Techfastly April 2022

APR | 2022

w w w. t e c h f a s t l y. c o m

In conversation with

Liz Rice Chief Open Source Officer at Isovalent

eBPF

Step into the SuperWorld with

Hrish Lotlikar Co-Founder & CEO SuperWorld

Potential Global Cyber Warfare Due to Russo-Ukrainian War

eBPF to Enhance Kubernetes Monitoring

How to Add eBPF Observability to Your Project

by Toulika Das

by Md. Sohail

by Rehan Hussain

What’s Inside p.4

Introduction to eBPF Revolutionizing Linux Kernel Technology

by Toulika Das

p.16

In Conversation with Liz Rice, Chief Open Source Officer at Isovalent

p.24 An Easy-to-Understand

Overview of Popular extended BPF Tools – BCC, Falco, and More

by Saipriya Iyer

p.40 How to Add eBPF

Observability to Your Project

by Rehan Hussain

p.48 eBPF to Enhance

Kubernetes Monitoring

by Md. Sohail

p.56 Is eBPF Foundation

Molding the Future of Infrastructure Software Space?

by Kunal Mehta

p.62 Step into the

SuperWorld with Hrish Lotlikar, Co-Founder & CEO - SuperWorld

p.76

Russia Ukraine Conflict and What It Means for The Internet

by Aftab Alam

p.82 Potential Global Cyber

Warfare Due to RussoUkrainian War

by Toulika Das

p.90 Russia-Ukraine War: How

It Affects the World’s Economy

by Yash Modi

Editor’s note

Dear Readers, eBPF is a ground-breaking technology derived from the Linux kernel that allows sandboxed programmes to operate within an operating system kernel. It stands for Extended Berkeley Packet Filter (eBPF). eBPF was first published in diminished capacity with Linux 3.18 in 2014, however full functionality needs Linux 4.4 or above. eBPF is used to enhance the functionality of the kernel in a robust and reliable manner without the need to update kernel source code or, for that matter, load kernel components. eBPF is now widely used to support a wide range of use cases. Take for instance delivering superior collaboration and network capacity in modern data centres and cloud native or container-based environments, eBPF is well-equipped to carry these out.

It also helps in extracting fine-grained surveillance observability data with low overhead, assisting software developers in tracing applications, offering insights for efficiency troubleshooting, and preventive application and container runtime security enforcement, among others. The prospects are boundless, and eBPF has only just started to unleash creativity.

In this issue, we have shared our insights about how we think eBPF can revolutionize Linux Kernel Technology. The ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine has posed a number of threats to the digital world as well, with cyberattacks and other global impacts like microprocessor chip shortage, software outsourcing issues on the cards.

We have interviewed Liz Rice, Chief Open Source Officer at Isovalent and discussed about the powers of eBPF and how it could revolutionize the linux kernel technology. Also, in our conversation with Hrish Lotlikar, Co-Founder & CEO – SuperWorld, he talked all about the virtual world in augmented reality (AR) and its mission.

According to experts, the Russo-Ukrainian war will have an influence on global energy markets, with a rippling effect on semiconductor shortages and inflation. As a response to serious outages in internet connection in Ukraine during the Russian invasion, Elon Musk declared that SpaceX's Starlink Service will offer internet connectivity.

As always, we welcome your feedback on the topics discussed in this issue. We hope you enjoy reading it!

Srikant Rawat

Chief Operating Officer, Techfastly

Missed an Issue?

Subscribe and access our Digital issues anytime. www.techfastly.com

Follow us, we’re social! /techfastly

Some of the main functions we can achieve by using eBPF are:

Security

Introduction to

eBPF

Monitoring

Revolutionizing Linux Kernel Technology

by Toulika Das Observability

Defining eBPF and How It Works eBPF, which stands for Extended Berkeley Packet Filter, is a technology that allows Linux programs to run code in the kernel. eBPF was previously also used to construct debugging, networking, profiling, monitoring, firewalls, and other types of programs.

4

APR 2022

The kernel has a privileged capacity to monitor and manage the whole system.

Due to this, the operating system was always an excellent platform to incorporate accessibility, privacy, and networking features.

Tracing and Profiling

Networking

Around the same time, owing to its valuable function and a strong need for stability and safety, an operating system kernel is difficult to build. As a result, in comparison to capability deployed outside of the operating system, the pace of technological development at the operating system level has generally been slower.

This is where eBPF comes in and changes the game completely.

Without modifying kernel source code or importing kernel modules, eBPF may execute sandboxed programs in the Linux kernel.

The operating system subsequently ensures the same level of safety and efficiency as if the code had been originally built using a Just-In-Time (JIT) compiler and verification engine.

Without modifying kernel source code or importing kernel modules, eBPF may execute sandboxed programs in the Linux kernel.

To understand in detail, the eBPF program works in the following way:

1

Firstly, a developer sends the bytecode of the eBPF program to the kernel.

This includes a program type that specifies where the program should be linked, which in-kernel helper features the validator will allow being called. This is regardless of whether network packet data can be accessed directly, and what type of object should be passed as the program's first argument.

