Today Mircea Popescu offers a proposal which he is mulling as a necessary condition for any fundamental change to the Bitcoin protocol to receive his approval. The proposal would strengthen the bond between Bitcoin miners and nodes. Popescu is pledging to sink any hard fork proposal that does not include these changes, but if these changes are to be adopted he is willing to negotiate changes to the Bitcoin protocol including a maximum blocksize increase.
Category Archives: The Law
Ether Huffing Reddit Spam Persists
Private message spam on the social engineering platform Reddit supporting the dreams and aspersations of Ether huffers continues without any sign of abatement. The continued spam promoting Buterin's waterfall suggests that either Reddit is incapable of controlling spam, or that they actually support this spam at a high level. The lack of more traditional spam promoting online pharmacies, LVMH merchandise, and other marginal commercial ventures seems to demonstrate that Reddit actually has the technical ability to prevent spam. This leaves the very real possibility that Reddit management materially supports this spam campaign as the increasingly probable explanation for the spam campaign's persistence.
Bitcoin Foundation Address Recap: Next Release Imminent, Shiva Introduced
A flurry of activity at the Bitcoin Foundation in January, much of which has already been covered on Qntra, has lead up to a code freeze for the next release of the reference Bitcoin daemon. The address covers a number of developments relevant to the upcoming release including makefile contributions, Malleus Mikehearnificarum, a switch for toggling between enforcement of low-s or high-s signature creation, refinement of the programmable version strings mechanism, and further iteration of the V provenance management system.
One particularly interesting development which will miss this release, but likely play a key part in the future of the reference client was given a brief mention. In late January asciilifeform of No Such lAbs introduced Shiva, an experimental Lisp shell for interacting with bitcoind. Shiva's introduction introduces a number of possible development directions, all of which are far more interesting than various coups intending to impose governance upon Bitcoin through sloppy hard fork plans.
Chiraqi Police Sabotaging Surveillance Equipment
Have you ever wondered why those squad car dashcam videos you see on the nightly news are so often silent? Continue reading
Article On Swedish Murder Censored In Sweden
An article in the Daily Mail on the stabbing death of student social worker Alexandra Mezher (archived) has reportedly been censored in Sweden. Users in Sweden are being redirected to a url on the Daily Mail website named /unavailable/index.html which apologizes for being "unable to find" the article. Beyond the circumstances of the murder, the Daily Mail article describes an increase in violence affecting many Swedish population centers which makes Gothenburg increasingly resemble the United States hell hole known as James Lafond Presents Baltimore.
Russian Communists Seek To Emulate United States Socialists With Asset Forfeiture
Russia Today reports that two communist legislators are trying to bring United States style asset forfeiture back into the Russian legal system as a penalty for extralegal pharmaceutical entrepreneurs (archived). Asset forfeiture which came into popularity with United States "law enforcement" with the "War on Drugs" has of course expanded to become a default punishment for all kinds of behavior the United States Government has decided is undesirable. Assumptions about asset forfeiture have become so engrained into the United States legal system that surprise was in no short supply when New Zealand rejected assertions by United States Department of "Justice" that there is nothing wrong with using asset forfeiture to deny defendants access to resources necessary to their legal defense.
Oregon Standoff Supplanted In US Media By Celebrity Drama
The stand off initiated by Federal forces to reclaim an outpost liberated by Militants has taken a violent turn with Lavoy Finicum becoming a martyr in a hail of Federal bullets and Ryan Bundy suffering a gunshot wound. The Federal Bureau of Investigation and Oregon state police have begun a siege against the remaining militia's free outpost in Oregon, and an agent of the court proclaiming to speak for the captured Ammon Bundy is encouraging the remaining militia forces to surrender. Yet mainstream media outlets in the United States are trying to whip the population into a fervor over a different kind of stand off with far less at stake. Continue reading
Militia Hero Killed, Ammon Bundy And Several Others Captured
The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Oregon State police killed one Militia hero and captured six members of the liberating Militia in Oregon. Lavoy Finicum was reportedly killed after Federal Forces initiated hostilities when militia members were travelling to perform community outreach in a nearby town outside the borders of the liberated zone. One of the captured Militia men was further wounded. Those reportedly captured were:
- Ammon Bundy
- Ryan Bundy1
- Brian Cavalier
- Shawna Cox
- Ryan Payne
- Peter Santill
Other militias remain in the liberated zone armed, and now likely at a far higher state of alert. The federal forces' local Roland Freisler has drawn up for all of the captured heroes felony charges of:
conspiracy to impede officers of the United States from discharging their official duties through the use of force, intimidation, or threats, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 372.
This escalation to lethal violence on the part of Federal Terrorist leader Barack Hussein Obama comes as Militia liberators were winning the war of ideas. These heroes took a peaceful stand seeking the Federal government turn away from despotism and towards its constitutional bounds. Federal forces resorted in desperation to escalating the confrontation to violence as they lacked the patience and resolve to even try winning the moral contest. Why should residents of the United States worry about any foreign threats to their life or freedom when the Federal government presents such an immediate threat?
Update: Ryan Bundy was the casualty wounded by a gunshot. ↩
Obamacare Firm Loses Personal Information
Obamacare firm Centene is reportedly searching for six missing hard drives which contain personal financial and health information on up to a million Americans (archived). Because of the peculiar way the fiat financial system does business without strong cryptographic certainty, the kind of personal information contained on these drives is likely of supreme interest to all manner of thieves.
NACDL Amicus: Silk Road Warrant Unconstitutional According To 4th Amendment
As the build up to the Ross Ulbrict's appellate hearing continues, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers has filed an amicus brief criticizing the unconstitutionality of the investigation which lead to the persecution of Ross Ulbricht. The move comes as militia operations motivated by other breaches of the United States constitution by the Federal government have resulted in the liberation of substantial portions of Oregon. Whether the appellate court follows Judge Katherine Forrest in rejecting sanity and constitutional limits remains to be seen. Continue reading