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The Verge: SSD prices could spike after Western Digital loses 6.5 billion gigabytes of NAND chips
by jim bell 12 Feb '22

12 Feb '22

The Verge: SSD prices could spike after Western Digital loses 6.5 billion gigabytes of NAND chips. https://www.theverge.com/2022/2/11/22928867/brainstorming "Western Digital says it has lost at least 6.5 exabytes (6.5 billion gigabytes) of flash storage due to contamination issues at its NAND production facilities. The contamination could see the price of NAND — the main component of SSDs — spike up to 10 percent, according to market research firm TrendForce. Any potential NAND shortages or price fluctuations could affect the PC market over the next few months, which had another big year in 2021 despite global chip shortages and demand for GPUs." "The contamination of materials used in the manufacturing processes appears to have been detected in late January at two plants in Japan, with Western Digital’s joint venture partner, Kioxia (previously Toshiba), revealing it has affected BiCS 3D NAND flash memory. "Western Digital and Kioxia’s partnership amounts to around 30 percent of the NAND flash market, according to TrendForce. Both Western Digital and Kioxia primarily supply SSD and eMMC storage drives for PCs, and Western Digital is one of the leading suppliers in the industry." "It’s not clear what caused the contamination, whether products on the market will need to be recalled, or when production will resume. Western Digital says it’s “working closely with its joint venture partner, Kioxia, to implement necessary measures that will restore the facilities to normal operational status as quickly as possible.”

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Targeted Assassinations' Coming if Civil War Breaks Out: Adam Kinzinger
by jim bell 12 Feb '22

12 Feb '22

https://www.newsweek.com/targeted-assassinations-coming-if-civil-war-breaks… "If a civil war breaks out in the United States, Representative Adam Kinzinger believes it won't be reminiscent of the 19th century Civil War because it'll take the form of "targeted assassinations" and not state against state. "Once an unthinkable theory, growing political divisions have fueled speculation that a civil war could be looming. While some see it as inevitable, others have pushed for people to resist the possibility, and Kinzinger told The View on February 10 that it's not "too far of a bridge" to believe another civil war could happen in the United States. "However, if it does occur, he warned that it wouldn't take the same shape as it did in 1861. Instead of the traditional form of war the Civil War took, where it was "blue against gray," this time around, it would be "armed groups against armed groups," according to Kinzinger. "Targeted assassinations, violence–that's what a 21st and 20th century civil war is," Kinzinger said. "We're identifying now by our race, by our ethnic group, we're separating ourselves and we live in different realities." "Kinzinger, a vocal critic of the GOP's loyalty to former President Donald Trump, was censured by the GOP alongside his colleague Representative Liz Cheney. During his interview on The View, he criticized the GOP for being a "once great party" that no longer stands for principles. Instead, he said the GOP stands for "loyalty to one man" and that it makes him "sad." "Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene has advocated for Republican states to break off from Democratic states and Civil War experts believe there are "indicators" the United States could see another conflict." "Timothy Snyder, a history professor at Yale University, told Business Insider America "doesn't look good right now." He pointed to the high degree of polarization, people believing in alternate realities and the praise of violence. During an interview with CNN, Kinzinger cited Trump as one of the leading factors in whether America sees another civil war. If Trump and his allies convince enough people that the election was stolen from the former president, it's not a "far off thought" that a militia and counter militia clash, sparking a civil war." "I never would say that we would ever have ended in that position, but I now believe it is a real possibility that we have to be wide-eyed as we walk into so we don't have that happen again," Kinzinger told CNN." "Although Kinzinger believes civil war could be on the horizon, he urged people to fight hard "against it" and put the country over political parties. He acknowledged that he used to resist talking about civil war but said it's necessary to issue warnings and discuss the possibility so that the potential for it is "recognized" and we can alter course." (End of quote) Jim Bell's comment: On Feb 14, 1995, Part 1 of my Assassination Politics essay was cross-posted from Bill Frezza's Digitaliberty mailing list to Cypherpunks list. For about about the next 6 months, nearly every comment on Cypherpunks involved Assassination Politics. It is hard to tell that, today, because a few years ago I discovered that the Cypherpunks archive for 1995 had been extensively forged to remove virtually all references to 'Jim Bell', 'Assassination Politics', AP (except in the context of "Associated Press"). Even today, this now-obvious example of censorship can be identified by noting how few messages remain during a multi-month period. There are perhaps 5 references to AP in November and December 1995. That's it. Adam Kinzinger is right, for once. There is no reason to believe that Civil War 2.0 should have as many as 1% of the perhaps 700,000 1861-1865 Civil War dead.

