Ledger is the most private wallet, Bitcoin-Qt somewhere in midfield

Every Word Helps: Bitcoin.de is looking for translators

Every seventh Canadian has bitcoins
A large spider installation in the capital of Canada, which is called there … Image by Mathiasbaert via Flickr.com. License: Creative Commons

Negative information from China: Cost gives

Tuesday the cost crashed in the earlier night. The rationale was in information from China, which are neither to get confirmed nor to become refuted at the present time. Nonetheless, we want to talk what has been pressed to the government consequently way.

After China presently on 5. December Financial Company has banned to do business with cryptocurrencies and have seriously restricted its constitutional standing as a means of repayment, then deeper worrying announcement from the Person’s Republic. According to the presentations that have not yet been confirmed and analyzed by the famous publication” Coindesk”, the People’s Bank of China, document. electronic. the Taiwanese key banks, invited staff of various pay services services and informed them that it was banned for” third-party repayment assistance suppliers” to do business with Bitcoin marketplaces. For the time being. According to further rumors, the Chinese Bitcoin exchanges must be with the beginning of the new Chinese year on 31. Close January. However, this message is more blurred.

The message led to an instant crash yesterday by around 100 euros. What really happened and will happen is currently not to be said. There is no official document yet, and the translations of previous statements are not certified.

However, according to another Coindesk article that is based on Chinese sources, as well as a screenshot on Btcchina three days ago and today that many payment providers-including banks-have withdrawn from cooperation with the stock exchange today, and no longer offer a transfer to Bitchina.

These messages are certainly not good. However, it is still too early to draw final conclusions. If banks still have the option of carrying out transfers on stock exchanges, not much would ultimately change; Bitcoins would have a similar status as no precious metals in China.

Listen to your feeling and by no means on what the panic whispers to you. Think about the risks you are taking and whether you want to and can carry them.

USA imposes sanctions against Bitcoin addresses from two Iranians
Ministry of Finance in the United States, picture of Florian Hirzinge via Wikimedia. License: Creative Commons

Now the time has come: Bitcoins are treated like normal money. The US Ministry of Finance announced yesterday that the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) occupied two Bitcoin addresses with sanctions for the first time. That works at all?

The two addresses now officially sanctioned belong to two Iran citizens, Ali Khorashadizadeh and Mohammad Ghorbaniyan. According to the press release of the Ministry of Finance, the two are accused of having helped to switch bitcoins to Iranian rial. Among them were Bitcoins from two Iranian hackers who were behind the Samam Ransomware, which affected more than 200 computers. Overall, there are more than 7.000 bitcoins worth several million dollars via the two addresses, 149w62AZBOX8FGCMQNSXUSZSTKEQ8C and 1AJZPMSNMPDK2RV9KQNFMURTXINSCVRO9V, and switched to more than 40 stock exchanges for Fiat money.

“The Ministry of Finance is investigating changers of digital currencies that have made it possible to enrich Iranian cypercriminals by ransoms in digital currencies,” explains Sigal Mandelker, who is responsible for the financial minister for terorism and financial intelligence agencies. “Since Iran is increasingly isolated and desperately looking for access to US dollar, it is essential that stock exchanges for virtual currencies, peer-to-peer money changer and other providers of services in this area strengthen your networks against such criminal machinations.“The Bitcoin addresses are published,“ to identify criminal actors in the area of ​​digital currencies. The tax office will aggressively pursue Iran and other villain regimes if they take advantage of digital currencies and weaknesses in cyber security and in measures against money laundering to continue their shameful activities.”

The Ministry of Finance for the first time relies Bitcoin addresses on a public blacklist. While sanctions in conventional banking lead to the fact that it becomes more or less impossible to send money to the relevant parties, sanctions of Bitcoin addresses are initially ineffective. Because no sanction can prevent a private user from sending a transaction to an address with his wallet. In fact, several small transactions have been on the addresses of the two Iranians since yesterday, which were probably drawn in protest against the sanctions.

Digital currencies dampen the effectiveness of sanctions without a doubt. However, the US Ministry of finance can exert pressure in any other way. In this way, it is obliged to identify and in the countries – and in the countries on which the United States has an impact – to identify and freeze credit that are connected to these addresses. “It is a result of today’s action,” according to the press release, “that people who are associated with transactions with Khorashadizadeh and Ghorbaniyan may be the goal of secondary sanctions.”

According to the FAQ to sanctions, which have now been expanded to include a part of digital currencies, transactions in digital currencies are subject to the same editions as transactions in fiat currencies: US citizens must ensure that they are blocking transactions of individuals that are directly or indirectly on the list of OFAC and do not operate with them. It is also forbidden to support these people financially, material or technically. Exchange and payment service providers are asked to develop tailor -made technical solutions, which means that they have to spy on the transactions of customers in order to ensure that they are not related to addresses sanctioned by the USA.

This begins a process that has been predicted for Bitcoin for a long time: Blacklisting begins, the fungability breaks. One coin is not like the other, but depending on the origin. Coins that are related to the addresses of the two Iranians will be much more difficult to sell than clean coins, as there will hardly be a regulated stock exchange that they accept. Unlike in banking, such sanctions are relatively easy to avoid or invalidate, for example by using several addresses, mixers or other coins. The fact that the two Iranians have always taken the same address to wash money also shows that they have relatively manageable knowledge of matter. It will be an exciting question of the near future whether and how it is possible under these circumstances that the United States will maintain its financial sanctions against competent users. According to current research results, there are instruments in the area of ​​virtual currencies, which block chain analysts present with great challenges.

It should be no less exciting to observe how Bitcoin develops in Iran. As the Ministry of Finance correctly states, the country has been continuously isolated by international financial sanctions, especially since Swift has separated the country from the most important payment network in the world. The result is that Bitcoins and other digital currencies are becoming increasingly important in order to supply the economy. The consequences of this policy are noticeable for more and more stock exchanges and Iranians. So recently Binance, one of the world’s largest crypto exchanges based in Malta, asked its customers from Iran to deduct the credit because their account will soon be closed. According to a blockchain activist from Iran, such news has become more and more excited since the United States has tightened the sanctions against the country. In addition to Binance Blockeren also Bittrex and Bitmex users from Iran.

This means that Bitcoin is again heading for a conflict that was actually programmed into the digital currency right from the start. It will be shown whether the United States succeeds in checking the currency – and how it will react if this is not possible.

New Bitcoin age is imminent: Mining efficiency with new hardware will increase many times

The mining community around the crypto currency Bitcoin is already used to a lot. Over time, the mining hardware became more and more efficient. If almost exclusively graphics cards were the nonplusultra in terms of profitability by 2011, today it is the FPGAS, or in plain text Field programmable gate arrays that hold the crown of mining efficiency. But this condition will apparently not last long. So-called ASICs, which will appear in the near future, are currently keeping the Bitcoin community in suspense. There are a lot to indicate that the FPGas have to hand in the crown in the near future.

A large part of the Bitcoin miners still begins to generate bitcoins, although they need a relatively large amount of electricity. The GPU mining has a not too negligible advantage: the graphics cards have an actual value. For the mining, they were used to a certain extent, actually they are used for the image calculation of graphically elaborate applications, such as computer games.

The switch from GPUS to FPGAS

At the end of 2011, the first FPGas then appeared on the market that offered the Bitcoin miners a serious alternative to the GPUs. FPGA, that stands for ‘Field programable Gate Array’ and describes a circuit that has been implemented on the basis of universal components and can be freely configured. The performance (measured in hash/s) in relation to the graphics cards, with significantly lower power consumption and the possibility to operate such devices with linear performance growth (unlike in use with GPUS), have since brought about to switch some GPU miners to the new devices. Just like the graphics cards, the FPGAS also have a reusing value, since it can be reprogrammed for a variety of conceivable operations, such as in robotics or measurement technology.

Highly specialized Bitcoin hardware on the horizon

Now, however, the introduction of the first Bitcoin Asics is imminent. ASIC, that is the abbreviation for application-specific integrated circuit (in German application-specific integrated circuit) and describes a circuit that was only optimized for a special application and shrunk to a single chip. This special application consists exclusively in mining bitcoins, in principle the generation of hash values. Accordingly, the ASICs have no real benefits and lose their value, should they be outdated at some point.

Nevertheless, it is expected that these Asics will prevail in the long term, as they have a number of powerful arguments. It is very special about the Bitforce Supercomputers ASIC solutions of the American company Butterfly Labs. The predecessor of this ASIC is the Bitforce SHA256 chip, which, however, was still realized as a FPGA and is currently still the fastest of all FPGA devices. A device with a single FPGA (Bitforce Single) is available for a price of € 500 and generates about 2.70 euros in the current market conditions (at approx. 800 Mhash/s) in one day, which is far more than the electricity costs caused by around € 0.48 (80 watts to € 24 hours at € 0.25 per kWh).

From FPGas to Asics – a big step for the Bitcoin?

However, the Bitforce Supercomputer Chip is expected to clearly surpass its predecessor. According to Butterfly Labs, a device with a single ASIC chip will make about 40 gigahash/s. This corresponds to an increase around 50 times compared to the predecessor model on single-fpga basis. No official information has yet been available through electricity consumption, but it is expected that it has been reduced by a similar extent as the calculation has increased.

No wonder that the Asics are a much discussed topic in the global mining community. Many fears become that the upcoming ASIC generation could destroy the Bitcoin. Gavin Andresen, one of the “Lead Core Bitcoin Developer”, has also spoken on this topic:

“What do I think of asics hitting the” mining scene “?

IT show that Bitcoin is consiedered stable enough for a company to invest a lot of money on design and production on it, which is very good. Asics Were Bound to Happen IF Bitcoin Survived Long Enough.”

In his opinion, the upcoming Asics are above all a sign of a high degree of trust in investors compared to Bitcoin. The fact that previous mining hardware could be used in other ways and could therefore be resold, but the ASICs are worthless beyond mining, underpins this thesis.

In addition, it should be noted that by the careful algorithm always generated evenly many bitcoins per unit of time. Together with the money supply limit of around 21 million bitcoins, which is also anchored in algorithm, the currency is effectively protected against inflation. More information on the inflation of the bitcoin can be found in this article.

Even if the Bitcoin algorithm is prepared for these developments, according to the developers, it remains to be seen in the way the new ASICs affect the further development of Bitcoin.

Application -specific integrated circuit

Every Word Helps: Bitcoin.de is looking for translators

Lightning: Integration Tests completed, first transaction on Bitcoin-Minnet successful
As for pictures, Lightning is really a grateful topic. Image of Benjamen Benson via Flickr.com. License: Creative Commons

Three teams cooperate in the development of Lightning and independently form clients for the offchain network. With the completion of the integration tests and the first payment in the real Bitcoin network, the developers reach two milestones this week. We do not let ourselves be ragged – and accept donations to the blog with Lightning also.

Lightning, the protocol for offchain payments, is formed by three developer groups: ACINQ, Lightning Labs and Blockstream. These groups each develop their own client for the Lightning network. Since the Scaling Bitcoin conference in Milan, the teams have been cooperating closely to ensure that the three clients are compatible. For this they wrote the Lightning specification.

Yesterday the integration tests issued by Christian Decker have reached their conclusion. The three clients developed independently of one another are completely compatible; The specification has proven itself and now gets version number 1.0. According to Rusty Russel and Christian Decker from Blockstream, this represents a milestone of the development of Lightning.

At the same time, the Lightning developers present the first Lightning transaction in the official, real Bitcoin network in a joint announcement. So far, Lightning transactions were only feasible on the testnet.

“We have tested ECLAIR (acinq), C-lightning (block stream), and LND (Lightning Labs). We put on nodes all over the world, including in Asia, Europe, South America and North America. In our first test we used the Starblocks coffee shop, an application of ECLAIR. Starblocks accepted an in-depth Bitcoin payment by a customer who paid the LND Lightning app as a client and was opened via C-Lightning. Mmm, blockaccino!”

A second test was with Yall.Org made, a micropayment page based on LND. For this purpose, the developers sent a payment with Eclair and routed through C-Lightning. This too worked smoothly.

Zap, HTLC, LND

Payments with the Lightning network are likely to have moved a little closer. If you want to deal with the matter deeper, you should.Org start. There you can unlock a currently still manageable amount of items for a small payment. Yalls linked to three wallets that can be used to pay: the desktop app from Lightning Labs, the online wallet HTLC.me, and zap.

I have the online wallet HTLC.ME tried. The wallet gives you a small credit with which you can pay via Lightning. A payment of yalls.Org has worked – which was an interesting experience, since the payment was there at the moment – the second not because of any connection problems. Bitcoins can be received with HTLC.Me only by Lightning, which is why I couldn’t try how to charge a Lightning channel. But if you want to send me something, you can try it out with the following Payment Code:

lntb312370n1pdznqzypp5j508n509DS5M22NR7N4PW9TH7MYLGTYKW2RQRRRR8Q5P6N9 995JQDZ40V3xwetwV4exJc6LD9Jzyw3z8yexxv33Vf3ngtfevejx2tf5vttpxu6rv ttzxasngvn98qmrxcfhxQ386cqzysc9p0texcrrpt8la3Atufv6ysMTG79Z652UFX70330SMF87MPT9EZ3GW445HARASN56K6KTMS7S8KKTFMY9S8HDGGQXUPPGM9

This makes the Bitcoin blog.de for the first blog, where you can also donate with Lightning. I’m curious to see if any of you can do it. It with HTLC.To make me would be a bit boring, since the payment will only take place in the HTLC server.

