Tag: Bobby B. Lyle School of Engineering

Dallas Morning News: Until bitcoin has oversight, it’s a volatile uncertainty

Post author By Margaret Allen
Post date March 18, 2014

“The bitcoin ecosystem is in need of regulatory oversight and reform.” — bitcoin expert Tyler Moore, SMU assistant professor

Journalist Will Deener with The Dallas Morning News tapped the expertise of SMU Bitcoin and cybersecurity expert Tyler W. Moore, an assistant professor of computer science in the Lyle School of Engineering.

Moore’s expertise draws in part on his research that found that online money exchanges that trade hard currency for the rapidly emerging cyber money known as Bitcoin have a 45 percent chance of failing — often taking their customers’ money with them.

The finding is from a computer science study in which Moore applied survival analysis to examine the factors that prompt Bitcoin currency exchanges to close.

Moore is an expert in security economics, cyber security, cyber crime and critical infrastructure protection. His most recent research studies are The Ghosts of Banking Past: Empirical Analysis of Closed Bank Websites and Empirical Analysis of Denial-of-Service Attacks in the Bitcoin Ecosystem.

The papers were presented earlier in March at the co-located conferences, 18th International Annual Financial Cryptography and Data Security Conference and the 1st Workshop on Bitcoin Research.

Bitcoin writer Garrick Hileman also covers Moore’s research at the conference in “Pirate Treasure Resurfaces at Bitcoin’s First Academic Workshop” on the digital currency news blog CoinDesk.

Read the full story.

EXCERPT:

By Will Deener
Dallas Morning News
Bitcoin was a dream come true for computer geeks, libertarians and big government paranoids.

Just imagine a digital currency untethered from government regulators, existing only in the virtual world of computer code and cheaper to use than credit cards.

But the recent collapse of a leading bitcoin exchange, Mt. Gox, has raised concerns about the legitimacy of this virtual currency.

A $470 million digital heist last month at the Tokyo-based exchange pushed the company into bankruptcy and left many bitcoin investors empty-handed with little recourse.

Mt. Gox chief executive Mark Karpeles offered some hollow condolences during a late February press conference in Tokyo. He basically said, oops, there was a bug in the bitcoin software, which allowed thieves to hack their way into the system and fraudulently withdraw bit coin.

And to think this was supposedly the precursor to a digital Utopia.

Investors in traditional currencies — U.S. dollar, Japanese yen or Swiss franc — need a cast iron stomach, a savvy trading strategy and a fat wallet because big losses are inevitable.

Breaking news in these markets is like waving a biscuit at a mad dog. It comes fast, and it ain’t pretty.

But at least sovereign governments and regulatory authorities stand behind and monitor traditional currencies. While Bitcoin’s exchange rate is even more volatile than traditional currencies, there is no oversight from the FDIC, Federal Reserve or U.S. Treasury.

Tyler Moore, an SMU assistant professor in computer science and engineering, said he doesn’t believe the Mt. Gox fiasco will spell the demise of bitcoin, but regulatory safeguards are needed. Moore co-authored a research report last year in which he examined the risks of investing in bit coin.

“The bitcoin ecosystem is in need of regulatory oversight and reform,” he wrote in an email response to my questions. “Bitcoin currency exchanges act like de facto banks. Many customers leave the bitcoins in accounts at the exchanges, but there are no capital requirements as there are for traditional banks.”

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SMU is a nationally ranked private university in Dallas founded 100 years ago. Today, SMU enrolls nearly 11,000 students who benefit from the academic opportunities and international reach of seven degree-granting schools. For more information see www.smu.edu.

SMU has an uplink facility located on campus for live TV, radio, or online interviews. To speak with an SMU expert or book an SMU guest in the studio, call SMU News & Communications at 214-768-7650.

Tags Bobby B. Lyle School of Engineering, Tyler W. Moore

Culture, Society & Family Economics & Statistics Researcher news SMU In The News Technology Videos

USA Today: Bitcoin tumbles after China crackdown

Post author By Margaret Allen
Post date December 19, 2013

“The currency that is supposedly beyond state control is actually still within the grip of governments …” — Tyler Moore

Journalists Alistair Barr and Kim Hjelmgaard with USA Today tapped the expertise of SMU Bitcoin and cybersecurity expert Tyler W. Moore, an assistant professor of computer science in the Lyle School of Engineering.

