Those Who Provide Information on the Theft of 300,000 Customers’ Data Will Receive a 10 BTC Reward

Alexander Salazar
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Those Who Provide Information on the Theft of 300,000 Customers’ Data Will Receive a 10 BTC Reward

Shopify recently reported that 20,000 other Ledger customers are among the many victims. Ledger is collaborating with the authorities and taking internal security measures.

A cybercriminal recently stole the personal information of 20,000 Ledger customers from Shopify, an e-commerce company. This figure adds to that of those victims of other security incidents that happened last year to the users of these wallets.

There are a total of 292 thousand affected customers, among which is the data leak of Shopify. This is an e-commerce service provider for Ledger and one of the leading companies in that sector worldwide.

According to the Ledger team, Shopify reported on December 23rd that a cybercriminal had also compromised their customers’ data in September 2020. It was only until December 21st when Shopify found that Ledger was also a victim of this incident. Forensic firm Orange Cyberdefense helped Ledger, which allowed the latter to determine that 292,000 of its customers were victims. The database involved is 93% similar to the leak that occurred in September. However, it has 20,000 additional profiles of its customers. Ledger said that the data includes e-mail addresses, full names, addresses, types of products that the user bought, and the customers’ phone numbers.

Creation of a Fund Reward

This situation led Ledger to create a 10 BTC reward fund and offer it to those who provide information that allows arresting the cyberattackers. These 10 BTC are equivalent to around USD 400 thousand.

The person who provides new information will receive this amount of BTC from Ledger. He or she must have obtained it legally and it must be relevant to the investigation, among other conditions. Ledger is currently providing information to the authorities so that they can arrest those responsible. They say that they had reported the information breach to the French Data Protection Authority on December 26th. Furthermore, they are working along with the FBI and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP). They also filed a legal case with the French Public Prosecutor’s Office.

New Internal Security Procedures

One of the new security procedures that Ledger will implement is deleting the personal information of its customers as soon as possible. They said that they will do it despite the challenges that it poses for its commercial operations and its legal obligations.

Besides, the firm proposes storing sensitive information about its customers externally, three months after having delivered a product. They added that they should reduce the locations where they store this personal information.

They recommend not including personal information in purchase confirmation e-mails. In that way, e-commerce providers like Shopify itself cannot access it from sent e-mails. They will use this form of communication solely and exclusively to send announcements and advertisements.

In mid-July of last year, a cyberattack on Ledger’s marketing department had compromised the data of 1 million users. The criminal warned about the theft in September and triggered a campaign of phishing attacks against Ledger users the following month. In December, the data of a group of more than 300,000 customers appeared on the dark web. They became the targets of cyberattackers’ greed and threats, which forced users to take the best security measures.

By Alexander Salazar

A Blockchain Network Will Allow the US Navy to Track Its Supply of Weapons

Alexander Salazar
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A Blockchain Network Will Allow the US Navy to Track Its Supply of Weapons

The entity in charge of developing the system will be SIMBA, a startup that specializes in blockchain networks, which received USD 1.5 million. With the new network, it will be possible to determine the military weapons that the army most demands.

The US Office of Naval Research seeks to build a network to detect demand for military weaponry. To that end, they closed their second contract with SIMBA Chain, a startup that specializes in blockchain networks.

According to GlobeNewsWire, the startup will receive USD 1.5 million in financing to complete the project. This is the second phase of the Authenticity Ledger for Auditable Military Enclaved Data Access (ALAMEDA) initiative. The company is developing several systems based on blockchain that will allow tracking the chains of supply of products that the navy acquires.

Last year, SIMBA Chain received more than USD 1 million for designing a system to monitor the inventory of Boeing F, and A-18 Hornet aircraft. For the second phase, they will create a device to detect demand for this prototype. This machine is based on a forecasting method that uses mathematical formulas and handles information. Through this, it manages to determine and predict the most demanded product in a supply chain. The US Navy will use the new technology to order new military weaponry, according to the sources. The objective is to ensure that the new system will guarantee critical spare parts for the proper functioning of the available weapons. Likewise, they specified that they seek to incorporate blockchain technology to reduce disruption problems and threats to maintenance and engineering operations of war weapons.

