Digital Currency Business E-Gold Pleads Guilty to Money Laundering and Illegal Money Transmitting Charges

E-Gold Ltd. (E-Gold), an Internet-based digital
currency business, and its three principal directors and owners,
pleaded guilty to criminal charges relating to money laundering and
the operation of an illegal money transmitting business, Acting
Assistant Attorney General Matthew Friedrich for the Criminal
Division and U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeffrey A.
Taylor announced today.

…

In addition to the fines and prison sentences, each of the
defendants agreed that E-Gold and Gold & Silver Reserve will move to
fully comply with all applicable federal and state laws relating to
operating as a licensed money transmitting business and the
prevention of money laundering which includes registering as money
service businesses. Also as part of the plea agreement, the
businesses will create a comprehensive money laundering detection
program that will require verified customer identification,
suspicious activity reporting and regular supervision by the
Internal Revenue Services (IRS) Bank Secrecy Act Division, to which
the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network delegated authority
according to federal regulations. E-Gold and Gold & Silver Reserve
will hire a consultant to ensure their compliance with applicable
law and hire an auditor to verify the companies claims that all
transactions are fully backed by gold bullion.

Verified customer identification and supervision by the IRS defeats the entire purpose of an anonymous, digital currency. Does this remind anyone else of A Lodging for Wayfaring Men (except money laundering, instead of treason)?

Last May, DD-WRT released the (long in development) v24 of their firmware. I had been running one of the release candidates for it on my Linksys WRT54GL, but decided today to upgrade to the stable release. I downloaded the appropriate file (dd-wrt.v24_std_generic.bin), followed the instructions for flashing through the web GUI, and promptly bricked the router.

It wasn’t totally destroyed. I could still ping the router, but couldn’t access it in any other way. The power light would flash repeatedly, and no other lights came on. No amount of hard resets would fix it.

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I’ve returned early from Spain, arriving in the States last night.

I walked only about 110 miles on the Camino de Santiago, from St. Jean-Pied-de-Port to Logrono, before deciding that it was time to come back. During my short time on the walk, the Camino gave me what it could, and I gladly accept the gift, but I felt the remaining miles had nothing more to offer.

Following the Camino’s yellow arrows day after day, while comforting in their promise of direction and safety, is too structured an experience. This, the cultivated landscape, and the crowds of walkers contribute to a feeling of limitation.

I seek to find my own paths, and to forge my own way. Only by traveling into the unknown can we explore our selves. And so, despite the cultural differences, despite the linguistic barrier, and despite the unknown country, I think the Camino is flawed. There are no yellow arrows for the mind, save for those we paint our selves.

For me, it must be a journey wilder than this. One for which I do not have my way painted upon the landscape. A journey in which I am dependent on the self, alone in a solitary wilderness. To explore that is to touch the crevices of consciousness, running one’s finger upon the peculiar bumps of its surface.

From the 21st of June till the 1st of July, I walked, taking a day off in Pamplona and in Viana. In Logrono, I spent 3 nights before taking a train back to Madrid, where I’ve been for the past week.

I continue my pilgrimage elsewhere.

Of the gladdest moments in human life, methinks, is the departure upon a distant journey into unknown lands. Shaking off with one mighty effort the fetters of Habit, the leaden weight of Routine, the cloak of many Cares and the slavery of Home, man feels once more happy. The blood flows with the fast circulation of childhood… Afresh dawns the morn of life…
- Sir Richard F. Burton, Journal entry, December 2, 1856

Tomorrow, I will be in Spain. I fly into Madrid, from where I’ll make a quick jump over the border to St-Jean-Pied-de-Port in France. There, my pilgrimage begins. I walk west, over the Pyrenees, and reenter Spain. After my feet carry me roughly 500 miles from the Basque lands to Galicia, the journey culminates at Finis Terrae, the End of the World.

As usual, I don’t speak the language and am embarking alone with limited funds. Internet access will be sparse, if it all.

Catch you on the other side.

“The road is arduous, fraught with perils, because it is, in fact, a rite of the passage from the profane to the sacred, from the ephemeral and illusory to reality and eternity, from death to life, from man to the divinity.”
- Mircea Eliada

The Christian story of Genesis is a creation myth central to the Western construction of the self. It involves, as its central theme, a fall from grace. As Adam and Eve eat the forbidden fruit, they gain knowledge. The first flaw they perceive is their own body – the shame of nakedness. The couple is then booted from paradise, their imperfect bodies more suited to imperfect surroundings. In the East, Hinduism sets as a central doctrine a strict caste system of cleanliness, reminding followers daily of their imperfection in relation to each other and the gods. Today, technologists such as the Venturists seek to improve the human condition by achieving immortality. Whether through a fall from grace, our very creation, or simply in our own mortality, humans perceive themselves as imperfect. As a life progresses, these flaws build in both number and import. Children, with innocence not yet lost to the count of years, are seen as closer to perfection. But adults: both in the flesh and in the mind, we are flawed. We seek to perfect these flaws by augmenting our reality. It is a yearning for innocence, not as naivete or lack of guilt, but as a kind of amoral, infinite perfection: the innocence of a god. This quest for innocence is achieved through perfected representations of our selves and through a perfection of our surroundings. At its highest level, our augmented reality reaches a state of hyperreality: the nonreal – its borders blurred – inside the unbounded real.

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Another redesign! This one only 6 months from the last. How remarkable is that?

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As mentioned previously, I’ve recently moved this domain over to Slicehost. What follows is Part Four of a guide, compiled from my notes, to setting up an Ubuntu Hardy VPS. See also Part One, Part Two, and Part Three.

I prefer to install Wordpress via Subversion, which makes updating easier. We’ll have to install Subversion on the server first:

$ sudo aptitude install subversion

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