Anarcho Capitalism vs Crypto Anarchy & Agorism.
Anarcho Capitalism (abbreviated AnCap) is an openly advertised political movement that promotes free markets and an abolition of the state. Most AnCaps will OPENLY tell you they are part of this movement, and it shares many similarities with Libertarians. Libertarians and AnCaps only really differ on should the government run a socialized police force and army.
Crypto Anarchy (also called CypherPunk) is usually a SECRET lifestyle, where one rejects the concept of external government control and instead chooses individual self-sovereignty. This concept of freedom and subverting the power of the state, is often expressed through the use of privacy and encryption technology, cryptocurrencies, and even frequently traveling to other countries with multiple passports to reduce a single government’s control over the individual.
The main difference between Anarcho Capitalism (AnCap) and Crypto Anarchy (CypherPunk) is that AnCaps organize politically to encourage voting, while as Crypto Anarchy involves using technology to subvert the system. This could involve creating code to defy surveillance, trading cryptocurrency without regulations, not using left-wing social media platforms, or even some type of “illegal market” depending on who you ask. Although I personally think drug markets degrades the core philosophies from more wide-spread acceptance. Fearing being oppressed for their actions, CypherPunks place a much greater emphasis on privacy and open source than AnCaps.
The AnCap says to the CypherPunk, “How can you not vote?! We need you!”
The CypherPunk says to the AnCap, “How can you register to vote? You’re telling the NSA where you live?!”
How does Crypto Anarchy differ from Agorism?
Agorism is a general term for economics and a parallel society outside the control of government institutions. Like a CypherPunk, Agoras don’t think the voting will help. Instead of voting, Agorism focuses on individual entrepreneurship to add value to the community and fix yourself first.
Agoras differ from CypherPunks, in that Agoras usually aren’t as tech-savvy, but look to get outside the system through other means, such as growing their own food. For example “Sal the Agorist” is a popular Twitter account promoting gun ownership and growing your own food, but he sells ads for his Twitter account using a Gmail.
So a CypherPunk says to an Agorist “How can you use Big Tech?”
While an Agorist says to a CypherPunk “How can you eat Big Ag?”
Summarize each:
Anarcho Capitalism (AnCap)
Let’s spread the message of freedom through education, and vote to be free.
Logic and reason are the pillars upon which we build objective morality.
Agorism
Society will not change. Using cryptocurrencies we can create a parallel economy and community, to fix ourselves first.
Crypto-Anarchy (CypherPunk)
I was born free, and you can’t stop me from using encryption to stay free. Big Tech is the government’s puppet for surveillance and censorship.
What is the purpose of this? Are you going try to convince me to join?
No, I can’t convince you to become a Crypto Anarchist. You have to self-realize it on your own.
And when you do, DM our bot on Session messenger, with the Session ID: Simple
For society in general, PoW reduces spam.
For me as an individual, PoW doesn't help me post. but it does help me remove. When I make a typo, and want a post deleted, by doing PoW I've found it will disappear from the timeline faster on Gossip with PoW than Amethyst without it. But others may dispute this and have different results
Only the first sentence you wrote is a disagreement from the article. Everything else after is in alignment. I suppose we could do a poll if AnCaps vote, but that’d be an ironic thing to vote on
Ubuntu Bitcoin Hack, yet CEO is still clueless
A scammer got a fake version of Exodus wallet in Canonical’s Ubuntu Snap Store. This fake scam wallet drained 9 Bitcoins (worth nearly half a million USD) from a user. [1] The scammer was able to fake Exodus wallet’s logo and images without anyone from the company or Canonical noticing. [2]
Quoting Mark Shuttleworth, CEO of Canonical, "cryptocurrency is largely a cesspit of ignoble intentions even if the mathematics are interesting",….. Additionally, Shuttleworth also opened an additional forum post to discuss requiring "more comprehensive proof of publisher identity for every publisher" for Snaps. [3]
Mr. Shuttleworth,
Your comments about cryptocurrency being a “cesspit” represent a gross misunderstanding of the purpose of Linux. It’s ludicrous to honor open source operating systems for privacy and freedom, but dismiss open source money.
A Linux distribution is a package manager, where your goal is to vet software. Instead of doing a good job at this, Canonical seeks to undermine the authority of all other Linux distributions. You want to pretend Snaps are all about cross-platform distribution, when really it’s just Canonical attempting to act as a gatekeeper. This is done by forcing unpopular technology that is slow to start on graphical environments. The fact that Canonical continues to double down on “Slow GUI” Snaps, shows they only care about enterprise servers without GUIs, and therefore a complete disregard for the home end-user.
Finally, your comments regarding forcing KYC to publish software on Ubuntu’s Snap Store are uneducated. Please go read the Wikileaks book, because you will not even make it past chapter 1 without learning the US government enslaves foreigners with debt through the World Bank, and murders and genocides millions through their foreign policy. Some choose to resist this through violence. Others write code that empowers us to resist the empire’s surveillance, so that we may be free. This is the only real purpose in Ubuntu. And by forcing KYC, you choke off meaningful development from anonymous devs who can’t comply with bullshit regulation.
So Mr. Shuttleworth, how can you stop scams?
1) Closed source crypto apps should get a manual overview. These are the highest risk.
2) Instead of asking for KYC, ask for a PGP sign from the same key used on the developer’s other releases. (for example Exodus Debian packages)
Now I’m done talking to Shuttleworth and I turn to you.
The reason these issues are not addressed is pessimism. Only because people believe it doesn’t matter, and their actions are meaningless do they do nothing. Well, I got some news for you, but a different vendor emailed us a few days ago, and they are doing the work to remove some Big Tech from their site, thanks to you helping these articles trend.
And so if you share this, you say to Ubuntu and all those forcing KYC to slowly creep into all aspects of our lives, that we will not stand by and let our freedoms be taken. That inside you is optimism and hope. And if Shuttleworth will not listen, someday Ubuntu will share the same fate as Ubuntu Phones.
Sources: https://simplifiedprivacy.com/ubuntu-crypto-snap-scam/
Release day!
What if you could self-custody your communication like a Bitcoin wallet?
Today, Simplified Privacy is open sourcing the code that cost months of time and 2 grand to make.
This software is designed to weaponize Session messenger's unique DNS to provide a platform to the voiceless and oppressed.
1. Uncensored delivery to a list (similar to how an email list functions)
2. Bitcoin Layer 1, Lightning, & XMR billing to join the list
3. Keeps track of subscriptions and reminds expiring users
4. Advanced DDoS
I have and will continue to give. But ultimately our work is meaningless without your adoption.
For I am just a humble peasant in the vast universe. And some day, I will have to disappear for my own safety.
But long after I'm dead and gone, the idea of self-soverign, encryption as identity, will live on, through you.
Fast notes w/ pictures:
https://simplifiedprivacy.com/freespeech/
Full release:
https://simplifiedprivacy.com/release-session-bot/
Creating a group on Session requires a server with a clearweb IP. It’s essentially just a website. Go to this link and you can literally read the conversation from our group chat:
https://session.simplifiedprivacy.is/r/simplified/
All Session is doing is for group chats is piping that website into your client.
On the other hand, the one-on-one chats go to a nodes. And so system we’re presenting here is completely separated from a physical location and the ability to take it down.
Libertarian CypherPunk Podcasts
A CypherPunk is someone who uses privacy and encryption to advocate for and advance freedom and civil liberties. This doesn’t come out of nowhere on a whim, but requires a deep knowledge of technology, politics, and philosophy. This list can help guide you on that journey, but ultimately it can only be done by you.
These should be listened to on AntennaPod using RSS, so you get it direct from the source, and NOT the “Apple Store” because of censorship/surveillance. Just add the RSS feed.
Opt Out
Opt Out by Seth for Privacy is no longer that active, but we highly recommend going back and listening to the old episodes. He usually has first-hand source entrepreneurs pitching their projects, as well as the philosophical underpinnings of the movement.
https://optoutpod.com/
RSS address: https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/1790481.rss
The Conscious Resistance
Derrick Broze covers the philosophy behind opting out and taking control of your liberty through personal and technological action. This idea of “agorism” or self-improvement over trying to change the world through politics, is one of the foundations of being a Cypherpunk. Even if he doesn’t use those exact words.
https://the-conscious-resistance.pinecast.co
RSS address: https://pinecast.com/feed/the-conscious-resistance
Ron Paul Liberty Report
We can’t discuss using technology to defend our civil liberties without an understanding of the principles and philosophy behind it. Ron Paul ain’t a hacker, but he is the icon of liberty to one.
