There is a post on here where I went through that but I can't search my own posts on Amethyst.

Secure messengers depend on the device, if your device is not secure, your messages aren't either. Getting control of the device is getting control of the messaging app too. And doing the former is far easier and stealthier.

Messaging apps like Signal getting in on this requires a convoluted plan of the state and the developers to collude. Intelligence ops require the least people to know about it, and preferably no one in the general public. Changing the functionality of the app and server infrastructure to push it to everyone is too loud and risky for a state to perform. Hitting a target with a zero-click exploit to get access to the device and all the data is far easier and is stealthy. Nation states are certain to have exploitation capabilities for tons of computing platforms and apps, but it wouldn't be collusion since not even these software developers would even know they have it, they are state secrets.

Tucker (if he is actually telling the truth and isn't grifting) is a high profile person. He has a gigantic professional network and likely so would this Russian client he communicates with. It would be more realistic that intelligence targeting the Russian client or one of his network got out and revealed his plans. High profile individuals also get hit with spyware campaigns a la Pegasus all the time too. Any one of them can be a target.

Tucker isn't a digital security expert, he is a presenter. He isn't expected to understand what or what did not happen to him. It is possible it's not even a digital factor, someone in his social circle could have told off too.

We do have criticisms of Signal and we recommend hardened variations like Molly instead to our users. Signal is mentioned here because Telegram attacked them repeatedly despite performing far worse in security and privacy. We also trust them not to collude. The Signal app itself could have vulnerabilities exploited remotely just like any other messaging app, particularly in the media handling libraries or WebRTC. That's not a breach of Signal's encryption or a collusion. A secure hardware and operating system can significantly help to defend apps from remote exploits of vulnerabilities.


Telegram has full access to all of the content of group chats and regular one-to-one chats due to lack of end-to-end encryption. Their opt-in secret chats use homegrown end-to-end encryption with weaknesses. Deleting the content from the app likely won't remove all copies of it.

Telegram has heavily participated in misinformation campaigns targeting actual private messaging apps with always enabled, properly implemented end-to-end encryption such as Signal. Should stop getting any advice from anyone who told you to use Telegram as a private messenger.

Telegram is capable of handing over all messages in every group and regular one-to-one chat to authorities in France or any other country. A real private messaging app like Signal isn't capable of turning over your messages and media. Telegram/Discord aren't private platforms.

A major example of how Telegram's opt-in secret chat encryption has gone seriously wrong before: https://words.filippo.io/dispatches/telegram-ecdh/.

The practical near term threat is for the vast majority of chats without end-to-end encryption: 100% of Telegram group chats and the regular 1-to-1 chats.


Nostr, as always, proves itself to be indispensable.

Remember, countries understand companies - how to exploit them, how to make them bend to their will - very well.

They really struggle with networks. How can you block people from accessing a network with a million different clients? China came to the closest to trying, and Bitcoin and Nostr have never been stronger.

Whether it's companies like Telegram that don't play to the game, or companies like Google banning  nostr:npub1vzjukpr2vrxqg2m9q3a996gpzx8qktg82vnl9jlxp7a9yawnwxfsqnx9gc because they play religiously to it - companies are weak, frail entities with human figureheads.

Networks are the name of the anti-censorship game.


Is Bitwarden open source? Could it be formed to also work as a NIP-46 signer?

#asknostr


Telegram CEO Pavel Durov arrested in France…

If there is a throat to choke, it will be choked.

If there is a head to cut off, it will be cut off.

Platform owners that bend the knee to totalitarianism will censor and deplatform you.

Platform owners that do not comply will be arrested and threatened with the full force of “The Law.”

Nostr is a Hydra. You cannot kill Nostr. There is no single throat to choke, no one head to cut off. Succeed in cutting off one head and two will grow in its place.

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/telegram-messaging-app-ceo-pavel-durov-arrested-france-tf1-tv-says-2024-08-24/


Pavel Durov, founder of Telegram, has been arrested in France for failing to apply EU censorship standards.


IMO for easy to use distros Ubuntu has been surpassed by some of it's derivatives (Pop!, Mint). I daily drive Mint myself and it's extremely low maintenance.

Another tip, if you're going "hard mode" with Arch you can use EndeavourOS - It has a live CD with a GUI install, so it's way easier to set up, But then post-install it's essentially the same as another Arch installation.


Great fireside between  nostr:npub1qny3tkh0acurzla8x3zy4nhrjz5zd8l9sy9jys09umwng00manysew95gx and  nostr:npub1sg6plzptd64u62a878hep2kev88swjh3tw00gjsfl8f237lmu63q0uf63m at Nostriga. I got a chance to listen to it now.

Regarding the question of whether Nostr will have more users than Twitter/X in five years (~500 million), my base case would be no, actually. And I say that as a huge Nostr fan and daily user.

In the long arc of time, Nostr's addressable market is nearly unlimited (basically everyone who uses the internet could be using Nostr in some form), but I expect somewhat of a slower burn. Infrastructure build-out type stuff. And breaching a network effect with a better solution is generally quite a long uphill climb.

To me, Nostr is successful once it starts serving tens of millions of people well. I expect it to be more of a quality over quantity thing for a while. Bitcoin is almost 16 years in and still isn't at 500 million users. But for many of those people, it was lifechanging.

I'd like to be surprised to the upside, but I also don't want people to think that if Nostr is "only" at tens of millions of people in five years, or 100+ million but still sub-Twitter, that it underachieved. It's tiny right now, and numbers anywhere approaching that would be a huge increase.

Nostr is a great improvement for everyone using it. But sometimes it takes people time to see why a given solution is better than what they have, or to realize they have a problem at all.

So in the meantime I monitor Nostr's success by the quality and quantity of developer activity, the capability of the protocol as a freedom tool or the shortcomings it still has for that use case, the quality of the conversations throughout the ecosystem, how many people consider it to be lifechanging tech compared to centralized social media, and in time, steady growth.


In 1965, the minimum wage was $1.25, five silver quarters.

Today, just the melt value of five silver quarters is $27.

It's the same silver, just a different currency.

(I post this once in a while just to tick off the Fed fanboys.)

https://www.coinflation.com/silver_coin_values.html
https://m.primal.net/KKLQ.png


This week's Financial Freedom Report #37 features the following in global news:

- Venezuela | Approves Repressive NGO Law
- Russia | Sentences Woman to 12 Years in Prison for Donating to Ukraine Charity
- Bangladesh | Political Turmoil Threatens Citizens' Financial Freedom

In Bitcoin news:
- Boardwalk | Introduces Lightning eCash Tips
- BlueWallet | Implements BIP-47 Payment Codes
- Bankify | Turns Any Cashu Mint into a Lighting Wallet

Plus, a recommended piece on how Bitcoin is quietly disrupting today's outdated and entrenched power structures.

Read more here:

https://hrf.org/hrfs-weekly-financial-freedom-report-37


Nostr vibes 👏 https://image.nostr.build/ea8e7347f3f47ab49931b918c39e9bc65b74e5fad22266a96db1a9ecce8de686.jpg


Most devs are used to building things without users, i never expected this to blow up like it did. Few understand how rare this is and why we need to keep it going.


“Value your freedom or you will lose it, teaches history.” - Richard Stallman


Even sending zaps is so much fun. 🤙


A short story..

Why you acting like mainstream media, with this selective, misleading reporting @BitcoinMagazine ? https://image.nostr.build/bf8d1e1b85b90b42912a5bab23825f0190e181df230262ec3723404e2bcb37a9.jpg https://image.nostr.build/9a12bd8f94119174efba2939bf72151a19fc51140081c031f60b6b960756a6bf.jpg


What’s going on in the world of CBDCs?

Since July, I've made updates to 31 different regions in the  nostr:npub17xvf49kht23cddxgw92rvfktkd3vqvjgkgsdexh9847wl0927tqsrhc9as CBDC Tracker. Let's walk through some of the highlights.

https://m.primal.net/KHxJ.png

1. The Bahamas

Facing lackluster adoption rates, Central Bank of The Bahamas governor John Rolle said commercial banks would soon be forced to distribute the CBDC.

2. Colombia

The Banco de la República de Colombia published a report that found “there are not sufficient reasons for the issuance of [a CBDC] (retail or wholesale) in Colombia.”

3. India

CBDC usage fell from 1,000,000 transactions per day in December to just 100,000 transactions per day. Given that 1M was only reached through a big push from the central bank, it seems there has been a struggle to generate organic demand.

4. Israel

Despite pushing a pilot forward, Bank of Israel deputy governor Andrew Abir said, “We’re all waiting for the first western central bank to pull the trigger... And then you may see a rush of countries going forward with it.”

5. Peru

The Central Reserve Bank of Peru announced it had signed its first contract with the company Viettel Peru to begin work on a CBDC pilot.

Want to learn more about what’s going on in the world with the rise of CBDCs? Check out the fully interactive HRF CBDC Tracker below!

https://cbdctracker.hrf.org/home


https://m.primal.net/KHwG.jpg

I hesitated to add NWC to  nostr:npub1kvaln6tm0re4d99q9e4ma788wpvnw0jzkz595cljtfgwhldd75xsj9tkzv for so long, deeming it bad choice for mobile devices… until I could not hear 'wen nwc🧐?' anymore.

Now, in reckless mode, you can connect to Minibits from your favorite #nostr apps and make payments, even when the wallet is asleep😴.


I was just walking down the street, coffee in hand, suddenly realizing how "normal" it all is already. Like most days, I went to a coffee shop that accepts lightning. Like most days, I paid directly with sats that someone zapped me here on nostr. Like most days, neither the merchant nor myself thought twice about it, or took a minute to marvel at what just happened.

So, allow me to do just that. Marvel at what just happened. While everyone is having a fantastically crazy time at #nostriga, uncountable people are using bitcoin in a myriad of ways. Some for savings, large and small; some for transactions, large and small; some for other stuff. Bitcoin is slowly but surely entering the world stage. Some commentators will tell you that this is good. Some commentators will tell you that this is bad. Whatever the case may be, it is unavoidable.

I see nostr under a similar light. As platform-based manipulation and censorship ramps up—which it inevitably will—the usage of nostr will ramp up too, and with it the usage of zaps and everything else that comes with it. And soon enough, buying a coffee (or breakfast, lunch, and dinner) with zap-based income will be normal. Just like it's "normal" to be an "influencer" today, or a "YouTuber" or whatnot... It's not everyone's cup of tea, but it's a normal thing. Anyone can do it.

