Distributed Digest: Thursday, January 10, 2019

Your daily distillation of crypto news for Thursday, January 10, 2019:

“Critical Vulnerability” in Beam Wallet

Less than a week after launching its mainnet, Beam discovered a “critical vulnerability” in its wallet app, affecting all Beam wallets. The team instructed users to not delete their databases or other wallet data, as well as to stop running their wallets, uninstall the app, and install a new app from the Beam website.

Beam says it has since fixed the vulnerability but notes that the updated files should only be downloaded from its website. The team advises against using Beam wallets developed from source code, as the fix “was not committed to a public branch to avoid disclosure.”

The vulnerability is a less-than-ideal start for Beam. Some have criticized it over Twitter, claiming that the situation represents a “major fail” and is “so unprofessional.”

Black Girls Code and ConsenSys Team Up

Like yin and yang, the cryptospace features positive developments to balance the negative. It was recently reported that the nonprofit organization Black Girls Code, which brings young women of color into the tech field, has partnered with ConsenSys “to establish the first blockchain training program of national scale for young women of color.” The curriculum will be comprehensive, including topics related to blockchain fundamentals, cryptocurrency, and user experience.

In addition to theoretical knowledge, the program will reportedly emphasize application in allowing students to showcase their ideas at major blockchain conferences around the world, such as Devcon and Ethereal. Further, there will be in-program hackathons for students to participate in.

Department of Decentralization Channels Mythical Wolpertinger in New Logo

In other community-oriented news, the Department of Decentralization (the folks behind ETHBerlin and the upcoming GörliCon gathering) has a new look: a German cryptid-like composite creature called a wolpertinger. The collective’s new logo features the mythical German animal in the center of a US Securities and Exchange Commission-inspired badge, with a bear underneath the wolpertinger to represent Berlin.

The logo was agreed upon through a rough consensus decision-making process, which means that the collective generally agreed to the artwork, though not necessarily every participant concurred. The Fellowship of Ethereum Magicians follows the same consensus process.

With the wolpertinger-faced logo to represent the Department of Decentralization, the collective will have a unified identity going into GörliCon at the end of January.

Dani Putney is a full-time writer for ETHNews. He received his bachelor’s degree in English writing from the University of Nevada, Reno, where he also studied journalism and queer theory. In his free time, he writes poetry, plays the piano, and fangirls over fictional characters. He lives with his partner, three dogs, and two cats in the middle of nowhere, Nevada.

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