- cypherpunks - lists.cpunks.org

'Eternally Blue' (At least for 9 years)
by Razer 21 Jul '19

21 Jul '19

I always figured this was the guy who either leaked or lost control of all those years-old NSA cyberwar tools ('Shadowbrokers') Packrat... Terrabytes of data stored EVERYWHERE. "...just days before Martin was arrested in 2016, a group known as the Shadow Brokers began leaking classified NSA hacking tools online. A Twitter account that was allegedly Martin’s messaged someone the words “shelf life, three weeks,” according to a prior ruling from the judge. Hours later, stolen government documents were posted online, according to prosecutors. No direct link between the Shadow Brokers and Martin’s case has been made." "Former NSA contractor Harold T. Martin was sentenced Friday to nine years in federal prison for his role in a massive theft of classified documents. Martin was responsible for one of the largest leaks of U.S government secrets, collecting up to 50 terabytes of classified government documents over the course of two decades. U.S. District Judge Richard Bennett’s sentence falls short of the maximum number of years Martin previously faced — 10 years for each of the 20 counts against him — for unauthorized and willful retention of national defense information. However, the sentence aligns with the plea agreement his public defenders reached with the U.S. government. The U.S. attorneys said his theft called for “significant” prison time, according to the government’s sentencing memorandum, which CyberScoop obtained. “The exceptionally grave nature and circumstances of the defendant’s criminal conduct call for a significant prison term,” they write. “For nearly twenty years he chose to violate the public’s trust and the nation’s laws by stealing and retaining national defense information. The defendant knew the entire time he was committing these crimes.” Martin’s public defenders wrote in their sentencing memorandum, obtained by CyberScoop, that in all the government’s efforts to investigate him, they did not find the NSA contractor committed treason. “The government never uncovered any evidence that he was a traitor or a danger to our nation,” the public defenders write. Martin will receive credit for time already served since 2016. Martin has also been sentenced to three years of supervised release. Between 1996 and August 2016, Martin smuggled out thousands of pages of documents on classified government programs, and stored them in his home, shed, and car. The documents detailed computer infrastructure, U.S. Cyber Command targets and weaknesses as well as details on NSA capabilities, targeting information, and foreign cyber intrusion techniques. Some documents also touched on CIA foreign intelligence sources and National Reconnaissance Organization secrets. These documents remain classified, according to the government’s sentencing memorandum. Even though Martin knows his fate, the broader mystery surrounding the massive leak remains unresolved — just days before Martin was arrested in 2016, a group known as the Shadow Brokers began leaking classified NSA hacking tools online. A Twitter account that was allegedly Martin’s messaged someone the words “shelf life, three weeks,” according to a prior ruling from the judge. Hours later, stolen government documents were posted online, according to prosecutors. No direct link between the Shadow Brokers and Martin’s case has been made. Bennett reminded U.S. attorneys of the tweet and the timeline on Friday in court. Assistant U.S. Attorney Zachary Myers said the U.S. government would not be commenting further than noting that the timeline is, indeed, in the facts of the case. Jim Wyda, Martin’s public defender, said Friday there was no indication Martin intended for any transaction to take place by that tweet. Attacks linked with the tools and clues about who may be behind the group, however, continue to surface. At least a year before the Shadow Brokers released the tools en masse in April 2017, a hacking group with ties to the Chinese government known as BuckEye was already using the tools, according to Symantec research issued this year. It is still unknown how the Shadow Brokers gained access to the tools, whether the group had access into an NSA server to steal the or obtained them from an insider at the agency. The group is at the center of a counterintelligence investigation, as CyberScoop previously reported. The FBI would neither confirm nor deny the existence of the probe. Hal Martin’s Mental Health Martin’s public defenders have long argued that Martin’s mental health contributed to his theft. The sentencing memorandum submitted last week argued the same. “As his mental health declined, Mr. Martin continued to obsessively immerse himself in work. He began taking documents and other materials home from work, initially justifying his behavior by convincing himself that it would allow him to do his job better,” his public defenders wrote. “Over time, Mr. Martin’s actions became a hoarding disorder.” Myers told the court Friday that the U.S. government believes the way the files were found does not indicate he had a hoarding problem. “This is not a case of hoarding, this is stealing,” Myers said Friday at a federal court house in Baltimore. The stolen information “was not in a disorganized manner,” he said, adding what the government found was “logical” and “repetitive.” Bennett noted Friday he had concerns about the case regarding whether Martin’s alleged hoarding problem, noting that for someone who is a hoarder, he seemed well organized. Martin began serving in the U.S. Navy on active duty in 1988, for which he maintained a secret clearance. In 1994 while serving in the U.S. Naval Reserve, his clearance was upgraded to top secret, after which he worked for several government contractors, including Booz Allen Hamilton. Between 2012 and 2015 he worked at the NSA. Martin spoke at length Friday, reading directly from his allocution, apologizing to friends and family. He noted his methods were “uncanny” and “unauthorized, warning “please do not copy this” and that “loose lips sink ships.” Many other NSA contractors have been caught for leaking classified information in recent years. Last year, Reality Winner, a contractor for Pluribus International Corp., was sentenced to more than five years in prison after leaking a classified report on Russian spearphishing in the 2016 election cycle. Former NSA employee Nghia H. Pho was also sentenced last year to five-and-a-half years in prison for stealing classified hacking tools." https://www.cyberscoop.com/hal-martin-sentence-nsa-shadow-brokers/ Rr Sent from my Androgyne dee-vice with K-9 Mail

