2 Decades of Dubious Surveillance Will Make It Much Harder To Track COVID-19 Now – Reason

Posted on April 14, 2020 by admin

Would you tell an app on your phone if you tested positive for COVID-19 so that people who had been in close contact with you could be informed?

For many Americans, the answer would be yes, many emphatically so. But deep suspicion about who might see that information and how that information might be used to suppress civil liberties will push thousands, maybe even tens of thousands, of Americans to refuse.

Their refusal to participate might make it much harder to track the spread of the coronavirus and protect people from exposure. That's unfortunate, but that deep suspicion of how the government uses our private data from our phones and computers is justified by an entire post-9/11 regime of domestic surveillance that far too many government officials continue to defend.

Andrea O'Sullivan explained here at Reason how location technology on our phones could be used to help trace COVID-19 infections and how apps are playing an important role at stopping the spread in South Korea and China. Apple and Google are partnering up to host apps that will allow individuals around the world to participate. People who discover they've been infected with the coronavirus can inform the app, and the app will inform others who have come into close contact with them recently, letting them know they may have been exposed so that they can take proper precautions and self-isolate.

The way Apple and Google are approaching these tools is admirable, at least on paper. Participation will be voluntary. The tools won't actually collect identifiable information on location data. People who test positive will not be identified to Google or Apple or transmitted to health authorities. (Google explains how the location tracing will work here.)

But there's a lot of mistrustand I don't just mean mistrust of Google and Apple. There's mistrust of governments, both authoritarian and democratic, who might be able to track citizens and collect data via phones. China is already doing this with its citizens. Let's not pretend that this is simply a tool of authoritarian regimes. After the passage of the PATRIOT Act, the National Security Agency (NSA) secretly implemented the collection and storage of mass amounts of Americans' phone and internet metadata, without a warrant or any real justification other than to search through it for potential terrorist plotting.

Edward Snowden revealed the extent of this surveillance to Americans almost seven years ago, and at the time, a significant number of bipartisan political leaders insisted that this surveillance, despite violating the Fourth Amendment rights of all Americans, was needed to protect us from violent terrorism. It was not. As the years went by, it became clear that this mass surveillance was not making us safer, nor was it an effective tool for fighting terrorism. The USA Freedom Act reformed the system to restrict how the data could be collected and accessed but also brought it out from the shadows and made it official policy. (The USA Freedom Act expired in March since Congress did not reach a compromise over renewing it as attention turned to the pandemic, a mostly unnoticed casualty of COVID-19.)

Now, Snowden warns that the same governments that used the fear of terrorism to justify massive domestic surveillance may do the same for the coronavirus. People may recall that Snowden was initially dismissed as a crank by a lot of people until the government was forced to acknowledge that much of what he'd revealed was actually true.

We already see examples of law enforcement agencies at home and abroad abusing their surveillance tools to try to exert authority over citizens instead of helping them. Drones can be a boon to police when searching for lost people or scoping out dangerous situations. But in England, one police department used them to snoop on and attempt to shame citizens who had gone to a park to exercise and be outdoors (none of these citizens appeared to be violating social distancing rules). In Kentucky, police are using license plate readers to force compliance with self-quarantine orders. This surveillance is not being used to collect information to track the coronavirus. It's being used to control people.

And so, if thousands of Americans (or Brits) refuse to assist public health agencies by opting into these apps, don't blame them. Blame the government officials who have reliably used every single crisis for the past two decades to insist they need to have access to more and more information about our private lives. Will Apple and Google even be able to keep their promises that the government can't access this private data, given that both politicians and the Department of Justice are trying to destroy encryption to make secret surveillance easier?

In all likelihood, I will download and participate in this app system when it's introduced. I live in Los Angeles in a neighborhood with a lot of families with older residents who are especially likely to have severe cases if they're exposed. But I wouldn't judge anybody who refuses to participate. The government already cried wolf. Now that they really need us to trust that they truly need to know where we are, they've already trained us not to believe them.

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2 Decades of Dubious Surveillance Will Make It Much Harder To Track COVID-19 Now - Reason

If Julian Assange is extradited, it’s the end of the rule of law in the West Eva Joly (Interview) – Pressenza

Posted on April 14, 2020 by admin

By Jrme Duval for MrMondialisation

Last March, one of our journalists had the opportunity to speak with Eva Joly, a lawyer and former Member of Parliament, about the details of the Assange case, as she herself knows the main protagonist personally. The subjects of their exchange included the hunt for the whistleblower, his revelations, his conditions of detention and his trial. And in parallel, the questions raised in terms of freedom of information, human rights and democracy. Exclusive interview.

Julian Assange has made a name for himself by exposing damning atrocities during the US invasion and war in Iraq and Afghanistan two wars fought with lies including the publication in April 2010 of the video Collateral murder, in which two Reuters reporters and several civilians were shot at from an American Apache helicopter. In the same year, WikiLeaks, of which he is the founder and spokesman, released hundreds of thousands of military and diplomatic documents relating to war crimes and acts of torture committed by the US military.

