November 2019 - cypherpunks - lists.cpunks.org

Fact-checkers have lost important digital tools — and will lose one more in September - Poynter
by jim bell 17 Apr '20

17 Apr '20

https://www.poynter.org/fact-checking/2019/fact-checkers-have-lost-importan…

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Re: Libertarian Economic Logic (chart attached)
by Zenaan Harkness 11 Apr '20

11 Apr '20

On Mon, Sep 23, 2019 at 05:54:02PM +1000, jamesd(a)echeque.com wrote: > > > > And in case you missed it, there's 100s of sites these days such > > > > as http://opensourcemachinetools.org/wordpress/ > > > > Which don't tell you how to make a pencil. > > On 2019-09-23 09:33, Zenaan Harkness wrote: > > How many years was the interval between when RMS started his version > > of "the free software movement/ community" and now (now being a > > relevant point in time where we see an incredibly abundant cornucopia > > of all manner of computer software, in free forms available to all) ? > > Since that software was produced by handful of very smart people, that > irrelevant to question of whether you can make a pencil without a boss telling > you how to do it. > > You can make some gun parts with a threedee printer and software downloaded > from the internet, but some gun parts you cannot. And for a very long time, > no one could make those parts except existing large scale gun makers. > > And watching Ivan the Troll make those gun parts, it was absolutely obvious to > me that come civil war II, it is not going to be a large number of people > making full auto weapons in their home workshop. We are going to have to > conscript Ivan the Troll, and conscript a thousand people to do what he damn > well tells them to do. There's a principle there I do agree with. The benevolent dictator, the individual with capacity - call it creative intuitive or inherent or something. I am well aware that those of capacity ("any relevant level of capacity" perhaps?) cannot be duplicated in general. And yes, come civil war, very few will have the ability and capacity to create anything particularly useful, in a relevant time frame, to the defence of their family. I think calling "inherent intuitive ability in one or more areas" "a boss" leads to unfortunate descent of the conversation. One of the great problems of today is the Marxist indoctrination of many, when they go to college, and combined with the relative technological abundance and access to Wikipedia we have, a lot of "spoilt brats" think not only can they do anything, but that the world owes them everything and they ought not have to lift a finger to receive everthing, and this approach has gottem them a fair way in the "cotton wool parents" world we now live in. And come civil war, a few inherent but long buried facts will, usefully if painfully, expose themselves rather rudely to those who've been living such delusions. Anyway, there are those who are intent on building up the publicly accessible knowledge base on how to make things. Some will join them. Perhaps even someone who already knows how to make pencils, and perhaps few people will even be able to follow the instructions - perhaps none (though I doubt that - such a view smacks of ego hubris); timeframes though... I can't stop wondering about the Werner von Braun and NASA USA rocket building history though ... I usually prefer to have the discussion on the list by the way. Regards, Zenaan

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Diplomat suffered memory loss while stationed in China.
by jim bell 09 Apr '20

