Being naughty and creative are correlated Updated 2024-12-15 +Created 1970-01-01
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Ciro Santilli believes that there is a close link between the ability to create disruptive technology, and the desire to find bugs/exploits in systems.
Both of them destabilize society and enterprises.
Some examples:
  • Jobs and Wozniak's blue box
  • Robert Noyce's stealing a pig for a university party somewhat as a joke. This was actually a felony, but he got away with a compromise by paying the owner and being suspended for 6 months. The law is not blind, and thanks for that sometimes.
    Oh, and apparently he also got a university girlfriend pregnant, and she had an abortion.
  • Mark Zuckerberg's FaceMash
And yes, this sometimes leads into a fine line between legality and illegality:
Ciro Santilli's own naughty projects are listed at: Section "Ciro Santilli's naughty projects".
Read the full article
Raw images Updated 2024-12-15 +Created 1970-01-01
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In this section contains a list of images we could find that wre uploaded as raw data to the blockchain, without any special encoding, e.g. as done by the AtomSea & EMBII system.
It is possible that some/most of those were uploaded via the cryptograffiti.info system, but since that indexer stopped working, and since the format is so non-specific, it is not possible be sure as far as we can tell.
These images were indexed by looking for standard transaction output script hashes that contain JPEG or PNG images immediately on the first payload byte based on file signature bytes and indexed/easily downloaded at github.com/cirosantilli/bitcoin-inscription-indexer#image-indexing-and-download.
Figure 1.
western-union-bitcoin-spoof.jpg.gz
.
This ad highlights one of the claimed potential advantages of Bitcoin: cheaper/faster cross border transactions.
This inscription is highlighted at Data Insertion in Bitcoin's Blockchain by Andrew Sward, Vecna OP_0 and Forrest Stonedahl. Finding Gzips with binwalk is hard because the file signature is only 2 bytes long (1F 8B), so there are lots of false positives.
Gzip binary uploaded at: raw.githubusercontent.com/cirosantilli/media/master/bitcoin-inscription-indexer/data/bin/200f3f6f8a91ae438d1924e5cedca98cea7f0197b9eba11343948b5621ca19ed.jpg.gz gunzip 1.12 complains:
western-union-bitcoin-spoof.jpg.gz: decompression OK, trailing garbage ignored
but we were not able to fix that: removing bytes at the end goes straight from "trailing garbage" to "incomplete file" after a certain byte.
Figure 4.
Super Mario coin sprite
. tx bf7ef3216ae09f8252c76e7d0031bc4aa131a23a6900f8371c44ffde7957c8da (2015-03-01). Possibly from Super Mario World for the SNES (1990). No doubt a self-reference to Bitcoin itself. Encoded as a data URL for a PNG image:
<img src="data:image/png;base64,
Visible e.g. at www.pinterest.fr/pin/137993176075040653/.
Figure 5.
JPG thumbnail
. Presumably a JPEG upload test. tx 515a95381e511141229966d722db19db7da66a0d629b1f883d296287632e72b3, block 349362 (2015-03-26) via cryptograffiti.info.
Figure 6.
we love bitcoin
.
A heart next to a bitcoin logo and written "we love bitcoin". Reproduced at: kryptomoney.com/grayscale-report-institutional-investors-retirement-funds-love-bitcoin/
Embedded in the image itself, there's a message in the header comments:
Bitcoin uses peer-to-peer technology to operate with no central authority or banks
which is the opening paragraph of: bitcoin.org/en/
Figure 7.
Iranian lady with polar bear hat.
We don't know if she's actually Iranian, it's just an uneducated guess.
The image data is cut in half. This makes the image an invalid JPEG, but ImageMagick is able to recover and convert to a valid image which is what we show here to make it portable to more browsers. The raw invalid image is present at: raw.githubusercontent.com/cirosantilli/media/master/bitcoin-inscription-indexer/data/bin/b673c7d0c62cce8315ad6cc63a2c8ca8169bf73432435760b808735e1a7fe0e2.jpg, but it can also be generally viewed by most viewers.
This embedding uses a novel more specialiezd protocol on top of a raw daisy chain Bitcoin inscription.
