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Bradley Manning sentenced to 35 years in prison / Boing Boing

Posted on January 4, 2019 by admin

In a courtroom at Fort Meade today, Judge Army. Col. Denise Lind delivered the sentence in the trial of Bradley Manning: 35 years in a military prison, less 1,294 days for time served, and a 112-day credit for enduring "unlawful pretrial punishment," when he was held for 9 months at a Marine Corps brig in Quantico, VA. During that stay, Manning was confined alone for more than 23 hours each day in an 8-by-6 foot cell.

The 25-year-old former intelligence analyst was convicted of charges related to sharing more than 700,000 secret government documents with Julian Assange and Wikileaks. The transparency group published those documents online, and shared them with various news organizations.

Manning faced a maximum of up to 90 years in prison. Human rights advocates say prolonged extreme solitary confinement Manning received is a form of torture. No minimum sentence applied in this case. Judge Lind convicted him last month of most charges brought against him by the government, including 6 violations of the US Espionage Act of 1917.

From Ft. Meade, Firedoglake's Kevin Gosztola writes, "Guards quickly escorted Manning out of the courtroom as supporters in the gallery shouted, 'Well keep fighting for you, Bradley,' and also told him he was a hero."

Adam Klasfeld at Courthouse News writes, "Though Col. Denise Lind warned spectators not to disturb the hearing, which wrapped up in under five minutes, a gasp was heard after the military judge read the sentence. Two sergeants-at-arms appeared angered - grabbing Manning roughly and pulling him from the courtroom - as dozens of supporters began shouting words of encouragement to their whistle-blower."

"Like his sister and aunt seated in the audience, Manning remained composed during the reading of his sentence," writes Klasfeld. "The wife of lead defense attorney David Coombs meanwhile cried in her seat."

Alexa O'Brien, who has been covering the trial at Fort Meade nearly every day for the past 20 months, has created this detailed chart explaining how various charges were merged, leading to the sentence Manning received today.

Pfc. Manning's sentence is 5 years longer than a man who passed "sophisticated defense secrets to communist East Germany," notes Kevin Gosztola at Firedoglake.

As Quinn Norton writes at Medium, "Private Bradley Manning didnt kill anyone, or rape anyone, but by nabbing information from his commanders and giving it to WikiLeaks, he lit up the world, like a match discarded into a great parched forest."

Defense attorney David Coombs has previously said that he plans to pursue all available options for appeal, which may include the Supreme Court. It is very rare that the nation's highest court will agree to review cases of military law, but this may be a likely exception. Other options include a presidential pardon.

Kevin Gosztola:

Manning is unlikely to serve his entire sentence in prison. He will immediately be able to petition for clemency from the court martial Convening Authority Major General Jeffrey Buchanan. A clemency and parole board in the Army can look at his case after a year. After that initial review, he can then ask the board to assess his sentence on a yearly basis for clemency purposes. Manning has to serve a third of his sentence before he can be eligible for parole. Appeals application to the Army Criminal Court of Appeals will automatically be entered after the sentence is issued. If Manning or his lawyers do find issues to press, they can take the case to the Court of Appeals of the Armed Forces and then possibly the US Supreme Court. There is good behavior credit, which can be as much as ten days for each month of his confinement.

Here are transcripts of trial proceedings [PDF], captured by stenographers who were crowdfunded and hired by Freedom of the Press Foundation.

Manning's attorney David Coombs will give a press conference at 130pm ET. Follow this Twitter list, for updates from reporters who are there at the Fort Meade media operations center. Tweets from them gathered, below.

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Hillary Clinton made her first extended public remarks about Edward Snowden late last week, and unfortunately she misstated some basic facts about the NSA whistleblower and how events have played out in the last year. Heres a breakdown of what she said and where she went wrong: Clinton: If he were concerned and wanted to []

The Wall Street Journal was first to report that The Federal Communications Commission will propose new open Internet rules this Thursday that will allow content companies to pay Internet service providers for special access to consumers. Under the new rules, service providers may not block or discriminate against specific websites, but they can charge certain []

The threats to established networks are coming from all directions these days, which means any big company that cant invest in security isnt going stay that way long. Know a thing or two about covert code? Looking to put those skills to good use both ethically and financially? The 2019 Ethical Hacker Master Class []

Get ghosted by Santa this year? Heres a tip: Once Christmas is over, its ok to do a little materialistic self-care. To that end, heres one last sleigh ride through Boing Boings best deals of 2018. Weve got everything from pipes to tech to learning bundles, all at an extra discount for the new year. []

Words on paper. It should be easy, but as any screenwriter can tell you, the road from the first scene to final draft can be a slog especially if youre collaborating. Writers need a tool that will work with them, not get in their way. And for a growing number of industry veterans, WriterDuet []

bradley manning / Boing Boing

Posted on January 4, 2019 by admin

Imprisoned whistleblower Chelsea Manning is suffering from severe mental health challenges in prison, directly related to her treatment in prison. She isn't getting the care she needs, and she recently tried to take her own life.

Chelsea is a transgender woman who, despite her gender identity being acknowledged by the world, is forced by the U.S. to serve out her sentence in an all-male maximum security prison. To be a woman imprisoned among men is a most gendered form of cruel and unusual punishment, but America's hatred and misunderstanding of trans people allows this to be the norm. Read the rest

The infractions she's charged with are so minor, it's hard to believe.

The soldier convicted of leaking classified military and diplomatic records to Wikileaks has legally changed her name to Chelsea Elizabeth Manning. Read the rest

Amid much talk of Chelsea Manning's transitional status, this interesting factoid shared by Boing Boing pal Andrea James: a Williams Institute study says trans people serve in the US military at rates double that of the general population. Despite the math, "they nonetheless face discrimination during and after service." Read the rest

The Army uses this name and address: Bradley E. Manning, 89289, 1300 N. Warehouse Road, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, 66027-2304. (via Nathan Fuller) Read the rest

[UPDATE BELOW]. A reader who works at CNN shares "the guidance the news folks are following" on how to refer to Chelsea Manning, formerly Bradley Manning--the transgender soldier who announced to the world she wished to be publicly seen as female one day after receiving a 35 year prison sentence for leaking secret US government documents to Wikileaks.

"Manning hasn't taken any steps yet toward gender transition so use masculine pronouns ('he' and 'him')," the internal guidance reads. Read the rest

After Army judge Colonel Denise Lind announced the 35-year sentence for Bradley Manning on Wednesday, defense attorney David Coombs read a statement from the soldier that will be part of a pardon request to be submitted to President Barack Obama. That statement follows, below.

