September 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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[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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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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USA: 41 Democrats Travel Overseas to One Country at Once?
by grarpamp 01 Mar '20

01 Mar '20

https://mondoweiss.net/2019/08/democrats-affiliated-violates/ https://theintercept.com/2019/06/20/steny-hoyer-aipac-j-street-israel/ https://jewishinsider.com/2019/06/aipacs-congressional-trip-to-israel-leave… House Majority Leader Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD) landed today in Israel with 41 other Democratic Representatives for a week-long, all-expenses-paid junket sponsored by the American Israel Education Foundation (AIEF), the educational branch of the lobbying organization American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)... Ignoring the source links... 41 US elected reps in office traveling at once to one country? That's 10% of that body, not including support and associated political elements... How rare is that, whether to, or even from any other country in the world, under any international situation? Shit these days is beyond bizarre. https://reddit.com/r/Israel_Palestine/comments/cmhc6c/afraid_to_say_their_n… https://reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/cmq2gj/israel_buys_owns_the_us_con… https://www.houstonchronicle.com/opinion/outlook/article/To-protect-Israel-… https://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/ACLU-files-complai… https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/371/832/1e3.jpg

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[MINISTRY] capitalism v fascism/ corporatism - what are we (the West) living under?
by Zenaan Harkness 11 Feb '20

11 Feb '20

This is a write up which some whom you might consider sending it to, could find easy to read, which is the utility of this piece. https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-01-22/destroying-capitalism-has-failed-… Destroying The "Capitalism Has Failed" Narrative Authored by Jeff Thomas via InternationalMan.com, http://www.internationalman.com/articles/capitalism-has-failed Today, more than at any time previously, Westerners are justifying a move toward collectivist thinking with the phrase, “Capitalism has failed.” https://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/inline-images/20180122_cap.jpg In response to this, conservative thinkers offer a knee-jerk reaction that collectivism has also had a dismal record of performance. Neither group tends to gain any ground with the other group, but over time, the West is moving inexorably in the collectivist direction. As I see it, liberals are putting forward what appears on the surface to be a legitimate criticism, and conservatives are countering it with the apology that, yes, capitalism is failing, but collectivism is worse. Unfortunately, what we’re seeing here is not classical logic, as Aristotle would have endorsed, but emotionalism that ignores the principles of logic. If we’re to follow the rules of logical discussion, we begin with the statement that capitalism has failed and, instead of treating it as a given, we examine whether the statement is correct. Only if it proves correct can we build further suppositions upon it. Whenever I’m confronted with this now oft-stated comment, my first question to the person offering it is, “Have you ever lived in a capitalist country?” That is, “Have you ever lived in a country in which, during your lifetime, a free-market system dominated?” Most people seem initially confused by this question, as they’re residents of either a European country or a North American country and operate under the assumption that the system in which they live is a capitalist one. So, let’s examine that assumption. A capitalist, or “free market,” system is one in which the prices of goods and services are determined by consumers and the open market, in which the laws and forces of supply and demand are free from any intervention by a government, price-setting monopoly, or other authority. Today, none of the major (larger) countries in what was once referred to as the “free world” bear any resemblance to this definition. Each of these countries is rife with laws, regulations, and a plethora of regulatory bodies whose very purpose is to restrict the freedom of voluntary commerce. Every year, more laws are passed to restrict free enterprise even more. Equally as bad is the fact that, in these same countries, large corporations have become so powerful that, by contributing equally to the campaigns of each major political party, they’re able to demand rewards following the elections, that not only guarantee them funds from the public coffers, but protect them against any possible prosecution as a result of this form of bribery. There’s a word for this form of governance, and it’s fascism. Many people today, if asked to describe fascism, would refer to Mussolini, black boots, and tyranny. They would state with confidence that they, themselves, do not live under fascism. But, in fact, fascism is, by definition, a state in which joint rule by business and state exists. (Mussolini himself stated that fascism would better be called corporatism, for this reason.) In recognizing the traditional definition of fascism, there can be no doubt that fascism is the driving force behind the economies of North America and Europe. In addition, the concept of any government taking by force from some individuals the fruits of their labour and bestowing it upon others is by no means free-market. It is a socialist concept. And, in any country where roughly half of the population are the recipients of such largesse, that country has, unquestionably, settled deeply into a socialist condition. However, this is by no means a new idea. As Socrates asked Adeimantus: Do not their leaders deprive the rich of their estates and distribute them among the people; at the same time taking care to preserve the larger part for themselves? So, which is it? Are we saying here that these countries are socialist or fascist? Well, in truth, socialism, fascism, and, indeed, communism are all forms of collectivism. They all come under the same umbrella. So, what we’re witnessing is liberals, rightfully criticising the evils of fascism, but failing to understand it for what it is—a form of collectivism. Conservatives, on the other hand, do their best to continue to operate under their countries’ socialist laws, regulations, and regulatory bodies, whist continuing to imagine that a remnant of capitalism remains. And so we return to the question, “Have you ever lived in a country in which, during your lifetime, a free-market system dominated?” Such countries do exist. It should be pointed out, however, that even they tend to move slowly toward collectivism over time. (After all, it’s in collectivism that they gain their power.) However, some countries are “newer,” just as the US was in the early nineteenth century and, like the US, the governments have not yet had enough time to sufficiently degrade the economies that have been entrusted to them. In addition, some citizenries are feistier than others and/or are less easy to convince that, by allowing themselves to be dominated by their governments, they’ll actually be better off. Whatever the reasons, there are most certainly countries that are far more free-market than the countries discussed above. But, what does this tell us of the future? What can be done to turn these great powers back to a more free-market system? Well, the bad news is that that’s unlikely in the extreme. To be sure, we, from time to time, have inspired orators, such as Nigel Farage or Ron Paul, who remind us what we “should” do to put these countries back on track, so that they serve the people of the country, rather than its leaders. But, historically, such orators have never succeeded in reversing the trend one iota. History tells us that political leaders, in their pursuit of collectivism, never reverse the trend. They instead ride it all the way to the bottom, then bail out, if they can. However, it is ever true that, in some locations in the world, there have always been free-market societies. Over time, they deteriorate under the hands of their leaders and, as they do, others spring up. The choice of the reader is to look upon the world as his oyster - to assess whether he is more or less content with the country he’s in and confident that it will continue to be a good place in which to live, work, invest, and prosper, or, if not, to consider diversifying, or even moving entirely, to a more rewarding, more capitalist jurisdiction.

