Bitstamp exchange reopens doors after $5m hack

Summary:The Bitcoin exchange is open for business, but extra security processes are now firmly in place.

Hacked digital currency exchange Bitstamp has reopened for business following the theft of 19,000 Bitcoins.

The Bitcoin exchange suspended services last week following a security breach which relieved the company of over $5 million in digital currency. Following the closure of once-dominant Bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox in 2013, Bitstamp climbed the ranks to become one of the largest online exchanges in the industry -- and many users began to panic after the firm suddenly suspended trading on January 5.

The day previously, some of Bitstamp's operational wallets were compromised, resulting in the loss of roughly 19,000 BTC. To err on the side of caution, Bitstamp warned its traders to stop making deposits to previously issued deposit addresses, and temporarily suspended services to investigate the theft.

The breach represented a "small fraction of Bitstamp's total bitcoin reserves," according to the executive. Bitstamp maintains that the vast majority of bitcoin held is securely stored in "cold" rather than "hot" wallets --in other words, held offline rather than online to prevent hackers from accessing all customer deposits in the case of a security failure. Bitstamp says that any bitcoins held with the company prior to the service suspension are safe and will be honored.

Bitstamp is now back online, and in a statement on its website Bitstamp CEO Nejc Kodric said the firm is "better than ever."

Addressing the company's customers, Kodric said Bitstamp's security protocols have been revamped, including a newly-deployed website and safer backend systems. The company chose to take itself offline after the security breach in order to rebuild systems from the ground up from a secure backup.

"By redeploying our system from a secure backup onto entirely new hardware, we were able to preserve the evidence for a full forensic investigation of the crime," Kodric says.

"We have also taken this time to implement a number of new security measures and protocols so that customers can resume using Bitstamp with full confidence and trust. While this decision means we have not been able to provide you with services for a number of days, we feel this extra measure of precaution was in the best interest of our customers."

Bitstamp has introduced a number of new security features and upgrades. The company has introduced BitGo multi-sig technology, a completely new hardware infrastructure, and has moved its service to Amazon's AWS cloud infrastructure.

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Bitstamp exchange reopens doors after $5m hack

Bitcoin value continues to decline

Digital currency Bitcoin has started 2015 on a downward value trajectory, with the currency worth less than a third of what it was a year ago.

The depressed value of Bitcoin follows the hackof the world's third-busiest exchange for the crypto currency, Bitstamp, earlier this month.

Bitstamp said "less than 19,000" BTC were stolen in the raid, which led to a temporary trading halt at the exchange.

The value of the stolen Bitcoin is estimated at A$6.2 million. If the exchange rate continues to drop it could become less than that, as the unknown hackers attempt to swap their Bitcoin for conventional currency.

The digital currency spiked in value in November and December 2014, hitting exchange rates of over US$1100 (A$1356) per Bitcoin.

Since then, Bitcoin value has slid from around US$800-900 a year ago to just US$271,according to the Winklevoss' brothers Winkdex index.

While the Bitstamp raid is sizeable, by comparison it dwarfs the amount of Bitcoin that disappeared from what was the world's largest exchange, MtGox in Tokyo, Japan.

Around 850,000 BTC went astray at MtGox last year.

Although the disappearance of the Bitcoin at MtGox was first blamed on a large scale hack, a Japanese police investigation this month found that merely one percent of BTC were stolen by outsiders, Yomiori Shimbun reported.

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Bitcoin value continues to decline

Travel Agent Weighs In on World Wide Travel Alert

In light of many safety concerns around the world right now.

We spoke to a local travel agency about whether or not it's impacting their business.

Satrom Travel and Tour says travelers should sign up for free programs like STEP, or the Smart Traveler Enrollment Program, that will send them emergency alerts and other information from the US Embassy.

Satrom also encourages people traveling overseas to constantly be aware of their surroundings and pay close attention to news outlets while on their trip.

She says despite the recent attacks, she has not seen a decrease in the number of people planning trips.

"I think there could be some persons that might be deterred but overall people who are frequent travelers and have traveled overseas, I don't think this would stop them," Katherine Satrom, Pres. of Satrom Travel and Tour said.

The United States issued the worldwide travel alert after recent terrorists attacks in France.

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Travel Agent Weighs In on World Wide Travel Alert

Italy's new churches stir debate

Story highlights Despite expensive price tags and celebrity architects, Italy's new churches have their critics Some say the buildings are too materialistic and lack a connection with the past Others have praised the architects for building a new vision of the future

These seemingly innocuous questions have snowballed into a bitter polemic on the Catholic altar, where a battle of aesthetic titans has ensued: religious scholars versus the so-called "starchitects" who have earned multimillion-dollar contracts to build megachurches for the new millennium.

To arbitrate, Italian photographer Andrea Di Martino looked to find meaning in these newly built houses of God.

