Tuesday, March 31, 2015

Dash Release 11.2

The team has been hard at work for over 2 months on improving various parts of the core client. The client should overall be much faster to use, require less bandwidth, will require a level-of-service from masternodes, perform Darksend transactions faster and has a new beautiful look and feel.


All users must update!


This includes protocol changes, so all users must update. Enforcement will be turned off briefly while the network updates, then turned on when we hit 80% in a day or two. Older version masternodes will cease to be paid immediately due to the incompatibility of the protocol!


Thanks to UdjinM6 for writing a really nice masternode management system. You can check it out here: https://github.com/darkcoin/darkcoin/blob/v0.11.2.x/src/masternodeman.cpp


This module makes it much faster to restart a node, because it won’t have to request the masternode list every time. It also keeps a record of the DS variables, which will make the network much more harder to trick.


Configurations Have Been Moved!


Configurations have been moved from .darkcoin to .dash! You’ll need to do the following when updating your client. First close Darkcoin and backup your data directory.


Windows: %APPDATA%\Darkcoin\

Mac OS: ~/Library/Application Support/Darkcoin/

Unix/Linux: ~/.darkcoin/


After that rename it to Dash for Windows/Mac, or .dash for linux. Next go open the directory and locate the darkcoin.conf file, rename this to dash.conf.


Next, simply update to the newest Dash client and restart.


Other new things in this release:


Proof-of-service (PoSe), all masternodes MUST have their port opened correctly, otherwise they will be removed. This also checks to make sure masternodes are responding to work requests such as InstantX. This basically will ensure that all nodes are on the same fork and their network functionality is working properly. This was implemented so that the part of the masternode network checks another part of the network, so it’s 100% decentralized.

New command “masternode list pose”, shows all of the masternodes PoSe scores, good for debugging if your masternode is getting punished for not providing proper service.

New DarkSend caching, which improves the experience of using DarkSend vastly

Masternode Blinding is NOT part of this release, while it’s in the code, it’s currently disabled. It’ll take a bit more work to complete and we were running out of time before the March 25th deadline, so it’s being moved to the next release.

Thanks to PoSe, InstantX should work nearly all of the time now.

New masternode voting system for new Dash initiates, each masternode gets one vote. See the new commands “masternode list votes” and “masternode vote yea|nay”. First vote, what color is this dress : http://imgur.com/QjqfntR ? Blue and Black (yea) or White and Gold (nay)

Full release notes: https://github.com/darkcoin/darkcoin/blob/master/doc/release-notes/release-notes-0.11.2.md


v0.11.2.16 – Downloads


https://www.dashpay.io/downloads/


Thanks for helping with this release:


-UdjinM6

-Crowning

-Snogcel

-Propulsion, for maintaining our great forums we tested on

-Flare for setting up Transifex again

-All of those who helped translate the new version


Our awesome testers this release:


AjM,Moli, Tante, Lariondos, xxxsexygirls, Sub-Ether, Moocowmoo, AlexMomo

Bridgewater, elbereth, HowlingMad, JPCrypto, the-baker, Lukas_Jackson

coingun, darkred, MangledBlue, yikadee



source: https://dashtalk.org/threads/11-2-dash-release.4515/



Dash Release 11.2

Digging for CLAMS

CLAMS is the most refreshing cryptocurrency since bitcoin itself, so much in fact that I traded all my Litecoins for CLAMS the day they were listed on Poloniex.


Until recently I’ve been more of a crypto hoarder than a crypto trader. I’ve investigated and bought into 100 different projects and in the process have become bored sick with the same-old same-old copy-paste shiat. The days of wide-eyed wonderment are over. It takes alot to impress me these days.


This project first came to my attention 24 hours ago when browsing the Bitcointalk announcements forum. Minutes later I’d started buying, because CLAMS is the perfectest cryptocurrency invented as of yet. Let me repeat: perfectest cryptocurrency.


The anonymous developers have premined over 14 million CLAMS, the entirety of which were distibuted to over 3 million bitcoin, litecoin and dogecoin accounts. Any account that had even a little “dust” in it was assigned 4.6 CLAMS. Using the block explorer I have confirmed that within 7 of my own accounts are a total of about 32 clams, worth around $100USD at this time. But instead of selling I bought 85 more CLAMS, because this is the most expansive and well-targeted distribution ever.


Furthermore, the CLAM devs have invented a new method to help stabilize the price, called “the CLAM shell”. Their website khashier.com is a scrypt mining pool that mines altcoins and uses the profits to place CLAM buy orders at 50% to 75% of the current price. When these orders are filled, the miners receive “Pearl Payouts”. These rewards are based on more than just hashing power. The longer a miner dedicates their resources to the pool, the larger percentage of rewards they receive. Excellent.


So who are the these crypto geniuses? The writing style of the announcement and the user IDs posting in the forums suggests that CLAMS was brought to us by the same devs who created Digibyte and Nautiluscoin. Note that the latter displays a huge photo of some shelled sea creature :)


A telling sign of coming greatness is the fact that the CLAMS Twitter account has some 13,000 followers. Twitter connections are huge in the crypto world, and this is a very big number at this time. I pity all those poor souls who are selling their CLAMS right now, but on the other hand, that’s more precious time for the rest of us to buy dirt-cheap CLAMS!


CLAMS is a proof-of-stake coin with 1% annual inflation.



source: http://www.blockchange.info/altcoins/digging-for-clams/



Digging for CLAMS

Monday, March 30, 2015

Introduction to CLAMS

WHAT ARE CLAMS?


CLAMS are a form of digital value, or currency, that is transferred, created, and verified by the collective effort of the computers running the CLAMS software. Similar to Bitcoin, the original technology on top of which CLAMS was created, this network follows a rigorous protocol to ensure that consensus and verification is maintained.


WHAT IS THE CLAM NETWORK?


The CLAM Network is a peer-to-peer network of computers running the CLAMS software. To become a part of the CLAMS network, you need only to run the CLAMS software on your home computer. The purpose of this network is to independently and collaboratively verify the transfer and creation of CLAMS.



CLAMs were initially distributed to 3,208,032 addresses.

Each address received 4.60545574 CLAMs.


67,511 addresses have been dug.

310,918 CLAMs have been dug.

297,773 CLAM were staked for a total of 526,512.12

If all the distributed CLAMs were dug up, the total money supply would be 15,009,015.13


No Proof-Of-Work stage


Based on May 12, 2014 “Snapshot” of BTC, LTC and DOGE blockchains


Not cheatable via coin movement or mixing


Block Creation: Proof-Of-Stake


Block Time: 1 Minute


Minimum Stake Age: 500 blocks, or 4 hours. Target 8 hours 20 minutes


Maximum Stake Age: Unlimited


Block Reward: 1 CLAM


Proof-Of-Stake reward is designed to replace coins lost, unclaimed or inaccessible over time. The block reward of 1 CLAM means that 526,000 new CLAMs are created each year. The annual rate of return varies in relation to the current active money supply. Accordingly, the present annual rate of return is 234%, and the daily return is 0.64%



CLAMS REDDIT TIP BOT!


Tipbot is up, needs testing. This bot was not created by the CLAMs development team. Do not deposit large amounts.


source: http://clamclient.com/



Introduction to CLAMS

Sunday, March 29, 2015

Introducing FastCoin

In late May 2013 FastCoin (FST) was launched, its primary innovation being to have the fastest transaction speeds of any digital currency currently in existence.


Compared to Bitcoin’s 10 minute block times the FastCoin network has just a 12 second target block time with transactions fully confirming in 48 seconds. Based on the same fundamentals as the Bitcoin protocol FastCoin is a blockchain based, decentralized, peer 2 peer worldwide digital currency with no central issuing authority. FastCoin has seen a rapid rate of adoption, with the coin’s market cap briefly reaching $250 000 USD in early August, and the official website, http://FastCoin.ca, seeing constantly increasing traffic and serving thousands of unique hits every month. The coin is backed by a team of developers and FastCoin enthusiasts from all over the world; including the USA, Europe, Australia, UK, Russia, China, Brazil, Argentina, South Africa, India and more.


Marc Saltzman, a Canadian media journalist has contacted team FastCoin and is hosting one of the FastCoin members as a guest speaker on their popular radio show “Tech Talk” this Sunday, Sept 1 at 5pm EST. Marc is a well respected Canadian Journalist that specializes in technology segments and he has been featured on CNN, Fox news, CBC and more.


The official FastCoin website, http://FastCoin.ca is based in Toronto, Canada, but the core development team consists of 10 highly qualified individuals from all over the world. The majority of the core team are primarily system engineers: seasoned veterans of the IT ecosystem, with some possessing over 25 years experience in the industry. Some members of team FastCoin possess teaching backgrounds having taught computer science at the University and College Level. Others have held relatively key positions for high profile international IT companies such as Microsoft, Symantec and ATI. FastCoin also has professionals with MBA’s and global work experience; aiding the business analysis aspects of managing the FST project. All have been actively involved in the cryptocurrency space for years; enthusiastically mining Bitcoin and participating in the emerging digital currency economy. Christopher Tao is regarded as the head developer of FastCoin and the coin’s primary creator.


Reflecting the popularity of the coin, the official FastCoin twitter account has over 10 000 followers and this is rapidly growing month after month. With its fast transaction speeds the FastCoin team is also actively targeting the mobile space and to this end they have released an Android FastCoin wallet which is currently in Beta – but functional. Due to its lightning fast transaction speeds FastCoin offers tangible benefits for merchants who accept FST as a payment method; any website or business who reaches out to the FastCoin team looking to accept FST will be warmly received.


With its highly qualified and motivated core development team, strong social media presence, rising popularity and primary innovation of being the fastest transacting digital currency in the cryptocurrency ecosystem, FastCoin has a bright future ahead. With FST having reached a market cap of $250 000 USD in early August, this is no doubt a foreshadowing of bigger things to come.


