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Jameson Lopp
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Insights on security, privacy, technology, & money · Casa Co-founder & Chief Security Officer · https://bitcoin.page

The 2 hardest problems in computer science:

1. Naming variables

2. Cache invalidation

3. Off-by-one bugs

Since changing my zap address several weeks ago, I've noticed an odd quirk.

Some folks are still zapping my old address, presumably because they are using a relay that didn't didn't receive my profile updated event.

Rather annoying!

Before the 1990s most computing was done on mainframes that were expensive and difficult to access, because that was simply the state of hardware.

Then we had a couple decades of software running on personal computing hardware because networking hardware sucked.

Now with broadband we're back to running software on servers because cloud computing has made it cost efficient, and software companies can have far greater control over the user experience.

The looming question in my mind: can we swing the pendulum back in the other direction by focusing on development of p2p apps and infrastructure?

If SBF rug pulls the prison rice economy, he's gonna get shanked.

Sometimes it's surprising we even have roads.

I bet the teenage social engineer who Junseth recorded is going to have the FBI knocking on his door in 3... 2... 1...

https://soundcloud.com/junsethsworld/interview-with-a-social-engineering#t=0:00

I hear that's the trick to becoming a billionaire scammer!

I recall calling out Garza and getting a ton of flack from folks who were getting scammed claiming it was legit. Same response as when I called out bitconnect.

So I've been trying ZYN (3 mg) for the past week and I don't get it.

It is vastly superior to dip, which I tried 20 years ago.

But all I really get is some tingling in my mouth and a light headed feeling. Doesn't feel like a nootropic that enhances my concentration or productivity.

Am I doing it wrong? 😐

Replying to Avatar Derek Ross

I don't often talk about this, but with Swan's dive into what is essentially cloud mining, I felt it would be good to discuss this.

About 3 and a half years ago, I decided to mine Bitcoin at home on a small scale. The goals were to deal with noise, heat, and to learn. I ended up heating my house for the entire winter (an all winters to follow) with Bitcoin. Eventually, I wanted more hash power and started to look into options.

Lord Fusitu'a (RIP) saw my Twitter discussions about wanting to buy S19s and DMed me about it. He said that I didn't have to buy S19s and that their was a better way to proceed it I wanted to learn more.

He introduced me to a company called VBit. They were a cloud mining company that sold hash power in different increments. 33 TH, 66 TH, and 100 TH. They supposedly had facilities in the US mid-west and in Canada. They were a Philadelphia company! Go Pennsylvania! I was skeptical, so Lord invited me to on of their meetings to be transparent.

My takeaway from the meeting was that this was essentially the Amway of Bitcoin mining. It was a MLM with sales tiers, partners, and referrals, everything MLM! Very shady.

I asked Lord about this and he said that he's vetted them and been mining with them for 6 months and has on-boarded many Tongans to this company. He said I could just mine and not participate in the MLM portions of the company. He said many people did this.

Again, I was skeptical, but I really wanted to get an S19 and start to mine at a larger scale. It was hard to get an S19 now, with many being in backorder, so I decided to move forward. I purchased 100 TH, an S19, for $12,000. I was able to mine with the hash that I wanted and not have to worry about dealing with the excessive noise and incredible heat production in the summertime.

Because I was skeptical, I didn't use bitcoin for my purchase. I used a credit card. I knew if I had a problem, I could get my money back. Or at least I had hoped.

Everything was great for 5 months or so. I was getting monthly payouts. I was happy.

And then the Shitcoins started to blow up in May and June of 2021. It turns out that VBit was leveraged and trying to earn yield, with customer's funds, at Celsius or another entity that blew up.

But no one knew this for months. All payouts stopped. Zero communication. The company CTO left. The CEO was unable to be found. And then the company changed from names from Vbit to Advanced Mining. 🧐

Well, that was enough for me. I contacted my credit card company and was able to get $9,000 back. Advanced Mining settled with me, saying that I had made $3,000 worth of BTC withdrawals and they didn't need to reimburse me for that. I was was happy with that outcome and wanted this over and done with.

I found a couple Advanced Mining support groups on Reddit and Telegram where so many regular people, that weren't Bitcoiners in the same capacity as me, were completely rugged.

Advanced Mining has since been investigated by the SEC and sued in several states. I don't know what's been going on with them over the past year and a half. I stopped paying attention to them once I was out and happy.

My entire point here is that if it's not your physical device or your hash power, there's a major risk. Please be careful out there.

False, I did lots of folks a favor and uncovered bugs and unhandled edge cases. 😏

I turned off my testnet griefing script 2 weeks ago.

Yet I still have folks yelling at me daily that they can't use testnet because it's broken.

Imagine that.

Could work, just make sure there's a good return policy in case it turns out the bootloader is locked.

Can never really be sure whether or not hardware has been tampered with.

WANTED: Bitcoin protocol developers

REQUIRED: Strong interest in bike shed painting

L2 season be like

1 billion transactions processed on the Bitcoin blockchain!

Wow Sony just rug pulled Helldivers 2 players in 177 countries by delisting the game from Steam. It seems they want to require people to use Playstation Network accounts and DRM.

Not your software, not your game!

Thanks for confirming your grief!

What's been going on with testnet recently?

I explain my shenanigans in today's post.

https://blog.lopp.net/griefing-bitcoin-testnet/

Craig Wright took not one, but two Ls today.

1) Dropped his libel case against Hodlonaut

2) Requested one of his contested patents be revoked

Roger Ver is a case study in why you shouldn't get cute and try to fuck the government behind its back. You should fuck the government directly in its face, by the book.

This is why I give away a lot of bitcoin during bull markets to registered charities. I pay for appraisals, fill out a bunch of bullshit paperwork, and explain to the IRS why they won't be benefitting from my gains.

I'd recommend buying a new in box bootloader unlocked Pixel 6 or newer. If you're not buying directly from Google it can be a crap shoot as to if it's truly bootloader unlocked or just carrier unlocked. Load the OS yourself, it's pretty easy to do now with Graphene's WebUSB installer.