The daisy actually starts at f49e79889b34d355fa8a02f13b9db4ed69c067f975e25339737ef10e4b993d7a and data is encoded as follows:
OP_RETURN 62 00000000 48656c6c6f20776f726c64212052657475726e20626c6f622070726f746f636f6c2076
OP_RETURN 62 00000001 313a204d41474943203d20307836322c205041434b414745203d2075696e7431362c20
OP_RETURN 62 00000002 53455155454e4345203d2075696e7431362c205041594c4f4144203d20757020746f20

OP_RETURN 62 00000000 48656c6c6f20776f726c64212052657475726e20626c6f622070726f746f636f6c2076
OP_RETURN 62 00000001 313a204d41474943203d20307836322c205041434b414745203d2075696e7431362c20
OP_RETURN 62 00000002 53455155454e4345203d2075696e7431362c205041594c4f4144203d20757020746f20

OP_RETURN 62 00000003 33352062797465732e0a

OP_RETURN 62 00010000 ffd8ffe1001845786966000049492a00080000000000000000000000ffec0011447563
OP_RETURN 62 00010001 6b79000100040000003c0000ffe1039a687474703a2f2f6e732e61646f62652e636f6d
OP_RETURN 62 00010002 2f7861702f312e302f003c3f787061636b657420626567696e3d22efbbbf222069643d
OP_RETURN 62 00010003 2257354d304d7043656869487a7265537a4e54637a6b633964223f3e203c783a786d70

...

OP_RETURN 62 00010085 51290358a41fe5408b4435254208d4810a5fe9113044c1ae3aa544656d729756395b87
OP_RETURN 62 00010086 c4e261f55c5d19e1c792c3f78adff1368db58e5a0bb85b2c6753c42de6d973edae0642
OP_RETURN 62 00010087 1b2c8370f203aaa0a6eb7ea0871d8e9ae6534b785b57347171e4df6a5463d7ce77b93b
OP_RETURN 62 00010088 9b8bf96edd1b982e2474a41ad28e3c01e74586d1d1ad7a874c5a1b7c742d2285c371f6
The first block is:
Hello world! Return blob protocol v1: MAGIC = 0x62, PACKAGE = uint16, SEQUENCE = uint16, PAYLOAD = up to
which then gets repeated, probably an error, but now with the sentence completed:
Hello world! Return blob protocol v1: MAGIC = 0x62, PACKAGE = uint16, SEQUENCE = uint16, PAYLOAD = up to 35 bytes
This therefore gives us the name of the protocol as "return blob protocol". We also understand that the 0x62 was aconfiguration parameter.
ffd8ffe1 marks the start of the JPEG.
If the rest of the image were inscribed somewhere random in the blockchain, we'd expect to find the string 6200010089 containing the netxt data chunck on a nearby block, but bgrep did not find it, so perhaps the data just isn't there.
The last tx of the daisy is 43b182065ab2c7d1908ec3cee756d9f626c1e4bd1efa17a7c3993433b653d499 which is followed by 9e6838a3545bd59a708d0c177d6840c7d82b8ac6220138ca3d8133a1376405aa which does not contain any data.
Figure 8.
Erich Erstu
. Alias: 1Hyena. A well built man wearing a gas mask. Google image search leads to: github.com/1Hyena (archive), who is the creator of cryptograffiti.info. It was around after this time that the number of raw images surged dramatically in the blockchain, so it is possible that this is when the service started operating. This further suggests that most raw image uploads we found were made with cryptograffiti.info. tx c206e8fff656f07b27dac831ef9b956792bae4e76a2cb43f14f49f0298bf2c2f, block 416527 (2016-06-16). Embedded text:
Hyena was here on the 16th of June 2016.
and:
Hi mom! I love you.
Figure 9.
Water Deer
. badtaxidermy.com "Water Deer" image, visible at: web.archive.org/web/20200527070011/http://www.badtaxidermy.com/?page=3. tx 357e8ae080e5a1b554eaec2953e3e6e2e7955f3af4559dd0f1bc6381d56aa183, block 416735 (2016-06-16) via cryptograffiti.info. The file contains the strings:
www.badtaxidermy.com
and:
Cryptograffiti.info now allows you to attach JPEG images to your messages.
