What is Worldcoin and what does scanning the iris involve?
04/03/2024Worldcoin was introduced in summer of 2023 as a revolutionary project with the mission of creating a 100% secure digital identity, essentially a kind of fortified "digital passport," based on the verification of a unique and non-transferable element inherent to each human being—the iris. According to its developers, World ID will help distinguish human online activity from that generated by machines. In the first phase of the project, the creation of this secure digital identity is planned for 2 billion humans. To make this possible, Worldcoin has called on the global population to scan their iris. In return, Worldcoin compensates participants with a few tokens of its successful cryptocurrency, WLD, which has quadrupled in value within a few weeks of its initial launch. The payment in WLD tokens is not coincidental; it is part of Worldcoin's strategy, aiming to leverage the new digital passports to create a comprehensive ecosystem that provides universal and equitable access to advanced financial services for the entire global population. To achieve this, they encourage "iris sellers" to use the Worldcoin cryptocurrency on its fee-free blockchain, unlike Bitcoin, Ethereum, or other cryptocurrencies that do charge transaction fees. How does Worldcoin work? Worldcoin aims to address the issues of bots, rapid creation of fake identities, and content with artificial intelligence. It is designed, according to its developers, to provide every individual in the world with a unique digital identification. Additionally, Worldcoin promises to ensure the financial inclusion of each person in a fair and equitable ecosystem through a universal basic income. Users receive this income in exchange for allowing their iris to be scanned. To create the secure digital passport with Worldcoin, users must undergo an iris scan, which serves as proof of humanity and a unique identity on the blockchain. This process ensures that the individual on the other side of that identity is a human and not a fake profile created with artificial intelligence. In pursuit of the success of their proposal, the company offers users a small amount of their own Worldcoin tokens in exchange for iris scanning. The initial incentive of receiving free cryptocurrency, in the form of a universal basic income, is emphasized by Worldcoin advocates as the basis for the inclusive and universal nature of their initiative. This approach allows anyone to scan their iris, and the WLD tokens received in return can assist people without access to traditional financial services in starting to save and invest. How to Scan the Iris with Worldcoin? The registration process with Worldcoin involves scanning the iris with an orb, the central hardware device of Worldcoin developed by Tools for Humanity. The orb is spherical and processes all the information. Currently, Worldcoin has installed orbs in different countries, including Spain, where users can scan their iris in exchange for Worldcoins. To do this, it is necessary to download the Worldcoin mobile application, World ID, generate a QR code with it, and display it in front of the orb. The orb, upon recognizing it, will scan the user's iris, while a Worldcoin collaborator remotely oversees the operation. The orb takes less than a minute to perform the scan and validate the subject's identity. In exchange for their iris, the user receives a unique number called "IrisHash" and a cryptographic wallet with Worldcoins. "This digital passport is accepted as proof of unique humanity, which people can use in the digital world without the need to share any other data," assure its developers. What happens with my scanned iris in exchange for Worldcoins? Once the iris scan is completed, and digital identity is granted to the user, Worldcoin assures that the orb quickly eliminates the images unless the user requests their preservation. Only the set of numbers called "IrisHash" is stored for identification, without any additional biometric data. Worldcoin also commits to ensuring that users share only the necessary information they wish to share, providing verification options through linked devices or the additional facial authentication orb for high-security cases. Despite these commitments, the collection of biometric data through iris scanning for the unique proof of humanity continues to raise significant questions regarding privacy and information security. Some countries such as Brazil, France, India, or Kenya have halted Worldcoin's iris scanning. How much do you get paid for scanning your iris? Worldcoin pays 25 WLD for scanning your iris, which, according to the cryptocurrency's exchange rate in February 2024, has translated to an average of between 50 and almost €160 for iris sellers, depending on the value of Worldcoin on the day they scanned their iris. At the beginning of February, the value of each WLD unit was around two euros, and by the end of the month, it had risen to nearly seven euros. What can I spend my WLD on? 'Iris sellers' have the freedom to use their Worldcoins from the moment they receive them. They can exchange the payment for other cryptocurrencies, withdraw them in euros from a specialized ATM, or hold onto the tokens in the hope of an increase in their value. Additionally, WLD payments are already accepted on platforms such as Discord, Shopify, Minecraft, Telegram, Mercado Libre, or Reddit, among other places. Who is behind Worldcoin? Worldcoin bears the stamp of two innovative minds: Sam Altman and Alex Blania. Altman is the CEO of OpenAI and a key figure in artificial intelligence development, leading projects like ChatGPT. Blania, on the other hand, is the co-founder of Tools For Humanity, contributing his experience in creating technological tools for a more equitable economic system to this new and successful cryptocurrency.
