No Trust Verify is a group of people buidling tools like pastenym or contributing to nostr-nym and running components of Nym mixnet to bring back privacy to everyone

No Trust Verify

This interview series celebrates all the phenomenal . Congratulations! Well-Deserved, Champion.The HackerNoon community is excited to learn more about you! Startups of the Year Winners https://hackernoon.com/startups/europe/europe-neuchatel-switzerland/winner What does it mean for you to win this title? Winning this title represents an acknowledgment of our work and the trust bestowed upon us by our supporters and the HackerNoon community. We express our gratitude to all who have supported us. What sets you apart from the competition? We are deeply committed to experimentation, building, and innovation. We're also fortunate to have the unwavering support of our community, from the to the Nym and Alephium communities, which are a powerful driving force for us. #VerifyValley What do you love about your team, and why are you the ones to solve this problem? We're a team driven first and foremost by passion, and that shows in our work. Thanks to our diverse and complementary profiles, we can cover a wide range of skills. This enables us to offer a wide range of services to our partners. If you weren’t building your startup, what would you be doing? The same thing, we'd be contributing to projects with the same passion. At the moment, how do you measure success? What are your core metrics? In many respects, for example, by businesses and users who rely on our infrastructure for their projects, or the number of people who use our dApps or read our articles. By taking greater responsibility for the projects with which we collaborate. Tell us how your startup is changing the world. Changing the world would be a little presumptuous, but we strive to promote privacy, self-sovereignty, and trustless innovation in the most educational way possible. To be able to show the way to other decentralized organizations and contributors, and inspire them to do the same. How do you or your company intend to embrace the responsibility of this title in 2024? By continuing to do what we do, with the same seriousness, passion, and energy. What goals are you looking forward to accomplishing in 2024? We're going to expand the scope of our skills by continuing to improve our existing tools and exploring the creation and development of other dApps. We will be part of new hackathons, strengthening our commitment to the communities in which we are involved. Which trend(s) are you most excited about in 2024? Share your reasons. As it's part of our DNA, the main trend we're interested in is privacy, so we constantly monitor new developments and tools in this sector. We also keep a close eye on Bitcoin and PoW projects such as Alephium. 2023 had been another crazy year, especially in tech, with layoffs and the Generative AI takeover! Which trend are you most concerned about? Be as brief or as detailed as you like. The evolutions and paradigm shifts offered by AI are very interesting to follow, as they open up new fields of perspective in a huge number of areas, and are also a precursor to societal change. However, due to the intrinsic nature of our business, we see certain threats, particularly in terms of privacy and respect for digital integrity, and will be keeping a close eye on regulations in this field. Share your biggest success so far and/or your biggest failure so far. Our greatest success has been to see the enthusiasm and support of our ever-growing community. We're also honored by the confidence of our partners like Nym and Alephium. So far, we've been lucky enough not to encounter any failures. We would love your feedback on HackerNoon as a tech publication! How has your experience been with us? It was a very good experience, and we were honored to be nominated and to have won this title, especially from a media whose content we appreciate. The follow-up throughout the competition was very good. Any words of wisdom you’d like to share with us? Privacy is a fundamental human right, not a privilege reserved for the few. Startups of The Year is HackerNoon’s Flagship community-driven event celebrating startups that survived and thrived in 2023. 30,000 startups across 4200+ cities and six continents participated this year to be crowned the best startup in their city. See our global winners announcement . here Companies that blog more get 67% more leads - Jumpstart your company’s blogging journey by purchasing our . Business Blogging Package The 2023 Startups Of The Year is sponsored by: . . The winners will get a free .Tech Domain, a HackerNoon NFT, and a Tech Company News Page. TECH Domains

