Recently a totally new concept was launched in some countries, including the UK, based on the exciting digital or crypto currency innovations of recent years, that could actually empower individuals to convert their daily steps into digital money that they can spend, save or whatever, just like our existing currencies. ‘Bitwalking’, as it has been named, could effectively give everyone the freedom and opportunity simply to make money by walking!

Online privacy concerns have been gaining increasing attention over the past decade. Despite the fact that individuals had many privacy concerns even before the world wide web emerged, it seems their worries have substantially increased ever since. Importantly, the hype seems to be justified, as getting our identity stolen over the internet is much more likely and common, than it was in the old times, as there are around 3.5 billion users who prey on you online today, which is quite a substantial number in comparison to the few thousand people who you came across during a lifetime before occurrence of Internet.

                One of the concerns which is present in the minds of most online users is related to the extensive use of cookies, which are utilized by the majority of popular websites in order to track customers’ movement on their page. Even more concerning is the fact that despite the widespread use of cookies, webpages seldom post any privacy-related notices and even less of them have incorporated a formal privacy policy into their website. It is also necessary to stress that the online world has made it increasingly effortless to amass large amounts of user related information, which makes consumers’ frustration even greater.

                Interestingly enough, even though the privacy concerns are discussed a lot in the media, the number of complaints on breaching peoples’ privacy online remains low. A few reasons for this trend might be the privacy policies which companies already have in place, collection of information without analysing them, meaning that the privacy breaches remain hidden and also the consumer related unawareness of the privacy legislation and their rights. Despite the recent proliferation of big data, many companies also don’t know how to utilize the vast amount of information they accumulate, however, with improvement of new web based technologies and increased familiarity with the science behind big data, it is assumed that companies are going to catch up and start using all the data, they have saved on their servers. One of the concerns here is that hackers might access such stored information even before companies figure out how to use them and if hackers go through all the trouble of accessing the information, they probably also know how to use it.

                The greatest issue with all this is not the data collection itself, but companies’ non-transparent ways of going about it, i.e., many websites don’t tell their visitors which data is being collected and how this data is going to be used. On the positive note however, most professional websites are starting to pay more attention to this issue and developing comprehensive privacy policies. One of the initiatives which is contributing to these efforts is the requirement of European Union that all websites contain a pop-up cookie collection statement, which usually also contains a direct link to websites’ privacy policy.

                One of the consequences of online privacy breach can be identity theft. If you want to learn more about it or on how to protect yourself from it, read our “Identity Theft” article and make your presence online more secure. 

Identity theft refers to the situation in which an individual steals your personal information with the intention of committing fraud. Some ways in which this information can be fraudulently applied are through loan applications, tax returns or health related services. Moreover, such actions may ruin your credit rating and even more importantly, they can be costly and time consuming to repair. It follows that keeping your identity secure, especially when you are browsing the web is highly important. Even more importantly, you should educate your children on maintaining online privacy as well, as in the opposite case, identity could be stolen from them and they might enter their adulthood with serious problems to deal with. When identity is stolen from children, the consequences can be even worse than when it is stolen from adults, as it usually takes time for such thefts to be discovered, while children and their parents usually don’t pay to much attention to the child’s credit rating. When the child becomes an adult and starts paying attention, it is often already too late to have any significant impact upon what happened.

According to United States government, there are several distinctive categories of identity theft. Namely, those are child ID theft, which has been described above, tax ID theft, which refers to a situation where the perpetrator gets a hold of victims’ social security number in order to file misleading tax return, medical ID theft, which serves the thief to fraudulently debit your health insure provider, senior ID theft, which is quite self-explanatory and refers to the ID theft from our senior citizens, which are especially vulnerable consumer group in that respect and social ID theft, where the perpetrator accesses and abuses your personal information like pictures, name and other, in order to create a social media account and possibly commit damage to your reputation. It follows that no matter which consumer group you belong to, you’re probably at risk of identity theft. We recommend that you don’t worry about it too much, as it is something which is difficult to influence, however, there are some precautions which you can take, in order to keep your identity as safe as possible.

