November 2017 - cypherpunks - lists.cpunks.org

[John Draper] "A Hacker Hero Has Been Banned From Cyber Conferences After Decades Of Inappropriate Behavior"
by Cecilia Tanaka 18 Nov '17

18 Nov '17

"A Hacker Hero Has Been Banned From Cyber Conferences After Decades Of Inappropriate Behavior" https://www.buzzfeed.com/kevincollier/hacker-hero-is-said-to-have-used-cybe… "The claims against John Draper, a pioneer hacker and an early associate of Apple cofounders Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs, are yet another example of how celebrity can be abused." ========== Hmm... No commentaries. :-/ c. ------- "Don't let anyone rob you of your imagination, your creativity, or your curiosity. It's your place in the world; it's your life. Go on and do all you can with it, and make it the life you want to live." - Mae Jemison

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Bi̇́tPay Is Some J́ewish Shit: The Thread
by JewCoin 18 Nov '17

18 Nov '17

Bi̇́tPay is a service that enables people that trade in baitcoin and other properties to exchange their properties, e.g., coin for coin, coin for fiat, fiat for coin. They are so awesome. To trade the anonymous botcoin all they ask for is: Human Name Business Name Phone Number Email Address Live Website Address EV SSL Certification Bank Account Info (Settlements) Tax ID Number Proof of Business Entity Proof of Business Address Photograph ID of Human 3 Months of Bank Statements Interview with Bi̇́tPay Approval by Bi̇́tPay They also offer to review your account with their compliance department to verify that the business is in compliance with their Terms of Service. Their Terms of Service include: - No Narcotics, research chemicals, or any controlled substances. - No Cash or cash equivalents, including items used for speculation or hedging purposes (such as derivatives), and the sale or trade of virtual currencies. - Items that infringe or violate any intellectual property rights such as copyrights, trademarks, trade secrets, or patents. - Ammunition, firearms, explosives (including fireworks), or weapons as determined by Bi̇́tPay. - Any services which compete with Bi̇́tPay. They also offer to file a 1099 with the IRS, since you are their employee at this point. Why are you cryptoȷ́ews so fucking greedy ? Coin is a fucking property, a hold of value. It should not be treated as a currency, or this shit "regulation" happens. >buttcoin will out ȷ́ew the ȷ́ew. It is the ȷ́ew. You can reach these fine folk here: info (at) bi̇́tpay.com compliance (at) bi̇́tpay.com ȷ́ews (at) bi̇́tpay.com

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The Flippening: BitcoinCash Capitalizes on BTC's AnHero
by grarpamp 17 Nov '17

17 Nov '17

https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/7cmlxp/til_blockstream_is_controlled_… http://dcg.co/portfolio/ https://blockstream.com/about/#investors

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Is a BTC - BCC flippening in the offing?
by Steven Schear 17 Nov '17

