- cypherpunks - lists.cpunks.org

UK wants backdoor access to WhatsApp in wake of London Attack
by Razer 27 Mar '17

27 Mar '17

After all, that's so much simpler than refusing to be Airstrip One for the US Empire. UK: Attacker used WhatsApp, firm must help police get access Mar. 26, 2017 | 05:28 PM Associated Press via Lebanon Daily Star LONDON: Westminster Bridge attacker Khalid Masood sent a WhatsApp message that cannot be accessed because it was encrypted by the popular messaging service, a top British security official said Sunday. British press reports suggest Masood used the easily available messaging service just minutes before starting a rampage Wednesday that left three pedestrians and one police officer dead and dozens more wounded, including some with catastrophic injuries. Home Secretary Amber Rudd used appearances on BBC and Sky News to urge WhatsApp and other encrypted services to make their platforms accessible to intelligence services and police trying to carrying out lawful eavesdropping. "We need to make sure that organizations like WhatsApp - and there are plenty of others like that - don't provide a secret place for terrorists to communicate with each other," she said. Rudd did not provide any details about Masood's use of WhatsApp, saying only "this terrorist sent a WhatsApp message and it can't be accessed." But her call for a "back door" system to allow authorities to access information is likely to be met with resistance throughout the industry. In the United States, Apple fought the FBI's request for the passcodes needed to unlock an iPhone that had been used by one of the perpetrators in the 2015 extremist attack on San Bernardino, California. Masood drove a rented SUV into pedestrians on Westminster Bridge before smashing it into Parliament's gates and rushing onto the grounds, where he stabbed a policeman to death before he was shot dead. A detailed police reconstruction has found the entire attack lasted 82 seconds. Police say he acted alone but they are trying to pinpoint his motive and identify any possible accomplices, making the WhatsApp message a potential clue to his state of mind and his social media contacts. Rudd said attacks like Masood's would be easier to prevent if authorities could penetrate encrypted services after obtaining a warrant similar to the ones used to listen in on telephone calls or - in snail mail days - steam open letters and read their contents. Without a change in the system, she said terrorists would be able to communicate with each other without fear of being overheard even in cases where a legal warrant has been obtained. Rudd also urged technology companies to do a better job at preventing the publication of material that promotes extremism. She plans to meet with firms Thursday in a bid to set up an industry board that would take steps to make the web less useful to extremists. British police investigating the attack say they still believe Masood, a 52-year-old Briton, acted alone and say they have no indications that further attacks are planned. Deputy Assistant Commissioner Neil Basu said it may never be possible to fully determine Masood's motives. "That understanding may have died with him," Basu said Saturday night as police appealed for people who knew Masood or saw him to contact investigators. "Even if he acted alone in the preparation, we need to establish with absolute clarity why he did these unspeakable acts, to bring reassurance to Londoners." ISIS, which is losing territory in Iraq and Syria but still has radical followers in other parts of the world, has claimed Masood was a "soldier" carrying out its wishes to attack Western countries. Masood had convictions for violent crimes in the U.K. and spent time in prison. He also worked in Saudi Arabia teaching English for two years and traveled there again in 2015 on a visa designed for religious pilgrimages. One 58-year-old man remains in custody in the case after being arrested in Birmingham, where Masood had been living. He has not been charged or named. Nine others arrested after the assault have been freed without charges and one has been freed on bail. The family of slain police officer Keith Palmer, meanwhile, released a statement thanking those who tried to save his life. "There was nothing more you could have done. You did your best and we are just grateful he was not alone," the statement said. http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/World/2017/Mar-26/399279-uk-attacker-used-…

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Rojava - Kurdistan - Assyrians - Neo-colonial use of "alien forefathers" conspiracies
by Jr. Gong 27 Mar '17

27 Mar '17

> Zenaan Harkness zen at freedbms.net > Thu Mar 23 15:58:27 PDT 2017 > > Why would I do something which has no benefit? > Why would I do something that is worse than not doing it? Feel free to include your browsing history in the header of every post you make on this list, since you argue doing so is a clear benefit. Notice I hound you and not the (((others))). Cpunks is for the children.

