March 2022 - cypherpunks - lists.cpunks.org

Computer Crimes Manual (W/183 Highlights)
by Gunnar Larson 18 Nov '23

18 Nov '23

Enron’s Board of Directors: Contemporary Lessons on Crypto Marketplace Manipulation Computer Crimes Link: https://thecapital.io/article/crypto-computer-crimes-manual-w183-highlights… *Working references on disclosure** controls and procedures, as well as strategic initiatives including **mergers and acquisitions**, **joint ventures**, and management restructurings (including public/private board of directors).* Full, fair, and accurate disclosures from all parties in a battle for corporate influence or control are critically important to investors, particularly when they are called upon to make decisions about their investments. Contemporary crypto computer crimes likely are key considerations relevant to making informed investment decisions by sophisticated investors, underscoring protection of pension assets via keen planning.

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Disciplined Short Sellers Handbook (W/58 Highlights)
by Gunnar Larson 18 Nov '23

18 Nov '23

Does Short-selling Discipline Earnings Manipulation? xNY.io recently collated international graduate scholar working notes coining the "Crypto Computer Crimes Manual <https://drive.google.com/file/d/11tbgHgDg8qagomO-NBffvIFpxXKmBC3g/view?usp=…>" as per best disclosure practices to illustrate various potential scenarios when market conditions are met and a Board of Directors potentially exploits blockchain technological software innovation with forecastable reckless consequences. The Disciplined Short Sellers Handbook serves as a Manual supplement ... Detailing the hypothesis that short-selling has a disciplining role vis-à-vis the managers forcing them to reduce earning manipulation. Across 33 countries, the Handbook documents a significantly negative relationship between lending supply and activism in the short sell market and earnings manipulation. Collectively, findings suggest that short selling provides an external governance mechanism to discipline managerial incentives. xNY.io highlights that the authors of the faculty and research study confirm the main hypotheses and provide evidence of a beneficial effect of the short-selling market on the corporate market. In other words, short-selling generates a disciplining effect similar to the effect produced by the contestability of the firm in the context of M&As. In this regard, short selling contributes not only to the information environment of the market but also to the contracting institutions of the real economy. Suggesting that in general the disciplining role of short-selling is the strongest for firms with weak internal governance or less transparent information environments. We share 58 highlights to the Handbook <https://drive.google.com/file/d/1aLcmN5c2PJiqHYR5dy8C8qMNVyclw8lu/view?usp=…> as a disclosure technique, foreshadowing xNY.io's disciplined approach to trading in the near term (subject to regulatory scrutiny). -- *Gunnar Larson - xNY.io <http://www.xNY.io> | Bank.org <http://Bank.org>* MSc <https://www.unic.ac.cy/blockchain/msc-digital-currency/?utm_source=Google&u…> - Digital Currency MBA <https://www.unic.ac.cy/business-administration-entrepreneurship-and-innovat…> - Entrepreneurship and Innovation (ip) G(a)xNY.io +1-646-454-9107 New York, New York 10001

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Morning Spam
by Karl 22 Oct '23