Back to my coffee. I remember when I had the "oh my god, I can live on bitcoin here!!!" experience for the first time. It was in Bitcoin Jungle, a couple of months after the initiative was launched. I stayed there for 2 weeks or so, buying the necessities of daily life with sats outright. And it worked. Flawlessly. I had zero payment failures, and was exclusively using Zeus with my own node. It was incredible.

Why is this incredible, you ask? Shouldn't stuff just work? Yes, it should. But building out the tech and the infrastructure to make it all work is BLOODY HARD. I remember the first Lightning Conference in Berlin, in 2019. Everyone came, everyone had all their channels and wallets and everything prepared, and ~50% of payments failed. For... reasons.

Fast-forward to today: I go to one of the 100+ merchants in the city that accept bitcoin, a quick tap on the PoS device & QR code scan, boom, done. Is it always perfect? Of course not. Will it get better still? 100% it will. Very soon these merchants will have NFC-enabled devices, and the tap-to-pay experience that people are used to with cards & Apple pay will be normal for bitcoin payments too. If you are in Riga right now, you'll experience this first-hand thanks to Bolt cards and BTCPay Server. It's awesome, it's open-source, and it works. And it will get better still.

We are truly living in the best and weirdest timeline; a timeline where shitposting on the internet can buy you lunch and dinner; a timeline that spawns amazing technological movements like #nostr; a timeline that, every ~10 minutes, allows for a small miracle to happen. A timeline where "magic internet money" is a normal thing; a timeline that, thanks to the magic dust of cryptography, enables anyone to speak about anything, without having to ask for permission. I'm grateful.

Thank you, Satoshi. 🙏🧡


Without thousands of basically decent people confused enough to obey, evil would fail quickly.


Went to dinner last night with a bunch of Nostriches and paid for my meal with sats earned from posting here on Nostr.

Not the first time… but it still blows my mind! 🤯🤩


If Nostr stays just as it is, my life is already better for it. And we’re only getting started. GM.


auto-following on account creation is a mistake. especially for nostr clients. takes a bunch of agency away and puts the person in a defensive position of “why am i following this account?”

trending, search, and topics are far better leads to a follow.


Since the genesis block, every capital allocator has been benchmarked against a new hurdle rate; most just haven’t realized it yet.

Bitcoin is the world’s new cost of capital, and outperforming it — read: stacking more sats over time — is the only rationale for putting money to work. More here:

https://ten31.vc/insights/outperforming
https://m.primal.net/KFvS.jpg


Organic Maps — Free, Open-Source, Private, Low Battery mapping app for Hiking, Biking, Trails and Navigation

Organic Maps is a free Android & iOS offline maps app for travellers, tourists, hikers, drivers, and cyclists based on OpenStreetMap data created by the community. It is a privacy-focused, open-source fork of Maps.me app (previously known as MapsWithMe), maintained by the same people who created MapsWithMe in 2011.

Features:
* Detailed offline maps with places that don't exist on other maps, thanks to OpenStreetMap
* Cycling routes, hiking trails, and walking paths
* Contour lines, elevation profiles, peaks, and slopes
* Turn-by-turn walking, cycling, and car navigation with voice guidance and Android Auto
* Fast offline search on the map
* Export/import bookmarks in KML/KMZ, import GPX
* Dark Mode to protect your eyes
* Countries and regions don't take a lot of space
* Free and open-source

Why Organic?
* Respects your privacy (requires no Google login nor registration)
* Saves your battery
* No unexpected mobile data charges
* No ads
* No tracking
* No data collection
* No phoning home
* No annoying registration
* No mandatory tutorials
* No noisy email spam
* No push notifications
* No crapware

It is based on OpenStreetMaps, so I could see a little known trail in the middle of the Cederberg mountains in South Africa. The great thing though with OpenStreetMaps is, if something dos nor exist, you can just add it yourself.

It installs on iOS and Android phones (including from F-Droid and Obtanium), but I was also p[leased to see a Flatpak install for Linux desktops as well.

See https://organicmaps.app/

#technology #trails #navigation #opensource #privacy
https://image.nostr.build/8b0f5cf6d083ff069581c490b88c7b1113695756da462dc9d1561de324f2ed84.jpg


Sparrow Wallet /  nostr:npub1hea99yd4xt5tjx8jmjvpfz2g5v7nurdqw7ydwst0ww6vw520prnq6fg9v2 appreciation note. Such a great product.


the algorithms are getting to the point where they are sending the same content to everyone. almost every platform. copy of a copy of a copy only to maximize ad impressions.

straight programming, just like the programming of radio, tv, and cable.

i want to be able to create, choose, and share my own algorithms. only way out of the bubbles being created. 🫧


An update on *liquidity* flows...

OBSERVATION #1: US NET LIQUIDITY (top half of chart) continues to be generally rangebound (chopping sideways: crab-like) since all the way back in 2021!

OPINION #1: US-based risk assets tend to follow US net liquidity over time. Based on this data, I would continue to expect choppy sideways (crab-like) price action for US mid cap, small cap, and micro cap stocks until the trend changes. -- If these equities make overly bearish or overly bullish moves in the short-term, one could consider making a short-term contrarian trade. 🦀

OBSERVATION #2: GLOBAL M2 MONEY SUPPLY (bottom half of chart) has officially broken out to the upside of its three-year choppy sideways range, and is resuming its longer term trend ever up-and-to-the-right. This longer term trend will continue until the dollar dies (decades from now).

OPINION #2: In the near-term, this resumption of increasing global M2 money supply is bullish for global assets... currently including megacap technology stocks and, of course, bitcoin. Based on past precedent, I continue to expect weak bitcoin price action throughout the month of August, giving HODLers a beautiful opportunity to stack relatively cheap sats in the setting of rising global M2. -- I do not believe this bargain will go unnoticed for much longer, with the next major bitcoin bull market beginning sometime between September and December of 2024, and probably lasting until 4Q of 2025.

Hope this helps. Cheers #nostr friends.

https://m.primal.net/KFij.png


EU Threatens to Ban Elon Musk's X Platform Over Digital Service Act Violations

In a bold move, the European Union is prepared to take drastic action against Elon Musk's social media platform, X, if it fails to comply with the EU's stringent digital regulations. Sandro Gozi, a prominent member of the European Parliament and part of Emmanuel Macron's Ensemble coalition, has made it clear that the platform must adhere to the Digital Services Act (DSA), specifically its rules on hate speech and disinformation, or face severe consequences.

Speaking to the Italian newspaper La Repubblica on August 19, Gozi emphasized the EU's firm stance, stating that if X does not comply with the DSA's guidelines, the European Commission will be forced to request service providers across the continent to block the platform. In the most extreme scenario, the platform could be entirely dismantled within the EU.

Gozi justified the necessity of strict content moderation, arguing that such measures are essential to curb the rise of political violence and the far-right movement. "Online violence often translates into real-world violence," Gozi explained. "The far-right hides its aggression behind the guise of free speech. Platforms must take responsibility and moderate hateful content."

These comments follow a recent open letter from EU Commissioner for Internal Market Thierry Breton, who urged Musk to censor a recent online exchange he had with former U.S. President Donald Trump. Breton warned of potential penalties under the DSA if Musk fails to comply.

The EU's stance has sparked controversy, with U.S. politicians accusing the bloc of interfering in American politics. The House Judiciary Committee recently called on Breton to refrain from what they perceive as undue influence over U.S. matters.

The European Union is reacting to the growing financial crisis, the growing recession and the criticism of centralism with increasingly repressive means. This is a path that can only lead to the abyss and will massively damage European society. The fight for freedom of expression is underway!

#EU #controlstate #brussels #DSA #socialism #freedomofexpression #x


Remember nostr:npub1s5yq6wadwrxde4lhfs56gn64hwzuhnfa6r9mj476r5s4hkunzgzqrs6q7z's famous psychopath rant from last year? Well, had some time on my hands last night.
Feel free to use however you want.  I tried to give all credit where possible.

Shout out to the meme masters! 😎
https://m.primal.net/KCRi.mov


Monero bros down bad as *yet another* DNM adds lightning

LN has better privacy than monero

Standard caveat: do not use either one for serious privacy needs without also adopting additional defense in depth strategies

nostr:nevent1qqs236swmvx9ntkmn7drunza3vnem55nx03d0r69egzumtwqg073ltqpzemhxue69uhkummnw3ezu6twdaehgcfwvd3j7q3qhxjnw53mhghumt590kgd3fmqme8jzwwflyxesmm50nnapmqdzu7sxpqqqqqqzcpnch3


Central bank interventions show growing state of instability in the fiat system

If you look at the chart of global central bank liquidity over the past few decades, it becomes immediately clear that each wave of crises has been followed by a much larger one. Considering that the previous crisis four years ago resulted in an injection of over USD 10 trillion worldwide, the next one is likely to require well over USD 25 trillion in liquidity to keep an inherently unstable banking and credit system afloat. No one has factored that into prices yet! #fiat #gold #bitcoin #inflation #fed #ecb https://files.sovbit.host/media/863f2c555276e9ed738933b0efee6b021042f16e1529dd755704885b87fee183/8fda7fbf30f2df29df2467b7ed210ccf199e1550347fc55c78334b941946bde2.webp


It's not a surprise the #security industry is plagued with bad actors, grifters, fraudsters, and even criminals. It's easy to lie to people to follow bullshit because security and privacy are extremely easy concepts people can understand at a basic level, despite being extremely complex and requiring dedication to understand at a higher level. This is exactly the same way physical and mental health is also used to sell pseudoscience.

We're in a space that attracts the fearful and paranoid, and the cold and hard truth is these types of people are easy victims because they always doubt every action they take. Anyone who can't reflect and accept their own approach will make it hard to develop an approach to stay with. It is easy to tell such people that the way they are doing things are wrong and convince them to do something else. You can reference something obscure and that is enough for some people.

Pushing security nihilism that trying doesn't matter isn't helpful either. It's harmful. Giving up means you'll never have an attitude to protect.

Bad actors in the security community market exactly like scammers, with:

- A sense of urgency, by saying they are not safe,
- An appeal to authority, referencing famous people,
- Playing on their emotions, like their fear or paranoia,
- Offering of scarcity or exclusivity, that everyone else is missing out or trashing other projects without valid evidence, and
- Referencing current or past events, often with misinformation.

Why does GrapheneOS or other open source projects go on the offensive then? Because people like these aren't competitors, they're threats. In our case, mobile security is extremely plagued with such people, selling dubious feature phones or repackaged old, insecure devices pretending they are endgame security. Some groups make apps or operating systems that don't add security benefit or reduce security. They're threats because they endanger people into believing that they are safer when they really are not.