Figure 10.
hotmine.io
. A mining supplier: hotmine.io/en. twitter.com/uahotmine. tx 8ec01c5e8f3b57adb13079af3b7e40e7acd3986a5ed14325388405771bd43f9b, block 416835 (2016-06-18) via cryptograffiti.info. The file contains the following string embedded into it:
Smart Heating, Bitcoin Mining For You - en.hotmine.io
Figure 11.
Nada from They Live (1988)
.
tx 83df1e5ecc1c7ac455d2855e15cff8fa5771afe2ad1796c8b6b1a8e910e829c4, block 416896 (2016-06-18) via cryptograffiti.info. The file has the following string embedded into it:
I have come here to chew bubble gum and dance on Ethereum's grave.
And I'm all out of bubble gum.
which is a reference to Nada's original dialogue:
I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass... and I'm all out of bubblegum.
Video 1.
I'm here to chew bubblegum
. Source. Off-chain film scene for context.
Figure 12.
Cryptocurrenty Minning ad
. Twitter "@dobcrypto": twitter.com/dobcrypto Reuploaded at: imgur.com/gallery/00oOuhm. tx eda07af9584391bb6f5ebb07ba57a51b610751fdf06ae49d9166225c36d97d0b, block 417111 (2016-06-20) via cryptograffiti.info. The file contains the following string:
Subscribe, I will be glad to see you! www.youtube.com/c/dobcryptocurrency
Figure 13.
Chinese wedding
.
A white man and a Chinese woman wearing Chinese traditional dressess holding hands, presumably a token from their wedding. A Chinese poem is visible next to them, with four vertical setences made up of 7 characters each, to be read from right to left. This is a classic Classical Chinese poetry form known as qijue.
A photo of a snowy mountain is shown in the background, fitting the theme of the poem. It looks like an European mountain, possibly Mont Blanc? TODO identify. Perhaps a reference to the nationality of the husband.
TODO transcribe the Chinese text, cursive grass script + traditional characters + ultra-low res put this beyond Ciro Santilli's capabilities/patience ratio. Ciro Santilli's wife's transcribed gave the first column as:
丹珍默然藏山中
A scarlet gemstone hides quietly in the midst of the mountains.
and no Google hits, so maybe an original poem? What a hero. TODO transcribe the rest.
The image file contains the English transalation of the Chinese poem embeded into it:
A scarlet gemstone hides quietly in the midst of the mountains.
Its beauty softly enters the wanderer's dreams.
Fame and fortune become like drifting clouds
But the gem endures like the constellations above.
Figure 14.
Superbuffo
. Googling gives a Toni Caradonna: twitter.com/superbuffo. At twitter.com/Superbuffo/status/1620900765014556672 that twitter account claimed the art or its depiction. www.imdb.com/name/nm9516368/ has some obscure references to him. tx 6240f61bbaeac66cd623e921a153addaf5f379a996f2de0f0c6506d628fe3812, block 417354 (2016-06-21) via cryptograffiti.info. The file contains the following string embedded into it, in addition to a lot of Adobe boilerplate:
Superbuffo the first comedian on the blockchain
Figure 15.
Rene Angelil and Celine Dion
. Reproduced at: web.archive.org/web/20191130174338/https://people.com/celebrity/inside-celine-dion-and-rene-angelils-21-year-marriage/ but cropped to faces. tx e2e5b9cf04d93ae5fc1b54e9208b92b668823e014b251f57510e4702661fa1a6, block 417272 (2016-06-21) via cryptograffiti.info. Embedded text:
You will be here forever
Figure 16.
New Age dance
. Woman dancing a New Age-like dance with New Age-like Indian looking clothes, holding a lamp, and with a rose on her hair. TODO identify. tx 0602dd1b375bc71818db0a40d7a14f438499af3eda9056125eb5a1b74bed790b, block 419676 (2016-07-07) via cryptograffiti.info. The image contains the following text embedded into it (TODO unknown mechanism, does not show up on exifTool:
No alcohol and smoking since 07.07.2016. Love girls!
Figure 17.
Snake penetration sculputure
. Sculpture of what seems to be a snake penetrating a vagina. tx 83f412eb7ff40fe542901186a6d37cba0eb4f8458c574bc02a6f7236c599fe07, block 420122 (2016-07-10) via cryptograffiti.info.
Figure 18.
