Meet the seven people who hold the keys to worldwide internet security
It sounds like the
stuff of science fiction: seven keys, held by individuals from all over the
world, that together control security at the core of the web. The reality is
rather closer to The Office than The Matrix
In a nondescript
industrial estate in El Segundo, a boxy suburb in south-west Los Angeles
just a mile or two from LAX international airport, 20 people wait in a
windowless canteen for a ceremony to begin. Outside, the sun is shining on
an unseasonably warm February day; inside, the only light comes from the glare
of halogen bulbs.
There is a strange mix
of accents – predominantly American, but smatterings of Swedish, Russian,
Spanish and Portuguese can be heard around the room, as men and women (but
mostly men) chat over pepperoni pizza and 75-cent vending machine soda. In the
corner, an Asteroids arcade machine blares out tinny music and flashing lights.
It might be a fairly
typical office scene, were it not for the extraordinary security procedures
that everyone in this room has had to complete just to get here, the sort of
measures normally reserved for nuclear launch codes or presidential visits. The
reason we are all here sounds like the stuff of science fiction, or the plot of
a new Tom Cruise franchise: the ceremony we are about to witness sees the
coming together of a group of people, from all over the world, who each hold a
key to the internet. Together, their
keys create a master key, which in turn controls one of the central security
measures at the core of the web. Rumours about the power of these keyholders
abound: could their key switch off the internet? Or, if someone somehow managed
to bring the whole system down, could they turn it on again?
The keyholders have
been meeting four times a year, twice on the east coast of the US and
twice here on the west, since 2010. Gaining access to their inner sanctum isn't
easy, but last month I was invited along to watch the ceremony and meet
some of the keyholders – a select group of security experts from around the
world. All have long backgrounds in internet security and work for various
international institutions. They were chosen for their geographical spread as
well as their experience – no one country is allowed to have too many
keyholders. They travel to the ceremony at their own, or their employer's,
expense.
What these men and
women control is the system at the heart of the web: the domain name system, or
DNS. This is the internet's version of a telephone directory – a series of
registers linking web addresses to a series of numbers, called IP addresses.
Without these addresses, you would need to know a long sequence of numbers for
every site you wanted to visit. To get to the Guardian, for instance, you'd
have to enter "77.91.251.10" instead of theguardian.com.
Read the rest of the article here:
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/feb/28/seven-people-keys-worldwide-internet-security-web
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/feb/28/seven-people-keys-worldwide-internet-security-web
http://gu.com/p/3naxm
ReplyDeleteJapan considers bitcoin regulation and taxation
In wake of MtGox closure, Japanese authorities look to regulate cryptocurrency, urging international co-operation
Kolin Burges, a self-styled cryptocurrency trader and former software engineer from London, holds up a placard to protest against Mt. Gox. Photograph: Toru Hanai/REUTERS
The Japanese cabinet is to consider how best to apply the country’s existing laws to bitcoin – with a view to taxing the currency.
The authorities will look at taxing transactions, but have yet to crack the problem of bitcoin’s much-vaunted anonymity. With no central registry of ownership, it takes a great deal of effort to link a digital holding of bitcoin with an individual in the real world.
“We haven’t yet thoroughly grasped the situation, but some kind of regulation is needed from the perspective of consumer protection, and we will also discuss [bitcoin] from the perspective of imposing asset tax,” said Takuya Hirai, head of an IT panel in the ruling Liberal Democratic party ahead of Friday’s cabinet meeting.
In the wake of the collapse of Tokyo-based bitcoin exchange MtGox, the country’s government has been forced to reassess its earlier view, stated by its Financial Services Agency, that “bitcoin isn’t a currency … therefore bitcoin exchanges are not a subject to our regulatory oversight”.
A former insider at MtGox told Reuters the exchange had repeatedly approached the FSA in the past, asking it to define the handling of bitcoin, but received no definitive answer. Last week, the FSA said it had not recently been in contact with MtGox, but did not specify whether it had ever been in touch with the company. A lawyer for MtGox declined to comment.
Japan does not want to go it alone in trying to get a regulatory grip on bitcoin. Any regulation of the cryptocurrency should involve international cooperation to avoid loopholes, vice finance minister Jiro Aichi said last week.
Japan’s investigation follows the clarification by the UK’s HMRC that bitcoin should be treated as a currency for tax purposes. In Britain, traders buying and selling bitcoin no longer have to pay VAT on their purchases of the currency, but are instead liable for capital gains tax or income tax if they make a profit on their speculation.
It is unknown how many bitcoin traders did, in fact, pay VAT on their purchases of bitcoin before HMRC changed its official advice.
• Bitcoin bank Flexcoin closes after hack attack
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/mar/05/japan-considers-bitcoin-regulation-taxation-mtgox-closure
ReplyDeleteTHis is the link for the above comment I posted where you can get more information on the issue .
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