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Sebcurity
sebcurity@nostrcheck.me
npub13z7h...xcwf
anarcho capitalist stacking sats eating meat chilling on nostr
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Sebcurity 2 years ago
# [Code Vulnerabilities Put Proton Mails at Risk](https://www.sonarsource.com/blog/code-vulnerabilities-leak-emails-in-proton-mail/) ### Paul Gerste ### VULNERABILITY RESEARCHER September 5, 2023 12 MIN READ ----- ## Key Information __Key Information__ + In June 2022, the Sonar Research team discovered critical code vulnerabilities in multiple encrypted email solutions, including Proton Mail, Skiff, and Tutanota. + These privacy-oriented webmail services provide end-to-end encryption, making communications safe in transit and at rest. Our findings affect their web clients, where the messages are decrypted, mobile clients were not affected. + The vulnerabilities would have allowed attackers to steal emails and impersonate victims if they interacted with malicious messages. + Nearly 70 million users were at risk on Proton Mail alone. + Thanks to our report, the issue has been fixed and there are no signs of in-the-wild exploitation. ----- #security #news #protonmail #tutanota #skiff #email
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Sebcurity 2 years ago
# Your VPN provider won't go to jail for you for 5 dollars ## By [Viktor Vecsei](https://www.ivpn.net/blog/authors/viktor-vecsei/) | Posted on August 18, 2023 The phrase in the title is a common trope that comes up when VPN services are discussed. While this statement is technically correct, it can be misleading, as it implies that all providers handle law enforcement requests and prepare for worst case scenarios similarly, so their conduct cannot be a differentiating factor when you evaluate them. In this blog post we explain why competent service operators can avoid having to share sensitive information about you without facing severe legal consequences. The reasons laid out will also highlight why you are better off choosing a VPN service run by privacy activists who will prioritise principles before profits in difficult situations. Let’s start with clarifying the statement in the post title: A VPN provider might face jail time for not complying with valid legal requests for sharing information as per the rules of the jurisdiction they operate in. Since reputable VPN services operate in countries that rely on the rule of law for fighting crime and national security, those responsible for your privacy will have no choice but to comply when facing pressure from law enforcement, so they can avoid prosecution. We believe these observations apply to most VPN companies, however in every case, people running them have choices. Choices that prepare them for when law enforcement come knocking, in their conduct when responding to requests, and around reacting to the worst-case scenarios. image A list of things a VPN service can do to make sure that no sensitive information about you, or your activities need to be shared with authorities: 1. __Choose the right jurisdiction__. If the country the service is incorporated in provides proper safeguards for running a VPN service, they can simply state they have no information to give when receiving a valid request. This is only possible if there is no legal requirement to keep any customer records or log their activities. This should be a basic requirement for VPN service, yet many continue to operate in jurisdictions that don’t fulfil these criteria. 2. __Have clear legal guidelines__. If the jurisdiction choice is prudent, VPN services can simply ignore requests coming from outside of the country they operate in, and might only reply to queries coming in the right format through the right channels. If interested parties want to receive any information, they can only do so if they have done the legwork, which might require jumping through legal hoops. Even if that happens, when the provider addresses other points in this list properly, they will have no information to provide. 3. __Know as little about you as possible__. If your provider has nothing to give, they are not liable to hand it over. With proper jurisdiction and internal policies when building the service, there is no need to keep personally identifiable information about you. This includes not collecting your email address or your name, or “limited connection data to improve the service”. Zero information about users should be the goal. Payment information can also tie you to your VPN subscriptions, so it’s prudent to offer options where no information is shared with third parties (like anonymity-friendly cryptocurrency, or cash). 4. __Have a protective privacy policy__. A concise and clear privacy policy is not just a promise to users, but a signal to authorities. It shows that it’s within the rights of the VPN service to not keep records on their customers and not log their activities, clearly communicating boundaries. Even if one comes equipped with email addresses, IP addresses or timestamps, the service can be up front on why they cannot assist with investigations. 