"A couple of weeks ago, we visited the Salt Lake Farmers Market. We were amazed at the receptiveness of the vendors there to bitcoin. It was the smoothest experience we have had in the month and a half we have been living on bitcoin in persuading people to accept bitcoin. These were very open minded folks! Five different vendors accepted bitcoin from us for their products." Continue reading →
"The food truck phenomenon hits Tulsa and reshapes the dining landscape." Continue reading →
"The U.S. is seizing 650 Fifth Avenue, the 36-story Piaget Building, from Iranian interests. I’d guess the value is several hundred million dollars. All asset seizure procedures are an utter disgrace, totally unlawful and unjust. This one is triply disgraceful, based as it is on undeclared economic warfare against Iran, phonily done in the name of anti-terrorism, and based on as about as unlawful a 'law' as Congress has ever manufactured." Continue reading →
"I arrived at Google in late 2003, prior to our S-1 being filed in April 2004. There was already lots of internal and external speculation about our trajectory but until the document went public, no one understood just how powerful a business model the company had created. During my interview process Google HR was very secretive about the value of my equity. In fact they told me only the number of shares I had been granted. Without knowing the number of shares outstanding or the enterprise value of the company, a grant total was totally useless but they essentially said 'trust us.' What changed once we went public and how might these same shifts impact Twitter?" Continue reading →
"Attorneys suing Google say the firm violates privacy and takes personal property by electronically scanning the contents of people's Gmail accounts and then targeting ads to them. 'This company reads, on a daily basis, every email that's submitted, and when I say read, I mean looking at every word to determine meaning,' said Texas attorney Sean Rommel, who is co-counsel suing Google. But in a federal court hearing Thursday in San Jose, Google argued that the case should be dismissed, and that 'all users of email must necessarily expect that their emails will be subject to automated processing.'" Continue reading →
"A couple years ago, we were disappointed to see a judge take the technologically wrong stance that data transmitted over WiFi is not a 'radio communication,' thereby making sniffing of unencrypted WiFi signals potentially a form of wiretapping. Indeed, based on that, the court eventually ruled that Google's infamous WiFi sniffing could be a violation of wiretap laws. This is wrong on so many levels... and tragically, an appeals court has now upheld the lower court's ruling. There are serious problems with this. Under no reasonable view is WiFi not a radio communication first of all. That's exactly what it is." Continue reading →
"For the privilege to apply, however, the government must try to compel a person to make a 'testimonial' statement that would tend to incriminate him or her. When a person has a valid privilege against self-incrimination, nobody — not even a judge — can force the witness to give that information to the government. But a communication is 'testimonial' only when it reveals the contents of your mind. We can’t invoke the privilege against self-incrimination to prevent the government from collecting biometrics like fingerprints, DNA samples, or voice exemplars. Why? Because the courts have decided that this evidence doesn’t reveal anything you know. It’s not testimonial." Continue reading →
"Hackers have hit back in retaliation for US cyber-spying on Brazil but mistook the US space agency NASA for the National Security Agency (NSA), a news website reported here Tuesday. 'Some activists decided to protest this US practice but it seems that they picked the wrong target,' a specialized blog of the Brazilian news portal Uol said. 'They hacked NASA’s web page and left the message: Stop spying on us,' it said. The hackers’ message also called on the United States not to attack Syria. A NASA spokesman confirmed that a Brazilian hacker group last week posted a political message on a number of NASA websites." Continue reading →
"Could the intelligence community have a secret exploit for Bitcoin? It's rather obvious that Bitcoin presents a very strong financial incentive to break its cryptography, since such a vulnerability could allow an attacker to claim large amounts of virtual currency for themselves. But given the decentralized nature of the currency, it may also be a target for intelligence officials looking for ways to track its use. Clearly, Bitcoin is on the government's radar. Knowing how much effort the NSA, amongst others, has placed on cracking encryption, has it tackled Bitcoin too? First, we need to look at how Bitcoin works." Continue reading →
"If FATCA’s sole purpose were to 'recover' tax revenues from assets squirreled away offshore by American 'fat cats,' it seems odd that it targets only individuals and specifically exempts reporting on accounts held by U.S. corporations. On the other hand, targeting individuals makes a lot of sense if FATCA’s purpose is directed towards something else: adding to U.S. government agencies’ global electronic 'map' of personal information. It should be further understood that any data transmitted by foreign financial institutions will not be confined to the IRS but will be handed over ('upon request,' of course) to other 'three-letter' agencies of the U.S. government." Continue reading →