Society's ChildS


Dollar

Unidentified hackers cash out over $140K worth of bitcoins in WannaCry ransom

WannaCry, computer virus, hacking
© Silas Stein / DPA / Global Look Press
An unidentified person has cashed out more than $140,000 worth of bitcoins in ransom collected from victims of the WannaCry's global computer hack. WannaCry encrypted users' files, and hackers charged $300 to $600 for keys to get the files back.

The ransomware virus hit hundreds of thousands of computers around the world in May, targeting hospitals, business and government systems. For three months the ransom money sat untouched in three bitcoin wallets.

A Twitter bot called @actual_ransom, set up by the media outlet Quartz to watch the bitcoin accounts, picked up the first withdrawal at 11:10 pm on August 2.

Handcuffs

Ohio man gets 20 years for reposting ISIS social media threat to US troops

ISIS flag
© Global Look Press
An Ohio man who pleaded guilty to using social media to support the killing of 100 US military personnel on behalf of Islamic State was sentenced to 20 years in prison, the Justice Department said.

Terrence McNeil, 25, of Akron, earlier pleaded guilty to five counts of solicitation to commit a crime of violence and five counts of making threatening interstate communications, according to prosecutors.

McNeil who had no prior arrests or criminal history was arrested in November 2015.

Prosecutors said McNeil professed his support on social media on numerous occasions for Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL).

In January 2015, IS released a video via social networking website advocating so-called lone wolf attacks in Western countries, according to prosecutors.

Bomb

One killed and 6 injured in suicide attack on NATO troops in Afghanistan

An ambulance rushes to hospital in Kabul
© Gong Bing / Global Look PressAn ambulance rushes to hospital in Kabul.
One NATO soldier was killed and five were injured, along with an interpreter, when a Taliban suicide bomber struck a patrol in Afghanistan.

The attack took place Thursday evening in Qarabagh District, Kabul province, according to the press service of Operation Resolute Support, NATO's mission in Afghanistan.

The nationality or identity of the casualties has yet to be announced.

People

Poroshenko's party now polling at a measly 9 percent

Petro Poroshenko
Fortunately for him all the other parties are just as unpopular.

Ukraine's first post-Maidan PM, Arseniy "Our Man Yats" Yatsenyuk was famously forced to resign last year when his popularity dropped to single digits. Ukraine's first post-Maidan president is getting there too.

If parliamentary elections were held today his "Poroshenko Bloc" party would get just 9.3% of the vote:
The Poroshenko Bloc, the president's eponymous party, would earn 9.3% of those likely to vote, while the Russian-oriented Opposition Bloc would earn 8.4%. The pro-EU, reform-oriented Civic Position party led by former Defense Minister Anatoliy Grytsenko would earn 8.3%.

The Russia-oriented For Life party led by media mogul Vadym Rabinovych would earn 7.7%, the populist Radical Party led by Oleh Liashko would earn 7.3% and the pro-EU, Self-Reliance party led by Lviv Mayor Andriy Sadovyi would earn 5.8%.

Gold Bar

Where German gold is stored and why it should be brought back to the country

gold bars
© Sputnik/ Oleg Lastochkin
Germany's gold bars have been kept abroad since the end of the WWII. The activist campaign "Bring our gold back home!" demands the return of the gold reserves to German soil.

The process of repatriation is already underway. In early 2017, it was reported that Germany's Bundesbank had repatriated almost half its gold reserves from abroad.

"Strictly speaking, we are talking not about the repatriation," the founder of the private initiative "Bring Our Gold Back to Our Homeland!" Peter Boehringer said in an interview with Sputnik Germany. "After all, the gold reserves of the German state have never been in Germany. That's why we call it a campaign to bring it back home. "

People 2

Mosul's liberation from Daesh allows women's undergarments and bikinis to be openly sold in markets again

mosul store
© Sputnik/ NAZEK MOHAMMED
During the years of Daesh's hold over Mosul, women had a very hard time buying clothes for themselves. Stores selling lingerie and nightgowns were shut down by the terrorists. However, even in such dark times women didn't despair and found ways to purchase what they wanted.

For the last three years there was a ban on the sale of bikinis and nightgowns in Mosul. The terrorists strictly monitored that male shop vendors did not sell such goods to women.

