This weekend the Bitcoin Blockchain experienced a forking incident due a discrepancy between what the expectations of a group developing a Bitcoin network client named "Bitcoin Core" and the actual behavior of Bitcoin miners. The developers of the Bitcoin Core client through a process they refer to as "Bitcoin Improvement Proposals" or BIPs introduced a "soft" forking change into their client which would be triggered through a voting mechanism. In this case miners had appeared to vote in favor of BIP 66, which would have enforced stricter encoding of signatures in an attempt to address the transaction malleability issue which is most notable for having been used as a scapegoat by Mt Gox while actually having little to do with their collapse. Continue reading
Category Archives: News
Further Reddit Outrage as Unpaid Moderators Rebel
Beginning yesterday Reddit's volunteer moderators have been rebelling over the firing of the one administrator that they liked. This latest crisis for Reddit follows a previous blunder which last month saw a substantial influx of users moving from Reddit's platform and settling on Reddit competitor Voat. Voat has been down intermittently as they massage and further expand their infrastructure to accommodate the influx of new users.
Survey: More Than a Third of American Adults Would Expatriate
CNBC reports that a British venture has conducted a survey which found 35% or more than a third of American residents born in the United States and immigrants who settled in United States would like to expatriate to live in another country. More than half of young adults, 55%, are willing to abandon the United States as well. The United States Treasury department recorded 3,415 Americans formally renouncing their citizenship last year up from 348 in 1998. The number of American Citizens actually renouncing their citizenships began its trend of climbing steeply in 2010 when 1534 United States Citizens renounced citizenship compared to 742 in 2009.
Current Greek Capital Controls
Last Friday, Greece's Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras made a televised statement calling for a referendum on whether to accept the latest bailout deal offered by creditors. There were over 500 million euros withdrawn from ATMs on Saturday, with around 35% of ATMs running out of cash and being restocked at some point during the day. Continue reading
CUNY Keeps Bezzle Flowing to Krugman
The City University of New York at their latest Board of Trustees meeting has confirmed Paul Krugman's appointment as a "Distinguished Professor" at their Luxemborg Income Study Center. Krugman's work in the field of "Income Study" brings him 225,000 United States Dollars annually including a special 28,594 United States Dollar "honorarium" as a "Distinguished Professor" for serving in this part time position which Krugman hold on top of his primary job as a New York Times columnist. CUNY, an institution funded by New York City taxpayers, will be funnelling Krugman, a noted socialist and fan of inflationary monetary policy, this supplementary bezzle income indefinitely into the future.
OpenBSD Moving sudo to Ports
Earlier this month on a development mailing list Todd C. Miller, the current sudo developer and an OpenBSD contributor, announced that after consultation with Theo de Raadt the sudo utility in OpenBSD would be moving from the base system to the OpenBSD ports collection. The utility sudo was originally developed by Bob Coggeshall and Cliff Spencer at SUNY Buffalo for 4.1 BSD running on a VAX-11/750 sometime around 1980 and Todd C. Miller adopted sudo development in 1994. According to Theo de Raadt there are no immediate plans to introduce a tool to the base system as a replacement for sudo introducing a "gap" before considering potential base system replacements. The original superuser utility su will however remain a part of the base system.
ISIS About to Introduce Altcoin into Circulation
The physical, gold based, alternative currency which ISIS announced its intentions to introduce into general circulation back in November are reportedly in the process now of being introduced into circulation. More on ISIS's intentions surrounding their coins is available in Qntra's November report on the topic which is reproduced below. Continue reading
Carl Mark Force IV to Plead Guilty
Carl Mark Force IV, formerly of the United States Drug Enforcement Administration has reportedly entered an agreement to plead guilty charges stemming from his theft of Bitcoin from the Silk Road marketplace. This plea agreement follows that of Shaun Bridges who was charged the same day as Force IV in an unrelated case of theft from the Silk Road. Force IV is expected to enter his guilty plea formally in court on July 1st, 2015. Working for a venture called CoinMKT Force IV further committed theft from one of that firm's customers by freezing the customer's account balance and repossessing the value for himself. Force IV converted most of his stolen and extorted Bitcoin value to the local currency of the United States and had the local currency wired to bank accounts under his control adding to the evidence prosecutors were able to use to damn Force IV.
XOtika.tv Bitcoin Live Adult Entertainment Reaches Beta
Bitcoin entrepreneur Naphex recently unveiled a beta version of his adult webcam site XOtika.tv for public testing and enjoyment. At present the service is only tested to work on Google's Chrome web browser, but the technological aspects of the service are continually iterating at this time for continued improvement. Even at this early stage though Naphex has recruited a number of high quality talents to provide numerous entertainment options for viewers. Unlike some older services like LiveJasmin which have happened to eventually sign on with third party Bitcoin payment providers, XOtika is built around Bitcoin and works to leverage advantages inherent to Bitcoin for the benefit of users and performers. Between the solid and improving technological base and the early stable of high quality entertainers XOtika has the potential to be the first serious contender born in Bitcoin to enjoy success in the live online adult entertainment industry.
France Issues Humor Related Travel Warning For Visitors to the United States
The French government has updated its list of advisories for its citizens headed to the United States to include a warning that comments attitudes or jokes of a sexual nature which would be harmless in civilized Latin countries can lead to criminal court in the United States, with even children susceptible to prosecution for a broad range of related charges. The addition to the advisory reads: Continue reading