Meet No Trust Verify: Winner of the Startups of the Year in Neuchâtel

The creators of the Internet wanted to build a garden of Eden. They imagined a paradise of openness and freedom. Driven by the spirit of sharing, they saw happy university researchers collaborating across the world with ease. But they never saw the snake slithering through the trees. More than anything, the founding fathers of the Net failed to understand the darkness at the heart of the humanity. Never in their wildest dreams did they see the rise of massive attacks, identity theft, daily data breaches or . They completely missed malware, spam, DDoS attacks, and ransomware. They couldn’t see that three or four media companies would come to dominate the net, strangling the life from it as they agitated for PIPA, SOPA and now finally the death of net neutrality as orchestrated by their plutocratic sycophants in the FCC. nation state backed info warriors fomenting discord across the free world And worst of all they didn’t see the rise of the surveillance state. They wanted to build paradise but they built a Panopticon to enslave us all . Now it’s up to us to build a new and take back our future. That’s the goal of the and the Fermat DAO’s . In the words of the great Tim Berners-Lee we’re going to “re-decentralize the web.” decentralized Internet Cicada project Internet of People We’ll graft it right on top of today’s net and use the old system as nothing but a dumb layer to shuttle packets. That’s all it’s good for now. The old net is rotten right down to the roots. There’s no way to retrofit privacy, security and freedom onto it. We have to build something new. But to do that, we’ve got to think differently. We can’t afford be naive about the darker angels of our nature. At Cicada/Fermat we’re under no illusions. We see the snakes in the garden. and both will always be there. The same hand that made the tiger made the rose The fathers of the Internet sang a song of innocence, blissfully ignorant of the world to come. But now . our song must be one of experience So how do we build the next-gen net? There’s only one way. We have to imagine all the ways to destroy it. The Decentralized Net To do that we have to understand the nature of the threats. Who are the snakes in the garden? There are some obvious ones and not so obvious ones. Crackers and malware writers, identity thieves, terrorists, advanced persistent threats and the intelligence organizations that want to track every single second of our lives stand out as the obvious threats. The not so obvious ones are corrupt companies, overreaching/clueless or bought-and-paid for governmental agencies, and a confederacy of liars, sociopaths and psychopaths. But it goes deeper than that. We have to assume that . Just as Bitcoin nodes don’t trust any other node on the network without , we have to do the same. It’s a twist on the old Russian adage: “Doveryai, no proveryai,” aka “Trust but verify.” any actor in the system can become a threat at any time verifying their actions At the Cicada and Fermat projects we say: “Don’t trust and verify.” The reason is simple: Trust is a moving target. A person, organization or company might start off as trustworthy, only to violate that trust later. A man who cheats on his wife after twenty years just burned up all of his trust overnight. Trust is not fixed. It changes with time. Leopards might not change their spots but people and organizations sure do. Today we have no way to revoke our trust from the people who violated it. If we grant one company the right to issue SSL certificates, they may become untrustworthy due to predatory management or a decline in their fortunes, which leads to layoffs, which in turn creates security holes in their systems as their sys-admins slack off on the job while looking for another gig to feed their family. That might be just the security lapse hackers need to crack the system wide open, making them no longer a safe bet. Better to make the issuance of certificates totally decentralized and algorithmic, delivered through a federated trust of competing entities than to endow a single group with that power. Now we can yank trust back from people who cheat us because power does not rest in a single set of hands. Other examples are easy to find. A sociopath might build up a ton of positive reputation in the network, only to rob everyone blind later. Imagine a psychotic Uber driver carefully cultivating a 5.0 rating, only so he can hunt down women later, stalking them back to their houses. A government founded on openness and freedom might slide into totalitarianism when a cult of personality comes to power, hungry to cement all control into their own hands, as we’ve seen with . the brutal regime in Turkey . That’s over a billion people. They tried to design the system to not keep data on everything their citizens do. It’s one way. Questions come in and answer goes out. They say it won’t collate data about citizen movements but does anyone really believe that? India just finished enrolling 99% of their citizens in a centralized database based on their biometrics How long before that system becomes a target for overreaching government security agencies or ? How long before they pass a law that ? It’s as inevitable as the sun setting in the evening. before simple incompetence jeopardizes the system mandates collection of as much data as possible It’s too tempting of a target for people in power. They can’t help themselves. It’s in their nature. Now imagine that “trusted” Indian central agency slides into authoritarianism, just as the Turkish government did. Can you see the power of their secret police as they track down and kill anyone they perceive as a threat, from journalists to judges and activists? The ID that tracks all their cashless transactions just made it much, much easier. If you don’t think it’s possible you haven’t read much of the history of the world. “ ” Throughout modern history, anti-liberal governments have been the norm, not the exception. A centralized system is always vulnerable to concentrations of power. The Founding Fathers knew this and they created the system of checks and balances to keep it at bay. A corrupt government can pass a law and then it’s just a quick code rewrite and a new field in a database and suddenly everyone is under constant surveillance everywhere. No person, group or organization can be invested with trust in perpetuity. Understanding that gets us to the only possible answer for combating today’s evolving threats: Federated trust. Everything must become decentralized, from ID to DNS, to SSL certificates to reputation systems and communication. The Swarm Blockchains, when done right, are federated trust. What do I mean by done right? Traditional organizations have seen the power of blockchains after scoffing at them early on. Projects like promise to deliver private blockchains. Those can certainly be useful in some instances but not all. Nine banks with a shared blockchain to track deposits between them are kind of trustworthy but not completely. They might all compete on the surface but they also share a lot of the same world views. That means they’re likely to collude when its in their best interests, warping the rules to suit their overall goals and agendas. Hyperledger Think of the banks and the depositors in those banks holding the keys. Or take it one step further and imagine regulators, banks and citizens holding those keys. A truly federated system is where competing entities and ideologies hold the keys to the kingdom. That’s true federation. These are people and organizations that don’t see eye to eye at all. They may even despise and loath each other. Good. That means they have a vested interest in instead of thwarting them to give one group dominance over everyone else. maintaining checks and balances in the system For a blockchain to be truly useful, its power must be totally distributed across entities that will never see the world the same way. That’s not what we have right now. Realistically the only working blockchains today are cryptocurrencies, which gave us something worse than central banks controlling our money and lives. We’ve handed the power over to an unelected group of secretive mining collectives. This can’t stand and won’t deliver the promised freedom that blockchains promise. Like the founding fathers of the nets, Satoshi never saw all the problems of centralization, lack of transparency and lack of governance his Bitcoin system would create and so we have to see for him. See my talk on authoritarianism, blockchains and the decentralized nets of the future that I gave to the Fermat team in Budapest That’s why and the project take different approaches to make sure that all the mining power does not fall into the hands of a few rich and powerful mining groups. The Internet of People issues mining licenses to miners based on geography, in order to ensure a dramatically decentralized pool of miners where no one group can dominate. They have no 51% problem. Fermat’s Internet of People Cicada The Cicada project takes it a step further. We envision . Nobody can have more than one miner. Miners are randomly drafted into pools to secure the system. A person might be walking along and their phone wakes up for five minutes to secure the network and then goes back to sleep. This is the federation of trust on a planetary level. It means that everyone who participates in the system helps to safeguard the system and further decentralize it. a biometric based universal decentralized ID system that welds a single miner to a single ID But our vision goes a lot further than merely fixing the problem of mining centralization that’s rampant in today’s cryptocurrencies. Because we’re starting from scratch, and grafting a new decentralized net on top of the old one, we can learn from all the mistakes of the past and design security systems that are woven into the very heart of the protocols themselves. Imagine a “security blockchain” with pointers to a series of approved binaries and source code, as well as a series of updateable intrusion detection and firewall rulesets and malware heuristics. Nodes are required to run only a few revisions behind or they get frozen from the network. If there’s a massive attack on the system a flag can be set that requires all nodes to run the latest and greatest in a set period of time. An attacker can try to spin up a rogue node, but it won’t matter. He won’t be trusted by default and the second he communicates with a good node, that node will ask for cryptographic proof that the rogue node is running the right binaries and rulesets. If he’s not, an automatic hit to his reputation gets logged on a “network reputation blockchain.” If the rogue node keeps sending malicious packets and attacking the good node, the good node will simply enact a total and complete shutdown of all traffic via its local firewall. It will then automatically vote to the reputation network that the rogue node is a menace to society. If enough nodes keep voting that node down it will get blocked from all communications for an escalating series of time, from five minutes to ten to an hour and longer. Oh and if you think a bunch of rogue nodes can collude, think again. The good nodes have to prove they’re running approved binaries to the network before they can vote. But even that’s not enough to secure the internet of tomorrow. Behold the Naked Mole Rat We’re also working on what we call “ .” universal security protocols Right now, we fight threats in a pretty stupid way. Take virus signatures, for instance. A malware writer launches a virus into the wild and anti-virus companies have to catch it with a honeypot, study it and then write a virus signature. It’s a one off. That means we’re always playing defense. Wait for an attack and then defend. It doesn’t scale. We do the same thing when we fight disease. Scientists study each cancer in isolation. They work on drugs to fight breast cancer or Leukemia or colon cancer on a one off basis. They brute force through a series of chemical combinations, hoping one of them will make a difference. This is the same approach to fighting disease in the digital world. Wait for attack and fight each attack with a one off solution. But nature offers us a better template: The Naked Mole Rat. The NMR may be one of the ugliest creatures on the planet but its proof that you can’t judge a book by its cover. It’s immune system holds the key to a universal cancer mitigation system. Why? Because the NMR . can’t get cancer You can bombard that son of a bitch with radiation that would kill a man a hundred times over and it’ll shrug it off like a minor headache. So how does it work? It’s immune system does two things: If cells cluster together it nukes those cells If its cells start dividing too fast it nukes those cells Simple and efficient. All cancers share both of those characteristics. Cancer solved. We can do the same for digital cancers: Discover their universal characteristics and kill them off. When I was a sys-admin, I found a simple answer to most virus infestations. In Windows I set the various registry keys that allowed programs to start with Windows to “read-only” for all users. That meant I had to change it when I installed a new program I wanted to start (which was rare) but when a virus infected the machine it couldn’t start. It wasn’t perfect but it saved me from numerous zero-days. Now, it doesn’t mean that new types of digital cancers will never show up over the horizon with different characteristics but whenever they do, it will share we can exploit as well. Understanding metapatterns are the key to building amazing system architectures. Tyler Volk’s book clued me into their existence twenty years ago and now I see them everywhere. metapatterns In the short term, until universal patterns emerge, we can use the old fashioned brute force approach and write a one time signature to the security chain rulesets. But as the new attacks swarm, we’ll study their universal characteristics and cut them off at the source. We need to design these universal attack mitigation systems right into the very heart of tomorrow’s decentralized Internet. That’s why at Fermat and Cicada we’re working to build the next generation of security protocols into every layer of our stack. To do that we just have to see clearly what the threats are and create heuristics that stop those attacks before they even start. Is it wildly ambitious and even insane for us to tackle? Yes. But we’re doing it anyway. If not us, who? If not now, when? Besides, we have a lot of data to work from now. We have years of crafty and insidious assaults on the open foundations of the Internet to study. The snakes have show themselves clearly. And now that they’re out in the open, we can build the NMR’s anti-cancer system into the lowest layers of tomorrow’s TCP/IP and HTTPS. If we do it right, we can for a generation to come. lock in open Of course, eventually the snakes will evolve again. But that’s the nature of the world. It’s a pendulum that swings back and forth between good and evil forever and ever. And when the snakes change their patterns, it will be up to the next generation to seize the day, and recreate the system to stop the threats that we’ll never be able to imagine now. I trust them to do it. But we have to do it first or they may never get the chance. So come join Cicada/Fermat. Jump on (link at the bottom of the page) and talk with the team. Fermat Slack Together we can code the future and save the world. ############################################ If you enjoyed this article, I’d love it if you could hit the little heart to recommend it to others. After that please feel free email the article off to a friend! Thanks much. ########################################### A bit about me: I’m an author, engineer and serial entrepreneur. During the last two decades, I’ve covered a broad range of tech from Linux to virtualization and containers. You can check out my latest novel, an epic Chinese sci-fi civil war saga where China throws off the chains of communism and becomes the world’s first direct democracy, running a highly advanced, artificially intelligent decentralized app platform with no leaders. when you join my Readers Group. Readers have called it “the first serious competition to Neuromancer” and“Detective noir meets Johnny Mnemonic.” You can get a FREE copy of my first novel, The Scorpion Game, You can also check out the based on ideas from the book that outlines how to make that tech a reality right now and you can get in on the alpha. Cicada open source project Lastly, you can , where we discuss all things tech, sci-fi, fantasy and more. join my private Facebook group, the Nanopunk Posthuman Assassins ############################################ Thanks for reading!

