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In this holiday episode I met up with super early Bitcoin adopter Brad Mills (https://twitter.com/bradmillscan) to discuss the strange new world we're entering as Bitcoin reaches new all-time highs, and the global financial system enters a period of unprecedented stress. Why were the very first Bitcoiners drawn to Bitcoin, before anyone else believed in it? Could there be common characteristics amongst these earliest adopters which might make them a strange kind of community? What is the world they'd like to see Bitcoin bring about? And, perhaps most important, how will the world change with a bunch of newly minted, left-libertarian billionaires looking to shake things up? We were supposed to discuss the Weird World of DeFi, but that's gonna have to wait for a future episode because we got sidetracked discussing Brad's interesting history, what led him to Bitcoin, and the strange future implied by a bunch of wild-eyed libertarians running around as freshly minted millionaires. I hope you enjoy the episode!

In this episode, I met Emerson Brooking, (https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/expert/emerson-t-brooking/) a fellow at the Digital Forensics Lab and author of LikeWar (https://www.amazon.com/LikeWar-Weaponization-P-W-Singer-ebook/dp/B0795FB3ZY) , to take a deep dive into the topic of online disinformation. I put to Emerson my feelings that what people are calling the 'post-truth' world has in fact been in gestation long before the internet, and that a lot of the arguments about today's epistemic disorder come down to sour grapes over the apparition of new information incumbents capable of creating and distributing disorderly narratives, at scale. His responses surprised me. If you're interested in digging deeper into this topic, you can check out the latest episode of my new documentary project, SCHISM, at http://youtube.com/SCHISM, or follow the link in the show notes. Now, on with the show.

In this episode, we meet Alex Kehaya (https://twitter.com/afkehaya?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor) of VPN Orchid (https://www.orchid.com/) to discuss the company's radical new decentralized approach to improving privacy for internet users. As you'll hear, Orchid's model solves a lot of the problems associated with traditional models —  providing better anonymity and privacy, and reduced exposure to the honeypot problem that's always plagued centralized services.  This episode will be of great interest to anyone looking to augment their online privacy without relying on a single centralized service — and the potential for decentralization to improve our digital lives.

In this episode, journalist and writer Joseph Menn discuss the seminal hacking crew Cult Of The Dead Cow. CoDC was one of the key forces behind the creations of 'hacktivism', which tries to contribute political change via formal and informal hacking operations. Of particular interest here is how CoDC's work has more than occasionally dovetailed with American foreign policy -- especially with regards to China. Joseph Menn is on Twitter @JosephMenn (https://twitter.com/josephmenn) , and his book on the Cult Of The Dead Cow (https://www.amazon.com/Cult-Dead-Cow-Original-Supergroup/dp/154176238X) is available at all good bookshops.

In this episode, we talk to Troy Murray (https://twitter.com/Danny_Desert) about snglsDAO (https://snglsdao.io/) : a BitTorrent and blockchain-based system for distributing and monetizing video content, the crazy amounts of money SingularDTV (https://www.singulardtv.com/) raised in their ICO, and why the ICO system seems to have provided a bad incentive to develop actual products. Find out how snglsDAO is intending to take power away from centralized services like YouTube, why that goal suddenly seems incredibly urgent, and why a Distributed Autonomous Organization is the right way to go about it.

In this episode Jamie talks with Evan Henshaw Plath, aka @rabble (https://twitter.com/rabble) , about how he sees the world during and after Covid-19 - and the role for decentralised technologies, bitcoin, and survivable communication systems in whatever comes next. Evan's currently building Verse (https://verse.app/) , a social network built on the Scuttlebutt protocol.

In this episode, we meet up with Audrey Tang, Taiwan's Digital Minister, to discuss how Taiwan eliminated Covid-19 with only 7 deaths (https://www.wlns.com/news/taiwan-was-so-ready-for-the-pandemic-that-it-only-had-7-deaths/) . Find out how information technology was instrumental in Taiwan's success, from helping source and distribute masks, to enabling citizen engagement through direct democracy. And finally, we dig into how this ongoing experiment with direct democracy in Taiwan has helped avoid the deadly plague of conspiracy theories, social polarization, and what some people are now calling the 'epistemic crisis' we're experiencing in the West.

In this episode, I talked with Ben Buchanan (https://gufaculty360.georgetown.edu/s/contact/00336000014U0TKAA0/ben-buchanan) author of The Hacker And The State (https://www.amazon.com/Hacker-State-Attacks-Normal-Geopolitics/dp/0674987551) . We look at Ben's research into 'Shadow Brokers' (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shadow_Brokers) , the mysterious hacker group who first appeared in the summer of 2016,  attempting to auction off a treasure trove of previously unknown NSA exploits. We discuss the hackers' tense relationship with the media, possible suspects including Kaspersky Labs, and motivations Shadow Brokers may have had beyond their claims that it was 'all about the Bitcoins'.

In this episode, returning guest Abhistha (https://people.utwente.nl/s.abhishta) -- now Assistant Professor in network security at the University of Utwente  -- digs into his latest research on the real economic impact of distributed denial-of-service (DDOS) attacks such as the Mirai botnet (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirai_(malware)) . With the internet-of-things continuing to grow as an attack surface, and compromised devices increasing both in number and processing capacity, we take an in-depth look at the underground economics of botnets -- and why some large corporations may not be owning up to the true extent of the threat to their bottom line.

In this episode we meet Rich Myer (https://twitter.com/remyers_) s of mesh networking company GoTenna (https://gotenna.com) . Rich is developing the Lot49 (https://globalmeshlabs.org/files/Lot49%20Protocol%20Whitepaper%20-%20DRAFT%200.8.5_20190611.pdf) protocol, which both allows Lightning transactions over a local mesh network, and uses Bitcoin incentives to increase adoption of the network. Rich and I discuss the history of wireless networking and how P2P meshes could turn out to be critical in a time of crisis; why and to what extent we can consider our contemporary networks compromised through what Rich calls 'The Eye of Sauron' problem; and how Lot49 enables an internet-minimized micropoayments soltuion which could function in a distressed, post-Covid environment. 

In this episode, I talk to Sean Moss Pultz, CEO of Bitmark Inc. -- a company focused on enabling personal data sovereignty through blockchain technology. We discuss Bitmark's journey and the company's latest pivot to Spring, an app that helps users extract personal data from Facebook and put it to work in all kinds of interesting ways. We discuss Sean's thoughts on data sovereignty and data rights as a critical civics issue and look in detail at how Spring wants to empower a new level of control over personal data, providing a much-needed counterweight to big platforms who regard our information as their intellectual property. During these uncertain times, I'd love to connect with listeners more than ever. For that reason I'm temporarily opening the Patreon discord to anyone who wants to join -- just email me at jamie@stealthisshow.com and I'll send you an invite. At times like this, we all benefit from exchanging information and ideas about what we should be doing and how to survive whatever comes next.

This episode features returning guest Sam Woolley, whose new book 'The Reality Game,' examines the new frontiers of 'fake news' and the idea that the next wave of technology will 'break the truth'. We discuss the state of the art in propaganda bots, delve further into the Russian strategy of producing 'controlled instability' through ongoing, widespread informational attacks such as political bots, and talk about the rise of institutional distrust, which may well prove disastrous in the context of the current pandemic. I hope you are doing okay during this tough period. During these uncertain times I'd love to connect with listeners more than ever. For that reason I'm temporarily opening the Patreon discord to anyone who wants to join -- just email me at jamie@stealthisshow.com (mailto:jamie@stealthisshow.com) and I'll send you an invite. At times like this we all benefit from exchanging information and ideas about what we should be doing and how to survive whatever comes next.

