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Second SecureDrop Developer: Suicided (James Dolan, ref: Aaron Swartz)
by grarpamp 21 Aug '18

21 Aug '18

https://twitter.com/search?q=james+dolan+suicide https://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/7pcqba/second_developer_of_wik…

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Next Year's Federal Military budget over $700 billion. Is that a problem?
by jim bell 18 Aug '18

18 Aug '18

The folllowing article is from Reason Magazine. Next year's Federal budget will include over $700 billion in military spending. I have claimed that my AP idea will essentially eliminate military spending, around the world. I've said this for over 23 years. Isn't this a sufficient motivation to adopt AP? Yet, there are still people who say that AP won't, or can't, be implemented. Isn't such wasteful spending a powerful motivation to cease with the current system, and proceed with a system that will eliminate wars, military spending, and government spending? Governments in the 20th century killed over 250 million people. Is that acceptable Jim Bell http://reason.com/blog/2018/08/13/trump-signs-82-billion-spending-boost-fo "President Donald Trump on Monday signed a military budget boosting the Pentagon's spending by $82 billion in the next year—a spending increase that dwarfs the entire military budgets of most other nations on Earth. Russia, for example, will spend an estimated $61 billion on its military this year. Total. With the increased spending included in this year's National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), the Pentagon will get to spend more than $700 billion next year. The budget hike was a priority for Trump and was approved by Congress as part of a March spending deal that saw spending on both defense and domestic programs hiked by about $165 billion—smashing through Obama-era spending caps. This year's NDAA is "the most significant increase in our military and our war-fighters in modern history," Trump said. "It was not very hard. I went to Congress, I said, 'Let's do it, we gotta do it.'" Indeed, it was not very hard. Democrats are quick to condemn nearly everything Trump proposes and many Republicans are less than enamored with the current occupant of the White House, but partisan animosity vanishes when defense spending comes up. The final House vote on the NDAA—technically known as the "John S. McCain National Defense Authorization Act" because you wouldn't vote against something named after an American hero, right?—was 359-54, while the final Senate roll call was 87-10, with only two Republican senators opposing the bill and three declining to cast votes. The spending increase will allow the Pentagon to hire another 4,000 active duty soldiers, Trump said, and would help replace aging tanks, planes, and ships with "the most advanced and lethal technology ever developed." "Hopefully, we'll be so strong that we'll never have to use it," Trump said. "But if we ever did, nobody has a chance." Trump also used the occasion to plug his recent call for the creation of a Space Force, which would be the sixth branch of the U.S. military. A Space Force is necessary, Trump said, to counter aggression from other countries in the final frontier. "I've seen things that you don't even want to see," Trump said, apparently referencing advancements in space technology being developed by other countries. There is no funding included in this NDAA for the Space Force, but the administration plans to have the new branch up and running by 2020—and it's not going to be cheap. No worries, Trump seemed to say on Monday, as he promised more spending increases to come—reversing what he said was years of "depleted" spending on the Pentagon. But as I noted in June when the NDAA cleared the Senate: the Pentagon's biggest problem isn't a shortage of funding, but misuse of the money that it already receives. Unfortunately, we don't know much about that because the Pentagon has still not been subjected to a full scale audit, despite the fact that all federal agencies and departments were ordered to undergo mandatory audits in 1990. A preliminary audit of just one office within the Pentagon found that more than $800 million could not be accounted for. Auditors said the Pentagon's Defense Logistics Agency (DLA)—described as "the military's Walmart" because it's responsible for processing supplies and equipment—has financial management "so weak that its leaders and oversight bodies have no reliable way to track the huge sums it's responsible for." Whether it's investing in bomb-sniffing elephants, paying $8,000 for something that should cost $50, or shelling out for the famous $640 toilet seat, there's no shortage of absurd waste in the Pentagon. A Reuters probe in 2013 found "$8.5 trillion in taxpayer money doled out to the Pentagon since 1996 … has never been accounted for. That sum exceeds the value of China's economic output [for 2012]." The Pentagon doesn't need more money, but until politicans from at least one party show a willingness to turn off the tap, there is no incentive for the Department of Defense to change its culture of waste and tradition of opacity.

