Salon.com > Raphael Satter

Bitcoin goes mainstream

Wed, 10 Apr 2013 22:23:00 +0000

LONDON (AP) -- With $600 stuffed in one pocket and a smartphone tucked in the other, Patricio Fink struck a deal that's joining thousands like it in a virtual revolution.

The Argentine software developer was dealing in bitcoins - getting an injection of the cybercurrency in exchange for a wad of real greenbacks he handed to a pair of Australian tourists in a Buenos Aires Starbucks. Fink wanted to add to his electronic wallet. The visitors wanted spending money at black market rates without the risk of getting roughed up in one of the Argentine capital's black market exchanges.

In the safety of the coffee shop, the tourists transferred Fink their bitcoins through an app on their smartphone and walked away with the cash.

"It's something that is new," said Fink, 24, who described the deal to The Associated Press over Skype. "And it's working."

It's transactions like these - up to 70,000 of them each day over the past month - that have propelled bitcoins from the world of Internet oddities to the cusp of mainstream use, a remarkable breakthrough for a currency which made its online debut only four years ago. When they first began pinging across the Internet, bitcoins could buy you almost nothing. Now, there's almost nothing bitcoins can't buy. From hard drugs to hard currency, songs to survival gear, cars to consumer goods, retailers are rushing to welcome the virtual currency whose unofficial symbol is a dollar-like, double-barred B.

British phone hacking scandal grows more scandalous

Mon, 18 Mar 2013 12:48:00 +0000

LONDON (AP) — A lawyer for victims of phone hacking by the News of the World says a new conspiracy uncovered by British investigators has hundreds of potential victims.

Hugh Tomlinson made the announcement Monday at Britain's High Court during legal arguments related to the lawsuits against News of the World publisher News International.

Tomlinson did not go into much detail, but hundreds of extra victims could translate into millions of extra pounds in damages for the UK newspaper company.

The phone hacking scandal has greatly damaged the reputation of the British tabloid press, which has been found to have hacked into the voicemails of celebrities, politicians, crime victims and others.

PR consultant: More Harry photos to come

Fri, 24 Aug 2012 11:00:00 +0000

LONDON (AP) — Brace yourself, Harry.

Britain's most prominent public relations guru said Friday he'd been approached by two women who want to sell their photos of Prince Harry, suggesting that the world may soon be seeing more of the unusually exposed British royal.

In comments to BBC television, Max Clifford said he had been approached by two American women who claim they were in the prince's hotel room in the U.S. last week. Clifford, a savvy operator famous for negotiating kiss-and-tell interviews, said the women were trying to sell their photographs — but that he had turned them down.

"Two people at that party came to me and asked me, would I represent them? Would I sell their photos?" he said. "I said 'no.'"

Harry was photographed romping in the nude during a party at his Las Vegas hotel suite. The pictures — published by celebrity gossip site TMZ earlier this week — have caused a global stir. Many Britons have laughed off the 27-year-old prince's hijinks, but questions have been raised about the prince's publicly-funded security detail.

James Murdoch grilled over UK phone hacking

Tue, 24 Apr 2012 15:06:49 +0000

LONDON (AP) — James Murdoch defended his record at the head of his father's scandal-tarred British newspaper unit before a U.K. inquiry Tuesday, saying that subordinates prevented him from making a clean sweep at the now-defunct News of the World tabloid.

Speaking under oath at Lord Justice Brian Leveson's inquiry into media ethics, Murdoch repeated allegations that the tabloid's then-editor Colin Myler and the company's former in-house lawyer Tom Crone misled him about the scale of illegal behavior at the newspaper.

Leveson asked Murdoch: "Can you think of a reason why Mr. Myler or Mr. Crone should keep this information from you? Was your relationship with them such that they may think: 'Well we needn't bother him with that' or 'We better keep it from it because he'll ask to cut out the cancer'?"

"That must be it," Murdoch said. "I would say: 'Cut out the cancer,' and there was some desire to not do that."

The 39-year-old Murdoch said that at the time he had no reason to doubt his subordinates when he took over at News International, which published the News of the World, saying he had repeatedly been told that nothing was amiss.

"I was given assurances by them, which proved to be wrong," he said.

Embattled News Intl CEO Rebekah Brooks resigns

Fri, 15 Jul 2011 12:27:00 +0000

Rebekah Brooks, the loyal lieutenant of Rupert Murdoch, resigned Friday as chief executive of his embattled British newspapers, becoming the biggest casualty so far in the phone hacking scandal at a now-defunct Sunday tabloid.

Murdoch had defended Brooks in the face of demands from politicians that she step down, and had previously refused to accept her resignation. He made an abrupt switch, however, as his News Corp. company struggled to contain a U.K. crisis that is threatening his entire global media empire.

Brooks was editor of the News of the World tabloid between 2000 and 2003, including the time when the paper's employees allegedly hacked into the telephone of 13-year-old murder victim Milly Dowler when police were searching for her. That has raised allegations of interfering in a police investigation.

That allegation last week provoked outrage far beyond previous revelations of snooping on celebrities, politicians and top athletes, and knocked billions off the value of News Corp. In quick succession, Murdoch closed the 168-year-old News of the World and abandoned his multibillion-pound attempt to take full control of the lucrative British Sky Broadcasting, while Prime Minister David Cameron appointed a judge to conduct a sweeping inquiry into criminal activity at the paper and in the British media.

White House says leaks are alarming

Mon, 26 Jul 2010 21:09:00 +0000

The monumental leak of classified Afghan war documents threatened Monday to create new conflict with Pakistan, whose spy agency was a focus of much of the material, and raised questions about Washington's own ability to protect military secrets. The White House called the disclosures "alarming" and scrambled to assess the damage.

The documents are described as battlefield reports compiled by various military units that provide an unvarnished look at combat in the past six years, including U.S. frustration over reports Pakistan secretly aided insurgents and civilian casualties at the hand of U.S. troops.

WikiLeaks.org, a self-described whistleblower organization, posted 76,000 of the reports to its website Sunday night. The group said it is vetting another 15,000 documents for future release.

Col. Dave Lapan, a Defense Department spokesman, said the military would probably need "days, if not weeks" to review all the documents and determine "the potential damage to the lives of our service members and coalition partners."

BP CEO at yacht race during spill

Sat, 19 Jun 2010 17:03:00 +0000

BP chief executive Tony Hayward, often criticized for being tone-deaf to U.S. concerns about the worst oil spill in American history, took time off Saturday to attend a glitzy yacht race off England's Isle of Wight.

Spokeswoman Sheila Williams said Hayward took a break from overseeing BP efforts to stem the undersea gusher in Gulf of Mexico to watch his boat "Bob" participate in the J.P. Morgan Asset Management Round the Island Race.

The one-day yacht race is one of the world's largest, attracting hundreds of boats and thousands of sailors.

In a statement, BP described Hayward's day off as "a rare moment of private time" and said that "no matter where he is, he is always in touch with what is happening within BP" and can direct recovery operations if required.

That is likely to be a hard sell in Gulf states struggling to deal with the up to 120 million gallons of oil that have escaped from a blown-out undersea well.

A pair of relief wells that won't be done until August is the best bet to stop the massive spill that was set off by an oil rig explosion that killed 11 workers on April 20. BP has been hammered for its response, in part because of comments by Hayward that Gulf Coast residents horrified by the spill consider insensitive.