The Internet vigilante who has gone by the name "Bitcoin Baron" has been caught for attacking a Mesa, Arizona government website. He previously attacked the website of Columbia, Missouri and has an open investigation in Wisconsin. Police have said he uses a "hacker" operating system.
Battle for the right to play old multiplayer games take shape.
Acronyms are flying as the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) recently requested an exemption from the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) from the Library of Congress (LoC?) to allow users of older computer games to set up their own multiplayer hosting servers. Continue reading
Obama Initiative Promotes Linkrot
More than one thousand websites in the United States .gov top level domain have gone offline since a 2011 memorandum (archived) issued by the President Obama with the stated intent of "improving online services." While the utility of many of the particular domains and sites hosted on them is debatable, Obama's aggressive culling has the primary effect of making the internet presence of the United States government less useful and far less reliable. Continue reading
Coinbase Outgoing Email Hacked
As noticed by #bitcoin-assets user fluffypony, and later confirmed by reddit user CoinbaseAdrian, a sendgrid.net account associated with em.coinbase.com has been compromised. The scammers behind this attack have used it to send email to a list composed mostly of, but not limited to, users of localbitcoins.com. Continue reading
Vessenes Foundation Attempts Janssens Rebuttal
This weekend Vessenes' Bitcoin Foundation board member Oliver Janssens offered a scathing critique of the "non-profit" organization. The attempted rebuttal (archived) rather than refuting, merely edged Janssens's points. The foundation's four points are offered in condensed form below: Continue reading
Tewksbury Police Pay Ransom
Local weekly newspaper the Town Crier reports that Tewksbury, Massachusetts police have paid a $500 ransom after a version of the CryptoLocker ransomware encrypted essential files and rendered their network unusable. The initial infection was determined to have happened on December 7th when it entered the police department's network through the computer of the Officer in Charge. The malware's presence was not discovered until the next day. Continue reading
Buttercoin Set To Close
Cedric Dahl's (archive) Buttercoin has announced its intention to close as of the 10th of April due to an inability to secure additional VC funding. A notification on the Buttercoin website reads: Continue reading
TI-89 Bitcoin Diceware Tool Released
Matt Whitlock has recently released a diceware tool for generating Bitcoin address and private key pairs on the venerable Texas Instruments TI-89 portable general purpose portable computer commonly marketed as a "graphing calculator." The software takes input derived from analog dice rolls. The source code, written in C, is available here and it compiles with TIGCC. Whitlock previously worked on the Lamassu Bitcoin ATM. A video where Whitlock demonstrates the key generation process at 10x speed is embedded below: Continue reading
Olivier Janssens: Bitcoin Floundation Out Of Money, Hates Transparency
A mere month after having been elected to the Bitcoin Floundation, Olivier Janssens has gone public to announce what most of us already knew – the scam foundation has very little money left and that the way in which it has been run to date is to blame for its coming bankrupty.
Janssens writes: (archive) Continue reading
Federal Agent Sells Firearms Via Darknet Market
Patch.com reports the arrest of a Massachusetts man who sought to purchase a firearm and silencer from a darknet market website. Unfortunately for 21 year old felon Justin Moreira, the Walther PPK he ordered was sold to him by none other than a federal agent masquerading as a legitimate arms dealer.
Moreira is believed to have paid USD $2,500 in bitcoin for the firearm and silencer which was then shipped by federal agents to a post office box in Hyannis, MA. Upon Moreira retrieving the package, federal agents moved in to arrest the young man. Continue reading