Wedding invitation
. TODO: make out names, quite low res, no patience. Looks like Cyrillic script. tx 01c3af71c12d49260231dcb3cc86d6ff21b3cd90878e9556482ef3b0908abffe, block 420960 (2016-07-16) via cryptograffiti.info.
Figure 19.
Bitcoin love certificate
. Hard to make out due to ultra-low-res, and in Cyrillic script. Contains three dates: 8.02.1982, 16.07.1992 and 17.07.2016. tx 075d1c78883ccb237b374c7ed7f9ff0f90df3308c48f9e7a29348b815326b769, block 421151 (2016-07-17) via cryptograffiti.info. The file contains the following text embedded into it:
Wedding Wallled 15Nz214yv76BmkKLCi8kAVssa5C7nQHLjx
Figure 20.
Oles Slobodenyuk
.
Wedding picture with people holding "Blockchain" and "Ipa" signs.
Reproduced at: web.archive.org/web/20200926150213/https://freebitcoins.com.ua/zapushhen-ukrainskij-bitkoin-pul-bitcoinukraine/ Google translate:
One of the initiators of the launch of this pool was Oles Slobodenyuk, who earlier created a grocery store in Kiev accepting bitcoins, arranged a TakeMyBitcoin flash mob, and also registered his own marriage in the bitcoin blockchain on the weddingbook.io website.
Oles is for example featured at: uk.sports.yahoo.com/news/bitcoin-miners-heating-homes-free-133053106.html Bitcoin Miners Are Heating Homes Free of Charge in Frigid Siberia by Anna Baydakova (2019)
The image file contains the following text embedded into it:
<Wedding date: Jul 17, 2016
proof link goo.gl/photos/2GToBx1WqRyiQtxQ6
The link is dead of course.
Figure 21.
Nematode
. A... nematode-like shaped hand drawn extremely simple image? A test upload presumably? The squiggle outside of the worm might be a test direction marker. tx 554846025e808df7adec3b1d099e3d4d54b7367cddaa959939cb5ca0fc6abf7b, block 424414 (2016-08-09) via cryptograffiti.info. The image file contains the following string embedded into it:
2016, painting, 135.7 x 130.7 cm (18 DPI)
Figure 22.
Hand written contract
.
Wedding contract written in Czech. Transcription and translation by Petr Kadlec:
Svým podpisem pod tímto textem potvrzuji, že Daniela Dudysová a Pavel Urbaczka v mé přítomnosti dne 20.8.2016 v Ropici projevili vůli uzavřít spolu manželství, přičemž ani jeden z těchto projevů se mi nejevil jako nesvobodný, nikoliv vážný, nesrozumitelný, omylný nebo uzavřený v tísni.
Translation:
With my signature under this text, I confirm Daniela Dudysová and Pavel Urbaczka have, in my presence on 2016-08-20 in Ropice, expressed the will to enter marriage, whereas neither of their expressions seemed to me to be non-free, not serious, in error, or under distress.
Signatures:
Tereza (unreadable) Hana (unreadable) Jakub (unreadable) Radim Kozub (unreadable) (unreadable) Lenka (unreadable)
Petr also conjectures that Jakub may refer to Jakub Olšina from Blockchain Legal. Figure 23. "Wedding on grass" on the same block contains a image of a wedding, presumably the same of the contract. The photo of the man might be the same person as www.linkedin.com/in/olsinajakub/, but a bit younger.
Figure 23.
Wedding on grass
.
The file contains the following text embedded into it:
Danila a Pavel se právě vzali!
which is Czech for:
Danila and Pavel just got married!
So it is a followup to Figure 22. "Hand written contract".
Figure 24.
Onshape ad
. Ad for www.onshape.com/en/, an online CAD company:
#CAD users all over the world are designing in the cloud! Join them by creating a #free Onshape account: hubs.ly/HO3vJ6tO. tx c0bb963cb3ceffc49059f09db94e3fd73caa3b7a8e005160d49e99020ff6b51a, block 426832 (2016-08-25) via cryptograffiti.info. Embedded text:
@Onshape - The Future of Professional CAD
Figure 25.
Pepe the Frog
. ca933de16b6466e40b37c7ee0ec0dcd9a56bc365a567a5fff81ba4927dd61e23 (2016-10-17) via cryptograffiti.info. Embedded text:
In Pepe We Trust
#BITCOINPEPE
Figure 26.
