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Cloud Computing Advantages to Businesses – Good Herald

June 4, 2017 | Author: admin

From the buzz word in the computing world, cloud computing has matured as a full-fledged business strategy that holds many advantages and applications. Even now a lot of enhancements and innovations are going on to make cloud computing faster, better and safer. This article analyses that applications and advantages of cloud computing from a business point-of-view.

In simplest words, cloud computing is the utilization of internet for computing requirements. In an ideal cloud computing atmosphere businesses only need devices and connectivity to internet. Data, software, applications, storage, networking, security and everything else will be made available to you by your cloud service provider. Currently there is a range of cloud services are available on pay-as-you-go, rental, prepaid and annual fee basis. Some most common cloud computing applications include Software as a Service or SaaS, Cloud hosting & storage, Security as a Service or SECaaS, Infrastructure as a Service or IaaS, Backup as a Service, Platform as a Service or PaaS, Monitoring as a Service or MaaS and Communication as a Service or CaaS.

Advantages of Cloud Computing to Businesses

The first and foremost important advantage of cloud computing is cost. Usually with cloud computing there are no initial investment requirements for infrastructure. Additionally there are no maintenance costs, cost of infrastructure or software upgrade, license fees or in-house IT teams. Usually there is a variety of cloud computing packages available to suit every business needs.

The second advantage is the availability of unlimited services. The services may be priced per head or on a flat rate. Most cloud computing providers offer the unlimited option on number of users, storage capacity, backup size, user access and almost everything possible. Generally there are no additional costs; even if there is any it still can be very low.

Cloud computing offers easy and universal access of data, applications and procedures. Generally, all cloud services are available any time anywhere there is internet. Moreover, users and businesses not need to bother about the settings and customizations. You can access your data and applications from any computer or device in they way you configured.

Cloud computing offer automated and no-cost updates. The cloud server providers are very keen to offer you top quality services and also automatic updates is one of the basic features that is enclosed on the agreement.

Disadvantages of Cloud Computing to Businesses

Cloud computing with its current setup not suits all kinds of businesses. These services favor large and mid size businesses and businesses who rely highly upon information technology. These services also need stable and reliable internet connectivity; the lack of which can jeopardize the whole idea of cloud services. The data and applications are always hosted on external third-party networks and computers; and data transfers over internet are always prone to attacks.

This article is written for SWAN Solutions and Services, a leading Indian cloud computing service provider offering a range of cloud services include cloud hosting, SaaS, IaaS, etc. SWAN also helps businesses to successfully migrate to cloud computing.

Photo By Stevebidmead from Pixabay

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Team develops first blockchain that can’t be hacked by quantum computer – Siliconrepublic.com

June 3, 2017 | Author: admin

It was a busy week for IoT technologies, with Russia preparing its networks for quantum computer hacks through blockchain.

Earlier this week, Irish forestry organisation Coillte revealed its latest effort to get into the internet of trees space following a 1.2m deal with the European Space Agency to roll out a tree growth analytics system, including a unique tree sensor device.

When operational, the sensors will create a kind of mesh network that maps out a digital forest. The resulting data will be transmitted via satellite to provide real-time analytics for forest managers.

Meanwhile, across the Atlantic Ocean, Android co-founder Andy Rubin was discussingthe prevalence of smart home assistants on the market, and how they are creating a disjointed ecosystem.

Rubin wasspeakingas part of thelaunch of Androids new Essential Home device and a new open source, smart assistant operating system called Ambient OS.

All of these [companies] have ecosystem envy and want to create their own ecosystem, Rubin said.

But consumers dont want just Samsung stuff in their house. They want diversity.

The fields of blockchain and quantum computing are fascinating and complex in their own regard, but new research from Russia claims that a merger between the two could be very interesting.

According to the International Business Times, a team from the Russian Quantum Center in Moscow has developed quantum blockchain technology that would prevent any hacker from accessing connections, despite thecomputing technology still being experimental.

As has been explained before, blockchain is the technology that makes a transaction of currency or information traceable and transparent to both parties and, by its nature, is supposed to be incredibly secure.

However, when quantum computers enter the mainstream, this might not be the case as their incredible processing power would be able to crack any encryption.

