Monthly Archives: April 2016

Senior Swindler Sentenced

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The Florida Sun-Sentinial reports that a Canadian man was sentenced to 4 1/2 years in prison for swindling seniors out of nearly $1 million in funds, some of which were converted to Bitcoin in an attempt to make hiding them easier.(archived). Stephan Moskwyn pled guilty to a money laundering charge at a federal courthouse in Miami. The scheme involved social engineering tactics on Seniors and vulnerable people, often requesting the person send Bitcoin or Moneypaks to assist a relative in financial trouble. Moskwyn was arrested in a Miami International Airport terminal in October of 2015.

A search revealed no Mr. Moskwyn in The Most Serene Republic's Web of Trust.

Docker On List Of Companies Taking Quiet CIA Funding

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The Intercept has published a list of 38 companies involved in the datamining business1 that take undisclosed funding from the venture capital arm of the United States Central Intelligence Agency (archived). Among these companies was one not often though of in conjunction with the data mining business, Docker who develops software that leverages containers to ease the automated deployment of various kinds of application software. Docker last attracted the attention of Qntra when their employee and Debian founder Ian Murdock died following a violent encounter with police. Following his death Docker Inc. managed his affairs. Consider Docker harmful. Sorry for your loss. Peace in our time.

  1. Edit: Here is a link to a previous discussion of the CIA money disbursement machine. Many of the funded companies go beyond datamining and in fact engage in all kinds of snake oil. Some even produce products available for "civilian" use.  ↩

"Soft" Fork Advocate Proposes Harder Type Of "Soft" Fork

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Peter Todd, a noted soft fork proponent and developer currently on contract with the venture at one point known as BTC China, has since January been bringing up the possibility of a new kind of "soft" fork as a potential step towards a hard fork. This new class of turd is being referred to as a "Forced Soft Fork" with the forcing element being that it would become impossible to spend coins from actual Bitcoin clients without signing on to the new, unwanted, steaming pile of shit. Thankfully an actual Bitcoin implementation maintained by Bitcoin purists1 is available.

  1. As opposed to people who like the extant adoption and value of Bitcoin, but want to gradually change everything about Bitcoin other than its name into something completely different.  ↩

Voorhees ShapeShift Hit Inside Job?

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A recent update from ShapeShit.io owner Erik Voorhees indicates that the recent attack on their service was potentially an inside job. An announcement published earlier on Reddit states that the company has been working with a group of forensic specialists from Ledger Labs to investigate the theft, which involved an undisclosed amount of BTC and altcoins from their hot wallets. Voorhees further stated they are working to restore the service and would publish more information as it becomes available.

Journalist Sentenced Under US Hacking Laws

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Journalist Matthew Keys was sentenced to 24 months in prison by United States district judge Kimberly J. Mueller for allegedly turning over a username and password to television station KTXL Fox 40's web content management system. Prosecutors alleged that Keys did this in order to damage his former employer further alleging that Keys turned over the credentials to a fictitious hacker collective called 'Anonymous' and told them to have fun. Keys insists that the overzealous prosecution of the act, one that if he did it could barely be classed as criminal, has been carried out as retaliation for his refusal to abuse his position as a journalist in order to assist the FBI. The minutes of Key's sentencing are presented below: Continue reading →

Putin Providing Material Support To Trump-Clinton Candidacy

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As the candidacies of Donald Trump-Clinton and Hilary Rodham-Clinton have begun facing struggles these past few week in their respective races to replace Hussein Bahamas as the president of the United States, Russian president Vladimir Putin has decided to give their campaigns a shot in the arm. Putins aid has come in the form of bringing national security back in mix of froth being fed into the social engineering hopper. For the past few days Russian SU-24 warplanes have been making simulated attack runs against the guided missile destroyer USS Donald Cook. The warplanes have been making the passes without any visible armament and have reportedly come within 30 feet of the ship. A Russian KA-27 helicopter has even joined in the fun circling the Donald Cook several times. How much of an effect Putin's intervention in the remaining portion of the primary election process has remains to be seen.

As US Farmers Suffer Corn Imports To US Increase

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As the agricultural sector in the United States crumbles, the Wall Street journal reports that corn imports to the United States from South America are increasing at breakneck pace. This increase in imports is occurring as the movement of domestic corn to market has slowed to a trickle. Contributing to this structural problem is how much cheaper it is to move grain from South America by ocean than it is to move it inside the United States by rail. Rail transport prices remain high even as an increasing number of rail lines are being taken out of service and converted to trails for bicycle and pedestrian use. The continued growth of these intertwining problems is highly suggestive of the possibility that the United States has an actively undeveloping economy, a fact that creates opportunities for the actively developing economies in South America exploiting structurally broken US markets.

Ethereum Foundation Outsources Forum To Censorship Experiment

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The Ethereum community has announced it will be shutting down it's official forums in two weeks, preferring to congregate with all the other crypto-cretins on Reddit. Ethereum price has been in a freefall for some time, prices having dipped 2.51% in the past 24 hours alone. The move seems to suggest that community funds are spread thin at the moment, with need to allocate their resources in other areas in order to keep the scam afloat. The information in the forums will be preserved on archive.org for those that need a good laugh in the future.

ChangeTip The Company Bought, ChangeTip The Product Still For Sale.

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Airbnb, a website that allows people to list room for travelers, has acquired the failing micro payment service ChangeTip, according to qz.com. (source) (archived) ChangeTip managed to raise around 5 million dollars in startup funding from various groups, including Pantera Capital despite building their business model around servicing clueless reddit users. The deal reportedly did not include the ChangeTip codebase, which reddit user nobodybelievesyou described as "a bug riddled reddit bot and a stack of user data" (source)