/XMR/ book club

Welcome to the /XMR/ general weekly book club!

Last read: What Has Government Done to Our Money

cover image

Finished, on the 13th of August, 2023.

Previous weeks' discussions

Previous book: The Sovereign Individual, for details see here

Books

Use your I2PSnark installation. It comes pre-bundled with the Java daemon, but you have to download and install it standalone on i2pd, see this section for instructions. And remember to seed!

The Sovereign Individual: Mastering the Transition to the Information Age by William Rees-Mogg and James Dale Davidson

- I2P magnet link: magnet:?xt=urn:btih:1141ffe7eab7df9f957cc7d0f9098bb3ed4494bc&dn=The+Sovereign+Individual+by+William+Rees-Mogg+and+James+Dale+Davidson&tr=http://tracker2.postman.i2p/announce.php

- Clearnet magnet link (clipped): magnet:?xt=urn:btih:28419dfb8865750c82e1392572dde8646c4011ee&dn=The%20Sovereign%20Individual%20by%20James%20Dale%20Davidson%20EPUB&tr=udp%3a%2f%2ftracker.coppersurfer.tk[...]announce

See discussions from here


What Has The Government Done to Our Money? by Murray N. Rothbard

- local English pdf mirror: What Has Government Done to Our Money.pdf

- Mises Institue download: https://mises.org/library/what-has-government-done-our-money

(English, Spanish, Danish, Hungarian translations an epub format for the English version + HTML version + audiobook)

See discussions from here

Guide to I2P

>What is I2P?

I2P is an anonymized P2P overlay network akin to the Tor network but with several key advantages over it. I2P is now replacing Tor as the go-to darknet and will play a pivotal role in growing the Monerocentric economy.

Running a node

Purple I2P logo

>Why should I care? Why should I run a node?

Increasing shadow economy adoption and the proliferation of an XMR-only standard are what guarantee that XMR will have a floor and won't also crash to zero when the Crypto Casino finally implodes. XMR's long-term outlook is therefore strongly correlated with the darknet, you may have already noticed how the number of TXs begins to drop whenever the glowies attack & cripple the Tor network, which underscores just how critical it is that the darknet wins this war against the State. Make no mistake: if the darknet is allowed to die XMR will take a devastating hit as well.

So by running an I2P node you are helping to make the network Monero thrives in that much more robust while also enraging glowies in the process. Win-win!

>OK, but how difficult is it? Do I have to store GBs worth of data like when running an XMR node?

It is literally as easy as installing an Android app and no, there are no storage requirements, the node only consumes some bandwidth.

>Cool, I'm sold. What do?

If you have no interest in browsing the darknet yourself then the simplest solution is to install & run the I2Pd Android app on any compatible (Android 4.1+) device, ideally a TV box since they don't require recharging and are permanently online. But any old phone or tablet is fine too. Make sure you activate "start on boot" in the settings.

https://github.com/PurpleI2P/i2pd-android/releases/latest

Otherwise just install the appropriate desktop client and leave it running.

https://github.com/PurpleI2P/i2pd/releases/latest

The console is accessed via http://127.0.0.1:7070/ or the menu in Android.

When i2pd is running, it'll provide a HTTP proxy on 4444.

i2p image 2

Configuring a Firefox profile for i2p browsing on desktop

After having a node running you might reasonably want to use it as well. As i2pd already provides a local proxy, this should be easy enough. If it isn't or you need to get on I2P faster skip to here.

- open your Firefox or Firefox fork. Keep in mind that Arkenfox or other user.js modifications will have to be re-applied on the new profile if desired.

- navigate to your about:profiles, this is where your browser profiles are. A profile is a perfectly enclosed version of your Firefox with its own settings, storage, bookmarks, etc.

- Click "New profile" and following the wizard, name it something appropriate if you want to like "I2P".

- Launch the newly created profile by clicking "Launch profile in new browser", skip the globohomo setup and close the tab. Later on there are instructions to removing telemetry from Firefox, so don't leave.

- Go to setting (menubar -> 3 dashes -> settings), search for "network settings" and click on the button.

- select manual proxy configuration and set the HTTP proxy to 127.0.0.1 port 4444, and likewise port 4445 for HTTPS.

- go to about:config, accept the warning. Type in javascript.enabled and toggle it to false with the button at the right side of the screen. This disables Javascript so this is a MUST DO

You are now ready to browse on I2P! You will have trouble connecting to eepsites at first, so you might choose to use jumpers, like reg.i2p or the ones offered when your node fails to connect.

Extra to make the new profile usable and more private. Also disabling telemetry is a must if you are going to configure an outproxy. If there is no outproxy, Firefox will not be able to reach back to its servers so all telemetry is blocked. If an outproxy is added, that will be reversed.

In your about:config

- set keyword.enabled to false - This will disable search engines as you are not going to be going to Google anyways. you shouldn't. Great QoL change as Firefox by default won't recognise sites ending in .i2p as websites it should navigate to, but rather search queries.

- set browser.tabs.firefox-view to false - This will disable the new Firefox view which is just pure useless.

- set webgl.disabled to true - This will disable WebGL which is a major source for deanonymization as well as it poses a security vulnerability

- set privacy.resistFingerprinting to true - This will make firefox more resistant towards fingerprinting.

