Croatian forces have reportedly arrested the founder and "President" of Liberland Vít Jedlička. Jedlička founded Liberland in a disputed stretch of territory along the Danube river between Serbia and Croatia and declared Bitcoin the official currency. The micronation of Liberland has only a month of history and given present opposition it seems unlikely to enjoy the longevity of the Principality of Hutt River or Sealand. Given Liberland's geographic situation prospects for establishing lasting security seem unlikely.
The Chicken Brothers Cook Up Some Ransomware
Bloatware publisher Symantec reports (archive) that a variant of Cryptolocker is infecting numerous computers throughout Australia, demanding a ransom of up to AUD $1,000 or USD $790 payable to none other than Los Pollos Hermanos.
The Breaking Bad branded variant, which encrypts common file extensions such as *.gif, *.doc, *.mp3, *.pdf, *.txt. *.zip, *.xls and so on directs victims to email theonewhoknocks@mailinator.com for support related enquiries, but at this time that inbox is empty. Continue reading
Gavin Backs Off Blocksize: Scapegoats Memory, UTXO Set
Having retreated from the Vessenes Bitcoin Foundation to his new residence at MIT, USGavin, also known as Satoshi dress-up impersonator Gavin Andresen, has given up promoting larger block sizes. Continue reading
UK Man Sentenced To Six Years Prison
A young man from Cambridge (archive) in the UK has been sentenced to prison having plead guilty to charges related to the production of MDMA and the possession of Ketamine and Heroin. 22 year old Callum Fay was first arrested back in June of 2012 after local police were informed by the UK Border Agency that Fay was importing Cocaine from India. Continue reading
Bitcoin ISP Unveiled
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
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
Government Funded Exchange BitSpark Shifts To Remittances
Hong Kong based Bitcoin exchange BitSpark has announced (archive) its decision to "temporarily retire" its exchange, opting instead to shift attention to remittances across the Philippines, Indonesia, Australia, Hong Kong and China. As part of that change of direction, BitSpark intends to launch a remittance focused product later this month at the 2015 Innotribe semi finals in Singapore. 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. ↩
Ripple Labs Fined for Violating Bank Secrecy Act
The United States Financial Crimes Enforement Network (FinCEN) released a statement today charging Ripple Labs Inc. with a $700,000 fine for willfully violating the requirements of the Bank Secrecy Act. XRP II, LLC a subsidiary of Ripple Labs Inc. operates Ripple Trade a website where users can trade various assets and currencies for XRP. FinCEN claims Ripple's subsidiary XRP II, LLC "failed to maintain an adequate anti-money laundering (AML) program" compliant with the BSA. This marks the first time a virtual currency exchanger has received a civil penalty from the United States government.
Silbert's Bitcoin Investment Trust begins trading on OTC Market
The private firm Bitcoin Investment Trust (BIT) began trading on the over-the-counter "pink sheet" market OTCMarket under the symbol "GBTC" yesterday.1 The Trust, backed by Grayscale Investments, a subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, was founded by Barry Silbert and, according to AngelList, employs Ryan Selkis a.k.a. TwoBitIdiot. Continue reading
This ticker symbol is contrary to earlier reports suggesting the Trust would list under "BTCV". ↩