Bill Gates pushes for digital IDs to tackle 'misinformation' and curb free speech



Bill Gates has evidenced, both directly and through his foundation, an intense desire to shape public health, the news landscape, education policy, AI, insect populations, American farmland, the energy sector, foreign policy, and the earth itself. He recently hinted that he would also like to see free speech and engagements online shaped to his liking.

CNET asked Gates about what to do about "misinformation" — a topic explored in his forthcoming Netflix docuseries and some of his blog posts. The billionaire answered that there will be "systems and behaviors" in place to expose content originators.

The online environment Gates appears to be describing is some sort of digital ID-based panopticon.

Gates suggested that the "boundary between ... crazy but free speech versus misleading people in a dangerous way or inciting them is a very tough boundary."

"You know, I think every country's struggling to find that boundary," said Gates. "The U.S. is a tough one because, you know, we have the notion of the First Amendment. So what are the exceptions? You know, like yelling 'fire' in a theater."

The billionaire has previously hinted at the kinds of speech he finds troubling.

For instance, in a January 2021 MSNBC interview, Gates took issue with content encouraging "people not to trust the advice on masks or taking the vaccine."

When fear-mongering about potential "openness" on Twitter following its acquisition by Elon Musk, Gates intimated the suggestions that "vaccines kill people" and that "Bill Gates is tracking people" were similarly beyond the pale.

Gates, evidently interested in exceptions to constitutionally protected speech, complained to CNET that people can engage in what others might deem "misinformation" under the cover of anonymity online.

"I do think over time, you know with things like deep-fakes, most of the time you're online, you're going to want to be in an environment where the people are truly identified," continued Gates. "That is they're connected to a real-world identity that you trust instead of people just saying whatever they want."

The online environment Gates appears to be describing is some sort of digital ID-based panopticon.

Gates has backed various efforts to tether people to digital identities.

Gates' foundation has, for instance, been pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into a program called the United Nations Development Program-led 50-in-5 Campaign, which features a strong focus on digital ID.

The UNDP said in a November 2023 release, "This ambitious, country-led campaign heralds a new chapter in the global momentum around digital public infrastructure (DPI) — an underlying network of components such as digital payments, ID, and data exchange systems, which is a critical accelerator of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)."

Return previously reported that the Gates-backed Gavi, also known as the Vaccine Alliance, Mastercard, and NGOs in the fintech space have been trialing a digital vaccine passport in Africa called the Wellness Pass.

This vaccine passport, characterized as a useful way to track patients in "underserved communities" across "multiple touchpoints," is part of a grouping of consumer-facing Mastercard products aimed ostensibly at bringing people into a cashless digital ID system that both automates compliance with prescribed pharmaceutical regimens and fosters dependency on at least one ideologically captive non-governmental entity.

Extra to funding research into biocompatible near-infrared quantum dots indicating vaccination status, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation backed the World Health Organization's 2021 "Digital Documentation of COVID-19 Certificates: Vaccination Status" guidance, which discussed the deployment of a vaccine passport "solution to address the immediate needs of the pandemic but also to build digital health infrastructure that can be a foundation for digital vaccination certificates beyond COVID-19."

Whereas there remain ways online by which people can interact anonymously — including whistleblowers and persons whose employment situations might otherwise preclude them from freely expressing their views publicly — largely free from government or private clampdowns, Gates fantasized in his CNET interview about "systems and behaviors that we're more aware of. Okay, who says that? Who created this?"

According to CNBC, Gates is "sensitive" to concerns that restricting information online could adversely impact the right to free speech. Nevertheless, he still wants new rules established, though he did not spell out what those would entail.

However, he has, in recent years, given an idea of where he thinks the government crackdown should start.

Gates told Wired in 2020 that the government should now permit messages hidden with encryption on programs like WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger.

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How to break free from Big Tech slavery



Learning some arcane and challenging things is necessary to be truly literate in a topic, even if it seems a little outdated. For instance, many scholars say you can’t truly be literate in the Western canon without a knowledge of Latin.

Likewise, I would argue that you can’t be truly computer literate without at least a basic understanding of Unix. And you can’t be sovereign in a field without being literate, so you can’t be digitally sovereign without knowing Unix.

Some variants of Unix run most of the world’s servers, like the web server you’re reading this article on now. Unix is at the heart of Google’s search engine. If you’ve ever used an Android phone or an iPhone, you have unwittingly used a spinoff of Unix.

What is Unix?

But what is Unix? That can be tough to answer since, like a Portuguese man o' war, Unix isn’t a single, definable thing but a collection of things. Part of the Unix philosophy is to have a collection of small, modular, highly specialized bits of software that all work together.

At the heart of Unix is what’s known as the kernel, which is the very low-level software that runs the computer hardware. On top of that are the apps and utilities that you, the user, actually interact with. The kernel is Unix. The software that runs on top of the kernel is also Unix.

