An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Daily Beast: In his final weeks in office before Joe Biden’s inauguration, President Donald Trump is weighing granting clemency to Ross Ulbricht, the founder and former administrator of the world’s most famous darknet drug market, Silk Road, The Daily Beast has learned. According to three people familiar with the matter, the White House…
Tag: Silk Road
Silk Road Bitcoins Worth $1 Billion Change Hands After Seven Years
A billion dollars worth of bitcoins linked to the shuttered darknet market Silk Road has changed hands for the first time in seven years, prompting renewed speculation about the fate of the illicit fortune. The Guardian reports: Almost 70,000 bitcoins stored in the account which, like all bitcoin wallets, is visible to the public, had lain untouched since April 2013. The…
Will China’s AI Surveillance State Go Global?
China already has hundreds of millions of surveillance cameras in place, reports the Atlantic’s deputy editor, and “because a new regulation requires telecom firms to scan the face of anyone who signs up for cellphone services, phones’ data can now be attached to a specific person’s face.” But the article also warns that when it comes to AI-powered surveillance, China “could…
‘If War Breaks Out on Top of the World’
The United States Air Force’s elite “PJ” pararescue units and Alaska National Guard units “are ready to respond if war breaks out on top of the world,” reports a new article in Popular Mechanics: With much of the ice cap melted, the Arctic is teeming with competitive activity because it’s no longer an impenetrable land of glaciers — void of economic…
‘Fruit from the Sands’ explores the Silk Road origins of apples, tea and more
A new book explains how many of today’s popular foods got started on Central Asia’s ancient Silk Road trade networks. Source: https://www.sciencenews.org/article/fruit-sands-book-explores-silk-road-origins-apples-tea4…
Silk Road 2 Founder Dread Pirate Roberts 2 Caught, Jailed for 5 Years
For years, the arrest and case has been kept under-wraps. Friday, a court sentenced Thomas White to 5 years and 4 months for his role in running a huge dark web drug marketplace. Source: https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/9kx59a/silk-road-2-founder-dread-pirate-roberts-2-caught-jailed-for-5-years…