However, ZAP does not have a release yet, and if I understand it, LND is a fully synchronized BTCD-Node. Eclar promises to integrate Lightning into a nice user interface, but is currently only running on the testnet. The developers still warn against using it with real money because it is still an alpha software. But it should already be possible to redirect it to the Bitcoin mainnet when you know what you do.

For those who are waiting for Lightning, the completion of the compatibility tests is a big step: with it Lightning becomes a good bit more reality. However, one should take care of too high expectations. Because even if the software runs free of friction and is released, a network must first form in which the credit is routed. How this will appear – decentralized or central – cannot yet be said. So it can still take a while for Lightning to really hits.

Historical or natural? State funds from Abu Dhabi and Norway are entering Bitcoin
The great mosque of Abu Dhabi. Image by Damian Zech via Flickr.com. License: Creative Commons

With almost half a billion US dollars, Abu Dhabi buys in Bitcoin. Norway’s state fund has also indirectly invested in Bitcoin. Slowly break the dams?

It has already been guessed, so the surprise is limited. Nevertheless, it is a bombastic news:

Abu Dhabi’s State Fund, the Mubadala Investment Company, invested in Bitcoin in the fourth quarter of 2024. More precisely: she acquired 8.2 million shares in the Bitcoin ETF “Ishares Bitcoin Trust” from Blackrock. This corresponds to around $ 437 million.

This information comes from an official document of the US stock exchange supervision SEC. In addition to Abu Dhabi’s state fund, the asset manager Tudor Investment also holds shares worth $ 426.9 million, as well as, since the last quarter, also the HedgeGrunde Hunting Hill Capital, if only $ 131 million.

The message marks a significant moment in the Bitcoin adoption by nation states. With Abu Dhabi, a rich state is officially and directly in Bitcoin for the first time; The Mubadala Fund is one of the largest state funds in the world with a managed assets of $ 302 billion. For him, ETFs are apparently the more effective means of acquiring bitcoins; The comfort of treating Bitcoin like other securities with the usual methods seems to be uncertainty to have to trust another, United States Party.

While central banks have so far resisted Bitcoin in their reserves – although there are advances, for example in Switzerland and in the Czech Republic – it is obviously easier to get involved in the cryptocurrency. Possibly because your task is less to keep reserves for interventions on the currency market, but to lucratively create excess means of lucrative.

In addition to Mubadala, another state fund Bitcoin is now holding, if only indirectly – that of Norway. The NBIM, with an assets of $ 1.8 trillion of the world’s largest state fund, has invested in shares in Microstrategy, a company that has accumulated so many bitcoins that his share price is significantly influenced by Bitcoin’s price.

In the meantime, the NBIM holds 0.72 percent of all microstrategy shares. This corresponds to an investment of $ 514 million or, resolved in bitcoins, 3.214 BTC. Not a little, but only a drop for the Norwegian state fund.

The fact that ever larger and ever more conservative institutions keep bitcoins is likely to increase trust in Bitcoin as a value memory. In the end, it also says more about Bitcoin than about the sovereign funds. Because they do what they have always done – they design their portfolio with the means that are useful and are available to them. Rather, the actual news is that Bitcoin now belongs to these means.

New Bitcoin age is imminent: Mining efficiency with new hardware will increase many times

The mining community around the crypto currency Bitcoin is already used to a lot. Over time, the mining hardware became more and more efficient. If almost exclusively graphics cards were the nonplusultra in terms of profitability by 2011, today it is the FPGAS, or in plain text Field programmable gate arrays that hold the crown of mining efficiency. But this condition will apparently not last long. So-called ASICs, which will appear in the near future, are currently keeping the Bitcoin community in suspense. There are a lot to indicate that the FPGas have to hand in the crown in the near future.

A large part of the Bitcoin miners still begins to generate bitcoins, although they need a relatively large amount of electricity. The GPU mining has a not too negligible advantage: the graphics cards have an actual value. For the mining, they were used to a certain extent, actually they are used for the image calculation of graphically elaborate applications, such as computer games.

The switch from GPUS to FPGAS

At the end of 2011, the first FPGas then appeared on the market that offered the Bitcoin miners a serious alternative to the GPUs. FPGA, that stands for ‘Field programable Gate Array’ and describes a circuit that has been implemented on the basis of universal components and can be freely configured. The performance (measured in hash/s) in relation to the graphics cards, with significantly lower power consumption and the possibility to operate such devices with linear performance growth (unlike in use with GPUS), have since brought about to switch some GPU miners to the new devices. Just like the graphics cards, the FPGAS also have a reusing value, since it can be reprogrammed for a variety of conceivable operations, such as in robotics or measurement technology.

Highly specialized Bitcoin hardware on the horizon

Now, however, the introduction of the first Bitcoin Asics is imminent. ASIC, that is the abbreviation for application-specific integrated circuit (in German application-specific integrated circuit) and describes a circuit that was only optimized for a special application and shrunk to a single chip. This special application consists exclusively in mining bitcoins, in principle the generation of hash values. Accordingly, the ASICs have no real benefits and lose their value, should they be outdated at some point.

Nevertheless, it is expected that these Asics will prevail in the long term, as they have a number of powerful arguments. It is very special about the Bitforce Supercomputers ASIC solutions of the American company Butterfly Labs. The predecessor of this ASIC is the Bitforce SHA256 chip, which, however, was still realized as a FPGA and is currently still the fastest of all FPGA devices. A device with a single FPGA (Bitforce Single) is available for a price of € 500 and generates about 2.70 euros in the current market conditions (at approx. 800 Mhash/s) in one day, which is far more than the electricity costs caused by around € 0.48 (80 watts to € 24 hours at € 0.25 per kWh).

From FPGas to Asics – a big step for the Bitcoin?

However, the Bitforce Supercomputer Chip is expected to clearly surpass its predecessor. According to Butterfly Labs, a device with a single ASIC chip will make about 40 gigahash/s. This corresponds to an increase around 50 times compared to the predecessor model on single-fpga basis. No official information has yet been available through electricity consumption, but it is expected that it has been reduced by a similar extent as the calculation has increased.

No wonder that the Asics are a much discussed topic in the global mining community. Many fears become that the upcoming ASIC generation could destroy the Bitcoin. Gavin Andresen, one of the “Lead Core Bitcoin Developer”, has also spoken on this topic:

“What do I think of asics hitting the” mining scene “?

IT show that Bitcoin is consiedered stable enough for a company to invest a lot of money on design and production on it, which is very good. Asics Were Bound to Happen IF Bitcoin Survived Long Enough.”

In his opinion, the upcoming Asics are above all a sign of a high degree of trust in investors compared to Bitcoin. The fact that previous mining hardware could be used in other ways and could therefore be resold, but the ASICs are worthless beyond mining, underpins this thesis.

In addition, it should be noted that by the careful algorithm always generated evenly many bitcoins per unit of time. Together with the money supply limit of around 21 million bitcoins, which is also anchored in algorithm, the currency is effectively protected against inflation. More information on the inflation of the bitcoin can be found in this article.

Even if the Bitcoin algorithm is prepared for these developments, according to the developers, it remains to be seen in the way the new ASICs affect the further development of Bitcoin.

Application -specific integrated circuit

Restaking through Self-Layering: Everything You Need To Know

In the web3 and Defi World, Restaking Ether (Eth) with self -layer is one of the Newer Trends. We tested it and read the documentation. Now we introduce you to self -layer – which is more than a bonus on interest.

When you stake ether, you Often receive liquid staking tokens (LSt), Such as Steth, which sit nicely in your wallet and accumulate interest. But customer the tokens are aleady Liquid, Wulldn’t it be nice to stake them again to Earn Even more yield?

That’s exactly what self -layer promises. But the platform is more than that. The bonus interest is rather a byproduct of an IDEA. Above all, own layer creates it own layer that uses the security in the value of eth tokens to secure other decentralized projects – from which stakers can naturally benefit.

By June 2024, Over 5 million ETH, more than 20 Billion dollars, Were Restaked Through Eigenlayer. Restaking is a Big Topic – And It’s Time WE DELVE INTO IT.

Recycling security

Once you understand ownerlayer, everything is clear and simple. But geting there is the challenge. Most Articles you read about it are more confusing Than Enlightening.

The basic idea is that Ethereum Stakers Can do more than Validate the Ethereum Blockchain. If there’s already a mechanism that uses the value of billions of dollars to validate consensus, why not use it to validate even more? You could offer Stakers the Chance to Additional Mechanisms to Secure Other Blockchains and Projects, Similar to How Browser Plugins Use The Browser’s Infrastructure to Interact With The Internet.

At its core, own layer revives the old idea of ​​merged mining that satoshi already proposed for bitcoin. With Merged Mining, Bitcoin Miners So Validate Other Coins Like NameCoin and Sidechains Like Rootstock, which Has Benefits But Remains Somewhat Limited in Its Effect.

Restaking Brings This Concept to Ethereum – And meets A World of Web3, Smart Contracts, Oracles, Tokens, Rollups, and Sidechains.

The short walkthrough

So, to the point: How do you benefit from it? How Can You Make More Out of Your Ethereum Staking? Essentialally, it’s simple:

1. You have liquid staking tokens (LSt) Like Steth. You get them by giving your ether to a staking pool that Supports LSTS. You can so buy them directly. One Steth Corresponds to One Ether, with the Advantage that it Earn’s Interest Through Staking.

2. You Deposit Your LSt on the Eigenlayer Platform Through the “Restaking” Function. There, you can select which lst you want to restake. Pure ETH is therefore possible, but you need to stake it yourself. Once you’ve done this, the tokens Appear in your dashboard, and you collect “Restaking points”. THESE Automatically Distributed in Relation to the Duration of Staking. They determine whether and to what extent you will participate in future airdrops.

To so Earn Ongoing Returns, One More Step is Needed:

3. You delegate the LSt. To do this, you choose a node operator who secures various projects. This is fairly confusing. Some focus on specific projects, Others look specifically for airdrops, and other distribute their tokens like an investment find a variety of projects. How high the yields are, you will not know.

4. Before you blindly restake, you should finish reading this article. This way, You’ll Understand Whether ownerlayer’s Interest Bonus Is Simply Fabricated Or if the Returns Stand On Solid Ground.

The Components of Eigenlayer

Eigenlayer is its own layer. You could say it is a layer zero, A Layer 0, Becaus it doesn’t build on Ethereum but starts before IT, Yet Draws ITS Security From the Same Source – The Value of Staked Ether.

Eigenlayer is not a blockchain, sidechain, rollup, consensus model, or anyding like that. This make it somewhat difficult to grasp. Eigenlayer is more of a protocol that allows projects to use the security of Ethereum Stakers.

Thesis Projects are called “Actively validated services (AVS).“It is a fairly Colorful mix. Generally, thesis Projects Dock with Ethereum and Improve Something, Search as Rollups, Oracles, and Other Services. You can think of them as decentralized infrastructure providers.

If you are validating yourself, you can so Assign your stakes to avs yourself. Most Users, However, Will not Stake Themelves But Will Use The Tokens They Received From A Staking Pool. In this case, you must delegate these to a node operator. Essentialally, you instruct a staker to restace your tokens through.

However, there are so risk. Any Intervention in Block Validation Can Lead to Errors. If a Stakers Makes a Consensus-Related Mistake the Eigenlayer Plugin Had a bug-Just as a browser plugin can have a bug-a penalty may occur through that protocol. The term for this is “slashing”; You loose a portion of the staked ether.

The Task of the Delegates is, in their own interest, to critical examine the avs to minimize the risk of slashing.

The Avs that Protect Restaking

The Avs have been live only Since April 2024. The Ecosystem Around Them Has Just Begun to Develop, Expectations are high, but Market-Ready Apps are unlikely. However, there are some interesting examples that show the Direction legg:

• Eigenda, A “Data Availability Provider” for Rollups – Essential a Piece of Infrastructure to Impove Rollups.
• Eoracle, to Oracle Network that Provides Data from the “Real World” to Smart Contracts in A Decentralized Way.
• The Witness Chain, A Network for the Coordination of the Depin Ecosystem
• Brevis, A Tool That Helps Smart Contracts Read Data From The Entire Blockchain Using Zero Knowledge Proofs
• Altlayer Mach, A Tool to Accelerate The Finality of Rollups Like Arbitrum and Optimism

Do you somewhat under the pattern? THESE ARE HIGHLY Technical, Partial Esoteric Projects that Even Crypto Nerds Can Find Difficult to Grasp Immediately. Overall, they are more tools that Help Improve Individual Elements of Ethereum, Similar to npm for node or pip for python. For Example, I Imagine A Rollup Becoming Faster With Mach, A Smart Contract Retrieving Data With Eoracle, Or Brevis More Effectively Reading Past Transactions.

You could therefore look at it this way: a piece of protocol development is outsourced by offering functionalities that some might want, but other find too risk, in a modular and plugin-like manner to the stakers. The Stakers, and not the Protocol, Bear the risk if these functionalities Cause a consensus error.

