A fun project would be: factor Mersenne numbers! Naive trial division -> optimize your code by only trying valid candidates (you’ll learn about quadratic residues, Jacobi symbol etc.) -> You’ll soon realize that trial division only goes so far, motivated to learn new approaches. The P−1 method may impress you, it’s powerful. Enjoy coding that. -> But then, you’ll be frustrated by even stronger opponents here and there beyond M100, which the P−1 method can’t factor. Now you’ll be so ready, even determined, to learn ECM. At this point, you’ll find using elliptic curves is actually not so difficult, because it’s just like P−1. And yay, 20- or 30- digit numbers are no longer your enemies, they’re just small fish, elliptic curves rule!

Before you know it, you’ll have a clear, intuitive vision about “an elliptic curve over a finite field”. Try to understand why ECM works. Try to count the number of points. Everything you experience with ECM is related to ECC too.

I’m not that good; know enough to know that I don’t really know much. Just a hobbyist; posted ℍappy ℍamilton Day! here.

Agreed. It’s an option worth considering (even EFF said so)—in fact a bridge itself could be run by something like Team Cymru (Augury), removed in TB v11.5.4. On the other hand, a VPN could collaborate with “them” so you’ll have to trust them… adding yet another unknown.

There are many ways to de-anonymoze Tor users indeed. Like Keystroke fingerprinting or Deep Packet Inspection… Usually a local ISP is not a big problem but it depends. The fact remains that even in a country with heavy Internet censorship, currently a nation-state can’t block Tor (via Bridge or Snowflake).

Can’t tell; I don’t watch video—not only none of yours, but in general, unless it seems really interesting. A few people find your videos informative, so you’re helping a few users, nevertheless. Don’t mind me…

If you mean this article on Wired itself, it’s not pay walled, though annoying. Click the V (chevron) to hide the Subscribe Now thing.

Or if it’s indeed pay-walled in your area, open it via Germany by search this -> https://metager.org/meta/meta.ger3?eingabe=A%20Controversial%20US%20Surveillance%20Program%20May%20Get%20Slipped%20Into%20a%20%E2%80%98Must-Pass%E2%80%99%20Defense%20Bill
find the article, and use the “OPEN ANONYMOUSLY” link. Many annoying things will be filtered too.

What exactly does one need to do for “activation”? A phone number and/or GeoIP are involved?

This item in you FAQ page is also cool :)

The product I want to buy is not listed, can you help?

Yes, please contact us to create a special order. We can buy any digital & physical products for crypto.

I truly hope this will become a popular and convenient element for the Monero community and your business will be fruitful. You may want to consider talking to Kycnot.me; if recognized and listed there, that may mean a lot. Thanks for joining monero.town and sharing this interesting news. It’s still iffy, but it does sound great if it works 😊

On the other hand, your blog article, How to Buy a Domain 100% Anonymously?, suggests that you may not be very familiar with these privacy topics. The most obvious and easiest options (Njalla, Incognet) are not mentioned—both directly accept Monero. Also, your knowledge may not be up-to-date, unaware of the ramifications of “Thick Whois”, esp. NIS2, Article 28.

Admittedly it may sound weird, as if trying to protect a kidnapper or thief. But that’s not the point. If they can freeze “bad guy’s” funds, they can freeze anyone’s funds. The problem is, “they” can define something or someone arbitrarily as “bad” or “suspicious.”

On the other hand, of course any Monero supporter thinks it would be nice if we could catch the attacker(s) and the stolen funds would be returned. Is this self-contradictory?

That should be easy if you do some script-fu, etc. Perhaps not so easy on Windows, though.

I understand that you may feel depressed, or even annoyed, for example when told, “Solving the problem foo is trivial if you use bar” when bar is not trivial nor realistic for you (or so you believe). For example, 2^149^−1 is easy to factor if you use elliptic curves, but studying elliptic curves may feel daunting (though it’s not so hard as you might think).

I do understand how you may feel in such a situation. I may be sometimes in a similar situation too.

Obviously, though, not trying to read about the solution bar wouldn’t solve the original problem foo. Not learning ECM doesn’t enable you to factor 2^149^−1 for example. Not trying to listen to about the L-word wouldn’t fix the annoyance of Windows. Annoyance itself may be harmless but everyone knows Windows is privacy-invasive and vulnerable to malware, viruses, keyloggers, etc. So staying too long there, refusing to learn some solution, something really bad might happen to you eventually. Honestly, something like that did happen to ourselves recently. Our community lost a lot of money, apparently stolen by attacker(s)—exactly what happened is still unknown, but the victimized wallet was on Ubuntu connected to Windows 10 via SSH.

You don’t need to ditch Windows. I respect your freedom to use non-free software. In fact, many L-word systems do include non-free blobs too!

That being said, may I suggest that you try different OS(es) just for 10 minutes, booted from a USB stick, when you have time, to see what it’s like. You might be surprised because it just works, actually more intuitive, you can use it easily, not to mention you’re not forced to see ads. Or no invasive telemetry. Feel free to ignore this suggestion if you really love Windows, thinking it’s the best OS ever. I respect freedom of thought!

It’s the value of the USD that is fluctuating not the value of XMR :)

That’s exactly my view too. Basic human rights are fundamental and invariable; a Privacy/Fiat ratio is volatile, because a fiat is volatile as privacy is sometimes valued properly, but sometimes traded cheap.

That said, you may want to simply get XMR “on-demand” just before you actually use it, so that the rate won’t change significantly.

They started using v3 onion very early, always Tor-friendly. They started to accept XMR early, not only BTC. You guys are basically right, though: their jokes are dirty & a bit tasteless (though perhaps related to freedom of speech). This service is not for normal users anyway.

Don’t worry. You can’t sign up even if you want to. It’s invite-only now like RiseUp.

I just did some tests on DDG (sorry OP, not related to SearXNG). If you use it normally, they put a lot of images from URL like improving.duckduckgo.com/t/we?monitor=you&spying=secretly&id=etc (supposedly for improving DDG by gathering statistical blah blah). Their no-JavaScript version is much less invasive.

Solution(s): 1) uBlock is highly recommended, 2) if possible disable JS, 3) try Tor Browser, which is just an anonymity version of Firefox

Recientemente, el Real brasileño es la moneda más popular en Bisq, excepto Euro y Dólar estadounidense. A la gente no le gusta el Real digital...

Sorry, I forgot to write the most important thing. You can safely use Feather even if you’re already on Tor.

Feather doesn't use its own Tor (in the config folder) when Tor is already running and listening to 9050, be it on Windows or on Linux. So "double routing through Tor" doesn't occur. What happens is: 1) either an external Tor is already running and listening to 9050, which Feather uses; OR 2) an external Tor is not running or (running but) not listening to 9050 (as in Tor Browser), when Feather uses its own Tor binary. [On Tails, Tor is listening to localhost 9050.] So, I think the article is unnecessarily complicated, confusing (or "impressing") an unsuspecting reader, with inaccurate knowledge. In fact, there is an official AppImage specifically prepared for Tails / Whonix, which (afaik) doesn't come with its own Tor binary inside (because Feather doesn't need its own Tor when running on Tails etc.).

I'm not criticizing the said web site. I think it's good and informative. Generally speaking, though, one should not assume any info, including this comment of mine, as absolutely correct (especially if it's coming from someone who wants to sell something, or who wants to get more traffic to their website for a business reason). So please don't take this personally and do correct me if I'm wrong, thank you!