With the iPhone Circle Jerk drawn to a close the FBI is showing off its newly revealed ability to independently unlock iPhones (archived).
Monthly Archives: March 2016
Cloudflare Pressures Tor Developers and Users To Implement Identifiers
The Stack reports that Cloudflare co-founder Matthew Prince is pressuring Tor Developers and users to adopt some sort of "anonymous" identification scheme (archived). Prince is threatening more captchas and content blocks from Cloudflare if the firm's demands are not met. Cloudflare is a known enemy of internet privacy and generally a force for making the internet shittier. Tor on the other hand often fails to deliver its promised level of privacy and is likely socially and technologically compromised beyond repair. This declaration by Prince when considered alongside a "heated debate" continuing in the comments of a five week old Tor project blog post (archived) lead to this affair having a strong social engineering smell much like the recent iPhone Circle Jerk. Expect this ongoing discussion to lead to Cloudflare and Tor both getting shittier independently and when used in concert.
BitBet Reciever Opens Bidding For BitBet Assets
BitBet Reciever David Francois has issued his first statement of progress in evaluating BitBet's assets and liabilities. As part of determining the value of BitBet's non-cash assets Monsieur Francois has opened bidding in the comment section of his progress report. The current high bid for the domain, software and other non-cash assets of a venture that routinely took and settled betting pools in the range of hundreds and thousands of Bitcoin is 9 Bitcoin.
US Court Upholds Right To Feed Legal Profession
The United States Supreme Court issued a decision in the case Luis v. United States covered earlier on Qntra upholding the right of United States citizens to access assets frozen pretrial, but only so long as they spend those assets on securing a lawyer of their choosing. This decision one of the first in the post Scalia era, offers only a gentle reminder to agents of the criminal gang occupying the halls of governance in Washington DC that a defendants right to select counsel of their choosing is in the United States constitution while the gang's interest in delivering punishment and securing restitution aren't and for that reason a defendant may access assets. Not because Luis's money is Luis' money, but because the piece of paper allows the money to be spent that way. The decision is presented in full below: Continue reading
Iphone Circlejerk Ends With Status Quo Maintained For Now
The FBI iPhone Circle jerk has ended with numerous media sources reporting that the FBI has entered a filing into court stating that they had managed to retrieve the information they desired from the iPhone through means other than compelling Apple's help. This circle jerk, which was a joint production brought to you by Apple Inc. and the FBI, managed to accomplish its intended biscuit wetting. As per the popular Hegelian dialectic substantial discussion was generated, a few lols were had, and and outcome was reached. That outcome is continuing the present subterfuge and opacity it uses when gathering evidence electronically while waiting for a better test case for continuing the social engineering dialogue.
Hearn Can't Quit Maxwell, Declares Maxwell Bitcoin's Leader
Several hours ago on a heavily censored Y Combinator forum Mike Hearn declared that Gregory Maxwell is both the leader of Bitcoin and the source of all its problems:
Bitcoin's problem is not a lack of a leader, it's problem is that the leader is Gregory Maxwell at Blockstream and he's a terrible decision maker. Blockstream is the source of the refusal to bump the block size.
Indeed, the block size debate did not stalemate. It resulted in the small blockists winning, due to the much more aggressive tactics they used (e.g. hiring a bunch of developers then asserting they'd all quit forever if the block size were changed).
– Mike Hearn: Birth Unknown – January 15th 2015, He just couldn't Quit Greg Maxwell
March To Clinton Coronation Bumps Into Subaru Socialist Sweep
Substantial noise has been made over Donald Trump-Clinton's campaign in the minor US socialist party's nominating contests while coverage of the major socialist party's nominating contest has been quieter with the coronation of Hilary Rodham-Clinton assumed to be a virtual inevitability. That narrative of inevitability however took a serious blow on Saturday as Subaru socialists turned out in droves to deliver notable geriatric Bernie Sanders a sweep with wins in 3 nominating contests. The margins of victory Sanders enjoyed over Rodham-Clinton were 40% in Hawaii, 46% in Washington state, and 63% in Alaska. With these overwhelming victories the gap in pledged convention delegates between Sanders and Rodham-Clinton has substantially closed. Continue reading
New MBR Infecting Ransomware 'Petya' Found In The Wild
GData and TrendMicro report a new ransomware they refer to as 'Petya' is circulating in the wild largely affecting German 'Human Resources' departments (archived 1, archived 2). Like other ransomware Petya encrypts files on an infected machine, but it goes further than other ransomware by living in a computer's masterboot record and presenting its demands through a DOS boot screen when the infected machine is powered on. In its present incarnation Petya demands a 0.99 Bitcoin ransom which doubles if its payment deadline is missed. If an affected user goes through the FBI approved manner of recovering their files by paying the ransom, they would be well advised to physically destroy the disk and handle recovered files with care. This is because if anything was learned from the MBR infecting rootkit Sony distributed on their music CDs, it is that people who care enough to put their malware in the MBR tend to make complete eradication of the malware a tremendous pain.
Small Usenet Provider In France Raided As Terrorists Strike Europe
While terrorists continue to attack targets in Europe, French police have raided a small Usenet provider in France (archived).
Chicago To 'scape Around Hole
A hole in the city of Chicago is about to get some much needed 'scaping to improve its aesthetics (archived). The 78 foot deep hole on the Chicago Shoreline located between the North and South portions of the city was intended to serve as a foundation for the placement of a 2000 foot tall spire which would stand proudly in the hole as the tallest tower in the City. Economic malaise however lead to an inability to erect the tower so it was largely abandoned for dirt and weedy growth to take over the area surrounding it. The site of the hole sits next to Chicago's Navy pier which prominently juts out into Lake Michigan. This new attention should vastly improve the appearance of the area around Chicago's hole, or at least improve it when viewed from ground level.