What Drives the Valuation of Cryptocurrencies? – The Market Mogul

Posted on July 21, 2017 by admin

Introduction

Cryptocurrencies have recently attracted increasing attention from investors and businesses as they promise to provide innovative, secure and cost-effective solutions that improve the current money transfer system and enhance the efficiency of transactions. Cryptocurrencies have also proved to be a volatile market with unpredictable price swings and rapid introduction of new coins that constantly disrupt the current market equilibrium. In this article, I endeavour to explain the key factors that drive the valuation of cryptocurrencies.

A cryptocurrency is broadly described as a cross between a commodity and currency as it stores value and has a finite supply but is also liquid and can also be used to pay for transactions. Fundamentally, its price is determined by supply and demand, as any other asset price is determined. Most, if not all, cryptocurrencies have a finite supply that is either already in circulation or will slowly start decreasing until it reaches a known limit. Due to this, the price of cryptocurrencies is driven primarily by factors that affect demand.

The value and demand for any currency, especially fiat currencies, is derived from the trust of its users in its ability to preserve its purchasing power. When a currency loses trust, its value drops precipitously, exemplified by Argentinas peso during its hyperinflation days.

Cryptocurrencies are no exception. Bitcoin gained traction because users believe in the complete anonymity and security of its blockchain ledger. Since it could not be hacked or tampered with, it would always preserve its value. Similarly, Litecoins value rapidly increased when users understood that it had features that surpassed Bitcoin in certain aspects, such as speed of transactions, and they believed it was the silver to Bitcoins gold.

Government trust, in terms of regulations, also plays a vital role in the success of acryptocurrency and affects its valuation. The original scepticism with Bitcoin was principally due to the belief that governments would never legalise it, owing to fears of facilitating money laundering and black market trade. This was exacerbated by the fact that Bitcoin initially gained popularity as the method of payment in Silk Road, the first modern dark-net black market which was infamous as a platform for selling illegal drugs.

However, governments have looked at cryptocurrencies more favourably than originally assumed and have understood the potential that blockchain technology has in improving efficiency. The impact of government trust on valuations is evidenced by the price spikes that occur when governments legitimize it. Bitcoins total valuation soared to more than $1bn in mid-April this year when Japan and Russia moved to legitimize it. During mid-June, Ethereums price spiked to above $400 when some Asian governments legitimized it in part as a form of payment.

Value investors who invest in cryptocurrencies estimate their value based on the market capitalization of the process or asset it seeks to replace along with an estimation of how much market share the cryptocurrency will control. For example, Bitcoin enthusiasts who believe that bitcoin is a form of digital gold, as Satoshi Nakamoto intended, will take reference from the market cap of the gold market $7trn.

If Bitcoin were to control even 1% of golds market cap, its valuation should be $70bn compared to the current valuation of $36.5bn implying that it is undervalued. Other common examples are estimating Bitcoins value based on the remittance market and Ethereums value based on the IPO market which it seeks to replace with ICOs (Initial Coin Offerings).

However, this method of valuing currencies is risky as it depends on factors, such as the possibility of the emergence of more efficient cryptocurrencies, that are impossible to predict accurately. The investors personal beliefs are also reflected in his choice of the prospective market that the cryptocurrency would replace.

As with any other asset, speculation is a strong driving force in determining the value of cryptocurrencies. Speculation is affected by the perception of cryptocurrencies and is directed by new updates and developments. For example, improvements in liquidity through the establishment of new exchanges leads to a price increase as speculators believe that more people will start using the currency and drive up its price.

Similarly, the introduction of a new coin that performs the same function as an existing one but has increased transaction speed and lower cost would send the existing coins valuation spiralling downwards. The highest short-term price swings are currently in the cryptocurrency market some have spiked by 1000% in less than a week and this attracts traders and other investors who wish to profit from these swings. Furthermore, these wild swings are not just confined to the newer coins but are prevalent even in the established ones.

