Day: July 2, 2017

The new-age fundraising techniques — ICOs and crowdsales are turning mainstream, and the standing proof of trend shift is the performance of recent ICOs. Last month, Bancor created a record, after raising over $150 million, a first for any cryptocurrency token crowdsale. While people are still talking about its success, another decentralized platform, Block.One has … Continue reading Block.One ICO Surpasses Bancor’s Record by Raising $185 Million

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Cryptocurrency users are in full control of their funds, which also means they bear the full responsibility for sending money to the correct address. Sending funds to a wrong address can have very dire consequences. Thankfully, it is virtually impossible to send Bitcoin to a wrong block chain. However, should the transfer be accepted because it is recognized as a valid address, things can get out of hand very quickly.

Cross-blockchain Bitcoin Transactions Are Incredibly Rare

One of the main reasons why sending Bitcoin to a wrong blockchain is practically impossible is due to all wallet clients implementing a checksum to validate destination addresses. For example, if you were to paste a Litecoin address as the recipient of a Bitcoin transaction, nearly every wallet will say it is an invalid address. The chances of seeing such a transaction go through are slim to none, which is a good thing.

Some people may wonder how wallets are capable of recognizing the address as being a wrong one. First of all, Bitcoin and Litecoin addresses use a very different address prefix. Most Bitcoin wallet addresses start with a “1”, whereas Litecoin addresses start with an “L”. Multisignature wallet addresses are the big exception to this rule, as Bitcoin and Litecoin multisig wallets often start with a “3”. In this particular case, an accidental cross-blockchain transfer could become a real possibility.

Should the Bitcoin blockchain recognize the Litecoin address as a valid one, things turn rather problematic. Unless you know the person who owns the address, getting money back will be virtually impossible. Once the transaction is confirmed by the network, there is no going back. However, if there are no confirmations, one could attempt to resend the transfer to a different address by using the child-pays-for-parent method we documented here.

If both of these methods fail, the sender will have a very big problem. Sending the money to a valid address but the wrong kind will effectively result in money being lost for good. An incorrect but valid address is a very big problem in the world of cryptocurrency, as addresses can get mixed up if attention wanes for just a second. The chances of such a transaction occurring is very small, as mentioned before, but users should exert caution every time they broadcast a transaction.

Novice users often think sending funds to a wrong, but a valid address will ultimately result is getting their money back. That is not the case, as Bitcoin does not work like traditional banks in this regard. In most cases, that is an attractive aspect, but it can be a negative experience for novice cryptocurrency users. It is equally possible to send money to a non-existent address, although the wallet should flag it as an error and not broadcast the transaction in the first place.

In the end, it is of the utmost importance to properly select the address you ways to send funds to. Chances of it going to a wrong blockchain are very slim, but the risk is always present. Never send Bitcoin or other cryptocurrency transactions to an address in a hurry. Double-check the recipient address to make sure funds are going where they are supposed to. Failing to do so could have some very serious consequences, to say the least.

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As a part of their narcotics investigation, the US authorities allowed themselves to use a single wiretap order to intercept and record several millions of their citizens’ phone calls. These real-time interceptions were carried out by an unknown government organization.

What We Know

In two months of 2016, over 3.29 million conversations made on the cell phones were recorded. The order was demanded sometime in late 2015, and it arrived in time for the government agency to carry it out last year.

Originally, the order was supposed to help with an investigation concerning the illegal drugs and narcotics in Pennsylvania. Authorities were expected to use it for tracking 26 suspects. It allegedly led to a dozen arrests, and the wiretap alone had the cost of $335,000.

However, it would seem that this surveillance did not actually lead to any incriminating evidence. None of the arrested individuals stood trial or were convicted, for that matter.

This revelation was overlooked due to the fact that it was published earlier this week, and was quickly buried in the annual wiretap report.