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Social Engineering... Jeffery Epstein' Little Girls: Israeli Intelligence Blackmail Honeypot
by Razer 21 Jul '19

21 Jul '19

"THE HONEY TRAP ON E 71ST by Eric Margolis NEW YORK – I’ve had many strange experiences in my decades of covering intelligence affairs. These run from being invited to KGB HQ in Moscow, Chinese intelligence in Beijing, US intelligence in Virginia, Libyan intelligence in Tripoli, South African intelligence, and even Albanian intelligence in Tirana. But none was odder than the day I was invited to lunch in New York City with the by now notorious figure Jeffrey Epstein. The golden boy of Manhattan and Palm Beach society now sits in a grim jail cell accused of having sex with underage girls. He’s been doing this in plain view since the early 1990’s but, until recently, he seemed bullet-proof. Soon after I walked into the entrance of Epstein’s mansion on E 71st Street, said to be the city’s largest private home, a butler asked me, ‘would you like an intimate massage, sir, by a pretty young girl?’ This offer seemed so out of place and weird to me that I swiftly declined. More important than indelicacy, as an old observer of intelligence affairs, to me this offer reeked of ye old honey trap, a tactic to ensnare and blackmail people that was old when Babylon was young. A discreet room with massage table, lubricants and, no doubt, cameras stood ready off the main lobby. I had arrived with Canada’s leading lady journalist who was then close to Epstein’s sometime girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell and, it was said, procuress – something Maxwell denies. Bizarrely, Maxwell believed that I could get KGB Moscow Center to release satellite photos that showed the murder on his yacht of her father, the press baron Robert Maxwell, who was a well-known double agent for Israel and KGB, and a major criminal. Also present was the self-promoting lawyer, Alan Dershowitz, who had saved the accused murderer Claus von Bulow, as well as a titan of the New York real estate industry (not Trump) and assorted bigwigs of the city’s elite Jewish society. All sang the praises of Israel. Epstein reportedly had ties to Donald Trump, Bill Clinton, Britain’s Prince Andrew and repeatedly flew them about in his private jet, aka ‘the Lolita Express.’ All guests deny any sexual activity. I turned down dinner with Prince Andrew. Epstein’s residence in Manhattan and Palm Beach, both of which I visited, were stocked with young female ‘masseuses.’ All were working class girls making big money in their spare time. I did not see any interactions between these girls and the guests. Epstein and Maxwell became too big for their britches. They flaunted their sexual adventures and laughed at New York society. Everyone wondered about the source of Epstein’s lavish income but no one knew its origins. He claimed to be an exclusive money manager for a group of secretive millionaires. But the only one identified was billionaire Leslie Wexner, the owner of L Brands and Victoria’s Secret. Wexner denied any knowledge of Epstein’s alleged crimes. Besides sexual frolics, Epstein and Maxwell were up to many odd things. The FBI found diamonds, cash and a fake passport when raiding his mansion and documents showing his net worth at $559,120,954.00. The IRS tax people will be eager to review the sources of this income. It seems likely that political influence was brought to bear on then US attorney Alexander Acosta (he just resigned under fire last week) to make a sweetheart deal with Epstein, who had been charged by Florida with child molestation. Epstein got off with a token, 13-month jail sentence that allowed him to work from his office much of the day. Were Trump or Clinton involved? How much did they ‘party’ with Epstein and revel in his fleshmart? There was talk of some sort of ‘intelligence’ angle to the affaire Epstein that spared him a harsh sentence. A respected former CIA official, Phil Giraldi has come right out and accused Epstein of being an Israeli agent of influence. Epstein was let off with a slap on the wrist on his first child abuse charge, says Giraldi, because of his powerful Israel connections. To Giraldi and this writer, the Epstein ‘massage’ operation was a classic intelligence operation designed to blackmail men of influence into doing Israel’s bidding. Clinton had reportedly already fallen into this trap years earlier while still president. Now watch this stinking pile of corruption be hurriedly covered up. Talk about draining the swamp." https://ericmargolis.com/2019/07/the-honey-trap-on-e-71st/ Rr Sent from my Androgyne dee-vice with K-9 Mail