It wasn't long ago that the mobile security market had criminals that were selling dubious services bundled onto devices like EncroChat, SkyECC, Phantom Secure and more. They enabled violent criminals and likely also scammed ordinary people in the process with a false sense of security. Hundreds of thousands of people were affected by their takedowns. Companies that used to resell these now try and forget they ever had.

Certain actors in the security industry also don't try and innovate security or privacy for the benefit of the world, but to benefit authoritarian regimes and a powerful, abusive elite class willing to pay them for their skills or the power they could leverage. The security industry is meant to be transparent and collaborative, with an unspoken but understood code of ethics to protect and attack to benefit business clients and users. But, some big organisations don't follow it. Forensic firms like Cellebrite sell exploits to regimes to allow data exfiltration, while mercenaries like NSO selling cyber attacks for customers to commit unlawful espionage against their political opponents and those who dissent.

Oftentimes the people with money in the bank sell security and privacy to try and whitewash their past actions. For example, Unplugged is founded by Erik Prince, a war criminal and illegal arms dealer of Blackwater fame, who also employ NSO employees that sold spyware to target political opponents, journalists and dissidents. This isn't the first ex-Defence industry mobile security LARP product and it won't be the last. It is worse that these companies often steal work from open source developers (like Unplugged stealing from Element and DivestOS' Hypatia) and provide nothing in return.

I will not be complacent in having such people produce their rot in the space we dedicate our daily life to. We'd rather quit than collaborate with opposition and it wouldn't have been the first time GrapheneOS had to do this.


Bank security practices are so byzantine and broken it's absurd. I spent 45 minutes helping my mom unlock her Chase account today (which was locked because she sent $500 via zelle to a friend who is in the hospital!) Here's how it went:

- Locked for no reason
- Number on website goes to automated answering machine
- It asks for her debit card number (what?) to identify the account
- This is lost and also needs to be replaced. There is no alternative method, 0 doesn't get us to a person
- I call Chase customer service, different number, very similar system, but I am able to get a person on the phone
- They verify her identity by making me hand the phone to my mom and ask her to state her name (what). They also ask for her ssn and a security phrase she doesn't know, although she does manage to share the security phrase for her other bank.
- They re-order the debit card and transfer us to another department, where we do the whole verification charade again
- They send a 2fa code via sms. We receive it, but the site shows an error and won't let us put the code in.
- They then send a different code, and ask me to give it to them over the phone, which the text message explicitly says not to do.
- Despite my better judgment I gave them the number. They then do something on the backend, and I enter a *new* code they gave me over the phone into the web portal to get it unblocked.

It's no wonder old people get scammed! Force someone to deal with this BS for 20 years and anyone would get confused and give the wrong code to the wrong person.


DVMs aren't that interesting to me for algo feeds because it requires some external party to do something for you for the feed to work. This means it may eventually stop working once they go away. Not to mention they are kind of spamming and unnecessarily pollute public relays with lots of duplicate lists of things when they are served to specific users.

Damus will always be local first, meaning that the algos run locally and offline, but should be powerful enough to do everything DVMs do, with the benefit that the algo will always work.

Not to say that DVMs aren't useful. web clients don't have powerful local and offline capabilties like native clients do. With fast, custom databases that can store gigabytes of notes, local algos become much more useful.

This becomes even more important for private relay usecases where you want to run algos without any third party knowing what you are up to.

The main difference between DVMs and nostrscript algos is that DVMs are the results of the algorithm's  computation, whereas nostrscript is the algorithm itself in WebAssembly. So instead of relying on some third party to run the algo to get the resulting DVM list, you can just run it yourself, as many times as you want, offline, privately. You can even share and fork these algorithms in a marketplace.

Looking forward to testing nostrscript algo capabilties against DVMs and seeing how it compares!


I posted a bunch of evidence on Twitter for how 1) grocery stores have razor thin margins, 2) food producer margins are more average but haven't changed in two decades, 3) of course farmers aren't the ones getting rich so 4) no, the food companies are not gouging you on prices.

It's monetary inflation. Grocery stores and food producers are trying to keep up.

Most people agree due to the inherent audience selection, but the tweets kind of went viral and reached a broader political audience, so a bunch of people came in like, "How come they can put chips on sale for 50% sometimes!?!? Checkmate Alden." (it's because they don't understand fixed costs vs cost-of-goods sold) or "How do you know any of the filings are real? What if they're literally all just lying on their audited SEC filings?"

Post-truth, some of people are. The grasping for price controls is the short-time public and political instinct that ultimately makes things worse, every time.

https://m.primal.net/KBvf.png
https://m.primal.net/KBvm.png
https://m.primal.net/KBvn.png


This is a fake story: https://x.com/cryps1s/status/1824077327577591827

Turns out that getting security information from the CISO of a mass surveillance company trying to build a dystopian police state providing police with "predictive policing" software largely based on racial stereotypes is a bad move.

Trail of Bits iVerify EDR product runs in the standard app sandbox on iOS and Android. It can hardly do anything beyond static scanning of APKs. It's a crippled antivirus app marketed as detecting sophisticated attackers. It's a scam and Trail of Bits has lost all credibility. Trail of Bits is working closely with Palantir and is focused on getting government contracts. They've created a fake news story to promote their EDR product which has been propagated across mainstream media. Journalists didn't do basic due diligence and spread false marketing.

Verizon has a suite of low-level apps for Android devices to fully use their network. These are included on any Android device with full Verizon support. Pixels disable the packages unless a Verizon SIM is active. This is equivalent to having them installed/uninstalled on demand. One of the apps in this suite is the Showcase retail demo app for Verizon to show off phones in their store. It requires manually up the phone as a retail demo device. Verizon says they don't use it anymore. This demo app is where Trail of Bits / iVerify found an HTTP connection.

In order to exploit Verizon's demo app not verifying a signature for the downloaded config or even fetching it via HTTPS, it would already need to be set up to use retail demo mode. The contractors Verizon paid to implement it did a bad job, but it's not a Pixel security issue. Since it's an obsolete app that Verizon isn't using anymore, the stock Pixel OS already removed it in Android 15 which is visible in the Android 15 Beta. The other Verizon apps needed to fully use their network which get activated with a Verizon SIM are of course still included.

#GrapheneOS has been omitting these carrier apps since around 2015. This meant GrapheneOS users weren't able to use Sprint and can't use certain features on Verizon like Wi-Fi calling. Apple has a special deal with Verizon and implements what the control they want as part of iOS. The restrictions set in Verizon's carrier configuration and the functionality implemented by these apps is a major part of why they prevent installing an alternate OS on any device sold by Verizon. They want to control how people use features like tethering and Wi-Fi calling.

Every month, a bunch of real vulnerabilities are patched for Android on Pixels. A subset of these including all High and Critical severity issues in Android itself get backported to older Android releases for non-Pixels too. iVerify's finding isn't even a Low severity issue. Supposedly reputable news organizations including the Washington Post, New York Times, Wired, etc. are largely acting as press release distribution service for governments and corporations. If it fits a narrative they want to tell, there's no attempt to question or confirm it.

Trail of Bits employees should think over whether they want to be part of building a police state with pervasive surveillance as Palantir partners. You're not even working at a reputable security company anymore. Trail of Bits has become the charlatans they used to criticize.

#security #privacy


Who elected those MFs at the WHO? https://image.nostr.build/6cc3d30f2952890fbef94d58c6be85fe488fa9b8922842bcaf228bf903713d55.jpg


The pendulum of politics swinging Left/Right/Left/Right is not only maddening for people, it's terrible for business.

Less, much less government, would mean that change would trend towards being insignificant.

If less government affects your life, your business, your kids, your property, world peace and stuff then everyone would care less about politics.

And when the clowns change, you would care.

Everyone should be for less government.

Thankfully, bitcoin helps defund them all.


Make bitcoiners anarchists again 😑


And then they fight you.
https://i.nostr.build/hx2di7WDpbPOkE9K.jpg
nostr:nevent1qqsz9hzj3pjxyg83w8gw5clugq0nwqf632gn243rswgctduux9c7m0gpz3mhxw309akx7cmpd35x7um58g6rsd3e9upzph4t08d058ptuj62d5av5y6hkm92pd6yhar26556ttjxg2y908ngqvzqqqqqqyrapavv


Lets join our efforts. With newly elected EU parliament we want to have a proper education campaign on privacy of communication and transactions.

During our latest campaign we secured support of MPs and MEPs in defense of privacy:
https://tbbacherle.eu/2024/06/18/open-letter/
But now we need to work on submission on that issue and your expertise is very much appreciated.


Awesome, look forward to seeing what comes of this!


I've just published the draft NIP to bring highly secure DM and group messaging to Nostr via the MLS protocol.

I've been studying this space for months now and after looking at a lot of different options, MLS (messaging layer security) stood out as the right way to approach solving DMs and group messages. It's highly scalable, an internet standard, and allows for graceful upgrading over time.

Done right – this NIP allows us to build extremely secure, uncensorable messaging clients that have no centralized coordinators or servers. Which is what I plan to do next. 😉

https://github.com/nostr-protocol/nips/pull/1427


yes, when designing the strike logo we made sure we flipped off the legacy system at exactly a 69 degree angle

nostr:note1wwpcgyjq2cgc7yzv40w2vv2dfwmc5uzayuffvlucpr03yt8ffc0q02ak8x
https://m.primal.net/KAbF.png


Good morning.

Price controls never work. You need to be incredibly stupid, ignorant, or evil to propose price controls. Price controls lead to shortages that work their way through the entire supply chain.

If you are confused about WHY price controls don’t work, study Mises on nostr:npub10qrssqjsydd38j8mv7h27dq0ynpns3djgu88mhr7cr2qcqrgyezspkxqj8

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLQVlIVuMPXLY08XgLUdnknB4B28WLmG-z&

Specifically, this lecture on INTERVENTIONISM is very helpful:

https://fountain.fm/episode/SbsXQ9fCMHLVti4y6ark https://i.nostr.build/KiVuNheQ06hOn6EC.jpg


#Google is killing #uBlock Origin in #Chrome, but this trick lets you keep it for another year

https://www.ghacks.net/2024/08/15/google-is-killing-ublock-origin-in-chrome-but-this-trick-lets-you-keep-it-for-another-year/


GM Nostr 🌞

New MLS Spec dropping this week. 🤙


In keeping with our commitment to supporting the Bitcoin ecosystem, OpenSats is pleased to announce a new round of grants focused on Bitcoin Core development.
https://opensats.org/blog/caring-for-bitcoin-core


Nope.
https://m.primal.net/JzaB.mov


German Media Finally Links Ukraine to Nord Stream 2 Attack

Recent reports from German media are now openly suggesting that Ukraine was involved in the sabotage of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. This development sheds new light on the incident, which led to soaring energy prices across Europe. For months, speculation and blame were directed towards Russia, but this revelation calls into question previous narratives and demands a reevaluation of the geopolitical landscape surrounding the incident.

