Up against the clock six world powers are attempting to secure a historic deal with Iran. Whats this deal exactly about & what is at stake? Is there really a last minute big issue holding everything up? We’ll break it all down.

Plus Obama’s executive action against cyber attacks & we dig deep into the government corruption file this week.

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Show Notes:

Executive Order — “Blocking the Property of Certain Persons Engaging in Significant Malicious Cyber-Enabled Activities” | The White House

U.S. Creates First Sanctions Program Against Cybercriminals : The Two-Way : NPR

The U.S. wants to slap sanctions on cybercriminals. President Obama issued an executive order Wednesday creating the nation’s first sanctions program to combat “malicious” cyberattacks and cyberspying.

President Obama said cyberthreats pose one of “the most serious economic and national security challenge” to the U.S., and that the executive order offers a “targeted tool” for countering that threat.

Obama’s Diplomatic Gamble On Iran Adding Instability In Middle East

Even before he became president, Barack Obama was imagining the possibilities of a diplomatic breakthrough with Iran. His willingness to reverse decades of official U.S. hostility was one of the things that set Obama apart on the campaign trail.

Obama’s Diplomatic Gamble On Iran Adding Instability In Middle East

Even before he became president, Barack Obama was imagining the possibilities of a diplomatic breakthrough with Iran. His willingness to reverse decades of official U.S. hostility was one of the things that set Obama apart on the campaign trail.

The post Nuke Penetration Testing | Unfilter 139 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

Google leverages Chrome’s marketshare to push web security forward. Are we about to see zero day exploits reclassified as weapons & ZFS gets the green light on Linux for production.

Then it’s a great batch of your questions, our answers & much, much more!

Thanks to:

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— Show Notes: —

Killing off SHA-1 in SSL certificates

• “The SHA-1 cryptographic hash algorithm has been known to be considerably weaker than it was designed to be since at least 2005 — 9 years ago”
• “That’s why Chrome will start the process of sunsetting SHA-1 (as used in certificate signatures for HTTPS) with Chrome 39 in November. HTTPS sites whose certificate chains use SHA-1 and are valid past 1 January 2017 will no longer appear to be fully trustworthy in Chrome’s user interface.”
• The CA/Browser forum, the group made up of Google, Mozilla, Microsoft, Apple, Opera, and most of the Certificate Authorities, and sets the policies for the group
• The forum is how the browsers decide which CAs to include in their trust store
• Part of the problem was that older browsers and devices only supported SHA-1, and none of the SHA-2 (SHA256, SHA512) algorithms
• The CA/Browser Forum officially deprecated SHA-1 in 2011, no new certificates can be issued that use SHA-1
• Google is proposing to add increasingly severe warning messages for visitors to site using SHA-1 certificates that have an expiration date after the end of 2016
• Upgrades may still be complicated. Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP SP2 does not support SHA-256, only SHA-1. Servers would need to be upgraded, and Windows XP clients would need to install SP3. Android before 2.3 only supports SHA-1, 2.2 is still quite popular
• Support for running 2 certificates, an upgraded one for clients that support it, and a legacy certificates for ones that do not, is being worked on. Apache supports it now, and work is underway to add support to NGINX and Apache Traffic Server.
• GlobalSign’s SHA-256 compatibility matrix
• It is nice to see the steps being taken with plenty of time for everyone to update gracefully. In the past, the move away from MD5 was much less smooth, only finally spurred on by the real danger of rogue certificates via MD5 collisions
• The CA/Browser forum similarly disallowed new 1024 bit certificates in 2010, with no certificate to have an expiration date later than Dec 31st 2013. Mozilla recently pulled the plug on 1024 bit certificates, leaving 107,000 “valid” certificates no longer trusted
• SSL Labs breaks down what you need to know
• Additional Coverage: Why Google is Hurrying to kill SHA-1

Will selling 0-day exploits soon be considered “Arms Dealing” and be illegal?

• VUPEN and others are now following the Wassenaar Arrangement that classifies their 0-days and exploits as regulated and export-controlled “dual-use” technologies. Going forward they will only sell to approved government agencies in approved countries.
• The latest version of the agreement included 0-days, exploits, and backdoors as regulated and export-controlled “dual-use” technologies. Previously, the US wasn’t recognizing these most recent additions but that is all changing come later this month according to a recent Federal Register notice (pdf). The notice states that the US will be adopting changes made to the list of dual-use items made in December 2013 as of August 4th.
• The big question is where the government will draw the line in terms of defining “dual-use.” Will day-to-day security tools (e.g., Nessus and Nmap) fit into this category? What about a quick bash script you write up to bruteforce web application session ids?