1 0

test to cypherpunks@cpunks.org
by grarpamp 21 Jul '19

21 Jul '19

test to cypherpunks(a)cpunks.org

3 2

Re: It is insufficient that my life is ruined
by Razer 21 Jul '19

21 Jul '19

On July 8, 2019 7:00:15 PM PDT, Ryan Carboni <33389(a)protonmail.com> wrote: >The government has decided that it is insufficient that my life is >ruined, I must be harassed. > >I demand the government cease harassment against me or openly admit to >what they are doing. > >They will probably say no, because free association is an act of >control. They will complain everything works out for me, as an >elaborate rationale for their own terrible decisions. > Good morning, Mister Blue We've got our eyes on you The evidence is clear, that you've been scheming You like to steal away And while away the day You’d like to spend an hour dreaming What will it take, to whip you into line? A broken heart A broken head It can be arranged It can be arranged Step softly, Mister Blue We know what's best for you We know where your precious dreams will take you You've got a slot to fill And fill that slot you will You'll learn to love it, or we'll break you What will it take, to whip you into line? A broken heart A broken head It can be arranged It can be arranged Be careful, Mister Blue This phase you're going through Can lead you nowhere else but to disaster Excuse us while we grin You've worn our patience thin It's time to show you who's your master Don't worry, Mister Blue We'll take good care of you Just think of it as sense and not surrender But never think again That you can think again Or you'll get something you'll remember What will it take, to whip you into line? A broken heart A broken head It can be arranged It can be arranged https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=h4hpd4lcwpo Rr Sent from my Androgyne dee-vice with K-9 Mail

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E2E Security of Group in Signal, WhatsApp, and Threema
by grarpamp 21 Jul '19

21 Jul '19

End-to-End Security of Group Chats in Signal, WhatsApp, and Threema https://eprint.iacr.org/2017/713

2 2

Re: impersonating Juan, a quick test
by John Newman 21 Jul '19

21 Jul '19

Sorry if those shows up a few times. I was dicking around and ran it without realizing it was sending email! > On Jul 13, 2019, at 9:44 PM, Punk <punk(a)tfwno.gf> wrote: > > This is quick and dirty test of impersonating Juan using my own cock.li account to connect but fudging the headers (its just a few lines of perl wrapped around an openssl command). > > Did it work? > > > John > jnn(a)synfin.org

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test to cypherpunks@lists.cpunks.org
by grarpamp 21 Jul '19