Parties that communicate via a quantum channel can be completely sure that they are talking to each other, not anybody else, said Alexander Lvovsky, group lead ofthe research.

This is the main idea. Then we had to reinvent the entire blockchain architecture to fit our new authentication technology, thereby making this architecture immune to quantum computer attacks.

Earlier this week (29 May), Enterprise Ireland held a trade mission in Canada with a focus on IoT, led by Minister Sean Canney, TD.

The biggest success at the event was with Clare-based Tekelek, whichsigned a $1.4m deal with PayGo, a company that provides sensors for businesses to monitor fuel consumption remotely and make changes where necessary.

As part of the deal, Tekelek will begin developing an intrinsically safe sensor to facilitate the expansion of PayGos service offering in the US and Canadian markets.

Oliver McCarthy, general manager of Tekelek, said: Were very excited to apply this thinking and our technology to the industrial fuels marketplace, and were similarly pleased to partner with an organisation of PayGos calibre to bring our technologies to the North America market.

Dublin City Councils (DCC) Smart Dublin initiative has announced a partnership with the Connect Centre and Intel to deploy low-cost sensors across the capital to monitor rainfall, weather conditions and river levels.

The new sensors will communicate data wirelessly to DCCs operations team, which will analyse water levels and use Connects Pervasive Nation IoT network to provide city authorities with an early warning of potential flooding.

Jamie Cudden, DCCs Smart City programme manager, said: Dublin is emerging as a leading location for smart city and IoT innovations.

Intels Dublin Living Lab programme has already carried out some initial flood monitoring activity across the city, which has led to the prototyping of a set of river and rainfall sensors.

Autonomous cars are gradually heading onto our open roads, albeit with a driver behind the wheel to make sure everything goes OKduring the trials.

Now, anew method of testing these cars developed by the University of Michigan may have found a way to drastically cut the amount of time it could take to make them road-legal.

Developed using data from more than 40m km of driving in the real world, a team of researchers believes that they can save 99.9pc of the testing time and costs with their system.

The evaluation process breaks down typical driving situations into components that can be tested or simulated over and over again, exposing autonomous vehicles to a condensed set of the most challenging driving situations.

This, the researchers argue, means that 1,600km of testing would equate to 1.6m km in real-world testing, but, in order to make the public feel safe being in these vehicles, as much as 20bn km of testing will need to be done.

The teams white paper is published here.

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Doped Diamonds Push Practical Quantum Computing Closer to Reality – Motherboard

June 3, 2017 | Author: admin

A large team of researchers from MIT, Harvard University, and Sandia National Laboratories has scored a major advance toward building practical quantum computers. The work, which is described in the current Nature Communications, offers a new pathway toward using diamonds as the foundation for optical circuitscomputer chips based on manipulating light rather than electric current, basically.

Pushing beyond the quantum computing hype and, perhaps, misinformation, we're still faced with a largely theoretical technology. Engineering a real quantum computer is hard because it should be hard. What we're attempting to do is harness a highly strange and even more so fragile property of the quantum world, which is the ability of particles to occupy seemingly contradictory physical states: up and down, left and right, is and isn't.

If we could just have that property in the same sense that we can have a basic electronic component like a transistor, we'd be set. But maintaining and manipulating qubits, the units of information consisting of simultaneous contradictory particle states, is really hard. Just looking at a quantum system means disrupting it, and, if that system happened to be encoding information, the information is lost.

The almost-perfect lattice structure of atoms in a diamond offers a promising foundation for a quantum circuit. Here, a qubit is stored within a "defect" within the diamond. Every so often within the neatly ordered confines of a diamond, an atom will be missing. In this vacancy, another atom might sneak in to replace the missing carbon atom. This diamond defect may in turn have some free electrons associated with it, and it's among these particles that information is stored (while information is transmitted around the diamond as photons, or light particles).

Crucially, this little swarm of electrons naturally emits light particles that are able to mirror the quantum superposition (the particle or particle system in multiple states). This is then a way of retrieving information from the qubit without disturbing it.

