SummerBreeze

LewRockwell is an extremely popular Libertarian website. They recently published a well shared article from Dr. Mercola on why to ditch Google: https://www.lewrockwell.com/2024/03/joseph-mercola/goodbye-google/

While it’s great that people see the messages of privacy and anti-censorship, it’s bad that the suggested solutions not only won’t help, but in fact likely turn people off. Here’s a key example:

“Your suggestion of reading the privacy policy for every website people visit to avoid Google analytics is not practical. A far better solution is to use the browser extension uBlock Origin, which lists all third party JavaScript calls by domain, and allows you to block it. In fact, your own website MercolaMarket has Google’s APIs on it, which allows them to see the IP address of anyone buying your products. The most ridiculous part is the very article on LewRockwell.com telling me to read privacy policies to avoid Google Analytics, uses Google Analytics and Gmail.”

And this is just one of the many examples in an open letter we wrote. The primary problem is not technological, but apathy. It doesn’t have to be like this. We just need the real solutions to make it to the readers screens, like Monero.

I stand here today to ask you to share our open letter, so that the thousands of readers of LewRockwell can learn: https://simplifiedprivacy.com/letter-to-lewrockwell/

I stand here today to ask you to be part of the genuine change. Because at the end of the day, LewRockwell is only a reflection of what his readers want. And so the challenge is not convincing him, but you.

Most Nostr users post to relays on Cloudflare and Hetzner. They don’t realize that they’re easily censored, and it’s not decentralized.

Even worse, there is the threat of radical Bitcoin Maxis trying to censor Monero via forced lightning paywalls on the relays. Like a chess player thinking ahead, we outline some XMR relays and Tor Onion ones in this new easy to read guide: https://simplifiedprivacy.com/nostr-relay-guide/

Tor Onion: http://privacypkybrxebcjicfhgwsb3coatqechwnc5xow4udxwa6jemylmyd.onion/nostr-relay-guide/

Spain has banned Telegram.

They are claiming this is over copyright violations of users, that Telegram is failing to police. Now some users will be forced to consider decentralized solutions. As I have repeated many times, Session messenger empowers users to defy state level censorship, with its unique blockchain based DNS that completely separates physical locations from identity. And our team has repeatedly mentioned using Session to defy a Monero ban.

With Session, if the location of the VPS or device is discovered, the user can rotate the blockchain name to a new public key. On the other hand, SimpleX, Tor Onions, or XMPP are tied to physical devices with encryption keys in memory, and their discovery is a game-over.

However, Session receives a lot of criticism. Rather than ignore this, I tackle it head on, https://simplifiedprivacy.com/spain-has-banned-telegram-defending-session/

Tor Browser Onion: http://privacypkybrxebcjicfhgwsb3coatqechwnc5xow4udxwa6jemylmyd.onion/spain-has-banned-telegram-defending-session/

Huge amount of these guides reference if they accept Monero.

What’s the best ________ ?

Best VPS hosts, https://simplifiedprivacy.com/vps/

Pro/Con of Phone Numbers/Services, https://simplifiedprivacy.com/burners/

Crypto-to-Crypto “No KYC” Swap Websites https://simplifiedprivacy.com/swaps/

How VoIP works, https://simplifiedprivacy.com/voip/

Best Crypto→ Fiat gift cards: https://simplifiedprivacy.com/best-vendors-that-accept-cryptocurrency/

Types of DeGoogled Phones, https://simplifiedprivacy.com/degoogledphones/

Pro/Con of Linux Distros, https://simplifiedprivacy.com/linux-distros/

Pro/Con of Private Routers https://simplifiedprivacy.com/router/

Pro/Con of Virtual Machines, https://simplifiedprivacy.com/types-of-virtual-machines-whats-right-for-you/

Best Agora Societies, https://simplifiedprivacy.com/realworldagora/

Best Google Alternatives, https://simplifiedprivacy.com/degoogled-life/

Best email? Check out, https://simplifiedprivacy.com/email-cloud-combo/

Someone asked me how to download Youtubes privately with open source. So I wanted to share the info with you since it's all written out.