RSS address: https://feeds.soundcloud.com/users/soundcloud:users:153940103/sounds.rss
Monero Talk
Some of our Bitcoin maxi fans will get angry that this is on the list, and if so, you’re both closing yourself off to, and trying to suppress knowledge, at the same level as the government. Monero Talk is much more than just hawking the currency, it’s got a huge amount of privacy, tech, and political news. You’ll learn the newest stuff about Tor, secret peer-to-peer internet in Cuba, bans in Dubai, Quantum encryption, and what being a CypherPunk even means.
https://www.monerotalk.live
RSS address: https://feeds.fireside.fm/monerotalk/rss
The Linux Cast
These guys are NOT cypherpunks, as Matt the main host openly said he doesn’t care about privacy. But you will learn a huge amount about Linux such as honest discussion about the pros/cons of different distributions, desktop environments, window managers, different software, drivers, and much more. This is really easy listening for technical information and perfect for a car ride or commute. They make the technical stuff fun with the banter and I can’t highly recommend this enough to get the tech news you need.
https://thelinuxcast.fireside.fm
RSS address: https://feeds.fireside.fm/thelinuxcast/rss
The Tom Woods Show
Tom Woods is the “Tonight Show for Libertarians”, as not only does he have the highest quality guests, but his calm approach with a focus on reason, makes even the most brainwashed pro-gov slave ponder to think. Get a fresh perspective here, because you won’t find it from the mainstream news.
http://tomwoodsshow.libsyn.com/webpage
RSS address: http://tomwoodsshow.libsyn.com/rss
The Expat Money Show
There comes a time when freedom is so bad, that rather than stay and fight, you opt to leave. But where do you go? Mikkel Thorup covers a huge amount of countries and has on a wide array of guests discussing which country is right for you. Every Cypherpunk needs a Plan B passport.
https://expatmoney.com
RSS address: https://feeds.captivate.fm/theexpatmoneyshow/
The Privacy, Security, & OSINT Show
This podcast isn’t active anymore, but I recommend you go download the past episodes before they disappear. He’s got a 1-year disappearing message on them. He’s an ex-cop talking about how to hide. Also, the podcasts open you up to the books. A lot of great strategies in these such as VoIP, pfSense routers, and how to deal with data brokers.
RSS address: https://feeds.soundcloud.com/users/soundcloud:users:261098918/sounds.rss
Scott Horton Show
The excuse given for the crackdown on our personal privacy is often to fight terrorism. But what if it turned out that the government itself was the one funding all the terrorism? In my humble opinion, nobody spits out the flaws of US empire better than Scott Horton, and I can’t highly recommend enough that you ditch the watered down propaganda you were listening to before and open your eyes to the truth.
https://scotthorton.org/
RSS address: http://feeds2.feedburner.com/Scotthortonshow
The Breakdown
NLW is the best way to learn what propaganda is spewing out of politician’s holes, without actually having to go and listen to the mainstream news. Unfortunately, he does not actually embrace the technology he promotes. For example, he had a Nostr guest on, yet he’s not on Nostr and hawks his Discord room. While NLW isn’t a Cypherpunk, he is a tolerable source to find out what’s trending in the industry.
http://nlwcrypto.libsyn.com/
RSS address: https://feeds.megaphone.fm/NLWLLC2118417614
The Corbett Report Podcast
If you like critically thinking about the empire’s propaganda with well-researched journalism, then James Corbett might be for you. Some will find his point of view a bitter pill to swallow, while others will find it liberating that he’s kept it this real and not been assassinated yet.
http://www.corbettreport.com
RSS address: http://feeds.feedburner.com/CorbettreportcomPodcast
Part Of The Problem
Dave Smith and Robby the “Fire” are good to put the bullshit into perspective and make you not feel insane when the world is. One of the “takes” that I found particularly interesting was Dave Smith pointing out how the New York Times should be telling us the news, when instead the Times sold services to the US government to help them investigate and crackdown on the whistleblower who gave us the real news on Ukraine. This guy leaked that the US government was not just “funding” Ukraine, but illegally had troops on the ground. Smith can sometimes ramble on, but it’s alright because the other side is just that insane.
http://GaSDigitalNetwork.com/PartOfTheProblem
RSS address: https://rss.art19.com/part-of-the-problem
SimplifiedPrivacy.com
What list of CypherPunk RSS feeds would be complete without our own? Get hands on tutorials and animated explanations for the best freedom tools, from Linux, new Session software, SimpleX self-host scripts, Nostr clients, XMPP clients, degoogled phones, front-end proxies, and much more. Just add these RSS feeds to AntennaPod:
Articles RSS:
https://simplifiedprivacy.com/feed
Videos RSS :
https://video.simplifiedprivacy.com/feed
Obviously we prefer Session, SimpleX, & XMPP over Signal. Signal still requires a number to register and is completely centralized to Amazon's AWS. This being said, it's 1000 times better than SMS or WhatsApp groups. So to celebrate Signal's new usernames feature to hide the number from group members, we now have a Signal Group:
https://signal.group/#CjQKICKP4m5jPiL-RdDH1Nx9ZapzJxd_YHwqsNVwGx-ABrezEhCuG2_aSzYcnl3mm5NBFO0x
(SimpleX/Session/XMPP Groups are still active)
Hi Jack,
Email is corrupt. You don't own the domain name so governments can take it from you. There's a couple of free ones, such as Protonmail and Tutanota, but they can see all activity and can report on it. The best choice is to host it on a VPS yourself with FOSS software. If you're interested, we do setups for you under $100.
https://simplifiedprivacy.com/email/
Funny panel coincidence…
Not everyone is on Nostr yet. So we want to convince them.
LunarDAO is a CypherPunk-privacy focused investment DAO,
Simplified Privacy will be appearing on their Feb 22 event 15:00 UTC
https://twitter.com/i/spaces/1OdJrjwDBOkJX
Also on the 4-5 person panel is AnonShop, the guys we called out for running an Amazon (and other vendor) “privacy” package forwarding service on ironically AWS. But out of respect for LunarDAO, we will be on our best behavior!
Do you know why LunarDAO did not know about this conflict? Not on Nostr yet!
Let’s get ‘em on here! We’re excited. Come on down and ask questions, it’s going to be fun
Obedience is Dangerous
Ever think, “How could a person do [insert horror]?”
Stanley Milgram a psychologist at Yale University did an experiment where he tested if participants would obey TAKING ORDERS to electrocute a subject. The subject was in on it, so nobody was hurt. The wires did NOT have real electricity, and it was purely acting and screaming out in "FAKE pain".
The purpose of the experiment was to measure if the person would obey authority and follow the commands to administer electric shocks as part of an academic study. Interestingly 65% of participants WOULD administer the shocks, even as the acting subject SCREAMED out in fake pain and begged to be let go.
Milgram wanted to know if "obedience to an authority figure" explains Nazi killings in World War II. "The person being ordered about is able to believe that the authority will accept responsibility for what happens."
But Milgram's experiments were only viewed with direct violence. And not forcing someone else to submit to political interactions, which empower an authority to use violence if I don't comply. Or involuntary technological interactions which force me into compliance with surveillance. Blind obedience is shocking me with:
-covid masks
-fiat money
-covid “vaccines”
-Gmail
-fund ukraine
-cloudflare
-more taxes
-only accepting SMS
Some might go “wait a second, how is someone using cloudflare or gmail shocking you?”
Because you’re forcing me to submit to surveillance in order to get essential services, and the data is going to an entity interested in enforcing their wishes through violence. Also you’re not administering that surveillance directly. Milgram’s experiments jumped up in compliance to above 90% when the person didn’t push the button themselves. Just ordering someone else to push the button dramatically reduces guilt.
So go ahead, justify your website and email with what everyone else is doing. Obey your orders, you good little slave of the empire.
Why Privacy?
Depends on whose asking. Explain it to me like I’m...
Black
AI firm Palentir sells preemptive surveillance data to the LA police to use traffic cameras for targeted racist “pre-crime” frisking. [1] Let’s see what we can find BEFORE crimes are done...
Muslim
Salaat First, an app that reminds Muslims when to pray, sells user data to both the FBI and ICE to consistently track user locations. [2] As Guantánamo Bay tortures prisoners without even a trial. [3]
Gay
Grindr sells user location data, and it’s been used to fire gay priests. [4] According to the New York Post, they “allowed unknown third parties to know sensitive information about users, including whom they were dating, where they lived and worked, and where they spent their free time.” [5]
Female
Mobile geolocation tracking is weaponized by anti-abortion groups. Politico quote: “One ad firm boasting in 2015 that it could “tag all the smartphones entering and leaving the nearly 700 Planned Parenthood clinics” [5]
Conservative
You’re using the infrastructure of your enemy. Data firm Gotcha SEO did a study of 50 controversial Google searches and found only 5% of the results favored conservative websites, compared with 63.8% Neutral, and 31.8% Left. [7]
Climate-activist
Google handed Indian police the data on a 21-year old climate activist, who was then arrested for typing on Google docs about farming protests [6]
Tell it in my own words…
We allow these corrupt institutions to control us, but their power is only in our minds.
Only because we value fiat, does the Fed typing money have meaning.
Only because we accept their domain names, do we allow censorship.
Only because SMS & email are accepted as legitimate, does their surveillance matter.
Don’t you see? The battle isn’t political. It’s not in the courts, but in the discussions you have with your friends over what’s legitimate. Their only trick is to make you feel alone.
Well I’m here today to tell you that you’re not alone. That I love you. And that you have more power than realize. Normally I ask you to share my posts, but you need to learn to convey these concepts in your own words. Because, I’m not going to be there when your friend says no.
Sources: https://simplifiedprivacy.com/why-privacy/
Surprising court ruling!
European Union politicians have been trying to pass “Chat Control” which would ban end-to-end encrypted communications. A new big court ruling on Telegram is a game changer for this. Let’s first get a very brief context for this court ruling.