In this Stolen Headlines, we invite show supporters Tim Reutemann (https://www.bravenewworld.nl/Speakers/tim-reutemann/) and Mendel Skulski (https://ca.linkedin.com/in/mendel-skulski-5b303638) to discuss Coronavirus - how various world governments have responded so far, and the role information technology has played in detecting, containing and eradicating the disease. Tim introduces the informal hackathon he's initiated along with this wife, as a platform for people to do something about the virus. We discuss: how Taiwan has approached containing Coronavirus, and whether the surveillance provisions set up in order to contain the disease could persist after it's resolved. And we argue about whether modern, data-driven totalitarian societies like China are proving themselves more efficient than free-market economies in addressing Coronavirus, and whether this points to any unexpected advantages this new state form may have over the Western model in the future. Tim brought the stolen headlines for this show (via Google Translate). The first piece we discuss looks at how the first Swiss citizens became infected with the virus and how the Swiss government has responded to the infection.  (https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nzz.ch%2Fschweiz%2Fcoronavirus-so-infizierten-sich-die-ersten-50-schweizer-ld.1544556) The second is a detailed reflection from blogger Alex Kunz on his experience of Coronavirus in Taiwan.  (https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Falexkunztaipei.wordpress.com%2F2020%2F03%2F06%2Fwie-ich-die-coronavirus-epidemie-covid-19-in-taiwan-erlebe%2F) Joey & Tim's Coronavirus Hackathon is organizing itself via Discord. There's already a couple of investors staking cash to help the best ideas get realised. If you'd like to help out, you're welcome to join -- you'll also find me there! Come say hi at: https://discord.gg/tfsCfk2

This conversation centers around Bitcoin - its past, present and future. Cedric Dahl's 1000x group (https://1000x.group/) , which describes itself as a 'private think tank' focused on finding black swans (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_swan_theory) in the world of open and distributed protocols, has a thesis that Bitcoin is on the verge of 'superdominance' in which its value could multiply by a thousand or more from where it is right now. We discuss various evidence for this, from Bitcoin's increasing dominance as the key currency of the darknet, to a surge in coin-mixing on the Wasabi network (https://www.coindesk.com/leadership-shakeup-at-wasabi-wallet-as-bitcoin-business-surges) and the possibility that asymmetrically disadvantaged nation states may be hoarding Bitcoin in order to tip the balance of power in their favour should a 'hyper-bitcoinization (https://nakamotoinstitute.org/mempool/hyperbitcoinization/) ' scenario arise. Find out just when Cedric thinks the tipping point for that event might occur, and why the US Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) is serious enough about this kind of 'black swan' bitcoin situation to to be sponsoring a study (https://www.zintellect.com/Opportunity/Details/ICPD-2020-02) on just what the world would look like if the U.S. dollar lost its status as the world’s reserve currency. 

 In this episode, we meet Andy Greenberg (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Greenberg) , senior writer at Wired Magazine and author of Sandworm, A New Era of Cyberwar and the Hunt for the Kremlin’s Most Dangerous Hacker (https://andygreenberg.net/) . We how Russia is developing a secret hacking programme with the ability to take out national infrastructure across the world -- and how, under a new paradigm of 'total war', essential elements of our lived environment are increasingly vulnerable to digital attack -- from banking to electricity to transport systems and beyond. Find out why Russia may now be trying to export the 'controlled instability' it has produced in Ukraine to the West, and how this could provide the country with an unprecedented 'asymmetric' military upper hand. 

In this episode, I met Hugo Fruehauf (https://qeprize.org/winners/hugo-fruehauf) , one of the inventors of GPS, the global positioning system underpinning an enormous number of the technologies we rely on today. We dig into how GPS works, and how much of our world depends on it -- from cellphone networks to financial markets and the electric grid....  and the multiple attacks against it by spoofers and jammers.

We are living in a world eaten by software -- software created, owned and operated by Silicon Valley. In this episode, Jamie meets Margaret O' Mara (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_O'Mara) , author of 'The Code: Silicon Valley and the Remaking of America' (https://www.amazon.com/Code-Silicon-Valley-Remaking-America/dp/0399562184) to discuss how Silicon Valley's rejection of the conventional bureaucracies and corporate structures, its turning away from the mainframe towards a decentralized attitude to innovations and development, led to a huge new empire -- one that is radically restructuring the world's institutions.

In this episode Jamie meets up with John P. Carlin (https://www.mofo.com/people/john-carlin.html) , author of Dawn of the Code War (https://www.amazon.com/Dawn-Code-War-Americas-Against-ebook/dp/B079M8813N) and former Assistant Attorney General for the U.S. Department of Justice’s National Security Division to discuss the ongoing network war with China -- one that's about to ratchet up, as 5G connects billions of devices via a technology heavily dependent on China's Huawei. What does it mean to wage war in the era of distributed networks? How do networks change the very idea of 'Command and Control' towards leaderless, non-hierarchical memetic structures? We dig into crowdsourced terrorism' of Al Qaeda (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Qaeda) and look at some similarities with Anonymous and the QAnon (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QAnon) phenomenon. Finally, we discuss the widespread idea that there's a kind of break with authority going on in the online era—what could be described as an 'epistemological crisis' created by our hyper-informational environment—one that's being exploited and amplified by various lords of chaos to create new and unpredictable political realities.

In this episode of Stolen Headlines, Tim, Mattias and Jamie get together to discuss how 8Chan came to influence White House policy; why in China, the Little Red Book *reads you*; and the array of Silicon Valley companies caving to China's stringent censorship demands. Links: https://www.dailydot.com/layer8/qanon-ukraine-server/ https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/chinese-app-allows-officials-access-to-100-million-users-phone-report-2115962 https://www.businessinsider.com/tech-companies-censoring-content-for-china-apple-microsoft-2019-10?r=US&IR=T Stolen Headlines is created in the STEAL THIS SHOW Discord channel, in collaboration with the show's patrons. Join us and get involved: https://patreon.com/stealthisshow.

In Fighting For The Perimeter: Huawei & The 5G Surveillance Empire (https://stealthisshow.com/s04e16/) . I looked at 5G as a new global surveillance surface, one largely dependent on Huawei, a company run by ex-officer of China's military. Using the documentary American Factory (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Factory) as a springboard, this episode looks at how and why the West has allowed a strategic adversary to occupy key elements of its economic infrastructure. Transnational capital was supposed to create a world of free-market democracies. Instead, China has used the free market system to maintain and grow itself into a dominant ‘command economy’, based on a highly technologized form of authoritarian capitalism.  What are the consequences of hooking up our factories, nuclear power production, and networking infrastructure to a Chinese state which is openly seeking empire and hegemony?    This is a kind of precursor to the next episode in this sequence, which will look at the role information technology is playing in the success of China’s centralised command economy. Why might a state based on centralised control succeed, in today's digital environment, where others in the past have failed?

This is part one of a two-part interview with Finn Brunton (https://steinhardt.nyu.edu/people/finn-brunton) , author of 'Digital Cash: The Unknown History of the Anarchists, Utopians, and Technologists Who Created Cryptocurrency' (https://www.amazon.com/Digital-Cash-Anarchists-Technologists-Cryptocurrency-ebook/dp/B07MDHTPB9) . In this part we dig into the secret pre-history of Bitcoin, including the World War 2 origins of public/private key cryptography, how Proof Of Work was initially proposed as a means to fight spam,  and how the 'Extropian' (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extropianism) movement - which, Finn explains, stood for 'more life, more energy, more time, more space, more money... more everything! - collected an uncanny number of the early engineers contributing to what would eventually become Bitcoin. If there's one key takeaway from this episode, it's that there's no one Satoshi Nakamoto (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satoshi_Nakamoto) -- Bitcoin's a bricolage of math, technology and ingenuity stretching back at least seventy years. Do any of the Extropians who had themselves cryogenically preserved, we wonder, have bitcoin wallets still till accruing value -- and will they still be able to recall their word seeds when they're brought back to life in a hundred years' time?

In this episode, we meet anthropologist Joshua Reno (https://binghamton.academia.edu/JoshuaReno) , author of 'Military Waste: The Unexpected Consequences of Permanent War Readiness' (https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520316027/military-waste) to discuss Josh's investigations into the strange externalities of rapidly proliferating military technology, both on planet Earth and beyond. Join us to discover Point Nemo, the so-called "oceanic pole of inaccessibility,” and graveyard of the world's downed orbital tech;  why future war really will be fought in space; how ‘Oumuamua’ (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%CA%BBOumuamua) may be the first instance of interstellar landfill; and how hackers are repurposing abandoned orbital technology using ham radio and rented satellite dishes.

In this episode of Stolen Headlines, Jamie hangs out with patrons Tim Reutemann and Mattias Rubensson to discuss: why the phony Marxist Greek government is evicting horizontally organized refugee shelters; how centralised statism is leading to bad software choices in Sweden; and why it doesn't matter whether Craig Wright is actually Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of Bitcoin. 

