January 2023 - cypherpunks - lists.cpunks.org

Appreciation for Cypherpunks List
by Undescribed Horrific Abuse, One Victim & Survivor of Many 28 Jan '23

28 Jan '23

I am feeling impressed with and appreciative of the list as idealoy an unmoderated, uncensored communiction channel. This is rare and needed in ways not everyone sees.

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[crazy] I was involved in a core libusb change that broke many projects.
by Undescribed Horrific Abuse, One Victim & Survivor of Many 27 Jan '23

27 Jan '23

It looks like in 2020 or 2021 I wanted to contribute to shared open source EEG infrastructure and was experiencing dissociative amnesia around the popular toolkit from out of France. Instead I found https://brainflow.org from Russia. I wanted to unify the USB-based drivers to work easily on mobile, and began patching libusb to no longer require root on android by spending the time to learn the android APIs. This was messy and hard for me, and I spent most of my EEG dev effort cleaning the mess up so as contribute my work to libusb, to collaborate. I tried hard to preserve my commits during my laborious transformation of crazy spaghetti to organized interface, but I may not have succeeded. I am not a fan of rebasing due to possible loss of history; I believe the issues rebasing addresses should be interface concerns. Github says an old tip before rebase may have been https://github.com/libusb/libusb/commit/928e2a7f24a161324a46e83b92680e4597a… . However, this branch contains further work that never made it in and may show similar activity: https://github.com/xloem/libusb/tree/android-dev Anyway, over the course of maybe 2021 and 2022 different people engaged my PR at https://github.com/libusb/libusb/pull/874 dated Feb 12, 2021. Libusb's maintainers were mostly MIA but android projects began using the code. On Nov 1, Google actually finally added a feature to their JNI that I linked to needing in the PR, although making use of this feature hasn’t been implemented, because by that time I could barely psychologically comprehend and engage the work anymore at all, from repeatedly using my coping strategies with it. During discussion of merging with the one maintainer available to reply, one of the things is that a few quirks came up mostly around option handling in libusb. To work around the missing JNI surface that google implemented in November, I had added a new option to libusb to pass a handle in. There were also a small handful of bugs that would be introduced by parallel trunk commits that were in rare conflict. When I engaged these things, even though devs were present, people wouldn’t reply for sometimes months, and there would be demonstration of confusion. Generally work would eventually come from a visitor new to the codebase invested in using things, and still there would be huge communication gaps. One dev began revamping the option handling in trunk in parallel with my work and the work of visitors, as if they did not see it and did not see our comments. A breaking change was left, and a fix eventually merged with my casual involvement, although by then it was very very hard for me to engage. Since I had burnt out, a new PR was opened by somebody else, to rebase and merge my work, at https://github.com/libusb/libusb/pull/1164 dated Jul 11, 2022. Presently still open, looking promising for merging though. Meanwhile, a new release was made that included the option handling code implemented in parallel in trunk. This release unfortunately broke many downstream projects by simply outputting a deprecation warning, and they had -werror. Ongoing at https://github.com/libusb/libusb/issues/1236 . I think what is relevant is my latest comment at https://github.com/libusb/libusb/issues/1236#issuecomment-1406146882 : > With all this attention, it seems important to mention that libusb is badly in need of > maintainers. There was almost nobody available to review the change that > preceded this issue. In this email. I possibly meant to include more information on the unique and weird path the watershed breaking change developed via, but I found this difficult and did not do so. In quick summary, it was basically the extent of all my interactions with the project during those two years, issue comments and pull request comments and tagging people, trying to facilitate development ease and engage capacity from those interested, in my strange way amid the strange situations.

