Khalifa Haftar, Libya’s strongest warlord, makes a push for Tripoli

But he faces stiff opposition and risks losing the territory he already holds.

This was supposed to be a rare moment of cautious optimism in Libya. On April 4th António Guterres, the un’s secretary-general, arrived in Tripoli, the capital, to prepare for a peace conference which, he hoped, would lead to long-delayed elections later this year. But hours after he arrived Khalifa Haftar, the warlord who controls much of the country, launched an offensive to seize the city. At times his self-styled Libyan National Army (lna) has reached within 10km or so of Tripoli’s centre. Dozens have been killed. Flights were suspended after General Haftar’s jets bombed the city’s only functioning airport. The conference has been cancelled. “The un is deeply engaged in negotiations for peace,” Mr Guterres said later. “We’re not always successful, I must confess.”

The general had long threatened to take Tripoli. Until now he was posturing. No one is quite sure why he chose this moment to move on the capital. Whatever his reasons, his offensive is starting to look like a big miscalculation. He would have entered the conference in an enviable position, holding most of Libya’s land and oil wells. Instead the lna is now bogged down on several fronts. The general risks losing not only the battle for Tripoli but many of his other gains as well.

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Facebook gives away AI tools used to improve video, Messenger

Facebook used this set of tools internally to optimize how 360-degree videos are displayed on the social network, taking into account such factors as the available bandwidth and how much of the video has already been buffered.

Facebook Inc will allow anyone to freely download and use the same artificial intelligence tools it used to make key improvements to the social network’s video and notification features as well as its Messenger messaging app. The software, which Facebook calls Horizon, will be available on the code repository GitHub starting today, the company said in a blog post Thurp.Facebook Inc will allow anyone to freely download and use the same artificial intelligence tools it used to make key improvements to the social network’s video and notification features as well as its Messenger messaging app. The software, which Facebook calls Horizon, will be available on the code repository GitHub starting today, the company said in a blog post Thursday.

Facebook used this set of tools internally to optimize how 360-degree videos are displayed on the social network, taking into account such factors as the available bandwidth and how much of the video has already been buffered. The same tools, according to the blog post, were also used to improve what content to push to users through notifications. And it was used to hone the suggestions that its intelligence assistant, which is called M, makes to users of its Messenger app.

Italy Completes Consultations on Registration of Crypto Companies

Public consultations on a new regulatory regime for crypto companies in Italy are now closed. Interested parties were invited by the Ministry of Economy and Finance to share suggestions and comments on a draft decree introducing registration and reporting requirements in the sector. The new set of rules will come into force within 3 months of adoption.

Also read: Spain Mulls Tax Breaks for Blockchain and Crypto Firms

Italy Trying to Understand the Phenomenon

The ministerial decree has been designed to “explore and understand the various aspects of the virtual currency phenomenon”. The legal document, aimed at implementing Italy’s updated and “strengthened” anti-money laundering laws, was published by MEF’s Treasury Department on February 2. Interested parties had two weeks to express their opinions and suggest amendments.

In May 2017 the Italian government issued another decree requiring “service providers related to the use of virtual currency”, like exchanges, to fulfil their obligations to prevent money laundering and illicit crypto transactions. The new document introduces additional responsibilities for crypto businesses. They will have to report regularly their activities to the Finance Ministry.

The text of the proposed decree clarifies that although cryptocurrency is used as a “means of exchange for the purchase of goods and services”, it is not issued by a central bank or other public authority. The embedded disclaimer also states that cryptos are “not necessarily connected to a currency that is a legal tender”.

Exchanges and Merchants to Register and Report

The new notification regime will also be applicable to commercial companies accepting cryptocurrency payments for goods, services and utilities. The Ministry wants to conduct a “systematic survey” starting with determining the number of operators in the sector. Upon commencing activity, every company should register with the Italian Agency of Intermediaries OAM in order to operate legally in the country.

The Department of the Treasury has already completed a preliminary evaluation of the technical specifications for the register, the Ministry of Finance said in a press release. The new regulatory regime is to be launched within 3 months after the decree enters into force. Its implementation responds to the need to understand the new phenomenon and its dimensions, said Roberto Ciciani, Head of the General Directorate for Prevention of Financial Crimes.

Regulators point out that the revised Italian legal framework will comply with the latest EU Anti-Money Laundering Directive – 5MLD, which introduces stricter rules to prevent financial crimes. The previous directive was adopted in Italy on May 25 last year.

The use of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies by individuals remains largely unregulated in Italy. However, a law requiring identification of parties in crypto transactions has been introduced in the parliament. In 2016 the Italian tax authority Agenzia delle Entrate stated that cryptocurrency purchases and sales are exempt from VAT. With some limitations, personal crypto holdings and gains from transactions do not generate taxable income.

Do you think the new requirements for Italian companies to register and report will lead to more restrictions or to legalization of the crypto sector?

Elon Musk might be able to send his personal Tesla car into space, he might change the way humanity produces and stores energy, and he might even build a colony on Mars one day. However, even this real-life Iron Man apparently can’t escape the reach of crypto mining hackers.

Tesla Cloud Mining

Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA), the electric car manufacturer based in Palo Alto, California, is the latest corporation to fall victim to ‘cryptojacking’, according to newly released research from cyber security firm RedLock.

