Surging Chainlink Pushes Bitcoin Cash Out Of The Crypto Top Five As Wild Value Tops $6 Billion – Forbes

Chainlink, an ethereum-based cryptocurrency token that powers a decentralized network designed to connect smart contracts to external data sources, appears unstoppable.

The price of Chainlink's link token has soared by almost 80% over the last seven days, adding to gains of 120% this month and a staggering near-600% rise over the last year.

Chainlink has now knocked bitcoin cash, an offshoot of the original bitcoin, from the top five cryptocurrencies by value, according to CoinMarketCapwith its total value now an eye-watering $6 billion.

Cryptocurrency traders have sent the price of Chainlink tokens to over $17 per link, with the ... [+] cryptocurrency knocking bitcoin cash out of the top five cryptocurrencies by value.

"Its been pretty wild," Thomas Kuhn, an analyst with money management company Quantum Economics, said via Telegram, pointing to Chainlink's role in the "trinity"along with bitcoin and ethereumof tokens required for the "effective execution of smart contracts" as compelling.

Kuhn also thinks current sky-high equity valuations are forcing investors to look for elsewhere.

"With tech stocks at all-time-highs and without yield to be found, I think that we are seeing renewed institutional interest in digital assets, especially in those trading higher when bitcoin is weak or down on the daythese have been DeFi assets."

The price of Chainlink's link token has soared amid a flurry of interest in decentralized finance (DeFi)using crypto technology to recreate traditional financial instruments such as loans and insurance.

Chainlink's blockchain network can be used by DeFi and broader projects to connect external data sources, APIs, and payment systems.

Chainlink is "one of the more accessible ideas," related to DeFi, according to Kuhn.

"On the micro level, the asset has an incredible community, born in 4chan meme culture," Kuhn said, referencing a group of highly vocal Chainlink supporters on Twitter and other social networks, as well as messaging apps such as Telegram, that have become known as Link Marines.

"A major aspect of pricing in link is the question of whether it will be used as an escrow asset for smart contracts," Kahn added.

"If it is, large values would be needed to be held in escrow for contract execution which would reduce velocity as well as act as an upward price pressure."

Elsewhere, Chainlink is rumored to be close to offering "staking"something that will allow link holders to earn passive income from the tokens.

The chainlink price has more than doubled over the last month, adding to massive gains over the last ... [+] year.

Last week, Michael Anderson, the co-founder of one of the largest private holders of link tokens, Framework Ventures, said Chainlink was still "wildly undervalued" and predicted the cryptocurrency's total value could eventually eclipse ethereum's near $50 billion price tag.

Meanwhile, other DeFi related projects have also soared in recent months. The price of Tezos' XTZ tokens has almost doubled since early July and the two-day-old DeFi project Yam soared to around $60 million over the last two days only to crash to zero after a last-minute attempt to fix a bug in its code failed.

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Surging Chainlink Pushes Bitcoin Cash Out Of The Crypto Top Five As Wild Value Tops $6 Billion - Forbes

Coinbase to Offer Bitcoin-Backed Loans to US Customers – CoinDesk – CoinDesk

Coinbase will allow U.S. retail customers to borrow fiat loans against as much as 30% of their bitcoin holdings in the fall, the San Francisco-based exchange announced Wednesday.

Coinbase is one of the largest and most regulated crypto exchanges to get into the lending business, and the exchange is setting conservative parameters on the product, capping credit lines at $20,000 per customer and offering an interest rate of 8% for bitcoin-backed loans with terms that are a year or less.

Customers will need to fill out a brief application but wont have to go through a credit check, however, and borrowers will be able to receive their loans in two to three days.

Customers may use bitcoin-backed loans in different ways depending on their financial needs, including for large expenditures like home or car repairs, financing major occasions like a wedding, or helping to manage higher-interest personal loans or credit card debt, Max Branzburg, head of product at Coinbase, said in an emailed statement.

The product is available in only 17 states but Coinbase is pursuing licenses in other states and countries to be able to expand its lending service, he said. A waitlist opened Wednesday afternoon, including the tagline:

Have you ever needed cash for something urgent, like a car or home repair? In the past, you might have sold Bitcoin to cover it and incurred a taxable gain or loss. Now you dont have to.

Adding a lending product can be a way for exchanges to keep customer funds at the exchange instead of moving them elsewhere, said Joseph Kelly, CEO and co-founder of crypto lender Unchained Capital. Squares bitcoin-friendly Cash App also announced this week that it is testing a lending product that will offer customers short-term loans of between $2 and $20.

Coinbases low interest rate will also allow it to operate in many states that would otherwise require additional licensing to avoid usurious lending practices.

Its a good bull-market product when customers have excess capital theyd like to do something with, Kelly said. Weve almost never seen a monopoly lending market Id expect other exchanges to follow suit.

The new Coinbase product is only available in the following states: Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Carolina, Oregon, Texas, Virginia, Nebraska, Utah, Wisconsin and Wyoming.

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Chinese Bitcoin Miners Develop Strong Relationships and Crypto Mining Facilities in Iran – Bitcoin News

During the last few months, crypto proponents have focused their attention on Iran. The Iranian President Hassan Rouhani initiated a new mining strategy last May, and the government-licensed 14 bitcoin mining farms in July. According to the Chinese mining operation Lubian, it claims to operate one of these regulated bitcoin mining farms in the oil-rich nation.

The Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index or Bitcoin Mining Map attempts to visualize the geographic distribution of global Bitcoin hashrate. Iran is the sixth most powerful country in terms of global hashrate.

Of course, China consumes a vast amount of the global hashrate and Chinese miners also have a strong relationship with the oil-rich nation of Iran. Back in April 2019, news.Bitcoin.com reported on Chinese miners migrating to Iran for cheaper electricity rates.