So PRIOR to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Russia was previously abiding by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). This EU court was hearing a case of Russia’s government against Telegram, with the Russian government demanding a backdoor and the decryption of data. [1]
Now AFTER Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Russia no longer honors this EU court. As a form of disrespect after the fact, the EU court has just ruled on Feb 15 AGAINST Russia, stating that the Russian government can’t force Telegram to decrypt user data. [2] To quote The Register, “While the ECHR decision is unlikely to have any effect within Russia, it matters to countries in Europe that are contemplating similar decryption laws – such as Chat Control and the UK government’s Online Safety Act.” [1]
Anti-Russian sentiment backfires
Western politicians are now choking on their own blind hatred of Russia, to prevent them from controlling even EU citizens’ chats. Some of our readers will criticize my words to call me “Russian propaganda”. But again, we repeat our previously cited points that the Ukraine situation was provoked in 2014 when the United States organized a violent Nazi coup to overthrow Ukraine’s democratically elected leader because he was pro-Russian. [10-12]
We ironically only know about this coup from leaked audio phone calls of Obama’s head of Ukraine policy Victoria Nuland. [9] So it’s a good thing politicians hate encrypted communications, because if they used them, we wouldn’t even be aware of the rampant corruption.
The Obama administration later admitted and apologized for the profanity in the phone call, when Victoria Nuland said “F*** the EU” referring to let’s move ahead with the coup without them. [9b] But they completely missed the point by not apologizing for the violent or illegal meddling in another country’s politics.
Ditch Telegram anyway
None of these other publicans point out that you shouldn’t be using Telegram anyway precisely because this verdict could have easily gone the other way. We recommend avoiding trusting a centralized provider that can oversee all metadata or potentially be banned.
In conclusion, by having unenforceable laws, politicians create a precedent that their words should be ignored. And then by being so crazed to spite Russia, they wreck their own corrupt plans. So I’m going to tell you, like Victoria Nuland told me. Fuck the EU.
Sources: https://simplifiedprivacy.com/court-rules-against-eu-chat-control/
How Bitcoin Ordinals can be weaponized for tax avoidance:
I am in international waters. But anyone can observe that in the US, the IRS considers words “wash sale” mean buying and selling the same asset for a tax loss. For example, I buy Bitcoin and Tesla stock. Bitcoin rises, and Tesla falls. So to avoid paying tax on Bitcoin, I sell my Tesla stock and capture a capital loss. Then I re-buy Tesla back.
The stock market already has rules against these “wash sales” where it doesn’t count the loss if you re-buy back the same asset in a period of time. However, cryptocurrency does not have this. The government is unhappy, and so they’re trying to push through rules that Bitcoin “wash sales” should not be exempt.
If I were to someday go to America, then I would say I am not just buying “some” Bitcoin, but instead it is the unique artistic Ordinal that sparks my inner passion.
Therefore, because the assets are not the same, and I would be investing solely because of the artistic nature of this new particular Ordinal, the new wash-sale rule would not apply. Oh you can’t tell the difference? Well my friend, you have no taste in art
The Tyranny of KYC
KYC was initially created in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks to supposedly stop terrorist financing, but it’s the US government that funded Al-Qaeda BOTH before and after 9/11. Osama-bin-laden originally was financed with “Operation Cyclone” in the 1970s to stop soviet influence in Afghanistan. [1] That's how he got rich enough to do 9/11.
Then AFTER 9/11, the US funded Al-Qaeda in Syria, to overthrow the Syrian president Bashar-al-Assad. [2] It’s absolutely ludicrous that the only people they could find dumb enough to die to overthrow Assad, is the 9/11 terrorists who murdered Americans.
Most cryptocurrency exchanges, including Coinbase and Kraken, use Plaid for ACH deposits. When you use Plaid, not only does Plaid see your entire transaction history, your income, your spending habits, and your life choices and preferences, but on top of all that, the crypto exchange and then third parties get the data as well. To quote the Electronic Freedom Foundation, “Plaid’s other APIs grant access to geolocation, users’ liabilities, including credit card debt and student loans; their investments, including individual stocks and bonds; and identity information, including name, address, email, and phone number.” [4]
In fact, Plaid recently LOST a class action lawsuit and agreed to pay 58 MILLION in fines for illegal data sales and manipulative practices. [5a] Thousands of apps use Plaid. Millions of consumers had no idea that Plaid was going into their account and scraping everything they ever did, even though it had nothing to do with the lone purchase they were making. [5b]
Weak-minded propagandists spew dribble that Plaid “anonymizes” the data before its sold, but numerous statistical studies have demonstrated the anonymity to be weak because of the huge breadth and quality of the data. [6] This data is then sold and used by marketers to steer your purchases. [4] Plaid is often not voluntary. Some ask “What is the harm in advertisers knowing everything about you?”
1. They can charge higher prices when they know you want or need something.
For example Orbitz steered Mac users to pricier hotels since they overpay for Apple electronics. [7c] This is what Target did by charging customers on its mobile apps more when they were physically near stores and unlikely to seek an alternative. [8]
2. They can manipulate you to buy things you don’t need
For example McDonalds hired the surveillance company Silverpush to link audio data gotten without consent from its mobile app, to sounds coming from Youtube or Television to display “relevant ads” across platforms. [9] This is literally preying upon addictions to encourage you see McDonalds everywhere, and get diabetes.
3. I use this analogy: in financial markets, when a whale goes to buy a huge quantity of an asset, quick algorithmic bots will jump ahead because their small orders get filled immediately without moving the market. This is nicknamed “front running”, because as the whale pays higher and higher and prices to get volume filled, the bots make a quick profit.
When you let Google see the searches of your desires, with the weaponized data sold by Plaid, you’re literally letting them “front-run your thoughts”.
I seek to systematically train users to self-empower themselves with open source technology.
Realizing that I will likely be censored on this mission, in advance I have paid for an entire social network to be developed on top of Session messenger. DM the Session ID: Simple
4 Reasons Monero Won’t Die like Tornado Cash
In this post we’ll argue why Monero’s price, and it’s overall use will NOT collapse and die like Tornado Cash’s did under similar circumstances.
Reason 4. Mixer vs Native Currency
Tornado Cash was a mixer for Ethereum. This means anyone can clearly see which funds are coming from it, making it easy to sanction. On the other hand, if any transparent crypto was traded for, or from Monero, the public blockchain wouldn’t show it. When you combine this with privacy properties like hidden senders from Bitcoin Lightning, or even recent atomic swap developments with Bitcoin Cash using CashFusion [1], it’s not even clear whose trading into XMR, even if the government is an undercover direct seller.
Further, Monero has a vibrant ecosystem and community. What other ecosystem has such a focus on open source wallets? What other ecosystem has this level of Linux or networking knowledge?
Not only is XMR used on the darkweb, but beyond that it has clear use cases for the entire crypto ecosystem. Bitcoin Lighting Channels can be both clean and anonymous with XMR, as opposed to degrading your Bitcoins by first mixing it with drug dealers and hackers.
People in oppressive countries use XMR to coordinate, such as in Cuba, creating a peer-to-peer mesh internet to view censored content. [2a] And the Particl team with Basic Swap Dex has gotten completely decentralized atomic swaps. [2b]
Reason 3. Legal frameworks
Tornado Cash was a business, and not a completely decentralized crypto because the developers got a cut. [4] According to Monero Core Artic Mine, “you’ve got to keep your hands out of the till”. [3] By this he meant, you can’t evade being a legal entity if you get a percentage of the profits. The US judge in the Tornado Cash sanctions case found similar points in the developer’s control through a DAO [4].
In sharp contrast, Monero has no owners or dividends. The community hard forks based on open and honest consensus derived from genuine merit based ideas.
Reason 2. US dollar is a dying empire
The question is not when Monero will die, it’s when the US dollar will stop masquerading as a safe haven. The United States is massively in-debt, but yet produces nothing of value to foreigners. Only through violence in the Middle East, has the US managed to force the sale of oil in US Dollars. [5] And the corrupt Biden administration’s unwinnable war in Ukraine has bankrupted the nation. This Ukraine war, which originally started with Barrack Obama funding Nazis to do an illegal and violent coup of Ukraine’s Democratically elected leader, has morphed into a financial disaster. [6]
The US Treasury bond market is the largest bubble of all time. Because even just normal levels of interest, trigger a collapse in the banking system to cause the Fed to back off its hiking cycle. We all know these inflation numbers are lies. As John William’s Shadow Stats statistically demonstrates through methodical analysis that decades of the official numbers are propaganda. [7]
Reason 1. Price rise will mock politicians
Politicians have no control over blockchains with DNS using Tor Onions. The number 1 reason Monero will live on, is because its price will rise even if sanctioned. Bitcoin is like Marjiuana, in that it’s everyone’s first gateway drug. Monero is like Cocaine, because once you try it, you realize politicians have been lying to you your whole life.
Eventually all the bad news will be baked in, and its undeniable utility to basic human needs will reflect its market value. This price rise will be referenced in the crypto media, and will serve as a constant Hunger Games style “Mocking Jay” of rebellion. Politicians fear banning XMR, because they fear a 24/7 economic ticker feed that reveals the emperor has no clothes.
So go ahead, deploy the automated bot army to spew dribble on Reddit to curse me out. But we will not go silently into the night.
Sources: https://simplifiedprivacy.com/monero-vs-tornado-cash/
Monero’s value is in real world cash peer-to-peer.