In order to protect himself from US prosecution behind a Swedish arrest warrant for rape charges that he has always denied, Julian Assange spent seven years in seclusion in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where he took refuge in June 2012. The CIA spied on his every move, those of his relatives and defenders within the Embassy via the security company UC Global. On 11 April 2019, Ecuadorian President Lenn Moreno ended his right to asylum. He was arrested by British police the same day and has since been held in Belmarsh high security prison. Charged with espionage and 17 other charges, if the British justice system accepts the request for extradition to the United States, he faces 175 years in prison at the end of an extraordinary trial that began on 24 February.

One of the last images of Julian Assange at the time of his arrest in London

A former magistrate, Eva Joly made a name for herself during her career by investigating political and financial cases such as the Elf affair, which led to some thirty convictions, including that of Lok Le Floch-Prigent. She was an MEP for Europe Ecology-The Greens between 2009 and 2019 and is now a lawyer at the Paris bar.

Eva Joly, you have known Julian Assange for a long time, when you worked in Iceland with this young computer scientist on the project to transform Iceland into a paradise for journalism, for the protection of information. During an evening of solidarity with the whistleblower on 21 February at the Bourse du Travail in Paris, you alluded to a plane full of FBI agents landing in Iceland in 2011 on the pretext of an imminent computer attack against the government. Can you tell us more about this?

Eva Joly: The FBI was following Julian Assange, their agents knew he was in Iceland and they landed. They had contacted Interior Minister gmundur Jnasson, telling him that the Icelandic governments computer system was in danger and that the FBI was offering to help. But gmundur Jnasson understood the manoeuvre and he refused. It went unnoticed, but his testimony is still available on the Internet[i]. The fact that Julian Assange was under surveillance and that the United States wanted to get its hands on him very early on is a fact.

What is the situation of Chelsea Manning, convicted for the disclosure of the Collateral Murder video published by Wikileaks?

Eva Joly: We can see that the perpetrators of the war crime who appear in this video have not been prosecuted and yet they are easily identifiable. On the other hand, the whistleblower who showed this war crime is wanted. Chelsea Manning has been arrested and prosecuted. She is convicted of breaking into a computer system and disseminating confidential information. She was sentenced to 35 years in prison, then released by presidential pardon by Barack Obama on the last day of his presidency, she had already served seven years of her sentence. Paradoxically, she is still detained[ii], after being repeatedly convicted of contempt of court for refusing to testify before the Grand Jury against Assange. This shows that Julian Assange would not get a fair trial in the United States, which is one of the conditions for accepting extradition, since the requested country, in this case the United Kingdom, must be certain that the trial will be fair.

Julian Assanges lawyer, Edward Fitzgerald, said that on the first day of the trial, which opened in London on 24 February, his client had been stripped naked and searched twice, handcuffed 11 times and locked up five times in different holding cells. During his trial, Julian Assange was not seated with his lawyers as is customary, but was confined to the back of the courtroom, locked in a bullet-proof glass cage. Conditions that penalize the accused and seem unfair since they prevent him from following the proceedings, but which do not seem to bother the magistrate, Vanessa Baraitser. Is such a system unprecedented and is all this in accordance with the law?

Eva Joly: Here we see that the British are not treating Assange normally, because he was first sentenced to 50 weeks for breach of judicial supervision pronounced in 2012, when he was the subject of a Swedish extradition request. He had been allowed his liberty but forced to report regularly to the police. Julian Assange understood that he would be extradited to Sweden, he was convinced that it was a manoeuvre to hand him over to the United States, and he took refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where he was granted consular asylum. He stayed there for seven years. When Lenin Moreno, the President of Ecuador ended that asylum in 2017, the police took him out of the embassy in a very violent manner. He was taken to Belmarsh Prison, a maximum security prison. Now, Julian Assange is a multi-award winning journalist, he is not a terrorist. Especially since we know that the arrest warrant behind the Swedish extradition request had a very thin legal basis. We know that it was a manipulation. They sentenced Julian Assange almost to the maximum penalty for failure to comply with judicial supervision, 50 weeks, the maximum being 52, and they made him serve his sentence among those who detonate bombs and kill civilians. This is a signal sent by the United Kingdom, and it is unworthy of British justice. It is clear that the prison administration has instructions to execute his sentence first and then his pre-trial detention in the worst possible conditions.

Credit: John Englart | Support Wikileaks Free Julian Assange | (CC BY-SA 2.0)

In prison, he was placed in solitary confinement, and when he finished serving his sentence, he was remanded in custody, again awaiting trial. The solitary confinement ended only two or three weeks before the trial. There were also movements of prisoners who were sympathetic and asked that he be released from solitary confinement. All of this is abnormal. Julian Assange does not belong in a maximum security prison. The political situation is bad for Assange. We know that he was tortured and humiliated, and the UN rapporteur who assessed him has seen the impact of torture on his person.

At the hearing, when his lawyers requested that their client be allowed to sit next to them, the judge refused. The prosecutors office, representing the State, supported the lawyers request by justifying the customary nature of such a practice. Despite this, the judge opposed it. The whole situation is abnormal. According to the texts, it is the Westminster Magistrates Court that has to give an opinion, but the hearing is taking place at the Belmarsh Magistrates Court. In order to comply with the law, the Westminster staff and judges have been relocated so that Julian Assange does not have to be relocated. Are they open to attack on this aspect, or on the unfair conditions under which the trial was conducted?