At that time, it was difficult for the bitcoin miner, Liu Feng, to get his ASIC mining rigs into the country. However, when miners got into Iran, they had access to extremely affordable electric prices ($0.006 per kilowatt-hour).

However, the Iranian government caught wind of these unlicensed operations when certain subsidized organizations like mosques were caught mining bitcoin with near-free electricity.

The government then mandated licensure for mining farms and the electric rate was upped to fluctuating export prices depending on the season. More recently, President Hassan Rouhani initiated a bitcoin mining strategy and the government is focused on bolstering the industry.

The Chinese mining operation Lubian.com recently told the financial columnist Vincent He that the company operates one of the largest regulated farms in Iran.

Lubians cofounder Liu Ping detailed that it has a partnership with a power facility in Iran and the investors are both Iranian and Chinese. Power companies in Iran are now allowed to house bitcoin mining operations. Unlike the Chinese miner Liu Feng who had an awful time dealing with customs getting ASIC mining rigs across the border, Liu Ping said his firm has no problems with clearance.

We have our own customs clearance channels as we have the experience of establishing the logistics company, Liu Ping stated. And we have good local resources in Iran, and we have maintained good relations with the Ministry of energy, the Ministry of foreign affairs, and even the army in Iran, the miner added.

Lubian is a relatively new mining operation and more recently it was the sixth most powerful mining operation in terms of hashrate. Today, Lubian has around 3% of the global hashrate or around 3.86 exahash per second (EH/s).

This puts the firm in the eleventh position among a number of mining pools and giant operations like Poolin, F2pool, and Antpool. Liu Ping said that the Iranian farm is housed in containers within the power plants property lines.

The Chinese miner also said the operation pays the power company in shares of bitcoin (BTC), as well as traditional means of payment.

Compared with traditional industries, crypto mining is a profitable business, Liu Ping concluded. Apart from the mining pool business, at present, there is no other crypto financial service business conducted by Lubain.com. At present, their purpose is only mining and accumulating Bitcoin.

At the time of publication, the BTC hashrate has been high at around 135 EH/s and there are 18 mining operations mining the BTC chain.

What do you think about Lubian.coms cofounder statements about mining bitcoin in the oil-rich nation of Iran? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.

Image Credits: Shutterstock, Pixabay, Wiki Commons

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Chinese Bitcoin Miners Develop Strong Relationships and Crypto Mining Facilities in Iran - Bitcoin News

Bitcoin.com Wallet Reveals USDT Support – Users Can Swap and Store SLP-Based Tether | Promoted – Bitcoin News

During the first week of July, Bitcoin.coms Wallet added a number of new features including a portfolio breakdown and honestcoin (USDH) swapping abilities. With the latest update this week, Bitcoin.com Wallet users can now store the SLP-based stablecoin tether (USDT) in their wallets as well.

Tether (USDT) is the most popular stablecoin in the crypto ecosystem to-date and Bitcoin.com Wallet users can now store, send, and receive the stablecoin at any time.

News.Bitcoin.com recently reported on how the firm Tether Limited utilized the Simple Ledger Protocol technology in order to issue over 6 million SLP-based USDT. Today there are 6,001,007 SLP-based tethers in circulation according to statistics provided by Simpleledger.info.

So similar to having the ability to hold any SLP token, the Bitcoin.com Wallet now allows users to store, send, and receive SLP-based tether (USDT). It is important to note that tether (USDT) is minted on a number of different blockchains. ETH-based tethers or other types of USDT coins not minted with the Simple Ledger Protocol, will not be compatible with the Bitcoin.com Wallet software.

The Bitcoin.com Wallet offers a method for people to obtain the SLP-based tethers by using the in-app swap features.

The Bitcoin.com Wallet allows users to swap coins by leveraging the Sideshift.ai application. The process is intuitive and it only takes a few minutes to swap coins using Bitcoin.coms client. Users can swap bitcoin cash (BCH), bitcoin (BTC), honestcoin (USDH), and tether (USDT) using the wallet software.

In order to swap bitcoin cash for SLP-based tethers, simply tap the swap button on the bottom of the wallets home screen and it will direct you to the in-app swapping window.

From here you can select which coin you want to trade, and the other day our newsdesk swapped $6 worth of BCH for 6 tethers. The swapping feature shows a live exchange rate for BCH and the price per tether as well.

We simply chose BCH and USDT swap and selected the receiving wallet, which displays the wallets Simple Ledger Protocol address. The minimum of bitcoin cash (BCH) needed to complete a swap is 0.003934997 BCH. After selecting the amount of tether, simply press confirm and swap to initiate the process.

The software lets you know that the swap is taking place on the Sideshift application, and the wallet also sends a message to you via the notifications section. Sideshift gives you an invoice number and the notification lets you know the process started.

After the funds are confirmed on the BCH blockchain, the tokens are sent to the SLP-token address. From here the USDT tokens will be accounted for in the portfolio balance section under stablecoins, and tallied up with the total value of all the crypto assets held in the wallet.

Bitcoin.com has always provided top-notch products and services that give people lots of exposure to the innovative crypto ecosystem. Allowing users to hedge stablecoins and swap BCH or BTC for coins like USDT and USDH with ease, gives users far more control over their investments.

What do you think about the ability to swap coins for SLP-based tether (USDT) using the Bitcoin.com Wallet? Let us know in the comments section below.

Image Credits: Shutterstock, Pixabay, Wiki Commons, Bitcoin.com Wallet

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only. It is not a direct offer or solicitation of an offer to buy or sell, or a recommendation or endorsement of any products, services, or companies. Bitcoin.com does not provide investment, tax, legal, or accounting advice. Neither the company nor the author is responsible, directly or indirectly, for any damage or loss caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with the use of or reliance on any content, goods or services mentioned in this article.