Speaking at a press conference after the sentencing Wednesday, Coombs also described Pfc. Manning's reaction as the sentence was announced. Coombs spoke about how he and his colleagues on the defense team were crying. Manning turned to them and said, Its okay. Its alright. I know you did your best. Im going to be okay. Im going to get through this. Read the rest

Was the "draconian sentence" delivered in Pfc. Manning's case simply a matter of deterrence, asks John Cassidy at the New Yorker? "From the beginning, the Pentagon has treated Manning extremely harshly, holding him in solitary confinement for almost a year and then accusing him of aiding the enemya charge that carries the death penalty...It certainly looked like an instance of powerful institutions and powerful people punishing a lowly private for revealing things that they would rather have kept hidden." Read the rest

A deterrent, writes Amy Davidson. "A frightening, crippling sentence was the only way to make sure that no one leaked again, ever. What it seems likely to do is chill necessary whistle-blowing and push leakers to extremes. The lesson that Edward Snowden, the N.S.A. leaker, seems to have drawn from the prosecutions of Manning and others is that, if you have something you think people should know, take as many files as you can and leave the country." [The New Yorker] Read the rest

In Ecuador, the nation's head of intelligence agency "has asked the legislature to draft a bill that would outlaw the publication of classified documents, amid growing concerns over a government clampdown on the media," writes Rosie Gray at Buzzfeed. The South American country has been in the news recently for providing shelter to Wikileaks founder Julian Assange at its embassy in London, and for offering a travel document to NSA leaker Edward Snowden. Read the rest

At HuffPo, Matt Sledge writes, "Chelsea Manning's lack of access to hormone therapy in military prison could spark a lawsuit and potentially set a military-wide precedent for transgender servicemembers." The military's Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy ended in 2011, but the Army continues to ban transgender soldiers as "administratively unfit." As Sledge writes, "The official Army regulation uses medically outdated terminology referring to "transvestism, voyeurism, other paraphilias, or factitious disorders, psychosexual conditions, transsexual, (or) gender identity disorder." Read the rest

"An article on The Timess Web site on Thursday morning on the gender issue continued to use the masculine pronoun and courtesy title. That, said the associate managing editor Philip B. Corbett, will evolve over time." How much time does a New York Times editor need to write the word "she" or "her"? Read the rest

One day after being sentenced to 35 years in prison for leaking secret government files to Wikileaks, Pfc. Bradley Manning today announced via NBC TODAY the decision to live life as a woman.

We first wrote about this aspect of Manning's story in 2010, after realizing that a series of chat logs circulating on the internet--which we'd published without understanding the subtle references within--spoke to Manning's desire to transition. Read the rest

Quinn Norton's long essay in Medium called Bradley Manning and the Two Americas that investigates the question of American power in the age of Bradley Manning and his legal martyrdom. It's a very good piece, and it lays out the collision of the idea of America as an imperial bureaucracy and America as a revolutionary democratic experiment, and shows how that collision has been in play through leaks since Ellsberg. Read the rest

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bradley manning / Boing Boing

What is cryptocurrency? – cointelegraph.com

Posted on January 4, 2019 by admin

A cryptocurrency is a digital or virtual currency designed to work as a medium of exchange. It uses cryptography to secure and verify transactions as well as to control the creation of new units of a particular cryptocurrency. Essentially, cryptocurrencies are limited entries in a database that no one can change unless specific conditions are fulfilled.

There have been many attempts at creating a digital currency during the 90s tech boom, with systems like Flooz, Beenz and DigiCash emerging on the market but inevitably failing. There were many different reasons for their failures, such as fraud, financial problems and even frictions between companies employees and their bosses.

Notably, all of those systems utilized a Trusted Third Party approach, meaning that the companies behind them verified and facilitated the transactions. Due to the failures of these companies, the creation of a digital cash system was seen as a lost cause for a long while.

Then, in early 2009, an anonymous programmer or a group of programmers under an alias Satoshi Nakamoto introduced Bitcoin. Satoshi described it as a peer-to-peer electronic cash system. It is completely decentralized, meaning there are no servers involved and no central controlling authority. The concept closely resembles peer-to-peer networks for file sharing.

One of the most important problems that any payment network has to solve is double-spending. It is a fraudulent technique of spending the same amount twice. The traditional solution was a trusted third party - a central server - that kept records of the balances and transactions. However, this method always entailed an authority basically in control of your funds and with all your personal details on hand.

In a decentralized network like Bitcoin, every single participant needs to do this job. This is done via the Blockchain - a public ledger of all transaction that ever happened within the network, available to everyone. Therefore, everyone in the network can see every accounts balance.

Every transaction is a file that consists of the senders and recipients public keys (wallet addresses) and the amount of coins transferred. The transaction also needs to be signed off by the sender with their private key. All of this is just basic cryptography. Eventually, the transaction is broadcasted in the network, but it needs to be confirmed first.

Within a cryptocurrency network, only miners can confirm transactions by solving a cryptographic puzzle. They take transactions, mark them as legitimate and spread them across the network. Afterwards, every node of the network adds it to its database. Once the transaction is confirmed it becomes unforgeable and irreversible and a miner receives a reward, plus the transaction fees.

Essentially, any cryptocurrency network is based on the absolute consensus of all the participants regarding the legitimacy of balances and transactions. If nodes of the network disagree on a single balance, the system would basically break. However, there are a lot of rules pre-built and programmed into the network that prevents this from happening.

Cryptocurrencies are so called because the consensus-keeping process is ensured with strong cryptography. This, along with aforementioned factors, makes third parties and blind trust as a concept completely redundant.

In the past, trying to find a merchant that accepts cryptocurrency was extremely difficult, if not impossible. These days, however, the situation is completely different.

There are a lot of merchants - both online and offline - that accept Bitcoin as the form of payment. They range from massive online retailers like Overstock and Newegg to small local shops, bars and restaurants. Bitcoins can be used to pay for hotels, flights, jewelery, apps, computer parts and even a college degree.

Other digital currencies like Litecoin, Ripple, Ethereum and so on arent accepted as widely just yet. Things are changing for the better though, with Apple having authorized at least 10 different cryptocurrencies as a viable form of payment on App Store.

Of course, users of cryptocurrencies other than Bitcoin can always exchange their coins for BTCs. Moreover, there are Gift Card selling websites like Gift Off, which accepts around 20 different cryptocurrencies. Through gift cards, you can essentially buy anything with a cryptocurrency.

Finally, there are marketplaces like Bitify and OpenBazaar that only accept cryptocurrencies.

Read more in the article What can I buy with Bitcoins?

Many people believe that cryptocurrencies are the hottest investment opportunity currently available. Indeed, there are many stories of people becoming millionaires through their Bitcoin investments. Bitcoin is the most recognizable digital currency to date, and just last year one BTC was valued at $800. In November 2017, the price of one Bitcoin exceeded $7,000.