5. __Be transparent about requests__. Similarly to the privacy policy, this is as much of a signal towards authorities as to customers. Publishing the number of requests alongside the number of cases where data was shared (which should be zero), a transparency report shows that their jurisdiction choice and policies are prudent. If the provider makes the right choices on the above points, there is a very good chance they can safeguard you from data requests about your subscription information and VPN use. image However, things can go wrong, and circumstances can change. Even if a provider has done everything right for a decade or more, there are unknowns and new threats they cannot influence. Laws might change, jurisdictions can join surveillance cooperations, and covert operations can target individuals responsible for keeping your data private. For these eventualities, providers can establish a clear plan so they do not face the “go to jail for $5” dilemma. Here are some measures for the proverbial stuff hitting the fan scenarios: 1. __Move jurisdictions as soon as possible__. Starting companies and drafting up new legal guidelines is not a five-minute exercise, however if faced with a choice of complying with fresh logging requirements, it is a required option that must be exercised to protect users. 2. __Have a warrant canary and trigger it__. If the first option is not workable for any reason, your provider can trigger its warrant canary to alert users to an event that cannot be publicised and could jeopardise their privacy. Such an event would likely severely affect the reputation of the service, thus providers who prioritise profits over principles will not be ready to do this. 3. __Shut down their operations__. VPN services run by activists would rather do this than to hand over customer data to authorities. At IVPN, we are conscious of the fact that we have one life and a reputation to uphold, and rather do something else than to violate our principles. We deliberately phrased this paragraph to reiterate our earlier promise to this action, if required. Yes, your VPN provider won’t go to jail for you, and that includes IVPN staff. Yet operators of well-run services don’t need to face such risks if they prepare their legal protections and policies right. By evaluating providers against the points above, you can separate those willing to go lengths to safeguard your privacy from those that care more about those five bucks.
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Sebcurity 2 years ago
# A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace __by John Perry Barlow__ ----- Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather. We have no elected government, nor are we likely to have one, so I address you with no greater authority than that with which liberty itself always speaks. I declare the global social space we are building to be naturally independent of the tyrannies you seek to impose on us. You have no moral right to rule us nor do you possess any methods of enforcement we have true reason to fear. Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. You have neither solicited nor received ours. We did not invite you. You do not know us, nor do you know our world. Cyberspace does not lie within your borders. Do not think that you can build it, as though it were a public construction project. You cannot. It is an act of nature and it grows itself through our collective actions. You have not engaged in our great and gathering conversation, nor did you create the wealth of our marketplaces. You do not know our culture, our ethics, or the unwritten codes that already provide our society more order than could be obtained by any of your impositions. You claim there are problems among us that you need to solve. You use this claim as an excuse to invade our precincts. Many of these problems don't exist. Where there are real conflicts, where there are wrongs, we will identify them and address them by our means. We are forming our own Social Contract. This governance will arise according to the conditions of our world, not yours. Our world is different. Cyberspace consists of transactions, relationships, and thought itself, arrayed like a standing wave in the web of our communications. Ours is a world that is both everywhere and nowhere, but it is not where bodies live. We are creating a world that all may enter without privilege or prejudice accorded by race, economic power, military force, or station of birth. We are creating a world where anyone, anywhere may express his or her beliefs, no matter how singular, without fear of being coerced into silence or conformity. Your legal concepts of property, expression, identity, movement, and context do not apply to us. They are all based on matter, and there is no matter here. Our identities have no bodies, so, unlike you, we cannot obtain order by physical coercion. We believe that from ethics, enlightened self-interest, and the commonweal, our governance will emerge. Our identities may be distributed across many of your jurisdictions. The only law that all our constituent cultures would generally recognize is the Golden Rule. We hope we will be able to build our particular solutions on that basis. But we cannot accept the solutions you are attempting to impose. In the United States, you have today created a law, the Telecommunications Reform Act, which repudiates your own Constitution and insults the dreams of Jefferson, Washington, Mill, Madison, DeToqueville, and Brandeis. These dreams must now be born anew in us. You are terrified of your own children, since they are natives in a world where you will always be immigrants. Because you fear them, you entrust your bureaucracies with the parental responsibilities you are too cowardly to confront yourselves. In our world, all the sentiments and expressions of humanity, from the debasing to the angelic, are parts of a seamless whole, the global conversation of bits. We cannot separate the air that chokes from the air upon which wings beat. In China, Germany, France, Russia, Singapore, Italy and the United States, you are trying to ward off the virus of liberty by erecting guard posts at the frontiers of