Unix was initially developed inside Bell Labs in the 1960s by Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie, but it escaped the clutches of AT&T to create innumerable offshoots and offshoots of offshoots, all of which can collectively be referred to as Unix.

When Apple fired Steve Jobs in 1985, he founded a new company called NeXT that produced an operating system called NeXTSTEP based on — you guessed it — Unix. When Apple purchased NeXT in 1996, bringing Steve Jobs back into the fold, the company rebuilt Mac OS from NeXTSTEP, keeping the UNIX underpinnings. What was then known as Mac OS X was later refactored to power the iPhone, the iPad, the Apple TV, the Apple Watch, ad infinitum. Apple’s entire product line is built around Unix in some form.

Linux and the open-source revolution

Perhaps the most significant Unix spinoff, called Linux, was created by Finnish developer Linus Torvalds in 1991. What made Linux novel was its open-source philosophy. Linux was totally free to download and share. What it lacked in usability or technical support, it more than made up for by the simple fact that it was free.

Linux will never be a significant player on most ordinary people’s desktops. Something as simple as installing a printer can be a nightmare. But despite that, Linux’s free nature makes it the most ubiquitous operating system in the world. It’s an economical solution for giant server farms running thousands of servers. It’s flexible and cheap enough to deploy, running many small gadgets around your house.

The power of Unix

Stripped of its shiny commercial veneers, Unix is all about raw power. It’s fundamentally a command-line operating system by and for computer geeks. It’s a construction zone littered with tools, scaffolding, and power cords. Unix does not hold your hand and it does not suffer fools. With the right commands, it will happily let you destroy your entire hard drive without so much as an error message.

However, for those brave enough to conquer it, Unix holds unlimited power. And that power has been wielded by some of the most powerful men in the world, like Jeff Bezos, Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Page, and Sergey Brin.

If you truly want to be the master of your digital destiny, you must venture into the dark depths of Unix.

How to try Unix

Running Unix on your computer once meant a difficult and treacherous Linux install. These days, you have multiple options for trying Unix from the comfort of a Windows PC or a Mac.

Since macOS is built on Unix, it’s as simple as opening the Terminal app, found in /Applications/Utilities. Or press Command-Space and type “terminal.”

At one time, Microsoft viewed Linux the same way the United States viewed the USSR. That’s changed, and the company now offers a baked-in way to install Linux alongside Windows in a single command called Windows Subsystem for Linux. It’s a little more complicated than on a Mac, but not by too much.

You can even access Linux on a Google Chromebook — since a Chromebook is just Linux with a Web browser slapped on top. Google offers a setting to access the Linux underpinnings.

Here’s your homework assignment: Investigate one of these options for your machine and make your way to a command prompt. But once you get there and the cursor blinks at you … then what?

Stay tuned. We’ll tell you what to do next. In the coming months, Return will be publishing simple guides to help all of us take back our digital sovereignty.

SEC chairman stunned by question about paying for Steele dossier for Hillary Clinton campaign



President Biden's Securities and Exchange Commission chairman appeared caught off guard by a Republican congressman's questions about his time on the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign. The chairman was asked if he facilitated the payment for the infamous Christopher Steele dossier.

The Steele dossier was a document procured by an British ex-spy that claimed that former President Trump had colluded with Russian interests, along with claims that he participated in lewd sex acts in Russian hotels.

As reported by the Daily Wire, House Republican Byron Donalds questioned SEC Chairman Gary Gensler about whether or not he facilitated the payment for the dossier when he worked for Clinton's campaign.

"You were Hillary Clinton's CFO in the campaign, right?" Donalds asked.

"It's part of my history —" Gensler replied before Donalds interjected, "Were you, yes or no?"

"In 2016?" Gensler clarified.

"Did you facilitate the payment for the Steele dossier since you were CFO of the Hillary Clinton campaign?” the congressman asked.

Donalds continued to ask "yes or no?" repeatedly and finlly reminded the SEC chairman that he was under oath.

"It was not something I was aware of," Gensler answered before the congressman yielded his time.

\u201cA Rockstar with a MEGA BOMBDROP emerges! @RepDonaldsPress WOWZERS!!!!\u201d
— Digital Asset Investor (@Digital Asset Investor) 1681846323

Gensler previously worked as under secretary of the Treasury for domestic finance during the Clinton presidency from 1999 to 2001. He also worked as the CFO for the Hillary Clinton 2016 presidential campaign.

The Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign were fined by the Federal Election Commission in 2022 for allegedly lying about funding the dossier. Clinton’s treasurer was fined $8,000 and the DNC’s treasurer $105,000.

The DNC paid over approximately $850,000 to Fusion GPS, the research firm behind the documents, while Clinton's campaign gave $175,000.

However, FusionGPS was originally hired by the Washington Free Beacon, according to the New York Times. The funding was provided to find dirt on several Republican candidates including Trump, but later ceased in May 2016 once it became clear that Trump was going to win the Republican nomination.

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Report: Scientists can now control lightning with lasers



Humanity now boasts the ability once attributed to mythological gods such as Zeus, Marduk, and Thor.

