Superpowers for everyone

Beatriz Sanz Baños    12 April, 2018

Tony Stark (Ironman): The number 1 IoT fan 

Ironman is quite probably the Avenger who has made the most of technology. His main weapon is his high level of intelligence, which, throughout this character’s history, has allowed him to create applications that were impossible just a few years earlier. Always ahead of the curve, but using technologies available today thanks to the IoT, Ironman was the first to use an ultra-sophisticated voice assistant: a chatbot with features that are only possible thanks to the statistics provided by the sensors installed in his armor, and with a high level of connectivity with his environment to get information from satellites and other available technologies.

King T’Challa of Wakanda: (Black Panther) and wearables

The nation of Wakanda, led by King T’Challa (better known as the Black Panther), enjoys the inestimable assistance of a powerful mineral from outer space called Vibranium, which is capable of repelling impacts or vibrations. In addition to his qualities as a superhero, the Black Panther is also known as an ingenious inventor and a true forerunner of the IoT: his greater agility, physical strength and feline qualities are joined by armor made of Vibranium, which makes him practically invincible in a one-on-one battle. Aside from its alien properties, this armor could be considered a wearable made of an ultra-sturdy, lightweight material which provides users with real-time data on their physical status, heartbeat, distance travelled and even blood tests.

Vision: Artificial intelligence to save the world 

This relatively unknown member of the Avengers is the perfect example of the use of artificial intelligence and big data to win battles. Vision is an android created to house the mind of Ultron, the supervillain created by Henry Pym and reprogrammed by Tony Stark (Ironman) and Bruce Banner (Hulk) with the artificial intelligence matrix J.A.R.V.I.S. That is, Vision is the embodiment (in his own robotic way) of the application of big data (Ultron’s mind with all the complex data and processes this entails) for a connected artificial intelligence application perfect for the Internet of Things.

James “Bucky” Barnes: Connected prosthetics with superpowers 

This soldier from the United States Army during World War II, the best friend of Captain America, was captured by HYDRA, the antagonist organization of the Avengers in the second installment of the series, Age of Ultron. HYDRA implanted a bionic arm in Bucky which provides him with physical properties quite similar to the superpowers of Captain America. Although the IoT is far from turning the people who use it into superheroes, the fact is that it has revolutionized the world of prosthetics by enormously extending their possibilities thanks primarily to connectivity and the statistics that these devices are capable of providing their users.

Peter Quill (Star-Lord): The evolution of connected vehicles

The leader of the Guardians of the Galaxy, who join the Avengers in this installment, Star-Lord is a consummate expert in futuristic devices that could easily be considered applications of the Internet of Things. This former smugglers travels around the entire galaxy in his Ship, a spaceship connected through impulses sent directly from his brain.  Ship can travel though any element and has ultra-resistant shields, advanced sensors and hologram projectors, so it could be regarded as an extreme evolution of the possibilities of today’s electronic communication technology in connected vehicles. Today we already have the technology needed to create highly sophisticated autonomous vehicles; however, this last stage represented by Star-Lord’s spaceship, which is also capable of showing human feelings, is still beyond the possibilities of today’s IoT technology. Though maybe not for long.

Monero says goodbye to the ASIC miners (at least for now)

ElevenPaths    10 April, 2018
Last Friday, 6th April marked an
important date for the community of Monero users and developers, as one
of the cryptocurrencies led the defense of anonymity for its users. As
already commented upon within previous posts,
Monero utilizes the CryptoNote protocol which was proposed in October
2013. This conceals who the sender and receiver are of the transaction
by utilizing circular signatures or a ring, which mixes the transactions
from different users. Furthermore, from January 2017, you can also
conceal the transferred balance in each transaction, by strengthening
the privacy with the implementation of Ring Confidential Transactions,
an improvement of its algorithm.

Iconografía del proyecto Monero
Figure 1. Iconography of the Monero project.

This way, unlike other
cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Litecoin or Ethereum, it is not
possible to consult the current balance of a Monero account by analyzing
the blockchain; nor for example, to maintain

a list of the richest addresses by reconstructing the transactions from the genesis block. In fact, when reviewing explorers of your blockchain such as Moneroblocks.info
and trying to analyze the content of a block, it means that in order to
see the content of a transaction we will need to know the associated
user’s view of the private key corresponding to their public address.