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"Code of Conduct"s perfect storm - bringing madness to the surface
by Zenaan Harkness 27 Mar '17

27 Mar '17

Well well well. Surprise surprise. Who woulda thought that some folk would not only bring in "Politically Correct" codes of athoritarianism, and then a short year or two later, those same folk would pomptly and swiftly throw aside said code of conduct, run a star chamber, and evict an honourable community contributor from "the community", without any recourse, without any right of response, with exactly NO public discourse, and without even the reasons, conclusions nor anything else of substance being made public other than "You must leave, naughty man!" ?? Seriously, who could have predicted this? And who could have predicted that proclamations from The Ministry would cause even greater abuses of power, arising from self perceived almighty authority over what behaviour is allowed behind closed doors, between consenting adults, acting lawfully ? Who indeed... https://techcrunch.com/2017/03/26/sex-and-gor-and-open-source/?ncid=rss Sex and Gor and open source Posted 17 hours ago by Jon Evans (@rezendi), Columnist Next Story A few weeks ago, Dries Buytaert, founder of the popular open-source CMS Drupal, asked Larry Garfield, a prominent Drupal contributor and long-time member of the Drupal community, “to leave the Drupal project.” Why did he do this? He refuses to say. A huge furor has erupted in response — not least because the reason clearly has much to do with Garfield’s unconventional sex life. More specifically, Garfield is into BDSM. Even more specifically, he’s a member of the Gor community, an outré subculture of an outré subculture, one built around a series of thirty-odd books by John Norman which are, basically, “John Carter of Mars” meets “Fifty Shades of Grey.” Essentially–as I understand it–a community who are interested in, and/or participate in, elaborate (consensual!) sexual subjugation fantasies, in which men are inherently superior to women. I know all this because of Garfield’s lengthy public response to his ouster, self-deprecatingly titled “TMI about me“: Yes, I am one of those people … Despite the total lack of evidence that alternative lifestyle cultures offer any harm to anyone, there is still a great deal of prejudice and bigotry regarding it … someone, I do not know who, stumbled across my profile on a private, registration-required website for alternative-lifestyle people … that information made it to the Community Working Group (CWG), who concluded “there was no code of conduct violation present for [them] to take any action on” … in my first contact with Dries, he asked me “to step down from Drupal” … Drupal has been the cornerstone of my career for the past nearly 12 years … Dries wouldn’t budge on me leaving, including making it clear that it wasn’t an option, but an instruction … informing me that I’d been summarily dismissed from my position as track chair and as a speaker at DrupalCon, “per [my] conversation with Dries” … here I am, being bullied, harassed, and excluded because of my personal activities, which I don’t even publicize much less advocate for in tech circles. Buytaert (who is also co-founder and CTO of Acquia, a Drupal platform which has raised ~$175 million over the years and has been struggling to IPO for a few years now) retorts: when a highly-visible community member’s private views become public, controversial, and disruptive for the project, I must consider the impact … all people are created equally. [sic] I cannot in good faith support someone who actively promotes a philosophy that is contrary to this … any association with Larry’s belief system is inconsistent with our project’s goals … I recused myself from the Drupal Association’s decision [to dismiss Garfield from his conference role] … Many have rightfully stated that I haven’t made a clear case for the decision … I did not make the decision based on the information or beliefs conveyed in Larry’s blog post. Sigh. This sad mess is something of a perfect storm of Code of Conduct conflicts. It is one which raises a number of interesting questions. It also raises several quite boring ones, so let’s get them out of the way: Does this matter? (Isn’t this just prurient clickbait?) Is it OK for an open-source community to ban/ostracize a member for being involved in BDSM, or other forms of unconventional but consensual adult sexual behavior? More generally, is it OK for an open-source community to ban/ostracize a member purely because their “belief system” — perhaps better described as a complicated fantasy milieu in which they happen to spend their personal time — was doxxed? These questions are boring not because they are unimportant, but because the answers are so obvious: yes (no), hell no, and hell no. I’ll unpack the first: open-source communities/projects are crucially important to many people’s careers and professional lives — cf “the cornerstone of my career” — so who they allow and deny membership to, and how their codes of conduct are constructed and followed, is highly consequential. I really, really hope I don’t have to unpack the two hell nos. But in case I do, let me quote this excellent blog post from Nadia Eghbal: In the past, Dries might’ve kicked Larry out because “BDSM is a threat to family values”. Today, leaders like Dries kick Larry out because “BDSM is a threat to gender equality”. Unfortunately, the end result