Many traders do not understand the technical aspect of this market and simply wish to gain from the greater fool theory wherein the assets fundamentals carry no importance if they can sell it to someone at a higher price. These trend-followers exacerbate the price movements by encouraging feedback loops and herd mentality. Furthermore, low-volatility and overvalued metrics in traditional markets have accentuated the attention of investors in cryptocurrencies as it remains one of the few areas which can rapidly deliver huge returns.

Cryptocurrency valueis driven by the demand-side factors that have been explained in this article and the trajectory that investors expect the market to take. Many investors and economists believe cryptocurrencies are currently in a bubble as ICOs are attracting a lot of capital, the market has an uncanny resemblance to the dot com boom and everyone is bragging about how easy it is to make money.

Others believe that the boom has just started and the valuations of cryptocurrencies will increase tremendously over the next decade as they replace traditional forms of money transfers and contracts. The rest believe that in the same way as the dot-com boom left behind Google, Facebook and a plethora of revolutionary technological companies, the cryptocurrency craze will eventually lead to a bust that will leave behind a few cryptocurrencies which will shape the way we transact.

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What Drives the Valuation of Cryptocurrencies? - The Market Mogul

CIA director: ‘I don’t love’ Wikileaks – The Hill

Posted on July 21, 2017 by admin

CIA Director Mike Pompeo took a swipe at Wikileakson Thursday, saying he doesn't "love" the anti-secrecy organization.

Pompeo arguedduring aninterview with conservative New York Times columnist Bret Stephens at theAspen Institutes Security Forum that Wikileaks is intent on harming America.

"WikiLeaks will take down America any way they can," he said.

"I don't love WikiLeaks."

Pompeo was also asked about whether he believes Russia interfered in the 2016 election.

"Of course they did," he said. "And the one before that. And the one before that."

The CIA chiefhas previously come out strongly against WikiLeaks, calling them a non-state hostile intelligence service" in an April speech in his first public speech since joining President Trumps administration.

"It's time to call out WikiLeaks for what it really is: A non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia, he said.

But both Trump and Pompeo praised WikiLeaks during the 2016 campaign, with Trump once declaringon the campaign trail, I love WikiLeaks.

Pompeo also once used his congressional Twitter account to tweet a link to WikiLeaks posting of thousands of hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee. CNNfound several other instances in which Pompeo cited WikiLeaks to attack then-Democratic nominee Hillary ClintonHillary Rodham ClintonFormer Justice Dept spokesman: Trump looks 'super guilty' Maxine Waters is joking about 2020 but not about Trump How Florida explains our polarized politics MORE.

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CIA director: 'I don't love' Wikileaks - The Hill

WikiLeaks: CIA analyzed Russian and Chinese malware to inspire its own hacking and surveillance tools – BetaNews

Posted on July 21, 2017 by admin

Some four months after the first Vault 7 leak, WikiLeaks continues to publish revealing CIA documents that detail the agency's ability to hack, infiltrate and surveil targets. The latest batch goes under the banner "UCL / Raytheon", and comprises documents from CIA contractor Raytheon Blackbird Technologies.

Dating from late 2014 and late 2015, the documents show how the CIA, through Raytheon Blackbird Technologies, monitored malware in the wild to see how it could be used by the agency. The documents cover tools produced by the infamous Hacking Team as well as the Russian HammerToss malware delivered via Twitter.

5 New CIA Malware Unveiled By WikiLeaks HTTPBrowser, NfLog, Regin, HammerLoss, Gamker – Fossbytes

Posted on July 21, 2017 by admin

Short Bytes: As a part of the ongoing CIA Vault 7 series, WikiLeaks has published some new documents. The leaks share details regarding CIAs partnership withRaytheon Blackbird Technologies, which helped CIA with insights into the malware development. The documents also briefly describe 5 CIA-Raytheon malware and their attack vectors.

The leaked documents were submitted to the CIA between 21st Nov2014 and 11th Sep2015. The documents submitted by Raytheon contained proof-of-concept assessments for malware attack vectors.

It should be noted thatRaytheon acted as a technology scout for CIAs Remote Development Branch (RDB). The scout made recommendations to the CIA teams for further research and malware development.

