Telegram Chat Channel Changelog (@librehashdiscussion)

1. Reinstated the Combot in the chat, so a lot of the spam should be out of here from now on.

2. Auto-banned any accounts joining* saying something like "you wanna chat? :)" or some variation of that.

3. Users now have the option to report spam if any does manage to get through the cracks. You just need to type "/report" and the message you're reporting will be auto-DM'd to myself and other admins in the chat that will be able to ban that person immediately. In the event that neither myself or any other admins are on, spam + spammer will be temp removed for 24 hours if 3 or more reports are received. If users abuse that feature to have legitimate users banned, then they will be permanently banned.

4. Introduced a new 'rating' / 'reputation' system. Those that contribute good content in the chat can be upvoted by others, with those scores factoring into that user's overall reputation & rating in the chat. Soon this will translate into actual ranking in the chat. Those with a higher reputation will receive labels in the chat that reflect such.

Final Note

Still considering a bridged integration between this Telegram channel chat and a couple of other ones that are maintained by Librehash.

For Those Sending a Letter to FinCEN on December 23rd, 2020 When Comments Open

FinCEN is expecting everyone to come at this from the obvious angle of 'privacy' / 'government overreach' etc., so we can expect that they'll hand wave those issues, citing "national security concerns".

The best way to come at this is to argue that these restrictions will ultimately undermine the Treasury in their goal of countering money laundering, terrorism financing, etc.

If we can provide some credible arguments that prove that, then the FinCEN has to take a step back and reconsider.

Fortunately, I've brainstormed some potential angles users should consider when submitting comments:

1. The average value per transaction on Bitcoin's blockchain = $111k (right now) and there are 10k+ transactions per day. More than likely, transactions that are worthy of scrutiny by FinCEN fall within that range rather than the $3,000 range. Thus, by mandating a $3000 reporting limit, FinCEN is introducing a ton of additional noise that could actually make it more difficult for them to hone in on the supposed suspicious transactions that they're looking to track.

2. Recently the government handed down a federal indictment on BitMex - a cryptocurrency exchange - for violating the Bank Secrecy Act. The New York Attorney General is still engaged with Bitfinex (crypto exchange) in a lawsuit that alleges they perpetrated several hundred million dollars worth of fraud. Mt. Gox, BTC-e and QuadrigaCX are three more potent examples of extreme malfeasance, negligence and BSA violations in blockchain. If FinCEN's goal is to really crack down on potential laundering and crime on the blockchain, wouldn't it make sense to hone in on the actions of these platforms specifically before focusing on these lower transaction amounts? Also, is it a wise idea to trust entities with such a piss poor track record of compliance to...be compliant with this measure?

3. What checks / audits are in place to ensure that exchanges do not attempt to falsify data? After all, an exchange could send out funds on its own behalf and claim that they were a withdrawal initiated by some random customer on their platform. Chances are, that customer and FinCEN would be none the wiser. Not only would this defeat the purpose of their proposed restrictions, it could potentially make it easier for exchanges to launder funds and facilitate the ACTUAL criminal activity.

4. How will FinCEN make intelligible use of this information? At the time of writing, certain exchanges have well over 50-100+ traded pairs. Is FinCEN insisting that each exchange keep track of each and every single customer as well as each and every single transfer to and from the exchange for each and every single currency offered on the exchange? And if so, how does the government plan on doing the same? (since it is assumed that FinCEN will be archiving this information for future usage).

5. Multi-signature wallets and 'P2SH' addresses are left entirely unaddressed in the order. Additionally, there are no restrictions imposed on which addresses one can withdraw to, which may make it even easier for one to obfuscate their identity. Imagine Joe and Fred both send 6 bitcoins to exchange A. That exchange logs those transfers. What controls are in place to restrict Joe from withdrawing to Fred's wallet? And if he does, do we log this as a transaction on Fred's behalf or is it for Joe? Or both? Or do we restrict Joe? And if we choose the lattermost option, how restricted is Joe? Can he only withdraw to a wallet he identifies with the exchange?

