January 2023 - cypherpunks@lists.ogf.org

Cryptocurrency: Solves Problems Govts Banks And Politicians Create
by grarpamp 03 Jan '23

03 Jan '23

2023: You Wanted Endless Stimulus, You Got Stagflation Authored by Daniel Lacalle 2023. Stagflation After Failed Stimulus. After more than $20 trillion in stimulus plans since 2020, the economy is going into stagnation with elevated inflation. Global governments announced more than $12 trillion in stimulus measures in 2020 alone, and central banks bloated their balance sheet by $8 trillion. The result was disappointing and with long-lasting negative effects. Weak recovery, record debt and elevated inflation. Of course, governments all over the world blamed the Ukraine invasion on the non-existent multiplier effect of the stimulus plans, but the excuse made no sense. Commodity prices rose from February to June 2022 and have corrected since. Even considering the negative effect of rising commodity prices in developed economies, we must acknowledge that those are positives for emerging economies and, even with that boost, the disappointing recovery led to constant downgrades of estimates. If Keynesian multipliers existed, most developed economies would be growing strongly even discounting the Ukraine invasion impact, considering the unprecedented amount of stimulus plans approved. Now we face a 2023 with even more disappointing estimates. According to Bloomberg Economics, global growth will decline from a poor 3.2% in 2022 to a worrying 2.4% in 2023, significantly below the pre-covid-19 trend but with higher global debt. Total global debt rose by $3.3 trillion in Q1 2022 to a new record of over $305 trillion-mostly due to China and the U.S., according to the IIF. However, consensus estimates show an even worse outlook. Global growth should stall at +1.8%, with the euro area at zero growth and the United States at just 0.3%, with inflation reaching 6% globally, 6.1% in the euro area, and 4.1% in the United States. Only a handful of countries are expected to reduce debt in 2023, with most nations continuing to finance bloated government spending with elevated deficits and tax hikes. A world where governments are constantly eroding the purchasing power of currencies and slashing disposable income of taxpayers with rising taxes is likely to show weaker growth trends and worsening imbalances. The narrative all over the world is to try and convince us that past-peak but elevated inflation is “falling prices” and that everything is good when debt increases, growth stalls and the purchasing power of salaries and savings is wiped out slowly. There is no success in stagflation. It is a process of impoverishment that hurts the middle classes immensely while the excessive government spending is never curbed. 2022 was the year that killed MMT, the science-fiction fallacy of Modern Monetary Theory. Countries with monetary sovereignty like Japan or the UK found themselves in an unprecedented turmoil created by the illusion that rising deficit and debt would never cause significant problems. It only took a few rate hikes to dismantle the illusion of perennial money printing as the solution to everything. 2022 also showed that it is false that massive deficits are reserves that strengthen the economy. The United States suffered the most severe inflation blow in thirty years even being energy independent and benefitting from exporting natural gas and oil to the rest of the world. If the ludicrous MMT narrative was true, the United States should have not suffered any inflationary pressure. 2023 is expected to be the year of stagflation. Of course, most strategists are betting on inflation falling rapidly in the second part of the year, but that seems inconsistent with their estimates of deficit spending and growth. The uncomfortable reality is that nations have created a long-lasting decline by pushing the limits on demand-side policies and government intervention. Many celebrated the decision to use governments and central banks as the lenders of first resort instead of the last option, and what has been created is a problem with difficult solutions. There seems to be no incentive to reduce the fiscal and monetary imbalances built through two decades, and therefore the result will be weaker growth and impoverishment. No government wants to acknowledge the risk of central banks reducing their balance sheet. Even the most aggressive strategist fails to dare to estimate a three trillion US dollar quantitative tightening because they all know that the effects could be devastating. However, to truly normalize, central banks should reduce their balance sheet by at least five trillion US dollars. Governments and investment banks fear a gradual three trillion tightening because it can lead to a financial crisis. Those same market participants know that a five trillion tightening would undoubtedly lead to a financial crisis. The reason why everyone expects a 2023 divided in two parts, a first half of poor data and a second where growth picks up and inflation plummets, is because market participants need to create a narrative that shows a quick fix to the above-mentioned disaster. However, there is no quick fix, there is no soft landing and there is not a chance of solving the problem by keeping elevated deficits, massive central bank balance sheets and real negative rates. If we want to look at the options, there are only two: Fixing the problem created in 2020, which means a global recession but probably not a financial crisis, or not fixing it, which means elevated inflation, weaker growth and another bad year for risky assets which can lead to a financial crisis. Unfortunately, when governments all over the world decided to “spend now and deal with the consequences later” in 2020 they also created the seeds of a 2008-style problem.

