Category Archives: Digital Currency

Computational Law & Blockchain Festival 2018

The first annual Computational Law & Blockchain Festival (#clbfest2018) is a three-day global event bringing together coders, designers, lawyers, policymakers, researchers, and students to co-create the future of law, legal practice, and policy. In the spirit of decentralization, the Festival will be hosted at independent, self-organized nodes in cities around the world.

DETAILED SCHEDULE (amended):

16 March 2018 @ Näituse 13a-201, Tartu

COFFEE OFFERED

10:15-11:45 TRACK LEARN
Electronic signature and enforceability of electronic contracts in civil law countries
Presentor: attorney Liisi Jürgen, NJORD Law Firm, lecturer of the IT Law Master´s programme

COFFEE BREAK

12:00-13:30 TRACK LEARN
Digital identities, e-residency and e-wallets – identity and digital footprint
Presentors: attorney Anne Veerpalu and attorney Liisi Jürgen, NJORD Law Firm, lecturers of the IT Law Master´s programme

13:30-15:00 TIME FOR A BREAK
(no lunch is offered by Legal Hackers)

15:00-15:45 TRACK LEARN
Decentralization and innovation ecology – what type of ecology is needed for legaltech to accelerate it innovation? Introducing many technologies which in themselves are not going to revolutionize everything.
Presentor: Michael Gallagher

COFFEE BREAK

16:00-17:30 SESSION 3: COMPUTERIZED LAW
Visualisation of law: An Automated Legal Content Capture and Visualisation Method (Automaatne meetod õigusteabe hankimiseks ja visualiseerimiseks)
Presentor: Ermo Täks, PhD (Computer Science, TTÜ)

17:30- 18:15 SESSION 3: INTRO TO SMART CONTRACTS (pre-recorded)
TBA
Presentor: Dr. Martin Ploom, who has worked for the last years for Man Investments, Credit Suisse and UBS in In-house Consulting / Project Management roles. He is an MBA, Dipl. Inf., Ms. Ec. and finished CFA Level III in 2010. He has been a crypto currencies enthusiast since Autumn 2012.

17 March 2018 @ Näituse 13a- 201, Tartu

COFFEE OFFERED

10:15-11:45 TRACK LEARN
Virtual currencies: legal and tax issues
Presentor: attorney Priit Lätt, PWC Legal, lecturer of the IT Law Master´s programme

11:45-13:00 TIME FOR A BREAK
(no lunch is offered by Legal Hackers)

13.00 – 13:30 INTRO TO HACK TRACK WILL TAKE PLACE @ Näituse 13A, TARTU

24h Hackaton – participants are welcomed to either listen to the next LEARN TRACK SESSION 3 or go to a separate location to work with their team
Hackaton location: J. Liivi 2 – 111, Institute of Computer Science, University of Tartu
Open from 1 pm on 17th March
Coffee break at 3 pm- 3.30 pm
Moderator: Stanislav Degtjarjov, Agrello.io

GLOBAL HACKATON registration available here:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScQPaWitG8GKZ0xTdipHptwZlBeH9atPGjScI5768pRl5mC0w/viewform

LOCAL HACKATONS introduced at SESSION 2 and 1 pm on 17th March @ Näituse 13a, Tartu

13:30-16:00 TRACK LEARN/DISCUSS

SESSION 3: Blockchain Computing & Its Security Challenges

* Miao ZhiCheng, from decentral.ee, ex Skyper, ex. Twilion – “Blockchain computing vs. traditional computing – an overview”
* Dr. Marlon Dumas “Automating Business Processes With Smart Contracts”
* Agrello team : “Smart contracts technical standards”
* (recorded video) Dan Selman, from claus.io, “Accord Project – The Techno-Legal Standards”
* Risto Alas from Guardtime – “the DAO and the vulnerabilities discovered in Ethereum smart contracts”
* Taimo Peelo, “Ethereum Honeypots”
PANEL led by Miao ZhiCheng

16:15-16:45 TRACK LEARN
Tax issues at ICO and post-ICO
Presentor: attorney Elvira Tulvik, MAGNUSSON

Links:
https://www.meetup.com/Estonia-Legal-Hackers/events/247447020/

State confiscates first criminally obtained bitcoins

The employees of the Criminal Police organized crime department in the summer arrested a young man living in Estonia who sold large amount of different drugs on the darkweb. With the help from the cybercrime unit of the Central Criminal Police, the bitcoins earned from the sale of drugs were also obtained, which, by the present moment, based on the county court order have been confiscated. The information about the amount of bitcoins sized is not available.

