[FRIAM] DOGEQuest

[steve smith]

Just listened to the first half of the Guardian interview on DN! about 
Musk (and Theil and other's) links to Apartheid, White Supremacy, etc. 
and realized how much I've been avoiding tapping into that topic, even 
with Isaacson's kinder/gentler references to such.

I avoided much of the Drumpf/Trump negativity early on as well, in spite 
of much of what was flung in his general direction (e.g. his 
participation with Fred Sr.  in redlining, etc).   I didn't WANT him to 
be a racist/misogynistic/narcissistic hate-monger and I even more didn't 
want to paint him as one (in my own mind) if he wasn't.   As it turns 
out, in relative hindsight, it seems he was/is all those things even if 
not to the extreme degree some of his most virulent detractors might 
have claimed.    He (like all of us) is a complex mess of many 
motivations and forcing functions.  That doesn't mean I want him to be 
our President or maybe even be walking the streets (riding a golf cart?).

Pieter may have some first-person perspective for us on these criticisms 
of Musk and Theil  (and other SA originated techBro titans) and how 
their cultural embedding/origination may have shaped them (for better 
and worse).   I try to remember that what I think of as someone elses' 
"excuse" is actually their "reason" in many cases.   Strange conflation.

I grew up with nothing but the hero-worship around me of "Indian 
fighters" and "mighty predator hunters" only to discover that for the 
most part (exclusively?) they were the hands/leading edge of widespread 
genocide and species extinction.   Even today, the MAGA crowd probably 
holds them and that behaviour up as "heroic".    No wonder the 
Greenlanders aren't having it?

BTW since there are a number of folks with significant netizen veteran 
status here, can anyone attribute the /_*"Big Stupid is Watching" 
*_/variant of Orwell's statement?  I learned it as being coined or 
promulgated by Taylor Meade, but cannot find any specific attribution to 
him, or to anyone else in fact.  The best I can come up with i vague 
references to it's use as a .sig by hackers/Usenet/BBS Denizens, etc?