Overall, A Refreshing New Architecture! However, there is not much to say about its success yet. I at the Unaware of Any Projects Already Being Used in Practice; at least optimism has tested altlayer in the testnet. The Rewards Are So Quite Stochastic So Far, if they exist at all.

A letter history of ownerlayer

Eigenlayer Started Operating in mid-2023. Initally, The Number of Ether or Lst on the Platform Was Limited, so not everyone could particular. During This Time, Restaking Mainly Involved Collecting Points.

This phase ended in May with the Airdrop of the own token, Distributed According to Restaking Points. It is a utility token that Helps Secure Networks Like Eigenda. Future Airdrops are therefore Expected to Reward Platform Users Who Have Accumulated Many Restaking Points.

Shortly before that, avs was allowed, and around the same time, the Maximum Restaking Limit was lifted, Causing the Number of Ether in the Eigenlayer Ecosystem to explode. This has led to concerns that Returns from Eigenlayer Will Collapse Because the Avs that Attach to the stakes so far do not Generals Enough Profits. If any at all.

The Ecosystem is Simply Too Young to Reliably Provide Yield. The idea is good, and it is far too early to Either Write it off or declare it a success. But Currently, Restaking Through Eigenlayer is Mainly Point Collecting for Airdrops and a Bet That More Will Come From It.

Every seventh Canadian has bitcoins
A large spider installation in the capital of Canada, which is called there … Image by Mathiasbaert via Flickr.com. License: Creative Commons

Bitcoin mining drives global chip production-and IT dealers ration graphics cards

TSMC, the world’s largest finished man of semiconductors, now produces more wafers for the mining supplier Bitmain than for the graphics card manufacturer Nvidia. At the same time, the mining continues to drive the prices for graphics cards, which should be annoying for many gamers. After all, the manufacturers are now steering against.

The mining of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies is amazing and became one of the largest consumers of global computing power.

Recently, TSMC, a finer from semiconductors from Taiwan, published a report on sales in the last quarter of 2017. TSMC is the world’s largest manufacturer of semiconductors and is responsible for around half of the global production of chips. In order for a trend in the balance sheets of such a large company, it must be huge.

Compared to the previous quarter, TSMC revenue rose by around 10 percent to $ 9.2 billion. The company’s financial director, Lora Ho, said that growth in the fourth quarter was primarily based on “the start of large mobile products and a still strong demand from cryptocurrency miners”. HO also expects the miners to revenue for 2018.

According to a tweet of the financial analyst James Wang, Bitcoin mining manufacturer Bitmain has now ordered more wafer at TSMC than Nvidia, one of the world’s largest manufacturers of graphics cards. Bitmain is by far the largest producer of ASIC miners. These are chips that are specially built for mining. As reported by the Magazin Quartz, TSMC took $ 350-400 million through the ASIC-Miner in the third quarter of 2017.

At the Scaling Bitcoin Workshop in Stanford, Chen Min said that around $ 5 billion is invested in the mining annually. The semiconductor smithy TSMC is likely to receive a considerable part of these income. Min said around 5 percent of global chip production go into the mining. After the turbulent last quarter of the year and the further exploding demand for mining chips, one could speculate whether this number is not still too low.

The values ​​mentioned so far only refer to the Asics. One should not forget that many cryptocurrencies are not generated with ASICs, but with graphics cards. Ethereum, for example. Therefore, part of the chips produced by TSMC for Nvidia is also used for mining. As we have already reported, the boom in the GPU-capable cryptocurrencies led to good graphics cards here and there are sold out.

For the manufacturers of the graphics cards, this has its advantages and disadvantages. Sure, it is good if the demand increases. Both NVIDIA and AMD – which mastered the market for graphics cards together – had sales higher in the last quarter of 2017 than the companies themselves expected. Nvidia’s share price has risen rapidly with the courses of cryptocurrencies since 2016.

But since this demand is trend -dependent and would quickly fall asleep again with a crash from Ethereum, the high proportion of miners among customers is a risk. An analyst assumes that many customers buy the graphics cards for gaminig, but then only about 5 percent of the time actually use to play and let them mine cryptocurrencies for the rest of the time, so that the graphics cards themselves pay off themselves. The boom of cryptocurrencies has thus raised the demand for expensive high -performance graphics cards. For Ethereum alone, graphics cards were bought for half a billion euros in the last quarter alone, the analyst estimates.

This is not good news for gamers. Not only that the ASIC-MINER occupies the limited capacities of the semiconductor factories-the GPU miners also buy the coveted graphics cards from the market in masses. As the PCGames hardware reports, this trend continues. In the last months of last year, the prices of several mining-compatible graphics cards-such as the Radeon RX series from AMD or Nvidias GTX cards have increased significantly.

Nevertheless, miners buy the graphics cards dozen or hundred times. Almost every online shop for hardware knows the large orders of the mining farms. For example, miners from Eastern Europe order hundreds of graphics cards from German online shops because the local markets have long been cleared empty. In order to counteract this, Nvidia has now asked the dealers to ration the graphics cards. Only a limited amount of cards should be published per customer and order.

According to PCGAMES hardware, shops such as Alternate, Caseking, Mindfactory or Mix have already implemented the specifications. You can only purchase two graphics cards of the same type each of the orders. However, you will have to see whether such a voluntary self-control works or whether you simply make other online shops that do not adhere to you.

In any case, all of this is definitely no longer.

USA imposes sanctions against Bitcoin addresses from two Iranians
Ministry of Finance in the United States, picture of Florian Hirzinge via Wikimedia. License: Creative Commons

Now the time has come: Bitcoins are treated like normal money. The US Ministry of Finance announced yesterday that the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) occupied two Bitcoin addresses with sanctions for the first time. That works at all?

The two addresses now officially sanctioned belong to two Iran citizens, Ali Khorashadizadeh and Mohammad Ghorbaniyan. According to the press release of the Ministry of Finance, the two are accused of having helped to switch bitcoins to Iranian rial. Among them were Bitcoins from two Iranian hackers who were behind the Samam Ransomware, which affected more than 200 computers. Overall, there are more than 7.000 bitcoins worth several million dollars via the two addresses, 149w62AZBOX8FGCMQNSXUSZSTKEQ8C and 1AJZPMSNMPDK2RV9KQNFMURTXINSCVRO9V, and switched to more than 40 stock exchanges for Fiat money.

“The Ministry of Finance is investigating changers of digital currencies that have made it possible to enrich Iranian cypercriminals by ransoms in digital currencies,” explains Sigal Mandelker, who is responsible for the financial minister for terorism and financial intelligence agencies. “Since Iran is increasingly isolated and desperately looking for access to US dollar, it is essential that stock exchanges for virtual currencies, peer-to-peer money changer and other providers of services in this area strengthen your networks against such criminal machinations.“The Bitcoin addresses are published,“ to identify criminal actors in the area of ​​digital currencies. The tax office will aggressively pursue Iran and other villain regimes if they take advantage of digital currencies and weaknesses in cyber security and in measures against money laundering to continue their shameful activities.”

The Ministry of Finance for the first time relies Bitcoin addresses on a public blacklist. While sanctions in conventional banking lead to the fact that it becomes more or less impossible to send money to the relevant parties, sanctions of Bitcoin addresses are initially ineffective. Because no sanction can prevent a private user from sending a transaction to an address with his wallet. In fact, several small transactions have been on the addresses of the two Iranians since yesterday, which were probably drawn in protest against the sanctions.

Digital currencies dampen the effectiveness of sanctions without a doubt. However, the US Ministry of finance can exert pressure in any other way. In this way, it is obliged to identify and in the countries – and in the countries on which the United States has an impact – to identify and freeze credit that are connected to these addresses. “It is a result of today’s action,” according to the press release, “that people who are associated with transactions with Khorashadizadeh and Ghorbaniyan may be the goal of secondary sanctions.”

According to the FAQ to sanctions, which have now been expanded to include a part of digital currencies, transactions in digital currencies are subject to the same editions as transactions in fiat currencies: US citizens must ensure that they are blocking transactions of individuals that are directly or indirectly on the list of OFAC and do not operate with them. It is also forbidden to support these people financially, material or technically. Exchange and payment service providers are asked to develop tailor -made technical solutions, which means that they have to spy on the transactions of customers in order to ensure that they are not related to addresses sanctioned by the USA.

This begins a process that has been predicted for Bitcoin for a long time: Blacklisting begins, the fungability breaks. One coin is not like the other, but depending on the origin. Coins that are related to the addresses of the two Iranians will be much more difficult to sell than clean coins, as there will hardly be a regulated stock exchange that they accept. Unlike in banking, such sanctions are relatively easy to avoid or invalidate, for example by using several addresses, mixers or other coins. The fact that the two Iranians have always taken the same address to wash money also shows that they have relatively manageable knowledge of matter. It will be an exciting question of the near future whether and how it is possible under these circumstances that the United States will maintain its financial sanctions against competent users. According to current research results, there are instruments in the area of ​​virtual currencies, which block chain analysts present with great challenges.

It should be no less exciting to observe how Bitcoin develops in Iran. As the Ministry of Finance correctly states, the country has been continuously isolated by international financial sanctions, especially since Swift has separated the country from the most important payment network in the world. The result is that Bitcoins and other digital currencies are becoming increasingly important in order to supply the economy. The consequences of this policy are noticeable for more and more stock exchanges and Iranians. So recently Binance, one of the world’s largest crypto exchanges based in Malta, asked its customers from Iran to deduct the credit because their account will soon be closed. According to a blockchain activist from Iran, such news has become more and more excited since the United States has tightened the sanctions against the country. In addition to Binance Blockeren also Bittrex and Bitmex users from Iran.

This means that Bitcoin is again heading for a conflict that was actually programmed into the digital currency right from the start. It will be shown whether the United States succeeds in checking the currency – and how it will react if this is not possible.

Segwit2x Alpha release – more than 75 percent of the blocks already ready

Last Friday Jeff Garzik published the Alpha version of Segwit2x. After all pools involved in the agreement signal approval with their blocks, the upgrade has already had more than 75 percent of the hashrate behind it. The activation of Segwit seems certain – while the associated hardfork is not yet in dry cloths.

On Friday, Jeff Garzik announced the Alpha-Release from Segwit2x via the Segwit2X mailing list. So far, the client has only existed on Github, there is no executable installation file yet.

As explains, the official “branch” of the release is. This contains the code for increasing the basic blocksize to 2MB and Segwit activation BIP91. Now, according to the same, it is going to test. According to the plan, Segwit2x should start at the end of July. Then the following will happen:

When Segwit2x reaches a support of 80 percent of the Hashrates in a period of 336 blocks, the Softfork 336 blocks will later be activated on all Segwit2x nodes. These clients will then start the signaling on Bit1 to support the old core nodes, which are waiting for a threshold of 95 percent with BIP141.

Either on 21. September or 12.960 blocks-about 3 months-after the Segwit activation, the SEGWIT2X NODES will automatically increase the blockweight limit from 4 to 8 MB and thus into a basic blocksize of 2MB Forsken. When the Hardfork reaches 75 percent of the hashpower, it will force any other knot in the network to upgrade to a SEGWIT2X compatible client.

Four days after the alpha release it looks very good with the support of the miners. All big pools, Bitfury, Antpool, F2Pool, BTC.TOP, VIABTC, BIXIN, BTCC signal support for Segwit. However, they have only been writing “NYA” in Coinbase transaction instead of actually driving the real activation of Segwit with the Bit version. This will probably happen in the middle of July when Segwit2x has been tested in detail.

When the time comes, Segwit will be activated within about a week. Then everyone can start using the new transaction format. So far, implementation in the wallets has not yet been resounding, but the rather uncomplicated handling of the Trezor Wallet with Segwit at Litecoin gives hope that the changeover can also run smoothly.

After the upgrade to Segwit, there is no guarantee that the participants in the New York agreement will continue to use Segwit2x. There is also no guarantee that sufficient other companies and users to go along to prevent the fork from becoming a disaster. The Hardfork is completely the integrity of the miners and companies involved.

It can be assumed that the disputes that we have seen for a long time will continue after Segwit is activated. The Core developers reject the 2MB Hardfork almost unanimously because it happens too quickly to test them sufficiently. If the Segwit2x working group does not succeed in convincing the influential Core developers, it should be difficult to obtain a majority from miners, companies, investors and users, as it will be necessary for a seamless hardfork. As soon as the support of the Hardfork is crumbling among the participants of the agreement, it could quickly happen that it no longer takes place.

Bitfury strengthens links to the US state by appointing Brian Fors to the advisor

The one with chairman and previous consultant to the White House, Brian Forde, joins the plank of Bitfury’s consultant-a Bitcoins firm that already has connections with the US authorities. While most people know Bitfury as a miners, the company has developed into a prosperous full-service bitcoin bureau.

At the end of November, Bitfury announced that Brian Forse may become added to the counselors’ committee. In addition to the usual news of this communication(” We Are Delighted” etc. ) highlights this officers that Bitfury has become one of the most fascinating, best-financed and best connected Bitcoins corporation.

In the bitcoin landscape, Brian Forse is anything but an unfamiliar individual. He was the director of the Digital Currency Initiative at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology ( with ). That with Media Lab is one of the most critical facilities in Bitcoins growth. It finances the job of Bitcoin Core Maintainer Van der Laan and the Core engineer Cory Fields and Gavin Andresen. The standing of Andresen is now undisclosed.

