News

Binance Founder Changpeng Zhao Gets 4 Months In Prison

US prosecutors had initially recommended a three year jail term.

Published

9 months ago

May 1, 2024

binance founder changpeng zhao gets 4 months in prison

A federal judge in the United States has handed out a four month prison sentence to Binance founder Changpeng Zhao (known as “C.Z.”). Prosecutors had recommended a three year term after Zhao pleaded guilty to violating the Bank Secrecy Act back in November 2023.

The DOJ accused Zhao of turning a blind eye to criminal activity on the crypto exchange and ignoring its legal obligations “in the pursuit of profit”. U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen also noted that Zhao’s “willful failures allowed money to flow to terrorists, cybercriminals, and child abusers through its platform”.

The U.S. government accused Binance of refusing to comply with sanctions and failing to report transactions related to drugs and child sexual abuse. Prosecutors claimed that Zhao had told Binance employees it was “better to ask for forgiveness than permission” while saying that if Binance had obeyed the law, it wouldn’t be “as big as we are today”.

To avoid a longer jail term, Binance agreed to forfeit $2.5 billion and settle a $1.8 billion fine. Zhao also paid $50 million from his own fortune as part of the settlement.

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The Binance founder’s sentence is much shorter than the 25 years recently given to crypto entrepreneur Sam Bankman-Fried of FTX. Zhao played a prominent role in Bankman-Fried’s downfall after Tweeting in November 2022 that his company would liquidate all FTX holdings. The posts not only destroyed FTX but rocked the wider crypto community, likely attracting attention from the U.S. government.

With Zhao heading to prison, DOJ lawyer Kevin Mosley remarked: “This wasn’t a mistake — it wasn’t a regulatory oops […] breaking U.S. law was not incidental to his plan to make as much money as possible. Violating the law was integral to that endeavor”.

News

Truecaller For iPhone Gets Real-Time Caller ID And Auto Spam Blocking

The latest update integrates with Apple’s Live Caller ID Lookup framework, launched with iOS 18 last year.

Published

3 hours ago

January 23, 2025

Nour Nasir

Truecaller

Truecaller has rolled out a major update for iPhone users, introducing API support that brings real-time caller identification and automatic spam blocking. The upgrade aims to bring the iOS version of the app closer to its Android counterpart, which has long offered these advanced call-screening features.

The latest update integrates with Apple’s Live Caller ID Lookup framework, launched with iOS 18 last year. The technology allows third-party apps to cross-check incoming calls against a database of known spam numbers in real-time. Importantly, the process employs “homomorphic encryption,” ensuring user privacy by masking the caller’s number, concealing the client’s IP address, and using anonymous authentication.

With this update, Truecaller has also introduced global automatic spam call blocking for iPhones. However, the real-time caller ID feature is being released gradually and is available only to Truecaller Premium subscribers on iPhones running iOS 18.2 or later. Free users will still have access to ad-supported features, such as manual number searches and caller identification for verified businesses.

How To Enable The New Features

To activate the new features, follow these steps:

Update the Truecaller app to version 14.0 or newer via the App Store.
Go to Settings > Apps > Phone > Call Blocking & Identification on your iPhone.
Turn on all Truecaller toggles, then restart the app.

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While these features are new to iOS, Truecaller has hinted at this update for months. Following Apple’s iOS 18 update and the introduction of its Live Caller ID API last September, Truecaller Co-founder Alan Mamedi shared his excitement on X (formerly Twitter), saying, “Truecaller finally works on iPhone”.

The global rollout of spam call blocking is already live, but users may need to wait for gradual access to the live caller ID feature.