The New York Times reports that a legislative impasse in the United States Congress might leave the Department of Homeland Security without funds. If this comes to pass, roughly 30,000 employees in mostly administrative positions will be furloughed while the remaining 200,000 employees deemed "critical" would be compelled to report for work as normal. The "critical" employees would be working without the expectation of receiving a pay check.
Bitcoin Mining Difficulty Reaches Yet Another ATH
With the fourth adjustment for 2015 occurring today, the Bitcoin mining difficulty has grown to a new ATH of 46,684,376,317. This is an increase of 5.01% over February 9th's previous ATH of 44,455,415,962. The global hash rate as of the change stands at 334,179,783 GH/s.1
The block height stands at 344737 with a remaining 75263 blocks to be mined prior to the reward halving. The next reward halving event is forecast to occur in July or August of 2016.
An average over the last 504 blocks. ↩
Micon Details The Operational Security Concerns Of Seals With Clubs
Bryan Micon of Seals with Clubs has released a video in which he details some of the previously unknown "operational security" concerns which forced the site offline earlier this month.
Micon alleges that on the 11th of February, armed gaming agents acting for the Nevada Gaming Commission knocked on his front door with a sledge hammer and pointed guns at him in order to serve a search warrant for his involvement with SwC and Bitcoin poker. Micon further alleges that much of his electronic equipment was stolen despite not being charged with a crime. Continue reading
Midlothian, IL Police Department Pays Bitcoin Ransom
The Chicago Tribune reports that the Midlothian Police Department paid a ransom last month in order to regain access to police files and backups encrypted by the ransomware known as Cryptoware. The Village of Midlothian obtained the bitcoins by way of sending a money order to a New York Bitcoin cafe1 after attempts to wire the money via Bank of America failed. Continue reading
Possibly coincafe.com but not confirmed. ↩
The Dangers of Bitcoin Trapping
A place where an illegal transaction happens, such as a drug deal has come to be known as “the trap spot”. In those moments when both parties meet anyone can run up on the participants and cause pandemonium to erupt. Due to the untrustworthy dealings of Coinbase and Bitstamp, the best method for acquiring Bitcoin is through old fashioned OTC trade. However speculation of the dangers of trapping has become reality for unlucky individuals in New York City. The Observer reported a crime wave in which victims have been robbed at gunpoint for their coins. Continue reading
The Superfish Funder List
In the wake of yesterday's disclosure of Lenovo's appalling inclusion of the Superfish malware on their OEM Windows installs, let us highlight the Venture Capital Firms which made Superfish possible: Continue reading
Seals With Clubs Shutters
On an announcement replacing their normal front page one of Bitcoin's longest tenured poker sites, Seals with Clubs, has decided to close their doors citing "Operational Security" concerns. They cite without specifics several events which occurred around February 11th, 2015 as being the catalyst for the decision, offering that if Seals with Clubs continued as presently structured it would be "in a perpetual state of jeopardy." They are advising users to withdraw their funds as soon as possible. Continue reading
Windows Ecosystem Security Still Horrifying
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
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.
USMS Announce Yet Another Bitcoin Auction
The United States Marshals Service has announced yet another auction for an amount totalling 50,000 BTC which were seized during the 2013 Silk Road bust.
The amount of bitcoin on offer, available blocks1 and deposit requirements mirror that of the last auction which was held in December of 2014. It is not yet known if Tim Draper, whose Sillycon Valley condo languishes for sale will make a big show of announcing his intention to bid. Continue reading
Series A = 10 blocks @ 2000 BTC, Series B = 10 blocks @ 3000 BTC ↩