Blockchain Technology

Blockchain technology is a new concept to understand, and its rapidly growing in every industry. In future technology virtual currency is the next stage of evolution of money.

The words block and chain were used separately in Satoshi Nakamoto’s original paper in October 2008, and when the term moved into wider use it was originally block chain, before becoming a single word, blockchain, by 2016. In August 2014, the bitcoin blockchain file size reached 20 gigabytes in size.

Blockchain technology have already placed in few countries. Funding and registration in the transport department in Australia. Real Estate department is growing fast by using BlockChain Technology in Dubai. Whereas Internal bank payments using BlockChain Technology in Singapore.

Bitcoin:

Bitcoin uses peer-to-peer technology to operate with no central authority or banks; managing transactions and the issuing of bitcoins is carried out collectively by the network. Bitcoin is open-source; its design is public, nobody owns or controls Bitcoin and everyone can take part. Through many of its unique properties, Bitcoin allows exciting uses that could not be covered by any previous payment system.

Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency and a payment system invented by an unidentified programmer, or group of programmers, under the name of Satoshi Nakamoto. Bitcoin was introduced on 31 October 2008 to a cryptography mailing list, and released as open-source software in 2009. Currently Banks, Credit Cards are charging 7-10% average fee of transaction. But this is the benfit with Bitcoin Users get direct payment from anyone and anywhere in the world.

Technology:

Source: DUPress

As we know about Bitcoin is a Virtual currency and it soon to be include transfer of property and identity management. The public and private sectors will face new challenges, opportunities and responsibilities. Government sector is also coperation with Bitcoin technology to create innovative product and services.

Identity management is also the tranform in Blockchain technology. As we known there are many identities and documents were stolen in past years.

Identity Management forms:

• Passports
• Social Security numbers
• Driving License
• Tax Identification Number and more..

According to Forbes

• The Blockchain is a public ledger that records (providing ownership and time stamp) and validates every transaction made worldwide.
• What makes this network unique and secure is that all transactions are authorized and backed by thousands of computers (called miners), achieving consensus on each transaction.
• No one owns it (hence the term “decentralized”), and therefore it’s immutable and there’s no single point of attack for those attempting to “hack” or otherwise alter the records on the Blockchain registry.
• The technology enables peer to peer (P2P) transaction capabilities without any involvement of a central authority or a third party.

How it works?

Below graphic is showing cases.

Exchange Bithumb to Compensate Users Following the Hacking

Bithumb, one of the leading cryptocurrency exchange platforms in South Korea, announces that it will compensate its customers whose accounts were compromised during an attack on its data systems.

The data leak is believed to originate from a computer of an unidentified employee of the company.

According to a report by regional news service Yonhap, there are up to 30,000 users who were affected by the data leak.

Global crypto market standing

Based on data provided by CoinMarketCap, Bithumb is one of the top ten Bitcoin exchanges worldwide in terms of volume. Bithumb’s Bitcoin transactions account for approximately 3% of the entire Bitcoin market. The exchange, meanwhile, captures around 13.5% of the total Ethereum market.

Compensation to affected users

In their recent blog post, the exchange said that it will pay each affected client 100,000 Korean Won, which is equivalent to around USD 86.50.

The company also reveals that additional compensation will be provided to customers whose funds were stolen due to the data leak. The company, however, did not provide an exact figure on the total losses incurred as well as the number of users who were affected.

One local customer, meanwhile, said that he lost 10 million Won or around USD 8,700 from his/her account.

Bithumb reassures:

"In addition, for the members who suffer additional damage due to this incident, we will compensate the entire amount of damages in a responsible manner”.

The incident of account theft and data leak at the exchange was first reported to local authorities in late June 2017.

The reports have prompted the Korea Internet and Security Agency to conduct an initial probe on the case. According to an unidentified official, the Korea Communications Commission has also participated in the preliminary investigation.

AlphaBay Dark Web Market Goes Down; Users Fear Exit-Scam

AlphaBay Market, one of the largest Dark Web marketplaces for drugs, guns, and other illegal goods, suddenly disappeared overnight without any explanation from its admins, leaving its customers who have paid large sums in panic.

