Exclusive: How Significant is Consensus As-a-service Model?

While Amazon and Microsoft launched the blockchain-as-a-service (BaaS) platform in 1H 2019, Hedera Hashgraph collaborated with IBM to launch a consensus as-a-service model. Is this the next upcoming tech trend for giants to follow?

Sami Mian, Head of Korea, and Japan of Hedera Hashgraph revealed the significance of the consensus as-a-service model! He also explained the consensus algorithm of Hedera Hashgraph and taught us a lesson comparing BFT and aBFT!

Readers are very interested in the collaboration between Hedera Hashgraph with IBM on the consensus as a service model. Can you talk more on this model and how does will transform the development of blockchain?

Hedera Hashgraph joined Hyperledger. We co-authored a whitepaper with IBM and released it in June. We’ve announced a fourth service on the Hedera Hashgraph platform. We had three services before, one was a cryptocurrency service supporting micro-payments. The other was a smart contract using the solidity coding language. Then the third one was file service.

We announced the fourth service called consensus as a service.

Essentially, we’re providing solution for centralized applications or applications built on private ledgers to have the benefit of decentralization.

Imagine you build an application on Hyperledger like Japanese and Korean companies. They’re building applications or proof of concepts on the private ledger. Companies want the privacy of a private ledger in which the data is not available on public ledgers. They have applications or proof of concept (POC), they are building already on Hyperledger. However, they want the benefit of a public ledger which is trust. In public blockchains, nodes are not only run by selected number of people. We heard from the market that they want the benefits of both and they want to run private applications. They want to run applications in a private ledger, but at the same time, they want to gain the trust element from the public ledger. We have a Hedera API. We’re going to allow Hyperledger applications to plug into our consensus as a service and decentralize their trust. You get the best of both worlds.

With regard to the Hedera Hashgraph mechanism, how does the no forking mechanism in Hedera Hashgraph work?

Hashgraph consensus algorithm is a patented algorithm. Dr. Leemon Baird invented the Hashgraph algorithm in 2015. A lot of people asked us why our platform isn’t open-sourced? Because we think stability is very important for the market. Stability means that we think the public platforms should not be allowed to fork. That’s because we’re an enterprise-grade platform.

If a company spends millions of dollars building a decentralized application, then we want that company to not be afraid of the platform itself forks. For example, if you have real estate being tokenized on the public platform and the public platform itself forks, then we don’t know whether the value should be doubled? Is it on one platform or both platforms? It causes a lot of instability. One way that we’re going to disallow forking is through our legal means, which is the patent of the Hashgraph algorithm.

Another way is what we call state proof. State proof is a mechanism that allows the community and the users to identify which ledger is the real ledger. Let’s say, Hedera Beta forked Ledger comes to the market. Then we have a mechanism called state proof that can tell everybody in the world that this is the real ledger, as opposed to the forked ledger.

Hedera Hashgraph began phase two of its community testing on the micro-payment. When would you expect the micro-payment will become a reality and which industry would benefit the most from this?

Micro-payment is one of the value propositions of Hedera, meaning being able to transfer less than a cent of value at hundreds of thousands of transactions per second (TPS) with finality. Up until now, traditional banking industries are not able to do that, because it costs way more to send it. You can’t send a cent in Bitcoin or Ethereum because of gas costs and miners.

Hashgraph allows microtransactions. The biggest use case in micro-transactions is definitely e-Commerce. All the transactions on the internet today are the most important use case. For example, you listen to one second of music, you pay 0.1 cents. For any IoT applications, you consume a little bit of data. For that data, you provide a little bit of value. Facebook came up with this Libra token. Presumably, they will start to pay people to watch their ads using the Libra token. That’s another way the micro-transactions can disseminate the internet. Anything of value whether it’s small pieces of data, two seconds of music, personal information, or putting a value on your identity, you can use microtransactions.

How Hedera Hashgraph will differentiate itself from the existing competitors in public blockchain like Conflux Chain, Algorand, and DFINITY?

The biggest difference between Hedera Hashgraph and everybody else is our split governance model. We have permissioned governance that is provided by the most trusted companies in the world and term-limited. We’re trying to build an enterprise-grade platform that is governed by experts. Yet we provide open consensus at the same time. You have the best of both worlds, the best of permissioned networks and permissionless networks. This is something that we believe no other platform has.

