Category Archives: North America

Federal Agent Sells Firearms Via Darknet Market

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Patch.com reports the arrest of a Massachusetts man who sought to purchase a firearm and silencer from a darknet market website. Unfortunately for 21 year old felon Justin Moreira, the Walther PPK he ordered was sold to him by none other than a federal agent masquerading as a legitimate arms dealer.

Moreira is believed to have paid USD $2,500 in bitcoin for the firearm and silencer which was then shipped by federal agents to a post office box in Hyannis, MA. Upon Moreira retrieving the package, federal agents moved in to arrest the young man. Continue reading →

Silk Road Sealed Document Dump Day (Full Text)

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Today Cryptome released 122 pages of documents (local mirror plaintext) related to Ross Ulbricht's Silk Road trial which had been sealed due to the ongoing investigation of Carl Mark Force IV. The order to unseal (local mirror) came into effect with his arrest. For what it is worth Preet Bharara's minions can be seen pleading to Judge Forrest that the terminally corrupted Baltimore investigation some how touches their investigation in no way. The full extracted text of the unsealed documents is below: Continue reading →

Obama Orders War On Computing And Bitcoin With New "Emergency" Order (Full Text)

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Today United States President Barack Hussein Obama has issued an executive order under which he claims emergency power in order to direct the Treasury Department to take action against the property of persons engaged in "malicious" computing related activity. The description of activities determined to be malicious under the order includes is so vague as to potentially include any user of a computing system, but especially targets the normal work of security researchers in civilian employment as Rob Graham (local archive) highlights. The declaration of National Emergency establishes "hackers" as a clear and present danger to the point that people who have merely associated with or even unknowingly contributed any form of support to "hackers" can be subjected to sanctions typically reserved for war criminals, terrorists, and the leaders of drug cartels. Continue reading →

BitPay showing more signs of trouble, no longer St. Petersburg Bowl sponsor

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The merchant services space hasn't quite taken off the way "the community"1 anticipated. Despite the mass-adoption-via-merchant-adoption expectations of some folks, it turns out that spending Bitcoin doesn't send the price "to the moon" but rather ironically depresses the price as merchants cash out their coins to cover operating costs.2 I know right, who could have predicted ?! Continue reading →

  1. Those who talk about Bitcoin, eg. Reddit. These folks are, of course, in no way part of Bitcoin. ↩

  2. This is quite the opposite of how fiat works, wherein the economy really does suffer if the velocity of money slows down. Bitcoin, on the other hand, rewards those who can delay gratification. Beautiful, isn't it ? ↩

OpSec Lessons From Carl Mark Force IV

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Yesterday's news about two Federal Agents arrested for various allegedly corrupt and self serving actions has introduced a substantial number of complications that could jeopardize the government's case on appeal. The charging document (plain text document image) rather than merely affecting the future disposition of the Ulbricht Silk Road case offers a number of lessons on operational security people involved with can take to heart as well as a good number of laughs. Continue reading →

Federal Agents Who Persecuted Ulbricht Arrested

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Two Federal Agents involved in the undercover operation to bust the Silk Road have been arrested for stealing money taken over the course of the Investigation. Arrested were DEA Agent Carl Mark Force IV and Secret Service Agent Shaun Bridges. Mister Force IV in particular is alleged to have stolen a number of Bitcoins  from the Silk Road and taken possession of them personally instead of remanding them to Government custody as was expected of him as his theft occured in the course of his undercover work. Agents of the fiat system simply can not resist the allure of better money. Given that the investigating agents could not be trusted to not take Silk Road proceeds for their own use, the serious question of what other liberties were taken during the investigation remains.

Update: The full unsealed complaint is available here. Uncompressed images of the pages may be browsed here.

Private Lawsuit Dismissed Because of State Secrets Privilege

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The New Zealand Herald brings us the story of a lawsuit between a Greek shipper and an advocacy group which was dismissed by a Federal court in New York after the Department of Justice invoked the state secrets privilege. Neither party to the lawsuit is a part of the government or a contractor known to be conducting national security work on behalf of the United States Government. For a lawsuit between private parties to end upon the invocation of the State Secrets privilege is unprecedented. Continue reading →

PayPal Settles With US For Sanctions Violations

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PayPal, an early and centralized attempt at establishing a primitive form of Internet money, has announced a settlement with the United States Treasury Department. PayPal will pay the Treasury Department 7.7 million United States Dollars for having disregarded sanctions enacted by the United States Government against Iran, Cuba, and others. Examples of transactions and accounts PayPal admits allowing span from 2009 to April 2013 when PayPal enacted a system to screen in real time for prohibited payments. PayPal reports spending substantial effort over the past two years to strengthen its ability to comply with sanctions.

Local Police Arming Robots

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Robot with a shotgunIn covering a story on the arrest of a political dissident (local mirror) in St Louis, the St Louis Post Dispatch managed to catch footage of local law enforcement officers working in tandem with a robot armed with a shotgun. This armed drone operating in an populated urban area by what is at least nominally a civilian law enforcement agency raises a number of disturbing questions about the future progression of the American Rogue State. Continue reading →

Shavers Enters Not Guilty Plea

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Yesterday the criminal case against Trendon Shavers has finally progressed to the point that Shavers could enter a plea of not guilty. This is in spite of his Ponzi scheme collapsing a full year before the arrest of Ross Ulbricht who has already been tried and convicted. Both Shavers and Ulbricht are targets selected for criminal prosecution by United States Attorney Preet Bharara. Criminal charges were filed against Shavers back in November 2014 in Manhattan after Shavers lost in a civil case brought by the SEC in September where he was ordered to pay 40 million dollars in damages. The SEC's civil case occurred in Shaver's home state of Texas. Continue reading →