Tag: russia

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TORY COMMIE TRASH

Carole Cadwalladr @carolecadwallaNEW: Hugely significant interview with ex-MI6 officer Christopher Steele.
He speaks on the record with @haynesdeborah for first time ever about Russian interference in Brexit.
‘Did you ever uncover evidence of hostile operations of Russia against the UK?
‘Yes.’
In US, an entire dept of FBI investigated Russia’s interference. In UK, we now know: ZERO investigation
Steele is utterly damning on UK govt’s failure. Polarisation of Brexit debate led to political decision to ignore. Huge & yet to unfold consequences for national security.

Russia Is Censoring the Internet, With Coercion and Black Boxes
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/22/technology/russia-internet-censorship-putin.html

The fragility of the internet is a threat to the economy | The Japan Times
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2021/10/21/commentary/world-commentary/fragile-internet/

PUBLIC HEALTH

Like Venom Coursing Through the Body: Mechanism Driving COVID-19 Mortality Identified

Scientists Built an AI to Give Ethical Advice, But It Turned Out Super Racist

A Century-Old Idea That Could Revitalize Public Health (It’s… er… public health.)How Public Health Took Part in Its Own Downfall
The field’s future lies in reclaiming parts of its past that it willingly abandoned.

Internet Service Providers Collect, Sell Horrifying Amount of Sensitive Data, Government Study Concludes

BITCOIN

The Japanese trustee for the defunct cryptocurrency exchange Mt. Gox said creditors have approved a plan that will eventually lead to the distribution of more than $9 billion in Bitcoin.

Number go up: Bitcoin is a Trojan Horse | Alex Gladstein and Lex Fridman

How To Choose The Right Lightning Network Channels For Your Bitcoin Node

Bitcoin Lightning Network Routing Fees Explained w/ Carsten Otto

U.S. Bitcoin Futures ETF is for stupid dumb money

Just days after launch, the first U.S. Bitcoin futures exchange-traded fund
risks becoming too popular for its own good.

Publicly traded corporations should be prohibited from issuing cryptocurrencies by law.

@JACK Hyperinflation is going to change everything. It’s happening.

U.S. Federal Reserve Chair: Inflation may “last longer than previously expected” #Bitcoin fixes this. Bitcoin is deterministic immunity to fiat debasement, and it’s open to anyone in the world.

Do we want Facebook-based monetary policy?

A government is not a corporation by definition.
A corporation is, itself, a function of the state. Nobody talks about DAOs anymore, but under law that’s an unincorporated association. There’s actually good rules for that, like those around community gardens. A corporation exists by permission of the state. Corporate cryptocurrency can never be permissionless by definition. It is commonly held that the first “corporation” was the Dutch East India Company which issued stock to investors under grant of the king for the purposes of sharing profit. All securities law derives from it. The issuing of a security which, even in 2018, is to issue a share in a venture for the purposes of profit (re: Howey Test) has always been regulated by the government of whatever country in which the people founding the corporation selling shares was based. Bryce “Delta Actual” Weiner @BryceWeiner

Bitcoin’s Netscape Moment is Finally Here

Bitcoin believers have been waiting for their 1994 moment for years. It may have just happened.

“The browser moment has happened in the last year,” says Jesse Walden, an Andreessen Horowitz vet who just raised $120 million to start a second venture fund dedicated to early stage crypto. (Marc Andreessen co-founded Netscape, by the way.)

In a recent conversation we had, Walden made the case that recent events other than just price action—from the NFT explosion to the millions of people playing the metaverse game Axie—means crypto has gone beyond early adopters to the first stage of mainstream use.
For the first time ever citizens in countries with hyperinflation have a lifeboat that not only holds their wealth but increases in value over time. #Bitcoin will be obvious to everyone very soon.
It’s a bearer asset.

Having a slot on the blockchain with a massive network effect and resistance to censorship or mutability, that can be self-custodied and sent anywhere, has value.
Satoshi devised a new way to manufacture digital-native money that requires a tremendous amount of work. Fiat currency systems manufacture free money. There is no real cost for the financial system to create more dollar/euro/yen currency units.Adam Back @adam3us most of the work is to mine new #bitcoin’s. the 6.25 btc is about 98-99% of recent block value, the rest being transaction fees.