There was always a large presence of terrorists in the trading places in the city and if they noticed that a male salesman was selling nightgowns or pajamas to a woman, he was arrested, beaten and fined $2,000.

For this reason, almost all the shops selling women's clothes and undergarments were shut down across the city.

Red Flag

Latest Pew poll reveals more people feel threatened by US policies than Russia or China

empire us hegemony
© C Dawes
Fears of American power and influence have risen dramatically around the globe in just four years, with more people, even those in some US allied countries, feeling more threatened by American policies than that of Russia or China, a latest Pew poll has found.

The trend has been recorded by the reputed Pew Research Center "amid steep drops in US favorability and confidence in the US president."

The pollster's latest survey, released Tuesday, found that on average, 38 percent of people around the globe now regard American power and influence as a major threat to their country. The figure is up 13 percentage points from 2013.

In just four years, perceptions of the US as a threat increased the most in Spain, climbing from 17 percent in 2013 to 59 percent. Turkey, another US ally within NATO, followed, with US anxieties among Turks rocketing from 44 to 72 percent.

Attention

Chilling list of 173 ISIS assassins poised to strike in Europe is found in terror safehouse in Mosul

The ruins of Mosul
© AFP OR LICENSORSThe list was found in the ruins of Mosul after the city fell to the Iraqi government

Six of the terrorists are Europeans and it's feared they may attempt a killing spree across the EU


A SINISTER list of 173 ISIS assassins poised to strike in Europe has been discovered in the terror group's former stronghold of Mosul.

The document was found in the ruins of the Iraqi city and includes names, photos and country of origin of the fanatics, according to German media.

Most fighters on the terror list, 132, come from Iraq, reports German newspaper Die Welt.

Comment: See also: Be very afraid: Report claims Interpol fears ISIS trained 173 bomb attackers for Europe


Stock Up

Flashback How blockchain technology will probably change the world

Blockchain Ethereum-Logo
As early as 1981, inventors were attempting to solve the Internet's problems of privacy, security, and inclusion with cryptography. No matter how they reengineered the process, there were always leaks because third parties were involved. Paying with credit cards over the Internet was insecure because users had to divulge too much personal data, and the transaction fees were too high for small payments. In 1998, Nick Szabo wrote a short paper entitled "The God Protocol." Szabo mused about the creation of a be-all end-all technology protocol, one that designated God the trusted third party in the middle of all transactions. His point was powerful: Doing business on the Internet requires a leap of faith.

A decade later in 2008, the global financial industry crashed. Perhaps propitiously, the pseudonymous Satoshi Nakamoto - who may or may not be an Australian entrepreneur named Craig Wright - outlined a new protocol for a peer-to-peer electronic cash system using a cryptocurrency, or digital currency, called Bitcoin. Cryptocurrencies are different from traditional fiat currencies because they are not created or controlled by countries. This protocol established a set of rules - in the form of distributed computations - that ensured the integrity of the data exchanged among these billions of devices without going through a trusted third party. This seemingly subtle act set off a spark that has excited, terrified, or otherwise captured the imagination of the computing world and has spread like wildfire everywhere.

Comment: Is the blockchain an image of the future cashless society? There are certainly some positives in the tech's potential. So, everybody put on their evil genius caps and brainstorm: how can this go horribly wrong? Then, what can be done to mitigate that?

Recent news and analysis of blockchain:


Heart - Black

US couple who sexually abused adopted Russian son to get lengthy prison terms

child sexual abuse
© Olaf Heil / Global Look Press
A US couple pleaded guilty to the sexual abuse of their adopted Russian son after turning him into their "sex slave," local media reported, citing officials. Both will now get lengthy prison sentences for molestation of the boy which spanned a decade.

Ralph Flynn, 73, and his wife Carolyn Flynn, 44 , from the town of Los Gatos, California, will be sentenced under a plea deal announced Wednesday, Mercury news reported.

Ralph Flynn, who has been in custody since his arrest in 2015, was charged with sexually molesting the boy since he was nine for a period of 10 years. He will get a 24-year prison sentence under the deal negotiated by Santa Clara County deputy district attorney Oanh Tran.

Carolyn Flynn, who is said to have started abusing the boy when he was 15, will be given 12 years in prison, her attorney Wes Schroeder said.