Our Stuff
Tim.
My mentor, Tim Copeland, with the help of cybersecurity farmcrypto-wallet firm Guarda, took another vile crypto scam to task today. Bless him.
This scam’s no fun at all for its victims, writes our Tim. Indeed, it “captures your private key data without you even knowing–which will enable it to move all your funds outside of your Ethereum wallet, if you download the one on its website. Indeed, MetaMask has even blacklisted it and placed on the domain warning list. In addition, the projects Github repository—where hard fork code would be stored—is empty.”
Adriana.
Crypto entrepreneurs and devs will want to read erstwhile BBC journalist Adriana Hamacher’s meticulously reported piece today how Ethereum’s coming Constantinople upgrade will introduce, surely not, positive user experiences to the Ethereum blockchain. One of her pieces subjects, James Young, did core work on the Facebook’s legendary Farmville.
“Young was behind the popular online game, Farmville, which, in 2012, had more than 200 million users. It then fell off the face of the earth when Facebook changed its news feed algorithm, choking off Farmville’s growth. It has since become a poster child for the decentralization movement. After Farmville, Young turned to blockchain, launching Adchain, and then the payment system for SpankChain, a blockchain-based payment service for the adult industry. He’s SpankChain’s vice president of engineering and is also working, independently, on a new project using CREATE2 to develop a smart wallet.”
Ben.
The talented, handsome, and hideously underpaid Ben Munster looked into recent claims made by crypto startup KODAKOne that its blockchain-powered photo-copyright service had generated $1 million in fees from a beta test, among other things. Munster’s piece mainly cribbed from the work of renowned blockchain critic David Gerard. Breathtaking.
Other stuff
Names.
Chinese cybersecurity firm SlowMist has reportedly identified three public addresses responsible for the recent “51 percent attack” on the Ethereum Classic network. The attack took place last Saturday, and apparently cost the network some $270,000 worth of Ethereum Classic, a predecessor of Ethereum. SlowMist named and shamed those it alleged were responsible: “0xb71d9CD39b68a08660dCd27B3EAE1c13C1267B10,”“0x3ccc8f7415e09bead930dc2b23617bd39ced2c06,” and “0x090a4a238db45d9348cb89a356ca5aba89c75256.” Names you won’t soon forget.
To ed—can one libel a public address? [Ed: We’ll find out. Do you have a forwarding address?]
Norway.
A strange story has been unfolding in Norway’s Winter Wonderland. Anne-Elisabeth Falkevik Hagen, the wife of a wealthy Norwegian businessman, has reportedly been kidnapped in October—the narrative having been kept quiet until now. The crypto angle: her attackers demanding her husband pay up some $10.9 million-worth of Monero for her safe return.
Ongoing negotiations between the kidnappers and authorities have so far borne little fruit, according to the New York Times. Nor do they know if the 68-year-old Hagen is even still alive. There’s not really a funny kicker for this one, folks.
Bitmain
I’ve been dusting off my Chinese, ladies and gentlemen, and hooey, get a load of this South China Morning Post piece (which is actually in English)! According to a man named “people with knowledge on the matter,” vast Chinese mining conglomerate Bitmain is readying itself to replace founders Wu Jihan and Zhan Ketuan with current product engineering director Wang Haichao for the role of CEO. Wu and Ketuan will no longer control Bitmain’s daily operations, and will retreat to positions of general oversight. As long as Wu’s still allowed to tweet.