Gem Says Military Hardware and Bitcoin Security Go Together Like Peanut Butter and Jelly

By Bitcoinist.Net

Gem has just announced that they’re deploying custom Hardware Security Modules (HSMs) from Thales e-Security as part of their wallet.

The Venice-based bitcoin security platform harnessing lightweight code and multi-signature technology will utilize HSMs in a similar way as the military. The devices are used to protect military encryption keys along with mission secrets. If the military trusts the technology, it might just be good enough to store bitcoins.

“Our engineers worked closely with the hardware team at Thales for months to develop a custom solution specifically for the Bitcoin industry,” said Gem CEO and founder Micah Winkelspecht in a release. “The payments industry has been using this hardware technology for years. But we looked at every HSM on the market to find one that could support Bitcoin wallets, and none of them could do it, so we built it ourselves. Thales really came through for us, and the level of enthusiasm they have for our growing industry is incredible.”

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Cautionary Tales on Bitcoin Security

By KIRK PHILLIPS

Bitcoin Exploration

The Bitcoin ecosystem has many different types of platforms such as exchanges, payment service providers, reporting platforms and an array of other supporting services. Every time you create a new account your online profile expands, increasing the risk of breach with one or all of your accounts. Private keys and passphrases should be managed as securely as possible, and the same for login credentials. The following tales are filled with valuable lessons for stepping up your game with digital identity management.

Gone Phishing

Paul Boyer, creator of the “Mad Money Machine” podcast on the “Let’s Talk Bitcoin” network, learned a tough lesson recently. Paul happily received donations totaling 3.3875 bitcoins, about $2,000, from loyal listeners until he discovered a zero balance in his wallet at the end of June 2014. He collected donations using a payment service provider normally paying out bitcoins in U.S. dollars on a daily basis, but he never submitted a bitcoin payout address, so the coins just accumulated, awaiting the attention of hackers. That was his first mistake.

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A brief attempt at explaining the madness of cryptocurrency

By Mariella Moon

Cryptocurrency may as well be called "cryptic currency," because it's nowhere near as easy to figure out as typical money. For one, while most of them (and yes, there's more than one) have names that end with "-coin," they don't usually come in physical form. Yes, they do represent money in digital form, but using them is a bit more complicated than digital payment services like, say, PayPal or Google Wallet. Also, unlike banks and online services, they're decentralized, with no single governing body overseeing and verifying transactions -- there's a reason why bitcoin was (is?) the currency of choice for black market regulars.

Bitcoin ("BTC") isn't only recognized as the first cryptocurrency; it's also the basis for every other crypto-coin that's popped up since it was formally introduced in 2009. "Satoshi Nakamoto" (the pseudonym used by the person or the group of people who created bitcoin) designed it as a peer-to-peer system that relies on users to keep working. Also, all transactions are recorded on a public ledger (called "block chain"), so even though no name or email address is associated with an account, the system's not entirely anonymous.

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What are the advantages of Bitcoin?

The Advantages of Bitcoin

• Payment freedom - It is possible to send and receive any amount of money instantly anywhere in the world at any time. No bank holidays. No borders. No imposed limits. Bitcoin allows its users to be in full control of their money.
• Very low fees - Bitcoin payments are currently processed with either no fees or extremely small fees. Users may include fees with transactions to receive priority processing, which results in faster confirmation of transactions by the network. Additionally, merchant processors exist to assist merchants in processing transactions, converting bitcoins to fiat currency and depositing funds directly into merchants' bank accounts daily. As these services are based on Bitcoin, they can be offered for much lower fees than with PayPal or credit card networks.
• Fewer risks for merchants - Bitcoin transactions are secure, irreversible, and do not contain customers’ sensitive or personal information. This protects merchants from losses caused by fraud or fraudulent chargebacks, and there is no need for PCI compliance. Merchants can easily expand to new markets where either credit cards are not available or fraud rates are unacceptably high. The net results are lower fees, larger markets, and fewer administrative costs.
• Security and control - Bitcoin users are in full control of their transactions; it is impossible for merchants to force unwanted or unnoticed charges as can happen with other payment methods. Bitcoin payments can be made without personal information tied to the transaction. This offers strong protection against identity theft. Bitcoin users can also protect their money with backup and encryption.
• Transparent and neutral - All information concerning the Bitcoin money supply itself is readily available on the block chain for anybody to verify and use in real-time. No individual or organization can control or manipulate the Bitcoin protocol because it is cryptographically secure. This allows the core of Bitcoin to be trusted for being completely neutral, transparent and predictable.

