trentadue was seeking fully un-redacted copies of the FBI Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide (DIOG), the FBI Confidential Human Source Validation Standards Manual, the FBI Confidential Human Source Policy Manual, and the FBI Confidential Human Source Policy Implementation Guide. The Utah attorney had received a few pages from those manuals that contained references to sensitive informants, but offered few details due to the heavy redactions. As part of his effort, Trentadue was seeking to conduct discovery. He wanted to know whether the FBI had informants in the courts, Congress, media, and other government agencies at any point since January 1995. He also sought information about how many sensitive informants the FBI had in each institution. The U.S. government resisted Trentadue’s efforts to conduct discovery at every turn. In email correspondence, prosecutors told him he had no legal standing. “This case is not one where you have asked the Court to declare an alleged ‘secret surveillance program’ illegal on any ground … nor have you sought to enjoin any activity that you allege any such program might be conducting,” the DOJ told him. “Instead, this case, like the numerous other FOIA cases that you have filed in this Court, is about nothing except for whether the FBI performed an adequate search for records responsive to your FOIA requests.” In a January 2013 motion for a Salt Lake City federal judge to order the FBI to answer his questions, Trentadue argued against the DOJ’s explanation. “The issue in this dispute between the parties is not the adequacy of the FBI’s search for the Manual. The FBI found the Manual,” Trentadue said in his motion, referring to an FBI book on using sensitive informants. “The issue for the Court to decide is whether the FOIA exemptions advanced by the FBI for withholding portions of the Manual apply and, even if they do apply, can those exemptions be lawfully asserted to conceal FBI activities that are unconstitutional and/or otherwise illegal? “Plaintiff submits that the answers to this two-part question are, ‘NO.’” However, federal judge Dale Kimball ruled in favor of the FBI in July 2013, writing in his decision that discovery is generally unavailable in FOIA litigation, and that he found no reason to deviate from that rule. In April 2014, the FBI moved for a summary judgment to end the lawsuit once and for all. FBI agents provided written declarations in support of the motion, articulating the bureau’s reasons for withholding information about sensitive informants. Eric Velez-Villar, then the assistant director of the FBI’s Directorate of Intelligence (DI), said revealing information in the manuals would compromise sources and methods for how the bureau handles informants. “The effectiveness of techniques involving undisclosed participation [by informants] is directly contingent upon the FBI keeping its involvement in such activities undisclosed,” Velez-Villar said. “The information was intended for an audience of FBI employees only.” As for information specific to sensitive investigations and informants, Velez-Villar said disclosing such policies would “disclose critical tools utilized by the FBI in its investigations and intelligence gathering efforts.” “Releasing the policies governing these sensitive investigative techniques and strategies would compound the harm of such a disclosure by also revealing how and when the FBI can/will utilize these tools,” he said. The FBI’s motion also included sworn statements from officials at the State Department and CIA, both agreeing that the sensitive informant manuals should be kept secret. The head of the CIA’s litigation support unit, Martha Lutz, said disclosing the FBI manuals could compromise CIA sources. “In this case, the FBI manual indicates certain traits or characteristics of FBI confidential human sources that should give rise to notification or coordination with CIA. By doing so, the manuals reveal the particular traits or characteristics that may be associated with CIA human sources, such as an individual’s national origin or travel habits,” Lutz said. “Publicly disclosing this information creates the risk that adversaries of the United States may gain insight into the traits and characteristics that CIA values in human sources.” Trentadue opposed the FBI’s motion for summary judgment and the two parties duked it out at a November 2014 hearing over the matter. But after reviewing the unredacted manuals in private, Judge Kimball granted the FBI’s national security exemptions in June 2015. Kimball noted that government agencies are “entitled to considerable deference” when they exercise national security or law enforcement exemptions. Unless there’s evidence of bad faith by government actors, then the courts have no power to make government agencies disclose secret information, he said. In this case—unlike in another, ongoing FOIA lawsuit between Trentadue and the FBI, where there’s an ongoing witness tampering investigation taking place—Kimball said he found no evidence of bad faith on the part of the U.S. government. “Having conducted a thorough in camera review of the documents (or portions thereof) withheld by the agency, in conjunction with the agency’s claimed reasons for so withholding the information, the court concludes that the claimed exemptions are valid,” the judge said. “The FBI has demonstrated … that it has withheld sensitive information because that information logically falls within the scope of the claimed exemption.” Kimball ordered the case closed on June 9, 2015. Trentadue’s Findings Trentadue argues that his FOIA litigation, coupled with the FBI memos he’s procured, demonstrates that the FBI has much to hide about its use of sensitive informants. “Yes, the FBI does need sensitive informants to, as you say, investigate corruption and potential violent groups. Yes, the FBI should have manuals to make sure that these are done legally. But the key is that I asked for manuals governing ‘recruitment/management’ of specific informants, which FBI produced but redacted,” he told this reporter. “It is not a case of someone coming to the FBI offering to expose corruption. The bureau is recruiting spies.” Other FOIA and legal experts tend to agree. “My guess is that he’s probably right,” said Sean Dunagan, senior investigator at the conservative watchdog Judicial Watch. “It’s just very difficult to reach any conclusions with moral certitude, based on what the FBI didn’t hand over.” Attorney and author Alexander Charns, who chronicled how J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI infiltrated the federal judiciary in his book, “Cloak and Gavel: FBI Wiretaps, Bugs, Informers, and the Supreme Court,” said history supports Trentadue’s claims, and that Congress should look into the matter. Charns’s book, which covers thousands of Supreme Court and FBI records obtained by the author, details the many tactics Hoover used to influence the Supreme Court—from wiretaps to PR campaigns, and including the use of informants. “It is disturbing, but not surprising, to find that at least three Court employees reported directly to the FBI,” he wrote. Offering the qualifier that his expertise on FBI informants is limited to the Hoover era, Charns said the bureau has a natural tendency to push its spying powers to the legal limits—and sometimes beyond. “I don’t have evidence that this is occurring now, but it seems like law enforcement is opportunistic. So, if they have an opportunity to place an informant in an organization that raises constitutional questions, they often tend to look at it as: They’re not going to refuse information,” he said.