6. Why does the FinCEN report leave out mining entirely? There is $150k-160k in value generated per block, which amounts $21.6 million generated per day (for Bitcoin). These funds are "coinbase" rewards for the miner with the winning nonce that finds it first at any given block height. Should that miner do KYC for their mining pool distributions now? How would they even go about doing so? And speaking of mining, what if there is large mining entity that is engaged in money laundering / violations of the Bank Secrecy Act? Are they just off the hook? Seems like the FinCEN restrictions never considered that.

Stay Far the Fuck Away From a Tool Called 'Linux Mortar' (developer is a child and a fucking idiot - let's be honest)

Here's the Git Repo for this crap = https://github.com/noahbliss/mortar/issues/11

IQ < 40 alert.

This individual does not understand the basic trappings of how the internet or encryption works.

There's absolutely no way in mankind that they're imbued with the qualities necessary to safely construct a project that cannot be easily bypassed and/or compromised.

If this child has done the initial work of at least figuring out the necessary steps / skeleton structure for a secure boot process, then I suppose that at least this can be considered a benefit.

Do not rely on this dipshit for anything meaningful though - go to the Arch Linux and refer to the notes that they have there. They are legitimate developers that actually know what the fuck they're talking about.

This person is a noscript kiddie (literally), with a middle schooler's undertanding of the internet and how it works. I will more than likely write up about this individual on my blog and publish it so that all can be warned to not waste their time with what could amount to garden variety malware (you know, because this kid does not understand how the internet works - he's never even heard of the IETF! Does not know how DNS works!! Thinks its some magic fairy in the sky that bestows the correct IP address mappings!

Everyone who read this message is being fucking saved. You're welcome and you've been duly warned.

Altered the definition of the 'Bitcoin v Ethereum' page on 'diffen.com' ; time to start inserting the truth in various regions of the internet.

Edit: This is the tough love that a lot of people don't want for these projects, but its what they need

Suggestion For OpenSea

Suggested that the attempt to 'branch out' by considering deployment their solution for UTXO blockchains.

Doing so would more than likely make their solution interoperable for several additional blockchains (simultaneously since Litecoin, Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin SV + Monero all operate in this manner)

https://opensea.nolt.io/155

Potential Collaboration With Ernst & Young

This came about by accident and certainly is not finalized by any means.

1. Noticed a cool, new blockchain transaction visualizer tool that they had created

2. Decided to dig into and see how it worked for myself ; tool checked out, was free and well-designed.

3. Publish a Twitter post on the tool, showing off how it works for all others that would like to use it.

4. Turns out that someone from EY saw the thread and took a liking to the way the tool was profiled.

5. We reached back out to them in response to offer our services in expanding the blockchain on-chain TX visualizer in a way that provides greater identification of entities via clustering

Looking forward to receiving a message back from them in the near future so that we can get the ball rolling on this.

Plan is For This to Remain Free

Any and all expertise, information, etc., given to E&Y over the course of what we're doing will be done for free. This tool that I described is already free and I anticipate that it will remain free (or else we won't be involved).

Here is the URL to the main Twitter thread in question that we're talking about here: \https://twitter.com/librehash/status/1348389119974662146?s=20

Positive Correspondence With E&Y

Was able to hear back from EY. Things are going positively so far.

The hope is that we'll be able to make some inroads here to get them to add clustering to the transaction on-chain graphical explorer tool that they recently released to the public (completely free, of course ; shoutout Ernst & Young).

If we're able to get clustering added for this tool, then users will be able to leverage the same quality of analysis that one would with proprietary, closed source services like what Chainalysis / Crystal / Elliptic have.

Since their subnoscriptions cost thousands of dollars each year for a license, which is simply untenable for the average user.

That's not okay with us because it reduces transparency in the blockchain space considerably. The information we need is freely available (via public ledger), and the economies of scale necessary to make such a tool are far from prohibitive.

So let's get it done to help this space and also move blockchain forward as we facilitate a greater understanding of the technology. l

Let things breathe for a second. There's no need to panic. You're doing well.

You're going to continue to do fine. Trust yourself on that.

Issue Added to 'prvt' Repo

https://github.com/ItalyPaleAle/prvt/issues/35

Seeing how much work there (may) be in adding additional code to a tool like this that allows me to host it publicly for others to use it as a secure, encrypted storage (intermediate); who knows though... maybe minio can be used in its place (there's actually another solution that we have that would fit really well here too).

