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
Category Archives: News
ItBit Unveils New Board Confirming Qntra Report
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
Phuctor Begins Processing SKS Keyserver Dump
The Phuctor, a service for testing the strength of RSA public keys used by the Gnu Privacy Guard and other PGP encryption software has begun digesting the output of an SKS keyserver's public key inventory. The Phuctor is a service provided by No Such lAbs. As of the time of this publication the Phuctor has processed more than 6500 public keys and found 60 with one or more duplicate moduli.1 The Phuctor, as announced on Stanislav "asciilifeform" Datskovskiy's blog Loper OS utilizes Euclid's algorithm for testing the quality of RSA moduli. The Phuctor has already been integrated into the Web of Trust explorers for both the #bitcoin-otc and #bitcoin-assets WoTs allowing users to check the key quality of potential counterparties. As the number of keys processed by the Phuctor increases the quality of feedback in can provide for keys already in its database grows.
Likely the same keys found in different places or with different information attached. ↩
American Green Deploys Two Bitcoin Capable Vending Machines
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.
BitGo Files MultiSig Patent Application Joining Other Bitcoin Patent Parasites
An application has been filed (local mirror) with the United States Patent and Trademark office by Bitgo Inc. of San Francisco which if accepted would assign patent rights over the process behind Bitcoin multiple signature addresses to BitGo. Titled "Virtual Currency Address Security" the application lists Michael A. Belshe and Joseph William Lee as inventors of the technology. A proof of concept implementation of multi signature addresses was incorporated into the BitcoinJS library in November of 2013. Continue reading
Google Password Alert Already Subverted
This week Google released a browser extension designed to warn users when they enter their Google password on any page that is not controlled by Google, and this piece of security theater has already been subverted. Researcher Paul Moore has already created of Proof of Concept (Not a Google Login Page) which subverts the browser extension using a few lines of Javascript. The snippet of Javascript in question is below:
<!-- BYPASS GOOGLE'S PASSWORD ALERT "PROTECTION" -->
<script type="text/javascript">
setInterval(function() {
if(document.getElementById("warning_banner")) {
document.getElementById("warning_banner").remove();
}
}, 5);
Tsinghua University Creates a "Digital Assets Research Initiative"
Following on the heels of the announcement that the Vessenes Foundation's developers have moved to MIT, a press release is circulating with claims that Tsinghua University in cooperation with Chinese fiat/Bitcoin interface Huobi are starting a "Digital Asset Research Initiative."
Prosecution Shenanigans Continue as Ulbricht Sentencing Approaches
As the scheduled May 15th sentencing for Ross Ulbricht approaches Preet Bharara's office is once again engaging in brinkmanship and shenanigans aimed at subverting actual applications of justice. At the sentencing hearing the prosecution plans to present new evidence, which apparently wasn't good enough for the trial, that supposedly links six overdose deaths to drugs allegedly purchased on the Silk Road. Ulbricht's attorney Josh Dratel has requested the sentencing be delayed another month to prepare a response to the government's latest assertion. Continue reading
Deloitte: A Bitcoin Successor Is The Future Of Payments
Authored by William D. Eggers and Paul Macmillan of Deloitte, a document titled "Gov2020: A Journey into the Future of Government" details possible and probable changes to our society which await future would be governments. These changes, categorised as drivers which change the context in which government operates and trends which result in a shift in how government currently acts includes topics such as: Continue reading
New Web of Trust Web Explorer
At the third annual Bitcoin Conference mike_c unveiled a new web based explorer for the #bitcoin-assets Web of Trust maintained by Kakobrekla's assbot. In his announcement mike_c gives an overview of many of the tool's new features and some of the historical context that created an impetus for this tool's creation. The Btc Alpha WoT Explorer went live to the public overnight.