Twitter Suspends Oregon Hero's Account

Twitter today suspended the account of Ammon Bundy, a member of the militia which liberated a portion of Oregon from Federal Forces. No explanation is available from Twitter as to why they are denying Bundy use of their platform (archived). Twitter has made it clear in the past that it would rather please the arthritic establishment than offer the future any quarter on its closed platform. Now matter how much various Silicon Valley properties say they value freedom of speech on their platforms, they continue to exclude actual dissidents with speech worth protecting.

Bitcoin Foundation Address Recap

The Bitcoin Foundation opened the year with a State of Bitcoin Address sharing a few developments as the Foundation continues in its second year of work. The address is highlighted by the Foundation's impending move to tag their reference client version 0.5.4 with the release label. Other developments include: Continue reading

Ian Murdock Dead After Police Encounter

Debian founder Ian Murdock reportedly died after an altercation with police. Murdock reported on social media having been beaten by police. Some of his tweets suggested that he may have been sodomized by a female officer of the San Francisco County Sheriff's Department (archived). His last public communication was the assertion he would not be committing suicide until he could recount the police brutality incident in a blog post. Murdock's authorship of the tweets cannot however be authenticated. Murdock's current employer Docker is handling his remaining worldly affairs. Reliable information on the end of Murdock's life is unlikely to ever become available.

Juniper Fiasco: Greenwald Complicit In Sustaining Mass Surveillance

Vonnegut's AssholeIt was after Juniper burned a vulnerability in its products used to support NSA and GCHQ spying, and after independent researchers discovered the nature of the back door (archived) that Glen Greenwald, formerly of the Guardian, revealed that this vulnerability was in a stash of disclosures he received more than two years ago from Edward Snowden. Greenwald's reveal came six days after Juniper disclosed the existence of the backdoor and a day after independent researches began presenting serious evidence indicating the backdoor was born in the USA. Continue reading

Dark Horse Brian Forde Tops CoinDesk's 2015 Influencer List

Brian Forde with phallus near mouthIn the CoinDesk ranking of "most influential" people "in Bitcoin and Blockchain" allegedly determined through a reader vote, dark horse candidate Brian Forde won by coming in second only to obligatory first place winner Satoshi Nakamoto (archived). Forde is the director of MIT's Digital Currency Initiative, the Ford Edsel (archived) of organizations orbiting and trying to subvert Bitcoin.

Forde's tenure at the MIT Digital Currency Initiative precedes that of Gavin Andresen by only a week with Forde arriving on April 15th while Gavin joined up a week later. Prior to arriving in this corner of the MIT Media lab Forde worked in the White House for the Hussein Bahamas administration where as per his MIT biography: Continue reading

Judge Nevin Dawson: Dotcom Can Be Extradited To United States

New Zealand District Court Judge Nevin Dawson has ruled that Kim Dotcom can be extradited to the United States (archived). Dotcom's extradition hearing began in September with Dotcom finally presenting his defense back in October. Dotcom plans to appeal the decision and has in the past received markedly more favorable outcomes from New Zealand appellate courts, including a rebuke of the asset forfeitures imposed upon him. The lower courts however have consistently ruled in a manner favorable to the United States Department of "Justice" which seeks to prosecute Dotcom in spite of Dotcom having never been a United States Person under any reasonable definition. Dotcom and his alleged co defendants will continue to reside in New Zealand on bail while the Appeal moves forward, but because this ruling "increased their flight risk" they now have to comply with more onerous demands including twice weekly reports at police stations.