To learn more about FastCoin please go to: http://fastcoin.ca


To see FastCoin on Canadian radio show Tech Talk please go to: http://www.cjad.com/Shows/TechTalk.aspx


FastCoin on Twitter: https://twitter.com/fast_coin


FastCoin on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Fastcoinca/593923330628082


FastCoin Android App Beta: http://www.fastcoin.ca/fastcoin-mobile-apps-beta-available.html


FastCoin Sites and Services: http://www.fastcoin.ca/services.html


Media Contact Name: Christopher Tao


Email: info@fastcoin.ca


FastCoin is currently the fastest transacting peer 2 peer digital currency in existence; for the technically minded the FST protocol details are as follows:


– 12 second block target.

– 4 confirms per transaction – every transaction confirms in 48 seconds.

– Mining difficulty retargets every hour. Accelerated re-targets are utilized so as to eliminate instamining.

– 32 coins per block, block reward halves roughly every 12 months or 2 592 000 blocks.

– A total of 165 888 000 coins will be minted.

– Connection port is 9526, RPC-port 9527

– Similar to Litecoin, FastCoin utilizes a Scrypt based cryptographic algorithm.



source: http://www.fastcoin.ca/press-and-media-release.html



Introducing FastCoin

Monday, March 23, 2015

Tether

What is Tether?


Tether provides a secure, fast, and low-cost way to store, send and receive money. For the first time in history, Tether allows real-world currency to be used on the Blockchain, just like bitcoin. This allows businesses and customers to reap the benefits of the Blockchain while using a stable currency they know and trust.


We believe in creating greater freedom, security and access to money. That’s why we built the first real-world currency platform on the Blockchain.

We have revolutionized the way all of us use currency. This gives everyone a secure and fast way to store, send and receive currency as if it were bitcoins.Wherever bitcoin can be used, Tether can be used. Our agnostic platform gives the Bitcoin ecosystem increased applications, customers and revenue. In addition to the $5.1B bitcoin ecosystem, we also provide a gateway into a currency market worth trillions of dollars.We offer a platform that delivers world-class security and meets Government compliance obligations. As a fully transparent company, we publish a real-time record of all value held and transferred in and out of our customer reserve account.


Tether is the world’s first fiat currency token platform to exist on the Blockchain. With easy integration to Bitcoin businesses, we provide instant use of fiat currency on the Blockchain in the form of Tether. This reduces the volatility and unfamiliarity concerns associated with bitcoin.

Represented by ₮, our innovative platform securely converts fiat currencies and bitcoin deposits into USD₮, EUR₮, and JPY₮ currencies. Tethers can then be stored, sent and received across the Blockchain securely, quickly and cheaply.Tether currency is backed 100% by actual fiat currency assets in our reserve account and always maintains a one-to-one ratio with any currency held. For example 1 USD₮ = 1 USD. With almost zero conversion and transfer fees, Tether currency is redeemable for cash at any time.


Tether initially supports US Dollars (USD), Euros (EUR) and Japanese Yen (JPY).You can also store, send or receive value in bitcoins.


Because they are anchored or ‘tethered’ to real-world currencies.Tether currencies are new assets that move on the Blockchain just as easily as bitcoin. Tether currencies are essentially Dollars, Euros, and Yen formatted to work on the Blockchain. Tethers always hold their value at 1:1 to the underlying assets.Every Tether in circulation is backed 1:1 with a matching currency in our customer reserve account and can be redeemed at any time for its original asset. This means that for every USD₮, EUR₮, and JPY₮ in a customer’s wallet, we hold a real Dollar, Euro, or Yen in our bank account as a claim by the Tether holder.


Tether is built on top of the revolutionary and cryptographically secure Bitcoin blockchain and adheres to strict security and global government laws and regulations.All Tethers are worth one-to-one with matching fiat currency (e.g., 1 USD₮ = 1 USD) and are backed 100% by actual assets in our reserve account. As a fully transparent company, we publish a real-time record of all value held and transferred in and out of our reserve account.Tethers can be securely stored, sent and received across the blockchain and are redeemable for cash (the underlying asset) at any time.


Tether’s platform is built to be fully transparent at all times and is regularly audited. Every Tether is backed 100% by its original currency, and can be redeemed at any time with no exposure to exchange risk.Real-time access to an up-to-the-minute balance sheet showing Tether’s reserve account, movement of assets and outstanding Tethers in circulation can be viewed at tether.to.


We are committed to making Tether secure, fast and low-cost. We offer almost zero conversion fees, we charge no commissions and we offer top market exchange rates.Sending Tether currencies or bitcoin to other Tether wallet holders is always free. When Tether or bitcoins are transferred to a non-Tether address, a bitcoin mining fee is charged.



https://tether.to/faqs/



Tether

Friday, March 20, 2015

IBM & FED

A Centralized Digital Fiat Currency made by IBM


Think of it as a knock-off of the Bitcoin Blockchain, only to service the central banking system and those who have become beholden to it. Bitcoin technology creates a better mouse trap, and the central bankers discuss with IBM “How do we make our funny money currency work like that?”


“When somebody wants to transact in the system, instead of you trying to acquire a bitcoin, you simply say, here are some U.S. dollars,” a source familiar with the project said. “It’s sort of a bitcoin but without the bitcoin.”



In other words, take the sound money supply-and-demand principles of Bitcoin out and replace them with a digital representation of centralized fiat currency instead, that a private corporation can still manipulate. How awesome is that?


Keep in mind that only preliminary discussions have been made, and nothing has been finalized. These discussions have taken place with privately-owned Federal Reserve, and other countries may also be potential suitors for this new digitized fiat currency system. The Bank of England may also be very interested in this endeavor, as they lauded the Bitcoin Blockchain in a September 2014 report. The BOE described the blockchain’s open ledger as a “significant innovation” that could transform the financial system.


“These coins will be part of the money supply,” the source said. “It’s the same money, just not a dollar bill with a serial number on it, but a token that sits on this blockchain.”


The new system would have direct oversight by the central bank it represents, unlike Bitcoin’s decentralized system. Instead of having ledgers maintained by banks that act as a record of an individual’s transactions, this kind of open ledger would be viewable by everyone using the system. It would use an agreed-upon process for entering transactions into the system.


“We are at a tipping point right now. It’s making a lot more sense for some type of digital cash in the system, that not only saves our government money, but also is a lot more convenient and secure for individuals to use.”


U.S. probably won’t be the first to implement it, since it is the Global Reserve Currency. A smaller nation of less significance would be a beta-test at some point this year, and the U.S. will join the system after this year once the system proves workable and scalable. And I’m sure the marketing will sell it as a real state-of-the-art innovation (copied from Bitcoin’s true innovation) that is so cool, you’ve got to start using a “BitDollar”!


Can IBM effectively knock-off Bitcoin’s Blockchain, and keep it as secure? Do you trust the private Federal Reserve to continue to manage a nation’s finances, especially after their last 100 years of track record?In modern Western society, over 95% of fiat currency is digital instead of paper, so the only question going forward is, do you want to use their fiat centralized digital money or your decentralized Bitcoins?



source: https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/ibm-federal-reserve-want-create-bitcoin-knock-off/



IBM & FED

NavajoCoin - The Unbreakable Code

Decentralized anonymity through double Encryption


Optional Decentralized Anonymity in cryptocurrency is a feat yet to be achieved. It would provide the ultimate union between transparency/verifiability and today’s much sought after privacy. To achieve ODA, we will be introducing a new concept to cryptocurren-cies which we will call SubChains and who-se application is to be stretched far beyond 01anonymity. Sub-chains are partial chains that still depend on and are verified along the main chain but are not essential to the running of the main network and therefore an individual node’s involvement in a subchain is optional. They are the plugins/add-ons/extensions of the blockchain!


Bitcoin along with many other cryptocurren-cies of its generation have revolutionized the world of today. Though very few are aware of its potential and future applications, the de-centralized consensus ledger is a solid basis for applications beyond our imaginations.During the past year, the light was shed on the criminal activities of various governments around the world which involved illegal and abusive mass surveillance and data collection. The cryptoworld was deeply struck by this re-velation and started rooting for coin functions that would insure their right to both financial and communication privacy.Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies based on its protocol have a transparent block chain which is the equivalent of a public ledger. With this implementation, your privacy is protected only as far as your link with an address. Today, with the presence of exchanges and other ser-vices that require your personal identification, keeping your identity separate from your coins is proving to be an impossible feat.New coins emerged and on the financial privacy scale centralized mixers appeared, followed by decentralized mixers and a new blockchain technology based around anonymi-ty called Cryptonote. Zerocoin is also a major contender in the anonymity race and a highly anticipated technology. Each have been critici-zed for their weaknesses with the centralized mixer obviously being the weakest as it has a single point of failure. Decentralized mixers 02actually do not offer anonymity and blockchain analysis can mathematically link (no direct link in the blockchain) addresses. Another weak-ness lies in the fact that anyone, especially at a coins infancy age where it is cheap, can ac-quire a majority of the mixing nodes and have a full visibility of the supposedly anon transac-tions along with irrefutable blockchain proof. To summarize, mixers of any kind only obfus-cate transactions. Cryptonote is majorly cri-ticized for its blockchain bloat which limits its scalability along with its inability to offer trans-parency but offers a solid basis for anonymity. Zerocoin offers the greatest privacy but offers zero transparency and in the case of being compromised, no one will know. This is both a scary and impractical truth for an economy on which thousands or millions depend.Thereby in this whitepaper we would like to introduce a completely unique state-of-the-art anonymous technology. Its use of decentrali-zed nodes, a subchain, and double encryption right from the nodes guarantees true anony-mity while still maintaining the option of having fully transparent transactions and in no way bloating the backbone of the system (main chain). The inputs and outputs will be in such a manner that the origin of the transaction as well as the recipient cannot be correlated, lin-ked to one another, or be traced on the block chain as there will be no evidence on it. This technology will therefore be implemented in the next NavajoCoin Wallet Version which will be released on the 9th of March 2015.