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Hacks: Govt ID Systems Sold Via Auction Sites
by grarpamp 03 Jan '23

03 Jan '23

Ever notice how the narrative is always "OMG, must protect it better, moar, moar, moar" instead of "Fuck, end it all as being evil, was never needed or right approach or freedom in the first place." Always about Gov Mil Agent Informer lives, never about peoples. "The Consequences Could Be Fatal": Abandoned US Military Equipment Found On Ebay Risks Afghan Lives After the Biden administration's chaotic withdrawal from transfer of power to the Taliban in Afghanistan, abandoned US military equipment which contain biometric data have been popping up on Ebay. A Secure Electronic Enrollment Kit, or SEEK II, purchased by German researchers on eBay.Credit...Andreas Meichsner for The New York Times Over the past year, German security researcher Matthias Marx and a small group of researchers at Chaos Computer Lab, a European hacker association, have bought six SEEK II (Secure Electronic Enrollment Kit) on the popular auction website, according to the NY Times. The device, built as part of the Pentagon's vast biometric collection expansion following the Sept. 11, 2011 attacks, has a tiny screen, a little keyboard, and a mouse pad. It also contains a thumbprint reader under a hinged plastic lid, an iris scanner, and a camera. They contained biometric data at detainment facilities, on patrols, during screenings of local hires, and after the explosion of an IED. Officials at the time were concerned over a rash of shooting in which Afghan police and soldiers fired on American troops, and were hoping that biometric data could help identify any possible Taliban agents within their bases. The shoebox-shaped device, designed to capture fingerprints and perform iris scans, was listed on eBay for $149.95. A German security researcher, Matthias Marx, successfully offered $68, and when it arrived at his home in Hamburg in August, the rugged, hand-held machine contained more than what was promised in the listing. The device’s memory card held the names, nationalities, photographs, fingerprints and iris scans of 2,632 people. Most people in the database, which was reviewed by The New York Times, were from Afghanistan and Iraq. Many were known terrorists and wanted individuals, but others appeared to be people who had worked with the U.S. government or simply been stopped at checkpoints. Metadata on the device, called a Secure Electronic Enrollment Kit, or SEEK II, revealed that it had last been used in the summer of 2012 near Kandahar, Afghanistan. -NY Times In response to the story, Defense Department spox Brig. Gen. Patrick S. Ryder said: "Because we have not reviewed the information contained on the devices, the department is not able to confirm the authenticity of the alleged data or otherwise comment on it," adding "The department requests that any devices thought to contain personally identifiable information be returned for further analysis." "It was disturbing that they didn’t even try to protect the data," said Marx. "They didn’t care about the risk, or they ignored the risk." Mr. Marx used the SEEK II to scan his fingerprint.Credit...Andreas Meichsner for The New York Times DC lawyer Stewart Baker, a former national security official, said that the biometric devices were useful tools in war zones, but that the data collected needed to be kept under control. He suggested that a data breach would "make a lot of people who helped the U.S. and are still in Afghanistan really uncomfortable." "This should not have happened," Baker added. "It is a disaster for the people whose data is exposed. In the worst cases, the consequences could be fatal." Of the six devices the researchers bought on eBay — four SEEKs and two HIIDEs, for Handheld Interagency Identity Detection Equipment — two of the SEEK II devices had sensitive data on them. The second SEEK II, with location metadata showing it was last used in Jordan in 2013, appeared to contain the fingerprints and iris scans of a small group of U.S. service members. -NY Times In one case, an American's biometric data was found in one of the databases. He was formerly a Marine intelligence specialist who still works in intelligence, and said that his data was most likely collected during a military training course. He asked that his biometric file be deleted. According to the Defense Logistics Agency, which is tasked with equipment disposal, the SEEK II and HIIDE devices never should have made it to the open market. Gear such as this is supposed to be destroyed on-site when no longer needed by the military. One of the Ebay sellers, surplus equipment reseller Rhino Trade, said they bought the SEEK II at a military auction of government equipment and did not realize it had sensitive data on it. "I hope we didn't do anything wrong," said David Mendez, the company's treasurer. "The irresponsible handling of this high-risk technology is unbelievable," said Marx. "It is incomprehensible to us that the manufacturer and former military users do not care that used devices with sensitive data are being hawked online."

