BitCoin

bitcoin Mr Nakamoto

If the banks can create money out of nothing, backed by nothing, then why not create an internet currency out of nothing, backed by nothing?

BitCoin is the world’s fastest growing currency, unregulated, backed by nothing. It could also be yet another Ponzi scheme.

A currency is only worth what people think it is worth, that is its only value, as apart from other people accepting it, and placing the same value in exchange as you do, it has no other value as it has no intrinsic utilitarian value. That is why in Germany, when their currency collapsed, we saw folks wheeling around barrows full of money, and why the Germans to this day are paranoid about their currency.

And you cannot trust the banks, which are little more than criminal organisations. Ask bank customers in UK who have been caught up in miss-selling scams. Or ask bank customers in Cyprus with over 100,000 euros in the bank.

Bitcoin is a decentralized digital currency based on cryptography and an open-source]peer-to-peer internet protocol. It was introduced by a pseudonymous developer named Satoshi Nakamoto in 2009.

Internationally, bitcoins can be exchanged by personal computer directly through a wallet file or a website without an intermediate financial institution. In trade, one bitcoin is subdivided into 100 million smaller units called satoshis, defined by eight decimal places.

Bitcoin does not operate like typical currencies: it has no central bank and no central organization confirms nor controls its transactions. Instead, bitcoin relies on a peer-to-peer network of servers to broadcast and confirm transactions. The money supply is automated by a set algorithm implemented by all participating servers.

Currently, 25 bitcoins are generated every 10 minutes. This will be halved to 12.5 BitCoins within the year 2017 and halved continuously every 4 years after until a hard-limit of 21 million bitcoins is reached within the year 2140. As of March 2013 over 10.5 million of the total 21 million BitCoins had been created; the current total number created is available on-line. In November 2012, half of the total supply was generated, and by end of 2016, three-quarters will have been generated. By 2140, all bitcoins will have been generated with the last one consisting of fractional parts. To ensure this granularity of the money supply, clients can divide each BitCoin unit down to eight decimal places (a total of 2.1 × 1015 or 2.1 quadrillion units).

If there is no Central Bank, then who is generating BitCoins? The network itself is generating BitCoins, and because there is an upper limit, there is a finite supply of BitCoins.

In 2011, economist Paul Krugman reviewed bitcoin saying that

[bitcoin] has fluctuated sharply, but overall it has soared. So buying into [bitcoin] has, at least so far, been a good investment. But does that make the experiment a success? Um, no. What we want from a monetary system isn’t to make people holding money rich; we want it to facilitate transactions and make the economy as a whole rich. And that’s not at all what is happening in [bitcoin]

As of March 2013, the monetary base of bitcoin is valued at over $1 billion. The large fluctuation in the dollar value of a bitcoin has evoked criticism of bitcoin’s economic suitability.

Since January 2013, bitcoin has trebled in value. This seems mainly due to flood of investors out of the euro. With the Cyprus experience of money being stolen from savings held in Cypriot banks, no deposits in euros in Greece, Italy and Spain can be seen as safe.

One of the problems with the BitCoin at the moment, is that it is being seen as an investment vehicle not as a currency, and speculators have jumped on the bandwagon.

Why should we trust BitCoin? The main reason we can trust BitCoin is that the people behind it and its supporters are anarchists and hackers who are determined to see it succeed. Its main threat being a digital attack, not wise when the word’s best hackers will be on your case.

When the Bank of England prints money (fancy name: quantitative easing) it passes money to the banks, the bankers get richer, wealth is concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, the poor get poorer.

The people behind BitCoin live in a squat in London (though is disputed and dismissed as hype, part of the mystique surrounding bitcoin).

Cash is anonymous. BitCoin is anonymous.

A can communicate with B on the net. A string of digits flows back and forth. That is all BitCoin is, a string of encrypted digits, encrypted digits that have mutual value to recipient and sender.

Physical bitcoins are available, with an internal encryption key to the digital bitcoins.

Bitcoin Foundation exists for all things bitcoin.

