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What's up everybody? Welcome to Freedom Tech Wrap for the week ending January 27th.
My name is Marks and this is your weekly source for news and project updates in the freedom and independent technology space.
We live in a highly connected world. Freedom Tech lets you decide how you want to connect and where your data live.
Freedom Tech Wrap is an independent show. If you want to support what we're doing, you can send us value through your podcasting 2.0 app.
Your support and your feedback are greatly appreciated. And now, on to the news.
First up today, we have a project that is responding to a very large bounty put out there by Jack Dorsey.
Now, if you aren't aware of this, about a year ago, Jack posted a bounty for 10 Bitcoin asking to have somebody build a new version of GitHub that is built on open protocols.
Here is the original post. He says, "Still believe it's critical we have a credible, permissionless alternative to GitHub, ideally based on Nostr,
one that Bitcoin Core and all Nostr devs would trust. Moving my bounty up from 120 million sats to 1 billion sats."
Quick side note, what's great about this is he actually had a typo and it was "Guthub" instead of "GitHub."
But hey, Nostr, you can't edit or remove, so it sticks there in the history books. That was on March 3rd, 2023.
Well, a developer, there are quite a few developers working on it, but one of them has posted, initially this week, his first part of the project.
And it's called "GitWorkshop.dev, a permissionless alternative to GitHub over Nostr." This is built by Dan Conway-Dev and is being built in response to the bounty.
There is a debate out there right now on Nostr whether this should be one giant monolithic app like GitHub is,
or if it should be built in many different microservices that coordinate together.
So no matter what side of that you fall on, I recommend going and checking out the project. It's very much a work in progress, but cool to see some traction going here.
Next news story. Reuters reports that the US is aiming to have "know your customer" cloud computing requirements.
According to the article, the Biden administration is proposing requiring US cloud companies to determine whether foreign entities are accessing US data centers to train AI models.
According to US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, she says, "We can't have non-state actors or China or folks who we don't want accessing our cloud to train their models.
We use export controls on chips, and those chips are in American cloud data centers, so we also have to think about closing down that avenue for potential malicious activity."
So if you don't need more reasons to set up your own server at home, this is a big one.
The US government would like to have people upload their ID when signing up for cloud services.
Regulators have a pattern where they cite dangerous use cases as justification for strengthening control over technology.
So you read their words here, they say "non-state actors or China or folks who we don't want."
That last part, "folks who we don't want," is really the most dangerous part. It's vague and can have an ever-changing definition to fit the current political climate.
So set up your own server, use cloud services that aim to be more independent-oriented,
and really, for more on this topic, you can look in the feed for this show and check out the No Strings episode called "You Need a Home Server."
Next up, remember the Freedom Convoy from a couple years ago?
Well, the Freedom Convoy had a court victory. The federal government in Canada acted illegally in responding to the 2022 Freedom Convoy.
According to the article, "The Justice Center is pleased to announce that the legal and constitutional challenge against the first-ever invocation of the Emergencies Act,
filed as Jost et al. v. Canada, has been decided in favor of the citizens who participated in the peaceful 2022 Freedom Convoy in Ottawa.
The Justice Center provided lawyers for these Canadians who launched a court action within 10 days of the Emergencies Act being invoked,
and who sought a court declaration that the Emergencies Act was invoked without legal justification."
Edward Cornell said his experience having his bank account seized was traumatic.
"I broke no law, yet the government seized my accounts and froze my hard-earned money.
I am not a criminal. I am not a terrorist. I am a retired Canadian military veteran who honorably served his country.
I feel betrayed by my own government."
So, it's nice to see this victory played out in the courts.
You may remember a couple of weeks ago, I talked about an article from Ian Burrell,
where he traveled to Africa, to Malawi, and saw a Bitcoin mining operation that was helping to build out power infrastructure in Malawi.
Well, this is another part of that article, but this one is courtesy of Alex Gladstein.
So, it's his take on the whole story, because they were there together.
