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CBDC Digital Currency Central Bank

CBDC Digital Currency and Control

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What is a central bank digital currency (CBDC)?

Central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) have recently emerged as a hot topic in the financial space. Banks, Institutions, and governments are performing research and analysis on the economic and technical feasibility of introducing a new form of digital money and its impact on monetary and fiscal policy.

 

A Bank of International Settlements report states that over 80% of central banks are already researching CBDC. It begs the question: why are these institutions preoccupied with CBDCs? In this explainer, we’ll cover CBDCs, their importance in digital economies, countries exploring their use cases, and the road to mass adoption.

CBDCs explained

Cryptocurrencies, as we know them today, are extremely volatile and lack government backing — CBDCs overcome these concerns while using the same underlying distributed ledger technology of cryptocurrencies. Governments recognize CBDCs as legal tender in the issuing central bank’s jurisdiction, meaning anyone can use them for payments and every merchant must accept them.

 

In simpler terms, CBDC is short for Central Bank Digital Currency, an electronic form of central bank money that citizens can use to make digital payments and store value. A CBDC offers three main elements:

 

  • A digital currency

  • Issued by the central bank

  • Universally accessible

 

But why should a government issue a CBDC when fiat currency exists?

Why issue a CBDC?

If a country issues a CBDC, its government will consider it to be legal tender, just like fiat currencies; both CBDC and physical cash would be legally acknowledged as a form of payment and act as a claim on the central bank or government.

A central bank digital currency increases the safety and efficiency of both wholesale and retail payment systems. On the wholesale side, a central bank digital currency facilitates quick settlement of retail payments. It could improve the efficiency of making payments at the point of sale or between two parties (p2p).

No physical coins or notes are available to individuals in a digital society, and all money is exchanged in a digital format. If a country intends to become a cashless society, a digital currency with government / central bank backing is a credible alternative. The pressure for governments to adopt a CBDC is strong, as the market for private e-money is on the rise. If it becomes mainstream, beneficiaries are at a disadvantage because e-money providers aim to maximize their profits instead of the general public’s. Issuing a CBDC would give governments an edge over the competition from private e-money.

In addition to domestic transactions, the current cross-jurisdiction payments’ model depends heavily on central banks operating the real-time gross settlement (RTGS) infrastructure within which all local banks’ obligations must settle. Since time lags exist in cross-border payments, participating parties are exposed to settlement and credit risk. A CBDC is available around the clock, while privacy is taken into account to eliminate counterparty credit risk.

 

Different types of CBDCs

CBDCs are categorized into two different proposals based on the targeted users:

 

Retail Central Bank Digital Currency

Retail CBDC, based on distributed ledger technology, is traceable, anonymous, and available around the clock. It offers possibilities for interest rate applications, as well. Due to these advantages, a retail central bank digital currency focuses, in particular, on supporting the general public. Additionally, it helps lower the cost of cash printing and promotes financial inclusion.

 

Wholesale Central Bank Digital Currency

Wholesale CBDC increases payments and security settlement efficiency while resolving liquidity and counterparty risk issues. It’s a great fit for financial institutions which have reserves deposited in a central bank. With their capability to improve wholesale financial systems’ speed and security, even central banks consider wholesale central bank digital currency a favored alternative to existing systems today.

 

Countries experimenting with CBDCs

 

China: Digital Yuan

The People’s Bank of China is one of the first central banks to develop a CBDC. They deployed a special task force in 2014 to research and implement a digital Yuan. It gained traction in 2020 when China announced the testing of a CBDC prototype. The first trial of digital Yuan was held in October 2020 in the Luohu district of Shenzhen. The second pilot program took place in Suzhou City at the beginning of 2021. As per reports, the Chinese digital Yuan will impact the $27 trillion payment market in China.

 

Sweden: e-krona

In 2017, the world’s oldest bank, Swedish Riksbank, began its CBDC project called e-krona. In collaboration with Accenture PLC, a pilot took place from 2020 until February 2021, and the project was extended until February 2022. E-krona intends to offer a robust alternative in case of emergency or turmoil of private payment service providers, thereby ensuring the Swedish payment system remains stable.

 

Bahamas: Sand Dollar

In 2019, the Bahamas also began their CBDC project called “Sand Dollar” — it was fully deployed in October 2020. The project was initiated in two districts: Exuma and Abaco Islands. Each Sand Dollar constitutes an additional digital variant to the Bahamanian dollar, which is, in turn, kept at a 1:1 peg with 1 US dollar. The project delivers inclusive access to financial services and regulated payments.

