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GenAI in Elections: Reshaping Campaigns, Raising Ethical Concerns

নির্বাচনে GenAI: প্রচারাভিযান পুনর্নির্মাণ, নৈতিক উদ্বেগ উত্থাপন

GenAI bei Wahlen: Kampagnen neu gestalten, ethische Bedenken aufwerfen

GenAI en las elecciones: remodelando campañas, planteando preocupaciones éticas

GenAI dans les élections : remodeler les campagnes et soulever des préoccupations éthiques

चुनावों में GenAI: अभियानों को नया स्वरूप देना, नैतिक चिंताएं बढ़ाना

選挙における GenAI: 選挙運動の再構築、倫理的懸念の高まり

선거에서의 GenAI: 캠페인 재편, 윤리적 우려 제기

GenAI nas eleições: remodelando campanhas, levantando preocupações éticas

ГенИИ на выборах: изменение избирательных кампаний, рост этических проблем

Seçimlerde GenAI: Kampanyaları Yeniden Şekillendirmek, Etik Kaygıları Artırmak

GenAI trong bầu cử: Định hình lại các chiến dịch, nâng cao mối quan ngại về đạo đức

GenAI 在选举中的应用：重塑竞选活动，引发道德担忧

On Sept. 28-29, over 7,000 crypto enthusiasts, investors, and entrepreneurs gathered for Token2049, Asia’s largest cryptocurrency event. Held in Singapore, the event featured a variety of panel discussions with leaders in the blockchain and crypto spaces, including Justin Sun, founder of the Tron blockchain, permanent ambassador for Grenada to the World Trade Organization, and newly appointed advisory board member of the Huobi exchange. on the topic of “The Future of Crypto: Navigating the Decade Ahead,’ joining Jump Crypto partner and head of investments Saurabh Sharma, among others. Justin Sun participated in a discussion Justin Sun first became involved in crypto in 2012, and at the event, he reflected on what’s changed over the course of a decade, and on what those changes mean for the decade to come. “The first 10 years of crypto were all about gaining mainstream attention, while this next decade will be all about gaining mainstream adoption,’ said Sun. ‘In doing so, crypto will need to learn a lot from the history of traditional financial institutions, as we take on the huge responsibility of providing financial services for everyone. We need to help people feel confident we can do that.” Among the panelists, Justin Sun’s experience as the founder of a Layer 1 blockchain a base blockchain used to validate and finalize transactions without the need for another network was unique. Sun founded Tron in 2017 with the goal of decentralizing the web through smart contracts, and he has since seen Tron become fully decentralized and established as one of the largest community-governed decentralized autonomous organizations in crypto. Tron’s DAO is specifically designed to foster a democratic, decentralized approach, with token holders governing the protocol through a unique delegated proof of stake (PoS) system in which validators are voted on by other token holders rather than determined by the sheer volume of tokens held. as crypto continues to evolve, with developers building a variety of decentralized applications (dApps) that demonstrate blockchain technology’s potential to apply to concrete use cases in the near future. Justin Sun believes this sort of ethos of radical decentralization will be crucial As Sun explained at the panel discussion, it will be important for developers to work together and embrace a variety of applications as crypto evolves over the next decade to build a more robust blockchain ecosystem. “Even though we [panelists] have different ways of approaching the blockchain, what we must do is strive collaboratively. This is the key for blockchain development. Tron’s focus is primarily on stablecoins, but it also offers [decentralized finance], [non-fungible tokens], exchange, [centralized finance], and other services. Our competitors aren’t each other; they are traditional financial institutions, insurance companies, and investment platforms. The future is moving forward by offering a full deck of financial services together.” Justin Sun on Stablecoins and the Future of Crypto Stablecoins were a point of emphasis