The Brisbane Times reports (archive) that an unnamed multinational company located in Brisbane, Australia recently paid a bitcoin ransom totalling AUD $14,000 or approximately USD $10,500 after its computer system was compromised resulting in the theft of what police claim is sensitive data pertaining to the operation of the business. Continue reading
3 Years Prison For Backpack Full of Cash in Winnipeg
Erwin Speckert was sentenced to three years of prison after a money laundering conviction derived from his arrest while boarding a Greyhound bus with $1.3 million Canadian Dollars in his backpack. Speckert plead guilty back in October and the sentence was arranged this week through agreement between the prosecution and defense lawyers. Speckert had requested his security screening be done in private due to the sensitivity and value of his backpack's contents and after he was assured by the private security officer who screened him that taking that much cash on him was kosher, the private security officer phoned police who assert Speckert consented to a second search conducted by them. Police further assert that Speckert was determined by their investigation to be working as a courier for "illegal gaming" operators. Speckert throughout his time consenting to security searches at the bus station asserted he intended to purchase real estate and was conveying cash in this manner as he reasonably did not trust banks.
NYDFS Announces Final Bitlicense Rules
As the days wind down before Benjamin Lawsky leaves the New York Department of Financial Services for private practice, Lawsky unveiled the final version of his New York Bitlicense proposal at an event in Washington DC. The full text of the document is available below: Continue reading
Dotcom Scores Victory Against Forfeiture in New Zealand Court
New Zealand court Justice Rebecca Ellis has issued a ruling which strikes a serious blow against the efforts of the United States to seize the assets of entrepreneur Kim Dotcom. After March's United States court ruling which sought to seize Dotcom's assets through a legal construction known as the "fugitive disentitlement doctrine" and efforts by New Zealand's Commissioner of Police to assign Dotcom's property to the Crown, Dotcom and his attorney Bram Van der Kolk sought relief through judicial review of the actions in New Zealand courts. Continue reading
Elonis Wins At US Supreme Court
In the free speech case Elonis vs. United State which was featured earlier on Qntra, the justices of the United States Supreme Court decided in favor of Elonis. Elonis challenged his conviction under Federal statutes prohibiting the interstate transmission of threats for his having authored rap lyrics. The justices vacated the conviction and sent the case back to a lower court to be reconsidered under a stricter standard for prosecution which would require demonstrating Elonis had a criminally culpable state of mind, or Mens Rea when disseminating his lyrics. While the decision was not a complete victory for Elonis the idea that offense is something imposed by the recipient of an utterance, and if utterances are to ever be criminal Mens Rea must be established is almost a positive development in the bleak wasteland of the United States legal system.
Foundation Report Brings Bitcoin Client Performance Improvement and Testing
This month's State of Bitcoin Address issued by the Bitcoin Foundation largely covers the submission and testing of two patches which promise to greatly reduce the memory usage of the Bitcoin reference client. The two major patches submitted are named "Orphanage Thermonuke" and "Transaction Orphanage Amputation" and in tandem they have the potential to seriously clamp down on Bitcoind's memory footprint and could lead to Bitcoin nodes running on more kinds of hardware. The patches work in tandem to drastically alter the Bitcoind client sync mechanism in a radical way. Continue reading
Qntra (S.QNTR) May 2015 Statement
OKCoin Ver Dispute Escalates
The dispute between OKCoin and Roger Ver over which contract governs an agreement they made regarding the bitcoin.com domain name continues to escalate with Ver's friend and former CTO of OKCoin Changpeng Zhao publicly stating (archive) that he had a gentleman's agreement with Ver which he expected OKCoin to honour after he left the company.
In addition to siding with Ver's version of events, Zhao claims OKCoin has been engaged in an assortment of deceptive conduct regarding the operation of its exchange, specifically: Continue reading
Some Other People Sentenced This Month in US Courts
A few hours ago Ross Ulbricht was sentenced to a life of incarceration for convictions related to operating a website. Let's look at some other sentences handed down by American courts recently:
Terry and Victoria Smith (archived) were sentenced to seven years in prison by a St Charles County, Missouri court for keeping their six year old child with autism in an excrement filled cage. The judge in the case, Ted house also imposed a fine of five hundred dollars on each parent. Back in 2010 police, paramedics, and a case worker visited the Smith's home after receiving a tip through a child abuse hotline and found the Smith's autistic son locked in the cage. The seven year sentence is the maximum that could be imposed in this case. Continue reading
Ross Ulbricht Sentenced To Life In Prison
Convicted of seven offences last February, Ross William Ulbricht was today (archive) sentenced to life in prison with no parole for the part he played in the operation of the Silk Road. In addition to his life sentence, Ulbricht has been ordered to pay the United States Government USD $183,961,921 despite the fact it has already sold a majority of the coins it confiscated from Ulbricht via the USMS auctions.
Speaking to the life sentence she handed down, U.S. District Judge Katherine B. Forrest said: Continue reading