- cypherpunks@lists.ogf.org

Evidence Grows that Crypto and Federally-Insured Banks Are a Combustible Mixture
by Gunnar Larson 23 Nov '22

23 Nov '22

https://wallstreetonparade.com/2022/11/evidence-grows-that-crypto-and-feder… The fallout from the collapse of the crypto exchange FTX and its missing billions of dollars of customer funds has, finally, galvanized some members of Congress to push back against the swarms of crypto lobbyists whose activities are clearly impacting the safety and soundness of U.S. banks. On Monday, Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Chair of the Senate Banking Committee, along with Senators Jack Reed (D-RI), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), and Tina Smith (D-MN), sent a letter to federal banking regulators warning that SoFi, a federally-insured bank, potentially posed a risk to safety and soundness as a result of its digital asset trading activities. The Senators wrote as follows: “In January 2022, SoFi received approval from the Federal Reserve for the acquisition of Golden Pacific Bancorp, Inc. and a conditional approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency for the creation of SoFi Bank, N.A. SoFi completed the acquisition in February 2022. As part of the approval, the Federal Reserve provided SoFi with two years to divest from SoFi Digital Assets — a nonbank subsidiary that allows retail investors to buy and sell digital assets — or conform the subsidiary’s impermissible digital asset activities to the law. During this conformance period, SoFi has committed not to ‘expand [its] impermissible activities,’ except as specifically authorized by law. SoFi initially agreed to these terms, but since the acquisition, SoFi Digital Assets has apparently expanded its retail digital assets operations. “Two months after receiving regulatory approval, SoFi announced a new service allowing customers of its national bank to invest part of every direct deposit into digital assets with no fees. The company publicly billed this service as ‘the latest expansion of SoFi’s offerings to make it simpler to get started with cryptocurrency investing.’ SoFi’s own investor protection materials, however, warn customers that at least one token listed on SoFi Digital Assets is ‘a crypto pump-and-dump’ hazard with ‘no special use case or features’ and that ‘[it] might be among the most high-risk endeavors an investor can take.’ Troublingly, this conduct raises questions about SoFi’s compliance with commitments made in the January 2022 approvals and to meeting its ongoing obligations as a banking organization. “SoFi’s digital asset activities pose significant risks to both individual investors and safety and soundness. As we saw with the crypto meltdown this summer, where crypto-assets lost over $1 trillion in value in a matter of weeks, contagion in the banking system was limited because of regulatory guardrails. In the event of crypto-related exposures at SoFi Digital Assets ultimately require its parent company, bank holding company, or affiliated national bank to seek emergency liquidity or other financial assistance from the Federal Reserve or FDIC, taxpayers may be on the hook. Your agencies have publicly acknowledged these types of crypto-related risks. In fact, the Fed issued guidance detailing the risks posed by crypto-asset related activities to cybersecurity, anti-money laundering and countering of financing of terrorism efforts, consumer protection, and financial stability. Similarly, the OCC called out the volatility of crypto activities and the risks of the crypto ‘hype-driven economy’ to investors of modest means, and the FDIC issued an advisory warning of the risks to consumers when crypto companies misrepresent the availability of deposit insurance for crypto assets.” The Senators asked the banking regulators to force SoFi to comply with “all consumer financial protection and banking regulations.” You can read the letter to the banking regulators here and the very strong letter to SoFi’s CEO, Anthony Noto, here. How did the U.S. banking system become the playground of crypto billionaires? The answer is that they had a lot of help from some Republican members of Congress who sit on the Senate Banking and House Financial Services Committees. We have, to our repulsion, watched these Senators and Reps shill for the crypto industry during hearings for years as if they are actually the industry’s registered lobbyists. See our report: As Bitcoin Crashes 34 Percent in a Week, U.S. Congressman Ted Budd Pushes Bank Regulator to Approve More Crypto National Bank Charters. (God help us all, Ted Budd (R-NC) was elected as a U.S. Senator from North Caroline in the midterm election this month.) Another big shill for the crypto industry is Pat Toomey (R-PA), who, thankfully, has decided to retire from Congress. This is what Toomey had to say about crypto at a Senate Banking hearing last week: “I want to follow up on a comment the Chairman made. I think I heard the Chairman refer to crypto as ‘risky new financial products’ and the insinuation was that they might have the ability to crash our financial system. “I think there’s a really important distinction that I want to underscore here. If you look at what happened with FTX, at least what appears to have happened by a very extensive coverage, this is fundamentally not about the kind of assets that were held by FTX. It’s about what individuals did with those assets. “There are a lot of corollaries. There are a lot of analogies here. One comes to mind. In 2011 MF Global commodity brokerage firm, it was run by former New Jersey Senator Jon Corzine. It collapsed after customers funds were misappropriated to fill a shortfall caused by the firm’s exposure to some trading that went south. Now, nobody suggested that the problem was the instruments that were used. The problem was the use of customers funds. Similarly, the 2008 financial crisis involved disastrous consequences with what people were doing with mortgages. Did we decide we gotta ban mortgages? Of course not.” Toomey, like most other crypto shills, has the ability to sound like he’s making the most sensible arguments that any intelligent person could make. But on closer examination, every single point he makes in the three paragraphs above collapses as quickly as FTX. Let’s start with the statement that “this is fundamentally not about the kind of assets that were held by FTX.” In reality, this is totally about the kind of assets that were held by FTX – and used to perpetuate a fraud. The speed at which the fraud unraveled is also totally “about the kind of assets.” What Sam Bankman-Fried, co-founder and CEO of FTX, did with the help of his closest colleagues, was to create their own magic money. It was a crypto token called FTT. It was backed by nothing more than the hyped reputation of FTX, its celebrity endorsers, and the fawning media’s coverage of faux billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried. In that sense, FTT functioned much like the “stock” of FTX. The price of FTT soared through a buying binge between FTX and Bankman-Fried’s own hedge fund, Alameda Research. FTT’s price went from less than $4 in December 2020 to more than $84 in September 2021 – a 2,000 percent gain in less than a year. FTT is trading at $1.29 this morning. CNBC explains what was going on with the FTT token as follows: “The source explained that Alameda could post the FTT tokens it held as collateral and borrow customer funds. Even if FTX created more FTT tokens, it would not drive down the coin’s value because these coins never made it onto the open market. As a result, these tokens held their market value, allowing Alameda to borrow against them – essentially receiving free money to trade with. “FTX had been able to sustain this pattern as long as it maintained the price of FTT and there was not a flood of customer withdrawals on the exchange. In the week leading up to the bankruptcy filing, FTX did not have enough assets to match customer withdrawals, the source said.” Reuters reported that Bankman-Fried had moved as much as $10 billion of FTX customers’ money to his hedge fund, Alameda Research, through a “backdoor” in its software. Alameda lost much of the money on wild bets while $1 billion to $2 billion had just “disappeared,” according to Reuters. The Financial Times reported that FTX held just $900 million “in easily sellable assets” against $9 billion “of liabilities the day before it collapsed into bankruptcy.” To attempt to equate what FTX was doing with commodity markets or mortgages is a clever sleight of hand by Toomey. But it fails miserably. Commodities have traded on exchanges for centuries. Home mortgages have been used in the U.S. since the 1930s. Crypto is new and risky and unstable and based on nothing more than thin air in most cases and has been collapsing since almost the moment it was introduced.

