Dear Editor,
As one who has been involved in elected politics in the United States for over 30 years and simultaneously has been a multi-week visitor in St. Maarten for those same 30 years, I believe I have a unique perspective on the political process in St. Maarten. I have seen many so-called politicians come and then go when they prove to be more interested in themselves than in the people they are supposed to serve. Some of these politicians have enriched themselves and some have found themselves going to jail. We have the same situation in our country and I do not claim any superiority for the United States electoral process with that of St. Maarten.
With the above as my preface I would like to state that I have the utmost admiration for Sarah Wescot-Williams who has been involved in the political process for many years because I find her to be genuine. Her guiding star seems to be what’s best for the people of St. Maarten including not only those who profess to be real St. Maarteners but also those who have lived on the Island and continue to try their best to make it the "Friendliest" Country in the World.
I have only had one contact with her in the 30 years that I’ve been coming to St. Maarten and that would be about 8 or 9 years ago when she addressed a meeting of the Rotary Club while I was attending such a meeting. I actually did not get a chance to speak with her but I do read The Daily Herald every day of the week online and I have done so probably for the last 10 years.
I am getting close to retirement age and I am seriously considering relocating to St. Maarten and one of my main positives would be the continued presence of Sarah Wescot-Williams in government. I have made many friends both in and out of government in St. Maarten during my many years here and most are trying to pull together despite severe handicaps such as weather, insufficient critical mass of population, limited natural resources and a lack of diversity of occupations. These handicaps can be overcome and I believe they will be overcome because of the work ethic of most of the people that I have met.
St. Maarten faced its greatest challenge in 2017 and aside from a few days of chaos has come out of it with a stronger resolve and will overcome the handicaps I have set forth above. You have only to look at how the people who visit St. Maarten feel about the island by checking the internet on the many social interactive websites that exist and get a feel for how we as Americans, Canadians, Europeans and many people from throughout the world feel about what we consider to be our second home.

William E. Flynn
Old Bridge, New Jersey

Dear Editor,
In 2014 I revealed some of St. Martin’s all-time, great boxers to my comrades. And I got a great deal of kudos for “bigging them up.” They were some of the best “pound-for-pound fighting machines in the Caribbean.
But this time I would like to reveal the promoters/match-makers, the managers/trainers (coachmen and seconds), the referees and judges, and the ring-announcers. It is extremely important that I tell my comrades about these men, because they played crucial roles in St. Martin’s boxing history. And I would like to reveal their names so that they would not be excluded from our history.
Even though the sport of boxing is regarded as being barbaric, boxing is a science. Heads make books. Man put his knowledge on paper to teach man. During my research, I met some comrades who felt that most of the managers/trainers did not qualify because they did not go to boxing school. Again I say, “heads make books.”
These men’s wits and skills were remarkable. For example, Wilfred Williams (R.I.P.) would promote boxers and he would also train some of them. So it would be a dishonour to put most of them in one category. When Kid Chu Chu was sparring with his uncle and trainer George “Battling Siki” Pantophlet (R.I.P.) for a very tough fight, according to Chu Chu, Uncle “Siki” said, “Chu Chu, if you could make M.P. miss, you could any fighter miss.” Kid Gavilan (Ludwick York), a boxer with a powerful/stiff jab, was instructed by his trainer Edmond Cocks to utilize his jab against an opponent with a very, big head.
I have a little “juice” about boxing too, I like the sport. The following are the names of the promoters/match-makers: Wilfred Williams (R.I.P.), Daniel “Chopotin” Thewet (R.I.P.), Andres A.London (R.I.P.), Blair.Forde, Ivan “Fancy Boy” Lake, and Julian B. Lake.
The following are the names of the managers/trainers (Coachmen and seconds): George “Battling Siki” Pantophlet (R.I. P.),Aunaire “Kid Olneil” Richardson (R.I.P.),Charles Brown (R.I.P.),Witfield “Feely” Vlaun, The Duo Edmond and Russell Cocks, John “Poncey” Richardson, Fe Fe Adams, Carl Charbonnier, Ronal “Kid Mingo” (R.I.P.),Bobby Chance (R.I.P.),Ovie Laurence, Jacques IIbush” Rollan (R.I.P.),Antonio “Bolongo” Pantophlet (R.I.P.), Charles C. Lake, Daniel “Dan” Webster, Philibert “Phil” Petty, Dennis “Jack” Webster (R.I.P.),Felix “Poochi” Reiph (R.I.P.), Etienne “Tochi” Meyers, and Rudolph Henderson(Sonny Liston Jr.).
The following are the names of the referees and judges: Andres Salomon, Joseph “Longgun” Wilson (R.I.P.), Stanley Smith (R.I.P.), Johan “Joopie” Williams, Stanley Watkins (R.I.P.), and Bernard Halley.
Finally, the ring-announcers are: Freddie Richardson and Joslyn Arndell.
I would like to pay tribute to the St. Martin Amateur Boxing Association and Tante Jacinth “Jas” Bryan-Labega.
Special thanks to: Joseph “Poker” Proctor, Lewis “Crabman” Augter, Henderson Williams, Franklyn Maynard, Ludwick York, Charles C. Lake, Mercedes Wescot, Patrick Paines, Kid Chu Chu, and Philibert Petty.