According to the Prosecutor General Vahur Verte, it is true that identifying the owner of the crypto money and tracking the movement of money is more complicated, but certainly not impossible.

How did the police technically size the bitcoins? Were they transfered to state-owned bitcoin wallet? Who paid for the transaction fees?

Links:
https://geenius.ee/uudis/eesti-riik-arestis-esimesed-kuritegelikul-teel-saadud-bitcoinid/

Estonian cryptographer rejects claims of being Bitcoin’s creator

Los Angeles lawyer Justin Sobaje is convinced that Helger Lipmaa, senior researcher of the University of Tartu’s computer science institute, is Satoshi Nakamoto – the creator of bitcoin, and says he has analyses and studies that prove it.

Sobaje writes that he is convinced – based on an article in which Nakamoto first describes the nature of bitcoin – that the author or authors of the piece had to have been experts of timestamping technology and hash trees. That is the focus of Helger Lipmaa’s doctoral thesis and scientific papers published in the late 1990s. Lipmaa has cited another two articles the original creator of the bitcoin also cites on his homepage. Conclusion: Lipmaa knows five out of eight articles.

Sobaje continues: “Satoshi was an experienced C++ programmer. Lipmaa created timestamping software while working at Cybernetica.” He lists the years Lipmaa spent working for the company until two years before the birth of bitcoin. How was the name Satoshi Nakamoto created? Sobaje has found three Japanese cryptographers mentioned on Lipmaa’s website – Satoshi Obana, Junko Nakajima, Takeshi Okamoto – and concludes that the name of the world’s most wanted man is a combination of the three.

Helger Lipmaa, commenting on the matter to Postimees, rejects the idea. “I’m certainly not Satoshi and I don’t understand how he got to my name of all things,” he said, adding that bitcoin’s original creator wasn’t a cryptographer.

Professor of software science at the Tallinn University of Technology Ahto Buldas, who worked with Lipmaa on timestamping technology in the late 1990s, laughs out loud when told an American lawyer believes Lipmaa to be Nakamoto. “The number of scientists that worked on it at the time was not great, while there are other candidates for Nakamoto. I don’t want to say that Lipmaa is not Satoshi Nakamoto; even though I don’t really believe it, it cannot be ruled out either,” he says. “We could all have been Nakamotos.

This could be a potential topic for BSc/MSc thesis, to use open source intelligence to verify if there is some correlation between public activities of Satoshi and Helger/Ahto.

Links:
https://news.err.ee/652328/estonian-cryptographer-rejects-claims-alleging-he-created-bitcoin
https://news.postimees.ee/4365547/hunt-for-the-world-s-most-wanted-man-reaches-estonia
http://novaator.err.ee/648962/tartu-ulikooli-vorguteenused-sattusid-pahatahtliku-runnaku-alla

 

Bitcoin miners found in Pärnu Hospital

Last spring Pärnu Hospital received information that it is involved in a massive virtual money, or so-called bitcoin mining. “Arguably, this was the largest bitcoin miner in the area of ​​Pärnu,” added the source. It turned out that bitcoin mining in the hospital was performed for nearly two years.

It would be interesting to know how the mining was discovered. There is no place in Bitcoin ecosystem where one could list “largest miners in the area of Pärnu”.

The mining was performed by the hospital network administrator and medical technician – they used in total six devices for this purpose. Some of the equipment was placed on the 8th floor in ventilation equipment rooms. The devices had multiple graphics cards, as well as a smaller machine Antminer was running Linux operating system from the SD card. Larger servers using Windows Server 2012 platform also engaged in the extraction of virtual money.

The medical technician was let go but the network administrator was given only a warning.

RIA will now investigate whether bitcoin mining had security implications:

“Based on media coverage, it cannot be excluded that the case could be a security incident,” said Toomas Vaks, Deputy Director General of Information System’s Authority.

Links:
http://tehnika.postimees.ee/4005003/turvarisk-ria-asus-uurima-bitcoinide-kaevandamist-paernu-haiglas
http://geenius.ee/uudis/kruptoraha-ekspert-parnu-haiglas-olnud-masinad-ei-pruukinud-olla-tulutoovad

UT Seminars on Blockchain Technology

university_of_tartu_logo

bitcoin_logo

The course will consist of a number of seminars given by invited lecturers. Lecturers will be both from the University and from the industry companies. They will present the research results along with the practice best experiences and examples of the application of the blockchain and smart contract technology.