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European companies are facing million-euro losses due to connectivity issues
12/06/2023A study by Cradlepoint reveals that European businesses could be losing milions of euros every week as a result of connectivity problems. According to the State of Connectivity in Europe report, conducted in collaboration with Censuswide, 74% of companies experience at least 2 hours of connectivity loss each week. One hour of downtime can be valued at 332,600 euros, according to Statista. These connectivity issues have also generated additional operating costs for 47% of the surveyed companies, and 33% have missed out on business opportunities due to these problems. Furthermore, the education sector is affected, as 80% of respondents state that poor connectivity hinders the development of skills necessary to thrive in a modern economy. The study also highlights that 21% of European companies have lost talent due to connectivity issues. The findings also conclude that improving connectivity is considered crucial for 90.5% of the surveyed companies, as it would help them better manage potential economic, social, and political challenges and increase their resilience to future disruptions.
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Google incorporates Artificial Intelligence into its search results
05/06/2023During Google's annual developer conference, Google I/O, the company has publicly announced its commitment to Artificial Intelligence to improve its search results. Similarly, Google will introduce the generative AI collaboration tool, Duet AI, in Cloud and Workspace. The objective in this case is to assist in programming and generating personalized content in services like Gmail, Slides, or Meet. Google has opened generative AI support in Vertex AI and has also announced the Text Embeddings API for applications that require semantic understanding of text or images. At the developer conference, Google's Vice President and General Manager of Search, Elizabeth Reid, gave a live demonstration of how they are applying Artificial Intelligence in their search engine. The AI results will be displayed in a box at the top of the page with links to verify the provided information. Below the box, the rest of the results will be listed as usual, although Reid also mentioned that thanks to AI, they will now be more relevant.
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Interpol opens its first office in the Metaverse
07/11/2022Interpol, the International Criminal Police Organization or International Police, has presented its first office in the metaverse through which they intend to improve the fight against crime in the digital universe. The digital police station, which is a copy of the General Secretariat of Interpol in Lyon (France), will offer training for investigators and police officers and will allow the collaborators of this international organization to interact through their avatars, without geographical or physical limits. The inauguration of this new virtual center had been accompanied by the announcement of the creation of a group of Interpol experts that will advise police forces around the world about the risks on the global stage. Also, it has been announced that the International Police Organization has joined Meta, Microsoft and other technology giants to define the metaverse and protect communities from cybercrime, including globally recognized and criminalized crimes, such as sexual harassment, 'phishing', financial fraud or 'ransomware', among others. The objective of this joint work, they explained, is to create regulatory frameworks "and eliminate future criminal markets before they are fully formed." According to a study by the technology company Gartner, in over three years, in 2026, one of four people will spend at least one hour a day in the metaverse to work, shop and interact with other users.
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Less than half of Spaniards change their passwords when they separate from their partner
05/10/2022The email and social network accounts of one in five Spaniards (21%) have been subject to violation by a third party who has changed the passwords without the owner's knowledge or consent, attributing 37% of the victims this wrong use to their ex-partners. This data comes from the recent study carried out by Avast and Dynata on the degree of knowledge that Spaniards have of the passwords of their partners or relatives. In this study more than 2,000 Internet users have participated. Among the most striking results of this survey is that the collaborators who say they still know their ex's passwords, 56% of them has admit that they even know, also, their professional email passwords. 24% of those surveyed also claim that their location has been tracked without their consent due to knowing their password. This behavior, the authors of the study explain, can be considerated as technological abuse, which can be further aggravated by installing spyware or 'stalkwerware' on other people's devices or controlling or harassing someone through home technology.
