Max

Max

Praxeologist ~ Cryptoanarchist ~ Cypherpunk

max@towardsliberty.com

First messages delivered between @White Noise and Marmot-ts web app, interoperability achieved!
3h ago
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So much happened this month...
Big plans executed, hatching the next batch of big plans now.

Article
4h ago
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Access Now documented 296 internet shutdowns across 54 countries in 2024. Encryption protects the message but not the wire it travels on, and governments that cannot read your traffic can still ensure you never send it. Mesh networking inverts this vulnerability by making every device both an endpoint and a relay, operating on unlicensed spectrum with no towers and no permission required. The economics of mesh convert communication infrastructure from a centralized public utility into a club good where each participant's contribution directly improves their own service. A $30 radio in a window is the minimum viable defense against a shutdown playbook that assumes the government controls the infrastructure.
The Frequency of Dissentby Max
7h ago
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OpenClaw arrived in late January 2026 with 229,000 GitHub stars and a pitch that resonated: a personal AI assistant you run on your own devices, connected to whatever messaging platforms you already use. The premise is correct. Your AI assistant should run locally and answer only to you. The question is how that premise gets implemented, and implementation is where the two projects diverge completely.
Your AI Should Answer to You: PAI vs. OpenClawby Max
3d ago
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Mesh protocols have proliferated, each generating separate cryptographic identities with no relationship to anything you already own. FIPS, announced yesterday by GNU Radio's former Chief Architect, takes a different approach: your existing Nostr keypair becomes your mesh address.

Your Nostr Key Is Your Network Addressby Max
4d ago
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War is a business with concentrated beneficiaries and dispersed victims. The defense industry has already won the arithmetic of democratic politics: small groups with large stakes outorganize large groups with small ones. Moral arguments against war fail because they address the powerless while ignoring the powerful. Peace will prevail when the incentive structure that makes war profitable is redesigned to make peace more profitable.
The Market for Peaceby Max
6d ago
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Looks like we'll have the next @White Noise release tomorrow!
This is gonna be a big one, it'll finally "just work". @Amber support coming too!
1w ago
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Well that escalated quickly, now how to find the time to read all those...
Note
1w ago
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Got any book recommendations?
1w ago
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Do we really still not have a decent nostr search engine?
1w ago
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My previous post showed that merchant courts resolve trade disputes with greater speed and lower cost than any state monopoly. One objection always follows: violence, the cases that supposedly demand a public prosecutor and a prison.
From medieval Iceland to the Somali pastoral lands, legal traditions separated by oceans and centuries answer the objection the same way. Criminal acts were debts owed to specific victims, enforced through victim restitution and community exclusion.
The Price of Bloodby Max
2w ago
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Private dispute resolution keeps reappearing across centuries and civilizations because the economic logic that produces it is the same logic that produces every other market. State courts exhibit every pathology economists predict from monopoly: high cost and zero accountability to the people who use them.
This post argues that merchant courts were the market default that states displaced, and that technology is now restoring them.
The Merchant Court Returnsby Max
2w ago
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@Zapstore is indexing about 1 new app per second currently.
2w ago
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Every bill of exchange in pre-1914 London carried a death date. Ninety-one days after acceptance, the consumer's gold payment for the delivered goods extinguished the credit that had financed the entire chain from production to sale.
Modern government debt carries no such mechanism. It rolls over perpetually, compounding interest on interest, until the arithmetic forces either default or debasement.
Self-Liquidating Credit: The Instrument That Destroys Itselfby Max
2w ago
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Your code lives on GitHub and your binaries distribute through Google Play, with dependencies pulled from npm (also owned by Microsoft). Two corporations control the pipeline from source to installed application, and both have complied with government demands to remove software.
The Nostr protocol now provides a coherent set of developer tools that replaces each link in this chain with infrastructure authenticated by a single keypair you own. This post maps the practical migration path.
Your Software Runs on Enemy Infrastructureby Max
2w ago
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Big plans...
This will be epic!

Note
2w ago
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PGP's Web of Trust demanded ceremony. Keybase proved you could replace it with social proof, then died from centralization. Nostr's follow graph already contains the trust infrastructure that a challenge-response verification app can activate across any anonymous text channel.
A suggestion for anyone looking for something worth building.
Verify Anyone on Any Channelby Max
3w ago
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Every surveillance backdoor ever mandated by law has eventually been used by the wrong people. A door built for one visitor admits every visitor. The 35 year war on open protocols has produced a clear record: the protocols survive, the developers sometimes do not. For anyone building systems designed to resist state pressure, that record contains specific architectural lessons about what survives and why.
When They Come for the Protocolsby Max
3w ago
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@V E C T O R is a full fledged marmot client, nice!
3w ago
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E2EE or GTFO
3w ago
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I spent years testing mobile podcast setups on GrapheneOS and every option failed: Bluetooth earbuds have terrible mic quality, wired splitter setups are tethered and clunky, and USB-C wireless mics like the DJI Mic don't work for calls because Android won't route audio back to them.
The solution is the Yealink BH71 Bluetooth headset with its 4-mic beamforming array. Simplicity beats complexity for mobile content creation.
If you know of something better, please share!
The Mobile Podcast Setup That Actually Worksby Max
3w ago
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Live now, join us
Note
3w ago
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Join our call in 15 minutes!
We'll demo a bunch of stuff.
Note
3w ago
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