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
Category Archives: Scams
Private Lawsuit Dismissed Because of State Secrets Privilege
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
Sheep Marketplace Arrest
Bitcoin Floundation Moves To Dilute The Bitcoin Brand
Not content with the goal of bloating the blockchain with its proposed increase of the block size limit, the Bitcoin Floundation has now moved to assist in diluting the Bitcoin brand, the very brand which they claim to represent, by allowing so-called guest bloggers to promote alternative coins on its blog under the banner of mainstream adoption.
Authored by Vogogo's Head of Marketing and Creative Chantel Meeley, the article implies that due to the large number of coins available, a new brand which is inclusive of all coins is required if mainstream adoption is to occur. To that end, Vogogo have teamed up with the infamous altcoin exchange Crypsty to promote BrandMeCrypto's logo competition in which the winner will be awarded $10,000. Continue reading
Shavers Enters Not Guilty Plea
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
Czech Ministry Fingers Heist Suspect
Czech Republic based Bitcoin exchange Bitcash.cz was allegedly hacked on November 11, 2013 and approximately 4000 bitcoins were stolen. The operator or operators almost succeeded in their efforts to remain anonymous with impunity, were it not for disgruntled users that named some suspected perpetrators in online forums. According to the 2014 yearly report of the analytics departmentt of the Czech Ministry of Finance, one of the named persons opened new bank account (in a Czech bank) and immediately transferred to there non-trivial amounts from an EU Bitcoin exchange, thus prompting a closer look from the Department. It concluded with a money laundering criminal complaint, which is currently waiting for court proceedings.
Court: No Surveillance Records for FBI Terrorist
The United States Supreme Court without comment denied Adel Daoud, a 21 year old FBI trained terrorist, access to secret court orders which authorized electronic surveillance against him. Without access to the documents authorizing surveillance under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act there is no practical means for Daoud to mount a legal defense against the legality of the surveillance he was placed under. Daoud was arrested for triggering a device outside of a Chicago bar which was provided to him by the FBI and which the FBI swears they told him was a bomb. 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.
Hong Kong Monetary Authority Uses MyCoin.hk Debacle To Troll Consumers
Amid the confusion over whether MyCoin.hk ever held any bitcoin and in what amount or if it was as it appears to be an elaborate ponzi scheme dressed up in non-existent bitcoins, flash cars and cash prizes, Reuters reports that the Hong Kong Monetary Authority has seized upon the uncertainty to warn consumers of the dangers of Bitcoin. 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