This is part two of our interview with Audrey Tang, Digital Minister of Taiwan. We discuss the technology behind the Sunflower Movement,  which radicalized democracy in the country, and how the Taiwanese government is using Free Software such as Discourse and Polis to enable its ongoing real-time experiment in direct democracy. Audrey explains the inspiration provided by Bowling Green Civic Assembly, the so-called 'online to offline' model in which a virtual decision-making process helped inform and structure a traditional town hall's agenda.   We dig into Taiwan's evolving approach to participatory democracy, focusing on Audrey's notion of 'conservative anarchy' and the fascinating idea that ordinary people actually share far more consensus than anyone realizes. What could be achieved if we focused policy-making energy on the stuff we can all agree on?

In this second installment of Stolen Headlines, cybersecurity experts Sean Lynch and Adam Burns discuss why Peter Thiel thinks Google's co-operation with China on AI is treasonous; how governments around the world are increasingly employing internet shutdowns as a political tool; and what to do about the fact that Android is increasingly rife with malware.   https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/01/opinion/peter-thiel-google.html https://www.accessnow.org/keepiton/

This is the first of a two-part interview with Audrey Tang, Digital Minister of Taiwan. We discuss Taiwan's 2014 Sunflower Student Movement, which marked the first time the country's legislature has been occupied by citizens, and which led to a radical new phase for Taiwanese democracy.  How have digital networks facilitated the emergence of horizontal power and leaderless organization in Taiwan? Is the continuous participation in Taiwan's ongoing experiment in direct democracy responsible for reducing online trolling and creating constructive digital communities there? And how has the Taiwanese experience, from Sunflower onwards, pointed the way to what's happening right now, in Hong Kong's own Umbrella movement?

This is the pilot episode of a new format in which Jamie discusses the news with invited patrons and guests.  In this episode, author and climate consultant Tim Reutemann (https://www.bravenewworld.nl/Speakers/tim-reutemann/) and ex-NSA analyst and NewGeld CEO Tim Ofril discuss: why NSA is getting a new Cybersecurity division; the latest advancements with CRISPR and potential IP problems; and Github's censoring of users impacted by US sanctions -- just another sign of the increasing politicization of online platforms. Links to items discussed on this show: https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/crispr-gene-editing-blindness-1.5226163 https://www.digitalmunition.me/nsa-to-establish-new-cybersecurity-directorate-to-boost-defense/ https://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-owned-github-reportedly-blocking-people-in-crimea-iran-sanction-2019-7?r=US&IR=T

In this episode we meet Sean Tilley (aka @deadsuperhero) of We Distribute (and formerly the Diaspora project) to discuss: early days at Diaspora, the first Facebook alternative to really reach critical mass;  the steady rise of Mastodon and why the Fediverse its gaining traction; some surprising factors pushing  people to move from Big Social to federated social media networks; and whether technologists could (or should) move beyond de-platforming to begin refusing use of their technologies to those whose political ideas they disagree with. 

This is the second part of a two-part interview with Tim Tayshun, bitcoin entrepeneur and activist, who dedicated himself to exposing the crypto ponzi scheme, OneCoin. We discuss: how the internet changed the business of running a ponzi; the simlarities between scams like OneCoin and the crypto world's ICOs; how OneCoin modeled the way it moved money and on methods used by drug dealers; how Tim used memes to deal some deadly blows to the operation; and why Onecoin -- which by its own account should now be worth more than all US dollars in circulation --- still refuses to die.

In this episode we meet Josephine Wolff, author of a new book on financial and economic cybercrime, You'll See This Message When It Is Too Late (https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/youll-see-message-when-it-too-late) .  We discuss two important case studies from the book. First, GameOver Zeus (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gameover_ZeuS) - a massive financial fraud botnet which innovated by using P2P to distribute its command and control infrastructure, and a network of money mules to route funds to its owners, making it extremely hard to detect. The evolution of this botnet in response to Bitcoin demonstrates how cryptocurrency has produced a real paradigm shift in cybercrime - not least in shifting the financial impact of the crime onto the individuals and away from credit card companies and banks. Moving on to the case of PLA 61398 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PLA_Unit_61398) , we discuss the Chinese deployment of hacking resources for economic advancement via China's so-called APT or Advanced Persistent Threat Units. What started with phishing attacks on the email accounts of company offices eventually obtained -- via privilege escalation -- intelligence on pricing, methods, and enough information to tip the balance on crucial trade negotiations. What I found most interesting of all here is that the way China responded to detection shows that it brooks no distinction between political and economic espionage, or America's idea of what is 'okay' and 'not-okay' digital spying. Wrapping up, we discuss the question of international law and order in the context of massive, distributed cyber operations that remain extremely hard to detect and police. Will  multinationals be forced into service as proxies for international co-operation at state level, and into taking responsibility as intermediaries in cybercrime?  How would such politicisation of platforms and services look -- and are we in its first stages already? And finally, could there be a new detente as the great powers understand the leverage they have available to affect each other's critical infrastructures through cyberwarfare? Josephine Wolff is an assistant professor in the Public Policy department at RIT and a member of the extended faculty of the Computing Security department as well as a fellow at the New America Cybersecurity Initiative. Wolff received her Ph.D. in Engineering Systems: Technology, Management and Policy and M.S. in Technology and Policy from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, as well as her A.B. in Mathematics from Princeton University.  Grab Josephine’s book, ‘You’ll See This Message When It Is Too Late,’ here at Amazon (https://www.amazon.com/Youll-this-message-when-late/dp/0262038854) or at any other traditional online retailers.

In this episode author Cory Doctorow discusses three stories from his new collection, Radicalized. We discuss:  the perils of DRM, and becoming dependent on manufacturers --- from printers, to toasters and beyond -- and how (or if) we can force control of our technological future what lengths it’s permissible to go to when we're trying to effect change against the systems which might very well end the world as we know it;  if all of this fails, the ethical, philosophical and practical problems involved in waiting out the apocalypse in a high-tech, high-security bunker. Grab Cory's new book Radicalized -- DRM and EULA free - at Craphound.com, or all the traditional online retailers.

In this episode, I consider the inter-state struggle over 5G, the rollout of which will create a new global surveillance surface. Who will control this massive new opportunity to surveil the world's data?  If China gets its way, it will be Huawei, run by ex-Chinese-military officer Ren Zhengfei. And if the precedent of the world pharmaceutical market - almost completely controlled by China - is anything to go by, there may not be much anyone can do to stop them.  

Part One of a two part interview in which Tim Tayshun (AKA Tim Curry) of EZCoinAccess discusses taking on OneCoin, the massive crypto ponzi scheme responsible for bilking investors out of $4.6bn dollars. We discuss: how OneCoin was supposed to work vs. the dismal reality, its colourful cast of leaders and the lengths they went to in order to establish OneCoin as a valuable investment and the risk OneCoin posed to the growth of Bitcoin itself.

This is the second and final part of our interview with Enric Duran (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enric_Duran) of the Faircoin (https://en.everybodywiki.com/Faircoin) / Faircoop (https://en.everybodywiki.com/Faircoin) project. We discuss: the advantage of using Faircoin rather than Bitcoin or even Euros; the history of anarchism of in Spain and the use of pre-crypto 'scrip' currencies in and between anarchist communes; the need to build an infrastructure for the coming community of disaffected normies, and more. We also take a long excursion into Enric's backstory as the 'Robin Hood' of the antiglobalisation movement: how he stole half a million euros plus from banks and gave it all to anticapitalist projects , and his ensuing life in the underground.  And finally we come around to the big question: how to get to a global Commons without requiring big-state communism. Bonus: the mysterious link between Ethereum, Vitalik Buterin and Enric Duran's commune Calafou. 