The Japanese trustee for the defunct cryptocurrency exchange Mt. Gox said creditors have approved a plan that will eventually lead to the distribution of more than $9 billion in Bitcoin.

EFF

John Gilmore Leaves the EFF Board, Becomes Board Member Emeritus | Electronic Frontier Foundation

John Gilmore Leaves the EFF Board, Becomes Board Member Emeritus

Cindy Cohn </about/staff/cindy-cohn>October 22, 2021
Since he helped found EFF 31 years ago, John Gilmore has provided leadership and guidance on many of the most important digital rights issues we advocate for today. But in recent years, we have not seen eye-to-eye on how to best communicate and work together, and we have been unable to agree on a way forward with Gilmore in a governance role. That is why the EFF Board of Directors has recently made the difficult decision to vote to remove Gilmore from the Board.

We are deeply grateful for the many years Gilmore gave to EFF as a leader and advocate, and the Board has elected him to the role of Board Member Emeritus moving forward. “I am so proud of the impact that EFF has had in retaining and expanding individual rights and freedoms as the world has adapted to major technological changes,” Gilmore said. “My departure will leave a strong board and an even stronger staff who care deeply about these issues.”

John Gilmore co-founded EFF in 1990 alongside John Perry Barlow, Steve Wozniak and Mitch Kapor, and provided significant financial support critical to the organization’s survival and growth over many years. Since then, Gilmore has worked closely with EFF’s staff, board, and lawyers on privacy, free speech, security, encryption, and more.

In the 1990s, Gilmore found the government documents that confirmed the First Amendment problem with the government’s export controls over encryption, and helped initiate the filing of Bernstein v DOJ <https://www.eff.org/cases/bernstein-v-us-dept-justice>, which resulted in a court ruling that software source code was speech protected by the First Amendment and the government’s regulations preventing its publication were unconstitutional. The decision made it legal in 1999 for web browsers, websites, and software like PGP and Signal to use the encryption of their choice.

Gilmore also led EFF’s effort to design and build the DES Cracker <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EFF_DES_cracker>, which was regarded as a fundamental breakthrough in how we evaluate computer security and the public policies that control its use. At the time, the 1970s Data Encryption Standard (DES) was embedded in ATM machines and banking networks, as well as in popular software around the world. U.S. government officials proclaimed that DES was secure, while secretly being able to wiretap it themselves. The EFF DES Cracker publicly showed that DES was in fact so weak that it could be broken in one week with an investment of less than $350,000. This catalyzed the international creation and adoption of the much stronger Advanced Encryption Standard (AES), now widely used to secure information worldwide.

Among Gilmore’s most important contributions to EFF and to the movement for digital rights has been recruiting key people to the organization, such as former Executive Director Shari Steele, current Executive Director Cindy Cohn, and Senior Staff Attorney and Adams Chair for Internet Rights Lee Tien.

EFF has always valued and appreciated Gilmore’s opinions, even when we disagree. It is no overstatement to say that EFF would not exist without him. We look forward to continuing to benefit from his institutional knowledge and guidance in his new role of Board Member Emeritus.

HACKED

First Finger Prints then Finger vein tech to verify COVID-19 vaccination records
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2021/10/22/national/covid-vaccine-app/

Commerce Announces Rule for Selling Hacking Tools to Foreign Governments
A new interim rule takes aim at Russia and China.
By FRANK KONKELOCTOBER 20, 2021 03:34 PM ET
U.S. companies will need to obtain a license from the Commerce Department to sell certain kinds of software—specifically cybersecurity tools that could be used for hacking or surveillance purposes—to foreign governments.