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Bitcoin.com Wallet Reveals USDT Support - Users Can Swap and Store SLP-Based Tether | Promoted - Bitcoin News

PSF Token Invokes the First Coin-Age Staking Protocol on Bitcoin Cash | Technology – Bitcoin News

During the last six months, the Simple Ledger Protocol has grown immensely and theres been 9,604 SLP tokens created since the infrastructure launched. Just recently news.Bitcoin.com reported on mistcoin, the mineable SLP token that can be mined with a CPU. Now software developer Chris Troutner has invoked tokens called PSF, which are the first SLP tokens that leverage UTXO coin-age for staking on Bitcoin Cash.

During the first week of July, news.Bitcoin.com reported on the Permissionless Software Foundation (PSF), an organization that aims to foster the growth of open-source software and growing adoption of Bitcoin Cash across the globe.

This week software developer Chris Troutner discussed the PSF project with our newsdesk as the project has invoked the first SLP token that can be staked based on UTXO coin-age. People who are interested in reading about the PSF staking process can check out the groups grants page.

Individuals can also read about the SLP tokens staking incentive by reading the groups business plan. The grants page states:

The next airdrop of funding tokens is set to take place on October 15th. To be part of this funding token airdrop you will need to stake your PSF tokens, by not moving them for two months. This means you must not move your PSF tokens after August 15th. Funding tokens are an important part of the governance mechanism for the PSF community. As described in the business plan, stakeholders receive periodic funding tokens.

Discussing the subject with the projects head janitor, Chris Troutner, he summarized the staking process with our newsdesk and said that the process was quite simple.

The biggest hurdle to understanding it, is understanding UTXOs, Troutner emphasized. As most crypto proponents are aware that UTXOs are the thing that is spent. UTXOs are consumed as inputs to a transaction, and new UTXOs are generated as the output of a transaction. Every time a UTXO is generated, it contains a block height. Troutner added:

So staking of the PSF token is based on the block height of the UTXO. The block height, which is part of the UTXO, represents its age or coin-age. unlike Ethereum staking, the tokens are not locked in a smart contract. The UTXOs remain completely under the control of their owner. All they have to do is just not move their tokens. Moving or spending their tokens would destroy the UTXO and generate a new one, which would destroy the coin-age.

So essentially, Troutner says that staking is basically not moving the PSF tokens or spending them for a period of time. Simply moving PSF tokens from one wallet to another will interfere with the coin-age, so Troutner recommends storing with a paper wallet.

Its really easy for newbies to destroy their coin-age, by simply moving the tokens between wallets, or a wallet might do it accidentally in the background. Thats why I recommend people stake their token by sending them to a paper wallet, the software engineer stated.

According to Simpleledger.info, there were 730,883 PSF tokens created and 160,048 PSF tokens burned which shows a circulating supply of 570,834 today. We talked about the exchange rate for PSF as the token does have value according to the website, but PSF is currently not listed on an exchange.

At the time of publication, a single PSF is worth $0.439 USD per token or 0.0014475 BCH per token. Using todays BCH exchange rate, people can get more than 690 PSF for a single BCH. Troutner explained to our newsdesk how the PSF value is currently derived.

The token-liquidity app maintains liquidity between the BCH and the PSF tokens, the developer explained. Its an automated market maker. It was inspired by the original Bancor whitepaper. The token-liquidity app is a JavaScript program with its own BCH wallet. It has an equation that it follows to determine the exchange rate. Its constantly adjusting its exchange rate based on the balance of BCH and PSF tokens in its wallet.

The Permissionless Software Foundation plans to leverage the funding tokens in order to bolster the concept as a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO).

In addition to Chris Troutner, the host of the developers monthly video series, David R. Allen is also working with the project. PSF also plans to deliver a white-label bitcoin cash (BCH) and SLP wallet as well.

The Permissionless Software Foundation will also act as a consulting firm. Further, the team is looking into a vending machine concept that represents SaaS applications.

What do you think about the PSF token and its ability to be staked by coin-age? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.

Image Credits: Shutterstock, Pixabay, Wiki Commons, Permissionless Software Foundation

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only. It is not a direct offer or solicitation of an offer to buy or sell, or a recommendation or endorsement of any products, services, or companies. Bitcoin.com does not provide investment, tax, legal, or accounting advice. Neither the company nor the author is responsible, directly or indirectly, for any damage or loss caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with the use of or reliance on any content, goods or services mentioned in this article.

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Writing Bitcoin Smart Contracts Is About to Get Easier With New Coding Language – Yahoo Finance

Bitcoin smart contracts are a tricky beast to tame, but a new language is making them easier to write, democratizing them in a sense.

Smart contracts can (among other things) allow users to set extra rules on their bitcoin, requiring these rules be met before the funds can be unlocked. Minsc, created by Bitcoin developer Nadav Ivgi, is a new programming language that makes it easier for developers to create these kinds of contracts so they can build them into bitcoin wallets and other apps more smoothly.

One of the goals of Minsc is to make smart contracts more accessible to more people, Ivgi told CoinDesk. That means both developers and users alike are able to take advantage of tools built by developers.

Related: First Mover: As Wall Street Goes Topsy-Turvy, Crypto Traders Are Bullish as Ever

Smart contracts were first described by Nick Szabo in the 1990s. He theorized a way of automating legally binding contracts made between people.

Typical examples of smart contracts on Bitcoin include not allowing 0.1 BTC to be spent until 2021, or requiring more than one person to sign off on a transaction before the money can actually move. Smart contracts also power second layers on the Bitcoin protocol, such as the Lightning Network, which could help Bitcoin expand to reach more users.

Thus far, Bitcoin Script is the language that makes these contracts possible.

