FACING THE CRYPTOCURRENCY SCAM
Scamming – the fraudulent or deceptive act, usually done in order to achieve personal gain by tricking other people – in the world of cryptocurrency is not something new. According to Coindesk, 50 million US dollars worth of digital currency had disappeared since 2015 thanks to fraudulent and scamming activities. To rub salt in the open wound, the scheme utilized in the scam act is rather simple, which is by targeting and created a fake of the cryptocurrency wallet, the blockchain.info. Many users didn’t realize that they were accessing a fake site which was created in such a way that it resembles the original one. This leads in users ended up handing their private keys in said fake site. While the fact that not all users are vigilant people that’s on their toes regarding their internet activities’ security cannot be put aside, such acts of scam ended up being successful also because there has to be yet a real, quick and efficient solution countering this problem. Mainstream users – rookies, newbies in the world of cryptocurrency – should be using a cryptocurrency wallet where they can have total control of their own private keys.
Along with the vast and fast development of the cryptocurrency a solution meant for end users is also needed. Averagely cryptocurrency users are not 100% savvy of the world of bitcoin. Still, they may understand how their cryptocurrenccy-related application that put ease in their daily activities works, especially if they use it in a daily basis.
With these scamming problems having the time of their lives we may end up facing not just a faked web wallet but also faked cryptocurrency exchange. There’s a lot of people said that their fund just disappeared yet they claim not doing any withdrawal at all. The same can be said when we do online payments, where the payment address can be altered, which means our money landed not where it’s supposed to be and we ended up being scammed.
Addressing – and countering – the aforementioned cryptocurrency problem is MyShield, which is an application designed to minimize fraudulent acts in the internet, by giving a warning when we access sites that have fraudulent or scamming potential.
WHAT IS MYSHIELD?
Myshield is a decentralized anti-scam platform, created with a goal of ensuring its users to be free from scamming activities, ranging from scamming on website to faked cryptocurrency transaction. Accessing a site that was suspected of being a counterfeit site or showing indications of possible scamming or phishing will prompt Myshield to display a warning to its users about possible scam activity.
For example, when we access cryptocurrency site and somehow ended up accessing the fake and malicious site, Myshield will give us a warning that the site was a fraudulent one. The same is applied when we conduct a transaction that uses cryptocurrency. Myshield will check whether the wallet address is supposed to be the real one or not. This feature is made possible with the technology carried by Myshield which is the Brandshield, that can monitor internet scamming potential and empowering the very Myshield community itself that proactively watches over and reports websites suspected of having scamming activities.
HISTORY OF THE COMPANY
Myshield itself is a futher development of Brandshield. Brandshield has existed since 2013, and it is a Software as A Service (SAAS) based company. Brandshield protected the companies of its clients, by establishing client’s online brand protection against fraud and counterfeiting.
Team
Yoav Keren, CEO:
Yoav has 21 years of experience in financial management, marketing and development. Was a Council Member at ICANN. IS a member of the anti-counterfeiting committee at INTA. Was Senior Advisor to a minister in the Israeli government. Was the head of the Technology branch of the Israeli military's Information Security Department. Holds an MBA from the Kellogg & Recanati business schools (Northwestern University & Tel-Aviv University), and a B.A. in Economics and Physics from the Tel-Aviv University.
Yuval Zantkeren, Co-CEO and CTO:
Yuval is an Internet Information Systems Expert. Has 19 years of experience in managing software development & web . Specializes in Domain Name systems and IDN systems. Was a member of the Government Advisory Committee at ICANN for Israel. Holds an L.L.B (qualified lawyer) and Business Administration Cum Laude degree specializing in IT, and a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science from the Herzliya Inter-disciplinary Center.
Advisor
Nimrod Lehavi, Co-Founder & CEO of Simplex
Nimrod is a hacker, maker, bookworm, geek and serial entrepreneur. With over two decades of experience in Israel's start-up sector, Nimrod is well respected for leading large-scale software projects that catalyze profound change. Nimrod is a Board Member of the Israeli Bitcoin Association, and holds a BA in computer Science from IDC Herzliya, Israel
Prof. S. Subbiah
An investor, entrepreneur and scholar. The Founder, Director & Chairman, of i-DNS.net. Former consulting Associate Professor at the Department of Applied Physics in Stanford University (on sabbatical) and former Associate Professor at the National University of Singapore
FEATURES
The Myshield application has three main features that are meant to protect people from scam and fraudulent activities. Those three features are:
Alert against scam
When Myshield users wanted to buy something or conduct transactions online and they ended up accessing fake websites, Myshield will issue a warning comprised of the details of the threat in general and it is complimented with scores based by other users’ reports and AI-powered cyber intelligence provider. This feature can be compared to the warnings that popped out of anti-virus application on your personal computer when we open or access files with viruses. While this feature can be a false-positive – where the suspected files are not actually infected with virus – and in Myshield’s case, a site is not necessarily being fraudulent; such hindrance can be minimized with the help of user submitted report (which will be explained later), should the Myshield warning is a wrong one.Crypto transaction validation
When we conduct online payments we are still not safe from nasty individual or group who wanted to get their hands on our money. There’s a good chance that a certain someone with malicious intent changes the payment address so our money ended up not paying the things we supposed to pay. What Myshield do in order anticipate this is by doing a confirmation of the payment wallet – matching the wallet address with the wallet posted on the site. No need to worry about scamming attempts or doing a mistake when inputting the cryptocurrency address because Myshield will do a double check to ensure our transaction’s safety.Scam reporting
Just like the feedback we input after doing a transaction at a traditional marketplace, we can also report whether a particular site we visited can be considered fraudulent or not. We can also give a positive review of marketplaces which conducted their business in a good manner. This information can be publicly seen in the blockchain.