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Back To The Future: How A 30-Year-Old Statute From A Time When Video Rentals Were A Thing Is Driving A New Wave Of Class Action Lawsuits - Class Actions - United States
by Gunnar Larson 27 Jan '23

27 Jan '23

https://www.mondaq.com/unitedstates/class-actions/1274274/back-to-the-futur… Perhaps you are old enough to recall when consumers used to have to go to video stores like Blockbuster Video to rent a movie. And perhaps you recall the excitement of scoring a copy of the always limited "new release." It was during these "archaic" times that Congress passed the federal Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA) in response to a newspaper publishing Robert Bork's video rental history during his U.S. Supreme Court nomination. Fast forward to today, and you might be surprised to learn that some consumers are now using the VPPA, a 1988 law designed to prevent the "wrongful disclosure" of video tape sale and rental records, as fuel for a new wave of class action lawsuits against companies that offer video content on their websites. Plaintiffs in these new lawsuits seek to stretch the VPPA beyond just the VHS and Betamax tapes it was originally intended for, and apply the law to any videos on websites that are embedded with the code for Google Analytics and/or Meta Platforms Inc.'s Pixel tracking tool.1 In short, the lawsuits allege that companies using these tracking tools violate the VPPA because their websites track the videos that visitors watch and share this viewing data with third parties, namely, Google and Facebook. The Video Privacy Protection Act The VPPA prohibits a "video tape service provider" from "knowingly disclos[ing], to any person, personally identifiable information concerning any consumer of such provider." 18 U.S.C. § 2710(b)(1). Under the Act, "personally identifiable information" is "information which identifies a person as having requested or obtained specific video materials or services from a video tape service provider." 18 U.S.C. § 2710(a)(3). A "video tape service provider" is "any person, engaged in business, or affecting interstate or foreign commerce, of rental, sale, or delivery of prerecorded video cassette tapes or similar audio-visual materials." 18 U.S.C. § 2710(a)(4). Courts construe "similar audio-visual materials" broadly, generally concluding that its definition encompasses streaming video delivered electronically. See, e.g., In re Hulu Priv. Litig., No. C 11-03764 LB, 2012 WL 3282960, at *5-6 (N.D. Cal. Aug. 10, 2012). A 2013 amendment to the VPPA permits the disclosure of personally identifiable information if the consumer provides "informed, written consent (including through an electronic means using the internet)." 18 U.S.C. § 2710(b)(2)(B). This consent must be obtained "in a form distinct and separate from any form setting forth other legal or financial obligations of the consumer." Id. The consumer must also be given the opportunity to withdraw from the ongoing disclosures. Id. Recent Rulings on Defendants' Motions to Dismiss Defendants targeted by this VPPA class action wave have been filing motions to dismiss. These motions typically assert the following four arguments in favor of dismissal: The plaintiff cannot show that defendant is a "video tape service provider" under the Act; The plaintiff failed to plausibly allege that the defendant's disclosures included personally identifiable information; The plaintiff failed to plausibly allege that the defendant "disclosed" personally identifiable information; and The plaintiff failed to plausibly allege that the defendant "knowingly" disclosed personally identifiable information. In the past year, courts considering these arguments have reached split decisions. Courts denying motions to dismiss have held that the plaintiffs plausibly alleged that defendants-such as the Epoch Times, WebMD and Boston Globe Media Partners-qualified as video tape service providers under the Act and knowingly disclosed to third parties personally identifiable information about visitors consuming the videos on their websites.2 However, at least one court granting a motion to dismiss agreed that the plaintiff had failed to plausibly allege that the information the defendant company disclosed to third parties was personally identifiable information. In Wilson v. Triller, Inc., the district court concluded the plaintiff failed to allege that the transferred information constituted personally identifiable information because the complaint did not set forth any facts capable of establishing that Facebook could link the transferred information to an individual user. Two other courts granting motions to dismiss VPPA claims agreed that the plaintiff had failed to plausibly allege that the defendant company was a video tape service provider. In Stark v. Patreon, Inc., the District Court for the Northern District of California concluded that live broadcasts do not fall within the definition of "similar audio-visual materials" and dismissed the plaintiff's VPPA claim because the plaintiffs did not specify whether the video content they consumed on Patreon-a subscription-based platform that hosts a variety of content posted by individual content creators-was broadcast live or prerecorded. 2022 WL 7652166, at *6 (N.D. Cal. Oct. 13, 2022). In Louth v. NFL Enterprises LCC, the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island reached the same conclusion, holding that "NFL Enterprises' Motion to Dismiss the plaintiff's VPPA claims is granted to the extent they rely upon the consumption of live content . . . ." 2022 WL 4130866, at *4 (D.R.I. Sept. 12, 2022). Significant Risks Posed by the Lawsuits The VPPA class action wave threatens to subject businesses to substantial damage awards. Any person injured by conduct violating the Act can bring suit and seek actual damages not less than liquidated damages in the amount of $2,500, punitive damages, and reasonable attorneys' fees and other litigation costs. 18 U.S.C. § 2710(c). Given that plaintiffs are alleging that companies are violating the VPPA every time a user watches a video on their website, the class of plaintiffs in a given action could conceivably consist of thousands of consumers. A company hit with a class action lawsuit alleging VPPA violations should seek legal counsel to consider what defenses are available to it. The case law in this area is still developing, and the facts specific to each defendant-that is, what kind of business they do, what content their website provides, and what identifying information the plaintiff alleges they convey to a third party-offer distinct opportunities for formulating defenses to an alleged VPPA violation. Legal counsel could also be useful to companies seeking to implement proactive measures to protect them from exposure to a VPPA class action lawsuit. For More Information If you have any questions about this Alert, please contact J. Colin Knisely, Michael S. Zullo, Courtney L. Baird, any of theattorneysin our Trial Practice Groupor the attorney in the firm with whom you are regularly in contact. Footnotes 1 Meta Platforms, Inc., formerly named Facebook, Inc., owns Facebook, Instagram, and other related products and services. 2 Czarnionka v. Epoch Times Ass'n, Inc., 2022 WL 17069810 (S.D.N.Y. Nov. 17, 2022); Lebakken v. WebMD, LLC, 2022 WL 16716151 (N.D. Ga. Nov. 4, 2022); Ambrose v. Boston Globe Media Partners LLC, 2022 WL 4329373 (D. Mass. Sept. 19, 2022).

