Blog Post On Insurance Disappears From BitGo Website

On February 25th 2015 BitGo, the firm which "held" the recently liberated Bitfinex customer coins in a sort of deviant escrow demanded by the United States Commodity and Futures Trading Commision, published a blog post on how they were insured against theft. That blog post is no longer available on BitGo's website. Bitstamp reportedly also uses BitGo in a similar capacity though they assure customers that the particulars of their arrangement are so different this could never happen to their customers.

P2SH considered harmful, sorry for your loss.

Phree Software Download Website Fosshub Distributed MBR Tainting Malware

This week the free software download website Fosshub distributed master boot record tainting malware after reportedly being compromised (archived). The alleged attackers are trumpeting that in spite of producing malware that infected the master boot record of affected machines, that bundling further malware with an impact beyond vandalizing machine start up output was too much for them. Such claims are to be taken with a grain of salt and affected machines cleansed with fire. Sorry for your loss.

Woman's Facebook Account Suspended During Fatal Standoff

Korryn Gaines (WOT:nonperson) was killed by Baltimore County police during a standoff. Before killing the 23 year old woman police requested that Facebook suspend the social media accounts she was using to broadcast her personal revolution. Facebook obliged, she died. Apparently the revolution will not be Facebooked, Instagrammed or Whatapp'd.1 Peace in our time.


  1. As these are all Facebook social media properties.  

First US Cop Faces Terrorism Charges, Crime: Buying Gift Cards

In what mainstream media is reporting as the first case of terrorism charges targeting a law enforcement officer in the United States, a DC area transit cop bought ~250 United States dollars worth of gift cards (archived). Prosecutors allege he then distributed the gift card codes to FBI agents so that those FBI agents could buy paid mobile messaging apps for the Islamic State.

Law enforcement officers not facing terrorism charges in the United States include:

Those most be some serious mobile messaging apps.

Yet Another Underwhelming Effort To Fork Bitcoin Unveiled

After the grossly underwhelming reveal of last month's "Terminator Plan" hard fork buzz this month brings yet another social engineering attempt. A new subreddit named "btcfork" was publicly announced and it swiftly filled with a bunch of activity from people who won't attach names to the positions they are trying to advance. Apparently having people with names was the problem this whole time! This latest attempt comes after Ethereum hard forked with substantial lulz. The nameless posters however insist that this will be different and successful. Sorry fork, your loss.

Network Difficulty Experiences Modest Drop Of ~5.4% In Second Change Post Halving

Bitcoin network difficulty fell ~5.43 percent from 213492501107.51336670 to 201893210853.05895996 in its second adjustment following the second halving of the Bitcoin block reward subsidy. The first adjustment following the halving was a very slight increase in difficulty. Paired with the bleeding and breaking occurring among fiat/Bitcoin interfaces it looks like the short term forecast is "there will be lulz."

Coinbase Engineering Director Jokes That Roger VERified Their Coins Are Safe

Coinbase Director of Engineering Charles Lee1 (WOT:coblee) today joked on Twitter that Roger Ver has VERified the Coinbase coins are safe. Roger similarly VERified that the coins at Mt Gox were safe and present in their reserves up until the moment Mt Gox died and even then for a bit of time after that. The history of Roger VERified jokes stretches back to December of 2012.

In December 2012 Roger Ver (WOT:nonperson) used his access to the administrative panel of Blockchain.info in order to compromise the supposedly secret information of a user of that service following a dispute over a payment error made by an unrelated venture of Roger Ver's (archived). The payment error was for 4.5119 Bitcoin, an amount that summed to less than 50 United States dollars at a time when buying that amount of Bitcoin was still an easy task.2

Compounding Roger Ver's mistake was his attempt at a cover up insisting that he was a sufficiently special snowflake to have all threads discussing the matter retitled, locked,  and deleted (archived). At the time MPOE-PR (WOT:hanbot) wrote of his efforts:

We're not discussing the "change the thread title" part of your statement. We're discussing the "better yet, lock the thread and ask the mods to delete it" part of your statement.

It is not this thread that is causing undue alarm. The alarm is very much due, this BS of divulging customer details is widespread to the point of universality. Aurum did it, MtGox did it, the list is pretty much "everyone except MPEx". This has to cease, universally, as it has no place in BTC.

