Citadel Dispatch

Share on social media:

Join Matt Odell as he sits down with @diverter_nokyc & @maxtannahill

EPISODE: 0.0.5

BLOCK: 666809

PRICE: 2731 sats per dollar

TOPICS: Encryption, Mining, and No KYC Bitcoin

streamed live every tuesday:  

https://citadeldispatch.com

twitch: https://twitch.tv/citadeldispatch​

bitcointv: https://bitcointv.com/video-channels/citadeldispatch/videos

podcast: https://anchor.fm/citadeldispatch​  

telegram: https://t.me/citadeldispatch​ 

support the show: https://tippin.me/@odell

stream sats to the show: https://www.fountain.fm/

join the chat: http://citadel.chat/

[00:00:00] Unknown:

It's it's a speculative asset,   by any account. I mean, when you look at the at the most recent developments   upward and now the most recent downward trend,   It's for those who had assumed that it might turn into a currency,   terribly sorry, but this is an asset and it's a highly speculative asset,   which,   which has conducted some funny business and some interesting and totally reprehensible   money laundering activity.   I think that there are criminal investigations that have taken place that I'm sure will continue to take place that demonstrate it, very clearly. And and there has to be regulations, and and this has to be, this has to be applied,   and and agreed upon. It's a matter that needs to be agreed at a global level because, you know, if there is an escape,   that escape will be used. So I think it needs to be to be   if if if anything, it shows that   global cooperation, multilateral action is absolutely needed, whether it's initiated by the g 7, moved into the g 20, and then enlarged, but it's something that needs to be,   to be addressed. And and, FATAP is clearly an organization that has expanded in that respect.  



[00:01:50] Unknown:

Cheers, freaks, and welcome to this week's Citadel Dispatch.   I'm your host, Matt O'Dell,   the show that's broadcast   live weekly to you every Tuesday   at 22100   UTC.   You can find us on Twitch, Twitter, and YouTube. All the links are at citadel dispatch.com.   This week, I'm joined by my friends   Diverter   and Max Tannehill.   These guys   are have become close friends with me.   We talk about all things privacy.   It's our favorite topic, so I figured who better to join me than them.   I at this point, I I I just wanna say cheers to all the freaks who are joining us in the chat,   from all around the world.  

It's pretty cool to all come together every Bitcoin Tuesday.   And I always like to start it out with a quick introduction from each of our guests. So, Diverter, why don't you start and just introduce yourself quickly to the freaks?  

[00:02:54] Unknown:

Sure, man. Thanks for having me.   Diverter,   a k a diverter. No k y c. No k y c. Only however you wanna put that on the end.   Just interested in   in   Bitcoin,   censorship resistance,   what I really interested in. So   whatever tool   use,   be able to communicate   people without having to ask permission,   that's what gives my eye. So   naturally, I'm, I'm big   in   the   that without having to ask a whole lot of permission.   I'd like to be able to talk about it without having to, ask a whole lot of permission and without having to let everybody else know what I'm talking about.   So   fit right in in this graph. Glad to be here.  



[00:03:48] Unknown:

Cheers to that.   What's up, Max?  

[00:03:51] Unknown:

Hey, Matt. Thanks for having me.   Yeah. So,   I'm Max Sunhill.   I've been,   well, like, into Bitcoin, I suppose, for about kind of 5 years. I can't even remember when I first, started chatting with Matt,   but certainly kind of in the early days. And I think,   for me, anyway, the,   certainly the chat apps and the encrypted chat apps have a lot of overlap with Bitcoin. It's all data at the end of the day and all free text.   So I think the kind of way we use this information and these applications   should be looked on as pretty similarly to the way we,   we use BTC.  

And so just a bit of background about me,   or I've been in Singapore, like, over 10 years now. As you can pretty tell from the accent, I'm from the UK.   So, and Bitcoin is is is is and probably always will be for me, always on the Harvey side. But no interest in working in the industry or anything.   But, like the kind of I'm sure a number of you here, I've got a little side gig, on the side that I do to   to earn some bits and BTC,   which is always kinda fun to do. And so, since doing that, it's,   I've certainly had a lot more kind of questions from customers, etcetera, on using these type of apps.   As everyone is, obviously increasingly more concerned about their privacy. And also, I think most of all, censorship resistance,   being able to kinda say what they want, whenever they can.  



[00:05:13] Unknown:

Cheers, guys. Appreciate,   the in-depth intros over there.   Particularly   interested in talking about Singapore. I didn't know if we were gonna be able to bring that up this,   this discussion, so we will definitely get back to that.   To the freaks listening on the podcast feed,   to the freaks listening   on on all the different mediums, You can see the different ways that you can listen at citadel dispatch.com.   The archives go up on Keybase and Telegram afterwards. They get syndicated out to our podcast feeds, both the TFTC tales from the crypt feed and the Citadel dispatch dedicated feed. So you can check it out on all those all those methods.   If they try and deplatform us, they're gonna have to deplatform us from all of those.  

Okay. The current block height is 666   809. The current price is 2,731   sats,   so slightly up from last week.   For the freaks joining us by video on the livestream,   I'm trying something new on the price display this time. On the top, we have the evil empire. We have Coinbase Pro,   their live price sticker. And then underneath, we have the real price. We have the bisque price,   and you can see just the volume differences between the compliance bro exchange on the top   and, bisque underneath. I thought it was kind of a cool, discrepancy.   Just a a couple of minutes ago, right before we started, Bisk was trading out about 38,000, a little bit above it,   which is just a cool I just think that's a cool concept that people don't realize. Also, to the freaks tuning in through the podcast feed, the intro video was Christine Lagarde from the   European Central Bank,   the ECB.  

Just talking shit about Bitcoin.   But while she did it, she mentioned something. She mentioned   that we that they need a global response.   They need a global response if they wanna stop Bitcoin because if there is an escape she said the words escape. If there's an escape, someone will use it. And I think that doesn't only apply to Bitcoin. I think that also implies to encryption and privacy software.   So I thought that's, you know, as good a place as ever to start.   You know, to you guys, like, why is privacy so important? Why is free open source software so important? And I I guess we'll start with Max this time.  

[00:07:35] Unknown:

I suppose for me, it's always,   I mean, well, it comes right back to the beginning. Like,   even in my end my introduction with,   with with Bitcoin even didn't start from   an Austrian perspective.   It didn't even really start from a technical perspective.   It was actually,   kinda hearing stuff about Edward Snowden   and getting more involved there. And I think politically, I went from   right of center to kinda far more libertarian   and then started realizing   quite what the state was doing, in terms of censorship,   quite what it had in terms of relationships, the backdoors in popular software.   And,   you know, it doesn't take much to realize   quite what that means   for for, yeah, for tyranny and for for unchecked power.  

So I think it's a combination of that plus the fact that ultimately   you can't stop the signal as they say. You know, really, it is just free text. It can't be stopped.   I think, you know, ultimately, it's,   it's something I wanna do.   Really, I have   I don't really wish upon anyone else to deal with my free speech so much. I just wanna be left alone to be able to say what I want. And that's always been fundamental to how I feel like you know? So   really, you know,   politically for me, it's just, well, I want to, and I I'm not gonna cause anyone any harm by saying anything. Yeah. The offense is taken. It's not given.   And for me, it's just very, it's very core and it's something I won't settle on or deal with. I will say what I want when I want.  

And, that's that's just kind of fundamental,   to me to do.   As for the open source kind of aspect as well, I mean, yeah, it's just I think, obviously, it's critical from a,   trust perspective.   You know, we   I think   I suppose I don't know so much for you, Matt, but, you know,   you've always been pretty transparent on, mistakes that you've made with Bitcoin and   problems you've had, but I can honestly say this. In the last 5 years, I've been using Bitcoin. Anything that could go wrong did go wrong.   And   when you are looking at, you know, open source software particularly, it's,   it's a space that's incredibly you know, it's a lot of threats. You pretty much we can't think of anywhere that there aren't as many threats.  

So   you have to think   in terms of that   in that scenario.   And, you know, if there is an exploit, it could be taken advantage of largely   and you will suffer for it. So for me, you know, that that transparency   is is always important where you possibly get it. And certainly for kind of the use with Bitcoin apps, it's often often a,   a deal breaker for me. And for a lot of the software I use for such as messengers, I am sending specific use cases, it'd be a deal breaker for me as well.  

[00:10:34] Unknown:

I,   I was waiting to see if Diverter was gonna say something. But,   before before I get to him,   I 100%   agree that in the world of Bitcoin is a is a world of personal responsibility,   that that goes, I think, hand in hand with the world of privacy. If you're trying to be privacy focused,   this world defaults to custodial relationships, whether that's privacy, whether that's Bitcoin, whether that's any kind of,   aspect of our lives where you basically   are trusting someone, relying on someone else,   for that responsibility.   And as such,   we are we've gotten coddled, and we're not used to a personal responsibility situation. But in a situation where we have to practice personal responsibility,   we are ultimately going to make mistakes. We're gonna make a lot of them. And the important thing is to stay humble and to learn from them,   rather than letting them, you know, completely take us down. But,   it it's it's definitely it's it's definitely a minefield out there for for Bitcoin users.  



[00:11:37] Unknown:

I mean, I I That's just Yeah.   That's just in general. You know? I mean, privacy   in general is is is a minefield. Like you said, the the   default is none.   Deal and so often left with, the illusion of a choice. Well, we don't actually have a choice,   but   state and field down all.   And here, you can either pick this or you can pick that, but both of them, you're   screwed either way. They still leave you with this illusion of a choice,   when it's it's 2 sides of the same coin.   So privacy,   you know, being able to selectively   reveal yourself, and you get to choose   who knows what about you and who can read what you said.  

You get to choose who you can transact with and who you can't transact with based off of your personal,   moral standards.   Since we've gotten in this area where so many people   are so convinced that that   they're right,   I'm not smart enough   to,   to think that I am a 100% right on everything and that I know best for everyone.   I happen to believe everybody.   Okay. To choose for their self,   what's best for them   and the people that, you know, are in their lives. So   I have no interest in forcing,   my   beliefs and and things on the work.   So many times, we're in a situation now where that is exactly what's happening. It's all being forced upon us, and we download these apps and there are permissions and things that people are not understanding,   just clicking through because they wanna use Facebook Messenger,   that they're giving away all their private data and that, you know, it's gonna be mined and sold to these companies and they're gonna start getting ads because they said something   offhand in their life.  

So, you know, privacy is is of the utmost importance, and and I I think we're just now starting to get an idea   or people are just now getting started to get an idea of how important   that is and how little we have of it.  

[00:14:03] Unknown:

So I mean, I I think that's very insightful there, and it's it's a key point that I think is important for us to hit right in the beginning.   It's very interesting, this world we find ourselves in, if you are focused on privacy and sovereignty,   because we have a lot of options at our disposal,   and each option has different trade offs. There's a ton of nuance here.   And and, you know, the funny thing is, like like, right now in the comments, we have we have Partis,   BTC pins is talking to such salad,   and they're talking about tails   versus,   cubes.  

And they're they're deciding, like, which one's better, you know, in the comments. And everyone has an opinion on it, and there's no obvious answer in either direction because each one has different trade off balances. But at the same time, I'm sure we have freaks listening right now who have an Amazon listening device, you know, an Alexa,   you know, assistant   sitting in their in their apartment right across from them right now that they can go over and unplug and make tangible privacy benefit. Right? So there's this whole scale and and and to try and hit everyone at the same time,   is is a is a hard task. But I think I think, ultimately,   if the path we're going down here requires personal responsibility,   we need to basically teach people how to fish. You can't just tell them, you know, eat this shit. They have to   did they they have to know what they're doing. They have to know what their threat model is. Right?  



[00:15:30] Unknown:

Yeah. So you have to look   go to the Go ahead, Mac.   I just gotta say, like, I think still this, and it's always worth reiterating this little bit of a confusion between privacy and anonymity.   And,   you know, people do still get confused why you'd need encryption in an app.   And   people still get surprised why, you know, you might be,   against,   giving a passport to a third party, especially if it's regulated,   you know, because they should be able to be trusted, that kind of attitude.   You know,   because, you know, you know, what you have to hide and all that. I think,   making that point more, I think, you know, we do need a bit of a cultural change.  

I think particularly in the last, I don't know, 10, 15 years,   with kind of growth platforms like Facebook and all that,   we have been kind of somewhat conned,   culturally into   being, you know, having a new normal defined,   then as to what's acceptable in terms of, personal information that needs to be shared and all that. I mean, just the other day, I saw a video,   someone coming off Facebook, and there's, like, a kinda comedy video when they go around and physically like people's pictures in the office and,   hand over their, you know, their their passport to someone underneath a cubicle and, you know,   you know, just kinda lurk over people's other comments and all that. And I think, you know, if you take a step back and look at kind of what Facebook is today   and how that actually applies to real life, it is actually pretty weird.  

And, actually, even something like Twitter is quite weird as well. I mean, if you were to take Twitter into that and put it into real life,   you're kinda like walking around   looking for arguments to get yourself involved in and poke the bear with in a lot of cases   or stand there in a public square and shouting. That's not what people are kinda comfortable doing. Just shouting the lowest common denominator.  

[00:17:31] Unknown:

Yeah.   Yes.   Completely confidently   just shouting it out, hoping people walk by and tap you on the face or something.  

[00:17:39] Unknown:

Yeah. It's strange. Yeah. It's a nice aspect of it as well, but it's not it's not the same kind of behavior we'd be doing in   in meet space necessarily, and it leads people to kind of, you know, slightly different behavior. And then they're unable to then necessarily separate what they do online with,   you know, what they do in these space, but then maybe forget to associate their real ID with it, that kind of thing. So I think, you know,   things have redefined in the last few years.   I think the other thing I'd just say is kind of what I leave you the point with. I mean, you know, you, on that tweet, you put a large grid   with all the different messengers and all the kind of, you know, information shared. And I think just to flash back on the screen earlier, there was a comparison, right, this one as well with all the, you know, different features.  

These things can be pretty intimidating for people and can look,   you know, you know, some people won't necessarily know what all the meanings are behind everything as well.   I would say that despite, you know, the need to be cryptographic expert in some cases to verify some of this, at the end of the day, I think a lot of you a lot of this can be done with just gut feeling.   You know, asking me a question, you know, who am I actually messaging? Who's actually seeing this data? And you don't need to be it's gonna be proficient to necessarily ask those questions  

[00:18:54] Unknown:

and have those answers. Well, I mean, I think it's not black and white. Right? I don't want people to be overwhelmed.   And I say this a lot on on our other show, Robert Hole Recap, is I don't want people to be overwhelmed. You can make incremental improvements.   Absolutely. Said, if you have if you have an Amazon Alexa, unplug the Amazon Alexa. If you're sending text messages,   use an encrypted messenger. Now is it gonna be the best encrypted messenger?   Maybe not, you know, but it's a step up in in the right direction, and then you can improve from there.   One of the things I like about this show is I think not enough people focus on actionable discussion,   things that that the freaks can actually,   use and and tangibly hold.  

