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The enduring popularity of Bitcoin is largely due to the fact that no third party controls it, including governments. But even if that's the case, the currency's developers are constantly mulling over how powerful entities could poke holes in the technology, attack it, or bend the rules.

One potential attack vector on Bitcoin is that the nodes on the network communicate with each other via unencrypted traffic. Powerful interests like governments and Internet Service Providers (ISPs) could use this weakness to wage "man in the middle" attacks on Bitcoin nodes, where they can secretly gather information about sent transactions.

To combat this, BIP 324 is a long-standing Bitcoin Improvement Proposal to encrypt traffic between nodes on the Bitcoin network. This makes network metadata, like the location a transaction is coming from, more private, making it harder for snoops to spy on what users are doing.

The project was revived in 2021 by Bitcoin Core developer Dhruv Mehta, following up on work done by former Bitcoin Core maintainer Jonas Schnelli over the years.

And the project is nearing completion. Most of the code is already written and Bitcoin users are already testing the code on the main Bitcoin network. It just needs more developers to test and review the changes to get it fully over the line.

Mehta's been heads down on bringing BIP 324 to life because he sees it as an important change for keeping Bitcoin out of the control of powerful entities. If powerful entities with access to what users are doing onlinesuch as ISPs and governmentscan passively figure out what nodes are up to and where transactions are coming from, they can be easily stopped or "censored," which Bitcoin was expressly designed to avoid.

He sees this sort of an attack as increasingly likely as Bitcoin grows. He explained that the "philosophical reason" for working on BIP 324 is because governments will try to figure out how to stop Bitcoin if it continues to gain steam..

One natural target would be Bitcoin "nodes,the thousands of computers run by volunteers around the world that run the Bitcoin software. These nodes are what make up Bitcoin behind the scenes.

"If they can attack nodes, they can make it very hard for you to use Bitcoin, Mehta explained.. They can eclipse your node. They can identify that you are running a Bitcoin Core node. They can identify the source of the transactions. They can make it very very hard to run the node.," Mehta explained.

Though it's not just governments he worries about, but any entity with enough resources to wage such an attack.

"I'm less interested in who might do it, I'm more interested in what's possible to do, he said.. If something is possible and there's an incentive to do it, then any entity might do it. It's easy to speculate about governments because they have seemingly infinite resources, but could it be ISPs? Maybe. If the shadow banks are impacted could it be them? Maybe," he explained.

That's not to say that BIP 324 will fully prevent these sorts of attacks will end full stop with BIP 324. Bitcoin is a permissionless system. Anyone can participate by running a node and connecting to other nodes in the network. "A man-in-the-middle attack just looks like another node. You can't really stop that," Mehta said.

But BIP 324 does make gathering this data much harder. The attacker would need to connect to, -- or "man-in-the-middle," -- every node that it wants to gather information from.

WNot to mention, without BIP 324, an adversary could collect information about these nodes without even being noticed. With BIP 324, it's easier to notice when an attacker is trying to collect this information, because they have to make explicit connections to each node that they want to gather information from.

"You're no longer a passive adversary who can do this covertly," Mehta said.

Making all these individual connections is alsomuch more expensive. "If you raise the bar from passive to active, then it takes a lot more resources to do these things, so what then happens is, there has to be a bigger reason to do it." Mehta said, adding: "Today [attackers] could go after very small amounts of Bitcoin because they can potentially be so targeted with it."

Implementing BIP 324, when implemented, will make Bitcoin stronger, even if it doesn't eliminatewipe out the attack vector completely. "I want the worst case scenario to be less bad," Mehtahe said.

See more here:
This Upgrade Could Make It Harder for Governments to Censor Bitcoin - Decrypt

ALA hopes to spark community action with the day, which will culminate with a virtual conversation,"Protecting Free Expression and the Right to Read,"hosted by Unite Against Book Bans coalition partners.

The American Library Association (ALA) has declared Monday, April 24 as Right to Read Day. Monday is the first day of National LibraryWeek.