The challenge is in finding and implementing the ideal replacement for the carbon atom in the diamond lattice. This replacement is known as a dopant. This is where the new study comes in.

The most-studied dopant for diamond-defect optical circuits is nitrogen. It's stable enough to maintain the requisite quantum superposition, but is limited in the frequencies of light that it can emit. It's like having a perfect encryption system that can nonetheless only represent like a quarter of the alphabet.

The dopant explored in the new research is silicon. Silicon atoms embedded into a diamond lattice are able to emit much narrower wavelength bands. It's like they have a higher-resolution. But the cost of being able represent information with more precision are more precarious quantum states. Consequently, the diamonds have to be kept at very near absolute-zero temperature. Nitrogen states, meanwhile, can withstand heat up to about four degrees above absolute zero. In either case, we're not exactly talking about quantum laptops.

The researchers were able to implant silicon defects into diamonds via a two-step process involving first blasting the diamond with a laser to create vacancies and then heating the diamond way up to the point that the vacancies start to move around the lattice and bond with silicon atoms. The result is a lattice with an impressively large number of embedded silicon atoms that are exactly where they should be within the structure.

The result is a promising pathway toward reliable fabrication of "efficient lightmatter interfaces based on semiconductor defects coupled to nanophotonic devices." The stuff of a quantum computer, in other words.

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5 Reasons why internet security is crucial in 2017 – Techworm

June 3, 2017 | Author: admin

Ever imagined a week without the internet? That sounds crazy, especially if your bread and butter require that you always stay online. As we live in the Internet Age, it is next to impossible to imagine life without staying connected. The internet is a useful tool in many aspects of our life, from communication down to business.

While the internet is proven to be useful, it also comes with a few drawbacks. Some people are using the Internet to cause harm to others. In the United Kingdom alone, there were an estimated 6.2 million incidents of cyber crime in 2016. Even Singapore, which is dubbed as the safest country in Asia, is not free from online scams. The government, as well as many private organizations, are becoming more proactive in dealing with the growing rate of cyber security. Here are some reasons why Internet security is of the utmost importance in 2017:

How will you protect yourself from any form of phishing? The best way to do that is to install a legitimate antivirus software that offers an overall protection from threats. The best computer antivirus according to Computer Fixperts has a thorough malware detection. Furthermore, it should safeguard you against dangerous websites, harmful downloads, and suspicious emails. For maximum protection against online threats, make sure that your antivirus software is up-to-date.

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Every Day Is Internet Security Day – The Chief-Leader

June 3, 2017 | Author: admin

Being safe online is important every day. There may be days devoted to Internet-security awareness, but you need to be careful every time you go online.

Do you know what it takes to be safe online? You probably connect daily to get information, shop, socialize, or work. Every time you go online, you need to avoid the risk of theft or fraud. Here are some tips to use while visiting the Social Security website and the other websites you use.

Use Strong PasswordsStrong passwords have at least eight characters and include capital letters, numbers, and non-letter characters. These passwords make it harder for someone to hack your account.

Dont Recycle PasswordsAlthough it requires effort to think of new passwords constantly, it provides safety when you do. What if you use the same password for every site and you lose your password? If someone finds it, they could get access to all your accounts. Many people choose to re-usedont be one of them.

Take Advantage of Multifactor AuthenticationMany websites offer the option to use a second factoror methodin addition to just a username and password to ensure that only you access your information. Using more than one factor to establish identity makes it harder for someone to get into your account and steal your personal information. Beginning June 10, 2017, Social Security requires multifactor authentication to access a my Social Security account. Customers choose whether to receive a one-time security code to either their phone or email in order create a new account or sign into their account. Visit this link to find out more about how to secure your personal my Social Security account: https://goo.gl/m37WKC. Consider using multifactor authentication whenever its offered to protect your information.

Read Scam AlertsFor information about fraudulent activities related to Social Security, you can find information at our blog Social Security Matters under the Newsroom section at blog.socialsecurity.gov. One way to avoid identity theft is to create your own my Social Security account, if you havent already. When you have an account, no one else can set up one using your information. Social Securitys Office of the Inspector General investigates fraud involving Social Security and publishes Fraud Advisories at https://goo.gl/MocUfm. The Federal Trade Commission website publishes information about scams that appear in the news at https://goo.gl/Y1QcMD. Youll want to be aware of current scams to avoid being tricked.

