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@ 0fa80bd3:ea7325de
2025-02-14 23:24:37
#intro
The Russian state made me a Bitcoiner. In 1991, it devalued my grandmother's hard-earned savings. She worked tirelessly in the kitchen of a dining car on the Moscow–Warsaw route. Everything she had saved for my sister and me to attend university vanished overnight. This story is similar to what many experienced, including Wences Casares. The pain and injustice of that time became my first lessons about the fragility of systems and the value of genuine, incorruptible assets, forever changing my perception of money and my trust in government promises.
In 2014, I was living in Moscow, running a trading business, and frequently traveling to China. One day, I learned about the Cypriot banking crisis and the possibility of moving money through some strange thing called Bitcoin. At the time, I didn’t give it much thought. Returning to the idea six months later, as a business-oriented geek, I eagerly began studying the topic and soon dove into it seriously.
I spent half a year reading articles on a local online journal, BitNovosti, actively participating in discussions, and eventually joined the editorial team as a translator. That’s how I learned about whitepapers, decentralization, mining, cryptographic keys, and colored coins. About Satoshi Nakamoto, Silk Road, Mt. Gox, and BitcoinTalk. Over time, I befriended the journal’s owner and, leveraging my management experience, later became an editor. I was drawn to the crypto-anarchist stance and commitment to decentralization principles. We wrote about the economic, historical, and social preconditions for Bitcoin’s emergence, and it was during this time that I fully embraced the idea.
It got to the point where I sold my apartment and, during the market's downturn, bought 50 bitcoins, just after the peak price of $1,200 per coin. That marked the beginning of my first crypto winter. As an editor, I organized workflows, managed translators, developed a YouTube channel, and attended conferences in Russia and Ukraine. That’s how I learned about Wences Casares and even wrote a piece about him. I also met Mikhail Chobanyan (Ukrainian exchange Kuna), Alexander Ivanov (Waves project), Konstantin Lomashuk (Lido project), and, of course, Vitalik Buterin. It was a time of complete immersion, 24/7, and boundless hope.
After moving to the United States, I expected the industry to grow rapidly, attended events, but the introduction of BitLicense froze the industry for eight years. By 2017, it became clear that the industry was shifting toward gambling and creating tokens for the sake of tokens. I dismissed this idea as unsustainable. Then came a new crypto spring with the hype around beautiful NFTs – CryptoPunks and apes.
I made another attempt – we worked on a series called Digital Nomad Country Club, aimed at creating a global project. The proceeds from selling images were intended to fund the development of business tools for people worldwide. However, internal disagreements within the team prevented us from completing the project.
With Trump’s arrival in 2025, hope was reignited. I decided that it was time to create a project that society desperately needed. As someone passionate about history, I understood that destroying what exists was not the solution, but leaving everything as it was also felt unacceptable. You can’t destroy the system, as the fiery crypto-anarchist voices claimed.
With an analytical mindset (IQ 130) and a deep understanding of the freest societies, I realized what was missing—not only in Russia or the United States but globally—a Bitcoin-native system for tracking debts and financial interactions. This could return control of money to ordinary people and create horizontal connections parallel to state systems. My goal was to create, if not a Bitcoin killer app, then at least to lay its foundation.
At the inauguration event in New York, I rediscovered the Nostr project. I realized it was not only technologically simple and already quite popular but also perfectly aligned with my vision. For the past month and a half, using insights and experience gained since 2014, I’ve been working full-time on this project.
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@ e3ba5e1a:5e433365
2025-02-05 17:47:16
I got into a [friendly discussion](https://x.com/snoyberg/status/1887007888117252142) on X regarding health insurance. The specific question was how to deal with health insurance companies (presumably unfairly) denying claims? My answer, as usual: get government out of it!
The US healthcare system is essentially the worst of both worlds:
* Unlike full single payer, individuals incur high costs
* Unlike a true free market, regulation causes increases in costs and decreases competition among insurers
I'm firmly on the side of moving towards the free market. (And I say that as someone living under a single payer system now.) Here's what I would do:
* Get rid of tax incentives that make health insurance tied to your employer, giving individuals back proper freedom of choice.
* Reduce regulations significantly.
* In the short term, some people will still get rejected claims and other obnoxious behavior from insurance companies. We address that in two ways:
1. Due to reduced regulations, new insurance companies will be able to enter the market offering more reliable coverage and better rates, and people will flock to them because they have the freedom to make their own choices.
2. Sue the asses off of companies that reject claims unfairly. And ideally, as one of the few legitimate roles of government in all this, institute new laws that limit the ability of fine print to allow insurers to escape their responsibilities. (I'm hesitant that the latter will happen due to the incestuous relationship between Congress/regulators and insurers, but I can hope.)
Will this magically fix everything overnight like politicians normally promise? No. But it will allow the market to return to a healthy state. And I don't think it will take long (order of magnitude: 5-10 years) for it to come together, but that's just speculation.
And since there's a high correlation between those who believe government can fix problems by taking more control and demanding that only credentialed experts weigh in on a topic (both points I strongly disagree with BTW): I'm a trained actuary and worked in the insurance industry, and have directly seen how government regulation reduces competition, raises prices, and harms consumers.
And my final point: I don't think any prior art would be a good comparison for deregulation in the US, it's such a different market than any other country in the world for so many reasons that lessons wouldn't really translate. Nonetheless, I asked Grok for some empirical data on this, and at best the results of deregulation could be called "mixed," but likely more accurately "uncertain, confused, and subject to whatever interpretation anyone wants to apply."
https://x.com/i/grok/share/Zc8yOdrN8lS275hXJ92uwq98M
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@ e83b66a8:b0526c2b
2025-01-30 16:11:24
I have a deep love of China. It probably started in 1981, when my Father visited China on the first trade mission from the UK to open up trading between the 2 nations.
As a family, we have historically done a lot of business in Asia starting with our company Densitron, who’s Asian headquarters were in Tokyo, through to Taiwan where we had factories leading to investing in Vbest, now Evervision an LCD manufacturer. They have admin offices in Taiwan and a factory in Jiangsu, China.
I have always hated the western narrative that China is the “enemy” or that China’s Communist / Capitalist system is “evil”.
Without understanding history, geography, cultural biases, and indoctrination it is as difficult to remove those beliefs in the same way it is difficult to convert “normies” to understand the freedom and power of Bitcoin.
I have tried and had some success, but mostly failed.
However the recent ban on TikTok and the migration of the west to the Chinese owned “rednote” app has overnight created more cultural exchanges and understanding than the previous 40+ years has ever managed to achieve. That along with the recent disclosure about Chinas advancements in AI have also deflated some of the western hubris.
If you wish to go down the rabbit hole of China from a cultural view, this YouTuber has given me a much better framework than I could ever provide as an outsider.
She is a Chinese girl, who came to the UK to study at University only to return with a mixed understanding of both cultures. She is doing a far better job of explaining the culture from a western perspective than I ever could.
https://www.youtube.com/@SimingLan
Here are 4 videos of hers that help explain a lot:
This is a lighthearted look at the recent TikTok ban
TikTok ban completely backfired on US! and it's been hilarious
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7123nG5otA
More in-depth insights are:
My complicated relationship with China.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEaw0KAuNBU
China's Biggest Problem with Free Speech Rhetoric
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7eSyKPbg_Y
What the West Doesn't Get about China's Rise
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmb1_HfflCA
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@ 29af23a9:842ef0c1
2025-01-21 14:42:19
A Indústria Pornográfica se caracteriza pelo investimento pesado de grandes empresários americanos, desde 2014.
Na década de 90, filmes pornográficos eram feitos às coxas. Era basicamente duas pessoas fazendo sexo amador e sendo gravadas. Não tinha roteiro, nem produção, não tinha maquiagem, nada disso. A distribuição era rudimentar, os assinantes tinham que sair de suas casas, ir até a locadora, sofrer todo tipo de constrangimento para assistir a um filme pornô.
No começo dos anos 2000, o serviço de Pay Per View fez o número de vendas de filmes eróticos (filme erótico é bem mais leve) crescer mas nada se compara com os sites de filmes pornográficos por assinatura.
Com o advento dos serviços de Streaming, os sites que vendem filmes por assinatura se estabeleceram no mercado como nunca foi visto na história.
Hoje, os Produtores usam produtos para esticar os vasos sanguíneos do pênis dos atores e dopam as atrizes para que elas aguentem horas de gravação (a Série Black Mirror fez uma crítica a isso no episódio 1 milhão de méritos de forma sutil).
Além de toda a produção em volta das cenas. Que são gravadas em 4K, para focar bem as partes íntimas dos atores. Quadros fechados, iluminação, tudo isso faz essa Indústria ser "Artística" uma vez que tudo ali é falso. Um filme da Produtora Vixen, por exemplo, onde jovens mulheres transam em mansões com seus empresários estimula o esteriótipo da mina padrão que chama seu chefe rico de "daddy" e seduz ele até ele trair a esposa.
Sites como xvídeos, pornHub e outros nada mais são do que sites que salvam filmes dessas produtoras e hospedam as cenas com anúncios e pop-ups. Alguns sites hospedam o filme inteiro "de graça".
Esse tipo de filme estimula qualquer homem heterosexual com menos de 30 anos, que não tem o córtex frontal de seu cérebro totalmente desenvolvido (segundo estudos só é completamente desenvolvido quando o homem chega aos 31 anos).
A arte Pornográfica faz alguns fantasiarem ter relação sexual com uma gostosa americana branquinha, até escraviza-los. Muitos não conseguem sair do vício e preferem a Ficção à sua esposa real. Então pare de se enganar e admita.
A Pornografia faz mal para a saúde mental do homem.
Quem sonha em ter uma transa com Lana Rhodes, deve estar nesse estágio. Trata-se de uma atriz (pornstar) que ganhou muito dinheiro vendendo a ilusão da Arte Pornografica, como a Riley Reid que só gravava para grandes Produtoras. Ambas se arrependeram da carreira artística e agora tentam viver suas vidas como uma mulher comum.
As próprias atrizes se consideram artistas, como Mia Malkova, chegou a dizer que Pornografia é a vida dela, que é "Lindo e Sofisticado."
Mia Malkova inclusive faz questão de dizer que a industria não escravisa mulheres jovens. Trata-se de um negócio onde a mulher assina um contrato com uma produtora e recebe um cachê por isso. Diferente do discurso da Mia Khalifa em entrevista para a BBC, onde diz que as mulheres são exploradas por homens poderosos. Vai ela está confundindo o Conglomerado Vixen com a Rede Globo ou com a empresa do Harvey Weinstein.
Enfim, se você é um homem solteiro entre 18 e 40 anos que já consumiu ou que ainda consome pornografia, sabia que sofrerá consequências. Pois trata-se de "produções artísticas" da indústria audiovisual que altera os níveis de dopamina do seu cérebro, mudando a neuroplasticidade e diminuindo a massa cinzenta, deixando o homem com memória fraca, sem foco e com mente nebulosa.
Por que o Estado não proíbe/criminaliza a Pornografia se ela faz mal? E desde quando o Estado quer o nosso bem?
Existem grandes empresarios que financiam essa indústria ajudando governos a manterem o povo viciado e assim alienado. É um pão e circo, só que muito mais viciante e maléfico. Eu costume dizer aos meus amigos que existem grandes empresários jvdeus que são donos de grandes Produtoras de filmes pornográficos como o Conglomerado Vixen. Então se eles assistem vídeos pirateados de filmes dessas produtoras, eles estão no colo do Judeu.
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@ 6be5cc06:5259daf0
2025-01-21 01:51:46
## Bitcoin: Um sistema de dinheiro eletrônico direto entre pessoas.
Satoshi Nakamoto
satoshin@gmx.com
www.bitcoin.org
---
### Resumo
O Bitcoin é uma forma de dinheiro digital que permite pagamentos diretos entre pessoas, sem a necessidade de um banco ou instituição financeira. Ele resolve um problema chamado **gasto duplo**, que ocorre quando alguém tenta gastar o mesmo dinheiro duas vezes. Para evitar isso, o Bitcoin usa uma rede descentralizada onde todos trabalham juntos para verificar e registrar as transações.
As transações são registradas em um livro público chamado **blockchain**, protegido por uma técnica chamada **Prova de Trabalho**. Essa técnica cria uma cadeia de registros que não pode ser alterada sem refazer todo o trabalho já feito. Essa cadeia é mantida pelos computadores que participam da rede, e a mais longa é considerada a verdadeira.
Enquanto a maior parte do poder computacional da rede for controlada por participantes honestos, o sistema continuará funcionando de forma segura. A rede é flexível, permitindo que qualquer pessoa entre ou saia a qualquer momento, sempre confiando na cadeia mais longa como prova do que aconteceu.
---
### 1. Introdução
Hoje, quase todos os pagamentos feitos pela internet dependem de bancos ou empresas como processadores de pagamento (cartões de crédito, por exemplo) para funcionar. Embora esse sistema seja útil, ele tem problemas importantes porque é baseado em **confiança**.
Primeiro, essas empresas podem reverter pagamentos, o que é útil em caso de erros, mas cria custos e incertezas. Isso faz com que pequenas transações, como pagar centavos por um serviço, se tornem inviáveis. Além disso, os comerciantes são obrigados a desconfiar dos clientes, pedindo informações extras e aceitando fraudes como algo inevitável.
Esses problemas não existem no dinheiro físico, como o papel-moeda, onde o pagamento é final e direto entre as partes. No entanto, não temos como enviar dinheiro físico pela internet sem depender de um intermediário confiável.
O que precisamos é de um **sistema de pagamento eletrônico baseado em provas matemáticas**, não em confiança. Esse sistema permitiria que qualquer pessoa enviasse dinheiro diretamente para outra, sem depender de bancos ou processadores de pagamento. Além disso, as transações seriam irreversíveis, protegendo vendedores contra fraudes, mas mantendo a possibilidade de soluções para disputas legítimas.
Neste documento, apresentamos o **Bitcoin**, que resolve o problema do gasto duplo usando uma rede descentralizada. Essa rede cria um registro público e protegido por cálculos matemáticos, que garante a ordem das transações. Enquanto a maior parte da rede for controlada por pessoas honestas, o sistema será seguro contra ataques.
---
### 2. Transações
Para entender como funciona o Bitcoin, é importante saber como as transações são realizadas. Imagine que você quer transferir uma "moeda digital" para outra pessoa. No sistema do Bitcoin, essa "moeda" é representada por uma sequência de registros que mostram quem é o atual dono. Para transferi-la, você adiciona um novo registro comprovando que agora ela pertence ao próximo dono. Esse registro é protegido por um tipo especial de assinatura digital.
#### O que é uma assinatura digital?
Uma assinatura digital é como uma senha secreta, mas muito mais segura. No Bitcoin, cada usuário tem duas chaves: uma "chave privada", que é secreta e serve para criar a assinatura, e uma "chave pública", que pode ser compartilhada com todos e é usada para verificar se a assinatura é válida. Quando você transfere uma moeda, usa sua chave privada para assinar a transação, provando que você é o dono. A próxima pessoa pode usar sua chave pública para confirmar isso.
#### Como funciona na prática?
Cada "moeda" no Bitcoin é, na verdade, uma cadeia de assinaturas digitais. Vamos imaginar o seguinte cenário:
1. A moeda está com o Dono 0 (você). Para transferi-la ao Dono 1, você assina digitalmente a transação com sua chave privada. Essa assinatura inclui o código da transação anterior (chamado de "hash") e a chave pública do Dono 1.
2. Quando o Dono 1 quiser transferir a moeda ao Dono 2, ele assinará a transação seguinte com sua própria chave privada, incluindo também o hash da transação anterior e a chave pública do Dono 2.
3. Esse processo continua, formando uma "cadeia" de transações. Qualquer pessoa pode verificar essa cadeia para confirmar quem é o atual dono da moeda.
#### Resolvendo o problema do gasto duplo
Um grande desafio com moedas digitais é o "gasto duplo", que é quando uma mesma moeda é usada em mais de uma transação. Para evitar isso, muitos sistemas antigos dependiam de uma entidade central confiável, como uma casa da moeda, que verificava todas as transações. No entanto, isso criava um ponto único de falha e centralizava o controle do dinheiro.
O Bitcoin resolve esse problema de forma inovadora: ele usa uma rede descentralizada onde todos os participantes (os "nós") têm acesso a um registro completo de todas as transações. Cada nó verifica se as transações são válidas e se a moeda não foi gasta duas vezes. Quando a maioria dos nós concorda com a validade de uma transação, ela é registrada permanentemente na blockchain.
#### Por que isso é importante?
Essa solução elimina a necessidade de confiar em uma única entidade para gerenciar o dinheiro, permitindo que qualquer pessoa no mundo use o Bitcoin sem precisar de permissão de terceiros. Além disso, ela garante que o sistema seja seguro e resistente a fraudes.
---
### 3. Servidor Timestamp
Para assegurar que as transações sejam realizadas de forma segura e transparente, o sistema Bitcoin utiliza algo chamado de "servidor de registro de tempo" (timestamp). Esse servidor funciona como um registro público que organiza as transações em uma ordem específica.
Ele faz isso agrupando várias transações em blocos e criando um código único chamado "hash". Esse hash é como uma impressão digital que representa todo o conteúdo do bloco. O hash de cada bloco é amplamente divulgado, como se fosse publicado em um jornal ou em um fórum público.
