Sorry for the delay.

> If you're satisfied with the available overlays -- use them, why not. But in my view, they all suffer from exactly the same problems as the USG-controlled DNS space. And sometimes worse (recall the quiet death of Namecoin, for instance.)

I'm only vaguely familiar with Namecoin so don't know what you mean. I also don't quite understand your argument. For example, this is how I2P at least used to work: you have a local address book which is a list of alias-key pairs (keys identify hosts). The address book is actually compiled out of 2 or 3 such lists (don't remember exactly) where one of the lists is your private address book where you add entries manually and which takes precedence over the rest. Another addressbook is typically filled automatically by pulling public addressbooks from registrars. Registrars however don't control zones or anything like that, they simply let users register alias-key pairs. Also registrars are not the only way to disseminate such information - you can do so via forums/wikis/etc by posting a specially formed url. So you need to control a lot of resources to control the public namespace and even then people still have their local address books and groups can maintain their own registrars.

> It isn't even as if the CMU project that unmasked the physical location of "Silk Road" were somehow secret. Just about all of the details
came out publicly (though mysteriously "deemed inadmissible" at the DPR trial.) That anyone in whatever "risk group" is able to take Tor
seriously after that incident, I find astonishing.

To break Tor you need to infiltrate the network to a considerable extent which only few actors seem to be capable of in practice. Remember that Bogatov fella? You obviously don't benifit from this but I do. Another benifit is that I give less data to internet businesses. If Snowden's dump is to be believed USG still goes to businesses for data because their data is already structured, unlike raw traffic. And another benifit is that it's easier to collab with folks you don't really know because you don't expose your IP. Not a silver bullet of course but enough of a deterrent.

> In principle, I ought to have been gassed years ago -- not only do I not use Tor etc., but publish under actual human name.

Lucky for you, they now gas with nitrogen which is painless. I once suggested going to one of the states that gas and committing a serious crime there in a thread about suicide -- the depressed cheered up.

> The NATO Reich turned into a textbook totalitarian hell many years ago. The modern-day hell differs, however, from e.g. sovok, in that it doesn't particularly take an interest in the cramolous. That is, 100% convinced that it literally does not matter what the inmates think. After 100+ years of systematic zombification, there is virtually no thinking happening, anywhere. And the effect of people who think, when these occasionally appear, is roughly zero. It is rather like dropping a lit match into the ocean -- the ocean will not catch fire. Poseidon does not feel a need to come to the surface with a fire extinguisher.

Zombification is a factor but I would argue it's less important than the artificial selection that states have been doing from their early days to cull the freedomloving from the gene pool. It's interesting how the average intelligence is increasing together with the degree domestication so you have nominally smart folks who would seriously argue about government reforms and such because the idea of living without masters is indigestable.
It peeves me that many anarchists are still obsessed with the idea of liberating the masses and don't see that the latter *loath* freedom and not just because NYT or CNN told them so but because why would a dog go live in a forest instead of the owner's apartment. Any step towards freedom is also a step towards responsibility so even if you manage to turn off the propaganda you still need to sell the idea that responsibility is good. Which is also a major reason why so many young democracies revert back to dictatorship.

> It isn't presently clear to me that USA has an outside.

The US has an outside inside the US itself as demonstrated by Unabomber and other 'interesting personalities', it's not very pleasant though to have a leviathan breathing down your neck. It doesn't make as much sense to go to a shithole if you intend to plug yourself back into the 'global economy' by e.g. using a credit card or doing what you did in Uruguay. The thing about shitholes is that it's a low floor-high ceiling deal: as long as you can stomach them you can work around the local gov rather easily. If you expect to lead the same well-above-the-ground lifestile as in the US it obviously won't work. My own shithole's gov runs on pirated Windows, is significantly bribeable and disorganized. I once had a convo about tax evasion right in a packed bus, the revelator didn't need to speak into my ear or anything.

> I, for one, haven't found this magical elixir, and pay for food, research materiel, etc. by working for the capitalists.