USER REPORTS
Remember the alert against scam feature? The users of MyShield can also report websites or items suspected of being a scam or phishing attempts, thus refining and perfecting MyShield’s efforts in notifying its users whether a scamming attempt is about to be encountered or not. All reports will be recorded on the blockchain from MyShield and users who submitted them are required to spend some of their MyShield token as an insurance policy. Should the reports are proven to be true – i.e. a site is confirmed fraudulent – then the users who submitted them would be rewarded, but if the reports are wrong then the insurance tokens will be deposited into the user reward fund.
MYSHIELD BOUNTY
“Bounty” in the world of cryptocurrency in general is a reward or incentives given to bounty hunters – a term given to people who accomplish a certain cryptocurrency-related task. The term of bounty in cryptocurrency is inspired from actual bounty hunters back in the Wild West; people who work to capture or kill a target – like the ones who had their picture in a wanted poster – who had a bounty, or a sum of (usually) monetary reward, on his or her head. Should the bounty hunters managed to accomplish the task they would receive monetary payment in the sum of the target’s bounty. Since scam reporting on the MyShield platform is conducted by users where they will be given incentives for being the good Samaritans they are, this means benefit for not only general internet users who can be informed of a site’s maliciousness but also the ones submitting the report of the site themselves, who will receive said benefit in a form of MyShield tokens as the bounty. The bounties were differentiated and acquired through:
- General Bounty – 20% of users registering for a premium account and 80% of users submitting scam reports that proven to be false will be categorized in this general bounty.
- Brand Bounty – targeted on a brand or organization that wanted their brands or sites clean from scam by giving incentives on the users giving scam reports related to their products.
- Community Bounty – where users acquire bounty from other users who are willing to give incentives can create this type of bounty. Take a fan of a particular musician for example, who hates to see their favorite musician having bad reputation to his or her name due to fake sites and hoaxes. Said fan is willing to give incentive for anyone reporting fakes sites and hoaxes targeted to the musician. The similar concept can be applied to MyShield users.
THE MYSHIELD TRUST STAMPTM & THE MYSHIELD TRUSTED WALLET STAMP
Like the original stamp we see on an original official product or an important letters or documents issued by the government, MyShield will also launch a similar feature. Reverting back to the issue aforementioned on this writing, people have more confidence in determining a service or good’s authenticity if they have sensory cues –especially visual – and physical access to them.
For example, someone who wanted to buy a house should have more confidence that they aren’t being tricked to pay more than its worth when they see the seller whipped out the real, government-issue-stamped deed to the house. The same principle is used on MyShield. The existence of a stamp assuring people of a good’s authenticity will give them a sense of security on doing sensitive activities involving monetary aspects. The same thing is also applied on stamps on wallet addresses of shopping or payment sites, which leads to double protection for users before they send out their money, ensuring it to arrive at the desired destination.
In general, the website that wants to acquire this stampn must go through a process of administration that involves Know Your Customer (KYC) principles.
BRANDSHIELD® – MYSHIELD’S FIRST AI-POWERED CYBER INTELLIGENCE PROVIDER
BrandShield is an online brand protection and cyber intelligence system that operates independently with AI (artificial intelligence). brandShield is used by sizable companies from different types of industries, like banking, financial, cryptocurrency, and so on. The uniqueness of the BrandShield system is as follows:
- BrandShield analyzes content and its metrics.
- BrandShield uses a special algorithm that automatically categorizes a threat’s level.
- BrandShield uses machine learning to refine its results.
- BrandShield implements pattern recognition of major scammers.
The use of BrandShield AI technology in the MyShield ecosystem is to monitor online brand names on different platforms such as websites, social media, apps, and marketplaces. The scoring conducted by BrandShield will be used and analyzed so this system can be used to warn users. Furthermore, if there are users who reported new, unrecognized threats such as new marketplace website, then said report will make BrandShield conduct an automated assessment on said threat with its state-of-the-art technology.
TOKEN GENERATION EVENTS
The MyShield token will be an ERC-20 based token. Its symbol will be MSLD. MyShield will be create a finite amount of 1 billion MyShield tokens. Token sale event will be performed in three stages. The date of the crowd sale will be published in Q3 2018.
Funds allocation:
ROADMAP
CONCLUSION
Scamming activities existed almost everywhere – ranging from real life to cyber life, and especially on the recently growing cryptocurrency where it’s safe that majority of people in it are still new and clueless. People who aren’t being vigilant and cautious on such scamming attempts may fall victim to those irresponsible parties. The usage of MyShield will help on counter these attempts by adding a layer of trust in its users surfing the web to the extent of doing transactions online. Not only that, people who report potential scamming attempts will receive incentives as well.
That said, nothing is perfect and that applies too to MyShield – we still have the concern of broad adaptation problems. For example, while we knew that trusted wallet stamp feature will be very useful when implemented on large cryptocurrency sites such as blockchain.info, said sites might not install them right away anyway, and so we need combined efforts of developers and users to be able to create a broad adaptation before these features of MyShield can be put on those sites eventually.
Putting the weaknesses and obstacles aside, the value of solution and feature offered by MyShield to the users of cryptocurrency cannot be taken for granted. Only if MyShield can deliver what was promised, maybe one day it’s possible for us to witness a large adaptation process in the world of cryptocurreny and internet-based activity in general, because in the cyber world, trust is everything and MyShield aims to increase said trust, after all.
Get more information:
Official website https://www.myshield.com/
Official Bitcointalk Thread https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3179901.msg32931789#msg32931789
Telegram [https://telegram.me/MyShield_TM]9https://telegram.me/MyShield_TM)
Linkedin https://www.linkedin.com/company/myshield/
Author:
Panjay ( https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=51549 )
You have a minor misspelling in the following sentence:
It should be further instead of futher.