2

On the bytecode, the kernel executes a verifier.

The verifier performs numerous security checks here on bytecode to guarantee that the program ends properly and does not, in any way, include any paths that may cause the kernel to lock up.

It also replicates the eBPF program's execution and verifies the remote machine's status at each step to guarantee that the register and stack states are correct.

6

APR 2022

Finally, the program type is used to limit the kernel function calls that may be made by the application.

www.techfastly.com

JIT-compiles the bytecode into native code and saves it to the given place.

The program is performed and data is written to the ring buffer or the map once the particular event happens.

The user space can read the map or ring buffer to acquire the program result.

7

How Do Developers Write eBPF Programs?

The eBPF Go library is a general eBPF library that separates the loading and maintenance of eBPF programs from the method of getting to the eBPF bytecode. eBPF applications are often written in a higher-level programming language and then compiled to eBPF bytecode using the clang/LLVM compiler.

All programs should still run through the eBPF validator even if a task is authorized to load an eBPF program. The program's security is

8

APR 2022

www.techfastly.com

source: https://networkop.co.uk/

validated by the eBPF verifier. This implies, for example, that programs are verified to guarantee that they always terminate, e.g., an eBPF program may not ever freeze or loop indefinitely.

In many cases, eBPF is utilized via indirect means. For instance, eBPF is used through projects like Cilium, bcc, or bpftrace, which offer an abstraction in addition to eBPF. This permits users to offer additional intent-based

rules that are subsequently executed using eBPF rather than writing programs outright.

Programs must be written directly if no higherlevel abstraction exists. eBPF applications are likely to be loaded as bytecode by the Linux kernel. Although it is possible to write bytecode directly, the more frequent programming technique is to convert pseudo-C code into eBPF bytecode using a compiler suite such as LLVM. 9

eBPF Basic Concepts and Architecture Different techniques of monitoring and tracing user space programs are inferior to eBPF. eBPF applications may be connected to any kernel function and can examine and alter the function's scope and parameters. eBPF delivers powerful statistical data structures that collect important data quickly and simply.

Let’s take a look at some of the basic concepts and architecture that make up an extended Berkeley Packet Filter or eBPF.

Predefined Hooks Event-driven eBPF programs are launched when the kernel or an application reaches a specified hook point. System calls, function entry/exit, kernel tracepoints, network events, and a variety of additional hooks are among the pre-defined hooks.

If a preset hook does not exist for a specific purpose, a kernel probe (kprobe) or a user probe (uprobe) can be used to join eBPF programs nearly anywhere either around the kernel or in the user applications.

Program Verification Following the detection of a hook, the eBPF system function may then be used to load the matching eBPF application into the Linux kernel. This generally entails the use of an eBPF library.

Once a program is loaded into the kernel, it must be validated before it can be deemed safe to use.

Validation needs certain things to be in order. Only a qualified eBPF process could load the software (unless specified as something else). The software will not harm or destroy the computer. The software will almost always run till it is finished (not be stuck in an endless loop).

10

APR 2022

www.techfastly.com

JIT Compilation or Just-in-time Compilation The run-time interpreter includes a Just-In-Time (JIT) compiler.

Since only the methods that are required at run-time are compiled into machine code by the JIT Compiler, the JIT Compiler uses less memory. Also, because functions required simultaneously are most often on the same memory page, implementing the JIT compiler reduces page faults.

In order to improve program execution speed, the Just-in-Time (JIT) compilation stage converts the program's generic bytecode into a device-specific command sequence. This allows eBPF programs to run as quickly as originally built kernel code or kernel module code.

eBPF Maps The capacity to exchange acquired data and retain information is a necessary aspect of eBPF applications. eBPF applications can use the notion of eBPF maps to store and retrieve data in a variety of data structures for this objective. eBPF maps can be fetched through a function call from both eBPF programs and user space programs.

Here are some of the available map types to demonstrate the range of data structures:

RING BUFFER

STACK TRACE

LPM (LONGEST PREFIX MATCH)

HASH TABLES, ARRAYS

LRU (LEAST RECENTLY USED)

11

Helper Calls An eBPF application cannot invoke a kernel function at will. This is due to the fact that eBPF applications must retain functionality and prevent being tied to certain kernel versions. As a result, eBPF applications perform function calls using helper functions. Helper functions are kernelprovided APIs that can be quickly tweaked.

A helper can only have five parameters according to eBPF standards. Essentially, eBPF applications use the built auxiliary functions directly without the need for a different function interface. As a consequence, invoking helpers has no overhead, resulting in superior efficiency.

Function and Tail Calls These calls allow eBPF programs to be modularized. In a program, function calls allow functions to be defined and invoked. Other eBPF applications can be run via tail calls.

They have the ability to modify the execution context as well.

Here are some of the available map types to demonstrate the range of data structures:

eBPF MAP ACCESS GET PROCESS/ CGROUP CONTEXT MANIPULATE NETWORK PACKETS AND FORWARDING LOGIC GENERATE RANDOM NUMBERS GET CURRENT TIME & DATE

With the idea of tail and function calls, eBPF applications may be assembled. Within an eBPF application, function calls allow you to define and invoke functions. Identical to how the execve() system call works for standard methods.

eBPF applications must retain functionality and prevent being tied to certain kernel versions.