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Senators: CIA has secret program that collects American data
by jim bell 12 Feb '22

12 Feb '22

https://news.yahoo.com/senators-cia-secret-program-collects-011409001.html The CIA has a secret, undisclosed data repository that includes information collected about Americans, two Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee said ... Thursday. While neither the agency nor lawmakers would disclose specifics about the data, the senators alleged the CIA had long hidden details about the program from the public and Congress. Sens. Ron Wyden of Oregon and Martin Heinrich of New Mexico sent a letter to top intelligence officials calling for details about the program to be declassified. Large parts of the letter and documents released by the CIA were blacked out. Wyden and Heinrich said the program operated “outside the statutory framework that Congress and the public believe govern this collection.” There have long been concerns about what information the intelligence community collects about Americans. The CIA and National Security Agency have a foreign mission and are generally barred from investigating Americans or U.S. businesses. But the spy agencies’ sprawling collection of foreign communications often snares Americans' messages and data incidentally.

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"CIA is not your friend"
by jim bell 12 Feb '22

12 Feb '22

Open SmartNews and read "CIA slammed as ‘criminal organization’ after Snowden tweets agency ‘is not your friend’" here: https://share.smartnews.com/oWYJi

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Re: [tor-dev] Relay "Ping" Functionality
by grarpamp 12 Feb '22

12 Feb '22

> Right now we're exploring latency-based attacks but are having trouble > achieving a particular goal: a way to “ping” an arbitrary node in a > client’s already-built (“live”) circuit. One-way timing is ideal but round > trip time would suffice. We can glean this information during circuit > construction, but what about a “live” circuit? Ideally, this would be a > periodic thing Tor already keeps track of, but as an on-demand or as a > byproduct/side-effect of a different function would also work. We have not > been able to find a way to do this within the Tor (sub)protocol specs or > the control port spec. Use OnionCat and ping6, it is exactly what you want. https://www.onioncat.org/ Such "timing" attacks are in the scope of "Tor Stinks -- NSA" document. Users should become familiar with them, and that slide deck, and other attacks from over a decade ago. And with how tor does not address them.

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Crypto: OpenSSH Adds PQC Composition
by grarpamp 12 Feb '22

12 Feb '22

As of 8.5 or so... KexAlgorithms ^sntrup761x25519-sha512(a)openssh.com A fine OS, whose main repo still uses CVS, an unsigned hackable corruptible non-hashed tree, lol.

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Plan Kansk
by professor rat 12 Feb '22

12 Feb '22

Plot to blow up an FSB building in the video game Minecraft - you know you want to! https://anarchistnews.org/content/russian-court-sentences-16-year-old-five-… Pooters last fart https://stiffs.com/celebrity/vladimirputin My 2k tomb it May concern

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Assange and Afghan women?
by professor rat 12 Feb '22

12 Feb '22

If its anything like his attitude towards Iraq-based women then he hates them all. "... Mr Assange agreed that some level of privacy was necessary for the successful operation of the military ..." http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/drive/assange-i-can-rule-from-… JULIAN " ‘[The military] protects the sovereignty of Australia. It protects the independence of Australia.' ASSANGE July, 2013 That same military had just led the illegal, aggressive invasion of Iraq ( and bombing of all six surrounding countries ) The Au military - a loud and proud member of the infamous and unholy Hawaii 5-Eye spy network - was busy building concentration camps for refugee's as Assmange made those comments. Some refugee's were rendered alive to be tortured for years in these death-camps - some were Afghan . Some female. Feh.