The state of ZFS on Linux

• ZFS on Linux is now “officially” production ready
• Key ZFS data integrity features work on Linux like they do on other platforms
• ZFS runtime stability on Linux is comparable to other filesystems, with certain exceptions
• ZoL is at near feature parity with ZFS on other platforms.
• ZoL does not lose data
• changes to the disk format are forward compatible
• Updates are always flawless
• Up until now, it was mostly the “on Linux” part that was at question, OpenZFS (the open source fork used in IllumOS, FreeBSD, SmartOS, and elsewhere) has been stable for many years
• “Data loss can be defined as the occurrence of either of two events. The first is failing to store some information. The second is attempting to retrieve information that was successfully stored and getting either something else or nothing at all”
• “The ZFS on Linux kernel driver performs the same block device operations as its counterparts on other platforms. As a consequence, its ability to ensure data integrity is equivalent to its counterparts on other platforms and this ability far exceeds that of any other Linux filesystem for direct attached storage”
• ZoL is missing 9 of the newest features in OpenZFS, including LZ4 compression, Spacemap histographs (speed improvements under heavy fragmentation), Feature Flag enabled TXG (support for rolling back and upgrade), Hole Birth (improved replication performance) and ZFS Bookmarks (resumable zfs send/recv)
• Also, there are 9 other features missing from ZoL, including integration for iSCSI (also missing on FreeBSD, as until recently FreeBSD did not have a kernel iSCSI target daemon), Integration with Containers (Linux doesn’t really have a feature similar to Solaris Zones or FreeBSD Jails), Boot Loader integration, etc.
• “The current release is 0.6.3 and the next release will be 0.6.4 later this year. The plan is to continue performing 0.6.x releases with distribution maintainers doing backports until the /dev/zfs ioctl interface is stabilized. At that point, the project will release 1.0. New releases will be 1.x while 1.x.y maintenance releases will be done to back port fixes like is done by the Linux kernel stable maintainers”

Feedback:

• Hall of Shame: Enigmail

• Untrusted mail servers

• Creating a backup system for my mom with NAS using Linux but for windows

• I’m not sure how to tell a gym about a miss configuration in there systems

• xp pos systems

Round Up:

• Dread Pirate Sunk By Leaky CAPTCHA — Krebs on Security
• Intel Announces new 18 core Xeon E5 dual-socket processors. DDR4 and all the other goodies too
• FBI reveals how they found Silk Road, security experts claim unlikely
• Using the iPhone thermal camera to steal PIN codes PDF: Heat of the Moment: Characterizing the Efficacy of Thermal Camera-Based Attacks
• Dropbox Transparency Report update: fighting for your right to know
• 5 Million google usernames and passwords from large Russian dump. Likely from other databases that were compromised, and these 5 million people happened to use the same password Download .txt file of just usernames
• Microsoft agrees to contempt order so e-mail privacy case can be appealed
• Secretive Bitcoin creator’s email address may have been compromised
• Malware found at Healthcare.gov, no personal data was at risk
• Allan’s Musings while depositing a cheque
• Switching ISPS is too hard. FCC says it might think about possibly maybe doing something to help a little, kind of, maybe

The post It's not a Bug, It's a Weapon | TechSNAP 179 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

Did Home Depot get struck by the same malware that attacked Target? How the FBI found the Silkroad server, and Reddit just got a big cash infusion… But is it enough?

Plus a nostalgic look back at the WORM drive & much more!

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Show Notes:

Reddit Raising Big Funding Round With Help From Y Combinator Contacts

Reddit, the social news site with a big Web footprint, is raising a big funding round — with help from some of the people who helped launch the site nine years ago, including co-founder Alexis Ohanian and other people associated closely with startup incubator Y Combinator.

Sources said the site has reached a preliminary agreement to sell less than 10 percent of the company for more than $50 million. That could give the company a valuation of upwards of $500 million.

Home Depot Hit By Same Malware as Target — Krebs on Security

The apparent credit and debit card breach uncovered last week at Home Depot **was aided in part by a new variant of the same malicious software program that stole card account data from cash registers at **Target last December, according to sources close to the investigation.

