Binance Says It Helped Cops Arrest Ransomware Money Launderers
June 24, 2021 | Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai, Vice
Press
Nicholas Weaver, a senior researcher at the International Computer Science Institute at UC Berkeley, said that this operation shows that exchanges such as Binance face "an existential threat from the ransomware gangs" given their role in the gangs' operations.
Trojan Shield: FBI's California sting nets more than 500 arrests and seizure of drugs, guns and crypto
June 10, 2021 | Jana Katsuyama, KTVU Fox 2
"It's a brilliant example of taking advantage of social weaknesses with technical exploitation," said Weaver, "Actually building the cryptography to do this would be something that would be a reasonable homework assignment. Doing the integration needed and the social aspects needed to get this adopted and used by thousands of criminals, running millions of dollars in drugs is the true brilliance of this operation."
Crypto Markets Crash Again After DOJ Seizes $2.3 Million Bitcoin Ransom
June 8, 2021 | Jonathan Ponciano, Forbes
It's unclear how the DOJ obtained the private key, but experts, including Dr. Nicholas Weaver, a cybersecurity professor at the University of California at Berkeley, have suggested federal officials effectively hacked the hackers in a show of unprecedented government intervention in the cryptocurrency space.
Justice Dept. Claws Back $2.3M Paid by Colonial Pipeline to Ransomware Gang
June 7, 2021 | Brian Krebs, Krebs on Security
How it came to have that private key is the key question. Nicholas Weaver, a lecturer at the computer science department at University of California, Berkeley, said the most likely explanation is that law enforcement agents seized money from a specific DarkSide affiliate responsible for bringing the crime gang the initial access to Colonial’s systems.
Hacker Lexicon: What Is a Supply Chain Attack?
May 31, 2021| Andy Greenberg, Wired | Also appeared in Ars Technica on June 6, 2021
"Supply chain attacks are scary because they're really hard to deal with, and because they make it clear you're trusting a whole ecology," says Nick Weaver, a security researcher at UC Berkeley's International Computer Science Institute. "You're trusting every vendor whose code is on your machine, and you're trusting every vendor's vendor."
The IRS Wants Help Hacking Cryptocurrency Hardware Wallets
April 29, 2021 | Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai, Vice
"It seems like overkill," Nicholas Weaver, a senior researcher at the International Computer Science Institute at UC Berkeley, told Motherboard in an online chat. "For most of these devices a choice of 'Either give us the password or rot in jail for contempt' might be sufficient."
NFT art boom: Are digital artworks worth the virtual paper they’re printed on?
April 22, 2021 | Mark Hanrahan, ABC News
“[An NFT] doesn't actually convey any ownership rights. You don't gain copyright over the NFT" [said Nick Weaver]
NFTs could be the future of collecting - or a huge bubble. We talked to 3 experts about the risks to consider before buying in.
March 13, 2021 | Business Insider Australia
[Since] blockchain transactions are anonymous and irreversible, if someone gets into your computer and steals your assets, you’re pretty much out of luck, according to Weaver.
Explained: Why eminent economists say Bitcoin remains inefficient
February 24, 2021 | CNBC
Nicholas Weaver, a researcher at the International Computer Science Institute, underlined something almost always ignored — that cryptocurrency exchanges are not like “regular stock exchanges”, adding these are “unregulated entities”. “For example, in a regular stock exchange, you’re not allowed to trade with yourself because that’s price manipulation. But that’s a regular occurrence on these cryptocurrency exchanges,” he further added.
White House and Twitter deny Dutch researcher's claim he accessed Trump's account
October 22, 2020 | Zack Budryk, The Hill
"I would expect at minimum for every account they would log the IP and device info for every new login," Nicholas Weaver, a senior researcher at the International Computer Science Institute at UC Berkeley, told Motherboard. "This would be a 'new device' so it would be trivial for Twitter to verify if true or not."