Navajo Anonymous Technology


1. The Navajocoin wallet talks to the Navajo API and asks for a random Navajo Magic Gateway (NMG) send NAV through anonymously.


2. The API finds a random NMG, checks that it is running and able to process incoming anonymous transactions, then sends the chosen NMG‘s details back to the wallet.


3. The wallet sends the coins to the random NMG with the encrypted destination information attached.


4. The incoming NMG node talks to the API and asks for a random Choctaw Star Gate (CSG) to send the coins out to the destination.


5. The API finds a random CSG, checks that it is run-ning and able to process outgoing anonymous tran-sactions, then sends its details back to the NMG.


6. The destination address is decrypted then re-encrypted with a new key and sent through the private Navajo Subchain.


7. The NMG strips the destination information from the incoming transaction, mixes the coins with other pending transactions and sends the Navajo coins to the CSG in a series of small, randomized transactions to further obfuscate their route.


8. The CSG node receives the subchain transac-tion and decrypts the destination address from the transaction. The CSG then sends out the correct amount of Navajocoins to its intended destination in a series of small randomized transactions.


Transactions are sent the same way as any bitcoin transaction. The coins are sent from the sender’s wallet directly to the recei-ver’s address and are fully visible and verifia-ble on the blockchain.In order to conduct an anonymous transac-tion, the wallet will need to select a node th-rough which the transaction will be channeled, present the recipient’s address, and get into Navajo mode through an available GUI button. The nodes are decentralized, and as transac-tion volume grows, more nodes will be added.When a transaction is received at the An-onymizing node, the destination information is encrypted by a cryptographic hash func-tion and then that information is broadcasted through the subchain to instruct the outgoing node where to send the NAV funds. The node is the gateway to the subchain.The NMG and CSG are the most important part of the entire operation and work in con-junction. They run on an independent sub-chain and are of course fully decentralized. The NMG is the decryption mechanism and

the CSG is the gateway back to the main chain.The NMG receives the encrypted transaction information that only includes the destination address and the amount, decrypts it, then re-encrypts it with another public key and relays it to the CSG through the subchain. The CSG receives the subchain transaction, decrypts the destination information and verifies the transaction integrity before broadcasting the final transaction on to the main chain; sending the coins to its recipient address in smaller, random denominations.


The recipient will receive the respective amount of coins intended to be sent to their destination address, therefore completing the transaction and thus the coins in no way can be traced back to the original address through any analysis of the Block Chain / Public Led-ger, the subchain or in any other way. What appears on the main blockchain is a transac-tion with a destination and amount only and without an origin.The Coins received in this manner are in no way traceable to the original and there will never exist documented proof on either chain linking any addresses. To counter the type of analysis where one would just look for similar amounts we have mixed and then split the transactions into a smaller random denomina-tions.The efficiency of the system plays an im-portant role in evaluating this system. It takes 3 confirmations all within the network for the coins to be sent and received using the an-onymous technology therefore there are no disadvantages of using the technology against the conventional

sending and receiving of coins between two addresses.The nodes will be decentralized, but to begin with they will be maintained by the Navajo Coin Foundation. We are working to find a secure way that we could distribute the code for users to setup their own nodes, while still being able to guarantee the integrity of the Anonymous Network.


Messaging:


Previously we released the Navajo Chat Client which features group chat and private messaging as well as username reservation and recovery. While already encrypted, will be migrating all this communication to being conducted over SSL. The next feature we‘re working on will be an anonymous, decentrali-zed messaging system that runs on the main network. The idea being that it will allow users to share information by broadcasting encryp-ted messages using a decentralised subchain in the same manner that the transactions are conducted. We consider the messaging sys-tem to be another backbone of other subchain features we plan on releasing.


The on Wallet Messaging service will have its own subchain which will act as a regis-ter of nicknames. Nicknames will be tied to addresses instead of having passwords. An available balance will also be required to chat. The reason for this is to prevent spam and abuse of the system. Since the system is decentralized, banning someone is in effect not possible. However, we have come up with a feature where each node is able to ban/stop listening to a nickname for a specified period of time or forever. If all the network does the same, then the user is as good as banned.



source: http://navajocoin.org/pdf/navajocoin.pdf



NavajoCoin - The Unbreakable Code

Thursday, March 19, 2015

PayCoin (XPY)

What is PayCoin (XPY)?


PayCoin is a digital currency, often called a crypto-currency.


To someone who has never heard these terms before, it may sound like this is something that computer

gamers would use, or something secretive and scary that computer hackers would use, or it may just

sound made up and unreal altogether; it may sound like something that is not for you. It is real though and

even you can use it!


Simply think of it as online cash. You can exchange this money for other monies, just like you can with the

tangible bills and coins you have in your wallet now. You can exchange the Euro for US Dollars for Yen. And

you can exchange PayCoin for other digital coins and at (the cash that you are accustomed to).

With PayCoin, you can send money to anyone, anywhere, anytime. Whether you’re a person or a business,

sending and receiving PayCoin is easy and fast. Unlike wire transfers, there are almost no fees to send

PayCoin. Unlike banks and other digital currencies, there are no long waits for PayCoin transactions, and

there are no chargebacks. Imagine being able to instantly send money across the globe to family members

in need without the large fees typically associated with international transfers. This is one of the major

benefits of using PayCoin.


You can spend PayCoin as well through merchants that accept PayCoin as a payment method for their

goods and services. Purchasing and paying online is now common practice, so this may not seem signifi-

cant, but know, there is a difference. There are also benefits to spending PayCoin instead of using a credit

card or bank drafts online. Due to the way that PayCoin works, the fees that are traditionally incurred with

banking and credit cards are dramatically reduced, and that’s not all, you’re also receiving up to 5%

compound interest per year on your balance. This is why PayCoin is called, “the people’s money”. It is giving

control back to the people, instead of finance systems.


What does XPY mean? Just as at currencies around the world have codes, companies have letter codes for

the stock exchanges and airports have three letter codes when you book a ight, digital currencies have

exchange codes too. US dollars are USD and PayCoin is XPY.


Why use Paycoin and not everyday currencies I use now? There are many reasons to use PayCoin over

traditional currencies.Transfer of funds are very fast and easily traceable with very low fees when

compared to the banking system. Transfers across international boundaries suer no exchange rate depletion.

There is also an easy and fast process to convert PayCoin to traditional currencies via an exchange and

straight into a bank account. So whether you are a business owner or an avid shopaholic or somewhere in

between it’s time to get involved in this forward thinking digital currency!


What is the blockchain? When people talk about PayCoin and some other digital currencies, they reference

something called the blockchain. The blockchain is a continuously updated system in place with all

crypto-currencies that serves as a comprehensive public ledger for all of the transactions performed within

a network. Here’s why this matters to you; the public ledger gives transparency and a wealth of information

to you. All transactions are there, which brings safety, security, and peace of mind to you because nothing

can be hidden or forged.


What is a wallet? Just like you have a wallet for the bills, coins, and credit cards you carry, you will have a

wallet for the digital currency you have; it’ll just be on your computer instead of in your pocket or purse.

A wallet provides location and ownership of PayCoin addresses. Using these addresses, you can send and receive PayCoin

through your personal digital wallet. There are dierent wallet-types to suit you. Just like with the money

you are accustomed to now, you can choose where to keep your PayCoin. You can keep it at home or carry

it with you. You just have to nd the right t for you.


Software Wallets Software Wallets are installed on your computer. They give you complete control over

your wallet with the responsibility to backup and protect your PayCoin on you. Recommended Software

Wallet: www.paycoin.com (PayCoin QT)


Mobile Wallets Mobile Wallets store PayCoins on your mobile device, enabling simple person-to-person

exchange and the option to pay-in-store via QR code scanning or “tap & pay”.



source: https://paycoin.com/downloads/paycoindoc.pdf



PayCoin (XPY)

IrishCoin

WHAT IS IRISHCOIN?


You may have heard much in the news of Bitcoin, a payment and completely digital money system. IrishCoin is a similar de-centralised digital currency, with a focus though predominantly for the Irish tourist sector. We are not striving to replace the Euro or create a new currency. We are instead using the same peer-to-peer crypto currency system as a vehicle to aid and promote the Irish tourism industry among the Irish diaspora in the US, Ireland, and globally. This uniquely sets IrishCoin out differently among the plethora of crypto currencies developing as alternatives to the money system you are used to.


DISTRIBUTION OF IRISHCOIN

Reserve IrishCoin of 7 percent of the currency will be distributed directly through global organizations, companies and and ventures connected to the Irish tourism industry. IrishCoin distribution will start initially with take up from online Irish social networks like Liveireland.com with over 12,000 US and Irish members eligible to download digital wallets with IrishCoin. Negotiations are already in place with numerous other global Irish networks and we will be publishing more going forward. IrishCoin will also be distributed to businesses as a discount token on purchases where IrishCoin is accepted.


IrishCoin will be working with organisations associated with the tourism, hospitality and pubs and entertainment sector, acting as a discount voucher, and a payment remittance. The uptake in the industry for this purpose will undoubtedly see the value of IrishCoin increase with uptake in time. Growth in tandem with the re-established tourism industry is our goal.


You can purchase IrishCoin right now on one of the world’s most reputable crypto coin exchanges Bleutrade.com. Visit and buy now! With growing interest and popularity, IrishCoin will be on more online third-party exchanges where you may purchase coins, as you can purchase any market rarity. You can also join a ‘mining pool’ in order to participate in group discovery and distribution of IrishCoin. Join the IrishCoin mining pool below and receive IrishCoin to your IrishCoin wallet.