Cyberspace. These may keep out the contagion for a small time, but they will not work in a world that will soon be blanketed in bit-bearing media. Your increasingly obsolete information industries would perpetuate themselves by proposing laws, in America and elsewhere, that claim to own speech itself throughout the world. These laws would declare ideas to be another industrial product, no more noble than pig iron. In our world, whatever the human mind may create can be reproduced and distributed infinitely at no cost. The global conveyance of thought no longer requires your factories to accomplish. These increasingly hostile and colonial measures place us in the same position as those previous lovers of freedom and self-determination who had to reject the authorities of distant, uninformed powers. We must declare our virtual selves immune to your sovereignty, even as we continue to consent to your rule over our bodies. We will spread ourselves across the Planet so that no one can arrest our thoughts. We will create a civilization of the Mind in Cyberspace. May it be more humane and fair than the world your governments have made before. Davos, Switzerland February 8, 1996
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Sebcurity 2 years ago
> When a Mutiny Wallet user configures a Lightning Service Provider (LSP), which by default is the Voltage LSP, all invoices created by the user will have Voltage's pubkey. From the sender's perspective, they are making payments to the Voltage LSP. The arrangement is akin to a VPN, where your interaction with websites originates from the VPN's IP address, not your home IP. > However, Voltage is NOT the actual payment recipient, nor do they have custody of the funds. The secret (preimage) needed to unlock the funds is only known to the user. Consequently, Voltage cannot claim the funds upon receiving the payment. To successfully process the payment, Voltage has to pay the user's invoice, known only by Voltage. Both invoices lock to the same preimage. Only after the user claims their funds can Voltage redeem the payment. This process mirrors how Lightning onion routing works today, where each router in the path can't claim the funds routed to them unless their payment has been redeemed by the next node in line.
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Sebcurity 2 years ago
> When a Mutiny Wallet user configures a Lightning Service Provider (LSP), which by default is the Voltage LSP, all invoices created by the user will have Voltage's pubkey. From the sender's perspective, they are making payments to the Voltage LSP. The arrangement is akin to a VPN, where your interaction with websites originates from the VPN's IP address, not your home IP. > However, Voltage is NOT the actual payment recipient, nor do they have custody of the funds. The secret (preimage) needed to unlock the funds is only known to the user. Consequently, Voltage cannot claim the funds upon receiving the payment. To successfully process the payment, Voltage has to pay the user's invoice, known only by Voltage. Both invoices lock to the same preimage. Only after the user claims their funds can Voltage redeem the payment. This process mirrors how Lightning onion routing works today, where each router in the path can't claim the funds routed to them unless their payment has been redeemed by the next node in line.
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Sebcurity 2 years ago
LewRockwell.com # [Disproving the State Four arguments against government]( __By Stefan Molyneux__ __November 11, 2005__ ------ Two objections constantly recur whenever the subject of dissolving the State arises. The first is that a free society is only possible if people are perfectly good or rational. In other words, citizens need a centralized State because there are evil people in the world. The first and most obvious problem with this position is that if evil people exist in society, they will also exist within the State – and be far more dangerous thereby. Citizens are able to protect themselves against evil individuals, but stand no chance against an aggressive State armed to the teeth with police and military might. Thus the argument that we need the State because evil people exist is false. If evil people exist, the State must be dismantled, since evil people will be drawn to use its power for their own ends – and, unlike private thugs, evil people in government have the police and military to inflict their whims on a helpless (and usually disarmed!) population. Logically, there are four possibilities as to the mixture of good and evil people in the world: 1. all men are moral 2. all men are immoral 3. the majority of men are moral, and a minority immoral 4. the majority of men are immoral, and a minority moral (A perfect balance of good and evil is statistically impossible!) In the first case (all men are moral), the State is obviously not needed, since evil cannot exist. In the second case (all men are immoral), the State cannot be permitted to exist for one simple reason. The State, it is generally argued, must exist because there are evil people in the world who desire to inflict harm, and who can only be restrained through fear of State retribution (police, prisons, etc.). A corollary of this argument is that the less retribution these people fear, the more evil they will do. However, the State itself is not subject to any force, but is a law unto itself. Even in Western democracies, how many policemen and politicians go to jail? Thus if evil people wish to do harm but are only restrained by force, then society can never permit a State to exist, because evil people will immediately