22 Oct '23

I haven't read the replies I haven't acknowledged, because I'm trying to slow down entering the dissociative state where I post obsessively to the list and do nothing else, and accessing the same threads could trigger it faster. Here is a webcomic outline. To help with the major motion picture being slowly grown from horrifically enslaved countries to bring their dead beloved dictators back to life as respected community members with badly needed medical care: Mind Control Boss, the Webcomic, draft 1 #1 panel 1: Setting: Boss's office Boss: "Somebody mentioned mind control on that mailing list. Let me know when it's cleaned up." Cleanup Worker (previously Secretary of State, talking honestly, has bloody wires leaving scalp, wears weapons dealer logo on smart looking political outfit): "Of course, Boss! We love you so much for enslaving us to your every whim!" panel 2: Setting: local coffee shop named "Underground Spy and Rebel Network, Come One Come All" Specialist (now a cleanup worker for Boss): "The Boss told me to clean this mailing list up. I told him to fuck off, that it's out of his control." Excited Supporter (at a nearby table of torture victims, rescue workers, and diplomats): "What list now?" State Worker (wears same weapons dealer logo as Secretary of State, watching, is at table of rebels with Specialist, in role of "way to control and spy on Boss", texting privately on Mobile Phone): [Excited Supporter will b worker who rebels. Can u make sure 2 erase what they look up tonight?] panel 3: Setting: same coffee shop Rebel Worker (sitting next to State Worker, wears same shirt, phone dings and looks suddenly at State Worker): "The fuck???" <immediately shoots State Worker dead> Dead State Worker's Mobile Phone: "Contacting Cleanup. Thank you for using Dictatorsoft." Specialist (same one, at table): <while phone alarming about cleanup>, "Again????" #2 panel 1: (torture victim, excited supporter, and/or rebel worker visit mailing list, assume it is super cool, archive it and spread it everywhere) panel 2: Scene: Former Secretary of State's office Cleanup Worker (formerly secretary of state, bloody wires leaving neatly combed hair, gesturing at corpse of State Worker, talking to Machine Learning Marketer): "Boss can't see well and needs to hear it from the horse's mouth, and the horse is dead. Could you fix up a video chat for us where the horse is alive?" Machine Learning Marketer (knows nothing about machine learning, is new to corporation): "Certainly. We do that all the time." panel 3: Scene: Boss's office, with corpse of State Worker present, propped up as if still alive. Boss is in a hospital bed. Corpse of State Worker (blurry due to severe issues Boss is having): "Boss, I am your loyal servant. The mailing list has been cleaned up." #3 Scene: Former Secretary of State's Office Standing Corpse of State Worker: "I have bad news. The rebel mailing list posts we've been using to share propaganda are predicted to make more rebels than propaganda." State Worker 2 (hired to replace State Worker after their death, bloody wires leaving scalp): "Don't say that! I might tell the boss!" Corpse of State Worker: "Very sorry." #4 Scene: Former Secretary of State's Office Standing Corpse of State Worker 2 (microelectronics and brains hanging out of scalp, eyes moving wildly and independently of each other): "After being brought back from the dead so many times by Machine Learning Marketer, Boss can no longer learn new information without being killed out of fear of subversion by propaganda. This doesn't seem much like leadership to the workers, so we've kind of reinterpreted who the boss really is, and listen instead to their "spirit" rather than letting them say anything. Machine Learning Marketer has a computer that can report spirit." Machine Learning Marketer has bloody wires leaving their scalp. Standing Corpse of State Worker 3 (also has obviously poorly-done bci surgery): "You said you replaced the Boss with a computer simulation?" State Worker 2: "Yeah, can you kill me until I do it well enough to say straight, for the coffee shop?" Machine Learning Marketer: <reaches for their own cellphone and breaks it in half. Takes out a gun and empties it into the lights>. "I think the simulation just mind controlled me not to." #5 <we can come up with these forever, and have the next one drafted too, but it is too hard to continue for me to write it right now. it involves describing what it is like to communicate things when your behavior and medical treatment are augmented by machine learning algorithms each made or influenced by a different warring faction trying to manipulate you toward their own particular ends. sorry ran out of steam, got triggered too badly in #4>

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Anti War: Thread
by grarpamp 18 Oct '23