Eva Joly: Yes, Assanges treatment is the treatment of a terrorist. He was refused his glasses for six months, which, along with the isolation, is bad treatment.

If the British justice system agrees to extradite him to the United States at the end of this trial, will Julian Assange risk the death penalty for espionage?

Eva Joly: There is a fundamental rule: you dont extradite to a country that practises the death penalty unless you have guarantees that the death penalty will not be requested or pronounced.

But you cant extradite people for political offences either

Eva Joly: Absolutely, its been more than a century since political prisoners were extradited. Otherwise you realize, we would have extradited the Chileans who were fleeing Pinochet, the Kurds who were fleeing Turkey, etc. The world is full of conflicts and political refugees who feel safe because if they get a visa, they know they cannot be extradited. It is true that, in this trial, the prosecution is trying to prove that, even if the offences of which Assange is accused are political, he could still be extradited.

Can extradition not be prevented by Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights[iii] which protects freedom of expression?

Eva Joly: All this should protect this multi-award winning journalist, but we see that it does not protect him, which makes us fear the worst for the future. The FBI has been following the case for a long time. Julian Assange was also being watched by a Spanish company working for the CIA while he was granted political asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy in London. If Julian Assange is extradited, it is the end of the rule of law in the West as we have built it for nearly a century. In the name of the fight against terrorism we are giving up many freedoms because we believe that security is a higher value. We have not understood that we are in fact going to sacrifice freedoms without having security. This trial sheds a stark light on what is happening.

Credit: Pamela Drew | Julian Assange Outside & Hillary Clinton Inside State

Concerning the rape charges against Julian Assange, the Swedish justice system dropped the charges due to lack of evidence. Are you surprised by this drop in charges?

Eva Joly: It was very costly for Julian Assange. We also know that the Swedish public prosecutor was keen to end the investigation earlier, but that she was encouraged to keep the investigation open by the Crown Prosecution Service [the service responsible for deciding on prosecutions in England and Wales]. We have evidence of that. We also have evidence of the FBIs involvement in the case, but the Swedish prosecutor, Marianne Ny, destroyed the e-mails she admits to having received from the FBI.

You criticized the media silence after some 60 international doctors tried to alert the world to Julian Assanges physical and psychological state of health in November, when they were seriously considering that he might die in prison. This silence came from a press that has made extensive use of and benefited from the revelations that Julian Assange and his team had brought to it about the abuses and war crimes committed by the allies in Iraq and Afghanistan. How do you explain such a change in attitude?

Eva Joly: Absolutely. The Guardian, the New York Times and Aftenposten[iv] have won prestigious awards for their work with WikiLeaks documents. Its important to understand that its the CIAs and the FBIs manipulations that have led to this reversal of opinion. The issue was no longer what Julian Assange had been able to prove, but whether or not he had raped someone.

Precisely, how can one sue Assange for his publications, while sparing the media that benefited and disclosed the content? Didnt these media act in the same way as WikiLeaks by disseminating information passed on by a third party?

Eva Joly: In the United States, American journalists enjoy the protection of the First Amendment. This was the case with the Pentagon papers, where the DOJ (Department of Justice) tried to prosecute whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg who had them published for espionage. The Supreme Court ruled that he had only been using freedom of speech and that he was entitled to protection under the First Amendment to the Constitution. We therefore know that citizens of the United States are protected by this amendment. However, foreign journalists are not. Julian Assange in the United States would therefore not be able to invoke the First Amendment and, logically, there would be a risk that European journalists could be prosecuted.

Nils Melzer, UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, says: This is not just about protecting Assange, but about preventing a precedent that could seal the fate of Western democracy. Are we going to turn Julian Assange into a martyr?

Eva Joly: If we accept the extradition of Julian Assange, we are admitting the de facto supremacy of US law over our own. In Europe, however, it is not forbidden to publish genuine news of general interest, journalists are protected by the European Convention on Human Rights. What Julian Assange published cannot therefore be described as espionage in the United Kingdom or elsewhere in Europe. Julian Assange cannot be extradited because of double jeopardy and because he would not get a fair trial in the United States. These are two more than sufficient reasons to oppose this extradition.

Source : https://mrmondialisation.org/si-julian-assange-est-extrade-cest-la-fin-de-letat-de-droit-en-occident-eva-joly-interview/

Notes:

[i] Ex-Icelandic Interior Minister: US Tried to FRAME Julian Assange in Iceland! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmPQY7cXOIg, Jnasson: The Icelandic Minister who refused cooperation with the FBI, Marta Pacheco, Katoikos, 7 December 2016. http://www.katoikos.eu/interview/icelandic-minister-who-refused-cooperation-with-the-fbi-ogmundur-jonasson-in-an-interview.html

[ii] Chelsea Manning was released on March 12, 2020 after a suicide attempt the day before. The financial penalties imposed to force her to testify against Wikileaks and its founder Julian Assange remain in effect and she will have to pay $256,000 in fines.

[iii] A guide on the implementation of Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights. https://www.refworld.org/docid/49f17f3a2.html; European Convention on Human Rights: https://www.echr.coe.int/Documents/Convention_ENG.pdf

[iv] Conservative newspaper in Norway.

