June 2023 - cypherpunks - lists.cpunks.org

Crypto as walls. Strong AI as roads. Quantum netwoking as rails.
by pro2rat＠yahoo.com.au 20 Jun '23

20 Jun '23

2018 piece on natural marriage of crypto economics with AI agents. Leaves out polyamorous aspect with quantum computing. Maxi Waxworks Museum https://medium.com/@benfar/how-crypto-enabled-ai-will-transform-our-economy… Reposts of years old compost highlights rearview mirror driving dangers

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Fwd: Journalists convicted for reporting at night
by pro2rat＠yahoo.com.au 20 Jun '23

20 Jun '23

In any advanced military entertainment complex the media are precisely half the problem. And despite journalists rating poorly as a group they claim a press privilege above the general public. So who really needs these stinking press badge scribblers anyway? Its been half a century since Woodward and Bernstein. What has the press done for us lately? Its physically impossible for cypherpunks to explain cryptoanarchism to anyone whose whole identity depends on them not understanding it! Corpse media zombies go fuck yourselves.

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Binance and Coinbase vs. the SEC - Litigation Finance Journal
by Gunnar Larson 20 Jun '23

20 Jun '23

Check out my new article: https://litigationfinancejournal.com/binance-and-coinbase-vs-the-sec/ On June 5, 2023, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) sued the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, Binance, for allegedly misleading investors and regulators while operating an unregistered exchange. One day later, the SEC sued the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the United States, Coinbase, for similar allegations. Now, litigation financiers around the globe look on as top law firms organize to defend Binance and Coinbase against the SEC. Bloomberg Law reports that Binance and Coinbase have tapped some of the United States’ top law firms to defend their future to exchange nearly $120B in cryptocurrency token assets. The SEC claims that most of these tokens sum up to unregistered securities. Binance and Coinbase deny any wrongdoing. Agencies such as Lipton, Rosen & Katz, Milbank, Latham & Watkins, Wilmer Hale and Sullivan & Cromwell are among those said to bank upwards of $50M – $100M in legal fees for Binance’s and Coinbase’s defense against the SEC’s recent actions. Sullivan & Cromwell is reported to have billed over $80M in fees associated with the FTX Chapter 11 bankruptcy litigation, according to court documents. The SEC says that unregistered securities in the form of cryptocurrency violate US investor protection laws. Yet, former SEC leaders have joined Binance’s defense team. Richard Grime (of Gibson Dunn & Crutcher) has been hired by Binance. Mr. Grime formerly served as assistant director of the SEC’s enforcement division. William McLucas (of Wilmer Culter Pickering Hale and Dorr) formerly served as the SEC’s enforcement director. Mr. McLucus has been hired by BAM Trading Services, the operator of Binance.US. What does all of this mean for the litigation finance industry? Experts suggest that private actions could be explored by litigation investors and their clients in the wake of the SEC’s approach to cryptocurrency tokens being exchanged as unregistered securities. However, collectability remains a pertinent issue for litigation investors, as they consider whether to pursue crypto litigation funding.

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Fwd: Journalists convicted for reporting at night
by fuzzyTew 20 Jun '23