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Karl - can youse show us on this map where the bad men groomed you for male slavery?
by professor rat 03 Jan '23

03 Jan '23

https://marginalrevolution.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/OL-borders-1.jpg Is it in this frame? We only wants what best for you, Karlie

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Bitcoin Storage – The ZeroTrust System
by professor rat 03 Jan '23

03 Jan '23

If you think quantum mechanics is counter-intuitive wait to you see zero-knowledge-proofs https://armantheparman.com/zerotrust/ Reposts engender zero-trust agent Starling

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Anarchists Decry E-Govt As A Valid Quality Of Internet
by grarpamp 03 Jan '23

03 Jan '23

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/cp/ranking-countries-by-digital-quality-of… https://www.visualcapitalist.com/mapped-billion-people-without-access-to-el… https://surfshark.com/dql2022 The DQL Index covers 117 countries with readily available data, making up 92% of the global population. Each country is scored on five pillars: ... Electronic Government - How advanced and digitized a country’s government services are.

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Cryptocurrency: Is The Clean Money, Subject Only To Freedom, Not GovPolCorp Corruption
by grarpamp 03 Jan '23

03 Jan '23

Why A Bitcoin Ban In The EU Is Likely... And Stupid https://bitcoinmagazine.com/culture/eu-will-likely-ban-bitcoin-to-no-avail Bitcoin is under attack. It is increasingly seen as a “dirty currency.” Elon Musk’s Tesla, Wikipedia, Greenpeace and other organizations have stopped accepting BTC for their products or as a means to donate money. Musk, who is not only one of the richest but also one of the most controversial people on this planet, has said: “Cryptocurrency is a good idea on many levels, and we believe it has a promising future, but this cannot come at great cost to the environment.” Ouch. And it’s not just Musk. Politicians have also taken aim at Bitcoin. Before the European Commission’s Markets in Crypto-Asset Regulation (MiCA) regulation was passed, it caused quite a stir within the Bitcoin community, especially due to the left-wing factions of the EU Parliament that were opposed to proof of work (PoW) and the power consumption of the Bitcoin network. In the trilogue, a version of MiCA was finally passed that did not ban PoW or mining. As became known in April 2022, some members of the European Parliament (MEPs) tried to push through a ban on bitcoin mining and one on BTC trading in the course of the draft law. Luckily, they failed. However, the foundations for further steps have been laid. For example, the issuers of cryptocurrencies, which we know are mostly simply tech startups, will be obliged to deliver some kind of report on the energy consumption and the associated carbon footprint of the respective asset. Brokers and exchanges, in turn, must inform their customers about these exact figures when they purchase crypto assets. The increasing aversion to Bitcoin also gained traction through an anti-Bitcoin Greenpeace USA campaign launched in March, which was financed by Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen, among others. Interestingly, Greenpeace accepted bitcoin donations between 2014 and 2021 until they were put on hold due to environmental concerns. FACT: #Bitcoin mining is driving millions of tons of new global warming pollution in the US MYTH: Burning "waste" methane can green bitcoin REALITY: Burning waste gas does nothing to reduce fossil fuel consumption and is even keeping old gas wells open https://t.co/o4Er21GVoo — Greenpeace USA (@greenpeaceusa) October 17, 2022 NEARLY HALF OF THE EU PARLIAMENT DOESN’T LIKE BITCOIN As mentioned, a mining or trading ban for Bitcoin didn’t make it into the MiCA legislation. However, it is very unlikely that members of the EU parliament who tried to implement this in MiCA will give up — we can assume the contrary. In March 2022, the economic and monetary affairs (ECON) committee in the EU parliament voted against a ban on PoW. Thirty-two members voted against it, 24 in favor. The topic seems to become more and more ideologically driven, as the Social Democrats, the Greens, and the left mostly wanted a PoW ban, whereas the Conservatives, the Liberals and right-wing factions tended to vote against it. 15/ Here is a detailed overview of how all the MEPs voted for the final vote (not only single amendments, but entire draft) pic.twitter.com/Z0i5DRI1bw — Patrick Hansen (@paddi_hansen) March 14, 2022 The final MiCA draft created by conservative MEP Stefan Berger included a compromise: Instead of a ban on PoW, they agreed on including a rating system for cryptocurrency to assess their environmental impacts (more on that later). In an email conversation with Politico, the Spanish Green EU parliament member Ernest Urtasun explained: “Creating an EU labeling system for crypto will not solve the problem as long as crypto-mining can continue outside the Union, also driven by EU demand… The Commission should rather focus on developing minimum sustainability standards with a clear timeline to comply.” And he added: “Ethereum’s recent upgrade just showed that phasing out from environmentally harmful protocols is actually feasible, without causing any disruption to the network.” THE ECB DOESN’T LIKE BITCOIN — AT ALL While we see different opinions on Bitcoin in the European Parliament, the signals we’re getting from the European Central Bank (ECB) are very clear. The ECB is issuing warnings about cryptocurrencies on a regular basis, naming their “exorbitant carbon footprint” as “grounds for concern”. Just recently, on November 30, 2022, the ECB published a blog post titled “Bitcoin’s Last Stand.” In it, ECB’s Market Infrastructure And Payments Director General Ulrich Bindseil and advisor Jürgen Schaff argue that, “Bitcoin's conceptual design and technological shortcomings make it questionable as a means of payment.” According to Bindseil and Schaff, Bitcoin transactions are “cumbersome, slow and expensive,” which they say explains why the world’s largest cryptocurrency — created to overcome the existing monetary and financial system — "has never been used to any significant extent for legal real-world transactions.” Bindseil and Schaff added that since Bitcoin is neither an effective payment system nor a form of investment, “it should be treated as neither in regulatory terms and thus should not be legitimized.” While it may seem paradoxical to very vocally attack something that is on the “road to irrelevance,” it is not the first time that the ECB has attacked Bitcoin. 