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" . . . another cryptocurrency trading platform called Genesis will fall . . ."
by professor rat 23 Nov '22

23 Nov '22

TWIN Towers in NYC considered vulnerable to implosion https://www.npr.org/2022/11/22/1138639733/crypto-contagion-ftx-genesis-bloc… NPR, I know. My bat.

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Formal anarchist organizations considered harmful
by professor rat 23 Nov '22

23 Nov '22

I could never join any anarchist organization that would have me as a member https://anarchopac.com/2021/09/10/when-malatesta-got-shot/ Repost with a grain of saltpeter

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Cryptocurrency: Jamie Dimon's JPMorgan Bows To Kiss The Golden Ass Of Bitcoin
by grarpamp 23 Nov '22

23 Nov '22

Jamie Dimon who spent YEARS bashing crypto while his daughters fill their Gucci bags with Bitcoin, is now a full on SHILL for Crypto... https://cryptonews.net/16490097/ Attn Buffet Munger and Schiff... Bitcoin is coming for you too.

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Re: [ot][spam][crazy][fiction] morning spam 3: hybrid mcboss
by Karl Semich 23 Nov '22

23 Nov '22

On 11/22/22, Karl Semich <0xloem(a)gmail.com> wrote: > Experimentee: "Oh, that's the ... um ... you know it's kind of nice to > see that thing broken." > > Cyborg Torturer: "I keep wanting to jump in and torture. It's broken > in a funny where where I'm like, about to start, but don't have to do > anything, on and on." > > Experimentee: "Yeah, your urge is really strong, uhh, so, um, that > part breaking worked to stop the immediate result I guess." >

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Re: [ot][spam][crazy][fiction] morning spam 3: hybrid mcboss
by Karl Semich 23 Nov '22

23 Nov '22

doing my valued habit of forwarding when i fail to hit the public store On 11/22/22, Karl Semich <0xloem(a)gmail.com> wrote: > --------------------------- > > Experimentee and Rebel Worker 2 sit around Broken Torture Room. >

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Re: [ot][spam][crazy][fiction] morning spam 3: hybrid mcboss
by Karl Semich 23 Nov '22

23 Nov '22

My browser displayed a connection error for the POST request, so I hit refresh. Looks like the first one took.

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[ot][spam] remailer notes
by Undescribed Horrific Abuse, One Victim & Survivor of Many 22 Nov '22