is the same … Beliefs are not actions. We cannot persecute people for what they believe, no matter how much it disgusts us, and simultaneously maintain a free and open democracy … If diversity is our dogma, call me “spiritual, not religious”. I still pray for the same things as you, but I won’t be at the witch trials. Which is brilliantly put and I hope settles the previous questions. However. The Garfield Situation also raises two questions which are far more complex and interesting: Under what circumstances, and via what kind of due process, is it OK for communities to publicly condemn people for secret reasons? Is it OK to ban/ostracize community members for (legal) behavior which occurs entirely outside the community? Obviously sometimes organizational decisions have to be made based on information that must remain confidential, for legal or ethical reasons. But if you’re making such a decision, you really have to do so in the right way. What is the right way? …Probably something close to the opposite of what Buytaert and the Drupal Association did. Even if their decision was correct, which currently seems at best suspect, their complete lack of process transparency, and Buytaert’s vaguely worded hinting-without-really-saying-anything statement, makes it very hard to have any faith in it. Their accusations are so vague — nonexistent non-accusations, really — that Dries & co. could surely have told the community substantially more (indeed, anything) about Garfield’s problematic behavior, if any, without revealing sensitive information. For instance, they could have said they’d received reports of threats, harassment, or coercion by Garfield, if any such reports existed. They have said nothing of the sort. (For what it’s worth, a well-informed source of mine reports: “It’s worth noting that a handful of women who worked with Larry did not report harassment or abuse from him in the workplace. We can’t know for sure if he committed offenses, but if there were allegations or even rumors of his mistreatment of women we would be having a very different conversation right now.”) They could also have cited which elements of the Drupal Code of Conduct he violated, if any. They have not done so … but they’ve expelled him anyhow. Isn’t that Code of Conduct, and its associated Conflict Resolution Policy, supposed to be what dictates the rules of behavior and interaction in the community? Doesn’t overruling that written code with arbitrary decisions made for secret reasons reveal that in practice it is an irrelevance with no actual weight or importance? I reached out to Buytaert in the hope of clarification; he did not respond. It’s hard not to get the impression, from the little that we do know, and the manner in which it has been miscommunicated, that what’s actually deemed unacceptable here is that Garfield’s kink has spilled outside of his personal life — i.e. that his real sin is that he was doxxed. Which, as noted, is firmly in hell no territory. It is of course entirely possible that this impression is incorrect, and that Buytaert and the Drupal Association have done the right thing. But they have offered no evidence, no arguments, and no reasons for their decision. It seems obvious to me that they have a moral obligation to their community to do so. You can’t ban people without at least sketching the outline of what it is they did wrong. Just trust us is not enough — –especially since it also seems possible that the CTO and co-founder of a heavily funded pre-IPO company has participated in expelling a man from what his been his professional community for the last twelve years, ignoring that community’s own Code of Conduct and Conflict Resolution Policy, because it was decided he was guilty of, essentially, thoughtcrime; that no real accusations have been made, and no allegations of problematic behavior have been cited, because none such exist. A third plausible scenario, based on the tea leaves of Buytaert’s phrase “actively promotes,” is that Garfield has been banned for expressing views outside the Drupal community which are deemed unacceptable inside. This is not a new issue in the open-source world: I wrote about it last year, in the context of Curtis Yarvin and “Opalgate”: Should communities accept people who hold repugnant views, as long as they don’t express them within that community? Or should they be expelled, because it’s assumed that their views influence their community work in a negative way, or because their presence makes other people feel unsafe? Personally, both answers make me feel deeply uneasy. Humans are messy, complex, and contradictory; human interactions are that squared; the results are so complex and context-sensitive that they often need to be judged on a case-by-case basis, rather than by any hard-and-fast rule. …although in those cases, the views in question were clearly expressed publicly, not privately, and were not intended as part of any BDSM fantasy world. Does that apply here? Who knows? Certainly not the Drupal community. It’s impossible to judge the Garfield situation, because all we are permitted to know is that it has been prejudged for us, by people who refuse to tell us anything about either their evidence or their decision process. It is, however, very easy to judge whether the people who have made and communicated this decision are, by the way they have done so, actually serving their community. And that answer is, once again, I’m sorry to say: hell no.