A source close to the investigation told this author that an analysis revealed at least some of Home Depot’s store registers had been infected with a new variant of “BlackPOS” (a.k.a. “Kaptoxa”), a malware strain designed to siphon data from cards when they are swiped at infected point-of-sale systems running Microsoft Windows.

BlackPOS also was found on point-of-sale systems at Target last year. What’s more, cards apparently stolen from Home Depot shoppers first turned up for sale on Rescator[dot]cc, the same underground cybercrime shop that sold millions of cards stolen in the Target attack.

—

Other clues in the new BlackPOS malware variant further suggest a link between the cybercrooks behind the apparent breach at Home Depot and the hackers who hit Target. The new BlackPOS variant includes several interesting text strings. Among those are five links to Web sites featuring content about America’s role in foreign conflicts, particularly in Libya and Ukraine.

One of the images linked to in the guts of the BlackPOS code.

Three of the links point to news, editorial articles and cartoons that accuse the United States of fomenting war and unrest in the name of Democracy in Ukraine, Syria, Egypt and Libya. One of the images shows four Molotov cocktails with the flags of those four nations on the bottles, next to a box of matches festooned with the American flag and match ready to strike. Another link leads to an image of the current armed conflict in Ukraine between Ukrainian forces and pro-Russian separatists.

Dread Pirate Sunk By Leaky CAPTCHA — Krebs on Security

“The IP address leak we discovered came from the Silk Road user login interface. Upon examining the individual packets of data being sent back from the website, we noticed that the headers of some of the packets reflected a certain IP address not associated with any known Tor node as the source of the packets. This IP address (the “Subject IP Address”) was the only non-Tor source IP address reflected in the traffic we examined.”

“The Subject IP Address caught our attention because, if a hidden service is properly configured to work on Tor, the source IP address of traffic sent from the hidden service should appear as the IP address of a Tor node, as opposed to the true IP address of the hidden service, which Tor is designed to conceal. When I typed the Subject IP Address into an ordinary (non-Tor) web browser, a part of the Silk Road login screen (the CAPTCHA prompt) appeared. Based on my training and experience, this indicated that the Subject IP Address was the IP address of the SR Server, and that it was ‘leaking’ from the SR Server because the computer code underlying the login interface was not properly configured at the time to work on Tor.”

• Nik Cubrilovic – New Web Order » Analyzing the FBI’s Explanation of How They Located Silk Road

Doubts cast over FBI ‘leaky CAPTCHA’ Silk Road rapture • The Register

“The idea that the CAPTCHA was being served from a live IP is unreasonable. Were this the case, it would have been noticed not only by me — but the many other people who were also scrutinizing the Silk Road website. Silk Road was one of the most scrutinized sites on the web, for white hats because it was an interesting challenge and for black hats since it hosted so many Bitcoin (with little legal implication if you managed to steal them).”

Moreover, an externally hosted image would still be routed over Tor and any packet sniffer would be unable to detect the Silk Road’s IP address.

Cubrilovic claimed it was more likely the FBI found and exploited a security vulnerability or discovered an information leak in the Silk Road login page and application.

CenturyLink Said to Seek to Acquire Rackspace Hosting – Bloomberg

CenturyLink has discussed the idea with San Antonio-based Rackspace, which last month said it is still conducting an internal review of its strategic options, according to the people, who asked not to be identified talking about private information. One person said a deal may not be reached for the company, which had a stock-market valuation of $5.33 billion at the end of last week.

Odds of the deal going through are less than 50 percent unless Rackspace is willing to take payment in stock or enter a joint venture, Jaegers said. CenturyLink wants to avoid a debt downgrade that may come with financing a large deal, she said.

What is WORM (write once, read many)?

In computer storage media, WORM (write once, read many) is a data storage technology that allows information to be written to a disc a single time and prevents the drive from erasing the data. The discs are intentionally not rewritable, because they are especially intended to store data that the user does not want to erase accidentally. Because of this feature, WORM devices have long been used for the archival purposes of organizations such as government agencies or large enterprises. A type of optical media, WORM devices were developed in the late 1970s and have been adapted to a number of different media. The discs have varied in size from 5.25 to 14 inches wide, in varying formats ranging from 140MB to more than 3 GB per side of the (usually) double-sided medium. Data is written to a WORM disc with a low-powered laser that makes permanent marks on the surface.