On top of that, we have the Hashgraph consensus algorithm. Now Hashgraph is tech-wise different to any other algorithm by miles, with hundreds of thousands of TPS, latency is three to seven seconds with finality. In terms of security, we have a feature called asynchronous Byzantine Fault Tolerance (aBFT). Facebook is BFT so they’re not aBFT.

What’s the difference between BFT and aBFT?

Because of Libra, now people know what the word BFT is. It basically means that you can reach consensus even when they’re up to one-third malicious nodes. But BFT has vulnerabilities such as distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. aBFT provides strong assurances against certain classes of attacks, like DDoS attacks. Because each node comes to consensus independently of other nodes. You don’t necessarily need to sync. to come to a consensus, and that’s the difference between BFT and aBFT.

In terms of the blockchain revolution, Hedera Hashgraph refers to itself as the fourth generation of blockchain. Can you share with us the evolution of blockchain, and what are the elements for the fourth generation of blockchain at Hedera?

First, you had Bitcoin. People were like this is fantastic, we can transfer value. The second generation is blockchain which facilitates value transfer. People started to build a lot of stuff using blockchain as the underlying consensus algorithm.

The third generation is smart contracts. When Ethereum came out, people started to build smart contracts on it, programs that automatically run. But you still had the problem of not being able to order transactions in a completely decentralized and fairway. You still had the problem of not being able to create markets. Because a market is essentially where two people transact scarce resources. For example, in a stock market, it’s very important to know which person bought which asset first. You need to order the transactions and auctions are the same. There are many use cases that are not possible to build on existing blockchain platforms. Because there is no fair ordering, and up until third-generation technologies. We call Hedera Hashgraph the fourth generation DLT because it provides the fair ordering capability that allows markets to be built upon the platform.

Microsoft, Eidos, and Fable Plan Blockchain Revival of 'Way of the Tiger'

Teams from Microsoft, Eidos, a major game developer, and Fable, a gamebook firm are going to revive the popular card game – Way of the Tiger – based on the1980s best-selling gamebook using blockchain technology.

The report noted that the Way of the Tiger, written by Jamie Thomson and Mark Smith, as one of the first ‘choose-your-own-adventure’ gamebook series,’ is going to be changed into a modern-day card game. And this will be done in line with blockchain. The game will be renamed  Arena of Death with a replica of characters, skills, and magic in the original book series.

According to the report, the decision to bring this Ninja fuelled and samurai-packed game to blockchain was reached by Jamie Thomson, the CEO of the new brand and original author, because he believed it is the technology was a perfect match for the games features.

“We were going to relaunch the series into a computer game format but this new technology (blockchain), just made more sense. Imagine playing Magic the Gathering but knowing if you owned a card, it really does belong to you. Or if we say there are only 100 editions of an item or skill, you know there really are only 100 editions,” he said.

The Way of the Tiger will be launched on the VeChain Thor blockchain, which according to Thomson, will be due to its ability to scale, create our cards as well as other items without having to deal with all the crypto stuff.

Image via Shutterstock

Microsoft Azure Integrates Lition Commercial Blockchain into Cloud Marketplace

Lition, a commercial blockchain has been integrated into the Microsoft Azure cloud marketplace to provide blockchain as a service (BaaS) solutions. With the announcement made on Feb. 18, Lition becomes one of the few public/private blockchains to receive support from a major cloud provider.

According to the announcement, the integration of the Lition blockchain into the Azure marketplace allows Microsoft Azure’s clients to easily develop, test and deploy Lition side chains and applications on the cloud platform.

Dr. Richard Lohwasser, CEO, Lition said, “Lition is committed to providing an accessible onramp to blockchain for all organizations. We believe that making integration as seamless as possible is vital to bridging the gap to adoption. Azure will be a tremendous asset for our customers. We are excited to bring Lition to their marketplace and show people just how easy it is to put blockchain to work for their business.”

Microsoft Continues Push for Blockchain Innovation

The addition of Lition also demonstrates a continued push for innovation by Microsoft. Last year the technology giant became the first company to bring blockchain to the cloud.

