Bitcoin’s history has been plagued with security issues from Bitcoinica to MtGox. At the DevCore conference hosted by Vessenes’ Bitcoin Foundation a new security standard was announced called the CryptoCurrency Security Standard (CCSS), which aims to provide general guidelines for best practices in regards to security involving cryptocurrency. Continue reading
Category Archives: Security
Purported Silk Road 2.0 Dataset Up for Auction
Someone who describes their self as a having been "hired by Dread Pirate Roberts a/k/a Blake Benthall as lead programmer for Silk Road 2.0" is offering for sale a dataset which they allege contains numerous record relating to and source code for running the Silk Road in its second incarnation. The first portion of the sale is occurring on Darkleaks, an information market which is advertised as being trustless and provably fair. Continue reading
HSBC Clients Victims of Probable Social Engineering Attack
Private financial information on a number of customers of HBSC's Swiss operations have been leaked. The Guardian and the "International Consortium of Investigative Journalists" have latched on to the leaks in order to shame HSBC for providing financial services and to wealth shame HSBC customers for having money and desiring privacy at the same time. Continue reading
There is nothing new in the world. Except for the history you didn't know.
From the defunct Bruce Wagner1 Bitcoin podcast2 :
Bruce Wagner : When was the last time you chatted to satoshi
Gavin Andresen: Um… I haven't had email from satoshi in a couple months actually. The last email I sent him I actually told him I was going to talk at the CIA. So it's possible , that…. that may have um had something to with his deciding.
Yes, it is… possible.
One of the Early Bitcoin Morons ™. Pedophile / gay prostitute / showman with the camera in demo mode. ↩
Specifically, "The Bitcoin Show: Special Bitcoin Conference Coverage: 08/20/2011" – discussing an event in June 2011. The original website (onlyonetv.com) has been purged, but the podcast itself is still available from various sources including, ironically, Apple's iTunes. ↩
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
MuckRock: DEA Documents Show Parallel Construction Widely Used
Yesterday MuckRock released a number of United States Drug Enforcement Agency documents acquired through a Freedom of Information Act request. The documents reveal that methods of parallel case construction are widely utilized and trained institutionally within the Drug Enforcement Agency and collaborating agencies, with strong institutional controls in place to prevent knowledge of parallel construction involved in cases from reaching any court officers, including the prosecutors assigned the cases. Continue reading
Phishing With Coinbase
Coinbase has announced their intention to reimburse a small number of users who were the victim of a phishing attack. The attacker, who emailed users a purported new service agreement from Coinbase, used the Coinbase API to fool users into approving full permissions for his 3rd party app so as to withdraw bitcoins from the Coinbase wallet. As a result of the successful attack, Coinbase now claim they will review the approval process for applications using their API. Continue reading
No Such lAbs Teases Future Developments
In their monthly statement today No Such lAbs teased at a potential future product, a piece of hardware capable of running a Bitcoin node. The venture's aim is to produce user auditable hardware to provide persons with an alternative to opaque open in name only computing solutions. Continue reading
Foundation Releases Report and Bitcoin 0.5.3.1
The Bitcoin Foundation released their January 2015 report on their development efforts today. Among other accomplishments was iterating the version number of their reference implementation of the Bitcoin protocol to version 0.5.3.1 and subjecting it to further rigor. Continue reading
Police Offer Well Surveilled "Online Exchange Zone"
Columbia, Missouri police have recently unveiled an online exchange zone where people might exchange goods being bought and sold on the Internet. All that is necessary to take advantage of this "safe space" for transacting with other members of the public is arranging to meet in the lobby of the police station as this video so helpfully demonstrates. Also emphasized heavily in the video is that in this "safe space" you are prohibiting from bringing or transacting in weapons. Continue reading