Author Archives: hanbot

Eulora's New All-Time High Jackpot Trebles, Hits 3.5 BTC

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Player Mircea Mircescu scored the biggest-ever "pop" in the history of Eulora, MiniGame's Bitcoin-denominated MMORPG, just past midnight server time on December 16th, 2017. Reigning the "Top of Pops" list in-game, the windfall weighs in at 3505.309 million ECu, or a hair over three and a half Bitcoin. The previous chart-topper occurred two years ago, also in December, at 1081.602 million ECu.

Mircescu's real-world avatar Mircea Popescu hinted at the pop's provenance in the game's IRC channel, #Eulora, where he stated the winning click occurred during a crafting run of "bod", or Black of Desspayr, a highly sought-after potion critical in the manufacture of blueprints for other items. Previous auction data for the item shows a markup of over 250% on the base price, which corresponds to the amount reported in-game for the pop –suggesting the market value of Mircescu's winnings likely exceed 8.5 billion ECu.

The pop comes on the heels of major events in Eulora's development, including the unfolding of an Ada-implemented communication protocol and an improved crafting and exploring bot refined by players to ease the hands-on aspect of in-game activities.

Have Nude Pics of Yourself, go to Jail

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In what is merely the most recent criminalization insanity to manifest in embarrassment of the US, two teenagers in Fayetteville, North Carolina have recently been charged with felonies for sexually exploiting themselves by having nude pictures of their own persons on their own phones. The male, 17, has been charged with exploitation of a minor and was prosecuted as an adult for his "selfies". He subsequently agreed to subject himself to a year of warrantless searches, which somehow has been found by the courts circus to not constitute self-exploitation. His girlfriend, 16, took a plea bargain, which entailed a $200 fine, 30 hours of community service, the inability to use a cell phone for one year, mandatory attendance at a "class in making good decisions", and an "order to stay in school and refrain from using drugs and alcohol". Following his girlfriend's state-mandated metamorphosis from a normal, sexually curious teenager to the passive victim of local mores well out of touch with reality, the male involved in the case accepted a "similar" plea bargain. Continue reading →

ALM CEO Cries 'Terrorism' after Ashley Madison Hack

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Billing itself as a dating site specifically for people in relationships who wish to have an affair, Ashley Madison was recently breached by an entity calling itself The Impact Team. A Gitlab user of the same name reportedly released a partial database dump containing members' personal information, including email and physical addresses and real names, though the dump was no longer accessible as of July 21st. In a message left on the site and since removed, the breacher claims to have "taken over all systems in [Avid Life Media (Ashley Madison's parent company)'s] entire office and production domains, all customer information databases, source code repositories, financial records, emails." The message lambasted ALM for charging its users a $19 fee to delete their account data while keeping their credit card purchase details including names and addresses on file, and threatened to release a complete database dump unless the company "shuts down" Ashley Madison and Established Men, another site it "owns". Continue reading →

Attack on Dallas PD Headquarters: Another Drop in Bucket of Frustrated Americans

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Riding in a customized "Zombie Apocalypse Assault Vehicle and Troop Transport" with several pipe bombs in tow, Texas resident James Lance Boulware peppered the Dallas Police Department headquarters with bullets last Saturday, damaging the building itself as well as a squad car. While nobody at the scene was injured other than Boulware himself, who was killed by a police sniper through the windshield of his vehicle, Dallas Police Chief David Brown stated "We think he was specifically targeting officers." Continue reading →

France Demands Google Extend "Right to be Forgotten" to Global Domains

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The French data protection authority, led by Isabelle Falque-Pierrotin, has threatened Google with various penalties including a fine of up to 300,000 Euros unless it extends the removal of search engine results to its global domains. A European court ruling last year decreed that any individual may petition a search engine to manually remove search results pertaining to themselves, under the guise of privacy. Proponents of the ruling have argued that people should not have to be associated with their past, or suffer unpleasant reminders of deeds they've commited or impressions they've made, apparently unconcerned about the fabrication of history to suit personal preferences such outlooks necessarily entail. Continue reading →

FBI Counterterrorism AD Michael Steinbach: "Prevent encryption above all else"

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During a House Homeland Security Committee hearing in Washington, D.C. on June 3rd, 2015, FBI Counterterrorism Division Assistant Director Michael Steinbach enlightened those present to the difficulties his agency faced in using encrypted data from the private sector. “When a company, a communications company or a ISP or social media company elects to build in its software encryption, end-to-end encryption, and leaves no ability for even the company to access that, we don’t have the means by which to see the content”, Steinbach said, insisting that such content was useful for the interception of terrorism activities, particularly amongst supporters of ISIS abroad. Continue reading →

The Xoom Theft and the Future of the Dollar

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Despite Xoom's vague assertion that "it doesn't think that customer data or customer money was involved in the Dec. 30 theft," the heist –consisting of an amount of dollars most holders of the currency can only dream of ever obtaining, as the vast majority of dollars are held by 1% of users, marks another foreboding blow to the future of USD. The value proposition for the average person just isn't there, and for the users attempting to send their hard-earned cash to families in need back home, dollars are looking downright evil. In fact, the only real use for dollars would be doing something illegal. "It's a mirage, basically. Stay away from it," say Bitcoin's major investors. Some are even speculating that dollars could be used to fund terrorism and pose threats to national security. What nation's security? The. Clearly, dollars will never work as a currency.

Bitcoin Foundation's Financial Standards Working Group Publishes Agenda

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In a press release published October 7th, the Bitcoin Foundation's Financial Standards Working Group outlined a trio of priorities for the last and first quarters of 2014 and 2015, respectively, to include "consensus driven" attempts to alter the way Bitcoin is labeled and represented. Bitcoin Foundation Executive Director Jon Matonis suggested the proposals to recommend Bitcoin subunits and a unicode symbol as well as to apply for ISO 4217 approval for a standard currency code beginning with "X" were "important step[s] towards removing obstacles for mainstream adoption." Continue reading →