Telegram Bug Bounty Submitted

This is being written in here to mark the date of the bug bounty that was submitted.

Attached is a hash checksum of the file (file not published publicly) - ced8c13f1b21a5eee8cefe055181ef3a28526f2a3a3a779f1350db70ca9253aeae11276a29acc2b3342b6004fadde7dec994a5640eae1c5d367d37f44019b05f (sha3-512; should be just overkill enough)

Rust Version of Ferdi Proposed

Opened an 'issue' on this one - https://github.com/getferdi/ferdi/issues/1646

Not sure if they'll go with it ; probably not since this is out of left field and most open source communities don't really like getting suddenly yanked in a direction that they weren't anticipating.

If they decide to forego this, I'll look a bit deeper into the feasibility of creating this fork. Not really that well-versed with Rust to where I feel that this would be a super feasible task - which is why I asked for the help of those much more familiar with Ferdi than myself to help out with this endeavor.

On the off chance that there is a affirmative response to this, I'll update accordingly to let all those in here know.

Everyone that has sent a message over the past few days (or earlier), should be answered and/or onboarded to the Librehash Membership.

If you're not, please respond to this message indicating such and I'll make sure that you're handled right away.

Changing the Profile Picture & Name of the Main Twitter Account to Encourage Others & Dispel Racism

Some people hate whenever 'race' is mentioned; I suggest those folks join a different channel.

The Main Twitter = https://twitter.com/librehash

This should be considered the official Twitter of Librehash. However, it is operated by an individual (the person writing this). For a while, that Twitter has operated with the default 'Cryptomedication' logo (i.e., this flying space man that you see as the cover of the 'Cryptomedication' channel currently).

However, it dawned upon me that it might be more productive for me to put my name and face on the Twitter as the 'founder' and 'lead maintainer' of "Librehash" (as an entity).

Brief Summary of the Changes

1. The Twitter now contains a picture of myself (directly, in the flesh)

2. The Twitter handle is the same, but the "name" = 'James Edwards'; that is the name that I was given since birth and it has not changed.

3. Location changed from "everywhere" to 'Baltimore'. This is where I grew up. Read up about it if you haven't heard of it before. Among the most dangerous cities on planet earth, Baltimore has consistently been ranked in the top 20. Not to glorify this fact, but to help anyone reading this understand the caliber of human being you're meeting if you ever run into someone that's from Baltimore, but not living there at the time you meet them (i.e., meaning they 'made it out'). Some of the most exceptional individuals America has ever seen were bred and born in Maryland - specifically around the Baltimore area. This is the most underlooked region on planet earth

Also wanted to make it clear that I'm not one of these "personalities" that infinitely post memes & other nonsensical information behind "pseudonyms" and cartoonized pictures.

I embrace responsibility and accountability - especially since I'm offering services in this space (which involve people trusting me & the brand enough to become patrons). By changing my Twitter profile picture, location & name to reflect my personal details (accurately), this should let any and all individuals on planet earth know that I have zero intentions on "hiding" in this space at any point.

I stand behind Librehash and anything published / disseminated by the Librehash brand and/or any of its subsidiaries.

To address the bit about me looking to 'dispel racism', that was incorrect of me to say. I'm not looking too "dispel racism" - I'm not even sure how someone would do that.

I just want to put my face out there publicly so that the rest of the world can see that excellence doesn't need to come from Silicon Valley, New York City, Tel Aviv, or Harvard University.

It doesn't need to be in a suit + tie, come with an overstuffed 'LinkedIn account', or look like Jamie Dimon.

A lot of people think you need to look and/or act like Vitalik Buterin to be a credible arbiter of knowledge in this space - that's simply not true and I'm going to make it my point to prove that this isn't true.

I will make sure to go out of my way to not wear suits or any similar attire that I personally do not feel like wearing. My face & likeness will continue to be propagated out in to this space with the intentions of shattering ideas on who is supposed to fit "into the mold" of what the archetypal 'white collar' businessman / tech-nerd should look or act like.

Beyond physical appearance, this will hopefully broaden everyone's horizons on where diverse contribution & feedback can come from.