The national call to action comes on the one-year anniversary of ALA launching its UniteAgainst Book Bans campaign. ALA offers suggestions for the public to act, including borrow a library book at risk of being banned, write a letter to the editor or to an elected leader, attend a meeting of local officials or library or school board, and stage a public event or peaceful protest in support of libraries.

In addition, Unite Against Book Banscoalition partners will host "Protecting Free Expression and the Right to Read," a virtual conversation at 7 p.m. Eastern. The event will feature ALA president Lessa Kanani'opua Pelayo-Lozada, PEN America CEO Suzanne Nossel, NCAC executive director Christopher Finan, and Judy Blume Forever documentaryco-directors Leah Wolchok andDavina Pardoin a discussion of Blumes work and the surge of censorship across the country. It is free, but registrationis required.

Also on Monday,ALA's Office for Intellectual Freedom will release the list of Top 10 Most Challenged Books of 2022.

Read the press release below.

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ALA Announces Right to Read Day, a Call to Action to Protect ... - School Library Journal

A copy of the Belfast Agreement signed by the main parties involved and organised by journalist Justine McCarthy of the Irish Independent newspaper. Photo: Whytes Auctions

Every day the professional staff at Index meet to discuss whats going on in the world and the issues that we need to address. Where has been the latest crisis? What do we need to be aware of in a specific country?Where are elections imminent?Do we have a source or a journalist in country and, if not, who do we know?During these meetings we are confronted with some of the worst heartbreak happening in the world. Journalists being murdered, dissidents arrested, activists threatened and beaten, academics intimidated and while we know that we are helping them by providing a platform to tell their stories it can be soul destroying to be confronted by the actions of tyrants and dictators every day.

Which is why grabbing hold of good news stories helps keep us on track. The moments when weve helped dissidents get to safety, when a tyrant loses, when an artist or writer or academic manages to get their work to us. These are good days and should be cherished for what they are because candidly they are far too rare.

Its in this spirit that Ive absorbed every news article, reflection and op-ed column discussing events in Northern Ireland 25 years ago. I was born in 1979, my family lived in London the Troubles were a normal part of the news. As I grew up, the sectarian war in Northern Ireland seemed intractable, peace a dream that was impossible to achieve. But through the power of politics, of words, of negotiation, peace was delivered not just for the people of Northern Ireland but for everyone affected by the Troubles. That isnt to say it was easy, or straightforward and that it doesnt remain fragile, but it has proven to be miraculous and is something that we should both celebrate and cherish.

The Good Friday Agreement delivered the opportunity of hope for the people of Northern Ireland. It gave us a pathway to build trust between communities and allowed, for the first time in generations, people to think about a different kind of future. For someone who firmly believes in the power of language, who values the world of diplomacy and fights every day for the protection of our core human rights there is no single moment in British history which embodies those values more than what happened on 10 April 1998.

We can only but hope that other seemingly intractable disputes continue to see what happened in Belfast on that fateful day as inspiration to challenge their own status quo.

Read more from the original source:
25 years of the Good Friday Agreement - Index on Censorship

NEW DELHI, April 14 (Reuters) - A proposed Indian government unit to fact-check news on social media is not about censoring journalism nor will it have any impact on media reportage, a federal minister said on Friday.

Recently amended IT regulation requires online platforms like Meta Platforms Inc's (META.O) Facebook and Twitter to "make reasonable efforts" to not "publish, share or host" any information relating to the government that is "fake, false or misleading".

Rajeev Chandrasekhar, India minister of state for IT, said in an online discussion it was "not true" that the government-appointed unit, which press freedom advocates strongly oppose, was aimed at "censoring journalism".

The Editors Guild of India last week described the move as draconian and akin to censorship.

Reporting by Shivam Patel, Munsif Vengattil and Aditya Kalra in New Delhi; Editing by Richard Chang

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Read more from the original source:
India says new IT fact-checking unit will not censor journalism - Reuters India

On View

The artworks are included in the current show, 'Comparative Hell: Arts of Asian Underworlds.'

Scholars of Islamic art have accused New Yorks Asia Society and Museum of censorship over a virtual tour of its exhibition that blurred out two artworks featuring depictions of Muhammad. The museum has called that decision a mistake, and announced a plan to restore the artworks to the online version of the show.

The virtual tour was created by an outside contractor without sufficient oversight, Asia Society interim vice president for global arts and culture Peggy Loar told theNew York Times. Our goal with this exhibition has always been to display these historic works fully while also including necessary context and information. The images should not have been blurred, and we take responsibility for this error, but this was not an active choice to censor and is being corrected.

The societys website now states that the virtual tour is currently being updated and will be reposted soon.

Many Muslims believe that to create a depiction of Muhammad is idolatrousalthough there is no prohibition against doing so in the Koran. Though figurative Islamic art is quite rare today, there is also a well-documented tradition of devotional art featuring Muhammad, and many museums hold examples of this work in their collection.

Day of Judgment, a folio from a manuscript of the Falnama or Book of Omens (ca. 1555). Collection of the Arthur M. Sackler Museum at the Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Two of those pieces are on loan to the Asia Society for Comparative Hell: Arts of Asian Underworlds, the first exhibition to offer a comprehensive view of depictions of hell in Buddhist, Jain, Hindu, and Islamic faiths.

One, from the David Collection in Copenhagen, shows Muhammad ascending into heaven, the gates of hell behind him filled with burning flames. The other, on loan from the Arthur M. Sackler Museum at the Harvard Museums in Cambridge, Massachusetts, shows Muhammad on the Day of Judgement, kneeling to advocate for mercy for the deceased. His face is obscured with a white veil.

In the Asia Society galleries, there is wall text warning viewers ahead of time, in case they do not wish to see the artworks. The written descriptions contextualize these images, noting that they were created at a time when such images were acceptable within the realms they were made, and signs ask that visitors not photograph those pieces.

The Prophet Muhammad at the Gates of Hell from a manuscript copy of al-Sarais Nahj al-Faradis or Paths of Paradise (ca. 1465). Collection of the David Collection, Copenhagen.

But such warnings are not always enough to prevent offense. In December, Hamline University in St. Paul, Minnesota, declined to renew the contract of an adjunct professor who showed two images of Muhammad in an online art history class, describing the lesson in a university-wide email as Islamophobic. Students were told ahead of time and given the opportunity to turn off their display, but one still filed a complaint with the school.

The universitys decision made national news, attracting widespread censure as a breach of academic freedom. Its president, Fayneese Miller announced her retirement last month, and the professor, Erika Lpez Prater, is suing the university for religious discrimination and defamation.

The Asia Society exhibition opened in February, in the wake of the Hamline controversy, so it makes sense that its organizers would be sensitive to the potentially offensive nature of the depictions of Muhammad on loan to the museum.

The David Collection director, Kjeld von Folsach, told the Times that his museum had not been told that the artwork would be blurred in the virtual tour, and that he was surprised by the decision. So was Christiane Gruber, a professor of Islamic art at the University of Michigan who was an advisor on the Asia Society showand helped publicize the Hamline University incident.

She had told the Times that blurring the artworks was a breach of ethics but is glad the Asia Society is now changing course.

Besides the fact that these paintings are freely available online, they also should be shown and taught in an integral and contextually accurate manner, Gruber wrote in an email to Artnet News. Additionally, since these paintings represent the creative output of Muslim patrons and artists in premodern Sunni Turkic Central Asia and Shii Iran, it is critical that they not be visually excised from the historical corpus, which cannot and must not be retroactively altered to fit the view of some individuals. If such artworks are omitted or censored, Islamic artin all its richness and diversitywill be flattened into but a mere Colonialist-Orientalist clich.

Comparative Hell: Arts of Asian Underworlds is on view at the Asia Society, 725 Park Avenue, New York, February 28May 7, 2023.

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Asia Society Walks Back Its Decision to Blur Depictions of the Prophet Muhammad in an Online Exhibition Following Accusations of Censorship - artnet...