The problem is its tricky to work with Bitcoin Script. It is unlike other, more popular programming languages developers are used to, making it harder to wrap their heads around and compose in. This lack of understanding also makes it easier to make a mistake, potentially putting Bitcoin at risk.

Related: CME Rises in Bitcoin Futures Rankings as Institutional Interest Grows

The unwieldiness of Bitcoin Script was one of the factors that led Vitalik Buterin to design the Ethereum platform in the first place. Solidity, Ethereums first smart-contract language, was designed to be much easier for developers to read and thus use. And it has paid off: Ethereum has grown to become the go-to platform for smart contract developers.

Read more: How Do Ethereum Smart Contracts Work?

Miniscript, released in 2019 by Pieter Wuille, Andrew Poelstra and Sanket Kanjalkar at Blockstream Research, chips away at this issue for bitcoin.

Read more: Pieter Wuille Unveils Miniscript, A New Smart Contract Language for Bitcoin

One reason that were not anywhere close to using Scripts full potential is that actually constructing scripts for nontrivial tasks is cumbersome. Its hard to verify their correctness and security, and even harder to find the most economical way to write things, Wuille and Poelstra wrote in a blog post introducing Miniscript in September of last year.

Miniscript offers a language thats easier to understand than Script, with built-in security guarantees.

Additionally, if there are two different ways of writing the same contract in Script, Miniscript is able to assess which one is more economical.

The computer eventually compiles (or converts) Miniscript to Bitcoin Script, which is what the code ultimately needs to be written in to successfully lock up real bitcoin with these extra restrictions.

Minsc is the third tier of the cake. It builds on top of Miniscript, taking advantage of its security properties but creating a language that is even easier for developers to read and think about than Miniscript.

Minscs focus is on usability and making it easier to express, comprehend and reason about scripts, using a simple and familiar syntax. It adds additional convenience features and syntactic sugar,' Ivgi told CoinDesk.

Syntactic sugar is a programming term for adding into a language another easier, shortcut way of executing a task that is usually harder to write.

So Minsc doesnt add anything new to Script, it just makes it easier to use.

It doesnt let you do anything that Miniscript doesnt already, similarly to Miniscript itself in relation to Bitcoin Script, Ivgi said.

Minsc could make it easier for developers to add support for various smart contracts. The main intended target audience is developers looking to build apps that utilize Bitcoin Script in interesting, advanced ways, Ivgi added.

Story continues

Read more: RIF Launches Layer 3 Network to Scale Bitcoin-Based Smart Contracts, Tokens

If more developers can eventually add support for these smart contracts, more users will (perhaps even unknowingly) be able to use these more-complex contracts as well.

Initially, however, I anticipate the usage to be primarily experimental and educational. Minsc can be a great tool for people looking to gain a better understanding of Bitcoin Script, as well as for educators teaching the technical aspects of Bitcoin, Ivgi said.

Ivgi is still in the process of adding other features to the language. Bitcoins smart contracting abilities are likely to expand even further, such as with Taproot, a likely upgrade on Bitcoins horizon. Minsc will be there to make these contracts easier to create.

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Writing Bitcoin Smart Contracts Is About to Get Easier With New Coding Language - Yahoo Finance

The Logical Conclusion to an Illogical Conclusion: Schrems May Forbid Data Commerce from the EU to the US – Lexology

The world just received the newest pronouncement from the EU Court of Justice, in a decision known as Schrems II, and the legal opinion extends the data war declared on the United States in the first Schrems decision. Interpreting these decisions together, European privacy regulators are beginning to suggest that there will be no practical manner of transferring EU to the US that meets EU data privacy requirements.

If the Schrems II decision truly leads to a stoppage of data traffic from Europe, 1) this would be a logical conclusion to the dangerous, unnecessary and unprincipled arguments asserted in Schrems I, and 2) it could be disastrous to commerce between two of the worlds largest trading partners.

The Current Decision. Schrems II invalidated the EU/US Privacy Shield program that many US companies use to demonstrate compliance with EU data laws, leaving a scant few options within the control of U.S. companies wishing to serve EU customers not all of them practical. And the court in Schrems II even raised significant questions on the legally authorized methods of transfer that remained.

Many company data transfers from the EU to the US are effectuated under the Standard Contract Clauses approved for foreign data access by the EU. While the court in Schrems II upheld these clauses as valid, it also threw a wrench in the works, demanding that exporting parties must account for the relevant aspects of the data importers legal system, in particular any access by public authorities to the data transferred. If the exporter cannot guaranty a level of data protection that would be approved by the EU, the exporter is required to terminate the transfer and possibly be required to terminate the entire contract with the receiving party.

So the EU court is forcing all data controlling businesses to assess the trustworthiness of the U.S. government before any relevant transaction. How does that work? The Court of Justice has specifically held that the US government cant be trusted to keep its hands off of EU data, so are businesses supposed to find otherwise? Or do companies wait for their local Data Protection Authority to opine on the matter? In addition, the Court of Justice is requiring companies to breach their commercial contracts based on their evaluation not just of the data protection regime of the contracting company but of the U.S. government. Expect extensive litigation if this requirement is followed in real life (and EU regulatory attacks if it isnt).

Who decides whether regular commerce can be conducted with the U.S. now that the Court of Justice has allowed for use of Standard Contract Clause, yet thrown shade on whether the behavior of the U.S. government may invalidate the effectiveness of the clauses? Keep in mind, that unlike the U.S., the EU has a broad and deep privacy-focused system of city, state and national government bureaucracies who interpret and enforce the data laws. Already, some of these bodies are warning that Schrems II no longer allows transfers of data to the U.S., even under the Standard Contract Clauses.