"I wanted to photograph new-but-already-established churches from this millennium ... but I had to explain to a lot of people that I wasn't documenting the demise of the Catholic Church or even the loss of churchgoers but how these churches have now become part of the establishment," he said.

From Turin to Rome, Di Martino zigzagged through cities where celebrity architects hoped their designs would add to Italy's great architectural landscape.

Photographing the works of architectural giants such as Paolo Portoghesi, Mario Botta, Richard Meier, Renzo Piano and others, Di Martino explored whether there is a historical continuum with the traditions of Brunelleschi, Bernini, Da Vinci and other artistic geniuses whose religious reverence helped build some of the world's greatest monuments.

Andrea Di Martino

Di Martino used a formal approach, photographing these churches from an egalitarian perspective. His camera takes a centralized position to allow the architectural concepts to get fair play.

Photography, he hoped, could translate the aesthetic decisions behind some very controversial and expensive designs that, to some people, are unrecognizable as churches.

In Turin, which hosts the Holy Shroud, Di Martino photographed Botta's Church of Santo Volto. Standing in what was a depressed steelwork factory, the church has received endless accolades by design experts around the world. But it has also been criticized by Vatican members and religious scholars who say they are extremely materialistic, devoid of spiritual references and divorced from the Catholic dogma.

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Italy's new churches stir debate

SpaceX cargo ship captured by space station crew

A SpaceX Dragon cargo ship loaded with 2.6 tons of supplies, research gear, spare parts and belated Christmas gifts is maneuvered into position for berthing at the International Space Station early Monday, Jan. 12, 2015, after a two-day rendezvous. NASA TV

Approaching from directly below, a SpaceX cargo ship loaded with more than 5,000 pounds of equipment, supplies and belated Christmas gifts, caught up with the International Space Station early Monday, and then stood by while commander Barry "Butch" Wilmore, operating the lab's robot arm, snared a grapple fixture to complete a two-day rendezvous.

Working from a robotics work station in the multi-window cupola compartment, Wilmore -- assisted by European Space Agency astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti -- guided the arm's latching end effector over the Dragon's grapple fitting and locked it in place at 5:54 a.m. EST (GMT-5), as the two spacecraft sailed 262 miles above the Mediterranean Sea.

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Images from the European Space Agency show what cities around the world look like at night from space

"We're pretty thrilled up here, too," replied Wilmore, a native of Mt. Juliet, Tenn. "Hey, thanks for that, and like you mentioned, you cued it, so 'fly Navy.'"

Originally scheduled for launch in December, the cargo ship's flight was delayed into the New Year by problems with its Falcon 9 booster and temperature constraints related to the space station's orbit. The mission finally got underway Saturday with a picture-perfect pre-dawn launch from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, followed by a series of rendezvous rocket firings to catch up with the space station.

It was the fifth of 12 planned SpaceX resupply flights under a $1.6 billion contract with NASA, and the first flight of a U.S. resupply ship since an Orbital Sciences Antares rocket exploded seconds after liftoff Oct. 28, destroying a Cygnus cargo ship.

"And we apologize for Santa and his Dragon sleigh to be a little bit more on the Eastern Orthodox schedule and calendar," Bresnik joked, referring to Christmas gifts packed aboard the Dragon. "But definitely a huge congratulation, and thanks to our friends at SpaceX for bringing to ISS such a beautiful vehicle."

"We concur," Wilmore replied. "It's been a couple of days getting here, and we're excited to have it on board. We'll be digging in soon."

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SpaceX cargo ship captured by space station crew

SpaceX Dragon Capsule Delivers Fresh Supplies to Space Station

The capsule was carried Jan. 10 atop a Falcon 9 rocket that lifted off from Cape Canaveral. After launch, the rocket came down as planned on a drone ship but hit a bit too hard

The rocket stage came down on target but hit the drone ship too hard Saturday. SpaceX will try the bold maneuver again on future launches, company representatives said. Credit: NASA TV

SpaceX's robotic Dragon resupply spacecraft has arrived at the International Space Station after a two-day orbitalchase.

NASA astronaut Barry "Butch" Wilmore, commander of the station's current Expedition 42, grappled Dragon using the orbiting outpost's huge robotic arm at 5:54 a.m. EST (1054 GMT) on Monday (Jan. 12). The capsule was installed on the Earth-facing port of the station's Harmony module three hours later.

The astronauts can now begin offloading the 5,200 pounds (2,360 kilograms) of food, spare parts andscientificexperiments that Dragon brought up on this mission, the fifth of 12 unmanned cargo flights SpaceX plans to fly to the space station under a $1.6 billion deal with NASA. [See photos from SpaceX's fifth Dragon cargo launch]

SpaceX launched the Dragon capsuleearly Saturday (Jan. 10) atop aFalcon 9 rocketthat lifted off from Florida's Cape CanaveralAir Force Station. After the rocket sent Dragon on its way, SpaceX attempted to bring the Falcon 9's first stage back to Earth for a pinpoint landing on an "autonomous spaceport drone ship" in the Atlantic Ocean, as part of the company's effort to develop reusable-rockettechnology.