for Sun and the panel as they discussed how crypto can democratize access to financial services and challenge the traditional financial industry’s reliance on intermediaries. These coins are designed to retain stable values through pegging to currencies such as the U.S. dollar. The goal of stablecoins is to provide users with a means of engaging in the crypto space using an asset that’s not subject to the fluctuations of other tokens: an asset that enables access to DeFi but possesses the stability of a traditional currency. Some have criticized the viability of the concept of algorithmic-based stablecoins, particularly after the collapse of Terra’s UST, which was tied to the luna token. However, Sun has argued that the crash of UST was the result of a poorly designed system and that the issues that plagued UST can be prevented through a more decentralized approach and over-collateralization. In line with this logic, the Tron ecosystem launched the Decentralized USD (USDD) stablecoin in May 2022. As the first decentralized, over-collateralized stablecoin, USDD is backed and guided by the Tron DAO Reserve, the first crypto reserve for the blockchain industry, with a minimum collateral ratio of 120% supported by a basket of high-quality crypto assets to ensure the peg to the U.S. dollar. This hybrid model is distinct from centralized stablecoins that rely on off-chain institutions, such as banks, to collateralize the coin via a fiat currency. By contrast, a decentralized stablecoin utilizes smart contracts to implement on-chain collateral backing that’s transparent to anyone using the blockchain. For Justin Sun, this decentralized hybrid approach is the future of stablecoins, which he sees as foundationally important to the evolution of DeFi and blockchain participation. Sun explained this view, and how USDD and blockchain-based stablecoins differ from centralized stablecoins, in a recent with CoinGecko. interview “Stablecoins are way too important. It’s basically the foundation of the industry, and that’s why first of all we need to have a blockchain-based stablecoin The problem for luna and the UST is that they only have one correlation. So, basically, all the UST is 100% based on luna, which I think caused this kind of bad death spiral.” At Token2049, Sun reaffirmed his commitment to establishing a stablecoin built for the evolution of the crypto space, explaining that ultimately these coins will play a key role in achieving DeFi’s mission of removing barriers of access to financial services and banking by eliminating the need for central institutions, while also mitigating the risk of volatility. “Stablecoins are Tron’s priority and focus and have been since day one. Why? Because they provide a vast store of value for the greatest number of people,” said Sun on the panel. “People in the U.S. have easy access to a bank. It’s like normal everyday infrastructure for them. But for most of the rest of the world, 95% of the population even, they can only hold their own native currency, but not U.S. dollars. The blockchain provides users a way to have their own sort of bank account, creating a wallet in five seconds with zero costs. Then they can store a U.S. dollar equivalent stablecoin in their own wallet, which provides them access into the broader global economy.” A Collaborative, Decentralized Approach Ultimately, Sun struck a tone of solidarity with the industry at the panel, explaining that the next decade of advancement in crypto and blockchain technology will rely on different projects working together to create a well-rounded, accessible, and stable blockchain space that can challenge traditional finance and boost the global economy. For , the future of crypto will involve continuing to emphasize broader decentralization through developments in areas such as stablecoins, DeFi, and dApps, with the goal of providing the accessibility and stability needed to establish mainstream adoption. Justin Sun Also published here