IrishCoin Specifics

Name: IrishCoin – Version 0.8.1 BETA

Symbol: IRL

Pre-Mine 4.5 Million IRL (Dedicated To Tourism Industry)

Based on Litecoin 0.8.1 source

Using Scrypt Mining

Block Target: 120 seconds

Difficulty Re-Targets every 4 blocks based on last 90 blocks (Quick Difficulty Readjustment)

Block reward: 100 IRL halving every 320000 blocks (about 18 months)

Total coin mined: 64 million IRL

64 million coins will be mined in approx. first 7 years

Transaction Confirmations Needed: 6.


irishcoin.conf configuration file contents.

——————————————-

rpcuser=user

rpcpassword=password

maxconnection=200

rpcallowip=127.0.0.1

rpcallowip=192.168.*

rpcport=12372

port=12375

server=1

daemon=1

listen=1

addnode=67.159.19.242

addnode=107.170.74.129

addnode=188.226.240.161

addnode=107.170.200.141

——————————————–


Windows 7/8/XP (Advanced Users):

WINDOWS 7: Save the above text in a file called irishcoin.conf in the directory below so it appears as: C:\Users\yourusername\AppData\Roaming\irishcoin.conf


WINDOWS XP: Save the above text in a file called irishcoin.conf in the directory below so it appears as:

C:\Documents and Settings\yourusername\Application Data\Irishcoin\irishcoin.conf


IRISHCOIN NODES

DNS.IRISHCOIN.ORG

NODE.IRISHCOIN.ORG

NODE2.IRISHCOIN.ORG

NODE3.IRISHCOIN.ORG

NODE4.IRISHCOIN.ORG


source: http://irishcoin.org/irishcoin.html & http://irishcoin.org/developers.html



IrishCoin

Monday, March 16, 2015

Stellar Switches To Centralized System

The ripple paper and the code are not the same.


The ripple code causes nodes to determine “quorum” from the nodes it heard from in its last ledger close, not from its total UNL. This is what likely causes forks and this code is live in both consensus systems.


I’m not trying to get into this blaming back and forth with Ripple Inc. We have an obligation to make it clear to people what we have seen and what we believe the issues are. When we first reached out to Prof Mazieres, it was to get an independent 3rd party review of the ripple algorithm from a respected computer scientist so we could be certain that it worked. This is what should be done for any complicated algorithm. Bitcoin has had its paper rigorously reviewed and generally has passed all such review on a technical level. We wanted to do the same thing but unfortunately for us, the algorithm did not pass Prof. Mazieres’s review and we do not know any distributed systems expert who is not employed by Ripple Inc who has reviewed the algorithm and thinks it works.


We’ve seen the nodes exhibit a tendency to get out of sync since at least September. The network would split 3 or 4 ways and then eventually come back together but it would do so relatively quickly and without loss. Last week’s fork was a case of this happening but the ledger was not able to come together quickly.


Let’s review the only commit you can argue changes consensus.


https://github.com/stellar/stellard/commit/067d7158720331937fc782cbb230e8d422cd7341


This commit is the only thing we did that could affect consensus. It was also only deployed on a minority of validators at the time of the fork.


This simple change only causes a node to stop waiting if it realizes it is way behind the rest of the network. Waiting longer won’t really do anything positive:

* the majority of the network has already moved on to a different consensus phase.

* updateposition was already called, so the instance already learned what it can from its peers.

* Waiting longer for other positions will actually increase the chance of divergence (best case some of the positions the instance sees were from the majority, otherwise it’s just random stuff). David Schartwz says as much here: “This may mean we occasionally are forked from the main ledger chain, but that’s perfectly fine.” https://github.com/stellar/stellard/pull/176#issuecomment-64780903

* this partition will hit a timeout anyways that will cause it to advance (see below), before even seeing that the majority network is proposing again.


We were running 7 validating nodes all connected to each other. Our validation_quorum for each node was set to 4. The system getting out of sync regardless was most likely triggered by the existing ripple code below (per our log files).


LedgerTiming.cpp:157 (in stellard) LedgerTiming.cpp:121 (in rippled):

if (currentAgreeTime

This code ignores the number of participants when for some reason the node missed proposals from other peers. This is a contradiction to the Ripple paper so pointing to the paper as the answer does not explain the issues because the code and the paper do not match.


When a fork like this occurs, the minority partition doesn't have enough validations to take over the network but still closes ledgers (while the majority network continues to go on, validated and all). At some point later, the majority network has a glitch that causes some of its participants to not rejoin consensus. Then those recently caught up nodes may then decide to join the wrong network at that point (in this case if the former majority network does not look like it has majority from a LCL point of view).


The interesting thing that happens at that point is that this new majority network (that has been closing ledgers for some time, but not validated), may have enough participants to cross the validation threshold. When this happens, we end up with gaps in history (as from that forks point of view, the previous fully validated ledgers dates back from the time the fork occurred).


The main misunderstanding on how this code works comes from the fact that "previousProposers" is not the UNL - it's just the subset of the UNL that was participating in the last consensus, which in case of timeout can take any number between 0 and the actual size of the UNL.



source: https://stellarverse.org/forum/index.php/topic,10.15.html



Stellar Switches To Centralized System

NEM is Going to Add Reputations to the Blockchain

While we all live in societies where money is mostly considered as a mean to bring wealth and prosperity, there are other factors and aspects in life that all people appreciate. One of these elements is reputation.


Reputation is defined as an overall quality or character, as seen or judged, by people in general. It is totally relative among people in a society and has properties of decentralization.


Unfortunately, reputation has never been considered in any monetary system and its value has never been appreciated as it should be.


However, once again, cryptocurrencies, with their open and liberate innovations, are offering services that were not possible before. One of these new innovations is New Economy Movement (NEM), which, despite having a quite ambitious image, has a lot to offer in the altcoin scene, notably by adding reputations to the blockchain with a decentralized algorithm called proof-of-importance.


It has been a while since we last heard about NEM in crypto 2.0 space, so we recently talked with Makoto, one of the projects top five developers, to get updates and more information about their mysterious and interesting algorithm.


How NEM Determines the Importance Score


NEM is said to be NXT superior by solving some issues of the proof-of-stake protocol in NXT.


One typical argument against proof-of-stake protocol is that those with higher stakes are richer. By doing a small amount of effort (forging in case of NXT), these people can add new blocks and repeat the familiar story of “rich man gets richer.”


However, NEM added the importance factor to the network in addition to the stakes. This means that an individual with only high stakes, do not necessarily have a higher change of finding the next block in the blockchain.


Makoto described the protocol by introducing its three main components that determine the importance score in the network:


Stake;

Net outflow of NEM;

Functions of who sent you XEM (NEM currency).

Stake is how many XEMs a user has. The more XEM a user has, the higher his/her reputation is. This is how the whole NXT concept can be summarized.


The second and third components are tied to each other and are calculated based on a user’s interactions and transactions with other users. This, however, does not mean that a user who transfers XEMs between his accounts, would get a higher score, explains Makoto.


XEMs that are transferred should be vested, because unvested coins do not add any importance score to the user. The vesting process requires time and protects the system against Sybil attacks, he indicates.


Finally, with NEM’s algorithm, which will be released in their white paper in the near future, each node receives an importance level based on these three criteria and creates a graph of importance for all users.


Makoto continues by saying:


“This algorithm gives a pretty good approximation for the graph-theoretic importance of a node in the transaction graph.”


Nodes are graphed based on their importance level. It is worth to mention that these scores are a number between 0,1 and infinite, meaning that they cannot be created. Therefore, a user gains more importance at the expense of other users.


NEM already released their testnet and part of their open source project on github. According to Makoto, NEM dev team has been heavily testing to provide a safe and reliable service. They are going to release the software by this month, but had not fixed a precise date yet. Anyone can follow them through their website, Facebook, Twitter and forum.


Proof-of-importance seems to have a lot to offer with its reputation-based service. With its promising ideas, NEM needs to take some big steps this month and pass big challenges. However, if they succeed in providing what they are claiming, I assume some bright days are going to be ahead of this new cryptocurrency during the year.




NEM is Going to Add Reputations to the Blockchain

XEM & New Economy Movement

NEM is not just a crypto currency. Above that, and more importantly, NEM is a peer to peer platform and it provides/will provide services like payments, messaging, asset trading and smart contracts.There shall be a lot more to come as NEM shall be an evolving solution.


Bitcoin is a crypto currency and so are most crypto coins. Some are application specific while some are purely crypto coins. Apart from NEM being another crypto currency, NEM is a solution platform. There is more to offer as a platform. As a crypto currency, it does not require a lot of computing power and energy to run a node. NEM also advocates low entry barrier by way of Proof of Importance (POI) instead of the traditional ones that require a lot of stakes or computing power to mine. In NEM we call it harvesting. In addition, it also uses another solution, called Eigentrust ++ to validate and sieve out bad actors in the network. As an evolving solution, NEM is setting the stage for better things to come. At the initial stage NEM has this to offer:


First block chain based multisig solution

An encrypted messaging solution

Harvesting: Once harvesting is started, you don’t need your wallet to stay open to harvest. It can be closed and the wallet does not need to be online.

Protected wallet, i.e., wallet does not need to be online with the Internet. It can hide behind a firewall and only connects itself directly to the NIS in the LAN.

Password and Private Key never leaves the wallet and the wallet itself is protected by a password.


You can send and receive payments and messages quickly, securely and at low cost on a global scale without the need for a bank account. You can buy/sell/trade assets and goods worldwide. In future, there shall be more exciting features such as asset trading, smart contracts and colored coins.


