In a far lesser heralded acquisition than anything involving consumer recognizable names, CenturyLink began the process of buying Level 3 communications. Both providers mostly provide Internet pipes to smaller Internet service providers and other business customers though CenturyLink maintains a token number of residential customers.
Monthly Archives: October 2016
Mainstream Media: Clinton Emails Already "Baked In" To Polls
On this day, the ninth day before the United States presidential election, the talking heads of the United States mainstream media-political complex are in concert adopting a single position on the damage from the latest revelation of Clinton Criminality. Apparently the political damage to Hillary Rodham-Clinton from this latest news is already "baked in" to Hillary Rodham-Clinton's polling numbers, and this damage has been for some amount of time, perhaps even since the beginning of time itself.
This "baked in" theory spontaneously emerged among several dozen "independent" mainstream talking heads simultaneously. Naturally there is *no way* that this introduction of the "baked in" line could have been coordinated.
Hack Forum Kicks DDoS Vendors
Hack Forums, one of the oldest and most well-known forums of its kind on the internet, has announced it will no longer allow vendors to offer DDoS services or "server stress testing" for sale in it's services section, in part due to the attack that left many sites unreachable last week.
Forum admin Jesse "Omniscient" LaBrocca (WoT:nonperson) explained:
"I do need to make sure that we continue to exist and given the recent events I think it's more important that the section be permanently shut down,"
The forums had been under pressure from online security researchers who claimed that forum users were likely responsible for the recent spate of attack using the Mirai malware. The source code for Mirai first appeared on the forums on September 30th when user Anna-senpai released a copy for public consumption. Omniscient denied that the forums promoted using the services for illegal purposes and that much like other user-generated content sites, "The content ….. reflects the topics they are interested in discussing,"
Not Quite News Roundup Xtend 12 (TM)(R)
Welcome to the twelfth edition of the Qntra Not Quite News Roundup Xtend (TM)(R). The below events are alleged to have happened, but they are decidedly innocent of newsworthiness.
- The price reported by fiat/Bitcoin interfaces has been bullish on the Bitcoin and bearish on the fiat sides with United States dollars sinking to less than 1/700th of a Bitcoin per and Chinese rembini to less than 1/4850th of a Bitcoin per.
- The United States Department of Defense was recently revealed to be the largest purchaser of Jack Daniels Tennessee Whiskey. The Department utilizes the distiller's "By the Barrel Program" which includes tours of the distilling facility and meetings with the taster and master distiller in order to select particular barrels for purchase. Barrel pricing varies from 9,000 to 12,000 United States dollars per barrel due to variations in volume and is related to the premium pricing in effect for bottled "single-barrel" whiskies. A barrel is roughly equivalent to 250 bottles of the traditional 750 ml volume commonly referred to as a "fifth" and is only enough whiskey to sustain a dedicated solo hard drinker for a period of four to nine months.
- Facebook may be in hot water with the Feds for playing a part in violations of the Fair Housing Act of 1968 through its practice of allowing any schmuck with a couple bucks to place a targeted advertisement. For its part Facebook protests that targeting people for their "ethnic affinity" in Facebook Ads is not that same thing as actually discriminating based on race. The timing of WaPo making a fuss of this is extremely suggestive.
- Polish fiat/Bitcoin interface Bitcurex moved to shut down after your loss.
- This week's altcoin drawing unwarranted attention is variably known as "Zooko Cash", "Z-Cash", and "ZEC" and drawing attention for having been released after substantial hype. ZEC is similar to Monero in that its privacy "features" fail against sufficiently panoptic observers. ZEC tokens found their way to markets soon after the Genesis block's minting and individual tokens are presently trading for more than individual Bitcoins due to scarcity though the exchange rate has been falling rapidly as more ZEC are mined and released to market. A full 10 percent of ZEC are set to be awarded to parties other than miners. With this kind of debut the stage is set for unprecedented levels of "your loss", we are very sorry for it.
- Aspersing "Bitcoin" news outlet CoinJournal is in full "your loss" coping mode after Barclays SFYL'd their fiat bank account.
- Vladislav Surkov's email was allegedly hacked. Mainstream sources are crediting "Ukranian activists" for the hack despite the CIA telling NBC News it was going to try this exact sort of thing on October 14th. Apparently Surkov used Microsoft Outlook.
- "Open Transactions", which is Ripple before Ripple was a thing, was finally attached to a n00b friendly interface. The interface is attached to the "Stash Bank In A Box" hardware product. Sorry but you're late.
- The United States and its coalition forces are continuing to support the Medes and other Persians in their effort to take Nineveh from the Assyrians.
- The strained relationship between the GOP and their Presidential candidate has yielded a most unfair benefit. In down ticket races nearly all of their attack ads against Democratic party candidates also get to contain anti-Hillary attack ads while few down ticket Democratic party advertisements dare to attack Donald Trump-Clinton and the down ticket candidate at the same time.
- In the mainstream media, the second most important political story of the week is receiving unsurprisingly little coverage.
FBI Reopens Investigation Of Hillary Rodham-Clinton's Emails After Wikileaks Reveals Deleted Emails Still Exist
News emerged today that the US Federal Bureau of Investigation is re-opening their investigation of Hillary Rodham-Clinton's email habits and sloppy sysadmin record during zher tenure as Secretary of State. Public justification for this decision is based on the revelation included in the Wikileaks leaks that the 30,000 or so "missing" emails which hindered the initial investigation were backed up in numerous separate physical locations. This fact was either undiscovered by the FBI earlier through their lesser competence than the Wikileaker or intentionally ignored.