Bitcoin’s market cap rises on SPECULATION. I’m disputing that it’s actually being used for real world transactions. Even on Nostr, we’re using custodial accounts, which is really like a fractional reserve bank account but for bitcoin.
And Ethereum is developers and venture capitalists, it’s not real world shit. Nobody is buying toilet paper at the local store for Eth layer 2.
Compare that to VPNs or privacy services. The overwhelming bulk of all transactions at Simplified Privacy are Monero.
ALL CEX listings are under fire. look at SEC vs Coinbase and binance.
Monero has the largest peer to peer marketplace liquidity
How'd you get Monero.com nostr verify?
Our privacy eco-system is flawed
Developers sign binaries with PGP keys, but we trust Microsoft’s Github and government domains to deliver to us accurate public keys to begin with. This means we’re trusting the very mediums of communication that we’re encrypting against, large Big Tech cloud firms.
Getmonero.org is on Cloudflare, linked to a Github PGP key. The same Github that took down Tornado Cash in a crisis. The same Cloudflare that hazes Tor.
Whonix.org and it’s Public PGP key are on Hetzner, the same cloud company that compromised an XMPP server at the request of the German government.
KeePassXC.org is on Cloudflare, please, I got everything I own in there
BleachBit.org is on Cloudflare, c’mon mate, I’m deleting sensitive data with root access
There must be another way.
Now SimplifiedPrivacy.x will offer an uncensored free public directory of PGP keys for popular open source software on IPFS using unstoppable domains. This will act a neutral third party verification tool, not tied to a physical location, like traditional domains. Anyone can compare the PGP keys on the IPFS site to Github binaries and confirm a match. There’s no sacrifice made, since the developer’s original website still remains.
How Unstoppable domains work is that an Ethereum wallet updates the DNS record to an IPFS website file, outside the reach of government control because it’s not bound to a physical location. Now I dislike Ethereum. And know a lot of my readers also dislike Ethereum, but keep in mind that you don't need to touch ETH to look at this website and anyone buy Unstoppable domains for Bitcoin. They just use Polygon for the DNS...
Because it’s visible to everyone on the Ethereum/Polygon blockchain when the domain is re-assigned, and then visible to the IPFS network when new files are pushed out, it makes quick trickery with PGP keys more difficult to disguise.
I reject government domains as a legitimate source of truth, and I stand for the principle of encryption as identity. Now you can verify with an uncensored third party and not trust the infrastructure of our enemy. You can check our guide on how to use IPFS with Brave Browser:
https://simplifiedprivacy.com/ipfs-brave-browser/
I love you & I won’t give up,
SimplifiedPrivacy.x
Mullvad changed...
For those of you who don’t know, we’re waging a war against involuntary Big Tech. Thanks to you sharing our article criticizing Mullvad’s use of Gmail, they just started self-hosting emails:
https://mullvad.net/en/blog/we-now-self-host-our-support-email
Huge win for freedom, because it shows that it’s possible to get someone to give a shit. But unfortunately, there’s still a lot of work to be done. The overwhelming majority of privacy/political freedom/crypto sites all use it and do not give one diddly squat.
However, despite the odds against us, I believe change is possible. And here is the plan. We need another 2 or 3 wins to give this idea some momentum. Then I will do serious outreach, and convince “privacy” sites to reduce big tech hopefully without it coming to public shame. And I start with THE most egregious abuse case AnonShop. Anonshop.app offers supposedly “anonymous” Amazon packages for Monero, to hide your info...
But where does Anonshop.app host this? On Amazon’s AWS! They charge 20% above cost, to have packages forwarded to people’s homes, to hide their address from Amazon, only to have them submit their address in a text box literally on Amazon’s servers?! You’re going to say “oh but there’s a PGP key”. Yeah a public key that this CIA contractor can swap! You don’t think they see what you’re doing as money laundering?
If you’re a Bitcoin Maxi, I call upon you to talk shit. The crusade I fight has the potential to spread across all privacy sites. Purse.io WAS the Bitcoin version of AnonShop, but they got bought out and ended. Let’s get these types of shops back up with public support, but open in the right way.
If you’re a Monero head, now is your chance to get better service. If AnonShop will change to a privacy-respecting host, one that keeps the crypto economy circular… Then I pledge to give them free advertising on my nostr and session feeds. Give them the Session name “AnonShop” to use. Write an article about their service, and most importantly recommend them when people ask.
But my words will fall on deaf ears without you. For if I am ignored, it’s your freedom that’s ignored.
But if you embrace this and share it, we can someday make invasive spyware an option and not a requirement. And most importantly, a circular economy. A world where you don’t even need sites like AnonShop or Purse, because the vendors accept it direct. Mullvad just showed us change is possible, and two is trend.
I’m an optimist. Are you?
Thanks for sharing.
Yeah trust on first use is certainty better than the current system. Developers for Bitcoin can be signing with Nostr keys and then the general public can check via the official channels.
Coinbase delists privacy messenger coin SNT (Status)
I don't like Status messenger because it's not private enough with metadata compared to others like Session/SimpleX. Also I'm confused why an Ethereum-based messenger links to Nostr in a regular DNS browser, and calls it "Web 3". Further, I dislike tying my “privacy messages” to my Ethereum wallet, as it’s a public trail of my spending.
However, although I don't personally use it, I stand with ANY privacy project being delisted by KYC exchanges. Status is well-funded, and I hope they use it wisely for productive innovation… and not fighting legal battles.
Do you hear that on your built-in Nostr browser?
3 Ways to Cope with XMR Losses
1. Realize it hurts twice as much to lose, so stop looking at the price
It’s been well documented that losing hurts more than the joy of winning. Psychology Today cites a Khaneman 2011 study:
“We are more upset about losing $10 than we are happy about finding $10. Roughly speaking, losses hurt about twice as much as gains make you feel good” (Khaneman, 2011)
So if your net worth fluctuating up and down is causing you more distress than joy, consider not sitting and looking at it. If you’re holding for the long-term, then follow through on that. I know this is tough because you may want to use XMR for your daily living, and need to see the price to function. While it’s true that you may need to keep the price in your wallet, don’t keep the actual life savings in your daily driver wallet. Then you’ll really feel the effects of the rollercoaster of market news mostly outside your control.
2. Write down your plan
Every trader needs a plan. By writing down or recording yourself doing something, it creates a record to hold yourself accountable. The problem with keeping your plan or ideas just purely in your head, is that your perception of what you agreed to do will change. I remember over 10 years ago, when I was smoking Marijuana every day, I kept saying I was going to cut back and quit. But I never did. I let life pass me by…. It wasn’t until I recorded audio of myself saying how I hated this life, and then listened to it sober, that I had the inspiration to not go buy more.
I know, you may want to keep your XMR private, but you can write down your plan with your seed phrase. Or write it out on physical paper, but don’t even use the word monero.
With Monero, you need a plan for the following:
a) what are you going to do if they put sanctions on Monero?
b) what are you going to do if no KYC exchange offers it?
c) what is your plan for hyperinflation? Like okay you got Monero, but how you going to use it? Do you know a local farmer? If you left the area or country, where would you go?
d) What will you do when the CBDC comes? How can you diversify into the Agora economy?
Start preparing your devices for privacy. Assume the worst is coming. Do not think that because you got Monero on an iPhone with a VPN that you’re ready.
You need a Linux computer for essential privacy. You know there’s only like 20 Linux commands I actually use. You’re telling me you speak English with thousands of words, but you can’t learn 20 words? Like “cp” is copy, c’mon bro.
Assume they are corrupt and malicious. Prepare yourself.
3. Eventually the bad news is baked-in
There’s only so long that they can say its going to be banned or delisted. Eventually it is and then there’s only one result: it’s undeniable and essential utility. To deny Monero, is to deny basic human instincts.
So as you sit there, trying to make sense of it all, know that you are not alone. I’m right there with you. How do they not get it? How can they value government paper? The CBDC is coming because they can’t even afford to print the paper, the central bank just types it on a computer.
Someday, people will realize that they were born free. And all these institutions just talked them out of it. Because the tools they needed were there all along. And when that day comes, I hope you got a plan. Because the joy of that day’s gain, will not make up for the pain along the way.
Binance delists Monero.
Huge price impact. XMR down 30%
Withdrawal supported till May 20th
Some swap sites temporarily can’t do XMR, such as ExCh
Some nodes are having issues connecting.
If ever there was a time to test your faith, this is it. Stay strong. Stay calm. Stay rational.
Flash back to Bitcoin when Silk Road shut down. Would you have sold then?
Remember that Monero has value in the face of true tyranny. So if you believe we’re going in that direction, this might be the greatest buy the dip of all time.
Bitcoin Lightning Privacy w/ Juraj Bednar
How can you improve your privacy using Lightning? We sat down with Juraj to discuss wallets, nodes, channels, and more:
https://simplifiedprivacy.com/juraj/
Tomorrow,
Interview with Juraj Bednar on Bitcoin Lightning Privacy
Juraj Bednar is the author of “Author of Cryptocurrencies: Hack your way to a better life” and “Cypherpunk visions and trends” You can find him on Nostr here:
npub1m2mvvpjugwdehtaskrcl7ksvdqnnhnjur9v6g9v266nss504q7mqvlr8p9
VeraCrypt is Monero’s best friend
VeraCrypt is an open source encrypted virtual drive tool. Basically it makes these containers that you can put files inside, and specifically I’m recommending KeePass files with your Monero seed phrases. So, KeePass database files inside VeraCrypt. This could then go for cold storage on an external drive(s).