20 Jun '23

---------- Forwarded message --------- From: Freedom of the Press Foundation <newsletter(a)freedom.press> Date: Tue, Jun 20, 2023 at 11:55 AM Subject: Journalists convicted for reporting at night Congress should end warrantless spying on press and public View this email in your browser <https://mailchi.mp/freedom.press/journalists-convicted-for-reporting-at-nig…> Dear friend of press freedom, Here are some of the most important stories we’re following from the U.S. and around the world. If you enjoy reading this newsletter, please forward it to friends and family. If someone has forwarded you this newsletter, please subscribe here <https://freedom.press/subscribe/>. *Body camera footage showing Asheville Blade journalist Matilda Bliss's press pass. Bliss and colleague Veronica Coit were convicted of trespassing for recording police evicting unhoused people from a public park shortly after the park's closing time.* A North Carolina jury convicted <https://ncnewsline.com/2023/06/19/asheville-journalists-convicted-of-trespa…> journalists Matilda Bliss and Veronica Coit of trespassing for violating a park curfew to report on a police eviction of a homeless encampment. A judge denied their motion to dismiss the charges on First Amendment grounds. The very same day, the Department of Justice made clear <https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/06/16/us/doj-investigation-minneap…> in a report on misconduct by the Minneapolis Police Department that “blanket enforcement of dispersal orders and curfews against press violates [the First Amendment] because they foreclose the press from reporting.” Bliss and Coit already filed a notice of appeal. As Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) Director of Advocacy Seth Stern explained <https://freedom.press/news/press-freedom-and-civil-liberties-orgs-condemn-c…>: “We don’t have secret police in the United States. Officers are not entitled to operate without press and public scrutiny just because it’s dark out. The Constitution requires that journalists be given sufficient access to public land to report the news, no matter the time.” *FPF joins call to end warrantless spying on journalists and others* Several senators — both Republicans <https://twitter.com/SenMikeLee/status/1668658467702185984?s=20> and Democrats <https://twitter.com/SenatorDurbin/status/1660680119948652552?s=20> — say they’re fed up <https://www.politico.com/news/2023/06/13/senate-biden-foreign-surveillance-…> with excuses over intelligence agencies’ abuse <https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/05/19/fbi-digital-sur…> of a controversial surveillance law that gives them access to huge amounts of Americans’ data. As we explain <https://freedom.press/news/congress-can-end-warrantless-spying-on-journalis…>, Congress should use the coming expiration of the law, known as Section 702 of FISA, to make critical reforms and rein in rampant warrantless spying on Americans, including journalists. Section 702 <https://cdt.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Section-702.pdf> allows intelligence agencies to access Americans’ communications without a warrant, as long as the American is talking to someone outside the U.S. Despite being touted as a national security measure focused on foreigners, Section 702 has become a powerful tool for domestic spying, including for searches targeting journalists <https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/opportunity-stop-wa…> . FPF joined a coalition of more than 20 privacy, civil rights and civil liberties organizations calling on Congress to adopt significant reforms <https://cdt.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/CDT-Statement-for-Record-For-FIS…> to Section 702 as part of its reauthorization. In addition to imposing a warrant requirement for searches of Americans’ data and narrowing Section 702’s parameters, Congress must improve the transparency of surveillance activities so that the press is not left to rely on information revealed by whistleblowers <https://freedom.press/news/snowden-anniversary-a-reminder-of-the-need-to-pr…> to inform the public. *Secret science laws limit access to research records* There’s a long track record of journalists <https://www.opb.org/article/2023/01/19/oregon-primate-research-center-viola…> and watchdog groups <https://freedom.press/news/how-corporations-suppress-disclosure-public-reco…> using public records laws <https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/06/us/food-industry-enlisted-academics-in-g…> to expose wrongdoing <https://ctmirror.org/2023/05/03/ct-foia-freedom-of-information-act-uconn/> at public academic research programs. But as we recently highlighted <https://freedom.press/news/secret-science-laws-limit-access-to-research-rec…>, several states have passed laws or otherwise restricted public access to research records from public institutions of higher learning. Most recently, Connecticut considered (but thankfully didn’t pass) a “science secrecy” bill <https://www.cga.ct.gov/asp/cgabillstatus/cgabillstatus.asp?selBillType=Bill…> that would have excluded public colleges’ and universities’ research records from the state’s public records law. Supporters of science secrecy exemptions argue that freedom of information laws have been weaponized to harass <https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/harassment-public-records-requests-bom…> and smear researchers. Concerns about abusive requests and their impact on academic freedom are legitimate, but prohibiting public scrutiny of academic research isn’t the right response. Other methods explained on our blog <https://freedom.press/news/secret-science-laws-limit-access-to-research-rec…> would be effective while still preserving journalists’ and the public’s ability to access newsworthy records. *What we’re reading* The courtroom conundrum <https://view.newsletters.cnn.com/messages/1686709784064b329468be456/raw>. A federal judge denied media outlets’ request to allow cameras and barred any personal electronic devices from a Miami courtroom where Donald Trump was arraigned on Tuesday. As a result, journalists had to resort to creative but slightly ridiculous methods to get the word out about what happened at the start of one of the most newsworthy trials in American history. There’s no reason <https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/02/06/time-has-come-cameras-co…> for these outdated bans. It’s beyond time to update courtroom policies for the 21st century and allow cameras in courts. One of the last bastions of digital privacy is under threat <https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/13/opinion/encryption-messaging-privacy-sig…>. Journalists often rely on encrypted services <https://freedom.press/news/signal-beginners/> to communicate with sources or protect their unpublished work. Despite the benefits of end-to-end encryption to journalists, activists, businesses and regular people, the United States <https://cdt.org/insights/cdt-leads-broad-civil-society-coalition-urging-sen…> and other governments <https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/03/tell-uks-house-lords-protect-end-end-…> have continued their efforts to undermine or destroy it. So far these attempts have failed, but we must continue to demand that governments worldwide keep their hands off end-to-end encryption. The US is openly stockpiling dirt on all its citizens <https://www.wired.com/story/odni-commercially-available-information-report/>. According to a declassified government report, the U.S. government has amassed a “large amount” of “sensitive and intimate information” about Americans by buying data from data brokers, companies that sell information about individuals collected from their web traffic, app use and other sources. This surveillance can threaten journalists’ confidential communications with sources by, for example, revealing their location data. Congress must act to put an end to surveillance abuses. For tips on how to protect yourself, check out <https://mailchi.mp/freedom.press/digisec-digest-8128750?e=fe28d28019> this week’s digital security digest and subscribe <https://freedom.press/training/digisec-subscribe/>. *Subscribe to our digital security newsletter* FPF has a new weekly newsletter on digital security and journalism! It’s a short update on digital security news, what you can do about it, and other news from our team. Subscribe here <https://freedom.press/training/digisec-subscribe/>. [image: Twitter] <https://twitter.com/freedomofpress> [image: Facebook] <https://www.facebook.com/FreedomOfThePressFoundation/> [image: Website] <https://freedom.press/> *Copyright © 2023 Freedom of the Press Foundation, All rights reserved.* You are receiving this email because you opted in via our website. *Our mailing address is:* Freedom of the Press Foundation 49 Flatbush Ave, #1017 Brooklyn, NY 11217 Add us to your address book <https://press.us6.list-manage.com/vcard?u=19b87eae477821267dea69438&id=c8d8…>

