Hammond, Indiana police shut down a remote holographic being broadcast at a local hip hop festival by rapper Chief Keef who was performing at a secure Los Angeles sound stage. The show dubbed Craze Fest was being held as a charity event in a public park to raise funds for the family of Keef's late friend Marvin Carr and a 13 month old child who was killed by a vehicle fleeing the scene of Carr's slaying. Continue reading
Category Archives: North America
US Standards Institute Moves From Timekeeping to Methamphetamine
An explosion this weekend at the United State's National Institute of Standards and Technology's Gaithersburg, Maryland complex appears to have resulted from the clandestine manufacture of crystal meth. A security guard was injured in connection with the explosion. NIST is most commonly known for their role as timekeeper for the United States Government.
Universal Shares Own Film With Pirates
On the 15th of this month Universal Pictures France filed a takedown request with Google (archived) demanding they remove from results sites hosting or linking pirated copies of Jurassic World. Among the addresses Universal demanded Google sanction was 127.0.0.1 which is the IP address a computer reserves for communicating with itself. This means that not only was Universal seeding its own film to pirates, it was likely doing so from the same machine used detect and prepare a report on infringement for Universal. Continue reading
Coin.mx Operators Arrested For Violating Anti Money Laundering Laws
Anthony Murgio and Yuri Lebedev operators of the Bitcoin/Fiat exchange Coin.mx were arrested by the FBI at their Florida homes last week and charges in the Southern District of New York by Preet Bharara's office were unsealed against them this week. The Feds accuse Coin.mx of trading roughly 1.8 million dollars worth of Bitcoin and Fiat using the pretext of a memorabilia collector's club to conceal their actual activities from their banks and later acquiring control of a small credit union for greater autonomy. Continue reading
Counterfeit Coupon Dealer Pleads Guilty
A Louisiana man charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit trademark counterfeiting in May of this year has plead guilty (archive) to the charges. Beau Wattigney, better known on the PurpleLotus/GoldenLotus/MoxDiamond/NickMode sold counterfeit coupons on the Silk Road 1.0 and 2.0 which provided the bearer with significant discounts such as $50 Visa gift cards for $0.01 each.
Wattigney will be sentenced on October 28th, 2015.
Grooveshark Cofounder Dead at 28
Josh Greenberg a cofounder of the late music streaming service Grooveshark was found dead in his Florida home, and according to the BBC and his mother he had no ongoing health concerns. Grooveshark was founded in 2006 and closed this April after years of legal harassment by agents of the copyright regime culminating in a United States court finding Grooveshark liable for up to nearly three quarter of a billion dollars in damages. At its peak Grooveshark provided 145 people with employment.
Silk Road Heroin Dealer Receives 2-1/2 Years Prison Sentence
Reuters reports (archive) that Michael Duch AKA Deezletime and otherwise known as the Silk Road heroin dealer who turned government witness and testified (archive) against Ross Ulbricht despite having never communicated with him has been sentenced to a term of 2-1/2 years prison time for conspiring to sell drugs.
A request by Duch's lawyer Samuel Braverman that Duch now be released into a drug treatment program was denied by U.S. District Judge Katherine Forrest stating it would be not be the right thing to do. Receiving credit for the 21 months already spent in custody, Duch is expected to be released soon.
US Can't Retain Drone Pilots
This week the United States Air Force (archived) unveiled a new program attempting to address what they describe as a "critical shortage" of pilots for their unmanned aircraft. In their desperation the Air Force is offering up front retention bonuses of up to seventy thousand United States dollars with an equal amount of bonus pay spread out over the duration of a retained pilot's nine year contract. The Air Force is also directing graduates of its undergraduate pilot training programs increasingly to roles involving unmanned aircraft. The atypical nine year contracts, along with the substantial monetary incentives being offered to retain drone pilots suggests that the United States Air Force could be facing problems supplying manpower to operate their drone fleet well into the future.
BurtW Indictment Dismissed At Behest Of Department Of Justice
An indictment against BurtW AKA Burt Wagner related to the alleged operation of an unlicenced money transmitting business has been dropped after U.S. District Court Judge William J Martinez dismissed the case at the behest of the U.S. Department of Justice. Such a victory is bittersweet though as Burt's wife Jean writes (archive): Continue reading
Tsinghua Unigroup Flirts With Acquisition of DRAM Maker Micron
Chinese state owned enterprise Tsinghua Unigroup is rumored to be flirting with an acquisition of Micron Technology, the last maker of DRAM based in the United States. At the moment prevailing wisdom in the mainstream financial press appears to be that the US Treasury's "Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States" would block a sale to the state owned enterprise and if they don't the Department of Defense would likely block Tsinghua Unigroup or any Chinese firm from purchasing Micron. Continue reading