“XEM” is NEM’s currency code. It is similar to USD, EUR, CNY, JPY etc.


NEM ‘s loyalty points come in the form of harvesting. These are in fact rewards for using NEM as a platform to perform your transactions. The more you transact and the greater your balance is, the more frequent will be your reward. Rewards are random. Sometimes you get more and sometimes less, depending on the block that you harvest.


Download the NEM one-click installer at bob.nem.ninja/installer or the stand-alone version at bob.nem.ninja. After installation, simply click on [Create New Wallet]. (Please make sure to use a very strong password.)


(Note: These are the ONLY official sites that distribute the latest and verified NEM software. There may be others available elsewhere, but you will need to verify for yourself if they are in fact safe to use.)


NCC stands for NEM Community Client. It is the wallet in short. But we have made it generic because it is a client and in a web architecture, a client can do more than just a wallet function.

NIS is Network Infrastructure Server. An NIS exist in the NEM space as nodes in a P2P network. It forms the core to making sure and keeping the network plus the block chain validated all the time. NIS is the Web and application server in a Web Architecture. It is a powerful and yet a lightweight server. Any NCC can make use of a NIS to transact. To harvest (see harvest) one can assign or proxy a NIS to harvest for it through the NCC without exposing oneself.


Download, install, and run the NEM Infrastructure Server (NIS).


For the more advanced uses:


If you want to share the NIS or use the NIS from the Internet, open port 7890 on your router/firewall for the computer where the NIS is running. This is required if you want to access your node from outside your LAN. You do not need to open that port if you only want to run your NCC within your Local Area Network.


Do note that it is safe for anyone else to make use of your node to transact and does not jeopardise your security. Passwords and private keys never leave your wallet, which is in the NCC. The NCC is recommended not to be located on the same terminal as the NIS if you want to keep the NIS always on.


POI is short for “Proof-of-Importance”. It is a consensus algorithm at the core of the NEM software. The higher your importance, the higher your chance to be allowed to calculate a block (and harvest the fees inside that block). POI adjusts your importance depending on how many transactions you make, with whom you make them and a number of other factors. If you don’t do any transactions POI will set your importance based on your balance only (it is then similar to proof-of-stake).


When an account is set up as a multi-user account (a.k.a. multisig), payments can only be sent if a previously defined amount of people sign the transaction. This can be useful for example if funds should not be in the control of a single person.


Harvesting is a process whereby the nodes will validate a block of data to be hashed and put onto the block chain. Once put onto the block chain, it becomes an immutable and irreversible record unless there is a conflict, in which case, there will be some automatic arbitration and the block chain is readjusted to correct itself automatically.


This block of data is a set of transactions that occur withing an approximate time frame of about 1 minute. In other words, harvesting occurs at about once every minute. The process of hashing data and putting them onto the block requires the machine to do some work. It is a random process that depends on a few factors so that only one account in the entire network is given the right to harvest once every minute.


That account will be given a reward for hashing that block of data. The reward depends on the amount of transaction fee that have been accumulated in that one block of data.


Log into your wallet and click “Start local harvesting”. Requirement: The user account needs a vested balance of at least 10,000 XEM.


The total amount is 8,999,999,999 XEM.


The NEM community fund can be used by anybody to do almost anything. There is only one condition: you have to convince the community of your idea and credentials. Details about the way our community voting is done will be announced soon.


NEM was 100% pre-mined and distributed to approx. 1,500 initial stakeholders.



source: http://nem.io/faq.html



XEM & New Economy Movement

IBM adopting bitcoin

International Business Machines Corp is considering adopting the underlying technology behind bitcoin, known as the “blockchain,” to create a digital cash and payment system for major currencies, according to a person familiar with the matter.


The objective is to allow people to transfer cash or make payments instantaneously using this technology without a bank or clearing party involved, saving on transaction costs, the person said. The transactions would be in an open ledger of a specific country’s currency such as the dollar or euro, said the source, who declined to be identified because of a lack of authorization to discuss the project in public.


The blockchain – a ledger, or list, of all of a digital currency’s transactions – is viewed as bitcoin’s main technological innovation, allowing users to make payments anonymously, instantly, and without government regulation.


Rather than stored on a separate server and controlled by an individual, company, or bank, the ledger is open and accessible to all participants in the bitcoin network.


The proposed digital currency system would work in a similar way.



“When somebody wants to transact in the system, instead of you trying to acquire a bitcoin, you simply say, here are some U.S. dollars,” the source said. “It’s sort of a bitcoin but without the bitcoin.”


IBM is one of a number of tech companies looking to expand the use of the blockchain technology beyond bitcoin, the digital currency launched six years ago that has spurred a following among investors and tech enthusiasts.


The company has been in informal discussions about a blockchain-tied cash system with a number of central banks, including the U.S. Federal Reserve, the source said. If central banks approve the concept, IBM will build the secure and scalable infrastructure for the project.


IBM media relations office did not respond to Reuters emails about this story and the Fed declined to comment.


However, there are signs that central banks are already thinking about the innovations that could arise through digital currency systems. The Bank of England, in a report in September 2014, described the blockchain’s open ledger as a “significant innovation” that could transform the financial system more generally.


Instead of having ledgers maintained by banks that act as a record of an individual’s transactions, this kind of open ledger would be viewable by everyone using the system, and would use an agreed-upon process for entering transactions into the system.


The project is still in the early stages and constantly evolving, the source said. It is also unclear how concerns about money-laundering and criminal activities that have hamstrung bitcoin.


Unlike bitcoin, where the network is decentralized and there is no overseer, the proposed digital currency system would be controlled by central banks, the source said.


“These coins will be part of the money supply,” the source said. “It’s the same money, just not a dollar bill with a serial number on it, but a token that sits on this blockchain.”


According to the plans, the digital currency could be linked to a person’s bank account, possibly using a wallet software that would integrate that account with the proposed digital currency ledger.


“We are at a tipping point right now. It’s making a lot more sense for some type of digital cash in the system, that not only saves our government money, but also is a lot more convenient and secure for individuals to use,” the source said.



source: http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/03/12/us-bitcoin-ibm-idUSKBN0M82KB20150312



IBM adopting bitcoin

Sunday, March 15, 2015

Vertcoin Elasticity

A few people commented that the issue of the subsidy reduction should precede any efforts of PR/Marketing – we do not disagree.


In fact, the roadmap is more of a list of items we are working on in parallel. On that note, we have reached a final decision on the subsidy change discussion. Vertcoin will not be changing the mining subsidy. Before the half of you that were in favor of a reduction lose your cool, read on.


We are most pleased to announce that Vertcoin will be moving to an elastic distribution model. This is absolutely revolutionary in the cryptocurrency world and will bring incredible stability to Vertcoin. This will undoubtedly bring the investors AND users of the coin that we so desperately need. So, what is elasticity? Cryptocurrencies traditionally operate on an inelastic distribution model whereby the supply of coins is fixed or runs on a schedule (halving). Many prominent economists have commented that the biggest thing holding Bitcoin back from ubiquity is their inelastic distribution model. The problem is one of market volatility – supply does not ever adjust to demand and thus you get massive swings in price (bubbles and crashes). With an elastic distribution model, the supply of spendable coins reacts to the market demand. So, why have cryptocurrencies opted not to include an elastic supply? Our guess is that no one has come up with a way to do it in a decentralized fashion. Traditionally, an economy of elasticity requires a central governing body to adjust the supply based on demand (think of the Federal Reserve or IMF). Vertcoin will solve this problem.


People often conjecture about what will increase the price of Vertcoin; the truth is, many of the suggestions are right. Inflation is high, usage is low and demand is low. The only reason Bitcoin has not suffered more as a result of their inelastic distribution model is because they were first to the scene. However, we believe eventually Vertcoin will out reach Bitcoin because of elasticity.


Imagine purchasing VTC without having to fear its value will degrade. That would make a lot of us much more likely to buy VTC to actually use it because we know it will be roughly worth the same as when we bought it. Likewise, the elastic model will prevent dangerous price bubbles. Finally, a cryptocurrency meant to be used rather than pumped and dumped.


There are many many details that go into making this a reality and it will take time for us to develop it, however, we have had some robust discussions and believe we have the solution – it is now a matter of implementation. Those details are intentionally omitted from this post so as to protect our work until we are ready to release it at which point it will be open source. However, what I can say is that the system will account for inflation by reducing the supply of coins in circulation, and conversely it will increase the supply of coins in reaction to deflation. All of this while maintaining a secure, decentralized network.



source: https://vertcoin.org/wp/ann-vertcoin-elasticity/



Vertcoin Elasticity

Friday, March 13, 2015

DarkCoin Rebranding

The current leading idea per the forums is “Dash,” with no “coin” in the name.


The new name is supposed to be short for “digital cash,” while at the same time the name is meant to play on the instant transaction feature implemented in the most recent stable version of Darkcoin. Duffield posted to the Darkcoin community forums yesterday afternoon:


I am very happy with the way development is going. We’ve been able to refine our privacy technology, successfully released InstantX and have developed the Masternode network into a strong and truly decentralized platform. […] Because of this I believe we’re currently approaching a very important phase of the development of Darkcoin.[…] It’s time that we start exploring some of the ways we can become a true competitor to Bitcoin. […] Because of this I no longer feel the name Darkcoin reflects the true essence of the project and have decided to rebrand our product. […] Dash represents the goals that we’re trying to achieve, to be a fast, friendly and scalable online payment system.


Also mentioned in the post was that the Darkcoin network will in the future be able to handle “billions” of transactions per day, a key component of mass market adoption.


Reception by the Darkcoin community was mixed. “Considering how often it comes up, I’ve always assumed a name change was inevitable,” said one user, adding that he didn’t like the proposed new name. “I don’t necessarily mind a rebranding but Dash shouldn’t even be considered,” said another.


