Every Friday, Law Decoded delivers analysis on the week’s critical stories in the realms of policy, regulation and law. Editor’s note The U.S.–China trade war continues its brazen spillover into tech. In response to concerns over where data from TikTok and WeChat was going, President Trump sent out twin executive orders banning both applications last night. The new action is distinct from, for example, squeezing Huawei out. Huawei’s hardware is tied up in international supply chain and military networks, forming a more obvious security risk. TikTok and WeChat are consumer apps, more occupied with viral dance videos than top secret …

The teen behind July's massive Twitter breach had a digital courtroom hearing on Aug. 5. The trial was postponed, however, due to a highly irregular breach in the hearing's Zoom call. During a "Zoom bombing," infiltrators "broke into the call to interrupt the proceedings," said the Tampa Bay Times on Aug. 5. "Posing as CNN and BBC News, they repeatedly interrupted the meeting with rap music, movie dialogue and shouting," the outlet added. The perpetrators then proceeded to project pornographic materials onto viewer's computers. The Florida judge on the case dismissed the hearing. The alleged hacker pleaded a lesser bail …

Yesterday saw many major altcoins rally to their yearly highs, with Ether (ETH) surging past $400, which I expected was a likely scenario in my last article two weeks ago. In addition, XRP also had a bumper day exceeding $0.32 while momentarily outperforming Bitcoin as expected in my July 1 article. However, Bitcoin showed its dominance in the space by wiping out several billion of these gains in a little over an hour. So what does the week ahead look like, and just what sort of impact could Trump's TikTok ban have on the cryptocurrency space? Daily cryptocurrency market snapshot, …

Ajey Nagar, a Popular Indian YouTuber with 6.7 million subscribers, is the latest victim of the ongoing BitCoin giveaway scam on Youtube. The hack happened on Nagar’s second Youtube channel- CarryisLive where he streams himself playing video games with YouTubers and celebrities. Two Bitcoin giveaway scam promotional videos were reportedly posted on the channel. Both videos displayed bitcoin addresses. One of the videos also featured an image of SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk supposedly giving away Bitcoin. The scammers were promising to double the Bitcoin sent to them. By press time, Ajey Nagar announced that his Youtube channel is …

Over the past few weeks, TikTok has found itself in hot water over security issues. First, it was axed in India along with 58 Chinese apps for “stealing and surreptitiously transmitting users’ data in an unauthorized manner.” Later, it became a major target for Trump’s administration against the backdrop of America’s faltering relationship with China and was even banned for Wells Fargo and Amazon employees, with the latter later retracing the news, saying it did not intend to prohibit using TikTok. While the censure of TikTok’s data collection habits seems to stem from mostly geopolitical reasons — its harshest critics …

Whale Alert, a popular service dedicated to tracking major cryptocurrency transactions, is being negatively affected by Twitter’s anti-hack measures. In a July 16 tweet, Whale Alert said that the crypto bot can no longer tweet any transactions either automatically or manually “due to anti-hack measures taken by Twitter.” Whale Alert noted that posts are still available on their Telegram channel, and expressed hope that Twitter will resolve the issue soon. Whale Alert told Cointelegraph that they expect it to be a few days before posting on the platform returns to normal: “Last night's hack is the single biggest security breach …

After a massive number of Twitter accounts were hacked on July 15, one of the affected, Tron founder Justin Sun, put a bounty on the heads of those responsible. Tron's founder will give $1 million to the person or persons responsible for tracking down the hackers and providing pertinent data on the situation, Sun, CEO of BitTorrent and Founder of TRON told, Cointelegraph. Sun added: “We are working closely with Twitter to resolve this issue immediately and return our accounts to normal. We are always vigilant in the handling our accounts; operating safely and responsibly -- taking the security of …

Revolution Populi, a social network led by David Gelernter — a futurist and a distributed computing pioneer — is integrating Chainlink data oracles. Revolution Populi is trying to displace Facebook by creating a social network where users can post and share information about their lives, “but advertisers pay them, not Facebook.” The network is just the first of many distributed apps that the company plans to release in the near future. A futurist who predicted social networks and became a Unabomber target The idea in itself does not sound novel, as there have been quite a few projects in the …

Dave Portnoy, founder of Barstool Sports, recently ranted about the recent shilling of Dogecoin (DOGE) via Tik Tok. "What's going on with Dogecoin!?" Portnoy said in a recent video posted on Twitter. "It's a pump and dump," he added, calling Dogecoin "bubbly rosé." Tik Tok DOGE Challenge A recent effort shows the Tik Tok community attempting to pump DOGE up to $1 in a get-rich-quick fashion. DOGE currently boasts a 90% increase over the past 24 hours, according Cointelegraph data. "Everyone's buying this Dogecoin," Portnoy said in the video. "It's a cryptocurrency, it's fake life, people are buyin it — …

Torus, a Singaporean crypto key management platform, now allows users to send cryptocurrencies through social media platforms such as Twitter. With Torus’ latest update, v1.7.2, users can now send tokens to any Twitter or GitHub account, even if that account has never used Torus’ crypto wallet, the firm said. Torus publicly sends ETH to Buterin, Musk, and CZ on Twitter Announcing the news on Monday, Torus showcased a couple of Twitter transactions, featuring 0.01 Ether (ETH) transfers to major crypto figures such as Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao as well as Elon Musk. As of press time, …

Voice, a blockchain-based social media project developed by EOSIO creator Block.One, briefly went live one day before its scheduled launch. Based on the open source EOSIO protocol, Voice aims to use Blockchain technology to create a trusted social experience, free from bots and fake accounts. Revealed in June 2019, the project uses biometric authentication technology to verify every account, limiting accounts to one-per-person and promising to protect user data. Voice briefly shows multiple posts Voice’s main page temporarily displayed several posts from different accounts which featured multiple likes and comments. As of press time, the website is no longer available. …

Roger Ver, executive chairman of major cryptocurrency website, Bitcoin.com, now says that Bitcoin.com’s forum closure announcement was premature. Yesterday, Bitcoin.com’s forum abruptly dropped an alert about the upcoming closure of the forum on July 23. Posted by a forum administrator, the announcement did not specify the reasons behind the action. Subsequently, Bitcoin.com’s exec, Ver, said that the forum will soon make a reversal announcement. In a June 26 email to Cointelegraph, Ver wrote: “This caught me by surprise too, and I think the announcement was premature. I suspect there will be a reversal announcement soon.” Despite Ver’s response, the closure …