From a technical viewpoint, blockchain is a growing records list that is cryptographically tied to and managed by a peer-to-peer network. At the same time, they join a protocol of communication among nodes to validate new blocks. Essentially, a blockchain is a way of validating data transactions in a permanent and immutable manner to guarantee that the transaction: Has not been corrupted. Avoids double-spending. May transfer value. We can also say that blockchain technology is a decentralized network where all the records are engraved in a distributed way and shared in several devices spread throughout the world. The records are …

Several data violations, like the Cambridge Analytica scandal, have brought forth questions regarding how companies and governments should deal with the data entrusted to them, and they have also increased the search for the development of new technologies to preserve the privacy of companies and users. Consequently, countries and regulators have rushed to set new compliance requirements to deal with user privacy and data collection — like the General Data Protection Regulation in Europe or the General Data Protection Law in Brazil, to name a couple. Parallel to that, there has been a new trend to seek new technologies like …

On June 17, the popular video conference app, Zoom, officially announced that end-to-end encryption, or E2EE, has finally arrived for their software. It will be provided to both free and paid users, so long as their account has passed the company’s verification process. According to the announcement, during the beta phase that will start from July, users should verify their phone numbers via a text message. The aim of this step is to prevent the mass creation of abusive accounts. Zoom commented: “We are confident that by implementing risk-based authentication, in combination with our current mix of tools - including …

Civic Technologies, a San Francisco-based innovator in digital identity solutions, announced on June 16 that its Civic Wallet is now available in the App Store and Google Play. Civic Wallet has also formed a partnership with Circle Medical, a San Francisco hospital. Together, they will act as a Covid-19 vaccination-proofing tool for Circle Medical’s employees. Five hundred Circle Medical employees will be able to test for Covid-19 at a Circle Medical testing site located in the San Francisco Bay Area. They state that new locations will be added in the future. More than 100,000 people signed up for the app’s …

The protests in the United States against police brutality and systemic racism sparked by the murder of George Floyd by former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin on May 25 are showing no signs of stopping. Rallies and marches have continued in many cities for three weeks now, with events organized in all 50 states as well as in at least 40 countries around the world. Another killing of an African American man in Atlanta, Rayshard Brooks — who was shot in the back twice while fleeing police — has only fed more fuel to the fire. Most events have been …

The last two years have witnessed a hefty uptick in crypto-centric ransomware attacks. Not only are bad actors becoming more refined, but they are facilitating access to other, less sophisticated ones. According to experts, crypto crime of this nature has been especially prevalent amid the coronavirus pandemic. But how does it all connect, and what can the industry do to stamp it out? As with all groups, the cryptocurrency sector has its portion of bad apples. Since 2018, ransomware attacks worldwide have increased by 200%. To make matters worse, the software required to carry out such attacks is widely available …

Giving the opening remarks during a U.S. House meeting on illegal digital activities, Representative and subcommittee chair Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO) noted a major jump for online crime in 2020. "We are seeing a 75% spike in daily cybercrimes, reported by the FBI since the start of the pandemic,” Cleavor said in his opening statements of the June 16 virtual hearing before the Subcommittee on National Security, International Development, and Monetary Policy. Speaker dials into specific attacks and sectors After COVID-19 prevention measures caused business closures and shelter-in-place orders in mid-March, many companies looked to remote work. As droves of people …

The narrative around blockchain technology as a great enabler of cross-sector innovation has endured since the technology’s perceived potential was assertively decoupled from fluctuations in the price of Bitcoin (BTC) in 2018. The game of word association that intrinsically linked Bitcoin to blockchain has evolved significantly since then, broadening the scope of understanding around the transformative potential of blockchain on a global scale, with dynamic use cases permeating a wide range of industry verticals. The principles of immutability, transparency and efficiency that are deeply ingrained in the fabric of blockchain align with the groundswell of data-savvy citizens who are acutely …

The creator of Litecoin, Charlie Lee, discussed the upcoming MimbleWimble upgrade which aims at enhancing Litecoin’s scalability and privacy. Lee noted that Litecoin’s upcoming implementation will be able to scale much better than other privacy-focused protocols, like Monero or Z-Cash. “It does privacy and scare very well compared to other implementations”, he said. Talking about the risks involved, Lee pointed out “hidden inflation”, a bug commonly affecting privacy coins which allows hackers to counterfeit an infinite amount of coins. However, “The risk is manageable”, Lee noted, pointing out that the privacy feature will be implemented solely on the MimbleWimble extension …

Across Europe, a privacy row has been brewing over various efforts to use coronavirus contact tracing technology. Contact tracing is the cornerstone of the efforts to track the spread of COVID-19 in an attempt to prevent a second wave by quarantining those exposed to the infection. After all, it proved to be successful in China and South Korea. However, the contact tracing efforts in China and South Korea are generally considered to breach user privacy to an extent that’s culturally and legally unacceptable across much of Europe. Nevertheless, it seems that many governments are now prepared to compromise on their …

Crypto-powered web browser, Brave, has halted its referral program for users in China, Russia, Indonesia, Vietnam and Ukraine after detecting “a high number of fraudulent referrers” in those regions, according to a June 11 announcement. Brave’s referral program allows content makers to earn Basic Attention Token (BAT) — utility tokens that run on the Ethereum blockchain — for getting new users to download the browser via unique referral codes. While the program was initially capped at $1 million USD worth of BAT tokens, it has now done “several times that amount”, Brave's statement alleges, stressing that the scheme has been …

Japanese crypto firm Freessets has announced a new technology to enhance Bitcoin wallet (BTC) privacy. According to a June 8 announcement, Freessets has created a system that allows wallets to request their addresses’ Bitcoin balances without revealing it to the servers from which they request the balances or transaction history. The statement said that conventional Bitcoin wallets explicitly ask servers for the balance of their addresses, which links the balance, transactions and addresses. However, “using the technology Fressets has developed, it is mathematically proven that the servers cannot learn anything from the user’s query.” The significance of the development Adam …