 

Eastern Caribbean Area: DXCD

The monetary authority for the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States members, the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank, began their work on a CBDC project called DXCD to reach financially excluded parts of the population. Its prototype is being tested in Antigua, Barbuda, Grenada, Saint Lucia, St. Kitts, and Nevis. The main goal of DXCD is to be a retail payment system for citizens without credit cards, for merchant and e-commerce payments at low costs.

 

Marshall Islands: Sovereign

In 2018, the Republic of the Marshall Islands shared plans for launching a CBDC called Sovereign (SOV). Currently, the US dollar acts as legal tender on the island, mainly because its population is only 58,729 and the cost of cash printing exceeded its benefits. RMI plans to introduce SOV as alternative digital money as a legal tender to improve the efficiency of RMI’s current payment systems.

 

CBDC’s path to mass adoption

Decentralized blockchains today have a “user beware” attitude: all transactions are irrevocable once settled and assets cannot be recovered if the transacting party is unwilling to cooperate with legal authorities. This is not a viable option for a CBDC aiming for mass adoption.

Moreover, no existing non-banking payment system has this kind of treatment under existing laws. Nor is it possible for legal authorities to compel cooperation, since the recipient could be an unknown person from overseas not subject to abide by the laws and regulations of the CBDC’s jurisdiction. Instead, CBDC issuers should modify their state under banking, property, payment, and contract law. This is possible only with hybrid two-layer designs that address two distinct problems:

 

  1. A CBDC needs a proper management infrastructure, wherein transactions can be first verified and then modified under the jurisdiction’s law. A dispute resolution system has security, compliance, and auditing processes. With Hedera acting as a publicly verifiable log of transactions for CBDCs that live in permissioned blockchain frameworks, banks that layer customer services on top of the payment layer can trust and verify that transaction information is accurate.

  2. A CBDC also needs to report its state (account balances, transactions, etc.) to relevant regulatory bodies, which can be more than just the state of the transactions — this includes things like information on IP addresses or account IDs. This information is vital in dispute resolution for payment systems. Using Hedera as a public record, authorities could directly inspect a CBDC’s state, including the details of how users have interacted with it.

 

Closing thoughts on CBDCs

Given the considerable efforts and attention that central banks are dedicating to central bank digital currencies, they will become a reality soon. Introducing CBDCs to the world will help boost crypto adoption as people will have access to the platforms to convert cryptocurrencies into legal tenders. Moreover, it will also help in the financial inclusion of the bankless population.

CBDCs will have far-reaching implications on the future of finance, including the buying and selling of digital assets and securities. However, the question is when? This answer will rely on the foundations of a dedicated legal framework to facilitate the transparency, distribution, and issuance of a digital form of money by global governments. As regulators and central banks take concrete steps in the direction of establishing CBDCs, the world will begin to embrace digital currencies as a standard.

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FedNow Surveillance

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The U.S. Federal Reserve is set to launch its digital payments system, FedNow, in July. Described by Richmond Fed President Tom Barkin as “resilient, adaptive, and accessible,” the system aims to facilitate faster, lower-cost bill payments, money transfers, and other consumer activities.

However, as central banks globally pursue Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs), concerns arise about the potential consequences for financial freedom and privacy.

The U.S. to Surveil All Private Financial Affairs

FedNow’s introduction of a CBDC could potentially pave the way for increased government surveillance of private financial affairs.

According to Robert Francis Kennedy Jr., with transactional anonymity gone, central banks would have the power to enforce dollar limits on transactions and restrict where and when money can be spent. A CBDC linked to digital ID and social credit scores could be even more dangerous.

Kennedy maintains that such a system could enable governments to freeze assets. They could even limit spending to approved vendors for those who don’t comply with specific mandates, such as vaccine requirements.

Although initially limited to interbank transactions, the launch of CBDCs raises concerns. These are related to the potential for governments to ban or seize decentralized currencies like Bitcoin, as was the case with gold in 1933.

Governments appear to seek to capitalize on crises like banking instability. For this reason, they are promoting CBDCs as safe alternatives to paper currencies and a means of protection against bank runs.

CBDC Federal Reserve Fednow

In light of these concerns, Bitcoin’s decentralized nature and censorship resistance becomes increasingly important.

As a decentralized currency, Bitcoin offers an alternative to CBDCs that can empower individuals and protect their financial privacy.

