Kyt Dotson
Latest from Kyt Dotson
Americans invade, dynamite Minecraft Demark in griefing raid
When Denmark set out to make a 1:1 map of the country in the virtual world of Minecraft, officials did not expect Americans to invade. That’s exactly what happened near the end of April when a group of players stole onto the server like an army armed with high explosives and bad taste—the group laid ...
Bitcoin Weekly 2014 May 7: First political party to use blockchain for e-voting is from Denmark, The Rise of Digital Currency, Bitcoin’s niche in developing economies
In this Bitcoin Weekly it’s time to explore how Bitcoin and related technologies are and could be put to use. To start, the Danish Liberal Alliance has become the first-ever political party to use blockchain technology to facilitate e-voting. Crush The Street released a short seven minute documentary of the rise of virtual currency and ...
Bitcoin Weekly 2014 April 30: Bloomberg adds Bitcoin to their market index, MIT to produce campus-wide ‘bitcoin economy’, the first Mexican bitcoin exchange
A day late, but not a bitcoin short, the Bitcoin community is seeing some recognition this week in the financial sector with Bloomberg adding a Bitcoin market index to their professional services. Two MIT students will be giving $100 worth of bitcoins to pupils on campus to start a small bitcoin economy and study spending ...
City of Paradigm: The business of artificial intelligence
Below is an excerpt from Kyt Dotson’s novel City of Paradigm, a science fiction tale about a fictional 21st century city situated somewhere in California. Each City of Paradigm column is two parts: an excerpt from the novel and an editorial describing the real-world context of the technologies described in the story. Readers may find ...
Bitcoin Weekly 2014 April 23: Vault of Satoshi proof-of-solvency audit, TEDx virtual currencies are the future, Bitcoin side-chains, and happy Easter BTC
More exchanges are hitching their wagon to the trust of the community in the wake of the insolvency of MtGox. Now Vault of Satoshi has submitted to a proof-of-solvency audit program to show users that the wallets hold what they say they hold. Financial officer for Juan Llanos Unidos Financial Services speaks in at TEDx ...
Bitcoin Weekly 2014 April 16: Upgrade to fix Heartbleed bug, Bitcoin value exceeds $500, Amazon not interested in BTC, Reddit’s /r/technology rejecting ‘Bitcoin’ headlines
With last week’s Heartbleed bug still bright in the minds of Internet users, if you run a Bitcoin client it is a good time for you to immediately upgrade to 0.9.1 if you have not already. As fears of a crackdown from the People’s Bank of China begin to subside, bitcoin market value has risen ...
Bitcoin Weekly 2014 April 9: The Heartbleed bug edition
For the web this week has been a huge gust of security news after an exploit discovered in a popular SSL encryption library–responsible for encrypting much of the web’s traffic–became well known. Due to the security-conscious nature of the Bitcoin community (and in no small part that bitcoin storage relies on strong security) this exploit, ...
‘Heartbleed’ SSL vulnerability causing heartburn for Bitcoin web services
A major security flaw recently discovered in a popular library for the SSL protocol—the cryptographic underpinning of a bulk of all web transactions—has been discovered that could affect a large number of bitcoin services. The two year old flaw, named “Heartbleed” affects versions of OpenSSL that could weaken the security of encrypted web traffic, which ...
The San Jose Quakes to become the next sports team to accept Bitcoin
The San Jose Earthquakes will be accepting bitcoin with the upcoming soccer season. This makes the Quakes the second professional sports team to take bitcoin as a payment option—following the Sacremento Kings (an NBA team) who announced that March 1st would mark their acceptance of bitcoins. Soccer fans can expect to use the virtual currency for ...
Bitcoin Weekly 2014 April 2: Square Market opens up to Bitcoin, Circle.com $17m investment and service announcement, Ulbright’s lawyer seeks reprieve, Chinese regulation rumors
Square, noted ecommerce processor and service, has begun giving merchants the options to accept bitcoins with their Square Market service. Circle.com just announced a $17 million funding round alongside the launch of their first two products, an exchange and a wallet service, but the entire thing is still invite-only as it ramps up. Ross Ulbright, ...