August 2020 - cypherpunks - lists.cpunks.org

The threat of privacy
by Bob Hettinga 05 Aug '20

05 Aug '20

http://www.kahnfrance.com/cmk/The%20threat%20of%20privacy%20distribution%20… The Threat of Privacy By Charles M. Kahn1 Like artists, we academics want to believe that if one of our works doesn’t get enough attention it’s because we’re ahead of our time. I’d like to pretend that everything I’ve written is pathbreaking, and will eventually be recognized for its true importance. But I have to admit that there are really only a couple of cases where I can say with hindsight that something I wrote has been ahead of its time. One of them2 is a paper written with Jamie McAndrews and Will Roberds, published in 2005, and titled “Money is Privacy.” We wrote it partly as a response to Narayana Kocherlakota’s famous paper “Money is Memory,” which could be taken as arguing that cash is essentially a record‐keeping device, tracking who was a net creditor and who a net debtor to society with respect to resources provided or consumed. The implication was that if it became easy to keep credit records directly, cash could wither away. In our paper we argued instead that a key role of cash was its ability to protect the purchaser’s identity. So we predicted that, even while the reductions in costs of record keeping and increases in the speed of data transmission were expanding the usage of credit‐ and deposit‐account‐ based payments arrangements, cash would survive. Because the desire for privacy would always generate demand for cash, it would be a mistake—and ultimately futile—to attempt to abolish it. At the time, people were attuned to many of the problems of privacy, but there had not yet been a clear recognized link between the value of privacy and the role of payments systems. (Remember, bitcoin was only released in 2009). [...] 1 Keynote address at “Financial Market Infrastructure Conference II: New Thinking in a New Era” at De Nederlandsche Bank, Amsterdam, 7‐8 June 2017. 2 The other was my dissertation, back in 1980. It was on liquidity and the pricing of illiquid assets. At that time, no one thought this was an important issue in finance: financial markets were liquid; everybody “knew” that. So the work went nowhere. Oh well.

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Trump has the right to debate Biden - or a proxy for Biden - [PEACE]
by Zig the N.g 04 Aug '20

04 Aug '20

Since the Demonrats are wanting to not put their cognitive disaster up on stage to debate Trump, this opens the door to Trump's right to debate a proxy for Biden, an actor who is at least a passing image of Biden. <clasps ears as Democrat screeching heard across continents> This is going to be, from a comedic perspective, absolutely EPIC :D And that is no matter whether the gauntlet of a Biden proxy for Trump to debate is enough to get the Dems to put actual Biden on the stage, or not. Just can't, just can't .. just can't get e-nou-ough ... life imitating comedy, and doing a better job <very cheesy Kek grin>. Here's the Dems admitting that they want to keep Biden away from Trump (may be to avoid any chance of Biden mistaking Trump's wavy golden Toupée): Former Clinton Press Secretary Urges Biden "Whatever You Do, Don't Debate Trump" https://www.zerohedge.com/political/former-clinton-press-secretary-urges-bi… https://summit.news/2020/08/03/former-clinton-press-secretary-urges-biden-w… Bill Clinton’s former press secretary has urged Joe Biden not to debate President Trump, claiming that “it’s a fool’s errand” because Trump will not ‘follow the rules’. And these are BabylonBee.com SATYRE pieces: https://babylonbee.com/news/democrats-propose-new-debate-format-where-biden… https://babylonbee.com/news/biden-excited-to-find-out-who-he-picked-for-vp

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Ars Technica: SpaceX now plans for 5 million Starlink customers in US, up from 1 million
by jim bell 04 Aug '20

04 Aug '20

Ars Technica: SpaceX now plans for 5 million Starlink customers in US, up from 1 million. https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/08/spacex-now-plans-for…

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Tracks: Surfer - Another Cypherpunks Oddysey Begins
by Zig the N.g 04 Aug '20