The finding is from a computer science study in which Moore applied survival analysis to examine the factors that prompt Bitcoin currency exchanges to close.

Moore carried out the research with Nicolas Christin, with the Information Networking Institute and Carnegie Mellon CyLab at Carnegie Mellon University.

USA Today’s coverage, “Bitcoin tumbles after China crackdown,” was published online Dec. 18.

Read the full story.

EXCERPT:

By Alistair Barr
and Kim Hjelmgaard
USA Today
Bitcoin was supposed to be beyond the reach of governments, but investors in the virtual currency are realizing that is not the case.

The price of a Bitcoin slumped Wednesday after China’s largest exchange for the virtual currency said it would stop accepting deposits in yuan — China’s local currency.

The much-ballyhooed Bitcoin currency has lost more than half its value since hitting records above $1,100 at the end of November. On Wednesday, the price of a Bitcoin fell 18% to $558 and traded as low as $422.50 earlier in the day, according to an index run by CoinDesk, a website focused on digital currencies.

The exchange, BTC China, had to “temporarily stop its yuan account recharging functions,” according to comments it made on Weibo, a popular Chinese micro-blogging service similar to Twitter.

“Bitcoin is inherently volatile, but the decision by this large exchange has played a role,” said Tyler Moore, a Southern Methodist University assistant professor in computer science who has studied Bitcoin. “Stopping new deposits prevents new Chinese investors from piling more yuan into Bitcoin, eliminating some of the demand.”

Bitcoin is a digital currency and payment method that is not regulated by any government. Instead, software controls how many Bitcoins are produced, leaving it less prone to the whims of central banks, some of which have caused inflation in the past by printing too much paper currency.

The Bitcoin software first emerged in 2009 via a person or group using the name Satoshi Nakamoto. Since then, many other developers have jumped on board to support the currency and make it more accessible to consumers and investors.

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SMU has an uplink facility located on campus for live TV, radio, or online interviews. To speak with an SMU expert or book an SMU guest in the studio, call SMU News & Communications at 214-768-7650.

Tags Bobby B. Lyle School of Engineering, Tyler W. Moore

Culture, Society & Family Economics & Statistics Researcher news SMU In The News Technology

Money News: In Search of ‘Perfect Money’ — Hackers Switch to New Digital Currency

Post author By Margaret Allen
Post date August 9, 2013

The financial news web site MoneyNews published a Reuters article that covers the Bitcoin research of SMU cybersecurity expert Tyler W. Moore, an assistant professor of computer science in the Lyle School of Engineering.

Moore’s research found that online exchanges that trade hard currency for the rapidly emerging cyber money known as Bitcoin have a 45 percent chance of failing — often taking their customers’ money with them.

The finding is from a new computer science study that applied survival analysis to examine the factors that prompt Bitcoin currency exchanges to close.

Moore carried out the research with Nicolas Christin, with the Information Networking Institute and Carnegie Mellon CyLab at Carnegie Mellon University.

Reuters’s coverage, “In Search of ‘Perfect Money’: Hackers Switch to New Digital Currency,” was published online Aug. 9.

Read the full story.

EXCERPT:

Reuters
Money News
Three months after a team of international law enforcement officials raided the digital currency firm Liberty Reserve, cyber experts say criminals are increasingly turning to another online currency called Perfect Money.
Idan Aharoni, the head of cyber intelligence at EMC Corp.’s RSA security division, said that some online scam artists and thieves are using Perfect Money’s digital currency to launder money and conceal profits in much the same way they allegedly did with Liberty Reserve’s currency.

On behalf of their clients, which include major financial institutions, Aharoni and his team monitor Internet forums that hackers use to sell stolen credit card information. After Liberty Reserve was taken down in May, activity on these forums initially slowed and then picked up again, with some hackers saying they would accept Perfect Money for payments, he said.