The elixir recipe is rather personal but always involves a degree of autonomy. The ideal is of course full high-tech autonomy when you don't just use but also produce high-tech. A goal for someone who is still involved with capitalism could be what I call partial parasitic autonomy when you produce what you can and buy the rest or extract it from garbage and other sources of freebies. The further you move along this path the less you need to work for capitalists. Personally, I'm rather ascetic and get away with doing odd jobs from time to time. Look into the off-grid community, they have a fuckton of material to draw from. For example, here a dude tried to switch his home office to solar: https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2016/05/how-to-go-off-grid-in-your-apartment.html

> It is not particularly difficult to detect attempts at surreptitious physical tampering, given a cabinet that you are willing to
physically visit on a regular basis. (You will have to come up with your own inconspicuous seals -- anything publicly documented or in
any sense standardized, is by definition useless for this application.)

What if they plant something through a vent hole? Most probably though it's not the staff but the cops who would do such a thing along with serving the staff a gag order.

> If, however, you define anything that could in principle be stolen as "not under control", then hardly anyone controls anything at all

I use a more pragmatic definition. If somebody tries to break into my house but fails then I keep control. If they succeed but I manage to chase them down and return my property then I restore control. But yes, this shows that control is more fluid than the law would have you believe.

> I developed am IMHO rather effective pill in 2015 against FSF-style "swallowing". But, as with any instrument, it only works when people use it.

I've seen mentions of projects where the accreted cum-unity effectively seized control from the original devs. Weird how most people can't imagine living not as members of a giant flock. For me, I come first, then whatever ragtag gang of other freedom-lovers I end up entangled with. That's all I'll ever need.

> The "computer that can be trusted" is specifically such where the operator will not "run out of brain". AKA "fits-in-head."

So you have your fits-in-the-head computer and then start a project in biochem or any other field with an insane amount of intrinsic complexity. Good luck not running out of brain if the system wasn't designed to help with that. You need a map of the territory: what you've learned and how it relates to what you haven't, how your product relates to that, which constraints you're currently working under and which past constraints you current iteration violates, which constraints are essential, what is their origin, etc. In other words you need a advanced ui, not just one that fits in the head. Complexity, even when it can be avoided, is less of a problem that confusion. It's one thing when you have a kinda-Unix-ish OS that is overcomplicated because it's built on bad concepts and an entirely different thing when you have that plus an actual Unix userland where there's no agreement about anything and you can't invoke the simplest command without reading a novella-size man 'page' first.

> Is any of it published somewhere ? I'd read.

Nope but hopefully something will come out this year. I plan to do a write-up about the general approach, will send you a link when I'm done.

> What is the meaning of "registrar" -- or, for that matter, "public namespace" -- in a system where everyone is simply hand-curating his own list of name-host pairings?

To provide a default name-host mapping. What's in your private address book is what you know, what is in the public namespace is what you don't.

> Depends what you think of as a "break".

Figuring the user's IP. Observing exit node traffic is not enough, you need cooperating relays too, then you figure the guard node, then you watch or pwn it. Given that Tor is not exactly small these days and you still need to be not an idiot to mount a proper attack, you need to be rather motivated and organized. Which cuts the number of actors to worry about considerably. Like I said, not a silver bullet, but enough of a deterrent. Why you think the Chinese are blocking it instead of using it as a honeypot?

> And "internet business" [...] cannot run a fleet of exits? Why exactly not?

The argument is this: a typical company gets loads of regular traffic which it mines. Tor they either don't care about or view with suspicion, so everyone's traffic gets mined equally, give or take. The difference is that unless you really care to analyze Tor traffic separately, your results will be polluted by multiple users sharing the same apparent IP. Can an internet business run a fleet of exit nodes? Sure. Do they have much motivation to? The biggest motivation Tor gives them is to figure how to block it.

> When you walk around as "anon", you cannot actually collaborate with anyone, because there is no you -- there is only a sequence of anonymous letters, which could be from anyone.