• Bitcoin: the fastest growing currency in the world – video
• Bitcoins: Could virtual cash replace money?
• Bitcoin popularity ‘boosted by euro’
• The bitcoin boom
• Bitcoin Prices Blast Through $100, Driving Speculators Wild
• Want JP Morgan to crash? Buy silver

The First Honest Cable Company

This video is (a) Not Safe for Family Viewing, (b) Not Safe for Work Viewing, and (c) Pretty Much Entirely Accurate.

– Lauren Weinstein

Lancashire villagers install their own broadband internet

These days being on a fast broadband network is as basic as being connected to fresh water, electricity.

Tough though if you live in the technological backwards USA where they pay through the nose for slow internet, thanks to monopolies of the providers, a worse monopoly than when the oil companies were broken up.

Tough if you are in the internet backwoods of the Lancashire village of Arkholme.

I recently checked BT broadband in the Lincolnshire village of Washingborough, not far outside of Lincoln. It gave a result of somewhere around 33 Mbps. That was the best BT could offer. And that was for download. Upload was around 9 Mbps.

The villagers of Arkholme have decided to roll up their sleeves and install their own B4RN community broadband 500 Mbps network.

The purpose of the project is to take a new approach to the ownership, financial and deployment models used traditionally, and still proposed by, telecommunications companies. These models invariably leave rural areas outside of the scope of economic viability for the telecoms companies, and have helped to create the Digital Divide between rural and urban Britain.

The internet does not have to be owned and controlled by Big Business.

• Lancashire villagers install fast internet cables themselves
• Fast fibre: A community shows the way

Aaron Swartz Public Memorial Service at Cooper Union

Demand Justice for Aaron Swartz

Aaron did not commit suicide, but was killed by the government. Someone who made the world a better place was pushed to his death by the government. — Robert Swartz, father of Aaron Swartz

Yesterday (Saturday) hundreds attended the memorial in New York for internet activist Aaron Swartz who was found hanged, driven to his death by a vindictive Public Prosecutor and US Department of Justice.

Taren Stinebrickner-Kauffman:

He was so scared and so frustrated and so desperate and, more than anything else, just so weary. I think he just couldn’t take it another day. In the end, he couldn’t allow (prosecutors) to control him, either.

Doc Searls:

When we’re young we think our cause is a sprint, and when we’re middle-aged we thing is it’s a marathon. But when we’re old we think it’s a relay race. And Aaron was the one you wanted to hand it off to.

Roy Singham, a close collaborator with Aaron Swartz who founded the Freedom to Connect initiative:

This was not suicide. It was murder by intimidation, bullying and torment. We must demand accountability for those who tormented Aaron. He was, in my humble opinion, one of the true extraordinary revolutionaries that this country has produced.

Grandson of activist folk singer Pete Seeger, Kitama Jackson, read a note from his grandfather:

These modern times are filled with such contradictions that experts are not agreed on what the future of the human race will be. But we can agree today that it was a tragedy for this brilliant young man to be so threatened that he hanged himself.

The Public Prosecutor who drove Aaron Swartz to his death should be driven out of public office, she is not fit to hold any public office, not even that of public rat catcher. Nor is she fit to practice law, the Bar Association should strip her of her licence to practice law.

Contrast Aaron Swartz with facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. Aaron Swartz worked for the common good, was an advocate of an open internet, believed public information should be made public. Mark Zuckerberg works for his own private greed, violates personal privacy for monetary gain, is trying to turn an open internet into a privately controlled intranet.

Demand Progress, founded by Aaron Swartz, is asking you to sign their petition and demand justice for Aaron Swartz. Their demands, our demands will make a fitting memorial, that his early death was not for nothing.

Representative Zoe Lofgren has introduced what’s been named “Aaron’s Law.” It would fix a key part of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), which is one of the statutes under which Aaron was indicted. We need to pass Aaron’s Law AND further amend the CFAA.

The CFAA makes violations of a website’s terms of service agreement or user agreement — that fine print you never read before you check the box next to it — a FELONY, potentially punishable by many years in prison. That’s how over-broad this dangerous statute is, and one way it lets showboating prosecutors file charges against people who’ve done nothing wrong.

