Cryptominers dreaming of rebound after price crash

Yahoo – AFP, Kevin TRUBLET, August 26, 2018

Two technicians inspect bitcoin mining at Bitfarms in Saint Hyacinthe, Quebec,
in this file photo taken on March 19 (AFP Photo/Lars Hagberg)

London (AFP) - Surrounded by the cryptocurrency mining "rig" that is taking over his bedroom, "Ali" lays bare the risks of his trade, revealing his profits "are a tenth of what they were".

Prices of cryptocurrencies have plunged since the heady heights of last year, slashing the profits of miners such as Ali.

"This is the worst possible time to invest," the young Lyon native, who preferred to keep his name secret, told AFP.

Ali still ekes out a profit and has amassed enough reserves to absorb around six months of losses, but the days of generating 15,000 euros (£13,580; $17,450) profit per computer seem long gone.

He acquired his first rig, an assembly of six graphics cards, in January 2017, and was just about to buy his seventh.

This investment totalled around 13,000 euros, soon paid off with his initial gains.

But the cryptocurrency boom at the end of 2017, of which Bitcoin was the best-known example, has multiplied the number of miners.

Many virtual currencies require that machines are connected to the network and miners are rewarded with units of currency when they create a new block, achieved by solving complicated mathematical problems.

However, the more units are mined, the more the currency is devalued.

'Not fair!'

"We were of course very uneasy about seeing our customers not getting what they expected," recently admitted Genesis Mining, a company that rents computing power.

It blamed the "downward trend" of prices and the "heavily rising difficulty" of mining since April.

The collapse of Bitcoin, which has lost two-thirds of its value since December and dragged many more cryptocurrencies in its wake, has not discouraged miners.

On the contrary, the power dedicated to Bitcoin mining has more than tripled since its peak prices, and the trend shows no sign of abating, according to the bitinfocharts site.

A "farm" consisting of more than 3,000 mining units was inaugurated in Russia last week, cutting profitability even further.

In mid-December, the reference unit for computing power, the THash/second, permitted the equivalent of $3.84 to be mined in one day, compared to only 25 cents today.

As a result, Genesis Mining offered its customers newer equipment to rent at a reduced price, halving maintenance costs, but the proposal was not greeted warmly.

"This is not fair! Your early customers helped you get to where you are now. Give us a free upgrade, we deserve it and you know it," tweeted one customer.

Electricity burden

Mining can also be expensive due to the huge amount of electricity required to earn units.

For example, the Antminer S9 -- a mining device dedicated to Bitcoin -- is worth more than 600 euros and consumes 1,600 euros of electricity per year.

Individuals, who generally focus on other virtual currencies that are easier to mine than Bitcoin, tend to rely on graphic cards to do the heavy lifting, which are less power hungry.

Those who get special rates on their electricity bills, such as EDF employee Philippe Vanbaelinghem, a miner for almost a year, can therefore exploit their "huge advantage" for monetary gain.

His staff discount allows him to reduce his bill by 80 euros per month, helping him generate around 140 euros in monthly mining earnings.

"Not everyone is equal on this," he admitted, pointing out that he could still have made a profit on standard tariffs when prices were high, but not now.

As a tenant, Ali's electricity bill is fixed each month, and he has not received any complaints from his landlord.

Other costs include technical faults, maintenance and the hours required to learn how to optimise equipment, meaning miners have little room to cut costs, despite market prices.

"As strong believers in the industry and its potential, we are certain the market will soon recover," said Genesis Mining.

Ali and Philippe are among the many miners who have incorporated speculation into their business model, hoarding some of their mined cryptocash.

Ali hopes to stop mining in four or five years.

With cryptos, "you have to expect everything," said 25-year-old.

China's Huawei, ZTE blocked from Australia's 5G network

Yahoo – AFP,  23 August 2018

Telecom giant Huawei has long disputed claims of any links to the Chinese government

Chinese telecom giants Huawei and ZTE have effectively been banned from rolling out Australia's 5G network after Canberra warned of security risks with companies beholden to foreign governments, prompting Beijing to denounce "ideological biases".

Huawei -- one of the world's largest telecommunications equipment and services providers -- has been under scrutiny in some countries, including the United States and Australia, over its alleged close links to Beijing.

