“The country has begun reversing military spending cuts and last year staged its biggest military exercises in nearly a quarter of a century, as well as voting to reintroduce conscription and unveiling joint plans with Denmark to counter Russian cyber-attacks and disinformation.”
“Cell-phone tracking technology known as cell-site simulators (CSS) are being operated by potentially malicious actors in our nation’s capital. DHS doesn’t know who’s operating them or why, or whether these fake cell towers are installed elsewhere in the country.”
Read more: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/04/dhs-confirms-presence-cell-site-simulators-us-capitol
“Other anti-Isis volunteers have been arrested and questioned, with former volunteer Joshua Walker acquitted of unrelated terror charges over possessing a copy of the Anarchists Cookbook.”
“JPMorgan Chase & Co., Bank of America Corp. and Citigroup Inc. said they’re halting purchases of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies on their credit cards. JPMorgan, enacting the ban Saturday, doesn’t want the credit risk associated with the transactions, company spokeswoman Mary Jane Rogers said. Capital One Financial Corp. and Discover Financial Services previously said they aren’t supporting the transactions. Mastercard Inc. said this week that cross-border volumes on its network — a measure of customer spending abroad — have risen 22 percent this year, fueled partly by clients using their cards to buy digital currencies.”
“In the most ironic story of the day, the company that makes the paper that Swiss banknotes are printed on was just bailed out by the money-printing, stock-purchasing, plunge-protecting, savior-of-global equities…Swiss National Bank.”
“The information in the file also included names, Social Security numbers, dates of birth, positions, grades and duty stations. The agency said it ‘did not include any information about employees’ spouses, children, family members and/or close associates.’ The agency confirmed that the incident was not due to an external cyber-attack from unknown sources but stemmed from a leak inside the DHS itself. The breach was eventually categorized as a ‘privacy incident.'”
Read more: https://www.rawstory.com/2018/01/dhs-confirms-data-breach/
“A crackdown on organized crime by Bulgarian law enforcement in May resulted in the seizure of more than 200,000 bitcoins – an amount worth more than $3 billion at today’s prices. Twenty-three Bulgarian nationals were arrested during the operation, and officials said at the time that the arrests and subsequent asset seizures followed an investigation into an alleged customs fraud scam. In all, the alleged perpetrators avoided paying some 10 million leva (Bulgaria’s national currency), worth roughly $6 million.”
Read more: https://www.coindesk.com/bulgarian-government-sitting-3-billion-bitcoin/
“Two months ago we noted former Fed chief Ben Bernanke’s apparent flip-flop since leaving office as he agreed to be the keynote speaker at a blockchain conference, having warned in 2015 of ‘serious problems’ with bitcoin due to its ‘instability’ and ‘anonymity’…”
Read more: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-10-16/bernanke-backs-ripple-blockchain-conference-tech-promising
“The Shadow Brokers disclosures, which began in August 2016, have been catastrophic for the N.S.A., calling into question its ability to protect potent cyberweapons and its very value to national security. The agency regarded as the world’s leader in breaking into adversaries’ computer networks failed to protect its own.”
Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/12/us/nsa-shadow-brokers.html
“Bitcoin is too expensive for one of the most powerful women in finance. Christine Lagarde, the head of the International Monetary Fund, on Friday told CNBC’s Sara Eisen that bitcoin is ‘too expensive for me at the moment’ when asked if she would ever buy into the red-hot digital currency. Lagarde last month gave a soft defense of the cryptocurrency during a speech in London. She said cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin could ‘give existing currencies and monetary policy a run for their money.'”