#Geopolitics #NordStream2 #UkraineInvolvement #EnergyCrisis #MediaRevelations https://image.nostr.build/b28da3aa8237a3f99f195626d071c756203efcf6b65444962ff2daac319ced4d.jpg https://image.nostr.build/537b75d4f39dd658d369c60c42b9516503dcf0070c3366b6178f4f801e384b5c.jpg


Grüezi! #SNB🇨🇭 shares in #MSTR increased by ~60%.
https://image.nostr.build/088e7e4267ef85cc603613221bf32ef63c300718949a92db0242d9f3fd133c74.jpg


So many people in bitcoin and some of your fave influencers have real behavioural and mental issues.

Narcissists and plain rude li’l bitches, it’s quite disappointing when they reveal their true colours.

See, just because we’re right about this wonderful internet token it doesn’t mean we’re a) special, b) right about any number of other things.

Be kind, anon. And if you are a bitcoin influencer, be even kinder.

Make it your f*cking grind to be kind.

I try to do this, truly, but still f*ck up loads.

PS - you are special if you’re reading this 😉


"The thing I have noticed is when the anecdotes and the data disagree, the anecdotes are usually right. There's something wrong with the way you are measuring it."

 -  Jeff Bezos

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/08/12/59percent-of-americans-think-the-us-is-in-a-recession-report-finds.html
https://m.primal.net/Jysg.png


I was thinking this morning about how we leave LED lights on all the time and don't even care, yet our grandparents would walk around turning off the lights whenever they left a room, and it got me thinking about the real #debasement adjusted electricity cost of 1960 vs today.

In 1960 an oz of #gold was $35, and a kwh of #electricity was 2.6 cents. So you could buy 1346 kwh for an oz of gold, which you could earn with 12.7 hours of labor at the #medianwage of $2.75/hr. This also meant you could buy 105.8 kwh of electricity with an hour of your time. A #lightbulb would use 60 watts, so would use a kwh every 16.5 hours.

Today an oz of gold is about $2600, which you can earn in 76.74 hours at today's median wage of $33.88, and the cost per kwh of electricity has "gone up" to about 16.5 cents meaning you could buy 15,757 kwhs with an oz of Gold, and you can buy 205.33 kwh with an hour of your time.

Relative to gold electricity has dropped in price 91.5%. But #wages have dropped in value relative to gold by 83.45%. So relative to hourly wages, the meaningful metric to people, electricity has reduced in price by only about 1/2.

However, in addition to the price of electricity falling substantially, the #electronics we use are also much more efficient. Today an LED light bulb will use only 10 watts, 6 times less than in 1960, and gives you 100 hours of light for only 1 kwh. 6 times more light for half the price, or 12 times more light for the same price! A 91.7% reduction in cost for lighting our homes relative to our labor hours.

On the median hourly wage today you can get over 20,000 hours of light from a single lightbulb for 1 hour of labor. In 1960 you could only get just over 1700 hours of light. Not to mention the cost to replace the light bulbs going down as well, due to their longer durability. This is a substantial improvement by almost any metric.

But what if wages had stayed the same relative to Gold because the world lived on a sound monetary standard the entire time?

If in 1960 an oz of gold could buy you 1346 kwh which would give you 16.5 hours of light each, that works out to 22,209 hours of light per oz of Gold. Since it would take you 12.7 hours to earn that oz of gold, 1 hour of median labor would get you 1748.74 hours of light.

Fast forward to today, cheaper electricity + more efficient electronics, an oz of gold will give you 15,757 kwhs of electricity which can power an LED bulb for 100 hours each. So an oz of gold now gives us 1,575,700 hours of light vs 22,209 hours in 1960. This means if wages had stayed the same relative to Gold then you would get 124,070.9 hours of light from an hour of your labor, instead of the 20,000 hours you can actually get today. All vs the 1748.74 hours of light you could get for the same hour of labor 64 years ago.

124,070.9 / 1748.74 = 70.94

71 times more light for the same amount of gold, thanks to efficiency gains in our light bulbs and improvements to our electricity generating capacity bringing the cost of energy down. The world is getting incredibly cheaper all around us all the time, we just don't see it thanks to the FIAT system. Due to this FIAT debasement, 83% of the efficiency/technological gains has been taken from us all. This is the real theft.

Monetary Inflation is theft, the growth rate of the M2 is the true inflation rate, not the CPI. Inflation doesn't just rob us of our past earnings in the form of our savings, it reduces our future earnings too by debasing our wages.

₿ clears the fog of debasement we've been living under, truly revealing the world of abundance we live in TODAY. If we embrace its simplicity as the best savings instrument ever discovered and/or created by humanity, then we will all truly prosper having freed ourselves from the yoke of bondage that is the centrally controlled FIAT currencies of the world.

You really don't need to work so much. Have a new perspective, lower your time preference, live as frugally as possible within your means and do whatever you can to save as much of your money in BTC and you will be free of the drudgery much more quickly. Buy second hand whenever possible, learn how to cook at home and buy tools that assist you in that endeavor such as a quality blender / slow cooker / pressure cooker / rice cooker / bread maker etc. When you're free, you'll be able to use your time for more useful and important endeavors such as thinking / writing / inventing / volunteering and so on, and also have more time to spend with your family and friends.

Contrary to what many today feel, life is worth living and it can be much more meaningful. The future is bright and full of hope, you just have to leave the cave to see it.


Hey The Guardian, how's it going?

https://nostpic.com/media/ec99edc5567e02815fb15020285e2fa8390931cedf59c83d6bb2c5f6ee1530b9/8da009d391a8d79d9e4b9eca3d64e9d87757b213951198f35d07c66c92e1bfb2.webp

Jfc


Here's my profile for Reason on Nostr and why it could very well change the world

Pasting a few paragraphs here, you can find the rest at the link

Feel free to spread far and wide 😉

*************

Can Nostr Make Twitter's Dreams Come True?

Twitter's founder says Nostr is “100 percent what we wanted”—an open, ownerless network

Alex Gladstein | 8.13.2024

Virtually everyone agrees that social media is broken. On Facebook, X, Instagram, and TikTok, people fear out-of-control algorithms, fake news, state actor censorship, and propaganda. Google and Meta collect vast troves of personal information on their users and receive hundreds of thousands of requests every year from governments around the world to access that data. YouTube has become arguably "the most powerful media platform in the history of humanity," yet its algorithm is an ever-changing black box to the creators that populate the platform with videos. During the pandemic, federal officials were in contact with every major social media platform, coercing them to remove content.

The problem is centralized control. We can't trust companies to run our primary communications infrastructure. Government regulation only makes matters worse because it creates new legal barriers to entering the industry, which protects incumbent players and stifles innovation.

What if there were an alternative, not owned by Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, or the Chinese Communist Party? What if there were a way to control your own data to prevent companies from harvesting and monetizing it? What if you had granular control over what you see in your feed, with the freedom to choose your own algorithms? What if you owned your identity, which could be accessed seamlessly across different clients? That way, if you disapprove of the changes that Elon Musk brought to X, instead of closing your account you could take your handle and followers elsewhere.

That alternative exists. It's called "Notes and Other Stuff Transmitted by Relays"—or Nostr.

The Decentralized Solution

Invented by a pseudonymous programmer and overwhelmingly funded by grants from non-profit foundations, this decentralized, free, and open-source protocol has been quietly evolving for the past three years. Like bitcoin, Nostr is a community-run digital network highly resistant to censorship and corruption. It has 40,000 weekly active users and a growing ecosystem of clients and applications ranging from social media to long-form publishing to payments.

Nostr is only necessary because our existing internet is so broken.

Fifteen years ago, social media seemed destined to decentralize the world and give power back to the people. In 2009, we watched as Arab Spring activists used Twitter and Facebook to organize, coordinate, and help topple several long-standing dictatorships. The promise was that these new social platforms, designed by Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, could help liberate the masses.

It was intoxicating—but turned out to be a mirage. The Arab revolutions stalled out when brutal military regimes cracked down. These platforms became tools for spying and censoring their users. X and Facebook have helped journalists and human rights activists reach bigger audiences, but they haven't fulfilled their revolutionary promise.

Jack Dorsey's Shift from Bluesky to Nostr

This was a major theme at the 2024 Oslo Freedom Forum, which is put on annually by the Human Rights Foundation, where I serve as chief strategy officer. At this conference for democracy and human rights, Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey told the audience that the problem was, actually, guys like him: The very fact that Twitter, now X, has a CEO makes it a single point of failure. Governments routinely pressured Dorsey to censor content; once the company's offices in India were raided. Dorsey says that under the new Musk regime X complies with whatever governments want.

The X network is proprietary. Known as a "silo," this construct traps a user's identity, followers, and data. X also has the power to evict anyone from the platform and delete what they've written. Several years ago, when he was still running the company, Dorsey became convinced that Twitter should become an application instead, where users could post content to an open, ownerless network. This would make it similar to how bitcoin works, where you use an application called a wallet to interact with the network, but the network itself is neutral and open.

Building a non-proprietary architecture was Dorsey's original vision for Twitter, but over time the need to maximize revenue to build a business and serve shareholders undermined that goal.

Nevertheless, in 2021, Dorsey encouraged the creation of Bluesky—an initiative bootstrapped in-house to create that open neutral base layer. But after Musk bought the company, the managers of Bluesky were afraid they would run out of money and started raising funds from venture capitalists, which undermined the vision of building an open platform. Dorsey grew disenchanted and left the Bluesky board.

At the conference in Oslo, Dorsey explained what happened next:

I asked a question: What open source initiatives should I be funding that would be helpful to the public internet? And people kept tweeting at me that I should be looking at Nostr. I found the GitHub that described it and it was 100 percent what we wanted from Bluesky, but it wasn't developed from a company. It was completely independent. Its paper diagnosed every single problem we saw and had. But did it in a grassroots and dead simple way, that felt like the early Twitter where any developer could get on and really feel it.