It was blocked from bidding for contracts on Australia's ambitious national broadband project in 2012, reportedly due to concerns about cyber-security.

The company has long disputed claims of any links to the Chinese government.

Canberra said in a statement that the "involvement of vendors who are likely to be subject to extrajudicial directions from a foreign government that conflict with Australian law" posed a security risk.

Acting Home Affairs Minister Scott Morrison and Communications Minister Mitch Fifield added that there was "no combination of technical security controls that sufficiently mitigate the risks".

In Beijing, foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang said China was "gravely concerned", accusing Canberra of making "all types of excuses to create hurdles and taking discriminatory measures".

"We urge the Australian side to abandon ideological biases and create a sound environment for the fair competition of Chinese enterprises in Australia," Lu said.

Huawei Australia tweeted that the decision was an "extremely disappointing result for consumers".

"Huawei is a world leader in 5G. Has safely & securely delivered wireless technology in Aust for close to 15 yrs," the firm said.

The move came amid tensions between Beijing and Canberra that have seen Australia refocus its foreign aid programmes to win hearts and minds in the Pacific, where China has been flexing its muscles too.

Beijing has extended loans to the impoverished nations in the region, with Canberra raising fears some might get trapped with unsustainable debts, handing China influence.

Australia in June said it would negotiate a security treaty with Vanuatu and also fund and build an undersea communications cable to the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea.

The Solomons arrangement came after the Pacific nation was convinced to drop a contract with Huawei.

'Hacky hack hack': Australia teen breaches Apple's secure network

Yahoo - AFP, August 17, 2018

Police reportedly raided the boy's home last year and found hacking files and
 instructions saved in a folder called 'hacky hack hack' (AFP Photo/Josh Edelson)

Sydney (AFP) - A schoolboy who "dreamed" of working for Apple hacked the firm's computer systems, Australian media has reported, although the tech giant said Friday no customer data was compromised.

The Children's Court of Victoria was told the teenager broke into Apple's mainframe -- a large, powerful data processing system -- from his home in the suburbs of Melbourne and downloaded 90GB of secure files, The Age reported late Thursday.

The boy, then aged 16, accessed the system multiple times over a year as he was a fan of Apple and had "dreamed of" working for the US firm, the newspaper said, citing his lawyer.

Apple said in a statement Friday that its teams "discovered the unauthorised access, contained it, and reported the incident to law enforcement".

The firm, which earlier this month became the first private-sector company to surpass US$1 trillion in market value, said it wanted "to assure our customers that at no point during this incident was their personal data compromised".

An international investigation was launched after the discovery involving the FBI and the Australian Federal Police, The Age reported.

The federal police said it could not comment on the case as it is still before the court.

The Age said police raided the boy's home last year and found hacking files and instructions saved in a folder called "hacky hack hack".

"Two Apple laptops were seized and the serial numbers matched the serial numbers of the devices which accessed the internal systems," a prosecutor was reported as saying.

A mobile phone and hard drive were also seized whose IP address matched those detected in the breaches, he added.

The teen has pleaded guilty and the case is due to return to court for his sentencing next month.

Egypt's Coptic pope quits 'waste of time' Facebook

Yahoo – AFP, 4 August 2018

The head of Egypt?s Coptic Church, Pope Tawadros II, at the Nativity of Christ
Cathedral east of Cairo on January 6, 2018

The head of Egypt's Coptic Church, Pope Tawadros II, has shut down his Facebook page, saying it was a "waste of time", after the church ordered monks off social media.

State-run Al-Ahram newspaper said on Saturday that Tawadros's decision was in line with a dozen measures announced Thursday by the church relating to the activities of monks.

One of the measures gave monks a month "to deactivate and close any social media pages or accounts and voluntarily renounce these behaviours that are not true to monastic life".

On Thursday the church also said it will stop accepting any new monks for a year after the mysterious death of a bishop at a monastery northwest of Cairo.

In his last posting on Facebook before shutting the page, Tawadros said that using social media is a "waste of time, age and life".

"That is why I am shutting down my personal Facebook page and I salute all my brothers and sons who have followed the instructions of my sacred church".

According to Al-Ahram, several senior Coptic Church officials have followed Tawadros's example and shut down their Facebook pages.

Tawadros became pope in 2012, and according to Egyptian media has not been active on Facebook since he opened his page in 2009.