21 Jul '19

test to cypherpunks(a)lists.cpunks.org

1 0

re: Cryptocurrency: Brings Down GovBankCorp
by Punk 20 Jul '19

20 Jul '19

grarpamp wrote: >Bitcoin's price dipped after Trump's negative tweet. correlation is not causation >> as to 'digital cash'* bringing down governments, that's just fantasy. > A digital "cash / currency"... those terms are containers > into which people dump various descriptive words and > capabilities in order to try to define them, you can define 'digital cash' as having the best properties you can wish for - and govcorp will still be able to attack THE USERS more or less easily. Point being, crypto systems by themselves are powerless. >> *cryptocurrencies are not cash AT ALL since they require massive infrastructure > The infrastructure need only do some list of useful things > such as keep accurate ledger, run timely and relatively > inexpensive tx processing, and cost more in distributed > collective defense than any attacker can muster or gain > from offense. "Massive" (which you failed to define) is > not necessarily a requirement. massive infrastructure is the #1 requirement. In order to have 'digital cash' you need foundries, each one costing 5000 million dollars(all of them currently owned by govcorp of course) and a global telecom network. As we all know the global telecom network is the NSA's spying network ususally referred to as 'the interweb'. And to produce the hardware that makes up the interent we need a few 10s or 100s of billions to pay for more foundries, optic fiber and whatnot. THAT is the infrastructure needed for 'digital cash'. Compare that to the costs of gold... > > all depend on ONE unique ledger > > Most cryptocurrencies that utilize a single unique ledger > do so in a redundantly distributed fashion, etc. yes, the ONE ledger is managed in a distributed fashion, but it still is ONE ledger. Well except in things like the lightning network where channels are actually peer to peer. But even if the second layer is more decentralized, it still relies on the base layer acting as a clearinghouse. So there still is a centralized bottleneck. >Unlike N different central "cash" or Gold ledgers where N is the number of accounts you have at such GovCorpBank well that's my point. Systems that require a ledger are centralized by design. The moment you start using a ledger supposefly based on gold you are not using gold anymore. Just 'golden' IOUs. >> even govt paper bills are real cash, they are actually >> decentralized and anonymous. >If those are your exclusive set of words you like to >define "cash" by, then that "cash" works for you. what I mean by 'cash' is a something that doesn't need a middleman. I can pay you using bits of metals, or even physical bills issued by a govt mafia, without needing an internet connection and without anybody knowing that the transaction took place apart from us two. Digital 'cash' does not have those properties. >However "govt paper" implies government exists, which is most certainly not an ideal situation. of course. The drawback of physical bills is that the govt can print tons of them. But apart from that, we can use bills to make transactions that are 'anonymous' and don't go through any central clearinghouse. >And "decentralized", living somewhere between a single point dot and 100% distributed amongst all peers, can have certain risks and mindfulness needed as well. by decentralized I mean that transactions using 'physical tokens' do not need to be recorded in or go through any unique database for them to work. And by the way, that's how barter and money worked since the dawn of history. Banking was a step BACKWARDS. >> Gold and other commodities >That only works within your range of personal travel. yes and? You see, freedom isn't free and there's no 'free lunch'. You can personally manage