Today it was revealed that Lenovo has been installing a piece of adware called "Superfish" which uses an SSL man in the middle attack to replace ads served to users and potentially engage in all kinds of other evil. Abuse of unaware users who run Microsoft Windows by computing vendors has a long history which includes many other notable episodes such as Sony proposing a lack of factory bloatware as a premium option to the entire existence of the venture known as "WildTangent." Continue reading
Category Archives: Shitware
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.
CAVIRTEX Shutting Down, Withdrawals "Temporarily Disabled"
CAVIRTEX, Canada's most prominent CAD-BTC exchange and staunch advocate for government regulation, announced earlier today that it will cease operations effective March 25th, 2015. Continue reading
British Darkmarket Ricin Arrest
A British man, Mohammed Ammer Ali, was arrested after allegedly attempting to buy ricin powder. He however was transacting with an FBI agent who fraudulently sent 5 vials of harmless white powder that was not the ricin he was alleged to have paid $500 for. The counterfeit ricin was marketed as actual ricin on a darkmarket website and delivered to Mister Ali hidden inside of a toy car. Ali is a father of two who is now facing charges under the United Kingdom's Chemical Weapons Act for receiving a toy car full of a substance that was not ricin at all. Continue reading
Up To One Billion in Fiat Value Stolen From Banks
Kaspersky Labs in a report to be released soon will allege that up to a Billion United States Dollars in fiat value appears to have been stolen in an operation that has persisted since at least late 2013. Unlike in many similar thefts, this one directly targeted the banks themselves rather than customer accounts. More than 100 banks spread across 30 countries have been affected. The thieves' modus operadi involves stealing up to 10 million dollars from each targeted bank before moving on to the next target. Continue reading
PseudoNode Proxy Fools Bitcoin Full Node Incentive Program
Vessennes' Bitcoin Foundation recently sponsored a full node incentive program that pays full nodes registered with a Bitcoin address weekly if deemed eligible. The incentive program's goal is to estimate the size of the Bitcoin network by finding all reachable nodes running bitcoind version 0.8 or higher, likely in an attempt to lower the barrier necessary for a possible fork. 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. ↩
A Discussion of Military Strategy in the 21st Century
Rehashing the "end of Linux" aspirations of systemd is probably not necessary, but another piece of the puzzle falls in place, with ESR's eminently quotable: 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
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