THE MAIN FORK
CHANGES

A hardfork in the field of Blockchain technology, is a radical change in the rules of a game that govern the evolution of a cryptocurrency namely,
within its protocol. This change now means some of the blocks and
transactions are considered valid which would have previously been
considered invalid (or viceversa). Hardforks are considered, for
example, any alteration that changes the structure of the block (such as
the one proposed in BitcoinCash), the rules of difficulty or which
increase the set of valid transactions. This circumstance finally
requires that all of the nodes or users update the last version of the
software which implements the protocol. In other words, a hardfork
is a permanant alteration to the previous version of the blockchain,
and the nodes which run previous versions already will not be accepted
for the most recent version.

In the specific case of Monero, the scheduled update took place in the
1 546 000 block which introduced some important changes.
Besides from the incorporation of the multi-sign addresses, more support
for hardware wallets and new features such as sub addresses; there was firstly, an adjustment of its consensus algorithm, which utilizes proof of work,
in order to stop whichever potential ASIC miners’ threat started to
concern an important part of the community; after the significant upturn
experienced by the network in recent months.
. As a result, the miners have had to update the applications which they
use to mine new blocks, i.e. the mining software which they use
to carry out the proof of work under the new rules.
Secondly, the minimum size of the ring signatures is elevated from 5 to 7
with the objective of equipping Monero transactions with increased
privacy. Thus, pool operators should ensure that the payments
which they use are a minimum size of a 7 ring, as otherwise they will be
refused by the network.

Implications of the PoW change

The philosophy of the Monero community is to advocate a better, more decentralized network.
From there, they exposed their resistance to ASIC mining hardware. ASIC (Application Specific Integrated Circuit) is still a highly specialized type of mining hardware to perform this exact task; for example, the Bitcoin ASICs are specialized in calculating SHA256 hashes.
Due to the fact that they are physically designed for a specific use,
they generally have a great performance advantage in regards to the
general purpose of the hardware, as we use it when we use our CPU, GPU and even FPGA.
The fact that the domestic software remains profitable for mining
purposes contributes to the decentralization in order to maintain
incentivized current users of the currency.

Adding a bit about the history; the Monero code was a CryptoNote Fork,
used in order to create a more egalitarian mining network and to promote
decentralisaton, the original CrypNote developers
created the Cryptonight function, Proof of Work, in order to close the
breach amongst the CPU (the majority) and GPU/FPGA/ASIC (the minority)
miners. Whilst the CryptoNote authors admit that it is suitable that
some of the users can have a certain advantage above others; they
propose that their investments should grow at least linearly with the
network’s computational capacity, and not exponentially (as already
occurred with Bitocin which multiplied by 1000 times the computing
capacity within the network in a period of just 12 months). Therefore,
it is considered that any new ASIC Cryptonight development would not
foster the existence of a decentralized network.

One piece of evidence which suspects what is going on was the explosive growth of the hashrate within the entire Monero network throughout the last year. Although, it has also coincided with the malware, which was intended to be monetized through mining, there were some indications that this hashrate
increase represented a worryingly large amount of unknown mining energy
from anonymous sources, specifically motivated by the emergence of
specialized ASICs.

Figure 2. Timeline on Monero’s hashrate.

Consequently, part of the Monero development team has already stated
their interest in carrying out the algorithm’s proof of work in a
periodic form in the future. This approximation that also entails their
risks; is precisely to minimize the chances of overly efficient ASIC hardware
being designed. Taking into account that each update can create
different blockchains and can lead to mismatches between the mining
community and developers. The method? Simple: to reduce the time of
potential, useful hardware, by limiting it as it passes between the versions.

With the change in PoW, suspicions have been confirmed and this indicator has plummeted in the following days to fork, on Friday 6th April. Considering that all of the miners may not have updated their mining software
yet, it is certain that these changes may not be definitive and that
the actual computational capacity will be adjusted as the days go by.
At least for now, bye, bye ASIC! 

Félix Brezo
Innovation and Laboratory Team ElevenPaths
Yaiza Rubio
Innovation and Laboratory Team ElevenPaths

Published by

Eleven Paths

More countries focus on Artificial Intelligence

AI of Things    9 April, 2018
Many countries are getting up to speed with the benefits of Artificial Intelligence, how it improves processes and make use of data. Previously, this post in the blog featured the United Kingdom, China and Spain and how each is using this technology, and made mention of the United States who is currently leading.