In an interview with Blockchain.News, Saranya Sriram, the Head Cloud Solution Architect at Microsoft Azure, described Azure’s blockchain services as the ‘core team.’ She said, “They’ve come up with about two or three layers. The way I like to unpack it is that you can build blockchain solutions by setting up your own nodes and create virtual machines as well. That’s the infrastructure as a service, and we have Ethereum private blockchain available as well.”

In the Asia Pacific region, there are developed markets as well as developing countries; therefore, there is an interesting mix. “There are markets, which are very open-source focused such as Korea. Fundamentally, the easiest way to move to Azure is infrastructure as a service (IaaS), which means core network storage and compute, our main,’ explained Sriram. She added that the company is increasingly seeing more requests for developer API access services, including authentication and identity, which seems to be very critical. Microsoft Azure’s DevOps toolchain is very integrated and has the ability to be on Windows and Linux operating systems. It can be an open-source for Dotnet developers, as well.

As blockchain is still very new in the enterprise space, Sriram said that there had been a lot of interest for Fortune 500 companies to start using their technology but development is still a challenge in this nascent sector. “With production, commitment, and deployment – if that’s not done at the level expected by these companies, then there’s going to be a lot of challenges,” explained Sriram. “First and foremost, we need to be able to prioritize those challenges to say what Microsoft needs to ship first. That can happen when there are a lot of production deployments on a massive scale.” To properly understand the feedback, Sriram suggested that this may take some time for Azure to prioritize and start building. Currently, Azure supports JP Morgan Quorum as well as R3 Corda.   

Image via Shutterstock

EY, Microsoft and ConsenSys Create a Platform For Enterprises on Ethereum Mainnet

Global accounting firm EY, have launched their open-source Baseline protocol which aims to address privacy issues to encourage enterprise adoption of public Ethereum.

Baseline was created by EY in collaboration with technology giant Microsoft and ConsenSys and is specifically designed for enterprises to build on top of the Ethereum public blockchain.

According to the announcement on March 4, the Baseline Protocols aim is to empower enterprises to adopt the public Ethereum blockchain for complex and confidential processes, without storing sensitive data on-chain.

John Wolpert of ConsenSys and Hyperledger Fabric explained, “This is not a platform. It’s not a product. It’s not a coin, a token. It is a way of using the main net (public Ethereum) that will be acceptable, we think, to very conservative corporate CSOs (chief security officers), CIO, CTOs, where they can finally say, yep, it’s okay to use the main net in this way.”

How the Protocol Works

The Baseline Protocol heavily leverages Zero-Knowledge Proofs (ZKP), a kind of encryption that is used to verify information without actually exposing the information.The Baseline Protocol started with a specific use case for volume discounts in a supply chain.

The release offered an example, “The volumes and the discount rates are not stored on the blockchain, but a zero knowledge proof is. As a partner, based on your volumes a smart contract will calculate the relevant discount rate. Critically, given smart contracts on a public blockchain are usually visible, with the Baseline Protocol, a competitor would not be able to see the smart contract contents or the volume discount details.”

The outputs are tokenized, although they are kept private. The release explained that tokenization makes transactions compatible with decentralized services offered on Ethereum. An EY spokesman explained, “So that the inputs and outputs are set up and being built out in such a way that we can access things like working capital for a purchase order or factoring of a receivable, without compromising the buyer or seller’s security and privacy.”

The Baseline protocol is aimed at firms offering customer relationship management and enterprise resource planning services without requiring any modification to legacy systems.

Tokenizing Municipal Bonds

ConsenSys recently featured on Blockchain.News when it was reported that the Ethereum development studio was making a move on the less glamorous and often-forgotten local municipal bond market. ConsenSys had acquired brokerage firm Heritage Financial Systems in an attempt to modernize the municipal bond market, which is notoriously error-prone and out-dated.

In an effort to place the traditional and inflexible municipal bonds market on the blockchain, ConsenSys intends to tokenize the $3.8 trillion municipal bonds market to allow local governments to raise funds and gain local investment more efficiently.

The company aims to tokenize municipal bonds (munis) in smaller denominations to enable local residents to invest in community projects. The tokenization will also decrease the high cost of managing, distributing, and selling mini municipal bonds.

