BitVPS a company plagued by problems since it's beginnings has lost access to its servers providing hosting to customers. The client portion of the site has been down for maintenance for several days causing customers to show up in the company's IRC channel for support. Unfortunate for those users, arij of BitVPS stated the company in addition to having lost access to its servers has no redundant backups of the servers, making for a complete loss of all clients' data. arij stated on IRC: Continue reading
Category Archives: Hardware
Limits of Moore's Law Challenge Intel – Questions About Future Performance
There are numerous reports out today highlighting chip maker Intel's struggles in transitioning from a 14 nanometer to a 10 nanometer manufacturing process. Intel is addressing this challenge by introducing a third generation of chips produced on a 14 nm process. Traditionally Intel delivers two generations of chips at each node size. The first is a shrink of the previous generations chips followed by chips with architectural changes at the same node size, followed by a process shrink. This pattern of Intel's is typically referred to as "Tick" and "Tock" releases at each node size. Continue reading
Bitcoin ISP Unveiled
Today Mircea Popescu announced the creation of a Bitcoin Internet Service Provider adding to the increasing amount of infrastructure outside of the fiat regime's grasp and available to those aligned with Bitcoin's Most Serene Republic. The Bitcoin Internet Service Provider rather than offering any sort of shared or virtualized product instead offers raw metal, dedicated servers for which customers may have a Linux of their choice provisioned. Any system administration beyond provisioning a server is the responsibility of the customer, though some limited support may be provided and referrals for further service may be offered. Continue reading
Mycelium Entropy Devices Possibly Tampered With During Transit
Mycelium customers who only recently began to receive their Entropy device after lengthy delays are now facing the real possibility that their devices have been tampered with en route to its destination after one customer from Canada and another from Japan claimed their packages were opened prior to delivery.
Canadian Redditor literarydevice made the following comments and shared the following pictures via imgur: Continue reading
Pogoplug & ODROID-C1 To Do Battle
In what is an obvious response to the crates of pogoplug based Bitcoin nodes that will soon begin to power the network and the hard fork missile crisis, the scam foundation sponsored Bitnodes has announced its intention to follow suit in distributing a plug and play node. While not yet available to purchase, Bitnodes is soliciting contact information for its ODROID-C1 based node which they claim will begin shipping mid 2015. Continue reading
Mycelium's Entropy To Begin Shipping
Mycelium has announced that their frauduct known as Entropy will begin shipping out to customers as of this coming Monday. Mycelium's Entropy, which was Indiegogo'd to the tune of $31,271 back in June through August last year, was originally slated to ship in October of 2014 but was delayed due to manufacturing issues as well as a decision to change the design of the case.
Sold under the pretence of being the safest way to generate a paper wallet, pre-orders for the first batch of units quickly sold out. The Indiegogo page for Entropy describes the unit as: Continue reading
Your Disk Controller and You
A recent publication by Kaspersky Lab (mirror) describes the first publicly-confirmed instance of a Microsoft Windows 'trojan' capable of infecting hard disk drive firmware. For every word that's been written on the subject so far, ten thousand words of disinformation, FUD, and general-purpose obscurantist rubbish are floating about – eagerly passed around by spambots disguised as 'independent bloggers' and fleshy meat-puppets alike. Expect no shortage of 'product' from the well-funded – but, interestingly, not especially competent – FUD agency charged with spreading confusion and misplaced skepticism after this and every other Snowden-related tidbit. Continue reading
BlackPhone Less Opaque Than Promised
Silent Circle has confirmed allegations that their privacy software has been completely useless. A memory corruption vulnerability allowed decryption of private messages to any attacker with the victim's user ID or phone number. The attacker can trigger the flaw by sending a hostile text message. Silent Circle is no stranger to this kind of embarrassment; a few months after receiving 30 million dollars in funding, a Blackphone was rooted by hackers at DEFCON. Discouraged former users of this pathetic device should be comforted to know that proper cryptography will likely be made user friendly by the end of the year. Until then, people who wish to obscure their messages from the prying eyes of big brother should stick to the classics.
Butterfly Labs Motion To Dismiss Denied, FTC Suit Survives
The Kansas City Business Journal reports that the Federal Judge overseeing the case, Brian Wimes, has refused Butterfly Labs motion to dismiss the ongoing suit by the Federal Trade Commission. Earlier this month the Judge had allowed Butterfly Labs to fully reopen under court supervision, and in November the court ordered the company to transfer its Bitcoin to a court appointed receiver. after earlier being allowed a limited reopening under receivership. The current Federal Trade Commission lawsuit against Butterfly Labs has been ongoing since September 2014. John Humphrey, the Attorney for Butterfly Labs originally filed the motion to dismiss on their behalf back in October.
Netherlands Repatriates Some Gold
There are reports that the Netherlands has repatriated a substantial portion of its gold holdings from the Federal Bank of New York to their own physical custody. This move changes their allocation of gold held at home from 11% to 31%, and the portion held at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York from 51% to 31% while the remainder of their holdings are split between the Bank of England and Canada. There is no news yet as to whether they've drilled the bars and found tungsten.