Ethereum, perhaps the second most valued cryptocurrency, has recorded the fastest rise a digital currency ever demonstrated. Since May 2016, its value increased by at least 2,700 percent. When it comes to all cryptocurrencies combined, their market cap soared by more than 10,000 percent since mid-2013.

However, it is worth noting that cryptocurrencies are high-risk investments. Their market value fluctuates like no other assets. Moreover, it is partly unregulated, there is always a risk of them getting outlawed in certain jurisdictions and any cryptocurrency exchange can potentially get hacked.

If you decide to invest in cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin is obviously still the dominant one. However, in 2017 its share in the crypto-market has quite dramatically fallen from 90 percent to just 40 percent. There are many options currently available, with some coins being privacy-focused, others being less open and decentralized than Bitcoin and some just outright copying it.

While its very easy to buy Bitcoins - there are numerous exchanges in existence that trade in BTC - other cryptocurrencies arent as easy to acquire. Although, this situation is slowly improving with major exchanges like Kraken, BitFinex, BitStamp and many others starting to sell Litecoin, Ethereum, Monero, Ripple and so on. There are also a few other different ways of being coin, for instance, you can trade face-to-face with a seller or use a Bitcoin ATM.

Once you bought your cryptocurrency, you need a way to store it. All major exchanges offer wallet services. But, while it might seem convenient, its best if you store your assets in an offline wallet on your hard drive, or even invest in a hardware wallet. This is the most secure way of storing your coins and it gives you full control over your assets.

As with any other investment, you need to pay close attention to the cryptocurrencies market value and to any news related to them. Coinmarketcap is a one-stop solution for tracking the price, volume, circulation supply and market cap of most existing cryptocurrencies.

Depending on a jurisdiction you live in, once youve made a profit or a loss investing in cryptocurrencies, you might need to include it in your tax report. In terms of taxation, cryptocurrencies are treated very differently from country to country. In the US, the Internal Revenue Service ruled that Bitcoins and other digital currencies are to be taxed as property, not currency. For investors, this means that accrued long-term gains and losses from cryptocurrency trading are taxed at each investors applicable capital gains rate, which stands at a maximum of 15 percent.

Miners are the single most important part of any cryptocurrency network, and much like trading, mining is an investment. Essentially, miners are providing a bookkeeping service for their respective communities. They contribute their computing power to solving complicated cryptographic puzzles, which is necessary to confirm a transaction and record it in a distributed public ledger called the Blockchain.

One of the interesting things about mining is that the difficulty of the puzzles is constantly increasing, correlating with the number of people trying to solve it. So, the more popular a certain cryptocurrency becomes, the more people try to mine it, the more difficult the process becomes.

A lot of people have made fortunes by mining Bitcoins. Back in the days, you could make substantial profits from mining using just your computer, or even a powerful enough laptop. These days, Bitcoin mining can only become profitable if youre willing to invest in an industrial-grade mining hardware. This, of course, incurs huge electricity bills on top of the price of all the necessary equipment.

Currently, Litecoins, Dogecoins and Feathercoins are said to be the best cryptocurrencies in terms of being cost-effective for beginners. For instance, at the current value of Litecoins, you might earn anything from 50 cents to 10 dollars a day using only consumer-grade hardware.

But how do miners make profits? The more computing power they manage to accumulate, the more chances they have of solving the cryptographic puzzles. Once a miner manages to solve the puzzle, they receive a reward as well as a transaction fee.

As a cryptocurrency attracts more interest, mining becomes harder and the amount of coins received as a reward decreases. For example, when Bitcoin was first created, the reward for successful mining was 50 BTC. Now, the reward stands at 12.5 Bitcoins. This happened because the Bitcoin network is designed so that there can only be a total of 21 mln coins in circulation.

As of November 2017, almost 17 mln Bitcoins have been mined and distributed. However, as rewards are going to become smaller and smaller, every single Bitcoin mined will become exponentially more and more valuable.

All of those factors make mining cryptocurrencies an extremely competitive arms race that rewards early adopters. However, depending on where you live, profits made from mining can be subject to taxation and Money Transmitting regulations. In the US, the FinCEN has issued a guidance, according to which mining of cryptocurrencies and exchanging them for flat currencies may be considered money transmitting. This means that miners might need to comply with special laws and regulations dealing with this type of activities.

Read more in the article How to Mine Bitcoin: Everything You Need to Know.

If you happen to own a business and if youre looking for potential new customers, accepting cryptocurrencies as a form of payment may be a solution for you. The interest in cryptocurrencies has never been higher and its only going to increase. Along with the growing interest, also grows the number of crypto-ATMs located around the world. Coin ATM Radar currently lists almost 1,800 ATMs in 58 countries.

First of all, you need to let your customers know that your business accepts crypto coins. Simply putting a sign by your cash register should do the trick. The payments can then be accepted using hardware terminals, touch screen apps or simple wallet addresses through QR codes.

There are many different services that you can use to be able to accept payments in cryptocurrencies. For example, CoinPayments currently accepts over 75 different digital currencies, charging just 0.5 percent commission per transaction. Other popular services include Cryptonator, CoinGate and BitPay, with the latter only accepting Bitcoins.

In the US, Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have been recognized as a convertible virtual currency, which means accepting them as a form of payment is exactly the same as accepting cash, gold or gift cards.

For tax purposes, US-based businesses accepting cryptocurrencies need to record a reference of sales, amount received in a particular currency and the date of transaction. If sales taxes are payable, the amount due is calculated based on the average exchange rate at the time of sale.

As cryptocurrencies are becoming more and more mainstream, law enforcement agencies, tax authorities and legal regulators worldwide are trying to understand the very concept of crypto coins and where exactly do they fit in existing regulations and legal frameworks.

With the introduction of Bitcoin, the first ever cryptocurrency, a completely new paradigm was created. Decentralized, self-sustained digital currencies that dont exist in any physical shape or form and are not controlled by any singular entity were always set to cause an uproar among the regulators.

A lot of concerns have been raised regarding cryptocurrencies decentralized nature and their ability to be used almost completely anonymously. The authorities all over the world are worried about the cryptocurrencies appeal to the traders of illegal goods and services. Moreover, they are worried about their use in money laundering and tax evasion schemes.

As of November 2017, Bitcoin and other digital currencies are outlawed only in Bangladesh, Bolivia, Ecuador, Kyrgyzstan and Vietnam, with China and Russia being on the verge of banning them as well. Other jurisdictions, however, do not make the usage of cryptocurrencies illegal as of yet, but the laws and regulations can vary drastically depending on the country.

What is encryption? | ICO

Posted on January 3, 2019 by admin

What is encryption?

Encryption is a mathematical function using a secret valuethe keywhich encodes data so that only users with access to that key can read the information. In many cases encryption can provide an appropriate safeguard against the unauthorised or unlawful processing of personal data, especially in cases where it is not possible to implement alternative measures.