AlphaBay, also known as "the new Silk Road," has been shut down since Tuesday night. The site also came in the news at the beginning of this year when a hacker successfully hacked the AlphaBay site and stole over 200,000 private unencrypted messages from several users.

Although the website sometimes goes down for maintenance, customers are speculating that the admins have stolen all their Bitcoins for good measure, when heard no words from the site's admins on the downtime.AlphaBay Market, one of the largest Dark Web marketplaces for drugs, guns, and other illegal goods, suddenly disappeared overnight without any explanation from its admins, leaving its customers who have paid large sums in panic. AlphaBay, also known as "the new Silk Road," has been shut down since Tuesday night. The site also came in the news at the beginning of this year when a hacker successfully hacked the AlphaBay site and stole over 200,000 private unencrypted messages from several users. Although the website sometimes goes down for maintenance, customers are speculating that the admins have stolen all their Bitcoins for good measure, when heard no words from the site's admins on the downtime.

Some users at Reddit and Twitter are claiming that AlphaBay's admins may have shut down the marketplace to withdraw a huge number of bitcoins from the site's accounts.

The withdrawal Bitcoin transactions total 1,479.03904709 Bitcoin (roughly $3.8 Million), which led to suspicion from some users that the site’s admins may have pulled an exit scam to steal user funds.

In March 2015, the largest (at the time) dark web market 'Evolution' suddenly disappeared overnight from the Internet, stealing millions of dollars worth of Bitcoins from its customers.

However, users no need to worry—at least right now when nothing is confirmed, and the timing of the two incidents—site downtime and Bitcoin withdrawals—may be just coincidental.

This is not the first time AlphaBay goes offline. Last year, the site went down for about four days. Also, the blockchain transactions of about $3.8 Million are not enough for AlphaBay moderators to go offline.

One user on Reddit calls for calm and patience, saying "Now I'll admit I don't know for sure what's going on, and I am a bit nervous myself because if this is the end then I've lost a couple of hundred dollars myself But think about it Last year alphabay went down for about 4 days."Some users at Reddit and Twitter are claiming that AlphaBay's admins may have shut down the marketplace to withdraw a huge number of bitcoins from the site's accounts. The withdrawal Bitcoin transactions total 1,479.03904709 Bitcoin (roughly $3.8 Million), which led to suspicion from some users that the site’s admins may have pulled an exit scam to steal user funds. In March 2015, the largest (at the time) dark web market 'Evolution' suddenly disappeared overnight from the Internet, stealing millions of dollars worth of Bitcoins from its customers. However, users no need to worry—at least right now when nothing is confirmed, and the timing of the two incidents—site downtime and Bitcoin withdrawals—may be just coincidental. This is not the first time AlphaBay goes offline. Last year, the site went down for about four days. Also, the blockchain transactions of about $3.8 Million are not enough for AlphaBay moderators to go offline. One user on Reddit calls for calm and patience, saying "Now I'll admit I don't know for sure what's going on, and I am a bit nervous myself because if this is the end then I've lost a couple of hundred dollars myself But think about it Last year alphabay went down for about 4 days."

Everyone was saying for sure that this was it, but it was not. It took the alphabay moderators days to update people on what was going on too; they're known to do this. Also about that blockchain transaction.. 44 bitcoins rounds off to about 4 million US. [I don’t know] about you but that doesn't sound like nearly enough money."

While AlphaBay continues to be down, and AlphaBay-associated Redditor who goes by moniker Big_Muscles has called users to calm down, saying the site's servers are under update and will be "back online soon."

Also unlike Silk Road, there is no indication that the law enforcement took down the AlphaBay marketplace.

