The Hampshire-based company Lamassu has recently unveiled a new ATM prototype at the Bitcoin 2013 Conference in San Jose, California.The device can be programmed to convert any world currency into Bitcoins, the online currency used by websites.To make a transaction the Bitcoin ATM prompts the user to scan a QR code from a phone, so that the machine knows where to send the Bitcoin.Then the user inserts money into the machine and the cash gets converted to Bitcoins and credited to the user’s account.The company’s founders Zach Harvey and Josh Harvey plan to sell the machine to vendors and distributors instead of basing their income on the ATM transaction fees.You can watch a demo of the Bitcoin ATM at the Nashua Liberty Forum. Read More: – CombiBars: Alternative Method Of Payment (+VIDEO) – PayTango: Payment Method Of The Future Employs Biometrics – Fingerprint Will Substitute Your Debit Card – Hotel’s Guests Will Get Their Facebook Profiles Refreshed Automatically – PayPal Lets You Shop And Pay With Your Fingerprint On The Samsung Galaxy S5 – Use Your Finger Print To Get Money From The ATM

Delivery is the weakest link in the “dark web” drug trade: the postal habits of a large-scale trader have led to his undoing.Chukwuemeka Okparaeke is accused of dealing in very nasty stuff: Fentanyl, a high-strength synthetic opioid the Centre for Disease Control says is 50 times the potency of heroin and was responsible for nearly 10,000 deaths in the US in 2015.Okparaeke may have been a capable Tor user, but his logistical clue needed work: he was caught not because someone linked him to his handle (“Fentmaster”, on a site called the AlphaBay Marketplace), but because wearing latex gloves while depositing large numbers of packages at US post offices got the attention of staff.He was seen at several post offices in the Middletown area of New York, and because he was bulk-buying priority delivery stamps, staff had also viewed his driver's licence.The United States Department of Justice's (DoJ's) filing sets out where things went from there.Law enforcement was already interested in the area as a source of “fentanyl analogs”, so the approach from a postal inspector was welcome.

Investigators only needed to place an order with Fentmaster and keep an eye on Okparaeke to tie him to the fentanyl he sent them.When arrested, Okparaeke's Galaxy S5 carried the tools you'd expect: the Private Internet Access VPN application, the Orbot Tor proxy, and a Bitcoin app.There were also text messages suggesting Okparaeke realised he was being watched, and tried to recruit someone else to distribute packages on his behalf.free bitcoin cheat engineIn an act of astonishing naivete, Okparaeke didn't clear his browser history, so police were also able to connect him to a lengthy Reddit post under the handle “bmoreproduct1”, describing his activities as a “darknet drug trader”.ethereum nzThe DoJ media release says Okparaeke is charged with one count of conspiracy to distribute large quantities of an analogue of fentanyl”, which if he's found guilty will get him a sentence between ten years and life.fbi investigates bitcoin

Bitcoin, Dogecoins, and other cryptocurrencies have grabbed a lot of headlines for their explosive growth (and bust, and growth, and, well…).The trick is that generating this currency—"mining" it—requires an awful lot of computing power.Instead of computers, let's use lots of smartphones!Unfortunately, security company Lookout says that the math on mobile mining just doesn't add up.bitcoin mining on teslaMobile Mining Number CrunchThe numbers say it all.litecoin threadLookout's researchers calculated that if you're mining for 24 solid hours on a Samsung Galaxy SIII, you'd only earn .00000007 Bitcoin or $0.00004473.ethereum aud chartIn order to make just one Bitcoin in a day, Lookout says you'd need 14,285,714 phones working full-tilt simultaneously.bitcoin escrow open source

Bitcoins are hugely valuable (over $600USD per Bitcoin), and therefore require huge resources to mine.But even less valuable cryptocurrency, like Litecoin, are beyond the reach of mobile miners.If you took 3,752 SIII phones and let them work for 24 hours, you'd end up with a single Litecoin which is worth a paltry $8 USD.Malicious Miners Despite the overwhelming odds, Lookout's principal security researcher Marc Rogers told Security Watch he has seen numerous malicious Bitcoin miners targeting mobile devices.bitcoin pool rankingsHe estimated there was a new mining variant detected every month.litecoin price gbp chart"The kind of folks who are making mobile malware are very, very inventive," he said."Every new mining system has a new feature.They're trying every direction they can to make it profitable, and that's quite fascinating."Why then do malicious mobile miners persist?

Rogers  believes that the benefits of the cryptocurrency (it's free, untraceable, and so on) are simply too tempting for malware creators.There's also a "cool factor" in trying to exploit this new technology."Early iterations of mining malware did not seem like serious attempts to be profitable, just playing with the technology and seeing what they could do with it," said Rogers."But it's pretty clear that the later versions are deliberate attempts to be profitable."Currently, Rogers says that Lookout is seeing mobile miners trying to be more discreet in order to distribute their malware to more victims and keep infected phones mining longer.According to Lookout, instead of working your phone until smoke pours out, sophisticated malicious miners only run when connected to chargers, or when the screen is off.Of course, these kinder, gentler malicious miners can't mine nearly as much per day as more aggressive apps.There's a Better Way Of course, there are legitimate Bitcoin mining apps out there, and some developers may be tempted to include mining code in their own applications in the hope of making a little money.

However, Rogers says that there is a much simpler way to turn a legitimate profit with mobile apps.Before you freak out, remember that Lookout is no friend to malicious or abusive advertising."Advertising gets a bad rap because we see ad networks that spoil your gameplay or your user experience, but there are good advertising networks out there that are responsible and careful," said Rogers."Advertising would be thousands of times more profitable for a developer than mining.There's a reason ads have powered the mobile ecosystem."Case in point, the surprise mega-hit Flappy Bird reportedly earned its creator $50,000 a day in ad revenue.Mobile Mining Here to Stay Though Lookout's numbers paint a bleak picture, Rogers that we'll see more mobile mining as phones become more sophisticated."Maybe a new phone will come out with a GPU accelerator, so they'll try to use that for mining," he said."Every time there's a new option, we'll see people try to leverage it."But until you can fit a high-powered computer in your pocket (or a Dogecoin mining NAS), mobile mining will be remain academically interesting but financially flat.