How Hackers Hijacked Thousands of High-Profile YouTube Accounts
https://www.wired.com/story/youtube-bitcoin-scam-account-hijacking-google-phishing/

The fragility of the internet is a threat to the economy
The sheer frequency of the web’s problems shows industries, in aggregate, do not take the issue seriously
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2021/10/21/commentary/world-commentary/fragile-internet/

HS cyber talent system set to go live with ‘around 150 positions’ next month

RETHUGLICANS

Laurence Tribe This week, all 50 Senate Republicans voted against beginning debate on the Freedom to Vote Act. As Marc Elias says, “There is no middle ground between a firefighter and an arsonist. And right now, Republicans are the arsonists, lighting the house of democracy on fire.”
We’ve also learned Kevin McCarthy received money from Lev Parnas, the Rudy Giuliani sidekick whose money came through Ukrainian oligarch Firtash and who was convicted by a jury yesterday. And Oleg Deripaska seems to be involved. Hence Moscow Mitch, given Okeg’s Ky aluminum plant.

Richard Blumenthal @SenBlumenthal
More bombshell evidence. Facebook’s failure to police itself—causing destructive, tragic damage—cries out for action. Our ongoing subcommittee hearings, focusing on Big Tech’s devastating harms, will continue Tuesday, aiming for bold legislative steps.

Remind me again of the democratic principle by which states should have equal representation in government, regardless of wild population disparities. Is our government for states, or is it for people?

DUMB WORTHLESS DEMOCRATS STARE INTO THE ABYSS

The current plan appears to be to NOT fight for voting rights and then hope everyone gets mad enough at voter suppression to magically overcome voter suppression, including the laws that are putting vote counting and certifying in the hands of partisans. So the plan is to lose. So many fools think the fight for democracy is in 2022 and 2024.

Will the president’s party pass major legislation before the midterm elections? By Ronald Brownstein
If Democrats fail to act: “It would be seen as the biggest missed opportunity…in a generation…If they don’t take steps now to protect our democracy, the window could shut and there may not be another chance.”

Jared Kushner is reportedly in talks to receive upwards of $2 billion from Saudi Arabia for his private equity firm.

Parents Sue AG Garland for Violating Free Speech Rights with FBI School-Board Memo

Merrick Garland’s Dodges on Investigating Former Presidents – emptywheel

National School Boards Association
1680 Duke St. FL2, Alexandria, VA 22314-3493
Phone: (703) 838.6722 • Fax: (703) 683.7590
The leading advocate for public education September 29, 2021. The Honorable Joseph R. Biden President of the United States The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20500
Re: Federal Assistance to Stop Threats and Acts of Violence Against Public Schoolchildren, Public School
Board Members, and Other Public School District Officials and Educators
More than 90,000 school board members who govern our country’s 14,000 local public school districts educate more than 50 million schoolchildren, NSBA appreciates your leadership to end the proliferation of COVID-19 in our communities and our school districts.
https://nsba.org/-/media/NSBA/File/nsba-letter-to-president-biden-concerning-threats-to-public-schools-and-school-board-members-92921.pdf

Maybe the problem with social media is less the business model, the algorithms, or our habits on them. It’s that humans evolved to be connected to relatively small groups — and connecting to massive ones is inevitably going to cause problems.
Understanding human psychology, motivation, and behavior is one of the hacker’s most important tools. #Engineering

Those arrested for Jan. 6 are often contrite. John Eastman is desperate to reframe his memo, facing professional repercussions. Bannon may be criminally charged. Accountability works — when it exists.https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/10/22/accountability-works-where-it-exists/

THREAD What I’ll add here is that our growing fascist movement is based on an endless, unjustified sense of grievance. Trump and his followers have convinced themselves they are *victims* of liberals, who are somehow stealing something the fascists believe is their birthright.

Texas AG Ken Paxton Tells El Paso Crowd an ‘Overthrow’ Put Joe Biden in White House
‘We just want him gone’: Houston paper calls for far-right AG Ken Paxton’s resignation Mr. Paxton, who has been at the center of bribery and corruption accusations and was indicted in 2015 on allegations of securities fraud in a case that has not been resolved.

Nevada Republican Kirk Hartle, who claimed someone stole his late wife’s ballot, is charged with voter fraud.

@waltshaub
If you’re tweeting defenses of politicians who can’t pass voting rights legislation, you’re the one working for the fascists by spreading your vision of citizenship as submission to a party. The rest of us will keep pressuring these weak politicians because we live democracy.

Who’s Listening? Exposing Global Multicorp
Can you save the whistleblower from peril?
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