Silk Road was shut down in 2013 after the arrest of its unassuming founder, Ross William Ulbricht. The FBI seized bitcoins (worth about $33.6 million, at the time) from the site, which were later sold in a series of auctions by the United States Marshals Service (USMS).Everyone was saying for sure that this was it, but it was not. It took the alphabay moderators days to update people on what was going on too; they're known to do this. Also about that blockchain transaction.. 44 bitcoins rounds off to about 4 million US. [I don’t know] about you but that doesn't sound like nearly enough money." While AlphaBay continues to be down, and AlphaBay-associated Redditor who goes by moniker Big_Muscles has called users to calm down, saying the site's servers are under update and will be "back online soon." Also unlike Silk Road, there is no indication that the law enforcement took down the AlphaBay marketplace. Silk Road was shut down in 2013 after the arrest of its unassuming founder, Ross William Ulbricht. The FBI seized bitcoins (worth about $33.6 million, at the time) from the site, which were later sold in a series of auctions by the United States Marshals Service (USMS).

How two countries helped drive the recent rise in cryptocurrency prices

Hugh HarsonoCONTRIBUTOR

Hugh Harsono is a former financial analyst currently serving as a U.S. Army Officer.

More posts by this contributor:

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Digital currency prices have soared recently, with reports from the past few months showing enormous valuation increases for currencies across the board.

Bitcoin, Ripple, and Ethereum have all experienced exponential growth, with Bitcoin prices rising to $2,588, Ripple reaching a market cap of nearly $10 billion, and Ethereum growing to a total market cap of over $20 billion.

With supply and demand for digital currencies extremely high in both Japan and China, it is no surprise as to why these two countries are helping to fuel the rise in cryptocurrency prices.

Ability to Withdraw in China?

With access to cheap hardware and electricity, China is the prime breeding ground for mining cryptocurencies, with huge mining pools run by exchanges such as BTCC accounting for more than 60% of the bitcoin network’s collective hashrate.

However, the beginning of 2017 saw a governmental crackdown of Chinese-based digital currency exchanges, causing a suspension in all withdrawals, causing the market to suffer heavily with China being one of the top bitcoin markets in terms of trading volume.

Recently, Caixin reported potential changes in the governmental regulatory framework to allow withdrawals last month, specifically mentioning top exchanges OKcoin, Huobi, and BTCC. This potential good news has increased consumer confidence in cryptocurrencies, contributing to their associated rise in value.

Japan: Stepping in to Fill the Chinese Void

With cryptocurrency liquidity in China experienced stagnation earlier this year, the Japanese bitcoin market exploded, with demand reaching new heights.

Previously, Japan represented barely 1% of total bitcoin trading volume, but in recent months estimates put this number as high as 6%, with Japan accounting for nearly 55% of total trade volume on some trading days. This increase in JPY bitcoin trading due to the Chinese inability to liquidate has fueled growth in the digital currency market globally.

Solid Alternative Compared to Government Policy

In China, the tightly-controlled yuan is another reason why cryptocurrency prices have experienced their unprecedented rise in value. The Chinese government has total control over the yuan’s valuation, traditionally devaluing the yuan to give itself an international trade advantage when the government saw fit.

With the growing amount of private independent wealth in China, cryptocurrency has become viable as an alternative asset class. And cryptocurrencies are being seen as more accessible, less volatile, and increasingly stable, contributing to their recent growth in value.

Meanwhile, the Bank of Japan’s policy of quantitative easing has resulted in very low, and sometimes even negative interest rates, also caused digital currency values to rise.

The Japanese government’s QE policy, intended to spur economic growth, has resulted in significant deflation for the yen, causing a similar decrease in investor confidence in this currency. With no end in sight for this form of Japanese monetary policy, digital currencies have and are currently being used as an alternative asset class, driving their rise in value.

Virtual currencies are quickly being seen as a better asset class by local investors, who fear the volatility of government interference in their specific economies.

Institutional Acceptance of Digital Currency

The rise in digital currency values can also be attributed to institutional acceptance of cryptocurrencies. The recent conclusion of the Global Blockchain Financial Summit in Hangzhou saw intense interest from reputable institutions like Peking University, which is creating an Ethereum center to work on direct application use and protocol improvements in China.

