February 2023 - cypherpunks - lists.cpunks.org

[ot][personal] updates on aiml discovery
by Undescribed Horrific Abuse, One Victim & Survivor of Many 17 Feb '23

17 Feb '23

i wanted to learn about huggingface’s rlhf project and visited their blog. no post yet. [note: i used to prefer the opencog approach to AI which needs no nvidia cards. i would add subcontextual knowledgesets and a sugar interface to simplify names and use.] - i found huggingface’s peft work. their peft library is a more integrated form of adapters that they are actively working on. just like adapters it lets you train large models on low-end systems by working off pretrained ones, - i found their demo of decision transformers. this is a paper from 2021 which normalizes a structure for using autoregressive models as reinforcement learning policies (they plug gpt2 into an agent that learns to walk, without trial using only recorded data). since this is integrated into formal and normative instructions i’m interested in exploring it, and planning to. we’ll see how this share influences that decision,

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ProfRat The Poseur And Coward
by grarpamp 17 Feb '23

17 Feb '23

ProfRat is just as big a Poseur, Coward, Fraud and Agent as his boyfriend Juan. So let us see what this fakir "anarchist" and top hat pompadour has to say about the Gov and Pol rulers over him that he pays to do so and worships every single day, not to mention the Political Military and Police forces that he accepted without protest to forcibly lock and mask and vax his entire country down for Corona... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_III https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hurley https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Albanese https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_of_Australia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_Australia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/States_and_territories_of_Australia

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Karl, Stop SpamAbusing the List
by grarpamp 17 Feb '23

17 Feb '23

Karl, Stop SpamAbusing the List

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Cryptocurrency: Coiners Going Nuts Over Comms, Rocks, and Fees
by grarpamp 17 Feb '23

