PowerKee’s Bastion of Privacy #35 — A recent hearing by the US Senate Judiciary Committee tied privacy coins to the increased prevalence of cyberattacks in the country
The United States Senate Judiciary Committee is turning their attention to the role of cryptocurrencies in ransomware attacks that have recently taken place across the country. During a July 27th hearing, the committee noted cryptocurrencies as a tool that helped attackers carry out their malicious activities.
Both privacy coins and the Tor network were noted as tools that helped malicious actors obscure their activities. In the latest Bastion of Privacy release, we consider the comments of the US Senate on privacy coin technology. We consider what the implications are for privacy coin users and whether PowerKee users need to make any changes as a result of the hearing. However, before covering these developments, we provide an update on the PowerKee wallet and masternodes.
🚨 PowerKee wallet release next Friday 🚨
Two weeks ago, we released the PowerKee wallet to a selection of beta-testers. This provided us with valuable feedback on the wallet and we are currently polishing up some minor details. The wallet will be released to the public next Friday and will be freely available to download from the PowerKee website.
PowerKee is also currently undergoing some rigorous internal testing. This testing process is almost exclusively on optimizing the masternodes for the network. Masternode staking will be available for everybody upon the launch of the network.
Privacy coins pointed for increased cybercrime
According to a report presented to the Senate, the difficulty in tracing privacy coin transactions increased the difficulty of identifying ransomware attackers. The Senate ties this to the recent rise in cybercrime within the US.
For instance, in early July, Kaseya, one of the leading IT software providers in the United States, was brought under attack by Russia-based hacking group REvil. Kaseya’s software was compromised and the clients’ administrator access was removed. At the time, REvil demanded a payment of $70 million in Bitcoin before the platform would be restored.
At the time of writing, access has been restored on the platform after an announcement by Kaseya that it has received a decryptor key to undo the attack from a trusted third party. The Kaseya attack was undone without any ransom payment.
Circumstances facing cryptocurrency users becomes more complex
While rising rates of cybercrime is certainly an issue that needs to be addressed, the situation among cryptocurrency users has become even more complicated. Those that are employing privacy coins as a part of their malicious activities only represent a minority of the total users. Most users are turning to privacy coins to protect themselves in an increasingly surveillant world. Bastion of Privacy releases regularly review the need for netizens to employ privacy tools given the high degree of surveillance and data mismanagement.
However, as a result of the minority using the technology for malicious means, unfriendly regulations are being imposed on the wider population of cryptocurrency users. This does not only apply to privacy coins as we have seen unfavorable industry-wide regulations being applied in both China and the US recently.
Implications for privacy coin users
Cryptocurrency users and privacy coin users particularly are increasingly being centred in the crosshairs of regulators. They are facing aggressive stances and are viewed unfavorably as a result of the malicious activities that privacy coins help obscure.
Nonetheless, every individual still has a right to their privacy. Privacy coin networks like PowerKee help protect that right. They allow users to transfer value cheaply and privately across a distributed network. Anonymizing transactions is optional on the network. However, in light of the recent regulatory scrutiny, we heavily suggest that users always fully employ the privacy features of the network.
When it comes to privacy coins, it is unknown how the regulatory landscape will unfold. However, as long as users employ the strongest privacy technologies possible, they will remain protected against the antagonistic approaches of first-world governments.
About PowerKee
PowerKee is a cryptocurrency network that makes privacy easy. Users can transact cheaply and instantly while maintaining anonymity. The PowerKee protocol uses a mixture of zero-knowledge proofs and coin mixing to provide strong privacy assurances to its users.