The Royal Chinese Mint, a downtrace unit of the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) dedicated to its electronic banking mission, has even actively promoted the application of blockchain technology, going as far as to allocate resources and developers in experimentation to digitize the yuan.

In Japan, multiple large institutions are now beginning to accept digital currency as a transactional entity, validating its use to the Japanese population as a whole. On the market front,bitFlyer, Japan’s largest exchange, is currently backed by all three of Japan’s megabanks: MUFJ, Mizuho, and SMBC.

On the consumer/retail side, influential electronics retailer Bic Camera has partnered with bitFlyer to begin acceptance of bitcoin at its retail locations. Additionally, Recruit Lifestyle, part of HR conglomerate Recruit Holdings, reported a new partnership with exchange Coincheck to use as part of a point-of-sale implementation program. The acceptance of digital currencies by these reputable groups have helped fuel confidence in digital currencies for daily transactions by the Japanese.

This institutional acceptance of digital currencies by powerful organizations in both China and Japan have allowed cryptocurrencies’ values to rise as a whole.

Governmental Acceptance of Cryptocurrency

It is no secret that the Chinese government has taken steps to regulate digital currency transactions, with their scrutiny and initiatives causing a drop in bitcoin prices to around $1,000 just several months ago.

However, the very fact that the PBoC is seeking to regulate this industry simply proves how viable it is as a legitimate transaction entity, with the Chinese government even taking steps to build their own digital currency.

With the announcement of potential withdrawals of bitcoin on the horizon, the PBoC have just completed a trial run of their own digital currency based on blockchain technology, with participation from major institutions such as the Bank of China and the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, as well as China’s first online bank WeBank.

The Japanese government has also taken huge steps in the acceptance of digital currencies as legal forms of tender, with Japan legally classifying bitcoin as a form of payment just on April 1^st.

Ahead of China, Japan has already begun licensure procedures for digital currency exchanges, to be operated under the watchful eye of the government’s Financial Services Agency, with market leaders such as bitFlyer already announcing plans to apply for said license, further driving investor confidence in the Japanese market and beyond.

Additionally, the Japanese government announced that the sale of virtual currency under the new Fund Settlement Law would be exempt from the Japanese Consumption Tax (8%), further driving bitcoin growth as an investment vehicle.

The acceptance of virtual currencies by both the Chinese and Japanese governments are driving cryptocurrency growth, with China on the cusp of establishing its own currency, and Japan regulating bitcoin as true legal payment.

Bitcoin Ethical Hacking Leads to Solving FBI Murder Case

An ethical whitehat hacker was said to have helped the FBI in solving a murder case.

Bitcoin independent researcher Chris Monteiro who has has breached into the database of phony darknet website which offers hitmen and gunmen for hire and leaked the date into a legit website has accidentally helped solve the murder case of Mrs. Amy Allwine, NASDAQ reports.

Suicide or murder?

In November 2016, 47-year-old Mrs. Allwine was found dead in their home in Cottage Grove, Minnesota. While her husband Stephen Carl Allwine tried to cover up the death as a suicide by putting a pistol next to his wife’s elbow, further investigations led to the police investigators concluding that it was a case of murder.

Hence, in January 2017, Stephen Allwine was charged with second-degree murder based on the evidence collected which all belonged to him.

Dark web led investigators to real killer

While the suspect has been arrested and charged, Mrs. Allwine’s case was eventually given more light because of the leaked data from “bRpsd” which was put to light by Monteiro’s probing. In May 2016, “bRpsd” breach the database of a darknet website offering hitmen and gunmen for hire: Besa Mafia.

Besa Mafia is offering $5,000 up to $200,000 fee to hire hitmen to kill somebody. From that data dump uploaded to a public internet website, police were able to trace a connection to Mr. Allwine. They’ve found out that Mr. Stephen Allwine has been using the darknet in as early as 2014 using the name “dogdaygod” which is linked to his email address: dogdaygod@hmamail.com.

With thorough analysis of the data dump, investigators found out Mr. Allwine’s email on the list of Besa Mafia clients.