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How to make Cypherpunks a Safe Space - aka, the art of the feels
by Zenaan Harkness 27 Mar '17

27 Mar '17

So I'm just your average snowflake, incapable of receiving any challenge to any unreasoned thought I spout without instant reactivity and a shit tonne of F-bombs, so fragile that I melt into drop (make that 1/10th of a drop) of water at the pre-thought hint of a verbal flame fest, I self medicate on a daily (oh all right, hourly) basis since I'm so damaged by the system/state/the-man that it's just, you know, hard to cope with my life and all the emotional pain of having feelings and worse, having to read so many people who DISAGREE WITH ME. This is not ok! It's just not safe for my fragile feels (which I try to chemically suppress at every opportunity). SO, I have discovered the answer, it's a 12-step process so should be straightforward even after a dozen tokes: 1. I acknowledge that there are dangerous thinking pepes out there who occasionally disagree with me. 2. Worse, there are really vicious folk who have opinions and feelings which are flat out wrong! For healing and winning, those morons really need to be seen for who they are! 3. Learn how to attack in response, preferably pre-emptively to let the attacker expressing their counter-thought know that I'm on to them! This step is really important, without verbal attacking, strongly, repeatedly, and in as many creative ways as I can conceive, I am not worthy of my feelings, and someone else who reads the conversation might think I lost the argument. 4. If the attacker triggers my feels, I always double down with some F-bombs and other strong, powerful words which really get the message across - there's no point exposing myself to such a fate which is worse than death. 5. If the attacker still doesn't stop sending emails disagreeing with me or disagreeing with my feelings, threaten to kill-file their email address, to REALLY send them the message that I am NOT messing around here! 6. Repeat steps 3 to 5 a few times, especially number 5, since that sends a really strong message when you keep saying it. 7. THE ULTIMATE KEY - it's really important to never respond to what the other person says, only to reinforce what I've originally said, or drop a few more F-bmobs. Responding to what the other person says is weakness and must be avoided religiously. 8. THE MOST IMPORTANT KEY - one must never, under any circumstances, agree with the other person, not even on a small point, because agreement is weakness. I can't emphasize this one enough. 9. THE BIGGEST KEY - is of course to actually kill file the person who persists in disagreeing with me. Then my feels should be reasonably safe from their differing opinions and especially from any facts or logical inconsistencies they may have pointed out. Actual kill-filing is a great end to a long debate, because everyone watching knows that you've really won the debate and put this person in their place! 10. When all else fails, pack another bong and light up. Have a feels-safe-space, snowflake filled day y'all, Zenaan

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pOPqUIZ! How to Know if You’re a Precious Little #Snowflake (Harpers)
by Razer 27 Mar '17

27 Mar '17

Vertical cartoon panels > http://harpers.org/blog/2017/03/how-to-know-if-youre-a-precious-little-snow…

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the Janssen Scale of Delusion
by \0xDynamite 26 Mar '17

26 Mar '17

For the sake of edification of the list, I offer this (DRAFT) scale for measuring the level of delusion present when talking to so-called (or "named") authorities (doctors, political consultants, stoners, athiests, christians) or merely interviewing anyone with a potential psychosis. The JSD measures from a scale of 0 to 10 the level of delusion in a subject, with 10 representing a complete delusional view of the world, like in a drug-induced hallucination such as commonly found with LSD, and 0 meaning no delusions present. As the author is aware that there is no way to confirm an absolute state of delusionlessness to form a reference point, I can only I offer myself -- on contingency, if you wish, of regular male and female humans, children and adults, giving confirmation. As it may be the case that we are all in a co-creative and co-supportive delusional (non)reality, we must enlist the use of others who may not be as prone. For example, many delusions are held by language, by belief systems, by systems of protocols, and other such ongoing routines. Delusion may even be something animals could meaure, as they have no language in which to convince themselves of the elaborate narrative which consumes many peoples lives, mentally ill or otherwise. For the sake of clarification, we have to agree whether a absolute state of reality exists. Whether we can access or understand it or not, must be left for generations to resolve, but yet I'm making the case that an absolute reality *does* exist, and will continue to exist separate from my own mind (in oppostion to solipcism). Acceptability to or consensus of the masses should not be considered a factor, yet it remains one of the most conveniant means of assessment. There are really two axiis in which to measure: functionality vs. hallucinatory. This scale measures only the latter, as loss of function does not contribute much to delusion. On this latter, there are perceptual (as in LSD) vs. cognitive hallucinations ("I'm a Amazon Warrior"). The critical difference is the engagement of belief systems. For example, "I am a alien from outer-space" can only happen with the engagement of their ego/belief system, as their is no perceptual data for them to reach their (delusional) conclusion. Nor does this scale measure self-controlled delusions, as in children concocting a temporary world of make-believe together. 5 -- complete hallucinatory mindset, as from a *salvia divinorum* or *datura intoxica* episode, not able interact reasonably in your own reality. 4 -- in a quasi-hallucinatory mindset, light LSD and being "stoned", creating both perceptual and cognitive dysfunction. 3 -- Christians who think that they don't break their own commandments while the support killing overseas and liberals who think that rubbing the penis in the rectum makes love. 2 -- mild, seemingly-harmless delusions like atheism based not in evidence, but in a self-perpetuated belief and support network of like-minded individuals. Most people in industrialized nations are in this category. 1 -- temporary, and minor belief that happens to be false, but correctable. 0 -- no delusions. Well, this is a first stab at it. What's missing is how intense the experience is which is likely connected to the amount of beliefs co-engaged with the delusion. "Smoking pot is harmless", for example, is the first seed of delusion which allows the user to totally allow their brain to get co-opted by the toxicity of THC. Doctors, then, are co-conspiritors who are either bending to the popular will or also in a delusional, but co-supportive reality that their understanding of THC and it's interactions in the mind and body are something they actually comprehend. Unfortunatley, they've roped almost 100% of the general public into this web of needles and pills so that now everyone else fights for the Establishment too, even though they have nearly zero scienfitic training or ability of critical analysis. Thank you. Remember this, and act accordingly kids, Marxos