your own money, or let god's choosen master race do it... >When you start wanting to "transmit" gold, then you have to create transmission systems for physicals and messages, create ledgers, oops, so you're not using gold anymore, as pointed above. >create trust and security systems and etc that can span that distance. So in order to effectively transmit gold, you've essentially created a cryptocurrency system to do so, at which point gold itself can and will likely become moot. lawl, gold would be the source of that currency's value, so not 'moot' at all. Still, such systems are a FAILURE by design. >The real problem is that you created and allowed the wrong cryptocurrency system ie: GovBankCorp as the first such generation of a transmission system. well yes a honest banking system is theoretically possible. But to get one we need to burn down wall street with all the bankers included. Burn them alive. So who's going to do that? >You now have more or less all of the crypto and tools needed to create a far better transmission system. wrong. >Most of humanity does not currently desire to moving society back to your quaint local agrarian communes or whatever it is your aggression is advocating for. what 'agression' are you talking about >Cryptocurrency can work via sneakernet and even by hand calculation... it just becomes extremely slow. lawl - pointless comment. >The minimum general assumption in cryptocurrency is that both electricity and digital communication and computation methods will remain up and generally accessible to everyone. an absurd assumption that stupidly ignores the fact that the digital infrastructure is fully owned by govcorp. Hey, you can't even talk about 'cryptocurrencies' in the 'libertarian' 'cryptography' mailing list. >At which point, so long as society and ultimately human DNA maintains the desire for a "forward" progress that includes electricity comms and compute tech, yeah, techno 'progressive' garbage which you actually do not understand. >GovBankCorp Fiat will remain below Gold which will remain below Cryptocurrency which becomes top dog and moots all others. gold isn't below 'cryptocurrencies' at all. Except in the minds of 'techno' 'optimists' who are useful idiots for the NSA. >Maintain fallbacks in the mix as you wish. But don't be so stupid as to continue to allow GovBankCorp to rule over and keep you in slavery. I'm simply pointing out that your 'digital cash' is worse than gold and that believing that it would 'magically' overthrow governmetn is laughable wishful thinking or worse. >No one ever said crypto was invulnerable to global thermonuclear war, lolwut. Crypto is completely vulnerable to a bunch of peopel being thrown in jail for 'money laundering', a bunch of 'mining farms' being raided, etc etc. > they just said you'll have MUCH bigger problems than worrying about where your crypto, "cash", or gold is. If you're smart, you'll end government before they can reach for the launch keys. yeah and I dont need you and your $5b 'progressive' foundries to tell me that. @InsertNameSpace said: Capitalism cannot thrive with a socialist central banking system, capitalism? The hell is that?. As to the current 'progressive' and 'digital' economic system it works perfectly well with central banking, does it not. >"The United States government is a foreign corporation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_the_East_India_Company >Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania once gave a speech endorsing the adoption of the Company's flag by the United States as their national flag. He said to George Washington of Virginia, "While the field of your flag must be new in the details of its design, it need not be entirely new in its elements. There is already in use a flag, I refer to the flag of the East India Company."

