January 2023 - cypherpunks@lists.ogf.org

Anarchy for the Sudan
by professor rat 20 Jan '23

20 Jan '23

The following interview with the group „Sudanese Anarchist Gathering“ was done by e-mail. https://anarchistnews.org/content/organizing-under-military-dictatorship Reposts not attempted DENIAL of SERVICE attack by demented lunatic, Semich

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Cryptoanarchy for the Ukraine
by professor rat 19 Jan '23

19 Jan '23

Every anarchist will be following this epic closely US, Ukraine, and the UK are the top 3 countries in the world for cryptocurrency use. https://in.investing.com/news/fedorov-desires-ukraine-to-be-world-leading-j… I don't fear CBDC's so long as most countries know what happens if they try and CHEKA up on everybody. Reposts not yadaa yadaa

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Compass Mining and Blockstream’s Mining Note (the BMN)
by professor rat 19 Jan '23

19 Jan '23

Compass Mining vs. Blockstream Mining Note (BMN) https://medium.com/@jesse_hodl/compass-mining-vs-blockstream-mining-note-bm… Reposts often remarked yet seldom observed

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[ot] OpenAI was surprised nobody else built ChatGpT
by Undescribed Horrific Abuse, One Victim & Survivor of Many 19 Jan '23

19 Jan '23

I’m forwarding this because it shows needless and strong AI suppression feeding back through media. https://twitter.com/nearcyan/status/1615779948962414592 from @nearcyan 2022-01-18: > Sam Altman was also surprised that no one built ChatGPT before OpenAI: > > “we had the model for ChatGPT in the API for ~10 months before we made ChatGPT .. > > I sort of thought someone (else) was gonna just build it" > > (reminder: there are *many* similarly unbuilt products right now) > > [video] > from @nearcyan 2022-12-02: > > ChatGPT capabilities have (mostly) been out for a year, in some cases >2 years …

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Fwd: FOIL Request No. 2022-089773 - Larson
by Gunnar Larson 19 Jan '23

19 Jan '23

SENT VIA EMAIL (G(a)xny.io) January 19, 2023 Gunnar D. Larson xNY.io – Bank.org 406 West 25th Street New York, NY 10001 Re: Freedom of Information Law (“FOIL”) Tracking No. 2022-089773 Dear Gunnar D. Larson: I write in response to the FOIL request that you submitted to the New York State Department of Financial Services (“Department”) on January 26, 2022, which states as follows: “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/newsreleases/lendingclub-appoints-adrienne-harri… 301335198.html#financial-modal [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.” Public Officers Law (“POL”) § 89(3) requires a FOIL request to reasonably describe the records sought. This means that the description of the documents sought must be sufficient to allow the agency to locate and identify the documents requested. See Matter of Farbman & Sons v New York City Health & Hosps. Corp., 62 NY2d 75 (1984); Matter of Wright v Hippolyte, 2014 N.Y. Misc. LEXIS 1247, 2014 NY Slip Op 30705(U) (Sup. Ct. N.Y. County March 20, 2014). The Committee on Open Government, which is responsible for, inter alia, issuing advisory opinions regarding FOIL, has opined that “[w]hether a request reasonably describes the records sought . . . may be dependent upon the terms of a request, as well as the nature of an agency’s filing or record-keeping system.” Committee on Open Government (“Committee”) Opinion No. FOIL-AO-16073 (July 17, 2006). In the Committee’s Opinion No. FOIL-AO-11960 (February 17, 2000), it opined that a FOIL request that sought records “‘tending to support’ a particular statement, or ‘utilized’, ‘used’ or ‘relating to’ various activities of the Department of Environmental Conservation” was not a reasonably described request for records under Public Officers Law Article 6. The Committee stated that a response to such a request “would involve making a series of judgments based on opinions, some of which would be subjective, mental impressions”, and require “ascertaining which records might ‘tend to support’ a statement [that] would involve an attempt to render a judgment regarding the use, utility, accuracy or value of records.” The Committee held that “for purposes of [FOIL], a request for such materials would not meet the standard of ‘reasonably describing’ the records sought, for such a request would not enable the [agency] to locate and identify the records in the manner envisioned by that statute.” Your FOIL request fails to meet the “reasonably describe” requirement in POL § 89(3) because it includes vague and imprecise phrases such as “any and “all,” and “related to” and it does not clearly describe the records that you are seeking to enable the Department to conduct a reasonable search for those records. Such vague phrases are imprecise terms that require Department staff to make subjective judgments as to whether a document is responsive to your FOIL request. When such subjective judgments are required of staff, the FOIL request may be denied for failure to meet the reasonably describe requirement in POL § 89(3). Additionally, the Department does not have an indexing system that allows it to search all of its paper and electronic records by terms that may appear in such records. Accordingly, the Department is denying your FOIL request on the basis that the request is not reasonably described. Notwithstanding the foregoing issues with your FOIL request, please be advised that, in August of 2021, the Superintendent resigned from the Board of Directors of the Lending Club, effective September 12, 2021. In accordance with POL § 89(4), you may appeal this determination within 30 days by sending an email to FOIL.Appeals(a)dfs.ny.gov. Very truly yours, Pascale Jean-Baptiste FOIL Officer ---------- Forwarded message --------- From: JeanBaptiste, Pascale (DFS) <Pascale.JeanBaptiste(a)dfs.ny.gov> Date: Thu, Jan 19, 2023, 9:51 AM Subject: FOIL Request No. 2022-089773 - Larson To: Gunnar Larson <g(a)xny.io> Cc: Garrett, Carmen (DFS) <Carmen.Garrett(a)dfs.ny.gov> Good Morning: Please see the attached determination in response to your FOIL request. Thank you.