On 3/28/25 12:01 PM, glen wrote:
> Re: doxing - I was briefly ashamed when Eric suggested that wearing a 
> t-shirt with Maxwell's equations on it might be a sign of insecurity. 
> My tattoos are all logico-mathematical. And like wearing a pink shirt 
> to high school in '80s Texas, I'm secure enough to wear them without 
> any persistent shame. 8^D I can't even count the number of times I was 
> challenged to a fight just because of the color of my shirt. Luckily, 
> I knew how to fight.
>
> But similar to the poor sods recently deported to El Salvador, I often 
> think it's a Good Thing for people to, say, fly Confederate flags or 
> get nazi tattoos. The trick is knowing which information is a trigger 
> for doxing and which isn't. A neighbor here in Oly asked me what my 3 
> Arrows flag means. I said "It's an AntiFa flag." She seemed to have an 
> aneurysm and went off about how AntiFa is a terrorist organization. I 
> tried to explain the history of the Iron Front and whatnot. But she 
> was having none of it.
>
> First they came for the Real Madrid fans; and I did not speak out ...
>
> On 3/28/25 10:14 AM, steve smith wrote:
>>
>> On 3/27/25 10:14 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
>>>
>>> There used to be this thing called the White Pages.  Somehow life 
>>> went on.
>>>
>> But how is a smart-ass to show off by ripping a printed phonebook in 
>> half with bare hands?
>>
>> https://www.artofmanliness.com/living/games-tricks/how-to-tear-a-phone-book-in-half/
>>
>> If your comment is relevant to "doxing":
>>
>> As a PI in the late 70s I reluctantly (ashamedly?) paid for a reverse 
>> index copy of the White Pages every year which allowed anyone to 
>> trivially look up a name/address by phone number and/or trivially 
>> find the name/phone-number at a given address.   I don't remember the 
>> (significant) cost but it did reflect the effort required (access to 
>> the original data in digital form and then access to a mainframe to 
>> do the sorting/formatting) followed by traditional typeset/print.  
>> The copy-cost was order $100s which was non-trivial to someone whose 
>> hourly rate was a whopping $10/hr.
>>
>> The highest ROI was often finding addresses with no phone-number 
>> affiliated... this could mean several things, but as likely as not 
>> might mean someone hiding from "the law" as was so easy in those 
>> days.   In following builders whose long-game was to build a lot of 
>> credit and then skip town, it was not uncommon for them to hand off 
>> some of their ill-gotten non-movable assets to another builder in the 
>> same "syndicate" which might even include their home... sometimes a 
>> rental, sometimes sold at a discount, etc.   So when a known 
>> debt-skip individual left town, if the person taking over their home 
>> (rent or own) had a modest chance of being yet another of the same 
>> ilk to show up on the creditor's skip-trace searches any time now.   
>> Being ready for this was like cash in the bank for me.   Most of 
>> these folks had a number of aliases, so the person they were looking 
>> for would never show up on any registries or indices...  but the 
>> haystack could be reduced significantly by looking at these negative 
>> spaces.
>>
>> I was very shy about TV-PI stunts like looking up a neighbor's 
>> name/number and calling them or showing up at their door pretending 
>> to be or know things I didn't/wasn't, though I do think I did toy 
>> with it a little on acutely difficult cases.
>>
>> I ached for digital access to some of this data.   I had a partner in 
>> a small business who ran a time-share business for small businesses 
>> using a CP/M machine with each client holding their own (tiny by 
>> today's standards) hard-disk.   We would move the computer from 
>> business to business in half-day blocks and (gently) hook up their 
>> private drive (obviating risks of vibration/shock when moving hard 
>> drives around).   I vaguely remember that we toyed with NorthStar but 
>> they never delivered a hard-drive solution in our timeframe (I left 
>> Uni in 1980).  The state of the art included creating a custom 
>> BIOS... He was a Computer Engineering grad student and had enough 
>> cash to front the gear.  My role was mostly being tech savvy enough 
>> to deliver the machine and set it up with their own hard-drive and 
>> get them booted into the applications (Peachtree, Visicalc, WordStar, 
>> custom Basic apps for mail lists, labels, etc).    I had a lot of 
>> business contacts (mostly lawyers, related) as well.   We had a 
>> daisywheel printer we also delivered with the computer and even 
>> modded a used IBM Selectric but by the time I left, we had not gotten 
>> it reliable enough to replace the daisy-wheel.
>>
>> All of this is pretty much trivial in today's technology including 
>> consumer-OCR.
>>
>> BTW, I wasn't complaining about the .onion address, just entertained 
>> to discover there was such a thing and curious about what the 
>> implications of it might be.  And offering a little context to any 
>> other Philistines (beyond myself) who were unaware of any of this.
>>
>> The world definitely "moves on" (quote from Stephen King's Gunslinger 
>> character in Dark Tower franchise).
>>
>> A few years ago I was under the illusion that i could "keep up" but 
>> it is evident to me now that I can at best clutch at the trailing, 
>> tattering edges of the world as it "moves on".
>>
>> My "bar friends" (GPT, etc) help a little but as gets pointed out 
>> regularly hear, I am probably often being badly mislead as they seem 
>> only to be capable of stochastic parroting of (sophisticated) rumours 
>> about things.
>>
>> Oh, the benefits of a finite lifespan! (you Xer's and younger may not 
>> enjoy that benefit?)
>>
>>> *From:*Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> *On Behalf Of *steve smith
>>> *Sent:* Thursday, March 27, 2025 8:59 AM
>>> *To:* friam at redfish.com
>>> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] DOGEQuest
>>>
>>> Not clear on the construction of your link?  Is it a bit.ly like 
>>> hash run by the onion?
>>>
>>> With a tiny bit of research I now understand that .onion TLD 
>>> addressses are only accessible through the TOR browser...  Is .onion 
>>> a twilight-web (vs darkweb)?
>>>
>>> original article?
>>>
>>> https://www.404media.co/dogequest-site-claims-to-dox-tesla-owners-across-the-u-s/
