NBTV: Your Money, Your Data, Your Life

Many companies are forced to hand over customer data, or weaken their security, and they can’t tell you about it. The FBI has a thing called a National Security Letter, which is a request for information and gag orders rolled into one. Although judges have ruled them to be unconstitutional, they are more common than you realize, and each branch and agency in the US government has something similar.Recipients of the letter are forced to comply with requests, whether they be weakening security or handing over data, and companies face serious criminal sanctions if they publicly discuss what is being done to their company. You can’t even tell anyone you received a National Security Letter.The letter from the FBI is signed by an attorney, and you can’t even tell a lawyer about it. How many platforms that we use, which we think are secure and private, are under gag orders? Probably a lot more than we think. One tool that privacy platforms use to warn people if their site has been compromised is a “warrant canary”. They’re not ideal, because they rely on people knowing about them, noticing when they’re taken down, and drawing the right conclusions from that, but they’re still probably the best tool we have. Let me know of any sites you’ve found that still have warren canaries, or any that have been used effectively. Support the show

Treasury Secretary Mnuchin plans to rush out new regulation regarding self-hosted crypto wallets before the end of his term.Apparently the proposed regulation would  “require financial institutions like Coinbase to verify the recipient/owner of the self-hosted wallet, collecting identifying information on that party, before a withdrawal could be sent to that self-hosted wallet” according to Coinbase CEO Brian ArmstrongSo what would this ruling mean? Don’t want to have to KYC a store before buying groceries? Want to participate in DeFi? Then move your money out of financial institutions and into non-custodial wallets. Remember: not your keys, not your coins.Happy thanksgiving everyone!Reporting by C. Edward Kelso and Naomi BrockwellSupport the show

Last week, $1 billion of bitcoin was seized by the DOJ, money that a hacker allegedly stole from the Silk Road in 2012. The hacker's lawyer calls him a "modern-day Robin Hood".But a couple of things to keep in mind:1) The Hacker was most likely coerced to hand over the keys under heavy duress2) The money was given to the DOJ so that they can continue their war on p̶e̶o̶p̶l̶e̶ drugs, sending non-violent people to jail. Possibly the least noble use of the money I can think of.And I still have a LOT of questions about what actually took place. Petition for Trump to pardon Ross:https://www.change.org/p/clemency-for-ross-ulbricht-condemned-to-die-in-prison-for-a-website?hpLearn more about the Ross Ulbricht case:https://freeross.org/false-allegations/Watch on LBRY:https://open.lbry.com/@NaomiBrockwell:4/1-billion-Bitcoin-seized-by-DOJSupport the show

How private is Zoom, really?For years, Zoom claimed to have end-to-end encryption for all its calls, which means that users can communicate securely with each other, and no one else -- not even Zoom -- can access the call.It turns out this wasn't true, and yesterday the FTC reached a settlement with Zoom about its misleading language. Even though Zoom now actually IS rolling out e2eE for its users, is it a platform we can really trust? And how do the alternatives compare? Watch on LBRY https://open.lbry.com/@NaomiBrockwell:4/Is-Zoom-Spying-on-us:7?r=JBjAdauAdeysMGVDbHMJpNSQzbcMyqYgSupport the show

Another election has come and gone.And the winner is... the state.The money printers will continue to churn, that much we can expect.  In the past 12 months, the amount of US  Dollars in existence rose by over 41%.25% of all money ever created by the FED was created in the last 12 months. Let that sink in. It's no wonder bitcoin rose back above $15k today for the first time in almost 3 years.USD money supply chart:https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M1Support the show

Avanti, led by crypto OG Caitlin Long, was approved to become a bank in Wyoming. Quick Bytes:00:09 JPMorgan changes its tune: “Bitcoin has considerable upside and will become more valuable if people use it”01:32 China’s battle against stablecoins: anything that competes with their Central Bank Digital Currency will be outlawed02:43 Harvest Finance protocol hack! 10s of millions drained from their pools, 100s of millions more pulled from the site by users who didn’t want their funds stolen. 03:43 New Crypto Bank in Wyoming, and the dawn of a new crypto era: Avanti, founded by bitcoin OG Caitlin Long, was approved unanimously by the Wyoming State Banking Board to become a state-chartered bank – A special bank, for crypto. 07:24 Cointree message highlightSupport the show

There are 3 different types of consensus protocols:Classical, Satoshi's, and a new one released last year called AvalancheEmin Gün Sirer is a professor at Cornell and founder of Ava labs and he explains how each works, and the history behind them.The newest, Avalanche, was released anonymously last year by a group calling themselves "Team Rocket" ('Team Rocket' is a reference to Satoshi's enemy in Pokemon). They created an entirely new consensus protocol, that is now being experimented with by multiple groups in the crypto space, including Emin who is developing a protocol called "Ava" (I explain Ava in my next video).Watch the video version here:https://youtu.be/rNH0XhRoscUSupport the show

Back in 2014 I interviewed Joey Fiscella of Florin coin: A small alt coin where you could write messages to your loved ones that would be stored forever in the blockchain.Now 5 years later, Florin has transitioned to "Flo" with a really interesting use case, and you wouldn't believe the success they've had with some major organizations including Caltech and Tzero.To watch the video, visit: https://youtu.be/kEnPlBAq3-kSupport the show

Some baby tips from CEO of Sense chat Crystal Rose Pierce:When choosing a baby name, the first thing to do is make sure it's 12 characters, which is the length of an EOS wallet addressGet your baby involved early, ideally have her carry a crypto torch whilst still in uteroProof of Birth: Get her registered with a REAL identity on the blockchain, not one of these flimsy govt-issued identitiesThanks so much for chatting with me, Crystal! And congratulations to you and Brock for the arrival of your beautiful baby daughter Aurora! To watch the video version, visit: https://youtu.be/0A1xluO_94ISupport the show

The community has shown that we NEED a crypto alternative to Patreon. Too many people are being deplatformed, and payment providers have too much power. Crypto is censorship resistant, and is the obvious next step for those who believe in Freedom of Speech.Crypto-fuelled Patreon alternative "Bitbacker" was just acquired by Draper-backed startup "Flote". I chat with CEO Kingsley Edwards about how Flote is reimagining Social Media as we know it, and why censorship resistant money is important for content creators. Really exciting news for the Bitbacker community, and the crypto community at large!!Flote.app will be launching very soon! More details to come :)Support the show