Review Your Online Accounts and Credit ReportsJust as you review your earnings record with Social Security for accuracy at http://www.socialsecurity.gov/myaccount, you should review your bank and credit-card accounts for accuracy. Get a free copy of your credit report, available annually from the three credit-reporting agencies (Experian, Equifax, and Transunion) at https://goo.gl/bwXN2P, and check it for incorrect entries.

Protecting your identity can be daunting. Guarding your personal information requires investing some time, but is worth it. Discourage theft and fraud by adopting these security practices when you use the internet.

Mr. Flow is District Manager of the Social Security Administrations Downtown New York Office.

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5 Common Encryption Algorithms and the Unbreakables of the …

June 3, 2017 | Author: admin

Mchten Sie diesen Beitrag in Deutsch zu lesen? Lesen Sie die Deutsch-Version hier.

While security is an afterthought for many PC users, its a major priority for businesses of any size. It has to be when the Ponemon Institute tells us that security breaches are costing companies millions every year.

Even if you dont have millions to lose, protecting what you do have should be a high priority.

There are several forms of security technology available, but encryption is one that everyday computer users should know about.

Encryption is an interesting piece of technology that works by scrambling data so it is unreadable by unintended parties. Lets take a look at how it works with the email-friendly software PGP (or GPG for you open source people).

Say I want to send you a private message, so I encrypt it using either one of these programs. Heres the message:

wUwDPglyJu9LOnkBAf4vxSpQgQZltcz7LWwEquhdm5kSQIkQlZtfxtSTsmaw q6gVH8SimlC3W6TDOhhL2FdgvdIC7sDv7G1Z7pCNzFLp0lgB9ACm8r5RZOBi N5ske9cBVjlVfgmQ9VpFzSwzLLODhCU7/2THg2iDrW3NGQZfz3SSWviwCe7G mNIvp5jEkGPCGcla4Fgdp/xuyewPk6NDlBewftLtHJVf =PAb3

Once encrypted, the message literally becomes a jumbled mess of random characters. But, equipped with the secret passcode I text you, you can decrypt it and find the original message.

Come on over for hot dogs and soda!

Whether its in transit like our hot dog party email or resting on your hard drive, encryption works to keep prying eyes out of your business even if they happen to somehow gain access to your network or system.If you want to learn more about how encryption helps protect business data,you can read our article on how encryption aids cloud security.

The technology comes in many forms, with key size and strength generally being the biggest differences in one variety from the next.

Triple DES was designed to replace the original Data Encryption Standard (DES) algorithm, which hackers eventually learned to defeat with relative ease. At one time, Triple DES was the recommended standard and the most widely used symmetric algorithm in the industry.

Triple DES uses three individual keys with 56 bits each. The total key length adds up to 168 bits, but experts would argue that 112-bits in key strength is more like it.

Despite slowly being phased out, Triple DES still manages to make a dependable hardware encryption solution for financial services and other industries.

RSA is a public-key encryption algorithm and the standard for encrypting data sent over the internet. It also happens to be one of the methods used in our PGP and GPG programs.

Unlike Triple DES, RSA is considered an asymmetric algorithm due to its use of a pair of keys. Youve got your public key, which is what we use to encrypt our message, and a private key to decrypt it. The result of RSA encryption is a huge batch of mumbo jumbo that takes attackers quite a bit of time and processing power to break.

Blowfish is yet another algorithm designed to replace DES. This symmetric cipher splits messages into blocks of 64 bits and encrypts them individually.

Blowfish is known for both its tremendous speed and overall effectiveness as many claim that it has never been defeated. Meanwhile, vendors have taken full advantage of its free availability in the public domain.

Blowfish can be found in software categories ranging from e-commerce platforms for securing payments to password management tools, where it used to protect passwords. Its definitely one of the more flexible encryption methods available.

Computer security expert Bruce Schneier is the mastermind behind Blowfish and its successor Twofish. Keys used in this algorithm may be up to 256 bits in length and as a symmetric technique, only one key is needed.