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Europe proposes a very strict regulation that requires increasing the factory security of any device designed to be connected to the Internet
16/09/2022Some details from the new rules of the European Commission against cybercrime, 'Cyber Resilience Act', are beginning to be known. Among what has transpired is that the new regulation will force all manufacturers of potentially insecure products to increase it substantially and to provide more information to buyers about the level of protection of the devices they buy. This regulation will be of general application, and will affect all types of devices and systems, from the most basic such as a watch to the most sophisticated such as the software of any computer designed to be connected to Internet. All must comply with the provisions of the 'Cyber Resilience Act' to receive its approval and be able to be sold on the European market, and also, to avoid being subject to investigations and significant fines. In this sense, the proposed sanctions that are considered in the draft of the regulations could reach 15 million euros or 2.5% of the global annual income of the fined company. According to the European Commission in the presentation of the consultation carried out for the elaboration of the 'Cyber Resilience Act', "the new regulation aims to respond to the needs of the market and protect consumers from unsafe products by introducing standards common cybersecurity standards for manufacturers and sellers of tangible and intangible digital products and ancillary services.
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The Spanish, the European citizens who know more about metaverse and virtual reality
27/06/2022The Spanish are the European citizens who most claim to know what the metaverse, virtual reality and augmented reality are. In fact, the results of the report presented by Ipsos in collaboration with the World Economic Forum, ensure that this knowledge would be not only above the European average, also the worldwide. Thus, 63% of Spaniards say they know the metaverse, compared to 52% of the world population, 30% of germans or 28% of France citizens. At the other extreme we find Turkey (86%), India (80%), China (73%) and South Korea (71%), which are presented as the countries with the largest population knowledgeable about the metaverse. "The results of this research work give a very optimistic view of the potential of the metaverse and show that many people are open to the technological change that is taking place," says Jame Ferrand-Gutiérrez, head of Data Intelligence at Ipsos in Spain. The director, however, points out that “we cannot ignore that the metaverse is still a concept that has not been fully realized […] Although it is planned as a parallel reality where everything has a place, in reality it is not. Well, at least at present. We will see in the future where it evolves". About the augmented and virtual reality, 77% of Spaniards say they know the first one well, and 85% the second, being, once again, Turkey, the country in the world where the percentages of familiarity with these technologies are more high, 94%. According to the report 'How the world sees the metaverse and extended reality', which collects data from 29 countries, obtained between April and May through the Ipsos Global Advisor platform, citizens expect that applications that use the metaverse will have a growing impact on their lives over the next decade and, according to the document, in Spain the greatest impact is expected in the field of virtual education and training (63%), entertainment (61%), video games (57%), work meetings (55%) and way of socializing and resources related to health (both with 54%).
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End-to-end encryption of Facebook Messenger and Instagram delayed until 2023
25/11/2021Security and privacy have become two of the main worries of the new virtual world. Meta, the new name of Mark Zuckerberg's company, has been working on end-to-end encryption system for Facebook Messenger and Instagram platforms and has just reported that finally this protection will not be ready until 2023. The delay, they explain, is due to their effort to ensure that end-to-end encryption will be the protection that all their messaging applications have by default, but at the moment only WhatsApp offers it. This technology means that only the sender and the receiver can know the content of a conversation. It's also known that end-to-end encryption has open the debate about privacy and collaboration with police investigations, specially in cases of child abuse. "As we implement end-to-end encryption, we will use a combination of unencrypted data in our applications, account information, and user reports to keep them secure in a way that protects privacy while assisting in public safety efforts" , has assured the Security director of Meta, Antigone Davis.