Criminal complaint records show that Mr. Allwine was supposed to pay Besa Mafia $10,000 - $15,000 as payment for the hitmen who were supposedly to kill his wife.

Scam leading to solving the case

However, it turned out that Besa Mafia was a scam as they are just collecting Bitcoins from their clients though they do not necessarily carry out their mission of killing their supposed target.

For Mr. Allwine’s case, after he transffered the funds to Besa Mafia, his communicators advised him that their hitman was apprehended by the police and was jailed.

However, investigators have found that no one was apprehended or jailed in Minnesota during that period, thus creating a suspicion that that Mr. Allwin himself did the crime instead of the hitman.

It is likely that the independent researcher’s data breach has impacted Mr. Allwine’s case based on the various data it has unraveled as the Washington County District Court has charged Mr. Allwine with first-degree murder on March 24, 2017.

Additionally, police investigators have also discovered that Mrs. Allwine’s body contained a high level of a drug called scopolamine, which investigators later found was ordered by Mr. Allwine on the dark web.

How Blockchain Can Make Passwords Obsolete

It feels like almost every day there is another data breach making the headlines. From banking to chatting with friends, the average person spends more than 10 hours online every day. However, most of the sites or online resources we use daily—from Facebook to Gmail—are secured using a simple password.

Most security breaches happen because of some sort of human weakness. A password may be too easy to guess, as studies show that 10,000 of the most common passwords, such as 123456 or qwerty, can access 98 percent of all accounts.

Other points of failure originate from people leaving their browsers open on public computers, writing passwords down on paper or in a file on their computers or simply getting tricked into giving away their login data.

Although we know what safe passwords should be, we tend to ignore this knowledge in favor of using easy-to-remember passwords because the fear of forgetting is stronger than the fear of being hacked.

Data breaches making the headlines

Since the first usage of a password in 1961 by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, authentication systems have come a long way. Today, modern computers use a form of hashing referred to as “salting.” However, because many passwords are overly simple and because many systems allow a user to guess multiple times, password-based systems remain vulnerable to hacking.

In 2011, hackers stole 77 mln Sony PlayStation Network passwords. In 2012, 400,000 Yahoo! email addresses were hacked. Apple's iCloud was also vulnerable to password hacks, which led to the infamous celebrity photo hacking of 2014. During the same year, five mln Gmail passwords were hacked and released online. These are only selected examples from the huge list of the world’s biggest data breaches, which are displayed in a visualization 

Password managers can fail too

It is this context that boosted the popularity of password managers like LastPass or 1Password, which free users from ever having to remember their passwords. These managers can also generate strong random passwords for each online account.

However, the problem with using a Web-based third party to store passwords is that they can get hacked too, as it was the case for LastPass in 2015. The platform experienced a data breach that exposed users' email addresses, encrypted passwords and password reminder hints.

As we explained in a previous article, “LastPass certainly took many security precautions, and some of them worked. For example, LastPass never had access to customers' master passwords in cleartext. But they did store other information about users in cleartext, and it's this compromised information that can be used to guess weak master passwords.”

Obsolete usernames and passwords

The cryptocurrency world has been relatively quick on the uptake of passwordless Web logins. It began when Satoshi Labs offered users Trezor Connect, which allows to log in to participating websites simply by plugging in a hardware wallet.

The cryptocurrency community also showed great excitement recently at the world's first Secure Quick Reliable Login (SQRL) that utilizes QR codes and the public-key cryptography behind Bitcoin to achieve passwordless logins.

These two developments alone prove that usernames and passwords are far from necessary in achieving secure client-server relationships online.

Blockchain to the rescue

A larger problem is the centralized architecture of the database storing logins and passwords on a server. Which means, if it’s been hacked, all data can be accessed at once. Unfortunately, even Two Factor Authentication (2FA) has been proven to be penetrable through social engineering.

REMME is a startup seeking to make passwords obsolete, thus eliminating the human factor from the authentication process, and therefore preventing such attacks from ever happening. REMME claims that by solving the problem of central servers that can be hacked, malicious attacks such as phishing, server and password breach, and password reuse will become useless.

