October 2021 - cypherpunks - lists.cpunks.org

My apologies Goldmember
by professor rat 11 Oct '21

11 Oct '21

My apologies to all OG c-punks here who I may have accidentally mistaken for someone genuine about false allegations being made here against list contributors. I was in serious error in relation to this matter. My Bat.

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Imagine Gramps and Batshit trying to pass for C-punks
by professor rat 10 Oct '21

10 Oct '21

Actually you don't have to. Just take a gander at Jim Bell and Steve Schear They wouldn't know anarchist revolution from a hole in the ground.

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JIM Bell Goes on Unhinged Anti-Vax Tirade
by professor rat 10 Oct '21

10 Oct '21

Sorry Allen West Goes on Unhinged Anti-Vax Tirade Amid COVID Hospitalization The Daily Beast 3 hours ago Allen West, Texas gubernatorial candidate, hospitalized with Covid-19 POLITICO 6 hours ago Not Jim Bell. My Bat.

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Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory
by professor rat 10 Oct '21

10 Oct '21

Two main ways to do this ( and they can miscegenate ) 1) Basically peaceful coexistence with the powers-that-be - ' loyal opposition ', collaboration. Drift along - pretend there never were any anarchist revolutionaries - or they never did enough. Remain ignorant, conformist, craven. Its too hard to make anyone understand anarchist revolution when their identities depend on them not understanding it. Then there's 2) Substitution. Bait with " Peace, bread and freedom ' - then switch to crypto-fascism. Let that small army of batshit-crazy, inverse-Marxist Nazbols over-run the narrative. Give every mincing, bow-tied, gold-bug a microphone. Allow every wanna-be Dolfuss / Pinochet to take over every El Salvador and Ethiopia out there. Elevate all Randite, Paultard Austro-Libertarian nutcase to world-historical thought-leader status. Death to crypto-anarchy - LONG LIVE CYBER-LIBERTY! The best lack all convictions for assaulting police while the worst Wikileaks type chickenshits are filled with a passionate intensity. Hey - lets see it doesn't come to that.

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Don't hate the natural-rights anarchist
by professor rat 10 Oct '21

10 Oct '21

KILL the natural-rights anarchist https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/national-international/american-anarchist-j… Same goes for any self-described ' libertarian anarchist ' No one will miss them.

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Re: Fw: Stark difference in COVID-19 death rates between vaccinated and unvaccinated
by professor rat 10 Oct '21

10 Oct '21

Thank you Jim Dumb-Bell for muddying the waters between you and quack-cures for COVID like bleach and hydrogen-peroxide. Also for repeated failure to do any due diligence on Antivaxxer Jeff Berwick. These are far worse than mere crimes - they are fatal mistakes. And our world will be better off without you. John Filiss ' War by Assassination " can be promoted. You can be airbrushed out. RIP Moron.

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And when did Steven Schear stop beating his wife?
by professor rat 10 Oct '21

10 Oct '21

Steven Schear <schear.steve () gmail ! com> Date: 2015-07-30 ( SNIP ) During the early 90s I worked at Cylink, a Crypto AG competitor. We too received a NSA visit about weakening products sold to certain clients (e.g., so-called narco-terrorists). I and the other directors were told of this (because we had legal responsibilities and liabilities) at a meeting. I assume we made the changes requested (e.g., weakening the RNG to NSA specifications). The special units were sold through a selected distributor in Louisiana (probably also a NSA contractor). . . "

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[crazy] Undiscussed Secrets In Plain Sight
by Karl 10 Oct '21