09 Apr '20

Anyone with an Android smartphone should be able to download an audio spectrum analyzer app to detect various sonic events. Further, I believe that USB-connected SDR's (Software-Defined Radios) which can implement cheap spectrum analyzers are cheaply available. https://www.walmart.com/ip/100KHz-1-7GHz-Full-Band-UV-HF-RTL-SDR-USB-Tuner-… $25.31, in kit form.Although, this specific one is limited to 100Khz-1 GHz. Anything reasonably usable to go to at least 3 GHz. Jim Bell BY BOB SALSBERG, Associated Press BOSTON (AP) — A U.S. diplomat who said he suffered headaches and memory loss under mysterious circumstances while stationed in China pledged Friday to donate his brain to head injury researchers. Mark Lenzi, 44, is an unusual addition to the several thousand others, including many former NFL players who suffered concussions during their careers, who previously signed agreements to have their brains studied after they die by the CTE Center at Boston University. A security engineer for the U.S. State Department, Lenzi was among a number of diplomats who were brought home last year from the U.S. Consulate in Guangzhou, China, after reporting as-yet-unexplained symptoms. The State Department has drawn no link between those diplomats and 26 workers at the U.S. Embassy in Cuba who were withdrawn in 2017 after reporting symptoms, including those consistent with minor traumatic brain injury, or concussion. "The engineer in me wants to get to the bottom of this type of concussion and exactly what happened to me," Lenzi said while signing the pledge in Boston with representatives of the Concussion Legacy Foundation, an organization that collaborates with the BU researchers by recruiting donors and publicizing the dangers associated with head trauma. Chris Nowinski, co-founder and chief executive of the foundation, said the brain injury community must continue research to find answers for head trauma. "There are patients out there that need answers from the scientific community," he said. Lenzi now works at a State Department passport office in his native New Hampshire. He said he and his wife began hearing strange noises in their apartment in 2017, and later developed symptoms consistent with concussion. In an interview with the AP, he said he initially did not associate the noises with the symptoms, believing the headaches may have been triggered by smog. Lenzi has not been identified by U.S. officials as someone suffering from injuries similar to those suffered by diplomats in Cuba. The State Department said Friday that out of 15 diplomats or family members from China who underwent additional medical evaluation in the U.S., 14 were found not to have symptoms like those from Cuba and the other case had not been determined. [end of partial quote]

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Are you a man, or a pouty little bitch? - [PEACE]
by Zenaan Harkness 05 Apr '20

05 Apr '20

A 6 minute true story for y'all (and just a couple mentions o' God). tl;dr - "Am I a man . . . or a pouty little bitch?" Fell Back Into the Fallen State ... All For a Girl! ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpWnAdhv3J8 ~5:54 "I'm going to get myself out of this hole, because I put myself in this hole." JLP - "Rebuilding the family by rebuilding the man." -- 5 day challenge muffas :) Do not wake the snake for 5 days.

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Gold and Silver coin - South Carolina 4th state in the union, Ag/Au = legal tender - [MONEY]
by Zenaan Harkness 02 Apr '20

02 Apr '20

>From the "getting back to the constitution" and the "about time" departments (but Texas is not yet one of those 4 states): South Carolina Legal Tender Act Would Treat Gold & Silver As Money https://www.zerohedge.com/economics/south-carolina-legal-tender-act-would-t… https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/south-carolina-legal-tender-act-w… A bill prefiled in the South Carolina House would make gold and silver coins legal tender in the state. Passage of this bill would take a step toward creating currency competition in South Carolina and undermine the Federal Reserve’s monopoly on money. Rep. Stewart Jones filed House Bill 4678 (H.4678) on Nov. 20. Under the proposed law, “gold and silver coins minted foreign or domestic shall be legal tender in the State of South Carolina under the laws of this State. No person or other entity may compel another person or other entity to tender or accept gold or silver coin unless agreed upon by the parties.” Practically speaking, this would allow South Carolina residents to use gold or silver coins to pay taxes and other debts owed to the state. In effect, it would put gold and silver on the same footing as Federal Reserve notes. The phrase, “unless agreed upon by the parties” has important legal ramifications. This wording reaffirms the court’s ability, and constitutional responsibility according to Article I, Section 10, to require specific performance when enforcing such contracts. If voluntary parties agree to be paid, or to pay, in gold and silver coin, South Carolina courts could not substitute any other thing, e.g. Federal Reserve Notes, as payment. South Carolina could become the fourth state to recognize gold and silver as legal tender. Utah led the way, reestablishing constitutional money in 2011. Wyoming and Oklahoma have since joined. The effect has been most dramatic in Utah where United Precious Metals Association (UMPA) was established after the passage of the Utah Specie Legal Tender Act and the elimination of all taxes on gold and silver. UPMA offers accounts denominated in U.S. minted gold and silver dollars. The company also recently released the “Utah Goldback.” UPMA describes it as “the first local, voluntary currency to be made of a spendable, beautiful, physical gold.” South Carolina has already repealed the sales tax on gold and silver. That removed one barrier to using gold and silver in everyday transactions. Capital gains taxes are still imposed on gold and silver for state income tax purposes. After establishing gold and silver as legal tender, South Carolina should repeal the capital gains tax to completely open the door to using it as money. As the Sound Money Defence League explains, “Practically speaking, state laws that recognize gold and silver as money restore a government view of precious metals as the favored form of money – a currency rather than a piece of property or other asset. Using this logic, it would be inappropriate for a state to levy taxes when the precious metals are used or exchanged.” Background ...