take control of that State, in order to do evil and avoid retribution. In a society of pure evil, then, the only hope for stability would be a state of nature, where a general arming and fear of retribution would blunt the evil intents of disparate groups. The third possibility is that most people are evil, and only a few are good. If that is the case, then the State also cannot be permitted to exist, since the majority of those in control of the State will be evil, and will rule over the good minority. Democracy in particular cannot be permitted to exist, since the minority of good people would be subjugated to the democratic will of the evil majority. Evil people, who wish to do harm without fear of retribution, would inevitably take control of the State, and use its power to do their evil free of that fear. Good people do not act morally because they fear retribution, but because they love goodness and peace of mind – and thus, unlike evil people, have little to gain by controlling the State. And so it is certain that the State will be controlled by a majority of evil people, and will rule over all, to the detriment of all moral people. The fourth option is that most people are good, and only a few are evil. This possibility is subject to the same problems outlined above, notably that evil people will always want to gain control over the State, in order to shield themselves from retaliation. This option changes the appearance of democracy, however: because the majority of people are good, evil power-seekers must lie to them in order to gain power, and then, after achieving public office, will immediately break faith and pursue their own corrupt agendas, enforcing their wills with the police and military. (This is the current situation in democracies, of course.) Thus the State remains the greatest prize to the most evil men, who will quickly gain control over its awesome power – and so the State cannot be permitted to exist in this scenario either. It is clear, then, that there is no situation under which a State can logically be allowed to exist. The only possible justification for the existence of a State would be if the majority of men are evil, but all the power of the State is always and forever controlled by a minority of good men. This situation, while interesting theoretically, breaks down logically because: 1. the evil majority would quickly outvote the minority or overpower them through a coup; 2. there is no way to ensure that only good people would always run the State; and, 3. there is absolutely no example of this having ever occurred in any of the dark annals of the brutal history of the State. The logical error always made in the defense of the State is to imagine that any collective moral judgments being applied to citizens is not also being applied to the group which rules over them. If 50% of people are evil, then at least 50% of people ruling over them are evil (and probably more, since evil people are always drawn to power). Thus the existence of evil can never justify the existence of the State. If there is no evil, the State is unnecessary. If evil exists, the State is far too dangerous to be allowed existence. Why is this error always made? There are a number of reasons, which can only be touched on here. The first is that the State introduces itself to children in the form of public school teachers who are considered moral authorities. Thus is the association of morality and authority with the State first made – which is reinforced through years of repetition. The second is that the State never teaches children about the root of its power – force – but instead pretends that it is just another social institution, like a business or a church or a charity. The third is that the prevalence of religion has always blinded men to the evils of the State – which is why the State has always been so interested in furthering the interests of churches. In the religious world-view, absolute power is synonymous with perfect goodness, in the form of a deity. In the real political world of men, however, increasing power always means increasing evil. With religion, also, all that happens must be for the good – thus, fighting encroaching political power is fighting the will of the deity. There are many more reasons, of course, but these are among the deepest. It was mentioned at the beginning of this article that people generally make two errors when confronted with the idea of dissolving the State. The first is believing that the State is necessary because evil people exist. The second is the belief that, in the absence of a State, any social institutions which arise will inevitably take the place of the State. Thus, dispute resolution organizations (DRO's), insurance companies and private security forces are all considered potential cancers which will swell and overwhelm the body politic. This view arises from the same error outlined above. If all social institutions are constantly trying to grow in power and enforce their wills on others, then by that very argument a centralized State cannot be allowed to exist. If it is an iron law that groups always try to gain power over other groups and individuals, then that power-lust will not end if one of them wins, but will spread across society until slavery is the norm. In other words, the only hope for individual freedom is for a proliferation of groups to exist, each with the power to harm each other, and so all afraid of each other, and more or less peaceable thereby. It is very hard to understand the logic and intelligence of the argument that, in order to protect us from a group that might overpower us, we should support a group that