Your WIRED daily briefing. Today, $200 billion in criminal proceeds is laundered through the digital economy every year, a third of the world’s protected areas are gravely threatened by human activity, you can now stream games to your Android phone with Steam Link and more.
- Fake ebooks and overpriced eBay listings are fronts for digital money laundering
The proceeds of crime are increasingly laundered online, using methods ranging from improbably expensive ebooks and eBay listings to cryptocurrencies such as ZCash and thousands of micropayments through online transaction systems (The Guardian). Research indicates that around $200 billion is laundered online every year, of a worldwide money laundering total estimated by the UN to be in the region of $2 trillion. Other ‘cyberlaundering’ tactics for erasing the criminal origins of money include using Uber to book “ghost journeys”, booking Airbnb rooms that will never be used and buying and selling expensive, tradeable items in games including FIFA and CounterStrike.
- A third of the world’s protected areas are threatened by human activity
A new report has found that 6 million square kilometers of the Earth’s designed protected regions – 32.8 per cent – are under “intense human pressure” from activities including mining, construction and agriculture (BBC News). In some protected areas, cities have been built, and the impact of human activity in these “paper parks” is contributing to a catastrophic decline in biodiversity across Asia, Europe, Africa and Australia. Incursion into protected lands isn’t only affecting animals and ecosystems. Farmers, tourists, missionaries and even researchers have also been found to threaten the health, freedom, societal structures and land rights of hunter-gatherer groups.
- You can now stream games to your Android phone with Steam Link
Valve has launched the beta version of its free Steam Link app for Android, so anyone with an Android phone and a quick 5GHz Wi-Fi network can have a go at streaming their favourite PC games to their mobile device (Ars Technica). You’ll also need a Bluetooth controller – a Steam Controller will do the job – and reviews indicate that you’ll probably have better luck with more contemplative games than high-speed action, even on fast wireless networks. An iOS version is expected soon, “pending further review from Apple”.
- Barcelona is leading the fightback against smart city surveillance
In 2015 Ada Colau, an activist with no experience in government, became mayor of Barcelona (WIRED). She called for a democratic revolution, and for the last two years city hall, working with civic-minded coders and cryptographers, has been designing the technological tools to make it happen. The group started by creating a digital participatory platform, Decidim (“We Decide”, in Catalan). Now the public can participate directly in government as they would on social media, by suggesting ideas, debating them, and voting with their thumbs.
- Get Galactic Civilizations II for free
As part of its ongoing spring sale, Humble is giving away Stardock’s turn-based spacefaring empire builder Galactic Civilizations II for free (Rock, Paper, Shotgun). Although the 2006 4X strategy game is getting a little long in the tooth, it still has an active mod scene and is well regarded by strategy buffs. The game is free for Windows until 18:00 GMT on Saturday, May 19.
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We’re calling it: PGP is dead
When Edward Snowden wanted to contact filmmaker Laura Poitras to blow the whistle on activities at the NSA, his first step was to find out her public PGP key. PGP stands for ‘Pretty Good Privacy,’ and it has been one of the dominant forms of end-to-end encryption for email communications since the 1990s. Users have a public key and a private key – senders use the former to encrypt messages, which can only be decoded by someone who has access to the latter.