Hello. Yes, this is dog
. knowyourmeme.com/memes/yes-this-is-dog. tx 4b0cd7e191ef0a14a9b6ab1c5900be534118c20a332ff26407648168d2722a2e, block 440418 (2016-11-24) via cryptograffiti.info.
Figure 27.
Ross Ulbricht
. Exact image also reproduced at: ethereumworldnews.com/ross-ulbricht-attorney-dismiss-2018/. tx b25ba2080d15c1277569bd2fee707a216c4e2ee0a1f479349c2309651c261511, block 442225 (2016-12-06) via cryptograffiti.info. Embedded text:
Silk Road saved lives that would
have otherwise been lost on the
streets.
Figure 28.
Tuxedo and rose
. Black and white and intentionally blurred photo of couple, the woman wears a tuxedo, and the man holds a red rose/light-like thing in the middle. tx c67dca17d3e5544d8d2c70d143196e1c1438a09c7371b80086d0a71ec5aec3c8, block 453083 (2017-02-14) via cryptograffiti.info.
Figure 29.
Couple on mountains
. Middle aged couple selfie in front of some mountains. tx 00a64f2ff9aae7a34c21d07b8fc9bad79989f25295ccbddc6fbe73b3685b65a9, block 456370 (2017-03-09) via cryptograffiti.info. The file contains the following Spanish poem, whch confirms that their Spanish looking faces are actually Spanish, perhaps they are at the Pyrenees:
Entre tus brazos y los míos
no hay espacio, tan juntitos
estamos que los pensamientos
son uno.
A veces somos casi dos desconocidos,
raros tan raros cómo distintos,
pero nos engañamos, tú lo sabes yo lo sé,
en realidad somos muy dentro
la misma verdad.
Escondidos en tus ojitos
duermen mis sueños más hermosos,
cuándo los abres frente a mi
se despiertan alegres y rumbosos.
Which translates as:
Between your arms and mine
there is no space, so close together
we are the thoughts
They are one.
Sometimes we are almost two strangers,
strange as strange as they are different,
but we deceive ourselves, you know it, I know it,
actually we are very inside
the same truth.
Hidden in your eyes
my most beautiful dreams sleep,
when do you open them in front of me
They wake up happy and cheerful.
Not easy Google hits so possibly novel.
Figure 30.
Tank Man
.
See also: Section "China".
Searching for the image hash ca4f11131eca6b4d61daf707a470cfccd1ef3d80a6f8b70f1f07616b451ca64e leads to archive.4plebs.org/pol/thread/191157608/#q191162145 which links to the now dead as of 2021: cryptograffiti.info/#ca4f11131eca6b4d61daf707a470cfccd1ef3d80a6f8b70f1f07616b451ca64e.jpg. But
Figure 31.
Mr. Burns You're here forever
.
Mr. Burns from The Simpsons showing a sign:
Don't forget, you're here forever
Still from S06E13 of The Simpsons. A reference to the immutability of the blockchain.
Video 2.
Mr. Burns "You're Here Horever"
. Source. Off-chain source clip for the still.
This transaction is given at Data Insertion in Bitcoin's Blockchain by Andrew Sward, Vecna OP_0 and Forrest Stonedahl. We've decoded it with:
btc getrawtransaction 94e319d09fc236fb9d7a24e60af8f47ed41ca3cc01e9950c925d806153ed8aa3 true | jq -r '.vin[].scriptSig.asm' | sed -r 's/^[^ ]+ //' | sed -r 's/ [^ ]+$//' | tr -d '\n'  | xxd -r -p > tmp.jpg
TODO understand the encoding better. Our indexing scripts Bitcoin Inscription Indexer missed it because the image is encoded on starting on the second constant of the input script and not the first.
This was missed by binwalk because it does not index the valid JPEG signature "ffd8ffdb"... we should patch it... github.com/ReFirmLabs/binwalk/blob/cddfede795971045d99422bd7a9676c8803ec5ee/src/binwalk/magic/images#L107
Figure 32.
Augustana College Old-Main.jpg
.