Hang on some imageboards, those that have tech- or even development-related sections. That's exactly how collaboration happens there, at least to some extent. Eventually code is moved to shithub or something and pseudonyms do pop up, but a lot of hashing out or even early code sharing via pastebins/tarballs happens anonymously. Ultimately what matters is what I say, not who I am. If somebody sends me a patch, I'm gonna look at their *code*, a known name with a good rating simply gives priority.

> How is your collaborator to know that your N+1st message is from same source as Nth?

Not a problem in practice, but also nothing prevents you from using signatures or moving to e.g. email if the channel gets too noisy.

> Especially given that you seem to be averse to the use of PGP.

Based on the fact that I don't sign when there's no objective need?

> Plenty of people try living at sea, in "unabomber cabin", etc. until they get tired, run out of supplies, and go back to where "homo homini lupus est".

"Дорогу осилит идущий", naturally. Noticed how the almighty USG couldn't stop the recent carnage? In theory, there's mass surveillance and cops + NG + the military. In practice there turns out to be room for maneuver. Same with living without masters. Look for gray zones, keep a low profile, keep your needs and wants in check. Don't point to nincompoops and say 'therefore not possible'.

> You appear to have at the very least a net connection -- so, evidently, not entirely "unplugged" ?

Unplugged in a way that matters? Yes. US commandos haven't knocked yet, no DDoS / bankruptcy / cancellation in sight either.

> Ever actually manufacture and sell a physical artifact ?

God forbid I ever. Built with my hands? Yes, a much simpler enterprise. To be on the same page, the ideal of full high-tech autonomy is an *ideal*, I've never seen it. That's my guiding star though.

> FWIW discarded consumer electronics haven't typically had salvageable parts in them for nearly a decade now.

If your experience with discarded electronics has mostly involved hermetic garbage filled with glue then I'm truly sorry. I have more salvaged components that I know what to do with.

> If you require the larger civilization to parasitize off, you are every bit as "plugged in" as the hated "salaryman".

Plugged in a way that matters? No, you enjoy the privilege of being able to channel a good amount of energy into building out. Parasitizing is an important first step. Again, "дорогу осилит идущий".

> For the sake of argument, suppose "martian" bug that fits through 1mm vent exists.

1 mm? OK, you win that one. I would still be too paranoid about e.g. a wire that could introduce a side channel or something.

> At any rate, what is the point of bugging the cage, when the upstream router is right there, and has official wiretap openly built in?

Even more reason not to use a DC.

> If someone seized control of "your" project, in what sense was it "yours" to start with?

The key word is 'was'. Dingdongs voluntarily give up control because 'community-driven' development.

> The whole point of building the computer is to "help with that" -- i.e. intelligence amplification.

Might wanna use some other term because 'fits in the head' suggests understandability of the design, not intelligence amplification. I can't think of anything concise that would suggest both.

> And when there are two or more conflicting mappings in the public namespace ?

I don't remember. At any rate, all the records get stored in your local address book so conflict can be resolved manually by e.g. storing the mapping you prefer in your private address book which takes precedence. The point of a public namespace (however it is implemented) is to provide a way to explore the network outside of your WoT. That there can be name collisions is a non-factor: Wikipedia also has name collisions and you have to manually choose which article you're actually interested in.

> Either that, or simply need to know one or more of the however-many "heartbleed" boobytraps remaining in e.g. OpenSSL. Which the people pushing TOR have on file, because they authored them.

Was checking Linux distros a while back (not baking my own yet, beside the kernel) and saw this amusing thing: Alpine Linux devs switched to LibreSSL after the heartbleed ruckus but then switched back to OpenSSL because -- get this -- package maintenance costs were too high. Also, claimed they regularly look into the crypto they build their distro on.

> Strikes me as more of an encouragement than a deterrent, from POV of the one and only enemy who matters.

Don't forget that this is *your* perspective. For me, USG is a powerful but distant enemy which probably doesn't give two craps about which lolcats I look at. The enemies that could realistically grab me by cojones are local and inept. Naturally, for anything more confidential than lolcats or arguments on the internet another layer of encryption is necessary.

> ever tried to read the code?

