Monthly Archives: January 2014

What is Bitcoin anyway?

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What is Bitcoin?

Its an electronic cash system that allows online payments to be sent directly from one person to another without going through a financial institution (like a bank) or a third party (like PayPal).

Dan Zak

Boosters of the cryptocurrency make their case on Capitol Hill and want an ATM within easy reach

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Bitcoins are an unregulated, underground online currency and the FEC may permit political campaigns to receive them as contributions.

Whos in charge of it?

No one. Or, rather, everyone who uses it. Bitcoin functions on a peer-to-peer computer network based on cryptography rather than a trusted third party. It is an open-source and self-governing system. A software code maintains a public ledger that records and verifies each transaction without revealing the identity of the users. Users who provide hardware and bandwidth for these transactions are rewarded by the algorithm with new denominations of bitcoin to save or sell into circulation. This process of earning new bitcoin is called mining.

How much bitcoin are in circulation, and what are they worth?

Thursday afternoon there were nearly 12.3 million bitcoin in circulation. The value of a single bitcoin fluctuated between $848.53 and $868.93 through 5 p.m. Thursday, according to CoinDesk, a digital currency news site that averages the price of bitcoin across several high-volume exchanges. One year ago a single bitcoin was worth about $13. Bitcoin are released into circulation at a predictable but diminishing rate based on a software algorithm that caps circulation at 21 million bitcoin (which the system is expected to reach in 2140). Bitcoins are currently divisible by eight decimal points; $1 (USD) equaled about 0.0012 bitcoin on Thursday.

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What is Bitcoin anyway?

Secret draft of TPP talks on environment show little enforcement measures

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A secret draft of what would be Australia's biggest trade agreement shows it will be toothless in enforcing environmental agreements.

The draft environment chapter of the twelve-nation Trans Pacific Partnership agreement published by WikiLeaks proposes next to no enforcement mechanisms with those that are suggested opposed by each of the 12 nations other than the United Stastes.

A summary on the WikiLeaks website says the draft makes use of the 'get out clause' approximately 43 times, using language such as: "Where possible and appropriate, the Parties shall seek to complement and utilise their existing cooperation mechanisms and take into account relevant work of regional and international organisations."

The word "may" is also found 43 times in the 23-page draft.

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Governments are urged to "...make every effort to arrive at a mutually satisfactory resolution...", "...take measures to prevent...", "...make best efforts...", "...exercise restraint in taking recourse...", and retain "the right to make decisions...".

WikiLeaks says other favourite words are "enhance" (12), "consider" (12), "encourage" (11), "address" (10), "endeavour" (9) and "seek" (9).

A report from the chairpersons of the environment section of the agreement despairs at ever getting meaningful agreement saying the so-called "red line" or non-negotiable positions appear irreconcilable."Many of the red lines for some parties were in direct opposition to the red lines expressed by other parties," it says.

"It bears emphasising that it is these differences that have prevented the environment working group from reaching agreement on all aspects of the chapter."

Australia is siding with Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam in opposing US moves to give the resolutions of biodiversity, climate change, fisheries and conservation more force.

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Secret draft of TPP talks on environment show little enforcement measures

Terabyte Leaks and Political Legitimacy in the U.S. and China

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The leaking of information is a time-honored tactic to undermine the legitimacy of a political opponent or a policy. Sir Winston Churchill relied on it during the run-up to World War II to attack what he saw as weak British responses to German rearmament.

Ever the master of using information and disinformation, he would use question time in the parliament to reveal morsels of secret information. As part of an embarrassment strategy, these were drawn from UK intelligence assessments of Germanys military build-up and from UK policy planning documents.

At another level, the sustained control of information has always been viewed as central to political power. The totalitarian governments of the 20th century were among the best practitioners. The term propaganda came to symbolize this technique of political control of information.

In such a governance frame, the idea of a strategic leak has always been one of a slow trickle of pieces of information. Meanwhile, the event itself or the process in question was unlikely to undermine the power of a determined state propaganda machine.

But now the old style of a steady flow of bit-by-bit leaks may be passing into history. Welcome to the brave new world of avalanche-like leaks, where the unauthorized release of secrets has moved from a trickle to a virtual flood.

And now, that flood has even biblical proportions. Wikileaks has been a manifestation of the changing times. All that is required is having a suitable platform to release those occasional floods of secret information.

In publishing 251,287 diplomatic cables from the U.S. government, the Wikileaks website provided a sustained embarrassment to the United States.

While there were temporary setbacks, the leaks did not shake the government to its core or bring about the end of any political career. The total file size of the entire package of leaked cables was less than two gigabytes (2 billion bytes).

