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Daily Roundup: Snapchat security exploit, judge okays NSA spying and more!
You might say the day is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workday, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Daily Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 24 hours -- all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.
Bitcoin exchanges shut down after threat from India's central bank
Bitcoin is quickly beginning to attract the attention of regulators in a number of countries. After a flat-out ban in Thailand and restrictions on banks in China, now several Indian Bitcoin exchanges have suspended operations following a warning from the Reserve Bank of India concerning digital currencies. Issued December 24th, the statement outlines the risks of a purely electronic wallet, unregulated transactions and value fluctuations. It also contains what could be considered a threat, however, stating that virtual currency users could be breaking money laundering and terrorism financing laws -- one report from the subcontinent suggests the government has carried out the first raid on a Bitcoin exchange, too. Thus, some sites have decided to close for the time-being, leaving notes on their homepages expressing the need for clear legal guidelines before trading can resume. Undoubtedly we'll see more countries take steps towards regulation, especially as the price of currencies rise. Nothing decreases something's worth like outlawing it, after all.
Coinpunk swoops in as a mobile Bitcoin wallet app alternative
It's been a month since Apple began culling the App Store herd of Bitcoin wallet apps, with Coinbase being the most notable victim of the purge. But there is a new player in town, and it's billing itself as "a mobile Bitcoin wallet Apple can't ban." I don't know 'bout ya'll, but where I come from, them's fightin' words! It's called Coinpunk, and its secret to being unbannable is that it's not an app to begin with. Instead, it's an HTML-based service that acts as a mobile Bitcoin wallet, and is designed to be super easy to use via a smartphone web browser. So yes, Apple can't ban it any more than it could ban a website from rendering on its smartphones or tablets. Wired recently spoke with Coinpunk's creator, Kyle Drake, about his motivations behind creating the service and his outlook on the future. Give it a read if you're hungry for a bit of behind-the-scenes details.
Dear wannabe Bitcoin miners: If it seems too good to be true, it's probably 4Chan
The allure of Bitcoin is understandable. In the past, the digital currency's price has fluctuated wildly, growing in value at an incredible rate. What does a Bitcoin currently cost? It changes by the hour. And outside of buying them at market rates, the only way to get Bitcoins is a complicated mining process. As with any gold rush, there are always suckers to be found, and the pranksters at 4chan are always ready to mess with them. Today, the denizens of 4chan's infamous /b/ board, an anarchist playground for horrific images and incredibly cruel jokes, released the image you see above. It purports to tell users how to unlock a secret Bitcoin mining program in the Mac OS. Instead, it directs them to delete essential files on their computer, effectively killing the machine. 4chan is in no way safe for work, so take that into consideration before Google searching the site. The Daily Dot was able to find a few users who were dumb enough to try unsolicited secret money-making information they found on the internet. So here's our helpful three-step guide for not getting tricked into bricking your own computer. 1. When you discover something online that's too good to be true, stop and think before acting. 2. Don't worry about thinking with your gut. Do a Google search and see if a reputable source has replicated the results. If not, leave well enough alone unless it's a neat lifehack for crisping potatoes. 3. If the original source of information was an infographic you saw online and it's not just a neat lifehack for crisping potatoes, skip step 2 and simply don't take the advice. Stay safe out there.
Up-close with a Bitcoin mining powerhouse (video)
Alex Lawn is in New York on a pitstop, arriving in from Sweden on his way to next week's Inside Bitcoin conference in Las Vegas. He hasn't slept much. The way he describes it, no one at KnCMiner does much sleeping these days, as the company races to become the driving force in the rapidly expanding world of Bitcoin mining. He elicits some stares as he hauls around a giant metal box full of computer components, an accessory that's no doubt been the source of some major headaches passing through customs on his world travels. Inside is Jupiter, which the company claims is capable of mining the currency 100-times faster than the competition. "Everything about our project is totally over-engineered," Lawn says with a smile. "Normally the post-fabrication refinement process is around 12 to 18 months, and we did it within 24 hours." It's precisely the company's drive to beat the competition to market that has lead to so many sleepless nights. He pulls out his iPhone and shows a video of CTO Marcus Erlandsson celebrating as KnC fires up the Jupiter for the first time, the result of millions of dollars of crowdfunded investment. "He literally hadn't slept in four months." The computer is a massive beast with four giant cooling fans designed to reduce the heat given off by the 28-nanometer chip-powered modular boards. The system is broken up into four modules, designed so you can continue the 24 / 7 mining process, should one fail.
Ouya now accepting bitcoin payments for system purchases
"Consoles? Please. I only play indie games on my Ouya. I bet you still use government-issued money, like all the plebes do. Meow." If you loathe fiat currency and love independently produced games, you're in luck. Ouya is now accepting bitcoin payments for its Android-powered microconsole, making it easier to support indie developers without using a credit card. A sense of superiority over your fellow humans is optional, but recommended. Currently, bitcoins are only accepted for the Ouya unit itself -- the platform's online storefront only allows players to buy games with a credit card. Company co-founder and CEO Julie Uhrman notes that PayPal support for store purchases is coming soon.