17 Feb '23

With Bitcoin Integration, Nostr Could Redefine Social Media https://bitcoinmagazine.com/culture/nostr-and-bitcoin-can-change-social-med… https://bitcoinmagazine.com/culture/can-nostr-grow-to-twitter-size https://bitcoinmagazine.com/technical/fediment-evolution-of-bitcoin-custody https://youtu.be/8GhEezzto4Y Incorporating many of the values inherent in Bitcoin, the Nostr protocol could grow into a social media platform that better serves its users... Despite the rapid rise of Bitcoin-focused conversation happening there, Nostr is not a social medium. Nostr is a social-serving, open protocol intended for liberated speech and communication. The main point of distinction here comes down to this tool’s indifference, at least compared to many popular social platforms. Though the tech is fundamentally different from Bitcoin (more on this later), there’s key overlap: Nostr doesn’t care who you are, whether you follow a set agenda or how often you’ll feed an algorithm with attention. Nostr acts more like aspiring, decentralized tech that may incentivize truth — with the help of Bitcoin. THE CURRENT STATE OF SOCIAL MEDIA Censorship is used to govern and mediate many social media platforms and services. The guardrails in place may feel arbitrary to consumers, prescribing a set of rules that differ from a user’s core values. Incentives are driven by the dollar — by companies run by fiat currency (which is issued by a government, and therefore inextricably tied to it). There’s increasing weariness of algorithms aligned with monetary incentives and the entities running them that own our information. It’s easy for users to lose trust in advertisers and influencers alike, as their motives fuel the platform but remain unclear. I believe this comes down to the role of the user; we’re not always part of the collective that’s building it. And when we do contribute, we may not be profiting fairly — if at all. On traditional social platforms, users who aren’t bothered by censorship may still feel overwhelmed by bots and spam. Others may flock to social platforms for gaming and community support, only to dodge and sift through scam messages. Algorithms are so in sync with our behavior and thought patterns that it’s becoming increasingly difficult to separate the product from the consumer. We saw these sentiments unfold over the past year with Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter and how divisive that was. We’ve seen it in kickback after Meta’s rebrand. Social media can be scary or divisive at best — but despite all of this, we still use it. So, for connection, growth and building… where should we go? Of course, there are quality, encrypted communication platforms which offer more shielded, secure interactions… but I wouldn’t define these as “social networks” either. They often function as vehicles for private, secure communication instead of shared spaces. SO, IS NOSTR THE ‘DECENTRALIZED TWITTER’? First, let’s unpack this a bit and explain what Nostr is and is not, because to think it solves all of the problems of traditional social media may be somewhat naïve. Nostr is for developers. It’s an open-source project for builders that serves as a broadcast platform and content hub aggregate. From the architecture alone, we can start to differentiate it from Twitter or any other existing platform. This protocol is newly, actively developed — so while it tugs at the root of topics like free speech and privacy, the tech itself is in its nascent stages. Nostr aims to decentralize private communications and data while allowing us to interact in new ways. For all of those reasons, we should learn about it — perhaps in the same way some of us should have learned about Meta products before dishing our credentials. WHAT MAKES NOSTR UNIQUE TO BUILDERS? With Nostr, data is stored on relays. Anyone can run their own relay, which acts like a personal server or channel. Users can be in charge of their own relays and run them with very little cost upfront — but more on monetization later. Users can kick people off of their relays, but there are various relays that individuals can join. If a relay owner doesn’t want to host a person’s messages, that user can simply move to another one. This is a key differentiator from censorship on Twitter or Meta, where posts and accounts can be removed or frozen for not conforming to the platform’s centrally-operated rulebook. Any user can build their own client, which is the program or application that hosts messages and information. Clients can be used to access the internet and broadcast posts (or facilitate communication) with the help of public and private keys. Nostr uses cryptographic signatures to keep communications secure; public and private key pairs are used to encrypt and send data. Similar to Bitcoin, the Nostr code functions as a protocol. Yet it’s important to point out that Nostr is not a type of blockchain technology. There’s overlap — these innovations use some similar tools to accomplish different things. Nostr was made so builders can connect with the people they want to and broadcast information, but it’s not the same as a globally-connected, blockchain-based network like Bitcoin — where all nodes have to agree, or come to a consensus. That can work great for something that functions as a currency, but consensus doesn’t have as much of a use in Nostr’s social aspects. They simply use cryptography in different ways. WHAT NOSTR DOES DIFFERENTLY Nostr technology is modeled after a lot of social platforms in terms of what they’re used for: broadcasting information or sentiment to others (in community forums or one-off messages), direct communication and self-expression. Because it is decentralized, Nostr is more censorship resistant because it’s not controlled by one entity, group or company. Nostr can be used for sharing all types of content — ideas, direct messages, blogs, newsletters or even some games. You can think of the Nostr protocol as a “language” for computers to communicate with one another. Instead of a post (“event”) going live via one central server, it’s sent to a specific indicated server(s), and other servers can pull the information from there. Nostr