Julien F. Petty

Bitcoin Ponzi scams are raking in millions – all without much effort.
That may be self-explanatory to those who traffic the social media forums where the subject is discussed, but to researchers, it’s also a fertile ground for new findings. For them, someone asking for money and promising 100x returns isn’t simply a nuisance, they’re an opportunity for study.
Indeed, the Financial Crypto 2018 conference in Curaçao last week delved deep into the many ways these scams are propagating and why some have been so much more successful than others.
University of New Mexico assistant professor Marie Vasek looked through nearly 2,000 scams, revealing research that hinted at the sheer variety seeking crypto gains. Some, she said, last for ages until the hoax is found out, others come and vanish overnight, all without much interest.
By looking at the scams and how long each lasted – what they called the scam’s “time of death” – Vasek shed light on what works the best for scammers, typically launching their scams on popular and reputable bitcoin forums, such as Bitcoin Talk.
The gist? The most long-lasting scams are those where the scammers engage with the community the most and have a thriving community of commenters.
Vasek told attendees:
“Small cores of about five people that are very good at doing this. You see this in our other paper. One will die and another appears.”
Attracting victims, like flies to a light, is as easy as acting as if the scam has tons of attention, she said. To this end, about 30 percent of scam threads have posts from shills, or those that the scammers pay to post positive things about the scam, according to Vasek’s analysis.
But there’s no shortage of strange ways users can lose money in the cryptocurrency Wild West. As such, computer researchers in Curaçao looked at some of the stranger ways as well.
Dead or not?
Another report from researcher group IC3 explored how death can cause problems for users who are trying to secure their cryptocurrencies.
As an example, the researchers highlighted multi-signature wallets, a variation on the tool that aims to add security by giving multiple users the ability to sign and spend funds. That way, if one private key is compromised by an attacker or otherwise, they can’t do anything.
But these protections are a double-edged sword. If one participant in a 2-of-2 multi-signature setup dies or disappears, the funds will then be unspendable and lost forever.
The easiest way to mitigate the issue would be to introduce some entity that is trusted to declare whether Bob dies or not, Cornell University computer science researcher Fan Zhang argued. But with cryptocurrencies, the whole idea is to prevent a single point of failure, such as one that accidentally declares Bob dead, when he isn’t really.
“Of course, we don’t want to trust anyone. So, how do we realize this without trusted third party? And how do we prove if Bob has been hit by the bus or that a key is permanently unusable?” Zhang said.
That’s the question the group of IC3 researchers in work they call “paralysis proofs,” which aims to “prove” that one person involved in the multi-signature setup can no longer participate, whether one of them died or simply lost their private key.
There are a couple of ways they can do this. With ethereum it’s straightforward. But with bitcoin, Zhang suggested the easiest way to prove a user can’t participate in a multi-signature transaction would be to bring in trusted hardware, located in some computers, into the mix.
In short, the trusted hardware sends out “life signals” to a participant who is suspected to have lost their key or might be dead. If the participant doesn’t respond to the signal in a timely manner, then his or her key is no longer required to spend the funds.
Sounds all well and good, but one audience member pointed out one possible flaws. “You could get the money by killing Bob,” he said. This isn’t as cheeky of a concern as you might think since security experts often think about these kinds of attack scenarios.
IC3 researcher Fen agreed, saying, “If you can kill Bob, all bets are off. Killing Bob is a whole different story.”
Whether this is a real vulnerability or not, the problem they’re trying to fix is indeed on researchers’ minds right now. So, there are other proposed solutions, such as adding a timelock to a multi-signature transaction so it can be spent after it goes unused for a certain amount of time.