• IBM 3363 optical WORM drive | 102671161 | Computer History Museum

The post Grand Theft Depot | Tech Talk Today 54 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

Microsoft’s new CEO grabs the public perception bull by the horns and refocuses on mobile-first. Oh, also cloud-first. But also Xbox and Office. We dig beneath the buzz and suss out what we think is truly Satya Nadella big challenge ahead.

Plus Google is giving away terabytes, Bitcoin goes to Washington, and more!

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Show Notes:

Satya Nadella: Microsoft will focus on mobile and cloud, renew focus on productivity, won’t sell Xbox

Microsoft is the productivity and platform company for the mobile-first and cloud-first world.
We will reinvent productivity to empower every person and every organization on the planet to do more and achieve more.

Finally, every team across Microsoft must find ways to simplify and move faster, more efficiently. We will increase the fluidity of information and ideas by taking actions to flatten the organization and develop leaner business processes.

Microsoft drops case that severed DNS hosting for millions of No-IP nodes | Ars Technica

Microsoft has formally settled legal differences with No-IP, the dynamic domain name host that was kneecapped by a botnet takedown that recently knocked out service to millions of legitimate hostnames.

Microsoft surrendered the 23 No-IP domains last week. A bare-bones statement e-mailed to journalists Wednesday morning said the agreement settled a controversial lawsuit Microsoft filed in late June that allowed the software maker to confiscate 23 No-IP domain names before the service provider had an opportunity to oppose the maneuver in court. The malware families targeted in the latest takedown infected more than 7.4 million machines in the past year alone, Microsoft said.

Microsoft’s technique relies on stealth to disconnect virtually all of a campaign’s malicious servers at once before the operators have a chance to respond.

Preserving the confidentiality of the planned takedown may have played a role in No-IP claims that Microsoft officials never contacted it ahead of time about the abuse of its service. Microsoft’s takedown technique has evolved over the years. Company officials would do well to update it again to reflect the lessons learned from this episode.

With Google Offer, Cloud Storage Gets Closer to Free

Google Cloud Platform offered two terabytes of free storage for a year, through one of its partners, a startup called Panzura.

By comparison, Amazon offers a service for infrequently accessed data at one cent per gigabyte per month, which would equate to $120 a year for one terabyte of storage. Microsoft’s Azure service offers business the first terabyte of data storage for as little as 2.4 cents a gigabyte per month.

“This is a way for customers to try something new, especially if they have had some kind of aversion to using the cloud in the past,” said Chris Rimer, global head of partners at Google’s Cloud Platform business.

He said Google wants to encourage businesses to move more of their computing to the cloud. “We want to make sure potential customers are not worried about cost as a barrier to entry,” Rimer said.

“There are free offers out there for gigabytes of storage, but terabytes is where it starts to get interesting for companies,” said Rimer.

• Google Cast Screen Mirroring Feature Comes To Chromecast

Google has released a feature for Chromecast announced at Google I/O this year — Android device screen mirroring. The update today brings the much-desired feature to all Chromecast-capable devices and makes Google Cast much more similar to Apple‘s competing AirPlay offering for iOS devices.

Singapore passes law to block illegal sites

Announced back in April, the new amendment to Singapore’s Copyright Act will provide content owners with the ability make Internet service providers in the country block illegal web sites such as the infamous Pirate Bay.

Singapore’s Senior Minister of State for Law Indranee Rajah said the new law will give copyright owners “greater ability to protect their rights in the online space.”

“The prevalence of online piracy in Singapore turns customers away from legitimate content and adversely affects Singapore’s creative sector,” Rajah said.

The new law is reportedly set to come into force at the end of August, and copyright owners can apply to the court in Singapore without having to establish the liability of the network service provider.

Judge denies Silk Road’s demands to dismiss criminal prosecution

In a scathing opinion and order on Wednesday, the federal judge presiding over the Silk Road case denied the defense’s motion to dismiss all four criminal counts, rejecting every argument made. Absent a plea deal, the case will now go to trial scheduled for November in a New York federal courtroom.

In her 51-page ruling, Judge Katherine Forrest did not buy any of the defense’s arguments. Among them, Dratel claimed that the money laundering charges must fail because Silk Road’s currency of choice was Bitcoin, which he said is not money.

Bitcoin Foundation Hires Firm to Lobby Congress on Cryptocurrencies

The Bitcoin Foundation has stepped up its US lobbying efforts by hiring Washington, DC-based firm Thorsen French Advocacy.

