Saki

joined 1 year ago
MODERATOR OF
[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago

For those who are still on Win 7: Firefox (and so Tor Browser) will stop supporting Win 7 soon. Seriously, you better plan to migrate to Linux. Not-so-good privacy issues aside, everyone knows Windows is not very secure/safe/convenient anyway.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago

Generally, votes are overrated. Especially if you’re not mainstream, by definition most people won’t support you, won’t agree with you, won’t understand you.

Some things may be downvoted because they’re too stupid. But occasionally, you might be downvoted simply because you’re a bit too early. Like, if you’d said “being gay is not crime” or something 50 years ago, you might have got downvoted… Just a thought.

 

“It is completely absurd to inflict mass surveillance on the general public under the premise of fighting theft.”

It comes at a cost to the privacy and civil liberties of the people of Britain.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago (1 children)

There is another post saying they lost money trying to get Mastarcard: https://monero.town/post/872283 Sometimes something bad just happens…

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago

Thanks for warning. Saw https://monero.town/post/872283 too. Guess Cake Pay may be convenient for those who are fine with KYC. Another option, that Stealths thing is more expensive (higher fees), so basically if you want to buy a gift card here or there, you’ll have to choose between (possible) KYC and higher fees. Or so it seems…

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago (1 children)

According to @[email protected], Cake Pay works fine if you’re fine with KYC, and otherwise you may just lose your money: https://monero.town/post/872283

If you’re a privacy advocate not fully supporting KYC but want to try this anyway, then try a small amount, because you may lose all your money. Another recent option is more privacy-friendly and KYC-free, but the fees are higher with them.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago

We know the ability to get Monero will not be essentially affected—after all, this is not the first time, nor the second time, when Monero is delisted. It seems reasonable to admit, though, that ultimately the ability/freedom to spend Monero might be limited if legit (e.g. hosting) companies can’t accept it in the future—directly or indirectly because of MiCA etc. Although, what will happen in such a situation may be seen as an interesting experiment.


Since the posted link is not very Tor-friendly behind CF, similar random links just in case…

Following the announcement, privacy tokens such as Dash (DASH), Monero (XMR), and Zcash (ZEC) witnessed a notable decline of up to 10%

The prices of some of these tokens have headed south shortly after the announcement. XMR is down nearly 3% in the past 24 hours, while ZEC has plunged by 10%

[–] [email protected] 0 points 9 months ago

The concept may be lovely, but the fact is, many people nowadays have been Pavlov’ed to immediately ignore anything weird that says, "Congratulations! You got some money. Visit this URL and input something." As they say, the Cake is a lie…

Monero could be a wonderful gift to a friend of yours if they’re especially interested in privacy (in that case, you might want to talk to them privately, and perhaps recommend a better wallet). Otherwise, it may be kind of like casting pearls before swine…

 

The right time to start protecting your digital privacy is before your trip […] The simplest and most reliable precaution against border searches is to reduce the amount of information that you carry across the border.

image


Sometimes law enforcement officials achieve so-called “consent” by being vague […] You can try to dispel this ambiguity by inquiring whether border agents are asking you or ordering you […] If an agent says it is a request only, you might politely but firmly decline to comply with the request.

If you are a U.S. citizen, border agents cannot stop you from entering the country, even if you refuse to unlock your device, provide your device password, or disclose your social media information. However, agents may escalate the encounter if you refuse.

If you elect to comply with a border agent’s order to unlock your device, provide your password, or disclose your social media information, you can inform the agent that you are complying under protest and that you do not consent.


It is possible that if you unlock your device, and agents then search your device, a court will rule that you consented to the search. […] As noted in Part 1, the best way to avoid an inadvertent “consent” to search is to decline to unlock your device, provide the device password, or provide any social media information.

Technically, you don’t even need to admit that you know the password.

If you believe that border agents violated your digital rights at the border, please contact EFF at [email protected].


