Cover photo

Thought Crime Trap House #7 March 31 2026

Opt the fuck out

Welcome to the Thought Crime Trap House, no recording devices, snitches, or bootlickers allowed. I am Thoughtcrimeboss. Why should you listen to me? Well, I have lived outside of the "system" for more than a decade now. In all practical terms, I don't exist, and I have learned a few things along the way that I can teach you.

You don't have to go to the extremes I have, but protecting your privacy is no longer optional. Criminals are getting data on crypto holders from data leaks and targeting them with kidnappings and armed home invasions. The state is implementing an AI powered mass surveillance network on a scale never before seen in history. Digital IDs and CBDCs are spreading like wild fire and the exits are closing. If you don't opt out and build a life outside of the system soon, you might be trapped in it forever. Subscribe to get the latest news on crypto, freedom tech, and privacy alongside actionable advice to help you opt out and protect yourself.

- I might have to move soon, Paragraph has been wonky as fuck lately to the point where it has taken me twice as long to finish this issue. I keep getting "rate limited by upstream proxy" or server errors when I'm editing my post and that's probably not a good sign. Neither is the radio silence from Paragraph's socials lately. Given that it was a Farcaster project originally and Farcaster isn't doing so well, Paragraph may be out of runway to keep operating. Hopefully they didn't spend all their capital trying to "coin" everything, it's pretty obvious at this point that nobody wants to buy a memecoin for a ephemeral blog post or "creator coins" that don't offer any actual ownership of anything. It sucks because I liked Paragraph a lot especially before they started all the coining nonsense. This will probably be the last issue on Paragraph unless things improve. I certainly don't want to be beholden to Substack so instead I am looking at either paying for Ghost (the Rage uses them) to host me or self hosting on my own website. Consider helping me with any moving costs by donating!

If you want to support me and my mission to help people protect their privacy and opt out of the system, please consider donating some crypto to the cause. I am trying to grow Thought Crime Trap House because I think teaching people how to opt out is more important now than ever.

Please excuse my bad language and rampant sarcasm.

Tip me in XMR on XMRchat

Send some ETH or any ERC-20 token on mainnet or any EVM layer 2 blockchain to thoughtcrimeboss.eth

Send me sats via Bitcoin mainnet: bc1qlewp9p426pe3t70fdwx0sg84dfqhnwae20unc5

Or send me Bitcoin via lighting to burnedmitten671@minibits.cash

Send me SOL or any Solana token at 9uLhcY5AKHjYK3kySrgDnWqp5NFh9p1LQztT8iZUPdxZ

If you want to send me any other crypto currency, I don't care what it is, just comment or message me what blockchain you would like to use and I will gladly spin up a wallet and give you the address.

You can also support me by following me on Nostr npub1uqxkqdq3xngndgwlck03hje0u25uu7ql9nakh63yjk2m63thczkszeffca

Or follow me on X and help me get to 1k followers!

Please share this with your friends and enemies, it's free and it helps me a lot.

RIP Discord

In our last issue we talked about the announcement from Discord that they would be implementing mandatory age verification. If you didn't verify your age through either uploading a government ID or taking a video selfie, than your account would be locked in a restricted teen mode.

I was pleased to see the absolute firestorm that erupted across the entire internet over this. It was a reminder of the absolute power that users have over platforms that are nothing without their users. People were threatening to or did delete Discord in droves and Google searches for discord alternatives spiked to record highs. The move was not popular in the slightest, I didn't see any positive reactions to it on X at least.

Discord did some backpedaling in response to the controversy. Now they were saying for most users they could just guess if you are an adult or not (probably by scanning every message you have ever sent on the platform).

Tools instantly appeared all over the place to bypass Discord's age verification. So they switched up the entire process and started sending the data to a company called Persona.

After Persona got involved, shit really hit the fan for Discord. Some hackers accessed some information left exposed to the open internet on OpenAI's servers that revealed disturbing things about Persona, the third party identity verification service that Discord had switched to. Basically verifying your identity through Persona is a one way ticket into a Federal database where you will be rated on how suspicious you are.

the watchers: how openai, the US government, and persona built an identity surveillance machine that files reports on you to the feds

53MB of source code leaked from a government endpoint. 269 verification checks. biometric face databases. SAR filings to FinCEN. and the same company that verifies your ChatGPT account.

https://vmfunc.re
the watchers: how openai, the US government, and persona built an identity surveillance machine that files reports on you to the feds

So after this Persona leak, people got even madder at Discord than they were before and Discord had to drop Persona.