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Andalusia becomes the mecca of 5G in Europe
19/11/2021With more than 36 pilot projects developed by Vodafone Spain and Huawei, in collaboration with 50 companies and organizations, Andalusia has become in terms of number of 5G business use cases, the mecca of 5G in Europe. This has been announced in the recent closure of the 5G Andalusia Pilot project. The 36 5G pilot projects have been developed in the cities of Sevilla, Malaga, Puerto Real, Algeciras, Huelva and Jaén, and have included high-value solutions as technology with remote piloting for a defibrillator drone and medical telecare in real time or a new biometric access to the Málaga-María Zambrano railway station, which allows the identification of passengers in the boarding area. Thanks also to a 5G technology project, Balearia, the biggest maritime passenger and cargo transport company in Spain, has been able to lighten the management of vehicles in Algeciras harbour, where up to 8,000 vehicles pass daily in the operation "Paso del Estrecho".
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Google tests parcel delivery drones from shop's roofs
18/10/2021Google is testing a new drone product delivery system in Australia, with launch platforms from the store's roofs. To carry out the test, Google have the collaboration of the Vicinity’s shopping centres. Their customers can buy their products online and a drone waiting on the store's roof will take the items to the delivery address. In addition, Google tests the same take-off system from the store itself and not from the distribution centres, in Logan, United States, where more than 2,500 deliveries have already been made successfully with this system. As a curiosity and according to these results, the most demanded products by this system are teas, shakes, sushi and food. In the next weeks the system will be also prepare to delivered medicines and beauty and personal hygiene products.
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Ransomwhere, new platform to track cyberattack payments
13/07/2021This week was made known the unveiling of Ransomwhere, a new collaborative data platform born with the intention of being able to track 'ransomware' ransom payments to cybercriminals wallets. The platform launched by cybersecurity researcher Jack Cable, allows data to be entered into the Ransomwhere website in an open and transparent format, so that users can easily report on the cryptocurrency wallets used in their ransomware attack payments, often included in the ransom notes of the attacks, and through this data the figure obtained in extortion payments to cybercriminals is obtained. As these payments are made with cryptocurrencies, the transactions can be traced as they are opened by the use of the blockchain or Blockchain. According to the first data obtained in these first weeks of operation, Ransomwhere has reported that it has already recorded more than $33 million paid this past year in ransomware and accumulated data of about $28 million more satisfied previously. This information also shows that the ransomware with the highest income so far is Netwalker, with more than 27 million dollars, followed by REvil / Sodinokibi, with more than 11 million.
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Macro cyber-attack affects more than 350 companies worldwide
07/07/2021The number of companies that have suffered from the REvil macro cyberattack now exceeds 350 organizations worldwide from which the cybercriminals are demanding 70 million in bitcoins to provide them with a universal decryptor to restore their data. The attack was conducted through the update system of IT services software company Kaseya, which REvil exploited to spread and hide ransomware. The virus was leaked to TI Kaseya resellers and from there has reached all end customers using their software. The official data provided by TI Kaseya sets the number of affected companies at 350, although other sources such as the cybersecurity company ESET talk about more than 1,000, including some Spanish organizations, although no names have been disclosed. It has been made public that one of the companies most affected by the cyberattack has been the Swedish supermarket chain Coop, which has had to close its more than 800 points of sale for a few days due to the impossibility of using its cash registers or charging customers. Based on Sophos threat intelligence, REvil has been active in recent weeks and is currently the dominant ransomware gang involved in Sophos' defensively managed threat response cases. Prior to this latest attack, they were also responsible for the one suffered by meat company JBS, which forced the cancellation of all work shifts at the company's slaughterhouses in the US. JBS paid up to 11 million to restore normal operations. These macro cyber-attacks are in addition to other recent and highly significant ones, such as the one perpetrated by the hacker group DarkSide, which forced the preventive shutdown of the largest oil pipeline network in the United States, Colonial Pipeline, endangering the supply of fuel in a large part of the country, or the one suffered by the SEPE and the Ministry of Labor in Spain a few weeks ago.
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