March 2023 - cypherpunks - lists.cpunks.org

My new article: Voting vendor in Reality Winner's leak is coming to Texas
by Douglas Lucas 30 Mar '23

30 Mar '23

Today the /Texas Observer/, Austin based and founded 1954, published my new article, first in a series about whistleblower Reality Winner: https://www.texasobserver.org/reality-winner-vr-systems-whistleblower/ My article discusses the 2016 cyberattacks Reality Winner disclosed -- two interrelated spearphishing offensives by Kremlin military officers, first against election technology supplier VR Systems, then against local Florida elections officials -- in the context of the Texas Secretary of State certifying the vendor's e-pollbooks for use statewide in Texas a little more than a year ago. I interview a county information security officer, two county elections administrators, as well as Winner's mother and lawyer, all of them Texans. Toward the end of the piece, I discuss polarization and historical context around various evidence for, and various lack of evidence for, election meddling in the United States. :-Doug

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Wells Fargo's $721.1 Billion in Uninsured Deposits
by Gunnar Larson 30 Mar '23

30 Mar '23

https://wallstreetonparade.com/2023/03/congress-sweats-the-small-stuff-as-f… By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: March 30, 2023 ~ Bank Logos (Thumbnail)On Tuesday, Martin Gruenberg, the Chair of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), the federal agency that serves as both a bank regulator and the overseer of the federal insurance program for U.S. bank deposits, testified before the Senate Banking Committee. The dangers of U.S. banks holding large amounts of uninsured deposits came up repeatedly in his testimony. For example, Gruenberg’s written testimony included these details about the ongoing banking crisis: “…on Friday, March 10, a number of institutions with large amounts of uninsured deposits reported that depositors had begun to withdraw their funds.” And this: “The FDIC estimates that the cost to the DIF [Deposit Insurance Fund] of resolving SVB [Silicon Valley Bank] to be $20 billion. The FDIC estimates the cost of resolving Signature Bank to be $2.5 billion. Of the estimated loss amounts, approximately 88 percent, or $18 billion, is attributable to the cost of covering uninsured deposits at SVB…” Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank represented the second and third largest bank failures, respectively, in U.S. history. (The largest was Washington Mutual, which failed during the 2008 financial crisis.) But in terms of the size of their deposits, we are talking about minnows compared to the deposit exposure at the whale banks on Wall Street. As of December 31, 2022, Silicon Valley Bank had $175 billion in deposits. On the same date, Signature Bank held $88.6 billion in deposits. Now compare that to the whales on Wall Street: As of December 31, 2022, this is where deposits stood at the four largest banks in the U.S. – all of which also have large risk exposure from their extensive trading operations on Wall Street: (The data comes from federal regulatory filings known as “call reports.”) JPMorgan Chase Bank N.A. held $2.015 trillion in deposits in domestic offices, of which $1.058 trillion were uninsured. Bank of America held $1.9 trillion in deposits in domestic offices, of which $909.26 billion were uninsured. Wells Fargo held $1.4 trillion in deposits in domestic offices, of which $721.1 billion were uninsured. Citibank N.A. (parent, Citigroup) held $777 billion in deposits in domestic offices, of which $598.2 billion was uninsured. But…wait for it…Citibank also held a staggering $622.607 billion in deposits in foreign offices – of which, potentially, nothing was insured according to current law and rulemaking. That would bring total deposits at Citibank in both domestic and foreign offices to $1.4 trillion with potentially only $178.8 billion FDIC insured – or 13 percent. (We have sought clarification on this from the FDIC and will update this article when we receive a response.) The Deposit Insurance Fund (DIF) protects depositors in U.S.-based federally-insured banks up to $250,000 per depositor, per bank. It is funded primarily through quarterly assessments on insured banks. Ultimately, “FDIC insurance is backed by the full faith and credit of the United States government.” No one has ever lost a dime in an FDIC-protected deposit in the U.S. According to the FDIC, the Deposit Insurance Fund (DIF) held $128.2 billion as of December 31, 2022 while the total of domestic deposits tallied up to $17.7 trillion. This would not be the first time that Citigroup’s Citibank has put a gun to the taxpayers’ head with the reckless way it does business. Sheila Bair was the Chair of the FDIC during the 2008 financial crisis. In her 2012 book, Bull by the Horns, Bair makes an astonishing revelation about Citigroup. Despite the trillions of dollars in revolving loans and capital infusions used to prop up Citigroup during the 2007 to 2010 financial crisis, its federally-insured commercial bank, Citibank, actually held only $125 billion in U.S. insured deposits according to Bair. As it turns out, the bulk of Citibank’s deposits were foreign and a large part of those deposits were not insured or had low insurance amounts. Had this foreign money decided to run for the exits on fear of a Citigroup collapse, the FDIC might have been looking at just a $125 billion problem but the rest of the financial system was looking at $2 trillion on the books of Citigroup, $1 trillion off the books of Citigroup, and trillions of dollars of derivative counterparty agreements. In her book, Bair shares her belief that Citigroup’s two main regulators, John Dugan (a former bank lobbyist, who in the leadup to the financial crisis in 2008 headed the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the regulator of national banks) and Tim Geithner, then President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, were not being forthright with the public on Citigroup’s real condition. Geithner failed up to become U.S. Treasury Secretary under President Obama. Geithner is currently President of a Wall Street private equity firm, Warburg Pincus. John Dugan is currently Chairman of the Board of Directors of Citigroup. (You can’t make this stuff up.)