Example

An organisation issues laptops to employees for remote working together with secure storage lockers for use at home and locking devices for use outside the home. However, there is still the risk of loss or theft of the devices (eg whilst being used outside of the office). To address this risk, the organisation requires all data stored on laptops to be encrypted. This significantly reduces the chance of unauthorised or unlawful processing of the data in the event of loss or theft.

Information is encrypted and decrypted using a secret key. (Some algorithms use a different key for encryption and decryption). Without the key the information cannot be accessed and is therefore protected from unauthorised or unlawful processing.

Whilst it is possible to attempt decryption without the key (eg, by trying every possible key in turn), in practical terms it will take such a long time to find the right keyie many millions of years, depending on the computing power available and the type of keythat it becomes effectively impossible. However, as computing power increases, the length of time taken to try a large number of keys will reduce so it is important that you keep algorithms and key sizes under consideration, normally by establishing a review period.

You should consider encryption alongside a range of other technical and organisational security measures. You also need to ensure that your use of encryption is effective against the risks you are trying to address, as it cannot be used in every processing operation.

Therefore, you should consider the benefits that encryption will offer in the context of your processing, as well as the residual risks. You should also consider whether there are other security measures that may be appropriate to put in place, either instead of encryption or alongside it.

You can do this by means of a Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA), which, depending on your processing activities, you may be required to undertake under Article 35 of the GDPR. In any case, a DPIA will also help you to assess your processing, document any decisions and the reasons for them, and can ensure that you are only using the minimum personal data necessary for the purpose.

In more detail European Data Protection Board (EDPB)

The EDPB, formerly the Article 29 Working Party, includes representatives from the data protection authorities of each EU member state. It adopts guidelines for complying with the requirements of the GDPR.

In October 2017, Article 29 published guidelines on DPIAs and high-risk processing under the GDPR (WP248rev01). The EDPB formally endorsed these guidelines on 25 May 2018.

Yes. Article 4(2) of the GDPR defines processing as any operation or set of operations performed on personal data, including adaptation or alteration.

The process of converting personal data from plaintext into ciphertext represents adaptation or alteration of that data. Whether you are a controller or a processor, if you have encrypted personal data yourself and are responsible for managing the key then you will still be processing data covered by the GDPR.

If you also subsequently store, retrieve, consult or otherwise use that encrypted data, you will also be processing data covered by the GDPR.

You should therefore ensure that you do not view the use of encryption as an anonymisation technique or think the encrypted data is not subject to the GDPR. If you were responsible for encrypting the data and are the holder of the key, you have the ability to re-identify individuals through decryption of that dataset.

In this respect, encryption can be regarded as a pseudonymisation technique. It is a security practice designed to safeguard personal data.

You should not underestimate the importance of good key management - make sure that you keep the keys secret in order for encryption to be effective.

Encryption can take many different forms. Whilst it is not the intention to review each of these in turn, it is important to recognise when and where encryption can provide protection to certain types of data processing activities. Later in this guidance, we outline a number of scenarios where encryption may be beneficial to you.Encryption is also governed by laws and regulations, which may differ by country. For example, in the UK you may be required to provide access to the key in the event you receive a court order to do so.

Finally, not all processing activities can be completely protected from end to end using encryption. This is because at present information needs to exist in a plaintext form whilst being actively processed. For example, data contained within a spreadsheet can be stored in an encrypted format but in order for the spreadsheet software to open it and the user to analyse it, that data must first be decrypted. The same is true for information sent over the internet it can be encrypted whilst it is in transit but must be decrypted in order for the recipient to read the information.

When processing data, there are a number of areas that can benefit from the use of encryption. You should assess the benefits and risks of using encryption at these different points in the processing lifecycle separately. When first considering your processing, you should also ensure that you adopt a data protection by design approach, and using encryption can be one example of the measures that you put in place as part of this approach.

The two main purposes for which you should consider using encryption are data storage and data transfer. These two activities can also be referred to as data at rest and data in transit.

Recommendation

You should have a policy governing the use of encryption, including guidelines that enable staff to understand when they should and should not use it.

For example, there may be a guideline stating that any email containing sensitive personal data (either in the body or within an attachment) should be sent encrypted or that all mobile devices should be encrypted and secured with a password complying with a specific format.

You should also be aware of any industry or sector-specific guidelines that may include a minimum standard or recommend a specific policy for encrypting personal data. Examples include:

Read more from the original source:
What is encryption? | ICO

The Indictment of Julian Assange Is a Threat to Press Freedom

Posted on January 3, 2019 by admin

Julian Assange. (AP Photo / Dominic Lipinski)

I love WikiLeaks! candidate Trump proclaimed in 2016. Now Julian Assange has learned what Donalds love is worth: a sealed criminal indictment.Ad Policy

If the consequences for the First Amendment werent so sobering, it would be a savage cosmic joke. First, Assangeconvinced the Obama administration would snatch him up if given half a chancesentences himself to indefinite confinement in the Ecuadorean embassy in London. Then, believing Hillary Rodham Clinton is a sadistic sociopath, he publishes those Russia-hacked Democratic National Committee e-mails at a pivotal moment in the campaign. Now the administration that Assange helped elect (headed by a genuinely sociopathic president who actually endorsed torture and rendition) takes the very step against him that Obama and his attorney general, Eric Holder, consistently refused.

What to make of this bizarre turn? The murky hints inadvertently revealed in a Justice Department filing leave much about the Assange indictment unclear. Do the charges relate to Robert Muellers Russian-hacking inquiry? Or to earlier leaks of classified documents? (My money says the latter: A sloppy breach of news about Assange would seem out of character for the fiercely disciplined and silent Mueller team.) Is it an unprecedented charging of a publisher under the Espionage Act, or some more conventional criminal complaint? Is there even an active indictment at all, or merely a determination by Trumps Justice Department to pursue one? Regardless, what we know is enough: The notion of sealed charges against a publisher of leaked documents ought to have warning sirens screaming in every news organization, think tank, research service, university, and civil-liberties lobby.

Assange, of course, doesnt make it easy. From the founding of WikiLeaks he has been a confounding figure. His historic innovationan anonymous dropbox for otherwise-secret datachanged investigative reporting. The breadth of WikiLeaks disclosures, commingled with Assanges own idiosyncratic motivations for what to publish and what to withhold, have tied lawyers and press-freedom advocates into knots for the better part of a decade. But nowwith the charge against Assange coming amid the Trump administrations broader assault on journaliststhis once-academic debate takes on fierce urgency.