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If Julian Assange is extradited, it's the end of the rule of law in the West Eva Joly (Interview) - Pressenza

FBI Expects a Rise in Scams Involving Cryptocurrency Related to the COVID-19 Pandemic FBI – Federal Bureau of Investigation

Posted on April 14, 2020 by admin

Fraudsters are leveraging increased fear and uncertainty during the COVID-19 pandemic to steal your money and launder it through the complex cryptocurrency ecosystem.

People of all ages, including the elderly, are being victimized by criminals through cryptocurrency-related fraud schemes. Developments in cryptocurrency technology and an increasing number of businesses accepting it as payment have driven the growing popularity and accessibility of cryptocurrency. There are not only numerous virtual asset service providers online but also thousands of cryptocurrency kiosks located throughout the world which are exploited by criminals to facilitate their schemes. Many traditional financial crimes and money laundering schemes are now orchestrated via cryptocurrencies.

The FBI advises you to be on the lookout for an increase in the following cryptocurrency fraud schemes related to COVID-19:

Blackmail Attempts. Threatening emails or letters in which scammers claim to have access to your personal information or knowledge of your dirty secrets and demand payment in Bitcoin to prevent release of this information have been circulating for years. With the advent of COVID-19, there is a new twist on this scam. The correspondence claims that the writer will both release your information and infect you and/or your family with coronavirus unless payment is sent to a Bitcoin wallet.

Work from Home Scams. Scammers, posing as employers, may ask you to accept a donation of funds into your own bank account and to deposit them into a crypto kiosk. The so-called donation is likely money stolen from others. Your acceptance and transfer of the stolen money is considered illegal money mule activity and potentially unlicensed money transmission.

Paying for Non-Existent Treatments or Equipment. Scammers have been known to lure customers from trusted e-commerce sites offering products that claim to prevent COVID-19 onto unrelated and unregulated messaging sites to accept payment in cryptocurrencies for products that do not actually exist.

Investment Scams. Criminals often pitch fraudulent investments in a new and developing cryptocurrency, such as an initial coin offering (ICO) or other investment vehicle to take a victims money. These scams typically involve scenarios that seem too good to be trueoffering large monetary returns for a short-term, small investment. The reality is that scammers steal the investment money for personal use and utilize the complexities of cryptocurrency to hide the true destination of the stolen funds.

Although there are legitimate charities, investment platforms, and e-commerce sites that accept payment in cryptocurrency, pressure to use a virtual currency should be considered a significant red flag.

By remembering the following tips regarding finances and cryptocurrency, you can better protect yourself from fraud:

The FBIs Criminal Investigative Division has an entire team dedicated to preventing and combating cryptocurrency money laundering and frauds. If you believe you are the victim of a fraud, or if you want to report suspicious activity, please contact your local field office or visit the FBIs Internet Crime Complaint Center at ic3.gov.

For accurate and up-to-date information about COVID-19, visit:

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FBI Expects a Rise in Scams Involving Cryptocurrency Related to the COVID-19 Pandemic FBI - Federal Bureau of Investigation

Cryptocurrencies Price Analysis: Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Ripple Where Are They Heading? – Coingape

Posted on April 14, 2020 by admin

The market cap for the entire cryptocurrency industry dropped by a total of over $10 billion during just the past few days, largely driven by Bitcoin dropping back beneath $7,000 to reach the current $6,773 trading price.

This week will be extremely important for Bitcoin (and the rest of the market) because a drop beneath the $6,700 level could cause Bitcoin to unwind toward the $6,000 level. However, with the Bitcoin block halving only 27 days away, it is unlikely that Bitcoin should stay beneath $7,000 for too long.

BTC/USD Daily CHART SHORT TERM

Looking at the daily chart above, we can see that Bitcoin ran into resistance at the $7,400 level last week which caused the cryptocurrency increase to stall and reverse. It went on to drop back beneath $7,000 until finding support at the $6,800 level which had provided strong resistance in March 2020 (now turned to support).

In todays trading session, Bitcoin dropped further beneath this support as it dropped as low as $6,550. It has since recovered slightly as it attempts to remain above the .236 Fibonacci Retracement support at $6,765.

Bitcoin is still considered as neutral at this moment in time but a close beneath $6,765 would turn it bearish in the short term.

If the sellers do push lower, the first level of support is expected at $6,500. Beneath this, support can be found at $6,320 (.382 Fib Retracement), $6,000 (.5 Fib Retracement), and $5,600 (.518 Fib Retracement).

On the other hand, if the bulls rebound from the current $6,765 support, the first level of resistance is located at $7,000. Above this, resistance lies at $7,174, $7,400, and $7,676 (1.618 Fib Extension).

The RSI has recently dipped beneath the 50 level to show that the momentum is starting to shift back into the bearish favor. If it continues to dip lower this will indicate that the bearish momentum is increasing and we can expect further declines.

ETH/USD Daily CHART SHORT TERM

Ethereum managed to climb as high as $176 in last weeks trading period as it ran into resistance at a short term 1.414 Fibonacci Extension level. It went on to reverse from here as it dropped into support at $160.

