According to The Detroit News and the Associated Press a city database was hit by ransomware this past April. According to Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan a ransom of 2,000 BTC was requested in order to restore access to the affected database. He also reported the ransom was not paid as the database was apparently not that important. This was revealed at the North American International Cyber Summit at Cobo Center. At the summit the Mayor also presented something else as problematic. Continue reading
This Onion, It Smells: Inherent Hazards of the Tor Network
This week Pando Daily's Yasha Levine wrote a follow up to a post from this summer where Yasha documented many of the numerous and transparent connections between the Tor developers and the United States Government. Nothing Yasha wrote in the original piece is particularly controversial, nearly all of it comes from public records, but still Yasha was able to write a follow up on all of the venom Yasha received from fans of Tor without any actual refutations of her points. The simple fact of the matter is that Tor was born of the needs of the United States Government's intelligence community, and continued funding to keep the main Tor developers fed, clothed, and sheltered largely comes from the coffers of those interests. Continue reading
Coinbase Seeking A Risk Investigator
Qntra previously reported on the use of Voxis Platform, a payment platform used by carders to convert stolen credit cards into cash and/or bitcoin via payment processors such as PayPal, Stripe and Coinbase. At the time of publication, Qntra contacted Coinbase regarding the allegations and asked if they could confirm that the Voxis Platform was being used by carders to target Coinbase. Qntra was told we would receive a reply after it was forwarded to legal to which no response has been received. Continue reading
Coinbase Rumoured To Raise $50 Million Bezzlars, Down From $150 Million Bezzlars
Coinbase, the company that is well known for locking in the purchase price of your bitcoin.. unless the price happens to go up in the interim in which case the purchase is flagged as a high risk transaction and cancelled, is rumoured to be raising between USD $40-60 million. The round of new investment is rumoured to be lead by Draper Fisher Jurvetson according to an article published by Re/code. Continue reading
Onename Raises $1.5 Million in Seed Funding for Decentralized Authentication
It was confirmed this week Onename has raised $1.5 million in seed funding. On Wednesday, the company announced on their blog they would be open-sourcing a set of tools including a suite to utilize their in-development Openname Auth, a protocol for decentralized and password-less authentication. These set of tools work with their already open source protocol upon which Onename is built on called Openname, which in turn is built upon Namecoin. Continue reading
CFPB's Proposed Rules Governing Prepaid Cards Include "Virtual Currency"
Last March, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau sort comment regarding potential disclosures to be used on the packaging of prepaid cards such as gift cards and prepaid debit cards. The CFPB have now released their proposed disclosures which, after a brief period of comment, they hope to standardise. Continue reading
NASAA: Top Investor Threats
The North American Securities Administrators Association today released an article titled "Top Investor Threats" in which they state there is an emerging threat of "unscrupulous promoters" illegally offering securities tied to Bitcoin. Continue reading
Imperial College Hosts Bitcoin Technology Competition for Students
The Business School of Imperial College in London is hosting a competition for students to compete on developing "new forms of Bitcoin technology." The projects will count as course credit and cash awards of up to £3,000 are available, with grants up to £500 available for equipment expenses. The Imperial College press release seems to emphasize the idea of "Blockchain Technology" rather than Bitcoin itself, but it remains to be seen what form the actual student projects will take.
ISIS Introduces Coins
There are reports that the Islamic State has announced the introduction of a new trimetal monetary system, which they claim is based on the ancient dinar. The original dinar of course was a rebadging of the Byzantine δηνάριον by early Islamic rulers. The new ISIS currency consists of seven coins of which two are gold, three are silver, and two are copper. According to the Brookings Institute the coins are inscribed with a version of the message "The Islamic State: A Caliphate in Accordance with the Prophetic Method" reflecting the Islamic State's declaration of a Caliphate back in June. Continue reading
David Woo Of Bank Of America Merrill Lynch: Don't Invest In Bitcoin
In a continued attempt to compartmentalise Bitcoin, David Woo, the global rates head at Bank of America Merrill Lynch appeared on an episode of "Bloomberg Surveillance" where he espoused the use of Bitcoin the payment system while writing off bitcoin the unit of account as something one should not invest in. Continue reading