But Wikileaks is passing into history. By comparison, on some estimates, Edward Snowden took from the NSA 2,000 times as much information (4 terabytes, or 8 trillion bytes).

This did shake the United States government to the core. It did so not because Snowden revealed unusual activities that were not previously contemplated. The surprise lay in the scale of activity for which the U.S. government was fingered. That stunned people around the globe, foreigners first and, remarkably, American citizens later.

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Terabyte Leaks and Political Legitimacy in the U.S. and China

On Edward Snowden, Privacy, NSA, and Accountability – Quick Thought #632 – Video

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On Edward Snowden, Privacy, NSA, and Accountability - Quick Thought #632
Edward Snowden. A lot of emotions tied to that name. Whether you believe in what he did or not, you can #39;t help but admire one of the effects of the whistlebl...

By: J Lipovetsky

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On Edward Snowden, Privacy, NSA, and Accountability - Quick Thought #632 - Video

Edward Snowden: ‘Not Possible’ to Return to U.S. Now

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Jan 23, 2014 4:37pm

Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor that exposed the agencys most closely held secrets, said today that while returning to the U.S. would be the best resolution for everyone, its not possible now because he does not believe he can get a fair trial.

Charged in the U.S. with espionage-related crimes and living quietly in Russia, Snowden answered Twitter questions today in an online Q&A. When CNNs Jake Tapper asked under what conditions Snowden would return to the U.S., the 30-year-old said the nearly 100-year-old Espionage Act, under which he is charged, forbids a public interest defense.

This is especially frustrating, because it means theres no chance to have a fair trial, and no way I can come home and make my case to a jury, he said.

RELATED: Edward Snowden Denies Stealing NSA Co-Workers Passwords

In a Wall Street Journal Op Ed Tuesday, attorney Jesselyn Radack, who has represented government whistleblowers in the past and has had contact with Snowden, argued similarly that its a fantasy to think Snowden would be able to mount a solid defense in a fair trial due to Espionage Act-related government restrictions.

Earlier today U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said that if Snowden wanted to return to the U.S. and enter a guilty plea, the Justice Department would engage with his lawyers.

Of course if Mr. Snowdens lawyers informed us their client was prepared to take accountability by pleading guilty to the charges filed against him, we would engage with his lawyers on that, as we would with any other defendant, a Department of Justice spokesperson echoed later.

Last June Holder wrote a letter to his Russian counterpart in which he promised the U.S. would not torture or execute Snowden an attempt to refute the grounds upon which Snowden originally made his asylum plea. At the time, Holder said that should Snowden return, he would be provided all the protections the law allows.

Todays Q&A was the second conducted by Snowden since he revealed himself to be the source in a seemingly never-ending stream of reports about the NSAs vast foreign and domestic espionage operations. Snowden is currently living in Russia under temporary asylum, having fled his contractor job at the NSA in Hawaii first for Hong Kong and then for Moscow.

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Edward Snowden: 'Not Possible' to Return to U.S. Now

Edward Snowden’s Asylum in Russia Extended

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Russia announced it would extend asylum to former NSA analyst Edward Snowden beyond the original year they had promised.

Russia announced Friday it would extend asylum to Edward Snowden beyond the original year they granted him back in June 2013.

Russia's Foreign Affairs Committee head Alexy Pushkov made the announcement at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, CNN reported. He said that they would not send Snowden back to the United States after his original year of asylum ends in June.

This is good news for the former analyst that worked for a contractor under the National Security Agency until he leaked secrets about questionable U.S. intelligence gathering methods. Snowden has become one of America's most wanted and there doesn't seem to be a possibility for him to receive the whistle-blower protection he says he deserves.

[READ: Pentagon Report Says Snowden NSA Leaks Risk Lives]

In an online chat Thursday Snowden said that while he hoped to return home to the U.S. someday, he would be unwilling to do so until whistle-blower protection laws were reformed to cover him.

"There are so many holes in the laws, the protections they afford are so weak, and the processes for reporting they provide are so ineffective that they appear to be intended to discourage reporting of even the clearest wrongdoing," he wrote.

Snowden indicated that his return to the U.S. "is the best resolution for all parties," but "it's unfortunately not possible in the face of current whistle-blower protection laws."

[ALSO: Edward Snowden: Missions Already Accomplished]

Snowden has been charged with espionage and theft of government property but said that due to certain laws he would not be allowed to contend that he was acting in the public interest by revealing the U.S. surveillance programs, United Press International reports.

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Edward Snowden's Asylum in Russia Extended