After all the hoobaloo that Discord caused, they are now delaying the rollout of age verification entirely until the second half of 2026. I think they are just hoping everyone forgets about it by then.

Luckily, Discord is not the only game in town, there are alternatives for hosting a community chat. I haven't seen a Discord killer yet, but with the ease of coding with AI increasing drastically it is only a matter of time before some Chad vibe codes a based freedom tech version of Discord that is good enough to get adopted.

The main problem with all of the current Discord alternatives is lack of adoption, no matter which one you choose there are going to be way less users and servers to choose from than with Discord. It's up to us to fix that, we should be trying to get as many people off of Discord and onto FOSS alternatives as we can. Discord needs to die out and serve as a lesson to any platform that decides to implement mandatory age verification.

So what is available right now? For FOSS Discord alternatives we have:

Mumble:

-Voice chat application

-Lightweight, doesn't take much resources

-Focused entirely on voice chat

-Doesn't save your messages unlike Discord which keeps everything

-Voice channels and control channels are encrypted

-No text chat, setting up a server is a little more technical than Discord, lacks many of Discord's features.

-Mobile and desktop clients available

Stoat:

-Stoat is much closer to Discord in design with both text and voice channels and roles.

-Self hostable if you want

-Not many users yet

-Easy to migrate a group from Discord to Stoat

-Not end to end encrypted, messages are only encrypted in transit from user to server, but if you control the server you have full control over that data.

Matrix:

-End to end encrypted

-Federated and decentralized design

-Interoperable with other protocols, for example users can use a portal to chat with people on a Discord server or Slack

-Feature rich like Discord. Supports text chat, voice/video calls, screen sharing, file sharing, reactions, threads, and custom emojis.

-You can either self host or use a public home server. Pick a good home server if you want to go that route, or your user experience is going to be less than ideal.

-A bit more of a learning curve than something like Discord, but still easy enough to figure out if you aren't a retard.

SimpleX:

-Privacy focused platform for small group chats or one on one chats

-Strong encryption for all messages

-No voice chat

-No phone numbers or emails needed to create an account

-Designed to limit metadata as much as possible

-Decentralized design, no central server

-Mobile client needs some work, but it is usable

-Very limited community management tooling

-They have some very dope servers to hang out in

Valour:

-Looks and feels more like Discord than most of the alternatives

-Still in Alpha

-Voice and text chat

-Item system, personalization features, custom emojis

-More privacy than Discord

-Slow development

-Self hostable

Flotilla:

-Built on top of NOSTR

-Built in zaps (sending small amounts of Bitcoin over lighting to your homies)

-Threads, rooms, web of trust, private messages

-Still very new, almost no users yet, but has potential

Jitsi:

-Video conferencing software that doesn't spy on your meetings

-Been around awhile, stable

-Can handle video calls with up to 75 people at once

-One on one calls are E2E encrypted

-Self hostable, no accounts required to join meetings

-In meeting text chat and screen sharing

-Meetings are one time events, you can't host a persistent community on Jitsi.

Common Ground:

-Web3 Discord alternative

-Github not very active lately, make of that what you will

-Self hosting is not an option yet, relies on centralized servers

-Looks and feels like Discord

-Very crypto oriented, good for DAOs who want things like token gating.

Rocket.chat

-Limited feature set for the free version, but still open source

-Very focused on security of comms, good for work teams

-Self hostable

-E2E encryption

-Highly customizable, intergrations with zendesk and salesforce, live call transcription and AI recaps

-Supports airgapped deployments

My two favorites right now are SimpleX and Matrix, but that's also because I haven't tried any of the others! I am looking for a place to host a Thought Crime Trap House chat for all 50 of my subscribers, so let me know what your favorite Discord alternative is.

/Random Tips For Avoiding The State\

-Make friends with your neighbors, especially those close enough to see or hear your home. Introduce yourself to them if you haven't already, give them a phone number and tell them to call you if they ever need anything.