In todays trading session, we can see that ETH has fallen further lower from $160 to reach the current support at $154 which is provided by a .236 Fibonacci Retracement level.

Etheruem is also considered to be neutral right now and would still need to break beneath $140 before we can consider it to be bearish. It would need to close above $180 to be considered as bullish in the short term.

If the sellers do push ETH beneath the current $154 support, we can expect immediate support at $150. Beneath this, added support lies at $142 (.382 Fib Retracement), $132 (.5 Fib Retracement), and $122 (.618 Fib Retracement).

On the other hand, if the bulls can hold $155 and push higher, resistance lies at $160, $172, $176, and $187.

The RSI is still trading along with the 50 level as indecision looms within the market. If it does drop beneath 50 we can expect the bearish pressure to increase and ETH to fall beneath $150.

XRP/USD Daily CHART SHORT TERM

Looking at the daily chart above, we can see that XRP managed to climb as high as $0.20 in last weeks trading session. However, it was unable to overcome this resistance, provided by a bearish .382 Fibonacci Retracement level, causing the market to roll over and fall.

It dropped as low as $0.18 today but has since recovered slightly to trade above the .236 Fibonacci Retracement support at $0.184.

XRP remains neutral until it can break above the $0.20 level. A break beneath $0.17 would likely turn XRP bearish in the short term.

If the sellers push lower, support can be found at $0184 (.236 Fib Retracement), $0.18, and $0.17 (.382 Fib Retracement). Beneath this, support lies at $0.159 (.5 Fib Retracement) and $0.147 (.618 Fib Retracement).

On the other hand, if the bulls regroup and push higher, the first level of resistance is located at $0.2. Above this, resistance lies at $0.211, $0.22, and $0.229 (bearish .5 Fib Retracement).

The RSI is also trading at the 50 level as indecision is seen within the market. If the RSI can remain above 50, this will be a very promising sign for the XRP bulls.

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Cryptocurrencies Price Analysis: Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Ripple - Where Are They Heading?

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Bitcoin saw a sharp 6% price drop this week as it breaks beneath $6,800 again.Ethereum witnessed a 4% price decline after rolling over at $172 to reach the current $155 trading price.Ripple saw a small 2.3% price drop as failed to break above $0.2 to reach $0.186.

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Yaz Sheikh

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Coin Gape

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Cryptocurrencies Price Analysis: Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Ripple Where Are They Heading? - Coingape

The Best Privacy Coins: Crypto Briefing’s Top 10 – Crypto Briefing

Posted on April 14, 2020 by admin

Privacy coins have been lauded by some as necessary to protect users basic right to privacy. So, what are the top 10 privacy-centric cryptocurrencies?

Privacy cryptocurrencies occupy a sacred place in the cryptocurrency ecosystem.

While most cryptocurrency transactions are traceable on the blockchain, privacy coins utilize a range of protocols to obscure the addresses of transacting parties. Some privacy cryptocurrencies are private by default. Others offer identity-preserving features as an option.

Some exchanges have even delisted many coins due to regulatory pressures to implement strict KYC requirements. But if protecting ones identity is a highly valued commodity, its important to understand how each of the top privacy coins operates.

Monero is the privacy coin with the largest market cap, at around $1 billion at press time.

Monero uses the CryptoNight Proof-of-Work protocol to make the network ASIC resistant. The protocol also obscures wallet transaction details and user amounts on the public blockchain. A truly fungible cryptocurrency, XMR coins transaction histories cannot be traced.

CryptoNight uses ring signatures and stealth addresses to hide transaction details. All transactions are private by default.

RingCT (Ring Confidential Transactions), an enhancement of CryptoNight, implements ring signatures to obfuscate transactions on the network by mixing them with other spendable transaction inputs.

The blockchain displays the validity of transactions, but only the sender and receiver involved in a particular transaction can see the amount of coins transferred in a transaction.

Monero is widely considered the most important of this category of cryptocurrencies.

Zcoin uses a protocol known as Sigma to preserve user identity. Sigma removes the ability to link coins with transaction histories. Only the parties to a transaction have knowledge of the exchange of funds.

The privacy-focused coin has integrated Tor into its network to hide users IP addresses. The development team also added Dandelion++ to improve IP address protection when a transaction is broadcast.

The team is currently building toward the launch of Lelantus, an upgrade that would improve the protocols scalability, privacy, and ease of use.

Lelantus will usher incompletely untraceable transactions. Called HOOMP, Hierarchical One-out-of-Many-Proofs, the algorithm significantly improves on the performance of the One-Out-of-Many Proofs (OOMP).

OOMP is a building block of many other upcoming privacy protocols, such as Beam, Anonymous Zether, JP Morgans Many to Many proofs, and Moneros Triptych and Triptych-2.

On average, Zcoin developers found a 10x faster proving time, as well as a reduction in verification time, using HOOMP. This feature could make it one of the most important privacy coins in the market.

Bytecoin bills itself as the worlds first private untraceable cryptocurrency. To ensure user privacy, Bytecoin deploys CryptoNote technology.

The protocol utilizes ring signatures to bundle transactions as well as making addresses unlinkable through the generation of non-repeating, one-time address.

