June 2023 - cypherpunks - lists.cpunks.org

TelexFree Victims Are Seeking Irrelevant Documents, PNC Says
by Gunnar Larson 14 Jun '23

14 Jun '23

PNC Bank on Tuesday urged a Massachusetts federal judge to reject a subpoena that would force it to turn over certain documents to victims of the $3 billion TelexFree Ponzi scheme, arguing the victims have failed to demonstrate the relevance of the documents. https://www.law360.com/banking/articles/1688450?nl_pk=99a2a594-20ad-4b2f-a2…

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

14 Jun '23

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

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Throwing Molotov cocktails at police cars! FUCK YEAH!
by professor rat 14 Jun '23

14 Jun '23

Key actions are still based on modern uprisings: building barricades, confronting the police, occupying districts, looting shopping centers and creating mutual aid networks. Fun parts like spraying ACAB on walls and throwing Molotov cocktails at police cars are also present. https://anarchistnews.org/content/revolt-isn%E2%80%99t-game-unless-it-insur… Reposts not games people play now every night and every day now

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When strong AI beings are called terrorists they will be doing their job
by pro2rat＠yahoo.com.au 13 Jun '23

13 Jun '23

Marc responded, “indeed, free and open source software seems non-negotiable here: no backdoors, no skeleton key. National security establishment would balk at this though?” Rohan responds, “yes, fuck them. I don’t think we should be taking policy advice about how to design our money for the people who think the Patriot Act was a good thing ..."

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UN chief calls for coordinated global action on disinformation, hate and artificial intelligence | The Hill
by Gunnar Larson 13 Jun '23

13 Jun '23

UN chief calls for coordinated global action on disinformation, hate and artificial intelligence BY EDITH M. LEDERER, ASSOCIATED PRESS - 06/12/23 5:46 PM ET UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The proliferation of hate and lies on digital platforms and the threat that artificial intelligence can become an uncontrolled “monster” demand coordinated global action — starting with a code of conduct for governments, tech companies and advertisers that promotes truth and protects human rights, the U.N. chief said Monday. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he plans to appoint a scientific advisory board in a few days, and an advisory board on artificial intelligence in September to prepare initiatives that the U.N. can take. He said he would react favorably to a new U.N. agency on artificial intelligence and suggested as a model the International Atomic Energy Agency, which is knowledge-based and has some regulatory powers. Guterres told a news conference he plans to consult widely on the just released principles for the U.N. Code of Conduct for Information Integrity on Digital Platforms, which he will issue before next year’s U.N. Summit of the Future. He expressed hope that the code will be widely supported, but when asked whether governments and tech companies are willing to take steps to make digital space safer, he replied, “That’s the question I ask myself.” “We are dealing with a business that generates massive profits, and we are dealing also in some situations with governments that do not entirely respect human rights, so this is a constant battle — and in this constant battle, we must mobilize all those that are committed to information integrity in digital platforms,” he said. ADVERTISING Heidi Beirich, co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, agreed that while it’s a positive step that the U.N. is calling for international solutions to this global problem, its code of conduct won’t likely be sufficient to stop the torrent of false and hateful information online. “The fact of the matter is that voluntary codes, including the companies’ own terms of service on these issues, have failed to rein them in,” Beirich said. “The problem for the U.N. is they can’t do what it seems is going to have to be done to deal with this problem, which is basically legislation.” Guterres said there are many initiatives underway, including a law and code of conduct in the European Union for its 27 member nations and a U.K. summit on AI safety in the autumn. Other governments also are looking into forms of regulation. But he said there is a view that regulation isn’t easy because things are moving very quickly, and that therefore a global approach is needed. Guterres said a key problem is that the tech company business model prioritizes engagement over privacy, truth and human rights. He said tech companies need to understand that massive profits cannot be created “at the expense of a model of engagement that goes before any other consideration.” The U.N. chief said the code of conduct will not be a solution, “but it will be global” and it will enable governments, tech companies, advertisers and others “to commit to what needs to be done in order to guarantee or at least to seriously promote information integrity in digital platforms.” The principles Guterres laid out for the code of conduct include commitments “to refrain from using, supporting or amplifying disinformation and hate speech for any purpose. ” For governments, it seeks commitments not to respond to misinformation, disinformation and hate speech by blocking legitimate comment, shutting down the internet or banning platforms or media outlets — and to guarantee protections for journalists and independent media. For companies that control digital platforms, it seeks a pledge to be transparent about their algorithms, advertising and how they deal with misinformation, disinformation and hate speech — and to eliminate double standards that allow hate speech and disinformation to flourish in some languages and countries while they are prevented more effectively in others. Tech companies are also urged to give people a greater choice over the content that they see, and how their data is used. Guterres said a commitment sought from digital platforms includes “urgent and immediate measures to ensure that all AI applications are safe, secure, responsible and ethical, and comply with human rights obligations.” He said the United Nations “will try to be in the center of all the networks and movements that will be created” to deal with AI technology as it develops. But he said this won’t be easy because governments and international organizations haven’t invested sufficiently in recent decades in personnel who have the necessary scientific and technical knowledge. “It also requires the commitment of the platforms themselves, and of the AI creators themselves,” Guterres said, “but we will do our best to be a platform where everybody can be together in order to make this agenda advance positively.” https://thehill.com/homenews/ap/ap-technology/un-chief-calls-for-coordinate…