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Dangers Of Recording Conversations - Trials & Appeals & Compensation - United States
by Gunnar Larson 27 Jan '23

27 Jan '23

https://www.mondaq.com/unitedstates/trials-amp-appeals-amp-compensation/127… Q: My business competitor (or business partner, neighbor, ex-spouse, boss, co-worker, etc.) is doing bad things. I just need to prove it. I can record our conversations secretly on my smart phone, which would be a sure-fire way to get evidence of them admitting to their misdeeds. Should I do it? A: In New Hampshire, the answer is a resounding no, unless you want to face potential criminal charges and a lawsuit from the person you record. In this day and age when most of us walk around with iPhones, Androids, and the like, that can be used as pocket-sized recording devices with the tap of an icon, it may be tempting-or even seem justified-to secretly record a conversation in order to show that someone is engaged in some kind of misconduct. This is particularly true if you stand to be harmed in some way by that misconduct. If you do so, however, you would very likely be engaging illegal conduct yourself under New Hampshire law and opening yourself up to legal trouble. New Hampshire is a "two party" state, meaning that it is against the law to intentionally record a conversation unless both (or if more than two, all) parties involved consent to the recording (with some narrow exceptions largely involving law enforcement activities). Someone who violates this law could be charged with a Class B felony or a misdemeanor under the Wiretapping and Eavesdropping statute, RSA 570-A. Moreover, the person you recorded without their consent could bring a civil lawsuit against you and be entitled to collect damages, punitive damages, and their reasonable attorneys' fees and litigation costs. At least you still have that great evidence of your counterpart admitting to dastardly deeds, right? Well, you may have the evidence but it is unlikely to see the light of day in court. New Hampshire law prohibits the admission into evidence of conversations recorded in violation of the New Hampshire statute. If you believe you have legal case or a claim to be made, talk to an attorney about how you can build your case. If you take matters into your own hands and try to get evidence using a hidden hot mic, you may well end up on the hot seat. Published in the Manchester Union Leader, January 21, 2023.

