AT&T will dispute allegations that it was negligent after allegedly contributing to the loss of $1.7 million worth of digital assets owned by a customer in the latest SIM swap case.
A spokesman for the company, Jim Greer, told CoinDesk : “It’s unfortunate that Mr. Shapiro [the customer] experienced this, but we will dispute his allegations. We look forward to presenting our case in court.”
The news comes after Seth Shapiro, head of strategy at VideoCoin, a decentralized video encoding, storage, and content distribution system, said the phone company had failed to secure his device when it was hacked in May last year.
According to Shapiro, hackers allegedly gained control of his mobile phone, reset his email, and then breached several accounts on cryptocurrency exchanges, stealing $1 million in the process.
“Recent high profile cases reinforce the importance of businesses and consumers taking steps to protect against SIM swap fraud, such as not using mobile phone numbers as the single source of security and authentication,” Greer added.
It’s not the first time the phone giant made headlines in recent weeks. Back in August, it was revealed that AT&T employees unlocked millions of mobile phones to plant malware and removed the phones from the provider’s network — in exchange for thousands of dollars in bribes.
The details were revealed after the US Department of Justice (DoJ) opened a case against Muhammad Fahd, who had been accused of operating a fraudulent operation to disable AT&T‘s proprietary software that safeguards phones from being unlocked.
Prior to that, in July, a US federal judge disregarded AT&T‘s request to dismiss a a $224 million lawsuit over yet another SIM-swapping incident that led to $24 million in stolen cryptocurrency.
A press release published at the time said the telecom giant would face court over allegations that it violated the Federal Communications Act, as well as several other laws, when hackers used the identity (and telephone account) of cryptocurrency investor Michael Terpin in 2017.
AT&T began accepting cryptocurrency as an online payment option at the end of May, claiming to be the first major US mobile carrier to do so.
OKEx founder in talks with authorities over fraud allegations
Xu Mingxing, founder of OKEx, is under heavy scrutiny from Chinese authorities . He is reportedly in talks with police over accusations of fraud, which relate to an alleged involvement with a little-known cryptocurrency.
Local media reports that Shanghai police have accepted the case today, and as such, a criminal investigation has begun. It is understood that Xu (also known as Star Xu) is co-operating with the authorities – he is currently not under arrest.
The allegations relate to Xu’s possible connections to obscure cryptocurrency project WFEECoin. For what it’s worth, Xu remains adamant that he is not a WFEECoin shareholder, as is alleged.
Initial reports state that investigations will continue unless Xu can prove it. This opens the possibility of being stuck in police custody as investigations play out.
OKEx is the second largest cryptocurrency exchange by daily volume, just behind Binance. It currently handles around $700 million in cryptocurrency per day.
Here’s a list of cryptocurrency terms we coined in 2018
Technology is responsible for literally thousands of new words that have been added to our daily lexicon in the last decade. Words like selfie, TL:DR, bingeable, and Bitcoin have all been added to the Merriam-Webster dictionary this year.
All these words started somewhere before being included in the dictionary. Usually, new words are invented in a Shakespearean fashion to best describe something that currently there is no word for. If people start using the newly created word, it might one day make it into the dictionary.
Here at Hard Fork we have coined – get it? – and come across a handful of words this year that, we think, helped us get our points across. But for the sake of transparency, it is blockchain after all, here is our alternative dictionary of cryptocurrency and blockchain terms invented this year.
1. “ Cryptocurrencer “: A general term for someone who is involved in cryptocurrency. They could be a trader, a hodler , a developer, or a hobbyist spectator.
2. “ Cryptopreneur “: A portmanteau of the words cryptocurrency and entrepreneur. As this combination would suggest, it’s a “cryptocurrencer” is someone involved in setting up a cryptocurrency or blockchain-based business. (See also: disruptrepreneur).
3. “ Cryptonaut/cryptonaught” : Not to be confused with the coin portfolio tracker of the same name , consider this a portmanteau of the words cryptocurrencer and astronaut. It’s a special type of cryptocurrencer, one who explores the lesser visited galaxies of the cryptocurrency industry. It’s the one word we wish we had come up with.
4. “ Cryptomonnaies “: Ok, we didn’t actually invent this one, but I am sure we were the first English-language blockchain media outlet to use it. As it turns out, the French don’t have a word for cryptocurrency, so they refer to the digital assets as cryptomonnaies; basically it’s crypto-monies, but French. Tres Bien.
5. “ Disruptrepreneur “: Like with “cryptopreneur” this is a mash-up of “disrupt” and “entrepreneur.” Every day we seem to see another blockchain company claiming that it will “disrupt [insert industry here] like never before,” and we felt these people needed a name.
6. (Special mention) “ HODL “: What kind of list of cryptocurrency terms would be complete without mentioning hodl? None. It needs no explanation because it was a typo that stuck, hodl means hold. If someone tells you to hodl, they’re telling hold on to your coins instead of spending them right away. Someone who hodls is known as a hodler.
Whether you’re a seasoned trader or just a casual hodler, these are the terms you need to be using in 2019. If you do, maybe someday Merriam-Webster will be giving us a call to tell us they made the dictionary… We can dream.
