The crypto Boom

 

about sam Bankman -Fried

Once upon a time in the bustling heart of the cryptocurrency world, there lived a young and audacious entrepreneur named Sam Bankman. Sam had a vision that transcended the conventional financial systems, and he was determined to reshape the future of finance.

Born with an insatiable curiosity, Sam delved into the world of technology and finance at a tender age. His journey began in his college dormitory, where he coded his first trading algorithm. As he tinkered with lines of code, he realized the transformative power of blockchain technology and the potential it held for decentralizing financial systems.

Sam's big break came when he co-founded FTX, a cryptocurrency exchange that quickly gained popularity for its innovative products and robust trading infrastructure. Under Sam's leadership, FTX became a beacon of trust in a market riddled with skepticism. He championed transparency, security, and user-friendliness, earning the respect and admiration of traders and investors worldwide.

Sam's determination knew no bounds. He relentlessly worked day and night, tirelessly pushing the boundaries of what was possible in the world of crypto. His daring ventures expanded beyond exchanges, venturing into the realms of derivatives, NFTs, and even charitable initiatives.

But Sam was not just about profits; he believed in giving back. He established the FTX Foundation, dedicated to supporting causes close to his heart, from environmental conservation to educational access for underserved communities.

Sam Bankman's story is one of ambition, innovation, and unyielding determination. He took the world of finance by storm, leaving an indelible mark that changed the way we view money and its possibilities. His journey reminds us that sometimes, it takes a fearless visionary to redefine the rules and usher in a new era.

Sneaker Bot

Sneaker Bot

Source: https://www.imperva.com/learn/application-security/sneaker-bot/

What is a Sneaker Bot?

A sneaker bot, commonly referred to as a “shoe bot”, is a sophisticated software component designed to help individuals quickly purchase limited availability stock.

After using the bot to make purchases, bot users often resell the product at a higher price. As a result, customers become frustrated and the company suffers significant damage to its reputation.

Initially, sneaker bots were created to help their operators purchase a big quantity of limited-edition sneakers. Today, these bots are used to purchase any item in limited availability or products restricted to certain geographical regions.

How Do Sneaker Bots Work?

To use a sneaker bot, bot users need to enter data into the software, such as credit card information, name, and shipping address. Once they input the information, they can specify what the bot should purchase. This is usually achieved by entering a list of product URLs or keywords. Bot users may retrieve initial information (such as product URLs) from “cook groups” that offer support for botters.

Once the bot is initiated, the checkout process runs automatically and the bot can purchase goods faster than humans can.

Sneaker Bot Architecture

Operating a sneaker bot requires several components:

The bot itself

A proxy server

Proxy clients that provide IP addresses

The proxy server provides access to a large number of proxies, and can be used to parallelize the bot, running it multiple times against the same website.

The proxies give each instance of the bot a unique IP address. A bot uses multiple IP addresses to make it seem like multiple people are performing actions. For example, mass-entering into one online queue can increase the odds of actually making a purchase.

A proxy helps mask bots as multiple buyers. Otherwise, a targeted website can determine that all entries are from one source and ban the IP.

Are Sneaker Bots Illegal?

Sneaker bots are not illegal – they are not traded on the dark web or black market. In fact, most bot makers have websites, run advertisements, and publicly list their prices. As long as the purchases are made through the proper digital channels, using a sneaker bot is not considered illegal. However, sneaker bots do violate the terms and conditions defined by many websites.

The majority of retail stores are taking active steps to combat the use of sneaker bots. Supreme, Shopify, Foot Locker, Nike, and Adidas are all familiar with bots and regularly update online protections to prevent the use of these bots. These updates typically include coding changes designed to differentiate between bots and human users. However, bots quickly update their operating software to avoid new protective measures.

How Sneaker Bots Impact Customers and Online Businesses

Here are several ways in which sneaker bots negatively impact customer experience as well as the bottom line of businesses:

Damaged brand reputation—when a bot collects all stock, or makes it look like there is no stock by hoarding inventory, customer experience is negatively impacted. Bots prevent real customers from purchasing sneakers and other items in high demand. This causes frustration, making customers think the website cannot meet their needs. As a result, customers will not only look for another site for the current purchase, but they may also avoid returning to the same site or brand in the future.

Loss of revenue—because bots scoop up the inventory before real customers can make purchases, websites are essentially losing these potential customers. When this happens, websites cannot offer these lost customers other offerings or establish a better relationship. Previous customers cannot be reached out for loyalty offerings and new customers are lost. These impacts can have long-term consequences and siphon future returns.

Loss of brand loyalty—even if website owners make money by selling high-demand items to bot operators, they lose brand loyalty, which would cause ordinary customers to come back to buy additional items. A bot operator does not recommend online stores to friends or socialize with new products bought in stores like real consumers. That means they may have to work harder and spend more money to attract real consumers.

Increased infrastructure costs—website owners facing automated traffic flowing into their sites have to pay unnecessary bandwidth and infrastructure costs (and the human resources needed to support them). Scanners and bots cause massive spikes in traffic, typically between 10 to 100 times more than normal users, resulting in unnecessary overheads.

Slow website speed—bot traffic can significantly slow down a website and cause delays. Slow site speed frustrates consumers, who may abandon their purchase or stop using the site altogether. The result is a decrease in authentic conversions.

Distorted web metrics—fake bot traffic can skew analytics and make it difficult to understand real consumer behavior on a website, so website owners cannot optimize their site for conversions.