Justin Sun on the Future of Crypto

“Hiring data engineers is a piece of cake!” said no one ever. And for good reason. While it’s never been easy to recruit engineers—period, data engineers are a whole new ballgame. Despite the , hiring the backbone of your data team has never been more challenging. hypergrowth of the data engineering profession Why is it so hard to hire data engineers? In my opinion, it boils down to two key factors: : The data ecosystem is evolving fast, and more and more companies are betting big on data. We’ve gotten past the . This means that data teams are either training existing analysts and scientists to build and scale infrastructure or looking externally to fill these critical roles. Either way, if you slice it, there aren’t enough data engineers. The supply of data engineers doesn’t meet the demand COVID pause in hiring : The title “data engineer” is nascent, but the work of data engineering has been around much longer. Data scientists, analysts, database engineers, data architects, and back-end engineers have been handling the ingestion, transformation, testing, and infrastructure work required to build and scale data platforms for years; if you haven’t read , I highly recommend it. It’s hard to find the right candidates Maxime Beauchemin’s landmark article about this phenomenon Given the diversity of backgrounds that make up the data engineering mindshare, it can be tough to source the right candidates, and even more difficult for candidates to determine if they’re a good fit for your team based on the job description alone. Compensation aside, what matters most when it comes to recruiting great data engineers is whether or not joining your company will set them up for success, both in their careers and in the company itself. At the end of the day, a competitive salary and impressive logo may get your data engineers in the door, but it doesn’t mean they’ll stick around. In this blog post, we will cover 5 non-obvious ways (and one bonus way!) from some of the best data engineering leaders to attract and retain top talent. Measure your data engineer’s customer impact One of my biggest peeves with traditional engineering career ladders is that the promotions process tends to favor the bold—and . And by that, I mean, high visibility projects instead of behind-the-scenes or infrastructure work that is equally critical but often more time and resource-intensive than feature engineering, particularly when you’re on a lean team. not always for the better Similarly, data engineering work often goes unrecognized or is underappreciated compared to analytics or data science work. (If you haven’t read it yet, I highly encourage you to read this spicy and about this topic). Hacker News thread corresponding article How do you overcome this hurdle as a data engineering leader? It starts with customer impact. Before you even begin recruiting, identify tangible metrics that map data engineering work with its impact on your team’s internal customers. People want to work where their efforts are valued, and setting stakeholder and leadership alignment around the role data engineering plays in the broader data team’s strategy is critical. According to , Director of Platform Engineering, Big Data, at , setting benchmarks with your executive leadership entails not just a strong vision but also a way to tie the impact of the data platform and other data products to the company’s larger technology and business goals. Javier Pelayo Adidas One way to measure this? Metrics around reducing operational overhead and decreasing time and value for data products. “In the end, if you are providing any value and you are minimizing the operational overhead for analytics teams and other data users, it’s easy to quantify the value of data engineering to stakeholders and the broader company. From there, recognition and adoption of your team’s data products will follow.” Other suggestions for metrics to track the impact of your data engineers are as follows: How much time/money/resources do your data engineers save for the company? [ ] How does their work decrease time-to-value for significant data products? [ ] In what ways does their work impact larger engineering or analytic strategies? [ ] With these data points in place, you’re in a better position to highlight to prospective hires how data engineering work is prioritized, celebrated, and foundationally important to the success of your company. Ensure that your data engineers grow with the company Like many tech specialties, data engineering is evolving at a rapid pace. New tools and best practices are constantly emerging, and the best engineers will want to invest time in staying abreast of the latest developments and technologies. Also, just like any prospective new hire, data engineers will want to know how they’ll grow with your company. Currently, the onus is on data engineers to own more and more of the end-to-end data transformation workflow, from ingestion to modeling, requiring a broader understanding of the space and specialized skills. , Data Product Manager for Canadian food delivery marketplace (part of Just Eat Takeaway.com), is working with the data product and technology team to lead the charge on her team’s migration to decentralized data architecture, with embedded practitioners responsible for owning the entire data engineering workflow from end to end. Ebunoluwa Oke SkipTheDishes “Any data engineer we hire now and in the future would need to be able to do the end-to-end process of ingesting the data and also creating the data model because we want that engineer to understand the context of the data, not just in the sense of “oh this looks wrong,” but also, in the context of how the data is being used and who is using it,” she said. With this increased responsibility, it’s important that prospective hires know that their work will be acknowledged and tied directly to bottom-line KPIs and success metrics for the broader data team. For many companies, this isn’t the case. It’s no surprise that data engineers are often referred to as the “plumbers” of data science. An undoubtedly important and certainly under-appreciated role that—quite literally—keeps your pipe(line)s running. Investing in career development isn’t just about writing blog articles and speaking at conferences; it’s about setting your direct reports up with a career they can grow into as the team scales. Make the data ecosystem easy to navigate for data engineers These days, it’s cliché—and a P0—for businesses to call themselves “data-driven.” Experienced data engineers have likely seen firsthand that a company may talk a big game about data, but doesn’t actually put in the work to educate its employees on how to work with data products or even empower self-serve access to data. Without some foundational understanding of where to find, how to interpret, and how to troubleshoot basic data needs, internal data consumers can take up a significant amount of your data engineering team’s time with one-off requests or last-minute demands. And while providing guidance and overseeing governance is often part of the job description, the best and brightest data engineers will understand the difference between a company that talks the talk and a company that walks the walk by investing in