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http://reason.com/blog/2018/08/16/newspapers-team-up-on-free-press-op-eds
by jim bell 16 Aug '18

16 Aug '18

Reason magazine article: Newspapers Team Up to Tell Trump They Aren't Colluding Against Him Plus: Mormons versus medical marijuana, bureaucrats are bad at protecting data, and cops tase 87-year-old woman for cutting flowers. "Journalists are not the enemy." Hot off of calling for more social-media censorship and supporting destructive speech regulations like FOSTA, newspaper editors would like you to know that Donald Trump's dissing of the news media makes them sad. More than 300 U.S. newspapers ran Thursday editorials that "call for an end to President Trump's sustained assault" on the press. Hundreds Of Newspapers Are Challenging Trump's Attacks: 'We Are Not The ... Publications across the U.S. -- from the large to the tiny, conservative and liberal -- are banding together to ... "Our role is to serve as a check on government," the Chicago Tribunedeclares. "The president ought to get used to it." "Our democracy is endangered when citizens are persuaded to reject or ignore the professionals who provide news and information," warns The Athens News in Ohio. In attacking journalists, Trump damages all Americans Editor’s note: The Athens NEWS is participating in a national campaign spearheaded by The Boston Globe to respon... And so on. The editorials were organized by The Boston Globe and, as HuffPostdescribes them, "have each been constructed with different words but bear a shared message: Mr. President, 'journalists are not the enemy.'" As a journalist (as well as general enthusiast for classical liberal principles and a person capable of making basic historical analogies), I too find the president's description of journalists as enemies of the people unsettling. But whipping up contempt toward the press has been a staple of right-wing talking points in this country for at least two decades. The president's preening anti-media tirades are not so much stirring new hatred within his base as stoking a longstanding sentiment. So far, however, Trump's anti-press antics have mostly stayed in the realm of rhetoric. Meanwhile, the good folks in Congress, state government, and federal agencies are doing things all the time that actually infringe on freedom of the press, freedom of speech, and an open internet, while the vast majority of news outlets remain silent at best. Then, in places where we could use real reporting, popular journalists fall all over themselves to create petty drama and praise John McCain for his contributions to warmongering and spending. While the ideals espoused in these editorials may be righteous, they ring a little hollow... ...and a little self-serving. Too many in media seem to have confused their own diminishing role as gatekeepers of all info and narratives with an existential threat to democracy. Yes, let's fight back against Trump and anyone else in government who seeks to suppress dissent. But maybe people wouldn't hate us so much if we fought as hard for everyone's dignity and right to speak as we do for our own tribe's. Jack Shafer shares some of these concerns. "It goes without saying that press bashing, Trump-style, is alarming," Shafer writes in Politico. "But this Globe-sponsored coordinated editorial response is sure to backfire: It will provide Trump with circumstantial evidence of the existence of a national press cabal that has been convened solely to oppose him....The Globe's anti-Trump project is also an exercise in redundancy, not to mention self-stroking. Most newspapers have already published a multitude of editorials and columns rebuking the president for his trash-talking of the press." America’s Newspapers Just Played Right Into Trump’s Hands Nothing flatters an independent journalist less than the sight of him forming a line to drink from the same foun...

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Re: Cypherpunks Mail Server [re: Krugman]
by grarpamp 16 Aug '18

16 Aug '18

On Thu, Aug 16, 2018 at 10:08 AM, Razer <g2s(a)riseup.net> wrote: > I'm surprised you haven't been put so deep in an email relay servers > blackhole yo mama can't find you. > > You REALLY send individual copies to eighteen people? Really? Hahahaha! RFC's clearly specify minimum 100 must be accepted, that there should be no maximum wherever possible, and that error responses must be generated. I'm not getting any error responses. So no, things are fine on this end and pglaf is broken. It might not be postfix, but more likely mailman, or whatever antispam is running there, which is at least this one... https://amavis.org/ This second message was reordered and cutoff too... Message-ID: <CAD2Ti2_nB4owJLSfe6e-hy1KALiCdb0UfH9mjtnbgvL+gkOWyQ(a)mail.gmail.com> Also, pglaf is accepting mail from google over TLS, but pglaf is not sending mail back out over TLS, at least not to google. Check postfix config, and old ssl library version. https://www.openssl.org/source/ Not looked into it but there also seems to be some DKIM / DMARC issue in the headers. I'd suspect pglaf before google there too. https://support.google.com/a/answer/174124 Authentication-Results: mx.google.com; dkim=fail header.i=(a)gmail.com header.s=20161025 header.b=f+HxqAxu; spf=pass (google.com: domain of cypherpunks-bounces(a)lists.cpunks.org designates 65.50.255.19 as permitted sender) smtp.mailfrom=cypherpunks-bounces(a)lists.cpunks.org; dmarc=fail (p=NONE sp=QUARANTINE dis=NONE) header.from=gmail.com Authentication-Results: pglaf.org; dkim=fail reason="verification failed; unprotected key" header.d=gmail.com header.i=(a)gmail.com header.b=f+HxqAxu; dkim-adsp=none (unprotected policy); dkim-atps=neutral > Hahahaha! Just spreading sunshine over a bunch of dark clouds out there.