Yeah. There's a lot of philosophical filler out there, and and I just really want to dig right in.   So, I mean, the 3 of us were chilling. I mean, you're you're in Singapore, Max, so it's it's your morning, but, you know, it's like happy hour. We're meeting up with the boys.   We we mentioned,   Signal had their best week ever in the history of Signal.   They had they went from, like, 10,000,000 users to, like, 50,000,000 users because of WhatsApp's,   privacy policy change. And it's pretty funny, like, these things, like, did anyone really think Facebook took privacy,   you know, seriously? No. But, like, one day, like, you have a a a mass movement happened because   of of some privacy policy change. And and I think as privacy advocates, it's important that we just,   take advantage of of of of every mass movement we have.  

This is how people learn. They get burned, they wake up, and then they go seek out knowledge. They go seek out improvement.   So with that said, Diverter,   is signal secure? Should people be using it?  

[00:20:33] Unknown:

Yes.   Yes. Signal should be, used. Now is signal secure? I mean, look. We can we can break down all types of,   what metadata leaks and and all that stuff. At the end of the day,   is signal more secure messenger   than SMS?   Yes.   Hands down. Objection just yes. Period.   So a lot of this, which I'm learning   a lot as I go along too is, you know, more regional than what I thought.   So SMS, for example, you know, that's basically that's that's your standard communication in the United States. You know, everything   all my text, I I text SMS SMS.   So   replace   your default SMS messenger on your phone with a with a single click.  

I mean, that's that's leaps and bounds   head of everything. As I've said before,   it doesn't really how secure your messenger is if nobody else that you talk to uses it. Who cares?   So, you know, like you said, you've got the WhatsApp policy change, and then you get a Elon Musk tweet,   people to use signal,   and boom, people sign up. You know? Meanwhile,   people that have been over here screaming in the corner for to use signal for 3 years,   you know, nobody's listening, and then one Eli tweet sends them. But   exactly what   said you gotta take times right now when people are starting to to look up and say, well, wait. Facebook is collecting way too much. Why am I giving them all this stuff?  

And they they see a celebrity tweeting out. They join on. They realize it's really easy. Now when I when I load in, I I pop in and it gives me a little pop up message. It says, do you wanna replace your default SMS? Yes. Yes. I do.   Boom. Now you're using an encrypted messenger with your mom, your dad, your, you know, your daughter, your son, your cousin, whoever,   not just your Bitcoin bros.   That's the big difference to me, and why I I really like signal a lot.  

[00:22:41] Unknown:

So let's unpack this a little bit. I mean, first of all, one thing you mentioned, which I think is is a massive improvement with signal, is if you're an Android user, you can set it as your default text message client. So non Americans   might not be as aware of this as Americans, but as Diverter said in America,   we have a problem. We use SMS still. I I don't in most places of the world, they don't.   SMS is basically a postcard. When you send it, every third party in the middle of that transact of that message getting sent is seeing it. They they see it completely.   On iPhone,   American iPhone users,   their Imessage defaults to encryption, and we can get into the nuances there.  

You know, it's it's there's plenty of trade offs with Imessage, and we will get into the nuances.   But for Android users, they don't have something like that. And now signal comes along, they can use as their default messaging app. IPhone users still are using it as a separate messaging app, but together they they can they can, communicate.   One one thing I wanna unpack there is is Elon's tweet kind of sent the ball rolling. Right? And we were talking about earlier,   like explaining trade offs to users and and making them under trying to help them understand why they need this and where to where their perspective should be. What   there's still a benefit there, right, from from Elon just saying use signal, just, like, eat this fish. You know? Like, I I think we need that too. Right? Am I am I wrong here?  



[00:24:07] Unknown:

No. No. A 100%.   You know, I I who expects Elon? Elon's not gonna get on Twitter and say, no. Here's the reason you should do this. He's gonna he's gonna pop in and say, hey. Like you said, eat this fish, man. It's good. And he's going on the back of this list. Now   rest of us are Elon's a mess. What you know, hey. Everybody's got a role to play. My role to play is not I'm not Elon. I can't just hop on. I don't have that type of so I can't hop on and say, hey, man. It should be using Jamie or Briar or whatever   obscure but what I can do is kinda hang around. I can hang around in the comments. I can hang around on   Telegram, and I keep the cops in   says, hey. I saw I saw that Elon Musk signal. Why? Boom. Now here's where you here's your end. So, yes, I I a 100% agree. Take take advantage of all those.  



[00:25:04] Unknown:

Max,   hit us with your opinion.  

[00:25:07] Unknown:

So, you know, I completely agree with with Diverter.   I've got, just 6 reservations with Singapore.   So, yeah. So first off, though, I said, yes. It's secure. And, definitely, yes. It's an improvement over   not only people using SMS, but also I think it's a huge improvement over people using WhatsApp,   or Imessage just because the variety of issues there.   But a few things to kinda just point out.   And so one, when people talk about signal, they typically think of the phone app, and I think that that is very secure. And I think it's,   it sits in a good place,   on the at the OS level typically,   and it makes it secure.  

I don't have the same kind of faith in the desktop app, and I think I believe well, there definitely been historical security issues,   with the desktop app,   you know, with kind of exploits with, extracting text,   out of the out of the desktop app when it was paired to the mobile.   So, I think you kind of increase your   your risk somewhat,   by taking the convenience there.   My other kind of issue a bit with signal   is the fact that it's SMS based.   So I think that provide you know, gives you a couple of challenges there. One is the the identity aspect.   Just the fact that you very much typically trust, just for, you know, the general user, you trust someone that you already have their number stored with, As we know, like, SIM hijacking, but also just the fact that, you know, maybe someone that you haven't spoken to for a while has let their their number expire. Certainly in Asia and Singapore, you know, the phone numbers get recycled pretty quickly.  

So it's not unusual for me to look through my my address, but the contact find out of the link   and see some pretty, you know, startling,   profile pic changes.   But often for most people, they wouldn't necessarily notice,   that a contact would change even with,   you know,   warnings over key pairs changing and all that. They wouldn't necessarily understand the cryptograph is behind that and just very fabulous based on SS SMS identity   is an issue.   So I think that's kind of one other issue, and that's not to say that it's it's a bad thing. It's just it's a trade off.   The other thing is the fact that the 2 FA, I don't think many people know to set it. And I'm not talking about necessarily the PIN, that you agree to get in, but, you know, just the fact that someone does have your number, being able to,   ensure that anyone does sim jack you, that they don't actually, you know,   take the whole account away from you.  

And then, like, lastly, and this is particularly for Android users,   yes, the   the app the phone app is secure, but and I think I should saw this in the comments on Twitter as well.   But I have huge concerns with, the keyboards on Android, and particularly Google Keyboard. And,   I've had very kind of, you know, peep yeah. What we consider noise, people that are interested in privacy and security to the same level,   complain to me directly.   How come I get adverts on something I chatted with someone over a secure messenger?   And how is someone able to get relevant ads? And the only thing I can possibly think of is is that one of the parties are using Android keyboard,   information is going back to Google servers. So before you even get the information encrypted, before it actually travels through the app, you're already giving everything out clear text   and assigned to probably an IP address and a MAC address,   and, you know, baked into your digital profile.  

So that along with your general endpoint security means that, yes, signal is secure, but you need to think about   what OS you're using on, what kind of device you're using on, and, obviously, who you're communicating with, both for verifying and for their own technically and technical hygiene practices.  

[00:28:54] Unknown:

I just wanted to say, like, this is why I have friends on the show, because I love to fuck with you guys.   Like, obviously,   asking the question, is signal secure,   was meant to be provocative,   because that   that that question,   lacks 0 lacks all nuance whatsoever,   and and can't actually have an absolute answer.   All these things do have trade offs.   The phone number question is is a very interesting one.   The   I mean, I think that comes from America,   just the fact that   we're so used to I mean, I guess I mean, you're Singapore. You're an expat from Britain. You're used to using phone numbers as identifier too.   Yeah. It plugs into that that network effect, that network graph that already exists with WhatsApp and SMS and Imessage.  

But, obviously, it has major issues,   in terms of privacy. I mean, you mentioned that your phone book never changes, that you keep that database.   I mean, that means that not only are you trusting every single corporation that has interacted with your phone number,   you're also trusting your friends   that you've ever met ever and gave them your phone number that they haven't, you know, leaked it themselves.  

[00:30:06] Unknown:

Yeah. I mean, just on that, just to dive in, like, a few years ago, I remember. And I didn't you know, I've never seen it talked about since. But there was an app that you could download   and, it would essentially import your entire contact list.   And, the idea was that it was a smart app for people that couldn't manage their contacts.   So it would essentially   grab all your contact list,   cross reference to everyone else's contact list that they were grabbing,   and then provide you, like, with a a suggested contact name. So the kind of the idea was is to provide, you know, people that were absolute disasters with personal, you know, management of contacts,   an idea who was calling them. And people were signing up with these apps. I think they possibly did get banned from the from the from the various app stores or whatever, but they hoovered up all sorts of contact data. So, of course, like, when you give out your phone number to your friends, which is completely natural thing to do,   you know, the metadata is a complete bitch. You're gonna get that you know, you're gonna get your mates,   give away your phone number to all sorts of other apps and things. I mean, we know that with Telegram that it grabs all your app, all your contacts, and shares amongst everyone.  

So it's a real problem, the phone number identity, because we we don't have a, you know, decentralized   identity,   and nothing that's, aside from the email, I suppose,   that pretty much everyone you can guarantee has.  

[00:31:30] Unknown:

And so on top of that, you know, you see so so, basically, what we have is we have a convenience for security and privacy trade off.   And and we're always gonna be up against that trade off. Right? And signal tries to   deal with it in their own way. They try and make it as approachable as possible while not compromising on privacy, but, ultimately, they they do have to compromise on on privacy elements there. One element is,   is that phone number, which by the way, they say they do not store.   They only are sent a hash of your number,   that we can verify that they only send a hash of the number because it's open source software. This is why open source is important when people say   things are done locally. You need to be able to verify that they're done locally. When Apple says Imessage encrypts locally and they don't have a key, there's no way for us to verify that.  

There's some nuance here that if you download it through,   one of the app stores, you know, there's no way to verify the signal that you downloaded is the same as the code that you can build yourself. But if you run Android, technically, you can. But see, there's all these different levels of nuance here. One thing you mentioned   was,   I I guess you called it 2 factor. I think they call it SIM lock where, like, you lock it to your phone number.   Yeah. If someone ports your phone number, which Bitcorners know very well, these SIM jackings where they they take your phone number,   they can obviously then start communicating with your signal contacts without without you knowing and without the signal contact realizing.  

Now signal has 2 protections in place there.   That attacker does not actually get your messages, which is a big win. They don't get historical messages.   And everyone you communicated with gets a little message that says your key pair changed.  

[00:33:17] Unknown:

That's interesting.  

[00:33:19] Unknown:

That's where we get to the issue. Right? Where eat this fish doesn't work.   Right? The the user needs to know   what that means when they see the key pair change. Most users see that and they're the last thing they're thinking is, okay, my friend my friend just got hacked and now I'm talking to a hacker. Right?  

[00:33:37] Unknown:

Right. Yeah.   Yeah. Exactly. Oh, I I   well, actually, I guess I sent   out a toot   the other day because I   was   on, Bitcoin, Anthony.   But, you know, just a couple of things because, you know, we got a lot of new signal users coming in. So, you know, a couple of things that   that I think people should be aware of. Max brought up an excellent one, about the keyboard and, you know, the actual OS that you're running on.   That's one of the go in and do in signal is you can,   request an incognito   keyboard.   So you can request that, your keyboard not,   log this stuff. Now does that mean that your keyboard is not gonna be logged in anymore? Not necessarily. No. Do not rely on that.  

I would much rather see people switch from using,   like, a g board or a Google board or what just something like, you know, an open board or any soft,   something I've I've gotten quite fond of. Max actually introduced me to, TesterCube,   which has open PGP integrated.   But, you know, things that that's a big deal. It shouldn't be overlooked.   The the registration lock for your number, it it definitely shouldn't be overlooked.   My personal opinion,   I think that should be on by default,   which is where, you know,   I kinda run through a few of these apps is what can you default away from the user,   and what   can't you do, you know, based off security and convenience   trade offs. It's such a So what do you want by default? I mean,  

[00:35:16] Unknown:

this is this is where this is where most people get into arguments with signal. It's like where where they've decided on the default. So you're saying that they should default to that incognito keyboard mode at least. Right?  

[00:35:29] Unknown:

The I I the incognito   mode,   the registration, I would love to see both of those default on.   And   I would love   information fed   to the user PIN,   not just putting on, you know, a a a, a what is it? 6 to 8 digit, PIN number that you actually can a good strong alphanumeric pen right there, you know, 25, 30,   random characters   that you can use a really good strong PIN number. That way, if somebody does port your phone number and try to go over and you have registration lock on and they're asked for this PIN, that it's not just, you know,   a a matter of the brute force.  

So, you know, yeah, I I I would like to see a little bit more of the defaults on, but I feel like they're pretty close right now to where they need to be.  

[00:36:26] Unknown:

So just just to be clear here,   your your audio broke up a little bit. Were you saying TesterCube? I've used TesterCube before, which is mobile PGP.   TesterCube has a keyboard as well that that has the, like, PGP built into the keyboard?  

[00:36:41] Unknown:

Yeah. It does.  

[00:36:43] Unknown:

Well, that's dope. Yeah.  

[00:36:45] Unknown:

Yeah. And it makes it really easy to use PGP.   It really does. Max has actually introduced me to it.  

[00:36:52] Unknown:

Yeah.   Coinsure has introduced me to TesterCube. TesterCube is one of the easiest way to use PGP. I didn't know about the keyboard.   Just to be clear, all these all these freaks that are that are using Tim Apple's products,   In Android land, we can change our keyboard.  

[00:37:07] Unknown:

I see   iOS as well. Oh, you can now? Yeah. You can. Yeah. So I have   both iOS and Android and, it works very well.  

[00:37:16] Unknown:

Volr.   So just just keep in mind,   though that   that once again, it's the convenience for security and privacy trade off. These keyboards suck in comparison to,   the the the corporate surveillance ones. Yeah.  

