According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation a number of Internet Service Providers are stripping the STARTTLS flag from their customer's email sessions. STARTTLS is a protocol that encrypts emails between origin and destination servers, but leaves the plaintext contents of email completely accessible on the servers. The property of STARTTLS which allows ISPs to deny their customers to use it is explicitly baked into the protocol. Continue reading
Category Archives: Shitware
National Bank of Ukraine: Bitcoin Not to Be Used for Payments
There are reports that the National Bank of Ukraine has issued a directive on its Facebook page banning not recognizing the use of Bitcoin for payments within the country. It remains to be seen if other States will begin following Ukraine's lead and begin issuing missives via Facebook post, as well as to what extent the National Bank of Ukraine can actually prevent Bitcoin payments from happening within their borders during a time where Ukrainian borders seem to be undergoing revision.
Buterin's Waterfall, a Likbez
Product: Price of BTC under control. Life for USG. (Examples: Bitstamp and Coinbase)
- BTC dumped by agents on public markets (The Ethereum raincloud)
- A portion of the "energy" sustains the agent's "businesses"
- USG Confiscators such as the National Security Agency and Department of Justice collect BTC pooling at the bottom (Silk Road v1 and V 2.0, Various Chumpatrons like pirateat40, vanilla idiots).
- BTC plundered via Judicial and other means (e.g. malware) goes to loyal agents who know what is expected of them.
- GOTO 1 (via evaporation)
Cody R Wilson Announces Candidacy for Vessenes' Bitcoin Foundation's Board
In a busy day for Cody R Wilson he has now announced his candidacy for the board of Vessenes' Bitcoin Foundation. His platform consists simply of disbanding the organization from within. While others have different plans for taking on the organization, Cody clarified his plan in tweets:
Cody R. Wilson @Radomysisky · 16m 16 minutes ago
My platform is simple. The Foundation should be shuttered, the coins sold on the open market. I will name names.Cody R. Wilson @Radomysisky · 15m 15 minutes ago
No quarter. No gentleman's agreements with legitimists.
Given the simplicity of the plan one has to wonder, why does it include topping up Buterin's Waterfall?
Disney Patents "Piracy Free" Search Engine
Disney has been awarded a patent on a "piracy free" search engine technology according to Torrent Freak. The patent was originally filed in April of 2012and describes a mechanism based on "authenticity metrics" relative to a search term that is used to rank results. The presumption is that emphasizing "authenticity" of in presenting search results would diminish opportunities for content unfavorable to the "authoritative" arbiters of "authenticity" to be presented to users of the search engine. Continue reading
CurrentC Breeched
Fiat mobile payments system and Apple Pay competitor CurrentC has been hacked according to a number of reports. CurrentC says a number of customer email addresses were taken, and the damage is allegedly confined to that.
Yahoo and AOL Spread Ransomware Through Ad Network
A number of websites including Yahoo, AOL, and 9Gag have been exposing users to ransomware according to the International Business Times. They offer that none of the sites needed to be compromised as the malware was simply offered as advertising and the advertising networks didn't care to check the payload would be inoffensive to their audience.
The Fall of Moolah.io
Moolah was a CryptoCurrency web wallet and financial platform that aimed to simplify CryptoCurrency payments. The service was presumably launched by Alex Green in January 2014. Moolah is backed by Moopay LTD, the company behind all of the Moolah services. It was owned by the reddit user moolah_, and had 59,689 followers. Continue reading
Justcoin Wounded by Ripple Flaw
Justcoin CTO Andreas Brekken documented on his blog a flaw in the official Ripple gateway implementation wherein transactions may be credited for amounts far greater than the actual amount actually transacted. Justcoin customer balances are affected based on customer reports of an email sent by Justcoin. The culprit in the case is a transaction flag called tfPartialPayment which the Ripple wiki described thusly in older revisions: Continue reading
Man Arrested For Using Credit Card at Cyn Nightclub
An extended delay in credit card transaction processing left a Patron of Cyn Nightclub in Fort Lauderdale Florida facing grand theft charges. Trusted third party Wells Fargo which issued the card approved an $80 charge for drinks earlier in the night, but failed to approve $600 in charges later in the night. A second card from trusted third party also failed to approve the later charges. $1000 in bail was successfully paid by one of the card issuers to the Broward County Jail. Continue reading