How the Decentralized Web Will Rewrite the Rules of Security and Save the Net from the Barbarian…

There is no “man in charge”. Bitcoin is not about human flaws or feelings. It is about software. This is the factor that everyone who isn’t a software developer doesn’t want to accept. If you don’t develop software, you don’t get a say. You can have meetings, write on Bitcoin, vote, go on retreats and do whatever else you like, but you have no effect or say in Bitcoin. That is a fact. Even if you are a software developer, if what you design is worthless, it will not be incorporated or run by anyone. The “human side” of Bitcoin . Bitcoin is a purely technical software problem, and what irrelevant people think about it does not matter. If there are irrelevant people, you might ask, “Well then, who are the relevant people?” That’s easy to answer. The men and women who write the software and run the services are the relevant people. They are the ones that matter, and no one else. does not exist No one needs a “Cellphone Community” to be able to make and receive calls on their phone, they don’t need a “Bitcoin Community” either. Apple and Samsung make phones, and there is no “Samsung Community” for you to join and “have your say”. You buy your phone, make your calls, pay your bill and that is it. If you don’t have a Samsung or Apple phone: . If you want to have an influence on Bitcoin, , no calls for you run a full node _The most significant issue facing Bitcoin today doesn't receive a lot of attention. Unlike the price, the network…_www.contravex.com Guide To Setting Up A Remote Bitcoin Node For $20 Per Year build a new business on it, build a mining company, or . Those are the only ways you can have influence, and even then it will be limited by how well you are doing what you are doing. And that limitation is a very good thing, because it keeps everyone secure. learn to write C Who is “we”? Over and over we hear talk of this . Who is “we” , and why do people keep referring to them? Who says who is part of “we” and who is not? Thankfully in Bitcoin, who “we” is is a pure meritocracy; only the developers and entrepreneurs are “we” . They have the power, and they exercise it. No lawyer, association runner or blogger matters; silicon cannot execute what they have to offer. “we” exactly and no one else There is no “Bitcoin rift”. Bitcoin is not broken and is running exactly to its specification. The people involved in the Bitcoin Soap Opera on the other hand, have reached an impasse. So far, every time an attack is launched on Bitcoin, the last one being being the Bitcoin XT coup attempt, the people in Bitcoin worked quietly to defend the network. And they suceeded. This is It strengthened Bitcoin, and showed that hostile takeovers won’t be tolerated. a very good thing. The problem here is that there are people who want to control Bitcoin, or a network like it, but who don’t want to do the work in building a new network from scratch. If you really believe in your large block size plan, then start an from nothing and use your prodigious social skills to get everyone to run your client. The problem is that no one will follow such a plan; everyone instantly becomes absolutely rational and ruthless when it comes to money, and the soap opera is switched off. That is why starting from nothing is a non starter for the people who want to capture the actual Bitcoin network and its . alt-coin incredible power _Allow me to introduce you to someone who has the potential to be very important in the future of Bitcoin. His name is…_www.cryptocoinsnews.com Bitcoin is 100 times More Powerful than Google This is not about personal relationships and codes of conduct. This is about people trying to steal the power of Bitcoin and take control of it, centralize it and neuter it. No amount of talk, weekends in the Bahamas and private conferences can change the nature of theft, or convince people who believe there is nothing wrong with the CIA that what they are doing is fundamentally unethical. Obviously all men and women who are rational would rather live without this idiotic drama, but for the people who only have drama as their sole connection to Bitcoin, this is what Bitcoin It is a series of characters, names to invoke, positions to hold, single page vertical scrolling websites with countdown tickers and other interactive things. is. Whilst all of that entertainment is going on, the people who are moving forward are the billionaires, entrepreneurs and software developers who are getting on with their difficult, hideously complex, insanely risky, mostly experimental, ground breaking and dangerous work. Those are the people who matter, and no one else. Trust, But Verify Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice shame on me. The only way that anyone can be trusted is if their position is correct, and their actions are in line with Bitcoin. If their actions are not in line with Bitcoin, no treaty, or confession will be of any value. All it will mean is that you have left the door open to a man , to corrupt and destroy your work and try to steal from you . Only a fool trusts a thief mea culpa who you already know is an enemy and a thief again twice. Forgiveness is proper behaviour, but it does not, once again, mean leaving yourself open to attack over and over. Anyone who is trying to fork Bitcoin . This is . Anyone who is launching a coup against the single true network is trying to steal the network. There are no two ways about this. It isn’t a matter of opinion, nuance or point of view. Trying to hijack Bitcoin is unacceptable, and you can be assured that it won’t be tolerated, just as XT was not tolerated and purged. is an enemy of Bitcoin non negotiable To assert that logic must come above emotion is correct, but ethics are important also. It is simply unethical to launch a hostile Bitcoin client on the network in an attempt to fundamentally change its nature and hijack it. The Bitcoin network doesn’t belong to you, and no, just because you held a vote, it does not mean that you can suddenly own something that doesn’t belong to you. . Bitcoin is not a democracy _Bitcoin is not Socialist. It is not Democratic. It is a system of voluntary, entirely non violent, free association._medium.com Bitcoin is Not Democratic This is about people’s behaviour. If you launch an attack on Bitcoin, what you think doesn't matter; ; you are trying to . That is the behaviour that matters; are you attacking the Bitcoin network with your software or not? Speech is irrelevant and so are people’s feelings. This is about software only, not feelings and nebulous “Community”. its what you are doing that matters steal something that does not belong to you only The Metal. The Software. That’s it. The only thing that matters in Bitcoin is the software. That is the framework that you have to live inside. That is the sole source of guidelines that are required. The only code of conduct that matters is how the protocol mediates and interacts between Bitcoin clients. Everything outside of this is and a distraction. If you remove the noise from the picture. there are few problems in Bitcoin, and the ones on the table are great, solvable challenges, but the software attacks are intolerable and evil and grossly unethical, and you don’t have to be involved in Bitcoin on any level to understand this. Stealing is . Breaking contracts is . noise wrong wrong The answer to this nagging problem is already being implemented. The hostile Bitcoin XT coup was defeated and so will other attempts to Americanize and centralize Bitcoin. Even . American lawyers are warning that putting your name to a new version of Bitcoin will get you in very deep water _By Daniel S. Friedberg February 11, 2016 Bitcoin, a peer-to-peer electronic cash system, is intended to allow online…_www.riddellwilliams.com Hard Fork Conspiracy Treacherous Your best bet, if you are trying to pollute Bitcoin, is to back down now, permanently, and work on software ancillary to Bitcoin. In the unlikely event that you succeed, the State will punish you severely. In the very likely event that you fail, you will have wasted your time for nothing, and wound up making the thing you are trying to destroy stronger. Trying to corrupt Bitcoin is the very definition of a fools errand, and you should quit now while you are ahead. Signing pledges in software is worthless; imagine a thief burgling your house and asking him to sign a pledge not to steal from you. This is the nature of what is being asked for when people ask others to sign a toothless pledge not to misbehave. Every contract has clauses specifying what happens when a party defaults. We are talking about individuals , and who think nothing of trying to steal a multi-billion dollar software network, who think government blacklists are acceptable to add to Bitcoin and other hideous, unethical totalitarian garbage. These bad actors are actively trying to destroy Bitcoin, and rather than asking them to cease and desist and sign a piece of paper where they are under contract with grave consequences for breaking its terms (not a meaningless unwritten pledge that is in any case, only good for gentlemen) they are being asked to sign a pledge to be… who have no conscience or ethics Polite. You couldn't make this up if you tried. The participants who run Bitcoin have proven that they are very good at protecting the network, and I have a strong feeling that they will continue to do so, and quite aggressively. This power and bespoke arrangement has been achieved without open discussion or worthless paper pledges. There is too much at stake in terms of money and power. The face of the enemy is out in the open, and no one is being fooled by them, even once. The reason for this success is that the objective truth of this is in the software, not in anyone’s mind. The software in the metal is the only thing and place that matters, and defending it rigorously is being done. Being Held to High Standards If anyone wants to be held to a high standard, they should say explicitly what those standards are. Here are two for you. 1/ Don’t steal.2/ Don’t attack Bitcoin. Those two foundational principles alone are enough to destroy these problems forever. Unfortunately, there are those who want to use Bitcoin as a skeleton to hang their professions on, or as a tool to enslave people. Improvements to Bitcoin are going to make these acts impossible, no matter what you want or vote for. And for the record, you are better off going along with Bitcoin rather than fighting it. Ask the MPAA/RIAA about BitTorrent and their attempts to kill it for a clue. The trappings of the past, codes of conduct, voting, majority rule, summits of non developers, have no place, value, or power in the software that mediates between users. That is what Bitcoin is for; it is the arbiter, the judge and the means of dispute resolution. You either have the keys or you do not. The people who want to slather human layers of tears and grease on top of this pristine construct of symbolic logic and metal . They want a place in it, but , because they don’t develop software or run Bitcoin businesses. If they did, they wouldn’t be suggesting any of this. They would simply say, “yes” or “no”, and that would be it. are not in Bitcoin there is no place for them What we are seeing is a glimpse into a world where opinion doesn’t matter. Pieces of paper you sign have no power or effect. Only the math matters, only the private keys matter. You are free to say whatever you like, go wherever you like, form associations, break associations, be polite, be rude. None of it matters. The only thing that matters is software in general and . It is a profound transformation of society from one of force to one of math. There is no place for feelings in the execution of math. Of course, your feelings in human interactions remain unchanged, but this is of no effect in math and Bitcoin, and . Bitcoin in particular it should not be _Violent people are hell bent on destroying the usefulness of the internet._medium.com Save Us From the Lawyers and the Luddites We can only hope that in the future, a version of Bitcoin emerges that has self defence built in to the protocol, where if rogue clients appear on the network, they are detected and all the nodes DDOS it. This “Self Healing Bitcoin Network” could run unattended, since it is self protecting, rejecting all attempts of the Statists to launch hostile clients. Who knows what is going to emerge to strengthen Bitcoin; all we can say for certain is that it is clear who is right and who is wrong in these matters, and there is no excuse for attacking the network and invalidating other people’s agreements. Anyone who wants to fix problems doesn’t try to appease the enemy. They rebuke them and at the very least, try to make them cease and desist. Normal people don’t appease burglars; they lock them out permanently, improve security, lay out razor wire and sharp spikes. This isn’t a kindergarten; this is real life, and Bitcoin is a project of historic significance, perhaps, even more important than the advent of the internet itself. Anyone who wants to destroy Bitcoin is an enemy of mankind. The enemies of Bitcoin will be stopped and permanently prevented and locked out from being able to poison, centralize, Stateize and corrupt it. I am confident that they will fail completely. On a final note about failure. There are understandable doubts about R3CEV and their vapourware, which we are now being told will be . Open Source “What they’re (R3CEV) trying to do is protect themselves,” said Mullen. “They need a way to protect their business so they’re trying to develop a new infrastructure, a new protocol, to communicate among banks and various financial institutions.” New York Business Journal As I said before, is just that, and anyone who wants to build real applications does so on Bitcoin not in a siloed private system better suited to MySQL/Oracle. What this looks like is the “Blockchain not Bitcoin” fad Lightning _Abstract. The bitcoin protocol can encompass the global financial transaction volume in all electronic payment systems…_lightning.network The Bitcoin Lightning Network layer that sits on top of Bitcoin. Notice what Lightning is doing; rather than trying to steal the network or supplant it, they are harnessing its enormous power and making it more useful with their software. This is innovative, ethical and beneficial to everyone. Why are R3CEV making their tool Open Source? Do they think that the words “Open Source” will confer legitimacy and the sheen of ethics on to what they are doing? Who is going to contribute to their code base from the public, and what incentive have they to do so? For a prediction on how many contributions they will get look a the GitHub repo of Open Source “Blockchain not Bitcoin” vendors and see how many contributions they have. It is literally across all files. zero Open Source isn’t a magic formula to get people to write software for you, and people who try and polish their image with it don’t understand why software developers spend time on projects; they are human beings, and will work only on projects that benefit them. Working for free for a company trying to replace the back end of banks with irrational garbage isn’t an attractive prospect. The banks and their cheerleader fan boys are trying to put on the clothes of The Software Transformation ( ) and as they do so, they demonstrate that they simply don’t get it. When they have something to show for their efforts. Software developers aren’t stupid. Many of them are political. They know what the Federal Reserve banks and their cronies have done, and the very existence of Bitcoin is borne out of that deep understanding. All it takes is one developer to change the entire world. Whether that be or Satoshi Nakamoto, or even , the new “Public Enemy Number One” “ The Transformation ” Bram Cohen Zooko Wilcox-O’Hearn amongst the plentiful . Once the idea is out it can’t be recalled, and if it is a good idea, the . enemies of the State GitHub repo will be full of commits This is the end. They don’t know it yet, just as the book stores had no idea that the internet would wipe them out. Bitcoin will do the same to many parts of the financial industry, from the top to the bottom. No one with any sense wants to go back to a time before Amazon, and soon, the idea of life without Bitcoin, , will be to every man in the street. real Bitcoin unthinkable Organic roasted and salted Pistachios, a fine Belgian blonde beer ↴