The rocket stage came down on target buthit the drone ship too hard Saturday. SpaceX will try the bold maneuver again on future launches, company representatives said.

Dragon is unmanned, but the capsule did bring a number of living passengers up to the orbitinglab. For example, it hauled an experiment that will look at how microgravity affects the wound-healing abilities of flatworms, and two others that will study howplantsgrow in space.

The cargo capsule also delivered a NASA instrument called CATS (short for Cloud-Aerosol Transport System), which will be affixed to the station's exterior and then use a laser to measure the distribution of clouds, haze, dust and pollution in Earth's atmosphere.

Dragon will stay attached to the International Space Station for one month, NASA officials said. It will depart on Feb. 10, returning to Earth with a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California, where SpaceX will retrieve the capsule by boat.

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SpaceX Dragon Capsule Delivers Fresh Supplies to Space Station

How SpaceX Dragon capsule successfully docked at International Space Station

A commercially operated cargo capsule destined for the International Space Station docked with the station Monday following its flawless launch early Saturday.

The rocket and capsule, built and operated by Space Exploration Technologies Corp., lofted some 2-1/2 tons of food, water, science experiments, and other supplies to the orbiting outpost under a $1.6 billion station-resupply contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

The mission comes on the heels of an October launch failure involving a resupply mission conducted by Orbital Sciences Corp., the second of two companies the space agency now relies on to ferry cargoes to the station.

At 5:54 a.m. ET Monday, the capsule was lurking some 32 feet from the orbiting outpost, a final holding point before docking. The station's commander and former US Navy test pilot Barry Wilmore and European Space Agency astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti used the station's robotic arm to gently grasp the capsule and pull it into its docking port some 18 minutes ahead of schedule.

During his career as a Navy pilot, Captain Wilmore amassed 663 landings on aircraft carriers. Using a carrier pilot's phrase for a perfect landing, "we'll call that one an OK three-wire; not bad for a Navy guy," quipped astronaut Randolph Bresnik, a former Marine pilot, from the station's mission control center at the Johnson Space Center in Houston when Dragon was firmly in the station's grip.

"We apologize for Santa and his Dragon sleigh for bringinga little bit more on the Eastern Orthodox schedule and calendar," he added a nod to the Christmas gifts that also came up on Dragon.

The mission's primary goal is resupply, but it also served as an opportunity to test a landing system that SpaceX has designed for the first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket that lofted Dragon. The system is crucial to shifting the first stage from hardware that is used once to hardware that can be recovered and used repeatedly, thus reducing launch costs.

The stage had been redesigned to sport landing legs and four gridded, paddle-like fins to provide the precision steering needed to return the stage upright at a designated landing spot. In this case, the spot was the flat deck of a barge-like craft some 300 feet long and 170 feet wide.

Ten minutes after launch, the first stage reached the vessel, dubbed the autonomous spaceport drone ship. But the stage came down too hard, and the company lost the booster.

"Grid fins worked extremely well from hypersonic velocity to subsonic, but ran out of hydraulic fluid right before landing," tweeted Elon Musk, SpaceX's founder, chief operating officer, and chief technology officer.

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How SpaceX Dragon capsule successfully docked at International Space Station

SpaceX resupply ship reaches space station

The SpaceX Dragon delivered food, clothing, equipment and science experiments to the International Space Station on Monday. (Reuters)

About 5,000 pounds of much-needed supplies, from groceries to scientific experiments, reached the International Space Station early Monday, after months of delays, including a failed launch in October that exploded shortly after taking off.

SpaceXs Dragon capsule docked at the space station, where it will remain for about a month before returning to Earth, two days after blasting off from Cape Canaveral, Fla. Astronauts aboard the space station were eager for the haul, since they had been getting low on supplies. Apparently, their cupboard had run out of mustard.

Were excited to have it on board, station commander Butch Wilmore said according to reports. Well be digging in soon.

The station was supposed to be resupplied in the fall. But an Orbital Sciences Antares rocket that was to ferry a load exploded in October. SpaceX, Elon Musks start-up space company, was scheduled to run a resupply mission in December, but that was postponed because of technical issues until Saturdays successful launch.

SpaceX was also assessing data from an audacious attempt to land the first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket on a floating platform in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Florida. The rocket hit the barge, Musk said, but landed hard and broke into pieces.

While the attempt was unsuccessful, it was a major coup to be able to hit the barge from such a great distance, industry officials said. And Musk said the company would try again. Creating reusable rockets -- which are typically discarded after each launch -- would be a major breakthrough in space flight by helping to make it far more affordable.