So, this one's called "Stranded - How Bitcoin is Saving Wasted Energy and Expanding Financial Freedom in Africa."
This was published in Bitcoin Magazine, and it is super long.
So, I recommend reading it. It's great.
I have not made it fully through, because it is very long, but I've made it most of the way through.
Alex Gladstein is from the Human Rights Foundation, and he reports on how Bitcoin is monetizing stranded energy,
financing electrical infrastructure, and empowering people to finally have electricity in their homes.
I just want to read you the first few paragraphs from his essay here.
"Hundreds of millions of Africans face two problems holding them back from progress.
600 million lack electricity, while virtually all 1.4 billion people on the continent lack high-quality currency.
Compare this to the U.S., Northern Europe, and Japan, where nearly everyone has access to consistent, affordable power
and a widely accepted reserve currency like the dollar, euro, or yen.
The longer that Africans suffer from power blackouts and high inflation, the harder it is for them to get a leg up,
despite their best efforts.
Worse still, legacy energy and financial providers have no incentive to alleviate this issue,
meaning currency debasement, debt traps, and grid shutdowns persist.
Most might look at this scenario and conclude that the next African century will be very difficult.
Despite being blessed by abundant energy sources like mighty rivers, blazing sun, strong winds, and geothermal heat,
Africa remains largely unable to harness these natural resources for its economic growth.
A river might run through it, but human development in the region has been painfully reliant on charity or expensive foreign borrowing until now."
The article goes on to talk about a hydroelectric power source that is next to a town called Bondo up in the mountains,
in a very beautiful part of the world of Malawi, right on the border of Mozambique.
And there's an individual there who has been trying to subsidize the cost of power so that local citizens can afford it,
but he's obviously running out of money.
And so in comes a new startup company called Gridless.
If you aren't familiar with Gridless, they started a couple years ago, and these are the types of projects that they're going after.
They showed up and they started buying the excess power that this utility company was producing,
allowing the company to make money, and then they could build out more infrastructure to connect more homes.
So prior to that, 2,000 households were connected, and they are trying to bring on another 3,000, and then beyond.
So I recommend checking it out. It's pretty cool.
What can happen when you have a buyer of last resort for electricity in these kinds of places?
And if you're sitting there thinking that Bitcoin mining is taking power and pricing these citizens out of power,
that's not the case, because Bitcoin mining wants to have the cheapest electricity possible.
And if there are people who want to turn their homes on and are willing to pay slightly more,
then the miner will go somewhere else and go find another place just like this,
where there is stranded power that is being sent into the ground and wasted.
They will plug in. They will pay money to the utility company,
and that utility company will then have profits to build out more infrastructure, build out the grid, and connect more people.
So it's really a win-win here.
Now, along the lines of this, we come next to Peter McCormack.
He has his video series called "Follow the Money," and he just published his fifth film called "Lebanon, Life After the State."
His team went to Lebanon to see what a country looks like when a state has lost its ability to serve its citizens,
so communities have to find ways to survive together.
This also talks a lot about power that's been turned off because utility companies can't operate,
and there's a neighborhood that is able to band together, and he's able to raise some money over lightning to help turn the lights on for a little bit on a street.
It's an interesting video. I've only caught snippets so far, but I recommend checking it out because it looks like it's going to be a good one.
I've watched his other ones, and they're all great as well, so I recommend checking out his series, "Follow the Money."
You can find it on YouTube, or you can find it on whatbitcoindid.com.
Along the Bitcoin mining front, we have Ocean Pool, and they found two blocks this week.
Ocean found a block on January 24th and January 26th.
If you don't know what Ocean is, I recommend that you become familiar with it.
It's the rebirth of an old mining pool by Luke Dash Jr.
This time, he's paired up with some big names like Jack Dorsey and Bitcoin Mechanic.
In the words of Luke Dash Jr., he says, "We are launching as the most transparent pool and also the only non-custodial pool where miners are the recipients of new block rewards directly from Bitcoin."