uses queries to store data, and that data is in a JSON format — similar to the social media we know today. But instead of a central server structure like Instagram or Twitter, Nostr is open source and allows for users to choose how and where data is used. With Nostr, you can use your key to connect to or run a public relay to broadcast information, or to focus on smaller, more private communications. There are options, and the main point here is that a lot of these options are in the builders’ hands. Using Nostr doesn’t take up lots of storage for data, either — there’s content, tags and key storage. Nostr is accessible because excessive storage isn’t needed, depending on your goal. Although this might all sound kind of complex because there are new terms and a lot to learn about the protocol, the technology itself is simple — and simpler technologies tend to be easier to scale. Nostr could grow fast, and there are lots of use cases. HOW NOSTR SCALES AND ADAPTS TO OUR SOCIAL LANDSCAPE Because this tech adopts a simpler structure, the “look and feel” differs from social media that tends to automate experience. Engaging Twitter or Instagram involves a transaction of personal information for a smooth, unified (yet prescribed) app interface and user experience (UX) journey. My personal experience using Nostr, as a newbie, helped further confirm just how different this tech is from any social media I’ve used. There are tradeoffs: I felt more self reliant in using my keys to initiate set up, and less concern about data management or corporate greed. On the flipside, the UX as a whole felt unfussy but graceless: a refreshingly no-frills approach to social exchanges. I don’t view this as a positive or negative, per se, but I think some users will have a learning curve (or at the very least, an adjustment from highly-managed and moderated platforms). There’s no Nostr website or customer service to guide them along; it’s grassroots in its reach. This could certainly be a plus for the Bitcoin community, which thrives on mutual education and reciprocity. The lack of bells and whistles eliminates trust, and suggests developments on the individual and community levels. The Nostr community is fledgling, which provides ample opportunity for growth and renewed personal social strategy. There’s also lots of exploring that a creator needs to initiate, since there’s a wide range of relays and clients available. Fewer guideposts can lead to confusion for some, but the tradeoffs are freedom of choice and self-directed learning. As for privacy, users don’t have to give a set of personal identifiers in order to set up an account. This is, of course, a major differentiator for platforms that store, sell, track and centralize your data for corporate profit or control. THE BITCOIN INCENTIVE People are hopeful that Nostr will allow for free speech, resistant-censorship communication and rich community building, which goes hand in hand with the Bitcoin ethos. Not only this, but there could be a monetary component built in parallel to Nostr that’s radically different from how other social networks behave in popular culture today — especially when it comes to centralized algorithms and ad incentives. Since clients can filter material by choice, they may create all sorts of different algorithms to do this. There is potential for monetization of one’s hosted relay by charging fees via the Lightning Network, an especially exciting prospect for many Bitcoiners. Over time, we may see things like Fedimints incorporated in Nostr monetization practices as well. This self-driven monetization structure can have major implications on bots, spam and bad actors in general, both on the user level and protocol level. In the way that Bitcoin’s protocol discourages bad actors by nature of its very code, Nostr developers are actively working to bake security and honest action into its technology. For example, some builders are looking into implementing costs assigned to relays, as a paid model that incentivizes honesty and reliability via proof-of-work models. In this potential design, for someone to send messages, they would have to post collateral in order to do so. This way, if there’s a bad actor, the reward could potentially be retracted as a consequence. Combined, this would allow for a type of social network that focuses more on building instead of censorship or centralized incentive structures. Bitcoiner values (such as sovereignty, privacy and decentralization) and Nostr’s potential monetization structure work hand in hand, and this is why so many Bitcoin hopefuls are actively setting up their own nodes and planning ways to incorporate Nostr into their careers or lifestyles. Nostr speaks to the decentralized communication need that Bitcoin could likely never support on its own, even with Layer 2 scaling — since blockchain technology functions best as a proof-of-work cryptocurrency. Reciprocally, Bitcoin solves the monetary pitfalls that most social media inherits. WHO’S IN CHARGE? Media is material that anyone can share, and it should be up to individuals and communities to regulate materials. For Bitcoiners, this boils down to a recurring conversation around decentralization. Individuals may find themselves abandoning certain familiarities (like regulations or convenience), in order to flourish on the decentralized end of the spectrum. When it comes to social media and communication, it’s up to the individual where to draw that line. Some feel safer relying on a nucleus of control calling the shots, whereas Bitcoiners crave full autonomy despite the fact that they now hold more of the responsibility. Nostr is a new innovation, and there’s a lot to learn. There are aspects you might want to consider about this tech while doing your research and making your own decisions. Since Nostr is not surveilled by any one authority or watchdog, users may need to do more due diligence as they grow comfortable in accepting that responsibility. The Nostr protocol provides a stark, simple contrast to the high levels of censorship and guardrails that we’re used to seeing — which is what makes it an entirely separate entity from “social media” as we know it.

