You may be absolutely right about a warrantless search discussed in the “See also”. EFF’s opinion (the main link) is about something different, though somewhat related. The situation seems to be…
Police procured a search warrant for defendant's cell phone but were unable to execute the warrant because the cell phone was passcode protected and defendant refused to provide the passcode. Accordingly, the State filed a motion to compel production of the cell phone's passcode.
EFF argues that even in this situation with a warrant, Fifth Amendment protections against self-incrimination mean that the defendant can’t be forced to reveal the passcode:
“When the government demands someone turn over or enter their passcode, it is forcing that person to disclose the contents of their mind and provide a link in a chain of possibly incriminating evidence,” said EFF Surveillance Litigation Director Andrew Crocker. “Whenever the government calls on someone to use memorized information to aid in their own prosecution—whether it be a cellphone passcode, a combination to a safe, or even their birthdate—the Fifth Amendment applies.”
WASHINGTON, D.C.—The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) today asked the Supreme Court to overturn a ruling undermining Fifth Amendment protections against self-incrimination and find that constitutional safeguards prevent police from forcing people to provide or use passcodes for their cell...
See also: Fifth Circuit says law enforcement doesn’t need warrants to search phones at the border https://monero.town/post/402125
Walmart subsequently pulled the affected tablet from its online store, while Amazon and Google said they are investigating.
> The app store “collects and sends data […] This includes information like device model, brand, country, timezone, screen size, view events, click events, logtime of events, and a unique KID ID,”
> Hancock didn’t return the tablet to her daughter until after making changes to protect her daughter’s privacy.
> [She] even installed Tor, a browser that is designed to protect the anonymity of its user.
An awesome Mom, like Mrs. Roberts from xkcd!
You can use any email provider in a pretty privacy-friendly way, as long as you sign up anonymously, always use it via Tor, and (most importantly) do gpg locally and just paste ascii. Don’t share your secret key with them/anyone!
- Monero users understandably tend to like Monero-accepting services. Tuta does, albeit indirectly; Proton doesn’t. There is also cyberfear.com, a less known anonymous email provider accepting xmr, but maybe no one is sure if it’s okay.
- Despite all potential issues, for normal users who are still using Gmail etc., Proton/Tuta are still recommended (simply because they’re better than Google).
Leave it to the cryptocurrency people to turn a simple tutorial into an ad.
I’m from the same Lemmy instance monero.town (technically a mod?) and can see your point. Initially I was vocal about perceived link-spamming, advertising this SimplifiedPrivacy thing; at least a few users there were/are feeling the same way, as you can see e.g. here. So please don’t lump crypto (esp. Monero) users as a single kind of people.
Like @leraje@lemmy.blahaj.zone pointed out, some of info provided by this user (ShadowRebel) can be useful. Perhaps some people prefer a video to text. Monero users tend to respect freedom (of speech) and advertisement is not forbidden in Monero.town anyway. Perhaps you can understand that this does not mean “the cryptocurrency people” are the same.
In addition, Tuta is open source and the entire client code is published on GitHub.
One can freely share “good” source code while actually using something different; which might be an intrinsic problem of an “open-source” web service. Plus, one has no reason to believe that the service has never been compromised: someone might have a backdoor that Tuta itself is unaware.
I’d like to believe that Tuta is not evil, but ultimately that’s anyone’s guess. I’d recommend true e2e (local-to-local) such as PGP, rather than trusting a middle-man e2e provider.
>A storefront, said Ortis, is a fake business or entity, either online or bricks-and-mortar, set up by police or intelligence agencies. > >The plan, he said, was to have criminals use the storefront — an online end-to-end encryption service called Tutanota — to allow authorities to collect intelligence about them.
Tutanota (now Tuta) denies this: https://tuta.com/blog/tutanota-not-a-honeypot
The SimplyTranslate front end has many languages, translate engines selectable: Google | DeepL (Testing) | ICIBA | Reverso | LibreTranslate. Some instances are Tor-friendly, even onion. The project page seems to be https://codeberg.org/SimpleWeb/SimplyTranslate
Refusing to use Google is just common sense. LibreTranslate itself is decent (at least not Google), except a website hosting it may have some opaque JS or Google things (Font, Analytics, TagManagers, etc.)
Either way, translation can’t be super-private in general. For example, if you use it to write a private message or love letter in a foreign language… even including real names and physical addresses…
Also, metadata like “a Danish-speaker is reading this German text about X” can’t be hidden, and if the language pair is uncommon and/or if text to be translated is specialized (not generic), the engine provider may easily guess “this request and that request yesterday may be from the same user”, etc. if they want to. A sufficiently powerful “attacker” might de-anonymize you, helped by other info about you, already gathered. In practice, maybe not a big concern, if you’re just translating generic, non-sensitive text, not showing your real IP, and clearing cookies frequently.
Just fyi: recently EFF is creating Privacy Badger browser add-on and GNU also has LibreJS. They’re technically not ad-blockers, though; apparently a tracker-blocker and a non-free-script-blocker, respectively.
I’ve found two possible solutions:
- If you use some kind of Lemmy reader instead of using a browser, it may have a filtering function, like “hide post including this word” like using regex.
- “After complaining yesterday about seeing too much Linux content in the Fediverse” — this Lemmy user seemed to have experienced a similar problem, and finally found a fundamental (albeit rather unexpected) solution. Read more: https://lemmy.world/post/8107430
Thunderbird doesn’t passphrase-protect your PGP key. Though you can set a general password… For something less important, its OpenPGP may be convenient, given that if you send/receive email normally, there is metadata problem anyway. But if you need to play it safe, you may want to use gpg offline and paste ascii.
Increasingly more and more “phoning home” is not exactly comfortable, either: thunderbird-settings.thunderbird(.)net location.services.mozilla(.)com addons.thunderbird(.)net versioncheck.addons.thunderbird(.)net services.addons.thunderbird(.)net, etc. Perhaps people today, both users and developers, feel something like this is normal, because things were already more or less like this when they were born.
Re: Micro$oft - It might be that after raped by Google, the society has been desensitized and stopped feeling anything about “minor details.” Why worrying now? You use a Windows 10 passport account (what is it called?) just to log on to “your own” computer and also a Gmail account anyway, right? So bad news is, your privacy is almost zero already.
https://monero.town/post/894750 So you did f2f… Glad it works, though. But how to buy it is irrelevant to the OP and is off-topic, so we shouldn’t be talking about that here.
Basically I’d never recommend anyone to buy a significant amount of crypto hoping that you can get rich quick with that. Yes, it might go up, but it may go down. Encouraging such sketchy gambling would be crazy and irresponsible, and more importantly that’s not the original purpose of this technology. Yet you already even know localmonero, so yeah, you’re simply one of us. If you’d like to you can join monero.town or subscribe it from your instance :)
It doesn’t need to be today. You don’t need to ditch it completely, but if you’d like to, you can use two machines side by side. It’s about freedom. No one should force you to do anything. Good luck!
Originally Bitcoin had nothing to do with “get rich quick”. It felt vaguely like Freenet. It was experimental, philosophical, mathematical, cypherpunk… Almost no one had imagined that investors were going to be interested in it and something like that fad would happen.
Unfortunately it’s not easy to get Monero. In several countries, CEXes don’t support it (delisted). Besides, getting Monero from CEX is not ideal privacy-wise. So, a typical Monero user gets it no-KYC, without using CEX. Which is legal, but rather complicated. That’s why I wouldn’t recommend Monero to regular people.
As you said, Monero is such a great way for payment in a practical sense. Very low fees (~1 cent, no matter how much you send), private (only you can authorize transaction, no need to get a permission from someone else). The community is relatively small (monero.town on Lemmy), but generally nice and cozy. We seldom, if ever, talk about investment… It’s so different from what people think when they hear “crypto”. It’s understandable that some people assume it’s just one of those alt sh*tcoins.
That should be easy if you do some script-fu, etc. Perhaps not so easy on Windows, though.
I understand that you may feel depressed, or even annoyed, for example when told, “Solving the problem foo is trivial if you use bar” when bar is not trivial nor realistic for you (or so you believe). For example, 2149−1 is easy to factor if you use elliptic curves, but studying elliptic curves may feel daunting (though it’s not so hard as you might think).
I do understand how you may feel in such a situation. I may be sometimes in a similar situation too.
Obviously, though, not trying to read about the solution bar wouldn’t solve the original problem foo. Not learning ECM doesn’t enable you to factor 2149−1 for example. Not trying to listen to about the L-word wouldn’t fix the annoyance of Windows. Annoyance itself may be harmless but everyone knows Windows is privacy-invasive and vulnerable to malware, viruses, keyloggers, etc. So staying too long there, refusing to learn some solution, something really bad might happen to you eventually. Honestly, something like that did happen to ourselves recently. Our community lost a lot of money, apparently stolen by attacker(s)—exactly what happened is still unknown, but the victimized wallet was on Ubuntu connected to Windows 10 via SSH.
You don’t need to ditch Windows. I respect your freedom to use non-free software. In fact, many L-word systems do include non-free blobs too!
That being said, may I suggest that you try different OS(es) just for 10 minutes, booted from a USB stick, when you have time, to see what it’s like. You might be surprised because it just works, actually more intuitive, you can use it easily, not to mention you’re not forced to see ads. Or no invasive telemetry. Feel free to ignore this suggestion if you really love Windows, thinking it’s the best OS ever. I respect freedom of thought!
