This week the Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis confirmed earlier rumours that they had been victims of a domain name server hijacking attack which compromised a number of user credentials related to their research services and products. The Bank has responded by resetting user passwords and emailing subscribers to alert them to the fact their credentials are likely in the hands of the hijackers.
Category Archives: North America
Market News Roundup
This week there have been a few major developments in the Bitcoin market ecosystem. Continue reading
Williams Pleas Guilty to Debunking Polygraph Pseudoscience
Douglas Williams, proprietor of the now defunct polygraph.com, has plead guilty in Federal court to five counts of obstructing justice and a single count of mail fraud on the second day of his trial. Williams had for years dedicated considerable time to the cause of debunking polygraph "lie detection" as a dangerous pseudoscience by coaching applicants for "national security" jobs with the United States Government in ways to pass the tests while providing answers with no connection to actual truth. Continue reading
US Poultry and Egg Prices Headed To The Moon
A North American outbreak of the H5N2 avian influenza virus is expected to lead to much higher prices of eggs and poultry products as efforts to contain the outbreak so far have been unsuccessful. More than 32 million commercial birds have either been killed by the virus or culled in an attempt to slow its spread and contain the outbreak. The outbreak was first reported to have affected egg producing farms in Iowa, and the disease has since spread to neighbouring Nebraska. 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
ItBit Unveils New Board Confirming Qntra Report
Today New York based ItBit exchange unveiled its new board and charter to operate as a financial services company from the New York Department of Financial Services. ItBit's announcement today confirms Qntra's April 16th report that former Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation chair Sheila Blair has joined ItBit's corporate board. Among those joining Blair is former New Jersey Senator Bill Bradley. ItBit insists its charter from New York allows it to legally operate in all 50 members of the United States in spite of Federalism. CoinBase earlier announced licensing to operate as an exchange in all 50 states, an assertion which was later found to be questionable. Continue reading
American Green Deploys Two Bitcoin Capable Vending Machines
This week the American Green company reports that they will be deploying two marijuana vending machines to different California cannabis dispensaries. The two model ZaZZZ vending machines will each possess their own Bitcoin wallets, which American Green plans to open for Bitcoin purchases by the end of the week. Bitcoin will be available as an alternative to the other more traditional fiat payment methods the machines will accept. Like the extant Bitcoin ATMs these vending machines are configured to enforce extensive customer validation and regulatory enforcement. These first two machines are being placed in California dispensaries where marijuana is controlled under a "medical" regulatory regime.
Deep Web Marketplace Go-Betweener Faces 20 Years Jail
Having previously plead not guilty to charges related to the arbitrage of drugs purchased via the deep web and sold to IRL customers, 23 year old Joseph Patrick Gelli of Lexington, South Carolina last week plead guilty to a charge of conspiracy to commit money laundering.
Count 12, to which Gelli plead guilty, states that between June 2013 through to July 2014 Gelli purchased bitcoin from Coinbase in order to facilitate the purchase of drugs via an unnamed deep web marketplace so that it could later be onsold for a profit. Continue reading
BitGo Files MultiSig Patent Application Joining Other Bitcoin Patent Parasites
An application has been filed (local mirror) with the United States Patent and Trademark office by Bitgo Inc. of San Francisco which if accepted would assign patent rights over the process behind Bitcoin multiple signature addresses to BitGo. Titled "Virtual Currency Address Security" the application lists Michael A. Belshe and Joseph William Lee as inventors of the technology. A proof of concept implementation of multi signature addresses was incorporated into the BitcoinJS library in November of 2013. Continue reading
Google Password Alert Already Subverted
This week Google released a browser extension designed to warn users when they enter their Google password on any page that is not controlled by Google, and this piece of security theater has already been subverted. Researcher Paul Moore has already created of Proof of Concept (Not a Google Login Page) which subverts the browser extension using a few lines of Javascript. The snippet of Javascript in question is below:
<!-- BYPASS GOOGLE'S PASSWORD ALERT "PROTECTION" -->
<script type="text/javascript">
setInterval(function() {
if(document.getElementById("warning_banner")) {
document.getElementById("warning_banner").remove();
}
}, 5);