Image via Shutterstock

 

Microsoft Patents Cutting Edge Human-Powered Crypto Mining System

Microsoft has filed for a patent for a new cryptocurrency mining system that will purportedly leverage the data collected from people via sensors, as they interact with advertising or exercise, instead of using equipment that requires massive amounts of power.

The technology giant filed the patent with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) on March 26. The new system proposes using sensors to detect and calculate the amount of energy and time spent on a pre-determined activity, like engaging with an advertisement, and convert that sum into data that can be used by computers to solve computational problems and create new blocks.Microsoft’s new proposed system will maintain a blockchain and its token using the same premise as a traditional proof-of-work (PoW) network without the physical miners and without the heavy computational power expense of their equipment, substituting it with the data gathered and converted from the unconscious activity of people, like Bitcoin Revolution. 

Source: W02020060606 – Cryptocurrency System Using Body Activity Data

As outlined above, the system will monitor a person’s physical actions and energy spent via sensors to mine cryptocurrencies. When the sensors detect that the monitored body is exerting themselves physically, it converts the data recorded on the subject and converts them to power to unlock blocks. The system is also purported to monitor mental exertion, mind power used when a person is reading or writing, and convert this into data respectively. 

According to the patent application, “Instead of massive computation work required by some conventional cryptocurrency systems, data generated based on the body activity of the user can be a proof-of-work, and therefore, a user can solve the computationally difficult problem unconsciously.”This patent was also published in the United States as US20200097951.  

EY, Microsoft and ConsenSys Create a Platform For Enterprises on Ethereum Mainnet

Microsoft continues to make waves in the world of blockchain and has been one of the driving forces behind EY’s open-source Baseline protocol which aims to address privacy issues and encourage enterprise adoption of public Ethereum.

Baseline was created by EY in collaboration with the technology giant Microsoft, as well as ConsenSys, and is specifically designed for enterprises to build applications on top of the Ethereum public blockchain.

According to the announcement on March 4, the Baseline Protocols’ aim is to empower enterprises to adopt the public Ethereum blockchain for complex and confidential processes, without storing sensitive data on-chain.

John Wolpert of ConsenSys and Hyperledger Fabric explained, “This is not a platform. It’s not a product. It’s not a coin, a token. It is a way of using the main net (public Ethereum) that will be acceptable, we think, to very conservative corporate CSOs (chief security officers), CIO, CTOs, where they can finally say, yep, it’s okay to use the main net in this way.”

Bill Gates Foundation’s COVID-19 Vaccine is a Satanic Plot says Oscar-Winner

Microsoft’s recent patent for a human powered crypto mining system based on sensors that convert physical or mental activity into computer power has generated a lot of interest and captured the imagination of the public, but perhaps some are looking at it a little too closely.

Nikita Mikhalkov, the Oscar-winning Russian director, recently unleashed his own conspiracy after taking a closer look at the patent number for Microsoft’s crypto mining system – WO/2020/060606. Appearing on an episode of ‘Besogan TV’, Mikhalkov was adamant that the patent is the first step in a satanic plan to microchip the entire global population and it was clear to him by the appearance of the devil’s number “666” in the patent application.

On the program, Mikhalkov was quoted, “The 060606 part is somewhat alarming. You probably understand this, right? Is this a coincidence or an intentional selection of such a symbol, which in the Apocalypse of John is called the ‘number of the beast’ – the 666.”

Mikhalov’s Revelation

Bill Gates and his foundation have been popping up regularly in the media since the coronavirus pandemic began, determined to help the world by developing and distributing a vaccine to the global population.

In a blog post on April 30, Bill Gates wrote, “We need to manufacture at least 7 billion doses of the vaccine.” He said the vaccines should be distributed “as soon as the first batch is ready to go.”

While Gates has been commended by most for his proactive efforts, Mikahlkov has claimed that the coming COVID-19 vaccination distributed by the Bill Gates Foundation will be a trojan horse for a microchip in an insidious scheme to enslave the world.

The Academy award winning director has even named Herman Graf, the Head of Russian bank Sberbank, as a co-conspirator.

While Mikhalkov’s conspiracy seems outlandish, it is convincing enough for former Tennis champion and now Russian politician Marat Safin who has shown support for the director’s theory. 