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Fwd: FOIL Request No. 2022-092267 - Larson
by Gunnar Larson 19 Jan '23

19 Jan '23

SENT VIA EMAIL (G(a)xny.io) January 19, 2023 Gunnar D. Larson xNY.io – Bank.org 406 West 25th Street New York, NY 10001 Re: Freedom of Information Law (“FOIL”) Tracking No. 2022-092267 Dear Gunnar D. Larson: I write in response to the FOIL request that you submitted to the New York State Department of Financial Services (“Department”) on September 12, 2022, which states as follows: “Dear Madam or Sir: On May 18, 2022 xNY.io - Bank.org received a copy of a financial disclosure form for Mr. Richard Weber (General Counsel, NY-DFS) noting an advisory council role at the Las Vegas Museum of Organized Crime and Law Enforcement. No address was provided: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1CCIh9CQiwxVILSv86B54kEcipVRnx1YQ/view ?usp=drivesdk We would like to receive any and all records NY-DFS and Human Rights hold for this appointment approval for a state associated represenative. Warm regards, Gunnar Gunnar Larson xNY.io - Bank.org 646-454-9107.” Public Officers Law (“POL”) § 89(3) requires a FOIL request to reasonably describe the records sought. This means that the description of the documents sought must be sufficient to allow the agency to locate and identify the documents requested. See Matter of Farbman & Sons v New York City Health & Hosps. Corp., 62 NY2d 75 (1984); Matter of Wright v Hippolyte, 2014 N.Y. Misc. LEXIS 1247, 2014 NY Slip Op 30705(U) (Sup. Ct. N.Y. County March 20, 2014). The Committee on Open Government, which is responsible for, inter alia, issuing advisory opinions regarding FOIL, has opined that “[w]hether a request reasonably describes the records sought . . . may be dependent upon the terms of a request, as well as the nature of an agency’s filing or record-keeping system.” Committee on Open Government (“Committee”) Opinion No. FOIL-AO-16073 (July 17, 2006). In the Committee’s Opinion No. FOIL-AO-11960(February 17, 2000), it opined that a FOIL request that sought records “‘tending to support’ a particular statement, or ‘utilized’, ‘used’ or ‘relating to’ various activities of the Department of Environmental Conservation” was not a reasonably described request for records under Public Officers Law Article 6. The Committee stated that a response to such a request “would involve making a series of judgments based on opinions, some of which would be subjective, mental impressions”, and require “ascertaining which records might ‘tend to support’ a statement [that] would involve an attempt to render a judgment regarding the use, utility, accuracy or value of records.” The Committee held that “for purposes of [FOIL], a request for such materials would not meet the standard of ‘reasonably describing’ the records sought, for such a request would not enable the [agency] to locate and identify the records in the manner envisioned by that statute.” Your FOIL request fails to meet the “reasonably describe” requirement in POL § 89(3) because it includes vague and imprecise phrases such as “any and all records,” and does not clearly describe the records that you are seeking. Such vague phrases are imprecise terms that require Department staff to make subjective judgments as to whether a document is responsive to your FOIL request. When such subjective judgments are required of staff, the FOIL request may be denied for failure to meet the reasonably describe requirement in POL § 89(3). Additionally, the Department does not have an indexing system that allows it to search all of its records by terms that may appear in such records. Accordingly, the Department is denying your FOIL request on the basis that the request is not reasonably described. Even if your FOIL request was reasonably described, to the extent that your request can be interpreted as seeking internal Department records, your request would be denied pursuant to POL § 87(2)(g) (the “inter/intra-agency exemption”), which exempts from disclosure records that are “inter-agency or intra-agency materials which are not: i. statistical or factual tabulations or data; ii. instructions to staff that affect the public; iii. final agency policy or determinations; [or] iv. external audits, including but not limited to audits performed by the comptroller and the federal government[.]” Such internal records contain opinions, recommendations, evaluations, and other subjective commentary by government employees, and do not contain information that fall within any of the four exceptions to non-disclosure under POL § 87(2)(g). Additionally, those records are simultaneously exempt from disclosure pursuant to POL § 87(2)(b) (the “personal privacy exemption”), which exempts records, or portions thereof, that “if disclosed would constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy under the provisions of subdivision two of section eighty-nine of the [Public Officers Law].” Determining whether disclosure would constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy requires balancing the competing interests of public access and individual privacy. See Dobranski v. Houper, 154 A.D.2d 736 (3d Dep’t 1989). Here, the Department is withholding the personal information mentioned above because the interest of keeping that information private outweighs the competing interest of providing public access to that information. Such information about private citizens is of a personal nature and disclosure of the information would not serve any governmental purpose consistent with the intent of FOIL. See Goyer v. New York State Dep’t of Envtl. Conservation, 12 Misc.3d 261 (Sup. Ct. N.Y. County 2005). Consequently, the Department is not disclosing that information pursuant to Public Officers Law § 87(2)(b). In accordance with POL § 89(4), you may appeal this determination within 30 days by sending an email to FOIL.Appeals(a)dfs.ny.gov. Very truly yours, Pascale Jean-Baptiste FOIL Officer ---------- Forwarded message --------- From: JeanBaptiste, Pascale (DFS) <Pascale.JeanBaptiste(a)dfs.ny.gov> Date: Thu, Jan 19, 2023, 9:50 AM Subject: FOIL Request No. 2022-092267 - Larson To: Gunnar Larson <g(a)xny.io> Cc: Garrett, Carmen (DFS) <Carmen.Garrett(a)dfs.ny.gov> Good Morning: Please see the attached determination in response to your FOIL request. Thank you.