The announcement from the Foundation represents perhaps the most high-profile bitcoin lobbying effort to date.

The lobbying efforts will seek to find a balance between privacy concerns and law enforcement as it relates to bitcoin; clarify the US government’s stance on digital currency taxation; and develop more inclusive, but effective, consumer protection rules.

Feedback:

• Oscon meetup! : LinuxActionShow

The post Microsoft's New Old | Tech Talk Today 24 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

We go over Amazon’s new smart phone, and discuss if they’ve missed the mark.

Then the Feds screw up the Silkroad Bitcoin sale, and T-Mobile decided some bits are more privileged than others – and why they might just fool you into liking it.

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— Headlines —

Amazon announces the Fire Phone, $199 with 2-year contract for 32GB

• A quad-core 2.2GHz SoC
• Adreno 330 GPU
• 2GB of RAM
• 802.11ac Wi-Fi
• Fire OS 3.5.0
• 13MP camera with optical image stabilization.
• A dedicated shutter button.

Fire Phone exclusively available July 25 on AT&T: $199 for 32GB, $299 for 64GB, $649 and $749 off-contract

Equipped with Firefly, its standout feature, the Fire Phone will be able to scan and identify more than 100 million items, enabling users to perform instantaneous price checks alongside a contextual database search of everything from music and street signs to the handwritten contents of notes and letters.

Firefly, when rolled into Amazon’s network of services anchored by Prime, is meant to be the linchpin of the Fire Phone. With a device that customers can take with them to every physical store and location and scan their surroundings, Amazon is adding a powerful new avenue to reroute users back to its platform and marketplace.

At closing, Amazon stock was up 2.69 percent, or 8.76 points, at $334.28 per share

List of Possible Silk Road Bitcoin Bidders Leaked by US Marshals

A list of individuals interested in the auction of the 30,000 bitcoins confiscated from the now-defunct Silk Road black marketplace has been leaked via email by the US Marshals Service (USMS), the US government agency confirmed.

In a statement to CoinDesk, Lynzey Donahue, a US Marshals spokeswoman, indicated that the emailer had intended to send all the recipients an attached informational document and to blind copy all those it intended to contact. The US Marshals service is the federal agency that has been charged with carrying out the auction of the bitcoins, originally seized by the FBI.

T-Mobile’s ‘Music Freedom’ is a great feature — and a huge problem | The Verge

T-Mobile has decided, arbitrarily, that some of the data traveling over its pipes should count against a cap, while other data should not. What’s to stop it from using data cap exemptions as a punitive measure against content providers that aren’t on good terms with T-Mobile (or its parent company Deutsche Telekom)?

Japan’s ruling party says won’t regulate bitcoin for now

Japan’s leading Liberal Democratic Party said it decided against regulating bitcoin for the time being, after the collapse of Tokyo-based bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox prompted them to consider more scrutiny of the virtual currency.

SnappyTV is joining the flock | Twitter Blogs

One of the best ways to follow events as they unfold is through real-time videos on Twitter. As we continue to invest in video, it’s important for us to provide tools that make it easy for TV broadcasters, businesses, and event producers to share high-quality videos. To that end, we’ve agreed to acquire SnappyTV.

Support Tech Talk Today creating DAILY PODCASTS

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• Twitter ChrisLAS
• Google+ +ChrisFisher

The post The Cost of Free | Tech Talk Today 12 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

We’ll look back at 10 years of Patch Tuesday, then the shutdown of Lavabit and Silkroad.

Plus a big batch of your questions, our answers, and much much more!

Thanks to:

— Show Notes: —

Microsoft Patch Tuesday turns 10

• On Oct. 9, 2003, Microsoft announced its new security patching process, it ended up changing the entire industry
• Microsoft promised:
• “Improved patch management processes, policies and technologies to help customers stay up to date and secure.”
• “Global education programs to provide better guidance and tools for securing systems.”
• “Our goal is simple: Get our customers secure and keep them secure. Our commitment is to protect our customers from the growing wave of criminal attacks.”
• Microsoft started blogging about security issues and also embarked on serious outbound communication campaigns to educate users
• Even Microsoft’s security bulletin text format and sections were delivered in a consistent format that security professionals have come to rely upon
• Today public disclosure of serious Microsoft security holes is now the exception

