After gifting politicians with an embargo against following their retractions, Twitter yesterday announced a further gift for politicians which begins with those running for office in the United States. In a blog post today (archived) that could not be contained within their otherwise customary 140 character limit, Twitter announced they would be unveiling "cash tags" facilitating donations to politicians named in a $cashtag through an arrangement with Jack Dorsey's social payments startup Square. Continue reading
Monthly Archives: September 2015
Cryptome PGP Keys Compromised, Revoked
Today Cryptome and operator John Young announced the compromise and revocation of their PGP keys. Relevant text posted to Cryptome below. Not the user agent string disclosing the use of Symantec's PGP Desktop product for Microsoft Windows. Continue reading
Appeals Court Denies Dotcom Request for Extradition Hearing Delay
Torrent Freak reports that in a decision that according to Kim Dotcom makes "the New Zealand judiciary… a US owned dancing bear" (archived) an Appellate court in New Zealand has denied Dotcom's petition to delay his extradition hearing in order to allow him and his counsel adequate preparation time. It was only on June 3rd of this year that Kim Dotcom finally had a victory in the United State's asset forfeiture case which allowed him the resources to seriously begin preparing a defense against the United States effort to extradite him to a a land which has always been foreign to him. Continue reading
Microsoft Preemptively Downloads Windows 10 On Windows 7 and 8 Boxes
In it's latest abuse of people commonly thought to be its customers, Microsoft is pre-emptively downloading gigabytes of Windows 10 installation files (archived) onto the machines of people who have expressed no interest in transitioning to Microsoft's newest software. This follows Microsoft's recent move to push telemetry, the greatest anti-feature of Windows 10 onto users who are declining the "free" upgrade to Windows 10. According to the Inquirer's report Windows users are complaining about this Microsoft compelled download unknowingly forcing some users on quota enforced broadband to exceed their usage limits and further exhausting some user's storage space. The situation of users still subjecting themselves to Windows has long been tenuous with serious ongoing security concerns, yet Microsoft keeps doubling down with the abuse.
Xiaoxing Xi isn't a Chinese spy after all
Reports are coming in that the former1 Chairman of the Physics Department at Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA – one Mr. Xiaoxing Xi – has had his U.S. Justice Department-drafted indictment2 for "wrecking"3 dismissed without prejudice to the refiling of charges4. Continue reading
Xiaoxing Xi was regrettably relieved of his leadership post at Temple in May 2015 following this indictment. ↩
Full indictment document here. The observant reader will note that this indictment obliges Mr. Xi to forfeit any real or personal property "derived from the proceeds traceable to the commision" of the alleged offenses to the Federal Government of the United States of America, and that this property be obtained by any and all means necessary. Just like that. Just because Peter F. Schenck, on behalf of United States Justice Department Attorney Zane David Memeger, said so. ↩
"Wrecking" became a term of art in the former Soviet Union, wherein a political undesirable could be branded as a "wrecker" for, say, using too much concrete and trying to bankrupt the glorious state of the USSR, or even using too little concrete and jeopardising the security of the glorious state of the USSR. Basically, it like every socialist term in all times and in all places : a term devoid of specific meaning and therefore used as a catch-all for the vague and whimsical ends of the soi-dissant powers-that-were. The funny/sad part of recalling this fragment of all-too-recent history is that the United States of America, the current soi-dissant power-that-be, is reimplementing the exact same strategy right before our very eyes. We see this with everything from "racist" to "cyberterrorist" and we'll continue to see it for some time to come. ↩
Mark Karpelès Charged With Embezzlement in Latest MtGox Criminal Charge
Via the South China Morning Post (archived) news comes that the latest criminal charge Mark Karpelès faces for his role in the MtGox debacle is that of embezzelment.
Qntra's Mascot Dixie Visits Consensus 2015
Consensus 2015 took place in New York earlier today and CoinDesk were kind enough to invite Dixie the rabbit – perhaps better known to you as the Qntra mascot.
He returned with these photos.
Continue reading
Former Reddit CEO Surrenders Legal Fight After Losing Media Outlet
Today Ellen Pao has dropped an appeal of her courtroom loss against one of her former employers, the firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and will have to pay the firm's costs related to the affair (archived). At trial her allegations of discrimination were determined to be unfounded and she was ordered to pay the firm's legal fees. Even though she had advanced her career at the firm to the point she was elevated to partner at the firm, she still alleged that systemic gender discrimination had limited her potential to advance her career. Pao was determined to appeal the ruling during her short tenure as CEO of the social media outlet Reddit where she advanced a censorship agenda which involved shuttering communities that celebrate healthy lifestyle choices and suppression of accurate legal analysis of her case. Near the end of her reign there was further a large rebellion of unpaid moderation staff as she cut a number of resources once available to support them. Pao's post Kleiner legacy as a business leader raises serious questions about the managerial competence at any firm that would elevate Ellen Pao to partner.
Coinwallet Turns Stress Test Into Dust Givaway
Spam generator Coinwallet has taken a different avenue to carry out its latest network "stress test" by presenting its latest round as a "giveaway" where they are posting private keys owning numerous dust outputs on the Bitcointalk forum. According to their announcement they intend to distribute roughly 200 Bitcoin in this manner. Attempts to claim these outputs may explain the recent increase in the number of weird non-standard transactions hitting certain Bitcoin nodes. Previously suggested countermeasures for surviving a transaction flood including demands for a higher base transaction fee per kilobyte of transaction data should still work to help keep nodes running happily throughout this event.
MIT Sacrifices Rag in XTCoin Push
Since the original XTCoin fork of Bitcoin was announced MIT's Technology Review has been the solitary media outlet of note lending its complete and unreserved support to XTCoin's social media propaganda war. MIT's rag has effectively sacrificed whatever reputation it may have still had as it attempts to force a narrative that frames Gavin Andressen and Mike Hearn's efforts as an attempt to somehow save Bitcoin. The once storied Massachusetts Insitute of Technology, which has taken money from the United States Military to research Bitcoin prices and rescued Gavin Andressen from poverty when the Vessenes' Foundation collapsed is now set on burning the last of its credibility in an attack on Bitcoin.