The United States government gives a few recommendations on preventing identity theft, i.e., on keeping your identity secure. Most of them are quite is to implement and we recommend that you start with those. Now let us list the ways in keeping your identity secure. You should keep your social security number safe at all time. Unless you urgently need it, don’t carry it around with you and only hand it to an authorised person when there is no other possibility. It is important that you never give out your personal information over the telephone or the internet, especially if you don’t know/trust the person/company who is on the other side. For example, if you need to pay for something over the phone, rather ask the person to give you their bank account information so you can transfer the money, than giving them your personal information over the phone, as even a company you trust can sometimes make a mistake and hire a wrong type of person, which might abuse your information. When you are withdrawing cash from ATM, giving out personal information at the bank or discussing your health issues with your nurse, always pay attention to people who might be listening in to your conversation. Don’t leave your mail box unattended for days, if you plan to go on a holiday or business trip, ask the post office to hold your mail. Regularly pay attention to any potential changes in your bank account. With the accessibility of online banking and other services which some banks offer, like SMS notification of all bank transfers and withdrawals, this shouldn’t be too big of a deal. If your bank charges for such services, remember that 1-10€/month (my bank charges 1€, I don’t know about charges of others) is a small charge in comparison to having your bank account emptied. Shred paper with personal information before throwing it into the bin. There is a low likelihood that someone is going to go through the trash in order to get a hold of your personal information, but you can never know. Have your smart devices (computers, telephones, iPads, etc.) secured with complex passwords and change those passwords on a regular basis. Whenever possible, your passwords should include big letters, small letters, alphanumeric characters, etc. The more complex the better. Also secure your network with firewalls and anti-virus software. Usually you can find free versions of high quality software online. We use Avast. Remember, taking at least some of the steps to secure yourself is better than taking none of them!

Sometimes, no matter how many precautions we take, our identity gets stolen anyway and in such cases it is important to deal with it as quickly and efficiently as possible. The first thing you need to do is report the incident to the responsible authorities. You can start with the police and they will advise you where to go next. Once you report the crime, you will get a confirmation, which can help you resolve issues with banks, creditors and other institutions you might have fallen out of favour with. If your identity has been stolen on a long-term basis, you can also report it to human rights watch, if your medical ID has been stolen you should report it to medical care fraud office, if tax identity was stolen you should report it to your national tax office, etc.

Recently, law enforcement agencies have noticed a new trend within the identity theft area, which they refer to as synthetic identity theft. In contrast to predominant identity theft style, where the perpetrator steals all the personal information of a person in order to build a fresh identity, synthetic identity theft refers to an instance, where the thief pinches parts of information from different individuals, in order to create an entirely new persona, e.g., a person might steal the social security number of one person, tax ID from another and medical ID from the third person, in order to unify all of them into a single fictitious individual. Because such a scheme is not related to one single individual, it is much more difficult to identify and even more difficult to prevent. It is important to note that children are especially vulnerable to this type of fraud. The only way to deal with synthetic identity theft is to continuously monitor what is happening with your accounts and identity where it matters. If you discover you’ve been a victim, report the incident immediately.

As you’ve been able to observe, there are many distinctive types of identity theft and unfortunately, they are quite common. Thankfully there are many precautions you can take in order to avoid it. If you are interested in protecting your identity online, you could also look up BitBank, which is a company, which specializes in securing your personal information on the world wide web. If you wish to explore more on the topic, we encourage you to browse through other related articles on our website. Lastly, it needs to be restated that you shouldn’t worry about the issue too much, as it is commonly related to sheer luck. Stay lucky J

Today, it has been announced that a new solar-powered invention by the award-winning British company Desolenator can turn seawater into drinking water. While it is believed that the world is rapidly reaching global water crisis level with nearly one billion people lacking access to clean drinking water, it is hoped that this new equipment could lead the way for technological help.

The machine uses patented technology that can transform salt water and other non drinkable water sources into pure, distilled water fit for human consumption. It is capable of producing 15 liters of water per day, using no power supply other than the sun and with no moving parts or filters and is easy to maintain. After the initial purchase the machine needs no extra input of money or consumables and should be able to provide clean water for a household for a period of up to 20 years.

It is estimated that 97 percent of the world’s water is salt water and if we are able to tap into this valuable and available resource we could alleviate the global water crisis in an unprecedented way. Today 0.7 percent of the world’s water comes from desalination and existing technology is expensive, inefficient and dis-proportionally uses perhaps 0.5% of the world’s global energy supply. It is thought that the new invention is different from existing desalination and home water technologies, harnessing solar power in an elegant way, thereby maximizing the use of solar radiation through a combination of thermal, electrical and heat exchange.

The machine is still under development but there is a fully working prototype available http://desolenator.com/  .Interestingly the company has already started an Indiegogo Crowdfunding finance campaign following its success in an accelerator program and has also won a development grant.

If you like this article and want to help empower start-ups with a good socioeconomic cause try: https://www.finance-eco-money.org/fempower/finetech/item/bitwalking-share-the-belief-and-benefits-of-a-new-equal-global-economy-for-all 

The company announced today that Luxembourg has granted Payment Institution status to its European cryptocurrency exchange Bitstamp, providing the firm with a license across 28 EU member states. The license, which was signed by Luxembourg’s Minister of Finance, Pierre Gramegna, goes into effect on 1 July, when the firm will open its new headquarters in the Luxembourg

The Luxembourg Financial Industry Supervisory Commission (CSSF) have conducted rigorous security reviews spanning nearly two years togther  with an audit by Ernst & Young. It is thought that marks a new milestone for bitcoin and digital finance in Europe and Bitstamp is a most welcome addition to Luxembourg’s fintech ecosystem.”

Luxembourg is known to recognise the economic potential of bitcoin, digital currency and the blockchain technology. It has set an example for other nations to embrace the industry after having conducted rigorous due diligence on the technology and of Bitstamp as a company. Bitstamp becoming the first nationally regulated bitcoin exchange is perhaps a historic achievement for digital currency.

To mark the occasion, Bitstamp will launch BTC/EUR trading across the European markets, and is offering free trading in BTC/EUR for both new and existing customers for 30 days.

Mid-March 2016, Honda announced they will launch a fuel-cell car (powered by hydrogen) by the end of 2016. Despite the price (over 57 600 EUR TTC in Japan, probably even more expensive in Europe), this car represents a hope for green cars.

At the same time, Tesla announced they will open a new show-room in Luxembourg city for their premium electric cars, around end of second semester 2016. From this date, Tesla cars will be available in Luxembourg, while until now they are distributed by the Belgian importer.

Those two good news bring to us a question: which is the most environment-friendly one? Which one should you choose, assuming that you can afford a Tesla (starting at 69 100 EUR TTC)?

First criterion to look at is autonomy: considering the 550 km of autonomy claimed by Tesla (closer to 500 km in reality), the 750 km of autonomy claimed by Honda seem to be a huge advantage. That could be true if we had already a network for hydrogen distribution, which is not the case or the moment. In fact, in France, only 9 hydrogen stations have been already built, forgetting at least 80% of territory. Do not even think of Luxembourg: you have more chances to find palm trees in Norway than being able to refill you car with hydrogen.

On the contrary, Tesla has built all over Europe a network of "superchargers", which can recharge more than 80% of your car in 20 minutes, and fully charge in 30 minutes. Barely time for a coffee or a lunch. Moreover, the use of these superchargers is totally free, the user even doesn't pay for the power!

Second criterion is the environment. How is produced the hydrogen that will power the Honda fuel-cell car?

Hydrogen can be produced mainly by two processes: electrolysis or from hydrocarbons. Electrolysis uses electricity with an efficiency rate of 7 to 10%, which obviously induces a low power rentability compared to the Tesla, which draws its power directly from electricity with an efficiency rate superior to 90%. The use of green power (wind, hydroelectricity, sun, etc.) allows to reduce the impact on environnment but will not increase the overall efficiency rate. Whichever is theprocess of producing electricity, the most efficient is obviously the best.

The second solution to produce hydrogen is from hydrocarbons, which gets a double drawback: not only its efficiency (80%) is still lower than Tesla, but also the pollution (refusal) generated by this form of production. On top of that, using fossil energy is not sustainable on a long-term basis.

As a conclusion, for the moment the electric car wins the fight. At least until hydrogen improves its distribution and the efficiency of its production.

Nevertheless, actually driving green is quite a luxury: 57 600 EUR for Honda + hydrogen loads, 69 100 EUR for Tesla (but free power from superchargers), keep these cars reserved for wealthy people. A first step on the way.

Housing that is not only high quality but also affordable can be hard to come by these days, so where do eco houses fit in when it comes to both developed and developing markets? 

Communication, Communication, Communication!

Have you heard the ‘saying’ that the ‘English’ or should we say British use to describe the main requirement for success in the property investment world? It’s of course ‘Location, Location, Location’.

World leaders in Paris, joined 45,000 others -- from civil society, businesses, media and more -- to urge Heads of State and Governments to forge a global agreement on climate change.

Big Data – the term we give to drawing insight from the ever-growing amounts of digital information we are constantly generating by applying advanced computer analytics – can do some amazing things.

Bill Gates was in Paris with many of the world leaders for the big announcement on energy and climate change. He found it deeply moving to be there just two weeks after the horrific attacks that took place on Friday 13 November 2015 but he was inspired by the way the French people persevered and continued with the summit despite the difficult circumstances.