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interesting video about corosna treatments
by Digitalfolklore 13 Apr '22

13 Apr '22

Watch the Water https://archive.org/details/watch-the-water idea is that corosna is from Cobras....and the treatment is basically anti venom 47 minutes long, couple of interesting bits, if you agree or disagree its worth skimming through to keep up with the latest "idea" I would make mention of the fact that water treatment plants (at least the ones reported) under went some sort of 'infiltration'...quiet a few were remotely hacked. One I can remember was in Florida...check in your city if you water plant went down, when and for how long. Even if you entertain this idea 50% it still has some plausibility. You know what spooks are like.. VH

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Mobile Handset Privacy
by zeynepaydogan 12 Apr '22

12 Apr '22

We investigate what data loss on an iPhone shares with Apple and what data Google Android on a Pixelphone shares with Google. We find that even when minimally configured and the handset is idle both iOS and Google Android share data with Apple/Google on average every 4.5 mins. The phone IMEI, hardware serial number, SIM serial number and IMSI, handset phone number etc are shared with Apple and Google. Both iOS and Google Android transmit telemetry, despite the user explicitly opting out of this. When a SIM is inserted both iOS and Google Android send details to Apple/Google. iOS sends the MAC addresses of nearby devices, e.g. other handsets and the home gateway, to Apple together with their GPS location. Users have no opt out from this and currently there are few, if any, realistic option

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Alt-root blockchain domains discussed at recent ICANN meeting
by Undiscussed Horrific Abuse, One Victim of Many 12 Apr '22

12 Apr '22

ICANN is the standards body responsible for the shape of the mainstream domain name system. A recent presentation depicted the Handshake blockchain as potentially outcompeting their infrastructure. It also mentioned Fingertip for resolving hosts, and Brave and Opera as supporting browsers. I believe the branch of ICANN involved is open to any who join. I don't recognise or have reason to trust the following media outlet; it's just the first news hit I got from a websearch. https://domainnamewire.com/2022/03/17/alt-root-blockchain-domains-icann/ There was a bit of discussion about blockchain-based domains at ICANN 73 this month. The concept of an alt root is as old as ICANN, and previous iterations of these have failed to obtain the popularity necessary to compete with the “real” DNS. Is the current wave of alt-roots, such as Handshake, the ENS, and Unstoppable Domains, changing the narrative? Is it *really* different this time? ICANN and the broader Internet Governance community share a history of opposition to alt roots (including ICANN’s most recent blog post telling alt-root domain registrants buyer beware <https://www.icann.org/en/blogs/details/buyer-beware-not-all-names-are-creat…>). And ICANN has delayed Uni’s TLD sales <https://domainnamewire.com/2021/12/21/nfts-trip-up-uniregistrys-top-level-d…> due to bundling them with alt-root domains. During ICANN 73, members of NARALO (North American Regional At-Large Organization) held a session <https://73.schedule.icann.org/meetings/LNpr7rJ27eueDkZ4x> on NFTs, blockchain, and alt roots. Jeff Neuman of JJN Solutions and Tom Barrett of Encirca gave an overview of cryptocurrency and NFTs and then dove into blockchain alt-root domains. They considered if ICANN should give any thought to potential name collisions with alt roots for the next round of TLDs. The history of alternative roots <https://icannwiki.org/Alternative_Roots> largely involves efforts to replace the DNS, while Web3 technologies can conceivably coexist alongside. But what happens when companies inevitably apply for .crypto in the next new TLD round? Unstoppable Domains already runs a .crypto and has been trying to get some protection <https://domainnamewire.com/2021/10/07/uspto-continues-to-refuse-trademarks-…> against new ICANN TLDs that match its domains. The unanswered question is if ICANN should care. If Unstoppable’s .crypto has legs by then, the name collisions could be problematic. But giving Unstoppable Domains any preference for this and its other domains would encourage companies to create alt roots today to frontrun the next round of new TLDs, much like applicants (unsuccessfully) tried to do with trademark frontrunning <https://domainnamewire.com/2010/04/12/new-top-level-domain-trademark-frontr…> in the last round. The discussion continued in the public forum <https://73.schedule.icann.org/meetings/ERWRCp2CBbZ3pJ5i3>, with a particular interest in what ICANN could do about the rise of Web3: avoiding name collisions in the next round, encouraging possible collaboration between ICANN and alt roots, or at least considering why people are turning to alt roots to explore whether there’s something that may apply to ICANN or the DNS.

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U.S. Extradites Man Who Allegedly Sold Backdoored Phones for the FBI
by jim bell 12 Apr '22

12 Apr '22

US Extradites Man Who Allegedly Sold Backdoored Phones for the FBI "The United States has extradited a man it accuses of working for Anom, a company that sold encrypted phones to criminals but which was secretly backdoored by the FBI to spy on the communications of organized crime around the globe. Aurangzeb Ayub quietly arrived in the U.S. last month, according to court records reviewed by Motherboard." "Ayub is the first of 17 alleged Anom workers to be extradited since Motherboard reported on the operation, known as Trojan Shield, and the FBI and its law enforcement partners held press conferences on its success in June. While authorities have arrested and prosecuted users of the Anom devices, Ayub’s extradition is some judicial movement regarding those who allegedly sold phones for Anom, some of whom the U.S. Department of Justice has also charged."

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