Twofish is regarded as one of the fastest of its kind, and ideal for use in both hardware and software environments. Like Blowfish, Twofish is freely available to anyone who wants to use it. As a result, youll find it bundled in encryption programs such as PhotoEncrypt, GPG, and the popular open source software TrueCrypt.

The Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) is the algorithm trusted as the standard by the U.S. Government and numerous organizations.

Although it is extremely efficient in 128-bit form, AES also uses keys of 192 and 256 bits for heavy duty encryption purposes.

AES is largely considered impervious to all attacks, with the exception of brute force, which attempts to decipher messages using all possible combinations in the 128, 192, or 256-bit cipher. Still, security experts believe that AES will eventually be hailed the de facto standard for encrypting data in the private sector.

Cyber attacks are constantly evolving, so security specialists must stay busy in the lab concocting new schemes to keep them at bay. Expert observers are hopeful that a new method called Honey Encryption will deter hackers by serving up fake data for every incorrect guess of the key code. This unique approach not only slows attackers down, but potentially buries the correct key in a haystack of false hopes. Then there are emerging methods like quantum key distribution, which shares keys embedded in photons over fiber optic, that might have viability now and many years into the future as well.

Whether its protecting your email communications or stored data, some type of encryption should be included in your lineup of security tools. Successful attacks on victims like Target show that its not 100 percent bulletproof, but without it, youre offering up convenient access to your data. Find some tools that give you a piece of mind and stick with em!

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SSH Configuration on Nexpose Servers Allowed Weak Encryption Algorithms – Threatpost

June 3, 2017 | Author: admin

Rapid7 encouraged owners of its Nexpose appliancesthis week to apply an update to their systems to tweak how SSH is configured by default.

The company warned on Wednesday the devices were shipped with an SSH configuration that could have let some obsolete KEX, encryption and MAC algorithms be used for key exchange.

Nexpose devices are preconfigured servers, deployed in server racks, designed to help users gauge vulnerabilities, manage vulnerability data, and limit threat exposure. All physical Nexpose appliances are affected per a disclosure by Samuel Huckins, a program manager with the company, published on Wednesday.

Disclosure on CVE-2017-5243: Nexpose hardware appliance SSH enabled obsolete algorithms https://t.co/DHI7uLJ5yj (Thanks to @LiamMSomerville)

Rapid7 (@rapid7) May 31, 2017

Liam Somerville, a researcher based in Scotland, discovered the vulnerability (CVE-2017-5243) and reported it to the company three weeks ago.

Nothing needs to be downloaded to resolve the issue, but a file does need to edited, Rapid7 said. According to Huckins, to fix the vulnerability a user with root access has to edit /etc/ssh/sshd_config in the appliance to ensure only modern ciphers, key exchange, and MAC algorithms are accepted. This should lessen the likelihoodof any attacks involving authentication.

Prior to the fix, weak and out of date encryption algorithms such asAES192-CBC, Blowfish-CBC, and 3DES-CBC, and KEX algorithms such asdiffie-hellman-group-exchange-sha1, could have been enabled.

This change should not impact connections from Nexpose instances to the physical appliance. The main impact is shoring up access by SSH clients such that they cannot connect to the appliance using obsolete algorithms, Huckins wrote.

According to Tod Beardsley, Research Director at Rapid7, the vulnerability could have let an attacker in a privileges position on the network force an algorithm downgrade between an SSH client and Nexpose during authentication.

The privileged position is crucial to making the attack a success, since its a man-in-the-middle (MitM) attack first, the attacker needs to be able to insert himself between the client and server, which usually means the attacker is on the same network as either endpoint, or has compromised an ISP along the way (in which case you have bigger problems), Beardsley told Threatpost late Friday, Once there, the attacker can pose as both sides of the initial SSH handshake, and rewrite the handshake to request one of these older, obsolete algorithms. Once thats done, the attacker then records the session, and then can decrypt the session offline.

Beardsley says that removing server-side support for the algorithms makes the aforementioned kind of attack impractical and that overall, the actual risk of exploitation is fairly low.