The Only Thing Living in This World
Will Be Metal

that breached 150,000 surveillance cameras sent shockwaves through the security world. For those of us in the edge computing industry, it simply underscored what we already knew — securing distributed devices is As intelligent systems increasingly expand into the field, we’ll see more and more attacks of this sort if we continue to leverage the same security stance and tools that we’ve used for decades within perimetered locations like data centers and secure telecommunication facilities. The recent news of the Verkada hack hard . In this article, I will go through a few of the widely-cited edge breaches in the industry and highlight how a zero trust security model optimized for the unique challenges of the edge would have helped prevent them from happening. Lessons Learned In a hack reminiscent of Verkada, the 2016 infected millions of cameras and turned them into bots that together launched a massive DDOS attack on upstream networks, briefly taking down the internet in the northeastern United States. Something on the order of under twenty combinations of username and password got into all those cameras, because the developers made it too easy to change, or not even possible to change, these security credentials. Often this was due to prioritizing usability and instant gratification for users over security. Mirai virus Another commonly-cited example is the massive in 2014 that was a result of attackers accessing millions of customers’ credit card information by way of a networked HVAC system. The hackers stole credentials from an HVAC contractor and were able to access the payment system because the operations network the HVAC was on wasn’t properly segmented from the IT network. Target data breach In a final example, the 2010 involved malware that was loaded into process control systems by using a USB flash drive to bypass the network air gap. The worm then propagated across the internal process control network, scanning for Siemens S7 software on industrial PCs. When successful, the virus would send unexpected commands to PLCs controlling industrial processes while giving the operators a view of normal operation. Stuxnet breach Viruses like Stuxnet that focus on compromising industrial systems are especially concerning because attacks can lead to immediate loss of production, or worse, life. This is compared to breaches of IT systems which typically play out over long periods of time, with compromises to privacy, financial data and IP. Challenges of Securing Distributed Edge Computing With these examples in mind, what is unique about the proverbial edge that makes security such a challenge? : Part of the value of IoT and edge computing comes from having devices connected across the organization, providing a holistic view of operations. Over time we will see edge device deployments grow into the trillions, and traditional data center solutions for security and management are not designed for this kind of scale. Scale Distributed edge computing resources rarely have the defense of four physical walls or a traditional network perimeter. This requires a security approach that assumes that these resources can be physically tampered with and doesn’t depend upon an owned network for defense. Lack of Physical and Network Perimeters: The edge is at the convergence of the physical and digital worlds. In addition to a highly heterogeneous landscape of technologies, we also have to account for diverse skill sets spanning IT and OT (e.g. network and security admins, DevOps, production, quality and maintenance engineers, data scientists). Heterogeneity: As OT and IT converge at the edge, each organization’s often conflicting priorities must be considered. While OT typically cares about uptime and safety, IT prioritizes data security, privacy and governance. Security solutions must balance these priorities in order to be successful. Varying Priorities: Many IoT devices are too resource-constrained to host security measures such as encryption, plus the broad install base of legacy systems in the field was never intended to be connected to broader networks, let alone the internet. Because of these limitations, these devices and systems need to rely on more capable compute nodes immediately upstream to serve as the first line of defense, providing functions such as root of trust and encryption. Constrained Devices and Legacy Systems: EVE-OS: Zero Trust Foundation Built for Distributed Edge Computing The Verkada hack and its predecessors make it clear that edge computing requires a zero trust architecture that addresses the unique security requirements of the edge. Zero trust begins with a basic tenant — trust no one and verify everything. started in 2019 with the Linux Foundation’s organization with the goal of delivering an open-source, vendor-agnostic and standardized foundation for hosting distributed edge computing workloads. Project EVE is driven by EVE-OS, a lightweight, secure, open, universal and Linux-based distributed edge operating system with open, vendor-neutral APIs for remote lifecycle management. The solution can run on any hardware (e.g., x86, Arm, GPU) and leverages different hypervisors and container runtimes to ensure policy-based isolation between applications, host hardware, and networks. The Project EVE community is now over 60 unique developers. Project EVE LF Edge EVE-OS Zero Trust Components Let’s take a look at the individual components of the EVE-OS zero trust security framework. EVE-OS leverages the cryptographic identity created in the factory or supply chain in the form of a private key generated in a hardware security model (e.g., TPM chip). This identity never leaves that chip and the root of trust is also used to store additional keys (e.g., for an application stack such as Azure IoT Edge). In turn, the public key is stored in the remote console. Hardware Root of Trust: An edge compute node running EVE-OS leverages its silicon-based trust anchor (e.g., TPM) for identity and communicates directly with the remote controller to verify itself. This eliminates having a username and password for each edge device in the field, instead, all access is governed through role-based access control (RBAC) in a centralized console. Hackers with physical access to an edge computing node have no way of logging into the device locally. No Usernames and Passwords: EVE-OS has granular, software-defined networking controls built in, enabling admins to govern traffic between applications, compute resources, and other network resources based on policy. The distributed firewall can be used to govern communication between applications on an edge node and on-prem and cloud systems, and detect any abnormal patterns in network traffic. As a bare metal solution, EVE-OS also provides admins with the ability to remotely block unused I/O ports on edge devices such as USB, Ethernet and serial. Combined with there being no local login credentials, this physical port blocking provides an effective measure against insider attacks leveraging USB sticks. Distributed Firewall: All of these tools are implemented in a curated, layered fashion to establish defense in depth with considerations for people, process, and technology. Layered Security Model: All features within EVE-OS are exposed through an open, vendor-neutral API that is accessed remotely through the user’s console of choice. Edge nodes block unsolicited inbound instruction, instead reaching out to their centralized management console at scheduled intervals and establishing a secure connection before implementing any updates. Centralized Management: Ounce of Prevention > Pound of Cure Returning to the above examples of security breaches, what would the impact of these attacks have looked like if the systems were running on top of EVE-OS? In short, there would have been multiple opportunities for the breaches to be prevented, or at least discovered and mitigated immediately. In the Verkada and Mirai examples, the entry point would have had to be the camera operating system itself, running in isolation on top of top EVE-OS. However, this would not have been possible because EVE-OS itself has no direct login capabilities. The same benefit would have applied in the Target example, and in the case of Stuxnet, admins could have locked down USB ports on local industrial PCs to prevent a physical insider attack. No Physical Breach: In all of these example attacks, the distributed firewall within EVE-OS would have limited the communications of applications, intercepting any attempts of compromised devices to communicate with any systems not explicitly allowed. Further, edge computing nodes running EVE-OS deployed immediately upstream of the target devices would have provided additional segmentation and protection. Network Communications Intercepted: EVE-OS would have provided detailed logs of all of the hackers’ activities. It’s unlikely that the hackers would have realized that the operating system they breached was actually virtualized on top of EVE-OS. Activities Monitored: Security policies established within the controller and enforced locally by EVE-OS would have detected unusual behavior by each of these devices at the source and immediately cordoned them off from the rest of the network, preventing hackers from inflicting further damage. Automatic Quarantine: Centralized management from any dashboard means that updates to applications and their operating systems (e.g. a camera OS) could have been deployed to an entire fleet of edge hardware powered by EVE-OS with a single click. Meanwhile, any hacked application operating system running above EVE-OS would be preserved for subsequent forensic analysis by the developer. One-click Mitigation: The zero-trust approach, comprehensive security policies, and immediate notifications would have drastically limited the scope and damage of each of these breaches, preserving the company’s brand in addition to mitigating direct effects of the attack. Reputation Preserved: We’re in this Together The diverse technologies and expertise required to deploy and maintain edge computing solutions can make security especially daunting. The shared technology investment of developing EVE-OS through vendor-neutral open source collaboration is important because it provides a high level of transparency and creates an open anchor point around which to build an ecosystem of hardware, software and services experts. The open, vendor neutral API within EVE-OS prevents lock-in and enables anyone to build their own controller. In this regard, you can think of EVE-OS as the “Android of the Edge”. Simplifying the Complicated Finally, in the process of addressing all potential threat vectors, it’s important to not make security procedures so cumbersome that users try to bypass key protections, or refuse to use the connected solution at all. Security usability is especially critical in IoT and edge computing due to the highly diverse skill sets in the field. In one example, while developers of the many smart cameras that have been hacked in the field made it easy for users to bypass the password change for instant gratification, EVE-OS provides similar zero touch usability without security compromise by automating the creation of a silicon-based digital ID during onboarding. The ideal solution is architected to streamline usability throughout the lifecycle of deploying and orchestrating distributed edge computing solutions so users have the confidence to connect and can focus on their business. While the attack surface for the massive was the centralized IT data center vs. the edge, it’s a clear example of the importance of having an open, transparent foundation that enables you to understand how a complex supply chain is accessing your network. 2020 SolarWinds hack In Closing Security at the distributed edge begins with a zero-trust foundation, a high degree of usability, and open collaboration. The industry is working together to take the guesswork out so customers can securely orchestrate their edge computing deployments with a choice of hardware, applications, and clouds, with limited IT knowledge required. The goal is to enable users to adopt distributed edge computing to drive new experiences and improve business outcomes, without taking on unnecessary risk. Also published at https://medium.com/zededa/how-do-we-prevent-breaches-like-verkada-merai-stuxnet-and-beyond-it-starts-with-zero-trust-c46b24cf456e