Esse processo garante que cada bloco de transações tenha um registro de quando foi criado e que ele existia naquele momento. Além disso, cada novo bloco criado contém o hash do bloco anterior, formando uma cadeia contínua de blocos conectados — conhecida como blockchain.
Com isso, se alguém tentar alterar qualquer informação em um bloco anterior, o hash desse bloco mudará e não corresponderá ao hash armazenado no bloco seguinte. Essa característica torna a cadeia muito segura, pois qualquer tentativa de fraude seria imediatamente detectada.
O sistema de timestamps é essencial para provar a ordem cronológica das transações e garantir que cada uma delas seja única e autêntica. Dessa forma, ele reforça a segurança e a confiança na rede Bitcoin.
---
### 4. Prova-de-Trabalho
Para implementar o registro de tempo distribuído no sistema Bitcoin, utilizamos um mecanismo chamado prova-de-trabalho. Esse sistema é semelhante ao Hashcash, desenvolvido por Adam Back, e baseia-se na criação de um código único, o "hash", por meio de um processo computacionalmente exigente.
A prova-de-trabalho envolve encontrar um valor especial que, quando processado junto com as informações do bloco, gere um hash que comece com uma quantidade específica de zeros. Esse valor especial é chamado de "nonce". Encontrar o nonce correto exige um esforço significativo do computador, porque envolve tentativas repetidas até que a condição seja satisfeita.
Esse processo é importante porque torna extremamente difícil alterar qualquer informação registrada em um bloco. Se alguém tentar mudar algo em um bloco, seria necessário refazer o trabalho de computação não apenas para aquele bloco, mas também para todos os blocos que vêm depois dele. Isso garante a segurança e a imutabilidade da blockchain.
A prova-de-trabalho também resolve o problema de decidir qual cadeia de blocos é a válida quando há múltiplas cadeias competindo. A decisão é feita pela cadeia mais longa, pois ela representa o maior esforço computacional já realizado. Isso impede que qualquer indivíduo ou grupo controle a rede, desde que a maioria do poder de processamento seja mantida por participantes honestos.
Para garantir que o sistema permaneça eficiente e equilibrado, a dificuldade da prova-de-trabalho é ajustada automaticamente ao longo do tempo. Se novos blocos estiverem sendo gerados rapidamente, a dificuldade aumenta; se estiverem sendo gerados muito lentamente, a dificuldade diminui. Esse ajuste assegura que novos blocos sejam criados aproximadamente a cada 10 minutos, mantendo o sistema estável e funcional.
---
### 5. Rede
A rede Bitcoin é o coração do sistema e funciona de maneira distribuída, conectando vários participantes (ou nós) para garantir o registro e a validação das transações. Os passos para operar essa rede são:
1. **Transmissão de Transações**: Quando alguém realiza uma nova transação, ela é enviada para todos os nós da rede. Isso é feito para garantir que todos estejam cientes da operação e possam validá-la.
2. **Coleta de Transações em Blocos**: Cada nó agrupa as novas transações recebidas em um "bloco". Este bloco será preparado para ser adicionado à cadeia de blocos (a blockchain).
3. **Prova-de-Trabalho**: Os nós competem para resolver a prova-de-trabalho do bloco, utilizando poder computacional para encontrar um hash válido. Esse processo é como resolver um quebra-cabeça matemático difícil.
4. **Envio do Bloco Resolvido**: Quando um nó encontra a solução para o bloco (a prova-de-trabalho), ele compartilha esse bloco com todos os outros nós na rede.
5. **Validação do Bloco**: Cada nó verifica o bloco recebido para garantir que todas as transações nele contidas sejam válidas e que nenhuma moeda tenha sido gasta duas vezes. Apenas blocos válidos são aceitos.
6. **Construção do Próximo Bloco**: Os nós que aceitaram o bloco começam a trabalhar na criação do próximo bloco, utilizando o hash do bloco aceito como base (hash anterior). Isso mantém a continuidade da cadeia.
#### Resolução de Conflitos e Escolha da Cadeia Mais Longa
Os nós sempre priorizam a cadeia mais longa, pois ela representa o maior esforço computacional já realizado, garantindo maior segurança. Se dois blocos diferentes forem compartilhados simultaneamente, os nós trabalharão no primeiro bloco recebido, mas guardarão o outro como uma alternativa. Caso o segundo bloco eventualmente forme uma cadeia mais longa (ou seja, tenha mais blocos subsequentes), os nós mudarão para essa nova cadeia.
#### Tolerância a Falhas
A rede é robusta e pode lidar com mensagens que não chegam a todos os nós. Uma transação não precisa alcançar todos os nós de imediato; basta que chegue a um número suficiente deles para ser incluída em um bloco. Da mesma forma, se um nó não receber um bloco em tempo hábil, ele pode solicitá-lo ao perceber que está faltando quando o próximo bloco é recebido.
Esse mecanismo descentralizado permite que a rede Bitcoin funcione de maneira segura, confiável e resiliente, sem depender de uma autoridade central.
---
### 6. Incentivo
O incentivo é um dos pilares fundamentais que sustenta o funcionamento da rede Bitcoin, garantindo que os participantes (nós) continuem operando de forma honesta e contribuindo com recursos computacionais. Ele é estruturado em duas partes principais: a recompensa por mineração e as taxas de transação.
#### Recompensa por Mineração
Por convenção, o primeiro registro em cada bloco é uma transação especial que cria novas moedas e as atribui ao criador do bloco. Essa recompensa incentiva os mineradores a dedicarem poder computacional para apoiar a rede. Como não há uma autoridade central para emitir moedas, essa é a maneira pela qual novas moedas entram em circulação. Esse processo pode ser comparado ao trabalho de garimpeiros, que utilizam recursos para colocar mais ouro em circulação. No caso do Bitcoin, o "recurso" consiste no tempo de CPU e na energia elétrica consumida para resolver a prova-de-trabalho.
#### Taxas de Transação
Além da recompensa por mineração, os mineradores também podem ser incentivados pelas taxas de transação. Se uma transação utiliza menos valor de saída do que o valor de entrada, a diferença é tratada como uma taxa, que é adicionada à recompensa do bloco contendo essa transação. Com o passar do tempo e à medida que o número de moedas em circulação atinge o limite predeterminado, essas taxas de transação se tornam a principal fonte de incentivo, substituindo gradualmente a emissão de novas moedas. Isso permite que o sistema opere sem inflação, uma vez que o número total de moedas permanece fixo.
#### Incentivo à Honestidade
O design do incentivo também busca garantir que os participantes da rede mantenham um comportamento honesto. Para um atacante que consiga reunir mais poder computacional do que o restante da rede, ele enfrentaria duas escolhas:
1. Usar esse poder para fraudar o sistema, como reverter transações e roubar pagamentos.
2. Seguir as regras do sistema, criando novos blocos e recebendo recompensas legítimas.
A lógica econômica favorece a segunda opção, pois um comportamento desonesto prejudicaria a confiança no sistema, diminuindo o valor de todas as moedas, incluindo aquelas que o próprio atacante possui. Jogar dentro das regras não apenas maximiza o retorno financeiro, mas também preserva a validade e a integridade do sistema.
Esse mecanismo garante que os incentivos econômicos estejam alinhados com o objetivo de manter a rede segura, descentralizada e funcional ao longo do tempo.
---
### 7. Recuperação do Espaço em Disco
Depois que uma moeda passa a estar protegida por muitos blocos na cadeia, as informações sobre as transações antigas que a geraram podem ser descartadas para economizar espaço em disco. Para que isso seja possível sem comprometer a segurança, as transações são organizadas em uma estrutura chamada "árvore de Merkle". Essa árvore funciona como um resumo das transações: em vez de armazenar todas elas, guarda apenas um "hash raiz", que é como uma assinatura compacta que representa todo o grupo de transações.
Os blocos antigos podem, então, ser simplificados, removendo as partes desnecessárias dessa árvore. Apenas a raiz do hash precisa ser mantida no cabeçalho do bloco, garantindo que a integridade dos dados seja preservada, mesmo que detalhes específicos sejam descartados.
Para exemplificar: imagine que você tenha vários recibos de compra. Em vez de guardar todos os recibos, você cria um documento e lista apenas o valor total de cada um. Mesmo que os recibos originais sejam descartados, ainda é possível verificar a soma com base nos valores armazenados.
Além disso, o espaço ocupado pelos blocos em si é muito pequeno. Cada bloco sem transações ocupa apenas cerca de 80 bytes. Isso significa que, mesmo com blocos sendo gerados a cada 10 minutos, o crescimento anual em espaço necessário é insignificante: apenas 4,2 MB por ano. Com a capacidade de armazenamento dos computadores crescendo a cada ano, esse espaço continuará sendo trivial, garantindo que a rede possa operar de forma eficiente sem problemas de armazenamento, mesmo a longo prazo.
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### 8. Verificação de Pagamento Simplificada
É possível confirmar pagamentos sem a necessidade de operar um nó completo da rede. Para isso, o usuário precisa apenas de uma cópia dos cabeçalhos dos blocos da cadeia mais longa (ou seja, a cadeia com maior esforço de trabalho acumulado). Ele pode verificar a validade de uma transação ao consultar os nós da rede até obter a confirmação de que tem a cadeia mais longa. Para isso, utiliza-se o ramo Merkle, que conecta a transação ao bloco em que ela foi registrada.
Entretanto, o método simplificado possui limitações: ele não pode confirmar uma transação isoladamente, mas sim assegurar que ela ocupa um lugar específico na cadeia mais longa. Dessa forma, se um nó da rede aprova a transação, os blocos subsequentes reforçam essa aceitação.
A verificação simplificada é confiável enquanto a maioria dos nós da rede for honesta. Contudo, ela se torna vulnerável caso a rede seja dominada por um invasor. Nesse cenário, um atacante poderia fabricar transações fraudulentas que enganariam o usuário temporariamente até que o invasor obtivesse controle completo da rede.
Uma estratégia para mitigar esse risco é configurar alertas nos softwares de nós completos. Esses alertas identificam blocos inválidos, sugerindo ao usuário baixar o bloco completo para confirmar qualquer inconsistência. Para maior segurança, empresas que realizam pagamentos frequentes podem preferir operar seus próprios nós, reduzindo riscos e permitindo uma verificação mais direta e confiável.
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### 9. Combinando e Dividindo Valor
No sistema Bitcoin, cada unidade de valor é tratada como uma "moeda" individual, mas gerenciar cada centavo como uma transação separada seria impraticável. Para resolver isso, o Bitcoin permite que valores sejam combinados ou divididos em transações, facilitando pagamentos de qualquer valor.
#### Entradas e Saídas
Cada transação no Bitcoin é composta por:
- **Entradas**: Representam os valores recebidos em transações anteriores.
- **Saídas**: Correspondem aos valores enviados, divididos entre os destinatários e, eventualmente, o troco para o remetente.
Normalmente, uma transação contém:
- Uma única entrada com valor suficiente para cobrir o pagamento.
- Ou várias entradas combinadas para atingir o valor necessário.
O valor total das saídas nunca excede o das entradas, e a diferença (se houver) pode ser retornada ao remetente como **troco**.
#### Exemplo Prático
Imagine que você tem duas entradas:
1. 0,03 BTC
2. 0,07 BTC
Se deseja enviar 0,08 BTC para alguém, a transação terá:
- **Entrada**: As duas entradas combinadas (0,03 + 0,07 BTC = 0,10 BTC).
- **Saídas**: Uma para o destinatário (0,08 BTC) e outra como troco para você (0,02 BTC).
Essa flexibilidade permite que o sistema funcione sem precisar manipular cada unidade mínima individualmente.
#### Difusão e Simplificação
A difusão de transações, onde uma depende de várias anteriores e assim por diante, não representa um problema. Não é necessário armazenar ou verificar o histórico completo de uma transação para utilizá-la, já que o registro na blockchain garante sua integridade.
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### 10. Privacidade
O modelo bancário tradicional oferece um certo nível de privacidade, limitando o acesso às informações financeiras apenas às partes envolvidas e a um terceiro confiável (como bancos ou instituições financeiras). No entanto, o Bitcoin opera de forma diferente, pois todas as transações são publicamente registradas na blockchain. Apesar disso, a privacidade pode ser mantida utilizando **chaves públicas anônimas**, que desvinculam diretamente as transações das identidades das partes envolvidas.
#### Fluxo de Informação
- No **modelo tradicional**, as transações passam por um terceiro confiável que conhece tanto o remetente quanto o destinatário.
- No **Bitcoin**, as transações são anunciadas publicamente, mas sem revelar diretamente as identidades das partes. Isso é comparável a dados divulgados por bolsas de valores, onde informações como o tempo e o tamanho das negociações (a "fita") são públicas, mas as identidades das partes não.
#### Protegendo a Privacidade
Para aumentar a privacidade no Bitcoin, são adotadas as seguintes práticas:
1. **Chaves Públicas Anônimas**: Cada transação utiliza um par de chaves diferentes, dificultando a associação com um proprietário único.
2. **Prevenção de Ligação**: Ao usar chaves novas para cada transação, reduz-se a possibilidade de links evidentes entre múltiplas transações realizadas pelo mesmo usuário.
#### Riscos de Ligação
Embora a privacidade seja fortalecida, alguns riscos permanecem:
- Transações **multi-entrada** podem revelar que todas as entradas pertencem ao mesmo proprietário, caso sejam necessárias para somar o valor total.
- O proprietário da chave pode ser identificado indiretamente por transações anteriores que estejam conectadas.
---
### 11. Cálculos
Imagine que temos um sistema onde as pessoas (ou computadores) competem para adicionar informações novas (blocos) a um grande registro público (a cadeia de blocos ou blockchain). Este registro é como um livro contábil compartilhado, onde todos podem verificar o que está escrito.
Agora, vamos pensar em um cenário: um atacante quer enganar o sistema. Ele quer mudar informações já registradas para beneficiar a si mesmo, por exemplo, desfazendo um pagamento que já fez. Para isso, ele precisa criar uma versão alternativa do livro contábil (a cadeia de blocos dele) e convencer todos os outros participantes de que essa versão é a verdadeira.
Mas isso é extremamente difícil.
#### Como o Ataque Funciona
Quando um novo bloco é adicionado à cadeia, ele depende de cálculos complexos que levam tempo e esforço. Esses cálculos são como um grande quebra-cabeça que precisa ser resolvido.
- Os “bons jogadores” (nós honestos) estão sempre trabalhando juntos para resolver esses quebra-cabeças e adicionar novos blocos à cadeia verdadeira.
- O atacante, por outro lado, precisa resolver quebra-cabeças sozinho, tentando “alcançar” a cadeia honesta para que sua versão alternativa pareça válida.
Se a cadeia honesta já está vários blocos à frente, o atacante começa em desvantagem, e o sistema está projetado para que a dificuldade de alcançá-los aumente rapidamente.
#### A Corrida Entre Cadeias
Você pode imaginar isso como uma corrida. A cada bloco novo que os jogadores honestos adicionam à cadeia verdadeira, eles se distanciam mais do atacante. Para vencer, o atacante teria que resolver os quebra-cabeças mais rápido que todos os outros jogadores honestos juntos.
Suponha que:
- A rede honesta tem **80% do poder computacional** (ou seja, resolve 8 de cada 10 quebra-cabeças).
- O atacante tem **20% do poder computacional** (ou seja, resolve 2 de cada 10 quebra-cabeças).
Cada vez que a rede honesta adiciona um bloco, o atacante tem que "correr atrás" e resolver mais quebra-cabeças para alcançar.
#### Por Que o Ataque Fica Cada Vez Mais Improvável?
Vamos usar uma fórmula simples para mostrar como as chances de sucesso do atacante diminuem conforme ele precisa "alcançar" mais blocos:
P = (q/p)^z
- **q** é o poder computacional do atacante (20%, ou 0,2).
- **p** é o poder computacional da rede honesta (80%, ou 0,8).
- **z** é a diferença de blocos entre a cadeia honesta e a cadeia do atacante.
Se o atacante está 5 blocos atrás (z = 5):
P = (0,2 / 0,8)^5 = (0,25)^5 = 0,00098, (ou, 0,098%)
Isso significa que o atacante tem menos de 0,1% de chance de sucesso — ou seja, é muito improvável.
Se ele estiver 10 blocos atrás (z = 10):
P = (0,2 / 0,8)^10 = (0,25)^10 = 0,000000095, (ou, 0,0000095%).
Neste caso, as chances de sucesso são praticamente **nulas**.
#### Um Exemplo Simples
Se você jogar uma moeda, a chance de cair “cara” é de 50%. Mas se precisar de 10 caras seguidas, sua chance já é bem menor. Se precisar de 20 caras seguidas, é quase impossível.
No caso do Bitcoin, o atacante precisa de muito mais do que 20 caras seguidas. Ele precisa resolver quebra-cabeças extremamente difíceis e alcançar os jogadores honestos que estão sempre à frente. Isso faz com que o ataque seja inviável na prática.
#### Por Que Tudo Isso é Seguro?
- **A probabilidade de sucesso do atacante diminui exponencialmente.** Isso significa que, quanto mais tempo passa, menor é a chance de ele conseguir enganar o sistema.
