BadBitCoin.org, a self declared "scam fighter" and erstwhile attempt at a Bitcoin Better Business Bureau, defended the GAW miners scam well past its point of collapse. Now the operators of that site have taken to shilling for a new take on the classic perpetual motion/free energy scam on their twitter account.
Category Archives: Fiat/BTC interfaces
78 Months in Prison for Carl Mark Force IV
In today's sentencing Carl Mark Force IV received a bit of leniency over the 87 months imprisonment recommended by the prosecution. The judge simply flipped the digits relieving him with a sentence of only 78 months.
Carl Mark Force IV To Be Sentenced Monday, Prosecutors Request 87 Months Imprisonment
Insubordinate United States Government Drug Enforcement Agent Carl Mark Force IV will be sentenced at a hearing on Monday. Reports are that Prosecutors are only requesting a sentence of 7 years and 3 months of imprisonment for Force IV who committed crimes against the United States Government as opposed to Ulbricht's life sentence for simply seeking the freedom to act outside of the United States Government. Force IV announced his intention to plea guilty back in June.
Troubled BitPay Signs up Gaming Platform
Reports (archived) are in that Kwun Tong, Hong Kong-based digital gaming marketplace G2A.com has begun accepting Bitcoin via troubled bitcoin-fiat payment processor BitPay. Continue reading
Trouble Hits Purse.io Customers
Reports have been popping up on various social media forums claiming that funds held on behalf of users had been disappearing from the retail intermediary operation Purse.io beginning this weekend. In a blog post (archived) Purse.io reports account password reset emails were triggered in an unauthorized fashion, though they denied missing user funds until a recent update. Purse.io insists users of two factor authentication methods they support were unaffected, though there are reports on various forums disputing this as well as the scale of the theft.
Darknet Firearms Seller Pleads Guilty
According to WOOD News in Central Michigan, the local United States prosecutor's office managed to hook allege darknet firearms dealer Ben Cance into entering a guilty plea on charges related to international firearms trafficking and money laundering (archived). Prosecutors secured Cance's plea and his cooperation in other investigations by dropping charges of "machine gun possession" against Cance. The Judge allowed Cance's release on bond to continue so he could continue collaborating with prosecutors and inform on his past customers some of which are alleged to be in the United Kingdom and Poland. The 30 year old Cance is set to be sentenced by Judge Robert Holmes Bell on January 15th in the Grand Rapids United States District Court.
Fiat Broker Broker Scottrade Hacked
This evening Fiat stock broker and online investment management portal Scottrade revealed it was hacked in an email to customers. The advised customers that critical personally identifying information was in all probability taken from their servers. In the email they offer that they have evidence they were breeched roughly around 2013 and 2014 without being more specific. Numerous fiat based financial services providers this year have not only had to weather attacks to their own infrastructure, but attacks which leveraged information attained in other breaches degrading their ability to provide services at all. Information publicly disclosed on the Scottrade breach so far was offered in an email to customers which availed them of a dubious credit monitoring service. Users of fiat services like Scottrade and of supposedly Bitcoin services that swear allegiance to customs of the fiat identity theft tradition are advised to stop doing that before you find yourself insolvent. The full text of the email is available below: Continue reading
Bharara Snubbed By Supreme Court
Bloomberg reports that the United States Supreme Court has refused to consider whether convictions won by Preet Bharara should not have been overturned on appeal (archived). While this decision to decline entertaining Bharara's zealotry only immediately rescues three defendants from the jeopardy of having their cases revived, it lays the groundwork for hundreds of other defendants to have their convictions or guilty pleas vacated under the higher standard for insider trading criminal liability established by the appellate court. This is a severe blow to the embattled Bharara's office which will now be burdened by the influx of defendants looking for freedom from the sanctions criminally imposed on them by Bharara. This is just the latest even in a long downward spiral of reality hitting Preet Bharara after his unjustly criminal prosecution of Ross Ulbricht.
USMS Schedules Final Silk Road Auction
The United States Marshals Service has announced its final Silk Road auction to sell 44,341 Bitcoins. The Auction will be held November 5th. The Bitcoins will be sold in 21 lots of 2,000 with a 22nd lot of 2,341 Bitcoin. Per the Marshals service this is the last planned sale of Bitcoins criminally seized from Ross Ulbricht by Preet Bharara and his co-conspirators. The full details of the sale along with a calendar of sale milestones is reproduced below: Continue reading
Vessenes' Foundation Drops Sponsorship of Node Explorer
The Vessenes' Foundation was revealed in a social media post to have dropped sponsorship for the Bitnodes.io Bitcoin node explorer, turning the project over to Raspberry Pi reseller 21.co's care. It is not yet entirely clear what this means for the Bitnodes.io Banana Pi reseller program.