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Write Julian Assange

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Along with writing to Julian Assange, please plan or take actions to support him (examples below) and write, email or call or a politician/leader or person of influence to inform them about Julians case and ask them to act. Please let Julian know of the actions youve taken and/or you are planning to take to inform & lobby those in power to intervene. You may write to & e-mail consulates around the world of the countries who are soon to be meeting with President Biden or other top US officials and ask them to drop the charges that the Trump administration brought forward against Assange. In the UK, take action to defend press freedom and to ensure that the UK does not extradite him. In Australia take action to to ensure that the Australian government intervenes to demand his freedom and to bring him home safely.

Let Julian know what actions you have taken or are planning to take to support him.

Other Action Examples:Support the Dont Extradite Assange CampaignWear your support for AssangeDonate to WikiLeaksUpload your photo to WeAreMillions #FreeAssangeCreate art for Artists for Assange and WLArtForceBecome a patron of the Dont Extradite Assange CampaignUS: donate to AssangeDefense.orgGet involved with a local grassroots campaign or create your ownSign up to volunteer for the Dont Extradite Assange Campaign

FOLLOW THESE PAGES:@DEACampaign Twitter, DEACampaign FB, @TheDEACampaign IG@StellaMoris1 Twitter, Stella Moris FB, @StellaMoris7 IG@WikiLeaks Twitter, WikiLeaks FB, @WikiLeaks IG@WLArtForce Twitter, WLArtForce FB, @WLArtForce IG@WikiLeaksShopTwitter, WikiLeaksShopFB, @WikiLeaksShopIG@DefendAssange Twitter, DefendAssange FB, @AssangeOfficialIG@ArtAssange Twitter, ArtAssangeFB, @ArtAssangeIG@AssangeDefense Twitter, AssangeDefense FB, @AssangeOfficialIG@CourageFound Twitter, CourageFoundOrg FB, @Courage_FoundationIG

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Write Julian Assange

Open Source Sabotage Incident Hits Software Supply Chain | eSecurityPlanet – eSecurity Planet

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An astonishing incident in recent days highlights the risks of widespread dependence on open source software while also highlighting the free labor corporations benefit from by using open source software.

Marak Squires, an open source coder and maintainer, sabotaged his repository to protest against unpaid work and his failed attempts to monetize faker.js and color.js, two major NPM packages used by a huge range of other packages and projects.

The software industry relies on various interdependent ecosystems and resources. This incident shows a well-known and unsolved issue for the software supply chain: the dependency hell. Its especially true in the world of Nodes.js and JavaScript, but its also a common concern with open source software in general.

Hackers try to infect legitimate apps during a supply chain attack to distribute malware. In the case of faker.js and color.js, we have a pretty rare variant that leverages the highest privileged access.

See also: Open Source Security: A Big Problem

NPM is the package manager for Node.js. Its the worlds largest software registry, with hundreds of thousands of packages.

Its free to use, and you dont even need to register or log in to download tons of third-party scripts and libraries.

Colors is a pretty popular package, with millions of downloads, and is used by JavaScript and Node.js developers to get custom colors and styles in their console. According to GitHub, 4.3 million projects were using it, which includes many other popular packages.

As a result, new releases are downloaded by myriad installations as soon as they are available, making the package quite essential in the supply chain.

Just days earlier, Squires ended another well known repository (used by 168,000 projects) called faker.js with an explicit commit message: endgame.

The main files have disappeared; only some configurations remain.

Squires posted the following on his GitHub repository:

Its come to our attention that there is a zalgo bug in the v1.4.44-liberty-2 release of colors.

The name of the branch merged in the core was odd and the associated commit named fix bug contained malicious instructions to trigger an infinite loop:

The above code is located in the index.js file, which runs automatically when the library is used. Zalgo text refers to special non-ASCII characters that dont render as expected and trigger UI glitches.

When executed, the code never stops. Its a logic issue known as an infinite loop. Everything from the integer used to initialize the loop (666) to the limit fixed by the author (Infinity) suggests it was intentional.

At first sight, it looks like a joke for anyone that has ever played with JavaScript, but there were consequences for projects that rely on this famous library, breaking many CI/CD pipelines and terminal prompts:

faker.js sabotage

Squires is not the only maintainer of the repository, but he revoked other maintainers access to make sure nobody could revert his action. A message he subsequently posted on Twitter sparked significant debate about the open source model, with some sympathizing and others saying the open source agreement was always clear.

Users could potentially revert to previous versions of the software, which seems easier in the case of colors. The faker.js page appears to have been thoroughly wiped, but theres always archive.org as a possible solution. Such a fix should only be temporary, though, as these repositories cannot be trusted anymore. There are alternative packages, and in the case of faker, an alternative has already emerged.

Github has issued an advisory in the case of colors.

See also: Top Code Debugging and Code Security Tools

On his blog, the developer said no company has supported faker.js and color.js financially. He received only a few donations via GitHub Sponsorships, and the donors were fellow developers.

He tried to monetize his code by starting a cloud service with monthly subscription plans, but did not reach enough users he claimed one of his GitHub sponsors (also appearing to be a registered subscriber) coopted his idea to launch the same offer.

An open-source dead end is not completely uncommon and can lead to extreme reactions in worst-case scenarios, such as what Squires did with his repositories.

It could potentially inspire more open-source maintainers and even become a trend if no one finds sustainable economic models, especially when many private and profit organizations use or fork public resources.