[00:37:31] Unknown:

I mean Yeah. So just to build   on just to build on diverse point,   so I kinda got a couple of points to stay on the whole kind of privacy defaults.   Number 1 is probably this is why the is not running a multinational company and making millions   because he's not been thinking of stuff apart from the customer and customer service part of it. And I think the other thing is,   you know, we can be a bit paranoid now, but I think there is reason to believe that the big tech companies,   especially people behind,   Tech Messengers, I, yeah,   I think you'd be foolish to think that this doesn't happen is that they don't get friendly visits,   from law enforcement. And I don't mean anything,   aggressive or   or horrendous threats or anything like that, but I think they're in nuggets.  

And I think that that certainly happened with Apple and their iCloud backups. I think there are obviously usability challenges as well. But I think that if you are a   centralized entity and you, managing, like, a messenger   application and you are in a certain jurisdiction,   there's a good chance that you get suggestions   and you get pushed in the same direction,   by by those folk, to maybe not include certain features or not include certain defaults,   to make our enforcement's job easier.  

[00:38:55] Unknown:

03 January 09 asked if the Graphene default keyboard is is solid. Yeah. The Graphene default keyboard is any soft keyboard.   Obviously, if if you  

[00:39:05] Unknown:

What was that? I thought it was another one. I thought you had to install any soft separately. I thought Graphene came with its own keyboard.  

[00:39:13] Unknown:

Oh, maybe. Whatever. The Graphene keyboard is a solid keyboard For sure. In terms in terms of private it's an open source keyboard. I've maybe I'm incorrect on the one you chose.   But but, obviously, you know, this is where we get back into,   we have the freaks that have Alexa, and then we have the freaks,   that are asking me questions like that. Yes. Your your best option is obviously to run a graphene or or copper headphone.   Though those go insane with the defaults. All their defaults are, you know, privacy first, UX second.   And they do a decent balance,   with that trade off. I think it's a fairly reasonable trade off for the average person to make. You're you're not giving up that much.  

Obviously, you're giving up Google services,   because that's the whole point.   But short of that, it's not like you have an unusable phone. Most apps, that you get used to still work and obviously, you have a full fully functioning Chromium browser there,   where you can use, like, pretty much any web app. And all these services have web apps. Like, if you're still attached to Twitter and you wanna use Twitter, for instance, just use the web app, it works.   Absolutely.   And and the freaks probably know, but I have a guide for Graphene on on TFTC dot TV on our YouTube channel. I also have it on my Keybase page hosted on Keybase.   So I I wanna let let's jump into Imessage   since I think you brought it up,   with them getting pressured on the cloud backups. I mean, I I think,   an important thing people say to me   shout out to Elmo.  

People people say to me,   that,   you know, why why are you so hard on these companies and Bitcoin about going against KYC?   Why are you so hard on on on companies like Apple,   eroding our privacy?   Companies like Google eroding our privacy.   And I'm realistic. Like, I know that regulations are forcing them to. I know that we have,   you know, the Snowden the Snowden, releases   showed us that that companies are being,   forced to do things behind closed doors that we we're not even made aware of. Yeah.   But, you know, that's fine, and they're gonna, you know, they're gonna do them, and and and it's important for us to do us and assume and assume the correct assumptions. And the assumption should be that all of these guys are getting pressured and that all of these guys are gonna bend the knee, and you have to work out from there. If they don't bend the knee, if they don't compromise you and they don't, you know,   go behind your back, then consider that a win, but you have to assume that they're going to. So   so what what what what is our concern here with Imessage?  

You know, Max, you mentioned it first. You know, why why don't you just dive right in here?  

[00:41:56] Unknown:

So, so I think Imessage is probably alright,   actually, compared to the rest of the Icloud ecosystem. So, I actually to be honest, I try to avoid it despite having used iOS,   before going Android for about 10 years, and I had you know, I use macOS as my personal computer mostly. So I'm kinda quite well baked into the system, but I actually just avoid it mostly because I don't like the,   I don't like the closed garden aspect.   So there's only literally, like, one person I regularly contact,   on Imessage.   But   but I think so from my understanding,   again, I might be wrong here, but I'm pretty sure that there's a private key,   created and stored in the   on a device key chain.  

So,   I actually can't remember now kind of quite what the issue is. But the reality is is, like, I've actually got so little interest in even looking at what security model is we have behind Imessage because, 1, everything's so baked into Icloud. 2, it's all closed source anyway.   And 3, you know, you you're on a closed source operating system   and have the account base. So even if there were a bunch of assurances is that the, you know, that the the messages could only be decrypted locally, I wouldn't trust it.   And I think kind of we know for sure, like,   there was a I think it's probably a couple years ago now, but there was a terrorist incident for the first time that that Apple really got into   a bit of a showdown with the FBI.  

We we know now that almost immediately the,   Apple was subpoenaed. And I think the feds pretty much had everything they wanted from the the last, iCloud backup. They went for the phone. They still went for the president. They still went for the it was the San Bernardino.   Yeah. They still won America. Yeah. But at the same time, I mean, you could also I mean, again, you can be a bit paranoid, but were they using that to pretend they were going for the president   and making you know, if you negotiate with someone, right,   you would ask for more than you can get. And then you if you were to walk back, you could then look as reasonable.  

And maybe all that was a show to kind of hide quite how much they were going for,   what they can get at the cloud   level. And,   you know, I think it's I think it's disappointing how much people,   especially in the infosec and the cryptography space, have really heavily chilled messengers that are,   and companies like Google and Apple because they're reputable and they've got decent   traffic security. But, you know, like, the default is really put your data there. The two main issues,  

[00:44:27] Unknown:

with both WhatsApp and   Imessage   is that they're not they're that they're closed source, so we can't verify.   Yeah.   We can't verify what's happening there, and they both default to cloud backups that are unencrypted.   And there's no reasonable reason to do that.   Apple will say to you that the reason they do it is because they don't want people to lose their messages if they inevitably lose their password because people do lose their passwords. But, I mean, it's just their messages. Like, I don't think,   like, I I I I you should at least, you know, give you I it's a bullshit reason. The real reason is they want a back door. They want an easily accessible back door. It's almost even easier than having the phone back door because it'll it's even the data is sitting on their servers, so you can destroy your phone and they still have all the data,   ready for a subpoena to hand that over.  

And it's the same deal with WhatsApp.   And then and then Imessage has one other issue is that the the the type of encryption they use is, like, bare minimum.   And there's been some questions of of why they don't use a more hardened, algo there.   But, I mean, I think that's probably neither here nor there. I I don't think they're trying to undermine the algo when they just have everything in plain text sitting on their cloud service by default. Agree. One thing I would say, though, on the on the it's just their messages.  

[00:45:50] Unknown:

I think you   I think you still need to factor in what what regular people do with their messages.   And   there are people like, there's a lot of users that get pretty sentimental about their messages. And when you're looking at something like Icloud or for that reason, any other   cloud storage system like a kind of the Google Suite   is is that   people are completely giving themselves over to those corporations. So they're storing you know, they'll have a, you know, a new baby and then they you know, that first couple of year where they're nonstop taking pictures will all be sitting on servers. And these people would be absolutely devastated if they lose their their single device and they can't get access to those messages.  

[00:46:30] Unknown:

They'd rather a Chinese they'd rather a randomized Chinese company log their child's face   into their face analysis software than potentially lose the photo.   Correct.  

[00:46:40] Unknown:

Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah.  

[00:46:43] Unknown:

Diverter, I feel you fuming over there. You got anything to add for us?  

[00:46:48] Unknown:

No. The I especially on the on the I'm I I default to max to all,   iOS   questions and services,   Android ads, my   so yeah. No. I'll just sit back and listen. One thing I will say, I I wanted, on the,   actual, like, subpoenas and stuff, that's one thing   about signal, what we have   seen on signal, you know, when they talk about what they keep, what they don't keep, what they're what they turn over and what they're not.   One of the good things about signal is we we actually have evidence of that. I mean, it happened,   granted it was a few years back. You can see this on their sites, couple other places, but they were subpoenaed,   for information,   for 2 phone numbers.  

One of the phone numbers   was a signal phone number. The other one wasn't.   Obviously,   they couldn't really give a a signal number.   The one that was what they handed over,   was   the date,   that the account was created   and the the the last time that that account had hooked up to the signal servers.   And that was it.   So, you know, we we can see that when they're asked to turn over what they   that's when your question comes, you know, what do they what do they,   harvest from you by default?   And I know you shared the screenshot,   I think earlier or in the tweet about,   Apple where they are now giving you all the data that's linked to you on   the different messengers and the different app, and it basically   shows enough for Signum. Obviously, there's a tie to it, so, you know, we can talk about misleading that maybe.  

But the main   if they're not storing any information about you,   they everything they've got, they just don't have it.  

[00:48:43] Unknown:

Well, let's so I I have the I have the the doc, shown about what's linked to you,   on the screen right now. I don't know if if you can see because you're you're coming in through mobile.   Just just for the freaks out there, that's how dedicated diverter is. He's coming in through mobile.   The   Just I I think a key thing to to what was that?   No. I just said, yeah. Busy week. Been a busy week. Busy week. Always hustling. I love it. You know, so I I think a key thing to keep in mind here, let's unpack it, and we'll double double unpack it,   is first of all, signal   technically isn't storing your phone number. There's they're storing a one way hash of your phone number. And what what a hash function does   is basically if you provide a piece of data, in this case, your phone number, the hash will always be the same.  

But if you have the hash, you can't reverse engineer it to find the phone number. Now with phone numbers, it's a little bit different because phone numbers are like publicly accessible information. So if you have someone's phone number, you could put it in, find the hash, and know if it's a signal user. And that's, you know, that information they knew that it was a registered signal user. But, technically, on their servers, there's no,   you know, your phone number there and your name, which is why they're saying data not linked to you. Once again, everything,   tons of nuance.  

Yes. This is the the situation we wanna be in though is we want,   all these companies defaults to be not collecting personal data.   Are we trusting them? Sure. If it's open source, we can verify, but most people aren't gonna be going through verifiable   means even if it's open source.   So we do have to trust the companies, but at least the company should be outwardly saying their default is to collect as little information as possible and don't have that information to pass on. Now we're fortunately in a situation   where   the most powerful country on Earth, at least to to right now still,   America   is fine with that.  

They are not making that illegal. They're not making that illegal. They're not saying that signal has to collect, you know, some kind of identifiable   KYC information.   They could. Right? And this is this interesting balance we find ourselves in   where   maybe signal's good enough. Right? But if the powers that be wanna squash it, they could squash it very, very easily.  

[00:51:05] Unknown:

Oh, yeah. 100 100%.   Sure. And, you know, it's it   Ragnar made a comment the other day, you know, about   basically, if you're not your own ISP,   and, you know, all the infrastructure top to bottom is not your own without, anybody else that can lean on you,   then, you know, it's   they have the ability to come in and and apply so much pressure that even if   you don't, want to bend the knee, it's either, you know, fold it all in or, you know, do what they ask. So, yes, signal is you know, it's a centralized,   company.   US   could come in, lean heavily on,   and, you know, there would be   as of right. Can we rely on that forever? No.  

There are some p two p, you know, type apps. Well, we might be able to. That's my point.  

[00:52:01] Unknown:

Right? Yeah. Sure. Like, we may be able to if if we have powerful governments, allow us allow us. Give us you know, don't don't actively fight centralized   privacy focused organ like, it signals an interesting one. Right? Because it's not even a corporation.   It's backed by a 501c3   that their biggest competitor, WhatsApp, the founder donated a bunch of money,   to seed them. He I think he donate it was, like, over a $100,000,000   he donated to them.   So I think it's a very interesting model for a centralized privacy focused initiative in a world that's not completely adversarial. Right? Like, a lot of the things we talk about in Bitcoin land is completely adversarial. Like, we have to worry about   all the way to the nth degree because if they compromise the money at any point, all money is compromised. You know, it's a massive incentive.  

But with with with private messaging,   there's there's a middle ground. Right? Like, you you don't necessarily need to go, like, you know, full cypherpunk,   hopefully.  

[00:53:05] Unknown:

Yeah. I think it depends on kind of what happens over the next few years.   You know, I suppose   I don't see any difference yet with,   the US government's   wish to do mass surveillance. I don't think that's changed from the days of Snowden.   If anything, I think since his,   his revelations,   I think he's actually pushed probably that more into the shadows,   you know, at at that level. So   I think there's still a wish for that to do.   I'd actually be I it's hard to say, but I think we haven't yet reached the point where   there's enough in the playback from that power,   to cause the pendulum swing the other way. Yeah. So I think we're probably looking at an increasing,   encroachment   of   the free speech probably over the next few years,   in multiple jurisdictions in the west, not just the US, but, you know, in the EU, UK. And then we're obviously seeing Australia,   put put some pretty tough encryption laws in place. And then, and the UK has got key disclosure laws.  

And I think even if they're not constitutionally in the US, I think there's enough to believe yeah. There's already enough that you can see where people are working around the, the law enforcement are working around the   letter of the law and going for other ways to to manage that such as, you know, civil forfeiture, that kind of stuff to, to to to apply pressure in other ways. So I still think, you know, I think for the time being, you you've gotta think adversarially,   in a way because, yeah, the the the the the general direction is is is worse, if if you're looking for more privacy and sovereignty.  

[00:54:43] Unknown:

Well, I mean, I think you always think adversarially.   Like, you you expect the worst, but but you hope for the best. You know? And I I I think there's something to be said about   us using all the tools at our disposal when they're at our disposal.   You know? So we don't have to go, like, all the way extreme down the,   you know, the censorship resistant trade off scale   until it's absolutely necessary. Like, we can be prepared for it,   but, you know you know, maybe it's not needed. I mean, to compare   your home country,   Great Britain versus   my home country, the US, I mean, we're still   you know, I talk shit about the constitution all the time because I just don't think it offers the kind of protections people think it offers.  

Yeah. But but still to this day, like, we don't have to disclose our passwords for encrypted drives. We're protected. Mhmm.   We we still have base free speech, you know, solid free speech protections compared to the rest of the world.   And and organizations like signal can take advantage of that to say all this data is encrypted. We don't know what our users are doing,   and that's constitutionally protected.   And if that's the case, if those tools are available to us, we'd be idiots not to use them.  

[00:55:56] Unknown:

Hey, Edward.  

[00:55:58] Unknown:

Yeah.   Absolutely.   That's   the tool is kind of a a a bit of a   it's kinda what I do.   I'm far from,   a security expert, a privacy expert,   cryptographic   expert, any of that. I   myself with people that I feel like are me.   I soak up their knowledge, and then I pass it off as my own.   Pro tip there.   So   but   do is I get my hands dirty.   I try stuff. Like,   the other day, you've been using it for a while, Matt.   I hopped on to 3 month.   Now the 3 month came out as,   released everything open source app plans to where the code can be reviewed. They've had a good couple,   security audits recent.  