  1. Financial sovereignty: Bitcoin allows users to maintain control over their funds without relying on third parties. This independence can empower individuals to manage their finances without interference or censorship from governments or financial institutions.
  2. Privacy: While CBDCs can enable governments to track and scrutinize individual transactions, Bitcoin transactions are pseudonymous. Although not entirely anonymous, Bitcoin provides a higher degree of privacy than traditional banking systems. It allows users to safeguard their financial data from unwarranted surveillance.
  3. Borderless transactions: Bitcoin enables seamless cross-border transactions without the need for intermediaries or the constraints of foreign exchange rates. This feature can facilitate international trade, remittance transfers, and global investment opportunities, fostering greater financial inclusion and economic growth.
  4. Resistance to inflation: Bitcoin’s fixed supply of 21 million BTC and predictable issuance rate can protect users from inflationary pressures. In contrast, CBDCs, as an extension of fiat currencies, would still be subject to the monetary policies of central banks. These include inflationary measures such as quantitative easing.
  5. Security and resilience: The decentralized nature of Bitcoin’s underlying technology ensures the network’s security and resilience against cyber-attacks and system failures. This contrasts with centralized systems like CBDCs, which can be more vulnerable to hacks or technical issues.

By sidestepping centralized control and surveillance, Bitcoin could play a pivotal role in preserving financial freedom and autonomy in a future dominated by CBDCs.

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Changing tides in trade and currency

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More than 13 months since the Ukraine-Russia war began and an avalanche of sanctions and restrictions hit the Vladimir Putin-led country, it seems that Russia is taking its relationship with some allies to a new level.

The ties between Russia, China, India and other BRICS nations appear poised to go a step further with the formation of a new currency. BRICS includes Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. 

According to reports quoting Russian lawmaker Alexander Babakov, the BRICS nations are in the process of creating a new medium for payments – established on a strategy that “does not defend the dollar or euro”. 

Babakov, who is the deputy Chairman of Russia’s State Duma, reportedly indicated that the new currency would be secured by gold and other commodities such as rare-earth elements. The BRICS countries are working on creating a new form of currency with a plan to present its development at the BRICS leaders’ summit this year, he said on the sidelines of the India-Russia Business Forum in New Delhi last week.

While the claim is yet to be verified by other officials from the member nations, it came just a few days before South Africa sent senior officials to Russia to discuss the “recalibration of the global order” with President Vladimir Putin‘s party. South Africa is also slated to host a BRICS summit in August this year.

The new currency could reduce the world’s dependence on the US dollar and the Euro, according to reports from the Russian state-owned news agency Sputnik. 

Last week, Russian President Putin adopted a new foreign policy that put India and China at the forefront. The announcement also came mere days after Chinese Premier Xi Jinping visited Moscow to further cement the “no limits” partnership announced last year.

Furthermore, as per a Bloomberg report earlier today, China’s yuan has replaced the US dollar as the most traded currency in Russia. The yuan surpassed the dollar in monthly trading volume in February for the first time, and the difference became more pronounced in March, according to data compiled by Bloomberg based on daily transaction reports from the Moscow Exchange.

Before the invasion, the yuan’s trading volume on the Russian market was negligible.

“Russia will continue to build up a particularly privileged strategic partnership with the Republic of India with a view to enhance and expand cooperation in all areas on a mutually beneficial basis and place special emphasis on increasing the volume of bilateral trade, strengthening investment and technological ties, and ensuring their resistance to destructive actions of unfriendly states and their alliances,” the statement said, as per the report.

It also announced its intention to prioritise and enhance its capacity and international role in groupings such as BRICS ‘to help adapt the world order to the realities of a multipolar world’.

Now, it remains to be seen whether BRICS nations verify this claim by the Russian lawmaker, and whether they bring more clarity regarding such currency being created, if any.

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A new world order? BRICS nations offer alternative to West

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Predictions about the BRICS countries as the fastest growing economies haven’t quite panned out. Instead, the alliance is now offering a diplomatic forum and development financing, outside of the Western mainstream.

The acronym began as a somewhat optimistic term to describe what were the world’s fastest-growing economies at the time. But now the BRICS nations — Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa — are setting themselves up as an alternative to existing international financial and political forums.

“The founding myth of the emerging economies has faded,” confirmed Günther Maihold, deputy director of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, or SWP. “The BRICS countries are experiencing their geopolitical moment.”

Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa are trying to position themselves as representatives of the Global South, providing “an alternative model to the G7.”

The G7 is an “informal forum” of heads of state of the world’s most advanced economies, founded in 1975. Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Italy, Japan, Canada and the US are members, as is the EU.