With all of this, this tries to independence. It is not known that the university would ever have an stance regarding Bitcoins method creation. However, there was aggressive condemnation for the Chainanchor working team, which develops a plan to bind transactions on identities and even regard to reward the Bitcoin Miner to minel merely justified transactions.

At least as important as the position of with will have been his contacts in the White House for Brian Forde’s appointment on the board of Bitfury. Because you will not find a company in Bitcoin-Land, which has made it as much as Bitfury to be a strategy, to feel with the US government. Not only that the company is a seat in Washington D. C. maintains and carried out some projects with governments. She also included several former government and government advisors to her team.

Bitfury’s “Global Chief Communication Officer ” Jamie Elizabeth Smith is most famous. Smith was formerly the President’s spokeswoman, deputy press officer of the White House and press director for Hillary Clinton’s campaign 2008. The representative, Sam Youngman recently provided to her, is also likely to be known in government circles. ” Youngman is an experienced political reporter in the White House with more than 15 years of experience,” said the press release for his attitude in mid -October.

Further connections to the government can be found in the consultant board. Jason Weinstein is a former deputy general lawyer of the crime department of the Ministry of Justice; Tomicah Tillman was a speech writer for Hillary Clinton and is now director of the Bretton Woods II program of the political Think Tank New American; The Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto is one of the most influential economic advisors of the governments of emerging countries; and Jim Newsome was the chairman of the U. S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

And what does all of this tell us, except that it is a unique selling point from Bitfury?

If you love conspiracy theories, you can of course spin the story from this how the US government infiltrates Bitcoin. If you want, you can still decorate this story through a picture that the Bitfury Team shows how NSA director Michael Roger meets Global Leadership Summit in New York three years ago. In a way, as a taxpayer you can even expect your own government to try to put your fingers in such an exciting, valuable and important phenomenon like Bitcoin.

A request to the press department, which is why Bitfury collects ex-government employees, unfortunately remained unanswered. But I assume that better than a conspiracy theory applies the simple fact that these personal details for Bitfury’s business status make sense. Because governments are clearly part of the target group of Bitfury.

The company is actually known as the manufacturer of mining hardware. With its own ASIC chips, Bitfury is one of the largest miners in the world and represents 10 percent of the global hashrates. According to rumors, Bitfury was behind the Pool Ghash. Io, which in 2014 was the most powerful pool in the world and briefly reached more than 50 percent of the global hashrate.

In fact, Bitfury has long since developed beyond a mining company. According to its own description, Bitfury is a “full service blockchain technology company”. The company has received$ 90 million investment capital-and is therefore one of the four best-financed companies in the crypto area. With this capital, Bitfury has developed a wide range of services that include, for example, Blockchain Data Mining ( to calculate a risk scoring for transactions and to break anonymity and mixer ), blockchain asset and registration of land rights and possession on the blockchain.

With this portfolio, Bitfury is incredibly successful. Alone what the company has achieved this year is impressed- and possibly demonstrated how useful political contacts are for business. In April the company began a project with the government of Georgia to design and implement” a blockchain-based land right system. “ In September, Bitfury presented a presentation at the annual meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative. In November, Bitfury became a member of a blockchain working group of the World Economic Forum, in which she will work with Thomas Hendrik, ex-President of Estonia, Ma Jun from the Chinese Central Bank and many other important personalities. And in the same month Bitfury signed a deal with the consultants from Ernst and Young ( EY ) to develop software for the customers of EY.

The mining, it seems, was only the door opener for Bitfury. The company is a prime example of how a Bitcoin company can develop from the Miner to Full Service Provider.

Astroturfing, sock dolls, trolls and shills: The big symbol attack on democracy

There is currently an attack on democratic discourses. Troll armies poison the atmosphere in social media, polarize the debates, stir up hatred and make citizens a warrior of faith. Unfortunately, the trolle’s campaign against reason is extremely successful. 

Do you remember how you went online for the first time? With almost all people I know, it went off right away. At some point in the middle school, in the 90s, we were allowed to go online in the school’s computer room. We are in a chat room, gave ourselves a fantasy name … and have trapped!

That you are anonymous on the Internet and that you can do what you call “trolls” today without real consequences is not a bug, but a feature. I am convinced that in addition to sex photos, emails and files sharing, this was the most important reason why the internet was such a success.

However, it currently looks like trolls are being destroyed by democracy. And that is not an exaggeration, but just as it is as written.

The troll in the cage

That you trolled is a natural mindset of people. Anyone who has ever increased in a relationship dispute or a political discussion knows that. There is only one, your own side, everything else is wrong and stupid and mean, and you want to be right again.

Usually communication is a tool of communication. For people in Troll mode, however, it is a weapon in a conflict. People in Troll mode are a little like lawyers (who do not argue to find a truth, but to enforce their truth), but angry, excessive and randomless. Imagine that you sit down at a table in a restaurant, duck the people who are sitting there, a discussion about the problems of the Fiat money, and when someone thinks he has to defend the euro, then you will be bought as stupid, naive or by the government!

In real life there are mechanisms that force us to suppress our troll. At least as long as we are sober. The physical closeness of the others – their smell, their facial expressions, their voice – makes us empathetic, the knowledge of having to stand with the name and face for what is said, is necessary to follow a social conventions and to communicate in a communication -oriented manner.

In real life, our troll is somewhat under control. And that is the basis for people with different opinions to be discussed and agree at the end. Democracy does not work without communication -oriented communication.

Trolls and faith warriors

On the net, where you do not have to look the other in the eye and do not have to justify yourself with real names for what has been said, you can let your inner troll out against it. You can knock your opinion out regardless of social conventions.

In an interview with ZEIT ONLINE, the Austrian author Ingrid Brodning explains that it distinguishes between trolls and faith warriors. “The group of trolls tries to bring people to the palm, rage or despair. Trolls see themselves as intellectuals who manage to mislead or manipulate people. It is a rather small but very successful group that is often driven by sadism.“Warriors, on the other hand, see“ in an information war and in their worldview so much in the right that they are willing to cross ethical borders.”

The distinction between trolls and warriors is important because they take a look at social mechanisms in forums. Trolls manipulate specifically and deliberately, while faith warriors think that they are in law. A handful of trolls can manipulate communities and spend on formerly friendly people and feed with “truths” until they become warriors.

However, in my opinion, Brodning defines trolls too narrow. The word is already used, and it affects both the sadistic, cold trolls mentioned by Brodning as well as the emotional, warm faith warriors. If you reduce “trolling behavior” to the psycho-pathological, one helps those who don’t want you to contradict them.

Trolls are not only bad. They bring diversity in the uniform porridge of opinions. It is not possible at all to stand against the majority in a forum without becoming a troll. Every socially critical artist “trolls”. What were Christoph Schlingensief and Klaus Kinski other than master trolls?

The big problem with the trolls is not that they troll because they feel like it – but that they are increasingly trolling because they are paid for it. The problem is also not that trolls are intrusive with their own opinion – but that they spread the narrative that a spind doctor develops to manipulate debates and make decent people into faith warriors.

Trolls in themselves are nothing more than an image of human emotions. Sometimes they are annoying, sometimes funny, but on the whole harmless. Troll factories, on the other hand, that produce and indoctrinate trolls are an attack on the free public discussion online. You are a symbol attack on democracy itself.

The many faces of Sybil

The sybil attack was discovered in the 90s by a Microsoft scientist. He found that every decentralized network can be attacked by forming many nodes (identities). The researcher called the attack Sybil because he had read a book by doing Sybil, a woman suffering from schizophrenia who had several personalities. By specifying an attacker not only one but many, but many, he can attack decentralized network. The only defense is a central authority.

In fact, Bitcoin is the first decentralized network that can defend itself against sybil attacks. This is the role of the miners. They prove their unique identity through computing power. You can do accounts in forums and falsifications, but no computer performance.

In the past, in the good old days of print journalism, newspapers took over the role of the miners in public discourse newspapers. They were gatekeeper, decided what information is presented to the readers in which context. Not all, but most of the journalists were both technically and ethically well prepared for this job and brought enough idealism to perform this task as well and responsibly as possible.

Today print journalism has lost much of its meaning. There are still the editorial offices, from time, mirrors, taz, star and so on. But they look more and more like small elite circles in their ivory tower who have lost contact with the real world of real readers. The public discussion is less and less shaped by journalists, but by … trolls!

Sock dolls in astroturfing

You probably know the concept of the sock doll. This describes the practice of simply making many different accounts in social forums in order to give more weight to his opinion. Sock doll propaganda is the absolute classic of the sybil attacks on communication.

In itself, this instrument is older than the Internet. In English there is the word “astroturfing”. It literally means the laying of artificial turf, but above all refers to the tactics that “few people pretend to be the large number of activists who arise for a specific cause”. An artificial lawn is laid – a grass root movement is staged. By not flooding the editorial offices with letters to the editor, commenting articles, writes blogs, loving on Facebook and so on, they can give them the impression of speaking “for the majority”.

For example, the Deutsche Bahn was incorrectly noticed in the debates about privatization and the train driver strike. According to the LobbyControll organization, the railway has hired several PR agencies and thinking factories that allegedly raised neutral websites, carried out polls with manipulative questions, and have drummed under articles and blog posts for the “correct perspective”. Privatization well, strike the train drivers evil.

The train is just one example. Microsoft was also caught in astroturfing, and it is known that the PR agency Edelman wanted to raise an alleged grass root movement Pro-Pipeline and Pro oil for the Canadian Transcanada. You could still find hundreds of examples.

Sock doll’s astroturfing is one of the dirtiest, but also most effective marketing tricks. You take a few students, create a handful of accounts on Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, Amazon and the relevant forums, maybe buy a few old, proven and unobtrusive accounts. Then the good news is trumpeted by your own product to the world. With a few tricks you stay unobtrusive and give the impression that the majority have behind them. Works better than any commercial.

Troll armies

Governments have also discovered the sock dolls and trolls as a propaganda instrument. Maybe even more and more determined than companies. Numerous governments are suspected of maintaining Troll armies.

In Russia there are Trolls from Olgino. According to internal documents published by Hackern, the Russian Internet Research Agency had more than 600 employees across Russia and a budget of $ 10 million. The employees should post at least 50 comments under articles a day. Some wrote blogs, had to manage six Facebook accounts and publish at least 3 posts a day. On Twitter you have at least 10 accounts with which you have to tweet 50 times a day. They rave about the net to praise for blogs on blogs under YouTube videos and so on Wladimir Putin’s politics and to cover its critics with abdominal campaigns.

In China there is the Internet Water Army: “A group of internet ghostwriters that are paid to post comments with certain content online … Anyone who writes something critical about the government is likely to be overwhelmed with insults from people who are pretending to be ordinary citizens who are upset about the abuse against the fatherland.”

According to reports, Turkey has a 6 in 2013.000 men strong social media team founded. This decision was made by Erdogan’s AKP after people had allied themselves through social media to protest in the Gezi park. The AKP recruited a team of 6.000 representatives for social media. “We want to establish a positive political language,” explained a party to a party at the time, “and if the opposing camp scatters disinformation about the party, how to correct with correct information, always in a positive language.“In fact, according to the Guardian, the social media soldiers from Erdogan were a bit overzealous. “In the following months it became common for those who only carefully criticize the government to have a stream of answers that were anything but positive. Often the slander came in masses, from people with strange profiles that brought accusations that were not only bizzar, but also bizzar.”

Of course, the United States should not be missing in this list. In 2008 the Obama consultant Cass Sunstein wrote a report in which he recommended to the government to infiltrate social networks in order to discredit conspiracy theories: “Governments could (legal) use tactics to break the dense cognitive clusters of extremist theories … a promising tactic is to infiltrate such extremist groups … The government and its allies can enter chat rooms, social networks, or groups in real space, and try to undermine conspiracy theories by expressing doubts … “

With the “Operation Mockingbird”, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) tries to influence the media. “The program developed into media control by using the Internet to sprinkle every propaganda that is useful in the current political climate,” writes Amercan Intelligence Report. Agents created fake user accounts on Facebook, Twitter and Co., To spread ideologies with which she was briefed. Every agent allegedly has 10 “Shill Accounts” to create the illusion that he has a network of friends.

Shills

Probably the simplest, most common and simplest sock doll in astroturfing is the “Shill”. Shills are jubilee, so to speak,. They cheer for a product, give good reviews on Amazon and anywhere else, praise the government and its politics, and so on. The web is probably full of commercial and government -related Shills. But they are difficult to recognize. What distinguishes someone who is actually enthusiastic about being enthusiastic about someone who is paid for it? What separates an overzealous fan from a shill?

Shills’s goal is to give the impression that there is an enthusiastic amount. For a product for a politician. Ideally, the Shill transforms other users who are just enthusiastic, even into Shills. He can do this, for example, by stating that the whole country is under an external attack and that patriotic citizens now have to hold together. Good Shills can transform an entire forum into an echo chamber in which everyone agrees, how great this thing is.

Shills play an enormous role in the election campaign.

Bloomberg reports on the election in Mexico, in which an agent with a budget of 600.$ $ “Manipulated social media to create false waves of enthusiasm.“The same agent had already contributed to campaigns in Nicaragua, Panaama, Hondur, El Salvador, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala and Venezuela.