It is unclear what part Mikhalkov believes the sensor-based cryptocurrency mining system developed by Microsoft will play in the satanic conspiracy beyond its curious filing number, as the project makes no mention of microchips. The patent was also published in the United States under the far less sinister number – US20200097951. 

Bill Gates Predicts Coronavirus  Five Years Ago

As the conspiracy goes viral, many have also highlighted a video of Bill Gates giving a Ted talk entitled, “The next outbreak? We’re not ready.” In the presentation from nearly five years ago, Bill Gates predicts the upcoming pandemic and warned that it would push our civilization to the brink. 

A prophecy revealed by Lucifer himself perhaps, or just one of the greatest minds focused on predicting solutions to world problems that haven’t occured yet? He kind of has a history of doing that.

The episode of Besogan TV featuring the Russian director was initially removed from the local Russian TV channel’s schedule. The episode was later posted online following protests of censorship by Mikhalkov, and the video went on to achieve close to a million views in one day.

Click here for Bill Gates’ response to the COVID-19 Conspiracy. 

Bill Gates' COVID Conspiracy Grows In Italian Parliament, Allegations of Population Control by Political Anti-Vaxxer

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought many subjects to the forefront: our reliance on oil, manufacturing in China, the need for digital dollars, the frailty of our global supply chain, and our lack of preparation to deal with the outbreak.

However, perhaps the strangest topic online and the most unavoidable has been the conspiracy theory chasing Bill Gates and his foundation’s efforts to produce a Covid-19 vaccine. The accusations range from him directly being the cause of the pandemic, to being the head of an Illuminati like circular cabal bent on controlling the world through microchips, and now an insidious plan to depopulate the planet of billions of people.

Where we Came In

We are a blockchain news site, while we absolutely love discussing technologies that may appear to border on fantasy, it has never been our intention to dive into the realm of conspiracy and allegations. However, while this conspiracy began for us as a simple write up on a cutting-edge Microsoft crypto mining patent, the story was bigger to some people than we ever could have imagined and has now taken on a life of its own.

In an effort to put this story to bed once and for all, as far as we are concerned, we have decided to look a little more closely at the allegations and perhaps shed some light, for some, on why they may be getting carried away with their perceptions of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and their effort to combat the coronavirus.

The Devil’s Patent

In March 2020, Microsoft filed a patent with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) for a new system that proposes using sensors, not microchips, to detect and calculate the amount of energy and time spent on a pre-determined activity, like engaging with an advertisement. The sensors apparently are capable of gauging both physical and brain activity and convert that sum into data which can be used by computers to solve computational problems and create new blocks.

What we did not really pay attention to, at the time, was the peculiar patent number of the Microsoft technology – WO/2020/060606. This number, however, did not slip past the Oscar-winning Russian director, Nikita Mikhalkov. A devout Christian, Mikhalkov immediately noticed that the last few numbers of the patent seemed to include the devil’s number, “666” in the application.

Appearing on Russian TV, Mikhalkov said, “The 060606 part is somewhat alarming. You probably understand this, right? Is this a coincidence or an intentional selection of such a symbol, which in the Apocalypse of John is called the ‘number of the beast’ – the 666.”

While Gates has been commended by most for his proactive efforts, Mikahlkov has claimed that the coming COVID-19 vaccination distributed by the Bill Gates Foundation will be a trojan horse for a microchip, in an insidious scheme to enslave the world.

The Oscar-winning director is so confident in his claims that he went on to name Herman Graf, the Head of Russian bank Sberbank, as a co-conspirator, and his arguments have been convincing enough for former Tennis champion and now Russian politician Marat Safin—who has shown public support for the director’s theory.

The Obvious Possible Explanation

Perhaps unknown to both Mikhalkov and Safin, is that patent filing numbers are simply generated according to the guidelines of the World Intellectual Property Organisation. And both of these men do not ever contend with Microsoft’s US patent number, which was published in the United States as US20200097951. We assume it is because there are no numbers linked to biblical prophecies or ‘Satan’ in this filing. 

The first numbers ‘2020’ simply represent the year, and the rest is simply the order it was filed in. Not too much to this one. 