Kick-off seminar:
3.October, 10:15-12:00: Smart contracts and identity on blockchain – using e-Residency in Ethereum, Speaker: Thomas Bertani, Oraclize.it

Regular seminars (Tuesdays 18.15-20.00, Liivi 2-404, Tartu):

25.October: Introduction to Smart Contracts and Applications
Speaker: Kristo Käärmann, TransferWise

1.November: Blockchain as an Enabling Technology for Businesses
Speaker: Frederik Payman Milani, University of Tartu

8.November: Lightweight BPMN engine on ethereum
Speaker: Luciano Garcia Banuelos, University of Tartu

15.November: Cryptographic Foundations of Bitcoin
Speaker: Michal Zajac, University of Tartu

29.November: Introduction to KSI blockchain
Speaker: Andreas Sisask, Guardtime

6.December: Creation of Smart-Contracting Collaborations for Decentralized Autonomous Organizations
Speaker: Alex Norta, Tallinn Technical University

Links:
https://courses.cs.ut.ee/2016/blockchain/fall/Main/Seminars

Supreme Court declares mediation of Bitcoins subject to anti-money-laundering supervision

bitcoin_logo

Yesterday’s verdict put an end to longstanding doubts whether trades with the cyber money should be treated as economic activity requiring special permit or not – in a landmark stand, Supreme Court declared mediation of Bitcoins an economic activity subject to anti-money-laundering supervision.

Uku Tampere, Police and Border Guard Board press representative:

For ordinary people buying or selling cryptocurrency in occasional transactions for own use, the Supreme Court judgement essentially alters nothing. However, when an individual begins to publicly offer cryptocurrency mediation service, he needs to apply for activity licence and meet the requirements prescribed by Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing Prevention Act.

Links:
http://news.postimees.ee/3652435/supreme-court-subjects-bitcoins-trade-to-money-laundering-rules
http://news.err.ee/v/business/5659f790-778f-4710-807e-782281aff8a0/supreme-court-bitcoin-has-financial-value-hence-trading-it-to-be-considered-economic-activity

Two Estonian companies received Bitcoin extortion letters

dd4bc_extortion_letter

According to the Police and Border Guard Board, at least two Estonian companies have become victims of the latest cyber-attack, in which they also received an email demanding Bitcoins. The cyber-criminals threatened in the emails that should they not received Bitcoins, more serious attacks will follow.

In both cases, the denial-of-service (DoS) attack was first committed against the official web pages of the respective companies. The businessmen then got an email which specified the account and deadline for transferring the Bitcoins – to avoid a more deadly ambush. According to police representative, the cyber-attack lasted for about an hour. However, the attackers have not carried through their threats, despite the entrepreneurs not giving in to Bitcoin demands. The police have started a criminal investigation.

Took a year for Estonian criminals to try out the business plan.

Its not yet known who is behind the attack and extortion. Similar cases in Estonia have not been seen before, but the rest of the world is familiar and law enforcement agencies in various countries cooperate to apprehend the criminals. The extortion letters are sent by organized criminals who call themselves “DD4BC”.

Searching by “DD4BC” shows that in the last months several organizations in various countries have received Bitcoin extortion letters from group calling themselves DD4BC. However, these might as well be Estonian criminals going under DD4BC handle.

Links:
http://news.err.ee/v/scitech/09f4d9ae-dd8e-499f-aaf1-f56d9e9188b9
http://epl.delfi.ee/news/eesti/hakkerid-noudsid-runnakutega-ahvardades-bitcoine?id=71475581
https://www.politsei.ee/et/uudised/uudis.dot?id=446825

Two criminal investigations are underway related to Bitcoin

bitcoin_logo

They warned the mediator that in case anyone operates in said area without licence, this could spell violation as treated by Penal Code come under activity without licence. Following the correspondence, Fiscal Intelligence Unit issued a precept in which they demanded data to determine if the person came under Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing Prevention Act.

«He contested the precept and meanwhile our goal was to get him to give the data and say whether he had deals exceeding €1,000. With this we are now in court and we won at first instance,» explained Mr Paul.

Representative of mediator Priit Lätt said Fiscal Intelligence Unit had no right to require the data.

Links:
http://news.postimees.ee/3028413/bitcoin-offers-options-to-launder-money