Avast security announced today that rogue wireless access points set up in and around areas at the Republican national convention in Ohio netted around 1200 unsuspecting users in what the company claims was an experiment to demonstrate how risky it can be to connect to public Wi-Fi. Researchers set up several fake access points, naming them after common hotspots, and some with clever names like “I vote Trump! free Internet”. Approximately 1.6 Gb's of data was exposed, with the report stating that 68.3% of users had their identities or other sensitive information exposed upon connection. Nearly 25% of the users browsed porn sites, while only a little over 5% used the connections to play Pokemon Go. The experiment at the very least highlighted the lack of security consciousness amongst the average person that occurs on a daily basis.
Category Archives: Altcoins
US Department of "Defense" Switches To iPhone
Reports are emerging that the United States Department of "Defense"1 is moving from Google's smartphone platform to Apple's smartphone platform. Apple already enjoys a rather chummy relationship with various organs of the United States government but now Apple has won endorsement from the Special Operations Command for the supposed tactical utility offered by the iPhone 6s ™(r). The price Apple paid for the marketing value of having the iPhone, assembled in Shenzen by Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. Ltd., endorsed as a "National Security Product" used by 31337 special forces operators playing Modern Warfare IRL has not been disclosed. Peace in our time.
An odd designation considering nearly all of its roles and abilities are balanced towards offensive rather than defensive capability. ↩
Coinbase's Brian Armstrong Huffs The Ethereum Hardfork Jenkem
With approximately 24 hours left until Ethereum forks, at block 1,920,000, reports show that at least 60% of miners are supporting a hard fork at this time. Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong (WOT:nonperson) lauded the effort on twitter, stating that "If ethereum pulls off this hard fork, very positive signal for them as a team. Shows they can listen to community, execute in time of crisis." Ironically, it appears Mr. Armstrong will be correct in his assessment, as the hard fork will permanently execute any hopes that one can take the immutability of the Ether block chain seriously, and proving that "smart contracts" are not unstoppable and irreversible despite the hype to the contrary. Sorry for your loss.
EthereumClassic Emerges!
Ether huffers dissatisfied with community attempts to change the formula of their beloved jenkem have released EthereumClassic, billed on github as "a project to keep the original censorship-resistant Ethereum going". The github repo offered no actual code, only a statement regarding opposition to the hard fork meant to rescue The Dao.1 A subreddit was also set up, r/ethereumclassic, which had 75 members at the time of this article. The move follows an increased amount of anxiety in the community as the hard fork inches closer, with new security issues seemingly found every day. Just yesterday it was discovered that Ethereum's parity HTTP JSON API contained a flaw that would allow anyone to remotely empty wallets. The Ethereum Classic community did not respond to a request for comment as to whether their team planned on fixing these issues. Sorry for your loss.
Notably this hardfork doesn't actually change the working of Ethereum. It instead retroactively changes the meaning of the DAO's contract. This is a truly brazen attempt at theft under the guise of "improving the network" by changing one thing built on it. It also means Ethereum clients can accept either side of the chainsplit for maximum lulz. ↩
Roger VER-ified Censorship Free Paradise Censors
The convicted felon known as Roger Verified (WOT:nonperson), scraped the bottom of the reddit barrel when creating the lulz mine r/btc, in an attempt to create a forum for users interested in hijacking Bitcoin with bigger blocks. His claim was r/bitcoin, run by the scammer theymos (WoT: theymos), did not represent the views of the majority due to censorship. Verified further claimed his new lulz mine r/btc, was free of censorship, and thus represented an unbiased view. Upon publicly disclosing his subreddit's moderation logs, evidence quickly arose of an obfuscated censorship technique.
The automoderator bot, contrary to Roger VER-ified claims is optional. It is turned off by default, and upon being activated comes with a completely blank configuration. The logs reveal /r/BTC's automoderator deletes any comments from a user with -50 comment karma in that subreddit, a custom policy which required intentional implementation. Given the evidence Trilema reported earlier proving reddit is easily manipulated by bots, it is pretty clear the moderators are utilizing vote manipulation to censor unpopular opinions.