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[ai] Human-speed acquisition of new spacial world tasks published by DeepMind
by Undescribed Horrific Abuse, One Victim & Survivor of Many 19 Jan '23

19 Jan '23

Source not public. The approach combines a handful of existing technologies. https://sites.google.com/view/adaptive-agent/

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A Sam Bankman-Fried Company Loaned or Invested More than $1 Billion in Clients of its Law Firm, Sullivan & Cromwell
by Gunnar Larson 19 Jan '23

19 Jan '23

https://wallstreetonparade.com/2023/01/a-sam-bankman-fried-company-loaned-o… By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: January 17, 2023 ~ Sam Bankman-Fried Sam Bankman-Fried In a January 12 Substack column penned by Sam Bankman-Fried, the indicted co-founder and former CEO of collapsed crypto exchange, FTX, he writes that “When I would visit NYC, I would sometimes work out of S&C’s office.” S&C is shorthand for the 144-year old Big Law firm, Sullivan & Cromwell, which has come under withering media attention for attempting to steamroll its way into the position of lead counsel in the FTX bankruptcy proceedings – including investigating its own conduct as outside counsel to Sam Bankman-Fried and his byzantine collection of crypto companies. Wall Street On Parade has been covering the mushrooming conflicts of interest held by Sullivan & Cromwell since two days after FTX (and its herd of more than 100 related companies) filed their Chapter 11 bankruptcy petition on November 11. Today, we will shine an even brighter light on those conflicts. The 8-count criminal indictment against Sam Bankman-Fried by the U.S. Department of Justice makes it clear that pretty much everything Sam Bankman-Fried did involving electronic business communications from 2019 to November 2022 was wire fraud deployed to misappropriate customer deposits and use “those deposits to pay expenses and debts of Alameda Research, Bankman-Fried’s proprietary crypto hedge fund, and to make investments” in other companies, most of which were crypto related. If Bankman-Fried was on the premises of Sullivan & Cromwell during that span of time, which appears highly likely since he came to New York for meetings and speaking engagements, there is also the strong likelihood that he engaged in the alleged wire fraud from their premises. Just being on the premises of Sullivan & Cromwell and using their phones or wi-fi without their knowledge to commit wire fraud might not be a fatal conflict against the law firm, were it not for the fact that Wall Street On Parade has discovered that an inordinate amount of Sullivan & Cromwell’s other current clients appear to have received more than $1 billion of FTX’s misappropriated customer funds. On December 21, Sullivan & Cromwell filed a large document with the FTX bankruptcy court which included (scroll down) a Declaration by S&C partner Andrew Dietderich. Included in that Declaration was a list of current and former S&C clients who had relationships with FTX and its related companies. Dietderich provided no specificity on those relationships other than a one-word or two-word description, such as “vendor,” “contract counterparty,” “investments,” “competitor,” etc. Wall Street On Parade cross-checked those S&C current clients which were designated by the law firm as “contract counterparty” or “investments” with public records and an internal FTX document published by the Financial Times showing investments made by Sam Bankfried-Fried’s hedge fund, Alameda Research, or its affiliated units. We discovered seven clients of Sullivan & Cromwell had received loans or investment funds. Sullivan & Cromwell told the bankruptcy court in a filing that it “is not aware of any conflict between its representation of the Debtors and its representations of its Current Clients or Former Clients that would cause S&C not to be a ‘disinterested person.’ ” But if the funds involved were looted from FTX customers, the funds may have to be clawed back and S&C is hardly in a position to be trusted demanding claw backs from its own customers. This is what Wall Street On Parade found: (All current client listings are as of December 21, 2022, according to Sullivan & Cromwell.) BlockFi BlockFi is another crypto exchange that is a current client of Sullivan & Cromwell. It filed for bankruptcy in November and its court filings indicate that it blames FTX for its own bankruptcy. BlockFi revealed to the court that FTX and Alameda Research owe BlockFi more than $1 billion, consisting of $680 million in a loan that Alameda has defaulted on and $355 million in funds frozen on the FTX crypto exchange. Anchorage: Sullivan & Cromwell lists Anchorage as a current client. Anchorage provides infrastructure for institutions to enable crypto custody, exchange, staking and other services. According to the document obtained by the Financial Times, Clifton Bay Investments (formerly known as Alameda Research Ventures) provided $20 million as an equity investment in Anchorage. Public records put the date of that investment in or around December of 2021 – well within the timeframe when federal prosecutors say Sam Bankman-Fried was using customer funds to finance investments by Alameda Research and its venture fund units. Aptos: Aptos, a blockchain startup by former Facebook employees, is also listed as a current client of Sullivan & Cromwell. The internal document published by the Financial Times indicates Aptos received $75 million from Clifton Bay Investments, formerly known as Alameda Research Ventures. News reports put the date of the investment in or around July 2022. ConsenSys: ConsenSys is a blockchain technology company and a current client of Sullivan & Cromwell. According to a press release from the company, it received funding from Alameda Research, along with others, in April 2021. The Financial Times internal document indicates that the funding came in the form of a $750,000 convertible note. (Wall Street mega banks, JPMorgan Chase and UBS, also participated in that funding round. Both are listed as current clients of Sullivan & Cromwell.) Fanatics: Fanatics is a sports merchandising and sports trading card company. Sullivan & Cromwell lists it as a current client. According to the internal document published by the Financial Times, Fanatics received a $10 million equity investment from Alameda Research Ventures (a/k/a Clifton Bay Investments). The date of that investment could not be determined. Polygon Network: Polygon Network is an Ethereum blockchain platform for scaling and infrastructure development. According to TechCrunch, Alameda Research participated in a funding round that occurred in February 2022. The Financial Times’ internal document from FTX characterizes the investment as $50 million invested in a token. The Polygon Network funding round was led by Sequoia Capital, another current client of Sullivan & Cromwell, which had itself invested $210 million in Sam Bankman-Fried’s now collapsed FTX crypto exchange. According to CNBC, Sequoia Capital marked its FTX investment down to zero in November. Rocket: There are a number of companies that carry the name “Rocket.” We were unable to determine which “Rocket” company Sullivan & Cromwell has indicated is its client. The Financial Times internal document indicates that “Rocket” received $150,000 from Alameda Ventures (a/k/a Maclaurin Investments). As Wall Street On Parade previously reported, Sullivan & Cromwell also represents four of FTX’s major competitors: BlockFi, Coinbase, Gemini, and Kraken; a former Sullivan & Cromwell partner, Ryne Miller, was serving as General Counsel of FTX US at the time it imploded into bankruptcy; and at least 16 Sullivan & Cromwell attorneys did legal work for FTX and/or Alameda Research prior to the bankruptcy filing. Four sitting U.S. Senators have filed a letter with the FTX bankruptcy court raising alarms about Sullivan & Cromwell’s conflicts; the Justice Department’s U.S. Trustee overseeing the bankruptcy proceedings has also raised multiple concerns about Sullivan & Cromwell’s conflicts. An FTX customer, Warren Winter, has filed a scathing objection with the court to Sullivan & Cromwell serving as lead counsel. Winter’s attorneys write as follows: “Sullivan & Cromwell was one of the FTX Group’s ‘primary external law firms’ before the FTX Group collapsed. To date, the FTX Group has paid the firm more than $20.5 million in fees and retainers. Now, in the most flagrant attempt by a fox to guard a henhouse in recent memory, Sullivan & Cromwell has applied to be appointed the FTX Group’s bankruptcy counsel with duties that would include ‘investigating all potential estate causes of action.’ But it has revealed almost nothing about its prepetition work for Sam Bankman-Fried’s fraudulent enterprise — and failed to disclose or elided glaring conflicts of interest.” Winter goes on to reveal the following to Judge Dorsey: “Two former Sullivan & Cromwell lawyers are General Counsel to FTX Group entities. Sullivan & Cromwell did not disclose these connections in its Application and therefore violated Federal Rule of Bankruptcy Procedure 2014, which requires a statement ‘all of [the firm’s] connections with the debtor … [and the debtor’s] attorneys.’ What’s more, disclosed or not, these connections create a conflict of interest and are disqualifying. FTX US General Counsel Ryne Miller is a former partner at Sullivan & Cromwell…Miller is alleged to have played a key role— perhaps the key role—in wresting control of the FTX Group from Sam BankmanFried and directing this extremely valuable bankruptcy matter to his former firm. According to Bankman-Fried, and supported by what appears to be genuine evidence, Miller proclaimed to have usurped control of the FTX Group by November 8th. He immediately secured a $12 million retainer for his former firm and allegedly mounted an ‘extreme pressure’ campaign to put the FTX Group into bankruptcy with Sullivan & Cromwell and its hand-picked CEO at the helm. “FTX Ventures General Counsel Tim Wilson is another former Sullivan & Cromwell lawyer. The Securities and Exchange Commission has alleged that FTX Ventures made at least $200 million in venture-capital investments using customer funds that had been misappropriated through Alameda Research….” Thus far, the Judge hearing the FTX bankruptcy case, John Dorsey, has allowed Sullivan & Cromwell to step into the shoes as lead counsel pending a formal order to be taken up at a future hearing. Judge Dorsey dismissed the letter from the four U.S. Senators as “inappropriate,” rather than recognizing it as a siren call that a four-alarm crypto fire is out of control in his courtroom.

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Hakim Bey / Karl Marx friendly anarchists go fuck yourself
by professor rat 19 Jan '23

19 Jan '23

Curiously, the obituary and final works became fixated on defending the right of adults to have sex with children partway through. (This is not typical of most obituaries I have read, although I suppose perhaps there is a grand tradition of praising the radical liberation of fucking teenagers in obituaries that I am unaware of.) The full document and “last writings” closed by quoting Hakim Bey at length. . . ." How did multiple reputable anarchist organizations fail to notice they were publishing a pedophilia manifesto? https://anarchistnews.org/content/elephant-room-0 Objection - reputable anarchist organizations assumes facts not in evidence. Hakim Bey Karl Marx anarchists go fuck yourselves https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/append.htm A general prohibition of child labor is incompatible with the existence of large-scale industry and hence an empty, pious wish. Its realization – if it were possible – would be reactionary . . ." Reposts not endorsements of child slavery and associated exploiters ( Hi Karl! )

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[draft][crazy] How I took down a blockchain as a visiting developer
by Undescribed Horrific Abuse, One Victim & Survivor of Many 19 Jan '23

19 Jan '23

It seems like this would be a good share. I don’t know if anyone is still here to read it, so maybe a spamdraft makes sense.

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