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.

Army Research Office Funds MIT Bitcoin Price Research

In a recent press release, the MIT News Office announced the publication of a paper by researchers attempting to predict Bitcoin price by Bayesian regression. The paper's subject matter and methods are of specialist interest, but a matter of more general interest appears in the paper's acknowledgements: Continue reading

Bank of England Payment Settlements Offline: Home Purchases Impossible

Large purchases including those of housing and real estate in the United Kingdom have stalled today as the Bank of England's Real Time Gross Settlement Payment System is down. As a result banks in the UK can not settle large transactions between each other, though small transactions are processed with a different system. Continue reading

IBM Pays To Divest Chip Business

IBM announced today that they will pay GlobalFoundries 1.5 Billion dollars over three years in exchange for GlobalFoundries taking over their microchip business. GlobalFoundries was itself created in 2009 when AMD divested from manufacturing.  As part of the deal GlobalFoundries is getting paid to acquire IBM's semiconductor manufacturing facilities and personnel with the exception of a small team of researchers remaining with IBM. The number of things IBM still does continues to shrink.

Spain to Issue More Online Gambling Licenses

With Spain's Gaming industry facing declining fortunes, regulators seek to issue more online gambling licenses. Spain notably has the highest tax on Gross Gaming Revenue in Europe and a number of established online betting operations in Spain have been relinquishing their licenses due to cost. El Ministerio de Hacienda y Administraciones Publicas has ruled in that past that they suppose online gambling operations in Bitcoin ought to apply for licenses when they operate in Spain.

Daniel J Bernstein Speaks on Keeping Crypto Insecure

Yesterday Daniel J Bernstein gave the Keynote speech at the 11th Hackers To Hackers Conference in Sao Paulo, Brazil. A PDF of his slides is available here, and the slide text is presented below for those with PDF aversions. The talk presented a narrative of how an attacker could manipulate the cryptographic ecosystem to culture insecurity. Continue reading

BitStamp: Unverified Accounts to be Closed, Balances to Regulators

BitStamp announced on their blog that accounts remaining unverified will be closed and have their balances turned over to regulators. BitStamp initially implemented their verification policy in September of 2013 and insists they can not allow accounts that do not comply with their anti-money laundering and know your customer policies to trade or receive other services from BitStamp including withdrawals in either Bitcoin or any other method. Their announcement: Continue reading