>>>
>>> I recommend the following to reluctant/ashamed Tesla Owners: 
>>> https://stealmytesla.com/
>>>
>>> <begin Tangent>
>>>
>>>     Doxing in general is chilling even when inadvertent or "mild".   
>>> In 2020 I was (mildly) shocked to discover that voter-registration 
>>> data at the address level is publicly available.   Of the 4 houses 
>>> on our lane, every one had one "independent" and the second 
>>> registration was split between Donkeys and Elephants.   
>>> Unfortunately "independent" in the other (besides myself) cases 
>>> almost assuredly maps onto rabid-liberatarian crypto-conservative 
>>> 2nd amendment.  Those registered Red/Blue were the women.  And I 
>>> think any one on the lane looking this info up would come to the 
>>> same conclusions.  Our bumper stickers are small but definitely not 
>>> MAGA.  I hate even having to be registered.   There seems to be some 
>>> ambiguity between "independent" and "unaffiliated"... I think 
>>> "independent" sometimes means "Indepenent Party", other times it 
>>> means "unaffilliated"? messy, ambiguous?
>>>
>>>     My daughters both finally went EV about 1.5 years ago. 
>>> YungerDotter opted into TSLA for myriad reasons unrelated to being a 
>>> Muskophile.   She works in a fairly young/startup techBro company in 
>>> Denver where their ModelY doesn't stand out in the parking lot at 
>>> all and they live in a semi-MAGA neighborhood of Denver (Parker) 
>>> where the neighbors are more likely to give them a thumbs up for 
>>> their "choice". Her partner is a project manager for a Raytheon 
>>> division doing satellite tasking.  The Model Y is also not out of 
>>> place in that parking lot and at least half of his peers are 
>>> probably rabid proMusk if not proMAGA or DOGE.   So they aren't 
>>> acutely worried about much vandalism/etc at either end of their 
>>> commute(s) but it has made them acutely aware of a lot of things 
>>> they had been able to not think too much about previously.  They are 
>>> both counter-aligned with DOGE/MAGA/MUSK in virtually every way and 
>>> this is just one more reminder of the impedance mismatch in their work/
>>>     home choices. They both plead Golden Handcuffs.  Dotter is 
>>> considering leaving the (clearly questionable) realm of data-center 
>>> development to join the Japanese iSpace lunar-robotics company 
>>> (branch in Denver).   She's struggling with what that spiritual 
>>> trade-space looks like. Or she could go back to pushing liquor, 
>>> mortgages, or managing trust-fund-babies' money for them?
>>>
>>>     elderDotter went with the bargain Bolt used from Hertz. She fits 
>>> right in in Portland, on both ends of her commute and everywhere in 
>>> between.   I suspect the depreciation of her sister's TSLA exceeds 
>>> the entire purchase price (with incentives) of the Bolt.  If NIH 
>>> funding (esp for virology and third-world viruses at that) tanks 
>>> (RKjr) she will be very glad not to have taken on a new silly debt 
>>> the size of a TSLA.
>>>
>>>     FWIW, they *both* manage a roughly 60 mile RT commute 4-5 days a 
>>> week with Level 1 charging at home only... (couple of bucks per RT)  
>>> they need a weekend day to catch up for the slow daily deficit of 
>>> charge.   Keeping the battery even more mid-range than the defaults 
>>> is also a good strategy for battery life.   I do wish on each of 
>>> them a DIY PV/inverter setup strictly for their EV charging for a 
>>> (near) carbon-neutral commute...   but I'm not living close enough 
>>> to effect this for them directly.
>>>
>>>     <double-tangent>
>>>
>>>         My own EV adventure includes my near end-of-life Volt 
>>> PHEV.   I bought it at 166k (in 2017) with a failing traction 
>>> battery and put in (non-trivial) a 95k used battery which after 
>>> about 60k miles is now struggling (I'm able to manage it with 
>>> various techniques which I would not wish on anyone else) but no 
>>> longer can get the EV-only trips I used to...  I pretty much have to 
>>> burn .1-.3 gallons of petrol with every RT to LA, Espanola, 
>>> Pojoaque.   As the weather warms, this may get better.   I picked up 
>>> Ford's bargain version with low miles a few weeks ago and it will 
>>> displace the otherwise happy Prius I bought for Mary a couple of 
>>> years ago.  It also (by design limits) wants to burn a tiny bit of 
>>> gas for most RTs from home... most notably the 2500' climb to Los 
>>> Alamos.   The Ford battery is just over 1/2 the capacity of the Volt 
>>> (when new) but at half the mileage, it performs nearly as well.   
>>> Both vehicles are showing a roughly 70mpg equivalent over their 
>>> lifetimes,
>>>         but my idiosyncratic use is constantly raising that average...
>>>
>>>         I'm looking for a homeless person (to gift it to) with 
>>> regular access to a 110 outlet as the HVAC, entertainment system, 
>>> and bucket seats are still good enough to live in, and the EV range 
>>> would allow for a few miles of daily excursion or occasional 
>>> relocation.
>>>
>>>         Unfortunately my Hypershell exo isn't able to fully make up 
>>> for my recovery limitations or I'd be "jogging" to Pojoaque for 
>>> groceries with a backpack? 2 hr round trip with only about 5lbs of 
>>> tech overburden (maybe 8 if you include good sturdy shoes and helmet 
>>> if I start running too fast). With my HMD and a brain interface 
>>> helmet I could maybe be reading/responding to FriAM while the Exo 
>>> FSD feature navigates me to/from the market... maybe even knows the 
>>> route inside the store so all I have to do is reach out and pluck my 
>>> groceries on command.   If I had a humanoid robot, I wouldn't have 
>>> to go at all and if I shifted to HUEL or SOYLENT could skip that 
>>> visit at all.. Just a 50lb bag of nutrients delivered monthly?
>>>
>>>         What is the line where I become it's meat-puppet or am 
>>> deprecated entirely?   From what I see of the homeless and DOGE/MAGA 
>>> aspirations, the homeless folks are in line for deprecation before 
>>> me but after immigrants.
>>>
>>>     </endTangent>
>>>
>>> </endTangent>
>>>
>>> On 3/27/25 8:01 AM, glen wrote:
>>>
>>>     I finally found the site I learned about from 404 Media:
>>>
>>> http://dogeqstqzn2yjns2d6ccns7aa52tglno63ay2uv2orfvd7e23khcsxid.onion/
>>>
>>>     I admit it's a bit chilling.
>>>
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