17 Nov '17

[Disclosure: I am a strong supporter of L1 (Blockchain scaling) occurring before any L2 (e.g., Segwit, Blockstream, Lightening Network, etc.) is attempted. And even then all L2 must be thoroughly examined not only for technical flaws but for possible misuses that affects the value and utility of the underlying blockchain assets.] Due to the economic and technical nature of Bitcoin and its blockchain its more than possible that the new fork, widely being called Bitcoin Cash, BCH or BCC, will overtake its rival fork now commonly called Bitcoin Core. The effect of this "flippening" could be nothing short of disastrous for those holding Bitcoin Core. Since the recent Bitcoin hard fork we now have two Bitcoins: Core (the original) and Cash. When the fork happened those holding BTC (in their own wallets) were also able to claim an equal amount of BCC (for free). This created a huge supply of BCC. However, many or most people rarely keep their BTC in their wallets, preferring instead to keep them in online exchange accounts. As a result, even though the exchanges warned people they needed to withdraw their BTC to claim the BCC, most of those people will never get that BCC. Instead it became a windfall for the exchanges. When the fork occurred the Cash chain inherited the then current difficulty factor of the original. When operating nominally both chains should have new blocks discovered by miners about every 10 minutes. Because at the outset the mining effort for Cash was only a small fraction of the Core's. the rate new blocks were found (and therefore the transaction capacity) initially was hobbled. This was anticipated and the developers included a means to detect when the hashing power on this Cash chain was too low and to quickly adjust, in 20% increments, the difficulty factor. By far the main driver for miners is revenue. In general they will go to whatever blockchain they earn the most. Analysis of the hash power being expended on both chains versus the difficulties and value of each coin showed that the two were converging insofar as mining profitability. There is also an anomalous aspect to the sources of the BCC mining power. Unlike that of BTC, where most of the hashing power is associated with known large mining cartels, the majority of BCC mining is by unknown parties.There has been significant variation of mining power over relatively short intervals on both blockchains. The timing of this variation very much indicates that the miners were attempting to beneficially manipulate both the value of BCC vs. BTC and quickly decrease the mining effort for BCC. BTC BCH TOT BTC BCH BTC BCH BTC ( Hash Power ) ( Difficulty) ( Block Time ) (mempool) 11 August 6600 338 6938 923 115 10.00 21 55 12 August 6199 416 6615 923 115 10.66 20 15 13 August 6808 440 7248 923 115 9.73 18.46 27 14 August 5951 522 6473 923 115 11.07 15.82 47 15 August 6966 647 7591 923 115 9.47 12.85 53 16 August 5984 484 6468 923 115 11.07 17.14 50 - Since 11 August Hash Power on the BCH chain has increased daily. - Hash power on BTC chain on the other hand fluctuates from day to day, by up to 1000 PH and the mempool continues to grow. The table above are snapshots taken at a point in time each day. Their individual states can be monitored in real time here <https://bitinfocharts.com/>*. Scroll down to the hash rate. BTC hash rate is down to 4853 PH. This is more than 2000 PH below the table above and the mempool <https://blockchain.info/charts> has now exceeded 65MB. A Death Chain Spiral may have set in but is being "managed". This large fluctuation of BTC hash rate could be the miners preventing difficulty from adjusting downwards, and at the same time growing the mempool. It is also possible that with over 1000 blocks to the next difficulty recalculation, we may not see another difficulty adjustment on BTC anytime soon. It is uncanny that we see very little discussion and debate at the very top. It is as though the NYA agreement have settled everything. However make no mistake. What seem calm belies what is happening in the background. Like a duck on the water paddling furiously underneath. Over at r/bitcoin talk seems to center around price and technology. Nothing about any negativity, usability or the growing mempool. Censorship of robust discussions is just downright deceitful. Especially if it is the de facto forum. It must quit being a propaganda organ. There will be consequences. The people around Segwit may be frantically on the phone, fax and email arguing and pleading with the miners. They can see the writing on the wall. Only 124 blocks were found in the last 24 hours. Block time have increased to 11 minutes and the mempool is in excess of 70MB. It is "too little too late". For many of the miners "Revenge is a dish best eaten cold". Steve

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Activist Gamers... Moar of this plz!
by g2s 15 Nov '17

15 Nov '17

"Cards Against Humanity" buys piece of the U.S. border so Trump can't build his border wall http://mashable.com/2017/11/14/cards-against-humanity-saves-america-border-… Rr

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“Parasites and Creators” — Interview with Jacob Djugashvili – Stalin’s great-grandson
by Zenaan Harkness 15 Nov '17

15 Nov '17

Now here's a treat - a cookie for y’all - Jacob is an artist, and the great-grandson of someone everyone has heard of, many have demonised, and undoubtedly few today truly understand, you know, actual thought required stuff... too much hard work, right? This is actually short and sweet. Enjoy :) Z ----- Forwarded message from RussiaFeed <russiafeed(a)theduran.com> ----- From: RussiaFeed <russiafeed(a)theduran.com> Date: Tue, 14 Nov 2017 15:03:24 +0000 Subject: Daily Headlines for 11/14/2017 ** Interview with Jacob Djugashvili – Stalin’s great-grandson http://russiafeed.com/interview-with-jacob-djugashvili-stalins-great-grands… ** By Haneul Na'avi on Nov 14, 2017 02:09 pm