Instead of a password, REMME gives each device a specific SSL certificate. The certificate data is managed on the Blockchain, so a fake certificate will never work. By using this method, the startup got rid of the authentication server and password database. As a consequence, hackers have no potential central server target, which means no weak point. REMME claims “100 percent protection against common attacks.”

This will only require a quick installation, which according to the company, will allow “potential clients to save costs on integration.” The startup further provides 2FA for an additional security level, with apps users already have installed and trust, as well as corporate mobile applications.

The goal of this system is to build a distributed Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) management on top of the x.509 standard using Blockchain. This set of policies has the potential to help many segments address the problem of security failings, from which REMME is focusing on IoT, financial infrastructure, MedTech and Blockchain companies.

Can innovative processes like this take off? At the end of the day, it will all come down to how many data breaches consumers are willing to put up with.

Worldpay, valued at $10B, confirms JPMorgan and Vantiv are trying to buy it

Some consolidation is underway in the world of payment processing: Worldpay — the giant company that says it processes 31 million mobile, online and in-store transactions daily and competes against the likes of PayPal, Stripe, Square and more in payment processing — is on the block. Today Worldpay confirmed in a statement to the London Stock Exchange, where its shares are traded, that it has received acquisition approaches from both Vantiv and JPMorgan Chase in the U.S., after reports started to emerge that it was the subject of takeover speculation.

“The Board of Worldpay Group plc (“Worldpay”) notes the recent press speculation concerning Worldpay and Worldpay share price movement and confirms that it has received preliminary approaches from Vantiv, Inc (“Vantiv”) and JPMorgan Chase Bank (“JPMorgan”) in relation to the potential acquisition of the entire issued, and to be issued, share capital of Worldpay,” the company noted in a statement.

Worldpay’s stock price has shot up today on the news: the share price is currently up nearly 30 percent to 410 pence, adding over $1 billion to its market cap compared to its opening price: at the time that we’re publishing this post, it stands at £8.6 billion ($10.6 billion).

The companies now have 28 days, or until August 1, to make a formal bid, per rules in the UK’s Takeover Code (it’s the Code that required Worldpay to disclose the names of the two companies, since its stock price was already moving on rumors of their interest, and once you disclose the names, they have to make an offer within 28 days to minimise needless disruption. “Put up or shut up” is how it’s termed (which is actually very British).

Worldpay today competes against a lot of the more established financial startups that provide payment services both online and to physical merchants, but the company itself did not come out of that massive wave of new tech companies; rather it was one of the services created by an incumbent bank to help stave off any disruption.

It has been around since 1989, before the first dot-com wave, started out of a subsidiary of NatWest Bank in the UK, and eventually it became a part of RBS (the Royal Bank of Scotland) when those two banks combined. It was then spun off in 2009 as part of a divestment agreement struck with the European Commission to help give RBS a bail-out package during the banking crisis.

It has been publicly listed since 2015.

Worldpay has had its share of headlines around malicious hacking of its services but it has also been making moves to position itself at what it believes could be some of the newer frontiers in payments, such as developing a prototype for VR payments, and a secure, smartphone-based payment service that works using the camera’s contactless chip reading functionality and an app — no extra hardware required.

JPMorgan as a buyer would be an interesting move for the bank: it has up to now mainly focused on acquiring banks rather than payment services. Vantiv, meanwhile, shares a common previous investor with Worldpay, Advent International, and is today the largest merchant acquirer in the U.S. (It’s also had a taste of controversy: last year, the company made the headlines when it pulled payment processing from FanDuel and DraftKings, citing ongoing legal cases against the two over whether or not they are gambling services.)

Worldpay would help Vantiv to expand its reach to more markets, and would help JPMorgan move into more differentiated online and mobile payment services. Worldpay says that it serves some 400,000 customers and processes payments in 146 countries and 126 currencies. The U.K. is its largest country, where it has more than 40 percent market share of all businesses.