Plandemic and the Anti-Vaxxer Virologist

A week ago, a clip from a soon to be released documentary called ‘Plandemic’ went viral on YouTube before being removed. The clip featured a disgraced virologist named Dr. Judy Mikovits accusing a sinister corporate-controlled “circular cabal” led by Bill Gates himself, of creating the coronavirus pandemic.

Mikovits is adamant that this group she refers to as a “circular cabal” is led by Microsoft Founder turned philanthropist Bill Gates and she even goes on to accuse Dr. Anthony Fauci, the Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases of burying her research which allegedly proved that vaccines weaken people’s immune systems and made them more vulnerable to the coronavirus.

In the viral clip from Plandemic, Mikovits insists that her research was buried and she even goes as far as saying that wearing a mask actually activates the coronavirus. She alleges that Dr. Fauci, who is the face of the Trump administration’s outbreak containment efforts, has censored her warnings to the public. Unfortunately, a little fuel was added to this fire when Trump himself began to publicly question the origins and spread of COVID-19, suggesting it was man-made.

The Obvious Possible Explanation

Prior to the clip of Plandemic being released, Mikovits had already authored and published a book entitled the ‘Plague of Corruption’ which frames herself as the brave whistleblower being held at bay by an Illuminati-like ‘deep state’ organization.

Mikovits has received a lot of support, unfortunately, due to her training as a virologist. But in her excuses regarding her lack of legitimate support, she and her following have consistently failed to mention that her research has never been successfully replicated in other laboratories—meaning it has failed the scientific research standard of peer review. This is basically the reason why anyone’s research would be disregarded, and another point many do not want to contend with is that Mikovits does appear to have a notorious anti-vaxxer history and her research also appears to be driven by her agenda allowing her to draw the conclusions she would like to see. If this were not the case, her research would have held up. But it didn’t.

Mikovits down. 

Italy Calls for the Arrest of Bill Gates

The most recent in the line of allegations came less than a week ago, this time by Italian politician Anna Cunial who took to the house floor to call for the arrest of Bill Gates as she believes he is on a mission to depopulate the world by up to 15%.

Cunial alleges that Gates has been working on depopulation and dictatorial control plans on global politics, aiming to obtain control over agriculture, technology, and energy. Cunial’s allegations appear to fit in with Mikovits’ own accusations, alluding to a powerful deep-state government that Gates himself controls. She subscribes to the claim circulating on social media, that Gates owns the “patent” for the SARS-CoV2, a virus that wasn’t even discovered until January 2020. The theory goes that this entire pandemic is just to create a need for a vaccine from which Gates will subsequently profit.

Cunial points to  Event 201 which took place in Davos Switzerland, and officially served as a simulation for the prevention and control of such a pandemic. She quotes Bill Gates from the day of the simulation, who she claims said, “If we do a good job on vaccines, health, and reproduction, we can reduce the world population by 10-15%, only a genocide can save the world.”

Cunial goes on to put an unsupported, by anyone of substance, spin on some of the Gates Foundation’s achievements, “With his vaccines, Gates managed to sterilize millions of women in Africa. Gates caused a polio epidemic that paralyzed 500,000 children in India, and still, today with the DPT vaccines, Gates causes more death than the disease itself.”

The Obvious Possible Explanation

First, let’s dispel the myth that Italy is out for the arrest of Gates. No, the Italian authorities have not been as compelled as the red-eyed Youtube users and underground chat scene to take up arms against the philanthropist. 

While Cunial’s argument was lengthy and quite articulate on the Italian parliament floor, and she did cover all her bases mentioning everything from the Bilderberg Group to Monsanto GMOs—Cunial’s argument seemed to really fall down when she kept returning to Gates’ motivations as simply being to control-everything.

She is especially disturbed and perplexed with Gates’ ability to have predicted the pandemic after only spending a decade speaking to the most intelligent minds the world has to offer on the subject. It seems for his accusers, Gates’s most significant and obvious flaw has been his long campaign to prevent these diseases and to continue to pursue vaccines for diseases that really should no longer exist and have a larger impact on the third world and developing nations. 

