Monthly Archives: February 2015

British Darkmarket Ricin Arrest

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A British man, Mohammed Ammer Ali, was arrested after allegedly attempting to buy ricin powder. He however was transacting with an FBI agent who fraudulently sent 5 vials of harmless white powder that was not the ricin he was alleged to have paid $500 for. The counterfeit ricin was marketed as actual ricin on a darkmarket website and delivered to Mister Ali hidden inside of a toy car. Ali is a father of two who is now facing charges under the United Kingdom's Chemical Weapons Act for receiving a toy car full of a substance that was not ricin at all. Continue reading →

Up To One Billion in Fiat Value Stolen From Banks

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Kaspersky Labs in a report to be released soon will allege that up to a Billion United States Dollars in fiat value appears to have been stolen in an operation that has persisted since at least late 2013. Unlike in many similar thefts, this one directly targeted the banks themselves rather than customer accounts. More than 100 banks spread across 30 countries have been affected. The thieves' modus operadi involves stealing up to 10 million dollars from each targeted bank before moving on to the next target. Continue reading →

Elizabeth Warren Balks on Opportunity to Act on Federal Reserve Criticisms

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Reason Magazine via the Wall Street Journal reports that freshman Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren has come out against legislation proposed by Kentucky Senator Rand Paul to audit the Federal Reserve. This is in spite of the fact that in the past she has called for investigations into corruption in the Federal Reserve banks. Continue reading →

PseudoNode Proxy Fools Bitcoin Full Node Incentive Program

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Vessennes' Bitcoin Foundation recently sponsored a full node incentive program that pays full nodes registered with a Bitcoin address weekly if deemed eligible. The incentive program's goal is to estimate the size of the Bitcoin network by finding all reachable nodes running bitcoind version 0.8 or higher, likely in an attempt to lower the barrier necessary for a possible fork. Continue reading →

Megaupload Programmer: Days From Arrest to Plea

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Andrus Nomm, a former programmer from the defuct file sharing website Megaupload was arrested earlier this week before entering a guilty plea and being sentenced this same week. Nomm plead guilty to felony copyright infringement and was sentenced to one year and one day in jail. One of Megaupload's lawyers confirmed for the New Zealand Herald that Nomm was involved in a deal or agreed to come to the US. Among other charges Nomm is accused of watching at least one pirated TV Show. It, as always, remains important to note that his prison sentence is happening exactly because he came to the United States of his own volition and still finds himself having walked into the prison himself.

Excoin Exchange To Shut Down Amid Claims Of Theft

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The altcoin exchange Excoin has announced that it will soon shut down after alleging that an attacker was able to withdraw all the bitcoins from the exchange.

With a trading engine written in Go, Excoin launched what was predominantly a Blackcoin exchange back in November of 2014. Excoin also featured a proof of reserve page which reassured members that their funds were securely stored and accounted for. Continue reading →