Is Assange a journalist at all? Thats where the argument usually begins, and too often ends. As NYU law professor Stephen Gillers points out in his penetrating and essential new book Journalism Under Fire: Protecting the Future of Investigative Reporting, the most far-reaching federal shield law proposed in recent years to protect reportersthe Free Flow of Information Act, introduced by Senators Chuck Schumer and Lindsey Graham in 2013 but never passedexplicitly wrote WikiLeaks out of the equation, denying protection to outfits whose principal function is publishing primary source documentswithout authorization. The dividing line, says Gillers, is editorial judgment: What defines WikiLeaks as non-journalism is that it is an undiscriminating document dump. For years that same argument has allowed many traditional news organizations to keep their distance from WikiLeaks overtly activist publishing.Related Article

But thats a dangerously crabbed view of the press. For one thing, Assange and WikiLeaks unquestionably exercise editorial judgment. It may be, at times, irresponsible, one-sided, or irredeemably wrongheaded; but it is judgmenteditorial curationnonetheless: What leaked material to release and when, how to organize it for readers, whether to protect the identities of vulnerable individuals named in leaks, and so on.

Whats more, major news organizations and investigative-reporting nonprofits worldwide long ago adopted key elements of the WikiLeaks approach, launching their secure dropboxes for leaked material and publishing wide-ranging primary-source databases and documents alongside traditional stories. Whatever the line between news organization and activist document dump, editorial judgment is a continuum rather than an absolute. A threat to one public-interest dropbox is a threat to all.Current Issue

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More profoundly, that crucial press-freedom clause in the First AmendmentCongress shall make no law abridging freedom of the pressdoesnt limit protection to self-defined reporters and editors: Indeed, in 1791, when the newly federated United States ratified the First Amendment, journalism as a distinct profession barely existed. To the framers generation, the press meant a contentious post-revolutionary ecosystem of publishersprinters and pamphleteers whose raucous invective had little in common with any of todays journalistic canons, and whose arguments over transparency, political conspiracy, and corporate interest were as potent and one-sided as any Trump-era Twitter storm. And it was the publishing of government secrets that the Supreme Court upheld almost two centuries later in the Pentagon Papers case, celebrated last year in Steven Spielbergs inspiring (and mainly accurate) film. Whether or not WikiLeaks counts as journalism, it surely counts as publishing.

But what if the DNC hackor other WikiLeaks datawas an instrument of Russian dirty tricks? Assange, of course, has always claimed he does not know the identity of the DNC e-mail hackera claim somewhere on the spectrum from willfully naive to cynically mendacious, given the ample evidence of Russian direction and interest. But even if Assange knew the hacks were a gift from Moscow, for investigative journalists worldwide that only raises the stakes in this case. If press freedom and the First Amendment mean anything to muckrakers, it is the right to obtain public-interest information from impure, indeed hopelessly tainted, sources.

In a perverse way, Assange himself may regard the revelation of the Trump Justice Department charges as a gift: validating his view of himself as a martyr to transparency and anti-imperialism, and justifying the drama of his flight to the Ecuadorean embassy. At that level, its arguable that he and Trump deserve each other. But those are questions of character, which history will need to judge. Far more important is the present-tense reality of sealed criminal charges against a publisher of leaked secrets. At a minimum, given the stakes for investigative reporting and public-interest journalism, news organizations should be in court immediately demanding that the charges be unsealed so their legitimacy can be assessed. Assange, confined in his embassy redoubt, poses neither a flight risk nor an imminent security threat.

Over recent weeks, mainstream news organizations and civil libertarians correctly leapt to the defense of Jim Acostas White House press pass. Important as that fight is, in scale and consequence it is a rubbish fire. The still-secret Assange charges, if unchallenged, could burn down the scaffolding of American investigative reporting.

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The Indictment of Julian Assange Is a Threat to Press Freedom

Julian Assange Has Been Charged, According to Justice …

Posted on January 3, 2019 by admin

An obscure sex-crime case may have just revealed a groundbreaking moment for the intersecting worlds of press freedom, espionage, and the Trump-Russia case: sealed federal criminal charges against WikiLeaks Julian Assange.

An August filing by the Justice Department in a case involving a Washington, D.C.-area man, Seitu Sulayman Kokayi, accidentally names the founder of the anti-secrecy group in two paragraphs, reporting that a federal criminal complaint has been lodged against him in secrecya development long feared by Assange and his allies.

The Justice Department conceded to The Daily Beast and other outlets that Assanges name was in the document as a result of an error but answered no further questions about the apparent charges against Assange.

The slip-up was first spotted by Seamus Hughes, a terrorism analyst at George Washington University who was closely following the case and flagged the passage on Twitter:

On Aug. 22, Assistant U.S. Attorney Kellen S. Dwyer filed a motion to temporarily seal Kokayis charges pending his arrest, which occurred the next day, Aug. 23.

At first, Dwyers filing understandably argues that disclosure would jeopardize Kokayis arrest. It proceeds to argue that redacting parts of the document would be insufficient to mitigate the potential harm. But then the attorney makes an accidental declaration.

Another procedure short of sealing will not adequately protect the needs of law enforcement at this time because, due to the sophistication of the defendant and the publicity surrounding the case, no other procedure is likely to keep confidential the fact that Assange has been charged, Dwyer wrote.

It seems possible or even likely that someone cut and pasted from a prior motion to seal involving a defendant named Assange. I know of only one Assange facing potential charges.

Barbara McQuade, former U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan

Kokayi is not elsewhere described as a particularly sophisticated defendant, and his case received no publicity. But the description fits Assanges circumstances perfectly.

A second reference to Assange includes even more details that apply to the fugitive leak master, and not to Kokayi. The complaint, supporting affidavit, and arrest warrant, as well as this motion and the proposed order, would need to remain sealed until Assange is arrested in connection with the charges in the criminal complaint and can therefore no longer evade or avoid arrest and extradition in this matter.

Kokayi was arrested in Virginia and did not need be extradited. Assange, in contrast, would have to be extradited from the U.K. to face U.S. charges.

It seems possible or even likely that someone cut and pasted from a prior motion to seal involving a defendant named Assange, said Barbara McQuade, the former U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan. I know of only one Assange facing potential charges.

It could be a [prosecutor] or support staff member who prepared the document, since a sealing order is sort of a boilerplate filing, said McQuade.

Dwyer works out of the U.S. Attorneys Office in Alexandria, Virginia, and is not part of special counsel Robert Muellers team.

A Justice Department spokesperson, Joshua Stueve, told The Daily Beast, The court filing was made in error. That was not the intended name for this filing. Asked repeatedly if Assange had been indicted and if the slip-up had jeopardized any prosecution of a man who has lived for years in Ecuadors London embassy, Stueve said he had no further comment.

The Washington Post, citing anonymous sources, reported late Thursday that what Dwyer was disclosing was true, but unintentional.

Barry Pollack, an attorney for Assange, told the Post he did not know if his client had been charged. The only thing more irresponsible than charging a person for publishing truthful information would be to put in a public filing information that clearly was not intended for the public and without any notice to Mr. Assange, he said.