04 Aug '20

Tracks: Surfer, The Catalyst 2020 FC _Another Cypherpunks Oddysey_ [Scene 1] The dream haunted him. It did every night, chased him usually within one lonely and vicious time track. Lately he'd been noticing little things - he still died every night, but the fear was reducing, and the nightmares more often metaphors for reality. Wearily rubbing his eyes again, he noticed the sweat transferred to his fingers. "Again!" he mumbled to his elf, to nobody and to everybody, wondering how many thoughts he had to not finish the formation of, how many he could speak before the watchers would reset the night, as they so often did. That "childhood fancy" as had so often been dismissed had stood him well - that healthy, if excessive paranoia kept his mind alert, eyes open and "Life, secured!" as the weary joke ran. "Such a weak and emotional child" - the distant memory rang out to no one, from everyone, ancient black and white lorenzian swirls danced with the haunting sound track of Ye Olde Dr Who. Swinging his legs off the bed, The Catalyst wiped his damp hands on his dry nightshirt, picked up the pen and notepad, began to write the memories: A rotten hand reaches over the precipice. I knew when it touched my arm, that time track would be forever stuck. Damn, it got me again! ("Such a bloody trope!" he thought to himself, "powerful little fuckers". Yet those after effects - that knot in his stomach.) The next frame returned: he could see his idiotic brother, always bored as a young teenager and looking for mischief, grinning stupidly, but a bit evilly at him; "was that from life, or another time track" he wondered, unsure. Through the brush, had to get somewhere, out of here, time was running out, fear catching up, walking a track ("oh wow, that was a track" ... the writing had again caused his subconscious to give up an insight), following somone, he knew he should walk alone, or rather have the strength to walk alone instead of plainly, unthinkingly follow. ("I'm working on that" he realised.) Next, standing on a bridge, a solid cement and stone bridge, the old Knight's Pass, just one of hundreds of course. Ghouls looking particularly humanoid and bland, but sufficiently gray as to be "certainly" ghouls, slowly lifted their NPC arms, taking slow step towards me. ("So tropish man, this is getting ridiculous!" but it had already happened, his duty to write continued.) A great friend was next to him, the voice of friendship, handing him the usual silver rovolver with silver bullets ("YES! The tropes!" :D). He knew he could fire the gun, but that premonition extended to the slowness of the bullets (shut UP already) - he shot off one, two, three silver bullets and not only were they slow, they curved! Cheeky bullets! (Ahh, "faith", a long way to go young wanna be knight in training!) The closest ghoul was at least a big step closer, and barely a large step away. He took a step back. His "brother in spirit" stayed at his side. Bullets were returning now. Yes, cause and consequence - no matter the tool, action and reaction, thus the need to always surf. These did not curve, had a slight yellow tinge, but were only slightly quicker than slow, and oddly seemed to stop right in front of him. He double checked the time track; Yes, they stopped. And was just about to assert a complete faith failure for the night. "Well that's at least mildly edifying" he mumbled in his thoughts. Why did it stop? His hand had risen, a tiny shield, but a shield it was - ahh yes, a shield of faith. Hmm, a little disconcerting, more fear. Must need more faith (ya think?! "Yes boss!") Then there were two, three bullets in return, but they quickly stacked up in one spot, squashing each previous bullet in mid air. That was handy, the shield was useful. Fear finally crept over him and he woke. Lorenzian butterfly wings haunted him. He was compelled, "just wired this way" he thought to himself with a wry grin... Just as he began to pray for forgiveness and redemption again, to protect the DUMB warriors liberating the thousands of children, an instruction, a conjunction of real life snippets from the last two weeks, became evident or "presented itself" to his ever umble mind: "write" "it seems I share these dreams with you for a reason" "in faith" "it's for a reason" "sharing" "time track surfing" He yawned, donned some warmer layers and shuffled over to the keyboard from the Glory Realms. "Better get some work done" he muttered, confirming the ungodly hour of the morning as the screen came to life. Time Surfers, eh? Are we really surfing time tracks? "Yes" It wasn't even a whisper. Not even, barely a thought. A memory, forged on that bridge and from the voice of friendship. He shivered again, and not from the chill mid Winter air... "In faith" He stopped typing, trying to hold back the tears, never properly succeeding as his subconscious drew him deeper into service. "Just wired this way" he consoled himself. "Remember all" "all in this together" "the game, the consequences, are real, we live with the consequences" []

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MIT Technology Review: The quest for quantum-proof encryption just made a leap forward
by jim bell 04 Aug '20

04 Aug '20

MIT Technology Review: The quest for quantum-proof encryption just made a leap forward. https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/08/03/1005891/search-for-quantum-proo…

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UBI and "economic expansion" - Keynsian madness - usury exponent implosion
by Zenaan Harkness 03 Aug '20