10 Oct '21

I was thinking on parallel construction, and remembering two scenes from the Snowden movie. Movies are like a way to remember things that are a little similar to reality if you can't pay attention to anything more serious. In one scene, Snowden is learning how the NSA spies on people "lawfully". His instructor is teaching a bunch of newbie spies about this, and the instructor says something that is blatantly false but sounds kind of true if you don't go too deep into it. He claims that this spying is legal and constitutional. In another scene, Snowden is doing advanced work among surveillance workers, and he is referred to as "snow white" in parallel to having concerns around spying on people without due process. It is the introduction to engaging in illegal spying as a matter of course. What's notable here, is that a bunch of people are breaking the law, and are aware of doing so, but talking to each other as if they are not breaking the law. Additionally, people who come out around not wanting to do this, are persecuted on an international level by multiple governments and other organizations. I imagine there being wealthy or powerful people pulling strings and cleaning up, and the workers who do their work basically just adapting to this situation in various ways, maybe knowing or not knowing what it is, I don't know, so as to succeed. I'm thinking of that part where the newbie spies are taught that the illegal work is legal. There's a possibility there that the instructor knows it isn't legal. Meanwhile, each spy finds out in his or her own way, and many don't find out, that it is not actually legal. The situation seems to parallel many others. And this kind of situation has played a big role on this list. It's hard for me to think about. I think most people kind of "pick up" that you talk about it as if it is legal. I feel like this must be analogous to something socially normal, for so many people to pick it up, but I'm not sure what. Why would it be normal for so many people to comply with unspoken, constantly-changing rules? --> Maybe because the rules _are_ spoken. The instructor gave them to the newbie spies when he revealed by action that the entire system they were in was a part of it. This implies something. The thing it implies is very vague, and it seems to stay vague as far as the movie is concerned. But even though it is very vague, it is very clear that it is very real and very powerful. So the social norm would be like hushing about the weight of an obese + popular person. Maybe. It's hard to think about. But it could save one's life to comprehend it. It's never good to keep genocide secret, but I guess you can get killed when you talk about it to the people who are trying to cover it up.

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Re: Dishonest Tor relay math question - tor-talk is to lazy
by Peter Fairbrother 10 Oct '21

10 Oct '21

On 10/10/2021 [offlist] wrote: > If the US is compromised by 100%, Tor would not work at all, right? For providing reliable anonymity against the US and UK government agencies in the form of the NSA and GCHQ, yes, Tor is completely useless. Against a lesser adversary, well there are many other possible attacks against Tor's anonymisation - I particularly liked the hitting set attack - and I don't keep up in detail, so while Tor probably provides some protection I don't really know how much. There is another factor to consider though - the best position for a code-breaking agency to be in is if they can break the code but everybody else thinks they can't and so continues using the broken code. That is pretty much the position of USG/NSA with respect to Tor, which is why USG fund 80% of it. [4] The phrase "bodyguard of lies" comes in here, as does eg subsection 56(1) of the UK's Investigatory Powers Act 2016, see [5] below (you can tell a lot about what spy agencies are doing by studying the relevant legislation) The result of this that while NSA and GCHQ may know, they aren't necessarily going to tell anybody, at least not about the routine stuff. Even in Bin-Laden-hunt situations the most they might say is that they got some chatter (or whatever the current circumlocution is) indicting some intelligence may be correct or a direction for investigation. As for dumping everything they know about eg dark nets to the FBI or local cops, it ain't likely to happen soon. Though it might, one day.. Incidentally that's why other agencies like the FBI and the NCA in the UK at least apparently, and probably actually, do the work which leads to criminal convictions on darknets. I suspect they get a little "help" from the code guys, like "you can't use that in court" or maybe "try looking in a different direction". [4] It also has the to-them benefit: "to aid democracy advocates in authoritarian states" while they can still tell who is who, if not (mostly) what is said. To do this it has to provide some level of protection against lesser adversaries, though that may not be a very high level. cf the anonymity of Afghan translators who worked for the British Army... [5] (1)No evidence may be adduced, question asked, assertion or disclosure made or other thing done in, for the purposes of or in connection with any legal proceedings or Inquiries Act proceedings which (in any manner)— (a)[...] (b)tends to suggest that any interception-related conduct has or may have occurred or may be going to occur. [6] #TOR FAQ: Criminals can already do bad things. Since they're willing to break laws, they already have lots of options available that provide better privacy than Tor provides.... Tor aims to provide protection for ordinary people who want to follow the law. Only criminals have privacy right now, and we need to fix that.... So yes, criminals could in theory use Tor, but they already have better options, and it seems unlikely that taking Tor away from the world will stop them from doing their bad things. At the same time, Tor and other privacy measures can fight identity theft, physical crimes like stalking, and so on. > What about connection, cell padding? Does it help to reduce the matching success? As I have said I'm not totally up-to-date on Tor, but probably not much. Peter Fairbrother