The other thing that has to cease is the unwarranted delusions of self importance. You personally are not great enough to request moderators to delete the signs of your stupidity "so as not to harm bitcoin". Should you want to request it, do it in the adequate terms, which are "I've been really stupid, please delete this before it ruins my reputation".

That aside, you personally are not big enough to harm Bitcoin, for one, and moreover this "too big to fail" mentality and the corresponding expectation of throwing everything to the wind for the sake of propping up random doods with self-awarded VIP status is completely irrational.

Since the Blockchain.info episode Roger Ver has continued his pursuit of pennies at the expense of potential fortunes. He publicly defended the insovlent Mt Gox, engaged in premature passport shennanigans that greatly restricted his ability to travel, further sold his illusion of credibility in the XTCoin and ClassicCoin pushes, and jumped on the ether huffing train shortly before their huffing bag detonated. Sorry for your Roger VERified loss.


  1. Of "Litecoin" infamy. Litecoin was this "better Bitcoin" endorsed by Wired Magazine in August 2013 much like DogeCoin and Ethereum would later be "better Bitcoins" endorsed by mainstream media rags until they sunk.  

  2. It was indeed less that four years ago that a person could acquire 5 whole Bitcoins for less than the price of a nice restaurant meal.  

Gawker Media's Nick Denton Personally Files For Bankruptcy

Gawker Media founder Nick Denton (WOT:nonperson) filed for bankruptcy protection. This follows Gawker Media's filing back in June. This bankruptcy filing follows Denton fraudulently misrepresenting to the court value of the Gawker Media stock posted as bond following the loss by his company and himself personally to Hulk Hogan. The day after Denton posted the Gawker media stock as bond, Gawker media filed for bankruptcy. Failing to take personal responsibility for his failings, Denton blames fellow homosexual in tech Peter Thiel (WOT:nonperson) for using his play money to support litigation against Denton and Gawker Media for outing Thiel's homosexuality. Sorry for your loss.

Black Lives Matter Releases Segregationist Demands

A group calling itself "The movement for Black Lives" claiming to speak as the voice of all smaller "Black Lives Matter" groups has issued a policy platform centered around six demands. Each of the six demands is composed of numerous sub demands. The demands are:

  1. End the war on Black people

    We demand an end to the war against Black people. Since this country’s inception there have been named and unnamed wars on our communities. We demand an end to the criminalization, incarceration, and killing of our people. This includes:

    An immediate end to the criminalization and dehumanization of Black youth across all areas of society including, but not limited to; our nation’s justice and education systems, social service agencies, and media and pop culture. This includes an end to zero-tolerance school policies and arrests of students, the removal of police from schools, and the reallocation of funds from police and punitive school discipline practices to restorative services.
    An end to capital punishment.
    An end to money bail, mandatory fines, fees, court surcharges and “defendant funded” court proceedings.
    An end to the use of past criminal history to determine eligibility for housing, education, licenses, voting, loans, employment, and other services and needs.
    An end to the war on Black immigrants including the repeal of the 1996 crime and immigration bills, an end to all deportations, immigrant detention, and Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) raids, and mandated legal representation in immigration court.
    An end to the war on Black trans, queer and gender nonconforming people including their addition to anti-discrimination civil rights protections to ensure they have full access to employment, health, housing and education.
    An end to the mass surveillance of Black communities, and the end to the use of technologies that criminalize and target our communities (including IMSI catchers, drones, body cameras, and predictive policing software).
    The demilitarization of law enforcement, including law enforcement in schools and on college campuses.
    An immediate end to the privatization of police, prisons, jails, probation, parole, food, phone and all other criminal justice related services.
    Until we achieve a world where cages are no longer used against our people we demand an immediate change in conditions and an end to public jails, detention centers, youth facilities and prisons as we know them. This includes the end of solitary confinement, the end of shackling of pregnant people, access to quality healthcare, and effective measures to address the needs of our youth, queer, gender nonconforming and trans families.

