2014

May 2014

• Bitcoin adoption in paymentsMay 29, 20142 min readBitcoin

  If you talk to someone about using Bitcoin as a payment technology your surely going to hear about how governments are classifying it as an asset and not a currency and what the corresponding tax implications are.

• Bitcoin and the credit card ecosystemMay 29, 20144 min readBitcoin

  We use our credit cards every day yet most of us don’t really understand what happens when we swipe a credit card at a merchant. Did you know there are no less than six different players (above and beyond the consumer…

• Proving assets under management is important but it is not an auditMay 27, 20143 min readBitcoinCompliance & Audits

  Recently Bitstamp did a public display of assets under management and while I think its important they and others (like Kraken and the Vault of Satoshi) do this it does not an audit make.

• Liquidity risk and management in BitcoinMay 27, 20142 min readBitcoin

  This of course begs the question how liquid do you need to be? Surely the answer is at least partially tied to the volatility of the asset in question and what your individual exposure to the potential loss might be.

• SWIFT, CHIPS, ACH, Fedwire and Bitcoin…May 27, 20142 min readBitcoin

  Bank transfers, especially international bank transfers, can be incredibly complicated with many players both directly and indirectly involved.

• Beyond Builders, Defenders, and BreakersMay 21, 20141 min readSecurity PracticeLeadership & Product

  There are lots of different types of Security Practitioners out there. At a high level they can all be thought of as Builders, Defenders or Breakers.

• Attacker Mind Map for BitcoinMay 17, 20141 min readBitcoinSecurity Practice

  When thinking about how to protect something its useful to think about who you are protecting from. This normally starts with brainstorming categories of attackers along with their capabilities and motivations. From…

• A Bitcoin Risks Mind MapMay 17, 20141 min readBitcoinSecurity Practice

  This morning I spent some time putting down some the risks relating to Bitcoin that I considered before I made the switch to focusing my efforts on this space.Mind Maps are a great way to collect your thinking and XMind…

• Hardware Based Key Management and BitcoinMay 16, 20143 min readBitcoinCryptography & Keys

  Hardware based key management solutions like Smart Cards and Hardware Security Modules provide a lot of value. Probably the most important being that the keys are moved out-of-process into a totally separate computer.…

• If you don’t hold it, you don’t own itMay 15, 20143 min readBitcoinCryptography & Keys

  If you know anyone who invests in precious metals you have probably heard the phrase “if you don’t hold it, you don’t own it”.

• Effectiveness of security controls in physical securityMay 13, 20142 min readSecurity Practice

  Lately I have been giving some thought to effectiveness of security controls in relationship to physical security.

• PiperWallet First ImpressionsMay 5, 20142 min readBitcoin

  So I just got my PiperWallet. For those of you not yet familiar with it the PiperWallet is an open-source hardware bitcoin wallet based Electrum running on a RaspberryPi paired with a built in thermal printer in what…

• Verifying a Bitcoin Wallet AddressMay 5, 20144 min readBitcoinCryptography & Keys

  Before sending someone a large sum of money on the internet via a irreversible transaction you better make sure you are sending the funds to the right address.

• Certificate Path Building in PKIjsMay 4, 20142 min readPKI & CertificatesEngineering & Code

  Now that its possible to decode and verify the signature on X.509 certificates within the browser the natural question to ask is what can I do with that?