The Data Commissioner in Berlin suggests that local companies storing personal data in the US immediately transfer the data to Europe and stop sending EU personal data to the US under current US law. The Hamburg data authority welcomed Schrems II castigation of the U.S. and wrote that the Standard Contract Terms are equally unsuitable to the Privacy Shield. The Dutch authority states that the clauses were ruled valid, but also notes they are only valid in places that adequately protect data under EU standards and the U.S. is not such a place. Even Ireland, where many U.S. tech companies are headquartered or have a significant corporate presence, saw its data protection commissioner question whether the Standard Contract Teems or other transfer mechanisms were still available for transfers to the U.S. OneTrust publishes a chart of EU Data Protection Authority reactions to Schrems II, complete with links, as does the IAPP.

Many of the various data protection authorizes wrote in a more business-friendly and conciliatory tone, including the UK, which stands in sort of legal data limbo in regard to EU policy after Brexit. But the logic of Schrems II is unavoidable: the U.S. government is willing and able to access private data, so EU data should not be placed in its clutches.

Schrems I. Shutting off all data EU personal data access to the U.S. follows the clear logic of conclusions offered by the Court of Justice in its first Schrems decision back in 2015. The first Schrems decision killed the EU/U.S. safe harbor system, a leaner predecessor to the Privacy Shield, and while it did not specifically address other forms of data transfer to the U.S., the decision clearly condemned the U.S. government for aggressively protecting its ability to access personal data.

Schrems I was written in the aftermath of Edward Snowdens disclosures about the depth of spying and data analysis performed by the United States government. The decision reads like the most intentionally boring temper tantrum ever put to paper. Buried deep in the midst of thousands of words of legal citation and analysis, the court found that the United States could not ensure that EU data residing in the U.S. would not be accessed for government reasons. It conceded that Mr. Schrems had no evidence that the NSA had accessed information about him, but noted that Edward Snowden had demonstrated a significant over-reach on the part of the NSA and other federal agencies. The court threw out the data privacy safe harbor because it found the U.S. government could access data beyond what was strictly necessary and proportionate to the protection of national security.

This decision was troublesome on multiple levels. The court could easily have invalidated the safe harbor simply for not being enforced effectively the safe harbor wasnt or for not providing EU citizens a practical appeal mechanism the safe harbor didnt. Decisions on these grounds would have restricted damage to only the safe harbor, which was quickly renegotiated to address some of these concerns. However, by speaking down from its high horse judging the U.S. governments anti-terrorism activity to be significant over-reach the court essentially questioned any method of transferring data to the U.S. If the government of the United States is hell-bent on data over-reach, nothing a U.S. company could do in contract terms or binding corporate rules could counter this deficiency from a European perspective. So the natural conclusion would be that no personal data should flow from the EU to the U.S.

This logic is dangerous in that it threatens the core of billions of Euros of commerce between the EU and U.S., and it is unnecessary because the same safe harbor invalidating result could have been reached based on a narrower set of reasons. It is also hypocritical and unprincipled because the security services of EU member countries were (and are) taking the same actions toward foreign (and probably local) data as the United States was taking. Immediately after the Schrems I decision was released, the French government enacted a new surveillance law similar to the USA PATRIOT Act that had so disturbed the EU Court of Justice.

According to Vox, the French law allows law enforcement to surreptitiously install keyloggers on suspects computers and requires Internet service providers to install black boxes that are designed to vacuum up and analyze metadata on the Web-browsing and general Internet use habits of millions of people using the Web and to make that data available to intelligence agencies. And the law allows the government to deploy what are called ISMI catchers to track all mobile phone communications in a given area. These catchers are basically designed to impersonate cell towers, but they intercept and record communications data from phones within its range, and can also track the movements of people carrying the phones. This is the very definition of collecting data indiscriminately beyond what is strictly necessary and proportionate to the protection of national security.

According to Human Rights Watch the French law provides little political oversight to police and vague triggers to its application. Sounds like over-reach to them, but apparently not to the EU Court of Justice, who has not questioned allowing personal data to be housed in France. I have not researched other EU member nation surveillance activities from the UKs millions of CCTV cameras to the Belgian general requirements for data to be held by providers for law enforcement but I am certain dozens of examples could be mined of anti-terror (or even politically-based) surveillance that deeply resemble what the Court of Justice decries about the U.S. system.

Political/Business Purposes? So what is the end-game? If the EU stops allowing personal data transfers to the US, what happens to this data? Maybe Europe is moving toward a method to keep the data under its own control. Politico reports that Germany and France have launched a platform of trusted cloud providers called Gaia-X. Launched in June with the backing of Berlin and Paris, Gaia-X is one of Europes most far-reaching attempts to assert sovereignty over how its data is stored and protected. The program seeks to give EU companies and edge over U.S. and Chinese cloud providers. 22 French and German companies and organizations are founding members of the project and they will write the projects by-laws and policy rules.

While Gaia-X currently involves some non-EU based cloud providers, its function seems be promotion of home-grown solutions. The Schrems logic judging the U.S. inadequate on a standard the EU courts are unwilling to apply to its own governments may be the basis of building an EU-based cloud for EU information.

Maybe the EU just plans to invalidate negotiated agreements with the U.S. twice each decade and then replace them with something more to Europes liking. Maybe it simply hasnt considered (or cared about) how law-abiding companies suffer when the EU changes the size and location of the goal posts at regular intervals during the match. Or maybe the EU just wants to build its own cloud industry with EU data and assistance from the regulators.

Data localization may be the next step.

