October 22, 2015 · 8:43 am

U.S Marshals: Last Call for Ross Ulbricht’s Bitcoins

Cryptocurrency mining computers based in Iceland. Photo by Marco Krohn, used under Creative Commons License 4.0.

Cryptocurrency mining computers based in Iceland. Photo by Marco Krohn, used under Creative Commons License 4.0.

From about 2011 to 2014, the name “Silk Road” made it out of the pages of middle school world history curricula and into the mainstream. Founded in February 2011 by Ross “Dead Pirate Roberts” Ulbricht, Silk Road was an online marketplace that facilitated the sale and purchase of illegal goods (mainly controlled substances) in a manner similar to an eBay or Amazon Marketplace transaction. While the operation itself was brazen enough, the amount of money flowing through it was staggering. Buyers used Bitcoin to purchase goods, which transactions to be process with a fair degree of anonymity and out of view of any regulatory authority. Through the course of the site’s life, one researcher estimated the total sales volume to be at least $15 million annually (PDF) based on transactions made exclusively through Bitcoin.

Following an involved investigation and a touch-and-go arrest operation at a San Francisco-area library, Ulbricht was arrested in October 2013. The Silk Road site was then seized by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), along with the IRS’ Criminal Investigation Division, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Upon the site’s closure, the FBI seized 26,000 bitcoins from associated accounts, worth roughly worth roughly $3.6 million (approximately $139 per coin). In January 2014, the U.S Department of Justice announced two more Bitcoin forfeitures: another 29,000 from accounts linked to the site (worth $28 million in January 2014), and over a whopping 144,000 (then $130 million) from computer hardware in Ulbricht’s possession.

After three successful sales, the U.S. Marshal Service is auctioning bitcoins for the fourth and final time. Yes, dear reader, you can bid on over 44,000 bitcoins that were once part of the Silk Road enterprise, valued at nearly $275 per bitcoin at the time of publication.

But before you get out your cryptocurrency purse and send out those dinner party invitations, you should probably read the bidding procedures:

  1. Fill out the required bidder registration form by 12:00 pm EST on Nov. 2, 2015. Bidding is open to non-natural persons (e.g., corporations, limited liability companies, etc.)
  2. Supply a government-issued ID.
  3. Initiate a wire transfer of $100,000 USD from a U.S.-based bank.
  4. Supply a copy of the wire transfer receipt.

After emailing those to the address included in the previous link, you’ll be able to submit your bids in accordance with submission rules three days later on November 5, from 8:00 am to 2:00 pm EST.

Past auction winners  include venture capitalist and SixCalifornias advocate Tim Draper, who won over 29,000 bitcoins (then valued at over $19.4 million) in the June 2014 auction. Another high-profile winner was Barry Silbert, who won 48,000 bitcoins (then valued between $320 and $380) in the December 2014 auction. As founder of the Digital Currency Group, Silbert and his group have invested in companies that aim to bring cryptocurrency payments into the mainstream.

 

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March 5, 2014 · 10:31 pm

The SAT: Old Market Forces are New Again

An Eastern Grey Squirrel, holding an acorn.

An Eastern Grey Squirrel, holding an acorn. Photo by DAVID ILIFF. License: CC-BY-SA 3.0

The College Entrance Examination Board (College Board) gave notice today that its SAT exam will undergo changes since its last revision in 2006. The changes include eliminating the test’s guessing penalty, phasing out arcane words form the verbal section and emphasizing data analysis and functions in the math section. But the most notable change is the nearly nine-year-old writing portion, which was seemingly tacked-on as an additional 800 points to the test’s original 1,600. Beginning in Spring 2016, the essay section will be made optional for test takers. While this change will probably have a positive impact on the perennial fits of anxiety experienced by many families with college-bound sons and daughters in the fall of senior year, the College Board isn’t doing it for your mental health. They’re doing it for the pocketbook. Their own press release noted that while “some [admissions officers] found the essay useful, many did not.”

So why was the essay section added to begin with? For that, we can look back to 2001 to the University of California system, which sought what it felt was a better way to evaluate its then 90,000-applicant-strong pool, each required to take the SAT I,  and depending on the potential first-year’s chosen major and campus, an additional SAT II subject test. Then-UC System president Richard Atkinson suggested eliminating the SAT, but the system later advocated for an essay portion. The College Board, along with more than a few of its member colleges, was reticent.

But with 1.07 million SAT test takers in 2001, the UC System constituted over 8.3 percent of the board’s test takers. Most accounts of the day called it the board’s largest single customer. One year later, the board announced that it would be augmenting the test with it’s essay section, thus keeping its largest customer.

That revision had mixed results. While the written test was made mandatory by UC shools and most Ivy League schools, many other schools decided to abstain from the written portion altogether. An LA Times piece reported that in 2012, SAT testing numbers were surpassed by the ACT, administered by ACT Inc, at 1.6 million and 1.7 million, respectively. Numbers for 2013 are not available for the ACT, but the Washington Post claims that it surpassed the SAT again, at 1.8 million, against the College Board’s self-reported 1.6 million. The LA Times piece also notes that the board’s cumulative changes to the SAT make it increasingly similar to the ACT.

