Peter Todd @pete@petertodd.org

@Blockstream

Yes, HTTPS is authenticated. _You_ can verify that you are communicating with Blockstream. But the math that does that authentication doesn't allow you to prove what Blockstream's server sent you to a _third party_. Thus, in a targeted attack, you can't easily prove it happened.

@Blockstream

PSA: unblinding *should* happen client side. But it's implemented with JavaScript that Blockstream sends you.

In practice, if they backdoor that JavaScript for specific targets (eg via IP address) the chance of getting caught is low. Also, proving it is hard: HTTPS is unsigned.

"BREAKING: Judge rules that Emmy award-winning Governor Cuomo violated the law by lying about nursing home deaths caused by his failed policies." @amuse

Emmy award winning! 😂

"[Cuomo broke the law] by only releasing the numbers of those who died in nursing homes, not those who later died in hospitals."

https://nypost.com/2021/02/03/cuomos-doh-illegally-withheld-covid-nursing-home-death-toll-judge/

@NunyaBidness That _federal_ police will have to enforce this just makes it all the more lol.

@orionwl On balance, I'd much rather be providing a way for the persecuted to hide wealth.

During the war, the Nazi's didn't need to hide their wealth; after the war, the Nazi's just weren't all that relevant anyway. Fact is, the allies rather literally decimated them. Probably worse.

@orionwl The history of Swiss banking secrecy is in part to allow German Jews to hide their wealth form Nazis. A double edged sword, because it also let Nazis hide stolen wealth. But that's the nature of freedoms.

@wiggles @drgo @eiaine Adderall for example is packed in little time release beads. Just crushing those beads can change how it's absorbed quite a bit IIUC.

@wiggles @drgo @eiaine I mean, I'm not sure that we're in disagreement... I'm saying that the actual low level receptor chemistry may be basically the same. Yet with a very different effect due to how it is being administered.

@drgo @eiaine Exactly. Just look at how good psychiatrists will stress that a condition should actually cause harm to be considered a disorder.

If you have ADHD, but switch jobs to something where long term attention to detail isn't so important, you could easily find that for practical purposes you don't have it anymore. And vice versa.

@drgo @eiaine ...and again, I'm not putting "genuine" in quotes because I'm trying to say ADHD isn't real. Rather, I want to make clear that it's a fuzzy label on a situation specific continuum. Change jobs and someone who would previously fit the criteria of having a problem with ADHD might no longer, and vice versa.

@drgo @eiaine Apparently one of the ways that ADHD etc. can be confirmed is to just see how the patient reacts to drugs like Adderall. In someone with "genuine" ADHD, etc. those drugs often have opposite effects of what you'd expect, eg the "meth" actually leaving the person feeling sleepy.

@eiaine @drgo ...and I should say, by "chemical imbalances" I'm not trying to use the trite concept that we often hear depression, etc. described as. I mean to combat the inherent imprecision of biology and genetics, so that organisms function properly regardless. Some of those mechanisms are really basic things, like metabolic rate. That needs to be correct in the face of all kinds of external and internal influences.

@drgo @eiaine From what I've heard ADHD drugs can still be very addictive in spite of all this formulation wizardry. But apparently not in the obvious way: they do in fact work for many people, and that's a very powerful psychological addictiveness in of itself.

@drgo @eiaine Yup. That's why it's both accurate and inaccurate to say ADHD drugs are just meth: they all turn into basically meth. But the rate at which that happens can be controlled with the pro-drug mechanisms they use in various ways.

@eiaine @drgo There's probably layers upon layers of regulatory mechanisms to prevent dopamine and similar things from going haywire due to chemical imbalances. That'd make manipulating them long-term with simple drugs difficult.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/1938-nazi-law-forced-jews-register-their-wealthmaking-it-easier-steal-180968894/

"A 1938 Nazi Law Forced Jews to Register Their Wealth—Making It Easier to Steal"

Remember this, next time someone pushes AML/KYC. Or the literal mandatory wealth reporting laws that some lobby groups are pushing - literal Nazi policy, for everyone.