The acronym BRIC, which initially stood for Brazil, Russia, India and China, was coined by Jim O’Neill in 2001 when he was chief economist of the multinational investment bank, Goldman Sachs. At the time, the four countries had sustained rates of high economic growth and the BRIC label stood for economic optimism about the future of those nations. Opponents of the label said the countries were too diverse to be grouped together like this and that it was really just a Goldman Sachs marketing ploy.

But what may have started as a marketing ploy to encourage investors has grown into a platform for intergovernmental cooperation similar to the G7. In 2009, the four nations met for their first summit in Russia’s Yekaterinburg. In 2010, South Africa was invited to join the group, adding the “S” to BRICS.

 

brics world economy china

Challenging the World Bank model

In 2014, with $50 billion (around €46 billion) in seed money, the BRICS nations launched the New Development Bank as an alternative to the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. In addition, they created a liquidity mechanism called the Contingent Reserve Arrangement to support members struggling with payments.

These offers were not only attractive to the BRICS nations themselves, but also to many other developing and emerging economies that had had painful experiences with the IMF’s structural adjustment programs and austerity measures. This is why many countries said they might be interested in joining the BRICS group.

The BRICS bank is open to new members. In 2021, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Uruguay and Bangladesh took up shares. However, these were much lower than the respective $10 billion investments made by the bank’s founding members.

Set to expand

South African Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor has said worldwide interest in the BRICS group was “huge.” In early March, she told television interviewers that she had 12 letters from interested countries on her desk.

“Saudi Arabia is one,” she said. “United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Algeria, and Argentina,”  as well as Mexico and Nigeria.

“Once we’ve shaped the criteria [for lending], we will then make the decision,” she said, noting that the topic would be placed on the agenda for the upcoming August summit in South Africa.

The most recent economic developments in BRICS member states have little to do with the initial myths upon which the group was founded. Of the five members, only China has achieved sustained and extensive growth since then. 

As China’s gross domestic product grew from $6 trillion in 2010 to nearly $18 trillion in 2021, the economies in Brazil, South Africa and Russia stagnated. India’s GDP grew from $1.7 trillion to $3.1 trillion, but was outpaced by China’s growth.

No sanctions against Russia

Since the start of the Russian war in Ukraine, the BRICS countries have only distanced themselves further from the so-called West. Neither India, Brazil, South Africa or China are taking part in sanctions against Russia. This has become increasingly clear with near-historic levels of trade between India and Russia, or in Brazil’s dependence on Russian fertilizer.

“Diplomatically, the war in Ukraine appears to have drawn a stark dividing line between an eastern-backed Russia and the West,” political scientist Matthew Bishop from the University of Sheffield wrote for the Economics Observatory late last year. “Consequently, some European and US policymakers worry that the BRICS may become less an economic club of rising powers seeking to influence global growth and development, and more a political one defined by their authoritarian nationalism.”

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Astrid Prange
 
government-controlled-cryptocurrency

Government Controlled Cryptocurrency

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Building on the bitcoin model, central banks are planning to produce their own “digital currencies”. Removing any and all remaining privacy, granting total control over every transaction, even limiting what ordinary people are allowed to spend their money on.

From the moment bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies first emerged, sold as an independent and alternative medium of exchange outside the financial status quo, it was only a matter of time before the new alternative would be absorbed, modified and redeployed in service of the state.

Enter “Central Bank Digital Currencies”: the mainstream answer to bitcoin.

For those who have never heard of them, “Central Bank Digital Currencies” (CBDCs) are exactly what they sound like, digitized versions of the pound/dollar/euro etc. issued by central banks.

Like bitcoin (and other crypto), the CBDC would be entirely digital, thus furthering the ongoing war on cash. However, unlike crypto, it would not have any encryption preserving anonymity. In fact, it would be totally the reverse, potentially ending the very idea of financial privacy.

Now, you may not have heard much about the CBDC plans, lost as they are in the tangle of the ongoing “pandemic”, but the campaign is there, chugging along on the back pages for months now. There are stories about it from both Reuters and the Financial Times just today. It’s a long, slow con, but a con nonetheless.

The countries where the idea progressed the furthest are China and the UK. The Chinese Digital Yuan has been in development since 2014, and is subject to ongoing and widespread testing. The UK is nowhere near that stage yet, but Chancellor Rishi Sunak is keenly pushing forward a digital pound that the press are calling “Britcoin”.

