Oddbean new post about | logout

Notes by Jameson Lopp | export

 Wow, Apple lost a customer for life today.

My laptop screen broke for no apparent reason yesterd... 
 System76 FTW 
 I've been a smartphone user for 15 years and never damaged a screen. Big fan of Spigen Tough Armor! 
 Pretty annoying to get a perfect sleep score on my Eight Sleep but a poor score on Oura because it thought the couple hours I spent on the couch watching a movie was me attempting to sleep. 
 Seems like it. At the very least I know it has stopped me from sweating while sleeping. 
 Yep, makes it hard to get long uninterrupted stretches of REM and deep sleep. Also it's gross to wake up in a cold soggy mess. 
 Still doing omad since this post. Reduced from 9oz steak to 6oz and now i’m down from 215lbs to... 
 Are you measuring your muscle and fat mass accurately? My main concern would be muscle loss. 
 There are numerous clues to Satoshi's identity that are unpublished and closely held secrets by those who have stumbled across them.

Even those of us who have researched Satoshi deeply dare not share them with each other lest they be leaked.

nostr:nevent1qqsxm2uhw670w5t6pxsuj6z3tmswvgsuy23u8s06j026wyr0ff5zcxgpz4mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduhsygx5u90t0ydc8hfdzl40979nudsxaduqvfr448szs8trhflwv4adqypsgqqqqqqswtxrfn 
 Correct  
 Kudos to nostr:npub17u5dneh8qjp43ecfxr6u5e9sjamsmxyuekrg2nlxrrk6nj9rsyrqywt4tp, Bitcoin’s offic... 
 There are numerous clues to Satoshi's identity that are unpublished and closely held secrets by those who have stumbled across them.

Even those of us who have researched Satoshi deeply dare not share them with each other lest they be leaked.

nostr:nevent1qqsxm2uhw670w5t6pxsuj6z3tmswvgsuy23u8s06j026wyr0ff5zcxgpz4mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduhsygx5u90t0ydc8hfdzl40979nudsxaduqvfr448szs8trhflwv4adqypsgqqqqqqswtxrfn 
 If you've got to get up early for a commitment and don't want to get stuck somewhere away from home base with a restroom emergency, coffee + nicotine is a hack to get the bowels moving ASAP! 
 Thoughts on Trezor Safe 5 and Ledger Flex:

I like the UX improvements on both devices.

Nice improvements to Trezor's security model with Safe 3 and Safe 5. The addition of a secure element mitigates the old physical seed extraction vulnerability. Also, the chip in the Safe 5 mitigates glitching attacks and has additional anti-tamper features.

Safe 5 screen is slick and touchscreen + haptic feedback work exactly as I'd expect.

Ledger flex e-ink screen is also nice and I really hope the longevity of it is better than what we saw on Nano S devices with many experiencing screen failure after a few years.

On the complex bitcoin transaction signing performance side, Safe 5 is the fastest Trezor yet and is only exceeded by BitBox02.

Ledger, on the other hand, is looking to have worse signing performance than the Nano S Plus. SAD!

Props to both Ledger and Trezor for shipping new hardware that is compatible with existing APIs and SDKs. As a result, these devices were automatically usable with Casa's software! 
 Literally the amount of time that you end up staring at the device while it's signing complex transactions.
https://blog.casa.io/bitcoin-multisig-hardware-signing-performance-2024/ 
 Sometimes I can't believe that I get paid to nerd out all day. 🤓

NEXT! https://image.nostr.build/cdeab8c894be309d4c0ba8781454737ea8ca0f6afc549ff591a2de19a57c4451.jpg 
 MFW I ask someone for their bitcoin address and they send me a P2PKH address. 😑 
 "This is going to be very funny when you put this into the documentary and a bunch of bitcoiners watch it."