03 Aug '20

There's a meme in them thar economic hills, and it's a doozian, this "Keynsian" economic blinker: Unlimited growth. The foundation of "unlimited economic growth" is of course a bone thrown to the usurists, and when they're in control, they need the odd bone to chew on or they get fearful they might be exposed to the masses. And so unfortunately we get odd conjunctions such as "While the idea of a UBI sounds good in theory, as discussed previously, they fail to work in reality ... UBI Won’t Increase Economic Growth"... .. which is of course founded on the false "need" for eternal economic growth in the first place. See here: Universal Basic Income Is Not An Economic Savior https://realinvestmentadvice.com/macroview-universal-basic-income-is-not-an… https://www.zerohedge.com/economics/universal-basic-income-not-economic-sav… At the individual, the folly is seen easily e.g. if I eat 3 meals a day this year, I am unlikely to eat 6 meals a day next year "to help the economy increase food consumption/ economic growth in the food industry". Yes I might eat out more often if my disposable income is presently low and rises sufficiently next year, but it's a bit of a specious argument, an attempt to put lipstick on a pig, as I can only eat so much food on a daily basis before I get sick, and whilst eating more expensive might mean "healthier" within some limited bound, arbitrarily paying say 10 times the amount for the same meal is not economic growth of the food industry - it is actually "financialisation". In the endless search for the usurious pig's lipstick, financialisation has been the "go to" color, deceiving most with its "economic growth", in fact just a fraud of the first order, successfully masking over 100 years of currency debasement we slave under, to the benefit of extremely few. Which is fundamentally a natural if ridiculous result of a povvo minset i.e. "poverty consciousness". The fact is today that literally one single farmer in Australia, with the right equipment and 100,000 hectares of broad acre, can feed Australia its entire wheat needs (think large machinery, GPS and autonomous tractors). So we live today in phenomenal abundance which is literally off the charts amazing. And the obvious question is "well what is everybody else going to do then?" and the obvious "poverty consciousness" answer is "continue to slave to the bankers, doing Soul crushing paper pushing". So may be we need a new model .. one where we acknowledge our abundance, write off most debts, and yes hand out a UBI: - Some people will hoard like crazy little crack rats rubbing their paws together, because that's just how they're wired. - Others will "like, chill dude" and waste their lives away - and so be it, it's ultimately up to the individual to improve his.elf or not, and to a lesser degree up to his family to kick his butt. The lazy-arsed "survival" of the fattest. - And yet others of course will create Star Trek space ships - it's just how we're wired. Wisdom lies in cognising reality, our abundance if we don't destroy it all, and perhaps some genuine education for humans who want it, and importantly leaving them with their free will (shocking concept, I know…). Sit back and let folks "be" already — we live with sufficient food for all, the rest of life is a bonus. And the UBI conclusion? Another folly with standard ("modern", Keynsian) economic analysis is seen in the statement (from the above article) "In 2019, 75% of all expenditures went to social welfare and interest on the debt. Those payments required $3.3 Trillion of the $3.5 Trillion (or 95%) of the total revenue collected": - "social welfare" may as well be an alias for UBI, so ignore that part - and this fearful "interest payment on debt, and issuing of more debt" is a furphy, simply a product of the illegal Federal Reserve banking system as many well know The point being, if you want to analyse the possible success of a UBI future, saddling this future with "it must solve the known mathematical problem inherent in the present albitrary and illegal system", may result in failure before you even start. Now, it probably won't result in failure, and the re-balancing inherent with the addition of UBI, will likely at some point present to us all the inescapable question "how much graft in the form of interest" ought the bankers really make? And like unto it, "should we end the Fed?" Yes of course we should end the Fed, but Monty and sons may not appreciate that, and so we face "how to transition?" - at least a cold war against China is less life ending than a hot war against our Russian brothers, so there's that... In the end yes, UBI may certainly look like "long term GDP reduces", but a big part of that is actually de-financialisation as the wealth gap starts to normalise a bit, especially if it's done properly and most new money is injected at the bottom, rather than the majority being injected at the top. And de-financialisation is hard to see or even acknowledge because "Keynsian justification of usurious banking" actually requires "financialisation, pretending to be economic growth" to hide the Fed's theft, sorry I mean to hide the Fed's wealth transfer for as long as possible (until the system breaks)... UBI in any form helps stabilise the system of financialisation. So may be, I dunno, may be we could try a Corona bonus for a while? Unlike the "problematic when in isolation" Nordic UBI experiment, this Corona bonus is hopefully sufficiently broad-spectrum (including of most people in our community) so they can do the numbers and thereby determine how to de-financialize whilst maintaining overall stability. Being an inherent conservative ("hey, I'm not 14 years old any more!"), this "transition stability" is something to be grateful for...