- **A cadeia verdadeira (honesta) está protegida pela força da rede.** Cada novo bloco que os jogadores honestos adicionam à cadeia torna mais difícil para o atacante alcançar.
#### E Se o Atacante Tentar Continuar?
O atacante poderia continuar tentando indefinidamente, mas ele estaria gastando muito tempo e energia sem conseguir nada. Enquanto isso, os jogadores honestos estão sempre adicionando novos blocos, tornando o trabalho do atacante ainda mais inútil.
Assim, o sistema garante que a cadeia verdadeira seja extremamente segura e que ataques sejam, na prática, impossíveis de ter sucesso.
---
### 12. Conclusão
Propusemos um sistema de transações eletrônicas que elimina a necessidade de confiança, baseando-se em assinaturas digitais e em uma rede peer-to-peer que utiliza prova de trabalho. Isso resolve o problema do gasto duplo, criando um histórico público de transações imutável, desde que a maioria do poder computacional permaneça sob controle dos participantes honestos.
A rede funciona de forma simples e descentralizada, com nós independentes que não precisam de identificação ou coordenação direta. Eles entram e saem livremente, aceitando a cadeia de prova de trabalho como registro do que ocorreu durante sua ausência. As decisões são tomadas por meio do poder de CPU, validando blocos legítimos, estendendo a cadeia e rejeitando os inválidos.
Com este mecanismo de consenso, todas as regras e incentivos necessários para o funcionamento seguro e eficiente do sistema são garantidos.
---
Faça o download do whitepaper original em português:
https://bitcoin.org/files/bitcoin-paper/bitcoin_pt_br.pdf
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@ 6389be64:ef439d32
2025-01-14 01:31:12
Bitcoin is more than money, more than an asset, and more than a store of value. Bitcoin is a Prime Mover, an enabler and it ignites imaginations. It certainly fueled an idea in my mind. The idea integrates sensors, computational prowess, actuated machinery, power conversion, and electronic communications to form an autonomous, machined creature roaming forests and harvesting the most widespread and least energy-dense fuel source available. I call it the Forest Walker and it eats wood, and mines Bitcoin.
I know what you're thinking. Why not just put Bitcoin mining rigs where they belong: in a hosted facility sporting electricity from energy-dense fuels like natural gas, climate-controlled with excellent data piping in and out? Why go to all the trouble building a robot that digests wood creating flammable gasses fueling an engine to run a generator powering Bitcoin miners? It's all about synergy.
Bitcoin mining enables the realization of multiple, seemingly unrelated, yet useful activities. Activities considered un-profitable if not for Bitcoin as the Prime Mover. This is much more than simply mining the greatest asset ever conceived by humankind. It’s about the power of synergy, which Bitcoin plays only one of many roles. The synergy created by this system can stabilize forests' fire ecology while generating multiple income streams. That’s the realistic goal here and requires a brief history of American Forest management before continuing.
# Smokey The Bear
In 1944, the Smokey Bear Wildfire Prevention Campaign began in the United States. “Only YOU can prevent forest fires” remains the refrain of the Ad Council’s longest running campaign. The Ad Council is a U.S. non-profit set up by the American Association of Advertising Agencies and the Association of National Advertisers in 1942. It would seem that the U.S. Department of the Interior was concerned about pesky forest fires and wanted them to stop. So, alongside a national policy of extreme fire suppression they enlisted the entire U.S. population to get onboard via the Ad Council and it worked. Forest fires were almost obliterated and everyone was happy, right? Wrong.
Smokey is a fantastically successful bear so forest fires became so few for so long that the fuel load - dead wood - in forests has become very heavy. So heavy that when a fire happens (and they always happen) it destroys everything in its path because the more fuel there is the hotter that fire becomes. Trees, bushes, shrubs, and all other plant life cannot escape destruction (not to mention homes and businesses). The soil microbiology doesn’t escape either as it is burned away even in deeper soils. To add insult to injury, hydrophobic waxy residues condense on the soil surface, forcing water to travel over the ground rather than through it eroding forest soils. Good job, Smokey. Well done, Sir!
Most terrestrial ecologies are “fire ecologies”. Fire is a part of these systems’ fuel load and pest management. Before we pretended to “manage” millions of acres of forest, fires raged over the world, rarely damaging forests. The fuel load was always too light to generate fires hot enough to moonscape mountainsides. Fires simply burned off the minor amounts of fuel accumulated since the fire before. The lighter heat, smoke, and other combustion gasses suppressed pests, keeping them in check and the smoke condensed into a plant growth accelerant called wood vinegar, not a waxy cap on the soil. These fires also cleared out weak undergrowth, cycled minerals, and thinned the forest canopy, allowing sunlight to penetrate to the forest floor. Without a fire’s heat, many pine tree species can’t sow their seed. The heat is required to open the cones (the seed bearing structure) of Spruce, Cypress, Sequoia, Jack Pine, Lodgepole Pine and many more. Without fire forests can’t have babies. The idea was to protect the forests, and it isn't working.
So, in a world of fire, what does an ally look like and what does it do?
# Meet The Forest Walker
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For the Forest Walker to work as a mobile, autonomous unit, a solid platform that can carry several hundred pounds is required. It so happens this chassis already exists but shelved.
Introducing the Legged Squad Support System (LS3). A joint project between Boston Dynamics, DARPA, and the United States Marine Corps, the quadrupedal robot is the size of a cow, can carry 400 pounds (180 kg) of equipment, negotiate challenging terrain, and operate for 24 hours before needing to refuel. Yes, it had an engine. Abandoned in 2015, the thing was too noisy for military deployment and maintenance "under fire" is never a high-quality idea. However, we can rebuild it to act as a platform for the Forest Walker; albeit with serious alterations. It would need to be bigger, probably. Carry more weight? Definitely. Maybe replace structural metal with carbon fiber and redesign much as 3D printable parts for more effective maintenance.
The original system has a top operational speed of 8 miles per hour. For our purposes, it only needs to move about as fast as a grazing ruminant. Without the hammering vibrations of galloping into battle, shocks of exploding mortars, and drunken soldiers playing "Wrangler of Steel Machines", time between failures should be much longer and the overall energy consumption much lower. The LS3 is a solid platform to build upon. Now it just needs to be pulled out of the mothballs, and completely refitted with outboard equipment.
# The Small Branch Chipper
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When I say “Forest fuel load” I mean the dead, carbon containing litter on the forest floor. Duff (leaves), fine-woody debris (small branches), and coarse woody debris (logs) are the fuel that feeds forest fires. Walk through any forest in the United States today and you will see quite a lot of these materials. Too much, as I have described. Some of these fuel loads can be 8 tons per acre in pine and hardwood forests and up to 16 tons per acre at active logging sites. That’s some big wood and the more that collects, the more combustible danger to the forest it represents. It also provides a technically unlimited fuel supply for the Forest Walker system.
The problem is that this detritus has to be chewed into pieces that are easily ingestible by the system for the gasification process (we’ll get to that step in a minute). What we need is a wood chipper attached to the chassis (the LS3); its “mouth”.
A small wood chipper handling material up to 2.5 - 3.0 inches (6.3 - 7.6 cm) in diameter would eliminate a substantial amount of fuel. There is no reason for Forest Walker to remove fallen trees. It wouldn’t have to in order to make a real difference. It need only identify appropriately sized branches and grab them. Once loaded into the chipper’s intake hopper for further processing, the beast can immediately look for more “food”. This is essentially kindling that would help ignite larger logs. If it’s all consumed by Forest Walker, then it’s not present to promote an aggravated conflagration.
I have glossed over an obvious question: How does Forest Walker see and identify branches and such? LiDaR (Light Detection and Ranging) attached to Forest Walker images the local area and feed those data to onboard computers for processing. Maybe AI plays a role. Maybe simple machine learning can do the trick. One thing is for certain: being able to identify a stick and cause robotic appendages to pick it up is not impossible.
Great! We now have a quadrupedal robot autonomously identifying and “eating” dead branches and other light, combustible materials. Whilst strolling through the forest, depleting future fires of combustibles, Forest Walker has already performed a major function of this system: making the forest safer. It's time to convert this low-density fuel into a high-density fuel Forest Walker can leverage. Enter the gasification process.
# The Gassifier
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The gasifier is the heart of the entire system; it’s where low-density fuel becomes the high-density fuel that powers the entire system. Biochar and wood vinegar are process wastes and I’ll discuss why both are powerful soil amendments in a moment, but first, what’s gasification?
Reacting shredded carbonaceous material at high temperatures in a low or no oxygen environment converts the biomass into biochar, wood vinegar, heat, and Synthesis Gas (Syngas). Syngas consists primarily of hydrogen, carbon monoxide, and methane. All of which are extremely useful fuels in a gaseous state. Part of this gas is used to heat the input biomass and keep the reaction temperature constant while the internal combustion engine that drives the generator to produce electrical power consumes the rest.
Critically, this gasification process is “continuous feed”. Forest Walker must intake biomass from the chipper, process it to fuel, and dump the waste (CO2, heat, biochar, and wood vinegar) continuously. It cannot stop. Everything about this system depends upon this continual grazing, digestion, and excretion of wastes just as a ruminal does. And, like a ruminant, all waste products enhance the local environment.
When I first heard of gasification, I didn’t believe that it was real. Running an electric generator from burning wood seemed more akin to “conspiracy fantasy” than science. Not only is gasification real, it’s ancient technology. A man named Dean Clayton first started experiments on gasification in 1699 and in 1901 gasification was used to power a vehicle. By the end of World War II, there were 500,000 Syngas powered vehicles in Germany alone because of fossil fuel rationing during the war. The global gasification market was $480 billion in 2022 and projected to be as much as $700 billion by 2030 (Vantage Market Research). Gasification technology is the best choice to power the Forest Walker because it’s self-contained and we want its waste products.
# Biochar: The Waste
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Biochar (AKA agricultural charcoal) is fairly simple: it’s almost pure, solid carbon that resembles charcoal. Its porous nature packs large surface areas into small, 3 dimensional nuggets. Devoid of most other chemistry, like hydrocarbons (methane) and ash (minerals), biochar is extremely lightweight. Do not confuse it with the charcoal you buy for your grill. Biochar doesn’t make good grilling charcoal because it would burn too rapidly as it does not contain the multitude of flammable components that charcoal does. Biochar has several other good use cases. Water filtration, water retention, nutrient retention, providing habitat for microscopic soil organisms, and carbon sequestration are the main ones that we are concerned with here.
Carbon has an amazing ability to adsorb (substances stick to and accumulate on the surface of an object) manifold chemistries. Water, nutrients, and pollutants tightly bind to carbon in this format. So, biochar makes a respectable filter and acts as a “battery” of water and nutrients in soils. Biochar adsorbs and holds on to seven times its weight in water. Soil containing biochar is more drought resilient than soil without it. Adsorbed nutrients, tightly sequestered alongside water, get released only as plants need them. Plants must excrete protons (H+) from their roots to disgorge water or positively charged nutrients from the biochar's surface; it's an active process.
Biochar’s surface area (where adsorption happens) can be 500 square meters per gram or more. That is 10% larger than an official NBA basketball court for every gram of biochar. Biochar’s abundant surface area builds protective habitats for soil microbes like fungi and bacteria and many are critical for the health and productivity of the soil itself.
The “carbon sequestration” component of biochar comes into play where “carbon credits” are concerned. There is a financial market for carbon. Not leveraging that market for revenue is foolish. I am climate agnostic. All I care about is that once solid carbon is inside the soil, it will stay there for thousands of years, imparting drought resiliency, fertility collection, nutrient buffering, and release for that time span. I simply want as much solid carbon in the soil because of the undeniably positive effects it has, regardless of any climactic considerations.
# Wood Vinegar: More Waste
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Another by-product of the gasification process is wood vinegar (Pyroligneous acid). If you have ever seen Liquid Smoke in the grocery store, then you have seen wood vinegar. Principally composed of acetic acid, acetone, and methanol wood vinegar also contains ~200 other organic compounds. It would seem intuitive that condensed, liquefied wood smoke would at least be bad for the health of all living things if not downright carcinogenic. The counter intuition wins the day, however. Wood vinegar has been used by humans for a very long time to promote digestion, bowel, and liver health; combat diarrhea and vomiting; calm peptic ulcers and regulate cholesterol levels; and a host of other benefits.
For centuries humans have annually burned off hundreds of thousands of square miles of pasture, grassland, forest, and every other conceivable terrestrial ecosystem. Why is this done? After every burn, one thing becomes obvious: the almost supernatural growth these ecosystems exhibit after the burn. How? Wood vinegar is a component of this growth. Even in open burns, smoke condenses and infiltrates the soil. That is when wood vinegar shows its quality.
This stuff beefs up not only general plant growth but seed germination as well and possesses many other qualities that are beneficial to plants. It’s a pesticide, fungicide, promotes beneficial soil microorganisms, enhances nutrient uptake, and imparts disease resistance. I am barely touching a long list of attributes here, but you want wood vinegar in your soil (alongside biochar because it adsorbs wood vinegar as well).
# The Internal Combustion Engine
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Conversion of grazed forage to chemical, then mechanical, and then electrical energy completes the cycle. The ICE (Internal Combustion Engine) converts the gaseous fuel output from the gasifier to mechanical energy, heat, water vapor, and CO2. It’s the mechanical energy of a rotating drive shaft that we want. That rotation drives the electric generator, which is the heartbeat we need to bring this monster to life. Luckily for us, combined internal combustion engine and generator packages are ubiquitous, delivering a defined energy output given a constant fuel input. It’s the simplest part of the system.
The obvious question here is whether the amount of syngas provided by the gasification process will provide enough energy to generate enough electrons to run the entire system or not. While I have no doubt the energy produced will run Forest Walker's main systems the question is really about the electrons left over. Will it be enough to run the Bitcoin mining aspect of the system? Everything is a budget.
# CO2 Production For Growth
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Plants are lollipops. No matter if it’s a tree or a bush or a shrubbery, the entire thing is mostly sugar in various formats but mostly long chain carbohydrates like lignin and cellulose. Plants need three things to make sugar: CO2, H2O and light. In a forest, where tree densities can be quite high, CO2 availability becomes a limiting growth factor. It’d be in the forest interests to have more available CO2 providing for various sugar formation providing the organism with food and structure.
An odd thing about tree leaves, the openings that allow gasses like the ever searched for CO2 are on the bottom of the leaf (these are called stomata). Not many stomata are topside. This suggests that trees and bushes have evolved to find gasses like CO2 from below, not above and this further suggests CO2 might be in higher concentrations nearer the soil.
The soil life (bacterial, fungi etc.) is constantly producing enormous amounts of CO2 and it would stay in the soil forever (eventually killing the very soil life that produces it) if not for tidal forces. Water is everywhere and whether in pools, lakes, oceans or distributed in “moist” soils water moves towards to the moon. The water in the soil and also in the water tables below the soil rise toward the surface every day. When the water rises, it expels the accumulated gasses in the soil into the atmosphere and it’s mostly CO2. It’s a good bet on how leaves developed high populations of stomata on the underside of leaves. As the water relaxes (the tide goes out) it sucks oxygenated air back into the soil to continue the functions of soil life respiration. The soil “breathes” albeit slowly.
The gasses produced by the Forest Walker’s internal combustion engine consist primarily of CO2 and H2O. Combusting sugars produce the same gasses that are needed to construct the sugars because the universe is funny like that. The Forest Walker is constantly laying down these critical construction elements right where the trees need them: close to the ground to be gobbled up by the trees.
# The Branch Drones
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During the last ice age, giant mammals populated North America - forests and otherwise. Mastodons, woolly mammoths, rhinos, short-faced bears, steppe bison, caribou, musk ox, giant beavers, camels, gigantic ground-dwelling sloths, glyptodons, and dire wolves were everywhere. Many were ten to fifteen feet tall. As they crashed through forests, they would effectively cleave off dead side-branches of trees, halting the spread of a ground-based fire migrating into the tree crown ("laddering") which is a death knell for a forest.
These animals are all extinct now and forests no longer have any manner of pruning services. But, if we build drones fitted with cutting implements like saws and loppers, optical cameras and AI trained to discern dead branches from living ones, these drones could effectively take over pruning services by identifying, cutting, and dropping to the forest floor, dead branches. The dropped branches simply get collected by the Forest Walker as part of its continual mission.
The drones dock on the back of the Forest Walker to recharge their batteries when low. The whole scene would look like a grazing cow with some flies bothering it. This activity breaks the link between a relatively cool ground based fire and the tree crowns and is a vital element in forest fire control.
# The Bitcoin Miner
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Mining is one of four monetary incentive models, making this system a possibility for development. The other three are US Dept. of the Interior, township, county, and electrical utility company easement contracts for fuel load management, global carbon credits trading, and data set sales. All the above depends on obvious questions getting answered. I will list some obvious ones, but this is not an engineering document and is not the place for spreadsheets. How much Bitcoin one Forest Walker can mine depends on everything else. What amount of biomass can we process? Will that biomass flow enough Syngas to keep the lights on? Can the chassis support enough mining ASICs and supporting infrastructure? What does that weigh and will it affect field performance? How much power can the AC generator produce?
Other questions that are more philosophical persist. Even if a single Forest Walker can only mine scant amounts of BTC per day, that pales to how much fuel material it can process into biochar. We are talking about millions upon millions of forested acres in need of fuel load management. What can a single Forest Walker do? I am not thinking in singular terms. The Forest Walker must operate as a fleet. What could 50 do? 500?