Aaron’s Law would decriminalize violating these agreements: They’re essentially contracts, and as with other contracts, disputes about them should be settled in civil courts rather than in out of control criminal trials under threat of decades of prison time. As currently written, Aaron’s Law alone wouldn’t have saved Aaron — there is still more to do to make sure that victimless computer activities are not charged as felonies — but this is a solid start that we can pass now and it’s a law he wanted to change. Then we’ll keep pushing forward.

Additionally, Congressman Darrell Issa — who controls the powerful Oversight Committee — has been asked to open an investigation into prosecutorial misconduct in Aaron’s case. Amazingly, he’s already responded and is dispatching a staffer to investigate the US. Attorney who was pressing charges against Aaron.

We want the inquiry to proceed, and to be broadened to include a more thorough investigation into rampant over-prosecution of alleged crimes with no victims — as in the case of what Aaron was accused of. And we want those who abused their power to be held to account.

We loved Aaron — so many people loved Aaron — and his death is tragic. We and others who were close to him are overwhelmed by the outpouring of support, and the calls for justice. Thank you for joining us in that fight.

Please ensure this is widely shared. Please do not let the death of Aaron Swartz be for nothing.

• Death of Aaron Swartz
• Aaron Swartz: cannon fodder in the war against internet freedom
• Aaron Swartz: a bittersweet memorial
• Aaron Swartz Tribute: Hundreds Honor Information Activist
• Democracy Now! Livestream of Aaron Swartz Public Memorial Service at Cooper Union

Yesterday was also Internet Freedom Day, the first anniversary of the killing dead of Sopa. Aaron Swartz was instrumental in leading the fight against Sopa, which made him a target and led to him paying the ultimate price, his life.

• I Have a Dream

Death of Aaron Swartz

The internet activist Aaron Swartz

Aaron dead. World wanderers, we have lost a wise elder. Hackers for right, we are one down. Parents all, we have lost a child. Let us weep. — Sir Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of world wide web

Aaron did more than almost anyone to make the Internet a thriving ecosystem for open knowledge, and to keep it that way. — Peter Eckersley, Electronic Frontier Foundation

I know a criminal hack when I see it, and Aaron’s downloading of journal articles from an unlocked closet is not an offense worth 35 years in jail. — Alex Stamos

Here is where we need a better sense of justice, and shame. For the outrageousness in this story is not just Aaron. It is also the absurdity of the prosecutor’s behaviour. — Lawrence Lessig, Harvard law professor and ex-mentor

Aaron had an unbeatable combination of political insight, technical skill, and intelligence about people and issues. I think he could have revolutionized American (and worldwide) politics. His legacy may still yet do so. — Cory Doctorow

When Vince Cerf helped develop the internet it was to be an open system to enable the free flow of information, specifically designed to circumvent road blocks on the information highway.

Tim Berners Lee invented the World Wide Web, it was, as he said at the opening ceremony of the London 2012 Olympics, his gift to the world.

Much as I may criticise Wikipedia as being a source of flawed, unreliable information, it does at least comply with the ethos of the internet of providing free uncensored information.

The World Wide Web and the internet are a global commons, we pay our dues for what we withdraw by ourselves contributing information.

Open Source software is created by a joint effort of talented software designers who make their efforts available free for all to use.

Creative Commons is a means of distributing information without the restriction of copyright, but wish still retaining rights to stop commercial exploitation.

There are though Dark Forces who wish to push the opposite way.

Hollywood, and music industry, and now book publishers, often one and the same global corporations, try to criminalise those who wish to see the free flow of information.

DRM is a pernicious addition to e-books. It restricts where and how you can read an e-book. Those with the ability strip it off.

Aaron Swartz was an internet pioneer, an advocate of internet freedom and free flow of information. He helped develop RSS, he helped found Reddit, he founded and/or supported Change Congress/FixCongressFirst/Rootstrikers, and then Demand Progress, he fought Sopa, he liberated millions of academic papers.

On Friday Aaron Swartz was found hanged, hounded to his death by the US Department of Justice.

Aaron Swartz was right to liberate academic papers. This is part of our common heritage, should be in the public domain. Not though the view of the Department of Justice, they wished to see a life sentence handed down, the sentence normally reserved for violent crimes.