The same URL now: Microsoft gives in and lets you close OneDrive on Windows without explaining yourself
Update November 10th, 4:45AM ET: Microsoft has removed the dialog forcing users to fill out a survey when quitting OneDrive, and reverted to the original prompt. In a statement sent to The Verge, Microsoft says:
Between Nov. 1 and 8, a small subset of consumer OneDrive users were presented with a dialog box when closing the OneDrive sync client, asking for feedback on the reason they chose to close the application. This type of user feedback helps inform our ongoing efforts to enhance the quality of our products.
The story below is unchanged.
If what you’re talking about is something OS-level, chances are that you can trivially do the same thing. But if it’s application-level (a tool for Windows): while there’s a way to run a Windows application, apparently it’s not always perfect. If you really need to use a program that only runs on Windows, that’s a valid reason for you to keep using Windows. I hope you can find a libre alternative. You’re free to code your own tool (which behaves exactly the way you like), but admittedly that option is not always realistic.
Nevertheless, at least when doing something generic like browsing web pages or writing email, you don’t need to do that on a privacy-invasive OS. If more and more users start noticing that, Micro$soft might realize that annoying paying customers is a bad idea in the long run.
It’s preposterous to pay (buy an expensive license) to be abused!
Excuse me, do you have a moment to talk about GNU/Linux? 🙃
When I got my senior mom a computer she had never used Windows. Instead of having her learn that I installed Debian with Xfce and Firefox. Now that’s all she knows, I laugh at people who tell me Linux is too hard when my mom without any tech knowledge uses it as her daily computer. If I had to switch her to Windows or a Chrome browser she’ll make a fuss about it.
How about a live OS as a free trial? Not only free as in free beer, but free as in freedom, and always will be free. You own your OS, not vice versa.
Become a Linux user today, while keeping your precious Windows 11 or whatever. I raise you Tails if you do this at all.
- Get an unused USB stick, download Tails and make a bootable USB. Typically this will take less than an hour.
- Restart and boot your computer into Tails.
- Congratulations! You’re a Debian user now, even on Tor. Meaning your real IP is hidden. Privacy strikes back!
- Start Tor Browser and enjoy Lemmy. Libre world is usually Tor-friendly (though lemmy.world may be behind CF).
I’m not saying you should ditch Windows today, but you might want to do some experiments? There are other OSes too, if you think yours is (becoming more and more) annoying!
[PS: lemmy.world is indeed behind Cloudflare (CF). You may not be able to use it directly via Tor. I’m okay because writing/reading this from a different, privacy-friendly instance. Though CF is MitM, some people believe it’s necessary. Be careful, though: everything you send, including your password, may be visible to this MitM as plaintext.]
The linked article is inaccurate and misleading. Your wild guess is based on that.
Currently the best blockchain analytics publicly available about the incident is this by Moonstone, and even though it seems that the victim shared the secret key with them, nothing much is known due to the nature of the privacy coin. No way other analytics providers could tell more.
Check the original source and some of the comments there before making an irresponsible accusation like the attackers must be North Korean (or Russian, Muslim, Romany, …). A knee-jerk suggestion like that does not only promote unfair racism/stereotypes, but it helps cover up the real mastermind. Although, it’s not your fault that the article is misleading, and we can’t rule out any possibility including what you suggested. The real problem here is this confusing, poorly-written article…
Sorry if I sounded unpleasant. I’m not holding Monero, I actually use it (just like one may use Paypal), is all. Still, as you can see I’m from Monero.town, so obviously I’m a fan. Guilty as charged!
I’ve actually been “preaching” about privacy to my friends, but they’re typically like “Google is fine. I have nothing to hide.” Or about PGP (in vain). But I wouldn’t preach about (recommend) the privacy coin to regular people. Like you pointed out, it’s controversial and risky. As a long time user, I know too well about both sides of this.
I do agree most cryptocurrencies are scammy, or traded speculatively. It’s a free country, so one can do whatever they want to with their own money, but I personally think they’re like greedy gamblers.
I’m a Monero user, not a trader, not an investor. I have Monero because I use it. I support it because I’m a privacy advocate. I’ve never even once used a CEX, totally unrelated to investment. Your points may be valid for those investor people, though.
Exactly, except not “the entire”, but “almost entire”?
Monero has been largely detached from CEXes, no companies, no middle men… Many users still have that idealism, a cypherpunk philosophy, that which Bitcoin tried to achieve originally. It’s community-based and crowd-funded… Some of that fund was stolen, so we’ve got to admit that the Monero community was not so smart after all… Yeah, a bit embarrassing tbh. To err is human, I guess.
