Hasta La Gadget!

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.

Filed under: Misc

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Via: ArsTechnica

Source: US District Court Eastern District of Texas [PDF]

Carrying cash can be a drag, but it’s often an even bigger nuisance for shopkeepers with iPad point-of-sale terminals. Because of a focus on swiping plastic, storage solutions for your dollar bills take a back seat. The WindFall Cash Drawer is Heckler Designs’ stylish US-made option that, according to the company, offers the smallest footprint of any drawer currently available — it’s probably the brightest, too. Cash Drawer follows the aesthetics of the Arizona designer’s other pieces; namely, heavy-duty steel construction, rounded corners and minimalist design. Is your storefront already rocking a WindFall stand for Apple’s slate? Well, you’re in luck, as the nouveau till sports a secure mounting and cable management system for it. Sure there’s a slight bit of irony surrounding its current lack of pricing, but don’t let that get you down. When it launches this fall, it’ll be available exclusively from ShopKeep POS.

Filed under: Tablets, Apple

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Source: Heckler Design

If you’ve been pondering over whether a 3D printer is a sound financial decision, here might be your answer: researchers have calculated that they can pay for themselves inside a single year.

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Credit and debit card skimmers are nothing new — they’ve been around for quite a while, but they’re getting better and better, to the point where it takes a few months until someone figures out that a skimmer was implanted on an ATM or gas pump. Today’s skimmers are more sophisticated than ever, and the attention to detail that hackers provide is pretty impressive.

One of the latest skimmer frauds happened in Oklahoma, where thieves installed their cards skimmers on several gas pumps and waited for drivers to pull up to fill up their tank. In just a couple of months, the thieves rounded up $400,000, by using the stolen card information at ATMs, and withdrawing cash.

However, the skimmers only worked on debit cards, not credit cards. The thieves used a card skimmer and a fake PIN pad overlay in order to get the PIN number for the associated debit card. The thing is though, the fake overlay looked so real, that it took a couple of months before people became suspicious.

Security expert Brian Krebs says that gas pump skimmers “have moved from analog, clunky things to the level of workmanship and attention to detail that is normally only seen in ATM skimmers.” Investigators said that the skimmer technology used in this situation was “way more sophisticated than anything they’ve seen previously.”

The crazy part about these new, sophisticated skimmers is that they use Bluetooth for remote access, so the thieves never have to physically interact with the skimmer after it’s installed, and they can live off of the power from the gas pumps themselves, so they’ll never run out of juice. This is why it’s probably best to use a credit card at the pump, but it’s also important to make sure everything looks legit, since pumping gas is almost second nature to drivers.

VIA: Gizmodo

SOURCE: Krebs on Security

Credit card skimmers now more sophisticated than ever is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
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If you thought the sprawl of 16 numbers across the front of your credit was randomly generated, think again: like any good string of numbers, an algorithm was involved in its creation.

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