The issue was obviously discussed a great deal, and to avoid overwhelming confusion or ill-drawn conclusions, Duffield posted a follow-up early on March 10th:


The name “Dash” was recommended by the community some time ago. We picked up on that and the foundation began investigating the use of it and found a trademark application. The whole reason we’ve acquired the rights, was not because the decision was final, but because we need to challenge that trademark application to even be able to use the name, otherwise it’s a complete non-starter.


We’re absolutely open to everyone’s input and always have been. We would like this process to be 100% transparent as possible. In the community supports it, I would support hiring a firm to handle the rebranding for us. We could allow the firm to engage directly and transparently with the community, then have foundation members vote on the final decision.


Some of the reasons outlined in the post included the misconception that Darkcoin is meant to serve underground marketplaces and that merchants had pushed back against adoption – not because of the privacy and built-in coin tumbling features of Darkcoin, but because of the association with the aforementioned illicit activities.


The recent rebound in the price of Bitcoin, arguably tied to the now publicly-traded hedge fund based on Bitcoin called Bitcoin Investment Trust, has not translated into a simultaneous rise in the price of Darkcoin. In strict dollar-to-satoshi terms, the price has remained relatively stable, at around $3 per coin.



source: https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/darkcoin-rebranding-possibly-dash/



DarkCoin Rebranding

GuldenCoin

Guldencoin, a national cryptocurrency in the Netherlands, has established a strong level of acceptance among Dutch businesses.


Named after the longstanding guilder Dutch currency that the euro replaced in 2002, Amsterdam-based Guldencoin bills itself as a national cryptocurrency. Customers can pay with Guldencoins and merchants can be paid in euros.


Launched in April of 2014, Guldencoin has gained a large following among Dutch merchants and ranks as the world’s 69th largest cryptocurrency in terms of capitalization, according to coinmarket cap.


To accept Guldencoin, merchants create a LitePaid account. LitePaid is a digital currency platform that allows users to choose which digital currencies to accept. The LitePaid dashboard provides an overview of all transactions and the choice to receive daily payout in euros or Guldencoin. To complete a transaction, the shop clerk enters the payment amount in euros and a QR code displays. The customer scans the QR code with his or her smartphone and completes payment. For amounts over 500 euro, the merchant must check to be sure the transaction is accepted. LitePaid sends an automated email to confirm acceptance.


Guldencoin’s following stands to grow even more with the recent introduction of an online platform, nocks.nl, which allows Guldencoin to be used wherever bitcoin is accepted. The Nocks website (nocks.nl) allows bitcoin users to fill out the bitcoin amount, provide the bitcoin payment address and click “betalen” (“pay”). Users can also scan the bitcoin QR code using the scan QR option, which also works on Android and iPhones. Nocks was launched by entrepreneurs Roel Buerra and Patrick Kivits. The Nocks website will soon be available in English, according to Buerra.


Nocks also plans to allow Guldencoin users to use bitcoin wherever Guldencoin is accepted.

“We’re planning to launch and announce it in a week or two,” said Buerra.


“The rising of digital currency and the interest for the familiar gulden are what made us so driven to develop the Guldencoin,” the Guldencoin website explains. “We see it as a great challenge to bring back the gulden in the Netherlands as the digital Guldencoin next to the already existing euro.” Guldencoin is not intended as a replacement for the euro, but an alternative.


Guldencoin team members include: Rijk Plasman, founder and designer; Hilmar Kistemaker, founder and developer; Geert-Johan Riemer, developer; Rits Plasman, developer; and Job Beumer, representative.


The Guldenwallet is available at App Store in the Netherlands.


Merchants can download the Guldencoin logo from the website and display it in their stores.


To promote itself, Guldencoin offers rewards to merchants who accept the cryptocurrency.


The Guldencoin website lists 60 merchants that accept Guldencoin. Customers can buy food (including several Subway sandwich shops), coffee, website services, apparel, books, wine, tattoo removal, hair removal, leather gadgets, educational gadgets, three-dimensional printing, cameras, games, gold, silver, barbecue equipment and accessories, and more.



Coin characteristics


Algorithm: scrypt PoW KGW

TX confirmations: 6

Max coins: 1680M

Pre-mine: 170M (~10%)

Initial difficulty: 0.00244

Block reward: 1000NLG

Block time: 150 seconds

Retarget: 576 blocks (Kimoto’s Gravity Well)

Block reward halvation: Every 840.000 blocks


Main net


port: 9231

rpc port: 9232

genesis block: 6c5d71a461b5bff6742bb62e5be53978b8dec5103ce52d1aaab8c6a251582f92

protocol magic: 0xfc, 0xfe, 0xf7, 0xe0

protocol magic before v1.3: 0xfb, 0xc0, 0xb6, 0xdb (old)



GuldenCoin

Tuesday, March 10, 2015

QUARKcoin wallet update: QUARK 0.9.2.2

There was a fork between clients running Quark 0.8 and those running Quark 0.9.


This was caused by a change in the the way the median block time is calculated between Bitcoin Core 0.8 and Bitcoin Core 0.9.

This caused 0.8 clients to reject blocks that the 0.9 client accepted.

The 0.9 clients have been updated to calculate median block time in the same way the 0.8 clients does.

Please update to the 0.9.2.3 client as soon as possible, especially if you are on 0.9.2.1 or 0.9.2.2.


After upgrading, run your wallet with the -reindex option, e.g.


quarkd -reindex

quark-qt -reindex


* Checkpoint added

* Github updated with patches for backward incompatibility in OpenSSL 1.0.1k/l.

* Windows version built using OpenSSL 1.0.1j until Bitcoin Core finalises its changes for OpenSSL 1.0.1k/l.


You might have to run your wallet with the -reindex option the first time after upgrading to ensure you are on the correct chain.


Windows Qt wallet 0.9.2.2 (zip)


Win32

Mega – https://mega.co.nz/#!F8tFAZKA!2lXc7tm25q-6zdt5IhvRGq8xBvMRNSCGqjEH6TMPeck

Dropbox – https://www.dropbox.com/s/oyjfdw7ebfxcu2o/quark0.9.2.2win32.zip?dl=0


File Hash: SHA1 37E17FCA0746EFAF7D2813FC9307012C78183B92


Win64

Mega – https://mega.co.nz/#!1hMljbQL!4iEuJrQF1waGQfmnuW49e0awSyjNoL98BS5Cp3k4g_M

Dropbox – https://www.dropbox.com/s/4r8kfia9ovp61rb/quark0.9.2.2win64.zip?dl=0


File Hash: SHA1 8EEAC99F22F23DC6951A798536B03D8E1DA65E78



source: http://www.satoshis.guru/quarkcoin-update-0-9-2-2/



QUARKcoin wallet update: QUARK 0.9.2.2

SuperNET welcomes FIBREcoin

This means new tech, new developers, and a new community being added to the SuperNET family.


FIBREcoin, a young innovative coin whose launch was announced on November 5, 2014, is without doubt among the most promising altcoins in the crypto sphere, with active developers and a great portfolio of innovative features. FIBREcoin has a total coin supply of only 625k.

FIBREcoin also meets the rest of the requirements to be eligible for integration into the SuperNET CORE; from a technical point of view, opening their source core tech to SuperNET analysts , and from the financial point of view, which required a swap of SuperNET assets with FIBREassets. To achieve this the help of the FIBREcoin community was summoned. Most greatly welcomed the idea, collaborating not just with words but also with coins.


FIBREcoin:

One thing we offer that most don’t is an active team dedicated to this project. Someone from my team will be active in our slack channel around 18 hours a day. We have 2 in house developers and have a large network of freelancers that we can call on as required. Our lead dev Mammix2 is a seasoned crypto developer with his own accolades.


Main features of FIBREcoin:


FIBREOS

FIBREOS is a secure and anonymous operating system, a custom built, optimized and hardened Ubuntu environment based on the latest version 14.04LTS. The OS and FIBRE Wallet data files are stored on SD or USB, and leave no trace on the host PC when unplugged.


FIBRELock

FIBRELock is a security feature that removes the keyboard from the password entry process by using an android style pattern based locking system. All inputs come from your mouse and your pattern becomes your password.


FIBREConnect

FIBRE’s encrypted messaging system: FIBREConnect also contains Notify, which allows messaging any wallet on the network. This can for example be used for sending out important update information.


FIBREDark

The FIBREDark wallet allows you to choose between using a standard FIBRE wallet or a wallet that will automatically connect to the Internet using the TOR Network, which will make your IP address and location hidden. FIBREDark does not rely on TOR exit nodes, which are considered to be the weak link in the TOR network. The FIBREDark wallet has hard coded onion addresses that point to new FIBREDark nodes, which have been brought online to support the FIBREDark network.DarkNodes handle the routing of data between the TOR network and the standard FIBRE network.


FIBRE Mixer

Keeps your transactions private.


ZeroTrust

Feature under development.


OCCUPY.net

FIBRE ZeroTrust will be the official transaction protocol of the Occupy network.

FIBRE is now a part of the OCUPY.net platform. OCUPY provides an interesting new platform which connect more and more teams. The platform combines a Solzial Network, Forum, learning platform and social content in its own Blockchain.OCUPY.net will not only be the new home of the FIBRE community but also the whole of Crypto. It will also be a bridge between the activism communities and digital currencies.

The OCUPY Blockchain will be migrated to the cloud then integrated into the OCUPY platform to provide blockchain based services. The OCUPY developer have been assistense the Fibre team in the migration of their blockchain in the cloud. The team wants developing HTML5 Wallet, Mobile Wallets, Applications for the App Stores. The Facebook Wallet will be published in the Facebook App Center on the top of the cloud platform.