A Blockchain Would Facilitate Military Activities

According to Joel Neidig, CEO of SIMBA Chain, the decentralization model that blockchains propose would strengthen the data registry of supply chains. This vision leads him to think that the immutability of the data that some of these platforms offer is favorable. This would also provide transparency and a greater ability to audit the records.

However, blockchain-based supply chains rely heavily on human transparency. For that reason, each member of the said chain must satisfactorily enter their operations.

Regardless of this exception, the ALAMEDA project is still in full development, and the contract came into effect on January 6th. According to representatives of the initiative, the development of the system will occur at the Naval Aviation Station in Jacksonville, Florida. Mainly the Defense Logistics Agency, a unit belonging to the US Department of Defense, will use the system when it is ready.

On previous occasions, the US military has also been interested in adopting blockchain technology for its military affairs. In 2017, they planned to incorporate this network model in their communication systems. At that time, they hired the ITAMCO Company. The Brazilian military has also sought to explore the area of blockchain technology. They did so after considering the possibility of incorporating their operation into a system to control explosives and chemical products. According to the entity, the operation had the objective of protecting society, preserving public order and heritage, as well as identifying illegal acts.

By Alexander Salazar

Bitcoin’s Value Only Comes from Supply and Demand, Says Mark Cuban

Willmen Blanco
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Bitcoin’s Value Only Comes from Supply and Demand, Says Mark Cuban

Mr. Cuban believes that Bitcoin and Ethereum will be able to survive the effect of the current bubble. He recommends paying outstanding debts before buying cryptocurrencies.

American billionaire businessman Mark Cuban owns the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks. In recent days, he once again attacked Bitcoin and gold. He stated that the law of supply and demand is the only thing that drives the price of the cryptocurrency and the precious metal.

The executive says that experts are trying to justify the day’s price of cryptocurrencies, as happened during the dot-com bubble. In his opinion, “all narratives about fiat currency debasement are just plots of sales.” He adds that “scarcity is a bigger driver of sales than demand.” One of his followers on Twitter explains that the narratives from the 1990s about the debasement of fiat money are true. This user says that “supply and demand also determine the value of the land, a Picasso painting or the Dallas Mavericks franchise.” Cuban replies that they both agree that “supply and demand are the only things that give value to Bitcoin (BTC).”

Bitcoin Is Similar to Gold

Last year, the US businessman said he hates gold as an investment and considers that “Bitcoin is fundamentally similar to gold.” He thinks that both assets are “collectibles and their value is based on supply and demand.” However, he considers it positive that “the supply of Bitcoin is finite and will never grow.”

Furthermore, Cuban believes that Bitcoin and Ethereum, among other cryptocurrencies, will survive the effect of the “current bubble.” He finds them analogous to projects built during the Internet business era. “Some of them thrived, like Amazon, EBay, and Priceline, while others went bankrupt and did not survive,” he notes.

Another of Cuban’s followers says that the increase in Bitcoin’s price in US dollars is due to the demand for it. “I also believe that the narrative about fiat currency debasement is wrong. People buy Bitcoin because it has objectives and lower transportation costs, which happens in a low-inflation environment,” he says.

In this regard, the businessman responds that “this is a great point that I had not seen before. However, once you own Bitcoin, the cost of owning it is almost zero, compared to keeping it in a bank. Now there is the possibility of making a profit with decentralized finance (Defi), which includes digital assets”. The businessman tells one of his followers that he must first “assume a debt that [he] can pay, and then invest in cryptocurrencies.” He also said that he would be “a fool [as] there is a 99% chance of losing everything.” He explained that “personal disaster stories are based on leverage.”

Bitcoin Is Not a Safeguard against Apocalyptic Scenarios

Last year, Cuban stated that “Bitcoin is not a safeguard against apocalyptic scenarios.”