Other countries, including New Zealand, Australia, South Africa and Malaysia, are not far behind.

The US is also researching the idea, with Jerome Powell, head of Federal Reserve, announcing the release of a detailed report on the “digital dollar” in the near future.

The proposals for how these CBDCs might work should be enough to raise red flags in even the most trusting of minds.

Most people wouldn’t like the idea of the government monitoring “all spending in real-time”, but that’s not the worst it.

By far the most dangerous idea is that any future digital currency should be “programmable”. Meaning the people issuing the money would have the power to control how it is spent.

That’s not an interpretation or a “conspiracy theory”, just listen to Agustin Carstens, head of the International Settlement Bank, speaking earlier this year:

Here’s that quote again, with some emphasis added:

…which tells you not only that they want and are seeking this power, but how they justify it to themselves. They transform other people’s money into an “expression of their liability”, and so consider it’s only right that they control it.

An article in the Telegraph, back in June, was just as candid [our emphasis]:

Digital cash could be programmed to ensure it is only spent on essentials, or goods which an employer or Government deems to be sensible.

The article goes on to quote Tom Mutton, a director at the BoE:

You could introduce programmability […] There could be some socially beneficial outcomes from that, preventing activity which is seen to be socially harmful in some way.

Governments and employers making sure the money they issue can only be used on “sensible” things, and not be used in “socially harmful” ways? It doesn’t take much imagination to see just how this system could evolve and re-shape society into a truly dystopian nightmare.

In China the process is already beginning, with a trademarked lack of subtlety. As they progress toward the release of their digital currency, they are banning all cryptocurrencies to remove competition and it’s already known the digital yuan will be programmable.

The West’s approach will probably be less direct, but no less controlling for that.

Britcoin will likely be programmed in only “special circumstances”. Starting, as the Telegraph says, with state benefits. They will be flagged to be spent only on “essentials”. (Of course, if Universal Basic Income is put in place, then it’s possible the majority of people could end up on “state benefits”.)

It’s also not hard to see programmable money feeding into the “protect the NHS narrative”, where people aren’t allowed to spend state money on sugar, cigarettes or alcohol. Or people on organ waiting lists, or diagnosed with certain conditions, have their wages and spending controlled.

By and large, however, it is the nature of British tyranny to be unofficial. So the UK government will make a big show of renouncing their own power to program the money, thereby positively contrasting themselves with China…but at the time will take no steps to prevent large companies “programming” the wages they issue.

So, while the state controls the digital yuan in China, the digital pound will be subject to corporate control and used to enforce the unspoken state-corporate partnership that defines true fascism.

It will likely start in small, predictable ways designed to “limit competition”. McDonald’s, for example, will make it impossible to spend their wages at Burger King, and vice versa. Coke and Pepsi. Starbucks and Costa. You get the idea.

We’ve witnessed the rise of cancel culture, the cultivated age of identity politics, and virtue signalling. Well, imagine how programmable currency fits into that. Companies could commit to “combatting hate”, and stop their employees from donating money to black-listed political parties, religious groups, charities or individuals.

In the age of Covid we have seen how authors/actors/singers who step out of line are subject to poisonous witch hunts, but imagine a world where companies could “renounce those who spread misinformation”, by making it impossible to spend wages they issue on art/films/music/books by outspoken critics of the government.

Maybe companies will make it so that employees who aren’t vaccinated have more limitations placed on their wages than vaccinated ones. Maybe an unvaxxed paycheck can’t be spent at cinemas or nightclubs, to “stop the spread of the virus”.

John Cunliffe, deputy director of the Bank of England, told the Telegraph:

You could think of smart contracts in which the money would be programmed to be released only if something happened.

So maybe employers will remove choice altogether, and make a negative test and/or a vaccine booster a prerequisite for unlocking your wages. That could be applied to all kinds of behaviours moving forward.

The World Economic Forum has a clear vision of the future where people “own nothing and are happy”, combine that with a prolonged war on homeownership, and you can see employers and governments issuing money which can be spent on rent, but not on a mortgage.

Now imagine the nascent “Green New Deal”. Hard limits on how much money you can spend on petrol, plastic, or meat.

Only X dollars on flights per year. Only Y pounds on beef. All for the good of the planet.

Money will turn from an expression of independence into nothing but a voucher system operated completely at the whim of corporate monoliths.

All of this would have sounded like rampant paranoia just two years ago, but would you honestly be surprised to see that suggestion in the Guardian, these days?

A programmable digital currency would have, coded into it, the ability to control our entire society. And it looks like that’s where The New Normal is heading next.