First tx 1e347cf7521a1318ef31af4f5758efbc45f1bb2a7db9bc1cc469bfe93599eaf7 sets up 48 P2SH outputs and gives ASCII message
Augustana College Old-Main.jpg Reconstruct with data preceding redeemscripts
Then tx 033d185d1a04c4bd6de9bb23985f8c15aa46234206ad29101c31f4b33f1a0e49 redeems those with 48 input scripts that encode the image with ASCII message:
Augustana College Old-Main.jpg Reconstruct with data preceding redeemscripts
Figure 33.
PDF demo
. tx b4f537bc536c392d425af0693e3282bbf697df01debeeaf7f9918b93af6bdd14, block 474646 (2017-07-07) via cryptograffiti.info contains a single page 7.9 KB PDF sample file also present e.g. at: www.studocu.com/en-gb/document/harrow-college-uxbridge-college/assessing-risk-in-sport-unit/pdf-sample-its-nothing-dw/61244699. This image is a screenshot of the PDF made manually to make it easier to view here, the actual inscribed file has been uploaded to: raw.githubusercontent.com/cirosantilli/media/master/bitcoin-inscription-indexer/data/bin/b4f537bc536c392d425af0693e3282bbf697df01debeeaf7f9918b93af6bdd14.pdf. The first lines of the document read:
Adobe Acrobat PDF Files
Adobe® Portable Document Format (PDF) is a universal file format that preserves all of the fonts, formatting, colours and graphics of any source document, regardless of the application and platform used to create it.
Figure 34.
Cat manga
. TODO identify, transcribe japanese. tx 4986e9cd20b75bb534df92e60b232945e18274f4c46d25b8853af9bdda5166b8, block 581526 (2019-06-20).
Figure 35.
Arms crossed
. Nerdy caucasian woman in her late teens/early 20's wearing glasses and a jeans jacked with her arms crossed. TODO identify. tx a55e5e7492848445a9f9ecf55ce566242c9d95e6c46a171fd94a345e8b74c355, block 597374 (2019-10-01) with P2FKH
Figure 36.
Black cat
. No, Google reverse image search is never going to find the exact one amongst billions of pics. tx 8cf28eb9ac221d8cd15298b9ae63eca910b536a5234c133c7e364b29a4e39d21, block 625045 (2020-04-09) with P2FKH.
Figure 37.
Teddy bear
. tx 546124c6ad55acc6e0cd00a66fbd29e9b7df5fe8505e2ebf8470bb44aa35bc16, block 654100 (2020-10-24) with P2FKH. Cost: ~0.002 BTC ~ $25.77 at the time. Transaction made up of 339 * 550 SAT outputs.
Figure 38.
The Starry Night by van Gogh
.
tx 225ed8bc432d37cf434f80717286fd5671f676f12b573294db72a2a8f9b1e7ba, block 685647 (2021-05-31) Stored on SegWit. Googling leads to this hit: github.com/aureleoules/bitcandle by French programmer Aurèle Oulès which is an obscure uploader not known to us before this transaction was found.
tx 8dc2785335c59df6c00257f9b20e5df9b932a717f97066b279e292faba71a67a on block 685737 contains another one, but with a slightly different encoding, presumably Aureole was trying out different things.
Figure 39.
Kitchen mirror selfie in swimming glasses
.
This P2FMS has the peculiarity that each payload constant is preceded by a 04 byte which must be thrown away, we've decoded it manually with:
bitcoin-core.cli getrawtransaction 3110f49fb6047d62e6fa198a0a4b180d9abf7075d6f29472747990ae286295cb true | jq -r '.vout[].scriptPubKey.asm' | head -n-2 | sed -r 's/^....//;s/ 3 .*//' | tr -d ' \n' | xxd -r -p  > tmp.jpg
This transactions is also mentioned at: github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/28400 "Make provably unsignable standard P2PK and P2MS outpoints unspendable"
Figure 41.
Gulagu.net people
. tx 36e7f004ff22aa1146a00705d166fbca64d174c472a5296ed1f38d4749a74e10, block 710354 (2021-11-19). Rightmost Vladimir Osechkin. Two-stage P2SH inscription.
Figure 42.
Low resolution GIF screenshot of the Bitcoin whitepaper intro
.
The payload starts with: 7b260000 before the acutal GIF, which is why we hadn't found it before using binwalk. TODO what do those bytes mean?