Wave at them when you see them, smile, ask how they are doing. Do favors for them if you can. Do this even if you hate it, even if they are retarded scumbags. Who knows, they might grow on you.

The main goal is to get them to talk to you first if they have a problem rather than going straight to the police, HOA, or code enforcement. You don't want to make enemies with your neighbors. Many encounters with the state start with neighbors who don't like you, often because they don't even know anything about you.

Eventually you want to develop the kind of relationship with your neighbors in which they will look out for you. A neighborhood full of friends doesn't call the state on each other.


-Remember, once you put your garbage can on the curb, it's considered fair game for cops to look through it without a warrant.

If you have anything to dispose of that you don't feel like sharing with the state, discreetly take it to a public trashcan or burn it.

After all we all know how much pigs like their garbage.

/Privacy & Security\

In a rare victory for privacy, public backlash against a VPN ban provision in a Wisconsin age verification bill led to it being removed from the bill entirely. The rest of the bill still sucks, but it is an improvement at least.

Wisconsin scraps VPN ban from age verification bill following backlash

Lawmakers hear the concerns of VPN users across the country, removing VPN blocking requirements from the age verification bill. Yet, experts warn that the proposed law still comes with some major issues.

https://www.techradar.com
Wisconsin scraps VPN ban from age verification bill following backlash

AND public backlash from a dystopian Super Bowl ad where Amazon demonstrated how it's Ring security cameras could be used to instantly locate a lost dog in the neighborhood, led to Amazon canceling it's contract with Flock Safety.

Of course any good news lately is immediately overwhelmed by bad news. California, Colorado, Brazil, and now Illinois have either passed or are trying to pass bills that force age verification on the OS level. Sure if linux distros start implementing this, there will be forks and workarounds, but the average user isn't going to use them. So that means most users in these jurisdictions will have to go through some kind of age verification to even install a fucking operating system. This makes me want to puke.

These new laws led to a very controversial change to "systemd" , an innit system for Linux that is used by the majority of Linux distros. The pull request #40954, "userdb: add birthDatefield to JSON user records" was merged in mid March. This adds an optional birthday field to systemd's userdb service which manages user account records. Applications can then request this information from the OS.

Just because the field is "optional" today doesn't mean it isn't dangerous. Linux devs shouldn't be ceding a single inch to these tyrants and their Age Verification nonsense. Every thing starts out as "optional" and eventually becomes mandatory, such as social security numbers. Distros are now deciding whether they will support age verification or refuse to support it, here is a list of who is on the side of freedom and who isn't.

People are being banned from r/linux for even discussing this, which should tell you all you need to know.

Proton doxxed an anon protester to the FBI through payment data. Now, it shouldn't come as any surprise that Proton is going to turn over data to law enforcement when legally required to. Almost any company would comply with such an order. The problem I have with Proton in this case is that they are going to have this data on every single paid user because they are not offering any private payment methods. The only payment methods they offer on their checkout page is credit/debit card, Google Pay, and Paypal. Contrast this with another popular privacy service, Mullvad VPN, which also offers traditional credit/debit card payments for people who choose to accept the risk of paying that way, but then they offer BTC, BCH, XMR, and cash by mail in multiple currencies. So at least with Mullvad you have two easy options to pay anonymously using Monero or cash.

You have to ask yourself why Proton doesn't offer these options, or even something better than a debit card like some Bitcoin. Sure you can use a card under an alias, but the average idiot is just going to pay with a card under their own name which completely destroys the entire point of using a privacy service. So people in the Monero community kept bugging Proton to accept Monero until finally the Proton people were like, if you bring us a petition with X number of signatures, we will accept Monero.

Well that's exactly what the Monero chads did, and Proton decided to be lil bitches and instead of putting Monero right there on their website so that anyone could easily see they can pay in it, they instead only "accept" Monero through a relatively obscure third party service.

Digital Goods by ProxyStore

Buy coupons, voucher codes and gift cards for privacy services and pay anonymously with Monero, Bitcoin or cash letter. SEPA Bank transfer is also available.

https://digitalgoods.proxysto.re

So what are some alternatives to protonmail for the privacy conscious email user such as yourself? While I would still use protonmail for burner email addresses, just make sure you don't

A) link an email to the burner email that links back to you

B) link a phone number that links back to you

C) access it from an IP address that links back to you

4) pay them any money, just use the free version for burner emails.