The majority of the case details are still unknown. Both the wiretap order as well as several other notions related to this case remain undisclosed to the public. Still, it is one of the most massive surveillance actions in recent memory. The exact number of citizens whose calls were recorded is still unknown.

Public Reception

Many criticized this investigation, including a former privacy lawyer that is currently employed as Stanford Law School’s Center for Internet and Society’s director of privacy, Albert Gidari. He stated that the government spent a massive amount of tax payers’ dollars to track only 26 people. The botched operation recorded 3 million phone conversations as had very little to show for these efforts.

Though these results were unsurprising to Gidari. After reviewing these conversations, it was clear that many of the recordings are not clear enough to be incriminating. Lack of credible evidence meant that securing convictions was next to impossible.

The Justice Department’s spokesperson did not comment anything related to the subject when contacted, while the US attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania did not return the calls.

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No one will be surprised to learn the CIA has quite a few hacking tools in its arsenal. Although Windows is the dominant computer operating system in the world, the intelligence agency created at least one malware tool to infiltrate Linux systems. OutlawCountry, as this tool is known, has been around since June of 2015. This malware can route traffic from a Linux machine to any chosen destination.

OutlawCountry is a Very Potent Linux Malware

WikiLeaks has made yet another disturbing revelation regarding US intelligence agencies. The CIA has been dabbling in malware creation as well, just like the NSA has. That in itself is no real surprise, but it goes to show there are a lot of more security vulnerabilities out there than most people are aware of. OutlawCountry is a particular problem, as it is designed to specifically target Linux systems.

To be more precise, OutlawCountry uses a kernel module for Linux 2.6 which allows CIA staffers to reroute the machine’s traffic to any destination on the Internet. That is quite a significant development, as many people assumed Linux is far more secure than Windows and other operating systems when it comes to these types of threats. That does not appear to be the case any longer, which will keep some sysadmins up at night over the coming weeks.

Installing OutlawCountry onto a Linux machine is not easy, as it requires root privileges and shell access. This means the CIA – or anyone else using this malware – needs to compromise target systems through other means initially. It is certainly possible criminals have used this malware as well. Just because they are developed by a law enforcement agency does not exclude others from gaining access to this information.

On paper, OutlawCountry is a perfect tool to spy on any Linux system in the world. It seemingly affects both servers and desktop installations, which means no Linux user is safe from harm. The CIA – or other interested parties – can snoop on internet traffic by redirecting the system’s traffic to a server under their control. Although not everyone may be overly concerned about this, OutlawCountry can be used for far more nefarious purposes as well. If the malware is ever installed on a server, it can snoop on all connected users’ internet habits at once.

Clearly, WikiLeaks is not done exposing the CIA and other government agencies just yet. Over the past few months, we have seen multiple hacking tools’ manuals published. For some reason, all of these intelligence agencies have spent a lot of time developing hacking tools for Windows and Linux, without ever clarifying why they would need such tools in the first place.

For the time being, no one knows exactly if and when OutlawCountry may have been used for CIA operations. Now that the user manual is leaked, nefarious developers may try to engineer hacking tools with similar functionality. If that were to happen, things are not looking good for anyone using Linux as their operating system. Only time will tell if we’ll hear more about OutlawCountry in the future.

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An English businessman, Renwick Haddow has been charged by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission for securities fraud. According to reports, Haddow was promoting a fraudulent cryptocurrency trading platform, causing losses to unsuspecting investors. Haddow, who has been living in the New York is said to have been running two businesses, Bitcoin Store — … Continue reading UK Businessman behind Bitcoin Store Charged with Securities Fraud

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Scientists are coming up with some very crazy experiments lately. Anything involving the human brain is always met with a fair bit of skepticism. However, a new project by Harvard researchers allows humans to control animals with their thoughts. It sounds quite impressive, although animal right activists may have concerns about this project. Regardless, a brain-to-brain interface could have some interesting consequences.