We saw Gary McKinnon hounded by the so-called US Justice Authorities, but luckily the British stood firm and refused to extradite.

Bradley Manning has been detained for an indefinite period in a tiny cell. No charges have been laid.

Hacking should not be a criminal offence, at worse trespass has taken place. If malicious, then prosecute for criminal damage or release of personal information.

Release of academic information into the public domain should be applauded nor persecuted.

Aaron Swartz did not hack into MIT to access the academic papers, he merely wrote a script to make a large number of downloads, nothing more, and yet for doing what he already has authorisation for individual downloads (he simply automated the process) he was facing life imprisonment.

The public prosecutor who hounded Aaron Swartz to his death must be stripped by the American Bar Association of her licence to practice and barred for life for practising law. She abused her office and has shown she is not fit to hold any public office, not even local rat catcher.

Facebook turns into a business model the violation of personal privacy, it is trying to turn the open internet into a private for profit intranet, aided and abetted by people like Paulo Coelho, an advocate of an open internet who should no better, who foolishly enabled facebook comments on his blog.

This is not to argue that people should not benefit from their intellectual endeavours. There are sites like bandcamp that puts money straight into the pocket of creative artists for their intellectual endeavours, whilst at the same time making sharing easy. The two are not mutually exclusive.

We live in a world where the bankers, those who caused the financial crash, are fêted at the White House, not rotting in gaol as should be, where Obama appoints a torturer to head the CIA.

For many Aaron Swartz was simply known as @aaronsw, for many others he was merely known through his good works.

We can all pay tribute to Aaron Swartz, not by mourning his untimely death, sad as though it is, but by celebrating his good work and most importantly continuing his fight against the Dark Forces who wish to abuse the internet and stop the free flow of information.

• The Many Killers of Aaron Swartz
• Aaron Swartz, internet freedom activist, dies aged 26
• In quotes: Tributes to Aaron Swartz
• Remember Aaron Swartz by working against government abuses
• Aaron Swartz Suicide: Reddit Co-Founder Dead At 26
• The inspiring heroism of Aaron Swartz
• The Truth about Aaron Swartz’s “Crime”
• Prosecutor as bully

The Many Killers of Aaron Swartz

The internet activist Aaron Swartz

There are days when sitting down to write is a joy. This isn’t one of them.

I’ve been accused of pacing like a caged animal while thinking, and of my initial observable reactions to tragedy seeming more analytical than emotional.

And truth be told, today I have indeed worn a deep furrow in my cage, and my protective channeling of Mr. Spock is very much in full bloom. There’s time for crying later.

In the case of Aaron Swartz’s suicide at age 26, we begin at the end of the story, can flashback to origins, and in doing so we find a very broad, and to some extent largely predictable, cast of characters and events.

Entangled with the immediate horror of Aaron’s death are a set of ironies suitable for a Shakespearean drama.

It’s been noted that Aaron apparently took his life two years to the day after his arrest by MIT authorities for the JSTOR-related break-ins and thefts of which he had been accused and was awaiting trial. And the fact that just a couple of days ago, it was announced that JSTOR documents would (on a limited basis) become available for free public access is also impossible to ignore. To speculate that both of these points played into Aaron’s thinking, given the public knowledge that he had been struggling with depression for years before any of these events took place, seems entirely reasonable, and immensely disturbing.

But the awful irony is that none of this needed to have occurred at all.

For the ultimate outcome of the underlying battle in which Aaron and others in the “information should be free” movement have been fighting — whether one agrees with this perspective or not — has already been decided, and neither sacrifices nor crucifictions are likely to change the long-term course of events.

Indeed, the traditional concept of copyright and content control is already doomed by technological changes — the ability to quickly copy, store, preserve, mirror, and communicate data around the world nearly instantaneously.

Business models predicated on limiting access to data, either by assuming time and expense in duplication and transfer, or via false confidence in fragile Digital Rights Management (DRM) and other so-called “anti-piracy” measures, are rapidly becoming zombies now, still acting as if their old status quo could last forever, while the real world passes them by.