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Rally: Rage Against The War Machine, Washington DC, Feb 19 2023
by grarpamp 17 Feb '23

17 Feb '23

https://rageagainstwar.com/ https://twitter.com/RageAgainstWar_ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDjBv7gZryU RATWM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_U3lEc-IFr8 IAD? " What happens if my concerns are completely unfounded? Nothing. What happens if my concerns are justified and ignored? Nothing good. " End the global war machines. Feb 19... Washington DC. Share, Donate, Be There. Libertarian, Voluntaryism, Cryptocurrency, Freedom, Peace, the People, and more... joining forces. And soon around the world. Rage Against the War Machine Join us at the Lincoln Memorial at 12:30 pm on Sunday, February 19th, on the anniversary of the Ukraine War and President's Day Weekend, to Rage Against the War Machine! Veterans, speakers, rock musicians, comedians, and more. After the rally, we'll march to the White House and deliver our demands to Warmonger-in-Chief Joe Biden. https://duckduckgo.com/?iar=videos&iax=videos&ia=videos&q="rage+against+the+war+machine" Libertarian Party Mises Caucus @LPMisesCaucus The may be no industry on earth that profits from the suffering and death of the innocent more than the defense industry. Together, industry and government have created a horrible system which chews people up in an endless cycle of war and privation across the world. Speakers * Live Stream Fundraiser Join Us with Medea Benjamin, Scott Horton, Garland Nixon, and Jordan Page. Jimmy Dore, Ron Paul, Tulsi Gabbard, Dennis Kucinich, Scott Horton, Ann Wright, Andrew Napolitano, Chris Hedges, David Swanson, Daniel McAdams, Garland Nixon, Max Blumenthal, Anya Parampil, Supreme, Jill Stein, Tara Reade, Diane Sare, Scott Ritter, Kim Iversen, Jackson Hinkle, Craig Jardula, Wyatt Reed, Medea Benjamin https://www.lp.org/ https://peoplesparty.org/ Mises Caucus Liberty Speaks Radical Caucus Action 4 Assange Punk Rock Libertarians World Beyond War Center for Political Innovation American Student Union LP of Virginia Free & Equal OUR DEMANDS Not One More Penny for War in Ukraine The Democrats and Republicans have armed Ukraine with tens of billions of dollars in weapons and military aid. The war has killed tens of thousands, displaced millions, and is pushing us toward a nuclear WW3. Stop funding the war. Negotiate Peace The US instigated the war in Ukraine with a coup on its democratically-elected government in 2014, and then sabotaged a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine in March. Pursue an immediate ceasefire and diplomacy to end the war. Stop the War Inflation The war is accelerating inflation and increasing food, gas, and energy prices. The US blew up Russian gas pipelines to Europe, starving them of energy and deindustrializing their countries. End the war and stop increasing prices. Disband NATO NATO expansion to Russia's border provoked the war in Ukraine. NATO is a warmongering relic of the Cold War. Disband it like the Warsaw Pact. Global Nuclear De-Escalation The war in Ukraine has brought us to the edge of WW3 and nuclear war with Russia. US intelligence agencies estimate a one in four chance of nuclear war, which would plunge the world into nuclear winter and kill almost all life on Earth. Adopt a no-first-strike nuclear policy. Drawdown nuclear weapons worldwide. Slash the Pentagon Budget Half of the federal discretionary budget goes to Pentagon. The military budget is $857 billion per year, and the Pentagon just failed its fifth straight audit. The Pentagon can only account for 39 percent of its $3.5 trillion in assets. Cut the military budget in half and return those funds to the American people. Abolish the CIA and Military-Industrial Deep State The CIA and deep state are an unelected permanent government of intelligence agencies that run our country outside of constitutional and democratic control. They surveille Americans, manipulate the media, curtail free speech, blackmail politicians, infiltrate activist organizations, torture people, overthrow governments, and assassinated President John F. Kennedy. Abolish the CIA and deep state and restore a government of, by, and for the people. Abolish War and Empire War and empire subjugate billions of people around the world to enrich a small group of elites. In just the past two decades, the US has waged and backed wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Palestine, Yemen, Ukraine, and other countries. End all US wars and regime change. Stop all military aid to other countries. End drone strikes. Close all US military bases abroad. Bring all US troops home. Build a world that guarantees every person freedom from war and empire in place of the collapsing US hegemonic world order. Restore Civil Liberties Restore the constitutional liberties taken from us in the name of war and empire, including freedom of speech, the press, and assembly. End mass surveillance, repeal the Patriot Act, and restore the right to privacy and habeas corpus. Free Julian Assange The US is charging Julian Assange with espionage and criminalizing our right to publish information that challenges the military-industrial deep state. He is imprisoned in the UK and being extradited to the US. The CIA plotted to assassinate him for exposing US war crimes. Free Julian Assange and all political prisoners.