The last payload uses OP_RETURN and encodes the ascii filename:
BTGC:satoshi.gif
TODO what is BTGC?
Figure 43.
A man and his cactus
. tx 4719e7252f4bdefd9f7bdf5058f17af28729b79c303b067eb01c107e57235754 (2024-01-27). Encoded as a data URL for a JPEG image in an OP_RETURN:
data:image/jpeg;base64
Perhaps a meme given the phalic shape of the plant.
TODO decode:
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Do one cool thing every day Updated 2024-12-15 +Created 1970-01-01
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If you are a pussy and work a soul crushing job, this is one way to lie to yourself that your life is still worth living: do one cool thing every day.
Find a time in which your mind hasn't yet been destroyed by useless work, usually in the morning before work, and do one thing you actually like in life.
Work a little less well for you boss, and a little better for yourself. Ross Ulbricht:
I hated working for someone else and trading my time for money with no investment in myself
Selling drugs online is not advisable however.
Even better, try to reach an official agreement with your employer to work 20% less than the standard work week. For example, you could work one day less every week, and do whatever you want on that day. It is not possible to push your passion to weekends, because your brain is too tired. "You keep all non-company-related IP you develop on that time" is a key clause obviously.
On a related note, good employers must allow employees to do whichever the fuck "crazy projects", "needed refactorings or other efficiency gains" and "learn things deeply" at least 20% of their time if employees want that: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/20%25_Project. Employees must choose if they want to do it one day a week or two hours per day. One day per month initiatives are bullshit. Another related name: genius hour.
Video 1.
I did it for me, Skyler
. Source. Pursuing a dream part time can make you feel afraid and tired. But at least, you will feel alive.
Maybe you will be fired, but long term, having tried, or even succeeded your dream, or a one of its side effects, will be infinitely more satisfying.
The same goes for school, and maybe even more so because your parents can still support you there. Some Gods who actually followed this advice and didn't end up living under a bridge:
  • George M. Church "[We] hope that whatever problems... contributed to your lack of success... at Duke will not keep you from a successful pursuit of a productive career." Lol, as of 2019 the dude is the most famous biotechnologist in the world, those "problems" certainly didn't keep him back.
  • Freeman Dyson proved the equivalence of the three existing versions of quantum electrodynamics theories that were around at his time, and he has always been proud of not having a PhD!
    Video 2.
    Freeman Dyson - Why I don't like the PhD system (95/157) by Web of Stories (2016)
    Source.
  • Ramanujan, from Wikipedia:
    He received a scholarship to study at Government Arts College, Kumbakonam, but was so intent on mathematics that he could not focus on any other subjects and failed most of them, losing his scholarship in the process.
  • Person that Ciro met personally and shall remain anonymous for now for his privacy: once Ciro was at a bar with work colleagues casually, it was cramped, and an older dude sat next to his group.
    The dude then started a conversation with Ciro, and soon he explained that he was a mathematician and software engineer.
    As a Mathematician, he had contributed to the classification of finite simple groups, and had a short Wiki page because of that.
    He never did a PhD, and said that academia was a waste of time, and that you can get as much done by working part time a decent job and doing your research part time, since you skip all the bullshit of academia like this.
    Yet, he was still invited by collaborating professors to give classes on his research subject in one of the most prestigious universities in the world. Students would call him Doctor X., and he would correct them: Mister X.
    As a software engineer, he had done a lot of hardcore assembly level optimizations for x86 for some mathematical libraries related to his mathematics interests. He started talking microarchitecture with Ciro's colleagues.
    And he currently worked on an awesome open source project backed by a company.
    At last but not least, he said he also fathered 17 children by donating his sperm to lesbian mothers found on a local gay magazine, and that he had met most/all of those children after they were born.
    A God. Possibly the most remarkable person Ciro ever met, and his jaw was truly dropped.
Gandhi TODO source:
You can chain me, you can torture me, you can even destroy this body, but you will never imprison my mind
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Guerilla Open Access Manifesto by Aaron Swartz (2008) Updated 2024-12-15 +Created 1970-01-01
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Hmmm, he does not know how to spell guerilla? sic? www.quora.com/What-is-the-correct-spelling-guerilla-or-guerrilla
Note to self: if you are going to commit a crime, don't publish your plans online.