22 Nov '22

I’m reading some of http://www.faqs.org/faqs/privacy/anon-server/faq/use/ . At the moment I’ve read through part3 (but ended up taking notes through the end). I’ve also read a couple list posts. - the faq is considered out of date by many years - there are paid remailer networks people use - a lot of activity regarding windows machines - running a remailer takes a little upkeep - send test messages to alt.test or misc.tes - cypherpunk or type I remailers accept commands and forward messages - they can be crafted in a text editor [1] - commands also accepted in subject line: Subject: remailer-key Subject: remailer-conf Subject: remailer-help Subject: remailer-stats - mixmaster or type II remailers perform onion routing and obfuscation - mixmaster remailers are used with client software rather than manually part 4: - the security of a remailer node relies on its secure administration; hence encrypted hops - the remailer people experienced traffic analysis attacks - at the time of writing of the faq, four newer projects were listed: WOF <http://www.bigfoot.com/~potatoware/wof/>, RadioClash <http://piratech.net/radioclash/>, Publius <http://www.cs.nyu.edu/~waldman/publius/>, Freenet <http://freenet.sourceforge.net/> - “middleman” remailers always add an additional hop if one is not provided - using multiple hops is called “chaining” - for the message to be hidden from basic node and network operators, it must be both encrypted and chained - manual chaining for old type I remailers instructions pasted at [2] - mail2news gateways forward emails to newsgroups nonanonymously - remailers can do this with command: Anon-Post-To: misc.test - mail2news gateways respond to subject line commands: “help” “group” “list RE” where RE is a regexp - mail2news group list replies may leave out many groups actually supported - remailers can barf when too many email headers accumulate - you can abuse open smtp relays to forward mail by checking abuse watch sites, faq explains this (people were probably asking about it, crackers hide this way) part 5 explains remailers’ stats pages part 6: - learn pgp - major remailer clients included quicksilver (windows) and mixmaster (cross-platform) - i searched the list. a newer remailer is yamn (golang): https://sec3.net/yamnhelp/ https://github.com/crooks/yamn crook is his last name. also omnimix on windows: https://www.danner-net.de/om.htm . there’s a newer mixmaster (last update 2021) too: https://github.com/merkinmuffley/mixmaster4096 part 7 - nym servers let you send with a name and reply-to address by registering with them - nym servers don’t need to know who you are. - nym commands must begin with “Config:” - you can configure a nym server to send replies to alt.anonymous.messages - the replies encrypt information to your private key for identification [3] - remember to rotate all keys regularly - usage problems are usually from broken material: nonresponding remailers, nonworking reply blocks. verify each part of config. part 8 - delay time can be set with Latent-Time: +0:00 - sometimes it can take days for a message to go through, but usually this is due to understandable/comprehensible network details - messages can also be dropped for a number of reasons [4] 1: ============ :: Anon-To: news.reporter(a)nbc.com Latent-Time: +0:00 ## Subject: My Company Dumps Toxic Waste I'm writing this anonymously because I don't want to lose my job. My company has, for the past three years... ============ The above message is cut and paste into PGP and encrypted with the chosen remailer's key, say gretchen(a)neuropa.net ============ -----BEGIN PGP MESSAGE----- Version: PGP 2.6x hQCMA8asoPEC0e2BAQP9GqR2aXNOstRq8eJW2QVubioR0gO7Ue0AOL/rFdnxXknC YPpe2X2TKlcvd961+lhe9w2Y8vo3JcBYYBifTJRwmMjnXLagCU4Mhh0VZtk/QXMZ /FLeJWi67qsb45a2mNw0/Q8eXHKfOQyHcmEQ7cg/bq4Xz6LusfxBHF8zsojVOgal 8RVRtr9drjBlOzJvWxaq7LrKidME6q0tM7pRiLN5dvVBon2NKlmpJI6vAFjyi8ma f5Bg6Zor+PMxcm3EmuWbjLEiOu5USrTgU4OiaC7PHF9INxwXuKmdNz/JprgOc0c6 6s6RvbOo6rsvlwqPKw== =ICz/ -----END PGP MESSAGE----- ============= Finally, the user has to append a directive to the top of the encrypted message, making it look like this: ============ :: Encrypted: PGP -----BEGIN PGP MESSAGE----- Version: PGP 2.6x hQCMA8asoPEC0e2BAQP9GqR2aXNOstRq8eJW2QVubioR0gO7Ue0AOL/rFdnxXknC YPpe2X2TKlcvd961+lhe9w2Y8vo3JcBYYBifTJRwmMjnXLagCU4Mhh0VZtk/QXMZ /FLeJWi67qsb45a2mNw0/Q8eXHKfOQyHcmEQ7cg/bq4Xz6LusfxBHF8zsojVOgal 8RVRtr9drjBlOzJvWxaq7LrKidME6q0tM7pRiLN5dvVBon2NKlmpJI6vAFjyi8ma f5Bg6Zor+PMxcm3EmuWbjLEiOu5USrTgU4OiaC7PHF9INxwXuKmdNz/JprgOc0c6 6s6RvbOo6rsvlwqPKw== =ICz/ -----END PGP MESSAGE----- ============ The user then mails the above encrypted message (double colons and all) NOT to the intended recipient but instead to the remailer's address: <gretchen(a)neuropa.net>. This arrives at the remailer where it is eventually processed, decrypted and mailed to <news.reporter(a)nbc.com> appearing to have come from "Anonymous" <nobody(a)neuropa.net>. 