Turkey Cooks
Turkey is undergoing some internal political turmoil. Peace in our time.
Steem Hacked
Steem, the latest "Social media" website announced early Friday that the website has suffered "a cyber attack" of an undisclosed nature. (archived)The blog post stated that "In the attack, fewer than 260 accounts were compromised, and less than $85,000 worth of Steem Dollars and Steem may have been stolen." CEO Ned Scott said. The company wasted no time informing the internet police and FBI of the attack, and claim that the hack is now contained and that no user accounts or wallets are at risk and they really mean it this time. The blog post also stated that any users whose accounts were compromised will be completely reimbursed.
Steem the currency currently has a market cap of $ 336,938,441 USD and is #3 in ranking on coinmarketcap.com, just below Ethereum at the time of writing. Each Steem currently trades for around $4.00, and total supply of these cowpies is 83,922,001. 24 hour volume was slightly under 2 million USD. Peace in Our Time.
Theresa May British PM After No One Else Wants Job Following #Brexit Vote
Later this week censorious Tory Theresa May (WOT :nonperson) will be set to take over as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom following a #Brexit inspired series of abidcations. Theresa May was selected through the incredibly democratic process where a bunch of parliament insiders gathered around and asked each other who wants the job and is registered as a member of the correct party.
During the campaign preceding the #Brexit vote May supported the "Remain" ballot option though this week she changed her position to:
"#Brexit means #Brexit"
May publicly declared however the best time to actually file the UK's action would be at the end of this year.
In addition to being a #Brexit opponent May is a supporter of the war on computing. Further her barren womb was a source of ridicule in the posturing contest that lead to her selection. Many in the mainstream anglophone press are already producing fanfic supposing that May and Hillary Rodham-Clinton (WOT:nonperson) will be the next incarnation of the Thatcher-Reagan partnership. This fanfic of course neglects the greater similarity Donald Trump-Clinton (WOT:nonperson) has with Reagan given their common careers as entertainers and spokespersons before entering politics.
Theresa May is unlikely to undertake any measures correcting previous actions on the part of the United Kingdom to regulate itself out of Bitcoin. Sorry for your laws.
DAO Is Empty Again
The DAO, everyone's favorite flaming tire in a shitpit, is reportedly empty again after members of a so-called robin hood group emptied it in an emergency move after yet another attack was launched on the platform. Copious amounts of jenkem were passed around the r/ethereum subreddit to huff as users agreed the latest batch was some of the most potent to date, perhaps due to the added corn content.
WAPO: Major US Socialist Party To Deploy Electoral Nuclear Option In Desperation
According to the Washington Post the Major Socialist Party in the United States1 is set to deploy a nuclear option in the campaign out of desperation. This nuclear option is a pathway for marijuana legalization in the United States.2 This comes as the Libertarian party ticket of two term governors Gary Johnson and William Weld is positioned to play spoiler not to Donald Trump-Clinton (WOT:nonperson), but to Hillary Rodham-Clinton. Traditionally the Libertarian party has been positioned to spoil minor socialist tickets while the Green Party3 spoiled major socialist tickets.
In this year's electoral circus where the Libertarian slate is polling with greater support than the typical gap between major party candidates, the Major socialist party has been forced to fire the marijuana legalization glass cannon.4 Of course there could be other motivations for the move, like the reality that United States farmers desperately need a crop that isn't edible. Sorry for your laws.
Meaning the one that is poised to nominate Hillary "Clitler" Rodham-Clinton (WOT:nonperson)for the presidency. ↩
Also known as what people thought they were for voting for when voting for Barack Obama (WOT:nonperson). ↩
Became defunct in 2000 when it helped spoil Al Gore's (WOT:nonperson) chance at beating George W. Bush (WOT:nonperson). ↩
This a a glass cannon because you can only legalize marijuana once. Otherwise marijuana is already legal. Just as delivering gay marriage means they can't deliver it again. This is in contrast to their tent poles like fighting poverty which are incapable of having a defined "mission accomplished" style ending. ↩