China warns banks against using Bitcoin
We're pretty sure no Government is entirely thrilled at the idea of Bitcoin, but China's now made its feelings very explicit. The nation's various regulators have barred banks from dealing in the electronic currency, saying that it doesn't have legal status and shouldn't be allowed to circulate in the market. While big institutions won't be able to use the digital money, individuals are still entitled to buy and sell BTC off their own backs -- albeit with the heavily coded warning that they do so at their own risk.
Recommended Reading: Stuxnet's more dangerous precursor, fake memories and more
Recommended Reading highlights the best long-form writing on technology in print and on the web. Some weeks, you'll also find short reviews of books dealing with the subject of technology that we think are worth your time. We hope you enjoy the read. Stuxnet's Secret Twin (4,176 words) by Ralph Langner, Foreign Policy Pocket Stuxnet is a pretty nasty nasty customer, especially if you happen to be a centrifuge used in the enrichment of uranium. Amazingly, the story of the first publicly acknowledged cyber weapon keeps getting more and more interesting. Ralph Langner has spent the last several years poring over code and other details of Stuxnet's history and discovered there was an earlier version of the virus, that was even more destructive than the one unleashed on Iran's nuclear facilities. Instead of putting the centrifuge's motors in overdrive, it over pressurized them by closing valves designed to allow gas out. It sounds like a perfectly logical avenue of attack, until you realize that the potential for truly catastrophic failure would have quickly blown Stuxnet's cover.
Virgin Galactic now accepting Bitcoin for future flights into space
As the value and credibility of Bitcoin continues to skyrocket, Virgin founder Richard Branson now wants to let people use the digital currency to finance a flight into space. Ahead of its first trips next year, Virgin Galactic has already had one "future astronaut" from Hawaii book a Bitcoin-funded ticket and hopes that its affluent clientele will follow suit. An investor himself, Branson has been pushing for governments to regulate the peer-to-peer payment system and believes that today's announcement will give it more credibility. Neither Virgin Galactic nor Branson has indicated just how many Bitcoins you'll need before you get a return ticket to the heavens, but we suspect this isn't the future that Gene Roddenberry was planning.
Bitcoin mining motherboards promise huge profits (for your energy provider)
As Bitcoins have become more valuable, they've also become much harder to accumulate using the mathematical process known as "mining." This air of futility hasn't fazed ASRock, however, as the company has revealed two new motherboards that promise to help DIY-ers to "join the gold rush now!" The H61 Pro BTC and H81 Pro BTC are both Intel socket boards, with the latter being Haswell compatible, and their main party trick is to carry extra PCIe slots and power connectors so you can exploit the compute power of up to six graphics cards simultaneously. What ASRock doesn't specify, however, is how much profit one of its fully-loaded mining motherboards might deliver. So, although we're quite deliberately not experts at this stuff (aside from a bit of armchair interest), we plugged some numbers into the Bitcoin Profitability Calculator, based on six Radeon HD 7990 cards running in parallel, and discovered that this monster of a system might never actually break even, due to its ridiculously high energy costs. This could well explain why all the big boys use dedicated ASIC boards for mining these days, instead of consumer-grade hardware.
Coinbase Bitcoin app pulled from Apple's App Store
Well that was fast! Less than a month after consumer-focused bitcoin platform Coinbase hit the App Store it's been yanked by Apple. As TechCrunch reports, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong is baffled by Apple's decision to pull the app and has no idea why it was axed, saying "We're not sure why it was taken down and we've reached out to Apple to request clarification." Bitcoin hasn't exactly has an easy go of things in its quest to become a go-to decentralized currency alternative. A volatile price and huge spikes has made it a tough recommendation for things like, oh, your life savings for example. Still, it's definitely a legitimate currency option and it will be interesting to hear Apple's eventual explanation for why the Coinbase app has been shut down.
$1.2 million in Bitcoins hijacked in 'social engineering' attack
So, you've amassed a fortune in Bitcoins, possibly ill-gotten. If you're storing them on a computer that's exposed to the internet, you may want to rethink that strategy thanks to a huge theft from a digital wallet service called Input.io. 4,100 Bitcoins worth $1.2 million were plundered through two separate attacks by a hacker that gained access through social engineering, according to "TradeFortress," the site's owner. The thief managed to reset the site's password through an email recovery scheme, routing the process through a proxy server near the Australian service's location to avoid suspicion. Unfortunately, Input.io is unable to return the lion's share of the theft, though TradeFortress told Wired he'd pay back 1,540 Bitcoins from his personal stash. The service is now dead and you may want to heed to rueful owner's parting words: "I don't recommend storing any Bitcoins accessible on computers connected to the internet."
FBI seizes black market website Silk Road, arrests its founder
Light just reached one of the darker corners of the web: the FBI has seized Silk Road, a site infamous for hosting anonymized, Bitcoin-based drug and gun sales. The move follows a sting operation that also led to the arrest of site founder Ross Ulbricht (aka Dread Pirate Roberts) for alleged hacking, money laundering and narcotics trafficking. While the seizure isn't likely to stop online contraband purchases, it's potentially a big blow. At current Bitcoin values, Silk Road generated $1.2 billion in revenue from just two years of operation -- the kind of cash that we'd expect from a large, legitimate e-commerce venture. The FBI's move also demonstrates that anonymizing technology like Tor won't always keep law enforcement at bay.