We find the most extreme examples in the USA again. A filmmaker secretly recorded a training session of Tea Party members in which they were taught to manipulate media. The coach said: “I’m going on Amazon; I give a ‘liberal books’. I go through it and say ‘a star, a star, a star’. Conversely, I go to conservative / libertarians, go to their products, and give them five stars … Here your children get their information: Rotten Tomatoes, Flixster. These are places where you can rate films. So we go there, enter ‘films about health’, and since I don’t want Michael Moore to be above, I give him a bad rating. I spend 30 minutes a day, just click, click, click, click … “

There are reports of how the Clinton campaign team in 2008 celebrated in comments in newspapers with the IP address of the headquarters-Hillary in comments. In the 2016 election campaign, Shills and sock dolls were probably the order of the day. Political forums are already cheating that almost only paid Shills are discussing each other. In addition to very many assumptions, there are also some evidence of campaign shills.

After Hillary Clinton was apparently attacked in the primaries in the primary, she has commissioned an agency to start a counter -campaign: “The Barrier Breakers 2016 Digial Task Force will be a resource for supporters who are looking for positive content and want to share them in their communities.“In addition, the Task Force should ward off attacks on social media such as Twitter, Facebook, Reddit and Instagram.

On Reddit we have some users who tell you to have been a hillary shill. Of course, this could also be a Trump troll that wanted to slander Hillary. But let’s read what you report. One tells:

I am now officially a former ‘Digital Media Specialist’ (a friendly name for ‘paid internet troll’), which was employed by Hillary Clinton’s campaign (via a PR company) … First, the work was fun and was largely insurmountable. I posted positive things about Hillary ..

Another who does not call his client reports:

I go to an office six days a week. There are about 20 of us … I break the comments and search for our politician’s mentions. You give us a script. When a comment says, we say B. If a comment calls’ the accidental thing x ‘, we answer with vague counter positions, how we can call our candidate’ authentic ‘or say what he has achieved so far’.

Troll

While Shills do what an AKP member recommends-develop a positive language-trolls are the dark counterpart. Trolls do not promote their own product, but reveal the competition; Troll not only cheer for your own candidate, but also destroy the opponent’s reputation. Troll does not explain the party’s policy in kind words, but accuse critics of the politics of a lack of patriotism. And so forth.

The debates make trolls ugly. An apparently commercial paid Troll tells Reddit as he tries to clear undesirable opinions:

We try to identify the key figures on social media and their influence and then to isolate them. Once we have the key figures, let’s see who swims with them – people who read their posts but are less influential themselves. We then either start a flame with bots to disturb the conversation that affects people (think of nonsense posts about interruptions and such), or we send specific tasks to sock dolls (change the wording of an idea, cause an ideological split, etc.))). The goal is to fragment opinions that we do not want and prevent them from flowing together in a single voice ..

The “Shills” from the US election campaign also apply troll tactics. The confessed Hillary-Shill tells how these tactics have disgusted:

At some point in mid-July, however, I received a message that our team no longer focused on Pro Hillary forums, but on the ‘defusing’ of a senator from Vermont Bernie Sanders.

We received very specific instructions on how and what we should post, and I was stunned what I saw. The tone and approach was completely changed, and it was extremely disgusting ..

The Clinton shills should try to destroy Bernie Sanders Reputation. Sanders should be represented as a “old white male relic”, “with the conviction that it enjoys women, to be raped.“Anyone who contradicted this characterization should immediately be insulted as a sexist. Bernie should also be described as a racist, and should be insignificant. “All of these posts that Sanders can never win and Hillary is inevitable? Some of them were deliberately written by us to demoralize the Bernie fans … “

Trolls try to destroy the reputation of their enemies by repeating the same smells, defamation and abuse over and over again. Until even those who are on the side of the defamed people cannot help but see the defamation as an implicit fact.

Troll tactics

The confessed shill with an unnamed client also tells how he switches from Shill to troll tactics when he encounters resistance in a discussion:

We even have a script what to do if the other commentator gains the discussion. We were explained exactly how we let the discussion derail, throw around us and finally accuse the others of being a conspiracy theorist and aluhut carrier. In this way, everyone who read the discussion could see that these negative points are connected to people with crazy people.

When trolls discuss, they not only aim at their discussion partner, but want to impress the quiet reader. If you go out the arguments, you almost always try to insult your opponent.

Dirty troll tactics often occur. The repetition of insults is one of the most common. An ex-employee of the Russian Troll Army tells in the Guardian that it was her task to “attack the opponents of the Russian government.“Barack Obama is repeatedly called“ monkey ”by the Russia trolls. In some cases, defaming photos were also assembled by the President of Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko. If there were uprisings of colored people in the USA, the trolls were instructed to spread that the US politics had failed and the “negro” rebelled. Another important topic is Ukraine. The trolls always talked about the “Kiev Junta”, which lets women and children shoot.

How targeted governments use troll tactics to manipulate public perception also emerges from the Snowden Leaks. Glenn Greenwald reports in The Intercept how the British secret service GCHQ trained the secret unit Jtrig. He relies on presentations and paper from the Snowden documents. The unit is trained to destroy the reputation of people.

Under the self-mentioned procedures of Jtrig are two tactics: (1) inject all kinds of false material on the Internet to destroy the reputation of the goal, and (2) use social sciences and other techniques to manipulate online discourses so that you have the desired result.

Among the tactics you can find “False Flag Operation”-material on the Internet and incorrectly assigned to someone else-false victim blog posts (blogs that pretend to be a victim of someone whose reputation should be destroyed) and the post of “negative information” in different forums.

In addition to such tactics of reputation destruction, trolls have many strategy ready. A popular variant is the “Concern Troll”, which pretends to be on your side and wants you to discuss the concerns. The rational wiki describes him as follows:

A usual tactic of Concern Trolls is the ‘The plague is in both houses’ approach, in which the Concern troll tries to convince people that both sides are equally bad for an ideological split, and that nobody can call themselves ‘correctly’, but is in endless trap. He appeals to the willingness to discuss criticism and allow dissent; He wastes the time of everyone to discuss one topic again and again, before and back so as not to be intolerant against other opinions. Everything for the great joy of the troll.

What trolls do

It would be nice if you could just ignore trolls. But you can’t. Because they have an effect. Consciously or unconsciously. The study “The ” ‘Nasty Effect:’ ’Online Inciability and Risk Perceptions of Emerging Technologies” examined how “rudeness” influences the opinion of “Lurkern” – persons who read discussions but do not contribute to them -.

The researchers examined the effects of troll dynamics in the context of nanotechnology. This is an interesting area, “because it is a largely unfamiliar topic that offers a rare opportunity to observe the formation and development of settings. The majority of the public has no clear understanding of nanotechnology and tends to use mental abbreviations to form an opinion.”

The participants in the study had to read a blog post about nanosilber, which explained the associated risks and advantages. “Each participant was shown one of the processed versions that differed in the comments under the post.“There were polite and rude comments. “An rude comment started: ‘If you do not recognize the advantages of nanotechnology in products, you are an idiot’.”

Then the participants were asked about their attitude to nanosilber. The result was that “the rude blog comments contributed to polarizing the risk assessment … especially among the participants, the nanotechnology seized, the ranging comments were exposed to, much more to regard the technology as risky. Religious individuals also tended to consider nanotechnology to be risky if they were exposed to rude comments.”

The actual blog article was neutral. But above all, the rude commentators managed to produce polarizing opinions using the article. “The results of our study suggest that the perception of science in online blogs is not only as ‘top-down information’, but also through other polite or rude points of view. The Internet also gives the laypersons and rude individuals a voice.”

A symbol attack on democracy

So polarize trolls. They attach to people who post and slander them online. They create a wrong picture of the majority. They link unpleasant opinions with poor properties. They put conspiracy theories, fake news and fake pictures in the world.

The troll armies, which are currently populating the entire Internet and undermine every sensible debate, make democracy impossible on the net. You cannot form a political opinion in forums and comment columns, since you are constantly exposed to attempts at manipulation. Nobody can defend themselves against continuous manipulation. And nobody knows if you are dealing with sock doll trolls or real people.

Either you are with the trolls or against them. Either way, the trolls force people to choose one side. They polarize and they spray poison and hatred into every discussion. They make an agreement of the different camps difficult in discussions; They make people who previously had a polite but clear opinion that warriors. Trolls rush communities.

The trolls are the archetypes of the so -called “post -factual age”, which is currently breathing. The phrase appointed as the word of the year 2016 focuses on “a profound political change”, according to the Society for German Language. The artificial word post -factic “points out that political and social discussions are increasingly about emotions instead of facts today. In their reluctance against ‘those up there’, ever larger sections of the population are willing to ignore facts and even to accept obvious lies.”

In other words, even if hundreds of false reports about raping, murdering, plumbing and rumbling refugees are refuted, the anger of concerned citizens, which has been fueled by trolls for too long, remains. The truth does not arrive against the emotions that are fueled by trolls. A warrior of faith is immune to facts.

Are people overwhelmed? Do you have lost the ability to argue with each other in the United States, Great Britain, Germany, Russia and Turkey? Suddenly everyone got into a “post -factual” state of the senseless anger “against the one up there”, which tempt them to choose autocrats and to step against “the down there”? Against the refugees, the social welfare recipients, the Kurds, the Mexicans?

People probably remained the same. What has changed is the discussion. The troll generations have learned, the states have increased their troll armies, the years of the sybil attack on the discussion and democracy show their effect. The debates are poisoned. The tolerance was broken down, the camps polarized. All of this plays into the hands of the autocrats. The Erdogans, Putin, perhaps the Trumps, perhaps the concerned, xenophobic citizens from Saxony and the deer or police officers hunting imperial citizens from Bavaria.

It is not a conspiracy theory that such a sybil attack takes place of professional trolls. It’s a fact. If humanity does not learn to deal with it, this attack can destroy democracy.

Ledger is the most private wallet, Bitcoin-Qt somewhere in midfield

The Bitcoin calendar for 2020

Astroturfing, sock dolls, trolls and shills: The big symbol attack on democracy

There is currently an attack on democratic discourses. Troll armies poison the atmosphere in social media, polarize the debates, stir up hatred and make citizens a warrior of faith. Unfortunately, the trolle’s campaign against reason is extremely successful. 

Do you remember how you went online for the first time? With almost all people I know, it went off right away. At some point in the middle school, in the 90s, we were allowed to go online in the school’s computer room. We are in a chat room, gave ourselves a fantasy name … and have trapped!

That you are anonymous on the Internet and that you can do what you call “trolls” today without real consequences is not a bug, but a feature. I am convinced that in addition to sex photos, emails and files sharing, this was the most important reason why the internet was such a success.

However, it currently looks like trolls are being destroyed by democracy. And that is not an exaggeration, but just as it is as written.

The troll in the cage

That you trolled is a natural mindset of people. Anyone who has ever increased in a relationship dispute or a political discussion knows that. There is only one, your own side, everything else is wrong and stupid and mean, and you want to be right again.

Usually communication is a tool of communication. For people in Troll mode, however, it is a weapon in a conflict. People in Troll mode are a little like lawyers (who do not argue to find a truth, but to enforce their truth), but angry, excessive and randomless. Imagine that you sit down at a table in a restaurant, duck the people who are sitting there, a discussion about the problems of the Fiat money, and when someone thinks he has to defend the euro, then you will be bought as stupid, naive or by the government!

In real life there are mechanisms that force us to suppress our troll. At least as long as we are sober. The physical closeness of the others – their smell, their facial expressions, their voice – makes us empathetic, the knowledge of having to stand with the name and face for what is said, is necessary to follow a social conventions and to communicate in a communication -oriented manner.

In real life, our troll is somewhat under control. And that is the basis for people with different opinions to be discussed and agree at the end. Democracy does not work without communication -oriented communication.

Trolls and faith warriors

On the net, where you do not have to look the other in the eye and do not have to justify yourself with real names for what has been said, you can let your inner troll out against it. You can knock your opinion out regardless of social conventions.

In an interview with ZEIT ONLINE, the Austrian author Ingrid Brodning explains that it distinguishes between trolls and faith warriors. “The group of trolls tries to bring people to the palm, rage or despair. Trolls see themselves as intellectuals who manage to mislead or manipulate people. It is a rather small but very successful group that is often driven by sadism.“Warriors, on the other hand, see“ in an information war and in their worldview so much in the right that they are willing to cross ethical borders.”

The distinction between trolls and warriors is important because they take a look at social mechanisms in forums. Trolls manipulate specifically and deliberately, while faith warriors think that they are in law. A handful of trolls can manipulate communities and spend on formerly friendly people and feed with “truths” until they become warriors.

However, in my opinion, Brodning defines trolls too narrow. The word is already used, and it affects both the sadistic, cold trolls mentioned by Brodning as well as the emotional, warm faith warriors. If you reduce “trolling behavior” to the psycho-pathological, one helps those who don’t want you to contradict them.

Trolls are not only bad. They bring diversity in the uniform porridge of opinions. It is not possible at all to stand against the majority in a forum without becoming a troll. Every socially critical artist “trolls”. What were Christoph Schlingensief and Klaus Kinski other than master trolls?

