A hard drive paging bug in the Windows game "Batman: Arkham Knight" is addressed in it latest patch by offering that for Windows 10 users having 12 gigabytes of RAM installed would prevent them from having to page the hard drive during gameplay (archived). Unmentioned is that this almost certainly needs to be available RAM not committed to other memory intense processes. The Windows port of the was originally released four months ago on June 23, 2015 and for many purchasers has yet to achieve a playable state. This game is far from the first piece of Windows software to be fatally flawed to an unusable extent.
Judge Orders Dotcom Begin Extradition Defense Monday
Judge Nevin Dawson has issued a ruling that he would refuse to hear the full arguments behind Kim Dotcom's application to have his extradition hearing stopped (archived). As a result his defense is compelled to begin presenting Dotcom's defense against the United States Government's extradition desires presented through the Crown Prosecutor on Monday.
Google Fiber Dissapoints First City to Host Service
The Kansas City Star reports that Google Fiber has severely disappointed Kansas City, home of the first Google Fiber installation (archived). This outage lead to Kansas City customers of Google Fiber missing the first inning and a half of their Royals playing in the World Series. The outage included the rare inside the park home run by Alcides Escobar on the first pitch of the game. Service was reportedly restored for most customers by 7:35, though some customers were still afflicted by the outage much later. Google representative Kelly Carnago said “We’re sorry for the inconvenience” and offered customers a two day service credit for depriving Kansas City of the least depressing thing happening there. Bitcoin mining "vendor" Butterfly Labs is/was located in a suburb of Kansas City.
Interview with David Francois on Building a Real Bitcoin Business
Operating a Bitcoin business is difficult and, a lot of times is the first step down the road which brings pretty much 9x% to crime within six months to a year (archived). With the excess influx of Venture Capital into companies pretending as to have any involvement with Bitcoin, I sat down with David "davout" Francois CTO of Paymium, formerly known as Bitcoin-Central, to talk about the fundamentals from his personal experience in developing a Bitcoin company that can survive the ruthless climate of the world of Bitcoin. Continue reading
Billion Dollar Blimp Brings Destruction
In the United States a Billion Dollar NORAD JLENS Blimp has broken free from its moorings and is leaving havoc and destruction as it roams. The JLENS mission is declared to be missile detection and defense, though the declared capabilities make it capable of abusive ground level surveillance. The wild blimp is dragging 6,700 feet of cable behind it shorting out power lines and leaving a pronounced trail on the earth underneath it.
Karpeles Arrested on Still More Embezzlement Charges
Shingetsu News Agency is reporting on their Twitter feed that Mt Gox CEO Mark Karpelès has been rearrested in Japan on still more embezzlement charges. Japanese police are only allowed to hold a suspect in detention for a limited period of time, so re-arrest on further charges is a common tactic used to keep charged suspects detained indefinitely before trial.
IRS Declares Cryptome Charity 2 Days After Key Revocation
On Cryptome's front page, the top is occupied by an announcement that they received a letter from the IRS dated September 17th granting them status as a 501(c)(3) charity whose donations are now tax deductible (archived). The date on the letter is only 2 days after the announcement of the revocation of then current Cryptome PGP keys. It is unknown if the events are connected, though the timing raises suspicions.
Judge Dismisses Charges Against Kentucky Drone Shooter
WDRB reports that Judge Rebecca Ward has dismissed all charges (archived) against the Kentucky Man who shot down a drone in defense of his property this July.
FBI Agent Encourages Paying Ransomware Demands
The Security Ledger report at a summit the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation Assistant Special Agent in Charge of the FBI’s CYBER and Counterintelligence Program at the Boston field office, Joseph Bonavolonta, encourages paying ransomware demands (archived). The quality of the encryption implementations utilized in ransomware is frequently too high for his office to do anything to recover the affected files. As a prophylactic measure he encouraged healthy backup measures so systems could at least be restored to a pre-ransomware state.
EU Court Rules Bitcoin Above VAT
Yesterday the EU Court of Justice relased a ruling (archived) stating that transactions exchanging Bitcoin for fiat currency are exempt from the VAT (Value Added Tax). This puts Bitcoin exchange transactions in the same VAT exempt class as exchanges between other currencies or similar financial instruments.