The company said it can access, export, and analyze data from phones that use the app. Analysts and experts are pretty sure that Signal remains a secure application.

The Israeli intelligence company Cellebrite posted an article on its blog claiming to have managed to decrypt messages and attachments with the encrypted messaging app Signal. However, the firm removed the post after Edward Snowden and other experts dismissed its claims.

The signal is an instant messaging and attachments application. It is open source and is mainly focused on privacy and security. This app enables users to send automatically encrypted text messages, documents, images, videos, and contact information, keeping them safe from third-party surveillance and intrusion.

In the publication, which remains on the internet, Cellebrite claimed that its universal forensic extraction device (UFED), allowed the decodification of information and data from Signal. The company provided a detailed explanation of how it “cracked the code,” for which it analyzed Signal’s open-source protocol and used it against it.

Cellebrite added that authorities are working hard to require developers of encrypted software to include a “back door” that allows them to access user data. The Israeli company also said that until these agreements are at work, the company will continue to collaborate with the police of the country and intelligence agencies to “allow them to decrypt and decode the data from the Signal application.”

What do privacy experts say?

One of the first to comment on the Cellebrite post was cybersecurity researcher Moxie Marlinspike, co-author of the protocol and CEO of Signal. For him, what the Israeli company is doing is extracting the messages from the devices they find unlocked, as he wrote in a tweet. Edward Snowden supports his theory.

“No, Cellebrite cannot decrypt Signal communications. What they sell is a forensic device for cops to connect to unsafe and unlockable phones to download a ton of data from popular apps in an easier way than doing it manually. They just added Signal to that app list. That’s it, there is no magic…” Said Snowden.

For his part, Etienne Maynier, a security researcher at Amnesty International, told Middle East Eye that Cellebrite has nothing new in its hands. As you have been doing, once the [UFED] tool has full access to the phone data, there is nothing technically preventing you from accessing the Signal data. This means that for it to have access to Signal data and run a forensic analysis, the Israeli company only needs to access the phones either through a password, a Touch ID, or facial recognition.

According to Maynier, there are two ways to get access to mobile devices. One is by applying pressure and forcing the user to provide the access password, or by using a technical approach that exploits the security problems that the device system has.

Spyware of care?

Founded in 1999, Cellebrite technology lives in more than 150 countries, including state security agencies and government intelligence or law enforcement agencies with doubtful and poor human rights records.

Among them are repressive countries like Venezuela, Belarus, and even Indonesia. The UEFD product allows them to extract SMS messages, call logs, Internet browsing histories, and data stored or deleted from phones, as a publication of the Haaretz medium points out.

By: Jenson Nuñez.

The Italian manufacturer recently announced his interest in payment support with cryptocurrencies. The new motorcycle models can now be purchased at the price of 2 BTC.

The Italian manufacturer of vintage motorcycles, Soriano Motori, just made official its interest in accepting bitcoin and cryptocurrencies as a method of payment worldwide. Digital assets are taking hold in society and offer an improvement regarding international business transactions and a benefit for customers and suppliers.

For the purchase of its current range of motorcycles that can be made from the Soriano Motori website, a payment method in cryptocurrencies with Coinbase processing will be implemented.

According to the manufacturer, this addition would allow them to reach different parts of the world that were conditioned by barriers inherent to the fiat system, apart from being a useful mechanism to supply new models of electric motorcycles worldwide.

“All our clients will be able to benefit from the great advantages that cryptocurrencies offer. Thanks to digital currencies like Bitcoin, we can carry out international transactions without commissions or without attending to exchange rate fluctuations, among others ” SaidMarcos A. Soriano, founder of the Soriano Group Family Office.

The Luxury Sector Bets on Cryptocurrencies

The motor sector, now led by Soriano Motori, joins other luxury sectors that are following the bid for the so-called “digital gold”. There is precedent for auto and second-hand companies that had already made sales in bitcoins.

Soriano, linked to artisan manufacturing mainly focusing on collectors, becomes the first luxury motorcycle manufacturer in the world to accept this payment method.

The purchase of these limited editions can only be made through www.sorianomotori.com at the approximate price of 2 BTC. As we can see in its payment gateway, at the moment, there is only the possibility of buying in fiat currencies, although the proposal is to accept payments through digital currencies: Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Bitcoin Cash (BCH ), or LiteCoin (LTC).

The Founder of Grupo Soriano and His Connection with Traditional Banking

Soriano is a brand created by Ricardo Soriano-Scholtz in 1919. Today it continues with its innovations and trending both in motorcycle manufacturing and in the adoption of digital assets, along with other cryptocurrencies.

The initiative to accept payments through cryptocurrencies could be related to the activity of the Family Office portfolio of the Soriano group. Regarding its founder´s history, we can find a career that links to private banking, Goldman Sachs, and the World Bank.

His representation explains how the traditional investment sector has turned its interest and attention to Bitcoin. The Bardicredit Company that is a partner of the Soriano group is part of the New York Freemasonry.