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[RUS] Yolo's money shot^Bquote — “I would still like to at least get some facts supporting our unsuccessful meddling.”
by Zenaan Harkness 22 Mar '20

22 Mar '20

Oh how we love a good troll. And All the better when it's a troll stating a fact. And on the international stage, Sergei "Yolo" Lavrov is a troll on a roll, at the top of his game (+ with a number of other Russkie public figures to be frank) - a great time in history for the comedy connoisseur. ** Watch Russian FM Call British FM a Liar To His Face - He's Absolutely Right (Video) https://russia-insider.us9.list-manage.com/track/click?u=fa2faf7034c3c3c413… ------------------------------------------------------------ by Michael Bateman on Fri, Dec 22, 2017 Oh what a tangled web we weave, when at first we practice to deceive ... Lavrov is on a roll here. Three weeks ago he, correctly, called US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley a liar, albeit, not to her face. Watch Boris Johnson bumble through this embarrassing exchange with Lavrov in Moscow yesterday. One thing we can say about Trump, he appears to be speeding up the end game, leaving foreign and military policy essentially to the war hawks - whether this is a good or a bad thing is debatable, but more war is certainly not less war, and more guns and bombs does not mean less shooting and deaths: ** Israel, Saudi Arabia and the US Are About to Invade Syria - Brace For Impact https://russia-insider.us9.list-manage.com/track/click?u=fa2faf7034c3c3c413… ------------------------------------------------------------ by Alexander Orlov on Fri, Dec 22, 2017 The Russian Defense Ministry recently announced that the United States is training a new armed force at the former refugee camp in El Khaseq province, citing the Center for Syrian Reconciliation. ** Trump Opens up US Arms Sales to Kiev, Escalates War in East Ukraine, and Ensures More Russian Aid for Rebels https://russia-insider.us9.list-manage.com/track/click?u=fa2faf7034c3c3c413… ------------------------------------------------------------ by Daniel Larison on Fri, Dec 22, 2017 Trump is pressing ahead with the foolish option of arming Ukraine: The Trump administration has approved the first ever U.S. commercial sale of lethal defensive weapons to Ukraine, in a clear break from the de facto U.S. ban on arms sales that dates back to the Obama administration. ** Iran Is on a Roll - the Deep State Is Definitely Planning a Major Attack https://russia-insider.us9.list-manage.com/track/click?u=fa2faf7034c3c3c413… ------------------------------------------------------------ by (Fash the Nation)Tom Shackleford on Fri, Dec 22, 2017 Primer on Iran Iran is a nation with a long and proud history, dating back to the Persian empire. It is about the size of Western Europe and has a population in excess of 80 million. Iran also has the 3rd largest reserves of conventional (cheaply extracted) oil in the world and the 2nd largest natural gas reserves. Iran is clearly a force to be reckoned with. As such, it considers itself the protector of Shi’a Muslims, who often live under extreme Sunni repression throughout the region. No amount of US pressure has succeeded in halting the “protector” policy.