data literacy and leveraging a data platform that enables contextual understanding across domains. , Data Platform Lead with Norwegian Public Roads, suggests that setting the stage for a strong culture of data discovery and accountability will set your new data engineers and analysts up for success once they get started. Lars Meisingseth “We’re in the process of developing and operationalizing the use of a social framework to discern what data sets are important and which ones aren’t as important, along various dimensions of “Who is using this? How often is it used? How often is this being used? What’s the value potential both internally and externally?” etc. to determine what data should be prioritized and shared across the organization and what could potentially be deprecated. This will also vary across domains and business use cases, but by leveraging a domain-oriented data platform, it will be easier to empower teams to make those judgment calls themselves.” This also helps foster a culture of valuing data—and when your data engineers work in an environment where their contributions are appreciated, they’re more likely to be satisfied and excited to grow alongside the rest of the team. Invest in tooling data engineers love Another common challenge? Using legacy or outdated solutions to try and build a “modern data stack.” Don’t get me wrong. You don’t have to be , , or to and use fancy tools. At its core, a data platform is just a central repository for all data, handling the collection, cleansing, transformation, and application of data to generate business insights. Airbnb Netflix Uber build a good data platform But this is only possible if you have the right technologies and processes in place to operationalize it at scale. In addition to the business case for building a data platform (increased innovation, competitive advantage, decentralized data ownership, scaling data analytics, etc.), there is a strong argument to be had when it comes to using your data platform and its underlying technologies as a hiring tool for data engineers. Recently, there’s been a lot of discussion around whether to go with open source or closed source solutions (the recent dialogue between and marketing teams really brings this to light) when it comes to building your data stack. Snowflake Databricks’ In my opinion, regardless of what side you take, both open-source (Apache Spark, Airflow, DBT, etc.) and best-in-class SaaS solutions (Snowflake, Redshift, Fivetran, Looker, Tableau, etc.) are excellent marketing tools for your company. In fact, most data engineering teams invest in a mix of both. At the end of the day, your practitioners want tools and skill sets that will: grow alongside their careers make their lives easier reduce complexity Choosing whether to go the open-source or SaaS route is rarely binary. When choosing a new solution or technology, the conversation should always seek to answer: “Is this the right tool for the job/my team.” Sometimes that’s open-source, and sometimes that’s SaaS—it really just depends on what you’re trying to achieve and what type of resources you’re willing to invest. Ensure your data engineers have autonomy A good data engineering leader will give their team the agency and influence to design, build, and scale projects in a way that interests them and pushes their technical and collaborative boundaries. Often, this boils down to ensuring that they feel ownership over what they’re working on and that what they’re working on is something that will advance their careers and increase their exposure to cross-functional teams across the company. , Head of Product, Data Platform at notes that good data engineering managers will give their team members work that not only interests them, but challenges them, too. Chad Sanderson Convoy, “If your data engineers are just running pipelines, that’s not very interesting work,” Sanderson said. “But if they’re building the systems and technologies that power the data platform, that’s much more compelling.” Encouraging autonomy starts with building a culture of trust in your team’s ability to own and execute projects delegated to them, as well as asking for their input on what they want to work on before they even join your company. By keeping the lines of communication open, proactively seeking feedback, and encouraging discussion even during the recruiting process, you can set the stage for a collaborative, trusting relationship moving forward, whether or not they choose to work at your company. The data world is small. You never know when you’ll cross paths next – heck, maybe they’ll even be your manager one day. Give your data engineers challenging projects This brings me to my next point: engineers are less likely to join your team if the work they’d be responsible for doesn’t challenge them, either on a technical or cultural level. Whether it’s rolling out a critical new feature, leading the charge on an RFC, or serving as point-of-contact for the implementation of a new tool, it’s critical to ensure that they’re pushing their professional boundaries. An important part of making sure that your engineers are working on projects that challenge and excite them? Automating rote or manual work, whenever possible. There’s a common saying among DevOps and Site Reliability Engineers ( , in many ways) that the goal of reliable systems is to . In the context of data engineering, manual toil might include fielding ad-hoc queries from downstream stakeholders, unit testing, data quality checks, and documentation. All of these activities, and many more, can be automated with the right approach. the predecessors of data engineers reduce manual toil As the Head of Data Engineering at an e-commerce company aptly told me, data engineers do not enter the field to test pipelines all day. “Engineers don’t love this work—it’s not the innovative problem-solving they probably got into the field to accomplish in the first place. It can be mundane to write use case tests every week, every time an API changes.” Senior or staff engineers in particular will find tremendous value in automation that allows them to spend their time and energy on designing, building, and innovating, rather than maintaining and troubleshooting existing systems. End-to-end data lineage, , and data discovery tools can help you build a more reliable and fault-tolerant data stack while reducing the toil of manual testing and documentation. Some solutions allow for both machine learning-generated observability and custom rule-setting, depending on your needs. data observability Other teams may choose to invest in automated data ingestion (i.e., Fivetran or Stitch) or augmented analytics. Whatever it takes to get your data engineers to focus on what will make an impact on their careers and professional fulfillment as opposed to mundane or repetitive. Hiring the next generation of data engineers Creating an environment that will draw in the best and brightest data engineers will give you the edge when it comes to recruiting and setting the stage for a thriving data organization for years to come. Building a data engineering team isn’t easy, particularly given how rapidly the industry is evolving, but in my opinion, that’s what makes this experience so rewarding—for managers and new hires alike.