Part one of a two-part series with Enric Duran (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enric_Duran) , outlaw and leader of the Faircoin project (https://fair-coin.org) and founder of Fair Coop (https://fair.coop/en) . Faircoin is a fascinating experiment in cryptocurrency: a LETS (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_exchange_trading_system) -style community currency which also functions as an exchange-traded token. With it, Duran's Fair Co-op wants to power an international co-operative movement based on ideas and principles emerging from the Catalan Integral Co-operative: peer-to-peer organization, and horizontal governance by consensus. Support STEAL THIS SHOW and get involved! https://patreon.com/stealthisshow  

If you're enjoying the show, support production and join the community! https://patreon.com/stealthisshow This episode picks where we left off in the discussion with @rabble (https://about.me/rabble) , one of the co-founders of Twitter and Indymedia. Starting with the idea of Silicon Valley as a new empire, restructuring the world's institutions through software, we consider the ideology of this empire, and how it differs from that of the previous order of transnational capitalism.  Have what Evan calls Silicon Valley's 'social libertarian' values survived the terrific enlargement of the second-wave web services like Uber, Facebook and Airbnb into global superpowers? Finally we discuss @Rabble's work developing Scuttlebutt as a future platform for decentralised community, content distribution and monetisation. Are we moving away from the cycles of centralisation we've seen with platforms like Google and Facebook and towards a cycle of decentralisation? 

This is part one of a two-part interview with @Rabble (https://about.me/rabble) (Evan Henshaw Plath) -- activist technologist, co-founder of Indymedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_Media_Center) , and one of the originators of Twitter. We discuss the origins of Twitter in the protest organisation tool TxtMob (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TXTMob) ; Evan's work developing Indymedia and the early days of tech's interaction with activism; how social media is continuing to mutate politics, for better and worse; how the sorting algorithms developed by Big Social are becoming indelibly embedded in our world -- and finally Evan introduces the subject of part two: Silicon Valley's hidden mission to restructure the world's institutions via software. 

If you listen back, Loomio has already come up a few times on this show. It's an open-source civic platform designed to help people make decisions collaboratively, and it's been used by everyone from Pirate Parties to City Councils.  In this episode I met up with with Loomio's Rich Bartlett to discuss the relationship of software to social change -- how platforms like Facebook and Slack embed coded ideas about how people should relate to and interact with each other, and how Loomio is trying to design for new modes of interaction and consensus springing up in and around the social movements.  We discuss how a truly decentralised, horizontally organized society might look and talk through Loomio's attempts to build the software to power it. Finally we talk about how to upgrade what Rich calls our 'cultural operating system'. Where does change really start: with our social organization, with our software or with ourselves?

‘Watch as Silicon Valley replaces everything with robots… Authorities release a geolocation app to real-time snitch on immigrants and political dissent… Government services fail….   Upheaval, polarization, politics as bankrupt as the financial markets–yet under crisis lies possibility.’  These words are cut from the pages of Inhabit.Global (http://inhabit.global/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) , a pamphlet-platform-programme outlining what its members call an ‘operation in a cyberwar’. Collectively and anonymously produced by a network of actors across North America, Inhabit.global (http://inhabit.global/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) presents a call to arms for a new autonomous, decentralized movement. This interview introduces two Inhabit members to discuss the sharp end of decentralized autonomy as the network seeks to become a force for global change in the style of Anonymous, Lulzsec and other ‘4th generation warfare’ non-state actors. Starting from the principle that ‘only the tech industry is allowed to change the world’, the Inhabit.global (http://inhabit.global/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) network proposes repurposing the technologies around us to produce real social change. We discuss: what happens when AI replaces the middle class (lawyers, programmers, doctors); the politics of cryptocurrency and money as a protocol; and whether we still have the power to produce real change.

Part pamphlet, part platform, part programme, Inhabit.Global (http://inhabit.global/) , outlines what its members call an 'operation in a cyberwar'. Collectively and anonymously produced by a network of actors across North America, Inhabit.global (http://inhabit.global/) presents a call to arms for a new autonomous, decentralized movement. This interview introduces two Inhabit members to discuss the sharp end of decentralized autonomy as the network seeks to become a force for global change in the style of Anonymous, Lulzsec and other '4th generation warfare' non-state actors. Starting from the principle that 'only the tech industry is allowed to change the world', the Inhabit.global (http://inhabit.global/) network proposes repurposing the technologies around us to produce real social change. We discuss: what happens when AI replaces the middle class (lawyers, programmers, doctors); the politics of cryptocurrency and money as a protocol; and whether citizens still have the power to produce real change.

Who controls your online accounts and identities? For most of us, the answer will be some combination of Big Social — companies like Google and Facebook — as well as a host of smaller platforms and services, all of them parceling up and selling our information for profit (https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/07/11/485571291/firms-are-buying-sharing-your-online-info-what-can-you-do-about-it?t=1542960207176&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) . But after a series of high-profile hacks (https://money.cnn.com/2013/12/04/technology/security/passwords-stolen/index.html?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) , trusting social media corporations to store and safeguard our personal information looks an increasingly bad idea. And many are understandably wary about letting platforms look after their cryptocurrency investments. Custody of our digital assets, it seems, is shaping up to be a key issue for network citizens. Enter Dark Crystal, (https://darkcrystal.pw/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss)  a project based around Scuttlebutt (https://www.scuttlebutt.nz/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) (interviewed in a previous episode (https://stealthisshow.com/s04e04/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) ) and recipient of a recent grant from Ethereum Foundation (https://ethereum.org/foundation?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) . Dark Crystal enables users to store private keys — from Bitcoin to email encryption and beyond — with and inside their communities and social networks.  To do this, i makes use of the mathematical magic behind Shamir’s Shared Secret (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shamir%27s_Secret_Sharing?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) , allowing groups of friends to safely store different ‘shards’ of a key,  bringing it together as and when needed. In this episode, we meet Peg and Kieran from Dark Crystal to discuss the implications of the project: what happens when custody of our most precious digital resources can be taken away from banks and megacorps and entrusted to friends, family and community? And do projects like Dark Crystal signal the beginning of a new, cryptography-based ‘information commons’? Presented by TorrentFreak  (http://torrentfreak.com?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) | Season Sponsor Private Internet Access (http://privateinternetaccess.com?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) Showrunner & Host Jamie King (mailto:jamie@stealthisshow.com) | Editing & Post Lucas Marston (mailto:lucas@hollagully.com) Original Music David Triana | Web Production Eric Barch Executive Producers: Mark Zapalac (http://twitter.com/mark_zapalac?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) , Eric Barch (https://twitter.com/ericbarch?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) , Nelson Larios, George Alvarez, Adam Burns, Daniel, Grof, Sean Lynch. (http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fstealthisshow.com%2Fs04e09%2F&t=The%20Dark%20Crystal%3A%20Is%20The%20Future%20Of%20Secrets%20Shared%3F&s=100&p[url]=https%3A%2F%2Fstealthisshow.com%2Fs04e09%2F&p[images][0]=https%3A%2F%2Fstealthisshow.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2018%2F11%2Fcrystal.png&p[title]=The%20Dark%20Crystal%3A%20Is%20The%20Future%20Of%20Secrets%20Shared%3F&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) (https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?url=https%3A%2F%2Fstealthisshow.com%2Fs04e09%2F&text=Hey%20check%20this%20out&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) (https://plus.google.com/share?url=https%3A%2F%2Fstealthisshow.com%2Fs04e09%2F&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) (http://www.reddit.com/submit?url=https%3A%2F%2Fstealthisshow.com%2Fs04e09%2F&title=The%20Dark%20Crystal%3A%20Is%20The%20Future%20Of%20Secrets%20Shared%3F&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) (http://pinterest.com/pin/create/button/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fstealthisshow.com%2Fs04e09%2F&media=https%3A%2F%2Fstealthisshow.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2018%2F11%2Fcrystal.png&description=The%20Dark%20Crystal%3A%20Is%20The%20Future%20Of%20Secrets%20Shared%3F&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) (http://www.linkedin.com/shareArticle?mini=true&url=https%3A%2F%2Fstealthisshow.com%2Fs04e09%2F&title=The%20Dark%20Crystal%3A%20Is%20The%20Future%20Of%20Secrets%20Shared%3F&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) (mailto:?subject=The%20Dark%20Crystal%3A%20Is%20The%20Future%20Of%20Secrets%20Shared%3F&body=Hey%20check%20this%20out:%20https%3A%2F%2Fstealthisshow.com%2Fs04e09%2F)