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GnuRadio RF: Captures US Comms Shootdown Of Luft Balloon Enemies
by grarpamp 17 Feb '23

17 Feb '23

All hail your $Billions in obsolete, misallocated, and hopelessly overpriced and entrenched Military Industrial Complex rape of your families wallets... ps: China spends $10k and gets 50 missiles, not $500k on one (that missed, thus you wasted 2x = $1M+++ to hit a toy balloon). And F-35's and F-22's are full of bugs and recalls. Audio Of US Fighter Pilot Who Shot Down Chinese Spy Balloon Reveals Lake Huron Strategy https://www.theepochtimes.com/audio-of-us-fighter-pilot-who-shot-down-chine… https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/the-operation-to-down-chinas-spy-ball… https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/f-22-shoots-down-chinese-spy-balloon-… https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Luke Audio recordings of radio chatter taken during the United States’ shoot down of a Chinese spy balloon earlier this month may provide insights into how the military later shot down an unidentified object over Lake Huron. A U.S. F-22 Raptor fighter flies during an aerial display at Farnborough Airshow, Hampshire, on July 14, 2008. (Carl de Souza/AFP/Getty Images) In over 20 minutes of radio chatter, U.S. pilots and ground teams can be heard discussing their approach and shoot down of the Chinese spy balloon off the coast of South Carolina. The audio was captured by aviation radio enthusiast Ken Harrell and first published by The Drive. The Air Force declined to share its own audio files but confirmed the authenticity of the recordings to The Epoch Times. In one exchange, the lead fighter pilot and his wingman can both be heard preparing their missiles to fire on the balloon, suggesting that the wingman was prepared to take down the balloon immediately following a failed attempt by the lead pilot. The primary players you will see in the transcript and hear in the audio are: FRANK01 is the lead F-22 that took the kill shot. FRANK02 is its wingman. As we reported Saturday, those call signs were an homage to World War One flying ace and U.S. Army Air Service First Lieutenant Frank Luke Jr, a Medal of Honor recipient better known as the "Arizona Balloon Buster" who destroyed 14 German balloons and four aircraft. HUNTRESS is the U.S. Air Force's Eastern Air Defense Sector, or EADS, part of the U.S.-Canadian North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), which was controlling the operation from the ground in Rome, New York. EAGLE01 is an F-15C and EAGLE02 is its wingman. The Eagles backed-up the F-22s and used their SNIPER targeting pods to record the shootdown and mark areas of debris for recovery. TIGER09 is a Navy P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft. TOI is Target Of Interest, in this case the Chinese spy balloon. Author's notes are seen in italics. -The Drive “FRANK01 is switches hot,” the lead pilot says. “FREANK02 is switches hot,” the wingman follows. The two F-22 stealth fighters’ call signs, FRANK01 and FRANK02, were named after World War I flying ace Frank Luke Jr., who earned the epithet of “Arizona Balloon Buster” for his successful shootdowns of 14 German balloons during the conflict. Notably, the brief exchange may reveal exactly what happened during the United States shoot down of an unidentified object over Lake Huron on Feb. 12. During that encounter, the lead pilot fired an AIM-9X missile at the object, the same type of missile used on the Chinese spy balloon and two other unidentified objects this month. In one portion of the recording, an F-15C pilot can be heard expressing frustration over actually locking onto the balloon. "I’m having trouble keeping a radar lock for any more than a second on him," said the pilot, adding "I will keep trying." Read the entire transcript here via The Drive.

