While thousands of companies and entities look to grab people's data for various reasons, the commonly stated idea that folks don't care about privacy is untrue, according to the Electric Coin Company, the entity behind privacy-focused crypto asset Zcash. Citing inconvenience and other excuses, some people claim they do not care about privacy, Electric Coin Company Product marketing staff Elena Giralt said in a presentation at CoinDesk's digital Consensus 2020 conference. She added, however: If you take a step back, it's helpful to understand that billions and billions of dollars go into developing technology platforms and systems to harvest data …

The United Kingdom’s Open University has developed a COVID-19 proof-of-immunity app that combines blockchain with a privacy-preserving data solution from web inventor Tim Berners-Lee. The prototype app, undergoing testing as of April 29, would support the proof and verification of tamper-resistant test results for COVID-19 antigen tests and vaccination coverage. The solution could ostensibly be used to provide frontline workers, healthcare professionals and the wider public with reliable immunity certificates that would be stored on a distributed, immutable and trusted blockchain-based registry. Alongside consortium blockchain technology, the app uses solid “pods” — an acronym for the personal online data stores …

Blockchain’s varied applications are becoming more useful for global banking institutions with each passing day. Yesterday, Polish retail banks rolled out a blockchain-based customer data platform developed by the Polish Credit Bureau, also known as Biuro Informacji Kredytowej, or BIK. BIK, the biggest credit bureau in Central and Eastern Europe, has enabled banks in Poland to send notifications of commissions and fees changes on blockchain via its new document management product. Polish Credit Bureau and Billon were developing the platform since 2018 Developed in collaboration with Polish-British fintech firm, Billon, the BIK Blockchain Platform has been in development since the …

Recent data shows parties selling a massive number of Zoom accounts in the far reaches of the internet. In darknet and hacking forums, perpetrators are pawning off 500,000 user accounts from the popular internet video conferencing site, BleepingComputer said in an April 13 report. Hackers utilized former leaked information The infiltrators used multiple methods to gain access to the plethora of Zoom accounts. “These credentials are gathered through credential stuffing attacks where threat actors attempt to login to Zoom using accounts leaked in older data breaches,” the report said of Zoom users’ information. “The successful logins are then compiled into …

As people around the world started following shelter-in-place orders, popular video conferencing platform Zoom quickly gained new users, noting in a recent blog post that it had reached more than 200 million daily users last month, up from 10 million in December. From virtual conferences to online birthday parties, thousands of individuals have flocked to Zoom in an attempt to remain social at a time when social gatherings are banned. Yet, while Zoom may have seemed like the perfect alternative to in-person gatherings, a major security flaw has been lurking in the system. Following the sudden balloon in daily users, …

Bitcoin SV powered social media platform Twetch has launched a feature to streamline peer-to-peer (P2P) payments. Twetch is a Twitter-like social media platform where users must make micropayments in order to post and engage with content on the platform. Content creators are directly paid for their activity through a revenue sharing system based on likes and shares. The platform is currently in private beta. Command-line style payments feature Tweet has rolled out the ability for users to send BSV to each other by entering the command-line ‘/pay’, a user’s tag, and the dollar value of the transfer into the app. …

Genobank, a blockchain project seeking to offer consumers ownership and control over their DNA data, is preparing to launch an app on EOS-based blockchain platform Telos to assist people in accessing anonymous coronavirus testing. According to a recent announcement from the Telos Foundation, the app will also allow users to share that information with healthcare organizations. The open-source app, Agerona, stores the test data on the Telos blockchain, with Genobank to introduce a token that enables information sharing. The app is expected to launch this month. Privacy concerns could hinder health efforts Some authorities have expressed concern that undocumented workers …

Chinese social media giant saw a massive data breach result in data of millions of users available for sale on the dark web. According to a March 19 report from Chinese blockchain news outlet Jinse, basic account information of 172 million users was available, priced at 0.177 BTC. The account information for sale included user ID, number of Weibo posts, number of fans and followers, gender and geographical location. Weibo confirmed the privacy issue yet deleted the post later on According to Jinse, Weibo’s security director Luo Shiyao responded to the incident in a now-deleted post, explaining that: “Users' mobile …

On Feb. 26, the Securities and Exchange Commission announced the rejection of yet another ETF submission from Wilshire Phoenix, a New York-based investment firm, citing a lack of resistance to market manipulation and fraudulent activity. The filing stated that the NYSE Arca had not demonstrated that the market was “designed to prevent fraudulent and manipulative acts and practices and to protect investors and the public interest.” While Wilshire Phoenix aimed to base its ETF both on Bitcoin (BTC) and the United States Treasury bonds to hedge against Bitcoin's volatility in a hope to break the trend of ETF rejections, the …

Former presidential candidate and known cryptocurrency proponent Andrew Yang has announced a new initiative to protect privacy online. After ending his presidential bid last month, Yang has announced the creation of new nonprofit organization called Humanity Forward. It aims to “rewrite the rules” of economy and society with a focus on data privacy. Announcing the news in a March 5 tweet, Yang outlined that the group is building a human-centered America, calling for donations to support the movement. Despite Yang previously accepting donations within his presidential campaign in cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC), Humanity Forward doesn’t support donations in crypto as …

The Chain Integration Pilot (CHIP) of the Auburn University RFID Lab in Alabama has published a proof-of-concept whitepaper that seeks to demonstrate the efficiency savings blockchain technology can unlock across the contemporary supply chain. The proof-of-concept was designed to ingest, encode, distribute, and store serialized data from multiple points throughout the supply chain on Hyperledger Fabric. The pilot collected live data from brands Nike, PVH Corp., and Herman Kay, and major United States retailers Kohl’s and Macy’s. CHIP was launched in 2018 and claims to be the first supply chain project to integrate the information pulled from RFID tags onto …

As the new decade unreels, a new wave of disruption seems to be coming to the shores of the global financial system. That wave is called decentralized finance protocols. Decentralized finance, or DeFi, simply refers to financial software that is built on the blockchain to make it easy for anyone to piece together digital assets and financial smart contracts. Think of DeFi as a Lego system for the finance industry. According to Defi Pulse, an analytics site that tracks the sector’s growth, the entirety of the DeFi ecosystem achieved its highest valuation in 2019 when its value peaked beyond $600 …