So, without further delay, lets tell you about the 5 CIA-Raytheon malware described in the leaked documents:

The first document gives an introduction to a new variant of the HTTPBrowserRemote Access Tool (RAT). The malwares dropper has a zip file that contains3 files. This RAT captures keystrokes and writes it to a file. It continuously talks to the C&C (command and control) server in clear text communications.

NfLogRAT is also known as IsSpace. This new malware variant is deployed using the leaked Hacking Team Adobe Flash exploit which uses CVE 2015-5122. For C&C communications, NfLog also uses the Google App Engine. By using UAC bypass technique, it attempts UAC bypass and privilege escalation on Windows operating system.

Reign is a sophisticated malware sample that has been in use as early as 2008, with its new iteration appearing in 2013. What makes Reign special is its modular architecture that grants flexibility to the attackers. It also features the capability to hide itself from detection. The attack via Reign is carried out in 5 stages, with the last granting functionalities like file system access, networking, event logging, port loading, rootkit functions, etc.

HammerToss is probably a Russian-sponsored malware. It leverages compromised websites, GitHub, Twitter accounts, and cloud storage for taking care of theC&C functions. Written in C#, HammerToss uses a dedicated program to create new Twitter accounts and use them to execute commands and get the data uploaded by the victim.

Gamker is an information stealing Trojan that uses the process of self-code injection to make sure that nothing is written to disk. Gamker is also able to gain someobfuscation characteristics by using Assembly language instruction in hooking routine.

Have something to add to this story? Dont forget to share your views with us.

Source: WikiLeaks

Read our complete WikiLeaksVault 7 coverage here.

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5 New CIA Malware Unveiled By WikiLeaks HTTPBrowser, NfLog, Regin, HammerLoss, Gamker - Fossbytes

CIA chief Mike Pompeo: Russia loves to stick it to America – CBS News

Posted on July 21, 2017 by admin

ASPEN, Colo. -- CIA Director Mike Pompeo said Thursday Russia has no plans to leave Syria and will continue to try to meddle in U.S. affairs to "stick it to America."

He reiterated his belief that Russia interfered in the U.S. presidential election and described the U.S.-Russia relationship as "complicated."

"I think they find anyplace that they can make our lives more difficult, I think they find that's something that's useful," he said

Pompeo also said he has seen only minimal evidence that Russia has pursued a serious strategy against Islamic State of Iraq and Syrica (ISIS) militants in Syria. He said any suggestion that Russia has been a U.S. ally in Syria is not borne out by what's happening on the ground.

But Pompeo said he was hopeful there will be places in the world where the U.S. and Russia can cooperate on counterterrorism.

He said it's difficult to imagine a stable Syria with President Bashar Assad still in power. He called Assad a "puppet of the Iranians," who now have a "significant foothold in Syria."

Russia will stay in Syria, he said, because it loves its naval port in Tartus, off the Mediterranean Sea.

The CIA director spoke in a wide-ranging conversation at the Aspen Security Forum, an annual gathering of intelligence and national security officials and experts in Aspen, Colorado.

He said the Trump administration is working on ways to push back against Iran, which wants to be a "kingpin" in the Middle East.

Pompeo continued his criticism of the Obama administration's nuclear deal with Iran. The Trump administration recently confirmed that Iran had met its obligations under the deal but warned it would face consequences for breaching "the spirit" of the accord - a reference to Iran's continued pursued of a ballistic missile program.

When it comes to Iranian compliance with the agreement, Iran is a "bad tenant," Pompeo said. He likened their compliance with a renter who doesn't pay rent until the landlord demands it and then sends a bad check. He noted that President Trump has been working with Gulf states and Israel to find a common way to push back against Iranian aggression in the region.

What won't work is appeasing Tehran or forcing them into compliance, he said.

"When we have our strategy in place, I'm confident you will see a fundamental shift in policy" toward Iran, Pompeo said.

Pompeo also addressed the threat from North Korea and said Mr. Trump asks questions about Pyongyang nearly every time he sees him.