(While I wasn’t able to find any accounts explicitly discussing cost, I suspect that a written essay would be far harder to evaluate than a multiple choice test, especially with amounts in the millions. This is something I’m attempting to confirm, and I’ll edit this to reflect any answers received. – fr[ed])

Those 1.6 million students took the SAT I included 10.5 percent of the UC System’s 174,700 applicants for Fall 2013. The UC System told the LA Times that it doesn’t know if it will require the now optional written portion, but is taking a “wait and see” approach. This sentiment is likely wide-spread, and will likely persist for some time while universities evaluate the test in light of these changes.

Also included in the press release were items pertaining to college access and ease of use. The board says that it will introduce an income-based fee waiver for up to four college applications, a move which it credits in part to its member colleges. The board will also include software-based test preparation for future test takers in a partnership with Khan Academy in order to, as the company’s president Sal Khan says, “to level the playing field by making truly world-class test-prep materials freely available to all students.”

It should be able to afford it, as the College Board collected $758 million in revenue for the fiscal year ending June 2012. In addition to the SAT, it also administers the PSAT, and testing for AP high school courses. In comparison, Act Inc. reported revenues of $302 million for its tax year ending August 2012. Khan Academy collected $15.7 million in revenue for the year ending December 2012.

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October 19, 2013 · 11:51 pm

You Could Have Run Guantanamo Bay If Your Price Was Right!

Naval Base Guantanamo Bay

New Contractor, Come on Down!

On July 31, 2013, the US government began its search of the right company to run Naval Station Guantanamo Bay. Yes, this is the same Guantanamo Bay of that features two detention camps that holds 164 inmates. The larger base that these camps run in, however, has been a fixture of the US’ military presence since 1904. One missile crisis and some literal die-hard Marxism later, the base today houses around 8,500 people in various positions in military and civilian capacities, including Cuba’s first and only McDonald’s location.

And since Oct. 4, 2013, the Navy has begun sifting through bids looking for one good contractor to run the facilities that bring the base to life.

More specifically, the BOS (Base Operating Support) contract is for supplying “all labor, supervision, management, and materials, except that specified as Government furnished” to tend to “Family Housing, Facility Investment, Custodial, Pest Control, Integrated Solid Waste Management, Other (Swimming Pools), Grounds Maintenance, Transportation, Electrical, Wastewater, Water, and limited Facilities Support functions.”

According to the RFP, (or “Request for Proposal” in the contracts world) the current contract is set to expire in November 2014, and is held by a joint venture of two engineering/consulting firms under the name Bremcor JV (Joint Venture). That’s a mash-up of a company called Burns & Roe, and another named EMCOR. B&R is a private company, and its work has mostly focused on designing large-scale energy projects. They also designed an energy conservation plans for City University of New York. EMCOR is publicly traded, and brought in $1.5 billion in revenue across operations providing electrical and mechanical construction projects throughout the US and the UK.

The length of the contract appears to be for one year, with four additional one-year extensions available if the Navy likes who they’ve selected. Based on the RFP, the Bremcor JV was paid $132 million for six years of service. That’s an average of $22 million a year. This is much more expensive than the US government’s yearly lease fee paid to Cuba, agreed upon in 1937, which is just over $4,000.

Given the way government contracts are usually awarded, we won’t have an award decision for a few months at best. And if you missed this one, you still have an opportunity to place a bid for base-based data-filtering services or for keeping this, and surrounding bases fed.

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May 18, 2013 · 6:18 am

Welcome to [fr]ed’s notes.

One of the first things we’re told in Journalism school was that “You need to know how to blog, how to use social media and create a brand for yourself.”

My name is Fred, and I am horrified every time I’m exposed to this idea.

I’m a firm believer of the notion that stories and human emotion are of greater value than the tools used to spread them. Sure, services like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube bring a generation not only what it wants but also when it wants it. But it’s that same one-button expediency that is making a generation world-weary without even the friction of breathing outside of an office or classroom. Great stories are not about expediency and refinement. Great stories are a composite of the people, places and events that impact our choices and our lives.

Great stories move at their own pace. They have their own voices. Writers simply order these voices into a narrative, adding context and insight only when need be, much like a composer may orchestrate a pit of sound from a cacophony to a symphony. To that end, and not without a sense of begrudging, ironic acceptance of the medium, I’ve started a website for my stories.

[fr]ed’s notes is a place for original stories and commentaries about ideas and issues of interest to me. These may include, but are definitely not limited to,

  • The value of an individual in an individualist society.

  • First-world consumerism. Where it’s been and where it’s going.
  • Corporate responsibility, both local and global.
  • Communities, how they define themselves, and the consequences of those definitions.
  • Events outside of the U.S. and their significance to the U.S.

There may be indulgence, from time to time, in reviewing the odd BBQ restaurant, book, cellular phone or craft root beer. Consumerism, remember?

Entries may also appear in either French or Arabic. This is contingent on working memories that have survived decades of day-job erosion.

I hope you enjoy your stay here, and feel free to inquire about anything you see.

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