There’s some debate over what encryption algorithm and hash is best, because AES is considered the gold standard by the industry, but it has roots with the US government, leading some internet speculators to criticize it. I have not seen any credible evidence that the government can break AES algorithm or the SHA hash, and Bitcoin uses SHA-256. Since the day Bitcoin is broken will be warning shot to switch my local drives, I tend to use this. But again, some protest literally anything the government says.
Don’t store large amounts of cryptocurrency on mobile phones ever, they are vulnerable to sophisticated hacks. But it’s fine for small amounts for spending on the go. Instead, I highly recommend VeraCrypt on a Linux PC. One advantage of VeraCrypt is that you can have hidden drives. This means that one password unlocks the fake “outer” drive, and the other password you pick is the hidden internal drive. One strategy is to send Monero from one wallet to another. Put the low or zero balance Monero wallet in the outer drive, and high real balance in the inner hidden drive. This way any adversary trying to steal or oppress you, would force you to unlock it, only to find out you’re showing them you’re poor.
An adversary will never know for sure if there’s a hidden drive or not, but everyone is aware of the potential for hidden drives on VeraCrypt. So expect the adversary to threaten you. If corrupt government thugs illegally threaten you in violation of their own constitutions, it’s a good idea to insist on speaking with a lawyer before you even unlock the outer drive. Be aware that sophisticated criminals will likely use violence if they think you have a very large amount of cryptocurrency in that VeraCrypt drive. If that’s your threat model, consider keeping more significant amounts in the outer fake drive, to make it believable, and so they can just take the money and bounce with a win.
Another strategy to make your fake outer drive more realistic is to schedule a reminder to login to it and send a small transaction. By keeping a fresh date on a transaction on the fake outer Monero wallet, it’s more believable that it’s your real daily driver. On the other hand if it has 0.001 XMR and was last modified 3 years ago, you’re in for some nasty threats.
Now if you keep small amounts of crypto or any data you need to hide. This same strategy of a 2nd password can be replicated on Android with the Duress app. It wipes the phone on the 2nd password that you tell the “adversary”, so obviously you want to have a backup of any crypto.
Breach News:
2nd Cloudflare hack reveals the dangers of them seeing ALL passwords
Cloudflare just revealed on their blog that back in November a sophisticated hacker, likely a nation state, got access to some of their servers. [1] They claim in their blog post that no customer data was stolen or accessed, however even if true, this is not the point.
The point is that it’s morally wrong for such a centralization of traffic to be going to a single entity. I have complained many times about how the bulk of the internet uses Cloudflare’s CDN and when they do, Cloudflare sees all SSL/TLS traffic, because you’re pointing the domain to them to distribute it. This means they see ALL passwords and have access to all cryptocurrency on centralized exchanges. One actor should not be securing all your secrets and act as a gatekeeper to all human knowledge.
To quote Hacker News,
“The incident involved a four-day reconnaissance period to access Atlassian Confluence and Jira portals, following which the adversary created a rogue Atlassian user account and established persistent access to its Atlassian server to ultimately obtain access to the Bitbucket source code management system by means of the Sliver adversary simulation framework. As many as 120 code repositories were viewed, out of which 76 are estimated to have been exfiltrated by the attacker.
“The 76 source code repositories were almost all related to how backups work, how the global network is configured and managed, how identity works at Cloudflare, remote access, and our use of Terraform and Kubernetes,” Cloudflare said.” [2]
This hack demonstrates that one entity seeing everything makes them into a big target.
Past Issues
In fact Cloudflare is so successful, that their size makes them a bureaucracy that can be exploited. In a completely separate incident, Certitude’s researcher Stefan Proksch discovered that Cloudflare is vulnerable through abusing Cloudflare itself. [3a] This vulnerability stems from the fact that Cloudflare whitelists all traffic from Cloudflare domains. [3b] So if someone found out the IP address of your VPS, they can point their own domain to it, and then register that domain with Cloudflare as a paying customer.
Hacker’s Domain → Your VPS
Then all traffic sent is whitelisted, and they can DDoS the VPS. [3c]
In fact, when told about this by Certitude, it was dismissed by Cloudflare as informational only, because CDNs hide the original IP of the VPS servers. But this information can be gotten through phising or psychological warfare. The email address of the domain registrant is public, and probably used to communicate with Cloudflare’s automated system. So an attacker can just fake being Cloudflare asking them to fill out a survey for a free bonus. And on the survey is asking the IP address.
Conclusion
You have more power than you realize. Your economic choices matter more than political votes. Tell website owners you won’t continue to use their service, if they’re going to force you to submit to Cloudflare’s empire. All it takes is one site to crack. Two makes a trend.
Change is not impossible, it’s all in your state of mind. But people need to be made aware.
Spread this: for privacy, for security, for freedom.
Sources: https://simplifiedprivacy.com/cloudflarehack/
Fast solutions to privacy leaks
Leak: Cloudflare correlates all your activity
How: The bulk of the internet uses Cloudflare's CDN so they oversee all logins
Solution: Use AnonAddy, SimpleLogin, or other burner email masking to separate accounts
Leak: Uploaded Images leak (to Big Tech) your location, despite a VPN
How: Your phone attaches EXIF metadata to images
Solution: There's apps to remove EXIF data such as Scrambled EXIF
Leak: Your IP address is sent to the sender on opening an email
How: tiny images called 'pixels' call upon 3rd party JavaScript
Solution: Block third party images/content
Leak: Every Linux program sees all the others
How: Linux has zero graphical isolation, any program with access to the display can see everything
Solution: Run untrusted proprietary software in a virtual machine, or at least not at the same time as your KeePass open. Also Android has better app isolation.
Leak: On mobile, Tor exit nodes can correlate activity
How: Orbot isn't giving you new Tor circuits for each app, so your anonymous Signal burner and KYC Telegram number are both pulled to the same Tor exit
Solution: Use different profiles or firewall toggle them off. (Calyx has a great one or Graphene each app network access)
<end>
All I know is grind bro, provide value till I drop
no I don't think so, I've seen people ask that on forums and being told no. But I haven't tried it with a keylogger to test it to confirm. I did test it on x11 though
5 Reasons to use KVM VirtManager over Oracle's VirtualBox
Reason 1.
Oracle is an NSA contractor and the copy-paste extension pack isn't open source.
Oracle’s previous CEO Larry Ellison not only criticized Edward Snowden, but literally praised the NSA. Quote “It's great," Ellison said of the domestic spying. "It's great, it's essential.” [2] Further quoting from his talks “Snowden had yet to identify a single person who had been “wrongly injured” by the NSA’s data collection.”. [3] This corrupt attitude stems from Oracle selling database solutions to the CIA. [2]
Reason 2.
Oracle is among the world’s biggest data collectors
Oracle faces class action lawsuits for privacy violations, as one of the biggest data brokers. Spice Works reports: “the lawsuit alleges Oracle collected data, prepared dossiers of more than half of the global population, and sold them to third parties without taking prior consent from data subjects.” [4] According to TechHQ, “The data harvesting has been going on for years, using Oracle Data Cloud, and the Oracle chairman admitted that they have the information of 5 billion people.” [5]
The Oracle VirtualBox isn't part of most Linux package managers, where you’d just do a “sudo apt update” once in awhile and get the upgrade when you want. Instead, VirtualBox makes calls directly to their servers to find out if there's an upgrade, exposing your VPN IP directly to Oracle/NSA.
Reason 3.
You can save hard-drive space
Having lots of VMs is tough with storage limits. The Oracle Whonix images take up more space on your computer, rotting your hard-drive for "live-mode" which isn't storing anything. In contrast, the KVM version is a "Sparse-image" which starts small and expands as it grows. This keeps your storage useage lean.
Reason 4.
Stronger breakout protection
Oracle's Virtualbox is a type 2 hypervisor, meaning this runs on top of the operating system. Instead, KVM is a type 1 hypervisor running on the hardware. This presents harder challenges for government thugs blowing taxpayer funds to hack you for illegal surveillance.
Reason 5.
Oracle is slow on responding to security vulnerabilities
Very rarely will a software developer actively criticize upstream platforms it creates on. But Oracle is so slow to respond to critical vulnerabilities that even Whonix calls them out. Quote, “This historical 0-day vulnerability, reported privately to Oracle in 2008 by an independent security researcher. Over four years later, the vulnerability remained unfixed, exhibiting Oracle has a history of failing to provide timely patches to customers so they can protect themselves.” [1]
<end>
Please help me spread the knowledge. It’s being suppressed. Sources:
https://simplifiedprivacy.com/oracle/
The NSA made SELinux.. can you trust it?
You might be using this right now without even realizing it? Is that ok?
There’s this fancy word called “Mandatory Access Control” or MAC. Don’t be fooled by how big a word it is, it’s simple. It just decides what a file or program can access on the system with clearly defined rules and labels.
Think of the analogy of a nightclub. The bouncer at the front is like the firewall rules or you deciding to download it. But then once it’s inside the club, where can it go? Can it go into VIP? That badge you’d wear for VIP is like MAC, it’s labels that define what stuff can do or access.