- nostr:nprofile1qqsve2jcud7fnjzmchn4gq52wx9agey9uhfukv69dy0v4wpuw4w53nqpzdmhxue69uhhwmm59e6hg7r09ehkuef0yh8czy 
 At this point I'm just assuming anyone talking about the identity of Satoshi is trying to manipulate the polymarket odds. 
 For those in the #Bitcoin space that are a known person or maybe even just have your faces online... 
 I recommend buying the latest edition of Extreme Privacy. You can also check out some of my writing on the subject:

https://blog.lopp.net/modest-privacy-protection-proposal/

https://blog.casa.io/a-home-defense-primer/

https://blog.lopp.net/firearms-for-home-defense/ 
 I've tried pretty much every form of milk over the years for my protein smoothies and eventually settled on Silk Cashew milk for the following reasons:

1. 0 cholesterol
2. 0 sugar
3. 0 carbs
4. No seed oils (many plant based milks have them)
5. No lecithin emulsifiers (also common in plant based milks) 
 Some of them are OK, but IIRC many include emulsifiers. 
 Ever fuck up your coffee because you haven't had your coffee yet?

This morning while operating in the dark on autopilot I out the coffee mug in the machine... upside down. What a mess. 
 The solution to this is drinking your coffee black. 
 In the coming months I expect to make a lot of people upset by discussing controversial changes to the Bitcoin protocol. 

Mind you, I will be bringing these issues up because I believe that it's more important to address them while there's no current crisis than it is to avoid triggering the ossifiers. 
 What I believe absolutely matters with regard to what I decide to say in public.

What we collectively believe is what matters with regard to the evolution of Bitcoin. 
 This has to be the most beautiful venue I've ever seen a Bitcoin conference held in. It's the historic stock exchange in Antwerp, Belgium.

https://image.nostr.build/9a1327a242c3c0adfe25a8dd1e7b655126169c48b3c4bdd55915ee7b15de50d7.jpg 
 People who say “don’t use phones for your main Bitcoin savings” never make sense to me.

1/... 
 Generally agree, though I think folks are being far too optimistic about the practicality of decoy / duress wallets.

I wrote up my thoughts recently: https://blog.casa.io/can-duress-wallets-stop-bitcoin-attacks/ 
 Exactly - we don't have much data on this defensive measure and you can't predict how an attacker will react to being given a decoy wallet. I'm not a big fan of speculative security measures. 🤷🏻‍♂️ 
 I'm doing 4 different talks today at Future of Bitcoin in Antwerp: a new personal record! 
 Why does Trump need a fake tan?

Shouldn't someone who golfs as much as him have no trouble acquiring a natural tan? 
 Extended travel is a PITA but I got to meet 0xb10c in meatspace so I've got that going for me. 
 Something I posted on Twitter but I would be interested in perspectives here. I am not trying to ... 
 It's the Social Welfare State, bruh.

Not 100% pure socialism, but certainly somewhat socialist. 
 In the 1990s I used to write the HTML for my web site by hand.

I still do, because I've yet to find a WYSIWYG editor that doesn't produce bloated code. 
 Without government thugs, who would stop volunteer first responders from reaching disaster victims? 
 I'm old enough to remember when the global population was growing too quickly and there was going to be massive resource exhaustion and starvation. 
 I turned on internal tor routing for everything except video streaming in Amethyst and can't say I even notice any performance degradation! 🤯 
 Cybercriminals who hit a jackpot payday tend to fall victim to the same issue that befalls lottery winners and professional athletes.

Nobody seems to understand just how easy it is to blow a hundred million dollars. 
 gm uptober 
 Trump's social media intern found the bold font on X and I kinda wish they'd just go back to all caps. 
 Many Monero bros are super salty, I guess they are not having fun staying poor 🐸 
 I met a Bitcoin Cash bro last weekend who admitted to being super salty due to the financial devastation. 
 German culture instills a strong sense of following the rules in its citizens. I wonder if that's one of the reasons why so many Germans are Bitcoiners... 
 Eastern TN, Western NC, upstate SC are rekt. Hundreds of roads in Western NC simply no longer exist. 

The state and federal response has been ongoing, with over 1,000 personnel, including National Guard assets, deployed according to FEMA. A disaster declaration for NC has been made but crews cannot traverse over collapsed bridges and 100+ foot ravines. 

Main interstates I-40 and I-26 have collapsed sections. Numerous state roads have washed away. 

Many secondary roads into neighborhoods are effectively eviscerated for miles. Survivors can't get out, help can't get in.