These appliances dont tend to be exposed on public networks, so attackers need to be on the inside to begin with, Beardsley said, The whole point of SSH is to be resistant to this kind of session meddling, even in the face of an attacker whos in the right place and has the right expertise and resources to mount this sort attack. By strengthening whats available on the server, we can help keep that promise of confidentiality.

*This article was updated at 4:30 p.m. EST to include comments from Tod Beardsley of Rapid7.

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OneLogin data breach may have compromised encrypted information – We Live Security (blog)

June 3, 2017 | Author: admin

OneLogin has admitted that it cannot guarantee the security of encrypted data compromised by a cybercriminal on Wednesday (May 31st).

The firm has confirmed that a review is currently underway to investigate the data breach, which affected its US data region.

Unauthorized access has since been blocked and the incident has been reported to the authorities, with independent security firms also on board to help identify the extent of the incident.

OneLogin found that the cybercriminal had obtained access to a set of AWS keys, and had used them to access the AWS API from an intermediate host with another, smaller service provider in the US.

Affected customers have already been informed, with the company claiming that the attacker was able to access database tables containing various pieces of sensitive information about users, apps and various types of keys.

While insisting that much of its most sensitive data was encrypted, the company admitted that it cnn not guarantee that the cybercriminal has not managed to find a way to decrypt that data.

As a result, it has asked customers to remain vigilant, making several recommendations for action.

According to Bill Buchanan of Edinburgh Napier University, the incident has highlighted the risk of depending on cloud-based systems.

He told the BBC: Increasingly they [companies] need to encrypt sensitive information before they put it within cloud systems, and watch that their encryption keys are not distributed to malicious agents.

It is almost impossible to decrypt data that uses strong encryption, unless the encryption key has been generated from a simple password.

The case once again highlights the importance of properly implementing an encryption solution, particularly for UK companies, which are still likely to remember the 150,000 fine dished out to insurance company Alliance and Leicester at the beginning of the year.

Whether OneLogin could have done more to protect their encrypted data is likely to become clearer in the next few weeks.

Author Editor, ESET

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Bitcoin Is at Risk of No Longer Being the Biggest Digital …

June 3, 2017 | Author: admin

Step aside, bitcoin. Theres another digital token in town thats winning over the hearts and wallets of cryptocurrency enthusiasts across the globe.

The value of ether, the digital currency linked to the ethereum blockchain, could surpass that of bitcoin by the end of 2018, according to Olaf Carlson-Wee, chief executive officer of cryptocurrency hedge fund Polychain Capital.

"What weve seen in ethereum is a much richer, organic developer ecosystem develop very, very quickly, which is what has driven ethereums price growth, which has actually been much more aggressive than bitcoin," said Carlson-Wee,in an interview on Bloomberg Television Tuesday. The San Francisco Bay Area-based fund has received investments from venture-capital firms including Andreessen Horowitz and Union Square Ventures.

The name ethereum might ring a bell because hackers stole millions of dollars worth of ether last year. Still, its piquing the interest of industries from finance to health care because itsblockchaindoes far more than let bitcoin users send value from one person to another. Its advocates think it could be a universally accessible machine for running businesses, as the technology allows people to do more complex actions in a shared and decentralized manner.

QuickTake Bitcoin and the Blockchain

Carlson-Wee wasnt the first to forecast a bright future for ethereum. Fred Wilson, co-founder and managing partner at Union Square Ventures, laid out an even more ambitious timeline for the cryptocurrency in an interview earlier this month.

"The market cap of ethereum will bypass the market cap of bitcoin by the end of the year," said Wilson, who is also chairman of the board at Etsy Inc.

After skyrocketing more than 300 percent in the last year, bitcoin now costs about $2,300 a coin, which is still around 10 times the price of ethereum. But the second-most popular cryptocurrency is gaining market share fast.

Read more on how digital coins are allowing startups to ditch venture capitalist funding

Bitcoin currently dominates a little less than half of the digital currency market, down from almost 90 percent three months ago, according toCoinmarketcap.com data. Meanwhile, ethereum has quadrupled its share, which now represents more than a quarter of the pie. Other virtual coins have also picked up steam. Carlson-Wee is a fan of auger, golem, zcash and monero.