What is it worth providing a service to the world by managing forest fuel loads? Providing proof of work to the global monetary system? Seeding soil with drought and nutrient resilience by the excretion, over time, of carbon by the ton? What did the last forest fire cost?
# The Mesh Network
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What could be better than one bitcoin mining, carbon sequestering, forest fire squelching, soil amending behemoth? Thousands of them, but then they would need to be able to talk to each other to coordinate position, data handling, etc. Fitted with a mesh networking device, like goTenna or Meshtastic LoRa equipment enables each Forest Walker to communicate with each other.
Now we have an interconnected fleet of Forest Walkers relaying data to each other and more importantly, aggregating all of that to the last link in the chain for uplink. Well, at least Bitcoin mining data. Since block data is lightweight, transmission of these data via mesh networking in fairly close quartered environs is more than doable. So, how does data transmit to the Bitcoin Network? How do the Forest Walkers get the previous block data necessary to execute on mining?
# Back To The Chain
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Getting Bitcoin block data to and from the network is the last puzzle piece. The standing presumption here is that wherever a Forest Walker fleet is operating, it is NOT within cell tower range. We further presume that the nearest Walmart Wi-Fi is hours away. Enter the Blockstream Satellite or something like it.
A separate, ground-based drone will have two jobs: To stay as close to the nearest Forest Walker as it can and to provide an antennae for either terrestrial or orbital data uplink. Bitcoin-centric data is transmitted to the "uplink drone" via the mesh networked transmitters and then sent on to the uplink and the whole flow goes in the opposite direction as well; many to one and one to many.
We cannot transmit data to the Blockstream satellite, and it will be up to Blockstream and companies like it to provide uplink capabilities in the future and I don't doubt they will. Starlink you say? What’s stopping that company from filtering out block data? Nothing because it’s Starlink’s system and they could decide to censor these data. It seems we may have a problem sending and receiving Bitcoin data in back country environs.
But, then again, the utility of this system in staunching the fuel load that creates forest fires is extremely useful around forested communities and many have fiber, Wi-Fi and cell towers. These communities could be a welcoming ground zero for first deployments of the Forest Walker system by the home and business owners seeking fire repression. In the best way, Bitcoin subsidizes the safety of the communities.
# Sensor Packages
### LiDaR
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The benefit of having a Forest Walker fleet strolling through the forest is the never ending opportunity for data gathering. A plethora of deployable sensors gathering hyper-accurate data on everything from temperature to topography is yet another revenue generator. Data is valuable and the Forest Walker could generate data sales to various government entities and private concerns.
LiDaR (Light Detection and Ranging) can map topography, perform biomass assessment, comparative soil erosion analysis, etc. It so happens that the Forest Walker’s ability to “see,” to navigate about its surroundings, is LiDaR driven and since it’s already being used, we can get double duty by harvesting that data for later use. By using a laser to send out light pulses and measuring the time it takes for the reflection of those pulses to return, very detailed data sets incrementally build up. Eventually, as enough data about a certain area becomes available, the data becomes useful and valuable.
Forestry concerns, both private and public, often use LiDaR to build 3D models of tree stands to assess the amount of harvest-able lumber in entire sections of forest. Consulting companies offering these services charge anywhere from several hundred to several thousand dollars per square kilometer for such services. A Forest Walker generating such assessments on the fly while performing its other functions is a multi-disciplinary approach to revenue generation.
### pH, Soil Moisture, and Cation Exchange Sensing
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The Forest Walker is quadrupedal, so there are four contact points to the soil. Why not get a pH data point for every step it takes? We can also gather soil moisture data and cation exchange capacities at unheard of densities because of sampling occurring on the fly during commission of the system’s other duties. No one is going to build a machine to do pH testing of vast tracts of forest soils, but that doesn’t make the data collected from such an endeavor valueless. Since the Forest Walker serves many functions at once, a multitude of data products can add to the return on investment component.
### Weather Data
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Temperature, humidity, pressure, and even data like evapotranspiration gathered at high densities on broad acre scales have untold value and because the sensors are lightweight and don’t require large power budgets, they come along for the ride at little cost. But, just like the old mantra, “gas, grass, or ass, nobody rides for free”, these sensors provide potential revenue benefits just by them being present.
I’ve touched on just a few data genres here. In fact, the question for universities, governmental bodies, and other institutions becomes, “How much will you pay us to attach your sensor payload to the Forest Walker?”
# Noise Suppression
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Only you can prevent Metallica filling the surrounds with 120 dB of sound. Easy enough, just turn the car stereo off. But what of a fleet of 50 Forest Walkers operating in the backcountry or near a township? 500? 5000? Each one has a wood chipper, an internal combustion engine, hydraulic pumps, actuators, and more cooling fans than you can shake a stick at. It’s a walking, screaming fire-breathing dragon operating continuously, day and night, twenty-four hours a day, three hundred sixty-five days a year. The sound will negatively affect all living things and that impacts behaviors. Serious engineering consideration and prowess must deliver a silencing blow to the major issue of noise.
It would be foolish to think that a fleet of Forest Walkers could be silent, but if not a major design consideration, then the entire idea is dead on arrival. Townships would not allow them to operate even if they solved the problem of widespread fuel load and neither would governmental entities, and rightly so. Nothing, not man nor beast, would want to be subjected to an eternal, infernal scream even if it were to end within days as the fleet moved further away after consuming what it could. Noise and heat are the only real pollutants of this system; taking noise seriously from the beginning is paramount.
# Fire Safety
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A “fire-breathing dragon” is not the worst description of the Forest Walker. It eats wood, combusts it at very high temperatures and excretes carbon; and it does so in an extremely flammable environment. Bad mix for one Forest Walker, worse for many. One must take extreme pains to ensure that during normal operation, a Forest Walker could fall over, walk through tinder dry brush, or get pounded into the ground by a meteorite from Krypton and it wouldn’t destroy epic swaths of trees and baby deer. I envision an ultimate test of a prototype to include dowsing it in grain alcohol while it’s wrapped up in toilet paper like a pledge at a fraternity party. If it runs for 72 hours and doesn’t set everything on fire, then maybe outside entities won’t be fearful of something that walks around forests with a constant fire in its belly.
# The Wrap
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How we think about what can be done with and adjacent to Bitcoin is at least as important as Bitcoin’s economic standing itself. For those who will tell me that this entire idea is without merit, I say, “OK, fine. You can come up with something, too.” What can we plug Bitcoin into that, like a battery, makes something that does not work, work? That’s the lesson I get from this entire exercise. No one was ever going to hire teams of humans to go out and "clean the forest". There's no money in that. The data collection and sales from such an endeavor might provide revenues over the break-even point but investment demands Alpha in this day and age. But, plug Bitcoin into an almost viable system and, voilà! We tip the scales to achieve lift-off.
Let’s face it, we haven’t scratched the surface of Bitcoin’s forcing function on our minds. Not because it’s Bitcoin, but because of what that invention means. The question that pushes me to approach things this way is, “what can we create that one system’s waste is another system’s feedstock?” The Forest Walker system’s only real waste is the conversion of low entropy energy (wood and syngas) into high entropy energy (heat and noise). All other output is beneficial to humanity.
Bitcoin, I believe, is the first product of a new mode of human imagination. An imagination newly forged over the past few millennia of being lied to, stolen from, distracted and otherwise mis-allocated to a black hole of the nonsensical. We are waking up.
What I have presented is not science fiction. Everything I have described here is well within the realm of possibility. The question is one of viability, at least in terms of the detritus of the old world we find ourselves departing from. This system would take a non-trivial amount of time and resources to develop. I think the system would garner extensive long-term contracts from those who have the most to lose from wildfires, the most to gain from hyperaccurate data sets, and, of course, securing the most precious asset in the world. Many may not see it that way, for they seek Alpha and are therefore blind to other possibilities. Others will see only the possibilities; of thinking in a new way, of looking at things differently, and dreaming of what comes next.
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@ e3ba5e1a:5e433365
2025-01-13 16:47:27
My blog posts and reading material have both been on a decidedly economics-heavy slant recently. The topic today, incentives, squarely falls into the category of economics. However, when I say economics, I’m not talking about “analyzing supply and demand curves.” I’m talking about the true basis of economics: understanding how human beings make decisions in a world of scarcity.
A fair definition of incentive is “a reward or punishment that motivates behavior to achieve a desired outcome.” When most people think about economic incentives, they’re thinking of money. If I offer my son $5 if he washes the dishes, I’m incentivizing certain behavior. We can’t guarantee that he’ll do what I want him to do, but we can agree that the incentive structure itself will guide and ultimately determine what outcome will occur.
The great thing about monetary incentives is how easy they are to talk about and compare. “Would I rather make $5 washing the dishes or $10 cleaning the gutters?” But much of the world is incentivized in non-monetary ways too. For example, using the “punishment” half of the definition above, I might threaten my son with losing Nintendo Switch access if he doesn’t wash the dishes. No money is involved, but I’m still incentivizing behavior.
And there are plenty of incentives beyond our direct control\! My son is *also* incentivized to not wash dishes because it’s boring, or because he has some friends over that he wants to hang out with, or dozens of other things. Ultimately, the conflicting array of different incentive structures placed on him will ultimately determine what actions he chooses to take.
## Why incentives matter
A phrase I see often in discussions—whether they are political, parenting, economic, or business—is “if they could **just** do…” Each time I see that phrase, I cringe a bit internally. Usually, the underlying assumption of the statement is “if people would behave contrary to their incentivized behavior then things would be better.” For example:
* If my kids would just go to bed when I tell them, they wouldn’t be so cranky in the morning.
* If people would just use the recycling bin, we wouldn’t have such a landfill problem.
* If people would just stop being lazy, our team would deliver our project on time.
In all these cases, the speakers are seemingly flummoxed as to why the people in question don’t behave more rationally. The problem is: each group is behaving perfectly rationally.
* The kids have a high time preference, and care more about the joy of staying up now than the crankiness in the morning. Plus, they don’t really suffer the consequences of morning crankiness, their parents do.
* No individual suffers much from their individual contribution to a landfill. If they stopped growing the size of the landfill, it would make an insignificant difference versus the amount of effort they need to engage in to properly recycle.
* If a team doesn’t properly account for the productivity of individuals on a project, each individual receives less harm from their own inaction. Sure, the project may be delayed, company revenue may be down, and they may even risk losing their job when the company goes out of business. But their laziness individually won’t determine the entirety of that outcome. By contrast, they greatly benefit from being lazy by getting to relax at work, go on social media, read a book, or do whatever else they do when they’re supposed to be working.
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My point here is that, as long as you ignore the reality of how incentives drive human behavior, you’ll fail at getting the outcomes you want.
If everything I wrote up until now made perfect sense, you understand the premise of this blog post. The rest of it will focus on a bunch of real-world examples to hammer home the point, and demonstrate how versatile this mental model is.
## Running a company
Let’s say I run my own company, with myself as the only employee. My personal revenue will be 100% determined by my own actions. If I decide to take Tuesday afternoon off and go fishing, I’ve chosen to lose that afternoon’s revenue. Implicitly, I’ve decided that the enjoyment I get from an afternoon of fishing is greater than the potential revenue. You may think I’m being lazy, but it’s my decision to make. In this situation, the incentive–money–is perfectly aligned with my actions.
Compare this to a typical company/employee relationship. I might have a bank of Paid Time Off (PTO) days, in which case once again my incentives are relatively aligned. I know that I can take off 15 days throughout the year, and I’ve chosen to use half a day for the fishing trip. All is still good.
What about unlimited time off? Suddenly incentives are starting to misalign. I don’t directly pay a price for not showing up to work on Tuesday. Or Wednesday as well, for that matter. I might ultimately be fired for not doing my job, but that will take longer to work its way through the system than simply not making any money for the day taken off.
Compensation overall falls into this misaligned incentive structure. Let’s forget about taking time off. Instead, I work full time on a software project I’m assigned. But instead of using the normal toolchain we’re all used to at work, I play around with a new programming language. I get the fun and joy of playing with new technology, and potentially get to pad my resume a bit when I’m ready to look for a new job. But my current company gets slower results, less productivity, and is forced to subsidize my extracurricular learning.
When a CEO has a bonus structure based on profitability, he’ll do everything he can to make the company profitable. This might include things that actually benefit the company, like improving product quality, reducing internal red tape, or finding cheaper vendors. But it might also include destructive practices, like slashing the R\&D budget to show massive profits this year, in exchange for a catastrophe next year when the next version of the product fails to ship.
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Or my favorite example. My parents owned a business when I was growing up. They had a back office where they ran operations like accounting. All of the furniture was old couches from our house. After all, any money they spent on furniture came right out of their paychecks\! But in a large corporate environment, each department is generally given a budget for office furniture, a budget which doesn’t roll over year-to-year. The result? Executives make sure to spend the entire budget each year, often buying furniture far more expensive than they would choose if it was their own money.
There are plenty of details you can quibble with above. It’s in a company’s best interest to give people downtime so that they can come back recharged. Having good ergonomic furniture can in fact increase productivity in excess of the money spent on it. But overall, the picture is pretty clear: in large corporate structures, you’re guaranteed to have mismatches between the company’s goals and the incentive structure placed on individuals.
Using our model from above, we can lament how lazy, greedy, and unethical the employees are for doing what they’re incentivized to do instead of what’s right. But that’s simply ignoring the reality of human nature.
# Moral hazard
Moral hazard is a situation where one party is incentivized to take on more risk because another party will bear the consequences. Suppose I tell my son when he turns 21 (or whatever legal gambling age is) that I’ll cover all his losses for a day at the casino, but he gets to keep all the winnings.
What do you think he’s going to do? The most logical course of action is to place the largest possible bets for as long as possible, asking me to cover each time he loses, and taking money off the table and into his bank account each time he wins.
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But let’s look at a slightly more nuanced example. I go to a bathroom in the mall. As I’m leaving, I wash my hands. It will take me an extra 1 second to turn off the water when I’m done washing. That’s a trivial price to pay. If I *don’t* turn off the water, the mall will have to pay for many liters of wasted water, benefiting no one. But I won’t suffer any consequences at all.
This is also a moral hazard, but most people will still turn off the water. Why? Usually due to some combination of other reasons such as:
1. We’re so habituated to turning off the water that we don’t even consider *not* turning it off. Put differently, the mental effort needed to not turn off the water is more expensive than the 1 second of time to turn it off.
2. Many of us have been brought up with a deep guilt about wasting resources like water. We have an internal incentive structure that makes the 1 second to turn off the water much less costly than the mental anguish of the waste we created.
3. We’re afraid we’ll be caught by someone else and face some kind of social repercussions. (Or maybe more than social. Are you sure there isn’t a law against leaving the water tap on?)
Even with all that in place, you may notice that many public bathrooms use automatic water dispensers. Sure, there’s a sanitation reason for that, but it’s also to avoid this moral hazard.
A common denominator in both of these is that the person taking the action that causes the liability (either the gambling or leaving the water on) is not the person who bears the responsibility for that liability (the father or the mall owner). Generally speaking, the closer together the person making the decision and the person incurring the liability are, the smaller the moral hazard.
It’s easy to demonstrate that by extending the casino example a bit. I said it was the father who was covering the losses of the gambler. Many children (though not all) would want to avoid totally bankrupting their parents, or at least financially hurting them. Instead, imagine that someone from the IRS shows up at your door, hands you a credit card, and tells you you can use it at a casino all day, taking home all the chips you want. The money is coming from the government. How many people would put any restriction on how much they spend?
And since we’re talking about the government already…
## Government moral hazards
As I was preparing to write this blog post, the California wildfires hit. The discussions around those wildfires gave a *huge* number of examples of moral hazards. I decided to cherry-pick a few for this post.
The first and most obvious one: California is asking for disaster relief funds from the federal government. That sounds wonderful. These fires were a natural disaster, so why shouldn’t the federal government pitch in and help take care of people?
The problem is, once again, a moral hazard. In the case of the wildfires, California and Los Angeles both had ample actions they could have taken to mitigate the destruction of this fire: better forest management, larger fire department, keeping the water reservoirs filled, and probably much more that hasn’t come to light yet.
If the federal government bails out California, it will be a clear message for the future: your mistakes will be fixed by others. You know what kind of behavior that incentivizes? More risky behavior\! Why spend state funds on forest management and extra firefighters—activities that don’t win politicians a lot of votes in general—when you could instead spend it on a football stadium, higher unemployment payments, or anything else, and then let the feds cover the cost of screw-ups.
You may notice that this is virtually identical to the 2008 “too big to fail” bail-outs. Wall Street took insanely risky behavior, reaped huge profits for years, and when they eventually got caught with their pants down, the rest of us bailed them out. “Privatizing profits, socializing losses.”
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And here’s the absolute best part of this: I can’t even truly blame either California *or* Wall Street. (I mean, I *do* blame them, I think their behavior is reprehensible, but you’ll see what I mean.) In a world where the rules of the game implicitly include the bail-out mentality, you would be harming your citizens/shareholders/investors if you didn’t engage in that risky behavior. Since everyone is on the hook for those socialized losses, your best bet is to maximize those privatized profits.
There’s a lot more to government and moral hazard, but I think these two cases demonstrate the crux pretty solidly. But let’s leave moral hazard behind for a bit and get to general incentivization discussions.
