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Beautyon
npub1ccsf...dc57
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beautyon 3 months ago
“Important: Google is locking down Android. Starting Sept 2026, every app — even outside the Play Store — must come from a verified developer. No more anonymous sideloads. No quick comebacks for malware gangs. First up: Brazil, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand.” And no indefinite access for illegal and anonymous messaging apps, especially ones with the scary hacker chic graphic design. Protocols have no utility without apps to leverage them. You can bury your head in the sand all you want; the facts remain the same. You can’t have a global scale permissionless ecosystem without the explicit permission of Apple and Google. And if your aim is to change the world, you need global scale adoption to do it. That means unfettered access to be able to have your tools installed on the phones of anyone who wants that tool. This is true also of bitcoin. Bitcoin can’t change the world unless easy access to it is made available to billions of users. Running away from this fact doesn’t make it go away; this fact must be confronted head on and the problem solved. The only question is this: are you contributing to the solution of the problem or not? Or are you acting as a safety valve giving encouragement to people who don’t really understand the problem, so that they feel good today and divert their energy to something which cannot possibly win in the end and, leave us in a better world.
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beautyon 4 months ago
The Durov case and many other reasons are why companies avoid basing themselves in France. No Social Media platform will seek to headquarter in Paris. It’s unthinkable. And the French government can’t go after Andrew Torba who runs GAB because he’s an American operating GAB in America. If GAB launches end to end encrypted chat or anything the Z French government doesn’t like, there’s nothing they can do about it. The solution to “government overreach” is not building systems that can’t be cracked or stopped; they’re persecuting Durov without any proper cause. If your name is associated with a tool that the French government can’t stop or crack or track, they will come after you. This isn’t about right and wrong, following rules or logic. This is not about technical capabilities or clever architecture, “frenz”; this is about computer illiterate tyrants who can’t understand detail or scale or ethics, and if they can, don’t care, because they want to sacrifice Durov to scare everyone. The next iteration in this is to criminalise the authoring and distribution of unlicensed privacy software. The first part, distribution, will stop ordinary people from accessing Telegram or any tool that keeps messages private. This is easily done through Google Play and the Apple App Store. The second will totally dry up the developer pool of people working on privacy software, because none of them want any trouble. Oh, and GitHub will ban your repo, frenz. Before you write “Hello World” in your new tool, you will need to have a Developer’s License before starting work, even in the conceptual stage. It will be illegal for you to share any design, algorithm or outline without both you and the idea recipient having a current Crypto Software Development License. If you think this is completely impossible, please see Bernstein v. US Department of Justice https://medium.com/swlh/why-america-cant-regulate-bitcoin-8c77cee8d794 The answer to this is not “build your way out of it”, obviously. The answer is to first curb the power of the state to persecute software development and distribution before you write “Hello World”. You do that by making the State smaller. You make the state smaller by instantiating sound money. That means globalising Bitcoin. And how do you “globalise Bitcoin?” 10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1….. And in case you didn’t know, rote recitation of catchphrases and infantile feel good gibberish will not stop the persecution of Durov, remove KYC in Bitcoin or stop the emergence of Crypto Developer Licensing.
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beautyon 4 months ago
For those of you alive in the early days of the iPhone, you may remember a tool called "Cydia". This tool was in fact the first "App Store" for iPhone. Cydia was written by Jay Freeman (Saurik) in 2008 and was for jailbroken iPhones. It allowed users to install apps, tweaks, and modifications not available on Apple's App Store, all from developers without Apple's approval. Jailbreaking your iPhone meant that you had essentially full control over it, including being able to run a root shell on it, no restrictions whatsoever; it was just like a UNIX machine in your hand. Knowing this (and I've said it before) anyone interested in having an iPhone and Android ecosystem where users are transformed into owners of their devices, requires a new class of App Store not owned by Google or Apple, and that is very popular. There are App Stores for Android other than Google, but they're not as popular as the Google Play Store, and that's not surprising at all, because no normal person is interested in it leaving the fenced area. That being said, it should be possible with the proper marketing to create an ecosystem that can compete with the "Two Party State" of Google and Apple. This would solve many of the problems caused by large companies run by people unconcerned by Ethics and user's rights and lives. In this new ecosystem, for example, it would not be possible to have a bitcoin wallet banned, or removed. If all of this is true (and it is) then the question becomes why has no one picked up on the threat of App Store removal of Bitcoin Wallets, and why have they not acted to either create a new default App Store ecosystem or boosted an existing Alternative App Store ecosystem with a large cash injection? There are plenty to choose from: - Amazon Appstore - APKMirror - APKPure - Aptoide - F-Droid - Huawei AppGallery - Samsung Galaxy Store - GetJar - Uptodown - SlideME - Aurora Store - AppBrain - Mobogenie - QooApp - 9Apps - Xiaomi GetApps - Tencent MyApp - Itch.io - ACMarket - TapTap Obviously Huawei, Xiaomi, all China based stores sand Amazon can be excluded as alternatives, but what they demonstrate by existing is that alternative App Stores that potentially serve billions of people are possible to create, so why bother whining to Google when you can just build your own and solve the problem forever? And you're even more without excuse if you already have access to billions of people through existing business and user relationships to jump start a new ecosystem. Upon launch of this ecosystem, it would mean that every developer of Bitcoin Wallets for Android would be delisted from Google only to re-appear on the new "Liberty App Store Library" where they are published with the features the developers desire and used on terms acceptable to both user and developer. How hard can it be? One thing is for sure; simply complaining about Google trying to kill Bitcoin Wallets is not going to change anything. And obviously every Android app developer would flock to this new ecosystem to publish their apps so that more people would download them. It would grow almost by itself. As for the Apple App Store, well...I guess if they go through with banning Bitcoin Apps, if you want to use Bitcoin your own way, you have to get a 'Droid. Sigh..."The price of freedom!" image