For example, we do have a zero-fee donation site kuno.anne.media and recently help some girl buy a laptop or doing things like that. Some of Monero users are idealists by nature, maybe silly dreamers or naive philosophers, but definitely not greedy HODLERs. Weird people, either way, haha 😅
I think I know what you’re trying to say, and that’s actually a difficult point. Privacy is double-edged.
By that logic, you’d have to support chat control, e2e backdoor, eIDAS 45, etc. and ban Tor, Tails, VPN, BitTorrent, or encrypted communication in general because sometimes criminals can (and do) abuse such technology too. While such logic is understandable, I’m a privacy advocate and can’t agree with that. Most libre people, EFF, FSF, etc. have been fighting against that very logic for more than 20 years. I’m one of them.
EU law agreed behind closed doors threatens Internet security
> These changes radically expand the capability of EU governments to surveil their citizens by ensuring cryptographic keys under government control can be used to intercept encrypted web traffic
> This enables the government of any EU member state to issue website certificates for interception and surveillance
https://www.internetsociety.org/resources/doc/2023/qualified-web-authentication-certificates-qwacs-in-eidas/ > The browser ecosystem is global, not EU-bounded. Once a mechanism like QWACs is implemented in browsers, it is open to abuse
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EIDAS > The proposal would force internet companies to place a backdoor in web browsers to let them perform a man-in-the-middle attack, deceiving users into thinking that they were communicating with a server they requested, when, in fact, they would be communicating directly with the EU government. […] If passed, the EU would be able to hack into any internet-enabled device, reading any sensitive or encrypted contents without the user's knowledge
See also: https://mullvad.net/en/blog/2023/11/2/eu-digital-identity-framework-eidas-another-kind-of-chat-control/
[Edit 2: Read the admin’s “reasoning” and comments here or see PS below. The clearnet site is up again. The onion versions = 100% up tme for me]
[Edit (PS): As of writing this (2023-11-01) their clearnet server is down, while the onion version is working. Cock.li is exactly like this… Relatively rarely but randomly it’s down. Kind of irresponsible but it’s just like that. Interestingly, though, onion is up and clearnet is down. Usually opposite.]
Onion http://rurcblzhmdk22kttfkel2zduhyu3r6to7knyc7wiorzrx5gw4c3lftad.onion/
Cockbox on kycnot.me - https://kycnot.me/service/cockbox
(From their webpage) > Cock.li is your go-to solution for professional E-mail and XMPP addresses. Since 2013 cock.li has provided stable E-mail services to an ever-increasing number of users. Cock.li allows registration and usage using Tor and other privacy services (proxies, VPNs) and thanks to continued funding by its users is certain to stay free forever.
Cock.li (aka Cockmail) is a Tor-friendly, privacy-focused, soon-to-be-10-year-old free email provider (IMAP, POP, XMPP, Webmail). Although currently (since around 2021) a new registration is invite-only, the admin @vc now states on their website:
> E-mail is a Human Right! > > Oppressive governments are using dirty tricks to try and force e-mail providers to require phone numbers or other controlled integrations to register. We will never allow these crimes against our userbase. We will stand up for the right to register for e-mail without being surveilled, and demand this right to be recognized globally. Public registration re-opens on cock.li's 10th birthday, 20 November.
Probably people here know this service pretty well, but some important points:
-
Their email addresses are sometimes blacklisted when you want to use them, because in the past the service was abused by spammers. So this provider may not be suitable for normal users/normal usage. Its “technical scores” may be low too, when checked e.g. via https://internet.nl/mail/ If you think this is sketchy and its name is weird, it is. It’s not for you, so please just ignore it.
-
A cock.li account may be great to have if you want to sign up and use it anonymously always via onion (something you can’t do with Proton or Tutanota), perhaps with PGP. Maybe great to use on Tails OS too.
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Their service was not very stable in the past. In recent years, it’s been rather stable and very fast even via onion. Pop/Imap via Tor works perfectly. Cock.li onion may load 100 times faster than that of Proton.
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Custom domains are not supported! Consider Disroot or Tutanota if you need them and would like to pay with Monero.
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They are one of the earliest v3 onion providers. In contrast, Proton was so slow to migrate from v2 to v3 (even after v2 got obsolete). Cock.li is also one of the oldest mail providers that started accepting BTC and XMR donations. So probably they’re extremely well-funded (you know why).
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If you use Thunderbird, set up your account manually (its automatic setup probably doesn’t work right).
For more info, visit their webpage. Please DO NOT abuse this based cypherpunk service.