# Non-monetary competition
At least 50% of the economics knowledge I have comes from the very first econ course I took in college. That professor was amazing, and had some very colorful stories. I can’t vouch for the veracity of the two I’m about to share, but they definitely drive the point home.
In the 1970s, the US had an oil shortage. To “fix” this problem, they instituted price caps on gasoline, which of course resulted in insufficient gasoline. To “fix” this problem, they instituted policies where, depending on your license plate number, you could only fill up gas on certain days of the week. (Irrelevant detail for our point here, but this just resulted in people filling up their tanks more often, no reduction in gas usage.)
Anyway, my professor’s wife had a friend. My professor described in *great* detail how attractive this woman was. I’ll skip those details here since this is a PG-rated blog. In any event, she never had any trouble filling up her gas tank any day of the week. She would drive up, be told she couldn’t fill up gas today, bat her eyes at the attendant, explain how helpless she was, and was always allowed to fill up gas.
This is a demonstration of *non-monetary compensation*. Most of the time in a free market, capitalist economy, people are compensated through money. When price caps come into play, there’s a limit to how much monetary compensation someone can receive. And in that case, people find other ways of competing. Like this woman’s case: through using flirtatious behavior to compensate the gas station workers to let her cheat the rules.
The other example was much more insidious. Santa Monica had a problem: it was predominantly wealthy and white. They wanted to fix this problem, and decided to put in place rent controls. After some time, they discovered that Santa Monica had become *wealthier and whiter*, the exact opposite of their desired outcome. Why would that happen?
Someone investigated, and ended up interviewing a landlady that demonstrated the reason. She was an older white woman, and admittedly racist. Prior to the rent controls, she would list her apartments in the newspaper, and would be legally obligated to rent to anyone who could afford it. Once rent controls were in place, she took a different tact. She knew that she would only get a certain amount for the apartment, and that the demand for apartments was higher than the supply. That meant she could be picky.
She ended up finding tenants through friends-of-friends. Since it wasn’t an official advertisement, she wasn’t legally required to rent it out if someone could afford to pay. Instead, she got to interview people individually and then make them an offer. Normally, that would have resulted in receiving a lower rental price, but not under rent controls.
So who did she choose? A young, unmarried, wealthy, white woman. It made perfect sense. Women were less intimidating and more likely to maintain the apartment better. Wealthy people, she determined, would be better tenants. (I have no idea if this is true in practice or not, I’m not a landlord myself.) Unmarried, because no kids running around meant less damage to the property. And, of course, white. Because she was racist, and her incentive structure made her prefer whites.
You can deride her for being racist, I won’t disagree with you. But it’s simply the reality. Under the non-rent-control scenario, her profit motive for money outweighed her racism motive. But under rent control, the monetary competition was removed, and she was free to play into her racist tendencies without facing any negative consequences.
## Bureaucracy
These were the two examples I remember for that course. But non-monetary compensation pops up in many more places. One highly pertinent example is bureaucracies. Imagine you have a government office, or a large corporation’s acquisition department, or the team that apportions grants at a university. In all these cases, you have a group of people making decisions about handing out money that has no monetary impact on them. If they give to the best qualified recipients, they receive no raises. If they spend the money recklessly on frivolous projects, they face no consequences.
Under such an incentivization scheme, there’s little to encourage the bureaucrats to make intelligent funding decisions. Instead, they’ll be incentivized to spend the money where they recognize non-monetary benefits. This is why it’s so common to hear about expensive meals, gift bags at conferences, and even more inappropriate ways of trying to curry favor with those that hold the purse strings.
Compare that ever so briefly with the purchases made by a small mom-and-pop store like my parents owned. Could my dad take a bribe to buy from a vendor who’s ripping him off? Absolutely he could\! But he’d lose more on the deal than he’d make on the bribe, since he’s directly incentivized by the deal itself. It would make much more sense for him to go with the better vendor, save $5,000 on the deal, and then treat himself to a lavish $400 meal to celebrate.
# Government incentivized behavior
This post is getting longer in the tooth than I’d intended, so I’ll finish off with this section and make it a bit briefer. Beyond all the methods mentioned above, government has another mechanism for modifying behavior: through directly changing incentives via legislation, regulation, and monetary policy. Let’s see some examples:
* Artificial modification of interest rates encourages people to take on more debt than they would in a free capital market, leading to [malinvestment](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malinvestment) and a consumer debt crisis, and causing the boom-bust cycle we all painfully experience.
* Going along with that, giving tax breaks on interest payments further artificially incentivizes people to take on debt that they wouldn’t otherwise.
* During COVID-19, at some points unemployment benefits were greater than minimum wage, incentivizing people to rather stay home and not work than get a job, leading to reduced overall productivity in the economy and more printed dollars for benefits. In other words, it was a perfect recipe for inflation.
* The tax code gives deductions to “help” people. That might be true, but the real impact is incentivizing people to make decisions they wouldn’t have otherwise. For example, giving out tax deductions on children encourages having more kids. Tax deductions on childcare and preschools incentivizes dual-income households. Whether or not you like the outcomes, it’s clear that it’s government that’s encouraging these outcomes to happen.
* Tax incentives cause people to engage in behavior they wouldn’t otherwise (daycare+working mother, for example).
* Inflation means that the value of your money goes down over time, which encourages people to spend more today, when their money has a larger impact. (Milton Friedman described this as [high living](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwNDd2_beTU).)
# Conclusion
The idea here is simple, and fully encapsulated in the title: incentives determine outcomes. If you want to know how to get a certain outcome from others, incentivize them to want that to happen. If you want to understand why people act in seemingly irrational ways, check their incentives. If you’re confused why leaders (and especially politicians) seem to engage in destructive behavior, check their incentives.
We can bemoan these realities all we want, but they *are* realities. While there are some people who have a solid internal moral and ethical code, and that internal code incentivizes them to behave against their externally-incentivized interests, those people are rare. And frankly, those people are self-defeating. People *should* take advantage of the incentives around them. Because if they don’t, someone else will.
(If you want a literary example of that last comment, see the horse in Animal Farm.)
How do we improve the world under these conditions? Make sure the incentives align well with the overall goals of society. To me, it’s a simple formula:
* Focus on free trade, value for value, as the basis of a society. In that system, people are always incentivized to provide value to other people.
* Reduce the size of bureaucracies and large groups of all kinds. The larger an organization becomes, the farther the consequences of decisions are from those who make them.
* And since the nature of human beings will be to try and create areas where they can control the incentive systems to their own benefits, make that as difficult as possible. That comes in the form of strict limits on government power, for example.
And even if you don’t want to buy in to this conclusion, I hope the rest of the content was educational, and maybe a bit entertaining\!
-
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@ 3f770d65:7a745b24
2025-01-12 21:03:36
I’ve been using Notedeck for several months, starting with its extremely early and experimental alpha versions, all the way to its current, more stable alpha releases. The journey has been fascinating, as I’ve had the privilege of watching it evolve from a concept into a functional and promising tool.
In its earliest stages, Notedeck was raw—offering glimpses of its potential but still far from practical for daily use. Even then, the vision behind it was clear: a platform designed to redefine how we interact with Nostr by offering flexibility and power for all users.
I'm very bullish on Notedeck. Why? Because Will Casarin is making it! Duh! 😂
Seriously though, if we’re reimagining the web and rebuilding portions of the Internet, it’s important to recognize [the potential of Notedeck](https://damus.io/notedeck/). If Nostr is reimagining the web, then Notedeck is reimagining the Nostr client.
Notedeck isn’t just another Nostr app—it’s more a Nostr browser that functions more like an operating system with micro-apps. How cool is that?
Much like how Google's Chrome evolved from being a web browser with a task manager into ChromeOS, a full blown operating system, Notedeck aims to transform how we interact with the Nostr. It goes beyond individual apps, offering a foundation for a fully integrated ecosystem built around Nostr.
As a Nostr evangelist, I love to scream **INTEROPERABILITY** and tout every application's integrations. Well, Notedeck has the potential to be one of the best platforms to showcase these integrations in entirely new and exciting ways.
Do you want an Olas feed of images? Add the media column.
Do you want a feed of live video events? Add the zap.stream column.
Do you want Nostr Nests or audio chats? Add that column to your Notedeck.
Git? Email? Books? Chat and DMs? It's all possible.
Not everyone wants a super app though, and that’s okay. As with most things in the Nostr ecosystem, flexibility is key. Notedeck gives users the freedom to choose how they engage with it—whether it’s simply following hashtags or managing straightforward feeds. You'll be able to tailor Notedeck to fit your needs, using it as extensively or minimally as you prefer.
Notedeck is designed with a local-first approach, utilizing Nostr content stored directly on your device via the local nostrdb. This will enable a plethora of advanced tools such as search and filtering, the creation of custom feeds, and the ability to develop personalized algorithms across multiple Notedeck micro-applications—all with unparalleled flexibility.
Notedeck also supports multicast. Let's geek out for a second. Multicast is a method of communication where data is sent from one source to multiple destinations simultaneously, but only to devices that wish to receive the data. Unlike broadcast, which sends data to all devices on a network, multicast targets specific receivers, reducing network traffic. This is commonly used for efficient data distribution in scenarios like streaming, conferencing, or large-scale data synchronization between devices.
> In a local first world where each device holds local copies of your nostr nodes, and each device transparently syncs with each other on the local network, each node becomes a backup. Your data becomes antifragile automatically. When a node goes down it can resync and recover from other nodes. Even if not all nodes have a complete collection, negentropy can pull down only what is needed from each device. All this can be done without internet.
>
> \-Will Casarin
In the context of Notedeck, multicast would allow multiple devices to sync their Nostr nodes with each other over a local network without needing an internet connection. Wild.
Notedeck aims to offer full customization too, including the ability to design and share custom skins, much like Winamp. Users will also be able to create personalized columns and, in the future, share their setups with others. This opens the door for power users to craft tailored Nostr experiences, leveraging their expertise in the protocol and applications. By sharing these configurations as "Starter Decks," they can simplify onboarding and showcase the best of Nostr’s ecosystem.
Nostr’s “Other Stuff” can often be difficult to discover, use, or understand. Many users doesn't understand or know how to use web browser extensions to login to applications. Let's not even get started with nsecbunkers. Notedeck will address this challenge by providing a native experience that brings these lesser-known applications, tools, and content into a user-friendly and accessible interface, making exploration seamless. However, that doesn't mean Notedeck should disregard power users that want to use nsecbunkers though - hint hint.
For anyone interested in watching Nostr be [developed live](https://github.com/damus-io/notedeck), right before your very eyes, Notedeck’s progress serves as a reminder of what’s possible when innovation meets dedication. The current alpha is already demonstrating its ability to handle complex use cases, and I’m excited to see how it continues to grow as it moves toward a full release later this year.
-
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@ b83e6f82:73c27758
2024-12-23 19:31:31
## Citrine 0.6.0
- Update dependencies
- Show notifications when importing, exporting, downloading events
- Change database functions to be suspending functions
Download it with [zap.store]( https://zap.store/download), [Obtainium]( https://github.com/ImranR98/Obtainium), [f-droid]( https://f-droid.org/packages/com.greenart7c3.citrine) or download it directly in the [releases page
]( https://github.com/greenart7c3/Citrine/releases/tag/v0.6.0)
If you like my work consider making a [donation]( https://greenart7c3.com)
## Verifying the release
In order to verify the release, you'll need to have `gpg` or `gpg2` installed on your system. Once you've obtained a copy (and hopefully verified that as well), you'll first need to import the keys that have signed this release if you haven't done so already:
``` bash
gpg --keyserver hkps://keys.openpgp.org --recv-keys 44F0AAEB77F373747E3D5444885822EED3A26A6D
```
Once you have his PGP key you can verify the release (assuming `manifest-v0.6.0.txt` and `manifest-v0.6.0.txt.sig` are in the current directory) with:
``` bash
gpg --verify manifest-v0.6.0.txt.sig manifest-v0.6.0.txt
```
You should see the following if the verification was successful:
``` bash
gpg: Signature made Fri 13 Sep 2024 08:06:52 AM -03
gpg: using RSA key 44F0AAEB77F373747E3D5444885822EED3A26A6D
gpg: Good signature from "greenart7c3 <greenart7c3@proton.me>"
```
That will verify the signature on the main manifest page which ensures integrity and authenticity of the binaries you've downloaded locally. Next, depending on your operating system you should then re-calculate the sha256 sum of the binary, and compare that with the following hashes:
``` bash
cat manifest-v0.6.0.txt
```
One can use the `shasum -a 256 <file name here>` tool in order to re-compute the `sha256` hash of the target binary for your operating system. The produced hash should be compared with the hashes listed above and they should match exactly.
-
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@ 16d11430:61640947
2024-12-23 16:47:01
At the intersection of philosophy, theology, physics, biology, and finance lies a terrifying truth: the fiat monetary system, in its current form, is not just an economic framework but a silent, relentless force actively working against humanity's survival. It isn't simply a failed financial model—it is a systemic engine of destruction, both externally and within the very core of our biological existence.
The Philosophical Void of Fiat
Philosophy has long questioned the nature of value and the meaning of human existence. From Socrates to Kant, thinkers have pondered the pursuit of truth, beauty, and virtue. But in the modern age, the fiat system has hijacked this discourse. The notion of "value" in a fiat world is no longer rooted in human potential or natural resources—it is abstracted, manipulated, and controlled by central authorities with the sole purpose of perpetuating their own power. The currency is not a reflection of society’s labor or resources; it is a representation of faith in an authority that, more often than not, breaks that faith with reckless monetary policies and hidden inflation.
The fiat system has created a kind of ontological nihilism, where the idea of true value, rooted in work, creativity, and family, is replaced with speculative gambling and short-term gains. This betrayal of human purpose at the systemic level feeds into a philosophical despair: the relentless devaluation of effort, the erosion of trust, and the abandonment of shared human values. In this nihilistic economy, purpose and meaning become increasingly difficult to find, leaving millions to question the very foundation of their existence.
Theological Implications: Fiat and the Collapse of the Sacred
Religious traditions have long linked moral integrity with the stewardship of resources and the preservation of life. Fiat currency, however, corrupts these foundational beliefs. In the theological narrative of creation, humans are given dominion over the Earth, tasked with nurturing and protecting it for future generations. But the fiat system promotes the exact opposite: it commodifies everything—land, labor, and life—treating them as mere transactions on a ledger.
This disrespect for creation is an affront to the divine. In many theologies, creation is meant to be sustained, a delicate balance that mirrors the harmony of the divine order. Fiat systems—by continuously printing money and driving inflation—treat nature and humanity as expendable resources to be exploited for short-term gains, leading to environmental degradation and societal collapse. The creation narrative, in which humans are called to be stewards, is inverted. The fiat system, through its unholy alliance with unrestrained growth and unsustainable debt, is destroying the very creation it should protect.
Furthermore, the fiat system drives idolatry of power and wealth. The central banks and corporations that control the money supply have become modern-day gods, their decrees shaping the lives of billions, while the masses are enslaved by debt and inflation. This form of worship isn't overt, but it is profound. It leads to a world where people place their faith not in God or their families, but in the abstract promises of institutions that serve their own interests.
Physics and the Infinite Growth Paradox
Physics teaches us that the universe is finite—resources, energy, and space are all limited. Yet, the fiat system operates under the delusion of infinite growth. Central banks print money without concern for natural limits, encouraging an economy that assumes unending expansion. This is not only an economic fallacy; it is a physical impossibility.
In thermodynamics, the Second Law states that entropy (disorder) increases over time in any closed system. The fiat system operates as if the Earth were an infinite resource pool, perpetually able to expand without consequence. The real world, however, does not bend to these abstract concepts of infinite growth. Resources are finite, ecosystems are fragile, and human capacity is limited. Fiat currency, by promoting unsustainable consumption and growth, accelerates the depletion of resources and the degradation of natural systems that support life itself.
Even the financial “growth” driven by fiat policies leads to unsustainable bubbles—inflated stock markets, real estate, and speculative assets that burst and leave ruin in their wake. These crashes aren’t just economic—they have profound biological consequences. The cycles of boom and bust undermine communities, erode social stability, and increase anxiety and depression, all of which affect human health at a biological level.
Biology: The Fiat System and the Destruction of Human Health
Biologically, the fiat system is a cancerous growth on human society. The constant chase for growth and the devaluation of work leads to chronic stress, which is one of the leading causes of disease in modern society. The strain of living in a system that values speculation over well-being results in a biological feedback loop: rising anxiety, poor mental health, physical diseases like cardiovascular disorders, and a shortening of lifespans.
Moreover, the focus on profit and short-term returns creates a biological disconnect between humans and the planet. The fiat system fuels industries that destroy ecosystems, increase pollution, and deplete resources at unsustainable rates. These actions are not just environmentally harmful; they directly harm human biology. The degradation of the environment—whether through toxic chemicals, pollution, or resource extraction—has profound biological effects on human health, causing respiratory diseases, cancers, and neurological disorders.
The biological cost of the fiat system is not a distant theory; it is being paid every day by millions in the form of increased health risks, diseases linked to stress, and the growing burden of mental health disorders. The constant uncertainty of an inflation-driven economy exacerbates these conditions, creating a society of individuals whose bodies and minds are under constant strain. We are witnessing a systemic biological unraveling, one in which the very act of living is increasingly fraught with pain, instability, and the looming threat of collapse.