On March 29, French president Emmanuel Macron made an important announcement pledging to invest over 1.5 billion Euros into Artificial Intelligence over the next 5 years, hoping to make France a leader in the field. A report done by Cédric Villani, the award-winning mathematician, inspired the plan to focus on AI.
By creating a national AI strategy and drive research, support startups and collect data, Macron is putting his country in the forefront of technology and giving exposure not only to how it can help his people (generating jobs for example) but also on how France does not intend to fall behind other countries.

buildings in paris,france
Figure 1: Self-driving cars is an area of interest for France
After extensive training and education, many French professionals leave seeking greater opportunities, by moving to AI powerhouses like Silicon Valley in the United States. By having a strong and promising AI strategy in country, there would be no reason for them or those in other countries to settle outside of home. Already, several companies like IBM, Samsung and Google have tapped into the potential of the AI market in France, and have started to recruit staff and open offices in the country. If other countries follow this path, “brain drain” would no longer happen; not only France faces this issue; many other countries do as well.
Macron has also declared that going forward, France will open the data collected by state owned organizations. Joining the ranks of countries like the United States, Germany and Mexico, while not forgetting to mention the possible risks surrounding this decision, stating that there would be strict regulations to avoid a sense of insecurity among the people, especially after the recent scandals that have hit top tech companies.
A fear of many is that machines will replace human power as has happened over the years. A key is having it very clear that by taking advantage of the benefits of data science, the working force will be able to acquire new skills and training, and not be afraid of replacement by machines, as has happened over the course of the years in many industries that once relied solely on people. In an article in Forbes, Macron stated,

We want to show citizens these innovations also trigger well-being for them. So long as we keep viewing innovations as job destructors, then AI will remain a source of great fear. 

Establishing trust is a step in the right direction, when disruption is in the midst.

Ultimately, what Macron and many world leaders like him want is to set a path of opportunity and positive change, and by raising awareness of how Big Data, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning can and will revolutionize our world will inspire other to keep investing, researching and basing their decisions on data. How France will use this investment is worth keeping an eye on, the question now is what country will make an investment next.

Data Attributes: the new Digital Identity Currency

AI of Things    6 April, 2018
The 2018 edition of the Mobile World Congress took place in Barcelona between the 25th and 28th of February. During the event, a panel discussion took place that featured representatives from the four UK mobile operators and two key partners in the Digital Identity market. The panel explored the topic of data attributes and features Glyn Povah, Director of Global Product Development of Smart Digits within LUCA.


One of key products discussed at the panel session was the KYC Match product that has been launched by the four leading mobile operators in the UK: O2, Vodafone, EE and Three. This marks a major milestone achieved in the UK market with product availability across all of the leading UK mobile operators.

The KYC Match product offers service providers the ability to compare and validate their customer’s identity using verified account data bound to the mobile phone number. One of the key benefits of KYC Match, which can be used for registration and anti-fraud use-cases, is that it offers global service providers an important new source of insights when helping to identity customers during registration or application. Their customer’s can also benefit also with improved registration and application success and reductions in fraudulent applications and registrations.

A phone screen with an app on the log in page
Figure 1: Service providers and their customers can benefit from improved registration success, through better identify verification, when using products like KYC Match.

    

KYC Match has been developed and standardized as part of the GSMA Mobile Connect B2B Identity and Attributes products, with all mobile operators in the UK developing the product to the same standard. This has been key in creating an offering that service providers can rely upon at scale, with coverage of over 60 million UK mobile customers. This is the first exciting step for Telefónica and LUCA in rolling out KYC Match and other identity products globally, collaborating closely with other mobile operators and the GSMA as part of the Mobile Connect ecosystem.

Below you can view the whole panel discussion on the topic:

You can find more information on KYC Match here. Let us know what you think below and don’t forget to follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube to keep up to date with all things LUCA.

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Accelerating European cyber security between the United Kingdom and Telefonica (Wayra) – Part one of two

ElevenPaths    5 April, 2018
The GCHQ (Government Communications Headquarters) is not very well known outside of the United Kingdom. The governmental organization is almost a century old (it will celebrate its 100th anniversary next year), in 1919 it started as the government’s school of codes and encryption (Government Code & Cypher School) and it was not until 1946 that it changed its name to what it is now.
The GCHQ’s job is to maintain Great Britain´s security through information assurance and also signals intelligence (SIGINT).
The GCHQ was founded after the first world war and had the important role during the second world war of working on how to break the German Enigma codes and also during the Cold War, from its famous center in Bletchley Park.