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God Allmighty keeps quiet as Genesis goes down in flames
by professor rat 27 Jan '23

27 Jan '23

God Allmighty, sorry, Barry Silbert, keeps quiet as Genesis goes down in flames https://cointelegraph.com/news/opinion-barry-silbert-keeps-quiet-as-genesis… Reposts not sermons on mounting dogs from bitcoin Jesus

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Avalanche doesn't need PoW hashcash or any central cybernetic
by professor rat 27 Jan '23

27 Jan '23

Anticipating AVAX in 2001 https://twitter.com/adam3us/status/1099546566359244801/photo/1 Give the 15 year olds what they want!

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What Juan wants...
by grarpamp 27 Jan '23

27 Jan '23

On usual, punk <punks(a)tfwno.gf> tried again with: > sell cars and ARPANET access Yes, those are products that are for sale, nobody has to buy them if they don't want. But clearly, Juan the hypocrite of those products, has bought and or is using of both of them. Unfortunately for Juan, and thankfully, the world is widely and naturally agreed on not selling what Juan really wants access to, guess what those are... "There is no fucking 'child sexual abuse'. -- PunkBatSoupStasi aka JuanG[snip] aka [snip]" The end.

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Larry Ellison still needs killing ( my 2k sats )
by professor rat 26 Jan '23

26 Jan '23

Another asshole out of ORACLE https://presspass.thebulwark.com/p/matt-schlapp-allegedly-groped-a-young According to a disclosure signed by Schlapp last Friday, he brought in $50,000 from Oracle at the end of 2022, bringing the total to $200,000 for the year. A spokesperson for Oracle did not respond to a request for comment <<< Repost call for actionable intelligence on zombie island

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Help us C3-PIO - you’re our only hope.
by professor rat 26 Jan '23

26 Jan '23

Article exposes Darth Mall, Adam Back as a cheap suit engaged in multiple investments in CRYPTO not Btc!? I'm shocked - SHOCKED! - so many Maxi's still look up to this fraudulent statist punk. https://cointelegraph.com/news/chatgpt-learns-bitcoin-will-end-central-bank… Reposts not GIGO about Defi

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Serious New Issues Emerge in Sullivan & Cromwell’s Deeply Conflicted Role in the FTX Bankruptcy Case
by Gunnar Larson 26 Jan '23