For more privacy with your emails, use Tuta (formely tutanota), or self host your own email server. You can pay for Tuta with Monero because they actually care about privacy.

Just a reminder, audit your extensions....get rid of any you don't use, if you need them again you can always reinstall them in 2 seconds. Less is always more when it comes to your privacy and security, apply the same policy to apps on your phone. Consider every app and extension as a potential attack vector and be highly selective about what you allow to be on your phone.

A new study shows how easy it is to doxx people with AI, what used to take many hours of labor by an OSINT investigator can now be done for a few bucks in tokens with AI.

Google is still trying to get rid of sideloading, so that all developers of apps have to dox themselves to Google if they want their apps to be installable. Because of this requirement, my favorite Youtube watching app, Newpipe is shutting down in September because they refuse to comply. (UPDATE: Supposedly they are now implementing a way to sideload after confirming you aren't a retard or something)

Well we found out who is behind the push for age verification laws across the country...Meta. Not surprised at all. They want the responsibility for age verification to be pushed onto OSes instead of individual platforms, and they want to be able to distinquish bots and humans so they can keep making those sweet advertising cuckbucks. Currently millions of dollars of ads are being shown to robots, which is a problem for these corpos.

Not only does the ruling class want to fully control your access to information at the app level and the OS level, now they also want to control what routers you can buy. I have a feeling that certain foreign based router manufacturer will be able to apply for exemptions to this law if and only if they agree to install a backdoor for the Feds to monitor all your internet traffic.

Washington state ended up passing the 3D printer bill, you now need a fucking license to form plastic into shapes. That's like saying you need a license to buy legos.

This is why you shouldn't play games that use your location and your camera.

A massive breach of a digital ID verification service leaked over a billion records. The state is most definitely going to use the fact that so many people's personal information has been leaked and is likely for sale on the Dark Web to start mandating biometric verification for everything. The social security number, which was already bad enough, will probably be replaced by something like iris scans. At that point, if you aren't already living outside of the state's systems, it will become much harder to exit.

/Crypto\

Apparently having crypto to crypto swap functionality in your app will get you rejected from the Apple app store, or at least that seems to be the case for Unstoppable Wallet. Cake wallet is in the Apple app store still I believe, I'm not sure how they aren't affected by this? Maybe it is just a matter of time before Cake Wallet has to remove swapping to stay in the App Store, but that is how they make money so I certainly hope not.

If you thought NEAR Intents swaps were decentralized and permissionless, apparently they aren't, not exactly. If you aren't familiar with NEAR Intents, I am not well versed on the technicals but it is a protocol that allows cross chain swaps, including between Zcash and Solana which was a major driver of the recent rally in ZEC. Before NEAR Intents the only way to acquire ZEC was through centralized exchanges and swap services or directly P2P. There were no DEXes that supported it prior to NEAR intents that I am aware of. NEAR Intents made it much easier for anyone to swap into or out of ZEC and to create wrapped versions of it on other blockchains. The same thing could theoretically be done with Monero.

The following tweets give some good insights into how NEAR Intents works. Apparently it is better than a CEX but not as good as a DEX like Maya Protocol. The swaps themselves ARE atomic, so you will always get something back or a refund, however the API that most providers use is permissioned and the solvers that are the counterparties for a swap are required to do AML checks. So using their "1 click" API is more convenient from a UX perspective, but as a user be aware you could potentially lose funds. For more info read Vini B's entire post below, than read the replies from Unstoppable Wallet.

Bitcoin used to take a dump at 10 AM EST every single day, apparently this stopped when Jane Street recently got hit with a lawsuit....interesting story of potential market manipulation.

Kraken became the first CEX to gain access to the Federal Reserve's core payments system....which is interesting because it is also the ONLY US based exchange that lists Monero. If you can list Monero and still get this kind of regulatory approval, what is Coinbase, Gemini, and Binance's excuse?

Which makes me wonder.....maybe Kraken has been able to keep Monero listed because the Feds have requested they keep it listed. Having a KYCed on and off ramp for Monero helps with "tracing" Monero transactions significantly. Now I am not saying Monero transactions are traceable per say, when I say tracing I mean doing statistical analysis to determine the likelihood a transaction orginated from a certain person based on external metadata and eliminating decoys. Having a KYC exchange involved in a series of transactions is kind of like handing Chainalysis the corner pieces to a puzzle, it gives them somewhere to start, some signal amidst the noise.