See also:

 

The fact that the issue was discovered by Google TAG suggests it was exploited by a nation-state actor or by a surveillance firm.

As usual, Google did not publish details about the attacks exploiting the flaw in the wild.

See also: https://www.cert.europa.eu/publications/security-advisories/2023-100/

This vulnerability also affects Chromium-based web browser such as Microsoft Edge [3], Brave, Opera, and Vivaldi.

 

“Some Hackers have figured out there is no quick and easy way for a company that receives one of these EDRs (emergency data request) to know whether it is legitimate,” he said.

“The hackers will send a fake emergency data request along with an attestation that innocent people will likely suffer greatly or die unless the requested data is provided immediately.”

 

privacy has nothing to do with having something to hide. Instead, privacy means protecting the human being that you are, all the personal details that make you, you. What you care about, what you love, what you hate, what you are curious about, what makes you laugh, what you fear. And most importantly, choosing when you decide to share that information and who you share it with.

it is possible to build technology used by millions of people with privacy at the heart. We build technology to advance that right in order to help users reclaim their agency in digital spaces.

(But by default, Tor Browser is not shipped with uBlock Origin.)

PS: ONION LINK http://pzhdfe7jraknpj2qgu5cz2u3i4deuyfwmonvzu5i3nyw4t4bmg7o5pad.onion/tor-in-2023/index.html

 

NOTE: This is about the Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination after a search warrant for someone’s cell phone is procured; not about digital privacy in general at the U.S. Border (a warrantless search).

See also: https://monero.town/post/1134494 EFF to Supreme Court: Fifth Amendment Protects People from Being Forced to Enter or Hand Over Cell Phone Passcodes to the Police

 

Now before the House, HR 6570 proposes to reauthorize Section 702 for three years — but with reforms including requiring all US intelligence agencies to obtain a warrant before conducting a US person query.

a competing bill, the FISA Reform and Reauthorization Act of 2023 (HR 6611), doesn't include a warrant requirement — and, in fact, includes language that many worry could be used to force private US companies into assisting in government-directed surveillance

 

Bis zum Jahr 2030 will die EU allen Bürger:innen eine „European Digital Identity Wallet“ (ID-Wallet) zur Verfügung stellen. Sie soll on- wie offline bei Verwaltungsgängen und Bankgeschäften, aber auch bei Arztbesuchen, Alterskontrollen oder beim Internetshopping zum Einsatz kommen.

(By 2030, the EU wants to provide all citizens with a “European Digital Identity Wallet” (ID wallet). It is intended to be used online and offline for administrative procedures and banking as well as medical visits, age verification, and internet shopping.)

The article (in German) is mostly about eIDAS 45
Cf. https://monero.town/post/1018961 Last Chance to fix eIDAS: Secret EU law threatens Internet security

(There are many English articles about it; see e.g.
https://mullvad.net/en/blog/eu-digital-identity-framework-eidas-another-kind-of-chat-control )

Though not the main topic of the article, this “ID wallet” thing sounds disturbing. (EU politicians calls a normal wallet “unhosted wallet” and don’t like it very much.)

 

On the front page of monero.town, sm.ms and catbox.moe are recommended as image hosting services. Unfortunately both are not Tor-friendly, esp. Catbox blocks Tor.

The Cock.li guy comes up with a solution.

  1. Solution about Catbox: Just change cat in the URL to fat and the image is viewable for Tor users!

Example https://monero.town/post/1025717 where
https://files.catbox.moe/6z3p3z.jpg is not viewable via Tor
https://files.fatbox.moe/6z3p3z.jpg would be viewable via Tor

  1. How to use an inline image (in general, not only Catbox)

The syntax is ![](URL) so…
![](https://files.fatbox.moe/6z3p3z.jpg)

Result:

  1. How to make it a Clickable thumbnail

Text link would be [Text](URL) you can replace Text with an inline image, URL with the image URL, i.e.
[![](URL)](URL) so…
[![](https://files.fatbox.moe/6z3p3z.jpg)](https://files.fatbox.moe/6z3p3z.jpg)
Result


Note: Optionally you can put Alt text in ![] as in
![Monero-chan is happy](https://sample.net/happy-monerochan.png)


Another hosting service imagebam.com is iffy but Tor friendly, easy to upload images there from Tor Browser & you can direct-link to the uploaded full image.