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[info@fsf.org: You can now register as a DMCA agent without using nonfree JavaScript]
by Zenaan Harkness 15 Nov '17

15 Nov '17

The subject of this email from the FSF is so catchy one is inclined to read the email. "How can this be?" rings around the web. And yes, it is what it suggests it is. But it's still perhaps not what one might think it is :) Learning something every day ... Z ----- Forwarded message from "Donald Robertson, III, FSF" <info(a)fsf.org> ----- From: "Donald Robertson, III, FSF" <info(a)fsf.org> Date: Tue, 14 Nov 2017 07:45:52 -0500 Subject: You can now register as a DMCA agent without using nonfree JavaScript Read online: <https://www.fsf.org/blogs/licensing/you-can-now-register-as-a-dmca-agent-wi…> Dear Free Software Supporter, With the deadline for registering as a DMCA agent looming at the end of the year, these two add-ons allow you to register without the use of nonfree JavaScript. Users shouldn't be forced to use nonfree software when interacting with their own government. Every user has the right to control their own computing, and the government shouldn't force you to download and install proprietary software just to take advantage of its services. But when it comes to registering as an agent under the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) in the United States, that's exactly what the government expects you to do. Users are likely familiar with the DMCA's more draconian aspects, namely the creation of legal penalties for circumventing [Digital Restrictions Management][0]. The Free Software Foundation's Defective by Design campaign is [fighting][1] to end that nightmare and repeal that part of the law. But like many laws, it's crammed full of a wide variety of provisions, the anti-circumvention rules being only one of them. [0]: https://www.defectivebydesign.org/what_is_drm_digital_restrictions_manageme… [1]: https://www.defectivebydesign.org/DMCA-exemption-commenting-process-broken Another piece of the law creates what are known as the safe harbor provisions. These rules set out some steps that maintainers of Web sites can take to avoid liability when a user of their site uploads potentially infringing copyrighted materials. The main provision here is that if a copyright holder finds their work on your site without their permission, they can submit a take down notice to an agent registered for your site. This agent can then remove the work, thus avoiding liability for the potentially infringing distribution. Without this safe harbor, the site maintainer could potentially be sued. While this safe harbor rule can lead to abuse, with improper take downs, it also allows maintainers of Web sites to permit their users to share works. If the rule wasn't in place, it would be too dangerous to accept such uploads without reviewing each work -- something most Web sites can't afford to do. The Free Software Foundation takes advantage of the safe harbor provisions to ensure that we can continue to share software created and uploaded by free software developers, or to share information like that found in the [Free Software Directory][2], or to help people organize locally via [LibrePlanet.org][3]. [2]: https://directory.fsf.org/ [3]: https://libreplanet.org/ As mentioned before, though, taking advantage of the safe harbor provisions requires having an agent to accept the notices. This is where the problem arises. The U.S. Copyright Office is now requiring Web site maintainers to re-register using <https://www.copyright.gov/dmca-directory/> by December 31st of 2017. This site, [like many others that the Copyright Office requires use of][4], is lousy with nonfree [JavaScript][5]. Unlike the server software you may interact with when visiting any Web site, JavaScript is actually downloaded and run on your machine. Like any proprietary software, it does not serve the user, and cannot be trusted. Users must avoid nonfree JavaScript just as they would avoid any piece of proprietary software. But if they want to continue to enjoy safe harbor provisions, they must allow this intrusion onto their computer. [4]: https://www.defectivebydesign.org/blog/it_isnt_just_dmca_broken_beyond_repa… [5]: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/javascript-trap The Free Software Foundation reached out to the Copyright Office with these issues, and we still hope to work out a solution with them for the long term. But with the deadline coming up, we had to fix it ourselves. We collaborated with a volunteer to develop a workaround that allows you to register using only free software. The fix requires installing two freely licensed add-ons, [Register DMCA claim contacts w/o bad Javascript][6] and [Automatically reveal hidden HTML elements][7]. These add-ons, when used with [GNU LibreJS][8], allow anyone who needs to register as a DMCA agent to do so without loading the harmful nonfree JavaScript. [6]: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/librejs-compatible-pay-gov/ [7]: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/submit-me/ [8]: https://www.gnu.org/software/librejs/ There are still a few quirks that are being hammered out. Currently you have to add alternate names by uploading a document rather than filling in a text field. The only document type that they will accept is Excel, a proprietary format, but users can create documents in that format using [LibreOffice][9]. It's not a perfect solution, but it does enable users to actually complete the entire registration process using only free software. We will also be talking with the Copyright Office about supporting better formats. That is one of the beautiful things about free software: when people see a problem and have control over their own tools, they have the power to come together and make things right. [9]: https://directory.fsf.org/wiki/LibreOffice Users have a right to control their own computing. Governments everywhere should ensure that participating in any program they provide does not require the use of nonfree software. But where governments are slow to react, we all have to work together to route around the threat of proprietary software. Here's what you can do to help: * Spread the word to any Web site maintainers you know that they can register using free software. * Use the add-ons to register for your own sites, and let us know you did by emailing us at <licensing(a)fsf.org>. * Help improve [GNU LibreJS][8]. * Support the work of the Free Software Foundation by [donating][10] or [becoming a member][11]. [10]: https://www.fsf.org/donate [11]: https://www.fsf.org/join Sincerely, Donald Robertson, III Licensing and Compliance Manager -- * Follow us at <https://status.fsf.org/fsf>. * Subscribe to our RSS feeds at <https://fsf.org/blogs/RSS>. * Join us as an associate member at <https://www.fsf.org/jf>. Sent from the Free Software Foundation, 51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor Boston, Massachusetts 02110-1335 UNITED STATES You can unsubscribe from this mailing list by visiting https://my.fsf.org/civicrm/mailing/unsubscribe?reset=1&jid=155084&qid=29519…. To stop all email from the Free Software Foundation, including Defective by Design, and the Free Software Supporter newsletter, visit https://my.fsf.org/civicrm/mailing/optout?reset=1&jid=155084&qid=29519521&h…. ----- End forwarded message -----