There’s two main MACs, SELinux and AppArmor. SELinux is stronger security, but it’s made by the NSA. AppArmor is less strong, but easier to use.
What has SELinux by default?
All Android phones
Fedora
ParrotOS
What has AppArmor?
Whonix
Tails
Ok so the NSA made SELinux, and it scores higher on security audits and has more fine-grained control. But can you trust it? I’ll present some pros & cons, but keep in mind that this article is heavily biased against authority and not neutral.
Pro: It’s open source and been reviewed by many
Con: Most vocal anti-government groups aren’t well-funded. I question how many independent non-American influenced audits it’s had. You’d need massive expertise and money to do this. Do Russian hackers trust it? Doubt it.
The NSA backdoored into OpenSSL, which had MANY people review it. [3] This proves both that its possible to deceive rigorous inspection in the real world, and the NSA has a history of doing so.
It’s also been proven in academic study that malicious code can be inserted even into inspected open source. The contest nicknamed “The Underhanded C Contest” from Binghamton University had contestants purposefully create malicious code to pass open source inspection. Some entries were able to not only pass even strict scrutiny and win, but did so with very low amounts of characters maliciously used. [4] And these are academic students, so if they can do it, then so can the NSA.
Pro: I question the skill of the researchers doing the Underhanded C audits compared to SELinux or the Kernel. In fact, it’s in the Linux kernel already. So you can’t hide anyway
Con: Support for it is not the same as actively using it with it enabled. That’s like saying owning a gun is the same as shooting your balls off
_______________________________________
Pro: The only guy I trust, Edward Snowden, promotes GrapheneOS all the time, and that’s SELinux. You’d think he’d mention if he knew the NSA had a backdoor into ALL android phones, and SELinux was made before his leaks.
Con: Security expert Bruce Schneier has pointed out the NSA has put backdoors in encryption standards in the past [1], and when he posted about the NSA making SELinux on his own website, he didn’t comment [2]. Which I interpret in my personal subjective analysis that he doesn’t trust it, suspects a backdoor, but can’t prove it.
_______________________________________
Pro: AppArmor starts up slower than SELinux. So Fedora by default is faster than Ubuntu/Debian.
Con: True, that’s valid. But keep in mind SELinux is complex, so you’re wasting hours/days learning something to save a second?
_______________________________________
Pro: SELinux restricts access by default, which is far more secure than AppArmor’s default permissiveness. Furthermore, SELinux gives much more fine-grained control, by allowing you to label files, which is based on their true purpose. While as AppArmor bases it on the file path, which is a weaker way to do it.
Con:, True. But SELinux is more complex and requires newer users to debug errors. So it’s only more secure if you actually know what you’re doing. Otherwise, you may be allowing malicious software higher access than it needs, just to get rid of confusing errors.
Pro: That’s a good point, but AppArmor doesn’t even have the ability to do complex setups for large organizations with critical needs.
Con: If SELinux is so complex, how can we trust these open source audits?
_______________________________________
Conclusion
In conclusion, many academic and corporate researchers praise SELinux over AppArmor for security, and it’s easy to see why large organizations use it. However, for a lone wolf individual with an extreme distrust of the NSA, it’s easy to see why they wouldn’t, even if it’s open source. And if you are bugging out bro, consider subscribing on Session messenger with the Session ID: Simple.
Sources: https://simplifiedprivacy.com/selinux/
Yeah interestingly maidains (or however you say his name), one of the devs behind Whonix wanted it to be SELinux, but they did the Debian AppArmor. But yeah Qubes has the fedora, good point
Simplified Privacy’s Shadow Rebel appeared on the Monero Talk podcast, to discuss the new Session bot software we've been creating. This would allow for the uncensored distribution of content, even under the harshest conditions such as an outright Monero ban.
See the instance setup yourself, by sending a message on Session to the ID: “MoneroTalk”
One word, without quotes. You can download session at getsession.org
It’s a very long podcast, but he starts at 1 hour 17 minutes in,
https://www.monerotalk.live/digital-privacy-w-simplified-privacy-monero-price-report-news-more-epi-152
Why is Google bad for your business?
Does your company mandate Google docs, email, or meet? Well, everyone knows Google docs are free, and so any random clown can access them. Because of the complete lack of any type of exclusivity or advanced knowledge, we present compelling arguments that to use them in a corporate setting, not only gives the appearance of poverty and laziness, but encourages decreased revenue and team building.
With online companies, their e-commerce websites are not their only “store front”, but also the websites their customers interact with. We can think of this with analogy of a brand’s “hotel lobby”. When you send a client a Google doc, you’re turning what could be a beautiful luxury hotel lobby into a homeless bus shelter. When you have a client paying for your expertise, you want to create the impression that they need you. You don’t want them to think “I can do Google docs on my own, maybe I can do all of this work on my own.” Even if you pay for Google Suite, now your employees or customers don’t respect you for paying for free docs.
Numerous business experts have studied these issues and reached similar conclusions regarding Gmail. YFS Magazine in their article “3 Reasons Why @Gmail.com For Business Is A Bad Idea” discusses how using Gmail makes your company look unprofessional and lack branding. [1] A different magazine TechnologyHQ repeats similar messages that using Gmail not only makes your brand unprofessional, but you also lose credibility. [2]
Not only does Google docs make your firm lose branding and look poor, but because Google sells all data on their platforms, it encourages employees to share as little as possible with each other. In our previous work, we discussed how Google doesn’t just sell ad space, but manipulatively sells user data directly through the use of a cookie. [3] We cited research from Dr Johnny Ryan, Chief Policy & Industry Relations Officer at Brave [4b], as well as documentation from Bhagyashree of PacktPub discussing Google violation of the European Union’s GDPR [4c]. Even usually “pro-marketing” publications such as AdExchanger, admit to Google’s corruption and rot of basic EU privacy law through cookies. [4d]
So if Google’s business model is to maliciously broadcast and sell as much data as possible, then basic logic would dictate that employees would be motivated to share as LITTLE as possible about themselves with any co-workers. And this is why using Google’s products pisses away your revenue. Research from TeamStage, demonstrates teams that communicate more, produce more revenue. [5] Their statistics show that twice the revenue can be generated by teams that are fully engaged and communicate about their personal lives. [5] But how can teams build this trust if the medium with which they communicate is malicious and insecure? [3]
Some might argue that most people are not aware of the malicious and illegal data sales of Google. However, this view assumes that you will be hiring only ignorant employees. Only the least technically savvy users, who give your company the most exposure to security vulnerabilities due to lack of internet knowledge, will not mind their data being sold.
And speaking of security, through Google’s corrupt and illegal sale of all data, the use of their products encourages phising attacks on your employees who have become identified to everyone and their mother. Having your employees’ mobile phone numbers sold by Google is much higher risk, when compared to the use of Element/Matrix, which would instead keep employee encryption credentials locally on employees’ hard-drives. End-to-end encrypted group chats encourages the use of audio confirmation to trust unknown encryption keys, all while incurring minimal expense to your organization.
(knock-out punch)
In conclusion, ignorant business owners will dismiss these claims saying “people don’t care”. This view simply dismisses the statistically proven power of branding or team building’s effects on revenue. It’s definitely true that SOME people don’t care, and so it encourages your firm to only hire less technically savvy users, which can expose your firm to lose money on security vulnerabilities.
So if you want to reduce invasive involuntary tech in your workplace, please consider sharing this.
Relentless. Determined. I fight for you. Sources: http://simplifiedprivacy.com/googledocs
Thinking of hosting a website?
You got 4 main options:
1) Shared hosting plans
2) Rent a VPS
3) Rent a dedicated server
4) Host it in your home
Shared hosting plans:
This option is the cheapest, but you got a few problems. First, the host usually will use Cloudflare to save money. That's how they give such low rates, because they don't even really host it. They just have a tiny 1 core CPU that's not even fully allocated to you, telling Cloudflare what the files are. Cloudflare will be happy to censor you at government request.
Second, its not using open source software. You usually get cPanel, which is a company collecting your use-data. Maybe you say you don't care, but your customers should. This lack of open source also means shared hosting plans usually are not setup for email privacy.
Rent a VPS:
This is the best option in my opinion. Although it's not perfect, don't let perfection scare you. The main issue is you're sharing hardware with other random customers, which has security issues for tinfoil hat level privacy. Ultimately the cost of a dedicated server isn't worth it for most.
The other issue you MAY run into is if your host really doesn't allocate any resources to you, and they share all of them even if you paid for allocated. I nickname these "slut VPS"
Dedicated:
High cost, with the most security & privacy. You can get cheaper plans though with less resources. By the way, SimplifiedPrivacy.com is on a dedicated in Malaysia, with an Iceland DNS host.
Hosting in your home:
Due to the corrupt centralization of the internet, residential ISPs will bandwidth cap. Depending on your country and provider, they likely won't even let you buy unlimited because they want to force the use of data centers. They are looking to control the internet, and also to prevent their IP addresses from being commercially restricted due to controversial use. But you can host Tor Onions without much issue beyond speed.
Conclusion
In conclusion, I recommend a VPS for most people. Tinfoil hat privacy people go for dedicated, like me.
And normies go for shared and are bitch slaves to cPanel & Cloudflare's empire. But..