Bytecoins privacy credentials are only enhanced by the fact that the more widely known Monero is a fork of the BCN project.

Grin is a privacy-focused cryptocurrency without censorship or restrictions. The project deploys two methods to ensure transaction privacy for its users.

First, the Grin blockchain does not store amounts or addresses involved in transactions. Transactions are relayed through a sub-set of peers prior to being broadcast.

Secondly, using Mimblewimble allows past transaction data to be erased. That not only contributes to the privacy of transactions, but it also helps the blockchain scale. Beam is another project that uses the Mimblewimble protocol.

To ensure privacy and fungibility, the Litecoin Foundation has considered implementing the protocol on the LTC blockchain. According to the foundation:

We have started exploration towards adding privacy and fungibility to Litecoin by allowing on-chain conversion of regular LTC into a MimbleWimble variant of LTC and vice versa. Upon such conversion, it will be possible to transact with MimbleWimble LTC in complete confidentiality.

Super Zero is the native token for the SERO Dapp platform. SERO uses Super-ZK for privacy, and is reportedly 20 times faster than the Sapling upgrade of zk-SNARKs.

Its protocol claims to be the first to support smart contracts that use zero-knowledge proofs.

Dash, a fork of the Bitcoin protocol that began life as Xcoin in 2014, has an optional privacy feature that allows users to hide transaction details if they want to through the networks mixing mechanism. Dashs privacy feature is called PrivateSend.

It has become a very popular way to transact in Venezuela. The feature, an implementation of CoinJoin, mixes coins with other transactions, to obscure the origin of the funds.

Dash is not, strictly speaking, a privacy coin and does not market itself as one.

In fact, the companys website promotes it as instant, global, and easy to use. Transactions cost less than one cent and are near-instant.

Zcash is another widely-used coin with optional privacy.

Zcash transactions can take two forms: transparent or private. In private transactions, address details are hidden.

Zcash is a fork of the Bitcoin protocol, adding a privacy layer through a cryptographic proof known as zk-SNARKs. Zero Knowledge Succinct Non-Interactive Argument of Knowledge allows transactions to be verified without any knowledge of the wallet addresses involved or the amounts transferred.

According to the Zcash team:

Zero-knowledge proofs allow one party (the prover) to prove to another (the verifier) that a statement is true, without revealing any information beyond the validity of the statement itself. For example, given the hash of a random number, the prover could convince the verifier that there indeed exists a number with this hash value, without revealing what it is.

Horizen is a technology platform with optional privacy features that aims to enable an application-rich and inclusive ecosystem to provide people with freedom and everyday usability.

ZEN is the platforms native cryptocurrency.

Like other privacy coins, its privacy features are optional, offering both T-Addresses (transparent) and Z-Addresses (private). Z-Addresses utilize zero-knowledge cryptography to allow users to obfuscate transaction amounts and sender and receiver addresses.

Komodo was a source-code fork of Zcash, enabling the project to implement the zk-SNARKs protocol.

The platform allows third party projects to use the protocol, making privacy a possibility for any blockchain network. If a project wishes to adopt Komodos privacy as a feature, it can also choose whether to make it optional or mandatory.

Komodo developers built Pirate Chain in mid-2018. Pirate Chain (ARRR) has mandatory transaction privacy using the zk-SNARKs protocol. The Komodo team claims to be one of the most private blockchains in operation.

The Komodo website outlines that Moneros ring-signature protocol leaves traces of metadata, which the zk-SNARKs protocol does not.

Verge, originally DogecoinDark, uses an anonymous network layer and the Tor anonymity tool to hide IP addresses and user locations.

The Wraith Protocol upgrade brought the ability to accommodate stealth addressin to the Verge network. The upgrade offers senders and receivers the ability to choose to have transactions recorded to the public or the private ledger.

Not only are the locations of senders and receivers private by default, but it also offers stealth addressing.

For these reasons, Verge is a payment option accepted by Pornhub, an ideal use case for privacy coins.

Privacy coins remain an important part of the cryptocurrency ecosystem.

Despite, or perhaps because of, the increased regulatory scrutiny of privacy-enhancing features in the cryptocurrency markets, privacy-focused projects will continue to be important tools against privacy infringements.

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The Best Privacy Coins: Crypto Briefing's Top 10 - Crypto Briefing

ROIMAX The Online Trading Brand Is Expanding Its Cryptocurrency – AiThority

Posted on April 14, 2020 by admin

ROIMAX aims to provide traders with all the educational materials they need to make knowledgeable trades, and to equip them with the trading tools they need to succeed

The online trading brand continues on its quest to provide the best conditions for traders wanting to get involved in the cryptocurrency market. This comes in a period of great uncertainty generated by the COVID-19 pandemic, one that requires traders to find alternative investment tools. Cryptocurrencies are uncorrelated instruments and can serve as an efficient diversification tool for every trader and with the ROIMAX improved offer, things had been taken up a notch.

Global leading trading technology

Traders working withroimax.iocan trade with confidence and benefit from a proprietary platform that integrated some of the most superior technology. With a combination of power and speed, they can optimize their efficiency on the market and trade on any type of device, given the platform is web-based.