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Re: Cypherpunks Mail Server [re: Krugman]
by Razer 16 Aug '18

16 Aug '18

I'm surprised you haven't been put so deep in an email relay servers blackhole yo mama can't find you. You REALLY send individual copies to eighteen people? Really? Hahahaha! null

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Cypherpunks Mail Server [re: Krugman]
by grarpamp 16 Aug '18

16 Aug '18

Fyi... This thread is ongoing and is having problems... The first... Message-ID: <CAD2Ti2-vW_6Xcg696cXLyV+5HZa6-GqD+n+erSAgma4m6Gy7nA(a)mail.gmail.com> with recipients 1 To + 18 Cc + 1 Bcc cpunks the cpunks server did some as yet undertermined sort method to the cc line, and stripped two people from it entirely (schear and echeque). One of the direct 18 replied offlist with the complete set of 19 visibles in proper original order, so this end is working fine and cpunks is broken. The second... Message-ID: <CAD2Ti2_nB4owJLSfe6e-hy1KALiCdb0UfH9mjtnbgvL+gkOWyQ(a)mail.gmail.com> with recipients 2 To (1 being cpunks) + 18 Cc + 0 Bcc has not shown up yet, whereas other later messages to cpunks have shown up. Also... Bcc's from list subscribers should be set or hacked to post without hitting the mod queue. The server is running old... mailman 2.1.16 from 2013-10-17 whereas current is... mailman 2.1.29 from 2018-07-24 The 1100 lines of documented updates between those two, including 5 CVEs, are here... https://bazaar.launchpad.net/~mailman-coders/mailman/2.1/view/head:/NEWS http://list.org/

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Re: [Cryptography] Krugman blockchain currency skepticism
by grarpamp 16 Aug '18