Linking The Human Brain With an Animal Brain

Creating a brain-to-brain interface between humans and animal sound rather cruel, to say the least. Every animal has its own brain and is more than capable of making its own decisions accordingly. Researchers at Harvard University however, feel now is the time to introduce a non-invasive solution to link a human brain with that of an animal. More specifically, a rat, in this particular trial. As the human brain constructs the proper thought, he can effectively control the rat’s tail movement.

From a scientific point of view, this is a major breakthrough very few people thought possible. Creating a telepathic connection between two different brains has never been done successfully prior to this. Brain-to-brain interfaces takes many years of research and development, without any guarantee of success. In the future, such a technology may allow for telepathic links between multiple humans. That being said, such a thought is rather alarming.

Modern sensors are capable of recording thoughts and interpreting than in such a way it can be used to issue “commands.” It is somewhat easier for a computer to figure out what a human is thinking, but things are vastly more complicated when humans need to interpret a computer. Additionally, injecting new thoughts into a human brain is borderline brainwashing, a technique often explored during the World Wars and the Cold War. None of these efforts were successful, though.

Having the power to control a rat’s tail with your mind may not sound all that interesting to a lot of people. However, this demonstrates major progress being made with regards to human-to-animal and brain-to-brain interfaces. Do keep in mind the recipient of the “commands” still needs to be equipped with the proper technology to translate the human brain’s thought into proper information.

Thankfully, this new interface developed by Harvard researchers is non-invasive. Instead, the technology allows researchers to control a specific region of neurons in the rat’s brain through ultrasound signals. While the poor rat may not necessarily appreciate its tail being moved around without being in control of one’s thoughts, it will not cause any harm to the animal either. There will undoubtedly be some backlash from animal activist groups regarding these experiments, though.

For now, the researchers will work on transmitting more complex ideas from humans to rats. Later stages of development may see a connection between two human brains to see how that works. Bidirectional sharing of thoughts and ideas is still a few years, if not decades, away. Furthermore, there are still a lot of ethical dilemmas which need to be taken into account as well. It is an interesting technology, but not one that should be abused for any reason whatsoever.

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Cryptocurrency enthusiasts are always keeping a close eye on Bitcoin’s price. That is normal, as Bitcoin is still the leading cryptocurrency. Although the Bitcoin Dominance Index is still below 42%, the popular cryptocurrency continues to set the tone for other coins. Right now, Bitcoin appears to be somewhat stable.

A Flat Bitcoin Price Chart is Good, For Now

Although most Bitcoin traders would like to see some more market volatility, that does not appear to be how Bitcoin is behaving currently. The price has not budged all that much over these past 24 hours. Weekends are traditionally bad for cryptocurrency prices, but this weekend seems to be off to go a good start. With just a 1.55% change in price, Bitcoin’s value remains well above the US$2,450 mark.

One thing that has become somewhat apparent is how the overall Bitcoin trading volume goes down during the weekend. The past 24 hours saw just over US$824m in trading, which is well below the US$1bn or US$2bn mark we have seen in recent weeks. Once again, weekends are always quiet periods for Bitcoin, although some volatility may occur at any given time.

Looking over the trading charts, it appears GDAX and Bitfinex are locked in a fierce battle to dominate the USD trading market. Both companies generated over US$29m in volume the past day, which is quite impressive. GDAX seemingly puts the Bitcoin price at US$2,510, whereas Bitfinex has it at US$2.421. It is not uncommon to see such wild price discrepancies, but taking advantage of them may not necessarily be worth it.

Trading for and against Bitcoin with fiats is still very popular in Korea as well, with both Bithumb and Coinone making it to the top 10 of platforms based on volume. The leading trading market is Poloniex’s ETH/BTC market, which is not entirely surprising by any means. Altcoin markets often derive most of their value from Bitcoin trading, and Ethereum is no different.