Zero Trust Strategies To Combat Breaches Like Mirai, Stuxnet, Verkada and Beyond

TLDR: VPNs are passe. It's time to upgrade to a Zero-Trust Network (if you haven’t already) If you are an employee who works remotely, I am sure you have been in this situation. You are trying to access a corporate cloud resource from home, but you can't get past the company's VPN. The experience is horrible- it's slow, hard to connect, and once you're finally in, you can't access half the things you need without back-and-forth Slack messages to the IT help desk. On the other hand, if you are an IT professional who manages remote workers, your users are constantly complaining about the VPN, and you are struggling to keep up with requests to add new apps and services to the corporate firewall. You are running around like a chicken with your head cut off, whitelisting IP addresses to maintaining complex subnet assignments and VLAN segments. You are starting to feel like your job is nothing but granting access to different parts of the network- like a medieval castle guard. If this sounds familiar, then you are not alone. In the age of remote work, access management has become one of the most important- and difficult- tasks for IT professionals. Access Control in the Age of Remote Work The problem is that most Access Management solutions were designed for a world where everyone worked in the office. They relied on things like IP addresses and site-to-site VPNs to control access. But in the age of remote work, those solutions just don't cut it anymore. Today, network security and access control are hard. Users are accessing corporate resources from all over the world. It's hard to keep track of all the different devices, apps, and users on your network. It's hard to know what they're doing and where they're going it. And it's especially hard to ensure they're not doing anything that they shouldn't be doing. But it doesn't have to be this way. There is a new class of solutions that are designed for the age of remote work. These identity-first networking solutions use user and device identities to control access rather than IP addresses. Problems With VPNs VPNs were designed for a different era- an era when network security was based on the perimeter. But in the age of remote work, the perimeter has all but disappeared. The first step in moving to an Identity-First solution is understanding the limitations of your current VPN: : VPNs rely on IP addresses to control access. But when users are working remotely, they often don't have a static IP address. This makes it hard to grant them access to the resources they need. Incompatible with remote work : VPNs provide access to entire networks, increasing the blast radius of incursions. Even worse, by publicly exposing an access point into your network, VPN s may give attackers the ability to identify systems and users on your network. Security issues The biggest complaint with VPNs is the poor user experience. Users have to log in, wait for the connection to be established, and then hope they can actually access what they need. In a battle between user experience and security, security will lose every single time. If you make your users jump through hoops to access resources they need for their jobs, they will find (often creative) workarounds to access the data they need. Poor user experience: . As the number of users and devices grows, so does the complexity of managing the VPN. VPNs are difficult to scale : When you have hundreds or even thousands of users connecting to your network through a VPN, it can be difficult to audit and review who is accessing what. Difficulty in audit and reviewing access With a VPN, it's all or nothing. Users have access to the entire network, which makes it difficult to limit their access to only what they need. Lack of granular control: The bottom line is that VPNs are no longer enough to keep your network secure. It's time to move to an identity-first solution. Identity-First Networking vs. Traditional Network Security Identity and Context-Based Access The biggest problem with the traditional network security model supported by a VPN is that it relies on a static perimeter. There is a clear distinction between "internal" and "external" users. Internal users are trusted because they have been physically verified (e.g., they are inside the building), while external users are considered untrusted and are subject to more stringent security measures. With the rise of remote work, the proliferation of mobile devices, and the increasing use of cloud-based applications, the network perimeter has become increasingly porous. It's no longer possible to rely on the network perimeter as a security boundary. In a Zero-Trust Network, there is no concept of "internal" network traffic. All users are treated equally, regardless of location. Access is based on user identity and context, not on an IP address. This makes it much more difficult for attackers to gain access to resources since they would need to have a valid user account and be able to pass both identity and context evaluation. Granular control over resource access While a VPN creates a secure tunnel between two points, it does not provide granular control over who has access to what resources. A Zero-Trust Network, on the other hand, uses identity and context to make real-time decisions about whether to allow or deny access to a resource. Zero-trust principles One of the biggest issues with VPN is that it is incompatible with Zero-Trust. Access is a security model that requires all users, regardless of location, to authenticate before accessing any resources. The model is based on the following principles: Every request to a private resource is authenticated and authorized based on real-time contextual information (user identity, location, device, risk, etc.). Verify before you trust: There is no such thing as an internal network or an external network. All traffic is treated equally and requires verification. Never trust, always verify: Users are identified, and their actions are logged so that you can audit and review them later. Tie users to their actions: Users are only given the bare minimum permissions they need to do their job. No more, no less. Enforce least privilege: Benefits of Zero-Trust Networking There are many benefits to implementing Zero-Trust Networking, including the following: By implementing multiple layers of security, you can make it more difficult for attackers to penetrate your network. Increased security: Zero-Trust Networking can help you meet compliance requirements, such as those set forth by the GDPR and HIPAA. Improved compliance: Zero-Trust Networking provides a better user experience than traditional VPNs, which can be slow and cumbersome. Enhanced user experience: Zero-Trust Networking simplifies network management by eliminating the need to maintain separate "internal" and "external" networks. Simplified network management: Zero-Trust Networking is the future of network security. It provides a more robust and comprehensive security posture than traditional network security models, and it's easier to manage and maintain. It's time to rethink your access control strategy and move to an Identity-First model that will allow you to take advantage of the cloud, improve your users' experience, and increase your organization's security posture.

Guess Who? Access Management Struggles in the Age of Remote Work

Hardly a day goes by where you don’t bump into headlines about Bitcoin (ETH/LTC/choose your fighter) and the evolving technologies fueling the fad. Blockchain technology, in particular, has made front pages for stirring ploys. But what we haven’t seen before are dApps, forging a brighter future for traditional mobile apps and crypto usage. And while we were squabbling over cryptos, decentralized applications amounted to almost 4K, accounting for . That’s quite a statement for something as fledgling as dApps, isn’t it? 179.37 daily users So let’s not get cryptic (pun intended) about this new app generation and find out whether they’re worth the hype. We’ll also discuss their plausible prospects in the years to come. But first, a dab of dApps You must remember the wealth of opportunities that were offered to startups and investors by . ICO in 2017 Back then, decentralized apps were heralded as a brand new tech comfort aimed at a slew of industries. Sadly, only a few industries accrued dApp benefits back then. After the bust of the great cryptocurrency bubble in early 2018, we haven’t heard much about dApps until 2020. That’s when dApps renewed their potential on the Ethereum mainnet. A-list players like MicroStrategy’s Michael Saylor, Twitter’s Jack Dorsey, and Tesla’s Elon Musk have attested to the rebounded prospects of dApps. So what is a dApp? Decentralized apps (dApps) are software programs that exist and run on a P2P network of computers rather than being hosted on an individual computer or server. In theory, they represent the next stage in the evolution of software development, which has traditionally been dominated by centralized servers. In general terms, dApps are decentralized, transparent, and more attack-resistant applications that rely on blockchain. The technology itself is an open-access database, where all data nodes are cryptographically linked to each other and have an immutable block structure. According to , here’s what dApps bring to the table: Ethereum – no denial-of-service attacks are possible once the smart contract is deployed and on the blockchain. Zero downtime – no user data is shared with third parties. Privacy – user adoption of dApps or their deployment cannot be denied by any single entity (there are none, actually). Censorship-resistant – the stored data is immutable, it cannot be forged or erased, which allows the technology to satisfy the main data integrity requirements, according to the FDA's ALCOA concept. Complete data integrity – thanks to the automatic execution of smart contracts there is no need to trust a central authority to verify the transaction. Trustless computation/verifiable behavior But along with the added edge, decentralized applications are tricky to maintain, update, scale. A back-of-the-envelope calculation puts the overhead at something like 1,000,000x that of standard computation currently. - Ethereum Clearly, centralized applications beat dApps in these areas. As a developer and owner, you have complete control over the app and how it is used. Traditional applications can also handle large amounts of traffic. Already, we can assume that . So, why should you invest in decentralized solutions? Let’s see. dApps aren’t the ultimate resort for all software kinds What are dApps used for? Decentralized applications aren’t the hype only. Today, we can see lots of practical implementations of dApps. These include: - applications that allow you to buy, sell, and trade digital assets (e.g. MetaMask swap, etc). DeFi (NFT market) - these combine the functions of an online store, an auction, and a blockchain platform for the issuance of non-interchangeable tokens. Users should be able to create their own NFT items and sell them. Digital collectibles - blockchain-based gaming applications where users can buy, sell or trade virtual properties (e.g. CryptoKitties) Gaming/Gambling - social media dApps that encourage users to share valuable content by compensating them with crypto. Communication - a promising use case of dApps that will help link hospital data systems across a shared network and make patient data more secure. Healthcare Just think of it. A few years ago, dApps were that far-fetched sci-fi concept that had little to do with real-world problems. And now look at all these applications, most of which have already made a dent in the market, backed by high-flying brands. Therefore, decentralized apps are becoming more involved in day-to-day living, eliminating the need for third-party control and enabling users to manage their finances, data, and digital assets directly. We can also validate their positive dynamics by comparing stats from Dapp Radar. In 2021, over Unique Active Wallets (UAW) connected daily to a blockchain dapp. 2.7 million In 2019, this number didn’t climb higher than . 20K It seems like we’ve reached a milestone in 2021, so what’s next? Will the hype vanish and will dApps sink into oblivion? It doesn’t s seem so. What are hApps? Let’s address the elephant in the room: are still too young to claim dominance over traditional applications. Also, large-scale migration is still hampered by the lack of infrastructure and its complexity. Although I’m pretty positive that early-stage problems will be eliminated (remember the first BTC wallets?), decentralized technology has a plan B anyway. dApps Hybrid blockchain is a cross between traditional blockchain and centralized databases. This results in a perfect combination of the two different methods, leading to better security, lower cost, and faster transaction rates. One of the biggest problems with blockchain technology is its inability to handle high loads. This hinders its ability to be used for enterprise-level purposes. Hybrid blockchains were created using this realization which resulted in an increase in their utility for the development and deployment of applications requiring high levels of throughput. So why not apply the same principle to dApps while they’re still in their infancy? Thus, instead of making a major overhaul, we’ll secure a smooth transaction and a brighter dApp future by blending both centralized and decentralized capabilities. hApps are a combination of both traditional and decentralized applications that rely both on centralized and decentralized components. Just like hybrid blockchains, they can take the best from both worlds. Thus the back-end will rely on the salient blockchain features provided by smart contracts. The front-end will amalgamate both decentralized and centralized versions to match the computing power of any device. A centralized interface, for example, will be accessible for smartphones, while a decentralized one can be accessed via laptops. It also means that speed-intensive processes can be delegated to centralized servers to make confirmations faster. The Future of decentralized applications Decentralized awesomeness is certainly the man of the hour in 2022. According to Gartner, Blockchain is set to generate in new business value by 2030. It means that blockchain and blockchain-powered technologies like dApps will gain traction in the coming post-pandemic years. $3.1 trillion Is the future decentralized? It’s hard to say as we’re still standing at the onset of it. Nobody believed in humanoid robots and self-driving cars, remember? And here we are, watching the in its public demo. humanoid robot It seems to me that we are forging our way to a more decentralized future, that’s for sure. As for dApps, the numbers prove their tailwind and the growing user base. So whether it’ll be hApps first or purely decentralized applications, the very concept of them has already changed the tech landscape and made a statement on the global arena, securing its place in the post-pandemic reality.

Do dApps Have a Place Post-crypto Craze and What are hApps

I recently received the honor and privilege of joining a budding group of amazing human beings from across the world around a shared interest and belief via a community called . The belief? Kernel Cryptocurrency (and its underlying tech) has the potential to be the key driver of how we interact with and share truth in the world as we know it. If you’re open-minded as to humor me for a few minutes, I’d like to share the core parts of an open course that over 2,000 of us to date have connected around in a peer-to-peer fashion, in a true decentralized spirit, during our 8-week Fellowship Program. The Billionaire founder of Ethereum, Vitalik Buterin, was even on the Zoom with us! (If you squint you may notice me with my dog Layla in the top right.) A sort of Manhattan Project, but for the betterment of society, if you will. Because, well…we only have one chance to get this thing right until dominant centralized corporate powers seep their tentacles further into people’s minds and distort the truth, algorithmically, for even more clicks and quarterly profits from advertising revenue to report during earnings calls. The following article explores how cryptocurrency grew up around a reckoning of what it means to share truth in today’s society. Each module in the Kernel community’s open blockchain course is summarized below, and you can click on the link at the end of the summary for further reading on that topic. ✍️ THE MEANING OF TRUST What is trust? And how does it relate to Bitcoin? Bitcoin began with the maxim “Don’t trust, verify.” That is, trust can only begin where our ability to verify the truth ends and we understand exactly how and to what extent people can lie. And once we have determined this, we can write software that codifies those exact parameters. “Strength in numbers” is another early bitcoin aphorism. Creating the numerical framework as a community around which the truth must be verified creates a space for what Andreas Antonopoulos calls ‘unassailable facts.’ The more the truth can be verified with shared rules and codes, the more easily a shared reality can be agreed upon. Because Bitcoin source code can be audited by anyone, anywhere, the truth behind it is accessible in a way that wasn’t before. http://kernel.community/en/learn/module-0/trust/ 🤯 WHAT CREATES VALUE? Ask yourself: “What destroys value?” Some things that may come to mind: disagreement, fear, deception, violence, anger, envy, and inefficiency. Therefore, the answer to creating value seems to be investing in a shared truth among our peers. How do we create shared truth? The simple answer is: through fiction—but not just any fiction. This fiction must employ an efficiency of language in order to be effective. Blockchains demand a mathematical consensus. The question is: how many people can reliably share in your fiction’s truth? Previously, the narratives we told within our tribes were usually kept on the record by one person whose authority outstripped everyone else’s. But because blockchains create a new “trust space” in which the truth is verifiable by every participant equally, there is room to explore a more democratic method of telling stories. In 1995, Phil Zimmerman published the source code for PGP as a book. He wanted to use the First Amendment to get around the Arms Export Control Act. Cryptography is considered to be a weapon by many governments, seeing as it is so powerful. It has no need for legal or political protection, and therefore outside the realm of control of those jurisdictions. Therefore, cryptography is now widely used to speak freely about whatever we wish, without necessitating trusting in corruptible institutions. This has profoundly changed the way humans make and share meaning. http://kernel.community/en/learn/module-1/meaning/ 💸 WHAT IS FREE SPEECH? The definition of free speech has always hinged on its upper limit—what about hate speech and defamation? Aren’t those technically free speech as well? With cryptocurrency, this balance between two extremes is no longer needed. Everyone is free to speak, and the cost of any kind of meaningful speech, or ‘state-change’ is well-defined. Any speech act which changes the shared record is classified as ‘meaningful speech’ in this case. Thus, when “protecting” free speech is no longer the main goal, and speech acts are instead priced according to a set of explicit rules, the definition of meaningful communications expands tenfold. http://kernel.community/en/learn/module-2/money-speech/ 🦄 ACCEPTING BOUNDARIES AS FREEDOM Freedom, in its simplest terms, is a combination of awareness and acceptance. It is not the denying boundaries but accepting them that leads to freedom of thought and to a realistic future for humanity, rather than the numerous rights and privileges the current political climate has us all believing we cannot live without. Freedom instead comes from choosing which shared truths to trust, knowing how cheating is encoded within those truths and knowing the extent to which one can verify that cheating is not taking place. In this way, the products we buy should not promise freedom in our use of them, but should instead make clear how they are limiting those very freedoms and what trade-offs we must make when using them. Again, the acceptance of limits like these is what constitutes true freedom. http://kernel.community/en/learn/module-3/freedom/ 🌐 TAKING BACK THE WEB What does it mean to “take back the web”? What kinds of freedoms are we not willing to go without and what kinds of freedoms are negotiable? This module provides a history lesson on the world wide web–where it’s been, and where it’s going, combined with talking points around three core pillars of thought and an emphasis on the humility lessons covered in the first module. This reading will help uncover while people encode some incentives and not others and what it says about the kind of lives people want to lead. How do we separate ourselves from the extractive attention economy and live on our own terms? These materials will shed some light on those topics. http://kernel.community/en/learn/module-3/ ℹ️ COLLECTIVE DECISION MAKING So now we know that systems that don’t operate on blind faith require that we encode what it means to cheat. This creates a capacity for collaboration at scales previously thought impossible. Modern mathematical tools are the key to modeling optimal collective decision-making. Tools that encourage collaboration without coercion and rules in which bad behavior is encoded and its costs defined are the means by which healthy, trusting communities are born. The most important idea from this module is this: subsidizing small contributions to public goods the most and large contributions the least ensures that free-riding incentives will be minimized. This turns classical capitalism on its head—a system in which each individual is incentivized to act selfishly and only account for his own benefits and not the benefits to all others. http://kernel.community/en/learn/module-4/liberal-radical/ ℹ️ CHESTERTON’S FENCE Do you know the story of Chesterton’s Fence? It’s an old English tale about a man who decides he’s going to “take the air” while walking through his neighbor’s pasture but encounters a gate blocking his way. Falling back on the concept of “Free Reign” in which English farmers were required to keep at least one path through their land available for public use, the man kicks down the gate so that he may pass freely. However, he is met with an unwelcome surprise. (You’ll have to read the for the exciting conclusion.) article This module discusses the lesson of Chesterton’s Fence and defines terms like “counterpower,” “custom,” and “commons,” in ways that turn some of the preconceived notions we have about these ideas on their heads, all to contextualize how we relate to one another amidst the ‘anarchy’ of the internet. http://kernel.community/en/learn/module-4/ 👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 ECONOMIC INCENTIVES: You can build persuasive incentives for any kind of economic behavior, but how do we know what behavior we should incentivize? This module discusses an essay by Peter Norvig that discusses just that while coming to a surprising conclusion about wealth inequality. He suggests the initial distribution of wealth in the economy doesn’t affect the long-term distribution of wealth in as strong a way as the nature of the transactions. He also suggests that allowing people to trade only with those geographically near them makes little difference to the distribution of wealth overall. http://kernel.community/en/learn/module-5/incentives/ 👮 CENSORSHIP: As anyone who has spent even a moment on Capitol Hill will tell you, expressing an opinion is not the same as communicating it effectively. Blockchains combine money and speech, creating simultaneous expression and economic action. If anyone across society can program incentives, then censorship resistance is a computing problem, nothing more. Instead of putting pressure on legal systems to stop censorship, the pressure is on economic systems to make censorship no longer cost-effective. The goal is to build effective and complete threat models that outline all the ways in which censorship is beneficial. http://kernel.community/en/learn/module-6/censorship-resistance/ CONCLUSION: The purpose of these learning modules has been to try and fully understand what implementing a blockchain at a global scale could mean for humanity. There is no current model that we have that can hold the concept of an econo-linguistic network that utilizes currency as a protocol in which meaning is mathematically determined. Blockchain is ultimately about coming to terms with what truly makes meaning for human beings: a narrative communally created that gets to the heart of our shared truths. THE LOGICAL EVOLUTION OF DECENTRALIZATION Language was the first logically decentralized system—now, scaled blockchains are the next generation of logically decentralized systems that center the creation, negotiation, and transfer of value. Changes in the literacy of these systems have always brought about tectonic shifts in society. The advent of blockchain means the advent of a society in which power is no longer owned by the lucky few. With computing power in the hands of everyone across race, class, and geography, the ability to create shared narratives built on trust and on a language that can be encoded with group values at every level means that the future of currency is more democratic and more secure than it has been at any point in its history. How will you use this new technology to communicate? This was initially published on my blog, , and I hope it brings some value to your life and how you look at problems. Consider or and stay tuned for more short educational pieces at the intersection of culture, technology, careers, science, and world news & politics that mainstream mass media rarely covers. Huge Thinking following us on Twitter like us on Facebook

Cryptocurrency: Redefining Trust and Money

Some people still wonder why Bitcoin is essential to the future of humanity. Just a few days ago, Jim Cramer made a fool of himself by declaring that “ ”. Bitcoin has done nothing for mankind For Jim, but also for all those who still refuse to study the why of Bitcoin, I'm going to try to open their eyes so that they understand why Bitcoin is essential for the preservation of human rights. All in the hope that these few lines will inspire them to study Bitcoin further, because that's the key! It's clear that governments the world over want to do away with cash. Some countries are more advanced than others in this strong trend, but they all want the same thing for the future: the disappearance of cash. Cash payments are becoming increasingly rare, and everything is being done to favor credit card payments, whether online or in the physical world. This should make you wonder about the implications of a cashless society in the future. A cashless society where money is controlled by governments, and therefore totally centralized. As a citizen, what would this mean for you? You would immediately lose your right to financial privacy. Some people will make the mistake of thinking that this is no big deal because they have nothing to hide since they're not doing anything illegal with their money. This is the reaction of the majority of the general public. Unfortunately, this is a very serious mistake. The moment you lose your financial privacy, you give even more power to governments and corporations. For these entities, what you buy and sell with your money says more about you than your own words. When you purchase with cash, the merchant has no information about your identity. Conversely, when you purchase with your bank card, it's a disaster for your privacy, as the merchant can accumulate a whole heap of data about you. Worse still, this data is cross-referenced with other data about you obtained through other purchases or on other Internet platforms, giving a slightly more complete profile of you each time. Eventually, without you even realizing it, governments and corporations will have succeeded in creating a complete profile of you and your habits. On the other hand, there's Bitcoin. Bitcoin is a Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System invented by Satoshi Nakamoto and which has been operating virtually non-stop since January 3, 2009. Bitcoin frees you from unnecessary intermediaries when making a payment. No more intermediary banks collecting data. No more banks charging you exorbitant fees to make payments. No more intermediaries like PayPal or Visa who also take their share of fees. With Bitcoin, you're in control. There's no need to trust a third party - everything happens directly between two people. This means that by using Bitcoin for your payments, governments and corporations can't accumulate all that data about you. Of course, this requires you to take certain precautions in your use of Bitcoin, but Bitcoin makes it all possible. In the future, it seems clear that the general public will be faced with 3 options: State Money Corporate Money People's Money We've seen that Facebook (now Meta) tried to move in this direction in the past with its Libra digital currency project, which was quickly killed off by the American authorities, well aware of the danger to their power, which is intimately linked to the US dollar. You've understood that Bitcoin is People's Money. It's your way out of the current system, which is flawed and not fixable. Despite the incredible success of the Bitcoin revolution so far, Bitcoin is still in its infancy, as very few people on earth have understood the why of Bitcoin and are using Bitcoin. Yet the Bitcoin revolution must survive and thrive for the good of all humans. If the Bitcoin revolution reaches its full potential, all humans will have access to money with the following characteristics: Bitcoin cannot be censored by the authorities. Bitcoin cannot be devalued by governments. Bitcoin supply is hard-capped at 21 million units no matter what. Bitcoin cannot be manipulated by corporations. All Bitcoin users are equal. Bitcoin cannot be easily monitored. Bitcoin is global. Bitcoin transcends borders. Bitcoin is accessible to everyone, with no strings attached. Anyone can use Bitcoin, but what's even better is that anyone can (and should) participate in the network by becoming a node of the network to verify everything for themselves. Don't Trust, Verify. With its unique characteristics, Bitcoin helps every human being preserve their fundamental rights: privacy, banking, freedom of speech, and savings. With Bitcoin, everyone can express themselves freely without fear of having their money seized. Everyone can have access to basic banking services, which is essential in Africa, for example. You can save again without fear of inflation destroying the fruits of your labor through an infinite fall in purchasing power over time. You can transact with anyone, anywhere in the world, for any amount, without asking anyone's permission. In the Bitcoin network, your money is really yours. The decentralized Bitcoin network makes it all possible. The next time someone tells you that Bitcoin has done nothing for humanity, you'll know what to say. Bitcoin is an opportunity for humanity, and it's up to us to seize it. Also published . here

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