Which of course you are wondering How to watch the classic "breaking monero" on youtube, privately? Duh.

In this fast guide, we break down all the different methods, ranging from web browser, desktop, android, command line, to even browser extensions. In fact, one of our community members was kind enough to open source his android termux script to do so,

which is part of the guide found here: https://simplifiedprivacy.com/how-to-download-youtubes/

Got one I missed? comment below! we'll add it

In a shocking new hack, the data of 43 million French citizens was leaked from a government database, onto the darkweb.

Yet the French government is pushing for heavy VPN restrictions, to collect and identify huge amounts of data, including even banning foreign VPNs that wouldn’t have to comply.

Simplified Privacy has grave concerns about such a broad and powerful expansion of government power, when they have not proven the ability to handle even basic identifier data on their citizens. We once again urge the use of Monero and warn against blindly trusting authority: https://simplifiedprivacy.com/france-hack-vpn-restrictions/

Tor Browser Onion: http://privacypkybrxebcjicfhgwsb3coatqechwnc5xow4udxwa6jemylmyd.onion/france-hack-vpn-restrictions/

Roman Sterlingov was recently convicted for running a Bitcoin mixer.

This is a very dangerous legal precedent. Because the only hard evidence for him to potentially serve 20 years in prison is that his KYC Bitcoin went through many hops and wallets, before being used later to supposedly buy a domain name.

This court case means that anyone is responsible for the future actions of anyone you pay, because if those funds turn out to go to anything illegal, you’re automatically on the hook. And people wonder why we like Monero?!

Get the full scoop on this shocking case, it's the ultimate why Monero: https://simplifiedprivacy.com/unproven-proprietary-chainalysis-software-jails-bitcoin-user/

Tor Browser Onion: http://privacypkybrxebcjicfhgwsb3coatqechwnc5xow4udxwa6jemylmyd.onion/unproven-proprietary-chainalysis-software-jails-bitcoin-user/

Binaries for Official Monero v0.18.3.2 are now available at http://www.getmonero.org

Also Feather wallet: Go to help -> Check for updates

Update your wallets! This has the fee fix!

There is currently a fee bug with Monero, that the wallet doesn’t automatically bump the fee when there is a backlog. This fee bug is causing sync issues with many wallets. The bug has already been solved with Anonero.io, and other wallets will be rolling out fixes shortly.

There are rumors that Nostr's creator is behind a spam attack. Simplified Privacy addresses this and has a ready working solution: https://simplifiedprivacy.com/monero-attack-nostr/

Tor Browser Onion: http://privacypkybrxebcjicfhgwsb3coatqechwnc5xow4udxwa6jemylmyd.onion/monero-attack-nostr/

Signal just released the usernames for both desktop and mobile now, with phone number hiding. This makes it easy to join groups without leaking info to the group.

Get the full guide w/ dope groups to join, including Monero focused ones from Tuxsudo of the MoneroTalk podcast: https://simplifiedprivacy.com/signal-usernames-desktop/

Tor Browser Onion: http://privacypkybrxebcjicfhgwsb3coatqechwnc5xow4udxwa6jemylmyd.onion/signal-usernames-desktop/

A scammer got a fake version of Exodus wallet in Canonical’s Ubuntu Snap Store. This fake scam wallet drained 9 Bitcoins (worth nearly half a million USD) from a user. This article goes over the CEO's shocking and ludicrous response regarding KYC, crypto, and open source dev work: https://simplifiedprivacy.com/ubuntu-crypto-snap-scam/

Tor Browser Onion: http://privacypkybrxebcjicfhgwsb3coatqechwnc5xow4udxwa6jemylmyd.onion/ubuntu-crypto-snap-scam/

European Union politicians have been trying to pass "Chat Control" which would ban end-to-end encrypted communications. A new big court ruling on Telegram is a game changer for this. And in this fun fast read, we give an overview of why these corrupt laws will fail: https://simplifiedprivacy.com/court-rules-against-eu-chat-control/

Tor Browser Onion: http://privacypkybrxebcjicfhgwsb3coatqechwnc5xow4udxwa6jemylmyd.onion/court-rules-against-eu-chat-control/