2 new vulnerabilities bypass Java ‘Click2Play’ security system

• A new variant of the \”Kore-ish\” Cool Exploit Kit appears to make use of two new zero-day exploits in Java7u21
• CVE-2013-2460
• CVE-2013-2472
• It appears this vulnerability may have originally been discovered by VUPEN and solid to governments and used for an indeterminate amount of time, until it was fixed by Oracle in Java7u25
• The current version of Java is Java7u40
• The latest version of Java includes a new ‘deployment rule set’ feature, that allows enterprise customers to create a whitelist of allowable applications, preventing drive-by attacks

Barclay’s hit by KVM attack, 1.3 million GBP stolen

• An person pretending to be an IT admin, walked in to the branch and installed an IP-KVM connected to a 3G Router, then later used it to take over the workstation it was connected to
• Barclays claims to have recovered “a significant amount” of the stolen money
• When police raided a number of properties to arrest the perpetrators, they found thousands of credit cards and other personal data, plus drugs, jewellery and cash
• This is not the first time Barclay’s has been hit. “We have been working closely with the Metropolitan Police following a security breach at our Swiss Cottage branch in April 2013. We identified the fraud and acted swiftly to recover funds on the same day,” said Alex Grant, managing director of fraud prevention at Barclays.

Feedback

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• Zero Day: A Jeff Aiken Novel Audiobook | Mark Russinovich | Audible.com

• Co-located server connected to home server + 6 screens problem

• proXPN VPN | Checkout Code: JBLIVE for 20% off for Life

• Why use services like LastPass instead of directly generating passwords using e.g. PBKDF2?

• ZFS and Virtualization

• ZFS Distributed FS

• Follow up to the TechSNAP 128 Bank Job

• Ethernet over power!

• BSD Conference and vBSDcon 2013 – Verisign

Round Up:

• Edward Snowden\’s E-Mail Provider Defied FBI Demands to Turn Over Crypto Keys, Documents Show
• FIMail – Graphical Email client for DOS
• Silk Road Shutdown, Owner Arrested. FBI Says Simple Mistake Led to his Arrest
• Internet of Things Demands New Social Contract To Protect Privacy
• Rocket Researches bypass US GPS limits
• Lackluster broadband hurting adoption of ‘the cloud’
• Former NSA CTO Prescott Winter says enterprise IT security is appalling
• Signals from the Crowd: Uncovering Social Relationships through Smartphone Probes
• Security after the death of trust
• Yahoo does bugbounty wrong, researcher reports serious vulnerability, gets $12.50 coupon for Yahoo store

The post ZFS Can Do that | TechSNAP 130 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

We’ll cover some of our favorite ways to buy things with bitcoin, from the new and exciting, to the dark and shady.

Plus we chat with Forbes writer Kashmir Hill about her week of Living on Bitcoin, tackle the big stories of the week, answer your emails, and more!

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— Show Notes: —

— Feedback —

• Andrew Voicemail

• How can we value a BTC if we can never know how many BTC are active!?

• With a few questions

Frequently n00bed

• How a Bitcoin Transaction Works
• Bitcoin: What is it? | Khan Academy

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Call or txt the Show:

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— Discussion —

• Gates, Buffet, and Munger on Bitcoin

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates and Berkshire Hathaway’s Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger on Bitcoin, tax rates, bank regulation and the Federal Reserve policy.

• Liberty City Ventures Launches $15 Million Fund To Invest In Bitcoin And Other Digital

New York City-based Liberty City Ventures is announcing its Digital Currency Fund, a $15 million commitment to Bitcoin and other digital currency startups.

• A bet on Bitcoin: new VC fund invests in currency startups

The latest buzz comes by way of the Bitcoin Boost Fund, a new Silicon Valley fund that announced on Tuesday that it will hand out $50,000 to seven or so Bitcoin startups.

All of the startups will be graduates of Boost VC, an accelerator program that seeks to mentor would-be Bitcoin barons. The accelerator, created earlier this year, is run by Adam Draper, who describes himself as a “fourth generation VC” and who is hosting a hackathon at the “Bitcoin: Future of payments” conference in San Jose this weekend.

• Keiser Report: Virgin Bitcoin vs Old Hag Pound

In this episode of the Keiser Report, Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert discuss the currency of an independent Scotland. Max argues that bitcoin will force the banking system to reinvent itself or die, for what can be more of an invisible hand but a cryptologically guarded, invisible currency.