PROTECTING YOUR BITCOINS — AND YOUR ONLINE IDENTITY

By  Kyle Torpey

NEW YORK (InsideBitcoins) — The Ledger Wallet Nano is quickly becoming a popular hardware option for enhanced bitcoin security, but the team behind this product believe that their devices will be used for more than just protecting bitcoin private keys in the near future. Although devices such as the Ledger Nano are currently used for simply securing one’s bitcoins, they could also be used to protect passwords, online identities, and much more.

I was recently able to chat with Ledger CEO Eric Larchevêque about their latest hardware wallet offering and where he thinks these sorts of security solutions are headed over the next few years.

“Our vision is to provide mass market, affordable, open and secure hardware wallets to bring Bitcoin to the next level of adoption.”

Protecting online identities

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COMPANIES ARE TRYING TO GET RID OF PASSWORDS ENTIRELY, AND LAUNCHKEY JUST RECEIVED $3 MILLION IN FUNDING TO IMPLEMENT A REPLACEMENT

By Clay Michael Gillespie

In a time where password technology is so easy to breach, the world is ready for a new technology to take over. In response to the vulnerability that passwords hold, some companies have started implementing two-factor authentication.

LaunchKey, on the other hand, looks to get rid of password technology altogether and take the world into multi-factor authentication. On top of that, they just raised $3 million in funding thanks to Metamorphic Ventures and Pantera Capital. According to LaunchKey, the funding will push them to expand their team and bring LaunchKey to market in the next year.

Geoff Sanders, the president, and CEO of LaunchKey, released a statement upon the announcement.

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Blockchain.info Asking for User Passwords

by Carlo Caraluzzo

Whenever we do any type of business on the internet we receive a warning that our passwords will never be requested in an email. The reason for this is simple: Scammers often pose as legitimate businesses in phishing scams. While requests for passwords are unusual, they are not unknown and sometimes are necessary. Blockchain.info is an excellent example of this and the company has recently requested account passwords from many of its users.

Blockchain.info has been exposed on two different occasions by the white hat hacker Johoe for having abysmal security.  After running scripts that he created, Johoe was able to exploit the systems weaknesses and skim off several hundred BTC. Johoe has since reimbursed Blockchain.info and the company is reimbursing the assets to users that have been affected but apparently because of the company´s policies these reimbursements are running into a snag.

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HANDS ON WITH LEDGER, ONE OF THE WORLD’S MOST SECURE AND USER-FRIENDLY BITCOIN HARDWARE WALLETS

By  Yannick Losbar

If there is a specific point which all bitcoiners should take note of, it is the proper storage of their bitcoins. Proper storage of bitcoins is essential to the promise of Bitcoin. Properly securing your bitcoins allows you to have control of your money in ways that were not as accessible before. Two approaches exist so far:

• Entrust -rightly or wrongly- all the hassle of security to a third party (Coinbase, Blockchain.info)
• Setup a cold storage by putting your bitcoins on a wallet totally disconnected from the internet, at the obvious cost of less practicality.

Ledger intends to offer the advantages of both these solutions without their drawbacks. The wallet consists of a “smartcard” (a small chip)  that provides a  significant level of safety since this component has been used for years in the credit card industry. The same chip signs all your transactions in a fully encrypted way, hence permitting its use even if the PC on which you would like to perform the transaction is compromised.

From a practical point of view, the wallet is no slouch: the link between this technological gem and you is made through a neat and intuitive interface accessible after installing the dedicated Google Chrome add-on. Launched on December 11 at the price of 29€ (about 36 USD) excluding shipping cost, the wallet is the brainchild of Eric Larchevêque / Thomas France (La Maison Du Bitcoin), Nicolas Bacca (Who built the first smartcard based HW wallet -1) and Joel Pobeda (Chronocoin).

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Ledger Launches USB Bitcoin Wallet With 'Bank-Grade' Security

By Daniel Palmer

The team behind a new affordable multisig bitcoin wallet say their product has security features that make it almost immune to hacking attacks.

The Ledger Wallet Nano is the result of a merger between three French startups: La Maison du Bitcoin, a bitcoin centre in Paris; BTChip, a hardware wallet manufacturer; and Chronocoin, an exchange platform.

Priced at €34.90 (or 0.1213 BTC), the USB device contains a banking-grade EAL5+ smartcard, the same as found in credit cards. Additionally, as a hierarchical deterministic wallet (BIP32), the Ledger can hold an infinite number of bitcoin addresses.

Connecting to each user's computer through their USB port, the device carries out cryptographic work, such as signing bitcoin transactions, inside its own protected environment. Once safely initialised, it can even be used without risk on an insecure or compromised computer, its makers claim.

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