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Cryptocurrency: War On Cash Endgame... It's Where Your Freedom Went
by grarpamp 10 Oct '21

10 Oct '21

Those who allow the freedom of their financial voice to be removed from the marketplace of speech, who give away the ability to freely store and transact value P2P in efficient secure forms, shall, along with their families and friends, suffer life as slaves unto their brutal masters. The War On Cash has been documented for decades, and now even banks are starting to close their cash windows worldwide. You would be well served to rise up and take to the streets to end it, and along with it, the Centralized Globalist Govt and Corp areas sources and ideologies of power and control from which it stems. Without Freedom of Finance, Movement, Speech, and Privacy... you are doomed, and they are all being removed from you in realtime by these powers. Crypto does you no good when you keep agreeing to sit on your ass and follow the orders of your masters. Stop doing that. The 'War On Cash' Endgame Is Here https://off-guardian.org/2021/10/01/programmable-digital-currency-the-next-… https://twitter.com/PeterSweden7/status/1443346913416421376 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_bank_digital_currency https://off-guardian.org/2018/06/02/open-source-investigation-the-war-on-ca… https://www.ft.com/content/8445e0d5-1f28-4939-923b-4578c00760b6 https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/new-money-central-banks-lay-out-op… https://www.ft.com/content/b102160a-f326-4c17-8005-7d8b57bc7442 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_renminbi https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-09-29/new-zealand-exploring-po… https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/australia-singapore-south-africa-t… https://www.reuters.com/business/fed-release-paper-central-bank-digital-cur… https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-creates-its-own-digital-currency-a-first… https://www.wired.com/story/chinas-sweeping-cryptocurrency-ban-inevitable/ https://www.theblockcrypto.com/post/110377/china-digital-yuan-test-programm… https://www.jrf.org.uk/universal-basic-income-good-idea https://off-guardian.org/2020/11/12/own-nothing-and-be-happy-the-great-rese… https://off-guardian.org/2021/07/31/whats-really-behind-the-war-on-home-own… https://off-guardian.org/2021/04/23/climate-is-the-new-covid/ “Programmable Digital Currency”: The next stage of the new normal? The war on cash’s endgame is here: money replaced by vouchers subject to complete state control. Building on the bitcoin model, central banks are planning to produce their own “digital currencies”. Removing any and all remaining privacy, granting total control over every transaction, even limiting what ordinary people are allowed to spend their money on. >From the moment bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies first emerged, sold as an independent and alternative medium of exchange outside the financial status quo, it was only a matter of time before the new alternative would be absorbed, modified and redeployed in service of the state. Enter “Central Bank Digital Currencies”: the mainstream answer to bitcoin. For those who have never heard of them, “Central Bank Digital Currencies” (CBDCs) are exactly what they sound like, digitized versions of the pound/dollar/euro etc. issued by central banks. Like bitcoin (and other crypto), the CBDC would be entirely digital, thus furthering the ongoing war on cash. However, unlike crypto, it would not have any encryption preserving anonymity. In fact, it would be totally the reverse, potentially ending the very idea of financial privacy. Now, you may not have heard much about the CBDC plans, lost as they are in the tangle of the ongoing “pandemic”, but the campaign is there, chugging along on the back pages for months now. There are stories about it from both Reuters and the Financial Times just today. It’s a long, slow con, but a con nonetheless. The countries where the idea progressed the furthest are China and the UK. The Chinese Digital Yuan has been in development since 2014, and is subject to ongoing and widespread testing. The UK is nowhere near that stage yet, but Chancellor Rishi Sunak is keenly pushing forward a digital pound that the press are calling “Britcoin”. Other countries, including New Zealand, Australia, South Africa and Malaysia, are not far behind. The US is also researching the idea, with Jerome Powell, head of Federal Reserve, announcing the release of a detailed report on the “digital dollar” in the near future. The proposals for how these CBDCs might work should be enough to raise red flags in even the most trusting of minds. Most people wouldn’t like the idea of the government monitoring “all spending in real-time”, but that’s not the worst it. By far the most dangerous idea is that any future digital currency should be “programmable”. Meaning the people issuing the money would have the power to control how it is spent. That’s not an interpretation or a “conspiracy theory”, just listen to Agustin Carstens, head of the International Settlement Bank, speaking earlier this year: Here’s that quote again, with some emphasis added: The key difference [with a CBDC] is that the central bank would have absolute control on the rules and regulations