So I wanted to hop on there and see what see what that's like. Is this something that,   you know, has strikes that right balance between privacy   convenience?   Sometimes   something warrants you going ahead and encrypting locally, using your own local PGP encryption before you send it regard   So   like you said, there's so much   nuance and balance and trade off to this whole thing. I mean, bingo boards are lighting up everywhere right now.  

[00:57:19] Unknown:

Mhmm.  

[00:57:21] Unknown:

Unpack and and wait or in a single blog post or any of that. I really highly,   advise everyone to   use these things. Get your hands on them. Use them.   See see what, you know, they feel like.   See the difference,   and understand what the different trade offs means so that you can then explain that to the people that you communicate with. That's the way we spread this stuff.  

[00:57:49] Unknown:

So let let's I agree. Let's let's dive into this then.   So so,   I mean, we were in a group chat on Keybase. So twofold. First of all,   he mentioned Prima. We've been talking about signal.   Both allow them to view your key in app,   with a scannable QR code. And the idea there is   the app has already told you that you have a secure connection, whether that's signal or 3 month.   If you scan the QR code through another means, it's important that it's through another means, not through the same app.   Then you have a second,   confirmation. A second confirmation that the key wasn't changed in between,   your your transfer. Right? That transfer of the original key is is super important.  

So you're supposed to verify that. Almost in practice, nobody does,   but,   you know, if you're breaking your your lockdown or you live in the same place that doesn't have a lockdown,   verify with your friends that the key is the same. If the key changes, verify again. If you don't have the liberty of seeing them in person, you know, I don't even know what you guys look like. I only know you through online. Confirm through a second messenger at least.   Yeah. Obviously, like, we we can go in-depth on PGP here and we probably will, but that's another nuance thing.   These are little things you can verify, important to do.  

Now to go back,   you mentioned, like, we were talking about Treema.   I think this is like a funny little story because I think it's, like, perfectly encapsulates,   what what your how you have to look at privacy. Unfortunately, it's just the reality.   And and, you know, we met   the 3 of us met on Twitter.   We had started conversations on Telegram,   and then we moved to Keybase to be more, you know, more secure. We thought it was a more secure trade off balance. Keybase recently changed their terms of service, and then we had a whole group discussion in Keybase about moving to 3 month. Right? And it's just a constant,   process of just   figuring out the trade offs and assessing the trade offs, assessing the current situation that that we find ourselves in and proceeding forward based on that analysis. Right?  



[01:00:00] Unknown:

Mhmm. Yeah. Yeah. I think, it's a couple of things. It's like,   it's worth playing around, obviously, and trying it. But I think if you're gonna be jumping around messengers,   start doing that with your friends that are more willing to jump around messengers so you don't piss up all your other mates   when you do that.   A few things I've noticed coming in. I mean, I'm yet to see kind of what's like in a large group chat, how it works there. One of the things I've actually noticed already is using signal for large group chats   really sucks. It's not good.  

It's just small things,   like not being able to delete media on mass.   So if your phone's kind of running out of space because you're in a large group with people chucking video and pictures in,   you actually you actually can't clean through the, through the app easily unless I've missed a setting, but anything. So, you know, whereas WhatsApp, it has kind of better storage management options and obviously Telegram keeps stuff in the cache. So I think, you know, a big part of it is actually choosing the right messenger for the job, before you kind of, you know, you jump and   and and and make the kind of the attempt to shift your network with it.  



[01:01:09] Unknown:

You you fucking mentioned it. I have a love hate relationship with them. Let's unpack Telegram.  

[01:01:16] Unknown:

Yeah.  

[01:01:19] Unknown:

Yeah.   Who wants to start?   Well,   I'll just say I think Iago had the, most succinct point, which is is that Telegram is social media. It's not video. And that's where you should start from there as I look there. And then Feeds with Twitter  

[01:01:35] Unknown:

then more than signal?  

[01:01:37] Unknown:

I think so.   Although having said that, I have had people that are pretty comfortable doing certain things on a on secret message request,   and it works pretty well for that.   Yeah. I think I think the cool thing though is is that what I like about Tay Ramos, what I like is is that   I still think there's a place for   publicly endorsing companies that   at least outwardly,   show us,   show us strength,   against,   coercion,   whether it be from corporations or governments or anything like that. And I think that, yeah, sure. We all know that Durov could really disappoint us. And,   you know, you know, we could find that the empty proto algo has been broken.  

The encryption is compromised.   We all like to be done, but at the same time, I think, you know, I think it's a positive move anyway to move away from platforms like Twitter where there's   uneven.   I don't like using the term censorship, but uneven moderation that you disagree with, for example.   Whereas Twitter, I think, is far more liberal in that, and, I think it's far more fair in what they allow platform.   And, actually, you know, like kind of, you know, like you would in the market, you know, avoiding one chunk and takes the other. I don't think we should ask you,   centralized solutions entirely,   and they're great for   putting people into the funnel and getting   used to it. I mean, just bringing friends into a Telegram group from WhatsApp and then being able to search for GIFs,   that were previously banned on WhatsApp and you couldn't find is actually enough of a red pill for some people to get started. That's actually important to know that it's actually still an Internet out there, but they can search something that might not be, you know, endorsed by some,   you know, woke,   SJW   type or, or some other heavily   conservative person that doesn't wanna see pornography or anything else.  

Oh, yeah. So, you know, I I think, you know, if you if you approach it like social media, you're aware   of the concept. I think Telegram's a great messenger, and I think it's fantastic from a user   privacy perspective in terms of policies they have. Obviously, it's not as locked down as,   secure private messages like and   signal, But there's certainly a big improvement over the kind of the   the Google app or Facebook,   you know,   aspect of companies where, you know, so much that information is being shared and,   I don't think has the same degree of,   lockdown there.  



[01:04:08] Unknown:

Diverter. Why do you loves why do you love Telegram, why do you hate Telegram?  

[01:04:14] Unknown:

FA   stickers, no end to end encryption.   I I with Max, a 100%   on on the looking at at Telegram as more of a social media   than, a secure messenger.   But   having said that, you know, I I'm a US   based customer. So, you know, again, this is where the SMS stuff comes in. So if I wasn't,   used to communicating with SMS, maybe that would be different. Maybe I would view it different. As it stands right now,   signal to me is basically like having a Telegram   secret chat on all the time.   Telegram, I could go in. I can,   you know, relax and hang out in groups with my friends. We can chat. We can do whatever,   and it's it works great. It's seamless.  

Great stickers, like I said. That's one of the bonuses I love about signal, was being able to move my Telegram stickers to Cigna.   So that's a big deal for me, you know, when you're dealing with social media apps.   Biggest difference.   But   what's that? Look.  

[01:05:20] Unknown:

Telegram is fucking awesome.   The toolset that they provide you, the features they provide you for free   are fucking fantastic.   Yep. They have no business model whatsoever.   They don't serve you ads. They're sup they Durov, you know, Pavel Durov, the the founder says he doesn't he doesn't scrape all of our information for ads and stuff,   and they provide you up to 2 gigs of files you can send. People host whole movies on Telegram.   The   but but some things are too good to be true, and I question myself every day. I wonder,   you know, this guy is either a based fucking billionaire, the Zuckerberg of of of Russia who created Russian Facebook and then   got kicked out of Russia, how to sell and left Russia.  

So he's either a base billionaire   or he's in the pocket of one of the intelligence operations because it's like, how is he just spending all this money hosting all my shit for me,   with with no business model whatsoever? And I know now he's got he's launching a business model, but it's just a really interesting   thing and really interesting concept. And at the same time, he's got, you know, his apps. He has a free open source version of Telegram, the client.   There are some questions with their encryption algorithm they chose, but they could have been just cocky about it, you know,   Why why break the encryption? Why give weak encryption   when the overwhelming majority of chats that are happening are just sitting, you know, not intend encrypted on your on your own service.  

And then the last thing is, I mean, we saw them recently start censoring channels, and and the issue is   is the same issue,   that we keep seeing is if if these corporations   know what their users are doing,   they they're they have the data to censor. They're gonna be compelled to censor based off of that data.   And and they're gonna be rejected from app stores. And and maybe Telegram's a little bit more resistant than other   apps because they do have, you know, open source versions of their apps. You can get a direct download APK. You can get it from F droid. You they have a web app version.   But ultimately,   he needs to comply with anything Apple or Google tells him do. Otherwise, he's gonna get removed from the app stores.  

So so we're starting to see this censorship roll in, and   that brings me to our our other killed darling,   with our love hate relationship, which is Keybase.   And and Keybase has historically been very good about not censoring user content.   They have more sane defaults than Telegram.   It is end to end encrypted by default.   I think it's important for users to realize that these large group chats, it doesn't really matter if it's end to end encrypted because At all. Any   any person in that chat could be a mole. You have 200 people in the chat. One of them is a fucking mole.   Right.  

He he needs to log in all the information.   So but so so let's jump into Keybase.   Max, Keybase. Well, let's start with Diverter this time. Diverter, Keybase. Why do you love it? Why do you hate it?  

[01:08:22] Unknown:

I love Keybase for the,   the Keybase   Spot system, the, the public folders.   Really good feature, underutilized,   I feel like. Used that for a long time.   What I don't like,   is   the recent change to their terms of service where   are very, open to hosting, like   suspense   the 3 d gun printing crowd,   quite a large group there.   And now those terms of service have changed, to explicitly   ban that, which   that's really I I really have a problem,   when we get into stuff like that. I I don't necessarily mind so much if it's illegal in your country. What   I'm gonna say, you know, we have,   advocating for criminals,   to be able to break the law without getting caught. That's not what privacy is about. So if it's illegal in your country, I mean, what, you know, what are you gonna do? But for something that's not illegal,   that's more of, of bending the knee to this, you know, the this this woke movement or whatever you wanna call it,   I I start to have a problem with it. What really   put it over the edge for me is some of the very vague wording that they they began using   on that terms of service, which is similar to the way Twitter goes,   which is basically   blah blah blah and anything otherwise objectionable.  

Sure. Now you you find the thing that can't fit in there, and then we'll talk. You know? I I can't be censored then. That's where I really went into a problem.  

[01:10:05] Unknown:

Just to just   just to add, add fuel to the fire here,   Diverter is one of the admins with me of the largest Bitcoin, Keybase group.   So his his his anger towards Keybase And it was the Keybase account.   Yeah. It is it's coming from a user that has used it significantly.   I mean, I I think I think there's 2 elements here that people should keep in mind with Keybase   is it's a both a messaging app.   I guess it's 3 fold. It's a messaging app. It's an identity layer that ties into PGP,   and your and your social accounts.   And it's also a file storage,   service, where they provide free file storage. And they were recently bought by Zoom, which is does not have a very privacy track record.  

So so I could a 100%, you know,   like, let's be honest here. When you're hosting other people's files, you have massive liability,   public files.   If those are 3 d printed gun files,   you know, I I a 100% support the movement,   but they have massive liability there. That is different than them going after,   encrypted chats so they might not know the actual   what's being discussed in the chat.   And and and this goes back to our previous conversation of when when these companies know what's going on that they can be compelled to censor based on the information they know that's going on. So there's a portion of Keybase's,   Keybase's   offering where they know what's going on, which is those publicly hosted files, which are are known publicly. Anyone downloading them knows what those files are.  

And then they have these private chats and their their software is supposed to be end to end encrypted. It's free open source software so you can technically verify   that it is encrypted locally.   Both with with Signal and Keybase, their server is not open source. But because   their client is open source and you know that it's encrypted locally,   it doesn't mat you don't have to technically, you don't have to trust the server with with the actual with the actual privacy of the contents of the information.   So, I mean, it should be interesting to see how that plays out. They have not,   act I don't believe they've actually censored people based off of it. I think with the Biden administration, we're about to see a massive deplatforming of the 3 d gun printing crowd,   and it'll probably be the biggest free speech fight since,   porn,   in the United States, and it should be really interesting to watch how that unfolds.  

I was kinda I kinda wanted to unpack here. I just wanted to sit here for a moment and dive in. On the terms of service thing, like, are we,   and this has come up before, specifically in Bitcoin and Wasabi's terms of service.  

[01:12:50] Unknown:

I  

[01:12:52] Unknown:

there's an argument to be made that as as privacy focused users, we should look the other way if if someone's terms of service may be is not as ideal as we want it to be,   but they haven't acted on it, and they're kinda just legally covering their ass. Is there is there any nuance there with you guys? Is there any wiggle room that's, like, you know, Keybase says, you know, you can't do anything illegal on our platform, but they don't actually come out swinging?   Like, is is that acceptable or do you we just move no matter what?  

[01:13:27] Unknown:

Alright. I'll I'll answer this, a couple of points. So I don't wanna dive into it too much, but just on the key based stuff as well. To be honest, I'd already stopped really using it to the same extent just because I felt that since the Zoom takeover, the product hadn't really been developed.   Quite honestly, I'm actually surprised that both, you know, you, Matt, and Deborah are actually still continuing on that Bitcoin group on eBay speakers for me, like, I know just the chat features. I intend to encrypt in group chats just kind of suck a bit. Like, it's I find the client slow, you know, they're a bit bloaty.   Doesn't work to be one of my Android with my end notifications,   because I'm using a USB.  

And even on, like, iPhone and, Mac OS, it's it's not great. So to be honest, you know,  

[01:14:08] Unknown:

the UX for me is sort of big thing. So If I just wanna if I can just jump in there real quick, the 2 big UX things I like about Keybase,   3 big UX things I like about our Keybase Group or Bitcoin Keybase Group is it's it's very difficult for impersonators to impersonate you,   because of their their follow mechanism and the way they link into other social media handles. And that's a major issue,   for more public Bitcoiners,   on Telegram and Twitter where I just have people impersonating me all the time, so it's more difficult for them to do that on Keybase as a platform. I like that I can in the in our supergroup, we can have channels.   I know Diverter was, like, training people on PGP in one of the channels. It's really hard to do that,   in in these in these Telegram groups when they get larger, they get they get kind of unruly.  

And then the third thing is I I I like the auto delete. Like,   I I I know it's, like, kind of just a a comfort blanket. It's just it's it's something that if the actual platform is compromised, they're logging all the information anyway. If there's a mole on the group chat, he's logging all the information anyway. But it's just nice to know that every message is just getting deleted from everyone's phones, every 90 days.  

[01:15:15] Unknown:

Yeah. I mean, I I started getting really excited. Like, when they first came out and then the, you know, there being a lot of talk on the decentralized identity, and I love the fact that kind of, you know, the whole signing mechanism works really well. But at the same time, I never thought they communicate particularly well in that,   how you should follow people. So what I was finding is it's almost like Twitter where people are, like just random people are following you, and people didn't really know to check stuff. And I have people kind of setting up failed proofs and then messaging me. So, you know, even like Keybase, I think, had probably done it the best.   I still found the whole   impersonation thing. Okay. There wasn't as widespread impersonation going on, but I still found it pretty awkward,   to get kind of, you know, the the trust working and to know how to do the signing, as well. And I think it's partly because,   ultimately, like, since they've been bought out, especially now, I don't think they were developing it much further. You know? Doing nothing.  