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DICE - volume 1
by brian carroll 14 Nov '17

14 Nov '17

This is an announcement of the completed volume 1 text on dice. It is similar to exploring the universe in a grain of sand yet involves a comprehensive conceptual evaluation of dice as a hypothesis that exists to be falsified, thoroughly corrected, improved upon. Dice, Cards, & Computation - volume 1 (2017, no-copyright) details: full text 6688pp PDF, 99mb, photographs 345mb. <https://www.dropbox.com/sh/wgve48036cnma95/AABWHDcQewZxoKFleSEL_AWRa?dl=0> <https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B4u3v53J_K1AeGR2UFZGSUkyVzQ?usp=sha…> ---> full text & photoset zipfile 432mb ---> separate PDF files, photoset thank you for considering the ideas Brian Thomas CARROLL ____________________________________________________________ Apple Watch Observations - 125pp (2015, no-copyright) On Drums and Drumming in the 21st century - 410pp

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Intel CS Management Engine JTAG Interface Exposed via USB DCI
by grarpamp 13 Nov '17

13 Nov '17

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15669262 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15656931 https://twitter.com/h0t_max/status/928269320064450560 https://twitter.com/h0t_max https://twitter.com/_markel___ https://www.ptsecurity.com/upload/corporate/ww-en/analytics/Where-theres-a-… https://www.golem.de/news/security-hackern-gelingt-vollzugriff-auf-intel-me… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JCUrG7ERIE https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/08/29/intel_management_engine_can_be_dis… https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSAKEY

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Science, Thermite, and 911
by grarpamp 13 Nov '17

13 Nov '17

https://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/7cfcnn/remember_when_national_… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5d5iIoCiI8g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJNzaMRsN00 https://www.youtube.com/user/physicsandreason/videos https://www.youtube.com/user/ae911truth/videos https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=jonathan+cole

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