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Afghanistan: the humanitarian crisis and U.S. response
by zeynepaydogan 11 Feb '22

11 Feb '22

https://tkg.af/english/2022/02/09/afghanistan-one-mln-children-at-risk-of-s… In a 9 February 2022 hearing before the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Crisis Group’s Senior Afghanistan Consultant Graeme Smith outlined two long-term ways the U.S. can mitigate Afghanistan’s humanitarian and economic crises in the aftermath of war and subsequent Taliban takeover. Chairman Murphy, Ranking Member Young, and distinguished members of the Subcommittee, thank you for your attention to this important subject and for inviting me to testify. I am a Senior Consultant for the International Crisis Group, which covers more than 50 conflict situations around the world, including Afghanistan, with the aim of helping to prevent, resolve or mitigate deadly conflict. I have worked in the country since 2005. In previous years, I listened to U.S. congressional hearings from Kandahar or Kabul, sometimes with gunfire or explosions in the background. The Internet connection was not always good, but I heard enough to understand that the United States had ambitious plans for Afghanistan. Now the guns are silent. America has withdrawn its forces. In the aftermath of war, the United States and its allies should focus on more modest plans, such as easing restrictions on the Afghan economy and saving the lives of starving people. These are not the lofty goals of the past decades. What is required now is urgent action to help address basic needs. Tens of millions of lives are at stake. Afghanistan ranks as world’s largest humanitarian crisis, and there is a serious risk of widespread famine. The United Nations estimates that 97 per cent of Afghans could fall into poverty this year. People are so desperate that they are selling their own daughters, anything to survive. U.S. and European envoys signalled that they understand these life-or-death issues at a recent meeting in Norway. They committed to 1) “helping prevent the collapse of social services” and 2) “supporting the revival of Afghanistan’s economy.” Further steps are now required to achieve those two objectives. 1. Help Prevent the Collapse of Essential Public Services The United States has donated generously to emergency relief efforts, funding humanitarian agencies that are sending bags of food and other assistance into Afghanistan. However, such short-term assistance is not enough because this is not a natural disaster; it’s a man-made crisis resulting from the end of the war economy and the economic isolation imposed by Western governments on the new Taliban regime and – in effect – on the Afghan population. The Afghan state is collapsing. Half a million government employees lack salaries, and essential services such education, sanitation, and agricultural programs are not being delivered. Entire systems such as the electrical grid could fall apart. The United States, among others, invested billions of dollars to build these state services over the last two decades. a) Support the Public Sector with Existing Funds The largest support mechanism for civil servants’ salaries before the Taliban takeover was the World Bank’s Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund (ARTF), a pool of aid to which the United States and other donors contributed. The fund has about $1.2 billion in unspent money waiting to be disbursed, which could be allocated immediately to health, education, and other social services. Health funding is uncontroversial because implementing partners are outside the Afghan state — but health programs cannot stand alone because otherwise the clinics will be overwhelmed by the medical needs of a starving population. Some funding should be directed to the public sector in areas such as agricultural support and village-level development programs. Support should be targeted at Afghan livelihoods — not the state-building efforts of the past, in which donors supplied 75 per cent of the Afghan government’s budget. Safeguards could be put in place to prevent the Taliban from diverting funds. Notably, nearly all of the civil servants on the job today were hired before the Taliban arrived in Kabul. b) Build on Progress in Education The biggest employer in the country is the education system, but right now there is no plan for paying 200,000 teachers and staff through the school year. The United Nations has successfully negotiated with the Taliban to allow girls’ secondary schools to re-open in some provinces, and building on that momentum now depends on making funds available to reward progress. The United States and its allies should offer funding for education in provinces where the UN has verified that secondary education is open for boys and girls. None of these transfers would reach Taliban appointees because the teachers were already registered for electronic salary payments. The United Nations Children’s Fund, UNICEF, has started using these channels to pay teachers small emergency stipends, proving that the mechanisms work. 2. Support Economic Revival Even more urgent than channeling targeted support to the public sector is releasing the chokehold on the private sector. Afghanistan needs a viable economy because humanitarian assistance will never be sufficient or sustainable. Unfortunately, many parts of the Afghan economy cannot function because of Western sanctions, asset freezes, and other economic restrictions. a) Allow the Central Bank to Function The United States has worked with the United Nations in recent months toward setting up a humanitarian currency swap mechanism, which, if implemented, could inject some of the cash liquidity that is urgently required for the functioning of the Afghan economy. These swaps involve humanitarian actors