NaibofTabr @ NaibofTabr @infosec.pub

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2 yr. ago

So couple things:

1. Bitcoin (and other cryptocurrencies) are certainly not untraceable. Public ledger means that all the transactions are publicly visible - if you can associate a wallet to a person or organization then you know where the money went, and there are businesses that specifically do that kind of research. Every single transaction ever is part of the blockchain record. Cryptocurrency is a terrible way to make a clandestine purchase.
2. All currencies are made up (I know, real imfourteenandthisisdeep energy, but still technicallythetruth).

*Edit - A silly caveat to this is that if the US government starts regularly transacting in Bitcoin, it would be very easy to audit... using blockchain means there's a built-in transaction record... anybody with a little bit of experience in reading the ledger could just track everything.

Other than that you're absolutely right.

1. Cryptocurrencies are still largely unregulated, and the crypto market has attracted exactly the kind of people you would expect to be most interested in unregulated financial transactions - scammers, thieves, con men, ransomware gangs, money launderers, and anyone who wants buy or sell CSAM, narcotics, weapons, DDOS-as-a-Service, and North Korea's government funding crew. The crypto market is absolutely chock-full of criminal activity, so it's entirely reasonable to assume that anyone who wants to participate in that market wants to participate in the crime.
2. As you said, trading physical gold for digital currency is a stupid idea. It's also uneccessary, because the FBI is already sitting on a collection of cryptocurrencies that have been confiscated through criminal investigations, including large amounts of Bitcoin. It is technically illegal right now for the US government to do anything with that, but that could be changed with a law. There's nowhere else for that cryptocurrency to go anyway.

It seems likely to me that a play to distribute gold from the reserve is about having an excuse to open it and take gold out, and disappear some of it in the process. It's a cover for a plan to rob the US.

Theoretically you can submit complaints to the lead engineer, but there are very few, very old reports of anyone receiving a response and the sources are somewhat suspect.

Governments incur debt by selling bonds, which guarantee a certain repayment at a certain date. If the government fails to make the bond payments, fewer people will buy bonds in the future. You can't "just add more" debt if no one is willing to actually lend you money.

Even talking about not making the payments damages the value of future bonds. This kills the dollar.

The really crazy part is that the US is absolutely solvent and capable of paying its debts. There is no good reason for this to even be a point of discussion. Not making the payments only hurts the country.

China would benefit most from the collapsing value of the US dollar.

Uni Jetstream:

Yeah people here are overlooking the Sharpie pen, it's quite nice.

R&D life cycle... hundreds of millions of years.

The manufacturer takes a really long time to respond to new feature requests, and most of the support tickets are still open.

I've read a bit about Teflon. My understanding is that the big health hazard is during the application process, primarily for the factory workers - you really don't want to breath aerosolized uncured Teflon, or get it in your eyes. It's not the most hazardous industrial chemical out there, I don't think there's any particular ethical issue with manufacturing products with Teflon as long as workers are provided PPE. If it's a sweatshop product well then there are obviously a lot of ethical issues.

Once it's cured it's chemically inert (which is kind of the whole point) - I'm not aware of any research showing that the human body can absorb any harmful chemicals from cured Teflon - basically your stomach acid and digestive tract bacteria can't do anything to it. You shouldn't worry overmuch about being harmed by cooking in a Teflon-coated pan, it's not a heavy metal or anything like that.

That said, a deteriorating Teflon coating can be a hazard. The material is fairly stiff and again, your digestive system can't break it down. Any small particles should (hopefully) pass through, but larger flakes could get stuck somewhere and then... well your body can't break it down. It's going to be there causing a blockage until something dislodges it, it's not going to bend very much, and it might have sharp enough edges to irritate or damage the surrounding tissue.

And yeah, nothing breaks it down naturally, so it is just going to be in the world forever, gradually eroding into smaller and smaller particles along with all of the other plastic pollution, so yay.

I can't point to any specific sources on this, it's from reading various articles over two decades, I'm definitely not an authority.

History never repeats, but it often rhymes.

This concept is inherently flawed. There is no static form of 'true' self.

