Category Archives: The Law

Bluetouff conviction upheld by French Supreme Court

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Reports are in that the Supreme Court of France has upheld a conviction by the state against French blogger, journalist, and web service provider Olivier Laurelli1 for downloading free and publicly available documents obtained from a Google search. Using a 1929 law criminalising the theft of electricity in combination with the 2009 HADOPI legislation,2 the prosecution has sought 3,000 Euros in damages for Laurelli's procurement of documents from the French Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health & Safety (ANSES) website in 2012. Back in 2013, Laurelli described his court case to date and how he came to find himself in this position on his personal blog. Continue reading →

  1. On the journalism side, Laurelli founded the news site Reflets.info ; on the web services side, he operates the web security firm Toonux ; online, he operates under the alias "Bluetouff" and lists PGP fingerprint 9F9C 7924 EB82 C810 24D5 6143 6985 0860 7991 E873 on his personal blog, though this pseudonym and key aren't registered with either bitcoin-otc (gribble) or bitcoin-assets (assbot) at the time of publishing. ↩

  2. HADOPI is an acronym for "Haute Autorité pour la Diffusion des œuvres et la Protection des droits d'auteur sur Internet" and consists of an escalating series of e-mail warnings and ISP-level monitoring of traffic for users found to have infringed upon copyrighted material. ↩

Lawsky Moves to Private Practice

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New York Department of Financial Services superintendent Ben Lawsky is stepping down to pursure a career in private practice. Some time in the near future the New York Department of Financial Services is anticipated to pass some variant of the previously revised "BitLicense" regulation removing their jurisdiction from any relevance with concern to Bitcoin's future.

Williams Pleas Guilty to Debunking Polygraph Pseudoscience

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Douglas Williams, proprietor of the now defunct polygraph.com, has plead guilty in Federal court to five counts of obstructing justice and a single count of mail fraud on the second day of his trial. Williams had for years dedicated considerable time to the cause of debunking polygraph "lie detection" as a dangerous pseudoscience by coaching applicants for "national security" jobs with the United States Government in ways to pass the tests while providing answers with no connection to actual truth. Continue reading →

Liberland "President" Arrested

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Croatian forces have reportedly arrested the founder and "President" of Liberland Vít Jedlička. Jedlička founded Liberland in a disputed stretch of territory along the Danube river between Serbia and Croatia and declared Bitcoin the official currency. The micronation of Liberland has only a month of history and given present opposition it seems unlikely to enjoy the longevity of the Principality of Hutt River or Sealand. Given Liberland's geographic situation prospects for establishing lasting security seem unlikely.

Bitcoin ISP Unveiled

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Today Mircea Popescu announced the creation of a Bitcoin Internet Service Provider adding to the increasing amount of infrastructure outside of the fiat regime's grasp and available to those aligned with Bitcoin's Most Serene Republic. The Bitcoin Internet Service Provider rather than offering any sort of shared or virtualized product instead offers raw metal, dedicated servers for which customers may have a Linux of their choice provisioned. Any system administration beyond provisioning a server is the responsibility of the customer, though some limited support may be provided and referrals for further service may be offered. Continue reading →

ItBit Unveils New Board Confirming Qntra Report

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Today New York based ItBit exchange unveiled its new board and charter to operate as a financial services company from the New York Department of Financial Services. ItBit's announcement today confirms Qntra's April 16th report that former Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation chair Sheila Blair has joined ItBit's corporate board. Among those joining Blair is former New Jersey Senator Bill Bradley. ItBit insists its charter from New York allows it to legally operate in all 50 members of the United States in spite of Federalism. CoinBase earlier announced licensing to operate as an exchange in all 50 states, an assertion which was later found to be questionable. Continue reading →

American Green Deploys Two Bitcoin Capable Vending Machines

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This week the American Green company reports that they will be deploying two marijuana vending machines to different California cannabis dispensaries. The two model ZaZZZ vending machines will each possess their own Bitcoin wallets, which American Green plans to open for Bitcoin purchases by the end of the week. Bitcoin will be available as an alternative to the other more traditional fiat payment methods the machines will accept. Like the extant Bitcoin ATMs these vending machines are configured to enforce extensive customer validation and regulatory enforcement. These first two machines are being placed in California dispensaries where marijuana is controlled under a "medical" regulatory regime.