2: -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- On Wed, 8 Aug 2001, Anonymous <remailer(a)remailer.xganon.com> wrote: [SNIP] >Now I want to use a chain of remailers? How do I do this? I'm >guessing I should somehow encrypt the message using all the keys of >the remailers in the chain? And if I send the message to the first >remailer in the chain, how do I let that remailer know to send it to >the next one? If someone could either tell me how to do this, or >direct me toward an information source explaining this, I'd >appreciate it. Chaining messages is achieved by repeating the encryption steps. Taken as an example, chaining through two remailers thus, You -> A -> B -> Recipient You start off with your message and prefix with :: Anon-To: <recipient@somewhere> ## Subject: <some text> <MESSAGE> You then encrypt this with the key of the remailer B, and prefix it with :: Anon-To: <Remailer-B@somewhere> :: Encrypted: PGP <PGP MESSAGE> You take this and encrypt it with the key of remailer A, and prefix with :: Encrypted: PGP and now send it to remailer A. What happens then is that remailer A takes the message, decodes it, and sends it to remailer B. Remailer B decodes it and sends it to the recipient. Doc. - -- The bigger the humbug, the better people will like it. ~ Phineas Taylor Barnum. http://vmsbox.cjb.net -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQEVAwUBO3By8sriC3SGiziTAQH4Cwf+JSwjLQcPtVbNAOKB28NBdA+yLLWYflmB bjpH3nzDyV0TUEEiRH7gdancM8CuMk4n+5D+hWCHIyFoaR93/BuGdft9s8xuPi8M nzSzPO4pFht8NTzhkkrn9iUcJWgh+fFNfBvWtjDCLs6qdxoQwTUI9N0ioceAlK1S vk78pYdZ9srxCEr5sCyuAR56wRq0Sa81SDePOcYz48FrRR51Zdoe/cu3Hu4AYeY5 wpC5J59U0BIVb9xnt9zBR7I3aQZArFffZ2G6vdEHDnVulY5hpXjenEgUCUjFH+da bCD6dCOVtPxYvFbo9mmMY6spiDwfeaOXzniFdFvqdrbADycW2s7qiw== =3VgO -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- 3: According to the Reliable User's Manual, the "random" strings of numbers and letters which appear in the "Subject:" line are encrypted MD5 hashes of the final "Subject:" line. That is, the remailer client calculates an MD5 hash from the "Subject:" line(which might be, e.g., "ATTN: Dave") in the final or hash headers (below the "##"). This MD5 hash that results from this calculation is likely to be unique to that particular "Subject:" line. The remailer client then encrypts the MD5 hash using conventional (symmetric) encryption, specifically IDEA. The encryption and decryption key is the passphrase given for the "Encrypt-Subject:" directive. 4: Subject: [FAQ 8.2] Why didn't my email/post make it through? + Your message may have just been lost in the network for any number of reasons. It does happen. The system isn't 100% reliable. + You are using broken chains or stale remailer keys. + Your source address or domain is being blocked by the first remailer in your chain. + Your destination address, domain, or newsgroup is being blocked by the last remailer in your chain. + The Usenet group you are posting to is not available on the news server or gateway being used by the last remailer in your chain. + You are trying to crosspost to too many newsgroups and the final remailer in your chain discarded the message. Send a blank email to the remailer with 'remailer-conf' as the subject to determine how many newsgroups the remailer allows you to cross-post to. Spammers abuse the cross posting option so operators are cutting back to 3 or 4 cross posts to deter the spammers. + You have too many addresses in the To, Cc, or Bcc headers and the final remailer in your chain discarded the message. + You attempted to send an anonymous message to a nym that is configured to either reject Bcc messages (directive +nobcc) or not accept any mail at all. + Your e-mail recipient is filtering out messages from anonymous remailers. + You are simply having a bad day. 'Better luck tomorrow! RProcess, the author of JBN2 and the Reliable Remailer, has systematically examined why so many anon messages seem to disappear. His conclusions [http://www.bigfoot.com/~potatoware/PSKB-035.html] are quite provocative.