It's hard to get into Asheville. A 30 minute drive take 8-12 hours with many roads not existing, the remaining gas stations swamped. To get into smaller towns in the mountains is a day's journey if possible at all. National Guard trucks with food and water have to stop at collapses.

Similar to Hurricane Katrina, where boats and helicopters were the only viable means of aid delivery in the first days, air support is currently the most effective way to connect Western NC to the outside world. There are a limited amount of helicopters operating. Although the water has receded, the roads are still impassable.

This is still very much an active search and rescue mission. There is a high number of missing (in the thousands per state media) because people can't get in touch with loved ones. We saw this after Hurricane Ian as well, and expect that number will drop significantly when phone service/internet returns. For death toll and recovery, the final number will likely not be known for at least a month. 

The lack of media presence on the ground isn't for lack of trying - reporters can't get into many areas for the same reason rescue can't. Even if they could, communication systems are destroyed / offline. 

This is not going to be a quick recovery for anyone. Some rural parts of Western NC may never be rebuilt. 
 Just because a cryptographic protocol is secure doesn't mean a given implementation of it is secure.

Just because an implementation of a cryptographic protocol is secure doesn't mean the way its users use it is secure. 
 "Strong encryption has mixed effects.

PGP is in the Al Qaeda training manual. I wish that wasn't the case, but it's the price we must pay."

- Phil Zimmermann 
 "Encryption alone is not enough to ensure freedom. We must organize politically against autocrats.

End to end encryption allows us to safely do just that."

- Phil Zimmermann 
 As an introvert I don't look forward to socializing and networking at conferences, but this weekend resulted in me establishing direct comms with Phil Zimmermann so I've got that going for me. 
 Used the opportunity of being in a large city to get a DEXA scan done today.

I’m a sucker for ... 
 Yes it does. 
 Cryptography is not politically neutral technology. 
 It's anti-authoritarian. 
 My face when the weights at the hotel gym only go up to 10 kg: 😑 
 If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude more than the animating contest of freedom, go from us in peace. 

We ask not your counsels nor your arms. 

Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. 

May your chains rest lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.

- Samuel Adams 
 In Frankfurt for four days, speaking at Proof of Work Summit about my research into potential shady mining pool activity.

Next weekend I'll be in Antwerp to speak at Future of Bitcoin with a spicy controversial consensus topic! 
 My conference appearances are public information and already disseminated on web sites, newsletters, and social media. 
 Nope 
 Father: "Son, what do you want to be when you grow up?"

Son: "I'm gonna be a criminal!"

Father: "Private sector or public sector?" 
 Building muscle while trying to stay lean might be one of the hardest things to do in modern time... 
 Modern problems call for modern solutions: peptides! 
 Coming in a couple months. 
 I am not diabetic nor do I have any out-of-normal blood chemistry (no high cholesterol, etc.), an... 
 Tracking my metrics was the one thing that finally got me to stop drinking alcohol. 
 "Why don't we construct Wonders of the World any more?"

Don't be ridiculous; open your eyes!
https://image.nostr.build/020ca61d4ef4125fc616976e5babd551ae169465dc7f1d8313da6587a51f353b.jpg 
 I wonder if my bank files suspicious activity reports when I make large wire transfers to the IRS 🙄 
 Indeed, I prefer to stay outside of prison. 
 Are you going to protect me from the terrorists who are threatening me with violence if I don't fund them? 
 Nostr not having a unified content curation algorithm is a feature.
https://image.nostr.build/01e242f73230f82f49ebdc7f84aca2481f72181bb1895fec1845390134b2d53a.jpg 
 Be thankful for naughty nostriches who spam the network!

Attacks will come one way or another. Best to incentivize hardening infrastructure earlier rather than later. 
 I haven't been spamming nostr but I totally would if I didn't have higher priority projects 🙃 
 New spam filter idea: block any note containing more than 2 emojis. 🖕🏻 
 Ignorant folks don't know that although I have built Bitcoin wallets since 2015, I've built altcoin wallets since 2017.

Shitcoiners need security too 😏
https://blog.lopp.net/the-challenges-of-building-ethereum-infrastructure/