P.S. - Gary Gensler and I graduated from the same high school in Baltimore, Maryland

Also, Baltimore has one of the highest Jewish populations of any other area in the U.S. ; Maryland is also the most diverse state in the United States. We're not doing this from Silicon Valley. That's why the offering & the content is dramatically different.

Still no response to this so what I submitted to Telegram will be released later this week. They were e-mailed, tweeted, messaged, & contacted via any and all other forms of communication there is out there (more than once, with an offer to PGP encrypt the report if they had a public key of some sort that would allow for such a thing; but, alas, they don't!)

I'll try to reach out one more time before releasing this. Don't think that this 'bug' shatters the security model of Telegram, but it is something to be taken into account (in my opinion).

Apologies For Delays on Messages

This message is dedicated to any and all those that have pending messages for Librehash on Twitter, Telegram (@librehashcrypto), Discord, or elsewhere.

Thank you for remaining faithful subscribers; more updates coming very soon.

Issue Filed on 'Ory Hydra' Project (GitHub)

You can view that here - https://github.com/ory/hydra/issues/2805 (requesting the addition of ed448 algorithm for their jwt token code; they only have ed25519 currently & the NSA has dubbed 128-bit crypto algos that were previously listed as sufficiently secure among the suite A/B algorithms as no longer adequate for the interim / transition period to a quantum-resistant standard for signatures + PKI by 2022/23 at the latest)

If you're confused / lost, join @librecryptography where all of this type of stuff is broken down

Fed Up With These Fucking Companies in the United States

The U.S. is the most anti-competitive nation on the face of this fucking planet.

Are you an American? Let me tell you an ugly truth right now in this channel.

https://www.allconnect.com/blog/us-mobile-speeds-globally

America was ranked 27th in the world in mobile connection speed at the end of 2020. Do you want to know why? I'll tell you why. Its because in the United States these companies called Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile and anyone else that exists that they have not already acquired yet don't have to give you better service - so they don't.

This is what happens when you worship a bunch of idiots at Silicon Valley endlessly in a country where people beat their chest as if we're in some sort of 'laissez-faire' financial utopia.

You aren't. #27th is like North Korea speed. In the richest country on planet fucking earth. Humiliating.

This is Why Librehash Will Help You Get Free Shit

Whether you're a member / subscribed or not. Fuck these companies & the people that run them.

They've made enough money and that money they've made was obtained via theft of the American consumer. They're not providing you fair value for your dollar because they don't give a fuck about you.

So why care about them? Better yet, why not rob these people back?

First Solution We're Working On - Finessing the Mobile Companies, if Possible

Ever used a mobile hotspot or your mobile plan in any way that involves you doing something a bit more involved than simply sending text messages or answering & receiving calls? Sure you have.

And likely, you've become so accustomed to the shitty, inconsistent nature of using a cell phone in the United States that perhaps it doesn't bother you anymore. But as they say - you can't miss what you never had.

But if you are curious, know that "throttling" is theft. Outright. Its dishonest fucking marketing. Its like paying for an all-you-can-eat-buffet and noticing that the staff at the restaurant takes away 98% of the tray after you finish your first plate, opting to only leave the fruit, crackers & perhaps some water with the promise they'll be back "in a little while" if you're still hungry.

America = The Land of Fraudulent Business

You'll never get an honest business experience in the United States of America. This was not necessarily always the case - but it absolutely is at this point.

There's nothing that you can do to "outspend" or out-vote lobbyists, interest groups, etc., unless you are one of them (and you never will be). Your "vote" does not mean anything.

With all this in consideration, that is why Librehash is providing a wealth of solutions in the near future that breakdown and/or provide the tooling necessary to work around these fucking chumps.

Following Aleksandra Elbakyan's Example

She's the woman that established 'Sci-Hub', which provides millions of academic papers to all users for free. Her crusade may be the most noble one we know of today.

Doing what she does requires pure bravery. She's been the target of academic publishers for years.

Meanwhile, cowardly losers like Jack Dorsey (a man that vigorously defends, supports, endorsess & promotes the perpetuation of media depicting children being exploited on his platform), decided to suspend the 'Sci-Hub' account at the beginning of this year (this is what it means to be a pussy) = https://www.theverge.com/2021/1/8/22220738/twitter-sci-hub-suspended-indian-court-case