Tracking Illegal Terrorist Funding Campaigns Via Cryptographic Currencies Tools
With superb research efforts, and the equally fascinating tutorials available for researchers targeting the problematic of illegality in terrorist funding, Brenna Smith divulges what it takes to discover, and subsequently track ill-gotten gains and the funding thereof, through the utilization of BitCoin transactions. Certainly today's MustRead, via Bellingcat. To effectively analyze any bitcoin address, I rely on four main tools:
"A bitcoin blockexplorer — which gives you access to the bitcoin blockchain... BitcoinWhosWho — which is a tool that allows you to look up certain BTC addresses... WalletExplorer — though similar to a block explorer in reporting transaction history... Good ole’ Google search — simply googling BTC addresses can lead you to blog posts..." - via Brenna Smith, writing at Bellingcat
New Firefox Browser To Feature Anti-Fingerprinting Capabilities
via Martin Brinkmann, writing as he does on gHacks.net, details a specific attribute to be included in the upcoming Firefox 67 release (slated for May 14th, 2019 (the date provided is somewhat 'fluid', as delays may require a reset on the claimed release date). At any rate, the specific release wil include anti-fingerprinting technology.
"Fingerprinting refers to using data provided by the browser, e.g. automatically or by running certain scripts, to profile users. One of the appeals that fingerprinting has is that it does not require access to local storage and that some techniques work across browsers." - via Martin Brinkmann, writing on his gHacks.net
Office Depot & Support.com Cough Up $35,000,000: FTC Smackdown Of Scammer Corporations
via Jon Brodkin, writing at Ars Technica, comes the story of a total of $35 million dollars paid by two sketchy retail corporations (Office Depot and it's partner in crime - Support.com) in the US, whom have fallen from grace most profoundly. Read it and rejoice for a US Federal Agency living up to it's mandate and doing the Rght Thing.
The FTC yesterday announced that Office Depot and its software supplier, Support.com, have agreed to pay a total of $35 million in settlements with the agency. Office Depot agreed to pay $25 million while Support.com will pay the other $10 million. The FTC said it intends to use the money to provide refunds to wronged consumers. - via Jon Brodkin, writing superb reportage at Ars Technica
Securing The Internet Of The Body
via Purdue University Professor Shreyas Sen (Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and his students Debayan Das, Shovan Maity and Baibhab Chatterjee) comes a definative answer to securing the various machines and other connected implants we as a species are placing into and on our bodies to assist and record. Their work - entitled 'Enabling Covert Body Area Network using Electro-Quasistatic Human Body Communication' appears in Scientific Reports (a NatureResearch journal) (a portion of the Abstract of the journal entry appears below).
"Radiative communication using electro-magnetic (EM) fields amongst the wearable and implantable devices act as the backbone for information exchange around a human body, thereby enabling prime applications in the fields of connected healthcare, electroceuticals, neuroscience, augmented and virtual reality. However, owing to such radiative nature of the traditional wireless communication, EM signals propagate in all directions, inadvertently allowing an eavesdropper to intercept the information." - via the Nature ScientificResearch Journal publication entitled Enabling Covert Body Area Network using Electro-Quasistatic Human Body Communication'- via Purdue University Professor Shreyas Sen (Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and his students Debayan Das, Shovan Maity and Baibhab Chatterjee)