This week former Twitter engineer and microcelebrity Moxie Marlinspike unleashed a torrent of criticism against the Gnu Privacy Guard encryption software, which he loosely justified by confusing an etiquette problem with a technical problem. Continue reading
Category Archives: Fraud
NY "Environmental Protection" Raid Drives Suicide
Yesterday Dell's Maraschino Cherries in Brooklyn was raided by the New York Department of Environmental Protection and the Brooklyn District Attorney's office under the pretext of searching for violations of environmental protection regulations. The pretext was used because law enforcement had "received a tip" that the thriving cherry business was being used as a front for an operation engaging in marijuana commerce. The "tip" however was insufficiently credible to justify a search warrant from a judge. Continue reading
CoinTelegraph: CCN and NewsBTC Advertising Yet Another Scam
In a new article on CoinTelegraph Allen Scott alleges that CryptoCoinsNews and NewsBTC have both been promoting a scam where they advertise a fraud operation which buys bitcoins at above market prices using hacked Paypal accounts before the scam operators stop paying for the bitcoins they "buy" at all. These new allegations come on the heels of CCN and NewsBTC both serving as major advertising partners for the GAW "miners" scam.
British Darkmarket Ricin Arrest
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
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
Excoin Exchange To Shut Down Amid Claims Of Theft
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
TurboTax Stops Filing State Tax Returns Due To Massive Fraud
United States tax preparation company TurboTax, a subsidiary of "financial software" developer Intuit, has discontinued its e-filing service for state tax returns due to concerns over massive fraud. Reportedly Utah was the first state to raise concerns to the company identifying 28 returns as fraudulent with a further 8,000 suspected fraudulent returns. Minnesota followed by refusing to accept state returns filed through Turbo Tax after users reported logging in and seeing TurboTax show their taxes already had already been filed for them. Alabama similarly flagged 16,000 returns as likely fraudulent and insists that their computer and network security practices are in no way connected to the existence of fraudulent returns. Continue reading
MuckRock: DEA Documents Show Parallel Construction Widely Used
Yesterday MuckRock released a number of United States Drug Enforcement Agency documents acquired through a Freedom of Information Act request. The documents reveal that methods of parallel case construction are widely utilized and trained institutionally within the Drug Enforcement Agency and collaborating agencies, with strong institutional controls in place to prevent knowledge of parallel construction involved in cases from reaching any court officers, including the prosecutors assigned the cases. Continue reading
BitMarket.pl Account Closed over HYIP Links
Silicon Angle reports that a likely catalyst for the suspension of bank accounts used by BitMarket.pl is a recurring connection between that exchange and High Yield Investment scams. The accounts were closed by BPH, a bank owned by bezzle economy giant General Electric. Silicon Angle also notes that BitMarket.pl was injured in the EgoPay drama.
CSM Profiles Homero J Garza, Serial Entrepreneur
Today the Christian Science Monitor published an profile of Homero "Josh" Garza featuring selection from an interview they conducted before the North American Bitcoin conference. Most of the information in the profile is not going to be new to anyone who has been following the GAW saga, but the profile covers Garza's history of serial entrepreneurship from Optima Technology and Great Awk Wireless to GAW Miners. Continue reading