Bletchley Park imagen
Bletchley Park ©GCHQ


The center currently has two main components, the Composite Signals Organization (CSO), which is responsible for the collection of information, and the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), which is responsible for securing the United Kingdom´s own communications.
The main GCHQ building is an original construction known as ‘The Donut’ and it is located in the outskirts of the city Cheltenham in the United Kingdom; from there they carry out a large part of their activity whilst collaborating with their members, the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) and MI5.
El Donut, cuartel general del GCHQ imagen
The Donut, GCHQ Headquarters

The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) was created in order to make the United Kingdom the safest place to live and do online business, by protecting critical services against cyber-attacks, managing major incidents and improving the underlying security of the internet in the United Kingdom through the best technologies, citizen advice and organisations.
The GCHQ Cyber Accelerator is a collaboration between the United Kingdom’s Governmental Department for Digital, Cultural, Media and Sport (DCMS), the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) and Wayra UK, which is a part of Telefónica Open Future. It is part of the government’s national cyber security program which is valued at £1.9bn, which drives innovation in the cybersecurity industry and helps keep UK businesses and consumers safe from online attacks and threats.
The program, which is already in its second call for proposals, has received more than a hundred applications in its latest call from startups specializing in cybersecurity; amongst which they have selected nine (RazorSecure, Warden, Intruder, TrustElevate, Secure Code Warrior, Cybershield, Ioetec, Elliptic and ExactTrack) which are being accelerated during nine months in order to allow them to expand their capabilities, improve their ideas and design leading edge technology.
A group of GCHQ mentors and the group Telefonica, which includes O2 and ElevenPaths, give their support to these new companies which also receive a financial subsidy and access to a workspace in Cheltenham.
In the following piece we will explain in detail the selected startups and their technology, in order to understand how they apply innovation which overcomes the current and emerging threats.

Rames Sarwat
Director of Strategic Alliances and Partnerships ElenvenPaths 

#CyberSecurityPulse: Tell me your social networks and you will be welcome in the United States (or maybe not)

ElevenPaths    3 April, 2018
social networks

The US Department of State wants to ask visa applicants to provide details of their social networks which they have used within the last five years, as well as their phone numbers, email addresses and international trips during this period. The plan, if approved by the US Office of Management and Budget, will extend the background screening to those who have been marked for additional immigration screening; for all of the immigrant visa applicants and for all of the non-immigrant visa applicants, such as business travellers and tourists.

This type of measure is not new. At the end of 2016, a new request for social networks information was approved for the ESTA application (Electronic System for Travel Authorization). The standard, approved by the US Customs and Border Protection, requested (although it is still optional) that applicants provide their user names and accounts for Facebook, Instagram, Google+, LinkedIn and Youtube. According to the DHS (Department of Homeland Security), the social networks investigation would add a new level of security, acting as additional information to that which is already available from official sources.

No one questions the impact that social networks have upon the public sphere and human privacy. In reality it is used as a new space for communication and a place in which the users express their preferences and opinions; yet, it is not new that these are very valuable sources of information for certain state agencies to obtain.

More information available at FederalRegister.gov

Highlighted news

UK anti-doping centre confirms that it was the target of a cyber-attack

anti-doping

Ukad, the United Kingdom’s antidoping centre, possesses medical records which includes personal information from medical tests of thousands of athletes, including Premier League football players and Olympians. Last week it was made public that they had suffered an attack but that none of their systems had been compromised and that none of the data had been lost. They added “we are satisfied that we have adequate levels of cyber-security”. Ukad has not said if they know who was behind the attack. “We took the necessary measures in order to investigate and resolve the situation”, the organisation said in a statement. It is certain that in the past a group called “Fancy Bears”, based in Russia, previously stole athletes’ medical data from the World Anti-Doping Agency.

More information available at the BBC

Protecting voter registration sites against possible intrusions

EI-ISAC

The Centre for Internet Security’s newly established “Election Infrastructure of Information Sharing and Analysis Centre” (EI-ISAC), plans to deploy intrusion detection sensors on all 50 state voter registration websites by the mid 2018 elections. The sensors project is called “Albert”, according to CIS Vice President of Operations, Brian Calkin, the CIS has been using them state wide and locally since 2010. Albert open source sensors provide automated alerts on both traditional and advanced network threats.

More information available at GNC

News from the rest of the week

New malware family, called GoScanSSH, which compromises SSH servers

The investigators from Talos Intelligence Group of Cisco have identified a new malware family, named GoScanSSH, designed to compromise SSH servers. However, the Talos investigators noted a series of unusual attributes in respect to GoScanSSH. The most surprising is that it is written using the Go programming language. It is relatively rare to see malware written in this language. In this particular case, it has also been observed that the attacker created unique malware binaries for each infected host.

More information available at Talos

Microsoft’s Meltdown patch made Windows 7 PCs more insecure

Shortly after Spectre and Meltdown were launched, the software providers, including Microsoft, released the corresponding patches. However, a Swedish security researcher, Ulf Frisk, discovered that Microsoft’s security fixes on Windows 7 PCs for Meltdown would now allow attackers to read the same kernel memory at Gbps speed, which makes the problem even worse on PCs running Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2 boxes.

More information available at The Register

23% of VPN providers filter the IP address

Security investigator Paolo Stagno, also known as VoidSec, has discovered that 23% (16/70) of VPN providers filter the users’ IP address using WebRTC. WebRTC is a free and open project that offers browsers and mobile applications real-time communication (RTC) capabilities through APIs. You can consult the list of VPNs in his blog.

More information available at VoidSec

Weve launches Weve Locate – Location verification technology

AI of Things    2 April, 2018

Weve, O2´s mobile advertising subsidiary has recently launched a new service, Weve Locate, a location verification product. This new service will allow advertisers to truly reach their target audiences, and with this allow audiences to receive ads specific to their preferences and benefit marketers by reducing costs and ad wastage. About 96% of marketers have expressed that location data is important to them, this is where Weve locate comes in, helping advertisers deliver campaigns that are location-specific.
To be able to combine mobile advertising with location services, Weve is also working alongside Statiq, the anonymized and aggregated audience data and location specialist also owned by Telefónica Group. Statiq compares aggregated scores for app publisher GPS signals, with the location of phones connected to any of O2´s cell towers. This verifies location accuracy, and enables Weve to eliminate unnecessary and unreliable information, thus ensuring that the location of an audience and the ad shown is the right match. 

two people at cafe using smartphone and tablet
Figure 1: Location accuracy will ensure ads reach the right audience
In a study conducted this past February by Statiq, with the purpose of differentiating the quality of location signal data; different lists were created (blacklist, neutral, whitelist) to identify how accurate was the data they produced. If an app was giving inaccurate data at a high level, it would get blacklisted, and apps with the most accurate data would be whitelisted. The exercise used a sample set of location signals obtained from apps, and later compared with the location obtained from cell towers from TEF. This exercise was to understand the following: Scale of location signals produced by the app, scale of unique devices, which use the app, normalized accuracy “score” depicting the deviation of the location produced by the apps from the location reported by O2.
As a result of blacklisting those suppliers, accuracy of products would be considerably improved. This comes to show that by identifying which apps are not giving accurate location information; advertising efforts will become sharper and more focused.  
With the launch of Weve Locate, Weve positions itself as one of the most complete location suites on the market. 

The Wannacry authors also want their Bitcoin Cash

ElevenPaths    27 March, 2018
The 12th of May 2017 was a day for many of us which we will not easily forget. Wannacry was one of those incidents which had a major impact upon public opinion. Taking advantage of the already famous EternalBlue vulnerability, the programme maliciously managed to encrypt the files of thousands of computers asking in exchange for a ransom of $300 of bitcoins. The question is, what happened to these ransoms paid by the victims?

The balance of the addresses
The three identified Bitcoin addresses managed to raise more than 51 bitcoins (available here, here and here). To date, more than half a million dollars have been exchanged. However, the design of the ransom collection system could be improved. Presenting the same address to different victims made it difficult for the attackers to determine which victim had made the payment. Taking into account that the Bitcoin transactions remain registered in a chain of blocks within Bitcoin, the victims could impersonate other victims who had paid by taking credit for a particular transaction.

In the case of Bitcoin, the recommendation for those who manage platforms where you can pay for goods or services in Bitcoins is to generate a unique payment address for each client who carries out a purchase.. In this way, it is convenient for the business to verify if a client has already carried out the payment within the chain of blocks. These recommendations are also applicable for the case of Wannacry: in spite of being extortion, the ideal model would have generated a different address for each user, which would have allowed the attacker to have a simple table in which to associate each billing address with a different decryption key.

Furthermore, this operation would have had another positive side effect for the attacker: the investigators wouldn´t have been able to generate more than a small subset of billing addresses (one for each detonation in the sample) and the task of measuring the total number of infections would be more complex. The options in order to achieve this would have been to track and try to analyse some known email addresses, once they would start to observe the movement of these accounts, if they ended up converging at some point. The reason behind why this wasn´t applied came to light shortly afterwards:one race condition in the process of the generation of the unique addresses for each victim prevented it from working well and ended up becoming one of the now famous three addresses.

Wannacry´s movements
Just days after they closed the 2017 edition of Blackhat USA y Defcon, on 3rd August they produced the first movements from the most monitored Bitcoin addresses: six different operations recorded in the Bitcoin blockchain in a period of just a few minutes (precisely at 03:06, 03:07, 03:13, 03:14, 03:14 and 03:25). Thus began the process of pursuing these addresses that would soon begin to blend into a succession of operations.

Primeros movimientos de Wannacry imagen
Figure 1. Wannacry´s first movements.

On the basis that in order for the three addresses to carry out an operation, the author or authors of the attack would have had to have signed the three addresses with the private corresponding keys and assign them to a particular node of the chain of blocks so that they could be added. From there, the author himself could generate a list of countless addresses under his control among which to perform these operations to confuse the researchers.

However, if we use tools such as Blockseer we we will be able to realize that in just five jumps, the money ends up associated with a market, hitbtc.com, that has been operating as a crypto-currency exchange since 2013. From Hitbtc you can exchange these Bitcoins for many other currencies such as Ethereum, Etherum Classic, Litecoin, Lisk… or others that have been designed to protect the anonymity of the user, such as Monero, Dash or Zcash. 

Visualización de movimientos en Blockseer imagen
Figure 2. A visualisation of Blockseer’s movements

On some of these platforms, the general registration process is trivial and does not require the provision of additional information, unless you want to proceed to buying and selling with conventional currencies, as each user guide explains. In any case, for many of the researchers, this would be a good starting point because this platform would indeed have information of the operations involving an account very close to the authors, even though they knew that those involved might not be these ones. 

Not only Bitcoins: the consequences of the forks
You have seen the Bitcoin transactions carried out on the 3rd August; however, a few days before, a very important event took place for Bitcoin’s ecosystem: the hard fork of Bitcoin Cash. Due to the disproportionate increase of the transaction fees (a consequence of the increase in the popularity of Bitcoin and the limitation of the of the 1 MB block size); one part of the community proposed the need to increase the offer of available space in order to register operations every 10 minutes, which means, increasing the maximum size of each Bitcoin block. 

Dashboard del exchange HitBTC imagen
Figure 3. The HitBTC Exchange dashboard

In order to materialise this proposal, the drivers of Bitcoin cash planted the possibility that the network miners would come to accept the blocks with a maximum size of 8MB from the 1st of August; with the hope that the increase in the space offered would provoke a reduction in price in which the users were paying in order to include their transactions in a block. Which meant more space offered for the same block space demand, meaning less commissions. 

tamaño medio por bloque imagen
Figure 4. The average block size. 

However, the proposal brought with it various questions that worried many. On one side, those blocks added in one day with the conventional protocol could increase by about 144 MB per day (at a rate of 6 MB per hour). The increasingly heavy Bitocin blockchain increases by the size of 8MB per block (48 MB an hour), which could cause a daily increase of 1152 MB daily. These and other questions of an ideological nature, resulted in that the proposal was not accepted by the whole network, but only by a small part of it, which led to two different block chains with a common base: the one of the conventional Bitcoin which operated under the old regulations of 1MB per block and the one of Bitcoin Cash, which permitted the users to spend their Bitcoins, including those in the blocks of up to 8MB. Thus, those who would have bitcoins in their account on the 1st August (as was the case of the Wannacry authors) could spend them in two different blockchains under different rules. Today, the value of a Bitcoin and that of Bitcoin Cash is very different ($8100 for one Bitcoin unit and $912 for a unit of Bitcoin Cash), but the amount for this crypto-currency continues being relevant.  

Forks de la cadena de bloques de Bitcoin imagen
Figure 5. Forks from the Bitcoin block chain. 

