Ecuador To Hand Assange Over To U.K. What’s Next?

"Trump officials have vowed to prosecute Assange and destroy WikiLeaks. The central oddity of Assange’s case — that he has been effectively imprisoned for eight years despite never having been charged with, let alone convicted of, any crime — is virtually certain to be prolonged once Ecuador hands him over to the U.K."

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Vitalik Buterin on Cryptoeconomics and Markets in Everything

"At the intersection of programming, economics, cryptography, distributed systems, information theory, and math, you will find Vitalik Buterin, who has managed to synthesize insights across those fields into successful, real-world applications like Ethereum, which aims to decentralize the Internet."

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Lyn Ulbricht: The Far Reaching Impact of the Silk Road Case

"Lyn Ulbricht is Ross Ulbricht's mother. Ross was the creator of the Silk Road website, which had a very important role in the history of bitcoin. Currently, Ross is serving a double life sentence without parole for all non-violent charges. Lyn has worked to bring awareness to the case and raise funds for Ross’s defense through www.FreeRoss.org. She has had many media interviews and public appearances and has helped bring awareness to the public of the case and Ross's appeals. Her efforts have shined light into the darkness of the justice system, proving it to be a darker place than anywhere found on the dark web."

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Atlanta Airport Abuses Uber and Lyft Drivers and Their Customers

"Two years ago, ridesharing at the Atlanta airport was perfect. It was being widely used. It was cheap and convenient. Customers were king. Drivers were making money. Poor people without jobs suddenly had a job. Suddenly, the airport authorities had a problem. They had previously constructed vast parking lots for people coming and going from the airport. They had been a huge source of revenue. That revenue gradually began to fall. Then it fell some more. What had previously been a system of benign neglect began to turn."

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New Ghost Gun Update Allows Rapid Creation Of Untraceable Handgun

"In addition to selling a computer-numerically-controlled (CNC) mill which can complete unfinished lower receivers for AR-15 semi-auto rifles, Defense Distributed will now sell unfinished receivers for Glocks and single-stack M1911s. Using Defense Distributed’s mill, known as the Ghost Gunner, anyone with $1,600 and some basic milling knowledge can create the lower receiver of an AR-15 rifle."

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Niall Ferguson: Networks and Hierarchies

"The near-autarkic, commanding and controlling states that emerged from the Depression, World War II, and the early Cold War exist only as pale shadows of their former selves. Today, the combination of technological innovation and international economic integration has created entirely new forms of organization—vast, privately owned networks—that were scarcely dreamt of by Keynes and Kennan. Are these new networks really emancipating us from the tyranny of the hierarchical empire-states? Or will the hierarchies ultimately take over the networks as they did a century ago, in 1914, successfully subordinating them to the priorities of the national security state?" Continue reading

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Forget premiums: A peer-to-peer network will cover you

"An online insurance firm called Peercover lets groups of people insure each other on their own terms and at a fraction of the cost. Insurance is the latest financial service to get a shake-up from peer-to-peer (P2P) dynamics. Already, individuals can lend money for a return with interest. Similarly, people wanting to exchange currency can avoid banks and instead use P2P services to find other people looking to make the opposite trade. 'The changes in financial services that are happening now are happening more quickly and dramatically than anything we've seen over the last 100 years,' says Ron Suber of peer-to-peer loan company Prosper. 'Peercover is a great example.'" Continue reading

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