"It is at the front of his mind," Pompeo said.

It's one thing for Pyongyang to have a missile that can harm the United States and another for it to have an arsenal of such weapons, he said, adding that things can be done to narrow its capacity to develop a stockpile.

While some people believe North Korea's leader is irrational, Pompeo said he is convinced Kim Jong Un understands his core mission - "which is to keep himself in power."

While he avoided saying the U.S. might favor a regime change, Pompeo said he's "hopeful that we will find a way to separate that regime" from its nuclear capabilities.

"The North Korea people - I'm sure are lovely people - and would love to see him go as well. You know they don't live a very good life there," Pompeo said.

On another issue, Pompeo said he believes WikiLeaks will "take down America any way it can." He noted that the anti-secrecy group's website urges students to become CIA interns so they can become whistleblowers.

Pompeo acknowledged that Donald Trump said during the presidential campaign that he loved WikiLeaks.

"I don't love WikiLeaks," Pompeo said.

Besides Edward Snowden, a former National Security Agency contractor who leaked documents revealing extensive U.S. government surveillance, WikiLeaks has released nearly 8,000 documents that it says reveal secrets about the CIA's cyberespionage tools for breaking into computers. WikiLeaks previously published 250,000 State Department cables and embarrassed the U.S. military with hundreds of thousands of logs from Iraq and Afghanistan.

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CIA chief Mike Pompeo: Russia loves to stick it to America - CBS News

How Not to Catch the Next Reality Winner – The American Conservative

Posted on July 21, 2017 by admin

Once upon a time one applied for a government position that required a clearance with the expectation that in three or four months the process would be completed and the authorization would or would not be issued. I experienced the drill on three occasions for top-secret clearances, once for the Department of Defense (DOD) and twice for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Each government agency then managed its own security, and largely does today, in spite of last years creation of the National Background Investigation Board. A subsidiary of the federal governments Office of Personnel Management, the board was intended to coordinate and resolve a massive backlog of clearances. Currently the processing delay in issuing more than 70,000 pending top-secret clearances is approaching one year and there is also a large backlog of existing clearances that are up for reauthorization and under review.

Back in my time there were major differences in how the various national-security components ran their background investigations. The DOD clearance was largely document driven, relying on police reports and public records from the various jurisdictions that I had lived in supplemented by a brief personal interview with the chief of police in the town in New Jersey where I had spent the most time. That pretty much was it and the check did not even include confirmation of the university degree that I claimed to have, as no one asked for my approval to obtain that information. The investigator clearly was looking for illegal activity and did not appear to be particularly interested in confirming that I was who I said I was.

One particular sticking point with the military was the concern over my father rather than me. He was a naturalized citizen and the investigation absolutely required production of the original document confirming that fact, which we were eventually able to produce. It struck me as odd that one part of the government could not have asked another part to confirm the information, but that was the case back then and apparently is still the case now. There is little reciprocity between agencies and information is not routinely shared.

One of the reasons why is that each agency has a different perspective on what is important and what isnt. CIA clearances were quite different than those carried out by the Army. They required a polygraph examination at an early stage and the background checks were very thorough, including interviews with bosses from summer jobs while I was in college as well as of people I knew while I was at school. There were a number of questions about possible homosexuality both directed at friends and as part of the poly, which, of course, would not be allowed today. Public records were, of course, reviewed, as were credit reports. FBI clearances went through a similar vetting, though the polygraph exam was not mandatory in all cases. For CIA there were also follow-up reviews every five years or thereabouts, though they generally consisted of another polygraph exam with particular attention paid to concealed foreign contacts and relationships, both amorous and espionage related.

A big difference between background checks back then and now was that the investigations were initially conducted by the office of security of the actual component that one was intending to work for. Today the investigations are nearly all conducted by contractors, who are themselves hungry for a piece of what has become a multi-billion dollar business. These companies are developing highly sophisticated security software to constantly update government files on its employees.