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Texas needs some Preppers!

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(CNN) A winter storm and lengthy cold snap have crippled power facilities in Texas and caused about 2.3 million outages as of Wednesday evening, leaving residents in the cold and dark for several days.

The lack of power to about a quarter of the state has created a widespread emergency, with families huddling in homes or cars without heat, burst water pipes, failing water systems and gasoline shortages.
Barbara Martinez said she had been burning firewood to try to heat her suburban Houston home, which had been without power from early Sunday until Tuesday.
 
“We got power for four hours and then it went off again and it stayed off for a few hours, came back for like two hours then went away,” she said Wednesday morning. “It’s currently off.”
 
The outages cover the areas served by Electric Reliability Council of Texas, or ERCOT, from the counties bordering Mexico up to those touching Oklahoma, and from Houston in the east to rural Big Bend in the west. Yet areas outside of ERCOT’s coverage zone, including the eastern border with Louisiana, the northwest panhandle and El Paso in the west, are basically unaffected.
 
Texas officials pointed the blame at the power company and called for investigations. US Rep. Marc Veasey, a Democrat who represents parts of Fort Worth and Dallas, said he’s learned from an industry executive that the power grid was just minutes from failing on Monday before state agency officials initiated emergency rolling outages.
 
“I want people to know that we were minutes away from the entire grid crashing,” he told CNN’s Ed Lavandera, criticizing ERCOT and Republican leaders for not better preparing for the freeze.
 
“They certainly could have taken some precautions that would have prevented what we’re having to deal with now,” Veasey said.
An ERCOT spokesperson did not immediately return a CNN request for comment. But earlier Wednesday, CEO Bill Magness said the issue largely was a lack of energy supply as the cold weather shuttered power facilities. ERCOT’s controlled power outages, he said, had in fact averted the system’s collapse.
 
“If we had waited, and not done outages, not reduced demand to reflect what was going on, on the overall system, we could have drifted towards a blackout,” he said. “People feel like what we’re seeing feels like a blackout, but the blackout that can occur if you don’t keep the supply and demand in balance could last months.”
 
The power issues are likely to continue, especially given that the cold temperatures will last for another day or two. Over 21 million people, or nearly 70% of Texas’s population, are currently under some sort of winter weather alert.
 
The controlled outages have created rotating power issues as ERCOT has tried to spread around the pain, pushing people to rely on warming centers or the kindness of neighbors.
 
“We have power for about 30 or 15 minutes and then we get a blackout for about five to six hours,” said Eder Lemus of San Antonio.
The pipes in his house froze, so he, his wife and three children are relying on others for water.
 
 
“As of now, we are using a neighbor’s faucet to refill a bucket of water to drain our toilets,” he told said. “When and if the lights come back on, we try to take showers and refill our drinking water gallons so that we can stay hydrated.”
 
Gov. Greg Abbott said that he has spoken with both the lieutenant governor and the state House speaker, and that an investigation of ERCOT is slated to begin next week.
 
“ERCOT is an independent private entity that, candidly, I have both investigated and prosecuted before when I was attorney general of Texas, and we’re now investigating again,” Abbott said. “I’m not suggesting any way that there’s been any criminal activity or anything like that, but it is something that needs to be looked at.”
 
Abbott said a news conference Wednesday that 6,000 megawatts have been added to the state’s grid — enough power for about 1.2 million households.
 
There will be additional onboarding coming from the South Texas Nuclear Project and additional operations will increase from coal-produced power, Abbott said.
 
These sources will add more than 2,000 megawatts to the grid and provide additional power for about 400,000 homes, according to Abbott. About 17,200 megawatts of renewable generated power remain out on Wednesday afternoon, due to “freezing of the wind, or because of lack of sun for the solar,” Abbott said.
 
The widespread outages stem from a weather disaster coupled with an unprepared infrastructure.
 
A winter weather system brought unusually frigid temperatures to much of the central US over the past few days, including in Texas, the country’s energy leader. The deep freeze caused demand for power and heating to skyrocket even as it knocked out the state’s natural gas, coal, wind and nuclear facilities, which were not ready to function in such cold weather.
Hacked Drinking Water

Hacked Water

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An unidentified hacker has accessed the computer systems for the water treatment facility in the city of Oldsmar, Florida, and has modified chemical levels to dangerous parameters.

News of the attack was disclosed today in a press conference by city officials.

The intrusion took place on Friday, February 5, when the hacker accessed a computer system that was set up to allow for the remote control of water treatment operations.