The Patriot Act is being deployed by the supposedly pro crypto administration against crypto....and news outlets are reporting it as a win for privacy. If you read the whole report it doesn't seem like a win.

Over 5k in annual crypto transactions in Paraguay now requires mandatory reporting down to every transaction hash and wallet address. Don't worry though, I'm sure none of this data will get leaked and nobody will get kidnapped because of it.

Monero's Carrot upgrade just passed it's audit!

Cake Wallet got a major overhaul from top to bottom, I must say it's looking good. I remember when I first used Cake Wallet years ago, it used to suck. Now it's the best Monero supporting mobile wallet in existence.

Cake Wallet got a major overhaul from top to bottom for v6 and added lightning support, I must say it's looking good. I remember when I first used Cake Wallet years ago, it used to suck. Now it's the best Monero supporting mobile wallet in existence.

The IRS's new crypto audit form is absolutely overkill. You are supposed to check yes or no under penalty of perjury next to every exchange you have ever used...ever. I saw some wallets in the list too, like Metamask. Luckily I never make enough money to pay taxes.

/Politics and Other News\

Epstein's island had a private submarine entrance so rich fucks could arrive with no records of them doing so. I wonder what kind of fucked up shit goes down on private submarines chilling in international waters...

Bessent is pressuring Banks to go even harder on their KYC.....

Illegal immigration is the latest BS excuse (the mafia, terrorists, drug cartels, and now illegal immigrants) , and total financial surveillance is the goal. This latest doubling down on banking KYC follows the move last year to lower reporting requirements at money service businesses from $10,000 to $200 in 30 jurisdictions.

How long before they just outlaw cash altogether and say it's necessary to keep the illegal immigrants from being able to use cash?

Trump promised no CBDCs, but if you read the Genius Act it creates the infrastructure for privately issued stablecoins to be totally controlled and surveilled by the Federal Government and the Federal Reserve, creating a CBDC with better branding.

Total control and depopulation is the final goal of the ruling class. They will get there by creating fear and division among citizens so that we are too busy fighting each other to resist.

If illegal immigration scares you more than the control mechanisms being put in place to supposedly fight it, then you have fallen for their psyop.

Bessent Pressures Banks to Review Immigrant Accounts

In Congressional hearings last week, the Treasury Secretary doubled down on the use of financial warfare to achieve political ends.

https://www.therage.co
Bessent Pressures Banks to Review Immigrant Accounts

The funny business with the Epstein Files seemingly never ends....they are still withholding huge amounts of the files for unknown reasons...including but not limited to EVERY SINGLE ONE FROM AROUND 9/11.....

They also decided to use the distraction of starting a new fucking war to delete some files....I really hope lots of people downloaded the shit out of every single one of these before they got taken down.

When is enough enough? Not only is the state trying to throw your kids in jail, they are protecting pedophiles, and dropping bombs on children overseas. The criminalization of children continues to get worse. For instance a kid can't even get in a fist fight at school without facing criminal charges over it. Truancy has become a crime. Many states treat minors as if they were adults if they commit a felony such as possessing the wrong kind of plant or mushroom. Kids have been made into sex offenders for hooking up with each other or sexting. Once upon a time our society didn't try to throw kids in fucking jail. You can tell how healthy a society is by how it treats it's children. Oh and the state does all this while simultaneously claiming it needs to take away more of your rights to "protect children" through age verification laws that lock down the internet.

What in the fuck kind of timeline is this? The US military commanders are trying to get their soldiers to think this is a "holy war". Points for creativity I guess. If people believe God is on the state's side its easier for them to commit evil on behalf of the state.

US commander said Trump "anointed by Jesus" to attack Iran: Report

Some U.S. military leaders are telling troops that the Iran war is part of "God's divine plan," according to a religious freedom advocacy group.

https://www.newsweek.com
US commander said Trump "anointed by Jesus" to attack Iran: Report

Well during the not so holy "holy war", the United States managed to use outdated intel from 2016 and bombed the ever living shit out of 165+ Iranian children at elementary school. This is what I mean when I say paying taxes is funding murder.