26 Jan '23

https://wallstreetonparade.com/2023/01/serious-new-issues-emerge-in-sulliva… By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: January 26, 2023 ~ Marshal Hoda Marshal Hoda, Attorney for Two Customers in the FTX Bankruptcy Case We don’t know what kind of legal kryptonite the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law is bestowing on its graduates but one young alumnus appears to be fearless about whom he takes on. Marshal Hoda, the young attorney from a one-man office in Houston, who is representing two customers of the collapsed FTX crypto exchange, tested out his super powers in a January 20 hearing in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware. Hoda is pitched against the 900-attorney Big Law firm of Sullivan & Cromwell in one of the most closely-watched (and bizarrely conflicted) bankruptcy cases in U.S. history. Co-counsel with Hoda for the two customers are John D. McLaughlin, Jr. of Ferry Joseph, P.A. and Patrick Yarborough of Foster Yarborough, PLLC. During the hearing, Hoda admonished Sullivan & Cromwell with this: “When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.” Hoda also accused the 144-year old law firm of “gamesmanship” over its serial delays in advising the court of its seemingly endless conflicts in the matter. Those jabs came on the heels of one of Hoda’s clients, Warren Winter, berating Sullivan & Cromwell as follows in a court filing: “Sullivan & Cromwell was one of the FTX Group’s ‘primary external law firms’ before the FTX Group collapsed. To date, the FTX Group has paid the firm more than $20.5 million in fees and retainers. Now, in the most flagrant attempt by a fox to guard a henhouse in recent memory, Sullivan & Cromwell has applied to be appointed the FTX Group’s bankruptcy counsel with duties that would include ‘investigating all potential estate causes of action.’ But it has revealed almost nothing about its prepetition work for Sam Bankman-Fried’s fraudulent enterprise — and failed to disclose or elided glaring conflicts of interest.” The bankruptcy case involves the international crypto exchange, FTX.com, its US counterpart, its more than 100 opaque affiliates, along with Alameda Research, the hedge fund of FTX’s former CEO and co-founder, Sam Bankman-Fried. According to an 8-count criminal indictment handed down by federal prosecutors, Sam Bankman-Fried looted customer accounts at FTX, diverted the funds to his hedge fund, Alameda, and then used those funds for a multitude of illegal purposes. John J. Ray III, the new CEO of FTX, told a House panel in December that at least $8 billion in customer funds are missing. What makes this bankruptcy case so bizarre is that the presiding Judge, John Dorsey, has had Sullivan & Cromwell’s mountain of conflicts placed directly under his nose by the gutsy Marshal Hoda and his co-counsel; four sitting U.S. Senators; a former FTX in-house attorney, Daniel Friedberg, in a bombshell sworn declaration; and by the U.S. Trustee in the case (who represents the U.S. Department of Justice in bankruptcy cases). The U.S. Trustee warned Dorsey as follows in an objection filed on January 13: “The U.S. Trustee objects to the S&C Application for two overarching reasons. First, S&C’s disclosures as filed are wholly insufficient to evaluate whether S&C satisfies the Bankruptcy Code’s conflict-free and disinterestedness standards. The incomplete disclosures are a sufficient and independent reason to deny the application. Nevertheless, publicly available information thus far raises the specter that S&C may have a conflict or not be disinterested given that an S&C partner of eight years became general counsel for certain of the Debtors approximately 14 months before the petition date. Second, the scope of S&C’s retention cannot be allowed as proposed. Bankruptcy Code sections 1106(a)(3) and 1107(a) specifically preclude debtors in possession from investigating themselves, which is exactly what the Debtors propose in the S&C Application. S&C’s close connection with an insider of the Debtors also renders S&C too conflicted to investigate Debtors’ downfall. And any investigation led by S&C would be duplicative and wasteful of estate resources if the Court were to grant the U.S. Trustee’s pending motion to appoint an examiner with a comprehensive investigative mandate.” But as if this Judge is living in some alternative universe with different bankruptcy laws, Judge Dorsey approved Sullivan & Cromwell as lead counsel at the January 20 hearing. The ink on the Judge’s order was barely dry before more conflicts involving Sullivan & Cromwell raised their ugly head, as we knew they would. According to one of the delayed disclosures submitted by Sullivan & Cromwell, it provided personal legal advice to Sam Bankman-Fried less than four months before FTX filed bankruptcy. To put that another way, the man federal prosecutors have accused of masterminding “one of the biggest financial frauds in American history” was the recent personal client of the law firm that will now oversee recouping monies from his thefts. (Bankman-Fried has also written that he worked out of Sullivan & Cromwell’s offices when he visited New York City. We asked, via email, three Sullivan & Cromwell partners involved in the bankruptcy case, as well as the two co-chairs of the firm, to confirm or deny that. We received no response.) According to the long overdue filing of its conflicts, with specificity, by Sullivan & Cromwell law partner Andrew Dietderich, filed with the court on January 17 – just three days before the January 20 hearing – Sullivan & Cromwell’s representation of Bankman-Fried “commenced on April 14, 2022 and ceased on August 5, 2022.” Sullivan & Cromwell’s disclosure also offers this: “This matter was arranged, and paid for, by Alameda.” As we explained earlier, Alameda is Sam Bankman-Fried’s hedge fund that federal prosecutors say was looting customer funds from FTX during that timeframe. The nature of the work that Sullivan & Cromwell performed personally for Bankman-Fried, according to the Dietderich declaration, involved “a position that had been established in the stock of Robinhood Markets, Inc.” – a stock trading app that has had plenty of its own scandals. “Had been established” in the above paragraph is not accurate. According to SEC records, Bankman-Fried was purchasing Robinhood stock through the month of April and May 2022, during which period he was represented by Sullivan & Cromwell according to their own bankruptcy court filing. According to a public statement issued by Sullivan & Cromwell, Robinhood was also their client while it was advising Sam Bankman-Fried on his position in the company’s stock. The law firm wrote on April 18, 2022: “S&C Advises Robinhood in $2.275 Billion Secured Revolving Credit Facility “Robinhood Securities, a clearing broker-dealer entity and a wholly owned subsidiary of Robinhood Markets, entered into an agreement in which a syndicate of banks led by JP Morgan Chase will provide Robinhood with a secured revolving credit facility of up to $2.275 billion.” According to the statement, seven attorneys at Sullivan & Cromwell worked on the $2.275 billion credit facility for Robinhood. Now this is where you have to pay close attention. Sam Bankman-Fried’s stock purchase in Robinhood was not a flimsy 1,000-share position. It was not even a 10,000-share position. It was an enormous 56,273,469 shares with a current market value (at yesterday’s closing price) of $545,289,914 – more than half a billion dollars. And it was purchased with loans taken from Alameda Research, which prosecutors allege was using stolen FTX customer funds. Now, as Sullivan & Cromwell has put pen to paper to confirm, it advised Bankman-Fried on this stock transaction. And, as everyone on Wall Street knows, Sullivan & Cromwell is highly sophisticated in such matters. So wouldn’t one think that large block trades would have been arranged with sophisticated financial institutions to acquire a position of 56 million shares? Instead, something unusual happened, according to this filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission by former Sullivan & Cromwell partner, Ryne Miller, who had become General Counsel of FTX.US in August of 2021 according to his LinkedIn profile page. The Robinhood stock was purchased and then held through a company set up in Antigua and Barbuda (Emergent Fidelity Technologies Ltd.) in which Sam Bankman-Fried was the majority owner. Bankman-Fried didn’t acquire the stock position in a few large block trades but instead made purchases on 29 separate trading days from March 14, 2022 through May 11, 2022. The number of shares purchased on any one day ranged from a low of 400,000 shares to a high of 2.8 million shares on May 3 and May 10. Robinhood’s stock was tanking when Bankman-Fried decided to become a big buyer. Robinhood’s shares went from more than $16 in late March to $8 and change on May 11. His large purchases, clearly, helped support the stock price. Equally concerning, the SEC filing made by Ryne Miller does not show the trading dates and amounts for all 56 million shares but just the details for 29,888,469 shares. (You can tally the “Quantity” column at this link to see what we mean.) Did Bankman-Fried escalate his daily purchases in Robinhood stock after this date? The public is left in the dark in terms of seeing the full picture of what went on here. One thing the public does know is this: the U.S. Department of Justice is not leaving it up to Sullivan & Cromwell to safeguard this half a billion dollar stock position. The Justice Department has seized the stock. Something else the public knows is that the federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York made reference to securities fraud involving an unnamed stock purchased by Sam Bankman-Fried in May of 2022 in their indictment against him. Prosecutors wrote in Count Six of the indictment: “From at least in or about May 2022, up to and including in or about November 2022…Sam Bankman-Fried…and others known and unknown…to commit an offense against the United States, to wit, securities fraud.” The indictment goes on to explain that one element of this securities fraud involved the use of a “national securities exchange.” Neither FTX nor any of its affiliated bankrupt companies have ever publicly traded so it’s not FTX that is being referred to in this particular passage. While the indictment does not include the name of the stock the prosecutors are referring to, Robinhood does trade on Nasdaq, a national securities exchange and, indeed, the Justice Department has seized the stock. For more on the spiraling conflicts Judge Dorsey is tolerating with Sullivan & Cromwell, see our prior reports: A Sam Bankman-Fried Company Loaned or Invested More than $1 Billion in Clients of its Law Firm, Sullivan & Cromwell and Sullivan & Cromwell, FTX Lead Counsel in Bankruptcy, Says It Has No Adverse Relationships, Despite Representing Four of FTX’s Crypto Exchange Competitors.

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