https://open.substack.com/api/v1/audio/upload/a82e821e-47c6-4f28-8364-29a1f57e4c27/src
What’s up y’all,
After finishing Snowden’s *Permanent Record, *it left me questioning a lot about the current state of how privacy is handled in the world today. There are multiple things to speak on regarding this book but for now I’m only going to touch on one that he mentioned briefly, Amazon.
Disclaimer: From the beginning I’ve wanted nothing more than be a supporter of Ethereum and to be a part of the community that surrounds it, I still do, but certain questions need to be answered first. Here’s my first attempt at trying to understand a little bit better while providing you with as much info as I can.
In 2013 Amazon received a CIA Cloud Contract worth $600 million over a period of 10 years. When I heard this listening to the Audiobook, I paused it and then said “Fuck, fuck, fuck, what the fuck” while driving in my car. Why? Not for the reasons you may think, like Alexa spying on me and then handing it over to the CIA, although we can assume that’s already happening. My main concern actually revolves around the ecosystem I’ve been a part of for the past 10 months, more specific, the Ethereum ecosystem. Recently Ethereum transferred from Proof of Work to Proof of Stake, the primary reason for this transition which has been praised by mainstream media over and over is the energy being conserved by this move. What I’ll tell you is I have my doubts about this, but you can see what Michael Saylor has to say about “mining” Bitcoin who is much more knowledgeable on the subject, and just about every other subject for that matter. I also want to provide this 11-minute Ted Talk by isabelle who gives good insight on Nuclear Power. Why we haven’t adopted it as a Worldwide source of energy is still beyond me, but hey, I’m just a dude who started learning about all this recently, so we can save that topic for another day 😉
Back to the reason we’re here though, why is Amazon being a part of the CIA an issue when it comes to Ethereum? Well, one thing you’ll hear preached from almost every person in the space is we need decentralization, and we need it now. As a matter of fact, that’s what I perceive as the main ethos behind Crypto from my short time in the space. Getting away from central authority, owning your own content, being able to control your money without a third party controlling it for you, all bundled together with anonymity. It sounds great in theory, it should be what we all ultimately want, so why would the community be ok with giving this opportunity back to the department who spied on their own citizens for their own gratification? If you get a chance to read *Permanent Record *you’ll hear about how nude photos (possibly like the ones you’ve received or even sent to a significant other), were being intercepted, and Agents would send them to one another for reasons I’m sure you can imagine, but between them it was ok because…well I don’t have a because. It’s not right and there’s no excuse for it. Think about that scenario, what if that was your wife, your sister, or even your daughter. Hopefully that puts into perspective the importance of controlling who has access to your data. For the record, anything you might think is safe on your phone, computer, or tablet, it’s not. Even if you deleted it, it’s still somewhere, and it can be found.
With that said I’m sure we can all agree on this next statement. Each one of us should have a say in who has access to our private documents, pictures, text records, and everything in between. Because we can all agree on that statement it’s given us the opportunity to create an ecosystem where we have that ability, where we’re able to browse through the web securely and privately, where you feel welcomed without having to worry about a third party spying on you or freezing your assets, it’s literally right in front of us. In its place however, we seem to have given the opportunity to a department that’s ok with “sexual humiliation” on foreigners, rather than treating them like human beings. Not the best choice in my opinion. You might say it’s Amazon who controls the nodes so this shouldn’t matter, and I’d ask you, do you really think the CIA works for anyone but themselves? That’s a one-way street, friend.
Here’s the details. In a new world referred to as Web3 where decentralization reigns supreme, Amazon is responsible for at least 53.7% of the nodes at data centers according to an article by Messari in August of this year. The significance of this if you’re not familiar with the blockchain is it makes Ethereum a high security risk if those nodes were to ever go down or lose power. It also makes it a lot easier for Amazon to collude with another large data center of nodes to try and takeover the network. This is far from decentralization, but why is this not being talked about more in mainstream media? Maybe because what was happening in the 50, 60’s, and 70’s is still happening today. Another thought is maybe the Ethereum ecosystem is just highly centralized itself. Regardless, whether you want to believe it or not, to achieve a better society, a better world, and even have a chance at World Peace, cryptocurrency and cryptography will be the main route on how we get there.
Like I always say, time will tell, along with this is just my opinion, but I’m worried that the time is starting to run out and it’ll be too late once everyone realizes the importance of this. Then again I could just be over-thinking it, better safe than sorry though. It’s fun to get my thoughts out and share them with y’all as well, even if you disagree, feel free to comment and let me know why. I’m still learning each and everyday and in order for us to move forward together as a civilization, we need to help each other every step of the way, as much as we can.
Much love to you and yours, hope you’re safe and well.
Ling 💙
PS: in 2020 the CIA signed a multibillion-dollar cloud contract with not just Amazon, but this time it included Google, IBM, Microsoft, and Oracle. Fantastic. Am I right?
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I’ll most likely be leaving my content as free to view for the foreseeable future. I believe it’ll be important topics to discuss. I’m hoping to gain a lot of insight and knowledge as well from different perspectives on the content I put out.For the meantime, if you feel like donating this is my current ETH wallet address. Ironic, I know. 0x166963d11ce7Fd4b56b35fE197638D19862fEf92