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root "login" xterm to increase security?
by Zenaan Harkness 20 Mar '20

20 Mar '20

So someone cracking into one's local user account via browser sploit, one of the first acts would likely be to plant a password capture script, e.g. wrapping sudo or something otherwise requiring password entry. Once a password is obtained, via brute force or trojan, sudo gives the entire system away. A convenience is some do "useradd me disk" - but again, any crack of local account (even without password), now gives away all disks. Convenience vs security. So what to do? 1) delgroup me disk "Important" data such as keyfiles ought be stored with no "primary user account access", so group "disk" ought not be part of "primary user"'s groups. Are there any other groups that "really ought" be removed from the local primary user account? 2) Disable sudo and disable su su (as well as sudo) again has the problem of password capture if su or sudo is run from the primary user account after a sploit + trojan planted. So, obviously, we need "clean" root logins, i.e.: - separate root account for admin/disk tasks - clean login, i.e. not via primary user account but using a clean "login" process outside any user account And so logically, the immediate test is as follows (does not work for me, gives me a .profile/.bashrc shell, not a login prompt): xterm -ls Note man xterm: -ls This option indicates that the shell that is started in the xterm window will be a login shell (i.e., the first character of argv[0] will be a dash, indicating to the shell that it should read the user's .login or .profile). The -ls flag and the loginShell resource are ignored if -e is also given, because xterm does not know how to make the shell start the given command after whatever it does when it is a login shell - the user's shell of choice need not be a Bourne shell after all. Also, xterm -e is supposed to provide a consistent functionality for other applications that need to start text-mode programs in a window, and if loginShell were not ignored, the result of ~/.profile might interfere with that. If you do want the effect of -ls and -e simultaneously, you may get away with something like xterm -e /bin/bash -l -c "my command here" Finally, -ls is not completely ignored, because xterm -ls -e does write a /var/log/wtmp entry (if configured to do so), whereas xterm -e does not. QUESTIONS: a) anyone know how to make xterm -ls give a 'clean' login prompt? b) is any presumption of a "clean" login prompt inside xterm, when launched from a primary account xterm session, a folly? c) is there any other option for root in X, which could be considered "resonably secure" in the face of a cracked local X using account? 3) Qubes. Isolate each activity into its own VM. Notwithstanding hardware/CPU level firetruckery (another problem which as grarpamp reminds us requires OpenFabs, OpenHW, OpenCPU etc), isolating each activity, especially public facing activity such as web browsing, appears to be a very reasonable proposition - this way a browser crack means root access in the browser's VM, and not automatically into the rest of the system (VM sploits notwithstanding).

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[MINISTRY] word of the day⦂ “pettifoggery” - Muller scrambles to limit evidence as indicted Russians actually appear in "electshun interference" case
by Zenaan Harkness 17 Mar '20

17 Mar '20

Ministry - pettifoggery - USA government's bullshit being called ... ... by Mueller-charged actual Russian company "Concord". (I was just -so- sure that was meant to be Concordski, but hey, what do I know?) Ironic winning has never seen such levels — seriously off the chartski: Mueller Scrambles To Limit Evidence After Indicted Russians Actually Show Up In Court https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-06-12/mueller-scrambles-limit-evidence-… So at least some of these wicked nasty interfering Russians decided to have a little fun with Mueller, Russkie style. ‼ dang ‼ yeah baby, bring it on :D They wants their evidence of course (this -is- an axshual case in an actual court with a looming actual trial after all) and Mueller is now scrambling to hide his sorry arse from an embarrassing "in Soviet Russia, evidence charge you, Mr Mueller" :) Read it but do NOT chuckle, for in Russia, joke laugh you, da¿ The indictment accuses the firm of producing propaganda, pretending to be U.S. activists online and posting political content on social media in order to sow discord among American voters. … Mueller also accused Concord of "knowingly and intentionally" conspiring to interfere with the election by using social media to disparage Hillary Clinton and support Donald Trump. And Concord Management decided to fight it... Mueller probably didn't see that coming [no shirt, Shirlock] And the judge: In a mad scramble to [now] put the brakes on the case, Mueller's team tried to delay the trial - saying that Concord never formally accepted the court summons related to the case… The Judge, Dabney Friedrich - a Trump appointee, didn't buy it - denying Mueller a delay in the high-profile trial. So sad... so many salty, salty red tears for Mueller.