• Bitcoin Network Speed 8 Times Faster than Top 500 Supercomputers Combined

The bitcoin network hashrate estimate on bitcoinwatch.com passed 1 exaFLOPS (1,000 petaFLOPS) this week – over 8 times the combined speed of the top 500 supercomputers.

The FLOPS estimate is based on the opportunity cost of computers using their hardware for mining instead of other applications. Miners are using their graphics cards to perform hashes instead of other FLOPS-based distributed computing.

• Department of Homeland Security Shuts Down Dwolla Payments to and From Mt. Gox

The Department of Homeland Security appears to have shut down the ability to use Dwolla, a mobile payment service, to withdraw and deposit money into Mt. Gox, a Bitcoin trading platform. A Dwolla representative confirmed the move to Betabeat.

• Dwolla no longer allowed to do business with MtGox?

— Spending Your Coins —

• 21 Things I Learned About Bitcoin From Living On It For A Week

I lived on Bitcoin for a week. This is what I learned.

• Humble Bundle now accepting Bitcoin using Coinbase bitcoin merchant tools

Humble Bundle, known for its flash sales of millions of $s worth of games from high quality developers, is now accepting Bitcoin using Coinbase merchant tools.

• Mobile Gift Card App Gyft Partners With BitPay To Start Accepting Bitcoin Payments In Its Android App

Mobile gift card company Gyft has partnered with BitPay to start accepting bitcoins within its app.

This is a big partnership for both, as BitPay’s CEO, Tony Gallippi, says that the company currently processes $5 million per month in bitcoin transactions for its merchants. Gyft allows you to purchase gift cards at more than 50,000 retail locations in the U.S., including Brookstone, Lowe’s, GAP, Sephora, Gamestop, American Eagle, Nike, Marriott, Burger King and Fandango. So, technically, you’ll now be able to use bitcoin to pay for a Whopper.

• Gyft – Mobile Gift Card Wallet

• BitPremier

BitPremier’s mission is to provide astute buyers in the Bitcoin community with access to unique, high-end luxury items and opportunities. We believe in a customer-centric, secure, and friendly marketplace environment where we give individual attention to every item proudly listed on our site.

BitPremier is backed by the NYC-based Bitcoin Opportunity Fund. Other investments of the fund include CoinLab, BitPay, BitSpend, OpenCoin/Ripple, Coinsetter, TradeHill, and Coinapult.

• Pot Shops Can’t Take American Express or Deposit in Banks – Bitcoin Opportunity?

“We’re just looking for a solution where we can bank legitimately like any other industry,” Smith said. “Wherever you stand on the marijuana issue, it serves everybody’s interest to have banking access.”

Aaron Smith, executive director of the Washington-based National Cannabis Industry Association

• Bank officials say they are complying with federal law:

At Wells Fargo, “our policy of not banking marijuana dispensaries is based on applicable federal laws and our own assessment of our responsibility,” said Seitz, the bank’s spokesman.

American Express Co. (AXP), the biggest U.S. credit-card issuer by customer purchases, “has made a decision to not allow card acceptance for medical marijuana,” Sanette Chao, a spokeswoman for the New York-based company, said by e-mail. “It is our policy to adhere to federal law in such matters.”

• Credit Card Processors & BitPay Discriminate Against Medical Marijuana

U.S.-based BitPay, has refused to enter the fray. As a processor, BitPay offers same-day conversion of merchant bitcoin into a US dollar bank account. CEO Tony Gallippi explained in an interview that although several have applied, “medical marijuana is not allowed in our terms of service.” Of course to be consistent, other merchant types not allowed by BitPay include ecstasy, MDMA, any controlled substances, weapons, gambling, and sports betting. They will however support transactions for file sharing, storage/backup services, and VPN services, because “freedom of information is important.”

Enter the Silk Road

• Underground Website Lets You Buy Any Drug Imaginable

Making small talk with your pot dealer sucks. Buying cocaine can get you shot. What if you could buy and sell drugs online like books or light bulbs? Now you can: Welcome to Silk Road.

• r/Silkroad

• Sites:

• Bitspend | Spend Bitcoins Anywhere! Purchase anything online and pay with Bitcoins

• BillPay For Coins – Pay bills using bitcoin!

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• JbLive.tv

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• Plan B Show

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— Music —

• Thanks to Ronald Jenkees and his fantastic track 7 Times

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• Donate to the network with your worthless fiat or your fancy bitcoins!

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