True, this process has not proceeded as rapidly as some would like. It is, in many respects, like an enormous steamroller lumbering toward a destination that is already set and immutable. And like when dealing with a steamroller, anyone who gets in its path, either to try block its progress or even to urge it onward, runs the risk of being crushed by its plodding yet relentless movement.

It’s tempting to oversimplify the tragedy in this case, but the players are many and there is painful blame to spread far and wide.

Major content producers, by pushing for the criminalization of associated “hacking” and data thefts to be treated more harshly in many cases than crimes of violence — all to try protect their obsolete business models — carry much of the guilt.

The politicians who then acted to create associated draconian penalties subject to overzealous invocation, and the publicity-seeking prosecutors who use prosecutorial discretion as a lethal weapon, certainly share the blame as well.

Saddest to say, Aaron himself played a major role too, voluntarily painting a giant target on his own back, not just through the scope of the unauthorized data copying of which he was accused, but by reportedly physically entering MIT network wiring closets and planting computers there for months at a time as part of the process.

That Aaron felt he was morally justified in his actions is clear — and unfortunately irrelevant to the government’s interest in “making an example” of his behaviors in particular.

And while it’s obvious to virtually all observers that the government vastly overstepped the bounds of appropriate prosecution in this case, it is also sadly true that their reaction to this sort of situation — given the recently toughened laws that had been put in place at the time — should not have come as an enormous surprise. Remember that steamroller.

Which brings us back to the present, and the needless death of a young man who really had only begun to live.

While the sorts of theoretical maximum sentences and fines that have been discussed for his case sound very alarming, the reality is that federal sentencing guidelines, especially for relatively young first offenders, point to vastly lessor penalties, especially when the government proceeded to prosecution without the support of the technically aggrieved parties, as in this case.

But that’s small comfort in the end. Nobody wants to go to prison at all, and the personal financial result from such a trial, even with the best possible outcomes for a defendant, would still probably be ruinous.

I likened all this to a Shakespearean drama earlier — but perhaps a Greek tragedy is more apt an analogy.

When we mere imperfect mortals deem to pit even our most righteous beliefs against the timorous gods of old, it is simultaneously an act of faith and the voluntary assumption of enormous risk, for the gods of obsolescence still possess mighty powers indeed.

In the end, the old gods of information scarcity and control will indeed die, and more open models will win the future.

Until then, as the path leading to that future continues to be laid through battles yet to come, it might do us well to ponder the many killers of Aaron Swartz, and the very human guilt and frailties that we all — each and ever one of us — must jointly share.

Rest in peace, Aaron.

– Lauren Weinstein

Re-post of original article by Lauren Weinstein.

• Death of Aaron Swartz
• Aaron Swartz, internet freedom activist, dies aged 26
• Aaron Swartz Suicide: Reddit Co-Founder Dead At 26
• The inspiring heroism of Aaron Swartz

FBI target Occupy Wall Street

FBI has been monitoring the activities of Occupy Wall Street.

This is nothing new for the FBI. They have previously targeted Civil Rights and Ant-War movements.

In the UK, Occupy London Stock Exchange were linked with terrorists.

When people campaign for democracy, a fairer society, they are treated as terrorists.

FBI should target real terrorists, the financial terrorists, the banks, the eco-terrorists, the coal and oil industry, the gun-totting killers, the psychos in the NRA.

• The FBI vs. Occupy: Secret Docs Reveal “Counterterrorism” Monitoring of OWS from Its Earliest Days

The Yes Men Fix The World

The Yes Men, posing as top executives of giant corporations, infiltrate their way into big business conferences and pull off the world’s most outrageous pranks.

What they show is the real face of Big Business.

The Yes Men Fix The World is the film the US Chamber of Commerce did not wish you to see. Please therefore ensure shared widely.