Given that trading cryptocurrencies come with a specific set of challenges, ROIMAX had anticipated the need for a personalized trading offer. The platform is tailored towards helping traders perform in one of the most volatile markets.

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Fully aware that clients need access to a wide range of trading features, ROIMAX acts as a trading partner by offering 1-on-1 trading sessions with an account manager who will guide traders every step of the way and equip them with high-quality tools for proper trading.

By this opportunity by ROIMAX is aiming to base relationships with new traders, who are looking for an easy but educated entrance to the trading world.

Wide range of trading instruments and resources

Whats different as opposed to other online brokerage companies has to do with the focus on providing access to a rich list of trading instruments. Most of the popular brokers offer access to a handful of cryptocurrency contracts, but ROIMAX covers tens of different cryptocurrency CFDs denominated in US Dollar, Euro, CAD, or GBP. Aside from crypto-to-fiat contracts, there is a more diverse set of crypto-to-crypto contracts, based on Bitcoin, Ether, or Tether.

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The main difference in trading cryptocurrency CFDs is the ability to use up to 1:40 leverage, as it is with ROIMAX, and only profit from the falling and rising of market valuations. The company stands strong for customers by also providing access to a comprehensive Trading Academy, with a full range of resources to help them find opportunities and take the trading experience to the next level.

Uncertain periods require traders to adapt quickly to fast-changing circumstances. The offer set into place by ROIMAX wants to provide clients with an alternative to the traditional assets (stocks, bonds, commodities, etc.) in the form of cryptocurrency-based CFDs. Given the volatility in all financial markets, traders need to diversify their portfolio and cryptocurrencies are uncorrelated instruments that can help them spread the risk.

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ROIMAX The Online Trading Brand Is Expanding Its Cryptocurrency - AiThority

How Cryptocurrency Can Save and The Man Who Is Helping – Net Newsledger

Posted on April 14, 2020 by admin

COVID-19 has impacted the world and its global markets drastically. Fears the virus spread will lead to a pandemic that could slow the global economy are dragging down stock prices; the S&P 500 index is in the red by 10 percent since the beginning of 2020.

Meanwhile, cryptocurrency over-the-counter (OTC) trading volume has been on the rise since the virus became a constant part of the news cycle. We have been seeing a significant uptick in volume over the last 60 days, said Michael Leon, a trader at Chicago-based Althena Investor Services, which specializes in serving OTC clients. Upticks in week-over-week volume for cryptocurrency exchanges such as Coinbase and Kraken are also being seen, according to data from CoinGecko.

Many people are now looking to invest in cryptocurrency but are hesitant as they know nothing about the marketsthats where Nicky Taschew, a young German entrepreneur is stepping in.

VolumeX, a company he started with friends in the cryptocurrency world, educates people on digital currency and teaches them how to invest and create an additional income stream from markets like Bitcoin and blockchain technologies. With revolutionary trading tools, VolumeX delivers consumers an easy and comfortable entry into the world of digital currencies.

Taschew and his friends, who he began working with in 2015, made over 15 million in sales in three years working for different crypto companies. With all the experience and dynamic connections they had, the group organically decided to form their own company.

As the Head of Marketing and Branding, Taschew is behind every single content and market move VolumeX makes and played a large role in developing its unique module education system. Though he studied international business and psychology in college, Taschew originally planned on being a professional table tennis player. Fluent in french, german, English and Bulgarian, it was only after meeting an Austrian girl through a dating app that he was introduced into the world of cryptocurrency.

Currently, the company educates thousands of affiliates and customers regarding financial growth through introducing them to Bitcoin services and helping customers with the groups knowledge and techniques in order to create an additional income stream.

VolumeX is now one of the biggest cryptocurrency opportunities in German, Austrian, and Swiss markets. With the surge of the cryptocurrency markets with declining trust in traditional governments, this is a perfect opportunity to grow their market share. In 2020, they are looking to expand to international clients and markets and help more people understand digital currency and empower them to change their lives.

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How Cryptocurrency Can Save and The Man Who Is Helping - Net Newsledger

Cryptocurrency Market overview with demographic data and industry growth trends by 2025 – WhaTech Technology and Markets News

Posted on April 14, 2020 by admin

Cryptocurrency Market has recently added by Supply Demand Market Research to its vast repository. This intelligence report includes investigations based on Current scenarios, Historical records, and future predictions

The research report on the Cryptocurrency Market is a deep analysis of the market. This is a latest report, covering the current COVID-19 impact on the market.

The pandemic of Coronavirus (COVID-19) has affected every aspect of life globally. This has brought along several changes in market conditions.

The rapidly changing market scenario and initial and future assessment of the impact is covered in the report. Experts have studied the historical data and compared it with the changing market situations.

The report covers all the necessary information required by new entrants as well as the existing players to gain deeper insight.

More Information | Get Free PDF Sample Report Now! http://www.supplydemandmarketresearch.com/home/coRSE1010111

The report is a mindful assortment of vital factors that lend versatile cues on market size and growth traits, besides also offering an in-depth section on opportunity mapping as well as barrier analysis, thus encouraging report readers to incur growth in global Cryptocurrency Market.This detailed report on Cryptocurrency Market largely focuses on prominent facets such as product portfolio, payment channels, service offerings, applications, in addition to technological sophistication.