There are nearly five million United States government employees with clearances. Since Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden, there has been considerable demand from Congress to reduce that number. But the national security industry is, if anything, slated to grow under President Donald Trump. The White House has added its own concerns over politically motivated leakers of classified information and would like to see mechanisms in place that continuously monitor activity by clearance holders to reveal who might have engaged in unauthorized exposure of the sensitive information that has wound up in the Washington Post and New York Times.

But instead of limiting the access to classified information, there has been instead a push for increased and even continuous monitoring of those who have clearances to avoid what are described as insider threats. Software fixes are already in place at some agencies to scour public records and also in some cases redline users who have repeated access to certain types of files that are not directly germane to their work. As we have seen in the recent case of claimed whistleblower Reality Winner, printers connected to classified computers have features that enable identification of the actual user when there is a leak.

Using computers to continuously monitor cleared employees generally employs a variation on software that has already been developed for commercial users, including air carriers, where there is high risk and major liability if an employee is responsible for a violent incident. The special software constantly reviews criminal and civil files, such as divorce filings, bankruptcies, traffic violations, unreported foreign travel, and credit reports, to identify red flags that might result in unacceptable or even aberrant behavior on the part of the employee or prospective employee. Spies are notoriously motivated by money (Aldrich Ames, Robert Hanssen) and careful review of their credit reports might have revealed that they were financially stressed before they took the step of selling secrets to the Soviet Union. Washington Navy Yard shooter Aaron Alexis, who killed 12 people in September 2013, reportedly was the subject of a Rhode Island police report that revealed that he had been hearing voices shortly before he went on his rampage.

Monitoring ones civil and criminal record is not particularly easy to do, as much of the information is only available at state or even county and local levels and not all of it is online. Even though most of the information that is being screened by the government computers is public record and therefore fair game, there is concern that while something like a bankruptcy or a foreign trip is verifiable fact, other information might be either uninterpretable or completely lacking context. Even public databases frequently contain inaccurate information, including what is referred to as false negatives and false positivesand yet if they appear to cross an employer red line, they become part of the personnel file. Some of it is certainly information that once upon a time would have been regarded as both private and sensitive, such as a credit report, even though applicants for security clearances customarily waive any right to privacy when they are being background investigated.

And there is also increasing pressure coming from government managers to begin screening social media to determine if individuals are becoming disgruntled or otherwise developing hostile attitudes towards their employer. To complain about ones job or express unpopular opinions would not exactly be criminalized but it would inevitably become an element in consideration of ones ability to move upward in the organization, even if that is not the intention.

The bottom line is that no one has yet made the case that the continuous monitoring of five million security clearance holders would actually reduce espionage and insider threats. It is clear, however, that it would be enormously expensive and is therefore being pushed hardboth by prospective contractors offering their services and also hardliners in government who seek to have such a weapon in their arsenal to catch spies, leakers, and malcontents. Critics observe that while aggressive monitoring quite possibly might discover an individual instance where someone could appear to be in one of those at risk categories, most individuals who are moving in that direction do not necessarily allow their inner thoughts or hidden activities to become either part of the public record or an entry on Facebook.

And the greatest danger of all is over the horizon. Once the government discovers a new technology to intrude on the lives of ordinary citizens, a pretext will no doubt be developed after the next terrorist incident or insider attack to use it in ever widening circles as new threats are allegedly discovered. When that happens, we can confidently expect Patriot Act III, with a provision allowing continuous surveillance of any and all possible suspects. And there is actually a precedent. Back in 2003, the Pentagon under George W. Bush was already tinkering with what if referred to as Total Information Awareness to examine predictive behavior, described at the time as the biggest surveillance program in the history of the United States.

Total Information Awareness was briefly implemented before being abandoned 14 years ago. Today the technical resources available are much more impressive, with the ability to have a fully automated process that can monitor, store, and recover billions of pieces of data in real time. It means that achieving continuous monitoring for everyone who resides in or travels to the United States is now a reality. Every American will become a potential victim and part of an Orwellian nightmare as a substantially mythical national security narrative trumps privacy concerns and constitutional rights. And the government, to quell any concerns, will continue to insist that what it is doing is only done to make you safer.