5 Ways to Become a Leader That Data Engineers Will Love 

“If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.” -Abraham Maslow I have recently been interested in Blockchain technology, and so I decided to write an article that attempts to aptly provide an accurate overview of Blockchain as a technology. I hope I achieved this, I'll leave that to you to decide. What Is a Blockchain? A blockchain is a growing list of records called blocks that are linked together using cryptography. Each block contains a cryptographic hash of the previous block, a timestamp, and transaction data, and these help in the validation of transfers on a blockchain. Blockchains are essentially databases but databases that cannot be modified once data has been recorded on them, data in any given block can't be altered ex post facto without altering all subsequent blocks. In other words, to alter data contained in a block, you have to alter the data contained in past blocks. A blockchain is a shared immutable ledger that provides an immediate, safe and transparent exchange of encrypted data simultaneously to multiple parties as they initiate and complete transactions. Now let us understand the core concepts that make up a Blockchain. Peer-To-Peer Computing (P2P) Peer-to-Peer(P2P) computing/networking is a distributed application architecture that partitions tasks or workloads between peers. Peers make up a portion of their resources such as processing power, storage, network bandwidth, directly available to other network participants, without the need for central coordination by servers or stable hosts. In simple words, Peer-to-Peer Computing is simply a network where the network isn't hosted on a central server but rather hosted jointly by members of the network. Distributed Ledgers A distributed ledger is a of replicated, shared, and synchronized data. consensus A distributed ledger is a database but unlike centralized databases, there is no central administrator/control. Communication Protocol A Communication Protocol is a system of rules that allows two or more entities of a communication system to transmit information. Secure Design This is a software engineering concept where products/systems have been designed to be foundationally secure. Byzantine Fault Tolerance To understand the term you must understand the (commonly known as Byzantine Generals Problem). Byzantine Fault Tolerance [Byzantine Fault ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantine_fault#:~:text=A%20Byzantine%20fault%20(also%20Byzantine,imperfect%20information%20on%20whether%20a) The Byzantine Fault is a condition specific to distributed systems where components may fail and there is imperfect information on whether a component has failed or why it has failed. Now, the Byzantine Fault Tolerance is the ability of a system to efficiently withstand the conditions stated above. How does all this work in a Blockchain? Blockchains are typically managed by a network for use as a publicly . Blockchains may be considered and exemplify a distributed computer system with high . peer-to-peer distributed ledger secure by design Byzantine fault tolerance Why are blockchains Popular? It provides Trust With blockchain, as a member of a members-only network, you can rest assured that you are receiving accurate and timely data and that your confidential blockchain records will be shared only with network members to whom you have specifically granted access. It provides Security Consensus on data accuracy is required from all network members, and all validated transactions are immutable because they are recorded permanently. No one, not even a system administrator, can delete a transaction. It promotes efficiency in a Network With a distributed ledger that is shared among members of a network, time-wasting record reconciliations are eliminated. And to speed transactions, a set of rules — called a smart contract — can be stored on the blockchain and executed automatically. Types of Blockchains Public Blockchain A public blockchain is one that anyone can join and participate in, such as Bitcoin. Drawbacks might include substantial computational power required, little or no privacy for transactions, and weak security. These are important considerations for enterprise use cases of blockchain. Private Blockchain A private blockchain network, similar to a public blockchain network, is a decentralized peer-to-peer network. However, one organization governs the network, controlling who is allowed to participate, executing a consensus protocol, and maintaining the shared ledger. Depending on the use case, this can significantly boost trust and confidence between participants. A private blockchain can be run behind a corporate firewall and even be hosted on-premises. Hybrid Blockchains A hybrid blockchain has a combination of centralized and decentralized features.[66] The exact workings of the chain can vary based on which portions of centralization decentralization are used. Listed above are just the primary types of blockchains, usually organizations adopt variations of the above to suit their specific needs. NOTE: Uses of Blockchains Cryptocurrencies This is the most popularly known use case of blockchains, cryptocurrencies such as , , , , and a host of others. Ethereum Bitcoin BNB DOGE Cryptocurrencies are built on top of blockchains and their features are what provide Cryptocurrencies with their most attractive features such as , etc Decentralization Smart contracts Smart contracts are proposed contracts that can be partially or fully executed or enforced without human interaction. One of the main objectives of a smart contract is automated escrow. A key feature of smart contracts is that they do not need a trusted third party (such as a trustee) to act as an intermediary between contracting entities -the blockchain network executes the contract on its own. This may reduce friction between entities when transferring value and could subsequently open the door to a higher level of transaction automation. Games Blockchain technology, such as cryptocurrencies and non-fungible tokens (NFTs), has been used in video games for monetization. Many live-service games offer in-game customization options, such as character skins or other in-game items, which the players can earn and trade with other players using in-game currency. Some games also allow for trading of virtual items using real-world currency, but this may be illegal in some countries where video games are seen as akin to gambling and have led to gray market issues such as skin gambling, and thus publishers typically have shied away from allowing players to earn real-world funds from games. Blockchain games typically allow players to trade these in-game items for cryptocurrency, which can then be exchanged for money. Financial Services The enables more open, inclusive, and secure business networks, shared operating models, more efficient processes, reduced costs, and new products and services in banking and finance. It enables digital securities to be issued within shorter periods, at lower unit costs, with greater levels of customization. Digital financial instruments may thus be tailored to investor demands, expanding the market for investors, decreasing costs for issuers, and reducing counterparty risk. Ethereum blockchain Summary Blockchain as a technology is still very young and it has a lot of flaws but with the rise of web 3, it is bound to become more efficient. I strongly believe in the potential of blockchains to impact the world as we know it.

