Поговорили с Ильей про анархию: https://t.me/ilyabirman_channel/10758

Последние N лет пишу в личной и рабочей переписке "щас" вместо "сейчас". Сегодня обратил внимание, что создан новый паттерн: ето/етот вместо это/т — потому что не нужно искать мизинцем букву "э" в три раза дольше, чем остальные буквы.

🗿Gitbox source code (2010-2013) is now available on Github under permissive license: github.com/oleganza/gitbox

If anyone wants to submit a patch or maintain the project, please open an issue on Github.

?‍☠️ Who are the cypherpunks?

Almost exactly 30 years ago, the famous cypherpunk Timothy C. May wrote The Cyphernomicon, an FAQ for the cypherpunk movement, where he predicted most of what has unfolded over the following decades. There he mentioned the famous "four horsemen of infocalypse": four recurring reasons to attack private communication tools: drug-dealers, money-launderers, terrorists, and pedophiles. Yesterday, we witnessed yet another invocation of this meme that resonated around the world.

There is an obvious tension we face as a society since the invention of telegraph. Our lives are almost fully digitized and we want all this data to remain securely under our control. At the same time, police is in business of chasing criminals and always seek to overcome all obstacles in the most efficient manner. Traditionally, the police had an unlimited access to mainstream communication channels by default with some bureaucrats in the mix to safeguard the collected data against leaks and abuse (with mixed success). Cypherpunks movement started with an idea that personal computers would give the citizens protection by default and then the police would have to come over to the individuals and seek the data.

It is true, that there are criminals out there and we need the police to do their best to catch them. It is also true that unrestricted submission of private lives to the police gives room to all sorts of abuse. The mission of cypherpunks is to push for removal of single points of failure from all the technology that empowers private communication and markets. Today we live in the superposition of both regimes: the total surveillance over centralized infrastructure and the anarchy of decentralization. As Snowden demonstrated in 2013, every communication hub is wiretapped and all traffic is collected for later decryption and analysis. At the same time, 2013 was when Bitcoin mainstream adoption began.

Thanks to cryptocurrencies people have a strong incentive to take care of their own cryptographic keys — a truly tedious task in the age of PGP mail. Fast forward to 2022-2024 and we have TON, a mass-market blockchain network with millions of people joining every month. TON users authorize with decentralized apps with a decentralized authentication protocol TON Connect. Wallet apps such as @wallet and Tonkeeper offer the most friendly and thought-out experience among all crypto wallets. Telegram itself, which is a fully centralized service, began decentralizing ownership of social assets and authentication via Fragment and designs its ad revenue sharing model on top of TON.

The Cypherpunks from 90s may all be retired, but the new generation of hackers stands on their shoulders and continues building the future for the entire world. ?

Massive decentralization

TON is great because we can do two things that we couldn't do before:

1. Make decentralized apps scale to billions of users.
2. Make decentralized apps Just Work™.

A month ago my team at Tonkeeper launched ?Tonkeeper Battery. Today we launched *⚡️*Gasless and wallet standard *?*W5 (in beta for now).

These features revolutionize onboarding to crypto. People can receive their stablecoin or an NFT and use it right away, without going through ridiculous exchange interfaces and investing in coins they don't care about just yet.

Got an airdrop? Charge the Battery with it, boom, you can trade it.

Got an NFT? Charge the Battery with a bank card, boom, you can put it up for an auction.

Got paid in USDT? There is no step two: you can use it right away. Fees are paid from your USDT balance.

Later, when you discover TON universe and decide to buy some TONs — go ahead. But no one is forcing you to do that before you want to. Because TON stands for freedom, dignity and excellence.

How to use group chats in Telegram

Sometimes you need to summon 3+ people in a group chat for a discussion. I've been using Telegram since it's launch in 2013 and since then I have accumulated over 600 group chats. Most of those were added while working on Tonkeeper in the past 2.5 years. When people use group chats incorrectly, we all suffer from the consequences.

Here's how to use group chats:

1. Make everyone an admin. This will allow others invite more people, change picture and settings later without bothering you.

2. While making everyone an admin, do not check "remain anonymous". The person won't be able to untick it themselves ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

3. Immediately turn off "history hidden from new members". This will bite you when more people are coming in and miss out on important bits of information. In my practice keeping history secret was useful in grand total of three group chats in the past 2 years.

This advice works for 99% of family- and work-related chats. Of course, if you are starting a large community, or discuss something extra-sensistive, you'd pay extra attention to the settings and tune them to your situation.

PS. I wish Telegram added a quick toggle for that behavior somewhere on the chat setup screen.

Blockchain business is like Formula One

Building apps on a blockchain is very much like the top-tier racing sport, F1. And it's not about speed, performance or running in circles.

You see, F1 is a technical sport between some of the best engineers on the planet, and the smartest one wins the trophies. In F1, like in real life, there is a stack of technical regulations saying what you can and cannot do. If you break the regulations — you are disqualified. If you meet the regulations — try hard to reach the fourth, third, or maybe even a second place.

But in order to win your job is to find the gap — the one where the regulations mean one thing, but actually say a different one. That's where the true geniuses figure out extra power and downforce to be added to otherwise excellent engineering expected from everyone in the paddock.

Blockchains and Fintech are somewhat like this. You don't want to break the regulations, but you also don't want to make a complicit product — blockchain part adds more overhead and instability to whatever traditional piece of software you are doing. Blockchain products are used in the middle area: where people need to break away from corrupt status quo imposed by old order, achieve personal freedom and take personal responsibility. All while using it wisely and not get disqualified.

In F1 only the top of the top need to find the gap. In blockchain everyone has to play this game to stay afloat. Airdrops instead of ICOs. NFTs instead of securities. Self-custody apps instead of banks. Zero-knowledge protocols over cloud computing.

You don't disrupt the world head-on. You work around the obstacles by building a better way.