Coptic Christians make up about 10 percent of Egypt's predominantly Sunni Muslim population of 100 million.

Meanwhile Egyptian police continue their investigation into the death of Bishop Epiphanius, the 68-year-old abbot of Saint Macarius monastery in Wadi el-Natrun, who was found with head injuries on Sunday.

A security official has said his death was being investigated as a possible murder.

Number of US newspaper newsroom employees down sharply: survey

Yahoo – AFP, July 30, 2018

The number of employees in US newspaper newsrooms has fallen sharply over
the past decade, according to a new survey (AFP Photo/SAUL LOEB)

Washington (AFP) - The number of employees in US newspaper newsrooms has declined by 45 percent over the past decade, according to a survey published on Monday.

US newspaper newsroom employees fell from 71,000 in 2008 to 39,000 in 2017, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics figures cited by the Pew Research Center.

The decline in the number of newspaper newsroom workers was the biggest contributor to an overall drop in newsroom employment in the United States, Pew said.

The overall number of employees working in newsrooms -- newspapers, radio, cable and broadcast television and digital media outlets -- fell 23 percent over the period, from 114,000 in 2008 to 88,000 in 2017.

"Of the five industries studied, notable job growth occurred only in the digital-native news sector," Pew said.

The number of digital-native newsroom employees increased by 79 percent over the period, from about 7,400 in 2008 to about 13,000 in 2017, it said.

Pew said the number of broadcast television newsroom employees -- 28,000 --- remaining relatively stable from 2008 to 2017 as did the number of people working in cable television newsrooms -- about 3,000.

Radio newsrooms, however, lost about 27 percent of their employees from 4,600 in 2008 to 3,300 in 2017, Pew said.

US newspapers have been hit by waves of layoffs over the past decade amid steep falls in circulation and advertising.

Last week, the New York Daily News, the century-old tabloid known for its provocative headlines, announced it was slashing half its editorial staff.

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"From Dark to Light" + "Discovery", US (3), June 24 - 25, 2017 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll)  (Text version "From Dark to Light") 

"... Marketing the Drama and Unseen Truth

Number three: There are some very old energies in your society and in your culture that have always been the same and represent past Human nature, and you have to decide what to do with them. You may not be able to change them, but you have a choice on what to do with them.

If you believe in the shift and you are starting to think more positive, then let me tell you something that will help. There is light on this planet that is not being reported. There is the beginning of high consciousness ideas and new thought about the future of humanity in very powerful places. These are seeds of new thought that are beginning to grow, and some of them make so much sense and are elegant, yet you'll never know about them. The reason? Your media is filled with the old dark consciousness of drama above all else and many of you willingly create a platform to sustain it.

Some of you will come home from work and feel it's a nice idea to turn on the media and watch all of the horrible things that happened on the planet that day. Perhaps you don't want the news, so you go for entertainment instead. So you turn on a program where you can watch families in drama, arguing and complaining. What I'm telling you, dear ones, is that your media is broken, and you watch it anyway.

Right now, it continues in the old energy and the management in charge thinks it knows best what you and your neighbors want. So it's going to deliver darkness on a regular basis, and if there's nothing dark, it will create it for you. That is what you're faced with. Here is my advice. Select the media carefully that you believe is true and accurate. Wouldn't you rather have fun things to watch? Perhaps you'd like to watch cute pets or animals doing fun things? How about children doing amazing and hilarious things, or great stories of heroism with uplifting endings? How about amazing nature or comedy that is hilarious? Right now with new devices, you can see all of that as much as you want, without commercials. This is the newest trend and evolution of your media selection - personal control over programs in your home, without commercial interruption. Did you see this happening and wonder why now?

So the solution to drama-biased media is simple: Don't watch or listen to standard broadcast! Instead, find out about the alternates and be selective. Select news that is less biased in bringing you full-time drama. Of course, you need to stay in touch with what is happening, but you don't have to accept a program that is dedicated to enhancing and promoting the drama of the day and making it worse - or that gives no news at all about the good things going on.

I say this because broadcast not only is broken, it's dangerous, since it gives false impressions of the overview of the planet. They are stuck in the old energy and haven't caught up yet with the overview of what might really be happening on the planet. Not yet. Even the channels that will give you supposedly good education and history are biased in ways that you would not even expect. They continue to believe in slanting even historic or documentary stories to be horrific and dark. They believe that is what people really want.