Finance as the Final Illusion
At the core of the fiat system is a fundamental illusion—that financial growth can occur without any real connection to tangible value. The abstraction of currency, the manipulation of interest rates, and the constant creation of new money hide the underlying truth: the system is built on nothing but faith. When that faith falters, the entire system collapses.
This illusion has become so deeply embedded that it now defines the human experience. Work no longer connects to production or creation—it is reduced to a transaction on a spreadsheet, a means to acquire more fiat currency in a world where value is ephemeral and increasingly disconnected from human reality.
As we pursue ever-expanding wealth, the fundamental truths of biology—interdependence, sustainability, and balance—are ignored. The fiat system’s abstract financial models serve to disconnect us from the basic realities of life: that we are part of an interconnected world where every action has a reaction, where resources are finite, and where human health, both mental and physical, depends on the stability of our environment and our social systems.
The Ultimate Extermination
In the end, the fiat system is not just an economic issue; it is a biological, philosophical, theological, and existential threat to the very survival of humanity. It is a force that devalues human effort, encourages environmental destruction, fosters inequality, and creates pain at the core of the human biological condition. It is an economic framework that leads not to prosperity, but to extermination—not just of species, but of the very essence of human well-being.
To continue on this path is to accept the slow death of our species, one based not on natural forces, but on our own choice to worship the abstract over the real, the speculative over the tangible. The fiat system isn't just a threat; it is the ultimate self-inflicted wound, a cultural and financial cancer that, if left unchecked, will destroy humanity’s chance for survival and peace.
-
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@ a367f9eb:0633efea
2024-12-22 21:35:22
I’ll admit that I was wrong about Bitcoin. Perhaps in 2013. Definitely 2017. Probably in 2018-2019. And maybe even today.
Being wrong about Bitcoin is part of finally understanding it. It will test you, make you question everything, and in the words of BTC educator and privacy advocate [Matt Odell](https://twitter.com/ODELL), “Bitcoin will humble you”.
I’ve had my own stumbles on the way.
In a very public fashion in 2017, after years of using Bitcoin, trying to start a company with it, using it as my primary exchange vehicle between currencies, and generally being annoying about it at parties, I let out the bear.
In an article published in my own literary magazine *Devolution Review* in September 2017, I had a breaking point. The article was titled “[Going Bearish on Bitcoin: Cryptocurrencies are the tulip mania of the 21st century](https://www.devolutionreview.com/bearish-on-bitcoin/)”.
It was later republished in *Huffington Post* and across dozens of financial and crypto blogs at the time with another, more appropriate title: “[Bitcoin Has Become About The Payday, Not Its Potential](https://www.huffpost.com/archive/ca/entry/bitcoin-has-become-about-the-payday-not-its-potential_ca_5cd5025de4b07bc72973ec2d)”.
As I laid out, my newfound bearishness had little to do with the technology itself or the promise of Bitcoin, and more to do with the cynical industry forming around it:
> In the beginning, Bitcoin was something of a revolution to me. The digital currency represented everything from my rebellious youth.
>
> It was a decentralized, denationalized, and digital currency operating outside the traditional banking and governmental system. It used tools of cryptography and connected buyers and sellers across national borders at minimal transaction costs.
>
> …
>
> The 21st-century version (of Tulip mania) has welcomed a plethora of slick consultants, hazy schemes dressed up as investor possibilities, and too much wishy-washy language for anything to really make sense to anyone who wants to use a digital currency to make purchases.
While I called out Bitcoin by name at the time, on reflection, I was really talking about the ICO craze, the wishy-washy consultants, and the altcoin ponzis.
What I was articulating — without knowing it — was the frame of NgU, or “numbers go up”. Rather than advocating for Bitcoin because of its uncensorability, proof-of-work, or immutability, the common mentality among newbies and the dollar-obsessed was that Bitcoin mattered because its price was a rocket ship.
And because Bitcoin was gaining in price, affinity tokens and projects that were imperfect forks of Bitcoin took off as well.
The price alone — rather than its qualities — were the reasons why you’d hear Uber drivers, finance bros, or your gym buddy mention Bitcoin. As someone who came to Bitcoin for philosophical reasons, that just sat wrong with me.
Maybe I had too many projects thrown in my face, or maybe I was too frustrated with the UX of Bitcoin apps and sites at the time. No matter what, I’ve since learned something.
**I was at least somewhat wrong.**
My own journey began in early 2011. One of my favorite radio programs, Free Talk Live, began interviewing guests and having discussions on the potential of Bitcoin. They tied it directly to a libertarian vision of the world: free markets, free people, and free banking. That was me, and I was in. Bitcoin was at about $5 back then (NgU).
I followed every article I could, talked about it with guests [on my college radio show](https://libertyinexile.wordpress.com/2011/05/09/osamobama_on_the_tubes/), and became a devoted redditor on r/Bitcoin. At that time, at least to my knowledge, there was no possible way to buy Bitcoin where I was living. Very weak.
**I was probably wrong. And very wrong for not trying to acquire by mining or otherwise.**
The next year, after moving to Florida, Bitcoin was a heavy topic with a friend of mine who shared the same vision (and still does, according to the Celsius bankruptcy documents). We talked about it with passionate leftists at **Occupy Tampa** in 2012, all the while trying to explain the ills of Keynesian central banking, and figuring out how to use Coinbase.
I began writing more about Bitcoin in 2013, writing a guide on “[How to Avoid Bank Fees Using Bitcoin](http://thestatelessman.com/2013/06/03/using-bitcoin/),” discussing its [potential legalization in Germany](https://yael.ca/2013/10/01/lagefi-alternative-monetaire-et-legislation-de/), and interviewing Jeremy Hansen, [one of the first political candidates in the U.S. to accept Bitcoin donations](https://yael.ca/2013/12/09/bitcoin-politician-wants-to-upgrade-democracy-in/).
Even up until that point, I thought Bitcoin was an interesting protocol for sending and receiving money quickly, and converting it into fiat. The global connectedness of it, plus this cypherpunk mentality divorced from government control was both useful and attractive. I thought it was the perfect go-between.
**But I was wrong.**
When I gave my [first public speech](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtVypq2f0G4) on Bitcoin in Vienna, Austria in December 2013, I had grown obsessed with Bitcoin’s adoption on dark net markets like Silk Road.
My theory, at the time, was the number and price were irrelevant. The tech was interesting, and a novel attempt. It was unlike anything before. But what was happening on the dark net markets, which I viewed as the true free market powered by Bitcoin, was even more interesting. I thought these markets would grow exponentially and anonymous commerce via BTC would become the norm.
While the price was irrelevant, it was all about buying and selling goods without permission or license.
**Now I understand I was wrong.**
Just because Bitcoin was this revolutionary technology that embraced pseudonymity did not mean that all commerce would decentralize as well. It did not mean that anonymous markets were intended to be the most powerful layer in the Bitcoin stack.
What I did not even anticipate is something articulated very well by noted Bitcoin OG [Pierre Rochard](https://twitter.com/BitcoinPierre): [Bitcoin as a *savings technology*](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BavRqEoaxjI)*.*
The ability to maintain long-term savings, practice self-discipline while stacking stats, and embrace a low-time preference was just not something on the mind of the Bitcoiners I knew at the time.
Perhaps I was reading into the hype while outwardly opposing it. Or perhaps I wasn’t humble enough to understand the true value proposition that many of us have learned years later.
In the years that followed, I bought and sold more times than I can count, and I did everything to integrate it into passion projects. I tried to set up a company using Bitcoin while at my university in Prague.
My business model depended on university students being technologically advanced enough to have a mobile wallet, own their keys, and be able to make transactions on a consistent basis. Even though I was surrounded by philosophically aligned people, those who would advance that to actually put Bitcoin into practice were sparse.
This is what led me to proclaim that “[Technological Literacy is Doomed](https://www.huffpost.com/archive/ca/entry/technological-literacy-is-doomed_b_12669440)” in 2016.
**And I was wrong again.**
Indeed, since that time, the UX of Bitcoin-only applications, wallets, and supporting tech has vastly improved and onboarded millions more people than anyone thought possible. The entrepreneurship, coding excellence, and vision offered by Bitcoiners of all stripes have renewed a sense in me that this project is something built for us all — friends and enemies alike.
While many of us were likely distracted by flashy and pumpy altcoins over the years (me too, champs), most of us have returned to the Bitcoin stable.
Fast forward to today, there are entire ecosystems of creators, activists, and developers who are wholly reliant on the magic of Bitcoin’s protocol for their life and livelihood. The options are endless. The FUD is still present, but real proof of work stands powerfully against those forces.
In addition, there are now [dozens of ways to use Bitcoin privately](https://fixthemoney.substack.com/p/not-your-keys-not-your-coins-claiming) — still without custodians or intermediaries — that make it one of the most important assets for global humanity, especially in dictatorships.
This is all toward a positive arc of innovation, freedom, and pure independence. Did I see that coming? Absolutely not.
Of course, there are probably other shots you’ve missed on Bitcoin. Price predictions (ouch), the short-term inflation hedge, or the amount of institutional investment. While all of these may be erroneous predictions in the short term, we have to realize that Bitcoin is a long arc. It will outlive all of us on the planet, and it will continue in its present form for the next generation.
**Being wrong about the evolution of Bitcoin is no fault, and is indeed part of the learning curve to finally understanding it all.**
When your family or friends ask you about Bitcoin after your endless sessions explaining market dynamics, nodes, how mining works, and the genius of cryptographic signatures, try to accept that there is still so much we have to learn about this decentralized digital cash.
There are still some things you’ve gotten wrong about Bitcoin, and plenty more you’ll underestimate or get wrong in the future. That’s what makes it a beautiful journey. It’s a long road, but one that remains worth it.
-
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@ 330516bf:ea23d292
2024-12-20 03:35:09
*The self-declaration of identity is a philosophical open source project, hosted at [https://memdeklaro.github.io/](https://memdeklaro.github.io/)*
## Foreword
ID documents do more harm than good and should not be seen as a solution for trust or authentication. Many economic and social interactions can be done anonymously. For other situations, trust can be achieved by simply saying your (self-chosen) name, using a web-of-trust, word-of-mouth reputation, vouches, memberships, escrows or cash deposits, and authentication can be achieved by using a password, cryptographic key pair (e.g. PGP, Monero) or physical key or code (such as house keys or a safe code).
## Background
In recent years, more and more things are asking for proof of identity, from basic necessities like jobs, housing and healthcare, to smaller things like receiving mail, buying a sim card or joining a gym. However, it is not enough to write your name and address on a form. Instead, only government-issued IDs are accepted, which gives the state a “monopoly on identity”.
Monopolies are dangerous in general due to the fact that if the service provider is harmful, inaccessible or otherwise problematic, you cannot choose a different provider, start your own provider, or go without. This particular monopoly is even worse, considering that access to government ID determines if you may participate in the economy (jobs, banking), society (housing, volunteer work, education, libraries, sports) or even exist (national borders).
Many people have no access to government ID. This group includes some stateless people, refugees, people who weren’t registered at birth, and people who escaped from child abuse, domestic abuse or cult abuse. The state’s claimed solutions, such as asylum procedures, stateless determination procedures, delayed registration of birth, child protective services and witness protection, often cannot help in practice, as the victim is often ignored, accused of lying, blamed for the persecution, or worse sent back to the persecutors against their will. Despite issuing laissez-passer and Nansen passports in the past, the United Nations and Red Cross do not issue alternative IDs today. It would be a relief if these processes would work and allow vulnerable people to escape from undeserved and dangerous situations, but unfortunately this is not the reality.
In addition, the collectivist concept of citizenship can be dangerous. For example, if someone does not identify with their birth culture, they should not be forced to follow it for life or identify themselves as a member of this culture. Instead, they should be free to dissent against this culture or leave this culture’s jurisdiction. Even worse is conscription — the cruel system where a nation-state can force someone against their will to kill or be killed, just because they happened to be born inside a certain territory. The world would be more free if people could exist as individuals, conscientious objectors against the fatalism of birth cultures and violence of statism, with freedom of association to leave hostile environments and join self-chosen communities.
> “The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb.”
Self-declaration of identity gives people the power to decide their own fate. People are no longer the property of nations, governments, birth cultures or birth parents. The choice of your own name and renunciation of your circumstances of birth is a liberating act of individualism, where your ideals, actions and efforts matter more than the situation that you were arbitrarily born into.
## Self-declaration of identity
Instead of requiring third parties such as birth countries, birth cultures and birth parents to define an individual’s identity, the self-declaration allows you to define your own name and eschews the concepts of birth countries and citizenship.
The self-declaration is a CR-80 plastic card or paper business card (85.6mm x 54mm). The self-declaration is written in Esperanto and includes the Esperanto flag and symbol. Esperanto was chosen because it is anational (sennacieca = not associated with a specific country, culture or state) and was created as a borderless language of peace, built on voluntary free association. The design features artwork of a peace dove in a blue sky with clouds.
As it is a self-declaration, it is not stored in a central database, does not require a third party’s permission and does not need to be issued by an authority. You are the authority over your own life.
**The self-declaration includes the text:**
- Title: Self-declaration of identity (Memdeklaro de identeco)
- Location: Esperanto community (Esperantujo)
- Issuer: EPO (ISO code for Esperanto)
- Quote: One world, one humankind (Unu mondo, unu homaro)
**The self-declaration of identity contains:**
- Self-chosen first name (Antaŭnomo) and self-chosen surname (Nomo) → an individual should be able to freely choose their own name
- Birth date (Naskiĝdato) → for declaration of age
- Photo → Dimensions 35mm x 45mm
- Signature (Subskribo) → sign your self-declaration
- Notes field (Notoj) → a place to write a note, e.g. “the holder is a conscientious objector” (Portanto estas konscienca obĵetanto)
- ID number (Numero), issuance date (Eldondato), expiry date (Limdato), issuer (Eldonisto), MRZ → bureaucratic boilerplate
**The self-declaration of identity does not contain:**
- Place of birth → allows people to cut ties with hostile environments and self-define their culture, beliefs and personal ties
- Citizenship or stateless status → allows people to cut ties with hostile governments or cultures, and exist as an individual instead of as property of a state that they did not choose
- Parents’ names → allows victims of child abuse to cut ties with abusers
**To make your own:**
- Use the generator at <https://memdeklaro.github.io/> or download the repo (<https://github.com/memdeklaro/memdeklaro.github.io/>) and open index.html in your browser
- Alternatively download the front template (fronto.jpg) and back template (dorso.jpg) from the linked repo, and use an image editor such as GIMP to add your text (the font OCR-B.ttf is provided) and your photo and signature
- Calculate the MRZ code here (TD1): <https://www.dynamsoft.com/tools/mrz-generator/> (Choose any country, then replace it with EPO)
- Print it out as a business card and optionally laminate (dimensions: 85.6mm x 54mm) or order a CR-80 plastic card from a printing service
**Example:**
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**Note:**
Unfortunately the self-declaration of identity cannot be used to bypass government ID requirements, such as for jobs, housing, healthcare, finances, volunteer work, contracts, receiving mail or buying a sim card. Other non-government IDs such as Digitalcourage Lichtbildausweis (<https://shop.digitalcourage.de/gadgets/lichtbildausweis-mit-selbst-waehlbaren-daten.html>) and World Passport (<https://worldcitizengov.org/what-is-the-world-passport/>) have the same limitations.
Nation-states’ refusal to print IDs for undocumented, stateless and unregistered people (while forcing government ID requirements on employers, landlords, doctors and more) can and does put innocent people’s lives in danger. But unfortunately even the United Nations has not been able to change this, despite issuing conventions on statelessness and refugee status in the 1950s.
## Further Reading
For further reading about identity (and why the state’s monopoly is harmful):
Passports Were a “Temporary” War Measure — Speranta Dumitru <https://fee.org/articles/passports-were-a-temporary-war-measure>
During World War II, we did have something to hide — Hans de Zwart <https://medium.com/@hansdezwart/during-world-war-ii-we-did-have-something-to-hide-40689565c550>
The Little-Known Passport That Protected 450,000 Refugees — Cara Giaimo <https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/nansen-passport-refugees>
With each person left living on the streets, we are losing as a society — Petr Baroch <https://www.statelessness.eu/blog/each-person-left-living-streets-we-are-losing-society>
The rarely discussed dangers of KYC and what you can do about it — Anarkio <https://vonupodcast.com/know-your-customer-kyc-the-rarely-discussed-danger-guest-article-audio>
Exclusion and identity: life without ID — Privacy International <https://www.privacyinternational.org/long-read/2544/exclusion-and-identity-life-without-id>
Proving who I am: the plight of people in detention without proof of legal identity — Vicki Prais <https://www.penalreform.org/blog/proving-who-i-am-the-plight-of-people/>
Establishing identity is a vital, risky and changing business — The Economist <https://www.economist.com/christmas-specials/2018/12/18/establishing-identity-is-a-vital-risky-and-changing-business>
What’s in a name? The case for inclusivity through anonymity — Common Thread <https://blog.twitter.com/common-thread/en/topics/stories/2021/whats-in-a-name-the-case-for-inclusivity-through-anonymity>
True Names Not Required: On Identity and Pseudonymity in Cyberspace — Der Gigi <https://dergigi.medium.com/true-names-not-required-fc6647dfe24a>
Citizenship is obsolete — Samuela Davidova <https://medium.com/@DavidovaSamuela/citizenship-is-obsolete-c36a20056752>
## License
Public Domain
Source code: <https://github.com/memdeklaro/memdeklaro.github.io>
## Infographic
<img src="https://blossom.primal.net/059fae3129d9b3aab4a3a93983914d58ed1fba577e11c73f48875995dd14cd6a.jpg">
# Translations
(Machine translated)\
Memdeklaro de identenco: self declaration of identity, autodeclaración de identidad, autodeclaração de identidade, autodéclaration d’identité, autodichiarazione di identità, autodeclararea identității, Selbsterklärung zur Identität, eigen verklaring van identiteit, Selvdeklaration af identitet, självdeklaration av identitet, egenerklæring om identitet, henkilöllisyysvakuutus, Isikuandmete esitamine, identitātes pašdeklarēšana, savęs deklaravimas, önbevallás a személyazonosságról, własna deklaracja tożsamości, vlastní prohlášení o totožnosti, vlastné vyhlásenie o totožnosti, samoprijava identitete, самодеклариране на самоличността, самопроголошення ідентичності, самозаявление о личности, αυτο-δήλωση ταυτότητας, pernyataan identitas diri, öz kimlik beyanı, الإعلان الذاتي عن الهوية, 身份自报, 身份自報, 自己申告, 신원 자기 선언
...