*** PS. Vincent Canfield (vc@shitposter.club) wrote on September 23, 2023: > Good morning, CISA is now calling cock.li a "Malicious E-mail Domain" and implies this is because it's not "publicly available". So, cock.li will once again open to the public on its 10th birthday, 20 November. #StopRansomware > > https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/cybersecurity-advisories/aa23-263a > > For those who don't remember, a previous CISA advisory which recommended "service providers strengthen their user validation and verification systems to prohibit misuse of their services" shortly predated cock.li going invite only. > > https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/cybersecurity-advisories/aa21-116a > > I'm sure if cock.li added phone number verification these joint statements would go away. Everyone sees what's happening, you want to force all providers to link to identities so you can surveil people. Cock.li is never adding that bullshit.
> privacy is often considered a tabu when talking about money, despite being a well-accepted fundamental human right for other topics. The growing development of high-surveillance financial tools often creates controversy and conflict of interest against privacy cryptocurrencies.
> [We] asked ChatGPT to pick three privacy cryptocurrencies: > > The AI responded with its top 3 picks being Monero (XMR), ZCash (ZEC), and Dash (DASH).
>> “Renowned for its unparalleled privacy features, Monero uses ring signatures, ring confidential transactions, and stealth addresses to anonymize all transaction details. By concealing the identities of the sender and receiver, as well as the transaction amount, Monero makes financial data tracking nearly impossible, ensuring complete discretion for the users.” > > — ChatGPT-4
Hamilton was an Irish mathematician, who discovered quaternions on the 16th of October, 1843. When he discovered them, he was so happy that he carved his fundamental equations i² = j² = k² = ijk = −1 into the stone of a bridge (apparently he was walking near it).
> “That is to say, I then and there felt the galvanic circuit of thought close; and the sparks which fell from it were the fundamental equations between i, j, k; exactly such as I have used them ever since.”
If you think this is not fun, please, just ignore it. While I’ll write this like talking to a 14-year-old teen, the following is nerdy (mathematical) and lengthy 😅
Today a hundred and four score years ago, Hamilton discovered “quaternions”. To commemorate this, allow me to use (Monero-flavored) quaternions to prove Euler’s identity: If N is a sum of four squares and n is a sum of four squares too, then Nn is also a sum of four squares.
Example: 8 = 2² + 2² + 0² + 0² and 127 = 9² + 6² + 3² + 1² are sums of four squares. So 8*127 = 1016 must be somehow a sum of four squares too.
Proof: Given N = A² + B² + C² + D² and n = a² + b² + c² + d² with some intergers A, B, C, D, a, b, c, d, we need to show Nn = E² + F² + G² + H² with some integers E, F, G, H. Since we’re Monero fans, let us use X, M, R instead of Hamilton’s i, j, k. Things work in a “cyclic“ way like this: > X² = M² = R² = −1 ... Eq.(1) > > XM = R, but MX = −R ... Eq.(2) > > MR = X, but RM = −X ... Eq.(3) > > RX = M, but XR = −M ... Eq.(4)
If we define XMR = −1 imitating Hamilton’s ijk = −1, (2)(3)(4) follow. X, M, R are a bit unusual: the order of multiplication matters (e.g. XM and MX are different). On the other hand, regular numbers (say: e, f, g, h) can “move” freely, as in hXM = XhM = XMh. A quaternion is a “number” of the form e + fX + gM + hR.
Assume we have two quaternions, Q = A + BX + CM + DR and q = a + bX + cM + dR. Multiply Q by q, and things become a bit messy: > Qq = (A + BX + CM + DR)(a + bX + cM + dR) > > = Aa + Ab(X) + Ac(M) + Ad(R) > > + Ba(X) + Bb(X²) + Bc(XM) + Bd(XR) > > + Ca(M) + Cb(MX) + Cc(M²) + Cd(MR) > > + Da(R) + Db(RX) + Dc(RM) + Dd(R²) > > = Aa + Ab(X) + Ac(M) + Ad(R) > > + Ba(X) + Bb(−1) + Bc(R) + Bd(−M) ← using (1)(2)(4) > > + Ca(M) + Cb(−R) + Cc(−1) + Cd(X) ← using (2)(1)(3) > > + Da(R) + Db(M) + Dc(−X) + Dd(−1) ← using (4)(3)(1) > > = (Aa − Bb − Cc − Dd) > > + (Ab + Ba + Cd − Dc)X > > + (Ac − Bd + Ca + Db)M > > + (Ad + Bc − Cb + Da)R
If we write
E = Aa − Bb − Cc − Dd,
F = Ab + Ba + Cd − Dc,
G = Ac − Bd + Ca + Db,
H = Ad + Bc − Cb + Da,
then above mess becomes tidy: > Qq = E + FX + GM + HR ... Eq.(5)
Now, consider a function swap() that converts a given quaternion u = e + fX + gM + hR into a quaternion e − fX − gM − hR. By messy calculation like above, you can show:
swap(Q) * swap(q) = E − FX − GM − HR which is = swap(Qq) according (5). Generally, for any two quaternions u, v:
> swap(uv) = swap(v) * swap(u) ... Eq.(6)
We define the hash of u = e + fX + gM + hR as hash(u) = e² + f² + g² + h². Since e, f, g, h are regular numbers, a hash is a regular number. Just like above, do some math and you get:
> hash(u) = u * swap(u) ... Eq.(7)
Using (7) with u = Qq,
> hash(Qq) = (Qq) * swap(Qq) = Q * q * (swap(q) * swap(Q)) ← using (6) with u=Q, v=q
>
> = Q * (q * swap(q)) * swap(Q) = Q * hash(q) * swap(Q) ← using (7)
>
> = Q * swap(Q) * hash(q) ← hash is a regular number; can “move” freely
Again using (7), we conclude hash(Qq) = hash(Q) * hash(q) ... Eq.(8)
Recall the definition of “hash”. Given Q = A + BX + CM + DR and q = a + bX + cM + dR,
> hash(Q) * hash(q) = (A² + B² + C² + D²)(a² + b² + c² + d²) ... Eq.(9)
We know Qq = E + FX + GM + HR as in (5), so
> hash(Qq) = E² + F² + G² + H² ... Eq.(10)
(8) says (9) = (10), meaning > (A² + B² + C² + D²)(a² + b² + c² + d²) = E² + F² + G² + H² as required.