“We expected a large migration to another e-currency, and that has happened,” said Aharoni, whose RSA unit sells security services to 30,000 corporations and government agencies, including the popular Secure ID tokens that protect access to computer systems.

Perfect Money, which has been in operation since at least 2007, could not be reached for comment. A request submitted through its website failed to elicit a response, and the company does not list a phone number for its offices or identify any management or employees. [ … ]

[ … ] A Reuters review of postings on Internet message boards for digital currencies found hackers offering to sell stolen credit cards are open about accepting Perfect Money as payment.

“If it was expected at first that the Liberty Reserve takedown would have a long-lasting, substantial effect on the level of fraud, that’s not true,” Aharoni said.

Tyler Moore, an assistant professor at Southern Methodist University, said a 2011 study he conducted with two other academics found that Liberty Reserve and Perfect Money were two of the most widely accepted digital currencies for online Ponzi schemes. Of 1,000 websites that linked to Perfect Money, they found 70 percent that were Ponzi schemes.

“Perfect Money seems to be a very popular choice among this subculture,” Moore said.

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Tags Bobby B. Lyle School of Engineering, Tyler W. Moore

Culture, Society & Family Economics & Statistics Researcher news SMU In The News Technology

Business Insider: Bitcoin Is Sacrificing Its Soul To Survive

Post author By Margaret Allen
Post date June 4, 2013

Technology reporter Matt Twomey with Business Insider covered the Bitcoin research of SMU cybersecurity expert Tyler W. Moore, an assistant professor of computer science in the Lyle School of Engineering.

The finding is from a new computer science study that applied survival analysis to examine the factors that prompt Bitcoin currency exchanges to close.

Moore carried out the research with Nicolas Christin, with the Information Networking Institute and Carnegie Mellon CyLab at Carnegie Mellon University.

Twomey’s coverage, “Bitcoin Is Sacrificing Its Soul To Survive,” was published online June 2.

Read the full story.

EXCERPT:

Matt Twomey
Business Insider
It’s been a wild couple months for digital currencies. This past week saw the bust of Liberty Reserve for its alleged role in billions of dollars of illicit transactions, and two days later the largest bitcoin exchange said it would now require all accounts to be verified.

For the digital currency to survive, must it sacrifice its soul? Can it thrive if it does?

To be sure, there are important differences between bitcoin and Liberty Reserve. Where Liberty was effectively a black box for transactions, controlled by a single entity, bitcoins are traded on a peer-to-peer network independent of any central authority. (Bitcoin did have its own law-enforcement episode on May 17, when the Department of Homeland Security froze the accounts of two U.S.-based bitcoin processors. The alleged misdeed: failing to properly register.)

In the Liberty Reserve case, the illegalities were brash, according to U.S. officials. One million users across the world—one-fifth of them Americans—made 55 million transactions over seven years to the tune of $6 billion, with few questions asked while Costa Rica-based Liberty collected 1 percent, investigators said. The network is thought to have been employed in the $45 million ATM heist for which eight people were arrested in May.

Chicago-based investment fraud attorney Andrew Stoltmann said bitcoin holders should be spooked, because the digital exchanges have been used by criminals for money laundering as well.

But Peter Vessenes, chairman and executive director of the Bitcoin Foundation, was unfazed by the Liberty Reserve crackdown.

“The U.S. put out guidance recently through the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, and we’ve been following up on that guidance and crushing bad actors,” he said in an interview with CNBC Asia. “We’re seeing a bit of a sweep right now,” he said.

“There’s nothing to indicate that good players who are working hard to stay regulated have anything to worry about.”

And there’s the rub: The techno-libertarian fantasy of an unfettered digital currency is losing its veil of anonymity and is dependent upon ensuring the appeasement of government regulators. It’s enough to make a cryptotarian anarchist blanch.

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SMU is a nationally ranked private university in Dallas founded 100 years ago. Today, SMU enrolls nearly 11,000 students who benefit from the academic opportunities and international reach of seven degree-granting schools. For more information see www.smu.edu.