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The Logical Conclusion to an Illogical Conclusion: Schrems May Forbid Data Commerce from the EU to the US - Lexology

The Hacker and the State: Cyber Attacks and the New Normal of Geopolitics – Foreign Affairs

Buchanans handy book offers a substantial and measured history of cyberattacks in recent decades. Buchanan traces the progression of hacking operations beginning with the early efforts of the U.S. National Security Agency and the United Kingdoms Government Communications Headquarters, or GCHQ, agencies that intercept all sorts of communicationsincluding those of supposedly friendly governments. Many countries now engage in hacking in the pursuit of their national interests. The joint U.S.-Israeli operation that transmitted the Stuxnet virus that sabotaged centrifuges in Iran was discovered in 2010. Russia easily shut down Ukraines energy supplies through hacking in 2016 and famously meddled in the U.S. presidential election that same year by hacking the email accounts of Democratic Party officials and the chair of Hillary Clintons campaign. China has used hacking for the purposes of industrial sabotage. The 2013 revelations of the former NSA contractor Edward Snowden showed how Western governments did their spying. Despite the growing ubiquity of cyberattacks, Buchanan also highlights their limits as a means of coercion or as a way of sending a message.

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The Hacker and the State: Cyber Attacks and the New Normal of Geopolitics - Foreign Affairs

What the Rest of Government Should Watch When the Defense Authorization Bill Goes to Conference – Nextgov

An amendment that would codify the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program, with some major new stipulations, is one of several areas where the next National Defense Authorization Act could shake up technology policy across the federal government and private industry.

Lawmakers again took the opportunity to attach all manner of amendments that affect agencies and programs outside the Defense Department to what is considered must-pass legislation.

Both chambers passed their versions of the annual authorization bill in July, and the House and Senate Armed Services Committees must now work in conference to iron out the differences in the two final bills. The White House already issued a July 21 veto threat for the House version, including an objection to a provision to rename military installations commemorating members of the Confederacy. The Senate version passed with similar language, though the vote came in at 86-14a veto-proof majority.

Here is a sample of what each side is bringing to the table to govern emerging technology opportunities and challenges now that the dust has settled from the amendment storm.

FedRAMP Reconstruction and Modernization

The House NDAA includes the full text of the FedRAMP Authorization Act, which passed the House in February, as an amendment from Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., chairman of the House Subcommittee on Government Operations.

Through FedRAMP, instituted by the General Services Administration, cloud service providers can obtain certificates of security through a joint authorization board that theoretically pre-approves them to fulfill contracts across the government. But, the streamlining ambition has not been fully realized as individual agencies have their own security review avenues.

The Connolly measure would establish FedRAMP in statutes and deliver a lot of what industry has been asking for in the way of reciprocity for security validations from one agency to another.

There shall be a presumption of adequacy regarding the JABs authorization to operate, reads the legislations instruction to the heads of federal agencies.

The bill also calls for the administrator of GSA to hire staff as needed for a program management office in order to implement measures to automate the process and establish continuous monitoring. GSA is already moving in this direction. And the Defense Department, which has already committed to FedRAMP reciprocity, is leading its own revolution in facilitating continuous authority to operate. Bringing the rest of the federal government legally into the fold has significant implications for broader cloud adoption.

The standalone House-passed bill was referred to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committeeanother avenue for it to eventually become law.

Connolly also squeezed in an amendment that would make permanent a pilot program at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office initiated under the Telework Enhancement Act of 2010.

Agencies in general should consider how cloud migrationalong with artificial intelligence and better modeling and simulation meansmight factor into plans they would have to submit to the National Telecommunications Information Administration for more efficient spectrum management. Incumbent federal users of the nations airwaves are under pressure to release more of the finite resource for commercial purposes, and section 1084 of the Senate bill includes a plan for the agency to incorporate modernized infrastructure in its work administering it.

From Phone to Drone, More Bans on China-Based Tech

The fear of China dominating the U.S. through emerging technology is a central theme of the NDAA in both chambers.

An amendment included by Rep. Tom Malinowski, D-N.J., would buttress actions the Commerce Department took July 20. Commerce added 11 Chinese companies to its Entities List, forbidding U.S. engagement with them on account of human rights violations involving ethnic minority Uighers. President Trump has made the Commerce Department reverse such a listingagainst Chinese telecom ZTE in the past. Other successful amendments would bar federal employees from installing the recreational video application TikTok on government-issued devices and stop federal agencies from procuring foreign-made drones that threaten national security, including those from China.

TikTok critics fear its ownership by Chinese company ByteDance can help facilitate massive data collection by Beijing. A bill introduced by Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., banning use of the app on federal devices passed unanimously through the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs July 22. Rep. Ken Buck, R-Colo. attached an amendment with the same goal to the House NDAA. While President Trumps larger moves against TikTok will likely face legal challenges, the NDAAs coming instructions for the federal workforce on the issue seem in place.

Federal agencies use unmanned aircraft systems for cartography, surveillance and in emergencies to provide disaster relief and conduct search and rescue missions. Some authorities are using drones, which can be equipped with thermal sensors and megaphones to enforce social distancing during the pandemic. But more than 70% of the drones being sold in the U.S. are produced by the Chinese company DJI, which reportedly donated 100 drones to 43 agencies and 22 states.

Drone watchers would have seen such a ban coming. In October 2019, the Department of Interior grounded all of its newly acquired DJI drones. The Department of Homeland Security had earlier warned the private sector their data was vulnerable if they used the Chinese drones, and the Defense Department had stopped troops from using them too.

An amendment included in the House NDAA by Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., co-chair of the esteemed Cyberspace Solarium Commission, would apply the procurement ban across the federal government.

The Solarium Commission Wants a National Cyber Director

Two years ago, the 2019 NDAA established the nonpartisan Cyberspace Solarium Commissioncomprising members of Congress, the administration and the private sectorto come to an agreement about how the U.S. should defend against serious cyberattacks. In March, the commission revealed a comprehensive report of more than 80 recommendations with the express intention of making many of them law through this years NDAA process.

The commissions primary recommendation is the establishment of a Senate-confirmed national cyber director with an office within the Executive Office of the President. The individual would be the head cyber adviser to the president, coordinate defensive cyber strategy and policy across the government, and be the chief U.S. representative and spokesperson for cybersecurity. Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, co-chair of the commission said the position would provide the president with one throat to choke and encourage accountability.