Escaping the 'Golden Prisons'

Nostr was created in 2020 by the pseudonymous Brazilian programmer fiatjaf, who describes it as "the simplest open protocol that is able to create a censorship-resistant global 'social' network once and for all."

Though nobody is in charge, Nostr works as promised and is thriving. "It is the solution we've all been looking for," says Miljan Braticevic, founder of Primal, one of the two dozen plus clients now available for the Nostr protocol. "Nostr is not a Twitter competitor or a Mastodon competitor. This is the biggest misconception at the moment. That's just the tip of the iceberg. Nostr is nothing less than the foundation for the new internet. Meaning almost every conceivable app we have today will be built on Nostr."

Braticevic's prediction is echoed by at least a dozen other prominent developers. Martti Malmi, the first coder to work on bitcoin alongside Satoshi Nakamoto, is now a Nostr developer. In a recent talk, he said he had started to work on similar ideas around decentralized identity in 2019, only to come close to giving up. But then he found fiatjaf's invention, which he called a "godsend."

"Bitcoin is freedom of money, and Nostr is freedom of everything else," Malmi said. "I was there" in the earliest days of bitcoin, "and Nostr is even more intense."

For something that could be world-changing, Nostr is quite simple. To join, you sign up with a mobile or desktop client, which helps you to create a public and private key pair. The public key (or "npub") is used as your identifier, and you share it with clients and other users so that people can find your posts or pay you for your content. The private key ("nsec") is hidden by the user, stored safely (just like a bitcoin seed phrase), and is your way to log in to different services. Unlike platforms like X or Facebook, no other information is required to set up and use Nostr.

This gives users a powerful range of sovereignty. You can use a client, for example, that has strong hate speech controls. Or you can choose one that doesn't have any at all. You can use a client with aggressive algorithms, just like the ones X uses today. Or you can use one without any algorithm at all. Today, when you log in to an app like Primal, you can sort your feed by what's the latest, by what's most popular, by what's most zapped, or by customized keywords. It's up to you.

Last month, the macroeconomist Lyn Alden, author of one of the best books on bitcoin, published a long essay about Nostr's potential:

[Nostr] is a simple set of foundational building blocks that, if widely adopted, could gradually reshape "the Web" as we know it. Instead of a separate set of siloed social ecosystems, we could gravitate toward a more interoperable set of ecosystems, with more of the power dispersed to the content creators and to the audience, and away from the middlemen corporations.

The Nostr network is constructed like a spider web that can morph and regenerate, making it almost impossible to censor. When you set up a client on Nostr (perhaps, Primal or Damus on iOS; Amethyst on Android; or Coracle on the web), you choose from a variety of relays to connect to. This architecture ensures no single point of failure: If you are connected to seven or eight relays, and half of them choose to censor posts, your feed remains censorship-free, as your app will display the net sum of everything broadcast from each relay. If the Chinese government decides to attack your relays—as it did in 2023 when Damus launched on the Hong Kong and mainland app store—then more can be spun up. "The enemy," said Damus creator Will Casarin, "is too numerous."

Prominent bitcoin developer and educator Gigi—who switched to Nostr and deleted his X account—says that what helped it become so resilient is that it has zero exit cost. If the Chinese Communist Party bans YouTube, its domestic users lose everything. There's no way to get back their profiles and followers. The same is true if a user voluntarily closes an account.

Gigi calls these corporate silos "golden prisons" with no escape. Nostr's spider-like architecture makes escaping easy. If one client goes down, or you fail to connect to one relay, you just find another client or connect to another relay. You keep your posts, photos, preferences, contacts, and even algorithms of choice. If you use X, you are an X creator. But if you use Primal, you aren't a Primal creator, you are a Nostr creator.

https://reason.com/2024/08/13/can-nostr-make-twitters-dreams-come-true/


One if the best ways to spend your Bitcoin is
silent.link - global eSIM

No KYC, affordable rates, data-only option, instant Lightning top ups of even just a few cents, always there when you need it.

Not affiliated, it just saved my ass many times. Thank me later.


RE: UK/EU CENSORSHIP, SURVEILLANCE, AND ARRESTS

ELON WILL ACT TOUGH IN PUBLIC AND BEND THE KNEE IN PRIVATE.


Anyone who can see this & still engage in some form of mental gymnastics to avoid seeing that the US govt is totally corrupt is both an idiot & a coward.

https://nostpic.com/media/ec99edc5567e02815fb15020285e2fa8390931cedf59c83d6bb2c5f6ee1530b9/af4552ced74bdbab34ce9fc075b06e0cd18abcbc9489b523dae13a058a418359.webp

https://thehill.com/video/tulsi-gabbard-added-to-terror-watch-list-in-tsas-quiet-skies-program/9944976/


GM Nostr 🌞

🆘 I need feedback on an idea related to private group messages.

I'm working on the format for sending group messages via relays and had an idea on how to encrypt messages in a way that saves a lot of work for both relays and clients. But it has some tradeoffs. Here's how it works:

1. Imagine you have a group of n people. The group has an ID value (random string) and each group has shared context that means they will know how to decrypt messages but if you're not in the group, you won't be able to decrypt. This shared context rotates regularly, ensuring forward and PCS security.
2. To avoid having to send each participant a gift-wrapped message, we encrypt the message content using shared group secrets and put that in the content of a Nostr event. This is an encrypted blob that is NOT using NIP-04 or NIP-44 encryption, instead it will be using MLS native encryption which has information about the sender as well as the message content itself. This event is published to group relays using a disposable identity, not the user's main nostr identity.
3. We put the Group ID value in cleartext in an indexable tag on the Nostr event.

This last point is important. Let's break it down:

– Clients only have to publish a single event to send a message to all participants (nice) ,
– It's trivial for members of a group to watch for messages they care about via a tag filter (very nice) and ;
– (the tradeoff) Observers can see how many messages are being sent within a group and when they're being sent but they can't tell who is in the group or who is sending the messages.

I think that this is a fairly reasonable tradeoff. I'd love to hear thoughts or — even better — suggestions on how to improve this.


Before Trump Interview: EU Commission Increases Pressure On Elon Musk

EU Commissioner Thierry Breton, responsible for the execution of the DNS, the Digital Services Act, a kind of propaganda regulation governing the formation of public opinion within the European Union, could no longer contain himself before Elon Musk's record-breaking interview with US President Donald Trump and published a more or less open threat to the US American to regulate the content of his Platform X according to the specifications of the EU technocrats.

In his letter to Musk published on 'X', Breton emphasizes the importance of the control of public opinion by state authorities and the alleged fight against extremism and hatred. All of this is, of course, a pretextual nonsense in order not to lose control over the interpretation of political events!

The EU is working towards a walled garden, a public opinion space whose narratives and vectors are determined by Brussels' political ideology (think of the climate apocalypse as one of the legitimizers).

We are witnessing the attempt to re-establish a control state on European soil, to control the behavior of citizens and to sanction them if they do not cThe European Union is on a dangerous downward path, the angle of inclination is now actively increasing.

 #musk #trump #x #eu #EuropeanUnion #mindcontrol #msm #propaganda https://nostpic.com/media/863f2c555276e9ed738933b0efee6b021042f16e1529dd755704885b87fee183/16037c5f022cd39222a3ddd9d4508414df4e48f7e9f8ff31fd52920ae5672bb7.webp

https://x.com/ThierryBreton/status/1823033048109367549?t=z9PSPkFToq-QEhusm_aORw&s=19


#Ford NGMI

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2024/08/new-patent-application-for-car-to-car-surveillance.html


We’re gonna meme ourselves into a better future, lads and lasses.

The jester is the one who tells the truth, shielded by humor.

nostr:note1s5ut7p8gpr9l27lqfx9q6s76q2rkrq3mrpnt6uz00nnhsvvae5fqpr2ucj


World's politicians are learning they can't control the message, and they are terrified.


Nostr CEO was unreachable, so 🇪🇺 sent only Elon a note.
https://m.primal.net/JxYE.jpg


Price of olive oil rises 191% in Spain.

"Experts" recommend canola oil and sunflower oil as alternatives.

You vill eat ze seed oils. 🙄
https://www.faz.net/aktuell/wirtschaft/schlechte-ernten-preis-fuer-olivenoel-steigt-immer-weiter-19913091.html


Milton Friedman in 1999 talking about the internet being a major force in reducing the role of Government in our lives https://video.nostr.build/5e6956a7db82009292ad2d9a8ebfa87e98db10b54dbac6e3f80e1fee539d3be3.mp4


They charge a 0.21% fee on outgoing transactions.

https://www.nobsbitcoin.com/fedi-app-v1-18/


New EU Vaccine Passport Raises Concerns Over Data Privacy and Control https://image.nostr.build/03b281d17fbdba9507eee454f2226db649a4d0125ddf3b4b95ac7a91f0b1ba88.jpg
Starting September 1, 2024, Germany will launch a pilot for the new EU Vaccine Passport as part of a broader initiative called "European Vaccination Beyond Covid-19" (Euvabeco). This initiative, set to roll out across the European Union by 2026, will not only document vaccinations but also integrate personal health data, effectively placing citizens' private information at the fingertips of state and institutional powers.

The EU claims this project will empower citizens, but the reality suggests otherwise. Under the guise of public health, the European Union is trampling on individual freedoms, further tightening its grip on the personal lives of its citizens. This move, aligned with the World Economic Forum's broader agenda, leaves little room for dissent. Any semblance of opposition is muted, as most political forces either comply or turn a blind eye, leaving the path wide open for a future of total surveillance and control.

Despite this radical shift toward centralized authority, public consultation was minimal and controlled, highlighting the EU’s disregard for genuine democratic engagement. The quiet rollout of this program signals a disturbing trend—one where personal freedom is sacrificed on the altar of "public good" with little to no resistance.

As Europe heads down this path of digital health tyranny, the erosion of privacy and autonomy becomes inevitable. The window to resist this overreach is closing fast, and without a significant pushback, the infrastructure of total control will soon be fully operational.

#EU #VaccinePassport #PrivacyInCrisis #TotalControl #DavosAgenda


Nostr immutability just became huge

https://image.nostr.build/66b7ce580dae9ffcc0ca617c3d604f280217f1e6180b055b1748f9389f39a6d1.jpg


One aspect of #Nostr and #Bitcoin I find very compelling in the long run is that it allows you to relax and live life in your very own natural rhythm.

You wanna take a break in nature, let the experience sink in before you share? Good, no central algorithm punishes you for inactivity on Nostr. You are right back where you left off.

You wanna relax, earnings are enough and there's no need to grow your business right now? Family is more important or you wanna focus on your spiritual development. Great, if you run on Bitcoin you are not forced to outrun inflation and make regular investment maintenance decisions.

Chill. Your energy is yours. You are free to do you. This is invaluable 🙏

https://image.nostr.build/943535d56911d13493c469b585e53980178c3644a9d67f9a1da243f57ac7b4c3.jpg


GM! 🤙


Honestly some of the most actionable and useful advice I've gotten online over the past year is  nostr:npub1dvufvl73s0xdz8d75dgcyjvl0wrmczczvr0ef88g5x8uehmr4fus0j0pwx saying to go in the sun and walk more, and categorizing all the science behind it.

I don't really remember most of what came across my way on Twitter over the year, mostly a bunch of macro bullshit, but now in the morning I immediately go and get some sun if it's out.


There is a lot of censorship going on in the UK right now. Social Media companies are being forced to delete posts, deplatform accounts which are deemed to be spreading "misinformation" and "hate speech".

Of course the UK government is the self appointed Ministry of Truth.

If you are an Englishman, please advise your fellow citizens to join Nostr.
We should be using this platform to return people their voices, other than shitposting/cringeposting and being nerds.

Personally, I am in of the opinion that western governments have become too big and wield way too much influence for the level of competence they display. We need to get it through people's head that Bitcoin is how you defund these parasites with dictatorial aspirations.


Life hack: you can control your attention, your opinions, and your feelings.


Good morning Nostrs, it appears this may be the only place to speak openly in the future for many of us. For some already.

Stay vigilant. Stay focused.


When I was a teenager, my family of four had to move into an 18-foot Class C RV.

My dad took a job across the state, and we had nowhere to live and no money. My parents did the best they could.

We eventually moved into a little double-wide for rent in town.

People might look down on that, but I'm telling you right now that summer and the next 18 months were my childhood's two most memorable years.

We did free things and drove almost daily into the region's outskirts. My brother and I would explore the ruins of abandoned cabins, peeling back layers of wall insulation of the day (newspapers) to reveal dates from the early 1900s.

We played outside because the inside was really only for sleeping or shelter during storms.

We went to every museum and attended every free event downtown put on.

We became experts at which washing machines and dryers worked the best in the local laundromat.

We spent copious amounts of time in the libraries, especially the one that had the basement where a rummage sale happened each week.

We experienced extreme weather bouts where we learned so much about ourselves and the world around us.

We hiked on the weekends.

Mom had to take a part-time job. I used to help her periodically and learned some things by doing that, too.

I learned about angry yellow jackets, bucket rides that helped you scale mountains, and legends of the local Native Americans.

Forest fires happened the following summer. After that, we joined the mushroom pickers for a chance to make extra money. I remember I got to keep around $20 for putting up with Dad dragging us up the mountainside.

Mom wasn't 100% pleased, that I remember, but it was a good adventure, and by the end of the day, my brother and I were too tired to argue.

The wildlife was unmatched for that part of the world.

I'm sure my parents had an entirely different perspective on things, but those two years were full of imagination, awe, and discovery. Thirty-five years later, I still remember the most details from that period.

I never would have had those experiences had we not moved into that tiny RV, no matter how temporary.

https://m.primal.net/Jtpj.png

#story #stories #memoir


“Whether you’re in this country committing crimes on the street or committing crimes FROM FURTHER AFIELD ONLINE, we will come after you.”

I would like to personally invite this limey totalitarian tosspot to come after DN. https://v.nostr.build/qClavbisR4nnUM3k.mp4


👀 The UK will throw the full force of the law at keyboard warriors. At home and abroad.
https://m.primal.net/JtmQ.mov


A few days ago I went full Nostr (nothing else) and I feel like I just quit smoking or drinking. There’s something to this


Beware of shitcoin promoters trying to affinity scam you. The only legitimate cryptocurrency is #Bitcoin , and it is actually fair for everyone. Don't be fooled—the “real deal” already exists.

(Cue the breathless rationalizing from “Bitcoiners” who worship Trump) https://i.nostr.build/9tKafZtC5ECOO1IX.jpg


“Why would anyone need to be anonymous online?”
“Why do you need private communications?”
“Why do you need privacy if you have nothing to hide?”
“WHY WOULD ANYONE NEED NOSTR?”

Imperialist Totalitarian teabags really outdoing themselves. https://i.nostr.build/ed6EUH9CGhdYFJuy.jpg


THIS INDUSTRY IS ABSOLUTELY BRUTAL.

THE TRUTH IS I HAVE BEEN BURNED OUT FOR AT LEAST THREE YEARS NOW BUT THE ONLY REAL OPTION IS TO PUSH FORWARD.

RHR IN FIVE HOURS AT 1800 UTC. 🫡


The way that the UK is policing social media posts is insane.

Every time I see one of their news anchors or government officials talking about how even just reposting content could be a criminal offense I’m like:
https://m.primal.net/JscB.jpg


https://cdn.satellite.earth/21c85ac6117ee34c4480b655f50a940921266ed57fbc69b782463804b3354cda.mov
Exploring #V4V UX for app releases.
#zaptheapp


Imagine a BTCPayServer point of sale receiving Cashu ecash to the merchant's Lightning wallet.

- no rug risk for merchant
- can accept ecash from a million different mints
- merchant pays LN fees
- users can remain offline while paying

Ecash is Bitcoin's credit card killer.


Don't complain.
Don't ask for permission.

Build.

nostr:nevent1qqs9e0ws2p09kskr4lavg9f6nvpxm5d4mllwcflelsjha6z8d3j8hxgpz4mhxue69uhkummnw3ezummcw3ezuer9wchsygxy3c5lqj6g9nqpeg0ea7xgdmurrrq9nc8fx5er2930pq8jdc2vzypsgqqqqqqse9ecrg


"What gives me hope is that we have some degree of control of our future. That we can build things rather than just ask for things to change around us.” -  nostr:npub1a2cww4kn9wqte4ry70vyfwqyqvpswksna27rtxd8vty6c74era8sdcw83a with a massive white pill on  nostr:npub10qrssqjsydd38j8mv7h27dq0ynpns3djgu88mhr7cr2qcqrgyezspkxqj8
https://m.primal.net/Jrkz.mp4
 nostr:note1g6urs4pphd9nh3p5glqykrhypkqyqrctzuxa8fs80l8d8cg32qwqes295y


UK is going downhill fast
https://m.primal.net/JrYz.jpg


Had to to take a look for myself to make sure it's real 💀💀💀

https://image.nostr.build/59ad5dc8bac67349411b48ac3865e86d9c12615da9fcdb14d0acb8412c239f13.jpg

https://x.com/disclosetv/status/1821236459887570953


Let's be clear here.

Nostr is an unfinished beta of multiple technologies being tested simultaneously in realtime. It's buggy. Things break often. You'll probably lose some money, or time, or both to it. I know I have 😂

But I love the passion, the attitude and the vision for the future I see here. It's worth putting up with the bugs to be around such great people, so I keep coming back.


It’s “For your safety” peeps! Only temporary.

nostr:note10mdw57jsmhhqn43saedfx98mvfsgv2kr76v9a97sl8v3kxmcdgwqynzea9


I published a new post about bitcoin as a corporate treasury asset.

This is the one where I noticed while proofreading that I accidentally rhymed in it.

https://www.lynalden.com/a-new-look-at-corporate-treasury-strategy/


Another exciting panel will be on the following episode where we will have a wallet experts panel, folks who don't LARP and really ship wallet software and hardware.

odudex (Krux), craigraw(sparrow), Rob1Ham(trident),

including mr DarkSkippy himself LLFOURN(frostsnap)

Cutting through the bullshit...


Huge congrats to @obi and team on the launch of Fedi today. Couldn’t be more excited!

In a world where dictators use money and data as a weapon against free speech and individual frights and freedoms, and the surveillance state is emerging everywhere, this freedom and privacy protocol on top of Bitcoin is a critical path to bringing #Bitcoin to billions of people.

Learn more and download the app now at www.Fedi.xyz https://image.nostr.build/8653f13f44d6c78a4c65d06fa2c7ca5524a1c8207389a7bd6968bab49f587cd6.jpg


“Why would anyone need to be anonymous online?”
“Why do you need private communications?”
“Why do you need privacy if you have nothing to hide?”

The UK provides a great reminder that when speech itself becomes a crime, anyone can be made into a criminal.

Anyway, good morning. https://v.nostr.build/9KXF2599KCYE5aab.mp4


I like  nostr:npub1ajlrwgfj4yerhqf7ady03h7wmtk2qr3gs7h3sxcx83k05yld36sswpzx3q  because I don't have to set up channels or buy liquidity. It's a good replacement for Mutiny, it's basically the same security model (federated custody).


UK Protests

For years, the government has allowed, in lockstep with big business, the influx of an unsustainable number of migrants to such an extent that they have no idea of the numbers involved. The Office of National Statistics thinks the population will increase by 6.6 million (9.9%) between 2021 and 2036. The British people are proud of the many cultures that make up our nation, but the levels are far beyond what is feasible for a country to assimilate, and our own culture is being lost. The cause of the immigration, as I see it, is a flawed Ponzi scheme economy that needs an ever-increasing (cheap) workforce to pay the debts of the previous generation (and dependents on our state).

We have hotels that are full of migrants, with food provided, an allowance given, and medical and healthcare services provided. Yet, they remove the winter fuel allowance for our older generation, amongst other cuts and unresolved homelessness. We see boatloads of migrants, primarily fighting-age men. We see hotels that are full of fighting-age men. We are told they are fleeing persecution, but where are the women, and why are they not staying to protect their country?

The outcome of these policies affects, for example:

Housing: The government has a target of 1.5 million houses to be built by 2029, yet in 2023-2024 only 143,000 houses were built. Already, houses are everywhere, rammed up together, with people living on top of each other, peering into each other's gardens, and sprawling into our countryside (such as in the small village I live in, which is having 10,000 houses built on its doorstep). With supply and demand, house prices are unaffordable to the next generation (our children).

Healthcare: Our healthcare system can no longer cope. If you want a doctor's appointment, you have to wait weeks or go private. I've been waiting since December last year for an ultrasound scan. They send me texts asking if I still want the appointment and if I don't respond, they cancel it.

Transport: The roads are deteriorating—they are congested and full. From personal experience, I've spent thousands repairing suspension damage from potholes. Similarly, the airports are way past capacity, according to my travel experience.

Crime: Sexual assaults on women have doubled for children aged 13 or over since 2013. Knife crime is also up significantly over that period. Our most recent headline crimes are perceived as caused by a group in our society who do not share our values and culture—that group being (presumably) extremist Muslims.