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Bitcoins growth has started to catch up to its fundamentals, which is likely what has been driving its astronomical gain as of late, he said. Others have attributed the surge to speculation, aswell as increased interest in Asia and adoption by established companies. Impressive performance aside, more than $150 has been knocked off bitcoins price since late last week amid concerns about transaction speed, safety and a possible price bubble.

"Were absolutely still in the infrastructure building phase," Carlson-Wee said. "But I do think within one to two years, well start to see the first viral applications that are user facing."

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The Bitcoin Bubble Boils – Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust ETF (Pending … – Seeking Alpha

June 3, 2017 | Author: admin

Just last week, the price of Bitcoin reached a level that no one thought possible just a few short months ago. In 2010, Bitcoin was trading at around the 6 cents level. At the end of 2016, the price had risen to the lofty level of $960.47. At that point, many people were calling the explosion of value a bubble market in the cryptocurrency.

We are now not even at the halfway point of 2017, and the price of Bitcoin has more than doubled from the level it was trading at on the last day of December 2016. Demand for Bitcoin is growing as the price of the asset is only controlled by bids and offers in the market. If Bitcoin is a bubble market, it could be one of the biggest bubbles in history. $100 invested in Bitcoin in 2010 has grown in value to over $4.5 million at the recent highs. If that is not a bubble, I do not know what could constitute one. In fact, it is now a certainty that Bitcoin will find its way into the history books as either the best performing asset in history or, the biggest bubble ever known to humankind. Right now, the Bitcoin bubble is boiling.

A long history of bubbles

" An asset bubble occurs when the price of a financial asset or commodity rises to levels that are well above either historical norms or its intrinsic value, or both." This definition from Investopedia sums up the current situation in Bitcoin. One of the cautionary signs of a bubble is when market participants suspend disbelief and increasing signals that the price of an asset is irrational. There have been so many bubbles throughout history, but three of the biggest have occurred since the 1980's.

In the early 1980's the Japanese yen surged by 50% which caused a brutal recession in the Asian nation. The central bank and government reacted with a program of monetary and fiscal stimulus that caused stock prices and land values to triple from 1985-1989. The bubble bust in the early 1990's leading to a lost decade for the country in the 1990's and 2000's as the economy tanked.

In the late 1990's in the United States shares in technology companies soared leading to a dot-com bubble. The NASDAQ index climbed from 500 at the beginning of 1990 to highs of over 5000 by March 2000 resulting in a crash where the index lost 80% of its value by October 2002 triggering a recession in the U.S. It took 15 years for the index to climb back and make a new high.

The last major bubble occurred in 2008 when U.S. housing prices jumped to irrational levels leading to the Great Recession in the United States. The economic contraction caused the central bank in the U.S., and others around the world, to stimulate economies via programs of historically low interest rates and quantitative easing or repurchasing of debt by the central bank.

Perhaps the most famous bubble in history occurred in the 1600's in the Netherlands.

Tulip mania and Bitcoin

Bitcoin is an asset like no other. In fact, central banks and regulators around the world are having a hard time classifying the cryptocurrency. The Commodities Futures Trading Commission is looking at Bitcoin as a commodity, perhaps because of its penchant for extreme price volatility. Bitcoin is certainly a means of exchange. The regulators and governments are the reasons for its existence. Many people around the world wish to use an asset that is not under the control of any government or regulatory body. Bitcoin is not like the stocks, bonds, or real estate that caused the bubbles since 1980 it is different. Therefore, we need to go back in history almost four centuries to find another market that is analogous.

Tulip-mania gripped the Netherlands in the 1630 and is one of the earliest recorded instances of an irrational asset bubble. Tulip prices soared twentyfold from November 1636 and February 1637. The prices then plunged 99% by May 1637. During the bubble, some rare tulip bulbs were worth more than luxury homes. Bitcoin was 6 cents in 2010. In May 2017, it traded at almost $2800.

Is almost $2800 the high for Bitcoin?