Example (cont.): With 8 = 2² + 2² + 0² + 0² and 127 = 9² + 6² + 3² + 1²,
E = Aa − Bb − Cc − Dd = 2×9 − 2×6 − 0×3 − 0×1 = 6
F = Ab + Ba + Cd − Dc = 2×6 + 2×9 + 0×1 − 0×3 = 30
G = Ac − Bd + Ca + Db = 2×3 − 2×1 + 0×9 + 0×6 = 4
H = Ad + Bc − Cb + Da = 2×1 + 2×3 − 0×6 + 0×9 = 8
Sure enough, 6² + 30² + 4² + 8² = 1016 = 8*127 😃
Notes: We implicitly assumed that multiplication of quaternions is associative. This assumption is correct as you can see (ij)k = (k)k = −1 and i(jk) = i(i) = −1 are identical, etc. Euler originally used −B, −C, −D, instead of our B, C, D. Both versions are essentially the same.
Monero-themed names ~ Standard names: > X, M, R ~ i, j, k > > swap ~ conjugate > > hash ~ norm (or norm squared, depending on how you define it)
Attached: 1 image Reply in FIVE words. #CyberSecurityAwareness #CybersecurityAwarenessMonth #Privacy
Send me your seed words.
> "Arguing that you don't care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say."
—Edward Snowden
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nothing_to_hide_argument
With the help of our Large Language Models we will support you In order to put pressure on the policy makers to stop the chat control proposal that contradicts our fundamental rights.
> 1️⃣ Completely normal photos, such as holiday pictures 🏞️ are considered suspicious.
> 2️⃣ So our private family photos or the chats and pictures from your sexting yesterday 🍑🍆 also end up on an official table. So we can throw privacy in the bin 🚮
> Chances are high that most of your European friends have never heard of chat control. So let them know about the danger and what you think about the chat control proposal.
> “The European Commission launched an attack on our civil rights with chat control. I contacted my local MEP to tell him that I oppose the proposal. You can do so too! This Website I found will help you write an e-mail to an MEP using A.I.”
The bug fixed in cURL 8.4.0 (CVE-2023-38545) is a nasty one, but it seems rather harmless in our context.
First of all, if you don’t use socks5, this issue should be irrelevant. (But do your own research. Source code is there for you to freely study, modify, compile.)
According to the blog, the bug could be exploited only if a socks5 proxy user is tricked to resolve a crazy long hostname (~1024 characters+), which sounds unlikely; except if your direct peer is evil, they might be able to send you a crazy long hostname instead of a numeric IP… maybe? However, if you’re on socks5 proxy, the attacker can’t see your real IP to begin with, so they can’t attack you (I think).
The only attack vector my stupid head can think of is: if for some reason you use both clear connections and socks5 connections, then a lucky attacker who notices your behavior can hit your real IP when you’re on Tor, using your wallet address as an identifier. (Tor exit nodes are public, so they know someone is on Tor.) Even then, maybe the worst thing that could happen is that your p2pool crashes due to buffer overrun.
KYC regulations, intended to combat illicit financial activities, inadvertently compromise individual privacy, security, and freedom.
> exchanges may randomly use this to freeze and block funds from users, claiming these were "flagged" […]. You are left hostage to their arbitrary decision […]. If you choose to sidestep their invasive process, they might just hold onto your funds indefinitely.
> The criminals are using stolen identities from companies that gathered them thanks to these very same regulations that were supposed to combat them.