16 Aug '18

On Wed, Aug 15, 2018 at 2:16 PM, Benjamin Kreuter <brk7bx(a)virginia.edu> wrote: >> > beginning of this thread was a proposal that the problem is that >> > the >> > government might target an activist group's finances. Now it >> > sounds >> > like you are talking about the government trying to attack the >> > entire >> > payment system. >> >> That is indeed a valid problem. >> Among many others in many sectors and applications. > > What is your point? Someone made one point above, that many failed to grasp... Old world fiat and fiat systems are vulnerable to attack, in ways that are not possible to fix, because the failures are intrinsic to and result from the system they reside in and spawn from. Decentralized cryptocurrencies are newborn from an alien mother and delivered by the great dropship Satoshi. Don't expect them to look the same, or to confom, or to share even a fraction of the same vulnerability space. > The question, again, is what problem are you > trying to solve with cryptocurrency? Can you give a clear and specific > answer to that question? The documentary links provided in thread contain a rather large number of problems and answers. Please consult them rather than asking for them to be transcribed in full herein. >> For so long as free speech, encryption, and overlay networks exist, >> cryptocurrency and the internet cannot be shutdown. > > How has that worked out for the citizens of North Korea? > Encryption > and overlay networks get you nowhere when the government refuses to > allow something like the Internet to exist. Exactly. DPRK has never had freedom since its founding, so of course DPRK will never willingly give that to its subjects. Funny that Anti cryptocurrency people always end up making Pro arguments. How is that working out you ask?... https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=smuggling+into+north+korea Let's just say that any freedom in the world is a result of being able to deploy freedom faster and harder than governments and corporations can react and resist. Push harder my friends, mush mush mush!!! > It is not at all hard to > imagine regulations on telecom companies that would make > cryptocurrencies impossible. The government could require telecoms to > drop any packets that are not used to interact with a properly licensed > service (no peer-to-peer networking allowed, no experimentation on the > public Internet, etc.). They could. Or you could get up off your ass, go visit with the telecoms, and require them to stand up with your sales dollars, with you, for both of your freedom. If they refuse, they're not your friends or in your best interest, they're your enemies... so remove your funds, crash their silly parties and go start your own that are. Same with your govenment. Also, taking candy from babies is *really hard*, and all you Westerners are a bunch of seriously addicted babies. It's not at all hard to imagine the amount of crying and resisting you will do then they try to take your sweet sweet internet, and your free and happy research experimentation, away from you, and replace it with Woobie TV, or how about just good old fashioned State run TV broadcast over loudspeakers like DPRK. That's what you're "imagining", arguing, and accepting with all your Anti comments. Or you could do the right thing and stand up against it... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qa8SRN86V8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nl88J8KOLlY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIvt9snFQig >> If you accept, >> either personally or as a populace, the shutting of your connection > > Most people would not complain about heavy-handed licensing of Internet > applications because most people would not perceive themselves as being > affected by it. All the popular services and applications will be > licensed and will do whatever the government says they need to do to > stay in business. More apologist suggestions and pre programming by the state to get people to quietly accept your overtures. Disgusting. > Funny, because people from unstable countries with weak governments > that do not effectively enforce the law seem to want to live in > countries with effective law enforcement and stable governments. Maybe > they are tired of having bands of lawless brigands rob them at > gunpoint, or they have seen too many murderers go unpunished, or they > would rather settle disputes peacefully in a courtroom than with > bullets. As you just said, Government is not the source of such peaceful advances. It is the people who have changed their own thinking, away from being assholes to each other, to being good, and seeking a place to develop and excercise it. They are the ones who either revolt such obscenely intolerable situations, or move, to achieve that. You *never* see such extant governments just wake up, sans dire protest and threat