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Cryptocurrency: Governments Banksters and Fiat, Lols
by grarpamp 30 Mar '23

30 Mar '23

https://i.redd.it/7cmyw59m8sqa1.png @bitcoinmagazine: The Bitcoin logo being projected onto the European Central Bank, Frankfurt https://v.redd.it/otx4m1dh2hqa1 Banksters https://v.redd.it/fciqbg5e1lqa1 Governments 1 btc = 28600 fiats US Bill S. 686: The Restrict Act – 20 Years In Prison For VPN Use? SEC Chair Gary Gensler Must Testify Before Congress, Says Rep. Tom Emmer Study: Over 46 Million Americans Likely to Buy Crypto in the Next Year https://www.fool.com/the-ascent/research/study-americans-cryptocurrency/ The RESTRICT Act Creates Blanket Authority, With Few Checks, to Ban Just About Anything Linked to a ‘Foreign Adversary’ - also Crypto https://www.coincenter.org/the-restrict-act-creates-blanket-authority-with-… https://www.reddit.com/r/coolguides/comments/124ltai/abandoning_the_us_doll… https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_6102 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_Reserve_Act Crypto... no, anti-Crypto Politicians shutting down crypto banks... yes. https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2023/03/29/top-us-treasury-official-says-cr… lawmakers showed little interest in focusing on crypto questions in a long two days of congressional hearings. The hearings revealed the primary concerns of regulators and lawmakers dwelled on problems in the banks’ management and potential failures in supervision from the Fed and FDIC https://cryptopotato.com/hollywood-actor-matt-damon-explains-why-he-appeare… Actor Matt Damon revealed that Crypto.com distributed $1 million to his charity organization water.org at a time when funds were most needed, which is why he agreed to appear in the ad. The actor said he gave his whole salary to the charity because the exchange was down. Damon is also an investor in the exchange.

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Cryptocurrency: The West Must Adopt Crypto To Beat BRICS Baddies
by grarpamp 30 Mar '23

30 Mar '23

Many are masticating on Lowery... " US Dollar was global terrorist for decades. BRICS will sell USD and deploy its own global terror regime based on a better currency than bankrupt USD, yet likely not more than commoditized twist on Euro scheme. The West has rekt its monetary self. If the West ideotheology wants to win, it has simply no other option but to adopt the best money... crypto... now. Declare itself fully open for crypto business, hands off, pro privacy, everything the cryptos want, full steam ahead. Utilize its remaning tech prowess to integrate cryptos efficiencies immediately into business, convert people into hard money, roll and own defi p2p etc. All Govt's will lose to crypto in the end, no point in letting any more new violent intermediates reign holding up the show. "

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Cryptocurrency: While Maxi's Wank To Bangers, They Foolishly Discount Power Of Privacy
by grarpamp 30 Mar '23

30 Mar '23

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kl3JddRBXZs https://old.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1264bo0/bitcoin_and_nostr_will_fr… https://twitter.com/tip_nz/status/1639306785311035392 You are playing a long risky and potentially losing game if you expect non-privacy coins like BTC to have the needed power to win, the State will at minimum invade them, and quite likely corrupt and censor them, and even if you do manage to win, with or without a long cutover to privacy game, then at that point you've foolishly pushed and adopted nothing but the loss of all privacy, a permanent anal inspection of your entire tx life, when eons of humanity and human DNA dictate that privacy is requisite to the very human condition, naught but difficulty to cutover and failure will result, permanently enshrining the datamining class over all. The only sensible option is to genuinely develop deploy and compete privacy coins in parallel, now, with DEX and popup darkCEX for free interchange, and see which wins out long term. Hint: Humans want and will always choose privacy, plenty of A/B testing on this on youtube.