  2. Reparations

    We demand reparations for past and continuing harms. The government, responsible corporations and other institutions that have profited off of the harm they have inflicted on Black people — from colonialism to slavery through food and housing redlining, mass incarceration, and surveillance — must repair the harm done. This includes:

    Reparations for the systemic denial of access to high quality educational opportunities in the form of full and free access for all Black people (including undocumented and currently and formerly incarcerated people) to lifetime education including: free access and open admissions to public community colleges and universities, technical education (technology, trade and agricultural), educational support programs, retroactive forgiveness of student loans, and support for lifetime learning programs.
    Reparations for the continued divestment from, discrimination toward and exploitation of our communities in the form of a guaranteed minimum livable income for all Black people, with clearly articulated corporate regulations.
    Reparations for the wealth extracted from our communities through environmental racism, slavery, food apartheid, housing discrimination and racialized capitalism in the form of corporate and government reparations focused on healing ongoing physical and mental trauma, and ensuring our access and control of food sources, housing and land.
    Reparations for the cultural and educational exploitation, erasure, and extraction of our communities in the form of mandated public school curriculums that critically examine the political, economic, and social impacts of colonialism and slavery, and funding to support, build, preserve, and restore cultural assets and sacred sites to ensure the recognition and honoring of our collective struggles and triumphs.
    Legislation at the federal and state level that requires the United States to acknowledge the lasting impacts of slavery, establish and execute a plan to address those impacts. This includes the immediate passage of H.R.40, the “Commission to Study Reparation Proposals for African-Americans Act” or subsequent versions which call for reparations remedies.

  3. Invest-Divest

    We demand investments in the education, health and safety of Black people, instead of investments in the criminalizing, caging, and harming of Black people. We want investments in Black communities, determined by Black communities, and divestment from exploitative forces including prisons, fossil fuels, police, surveillance and exploitative corporations. This includes:

    A reallocation of funds at the federal, state and local level from policing and incarceration (JAG, COPS, VOCA) to long-term safety strategies such as education, local restorative justice services, and employment programs.
    The retroactive decriminalization, immediate release and record expungement of all drug related offenses and prostitution, and reparations for the devastating impact of the “war on drugs” and criminalization of prostitution, including a reinvestment of the resulting savings and revenue into restorative services, mental health services, job programs and other programs supporting those impacted by the sex and drug trade.
    Real, meaningful, and equitable universal health care that guarantees: proximity to nearby comprehensive health centers, culturally competent services for all people, specific services for queer, gender nonconforming, and trans people, full bodily autonomy, full reproductive services, mental health services, paid parental leave, and comprehensive quality child and elder care.
    A constitutional right at the state and federal level to a fully-funded education which includes a clear articulation of the right to: a free education for all, special protections for queer and trans students, wrap around services, social workers, free health services (including reproductive body autonomy), a curriculum that acknowledges and addresses students’ material and cultural needs, physical activity and recreation, high quality food, free daycare, and freedom from unwarranted search, seizure or arrest.
    A divestment from industrial multinational use of fossil fuels and investment in community- based sustainable energy solutions.
    A cut in military expenditures and a reallocation of those funds to invest in domestic infrastructure and community well-being.

  4. Economic Justice

    We demand economic justice for all and a reconstruction of the economy to ensure Black communities have collective ownership, not merely access. This includes:

    A progressive restructuring of tax codes at the local, state, and federal levels to ensure a radical and sustainable redistribution of wealth.
    Federal and state job programs that specifically target the most economically marginalized Black people, and compensation for those involved in the care economy. Job programs must provide a living wage and encourage support for local workers centers, unions, and Black-owned businesses which are accountable to the community.
    A right to restored land, clean air, clean water and housing and an end to the exploitative privatization of natural resources — including land and water. We seek democratic control over how resources are preserved, used and distributed and do so while honoring and respecting the rights of our Indigenous family.
    The right for workers to organize in public and private sectors especially in “On Demand Economy” jobs.
    Restore the Glass-Steagall Act to break up the large banks, and call for the National Credit Union Administration and the US Department of the Treasury to change policies and practices around regulation, reporting and consolidation to allow for the continuation and creation of black banks, small and community development credit unions, insurance companies and other financial institutions.
    An end to the Trans-Pacific Partnership and a renegotiation of all trade agreements to prioritize the interests of workers and communities.
    Through tax incentives, loans and other government directed resources, support the development of cooperative or social economy networks to help facilitate trade across and in Black communities globally. All aid in the form of grants, loans or contracts to help facilitate this must go to Black led or Black supported networks and organizations as defined by the communities.
    Financial support of Black alternative institutions including policy that subsidizes and offers low-interest, interest-free or federally guaranteed low-interest loans to promote the development of cooperatives (food, residential, etc.), land trusts and culturally responsive health infrastructures that serve the collective needs of our communities.
    Protections for workers in industries that are not appropriately regulated including domestic workers, farm workers, and tipped workers, and for workers — many of whom are Black women and incarcerated people— who have been exploited and remain unprotected. This includes the immediate passage at the Federal and state level of the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights and extension of worker protections to incarcerated people.