Germany recognizes Bitcoin as private money, makes it tax-free for personal use
So far, governments have had polarized reactions to Bitcoin: they either recognize it as a fully regulated currency or ban it outright. Germany, however, has just taken a more nuanced position. The country now recognizes Bitcoin as private money that stays tax-free for personal uses, such as non-commercial internet auctions. You'll only have to pay taxes on business transactions. While the decision doesn't give Bitcoin as much weight as the euro, it should reassure Germans who want to stay on the right side of the law. [Image credit: Zach Copley, Flickr]
Lamassu's Bitcoin ATM up for pre-order, coming soon to an early adopting liquor store near you
Granted, it's not exactly a traditional ATM -- for one thing, you feed cash in. It's not exactly a vending machine either -- there are no candy bars here, just a transfer of funds to your account. Lamassu's Bitcoin Machine scans your info via a QR code on your phone, you put some bills in the slot and voila, you're a little closer to that Bitcoin mansion you've had your eye on. The company opened up pre-orders via its site this week -- just send along 50.7278 Bitcoins ($5,000) and one of these bad boys is yours for the transferring later this year.
Exploits leave some Android-based Bitcoin wallets open to theft (update: details)
If you manage Bitcoins through Android devices, you may need to keep a close eye on your virtual cash in the near future. Developers have found that multiple Android-based Bitcoin apps, such as Bitcoin Wallet and Mycelium Wallet, are vulnerable to number generator exploits that could be used for theft. Although patched apps are either available in beta or coming soon, the complete fix involves more than just new code -- users have to both create a new Bitcoin address and send it out to anyone still relying on old details. You're safe if you use a simple Bitcoin exchange client, but you'll otherwise want to visit the source link for more help with securing your digital holdings. Update: A few days later, Google's Android security team has outlined the exact vulnerability. Apps that use Android's Java Cryptography Architecture sometimes don't get strong-enough encrypted values due to a bug. That's being patched at the OS level, but app writers can offer their own fix in the meantime.
Texas federal judge declares Bitcoin a currency, says Bitcoin investments fall under US securities law
Bitcoin's been in the news a fair bit lately due to the uncertainties surrounding the Mt. Gox exchange, where one can trade in the digital money for the official currencies of countries around the world. However, for many, Bitcoin remains an ephemeral idea, neither received nor recognized as a valid way to, you know, pay for stuff. Today, however, a federal judge in the Eastern District of Texas has officially recognized Bitcoin as a currency and declared that Bitcoin investment funds and transactions fall under the jurisdiction of US securities law, and therefore, the federal justice system as well. The ruling was handed down in a case brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission against a man who created a Bitcoin hedge fund and is alleged to have defrauded the investors in that fund. So, while most of us don't have to worry about Bitcoin fraud, it's good to know that the federal government is looking out for us should we decide to invest in the digital currency.
Bitcoin ban means one less option for bribing Thai officials
Thailand isn't exactly known for its unquestionable ethics; activities that would quickly be labeled as illegal in the West are practiced in plain view in Bangkok. Loose regulations mean that a nearly limitless array of goods and services can be purchased with cash and even credit -- a currency like Bitcoin would only be necessary for the most heinous of exchanges. It's a bit ironic, then, that the Thai government is now the world's first to ban Bitcoin. Following a conference at the Bank of Thailand yesterday, the Foreign Exchange Administration and Policy Department voted to make the digital coinage illegal, prohibiting people from buying, selling or trading Bitcoins for goods or services. Additionally, Bitcoins cannot be moved into or out of the country, rendering any current stockpiles worthless. The Bank of Thailand ended its dispatch with a promise to revisit the ruling in the future, though this landmark decision could prove to be the beginning of the end for Bitcoin.
Mt. Gox Bitcoin exchange back in action
As promised, Mt. Gox has reenabled cash withdrawals after taking its system offline to iron out the kinks. The Bitcoin exchange says it's successfully processed over $1,000,000 worth of transactions during these past two weeks of testing, which has given it the confidence to resume business -- despite a backlog on some transactions. Mt. Gox is also announcing that it's signed more banking partnerships "in Japan and around the world," though no specific companies were named. If you want to get into this whole Bitcoin thing, but don't know where to start, we got you covered.
Mt.Gox Bitcoin exchange freezes US dollar withdrawals for two weeks
It's easy to see that the Bitcoin market is under stress when there's rising overall activity and tighter oversight. However, it's now so hectic that the Mt. Gox exchange has trouble fulfilling even basic transactions -- and the institution is freezing US dollar withdrawals for two weeks to keep things in check. Mt. Gox's team will use the downtime to upgrade its trading system and (hopefully) address the heavy workload. Deposits and transfers in American currency should still be good to go. Let's just hope that Mt. Gox manages smoother transitions in the future -- after all, not everyone can afford to leave their money in limbo during a tech refresh.
