Ken Moore, head of Citi Innovation Labs told IBTimes UK during a technology briefing that the bank has been looking at distributed ledger technology for "the last few years" and has amassed a skilled team.They have constructed three blockchains and a test currency to run across them.Moore said: "We have up and running three separate systems within Citi now that actually deploy block...Read More

Following last week's eavesdropping reports, WikiLeaks shared new documents with Libération and Mediapart. This time, the new documents reveal that the NSA was spying on France's best performing companies for economic intelligence purposes.In addition to eavesdropping French Economy Ministers François Baroin and Pierre Moscovici between 2004 and 2012, the NSA gathered as much...Read More

U.S. authorities foiled attacks planned around the Fourth of July, arresting more than 10 people in the month before the holiday who were inspired by Islamic State online recruitment, FBI Director James Comey said on Thursday."I do believe our work disrupted efforts to kill people likely in connection with July 4th," Comey told reporters at the headquarters of the Federal Bureau of Inves...Read More

The [Greek] crisis could present new opportunities. From Bitcoin to barter, the impending loss of the euro has Greeks looking for unorthodox solutions that operate largely outside the banking system.Leander Bindewald, a senior researcher at the New Economics Foundation, draws inspiration from the industrial Greek city of Volos, which in 2011 established a barter-like system of local alternative un...Read More

FBI Director James Comey on Monday defended his agency's position that too-tough-to-crack encryption poses a threat to national security, arguing that terrorists are increasingly using the technology to lock out law enforcement and coordinate attacks.Comey, in a brief op-ed appearing on the prominent national security blog Lawfare, said that "there are lots of good things" about univ...Read More

Greece's five-year dance with its European creditors appears finally to be reaching a climax.The continent's leaders are presenting a hard-nosed ultimatum: To get more bailout money, the debt-wracked country must propose a package of tax increases, pension cuts and other economic reforms by Thursday, and come to a final agreement by Sunday or face bankruptcy and likely ouster from the euro...Read More

"Britain is not a state that is trying to search through everybody's emails and invade their privacy," [Prime Minister David Cameron] insisted. "We just want to ensure that terrorists do not have a safe space in which to communicate. That is the challenge, and it is a challenge that will come in front of the House. We have always been able, on the authority of the home secretary...Read More

Following the Supreme Court decision mandating legal same-sex marriage nationwide, the New York Times tells us that, "gay rights leaders have turned their sights to what they see as the next big battle: obtaining federal, state and local legal protections in employment, housing, commerce and other arenas."In other words, the state will erect new barriers to freedom of choice in place of...Read More

GREEK cities were filled Sunday night with cheering supporters of the victorious Oxi ("No") camp in the referendum on the bail-out terms demanded by the country's European creditors. Many believed they had launched an anti-austerity revolution that would soon sweep the rest of Europe.In the rest of Europe, such a revolution did not seem to be on the way. Across southern Europe and in...Read More

In recent years, the United States has killed untold multitudes in wars and counterterrorist drone warfare in West Asia and North Africa. Our campaigns have spilled the blood, broken the bodies, and taken or blighted the lives of many in our armed forces, while weakening our economy by diverting necessary investment from it.These demonstrations of American power and determination have inflicted va...Read More

Officers at police academies have always been trained in de-escalation, but there has been less emphasis on such methods over the past 20 years. A recent Police Executive Research Forum survey of 281 police agencies found that the average young officer received 58 hours of firearms training and 49 hours of defensive tactical training, but only eight hours of de-escalation training.The training reg...Read More

The National Security Agency, while primarily occupied by sweeping up billions of phone calls, emails, texts and social media messages each day, wants better visual information about the earth and its residents, too, Admiral Michael Rogers said Wednesday."Signals intelligence … ain't enough, you guys," the NSA chief told a gathering of contractors in the geospatial intelligence...Read More

A remarkably swift and broad shift in public attitudes toward gays and lesbians, unlike any other in recent history, preceded the Supreme Court's ruling Friday that found a constitutional right to same-sex marriage.As recently as 1990, about seven in eight Americans said sexual relations between adults of the same gender were wrong. In 2004, less than a third supported same-sex marriage, and o...Read More

The European Central Bank says it is not increasing its emergency funding for Greek banks, amid fears that Greece may default on its debts on Tuesday.The decision not to raise the cap on aid to Greece increases the likelihood of bank closures and restrictions on cash withdrawals, analysts say.That in turn could eventually result in Greece leaving the euro.The ECB said that it stood ready to review...Read More

What gives an electric jolt as strong as a typical Tase but is designed for prisoners already in police custody rather than suspects not yet arrested? Wireless "Stun-Cuffs" from Myers Enterprises. "Today's criminal is more hardened, desperate, and more dangerous than ever," its imperfectly punctuated brochure warns. "Whether taking a prisoner for a doctor visit, transp...Read More

The FBI assured Congress in an unusual, confidential briefing that its plane surveillance program is a by-the-books operation short on high-definition cameras — with some planes equipped with binoculars — and said only five times in five years has it tracked cellphones from the sky.The FBI would not openly answer some questions about its planes, which routinely orbit major U.S. cities...Read More

Perhaps baboons should run for office. Researchers tracking a troop of wild olive baboons have found that the primates make travel decisions democratically when disagreements arise over which direction to go.The findings, published in the journal Science, could help shed light on the evolution of group decision-making in a variety of social animals living in hierarchical structures — humans...Read More

One of Russia's most alarming new weapons capabilities may be on the move soon. Jane's reports that KBM, a state-owned armament company specializing in missile systems, recently presented its 9K333 Verba man-portable air-defense system (MANPADS).At an arms fair this week, the company announced that the weapon had been cleared for export — although KBM designer Gen. Velariy Kashin wou...Read More

I know a better way to fight ISIS. It starts with an idea that should appeal the better angels of both hawks and doves: National service for all 18- to 28-year-olds.Require virtually every young American—the civic-minded millennial generation—to complete a year of service through programs such as Teach for America, AmeriCorps, the Peace Corps, or the U.S. military, and two things will...Read More

The shooting at the Emmanuel AME Church in Charleston is a tragedy and an undeniable act of racism. It is entirely proper to consider it an act of domestic terrorism. We should pause for a moment to remember the victims and offer our thoughts or prayers to their families.I wish we could also pause for a moment before we start to politicize this tragedy. Alas, my friends on the Left and Right have...Read More