The Russian communications watchdog has launched an offensive on censorship resistant platforms, including the Telegram Open Network (TON) and privacy browser Tor. Russia’s Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media — better known as Roskomnadzor — published a notice on March 3 seeking to engage contractors to research and block “anonymous darknet networks” hosting content deemed “extremist” or “restricted”. The Russian-language crypto news outlet Forklog first reported the call for contractors, after it was published by Russia’s General Radio Frequency Center. Roskomnadzor cracks down on anonymous networks Official documents list anonymous protocols, mesh networks, and Internet-of-Things …

NEM, one of the oldest peer-to-peer blockchain networks, has partnered with Israeli-Lithuanian telecom startup FIX Network to increase security and data protection for cell phone users and to solve the issue of SIM swapping. FIX Network will implement SYMBOL from NEM’s enterprise-grade blockchain into its existing cellular infrastructure. The goal is to secure the world's eight billion SIM cards from cybercriminals with new privacy, security, management and safety solutions. Phone numbers may end up more important than social security numbers FIX Network’s architecture is designed to allow mobile operators to deliver services such as digital identity management, cryptocurrency wallets, and …

A new coin is hoping to provide stiff competition to rivals such as Monero and Zcash by delivering “the first fully private hybrid chain with staking.” DAPS, which stands for Decentralized Anonymous Payment System, says it has developed ground-breaking technology that properly addresses the issues seen in other privacy coins, resulting in a truly trustless setup. A trustless setup occurs when a user can create a wallet or node without any exchange of information with another user or node. Some privacy coins require you to “trust” the setup information given to you — and trust that the giver of that …

Earlier today, March 10th, 2020, Brave announced a partnership with TAP Network which will allow its users to redeem their Basic Attention Tokens for “for real-world rewards” offered by 250,000 brands that are a part of the network. Access to rewards is limited to US users The announcement says that Brave users in the U.S. will be able to redeem their BATs for “tokens for gift cards from hundreds of top national brands”. These brands include Uber, Starbucks, Xbox, Playstation, Hulu, HBO, Amazon, Apple, Target, and Walmart. Cointelegraph reached out to Brave to clarify whether this new benefit will be …

It has been nearly seven years since Edward Snowden blew the whistle on highly classified global surveillance programs, inciting a national conversation about privacy in the digital age. One of these revelations was that the NSA had access to the email content of Google users and the ability to map anyone’s cell phone location. It’s now been two years since the Cambridge Analytica scandal came to light, revealing that the company had harvested Facebook user data and used it to manipulate for the United States presidential election. In 2018, Facebook also admitted that it let Netflix and Spotify access users’ …

Former presidential candidate and known cryptocurrency proponent Andrew Yang has announced a new initiative to protect privacy online. After ending his presidential bid last month, Yang has announced the creation of new nonprofit organization called Humanity Forward. It aims to “rewrite the rules” of economy and society with a focus on data privacy. Announcing the news in a March 5 tweet, Yang outlined that the group is building a human-centered America, calling for donations to support the movement. Despite Yang previously accepting donations within his presidential campaign in cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC), Humanity Forward doesn’t support donations in crypto as …

With governments increasingly looking at launching their own digital currencies, you might worry that crypto just can’t compete with national financial infrastructures. Not so, says Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin. Buterin spoke with Block TV podcast on March 4 about his predictions for the future of currency — specifically the fate of decentralization. He claimed that digitalization is inevitable and decentralized privacy currency would be more favorable to many than a state-controlled Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDC). Digitalization is inevitable and privacy is king Vitalik believes that with or without blockchain technology, digital currencies will continue toward mainstream adoption. Vitalik also …

On March 1, David Burkett, a developer working on cryptocurrencies Grin (GRIN) and Litecoin (LTC), estimated that privacy protocol Mimblewimble will see a Litecoin testnet release before the end of summer. In an update to the Mimblewimble (MW) progress thread on Litecointalk.io, Burkett hesitantly predicts that MW will be launched on testnet before September. “I’ve so far been very hesitant to give exact dates on when things should be finished, because writing blockchain software is difficult, time-consuming, and unpredictable at times. I didn’t want artificial deadlines to force us to rush through parts of the code and introduce defects or …

Electronics giant HTC has announced a new privacy-focused portable 5G blockchain router that enables users to run a full Bitcoin node. Due to arrive by mid-year, the Exodus 5G Hub follows on from the success of the Tawainese manufacturer's Exodus 1 phones, which also have the ability to run nodes. The Hub provides 5G connectivity to all internet enabled devices and uses Zion Vault software to enable users to store Bitcoin, Ethereum (including ERC-20 and ERC-721 tokens), Binance Coin, Litecoin and Stellar. The software offers security features including social recovery for private keys, meaning you can breakup, encrypt and share …

At a time when technology can be used as both a mechanism for privacy intrusions and a tool for protecting privacy, the prescient sentiment of cypherpunks in the 1990s of cryptography as the last defense against a digital surveillance dystopia rings truer than ever. And one of the most potent instruments for defending digital privacy has recently gained significant momentum thanks to the advent of cryptocurrencies. An iteration of zero-knowledge proofs, trustless zero-knowledge proof systems that are also referred to as zk-SNARKs are a powerful cryptographic primitive that can sever any tractable piece of data between two parties over a …

While some global cryptocurrency exchanges move to expand Know Your Customer (KYC) rules, some major rivals claim that crypto platforms do not need KYC at all. Digitex, a Seychelles-based crypto derivatives exchange, will start removing KYC identification this week in response to a major user data leak that happened last month. Digitex will have no KYC identity requirements as of April 2020 Adam Todd, CEO at Digitex Futures Exchange, revealed the news in a public video statement on March 4, declaring that Digitex will have all KYC identification processes removed from its platform as of April 2020. Todd clarified that …

Brave, a major privacy-oriented rival of popular browsers like Google Chrome and Firefox, now automatically redirects users to check out archived versions of pages that were removed from the web. Starting from Feb. 25, Brave browser users can instantly access archived content of “missing” pages on the Internet via Wayback Machine integration on the Brave desktop browser. In order to unlock the new feature, Brave has partnered with popular nonprofit digital library The Internet Archive, or Archive.org. The new feature debuted on Brave browser version 1.4 and is only available on desktop for now. Archive.org revealed the development in a …