from subjects, and transform themselves. Now with all the Earth's land titled, what exactly do you think folks like Musk in Space and the Free Stater's are trying to do peacefully under such intolerable confines... > The fact of the matter is that markets have never worked without a > government of some kind. Here is a basic question for you: if there > is no government, why should I respect the blockchain? You pay me for > some goods, and then I fail to deliver. Now what are you going to do? False. People engage in transactions based on reputation, risk, profitability, due diligience, as is where is, insurance, and many other factors and metrics. Those doing that analysis will have good results, and nowhere was, or need be, govenment in that. When you hear 'not worth going after', that means the analysis worked to contain losses within acceptable limits. When you hear 'they scammed me', that means the analysis wasn't performed. It's your fault. And the odds of getting any whole back are commensurately slim. Furthermore, the blockchain is self respecting by design. When everyone is educated about the blockchain, decentralized cryptocurrencies, which they should be, at minimum by their wallet introducers, to the the philosophical and operating space and the requirements of them therein, it works. Else yes, you'll lose value, same as with fiat. > Most > people are happy to live under a government as long as the government > does not bother them too much. Most people are willing to pay taxes, > and some people are proud to do so and > consider any effort to evade taxes to be stealing. Taxes are theft upon those who do not both voluntarily and explicitly agree to it, nor to the great many line items of tax expenditure. There are many excellent resources on this subject... https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=taxation+is+theft Please become well informed by watching the videos on that page before attempting to make further arguments. "Most people" haven't done that, let alone ever heard about it, due of course to the fake news you clamor for and permit and "license"... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-TqgQd1cLl8 >> https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=banks+fear+bitcoin > > Banks do not fear Bitcoin. In fact, a growing list of banks and > payment processors are paying for blockchain and cryptocurrency R&D, > and some are starting to trade in cryptocurrencies (Goldman Sachs is > one example). I have heard mixed opinions on cryptocurrencies from > people in that industry, but I have yet to hear anyone express any > fear. You have to qualify what they're doing deeper... - Decentralized cryptocurrencies... fear. Nothing but lowly retail servicers, wallet curation and payment order taking companies, easily ditched when someone learns and wishes to do it on their own. - Centralized cryptocurrencies... no fear. Partners, in control, of the entire system, fiat, fees, usury, inflation, forfeiture, arbitrary, "custodial" "brokerage", as usual. >> https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=governments+fear+bitcoin > > Maybe some governments are afraid, but the US government has been > fairly open minded so far -- other than regulating cryptocurrencies the > way other tradeable assets are regulated, the US government has allowed > people to experiment with cryptocurrencies, to use cryptocurrencies for > various kinds of businesses, and even pays for research on how to > protect the privacy of blockchain transactions. The regulation effort > is mostly motivated by the growing number of scams in cryptocurrency > markets, and in the end those regulations will actually make > cryptocurrency markets stronger and more accessible to "ordinary" > people. Again, you have to dig deeper very closely into what exactly they're banning, promoting, and being [coyly] agnostic about, and why. "Scams" were addressed above. > -- [Whoever] It's no secret that those who derive their salaries from taxation by force of government, do and will continue to promote the same. For example, certain of you might be found here... https://www.ccis.northeastern.edu/people-view-all/ http://www.virginia.edu/cs/people/grads/ And until each and every one of all the Anti cryptocurrency punditry, regulators, lawmakers, lobbies, naysayers, and so on... has actually installed a decentralized cryptocurrency wallet, and received and sent decentralized cryptocurrency in transaction for goods and services... actually experiencing the potential new models and philosophies firsthand... their words are both laughably hypocritical and shamefully uninformed. https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2018/08/15/23-fascinating-bitcoin-… What's in your wallet? For those who haven't had, get the experience for a while, then come talk. Preferably also as part of your local cryptocurrency meetup.