Using 3rd party image hosting services has privacy implications, but it will save the server resource of monero.town.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 9 months ago

Ah, incoming is now bigger intentionally! Thanks for sharing this :)

donation-less builds floating around, which I will not link, out of respect for the XMRig dev.

I wouldn’t recommend a random build “floating around”, not because doing so is disrespectful to the original dev, but because it might be dangerous.

If a random anonymous person A says, “Use this build B. It’s better!” and a user C does so without suspecting a thing, C is likely to be in big trouble sooner or later: even if A is an ethical hacker and B is a good build, such a mental attitude of C seems dangerous, especially when the tool is crypto-related. Because Person A could trivially share good source code (donation just commented out), but compiled different (evil) source code and share them with the said good code 😓
If 1% is big for you, or you have privacy concerns about remote connections for donation, well, you might want to think about something obvious: blocking remote connections is easy when xmrig just needs to talk to 127.0.0.1.

 

Apparently, the Nintendo Switch gets 230 hashes per second mining #Monero

Jpeg Image

Can you mine crypto with a Nintendo Switch? https://cryptonews.net/news/mining/27918548/

Interestingly, RandomX, the Monero mining algorithm, allows for alternative experiments like this due to being ASIC-resistant. Miners can use simple CPUs or gaming devices to run the algorithm and try their luck at block discovery while supporting network security.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 9 months ago (2 children)

--out-peers 64 --in-peers 32

Note: For some reason, starting from v3.7, p2pool docs say --out-peers 32 --in-peers 64 (in is bigger); probably just typos. The doc also says: “If your network connection's upload bandwidth is less than 10 Mbit,” use 16 & 8 instead.


For the sake of fairness and transparency: 1% of your hashrate will be “donated” if you use an official Xmrig binary file. However, it is free software and you’re free to study how the program works, and change it anyway as you wish, if you’d like to.


Your P2Pool wallet adress is public, periodically move mined funds to a new, truly private XMR wallet

While doing this periodically is not absolutely necessary, there is some practical consideration: when there are many, many coins in your wallet, it’s technically impossible for you to spend (send) them in one go. If this situation ever happens to you, just send funds little by little (output will be consolidated). Feather Wallet may be convenient, where you can see and control individual coins, just like in Electrum. Happy studying, happy ethical hacking, happy mining, and happy holidays! Have happiness that money can’t buy :)

[–] [email protected] 0 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

If you want us to join your Referral Program, explain why one wants to recommend your VPN, why one wants to use it, how it is different from generally more trusted other VPNs.

You’re only repeating, “Advertise us, and we’ll pay. Attractive, isn’t it?” No, it isn’t. We refuse to advertise a random service we can’t trust, with zero track record, even if you pay.

The number one sales point of your VPN is “We pay if you advertise it”? Is that the “best thing” about your VPN?

Choosing the VPN That's Right for You | Surveillance Self-Defense - EFF


Monero.town is a tiny Lemmy instance, only having like 20 (?) active users. Active users know each other more or less. Naturally we say “we” meaning fellow users.


But kuno.anne.com was being useful. Though ad-supported by an iffy company—big banner ads—, maybe any sponsor is better than no sponsors; although we could start our own similar platform, community-supported rather than supported by a sketchy company. Kuno was a bit like a Bait-and-Switch scam, initially pretending to be a clean, great, passion project. I felt betrayed. You’re using Monero to make a false impression that your service is equally idealistic.
You may be a good person. It might be just miscommunication. We’ll see… If you’re a sales person, though, be more professional; avoid saying unprofessional, rude things, even if you disagree. You’re talking to potential customers, potential affiliates.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

1 XMR = 1 XMR,
’Tis a universal constant,
For privacy is an immutable human right.
A fiat is volatile with respect to thee,
For their economy is unfair and corrupt.