There is a fixed amount of Bitcoin available to the market. There are only 16,367,375 Bitcoins in circulation. At 6 cents, the market cap of the entire market was just under $1 million. On Friday, June 2, 2017, the market cap was $40.22 billion at a price of $2450.85. In less than ten years the appreciation has been nothing short of astonishing, and on the face of it, Bitcoin looks like the biggest bubble in history. However, it lacks several characteristics of a bubble market. While lots of people are talking about Bitcoin around the world, few are buying and selling the cryptocurrency. However, the beauty of Bitcoin is that it is a market where the price is solely determined by supply and demand as bids and offers in the market cause the price to move without any governmental or regulatory influence. Bitcoin is a lot like gold; the only difference is that central banks are the world's largest holders of the yellow metal and can affect the price by their buying and selling activity. When it comes to Bitcoin, the central banks, monetary authorities and supranational institutions like the International Monetary Fund and World Bank have been observers rather than participants.

When I was a young trader at one of the world's leading commodities trading houses in the 1980's one of my bosses told me that the only reasons that markets go up or down is when there are more buyers than sellers or more sellers than buyers. When it comes to Bitcoin, that lesson rings especially true.

One of the aspects of the cryptocurrency that has gained widespread appeal is the operations system of recording that tracks ownership of Bitcoin.

Blockchain validates the cryptocurrency and vice versa

Blockchain or distributed ledger technology will change the world of operations in financial markets, banking, and other business disciplines. The computer-based record keeping allows for an instantaneous flow of ownership and will make formerly tedious operations and settlement procedures more efficient. Blockchain will save Wall Street and many other areas of the international economy lots of money and time in the years ahead. Most recently, the CFTC has set up a lab to encourage and spread the technology throughout the commodities futures markets.

In many ways, Bitcoin has validated the existence of Blockchain and vice versa. The growing acceptance of Blockchain or DLT as the norm of the future has confirmed Bitcoin as an asset.

The financial drone that flies beneath the radar has tremendous appeal that is growing- Watch for a split that could boost prices

The appeal of Bitcoin is that it is a financial drone that flies beneath the radar of governments and regulators. In China, Russia, and other nations that do not have freely convertible currencies Bitcoin is a method of electronically moving wealth abroad to regions of the world where the rules allow for money to move more quickly. While there are many nefarious applications for Bitcoin in the world of narcotics, arms, computer hacking, kidnapping ransom and other illegal activities, in Japan Bitcoin is accepted by most merchants for payment and its acceptance in Europe is growing.

Bitcoin is held in a computer wallet by holders and is transferred from sellers to buyers via blockchain operations. No one controls the market. It would make sense, given the current price level for a split of the number of Bitcoins in circulation at this point. A 100 to 1 split would put the price at around the $24 level which would make the market more attractive to a greater addressable market. However, one of the many answers I do not have about the cryptocurrency which is an enigma wrapped in a riddle, is who would arrange for such a split?

When it comes to bubbles, it is almost impossible to identify a top from which the asset comes crashing down. Bitcoin currently as many of the characteristics of a bubble, perhaps the greatest asset bubble in history but where it pops is anyone's guess at this point. The Bitcoin bubble was boiling at $500, $1000, $2000, and most recently $2800. With a market cap of around $40 billion, the total stock of Bitcoin has a current value of just over half of Warren Buffett's net worth these days. As a means of exchange that transcends borders, it is likely that this bubble is not close to inflated yet. The Mount Gox scandal a few years ago slowed the ascent of the cryptocurrency, but now it seems to be full steam ahead for an asset that was born less than eight years ago.

Many people believe that Bitcoin is a Ponzi-scheme. However, it is looking more like a tulip bulb to me these days. That bulb could keep appreciating for a long time before it hits the history books and by that time it could be the biggest bubble in history, and the price after the fall may even be higher than its current level.

Each Wednesday I provide subscribers with a detailed report on the major commodity sectors covering over 30 individual commodity markets, most of which trade on U.S. futures markets. The report will give an up, down or neutral call on these markets for the coming week and will outline the technical and fundamental state of each market. At times, I will make recommendations for risk positions in the ETF and ETN markets as well as in commodity equities and related options. You can sign up for The Hecht Commodity Report on the Seeking Alpha Marketplace page.

Disclosure: I/we have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours.

I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.

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