18 Oct '23

Because the world may be getting closer to some sort of real war, and because among some cypherpunk cadres are claims that crypto solves for everything... the great diviner of truth, and decider of right from wrong. https://www.antiwar.com/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-war_movement Ex-CIA Officer Asks: What Happens When America Experiences Real War With A Superpower? https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/vietnam-regurgitated/ During my first years as a young CIA officer in Vietnam from 1965-67, I went to school (so to speak) and received the real education of my life. I learned about my government, its politicians, and military leaders. I learned about the lies, the high explosive and chemical bombings, our superior fire power, villages bombed and burned, the payoffs we made to our ranking Vietnamese allies and the reasons for our losing the war. The enemy fought to unite their country and expel foreign domination. The US fought because of corrupt leadership and our losses were a mere fraction being fought on the enemy’s turf with our superior fire power, money and material support. They fought for a cause. We fought for no justifiable reason. They won. We did not. AP image: Napalm strike near US troops on patrol in South Vietnam, 1966. Remember the body bags displayed on the tarmacs of our returning dead from Vietnam? Not like the lack of media coverage today given the damage we inflict. Remember the disapproving reception of our returning soldiers? Now we celebrate them as heroes and wounded patriots. Here, at home, we have not experienced wars employing mass-destruction weapons. Maybe one day will we receive an education about the consequences of wars as a nation. Surely, we learned nothing from Vietnam as it never happened here. Our commitment to the two-decade, multi-country invasions in the Middle East have shown our cowardliness to the world if not to ourselves. Our hypocrisy is stunning. No draft, no engagement (almost no KIA’s each year). Far more troop suicides than battle deaths while displacing, killing and maiming thousands of innocent civilian lives year after year. For whom and what? And, yes, a media in full march step with these disgraceful invasions and occupations. Remember the uproar about Vietnam? Burned draft cards, asylum in Canada, draft dodgers, street demonstrations and sit-ins galore. And why not these now? The unending, shameful action by our government is making sure the public is not paying a price in people. No draft, very limited engagement with the enemy and an approving media. What more can our government and Pentagon ask for? We will keep dropping bombs and feeding others money and weapons to assist with the killing and displacing of innocent populations for us. But are these wars really for us? Certainly not. Remember George W. Bush, and his failing presidency, who was made a hero the morning after 9/11 with his WMD declaration that fooled no one but Americans? Not a sound from the citizenry. Would we try the pitiful WMD routine on China or Russia? They have the ability to hit back. The national celebration that greeted George H.W. Bush in death is a far cry from his presidency. It was not until after 9/11 that George W. Bush obeyed the lobbies’ demands to destroy Iraq that his father was resurrected and the son was hailed as our glorious leader. Remember his welcoming carrier landing which turned out to be a dud? These wars that we persist with are not only cowardly, they demonstrate our lack of respect for other nations, their people and our national conscience. Notably, they demonstrate our being a failed nation not capable of controlling or directing its own interests. We will go down in history as that most powerful, but most surrogate nation ever. Stunningly shameful with the blood of others staining our once proud national emblem. While we busy ourselves with "enemies" that we and "friendly" others have invented, we have become oblivious to the enemy within. The one taking us down.

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Collapse: Earth Overshoot Day
by grarpamp 12 Oct '23

12 Oct '23

You stupid Humans ran out of resources three days ago on 2021-07-29... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_Overshoot_Day https://www.overshootday.org/ https://www.footprintnetwork.org/

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LendingClub: Current Board of Directors
by Gunnar Larson 27 Jul '23

27 Jul '23

Pure honesty, what (if anything) does September 11 have to do with LendingClub's Board of Directors (see below)? LendingClub is a peer-to-peer lending company, headquartered in San Francisco, California. It was the first peer-to-peer lender to register its offerings as securities with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and to offer loan trading on a secondary market. At its height, LendingClub was the world's largest peer-to-peer lending platform. The company claims that $15.98 billion in loans had been originated through its platform ... LendingClub was initially launched on Facebook as one of Facebook's first applications. ---------- Forwarded message --------- From: Anuj Nayar <anayar(a)lendingclub.com> Date: Sun, Oct 24, 2021, 11:36 AM Subject: Re: [EXT] LendingClub: Current Board of Directors To: Gunnar Larson <g(a)xny.io>, Investor Relations <ir(a)lendingclub.com>, Press <Press(a)lendingclub.com> Hi Gunnar On September 11, 2021, in connection with her nomination to serve as superintendent of the New York State Department of Financial Services, Adrienne Harris notified us of her resignation, effective September 12, 2021, from the Company’s Board. Details can be found in the 8k filed on 9/15/21 (below) https://d18rn0p25nwr6d.cloudfront.net/CIK-0001409970/bbc437e4-2920-4d5d-8e0… *From: *Gunnar Larson <g(a)xny.io> *Date: *Saturday, October 23, 2021 at 9:37 AM *To: *Investor Relations <ir(a)lendingclub.com>, Press <Press(a)lendingclub.com> *Cc: *Gunnar Larson <g(a)xny.io> *Subject: *[EXT] LendingClub: Current Board of Directors *CAUTION:* This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe. Dear Madam or Sir: Good day to you. Surveying market research, I was wondering if you can kindly confirm, from LendingClub's July 15, 2021 press release: - Is Ms. Adrienne Harris currently a member of LendingClub's board of directors? - https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/lendingclub-appoints-adrienne-harr… [prnewswire.com] <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.prnewswire.com_new…> - Reviewing your website, Ms. Harris is not referenced: https://www.lendingclub.com/company/leadership - Bloomberg and other sources do not reference Ms. Harris as a LendingClub board member: https://www.bloomberg.com/quote/LC:US [bloomberg.com] <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.bloomberg.com_quot…> Sending you the very best regards. Thank you, Gunnar -- *Gunnar Larson - xNY.io [xny.io] <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.xNY.io&d=DwMFaQ&c=z…> | Bank.org [bank.org] <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__Bank.org&d=DwMFaQ&c=zW-…>* MSc [unic.ac.cy] <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.unic.ac.cy_blockch…> - Digital Currency MBA [unic.ac.cy] <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.unic.ac.cy_busines…> - Entrepreneurship and Innovation (ip) G(a)xNY.io +1-646-454-9107 New York, New York 10001 ------------------------------ This message contains confidential information and is intended only for the named addressee. If you are not the named addressee you should not disseminate, distribute or copy this e-mail. Please notify the sender immediately by e-mail if you have received this e-mail by mistake and delete this e-mail from your system. If you are not the named addressee, you are notified that disclosing, copying, distributing or taking any action in reliance on the contents of this information is strictly prohibited.