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Crypto Entrepreneur Do Kwon Gets Four-Month Sentence in Montenegro
by Gunnar Larson 20 Jun '23

20 Jun '23

Terraform Labs co-founder Do Kwon, the crypto entrepreneur who’s sought by the US and South Korea on fraud charges, was sentenced to four months in prison by a Montenegrin court for attempting to travel with a forged passport. Crypto Entrepreneur Do Kwon Gets Four-Month Sentence in Montenegro https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-06-19/crypto-entrepreneur-kwon…

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Cryptocurrency: Activism and Fraud Exposure Works In Other Spheres Too (Narrative Collapse)
by grarpamp 20 Jun '23

20 Jun '23

Cameron Winklevoss @cameron 3h This is what happens when you stop engaging in science and start worshipping Science. Tyler Winklevoss @tyler 3h .@PeterHotez is a cautionary tale. Turns out if you become an establishment marionette and parrot its narrative on mainstream media for years completely unchallenged, you will undergo such mental rot that despite being an MD PhD and having 40+ years experience in the fields of… nitter.tokhmi.xyz/i/web/status/167… 31 44 334 Cameron Winklevoss @cameron 15h The astonishing revelation about @PeterHotez's refusal to debate @RobertKennedyJr on @joerogan is not that he doesn't feel comfortable staking out his position in an open, long-form debate (he doesn't), but that he feels completely comfortable doing so on mainstream media any day… nitter.tokhmi.xyz/i/web/status/167… 599 2,477 118 16,445

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Cryptocurrency: Is Free Speech! Privacy Cryptocurrencies must be adopted!
by grarpamp 19 Jun '23