Embedded in an increasing number of the devices and objects surrounding us, computers are turning the everyday world into a radically programmable attack surface.  This is the subject of computer security & cryptography legend Bruce Schneier (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Schneier?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) ‘s latest book, Click Here To Kill Everybody (https://www.schneier.com/books/click_here/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) .  In this episode we meet up with Bruce to explore how the profusion of insecure devices, capable of being put to a variety of unpredictable purposes, is radically shifting the balance of power. Via cyberattacks, smaller states get the ability to content with the great powers — and an entirely new class of ‘non-state actors’ are being granted the power to disrupt nations. Phenomena like the Mirai Botnet (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirai_(malware)?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) , Bruce argues, are just the beginning: we discuss a host of potential attacks on life and property, from car and thermostat hacking to ransomware against hospitals — and how ‘surveillance capitalism’ is one of the most important vectors behind this worrying new paradigm. Presented by TorrentFreak  (http://torrentfreak.com?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) | Season Sponsor Private Internet Access (http://privateinternetaccess.com?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) Showrunner & Host Jamie King (mailto:jamie@stealthisshow.com) | Editing & Post Lucas Marston (mailto:lucas@hollagully.com) Original Music David Triana | Web Production Eric Barch Executive Producers: Mark Zapalac (http://twitter.com/mark_zapalac?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) , Eric Barch (https://twitter.com/ericbarch?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) , Nelson Larios, George Alvarez, Adam Burns, Daniel, Grof, Sean Lynch. (http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fstealthisshow.com%2Fs04e08%2F&t=%E2%80%98Click%20Here%20To%20Kill%20Everybody%E2%80%99%2C%20with%20Bruce%20Schneier.&s=100&p[url]=https%3A%2F%2Fstealthisshow.com%2Fs04e08%2F&p[images][0]=https%3A%2F%2Fstealthisshow.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2018%2F10%2FbruceS.jpg&p[title]=%E2%80%98Click%20Here%20To%20Kill%20Everybody%E2%80%99%2C%20with%20Bruce%20Schneier.&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) (https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?url=https%3A%2F%2Fstealthisshow.com%2Fs04e08%2F&text=Hey%20check%20this%20out&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) (https://plus.google.com/share?url=https%3A%2F%2Fstealthisshow.com%2Fs04e08%2F&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) (http://www.reddit.com/submit?url=https%3A%2F%2Fstealthisshow.com%2Fs04e08%2F&title=%E2%80%98Click%20Here%20To%20Kill%20Everybody%E2%80%99%2C%20with%20Bruce%20Schneier.&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) (http://pinterest.com/pin/create/button/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fstealthisshow.com%2Fs04e08%2F&media=https%3A%2F%2Fstealthisshow.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2018%2F10%2FbruceS.jpg&description=%E2%80%98Click%20Here%20To%20Kill%20Everybody%E2%80%99%2C%20with%20Bruce%20Schneier.&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) (http://www.linkedin.com/shareArticle?mini=true&url=https%3A%2F%2Fstealthisshow.com%2Fs04e08%2F&title=%E2%80%98Click%20Here%20To%20Kill%20Everybody%E2%80%99%2C%20with%20Bruce%20Schneier.&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) (mailto:?subject=%E2%80%98Click%20Here%20To%20Kill%20Everybody%E2%80%99%2C%20with%20Bruce%20Schneier.&body=Hey%20check%20this%20out:%20https%3A%2F%2Fstealthisshow.com%2Fs04e08%2F)

Advanced Persistent Threat is a  STEAL THIS SHOW special series looking at the 2016 Bangladesh Bank Heist (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bangladesh_Bank_robbery?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) . Had it succeeded, this would easily have been the biggest bank robbery in history — and it was carried out almost entirely in the digital realm, using a variety of exploits and malware, in order to leverage access to the SWIFT banking network and the US Federal Reserve. In Part One, we look at exactly what happened in the Bangladesh heist, and walk through how it was carried out. To help us through the complex story, we hear from Cheryl Biswas (https://twitter.com/3ncr1pt3d?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) , Strategic Threat Intel Analyst in Cyber Security at a Big Four consulting firm. After covering the how of the robbery, we consider whether trusted systems like SWIFT can remain secure in an information environment replete with radically heterogeneous, eminently hackable devices. Cheryl Biswas wishes to make clear that she speaks here on her own behalf Her views do not represent those of her employer. This episode was completed in part with funding from Film Agency Wales (http://www.ffilmcymruwales.com/index.php/en/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) . Presented by TorrentFreak  (http://torrentfreak.com?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) | Season Sponsor Private Internet Access (http://privateinternetaccess.com?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) Showrunner & Host Jamie King (mailto:jamie@stealthisshow.com) | Editing & Post Lucas Marston (mailto:lucas@hollagully.com) Original Music David Triana | Web Production Eric Barch Episode Sponsor ZCash Company (https://z.cash/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) Executive Producers: Mark Zapalac (http://twitter.com/mark_zapalac?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) , Eric Barch (https://twitter.com/ericbarch?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) , Nelson Larios, George Alvarez, Adam Burns, Daniel, Grof, Sean Lynch.   (http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fstealthisshow.com%2Fs04e07%2F&t=Advanced%20Persistent%20Threat%20Part%201%3A%20%E2%80%98The%20What%20%26%20How%20Of%20the%20Bangladesh%20Bank%20Heist%E2%80%99&s=100&p[url]=https%3A%2F%2Fstealthisshow.com%2Fs04e07%2F&p[images][0]=https%3A%2F%2Fstealthisshow.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2018%2F10%2Fapt-e1539783611295.jpg&p[title]=Advanced%20Persistent%20Threat%20Part%201%3A%20%E2%80%98The%20What%20%26%20How%20Of%20the%20Bangladesh%20Bank%20Heist%E2%80%99&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) (https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?url=https%3A%2F%2Fstealthisshow.com%2Fs04e07%2F&text=Hey%20check%20this%20out&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) (https://plus.google.com/share?url=https%3A%2F%2Fstealthisshow.com%2Fs04e07%2F&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) (http://www.reddit.com/submit?url=https%3A%2F%2Fstealthisshow.com%2Fs04e07%2F&title=Advanced%20Persistent%20Threat%20Part%201%3A%20%E2%80%98The%20What%20%26%20How%20Of%20the%20Bangladesh%20Bank%20Heist%E2%80%99&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) (http://pinterest.com/pin/create/button/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fstealthisshow.com%2Fs04e07%2F&media=https%3A%2F%2Fstealthisshow.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2018%2F10%2Fapt-e1539783611295.jpg&description=Advanced%20Persistent%20Threat%20Part%201%3A%20%E2%80%98The%20What%20%26%20How%20Of%20the%20Bangladesh%20Bank%20Heist%E2%80%99&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) (http://www.linkedin.com/shareArticle?mini=true&url=https%3A%2F%2Fstealthisshow.com%2Fs04e07%2F&title=Advanced%20Persistent%20Threat%20Part%201%3A%20%E2%80%98The%20What%20%26%20How%20Of%20the%20Bangladesh%20Bank%20Heist%E2%80%99&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) (mailto:?subject=Advanced%20Persistent%20Threat%20Part%201%3A%20%E2%80%98The%20What%20%26%20How%20Of%20the%20Bangladesh%20Bank%20Heist%E2%80%99&body=Hey%20check%20this%20out:%20https%3A%2F%2Fstealthisshow.com%2Fs04e07%2F)