Community in mourning after three girls killed in knife attack:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cd194zkw4d9o

Two guilty of Lee Rigby murder:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-25450555

'Soldier beheaded' in Woolwich machete attack: as it happened:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/10074029/Shootings-and-machete-attack-in-south-east-London-live.html

Woolwich: suspect believed to be involved in attack - video:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/video/2013/may/22/woolwich-suspect-attack-video

Newcastle grooming gang jailed for raping 13-year-old girl:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tyne-68446855.amp

Grooming gang sentenced to nearly 350 years for rape of eight young girls:
https://metro.co.uk/2024/04/27/grooming-gang-sentenced-nearly-350-years-rape-8-young-girls-20730704/?trk=public_post_comment-text

Huddersfield grooming gang: Men convicted of sexually abusing vulnerable girls and jailed for 220 years:
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/huddersfield-child-abuse-ring-sex-trial-court-grooming-tommy-robinson-reporting-restrictions-a8592176.html

Yet simultaneously, they inflate the money supply, causing prices to rise and devaluing their citizens' savings. They also increase taxes and provide an education system that indoctrinates our children.

The most recent attack in Southport was by Axel Muganwa Rudakubana, who ran into a dance class of children and stabbed and murdered three young girls aged 7 or so, with others critically injured. The press was slow to clarify who committed the atrocity, which I think exacerbated the situation. Axel is aged 17 and is a child of immigrant parents from Rwanda. I don't think his family are Muslim, by the way.

So, yes, people are angry—very angry—and rightfully so. It takes a lot for the British public to protest. They have been betrayed by a government that doesn't listen to them, does not control immigration, and now labels it as "far-right thuggery." They are not far-right; they are working class (of all colours).

There is a two-tier policing system that lets one group run around with knives and machetes and protects Antifa. Yet when the working class protests, they turn up in riot gear, with dogs, and charge them down, inciting violence. In response, the government declares how they will increase the use of facial recognition and come down hard on anyone involved (including online), but there is no mention of how they will resolve the issues that have caused this outrage.

The most recent protests have been against the hotels profiting from the migrant situation. I hope that innocent people are not harmed and that the anger is directed towards the government that is complicit in causing this, not on our fellow mankind.

That said, I don't have live TV, and I am fortunate to live outside of the large towns where the protests are being held (generally up north, in Labour [left] voting towns, interestingly). I respect others' opinions, as it's difficult to see the whole picture from any one viewpoint. One thing is for sure: if the government continues not to listen and indeed acts against the working class, this won't stop here.

"When I see an actual flesh-and-blood worker in conflict with his natural enemy, the policeman, I do not have to ask myself which side I am on." - George Orwell

Sources:

Net migration to push UK population to 74m by 2036, ONS projects
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-68139947

Starmer condemns 'far-right thuggery' on UK streets and says those involved 'will regret it':
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c0jqjxe8d1yt
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cpwddpzyxpzo

How Winter Fuel Payments are changing – and what other support is available to pensioners?:
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/winter-fuel-payment-2024-pensioners-allowance-b2588687.html

Knife crime statistics England and Wales:
https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn04304/

How many violent attacks and sexual assaults on women are there?:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/explainers-56365412?trk=public_post_comment-text

Labour wants to build 1.5m new homes - can it really deliver on its promise?:
https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/mortgageshome/article-13596143/Labour-wants-build-1-5m-new-homes-really-deliver-promise.html

https://m.primal.net/JpEi.jpg


Today we disclose Dark Skippy - a powerful new method for a malicious signing device to leak secret keys.

With a modified signing function, a device can efficiently and covertly exfiltrate a master secret seed by embedding it within transaction signatures

https://darkskippy.com/demo.mp4

If an attacker manages to corrupt a signing device, Dark Skippy can deliberately use weak & low entropy secret nonces to embed chunks of the seed words into transaction signatures.

It takes just two input signatures to leak a 12 word seedphrase onto the Bitcoin blockchain.

The attacker can watch on-chain until they spot an affected transaction, unblind and invert the low entropy nonces using an algorithm like Pollard's Kangaroo algorithm to learn the master secret seed.

Then the attacker can wait and steal the funds whenever they decide best.

Despite this attack vector not being new, we believe that  Dark Skippy is now the best-in-class attack for malicious signing  devices.

- The attack is impractical to detect
- Requires no additional communication channels
- Effective on stateless devices
- Exfils master secret

Beyond ensuring your device firmware is genuine and honest (opensource), mitigations include anti-exfil signing protocols and we present some new ideas for additions to PSBT specifications to disrupt this attack.

We encourage mitigation discussion and implementation exploration.

This attack highlights the importance of verifying and securing your device's firmware, and the danger of sharing stateless signing devices with other people.

We will be publicly releasing our code later this year.

Authors:  nostr:npub1xh897wvhn93tda0zws94mdyc7eagc8qm0798clp7x48zh6kjwazq29gst6 (follow him so he gets onto nostr), Robin Linus, and myself.

If you have any concerns or questions we recommend checking out the FAQ page on our website:
https://darkskippy.com


The reversal of the carry trade could turn into a margin call on the financial system with EVERY asset (most illiquid) tied to that very same financialization and leverage.
That leverage unwind will (if left unchecked) take down major players.
Ie - Massive manipulation of money incoming (liquidity) or deflationary spiral. Likely both (depending on timing and your country)

Good thing there is a protocol stack bounded by energy that is open, decentralized and secure.
#Bitcoin.


Can’t hit “sell” if you can’t access your brokerage account.
https://m.primal.net/JoqG.jpg


Important update: Mutiny Wallet will be winding down operations by the end of the year.

We're exploring new directions as a company. For full details on the shutdown and our future plans, please read our latest blog post: https://blog.mutinywallet.com/mutiny-wallet-is-shutting-down/


Check out our latest prototypes for the next generation of Bitcoin self-custody!
https://m.primal.net/JoTk.png

https://frostsnap.com


Since the finance sector of the economy (investing, lending, payment processing, etc) just enables other things we more directly care about, the more efficient it is the smaller share of economic activity it should be.

Ideally the financial sector should be a half or a quarter of its current share of GDP. It should slip into the background.

The financialization of everything is largely attributable to bad money and bad structural incentives.


What's your daily driver in terms of nostr client(s)?


Primal on mobile, noStrudel / Primal on desktop.


Why do people still post twitter links, I can't see that shit.

Include screenshot!


Long form: *exists*

Thinkbois in Kind-1 notes:
https://media.tenor.com/AUjXAe0yyx8AAAAC/kermit-typing.gif


ARK TO DONATE A FIXED PERCENTAGE OF REVENUE TO OPEN SOURCE CONTRIBUTORS IN PERPETUITY.

https://cdn.satellite.earth/35a289ecf8a9514cf10cb548246fe6628ca5c9f8b301783ae79344e047c40134.mp4


GN, freedom doesn’t mean that everyone is going to agree on social issues or that people will only “be nice” to you. Thinking that either is relevant to the idea of liberty is to misunderstand the fundamental reason it’s so important and what it actually means.

Freedom is important because we will *never* all agree on social issues. They explicitly don’t scale, which is exactly why freedom is necessary.


'Economics in one lesson' by Henry Hazlitt is a very good book


🚨 For the first time, a government is being overthrown by 3D-printed weapons 🔫

The longest-lasting civil war today took an unexpected turn... when the resistance adopted plastic weapons and cryptocurrencies.

You NEED to know what's happening in Myanmar 👇

https://image.nostr.build/a2fdf9026e54b6b1da842627fb5b8c4bd194211838d838b3c0d791eb5db65441.jpg

https://image.nostr.build/90c607aedae1666db44e2cdf10bfc325b857c46a8afaebebbe2752b7e1b23cca.jpg

Myanmar has never had political stability since gaining independence 76 years ago.

The latest coup was in 2021, banks were drained, and the local currency lost 60% of its value in the following months.

Rebels have since been using CRYPTO to finance themselves.

https://image.nostr.build/ddaac81e9555922d2c8940c90ccbc8f37c6f4e1b987a79282a8324377d0e1724.png

They declared TETHER as the official currency 🏅

They launched a stablecoin and a crypto bank on the Polygon network that accesses Uniswap pools for buying and selling currencies.

They even created a digital lottery and boycotted the national Myanmar lottery, which saw its revenue drop by 80% 📉

https://image.nostr.build/4fd9c942150d77ed2c032af07f7d6f785b35ec52806f9c76a523398a6fad93a7.png

https://image.nostr.build/7d8e3303a2f7a823094c281d65fe926358158e4beea41ee7f8f0d740985e3e28.png

The rebels have raised about $100 million in recent years.

They even auctioned "revolutionary bonds": buyers could receive a share of a deposed general's mansion, for example.

But this $100 million is nothing compared to the nearly $1 billion that the junta has invested in the war since the coup.

https://image.nostr.build/eb9746cf073e54a643de3c70767aee6aa0be09634ae9af0578b67d5c902892c6.png

https://image.nostr.build/fc6f73aa8cc85024cbe4667725066c98c5f3fdb1bbedde479b0b897fdfef4d2e.png

This ASYMMETRY of resources suggests a protracted conflict with no end in sight.

The junta is unable to eliminate all the decentralized insurgency hotspots... but it can exhaust them financially.

However, the asymmetry is decreasing, thanks to DISSIDENT TECHNOLOGIES...

https://image.nostr.build/93ff5fc270a0569fd2b314e37b46d713b868279b95d830f906c0ecfb3a633cd1.png

JStark would be proud.

In recent months, there have been reports of FGC9s in use in Myanmar.

FGC9 is one of the most popular models of self-made firearms.

FGC = Fuck Gun Control

No one conquers a city with FGC9s.

But it is certainly possible to...

https://image.nostr.build/e71236550139189060f73e9c771bec5ad5c7ee6d74ff839519ec4f94dfaf8be4.jpg

https://image.nostr.build/32dbf62496fc16bb532396d9c0f67348e616743d57a4b451927d610df2385e7a.jpg

... defend a mountain pass or a village surrounded by forest with them.

Moreover, the resistance has mastered the art of producing and piloting homemade patrol drones.

Check it out 👇

https://video.nostr.build/6455e3665450014e51e9c7ca96424c463741751239bfa6b8f059c90ac27fb6a8.mp4

https://image.nostr.build/aa0cdf1ebde058c7d6816499bb20eb220aa3e4825c12fc866deeb170f053711b.jpg

https://image.nostr.build/863eec319106271697d818c28e730048ed45e7ff7990d30f9f4592202b77c467.jpg

https://image.nostr.build/9f7d5a5a61ad4e979d6305dc4d2c124979e1ee49adac10a8ca9d18310857bd86.jpg

The insurgents have already liberated ~50% of the territory.