“Although Bitcoin fans may claim that it is a hedge against Doomsday scenarios, it is not. Countries will take steps to protect their fiat currencies and their ability to tax. For that reason, the more people believe that it is a store of value, the more risk of government intervention there will be,” he argued. Last December 8th, Cuban wrote an e-mail saying that he has not changed his opinion on the pioneering cryptocurrency. He says that Bitcoin “is a store of value like gold”, but he considers it to be more of a religion than a solution to any problem.

By Willmen Blanco

A Developer Tries to Recover His Password and Runs a Risk of Losing $ 266 Million in Bitcoin

Jenson Nunez
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A Developer Tries to Recover His Password and Runs a Risk of Losing $ 266 Million in Bitcoin

Handling your keys is always a risk, a risk of losing every single coin without return. This fear increased in a very intense way during the final days of 2021.

A German programmer that lives in San Francisco forgot the password that unlocks the hard drive that contains the private keys of his wallet. He already tried eight of his 10 passwords, and there only remain two. This is a situation that puts in a massive danger to his current fortune.

The wallet contains 7,002 Bitcoin (BTC), those holdings would be worth $ 268 million, and the owner is risking a huge amount of money.

In a report by New York Times on January 12, Stefan Thomas, the unfortunate owner of $268 million in bitcoins used a hard drive that receives the name of IronKey, but lost the paper on which he wrote the device password “years ago.” If Thomas fails to remember the right password after 10 unsuccessful attempts, the drive then will encrypt its contents forever. He only has two more chances to access the hard drive.

Trying to Gain Access to Forever-Blocked Wallets

The so-called “stranded” wallets are an unbearable danger for bitcoin. A titanic amount of bitcoins usually get lost thanks to these encrypting processes, according to data from Chainalysis.

Thomas is not alone in his self-declared despair: A businessman, Brad Yasar, told the Times he has spent hundreds of hours” trying to gain access into forever-blocked wallets.

There is a company that offers recovery services, its name is Wallet Recovery Services, and its main focus is on the recovery of lost digital keys. The company is very famous in the crypto-world. A lot of requests from clients seeking help land on its platform daily. Thomas says that skepticism has grown on him since this unfortunate event. He says that leaving users with that degree of control is unfortunate and dangerous; they simply can lose it all in a blink of an eye.

The Main Risk: Users Entrusting their Keys to Third-Party Custodians

“This whole idea of ​​being your bank let me put it this way: do you make your shoes? The reason we have banks is so we don’t have to deal with all the things that banks do “. Says a desperate Stefan Thomas.

Thomas nonetheless held on to enough Bitcoin over the years to create a new fortune. He’s reportedly so wealthy that he finds it nearly impossible to know what he could do with such an amount of money and wealth. There are similar stories all around the globe. There is Thomas that became skeptical about being his bank but many other businessmen, that despite having lost lots of BTC in the past, still claim that the imminent risk of being their bank comes with the reward of being able to freely access their finances.

By: Jenson Nuñez

Regulation Threatens to Defeat Cryptocurrencies, According to Dan Larimer

Alexander Salazar
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Regulation Threatens to Defeat Cryptocurrencies, According to Dan Larimer

Larimer believes that the project will fall under the siege of regulators and offer no privacy. The developer says that he prefers to create tools that give power back to users.

In recent days, blockchain project developer Dan Larimer decided to resign as chief technology officer of Block.one. On December 31st, the executive retired from the company, which is in charge of the EOS project. At the time, he noted that he preferred “building technologies more resistant to censorship.”

Larimer explained on the HIVE blog the reasons why he left the company that he founded in 2017. He states that he is concerned about the regulatory pressure “on a technology that would free us from international banking cartels.”

According to the developer, the vision that Bitcoin has shown since its creation is fading. He states that the cryptocurrency was initially a functional medium of exchange without intermediaries, but the regulatory apparatus has captured the system. In this way, these entities are absorbing privacy and frustrating those who want to use the cryptocurrency without a regulated custodian. For that reason, “Bitcoin becomes just another financial asset.” He believes that the decentralization in the blockchain ecosystem is relative.

