Lower Rates for Halloween

In meeting of the Bank of Japan (BoJ), bank governor Haruhiko Kuroda and others on the nine-member board urged leaving all options on the table. Where further cuts to the country’s negative interest rate are concerned. The talk of further stimulus reflects an ever-growing trend in the world economy to slash rates and artificially pump new money into markets.

Halloween Surprise

Following the September 19 BoJ meeting, Kuroda commented: “If it’s a question of whether I’m more inclined to go ahead with easing than at the last meeting, yes, that’s right,” confirming the fears of minority dissenters on the board who view the potential October 31 decision as a bad move.

The Bank will purchase Japanese government bonds (JGBs) so that 10-year JGB yields will remain at around zero percent.

Similar Policy

The European Central Bank’s (ECB) refinancing operations rate currently sits at zero. The deposit rate was lowered 10 basis points to an unprecedented low of -0.5% in September. Banks across the Eurozone are struggling to just tread water. Employing unorthodox tactics to soften the blow. Such as encouraging customers to utilize fiduciary call deposits to avoid fees.

Across the Atlantic, things in the U.S. aren’t looking much more promising. After a July 31 cut from 2.50% to 2.25%, the Fed further chainsawed rates to 2%, with U.S.

The BoJ’s talk may sound positive, as political and pseudo-economic feel-good rhetoric always does. However, there are only so many ways to put lipstick on a pig. And sooner or later the aggregate of years of negative and low-rate policy worldwide could come home to roost. As they did back in 2008. Should that occur, having a reserve of decentralised. Permission digital currency will likely come in very handy.

Source: Bitcoin

Tags: #CentralBanks

Source: https://xeonbit.com/lower-rates-for-halloween/

Mysterious Death of Dread

Obtaining reliable information about darknet markets (DNMs) is a constant struggle, given the propensity of news sites and forums to come and go.

Dead Man’s Switch

Dread is dead. The darknet forum where buyers and sellers gathered to exchange links, rate vendors, and discuss opsec has been offline for almost a fortnight. The site didn’t hold cryptocurrency deposits or directly facilitate DNM transactions, but was nevertheless a crucial cog in the darknet economy. The site went offline 10 days ago, prompting speculation as to what may have happened to its pseudonymous admin, Hugbunter. DNM tracker site dark.fail currently displays a warning that reads:

Dread is offline, Hugbunter is missing. Assume Dread and its team are compromised. Rotate all passwords you may have used there immediately. Assume all unencrypted private messages you sent have been compromised. Re-evaluate your OPSEC.

The current homepage of Dread

Users of darknet markets should not be directly affected by Dread’s disappearance, unless they’ve used the same password to access DNMs or sent incriminating private messages on its forum that may now be in the hands of law enforcement or hackers. “HugBunter’s Deadman Has Been Switched” reads the front page of Dread, with the remainder of the site inaccessible.

Dread Is Dead But r/Darknet Lives On

Dread went down on September 20 for maintenance, with Hugbunter promising a “huge update to provide increased stability as the platform grows” including “a variety of bug fixes.” When the site failed to return online, Dread admin “Paris” signed a message to the site which reads: “HugBunter’s deadman has been switched. It has been three full days without any contact … All I can hope is he is alive and well. Not harmed, captured, or dead. However we must assume the worse in this case.”

With Dread seemingly gone for good, Paris has recommended that DNM users congregate on one of the following forums:

Darknet Avengers: http://avengersdutyk3xf.onion

Envoy Forum: http://envoys5appps3bin.onion

The Hub Forum: http://thehub7xbw4dc5r2.onion

For clearnet users, there’s also sub-reddit r/Darknet which, as news.Bitcoin.com recently reported, is going strong with 65,000 users. Previous sub-reddits such as r/Darknetmarkets have been shut down in the past, however, as has DNM site Deepdotweb, highlighting the hazards of disseminating information on drugs which many nations still deem to be illegal.

While powerless to dictate the whims of governments and their censorship-crazy apparatchiks, cryptocurrency users draw solace from the fact that the war on drugs – like the war on all amorphous concepts – is going badly. 50 years of failed policies have shown that criminalization does nothing to diminish the public’s desire to decide what they put into their bodies. On the darknet, business is booming, with DNMs such as Point, Berlusconi, and Empire enabling thousands of users a day to obtain goods and services in exchange for cryptocurrencies such as BTC, ETH, XMR and XNB / XNS. The feds sporadically succeed in downing the occasional site; DNM “Darkmarket” is the latest to go following a raid on a German “cyber bunker” involving 600 armed cops. Despite the loss of Dread and Darkmarket, however, DNMs aren’t just surviving – they’re thriving.

Source: Bitcoin

Tags: #Privacy, #TOR

Source: https://xeonbit.com/mysterious-death-of-dread/

Privacy Threats in Social Networks and Messengers

Preserving your online privacy has become almost a lost cause these days.

Reading the User Agreement

Everyone has multiple online accounts. Most of us are worried about their digital personality being targeted by data collectors and marketing researchers. We are also guilty of compromising our own security as very few people actually read the small print when subscribing to a service.

Analysing the Privacy Policy

The two risks that have been singled out in the report about Reddit concern the possibility of your information being shared with advertisers and the fact that your data may be recorded indefinitely. The forum keeps a complete log of all sent messages even when the accounts are deleted and retains the IP addresses from which they were created.

Telegram, the messenger that enjoys the most popularity with crypto enthusiasts because of its encryption features, has a “good” verdict. Telegram assures users that it never shares personal data with anyone and does not store your secret chats on its servers. Among the popular social networks, Twitter, Instagram and Tumblr have scored poorly in the ratings. There’s also a notable omission – Facebook, despite its own share of cases involving compromised user data.

Privacy in financial transactions is best guaranteed by decentralised currencies and related services.

Tags: #Privacy

Source: https://xeonbit.com/privacy-threats-in-social-networks-and-messengers/