10 years ago today, the ECB wrote in its first report on #bitcoin: "In an extreme case, virtual currencies could have a substitution effect on central bank money if they become widely accepted." pic.twitter.com/aPACJlds3G — Tuur Demeester (@TuurDemeester) October 21, 2022 In July 2022, the ECB singled out Bitcoin in a research article and compared proof of work to fossil fuel cars while considering proof of stake as more akin to electric vehicles. Let’s ignore for a minute that this doesn’t make sense and look at what it wrote in detail: “Public authorities should not stifle innovation, as it is a driver of economic growth. Although the benefit for society of bitcoin itself is doubtful, blockchain technology in principle may provide yet unknown benefits and technological applications. Hence, authorities could choose not to intervene with a view to supporting digital innovation. At the same time, it is difficult to see how authorities could opt to ban petrol cars over a transition period but turn a blind eye to bitcoin-type assets built on PoW technology, with country-sized energy consumption footprints and yearly carbon emissions that currently negate most euro area countries’ past and target GHG saving. This holds especially given that an alternative, less energy-intensive blockchain technology exists.” In general, the ECB believes it’s highly unlikely that the European Union will not take action in terms of carbon emissions on PoW-based assets like bitcoin. The authors of the paper argue that in their view it’s likely that the EU will take similar steps on phasing out PoW as they are doing with fossil fuel cars. Especially since, according to them, an “alternative, less energy-intensive” technology like PoS exists. “To continue with the car analogy, public authorities have the choice of incentivising the crypto version of the electric vehicle (PoS and its various blockchain consensus mechanisms) or to restrict or ban the crypto version of the fossil fuel car (PoW blockchain consensus mechanisms). So, while a hands-off approach by public authorities is possible, it is highly unlikely, and policy action by authorities (e.g. disclosure requirements, carbon tax on crypto transactions or holdings, or outright bans on mining) is probable. The price impact on the crypto-assets targeted by policy action is likely to be commensurate with the severity of the policy action and whether it is a global or regional measure.” The vast majority of citizens are used to thinking of money as something other than what it really is, and the ECB is also to blame for this. Money is perceived as something that has value by itself, instead of something whose value comes from the interaction between the people who use it. The euro is subject to both constant changes (regular inflation) and traumatic events (devaluations, forced exchange rates, etc.), but these are ignored or otherwise underestimated. People believe they own it, although they can only exchange it for other things. For how many and for what things will 100 euros be exchanged in one year, five years or ten years? This is, in no way, up to us. Its exchange function is constantly changing due to factors we cannot control. The interaction between those who use it is the main factor and, in turn, this interaction depends on economic and monetary policy rules that few people know about. Bitcoin escapes these rules (and this is the reason why the ECB wants to ban it), it is just code that the ECB and the regulators are trying to make useless. Bitcoin also and above all expresses its value through features that are totally independent of a government’s power and, therefore, the ECBs. WHAT WILL HAPPEN NEXT? In 2025, we will see a rating system for cryptocurrencies according to their environmental impact within the European Union — think energy labels for fridges or TVs. You can already expect that bitcoin will get the worst classification. This step will essentially be positive for Ethereum and bad for Bitcoin. Source It’s quite unlikely that such a label will scare off investors from buying bitcoin, especially since the Bitcoin community is saying that the Bitcoin network is not an obstacle but a solution for more green energy. Therefore, the Bitcoin mining industry has the incentive to become greener: The fossil fuel analogy in the ECB paper makes no sense. The energy mix of a PoW network like Bitcoin can come entirely from renewable, green sources. Bitcoin can serve as a way to immediately monetize energy, as is already happening with flared gas that would be flared anyway. However, it’s questionable how fast and effective this effort will be to policymakers, especially since fossil energy companies like Exxon are now mining Bitcoin using flared gas. The authors of the ECB paper are already implying that a higher bitcoin price equals more energy consumption, as more miners will participate. Destroying demand for bitcoin would hence be an effective solution to bring down the hash rate. At least in theory. CONCLUSION The academic and political consensus seems to point toward something like trying to retire the “old” PoW, and moving towards the “new” PoS standard. Particularly since Ethereum’s recent merge, many bystanders believe this could be a viable path for the Bitcoin network. We doubt that and plan to elaborate on that in a future post. As we’ve seen in different scenarios, banning Bitcoin is hard, if not impossible. The Nigerian government tried, failed and eventually gave up, for instance. It will be quite a while until 2025, and with an energy crisis, increased focus on carbon emission as well as global uncertainty overall, the only thing we can do at this point is to expect the unexpected. Even if the worst-case scenario happens, and we see a Bitcoin ban of some sort happen in the EU, we doubt that this will hold forever. Bitcoin does not ask for permission. Bitcoin is something that ontologically struggles to stay inside a fence. It is not an idea derived from anarchist positions, it is an argument derived from the inherent characteristics of the technology introduced by Satoshi Nakamoto. The regulators work in an authorizing logic and so it is clear that they struggle to intercept the Bitcoin phenomenon, which functions regardless of someone else’s permission.

