PKI

BitCoin’s Popularity Is Undermining Promises of Anonymity

The virtual currency Bitcoin has soared in value against the U.S. dollar in recent months, topping out a staggering $913 USD to 1 Bitcoin (or BTC) as of late Tuesday. The currency had many ups and downs since it was launched in January 2009. But its main attraction, all along, has been anonymity. Unlike any other online payment system, Bitcoin transactions – like cash transactions – cannot be traced back to specific individuals. Also like cash, they cannot be reversed. Both those factors give Bitcoin users the confidence that their online purchasing activity – whether computer hardware or contraband will remain private. But a group of researchers at two U.S. universities have released a paper that suggests reports of Bitcoin’s anonymity may (to paraphrase Twain) “be greatly exaggerated.” Specifically: the researchers found that, by culling a variety of open source data using public data from the Bitcoin Peer to Peer network and from […]

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Smart Meters

Verizon: New Cloud Encryption Service Will Secure IoT Devices

Identity is one of the biggest challenges facing companies that are deploying products for the “Internet of Things,” as well as traditional enterprises that find IoT technologies of all types knocking at the door. The question, in short, is “how do I know that this device is legitimate, and ties back to an identity that I trust with access to my network resources and data? Of course, identity management has always been an aching problem in the enterprise space. The problem with the IoT is scale – given the sheer size of the IoT (30 billion connected devices by 2020), you can add a few “zeros” onto the number of devices that could, potentially, be seeking access to your network at any time. [Related read: Identity Management’s Next Frontier: The Interstate] It makes sense that, in a distributed environment like that, the cloud may be the best place to address […]

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Identity Management’s Next Frontier: The Interstate

Factory-installed and even aftermarket identity management applications may soon be standard components on automobiles, as the federal government looks for ways to leverage automation and collision avoidance technology to make the country’s highways and roadways safer.   That’s the conclusion of a new report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO), which finds that vehicle to vehicle communications are poised to take off, but that significant security and privacy challenges must first be met, identity management top among them. The report, GAO 14-13 (PDF available here) takes the measure of what the GAO calls “Intelligent Transportation Systems,” including vehicle-to-vehicle (or V2V) technology. The GAO found that V2V technology that allows automobiles to communicate with each other in ways that can prevent accidents has advanced considerably in recent years. Automakers, working with the Department of Transportation, are testing the technology in real-world scenarios. However, the deployment of V2V technologies faces a number […]

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