Two scandals related to the Australian weather bureau and cryptocurrency are being declared as coincidental. An advertising firm stays suspended by the Bureau of Meteorology after ads linking to a scam report about Bitcoin appeared on the site in January and February.
The company's Melbourne offices were checked by federal police later in February because of the charges towards 2 specialists had been using the bureau's powerful computers to mine cryptocurrencies. BoM director Andrew Johnson explained at a Senate hearing on Monday there was "no connection whatsoever" between these 2 events.
The official claimed that the probe into data mining had been underway for a considerable time before the Australian Federal Police made the decision to act in February. But howewer he was not able to answer questions from Centre Alliance senator Stirling Griff about the progress of that research. Dr Johnson confirmed the advertising establishment responsible for the fraudulent ads in January and February stays blacklisted because of concerns about its ability to block activity.
The ads lead to a news report about Tesla boss Elon Musk on a fake CNN look-alike
site which then connected users to scam Bitcoin sites. Dr Johnson declared it was a constant battle against those with harmful intent but the bureau used a four-stage review policy used to monitor ads from a second organisation. Ads on the site bring in over $4 million per year.
