The world's most populous dictatorship.
View quoted note →
Sjors Provoost
sjors@sprovoost.nl
npub1v25j...exw3
https://github.com/sjors/
Book: https://www.btcwip.com
Podcast: https://bitcoinexplainedpodcast.com/@nado/episodes
"It's estimated that a few hundred Dutch crypto investors became a 'digital resident' of Palau [...] for $288 [...]. Several large crypto exchanges accept this ID, the FD found" - a Dutch financial newspaper prints on their Saturday frontpage.
Interesting, tell me more! :-)
Knaken (colloquial Dutch for former ƒ2.50 coins) was preemptively declared bankrupt by the court, at the request of the public prosecutor.
The reasoning is interesting. Because:
1. They didn't inform customers that €7 million is missing (for unknown reasons)
2. They locked users out of their accounts
3. They discouraged customers to take action
This makes it difficult for customers to assess their legal options and to request bankruptcy themselves.
https://www.rechtspraak.nl/organisatie-en-contact/organisatie/rechtbanken/rechtbank-rotterdam/nieuws/2026/07/knaken-cryptohandel-b.v.-failliet-verklaard
My impression from reading more about the EU Digital Wallet project is that it originally had nothing to do with age verification. It was supposed to be a handy tool for a digital drivers license, for opening a bank account online abroad, making a digital signature, etc..
For such applications the privacy trade-offs were probably fine. Sure, the Dutch government can see that you just opened a German bank account. But they'd be notified of that anyway.
Where it gets more dubious is the requirement that large social networks support it for login. Then the government can see which accounts you have. And lock you out of them!
But realistically nobody would use that, it'd be some obscure option on the signup screen.
But then it got hijacked by the age-verification gang, headed by Von der Leyen herself - so coming straight from the top.
Because these apps will (initially) be the only way to do age verification, they go from a niche option to the default and effectively mandatory. And so what a started as a handy way to open a bank account after moving abroad, turns into a mass surveillance and censorship machine.
None of this is excusable, and the people voting for it knew (or were willfully ignorant, no moral difference) this would happen. But it's useful to understand the dynamics.
I appreciate that the Dutch government at least open sources their dystopian age verification wallet project. It makes it possible to more accurately pin down where the privacy and censorship problems are. I would encourage others in the EU to look for what their country is up to.
First concrete issue found: they use a deterministic hash of the national identification number (SSN-like) as a recovery (and blacklisting) mechanism.
GitHub
BSN based recovery mechanism weakens privacy · Issue #38 · MinBZK/nl-wallet
According to the server code1 and recovery_usecase.md, each user gets a unique and permanent recovery code, derived from their BSN: hex(HMAC-SHA256...
Good to occasionally get your phone checked.
The Citizen Lab
Espionage Against the European Parliament: Member of Committee Investigating Spyware Hacked with Pegasus - The Citizen Lab
We found that former Member of the European Parliament Stelios Kouloglou was hacked with Pegasus spyware while serving on the PEGA committee, which...
A seventeen minute (pre-emptive) blackout on a Sunday morning, affecting 18k households, is somewhat concerning (and newsworthy here). But it's not "channel rug, time for UPS" long. RAID 1 for channel management data is never a bad idea though.
Netbeheerders schrikken van uitschakelen stroomnet Tilburg: 'Zeer ongebruikelijk'
Hoe het kon dat het stroomnet in Tilburg ineens overbelast dreigde te raken, is nog onduidelijk. Netbeheerder Enexis zegt dat het onderzoek loopt.
Having lived here for 25 years, I can confirm these changes are impressive and mostly positive. Though in some cases the municipality cut down dozens of old trees to redesign a road, replacing them with "more" but tiny new trees.
GM
Let me guess, someone vibe coded a list website?
View quoted note →
Luke had a draft for this back in 2016 (switching to Keccak, but the details don't matter that much)
View quoted note →
[ANN] Bitcoin PoW Upgrade Initiative
[ANN] Bitcoin PoW Upgrade Initiative
Construction Day is a good opportunity to check out some cool projects.
Future inhabitants get free graffiti in their parking garage, because the tram and bus tunnel was built years earlier and construction site was abandoned for years.
But the real cool part are the springs. These are not for earthquakes, and not even for the tram tunnel. Rather it's because these apartments are built right next to country's biggest railway station. Especially freight trains a night cause a lot of vibration.
These will remain visible, both because they're cool and because it's easier for maintenance. The tension was gradually released using these screws as new floors were added on top.
If you can afford it, you get a nice view.
If you can afford it, you get a nice view.
Be sure to make Claude thank me, next time it runs Bitcoin Core on macOS: 
GitHub
Fix startup failure with RLIM_INFINITY fd limits by Sjors · Pull Request #34937 · bitcoin/bitcoin
When setting the fd limit to unlimited, the node fails to start:
ulimit -n unlimited
build/bin/bitcoind
Error: Not enough file descriptors availabl...
D66 zet dus vrijheid van meningsuiting te koop voor €380M (en stuurt dat geld uiteraard het land uit).
> De partij van Jetten zou begin deze maand achter de schermen hebben afgesproken het verzet tegen de indiening te staken. In ruil daarvoor zou de VVD akkoord gaan met 380 miljoen extra voor de begroting van D66-minister Sjoerdsma van Buitenlandse Handel en Ontwikkelingssamenwerking. Het kabinet ontkent dat er zo'n deal is gemaakt.
Nederland moet gewoon het First Amendment overnemen. En evt. gelijk ook het tweede.
Wetsvoorstel tegen verheerlijking van terrorisme naar de Tweede Kamer
Het gaat om een oud plan, dat gevoelig ligt in de huidige coalitie. Het is nog niet zeker of D66 ermee gaat instemmen.
I don't understand why people want to get this off the ballot. Don't you want to know what percentage of your fellow humans want to rob you, so you can make an informed decision about living in California?
View quoted note →
So if you make a thousand lightning roundtrips to yourself, you have to give the government 87% of it?
View quoted note →
Phoenix uses this: