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E12 - Ethereums Fight to Remain Censorship Resistant - 8/24/2022
Manage episode 338950874 series 3337136
I, Degen - E12: Ethereum Fights to Remain Censorship Resistant - 8/24/2022
Listen at: idegen.fm
Contact us: @idegenfm
Intro
Welcome to I, Degen - Each week, we track down and explore the most exciting crypto stories. Hacks, mysteries, exploits, and anything that feeds our crypto curiosity. We dig in, cutting through the misinformation and hype in search of a signal in the noise.
Episode Summary
This week we have a bunch of weekly news updates. Then we take a deep dive into the upcoming Ethereum merge and rippling effects on Ethereum protocol level censorship from the OFAC Tornado Cash sanctions.
I,Degen - Weekly Stories
2.Alleged Russian Money Launderer Extradited from the Netherlands to U.S.
3.Reaper Farm Yield Aggregator Owned
4.TikTok monitoring all keyboard inputs and taps
5.Wrench Attack - 3 men targeted an Indian realtor they knew held bitcoin and abducted him while posing as sellers of a plot of land. They tortured him for 3 hours until he gave them 8 BTC. - [r/CryptoCurrency post]
- Victim was not hurt, according to his wife
- The suspect was caught using a trap to lure them back to the kidnapping spot Note: These attacks are rare but often receive much media attention. Nonetheless, it’s essential to be aware. Often, you see comments like, “yeah, this is why you keep your crypto a secret!”, which happened on the Reddit post. However, is that advice practical for 'mainstream adoption?
6.Hackers steal crypto from Bitcoin ATMs by exploiting zero-day bug - via Bleepingcomputer, August 20, 2022
Hackers have exploited a zero-day vulnerability in General Bytes Bitcoin ATM servers to steal cryptocurrency from customers.When customers would deposit or purchase cryptocurrency via the ATM, the funds would instead be siphoned off by the hackers.The attacker was able to create an admin user remotely via CAS administrative interface via a URL call on the page that is used for the default installation on the server and creating the first administration user. This vulnerability has been present in CAS software since version December 2020. General Bytes Official Advisory7.iOS VPNS have leaked traffic for years, Proton CEO says.
- Apple notified more than two years ago
- claim/issue: any connections established BEFORE activating the VPN are not tunneled
- janky trick that may or may not fully work: Turn on your VPN, then turn on airplane mode off and on.
8.U.S. Lawmaker Questions Treasury Over Tornado Cash Sanctions August 23, 2022 via CryptoBriefing.com
I, Degen - Deep Dive - The Merge & Ethereum censorship in a post-sanctioned TC world.
What is the merge TLDR?
- https://ethereum.org/en/upgrades/merge/
What's the problem? OFAC Tornado Cash sanctions fallout continues.
Ethermine, the largest Ethereum pool, has refused to pack Tornado Cash-related transactions into blocks in the past week. Several pool technicians also confirmed the news and said it was the first time in history.— @WUBLOCKCHAIN AUGUST 20, 2022 - https://t.co/XLC3ZjddLR
Individual miners can refuse to include whatever they want, but it has little effect; the transaction just gets into the next block. Need a 51% attack (so, reverting blocks and not just excluding txs) to fully prevent txs from being included.— @VitalikButerin August 19, 2022The Case for Social Slashing <-- Best dive in Ethereum Censorship via OFACSo, what’s the issue here?Well, one of the absolute core purposes for blockchains such as Ethereum is to provide neutrality and censorship resistance. That’s why we tolerate that the system is slow and expensive to use at times—because of these unique qualities. A threat to censorship resistance is a threat to the system’s raison d’être.
Other censorship & merge-related stuff Centralized censorship of privacy protocols outside of Tornado Cash
22 episodes
Manage episode 338950874 series 3337136
I, Degen - E12: Ethereum Fights to Remain Censorship Resistant - 8/24/2022
Listen at: idegen.fm
Contact us: @idegenfm
Intro
Welcome to I, Degen - Each week, we track down and explore the most exciting crypto stories. Hacks, mysteries, exploits, and anything that feeds our crypto curiosity. We dig in, cutting through the misinformation and hype in search of a signal in the noise.
Episode Summary
This week we have a bunch of weekly news updates. Then we take a deep dive into the upcoming Ethereum merge and rippling effects on Ethereum protocol level censorship from the OFAC Tornado Cash sanctions.
I,Degen - Weekly Stories
2.Alleged Russian Money Launderer Extradited from the Netherlands to U.S.
3.Reaper Farm Yield Aggregator Owned
4.TikTok monitoring all keyboard inputs and taps
5.Wrench Attack - 3 men targeted an Indian realtor they knew held bitcoin and abducted him while posing as sellers of a plot of land. They tortured him for 3 hours until he gave them 8 BTC. - [r/CryptoCurrency post]
- Victim was not hurt, according to his wife
- The suspect was caught using a trap to lure them back to the kidnapping spot Note: These attacks are rare but often receive much media attention. Nonetheless, it’s essential to be aware. Often, you see comments like, “yeah, this is why you keep your crypto a secret!”, which happened on the Reddit post. However, is that advice practical for 'mainstream adoption?
6.Hackers steal crypto from Bitcoin ATMs by exploiting zero-day bug - via Bleepingcomputer, August 20, 2022
Hackers have exploited a zero-day vulnerability in General Bytes Bitcoin ATM servers to steal cryptocurrency from customers.When customers would deposit or purchase cryptocurrency via the ATM, the funds would instead be siphoned off by the hackers.The attacker was able to create an admin user remotely via CAS administrative interface via a URL call on the page that is used for the default installation on the server and creating the first administration user. This vulnerability has been present in CAS software since version December 2020. General Bytes Official Advisory7.iOS VPNS have leaked traffic for years, Proton CEO says.
- Apple notified more than two years ago
- claim/issue: any connections established BEFORE activating the VPN are not tunneled
- janky trick that may or may not fully work: Turn on your VPN, then turn on airplane mode off and on.
8.U.S. Lawmaker Questions Treasury Over Tornado Cash Sanctions August 23, 2022 via CryptoBriefing.com
I, Degen - Deep Dive - The Merge & Ethereum censorship in a post-sanctioned TC world.
What is the merge TLDR?
- https://ethereum.org/en/upgrades/merge/
What's the problem? OFAC Tornado Cash sanctions fallout continues.
Ethermine, the largest Ethereum pool, has refused to pack Tornado Cash-related transactions into blocks in the past week. Several pool technicians also confirmed the news and said it was the first time in history.— @WUBLOCKCHAIN AUGUST 20, 2022 - https://t.co/XLC3ZjddLR
Individual miners can refuse to include whatever they want, but it has little effect; the transaction just gets into the next block. Need a 51% attack (so, reverting blocks and not just excluding txs) to fully prevent txs from being included.— @VitalikButerin August 19, 2022The Case for Social Slashing <-- Best dive in Ethereum Censorship via OFACSo, what’s the issue here?Well, one of the absolute core purposes for blockchains such as Ethereum is to provide neutrality and censorship resistance. That’s why we tolerate that the system is slow and expensive to use at times—because of these unique qualities. A threat to censorship resistance is a threat to the system’s raison d’être.
Other censorship & merge-related stuff Centralized censorship of privacy protocols outside of Tornado Cash
22 episodes
All episodes
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