  5. Community Control

    We demand a world where those most impacted in our communities control the laws, institutions, and policies that are meant to serve us – from our schools to our local budgets, economies, police departments, and our land – while recognizing that the rights and histories of our Indigenous family must also be respected. This includes:

    Direct democratic community control of local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies, ensuring that communities most harmed by destructive policing have the power to hire and fire officers, determine disciplinary action, control budgets and policies, and subpoena relevant agency information.
    An end to the privatization of education and real community control by parents, students and community members of schools including democratic school boards and community control of curriculum, hiring, firing and discipline policies.
    Participatory budgeting at the local, state and federal level.

  6. Political Power

    We demand independent Black political power and Black self-determination in all areas of society. We envision a remaking of the current U.S. political system in order to create a real democracy where Black people and all marginalized people can effectively exercise full political power. This includes:

    An end to the criminalization of Black political activity including the immediate release of all political prisoners and an end to the repression of political parties.
    Public financing of elections and the end of money controlling politics through ending super PACs and unchecked corporate donations.
    Election protection, electoral expansion and the right to vote for all people including: full access, guarantees, and protections of the right to vote for all people through universal voter registration, automatic voter registration, pre-registration for 16-year-olds, same day voter registration, voting day holidays, enfranchisement of formerly and presently incarcerated people, local and state resident voting for undocumented people, and a ban on any disenfranchisement laws.
    Full access to technology including net neutrality and universal access to the internet without discrimination and full representation for all.
    Protection and increased funding for Black institutions including Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU’s), Black media and cultural, political and social formations.

Peace in our time.

Campus Intolerance: Uttering "All Lives Matter" On Social Media Gets Student Sanctioned

Certifiably brown Texas student Rohini Sethi1was suspended from the University of Houston student government after she uttered “Forget #BlackLivesMatter; more like AllLivesMatter.” while not being brown enough on social media. For offering the wrong empathy Sethi faces the following sanctions:

  • 50 Day unpaid suspension from her paid2 student government position.
  • Compulsory attendance at an August diversity workshop and three university sponsored cultural events every month from September through March with the exception of December.
  • Compulsory writing of a "letter of reflection" about how her TweetCrime has impacted the student government and the University of Houston as a whole.
  • Mandatory public presentation on September 28th, 2016 on “the knowledge she has gained about cultural issues facing our society.”

Handing down the punishment white Student Government Commisar Shane Smith3 (WOT:nonperson) attributed the intensity of Sethi's sanctions to her failure to acknowledge just how much more the class of black lives matter at the moment compared to the class of all lives.4 Smith was granted one time powers to punish Sethi as he saw fit in a vote that only required a simple majority, because kicking her out of her paid Government club gig would have required mustering a 3/4 majority and a trial5  in front of Student Supreme Court.6

Shane Smith on the implications on his decision on speech at the University of Houston offered:

The first amendment [sic] prevents a person from being jailed by the governmetn [sic] for what they say. But [it] does not prevent people from receiving other consequences for what they say.

Apparently you can't get a university education in Texas.


  1. Vice President of the University of Houston's Student Government association and WOT:nonperson  

  2. ~700 United States Dollars monthly  

  3. Self declared 3.4 GPA anticipated graduation Spring 2017 with a major in economics. Considering graduate school and full time employment according to his LinkedIN. 

  4. In fact lives do not matter all that much.  

  5. Shane Smith is a member of the University of Houston Mock Trial Association.  

  6. And everyone knows Supreme Courts are clogged with old white men with names like Clarence Thomas, Sonya Sotomayor, Elena Kagen, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and son of an immigrant Samuel Alito.