By: Jenson Nuñez.

Donald Trump could grant clemency to Ross Ulbricht before closing his presidential term. Ross Ulbricht by activists and political figures who support his release.

Donald Trump could grant a presidential pardon to Ross Ulbricht for the Silk Road case, freeing him from the sentence of two life sentences that weigh on the creator of the website.

According to sources, the documentation of the Silk Road case and the request for the presidential pardon of Ulbricht are under review by the White House.

One of the sources in the consult indicated that Trump has repeatedly expressed his sympathy with the cause for the release of Ulbricht. Thus, it is speculated that Trump could grant clemency before his presidential term ends on January 20, 2021.

Although the decision is still on hold, Trump’s circle of advisers could have swayed in Ulbricht’s favor throughout this time. According to TDB, one of the voices defending Ulbricht is that of Alice Johnson, a former federal prisoner that saw her release in 2018 and is an activist for judicial reform, who has close ties to the Trump administration.

Unrelated to The Daily Beast report, Andrew Surabia, a political strategist for the Republican party and a close adviser to Trump, posted words of support for Ulbricht on Twitter.

Ross was harmed with a madly disproportionate sentence. He received two life sentences with no chance of parole, to be his first offense in a non-violent crime? Few people deserve the forgiveness of Donald Trump, in my opinion, “he said.

Ulbricht’s relatives trust that Trump will grant forgiveness to the creator of Silk Road, who is serving a life sentence for the crimes he is charged with.

“We are praying and very hopeful that Trump will show compassion to Ross and consider him the time my son has served and give him a second chance at his life,” Lyn Ulbricht told The Daily Beast.

Ross Ulbricht, bitcoin and the Silk Road case

Ulbricht was sentenced to life in prison for being the creator and administrator of Silk Road, a narcotics market that pioneered the use of bitcoin as a payment method.

After a lengthy investigation, involving a variety of US state security departments, Ulbricht was captured and identified under the pseudonym “Dread Pirate Roberts.” Subsequently, he was sentenced to two life sentences without parole for computer fraud, money laundering, and drug and narcotics trafficking by a jury in Manhattan, New York.

Another of the crimes attributed to Ulbricht was an alleged conspiracy to commit murder, targeting alleged attackers who stole Ulbricht’s personal information and blackmailed him into exposing him publicly. However, the charges were dismissed in favor of Ulbricht, although they did not induce the conviction that already weighed on him.

Last November, the United States Department of the Treasury confiscated 69,370 BTC from an attacker who managed to extract them from Silk Road in 2013, managing to take control over one of the largest bitcoin wallets today.

By: Jenson Nuñez.

New research proposes changes to BIP 173 to reduce errors in Bech32 addresses. The update would bring greater compatibility for the Taproot integration.

Bitcoin pioneer developers Pieter Wuille and Gregory Maxwell proposed making adjustments to BIP 173 to reduce the impact of some bugs in the use of bech32 (SegWit) addresses and make it more compatible with Taproot.

Although regarding the researchers’ consideration, the native version of the Bech32 addresses (BIP 173) is quite robust, it is not the case of Taproot when it comes to implementation.

The proposed changes would help extend the integrity of the native version of the Bech32 addresses to its Taproot version, making possible the detection of errors in substitution, deletion, insertion, changes, and duplication of characters.

The investigation concluded this December, and the results are on a Linux foundation mailing list that was reviewed by the Bitcoin Optech Newsletter in recent days.

“The investigation revealed that most of the wallets need an update to be able to make payments to Taproot addresses even if users continue to use an unmodified version of the BIP173 address format,” the newsletter reads.

Although the research is still ongoing and receiving thoughts and opinions from other developers, who may oppose the research, Wuille plans to write a new Bitcoin Scalability Proposal (BIP) to allow native SegWit addresses to be compatible with Taproot. The code that Wuille and Maxwell have in their hands is on a post on GitHub for community review.

The native SegWit addresses can continue to be used to send and receive funds without affecting their format. However, those who use other versions of SegWit and their corresponding addresses will not have compatibility with Taproot through the new Wuille proposal. These wallets would be Bitcoin Core and BRD, according to a survey the developer conducted.

Although most wallets would not have to update and stick to these changes in BIP 173 to remain compatible, Wuille points out that eventually, all will have to do so, once the users start to demand the implementation of Taproot and the address format that comes from SegWit to use. However, this update should be easy, he considers, because the algorithm changes are small.

What is the Bech32 address mutability problem?

In posing this problem, conducted in 2019, Wuille mentions that in the worst case, a misspelled bech32 address has a probability of showing an error of 1 in a billion. Anyway, it points to a discovery that noted that those bech32 addresses with a p character, any number of q characters at the end, can be added or removed without affecting the integrity of the address.

This is not a problem for bech32 addresses in SegWit, as at least 19 consecutive characters would have to be added or removed to change the address, plus any other length would invalidate these addresses, he says.

