In another incident highlighting weaknesses underlying the fiat system, it took the Volusia County Sheriff's Department in Florida 7 months to investigate an operation they allege used gift cards to launder value derived from stolen retail merchandise (archived). The Sheriff's Department alleges that Cash for Gift Card stores operated by a father and his adult son knowingly sent thieves to steal from retail stores and return the merchandise in exchange for gift cards. The Cash for Gift Card stores were alleged to buy these gift cards at half their face value and then resell them in bulk on the Internet. How the Sheriff's department supposes the thieves were enlisted by Cash for Gift Card as opposed to self motivated is unknown at this time. There is however no ambiguity that there exists an extraordinary number of places where the fiat system leaks value big and small, online and offline.
Category Archives: The Law
2015 In Bitcoin
Ian Murdock Dead After Police Encounter
Debian founder Ian Murdock reportedly died after an altercation with police. Murdock reported on social media having been beaten by police. Some of his tweets suggested that he may have been sodomized by a female officer of the San Francisco County Sheriff's Department (archived). His last public communication was the assertion he would not be committing suicide until he could recount the police brutality incident in a blog post. Murdock's authorship of the tweets cannot however be authenticated. Murdock's current employer Docker is handling his remaining worldly affairs. Reliable information on the end of Murdock's life is unlikely to ever become available.
Paxful Gets Desperate, Priced Out Of Bitcoin
Paxful, a website that claims to do "peer to peer" matching of Bitcoin buyers and sellers, issued a desperate plea on their blog (archived) threatening to move to an altcoin as they get priced out of Bitcoin. Because Paxful specializes in facilitating very small trades any pricing of transaction fees in an actual market obliterates their market niche, and Bitcoin is definitely moving towards a healthy market for block inclusion fees. Paxful claims to: Continue reading
The False Dilemma of XT Versus Blockstream
Since the beginning of the XTCoin affair a substantial amount of social engineering has been directed into framing the Bitcoin blocksize as a polarized dispute between exactly two camps. Continue reading
Juniper Fiasco: Greenwald Complicit In Sustaining Mass Surveillance
It was after Juniper burned a vulnerability in its products used to support NSA and GCHQ spying, and after independent researchers discovered the nature of the back door (archived) that Glen Greenwald, formerly of the Guardian, revealed that this vulnerability was in a stash of disclosures he received more than two years ago from Edward Snowden. Greenwald's reveal came six days after Juniper disclosed the existence of the backdoor and a day after independent researches began presenting serious evidence indicating the backdoor was born in the USA. Continue reading
CoinBase Bug Bonanza
In late 2012 Coinbase was cultured by startup incubator, YCombinator on a plate of Thayer-Martin agar with the "mission" of "Becoming the Paypal of Bitcoin." The company seems to have had some success on the surveillance side of their mission by tracing user transactions and a slew of ex-customers who claim to have been banned with minimal explanation – a problem Coinbase seems to have despite their penitent userbase. Of special note here is Coinbase's security outsourcing that frequently results in vulnerabilities. Continue reading
US DO"J" Stops Sharing Bounty Of Theft With Locals
Today it was declared that the United States Department of "Justice" would cease to share value acquired through asset forfeiture and other forms of theft with local "law enforcement" agencies under the Equitable Sharing Program (archived). The program allowed local gangs incorporated as "law enforcement" agencies choose to partner with the DO"J" and receive federal assistance in seizing assets alleged to be connected with drug activity, even in spite of the demonstrable criminal innocence of parties from whom the assets were stolen. Through the Equitable Sharing Program local partners could receive up to 80% of the proceeds of their joint larceny. The Do"J" blames budget cuts for forcing its hand in suspending the program and insists the suspension will be temporary. It is unknown how many other perks presently enjoyed by local "law enforcement" gangs for cooperating with federal agencies will find themselves eroded in the near future.
Judge Nevin Dawson: Dotcom Can Be Extradited To United States
New Zealand District Court Judge Nevin Dawson has ruled that Kim Dotcom can be extradited to the United States (archived). Dotcom's extradition hearing began in September with Dotcom finally presenting his defense back in October. Dotcom plans to appeal the decision and has in the past received markedly more favorable outcomes from New Zealand appellate courts, including a rebuke of the asset forfeitures imposed upon him. The lower courts however have consistently ruled in a manner favorable to the United States Department of "Justice" which seeks to prosecute Dotcom in spite of Dotcom having never been a United States Person under any reasonable definition. Dotcom and his alleged co defendants will continue to reside in New Zealand on bail while the Appeal moves forward, but because this ruling "increased their flight risk" they now have to comply with more onerous demands including twice weekly reports at police stations.
Payment Card Industry Clings To SSLv3 And TLS 1.0 For Two More Years
Yesterday the Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council (PCI SSC) announced it has decided to extend its deadline for the fiat payment card industry to abandon SSL version 3 and TLS version 1.0 all the way into June of 2018 (archived). Back in April they had tried to set a June 2016 deadline parties handling fiat payment cards to move up to at least TLS version 1.1 or higher in light of POODLE, SHA1 weakness, and other protocol level attacks. General Manager Stephen Orfei of the PCI SSC blames "business issues" for the extension. These extra two years create the potential for massive fraud involving intercepted payment card information, but massive fraud is an inherent part of the fiat system.