giving U.S. dollars to approved Afghan businesses in exchange for local currency. However, currency swaps are a short-term and limited workaround to make up for the lack of a functioning central bank. Swaps cannot supply all of the hard currency required — among other things, for imports of food and medicine. Afghanistan needs an entity to serve the functions of a central bank, holding U.S. dollar currency auctions, printing local currency, and regulating the banking sector. A variety of options are under discussion, but the most straightforward and durable solution would be reviving Da Afghanistan Bank (DAB), the central bank. This might require foreign technical assistance, and “ring-fencing” DAB to keep it independent from the Taliban-controlled government. The United States should exercise leadership at the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to obtain these institutions’ help with DAB’s rehabilitation. b) Describe a Path Toward Unfreezing Assets The central bank’s frozen assets remain stuck in political and legal complications, mostly in the United States, but the U.S. government should immediately signal an intention to someday return these state assets to DAB on behalf of the Afghan people. While litigation is pending, the U.S. could ask European partners to return the DAB assets located in their jurisdictions. The U.S. could also return to their rightful Afghan owners the hundreds of millions of dollars among the frozen assets that comprise private deposits in Afghan banks. These owners include small businesses and ordinary Afghans who have been deprived of their savings. As reserves become available, the United States should return them in gradual tranches, monitoring closely for unintended effects. The U.S. should also insist on the appointment of qualified officials to DAB and undertakings by central bank officials to respect the Afghan laws that constrain the uses of reserves. c) Reduce the Impact of Sanctions The U.S. Department of the Treasury should be commended for publishing general licenses exempting from sanctions enforcement the delivery of humanitarian aid. However, many sectors of the Afghan economy remain negatively affected by the threat of U.S. sanctions enforcement. It is not feasible for the U.S. Treasury to devise lists of all of the various sectors of the Afghan economy that should be permitted; instead, U.S. officials must start thinking about what should not be allowed. This would mean relieving the Afghan people of the broad effects of sanctions that are choking the economy and, instead, targeting sanctions to people and activities of concern. (For example, an arms embargo could help to address proliferation concerns in the region.) Tailoring sanctions in this way would better fit their original purpose, which was not to constrict the entire Afghan public sector or the country’s economy. The financial sector may require extra assurances: to allow Afghan banks to regain access to the global financial system, the U.S. government must actively encourage international banks to resume transactions with Afghanistan. This set of proposals is not only the best way to save lives. This kind of pragmatic engagement with the Taliban-controlled government is also the most reliable way of protecting U.S. interests. Keeping economic pressure on the Taliban will not get rid of their regime, but a collapsing economy could lead to more people fleeing the country, sparking another migration crisis. It would result in more smuggled drugs and weapons. It might also raise the threat of terrorism. America’s reputation would also suffer if the U.S. legacy in the country was a famine. Unfortunately, avoiding catastrophe requires cooperation with the Taliban on the issues I have discussed. That is, for many, more than distasteful after two decades of war. In power, the Taliban continue to flout human rights standards, as illustrated by the recent arrests of female activists. Still, sometimes it is necessary to work with bad actors for the sake of a greater good. That is not easy. Months of conversations between the Taliban and Western officials have not resulted in much cooperation on basic tasks. The impasse is partly the Taliban’s fault, because they have not yet accepted Western donors’ reasonable demands: among other things, allowing universal education of girls and women of all ages. But part of the stalemate results from the U.S. and its allies pushing for unrealistic goals, such as an “inclusive” government with more ethnic minorities and women. American officials may be correct that the Taliban should select a more participatory form of government for the sake of legitimizing and stabilizing their regime, but U.S. diplomats can no longer expect to successfully insist on such things. Considering the Taliban’s strength on the ground, the new authorities in Kabul feel justified in rejecting what they view as Western meddling. The way forward is limited cooperation on narrow goals. We can still dream of an Afghanistan at peace with itself and the world, a country that recovers from a terrible succession of wars and finds a way to sustain its own population. America had bigger plans at the beginning, but in the end this is what can, and must, be achieved. I look forward to your question "Tens of millions of lives are at stake. Afghanistan ranks as world’s largest humanitarian crisis, and there is a serious risk of widespread famine. The United Nations estimates that 97 per cent of Afghans could fall into poverty this year. People are so desperate that they are selling their own daughters, anything to survive" My opinion: American government is responsible for Taliban entering the city.Innocent people have been killed for years.They ruined people's lives first, then pretended to help.The victim of this story is Assange and Afghan women.