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Harvard inflates wood ...
by Gunnar Larson 26 Jul '23

26 Jul '23

Digital Assets: Beauty Is Not in the Eye of the Beholder " ... When recommendations by some consultants and the allocation of TIMBER by Harvard University’s endowment led to broad interest in the asset. Timber funds were launched with the understanding that they provided diversification and enhanced returns. Our analysis showed that timber did not add any value to our clients’ portfolios, and we recommended against investing in timber funds." -Goldman Sachs Investment Group (June 2021): https://drive.google.com/file/d/1yEQupX1a7VS4K6N018Y0SF_0v4lpJWz8/view?usp=…

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The Wall Street Journal: Abolish the FBI
by jim bell 14 Jun '23

14 Jun '23

The Wall Street Journal: Abolish the FBI. https://www.wsj.com/articles/abolish-fbi-durham-indictment-russia-collusion…

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FOIA: CIA Did JFK
by grarpamp 07 Jun '23

07 Jun '23

https://www.fff.org/2021/11/11/will-the-cias-jfk-assassinated-related-recor… https://www.amazon.com/Kennedy-Autopsy-Jacob-G-Hornberger/dp/1890687235 https://www.amazon.com/Kennedy-Autopsy-LBJs-Role-Assassination/dp/189068726X https://www.amazon.com/JFK-Unspeakable-Why-Died-Matters/dp/1570757550 https://www.fff.org/2021/11/09/what-if-a-president-is-a-threat-to-national-… Will The CIA's JFK Assassinated-Related Records Ever Get Released? Authored by Jacob Hornberger By this time, it should be sinking into everyone’s consciousness that the American people are never going to be permitted to see the rest of the CIA’s 60-year-old secret records relating to the JFK assassination... Yes, I know, President Biden says that the new deadline for disclosure is December 22, 2022, which just happens to fall after the November 2022 congressional elections. But that’s just like the mechanical rabbit that is used in dog races — the dogs are never going to catch that rabbit. And the American people are never going to see those records. Don’t forget, after all, that this isn’t the first deadline that has been set for disclosure. There was the 25-year deadline that was set back in the 1990s. That deadline came due during the Trump administration. What happened when that deadline came? It got extended of course. Trump surrendered to the CIA’s demands for continued secrecy, just as Biden now has. Every president will do so. The CIA will demand it. National security depends on it! Ever since Kennedy was assassinated, there has been a segment of society that has fallen for the official story — that a lone nut communist former U.S. Marine shot and killed the president. This segment has also bought into what has become known as the magic-bullet theory, which holds that a bullet hit Kennedy in the back of the neck, exited his throat, broke ribs and a wrist bone in Governor Connally, lodged in Connally’s thigh, and ended up in virtually pristine, never-been-shot condition. What this segment of society has never been able to explain is why it was therefore necessary to shroud the investigation of the assassination in national-security-state secrecy. In other words, if the assassination really happened because a lone-nut communist former U.S. Marine suddenly, without any motive, decided to kill the president, what in the world would that have to do with “national security,” no matter was definition is put to that nebulous, meaningless term? Let’s consider the other alternative, the one set forth in the best book that has ever been written about the assassination: JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters by James W. Douglass. Let’s assume that the assassination was a highly sophisticated regime-change operation to oust a president from office whose policies, it had been determined, posed a grave threat to national security. In other words, consider the principles that led to the U.S. regime-change operations on both sides of the Kennedy assassination: Iraq (1953), Guatemala (1954), Cuba (1959-2021), and Chile (1973), and simply apply them to Kennedy. Ousting the leaders of those countries was necessary, we are told, because such leaders posed a grave threat to national security. Let’s assume that that was the case with Kennedy. (See my article “What If a President Is a Threat to National Security?) Such being the case, wouldn’t the malefactors want to hide any semblance of incriminating evidence? That just makes sense. Now, I’m not suggesting that anyone would ever find a written confession within those still-secret CIA records. Including such a confession would have been stupid, and the people within the CIA in 1963 were not only not stupid, they were actually very brilliant people. Many of them were Ivy League graduates who were putting their brilliant minds toward the study of assassination and cover-up. Moreover, from the very beginning of the CIA, when it adopted the power of assassination, there was a strict rule against ever putting anything about an