that will determine the use of that expression of central bank liability, and the have the technology to enforce that.” …which tells you not only that they want and are seeking this power, but how they justify it to themselves. They transform other people’s money into an “expression of their liability”, and so consider it’s only right that they control it. An article in the Telegraph, back in June, was just as candid [our emphasis]: Digital cash could be programmed to ensure it is only spent on essentials, or goods which an employer or Government deems to be sensible The article goes on to quote Tom Mutton, a director at the BoE: You could introduce programmability […] There could be some socially beneficial outcomes from that, preventing activity which is seen to be socially harmful in some way. Governments and employers making sure the money they issue can only be used on “sensible” things, and not be used in “socially harmful” ways? It doesn’t take much imagination to see just how this system could evolve and re-shape society into a truly dystopian nightmare. In China the process is already beginning, with a trademarked lack of subtlety. As they progress toward the release of their digital currency, they are banning all cryptocurrencies to remove competition and it’s already known the digital yuan will be programmable. The West’s approach will probably be less direct, but no less controlling for that. Britcoin will likely be programmed in only “special circumstances”. Starting, as the Telegraph says, with state benefits. They will be flagged to be spent only on “essentials”. (Of course, if Universal Basic Income is put in place, then it’s possible the majority of people could end up on “state benefits”.) It’s also not hard to see programmable money feeding into the “protect the NHS narrative”, where people aren’t allowed to spend state money on sugar, cigarettes or alcohol. Or people on organ waiting lists, or diagnosed with certain conditions, have their wages and spending controlled. By and large, however, it is the nature of British tyranny to be unofficial. So the UK government will make a big show of renouncing their own power to program the money, thereby positively contrasting themselves with China…but at the time will take no steps to prevent large companies “programming” the wages they issue. So, while the state controls the digital yuan in China, the digital pound will be subject to corporate control and used to enforce the unspoken state-corporate partnership that defines true fascism. It will likely start in small, predictable ways designed to “limit competition”. McDonald’s, for example, will make it impossible to spend their wages at Burger King, and vice versa. Coke and Pepsi. Starbucks and Costa. You get the idea. We’ve witnessed the rise of cancel culture, the cultivated age of identity politics, and virtue signalling. Well, imagine how programmable currency fits into that. Companies could commit to “combatting hate”, and stop their employees from donating money to black-listed political parties, religious groups, charities or individuals. In the age of Covid we have seen how authors/actors/singers who step out of line are subject to poisonous witch hunts, but imagine a world where companies could “renounce those who spread misinformation”, by making it impossible to spend wages they issue on art/films/music/books by outspoken critics of the government. Maybe companies will make it so that employees who aren’t vaccinated have more limitations placed on their wages than vaccinated ones. Maybe an unvaxxed paycheck can’t be spent at cinemas or nightclubs, to “stop the spread of the virus”. John Cunliffe, deputy director of the Bank of England, told the Telegraph: You could think of smart contracts in which the money would be programmed to be released only if something happened. So maybe employers will remove choice altogether, and make a negative test and/or a vaccine booster a prerequisite for unlocking your wages. That could be applied to all kinds of behaviours moving forward. The World Economic Forum has a clear vision of the future where people “own nothing and are happy”, combine that with a prolonged war on homeownership, and you can see employers and governments issuing money which can be spent on rent, but not on a mortgage. Now imagine the nascent “Green New Deal”. Hard limits on how much money you can spend on petrol, plastic, or meat. Only X dollars on flights per year. Only Y pounds on beef. All for the good of the planet. Money will turn from an expression of independence into nothing but a voucher system operated completely at the whim of corporate monoliths. The year is 2030. To reduce your CO2 footprint, your food purchase with digital cash been declined because you went over your car mileage limit. Its all tracked with your digital ID. 15 social credit score points have been deducted from your climate change passport. — PeterSweden (@PeterSweden7) September 29, 2021 All of this would have sounded like rampant paranoia just two years ago, but would you honestly be surprised to see that suggestion in the Guardian, these days? A programmable digital currency would have, coded into it, the ability to control our entire society. And it looks like that’s where The New Normal is heading next.

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