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Re: list of people censored on lists.debian.org
by Zenaan Harkness 17 Mar '20

17 Mar '20

On Tue, Oct 08, 2019 at 11:21:58PM +0200, Daniel Pocock wrote: > Hi all, > > I've been looking through debian-private and I found messages from > Alexander Wirt (formorer) about censoring various people from > lists.debian.org. Some of those messages appear to be defamatory. You > are in BCC because your name appears in debian-private. > > I've written a blog to help people work around censorship and other > dishonest practices, please tell me if this is helpful for you: > > https://danielpocock.com/freedom-and-censorship-on-mailing-lists/ > > Does anybody know any other victims of censorship in Debian or any other > free software community? > > Stay free, > > Daniel Hi Daniel, Thank you very much for the time and care you've taken to write up your above blog. It's always reassuring to see someone notice, let alone take action, in relation to one or another of our freedoms - be that the freedom to communicate, the freedom to move and travel anonymously within our communities, or the freedom to engage in a vigorous and vicious verbal stoush with a "sworn arch enemy" for a few days, and turn around afterwards and still continue communicating with them - or not - as we so freely choose. When the screaming banshee snowflakes do all in their power to drown out discussion of rights, principles and freedoms because "muh safe space" and "how dare you f*ck with my safe comfy space, I'll have you censored, hounded out of the community, and have you lose your job to boot, because you said something I don't like", unfrotunately there are some list admins who happily ban the one exercising the free speech, and not the one wanting to "shut it all down, muh safe space!" And so the bannings, kickings, or worse even the shadow bannings are imposed and dissent is met with more bannings and finally a massive swinging CoC dangled in front "the community" - a set of rules or most often just a statement or 3 about how we having to be good to one another, which CoC is thereafter used as the justification for more bannings and censorship. If there is to be any line in the sand, what ought that line be? >From a mailing list administrator's point of view, expecting them to oppose "the statute law" is too much - many would simply close up shop altogether. So in our present world, that is perhaps, perhaps, the only reasonably acceptable line for "you've crossed the line on free speech", and even then bannings or removal probably should not happen unless a court order is served on the list administrator. That's called presumption of innocence and assuming we do in fact have the right to live our rights. I appreciate your blog, and perhaps a few on the CypherPunks list may also appreciate it - CyphePunks is one of the few mailing lists that still strives to be staunch in standing for free speech - including the right of those who want to say "shut it down". Not the easiest journey apparently... Re RMS, I emailed him and encouraged him to withdraw his respective resignations (from FSF and MIT) - I don't know what the current status is. The email may be found here: reaching out -- was Re: Richard Stallman Gets SJW'd https://lists.cpunks.org/pipermail/cypherpunks/2019-September/076425.html And there's a whole (17 email) thread earlier, starting here: https://lists.cpunks.org/pipermail/cypherpunks/2019-September/076395.html Although a Google (Jewgle) search for "stallman site:lists.cpunks.org": https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=stallman+site%3Alists.cp… Brings up as at 20191009 11:15, only the following FOUR results: https://www.google.com/url?q=https://lists.cpunks.org/pipermail/cypherpunks… https://www.google.com/url?q=https://lists.cpunks.org/pipermail/cypherpunks… https://www.google.com/url?q=https://lists.cpunks.org/pipermail/cypherpunks… https://www.google.com/url?q=https://lists.cpunks.org/pipermail/cypherpunks… And do NOTE, I have disabled google's "safe search" and anything similar I could find. This campaign/war against our basic rights, goes incredibly deep, right into the heart of "Silicon Valley" in bed with the NSA, CIA etc. See also: on the necessity of a @snowflake codedoc annotation https://lists.cpunks.org/pipermail/cypherpunks/2018-November/043880.html

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EOMA68 Computing Devices manufacturing update
by Zenaan Harkness 02 Mar '20

02 Mar '20

This bloke is evidently dedicated, that's for sure: https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68/micro-desktop/updates/2-7-5-manufacturin…

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