[01:16:11] Unknown:

No. And I think for me, I already thought, well, if they're not gonna develop the platform, not really gonna spend more time on it. And I'd rather, you know, work on communities and a platform where you can yeah. There's actually a bit of product right back and stuff's gonna come out. That's when you know you've hit the sad portion of the lifespan of a product. When when people were asking me about the Zoom takeover? I'm just like, hopefully, they just don't touch at at all and just don't improve anything. It just they don't get involved whatsoever. They just let it die over a course of couple years while we wait for a better alternative.  

[01:16:40] Unknown:

Yeah. It did that. And from the second kind of thing on the whole,   the   the   the terms and services and all that?   So I kind of agree with you in some ways. Like, there's a big part of me and certainly, you know, a few years ago, I didn't read any terms and conditions. I didn't care about them. And if the act did what I needed to do, I was quite happy with it. But I think it's a pretty useful   indicator   as to how people think,   and the devs think   when those terms and conditions and things like that are written. And I think it's a hard thing to get across to someone, but especially if they're resistant to hearing stuff they don't wanna hear and they like a particular app and they're wet into it or they've even, you know, they put   if you're looking at something like WASAPI, they may have mixed all their coins with it. And therefore, they don't wanna hear anything about it. They just paid some stats for it. And then they don't wanna hear that, you know, that maybe those kind of,   but, you know, they they don't wanna hear kind of the unwelcome truth about it. But I think for me, I think it's   it's in it's quite indicative of of how someone's gonna build their product   and how it's gonna be tailored and as it gets built. If someone is, like, on on the on the product side or the development side   already basically saying you can't do certain things with it and not actually,   you know, not actually going right from the get go that this is a, you know, an open source tool.  

It is only dealing with text.   You know, they're already kind of trying to comply with something that already exists. It's a pretty good,   good good good indicator that   that that things are gonna go wrong later and that that, you know, that their approach is gonna be flawed anyway.   And I don't wanna make this something obviously about kind of coin joint specific, but I think it's kind of interesting that   after what we saw in something like the terms and conditions with, not being able to use it, I think for kind of, you know, maybe illegal gambling might have even been one of those things. I can't actually remember.   There are quite a few things. I certainly think for,   sex work and things like that. I'm pretty sure that wasn't allowed on it as well. You know? So, but, again, I can't remember the exact detail. But I think then that was interesting in the way that they designed their product later and that we saw with the founders talking about things like, you know, you KYC on an exchange, and then you get privacy afterwards. So I think that when someone's got that attitude from the get go, then they design the product in a certain way. And I think that's also a very good kind of smoke signal for kind of knowing that that that, you know, you're probably using something that's gonna be built the wrong way.  



[01:19:24] Unknown:

I'm just pulling up the wasabi terms and conditions that I'm gonna throw up there.   I I didn't really wanna talk about,   CoinJoint specifically. Okay. But I I did wanna talk about terms of service,   because I I I think there   you know, we live we live in this   intensely   litigious society,   A heavily regulated litigious society.   And I know I find myself,   covering my ass more than realistically I'm   going to act on that, you know?   And   to the point where,   you know, I I I get DMs. I'm open DMs. Right? I to the freaks that that if I haven't responded to your DMs, my DMs are completely overwhelmed, and you should message me on Keybase,   because I prefer the interface and at least it's, like, kind of encrypted and we should probably be better off there.  

But, like, I get, like, open DMs about privacy focused things. Right? And there's certain things, like, I don't feel comfortable answering because who the fuck knows who's on the other side of that. Right?   And if they're trying to pigeonhole me and trying trying to catch me in in in something that might be illegal when that's not my intention, where my intention is is perfectly legal,   you know, people who who who care about privacy.   Yeah. And and so privacy tools, like, I completely like, if I and and to the point where I would not release a commercial privacy tool   because I care about my privacy and I care about my my potential users, and I just wouldn't fucking put myself in that situation. I don't wanna be in that situation where I could get pinched.  

But I I I kinda feel for someone who's releasing a privacy product and it's just like on their terms and conditions, they're like, you can't use this for illegal things.   But that doesn't mean they're necessarily   like, obviously, they know, you know, that's a blurred line and that they don't know   what that means. Right?  

[01:21:26] Unknown:

I mean, it irritates me, though, the whole the I I've never seen a reason. I mean, okay. I'm in a different jurisdiction,   but, I mean, I don't put on my terms and conditions on my side that you can't use a phone for illegal purposes.   And I think if I did do it and someone did use it for legal purposes, I think me putting it in the terms and conditions wouldn't help me in the slightest. It wouldn't make any difference. And I think that, you know, I I think we owe it to ourselves to   to just not cock ourselves from the outset and   just, you know, you know, this is a bit like kinda doing tweets with, this isn't investment advice. I mean, stop doing that. You're not achieving anything. Mhmm.  

Protecting yourself. If you go out and, you know,   she'll shit clients and then go, oh, yeah, but not investment advice. That doesn't mean that you're not, you know, you're not giving people potentially bad advice or whatever. Just, you know, own it. Own some responsibility.   I I find it   I I've got less and less patience for these days.  

[01:22:24] Unknown:

Yeah. I mean, like, look at your head. Like  

[01:22:27] Unknown:

So do you see that I pulled up with Sabi's terms and conditions?  

[01:22:30] Unknown:

Sorry. Yeah.  

[01:22:32] Unknown:

Yeah. Can you read it on your end? Sales of narcotics,   items that infringe or violate any intellectual property rights, ammunition, firearms, explosives, transactions that show the personal information, third parties, and violations of applicable law, transactions that support pyramid, Ponzi, or other get rich quick schemes, provide credit card, repair or debt settlement services, explicit sexual content,   money laundering, or any support thereof.   Like, they can't they can't tell this. No. They said, why why  

[01:23:01] Unknown:

Right. You know, this actually makes things worse in my opinion. It makes sense that a regulator then or law enforcement say, well, you said that someone shouldn't, so how are you making sure that someone can't do it? If you just release the software as is and say that's what it is. And apparently, as you know, it annoys me to see money laundered aspect there. I mean, like, money laundering has nothing to do with Bitcoin in any sense of the word. You know, it's it's a completely different thing entirely.   There's a process and there's a specific definition for what is.  

It doesn't tie up here at all. So I think it's I think it's widespread ignorance,   and it's it's people that are nervous, and they think that kind of   showing a kind of nodding, you know, nodding acknowledgement   powers that they somehow absolve them and mean that they won't get,   a pressure applied to them and of their business. It's just weak.   Right.   Wonder about that.  

[01:23:59] Unknown:

Well, I mean, I agree. It it's definitely weak. It's weak, but it's, you know, inherently weak.   My my defense of it is that it's it's a weak defense.  

[01:24:12] Unknown:

Yeah.   But one of the one of the point that Max,   brings up is is it it is it's almost one of those things where you're just kinda hoping that I stay just enough to keep them off of me. Like,   you know, maybe if I if I just tell them that I'm not gonna allow this stuff, it'll it'll keep regulators from looking at me so closely. I think that's a mistake. I think that's commonly   a a common mistake, actually.   It's kind   of the reason we're, in in in Bitcoin and even talking about this stuff is,   you know,   we're routing around.   All this time spent   and, look, I get it. You wanna write a letter to, you know, the fat foot people and and,   what's smart to call them, a munching butts or whoever. You wanna write a letter to the people   tell them that they're printing on our freedoms and all this stuff. Fine. Okay. Write your   letter. Spend   4   times in that letter. Spend 4   that time learning around that enforcement.  

That's what's important.   We're just gonna route around it anyway. So any any appearance that, hey. You know, we're one of the good guys too. You know, we we don't like child porn either. Well, of course, you don't. You know, and and and if you see it, yeah, get it off there. You know, we're not,   I guess, what you call free speech absolutist. You know, I don't wanna see child porn. I don't wanna see child porn.   You know, messenger.   Sure. Take it off. Fine.   But don't don't tell me that I shouldn't be looking at 3   d printed guns area to be looking at downloading and making 3 d printed gun.  

It we get into a real murky area where it's almost like they're   trying to be moral, and that's where I run into problem.  

[01:26:01] Unknown:

Well, I mean, I think you would argue   I think you would argue that,   fuck legality of a pers particular   particular jurisdiction. I mean, the   the operator shouldn't know,   what's being discussed in the 1st place. So  

[01:26:18] Unknown:

Sure. But, you know, as you said, in any large groups,   you know, public open groups, you know, what are you gonna do?   Of course, there's feds in there. You know, you think there's 20,000 some people in the in the key base, deterrents dispense.   Half of them. Of those are they gonna pay? Honestly. You know, come on. Look, we did the bear arms and big one conference,   last year. Let's talk about that. Yeah. Love to.   Last year,   we're trying to make it an annual thing. Ragnar put it on last year, the Guns and Bitcoin crew.   It's in Austin, Texas. Originally, it was gonna be Portland. A lot of things happened. Switched to Austin last year last minute.  

I was invited to come down and talk on,   using Bitcoin.   Now when I say guns and bit and this crew here, what you've gotta understand is that these are people that   are not at all interested in the, you know, number go up tech,   inflation resistance, or what if they they don't care. I'm not about this. Yeah. These are people that are using Bitcoin   because they have to. They don't care that it's cool tech. They don't care   care that it prevent wealth.   They have   She's being censored. They present it. Yeah. In in addition to that, they also need privacy.   They have not You  

[01:27:49] Unknown:

cut out you cut out for a little bit. So I I was just doing the pop up and said you were being censored.  

[01:27:55] Unknown:

Okay. I'm   sorry. Let me,   go back a little bit. But these are guys that are using it to avoid censorship. It's not because they think the tech is cool or anything. Wait. So so this is one of the reasons why I consider you a close friend.  

[01:28:09] Unknown:

Okay. So let's unpack this, for a second. First of all, Guns and Bitcoin, I have, the link under in the   not in the show notes. I have the link on the fucking display if you're watching this live. It's guns   and bitcoin.com.   Ian. And and you can see the event there. It's gonna be in Austin,   in April.   Hopefully, I will be able to make it. I am trying to, but it's a weird   year. But, anyway,   what Diverter mentioned was censorship resistance versus number go up. And one of the reasons why I like Diverter,   and why I consider him a close friend is is because I think we both agree that you can't remove the other from   from you're gonna have both. And there's we have compliance bros   that don't want the censorship resistance, and they're gonna have to fucking deal with it.  

And we have,   censorship resistant bros   who think, you know, number should go sideways, and Bitcoin's designed to pump forever, and they're just gonna have to fucking deal with it.   Yeah. So so diverter I mean, you agree with me here. Do you not?  

[01:29:20] Unknown:

I I I do. I do.   And, yes, there's something to be said, of course, just that, you know,   number go up is   what attracts the most eyes. I mean, you've got you've got what, you know, rappers,   Soulja Boy, and people on Twitter right now talking about buying Bitcoin on Robinhood, you know.   So, of   course, number go up, puts the eye on.   And, yes,   of course, you're gonna have some of those people that come in. They come in for number go up. They stay for number go up until it goes down,   and then they're gone in Bitcoin's a Ponzi and, you know, the rest is history.   Some of those people   will likely stay around. They'll fall down the rabbit hole.  

They'll start learning about censorship resistance.   I think   so much of it is in how Bitcoin is initially presented to people,   how they perceive it from that point on.   But I would agree a 100% with you that you don't   get no   and   as much as I sometimes may hate to admit it, I think a lot of the resistance goes away if you don't get number go up.  

[01:30:36] Unknown:

Yo, Max, do you disagree with us? You wanna fight with us on this point?  

[01:30:40] Unknown:

So I I always think I'm a bit misunderstood with my attitude on the   I mean, like, I'm actually quite bullish on Bitcoin, and I always have been.   But I'm just bullish on it because I think that, you know,   we're still early.   There's still plenty of people that could use this and still don't know how to or not aware why they're aware enough of it. So I think that there's plenty of reason to be optimistic on price. And   I find price fundamentally boring, though.   I don't wanna talk about it with anyone, and I don't find anyone   that on Twitter that has anything useful to say about it at all. And I think they're they're runs a shower tent and they can't put their class. And whether it's a stop to flow thing or whether   handle. I think it's all nonsense. And,  

[01:31:28] Unknown:

I am so interested. Yeah. But but I mean have an asset that's designed to pump forever. Of course, it gets boring after it keeps pumping forever.  

[01:31:37] Unknown:

Yeah. Yeah. I think   I I think, though, that,   I think that that's   so I think people get bothered about potentially transaction cost. I mean, we're we're kind of, this there's a whole number of other kind of subjects that come in here. But I mean, put it put it this way is is that I don't think Bitcoin needs to be a reserve asset of companies or banks. I don't think it, you know, it needs to have the number of,   the US dollar value increase for it to retain its properties.   And I I think that it's quite fine for it to exist amongst a portion of the population   and the and for a portion of the population at a certain portion of time. You know, not everyone will need Bitcoin's properties on a daily basis. Some people will need it for a few years in their life. Some will use it as a small part of their life all their life. Others will use it   all the time in all their life. You know, it's, it very much you know, you take it as you need it. I think it will always be there for that purpose.  

And I and I think,   you know, anyone that wants that mass adoption, you know, falls into kind of, in fact, fallacy,   of of thinking that a tool or something like that needs to be used all the time   there. And I don't think, you know, it not getting mass adoption affects the the price either. So I'm quite you know,   you know, my my you   know, my general feeling is to to not pay attention to your actual price and just come generalize a life perspective. You know, you should ideally be living within your means. So, you know, if, if you're saving more than you're spending, then, you know, whether price increase or decrease, your your stack should be going up higher. It's just personal responsibility.  

[01:33:13] Unknown:

Shout out to SM,   the freak who wanted to let you know,   that you're talking about not caring about price while I have the price up on the live stream.   I just wanted to say to the freaks, that are watching, look at this fucking bisque bread.   This popped up, you know, the real price popped up,   while we were recording. I think it's pretty cool. We you can see I don't know if you noticed, but on the left side is the actual orders coming in,   and red is down and green is up.   So that that's pretty cool.  

[01:33:46] Unknown:

But I mean, even what I would say, though, I mean, when I say I don't care about price, I mean, that's not to say I'm not gonna kind of buy in,   you know, if I see what I think is now the top drop there, and I'm not gonna you know, I mean, I mean, literally my, you know, my my day job is involved working in all the books. So, you know, I find this kind of stuff interesting from that perspective and this construction and,   you know,   I think it's more to the point is I'm not interested in the predictions. I'm not interested in the they get excited or the or the people that think it's their one last you know, their one big shot again about getting rich. For me, that weeks of desperation,   and it's it's a bit pathetic.  

