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LAB Radio

Welcome to LAB Radio! (Learn About Bitcoin and Learn About the Blockchain). This show emerged organically from within the CoinStructive team as a way to document various subject matter, people and companies in the ecosystem around this new technology. LAB Radio covers subject matter like: What is Bitcoin and the Blockchain, Security vs Utility Tokens, Compliance, Smart Contracts, 2 Factor Authentication (2FA), Altcoins, multi-disciplinary use cases, and how this Technology will change society. Guests have included: Rob Viglione of ZenCash, Shawn Owen of SALT, Paul Snow of Factom, Mate Tokay of Bitcoinist, Pamela Morgan of Third Key Solutions, Eric Larcheveque of Ledger, Diego Gutierrez Saldivar of Rootstock.io, and even Paul Puey of Edge. These guests and many many other innovative and bright individuals are doing exceptional work and we are thrilled to help share their story and vision.
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Now displaying: December, 2018

Welcome to LAB Radio

Dec 28, 2018

This episode of LAB Radio was a part of our coverage of CryptoBlockcon where Chris Groshong interviewed Adam Koltun, Lead Business Strategist of Quantum Resistant Ledger (QRL).

Chris Groshong (left), CEO of CoinStructive Inc, and Adam Koltun (right), Lead Business Strategist of Quantum Resistant Ledger (QRL)

As Adam so eloquently put it in their recap blog post, the conference itself was a cornucopia of very different industries squished together in an expansive venue:

"The event was held at the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino. In addition to CBC, the MLB Winter Meetings, and a National Finals Rodeo competition was being held nearby, so many of the competitors were staying at Mandalay Bay. Certainly, literal cowboys, baseball executives and blockchain enthusiasts rubbing shoulders made for some interesting juxtapositions. As much as those of us within the industry can sometimes get weary of terms like “adoption” or “mainstream” or “awareness” — moments like these serve as an eloquent reminder, to me, that blockchain/cryptocurrency are still completely unknown to large swaths of American society, at least. It’s useful, I find, to sometimes recognize that for all the drama this space can sometimes produce, that in the long-run, these are minor speedbumps that will be hardly (if at all) remembered by the vast majority of crypto users within the next 10 years."

As stated on their website:

"The Quantum Resistant Ledger (QRL) is a first of its kind, future-proof post quantum value store and decentralized communication layer which tackles the threat Quantum Computing will pose to cryptocurrencies.

This is backed by provably secure, peer-reviewed XMSS (instead of 256-bit ECDSA) with a proof-of-work(POW) algorithm, Cryptonight v7, which will later be hard forked to Proof of Stake."

QRL aims to future proof the Blockchain from Quantum computing through peer-reviewed and proven precursors like Extended Merkle Signature Scheme (EMSS):

"QRL provides a blockchain that is resistant to both conventional and quantum computing attacks. The future of the internet will be built on decentralized protocols and abstraction layers, and we plan on being ready for that future, as well as any sudden quantum computing development (“Y2Q”) that may usher in that reality sooner than expected.

Our blockchain will utilize the previously vetted, provably secure Extended Merkle Signature Scheme (XMSS) to ensure that our network is resistant to quantum computing attacks. We aim to secure our network against not only the inevitability of quantum computing, and all that implies for the blockchain and cryptocurrency space, but also the potential for a black swan event to rapidly and irreversibly advance the technology with no immediate warning.

By utilizing an address format that allows us to change hash functions down the line if necessary, we have created a blockchain that is both secure today and adaptable tomorrow."

For show notes and more visit: LAB Radio

Dec 4, 2018

On this LAB Radio, episode Aaron Mangal and Chris Groshong talk security, the Internet and origin story of how MetaCert helps protect users from malicious links with CEO and founder, Paul Walsh.

Picture of Paul Walsh, CEO and founder of Metacert

Paul Walsh, CEO and founder of MetaCert and co-founder of W3C Mobile Web Initiative

Paul is an early web pioneer in security and safety for users having helped create projects like the W3C Mobile Web Initiative who's mission includes "ensuring that the Web be available on as many kind of devices as possible".

He also helped create standards and classifications for Uniform Resource Locations (URLs) as a part of his work at the W3C organization.

"I'm CEO of MetaCert. In 2017 we completely eradicated phishing on Slack for the crypto world. In 2018 we pretty much brought a stop to phishing for the crypto world on Telegram. 2019 is going to be our most important year - our mission is to eradicate phishing for everyone who uses our new email security solution for native mobile email.

Previously...

I was part of the team that helped to launch technologies such as AIM, Internet Radio, Online Games and X2 56K Modem Protocol while working at AOL during the 90's.

I co-instigated the creation of the W3C Standard for URL Classification/Content Labeling and I'm one of the seven original Founders of the W3C Mobile Web Initiative. I also own a full patent for Malware and Phishing detection and prevention inside a mobile app WebView with more pending.

I own an Indian restaurant in Ireland - Michelin Star for 10+ years.

[I am a] Irish. Father. Wine Drinker. Advanced Open Water Diver, Snowboarder, Skydiver Wannabe and Seasoned Traveller."

-Paul Walsh

This new broad access of the web we are seeing today has brought new challenges such as malicious individuals who seek to steal peoples data and even worse Cryptocurrency and the value within.

The MetaCert team began by providing authenticity and monitoring of social media channels like Telegram and Slack which has a wave of malicious bot attacks on users, encouraging them to click on compromised links and put their sensitive data into fake websites which ultimately leads to theft.

MetaCert Logo with features inforgraphic

MetaCert aims to protect businesses from malicious threats and unsafe URLs inside Messaging Apps

MetaCert has a patented enterprise-grade security API which can lookup over 2,000 shortening services and check it against a massive database of 10 billion classified URLs across 65 categories in a fraction of a second.

Image of MetaCert's technology Stack

MetaCert boasts the biggest threat intelligence system on the planet. The second to them is OpenDNS (run by Cisco) which has classified 2 million domains across 60 categories.

One of the reasons for building its own threat intelligence system was to prevent false positives (which is a problem with current solutions on the market automatically blocking too many innocent sites).

MetaCert recently released a beta of their email security solution which helps verify the safety of links:

Before and After Image of using Metacert on email

After listening to this episode you will learn:

  • How Paul was an early semantic web pioneer in the 90s and created the W3C Mobile Web Initiative
  • Why Paul felt websites and search engines should show more metadata and have an identity certificate
  • What a Universal Resource Identifier (URI) is and why they are important
  • How Webview works and was a vulnerability in our mobile use of the Web
  • Why they got a patent in place for security around Webview to protect themselves from tech giants like Google
  • Why the first iteration of MetaCert was for child safety and built a database for pornographic content
  • How MetaCert saw the opportunity to organize and classify URIs and created the biggest Cyber Threat Intelligence Database to date
  • How the MetaCert API works
  • How MetaCert leverages a reward system for compensating people (Validators) for helping identify and log links
  • Why the MetaCert "Green Shield" icon has become a pillar in their branding and marketing to the public
  • Paul's vision for decentralizing governance around content, link filtering and working group/committee creation
  • A fake news identifying browser add-on called TrustedNews which is 100% powered by MetaCert
  • About how Paul is considering moving away from Ethereum (first time mentioned in public)

For show notes and more visit: LAB Radio Episode 49

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