The Bitcoin Game 33 - Hacker J. Maurice (Wiz)

The Bitcoin Game

Hello, welcome to episode 33 of The Bitcoin Game. I'm Rob Mitchell.

J. Maurice is everything you’d expect in a crypto-anarchist hacker. When I had lunch with him before our interview, Maurice kept his phone powered off and explained he wouldn’t use a credit card, except maybe to pay for already-tracked air travel. After our meal, he used his Trezor to sign a Bitcoin payment on his laptop, via the cafe's Wi-Fi. There's nothing in particular Maurice is trying to hide, he simply wants to live his life free from surveillance of his location and financial activities.

Also known as Wiz, J. Maurice was part of the WizSec team that performed an in-depth analysis of the Bitcoins missing from Mt. Gox. He's also been called Roger Ver's go-to guy when it comes to personal defense from hackers. Maurice has many financial clients too, but as they often turn to him after they've experienced a breach, this work is usually confidential. While Maurice calls Tokyo home, I spoke to him in Los Angeles, as he was just finishing a project here.

SHOW LINKS

The Missing Mt. Gox Bitcoins (WizSec's info-packed second report)

WizSec's Kim Nilsson gives a thorough explanation about Mt. Gox (YouTube)

How Roger Ver Got Hacked, and What He Did to Stop it (Coindesk)

Zcash (Zerocash)

J. Maurice @Wiz (Twitter)

MAGIC WORD

Stay tuned for the magic word in this episode, and submit it to your LTB Network account to claim a share of this week's distribution of LTBCoin. Listeners have one week from the release date to claim the magic word credit. The magic word for this episode must be submitted by 3:00 p.m. Pacific Time on February 12, 2016.

SPONSOR

While much of Bitcoiners' time is spent in the world of digital assets, sometimes it's nice to own a physical representation of the virtual things you care about. For just the price of a cup of coffee or two (at Starbucks), you can own your own Classic Bitcoin Keychain or the newer Bitcoin Fork Pen.

http://bkeychain.com http://bitcoinforks.com

BITCOIN HISTORIC PRICE LOOKUP

Sometimes I'm doing accounting and I wish there was a quick tool to help look up the U.S. dollar value of a past Bitcoin transaction. So I asked Joe Looney to build it for me, and I'm sharing this tool with listeners. Nothing amazing here, it just looks up a historic Bitcoin price (in USD) then multiplies that rate by the Bitcoin amount you enter. Please let me know if you have any feedback on this price lookup tool. BitcoinHistoricPrice.com

MUSIC

All music in this episode of The Bitcoin Game was created by me.

STAY IN TOUCH

https://Twitter.com/TheBTCGame http://TheBitcoinGame.com [e-mail]

Thanks so much for taking the time to listen to The Bitcoin Game, see you next time!

The Bitcoin Game box art was created from an illustration by Rock Barcellos.