The notion that the federal criminal charges could be brought based on the publication of truthful information is an incredibly dangerous precedent to set.

A spokesman for Mueller declined to comment.

The Wall Street Journal first reported Thursday that the Justice Department was preparing to indict Assange.

In an interview with the Journal, John Demers, who runs the Justice Departments national-security division, said about possibly prosecuting Assange: On that, Ill just say, Well see.

An indictment of Assange, whom Mueller has portrayed in his own indictments as a cats paw of Russian intelligence, would immediately draw worldwide attention.

Since Assange disclosed hundreds of thousands of tactical military reports from Iraq and Afghanistan and cables from U.S. diplomats worldwide in 2010, press-freedom advocates have warned that a U.S. government move against him for fundamentally journalistic activitypublishing documents in the public interestwould be illegitimate and set a fearsome precedent.

Yet Assanges irascible personal behavior and accusations of sexual assault by two women in Sweden wore away his store of goodwill from many advocates even before WikiLeaks published embarrassing information from leading Democrats purloined by Russian intelligence and surreptitiously cultivated ties to the Trump campaign that had nothing to do with its ostensible anti-secrecy mandate.

Still, for eight years, no government effort at investigating Assange has yielded any charges. Numerous reports over the years have claimed that Justice Department attorneys have found no evidence or legal theory sufficient to indict WikiLeaks but narrow enough to avoid the specter of criminalizing legitimate journalism or other First Amendment-protected activity.

Should that have recently changed and Assange been indicted, Dwyers ominous reference gave no indication as to the pivotal question of what Assange is accused of doing. No one at the Justice Department or FBI responded to The Daily Beasts repeated inquiries on the subject.

Any prosecution of Mr. Assange for WikiLeaks publishing operations would be unprecedented and unconstitutional, and would open the door to criminal investigations of other news organizations, said Ben Wizner, a senior attorney with the ACLU, who also represents the National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden.

Moreover, prosecuting a foreign publisher for violating U.S. secrecy laws would set an especially dangerous precedent for U.S. journalists, who routinely violate foreign secrecy laws to deliver information vital to the publics interest.

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Public-key cryptography – Wikipedia

Posted on January 2, 2019 by admin

Public-key cryptography, or asymmetric cryptography, is a cryptographic system that uses pairs of keys: public keys which may be disseminated widely, and private keys which are known only to the owner. The generation of such keys depends on cryptographic algorithms based on mathematical problems to produce one-way functions. Effective security only requires keeping the private key private; the public key can be openly distributed without compromising security.[1]

In such a system, any person can encrypt a message using the receiver's public key, but that encrypted message can only be decrypted with the receiver's private key.

Robust authentication is also possible. A sender can combine a message with a private key to create a short digital signature on the message. Anyone with the corresponding public key can combine a message, a putative digital signature on it, and the known public key to verify whether the signature was valid, i.e. made by the owner of the corresponding private key.[2][3]

Public key algorithms are fundamental security ingredients in modern cryptosystems, applications and protocols assuring the confidentiality, authenticity and non-repudiability of electronic communications and data storage. They underpin various Internet standards, such as Transport Layer Security (TLS), S/MIME, PGP, and GPG. Some public key algorithms provide key distribution and secrecy (e.g., DiffieHellman key exchange), some provide digital signatures (e.g., Digital Signature Algorithm), and some provide both (e.g., RSA).

Before the mid 1970s, all cipher systems were using symmetric key algorithms, in which the same cryptographic key is used with the underlying algorithm by both the sender and the recipient, who must both keep it secret. Of necessity, the key in every such system had to be exchanged between the communicating parties in some secure way prior to any use of the system - a secure channel. This requirement is never trivial and very rapidly becomes unmanageable as the number of participants increases, or when secure channels aren't available for key exchange, or when, (as is sensible cryptographic practice), keys are frequently changed. In particular, if messages are meant to be secure from other users, a separate key is required for each possible pair of users.

By contrast, in a public key system, the public keys can be disseminated widely and openly - and only the private key needs to be kept secure by its owner.

Two of the best-known uses of public key cryptography are:

One important issue is confidence/proof that a particular public key is authentic, i.e. that it is correct and belongs to the person or entity claimed, and has not been tampered with or replaced by a malicious third party. There are several possible approaches, including:

A public key infrastructure (PKI), in which one or more third parties known as certificate authorities certify ownership of key pairs. TLS relies upon this.

A "web of trust" which decentralizes authentication by using individual endorsements of the link between user and public key. PGP uses this approach.

Lookup in the domain name system (DNS). The DKIM system for digitally signing emails uses this approach.

The most obvious application of a public key encryption system is in encrypting communication to provide confidentiality a message that a sender encrypts using the recipient's public key can be decrypted only by the recipient's paired private key.

Another application in public key cryptography is the digital signature. Digital signature schemes can be used for sender authentication.

Non-repudiation system use digital signatures to ensure that one party cannot successfully dispute its authorship of a document or communication.

Further applications built on this foundation include: digital cash, password-authenticated key agreement, time-stamping services, non-repudiation protocols, etc.

Because asymmetric key algorithms are nearly always much more computationally intensivethan symmetric ones, in many cases it is common to exchange a key using a key-exchange algorithm, then transmit data using that key and a symmetric key algorithm. PGP, SSH, and the SSL/TLS family of schemes use this procedure, and are thus called hybrid cryptosystems.

Like all security-related systems, it is important to identify potential weaknesses.

All public key schemes are in theory susceptible to a "brute-force key search attack".[citation needed] Such attacks are however impractical if the amount of computation needed to succeed termed the "work factor" by Claude Shannon is out of reach of all potential attackers. In many cases, the work factor can be increased by simply choosing a longer key. But other algorithms may have much lower work factors, making resistance to a brute-force attack irrelevant. Some special and specific algorithms have been developed to aid in attacking some public key encryption algorithms both RSA and ElGamal encryption have known attacks that are much faster than the brute-force approach.[citation needed]

Major weaknesses have been found for several formerly promising asymmetric key algorithms. The 'knapsack packing' algorithm was found to be insecure after the development of a new attack.[citation needed] Recently, some attacks based on careful measurements of the exact amount of time it takes known hardware to encrypt plain text have been used to simplify the search for likely decryption keys (see "side channel attack"). A great deal of active research is currently underway to both discover, and to protect against, new attack algorithms.

Another potential security vulnerability in using asymmetric keys is the possibility of a "man-in-the-middle" attack, in which the communication of public keys is intercepted by a third party (the "man in the middle") and then modified to provide different public keys instead. Encrypted messages and responses must also be intercepted, decrypted, and re-encrypted by the attacker using the correct public keys for different communication segments, in all instances, so as to avoid suspicion.

