Home » Featured » A new murky law amended by UAE President dictates that people who use any method of personal security to ensure privacy on the internet will be fined or imprisoned.According to Emirates24/7, UAE President His Highness Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan has issued a significant number of changes to federal laws and one in particular is considerably concerning.The law in question is an amendment made to Federal Law No.12/2016 and Federal Law No.5/2012 on combating information technology crimes.The most relevant change is what follows “Whoever uses a fraudulent computer network protocol address (IP address) by using a false address or a third-party address by any other means for the purpose of committing a crime or preventing its discovery, shall be punished by temporary imprisonment and a fine of no less than Dh500,000 and not exceeding Dh2,000,000, or either of these two penalties.” In layman’s terms, the new law criminalizes those who use IP-masking technologies like VPNs, proxies, Tor, I2P, or others and risk going to jail, or additional fines between $135,000 and $545,000.

The purpose of this law, According to Softpedia, is to keep citizens of the United Arab Emirates from masking their real identity and making it appear as if they were located somewhere across the globe – outside of the UAE.bitcoin faucet open sourceKeeping citizens from masking their IP address helps prevent cybercrime, for one.bitcoin bip 100But secondly, it would both discourage and scare users from using VPNs or proxies for accessing services blocked in the country, such Facebook Messenger, Snapchat, Skype and others Article 2 of the law states that the law shall be published in the Official ‘Gazette’ and shall come into effect the day following publication.litecoin pool plBitcoinNo, Big Companies Aren't Really Accepting BitcoinJacob DavidsonBitcoin had a rough 2014, but there was one silver lining: Over the past year, a steady trickle of large companies have begun taking bitcoin as payment.cours bitcoin 2014

announced it would start accepting bitcoin roughly one year ago, a number of major brands, including Microsoft, Dell, and MONEY's own publisher, Time Inc., have done the same.This has been a ray of light in an otherwise dismal period for bitcoin supporters, and few have missed the chance to trumpet such adoption as an indicator of bitcoin's success.silver shield bitconOne WIRED article even used the currency's recent adoption by a section of the Fortune 500 as the core piece of evidence for bitcoin's importance."Irrespectivebitcoin paper pencilof your opinion, the rise in popularity of cryptocurrencies cannot be ignored," the post reads."Today, there are a number of billion dollar businesses that accept Bitcoin as a form of payment.These include Dell, Reddit, Expedia, PayPal, and most recently, Microsoft.So for the uninitiated who have not yet grasped what Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are, you ought to catch up."RelatedBitcoinWhy

Bitcoin Fans Don't Believe in Bad News BitcoinWhy Bitcoin Fans Don't Believe in Bad News In other words, Hey haters, look at all these huge companies that are accepting bitcoin!How can you ignore that kind of support?Well, there's just one problem there: Almost none of the businesses mentioned above technically accept bitcoin.Instead, they partner with a middleman—generally either Coinbase or BitPay—who takes a customer's bitcoin, immediately converts it into cash, and then deposits the cash in the company's bank account.In other words, Dell, Expedia, Microsoft, and Time, Inc.don't actually "accept" bitcoins, per se.It's their bitcoin processing partners who accept bitcoin.They, in turn, make money on transaction fees (in the case of Coinbase), or by selling their software and services as a subscription (in the case of BitPay).BitPay, which has partnered with Microsoft, Newegg, and other merchants, confirmed to MONEY that the majority of its major clients ask that their bitcoins be instantly converted to cash.

"I would say as a general trend most of our larger business do choose a settlement in 100% U.S.dollars because that’s how they do their accounting and finance," said Tony Gallippi, co-founder and executive chairman of BitPay.That's a rather charitable explanation of why companies take fiat over bitcoin when given the choice.In reality, it's probably because they simply don't trust bitcoin as a stable store of value.Since Dell began accepting bitcoin through Coinbase in July 2014, bitcoin's value has dropped by over 54 percent. CEO Patrick Byrne, one of bitcoin's most outspoken supporters, doesn't think bitcoin is worth embracing in full.His company, which also uses Coinbase, keeps 90% of bitcoin transaction revenue in dollars.Considering the magnitude of Bitcoin's price drop, Overstock has likely still paid a heavy price for Byrne's enthusiasm.All of this is not to say more companies taking bitcoin—even through a middleman—is a bad thing for the currency.At the very least, it gives bitcoin holders something (legal) to spend their money on, and increases bitcoin's utility, which, in the long run, could make it a more viable medium of exchange.

Cryptocurrency fans should be naming their first born children after Coinbase and BitPay executives since there would probably still be no major businesses accepting bitcoin at all without these companies offering full conversion services.But make no mistake, just because Dell and the like are letting their customers pay in bitcoin doesn't mean they believe in the currency.It's just that intermediary services have made it possible to accept bitcoin without really accepting it.If anything, that shows corporations still don't trust bitcoin with the one thing a currency needs to do: hold its worth.That's the metric we should be using to measure bitcoin's success, not by counting the number of merchants with a Coinbase link on their checkout page.Welcome to UAE: an Interview with Dubai Bitcoiner CEX.IO decided to interview our users – Bitcoin early adopters and newbies all over the world.Given that, we asked Seccour (a nickname), a Dubai Bitcoiner how it started, is there any places accepting Bitcoins and whether many people use Bitcoin in UAE.

How and when did you get involved with Bitcoin?I discovered Bitcoin for the first time in December 2012.At that time, I was 16, and I had just discovered TOR.And exploring a bit TOR with a friend, we found that the network had “its” own currency – Bitcoin.After searching what that money was (and realize it was not the currency of the TOR network), how it works, etc. … I fell in love.And since then, I am a fan of crypto-currencies.Tell us about the Bitcoin infrastructure in Dubai.Are there any Bitcoin centres/embassies/ATMs etc…?In Dubai, there is only a few thing about Bitcoin.There are ATMs where you can only buy Bitcoins.But otherwise we have only one place where you can spend your Bitcoins for now: The Pizza Guys (it’s a pizzeria).What about the Bitcoin meet ups?Do many people attend them?What do you mainly discuss?How often are they held?We are usually a dozen to meet from time to time.It is usually the same group of people, but not all the time.But there are also bigger events, more rarely, where you can see about forty people like in “Dubai as Cointalk” which had occurred on April 21.