Politics in the Zeros

If the Trump / Russia investigation is just fake news, why are they spending so much time throwing each other under thus bus to avoid being implicated? Because that certainly does not appear to be the actions of innocent people. Trump is rambling and raging incoherently on Twitter against Sessions, one of his strongest supporters. Don Jr. and Kushner are busy throwing each other under the bus. So, this is good times for us in the Topple Trump coalition! However, no rest for the weary. Our task is to throw as much political dynamite into this corrupt mess as possible, causing them all to turn on each other even more in shrieking paranoia and fear.

Trump goes after Sessions, something Republican senators will be watching, considering Sessions used to be one of them.

But now even some of Trumpworld’s oldest loyalists are feeling the tire marks. Jeff Sessions, for instance, made the grave mistake of following appropriate legal ethics procedures by recusing himself from an investigation into the Trump campaign, of which he was an active part. This simply would not do, and as Seth Meyers highlighted Thursday night, the president just gave him a little shove into traffic:

Kushner throws Don Jr. under the bus after Don Jr. threw Kushner under the bus.

But whatever the truth turns out to be on those fronts, what Kushner’s statement does not do is contest any of the known facts about that meeting — known facts that are deeply problematic for Trump Jr. and even for Trump himself. The meeting, at a minimum, shows that Trump Jr. was eager to collude with the Russian government, which, he had been told, was trying to get his father elected president. Kushner’s statement denies any collusion on his own part, and claims no awareness of any other collusion.

Office sleeping pod

Design students have created office furniture that allows serfs (excuse me, I meant “employees”) to take naps and sleep at work. Let’s unpack this, shall we?

First off, this is office space for supposed creatives only. Blue collar workers, back office drones, and other such lower caste unfortunates will have to make do with going home at night rather than being allowed to nap during the day then presumably working late. Which might actually be an advantage for them, come to think of it.

Have you ever been in an office where naps are allowed? Didn’t think so. The office design also offers little modules where you can grow plants and a bar. All of this is somehow supposed foster to “greater interaction between people by giving workers a chance to step away from work and exchange ideas in a more casual manner.” Call me crazy, but I’m pretty sure bosses are not going to be thrilled by employees stepping away from work while at work.

The pod sleeping quarters were “inspired by Japanese capsule hotels” which generally are used by salarymen working insane hours who get knee-walking drunk after work then pass out in a pod instead of going home. Gosh, what an inspiring way of life to emulate.

The real problem with all this is it assumes your job is your life. “Oh sorry Sally, that big project you’re working on needs to be done by Monday at 9 AM, so you’ll need to work all weekend and no need to drive home to sleep, you can sleep here.”

The image shows a Dark Web search for “heroin.” Lots of Dark Web marketplaces offer most any drug you want and it’s probably at least as reliable as skulking around alleys at night buying from a friend of a friend. Credit card numbers, Social Security numbers, guns, explosives, child porn, passwords to hacked accounts, and much more are also easily purchased. Online gambling is coming.

Does anyone think governments will allow this going forward? Especially since payments are made in supposedly untraceable cryptocurrencies, which to governments mean the distinct possibility of tax evasion and money laundering. No, they won’t. And it won’t matter if you are using VPNs and Tor to make your purchases using Bitcoin.

Yasha Levine, author of the upcoming Surveillance Valley, says while VPNs and Tor may give some safety, they do not give any if your laptop or iPhone have tracking software on them. And, as we all know from the Wikileaks dumps, NSA has written lots of such software. (Some of the recent ransomware attacks were based on NSA software and some of this software does indeed report home.)

Silk Road was the first big Dark Web marketplace to get shut down by the feds. Founder Ross Ulbricht is doing life without parole. Alphabay, which moved into the void left by Silk Road and became much bigger, just got taken down by law enforcement from three countries. Co-founder Alexandre Cazes was arrested in Thailand and hung himself in jail a few days ago.

So, do not think any of this is completely secure. It’s not. As for cryptocurrencies, governments will increasingly move to regulate and monitor them. Penalties will be imposed for unreported transactions (just like happens now when banks do not report transactions larger than $10,000.) Hiding money in cryptocurrencies is going to get considerably more difficult.

Other users noted that it still wasn’t clear how AlphaBay had been seized, given that its use of Tor and Bitcoin were meant to shield buyers, sellers, and admins from identification. For months, an extortionist had reportedly threatened to reveal the identity of one AlphaBay administrator, and even released identifying information about him after AlphaBay’s proctors sent him or her a hush-money payment. But dark web practitioners still have vague fears that law enforcement agencies found a method of breaking AlphaBay’s Tor protection–which potentially means sites like Dream Market and Hansa are vulnerable too. “It is frankly frightening,” one user wrote in response to news of the AlphaBay takedown.

Cryptocurrencies just zoom up in value. It’s awesome. A $5,000 cryptocurrency investment today could be worth twice that in a month! Meanwhile, old school losers speculate in boring currencies like the dollar, hoping for wee little gains. How lame is that? Plus cryptocurrencies are encrypted and hidden, so, bwa ha ha, no one knows what you are doing. You can use your cryptocurrency to buy drugs, guns, and mayhem on Dark Web sites like Alphabay. How totally great is that!

Oh wait, Alphabay just went dark (ha ha, a little pun there), shut down by law enforcement, and the presumed mastermind behind it just committed suicide in a Bangkok jail. So, the $3.5 million in cryptocurrency it had escrowed just vaporized.

But cryptocurrencies themselves are stable, right? Well, no, they skitter all over the place, screaming up in value then crashing spectacularly.

Ethereum has collapsed 52% in four weeks.
Ripple has collapsed 57% in seven weeks.
Bitcoin has plunged “only” 21% in one month.

Between these top three crypto coins, about $35 billion in “wealth” has returned to the ether in two months.

Be sure to get in on comically named Initial Coin Offerings where you can buy vapor. Nothing could go wrong.

EOS collapses 70% in eight days. Another illustrative example further down the list, the 11th largest crypto coin by market cap came out of nowhere on July 1 via an “Initial Coin Offering” – similar to an IPO but without regulations, required disclosures, filings, etc. It’s a free-for-all. Unlike an IPO, an ICO offers no ownership of the company. The tokens are all you get.

Jeez, if you want to buy drugs, guns, order dirty deeds done dirt cheap from the Dark Web then – wait for it – maybe the marketplace you use might be run by criminals too. Imagine that. Perhaps buyers who get ripped off purchasing heroin could notify law enforcement, oh, wait…

Alphabay, which can only be accessed using the Tor browswer went offline a week ago. The few statements from admins say it’s down for maintenance and server upgrades. A week is a very long time to be down for maintenance, especially with little no explanation.

Did I mention Alphabay escrows bitcoins payments while transactions are in progress and an unusual transaction ($3.4 million) could indicate it is moving large sums elsewhere?

Or maybe it got shut down by law enforcement or is being ransomed.

The largest criminal marketplace on the dark web, where users trade illegal drugs, guns and stolen bank details, has gone offline, with users fearing that they have been scammed.

The Alphabay site, which processed transactions worth $600,000 to $800,000 daily, including large volumes of UK deals, has been down since July 4, with speculation that the owners have pulled an “exit scam” to empty users’ accounts of bitcoins.

Experts say the closure may also be linked to searches last week by Canadian police working with the FBI.