How Blockchains Work: A Brief Introduction and Must-Know Terms

Top 75+ ICO Marketing Agencies

The world-renowned scientist compares Bitcoin and Electroneum. He highlights the work of the UK-based cryptocurrency company. Dr. Scott Stornetta is the co-inventor quoted in the Bitcoin written by Satoshi Nakamoto, who created the first cryptocurrency in 2009. blockchain whitepaper The globally renowned scientist considers himself as the person who “has spent longer thinking about blockchain than anyone else on the planet. I have a really long-term perspective of this technology.” His views on Electroneum Stornetta recently met with Electroneum CEO Richard Ells and during a conversation he told him, "I understand what you're doing with the and your unique protocol. Moderated Blockchain Proof of Responsibility "I'm happy to recognise that you have grasped the breadth of the design space. Also, that you are flexible enough and open-minded enough to be still exploring how to get the balance of the mix. And that's something that I'm able to encourage wholeheartedly." He went on to say that many cryptocurrency projects reject the notion of becoming regulatory compliant. Others, he said, are not seeking ways to add value as is Electroneum for the end user. Many more, he said, also reject combining features of decentralisation and centralisation to make their cryptocurrencies more secure and eco-friendly. What appeals to Stornetta about Electroneum? Dr. Stornetta explained what to him is so appealing about Electroneum: “I admire, in particular, companies that have a long-term goal that is more than profit-maximizing, but that is actual a collective better.” "I also simultaneously admire companies that are flexible about their means of getting from here to there. That includes finding ways to co-exist with the regulatory environment rather than attempt to subvert it. Also, finding ways to, create real use cases for people that wouldn't know a hash function from a hole in the ground." WATCH: Is W. Scott Stonetta Satoshi Nakamoto: The Bitcoin Creator Firstly, he said, Electroneum has a "long-term ambition for doing good and doing well. “Secondly, Electroneum has a pragmatic approach to embracing existing players, including government and regulatory players, to find a way to co-exist. And thirdly, you have a practical way to make this of immediate value to the end-user. These three things I think are the essence of successful explorations in the, what I want to call the broader blockchain space.” Electroneum’s GigFair project Richard Ells explained Electroneum's GigFair project. This is similar to the online marketplace for freelance services in many ways except it unlocks the global digital economy for the world’s unbanked by paying service providers in ETN cryptocurrency with very low fees. Fiverr Scott Stornetta said GigFair is a great way to add value for Electroneum's end users. "Electroneum is creating a lot of value for the end user. So, to me, the fact that you have users that can in a very near term see the ability to realize some value. Moreover, the fact that your system foundationally is sustainable for the long term means your project is setting itself apart from so many others," he said. He highlighted that Electroneum is enabling people in developing countries to live better with cryptocurrency and said he shares this vision. Stornetta compares Bitcoin and Electroneum In explaining how he views Electroneum, Stornetta told Ells that, “I think Bitcoin was a brilliant piece of work, but it was sort of a solution looking for a problem.” In contrast, Electroneum is “piggy backing an abstract unit of currency onto ETN directly and into something that has intrinsic value, which in combination with the idea of a GigFair ecosystem and which provides a question for which your cryptocurrency is the answer.” Stornetta and Electroneum “There are two things that to me seems significant: One is the notion of putting it in parallel a gig economy with a payment system for it; and two, the idea of by putting it on a mobile device for which people already have to pay, and the fact that you can trade airtime. Airtime is sort of, as I have said, a self-embedded currency that doesn't have be converted into anything else in order to be useful for trading and sharing and exchanging.” Speaking of network security Scott Stornetta set the record straight regarding hash power and network security agreeing with both Richard Ells and Electroneum Head of Blockchain Chris Harrison. "I think the notion is fundamentally an incorrect one that the more hash power makes the underlying records more secure," Stornetta said. "Only in a very narrow sense is that true, but as a fundamental thesis and driver, this leads to a very inefficient conclusion." Harrison and Ells explained Electroneum's proprietary Moderated Blockchain, which is powered by their Proof of Responsibility (PoR) protocol. They told Stornetta that this has made . ETN insusceptible to 51% attacks This makes Electroneum the most secure cryptocurrency in existence. It also enables Electroneum to handpick internationally recognised non-governmental organisations (NGOs) as trusted miners who are helping to break the cycle of poverty in developing countries. "I think it's really important and so I want to underscore my agreement with something that you said. It proves that the integrity of the record is the number of non-aligned entities mining the blocks." He also said "that's really fundamental because trusting the record is ultimately not a technical problem, but a social engineering problem. The more disparate unaligned parties that hold a copy of the record, the more the trustworthiness of the record at a social and cryptographic scale." He concluded: "So I just think that's a very, very valuable insight." Permissioned versus permissionless Being the father of blockchain, a technology built on the concept of decentralisation, Stornetta surprised Ells and Harrison. He agreed with Electroneum's move to a moderated centralisation to ensure absolute security and regulatory certainty. He praised the fact that Electroneum is the first cryptocurrency in the world to have become fully KYC/AML compliant. "We (Yugen Partners) feel that the ultimate solutions are somewhat hybrid between permissioned and permissionless," which is exactly what Electroneum's Moderated Blockchain is. "But equally importantly, as a strategic move, we think that people that are coming in on the permissioned side will have a better path towards getting to that optimal hybrid balance than people coming in here on the permissionless side," he said. And once again he highlighted that "Electroneum’s regulatory compliance and the hope that ultimately those regulatory concerns can be relaxed is a perfect illustration of our sense that starting out permissioned with a goal to move to what amounts to a hybrid between permissioned and permissionless. This is simply a better tactical starting point.” Electroneum, in Stornetta’s words, is one of the very few cryptocurrencies adding value to the end user and proving to be sustainable. He said there are many projects out there that have failed in one and, even both of these objectives. His words come as Electroneum has gone from proving on the ground in South Africa that there is a real utility for cryptocurrency to Brazil, where mobile phone top ups have been made possible to thousands of Electroneum users. And this is only the start of many more developments to be announced in the coming months that will undoubtedly help all cryptocurrencies move towards mainstream adoption.

