Category Archives: Billing

US NRA On The Ropes Amid State Financial Deplatforming Attack

Posted on by

The US National Rifle Association, an organization that has long been a major financial supporter of more than half of active US politicians at any given time, is in peril after facing a financial deplatforming attack led by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo (archived). As a result of Cuomo's blacklist campaign the NRA has lost its general liability insurance and is having extraordinary difficulty accessing the fiat financial services their organization depends on.

Politically motivated deplatforming campaigns have typically been limited in effect to denying social media access and occasionally financial services to figures outside the political mainstream on popular platforms. By contrast the National Rifle Association has long been a pillar of mainstream US politics serving to moderate the mass of would be conservative voters into a form more malleable to "our democracy" by promising them no matter what horrors may come, at least they could keep their guns. That's a rather tepid proposition for this age of The Great Again.

Payment Card Industry Clings To SSLv3 And TLS 1.0 For Two More Years

Posted on by

Yesterday the Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council (PCI SSC) announced it has decided to extend its deadline for the fiat payment card industry to abandon SSL version 3 and TLS version 1.0 all the way into June of 2018 (archived). Back in April they had tried to set a June 2016 deadline parties handling fiat payment cards to move up to at least TLS version 1.1 or higher in light of POODLE, SHA1 weakness, and other protocol level attacks. General Manager Stephen Orfei of the PCI SSC blames "business issues" for the extension. These extra two years create the potential for massive fraud involving intercepted payment card information, but massive fraud is an inherent part of the fiat system.

Eyewitness: People Walking Out of BitPay Office in Tears

Posted on by

According to a known and reliable eyewitness numerous people have been spotted leaving the BitPay office in tears. This suggests rumors of further rounds of layoffs at BitPay. The witness further suggest that the marketing department was hit hard as many people's phone lines at BitPay no longer work. BitPay's struggles over the last year suggest high burn rate is a severe danger to companies starting up in the Bitcoin space.

Trump Campaign Payment Processor Fleeces Donors

Posted on by

MWTW in Portland, Maine alleges a third party payment processor used by Donald Trump's presidential campaign is repeating donation charges and in at least one case was reported to have charged a man who entered payment information but decided not to purchase anything from the campaign's online store (archived). In all 13 charges were attempted of which 6 ended up successfully debiting a balance from the man's bank account. The station is referring to the charges as unauthorized while the payment processor blames a 'glitch' in their system. Continue reading →

Twitter Continues Flirtation With Politicians

Posted on by

After gifting politicians with an embargo against following their retractions, Twitter yesterday announced a further gift for politicians which begins with those running for office in the United States. In a blog post today (archived) that could not be contained within their otherwise customary 140 character limit, Twitter announced they would be unveiling "cash tags" facilitating donations to politicians named in a $cashtag through an arrangement with Jack Dorsey's social payments startup Square. Continue reading →

Ashley Madison Hacked

Posted on by

Extramarital dating site Ashley Madison has been hacked according to a report by Brian Krebs. The hack also affects other niche social networking properties operated by Ashley Madison's corporate parent Avid Life Media. The actors behind the attack call themselves "The Impact Group" and along with releasing corporate data on Avid Life Media they have claimed that one of Ashley Madison's more profitable services, a $19 charge for fully deleting one's account, is a complete lie as the company retains user information. According to the Impact group in 2014 "Full Delete" netted Ashley Madison 1.7 million US dollars in revenue while they were still retaining user's real names, addresses, and full billing information. The Impact Team demands Avid life take Ashley Madison and another site "Established Men" offline permanently in order to prevent the release of all information taken from Avid Life's servers.

This incident is just another blow to the world consumers have come to expect. In a world with strong and readily accessible cryptography there is no longer any compelling reason for users to depend so entirely on a service like Ashley Madison and leaving their interests in and activities oriented towards extramarital dating exposed.

XOtika.tv Bitcoin Live Adult Entertainment Reaches Beta

Posted on by

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.