Tags Bobby B. Lyle School of Engineering, Tyler W. Moore

Learning & Education Researcher news Student researchers

Center for Creative Leadership to study innovative learning method of SMU Lyle School

Post author By Margaret Allen
Post date March 19, 2013

Interdisciplinary approach teaches soft skills like cooperation and communication across disciplines and genders

The Innovation Gym in SMU’s Lyle School of Engineering was buzzing and clanking on a recent morning as students tested robots they built for a specific task — collecting and remediating water samples. Lyle faculty and students have been doing the water work by hand in refugee camps in Africa and Bangladesh.

The strong work dynamic that emerged among members of the first-year design class and their embrace of the inter-disciplinary team approach used to teach it has drawn the attention of the Center For Creative Leadership, which will send a team of researchers to SMU Lyle in fall 2013 to study the student techniques.

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What the team gleans from observing the SMU course could foster new tools and processes that can benefit organizations and educational institutions around the country.

“I had a chance to visit the Lyle School in February and see first-hand the innovative structure of the first-year design course,” said Kristin Cullen, faculty researcher with CCL’s Research, Innovation and Product Development Group. “Using student teams – really cross-functional teams – and having them work on a very intense project really does mirror the type of environment students will be in when they leave college and enter the workplace.”

“They are using what we would call agile work processes.” Cullen said. “We’re very interested in working with the Lyle School to learn about the relationships and the networks these students develop over the course of their project to learn what makes them successful as a team and as individuals in the course. The plan moving forward is to share what we find with other universities.”

Cullen expects that her team will provide feedback to the students and teachers throughout the fall, but says they will also return at the end of the semester to show the SMU Lyle students what they have learned from observing them.

“This kind of experience is as much about teaching soft skills like cooperation and communication across disciplines and genders as it is about engineering,” said Andrew Quicksall, the Lyle School’s J. Lindsay Embrey Assistant Professor. The robotics assignment that the first-year design students have been working on this academic year is based on the remediation work Quicksall and Lyle graduate students have been doing in refugee camps where ongoing water quality issues are posing health problems.

The Lyle School’s Hart Center for Engineering Leadership began a partnership in 2011 with CCL, a global nonprofit education and research organization, to bring leadership development to all Lyle students. One of CCL’s goals in the partnership is to prepare students to work in volatile and fast-changing work environments, said Preston Yarborough, CCL project manager at the Lyle School. “Success in today’s workplace requires an astute understanding of the informal networks that really drive how organizations work,” Yarborough said.

Teaching the first-year design course is a team experience, too – tapping the skills of Quicksall, an environmental engineer; Mark Fontenot, a Lyle computer science lecturer; Kate Canales, director of design and innovation programs at Lyle; Adam Cohen, visiting assistant clinical professor in mechanical engineering, Joseph Cleveland, visiting lecturer in electrical engineering, and CCL’s Yarborough.

The Introduction to Engineering Design class is the first of its kind at SMU – a “Ways of Knowing” course designed to cut across disciplines to explore how natural scientists, social scientists, humanists, artists, engineers and professionals in business and education go about addressing important issues. Under the new University Curriculum, all undergraduates who enter SMU in the 2012-1013 academic year and thereafter will be required to complete one “Ways of Knowing” class taught collaboratively by faculty members from different disciplines and organized around a major topic or question.

As highlighted in CCL’s 2011 Annual Report, understanding team networks is a “big idea” that the organization sees impacting leadership in the 21st century. The CCL team’s research at SMU’s Lyle School is being funded by an Alfred J. Marrow New Directions in Leadership Series grant supported by Naomi and Paul Marrow. — Kimberly Cobb

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Tags Adam Cohen, Andrew Quicksall, Bobby B. Lyle School of Engineering, Joseph Cleveland, Kate Canales, Mark Fontenot, Preston Yarborough

“The bitcoin ecosystem is in need of regulatory oversight and reform.” — bitcoin expert Tyler Moore, SMU assistant professor

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“The currency that is supposedly beyond state control is actually still within the grip of governments …” — Tyler Moore

Book a live interview

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Book a live interview

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More SMU Research news

Book a live interview

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More SMU Research news

Interdisciplinary approach teaches soft skills like cooperation and communication across disciplines and genders

Book a live interview

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More SMU Research news