In this episode, I reflect on STEAL THIS SHOW episode S04E03, (http://stealthisshow.com/s04e03/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss)  with Cory Doctorow (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cory_Doctorow?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) . One of the big themes to come up in the conversation was the European Copyright Directive (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directive_on_Copyright_in_the_Digital_Single_Market?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) — which, if passed early next year, will threaten the future of the Web as we know it. But does this threat to the future of the the traditional Web mean the moment of decentralized services like IPFS (https://ipfs.io/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) and Blockstack (https://blockstack.org/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) has finally come? Presented by TorrentFreak  (http://torrentfreak.com?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) | Season Sponsor Private Internet Access (http://privateinternetaccess.com?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) Showrunner & Host Jamie King (mailto:jamie@stealthisshow.com) | Editing & Post Lucas Marston (mailto:lucas@hollagully.com) Original Music David Triana | Web Production Eric Barch Executive Producers: Mark Zapalac (http://twitter.com/mark_zapalac?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) , Eric Barch (https://twitter.com/ericbarch?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) , Nelson Larios, George Alvarez, Adam Burns, Daniel, Grof, Sean Lynch. (http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fstealthisshow.com%2Fs04e06%2F&t=%E2%80%98Enter%20The%20Periphery%E2%80%99%3A%20Regulation%20%26%20Decentralization&s=100&p[url]=https%3A%2F%2Fstealthisshow.com%2Fs04e06%2F&p[images][0]=https%3A%2F%2Fstealthisshow.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2018%2F10%2Fjamie.jpg&p[title]=%E2%80%98Enter%20The%20Periphery%E2%80%99%3A%20Regulation%20%26%20Decentralization&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) (https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?url=https%3A%2F%2Fstealthisshow.com%2Fs04e06%2F&text=Hey%20check%20this%20out&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) (https://plus.google.com/share?url=https%3A%2F%2Fstealthisshow.com%2Fs04e06%2F&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) (http://www.reddit.com/submit?url=https%3A%2F%2Fstealthisshow.com%2Fs04e06%2F&title=%E2%80%98Enter%20The%20Periphery%E2%80%99%3A%20Regulation%20%26%20Decentralization&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) (http://pinterest.com/pin/create/button/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fstealthisshow.com%2Fs04e06%2F&media=https%3A%2F%2Fstealthisshow.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2018%2F10%2Fjamie.jpg&description=%E2%80%98Enter%20The%20Periphery%E2%80%99%3A%20Regulation%20%26%20Decentralization&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) (http://www.linkedin.com/shareArticle?mini=true&url=https%3A%2F%2Fstealthisshow.com%2Fs04e06%2F&title=%E2%80%98Enter%20The%20Periphery%E2%80%99%3A%20Regulation%20%26%20Decentralization&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) (mailto:?subject=%E2%80%98Enter%20The%20Periphery%E2%80%99%3A%20Regulation%20%26%20Decentralization&body=Hey%20check%20this%20out:%20https%3A%2F%2Fstealthisshow.com%2Fs04e06%2F)

In our second interview with Emin Gün Sirer (the first one being lost to a catastrophic file system failure!), we discuss the current state of cryptocurrency, and just what Emin means when he says that Satoshi Nakamoto is ‘dead.’ We discover the secret shared lineage between BitTorrent and Cryptocurrency, and how they both tackle the ‘chaos of the commons’. Of course TRON’s recent acquisition of BitTorrent, Inc. comes in for some scrutiny — Emin remains, let’s say, skeptical. And, finally, we look at Emin’s work on and around the all-new Avalanche protocol, which he sees as the most significant contribution to cryptocurrency since Bitcoin itself.  Emin Gün Sirer is a co-director of The Initiative For Cryptocurrencies & Contracts (http://www.initc3.org/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss)  and associate professor of computer science at Cornell University. Known for significant contributions to peer-to-peer systems and computer networking, Emin was behind the first Proof-of-Work system for cryptocurrency, Karma, which debuted before Bitcoin. Having since become a respected commentator on and contributor to Bitcoin itself, Emin is now working on Avalanche, a new cryptocurrency protocol based on an entirely new model, promising fast, reliable transactions with significantly lower power overheads. Hello to new Patreon supporters: Brett Gaddy, Alexander Sirazh and Liquid Reign! Thanks for your support, guys. We really appreciate it!  Showrunner & Host Jamie King (mailto:jamie@stealthisshow.com) | Editing & Post Lucas Marston (mailto:lucas@hollagully.com) Original Music David Triana | Web Production Eric Barch Presented by TorrentFreak  (http://torrentfreak.com?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) | Season Sponsor Private Internet Access (http://privateinternetaccess.com?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) Episode Sponsor ZCash Company (https://z.cash/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) Executive Producers: Mark Zapalac (http://twitter.com/mark_zapalac?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) , Eric Barch (https://twitter.com/ericbarch?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) , Nelson Larios, George Alvarez, Adam Burns, Daniel, Grof, Sean Lynch. (http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fstealthisshow.com%2Fs04e05%2F&t=%E2%80%98Satoshi%20Is%20Dead%E2%80%99%2C%20with%20Emin%20G%C3%BCn%20Sirer&s=100&p[url]=https%3A%2F%2Fstealthisshow.com%2Fs04e05%2F&p[images][0]=https%3A%2F%2Fstealthisshow.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2018%2F09%2Femin.jpg&p[title]=%E2%80%98Satoshi%20Is%20Dead%E2%80%99%2C%20with%20Emin%20G%C3%BCn%20Sirer&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) (https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?url=https%3A%2F%2Fstealthisshow.com%2Fs04e05%2F&text=Hey%20check%20this%20out&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) (https://plus.google.com/share?url=https%3A%2F%2Fstealthisshow.com%2Fs04e05%2F&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) (http://www.reddit.com/submit?url=https%3A%2F%2Fstealthisshow.com%2Fs04e05%2F&title=%E2%80%98Satoshi%20Is%20Dead%E2%80%99%2C%20with%20Emin%20G%C3%BCn%20Sirer&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) (http://pinterest.com/pin/create/button/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fstealthisshow.com%2Fs04e05%2F&media=https%3A%2F%2Fstealthisshow.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2018%2F09%2Femin.jpg&description=%E2%80%98Satoshi%20Is%20Dead%E2%80%99%2C%20with%20Emin%20G%C3%BCn%20Sirer&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) (http://www.linkedin.com/shareArticle?mini=true&url=https%3A%2F%2Fstealthisshow.com%2Fs04e05%2F&title=%E2%80%98Satoshi%20Is%20Dead%E2%80%99%2C%20with%20Emin%20G%C3%BCn%20Sirer&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) (mailto:?subject=%E2%80%98Satoshi%20Is%20Dead%E2%80%99%2C%20with%20Emin%20G%C3%BCn%20Sirer&body=Hey%20check%20this%20out:%20https%3A%2F%2Fstealthisshow.com%2Fs04e05%2F)

In this episode we meet Zenna, Andre and Zack from Scuttlebutt (https://www.scuttlebutt.nz/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) , a P2P-based social ‘network of networks’ based around a BitTorrent-like distribution technology.  After figuring out what Scuttlebutt is (and is not) we discuss: the roots of Scuttlebutt in New Zealand, the system’s politically anarchist/libertarian ethos, how Scuttlebutt survived (or shrugged off) a right-wing deluge; and how SSB’s technical architecture eliminates the need for moderators. With social networks like Facebook, Twitter and 4Chan increasingly becoming propagation tanks for viciously partisan net cultures, we talk about what makes Scuttlebutt different: it’s a network that resists aggregation, massification,  and centralisation. Scuttlebutt is succeeding where Diaspora (https://diasporafoundation.org/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) failed precisely because it doesn’t seek to replace the social media behemoths: Scuttlebutt is tiny by design, happy to be human, and based around the ethos of ‘solarpunk’ — a vision of a future we actually want, where high technology is put in service of humans and the environment. Showrunner & Host Jamie King (mailto:jamie@stealthisshow.com) | Editor Lucas Marston ( (mailto:lucas@hollagully.com) Hollagully (https://www.hollagully.com/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) ) (mailto:lucas@hollagully.com) Original Music David Triana (mailto:davidrp8@gmail.com) | Web Production Eric Barch Presented by TorrentFreak  (http://torrentfreak.com?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) | Season SponsorPrivate Internet Access (http://privateinternetaccess.com?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) Episode Sponsor ZCash Company (https://z.cash/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss)   Executive Producers: Mark Zapalac (http://twitter.com/mark_zapalac?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) , Eric Barch (https://twitter.com/ericbarch?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) , Nelson Larios, George Alvarez, Adam Burns, Daniel, Grof. Sponsorship slots are currently full. For future sponsor opportunities, please email info@stealthisshow.com (mailto:info@stealthisshow.com) (http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fstealthisshow.com%2Fs04e04%2F&t=%E2%80%98Solarpunk%20Social%E2%80%99%2C%20with%20Scuttlebutt&s=100&p[url]=https%3A%2F%2Fstealthisshow.com%2Fs04e04%2F&p[images][0]=https%3A%2F%2Fstealthisshow.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2018%2F08%2Fssbpng.png&p[title]=%E2%80%98Solarpunk%20Social%E2%80%99%2C%20with%20Scuttlebutt&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) (https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?url=https%3A%2F%2Fstealthisshow.com%2Fs04e04%2F&text=Hey%20check%20this%20out&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) (https://plus.google.com/share?url=https%3A%2F%2Fstealthisshow.com%2Fs04e04%2F&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) (http://www.reddit.com/submit?url=https%3A%2F%2Fstealthisshow.com%2Fs04e04%2F&title=%E2%80%98Solarpunk%20Social%E2%80%99%2C%20with%20Scuttlebutt&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) (http://pinterest.com/pin/create/button/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fstealthisshow.com%2Fs04e04%2F&media=https%3A%2F%2Fstealthisshow.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2018%2F08%2Fssbpng.png&description=%E2%80%98Solarpunk%20Social%E2%80%99%2C%20with%20Scuttlebutt&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) (http://www.linkedin.com/shareArticle?mini=true&url=https%3A%2F%2Fstealthisshow.com%2Fs04e04%2F&title=%E2%80%98Solarpunk%20Social%E2%80%99%2C%20with%20Scuttlebutt&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) (mailto:?subject=%E2%80%98Solarpunk%20Social%E2%80%99%2C%20with%20Scuttlebutt&body=Hey%20check%20this%20out:%20https%3A%2F%2Fstealthisshow.com%2Fs04e04%2F)