The reality at this point is that Cunial has never seen a vaccine that she liked, and so far she has not published or provided any hard evidence for her accusations, which may sound powerful when spoken but really falls apart quite quickly when any actual research goes into them. She claims money and control to be his main motivations, “The Italian contribution to the International Alliance against the coronavirus will be 140 million Euros of which 120 million Euros will be given to Gavi Alliance the no-profit created by the Gates Foundation. This is just part of the 7.4 billion funds by the EU to find a vaccine against coronavirus which will be used.” 

Again lets layout these motivations for the alleged evil of Bill Gates logically—yes, Cunial is actually saying that Gates is in pursuit of money and control?

Unless you have been living under a rock since the 1990s, you are probably aware that Gates is the founder of a little company called Microsoft and this has made him incredibly rich. In fact, rich beyond our, and definitely Cunial’s, narrow comprehension. 120 million Euros is definitely a lot of money, but not really to someone who has over 100 Billion USD and change, and is still earning exponentially. Gates and his family for generations upon generations will never ever be in need of money. 

Additionally, there are a lot of easier ways to make money than selling vaccines, which have to go through very extensive testing and regulatory requirements. Vaccines also do not even have anything close to the profit margins of other non-essential medications like a Viagra or even a basic health supplement.

As far as global control goes, again perhaps Cunial has not visited an actual office in the last 30 years, but Microsoft’s technology is more than likely the glue that holds most offices together. Gates does not need to infiltrate us with his technology, we are already on board. If he wanted to infiltrate us, he could do it the next time Windows tells you it’s time for an update. 

Microsoft Bitcoin-Based Identity Tool Launches Beta Version

Microsoft’s decentralized identity tool, ION which is based on the Bitcoin blockchain, launched a beta version on mainnet Wednesday. The launch was in response to the efforts of the Decentralized Identity Foundation (DIF), who are currently pushing to fast track publicly available tech tools that could help combat the COVID pandemic.

ION, a Microsoft-led decentralized identity system built on top of Bitcoin, has officially launched in beta on Bitcoin’s mainnet yesterday. The news was shared in a release by Casa, a Bitcoin self-custody provider, and project collaborator. “We’re excited to help ION take full advantage of technology like Bitcoin to vastly improve authentication, security, and privacy on the internet,” Casa CEO Nick Neuman said in a press release.

Decentralized Identifier

Daniel Buchner is a program manager for the Microsoft Identity team and described the launch in a June 10 blog post. Buchner said the open-sourced, layer 2 Identity Overlay Network (ION) aims to provide users with a DID – a decentralized identifier – which would replace the necessity of a username.

Per the blog, “Unlike centralized identifiers commonly used today (email addresses, usernames, etc.), DIDs are generated, owned, and controlled by individuals, not companies or other centralized entities. There are many different approaches to creating DID protocols, but they all revolve around the same concept: user-owned unique identifiers tied to a set of cryptographic keys and routing endpoints.”

According to Buchner, it’s not difficult to create a basic DID protocol, but “creating a robustly decentralized and scalable network without resorting to trusted validator nodes, utility tokens, and other mechanisms, is incredibly challenging.”

“The core promise of DID technology is to empower all individuals and entities with ownership and control over their identities, which aligns well with our mission of empowering every person to work, play, and achieve more,” said Buchner. “To deliver on that promise, we have chosen a different path from some of the more centralized approaches to DID technologies—and we believe ION exemplifies that choice.”

Big Tech’s Exploiting Pandemic

ION has been in development since last year and Microsoft is also drawing criticism for its repackaging of the tool as a COVID immunity passport.

Microsoft is part of the ID2020 Alliance, which is a public-private partnership, which also includes Accenture and Hyperledger. According to its website, its aim is to develop a global model for the design, funding, and implementation of digital ID solutions and technologies.

Some feel that the COVID pandemic and ID2020 are being exploited by Microsoft and other big techs like IBM. An adviser to the ID2020 Alliance, Elizabeth Reneiris recently resigned over the organization’s direction on digital immunity passes and COVID-19 since the arrival of the big tech firms to the initiative.

In May this year, attorney Elizabeth Reneiris resigned from her advisory role at the ID2020 consortium saying she “cannot be part of an organization overly influenced by commercial interests that only pays lip service to human rights.” Her resignation came after she continued to voice concerns over how the involvement of corporations like Microsoft may influence the development of these systems.