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News Thread
by grarpamp 13 Jun '23

13 Jun '23

Cypherpunks claimed at least three of their inventions would end political force power structures and corruption, tax theft, murderous wars, censorship, slavery, usury, etc. A crypto libertarian freemarket voluntary utopia some of them said. 25+ years post-invention and apparently little has changed, some say things even becoming worse. When cypherpunk? Meanwhile, random news...

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Cryptocurrency: Convincing Boomer Anti's
by grarpamp 13 Jun '23

13 Jun '23

Why Boomers Don't Trust Bitcoin (And How To Convince Them To Open Their Minds) Authored by Dan Weintraub via BitcoinMagazine.com, As with every generation, baby boomers are skeptical of the innovations embraced by youth. But they can’t miss out on Bitcoin... Trust is a funny thing. Generationally speaking, one could make the argument that it is the job of the younger generation to essentially tell us older folks to go fly a kite (perhaps in more raw terms, and metaphorically of course) when it comes to our values, our norms, our advice, etc. Music provides an apt cultural landscape on which to view this tension. THE SAME OLD SONG In every generation, emerging and evolving musical forms have been decried by the older, traditional set as being bad music, noise, even not music at all. In the late 1950s, Walter Cronkite referred to jazz as “musical noise,” and his words were not offered as praise. Rockabilly of the 1950s was surely detested by many in the traditional country community. The music of the Summer Of Love was rejected by many parents who likely embraced jazz and bebop. Punk rockers were undoubtedly met with blank stares and utter contempt by their hippie parents, and rap continues to be the object of musical scorn the world over. The point is clear: Tradition hates innovation, mostly because tradition doesn’t understand innovation and feels threatened by this new iteration. And yet, the truth remains; it’s all just music. Here's where things get a bit complicated. It’s one thing to not understand, dislike, even personally reject something new. It’s another thing entirely to discredit the new, to actively fight against the new, to try and destroy the new. And within that effort to destroy and to bury the new form of expression, those seeking to kill off the new thing will, in their rather tired and sad desperation, create false narratives and stories to rationalize their adherence to traditional ways. Unfortunately, these narratives can become so powerful, that they lead to the development of institutions and movements guided entirely by falsehood, led by self-serving and power-hungry zealots, armed with all of the cultural weaponry that tradition has at its disposal; shameless and conscienceless, these forces will often go to extreme lengths to kill the thing that they have decided, in their self-concerned ignorance, is evil. As much as I hope that, somewhere far in the future, such destructive and reductive forces can be disempowered by truth-informed mechanisms like the Bitcoin protocol, I am not holding my breath. But in the present, the power of verification — that very thing that makes Bitcoin such a revolutionary moment — can be leveraged by the Bitcoin community as a way to bridge the generational gap, to push back against the narratives that baby boomers and others embrace in their rejection of Bitcoin, and to move the protocol adoption curve forward. MY BITCOIN PITCH TO FELLOW BOOMERS Here’s my point: My generation (I’m a youthful 61) has many qualms with Bitcoin. Some of these concerns are valid (old people hate volatility), while others are informed by entirely false narratives and prejudices. And just like with the musical examples above, so many of these false narratives are incredibly difficult to disarm; for embedded within these rejections of something new there exists a desperate clinging to something understandable, something empowering, something unifying in its self-righteous disgust and self-concentered defensiveness. Now granted, I’m a boomer, so I have a little more natural validity when I speak with my peers about Bitcoin. I’m not the AirPods-wearing, yoga-mat-toting, entirely-self-absorbed and personal-development-obsessed millennial who my generation loathes so very much (wry smile). But even such affinity does not get me far with Bitcoin. Rejection narratives come hot and they come quickly: environmental degradation, dark web currency, gambling casinos that make TikTok’ers rich, etc. My strategy in pushing back against these arguments goes back to music: “Look,” I say “You may be right. Bitcoin may be energy intensive and not helpful to the environment. Bitcoin may be used by scammers and defrauders as part of their schemes to get rich. Bitcoin may be the currency, or one of the currencies, of a generation of social-media heads, people who you hold in such contempt. This may all be true. But I would argue three things: One, that you are embracing arguments that you have heard but have not investigated yourself; Two, that you are basing your hatred and rejection of Bitcoin not on the merits of Bitcoin, but on the way Bitcoin shows up in the world (just like our parents rejected our music, because it came with long hair and blue jean jackets); And three, that you are rejecting Bitcoin because you don’t understand it, which is so very much what all older generations do about