has already overpowered us. It is similar to the statist argument regarding private monopolies – that citizens should create a State monopoly because they are afraid of monopolies. It does not take a keen vision to see through such nonsense. What is the evidence for the view that decentralized and competing powers promote peace? In other words, are there any facts that we can draw on to support the idea that a balance of power is the only chance that the individual has for freedom? Organized crime does not provide many good examples, since gangs so regularly corrupt, manipulate and use the power of the State police to enforce their rule, and so cannot be said to be operating in a state of nature. A more useful example is the fact that no leader has ever declared war on another leader who possesses nuclear weapons. In the past, when leaders felt themselves immune from retaliation, they were more than willing to kill off their own populations by waging war. Now that they are themselves subject to annihilation, they are only willing to attack countries that cannot fight back. This is an instructive lesson on why political leaders require disarmed and dependent populations – and a good example of how the fear of reprisal inherent in a balanced system of decentralized and competing powers is the only proven method of securing and maintaining personal liberty. Fleeing from imaginary phantoms into the protective prison of the State will only ensure the destruction of the very liberties that make life worth living. image November 11, 2005
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Sebcurity 2 years ago
LewRockwell.com # [Disproving the State Four arguments against government]( __By Stefan Molyneux__ __November 11, 2005__ ------ Two objections constantly recur whenever the subject of dissolving the State arises. The first is that a free society is only possible if people are perfectly good or rational. In other words, citizens need a centralized State because there are evil people in the world. The first and most obvious problem with this position is that if evil people exist in society, they will also exist within the State – and be far more dangerous thereby. Citizens are able to protect themselves against evil individuals, but stand no chance against an aggressive State armed to the teeth with police and military might. Thus the argument that we need the State because evil people exist is false. If evil people exist, the State must be dismantled, since evil people will be drawn to use its power for their own ends – and, unlike private thugs, evil people in government have the police and military to inflict their whims on a helpless (and usually disarmed!) population. Logically, there are four possibilities as to the mixture of good and evil people in the world: 1. all men are moral 2. all men are immoral 3. the majority of men are moral, and a minority immoral 4. the majority of men are immoral, and a minority moral (A perfect balance of good and evil is statistically impossible!) In the first case (all men are moral), the State is obviously not needed, since evil cannot exist. In the second case (all men are immoral), the State cannot be permitted to exist for one simple reason. The State, it is generally argued, must exist because there are evil people in the world who desire to inflict harm, and who can only be restrained through fear of State retribution (police, prisons, etc.). A corollary of this argument is that the less retribution these people fear, the more evil they will do. However, the State itself is not subject to any force, but is a law unto itself. Even in Western democracies, how many policemen and politicians go to jail? Thus if evil people wish to do harm but are only restrained by force, then society can never permit a State to exist, because evil people will immediately take control of that State, in order to do evil and avoid retribution. In a society of pure evil, then, the only hope for stability would be a state of nature, where a general arming and fear of retribution would blunt the evil intents of disparate groups. The third possibility is that most people are evil, and only a few are good. If that is the case, then the State also cannot be permitted to exist, since the majority of those in control of the State will be evil, and will rule over the good minority. Democracy in particular cannot be permitted to exist, since the minority of good people would be subjugated to the democratic will of the evil majority. Evil people, who wish to do harm without fear of retribution, would inevitably take control of the State, and use its power to do their evil free of that fear. Good people do not act morally because they fear retribution, but because they love goodness and peace of mind – and thus, unlike evil people, have little to gain by controlling the State. And so it is certain that the State will be controlled by a majority of evil people, and will rule over all, to the detriment of all moral people. The fourth option is that most people are good, and only a few are evil. This possibility is subject to the same problems outlined above, notably that evil people will always want to gain control over the State, in order to shield themselves from retaliation. This option changes the appearance of democracy, however: because the majority of people are good, evil power-seekers must lie to them in order to gain power, and then, after achieving public office, will immediately break faith and pursue their own corrupt agendas, enforcing their wills with the police and military. (This is the current situation in democracies, of course.) Thus the State remains the greatest