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Re: [notes][spam] Wikileaks Not Serving Crucial Pages
by Karl Semich 22 Nov '22

22 Nov '22

OUR COMMUNICATIONS AND THINGS ARE BEING MALICIOUSLY ALTERED. On 11/21/22, Douglas Lucas <dal(a)riseup.net> wrote: > You found some content on archive.org. But I don't care. > > Years ago the /Daily Dot/ report said the journalist had obtained an > independent copy of the Syria Files through a lawsuit. By comparing that > copy with what has been on the WikiLeaks website, Daily Dot determined > that _Wikileaks had removed data from the Syria Files dataset_ which was > to the benefit of Russia and Syria. No, they didn't trip over a cable. I > don't need your "Internet for Dummies" lectures about how there are VPNs > and how sometimes website vistors email website admins to let them know > a file is missing. If you serach my tweets, you'll find I already years > ago notified WikiLeaks that some of their CRS reports were down and they > said thanks and restored them. That's not the same as hiding a Syria > File to benefit Assad which Wikileaks Party was meeting with, and you > know it. > > Wikileaks/Assadgne discredited themselves long ago by: > > * Spreading pizzagate when they know of #OpDeathEaters because I and > other told them multiple times across years > > * Not helping their sources/defendants when I myself and others > contacted them begging them to do more multiple times across years > > * Chummy with fascists, the list goes on > > * Mocking French civilians killed by terrorists because the manosphere > hates the .EU it’s great douglas is calling out the corruption of wikileaks after they were targeted, and has personal experience backing this, talking about this can help the world. > > I desubscribed from the cypherpunks list, and I'm blocking you as well. > You'll always have Assadgne to worship, and as he deletes leaks to this doesn’t make sense to me, although really cpunks and me do seem to have some of the same issue wikileaks has, douglas doesnt deserve to be upset this much or ignored in these ways > protect far right, you can run interference for him by posting to > cypherpunks about how see, it's complicated, the Internet has different > IP addresses and gateways and for that reason Assadnge can delete > anything he wants, whenever he wants, for as long as he wants, and you > will call him King Transparency. i did not hold the issue with enough seriousness > > Why I ever wasted time on a list screaming "jewnazi" and "murder people" > every day, is beyond me. we used to block the people who said these things > > Again, read that DAily Dot report and tell yourself: "I Karl deeply > admire Julian Assange for deleting leaks and refusing to help his > sources and probably somebody just tripped over a cable or something the > internet is complicated me and my friends screaming /jewnazi/ are here > to help!" wikileaks is run by dictatorial spy agencies now, which is abhorrent and needs further calling out. they also did good and important work. you are sharing some really important information here. it’s hard to hold it when we are in conflict. i learn slowly. i'm sorry, and be well.

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[ot] Fwd: 13 Nov 2022 - stats
by k 22 Nov '22

22 Nov '22

-

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