Even if GitHub and NPM have reacted quickly, removing the packages and temporarily suspending the authors account, the damage has been done.

Developers should prepare for such incidents with better dependency management.

While you cannot anticipate such radical actions, you may be able to improve your preparation. There are open-source security best practices you can apply to mitigate incidents, such as:

Further reading: Top Vulnerability Management Tools for 2022

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Open Source Sabotage Incident Hits Software Supply Chain | eSecurityPlanet - eSecurity Planet

Google wants secure open-source software to be the future – TechRadar

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After attending the recent White House Open Source Software Security Summit, Google is now calling for a public-private partnership to not only fund but also staff essential open-source projects.

In a new blog post, president of global affairs and chief legal officer at both Google and Alphabet, Kent Walker laid out the search giant's plans to better secure the open-source software ecosystem.

For too long, businesses and governments have taken comfort in the assumption that open source software is generally secure due to its transparent nature. While many believe that more eyes watching can help detect and resolve problems in the open source community, some projects actually don't have many eyes on them while others have few or none at all.

To its credit, Google has been working to raise awareness of the state of open source security and the company has invested millions in developing frameworks and new protective tools. However, the Log4j vulnerability and others before it have shown that more work is needed across the ecosystem to develop new models to maintain and secure open source software.

In his blog post, Kent proposes creating a new public-private partnership to identify a list of critical open source projects to help prioritize and allocate resources to ensure their security.

In the long term though, new ways of identifying open source software and components that may pose a system risk need to be implemented so that the level of security required can be anticipated and the appropriate resources can be provided.

At the same time, security, maintenance and testing baselines need to be established across both the public and private sector. This will help ensure that national infrastructure and other important systems can continue to rely on open source projects. These standards also should be developed through a collaborative process according to Kent with an emphasis on frequent updates, continuous testing and verified integrity. Fortunately, the software community has already started this work with organizations like OpenSFF working across industry to create these standards.

Now that Google has weighed in on the issue of open source security, expect other tech giants like Microsoft and Apple to propose their own ideas regarding the matter.

We've also rounded up the best open source software and the best business laptops

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Google wants secure open-source software to be the future - TechRadar

Open-source software and threats to critical infrastructure. – The CyberWire

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The direct warning of a Russian threat to US infrastructure that CISA, NSA, and the FBI jointly issued earlier this week came after some weeks of work to find and remediate vulnerabilities in the Apache Foundation's vulnerable Log4j open source library. Yesterday US Cyber Command formally attributed the activities of the threat group familiarly known as MuddyWater to Iran's intelligence agencies, specifically to the Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS). Among the tools the group uses are variants of the open-source PowGoop DLL Side-Loader. MuddyWater seems to have been more involved in espionage than sabotage, but its dependence on open-source tools is noteworthy.

Senior representatives of tech companies and US Government agencies are meeting today to discuss ways of addressing the open-source security issues that have gained prominence during the prolonged search for and remediation of Log4j vulnerabilities. CyberScoop reports the list of attendees:

"The full tech participant list includes Akamai, Amazon, Apache Software Foundation, Apple, Cloudflare, Facebook/Meta, GitHub, Google, IBM, Linux Open Source Foundation, Microsoft, Oracle, RedHat and VMware.

"Feds attending include representatives from the departments of Commerce, Defense, Energy and Homeland Security, as well as agencies like the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the National Science Foundation, the Office of the National Cyber Director and the Office of Science and Technology Policy."

Log4j is a single case of a more widespread challenge. We saw Tuesday that the Apache Software Foundation intended to argue that downstream users of open source software should play a larger role securing the supply chain on which so many of their products depend. Kent Walker, President, Global Affairs & Chief Legal Officer Google and Alphabet, this morning commended the Administration's decision to convene the meeting:

"Given the importance of digital infrastructure in our lives, its time to start thinking of it in the same way we do our physical infrastructure. Open source software is a connective tissue for much of the online world it deserves the same focus and funding we give to our roads and bridges. Todays meeting at the White House was both a recognition of the challenge and an important first step towards addressing it."

Claroty's blog yesterday outlined hopes for the summit:

"Many open source projects are under-resourced and poorly funded; these challenges often dont come to light unless a critical vulnerability surfaces. Heartbleed, the crypto vulnerability found in 2014 in OpenSSL, shone a harsh light on the lack of resources keeping OpenSSL afloat, despite the fact the software lived everywhere from commercial software, to smartphones, to industrial devices. There was a skeleton crew maintaining OpenSSL at the time, woefully behind on updates, yet faithful to keeping the project on track. Heartbleed put a lot of businesses at risk and reactively, the industry was forced to create groups to audit the code base and funnel money and development resources to the project.

"Tomorrows White House meeting is a concrete step the Biden administration is taking toward proactively assessing the risks posed by open source software."

Several industry sources began by pointing out that "critical infrastructure" isn't merely an homage to a fashionable buzzword or a set of agency equities, but that the designation of some system as "critical" represents the end result of serious reflection on risk. Tim Erlin, VP of Strategy at Tripwire put it this way:

Its important to remind ourselves that critical infrastructure is more than just a phrase. It describes a vast cross-section of infrastructure on which our nation relies. Critical infrastructure really is critical.

"This alert not only contains information about the threat, but real, actionable information that organizations can use to defend themselves. The use of the MITRE ATT&CK framework to identify the malicious activity, and to map to valid mitigation actions is highly valuable.

"This alert is focused on a specific set of threats and actions to identify and respond to those threats. Organizations should also review their preventive controls against the tools and techniques described in this alert. Identifying the attack in progress is important, but preventing the attack from being successful at all is better.

Erich Kron, security awareness advocate at KnowBe4, thinks it important to understand that the risk of attacks on critical infrastructure rises with international tensions:

Targeting critical infrastructure is nothing new, however, the increased attacks are certainly something to be concerned with, especially given the tensions between the U.S. and Russia over the Ukraine border crisis. Russia has very advanced cyber warfare skills which keep them hidden once a network is compromised, although ironically, the initial attack vectors are typically those of low-tech email phishing campaigns, taking advantage of people reusing already compromised passwords or using easily guessed passwords.

"To strengthen organizations against these attacks, it is critical that they have a comprehensive security awareness program in place to help users spot and report suspected phishing attacks and to educate them on good password hygiene. In addition, technical controls such as multi-factor authentication and monitoring against potential brute force attacks can play a critical role in avoiding the initial network intrusion.

Mark Carrigan, Cyber Vice President, Process Safety and OT Cybersecurity at Hexagon PPM, is betting on form and is happy to name names. He thinks the GRU outfit that's been active against power grids (Western cognomen "Energetic Bear") is likely to be heard from again:

"The political leverage that can be gained from infiltrating critical infrastructure is enormous. The fingerprints of Energetic Bear, the Russian organization behind past attacks on critical infrastructure, are visible in these recent activities. The highly-sophisticated threats from state-sponsored actors arent going away and companies large and small are in the cross-hairs. For OT/ICS security managers, 2022 should be the year of resilience. We know its not if but when you will be attacked as history has proven. The most important foundational element of resilience is ensuring you have a trusted restore point that includes configuration settings for common devices and critical OT equipment.

Eric Byres, CTOat aDolus Technology Inc., wants to remind infrastructure operators not to overlook validating and authenticating patches before you apply them.

"This CISA alert certainly has general advice on best practices to reduce cybersecurity risk, but it missed a critical point in the Vulnerability and Configuration Management section. CISA says to update software and use a centralized patch management system, but they fail to mention the critical importance of validation or authentication before installing those patches. There is no point updating a vulnerability with a malware-infested, counterfeit patch.Operators of critical infrastructure need to verify that the patch theyve got in hand is safe to install and did indeed come from their vendor (and not a Russian agency)."

Ron Brash, VP of Technical Research ataDolus Technology Inc., added a recommendation of resources that organizations trying to cope with patches and updates:

"To assist with the triaging and prioritization of patches, asset owners should be using resources like SBOMs and VEX documents these types of documents help vendors share with their customers what vulnerabilities are present and actually exploitable (because most of them arent). aDolus worked with several major ICS vendors to produce the first real-world VEX documents in response to the Log4j vulnerability. This kind of effort highlights the advantage of intelligent vulnerability response vs. blanket knee-jerk patch everything statements."

POLITICO reports that talks between Russian and NATO officials yesterday ended in a "standoff." NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg offered a glum assessment: There is a real risk of a new armed conflict in Europe. We are clear-eyed. So we also conveyed a message to Russia that if they use military force there will be severe consequences; economic sanctions; political sanctions.

Senior Russian officials, according to Newsweek, blame the US for deteriorating relations. Vyacheslav Volodin, Speaker of the Duma's lower house, complained that Washington was acting like "an elephant in a china shop," carelessly destroying the structures that had been carefully built up in Europe after World War Two to preclude another such conflict. (As if NATO had been a construct negotiated with the Soviet Union, and not an alliance designed to keep the Soviets from engulfing more of Europe than they already had.)

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Open-source software and threats to critical infrastructure. - The CyberWire

Baumer, Infineon, Qualcomm Innovation Center, Percepio and Silicon Labs Select Zephyr RTOS for their Next Generation of Products and Solutions – Yahoo…

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SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 13, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The Zephyr Project announces a major milestone today with Baumer joining as a Platinum member and Infineon Technologies, Qualcomm Innovation Center, Inc., Percepio and Silicon Labs joining as Silver members. These new members have selected Zephyr RTOS as one of the key technologies to build their next generation of connected products and solutions.

(PRNewsfoto/The Zephyr Project)

Zephyr, an open source project at the Linux Foundation that builds a safe, secure and flexible real-time operating system (RTOS) for resource-constrained devices, is easy to deploy, secure, connect and manage. It has a growing set of software libraries that can be used across various applications and industry sectors such as Industrial IoT, wearables, machine learning and more. Zephyr is built with an emphasis on broad chipset support, security, dependability, longterm support releases and a growing open source ecosystem.

"Zephyr fits where Linux can't," said Kate Stewart, Vice President of Dependable Embedded Systems at the Linux Foundation. "It will help these new members with development, delivery, and maintenance across a wide variety of products and models. We look forward to working with our new members to improve the technology their products and solutions are based on."

Zephyr LongTerm Support (LTS) ReleaseIn October 2021, the Zephyr community of almost 500 contributors made the LTS v2 release available that offers vendors a customizable operating system that supports product longevity, security and interoperability. Product developers aren't locked into a particular architecture, back-end platform or cloud provider and will have the freedom to choose from an ecosystem of hardware. Additionally, products based on the LTS release will benefit from a maintained code base throughout their development and deployment lifecycle. The LTS will serve as the baseline for the auditable version of Zephyr, which will benefit both the maintained LTS and development branches. Learn more about the LTS v2 here.

Story continues

Commitment to ZephyrBaumer, one of the international leading companies for smart sensors, encoders and digital cameras for industrial automation, joins other Platinum members Antmicro, Google, Intel, Meta, Nordic Semiconductor, NXP and Oticon. Roman Kellner, Embedded Software Team Lead at Baumer, will join the Governing Board and its commitment to ensure balanced collaboration and feedback that meets the needs of its community.

"The mission of the Governing Board is to cultivate an innovative relationship among stakeholders to advance the Zephyr Project's support of new hardware, developer tools, sensors, and drivers, while maximizing the functionality of devices that run applications developed using the Zephyr RTOS," said Barna Ibrahim, Zephyr Governing Board member and Marketing Committee Chair. "We are ecstatic to welcome Roman to the board and look forward to working more closely with Baumer."

"Baumer as a sensor manufacturer relies on the capabilities of microcontrollers in a wide performance range for our product portfolio," said Roman Kellner. "Zephyr was chosen as our next sensor platform for its MCU vendor openness, reliability, high configurability, its added value compared to a pure RTOS scheduler and the future ability to cover non-safe and safe products with the same code base. We are happy to contribute our expertise to attribute Zephyr RTOS as a high performance sensor platform."

The Zephyr Project also welcomes Silver members:

Infineon, a world leader in semiconductor solutions that make life easier, safer and greener;

Qualcomm Innovation Center, a subsidiary of Qualcomm Technologies, that focuses on enabling and optimizing open source software that work with Qualcomm Technologies' solutions;

Percepio, a leader in visual trace diagnostics for embedded systems and IoT; and

Silicon Labs, a leader in secure, intelligent wireless technology for a more connected world.

These members join AVSystem, BayLibre, Eclipse Foundation, Fiware, Foundries.io, Golioth, Laird Connectivity, Linaro, Memfault, Parasoft, Pat-Eta Electronics, RISC-V, SiFive, Synopsys and teenage engineering, and Wind River.

"The Zephyr Project is driving stability to developers which allows them to focus on product innovation and at Infineon, we are happy to be a part of helping customers drive differential value," said Danny Watson, Principal Product Marketing Engineer at Infineon. "Infineon aims to be a key contributor to the underlying scalable goals of the Zephyr Project and to shape it into providing more performance and intelligent based Open Source Software for Infineon's PSoC 6 Microcontrollers."

"The Qualcomm Innovation Center (QuIC) is proud to become a new member of the Zephyr Project community," said Anthony Scarpino, Senior Director of Engineering at Qualcomm Canada ULC. "QuIC looks forward to contributing to the Zephyr Project to collaborate in building the best-in-class RTOS for secure, connected, resource-constrained devices. QuIC supports the building of micro-controller-based devices as part of the hardware and software ecosystems in upcoming products and sees participation in Zephyr as a path to world- leading innovative solutions."

"At Percepio, we've long recognized the potential of Zephyr RTOS as the leading independent platform for small IoT devices where Linux isn't an option, yet capable enough for complex embedded IoT/Edge applications," said Mike Skrtic, Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Percepio. "The latest Zephyr release brings expanded support for software tracing, which facilitates debugging and allows for improved reliability, security, and performance of embedded systems. We're pleased to have made significant contributions to the new tracing subsystem, to provide full kernel tracing support, enabling the high-end visual trace diagnostics Tracealyzer is known for."

"We've had our eye on Zephyr for some time and are excited to officially be a member of this RTOS project," said Benny Chang, Vice President, Platform and Chief of Staff at Silicon Labs. "We appreciate the measures the Zephyr community is taking to build a reliable, well-tested RTOS for the IoT and look forward to connecting Zephyr users with our industry-leading hardware and connectivity solutions."

To learn more about Zephyr RTOS, visit the Zephyr website and blog.

About the Zephyr ProjectThe Zephyr Project is an open source, scalable real-time operating system (RTOS) supporting multiple hardware architectures. To learn more, please visit http://www.zephyrproject.org.

About the Linux FoundationFounded in 2000, the Linux Foundation is supported by more than 1,000 members and is the world's leading home for collaboration on open source software, open standards, open data, and open hardware. Linux Foundation's projects are critical to the world's infrastructure including Linux, Kubernetes, Node.js, and more. The Linux Foundation's methodology focuses on leveraging best practices and addressing the needs of contributors, users and solution providers to create sustainable models for open collaboration. For more information, please visit us at linuxfoundation.org.

Media Contact:Maemalynn Meanormaemalynn@linuxfoundation.org

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SOURCE The Zephyr Project

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Baumer, Infineon, Qualcomm Innovation Center, Percepio and Silicon Labs Select Zephyr RTOS for their Next Generation of Products and Solutions - Yahoo...

What Is Bitcoin and How Does It Work? | CoinJournal

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Bitcoin relies on a peer-to-peer network, a collection of computers called nodes that are linked with each other and run Bitcoin blockchain. It's called a blockchain because it contains blocks of codes that are chained together in chronological order, with each block having a record of transactions. Since the blockchain is present on every computer or node, nobody can make any changes on their own as other nodes won't verify those changes.

People who own these nodes and process and verify the transactions are called miners. For investing in the Bitcoin ecosystem and facilitating verification, they're rewarded in BTC. These miners ensure that no unauthorised transaction occurs on the blockchain and ensure no single person has more control over the blockchain infrastructure to maintain decentralisation. New coins are being rewarded to miners at a rate that's continuously been in decline since the total supply of BTC is limited - that is, 21 million coins.

Unlike fiat currencies which are printed based on the number of goods and services created by a country to ensure price stability, BTC cryptocurrency is created through an algorithm that takes different factors into account. It works by having two types of keys - public and private. These keys are long strings of letters and digits created by the encryption algorithm of the blockchain. Public keys are visible to everyone for transparency and recordkeeping, while private keys enforce ownership and transferability.

Yes and no. Currently, Bitcoin is the most viable alternative to conventional currency. However, it is still so far away from acquiring the ubiquity, convenience, and speed of cash that is backed by traditional financial institutions. That being said, it has been reported by HSB that around 36% of small to medium-sized businesses in the US are accepting BTC as a valid currency. Some of the notable names include Expedia, Microsoft, AT&T, Overstock, Burger King, and Wikipedia.

It's important to note that as compared to altcoins, Bitcoin has been more popular with consumer-centric brands like KFC, Playboy, Twitch, CheapAir, and Subway. The majority of the other digital currencies are generally accepted by brands and companies that have built their businesses with a cryptocurrency-focused approach. Over the years, it has acquired more mindshare in the mainstream than any other virtual currency. However, it still has a long way to go to be considered as good as real money.

At the time of writing, the average transaction fee of Bitcoin is $3.074 per transaction, a 40% increase compared to the last year when the average transaction fee was around $2.196. The average fee of a BTC transaction is determined in USD when a miner processes and verifies a transaction on the blockchain. Keep in mind that the fees can fluctuate depending on Bitcoin network traffic or high demand for proof of work. In the last month of 2017, when BTC surged to its peak price, the average transaction rate reached its highest point, almost touching the $60.00 mark.

Moreover, the commission and fees charged by a variety of cryptocurrency exchanges, including trading services, differ in terms of percentage and pricing structure. Generally, buying and selling through wire transfer will cost you anywhere between 0.5% and 3% while using debit cards can set you back up to 10%. On the same note, bank transfers may come with a fixed fee. The pricing around BTC transactions can be quite complex and differs considerably depending on factors, including payment mode, amount of BTC, and geographical presence.

Designed to be a viable payment alternative, Bitcoin offers a wide variety of benefits, including the following:

Fast Transactions - Using a peer-to-peer network that spans across all the populated continents, it can process and verify transactions in a matter of minutes, regardless of the amount.

Global Payments - With conventional money, international payments are always a hassle. Bitcoin reduces the number of challenges associated with making international transactions and ensures swift and affordable transfers.

Affordable - One of the significant draws of BTC transactions is their low processing fees, allowing consumers to send and receive any amount of money anywhere in the world without paying exorbitant charges or service fees.

Extremely Secure - Blockchain is a system that's designed to enforce security through unanimity. A single individual with malignant intentions can't compromise the system, and the safety is also reinforced through cryptographical encryption.

Widely Accepted - It is the only major cryptocurrency with a broad appeal with consumer brands that include Microsoft, Burger King, KFC, Wikipedia, and many more. Other altcoins have failed to gain similar traction.

Constantly Improving - At any given moment, hundreds of developers are working on the Bitcoin Core project to improve further the payment system, including faster processing and verification and even lower transaction charges.

Anything you do on the internet can't be anonymous in absolute terms. That being said, as compared to how conventional financial transactions work, Bitcoin can be considered as relatively anonymous. The issue is governments are trying to regulate cryptocurrency trading, which means they require exchanges and trading platforms to comply with KYC (Know Your Customer) and AML (Anti Money Laundering) regulations. When you buy or sell Bitcoin on any major trustworthy crypto exchange, you need to provide at least some personal information for verification.

There is also a flip side to anonymity. The more anonymous you want your transactions to be, the more you get away from the cryptocurrency or Bitcoin exchanges. And even then, it's highly likely that if a government agency or an expert hacker wants to find out about you, they will.

Bitcoin is an inherently secure system as blockchain mechanism is designed for immutability - which in simple language, it can't be reversed once a transaction has occurred. Moreover, the transaction can't happen unless all the nodes verify it and give their nod of approval. Furthermore, it is made secure with cryptographic encryption, making it impossibly difficult for a hacker or any other malicious cyber attacker to break into the blockchain.

For safe and secure storage of BTC, many software and hardware wallets are available that ensure your digital assets don't get compromised. These wallets can be further secured with two-factor authentication as well as a passphrase.

Bitcoin is a vast and dynamic project with multiple teams and hundreds of developers working on different aspects of it worldwide.

One of the best things about it is that it's a free service, and any developer can contribute. All the code is stored in a GitHub repository, while conversations regarding future developments occur on the Bitcoin-dev mailing list and GitHub. Developers can participate in starter projects where they can write tests, fix existing bottlenecks, and work on finding solutions to known issues. Some of the teams that are directly involved in development include the following:

Bitcoin StackExchange

Bitcoin Core Slack Channel

IRC Channel #bitcoin-core-dev (on Freenode)

BitcoinTalk Development & Technical Discussion Forum

Major Bitcoin contributors are mentioned on the website sorted by their number of commitments. Top contributors include Wladimir J. van der Laan with 6500+, MarcoFalke with 2500+, and Pieter Wuille with 1500+ commits. You can see the whole list on the official website. Apart from the Bitcoin core and direct development, there are many free software projects that developers can work on, including Bitcoin Wallet, BFGMiner, and Armory.

Since it is a direct competitor to financial institutions and banks, they are not looking to invest in the project directly. That being said, they are looking to experiment with Bitcoin blockchain and other decentralised cryptocurrencies to develop a more viable and consumer-friendly payment infrastructure. These banks and financial institutions include Bank of America, JP Morgan, BNP Paribas, SocGen, Citi Bank, UBS, Barclays, Banco Santander, Standard Chartered, and Goldman Sachs.

Mining is the process that helps Bitcoin in processing transactions and keeping blockchain secure. It involves adding new blocks to the blockchain carrying new transactions and maintaining a chronological record. Once the transaction is verified, the blocks get split, keys are created, and the BTCs get transferred. Miners can also create new coins by using the computing power to find solutions to cryptographic problems.

The block reward for Bitcoin mining is based on the unanimous decision of the network and is usually around 6.25 Bitcoins. To ensure there's no inflation, the digital currency has a fixed supply of 21 million BTCs.

If you want to store your BTC safely and securely, you will need a wallet. It can either be a physical device or software which you can use on your browser or download as an application on your PC or mobile. Some of the top BTC wallets include the following:

There is no easy answer to whether investing in Bitcoin is a good decision. The thing is, cryptocurrencies have only been famous for a few years, and they don't have a stable infrastructure behind them. This means that the price of Bitcoin is dictated strictly by demand and supply, which can be affected by several political and social factors. This has introduced a lot of volatility in the Bitcoin space. On the one hand, you can lose a lot of money in a matter of minutes while on the other, you can gain big in no time as well.

That's why you need to be extremely cautious when dealing with cryptocurrencies, including BTC. Only invest an amount which, if lost, doesn't have any adverse effect on your financial situation. Bitcoin is here to stay, but nobody can predict how its price will move the next day. You need to exercise due diligence when investing and ensure you're taking all the security measures.

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What Is Bitcoin and How Does It Work? | CoinJournal

Jack Dorsey Introduces Bitcoin Legal Defense Fund to …

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A recent letter published to the Bitcoin developers mailing list written by Square founder Jack Dorsey indicates that a legal defense fund has been created for open source developers in order to protect them from lawsuits regarding their activities in the Bitcoin ecosystem. Dorseys letter is also signed by Alex Morcos of Chaincode Labs and Martin White, the co-founder of Hudson River Trading.

According to an open letter from Jack Dorsey, Alex Morcos, and Martin White, the Bitcoin community is currently the subject of multi-front litigation. While the letter does not specifically detail any of the legal cases developers are dealing with, it mentions that individual defendants have chosen to capitulate in the absence of legal support.

However, the letter does hint at the Tulip Trading lawsuit, which involves Craig Wright, the Australian who claims he is Satoshi Nakamoto and the inventor of Bitcoin. The Bitcoin Legal Defense Fund is a nonprofit entity that aims to minimize legal headaches that discourage software developers from actively developing Bitcoin and related projects such as the Lightning Network, Bitcoin privacy protocols, and the like, the letter from Dorsey, White, and Morcos states. The open letter continues:

The funds first activities will be to take over coordination of the existing defense of the Tulip Trading lawsuit against certain developers alleging breach of fiduciary duty and provide the source of funding for outside counsel. At this time, the fund is not seeking to raise additional money for its operations but will do so at the direction of the board if needed for further legal action or to pay for staff.

The letter explains that interested people with questions or concerns can email the funds team and the email domain bitcoindefensefund.org is mentioned. The website seems to be under construction at the moment, as a message from the domain host Namebright notes the site is coming soon. Of course, the Bitcoin Legal Defense Fund became a trending topic on social media after the open letter was published.

Open source developer Bryan Bishop tweeted that he was very grateful to see Jacks support on the Bitcoin Developer Legal Defense Fund. Bitcoiner Marty Bent wrote: Shoutout to Jack, Alex Morcos, and Martin White for stepping up to protect Bitcoin developers from getting bogged down by lawsuits so they can focus on what they do best. Really cool to see come through the bitcoin-dev mailing list this evening, Bent added.

What do you think about the Bitcoin Developer Legal Defense Fund information Jack Dorsey published on the developers mailing list on Wednesday? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.

Jamie Redman is the News Lead at Bitcoin.com News and a financial tech journalist living in Florida. Redman has been an active member of the cryptocurrency community since 2011. He has a passion for Bitcoin, open-source code, and decentralized applications. Since September 2015, Redman has written more than 5,000 articles for Bitcoin.com News about the disruptive protocols emerging today.

Image Credits: Shutterstock, Pixabay, Wiki Commons

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

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Bitcoin (BTC) live coin price, charts, markets & liquidity

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Bitcoin is the first cryptocurrency and decentralized global payment system - the true OG. Bitcoin was envisioned as an alternative to traditional electronic payment methods, removing the requirement for a central bank or administrator. Transactions on the Bitcoin network are sent between users directly with no intermediary. All transactions are recorded in a public distributed ledger referred to as a blockchain. Blockchain is an immutable append-only data structure. Each block uses the previous block's hash to create its own hash. Blockchain is a stateless protocol, with each block representing a state change and containing a summary of all the transactions in the block over a given time frame (block time). Bitcoin is powered by a distributed network of validators providing computational power to mine blocks on the blockchain. Bitcoin uses a Proof-of-Work consensus model to validate transactions based on the SHA-256 hashing function. Every nodes on the bitcoin network must reach consensus to verify and agree upon each transaction for the next block to be mined. Mined BTC can be exchanged for other currencies, products, and services. Bitcoin was originally invented by an unknown person or group under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto and released as open-source software in 2009. Beyond its inception as a digital currency, Bitcoin has attracted many investors to explore its functionality as a store of value instrument, reaching an all-time high $1.1 trillion market cap in March 2021.

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Bitcoin (BTC) live coin price, charts, markets & liquidity

How to Cash Out Bitcoin: Complete Guide

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So, youve made your millions, and now you want to know how to cash out Bitcoin? Well, this guide will tell you everything you need to know!

This guide will include methods of how to turn Bitcoin into cash such as bank transfer, PayPal and even through cash deposit! I will show you how to withdraw Bitcoins to cash using a broker (namely, Coinbase) and through a peer-to-peer exchange. And to make it easier for you, I will also include some helpful images.

By the end of this guide, you will be able to decide which method is best for you.

Cool fact: Did you know that more than $2 billion worth of Bitcoin transactions happen every day?!

There are many things to consider when cashing out Bitcoin. Here are a few:

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These are some of the questions that you will need to ask yourself. So, read through the following methods on how to cash out bitcoin and then decide which is best for you.

A third-party broker is just another name for an exchange. Most cryptocurrency exchanges do not allow you to deposit funds using fiat money - however, some do.

This is how it works: you deposit your Bitcoin into the exchange, then, once the exchange has received your Bitcoin, you can request a fiat currency withdrawal. The most common way to do this via a bank (wire) transfer.

To make sure brokers do not break money laundering laws, you will need to withdraw to the same bank account that you deposited with. If you have never deposited fiat on to a broker exchange, then you will more than likely need to make (at least) one deposit first.

This can be annoying, I know but thats the way it goes.

If you decide to cash out your Bitcoin using a broker exchange (such as Coinbase), then it will normally take about 1-5 days for the money to reach your account. For EU customers, payments are made via SEPA (withdrawals paid in Euros). However, if you want to sell Bitcoin for USD, brokers normally use the SWIFT payment method.

And thats how to cash out Bitcoin using a broker exchange skip the next section to follow instructions on how to do this.

However, if youd prefer the more anonymous & less time-consuming approach, lets look at how to sell Bitcoin for cash using a peer-to-peer platform!

If you dont like the thought of having to wait three days for cashing out Bitcoin, you should consider using a peer-to-peer selling platform like LocalBitcoins.

When selling Bitcoins to other people on LocalBitcoins, you can decide which payment method you want the buyers to use. These include:

P2P selling is safe if you know what youre doing. However, its important to be aware of fraudsters. LocalBitcoins offer a good level of safety because of their escrow service. This keeps your Bitcoins locked until you confirm the payment has been received from the buyer.

I bet youre still a little confused as to what an escrow is, so lets use an example:

Thats it! Now you know how to sell Bitcoin for cash using a P2P exchange!

So, now that you know the difference between the two favored methods, I will now show you how to withdraw Bitcoins to cash using broker exchanges!

Coinbase

Coinbase is the most popular broker exchange for buying and selling Bitcoin. They process more Bitcoin transactions than any other broker and have a massive customer base of 13 million.

Looking for more in-depth information on related topics? We have gathered similar articles for you to spare your time. Take a look!

To make things a little easier for you, I will now show you how to cash out Bitcoin at Coinbase.

1. First, you will need to open an account with Coinbase, link your bank account, and make a deposit. If you need help on how to do this, view our guide here. If you have already done this, proceed to step 2!

2. Once you have set up your account, you will need to send your Bitcoin to your Coinbase Bitcoin address! To do this, click on the accounts tab, open your Bitcoin wallet, and click Receive. You will then be shown your Bitcoin Coinbase wallet address. This is the address you need to send your Bitcoin to.

3. Once you are all set up, click on Buy/Sell at the top of the page.

4. Next, click on Sell.

5. The next step on how to cash out Bitcoin is in the wallet. Assuming you have now sent your Bitcoin to your Coinbase wallet, you should see your Bitcoin wallet and your default fiat currency here. In the example image below, I opened an account from the EU, so my deposit wallet is in Euros (EUR).

This will change depending on where you are located. For example, U.S customers have the option to withdraw to USD, and Japanese users can withdraw to JPY.

You will also see your withdrawal limit. If you have already verified your account, your limits will be quite high. However, if you need to increase this, click on See Limits and follow the additional verification instructions!

6. Before you can withdraw, you need to exchange your Bitcoin to your local currency. In my example, I am exchanging Bitcoin to Euro (EUR). Enter the amount of Bitcoin that you wish to sell, and the fiat currency equivalent will update.

7. Once you click on Sell Bitcoin Instantly, your funds will now be in your fiat currency wallet.

8. Ok, so we are at the final step on how to cash out Bitcoin to your bank account. Click on your fiat currency wallet (for example, EUR/USD/YEN), and click on withdraw.Your bank account details will already be saved from when you set it up earlier.

Congratulations! You now know how to turn Bitcoin into USD, EUR, and other fiat currencies using Coinbase! Dont forget, there are many other brokers that you can use. Another popular choice for Bitcoin sellers is Kraken!

Kraken

Kraken is another popular exchange that allows fiat currency deposits and withdrawals. It has been around since 2011, and processes the most Bitcoin to Euro transactions. However, they also support other major currencies like USD, CAD, and JPY!

Now that you know how to cash out Bitcoin using a broker, let me show you how to do it using a peer-to-peer exchange.There are a few to choose from, however, the one I most recommend is Local Bitcoins.

LocalBitcoins was created in 2012 and now supports almost every country in the world. So, no matter where you are from, you should be able to find buyers to sell your Bitcoin to.

The great thing about P2P is that you can request any payment method you want. Here are some examples of the different payment methods available on LocalBitcoins:

Sellers who know how to cash out Bitcoin can also choose the price they would like to sell their Bitcoin for. You can do this by creating an advertisement, which will charge you a fee of 1% of the total sale.

However, if you sell to a buyer that has listed the price they want to pay, there are no fees.

There is also a rating system like eBay, where you can leave feedback for the buyer or seller. This helps you to remain safe when choosing a buyer. If you are a beginner, I only recommend selling to buyers who have 100% positive feedback.

Local Bitcoins allows you to stay anonymous, too (when choosing such payment methods as web money or gift vouchers), especially if you also use a reliable and safe VPN to secure your connection. However, some sellers decide to ask new buyers (those who have no feedback) to supply identification.

Heres a step-by-step guide on how to turn Bitcoin into cash using a peer-to-peer exchange:

1. First, you will need to open an account at Local Bitcoins. You can do this by clicking here.

2. Choose a username and a strong password. You also need to enter and confirm your email address.

3. Once you are logged in, click on Sell Bitcoins at the top of the page.

4. Then you need to choose the country where your ideal buyers are located. I recommend using your own country (of course), however, this is up to you. In this example, I have selected the UK. You also need to enter the amount of Bitcoin you wish to sell.

5. As you will see below, there are many different ways to cash out your Bitcoin.

6. In this example, I will show you how to cash out Bitcoin using PayPal. As you can see, the buyer has a 100% feedback rating, and has completed more than 1000 trades! This is a sign of a serious, legitimate buyer.

7. Confirm the amount of Bitcoin you want to sell and enter your PayPal email address. Then click on Send Trade Request.

8. Your buyer will then receive a notification to say that you would like to sell your Bitcoins to them. Once they accept, you will then send your Bitcoins to the LocalBitcoins escrow (I explained an escrow earlier, remember?). So, the buyer will not receive your Bitcoins until they have paid you, and you confirm they have done so.

9. The buyer should contact you to let you know that the funds have been sent. Check that the funds have arrived in your PayPal, then click on Payment Received, and you're finished.

Congratulations! You now know how to cash out Bitcoin using a P2P exchange.

Once you become more experienced with Local Bitcoins, you can practice selling using different payment methods. The good thing is, some payment methods allow you to sell your Bitcoins at a higher price so its worth getting used to.

It is also a good idea to set up an advertisement. Even though it will cost you 1% in fees, you can set up your own price and choose your own payment method. In this case, you will receive a notification from buyers when they want to buy from you.

LocalBitcoins is just one of the P2P exchanges that allow you to cash out your Bitcoin there are many others. The important thing to remember is that the exchange has an escrow, and NEVER send your Bitcoin to a buyer before they have paid!

Browse our collection of the most thorough Crypto Exchange related articles, guides & tutorials. Always be in the know & make informed decisions!

If you have read this guide from start to finish, you should now know how to cash out Bitcoin! We have shown you two different methods the broker exchange way (Coinbase), and also the peer-to-peer way.

They both have their advantages and disadvantages. Coinbase can be more convenient and safe for beginners, whilst LocalBitcoins allows you to remain anonymous and sell at a higher price.

So, which did you prefer? Are you going to use a broker for cashing out Bitcoin, or a P2P exchange?

Leave your genuine opinion & help thousands of people to choose the best crypto exchange. All feedback, either positive or negative, are accepted as long as theyre honest. We do not publish biased feedback or spam. So if you want to share your experience, opinion or give advice - the scene is yours!

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How to Cash Out Bitcoin: Complete Guide

Bitcoin (Cryptocurrency) TradingView

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Bitcoin (BTC) is the first decentralized digital currency, created in 2009. It was invented by Satoshi Nakamoto based upon open source software and allows users to make peer-to-peer transactions via the Internet that are recorded in a decentralized, public ledger. Bitcoin has the largest market capitalization by far of all cryptocurrencies, 19 times larger than the runner up Ethereum. The number of units is capped at 21 million, 16 million of which are available. The cap ensures that inflation won't decrease their value.

When users allocate computer processing power towards the mining of Bitcoins, they are rewarded with transaction fees and newly created coins. Units can be bought or sold against other cryptocurrencies or against fiat currencies like the USD or the EUR at many exchanges, which operate like physical currency exchanges. Units can also be saved or obtained in exchange for goods or services. TradingView, for example, accepts Bitcoin for annual plan payments, as one of many companies that allow their online products or services to be bought with Bitcoin.

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Bitcoin (Cryptocurrency) TradingView


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