In this episode we meet Cory Doctorow (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cory_Doctorow?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) , sci-fi author and co-founder of Boing Boing (https://boingboing.net/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) . Cory’s most recent book, Walkaway, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walkaway_(Doctorow_novel)?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) is a story of refusing a life of surveillance and control under a high-tech oligarchy and the struggle to live in a post-scarcity (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-scarcity_economy?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss)  gift economy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gift_economy?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss)  where even death has been defeated. Over this one hour plus interview we discuss: Whether filesharing & P2P communities have lost the battle to streaming services like Netflix and Spotify, and why the ‘copyfight’ is still important How the European Copyright Directive eats at the fabric of the Web, making it even harder to compete with content giants Why breaking up companies like Google and Facebook might be the only way to restore an internet — and a society — we can all live with. After taking a detour into Cory’s views on cryptocurrency and Bitcoin’s chances of ”bailing out’ an economy saturated with fictitious money,  we move onto discussing Walkaway and a future of ‘Fully Automated Luxury Communism’ versus one of mega-rich plutocrats (think Bezos) controlling the economy — and our lives — via massive machine empires.  How do we exit from a scenario in which machines make everything plentiful — but none of them are owned by us? Showrunner & Host Jamie King (mailto:jamie@stealthisshow.com) | Editor Lucas Marston ( (mailto:lucas@hollagully.com) Hollagully (https://www.hollagully.com/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) ) (mailto:lucas@hollagully.com) Original Music David Triana (mailto:davidrp8@gmail.com) | Web Production Eric Barch Presented by TorrentFreak (http://torrentfreak.com?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) Sponsored by Private Internet Access (http://privateinternetaccess.com?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) Executive Producers: Mark Zapalac (http://twitter.com/mark_zapalac?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) , Eric Barch (https://twitter.com/ericbarch?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) , Nelson Larios, George Alvarez, Adam Burns, Daniel, Grof. Sponsorship slots are currently full. For future sponsorship opportunities, please email info@stealthisshow.com (mailto:info@stealthisshow.com) (http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fstealthisshow.com%2Fs04e03%2F&t=%E2%80%98Printing%20A%20New%20Reality%E2%80%99%2C%20with%20Cory%20Doctorow&s=100&p[url]=https%3A%2F%2Fstealthisshow.com%2Fs04e03%2F&p[images][0]=https%3A%2F%2Fstealthisshow.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2018%2F08%2F220px-Cory_Doctorow_portrait_by_Jonathan_Worth_2.jpg&p[title]=%E2%80%98Printing%20A%20New%20Reality%E2%80%99%2C%20with%20Cory%20Doctorow&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) (https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?url=https%3A%2F%2Fstealthisshow.com%2Fs04e03%2F&text=Hey%20check%20this%20out&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) (https://plus.google.com/share?url=https%3A%2F%2Fstealthisshow.com%2Fs04e03%2F&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) (http://www.reddit.com/submit?url=https%3A%2F%2Fstealthisshow.com%2Fs04e03%2F&title=%E2%80%98Printing%20A%20New%20Reality%E2%80%99%2C%20with%20Cory%20Doctorow&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) (http://pinterest.com/pin/create/button/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fstealthisshow.com%2Fs04e03%2F&media=https%3A%2F%2Fstealthisshow.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2018%2F08%2F220px-Cory_Doctorow_portrait_by_Jonathan_Worth_2.jpg&description=%E2%80%98Printing%20A%20New%20Reality%E2%80%99%2C%20with%20Cory%20Doctorow&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) (http://www.linkedin.com/shareArticle?mini=true&url=https%3A%2F%2Fstealthisshow.com%2Fs04e03%2F&title=%E2%80%98Printing%20A%20New%20Reality%E2%80%99%2C%20with%20Cory%20Doctorow&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) (mailto:?subject=%E2%80%98Printing%20A%20New%20Reality%E2%80%99%2C%20with%20Cory%20Doctorow&body=Hey%20check%20this%20out:%20https%3A%2F%2Fstealthisshow.com%2Fs04e03%2F)

In this episode, we meet Primavera De Filippi, author of the recently published ‘Blockchain and the Law (http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674976429&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) ‘, from Harvard University Press (co-authored with Aaron Wright). Primavera is interested in how the law will change to accommodate blockchain — and how blockchain might replace parts of the law. We’ve already seen how P2P filesharing strained the world’s copyright law: what changes will be ushered in by P2P money? We discuss the future of blockchain-based technologies, and whether decentral systems are doomed to create new incumbents and new forms of centralisation; whether (and how) forking could be a solution against this ‘re-centralisation’; and how Ethereum’s smart contracts may have a fatal flaw that the philosophy of law already knows about. Primavera De Filippi is a permanent researcher at the National Center of Scientific Research (CNRS) in Paris, a faculty associate at the Berkman-Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, and a Visiting Fellow at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies at the European University Institute. She is a member of the Global Future Council on Blockchain Technologies at the World Economic Forum, and co-founder of the Internet Governance Forum’s dynamic coalitions on Blockchain Technology (COALA). Her fields of interest focus on legal challenges raised by decentralized technologies, with a particular focus on blockchain technologies. She is investigating the new opportunities for these technologies to enable new governance models and participatory decision-making through the concept of governance-by-design. Showrunner & Host Jamie King (mailto:jamie@stealthisshow.com) | Editor Lucas Marston ( (mailto:lucas@hollagully.com) Hollagully (https://www.hollagully.com/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) ) (mailto:lucas@hollagully.com) Original Music David Triana (mailto:davidrp8@gmail.com) | Web Production Eric Barch Presented by TorrentFreak (http://torrentfreak.com?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) Sponsored by Private Internet Access (http://privateinternetaccess.com?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) Executive Producers: Mark Zapalac (http://twitter.com/mark_zapalac?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) , Eric Barch (https://twitter.com/ericbarch?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) , Nelson Larios, George Alvarez. For sponsorship enquiries, please email info@stealthisshow.com (mailto:info@stealthisshow.com) (http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fstealthisshow.com%2Fs04e02%2F&t=%E2%80%98Crypto%20%26%20The%20Beyond%E2%80%99%2C%20with%20Primavera%20De%20Filippi&s=100&p[url]=https%3A%2F%2Fstealthisshow.com%2Fs04e02%2F&p[images][0]=https%3A%2F%2Fstealthisshow.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2018%2F07%2FPrimavera_headshot.thumbnail.jpg&p[title]=%E2%80%98Crypto%20%26%20The%20Beyond%E2%80%99%2C%20with%20Primavera%20De%20Filippi&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) (https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?url=https%3A%2F%2Fstealthisshow.com%2Fs04e02%2F&text=Hey%20check%20this%20out&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) (https://plus.google.com/share?url=https%3A%2F%2Fstealthisshow.com%2Fs04e02%2F&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) (http://www.reddit.com/submit?url=https%3A%2F%2Fstealthisshow.com%2Fs04e02%2F&title=%E2%80%98Crypto%20%26%20The%20Beyond%E2%80%99%2C%20with%20Primavera%20De%20Filippi&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) (http://pinterest.com/pin/create/button/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fstealthisshow.com%2Fs04e02%2F&media=https%3A%2F%2Fstealthisshow.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2018%2F07%2FPrimavera_headshot.thumbnail.jpg&description=%E2%80%98Crypto%20%26%20The%20Beyond%E2%80%99%2C%20with%20Primavera%20De%20Filippi&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) (http://www.linkedin.com/shareArticle?mini=true&url=https%3A%2F%2Fstealthisshow.com%2Fs04e02%2F&title=%E2%80%98Crypto%20%26%20The%20Beyond%E2%80%99%2C%20with%20Primavera%20De%20Filippi&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) (mailto:?subject=%E2%80%98Crypto%20%26%20The%20Beyond%E2%80%99%2C%20with%20Primavera%20De%20Filippi&body=Hey%20check%20this%20out:%20https%3A%2F%2Fstealthisshow.com%2Fs04e02%2F)