- set browser.cache.offline.enable to false - This will disable offline cache decreasing the attack surface.

- set browser.send_pings to false - This will disable Firefox sending pings to websites.

- set privacy.firstparty.isolate to true - This will isolate each site's identifier sources to the single domain.

- set places.history.enabled to false and browser.sessionstore.max_tabs_undo to 0 - This will disable browsing history.

disabling firefox telemetry:

- set datareporting.healthreport.uploadEnabled to false

- set datareporting.policy.dataSubmissionEnabled to false

- set toolkit.telemetry.bhrPing.enabled to false

- set toolkit.telemetry.archive.enabled to false

- set toolkit.telemetry.unified to false

- set toolkit.telemetry.reportingpolicy.firstRun to false

- set toolkit.telemetry.updatePing.enabled to false

- set toolkit.telemetry.shutdownPingSender.enabled to false

- set toolkit.telemetry.newProfilePing.enabled to false

- set toolkit.telemetry.firstShutdownPing.enabled to false

- set toolkit.telemetry.enabled to false

- set browser.ping-centre.telemetry to false

- set browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.feeds.telemetry to false

- set toolkit.telemetry.server to empty

- set network.captive-portal-service.enabled to false

Additionally, on i2pd you can set your homepage to be 127.0.0.1:7070 in the settings, which will give you a nice dashboard. If you are running I2PSnark for the torrents, bookmarking http://127.0.0.1:8002 will give you the dashboard for I2PSnark as well.

I2P portable browser

In case the above sounds too much, don't worry. There is now a browser bundle that makes the process even more easy.

- go on https://i2pd.website/ and click on I2PdBrowser bundle or click here

- download the appropriate installer, for Windw either the .exe -windows.zip or the .7z file. For linux, download the one marked with -linux.

- If you have any experience with computers you should be able to install what you have downloaded now.

- On Windows -> Adjust firewall settings/port forward as required. Port forwarding > UPnP

A window with Firefox should pop up, DO NOT RESIZE IT, this is to prevent browser fingerprinting. Also NEVER ENABLE JAVASCRIPT! You don't need it on Bitchan and most definitely not on non-honeypot eepsites.

Getting on Bitchan

>Why bother?

Well, remember that every time you post on 4chan the content + your IP address are being logged and that data can and will be made available to LE/glowies upon request.

So if you need to ask a very delicate question, want to make a potentially incriminating announcement or you otherwise just absolutely positively DO NOT WANT to risk being deanonymized, the BitChan thread would be the place to do it.

The slightly higher barrier to entry also serves as a badly needed retard filter so a lot of us post there simply to avoid the hordes of mouth breathers that befoul this otherwise delightful basket weaving forum.

>How do I access BitChan?

After getting either a browser or a node fully functional, going to Bitchan is as simple as pasting the following link:

http://bitchan.i2p/thread/BM-2cVPN9mi9oBKATjNxKkopHJSCU9ah7wQwW/047186ce462d

I2PSnark guide

>What is I2PSnark? Why should I bother?

I2PSnark is a torrenting software built for use on I2P. It allows you to seed, leech, and create torrents. All kept within the realm of I2P. This has the advantage of not leaking your IP address whenever you are interacting with a torrent, because the traffic is routed through the I2P network. This mean that there is no need for a VPN/proxy to torrent with I2PSnark.

>How do I use it? What do I need to install?

Installing

In principle I2PSnark comes pre-bundled with the official I2P Router written in Java. If you have that, it should be accessible from the homepage.

Otherwise, if you are running i2pd you need to install I2PSnark separately. Get the built binary from their github page. Download and unzip. Don't forget to relaunch i2pd with the --i2cp.enabled=true flag. Then run it with ./launch-i2psnark or execute it on Windows. The local dashboard will be available at http://127.0.0.1:8002/i2psnark/

Adding a torrent

For the magnet links listed in the books section, paste them into I2PSnark under the first button under the torrents list, that has a plus symbol in the middle. Under the field "From URL" paste the magnet link, and proceed to click "add torrent". It should start downloading automatically, but you can stop it by clicking on the square button at the right side of the torrent's row.

For more information/additional software check out the i2pd documentation about filesharing.

Where is the bookclub happening?

Currently the discussion will be done at /biz/xmr for this week. In the future we might expand onto bitchan.i2p (requires an i2p deamon running to access)

Links to more eepsites

There is already a great number of sites on i2p (eepsites). The following is a list of aggregators with varying levels of detail. Some also serve as jumpers.

Organized aggregators:

Just plain lists:

Miscellaneous:

Credits to

- Monero Observer for CSS

- /XMR/ general infodump for more CSS

- to anons at /XMR/ for the I2P guide & images and books. Some of their guides were modified.

Donate XMR: 85azJzBiB7bF9JxUqT55pJQuQrR3nYzB8542XYYWCQ9vgf3rZ2512WhWT5brh6HNZ9RthF2RvFtWSfSPD8tLbcZ7DthoNYA
This doesn't do anything, but it is appreciated.

Life, faculties, production — in other words, individuality, liberty, property — this is man

- Frédéric Bastiat, The Law.