19 Jun '23

It has been said here many times before. Cryptocurrency privacy is Free Speech. Learn to speak it. Human Freedom, thus your Freedom, now depends on it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bByeakbLDWk

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Post Office scandal: echoes of Watergate?
by Gunnar Larson 19 Jun '23

19 Jun '23

But her emails. --- It is difficult to bring home the enormity of the Post Office Horizon IT scandal for the legal profession in England and Wales. One way would be to compare the impact with the famous break-in into the Democrats’ campaign office in the Watergate building and ensuing cover-up. That brought down President Nixon (pictured below) and led to disciplinary proceedings being brought against 29 lawyers. Francis Dingwall Francis Dingwall How can the two be compared? As the Gazette reported, the Post Office scandal is arguably the most widespread miscarriage of justice in British history, and the inquiry into it is about to turn its spotlight on the role of lawyers. The focus is likely to be whether the lawyers put a thirst for victory above their wider duties. No one would suggest that they were involved in anything like the burglaries, perjury and bribery that ensnared the Watergate lawyers. But as the author of Watergate and the Law Schools put it in 1975: ‘There is a difference in application, but not in underlying principle, between those who would state that it is the lawyer’s duty to use any means… to achieve a victory and those who would break into [an] office or engage in illegal wiretapping.’ ADVERT It has come to light that after one sub-postmaster was sent to prison in November 2010 (unjustly, it transpired), a senior Post Office lawyer celebrated the victory in an email, observing that: ‘… [the sub-postmaster had made] an unprecedented attack [on the Horizon computer]… It is to be hoped the case will set a marker to dissuade other defendants from jumping on the Horizon bashing bandwagon.’ President Nixon In fact, the one thing Horizon needed was to be bashed a lot harder, a lot sooner, by the Post Office’s own solicitors. Another lawyer is alleged to have warned a sub-postmaster: ‘We will ruin you.’ (This accusation has been strongly rejected). Those may prove to be the tip of the iceberg. Solicitors were involved at every stage of the saga; the number may match the 29 involved in Watergate. Watergate led to much soul-searching within the profession in the US. It resulted in a requirement that law schools provide legal ethics education. The view was that ‘although we cannot ensure that any attorney will in fact behave ethically, we can at least be certain that he is fully aware of what his ethical duties are’. PARTNERSHIP Ever since, law schools have employed lecturers in legal ethics who run the mandatory courses; some of them also have practices advising law firms. It is a recognised discipline. Despite the lawyer jokes in the US, all lawyers have received training on legal ethics, there is an extensive library of textbooks and commentaries, there are thoughtful debates on wide-ranging issues, and there is an Association of Professional Responsibility Lawyers, dedicated to bringing about positive change in legal ethics and the law of lawyering. In England and Wales, when it comes to studying legal ethics, prospective solicitors generally study the SRA Standards and Regulations, whether for the Legal Practice Course or the Solicitors Qualifying Examination. There is a widespread view that ‘legal ethics = the SRA Principles + the SRA Codes of Conduct’. Wrong: legal ethics do not begin or end there. Take for example the solicitor’s obligation towards third parties – sub-postmasters if you will. There are rules and SRA Principles that help. But the deeper question concerns the societal role. Does the solicitor have a role as a moral agent of justice? What does it mean to be an ‘officer of the court’? Should solicitors serve the public interest, and if so, how? If the solicitors acting for the Post Office, in-house and external, had been used to engaging with legal ethics, perhaps the wrongful convictions, the ruin of lives, would have been avoided. We would at least be certain that they were fully aware of what their ethical duties were. ADVERT In England and Wales, there is only a handful of academics who specialise in legal ethics, and a handful of solicitors like the writer who provide training in legal ethics to law firms. Likewise there is only a handful of student textbooks on the subject. It is not the same in the medical profession: medical students spend much of their time on the subject. Ironically, you can do an LLM in medical law and ethics, even a PhD, but not in lawyers’ law and ethics. And it is not only lawyer involvement in the Post Office scandal that lends urgency to the issue. A headline in the FT (10 May) tells its own story: ‘Big law firms fall out of fashion with idealistic Generation Z’. It may become increasingly difficult to persuade bright young lawyers to represent corporate clients which have a bad environmental, social and governance profile. That may result from a lack of understanding of the ethics of the lawyer’s role. If budding idealistic lawyers were taught about the so-called ‘standard conception’, they would learn that a solicitor should adopt a neutral stance concerning the morality of their client. The importance of this is self-evident when it comes to criminal law, because it is plainly a good thing to see that a suspicious suspect receives legal representation of the right sort. So too with Big Oil, perhaps? Discuss, as the examiners would say. https://www.lawgazette.co.uk/commentary-and-opinion/post-office-scandal-ech…