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Hemisphere Project: Parallel Constructing Your World For You
by grarpamp 15 Aug '18

15 Aug '18

https://muckrock.s3.amazonaws.com/foia_files/7-3-14_MR6608_RES.pdf Whether for apprehending "criminal" marijuana producers, distributors, users... or for the high crime of social programming and control... all the world's databases, secret surveillance spying, and feelgood swiss cheese that are government's and corporation's fake non-"privacy" policies, TV... etc... ... applied, in secret, against you. Discover, interpolate, extrapolate, postulate... learn motherfuckers... connect all the facts and possiblities of the deep game they're all playing. You let them program into you that their abuse of you is ok. Maybe it's time you wake up and deprogram them. End the Matrix.

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Re: [Cryptography] Krugman blockchain currency skepticism
by grarpamp 15 Aug '18

15 Aug '18

[Resending four replies in one to participants bcc uncensored cypherpunks, as censorship on an already moderator approved, thus explicitly moderator solicited, variety thread where moderator already censored the queue twice resent, and moderator approved questions by posters in thread were left unanswered and silently ignored via moderators censorship... is hypocritical, especially so for topics within charter... "technical, social, political, security, privacy, legal, and multinational aspects of cryptosystems". Cheers all and enjoy the sunlight, tis all.] On Mon, Aug 6, 2018 at 4:11 PM, Benjamin Kreuter <brk7bx(a)virginia.edu> wrote: > On Mon, 2018-08-06 at 14:11 +0800, jamesd(a)echeque.com wrote: > As others have asked, what is the problem we want to solve? The > beginning of this thread was a proposal that the problem is that the > government might target an activist group's finances. Now it sounds > like you are talking about the government trying to attack the entire > payment system. That is indeed a valid problem. Among many others in many sectors and applications. >> A crypto currency needs to be centerless - it needs to able to >> survive the seizure of key servers by a hostile powerful party. True, a properly decentralized cryptocurrency has no such seizable / sueable servers. Decentralization is under attack in more ways than most people realize, not just by the purposeful noise deluge of junk / centralized coins, tokens, ico's... but also by very insidious methods. As an example... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYHFrf5ci_g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BZoKH-hX_o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKYEQVPklLI https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=bitcoin+censorship https://www.reddit.com/r/BitcoinMarkets/comments/6rxw7k/informative_btc_vs_… Whether you're a user, code / crypto developer, business, whatever... you need to understand these things and be able to spot them, call them out, and exchange and adopt away from them once they happen. In the cryptocurrency space, there is no birthright, let alone against treason, or any other lesser offense. A bit more from the series... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOZaLbUUZUs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgts1qb0hLY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGrUOLsC9cw > Get back to me when the Internet itself cannot be shut down by the > government. For so long as free speech, encryption, and overlay networks exist, cryptocurrency and the internet cannot be shutdown. If you accept, either personally or as a populace, the shutting of your connection and or the disablement of your crypto, for mere agnostic tool use, and for no provable reason otherwise, then you're fucked. If the Four Hoursemen of the Infocalypse didn't do it already, then the only thing left is a bonafide threat to the existance of government itself... to its taxes collected by force. Once people worldwide start to figure out they can bypass the redundancy, inefficiency, non choice, war, etc of governments by moving their transactions onto the encrypted blockchain networks... that's the last game... you either sheeple out forever into a questionable existance, or make your stand. Don't be a sheeple.. https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=banks+fear+bitcoin https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=governments+fear+bitcoin On Mon, Aug 6, 2018 at 6:05 PM, John Levine <johnl(a)iecc.com> wrote: > In article <CAD2Ti29oru2WUyQ01gr+UL1M-cAAvj0ZuVraPGeULnYz7TqtvQ(a)mail.gmail.com>, > grarpamp <grarpamp(a)gmail.com> wrote: >> Cryptocurrency value moved every month is 30x paypal's and growing. >> Ten more years and those 200 million users will be on cryptocurrency. > > Paypal's current transaction volume is about $40 billion/month, > growing at a modest rate. Can you tell us where you get your number > of $1.2 trillion/month for cryptocurrencies? > https://www.statista.com/statistics/277841/paypals-total-payment-volume/ That should have been ~3x (2.7x) coming from just the BTC value volume moved, and ~385B$/mo for the entire cryptocurrency space, both using today's coinmarketcap rates. Paypal is also doing ~295 tx/s, which might just be eclipsed by even early iterations of below stress work with a single cryptocurrency (even more when summing the current capabilities of top 10 decentralized cryptos for example representing and carrying the market space for tx / tps)... https://stresstestbitcoin.cash/ ~25.6M tx/d will beat Paypal, with perhaps only 33% of that needed to make news waves. Paypal claims ~245M "active" users, or 3.2% of world pop, which smells a little fishy. BTC alone has ~55M utxo's, consolidated down into owned wallets at recent oppurtunity from peak of ~68M, some study estimates try taking that down further to approx body count. Cryptocurrency has no worries there either, and again, starts making waves before then. And Paypal has never made the world's daily syndicated TV and print news like