Who you are now is different from who you were five years ago, and who you are tomorrow will be different from who you are now. Who you are changes depending on who is in the room with you, because your relationship with that person changes the context of your actions and interactions.

This is not to say that personality or identity is fungible, but that it is not fixed and there is no end state (no goal).

We do tend to reflect and repeat behaviors that we observe, and I think there's some truth in the idea that you become the average of the people you spend the most time with. With this in mind, think about who you feel most comfortable with in your life - the people who, when you spend time with them, you feel most at peace with yourself - then try to arrange your life to spend more time with those people.

In regard to "masking", I'll just point out that privacy implies that some things are not shared with others. Therefore, to have any privacy in your life some things must be hidden, including some thoughts, feelings and opinions. Having a private life is healthy and normal and doesn't mean that you are suppressing your "true self".

some BOFH energy

DuPont. Here's just a little tidbit:

Between 2007 and 2014 there were 34 accidents resulting in toxic releases at DuPont plants across the U.S., with a total of eight fatalities.[93] Four employees died of suffocation in a Houston, Texas, accident involving leakage of nearly 24,000 pounds (11,000 kg) of methyl mercaptan.[94] As a result, the company became the largest of the 450 businesses placed into the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's "severe violator program" in July 2015.

Monsanto:

In Anniston, Alabama, plaintiffs in a 2002 lawsuit provided documentation showing that the local Monsanto factory knowingly discharged both mercury and PCB-laden waste into local creeks for over 40 years.[220] In 1969 Monsanto dumped 45 tons of PCBs into Snow Creek, a feeder for Choccolocco Creek, which supplies much of the area's drinking water, and buried millions of pounds of PCB in open-pit landfills located on hillsides above the plant and surrounding neighborhoods.

These are the kind of companies that inspired the cartoon villains of the 1980s that just dump pollution because.

Beyond your eventual technical solution, keep this in mind: untested backups don't exist.

I recommend reading some documentation about industry-leading solutions like Veeam... you won't be able to reproduce all of the enterprise-level functionality, at least not without spending a lot of money, but you can try to reproduce the basic practices of good backup systems.

Whatever system you implement, draft a testing plan. A simpler backup solution that you can test and validate will be worth more than something complex and highly detailed.

"It’s going to disappear. One day — it’s like a miracle — it will disappear. And from our shores, we — you know, it could get worse before it gets better. It could maybe go away. We’ll see what happens. Nobody really knows."

The US Department of Education doesn't mandate any curriculum from the federal level. States set their own curriculum guidelines.

If you hear someone making this complaint about the federal government dictating what can and can't be taught in schools, they are either being intentionally disingenuous (in which case they should be called out for it immediately) or they are an idiot who bought this idea being peddled by someone else (in which case they should be enlightened).

Christians (and any other group that wants) can (and do) already have their own private schools.

The same things that're wrong with everywhere else, but all mixed up with each other and compacted into a smaller area.

Hooray for the melting pot.

OP posted a rain graph here, it maxes out at 28% in May, which is not exactly a sustained growing season or reliable enough for regular crops.

Just because the ground has been graded doesn't mean it's been used for farming.

Is there water access on the property? Potential for drilling a well?

Without a steady source of water, farming is problematic.

I mean... exposed to each other, sure, but they're all exposed to Syncthing and the public relays.

Eh, column A... column B...

It's not just pining for my misspent youth, it's the sense of community... the shared common experience of playing games together and shouting insults at each other across the room, getting together and comparing PC builds, helping each other with troubleshooting, plugging two 360s into each other for a 4v4 on Snowbound...

In some ways the activity doesn't matter that much, it's the spending time with other people... but that time and place where a really good game matched with a good group of players was where the most fun happened.

No game can ever be really great without a community, and there are aspects of community-building that don't translate into online spaces, especially not ones that charge rent.

Oh I'm absolutely into board games. I'm playing through Jaws of the Lion with a friend right now.

There's a fair bit of nostalgia in this lament. I don't just want to have a LAN party... I want LAN party culture back. The ubiquity of the online services has killed it.