In this episode we meet Abhishta, one of the authors of the paper ‘The Business Model Of A Botnet’ (https://arxiv.org/abs/1804.10848?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) , from the University of Twente in Netherlands.  This fascinating research was widely discussed on release, at least partly due to its insights into the astonishing sums of money botnet operators are making — and how they’re doing it. We sit down with Abhishta to discuss  how Botnets are created, and the multiple ways they can be used to make profit for their operators; attacks on critical internet infrastructure like Dyn (https://dyn.com/dns/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) ; and the surprising actors behind some big DDOS attacks on banks in the Netherlands. Abhishta fills us in on so-called ‘stresser (https://www.incapsula.com/ddos/booters-stressers-ddosers.html?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) ‘ botnet operations like Lizard Stresser (https://krebsonsecurity.com/tag/lizard-stresser/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) , a kind of rent-a-botnet model, and we consider the surprising accessibility of mother of all attacks: a DDOS against the internet itself — and how it could be used to net billions of dollars. Showrunner & Host Jamie King (mailto:jamie@stealthisshow.com) | Editor Lucas Marston ( (mailto:lucas@hollagully.com) Hollagully (https://www.hollagully.com/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) ) (mailto:lucas@hollagully.com) Original Music David Triana (mailto:davidrp8@gmail.com) | Web Production Eric Barch Presented by TorrentFreak (http://torrentfreak.com?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) Sponsored by Private Internet Access (http://privateinternetaccess.com?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) Executive Producers: Mark Zapalac (http://twitter.com/mark_zapalac?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) , Eric Barch (https://twitter.com/ericbarch?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) , Nelson Larios, George Alvarez. For sponsorship enquiries, please email info@stealthisshow.com (mailto:info@stealthisshow.com) (http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fstealthisshow.com%2Fs04e01%2F&t=Building%20Botnets%20For%20Fun%20%26%20Profit%2C%20with%20Abhishta&s=100&p[url]=https%3A%2F%2Fstealthisshow.com%2Fs04e01%2F&p[images][0]=https%3A%2F%2Fstealthisshow.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2018%2F07%2Fimg-opswat-botnet.png&p[title]=Building%20Botnets%20For%20Fun%20%26%20Profit%2C%20with%20Abhishta&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) (https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?url=https%3A%2F%2Fstealthisshow.com%2Fs04e01%2F&text=Hey%20check%20this%20out&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) (https://plus.google.com/share?url=https%3A%2F%2Fstealthisshow.com%2Fs04e01%2F&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) (http://www.reddit.com/submit?url=https%3A%2F%2Fstealthisshow.com%2Fs04e01%2F&title=Building%20Botnets%20For%20Fun%20%26%20Profit%2C%20with%20Abhishta&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) (http://pinterest.com/pin/create/button/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fstealthisshow.com%2Fs04e01%2F&media=https%3A%2F%2Fstealthisshow.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2018%2F07%2Fimg-opswat-botnet.png&description=Building%20Botnets%20For%20Fun%20%26%20Profit%2C%20with%20Abhishta&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) (http://www.linkedin.com/shareArticle?mini=true&url=https%3A%2F%2Fstealthisshow.com%2Fs04e01%2F&title=Building%20Botnets%20For%20Fun%20%26%20Profit%2C%20with%20Abhishta&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) (mailto:?subject=Building%20Botnets%20For%20Fun%20%26%20Profit%2C%20with%20Abhishta&body=Hey%20check%20this%20out:%20https%3A%2F%2Fstealthisshow.com%2Fs04e01%2F)

This is the second part of our interview with Chris Beams, founder of the decentralised cryptocurrency exchange, Bisq (https://bisq.network/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) . We discuss the inner workings of the Bisq service, how it compares to the widely used platform Local Bitcoins, and the intricacies of designing decentral P2P systems for financial operations. From there, we move into some of the political/philosophical implications of Bisq as a Distributed Autonomous Organisation (DAO): are we evolving, with Bitcoin and other P2P networks, functionalities which parallel certain present-day institutions, and which could one day eliminate the need for  establishment altogether? And could a future democracy be composed of “opt-in” components that actually do better at providing for our basic human needs? Showrunner & Host Jamie King (mailto:jamie@stealthisshow.com) | Editor Lucas Marston ( (mailto:lucas@hollagully.com) Hollagully (https://www.hollagully.com/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) ) (mailto:lucas@hollagully.com) Original Music David Triana (mailto:davidrp8@gmail.com) | Web Production Eric Barch Presented by TorrentFreak (http://torrentfreak.com?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) Sponsored by Private Internet Access (http://privateinternetaccess.com?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) Executive Producers: Mark Zapalac (http://twitter.com/mark_zapalac?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) , Eric Barch (https://twitter.com/ericbarch?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) , Nelson Larios, George Alvarez. For sponsorship enquiries, please email info@stealthisshow.com (mailto:info@stealthisshow.com)       (http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fstealthisshow.com%2Fs03e16%2F&t=%E2%80%98The%20TAO%20of%20the%20DAO%20Pt.%202%E2%80%99%20with%20Chris%20Beams%20of%20Bisq&s=100&p[url]=https%3A%2F%2Fstealthisshow.com%2Fs03e16%2F&p[images][0]=&p[title]=%E2%80%98The%20TAO%20of%20the%20DAO%20Pt.%202%E2%80%99%20with%20Chris%20Beams%20of%20Bisq&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) (https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?url=https%3A%2F%2Fstealthisshow.com%2Fs03e16%2F&text=Hey%20check%20this%20out&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) (https://plus.google.com/share?url=https%3A%2F%2Fstealthisshow.com%2Fs03e16%2F&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) (http://www.reddit.com/submit?url=https%3A%2F%2Fstealthisshow.com%2Fs03e16%2F&title=%E2%80%98The%20TAO%20of%20the%20DAO%20Pt.%202%E2%80%99%20with%20Chris%20Beams%20of%20Bisq&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) (http://pinterest.com/pin/create/button/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fstealthisshow.com%2Fs03e16%2F&media=&description=%E2%80%98The%20TAO%20of%20the%20DAO%20Pt.%202%E2%80%99%20with%20Chris%20Beams%20of%20Bisq&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) (http://www.linkedin.com/shareArticle?mini=true&url=https%3A%2F%2Fstealthisshow.com%2Fs03e16%2F&title=%E2%80%98The%20TAO%20of%20the%20DAO%20Pt.%202%E2%80%99%20with%20Chris%20Beams%20of%20Bisq&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss) (mailto:?subject=%E2%80%98The%20TAO%20of%20the%20DAO%20Pt.%202%E2%80%99%20with%20Chris%20Beams%20of%20Bisq&body=Hey%20check%20this%20out:%20https%3A%2F%2Fstealthisshow.com%2Fs03e16%2F)

What is the alt-right, and what does it have to do with online culture? In this episode we meet Elizabeth Sandifer, author of Neoreaction, A Basilisk. Riffing off the material in her book, we talk...