From $100 Million to Broke to Betting It All on Cryptocurrencies – Entrepreneur

Posted on July 7, 2017 by admin

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Serial entrepreneur, Rafe Furst, is no stranger to pressure. He played poker at the professional level and stared down other pros to win first place at a World Series of Poker event, netting $350,000 in prize money and a World Series of Poker Championship bracelet. He has co-founded several companies, and personally invested in dozens of others at the early stage. He has also backed a unicorn startup and gotten stuck with dead horse investments, too.

The key to any poker game, and the game of life, Furst believes, is to keep making smart decisionseven if you experience setbacks. Play enough hands where you have an edge and youll come out ahead.

He doesnt merely preach it. Furst faced one of the highest-pressure situations almost any entrepreneur can. In 2011, the online poker company he helped found, Full Tilt Poker, folded after the CEO committed fraud. Furst lost most of his fortune trying to make things right. The episode put stress on his marriage, his friendships and his mental health. But he pushed forward and came out on the other side stronger, wiser and ready to change the world.

Theres no question that Furst bounced back in a big way.

He resumed investing in early-stage startups. And he has used his impressive quantitative thinking to raise millions for cancer research, as well as design the personal investment contract, an innovative way to impact the lives of young people by investing in their future early on.

Now, hes taking what he believes to be the biggest and best calculated risk of his career. Furst believes he has cracked the greatest investment opportunity of a lifetime: cryptocurrencies.

I think its the most important technology since the internet itself, Furst says.

Startup investing is potentially one of the most lucrative bets you can make. Thats if you invest in the right companies. Gary Vaynerchuk recently revealed that had he invested $25,000 into Uber in 2010, his investment would have been worth $300 million today. He passed on the opportunity and wishes he had a time machine.

Furst is a student of investment cycles and he believes that nearly everyone is doing it wrong.

Investors work hard to source the right deals and work with the right people. The result is: they invest in a handful of deals per year. But that isnt enough. Investors try to pick winners, but thats impossible, says Furst.

Furst should know. He did research in cognitive science and artificial intelligence at Stanford University, founded several startups, invested in dozens more, and cofounded Crowdfunder, a leading online equity crowdfunding platform. That platform connects thousands of entrepreneurs, including famous musician Neil Young and NBA star Yao Ming, to millions in crowdfunded capital. Crowdfunder currently has more than 130,000 members who fund millions of dollars worth of deals each month.

Through millions of poker hands, startup investing and his work with Crowdfunder, Furst developed second-to-none quantitative chops. Those chops helped him uncover a powerful investment insight.

Most VC funds do a dozen deals per year and most of them lose money because theyre not diversified enough, says Furst. Modeling data from Right Side Capital, a quantitative VC firm he helped form and invested in, suggests you need over 300 companies in your portfolio if you want to achieve the market average with 85 percent certainty.

Now, Furst is applying that logic to another opportunity, which he believes is bigger than investing in winning startups in the seed stage: cryptocurrencies.

Cryptocurrencies are decentralized digital assets, traded using technology called blockchain ledgers. Bitcoin is one such currency, but there are over 800 in existence. Cryptocurrencies provide a much-needed update to how money and other assets are valued, transferred, and used by both people and governments. And Furst believes this need will cause the market capitalization for cryptocurrencies to skyrocket.

So far, hes right. In the last two years, the overall cryptocurrencies market capitalization has grown almost 30x, minting millionaires many times over. Now, Furst wants to get everyone in on the game.

Fursts love of poker led him to the group that started Full Tilt Poker, one of the biggest online poker forums in history. Despite massive financial success, Full Tilt didnt end well.

Furst was one of 23 investors and one of four board members of the software company that launched Full Tilt Poker. They empowered the CEO with full operational responsibility and were distributed a percentage of profits. This was a gamble that paid off handsomely for four years, until the CEO noticed a gaping hole in the companys balance sheet. Unfortunately for all involved, the CEO hid the shortfall and paid investors with operating capital, not profits, for several months. The CEO ultimately pled guilty to fraud, but not before destroying Full Tilt.

Furst spent untold energy fighting to keep the company afloat, and was rewarded by the U.S. Department of Justice with a civil lawsuit to recover all of his profits. Ultimately, Furst settled and was cleared of any wrongdoing though he lost most of his money in the process.

I have no problem telling the story and being transparent about what happened, says Furst. Every entrepreneur has things that are difficult to tell potential investors. Mine happens to be really public, and whats out there is very one-sided and politically motivated.

This dangerous cocktail of professional pressure, anxiety and public scrutiny had heated Fursts mind to a boiling point far beyond that which most entrepreneurs experience. It led to a mental and emotional breakdown. But, thanks to the support of his family and friends, he bounced back and changed his lifes trajectory.

The experience gave Furst much-needed clarity. He knew he wanted to do something big.

Image credit: Melly Lee

Back in 2011, Bitcoin was the only cryptocurrency in existence. And while Furst took a gamble and invested in it, it was clear to him that it would take the rest of the world a while to catch up in understanding the significance of Bitcoin. So he launched full bore into Crowdfunder for four and a half years. By late 2016, there were hundreds of currencies and he became convinced that the blockchain and cryptocurrencies were getting much closer to the point of changing the world.