But the Senate NDAA, stopped short of including the recommendation, calling instead for a report on whether it would be feasible. On the House side, commission member Rep. Jim Langevin, D-R.I., successfully attached an amendment with the recommendation to the bill. During a hearing of the House Oversight Committee on the Solarium Commissions proposal, some lawmakers withheld their support over concerns creation of the cyber directors officeto be staffed with about 75 full-time employeeswould be fiscally wasteful.

What Else the Solarium Commission Wants: Public-Private Partnership

Apart from the national cyber director, plenty of other Solarium Commission recommendations made it into the House and Senate NDAAs. The prospects for many of them look good, with similar language in both chambers bills. But the White House veto threat flagged language in a key cyber intel sharing provision.

The Solarium Commission is mostly betting on the public and private sectors working more closely together, especially as facilitated by the Homeland Security Departments Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. In this vein, an amendment from Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger, D-Md., calls for a gap analysis at the agency to inform where it needs more resources, including personnel; amendments from Rep. Cedric Richmond, D-La., would institute a fixed five-year term with minimum requirements for the CISA director, establish a joint planning office for coordination on readiness among federal, state and local governments and critical infrastructure owners and operators, and require DHS to establish a cyber incident reporting program; and a Langevin amendment would give CISA the authority to subpoena internet service providers for identifying information of customers that appear to be under cyberattack so they can be warned. The subpoena authority is also included in the core text of the Senate NDAA.

An amendment from Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, would also require the homeland security secretary to develop a strategy for all U.S.-based email providers to implement the Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance standard. DMARC adherence has been mandatory for federal agencies since October 2017. The Solarium Commission argues the recommendation will scale the blocking of email from fraudulent domains and diminish the success of phishing attacks.

But there may be limits to all the proposed public-private collaboration at CISA. The White House takes issue with section 1631 of the House bill, which calls for the homeland security secretary to develop an information collaboration environment where private-sector stakeholders could access classified data, at the discretion of the secretary in consultation with the defense secretary. The White House advisers say the section does not adequately reflect the Director of National Intelligences statutory responsibility to protect intelligence sources and methods with regard to cybersecurity threat intelligence related to information systems operated by agencies within the Intelligence Community.

Other Solarium Commission recommendations included as House NDAA amendments authorize CISA to help federal agencies who ask for assistance in meeting Federal Information Security Modernization Act requirements and other agency functions, and to continuously hunt for cyber threats on the .gov domain.

In the Senate, an amendment included by Sens. Gary Peters, D-Mich., Ron Johnson, R-Wis., and Ben Sasse, R-Neb., tasks the president with creating a plan for the continuity of the economy in preparation for an event that severely degrades economic activity in the country, including a cyberattack. Under the amendment, the president must consult with the leaders of relevant agencies and economic sectors to come up with a plan to keep things running and submit it to Congress within two years. The plan would include consideration of ways to extend financial support to key participants in the economy.

Other Strictly Cyber Things: Cash, Workforce, States

Its challenging to find cybersecurity measures in the bills that arent somehow connected to the Cyberspace Solarium Commission. An amendment from Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., chairman of the Senates Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, is the offshoot of a cybersecurity moonshot initiative, which the commission recommends investing in. It would crowdsource high-priority breakthroughs in cybersecurity by establishing prize challenges.

Another Wicker-led bipartisan measure included in the Senate bill is the Harvesting American Cybersecurity Knowledge through Education (HACKED) Act. This legislation would strengthen Americas cybersecurity workforce in both the public and private sectors by bolstering existing science education and cybersecurity programs within the National Institute of Standards and Technology, National Science Foundation, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and the Department of Transportation, reads a press release on the bills introduction. It requires the NIST director to develop metrics to measure the success of federally funded cyber workforce programs based on their outcomes.

Language in the Senates NDAA also allows for the directors of the Office of Management and Budget and NIST to establish an exchange program where employees working in roles outlined in NISTs National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education could go between NIST and private sector institutions.

And from the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., sponsored an amendment in the bill that would require DHS to establish a federally funded cybersecurity coordinator in every state.

Authorizes Real Intelligence with 5G Virtualization and Whistleblower Rights

The Senates NDAA contains its entire Intelligence Authorization Act. The House Intelligence Authorization Act passed out of committee July 31. Members of the House and Senate Intelligence committees may also be brought into the conferencing process with members of the House and Senate Armed Services committees to reconcile differences.

Both intelligence authorization bills include a plan to enable competition against Chinese firms Huawei and ZTE in the development of fifth-generation networks. The idea is to eliminate reliance on the hardware those firms provide by turning their functions into independent software-defined operations. Various components of the network would be connected through open, interoperable interfaces, allowing a multitude of vendors to participate, instead of through proprietary links to the hardware. Among other things, the bills call for the authorization of $750 million over 10 years in appropriations to create a Treasury fund from which grants would be issued to develop the technology, and increased participation of U.S. entities in relevant standards-setting bodies.

The House and Senate Intelligence Authorization bills also both include protections for whistleblowers. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., was alone in voting against the Intelligence Authorization Act advancing out of committee, due to issues of overclassification of information in general. But in a statement following the vote he praised measures in the bill seeking to limit revocation of security clearances as reprisal for disclosures.

Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, also highlighted the whistleblower protections, but included language that would require contracted employees to provide written consent for the federal government to share certain derogatory information about themselves with the chief security officer of their employer, as a condition of accepting a security clearance with the federal government. Warners spokesperson said this was to prevent the circulation of bad apples like Edward Snowden.

A Connolly amendment to the House NDAA would make it clear that whistleblower protections also apply to subcontractors and subgrantees for disclosures of gross mismanagement or waste of federal funds.