The hacker first accessed this system at 8 am, in the morning, and then again for a second and more prolonged intrusion at 1:30 pm, in the afternoon.

This second intrusion lasted for about five minutes and was detected right away by an operator who was monitoring the system and saw the hacker move the mouse cursor on the screen and access software responsible for water treatment.

HACKER MODIFIED LYE LEVELS

“Sodium hydroxide, also known as lye, is the main ingredient in liquid drain cleaners. It’s also used to control water acidity and remove metals from drinking water in the water treatment plant,” said Oldsmar Sheriff Bob Gualtieri.

“The hacker changed the sodium hydroxide from about 100 parts per million to 11,100 parts per million. This is obviously a significant and potentially dangerous increase.”

Oldsmar city staff said that no tainted water was delivered to local residents as the attack was caught in time before any lye levels could be deployed.

According to Sheriff Gualtieri, the hacker disconnected as soon as they modified the lye levels, and a human operator set the chemical level back to normal right away.

Officials didn’t attribute the attack to any specific hacker group or entity. The timing of the attack is also of note as the city of Oldsmar is located near the Tampa urban center, which hosted the Super Bowl LV game on Sunday.

NOT THE FIRST TIME

This is the second incident of its kind where a hacker has accessed a water treatment facility and modified chemical levels.

A similar incident was reported back in 2015-2016 at an unnamed water treatment facility, but investigators said the intruders didn’t seem to know what they were doing, making random changes, and investigators classified the intrusion as an accident rather than an intentional attack.

Another set of attacks took place earlier this year, but without as dire consequences. In the spring and summer of 2020, Israeli officials reported attacks against local water treatment facilities, water pumps, and agricultural irrigation systems.

Tel Aviv officials, which blamed the attacks on the Iranian government, said hackers tried to access the management panels of several types of smart water management systems and asked local organizations to change their passwords.

None of the attacks were successful, officials and local media reported at the time.

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Truthfinder

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Have you ever googled yourself? A crush? Your neighbors? 57% of Americans admit to keeping an eye on their online reputation, and 46% admit to using the internet to look up someone from their past.

But Google is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to finding personal information. There’s a new website going around that users are calling “creepy,” “scary,” and “awesome.”

Have you ever been issued a speeding ticket? Failed to stop at a stop sign? Do you know someone who’s had a run-in with the law? If you’re like most of us, the answer to at least one of those questions is “yes.” Most of us have slipped up at least once or twice. In fact, one in four Americans has an arrest or a criminal record.

An innovative new website called Truthfinder is now revealing the full “scoop” on millions of Americans.

TruthFinder can search through hundreds of millions of public records in a matter of minutes. TruthFinder members can literally begin searching in seconds for sensitive data like criminal, traffic, and arrest records. Plus, they are able to check as many records as they want (think: friends, family, neighbors, enemies, etc. etc.).

Previously, if you needed to research somebody’s arrest records, it involved a lot of work. First, you’d need to know where the arrest records were located. Then you’d have to travel to the appropriate county court office — in person! After filling out long and boring paperwork, you’d have to wait for the results.

Searching arrest records could take days, weeks, or even months. And what if somebody was hiding an arrest in an unknown county? You might never find it.

But with websites like TruthFinder, a background check is simple and easy. With just a few clicks of your mouse, you can find detailed and explicit information not readily available through a standard search engine.

I decided to test it out for myself and discover what information TruthFinder might expose about me. The search was easy, and after a few minutes, I found myself staring at my background report — and it wasn’t pretty!

There was that mortifying blog that I’d started in high school, still up for all the world to see! My report even included embarrassing photographs of myself that I’d totally forgotten about. I couldn’t believe that TruthFinder even found my secret social media profiles that I’d created under an alias. The sheer volume of data about me was definitely scary. I feel like a perfect stranger could look me up on TruthFinder and find out my entire life story.

After conducting just one search, I was totally hooked. I just couldn’t believe that it was legal to have this many personal details online! One of my friends from back home has pretty much dropped off the map entirely for the past three years. I’ve been kind of worried about him, and nobody seemed to know where he had gone. So, I typed his name into TruthFinder and was absolutely devastated by the search results.

My “friend” had gone to jail. TruthFinder had every single detail on the case, from the date he was arrested to which prison he was currently in. But the gruesome description of his offence made me realize that I probably needed to reevaluate who my friends were. This guy’s records listed charge after charge for battery, assault, and child abuse. His criminal record read like an infinite scroll of total depravity. I just couldn’t believe it.