The researchers’ CSI team found that hackers had infiltrated Tesla’s Kubernetes console (a system for containerized apps that was originally designed by Google) which was not password protected. Within one pod, access credentials were exposed to Tesla’s AWS (Amazon Web Services) environment which contained an Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service) bucket that had sensitive data such as telemetry. In addition to the data exposure, the hackers were mining for cryptocurrency from within one of Tesla’s Kubernetes pods.

The CSI team noted some sophisticated evasion measures that were employed in this attack. Unlike other crypto mining incidents, the hackers did not use a well known public mining pool in this attack. Instead, they installed mining pool software and configured the malicious script to connect to an unlisted or semi-public endpoint. This makes it difficult for standard IP/domain-based threat intelligence feeds to detect the malicious activity, they explain.

                                        

Don’t Panic

Tesla showroom, Silicon Valley, California

According to the research, the Tesla hackers also hid the true IP address of the mining pool server behind Cloudflare, a free content delivery network (CDN) service. The hackers can use a new IP address on-demand by registering for free CDN services. This makes IP address-based detection of crypto mining activity even more challenging.

Moreover, the mining software was configured to listen on a non-standard port which makes it hard to detect the activity based on port traffic. Lastly, the CSI team also observed on Tesla’s Kubernetes dashboard that CPU usage was not very high. The hackers had most likely configured the mining software to keep the usage low to evade detection, they explain.

Fortunately, Musk need not worry about his computing resources being diverted to crypto mining anymore. The RedLock CSI team immediately reported the incident to Tesla and the issue was quickly rectified they say.

How can companies and individuals protect their computer systems from crypto malware? Share your thoughts in the comments section below!

Crypto Investment Shows ‘Limitless Ignorance Of Human Race’, Hedge Fund Tells Clients

One of the world’s largest hedge funds Elliott Management, founded by billionaire Paul Singer in 1977, dedicated three pages to describing its negative view of cryptocurrencies in a fourth-quarter letter to clients, calling cryptocurrencies “one of the most brilliant scams in history," Business Insider reported Feb. 20.

In the letter dated Jan. 26, Elliott claims that people encountering cryptocurrency have switched from sense of “WTHIT (What the hell is this?)”  to a stable FOMO (fear of missing out). Elliott likens cryptocurrency investors to buyers of a “black box” that will, according to the firm, turn out to be empty.

The firm does not shy away from hyperbole in the letter, insisting that cryptocurrency is the “equivalent of nothing” and that the desire to invest in it is an “indication of the limitless ignorance of swaths of the human race”, continuing:

“This [cryptocurrency] is not just a bubble. It is not just a fraud. It is perhaps the outer limit, the ultimate expression, of the ability of humans to seize upon ether and hope to ride it to the stars...

But is it not glorious that when the equivalent of nothing attracts priests and parishioners who run up the price, the very willingness of the mob to buy it at higher and higher prices is seen as validation of the thing, rather than an indication of the limitless ignorance of swaths of the human race?”

Further along in the letter, Elliot expresses skepticism about the scarcity of Bitcoin (BTC). Despite the fact that Bitcoin’s supply is capped at 21 million coins, the letter from Elliot argues that the forking of the Bitcoin Blockchain could threaten scarcity, stating: “this limitation [scarcity] is not nearly as sacrosanct as the bitcoin evangelists would have you believe."

According to Business Insider, Elliott managed $34.1 bln as of January 1, 2018 and the Elliott Associates LP fund returned 8.7% last year

In 2017 alone, the number of digital currency-based hedge funds grew from 30 to about 130.

Traditional hedge funds have also increasingly been buying up cryptocurrencies, most famously that of American investor Bill Miller, who as of Dec. 2017 held 50 percent of his fund’s money in Bitcoin.

You can now study Blockchain at university

An Australian university is banking on Blockchain, the technology behind the lucrative yet volatile cryptocurrency industry, by launching a nation-first course in the emerging sector.

Australia's first short course on Blockchain strategy, aiming to educate the nation's next wave of tech start-up entrepreneurs, will take flight on Tuesday at Melbourne's RMIT University.

"Blockchain is now becoming a core part of contemporary digital literacy," Vice Chancellor Martin Bean said.

The online eight-week program is set to begin in mid-March with students given the chance to hear from global experts in the growing space.

Blockchain is a decentralised, shared ledger that - with the help of complicated cryptography - records transactions in a verifiable, secure and permanent way.

Before Blockchain's birth in 2008, it was impossible to place value on virtual currencies like Bitcoin as there was no way of distinguishing a legitimate digital coin from a copy.

The same principal applies to managing real money digitally, with banks slowly grasping Blockchain's potential benefits as a faster, inexpensive and autonomous system.

"There is a real demand for Blockchain training and a skills gap in the market that needs to be addressed," Alan Tsen, the Melbourne manager of financial tech company Stone and Chalk, said.

As demand presently outstrips supply in the US, there is a desperate need for more programmers in the growing industry predicted to be worth $176 billion by 2025, according to Gartner Research.

Aside from banking, the database system has potential applications for tracking the ownership history of real-world items, electronic voting, cybersecurity and electricity management.

In 2017, the Australian government tipped in $2.57 million to help power a cutting-edge start-up project that could make peer-to-peer solar energy trading a reality.