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@ d7c6d014:a6abb6b8
2024-11-23 18:40:47
こんにちは!kohei です。
久々のエントリ投下ですが、今回は先日弊 TL で話題になっていた、Android を P2P のローカルリレーサーバー化して Tor で公開する方法を紹介していこうと思います。
## 用意するもの
1. Android 端末
2. Orbot
3. Citrine
4. Amethyst
## 前提と下準備
今回は、Orbot の詳細設定は省いて、Power User Mode の設定が完了している前提でお話を進めます。
Android 端末を用意して、2~4 のアプリをインストールしておいてください。
## 設定方法
それでは早速設定していきましょう。
まず、Citrine を起動して、Settings のタブからローカルリレーの詳細を設定します。
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設定が終了したら、ローカルリレーを起動します。
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また、ここで表示されるポート番号をメモしてください。
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次に、More のタブに移り、Hosted Onion Services へアクセスし、Service Type の項目で User Services にチェックを入れて、右下の + マークをタップすると以下のポップアップが表示されます。(Orbot がスクショを許してくれないので一部画像割愛)
表示されたら、Name に任意の名前を、Local Port と Onion Port に先ほどメモした Citrine のポート番号を入力します。
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入力したら再起動を求められるので再起動してください。
再起動後に Hosted Onion Services の項目に .onion のアドレスが表示されたら成功です (何故か私の環境では、一回の再起動では設定が反映されなかったのですが、もし同じような現象が起きた場合は、再起動 -> Connect -> .onion アドレスが発行されてるかの確認、を数回試すと発行されるはずです)
発行されたら、.onion アドレスをタップしてクリップボードにコピーします。
次に、Amethyst を起動して、リレーの設定画面に入り、Outbox の設定にコピーした .onion アドレスを貼り付けて保存します。
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後は、Amethyst 側で Orbot のポート番号を設定して Orbot に接続すれば BOOM! 設定完了です。
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お疲れ様でした!
素敵な Nostr ライフを!
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@ 4ba8e86d:89d32de4
2024-10-29 12:30:05
## Tutorial feito por Grom Mestre⚡
Poste original Abaixo.
Part 1: http://xh6liiypqffzwnu5734ucwps37tn2g6npthvugz3gdoqpikujju525yd.onion/229987/tutorial-entendendo-e-usando-a-rede-i2p-introdu%C3%A7
Part 2: http://xh6liiypqffzwnu5734ucwps37tn2g6npthvugz3gdoqpikujju525yd.onion/230035/tutorial-instalando-e-configurando-o-roteador-i2p?show=230035#q230035
Part 3: http://xh6liiypqffzwnu5734ucwps37tn2g6npthvugz3gdoqpikujju525yd.onion/230113/tutorial-conectando-se-ao-xmpp-pela-i2p?show=230113#q230113
Boa tarde, camaradas do meu coeur!
Depois de muito tempo, e com o retorno da minha serotonina aos níveis basais, estou dando início a essa nova série de tutoriais. Espero que tirem muito proveito das informações passadas aqui para amplicarem o seu conhecimento da deepweb.
Esta postagem trará antes algumas considerações iniciais que podem ser úteis para quem possui pouco ou nenhum contato prévio com outras tecnologias ou tenha um entendimento torto a respeito da deepweb. Aconselho a estes que deem um boa lida antes de partirem para os tópicos do tutorial, mas saibam que ele não é um pré requisito para ele.
Dito isso, vamos prosseguir.
TÓPICOS:
Introdução
Instalando e configurando o roteador e o navegador
Conectando-se a serviços na I2P
Configurações avançadas
## 1. Introdução
### 1.1 Definindo a DeepWeb.
Muitos devem imaginar erroneamente que a deepweb se restrinja apenas à rede onion, mais precisamente aos seus hidden services, já que o Tor possui como uma das suas funções primárias proteger e burlar restrições governamentais e proteger o seus usuários através de métodos sofisticados de roteamento de pacotes e criptografia. Entretanto, ela é mais ampla do que se imagina dependendo da forma como a classificamos.
Os ditos "profissionais" usam uma definição extremamente vaga e imprecisa do que seria a deepweb e a sua verdadeira abrangência. Para isso, criei uma definição um pouco melhor para ela: redes comunitárias, sobrepostas, anônimas e criptografadas.
Vamos aos pontos individualmente:
> São Comunitárias, pois os pontos de roteamento de pacotes na rede (relays ou routers) muitas vezes são mantidos de forma voluntária por usuários comuns. Não é necessário nenhuma infraestrutura sofisticada para ser um contribuinte na rede, basta ter um computador com acesso à internet e conhecimentos básicos para fazer a configuração.
> São sobrepostas porque não estão acima ou abaixo da rede tradicional (diferente do que muitos imaginam). Os pacotes na DW trafegam entre os dados da surface e não em meios distintos (algo que não faz o menor sentido). Sabe aquele papo de camadas da DW ou aquela abobrinha da Mariana's Web? Então, tudo um monte de bosta derivado de Youtubers sensacionalistas iletrados em informática. Elitismo da minha parte? Quem sabe...
> São anônimas porque não é simples determinar a origem e o destino dos pacotes entre nodes intermediários dado a natureza do roteamento. Em geral, aos menos para a rede onion, há pelo menos 3 relays entre você e o servidor, sendo que esse número duplica para hidden services (3 seus e 3 do serviço). A imagem abaixo ilustra bemocoteamento dos pacotes na onio.
https://image.nostr.build/aea96f41d356157512f26b479ea8db5bce8693dd642f2bce0258d8e4b0dac053.jpg
> Por fim, são criptografadas porque as conexões são fortemente protegidas por algoritmos sofisticados de criptografia. Além de não sabermos a origem dos dados, sequer podemos saber com facilidade o conteúdo dessas mensagens mesmo que os protocolos das camadas superiores (HTTP, HTTPS, FTP) sejam inseguros, dado que a criptografia da própria rede já as protege. Por isso é tão comum que sites da DW não usem HTTPS, pois as autoridades de certificados não os assinam para domínios da onion e certificados autoassinados vão disparar avisos no navegador.
A imagem abaixo ilustra bem como é o roteamento onion usado pelo Tor. Perceba que o contéudo da mensagem está enrolado em 3 camadas de criptografia (como a de uma cebola), de modo que para revelar o contéudo original seria preciso quebrar, no pior dos casos, 3 camadas. Como mencionado antes, o método usado para isso é a criptografia assimétrica, muito similar ao PGP, porém com a sua própria implementação.
https://image.nostr.build/7bfaaf29211c11b82049ef8425abb67738d085c41558e9339ec13cf49ea5b548.jpg
Observação: Por mais que dentro da rede o encapsulamento proteja as mensagens internamente, entenda muito bem que isso não se aplica a sites da surface acessados pela onion. Ao desempacotar a última camada, a mensagem original é completamente exposta no exit node. Se ela não estiver protegida por uma camada adicional como TLS, seus pacotes estarão completamente expostos, algo que representa um sério risco de segurança.
As redes que caem em ao menos três dessas definições (anonimato, sobreposição e criptografia) podem ser classificadas como deepwebs. Podemos citar:
• Lokinet
• Zeronet
• Freenet
• I2P
• Tor
• Gnunet
Porém, há alguns casos interessantes que não caem diretamente nessa regra .
A Yggdrasil ( https://yggdrasil-network.github.io/ ), uma rede de topologia mesh com foco em escalabilidade e eficiência de roteamento, possui três dessas características: comunitária, sobreposta e segura. Entretanto, os nodes não são anônimos e muitas vezes podem estar desprotegidos, já que se conectar à Yggdrasil é que equivalente a ligar o seu computador diretamente na rede sem a presença de um NAT/CGNAT, correndo o risco de expor portas de serviços da sua máquina caso elas não estejam protegidas por um firewall. A Yggdrasil na prática é exposta como um dispositivo de camada 3 (tipo um VPN), mas diferente de um, apenas endereços IPv6 dentro de uma faixa bem específica de IP são roteados por ela, o que permite que ela coexista com outros dispositivos sem haver conflitos de roteamento.
Há quem argumente que a Yggdrasil é uma deepweb dado a sua sobreposição em relação à surface; outros podem argumentar que dado a falta de anonimato ela não se enquadraria nessa categoria. Independentemente disso é uma tecnologia muito interessante com ampla gama de aplicações, como encapsular tráfego de outras redes, como a I2P, e melhorar a eficiência de roteamento.
Por fim, vamos desmitificar alguns mitos da DeepWeb muito difundidos.
Não existem camadas da DW. Os pacotes da DW são sobrepostos e navegam juntos aos pacotes da surface.
DeepWeb e DarkWeb não são coisas diferentes. São termos genéricos para a mesma coisa.
DarkWeb não é o seu provedor de e-mail ou serviço de banco. Se eles não se enquadram nas categorias de um deepweb, então estão na surface.
Você não é irrastreável na DW. Adversários motivados podem foder com você com facilidade (leia a respeito de ataques de Timing, correlação e fingerprinting).
Mesmo que não seja possível ver o conteúdo de uma mensagem pela deepweb, é possível ao menos saber que você a acessou. ISPs podem ver esse tipo de tráfego como suspeito.
Você não é um hacker só porque instalou o TorBrowser, mas pode ser considerado um se expor o IP de um hidden service.
## Instalando e configurando o roteador I2P
Segue agora a seção 2 do tutorial do I2P. Mas antes apenas queria falar um pouco do projeto I2P. Apesar do foco do tutorial não ser para tratar da sua história, gostaria ao menos de fazer uma breve introdução sobre ela.
O projeto I2P (Invisible Internet Protocol) é uma rede P2P descentalizada, anônima e segura para estabelecer a comunicação entre os usuários e serviços. Na I2P é possível usar serviços como mensageiros IRC, XMPP, web services, e-mail e até mesmo torrents. A I2P nasceu de um fork da Freenet no ano de 2003, porém possui diferenças drásticas em relação a ela.
Há similaridades entre a I2P e o Tor, porém vale destacar algumas de suas vantagens. Sendo elas:
• Garlic routing ( https://geti2p.net/en/docs/how/garlic-routing )
• Modelo P2P
• Todos os participantes da rede contribuem para ela
• Fechado na rede - não é possível acessar a surface através da I2P
• Otimizado para hidden services
Apesar disso, vale lembrar que o projeto é pequeno, desenvolvido por menos voluntários se comparado ao Tor e possui menos movimentação e financiamento para o seu desenvolvimento. Além disso, o Tor é um projeto muito mais maduro e bem documentado, algo que atrai mais usuários e desenvolvedores e torna a tarefa de encontrar e corrigir bugs mais fácil de ser realizada.
Esses são pontos importantes que devemos levar em conta ao escolher a tecnologia para as nossas necessidades. Nem sempre há tecnologias ruins, as vezes apenas as empregamos as ferramentas erradas na resolução de certos problemas.
Referências:
• https://geti2p.net/en/comparison/tor
• https://geti2p.net/en/docs/how/garlic-routing
• https://geti2p.net/en/about/intro
• https://i2pd.readthedocs.io/en/latest/
### 2. Instalando e configurando o roteador
Antes da criação do I2PBrowserBundle ( https://github.com/PurpleI2P/i2pdbrowser/releases/tag/1.3.3 ) , a única forma de se conectar à I2P era pela configuração manual de proxy no navegador. Muita gente ou não sabe ou tem MUUUUUITA preguiça de fazer isso e ficam resistentes de entrar na I2P dada essa restrição.
Como eu quero ser um bom tutor eu farei do jeito mais "difícil", pois tanto eu desejo que vocês aprendam as nuances do processo como eu sei que vocês são inteligentes o suficiente para fazer isso.
### 2.1 Instalação do router
Atualmente nós temos duas implementações do I2P: Uma em Java e outra em C++ (i2pd). Usaremos nesse tutorial a versão em C++ dado o seu baixo uso de recursos e facilidade de instalação.
O I2Pd está disponível para Windows, Linux, MacOS e Android e possui binários pré-compilados nas releases ( https://github.com/PurpleI2P/i2pd/releases/tag/2.50.2 ) do projeto no Github. Usuários de Linux podem instalá-lo através do respectivo gerenciador de pacotes da sua distribuição, porém algumas distros não oferecem o pacote diretamente nos reposítórios oficiais, necessitando do uso de PPAs (Ubuntu), COPR (Fedora/RHEL) e afins. Vocês podem conferir as instruções oficiais para cada sistema nessa página ( https://i2pd.readthedocs.io/en/latest/user-guide/install/ ).
Apesar desse tutorial ser voltado a usuários de desktop, o I2Pd também está disponível na loja do F-droid. Infelizmente poucos navegadores em Android permitem a configuração de proxies, porém na seção de Serviços na I2P eu tratarei brevemente de como se conectar a servidores de XMPP usando o ConversationI2P.
Para usuários de Windows, segue abaixo os binários para instalação.
• Versão 32bits ( https://github.com/PurpleI2P/i2pd/releases/download/2.50.2/i2pd_2.50.2_win32_mingw.zip )
• Versão 64bits ( https://github.com/PurpleI2P/i2pd/releases/download/2.50.2/i2pd_2.50.2_win64_mingw.zip )
• Versão para Windows XP (pois é, kk) ( https://github.com/PurpleI2P/i2pd/releases/download/2.50.2/i2pd_2.50.2_winxp_mingw.zip )
A instalação é simples e direta. Após ela apenas abram o I2Pd para que o router inicie a operação de busca e conexão com os peers. Para usuários de Linux, vocês precisam ativar o serviços através do comando 'sudo systemctl start i2pd'. Se vocês desejam que o I2Pd inicie junto com o sistema usem o comando 'sudo systemctl enable --now i2pd'.
Se tudo estiver funcionando corretamente, vocês serão capazes de abrir o webconsole do I2Pd no navegador através do endereço: 127.0.0.1:7070.
https://image.nostr.build/ab205ae1071a2b705279e5ce2d6e912d8d11cc7d6dd0dc8a26b76724a27bd94b.jpg
https://image.nostr.build/fa17e14600737ccfc92a415cec2fbfba226b950b2b97af7475927ae65abdbe11.jpg
### 2.2 Instalação e configuração do navegador
Apesar de qualquer navegador ser capaz de usar a I2P não é recomendado que usem qualquer um, especialmente o navegador que você usam no seu dia-a-dia. Recomendo que usem um navegador próprio para usar na I2P ou isolem suas atividades em um perfil separado.
Em navegadores baseado no Firefox isso é relativamente simples, bastando adicionar a opção '--profile' e o caminho do perfil que vocês desejam usar. Nesse tutorial eu vou mostrar como criar um perfil novo no Librewolf e configurar no lançador para iniciar o perfil e abrir em uma janela anônima. Essas instruções são análogas para todos os sistemas, excetuando aquelas configurações mais exóticas.
### 2.2.1 Escolhendo o navegador
Como citado, usarei o Librewolf como exemplo. Vocês podem baixar o instalador direto do site ou usar o gerenciador de pacotes do seu sistema no caso de Linux. Como é uma tarefa trivial eu não vou detalhar esse processo, pois todas as instruções estão em detalhes no site do navegador ( https://librewolf.net/installation/ )
### 2.2.2 Criando um perfil e configurando o lançador
Abram o navegador e digitem 'about:profiles' na barra de endereço. Criem um novo perfil clicando em 'Create New Profile'
https://image.nostr.build/fa17e14600737ccfc92a415cec2fbfba226b950b2b97af7475927ae65abdbe11.jpg
Coloquem um nome no seu perfil e cliquem em Finalizar
https://image.nostr.build/62059e375000940f11b27ae77b9ec011f9baadbb5a84afc910d41841ce73e82d.jpg
Perfis novos recém criados são iniciados por padrão. Se você deseja usar outro perfil por padrão deve mudar isso na seção 'about:profiles' do navegador.