The FIBRE team hopes to massively increase this step to reach the potential user. With this step at least the opportunity should offer more potential user to reach, the crypto scene is not sufficient for success. FIBRE community members can register at OCUPY.net and dive into Social Network, FIBRE Forum, FIBRE Group and FIBRE Chatroom.



source: http://nxter.org/new-supernet-core-coin-fibrecoin/ & http://www.satoshis.guru/fibre-joined-ocupy-net-platform/



SuperNET welcomes FIBREcoin

FIBREcoin ZeroTrust

In the current design which is based on the open source XC mixer revision 1, there are some designated mixer nodes on the network that handle the mixing requests between client and destination.


Transactions are split up into multiple smaller ones and then send either via one or two mixers then onto the final destination. The issues with this is that each of the smaller transactions are logged on the mixers and on the blockchain before being sent to the destination address. Potentially with a lot of hard work and forceful access to the mixer nodes the original transactions could be traced back eventually. But someone would have to be very determined and have full access to all the mixer nodes!


The new Fibre ZeroTrust design aims to get over this by uniquely sharing transaction information between multiple mixer nodes on the network fully decentralized.


Once a mixer node has picked up the mix request, it immediately shares the transaction information with other mixer nodes on the network. This shared transaction information is never unique to any specific mixer node until enough information has been shared between nodes to build up the full request. Then which even node has the final request information handles the transaction into the blockchain. There are safe guards in place to unsure that the mixer node receiving the initial request will never be the node that sends on the final transaction to the blockchain. Shared transaction information is never stored on the any of mixer nodes that handle the transmits and receives, as this is handled at an additional application layer above the blockchain processing. All that’s registered is that one of the mixers sent a transaction to a destination address which was registered on the blockchain. If anyone were to gain physical access to the mixer nodes they could not trace back where the original sent transaction came from, as it’s registered in the blockchain as coming form a single use address on the mixer to a destination address on the network.


One of the new mixer requirements it to enforce its usage over the FibreDark (Tor) network so that mixer nodes will always be registered behind hidden services nodes, regardless of the IP address they physically sit behind. This makes it easier to setup and manage mixers on the network. There will also be other minimum requirements to be set out in the near future.



source: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=737771.msg9296373#msg9296373



FIBREcoin ZeroTrust

FIBREcoin

FIBREcoin is a new digital currency that aims to empower the people.


It allows individuals to participate in the internet economy even when they live in countries where credit card companies and paypal do not operate.

Unlike other forms of payment, Fibre is not controlled by any single authority.

No one can freeze funds, impose a waiting period, or charge you arbitrary fees.

Transactions are instant, cost almost no fees, and are irreversible.

Fibre is secure, stable and easy to use by design.


FIBREdark

Fibredark is our solution that gives our users the choice of being able to hide their identity while connected to the Fibre network.

The wallet autimatically use Tor wich will make your IP address and location hidden on the Fibre Network.

The FibreDark wallet has hard coded onion addresses that point to new FibreDark nodes, wich have been brought online to support the FibreDark network.

Out hybrid network will be able to support a mixed mode environment of both Tor enabled wallets and standard connected wallts on the Fibre network.

This will give our users greater flexibility as they will have a choice in connecting via Tor or not.

The accompanying diagram explains how this is achieved.


FIBREos

FibreOS utilizes a custom, optimized and hardened Ubuntu environment, based on the latest version 14.04LTS.

FibreOS is a secure and anonymous operating system.

Anyone with a pc or laptop will be able to use FibreOS.

Because the OS and Wallet Data files are stored on a USB.

You effectively have true cold storage, your coins will follow you wherever you go.

All traffic is routed via TOR giving the user increased anonymity. When you unplug your USB stick no trace is left on the host PC.

Our DarkNodes handle the routing of data between the Tor network and the standard Fibre network.

FibreDark does not rely on Tor exit nodes, wich I consider to be the weak link in the Tor network.


FIBRElock

An innovative security feature that has not been seen in Crypto land before.

The idea behind FibreLock was to remove the keyboard from the password entry thus rendering key loggers and other malware useless against FibreWallet!

FibeLock uses an android style pattern based locking system, there is no keyboard subsystem being used that malware could monitor!

All inputs will come from your mouse and your pattern will become your password.

If your wallet is already encrypted, use the change password feature to swap over to the new pattern input.


FIBREconnect

FibreConnect brings an encrypted and secure messaging system to Fibre.

Send messages instantly, all you need is someones Fibre address and their public key.

We have also implemented additional Font styling options.

FibreConnect also contains Notify. Notify allows us to send messages to every wallet on the network.

This will be used for important update information.



source: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=737771.0



FIBREcoin

What is a bitAsset

The idea of creating new assets on top of bitcoin via smart contracts has been around for a few years now, but it seems that no one has been able to find the perfect solution up to this point.


Bitshares and NuBits are probably the most widely used platforms for creating these sorts of assets right now, but they are often met with skepticism due to the fact that they aren’t based on the (tried and true) bitcoin blockchain. Adoption of these platforms for payments is also basically zero right now. Some individuals in the cryptocurrency community believe that these sorts of bitassets are required to access the next level of mainstream adoption, while others question whether they’re actually useful for the general public.


A bitasset is basically a derivative built on top of a cryptocurrency through the use of smart contracts. As a simple explanation, it’s useful to think of it as a bet. Two parties place their bitcoins (or any other cryptocurrency) into a smart contract, and the number of bitcoins that are returned to each party after a certain period of time relies on some sort of external data feed. That data could be the BTC/USD exchange rate on a certain date, the final score of a football match, whether or not Hillary Clinton is elected President of the United States in 2016, or basically anything else. In the case of something like a football match, the end result is simple. The party that selected the winning team receives all the bitcoins, while the loser receives nothing. In a situation where the market price of a real world asset is used, things can get a bit trickier.


Let’s say that the BTC/USD exchange rate was used as that bit of external data to solve a bet in a smart contract. This means that one party would be going long on bitcoin (betting that the USD exchange rate of 1 bitcoin would increase), while the other party would be shorting bitcoin (betting that the USD exchange rate of one bitcoin would decline.) In theory, the party owning the short side of the bet has essentially created a new asset tied to the value of the US dollar. Whoever owns the rights to the short side of the bet at its conclusion will be rewarded with the same USD value of bitcoin that was placed into the contract by that side at the start of the bet. Many would rightfully point out that the rights to a side of a bet are not the same as dollars in a bank account, but it’s rather likely that the new bitasset created through that bet would be roughly as volatile as a US dollar (not very much), and roughly as transferable as a Bitcoin. Many people would view this as an improvement over the volatility associated with the bitcoin price.


If a bitasset is essentially going to be pegged to a fiat currency, stock, commodity, or anything else, then the blockchain needs to be told about that real world data. The most obvious solution here is to have a trusted entity publish the data into the blockchain. There are actually already a few different companies, such as Reality Keys, who plan to specialize in publishing real world data for smart contract resolution. The solution of choice for bitcoin core developer Gavin Andresen is to use a pool of data publishers to avoid risks associated with centralization in one oracle. There are also more decentralized solutions, such as Truthcoin, that aim to source real world data from a much larger number of properly incentivized actors in a low-trust prediction market.



source: http://www.miningpool.co.uk/what-is-a-bitasset/



What is a bitAsset

Monday, March 9, 2015

20 tips, tricks how to stay anonymous online

Anonymous How To


1. SECURE WEBMAIL WITH EXTENSIONS

If you must use a webmail service, such as Gmail or Yahoo Mail, and you don’t or can’t make the switch to a more secure service, then consider installing Mailvelope (or reconsider switching as that is the most useful way how to be anonymous). Mailvelope is a browser extension for Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox that brings OpenPGP encryption to your webmail service. Similar extensions exist, such as SecureGmail, which encrypts and decrypts emails you send through Gmail. Using this extension means the unencrypted text should never reach Google servers. Recipients will need to install the extension in order to decrypt and read the encrypted email.


2. INCOGNITO

This is perhaps one of the most basic privacy options that just about anyone can take advantage of. The top four most popular browsers – Google Chrome, Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox and Safari – have a private browsing mode, which can be found in their respective settings menus. With private browsing activated, your browser will not store cookies or internet history on your computer. This has very limited uses and is perhaps really only effective at hiding your browsing history from your significant other, siblings or parents. Private browsing does not securely hide your identity or browsing activities beyond your local machine as your IP address can still be tracked.


3. DON’T USE SOCIAL MEDIA

The amount of personal data that social networking sites like Facebook, Google Plus and Twitter have harvested from their billions of users is shocking. Head to facebook.com/settings and click ‘Download a copy of your Facebook data’ and you might be surprised to see just how much information is on file. Everything from who you have poked, what events you have or have not attended and when and where you have logged into your account is logged and saved. Similar levels of data harvesting occurs on all major social media sites. This is the price you pay for using a ‘free’ service. The only sure-fire way to avoid giving up this information is to delete your accounts entirely. A word of warning, ‘deactivating’ your account is not the same as deleting it. Deactivating your account is sort of like putting it into hibernation – all your information is stored and can be re-activated if you have second thoughts. Always delete rather than deactivate an account if you wish to completely wipe it.


4. BLOCK AND MANAGE TRACKERS

A large amount of websites track and collect the browsing habits of the users that visit them. These trackers are invisible and most people aren’t aware that they’re being tracked. Ghostery is a free browser extension – available on all major web browsers – that will reveal these trackers, also known as web bugs. You can then decide which web bugs you’re comfortable with tracking you and which ones you’d like to block. In total, Ghostery keeps track of over 1,900 companies. Each company has a profile in the Ghostery Knowledge Library, allowing you to better understand who and why someone is keeping tabs on you and what action you would like to take.


