International law enforcement organisation Interpol conducted a war game scenario last week that centered on discovering the identity of a blackmailer demanding a more than $4m ransom in bitcoin. Sixty-four participants from 26 countries took part in the event, according to Interpol, which was held over four days between 21st and 24th March. Teams received scores during the war game, earning points when completing certain objectives and losing points when making errors or asking for help. According to Interpol, the war game centered on a fictional oil company that is being blackmailed by some unknown entity threatening to release corporate secrets unless a ransom in bitcoin is paid. The organization explained: “The investigation began after ‘Cracker10000’…
Marcus Swanepoel is the CEO of BitX, a Singapore-based bitcoin services company focused on digital currency in developing markets. In this opinion piece, Swanepoel tackles the issue of bitcoin’s bad reputation, arguing this perception is more based on misinformation than fact. As an industry insider, it is sometimes very hard to admit that bitcoin suffers from serious negative perception issues: that in the minds of many people bitcoin is still automatically linked to thoughts of drugs, terrorist financing and money laundering. Needless to say, this has massive implications for all potential stakeholders: It slows down consumer adoption, it has regulators set the bar unreasonably high for bitcoin companies to operate and many banks still refuse to provide…
A New York man has been charged with operating an unlawful money transmitting business in connection with the sale of bitcoins, the US Department of Justice announced on Friday. The government said last week that it was charging Rochester, New York, resident Richard Petix with illegally selling $200,000 in bitcoin between August 2014 and December of last year. Notably, the report does not provide information on any state-specific laws Petix was in violation of when conducting the sale. Petix’s charges, the Justice Department said, are connected to a wider alleged scheme that involved money laundering as well as the trafficking of controlled substances and stolen goods. According to court documents filed with the US District Court of the Western District of…
Peter Van Valkenburgh is director of research at Coin Center, a non-profit research and advocacy group focused on the public policy issues facing cryptocurrency technologies such as bitcoin. Previously, he was a Google Policy Fellow and collaborated with various digital rights organizations on projects related to privacy, surveillance, and digital copyright law. Ransomware has been around for a while – turns out it’s about 20 years older than bitcoin – but it’s been in the news again recently because of a particularly upsetting case involving a Los Angeles Hospital. Most types of ransomware software “lock” the files on a victim’s computer by encrypting them with a key that the hackers withhold until a ransom payment is made. In the…
A New Jersey pastor and former credit union executive has been indicted for allegedly taking bribes from the now-defunct bitcoin exchange Coin.mx. As previously reported by CoinDesk, Coin.mx operators Anthony Murgio and Yuri Lebedev were arrested last summer and charged with running an illegal money services business. Prior to its closure, Coin.mx functioned by way of a so-called “Collector’s Club”, in which customers were considered members of a private organization. Prosecutors allege that this structure was used to obscure the nature of the exchange. Pastor Trevón Gross, named in a superseding indictment unsealed yesterday, is accused of taking bribes worth more than $150,000 in exchange for allowing the takeover of New Jersey-based Hope Federal Credit Union….