Channel motto: Life is pain, only potato. 
For sharing gloomy poasting, whining, abd complaining. The more apocalyptic or petty the better. It’s always darkest before it turns pitch black.

Main

gloom

A prominent computer scientist from Indiana University who specializes in cryptography, privacy, and security has disappeared.

https://arstechnica.com/security/2025/03/computer-scientist-goes-silent-after-fbi-raid-and-purging-from-university-website/

What's going on here..
https://arstechnica.com/security/2025/03/computer-scientist-goes-silent-after-fbi-raid-and-purging-from-university-website/

Krebs painting a picture of now
https://krebsonsecurity.com/2025/03/how-each-pillar-of-the-1st-amendment-is-under-attack/

if you do anything to do with communicating on the Internet this is worth a read

and then a reread 

and then one more read for good measure

(woof.)

if you do anything to do with communicating on the Internet this is worth a read

and then a reread 

and then one more read for good measure

(woof.)

https://hilariusbookbinder.substack.com/p/the-average-college-student-today

security

you can just buy chrome extensions and inject malware into them without the users knowing.

reminder to stay safe and don't install random shit on devices that have access to your crypto wallets 
https://secureannex.com/blog/buying-browser-extensions/

I was a U.S. Fulbright student in Turkey. My research focus and adviser were not particularly friendly to the Erdogan government. My host university had a long history of campus protests. I can only imagine what would have happened if I had been detained and deported by the Turkish government.

Conservative

Is this how the world ends? Not with a bang but a whimper.

https://hilariusbookbinder.substack.com/p/the-average-college-student-today

"Bragging about your wealth doesn’t do anything for you. In this day and age, anonymity is the ultimate luxury." -Brock Pierce https://warpcast.com/geoffgolberg/0x8ecef2b9

David Sacks’ Craft Ventures just sunk a ton of money into autonomous turrets https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20250326066567/en/Allen-Control-Systems-Raises-%2430-Million-Series-A-to-Accelerate-Deployment-of-Autonomous-Weapon-Systems-and-Counter-Rapidly-Proliferating-Drone-Threat

Idea being the military will buy these to pick off drones

Kind of a cool setup for Sacks as at this point it seems clear if you know the right person in the admin you will get what you want done. I am assuming he didn’t dump money into this without some clear way to get his wheel greased  🤑

chat what’s the shorthand for “won’t end well”

wew?

Minority Report cured me of ever thinking stuff like this would make the world a better place

Creators

Quick update on ghiblifying:

Anything of value that you create can and will be co-opted by bad actors faster than any restraining force can respond

It’s visual art today, but it’s code and every other kind of media tomorrow

Does this rebirth underground scenes?

Ethereum

Dropping some thoughts as this concerns me a lot lately:
- What happens when a DPRK-backed persona slips into Ledger, Trezor, MetaMask, etc.?
- What happens when client teams get compromised from within, turning trusted core devs into silent attack vectors?
- What happens if the Kim boys start tampering with the cryptographic libraries we all rely on?

(we don't know if this already happened btw...)

So far, the attacks have targeted individual projects. The next phase? My guess is a full-scale takeover of the infra that holds our ecosystem together.

Look, it's pretty simple: the threat model isn't just shifting—it's escalating. Every move you make without paranoia is an opening for state-sponsored actors to dig in deeper. If you're not fucking questioning everything, you're already playing their game.

This industry's long-term survival depends on its foundational pillars operating in a constant state of paranoia. Like it or not.

Sarcasm is my go-to way of being critical of things, but when those things are serious enough, sarcasm actually help normalize and perpetuate bad things. It’s more an escape valve for the impulse to resist than a mode of resistance. Cf: Zizek’s cyninicism as a mode of ideology.

So as a matter of hygiene, I’ve basically stopped being sarcastic about US politics. I’ll either say it straight or shut up. Being clever is counterproductive. 

This is why people who like what’s going on tend to say things like, “c’mon lighten up, you’re over-reacting, it’s not that serious. You’re being paranoid/hysterical.” Getting adversaries who are not at immediate risk to “lighten up” is a key tactic of apologists for authoritarian overreach.

Yes, it makes me less fun to have around, but that’s the cost of living in bad times.

politics

I dont generally enjoy Vox but it’s nice to see a major liberal news source saying that collectivizing against this authoritarian regime is essentially a moral obligation. 
https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/400603/trump-resistance-activism-democracy-authoritarianism

jackpot continues, no surprise

"A Tufts University student named Rumeysa Ozturk was disappeared off the streets of Somerville, MA yesterday for the crime of co-writing an extremely tame op-ed last year asking her school to divest from Israel's war machine."

"Welcome to Hell World" an early substack I still pay for, for the progressive perspective. Angry but articulate.

jackpot continues, no surprise

"A Tufts University student named Rumeysa Ozturk was disappeared off the streets of Somerville, MA yesterday for the crime of co-writing an extremely tame op-ed last year asking her school to divest from Israel's war machine."

"Welcome to Hell World" an early substack I still pay for, for the progressive perspective. Angry but articulate.
https://www.welcometohellworld.com/free-rumeysa-ozturk/

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/26/yale-professor-fascism-canada