prize to the most evil men, who will quickly gain control over its awesome power – and so the State cannot be permitted to exist in this scenario either. It is clear, then, that there is no situation under which a State can logically be allowed to exist. The only possible justification for the existence of a State would be if the majority of men are evil, but all the power of the State is always and forever controlled by a minority of good men. This situation, while interesting theoretically, breaks down logically because: 1. the evil majority would quickly outvote the minority or overpower them through a coup; 2. there is no way to ensure that only good people would always run the State; and, 3. there is absolutely no example of this having ever occurred in any of the dark annals of the brutal history of the State. The logical error always made in the defense of the State is to imagine that any collective moral judgments being applied to citizens is not also being applied to the group which rules over them. If 50% of people are evil, then at least 50% of people ruling over them are evil (and probably more, since evil people are always drawn to power). Thus the existence of evil can never justify the existence of the State. If there is no evil, the State is unnecessary. If evil exists, the State is far too dangerous to be allowed existence. Why is this error always made? There are a number of reasons, which can only be touched on here. The first is that the State introduces itself to children in the form of public school teachers who are considered moral authorities. Thus is the association of morality and authority with the State first made – which is reinforced through years of repetition. The second is that the State never teaches children about the root of its power – force – but instead pretends that it is just another social institution, like a business or a church or a charity. The third is that the prevalence of religion has always blinded men to the evils of the State – which is why the State has always been so interested in furthering the interests of churches. In the religious world-view, absolute power is synonymous with perfect goodness, in the form of a deity. In the real political world of men, however, increasing power always means increasing evil. With religion, also, all that happens must be for the good – thus, fighting encroaching political power is fighting the will of the deity. There are many more reasons, of course, but these are among the deepest. It was mentioned at the beginning of this article that people generally make two errors when confronted with the idea of dissolving the State. The first is believing that the State is necessary because evil people exist. The second is the belief that, in the absence of a State, any social institutions which arise will inevitably take the place of the State. Thus, dispute resolution organizations (DRO's), insurance companies and private security forces are all considered potential cancers which will swell and overwhelm the body politic. This view arises from the same error outlined above. If all social institutions are constantly trying to grow in power and enforce their wills on others, then by that very argument a centralized State cannot be allowed to exist. If it is an iron law that groups always try to gain power over other groups and individuals, then that power-lust will not end if one of them wins, but will spread across society until slavery is the norm. In other words, the only hope for individual freedom is for a proliferation of groups to exist, each with the power to harm each other, and so all afraid of each other, and more or less peaceable thereby. It is very hard to understand the logic and intelligence of the argument that, in order to protect us from a group that might overpower us, we should support a group that has already overpowered us. It is similar to the statist argument regarding private monopolies – that citizens should create a State monopoly because they are afraid of monopolies. It does not take a keen vision to see through such nonsense. What is the evidence for the view that decentralized and competing powers promote peace? In other words, are there any facts that we can draw on to support the idea that a balance of power is the only chance that the individual has for freedom? Organized crime does not provide many good examples, since gangs so regularly corrupt, manipulate and use the power of the State police to enforce their rule, and so cannot be said to be operating in a state of nature. A more useful example is the fact that no leader has ever declared war on another leader who possesses nuclear weapons. In the past, when leaders felt themselves immune from retaliation, they were more than willing to kill off their own populations by waging war. Now that they are themselves subject to annihilation, they are only willing to attack countries that cannot fight back. This is an instructive lesson on why political leaders require disarmed and dependent populations – and a good example of how the fear of reprisal inherent in a balanced system of decentralized and competing powers is the only proven method of securing and maintaining personal liberty. Fleeing from imaginary phantoms into the protective prison of the State will only ensure the destruction of the very liberties that make life worth living. image November 11, 2005
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Sebcurity 2 years ago
NOSTR-CHECK.COM : »Message me on Nostr for a free verification npub1mhamq6nj9egex0xn0e8vmvctrpj0ychehddadsketjlwl3eg7ztqrv9a4h I do this manually, please bear with me I agree, this site sucks.« image