Outdated intel likely led US to carry out deadly strike on Iranian elementary school, AP sources say

Outdated intelligence has likely led to the United States carrying out a deadly missile strike on an elementary school in Iran that killed over 165 people, many of them children, in the opening hours of the conflict, according to a U.S.

https://apnews.com
Outdated intel likely led US to carry out deadly strike on Iranian elementary school, AP sources say

Speaking of war, war is never going to be the same. It is now the era of decentralized asymmetric warfare in which people can build manpads for $100.

Did you think the state wouldn't be willing to use vaccines maliciously? Read these newly declassified CIA files and wake the fuck up.

/Discover New Tools, Media, and Projects\

From the same people who brought us jmail.world have aggregated some of the Epstein file data into a wikipedia style website.

Some chad build an MCP server for Monero, allowing his openclawd bot to spin up and use a Monero wallet.

Thanks to Kazani for sharing this new Android app for detecting smart glasses nearby, so you that you can hopefully avoid getting your face scanned by some asshole. Turns out the Meta smart glasses are pwning the assholes who buy them anyways by spying on them when they aren't wearing them. Don't leave your smart glasses on the nightstand or workers in Kenya are going to be watching you in the bedroom.

There is a new tool, called Stealth, for doing blockchain analysis on your own bitcoin addresses. You can run it through your own node so that no one knows what addresses you are looking at it. Check to see if there are any links between your different address clusters that you didn't realize. Investigating yourself like this is a great way to find holes in your opsec and fix them, but you have to be careful that you don't leak information during the act of investigating yourself. For example if you use a rando block explorer and search a Bitcoin address you use for one identity, and then search a Bitcoin address you use for a different identity using the same browser and IP address, then you are telling whoever runs that block explorer that those 2 addresses might be linked. They may then sell that information to Chainalysis. That's why this tool is so fucking cool, it's a safe way to do this kind of OSINT investigation on yourself without leaking info to anyone. Check out this Ungovernable Misfits podcast about it, or just check it out for yourself here.

Play Video

Some cool shit is happening over on Nostr, which is now way easier to onboard onto then it was when I first got on there a few years ago. Just send your friends to https://nstart.me/en and it will hold their hand through the entire process.

Check out Roadster, it's like Uber, but for cypherpunks and built on top of Nostr.

People are building bridges from Nostr to other protocols, learn how to follow Bluesky accounts on Nostr using the Mostr bridge and Bridgy Fed.

Someone is supposedly working on a Monero based stablecoin...I've been waiting for the holy grail of a private stablecoin for a long time, but so far they have all failed except perhaps FUSD on Zano which is still functioning but tiny. This account is brand new and I know nothing about it but let's keep an eye on it.

Mark Edge is back on Free Talk Live for a great interview with Scott Horton. He is one of the two orginal hosts of FTL, an award winning #libertarian and #voluntaryism focused call in radio show that was instrumental in early #Bitcoin adoption. Ian Freeman was the other host and is currently serving 8 years in Federal prison for selling Bitcoin to consenting adults.

Free Ian Freeman!

#podcasts

Free Talk Live: FTL2026-03-15

Episode webpage: https://soundcloud.com/freetalklive/ftl2026-03-15

In case you didn't know, every Saturday at 4 pm EST Self Liberation Saturday is streamed live on Paznia Radio. If you are interested in escaping the servile society and living free, this is radio for you.

P.A.Z.NIA Radio Network - P.A.Z.NIA

Download the "GreyJay" app on your Android, iPhone, or desktop device. Add whatever sources (i.e. YouTube, Rumble, Odysee) you like, then subscribe to our respective channels. GreyJay will then allow you to stream the audio in the background.

https://paznia.com
P.A.Z.NIA Radio Network - P.A.Z.NIA

Project NOMAD is FOSS designed for when SHTF. If the internet goes down, you can still have access to important knowledge, education, and LLMs. Love it, haven't downloaded it yet, but it's on my list.

"Node for Offline Media, Archives, and Data — a free, open source offline server you install on any computer. Download the content you want, and it works without internet — forever. Similar products cost hundreds of dollars. Project NOMAD is free."

https://www.projectnomad.us/

Keep an eye on Flock with these sites

Thanks for reading!