Scientists atop a Swiss mountain proved themselves capable of steering lightning bolts using lasers, effectively deflecting four lightning strikes on a telecommunications tower.

While this field of research has been active for decades, physicist Aurélien Houard of the École Polytechnique and his team documented the first experiment that demonstrates the efficacy of lightning guidance using lasers.

Where there's thunder, there may be lasers

In a study published Monday in the academic journal Nature Photonics, researchers discussed how laser-induced beams of light, formed in the sky via intense and repeated laser pulses, can guide lightning bolts over considerable distances.

The scientists experimented on the Säntis mountain in northeastern Switzerland during the summer of 2021 with a "high-repetition-rate terawatt laser."

They set up this 1.5 meter by 8 meter laser, weighing in at over three tons, nearby a telecommunication tower that is struck by lightning over 100 times a year.

The scientists activated their laser as a lightning rod "with a propagation path passing in the vicinity of the top of the [telecommunication] tower" during thunderstorms, as seen here:

\u201cLaser beam used to successfully divert lightning strikes!\nA laser lightning rod has been placed at a Swiss mountain top to protect telecommunication towers! The laser is 6x more effective than standard lightning rods! \u26a1\ufe0f\n#TechNews #laser #lightning\u201d
— Digital Daze (@Digital Daze) 1673977526

The telecommunication tower, itself equipped with a lightning rod, was struck by 16 lightning bolts between July 21 and Sept. 30, 2021. Only four of these strikes occurred during the 6.3 hours the scientists had their laser operational and targeting the thunderclouds above.

In all four cases, the laser reportedly steered the lightning discharges.

According to the Guardian, the laser steers the lightning flashes by "creating an easier path for the electrical discharge to flow along."

"When very high power laser pulses are emitted into the atmosphere, filaments of very intense light form inside the beam," Jean-Pierre Wolf, one of the study's authors, told Sky News. "These filaments ionise nitrogen and oxygen molecules in the air, which release electrons that are free to move. This ionised air, called plasma, becomes an electrical conductor."

The scientists indicated that snapshots of one of the events showed "that the lightning strike initially follows the laser path over most of the initial 50 m distance."

According to the study, this achievement "will lead to progress in lightning protection and lightning physics."

The Hill reported that there were nearly 198 million lighting events in the U.S. in 2022, which altogether claimed the lives of 19 people. The ability to divert and/or steer lightning could therefore be lifesaving.

"This work paves the way for new atmospheric applications of ultrashort lasers and represents an important step forward in the development of a laser based lightning protection for airports, launchpads or large infrastructures," wrote the researchers.

Whereas the "laser conditions" in this experiment had a length of at least 30 meters, Sky News noted that future devices could extend a ten-meter lightning rod by 500 meters, offering far more protection.

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Biden KILLS Crypto! And Blames it On Russia? | Louder With Crowder

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Biden to issue an executive order directing the development of a fully digital dollar



President Joe Biden is expected to sign an executive order on Wednesday directing the federal government to move forward with the development and implementation of a digital U.S. dollar.

Biden’s executive order, which is also expected to address outstanding issues the federal government has pertaining to cryptocurrencies, will require the Treasury Department, the Commerce Department, and other key agencies to prepare reports on “the future of money,” especially CBDCs, or central bank digital currencies, Reuters reported.

The order also requires these departments to prepare reports on the different roles that cryptocurrencies play in the global economy and their role in the near future.

Officials in the Biden administration said that “wide-ranging oversight of the cryptocurrency market, which surged past $3 trillion in November, is essential to ensure U.S. national security, financial stability and U.S. competitiveness, and stave off the growing threat of cybercrime.”

Analysts reportedly view the long-awaited executive order as a pressing acknowledgment of the growing importance of cryptocurrencies and the possible risks they pose to American and global financial systems.

Biden’s executive order directs the federal government to determine what infrastructure is needed for the implementation of a CBDC.

In January, the U.S. Federal Reserve addressed Congress regarding whether or not the United States should embrace a fully digital currency.

In a report titled “Money and Payments: The U.S. Dollar in the Age of Digital Transformation,” the Federal Reserve detailed the current role that digital currencies — like Bitcoin and CBDCs — and digital payment processors play in the American economy.

The country’s central bank wrote, “While a CBDC could provide a safe, digital payment option for households and business as the payments system continues to evolve, and may result in faster payment options between countries, there may also be downsides.”

One such downside is the abundance of fraudulent activity occurring in the digital marketplace, warned the Federal Reserve. Other red flags raised were the preservation of monetary stability with an economy that is based entirely on a digital currency and the complete restructuring of the commercial banking system to accommodate a solely digital financial system.

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said that the Federal Reserve is optimistic about “engaging with the public, elected representatives, and a broad range of stakeholders as we examine the positives and negatives of a central bank digital currency in the United States.”

Currently, nine countries have launched and implemented CBDCs, and 16 — including China — have begun development of CBDCs through pilot programs.

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