Yeah, doesn’t mshta run JavaScript locally on Windows? This looks like a way to force you to run their script

I hope that URL isn’t the real one, you don’t want anyone trying it just to see what would happen

That’s very generous of you, but I would advise against doing this secretly, for a few reasons.

First of all, the information needed to do this (like their loan account number) is considered personal financial information whose disclosure is protected. There is nothing preventing them from giving you the info willingly, but if you try and find it out without their knowledge you may be breaking the law.

Also, technically any gifts between people who aren’t directly related are treated as income by the US government, and there is technically tax owed on it. And yes, paying off a loan would still count as a gift. The threshold to trigger tax on a gift is high ($19k for 2025), but the tax is the liability of the giver, not the receiver. Depending on how big the gift is, you could be inadvertently opening yourself up for scrutiny by the US IRS. But if you are open about the gift and plan it with the recipient ahead of time, you can also do all the required tax planning to make sure you don’t run afoul of the IRS.

I don’t think I need to remind you that the legal climate regarding foreigners in the US on student visas is precarious right now. It would suck if your attempt at a secret gift ended up backfiring and ruining your plans for education in the US.

Yes, that would be a bad idea. It shouldn’t be a bad idea. But right now, it would be.

Then again, you are probably in for Domestic Terrorism charges for simply protesting against the Car of the People. It’s up to you whether you want to dial it all up to 11.

Individual US States are a party to some of these lawsuits, and they have their own duly sworn law enforcement officers. I bet a Federal judge would be able to find NY State Troopers or Massachusetts State Police willing to enforce their orders if there is a judgement in favor of that State in court.

No, there’s a different reason why he thinks the people of Gaza are incapable…

~he’s a super racist Nazi scumbag~

I’m sure he has, and thought that they would make nice golf courses.

You have to pick a leader somehow. In authoritarianism, the leader is often the one who can take over by force, and can maintain that force over time (even across generations, for hereditary systems). While it’s possible for someone who takes over that way to be benelovent towards their people, it’s far more likely they will be violent and overbearing, because that’s how they got the gig in the first place.

And after a few generations, the one in charge won’t have any memory of how their ancestor came to power in the first place, and just take it for granted that they ought to rule. So now you have a leader who is violent and overbearing, only because that’s how their parent taught them to be, not out of any real experience accumulating power.

There’s nothing illegal about cryptocurrencies. It’s just random numbers and code.

However, those random numbers have actual value, and governments regulate some transactions, particularly ones that cross national borders, to make sure those transactions do not hide a crime or go to individuals who the government has put under sanctions.

Some people of a Libertarian bent get involved in Crypto to keep their governments out of their business. But those laws still apply, no matter what the medium of exchange is, or how much those people whine about those laws.

Edited to add: I missed the bit where OPs question was about Samurai Wallet. Here is some info about them:

https://bitcoinmagazine.com/legal/samourai-wallet-breaking-down-dangerous-precedents

This is from a pro-Crypto online media source, and its bias is obvious. However, it is also from last April. The Biden administration was very hostile towards Crypto. The Trump administration has embraced it, and it would not surprise me if this prosecution disappears in a cloud of “quid pro quo”…

Because when the telephone system first was developed, all you had were dial phones, which could only send numbers 1 through 0 (10). So every call needed to be addressible using only numbers.

AT&T came up with the numbering system in the 40s…

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Numbering_Plan

When the State licenses things like that, it’s usually because whatever activity is being licensed utilizes shared resources, and the State has an interest in making sure those resources are used in the common interest.

Radio licenses are essential because the RF spectrum is a common resource. The State wants to make sure that certain frequencies are only used for certain purposes, and that those who use them have the proper training.

Some communities use pet licensing as a tool to make sure all pets are properly vaccinated, to reduce the spread of rabies (which really is a horrible way to go…)

Hunting and fish licenses are a way to help control the overall wild animal population, and make sure they are not overharvested and preserve rhe availability for future seasons.

It is a real department, sort of. Trump used Legislation that was intended for an Obama Era “US Digital Service” and rebranded it “US DOGE Service”. He didn’t even need to change the acronym, although it is now a nested acronym.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_DOGE_Service

They do, in fact, overstep their legal boundaries quite often. But the administration simply fires anyone in any other department who gets in the way until they get an acquiescent administrator who lets them grab the department by the pussy.

Yeah, individual emails can be picked off at any point in the chain while in transit. And someone who has hacked key infrastructure in front of your server can see all emails on transit. But your server might have stored emails, so someone with clandestine access to that will be able to access part of your email history (perhaps all of it, if you use that server for permanent email storage), and they are not limited to emails in transit.

I plan on complaining about it on the Internet. That’ll show 'em!

I know a lot of people with their own domain names and email servers. From a privacy perspective, it is better because you know nobody is reading your emails. Your email address is a method to track regardless. But free email services are only free because they scrape your emails to figure out which ads to send. If you run your own mail server, you know no one is snooping.

The real issue is that you need to be fastidious about security, because your servers are exposed to the broader Internet and there are a lot of bad actors. You not only have to make sure your server doesn’t get hacked, but you also need to make sure the mail server application can’t act like an open relay. Spammers use misconfigured mail servers all the time to send tons of spam messages using someone else’s bandwidth.

And once your mail server is used as a spam relay, it might get IP blocked from major email providers, and I bet that is a pain to get resolved.

So it’s only worth it if you know what you are doing.

Only a matter of time before Trump renames them the Indians by Executive Order

$4.69 at Wegmans

Unless God exercises His Ultimate Veto and cuts his term short.

I went to Beijing several years ago on business. By a total coincidence, it happened to be just after the Golden Week festival, which is a national holiday and businesses were closed. I expected quite a bit of smog, but when I arrived everything seemed clear. My Chinese host took me out to see the Great Wall, and it was breathtaking, and also crystal clear. I was wondering if the dirty air I had heard so much about was a myth.

But then the work week started, and as the week went on and the factories started up again, I noticed that the air was getting dirtier. My Chinese host took me to see the Forbidden City at the end of the week, which was also extremely beautiful, but already the air was so thick that I couldn’t see the landscape anymore, only the buildings in front of me.

Nature does a good job at cleaning the local air itself, but when we spew so much crap in it Nature can’t keep up. So, yeah, smog happens because of constant pollution.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_letter_mail

Impeachment must start in the House, and the rules of the House are heavily tilted toward majority rule. So it would need a majority vote to even get started, and it would be referred to a committee with a Republican majority. If, somehow, the investigation done there is fair and a recommendation to impeach passes the committee, it still needs to pass in the House again.

But then, it goes to the Senate, where a 2/3 majority (67/100) is required to convicted. So now we have gone from needing a handful of Republican defectors on the House (including at least one committee member) to needing 20 of 53 Republican Senators to agree to convict. That is an extremely high bar. If you were a Republican House member who is on the fence about Trump, it is simply not worth openly defying him unless you were certain Republican Senators would convict. Particularly after Trump just pardoned a bunch of folks who have already stormed the Capitol once.