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Cryptocurrency: New EU Law Mandate ORDERS You To Develop Adopt and Use Privacy Coins
by grarpamp 30 Mar '23

30 Mar '23

https://beincrypto.com/eu-bill-1000-euro-limit-anonymous-crypto-transfers/ New EU Bill Introduces 1,000 Euro Limit on Anonymous Crypto Transfer Privacy coins are the only coins that will survive for decades, best start developing deploying and migrating to them now. [–]nusk0Platinum | QC: CC 64 8 points 7 hours ago Good luck catching the anonymous person that just transfered 1001 Euro permalink embed save report reply [–]DanteTheSimpSlayer 2 points 7 hours ago They are so stupid - it hurts permalink embed save parent report reply [–]hquerTin | CC critic 0 points 7 hours ago Psst permalink embed save parent report reply [–]Flick-a-da-wristTin 1 point 2 hours ago They wont have to catch the individual. They will just fine the exchange or service that violates their rules. Then these services simply wont allow such transfers to avoid fines. permalink embed save parent report reply [–]BananoBoyz 6 points 7 hours ago Monero smiling. permalink embed save report reply [–]coinfeeds-botApproved CC Bot 3 points 7 hours ago tldr; EU lawmakers have voted favorably on a new draft bill to limit anonymous crypto transfers to 1000 euros. They also voted to establish a new Anti Money Laundering Authority to supervise risky assets like crypto. The bill will be voted on at a plenary session of the European Parliament on April 18, 2023. This summary is auto generated by a bot and not meant to replace reading the original article. As always, DYOR. permalink embed save report reply [–]NuewimPlatinum | QC: CC 613, ETH 31 | TraderSubs 31 2 points 7 hours ago I am not entirely sure they understand what ANONYMOUS mean... permalink embed save report reply [–]Ryuzaki_63Platinum | QC: CC 610 | NVIDIA 81 2 points 7 hours ago They must ask a self-custodial wallet user who transfers more than 1000 euros if he is the wallet’s owner. So you must prove you are the owner of a hardware wallet if you were to transfer it to an exchange? permalink embed save report reply [–]DanteTheSimpSlayer 1 point 7 hours ago get two wallets. KYC one. Send funds from non kyc one to kyc one and send to exchanges xD Law beat permalink embed save parent report reply [–]Ryuzaki_63Platinum | QC: CC 610 | NVIDIA 81 3 points 7 hours ago Genius! Straight to jail, right away permalink embed save parent report reply [–]DanteTheSimpSlayer 2 points 7 hours ago what jail? I can't control what people I don't know who have my wallet address send me permalink embed save parent report reply [–]Ryuzaki_63Platinum | QC: CC 610 | NVIDIA 81 2 points 6 hours ago KYC wallet, jail. Non KYC wallet, also jail, right away. The meme in case I'm confusing you :> permalink embed save parent report reply [–]DanteTheSimpSlayer 2 points 6 hours ago LOOOOL permalink embed save parent report reply [–]LieutenantZucc 0 points 7 hours ago If you send something from a KYC wallet to a non-KYC one, you’re pretty much KYCing the other one. permalink embed save parent report reply [–]DanteTheSimpSlayer 0 points 7 hours ago No, I said non kyc to kyc. Not the other way around. Then dumb mode on - "I have no idea who sent it to me, might have been a mistake" and just get burner wallets like burner phones xD permalink embed save parent report reply [–]LieutenantZucc 1 point 6 hours ago Oops! That being said I don’t think that excuse will hold for much longer than once haha permalink embed save parent report reply [–]DanteTheSimpSlayer 0 points 6 hours ago They have proof? xD permalink embed save parent report reply [–]unitys2011Platinum | QC: CC 35 2 points 6 hours ago Laughs in Monero permalink embed save report reply [–]Silver-dutchBronze | ADA 8 1 point 7 hours ago So how do they control it? It’s anonymous permalink embed save report reply [–]EdgeLord19941 1 point 7 hours ago Pseudonymous, once they link your name to an account it's all over permalink embed save parent report reply [–]joeyg334Tin | LRC 12 | Superstonk 19 1 point 6 hours ago There really is nothing that the government can't fuck up. permalink embed save report reply [–]thanksHedera 0 points 6 hours ago they don't know that there are still many tricks to be able to do lmao permalink embed save report reply [–]BlindestofMonks 0 points 6 hours ago just transfer 5k in 5x1000, no big deal permalink embed save report reply [–]tvanbormTin 1 point an hour ago Sure, let’s pay gas fees 5 times. Who is gonna do multiple ETH transactions instead of just one? permalink embed save parent report reply [–]Muriqui91Tin 0 points 6 hours ago Laughs in crypto permalink embed save report reply [–]tvanbormTin 1 point 57 minutes ago So, they are actually promoting the use of DEXes? They may force a CEX to comply with this, but how will those identify who an external wallet belongs to? Also, I don’t doubt there are gonna be people who’ll create hundreds of wallets and send +1k transactions for the fuck of it. Good luck identifying every single wallet. permalink embed save report reply