Ross Ulbricht's diaries come to mind.
That's how Russian shadow library maintainers do it, they know how to crime good old Russians. Maybe there is a good thing about having dictatorships in the world that give zero fucks about American copyright laws. There will always be some random Russian academic who will implement this and not go to jail. Maybe it's even state sponsored.
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Julia Vie Updated 2024-12-15 +Created 1970-01-01
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Ross Ulbricht told her about Silk Road, but then later said he had sold the website to someone else, without really doing that.
As of 2023, she's apparently a photographer with a porny focus (boudoir photography).
Figure 1.
Julia Vie and Ross Ulbricht
. Source.
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Silk Road (film) Updated 2024-12-15 +Created 1970-01-01
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We need a mini-series, this just doesn't have enough time. Notably, too much focus on dob, and not enough on the development of Silk Road iteslf. Though it is cool to see what his motivations might have been like. One wonders how realistic the character is. Though him meeting Ross Ulbricht personally sounds exceptionally unlikely.
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Silk Road (marketplace) Updated 2024-12-15 +Created 1970-01-01
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Ciro Santilli has become slightly obsessed with this story, and the main mastermind Ross Ulbricht.
Figure 1.
Ross Ulbricht's open laptop shortly after his arrest at the Francisco Public Library
. Source. He was running some GNOME based distro, could be Ubuntu from that photo, and likely is given that Ross once recommended Ubuntu to his flatmate.
The best article available so far is: www.theregister.co.uk/2019/01/29/how_i_caught_silk_road_mastermind (archive) which summarizes what one of the investigators said in a 2019 French computer security conference.
The key living posts are:
The big question is of course how libertarian free market ideologically motivated the website was, and how purely criminal greed it was.
The magnitude of the early operational security mistakes does make Ciro think that Ross did it "because he could" and "for the lolz" in a real world Breaking Bad way.
The entry in Ross' diary does resonate a lot with Ciro and any entrepreneur, full diary at: www.wired.com/2015/01/heres-secret-silk-road-journal-laptop-ross-ulbricht/ (archive).
[i]n 2011," [I believe I will be] "creating a year of prosperity and power beyond what I have ever experienced before,
Silk Road is going to become a phenomenon and at least one person will tell me about it, unknowing that I was its creator."
Having this kind of feeling, is the greatest thing any human can have, and what motivates all great things.
Capitalizing in illegal things though is a cheat, big things take longer than a few years to reach, but reaching them is that much more satisfying as well.
Other interesting quotes:
I hated working for someone else and trading my time for money with no investment in myself.
which Ciro also feels, see don't be a pussy, and:
Everyone knows I am working on a bitcoin exchange. I always thought honesty was the best policy and now I didn't know what to do. I should have just told everyone I am a freelance programmer or something, but I had to tell half truths. It felt wrong to lie completely so I tried to tell the truth without revealing the bad part, but now I am in a jam. Everyone knows too much. Dammit.
Also very worth reading is the San Francisco flat mate account: www.vice.com/en_us/article/ae3q8g/my-roommate-the-darknet-drug-lord (archive).
The murder for hire allegations are also interesting: mashable.com/2013/10/03/silk-road-hits, he paid 80k dollars to undercover DEA agents!
Except for the fact that Ross was an 80 million Dollar drug lord, those accounts sound exactly like what you would expect from any other nerdy startup founder! The:
  • "just do it" strategy effectively going to a minimal viable product (manual transaction management!), while making many mistakes along the way, including hiring mistakes and successes when scaling is needed
  • the hardship of self bootstrapping your own social network (here with some kilos of mushrooms)
  • the variety of periods, from relatively calm, to hair pulling stress during big changes
It is also amusing to see very concretely the obvious fact that the FBI can get a subpoena for all accounts you ever had, e.g. they knew his laptop model from Amazon and brought a corresponding power cable to the arrest! If you are going to be a cyber criminal, don't use your real name, ever!
Should justice be blind? Maybe. But it does hurt for mere non-blind men to see it sometimes. Especially when drug liberalization is involved.
Video 1.
One Mistake Took Down a 29-Yr-Old Dark Web Drug Lord by Newsthink (2022)
Source. Wow nice video, covers most of the interesting annecdotes and the (alledged) investigation procedure.
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