Therefore, what happened with Wannacry’s Bitcoin cash? It is not clear if it was due to ignorance or a lack of interest, but it is certain that the associated Bitcoin Cash to the accounts of Wannacry remained in them until various months after the 7th November 2017. On this date, the authors carried out a unique transaction which collected the entire balance of Bitcoin Cash from all three addresses into a single address, specifically in 122TBuG4jWjsfSABdNu4zNrBaREEk2a8od, a priori in order to simplify the management.

Erasing the trace of the operations
After the movements in August, some of the exchange platforms such as ShapeSift y Changelly already expressed that they were collaborating with the authorities, after identifying that their platforms had been used for the exchange of the crypto-currency for Monero. But, what options could someone have who would want to blur the trail of the operations into blockchains such as Bitcoin or Bitcoin Cash? To do this there are so-called coin mixers. These are platforms that, in exchange for a commission, automatically mix the balance coming from several accounts to make it difficult for an observer to see where the money is actually coming from. 


Given that this type of task can also be programmed manually, ElevenPaths is aware of the existence of the following different mixers available to anyone who offers this type of service for Bitcoin Cash, such as coinmix.to or privcoin.io (others exist such as bch-mixer.com or bchblender.com, but they were created after the first movement of the money in Bitcoin Cash).  

Funcionalidad de un mixer imagen
Figure 6. The functionality of a mixer. 

In the case of coinmix.to, the user must provide an address where you expect to receive the money to be hidden and the number of blocks where you expect to receive it. Because of the way coinmix.to works, the user is asked to send the amount of the trace he or she wants to blur to an address under the control of the platform, along with a small amount to cover the costs of the network and to pay for the service itself.

Funcionamiento de coinmix.to imagen
Figure 7. The function of coinmix.to.

After the agreed amount of time has elapsed, the applicant will receive the balance in the fixed address set as part of the transaction, in which also will involve other implicated linked addresses to the platform and potentially, of other users. This is the process in which assists to blur the source of the address of the transactions; since the balance received at the destination address does not come from the original service request transaction (this balance, in our case, remained under the control of the platform at the address 1NgUGX9F9zU4QtU9svqCd4gyyFvKhGyKBj). 

Operación de coinmix.to imagen
Figure 9. Bitcoin Cash mixer platform.

However, it must be taken into account that this facilitated address from coinmix.to had already received 125 previous operations during the test. This is relevant given that in the event that we have visibility in the future of an address that operates at some point with this particular one, we will be able to know with certainty that it has used this mixing service.

Also, it is necessary to emphasize the great amount of inputs that appear in the payment that we receive in our destination account.. This operation would allow us to identify the addresses that the service uses to mix the transactions; taking into account that in order to utilize the inputs that appear in it, the mixer will have had to sign the transactions with the corresponding private keys. The function of privcoin.io is something different. In its case, it offers the possibility of carrying out this task for various cryptocurrencies and not only for Bitcoin Cash. It gives the possibility of configuring the various return addresses and different percentages in such a way that monitoring the operations is considerably complicated, since it will not be as effective if it is analyzed based on the transferred balance. 

Plataforma de mixer de Bitcoin Cash imagen
Figure 9. Bitcoin Cash mixer platform. 

Unlike Coinmix, in the case of privcoin.io the addresses where the user has to send the money are unique for each concealed transaction. In this way a team of analysts cannot utilize the block chains to monitor the utilized addresses in between and identify the possible users. In fact, in the case of this platform, the implicated addresses are only utilized twice: once to receive money and the other time to transfer it.

Transacción de Privcoin imagen.
Figure 10. Details of the Privcoin transaction. 

What is the current balance of the Wannacry accounts?
In spite of the operations described so far, the outgoing transactions imply that there are not too many accounts. In the case of Bitcoin, for example, the addresses have continued receiving payments after most of the account balance has left. Furthermore, due to the fork of Bitcoin Cash, another variable must be added, the fork of Bitcoin Gold that took place in the last quarter of the year. This new fork is claimed to be designed to democratize the mining process and was based upon the Bitcoin blockchains.
In fact, the Bitcoin accounts have continued receiving operations after the August withdrawals. For this reason, 1,89111948 bitcoins (0,23814854, 1,38351522 y 0,26945572) are still outstanding, slightly more than $15200 of which must total to $84 corresponding to the 1,53575699 Bitcoin Gold which there are also in their accounts. It seems reasonable to think that the question is not whether there will be more movements, but when they will take place. 
Félix Brezo
ElevenPaths Innovation team and Laboratory
Yaiza Rubio
ElevenPaths Innovation team and Laboratory

Using Big Data to combat Air Pollution in Brazil

AI of Things    26 March, 2018
Content originally written by Raquel Carretero Juárez, for the Telefonica Public Policy Blog.
 