If you want us to design your site and have an easy and private experience, we’re here for you. A team of friendly cybersecurity and graphic designers at your disposal. Just 1 DM away
6 Wicked Ways to Use Tor...
Whonix
This is 2 virtual machines. The 2nd one keeps Tor external, so even if malware breaks out, you're still safe.
Each program gets it's own circuit, which means a different 3 hop path.
Tails
Disposable USB stick. Plus you can run this without an admin (sudo) password existing, meaning nobody can install anything. How can hackers get sudo, when there is no sudo?!
ParrotOS
While there aren't different circuits for each program like Whonix or Tails, Parrot lets you change Tor exit IPs quickly via the GUI for the whole system. This is useful for beginners (that like the GUI) and want new identities from the same domain/program, for example multiple emails, multiple XMPP accounts, ect.
KaliTorify
This is a Command line tool. Exactly like Parrot, it routes the entire system through Tor like a VPN. Both Parrot and KaliTorify use IPtables, which is just a firewall program. KaliTorify is convenient and fast, but it’s easy to accidentally forget to put it on and doxx yourself.
OpenWRT
This is router software that can do Tor. It's useful for when you want to hide Tor use on your phone, because the app bans or restricts Tor. So Tor router -> VPN phone. For example making a burner Telegram or WhatsApp account with the crypto-VoIP numbers, like I showed you how before.
Orbot or InviZiblePro
This is Tor for cellphones. Be careful with this, because it's NOT giving you new circuits for each app like Whonix or Tails. So let's say you got Telegram with your real KYC number and an anonymous Signal burner. That Tor exit node is seeing you pull from Signal and Telegram at the same time, and if that's a malicious government node, you're not as "anonymous" as you think.
Solutions:
Either toggle different mobile profiles, never use KYC numbers, or use a firewall app. Graphene has one under each app's settings, or Calyx has an awesome system-wide one.
Conclusion
Do you want help setting any of this up? Advice on opsec or what to avoid? Don't get burned with random idiots giving you bad advice, and save yourself headache and time. At $30/hr, it's so low you'd probably lose more trying to debug it on your own. We're just a DM away.
6 Fast & Hard-Hitting Reasons Fiat Money is Corrupt…
Reason 1.
USA murders anyone not selling oil in USD
~
Hillary Clinton’s leaked emails from Wikileaks show that the true motivation to intervene in Libya was Gaddafi switching from selling oil in USD to gold. [1]
Most anti-government media speculates that the true motivation for the invasion of Iraq, was right before Saddam Hussein moved to switch from selling oil in USD to euros. [2]
Reason 2.
Central Banks fund and enable war
~
As the book Creature on Jekyll Island goes over in painstaking detail, printing money to buy government bonds, to fund war is what enabled history’s bloodiest battles. “Without the existence of fiat currency, most wars of the past 200 years would have been petty skirmishes rather than full-blown bloodbaths.” [3b] The US Federal Reserve was created right before World War 1. But this book goes back through the European wars since the early 1800s to emphasize that it was central bank credit that enabled it. [3a]
Reason 3.
IMF & World Bank enslave poor countries through perpetual debt
~
It’s labeled “charity”, but how come the cash flows as negative to the third world? Because they keep adding interest that can never be paid in full. [4] Even after Saddam Hussein died, the Iraqi taxpayers have to keep paying his debt. [2] Even after African dictators leave office and are declared to be genocidal, their debt to multinational banks remain. [4]
Reason 4.
American Bankers avoid paying FDIC insurance by transferring their assets offshore.
~
Even if the “offshore center” is physically located in the domestic US. [5a] Then despite not paying insurance because it’s “offshore”, they get bailed out by the Federal Reserve, though what’s called eurodollar liquidity injections. [5bc]
Reason 5.
The Banks control the politicians, not vica versa.
~
Wikileaks shows Citibank’s CEO emailed Barrack Obama’s campaign manager with who his entire cabinet picks would be. [6a] Then after, Timothy Geithner bailed out Citibank as head of the Treasury. [5c]
Reason 6.
Citibank funded both sides of the Congo Wars.
~
They loaned money legally through the World Bank & IMF to the official government. Then they illegally funded the rebels on the other side, according to a UN report studying the financial flows. [7]
Millions died in those Congo wars. Owning a Citibank account is more racist than anything any conservative ever said. Voting for Obama and Biden did nothing for racial inequality, the end of this article links you to the Wikileaks footnotes of them taking orders from genocidal monsters.
You rotten murders.
You fucking thugs.
Don’t you see? Their only power is in our minds. The numbers on a screen that the central bank types.
It pains me to say this, but I lost my 20s mate. I spent a decade of my life buried in the economic and foreign policy books. But as the months turn to years, and despite my failures thus far, I am still an optimist. I believe it’s possible for change. And no obstacle can shit talk me out of it.
But I can’t do it alone. And so today I ask, who will help me?
My call to action is to on-board one person in your life this week onto Bitcoin/Monero. Don’t copy paste a video. Don’t send a link. Sit and show them one wallet, in person.
Then comment on this thread with the result, and together we will learn.
Sources: https://simplifiedprivacy.com/fiat/
Interview Release!
Our interview with Mike Dilger, lead Dev of the Nostr Client Gossip
Simplified Privacy:
What makes Gossip unique? I believe you were telling me a few months ago about your method of fetching messages from servers, that has influenced other Nostr client developers to incorporate Gossip's model.
Mike:
The Gossip client started out with the goal of following people not relays. Since you can't control which relays other people use, it was immediately apparent to me, that gossip couldn't connect to a fixed set of relays. Instead, it had to discover what relays the followed people were posting to and fetch their events from those relays. Solving that problem meant to me, finding out not only what relays people use, but also how to connect to those relays judiciously. And that was the first big thing I did when coding gossip back in December 2022, before anybody was using it yet.
Since then, at the protocol level, NIP-65 defined a way for people to disclose which relays they use.
[Editor’s Note: Mike wrote NIP-65, so his client influenced the entire protocol]
Gossip still uses it's bag of tricks to collect that information, but NIP-65 events (such as those labeled “10002”) are the best tool in that bag now. The events labeled 10002 get the person's relay list, and a lot of other Nostr clients are now using this relay usage model. In fact, it’s even been called the "gossip model" or the "inbox/outbox model". This model solves what I call the "relay rendezvous" problem, which is basically just the question of how do you choose and use relays, such that messages from person A get to person B.
What differentiates this model from others is that it is fully decentralized, there is no need for relays to copy events between each other, and clients don't strictly need a proxy (although low-powered clients might benefit from one). It is also the most straightforward and natural solution to the relay rendezvous problem.
Gossip is unique for some other reasons too. We don't store the private key in raw form, we encrypt it under a passphrase and clear memory before it is released to wipe secrets like keys and passphrases.
Also, gossip is a desktop client whereas most other clients use web technology. So we don't suffer from security issues in the gigantic web stack unless they are very fundamental (like PNG decoder issues). And I think being written in the rust language makes it less buggy and more secure too.
Simplified Privacy:
What features can people be on the lookout for in the next versions?
Mike:
The following are already on master and will be released in version 0.10:
1. Autoselect which relays to advertise your relay list to
2. Load more at the bottom of feeds (time based, not count based, but we may switch that around)
3. Only accept notes from people you follow-on relays you didn't designate as "spam safe" (optional)
We are also hoping to get some of the following done:
1. Bookmarks (pin events for yourself)
2. Person-list encryption to use new nip-44 standard
3. Retry posting of events that failed to post to some relays when initially posted.
4. Alerts about pending actions (e.g.: you haven't advertised your relay list in a while, or this post didn't to all relays maybe try again, or your follow list has changed, and you should consider pushing the updated list)
5. Relay whitelisting for both connecting and authenticating (optional)
6. Giftwrap DM support complete (you can receive them now, but DMs are still generated using NIP-04)
7. Search at relay (current search is only in the local database)
8. NIP-46 connect in both directions
That list has gotten longer and it is too much for one release, so it won't be all of that.
Simplified Privacy:
Ah, great to hear a search at relay is coming. This is where you pick a group of relays to search for a particular user? Or to check the messages of a user on the relay for a particular phase?
Also, I’m glad you mentioned the giftwrapped DMs. On Gossip's DM tab, it warns users that Nostr DMs are not safe. What are the current flaws that people are vulnerable to?
Mike:
For search at relay, yes you will pick a relay probably from a dropdown or something like that. It will use the search filter field defined in NIP-50 which searches content. We will display whatever events come back in a list.
Current DMs using NIP-04 have a couple of weaknesses. We don't know how to crack it, but there might be an attack that gets at the shared key from the two public keys and a lot of ciphertext, or with a plaintext-ciphertext oracle. The algorithm also exposes the length of the message, and DM metadata is available for everybody to see. You and I are using this right now, and while the world cannot see our messages, they can see that we are talking, when each message was sent, and how long each message was.
The new NIP-44 uses an algorithm that has just been audited for security that includes things like obfuscating the exact message length without being wasteful. The new giftwrap DM scheme uses NIP-44 for encryption, and it also hides metadata about who sent the message, it hides precisely when the message was sent it, and it maintains deniability (your communication partner can blab to the world, but what they blab would not be signed by you). So all the world would see is that you got a DM at some time in the last week of some approximate length, but they don't know who sent it.