Agora vamos configurar o lançador do LibreWolf para iniciar o perfil do i2p e em uma janela anônima. Usarei o XFCE como referência para essa tarefa, mas saibam que o processo é análogo em sistemas como Windows ou DEs como KDE. Se quiserem também podem lançar via terminal através do comando 'librewolf --profile caminho_do_perfil --private-window'.
Cliquem com o botão direito no ícone do Librewolf e abram as propriedades do atalho.
Na guia lançador, no campo Comando, adicionem no final a opção '--private-window' e a opção '--profile caminho_do_perfil'. O caminho do perfil é aquele mostrado na seção 'about:profiles' do Librewolf.
https://image.nostr.build/a7d6515d7825cb3bdcb681ecf71a97318dccba81eea7cc87fc5377ecc06065ee.jpg
2.2.3 Configurando o proxy
Com o lançador configurado, abra o navegador nesse perfil. Vamos configurar o proxy para se conectar ao I2P agora.
Abra as configurações digitando 'about:preferences' na barra de endereço. Na seção 'Geral' abra as configurações de rede (Network Settings)
https://image.nostr.build/f37157bebf15ada616914f403e756cf9fcee4c9aaaa353196c9cc754ca4d7bc5.jpg
Configure o seu proxy como na figura abaixo.
https://image.nostr.build/41ebd05255a8129d21011518d400689308d9c0320408967003bf296771e0b96f.jpg
Fecha as configurações. Se o seu proxy foi configurado corretamente tente abrir algum desses eepsites.
• http://identiguy.i2p
• http://notbob.i2p
• http://reg.i2p
Se tudo ocorreu como conforme, a página será carregada.
https://image.nostr.build/ce29ae44743f06cfed591f082208c9612c59b3429ab46d90db48131b3bc3e99d.jpg
OBSERVAÇÃO: A busca pelos peers é um pouco demorada, levando de 2 a 5 minutos para que um número mínimo necessário de peers sejam encontrados para estabelecer uma conexão estável. Você pode ver a lista de inbound e outbound tunnels na seção Tunnels do WebConsole (localhost:7070)
https://image.nostr.build/285a0d765eaf5f33409f975cd720d0efa68ecc40a9da20bfd9cde0cd1f59a7b6.jpg
IMPORTANTE: Apesar do Librewolf possuir defaults seguros, eu recomendo que vocês instalem as seguintes extensões para aumentar ainda mais a sua proteção.
• noScript
• JShelter
Lembrem-se que vocês precisam desativar o proxy para acessar a clearnet. Depois disso reativem-no nas configurações.
Outro detalhe: Se vocês tentarem digitar um endereço .i2p na barra de endereços do navegador sem especificar o protocolo (http), ao invés do Librewolf ir ao endereço ele vai realizar uma pesquisa. Para corrigir esse problema, vocês precisam adicionar a seguinte configuração do tipo boolean em 'about:config' como mostrado na imagem.
https://image.nostr.build/4518ab817b131f7efe542b2d919b926099dce29a7b59bdd3c788caf53dbd071e.jpg
Reiniciem o navegador e testem. Se tudo deu certo vocês não precisam especificar o protocolo ao digitar um endereço .i2p, bastando apenas digitar o endereço simplificado.
Por fim, terminamos essa parte do tutorial. Na próximo parte trataremos de como podemos nos conectar a serviços hospedados na I2P como XMPP
## [TUTORIAL] Conectando-se ao XMPP pela I2P
Essa é a terceira parte da série de tutoriais. Agora vamos tratar de algumas operações na rede, sendo uma delas conectando-se a um servidor de XMPP na I2P.
Não se esqueça de ligar o router e manter ele ligado por alguns minutos antes de iniciar essas operações. O router demora um pouco para encontrar os peers e estabelecer uma conexão estável.
### 3.1 Escolhendo o cliente XMPP
Existem diversos clientes XMPP capazes de se conectar usando um proxy. Um dos melhores é o Gajim, um cliente escrito em Python com diversas funcionalidades como criptografia OMEMO e PGP, workspaces separados, extensibilidade via plugins e uma interface bonita e organizada.
Assim como ocorreu com o router, o Gajim está disponível por padrão na maioria das distros Linux. Use o seu gerenciador de pacotes para instala-lo. Em Windows você pode baixar o Gajim através desse link ( https://gajim.org/download/ )
### 3.2 Criando uma conta
Vamos primeiro criar uma conta no servidor. No nosso exemplo usarei o servidor oficial do projeto i2pd, o xmpp.ilita.i2p. Há diversos outros servidores XMPP no diretório de links notbob.i2p caso queiram explorar mais.
Para criar uma conta, siga os passos abaixo:
Abra o Gajim. Na barra de tarefas vá em Contas -> Adicionar Conta. Na nova janela que aparecer, clique em Adicionar Conta
https://image.nostr.build/01413e7c6d00c238420e3b0c769dd8d7f7d6522754d2135d3e98a22944f79a27.jpg
https://image.nostr.build/9f015861f33990871d96f03d5ec78036a65e3ad9f8ff6a38da18c5b27d31f6d5.jpg
Na janela de adicionar contas, clique diretamente em Inscrever-se. Não precisa colocar as suas credencias como mostra a imagem (falha minha, ksksk)
https://nostrcheck.me/media/c8411a22946e97467e0ee197ef7a0205ba05f2c67bde092041481ccc2cbbc66d/81938c8d278ce0562c2240341e203f3b70f51ee2db06ceb453f8a178df37fa84.webp
Digite o nome do servidor no campo abaixo. Não esqueça de marcar a opção 'Configurações Avançadas' antes de clicar em Inscrever-se
https://image.nostr.build/5ee4305a6a23e5c064446b0ce7a4cbc7e790c1ba237bd2495d0237b86a4df07f.jpg
Vamos adicionar um novo proxy para essa conta. Para isso clique no botão 'Gerenciar proxies', ao lado do campo Proxy nas Configurações Avançadas
https://image.nostr.build/daceb5436def55401d3974ce48d85771e5ebcec4e3f90eb1001df4609112ec12.jpg
Adicione um novo proxy clicando no sinal de '+' abaixo da lista de proxies. Preencha os campos de acordo com a imagem abaixo e em seguida feche a janela.
https://image.nostr.build/140b34c4e46e9295c073311d483d206201d9339a75f613fe4e829c14f3257bfe.jpg
https://image.nostr.build/d365a63d81a14d763bffceb50b30eb53d81959623f8fe812175358a41b1fba53.jpg
No campo de Proxy, selecione o proxy I2P. Preencha o restante dos campos de acordo com a imagem abaixo. Em seguida clique em 'Inscrever-se'.
https://image.nostr.build/d06c11d9c6d19728bf5a58af2dd3e14d8ca0021456da09792a345ac0bfc90ad0.jpg
Nesse momento uma mensagem pode aparecer pedindo para abrir uma exceção para o certificado TLS. Isso acontece porque trata-se de um certificado autoassinado que não foi validado por uma autoridade oficial. Apenas abra a exceção e prossiga (não há imagem para isso porque eu já abri essa exceção no meu cliente).
Uma nova janela vai aparecer solicitando-lhe para inserir as suas credenciais. Tome cuidado aqui, pois não é para inserir o nome completo com o domínio, apenas o seu nome de usuário (ex: descartavel).
https://image.nostr.build/dde2a6736bd00080fbeeb8076754e226971a412710b370d5559f7f4d5414f8b3.jpg
Se tudo der certo, uma nova janela vai aparecer confirmando a sua inscrição. Coloque um nome e uma cor para a sua conta e clique em Conectar para concluir o processo.
https://image.nostr.build/74934d3f1f3f4232eacee8e78e707936227f816c50ac6b52da5c81ec17557e69.jpg
Para finalizar, nos detalhes da sua conta, modifique as suas configurações de privacidade para diminuir o fingerprint. Na seção de 'Privacidade', desligue as seguintes opções:
• Tempo ocioso
• Hora de Sistema Local
• Sistema Operacional
• Reprodução de Mídia
https://image.nostr.build/d2ed5852a104c770b50c7b053d518d8af0b6289ced6b3ad4187492208c7ca649.jpg
### 3.3 Procurando por salas de bate-papo públicas
Após criar a sua nova conta, vamos descobrir alguns serviços que o servidor oferece. Para isso, vá para Contas -> Descobrir serviços
https://image.nostr.build/54928d1dd0e48365858b24c72097a9fabf677794e13f329fc0568211eefbe559.jpg
Na seção 'Bate-papo em Grupo', selecione Chatrooms e clique em 'Navegar'. Ao fazer isso uma lista de chatroom públicos presentes no servidor vai aparecer. Fique a vontade para explorar, porém saiba que alguns servidores são moderados e não te permitem mandar mensagens sem sua conta ser aprovada pelo moderador (familiar?).
https://image.nostr.build/1936bef51d58a1f6cfdf8bf8d84bfa64adc2a09b9c0fb1623b93a327f0b8cdd8.jpg
https://image.nostr.build/89e8013b1cea1df0f80f6833bd6771c33101f404b0099b2d7330a5e57607baff.jpg
### 3.4 Adicionando contatos
Para adicionar contatos à sua lista, clique no símbolo de '+' ao lado do campo de pesquisa e selecione 'Add Contact'.
https://image.nostr.build/d3cadea27591355f674fba93765c3815282d112b2e80a592bb77a442c13dd4f4.jpg
Coloque o endereço completo da conta que você deseja adicionar. Usarei a minha conta oficial nesse exemplo. Você tem a opção de anexar uma mensagem qualquer antes de enviar o convite. Clique em 'Adicionar Contato' para prosseguir.
https://image.nostr.build/ff95b7aec2377c58d4253c5b7b3aabf141a92dd5f3e97f6e1f01ecb32a215d38.jpg
https://image.nostr.build/6562e680e28c321ebbd009b5ade513f8a279aea33bc16aa9fb251f3507eb04af.jpg
Se tudo ocorrer normalmente, o novo contato vai aparecer na sua lista. Dê dois-cliques na conta para abrir o chat. Não se esqueça de ativar a criptografia OMEMO antes de enviar qualquer mensagem. Agora você está pronto para conversar de forma segura :)
https://image.nostr.build/ef7f783a311ad0f68a5408137f75dc2bc6c38f6e9656dc0d68d3267f5012f658.jpg
E com isso terminamos a terceira parte da série de tutoriais.
## [TUTORIAL] Criando e conectando-se a um servidor XMPP na I2P e clearnet.
Como configurar o seu próprio servidor XMPP. https://youtube.com/watch?v=Ot_EmQ8xdJwy
Criando contas e conectando clientes Pidgin http://i2pd.readthedocs.io/en/latest/tutorials/xmpp/#creating-accounts-and-connecting-clients
BONUS: Conectando-se facilmente à I2P.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=wGIh5tQcw68
-
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@ 266815e0:6cd408a5
2024-04-22 22:20:47
While I was in Mediera with all the other awesome people at the first SEC cohort there where a lot of discussions around data storage on nostr and if it could be made censorship-resistent
I remember lots of discussions about torrents, hypercore, nostr relays, and of course IPFS
There were a few things I learned from all these conversations:
1. All the existing solutions have one thing in common. A universal ID of some kind for files
2. HTTP is still good. we don't have to throw the baby out with the bath water
3. nostr could fix this... somehow
Some of the existing solutions work well for large files, and all of them are decentralization in some way. However none of them seem capable of serving up cat pictures for social media clients. they all have something missing...
## An Identity system
An identity system would allow files to be "owned" by users. and once files have owners servers could start grouping files into a single thing instead of a 1000+ loose files
This can also greatly simplify the question of "what is spam" for a server hosting (or seeding) these files. since it could simply have a whitelist of owners (and maybe their friends)
## What is blossom?
Blossom is a set of HTTP endpoints that allow nostr users to store and retrieve binary data on public servers using the sha256 hash as a universal id
## What are Blobs?
blobs are chunks of binary data. they are similar to files but with one key difference, they don't have names
Instead blobs have a sha256 hash (like `b1674191a88ec5cdd733e4240a81803105dc412d6c6708d53ab94fc248f4f553`) as an ID
These IDs are universal since they can be computed from the file itself using the sha256 hashing algorithm ( you can get a files sha256 hash on linux using: `sha256sum bitcoin.pdf` )
## How do the servers work?
Blossom servers expose four endpoints to let clients and users upload and manage blobs
- `GET /<sha256>` (optional file `.ext`)
- `PUT /upload`
- `Authentication`: Signed [nostr event](https://github.com/hzrd149/blossom/blob/master/Server.md#upload-authorization-required)
- Returns a blob descriptor
- `GET /list/<pubkey>`
- Returns an array of blob descriptors
- `Authentication` _(optional)_: Signed [nostr event](https://github.com/hzrd149/blossom/blob/master/Server.md#list-authorization-optional)
- `DELETE /<sha256>`
- `Authentication`: Signed [nostr event](https://github.com/hzrd149/blossom/blob/master/Server.md#delete-authorization-required)
## What is Blossom Drive?
Blossom Drive is a nostr app built on top of blossom servers and allows users to create and manage folders of blobs
## What are Drives
Drives are just nostr events (kind `30563`) that store a map of blobs and what filename they should have along with some extra metadata
An example drive event would be
```json
{
"pubkey": "266815e0c9210dfa324c6cba3573b14bee49da4209a9456f9484e5106cd408a5",
"created_at": 1710773987,
"content": "",
"kind": 30563,
"tags": [
[ "name", "Emojis" ],
[ "description", "nostr emojis" ],
[ "d", "emojis" ],
[ "r", "https://cdn.hzrd149.com/" ],
[ "x", "303f018e613f29e3e43264529903b7c8c84debbd475f89368cb293ec23938981", "/noStrudel.png", "15161", "image/png" ],
[ "x", "a0e2b39975c8da1702374b3eed6f4c6c7333e6ae0008dadafe93bd34bfb2ca78", "/satellite.png", "6853", "image/png" ],
[ "x", "e8f3fae0f4a43a88eae235a8b79794d72e8f14b0e103a0fed1e073d8fb53d51f", "/amethyst.png", "20487", "image/png" ],
[ "x", "70bd5836807b916d79e9c4e67e8b07e3e3b53f4acbb95c7521b11039a3c975c6", "/nos.png", "36521", "image/png" ],
[ "x", "0fc304630279e0c5ab2da9c2769e3a3178c47b8609b447a30916244e89abbc52", "/primal.png", "29343", "image/png" ],
[ "x", "9a03824a73d4af192d893329bbc04cd3798542ee87af15051aaf9376b74b25d4", "/coracle.png", "18300", "image/png" ],
[ "x", "accdc0cdc048f4719bb5e1da4ff4c6ffc1a4dbb7cf3afbd19b86940c01111568", "/iris.png", "24070", "image/png" ],
[ "x", "2e740f2514d6188e350d95cf4756bbf455d2f95e6a09bc64e94f5031bc4bba8f", "/damus.png", "32758", "image/png" ],
[ "x", "2e019f08da0c75fb9c40d81947e511c8f0554763bffb6d23a7b9b8c9e8c84abb", "/old emojis/astral.png", "29365", "image/png" ],
[ "x", "d97f842f2511ce0491fe0de208c6135b762f494a48da59926ce15acfdb6ac17e", "/other/rabbit.png", "19803", "image/png" ],
[ "x", "72cb99b689b4cfe1a9fb6937f779f3f9c65094bf0e6ac72a8f8261efa96653f5", "/blossom.png", "4393", "image/png" ]
]
}
```
There is a lot going on but the main thing is the list of "x" tags and the path that describes the folder and filename the blob should live at
If your interested, the full event definition is at [github.com/hzrd149/blossom-drive](https://github.com/hzrd149/blossom-drive/blob/master/docs/drive.md)
## Getting started
Like every good nostr client it takes a small instruction manual in order to use it properly. so here are the steps for getting started
### 1. Open the app
Open https://blossom.hzrd149.com
### 2. Login using extension
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You can also login using any of the following methods using the input
- NIP-46 with your https://nsec.app or https://flare.pub account
- a NIP-46 connection string
- an `ncryptsec` password protected private key
- a `nsec` unprotected private key (please don't)
- bunker:// URI from nsecbunker
### 3. Add a blossom server
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Right now `https://cdn.satellite.earth` is the only public server that is compatible with blossom drive. If you want to host your own I've written a basic implementation in TypeScript [github.com/hzrd149/blossom-server](https://github.com/hzrd149/blossom-server)
### 4. Start uploading your files
**NOTE: All files upload to blossom drive are public by default. DO NOT upload private files**
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### 5. Manage files
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## Encrypted drives
There is also the option to encrypt drives using [NIP-49](https://github.com/nostr-protocol/nips/blob/master/49.md) password encryption. although its not tested at all so don't trust it, verify
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## Whats next?
I don't know, but Im excited to see what everyone else on nostr builds with this. I'm only one developer at the end of the day and I can't think of everything
also all the images in this article are stored in one of my blossom drives [here](nostr:naddr1qvzqqqrhvvpzqfngzhsvjggdlgeycm96x4emzjlwf8dyyzdfg4hefp89zpkdgz99qq8xzun5d93kcefdd9kkzem9wvr46jka)
nostr:naddr1qvzqqqrhvvpzqfngzhsvjggdlgeycm96x4emzjlwf8dyyzdfg4hefp89zpkdgz99qq8xzun5d93kcefdd9kkzem9wvr46jka