Miners are not paid a flat rate for their hash. They're actually paid directly from the Coinbase.
There's also no know-your-customer necessary for this.
So you literally just go into your mining software, you put in the address for Ocean's Pool, and it starts mining.
I switched my Space Heater miner over to them, and it was super easy.
On that note, I love my Space Heater miner. It's awesome.
During winter, it's been great to turn it on and know that it's making me money while I'm also heating my house.
So that also is a win-win.
If you want to learn more about it, hit me up on nostr@marks@nostraplebs.com.
If you are playing around with Meshtastic, I've got a YouTube playlist for you.
I discovered it this week, courtesy of the comms channel.
These videos are short and provide an excellent guide for someone who is starting brand new into the world of LoRa and Meshtastic.
I've been trying to get into it and get some gear, but it's getting more popular and supplies are sold out everywhere.
I'm interested in joining a local mesh network as well as getting my own private encrypted network going.
Let me know if you're doing Meshtastic and how it's going for you.
I'm in the beginning stages of learning and would love to hear how you are using it so I can understand more use cases.
If this is interesting to you, go check out Getting Started with Meshtastic from the comms channel on YouTube.
Our friends over at Mutiny Wallet have some new stuff to show off.
The car man from the Mutiny team published an article called "Announcing Superposition and NoteDuel, Our First Two DLC Experiments."
These are two new projects for Discrete Log Contracts, or DLCs.
It's an Oracle and a Smart Contracts project on Nostr.
Superposition is the first one. It allows an account to be an Oracle for a specific outcome.
This person or this account would build up reputation within the community so that they would be a trusted Oracle.
The second project is called NoteDuel. It is a Smart Contract project that uses Superposition as its Oracle.
In the example that he writes about, there is a Superposition poll created that asks, "Will mempools clear in 2024?"
This is referring to the Bitcoin transaction pool.
In NoteDuel, two people pick a side and sign a note that will automatically be published on their account when the outcome is determined.
The notes are partially signed and can be verified as authentic. Then they will be published based on the trigger from the Oracle.
There are so many use cases for a system like this.
Most obvious is for the betting market. Sports betting, political betting, etc.
You could also do business contracts set up on the system, political news from elections.
You could write versions of each outcome and have it auto-publish when the results are in.
So many other things. If you have more ideas, let's hear them.
How would you use a system like this? I think it's really cool.
Two more news stories for you. This one is courtesy of Nost.social.
If you are interested in doing usability testing on a Nostr client, they've got the opportunity for you.
You can help Nost.social team test out new prototypes of their user experiences.
All tests will take place over Zoom and require a Mac or iPhone or iPad.
In the show notes, I'll have a link for you. You can click on that link if you want to participate.
Fill out their little survey or you can just go check out Rabble on Nostr.
In his feed, he's got a link to it as well.
The last story for the day is a card game. It's called Age of Data, the card game.
This is from a group called eFoundation. They've created a card game to teach children about privacy challenges related to phone usage.
You can download a digital version of the card game and test it out.
They are taking feedback that could be incorporated into the final game.
This is a test of a physical card game that they're going to sell or give away or something.
The Foundation's goal is to empower citizens with knowledge and products that are useful to protect their privacy.
I'd like to take this moment to read the boosts that have been sent in from last week's episode and throughout the week.
Received quite a few boosts this week, which I'm really grateful for.
Thank you, everybody, for listening and for sending boosts and streaming those sats.
First one is a 10,000 sat boost from Jittering Blender.
Says, "You are an excellent source of Freedom Tech news. You remind me of the surveillance report, but you cover Bitcoin and Nostr topics.
I love it." Thank you, Jittering Blender. You're awesome.
Next is from Humble Pleb. This is 5,000 sats.
"Yo, just found this. Shaka. Looking forward to diving in.
It's challenging to keep up with all the tech and updates and what you should be using when you're not very technical."