And so, you know, what it should be is is you've got a tool. If it goes up, then that's great. But ultimately, like, you know, it makes sense to be saving in this money because it's hard to, you know, sense that.   You know, what portion of your your wealth you're doing now. Obviously, it's up to you, but, you know, that that's kind of you know, I'm quite black and white on it in that state too.  

[01:34:47] Unknown:

Well, Max, I mean, there's something you said here that, like, that that people need,   you know, need corporate treasuries or need the compliance pro stuff. And and there's definitely Bitcoiners that are, like, actively   searching for it. Right? And they're petitioning,   corporations to store their treasury in Bitcoin.   From my perspective,   it has nothing to do with me needing that.   It has everything to do with them discovering Bitcoin just like I discovered Bitcoin, and they're gonna buy Bitcoin. Like, they're gonna buy Bitcoin, and and the beauty of Bitcoin is I can't stop them from buying Bitcoin.   Mhmm. I cannot sell them my Bitcoin,   and I have no intention of selling them my Bitcoin. They will never get my Bitcoin.  

But, if if they wanna buy it, like, I don't blame them because who wouldn't want to buy this shit? Who wouldn't want to move over to a Bitcoin standard? Right? So   I so I don't look at it from, we don't need them,   but they're coming. They will come, and there's nothing we can do about it.  

[01:35:49] Unknown:

Yeah. The the only thing I'd caution with that, and, look, I I a 100% agree with you, and that's the beauty of the money and money for enemies, anyone can use it. This is that I think that the innate properties   of Bitcoin   make it more suitable for the individual. Again, I I yeah. That's that's that's definitely from a personal opinion that I have, and I completely appreciate that someone managing a trade agreement may have an entirely different opinion.   But I would I would suggest that   that those looking at it, first as a treasury asset could find themselves,   in a bit of a difficult situation in the future. So, I mean, obviously, like, someone like kind of Michael Taylor type,   would be laughing at me right now for saying that because on a US dollar basis, I mean, his trades would have gone up hugely, enormously. It's done very well.  

And I think it remains to be seen still what kind of trade that will be for MicroStrategy and how well that work because   that's a public asset.   What does that look like if,   Nasdaq or whoever else my strategy is listed,   release rules on   holdings limitations   in virtual currencies, that type of thing. What happens if corporations under Biden administration   get additional taxes and then companies like those are forced to,   essentially,   get rid of assets like that.   How, you know, how much is that number go up tech at that point, for those companies when it's held publicly   and and in the face of   of of of regulators   and,   and and, you know, politicians who actually see it as now right rejection of their money and are insulted by that.  

You know, I think those rule that's played whereas I think just the innate properties of Bitcoin mean that you holding that privately and or dish form of digital cash   means it would probably suit your use case better,   overall, but this is super early days.  

[01:37:47] Unknown:

Yeah.  

[01:37:52] Unknown:

You got something to add there, Diverter?  

[01:37:55] Unknown:

I mean,   like,   Max is right on the he he's right on the nose here. There's no there's no question about it.   You're also   a 100% correct in saying that, you know, this is the whole beauty of it is the permissionlessness.   If you wanna buy Bitcoin, you can buy Bitcoin. I can't stop you. I don't want   to stop   you. But, you know, we do have to kinda stay on our toes about,   the people that come in with these large swaths of Bitcoin like the micro strategies,   and then begin trying to steer   this narrative   towards their direction,   the privacy and the censorship resistance because I think a lot of them view that   as a hurdle,   to never go up.  

I think they're afraid that if there is too much privacy or too much censorship resistance,   that the government,   will be more compelled to come in and try to shut this thing down and and hinder,   the increase in US dollar value.   So it's you know,   what are you gonna do? You're not gonna stop them.   Which is, you know,   speak our minds about what's important, teach people about the things that are important, but at the same time,   you know, it it's gonna be what it is.  

[01:39:17] Unknown:

And you like, I I I agree with both of you guys.   I think,   to, like, clean the dirty a little bit,   all the all the freaks who are listening, you should consider using Bisq.   Bisq is a a peer to peer marketplace,   where you connect directly with other Bitcoiners to buy and sell Bitcoin.   Here's a quick little video of what Bisk is.  

[01:39:45] Unknown:

There are many places to buy Bitcoin.   They collect your personal information   and jeopardize your privacy.   KYC   is the illicit activity.   This   is open source.   It does not collect user data.   You keep your private keys,   create or take to trade peer to peer, and keep your Bitcoin private and secure.  

[01:40:19] Unknown:

Love that. So, I mean, I I don't think,   I don't know if this has to be said, but, you know, we're very deep in here. I mean, it's not a coincidence that Cielo Dispatch does not have any sponsors.   Okay. Bisc is   a a personal love of mine. I think it's a very important project.   I think it's important that we discuss,   you know, why BISK is important. And someone mentioned in the comments,   issues if you're using Zelle or using a bank as your payment processor for Bisc. So, let let's dive into this a little bit. Who wants to start?  

[01:40:58] Unknown:

To go Yeah. To start.  

[01:40:59] Unknown:

Yeah. I'll take off here. I'm been a Bisc user for a little while.   The comment I saw earlier,   I believe, that we're referring to talking about   a possible honeypot if, you know, law enforcement is, your counterparty.   And and, you know, sure. Yes.   Which is, you know, basically, the same risk you run on any anonymous or anonymized network.   Yeah. The other person you're talking to could be logging everything you said, logging on your all of your data.   So the best that you can do is limit that,   as much as possible and determine based on your threat model   whether or not you should use,   a different source.  

When you're talking about this,   it's totally different than using one of these other centralized exchanges like a Kraken, for example.   Just there is no I I press a button. I make a trade. I've got the other you know, when you're dealing in cash.   You may have to wait days on a regular.   Or, you know, wait   you may have to wait hours on even one of the quick transactions. I mean, you know, one of those Zelle transactions.   So all this stuff is,   as it always comes down to, convenience trade offs.   The actual exchange itself of BISC   is is not gonna log your personal identifiable   information.  

That's a huge win. Alright? Does that mean is it perfect? Of course, it's not perfect. But this is one of those things where, especially in privacy,   you cannot let, you know, perfect be the enemy of the good. Just because it's not a 100% anonymous and perfect and you can't be sure that the person you're trading with is not law enforcement. That doesn't mean it's not a huge step forward over handing over   all of your to be able to buy a little Bitcoin to taking a chance on your counterparty, your direct counterparty,   having some of that information, and then you actually storing everything locally on your computer. So   I'm a huge proponent of disk.  

It still has kinks. It still has problems. It's gonna need work.   But   when,   the time comes that   everyone gets pushed, because that's what's gonna have to happen as as is always, just like with WhatsApp here.   When when we get pushed and we get that big censorship overreach,   people are gonna start to realize,   how important projects like that really are. So I I really, hope that people start playing around with it now,   as opposed to trying to run catch up.  

[01:43:40] Unknown:

You know, Max, you got a strong opinion here?  

[01:43:43] Unknown:

Kind of. Yeah. Well, yes and no. So,   I don't know. I'll go risk getting chucked off your show here, but, I actually don't like this.   Oh, kick them off. As a as a tool. Yeah.   But, yeah, I it's hugely important,   and absolutely, it's, like, probably one of the most important projects going in the Bitcoin space at the moment. I just don't personally like it myself.   And although it's my own fault, but it's also partly   due to where I'm based at the moment.   And   so my kind of issues, like, I've actually had this on my laptop for years, like, back when it was Bitsquare or something like that. And I can honestly tell you every time I have to find Bitsquare Bitsquare was a better name. Yeah. I think so as well. Yeah. I've got a logo as well. I seem to remember. But, like, every time I fix it up, I can't be bothered to use it because,   I hate the architecture of the SPV. I hate how it I mean, maybe I'm being too cheap and my laptop's rubbish, but, like, it takes   ages to sing so they can use it off.  

I find it awkward,   to use, and so I I just don't bother.   That being said, like, that's not to say I don't think it's a good tool.   It's just not really what I like.   Personally speaking, and I think this should be a consideration for anyone that's in a similar position to me. So I think in, like, a big city where you're well connected   is   actually try and do trades more in person.   And they're not as hard as the you need as   as they sound.   You know, I I've got guys I know through our local Bitcoin meetup,   that do OTC.   We there's actually not the one I'm I'm not actually part of it.  

I'm not comfortable, you know, having my personal details on it, but there's actually a, like, a large Telegram group for OTC in Singapore, and people just do massive trades on that.   And there's a it's moderated. It's carefully done.   And when you're living in a city specifically like this, which is pretty safe from a physical perspective, you don't have to worry about getting mugged or anything like that.   People do do just cash trades of, like, a $100,   200 grand.   Right? Yeah. If you're meeting up in the street and doing that with Bitcoin,   and it's pretty common here to do that. And there's far more liquidity   on there than something like this. And that's even with kind of popular pairs. You know, even if you were to get out of an SGP pair and use, like, EuroGP,   I think you'd get a better spread,   going for an OTC trader here. And, again, like, that stuff scales pretty well. Like, if you wanna do small trades and you're not willing to do, like, a trade, like, 20 grand, then use someone that's also connected to an agency trade and do that. So I I actually, you know, we're pretty good with options in Singapore   on a kind of, you know, face to face basis. And I think culturally,   whilst it's pretty advanced as a country in terms of a lot of, like, Fintech type apps and digital payments,   There's certain aspects of it. There's certain industries here that are heavily cash based, and people are used to using cash in certain,   for certain types of payments.  

And therefore, it's still part of the big part of culture here. We've been comfortable with that. So, for that reason, there's never really been a reason for me to be kind of forced into using this. There's a Biz trader that hates you out there. He just sent Biz Moonbound. It's showing a 4545  

[01:46:58] Unknown:

k ticker right now.   But also, like, that's also kind of like He's giving you he's giving you the incentive to use Bisq, bro.  

[01:47:06] Unknown:

Well, as a seller, yeah. But, I mean, like,   this is the other thing as well. I mean, we can actually see here already, like,   I mean, actually, how difficult is it for my biscuits to use when you've got, a mid price like that being so skewed. Like, in in Singapore, it's actually not unusual for people to be buying Tethers directly.   So they'll do SGD to USD Tether,   and then then they can take that to some exchange,   and then, you know, get the price they want to, later, and that can be done with absolutely minimal KYC.   So   yeah. So you kind of you know, like, on paper,   it's very easy and you see it on Twitter. People will say, oh, you know, you gotta use Bisc or, you know, use Huddle Huddle. But actually, like,   when you actually get on the street and see how things are done, like, especially in Asia, like, it's it you know, again, this is very geographically dependent, but it can kinda No. It's not geographically dependent. Well, first of all, I I wanna do a shout out to SM again. He gets a second shout out for this episode.  



[01:48:04] Unknown:

Freaks,   learn from him, and you will get a shout out.   I like this idea that people watching Citadel Dispatch are buying on bisque, and they just are getting bullish and they're buying. And I I I kinda like this concept. Like, I hope that for future Citadel Dispatches, you know, this is only episode 5.   For future episodes, like, it'd be funny if if every Tuesday,   big Bisc pumped because,   people were just market buying on Bisc and and they're watching sort of the dispatch at the same time. And now they're not listening to us. They're focusing on the price, you know, all the all the Okay.   Max Max, we're just having some fun. Okay? We're just having some fun.  

I agree with you   from Zen. 1 Bitcoin is 1 Bitcoin. 1 sat is 1 sat. It doesn't matter.   But at the same time, it is the ultimate adoption stat, and I don't think anyone can deny we're trying to build a free market here,   and a free market is gonna price a lot of things and a lot of things, you know. And one day, this will turn to sats per dollar because everything will be priced in sats. But until   then, you know, it's priced in dollars because that is the global standard. To people saying to Max that this idea that a black market type of,   gray market type of of cash deals cannot happen,   you're all full of shit. If you've gone out and bought weed,   you participated in the same exact type of environment, and I expect this to happen with Bitcoin as well.  

I don't expect you to go out and buy $200,000   worth of weed though, which is kind of what Max insinuated. I want people to realize   that we had we had a Hong Kong trader recently who got fucked because she was trying to buy   $400,000   worth of Bitcoin.   Yeah. Which, by the way, people were like, that's ridiculous. Why would you try and buy a half $1,000,000 worth of Bitcoin? That's that's   10 Bitcoin.   Yep. It's like that's crazy. Like, she was just trying to buy 10 Bitcoin.   She got into trouble. So try and keep your amounts lower than that.  

[01:50:04] Unknown:

Yeah.   Well, you know, it's one of those things with this. It's it's one of those, you know, love hate things.   As Max, you know, points out, you know, on paper, of course, you know, everyone,   yes, use this. Then when you go to actually using it, you know, maybe   the area that you live in, you might not find an offer   ever. You know, you you may hit,   we may hit a dip in the price and the liquidity   just is gone. It drives all the way up, and the only offer that is on there is for a 40% markup.   So, you know, these these are the the things that don't get talked about too much.   You know, everybody we we'd like to paint a nice rosy picture of this.  

Censorship resistant. You know, there's no KYC. All that good stuff. Yes. It's great. But, you know, there's some obvious trade offs. There's some obvious downside   to for me,   you know, living in in the US especially   and dealing in some of the communities that I like to run-in,   this trade off is an acceptable one for me because what's unacceptable for me   is identity   to be able to obtain some Bitcoin,   especially when we've been into situations like COVID,   where we can't necessarily go out and mingle and meet other people and establish connections   and things of that nature. It's very important for us to have some sort of online,   avenue   for people to be able to attain Bitcoin without doing KYC. Now   I, myself, also,   like to do some mining. I mine personally.  

That's not an option for everyone.   So   it's one of those things where, yes, I'm gonna say, you know, use this. Use this. Everybody use this. Everybody's not gonna use this. Everybody probably can't use this. But the idea of this is is what's the most important to me.  

[01:52:02] Unknown:

You're telling people to eat the fish again. We're back at the eat the fish. Eat the fucking fish.   Just mine. Just mine. I wanna I wanna talk about this. I wanna talk about this because this is something that that Bitcoiners   do not talk about enough.   When I first got into Bitcoin, people said to me, don't mind. Not worth it. You're not a professional miner.   I told them to go fuck themselves. I like learning from my mistakes.   So I attempted to mine. The first attempt was cloud mining. Do not cloud mine.   That is a horrible idea. You will lose your money. I promise you if they could mine and make a profit, they would do it. They sold you that risk instead, and they will scam you out of your money. But then I decided to buy a couple ASICs and mine for myself.  