Founding father of Blockchain Scott Stornetta talks Bitcoin and Electroneum

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Imagine your office . Cyber attackers are trying to get into it. They know that your company has lucrative proprietary data. They know that your company will be tempted to pay expensive cryptocurrency ransoms if they can cripple your computers with ransomware. Even if you keep good backups, . Maybe the cyber attackers want money? Maybe they just want to vandalize your web servers “for the lulz?” Maybe an individual attacker won’t target your company, but profitable cyber attack botnets and services can be hired so easily from the Dark Web these days. Bots will travel all over the internet looking for vulnerable targets to hit. Your office network may be tagged “it.” network it might not be practical to restore from them Can you imagine what your attack vector will be? It could quite possibly be a client PC. An employee could open a malicious email attachment that isn’t detected by your antivirus software. Maybe a cyber attack will slip through a firewall. Unfortunately, that happens sometimes. Maybe your web application will get SQL injected. Maybe an LDAP vulnerability will be exploited, and there’ll be a privilege escalation attack to your Active Directory. Did you think about that big network printer that’s sitting in the corner of the room? Print jobs are sent to it from your client PCs constantly. It’s also connected to your corporate WLAN. It to be connected to your corporate WLAN. Well your WLAN connects to the internet, doesn’t it? It’s probably connected to your private internal network too. So it’s a cyber attack vector from the public internet to your private network. Hmmmm… needs Hacking unsecured printers is easy. Unfortunately, ! 43% of surveyed companies ignore printers in their endpoint security approach. Well, what adminstrators don’t know hurt them. Corporations invest in securing their computing devices. Why not printers? according to a Spiceworks survey only 16% of IT industry respondents think printers are at high risk of a security breach will Print security has three major facets. It requires securely designed and deployed hardware, software, and networking. That means choosing to secure your office’s network requires starting with print devices which are designed with in mind from the ground up. One print device vendor knows you must secure the device, secure the data, secure the document. I got to see firsthand, that vendor is HP. cybersecurity HP has the world’s most secure print devices Image is courtesy of HP. I got an exclusive look at HP’s print security initiatives in early February. HP indeed has the world’s most secure print devices! But don’t take my word for it. Check out what it says in : IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Security Solutions and Services Hardcopy 2017 Vendor Assessment “HP Inc. is leading the charge among all hardcopy vendors around raising awareness and visibility for print and document security concerns and promotes itself as having the most secure printers in the world. HP Inc.’s approach to security takes the entire print and document infrastructure into account, beginning with locking down the device and extending into all aspects of device usage and content protection. HP Inc.’s expansive suite of print and document security solutions is based on a mix of owned technology and partner-delivered capabilities that deliver security in four primary areas: HP JetAdvantage Security Manager, HP Inc.’s pull printing solutions, HP Inc.’s data protection, and HP Inc.’s security services. HP JetAdvantage Security Manager enables customers to develop a comprehensive print security policy, assess and remediate devices against that policy, and provide audit and reporting measures based on predefined guidelines. HP Inc. offers a broad range of pull printing solutions designed to meet the needs of specific customer environments as well as data protection solutions to help organizations detect and prevent data loss through print devices. Leveraging its broad solutions portfolio, HP Inc. offers an extensive set of security-based services including Security Audit Advisory Services, Implementation Service, and Advisory Retainer Service. HP Inc. offers its security services as standalone programs, but its entire portfolio of security solutions and services are also available through HP Inc.’s Managed Print Services (MPS) offerings. HP Inc. has established a formidable managed print services practice that includes security as a backbone and is foundationally built on investments it has made in its ‘as a service’ global infrastructure. In fact, HP Inc. markets its MPS programs as ‘Secure MPS,’ part of which is simply marketing, but it also points to core capabilities that have become standard security components in HP Inc.’s MPS arsenal.” . According to IDC MarketScape’s 2017 Vendor Assessment, HP leads the industry in print security You should also consider : Quocirca’s research findings in their 2016 Managed Print Services Landscape “HP’s security offerings are a key differentiator in the MPS market which led itto launch a security-led MPS programme in 2016: HP Secure