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Havana Syndrome, Part 2: How a dog's brain may help solve the mystery of Canadian diplomats' Cuban nightmare
by Gunnar Larson 29 Mar '23

29 Mar '23

https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/havana-syndrome-part-2-how-a-dogs…

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Re: FOIL DHSES-22-06-028
by Gunnar Larson 29 Mar '23

29 Mar '23

Mr. Callahan: There is an and/or argument to each definition. You are lieing about Sonic Weapons here and using Brody as a scape goat. For example, your office would have records on sonic weapons. How the FOIL was written is not a good enough defense because we are operating under and/or connotation. For these reasons, we seek to receive any and all records your department has concerning obstruction of justice. The same FOIL file can be used for organizing. Gunnar Larson On Tue, Jul 26, 2022, 5:01 PM Callahan, James (DHSES) < James.Callahan(a)dhses.ny.gov> wrote: > Dear Mr. Larson, > > > > The response to your appeal is attached. Your appeal has been denied. A > copy of your appeal and this determination is being sent to the Committee > on Open Government. > > > > Sincerely, > > > > *Jim Callahan* > > Senior Attorney > > *Division of Homeland Security & Emergency Services* > > 1220 Washington Avenue, Building 7A, Albany NY 12226 > > (518) 292-2849 | james.callahan(a)dhses.ny.gov > > www.dhses.ny.gov > > > > CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: This e-mail, including any attachments, may be > confidential, privileged or otherwise legally protected. It is intended > only for the addressee. If you received this e-mail in error or from > someone who was not authorized to send it to you, do not disseminate, copy > or otherwise use this e-mail or its attachments. Please notify the sender > immediately by reply e-mail and delete the e-mail from your system. Thank > you. > > > > *From:* Gunnar Larson <g(a)xny.io> > *Sent:* Tuesday, July 12, 2022 9:43 AM > *To:* DHSES, FOIL (DHSES) <FOIL.DHSES(a)dhses.ny.gov> > *Cc:* cypherpunks <cypherpunks(a)lists.cpunks.org> > *Subject:* Re: FOIL DHSES-22-06-028 > > > > *ATTENTION: This email came from an external source. Do not open > attachments or click on links from unknown senders or unexpected emails.* > > > > We would like to appeal this decision. > > > > On Tue, Jul 12, 2022, 9:41 AM DHSES, FOIL (DHSES) <FOIL.DHSES(a)dhses.ny.gov> > wrote: > > Attached please find correspondence regarding the above Freedom of > Information Law request. Thank you. > >

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FDIC Faces $23 Billion in Costs From Bank Failures. It Wants Big Lenders to Pay
by Gunnar Larson 29 Mar '23

29 Mar '23

FDIC Faces $23 Billion in Costs From Bank Failures. It Wants Big Lenders to Pay https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-03-29/fdic-mulls-squeezing-big…

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Strong AI for assassination, " targeted killing ", includes rationale
by professor rat 29 Mar '23

29 Mar '23

Liron Shapira @liron · 15h Wow, great insider account of what GPT-4 was really like before they aligned it https://youtube.com/watch?v=oLiheMQayNE… Reposts not plans to kill Elon Musk and all his spawn

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