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Fwd: Regulations on the Administration of Network Data Security (Draft for Comment)
by Gunnar Larson 11 Feb '22

11 Feb '22

Disclosure on determining the legality of POX in Hong Kong and China jurisdictions. ---------- Forwarded message --------- From: Gunnar Larson <g(a)xny.io> Date: Fri, Feb 11, 2022 at 2:08 PM Subject: Regulations on the Administration of Network Data Security (Draft for Comment) To: <shujuju(a)cac.gov.cn> Dear Sir or Madam: We seek clarification to the recent notice of the Cyberspace Administration of China on Public Comments on the Regulations on the Administration of Network Data Security <http://www.cac.gov.cn/2021-11/14/c_1638501991577898.htm> (Draft for Comment). The Cyberspace Administration of China <http://www.cac.gov.cn/2021-11/14/c_1638501991577898.htm> (and Hong Kong) issued new guidance on third-party products and services that cause damage to users. According to the Cyberspace Administration’s guidance, users can request Internet platform operators to pay compensation in advance for data violations. Hong Kong is the data hub for Stacks (STX), where internet platform operators shall assume data security management responsibilities for third-party products and services connected to their platforms. Hong Kong mandates clarity of data security responsibilities for third parties through contracts and other forms, and urges third parties to strengthen data security management, and adopt the necessary data security protection measures. - Stacks’ strong third-party presence in Hong Kong extends to China. One of Stacks’ board members has served as a leader of a Shanghai based incubator. - The looming question is if Proof of Transfer (PoX) Stacks’ extension to Proof of Burn (PoB), where miners compete by ‘burning’ (destroying) a Proof of Work (PoW) from an established blockchain, is allegedly illegal in Hong Kong, under the Cyberspace Administration’s new guidance. PoX, when used for participation rewards (Such as with MIA Coin, NYCCoin and STX), could lead to miner consolidation. Because miners that also participate as holders could gain an advantage over miners who do not participate as holders, miners would be strongly incentivized to buy the new cryptocurrency and use it to crowd out other miners. In an extreme case, this consolidation could lead to a centralization of mining, which would undermine the decentralization goals of the public blockchain. China, along with Hong Kong, has outlawed various forms of threats to international peace and security. We seek the Cyberspace Administration of China's guidance if the Proof of Transfer <https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wL2kN6aMfsyT-T7g01YJSBB8meMn2SWg/view?usp=…> is a legal or legal consensus software algorithm in China and Hong Kong? Sending you the very best regards. Thank you, Gunnar Laron -- *Gunnar Larson - xNY.io <http://www.xNY.io> | Bank.org <http://Bank.org>* MSc <https://www.unic.ac.cy/blockchain/msc-digital-currency/?utm_source=Google&u…> - Digital Currency MBA <https://www.unic.ac.cy/business-administration-entrepreneurship-and-innovat…> - Entrepreneurship and Innovation (ip) G(a)xNY.io +1-646-454-9107 New York, New York 10001

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