MPS. The major components of HP Secure MPS include HP’s enterprise printer portfolio, security software solutions and security services. The unique features of HP enterprise printers include run time intrusion detection, which makes HP the only printer manufacturer to offer integration of printer event data with major security monitoring and incident detection tools such as HPE ArcSight or Splunk. Solutions are a major strength for HP through its expanding JetAdvantage portfolio. It estimates that over 75% of its enterprise-direct engagements are software enabled, including solutions such as document capture, security, mobility, job accounting, forms automation and production printing. HP continues to deepen its industry focus, through market development, industry segment marketing and sales enablement capabilities. It has a range of solutions targeted at industries such as financial services, healthcare, manufacturing, communications/media/entertainment and public sector and a broad set of vertical solutions through the HP Enterprise Content Management platform.” Only HP offers a combination of security features that can monitor to detect and automatically stop an attack, then self-validate software integrity in a reboot. Inside HP’s proprietary print security features Image is courtesy of HP. Here’s a list of printer security features that are exclusive or nearly exclusive to HP enterprise print devices: Run-time intrusion detection with self-healing “Instant On” security Secure boot with self-healing Only HP and Lexmark have device level SIEM integration Only HP, Lexmark, and Kyocera have Turn On/Off Remote Firmware Upgrade Only HP and Xerox have full print device security administrator notification capabilities Only HP and Kyocera have US NIST Checklist Inclusion HP Sure Start is built into the BIOS. The BIOS runs its own firmware which checks the health and operation of your print device when you boot it up, the same way BIOS in PCs and servers works before the operating system is launched. BIOS firmware is a key target for cyber attackers, especially through malware! HP Sure Start is designed to protect your printer BIOS from being hacked. With HP Sure Start, if tampered BIOS firmware is detected, the device restarts using a safe “golden copy” of its BIOS. Your network probably runs intrusion detection devices. If it doesn’t, it really ought to! It helps to have a dedicated IDS device in your network. It’s even better to also have intrusion detection built right into your enterprise print devices. HP’s run-time intrusion detection operates constantly. It detects anomalies during complex firmware and memory operations, automatically stops intrusions, and reboots. A lot of the most destructive malware out there “calls home” to cyber attacking command and control servers. Malicious data doesn’t only enter private networks, it exits private networks too! That’s where HP Connection Inspector comes in. HP Connection Inspector evalutes connections coming into and exiting your print devices. If anything looks suspicious, HP Connection Inspector stops it in its tracks. That makes it extra challenging for cyber attackers to acquite access to your network’s sensitive data! HP Security Advisory Services Image is courtesy of HP. HP’s unique enterprise print device security strategy doesn’t stop at designing more secure hardware and software. If your network has HP devices, you can request an HP Security Manager Quick Assess. HP Security Manager Quick Assess will evaluate up to twenty of your HP network printers and will send you a full, detailed report with information about how you can improve your security. . Start with their web form here DreamWorks Animation relies on HP Secure MPS You’ve probably heard of DreamWorks Animation. They’re known for hit films such as Shrek, How To Train Your Dragon, and Kung Fu Panda. Chances are you’ve watched at least one of their movies with your family. They’re working on new feature film animation projects right now that’ll show in your local movie theatre in the years to come. HP print devices are integral to their work. Aspects of their intellectual property work go through HP print devices and they don’t want the general public to see them until they’re ready to promote their upcoming movies. But paparazzi and entertainment magazines and websites will pay top dollar for Hollywood leaks. Pop stars and famous rappers hate it when the public gets to hear their music before they’re ready to release it. Why haven’t you seen any unauthorized leaks from DreamWorks? HP MPS is a major factor. Mark Tokunaga, Vice President of Service Operations at DreamWorks Animation says, “Our onsite HP MPS service delivers predictable costs and nearly flawless print-device uptime. HP MPS enables the studio’s operations team to spend less time being diverted by print management issues, so that we can focus on strategic engineering initiatives.” Choose your enterprise print devices So you want HP Secure MPS and their proprietary print security features in your network. Where do you start? . Happy printing! HP has a list of their most secure enterprise print devices which you can find here

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