Given this situation, Larimer wonders “what would happen if EOS were part of this walled, centralized, and fully regulated garden of KYC users.” He answers himself by expressing his dissatisfaction with the project’s valuation methods. He finds them divorced from the technological and business fundamentals that sustain the world of cryptocurrencies. The former CTO of Block.one says that “regulators could capture BTC, EOS, and ETH, leading them to a total loss of privacy.” He believes that the best hope for a token to earn capital is to “maximize its utility as money.” Likewise, he considers that it “must comply with the regulations and work for the institutions to adopt it.”

Is EOS a Decentralized Project?

The collective governance model that EOS has adopted will make it a better currency, according to the developer. He also believes that the only way to make a profit is KYC accounts with smart contracts that the regulator has approved.

According to Larimer, Block.one can steer EOS down a more decentralized path if the community so chooses. However, he is not interested in “the whims of government regulators” limiting his innovation. He says that he will continue to create tools that give power back to people who prefer freedom to US dollars.

Dan Larimer suggests that EOS is currently not that decentralized, after months of criticism by the community. People question the initiative because it has a very centralized governance system.

In a rolling election, the community chooses the 21 block producers that EOS has by design. However, only the users who have the highest number of tokens have higher voting power. Therefore, their power to decide will be greater compared to that of the rest of the community. In May 2020, the Block.One team decided to actively participate in the voting and abandon its “silent” position. This made the project more complex so that it would provide a properly decentralized network.

By Alexander Salazar

Bitcoin Mining Farms are Regulated by a Pakistani Province

Alexander Salazar
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Bitcoin Mining Farms are Regulated by a Pakistani Province

This is the only province in the country that gives legal support to Bitcoin. The Pakistan Securities and Exchange Commission is studying the legal framework for cryptocurrencies.

In recent days, the government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa announced that it will finance the construction of two Bitcoin (BTC) mining farms. This is one of the four provinces of Pakistan and the only one that supports Bitcoin.

The Information Technology adviser and legislator of the province, Ziaullah Bangash, said that the provincial government approved a new law. The document allows the release of funds to establish mining farms, according to local media.

The farms aim to use the potential profits from mining and Bitcoin trading to help the local economy, said Bangash. However, he did not provide details on government investments or plans in that regard.

According to the legislator, the issuance of No Objection Certificates (NOC) for companies and people interested in this area received approval. Through the certificate, users can launch or issue their cryptocurrencies, without fearing any type of legal reaction. “Pakistan should not remain behind in the field of cryptocurrency mining. There are currently 11 million BTC in circulation in the world, with a 90% daily increase,” said Bangash. The legislator could have referred to bitcoins effectively in the market, given that the amount already issued is greater than 18 million BTC.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Should Serve as an Example

The official said that the step that the government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa took will encourage other provinces. The decision of the authorities is in line with the resolution that the regional legislative assembly approved last December. They unanimously legalized cryptocurrencies and Bitcoin mining.

Pakistan is a country that has not been open to Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. That has led Bangash himself to send Twitter messages to the central government. In that way, he seeks to persuade them to consider the proposal to legalize cryptocurrencies in the rest of the country.

In April 2019, the government of Pakistan decided to regulate the ecosystem of cryptocurrencies in the Asian nation. They would do that through a plan by the Financial Action Group to combat terrorism.

In November 2020, the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan presented a crypto asset regulation consultation document. It collects experiences from different nations of the world regarding how they treat cryptocurrencies. “Virtual assets are the beginning of a new digital age. Financing and demanding measures with innovative approaches by regulators worldwide would be possible only through the beginning of a new era,” says the document.

Power Failures are an Obstacle for Bitcoin

Everyone knows that cryptocurrency mining requires high energy consumption to operate the machines. However, the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa seems to lack the necessary infrastructure.

The central government said that Pakistan recently suffered a general blackout due to “technical failures”, according to The Financial Times. This is not the first time that a country with serious economic problems has used Bitcoin to obtain economic resources. The governments of Venezuela and Iran have also openly used this initiative.

By Alexander Salazar

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