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beautyon 4 months ago
This is exactly like banning SSL for all applications where the owner of the user's app isn't identified. The French tried to impose this in the 1990s, but once SSL was everywhere, it was impossible for France to implement it, despite building a regulatory and storage framework to register all SSL private keys. SSL keys can be generated at will almost instantly by anyone without any technical skill. It happens every time you install a browser or set up a server. Sound familiar? That's what happens when you download and open a Bitcoin Wallet. It's exactly the same in nature. Now an absurd ban is proposed for Bitcoin wallets, and it's pretty obvious this would happen in the, "Then they fight you" stage. This is why I've been harping on about spreading bitcoin everywhere as quickly as possible, so that it becomes a global default that cannot be revoked without killing the internets. This is also why I've been working to re-contextualize bitcoin away from what people mistake it for to something more like what it actually is. No one thinks SSL is "encryption"; they think it is "security". Similarly if people think bitcoin is money, then they will think about it as if it is money, as if you "receive" bitcoin, and all other money analogies. If this false categorization by Google of Bitcoin wallets doesn't go through, the next attempt surely will. Unfortunately, people with power can't seem to understand long term strategic thinking in this area, despite the history of Public Key Encryption tool adoption being widely known. A necessary prerequisite to bitcoin being everywhere is the distribution of it to billions of people. That's what we're doing at Azteco. When we succeed in doing this, bitcoin will be a common as SSL Certs in your browser. And no, it will not be enough to simply build tools that use bitcoin; you can't use bitcoin without getting it, and that is the task many people simply run away from rather than confront head on. Things that seem to be very large, very bad problems can be completely eliminated. Faketoshi is the most recent example, but there have been many others, like the RSA Munitions Export case. Bitcoin can win and come out unscathed. It will take dedication to make it happen and people who can think for themselves and make up their own minds about what sort of future they want to be a part of building for mankind. The bitcoin distribution problem is being effectively solved by Azteco, with 700m people being given access to bitcoin in a way that no real bitcoiner could possibly oppose. It didn't take many people to solve the big problems; technical ones like Public Key Cryptography, PGP (Zimmerman), Bitcoin (Satoshi), BitTorrent (Bram Cohen) and many others. Your only question for yourself is this, "Am I a part of the solution or the problem?". And if you think you can build a paralell society on App Store Apps that will help billions of people, you are completely delusional. If App stores can ban Bitcoin wallets, they can ban your sneaky chat app, which, because it doesn't mediate bitcoin, can't change the world, and even if it could mediate bitcoin transactions, cant do so unless people can get bitcoin to use on it, and if they can, that will surely cause an App store ban, because it will be an "Unlicensed Bitcoin Wallet", however they want to define that. At some point, as has been in the past, a problem must be solved directly. With SSL, it was the rapid proliferation of browsers and the browser as the default interface to all eCommerce. The same thing needs to happen with Bitcoin; bitcoin must be the default way billions of people spend online, and the way to do that is to seed the global population with small amounts of bitcoin. When commercial interests merge with the interests of billions of people, you get a platform that completely resists arbitrary change that doesn't serve the people's or commercial interests. This is what must happen with bitcoin, and it can happen, and happen very rapidly. image
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beautyon 4 months ago
The hat that Matt Odell is wearing is from the VC company Ten31. Unlike bitcoiner larpers, who whine about KYC and do nothing about it, like supporting businesses that don't KYC to supply you sats, Matt's company Ten31 invested in Samourai Wallet, showing that at least he puts his money where his mouth is, and it's not all LARPing. If you want a world without Internet IDs and a bitcoin ecosystem that is KYC free from end to end, you should be like Matt, who invests in and promotes companies that are doing the hard work to make the world you want a reality. What you do not do is sit on the sidelines and refuse to even speak about the brave people like William Burroughs and Keyonne Rodriguez who are building the systems that are provably what people want. I say, "provably" because hundreds of millions of dollars worth of bitcoin was mediated by Samourai wallet users and its beautiful tools. At the end of the day, there needs to be a small, dedicated, stubborn number of people like Matt, William Burroughs and Keyonne Rodriguez who are willing to stick their necks out and do whatever they can to grow the Ethical Bitcoin Ecosystem. What is intolerable and inexcusable is burying your head in the sand...like an ostrich. It is already proven that the small number of fanatical coders and capitalists have the power to change everything. This is why GPG exists, why GNU/LINUX exists, why WhatsApp and Signal exist and why bitcoin, Samourai and other tools exist. Someone has to do the work, someone has to promote the tools, someone has to rise to the challenge. The perpetually giggling, unserious, threadbare, faddish, cowardly, distracted, unintelligent, eloiesque, "Main Character Syndrome" actors who are too frightened to even say the name "Samourai Wallet" are collaborators with the system they claim to despise and be against. For all of this, bitcoin will succeed and usher in the world these people are too frightened to talk about and don't even know they need. They rejected fiat reluctantly (and this is not their fault; they're the victims of the State), but once seeing its fundamental flaw, should naturally have been radicalized, but were not. Oh well...you can't have everything... OR CAN YOU? image
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beautyon 1 year ago
Unbelievable. Two groups are now reinventing email, Elon and Nostr. You’ve got to be kidding.