Its the decentralization of money and power, Furst says.

Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are backed by the power of distributed networks, just like many startups and open-source software projects. As such, cryptos (as they are known colloquially) are not burdened by operational inefficiencies of centralized bureaucracies, and can appreciate in value quite rapidly, especially if they prove useful to the marketplace.

But, Furst learned a crucial lesson from his VC and poker days: the more bets you spread out over time, the better chance you have of hitting the jackpot. Thats exactly what hes doing with his new venture, The Crypto Company.

With The Crypto Company, you dont have to worry about the technicalities and risks of buying and selling individual cryptos. We are a holding company for a basket of cryptos and providing a basket of consulting services to other holders of similar assets, Furst says.

Right now, investing in and cashing out of cryptos is a laborious process that often requires bank transfers between multiple online exchanges and parties, and several layers of verifications. Instead of the hassle, The Crypto Company will offer direct and indirect exposure to dozens of different cryptos.

As a result, The Crypto Company has wide exposure to the cryptocurrency market, one which Furst and others believe can be a trillion-dollar market within the next five years, as he expects banks, governments and institutions will jump on-board. For some perspective, the market capitalization for cryptocurrencies has grown approximately 6x in the first half of 2017 to over $100 billion. Furst calls this huge number merely a rounding error compared to the trillions of dollars traded and transferred by financial institutions in commodities, derivatives and gold daily.

Furst was forced to fold a money-making hand in Full Tilt Poker. But he came out on the other side even stronger.

Poker is a great source of entertainment, but in the end its a zero sum game: for someone to win, someone else must lose, explains Furst. Entrepreneurs, on the other hand, are creating whats known in economics as shared value; in other words the startup game is win-win.

He sees cryptocurrencies as elevating the game of startups to a whole new level. In fact, Furst believes that cryptocurrencies are the new startups, but with even bigger advantages: crypto networks are decentralized and the tokens are liquid right away.

This is like when I was in Silicon Valley in the 1990s and saw the first web browser before almost anyone, Furst says. "Blockchain and cryptocurrencies are the future.

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From $100 Million to Broke to Betting It All on Cryptocurrencies - Entrepreneur

DNC won’t release evidence of Seth Rich’s WikiLeaks ties – WND.com

Posted on July 7, 2017 by admin

Murdered DNC staffer Seth Rich

WASHINGTON A team of private investigators demanded the Democratic National Committee turn over any and all information that could help determine whether there is a link between the Democratic National Committeeemail hacking during the 2016 presidential race and the mysterious murder of DNC employee Seth Rich.

But the DNC wouldnt provide any information Thursday, claiming its not interested in propagating conspiracy theories about a beloved colleague.

DNC Chairman Thomas Perez

While the DNC insists that its email was hacked by Russia in a grand conspiracyto assist Donald Trump in rigging the election, the Profiling Project pointed out in aletter to DNC Chairman Tom Perez that Guccifer 2.0 categorically denied links between the Russian government and the hacked documents.

There have been all sorts of reporting in the media on the DNC computer hacking on June 14, 2016, one month before Mr. Richs murder, the letter states. At the time, the DNC blamed the hacking on two groups associated with Russian intelligence. However, a blogger named Guccifer 2.0 subsequently claimed that he hacked your computer system, and passed along thousands of pages of files to WikiLeaks.

Subsequent unsubstantiated reports have linked Mr. Richs murder with either Russia or WikiLeaks or both, suggesting that Mr. Rich was the source of the emails or he was connected in some other way.

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Jack Burkman, a lawyer and GOP lobbyist who is funding the Profiling Project, wrote the letter on behalf of the group. Hecalled onthe DNC to turn over any evidence that would substantiate Richs ties to WikiLeaks.

D.C. lobbyist and attorney Jack Burkman

By way of this letter, I am formally asking that the DNC release any, and all, information to our independent investigators including emails, internal memos and other correlating information regarding discussions of this matter that may help them determine the connection, if any between the DNC hacking and the murder of Seth Rich, the letter states. I look forward to your cooperation in our efforts to find those responsible for killing a young man with a bright future and one of your employees.

In its response to the Profiling Projects letter, the DNC stated:

The DNC supports law enforcement in their work to get to the bottom of this terrible tragedy and hold the perpetrators accountable. The DNC is not interested in propagating conspiracy theories about a beloved colleague.

We ask news organizations to respect Seths memory and stop highlighting publicity stunts and spreading false or debunked information.

As WND has reported,Rich, 27, had accepted a position with Hillary Clintons campaign just before his death. He was murdered in Washington, D.C., near his apartment in an affluent neighborhood. Rich was shot twice in the back with a handgun, and hiswallet, credit cards, watch and phone were left in his possession.The Metropolitan Police Department hasdescribed the murderas a botched robbery.

Murdered DNC staffer Seth Rich

Private investigators have claimedthere is evidence Rich was the source WikiLeaks used to obtain thousands ofDNC emails released on the eve of the partys presidential nominating convention last July. The emails, indicating the party was manipulating the primary race in favor of Hillary Clinton, led to the resignation of former DNC Chairwoman Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz.On July 22, just 12 days after Richs death and days before the Democratic Party Convention in Philadelphia, WikiLeaks released 20,000 DNC emails.

Also as WND has reported, former detective Rod Wheeler was initially hired by Richs parents through a third party to find their sons killer. Wheeler alleges former interim DNC chairwoman Donna Brazille contacted the Metropolitan Police Department demanding to know why he was snooping after Wheeler began investigating Richs murder. As a result, he said, law-enforcement authorities are now refusing to provide him with more details about the case.

Wheeler and another source also told WND that the familys spokesman, Brad Bauman a Democratic political crisis consultant was assigned to the family by the DNC. Bauman denies the DNC hired him to represent the Rich family, calling the claim patently 100 percent false.

WND has launched a GoFundMe campaign to get to the bottom of the Seth Rich murder. Help us find out what really happened to the DNC staffer!

As WND reported, the total reward for solving Richs murder currently stands at approximately a half-million dollars. However, the DNC has offered no rewardfor information leading to the arrest of the murderer of its own young staffer. Instead, the DNC honored its murdered employee by dedicating a bike rack outside its headquarters to Richs memory.

The DNC honored its murdered employee, Seth Rich, by dedicating a bike rack with this plaque outside its headquarters to Richs memory (Photo: screenshot)

Several online accounts belonging to Rich have been deleted in recent weeks, according to the Profiling Project. As WND reported, Burkman filed an emergency motion on June 21 to require police to preserve, protect and properly organize the all-important online information of Seth Rich.

Seth Richs Twitter account has recently been deleted Seth Richs Facebook page has recently been deleted and Seth Richs Reddit account (MeGRIMLOCK) has recently been edited and some of its postings deleted, the motion states.Little is more critical to the investigation of this murder than this online information that could lead to the determination of a motive for the murder. Most of the current working theories of the case may be disproven or enhanced by examining Seth Richs online information. Regrettably, some of this information is now lost due to the apparent spoliation of MPD. MPD must now be forced by this Court to act swiftly and decisively to preserve evidence.

Seth Rich

Also in June, the Profiling Project released a preliminary 80-page report on Rich that details why its highly improbable that the DNC staffer was the victim of a random homicide.

The project, an all-volunteer group of current and former George Washington University forensic psychology graduate students and instructors, said it came together for the investigation to aid the Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Police utilizing forensic psychology skills and tools in hopes of providing at least one actionable item.

The findings included:

The group found in its investigation the crime scene was very organized to the point of being sanitized.

This would indicate careful planning on the part of the offender, control of the entry to and exit from the crime scene as well as in-depth understanding of law-enforcement investigative processes, Doherty explained during a press conference. A proficient killer is what we think the fact that the killer has gotten away with it for this period of time and it appears it was a very sanitized crime scene, so there is certainly some level of proficiency in the killing.

The lack of clues fromRichs murderer scene and the fact that nosuspects have surfaced to claim the large reward offering is highly suspect, Doherty said.

The crime scene was sanitized; there is no direct linking to really anything. The police have no suspects, he said. The individuals have gotten away with it at this point in time. There were no behavioral indications at the crime scene. It didnt look like rage or revenge or hate were the motivation behind it. Its really a lack of behavioral indicators, motion and evidence that leads us to believe that whoever did this is proficient at killing.

Intersection where DNC staffer Seth Rich was found conscious and breathing with apparent gunshot wound(s) to the back, according to a July 10, 2016, police report (WND photo: Alicia Powe)

The Profiling Project revealed in May that weapons were stolen from anearby FBI vehicle hours before Rich was shot, including a .40 caliber Glock-22 handgun and a Rock River Arms Rifle. The burglary took place just two miles south of Richs murder scene.

The group is currently awaiting a court hearing before the Washington, D.C., Superior Court to force the police department and Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser to publicly release critical evidence in the Seth Rich investigation, including the medical examiners report, autopsy documents and ballistics reports, which would determine they type of gun used to shoot Rich.

WND has launched a GoFundMe campaign to get to the bottom of the Seth Rich murder. You can personally help us get to the truth of what really happened.

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DNC won't release evidence of Seth Rich's WikiLeaks ties - WND.com

WikiLeaks Releases Documents on Two CIA Projects Targeting Network Protocols – Sputnik International

Posted on July 7, 2017 by admin

World

17:35 06.07.2017(updated 17:41 06.07.2017) Get short URL

"Today, July 6th 2017, WikiLeaks publishes documents fromthe BothanSpy and Gyrfalcon projects ofthe CIA. The implants described inboth projects are designed tointercept and exfiltrate SSH credentials butwork ondifferent operating systems withdifferent attack vectors," WikiLeaks said ina statement.

SSH is a cryptographic network protocol which gives the user a secure remote access toa websites server. The SSH credentials are the login details, namely the server address, port number, the username and the password.

According toWikiLeaks, the BothanSpy is an implant targeting the SSH client program forMicrosoft Windows platform, stealing user credentials form active SSH sessions. The data is then either exfiltrated toa CIA-controlled server, or encrypted and saved forlater exfiltration byother means.

Gyrfalcon, inits turn, is an implant that targets Linux platforms and can steal the credentials, encrypting the information forlater exfiltration.

WikiLeaks released three documents that appear tobe the CIAs tool documentation and user manuals forboth projects asevidence.

The whistleblowing website released the first patch fromthe Vault 7 project inMarch, withthe first full part comprising 8,761 documents. The previous release, dedicated tothe CIA spying geo-location malware forWiFi-enabled devices, dubbed ELSA, took place onJune 28.

What Happens When Chelsea Manning’s DNA Becomes An Artist’s Material? – HuffPost

Posted on July 7, 2017 by admin

As an artist and a scientist,Heather Dewey-Hagborgis used to questioning where science and technology are headed and how their trajectories might affect our lives.

Making people uncomfortable is really squarely the point of my work, she wrote in an email to HuffPost.For example, her projectStranger Visions consists of a series of portraits based solely on human DNA shed gathered from discarded items found in New York City think: hair, cigarettes, gum.

Most recently, Dewey-Hagborg has been collaborating with a rather unlikely partner: Chelsea Manning. Together, theyve created a series of portrait masks derived from Mannings DNA, retrieved while she was incarcerated and undergoing hormone replacement therapy.

I guess [theyre] a bit creepy on purpose, she explained of the portraits, on view this August at Fridman Gallery in New York City. But hopefully a creepiness that provokes cultural reflection.

Photo by: Thomas Dexter

As much of the world knows by now, Manning shot to fame in 2013 after she published thousands of secretdocuments related to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars on Wikileaks, unveiling disturbing accounts of torture and abuse by U.S. soldiers.Manning was sentenced to 35 years in prison, the longest sentence ever handed down to a government whistleblower.

The day after she was sentenced, Chelsea, then known as Bradley Manning and presenting as male, came out as transgender. I want everyone to know the real me, her statement read. I am Chelsea Manning. I am a female. Given the way that I feel, and have felt since childhood, I want to begin hormone therapy as soon as possible. For years, Manning lived behind bars in an all-male military prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. After suing the army with the support of the ACLU, Manning became the first person to receive hormone replacement therapyin a military prison.

Yet Manning was prohibited from taking photographs in prison, and as such, her image was hidden from public view for the entirety of her incarceration. For Manning, this reality was not just an inconvenience, but a denial of her very humanity. Prisons try very hard to make us inhuman and unreal by denying our image, she told Boing Boing in 2016. And thus our existence, to the rest of the world.Imagery has become a kind of proof of existence.Just consider the online refrain pics or it didnt happen.

And thats where Dewey-Hagborgcame in.

Heather Dewey-Hagborg

In 2012 and 2013,Dewey-Haborg began extracting DNA samples from detritus around NYC. She then analyzed the samples using a DNA phenotyping process often used by law enforcement to create forensic profiles of criminal suspects. Dewey-Haborg used the genetic information she found to generate 3D-printed, life-size portrait masks of anonymous people shed never met.

In 2015, Paper Magazine commissioned Dewey-Hagborg to conduct a similar biological portrait process, this time with Manning. From prison, Manning supplied DNA samples by mailing packages of cheek swabs and hair clippings, for a project dubbed Probably Chelsea. What Mannings DNA could not illuminate, however, was her transition.

Of course DNA is important, vital, Dewey-Hagborg explained. But it is just a portion of what makes us who we are. We are increasingly learning how significant epigenetics is, and of course environment is unquestionably a major, if not the major, thing shaping us.What Probably Chelsea does is show just how many ways your DNA can be interpreted, or read as data.

For her earlier portraits, Dewey-Hagborg relied on chromosomes to predict whether her subjects were male or female. For Manning, there were two options that I thought of,Dewey-Hagborg recounted. I could leave the sex parameter out entirely. There really wasnt any reason to deem it worthy of analyzing. Or we could go with self-identified gender over genetic sex.

Dewey-Hagborg created two distinct portrait masks of Manning, one that was algorithmically gender neutraland one algorithmically female, which she placed side by side. The two versions were created using morphable models that can be adjusted to look more male, neutral, or more female generalized from 3D scans of peoples actual faces.

But what truly constitutes a female face and how much of this aesthetic relates to biological chromosomes? These are some of the questions Dewey-Hagborg hopes to raise. Things like gender and race become problematic because they rely on very simplistic kinds of stereotypes, she told Paper.

Photo by: Luthy

Dewey-Hagborg began corresponding with Manning, whom she described as incredibly positive, in 2015. They worked together, along with illustrator Shoili Kanungo, on a comic book called Suppressed Images,imagining a scenario in which Mannings sentence was cut short and she could stand face-to-face with her own portrait. In January of 2017, President Barack Obama officially commuted Mannings sentence; she was released in May of the same year. She will now be able to view her portraits in person this August.

With biotechnology rapidly advancing, its impact can be seen in everything from reproductive to genetic engineering, Dewey-Hagborg hopes her work shines a cautionary light on the sciences shortcomings.

Art has an important role here, she explained, not just to be educational and show how science works, but to be provocative and critical, to show how it will work on us and through us and with us. To ask questions about how new science and technology will impact our lives.

Fridman Gallery curator Roddy Schrock seconded Dewey-Hagborgs trust in art to cast a critical eye on technological advances with a particular agenda in mind. Our relationship to technology typically flickers between hope and disappointment. Chelsea and Heather, through the work in this exhibition, help us remember to act from a place of hope.

Heather Dewey-Hagborg and Chelsea Manning

As much as the collaboration between Dewey-Hagborg inspires hope, it also evokes a sense of dread and unease. Perhaps its just seeing such a realistic face, removed from a body and placed on display as what it is: a mask. Or maybe its that the floating faces invite the viewer to a space of in-between, where few commonly accepted categories can be swallowed as fact.

The exhibition destabilizes binary understandings beyond just male and female. What qualities do we, as humans, choose, and which choose us? What is fixed and what is in flux? Where is the boundary between what is visualized and what is hidden? How easily can that boundary be erased through an art experiment, a photograph or a leak? How can the same technology shift from the domain of science into art?

For Dewey-Hagborg, the goal is to illuminate the danger that essentialist understandings of human beings pose to the future of science. We need these points to be made from all sides, she explained, from policy and critical studies, and also from within science itself. I think this is beginning to happen, and it is very encouraging. But we need much more.

Heather Dewey-Hagborg and Chelsea Manning

Heather Dewey-Hagborg & Chelsea Mannings A Becoming Resemblance, curated by Roddy Schrock, will be on view from Aug. 2 until Sept. 5 at Fridman Gallery in New York.

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What Happens When Chelsea Manning's DNA Becomes An Artist's Material? - HuffPost

After Criticism, US Defense Department Will Implement New … – Gizmodo

Posted on July 7, 2017 by admin

One year from now, the US Department of Defense (DoD) expects to implement a new infrastructure to increase security around the way it communicates electronically, Gizmodo has learned.

The Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA), which manages the Pentagons email systems, says it intends to adopt, by default, STARTTLS, an encryption protocol designed to prevent the interception of email messages in transit. DISA is actively working an acquisition to upgrade the email gateways that will allow us to take advantage of evolving capabilities for email protection, wrote Maj. Gen. Sarah Zabel, vice director of DISA, in a letter this week addressed to Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon.

In late March, Wyden sent a letter to DISA inquiring as to why the Pentagon had not already enabled STARTTLS, as it is widely used by default throughout the federal government and in the private sector to protect email communications. As you may know, the technology industry created STARTTLS fifteen years ago to allow email servers to communicate securely and protect email messages from surveillance as they are transmitted over the internet, Wyden wrote.

The senator added that while the Pentagon uses various other systems to protect classified and unclassified messagessuch as Public Key Infrastructure (PKI), which allows for the encrypted transfer of data at DoD, as well as to and from its defense industry partnersWyden was concerned that DISA is not taking advantage of a basic, widely used, easily-enabled cybersecurity technology. He continued: Indeed, until DISA enables STARTTLS, unclassified email messages sent between the military and other organizations will be needlessly exposed to surveillance and potentially compromised by third parties.

It appears, however, that surveillance was at least one reason why DISA had not enabled STARTTLS already. In a letter acquired by Gizmodo dated April 27, Zabel states that DISA made a deliberate decision not to use STARTTLS because it feared doing so would interfere with its ability to inspect each email it was sent for malicious software, phishing attempts, and other exploits. DISA currently rejects over 85% of all DoD email traffic coming from the Internet on a daily basis due to malicious behavior, Zabel wrote. The remaining 15% of email traffic is also inspected for Zero Day threats that exploit an undisclosed cybersecurity vulnerability.

Added Zabel: We also inspect for advanced, persistent threats using detection methods developed using national level intelligence. Many of these detection methods would be rendered ineffective if STARTTLS were enabled.

However, in a follow-up letter to Wyden this week, the major general clarified that DoD was largely hindered in adopting STARTTLS by its own antiquated technology.

Email remains one of our largest threat vectors, Zabel wrote, continuing: DISA is currently implementing architectural changes, which will allow the use of STARTTLS on a default basis, while still enabling us to apply appropriate safeguards; however, the capacity and throughput of the aging equipment creates limitations in supporting STARTTLS as the default for all mail sessions.

A new email gateway infrastructure will allow the use of STARTTLS by default, the letter said, estimating that DoD would be able to acquire and transition to this new system by July 2018.

The Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, which is charged with investigating President Trumps unsubstantiated claims of widespread voter fraud during the 2016 election, recently asked state officials to send their voter rolls to the commission using an email address that does not use STARTTLS.

For far too long, many of the unclassified email messages sent and received by members of the military have been left vulnerable to surveillance by foreign governments and hackers, Senator Wyden told Gizmodo. The Pentagon is doing the right thing by encrypting emails as they are sent to and from the militarys servers.

Wyden called DISAs decision a good step, but said there was no reason it should take an entire year to adopt industry-standard cybersecurity technology. Protecting the communications of American servicemen and women should be a priority, so I hope the agency accelerates its timeline, he said.

Kate Conger contributed to this report.

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After Criticism, US Defense Department Will Implement New ... - Gizmodo

New attack can now decrypt satellite phone calls in "real time" | ZDNet – ZDNet

Posted on July 7, 2017 by admin

(Image: file photo)

Chinese researchers have discovered a way to rapidly decrypt satellite phone communications -- within a fraction of a second in some cases.

The paper, published this week, expands on previous research by German academics in 2012 by rapidly speeding up the attack and showing that the encryption used in popular Inmarsat satellite phones can be cracked in "real time."

Satellite phones are used by those in desolate environments, including high altitudes and at sea, where traditional cell service isn't available. Modern satellite phones encrypt voice traffic to prevent eavesdropping. It's that modern GMR-2 algorithm that was the focus of the research, given that it's used in most satellite phones today.

The researchers tried "to reverse the encryption procedure to deduce the encryption-key from the output keystream directly," rather than using the German researchers' method of recovering an encryption key using a known-plaintext attack.

Using their proposed inversion attack thousands of time on a 3.3GHz satellite stream, the researchers were able to reduce the search space for the 64-bit encryption key, effectively making the decryption key easier to find.

The end result was that encrypted data could be cracked in a fraction of a second.

"This again demonstrates that there exists serious security flaws in the GMR-2 cipher, and it is crucial for service providers to upgrade the cryptographic modules of the system in order to provide confidential communication," said the researchers.

An Inmarsat spokesperson said Thursday that the company "immediately took action to address the potential security issue and this was fully addressed" in 2012. "We are entirely confident that the issue... has been completely resolved and that our satellite phones are secure," the spokesperson said.

Matthew Green, a cryptography teacher at Johns Hopkins University, blogged about the German read-collision based technique in 2012. "Satellite telephone security matters," he said at the time. "In many underdeveloped rural areas, it's the primary means of communicating with the outside world. Satphone coverage is also important in war zones, where signal privacy is of more than academic interest," he added.

"They seem to have optimized the 2012 attack so that it's much faster and requires only about a dozen bytes of 'known plaintext'," he said, referring to the encryption of a readable message. Green said that the attack was "fast enough to allow key recovery (and decryption) in real time if one could get the known plaintext."

"From a scientific perspective it's a big advance," Green said, but he noted that "from a practical perspective it's unclear."

"So maybe don't trust satellite phone encryption," he said. "But I would have said the same thing in 2012."

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Zack Whittaker can be reached securely on Signal and WhatsApp at 646-7558849, and his PGP fingerprint for email is: 4D0E 92F2 E36A EC51 DAAE 5D97 CB8C 15FA EB6C EEA5.

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FREE wildcard HTTPS certs from Let’s Encrypt for every Reg reader … – The Register

Posted on July 7, 2017 by admin

Let's Encrypt plans to begin offering free wildcard certificates in January 2018, a move likely to make web security easier and a bit less costly for many organizations.

Announced in 2014 as an effort to enhance and accelerate online security, the public benefit certificate authority (CA) has been issuing free X.509 (TLS/SSL) certificates through an automated process that allows websites, given the technical requirements, to be accessed over encrypted HTTPS rather than the unprotected HTTP.

Since its inception, Let's Encrypt has helped make the horribly insecure web less so.

In a blog post, Josh Aas, executive director for the non-profit Internet Security Research Group, which operates Let's Encrypt on behalf of partner organizations, said the CA has secured 47 million domains through its free automated Domain Validation (DV) certificate API.

"This has contributed heavily to the Web going from 40% to 58% encrypted page loads since Lets Encrypt's service became available in December 2015," said Aas.

In a phone interview with The Register, Aas said Let's Encrypt has played a significant part in accelerating HTTPS adoption but credited the work of other organizations as well. For example, he said, Amazon offers free certs for AWS customers.

Aas said Let's Encrypt's indirect impact has also been valuable in terms of changing the narrative about web security. "Before Let's Encrypt, HTTPS was difficult and cost money," he said. "Now the narrative is there are no excuses anymore."

Let's Encrypt offers DV SSL certificates, but not Organization Validation (OV) or Extended Validation (EV) certificates, which require the CA to verify details about the company seeking the cert.

"We operate at scale and when something involves manual examination in any way, it's not possible to scale that," said Aas.

DV certs cover a specific web domain (example.com), and nothing more. Wildcard DV certs cover a domain and any number of subdomains (*.example.com), like api.example.com or bad.example.com.

Having a single certificate and encryption key pair for a domain and its subdomains makes administration significantly easier than having to manage different certs for each. But, as Aas observed, wildcard certs aren't necessarily ideal for every situation.

"Wildcards are really useful when you have a centralized place for serving domains," said Aas. "Where they can be wrong choice is when you have a lot of different places serving subdomains."

Keeping your private key secure in multiple locations is inherently riskier than keeping it safe in a single place, Aas explained.

The availability of wildcard certs should make Let's Encrypt's service more appealing to large organizations that manage multiple subdomains. And the fact that the certs will be free should help some companies sell wildcard certs for several hundred dollars annually, though they can be had for significantly less.

Aas said he could't speak to how other companies selling costly wildcard certs view Let's Encrypt.

Let's Encrypt certs must be renewed every 90 days, but the renewal process can be automated via script or service.

The arrival of wildcard certs coincides with Let's Encrypt's rollout of its ACME v2 protocol, the successor to v1. ACME v2, scheduled to debut in January next year, will be an IETF standard so that other CAs can interoperate more easily with Let's Encrypt systems.

Donald Jr. turns to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange as an expert in the Trumps’ war on CNN – Daily Kos

Posted on July 6, 2017 by admin

Julian Assange

Somehow, Donald Trump Jr. and Julian Assange are united in outrage at CNN over the video Donald Trump tweeted of himself beating a figure with the CNN logo in place of a head. (I know. I cant believe I just typed that, either.)

The back story is as twisted as youd expect. After Trump the father tweeted aGIF of himself in his days as an occasional WWE character tackling and beating a wrestler with the CNN logo edited onto his face, CNNfound the Reddit userwho initially created the image, got an apology from him, and said they wouldnt publish his name due to his remorse, but that CNN reserves the right to publish his identity should any of that change. The same Reddit user, by the way, previously posted pictures of CNN staff with Stars of David next to their heads and the text Something strange about CNN...cant quite put my finger on it.So its not like hes just apologizing for the Trump wrestling thing.

To Trumpland, its a total outrage that if the same guy returns to making violent and/or anti-Semitic memes about CNN, the network will release his identity. Hashtag CNNBlackmail.WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange dove right in with the claim that thiswas a crime. Which Uday Trump quickly cited:

Not that this should be a surprise, given that the Trumps havea history of pointing to Assange's expert opinion. But Uday wasnt done.

A Trump, spreading misinformation? Surely not!

As a reminder in all of this, were talking about a network that went out and specifically hired Trump-supporting commentators during the Republican primaries, then hired Trumps former campaign manager while he was still collecting money from the Trump campaign. But Trump demands 100% fealtyand hes looking to make an example of one of the biggest, blandest news outlets he can to frighten the rest of the media into line while telling his supporters to believe that anything they dont want to hear is fake news.

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Donald Jr. turns to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange as an expert in the Trumps' war on CNN - Daily Kos

Pam Sandwich! Baywatch Beauty Anderson Juggling Multiple Men – Radar Online

Posted on July 6, 2017 by admin

Over-the-hill sexpot Pamela Anderson is bedding a bevy of brand-new boy toys and keeping treasonous squeeze Julian Assange on a string!

The former Baywatch bombshell, 50,has been caught canoodling with a couple of French pastries soccer star Adil Rami, 31, and playboy Romain Chavent!

Pam cant decide which guy she likes best, so shes dating them all! spilled a pal to RadarOnline.com.

The unlucky-in-love former pinup has been linked to WikiLeaks founder Assange, 46, since late last year. Hes been on virtual lockdown in Londons Ecuadorian embassy since 2012 after skipping out on sexual assault charges in Sweden.

PHOTOS: Short Hair Dont Care! Did Pamela Anderson Get The Chop?

But Anderson cant stop gushingabout the silver-haired hacker.

Hes a good person who cares about the world, Anderson has said. He is funny, sensitive, romantic, surprisingly resourceful.

Even so, Andersons been quick to sample hunky French side dishes!

And why not? said her pal. Pam doesnt want to be tied down Shes sampling a variety, and loving every minute of it.

PHOTOS: Pamela Andersons Gut BUSTS Out Of Her Dress Beer Belly Or Baby Bump?

The mom of two ooh-la-la-ed with Rami in glitzy St. Tropez, stepping out with the sports stud on June 22 and 23.

Pam adores Adil! Hes such a gentleman with her, looping her arm through his, opening doors for her, said the pal.

Her ex Tommy Lee never treated her this special and neither did Rick Salomon during their two marriages. Pam says she feels like a princess when shes with Adil. He knows how to please her!

But barely two weeks before their seaside romp, Anderson steamed up the scene at Hollywood hot spot Avenue with 41-year-old Chavent!

PHOTOS: Pamela Anderson Through the Years

Pam feels very protected when shes with Romain. She loves that hes so strong and handsome, her pal revealed.

Despite her public hookups, Pams bizarre relationship with slippery hacker Julian still continues to sizzle.

The Internet outlaws WikiLeaks website has published stacks of classified information that has compromised American security interests.

But on June 17, Anderson gushed in a social media post about why she thinks exiled Julian is so sexy.