Industries of the Future

Speaking of funds, senators voted for the director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy to come up with a plan to double baseline investments in emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence and quantum information science by 2022 and to specifically increase civilian investments in such industries to $10 billion by 2025. The Senates NDAA leaves it up to the director to further define these industries of the future with the help of a designated government council, but there is a focus on physical, foundational technology components in both the House and Senate bills.

The Senate bill for example calls on the director of national intelligence to report on critical technology trends in the development of microchips, semiconductors and their related supply chains, in addition to artificial intelligence. It also outlines a semiconductor manufacturing incentive program, under which the commerce secretary would issue grants of up to $3 billion to entities that have a documented interest in constructing, expanding, or modernizing related facilities, for example. Rep. Doris Matsui, D-Calif., successfully attached identical language on the House side.

Artificial Intelligence Good, Deepfakes Bad

Lawmakers are smitten with artificial intelligence, but they also recognize the potential dangers of the technology.

The House NDAA includes the National Artificial Intelligence Initiative Act, a bipartisan measure introduced in March. Under the bill, the director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy would establish a coordination office to be known as the National Artificial Intelligence Initiative Office and the federal government would leverage its investments toward fulfilling the initiative. The energy secretary would determine the members of an advisory committee and in doing so, consider members of Congress, industry and academic institutions. Nonfederal members of the committee would have their travel and daily expenses paid.

The AI initiative would allow agency heads to fund research institutions. It specifically authorizes about $7 billion in appropriations over five years for Energy, the National Science Foundation and the NIST to partner with other parts of the government and the private sector on research on questions like how to ensure the technology is trustworthy.

The House NDAA would also create a national cloud for artificial intelligence research that Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., an original sponsor of the legislation, told Nextgov is needed because for the U.S. to maintain its global leadership in AI, researchers must be enabled to access high-power computing, large datasets, and educational resources.

Smaller efforts on the House side would also leverage artificial intelligence to help with addressing health issues affecting veterans through a research program at the Energy.

But lawmakers are especially wary of how artificial intelligence can be used in the creation of fake media. Famous examples include spurious videos of politicians, but the technology can also be used to forge documents and in other malfeasance.

An amendment from Rep. Derek Kilmer, D-Wash., would have the Science and Technology Directorate at DHS report on the state of digital content forgery technology, and one from the Rep. Yvette Clarke, D-N.Y., would instruct the director of national intelligence to report on the defense and military implications of deepfake videos.

Senators also want to know how deepfakes threaten U.S. national security, but theyre asking DHS to do an annual study on this.

Quantum Computing and Beyond

While were on the topic of overlapping report requests, the White Houses veto threat argues that work NIST is already doing on quantum computing technology would be undermined by the House bill asking the Defense Department to report on how the technology threatens national security.

But lawmakers are already also looking beyond the current reaches of the technology for ways it might help secure critical infrastructure. The Senate bill includes a provision requiring the administrator for nuclear security, in consultation with the energy secretary, to work through the National Academy of Science to review the future of computing beyond exascale computing to meet national security needs at the National Nuclear Security Administration.

New Rules for Acquisition

Last, but most certainly not least, both versions of the bill include a few provisions related to transparency and accountability in the way the federal government acquires its technology goods and services.

On the House side, an amendment from Rep. Jim Hagedorn, R-Minn., calls on the Small Business Administration to write rules that would eventually be reflected in Federal Acquisition Regulations to require a contracting officer to consider the past performance of first-tier subcontractors in the same way they would for prime contractors.

On the Senate side, an amendment from Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., would require the defense secretary to list on the publicly accessible Beta.sam.gov site any consortia it uses to announce or otherwise make available contracting opportunities using other transaction authorityi.e. transaction authority outside the confines of Federal Acquisition Regulations. An Enzi press release said this is needed because smaller contractors often arent aware of opportunities, putting them at a disadvantage.

Defense officials are also called on in the Senate bill to develop a code-review process to implement a pilot project at the Office of Management and Budget that could drastically change current software acquisition dynamics.

The pilot is part of an OMB policy aimed at creating a culture of software use that saves taxpayers money, reduces vendor lock-in and fosters innovation. It requires agencies commissioning new custom software, to release at least 20% of the new custom-developed code as open source software for three years. Under the August 2016, Federal Source Code Policy: Achieving Efficiency, Transparency, and Innovation through Reusable and Open Source Software, federal agencies and prospective vendors alike would be able to see more of the code already in use across the government and build on top of it, instead of wastefully duplicating efforts. The code-review process called for in the NDAA is meant to balance this new, open, collaborative system with security.

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What the Rest of Government Should Watch When the Defense Authorization Bill Goes to Conference - Nextgov

Kamala Harris, Biden Differed on Trade, Medicare for All. Here’s a Guide to Their Positions. – The Wall Street Journal

Joe Biden and his running mate, Kamala Harris, share goals such as raising corporate taxes and expanding health insurance to more Americans, but they disagreed during the 2020 Democratic primary campaign on how to approach policy areas including climate and trade.

Here is a guide to her positionsand Mr. Bidenson a variety of issues.

Ms. Harris has said she supports the Green New Deal, an overhaul of the economy to combat climate change. Mr. Biden has said he supports the goals behind the Green New Deal, but during the primaries, he backed a smaller investment than many progressives wanted.

Since becoming the partys presumptive nominee, he has called for a $2 trillion program to combat climate change over four years, more spending and a more ambitious timeline than he supported in the primaries.

Mr. Biden has proposed a fracking ban, but only for oil and gas production from federal lands. Ms. Harris, meanwhile, said during a CNN town hall last year: Theres no question Im in favor of banning fracking.

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Kamala Harris, Biden Differed on Trade, Medicare for All. Here's a Guide to Their Positions. - The Wall Street Journal