Today block 350,000 was mined to the Bitcoin blockchain. Its commitment to the chain means 14,000,000 bitcoins will have entered circulation so far out of the 21,000,000 total coins. The mining of the final third of the Bitcoin monetary base will be a very different affair than the first third. Hobbyists running commodity general purpose computers have been replaced by specialists operating in data centers and running single purpose mining hardware which, incidentally, is becoming increasingly commodified. The next block subsidy halving is scheduled for block 420,000, by which point 15,750,000 coins will have been mined.
Subpoena Requests Data On /r/DarkNetMarkets Users
Wired reports that earlier this month, a Baltimore ICE agent subpoenaed Reddit for the personal data of five users who frequent the subreddit /r/DarkNetMarkets. Requested information included names, IP addresses, the dates and times that they accessed Reddit, phone numbers as well as any financial information. The five users mentioned in the subpoena include NSWGreat, evosmith, Z-L, GWERN and DEEPTHROAT_. Continue reading
Federal Agents Who Persecuted Ulbricht Arrested
Two Federal Agents involved in the undercover operation to bust the Silk Road have been arrested for stealing money taken over the course of the Investigation. Arrested were DEA Agent Carl Mark Force IV and Secret Service Agent Shaun Bridges. Mister Force IV in particular is alleged to have stolen a number of Bitcoins from the Silk Road and taken possession of them personally instead of remanding them to Government custody as was expected of him as his theft occured in the course of his undercover work. Agents of the fiat system simply can not resist the allure of better money. Given that the investigating agents could not be trusted to not take Silk Road proceeds for their own use, the serious question of what other liberties were taken during the investigation remains.
Update: The full unsealed complaint is available here. Uncompressed images of the pages may be browsed here.
Private Lawsuit Dismissed Because of State Secrets Privilege
The New Zealand Herald brings us the story of a lawsuit between a Greek shipper and an advocacy group which was dismissed by a Federal court in New York after the Department of Justice invoked the state secrets privilege. Neither party to the lawsuit is a part of the government or a contractor known to be conducting national security work on behalf of the United States Government. For a lawsuit between private parties to end upon the invocation of the State Secrets privilege is unprecedented. Continue reading
Mycelium Entropy Devices Possibly Tampered With During Transit
Mycelium customers who only recently began to receive their Entropy device after lengthy delays are now facing the real possibility that their devices have been tampered with en route to its destination after one customer from Canada and another from Japan claimed their packages were opened prior to delivery.
Canadian Redditor literarydevice made the following comments and shared the following pictures via imgur: Continue reading
Sheep Marketplace Arrest
PayPal Settles With US For Sanctions Violations
PayPal, an early and centralized attempt at establishing a primitive form of Internet money, has announced a settlement with the United States Treasury Department. PayPal will pay the Treasury Department 7.7 million United States Dollars for having disregarded sanctions enacted by the United States Government against Iran, Cuba, and others. Examples of transactions and accounts PayPal admits allowing span from 2009 to April 2013 when PayPal enacted a system to screen in real time for prohibited payments. PayPal reports spending substantial effort over the past two years to strengthen its ability to comply with sanctions.
Basketball Team Relegated to Lower Division by MS Windows Misbehavior
The Paderhorn Baskets of the German Basketball Budesliga face potential relegation to the lower ProB division after Windows Update forced a delay of game so severe the league had to penalize Paderhorn by reducing their points in the league's standings. While the disastrous security consequences of Microsoft Windows are often the focus of criticism, in this case the disaster was triggered by Window's automatic update functionality which is generally regarded as annoying though somewhat beneficial. In this case however, the rogue behavior of the Windows Updater went from merely annoying to economically and professionally damaging.
Local Police Arming Robots
In covering a story on the arrest of a political dissident (local mirror) in St Louis, the St Louis Post Dispatch managed to catch footage of local law enforcement officers working in tandem with a robot armed with a shotgun. This armed drone operating in an populated urban area by what is at least nominally a civilian law enforcement agency raises a number of disturbing questions about the future progression of the American Rogue State. Continue reading
Bitcoin Floundation Moves To Dilute The Bitcoin Brand
Not content with the goal of bloating the blockchain with its proposed increase of the block size limit, the Bitcoin Floundation has now moved to assist in diluting the Bitcoin brand, the very brand which they claim to represent, by allowing so-called guest bloggers to promote alternative coins on its blog under the banner of mainstream adoption.
Authored by Vogogo's Head of Marketing and Creative Chantel Meeley, the article implies that due to the large number of coins available, a new brand which is inclusive of all coins is required if mainstream adoption is to occur. To that end, Vogogo have teamed up with the infamous altcoin exchange Crypsty to promote BrandMeCrypto's logo competition in which the winner will be awarded $10,000. Continue reading