‘Hostile takeovers’
Another researcher, New York University’s Joseph Bonneau, looked at how much it would cost to execute perhaps the most infamous of blockchain attacks, a “51% attack,” where one entity controls so much of the mining capacity, it can begin to bend (or break) the rules of the system.
The primary retort from cryptocurrency supporters is that this would not be in the attacker’s self-interest, because attacking the network requires you to spend millions or billions to buy up mining equipment. And, once they do all that, they won’t be able to make all that much money from it.
But, in new research, Bonneau explores how much it would be to launch such an attack anyway, for someone who’s not expecting profit.
“If there’s a villain out there like [character Auric] Goldfinger from the James Bond movies with no intrinsic motivation, how expensive would a blockchain be to kill?” he asked.
Bonneau explained that there are different ways of buying up the necessary power to disrupt the network, varying from blockchain to blockchain.
He started with the easiest to execute. Rather than buying a thousands of mining computers and wiring them up, a lazier attacker can launch a “rent” attack by buying power online using a cloud platform such as Amazon Web Services with a click of a few buttons.
Since it’s possible to rent GPUs, the power underpinning ethereum, but not ASICs, the hardware securing bitcoin, this is an attack that affects ethereum, but not bitcoin. “It would take about $2 million an hour to attack ethereum,” Bonneau stated.
Meanwhile, if an malicious attacker were to instead launch what Bonneau calls a “build” attack, that’s where a malicious attacker actually buys up enough physical mining hardware to control the network.
As you might have gathered, buying hardware is more expensive than temporarily renting it. Bonneau estimates it would take roughly $1.5 billion an hour to execute such an attack on either bitcoin or ethereum.
All that said, Bonneau argues his back-of-the-napkin analysis isn’t completely accurate. “People argued with me up or down on Twitter. But I would argue the exact number doesn’t matter, the order of magnitude does,” Bonneau said, adding that there’s “a lot left to model” and “we need more detailed analysis.”
Bonneau implied, though, that with the estimates he’s made for now, these attacks might be too cheap and easy. “Is this enough for an $80 billion system?” he asked in an open question to the audience.
If more and more people begin to use this form of online currency, this attack vector might grow on people’s minds, he argued, concluding the presentation with a prediction:
“I think there will be more fear that this will happen in the future.”

By Alissa Hertig

Dear Editor,

In the past I have mentioned that I try to maintain my letters to you on a level of which the man on the bus could read it, should you decide to print it, without needing a dictionary. But more so that they do not misinterpret what is written and be misled.

I read a letter written to you by Ms. Sarah Wescot-Williams as Member of Parliament. She wrote, “I do not believe this is as sacrosanct as some hold it to be. What needs to be addressed is whether we will promote a party political system or a personal system where the emphasis will be on the individual running for or holding office.”

While reading that “self-descriptive” came to mind. And then I asked myself: why did two prominent political parties (UP-DP) [United Democrats-Democratic Party – Ed.] find themselves obliged to come together? Or even more deep, what was the real reason for causing the fall of government, and why would I join with a party of which I know from beforehand that several members will not be able to pass certain screenings? Who am I serving?

So as long as those politicians who have been in government for years are still there we will continue to have the toppling of government in St. Maarten, and I will continue to ask: why do those who are involved (Kingdom government) continue only to interfere when it is in their interest? What about the interest of the people? Does the aftermath of Irma, which the world knows of how so many people have become homeless within a few hours, not say anything to those who are mandated to take care of the people? Or is their political interest so sacrosanct?

I will reiterate: CIVICS has to become a subject in school, which should be completed with an exam. The people of St. Maarten need to be grounded in the material of “How our country is governed (run).”

I understand that as long as the people express themselves, the politicians are going to take advantage of this, but taking advantage is not the reason that they give or even going as far as risking their freedom, to want to be elected. They beg to serve the people. So if they renege (fail to carry out promise or commitment) which should not be because they are paid handsomely, it is on them and they make themselves the target of negative criticism with the ensuing consequences. So when we present ourselves as representative of the people we should spare ourselves the rhetoric and let the truth set us free.

It works, because I know. When I joined the force my father sat me down and pressed upon me not to do anything that will cause embarrassment to myself and also to our family. And he used terms like “accepting bribes,” “conspiracy” and “conniving” which at that time was a little puzzling but as I grew older and got more experience in life I realized that this kind of behaviour follows one. Conspiring to do something illegal or immoral or to cooperate secretly with wrongdoing can become habit-forming but also diminishes the humane side of those individuals.

It is time enough for the people of St. Maarten to be able to rely on a stable government. The results of the last-held election, however, make me pessimistic because it is the same bunch running the show and the same bunch who are being used among each other, and as I have been explained even by outsiders, to topple all our governments. Putin style.

Even though the results call for strong commitment I would say since the DP pulled out of the last government, they should be left out.

Russell A. Simmons