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beautyon 1 year ago
When most people got online through AOL or Compuserve, “The Internet” meant those services. In 2024, people think Bitcoin is Coinbase. If you know your history, you know what’s coming next. image
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beautyon 1 year ago
The Economist: Trash as usual. The Economist is staffed by imbecile liars who can't face the truth. Bitcoin exists through the thought and work of the lofty idealists who wrote it and work with it, and liars at the Economist, who can't even put their names to their own words don't understand those ideals even in the abstract. We know that they're wrong because we're working on Azteco, which will fulfill the lofty goals of b(B)itcoin. And the fact that they use the word "crypto" shows straight away that they're pig ignorant imbeciles. There is no such thing as "crypto" or "digital assets" and there is less hyperbole now because the future predicted by me and others is coming to pass, and is just normal and not speculation. This has nothing to do with "investors" whose investments mean nothing without the complete fulfillment of our predictions; chiefly that bitcoin becomes money at every scale. Bitcoiners don't wear Patagonia gilets either; its Barbour shooting jackets, lads. What a bunch of idiots they are. They're why Britain is FAILING and will continue to FAIL, and they will deserve everything they get; RELEGATION to HISTORY'S LOSERS and YESTERDAY'S MEN. https://archive.is/LsNYN P.S. Someone sent me this, and so you have to read it now, and my reply to them. Aren't you special?
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beautyon 1 year ago
"The browser wars teach us something crucial about business today: Innovation isn't just about technology." This is a lesson that has yet to penetrate bitcoin. Innovation is not just about technology or threat modeling; it's about serving people. Software and technology (two separate things) are there to serve people, not to exist in absentia of people. Bitcoin's underlying innovations must be abstracted and humanized in the same way that Netscape humanized the World Wide Web, which previously was accessed by tools like the CERN browsers. Thinking that bitcoin is "an asset" or "digital gold" is like believing the World Wide Web is "A Global Digital Library", and it's the same class of people making this miscategorization, in a field that has the same or greater potential to change everything. Imagine trying to imagine Twitter, or Flickr or Signal or WhatsApp or the iPhone...or bitcoin in the early days of the web. It's literally impossible, and for most, unthinkable. So many innovations have been compounding on each other, where we are today would be literally incomprehensible to a man in the 1990s using a text based browser to search an HTML document. The same thing is happening with bitcoin. The future of bitcoin is incomprehensible to the normal man, even people immersed in software as a service and "Tech", because bitcoin touches something fundamental to their lives: Money. And because a very large, very complex software and hardware infrastructure is now in place the rate of change of innovation is much faster than it was in the 1990s and the bottom of the column in the pillar of innovators is very wide, with many innovators working at every scale. In a situation like this, innovations can emerge very rapidly, and if the conditions are right, spread globally at light speed. Sadly, many people "in the space" are of limited imagination and threadbare in their knowledge of the history of the Internets, crippling their expectations and making it almost impossible to spot the next big thing before everyone else is talking about it and it's too embarrassing for them to admit they still, "don't get it". Because the base of the pillar is so wide and powerful, these ignorant people cannot stop what's coming next, and key to this is the Open Source software movement and ecosystem, removing the licensing woes and barriers that used to plague software companies. Did you know that an evil company had the "Patent" for, "The other person is typing"? If you wanted to use that feature in your software, having written it yourself, you could be sued by that company and it's evil founder. I'll leave you to guess who it was...but I digress... Bitcoin has a long way to go, and if you listen to the Wall Street Wonks to get your contextualization of it, you will be a loser. And no one wants that...do they?