This attack may seem to be difficult to implement in practice, but it is not impossible when using insecure media (e.g., public networks, such as the Internet or wireless forms of communications) for example, a malicious staff member at Alice or Bob's Internet Service Provider (ISP) might find it quite easy to carry out. In the earlier postal analogy, Alice would have to have a way to make sure that the lock on the returned packet really belongs to Bob before she removes her lock and sends the packet back. Otherwise, the lock could have been put on the packet by a corrupt postal worker pretending to be Bob, so as to fool Alice.

One approach to prevent such attacks involves the use of a public key infrastructure (PKI); a set of roles, policies, and procedures needed to create, manage, distribute, use, store & revoke digital certificates and manage public-key encryption. However, this in turn has potential weaknesses.

For example, the certificate authority issuing the certificate must be trusted to have properly checked the identity of the key-holder, must ensure the correctness of the public key when it issues a certificate, must be secure from computer piracy, and must have made arrangements with all participants to check all their certificates before protected communications can begin. Web browsers, for instance, are supplied with a long list of "self-signed identity certificates" from PKI providers these are used to check the bona fides of the certificate authority and then, in a second step, the certificates of potential communicators. An attacker who could subvert any single one of those certificate authorities into issuing a certificate for a bogus public key could then mount a "man-in-the-middle" attack as easily as if the certificate scheme were not used at all. In an alternate scenario rarely discussed, an attacker who penetrated an authority's servers and obtained its store of certificates and keys (public and private) would be able to spoof, masquerade, decrypt, and forge transactions without limit.

Despite its theoretical and potential problems, this approach is widely used. Examples include TLS and its predecessor SSL, which are commonly used to provide security for web browser transactions (for example, to securely send credit card details to an online store).

Aside from the resistance to attack of a particular key pair, the security of the certification hierarchy must be considered when deploying public key systems. Some certificate authority usually a purpose-built program running on a server computer vouches for the identities assigned to specific private keys by producing a digital certificate. Public key digital certificates are typically valid for several years at a time, so the associated private keys must be held securely over that time. When a private key used for certificate creation higher in the PKI server hierarchy is compromised, or accidentally disclosed, then a "man-in-the-middle attack" is possible, making any subordinate certificate wholly insecure.

Examples of well-regarded asymmetric key techniques for varied purposes include:

Examples of asymmetric key algorithms not widely adopted include:

Examples of notable yet insecure asymmetric key algorithms include:

Examples of protocols using asymmetric key algorithms include:

During the early history of cryptography, two parties would rely upon a key that they would exchange by means of a secure, but non-cryptographic, method such as a face-to-face meeting or a trusted courier. This key, which both parties kept absolutely secret, could then be used to exchange encrypted messages. A number of significant practical difficulties arise with this approach to distributing keys.

In his 1874 book The Principles of Science, William Stanley Jevons[4] wrote:

Can the reader say what two numbers multiplied together will produce the number 8616460799?[5] I think it unlikely that anyone but myself will ever know.[6]

Here he described the relationship of one-way functions to cryptography, and went on to discuss specifically the factorization problem used to create a trapdoor function. In July 1996, mathematician Solomon W. Golomb said: "Jevons anticipated a key feature of the RSA Algorithm for public key cryptography, although he certainly did not invent the concept of public key cryptography."[7]

In 1970, James H. Ellis, a British cryptographer at the UK Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), conceived of the possibility of "non-secret encryption", (now called public key cryptography), but could see no way to implement it.[8] In 1973, his colleague Clifford Cocks implemented what has become known as the RSA encryption algorithm, giving a practical method of "non-secret encryption", and in 1974, another GCHQ mathematician and cryptographer, Malcolm J. Williamson, developed what is now known as DiffieHellman key exchange. The scheme was also passed to the USA's National Security Agency.[9] With a military focus and low computing power, the power of public key cryptography was unrealised in both organisations:

I judged it most important for military use ... if you can share your key rapidly and electronically, you have a major advantage over your opponent. Only at the end of the evolution from Berners-Lee designing an open internet architecture for CERN, its adaptation and adoption for the Arpanet ... did public key cryptography realise its full potential.

Ralph Benjamin[9]

Their discovery was not publicly acknowledged for 27 years, until the research was declassified by the British government in 1997.[10]

In 1976, an asymmetric key cryptosystem was published by Whitfield Diffie and Martin Hellman who, influenced by Ralph Merkle's work on public key distribution, disclosed a method of public key agreement. This method of key exchange, which uses exponentiation in a finite field, came to be known as DiffieHellman key exchange. This was the first published practical method for establishing a shared secret-key over an authenticated (but not confidential) communications channel without using a prior shared secret. Merkle's "public key-agreement technique" became known as Merkle's Puzzles, and was invented in 1974 and published in 1978.

In 1977, a generalization of Cocks' scheme was independently invented by Ron Rivest, Adi Shamir and Leonard Adleman, all then at MIT. The latter authors published their work in 1978, and the algorithm came to be known as RSA, from their initials. RSA uses exponentiation modulo a product of two very large primes, to encrypt and decrypt, performing both public key encryption and public key digital signature. Its security is connected to the extreme difficulty of factoring large integers, a problem for which there is no known efficient general technique.

Since the 1970s, a large number and variety of encryption, digital signature, key agreement, and other techniques have been developed in the field of public key cryptography, including the Rabin cryptosystem, ElGamal encryption, DSA - and elliptic curve cryptography.

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Public-key cryptography - Wikipedia

Encryption Escape, A Real Escape Game – Savannah

Posted on January 2, 2019 by admin

My teenage daughter wanted to play, so we went as a family on vacation. My younger child is 11, but everyone was able to participate in solving the game. Because of his size, my son found a number of the clues placed lower down. We thought it was a great facility with a super atmosphere and friendly staff. Even my husband had a blast, and he had thought it was going to be boring!

Denna E.

Doylestown, OH

I didnt know what to expect and was actually afraid I might get creeped out, but it was not scary at all. It was the exact opposite; we never stopped laughing from the time we got in there. I would never have thought we could have so much fun in an hour. I cant wait to try another one of their game rooms. I can see how this could become addicting!

Stephanie R.

Savannah, GA

If youve always wanted to be a CSI, this is the place for you! It was like a real life version of a video game very clever! We had so much fun figuring out the clues and are still talking about it! I would definitely recommend this place, if youre looking for a great group activity or if you love a challenge, but make sure you ask for clues cause youll need them!

Susan G.

Ontario, Canada

The best one Ive ever been to super challenging and well worth going! I tell everybody what a good time it was.

Shawn G.

Houston, TX

I went with my wife and friends. We had never done anything like this before so we had no idea what to expect, but we had a great time! Everything was really well thought out. It was definitely worth the money because we had a lot of fun, and everyone was super helpful. By the time we left, we were already talking about when we could go back again and told tourists we talked to at dinner that they should check it out!

