FRIDAY, APRIL 1 , 2022. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ RE A
Economy & BusinessFINANCE
SEC provides new
guidance on crypto
U.S.-listed companies that
hold cryptocurrencies on behalf
of users and customers should
account for those assets as a
liability on their balance sheet
and disclose the related risks to
investors, the federal securities
regulator said on Thursday.
The U.S. Securities and
Exchange Commission guidance
would apply to a range of listed
entities, including crypto
exchanges and traditional firms
such as retail brokers and banks
that are increasingly providing
cryptocurrency services and
holding digital assets on behalf
of a range of clients.
While there is a well-
established standard under
accounting rules for
safeguarding traditional assets
on behalf of clients, there is no
explicit standard for
safeguarding crypto assets, and
companies diverge in their
treatment of these
arrangements.
In its guidance, the SEC said
there are “significant”
technological, legal and
regulatory risks associated with
safeguarding crypto assets and
as a result they should be
reflected as a liability on
companies’ balance sheets.
“ The technological
mechanisms supporting how
crypto-assets are issued, held, or
transferred, as well as legal
uncertainties regarding holding
crypto-assets for others, create
significant increased risks...
including an increased risk of
financial loss,” the r egulator
wrote.
Companies should also
disclose “the nature and
amount” of crypto assets they are
responsible for holding, with
separate disclosures for each
significant crypto asset, and any
vulnerabilities resulting from
concentration in such activities.
The underlying crypto assets
should be accounted for at fair
value, the SEC said.
Cryptocurrency platforms and
wallets continue suffer major
breaches, with hackers just this
week stealing $615 million worth
of cryptocurrency from
blockchain project Ronin.
In addition, U.S. regulators
remain undecided on how to
treat cryptocurrencies, with
regulators still discussing new
rules for how banks should
handle digital assets
— ReutersENERGYComcast to use solar
power in Chicago areaChannel surfing may soon be a
solar-powered activity in
Chicago.Comcast is planning to plug
into a massive s olar project
under development in Grundy
County, Ill., to power its
operations in the Chicago region
and beyond beginning in 2025.
The cable giant announced a15-year agreement with
Constellation Energy on
Thursday to use electricity
generated by the Blue Sky Solar
Project, a solar facility being
built on 2,700 acres near Morris,
about 60 miles southwest ofChicago.
The Blue Sky project is
expected to supply Comcast with
250 megawatts of solar
electricity — enough to power its
operations in the Chicago area
and several Mid-Atlanticmarkets — as Comcast seeks to
become carbon neutral by 2035.
Scout Clean Energy, a
Colorado-based renewable
energy developer, acquired the
Blue Sky project in December,
with plans to invest $400 million
to build out what it called “one of
the largest solar projects” in
Illinois.
— Chicago TribuneALSO IN BUSINESS
Ford Motor on Thursday said it
would halt production at its Flat
Rock Assembly Plant in
Michigan next week, where it
builds the Mustang, because of a
global semiconductor shortage.
The auto industry is grappling
with a global chip shortage
triggered by the coronavirus
pandemic that has forced
companies to cut production,
although high car prices have
partially offset its impact. The
automaker had warned last
month that the chip shortage
would lead to a decline in vehicle
volumes in the current quarter.
Last month, Ford halted
production at its Kansas City
assembly plant f or a week
because of the chip shortage.COMING TODAY
8:30 a.m.: The Labor
Department releases
employment data for March.— From news servicesDIGESTISHARA S. KODIKARA/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
Workers process salted fish last week at a harbor in Negombo, Sri Lanka. A worsening economic crisis
and f uel shortages have kept many fishermen docked and unable to bring in the day’s catch — fist-sized
prawns and mackerel that normally hit the nation’s dinner tables — from the bountiful waters nearby.○
DOW 34,678.
DOWN 550.46, 1.6% ○NASDAQ 14,220.
DOWN 221.75, 1.5% ○S&P 500 4,530.
DOWN 72.04, 1.6% ○GOLD $1,954.
UP $15.00, 0.8% ○CRUDE OIL $100.
DOWN $7.54, 7.0% ○10-YEAR TREASURY YIELD 2.34%
DOWN 0.54%CURRENCIES
$1= 121.71 Y EN, 0.90 EUROShow many people it didn’t work
for. The current landscape of
tech means the bad guys need
only mismatch brands, or use the
tracker with the worst deterrents
and they’ll never be caught.
I know the tech industry can
do better because even students
have done better. An Android
app called AirGuard made by
students at the T echnical
University of Darmstadt offers
protections none of the official
Android apps do, including
background scanning and
detecting multiple brands of
trackers. When I took it on a
walk with my stroller, it popped
up alerts to report it discovered
the AirTag and Tile, complete
with a map of where it spotted
the tracking.
How’d they do that? Project
leader Alexander Heinrich told
me that his team documented
the Bluetooth signals from
different kinds of tracker tags,
then taught their app to log and
sort through the relevant ones.
The tech industry can, and
should, follow their road map:
building the capability to sense
for known Bluetooth trackers
right into smartphone operating
systems like iOS and Android. It
could be passive, so you didn’t
have to download an app or even
know the stalking protections
existed on your phone — it just
worked when you needed it.
“It would be really good if the
industry came up with a shared
standard,” said Galperin of the
EFF.
Tile’s Prober told me this
makes the most sense to him,
too. “It's actively being worked
on and discussed,” he said.
“Where I get concerned is that
Apple does not have a history of
participating in these type of
cross-platform enablements that
take away from their platform
lock-in.”
Apple wouldn’t answer
questions about its involvement
in cross-industry efforts. That
seems strange to me, for a
company that has staked its
brand on privacy and security.
Apple has worked with
competitors before, including
developing Bluetooth-based
Covid-19 exposure notifications
that work on Android and iOS
devices alike.
Google is already at work.
Earlier this week, sleuths at the
blog 9 to 5 Google spotted test
code in a work-in-progress
version of Android that includes
“Unfamiliar device alerts” and an
“Unfamiliar Tag Detected
Notification” for Bluetooth.
Google wouldn’t comment on
that discovery, but Miyake said
the company encourages tracker
makers “to work with the
ecosystem and advocacy groups
on a long-term solution with
safety built in.”
An industry that likes to push
for self-regulation needs to
demonstrate it can summon the
will to work together at least to
conquer this common enemy.
Lives depend on it.comprehensive way.”
Google, which makes Android,
said it’s already possible for
Apple’s app to run in the
background. “Domestic violence
advocacy groups have raised
valid concerns about these
products, and we encourage the
manufacturers to update their
apps to improve proactive
scanning,” said spokeswoman
Kaori Miyake.
Apple spokesman Alex
Kirschner said: “We’re
committed to making
improvements that continue to
guard against unwanted
tracking, and we are evaluating
ways to make unwanted tracking
features stronger for Android
users. Continuous background
scanning with Tracker Detect on
Android would negatively
impact battery life and other
features that use Bluetooth. The
most power-efficient way to
enable this type of background
scanning for AirTag is to
implement it at the Android
operating system level.”
Unraveling all of this was
frustrating enough for me — but
Olsen encouraged me to imagine
it through the lens of someone in
trauma. How does trying to
download and figure out all of
these apps work for someone
who’s trying to escape their
abuser?The solution
I’ve heard the argument that a
flurry of news reports about
AirTag stalking are a sign that
the current technological
deterrents are working.
I’m very glad Apple’s tech
enabled people to discover these
crimes — but we have no ideathe phone that owned it for a full
24 hours. (How does this make
sense, if domestic violence
victims live with their stalkers?)
Worse, Samsung’s software
doesn’t work on iOS, so I never
located the SmartTag with my
test iPhone.Apple AirTag
To find the Apple AirTag on my
Android phone, I had to
download an app called Tracker
Detect that Apple released late
last year. I opened the app and
tapped scan, and after a few
seconds, it reported an Unknown
AirTag and gave me the option to
make it play the warning sound
after 10 minutes passed.
Sometimes it actually reported
two AirTags, a bug Apple was
unable to explain.
Quirks aside, each of these
apps suffered from a bigger
problem: What if I hadn’t known
to be looking for a tracker in the
first place?
None of them offer
background monitoring or
alerts, like with AirTags on the
iPhone. Each could only scan at
that moment, one at a time.
“It’s a nightmare scenario
that’s not practical for most
people. It’s barely even practical
for the people who work
regularly with the survivors of
domestic abuse,” said Eva
Galperin, the director of
cybersecurity at the Electronic
Frontier Foundation.
Erica Olsen, Safety Net
director at the National Network
to End Domestic Violence, said,
“It’s better than not having any
safeguards, but there is still a
significant amount of work that
has to be done to address it in aFound Moving With You.” Back
when AirTags launched, you’d
only get this alert after three
days of tracking; now Apple has
dramatically shortened that
window. This is extremely
valuable even if it results in the
occasional false positive (like if
you’re borrowing a friend’s keys
with an AirTag keychain).
The bad news is: This was the
only proactive alert I received on
either phone.