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Post Office scandal: echoes of Watergate?
by Gunnar Larson 19 Jun '23

19 Jun '23

https://www.lawgazette.co.uk/commentary-and-opinion/post-office-scandal-ech…

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COMMENTARY AND OPINION Could exemplary damages discourage corporate wrongdoings?
by Gunnar Larson 19 Jun '23

19 Jun '23

By Tets Ishikawa13 June 2023 Save articlePlease Sign in to your account to use this feature In a fast-evolving world of technological, commercial and societal evolution, the law is constantly playing catch-up. Consequently, this lag creates a commercial opportunity for sophisticated and well-resourced businesses to arbitrage in the pursuit of profit. Think Lloyd v Google, where wrong-doing was established (by the Fair Trade Commission), yet Google was able to retain the revenues thus generated. Or, put another way, today’s wrongfully earned profits far outweigh the cost of being successfully litigated against in the future (weighted not only by the probability of such litigation being successful but also the time value of money). Tets Ishikawa Tets Ishikawa Source: Lionfish The real consequence is how this impacts recourse for victims through legal remedy. There’s not much to do about this arbitrage but what exacerbates the problem is the cost of recourse and the underfunded judiciary and the public bodies who exist to enforce justice. ADVERT Katherine Freeland’s Chasing Money highlights this in respect of fraud and why private prosecutions are necessarily validated. Beyond the criminal justice system, the recently published 2022 UK Judicial Attitude Survey, a continuous survey of working judges with a response rate of above 90% across salaried judges and 67% of fee-paid court judges, highlighted the on-going 'poor' or 'unacceptable' morale of court staff. This cannot be good for delivering justice. Beyond the unrealistic canvasing of the justice secretary, there is one rarely discussed option – a punishment tax based on principles of exemplary damages. For most UK lawyers, the notion of UK jurisprudence moving beyond a compensatory approach is simply offensive. Winning claimants shouldn’t be overcompensated by way of an undeserved financial windfall which would encourage more vexatious or 'punt-like' litigation, stressing an already stretched judiciary. However, there is more to exemplary damages. PARTNERSHIP In 1997, the Law Commission, chaired at the time by the future Supreme Court Justice Lady Arden of Heswall, published its final report in respect of Item 2 of the Sixth Programme of Law Reform – Aggravated, Exemplary and Restitutionary Damages. Interestingly, support for introducing exemplary damages was broad because rather than focusing on the negatives it might lead to, it turned to the positive deterrent such damages could play. If the offensiveness is caused by the concept of 'damages' because it benefits a somewhat undeserving claimant, then the focus should shift to the concept of 'tax': punishing wrong-doers where it hurts (i.e. money) for the benefit of the judiciary. In other words, rather than framed as exemplary damages, it would be a punishment tax, where the proceeds of any such 'tax' go to the judiciary rather than the claimants. Again, one can hear grunts of sheer abhorrence but there are some obvious significant benefits. For a start, it would have a significant behavioural impact, changing attitudes of current and prospective wrong-doers towards litigation risk. Let us assume, as above, that wrong-doers assess litigation risk of any given commercial decision not against a legal construct but against a commercial construct where today’s wrongfully earned profits far outweigh the cost of being successfully litigated against. Currently, this risk assessment only assumes damages to put the victim back into the position it would otherwise have been in had it not been for the wrong-doing the wrong-doer is about to commit. If successfully litigated against, with the risk of an additional 'tax', the commercial assessment of the litigation risk would become mathematically less favourable. ADVERT Even if the litigation risk was still worth taking, once they are found out for a wrong-doing leading to litigation, the stakes of losing are much higher with a punishment tax. If a defendant wrong-doer knows they have committed wrong, a settlement becomes far more attractive. Moreover, only the most convinced (of their innocence