Alex M.

Jesup, GA

Glad we tried this. Seems like we always do the same old things on vacation, but this was a heck of lot more exciting than goofy golf!

Scott J.

Vero Beach, FL

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Encryption Escape, A Real Escape Game - Savannah

Giuliani Says Assange Should Not Be Prosecuted

Posted on January 2, 2019 by admin

Donald Trumps lawyer said on Monday that WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange should not be prosecuted and he compared WikiLeaks publications to the Pentagon Papers.

By Joe LauriaSpecial to Consortium News

Rudy Giuliani, a lawyer for President Donald Trump, said Monday that WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange had not done anything wrong and should not go to jail for disseminating stolen information just as major media does.

Lets take the Pentagon Papers, Giuliani told Fox News. The Pentagon Papers were stolen property, werent they? It was in The New York Times and The Washington Post. Nobody went to jail at The New York Times and The Washington Post.

Giuliani said there were revelations during the Bush administration such as Abu Ghraib. All of that is stolen property taken from the government, its against the law. But onceit gets to a media publication, they can publish it, Giuliani said, for the purpose of informing people.

You cant put Assange in a different position, he said. He was a guy who communicated.

Giuliani said, We may not like what [Assange] communicates, but he was a media facility. He was putting that information out, he said. Every newspaper and station grabbed it, and published it.

The U.S. government has admitted that it has indicted Assange for publishing classified information, but it is battling in court to keep the details of the indictment secret. As a lawyer and close advisor to Trump, Giuliani could have influence on the presidents and the Justice Departments thinking on Assange.

Giuliani also said there was no coordination between the Trump campaign and WikiLeaks. I was with Donald Trump day in and day out during the last four months of the campaign, he said. He was as surprised as I was about the WikiLeaks disclosures. Sometimes surprised to the extent of Oh my god, did they really say that? We were wondering if it was true. They [the Clinton campaign] never denied it.

Giuliani said: The thing that really got Hillary is not so much that it was revealed, but they were true. They actually had people as bad as that and she really was cheating on the debates. She really was getting from Donna Brazile the questions before hand. She really did completely screw Bernie Sanders.

Every bit of that was true, he went on. Just like the Pentagon Papers put a different view on Vietnam, this put a different view on Hillary Clinton.

Giuliani said, It was not right to hack. People who did it should go to jail, but no press person or person disseminating that for the purpose of informing did anything wrong.

Assange has been holed up as a refugee in the Ecuador embassy in London for the past six years fearing that if he were to leave British authorities would arrest him and extradite him to the U.S. for prosecution.

You can watch the entire Fox News interview with Giuliani here:

Joe Lauria is editor-in-chief of Consortium News and a former correspondent forThe Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe,Sunday Timesof London and numerous other newspapers. He can be reached atjoelauria@consortiumnews.comand followed on Twitter@unjoe.

Blockchain Will Survive A Cryptocurrency Apocalypse

Posted on January 2, 2019 by admin

A year ago, the idea that Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies were going to change the world was becoming the consensus opinion. Today, not so much.

The digital currencynow trades below $5,000. Its 77% off its high near $20,000 in January. Other cryptos are collapsing, too.

Blockchain technology, cryptocurrency mining. Server roomGetty

There is a catalyst. People who follow digital tokens blame thehard forkof Bitcoin Cash. The smaller, namesake cryptocurrency is itself a fork of Bitcoin proper. But last week, its developers and miners could not agree on the future of the digital token. So they decided to split into two competing cryptos, Bitcoin ABC and Bitcoin Satoshis Vision (SV).

If that seems like an inherently bad idea, it is. Bitcoin is an open source project. Developers are free to duplicate the base code and create cryptocurrencies at will. And they have. As of November 2018, there are 2,502 cryptocurrencies, according to alistcompiled at Investing.com. The cumulative market capitalization of these tokens is $142 billion, although it had been much higher.

Forgive me. Im burying the lede. The problem with Bitcoin, and cryptocurrency in general, is not forking. Its that developers should not be able tocreatecurrency, at all.

I began writing inJanuarythat cryptocurrencies were where the internet was in the dot-com era, and inFebruarythat most of these thousands of cryptos were headed to zero. At the time, it was not a popular position. I prefaced my view on two things every potential investor needs to understand about me too digital coins: There is no use case, and worse, its unlikely they will ever represent a store of value.

Keep in mind, many things can represent a store of value. Collectibles like art, baseball cards and signed memorabilia immediately come to mind. Cryptocurrencies, at least the vast majority of them, will never be that.

Bill Harris, a former chief executive officer atPayPal, made headlines in August when he wrote atRecode: OK, Ill say it: Bitcoin is a scam.

Harris argues Bitcoin is a pump-and-dump scheme, where promoters push up the value of dubious investments with hype and relentless advocacy. As the price surges and enthusiasm is greatest, they dump everything, leaving unsuspecting investors holding worthless securities.

Admittedly, I have made this case about so-called alternative coins. Investing in an Initial Coin Offering is like speculating in a highly promoted junior gold mining company where the prospect of finding actual gold is nil. There will be price volatility and plenty of promises made. But in the end, the investment is worthless. And it was always going to be worthless.

But Harris is conflating Bitcoin with alternative coins. That is a mistake, I believe.

A pure digital currency is a good idea.It takes power away from central authority. The problem is oversupply. There are currently too many coins and too many charlatans.

This will pass. The Securities and Exchange Commission will round up the fraudsters. Their fake investment premises will lead to a great reckoning. Most ICOs will go to zero because they will be unable to pass the test of legitimate government oversight.

That could leave Bitcoin as one of the last digital coins standing. When that happens, my guess is it will ultimately be more valuable than it is today. However, there is plenty of pain ahead as pump-and-dump schemes are uncovered, and most coins collapse souring the mood for all their peers.

The play for stock investors is blockchain, Bitcoins cryptographic infrastructure

Ultimately, this digital ledger system is going to find its way into global supply chains and financial services because it systematically removes middling trusted agents for verification.

Blockchain will make legions of accountants, lawyers and back office personnel redundant.

IDC, a global information technology research firm, sees blockchain as part of alarger digital transformation. The shift could be worth $7 trillion by 2022.

Microsoftwas an early convert to the power of blockchain. Itbegan workingwith financial services start-ups in 2016. More recently, the Redmond, Wash., software giant has been touting the scalability of its Azure cloud computing platform to run ledger systems. The company is even working on a blockchain-as-a-service tool.

Shares trade at 20x forward earnings. The market capitalization has come down to $780 billion in the last leg of the tech wreck. The stock would be a great pickup in the low $90s.

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Blockchain Will Survive A Cryptocurrency Apocalypse

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