Some of it at some point. I also read Linux kernel code at some point. Are you gonna tell me that you don't run Linux either or have spent the last however many years auditing that turd? I view Tor as nothing but a condom, something that puts a barrier between me and the modern internet. That there's a gov on the other side of the globe with access to the backbone that can cut through the barrier doesn't keep me up at night. Ideally I would run Tor on a physically distant computer (which I *control*, i.e. not in a DC), I'm not there yet.

>~100% of the actually interesting (vs. Uncatchable Joe) people who used TOR, are in prison or dead.

I'm not 'actually interesting', I don't even buy drugs. And wrt my opposition to USG and govs in general I'm very much focused on self-sufficiency and evasion. I'm not one of those trying to bring freedom to the masses.

> > Why you think the Chinese are blocking it instead of using it as a honeypot?
> Same reason they block Google, New York Times, etc. -- to put some basic brakes on the flow of USG agitprop into idiot heads.

But Tor is mostly used by activists and techies, even in countries with a supposedly repressive regime like Russia. Why not use a honeypot to spy on those -- there won't be any need for 'parallel construction', just put those you don't like most in jail and that's it.

> In practice, very simple to separate them, via time cluster, WWW browser behaviour patterns, and the persistent login sessions that many lamers use.

Most use TorBrowser these days, so no persistent login sessions or browser differences (give or take). Which leaves user behavior which on its own, especially with JS disabled, is not very reliable. With e.g. text browsers there's less of an anonymity set but again, the less data I give the better. Most internet businesses are normie-oriented (e.g. Instagram) unlike the company you worked at. I think I've mentioned 'no silver bullet' enough times at this point.

> You will read and understand every anonymous pile of shit that comes to you? How many GB's worth ?

If the traffic is low then, yes, every. And no need to understand a pile of shit at a deep level, shit looks like shit already at the surface. If the traffic ever gets high I'll use the power of ignoring stuff. You're not one of those people with 'information overload' problems by chance, are you?

> Ever seen a group of anons arguing with one another on a forum? Naturally, "objective need" becomes obvious when the second one shows up.

Ever seen an imageboard? Pick any. Find me an instance of an objective need, I'll put it a frame. Even when there *is* ambiguity, believe it or not, people *disambiguate*. Every reply post starts with a reference to the post being replied to and when that together with the context is not enough one also adds a references to his last post.

> What "couldn't stop" -- they organized it. Not firing into the crowd is also a form of government action. The marauders are loyally serving the actual USG -- the one at Harvard. (Did you think the one in Washington actually decides anything?)

I have no interest whatsoever in conspiracies (or even prospiracies) involving the ruling class. I care about *me* and my area of control -- this is the only area where spending energy has an actual chance improving long-term odds.

> Try it some time, will be educational.

Hahaha. I prefer to learn from the mistakes of others:) Wrt production, a lot of the time you need exactly one item for exactly one person. Even when a degree of standardization is desirable it should preferably apply only to interfaces with everything else custom built. It's one of the reasons I'm not a fan of crossplatformability as it's normally practiced.

> Wait, if "not building with hands", for what do you collect the parts ?

To build with hands later, naturally. You don't go to a shop every time you need a LED.

> So, with this energy, what have you built ?

Mainly done some foundational OS-related research and started working on basic autonomous tech (low-tech). That research took me more than a decade, only finished recently and still need to test everything thoroughly and actually apply. If I a had a typical day job... you can imagine.

> You're still using a DC -- your ISP's. Which works per exactly same rules in this context.

Recall that the argument was about overlays + hardware you control vs the centralized internet + hardware at a DC. That my ISP can be tapped is a non-factor in the first scenario because the upstream is already assumed to be hostile.

> I hold that without understandability of the instrument, there can be no intelligence amplification.

Sure, but 'fits in the head' by itself doesn't suggest intelligence amplification. My work is in the area which can be described as highly integrated operating systems. And intelligence amplification is based on integration *with the user*. There's a bunch of terms like 'human-centric design' but they are all rather vague.