Wuille also points out that the same will not happen to the new version of SegWit addresses planned for Taproot, “where adding or removing a single character in a vulnerable address can lead to loss of funds.”

Another relevant benefit would be that more applications can use bech32 addresses and other formats, in addition to reinforcing the differentiation between Bitcoin addresses and Bitcoin Cash addresses.

By: Jenson Nuñez.

Owners of securities will no longer have to document their transactions on paper. The law is part of a government initiative that will expand the use of blockchains in the country

A recent effort to change financial laws in Germany shows that its government is interested in making the country one of the world leaders in blockchain network regulation. This is demonstrated with the latest law the cabinet of Chancellor, that Angela Merkel approved, claiming the use of securities that show registration on blockchain to be legal throughout the territory.

The new legislation received the acceptance of ministers on Wednesday, December 16, as part of an even broader strategy to incorporate blockchain networks into the German financial market. In this way, electronic securities will now be active in Germany and play the role of substitutes for paper documents and other certificates.

The measure not only encompasses blockchain since it mainly focuses on making the regulations that oblige issuers and owners of these securities to document all their transactions on paper.

At present, financial titles can get registration with an entry in the Central Securities Depository (known as Clearstream) in a bank registry or a blockchain, such as Bitcoin or Ethereum.

Because the law does not clarify which specific blockchain is going to be used, there is a potential possibility that they will choose the private networks that dedicate efforts to the issuance of securities. The law, in general, would center its functions on recognizing cryptographic securities as legal assets.

Christine Lambrecht, Minister of Justice, assured that the law will provide greater legal clarity for financial technologies and will improve the potential of these new tools.

Olaf Scholz, finance minister, noted that the use of electronic securities could be useful to reduce administrative burdens and costs for both public and private companies in Germany. Likewise, there is information about the government being interested in blockchain to decentralize the registry of securities in the country; in this way the government can allow the incorporation of new commercial authors and preventing the Central Deposit of Property Values ​​of the Country from being the only authority to dedicate itself to the registry of these goods.

The bill had been in the works since mid-August this year when the German authorities raised the possibility of supporting the development of blockchain and decentralized finance (DeFi) in the national territory.

The addition of new registries could create a wider expansion of the German financial market, as well as better control of its distributions. It has even been under speculation the interest of authorities about the functioning of the decentralized finance (DeFi) which has gained a lot of popularity in recent years, a curiosity shared with regulators such as the CFTC in the United States that is also looking for ways and creating paths to incorporate these services in the national market and regulate them.

By: Jenson Nuñez.

The bill includes the distribution of checks for USD 600 and USD 1,200, depending on income level. Those who are unemployed will receive USD 300 per week, until March 2021.

In recent days, Republican and Democratic lawmakers in the US Congress reached an agreement on a new economic stimulus package totaling USD 900 billion. Following the announcement, the price of Bitcoin, which had been declining, rebounded, and rallied by 3% to USD 22,890 within hours.

After a delay of several months, they completed the agreement just before the legislative vacation period began. Both houses approved it as this government´s funding period of this year legally expired.

The direct assistance to employees that the package contemplates depends on their income level. The government will distribute more than USD 160 billion through checks for USD 600 to those with annual incomes of up to USD 75,000 a year. Meanwhile, those who earn up to USD 150,000 a year will receive a check for USD 1,200.

Concerning the unemployed, the agreement contemplates that they will receive USD 300 per week until March 2021. That represents an amount of USD 120,000 million destined for that purpose.

Impact of New Aid on Bitcoin

The approval of the aid last March implied an unprecedented printing of money in the United States. As it is possible to observe in the evolution of so-called M1 money (circulating in banknotes and coins), there was an increasing trend in the prices of gold and Bitcoin. Investors interpret liquidity growth as a medium-term inflation stimulus and seek secure store-of-value assets.

The price of BTC, which was recently very close to USD 24,000, fell to USD 22,181 in the wake of the announcement. However, it had a 3.3% rally in a few hours until it reached USD 22,890, according to data from Messari. Regarding gold, the precious metal also had a rebound, going from USD 1,870 to USD 1,899.

An analysis by Marty Bent, in which he argues that the aid that last March’s aid in the United States reflects a transfer of wealth from the poorest to the richest. Bent showed that the evolution of aid proportionally boosted the valuation of companies in the S&P 500 index.

The author of the daily Bitcoin newsletter “Marty’s Bent” and host of the podcast “Tales from the Crypt” said that there is “a massive transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich taking place in real-time.” He commented that “people forced to stay at home without working received a check for USD 1,200 in March.” However, he notes that they “are not benefiting from the gains that the stock market has generated.”

Max Keizer recently said that only the inhabitants of Latin America were aware of the uncontrolled issuance of fiat money. However, he stated that the same was not the case with residents of the United States, since no one understands what happens when hyperinflation causes money to become worthless.

By Willmen Blanco