Thank you, Humble Pleb. Hopefully, we can help you learn what's new out there and stay up to date with it all.
Next, received three boosts from The Wild Hustle. The Wild Hustle, you're awesome.
Went back and listened to a few different episodes and posted 2,000 sats at three different episodes.
Says, "Love the opening music. Fantastic pod. Let's go."
That's right, Wild Hustle. Let's go.
Next, I got a zap on Nostr for 2,000 sats from Sebastian.
Sebastian or Sebastics is someone that I featured last week's episode and says, "Thanks for the highlight.
Talking about cool stuff that people are building. Good luck with the Drupal work."
Next up, I have a boost from OXTR, who's another account featured on last week's episode.
1,000 sats. No message. Thank you, OXTR.
You also sent me a zap for 21 sats on Nostr. You're awesome.
Then we have a zap for 411 sats from Bleetube.
No comment, but also somebody who was featured last week.
Then lastly, we have Joel W. 333 sats with no message.
Thank you, everybody, for zapping and posting and boosting. Really appreciate it.
You are all awesome.
If you would like to support the show and have your message read on next week's episode, I read all the boosts.
I read all the zaps on every episode and really appreciate your support.
Now on to the project updates.
First one, SimplexChat 5.5.
They've released a new update this week that has private notes, group history,
better UX for connecting with a chat, reduced battery usage,
and then this one's pretty cool, fully encrypted files and media in the local storage,
so they have encryption at rest.
If you're using SimplexChat, go check it out for an update 5.5.
One of our favorite podcasting apps, Fountain, has released an update 1.0.3.
This update contains a number of high-priority bug fixes and improvements from the autoplay queue to withdrawals.
Here's a bulleted list. We have fixed auto-download on play next,
fixed Android play next in queue, fixed autoplay next when screen is locked,
fixed occasional error on playback speed change, occasional pause on seek,
occasional deposit withdraw error, and improved player performance.
And again, as a side note here from last week's episode,
Fountain launched on Product Hunt this week on January 25th.
They made it all the way up to spot number six on the top product of the day,
so that's really cool because there are a lot of products that are launched on there every day.
So Value for Value got more exposure in mainstream tech this week.
People asked a lot of questions in the comments about how Value for Value works,
and there were a lot of great comments responding to them
and really just talking about the benefits of streaming value, sending boosts, and creating clips.
So congratulations to Fountain. Hopefully you're pleased with how high you got.
A lot of people showed up, so thank you if you're one of the people who showed up
and upvoted them and made a comment and really engaged with the community there
to help more people understand what it is, this crazy Value for Value thing,
and why it really makes a lot of sense.
All right, Primal. Primal has an update for Android 0.9.0.1.
The popular Nostra client has received a big update because it has a built-in wallet.
That's right. The Primal app on Android has a built-in wallet,
so users can do things like zap and send wallet transactions, as well as many bug fixes.
So if you're looking for a sweet custodial wallet in Primal, go check it out.
Reading the comments, it is really well integrated.
And there is a place for custodial wallets, and there's a place for sovereign wallets.
So go give it a use.
Next project is Nostra Ignition 0.0.4.
This is a new project from Jeff G on Nostra.
GitHub username is Erskine Gardner.
And this is a drop-in library to implement an OAuth-like sign-up experience for Nostra apps.
There is a push with multiple projects right now to bring better UX to the onboarding experience for apps with Nostra integration.
The goal is to make it as smooth as proprietary experiences that you'd have signing in with things like Twitter, Google, Apple, etc.
This uses nsecbunker for handling the key management.
If you want to learn more, check out Nostra Ignition on GitHub, and also check out nsecbunker and see what they're doing.
If you want to learn more, check out Nostra Ignition on GitHub.
And while you're there, check out nsecbunker as well. It's an interesting project.
All right, our boy Clark Moody has made a big 2.0 update to the dashboard.
It's still in beta, but it's here, and I wanted to give it to you.
Clark Moody's dashboard, for those who don't know, provides a single-page view into the metrics of the Bitcoin ecosystem.
