Tesla motors is recalling ever single Model S sedan after a piece of vital life safety equipment failed on a sedan in Europe (archived). In the failed example the front seatbelt was not properly attached to the outboard pretensioner. This documenetd failure reportedly involved no injuries. Apparently the safety advice "Buckle up buckaroo" is no guarantee of actual safety in Tesla's sedans in their present state. Alleged Silk Road 2 operator Blake Benthall owned a Tesla Model S.
Venture Capital Fuels Stupidity In Bitcoin Not Innovation
Venture Capitalists have been flocking to Bitcoin recently in what seems to be a poorly orchestrated fiat invasion. They intend to bring the problems of too much money to Bitcoin and its related "businesses". A very small fraction of the VC capital is hitting the market for Bitcoin, which may be an attempt to assert some sort of fiat control over Bitcoin through price suppression. Continue reading
EU Planning Bitcoin "Crackdown"
Reports are emerging that the European Union is planning some sort of "crackdown" on Bitcoin in the wake of the Paris mass shooting amid allegations that ISIS has some Bitcoins. This is in spite of the declared intention of ISIS and their actual movement to establish a precious metals based monetary system in their caliphate. Estimates floating around in the media suggest that if ISIS has a stash of Bitcoin, its value is roughly the equivalent of 3 million United States Dollars, a figure which is substantially lower than the value of some individual pieces of military equipment which has found its way to ISIS through the United States. Continue reading
Current Bitcoin-XT Incompatible with BIP-65
Last year Qntra reported on BIP-65 which adds a new opcode OP_HODL which prevents nLockTime transactions from being double spent before the nLockTime threshold is reached on the Blockchain. Miners following the developers of the "Core" Bitcoin client have been adopting BIP-65, with approximately 25% of the last found blocks claiming to be ready for the soft fork on the version string in the block header. If or when BIP-65 is triggered, it may spell trouble for Mike Hearn's Bitcoin-XT due to deliberate incompatibility. Continue reading
Paris Mass Shooters Used Plaintext SMS to Coordinate
According to French police during a raid where they killed the alleged coordinator of last Friday's mass shooting in Paris, a phone was found with plaintext SMS messages used in coordinating the event (archived). The Paris mass shooting different from those in the United States where such events occur with greater frequency in that the the French attack utilized a group of allegedly 8 shooters while such events in the United States more typically involve shooters working as individuals or pairs. French President Hollande has responded to the mass shooting with a declaration of emergency and the suspension of numerous civil rights for French citizens. Hollande has issued statement to the effect of assuring all French citizens regardless of their religious or ethnic background that their civil rights have been suspended equally.
Larcenous Winkelvii Exchange Hits $2200/BTC, Recants
Shortly before Qntra experience significant downtime this week due to a hardware failure, the Gemini "exchange" reversed a trade that had on Friday November 13th taken the traded price of Bitcoin on that exchange to 2200 United States dollars per Bitcoin. Gemini's "account review team" along with their "executive management" by their own reports conspired to brand the trades a "customer error" and reversed the trades leaving some other parties to these trades with zero or negative balances as they had continued trading after the earlier trade. Winkelvii apologists are blaming fiat market "obvious error rules" for the reversal, though the volume of the trades that took Gemini out of concordance and to 2200 United States Dollars was only 80 Bitcoins suggesting a critically thin order book which makes all attempts at actually trading on that exchange the result of erroneous judgement.
"Core" Bitcoin Client to Drop Transaction Priority
According to a mailing list post by Matt Corallo plans are in the works to drop transaction priority relay and mining code from the Bitcoin client "Core" in its 0.12 release (archived). "Core" is the Bitcoin Client whose development was formerly supported and directed by the Vessenes' Foundation, in contrast to the bitcoind client 'therealbitcoin' maintained by the Bitcoin Foundation. Earlier this week the developers of the "Core" client released a version 11.2 which introduces soft forking code to implement a time locking feature referred to as "Check Lock Time Verify" and designated BIP 65. This summer a soft forking change designated BIP 66 lead to several chain splits and reorganizations when it was triggered.
Colorado Springs Drops Police Fitness Tests After Suit
After a judge's ruling in a discrimination suit, the Colorado Springs police department has dropped physical fitness tests for police officers (archived). The ruling comes after a discrimination lawsuit was brought upon the department by 12 female officers over the age of 40 who were moved from patrol to desk duty after failing the physical fitness test. The suit will now move to federal court and Colorado Springs police chief Pete Carey hopes to to able to resume evaluating officer physical fitness next year. In the interim the 12 officers party to the suit will be moved back to patrol.
US Supreme Court to Weigh Total Pre-Trial Asset Freezes
This week the United States Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Luis v. United States in which the United States Department of "Justice" is arguing it may seize all of a defendant's assets including those with no possible "criminal taint" before a case goes to trial (archived). The Department of "Justice" is arguing that it may seize any property which could later be used to satisfy a judgement even though doing so completely obliterates the defendant's ability to mount a credible defense. The Department of "Justice" tried to use this argument against foreign national Kim Dotcom, and it was rejected by the local courts in New Zealand who recognized that actual justice and fair trials depend on the defendant having an opportunity to challenge the prosecution's allegations.
Yik Yak Use Leads To Arrest
A teenager studying computer engineering at the Missouri University of Science and Technology in Rolla was reportedly arrested at his residence hall and rendered under the cover of darkness to the Boone County Jail in Columbia, Missouri. The teenage student is alleged to have posted text to the so called anonymous local message board app "Yik Yak" which the police are alleging was a "criminal terroristic threat" (archived). In a blog post today operators of the "Yik Yak" platform confirmed that they cooperate with law enforcement agencies and share information. It appears the civil unrest in Columbia, Missouri and at the Mizzou campus is continuing to escalate in spite of Monday's resignation of President Tim Wolfe. Numerous examples of conflict between students and faculty trying to continue the academic business of the university are emerging in local media, including that of professor of nutrition Dr. Dale Brigham whose attempt to resign his position after student uproar over his decision to dare holding class and an exam on Wednesday is not being recognized by the University (archived). Continue reading