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The Stone - Assmange Twitter exchange
by professor rat 03 Jan '23

03 Jan '23

The Stone-Assmange Twitter exchange *again* proved Assange incompetent to run a site like WL ( again - as his Swedish exchange first proved ) and it also - again! - proved him totally incompetent as any sort of good-faith activist ( as his RT episodes in 2012 proved earlier ) TSTBALAA Too Stupid To Be an Activist Let Alone Anarchist. Fascism is not to be debated - it is to be smashed ( Bueno Venn Durruti )

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Cease and desist letter sent to the NASA and all Muskovites
by professor rat 03 Jan '23

03 Jan '23

A voice of sweet reason on Mars! https://idlewords.com/2023/1/why_not_mars.htm The goal of this essay is to persuade you that we shouldn’t send human beings to Mars, at least not anytime soon. Landing on Mars with existing technology would be a destructive, wasteful stunt whose only legacy would be to ruin the greatest natural history experiment in the Solar System Reposts sent in good faith for better outcomes moving forward.

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Behold our encrypted universe C3-PO!
by professor rat 03 Jan '23

03 Jan '23

Our quantum encrypted PKI universe, C3-PO! Charles K. Rhodes 2003 - Cryptographic Unification of Mass and Space https://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/S0217751X03016392?journalCo… 2010 - Cryptographic Theoretical Calculation of the Fine-Structure Constant https://arxiv.org/abs/1008.4537 2012 - Direct Cryptographic Computation of the Cosmological Constant ( PDF ) https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1212/1212.5941.pdf PDF supplied as is ( slippery muthafuckas don't trust em )

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Atlanta rapper Gunna released after pleading guilty to RICO charge
by Gunnar Larson 02 Jan '23

02 Jan '23

https://www.wsbtv.com/news/local/atlanta/rapper-gunna-enters-plea-deal-rack… ATLANTA — Atlanta rapper Gunna has been released from jail after he pleaded guilty to a racketeering conspiracy charge in a sweeping gang indictment against him, rapper Young Thug and several other alleged members of the Young Slime Life criminal street gang.

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