A lot of people are also keeping a close eye on the calendar. As all Bitcoin users should know by now, we may soon see a Bitcoin hard fork. At the same time, there is still the user-activated soft fork to take into account. If things were to get badly disrupted, there may be three competing Bitcoin blockchains come August 1st. It is doubtful this will happen, but the possibility should not be ignored either.

ZombieTraderAbott on /r/BitcoinMarkets sees future positive developments for the Bitcoin price:

“I’m super bullish. I think we’re about to jump to around $2800 within 3-4 days (well within, perhaps), wobble for a bit, and then make new all-time highs within 1-2 weeks. And I honestly think we could be cracking $5k before the end of August.”

If we ignore the semi-bearish Bitcoin trend of the past few weeks, anyone can see Bitcoin is still in  a good place. On April 1st, one Bitcoin was worth US$1,076.59. That price was considered quite high by a lot of people. Right now, the same Bitcoin is worth about US$2,500. Its market cap has also increased from US$17.5bn to US$41.2 billion. The bigger picture teaches us Bitcoin is doing just fine, despite what this week’s chart may state.

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The nature of cryptocurrency markets demands trust in a trustless system, and protecting yourself from some rather common risks. One group called Rublix is working on closing the pitfalls in emergent decentralized markets. They want to rid users, investors, and traders of some of the most common issues and risks that are associated with the current state of these new markets. They have a few projects that are worth checking out as well.

TradersEdge

TradersEdge is the flagship web application that Rublix has begun developing and it looks really rather clever. It is built in Java, so we can assume it runs pretty smoothly and will be a user friendly way for traders and investors to not only get their feet wet in the new cryptocurrency markets, but also thrive in it.

While they have made it clear that this intends to be a well functioning and -importantly- incredibly usable application, they also have put a fair amount of thought into how it will look. Rublix is working on this by employing UX and aesthetic designers to research and create beautiful and user friendly spaces for trading.

The main goal of the project is to bring new traders into the crypto-environment by removing as many barriers to success as possible, while also introducing traditional derivatives trading. They plan on releasing this in Quarter 2 (Q2) of 2018.

Hedge

Hedge is another project in development by Rublix. This platform is attempting to tackle one of the largest problems that exists in crypto trading markets: fake or underwhelming analysts. We all know that one person who swears we should invest in the latest and unimpressive altcoin, swearing it will take off every time but never does. Hedge will combat this.

The platform will be a space for data collection, not gut feelings. Experienced and traders who have a demonstrated history of correctly investing their capital will be rewarded by Rublix to share their trades and knowledge. This will enable even the greenest trader to follow the signals of better investors, and learn by doing.

Reputation and status will be calculated based on age of account and value of trades. This makes spotting who to follow and make educated decisions potentially more fruitful. Rublix plans on releasing this platform in either Q1 or Q2 of 2018.

Centurio

While working on these other projects, Rublix will also be releasing a native token of theirs and a wallet in which to store them. Centurio will provide that. The name of the game for Rublix is usability, so they will be releasing this wallet client as a cross-platform application so that no matter what Operating System (OS) you are running, you will be able to participate. They also plan on releasing a web client version for ease of use across multiple OSs. The planned release date for this is Q3 or Q4 of 2017, so keep an eye out as that is coming up.

Learn more about Rublix here: http://rublix.io/

Learn about TradersEdge here: http://rublix.io/development/?#!projects/tradersedge

Learn about Hedge here: http://rublix.io/development/?#!projects/hedge

Learn about Centurio here: http://rublix.io/development/?#!projects/centurio

Disclaimer: This is not investment or trading advice, always do your own independent research.

Most Bitcoin users know all too well who Craig Wright is. He still claims to be the real Satoshi Nakamoto, which is still untrue at this point. A company which used Wright’s research is now sold to a private equity firm. That is rather intriguing, although it is evident this company continues to ride Bitcoin’s … Continue reading Craig Wright Craves the Spotlight, Claims he Will Make Bitcoin Scale to Become a Glboal Network

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