Or perhaps the decision to reopen the investigation was made because along with a certain humorous question being raised by the latest batch of Wikileaks, emails related to Doug Band's work for "Bill Clinton, Inc"(TM)(R) showed that some high ranking FBI officials had questionable relations with the Clinton family business.
Hillary Rodham-Clinton's electoral rival Donald Trump-Clinton today shockingly managed to stay on point in a speech where he repeatedly hammered Hillary on the stump for inhering the transcendental concept of corruption on Earth.
UPDATE: The official story is now that the new emails were found while investigating Clinton family friend Anthony Weiner for sexting a minor child.
Lawyer For Militia Heroes Tazed For Demanding Release of Said Heroes After Acquittal
Marcus Mumford, the lawyer for Ammon Bundy and the other heroes of the Oregon liberation, was reportedly tazed and detained by US Marshals for sensibly requesting that Ammon Bundy be able to leave the court room as a free man after his acquittal. U.S. District Judge Anna J. Brown denied the request over a pending but unrealized indictment that may eventually be levelled against the now acquitted Ammon Bundy in Nevada. Brown allegedly repeated the popular US "law" enforcement catchphrase "Stop Resisting" as six United States Marshals restrained and repeatedly tazed Mumford.
No Justice, No Peace. Right Power!
All Militia Heroes Of Oregon Liberation Acquitted By Jury In Federal Court
Local media is reporting that all surviving members of the Militia that liberated a portion of the high desert in Oregon at the beginning of this year have been acquitted in a Jury trial. Even after the presiding federal judge reconstituted the jury after initial deliberations had begun, the citizens decided that criminal charges were unwarranted. This encouraging development suggests that the United States does indeed have at least 12 citizens capable of exercising discretion as evidence by this case of the jury nullifying charges against these real American heroes.
Justice for the slaying of Lavoy Finicum remains unsatisfied.
What Is The Difference Between Bill Clinton And Bill Cosby? – A Qntest with Bitcoin Prizes
In yet another leak of emails from Hillary "Clitler" Rodham-Clinton's campaign and political party, it was revealed that the staff was concerned that the media would ask about the difference between Bill Clinton and Bill Cosby's private treatment of women. To celebrate the mainstream media's failure to ask this question we will be holding our first Qntest Bitcoin give away. The five best jokes of the form:
Q: What Is The Difference Between Bill Clinton And Bill Cosby?
A: White Priviledge!1
presented in the comments to this post will each win a one bitcent2 prize with an arbitrary bonus between 1 and 9999 Satoshis3 provided to promote the cardinal virtue of unfairness.
Full Qntest Rules:
- To be eligible for prizes an entry must be accompanied by a valid Bitcoin address in the same comment as the joke being entered into the Qntest.
- A valid Bitcoin address is a pay to public key hash address that begins 1. Supposed pay to script hash addresses beginning with 3 are eligible for enprizement, but at a future point may be eligible for your loss.
- Submissions must survive the comment spam filter unscathed. Maximize your chances for success by using well structured grammar and not including external links to domains popular with spammers. Youtube.com, Twitter.com, Tumblr.com, and any other domain not under your own control is best assumed to be popular with spammers. If your comment does not appear immediately that does not mean it was killed by the spam filter, it may be pending approval.
- Final determinations for prize awarding will be made by the Editor in Chief who will also be funding the prizes. The prize awarding transaction will be accompanied by a 0.001 BTC transaction fee to ensure speedy delivery.
- The deadline for entries is November 9th, 2016. Awards will be announced and prizes paid by November 15th, 2016.
Ethereum Security Still Ethereal, Has Yet To Appear After Hard Forks
The recent hard fork has failed to protect the ETH huffer ecosystem as yet another serious vulnerability was discovered in the Mist implementation, affecting all versions "including and prior to 0.8.6".
– From the Ethereum blog:
Mist is leaks (sic) some low level APIs which Dapps could use to gain access to the computers file system and read/delete files. This would only affect you if you navigate to an untrusted Dapp, which knows about this vulnerabilities and specifically tries to attack users. Upgrading Mist is highly recommended to prevent any exposure to attacks.
The severity of the bug is listed as high, and can be triggered by merely visiting a webpage containing malicious code or dapp. It finally occurred to the Mist developers that it might be a good idea to add the platform to the bug bounty program, whose fund is sure to be rapidly depleted considering the pace at which new bugs are discovered in this flaming-tire-in-a-shitpit of a platform. Pope Buterin inspired many lulz this week by tweeting "Who says Ethereum is "failing"? Pulling off HFs in 6 days b/w 5 clients with no consensus failures in 1 year is success to me." Consensus seems to be that he is now using scented rose-tinted glasses to cover up the offending smells that continuously emanate from the project.
Buggered Bitcurex Tries To Selectively Hide SFYL Based On Customer Language Skills
Polish "Bitcoin exchange" Bitcurex.com1 has announced a 2300 BTC Sorry For Your Loss, finally admitting that the exchange was hacked after a recent spate of technical issues. Naturally, officials with the company have no idea who or how the breach occurred, only stating that on Oct. 13 unknown perpetrators broke into their servers and liberated the 5 million US dollars worth of Bitcoin. The website zaufanatrzeciastrona.pl, which broke the story of the hack, reports that the company has not released any information in the English language leading some to believe they wish to limit the amount of customers seeking refunds due to the theft. The same exchange was also robbed of 18,000 Bitcoin in 2014. Sorry for your loss.
Association with Vircurex is uncertain at this time. ↩