That is really where Bitcoin is a game changer,   tangibly.   Let's talk about this for a second. This idea that you can connect to power and Internet,   and you can receive money through the Internet with 0 k y c.   I think people don't realize and respect this enough.   I think   what we will see in the next 5, 10 years is as ASIC lifestyle   life cycles   level out, and and you buy an ASIC, and they just it just becomes it stays profitable for years.   Doesn't get outdated.   We will see it distribute   because   people will be willing to mine for loss. Would you agree, diverter? And   show us your guides, you know, just fucking hit us with, why why should we mine to achieve no KYC Bitcoin? Hit us with it. First of all, just mine, man. I mean, it's so simple. I don't understand why we have to explain it.  



[01:53:48] Unknown:

Look,   first of all, once you said cloud mining,  

[01:53:54] Unknown:

Yes. Don't do great great advice. Great advice. Everyone does it. Everyone needs to do it. They just need to do it to burn themselves and get it over with.  

[01:54:02] Unknown:

Maybe. Maybe. You may be right.   But you're a 100% right that that there's this narrative, and and it's so funny to me because   there in all the other areas of Bitcoin,   the the main thing pushed is don't trust, verify.   You can do all this yourself. You can host your own wallet, you know, unhosted   hosted wallets, whatever. You can do all this stuff yourself. You can run your own node and all that, and then   when we get to no. No. No. Leave that to the big guy.   Alright?   That's not profitable. Don't even try it.   And so so many people are turned off on it.  

That's not necessarily the case. It's a very personalized   at a loss at a, you know,   a loss they can handle. Let me let me put it like that. You're not gonna mind, at a, you know, losing a 100%. I wouldn't  

[01:54:59] Unknown:

expect thank you. But  

[01:55:02] Unknown:

the newer generation miners that are coming out right now,   they they   they really changed nines anymore.   So it's one of the things that the 3 gun community   runs into as well. Everybody still feels like we're in 2013 3 d gun tech,   and we're not. They don't. An s nine doesn't get you 13 and a half terahash at, you know, 1400 watts used anymore.   We're beyond that. So   that's why I wrote,   mining for the street.   The link has been shared a few times. It's still on my, key base public folder at   whatever the the word of vtc slash mining for the streets, whatever that is on my public folder. It's escaping me right now.   But the point of that was look for it?  

I'm sorry.   Keybase.pub.   Is that it? Keybase.pub/diverter.  

[01:55:58] Unknown:

Base.pub   / diverter what's your name? Diverter what? B t c. B t c.   I got you. Yeah. I found it. I found it. Okay.  

[01:56:08] Unknown:

So I wrote   that through   the point of that is just getting across that that this may be something that you should look into, and I know a couple of people have actually done it.   There   is a thriving,   aftermarket   for,   for ASICs, especially on Telegram, the one we talked about earlier. Telegram has some terrific groups   who are verified ASIC resellers,   where they basically do KYC on themselves   so that they are listed as a verified seller to try to, you know, keep you from getting scammed   so they help you out that way. That way, you're not handing over all of your information   to, to a bit main or a Chinese company who wants to do that.  

So you can get an ASIC without going through you know, handing over too much of your identity.   And   when you   plug these things to your house,   first the first thing you're gonna wanna do is get rid of any   girlfriend or wife or child,   that you may have. That's gonna be the first thing to go   because these things are loud and they're hot.   Alright? But those are both so loud. They're so loud. And they're so hot.  

[01:57:22] Unknown:

But And they're, like, annoyingly loud. It's like that annoying fucking  

[01:57:27] Unknown:

It's so bad. It's so bad. But it's   manageable.   Once you do that, there's some screenshot I put on there. You know, I I I've been running,   the s 17,   model, s 17 pro model, 50 terahertz.   I run them in Coleman coolers.   Alright? I I took a day. I took a drill. I made some terrible looking,   coolers for   sound you know, to to keep my sound from being so bad.   I threw them in these Coleman coolers, cut a couple holes in the side, threw some ducting in there where I can get some cool air in and some hot air out, and suddenly, it's not so bad.   So it's a little bit of work,   to to get this done if   you don't have special   areas.  

But if you're in the US, your average,   your average rate for electricity is somewhere around 12 to 13¢   on the kilowatt hour. Mine's higher.   Yeah. Depending on your state. So, you know, some states   are quiet. They actually may have,   you know, 8¢, 9¢,   which is definitely manageable. When you're looking at one of these newer generation miners,   it's early in this in their life cycle. They're just not coming out. So you're probably   hopefully, we don't   know yet on what we're looking at with older models.   Probably gonna be able to get 4 to 5 years,   work  

[01:58:56] Unknown:

of running. If you Well, let's talk about this.   Let's talk about this for a second. Right? Like, I'd be willing to fucking take I would I would eat a fucking 25%   premium for KYC free Bitcoin.  

[01:59:09] Unknown:

Sure. And, you know, people do it all the time,   on on disk or ATMs or whatever.   But, you know, the problem you run into   with mining at a total loss   is,   your return on your initial investment.   Now, you know, whenever you're gonna go buy one of these newer generation miners, you're gonna put out a couple   $1,000.   So now if you're okay with never getting that back, then sure, you can mine at a perpetual loss.   But   if you are, you know, in a situation where you do kinda wanna look to get that money back, there's still options open to you,   outside of even if you can't run it in your house.  

1 of the guys that we deal with a lot in the the samurai groups, you know, he's got some miners that are at a hosting facility,   just a little ways down from me, And   he's doing great there.   Now   of not not your   6 and 9, or I guess, you know, if he he's they're in somebody else's warehouse. So, yes, he has to Yeah. That sounds kinda shit cornery to me. Yeah.   They they won't unplug it and run off.   The point that I'm getting at is is this stuff tends to get immediately discounted   as not profitable. Whereas, as you said,   if you're able to have an electricity rate somewhere in the area and you don't have to pay   you know, s nines or s   17   or you can run them at, you know, 10   15, 20   percent loss for all of your information to these centralized images.  

And   you've got,   them come to your wallet.   Every couple weeks, you'll get a a a little download a bit more. The ultimate it's the ultimate stacking sets.  

[02:01:07] Unknown:

Right? Because it you're you're it's it's built in dollar cost averaging, basically. You're you're buying the device Absolutely. Ahead of time. You're putting the the capital upfront, but you're getting the Bitcoin on a on an average basis.  

[02:01:21] Unknown:

Exactly. That's exactly what what what you're doing. And, you know, we all know,   DCA   stacking set is all the rage right now. Stacked set. This is the this is the highest level of that. You know? This is the highest level,   Until this comes out with some sort of API or something where you can just do auto trades, and still, that's not gonna work out great, by the way.   But with a miner,   you really can   set it up. It doesn't take any technical ability. I promise you it takes none.   You put it on your same IP address that that wherever you live, whatever   network   to the URL and go there, click a button, copy paste, and it's running. I mean, it takes no technical skill.  



[02:02:09] Unknown:

It's way easier than people think it is. We're just plugging things in and putting the Ethernet cable in. That's it.  

[02:02:16] Unknown:

That's all you gotta do. You plug the power in, plug the Ethernet in, copy paste,   you know, the the pool that you're gonna mine on, and you're mining.  

[02:02:25] Unknown:

What about,   what about mining shitcoins and auto dumping for Bitcoin? Have you done that through GPU mining at all or no? Just ASICs only?  

[02:02:34] Unknown:

Personally, I haven't. No. No. I don't know plenty of people that have. Now I've I've mined a little bit of of, Monero, but never, like,   actually trying to Yeah.  

[02:02:44] Unknown:

Just for shifting giggles. But Yeah. I tried it just to see what they were full of shit about, and they were full of shit correctly.   I'm   glad I made my my 5¢ worth of Monero.   You know?   Yeah. Exactly.  

[02:03:00] Unknown:

Do. Of course, you do. Usually, for Bitcoin, you know, and you're like, damn. I'm getting, you know, I'm getting   point 000.   I'm getting, like, a 1000 stats every so but   that's one of those things where you turn let it run. You come back a week later,   you know, you in your life and doing whatever you're doing, really buying Bitcoin the whole time, essentially.   Just a little piece at a time. So   I just wanna make sure that it it   doesn't get discounted because so many people that are instantly told the first time they bring up mining,   you can't do it. It's not profitable.  

It's not even worth, you know, talking about and looking at.   Check that right up out. There's a couple other guys that have done it,   since then that you know, I know Econo Alchemist, he's about he's gonna do another write up on it,   which he does epic Twitter threads if you've ever ridden any of his other threads.   So, you know, don't just don't discount it. Leave all your options open. Use the tool.  

[02:04:05] Unknown:

Thank you. Appreciate that insight.   I just wanna do a quick shout out to,   silent.link,   free grown business.   Fantastic.   You get an eSIM,   and that eSIM,   is is your phone number, and it's a British phone number. So, you know, deal with it. It it that's what it's gonna be.   Unfortunately, Graphene and and and and Copperhead do not allow,   eSIMs, but Kallix OS does allow eSIMs, and it's, like, a pretty easy way to to get a burner phone number,   with Bitcoin without tying it to your identity.   So consider it.   Our our boy, Catan,   friend of the podcast,   used it and literally could not shut up about it. So go check that out.  

I I I appreciate you, Diverter. Thank you for,   giving us that insight there,   on mining.   I I think people just don't appreciate the mining aspect. I think it's it's,   like I said, I would a 100% my I'd mine for, like, 50 to 40% loss. Like, I would just take the fucking huge hit,   just to have no k y c Bitcoin, and then at the same time, like, you're supporting Bitcoin. And even if you're even if you're mining shit coins and auto dumping to Bitcoin, you're supporting Bitcoin because you're auto dumping shit coins for Bitcoin. So you're increasing the price of Bitcoin and you're decreasing the price of shit coin.   It's like the best pack ever.  

So regardless of how you decide to mine, whether that's publicly available GPUs or that's ASICs,   fucking think about doing it. Just try it. Just do it on a small scale. Enjoy it. I should have done it more. I did it, but I I didn't do it hard enough,   and and just fucking think about doing it.   Max,   you've been pretty quiet over there. I want I wanna talk about a little bit before we get going here,   about this idea   of of you going from Britain to Singapore.   To the Bitcoiners out there who are thinking about changing jurisdiction because Bitcoin is pumping and they feel baller as fuck, and they just don't like their jurisdiction, what do you have to say to them?  

[02:06:23] Unknown:

Oh,   it's easier when you're younger. I mean, I'm 37 now. So, I mean, I I first came out, I think, kind of 25 or something.   So   the reality is is for most people, you can talk about changing jurisdictions, but it's just not an option   for a lot.   You know, you have to deal with   family being stuck behind and and, you know,   obviously, it's more difficult now to make these these moves, with the COVID situation.   And, also, it's more difficult to be abroad, with the COVID situation because you've now got family maybe back home, that you can't visit at certain times. So I think that makes it harder.   What I would say, I mean, just as a general thing is I think it   the great thing about moving abroad and changing jurisdictions if you are fortunate enough to be able to do it is I think it gives you a better perspective on things back home.  

It's very easy to be arrogant and proud of your political system, to culture and all that. And then to look at it back in a different light, I think,   is pretty important.   And certainly, when I came to Singapore, you know, 12 years ago or whatever,   I couldn't understand   how somewhere that   had no real   semblance of democracy in the meaningful sense of the word because it's a one it's effectively a one party government here, and it has been for the same party for years. How it could be so kind of economically   free and free in other ways. Obviously, there there are some quite substantial   freedom restrictions here as well.  

But, you know, but by not having what we in, say, UK or US,   would view as a kind of free system.   And then for me, it's again, it kinda comes into trade offs, but you when you actually start realizing it, you see that the kind of the   the political system is only one part of it. The economic liberalism is a huge aspect. You know? I have no capital gains taxes out here.   The income tax is a lot lower.   You know, the the ability to travel,   until recently,   unlike the rest of the world, yeah, unlike the rest of the world, it was also substantially freer. I think he's a great thing to do. I think he's worth doing. I just think that, ultimately,   you know, there is a cost to moving. You   just sitting on a business. It's obviously harder if you're going with a job and is taking you over. That's that's substantially easier, and you kinda get softened kind of impact   to to to the kind of the adjustment.  

But, you know, you have to you do have to kind of put up with a new culture and learn how to,   to to adapt somewhat. And,   so, yeah, I'll tell you now, I'm not I'm not the best at adapting.   Everywhere I walk is like little patch of England, and I'm not, yeah, I'm not the most kind of culturally aware.   But, you know, somewhere like Singapore, for example, I can't think of many better places to be at the moment.   We haven't got kind of the political problems like in Hong Kong. And it's nothing like that here.   It's, you know, it's very easy to start a business.  

It's, you know, it's it's a good place to work and live.   And, by and large, you know,   it's   it's a pretty free society,   with a lot there, but it does depend on kind of what's important to you.   If you're into   recreational pharmaceuticals   or,   or or guns, you know, you're you're not gonna have such a good time. And   If you   if, you know, if you like to be able to to drink outside and not be, like, in the US forced to drink your alcohol in a in a brown paper   And, yeah, it's it's it's awesome. Like, it's substantially better than the US in that perspective.   And,   but,   but, yes, so so I I think it's, it's always worth considering these things. And if you do get the opportunity, it's worth taking. But it is a it's a big it's a big move to make.  



[02:10:25] Unknown:

I appreciate it, Max.   I look forward to visiting you in Singapore,   when all this bullshit,  

[02:10:33] Unknown:

Yeah. It'd be great. That's a good group here, and it's a good, like, me and Tina, like, the Singapore big time group. It's, like, very, very I mean,   it's not just for the next batch or anything. That's the fact that it's probably mostly locals. We've got people that work What about the chewing gum thing? Has that hit you hard? Did you were you a gum chewer before you went to Singapore, and then you were like, I don't I'm not gonna do it. I don't wanna risk a felony. Like, what what how how did that how did that end up? Actually, like, nothing is really just like I think it really affected. I'm chewing gum, and I I I'd like this is the fact I never did drugs when I was younger at all or even now. So, like, I mean, this is the only thing that makes me the difference to some of the Bitcoiners who kind of got familiar with it through darknet markets. Like, I just never had any interest. I mean, all I wanna do is drink. And when I came here, I could drink and there's no problem with that. So it was like same as London, really. It's like that easy.   So I took to it pretty easily.  