O Monero, Monero! wherefore art thou Monero? Thou art thyself, though thou art Money also!

What’s in a name? That which we call Monero by any other name would smell as sweet, ’cept with Bitcoin we ne’er confuse thee.

What's a Fiat? Exploitation, oppression, regulation, invasion, limitation, and a lie, issued by the government, whose debt totals fifty trillion, such a large number of lies! “Trust our fiat, ’tis stable and safe,” says the state, near-bankrupt!

 

https://monero.town/post/1144305

Bicoin Black Friday: BusKill (Open-Source Hardware Dead Man Switch) Announces 10% Discount

There are 4 reports saying this is spam, and it is indeed cross-posting link spam, and feels slightly excessive but not extremely so (?).

The thing is, Monero.town doesn’t forbid ads, and freedom of speech is important even if what is said is unpleasant for me or for someone else. Thoughts?


Edit: Since someone has appointed me as a mod in !privacy, where https://monero.town/post/1144305 is, I can remove it, except I don’t want to remove anything unless really necessary. The lack of guidelines about ads in monero.town means, the OP didn’t do anything against the rule(s).

I couldn’t remove the new one in !moneromarket https://monero.town/post/1142415 Not sure if @[email protected] thinks it’s bad enough, either. Monero is censorship-resistant, meaning we tend to hate deleting someone else’s speech/expression just because it’s subjectively disagreeable.


Given that Monero is money after all and some for-profit services are useful for its users too, probably commercial posts (ads) should be allowed in general, if not excessive. And BusKill ads are not excessive in terms of frequency, like only once a month.

Perceived link spamming (self-promotion) advertising SimplifiedPrivacy has been also noticed by many including myself, which has been like once or twice a week, and explicitly questioned here ( https://monero.town/post/1085883 ); but many (including myself) think these posts can be useful nevertheless, the poster being knowledgeable.

 

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

[–] [email protected] 0 points 10 months ago (2 children)

You’re basically using Kuno to attract potential VPN customers? That could be an interesting, new business model. Some marginalized people can get humanitarian help via Monero, while these supporters (Monero users) are likely to be interested in privacy, so they might buy your VPN service. In theory, this could be win-win-win :) A good potential.

On the other hand, it’s rather obvious that you’re not one of us, not someone privacy-aware. You can read some discussions about Kuno here:


Use Cloudflare (while saying “We protect your privacy”), and you’ll immediately lose 50% of trust. Additionally, the script via CDN in question is for Google Translation… 😓 Like this, perhaps a typical privacy advocate doesn’t even consider your VPN. The worst part is, you’re not even able to see the problem… If you were a privacy advocate, Google wouldn’t be even an option to begin with. (If you’re wondering why, perhaps you shouldn’t do VPN business.) How about LibreTranslate, for example?

Get rid of anything Google, and stop using CF (MitM) so that you might be able to rebuild credibility. Make everything Tor-friendly. That’s a minimum requirement for the “privacy industry”: even something rather iffy like Proton has a token onion. I also suggest you be transparent about Kuno. Make it clear it’s zero-fee because it’s there as a promotion for your VPN business. Such transparency doesn’t make you look bad. On the contrary, people may trust you more, if the reason why it’s zero-fee is not hidden and people behind it are honest.

Kuno could be a great website—it has already helped a few people. Some of us were even saying (thinking) that we were willing to make donation to Kuno itself (not buying your VPN, but we could send you XMR anyway “for free”). Still, I hope Kuno will become somewhat more privacy-aware, so that a typical Monero user feels comfortable with using it. Thank you for reading.

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