1 0

re: Cryptocurrency: Brings Down GovBankCorp
by Punk 20 Jul '19

20 Jul '19

grarpamp wrote: >Bitcoin's price dipped after Trump's negative tweet. correlation is not causation >> as to 'digital cash'* bringing down governments, that's just fantasy. > A digital "cash / currency"... those terms are containers > into which people dump various descriptive words and > capabilities in order to try to define them, you can define 'digital cash' as having the best properties you can wish for - and govcorp will still be able to attack THE USERS more or less easily. Point being, crypto systems by themselves are powerless. >> *cryptocurrencies are not cash AT ALL since they require massive infrastructure > The infrastructure need only do some list of useful things > such as keep accurate ledger, run timely and relatively > inexpensive tx processing, and cost more in distributed > collective defense than any attacker can muster or gain > from offense. "Massive" (which you failed to define) is > not necessarily a requirement. massive infrastructure is the #1 requirement. In order to have 'digital cash' you need foundries, each one costing 5000 million dollars(all of them currently owned by govcorp of course) and a global telecom network. As we all know the global telecom network is the NSA's spying network ususally referred to as 'the interweb'. And to produce the hardware that makes up the interent we need a few 10s or 100s of billions to pay for more foundries, optic fiber and whatnot. THAT is the infrastructure needed for 'digital cash'. Compare that to the costs of gold... > > all depend on ONE unique ledger > > Most cryptocurrencies that utilize a single unique ledger > do so in a redundantly distributed fashion, etc. yes, the ONE ledger is managed in a distributed fashion, but it still is ONE ledger. Well except in things like the lightning network where channels are actually peer to peer. But even if the second layer is more decentralized, it still relies on the base layer acting as a clearinghouse. So there still is a centralized bottleneck. >Unlike N different central "cash" or Gold ledgers where N is the number of accounts you have at such GovCorpBank well that's my point. Systems that require a ledger are centralized by design. The moment you start using a ledger supposefly based on gold you are not using gold anymore. Just 'golden' IOUs. >> even govt paper bills are real cash, they are actually >> decentralized and anonymous. >If those are your exclusive set of words you like to >define "cash" by, then that "cash" works for you. what I mean by 'cash' is a something that doesn't need a middleman. I can pay you using bits of metals, or even physical bills issued by a govt mafia, without needing an internet connection and without anybody knowing that the transaction took place apart from us two. Digital 'cash' does not have those properties. >However "govt paper" implies government exists, which is most certainly not an ideal situation. of course. The drawback of physical bills is that the govt can print tons of them. But apart from that, we can use bills to make transactions that are 'anonymous' and don't go through any central clearinghouse. >And "decentralized", living somewhere between a single point dot and 100% distributed amongst all peers, can have certain risks and mindfulness needed as well. by decentralized I mean that transactions using 'physical tokens' do not need to be recorded in or go through any unique database for them to work. And by the way, that's how barter and money worked since the dawn of history. Banking was a step BACKWARDS. >> Gold and other commodities >That only works within your range of personal travel. yes and? You see, freedom isn't free and there's no 'free lunch'. You can personally manage your own money, or let god's choosen master race do it... >When you start wanting to "transmit" gold, then you have to create transmission systems for physicals and messages, create ledgers, oops, so you're not using gold anymore, as pointed above. >create trust and security systems and etc that can span that distance. So in order to effectively transmit gold, you've essentially created a cryptocurrency system to do so, at which point gold itself can and will likely become moot. lawl, gold would be the source of that currency's value, so not 'moot' at all. Still, such systems are a FAILURE by design. >The real problem is that you created and allowed the wrong cryptocurrency system ie: GovBankCorp as the first such generation of a transmission system. well yes a honest banking system is theoretically possible. But to get one we need to burn down wall street with all the bankers included. Burn them alive. So who's going to do that? >You now have more or less all of the crypto and tools needed to create a far better transmission system. wrong. >Most of humanity does not currently desire to moving society back to your quaint local agrarian communes or whatever it is your aggression is advocating for. what 'agression' are you talking about >Cryptocurrency can work via sneakernet and even by hand calculation... it just becomes extremely slow. lawl - pointless comment. >The minimum general assumption in cryptocurrency is that both electricity and digital communication and computation methods will remain up and generally accessible to everyone. an absurd assumption that stupidly ignores the fact that the digital infrastructure is fully owned by govcorp. Hey, you can't even talk about 'cryptocurrencies' in the 'libertarian' 'cryptography' mailing list. >At which point, so long as society and ultimately human DNA maintains the desire for a "forward" progress that includes electricity comms and compute tech, yeah, techno 'progressive' garbage which you actually do not understand. >GovBankCorp Fiat will remain below Gold which will remain below Cryptocurrency which becomes top dog and moots all others. gold isn't below 'cryptocurrencies' at all. Except in the minds of 'techno' 'optimists' who are useful idiots for the NSA. >Maintain fallbacks in the mix as you wish. But don't be so stupid as to continue to allow GovBankCorp to rule over and keep you in slavery. I'm simply pointing out that your 'digital cash' is worse than gold and that believing that it would 'magically' overthrow governmetn is laughable wishful thinking or worse. >No one ever said crypto was invulnerable to global thermonuclear war, lolwut. Crypto is completely vulnerable to a bunch of peopel being thrown in jail for 'money laundering', a bunch of 'mining farms' being raided, etc etc. > they just said you'll have MUCH bigger problems than worrying about where your crypto, "cash", or gold is. If you're smart, you'll end government before they can reach for the launch keys. yeah and I dont need you and your $5b 'progressive' foundries to tell me that. @InsertNameSpace said: Capitalism cannot thrive with a socialist central banking system, capitalism? The hell is that?. As to the current 'progressive' and 'digital' economic system it works perfectly well with central banking, does it not. >"The United States government is a foreign corporation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_the_East_India_Company >Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania once gave a speech endorsing the adoption of the Company's flag by the United States as their national flag. He said to George Washington of Virginia, "While the field of your flag must be new in the details of its design, it need not be entirely new in its elements. There is already in use a flag, I refer to the flag of the East India Company."