How Do Sneaker Bots Evade Detection?

Sneaker bot developers are familiar with the main bot detection mechanisms and do their best to bypass them. Here are several strategies used by sneaker bot developers:

Fake Browser Fingerprints

The most sophisticated sneaker bots create custom browser and HTTP fingerprints that appear to be real users. For example, they use certain browser features, apply fake user agents, delete the navigator, web driver property, and more.

Simulated Human Behavior

To be effective, a sneaker bot needs to imitate the behavior of human customers. This is why a bot does necessarily purchase goods at the fastest possible speed. Instead, it operates at a slower speed, emulating human activity, but strives to buy goods faster than other buyers. The bot mimics real mouse movements and touch screen events. It can also simulate keystrokes that regular human visitors typically make.

Residential IP Addresses

Low-end sneaker bots use data center proxies, but the most advanced bots rely on residential proxies. Because these proxies are more expensive than data center proxies, they are less abused and generally have better reputations, which makes it more difficult to detect bots.

CAPTCHA Bypass

A good sneaker bot can easily bypass CAPTCHA mechanisms. Bots use a variety of techniques to bypass CAPTCHA, including:

Using human assistance – offshore workers can solve a large number of CAPTCHA puzzles at a very low cost

Using image classification algorithms to solve image-based puzzles and logic-based algorithms for numeric puzzles

Using generative adversarial networks (GAN) to automatically generate creative solutions to complex CAPTCHA puzzles

Low Request Volumes per IP Address

As a result of using residential IP addresses, the number of requests per IP address is reduced. Unlike crawlers or bots that perform credential stuffing attacks, sneaker bots do not need to generate many requests. Users can also parallelize the sneaker bot with different browser instances that utilize multiple residential proxies. In this way, each IP used by the bot has a normal number of requests.

Source: https://www.imperva.com/learn/application-security/sneaker-bot/

What is BRICS? Undermining US dollar.

    BRICS is a group of five major emerging economies, namely Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. The BRICS nations have been working towards establishing themselves as a powerful economic bloc with a significant global influence. One area of interest for BRICS is the undermining of the US dollar as the world's dominant currency. 

     The US dollar has been the world's reserve currency for several decades, with most international trade being conducted in dollars. This has given the United States significant economic and geopolitical power. However, the BRICS nations believe that the dominance of the US dollar is not sustainable in the long term and that a new global currency system should be established. 

     To undermine the US dollar, the BRICS nations have been taking steps to reduce their dependence on the dollar. One such step is increasing the use of their own currencies in bilateral trade. For example, India and China have signed an agreement to trade in their own currencies, bypassing the US dollar. Brazil and Russia have also taken similar measures. 

     In addition, BRICS nations have been investing in gold, which is traditionally considered a safe-haven asset. This is seen as a way to reduce their dependence on the US dollar and diversify their reserves. China, in particular, has been aggressively buying gold in recent years, and its central bank has been actively promoting the use of gold as a reserve asset. 

     Furthermore, the BRICS nations have been calling for reforms to the global monetary system to reduce the dominance of the US dollar. They have been advocating for a more multi-polar currency system, where other currencies such as the euro, yen, and yuan have a greater role to play. This would reduce the reliance on the US dollar and make the global economy more stable.

     In conclusion, the BRICS nations are working towards undermining the dominance of the US dollar as the world's reserve currency. They are taking steps to reduce their dependence on the dollar and promoting the use of other currencies such as their own and gold. They are also calling for reforms to the global monetary system to reduce the dominance of the US dollar. While it remains to be seen if these efforts will be successful, they are certainly challenging the status quo and signaling a shift in the global economic order.

AIPRM for ChatGPT - The future

The future of Artificial Intelligence for Project Risk Management (AI-PRM) and Chatbots powered by Generative Pre-trained Transformer (ChatGPT) is very promising, with many exciting developments on the horizon. As AI technology continues to advance, it will play an increasingly important role in project risk management and customer service. One of the key benefits of AI-PRM is its ability to quickly and accurately analyze large amounts of data. By analyzing past projects and identifying patterns, AI-PRM can help project managers make better decisions and avoid potential risks. This can help to reduce costs, improve project outcomes, and increase overall efficiency. On the other hand, ChatGPT is a language model that can be used to power chatbots, which are becoming increasingly popular in customer service. Chatbots powered by ChatGPT can provide customers with quick and accurate answers to their questions, without the need for human intervention. This can help to improve customer satisfaction, reduce costs, and increase efficiency. In the future, we can expect to see more advanced AI-PRM and ChatGPT tools that are even more accurate and efficient. These tools will be able to handle larger amounts of data and provide even more detailed insights into potential risks and customer needs. Another exciting development in AI-PRM and ChatGPT is the use of machine learning algorithms. By using machine learning, AI-PRM and ChatGPT can learn from past projects and customer interactions, and continually improve their ability to identify potential risks and provide accurate responses. This will make both AI-PRM and ChatGPT even more valuable to project managers and customer service teams. In addition to these developments, we can also expect to see greater collaboration between AI-PRM and ChatGPT tools. By working together, these tools can create a more effective and efficient project risk management process and customer service experience. Overall, the future of AI-PRM and ChatGPT is very bright. As AI technology continues to advance, we can expect to see even more powerful and accurate tools that will help project managers make better decisions, reduce costs, and improve project outcomes, while also providing customers with quick and accurate responses to their questions. By embracing these AI technologies, organizations can position themselves for success in an increasingly competitive and complex business environment.