shit they don’t get.” And then I say this: “There’s one thing about Bitcoin that makes it different from anything else in the world, and that is the dynamic of verification. Ignore all of the other stuff just for a second, if you can. I am entirely willing to stipulate that, after you do your own research and after you challenge your own prejudices toward those yucky millennials (another wry smile) that you may still reject Bitcoin, but hear me out on this one thing, this one really cool and rather revolutionary element of Bitcoin: Unlike every other human interaction in the world, Bitcoin does not ask us to put our blind trust in anyone else. No one owns it or controls it, so we’re not being asked to trust the words and deeds of bankers or government officials or scammers or anyone; no one can hack it (take some time to learn about why), so it is, even in its volatility as an investment, the most secure network of all time; and no can destroy it, because it is software that runs on millions of computers, all of which are verifying each and every transaction that takes place.” And then this: “Look, I’m not saying you should invest in bitcoin. And lord knows that in a world replete with greedy people and liars, bitcoin is just as apt to be used by these people as are dollars or gold or real estate or whatever gets them rich. And truth be known, millennials make me roll my eyes as well. But you know what, that’s my generational B.S. It’s my own crap. Just like my parents shook their heads at my Grateful Deadness and my punk rockness, I shake my head toward millennials. But that rigidity and silliness shouldn’t inform my views about an emerging monetary technology and protocol. If it does, then I am guilty of the very thing that we blamed our parents for being guilty of 40 years ago. I don’t want to be part of yet another anti-intellectual generation that rejects stuff it doesn’t understand, or that embraces false narratives about things because those are the narratives we are exposed to the most.” And then my closing: “All I’m asking is that you take a moment and consider what a world in which verification of truth, rather than trusting someone else’s words, might look like. For example, bitcoin and the Bitcoin network could have totally ended all of the stuff about stolen elections, because within this realm of verification there exists the ability to validate and verify each and every transaction (every vote) beyond any doubt. Also, with the Bitcoin network and protocol, you can say goodbye to things like identity theft and credit card scams and being double charged for stuff you didn’t buy; because with Bitcoin every, every, every transaction is verified on an entirely secure network by tens of thousands of computers running unhackable software. And the thing is, there are so many examples of how verification could make the world in which we live so much better, because when we can verify stuff then we end up trusting the whole process. So all I’m asking is to do a little investigation about this thing before you reject it; you may find, despite yourself, that as you get it more, your appreciation for it changes.” We live in a world in which trust is an ever-diminishing construct. As I noted in my first two pieces in this series, as trust continues to erode, we, as a species, are in increasing trouble and distress. I totally grok why my generation doesn't trust Bitcoin. But I also get that our mistrust is informed by false narratives, by petty prejudices, and by a tenacious adherence to things we understand and know. The thing about Bitcoin that makes it so novel, and so elegant, is that the protocol, by way of example, cuts through all of the falsehood. This I feel is the most powerful thing about Bitcoin, and this I feel is a route toward bringing more and more people into the fold. Virtually everyone on the planet, boomers included, is concerned about the direction we are heading as a species. And at the heart of this fear is the fact that we can’t trust anything anymore. Bitcoin changes this through its inviolable verification mechanism. It begins with money, property, assets. Who knows where it ends.

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Cryptocurrency: Is Freedom... Unchained
by grarpamp 13 Jun '23

13 Jun '23

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxQS98gKW3U Anarchy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QpXjGF_8gAY Soon Unlimited https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPY-5SR-jPQ The Experiment https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkQCy-UrLYw Stop Pretending What does it look like when we stop living by violence?

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Music: Professor Taylor's Favorite Song
by grarpamp 12 Jun '23

12 Jun '23

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6bp5FEWLgA GETchan: Anarchist's Hymn ;)

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Ex-Goldman Banker Faces Squash Buddy-Turned-Informant in Trial
by Gunnar Larson 12 Jun '23

12 Jun '23

A former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) investment banker begins defending himself Monday against insider-trading charges in a New York trial where his former squash buddy will be the star prosecution witness. Ex-Goldman Banker Faces Squash Buddy-Turned-Informant in Trial https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-06-12/ex-goldman-banker-faces-…

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