Monthly Archives: March 2014

Mt. Gox falls, but China is seeing a bitcoin ‘gold rush’

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“Beijing-based Huobi.com, China’s largest bitcoin exchange, saw its daily trading volume surge to 69% of the world’s total trading volume. This made Huobi the largest trading platform in the world by volume, according to latest statistics of Bitcoinity, a bitcoin rate tracking service site.  China’s central bank in December ordered financial institutions not to provide bitcoin-related services and products, but the tightening measures seem to have proved unsuccessful in curbing investors’ interest for long.”

http://blogs.marketwatch.com/thetell/2014/02/28/mt-gox-falls-but-china-is-seeing-a-bitcoin-gold-rush/

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Austin Bitcoin mining company hits 1,000 unit sales milestone

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“Cointerra Inc., the Austin-based tech startup that makes powerful computers designed to ‘mine’ bitcoins, has sold its 1,000th TerraMiner since launching the product a month ago.  The TerraMiners IV unit that Cointerra produces will set you back about $5,500 in old-fashioned U.S. currency.  Austin has been making waves in the world of digital currency of late. The Austin Bitcoin community will host the  Texas Bitcoin Conference on March 5-6 at the Circuit of The Americas, and the city is also the site of one of the first Bitcoin ATMs in the U.S.  CoinTerra, which launched in August,  raised $1.3 million from investors in October.”

http://www.bizjournals.com/austin/blog/techflash/2014/02/austin-bitcoin-mining-company-hits-milestone.html

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Toyota tests wireless charging for electric cars

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“Toyota’s charging system uses magnetic-resonance technology. This method transmits electricity by using magnetic resonance that results from changes in magnetic field intensity between a coil positioned on the ground under the car and a receiving coil built into the underside of the vehicle.  This technology would eliminate the need for physically plugging in an electric car or a hybrid. It also has the potential to act as a universal charging station, reducing the need for multiple charging stations and plug standards. Toyota is also testing a new parking-assist system that would help the driver to position the car in a parking spot for the wireless charging system to charge the car’s battery.”

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/toyota-tests-wireless-charging-for-electric-cars-2014-02-18

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Marketing Genius: Girl Scout Sells Cookies Outside Marijuana Clinic

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“13-year-old Danielle Lei, a Girl Scout in San Francisco, is one heck of a smart marketer. On Monday, she sold 117 boxes of Girl Scout cookies in two hours. Her location? Outside a medical marijuana clinic.  Moreover, the Green Cross Cannabis Collective was pretty ‘high’ on the idea too: ‘It’s no secret that cannabis is a powerful appetite stimulant, so we knew this would be a very beneficial endeavor for the girls,’ Holli Bert, a staff member at The Green Cross, told Mashable in an email. ‘It’s all about location, and what better place to sell Girl Scout cookies than outside a medical cannabis collective?'”

http://www.ijreview.com/2014/02/116669-marketing-genius-girl-scout-sells-cookies-outside-medical-marijuana-clinic/

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Mozilla plans ‘$25 smartphone’ for emerging markets

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“Mozilla has shown off a prototype for a $25 (£15) smartphone that is aimed at the developing world.  The company, which is famed mostly for its Firefox browser, has partnered with Chinese low-cost chip maker Spreadtrum.  While not as powerful as more expensive models, the device will run apps and make use of mobile internet.  It would appeal to the sorts of people who currently buy cheap ‘feature’ phones, analysts said.  Feature phones are highly popular in the developing world as a halfway point between ‘dumb’ phones – just voice calls and other basic functions – and fully-fledged smartphones.”

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-26316265

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Optic Nerve: millions of Yahoo webcam images intercepted by GCHQ

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“Britain’s surveillance agency GCHQ, with aid from the US National Security Agency, intercepted and stored the webcam images of millions of internet users not suspected of wrongdoing, secret documents reveal.  GCHQ files dating between 2008 and 2010 explicitly state that a surveillance program codenamed Optic Nerve collected still images of Yahoo webcam chats in bulk and saved them to agency databases, regardless of whether individual users were an intelligence target or not. In one six-month period in 2008 alone, the agency collected webcam imagery – including substantial quantities of sexually explicit communications – from more than 1.8 million Yahoo user accounts globally.”

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/27/gchq-nsa-webcam-images-internet-yahoo

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Bill to re-legalize cell phone unlocking passes House, but with caveat

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“Consumers have been permitted to unlock their phones in the past under an exemption created by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. But the Copyright Office of the Library of Congress, which has the authority to use this exception, decided not to extend it.  That means without legislation, anyone with a phone that was bought on January 27, 2013 or later cannot unlock their phones legally.  Extending this exemption had broad support from Republicans and Democrats. However, GOP leaders made a last-minute change to the bill that says the bill does not permit ‘bulk unlocking,’ which opponents say could make it difficult for companies to go into the business of unlocking phones for consumers.”

http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/votes/199257-cell-phone-freedom-bill-passes-house

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Extremely critical crypto flaw in iOS may also affect fully patched Macs

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“A critical iOS vulnerability that Apple patched on Friday gives attackers an easy way to surreptitiously circumvent the most widely used technology for preventing eavesdropping on the Internet. That made the security bug about as dire as one can be. Now, there’s strong evidence that the same flaw also exposes sensitive e-mail and Web communications on fully patched versions of OS X, with no indication that there is a patch currently available for the millions of people who use the Mac operating system. Confirmed in iOS versions 6.1.5, 7.0.4, and 7.0.5, and OS X 10.9.0 and 10.9.1, it has silently exposed the sensitive communications of millions of people for weeks or months.”

http://arstechnica.com/security/2014/02/extremely-critical-crypto-flaw-in-ios-may-also-affect-fully-patched-macs/

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New iOS flaw makes devices susceptible to covert keylogging

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“Researchers said they have identified a flaw in Apple’s iOS that makes it possible for attackers to surreptitiously log every touch a user makes, including characters typed into the keyboard, TouchID presses, and adjustments to the volume control.  The vulnerability affects even non-jailbroken iPhones and iPads running iOS versions 7.0.4, 7.0.5, and 7.0.6, as well as those running on 6.1.x, researchers from security firm FireEye wrote in a blog post published Monday night. They said attackers could carry out the covert monitoring using an app that bypasses Apple’s stringent app review process. The app uses multitasking capabilities built into iOS to capture user inputs.”

http://arstechnica.com/security/2014/02/new-ios-flaw-makes-devices-susceptible-to-covert-keylogging-researchers-say/

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Researchers bypass protections in Microsoft anti-exploitation tool

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“Security researchers managed to bypass the protections offered by Microsoft’s EMET (Enhanced Mitigation Experience Toolkit), a utility designed to detect and block software exploits, and concluded that the tool would not be effective against determined attackers.  EMET can be used to apply 12 different security mitigations to other programs running on the computer. These mitigations are designed to block common techniques used in software exploits, like ROP (Return Oriented Programming). Researchers from Bromium investigated the protections offered by EMET and found that all of them can be bypassed if the attacker is determined enough.”

http://www.infoworld.com/d/security/researchers-bypass-protections-in-microsofts-emet-anti-exploitation-tool-237118

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