So now, like, it's I think the only thing really, like, that you would potentially notice here is, like, the press freedom is is massively limited.   But then, you know, I haven't I haven't read the local newspaper. I haven't paid any attention to anything much to my girlfriend's concern because she gets worried I'm gonna, like, break the local kind of COVID regulations by walking around without a mask and all that.   And, yeah, I mean, I just you know?   And   these are the things we're right is is, like, you we like, the country rates terribly on, like, the free press index, I believe. But, you know, when you got the Internet, does that really matter? Like, it doesn't make any difference to your your day to day stuff. And I think the other thing is the government is,   you know, quite overboard in in in in with freedoms. At the same time, they actually didn't step in too much. Wait. That's interesting. That's interesting. Just,  

[02:12:20] Unknown:

so so your your freedom to press is, like, kinda shitty over there, but but they're not going after Internet. So you can view every press.  

[02:12:29] Unknown:

So Right. Yes. You can well, we have a restricted sites that you can I mean, obviously, changing What's restricted?   Like, tons of porn sites restricted. I'm pretty sure Pirate Bay is, but they're like What about the VPNs? Do they block, like, the big VPNs?   VPNs, no problem.   You can  

[02:12:56] Unknown:

Correct. But then you just pay Mullvad Bitcoin, and you just go Yeah. And and make a point.  

[02:13:01] Unknown:

Yeah. And it's like it's it's it's a, although it's like, it's it's a heavily Chinese ethnically Chinese country, like, the the main political parties   quite got quite kind of Christian   origins, I'd say, and there's still kind of quite heavy Christian aspects to that where the kind of the rank yeah. The the rank most of the Chinese here are kind of Buddhist.   So you've actually got kind of slightly more conservative policy,   amongst   politicians with how things reacted versus, you know,   the rest of the country.   So, yeah, things are actually incredibly free sexually, for example,   here,   in ways that would open a lot of Americans' eyes.  

But yet online is conservative,   so it's kinda quite,   quite quite different from from that perspective.   But that being said, like, I mean, you know, this is not to kind of paper over some utopia. I mean,   there's an   if you've like, there's a couple of, like, high profile cases of someone even, like, holding up, like, a smiley face in front of the government and protect and doing a small form of protest. So there's absolutely no protests.   They get cracked down on incredibly quickly.   And,   you know, you you you don't poke the bear in that respect,   here.  

And, you know, the the actions are kind of very swift. And if and again, we're in a country that's got a lot of foreign workers.   People will tow the line more because the punishments are very easy for them to do because if, you know, they've obviously confined or imprisoned you, but they could just take away work permits and, you know, business passes. You'd just be out on your ass pretty quickly.   So that's,   you know, so that, you know, it's not all kind of, you know, freedom at all. It's just that I think for a lot of people, it's an acceptable trade off.  

[02:14:52] Unknown:

I appreciate that insight.   As an American,   it is very foreign to me. It is not something that I   would inherently understand.   So I appreciate you   kind of showing that that light to us. And   and like I said, I I I I I am excited to visit. I I think, to me, Singapore   is   really fucking cool because to me, like, that's the whole idea of Citadel theory. Right? Is that this idea that we could have, like, city states. Like, we could have these smaller jurisdictions   that   have,   unilateral control over over how they they decide their jurisdiction is run. And then all of a sudden you have competition, and we have really cool things happening.   And, obviously, like everyone knows Singapore is a massive global port   that,   you know,   like, makes makes New York show respect, which is impressive.  

As a New Yorker, that's impressive, and I I embrace that, and I respect that.   So, I mean, I we've gone we've gone for over 2 hours here. I appreciate all   the freaks who have tuned in. I appreciate all the freaks who are going to listen to this through the podcast feeds.   I appreciate both you guys.   So, I mean,   let's just let's just wrap this up with,   I I I will I have not given this to other guests, but, you know, we're episode 5, and we have no formula.   So,   we're figuring out as we go.   Diverter, you know, last comments to the freaks, until I have you back, which will be soon. I promise you, and I appreciate you for coming on.   Yeah. Hit them hit them with your last comments.  



[02:16:43] Unknown:

Yeah. Thanks for having me. It's been a blast, man. I can't hope to do it   Yeah.   Can leave people with when we're looking about secure messengers and what is and what isn't. The the best thing I could do is is I could tell you what I run.   If you've got questions about them, be free to hit me up about it, and we can talk   and we can talk.   I can just hit you with that. And, otherwise, if you wanna catch me,   check out coin.com.   Matt linked earlier.   The Bear Arms at Bitcoin conference, I believe it's April 10th 11th,   in Austin, Texas. So if you can come,   hope to see you there.  

Besides that,   so so I'm an Android maximalist.   I'm currently on a Pixel 4 a. It's running Copperhead OS.   Secure messaging, I I do I go to signal   and, and 3 your messages.   I built the 3 map,   APK from the source code, installed it on my phone. It was dead easy. Works   great.   I haven't done that with signal. It will one day.   But those are my what I go to when I wanna   actually have a messenger.   Hell, I use right now for my daily driver email is, c templar.   Dtemplar.com,   or they have the nonunion address as well, which I do not remember.   But it's a great encrypted   email client. I like it. They're being built out.  

It's not   quite so, intuitive maybe or easy to use yet as, like, a proton or 2 genoda,   but it's one to keep your eye on.   For my notes,   my encrypted note apps, I use standard notes.  

[02:18:36] Unknown:

Fuck yes.  

[02:18:37] Unknown:

Love standard notes. They just recently had a really good audit, and they changed some of their cryptography. I made it a lot  

[02:18:44] Unknown:

stronger. Assume it's looks really good. Assume it's fucked.   Assume it's fucked, but good. It's good. Sure. Yeah.   Of course. Love it. Like, that's my life. Just assume it's fucked, but it's good.  

[02:18:57] Unknown:

Absolutely.   Absolutely.   Sorry.   Social social media my social media app, like I said, as Max mentioned earlier,   Telegram is is honestly my social media feed.   I also spend some time on, you know, not so much Twitter anymore, a little bit on Mastodon, Matrix, blah blah blah. But   my main go to for for that is is Telegram. I love it.   Bitcoin wallet. This is a bit of a surprise. It may shock some people to know this,   but my Bitcoin wallet, I prefer is actually samurai wallet. Believe that or not. You.   So all I use, I run my dojo. I keep local spinning, and and we get it done. Alright. You know what it is. Surprise.   Shocking. I know.  

My keyboard I'm using is tesser cube. I mentioned that earlier. Tesserpt.com.   You can find that somewhere in the market.   Supposedly, there's a version 2 coming out,   soon.   T m soon. Not gonna happen.   But it works. It   works. Browsers,   I I   Tor Browser. Obviously, I love Tor.   I've been using a lot more lately,   Bromite, which,   as we all saw earlier when I was trying to hook up to this chat, sometimes it may   cause a little so, you know, it's all trade offs on what it may it may be good for you. But I also like, like, an ungoogled Chromium,   browser.  

VPN,   of course, small bed right now. They had they gave me a scare the other day when they took Bitcoin off as a payment option and left BCAD. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. That was some bullshit. That was just fine. They just had a bug or something. Like, people just fucking freaked out for no reason.  

[02:20:44] Unknown:

Movad's good. Everyone use Movad.  

[02:20:47] Unknown:

Everything's fine there.   So yeah. I mean oh, mobile mobile PGP. Open. Open keychain. That's it. That's all I got.  

[02:20:56] Unknown:

Open keychain.   We didn't talk about PGP at all. I'll bring you guys back.   Like, if you care about PGP,   use it.   If you care about privacy, use PGP. PGP is the best thing to do. I have,   a good guide linked at usepgp.com,   which is a very   easy domain to remember. Some other random dude made the guide. I just linked to it.   So go go check that out.   You should use PGP.   Diverter,   before we we leave you,   January 192022,   what is the price of Bitcoin?  

[02:21:37] Unknown:

What is it right now?  

[02:21:39] Unknown:

No. No. No. No. No. 2020 2. I like this idea. This was S&M, by the way, who, by the way, is a freak who just keeps performing.   I I like freaks.   Like, the whole point of the show is that I want the freaks to be the host. I want you guys to take my responsibility away from me and handle for me, and I will just spotlight   you. S and m has done that. I like this idea that at the end of every show, I should ask the price prediction a year from now.   What what what will the Bitcoin price be?   Diverter hit us. This just hit $50,000.   Let's fucking go.  



[02:22:17] Unknown:

I see that.   I I tell you what.   Since Biscuit's sitting on 50, I mean, it's hard not to go high here.   Honestly, though, we got a new,   United States administration coming in with Biden and, I mean, some of the plans they've already got.   Money printer is most definitely getting ready to go BRRRR.   So with that in   mind,   I'm gonna go ahead.   125,   man. 125. There we go. Thank you, my dude.  

[02:22:51] Unknown:

You're a little low, but it was a good it was a good guess.   Someone asked someone asked in the comments,   ProtonVPN   versus MoleVAD. I mean, they're both good. Proton's got good reputation. I just like Movad better. I think Movad's better. I think you pay with Bitcoin. Max Keiser's jumping in at, like, the end of 2 hours. It's like classic   Max. Shout out shout out Max Kaiser for joining us.   I just think MOLVAD is I I   I don't know what it is. It's just a gut thing.   It just feels more real. It just feels like they care,   and and you're just trusting them. At the end of the day, a hosted VPN provider, you're trusting them. Sure.  



[02:23:30] Unknown:

Yeah. Agree.  

[02:23:32] Unknown:

Max,   hit us.   I could oh, is it just, like, final thoughts, wasn't it? Yeah. Final thoughts. Hit us with with what what you wanna hit us.   I you know, we're 5 5 weeks into   dispatch. I'll probably have you guys back on in another 6 weeks or something like that.  

[02:23:49] Unknown:

Look. I mean,  

[02:23:51] Unknown:

first off, look, thanks for having me on and everything. It's It's really good to chat to kinda Thanks for joining, bro. Fantastic.   I think just 2 things I'd kinda leave everyone with is,   one, just pay it forward.   I mean,   since the earliest days that I got involved, I cannot kind of thank enough for generosity of people that walked me through things and went through and explained. And I think it's everyone's beauty that when you get that from the others that welcome you in,   to continue to do that.  

[02:24:22] Unknown:

Yeah. You  

[02:24:25] Unknown:

you really should do that, and it pays dividends.   I'm honestly overwhelmed with the info I get from people. There's, and, you know, in a in a particularly difficult year, such as 2020, which in for us changed a lot of people in different ways,   having a bunch of people online, that I can argue with, that can make me laugh and all that, it also can help me, has been absolutely critical. So, like, that will be as important for this year as it was for last.   Secondly,   just learn to manage your keys   whether it's Bitcoin,   whether it's encrypting messaging. There I see no way around that. And anyone that says, you know, that   you don't need to do that and you're gonna be you know, that there's gonna be kind of mass adoption ways to get around that, I I don't see it. Like, for the moment, for anytime soon, this is what we've got to deal with. So back up, make sure you've got, you know, redundancy and all that, and, make sure also your loved ones have got access to it. Don't be so over the top with your paranoia that only you can access that.  

If you're the only one that can access your coins, then you need to make some life choices about getting some more important people in your life to   to hand those over to if you go. Like, that's what it's all about.   So definitely that.   You know, I I won't go in kind of,   a recount of kind of that's amazing at the moment. I think Diverter's got plenty on there and overlaps with me. But what I would say is something that we probably didn't cover as much in today's podcast, but it's also something that would be good for a net future one is probably more kind of plans for self hosting.   It's something I've discussed with people like Katan and the other guys as well. But,   you know, shout out to MoSaaS as well. He's done a lot of the work on the Bitcoin enemies front. I think it will all be important for us this year to look for user,   friendly ways of doing stuff like,   sign up service for matrix   and hosting your own Mastodon, Pluroma, that kind of thing,   and getting ahead, like, yeah, we've always gotta be one step ahead. And I think looking at those,   and looking at the best solutions there is the natural next step,   for moving the kind of the   the concentrated   kind of community that we have on a few centralized places at the moment to something a bit more distributed. So look out for the companies that provide the best solutions to do that   and pay for those services.  

And,   you know, like, I think, you know, hit me up as well if you wanna know how to do PGP or whatever. I've done that with plenty of people. Always happy to help there. And, yeah, best place probably to find me is Telegram or on the email at the moment, and you can also find me on Twitter.  

[02:26:56] Unknown:

Oh, that's freaking awesome. I just wanted to say that,   I   I feel bad because   to this day I've been in Bitcoin for a long time to this day. Like, if I died right now, like, oh, my family would just be fucked. Like, you you get no Bitcoin.   All that Bitcoin's gone. I'm just so paranoid that my errors are at risk. So,   and this is coming from someone who has a dead man switch as a product.   I'll put it out at final message dot io if you wanna check it out.   But I just don't even trust my own service with that. So I just fucking I just live in a life where if I die tomorrow, it's just a contribution to all you Bitcoiners. I mean, they'll get some of it, but they just won't get the majority of it.   And, I just appreciate you guys. I mean, the whole point of this show   is to embrace the freaks that join us live,   and I love the freaks that don't join us live as well. I'm not I'm not saying I don't I don't love you guys. Thank you for coming for the archive.  

And and and and the whole point the whole point is just to have a good time and just have people who are my friends on, and I appreciate you guys for joining us. I I think you guys are gonna be on in the future as well.   I hope if you if you will if you'll join us again. Great.   And and I said last week, pump the NIMS, and so here we are. You know, let's pump the fucking NIMs, and that's what it's all about.   Yeah. Yep. We'll have our HR on Thursday  

[02:28:29] Unknown:

at 2 PM. What, Deborah? Do you have something to say? Yeah. I mean, I I I you know, I love you and Max, but I can't let did Max give his price prediction?  

[02:28:38] Unknown:

Oh, no. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank   you. Thank you. Max.   Max, this time next year,   price   prediction.  

[02:28:48] Unknown:

ACK? I'm always bearish.  

[02:28:54] Unknown:

I love I just want him I just want him on the record. That's all. I just want him on the record. Yeah. I'll go for 80 k next year.  

[02:29:02] Unknown:

Wait. So what'd you say?   80,000. Yeah. Right? 80,000? You fucking bear, you little piece of shit.   Okay. So, he's gonna get wrecked.   What is shit corner coming in with that shitty ass prediction?   And I look forward to having you back here while we destroy you on that prediction.   And I just to all the other freaks,   stay humble, stack stats, and join us on Thursday for rabbit hole recap, probably around 2 PM. We don't have a set time because it's just me and Marty just chilling.   So we love you all, and,   stay humble, stack sets.   Thanks,  

[02:29:47] Unknown:

my bags last night. Free   flight.   0 out.   9 AM.   And I'm gonna be   high   as a kite by then.   It's lonely   out of space.   On such a time,   I'm as   white.   To raise your kids.   In fact, it's cold as hell.   And there's no one there to raise them.   If   you did.   And I think it's gonna be a long, long time.   And I think it's gonna be a long, long time.   And I think it's gonna be a long, long time.  

[02:34:27] Unknown:

Love you, freaks. Stay humble. Stack stats.