To discover anything about the
Tile, the SmartTag or even the
AirTag on my Android phone,
first I had to download different
apps and master each of their
peculiarities. Even for me — a
professional gadget guy — it was
a lot.Tile
Tile’s anti-stalking software, now
embedded in a “Scan” button in
the app’s login screen, let me
hunt for unknown Tiles nearby.
But it comes with an odd
requirement: Those Tiles have to
be moving with you over a 10-
minute period, so you actually
have to go on a walk or drive. Tile
said this was to make the app
produce fewer false alerts about
Tiles that weren’t actually
dangerous — but it feels like a
strange hoop to make victims
jump through.Samsung SmartTag
Samsung’s SmartTag detector is
buried so deeply in the settings
of its SmartThings app, I had to
ask the company where to find it.
Then on my first stroll, the app
failed to find my test SmartTag.
Later, Samsung told me that its
software wouldn’t identify a tag
until it had been separated fromcompany’s anti-stalking features
actually are.
Bottom line: I’m glad I wasn’t
reliant on some of this tech to
combat a real-life crime. Even
Apple’s tech, which is by far the
most sophisticated, shifts too
much work onto the shoulders of
abuse survivors who might be
stalked by other brands of
trackers or, heaven forbid, use
Android phones.Three tags and a stroller
My stroller test helped me
understand how this technology
works, but of course the
experience was nothing like
actually being stalked. Tracking
people’s location without their
consent is a frightening way to
exert control that’s often linked
to physical abuse. It’s never okay.
To conduct my test, I mirrored
how a stalker might use tracker
tags to follow his victim. I set up
an AirTag, Tile and SmartTag
linked to test phones and slipped
each into my baby’s stroller. Then
I grabbed a different iPhone and
Android phone unknown to any
of the tags — and went for a 45-
minute walk.
Out on the sidewalk, only one
of the tiny trackers indicated
something might be amiss. After
we started moving, the AirTag
played a few seconds of chirping,
though hard to hear along a busy
road. (Apple has announced it
will improve the sound but
wouldn’t play me a sample.) I
heard not a tinkle from the Tile
and the SmartTag.
When I returned home, I
received one other warning, only
on my iPhone and only about the
AirTag. After a few minutes
passed, an alert read, “AirTagI recently took a
long walk with my
newborn and two
test smartphones.
I wanted them to
tell me: Is his
stroller being
tracked?
I’m not just
being paranoid. Last May, I
dedicated this column to my
concerns about a new kind of
Bluetooth lost-item tracking
device from Apple called AirTags.
I documented how frighteningly
easy it was to use a product
designed to find lost keys to
instead stalk people.
A year later, Apple along with
similar tracker-tag makers Tile
and Samsung have introduced a
host of product updates to deter
stalking and help victims learn if
they’re being followed. But what
I discovered from my stroller test
was a patchwork of apps that
work better for engineers than
for domestic abuse survivors.
Digital stalking is an
expression of humanity’s worst
impulses but is a problem of the
tech industry’s own creation.
And tech fixes for it won’t really
work until the industry starts
working together — something
there’s a glimmer of hope might
happen.
At least tech companies are
now acknowledging the problem.
Since my first column, we’ve
heard report after report of
people finding these poker-chip
sized wireless devices hidden in
coat pockets and taped under
cars, allowing someone to easily
track them without their
consent. Just last week, Ukraine
issued a warning that AirTags
and similar devices called Tiles
might be used by Russian
saboteurs, secretly putting them
into humanitarian aid packages.
Apple included some anti-
stalking deterrents for iPhone
owners in the product’s original
2021 release, but in response to
the incidents, last month
announced a slew of changes to
how they work. Apple has now
addressed some of the specific
problems I highlighted last year.
Most encouraging, Apple and
Tile have — better late than
never — given advocates of
domestic abuse survivors a seat
at the table in product
discussions.
Now Samsung and Tile also
offer apps for a victim’s phone
that are supposed to help her or
him identify trackers that are
following them.
“The reality is that this is a
very complicated problem to
solve,” Tile CEO CJ Prober told
me in an interview after
launching the company’s long-
awaited Scan and Secure
software last week. “This is our
first launch. We wanted to get
something out that wasn’t
confusing and works.”
My job is to hold tech
companies accountable. So I
slipped an Apple AirTag, Tile and
Samsung SmartTag in my son’s
stroller to see how useful each
Apple, Samsung and Tile fall short when it comes to anti-stalking technology
Geoffrey
Fowler
APPLE/ ISTOCK/WASHINGTON POST ILLUSTRATION