In a white-paper authored by Reneiris stated that the immunity passports being developed violate human rights standards of privacy, and should be deemed illegal. She wrote, “Even if the proposed immunity credentials could satisfy the legality test, it is hard to argue they are necessary or proportionate interventions”

Microsoft & EU Based Universities Believe Blockchain Can Achieve Paris Agreement Carbon Goals

The deployment of blockchain solutions across all spheres of industry, enterprise, and education represents a major turning point in human history in terms of technological disruption. With blockchain, industries such as financial services are finding alternative modes of cash transfers, with a gradual switching to cryptocurrencies. The use cases of blockchain technology are steadily transcending digital asset opportunities, as key EU partners now believe the technology could help meet the Paris Agreement Carbon Goals. The partners include a coalition of Microsoft and reputable universities in Denmark and Germany.

Possibilities of Blockchain Adoption in Climate Change

The research on the possibilities of deploying blockchain intervention in building an international carbon credit market is documented in a research publication. The paper titled, “Blockchain Application for the Paris Agreement Carbon Market Mechanism – A Decision Framework and Architecture” explores the suitability of blockchain’s distributed ledger technology for a carbon market mechanism based on the Paris Agreement Article 6.2.

Amidst growing concerns on climate change, different sectors are coming together to reduce carbon emissions and mounting greenhouse gases that perpetually deplete the Ozone layer. The Paris agreement seeks to keep global temperatures below two degrees (35.6°F) rise above pre-industrial levels.

The Paris agreement may seem a big feat, but research has shown that the deployment of blockchain will help offer information transparency and immutability. This will help in promoting data security. According to the authors;

“Blockchain application is promising and can yield benefits in enhanced transparency and increased automation… and it offers clear benefits in terms of interoperability with other emerging technologies, automating the process through smart contracts, enhancing transparency, traceability and auditability, and enhancing system security and trust between Parties.”

New Frontiers for Blockchain Technology

Blockchain is no longer solely focussed on the creation of cryptocurrency and digital assets. Huge enterprises and even charity organizations are leveraging massive blockchain-based projects and initiatives in the pursuit of improving our world and creating a better life for everyone.

Microsoft Takes Down COVID-19 Cyber Criminals to Eliminate "Business Email Compromise" Attacks

Scammers have been taking advantage of the confusion caused by COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent worldwide economic crisis in order to retrieve sensitive information and phish personal data from Microsoft users.

It was reported by Corporate Vice President of Microsoft, Tom Burt, that Microsoft users from at least 62 countries around the world have been defrauded by cyber criminals phishing for sensitive data. The online hackers operated by sending COVID-19 labeled files to a victim’s email account, which were purposely marketed in a way that incited users to click on the malware. Following that, malicious web applications were then able to access the victims’ Microsoft Office 365 account.

This is known as a form of Business Email Compromise (BEC) attack. It has become increasingly sophisticated and complex to prevent, as new software is constantly developing, and scammers have upgraded to more creative phishing schemes.

Luckily, following a court order issued by the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Microsoft has finally been able to seize control of the key domains in the cyber criminals’ infrastructure, in an effort of putting an end to cyberattacks targeting their multinational tech company. 

FBI Internet Crime Reports

With cybercrime on the rise, the FBI’s 2019 Internet Crime Report indicated that BEC attacks figured among the most costly complaints, resulting in over $1.7 billion of financial damages. FBI also reported that from 2016-2019, businesses lost approximately $26 billion dollars due to fraudulent emails.

According to Safepost, the use of decentralized technology in emails have yet to be fully utilized and a blockchain-based solution would solve the majority of problems that traditional email providers faced. A decentralized email solution would entail that messages would be stored in shared ledgers. In other words, no single authority would be able to dictate how your data was used. 

Monero Used in Cybercrime

With phishing attacks being increasingly common in the crypto world, virtual currencies, such as Zcash and Monero (XMR), are more and more favoured by scammers because of their privacy features. XMR stands at the top of the list for the most private cryptocurrencies on the market. Because it operates on blockchain technology and its network is obfuscated, Monero is a popular choice employed by cybercriminals in carrying out illicit cyber scams.

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