The company has flown five of the 12 resupply missions under a $1.6 billion contract with NASA.

Christian Davenport covers federal contracting for The Post's Financial desk. He joined The Post in 2000 and has served as an editor on the Metro desk and as a reporter covering military affairs. He is the author of "As You Were: To War and Back with the Black Hawk Battalion of the Virginia National Guard."

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Watch NASA test the newest space launch system rocket engine

BAY ST. LOUIS, Miss., Jan. 12 (UPI) -- The engine that will power NASA's next manned missions into space -- to the moon, Mars, and beyond -- was successfully tested last week at the space agency's Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi.

The RS-25 isn't entirely new. It served as the main engine for the since-retired space shuttle missions. But now it's been repurposed for NASA's newest Space Launch System (SLS).

The video of RS-25's first successful test is loud and smoke-filled. It captures what was first of several tests that the engine will be put through before it will be integrated and used as part of the first test flight.

"We've made modifications to the RS-25 to meet SLS specifications and will analyze and test a variety of conditions during the hot fire series," Steve Wofford, manager of the SLS Liquid Engines Office at the agency's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, said ahead of last Friday's successful testing session.

"This first hot-fire test of the RS-25 engine represents a significant effort on behalf of Stennis Space Center's A-1 test team," confirmed Ronald Rigney, RS-25 project manager at the Stennis Space Center. "Our technicians and engineers have been working diligently to design, modify and activate an extremely complex and capable facility in support of RS-25 engine testing."

When assembled for maximum boost, the SLS will boast four RS-25 engines. The SLS is NASA's latest attempt to pair newly engineered space capsules (Orion) with a next-generation, scalable rocket launch system for the purpose of sending astronauts to deep space.

2015 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Any reproduction, republication, redistribution and/or modification of any UPI content is expressly prohibited without UPI's prior written consent.

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All instruments for NOAA's GOES-R Satellite now integrated with spacecraft

VIDEO:Building a vital national asset like the GOES-R spacecraft takes teams of meteorologists and engineers working together to figure out new ways for getting the best weather forecast possible. view more

All six instruments that will fly on the NOAA's Geostationary Operational Satellite - R (GOES-R) satellite have now completed integration onto the spacecraft.

The instruments are: the Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI), the Geostationary Lightning Mapper (GLM), the Space Environment In-Situ Suite (SEISS), the Extreme Ultraviolet and X-ray Irradiance Sensors (EXIS), the Solar Ultraviolet Imager (SUVI) and the Magnetometer.

Together, these instruments will offer significant improvements for the observation of both terrestrial weather and space weather that impact life on Earth. The GOES-R series satellites will offer enhanced hurricane track and intensity forecasts, increased severe weather warning lead time, improved solar flare warnings for communications and navigation disruptions, better data for long-term climate variability studies, improved aviation flight route planning, and better monitoring of space weather to improve geomagnetic storm forecasting.

"The completion of the instruments integration marks another critical step in the development of the GOES-R satellite as we look forward to launch in March 2016," said Greg Mandt, NOAA's GOES-R System Program Director at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. We are now focusing our efforts on the environmental testing phase, the next step for the GOES-R spacecraft, to ensure the satellite is prepared to withstand the rigors of launch and operation in the extreme environment of space."

The GOES-R series will be more advanced than the current GOES fleet. The satellites are expected to more than double the clarity of today's GOES imagery and provide more atmospheric observations than current capabilities with more frequent images.

"We're very excited about the new channels and higher resolution of the ABI, which will help NOAA's Hurricane Center (NHC) monitor tropical cyclones. The data also have the potential to improve track forecasts when they're included in numerical models," said James Franklin, branch chief, Hurricane Specialist Unit, NHC. "We also think GLM could help us better anticipate tropical cyclone rapid intensification periods. These new instruments on GOES-R represent a vast potential for future improvements."

The advanced spacecraft and instrument technology on the GOES-R series satellites will result in more timely and accurate weather forecasts. It will improve support for the detection and observations of meteorological phenomena and directly affect public safety, protection of property, and ultimately, economic health and development. The GOES-R series satellites will provide images of weather patterns and severe storms as frequently as every 30 seconds, which will contribute to more accurate and reliable weather forecasts and severe weather alerts.

"Future GOES-R imagery, combined with its new lightning measurements, will provide NOAA Storm Prediction Center (SPC) forecasters with unprecedented observations of developing severe storms," said SPC Director Russell Schneider. "This will increase the accuracy of our warning messages for communities across the United States."

With the GOES-R satellite on track for launch in March 2016, development for the following GOES-S satellite is also executing on schedule. Two instruments, ABI and EXIS, are already complete and work on the spacecraft is well underway as the satellite moves towards launch in the third Quarter of FY2017. The SEISS and SUVI instruments for GOES-S are scheduled for completion in 2015.

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