cryptocurrency has. Regardless of which sources you choose, cryptocurrency is close at the heels of Paypal, already biting off chunks in some areas, including philosophical ones. Expect Paypal to be completely eclipsed by cryptocurrency in five years or less. >>> If an issuer doesn't redeem a bill >>> what recourse do you have other than to denounce him? >> Cryptocurrency... you either have the keys and value or you don't. > I don't want a wallet hash That's smart, because whoever told you you could spend such a construct is a fraud. > these were bills redeemable in real assets. > I want my kilo of platinum or whatever. > What's my recourse when the platinum doesn't show up? Precisely, such bills are a risk with variable recourse. "Bills of exchange by different issuers" The blockchain takes care of issues with "issuers" "bills" and reputation, you either have the confirmed spend or you don't, and you're stupid if you walk off before you do. And the market takes care what other "assets" one can get in "exchange" for the UTXO's you're about to spend. You're of course free to make and sign whatever other contracts / bills you want, call them private pegs / tethers if it makes you happy, and accept all their risks. This is basically arguing volatility again, and what cryptocurrency is saying, Neo, is that you won't need to. [1] Those who argue volatility against decentralized cryptocurrency shouldn't do so as what they're saying is they... - really want centralized regulated fiat equivalents - clearly don't get that *of course* by their very nature decentralized cryptocurrencies are *expected* to be "volatile" early on. This is an innate feature, not a bug. But hey while people are on the "volatility" tip, look at all the other *volatile* central regulated fiats out there both new and old... https://wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_by_date_of_formation https://wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_currencies And lots of other reasons you might not want them... https://wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_former_sovereign_states https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_historical_geopolitical_changes All that pegging, tethering, backing, and government guns people say gives [nonvolatile] value... doesn't seem to be doing a very good job of it. Perhaps it's time the world, and you, tries something truly different, for once, in like thousands of years, of not doing so, lol. It's out there, and could be in your wallet today, and spent in some equitable trade tomorrow. # others > Obviously, you can be cut off by governments, payment processors, > exchanges, [etc list of formal entities] Nowhere in those blurbs was the direct P2P functionality of decentralized cryptocurrencies mentioned... much harder to cut that off without nuking the underlying [sneaker] nets, the difficulty of that mentioned in another thread. > Reputation is entirely based upon non-repudiation, and liability (provably > having sufficient real assets to cover their outstanding balance). > Blockchain currency doesn't have either of those properties. Neither does fiat. Try and invent them on top of them if you want. > Manafort is also learning About decentralized cryptocurrencies, and the gold watch, along with the rest of the world's people. On Mon, Aug 6, 2018 at 7:24 PM, Bill Frantz <frantz(a)pwpconsult.com> wrote: > OK, I can't resist any longer. Let's look at some payment and store of value > systems: Ok... > Gold metal: > Terrible for electronic payment. Transferring electronic stock in GLD, or other forms of gold securities, works fine, is slow and a lot of paperwork, but most would be terribly happy to receive it instead of being stiffed. > Likely to be accepted anywhere fiat currencies are weak. Like Venezuela, Greece, Zimbabwe, etc... anyplace undergoing any volatility or inflation event, now or past, since gold was removed / banned from standard worldwide... anyone have links to news articles where any economically significant fraction of the affected populous in such places was carrying around and using gold instead of wheelbarrows full of fiat? None? > Can be converted to fiat currencies where they are strong Everything is convertible to any other thing, wherever and whenever, doesn't mean you or your counterparty will want to, at times it might be best to drop it in the rubbish, or keep it. > Can be converted to fiat currencies, but the transaction may have to be reported. "Have to" vs "is" vs "you volunteered" info are different things. > If you become a refugee, gold can be carried with you. Up to your limited capacity to securely carry weight and bulk. > Can be stolen at gunpoint. Carry a gun. > Doesn't earn interest. It can. > The gold standard. :-) Though fair a meme nonetheless, with cryptocurrency a challenger approaching from a distance. > Dollar, Euro, Pound Sterling (well regarded fiat currencies): > Can be used with electronic payment systems. Not before converting that paper / metal / poly physical into something entirely different... digits in a database. > Likely to be accepted anywhere. > Easy to convert to other currencies Not really, it's a pain to convert back, assuming you even knew how to authenticate and wanted the foreign physical in the first place.. > If you become a refugee, notes are transportable and accounts can be accessed > if not frozen. (Pick a good jurisdiction for that account.) They don't let you bring in "good" fiats, they keep it for themselves. You're not funding that account electronically through the tight regime you have to refugee from. Nor are you transporting their junk it past all their checkpoint thieves on the way out, nor is it useful on the other side. > gunpoint, accounts can be protected from that attack. Thug points to your / bankers dome. Govt thugs do same, civil forfeiture, etc. > Relatively stable in value over the long term Nice smooth steady loss and redistribution, lovely. Case Shiller Index... 