Now the relay you sent it through can harvest a bit more metadata than that. If the relay AUTHs you, it knows you are the sender and it can correlate this fact with the event which shows the recipient. Even if it doesn't AUTH you it probably knows your IP address. But since the relay you will use is the DM relay of the recipient, and since you must be trusting the recipient with the message anyways, trusting their DM relay isn't too much of a further step. Nonetheless, people should be aware of this and if they need even better privacy other solutions will have to be invented like mixnets.
Simplified Privacy:
Gotcha, yeah Session is similar to what you just described, where it’s onion routed to the recipient's relay. Obviously Nostr evolves quickly, and none of us really know how it will influence society. Or what form it will take. But big picture, where do you see Gossip going in the future? In the sense that, do you think Nostr will remain primarily a decentralized Twitter or go beyond that?
Mike:
I don't have big plans for gossip breaking into new ideas. I just want it to keep up and be rock solid. There are more features I want to get around to eventually beyond the 0.10 milestone ones that already have NIPs defined and are in use by other clients. But I don't expect an ever growing technology. I hope it settles down and stays relatively simple.
As for Nostr I feel the same way. I don't want it to become gigantic like the web stack. I don't think everything has to be built on top of Nostr. I was even against DMs being built on top of Nostr, but I'm okay with it now. This search for the next big thing on top of Nostr is understandable among an entrepreneurial crowd, but I don't think there will be very many winners. But don't let me be a wet blanket on exploring new ideas - right now we are in that phase were we need to explore ideas. I'm just saying that I hope Nostr doesn't become thousands of things that every client has to implement. There will be new things that fit very well into what Nostr is that couldn't be done so easily before hand. But most of the proposals on the NIP repository are things gossip will never implement. Some of them are great ideas but don't really benefit from being on top of Nostr and should probably be done independently of Nostr.
I think some of the best things to be built on top of Nostr will come much later. We can't easily predict what they will be. But there is no rush.
I wish people would instead think more about solving the problems that have no good solutions, like key management or replaceable events getting clobbered. Or even onboarding experiences. Or just making clients more robust.
Simplified Privacy:
Fair enough. I wanted to ask you about a current feature of Gossip, which is the Proof of Work. So if I submit a message, it adds by default 22 bits of PoW. Is this like Bitcoin’s PoW, to prevent spam? Like showing the relays you’re serious?
Mike:
Yeah exactly. It takes effort to generate a message with PoW. A spammer can't generate them nearly as fast as events without PoW, so relays don't get flooded with spam that they need to classify as quickly. I don't know if relays take PoW into consideration, or how many do, or under what circumstances. I think it could be used more. Some of the reasons for PoW are now handled with AUTH. If the relay trusts you, it doesn't need you to do work to prove anything.
But at least one remaining case can't be AUTHed, and that is giftwrap. Giftwraps are authored by an ephemeral keypair that was never seen before and will never be seen since. So PoW makes sense in that case.
Funny thing, long ago when I implemented PoW it was because somebody posted "Relays are going to start requiring proof of work" and I took it seriously, but the poster was just making a bold prediction. I thought "oh shit, this is imminent, I'd better implement this so I can stay on Nostr."
Simplified Privacy:
That’s a great point on PoW DMs, Gossip is positioned to be in a good place to handle that issue.
Will cellphones be unable to do the PoW? I don’t imagine many users looking to wait 40 seconds to send a text.
Mike:
Yes, cellphones will be at a disadvantage when it comes to PoW. But this is only for giftwrap DMs. The PoW doesn't have to be super high.
If there is a better solution everybody is listening. I've heard other solutions but not better solutions. Client proxies may have a role to play.
Simplified Privacy:
So making an open source client is a massive time commitment on your part. What motivates you to make this?
Mike:
I see civil society falling apart because a generation of people failed to recognize the value of conversation, argumentation, discourse, and the freedom to speak about and defend any position, offensive or not. I see good ideas being silenced and then institutions making very bad decisions because they didn't hear the good idea enough for it to sink in and change their view. So I have felt that the fate of Western society if not the whole world was in our hands. It seems to me the West is an empire in decline, and I want to preserve at least part of what was good about it. Never in my life has something so important fallen into my lap, and I feel responsible to the future of humanity to get this right.
I recognized that twitter as a company can never be a free speech platform. It was obvious we were going to have to fix this problem from the ground up. And when I found fiatjaf's idea that came at the problem from the right angle I had to go with it.
So I was very motivated in late 2022, I programmed faster than I ever had.
But now Nostr basically works. Sure there is a lot to be improved, but the primary problem is solved. We did it. We won. The most important part of this has been achieved. Now the flame of online free speech can not be extinguished. Even if the remaining problems remain forever, the main thing that motivated me has been achieved.
So my motivation now comes from annoyances. Something bugs me and I want to fix it. Or someone bugs me about something and I want to fix it for them. Or something seems challenging and I enjoy challenges. And I'm also motivated by a paycheck from OpenSats - I have a grant from them. I don't want to let them down.
Simplified Privacy:
That’s inspiring. Myself and the rest of the team are grateful for your efforts, it enables us to reach all these people and improve their lives. Let’s wrap this up, do you have any final points you’d like to get across to potential Gossip users or regular current ones?
Mike:
Sure. There are lots of clients. Gossip isn't for everyone. But if you are mostly concerned with privacy and security, and you have a desktop to run it on, I think gossip is a good choice.
Also, any rust programmers out there that want to help out are welcome. As long as you don't write huge PRs that are too hard for me to understand, I'll merge in any good work. And if you get three or more commits of any significance you can then add yourself to the authors and I'll merge that too. This is and always will be open source, and that means gossip is everybody's project.
And I should probably throw a shout out to Daniele Tonon and Bu5hm4nn who have put in significant work on the user interface and user experience. Without them I'd be bogged down in stuff I'm not good at and gossip would still be ugly.
Get Gossip:
https://github.com/mikedilger/gossip
Mike's Npub:
@Mike Dilger
Tomorrow we’ll be releasing our written-form interview with the Nostr Client Gossip’s Lead Dev Mike Dilger, to talk about Nostr security, private DMs, free speech, and what features and changes to lookout for
Considering ALL cellphones are vulnerable to baseband modem attacks, where tyrannical government thugs rip your Nostr private key and ruin your hardwork
Considering all the web browser clients I’ve seen require vulnerable JavaScript and invasive Big Tech,
Then if you genuinely care about Nostr security and privacy on desktop, you don’t want to miss this interview with one of the most brilliant and humble minds in the ecosystem. Stay tuned
Yes, they refused to tell me what third party vendor is smearing us. They want to act like it's some big secret that they use a third party which is a dumb bot just banning entire IP ranges
God damn you're serious, I thought this was a joke. Oh man. I'm so sorry. I hope you did more than just our one server only. For that you should be using dev servers
We’re issuing an official redaction of our criticism on Cloudflare running malicious Tor exits, when they are in fact running advanced data analysis Tor onions that don’t show up in the URL bar. Quote “Human Tor users and bots can be distinguished by our Onion services, such that interactive challenges are only served to malicious bot traffic.” Our new article goes over how the error happened and sets the record straight with an open source investigation into Tor exit decentralization for community benefit:
https://simplifiedprivacy.com/cftor/
Yeah that was my thoughts exactly. If they EXIT tor, then they’re subject to some kind of random thing related to the exit → website. But if they stay inside Tor, somehow they can push traffic through. The speedtest.net sometimes shows cloudflare, other times “CIA Triad LLC” which I’m guessing is their third party security contractor trying to do this analysis.
If you can prove something in a demo, I can pay for solid evidence of the technicals. We can’t get their real data, but we can re-create it.
Yeah I agree with you. But their argument is that the more private you are, the less info they can get to see you're unique. It's unique visitors that enable them to stop DDoS
They clearly put your freedom 2nd
They wish to digitally cage us
DNS
Domain names are not owned, it's just an entry in the pseudo-government database
It's the government's opinion. I will not comply, I'm using Session, Nostr, Tor Onions, & IPFS
Fiat Money
Bank Fiat is not owned, it's just an entry in the pseudo-government database
It's the government's opinion of my wealth. I only accept cryptocurrency
Shove those bank notes where the sun don't shine.
SMS
Phone numbers are not owned, it's just an entry in the pseudo-government database.
Completely unencrypted and location dependent. What is even the purpose of phone numbers other than control? I will not comply, I'm using XMPP, SimpleX, Session, & even Signal
Email
You need an email to register a domain name, to then self-host email.
But if free email is vulnerable to make me want to self-host to begin with, then they can abuse the free email to pretend to the cloud company it's me, and then use that to get in to the self-host server. Wtf is this chicken-egg attempt to backdoor in?
Files
People used to their own computer files. Now they are bitch slaves to Google docs, streaming services, and cloud companies that gatekeeper everything you make, watch, and do. I will not comply, I own the files to my work. Sync-thing, NextCloud, CryptPad, & others.
Computers
Google's Chromebook is an open power-grab to deprive children of digital autonomy and create a system of dependence. By lacking the means to do tasks on their own hardware, Google has gotten government schools to indoctrinate your kids by getting them hooked on the pseudo-government cloud.
I stand here today to tell you that you do not have to obey.
I stand here today to tell you that you have more power then you realize.
I am nothing special. A humble peasant in the vast universe.
But I have learned the basics, and you can too.
Join the rebellion. DM the bot, Session ID: Simple
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