In the wake of Bitcoin’s continuing problems with price volatility and unstable processors, the future of virtual currencies got even cloudier over the past week on news that the Royal Canadian Mint plans to sell its MintChip digital-currency system.   Rumors that MintChip was on the block had been circulating …

A Look Back And a Provocative Look Ahead Welcome to an anniversary party— one played out not in a ballroom or country-club drawing room but in pages of cold print. The milestone we are marking is our 10th anniversary of publishing Digital Transactions, an enterprise we rather immodestly think of …

Gideon Samid • Gideon@BitMint.com In the digital age, we walk with sticky paws, leaving our tracks everywhere we go. You better not educate yourself, using a search engine, on biochemical poisons and easy-to-prepare explosives because some algorithm programmed at the National Security Agency will flag you as suspicious. The fear …

The complexity of federal and state regulation has some operators thinking twice, including Facebook and Microsoft, both of which ditched their currencies. By Linda Punch When federal prosecutors in May shut down digital-currency network Liberty Reserve on money-laundering charges, all eyes turned to other peer-to-peer digital currencies, such as Bitcoin …

  The shutdown of digital-currency network Liberty Reserve by federal prosecutors on money-laundering charges is part of the increased focus on the virtual-currency market by regulators and law enforcement agencies, but doesn’t necessarily mean all such currencies face the same fate. While Liberty Reserve shared some common features with Bitcoin …

While still down from high levels in 2009, identity fraud rose for the second straight year in 2012, according to the latest annual ID-fraud study from Javelin Strategy & Research. Javelin estimates that 5.26% of U.S. consumers were ID-fraud victims last year, up from 4.90% in 2011 and the recent …

Peter Lucas Last year’s Google Wallet hack should have been a wakeup call, but security experts are still plenty nervous about wallets. What’s being done to shore up security? When Google Inc.’s digital wallet was breached last February by security experts from not just one, but two, points of entry, …

After bottoming out in 2010, identity fraud rose nearly 13% last year, according to new findings from Javelin Strategy & Research. Javelin’s findings also associate two hallmarks of the tech-oriented early 21st Century, social networks and smart phones, with a higher risk of identity fraud. Pleasanton, Calif.-based Javelin surveyed 5,022 …

An Omaha, Neb.-based maker of biometrically secured identity cards says it expects to participate in contactless-payment pilots within three months, with a commercial rollout possible by mid-2006. Five-year-old Digital Defense Group says its credit-card-size token, which contains a fingerprint sensor and an RFID chip, is compliant with MasterCard International's PayPass …

The vulnerability of passwords to hackers is giving rise to a host of passwordless authentication solutions. Whether it’s a financial account, an account with an e-commerce retailer, or medical records, user names and passwords have been the most common authentication method for digitally accessing an account. Trouble is, passwords are …