According to the Associated Press, Hillary Clinton's private email server ran with ports for the Remote Desktop Protocol and other unsecured services open to the public internet (archived). Hillary's sysadmin qualifications had been questioned before when she chose Microsoft Exchange as an email server and when she requested over email a book on the subject of deleting email. It is becoming clear that Hillary Clinton is grossly under qualified to operate technology at an infrastructure level.
Category Archives: Shitware
Trouble Hits Purse.io Customers
Reports have been popping up on various social media forums claiming that funds held on behalf of users had been disappearing from the retail intermediary operation Purse.io beginning this weekend. In a blog post (archived) Purse.io reports account password reset emails were triggered in an unauthorized fashion, though they denied missing user funds until a recent update. Purse.io insists users of two factor authentication methods they support were unaffected, though there are reports on various forums disputing this as well as the scale of the theft.
Fiat Broker Broker Scottrade Hacked
This evening Fiat stock broker and online investment management portal Scottrade revealed it was hacked in an email to customers. The advised customers that critical personally identifying information was in all probability taken from their servers. In the email they offer that they have evidence they were breeched roughly around 2013 and 2014 without being more specific. Numerous fiat based financial services providers this year have not only had to weather attacks to their own infrastructure, but attacks which leveraged information attained in other breaches degrading their ability to provide services at all. Information publicly disclosed on the Scottrade breach so far was offered in an email to customers which availed them of a dubious credit monitoring service. Users of fiat services like Scottrade and of supposedly Bitcoin services that swear allegiance to customs of the fiat identity theft tradition are advised to stop doing that before you find yourself insolvent. The full text of the email is available below: Continue reading
Buterin's Waterfall Nearly Spent
In a post on the Ethereum foundation's blog Vitalik Buterin with substantial optimism announced that the Ethereum Foundation has nearly spent down all of its reserves (archived). The Vitalik claims Ethereum Foundation expenses of roughly 410,000 Swiss Francs per month though he assures readers he can bring that down to a third of a million Swiss Francs in the near future and a quarter of a million Swiss Francs per month further into the future. Buterin claims approximate reserves of 200,000 Swiss Francs, 1800 BTC which will continue to be dumped onto the markets, and 2,700,000 of their own Ether tokens. A further amount of roughly half a million Swiss Francs, or nearly a month of their operating costs is claimed to be held in reserve for legal contingencies. Buterin's own estimate for the depletion of his Foundation's funds is June of 2016 though their burn rate suggests insolvency may arrive much sooner. When paired with claims of extraordinarily desperate measures being taken by Confiscatory agents of the state to acquire more Bitcoin (archived), it appears Buterin's Waterfall may be nearing the end of its most effective days.
Apple App Store Suffers Sustained Attack, Spreads Malware to Customers
There are numerous reports that Apple's App store has been used to spread malware to customers forcing Apple to purge numerous Apps from the store (archived). The attack involved a social engineering vector where developers were convinced to use versions of Apple's Xcode IDE which had been implanted to spread malware in Apps produced with the implanted development software. This incident highlights serious risks posed by relying on gatekeepers to police malware in the way consumers have come to expect.
Trump Campaign Payment Processor Fleeces Donors
MWTW in Portland, Maine alleges a third party payment processor used by Donald Trump's presidential campaign is repeating donation charges and in at least one case was reported to have charged a man who entered payment information but decided not to purchase anything from the campaign's online store (archived). In all 13 charges were attempted of which 6 ended up successfully debiting a balance from the man's bank account. The station is referring to the charges as unauthorized while the payment processor blames a 'glitch' in their system. Continue reading
"Y Combinator" Too Generic To Trademark
The United States Patent and Trademark Office has ruled against startup and censorship incubator Y Combinator's petition to register their name as a trademark (archived). The office in making the decision noted that "Y Combinator" as a term of art used in computer science and mathematics is by its nature too generic to stand as a distinguishing mark denoting a particular trade venture.
Twitter Continues Flirtation With Politicians
After gifting politicians with an embargo against following their retractions, Twitter yesterday announced a further gift for politicians which begins with those running for office in the United States. In a blog post today (archived) that could not be contained within their otherwise customary 140 character limit, Twitter announced they would be unveiling "cash tags" facilitating donations to politicians named in a $cashtag through an arrangement with Jack Dorsey's social payments startup Square. Continue reading
Microsoft Preemptively Downloads Windows 10 On Windows 7 and 8 Boxes
In it's latest abuse of people commonly thought to be its customers, Microsoft is pre-emptively downloading gigabytes of Windows 10 installation files (archived) onto the machines of people who have expressed no interest in transitioning to Microsoft's newest software. This follows Microsoft's recent move to push telemetry, the greatest anti-feature of Windows 10 onto users who are declining the "free" upgrade to Windows 10. According to the Inquirer's report Windows users are complaining about this Microsoft compelled download unknowingly forcing some users on quota enforced broadband to exceed their usage limits and further exhausting some user's storage space. The situation of users still subjecting themselves to Windows has long been tenuous with serious ongoing security concerns, yet Microsoft keeps doubling down with the abuse.
MIT Sacrifices Rag in XTCoin Push
Since the original XTCoin fork of Bitcoin was announced MIT's Technology Review has been the solitary media outlet of note lending its complete and unreserved support to XTCoin's social media propaganda war. MIT's rag has effectively sacrificed whatever reputation it may have still had as it attempts to force a narrative that frames Gavin Andressen and Mike Hearn's efforts as an attempt to somehow save Bitcoin. The once storied Massachusetts Insitute of Technology, which has taken money from the United States Military to research Bitcoin prices and rescued Gavin Andressen from poverty when the Vessenes' Foundation collapsed is now set on burning the last of its credibility in an attack on Bitcoin.