Entire Argentine Judiciary Paralyzed As Computers Stop Working For Them

Argentina's courts are paralyzed after the Lex100 system they use for everything stopped working six days ago (archived). This is not the first time the system has gone down (archived), but it is the longest time Argentina's courts have been without this one system they built everything they do around. This makes the pretense of Argentina having a legal profession still more laughable than it already was. Continue reading

Some altcoin Forked Off Of Bitcoin Forking Again To Implement Developer Tax On Block Rewards

Roger Ver (WoT:nonperson) and Jihan Wu (WoT:nonperson), have announced a 6 month plan to implement a 12.5% tax on block rewards in order to fund development on their ailing forkcoin project. The developer tax will fuck the altcoin's protocol layer to orphan blocks by miners refusing to participate in the redistribution of wealth towards an entity known only as the "Hong Kong corporation" at press time. Details regarding who will receive funding and how supposedly remains under discussion. Some BCH miners have expressed displeasure with the tax, though BTC.TOP mining pool founder Jiang Zhuoer (WoT:nonperson) claims the issue isn't up for debate, going so far as to quote former Chinese communist party leader Deng Xiaoping in defense of the move:

Non-debate theory is my invention. Non-debate, is to gain time to work hard. When you debate, everything becomes more complicated and it wastes time. Nothing can be done. Don’t debate, and just try. Be brave and experiment.

Plans are for the mandatory tax to become effective on May 15 when their biannual hard fork "update" is scheduled.

Novel Coronavirus Panic Hit Fiat Markets As China Extends New Year Holiday

Fiat markets around the world fell today as panic spreads over the spread of a novel coronavirus (archived). The novel coronavirus has inflicted a few casualties and appears rather easily transmissible, but reaction to the virus has been incredibly disruptive as well. China has quarantined Wuhan where the first cases appeared, suspended the sale of packaged tours, and extended the Lunar New Year holiday through February 2nd keeping local Chinese markets closed for the holiday. Continue reading

Power Rangers Pushing "Taproot" Into Their Bitcoin Network Client Fork

In his continuing mission to wreck Bitcoin, Pieter Wuille (WoT:sipa) has submitted a final proposal for 3 new "BIPs" and a pull request to the "Bitcoin Core" Shithub that will introduce Schnorr signatures and a new mEthereum-like addition called taproot via a "soft fork" to the protocol. Schnorr signature schemes were discussed in #trilema as far back as 2017, and determined to be attractive to PRB users because they are a match made in heaven for individuals using Segwit, multisig, or other "anyone can spend" schemes. Taproot was proposed in January of last year by Greg Maxwell (WoT:gmaxwell) and is an attempt to add "smart contract" functionality to Bitcoin, supporters having quickly forgotten about the SFYL that occurs when one consciously chooses to huff "smart contract" Jenkem. As always, users of actual Bitcoin will not be affected.

Grave Authentication Vulnerability In Cisco Firewall Management Tool

USG spyware vendor Cisco has announced a vulnerability affecting their "Firepower Management Center" allowing unauthenticated control via specially crafted http requests (archived). No workaround to mitigate the vulnerability is being offered, only mandatory patches. Cisco claims no knowledge of the flaw being exploited in the wild despite it having the appearance of a bespoke USG NOBUS hole.

"Royal Yachting Association" Discovers Their Database Was Leaked… In 2015!

The "Royal Yachting Association" announced their recent discovery that someone managed to grab their member database back in 2015 (archived). The database includes names, email addresses, and a mix of salted and unsalted password hashes. Boating Brits have had their accounts frozen until they reset their passwords.

Virginia Senate Passes Firearm Seizure Law After More Thank 20,000 Armed Men Leave Their Lawn

The Virginia State Senate has passed a measure which would allow firearms to be arbitrarily seized from residents (archived). The measure which has yet to pass the lower house would allow "law enforcement" agencies to execute firearms seizure raids against private persons on the basis of any intermeddler informing the cops that the target they would like to see victimized in the raid might use their weapons. In other states that have adopted similar laws, "law enforcement" routinely kills private individuals on the basis of intermeddlers telling them "maybe" (archived). Continue reading

GNUMake 4.3 Breaking Backwards Compatibility

The wreckers marketing "GNU Make" announced substantial breaks in backwards compatibility with their new 4.3 release (archived). Notably the behavior of the '+=' operator has been changed in a move that will incur substantial pain. The handling of prerequisites, suffixes, and pattern rules are also being changed to maximally inconvenience all.

Tens Of Thousands Of Armed Inmates Storm Virginia Capital, Fail To Do Anything

Tens of thousands of men stormed Richmond, Virginia yesterday before stopping outside the legislature where they proceeded to not do anything (archived). Despite a handful of USG captures well in advance of the event, the men faced no serious opposition or challenges on their way to the Capitol building as they carried an assortment of infantry weapons. The men even allowed USG forces to capture of women accompanying them. The woman faces felony charges for wearing a mask in public. Local authorities estimate 22,000 armed men showed up and dispersed without challenging them.