Telefónica Brazil is using mobile network Big Data to monitor air pollution in São Paulo (Brazil) and help improve the city’s traffic management and environmental planning. The goal of this initiative is to understand the links and relations between the mobility patterns of the population in São Paulo (about 12 million people) and Madrid, along with the quality of the air and the possible consequences in terms of public health.  The trials analyse the city air quality using open data from existing weather stations, air quality sensors and traffic sensors to map the air quality in specific locations and estimate volume and flows of vehicles.

Thanks to mobility data, it has been possible to predict pollution problems up to two days before they occur, allowing the city to take precautions to protect public health, such as guiding traffic via alternative routes and advising vulnerable populations, such as those with respiratory conditions, on areas of high pollution. The mobility data used in the trial also delivered greater granularity and wider reach than traditional fixed air quality and traffic sensors, which are expensive to deploy.

Photo of Sao Paulo's skyline
Figure 1 : Sao Paulo is Brazil’s largest city, with other 12 million inhabitants.

But how does is work?

Algorithms that calculate mobility and traffic estimates and a dashboard that displays pollution level status across the city have been developed and implemented on Telefonica’s LUCA platform. The tool also offers more advanced analysis from machine learning models that provide accurate forecasts and mapping of dangerous NO2 levels, 24 to 48 hours in advance. This time window enables managers to plan accordingly.

GSMA’s Big Data for Social Good

This project is part of the GSMA’s Big Data for Social Good initiative, which was launched in February 2017 and is today backed by 20 mobile operators with a presence in 124 markets around the world. Besides, it is supported by an advisory panel consisting of global agencies and partners, including Data 2X, DIAL, GPSDD, Be He@lthy Be Mobile, OCHA, UN Global Pulse, UNDP, UNHCR, UNICEF, WFP and, most recently, the World Bank.
In order to respond effectively and efficiently to the spread of infectious diseases, pollution, earthquakes and other disasters, governments and NGOs need to know where the impacted people are, in which direction they are moving and how the environment is changing. In this regard, mobile operators can help provide that valuable information, while respecting individuals’ privacy and safeguarding personal data.

The project has enabled mobile operators to jointly establish a common framework and approach to analysing the data captured on operators’ networks to help public agencies and NGOs tackle epidemics, natural disasters and environmental crises. The main goal is to save lives by building an ecosystem to support timely planning and response. According to Mats Granryd, Director General of GSMA:
“The GSMA has achieved significant progress in the first trials of its Big Data for Social Good initiative by Bharti Airtel, Telefónica and Telenor, creating a blueprint for future deployments that leverages mobile operators’ big data capabilities to address the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In these trials, operators are capturing anonymised, aggregated mobile indicators in a consistent output format, whilst respecting and protecting the privacy of individuals via an agreed Code of Conduct. The data is then combined with a wide variety of other data types to provide vital insights for public officials and NGOs.”
The results of the trials to date, combined with mobile operators’ own initiatives, are providing the basis for the next wave of Big Data for Social Good deployments in 2018, which will focus on disaster preparedness in key countries including Chile, Colombia, Japan, Russia and Turkey.”
Iguassu Falls, on the border of Argentina and Brazil
Figure 2 : Brazil is well known as being the home of the Amazon rainforest

LUCA’s initiatives & partnership with FAO

At LUCA, we believe that data can be extremely useful in the development of society. For this reason, we use our own internal data together with external data to give back the value of data to the world, contributing to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) set by the UN for 2030.
We are currently collaborating on a wide range of projects which contribute to achieving the SDGs including “Magic Box”, a project led by UNICEF whose purpose is to save lives by optimising responses to public health emergencies and natural disasters, thanks to the collection and analysis of data. SafePost can also be highlighted, it’s a service that allows you to communicate via social networks or send emails without needing Internet access.

Also worthy of note is the new alliance between Telefónica and the United Nations (UN) Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) to collaborate in the development and implementation of innovation, digitization and data analysis initiatives in the agricultural sector aimed at promoting the development of agriculture, food safety, and nutrition.

IoT to save the environment

Beatriz Sanz Baños    22 March, 2018

Connectivity allows a more efficient and sustainable energy management with the environment. The fight against climate change, waste of water and residual waste is easier with IoT devices.