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CIA agents sell 20 tonnes of plastic explosive to Libya, nearly decade before discotheque bombing
by Ryan Carboni 22 Jan '20

22 Jan '20

https://wikispooks.com/wiki/Arms_for_Libya The Arms for Libya case ensued when a gang of CIA deep state operatives were caught shipping a huge amount of weapons and explosives to Libya. Edwin Wilson was hung out to dry by Ted Shackley and the rest of the cabal. After a FOIA request revealed the CIA knew perfectly well what he was doing, he was released after about 17 years in jail. He was never given compensation and those responsible for the cover up were never brought to justice. Before his 1980 retirement, the CIA Inspector General John H. Waller produced an internal investigation which exonerated Theodore Shackley and his "career-long deputy and sidekick" Thomas Clines. This was the CIA's official story for about 20 years, endorsed by Waller's successor, the #3 man in the CIA, Charles A. Briggs who was called on to testify in Edwin Wilson's court case. The CIA had blocked the defense from gaining access to any contradictory paperwork, so the jury apparently believed the (perjured) 'Briggs Declaration' which said that Edwin Wilson has independently collected almost the entire US stockpile of C-4 (plastic explosive) and arranged to fly it to Libya, all without CIA knowledge, following up by sending US troops to train of Muammar Gaddafi's military in bomb making, and sold them a bunch of other weapons. This official narrative fell apart about 20 years later when an internal document surfaced which proved that the CIA Inspector Generals had been lying. Frank Terpil was tried and found guilty in absentia. Douglas Schlachter plead guilty to two charges in a plea deal, after providing testimony directly linking Wilson to "senior Central Intelligence officials" (presumably Ted Shackley and his sidekick Thomas Clines, who in 1981 both admitted that they had kept in touch with Wilson, though they denied knowing anything about the arms deals). Edwin Wilson was hung out to dry and charged as the main culprit. CIA officer, Edwin Wilson, brokered a number of weapons deals to Libya. Michael Ruppert wrote that Wilson lived in Libya "for extended periods between 1977 and 1981". The most extraordinary of these deals was in 1977, when a 42,000 pound load of C-4 plastic explosive (an amount which represented almost the entire US domestic supply) was flown out of Houston International Airport to Muammar Gaddafi's Libya, followed by training in bomb making by US Green Berets. Subsequent deals involved handguns and other weapons. A scheme to ship more than a thousand M16 rifles to Gaddafi put the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms onto Edwin Wilson back in late 1977. After about 17 years in jail, FOIA requests by Edwin Wilson came across some internal paperwork which proved that those involved in the case knew that the "Briggs Affidavit" was a lie. These sufficed to allow Wilson to successfully appeal his conviction. In October 2003, his conviction on the explosives charge was overturned and Wilson was released from prison on September 14, 2004. He launched a legal claim for compensation against those who perjured evidence against him, and those who knowingly stayed silent on the matter, but they were granted legal immunity and he never received compensation. Copyright https://wikispooks.com/wiki/Wikispooks:Licensing The CIA did a lot of dirty things. If Snowden was a Russian agent, not a CIA agent, why was he insistent on protecting the CIA? The CIA did a lot of dirty things. All the Russians have to do is expose them. What the CIA did would bring down the American government ten times over. I have no doubt hundreds of US government employees spent innumerable man-years dealing with the aftermath of Snowden, but it served no real point. I personally find it mysterious that the Russians would invent the idea that AIDs was the product of the CIA when there are just so many horrible... https://www.counterpunch.org/2015/03/02/citizen-four-the-making-of-an-ameri… To quote: You will see it only as a blow against surveillance state, and not as a propaganda film that, on the one hand, protects the CIA at Snowden’s behest while, on the other hand, exploiting him and turning him into the celebrity he did not want to be.

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