The military junta controls the most populous and economically significant areas.

China supported the last coup in 2021. The West never had enough incentive to confront Beijing 🇨🇳

But in 2024, everything starts to change.

https://image.nostr.build/56c5705a1c8f1e73685767d2b059cdf38d9002029369c667c4ce246a9090e595.png

China's interest is economic.

They need to be on the side of the "winner" to ensure access to Myanmar's strategic pipelines and ports.

But in March of this year, Beijing lost its patience.

Hold on to this:

😳 44,000 CHINESE were in Myanmar as "slaves"...

https://image.nostr.build/faa92bf49b76a74367313ae9dc701a20800fef77c00a74676e9003f557211332.png

...and they were finally discovered and "returned."

They were working in "ONLINE SCAM CENTERS" operating in the northern part of the country. They were lured with fake job advertisements.

This is a scam center on the border with Thailand, packed with Chinese workers, scamming people worldwide 👇

https://image.nostr.build/2460a015b0beb3b775506b6e50e9c96c1ceb743e4214a3a1a1f4ebd6b3c00b20.jpg

Think about this 👇

You’ve probably been targeted by some online profile trying to scam you, operated by one of the THOUSANDS of trafficked Chinese people working in centers like this.

What year are we living in, folks?! 😳

https://image.nostr.build/ede9666bb2b241506214704e0f7b4585fc1adb5db438145c77e89a73b32ce65b.png

The fight against tyranny still seems far from over. But the end appears to have already begun.

The balance of power is shifting.


I think it's a great breakdown. And ultimately, the answer partially comes down to 1) trust+incentives and 2) grouping.

However, I would add one more important variable to your bitcoiner kinds analysis: the desire to have a UTXO, or the lack thereof.

Engineers/developers often start with the scaling problem assessment by saying, "okay assuming all 8 billion people want to use bitcoin non-custodially..." which might not be a valid assumption.

So to recap your list:

"There are three kinds of bitcoiners.
A. Those who can afford any fee.
B. Those who can afford a UTXO, but not often.
C. Those who can't afford a UTXO."

I would expand that by saying there are six kinds. There are each of those three categories, and then also a yes/no for each of them for whether they want a UTXO in the first place. (And in reality, a bit more nuanced than that, as there are certain contexts where they might want a UTXO or not, or levels of desire to have a UTXO.)

We don't yet know what percentage of people will want to have some sort of cryptographic control (and thus ultimate responsibility) over their money, either for personal reasons, or situational reasons, etc. For many people, a custodian with proof of reserves and external auditors and rule of law in a good jurisdiction, and someone to call for support if there's a problem, is what they want. And, maybe an ecash wallet run by a federation of power users they trust as their daily spender wallet if they (hopefully) value privacy.

Others are power users by choice, or they're in a more uncertain/hostile environment where they need to become a power user, and thus they want to acquire some or all control over their funds.

So I tend to look at the problem set in terms of optionality. Ideally there should be plenty of reasonably easy-to-use methods for people to gain more control and/or privacy over their funds.

The solution set is already quite large and growing, and every fee spike incentivizes and accelerates more scaling for those solutions. And even with more expressivity, there are still inherently limits on being able to enforce scaling layers back down to the UTXO for the smallest users of those layers, which means there will always be a use for the social layer, and the various trust/incentive/grouping economies of scale that come with that. Division of labor.


Just sent my grandma her first sats today! She worked hard her whole life, yet her pension is only $300 per month—barely enough to cover her bills. She knows the system is flawed, but she didn’t know any better. Bitcoin is for everyone.

Appreciate the simple UX. “Bitcoin grandmas” are no longer hypothetical.
https://m.primal.net/JcwC.jpg


This week's Financial Freedom Report #34 covers stories of financial repression enforced by dictators. For example:

- Venezuela | Maduro Rigs Election to Prolong Regime
- Russia | Introduces New & Repressive Digital Asset Laws
- Ethiopia | Currency Devaluation to Secure IMF Loan

In Bitcoin news, we highlight:

- BitAxe | Mines First Solo Bitcoin Block
- Fedi | Announces Save the Children Collaboration
- Lightning Labs | Releases Taproot Assets on Lightning

All this and more in our latest newsletter here: https://hrf.org/category/financial-freedom/

Subscribe to the newsletter here: http://financialfreedomreport.org


For those who don’t want to do the math, that’s a 97.5% loss for the owners.

This was done at auction, extended 3 times, and with the sellers having to lower the reserve price just so the sale would go through…

People have no idea how much this could be affecting the banking sector, but has been allowed to go unadjusted on balance sheets. There are banks with *enormous* exposure to commercial real estate, and so much of it looks like this.

I don’t know the timeline because it depends on tons of govt and fed “guarantees” and reporting rules which have been altered to help cover this (and a lot of other problems) up, but this will blow up at some point.

(Here’s a fun little graph showing possible exposure from recent years) https://i.nostr.build/hYhCqzSDNWiUsHOd.jpg  nostr:note1g36hengtfljpuznqf29vtjd6w52q2skh9wrvfhdmpq8h0hy8grfqekdk5k


I think about this quote all the time.

“After spending many years in Wall Street and after making and losing millions of dollars I want to tell you this: It never was my thinking that made the big money for me. It always was my sitting. Got that? My sitting tight! It is no trick at all to be right on the market. You always find lots of early bulls in bull markets and early bears in bear markets. I've known many men who were right at exactly the right time, and began buying or selling stocks when prices were at the very level which should show the greatest profit. And their experience invariably matched mine that is, they made no real money out of it. Men who can both be right and sit tight are uncommon. I found it one of the hardest things to learn. But it is only after a stock operator has firmly grasped this that he can make big money. It is literally true that millions come easier to a trader after he knows how to trade than hundreds did in the days of his ignorance.”

- Jesse Livermore, Reminiscences of a Stock Operator


As I’m typing this note, I’m still the only trained survivor advocate that I’ve ever seen say these things. I put my career on the line to say all of that long ago. My colleagues hate my positions.

It was Snowden that opened my eyes, thank God. The privacy rights folks do a pretty good job at pushing back but I like to take it a step further by offering solutions that I believe would be effective instead. I understand that this isn’t the job of privacy rights advocates. It’s my job.

Educating parents and children while providing online safety tools is a better pathway forward. It would be a good start but very little effort is put towards prevention.

You can’t make the internet safe for children but you can educate children about how to be safer online. nostr:note1qzxkmnf8hvqwtn33lequepvmsj2p5plp2awgdpq5hcmu66usl5nqhr4heh


Clean online child safety bills that don’t violate the first amendment, digital privacy rights or erode encryption would probably pass.

The precious time wasted going back and forth about these bills that could potentially help with one crime but violate the human rights of many who use the internet, is time that could be better spent elsewhere.

A strong focus on educating children about online child safety and providing parents with education and safety tools is a better path forward.

Incentivizing innovation around online child safety could also be prioritized but it’s not.

I don’t trust that the government can make the internet safe. The governments aren’t trustworthy with more power and control. The world isn’t safe but armed with tools and knowledge parents can work towards protecting their children as much as possible online.
https://www.carolinajournal.com/no-plan-for-us-house-to-take-up-kosa-despite-senate-passage/


Today I was listening to one of my favorite macro podcasts talk about the Fed's meeting from yesterday. One of the best interviewers in the space, and one of his top interviewees.

And I couldn't finish it. So boring.

They were literally noting the tiniest details. The Fed's prepared statement didn't mention a rate cut in September. And then Fed chairman Powell's prepared press talk also didn't mention it. However, when asked about a September rate cut, he flipped to a page where he had a prepared statement indicating that yeah they're kind of leaning toward a September rate cut, and read it.

So they were like, "Huh! I wonder what the significance of that is. He had a prepared written statement about September, but only when asked!"

People literally judge the Fed chair's body language, facial movements, details like whether he has a prepared statement for a given question, etc. Omg.

For my work I need to note the basics of what the Fed said and all that, like the 3-minute summary of all that stuff. But the sheer excitement that these people had when discussing details like that for an hour was so banal. It seemed like satire.

Zoom out.

https://m.primal.net/Jlff.jpg


It was worth being discriminated during Covid.
It was worth being called names, inc. conspiracy theorist.
It was worth being censored on almost every platform.
It was worth yelling “you’re being sold out” to Israelis on Oct. 7th.
It was worth being on team humanity and speaking of “the other side” of innocent Palestinians.
It was worth all the heat and hate I got for it.
It was worth breaking down & building myself up stronger.
It was worth staying true to my values.
It was worth speaking up.
It was worth losing friends & jobs.

It was all worth it, and I would have done it all over again, cuz I discovered true friends, and this community, and I realize I can be named next to these courageous people on this list.
💪🏻🧡🙏🏻

So grateful.
https://m.primal.net/JlaO.jpg


TUCKER POSTED THIS TO HIS YOUTUBE YESTERDAY FROM TRUMP JR'S SHITCOIN EVENT.

CALLS SIGNAL AND BITCOIN HONEY TRAPS WHILE PROMOTING TELEGRAM AND X...

https://cdn.satellite.earth/25d3068dd43853456e7655e5f3b89bcd59fc53461d6bab9548b7656c28010a70.mp4


Unpopular opinion, amongst some bitcoiners, but I’m really sick of it.
The virtue signaling of some bitcoiners to the “climate change” scam club is silly and useless.
https://m.primal.net/JlUv.jpg


I can't shill nostr:nprofile1qqs83nn04fezvsu89p8xg7axjwye2u67errat3dx2um725fs7qnrqlgpr4mhxue69uhkummnw3ez6ur4vgh8wetvd3hhyer9wghxuet5qyt8wumn8ghj7un9d3shjtnswf5k6ctv9ehx2aqpr3mhxue69uhkummnw3ezucnfw33k76twv4ezuum0vd5kzmq50sn4h  often enough. The idea is fantastic. The app itself is great, and getting better. The curation is excellent, I'm discovering new stuff all the time. And all of it will improve over time. So powerful.


All fiat assets are being depreciated and everyone knows it.

For the first time in history, we the people built an alternative: #Bitcoin. A global, decentralized money owned by everyone. An open-source exit door.

This will never happen again. Don't look back with any regrets.
https://m.primal.net/JjbU.mov