or strength of their defence) would pursue matters to trial. Moreover, settlements save court time and mitigate the financial burdens faced by the commercial courts. For those defendants that braved a trial and lost, the wrong-doer would not only have to pay ordinary damages to the claimant but also an additional tax. How that punishment tax is calculated would of course need to be determined. At this point, one can hear the sighs of traditionalists saying it’s too difficult to calculate anyway. But this applies to any tax. Income and corporation tax rates only make sense because they are historically benchmarked. The advantage of having no benchmark is the opportunity to create a fit-for-purpose benchmark. It could for example be guideline-based, such as a percentage or multiple of the headline claim value. A restitutionary approach would also be logical, where the tax is equal to the wrongfully earned profits (with 8% judgment interest in line with s17 of the Judgments Act 1838 of course). Alternatively, it could be at the court’s discretion based on what it believes is an appropriate amount to act as both sufficient punishment and deterrent, which will vary from case to case anyway. The central point though is that any such amount would go back into the judiciary. Put another way, the more underfunded the judiciary, the more leverage for potential wrong-doers, leading to an increase in litigation which means more wrong-doing and a more stressed judiciary. Not exactly a vicious circle society wants to get trapped in. And the bigger picture: if wrong-doing in commercial litigation helped fund the criminal justice system to create a safer, most just society, it’ll be a win-win because it would create a better society, even for the profit-motivated wrong-doers, in which they can enjoy their undeserved profits. Tets Ishikawa is managing director of LionFish, a litigation funder Topics Comment Save articlePlease Sign in to your account to use this feature Related articles David Syed Opinion Europe should support Latin American integration 15 June 2023 Eduardo-Reyes-2019 Opinion Days in court 14 June 2023 Francis Dingwall Opinion Post Office scandal: echoes of Watergate? 9 June 2023 LOAD MORE ARTICLES Premier job Search jobs by keyword Search jobs by keyword FIND JOBS Browse over 3,200 law jobs. Get jobs by email. 3 Readers' comments You're not signed in. Only registered users can comment on this article. SIGN IN REGISTER SORT BY Chris Robinson #CommentAvatarLabelCommented on:16 June 2023 7:41am That's very interesting idea. It goes some way to compensate for the lack of prosecutions for regulatory breaches. It could apply only where the court was satisfied that a breach had taken place, not easy on the evidence in a civil dispute, but there must be cases where it could be done. The money, like all fines, should go to the exchequer, avoiding conflicts of interest inherent in the court being funded by fines. Unsuitable or offensive? Report comment Vote upYou have already voted0Please Sign in to your account to use this featureVote downYou have already voted0Please Sign in to your account to use this feature Anonymous #CommentAvatarLabelCommented on:15 June 2023 9:52am "If the offensiveness is caused by the concept of 'damages' because it benefits a somewhat undeserving claimant, then the focus should shift to the concept of 'tax': punishing wrong-doers where it hurts (i.e. money) for the benefit of the judiciary" "benefits a somewhat undeserving claimant"? The claimant is undeserving of the wrongdoing - not undeserving of restitution for the wrong doing, surely. Unsuitable or offensive? Report comment Vote upYou have already voted0Please Sign in to your account to use this featureVote downYou have already voted0Please Sign in to your account to use this feature Anonymous #CommentAvatarLabelCommented on:14 June 2023 9:22am A 'punishment tax'? That's what is usually known as a fine. A punishment tax that goes to pay for the salary and pension of the person (the judge, along with the court staff) who decides whether the punishment tax is payable and in what sum? That sounds more like some kind of mafia shake-down to me. How could the courts ever be absolved of having a conflict of interest, if their continued operation is financially dependent on them levying sufficient 'punishment taxes'? https://www.lawgazette.co.uk/commentary-and-opinion/could-exemplary-damages…

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