The big problem with the trolls is not that they troll because they feel like it – but that they are increasingly trolling because they are paid for it. The problem is also not that trolls are intrusive with their own opinion – but that they spread the narrative that a spind doctor develops to manipulate debates and make decent people into faith warriors.

Trolls in themselves are nothing more than an image of human emotions. Sometimes they are annoying, sometimes funny, but on the whole harmless. Troll factories, on the other hand, that produce and indoctrinate trolls are an attack on the free public discussion online. You are a symbol attack on democracy itself.

The many faces of Sybil

The sybil attack was discovered in the 90s by a Microsoft scientist. He found that every decentralized network can be attacked by forming many nodes (identities). The researcher called the attack Sybil because he had read a book by doing Sybil, a woman suffering from schizophrenia who had several personalities. By specifying an attacker not only one but many, but many, he can attack decentralized network. The only defense is a central authority.

In fact, Bitcoin is the first decentralized network that can defend itself against sybil attacks. This is the role of the miners. They prove their unique identity through computing power. You can do accounts in forums and falsifications, but no computer performance.

In the past, in the good old days of print journalism, newspapers took over the role of the miners in public discourse newspapers. They were gatekeeper, decided what information is presented to the readers in which context. Not all, but most of the journalists were both technically and ethically well prepared for this job and brought enough idealism to perform this task as well and responsibly as possible.

Today print journalism has lost much of its meaning. There are still the editorial offices, from time, mirrors, taz, star and so on. But they look more and more like small elite circles in their ivory tower who have lost contact with the real world of real readers. The public discussion is less and less shaped by journalists, but by … trolls!

Sock dolls in astroturfing

You probably know the concept of the sock doll. This describes the practice of simply making many different accounts in social forums in order to give more weight to his opinion. Sock doll propaganda is the absolute classic of the sybil attacks on communication.

In itself, this instrument is older than the Internet. In English there is the word “astroturfing”. It literally means the laying of artificial turf, but above all refers to the tactics that “few people pretend to be the large number of activists who arise for a specific cause”. An artificial lawn is laid – a grass root movement is staged. By not flooding the editorial offices with letters to the editor, commenting articles, writes blogs, loving on Facebook and so on, they can give them the impression of speaking “for the majority”.

For example, the Deutsche Bahn was incorrectly noticed in the debates about privatization and the train driver strike. According to the LobbyControll organization, the railway has hired several PR agencies and thinking factories that allegedly raised neutral websites, carried out polls with manipulative questions, and have drummed under articles and blog posts for the “correct perspective”. Privatization well, strike the train drivers evil.

The train is just one example. Microsoft was also caught in astroturfing, and it is known that the PR agency Edelman wanted to raise an alleged grass root movement Pro-Pipeline and Pro oil for the Canadian Transcanada. You could still find hundreds of examples.

Sock doll’s astroturfing is one of the dirtiest, but also most effective marketing tricks. You take a few students, create a handful of accounts on Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, Amazon and the relevant forums, maybe buy a few old, proven and unobtrusive accounts. Then the good news is trumpeted by your own product to the world. With a few tricks you stay unobtrusive and give the impression that the majority have behind them. Works better than any commercial.

Troll armies

Governments have also discovered the sock dolls and trolls as a propaganda instrument. Maybe even more and more determined than companies. Numerous governments are suspected of maintaining Troll armies.

In Russia there are Trolls from Olgino. According to internal documents published by Hackern, the Russian Internet Research Agency had more than 600 employees across Russia and a budget of $ 10 million. The employees should post at least 50 comments under articles a day. Some wrote blogs, had to manage six Facebook accounts and publish at least 3 posts a day. On Twitter you have at least 10 accounts with which you have to tweet 50 times a day. They rave about the net to praise for blogs on blogs under YouTube videos and so on Wladimir Putin’s politics and to cover its critics with abdominal campaigns.

In China there is the Internet Water Army: “A group of internet ghostwriters that are paid to post comments with certain content online … Anyone who writes something critical about the government is likely to be overwhelmed with insults from people who are pretending to be ordinary citizens who are upset about the abuse against the fatherland.”

According to reports, Turkey has a 6 in 2013.000 men strong social media team founded. This decision was made by Erdogan’s AKP after people had allied themselves through social media to protest in the Gezi park. The AKP recruited a team of 6.000 representatives for social media. “We want to establish a positive political language,” explained a party to a party at the time, “and if the opposing camp scatters disinformation about the party, how to correct with correct information, always in a positive language.“In fact, according to the Guardian, the social media soldiers from Erdogan were a bit overzealous. “In the following months it became common for those who only carefully criticize the government to have a stream of answers that were anything but positive. Often the slander came in masses, from people with strange profiles that brought accusations that were not only bizzar, but also bizzar.”

Of course, the United States should not be missing in this list. In 2008 the Obama consultant Cass Sunstein wrote a report in which he recommended to the government to infiltrate social networks in order to discredit conspiracy theories: “Governments could (legal) use tactics to break the dense cognitive clusters of extremist theories … a promising tactic is to infiltrate such extremist groups … The government and its allies can enter chat rooms, social networks, or groups in real space, and try to undermine conspiracy theories by expressing doubts … “

With the “Operation Mockingbird”, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) tries to influence the media. “The program developed into media control by using the Internet to sprinkle every propaganda that is useful in the current political climate,” writes Amercan Intelligence Report. Agents created fake user accounts on Facebook, Twitter and Co., To spread ideologies with which she was briefed. Every agent allegedly has 10 “Shill Accounts” to create the illusion that he has a network of friends.

Shills

Probably the simplest, most common and simplest sock doll in astroturfing is the “Shill”. Shills are jubilee, so to speak,. They cheer for a product, give good reviews on Amazon and anywhere else, praise the government and its politics, and so on. The web is probably full of commercial and government -related Shills. But they are difficult to recognize. What distinguishes someone who is actually enthusiastic about being enthusiastic about someone who is paid for it? What separates an overzealous fan from a shill?

Shills’s goal is to give the impression that there is an enthusiastic amount. For a product for a politician. Ideally, the Shill transforms other users who are just enthusiastic, even into Shills. He can do this, for example, by stating that the whole country is under an external attack and that patriotic citizens now have to hold together. Good Shills can transform an entire forum into an echo chamber in which everyone agrees, how great this thing is.

Shills play an enormous role in the election campaign.

Bloomberg reports on the election in Mexico, in which an agent with a budget of 600.$ $ “Manipulated social media to create false waves of enthusiasm.“The same agent had already contributed to campaigns in Nicaragua, Panaama, Hondur, El Salvador, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala and Venezuela.

We find the most extreme examples in the USA again. A filmmaker secretly recorded a training session of Tea Party members in which they were taught to manipulate media. The coach said: “I’m going on Amazon; I give a ‘liberal books’. I go through it and say ‘a star, a star, a star’. Conversely, I go to conservative / libertarians, go to their products, and give them five stars … Here your children get their information: Rotten Tomatoes, Flixster. These are places where you can rate films. So we go there, enter ‘films about health’, and since I don’t want Michael Moore to be above, I give him a bad rating. I spend 30 minutes a day, just click, click, click, click … “

There are reports of how the Clinton campaign team in 2008 celebrated in comments in newspapers with the IP address of the headquarters-Hillary in comments. In the 2016 election campaign, Shills and sock dolls were probably the order of the day. Political forums are already cheating that almost only paid Shills are discussing each other. In addition to very many assumptions, there are also some evidence of campaign shills.

After Hillary Clinton was apparently attacked in the primaries in the primary, she has commissioned an agency to start a counter -campaign: “The Barrier Breakers 2016 Digial Task Force will be a resource for supporters who are looking for positive content and want to share them in their communities.“In addition, the Task Force should ward off attacks on social media such as Twitter, Facebook, Reddit and Instagram.

On Reddit we have some users who tell you to have been a hillary shill. Of course, this could also be a Trump troll that wanted to slander Hillary. But let’s read what you report. One tells:

I am now officially a former ‘Digital Media Specialist’ (a friendly name for ‘paid internet troll’), which was employed by Hillary Clinton’s campaign (via a PR company) … First, the work was fun and was largely insurmountable. I posted positive things about Hillary ..

Another who does not call his client reports:

I go to an office six days a week. There are about 20 of us … I break the comments and search for our politician’s mentions. You give us a script. When a comment says, we say B. If a comment calls’ the accidental thing x ‘, we answer with vague counter positions, how we can call our candidate’ authentic ‘or say what he has achieved so far’.

Troll

While Shills do what an AKP member recommends-develop a positive language-trolls are the dark counterpart. Trolls do not promote their own product, but reveal the competition; Troll not only cheer for your own candidate, but also destroy the opponent’s reputation. Troll does not explain the party’s policy in kind words, but accuse critics of the politics of a lack of patriotism. And so forth.

The debates make trolls ugly. An apparently commercial paid Troll tells Reddit as he tries to clear undesirable opinions:

We try to identify the key figures on social media and their influence and then to isolate them. Once we have the key figures, let’s see who swims with them – people who read their posts but are less influential themselves. We then either start a flame with bots to disturb the conversation that affects people (think of nonsense posts about interruptions and such), or we send specific tasks to sock dolls (change the wording of an idea, cause an ideological split, etc.))). The goal is to fragment opinions that we do not want and prevent them from flowing together in a single voice ..

The “Shills” from the US election campaign also apply troll tactics. The confessed Hillary-Shill tells how these tactics have disgusted:

At some point in mid-July, however, I received a message that our team no longer focused on Pro Hillary forums, but on the ‘defusing’ of a senator from Vermont Bernie Sanders.

We received very specific instructions on how and what we should post, and I was stunned what I saw. The tone and approach was completely changed, and it was extremely disgusting ..

The Clinton shills should try to destroy Bernie Sanders Reputation. Sanders should be represented as a “old white male relic”, “with the conviction that it enjoys women, to be raped.“Anyone who contradicted this characterization should immediately be insulted as a sexist. Bernie should also be described as a racist, and should be insignificant. “All of these posts that Sanders can never win and Hillary is inevitable? Some of them were deliberately written by us to demoralize the Bernie fans … “

Trolls try to destroy the reputation of their enemies by repeating the same smells, defamation and abuse over and over again. Until even those who are on the side of the defamed people cannot help but see the defamation as an implicit fact.

Troll tactics

The confessed shill with an unnamed client also tells how he switches from Shill to troll tactics when he encounters resistance in a discussion:

We even have a script what to do if the other commentator gains the discussion. We were explained exactly how we let the discussion derail, throw around us and finally accuse the others of being a conspiracy theorist and aluhut carrier. In this way, everyone who read the discussion could see that these negative points are connected to people with crazy people.

When trolls discuss, they not only aim at their discussion partner, but want to impress the quiet reader. If you go out the arguments, you almost always try to insult your opponent.

Dirty troll tactics often occur. The repetition of insults is one of the most common. An ex-employee of the Russian Troll Army tells in the Guardian that it was her task to “attack the opponents of the Russian government.“Barack Obama is repeatedly called“ monkey ”by the Russia trolls. In some cases, defaming photos were also assembled by the President of Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko. If there were uprisings of colored people in the USA, the trolls were instructed to spread that the US politics had failed and the “negro” rebelled. Another important topic is Ukraine. The trolls always talked about the “Kiev Junta”, which lets women and children shoot.

How targeted governments use troll tactics to manipulate public perception also emerges from the Snowden Leaks. Glenn Greenwald reports in The Intercept how the British secret service GCHQ trained the secret unit Jtrig. He relies on presentations and paper from the Snowden documents. The unit is trained to destroy the reputation of people.

Under the self-mentioned procedures of Jtrig are two tactics: (1) inject all kinds of false material on the Internet to destroy the reputation of the goal, and (2) use social sciences and other techniques to manipulate online discourses so that you have the desired result.

Among the tactics you can find “False Flag Operation”-material on the Internet and incorrectly assigned to someone else-false victim blog posts (blogs that pretend to be a victim of someone whose reputation should be destroyed) and the post of “negative information” in different forums.

In addition to such tactics of reputation destruction, trolls have many strategy ready. A popular variant is the “Concern Troll”, which pretends to be on your side and wants you to discuss the concerns. The rational wiki describes him as follows:

A usual tactic of Concern Trolls is the ‘The plague is in both houses’ approach, in which the Concern troll tries to convince people that both sides are equally bad for an ideological split, and that nobody can call themselves ‘correctly’, but is in endless trap. He appeals to the willingness to discuss criticism and allow dissent; He wastes the time of everyone to discuss one topic again and again, before and back so as not to be intolerant against other opinions. Everything for the great joy of the troll.

What trolls do

It would be nice if you could just ignore trolls. But you can’t. Because they have an effect. Consciously or unconsciously. The study “The ” ‘Nasty Effect:’ ’Online Inciability and Risk Perceptions of Emerging Technologies” examined how “rudeness” influences the opinion of “Lurkern” – persons who read discussions but do not contribute to them -.

The researchers examined the effects of troll dynamics in the context of nanotechnology. This is an interesting area, “because it is a largely unfamiliar topic that offers a rare opportunity to observe the formation and development of settings. The majority of the public has no clear understanding of nanotechnology and tends to use mental abbreviations to form an opinion.”

The participants in the study had to read a blog post about nanosilber, which explained the associated risks and advantages. “Each participant was shown one of the processed versions that differed in the comments under the post.“There were polite and rude comments. “An rude comment started: ‘If you do not recognize the advantages of nanotechnology in products, you are an idiot’.”