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Gifts that keep on giving: Oklahoma Uni: Police try to id person posting "IT'S OKAY TO BE WHITE" flyers - [PEACE]
by Zenaan Harkness 02 Aug '20

02 Aug '20

Some 2016 memes, like "wierd flashing GIFs that appear, then disappear, and they're on the Dark Web and NOBODY can find them" keep on giving in 2019: Clinton: “Flashing Videos That Appear and Then Disappear and They’re on the Dark Web and Nobody Can Find Them” http://dstormer6em3i4km.onion/clinton-finally-hits-on-reason-she-lost-flash… [Flashing Gif elided] A flashing image I found on the dark web. If this appears or disappears, try refreshing your browser or deleting system32. If you can’t find it after that, you might be out of luck. It is truly incredible that “Madam President Scorned” is still a meme – but it do. She is still out there, every week, dropping new and increasingly fascinating reasons for why she lost the 2016 election. Hillary Clinton: ... “I think it’s going to be the same as 2016,” Clinton said. “I’m going to show you in these flashing videos that appear and then disappear and they’re on the dark web and nobody can find them, but you’re going to see them and you’re going to see that person doing these horrible things.” [Michelle Obama swimsuit shots not attached] Some 2017 memes are gifts that surprisingly, just keep on giving in 2019 - astounding but true: “It’s Okay to be White” Flyers Still Sending Universities Into Chaos http://dstormer6em3i4km.onion/its-okay-to-be-white-flyers-still-sending-uni… You’d think liberals would have gotten over it by now… The annual “It’s Okay to be White” freakout is happening again. The Oklahoman: https://oklahoman.com/article/5645882/police-searching-for-suspect-who-left… Police are trying to identify a person who posted flyers saying “IT’S OKAY TO BE WHITE” at the Oklahoma City University School of Law. OCU Police Director Bill Citty said officers don’t believe the person is a threat to students or the school campus. The person left several papers Thursday night with the text “IT’S OKAY TO BE WHITE” outside and on the doors of the law school, 800 N Harvey. Campus police obtained images of the man and have a “good idea” of his identity, Citty said. The Oklahoma City Police Department is trying to locate the man for questioning. “The important thing now is to 100% identify this person and find out what his intentions were,” Citty said. ... Against all odds, it seems like this classic trick is still soliciting the same response from both the schools and the media, showing us once again that liberals won’t learn their lesson if they have an opportunity to freak out and publicly signal how virtuous they are. Once the man is found, officers will try to determine whether he planned any more incidents at OCU. The man will be told not to return to the school campus. The flyers alone don’t appear to be a crime, Citty said. Property would have to be destroyed for vandalism to apply. Officers will investigate whether the person’s actions amounted to a hate crime. ... the law school has been “intentional and relentless” in celebrating its diverse community. The school celebrated Hispanic Heritage Month, LGBTQ+ History Month and Day of the Dead and will honor Native American Heritage Month. Naturally, the school is “intentionally” and “relentlessly” celebrating brown people and perverts, but if anyone publicly claims to be comfortable being a White guy, God help him. Just the fact that the school is reacting this way to this simple flyer sends the message loud and clear that it’s not, in fact, okay to be White. ... Stunning stuff...

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Seriously running for office: One of the candidates for the upcoming election in New Zealand :) - [PEACE]
by Zenaan Harkness 02 Aug '20