What would happen if these companies started programming things people really wanted to watch? What would happen is exactly what they want, and their revenues would go up! I hope they're listening. There will come some day, dear ones, where there'll be more than one good news channel and you can tune in to hear the most heroic and heart-rendering things that have happened on that day on the planet. It will be balanced, perhaps with some other things that also happened. But it will be a balance that you have not seen yet anywhere. ...."

"Recalibration of Free Choice"–  Mar 3, 2012 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Caroll) - (Subjects: (Old) Souls, Midpoint on 21-12-2012, Shift of Human Consciousness, Black & White vs. Color, 1 - Spirituality (Religions) shifting, Loose a Pope “soon”, 2 - Humans will change react to drama, 3 - Civilizations/Population on Earth,  4 - Alternate energy sources (Geothermal, Tidal (Paddle wheels), Wind), 5 – Financials Institutes/concepts will change (Integrity – Ethical) , 6 - News/Media/TV to change, 7 – Big Pharmaceutical company will collapse “soon”, (Keep people sick), (Integrity – Ethical)  8 – Wars will be over on Earth, Global Unity, … etc.) - (Text version)

“…6 - The News

Number six. I'll be brief. Watch for your news to change. It has to. When the media realizes that Human Beings are changing their watching habits, they're going to start changing what they produce for you to watch. Eventually, there's going to be something called "The Good News Channel," and it will be very attractive indeed. For it will be real and offset the drama of what is today's attraction. This is what families at night, sitting around the table, will wish to watch. They'll have something where the whole picture of a situation is shown and not just the dramatic parts. You will hear about what's happening on the planet that no one is telling you now, and when that occurs [we have no clock, dear one], it's going to compete strongly with the drama. I keep telling you this. Human nature itself is starting to be in color instead of black and white. Watch for it. And that was number six ….”

"The Recalibration of Awareness – Apr 20/21, 2012 (Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll) (Subjects: Old Energy, Recalibration Lectures, God / Creator, Religions/Spiritual systems  (Catholic Church, Priests/Nun’s, Worship, John Paul Pope, Women in the Church otherwise church will go, Current Pope won’t do it),  Middle East, Jews, Governments will change (Internet, Media, Democracies, Dictators, North Korea, Nations voted at once), Integrity (Businesses, Tobacco Companies, Bankers/ Financial Institutes, Pharmaceutical company to collapse),  Illuminati (Started in Greece, with Shipping, Financial markets, Stock markets, Pharmaceutical money (fund to build Africa, to develop)), Shift of Human Consciousness, (Old) Souls, Women, Masters to/already come back, Global Unity.... etc.) - (Text version)

“…  Government

Let us speak of government. We're not speaking of your government, but of any government - the way it works, how it survives, how it has survived, the way it campaigns, and how it elects leaders. It's going to change.

Years ago, I told you, "When everybody can talk to everybody, there can be no secrets." Up to this point on this planet, government has counted on one thing - that the people can't easily talk to each other on a global scale. They have to get their information through government or official channels. Even mass media isn't always free enough, for it reports that which the government reports. Even a free society tends to bias itself according to the bias of the times. However, when you can have Human Beings talking to each other all at once, all over the planet without government control, it all changes, for there is open revelation of truth.

Democracy itself will change and you're going to see it soon. The hold-outs, the few countries I have mentioned in the past, are doomed unless they recalibrate. They're doomed to be the same as they have been and won't be able to exist as they are now with everyone changing around them.

I mentioned North Korea in the past. Give it time. Right now, the young man is under the control of his father's advisors. But when they're gone, you will see something different, should he survive. Don't judge him yet, for he is being controlled.

In government, if you're entire voting base has the ability to talk to itself without restriction and comes up with opinions by itself without restriction, it behooves a politician to be aware and listen to them. This will change what politicians will do. It will change the way things work in government. Don't be surprised when some day a whole nation can vote all at once in a very unusual way. Gone will be the old systems where you used to count on horseback riders to report in from faraway places. Some of you know what I am talking about. Government will change. The systems around you, both dark and light, will change. You're going to start seeing something else, too, so let's change the subject and turn the page. ”