Philip Giraldi, a former CIA offier, is executive director of the Council for the National Interest.

What it’s like to turn the camera on Snowden and Assange – PBS NewsHour

Posted on July 21, 2017 by admin

JUDY WOODRUFF: Now to another in our Brief But Spectacular series, where we ask people to describe their passions.

Tonight, we hear from Academy Award-winning documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras. Her latest film is Risk, which looks at WikiLeaks and Julian Assange.

LAURA POITRAS, Documentary Filmmaker: Its a bit surprising that I do documentaries, because I consider myself to be a really shy person.

And theres something about the documentary form that I guess it sort of it kind of gives you an invitation, maybe, to go places you wouldnt go otherwise or to take risks you wouldnt take otherwise.

My filmmaking is kind of comes in a tradition of observational cinema or cinema verite. Legendary founders of it is D.A. Pennebaker, Albert Maysles, Frederick Wiseman. They capture human stories. They capture drama, and they capture history as it unfolds.

When you talk to people and who they tell you who they are is oftentimes different than their actions. And so Im interested in peoples actions and choices.

So, for instance, sitting in a hotel room with Edward Snowden, as hes making this monumental decision to leak this information, is an example of the type of cinema that Im interested in doing.

The last two films I have done, Citizenfour and Risk, I became a participant. There were things that were happening that were happening because of work that I was doing, reporting on the NSA.

I mean, if you expose the deepest levels of intelligence agencies, they do tend to pay attention to what youre doing. I was placed on a government terrorist watch list in 2006, and was detained at the U.S. border for probably 50 times, interrogated. I have had computers confiscated. I have had notebooks photocopied.

They have subpoenaed my records. They would send FBI agents to my film screenings to see what I said in Q&As.

MAN: Theres a filmmaker named Laura Poitras. Laura Poitras is known through the defense community as a documentary filmmaker who is anti-U.S.

LAURA POITRAS: I became really interested in WikiLeaks and Julian Assange in 2010, like a lot of people, first when they published the video of Collateral Murder, the Apache helicopter footage that showed killings of Iraqis, by U.S. military.

And having made a film about the war in Iraq, I knew that this was the kind of thing that was happening every day there. I reached out to WikiLeaks and Assange during that time and then started filming in 2011.

And I was interested in how they were changing journalism. I had somewhat of a falling out with him over the film, where he wanted me not to use scenes in the film.

One of the scenes that Julian wanted removed from the film is the scene where his lawyers are giving him advice about how to speak publicly of around these allegations of sexual assault.

JULIAN ASSANGE, Founder, WikiLeaks: Its just a thoroughly tawdry, radical, feminist, political positioning thing. Its some stereotype.

LAURA POITRAS: I still have enormous respect for, like, the project of WikiLeaks and its importance, because I think they have done extraordinary publishing.

Im always interested in access. Like you know, like, I would love to have access to Robert Muellers investigation into Donald Trump, or James Comey.

But I think those are going to be pretty tough to get access to that. But, yes, Im really looking forward to like the really good documentary thats capturing whats happening right now in our politics.

I hope its being documented by someone.

My name is Laura Poitras, and this is my brief take on documentary filmmaking.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And you can watch additional Brief But Spectacular episodes at pbs.org/newshour/brief.

Australia the latest country to have no idea how encryption works … – BGR

Posted on July 21, 2017 by admin

Australia is the latest country to seek ways to access information passed between smartphones via encrypted apps, information that might be relevant to criminal investigations and counterterrorism operations. The Australian government wants to be able to spy on encrypted means of communications, whether theyre built in to devices like the iPhone, or apps like WhatsApp, Telegram, and anything else that secures chats and voice calls. But, the Australian government has said it doesnt want backdoors in iOS! This only proves that governments still fail to grasp how encrypted iPhones work.

Apple top execs met twice with the Turnbull government in Australia, The Sydney Morning Herald explains, as Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull wants to pass new encryption laws.