Then the participants were asked about their attitude to nanosilber. The result was that “the rude blog comments contributed to polarizing the risk assessment … especially among the participants, the nanotechnology seized, the ranging comments were exposed to, much more to regard the technology as risky. Religious individuals also tended to consider nanotechnology to be risky if they were exposed to rude comments.”

The actual blog article was neutral. But above all, the rude commentators managed to produce polarizing opinions using the article. “The results of our study suggest that the perception of science in online blogs is not only as ‘top-down information’, but also through other polite or rude points of view. The Internet also gives the laypersons and rude individuals a voice.”

A symbol attack on democracy

So polarize trolls. They attach to people who post and slander them online. They create a wrong picture of the majority. They link unpleasant opinions with poor properties. They put conspiracy theories, fake news and fake pictures in the world.

The troll armies, which are currently populating the entire Internet and undermine every sensible debate, make democracy impossible on the net. You cannot form a political opinion in forums and comment columns, since you are constantly exposed to attempts at manipulation. Nobody can defend themselves against continuous manipulation. And nobody knows if you are dealing with sock doll trolls or real people.

Either you are with the trolls or against them. Either way, the trolls force people to choose one side. They polarize and they spray poison and hatred into every discussion. They make an agreement of the different camps difficult in discussions; They make people who previously had a polite but clear opinion that warriors. Trolls rush communities.

The trolls are the archetypes of the so -called “post -factual age”, which is currently breathing. The phrase appointed as the word of the year 2016 focuses on “a profound political change”, according to the Society for German Language. The artificial word post -factic “points out that political and social discussions are increasingly about emotions instead of facts today. In their reluctance against ‘those up there’, ever larger sections of the population are willing to ignore facts and even to accept obvious lies.”

In other words, even if hundreds of false reports about raping, murdering, plumbing and rumbling refugees are refuted, the anger of concerned citizens, which has been fueled by trolls for too long, remains. The truth does not arrive against the emotions that are fueled by trolls. A warrior of faith is immune to facts.

Are people overwhelmed? Do you have lost the ability to argue with each other in the United States, Great Britain, Germany, Russia and Turkey? Suddenly everyone got into a “post -factual” state of the senseless anger “against the one up there”, which tempt them to choose autocrats and to step against “the down there”? Against the refugees, the social welfare recipients, the Kurds, the Mexicans?

People probably remained the same. What has changed is the discussion. The troll generations have learned, the states have increased their troll armies, the years of the sybil attack on the discussion and democracy show their effect. The debates are poisoned. The tolerance was broken down, the camps polarized. All of this plays into the hands of the autocrats. The Erdogans, Putin, perhaps the Trumps, perhaps the concerned, xenophobic citizens from Saxony and the deer or police officers hunting imperial citizens from Bavaria.

It is not a conspiracy theory that such a sybil attack takes place of professional trolls. It’s a fact. If humanity does not learn to deal with it, this attack can destroy democracy.

The numbers of the week: Bitcoin dominates the charts

Astroturfing, sock dolls, trolls and shills: The big symbol attack on democracy

There is currently an attack on democratic discourses. Troll armies poison the atmosphere in social media, polarize the debates, stir up hatred and make citizens a warrior of faith. Unfortunately, the trolle’s campaign against reason is extremely successful. 

Do you remember how you went online for the first time? With almost all people I know, it went off right away. At some point in the middle school, in the 90s, we were allowed to go online in the school’s computer room. We are in a chat room, gave ourselves a fantasy name … and have trapped!

That you are anonymous on the Internet and that you can do what you call “trolls” today without real consequences is not a bug, but a feature. I am convinced that in addition to sex photos, emails and files sharing, this was the most important reason why the internet was such a success.

However, it currently looks like trolls are being destroyed by democracy. And that is not an exaggeration, but just as it is as written.

The troll in the cage

That you trolled is a natural mindset of people. Anyone who has ever increased in a relationship dispute or a political discussion knows that. There is only one, your own side, everything else is wrong and stupid and mean, and you want to be right again.

Usually communication is a tool of communication. For people in Troll mode, however, it is a weapon in a conflict. People in Troll mode are a little like lawyers (who do not argue to find a truth, but to enforce their truth), but angry, excessive and randomless. Imagine that you sit down at a table in a restaurant, duck the people who are sitting there, a discussion about the problems of the Fiat money, and when someone thinks he has to defend the euro, then you will be bought as stupid, naive or by the government!

In real life there are mechanisms that force us to suppress our troll. At least as long as we are sober. The physical closeness of the others – their smell, their facial expressions, their voice – makes us empathetic, the knowledge of having to stand with the name and face for what is said, is necessary to follow a social conventions and to communicate in a communication -oriented manner.

In real life, our troll is somewhat under control. And that is the basis for people with different opinions to be discussed and agree at the end. Democracy does not work without communication -oriented communication.

Trolls and faith warriors

On the net, where you do not have to look the other in the eye and do not have to justify yourself with real names for what has been said, you can let your inner troll out against it. You can knock your opinion out regardless of social conventions.

In an interview with ZEIT ONLINE, the Austrian author Ingrid Brodning explains that it distinguishes between trolls and faith warriors. “The group of trolls tries to bring people to the palm, rage or despair. Trolls see themselves as intellectuals who manage to mislead or manipulate people. It is a rather small but very successful group that is often driven by sadism.“Warriors, on the other hand, see“ in an information war and in their worldview so much in the right that they are willing to cross ethical borders.”

The distinction between trolls and warriors is important because they take a look at social mechanisms in forums. Trolls manipulate specifically and deliberately, while faith warriors think that they are in law. A handful of trolls can manipulate communities and spend on formerly friendly people and feed with “truths” until they become warriors.

However, in my opinion, Brodning defines trolls too narrow. The word is already used, and it affects both the sadistic, cold trolls mentioned by Brodning as well as the emotional, warm faith warriors. If you reduce “trolling behavior” to the psycho-pathological, one helps those who don’t want you to contradict them.

Trolls are not only bad. They bring diversity in the uniform porridge of opinions. It is not possible at all to stand against the majority in a forum without becoming a troll. Every socially critical artist “trolls”. What were Christoph Schlingensief and Klaus Kinski other than master trolls?

The big problem with the trolls is not that they troll because they feel like it – but that they are increasingly trolling because they are paid for it. The problem is also not that trolls are intrusive with their own opinion – but that they spread the narrative that a spind doctor develops to manipulate debates and make decent people into faith warriors.

Trolls in themselves are nothing more than an image of human emotions. Sometimes they are annoying, sometimes funny, but on the whole harmless. Troll factories, on the other hand, that produce and indoctrinate trolls are an attack on the free public discussion online. You are a symbol attack on democracy itself.

The many faces of Sybil

The sybil attack was discovered in the 90s by a Microsoft scientist. He found that every decentralized network can be attacked by forming many nodes (identities). The researcher called the attack Sybil because he had read a book by doing Sybil, a woman suffering from schizophrenia who had several personalities. By specifying an attacker not only one but many, but many, he can attack decentralized network. The only defense is a central authority.

In fact, Bitcoin is the first decentralized network that can defend itself against sybil attacks. This is the role of the miners. They prove their unique identity through computing power. You can do accounts in forums and falsifications, but no computer performance.

In the past, in the good old days of print journalism, newspapers took over the role of the miners in public discourse newspapers. They were gatekeeper, decided what information is presented to the readers in which context. Not all, but most of the journalists were both technically and ethically well prepared for this job and brought enough idealism to perform this task as well and responsibly as possible.

Today print journalism has lost much of its meaning. There are still the editorial offices, from time, mirrors, taz, star and so on. But they look more and more like small elite circles in their ivory tower who have lost contact with the real world of real readers. The public discussion is less and less shaped by journalists, but by … trolls!

Sock dolls in astroturfing

You probably know the concept of the sock doll. This describes the practice of simply making many different accounts in social forums in order to give more weight to his opinion. Sock doll propaganda is the absolute classic of the sybil attacks on communication.

In itself, this instrument is older than the Internet. In English there is the word “astroturfing”. It literally means the laying of artificial turf, but above all refers to the tactics that “few people pretend to be the large number of activists who arise for a specific cause”. An artificial lawn is laid – a grass root movement is staged. By not flooding the editorial offices with letters to the editor, commenting articles, writes blogs, loving on Facebook and so on, they can give them the impression of speaking “for the majority”.

For example, the Deutsche Bahn was incorrectly noticed in the debates about privatization and the train driver strike. According to the LobbyControll organization, the railway has hired several PR agencies and thinking factories that allegedly raised neutral websites, carried out polls with manipulative questions, and have drummed under articles and blog posts for the “correct perspective”. Privatization well, strike the train drivers evil.

The train is just one example. Microsoft was also caught in astroturfing, and it is known that the PR agency Edelman wanted to raise an alleged grass root movement Pro-Pipeline and Pro oil for the Canadian Transcanada. You could still find hundreds of examples.

Sock doll’s astroturfing is one of the dirtiest, but also most effective marketing tricks. You take a few students, create a handful of accounts on Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, Amazon and the relevant forums, maybe buy a few old, proven and unobtrusive accounts. Then the good news is trumpeted by your own product to the world. With a few tricks you stay unobtrusive and give the impression that the majority have behind them. Works better than any commercial.

Troll armies

Governments have also discovered the sock dolls and trolls as a propaganda instrument. Maybe even more and more determined than companies. Numerous governments are suspected of maintaining Troll armies.

In Russia there are Trolls from Olgino. According to internal documents published by Hackern, the Russian Internet Research Agency had more than 600 employees across Russia and a budget of $ 10 million. The employees should post at least 50 comments under articles a day. Some wrote blogs, had to manage six Facebook accounts and publish at least 3 posts a day. On Twitter you have at least 10 accounts with which you have to tweet 50 times a day. They rave about the net to praise for blogs on blogs under YouTube videos and so on Wladimir Putin’s politics and to cover its critics with abdominal campaigns.

In China there is the Internet Water Army: “A group of internet ghostwriters that are paid to post comments with certain content online … Anyone who writes something critical about the government is likely to be overwhelmed with insults from people who are pretending to be ordinary citizens who are upset about the abuse against the fatherland.”

According to reports, Turkey has a 6 in 2013.000 men strong social media team founded. This decision was made by Erdogan’s AKP after people had allied themselves through social media to protest in the Gezi park. The AKP recruited a team of 6.000 representatives for social media. “We want to establish a positive political language,” explained a party to a party at the time, “and if the opposing camp scatters disinformation about the party, how to correct with correct information, always in a positive language.“In fact, according to the Guardian, the social media soldiers from Erdogan were a bit overzealous. “In the following months it became common for those who only carefully criticize the government to have a stream of answers that were anything but positive. Often the slander came in masses, from people with strange profiles that brought accusations that were not only bizzar, but also bizzar.”

Of course, the United States should not be missing in this list. In 2008 the Obama consultant Cass Sunstein wrote a report in which he recommended to the government to infiltrate social networks in order to discredit conspiracy theories: “Governments could (legal) use tactics to break the dense cognitive clusters of extremist theories … a promising tactic is to infiltrate such extremist groups … The government and its allies can enter chat rooms, social networks, or groups in real space, and try to undermine conspiracy theories by expressing doubts … “

With the “Operation Mockingbird”, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) tries to influence the media. “The program developed into media control by using the Internet to sprinkle every propaganda that is useful in the current political climate,” writes Amercan Intelligence Report. Agents created fake user accounts on Facebook, Twitter and Co., To spread ideologies with which she was briefed. Every agent allegedly has 10 “Shill Accounts” to create the illusion that he has a network of friends.

Shills

Probably the simplest, most common and simplest sock doll in astroturfing is the “Shill”. Shills are jubilee, so to speak,. They cheer for a product, give good reviews on Amazon and anywhere else, praise the government and its politics, and so on. The web is probably full of commercial and government -related Shills. But they are difficult to recognize. What distinguishes someone who is actually enthusiastic about being enthusiastic about someone who is paid for it? What separates an overzealous fan from a shill?

Shills’s goal is to give the impression that there is an enthusiastic amount. For a product for a politician. Ideally, the Shill transforms other users who are just enthusiastic, even into Shills. He can do this, for example, by stating that the whole country is under an external attack and that patriotic citizens now have to hold together. Good Shills can transform an entire forum into an echo chamber in which everyone agrees, how great this thing is.

Shills play an enormous role in the election campaign.

Bloomberg reports on the election in Mexico, in which an agent with a budget of 600.$ $ “Manipulated social media to create false waves of enthusiasm.“The same agent had already contributed to campaigns in Nicaragua, Panaama, Hondur, El Salvador, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala and Venezuela.

We find the most extreme examples in the USA again. A filmmaker secretly recorded a training session of Tea Party members in which they were taught to manipulate media. The coach said: “I’m going on Amazon; I give a ‘liberal books’. I go through it and say ‘a star, a star, a star’. Conversely, I go to conservative / libertarians, go to their products, and give them five stars … Here your children get their information: Rotten Tomatoes, Flixster. These are places where you can rate films. So we go there, enter ‘films about health’, and since I don’t want Michael Moore to be above, I give him a bad rating. I spend 30 minutes a day, just click, click, click, click … “

There are reports of how the Clinton campaign team in 2008 celebrated in comments in newspapers with the IP address of the headquarters-Hillary in comments. In the 2016 election campaign, Shills and sock dolls were probably the order of the day. Political forums are already cheating that almost only paid Shills are discussing each other. In addition to very many assumptions, there are also some evidence of campaign shills.