02 Aug '20

Now this is refreshing, the guy is more honest than you're average polly - Juan muh nagger, you should __definitely__ give this a go, make peace with your Spanish argie overlords. Seriously, you'd probably win a seat this way ... Election 2020: Waitaki candidate Daniel Shand says he doesn't know anything about politics https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12352994 Daniel Shand is asking for people's votes, saying he'd 'probably make a pretty good MP'. Photo / Vera Alves If you're tired of election candidates that over-promise and under-deliver, then you may very well wish you lived in the Waitaki electorate so you could vote for Daniel Shand. The candidate, whose first billboard has gone up in Wānaka this weekend, says he doesn't know anything about politics but is keen to give it a go. In a letter to the Waitaki electorate, which has also been posted on the "Vote Daniel Shand" Facebook page, the candidate says he doesn't currently have any positions. "I'll make something up later. Politicians don't normally do what they say anyway," he wrote. "Ring me up and tell me what you want and I'll probably just do that," the aspiring MP added. "I don't know anything about politics, but as this never stops anyone else from getting involved in government so I'll give it a go. It seems the less experience you have the better you'll do. I probably have the least experience of anyone running so perhaps this will give me some kind of advantage." Election campaigning is heating up in Wanaka pic.twitter.com/ILaYVzfruy — Jamie Wood (@larusnz) August 1, 2020 Shand, 37, says he will be putting more campaign billboards up over the next few days and will also announce a tour of the different towns in his electorate so he can talk to people about his campaign. "I'm not going to give any speeches, I don't want to tell people what to do. I want them to tell me what to do," Shand told the Herald. Shand, who moved to Cromwell a few months ago from Whanganui, says he has now lived in the area for "several months" and feels he has "enough of an idea of the place and its people to represent them in Parliament". "It's a fine and often overlooked province, it's not a bad place. While running over the next few weeks I'd like to add that I'm also single and I'd like to hopefully meet a nice lady one day. I thought maybe while running for Parliament," he added in his letter. "I might meet a few new people and maybe a nice girl. So if you're not interested in voting me into Parliament maybe we could go out for a coffee instead." He invites people in his electorate to call him up to discuss ideas and let him know what they want from the Government. Shand says that he is very keen to be elected and that is name will be on the ballot. He is not worried about his lack of experience impacting his political career. "What I don't know, I'll learn," he said. His billboard has been shared on social media where people have pointed out Shand probably would not be the least qualified person to ever try to become an MP. "He seems rather over qualified, but if elected, that'd change," one person joked on Twitter. "At least he's honest. That puts him ahead of some of his competitors," someone else commented. It is not Shand's first attempt at running in a local election. In 2019, he ran for the local council in the Whanganui District, where he promised he'd make "everything better". He says that campaign went "very well" and he made "quite an impression". Now in the Waitaki district, he continues his political aspirations, hoping people will vote him in on September 19. "I've got as much chance as anyone else," he added.

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SciTechDaily: U.S. Department of Energy Unveils Blueprint for Quantum Internet
by jim bell 02 Aug '20

02 Aug '20

SciTechDaily: U.S. Department of Energy Unveils Blueprint for Quantum Internet. https://scitechdaily.com/u-s-department-of-energy-unveils-blueprint-for-qua…

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NYT actually calls for "televised months long compelled confessions" - Inquisition 20.20 to begin November - [PEACE]
by Zenaan Harkness 02 Aug '20

02 Aug '20

Folks it's on for all - this is real, this is an actual agenda playing out before us, and called for by the USA's supposed "Paper of Record" the New York Times. South Africa is the model. Take nothing for granted, for a time at least... The New York Times is Now Proposing Literal Show Trials for White People http://dstormer6em3i4km.onion/the-new-york-times-is-now-proposing-literal-s… ... This is an inflection point for our entire civilization, one that will determine whether or not it continues to exist. ... The Reconciliation Must Be Televised https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/30/arts/television/the-moment-racism-tv.html What is the next step as America confronts its racism? A broadcast spectacle, our critic writes, that could look like court, a telethon, therapy, an Oprah show — and more. So here we are, still in this Moment, tasked to behold the changing of names and the signaling of virtue. Waiting for meaningful legislative reform, seizing matters with civilian hands in the meantime: recasting jobs; reclaiming parks and pedestals and city streets, these local reclamations, seemingly one public space at a time. The speed of change in a country notoriously allergic to it feels like a spree, reckoning as a marathon of “Supermarket Sweep.” We know The Moment is connected to other moments yet there’s a sense in our bones that it differs from them. Who knows when such a Moment might come along again? ... an event — broadcast across the country, over months, not days — that squares the present with the past, that explains The Moment to those who say they are, at last, awake to it ... Other countries have undergone such commissions, tribunals and soul searching — among them, El Salvador, Rwanda, Peru, Germany, South Africa. ... Of their participants, they compel confession ... It should be broadcast live and streamed the way impeachments and inaugurations are; the way certain trials are. That would require more than just ABC’s audacity, however backhanded. It would need CBS’s, NBC’s and Fox’s; CNN’s, BET’s and the Weather Channel’s. It would demand the platforms of Netflix, HBO, Disney+, Hulu and Amazon. There would be no escaping this thing ... Slavery, however, wouldn’t be the subject of this televised reckoning. Racism would. ... Their confessors would be the likes of Oprah Winfrey, Gayle King ...

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