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[From offlist] Re: FBI Says It Can't Find Hackers to Hire Because They All Smoke Pot
by Jr. Gong 26 Mar '17

26 Mar '17

> xDynamite dreamingforward at gmail.com > Sun Mar 26 08:43:45 PDT 2017 > > self-prescribing Cause some other fuck knows more. Solid pleb logic. > marajuana It is 'Cannabis'. Marijuana is tobacco in Juan's native language, Mexican Spanish. wikipedia.org/wiki/Marijuana_(word) > Prozac is an anti-depressant? No, not really. Serotonin reuptake inhibitors are the most commonly prescribed antidepressants"" These do for depression what high-saturated-fat / high-fiber / low-sugar diets do but without all that troublesome eating. Although it seems that you already know that. > Pot inhibits your ability to care Reefer makes darkies think they’re as good as white men... the primary reason to outlaw "marijuana" is its effect on the degenerate races."" It becomes clear this racefaggots intentions. > the F word Magic words, huh. If you can be convinced that there are special words that cannot be said, I wonder what else you can be made to believe, 0xd. > I'm also a (((lawyer))). Top fucking kek !

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[From offlist] Re: FBI Says It Can't Find Hackers to Hire Because They All Smoke Pot
by Jr. Gong 26 Mar '17

26 Mar '17

> xDynamite dreamingforward at gmail.com > Sun Mar 26 09:51:27 PDT 2017 > > BURNING the SHIT OUT OF IT Lol the vape plebs. Faggots think red-hot steel dabs is better than smoking a "joint" and that vaped oil is not smoke. The "muh candy and cookies" edible tards are just as bad, especially the (((vegans))), thinking sugar is "good" and saturated fat is "bad". And none of these fucks care about the growing and extraction processes that undermine the plant's "medicinal" value. > Now help fix the world I just did.

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the intercept - corporate US mouthpiece
by Jr. Gong 26 Mar '17

26 Mar '17

> John Young jya at pipeline.com > Sat Mar 25 12:22:46 PDT 2017 > > not unlike bankruptcy declarations You sly dog (¬‿¬) > leak and natsec opposition-crypto-privacy What a poetic way to say 'snitch'. All that Italo Calvino pays off.

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the intercept - corporate US mouthpiece
by juan 26 Mar '17

26 Mar '17

https://theintercept.com/2017/03/24/apple-says-it-fixed-cia-vulnerabilities… for people who haven't been paying attention, the majority of articles published by the intercept are garbage like the one linked above. one would think greenwald being the founder and editor has some kind of responsibility for and control over the government propaganda he publishes. notice that the majority of comments on the article are rational and hostile to that sort of content - yet the intercept doesn't give a fuck notice also that the 'progressive' 'lefty' intercept is actually a mouthpice for the flagship of american fascist corporatism, apple inc. Perhaps hardly surprising if one takes into account that the intercept is owned by paypal inc.

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