After Hillary Clinton was apparently attacked in the primaries in the primary, she has commissioned an agency to start a counter -campaign: “The Barrier Breakers 2016 Digial Task Force will be a resource for supporters who are looking for positive content and want to share them in their communities.“In addition, the Task Force should ward off attacks on social media such as Twitter, Facebook, Reddit and Instagram.

On Reddit we have some users who tell you to have been a hillary shill. Of course, this could also be a Trump troll that wanted to slander Hillary. But let’s read what you report. One tells:

I am now officially a former ‘Digital Media Specialist’ (a friendly name for ‘paid internet troll’), which was employed by Hillary Clinton’s campaign (via a PR company) … First, the work was fun and was largely insurmountable. I posted positive things about Hillary ..

Another who does not call his client reports:

I go to an office six days a week. There are about 20 of us … I break the comments and search for our politician’s mentions. You give us a script. When a comment says, we say B. If a comment calls’ the accidental thing x ‘, we answer with vague counter positions, how we can call our candidate’ authentic ‘or say what he has achieved so far’.

Troll

While Shills do what an AKP member recommends-develop a positive language-trolls are the dark counterpart. Trolls do not promote their own product, but reveal the competition; Troll not only cheer for your own candidate, but also destroy the opponent’s reputation. Troll does not explain the party’s policy in kind words, but accuse critics of the politics of a lack of patriotism. And so forth.

The debates make trolls ugly. An apparently commercial paid Troll tells Reddit as he tries to clear undesirable opinions:

We try to identify the key figures on social media and their influence and then to isolate them. Once we have the key figures, let’s see who swims with them – people who read their posts but are less influential themselves. We then either start a flame with bots to disturb the conversation that affects people (think of nonsense posts about interruptions and such), or we send specific tasks to sock dolls (change the wording of an idea, cause an ideological split, etc.))). The goal is to fragment opinions that we do not want and prevent them from flowing together in a single voice ..

The “Shills” from the US election campaign also apply troll tactics. The confessed Hillary-Shill tells how these tactics have disgusted:

At some point in mid-July, however, I received a message that our team no longer focused on Pro Hillary forums, but on the ‘defusing’ of a senator from Vermont Bernie Sanders.

We received very specific instructions on how and what we should post, and I was stunned what I saw. The tone and approach was completely changed, and it was extremely disgusting ..

The Clinton shills should try to destroy Bernie Sanders Reputation. Sanders should be represented as a “old white male relic”, “with the conviction that it enjoys women, to be raped.“Anyone who contradicted this characterization should immediately be insulted as a sexist. Bernie should also be described as a racist, and should be insignificant. “All of these posts that Sanders can never win and Hillary is inevitable? Some of them were deliberately written by us to demoralize the Bernie fans … “

Trolls try to destroy the reputation of their enemies by repeating the same smells, defamation and abuse over and over again. Until even those who are on the side of the defamed people cannot help but see the defamation as an implicit fact.

Troll tactics

The confessed shill with an unnamed client also tells how he switches from Shill to troll tactics when he encounters resistance in a discussion:

We even have a script what to do if the other commentator gains the discussion. We were explained exactly how we let the discussion derail, throw around us and finally accuse the others of being a conspiracy theorist and aluhut carrier. In this way, everyone who read the discussion could see that these negative points are connected to people with crazy people.

When trolls discuss, they not only aim at their discussion partner, but want to impress the quiet reader. If you go out the arguments, you almost always try to insult your opponent.

Dirty troll tactics often occur. The repetition of insults is one of the most common. An ex-employee of the Russian Troll Army tells in the Guardian that it was her task to “attack the opponents of the Russian government.“Barack Obama is repeatedly called“ monkey ”by the Russia trolls. In some cases, defaming photos were also assembled by the President of Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko. If there were uprisings of colored people in the USA, the trolls were instructed to spread that the US politics had failed and the “negro” rebelled. Another important topic is Ukraine. The trolls always talked about the “Kiev Junta”, which lets women and children shoot.

How targeted governments use troll tactics to manipulate public perception also emerges from the Snowden Leaks. Glenn Greenwald reports in The Intercept how the British secret service GCHQ trained the secret unit Jtrig. He relies on presentations and paper from the Snowden documents. The unit is trained to destroy the reputation of people.

Under the self-mentioned procedures of Jtrig are two tactics: (1) inject all kinds of false material on the Internet to destroy the reputation of the goal, and (2) use social sciences and other techniques to manipulate online discourses so that you have the desired result.

Among the tactics you can find “False Flag Operation”-material on the Internet and incorrectly assigned to someone else-false victim blog posts (blogs that pretend to be a victim of someone whose reputation should be destroyed) and the post of “negative information” in different forums.

In addition to such tactics of reputation destruction, trolls have many strategy ready. A popular variant is the “Concern Troll”, which pretends to be on your side and wants you to discuss the concerns. The rational wiki describes him as follows:

A usual tactic of Concern Trolls is the ‘The plague is in both houses’ approach, in which the Concern troll tries to convince people that both sides are equally bad for an ideological split, and that nobody can call themselves ‘correctly’, but is in endless trap. He appeals to the willingness to discuss criticism and allow dissent; He wastes the time of everyone to discuss one topic again and again, before and back so as not to be intolerant against other opinions. Everything for the great joy of the troll.

What trolls do

It would be nice if you could just ignore trolls. But you can’t. Because they have an effect. Consciously or unconsciously. The study “The ” ‘Nasty Effect:’ ’Online Inciability and Risk Perceptions of Emerging Technologies” examined how “rudeness” influences the opinion of “Lurkern” – persons who read discussions but do not contribute to them -.

The researchers examined the effects of troll dynamics in the context of nanotechnology. This is an interesting area, “because it is a largely unfamiliar topic that offers a rare opportunity to observe the formation and development of settings. The majority of the public has no clear understanding of nanotechnology and tends to use mental abbreviations to form an opinion.”

The participants in the study had to read a blog post about nanosilber, which explained the associated risks and advantages. “Each participant was shown one of the processed versions that differed in the comments under the post.“There were polite and rude comments. “An rude comment started: ‘If you do not recognize the advantages of nanotechnology in products, you are an idiot’.”

Then the participants were asked about their attitude to nanosilber. The result was that “the rude blog comments contributed to polarizing the risk assessment … especially among the participants, the nanotechnology seized, the ranging comments were exposed to, much more to regard the technology as risky. Religious individuals also tended to consider nanotechnology to be risky if they were exposed to rude comments.”

The actual blog article was neutral. But above all, the rude commentators managed to produce polarizing opinions using the article. “The results of our study suggest that the perception of science in online blogs is not only as ‘top-down information’, but also through other polite or rude points of view. The Internet also gives the laypersons and rude individuals a voice.”

A symbol attack on democracy

So polarize trolls. They attach to people who post and slander them online. They create a wrong picture of the majority. They link unpleasant opinions with poor properties. They put conspiracy theories, fake news and fake pictures in the world.

The troll armies, which are currently populating the entire Internet and undermine every sensible debate, make democracy impossible on the net. You cannot form a political opinion in forums and comment columns, since you are constantly exposed to attempts at manipulation. Nobody can defend themselves against continuous manipulation. And nobody knows if you are dealing with sock doll trolls or real people.

Either you are with the trolls or against them. Either way, the trolls force people to choose one side. They polarize and they spray poison and hatred into every discussion. They make an agreement of the different camps difficult in discussions; They make people who previously had a polite but clear opinion that warriors. Trolls rush communities.

The trolls are the archetypes of the so -called “post -factual age”, which is currently breathing. The phrase appointed as the word of the year 2016 focuses on “a profound political change”, according to the Society for German Language. The artificial word post -factic “points out that political and social discussions are increasingly about emotions instead of facts today. In their reluctance against ‘those up there’, ever larger sections of the population are willing to ignore facts and even to accept obvious lies.”

In other words, even if hundreds of false reports about raping, murdering, plumbing and rumbling refugees are refuted, the anger of concerned citizens, which has been fueled by trolls for too long, remains. The truth does not arrive against the emotions that are fueled by trolls. A warrior of faith is immune to facts.

Are people overwhelmed? Do you have lost the ability to argue with each other in the United States, Great Britain, Germany, Russia and Turkey? Suddenly everyone got into a “post -factual” state of the senseless anger “against the one up there”, which tempt them to choose autocrats and to step against “the down there”? Against the refugees, the social welfare recipients, the Kurds, the Mexicans?

People probably remained the same. What has changed is the discussion. The troll generations have learned, the states have increased their troll armies, the years of the sybil attack on the discussion and democracy show their effect. The debates are poisoned. The tolerance was broken down, the camps polarized. All of this plays into the hands of the autocrats. The Erdogans, Putin, perhaps the Trumps, perhaps the concerned, xenophobic citizens from Saxony and the deer or police officers hunting imperial citizens from Bavaria.

It is not a conspiracy theory that such a sybil attack takes place of professional trolls. It’s a fact. If humanity does not learn to deal with it, this attack can destroy democracy.

Lightning: Integration Tests completed, first transaction on Bitcoin-Minnet successful
As for pictures, Lightning is really a grateful topic. Image of Benjamen Benson via Flickr.com. License: Creative Commons

Three teams cooperate in the development of Lightning and independently form clients for the offchain network. With the completion of the integration tests and the first payment in the real Bitcoin network, the developers reach two milestones this week. We do not let ourselves be ragged – and accept donations to the blog with Lightning also.

Lightning, the protocol for offchain payments, is formed by three developer groups: ACINQ, Lightning Labs and Blockstream. These groups each develop their own client for the Lightning network. Since the Scaling Bitcoin conference in Milan, the teams have been cooperating closely to ensure that the three clients are compatible. For this they wrote the Lightning specification.

Yesterday the integration tests issued by Christian Decker have reached their conclusion. The three clients developed independently of one another are completely compatible; The specification has proven itself and now gets version number 1.0. According to Rusty Russel and Christian Decker from Blockstream, this represents a milestone of the development of Lightning.

At the same time, the Lightning developers present the first Lightning transaction in the official, real Bitcoin network in a joint announcement. So far, Lightning transactions were only feasible on the testnet.

“We have tested ECLAIR (acinq), C-lightning (block stream), and LND (Lightning Labs). We put on nodes all over the world, including in Asia, Europe, South America and North America. In our first test we used the Starblocks coffee shop, an application of ECLAIR. Starblocks accepted an in-depth Bitcoin payment by a customer who paid the LND Lightning app as a client and was opened via C-Lightning. Mmm, blockaccino!”

A second test was with Yall.Org made, a micropayment page based on LND. For this purpose, the developers sent a payment with Eclair and routed through C-Lightning. This too worked smoothly.

Zap, HTLC, LND

Payments with the Lightning network are likely to have moved a little closer. If you want to deal with the matter deeper, you should.Org start. There you can unlock a currently still manageable amount of items for a small payment. Yalls linked to three wallets that can be used to pay: the desktop app from Lightning Labs, the online wallet HTLC.me, and zap.

I have the online wallet HTLC.ME tried. The wallet gives you a small credit with which you can pay via Lightning. A payment of yalls.Org has worked – which was an interesting experience, since the payment was there at the moment – the second not because of any connection problems. Bitcoins can be received with HTLC.Me only by Lightning, which is why I couldn’t try how to charge a Lightning channel. But if you want to send me something, you can try it out with the following Payment Code:

lntb312370n1pdznqzypp5j508n509DS5M22NR7N4PW9TH7MYLGTYKW2RQRRRR8Q5P6N9 995JQDZ40V3xwetwV4exJc6LD9Jzyw3z8yexxv33Vf3ngtfevejx2tf5vttpxu6rv ttzxasngvn98qmrxcfhxQ386cqzysc9p0texcrrpt8la3Atufv6ysMTG79Z652UFX70330SMF87MPT9EZ3GW445HARASN56K6KTMS7S8KKTFMY9S8HDGGQXUPPGM9

This makes the Bitcoin blog.de for the first blog, where you can also donate with Lightning. I’m curious to see if any of you can do it. It with HTLC.To make me would be a bit boring, since the payment will only take place in the HTLC server.

However, ZAP does not have a release yet, and if I understand it, LND is a fully synchronized BTCD-Node. Eclar promises to integrate Lightning into a nice user interface, but is currently only running on the testnet. The developers still warn against using it with real money because it is still an alpha software. But it should already be possible to redirect it to the Bitcoin mainnet when you know what you do.

For those who are waiting for Lightning, the completion of the compatibility tests is a big step: with it Lightning becomes a good bit more reality. However, one should take care of too high expectations. Because even if the software runs free of friction and is released, a network must first form in which the credit is routed. How this will appear – decentralized or central – cannot yet be said. So it can still take a while for Lightning to really hits.

The Bitcoin calendar for 2020

Why Bitcoin is “altruism from selfishness”

Two white rabbits. Caution: to follow them could lead to undesirable knowledge. Image by Lisa Zins via Flickr.com. License: Creative Commons