5. ENCRYPTED EMAIL

Most of the well known and popular email services – Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo Mail, Outlook – are not particularly privacy-friendly. For full Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) encrypted emails, consider signing up to a more secure provider. Hushmail is currently very popular, it provides a private email account with no ads, built-in encryption and unlimited email aliases. A limited free service is offered, with more features available for a monthly subscription fee. However, Hushmail is not above the law and in the past it has been forced to reveal user data to U.S. authorities following a court order. The company also logs user IP addresses. MyKolab is a similar service that has not revealed any user information in the past, however, they are also obliged to provide access to lawful interception requests so this still remains a possibility.


6. TEMPORARY EMAIL

Disposable Email Addresses (DEAs) are anonymous and temporary. They allow users to quickly create new email addresses as-and-when they’re needed, which can then be disposed of after use. This is particularly useful for avoiding spam when filling in forms on websites that require an email address to proceed. Keeping your real email address away from spammers is crucial to protecting your identity online and DEAs are a great solution. Popular providers of this service include Guerrilla Mail and Mailinator, although there are hundreds out there to choose from. Most DEAs are not particularly secure, so it is not advised to use these services to send sensitive information – rather, use them as a way to avoid giving away your own information in situations where you are obliged to do so.


7. VPN

Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) are one of the most effective ways to protect your privacy online. A VPN essentially hides your IP address – your unique online identifier – and runs all your online data via a secure and encrypted virtual tunnel, which can keep websites from tracking your online activity or even knowing which country you’re browsing from. These days, there are many VPNs to choose from. Hotspot Shield, TorGuard, CyberGhost and HideMyAss are some of the more popular ones that are currently available. Most of them require a small monthly subscription fee and they don’t all provide the same list of features, so it’s worth shopping around for a VPN that suits you.


8. TOR

Originally developed with the U.S. Navy in mind as a way to protect government communications, Tor is a network of “virtual tunnels that allows people and groups to improve their privacy and security on the Internet.” Tor’s anonymity network allows access to the ‘deep’ or ‘hidden’ web, where websites can be created anonymously and individuals can communicate privately with each other. When using the Tor browser – which can be downloaded for free from torproject.org – it is very difficult for websites or individuals to track your online activity and location. However, while Tor is quite effective at protecting your online anonymity, it can be slow, complicated and restricting. It’s also worth noting that while the network can and has been used for good, it has also been used for illicit purposes, such as selling drugs and distributing images of child abuse.


9. PROXY SERVER

A proxy server is a computer through which your online activity can be processed, essentially acting as an intermediary between your computer and the internet. As such, this can be a great way to maintain your online anonymity as the proxy basically masks your IP address with its own. If the proxy is based in a different country than your own, you can fool websites and trackers into thinking you’re browsing from a completely different continent. There are many ways to use proxies and there are various free and paid services on offer. HideMyAss.com/proxy has a limited free web proxy service that you can start using immediately if you’d like try it out.


10. HTTPS EVERYWHERE

Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) is the encrypted version of HTTP, the technology protocol which determines how web servers and browsers respond to commands and how messages are sent and received. The Electronic Frontier Foundation’s (EFF) HTTPS Everywhere is a neat little extension – available on Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox and Opera – that forces websites to use HTTPS, even when they default to the less secure and unencrypted HTTP. By EFF’s own admission it’s still feasible for “some attackers to break HTTPS,” but it’s certainly not a bad idea to install their extension as HTTPS is still far more secure than HTTP and will certainly help to protect your privacy and consequently maintain your anonymity. EFF is a nonprofit organisation that seeks to defend civil liberties in the digital world.


11. DESTROY COOKIES

Cookies are little bits of code that are automatically downloaded from a website and stored on your system. Cookies allow websites to quickly and easily remember if you’ve been there before – if you have, the website may then alter certain variables based on the information that has been stored in the cookie in order to give you a more personalised and potentially useful experience. However, some cookies can be very intrusive, logging information such as how long you’ve been visiting a particular website, how many clicks you’ve made and what content you seem to prefer reading. It doesn’t hurt, then, to occasionally wipe your system of any and all cookies. Admittedly this won’t do a huge amount to protect your anonymity, but it will make it harder for websites to learn and understand your viewing habits. You can delete cookies from within your browser, but to make sure you nuke the lot, you can use an app like CCleaner, which is free and powerful.


12. USE ALTERNATIVE SEARCH ENGINES

Like most people, you probably use Google to search for things online. Google is an undeniably accurate, fast and efficient search engine, however, this is largely helped by its personalised search system. This is a feature that uses your past search history, rather than just relying on the terms you’ve typed into the search bar, to present you with results that are more relevant to your personal tastes. To do this, Google keeps track of your search habits in a number of ways, including browser cookies. You can turn off this personalised search by clicking Search Tools > All Results > Verbatim. But if you really want to make sure Google isn’t tracking your searches, consider using a different search engine entirely, such as DuckDuckGo, which promises never to track your searches and “emphasizes protecting searchers’ privacy and avoiding filter bubble of personalized search results.”


13. USE ALTERNATIVE BROWSERS

While Google Chrome, Firefox and Internet Explorer are popular, they’re not as secure as they have the potential to be. If you would like a more guarded browsing experience that has a more earnest approach to secure web browsing, consider trying out a privacy-focused browser such as Dooble, Comodo Dragon or SRWare Iron. However, do bear in mind that the additional security methods are fairly limited and will do little to protect your overall anonymity on their own, rather, this should be used in conjunction with other measures. Additionally, you can probably get a comparably secure service by disabling third-party cookies and blocking all location data in your regular browser’s settings and installing various privacy and anonymity-focused extensions and plugins such as Ghostery or Mailvelope.


14. DITCH DROPBOX

Edward Snowden has called Dropbox – a cloud storage service – ‘hostile to privacy’. That’s pretty damning. If you’re worried about sharing your files through this system, there are a number of good alternatives out there which offer better privacy. Snowden himself recommends Spideroak, which describes itself as a zero-knowledge encrypted data backup, share, sync, access and storage service. You can use a limited version of this as part of their free trial, which can be found on their website. A fully featured subscription is available for $12 a month. However, if you’re just looking to quickly share small or large files anonymously for free, give OnionShare a go. It doesn’t have as many features as Spideroak, but it gets the job done.


15. CHANGE YOUR PHONE

Staying anonymous while using a smartphone can be tricky business. Many apps will want access to all sorts of settings on your device by default, which you may not be aware of and which you will have to manually manage with each new app installation and update. Furthermore, connecting to public networks while on the go is also a great way of potentially exposing your data to nefarious snoopers. While both Apple’s iOS 8 and Android’s Lollipop now have good encryption measures by default, there is another more extreme option in the form of The Blackphone. This is an ‘NSA-proof’ smartphone that claims to provide privacy features for texts, emails, web browsing and phone calls. Reviews so far have been mostly positive but at around £400, it’s not cheap.


16. USE A PASSWORD MANAGER

If you’ve got a password that can be easily guessed, cracked or stolen, because you have a bad memory for that sort of thing, then you can say goodbye to your anonymity. This is especially true if you use the same password for everything, or across multiple websites and/or services. A great way to improve your password security is to use a password manager, like LastPass. LastPass saves all of your passwords and only requires you to remember one master password, making multiple different passwords a lot less of a headache to manage, which in turn improves your online security and protects your anonymity.


17. SECURITY FOCUSED OPERATING SYSTEMS

There are security focused email service providers, security focused smartphones and security focused web browsers, but have you considered using a security focused operating system? Whonix is exactly that – an open source OS that focuses on anonymity, privacy and security. Based on the Tor network, Whonix is about as anonymous as an OS can get before it all becomes too inconvenient for normal use. Whonix runs in two parts, “one solely runs Tor and acts as a gateway… The other… is on a completely isolated network. Only connections through Tor are possible.” You can download it for free from whonix.org.


18. ANONYMOUS CURRENCY

Darkcoin is an open source digital cryptographic currency based on the Bitcoin software code. It is intended to be a more private version of Bitcoin (which typically prides itself on its transparency) and it claims to be the world’s first anonymous cryptocurrency. Finding merchants that accept Darkcoin can be tough (Darkcoin has its own merchant directory which you can browse here http://tinyurl.com/qzo398u) but when you do, your financial transactions are well hidden and, in theory, entirely anonymous.


19. VIRTUAL MACHINES

Using a virtual machine is a great way to work on sensitive files (or to open dubious ones) without the fear of online snooping or potentially infecting your main system. A virtual machine is essentially a second ‘virtual’ computer that you host within your main operating system as an application. So let’s say you want to download a JPG from an email attachment, but you’re worried that it’s infected with a keylogger or some other form of virus that could jeopardize your anonymity. Firstly, if you suspect this to be the case, you shouldn’t download it at all. But one method to more safely examine the file if you absolutely must is to use virtualization software, such as VirtualBox, to install a virtual machine onto your system. It’s best to use a secure OS for this, so something Linux based isn’t a bad idea. You can then download the file on the virtual machine before turning the internet on your virtual machine off and opening the JPG. Once you’re done with the file, you can delete it along with your virtual system, leaving no traces behind and no potential security issues.


20. AVOID JAVASCRIPT

JavaScript is used all over the web and can provide detailed information about your system to any website that uses it. This is almost always used completely harmlessly and is often used to improve your browsing experience or funnel more personalised and relevant adverts your way. However, some of this personal or system information can and has been leaked in the past. Disabling JavaScript completely is not really a viable solution as a large amount of websites require you to accept JavaScript in order for them to display correctly. However, you can install an extension into your browser that will allow you to blacklist or whitelist JavaScript activity, giving you more control over how and where your information is being used. NoScript and ScriptSafe are both popular choices and very easy to use.



source: http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/mar/06/tips-tricks-anonymous-privacy



20 tips, tricks how to stay anonymous online