2007 deja vu and pop before long. > Accounts can earn interest. But don't, not enough to even beat inflation these days, a terrible SOV and investment. > What world commerce runs on. Can run on cryptocurrencies. > Bitcoin: > Not accepted everywhere. Can be. > the transaction is recorded in the blockchain, leaving a record. Which if using cryptographically private ZKP blockchain like Zcash (ZEC), is currently thought to be entirely private thus off the record. > Can be converted to fiat currencies for > wide acceptance everywhere In the future, Neo, you won't have to. > If you become a refugee, transport is limited by the electronic devices you can > take with you. False. Memorize your brainwallet passphrase. Encode keys on or in your body, clothing, luggage, books. Ship ahead, or shard among people, or stash online. Limitless secure options. > Wildly changing value over the recent short term FUD from anti's who don't understand introduction of new things, decentralized cryptocurrencies into free markets, all covered before. And Impressive increasing value over any long term window beyond a year. > and no long-term track record. Nine years and counting, impressive for something that's pissing off and disrupting fiat govt / banks worldwide. Hardly Pokemon or Linden Dollars. > Can't earn interest Value on "deposit" is value invested. Investments can earn. Unless you invest them in shitty things like Lehman Brothers. While cryptocurrency rising in adoption phase, it eats all others, so no sane person can or will pay returns denominated in it, until there are entirely cryptocurrency based businesses, investment vehicles and cycles, or if its rate of rise falls below other vehicles. Better to just buy / sell / short it directly. > Not widely used in commerce. Nothing stopping that but you. > Eggs: > (from the Economist Buttonwood column 7/21/2018 on hyperinflation in > Venezuela): Not usable for electronic payment. Generally accepted for > payment in Venezuela. Can be sold as a commodity in most locations and > converted to other currencies. Not normally tracked by governments. Hard > boiling recommended should you become a refugee to improve transportability. > Destroyed by fire, but small fires may help them make a good meal. > Relatively stable value over the long term, but individual eggs spoil in a > matter of weeks to months. Can't earn interest. Used in commerce in limited > locations suffering hyperinflation. Can directly provide human nourishment. Can earn interest... give recently fertilized eggs to someone to hatch under contract, you make eggs in return. I'd peg / tether your price in cryptocurrency for a dozen eggs to each of every one of today's hundreds of cryptocurrencies, at today's exchange rate, provided you buy all the eggs you eat each month, from me, at the aforementioned static crypto/egg peg, using the cryptocurrency of my choice at each purchase, for the rest of your life. You'll always pay the same amount of whichever crypto for your eggs, zero volatility, guaranteed. I reserve the right to add any new cryptocurrency at any time pegging it for you at that time, and to terminate contract at any time by delivering a dozen hens a laying to you. Feel free to hedge your backend with Tether (USDT)... https://tether.to/ "Every day that goes by and [Cryptocurrency] hasn't collapsed due to legal or technical problems, that brings new information to the market. It increases the chance of [Cryptocurrency's] eventual success and justifies a higher price." -- Hal Finney Most people are simply closed minded old dog programmed statist sheeple incapable of free thought outside their box (TV box too). That's why they can't offer any debate sustainable reason why decentralized cryptocurrencies *cannot* be used as money. And why the cryptocurrency crowd, having made that leap, offers numerous reasons, designs, updates, and ways in which they *can*. For that matter, seems it'd be a lot more fun crypto coding completely novel decentralized cryptocurrencies, than off in a corner trying to digitize some crusty old fiat under orders from a government / banks with no freedom to change that model :) On Tue, Jul 24, 2018 at 1:47 AM, Rui Paulo via cryptography <cryptography(a)metzdowd.com> wrote: > On Mon, 2018-07-23 at 08:17 +0000, Peter Gutmann wrote: >> Dammit, why didn't I think of that? Just as the bottom is falling >> out of >> ICOs, someone comes up with a new way to extract money out of the >> gullible. >> >> https://www.cryptokitties.co/ >> >> tl;dr: >> >> 1. Use actual real money to buy Ethereum. >> 2. Use Ethereum to buy a cryptokitty. >> 3. ?? >> 4. ?? >> 5. No, not profit, just more ?? >> > > http://cryptopuppies.org/ Funny how this list will approve, 1up, and talk about the above [1], yet censor actual discussion of more serious areas of cryptocurrency, (note such with BTC being early on this list), which are in fact material relavant to the "technical, social, political, security, privacy, legal, and multinational aspects of cryptosystems' of its charter. [1] which are btw old way news now having been out for ten months, for which people are still rightfully free to evaluate investing in, using them as currency, or collect / trade / dispose on whim as deemed fit. bcc cypherpunks, to witness esteemed lolcat and cute puppy posters approved into the censorship / irony / fud log... and where you're actually free to cover relavant 'crypto' currency material, and even trade cryptokitties :)

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Documentary: The Art Of Dissent
by grarpamp 15 Aug '18

15 Aug '18

https://www.npr.org/2018/08/04/635654200/ai-wei-weis-beijing-studio-destroy… https://www.bbc.com/news/video_and_audio/headlines/45073421/ai-weiwei-fans-… https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2018/aug/04/ai-weiwei-beijing-stud… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmW7oTXgtQ8 https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=ai+weiwei https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=jacob+appelbaum

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