Turnbulls proposed regulations might compel tech companies to provide access to encrypted communications. Thats something Apple cant offer without backing a back door into iOS. Its San Bernardino all over again.

Apparently, Apple argued that if its compelled to create a back door into iPhones, then everyones security is at risk. The company said it provided significant assistance to police agencies during investigations. Apple did the same thing in America, providing user information, the kind of meta data thats still useful for investigations, and which isnt protected by encryption.

Turnbulls government, meanwhile, explicitly said it doesnt want a back door in iOS encryption, or weaker iOS encryption. But it does want Apple, and any other tech company to provide assistance to law enforcement agencies when thats needed.

This proves, yet again, that governments have no viable idea of how to tackle this sensitive problem. For the time being, it appears that you cant have it both ways. Its either end-to-end encryption which comes with the unwanted side effects like protecting communications between criminals or terrorist organizations. Or its weaker encryption, the kind the government can access, and the kind that can be hacked into by anyone with the means to do it.

The Australian government should introduce new encryption laws by the end of the year, and itll be interesting to see how it wants to crack into encrypted iPhones.

As for Apple, the company announced at WWDC 2017 that its going to continue to protect the users privacy when it comes to chats. iMessages synchronized with iCloud will be encrypted with private keys. Currently, Apple could offer law enforcements data from iPhone backups stored in the cloud that arent encrypted with unique keys.

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Australia the latest country to have no idea how encryption works ... - BGR

IBM Processor Aims to Blanket Encryption Over Everything – Electronic Design

Posted on July 21, 2017 by admin

IBM claims that its new processor can encrypt data on a massive scale, concealing credit card payments, travel site bookings, and government payrolls from the prying eyes of hackers.

On Monday, IBM announced that the new silicon powers its latest line of mainframes, which canautomatically keep entire systems encrypted at all times. The z14 chipdevotes around six billion transistors four times more than previous z13 exclusively to encryption, which encodes messages only decipherable with special keys.

The new encryption chip runs at 5.2 gigahertz to process more than 12 billion transactions every day ranging from ATM withdrawals to flight reservations. Manufactured on the 14 nanometer node, it contains 10 computing cores that can encrypt 13 gigahertz of data per second. The z13 could only process around 2.5 billion transactions every day.

IBM claims that it handles encryption more cheaply and efficiently than rival server systems, which burn through massive amounts of computing power to encrypt and decrypt data. The systems security prowess could be a unique selling point for businesses that typically only encrypt limited lumps of data.

Most corporations have been slow to open their wallets for large scale encryption. Only around 4% of all the data stolen worldwide since 2013 was encrypted, IBM says. And only around 2% of information in corporate servers is encrypted today, as opposed to almost 80% of mobile data, according to consulting firm Solitaire Interglobal.

The vast majority of stolen or leaked data today is open and easy to use because encryption has been difficult and expensive, said Ross Mauri, general manager of IBMs Z mainframe business, in a statement. We created a data protection engine for the cloud era to have an immediate and significant impact on global data security.

To protect encryption keys, IBM created special circuitry that acts like dye packs hidden in bank vaults to foil robberies. When the hardware detects malware or other intruders prying into memory, it can throw out the keys and restore them once the coast is clear again. IBM calls it tamper-responding hardware.

Other companies are selling chips custom hardware to expedite cryptography in cloud servers. Intels newest Xeon Scalable processors, for instance, encrypt and decrypt messages without having to keep the encryption keys in memory, while Advanced Micro Devices added a security subsystem in its Epyc server chips that encrypt data stored within memory.

The mainframe announcement comes at a particularly painful point for IBM. On Tuesday, the company, which has been trying to reorient the business toward cloud computing and data analytics, reported revenues of $19.3 billion in second quarter, down from $20.2 billion the same last year. It is IBMs twenty-first consecutive quarter of revenue decline.

Wire launches e2e encrypted team messaging in beta | TechCrunch – TechCrunch

Posted on July 21, 2017 by admin

End-to-end encrypted messaging platform Wire is targeting Slacks territory with a new messaging for teams product, calledTeams.

It announced abetalaunch yesterday, and is offering teams a 30-day free trial with pricing starting at5 per user per month thereafter, or custom pricing for enterprise installations offering extras such as self-hosted servers and an integration API.

Co-founder Alan Duric tells TechCrunch that demand for the team messaging launch is being driven primarily by Wires existing user base.

We found more and more that our consumer offering was being used by businesses, and so we were keen to launch a dedicated business product, with additional features tailored to their needs. These features aredesigned to facilitate collaboration between teams to enhance productivity safely and securely, and include screen sharing, group calls and file transfers. Wire now supports dual personal and business profiles, enabling users to switch between the two, and will soon allow users to off notifications for eitheraccount, he notes.

The demand stemmed from a growing need to protect business communications as digital threats increase and current business communications becoming increasingly susceptible to breaches, he adds, saying most demand is currentlycoming from Europe, followed by the US and Asia.

Demand was such that we onboarded 16 companies even before the beta launch Prior to the beta launch, we conducted interviews with over 300 businesses to really understand their needs. In particular, the fact that were based in Europe, end-to-end encrypted, do not require users to share a phone number and are multi-device really resonated.

Alex, a TC reader and Wire user who tipped us to the beta launch, is one of those existing users with an interest in the new team messaging feature although he says his team wont be signing up until the product exits beta.

Explaining how his team originally started using Wire, Alex says: One of the team was traveling and visited China where we found the firewall was blocking basically everything. Skype would randomly keep crashing / lagging under a VPN, though Wire simply worked there. We decided just to stick with it.

The Wire Teams product supports logging in with multiple accounts, so users can maintain a personal Wire messaging account separate from a Wire work account, for example.

Theres also support for adding guests to projects to allow for collaboration with outsiders who dont have full Wire accounts of their own.

And, in future, Teams users will be able to switch off notifications for different accounts so they could turn off work alerts for the weekend, for example.

More and more businesses and international organizations have started using Wire for work since we launched end-to-end encryption. Teams make it easy to organize work groups and related conversations, it writes in a blog post announcing the beta.

Duric adds that Wire currently expects Teams to be fully launched out of beta in late Q3/early Q4.

While the company started by offering a more general comms app, launched in late 2014 and backed bySkype co-founder Janus Friis, in recent years its shifted emphasis to focus on privacy rolling out end-to-end encryption in March last year perhaps calculating this makes for a better differentiator in the crowded messaging platform space.

When it comes to team messaging, services offering end-to-end encryption are certainly a relative rarity.Slacks data request policy, for example, notes that it will turn over customer data in response to valid and binding compulsory legal process.

In its blog about Teams, Wire includes a comparison graphic across a range of team comms products and messaging apps, such as Slack, Skype for business, WhatsApp and Signal, which shows its commercial positioning and marketing at work.

As well as flagging as a plus its use of e2e encryption which extends to securing features such as group calls, screen-sharing and file sharing other differentiating advantages its claiming include its business having a European base (specifically its based in Switzerland, which has a legal regime thats generally perceived as offering some of the most robust data protection and privacy laws in Europe); and its code being open sourced (unlike, for example, the Facebook-owned WhatsApp messaging platform).

Wire also suggests e2e encryption for team messaging could be a way for companies to ensure compliance with incoming European privacy legislation. The General Data Protection Regulation, which ramps up fines for data breaches, is due to come into force in May next year.

Businesses affected by the EUs upcoming GDPR rules benefit from end-to-end encryption, as it automatically protects the data they share with the team from third party access, Wire claims.

Earlier this year the companypublished an external audit of its e2e encryption. Thisuncovered some flaws and issues but generally found the reviewed components to have a high security.

Although a third layer of security review to consider Wires complete solution in the round remained outstanding at that point.

At the time Wire published the auditit committed to ongoing security reviews of every major development of its product.

So presumably that should include one for the Teams addition when it launches.

Wire hosts its open sourced code on GitHub.

This post was updated with additional comment from Wires co-founder

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