And in this update, you can sign in with Nostra, see a new block size module, choose a theme from among 10 presets,
and then there are two new modules for ordinal inscription stats.
I don't know where you fall on the ordinal debate, or if you are one of the many who are just in the middle as kind of neutral,
but it's interesting to see the ordinals are showing up on the dashboard, so you can at least track what's going on.
Because really, we all need to know what's going on in Bitcoin.
A quote from Clark says, "In preparation for the halving this spring, I've rewritten the back end of the dashboard in Rust
and re-implemented a good chunk of the data from the existing dashboard."
So go check it out.
With Bitcoin wallets, we have Zeus, updating this week to 0.8.1.
And they have three big things here.
First one is Nostra contact import.
Second is a point of sale with inventory management.
And then third, there is a persistent LND running inside of the app.
Those are major, especially the last two.
So go check it out if you're running Zeus, and if you want to use it for your storefront.
Sounds pretty awesome.
This is a project that has been featured, I think, on every single one of these episodes so far.
This is from Unleashed.
Unleashed has 0.1.10.
This update is called SuperCoder.
They have been releasing like crazy, which is awesome.
In this release, you can now import Git repos in addition to normal files.
They generate vector embedding of all supported file types and store them for at least 24 hours.
This means that you can use an LLM with your own code base.
They also have improved PDF file processing in this update.
That is awesome.
Next project is a new one called NostraCheckAPI.ts for TypeScript.
This is courtesy of user Quentin Terrapino.
But Quentin Terrapino has released this project, and it is a Nostra backend server for media upload, Nostra address, lightning redirects, and more.
So if you want to run a server that is hosting all sorts of interesting Nostra functionality, a big one being a Nostra address,
then you can run this on your own server and be more sovereign with your Nostra usability.
Now speaking of Nostra, we have a big update from Snort, Snort 0.2.0.
And this is courtesy of Kieran.
Kieran says, "This release contains a full Nostra relay in the browser, the worker relay.
It works like any other relay on Nostra and allows us to cache content efficiently.
This also means that all reactions, replies, and posts are cached in your browser and are always available, even when you are offline.
Additionally, I've added Nigentropy support to allow for really efficient sync with the worker relay,
meaning that very little data is required to stay in sync.
This opens the door for lots of really cool things."
Then some other smaller items, which I'm putting in quotes because they're kind of big,
but there's Albi OAuth wallet connection, community leaders invite system, Cashew wallet support.
You can play live streams directly in the feed.
And then lastly, I wanted to point out that Marty, who is the developer of Iris,
if you'll remember, they merged their code bases together.
And so Iris is now running Snort.
So Marty has actually made a lot of the commits in this release.
So it's cool to see those two working together.
We have a new project by way of user Mazin, who runs the Nostra Wine relay.
This is called Relay Guardian, and it is a free Nostra relay uptime and performance monitor
with DM and email notifications created by your friends over at Nostra.Wine.
So great to see infrastructure tool sets being built and developed for Nostra.
We have a new RSS bot for Nostra created by user Raya, R-E-Y-A.
It's called Sentinel, and it will run as an account on Nostra
and auto-post RSS feed content to Nostra as notes.
It will auto-clean the content and format it for Nostra.
The first use case for Raya is that they are going to run a bot per Nostra account
to ingest high-quality content.
Now, there are already other bots like this that pull in headlines from news organizations,
for example, or tech websites.
This might be an improvement on those, so check it out if you're interested in running one yourself
and ingesting more quality content into Nostra.
That's it for the project updates today and the news.
Thank you for listening. This is Freedom Tech Rap.
If you find this weekly source useful, please share it with your people.
You can also support us through Value for Value and send us feedback on Nostra.
My Nostra address is marx@nostraplebs.com.
That's Marx, N-A-R-K-S, at N-O-S-T-R-P-L-E-B-S dot com.
And always remember to live independent.
Later.
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