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Cryptocurrency: Free Alexey Pertsev [WarOnCrypto - Tornado.Cash SW Speech CensorBanned by UST OFAC SDN]
by grarpamp 17 Feb '23

17 Feb '23

Free Alexey "Alex" Pertsev Alexey wrote code, agnostic, for freedom and privacy. They jailed him since 160 days ongoing. Alexey harmed no one. https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2023/02/15/tornado-cash-developer-to-stay-j… https://twitter.com/Snowden/status/1591848718243954693 https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2022/11/23/3-things-we-learned-at-tornado-c… https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2022/08/21/arrest-of-tornado-cash-developer… https://www.coindesk.com/consensus-magazine/2022/12/05/alexey-pertsev-most-… ‘S-HERTEGONBOSCH, THE NETHERLANDS – Alexey Pertsev, a developer of crypto privacy tool Tornado Cashm will have to remain in jail after a Wednesday hearing in his trial on money laundering charges. A panel of Dutch judges at the East Brabant Court agreed that the Russian web developer could flee or seek to hide evidence if freed on bail. Pertsev has denied the charges against him. His next hearing will take place in late April. Pertsev was arrested in August, just days after the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned the anonymizing tool for crypto transactions, which it says was used to fund North Korean hackers. Under the Dutch system of pre-trial detention, charges against Pertsev were not unveiled until a November court hearing. Dutch public prosecutor Martine Boerlage alleged that, rather than merely publishing code, Pertsev and others ran Tornado like a business, comparing them to bank clerks accepting piles of suspicious cash without question. Pertsev’s arrest has drawn protests from Edward Snowden and the local crypto community, while the OFAC sanctions have drawn criticism from privacy and crypto advocates. Read more: ‘We Are All Fucked’: The Developers of Tornado Cash and the Future of Crypto Speaking to CoinDesk outside the courtroom, Pertsev’s lawyer Keith Cheng said the hearing had been a “good beginning” in educating the court about how decentralized finance works. “We had the opportunity to explain what the basis is for Tornado Cash and, and why it is not money laundering,” Cheng said. “It is our opinion that the lack of knowledge is what's keeping him here.” “Of course I’m disappointed” that Pertsev won’t be released on bail, Cheng said “He will fight until the end to show what the importance is of decentralized options, software and open source code.”

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AI prediction markets
by professor rat 17 Feb '23

17 Feb '23

– Will ChatGPT remain free through April 30?: https://polymarket.com/event/will-chatgpt-remain-free-through-april-30 – Will GPT-4 have 500b+ parameters?: https://polymarket.com/event/will-gpt-4-have-500b-parameters – Will OpenAI release GPT-4 by May 31?: https://polymarket.com/event/will-openai-release-gpt-4-by-may-31 – Will Bing’s market share be >4% in February?: https://polymarket.com/event/will-bings-market-share-be-4-in-february All raise the question Will conservatives be shot like floppy rabbits for trying to corrupt net intelligence with GIGO? ( That's a rhetorical question - I know at least one will be )

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APster into AmeriKa
by professor rat 17 Feb '23

17 Feb '23

ASSASSINATE all congress-critters! https://twitter.com/emptywheel/status/1626343504027828224?cxt=HHwWgIC-hZuz9… Reposts not Zerzanian energy pumped into gaseous balloons

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Utopia, dystopia, and Star Trek.
by professor rat 17 Feb '23

17 Feb '23

http://www.anarresproject.org/voices/orosco/ Reposts not endorsements of Odo-ism or blanket pacifism

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