Tag Archives: Security

The Bitcoin bungler – a salutary tale

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“I looked at the Bitcoin exchange rate – now pushing towards $900 in the latest extraordinary bubble – and realised it had turned into a rather big investment.  But then I remembered what I’d done with the phone containing the currency. Wanting to make sure it was somewhere I could get easier access, I’d transferred almost my entire Bitcoin holding to a new wallet on another phone that I was testing back in the summer. Then, a few weeks ago, I offered this phone – supplied by the manufacturer – as a prize in a charity fundraising effort. And before handing it over to the winner I had of course restored it to factory settings, wiping all of my personal data and apps, including my Bitcoin Wallet.”

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-25120902

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N.S.A. May Have Hit Internet Companies at a Weak Spot

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“Government spies hit them at a weak spot — the fiber-optic cables that connect data centers around the world and are owned by companies like Verizon Communications, the BT Group, the Vodafone Group and Level 3 Communications. In particular, fingers have been pointed at Level 3, whose cables are used by Google and Yahoo.  The Internet companies’ data centers are locked down with full-time security and state-of-the-art surveillance, including heat sensors and iris scanners. But between the data centers — on Level 3’s fiber-optic cables that connected those massive computer farms — information was unencrypted and an easier target for government intercept efforts.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/26/technology/a-peephole-for-the-nsa.html?_r=0&pagewanted=all

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Protoshares & Selfish Mining

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“Daniel Larimer is the driving force behind Project Keyhotee, Bitshares futures markets and the Protoshares decentralized, CPU minable currency that he hopes will power it all. Our talk on episode 44 (Mindtomatter – E44-ive-seen-better-days-lets) about Project Keyhotee, the secure Identity/Money/Communications platform was one of the most popular we’ve ever run, and I caught up with Daniel a few days ago about what happens next.”

http://letstalkbitcoin.com/e57-protoshares-selfish-mining/

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Bitcoin Auction Site Puts Itself Up for Sale After Theft of 15 Bitcoins

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“Another day, another bitcoin-related story of a hacking intrusion and BTC theft.  According to people that have provided documentation to CoinDesk, as well as information posted on theBitcointalk forum, the auction siteBitmit had 15 BTC  stolen, after the server was accessed by an employee of their hosting company without authorization.  This theft, along with the effort and responsibility of securing an auction site that has escrow functionality, were the two largest factors in Bitmit announcing that it is being sold.”

http://www.coindesk.com/bitmit-bitcoin-auction-sale-after-theft/

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Privacy nightmare: Company advertises over 1bn license plate records

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“According to a statement made by Vigilant Solutions earlier this month, the company has over one billion logs in its system of license plates caught by LPR cameras capable of capturing data on thousands of automobiles each day. With the right access, any individual with LEARN or a similar system at their disposable can scour this data to see where and when a specific automobile traveled over time. But as the ACLU adamantly noted throughout its report earlier this year, many jurisdictions have no retention policy in place, allowing private companies like Vigilant Solutions and their law enforcement associates to indefinitely expand the amount of information in their networks.”

http://rt.com/usa/license-plate-ldr-database-039/

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How times have changed: Eric Schmidt on privacy in 2009 and today

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“Back in 2009, Google CEO Eric Schmidt told CNBC that ‘if you are doing something you don’t want anybody to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.’ Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal published an interview with Schmidt, during which he said: ‘The NSA allegedly collected the phone records of 320 million people in order to identify roughly 300 people who might be a risk. It’s just bad public policy…and perhaps illegal. You have to take a strong position in favor of privacy. Privacy is really the right to be left alone. Do you really want the government tracking all of those information, especially if you’re just a domestic citizen who is just going about your life?'”

http://www.privacysos.org/node/1225

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Google’s Schmidt Sees Encryption Killing Censorship

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“Protecting Internet traffic with hard-to-crack code may prevent governments from censoring their populations’ communications within a decade, Google Inc. (GOOG) Chairman Eric Schmidt said.  Schmidt described the coming of a ‘network age’ in which Internet users communicate and organize socially through private channels shielded by encryption, which scrambles data with a mathematical formula that can be decoded only with a special digital key.  ‘We can end government censorship in a decade,’ Schmidt said during a speech in Washington. ‘The solution to government surveillance is to encrypt everything.'”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-21/google-s-schmidt-sees-encryption-killing-censorship.html

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Polish Bitcoin Exchange Bidextreme.pl Hacked, Wallets Emptied

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“Poland’s digital currency exchange Bidextreme.pl has been hacked and its customers’ bitcoin and litecoin wallets have been emptied.  In a statement published on itswebsite, the platform said it decided to temporarily suspend all activities until the matter is resolved. The incident was reported to the law enforcement authorities, the company said. The amount of digital currency stolen was not disclosed by the platform, which was founded in 2013. Local observers say the attack could hamper the development of Poland’s bitcoin market, even though bitcoin trading is becoming increasingly popular in Poland and the number of companies accepting payment in bitcoins is steadily rising.”

http://www.coindesk.com/hacker-attack-polands-bitcoin-exchange/

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Gaming Company Fined $1 Million For Secretly Using Players To Mine Bitcoin

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“The New Jersey attorney general’s office announced Tuesday that it reached a million dollar settlement with the Commack, NY-based company for infecting 14,000 computers with its Bitcoin Trojan. The program was also designed to give E-Sports employees full administrative access to users’ computers; they could access files, capture screen shots, track mouse movements, and monitor computer activity even when users weren’t logged into the E-Sports servers. Creepy! The software was designed to only mine Bitcoin when people weren’t active on their computers, i.e., when their mouse wasn’t moving. Over just two weeks, the company mined more than 29 Bitcoin; worth nearly $4,000 at the time.”

http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2013/11/19/brilliant-but-evil-gaming-company-turned-players-computers-into-unwitting-bitcoin-mining-slaves/

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Anti-Theft Bitcoin Tracking Proposals Divide Bitcoin Community

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“All bitcoin transactions are equal, but, to misquote Orwell, should some bitcoin transactions be more equal than others?  A proposal emerged this week that could please regulators and law enforcers alike, by ‘marking’ bitcoin transactions or addresses to make illicit activities easier to track.  And another proposal from a New York-based startup would increase regulator confidence by tying identities more closely to bitcoin addresses.  The danger with either of them is that while they may be opt-in and voluntary at the start, we can’t predict what might happen later.”

http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-tracking-proposal-divides-bitcoin-community/

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