From now on, I’m looking up everybody — no matter how normal they seem. Luckily for me, TruthFinder offers unlimited searches, so I’ll never be fooled again.

Although TruthFinder can show deeply shocking criminal records, I’ve really been surprised by just how practical it is as an everyday tool. I’ve used it to look up addresses, phone numbers, birthdates, estimated income levels, assets — heck, I’ve even found Amazon wishlists on TruthFinder. One time I looked up Todd Kohlhepp, the scary serial killer from South Carolina who confessed to seven murders. Well, guess what? His Amazon profile came up in his background report, and let me tell you, it was downright chilling. He literally left reviews on knives and shovels, discussing how he used them in the murders. It was one of the creepiest things I’ve ever found online.

My own report came back with an interactive map of local sex offenders in my neighborhood, complete with mugshots and explicit details of their crimes. I was seriously grossed out to learn that my last apartment building was absolutely infested with perverts, rapists, and total scumbags.

It isn’t all scary — After reading more about TruthFinder, I’ve heard lots of positive stories, too. Apparently, people have reunited because of this website. Estranged families have used public records to contact long-lost family members to get back in touch. Military friends have reunited after years of lost contact because they found the right phone number or email address on their report.

All in all, I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend TruthFinder to my friends and family. In today’s world, you need to take precautions to keep yourself and your family safe. But if you’re going to look up someone that you know using TruthFinder, I have to warn you: the information you might find could forever change how you feel about someone. Make sure that you’re emotionally prepared for the consequences if you find something you don’t want to see. To get started with your search, click here.

iphonehack

Hackers force quick iOS update

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Apple is urging iPhone and iPad users to promptly update their operating systems to fix security bugs that may have already been exploited by hackers.

On its support webpage, the company said three security flaws “may have been actively exploited.” It did not reveal too many specifics about the bugs, noting “Apple does not disclose, discuss, or confirm security issues until an investigation has occurred and patches or releases are available.”
The issue is a link in an exploit chain, meaning a hacker would need to exploit further bugs for it to be fully executable. The company declined to comment further on any attacks.
The company pushed out the security patches on Tuesday as part of its new iOS 14.4 software, which also includes fixes for keyboard lag and allows smaller QR codes to be read by the camera.
Apple said two security issues stem from its WebKit, an open source browser engine used by Safari and iOS browsers. “A remote attacker may be able to cause arbitrary code execution,” the company said in the description notes. Meanwhile, Kernel, an Apple developer framework, was also affected.
The exploits were reported by “an anonymous researcher,” according to the webpage.
Apple prides itself on device security but it’s not immune to exploits. Last year, Google researchers found several websites with code that allowed hackers to quietly infiltrate iPhones. Meanwhile, an iOS13 bug exposed contact details stored in iPhones without requiring a passcode or biometric identification — a flaw that the company did not publicly address until several months after it was first reported.
 
CDI’s Best Alternatives for ditching Smartphones?

Don’t laugh, this could save your life one day!

Global Defense Initiative Prepper

Tails 4.15 Released

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New features

  • Add a Don’t Show Again button to the security notification when starting Tails in a virtual machine.

Changes and updates

  • Update Tor Browser to 10.0.9.

  • Update Thunderbird to 78.6.0.

  • Update Linux to 5.9.15. This should improve the support for newer hardware (graphics, Wi-Fi, etc.).

Fixed problems

  • Fix support for the Ledger hardware wallets in Electrum. (#18080)

  • Fix sharing mobile data, also called USB tethering, on iOS 14 or later. (#18097)

  • Clarify the error message when starting from a USB stick that is too small. (#18073)

For more details, read our changelog.

Known issues

None specific to this release.

See the list of long-standing issues.

Get Tails 4.15

To upgrade your Tails USB stick and keep your persistent storage

  • Automatic upgrades are available from Tails 4.2 or later to 4.15.

  • If you cannot do an automatic upgrade or if Tails fails to start after an automatic upgrade, please try to do a manual upgrade.

To install Tails on a new USB stick

Follow our installation instructions:

The Persistent Storage on the USB stick will be lost if you install instead of upgrading.

To download only

If you don’t need installation or upgrade instructions, you can download Tails 4.15 directly:

What’s coming up?

Tails 4.16 is scheduled for February 23.

Have a look at our roadmap to see where we are heading to.

We need your help and there are many ways to contribute to Tails (donating is only one of them). Come talk to us!

 

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