• Crowdfund “The Yes Men are Revolting” – A movie and an action platform!
• Dow pays “strategic intelligence” firm to spy on Yes Men
• “The Hobbit” saves money shooting Mordor in Tar Sands

Who controls the message? – Noam Chomsky

Freedom of the press

Yesterday was good day for press barons and vested interests. Bad day for Dowlers & McCanns. Proud day for David Cameron. — Hugh Grant

It would seem David Cameron’s address is no longer Number 10 Downing Street: it’s now Flat 2, Rupert Murdoch’s arse. — Stephen Fry

“If it’s not bonkers I’ll do it” – David Cameron. It wasn’t and he didn’t. — Hugh Grant

Clearly the public want it, there’s been a judicial review and I think the recommendations should be implemented. There’s no good reason why they shouldn’t be. — Gerry McCann

With a group of (non celeb) victims including Hillsborough families listening to PM. Buzzword is betrayal. — Hugh Grant

Mr. Cameron said that he would implement sensible recommendations: it is time for him to honour that commitment and join the other political leaders by supporting the Leveson recommendations in their entirety. — J K Rowling

This is not about press freedom. The UK press, has been owned by a few rich individuals who pursue a highly ideological agenda. — Jemima Khan

If state regulation of press undermines UK work on international freedom of speech, how does UK arms sales to Saudi advance the cause? — Mark Thomas

We all want freedom of the press, well ok not all, maybe not Vladimir Putin who has a problem with free speech and Pussy Riot, but in general we all want a free press.

We want a press that is free of government shackles, free to hold the powerful to account, to shine a light into dark corners and expose dirty deals, to carry out investigative reporting that shows neither fear nor favour.

We occasionally get that and it is what the press trots out if there is ever a hint that their excesses may be curbed.

But it is not what we get. We get endless drivel about moronic TV programmes, the lives of boring celebrities, we have the press poking their unwanted noses into the lives of other people whether rich and famous or ordinary folk, poking their noses in and ruining people’s lives.

• Ten myths about press abuse

The myth of a free press is just that, a myth. We do not have a free press. How can a press be free when it is owned by people like Murdoch who use it to further their own agenda?

Noam Chomsky has long argued we do not have a free press. We have a press that is part of and controlled by corporate big business. Anyone who thinks otherwise is deluded.

• Noam Chomsky on Media, Politics, Action
• Manufacturing Consent – Noam Chomsky
• Who controls the message? – Noam Chomsky

A press can never be free when it is owned by corporate Big Business. A press can never be free when it is dependent on advertising from vested interests.

An example of the corporate owned and controlled press in overdrive was the reporting of Occupy camped outside St Paul’s last year. It bore no resemblance to what was taking place, it was pure fantasy laced with malice.

What masquerades as a free press is propaganda intertwined with prurient drivel.

It is not only the national press that is bad, so too is the local press.

Is it news when a local paper regurgitates a press release from a developer as news? Is it news when a local paper without question reports what they are told by a local council?

We have a race to the bottom as media outlets try to retain their dwindling circulation.

Anyone who does not appreciate just how bad is our press, look at the press in Europe.

It has been proposed that an independent body be formed to regulate the press. The press say they are happy with this, though if you look closer, you will find they have little choice, and different elements of the press have a different view of what an independent regulator should look like and do.

What they are not happy with is that the independent regulator is enshrined in law. Why? They can only not be happy, if they have no intention of complying. Having conceded the need for an independent regulator, all that statute does is ensures it has teeth.

David Cameron said he would accept the findings of Lord Justice Levenson unless they were bonkers. He has now reneged on that promise. Why, could it be that as was shown during the inquiry he is still in the pocket of Murdoch?

When push comes to shove, David Cameron always shows his true colours, on the side of his paymasters.

It is a bit rich coming from Cameron that he is in favour of freedom. This is the man who only last week wanted to restrict the right to file a Judicial Review to right wrongs.

Lord Levenson did not though address a few obvious issues.

We have a corrupt press that was not prosecuted by corrupt police because they were in the pay of the press, and corrupt politicians who failed to deal with either the press or the police because they were in the pocket of of the press.

Ed Miliband has for once talked sense. We must carry out in full the recommendations from Lord Justice Leveson, if not, we will back here again in a decade.

Please sign the petition calling for implementation of Levenson in full (and that includes limiting the amount of media control of any one individual or corporation). Please pass on.

• Victims launch Leveson petition
• Dear journalists: grow up
• J.K. Rowling’s statement on David Cameron’s response to Leveson