> KYC does not protect individuals; rather, it's a threat to our privacy, freedom, security and integrity.
- For individuals in areas with poor record-keeping, […] homeless or transient, obtaining these documents can be challenging, if not impossible.
PS: Spanish speakers: KYC? NO PARA MÍ
An investigation uncovers a web of influence in the powerful coalition aligned behind the European Commission’s proposal to scan for child sexual abuse material online, a proposal leading experts say puts rights at risk and will introduce new vulnerabilities by undermining encryption.
Cloudflare-free link for Tor/Tails users: https://web.archive.org/web/20230926042518/https://balkaninsight.com/2023/09/25/who-benefits-inside-the-eus-fight-over-scanning-for-child-sex-content/
> It would introduce a complex legal architecture reliant on AI tools for detecting images, videos and speech – so-called ‘client-side scanning’ – containing sexual abuse against minors and attempts to groom children.
> If the regulation undermines encryption, it risks introducing new vulnerabilities, critics argue. “Who will benefit from the legislation?” Gerkens asked. “Not the children.”
> Groups like Thorn use everything they can to put this legislation forward, not just because they feel that this is the way forward to combat child sexual abuse, but also because they have a commercial interest in doing so.
> they are self-interested in promoting child exploitation as a problem that happens “online,” and then proposing quick (and profitable) technical solutions as a remedy to what is in reality a deep social and cultural problem. (…) I don’t think governments understand just how expensive and fallible these systems are
> the regulation has […] been met with alarm from privacy advocates and tech specialists who say it will unleash a massive new surveillance system and threaten the use of end-to-end encryption, currently the ultimate way to secure digital communications
> A Dutch government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said: “The Netherlands has serious concerns with regard to the current proposals to detect unknown CSAM and address grooming, as current technologies lead to a high number of false positives.” “The resulting infringement of fundamental rights is not proportionate.”
The U.K. Parliament has passed the Online Safety Bill (OSB), which says it will make the U.K. “the safest place” in the world to be online. In reality, the OSB will lead to a much more censored, locked-down internet for British users. The bill could empower the government to undermine not just the p...
> As enacted, the OSB allows the government to force companies to build technology that can scan regardless of encryption–in other words, build a backdoor.
> Paradoxically, U.K. lawmakers have created these new risks in the name of online safety.
> The U.K. government has made some recent statements indicating that it actually realizes that getting around end-to-end encryption isn’t compatible with protecting user privacy. But
> The problem is, in the U.K. as in the U.S., people do not agree about what type of content is harmful for kids. Putting that decision in the hands of government regulators will lead to politicized censorship decisions.
> The OSB will also lead to harmful age-verification systems. This violates fundamental principles about anonymous and simple access
See also: Britain Admits Defeat in Controversial Fight to Break Encryption
The UK government has admitted that the technology needed to securely scan encrypted messages sent on Signal and WhatsApp doesn’t exist, weakening its controversial Online Safety Bill.
>Although the UK government has said that it now won’t force unproven technology on tech companies, […] the controversial clauses remain within the legislation, which is still likely to pass into law.
>the continued existence of the powers within the law means encryption-breaking surveillance could still be introduced in the future.
>So all ‘until it’s technically feasible’ means is opening the door to scanning in future rather than scanning today. It’s not a change
>The implications of the British government backing down, even partially, will reverberate far beyond the UK
>“It’s huge in terms of arresting the type of permissive international precedent that this would set […]. The UK was the first jurisdiction to be pushing this kind of mass surveillance. It stops that momentum. And that’s huge for the world.”
Just an old cliché :) Monero, je te choisis !
门罗币 就决定是你了！ ¡Monero, te elijo a ti!
2023-10-24 Testing https://www.imagebam.com/view/MEPORDX using this old post; not sure if direct links to images are okay with them. They seem to be Tor-friendly and one can upload images without registration, so if it works, it may be good to save server space/bandwidth of monero.town.
P2Pool v3.6.2 was released. There were no code changes since v3.6.1, but the MacOS aarch64 build and Windows build were re-compiled with the previous compiler same as in v3.5, to fix reported stability issues.
It is said: “If the previous version works fine for you, you don't need to update.” but even if you think v3.6.1 is working, you may want to carefully monitor the situation (e.g. Hashrate / CPU temperature) to see which compiler works better for you. It is possible that keeping using v3.6.1 is better for some users.
Apparently it is not yet proven that the new compiler is the culprit for this, though a compiler optimization-related issue is suspected.
Changes:
- macOS aarch64 build is back to using old compiler (same as in v3.5) to fix reported stability issues
- Windows build is back to using MSVC compiler (same as in v3.5) to fix reported stability issues
> Release P2Pool v3.6.2 · SChernykh/p2pool · GitHub
EDIT (Clarification for Windows users)
- The previous (old) version (v3.6.1) was created with a NEW compiler, and is supposed to run faster (7-8% faster block verification), while there might be crashing bugs or other unexpected issues.
