I want to talk about something that some people may find offensive, and that I can’t talk about on Twitter to not get shadow banned as I have to rely on reach for my work.

The first time I attended Chaos Computer Congress was over 15 years ago. It had the best parties in town, and we would sneak in for the nightlife.

As I rekindled my interest in politics, computers and the internet, I became more aligned with the CCC’s mission: hacking the planet to hold power to account.

While I was already disappointed with some of the CCC’s policies – particularly on things like COVID and Bitcoin – this year was the first time that I seriously lost hope for and trust in the CCC as an institution – starting with its opening speech.

The CCC’s opening speech sets the theme for the event. This year, it was dedicated to the global rise of fascism. Speakers talked about Germany’s protests against the far-right AFD, about Donald Trump, LGBTQ and abortions, and pro-democracy protests in countries like Georgia.

But not a single word was lost to the genocide in Palestine.

Checking the CCC’s schedule, I merely found a single talk on Palestine, which explicitly made clear that it did not take a stance on whether Israel was right or wrong in its operations.

There were still a lot of great talks at the congress, and many assemblies showed their solidarity, but this complete lack of mention is what really stood out for me.

To understand what a hackers congress has to do with genocide, we need to take an uncomfortable look at Nazi Germany.

What enabled the Holocaust 80 years ago was not just a bunch of bloodthirsty eugenicist maniacs high on ungodly amounts of speed and their fascist ideologies. It was the streamlining of exploitation and murder to never before seen efficiency, with the help of new, more efficient technologies.

It is these same advancements in technology that are fueling the genocide in Palestine today. It’s surveillance on an unprecedented scale, evermore invasive spyware, AI enabled targeting and automated drone warfare.

You can think of Palestine what you want, but this technology is being exported from Palestine to the rest of the world today.

It’s facial recognition systems and license plate scanners that Israel uses to enforce apartheid that you’ll soon see scanning your biometrics for your next flight on holidays, or your car on your next trip to work.

It’s spyware companies that test their products to soon sell them to governments around the world targeting activists, journalists and opposition.

It’s psychological warfare utilizing dating sites like Grindr to social engineer Palestinians into spying on their peers and extort their sexual preferences.

Just last month, the a16z portfolio company Skydio, which is a major Israeli military contractor, was caught providing its surveillance drones to Yale University to monitor and track student protestors.

Some of you may find this topic uncomfortable as it may not align with your political views.

But the reality remains that the genocide in Palestine is a testing ground for never before seen surveillance tech that will soon be used on you. And the world’s most renowned hackers are silent.

I have no interest in seeing southern Ontario join the US. I would prefer fewer central governments, but not fewer, stronger, bigger central governments.

Earth needs "open range" territories that are ungoverned where people can choose for themselves whether or not they want to live under governance systems.

The “no alcohol” psyop is gaining strength. Don’t let them placate you.

My boss still believes that Bitcoin is a Ponzi scheme 😆

MEN, DONT WEAR POLYESTER UNDERWEAR

Your Balls will Thank You

Imagine 🤔💭

The year is 2030.

There are millions of Nostr users.

The ecosystem is thriving.

BTC is at $5M.

There are thousands of “full time Nostr creators” earning +10,000,000 sats a month.

What are these creators doing?

What are they selling?

What’s the business model?

This is what keeps me up at night.

🤔👇🏽

Wow.. Just spent 15 min in a Turkish pool (room at 45 degrees with so much steam you can't see the person across from you) then did a cold water plunge for 30 sec or so.

Incredible feeling. Don't know if it's good for me but I feel great.

About the #travelrule in Europe.

A rant to end the year.

Close to no one actually seems to care.

Three years ago, my podcast started because the first proposals for this law were being worked on in the EU Commission.

Since then, only a handful of people have reacted.

The rest just shrugged it off with some nonsense like, "I'll be outside the EU by then," or even worse: "Who cares? Some tech mumbo jumbo will solve it if you run 15 tools and use 15 compiled solutions that only 100 nerds really understand."

This is about our entire Bitcoin space being overrun by middlemen selling lies, bullshit, shitcoin casinos, credit cards backed by venture capitalist garbage, or even worse: untested solutions or toy-grade hardware wallets with buggy software or attached middleman services.

And now our main man, Jack Mallers, whose company rolls over to deliver the EU the Strike honeypot data by implementing the travel rule?

I remember

@Trezor

taking a huge shitstorm online a few years ago for unilaterally implementing the #travelrule, but now... hardly anyone reacts.

Yes, I get it—you can’t expect a bigger company to just ignore the law and continue without repercussions. But the Strike app is no longer an onboarding tool (we saw this coming, of course). Still, try onboarding someone to Bitcoin in Europe after January 1, 2025, and it’s either going to be:

KYC + criminalization + high taxes and a mountain of paperwork,

or

Just tell them, "Don’t bother with Bitcoin. It’s over. We live in the European Union—you should move elsewhere if you want freedom."

The fact that Europeans aren’t even organizing a single protest, a single act of defiance, or any resistance is telling of the sort of total patsies we’ve become. I see no end to this.

We now live in a totalitarian state as of January 1, 2025.

We should either resist or run.

But resistance at this point requires many brave people to stand up, instead of wasting time on Netflix or TikTok.

Unfortunately, for many of us, running is not an option or a desired outcome.

The travel rule is here, and for me personally, it feels like defeat—while the ones I should be fighting alongside in the trenches are rolling over like trained poodles.