1 0

re: Cryptocurrency: Brings Down GovBankCorp
by Punk 20 Jul '19

20 Jul '19

grarpamp wrote: >Bitcoin's price dipped after Trump's negative tweet. correlation is not causation >> as to 'digital cash'* bringing down governments, that's just fantasy. > A digital "cash / currency"... those terms are containers > into which people dump various descriptive words and > capabilities in order to try to define them, you can define 'digital cash' as having the best properties you can wish for - and govcorp will still be able to attack THE USERS more or less easily. Point being, crypto systems by themselves are powerless. >> *cryptocurrencies are not cash AT ALL since they require massive infrastructure > The infrastructure need only do some list of useful things > such as keep accurate ledger, run timely and relatively > inexpensive tx processing, and cost more in distributed > collective defense than any attacker can muster or gain > from offense. "Massive" (which you failed to define) is > not necessarily a requirement. massive infrastructure is the #1 requirement. In order to have 'digital cash' you need foundries, each one costing 5000 million dollars(all of them currently owned by govcorp of course) and a global telecom network. As we all know the global telecom network is the NSA's spying network ususally referred to as 'the interweb'. And to produce the hardware that makes up the interent we need a few 10s or 100s of billions to pay for more foundries, optic fiber and whatnot. THAT is the infrastructure needed for 'digital cash'. Compare that to the costs of gold... > > all depend on ONE unique ledger > > Most cryptocurrencies that utilize a single unique ledger > do so in a redundantly distributed fashion, etc. yes, the ONE ledger is managed in a distributed fashion, but it still is ONE ledger. Well except in things like the lightning network where channels are actually peer to peer. But even if the second layer is more decentralized, it still relies on the base layer acting as a clearinghouse. So there still is a centralized bottleneck. >Unlike N different central "cash" or Gold ledgers where N is the number of accounts you have at such GovCorpBank well that's my point. Systems that require a ledger are centralized by design. The moment you start using a ledger supposefly based on gold you are not using gold anymore. Just 'golden' IOUs. >> even govt paper bills are real cash, they are actually >> decentralized and anonymous. >If those are your exclusive set of words you like to >define "cash" by, then that "cash" works for you. what I mean by 'cash' is a something that doesn't need a middleman. I can pay you using bits of metals, or even physical bills issued by a govt mafia, without needing an internet connection and without anybody knowing that the transaction took place apart from us two. Digital 'cash' does not have those properties. >However "govt paper" implies government exists, which is most certainly not an ideal situation. of course. The drawback of physical bills is that the govt can print tons of them. But apart from that, we can use bills to make transactions that are 'anonymous' and don't go through any central clearinghouse. >And "decentralized", living somewhere between a single point dot and 100% distributed amongst all peers, can have certain risks and mindfulness needed as well. by decentralized I mean that transactions using 'physical tokens' do not need to be recorded in or go through any unique database for them to work. And by the way, that's how barter and money worked since the dawn of history. Banking was a step BACKWARDS. >> Gold and other commodities >That only works within your range of personal travel. yes and? You see, freedom isn't free and there's no 'free lunch'. You can personally manage your own money, or let god's choosen master race do it... >When you start wanting to "transmit" gold, then you have to create transmission systems for physicals and messages, create ledgers, oops, so you're not using gold anymore, as pointed above. >create trust and security systems and etc that can span that distance. So in order to effectively transmit gold, you've essentially created a cryptocurrency system to do so, at which point gold itself can and will likely become moot. lawl, gold would be the source of that currency's value, so not 'moot' at all. Still, such systems are a FAILURE by design. >The real problem is that you created and allowed the wrong cryptocurrency system ie: GovBankCorp as the first such generation of a transmission system. well yes a honest banking system is theoretically possible. But to get one we need to burn down wall street with all the bankers included. Burn them alive. So who's going to do that? >You now have more or less all of the crypto and tools needed to create a far better transmission system. wrong. >Most of humanity does not currently desire to moving society back to your quaint local agrarian communes or whatever it is your aggression is advocating for. what 'agression' are you talking about >Cryptocurrency can work via sneakernet and even by hand calculation... it just becomes extremely slow. lawl - pointless comment. >The minimum general assumption in cryptocurrency is that both electricity and digital communication and computation methods will remain up and generally accessible to everyone. an absurd assumption that stupidly ignores the fact that the digital infrastructure is fully owned by govcorp. Hey, you can't even talk about 'cryptocurrencies' in the 'libertarian' 'cryptography' mailing list. >At which point, so long as society and ultimately human DNA maintains the desire for a "forward" progress that includes electricity comms and compute tech, yeah, techno 'progressive' garbage which you actually do not understand. >GovBankCorp Fiat will remain below Gold which will remain below Cryptocurrency which becomes top dog and moots all others. gold isn't below 'cryptocurrencies' at all. Except in the minds of 'techno' 'optimists' who are useful idiots for the NSA. >Maintain fallbacks in the mix as you wish. But don't be so stupid as to continue to allow GovBankCorp to rule over and keep you in slavery. I'm simply pointing out that your 'digital cash' is worse than gold and that believing that it would 'magically' overthrow governmetn is laughable wishful thinking or worse. >No one ever said crypto was invulnerable to global thermonuclear war, lolwut. Crypto is completely vulnerable to a bunch of peopel being thrown in jail for 'money laundering', a bunch of 'mining farms' being raided, etc etc. > they just said you'll have MUCH bigger problems than worrying about where your crypto, "cash", or gold is. If you're smart, you'll end government before they can reach for the launch keys. yeah and I dont need you and your $5b 'progressive' foundries to tell me that. @InsertNameSpace said: Capitalism cannot thrive with a socialist central banking system, capitalism? The hell is that?. As to the current 'progressive' and 'digital' economic system it works perfectly well with central banking, does it not. >"The United States government is a foreign corporation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_the_East_India_Company >Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania once gave a speech endorsing the adoption of the Company's flag by the United States as their national flag. He said to George Washington of Virginia, "While the field of your flag must be new in the details of its design, it need not be entirely new in its elements. There is already in use a flag, I refer to the flag of the East India Company."

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