- The current (new) version (v3.6.2) was created with the OLD compiler (same as v3.5), and is supposed to run only as fast as v3.5 (so 7-8% slower block verification, than v3.6.1), although it might be stabler.
The French government is considering a law that would require web browsers – like Mozilla's Firefox – to block websites chosen by the government.
> In a well-intentioned yet dangerous move to fight online fraud, France is on the verge of forcing browsers to create a dystopian technical capability. Article 6 (para II and III) of the SREN [sécuriser et réguler l'espace numérique] Bill would force browser providers to create the means to mandatorily block websites present on a government provided list.
[Unfortunately one should no longer trust Mozilla itself as much as one did 10 years ago. If you do sign, you might want to use a fake name and a disposable email address.]
This bill is obviously disturbing. It could be that eventually they assume that .onion sites are all suspicious and block them, or something similar might happen, which would be bad news for privacy-oriented users including Monero users, for freedom of thought, and for freedom of speech itself. Note that the EU is going to ban anonymous domains too (in NIS2, Article 28).
For a regular end user, if something like this happens and if the block is domain-name-based, then one quick workaround would be using web.archive.org (or Wayback Classic), or ANONYM ÖFFNEN of metager.de (both work without JS). If this is France-specific, of course a French user could just get a clean browser from a free country too (perhaps LibreWolf or Tor Browser, or even Tails), provided that using a non-government-approved browser is not outlawed.
Mozilla, financially supported by Google, states that Google Safe Browsing is a better solution than SREN, but that too has essentially similar problems and privacy implications; especially Gmail's Enhanced Safe Browsing is yet another real-time tracking (although, those who are using Gmail have no privacy to begin with, anyway).
If it's DNS-level blocking, you can just use a better DNS rather than one provided by your local ISP, or perhaps just use Tor Browser. Even if it's browser-side, as long as it's open-source, technically you're free to modify source code and re-compile it yourself, but that may not be easy even for a programmer, since a browser is complicated, with a lot of dependencies; security- and cryptography-related minor details tend to be extremely subtle (just because it compiles doesn't mean it's safe to use), especially given that Firefox/Thunderbird themselves really love to phone home behind the user's back.
See also: Will Browsers Be Required By Law To Stop You From Visiting Infringing Sites?
> Having free and open-source tools and a decentralized way of fighting back and reclaiming some of that power is very important. Because if we don’t resist, we’re subject to what somebody else does to us
While Tor is useful in several situations, probably we shouldn't believe in it blindly. For clearnet, LibreWolf is a great option too, and I2P might be the future.
The U.K. Parliament is pushing ahead with a sprawling internet regulation bill that will, among other things, undermine the privacy of people around the world. The Online Safety Bill, now at the final stage before passage in the House of Lords, gives the British government the ability to force backd...
>The Online Safety Bill, now at the final stage before passage in the House of Lords, gives the British government the ability to force backdoors into messaging services, which will destroy end-to-end encryption.
>Requiring government-approved software in peoples’ messaging services is an awful precedent. If the Online Safety Bill becomes British law, the damage it causes won’t stop at the borders of the U.K.
Random thoughts...
Even if platform-assisted end-to-end encryption (pseudo e2e) is censored, perhaps we could still use true user-to-user encryption. If "end" means the messenger software itself or a platform endpoint, then the following will be true e2e - "pre-end" to "post-end" encryption:
- Alice and Bob exchange their public keys. While using a secure channel for this is ideal, a monitored channel (e.g. a normal message app) is okay too for the time being.
- Alice prepares her plain text message locally: Alice.txt
- She does gpg -sea -r Bob -o ascii.txt Alice.txt
- Alice opens ascii.txt, pastes the ascii string in it to her messenger, sends it to Bob like normally.
- So Bob gets this ascii-armored GPG message, and saves it as ascii.txt
- gpg -d -o Alice.txt ascii.txt, and he has the original Alice.txt
- He types his reply locally (not directly on the messenger): Bob.txt
- gpg -sea -r Alice -o ascii.txt Bob.txt and sends back the new ascii string
- Alice gets it, so she does gpg -d -o Bob.txt ascii.txt to read Bob.txt
In theory, scanning by government-approved software can't detect anything here: Alice and Bob are simply exchanging harmless ascii strings. Binary files like photos can be ascii-armored too.
Admittedly this will be inconvenient, as you'll have to call gpg manually by yourself. But this way you don't need to trust government-approved software at all, because encryption/decryption will be done by yourself, before and after the ascii string goes through the insecure (monitored) channel.
New to Lemmy. A privacy advocate. Interested in number theory.