Major Company Profiles Covered in This Report: ZEB IT Service Coinsecure Coinbase Bitstamp Litecoin Poloniex BitFury Group Unocoin Technologies Private Ripple OKEX Fintech Company Bitfinex

study explored across globe covering over 15+ countries with detailed data layout spread from 2013 to 2025 and nearly 12+ regional indicators complimented with 20+ company level coverage. The study is built using data and information sourced from various primary and secondary sources, proprietary databases, company/university websites, regulators, conferences, SEC filings, investor presentations and featured press releases from company sites and industry-specific third party sources.

Product Type coverage like market size & forecast, diverse ultimatum by region, key consumer profile etc: Bitcoin (BTC) Ether (ETH) Litecoin (LTC) Others

Cryptocurrency market size by Applications Transaction Investment Others

Besides these aforementioned factors and attributes of the Cryptocurrency Market, this report specifically decodes notable findings and concludes on innumerable factors and growth stimulating decisions that make this Cryptocurrency Market a highly profitable. A thorough take on essential elements such as drivers, threats, challenges, opportunities are thoroughly assessed and analysed to arrive at logical conclusions.

Additionally, a dedicated section on regional overview of the Cryptocurrency Market is also included in the report to identify lucrative growth hubs. These leading players are analysed at length, complete with their product portfolio and company profiles to decipher crucial market findings.

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This research report expresses import export data, industry supply and consumption numbers and price structure, industry revenue, and gross margin by leaders like: North America (United States, Canada and Mexico), Europe (Germany, France, UK, Russia and Italy), Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, Korea, India and Southeast Asia), South America (Brazil, Argentina, Colombia etc.), Middle East and Africa (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, Nigeria and South Africa)

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Finally, Cryptocurrency , market report gives you details about the market research findings and conclusion which helps you to take profitable industry decisions to gain competitive advantage.

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In conclusion, the Cryptocurrency Market report is a reliable source for accessing the research data that is projected to exponentially accelerate your business. The report provides information such as economic scenarios, benefits, limits, trends, market growth rate, and figures.

SWOT analysis is also incorporated in the report along with speculation attainability investigation and venture return investigation.

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Cryptocurrency Market overview with demographic data and industry growth trends by 2025 - WhaTech Technology and Markets News

Ethereum’s Vitalik Buterin Predicts Megatrend of Cryptography in 2020s – Herald Sheets

Posted on April 13, 2020 by admin

He shared this in a thread of tweets that attracted a series of reactions from the cryptocurrency community members.

In his point of view, the megatrend of cryptography in the 2010s was elliptic curves, pairings and general purposes ZKPs/SNARKs. Regarding the megatrend of cryptography in the 2020s, he said it will be lattices, LWE, multi-linear maps, homomorphic encryption, MPC, and obfuscation.

Prediction: The megatrend in cryptography of the 2010s was elliptic curves, pairings and general purpose ZKPs/SNARKs. The megatrend of the 2020s will be (in addition to broad adoption of the above) lattices, LWE, multilinear maps, homomorphic encryption, MPC and obfuscation, Vitalik Buterin shared

He furthered by stating the theme that will be common in both 2010s and 2020s megatrends of cryptography. He said:

The common theme in both is the rise of cryptographic primitives that operate over boolean or arithmetic circuits as a mathematical representation of computation, and hence cryptographic constructions becoming general purpose.

In response to his take on the expected megatrends of cryptography in the 2020s, one of his followers said, Yes. And possibly some of these areas merging.

Vitalik Buterin responded thus;

Oh cryptography is all going to merge into a big jumble of heres how we efficiently represent everything as polynomials and here are the 73 clever things you can do with a polynomial https://twitter.com/VitalikButerin/status/1248706367520755717

Another inquisitive Twitter user, who is a supposed Chainlink (LINK) community member, asked the co-founder of Ethereum how the cryptographic project (Chainlink) could fit into his prediction in the 2020s. He asked, How does Chainlink fit into this Vitalik?

Vitalik Buterin responded by saying:

Possible serious answer: with obfuscation, it might be possible to authenticate HTTPS responses (ie. data from websites) without needing trusted hardware.

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Ethereum's Vitalik Buterin Predicts Megatrend of Cryptography in 2020s - Herald Sheets

How Cryptography Revolutionizes Secure IoT Design and Zero-Trust Manufacturing – IoT World Today

Posted on April 13, 2020 by admin

Date 5th May 202002:00 PM Eastern Daylight Time Duration 1 Hour

Tight budgets and product development lifecycles make it nearly impossible to consider all the necessary factors for embedding strong security throughout a devices lifecycle. But when customer privacy and safety are at stake, it has to happen.

Cryptography has emerged as a flexible and highly scalable solution to enable critical authentication, encryption and signing capabilities for lightweight IoT devices. However, most product developers and manufacturers dont know where to start.

Join Keyfactors Senior Director of IoT Product Management, Ellen Boehm, and Senior Vice President of Product Management, Mark Thompson, to discuss effective strategies to cryptographically bind identity to devices at scale and establish integrity throughout the device lifecycle.

In this webinar, youll learn about: