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Begagnatmarknaden är het just nu i kristider – många vill fylla på hushållskassan genom att sälja av gamla prylar. Men hur vet man vilka prylar som säljer

https://www.bing.com/th?id=OVFT.3pcSIznnlEqiQX5ybe2DUy&pid=News

Misstagen många gör när de säljer begagnat

https://www.bing.com/th?id=ODF.-4PklRjjl13CGsvKY2Brdg&pid=news

Sveriges Radio

Schibsted

Den norska mediekoncernen Schibsted ger ut tidningar som SvD och VG men de tjänar sina pengar på nätet och radannonsbolag som Finn och Blocket. Ett stort värde ligger också i deras ägarskap i börsbolaget Advinta, som kan vara på väg att säljas. Det skriver Affärsvärlden i en analys på onsdagen.

Affärsvärlden ger köpråd för Schibsted

https://www.bing.com/th?id=ODF.Pbr0UozYbqUxPfFjPSWQlA&pid=news

realtid.se

Norska Schibsted ger ut tidningar som SvD och VG men de tjänar sina pengar på nätet och radannonsbolag som Finn och Blocket. Ett stort värde ligger också i deras ägarskap i börsbolaget Advinta – som k

Schibsted: Norsk radannonsjätte

https://www.bing.com/th?id=ODF.LtKcWf9ImHgKMSBWmYEb8g&pid=news

Affärsvärlden

Begreppet ”nybilsdoft” känner de flesta till. Nu meddelar Blocket att de hoppar på tåget och lanserar en egen ”nybilsdoft”.

Blocket nosar på bilparfymer som begagnatknep

https://www.bing.com/th?id=ODF.gNuNhNe4kmkT4EDQzV4WxQ&pid=news

mestmotor.se

Men trots intäkterna tar plattformarna inte alltid det ansvar de behöver. Att bygga en sajt med bilannonser är den enkla biten, men att moderera den och rensa bort tveksamma handlare och mätarskruvade bilar verkar vara främmande för flera av dem.

Detta är en krönika. Det innebär att innehållet är skribentens egen uppfattning.

Vi Bilägare

Polisen håller på att nysta upp en härva där maskiner – som sannolikt inte finns i verkligheten - annonserats ut på Blocket. Omkring två miljoner kronor har hamnat på bankkonton som tillhör en kvinna i Ryd.

Bluffannonser på Blocket gav två miljoner – ostraffad kvinna misstänkt

https://www.bing.com/th?id=ODF.Q7YMRe9Fkl8P6SeW97G8Ow&pid=news

Smålandsposten

I praktiken betyder det att Blocket två gånger om året kommer att kontrollera om bilhandlare som inte följt Arns beslut annonserar via företagets sajt.

Blocket backar om oseriösa bilhandlare

https://www.bing.com/th?id=ODF.PV30HdrpxWr9a3wTpmT4sg&pid=news

radron.se

Länsstyrelsen reagerade på hundannonserna på Blocket. Nu förbjuds två kvinnor från Helsingborg att sälja valpar i för stort antal. Annars hotar ett rejält vite. Kvinnorna hotas av vite om de bryter mot reglerna om försäljning av hundar. Just de på bilden har inte med det aktuella fallet att göra.

Helsingborgare förbjuds sälja hundvalpar

https://www.bing.com/th?id=ODF.Lk82LP-rP1G2D0vQyZ59FQ&pid=news

Konsortiet som överväger att köpa norska digitala handelsplattformen Adevinta tvekar. Osäkerheten har blivit stor i kölvattnet av de skakiga finansmarknaderna.

https://www.bing.com/th?id=OVFT.CGqwup7hzAxsjjTVCP9F_i&pid=News

Jättebudet på norska Adevinta hänger löst

https://www.bing.com/th?id=ODF.Nm0WKEM4OwUWCstYMDhiGA&pid=news

Är du ute på andrahandsmarknaden och letar efter någonting särskilt föremål? Då finns det vissa knep som kan vara värda att ta till om du vill fynda, enligt Ebba Rosencrantz på Blocket.

https://www.bing.com/th?id=OVFT.9xYYkknNh_h4BFeAkWHC-i&pid=News

National Hockey League

Serie A

Premier League

Så fyndar du på Blocket – smarta knepen: "Chans att vara först"

https://www.bing.com/th?id=ODF.TIV88IUAowypfgz6aYUC8A&pid=news

nyheter24.se

Get the most recent info and news about Blocket on HackerNoon, where 10k+ technologists publish stories for 4M+ monthly readers.

Från lokal prylmarknad i Skåne 1996 till en exportsuccé i över 20 länder 2017 - idag är Blocket, som ägs av mediekoncernen Schibsted, Sveriges största marknadsplats på nätet. Här finns dagligen cirka 600 000 prylar, fordon, jobb och bostäder som annonseras ut och upptäcks av 5 miljoner unika besökare varje vecka. Värdet av alla annonser 2016 var 616 miljarder kronor vilket motsvarar cirka 14 procent av Sveriges BNP. Tack vare begagnathandeln på Blocket kan 0,8 miljoner ton växthusgaser undvikas varje år. Detta kan liknas vid om Stockholm stads vägtrafik stod still i nästan 1 år. 

Cirka 200 medarbetare jobbar på Blocket vars kontor finns i centrala Stockholm. Läs mer om Blocket som arbetsplats här: http://www.blocket.career/. Tillsammans brinner vi för begagnathandel, miljön och att vidareutveckla Blocket - en av landets största sajter. 

Blocket

Microsoft, one of the biggest tech giants, announced in January last year that it would acquire Activision Blizzard for $69 billion. Activision Blizzard is the holding company that owns one of the most popular game publishers, Activision, which is the creator of top games like Call of Duty, Candy Crush, World of Warcraft, Diablo, StarCraft and Overwatch. The acquisition - if succeeded, will be the biggest takeover of one company by another in gaming history - is opposed by many governments as they believe that the purchase of Activision will give Microsoft too much power over the gaming industry. The American, UK and Canadian governments have expressed concerns over this deal. Activision is known for making one of the best games played by millions of people, and the company earns billions through in-game purchases. If Microsoft purchases Activision, it can make the future Activision games exclusive to Xbox, which can significantly hurt the market of its competitor Sony. Citing these issues, the UK’s Competition and Market Authority (CMA) has . CMA said it was concerned that the acquisition would offer reduced innovation and fewer choices for gamers in the fast-growing cloud gaming business. blocked the deal in the UK Microsoft and Activision hit out at the decision and said they would appeal. “The CMA’s report contradicts the ambitions of the UK to become an attractive country to build technology businesses,” a spokesperson for Activision said. CMA replied, “We will work aggressively with Microsoft to reverse this on appeal.” Brad Smith, vice chairman and president of Microsoft, said, “The CMA’s decision rejects a pragmatic path to address competition concerns and discourages technology innovation and investment in the United Kingdom.” The company was still committed to the acquisition, he added. Microsoft needs approval from regulatory bodies in the United States, European Union and UK to complete the deal. CMA is the first to block the deal, and its decision can impact the decision of other regulatory bodies in the US and European Union. The UK body said it was not concerned that the deal would distort competition in the console gaming market. The UK is concerned for its people as the country is going through economic instability. It fears that Microsoft could raise the prices of popular titles. Activision Blizzard is based in the US, but it has subsidiaries in Europe and the UK, so Microsoft needs the approval of the regulatory body of the United States along with the bodies in Europe and the UK to complete the acquisition. Microsoft needs the deal to be approved by the regulatory bodies of either the UK or European Union to make its case in the US, where both companies are headquartered. Microsoft has been investing heavily in cloud gaming - seeing its potential in the future - recently. Microsoft sells the subscription service Game Pass which allows players to play the games hosted on servers elsewhere. The players do not need to buy the game as they can stream any game with a monthly subscription, just like Netflix. Microsoft needs a vast catalogue of games for its subscribers. Unfortunately, it does not make high-quality popular games like its rival Sony which is the creator of popular titles like God of War, The Last of Us, Ghost of Tsushima and many more. So, Microsoft needs a game studio that can make these high-quality titles, and one of the best in the market is Activision which Microsoft had been planning to acquire for a long time. Microsoft’s rival Sony is expressing concerns that in the future, Microsoft will not allow the popular Activision games on Sony’s PlayStation. also owns Mojang, the creator of , GitHub, Nuance, Skype and LinkedIn. Microsoft Minecraft Also published here

Microsoft's  Activision Blizzard Acquisition Just Got Blocked by The UK

Beat ads the hacker way with this quick guide. Today I'm going to use programming and filters to make our own ad blocker. Because why not? I'll be using a CSS command that can hide any element on a page: . To make sure this command works for every page I visit with a browser, I'll embed it in a special extension. display:none !important What's an extension? Extensions (or plugins) enhance a browser's basic features. They let you quickly save videos from YouTube, find out what font is used on a web page, or do whatever else they're programmed for. I’ll use Google Chrome for all of the steps that involve extensions. Most other browsers have their own plugins, and working with them is more or less similar to working with extensions in Google Chrome. I’ll need an extension that will work with CSS and apply our command to the right element style. I’m going to choose an extension called , but feel free to pick any other extension that applies custom CSS styles. Note: It's safer to download extensions from the official Chrome Web Store since Google checks these extensions for viruses before making them public. User CSS First, go to the plugin page and click "Install." The browser will ask you if you're sure—I am. When everything's ready, you'll see the extension icon and a tooltip in the upper-right corner of your browser. From this point on, the extension will run on every new page you open. How to block ads Open the page, and wait for the unwanted banner to cover the screen. Then find the code that makes the banner appear: right-click the dark area, and select "View code". Look for the name of the element in quotation marks after the class= command. For example, the line can look like this: You can see that the pop-up I want to block has a class called . A class is a CSS statement that gives an instruction like, "Output everything which belongs to this class in the following way." If I train the browser to hide everything in the b-popup class, that'll be mission accomplished. <div class="b-popup" id="popup1" style=""> b-popup In CSS, class names start with a period, and the commands that apply to the class are enclosed in curly brackets. So my code for configuring the pop-up should look something like this: .b-popup {some commands} All I have to do is write inside the brackets our command to hide elements from the screen: .b-popup {display:none !important;} Now on that same page with the ad, click the extension icon, turn it on, and paste our command on a blank line. From now on, the extension will always monitor this website. Moreover, if other pages attempt to show similar pop-ups, the extension will block those pop-ups too. That's it! Your personal ad blocker is ready to go. Whenever you come across something annoying on a website, simply get the name of that element, and add the relevant class to the extension. For more stories for beginner programmers read my blog for Practicum  Bootcamp

Create Your Own Ad Blocker in 3 Minutes [Tutorial]

The error occurs because of request. To resolve this error, you have a number of solutions like using a or using a browser with disabled few solutions to numbers. 'blocked a frame with origin "null" from accessing a cross-origin frame` `Cross-originn` `local web server` cross domain web security This article will discuss all the solutions to solve cross-origin issues. “ What Does the Blocked a frame with origin "null" from accessing a cross-origin frame” Error Mean Google Chrome has a security feature that blocks a frame with origin from accessing a cross-origin frame. If you see an error that says “Blocked a frame with origin from accessing a cross-origin frame”, it means that this security feature is preventing the content from loading. “ Why does blocked a frame with the origin "null" from accessing a cross-origin frame “ happen This can happen when you try to show material from another website on your own. This is referred to as a cross-origin request. So accessing directly from your browser without using a web service is not permitted for security reasons, if you could do this then it would be a major security vulnerability. <frames> The following is the error message you are getting: DOMException: Blocked a frame with origin "null" from accessing a cross-origin frame. error. “ How to resolve blocked a frame with origin "null" from accessing a cross-origin frame” Solution 1: Host your webpage on a local web server or use a different browser, such as Firefox. Solution 2: cross-domain policy disabled Run a browser with policy disabled. cross-domain web security/same-origin Disabling the same-origin policy is extremely risky and should never be attempted unless you are confident of what you are doing. Solution 3: Extensions like “xampp” or “Live Server” You could solve it by installing xampp and moving all files to htdocs or using an extension like “Xampp”. Solution 4: window.postMessage() method Remember that the same-origin policy prevents scripts from accessing the content of sites with different origins, and you can securely enable cross-origin communication between Window objects by using . window.postMessage() `postMessage(message, targetOrigin)``postMessage(message, targetOrigin, [transfer])` Browsers that follow the same-origin policy prevent scripts from accessing frames with different . origins.html Conclusion: Please keep in mind that turning off the same-origin policy (CORS) will only affect your browser. Also, disabling same-origin security settings in a browser allows any website to access cross-origin resources, which is extremely risky and should only be done for development purposes. Only now is the best way to interact between frames/iframes. window.postMessage()

Resolving the Blocked a Frame with Origin "null" From Accessing a Cross-Origin Frame Error

If you are going to work on software using Liquid, the sidechain of Bitcoin, there are several concepts you need to be familiar with. This article aims at developers and is based on a presentation I held for the Pixelmatic team. Disclaimer: this is an introduction, and it does not cover everything, obviously. And I simplified some explanations on purpose. As a prerequisite, if you are not familiar with Bitcoin, you should read my introduction to Bitcoin here. Special thanks to Sosthene for proofreading my article and for his feedback! Follow him on Twitter. Let's start now! And to discuss Liquid, we need to first discuss: . Elements What Is Elements? It is a fork of Bitcoin extended to be a sidechain platform with these features: Confidential Transactions Issued Assets Federated 2-Way Pegs Signed Blocks Additional opcodes Source: https://elementsproject.org/ OK, whatever, but what’s Liquid? Well, Liquid is . Set as and maintained by Blockstream. Also: an instance of Elements a sidechain of Bitcoin It is managed by a static federation of 15 members, but soon dynamic. It is configured to have a block time of 1 minute. And its main currency is L-BTC (Liquid Bitcoin), the result of the pegging of Bitcoin. Source: liquid.net What Are the Features of Liquid? Let’s see a bit more details on the different features of Liquid/Elements. 📌 2-way pegging of Bitcoin Peg-in BTC into the Liquid Sidechain Pegging in BTC from the Bitcoin main net into the Liquid sidechain consists of depositing BTC into the Liquid Bitcoin wallet that is managed by the Federation. 102 confirmations on the Bitcoin mainnet are then required for you to claim your amount of L-BTC due, and the functionaries then grant you the corresponding amount on the Liquid sidechain. Peg-out BTC from the Liquid Sidechain Pegging out BTC from the Liquid sidechain back into the Bitcoin main net consists of receiving the BTC from an anonymous functionary from his wallet after being granted the amount by the federation. <br> 2 confirmations on Liquid are required for the operation to be allowed. Then the Federation will co-sign a transaction out of their 11 of 15 multisig wallets that are sending out the amount requested to one of the functionaries described anonymously. Finally, the functionary processes the transaction that will grant the BTC to the requester of the peg-out. 🙈 Confidential Transactions Amounts and assets are blinded using a blinding key, but UTXOs are visible There is a master blinding key that is generated from the wallet seed and derived as needed for each address: blinding_private_key := HMAC_SHA256(key=master_blinding_key, msg=script_pubkey) where corresponds to a specific non-confidential public address you want to make confidential script_pubkey That means that a Liquid wallet consists of two things: an extended private key and a master blinding key. Also, every confidential address is a non-confidential address blinded using the master blinding key. So the confidentiality is essentially a layer built on the top of classical HD wallets. Note that you can dump a specific blinding key to allow a tier to unblind it using the RPC . And once in possession of the blinding key, any transaction happening with that specific address will be visible to the tier. unblindrawtransaction FYI Blockstream Green has a feature to open esplora with the blinding keys to allow a tier to see a confidential transaction unblinded on the web. White Paper: Blockstream Specifications: Satoshi Labs 💰 Issued Assets One asset on Liquid/Elements has these attributes (all saved in the blockchain): An asset ID (generated by Liquid) A total supply An optional reissuance key An optional contract hash Reissuance keys are also an asset that comes with at least a total supply of 1 sat L-BTC is also an asset, a special one that can be pegged in and out: Details The bare minimum to issue an asset: elements-cli issueasset 0.00000100 0 The above issues a confidential asset with a total supply of 100 Satoshis and no reissuance key. The contract defines metadata about the asset like its name, ticker, domain owner, precision, etc. : Example the EXOeu token {
 "entity": {
  "domain": "exordium.co"
 },
 "issuer_pubkey": "030cff26f9c0d365f090e24917277e23269d7ef5d7f06dec9f09de9255b8950208",
 "name": "EXO Token Europe",
 "precision": 0,
 "ticker": "EXOeu",
 "version": 0
} Reissuance To be able to reissue, you need only one token (satoshi) of the reissuance asset. If you have issued more than one reissuance asset, it means you can share that asset to others person. Then everybody who has one can reissue the asset. Though be cautious with that use-case because reissuance can be confidential, then it's nearly impossible to verify how much of the asset is in circulation. Registration By default, assets are not registered on the Liquid Asset Registry. That gives you a chance to reissue another asset if you made a mistake before registering it. But once registered, it is irreversible and the tuple domain + ticker will be occupied forever. Details of the asset registration: https://docs.blockstream.com/liquid/developer-guide/proof-of-issuance.html 🪢 Federation The federation is composed of 15 functionaries They can propose blocks to be added to the blockchain in a round-robin fashion They co-sign blocks, a block needs 11 of 15 signatures to be valid They process peg-outs. When the federation will become dynamic, the total number of functionaries may vary dynamically 📃 Liquid RPC interface Being a fork of Bitcoin, we find the same RPCs as its parent, plus some new ones like , , and more: issueasset blindrawtransaction <div class="container h-sm pb-1"> <iframe src=" " class="w-full h-full"> </iframe> </div> https://elementsproject.org/en/doc/0.21.0.0/rpc/ Source: elementsproject.org 🧰 The Liquid Ecosystem For Users White paper Liquid: https://blockstream.com/assets/downloads/pdf/liquid-whitepaper.pdf Compatible Wallets Green: https://blockstream.com/green/ Aqua: https://blockstream.com/aqua/ SideSwap: https://sideswap.io/ Coinos: https://coinos.io/ Specter: https://specter.solutions/ Marina: https://vulpem.com/marina.html Centralized Exchanges Bitfinex: https://www.bitfinex.com/ BTSE: https://www.btse.com/ The Rock Trading: https://www.therocktrading.com/en/ ... DEX/Swap Sideshift<span>.</span>ai: https://sideshift.ai/ SideSwap: https://sideswap.io/ Bisq: https://bisq.network/ coinos: https://coinos.io/ TDEX: tdex.network Bitmatrix: beta.bitmatrix.app Explorers blockstream<span>.</span>info: https://blockstream.info/liquid/ liquid.network: https://liquid.network/ For Developers Documentation About Elements: https://elementsproject.org/ About Liquid Testnet: https://liquidtestnet.com/ About Liquid: https://docs.blockstream.com/liquid/technical_overview.html Node Elements: https://github.com/ElementsProject/elements Cached API/Backend Blockstream ElectRS: https://github.com/Blockstream/electrs Explorer Esplora: https://github.com/Blockstream/esplora Blockstream Registry: https://blockstream.info/liquid/assets Libraries Vulpem Go Elements: https://github.com/vulpemventures/go-elements Vulpem LiquidJS: https://github.com/vulpemventures/liquidjs-lib Vulpem LDK: https://github.com/vulpemventures/ldk Blockstream GDK: https://github.com/Blockstream/gdk/ LibWally: https://github.com/ElementsProject/libwally-core Wallet Tools Mnemonic Code Converter: https://iancoleman.io/bip39/ BIP32 Generator: http://bip32.org/ Environment stack Nigiri: https://github.com/vulpemventures/nigiri Liquid Sidechain Available Environments Alike Bitcoin, Liquid has multiple environments at your disposal. You can set up in your elements.conf the you want to use. chain ( ) Liquid Regtest chain=liquidregtest I am lying to you, actually. You can input any not known chain, and it will create an Elements environment, with the parameters of your choices. So is not a known chain, it will start a chain named with this name. But you could name it differently like andrewschain, ethereum, or whatever. Details: liquidregtest https://github.com/ElementsProject/elements#modes Regtest stands for regression test mode. It's a mode you use to do local development. When initializing your node, you can specify the number of free coins you will create and that will serve as your main currency (your own test Bitcoins). There are no pegging, mining, or federations in place. But you can generate blocks on demand. To simulate a production environment, you can set up a cron task to generate a block every minute. Everything you do stays local in your node. ( ) Liquid Testnet chain=liquidtestnet It was recently deployed. There is no pegging, so if you need coins you can use the official faucet here: . https://liquidtestnet.com/faucet Like in production, the block time is 1 minute. To configure your Elements node for it, here are the instructions: https://docs.blockstream.com/liquid/node_setup.html#connecting-to-liquid-testnet It has an official explorer: https://blockstream.info/liquidtestnet/ Unlike regtest, with testnet is public hence be aware of that. Also, testnet has an official asset registry as well: https://blockstream.info/liquidtestnet/assets That can be helpful to debug issuance and registration of assets, a thing you cannot do with regtest. ( ) Liquid Mainnet chain=liquidv1 The production environment of Liquid. As mentioned before, the block time is 1 minute, and mainnet Bitcoin can be pegged in and out of it. 🎇 Conclusion: The Introduction to Liquid for Developers With this knowledge, you should have enough to get started to work on Liquid. To sum up, here are my advice, if you are willing to: , look at BTCPay and WooCommerce with the Liquid+ plugin: add payment in L-BTC or another Liquid asset on your e-commerce website https://github.com/ndeet/liquid-assets-for-woocommerce , you can either look at the made in JS so good for web apps, or made in C++ and Rust good for desktop or native apps, create a Liquid wallet LDK GDK (either NFT or fungible tokens too), you can look at either or build a custom solution with or issue an asset Blockstream AMP liquidjs go-elements , you can fork off create an NFT trading platform Raretoshi , look at coinos open source projects: . create a SWAP/DEFI platform https://github.com/coinos/ And to go deeper down the rabbit hole, you can start searching on these subjects: Multisignature wallets Taproot Partially signed transactions Atomic swap Have fun! Also published here.

The Developers' Guide to Liquid, One of the First Sidechains of Bitcoin by Blockstream

Starting with , Firefox blocks by default. This follows a practice adopted by Internet Explorer ( ) and . Firefox 23 active mixed content since version 9 Chrome This page explains what you should be aware of as a web developer. Your Website May Break If your website delivers HTTPS pages, all delivered via HTTP on this pages will be blocked by default. Consequently, your website may appear broken to users (if iframes or plugins don't load, etc.). is displayed by default, but users can set a preference to block this type of content, as well. active mixed content Passive mixed content Note that since mixed content blocking already happens in Chrome and Internet Explorer, it is very likely that if your website works in both of these browsers, it will work equally well in Firefox with mixed content blocking. In any case, the best way to know if something is broken in Firefox is to download the , open different pages on your website with the open (enable the "Security" messages) and see if anything related to mixed content is reported. Or use a free online crawler like or , a desktop crawler like , or a CLI tool like to check your website recursively and find links to insecure content. If nothing is said about mixed content, your website is in good shape: Keep making excellent websites! latest Firefox Edition web console SSL-check Missing Padlock HTTPSChecker mcdetect How to Fix Your Website The best strategy to avoid mixed content blocking is to serve all the content as HTTPS instead of HTTP. serve all content as HTTPS and fix your links.  Often, the HTTPS version of the content already exists and this just requires adding an "s" to links - http:// to https://. For your own domain, However, in some cases, the path may just be incorrect to the media in question. There are online as well as offline tools (depending on your operating system) such as to help resolve this. linkchecker use the site's HTTPS version if available. If HTTPS is not available, you can try contacting the domain and asking them if they can make the content available via HTTPS. For other domains, Credits : Published under license Source https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Security/Mixed_content/How_to_fix_website_with_mixed_content Open CC Attribution ShareAlike 3.0

Using HTTPS to Render Blocked Mixed Content on a Website

According to research commissioned by the Australian government, 59% of people faced with a blocked pirate site are more likely to simply give up than try other means to get content. However, VPN knowledge is already entrenched in Australian society, with almost half of Internet users aware of what they can do and what advantages they can bring to the table. After years of work and changes to the law, in 2016 an Australian court agreed to of several pirate sites headed up by the infamous The Pirate Bay. order the blocking Since then, movie companies including Roadshow Films, Foxtel, Disney, Paramount, Columbia, and 20th Century Fox have returned to court many times to have more and more sites blocked. The strategy is also being deployed by the music industry, targeting regular streaming and download platforms as well as . stream-ripping portals There has always been a question mark over how consumers will respond to blocking. The entertainment industries believe that it can only lead to more sales but hardcore pirates are less convinced. A new survey published by the Australian government now sheds a little more light on what happens when people are presented with “access denied” messages. 2020 Consumer Copyright Infringement Survey Since 2015, the Australian Government Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Communications has commissioned annual surveys into users’ Internet activities. This includes the consumption of music, movies and TV shows, video games, and more recently, live sport. The latest Consumer Copyright Infringement Survey 2020 also provides detail on what happens when blocks are encountered. The survey covers the habits of 2,421 Australian Internet users (aged 12+) in the three months preceding June 2020. During the period, the vast majority (76%) reported that no blocked sites had been encountered while 12% were unsure. The remaining 12% said that they had indeed faced ISP blocks and responded in various ways. Responses to Facing an ISP Block of a Pirate Site Interestingly, 59% said that rather than take any other action, they simply gave up trying to access the site/content they were looking for. Just over one in five (21%) said they sought alternative lawful access to content while 6% and 2% admitted to looking for free and paid pirate content respectively. Around 12% admitted to taking action to bypass the blockade. However, when seeking to evade a website block, 47% of bypass-inclined users said they turned to VPNs, with just over a third (34%) turning to a proxy website. Just over a quarter (27%) said they utilized a search engine to find an alternative site, with 14% changing the network proxy in their browsers. The responses add up to more than 100% since some users utilized multiple techniques. Those who had not faced a block in the previous three months were asked what they would do if they encountered one. A significant number (71%) said they would simply give up and 20% reported they would seek lawful access. Just 7% said they would attempt to bypass the block, with the majority (53%) suggesting search engines as a solution and 31% indicating they would use a VPN. When comparing those who had sourced unlawful content in the previous three months to those who hadn’t, infringers were more likely than non-infringers to have encountered a block (21% versus 8%). However, infringers were much less likely to give up than their non-pirating counterparts (47% versus 71%). Interestingly, pirates were much less likely to turn to search engines to find alternatives to bypass blockades (44%) versus 68% of non-infringers. 50% of Aussies Know What a VPN Service Can Do That half of all respondents are aware of VPNs is interesting in itself but the finding that almost a quarter (23%) have actively used one is perhaps more so. Overall, however, just 12% of respondents said they were currently using a VPN but the majority were not using them for infringing purposes. Almost half (48%) said they were using a VPN to add security to their communications and Internet browsing. Over a third (37%) said they were using them for work. Given the numbers, however, it’s clear that many users have multiple uses for their VPN. More than a quarter (27%) said they use VPNs to access content from other countries that is unavailable in Australia or otherwise geo-blocked. A similar number (26%) said they use their VPN to access content for free while just under one in ten (9%) said they utilize one to gain access to content for a reasonable price. Again, there are differences between consumers who pirate content and those who don’t. Those who had obtained content unlawfully in the previous three months (infringers) were more likely to have ever used a VPN service (40% versus 22%) and more likely to be using a VPN service now (20% versus 11%). That more people overall are using VPNs to access paid legal content from overseas (or to obtain content at fairer prices) than pirating is a reasonably clear signal to entertainment companies that problems still exist and need to be addressed. Indeed, if this gap in supply had been addressed earlier, it’s certainly possible that much less than half of all respondents would have been aware of VPNs in the first place and might not be using them today in other scenarios, including bypassing pirate site blockades. Published by the Australian government, the full report can be found . here Originally published as “ ” with the Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported (CC BY-NC 3.0) license. When Aussies Face a Blocked Pirate Site, 59% Simply Give Up & Don’t Try Legal Options

A Majority of Aussies Not Motivated to Pursue Content Further After Facing Blocked Pirate Sites

The founders and staff of a Swiss VC firm that invests in disruptive technologies, , have just returned from a week in El Salvador at the request of the Government and Central Bank to advise on Bitcoin as a national currency. LIAN Group Partners Fiorenzo Manganiello & Nessim Sariel-Gaon, as well as Josue A. Lopez, met with El Salvador’s Vice President Felix Ulloa and Juan Pablo Durán Escobar, the chairman of Bandesal, the national development bank of El Salvador. Lopez told this story exclusively. HackerNoon How did you get the opportunity to advise the government of El Salvador? Are you impressed by their implementation of rolling out Bitcoin as a second native currency? As a Salvadoran, since a very early age, I was committed to dedicating my career to helping El Salvador in any way I can. When we heard the news that El Salvador was taking a step into the global stage with the introduction of Bitcoin as El Salvador’s third legal currency, we discussed with our partners at LIAN and our team to evaluate ways in which we could be of service. I’m impressed to see El Salvador taking such an innovative and futuristic step that is bound to lead the charge for the decentralization of legal tender. Seeing small countries make such bold decisions is truly a representation of the power innovation has, and hopefully through this process, the final benefit will be reaped by the amazing people of El Salvador, and other countries that collaborate with it or decide to make Bitcoin legal tender in their jurisdictions. Does the government have the resources and the expertise to execute the widespread acceptance of Bitcoin as a currency? What are their biggest hurdles? El Salvador is a small country with a developing economy and society. Currently, one of the main challenges in El Salvador, as in most countries around the world, is the knowledge of what Bitcoin is and how the Blockchain works. However, the government of El Salvador has displayed the willingness to receive aid and advisement from global blockchain experts, both for the legislative, social and economic application of the cryptocurrency as well as for the production of Bitcoin in the country. One of the biggest challenges is the accessibility to cheap and renewable energy, at a large scale. President Bukele has come up with a great solution for this challenge, using Geothermic energy to fuel the Bitcoin mining process in the country. El Salvador does not have a first-world communications infrastructure and its internet penetration is known to be amongst the worst in South America. Will this not hamper President Bukele’s efforts? This is definitely a challenge that has been discussed widely within the government and with private individuals. The sitting Salvadoran administration has come up with innovative solutions to this issue, such as the use of satellites to improve internet connectivity, creating a government wallet that is free of charge and is in partnership with cellular data providers and creating a network of physical Crypto-ATM’s throughout the country so the cryptocurrency is more accessible. How will this help the unbanked and poor people of El Salvador? We expect a wave of Foreign Direct Investment to be injected into the country as Bitcoin becomes more popular. This will give the government the resources to expand their public infrastructure efforts, such as the development of better roads, hospitals, schools, specialized universities, and much more. El Salvador is a country with great income inequality, a result of years of a two-party system that didn’t benefit the development of the people. Through this new effort, poor people that didn’t have access to financial services will be offered the chance to grow, both educationally and financially. With the proper guidance, El Salvador is on track to decrease the income inequality gap. How does President Bukele aim to gain international support from financial institutions and international financial lawmakers? Which will be key to his project becoming a success? President Bukele, along with his administration, is working on several initiatives that will surely attract global financial institutions and international financial lawmakers. From the use of fiscal incentives, public-private joint ventures, and dedicated legal systems to treat the cryptocurrency, El Salvador will become a hub for Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency trade. There is definitely a global positive sentiment towards this decision and the availability of big players in the sector to aid El Salvador in this innovative transition. As VCs, does this initiative now make doing business in El Salvador more attractive? Will this initiative make the country more attractive for investment? Due to the nature of Bitcoin, it makes for the international transfer of money a simpler process, without too many intermediaries and government interference. As a VC, this opens a world of possibilities that we’re working to develop with El Salvador. The attractiveness of investing in El Salvador is already there, and exponentially growing. As they begin to introduce more investment incentives, companies around the world will being to look at El Salvador and realize the potential the country has. After all, El Salvador is a country filled with many resources, hardworking and kind people, and a government that is willing to work for its people and attract investment. Given your expertise in mining and agriculture, does El Salvador’s landscape make it perfect for mining, given that their volcanoes offer an ideal and renewable thermal power source? El Salvador’s location, at the center of the American continent, offers great potential for mining operations in the country. One of the great challenges was the access to cheap and renewable energy. Given the country’s access to thermal resources from 23 volcanoes, it is no longer a question of if, and more a question of when. Geothermic energy is an interesting way to fuel the Bitcoin mining process as it offers cheap, 24/7 and renewable energy. This fact, paired up with the willingness of El Salvador’s government and its people to incentivize mining in the area make it a very competitive country to mine cryptocurrencies in. In your opinion, do you believe that countries with their own plans for exploring CBDC’s are watching El Salvador intently? Will this have a bearing on their government’s future decisions on whether to speed up, or shelve their own plans? The decision to make Bitcoin legal tender in El Salvador was the government’s decision, but it’s a global effort. The imminent success of the use of cryptocurrency in the Central American nation will dictate the future for other countries that are hesitant on adopting Bitcoin as legal tender. We are already seeing efforts in different parts of the world to make Bitcoin legal tender and begin the official adoption process of the cryptocurrency. Eyes are now on El Salvador as it launches itself into the global stage. This opens El Salvador to tremendous amounts of resources, both knowledge and financial resources, to make sure this endeavor is a success.

El Salvador Faces Blockers Toward Mass Crypto and Bitcoin Adoption

Many users often complain about being victims of sandwich attacks or front-running attacks. In reality, these attacks are often initiated by Mev Bots. In this short article, I won’t delve into the details of MEV (you can refer to the for that). Ethereum official documentation MevBots are still actively operating on the Ethereum network today, with some continuing to target users. 🌐 This reminds us that when writing smart contracts, we need to consider vulnerabilities that MevBots might exploit and attack and take appropriate measures to avoid them. In this article, I will demonstrate a simple example of a front-running attack and how to prevent such attacks. 🛡️ First, Let's Describe the Process of a Front Running Attack Alice deployed a simple game contract and deposited 10 ether. The rule of the game is to guess the string (a word) corresponding to a specific hash, and the player who guesses it wins a reward of 10 ether. The code is as follows: // SPDX-License-Identifier: MIT
pragma solidity ^0.8.20;

contract FindThisHash {
    bytes32 public constant hash =
        0x564ccaf7594d66b1eaaea24fe01f0585bf52ee70852af4eac0cc4b04711cd0e2;

    constructor() payable {}

    function solve(string memory solution) public {
        require(hash == keccak256(abi.encodePacked(solution)), "Incorrect answer");

        (bool sent, ) = msg.sender.call{value: 10 ether}("");
        require(sent, "Failed to send Ether");
    }
} The player, Bob, guesses the word corresponding to the hash as "Ethereum" and calls the solve function with this word as the parameter. His wallet's default transaction gas is set at 10 gwei. The attacker Eve's bot detects Bob's transaction in the memory pool and automatically initiates another transaction with the same content but sets the gas to 1000 gwei. Transactions in the memory pool are sorted based on gas, and since Eve's transaction is set with much higher gas than Bob's, it gets included in the block before Bob's and is mined first. Thus, Eve beats Bob to win the 10 ether in the game. Bob's call to the solve function only leads to a revert, with the message “Failed to send Ether.” 💸 How to Prevent Such Front-Running Attacks This attack is quite straightforward, but it showcases an important design line of MEV, . Many MevBots work on this principle, including the sandwich attack bots mentioned earlier. monitoring and attacking in the dark forest of the memory pool Based on this design strategy of MevBots, when we write contracts, we can consider the following methods to reduce such risks: 🔍 Using Commit-Reveal Schemes Under Existing Conditions for Transaction Design: Let's use the same game as an example to explain how the Commit-Reveal transaction design avoids such monitoring and attacks targeting the memory pool. The code is as follows: contract SecuredFindThisHash {
    // Struct is used to store the commit details
    struct Commit {
        bytes32 solutionHash;
        uint commitTime;
        bool revealed;
    }

    // The hash that is needed to be solved
    bytes32 public hash =
        0x564ccaf7594d66b1eaaea24fe01f0585bf52ee70852af4eac0cc4b04711cd0e2;

    // Address of the winner
    address public winner;

    // Price to be rewarded
    uint public reward;

    // Status of game
    bool public ended;

    // Mapping to store the commit details with address
    mapping(address => Commit) commits;

    // Modifier to check if the game is active
    modifier gameActive() {
        require(!ended, "Already ended");
        _;
    }

    constructor() payable {
        reward = msg.value;
    }

    /* 
       Commit function to store the hash calculated using keccak256(address in lowercase + solution + secret). 
       Users can only commit once and if the game is active.
    */
    function commitSolution(bytes32 _solutionHash) public gameActive {
        Commit storage commit = commits[msg.sender];
        require(commit.commitTime == 0, "Already committed");
        commit.solutionHash = _solutionHash;
        commit.commitTime = block.timestamp;
        commit.revealed = false;
    }

    /* 
        Function to get the commit details. It returns a tuple of (solutionHash, commitTime, revealStatus);  
        Users can get solution only if the game is active and they have committed a solutionHash
    */
    function getMySolution() public view gameActive returns (bytes32, uint, bool) {
        Commit storage commit = commits[msg.sender];
        require(commit.commitTime != 0, "Not committed yet");
        return (commit.solutionHash, commit.commitTime, commit.revealed);
    }

    /* 
        Function to reveal the commit and get the reward. 
        Users can reveal the solution only if the game is active and they have committed a solutionHash before this block and not revealed yet.
        It generates a keccak256(msg.sender + solution + secret) and checks it with the previously committed hash.  
        Front runners will not be able to pass this check since the msg.sender is different.
        Then the actual solution is checked using keccak256(solution), if the solution matches, the winner is declared, 
        the game is ended and the reward amount is sent to the winner.
    */
    function revealSolution(
        string memory _solution,
        string memory _secret
    ) public gameActive {
        Commit storage commit = commits[msg.sender];
        require(commit.commitTime != 0, "Not committed yet");
        require(commit.commitTime < block.timestamp, "Cannot reveal in the same block");
        require(!commit.revealed, "Already committed and revealed");

        bytes32 solutionHash = keccak256(
            abi.encodePacked(Strings.toHexString(msg.sender), _solution, _secret)
        );
        require(solutionHash == commit.solutionHash, "Hash doesn't match");

        require(keccak256(abi.encodePacked(_solution)) == hash, "Incorrect answer");

        winner = msg.sender;
        ended = true;

        (bool sent, ) = payable(msg.sender).call{value: reward}("");
        if (!sent) {
            winner = address(0);
            ended = false;
            revert("Failed to send ether.");
        }
    }
} First, Alice still deploys a game contract to guess the word corresponding to the hash to win 10 ether. Bob finds the corresponding word "Ethereum." He uses on the frontend to pack his own address, the answer, and a secret into a hash value (let's call this correctAnswerHash) and calls the commitSolution function, passing in this correctAnswerHash value. A commit is then saved in the contract's commits mapping. keccak256(abi.encodePacked(Strings.toHexString(msg.sender), _solution, _secret) Attacker Eve's MevBot detects this transaction in the memory pool and submits another transaction with the same parameter as Bob's, also correctAnswerHash, at a higher gas. Her commit is also saved in the contract's commits mapping. But at this point, no one has won the reward yet because there is a second step to the game. Then Bob calls the revealSolution function, this time passing in two parameters on the frontend: the word he guessed "Ethereum" and the secret he set earlier. The contract again packs and calculates the hash with these two inputs and the caller's address: . We'll call this hash correctAnswerHash2. keccak256(abi.encodePacked(Strings.toHexString(msg.sender), _solution, _secret) The contract compares the correctAnswerHash and correctAnswerHash2 for the same caller. Bob's will be the same as the parameters used in both calculations are identical. However, Eve's will be different, as her first submitted correctAnswerHash was calculated using Bob's address, while the second calculated correctAnswerHash2 uses her own address. In this way, even if Eve continuously monitors the memory pool and submits transactions with higher gas ahead of Bob, she ultimately cannot pass the contract's check, and Bob wins the game. 🎉 Adopting Privacy-Enhancing Technologies or Services Like Flashbots: Since the design strategy of these MevBot attacks is based on monitoring and attacking the memory pool, as long as our transactions are not publicly exposed in the memory pool, we can avoid these attacks. One effective way is to use Zero-Knowledge Proofs ( ). ZK-Proofs are an encryption technology that allows one party (the prover) to prove to another party (the verifier) that a statement is true without revealing any other information about the statement. ZK-Proofs For example, in this game, users can generate a proof that they know an input that produces the correct hash output without publicly exposing this input on the blockchain. They can only claim the reward when their proof is verified as true. Some proof methods, like zk-SNARKs, can provide fast verification times. Thus, we currently see many Ethereum network L2s applying zero-knowledge proofs for upgrades. Another widely used method nowadays is to employ services like . 🚀 These services enable the bundling of transactions into a package that are submitted directly to miners (validators), bypassing the mempool. 🌐 Flashbots This approach effectively shields your transactions from being exposed in the mempool, thereby eliminating the possibility of being detected and exploited by the aforementioned MevBots. 🛡️ That wraps up our discussion on Front Running attacks and related security strategies. 📝 If you've made it this far, please take a moment to give this a like! 👍🙂

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351 employees

Since 1996

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EVERGREEN INDEX #448

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