PHOTOS: Pamela Anderson Reveals Rape, Molestation and Gang Rape During Charity Foundation Speech

Surely the sexiest qualities in a man are bravery and courage, Anderson swooned. Sexiness in a man is showing strength. Having convictions and having the courage to stand by them.

She concluded: I love you.

We pay for juicy info! Do you have a story for RadarOnline.com? Email us at tips@radaronline.com, or call us at 800-344-9598 any time, day or night.

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Pam Sandwich! Baywatch Beauty Anderson Juggling Multiple Men - Radar Online

Cryptocurrency Has Its Potato Salad Moment With the Useless Ethereum Token – Observer

Posted on July 6, 2017 by admin

Its been almost three years since Zack Brown raised $55,000 on Kickstarter for a potato salad. His goal was $10. He wanted to raise the money in order to pay for making the midwestern cookout staple for the first time.

I made that Kickstarter project to get a laugh out of seven people, so the money and attention were a shock, Brown wrote the Observer in an email. The original intent of the joke was more like, This is funny because its not what Kickstarter is for.' But it didnt take long for him to see that hed created a satire of the site on the site itself.

My first two thoughts were This is ridiculous and How can I get in on this?

But when Brown raised far more money than he ever thought he would, the Columbus, Ohio, resident opted to actually do something with the cash and make a cookbook devoted to the staple of Midwestern picnics,The Peace, Love and Potato Salad Cookbook.It came out two years after the campaign ended, which isnt bad considering the fact that he didnt launch the campaign to make a book and hed never made a potato salad before.

The Useless Ethereum Token logo. Thats a cityscape (no its not). Twitter

Today, theres a new, even more ephemeral way to raise money: by creating a new cryptocurrency. Called an initial coin offering or ICO, entrepreneurs have been creating new digital currencies (like Bitcoin) in order to support various projects. Fortunately, just as it starts to crack mainstream attention, ICOs have gotten their own answer to the potato salad campaign. Its called the Useless Ethereum Token(UET), and its creator will absolutely sell you cryptocurrency good for absolutely nothing.

It went on sale yesterday and runs through July 11.

The UET ICOtransparentlyoffers investors no value, so there will be no expectation of gains, its creator, who only goes by UET CEO, writes on its website. Rememberthis is acompletely honestICO, which means I dont want anyone to mistakenlyexpectthe value of the tokens to go up, either. Theyre called Useless Ethereum Tokens for a reason.

We can think of one other cryptocurrency that came out and promised buyers nothing but the digital asset itself: bitcoin. In the end, every new currency of any kind is a satire on the very strange idea of money.

We wrote about a decentralized company, The DAO, which was working well until a security flaw made it collapse horribly. We wrote about the first Bitcoin felons ICO-poweredsecond act after prison, which fizzled (according to a profile in Fortune, hes glad). Recently, we covered the Basic Attention Token designed by a major web pioneer to change the economy for eyeballs online. It sold out almost instantly. Soon, messaging unicornKik is going to have a crowdsale to foster a new venture capital-independent ecosystem of developers.

Its such a buzzy world thatThe New York Times ran a deep dive recently begging the question: how many millions will get raised in this space for the Securities and Exchange Commission starts putting up red flags? UET CEO sees it much the same way.

I saw that people were investing in ICO after ICO, with each having its own slew of problems (both technical and in principle) and still making absurd amounts of money, UET CEO wrote the Observer in an email. My first two thoughts were This is ridiculous and How can I get in on this? I didnt have a product but I realized that people didnt really care about the product. They cared about spending a little bit of money, watching a chart and then withdrawing a little bit more money. So why not have an ICO without a product, and do so completely transparently just to see what happened?

The satire is actually built into the smart contract as well. Buyers get 1 UET for every 0.1 Ether (ETH) invested, plus a bonus. Every UET bought comes with free UET equal to the number of ETH invested. So, as of this writing, someone who paid 0.1 ETH right now would get 1 UET from the base formula plus 52 bonus UET, because people have put in 52 ETH so far.

Plus, the system will also randomly give away some bonus tokens along the way.

This, along with the bonus blocks were completely intentional, both to mirror some of the goofy crap other ICOs have tried to do in the name of fairness or whatever, and to further highlight that these tokens arent meant to be attached to any real value, UET CEO wrote. What good is an ICO if it just gives away tokens right?

Tokens get released right away. Prices dont swing with ETHs value.

Most crypto watchers online like the gag. We liked this exchange on an Ethereum investor subreddit.

This guy gets it. Reddit

The only way to buy in is with Ethereum, which also provides most of the underlying code. So far, UET has acquired 52 ETH, worth an equivalent of nearly $14,000. Over $1,000 worth has gone in since we have been working on this post. The site continuously updates with investments, but it can all also be verified on Etherscan, a third party site that makes the blockchain records a bit more comprehensible.

So whats UET CEO trying to say with this project? Well leave that for readers to decide, but remember that the best jokes tend to be made by folks who care about a subject enough to understand it well.Will the anonymous entrepreneur imitate Brown and do something substantive at the end of the crowdsale? Or would it be more in the spirit of the project if he just took all the money and blew it on an epic night at Applebees?