For $25 - Also, Check it out!Check out the new An anonymous reader writes: "An anonymous security researcher has published details on a vulnerability named "Antbleed," which the author claims is a remote backdoor affecting Bitcoin mining equipment sold by Bitmain, the largest vendor of crypto-currency mining hardware on the market," reports Bleeping Computer.The backdoor code works by reporting mining equipment details to Bitmain servers, who can reply by instructing the customer's equipment to shut down.Supposedly introduced as a crude DRM to control illegal equipment, the company forgot to tell anyone about it, and even ignored a user who reported it last fall.One of the Bitcoin Core developers claims that if such command would ever be sent, it could potentially brick the customer's device for good.Bitmain is today's most popular seller of Bitcoin mining hardware, and its products account for 70% of the entire Bitcoin mining market.If someone hijack's the domain where this backdoor reports, he could be in the position to shut down Bitcoin mining operations all over the world, which are nothing more than the computations that verify Bitcoin transactions, effectively shutting down the entire Bitcoin ecosystem.

Fortunately, there's a way to mitigate the backdoor's actions using local hosts files.In the first of our 101 series, we looked at how bitcoin was like the internet version of physical cash.bitcoin berlin barIf I hand you a $10 bill, that’s a direct transaction.bitcoin wiki proof of workJust you and me.bitcoin yahoo message boardIf I send $10 to your bank account, that’s not direct any more: I’m actually instructing the bank to deduct $10 from my balance and add it to yours.sell bitcoin amsterdamThe bank can agree, refuse, charge me/you in various ways, delay for 3 working days… but that’s the way we do things, because we need that central authority to act as a bookkeeper.bitcoin laboratory review

In the first bitcoin 101 article, we looked at how bitcoin avoids the need for a central authority to keep accounts for us and enables me to send you $10 over the internet - once again, just me and you, with no middleman.litecoin shopsEverything good, bad, controversial, groundbreaking, threatening or exciting about bitcoin comes down to that one property.bitcoin fundraisingIt’s a lot like handing over cash again, just online.bitcoin miner meaningUnlike a bank, in which everyone connects to a central authority, bitcoin is more like a social network, where everyone connects to lots of other members of the network That means bitcoin shares a lot of characteristics with physical cash.dogecoin value exchange

It’s direct (just you and me, no middleman).Transactions are irreversible: once you give money to someone, you can’t get it back by appealing to your trusted intermediary (because there isn’t one).Used carefully, bitcoin can also be anonymous, just like cash.But bitcoin works on a very, very different principle.In this respect, it’s nothing like cash at all.The problem comes in the nature of digital information.Sending someone money is not the same as sending them a file by email.Digital files can easily be copied, making that a completely unsuitable way of transferring funds.Instead of sending people money, like you’d send mail or even a digital file, bitcoin is a ledger of accounts.When you ‘send’ bitcoin, you’re updating the ledger, deducting a sum from your address and crediting it to another.This is more like the bank’s approach - except that there isn’t a bank.There is no single authority to keep accounts, because everyone does it.In bitcoin, every active member of the network holds a set of accounts.

Instead of doing everything in secret, like the bank, everything is public.That means if someone tries to cheat the system by trying to send money they don’t really have, everyone else will know about it and won’t record that transaction.The shared ledger is known as the blockchain, and miners - the ones who ensure that no one gets away with fraud - keep a full copy of it on their computers.It’s currently over 70 GB in size and growing fast, which means that it’s not easy for ordinary users to store.But you don’t need a copy of the blockchain to send and receive bitcoins.The network is public and you can submit transactions from any online computer.(i.redd.it)submitted by redditor for 3 monthsπ Rendered by PID 14705 on app-223 at 2017-06-24 12:52:17.782633+00:00 running 3522178 country code: SG.by Tyler Durden Could Bitfinex, the world's largest, Hong-Kong based cryptocurrency exchange, be headed for a Mt.It's starting to look that way.Gox first halted customer withdrawals in February 2014, it waited more than two weeks to admit the truth to its customers: that hackers had stolen more than $450 million of their assets, leaving the exchange bankrupt and them holding the bag.

That hack effectively crippled the entire digital currency ecosystem, ushering in a two-year bear market that at one point carried the bitcoin price below $200, from what was then a record high north of $1,200 reached in November 2013.So when another exchange engages in similarly shady behavior - withholding critical information about customer funds, or failing to produce audited financials despite promising to do so - it should prompt crypto traders to ask themselves why, with dozens, if not hundreds, of cryptocurrency exchanges operating around the world, they're choosing to do business with this one.That's the question that customers of Bitfinex should be asking nearly two weeks after the exchange, once one of the world's largest, first revealed that it had been cut off from sending outbound dollar-denominated wires to its customers.Of course, halting customer withdrawals isn't uncommon in the cryptocurrency world: All three of China's largest exchanges suspended customer withdrawals in February.

And last year, Kraken, one of the biggest U.S.-based exchanges, suspended withdrawals temporarily because of a glitch in its trading software.But this freeze is particularly troubling because, like Mt.Gox, Bitfinex inexplicably decided to wait before informing customers of a critical problem.It also has implications that stretch beyond the bitcoin market, to another cryptotoken called tether that was launched by Bitfinex back in January 2015, and has since been dogged by allegations that it's a scam.The halt is already costing Bitfinex's customers money.On Tuesday, bitcoins were going for $1,547 on Bitfinex's platform, a premium of more than $100 over most of the other popular exchanges.Investors, apparently, feel that eating a 7%-8% loss is preferable to leaving their assets in Bitfinex's care any longer.Reddit users reported that wire transfers requested as early as March 9 were cancelled, and that the exchange offered only vague excuses as to why.It took the exchange until April 13, after it had filed a lawsuit against Wells Fargo & Co., whose correspondent banking division had effectively shut Bitfinex out of the global financial system, that the exchange disclosed the problem to its customers.

And while Bitfinex has repeatedly said it would make things right - it has promised to either establish a new banking relationship and to allow customers access to other fiat currencies  - only a handful of customers have been able to get their assets out of the exchange.As part of the freeze, Bitfinex has established a moratorium on cashing in tether tokens held by its customers.These tokens were created by Bitfinex in 2015 to allow customers to exchange an asset that's pegged to the dollar at a one-to-one ratio, allowing them to avoid costly wire transfers that must be processed through the banking system.But the withdrawal freeze has put pressure on the tether market; for only the second time since they were introduced, investors are selling these tokens at a discount.The price of a single token has been languishing below the $1 level for more than a week.More troubling still is that Bitfinex has so far refused to provide an audit of the fiat funds that allegedly backstop the tether float, despite promising that it would be "fully transparent and audited to demonstrate 100% reserves at all times" when it first launched the token.