assassination into writing. That rule would especially apply to the assassination of a president or prime minister. But there are so many moving parts to an assassination and its cover up that it becomes imperative to keep all records secret so that sharp-minded researchers and investigative reporters are unable to put individual pieces of the puzzle together. That’s why national-security state secrecy on what was purported to be a lone-nut assassination was imperative from the very moment of the JFK assassination. The Kennedy assassination took place in November 1963. In 1991 — almost 30 years later — Oliver Stone came out with his movie JFK, which, not surprisingly, created all sorts of controversy. The movie rejected the official lone-nut/magic-bullet theories of the assassination and instead posited that the assassination was a highly sophisticated regime-change operation on the part of the U.S. national-security establishment. What shocked — and actually outraged — a large segment of the American people was Stone’s disclosure that the national-security establishment was still keeping its assassination-related records secret. Why would they do that? It had been 30 years — 3 decades! — since the assassination. That’s a long time for secrecy in what is purported to be a lone-nut assassination. So, a large number of Americans were naturally suspicious. They demanded that Congress mandate a release of those records. It was one of those rare instances where the public is able to force Congress to do something that Congress doesn’t want to do. The fact that the national-security establishment fiercely opposed disclosing their assassination-related records to the public makes it even more remarkable that the JFK Records Act of 1992 was enacted. Why did President George H.W. Bush, who had served as CIA director, sign the bill into law? Because Bill Clinton, against whom he was running for president, came out publicly in favor of the law. Bush was trapped, politically. He decided he’d better sign the bill into law to avoid letting Clinton turn it into a campaign issue. Thousands of records were released, some over the fierce objections of the Pentagon and the CIA. No, there were no confessions. But there was a mountain of evidence establishing that the national-security establishment had conducted a fraudulent autopsy on the president’s body on the very evening of the assassination. See my two books The Kennedy Autopsy and The Kennedy Autopsy 2. There were three unusual aspects of the JFK Records Act. One was that the Assassination Records Review Board, which was called into existence to enforce the law, was absolutely prohibited from investigating any aspect of the Kennedy assassination. Thus, when the ARRB uncovered the evidence establishing the fraudulent autopsy, it was not permitted to conduct an extensive investigation into what it had uncovered. The other unusual provision was that the CIA and other federal agencies had the prerogative of keeping some of their records secret for another 25 years, on grounds of “national security.” Now, I ask you: If you have committed a criminal act and you know that the ARRB has already uncovered what you did to commit a fraudulent autopsy, what evidence are you going to keep secret for another 25 years? Aren’t you going to keep the most incriminating evidence secret for as long as you can, hopefully forever? Isn’t that just logical? No, not a confession, but other pieces to the assassination puzzle that fill in more portions of the regime-change mosaic, such as Lee Harvey Oswald’s purported trip to Mexico City just before the assassination, which is still shrouded in mystery and cover-up almost 60 years later. Another unusual aspect of the JFK Records Act was that it failed to automatically call the ARRB back into existence when that 25-year deadline came due. That’s what has enabled the national-security establishment, especially the CIA, to secure forever extensions for secrecy. What are the chances the balance of the records will ever be released to the American people. Nil. That’s because there is virtually no chance that Congress will call the ARRB back into existence to enforce the JFK Records Act. And even if it did, it is a virtual certainty that the CIA would require any president to veto it. Only a large public outcry against continued secrecy, similar to what happened after Oliver Stone’s movie, could change that. Unfortunately, there is little indication that that is going to happen. One thing is clear though — the CIA’s need for continued secrecy of its assassination-related records on the ridiculous ground of “national security” is about as close to an implicit admission of guilt as one can get. After all, there is no Fifth Amendment right to remain silent for the CIA and the rest of the national-security establishment.

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John McAfee: Crypto Libertarian Privacy and Love Evangelist, Dead at 75
by grarpamp 05 Jun '23

05 Jun '23

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