12

APR 2022

www.techfastly.com

A General Idea of eBPF Use Cases Security

Networking

Integrating a packet and socket-level perspective of all activities involving networking with a bedrock of analyzing and comprehending all system calls provides for new and innovative methods to protect systems.

eBPF is an excellent contender for all networking systems' packet processing tasks because of its quality and programmability. eBPF's programmability allows for the inclusion of new format parsers and the easy programming of any forwarding algorithm. This has the ability to meet changing demands without ever abandoning the Linux kernel's context of packet processing. The JIT compiler's efficiency comes close to that of natively assembled in-kernel code in terms of running performance.

Although network-level filtering, system call filtering, and process backdrop tracing have traditionally been managed by separate systems, eBPF enables the real-time insights of all elements to be combined to build security frameworks that operate on more background with a higher degree of control.

13

It simply collects the visibility data which is necessary and thereafter constructs histograms and similar types of data structures at the origin of the event.

Tracing and Profiling

Observability and Monitoring

The potential to connect eBPF programs to locate points, along with kernel and probe points of the user application, provides extraordinary insight into application and system behavior during operation. Multiple viewpoints may be integrated by offering access capabilities to both the application and system perspectives.

eBPF allows the collection and in-kernel aggregation of customizable metrics. In addition to this, it also allows the creation of visibility events. These events depend on a wide variety of conceivable sources, rather than just relying on static counters and gauges accessible by the operating system.

It simply collects the visibility data which is necessary and thereafter constructs histograms and similar types of data structures at the origin of the event.

This, in turn, allows new and valuable insights to address system stability issues.

Sophisticated numerical data structures allow for the efficient extraction of significant visibility information. This eliminates the need for large volumes of sample data, which is generally required by existing programs.

14

APR 2022

Rather than depending on sample export, this process increases the depth of the transparency that may be accomplished while also greatly diminishing the overall integrated framework. www.techfastly.com

The Need for eBPF and its Place in the Future eBPF is a new Linux kernel feature that increases observability, networking, and security. It avoids the need to modify kernel source code or install modules, allowing you to build a more robust architecture to manage your system without adding unnecessary complexity.

With eBPF, a simple update for reprogramming the behavior of the Linux kernel without needing modifications to kernel source code or the deployment of a kernel module is enabled. In many respects, this is comparable to how JavaScript and other scripting languages made it possible to adapt systems that were previously costly and difficult to update.

eBPF is a new Linux kernel feature that increases observability, networking, and security.

eBPF is a fantastic addition to the Linux kernel. For traceability, active network control, and continuous integration, the capacity to run programs in a protected and sandboxed manner in the kernel is a highly useful resource.

15

Liz Ric Chief Open Source Officer at Isovalent

16

APR 2022

www.techfastly.com

ce

Q|

Most of our readers might not understand the kernel. Can you explain what the kernel does?

Operating systems have two parts: userspace and the kernel. Userspace has lower privileges; kernel space is a fully privileged environment.

The kernel is the only part that can directly access memory, files, network, or any other hardware component. Userspace applications where we typically operate have to ask the kernel to do things on its behalf.

Liz Rice is Chief Open Source Officer with eBPF specialists Isovalent, creators of the Cilium cloud native networking, security and observability project.

She was Chair of the CNCF's Technical Oversight Committee 2019-2022, and Co-Chair of KubeCon + CloudNativeCon in 2018. She is also the author of Container Security, published by O'Reilly.

As developers, we write application software; and applications run in userspace. If you're writing an application and want to read from a file, send a network message, or display something to the screen, you can't do it directly; you have to ask the kernel to do it for you. Usually, that's hidden from you because we have language abstractions that hide the interface. But in practice, your application is making system calls to ask the kernel to act on its behalf. The kernel is also doing things like scheduling multiple applications to run concurrently.

She has a wealth of software development, team, and product management experience from working on network protocols and distributed systems, and in digital technology sectors such as VOD, music, and VoIP. When not writing code, or talking about it, Liz loves riding bikes in places with better weather than her native London, and competing in virtual races on Zwift.

Q|

How does the userspace interact with the kernel space?

There is an API called the system call or syscall interface, and there are over 300 different system calls. In most programming languages, we don't write directly to the system call; there's usually an abstraction. In the world of C, we talk about the standard library, and many other languages build on top of that. For example, if you open a file, you probably have a language-specific function called 'open'. When you call that, underneath the covers, it will make a system call to an open syscall to open that file on your behalf.

17

Q|

What is packet filtering? What is Berkeley packet filtering? And what is the extended bit in it?

Okay, so this is a bit of a history lesson.

Berkeley packet filtering was a paper written from the Berkeley Lab; that's where it gets the Berkeley part of the name. The idea was that as packets arrive into the kernel you might want to take a copy of certain packets to examine them in user space, that's packet filtering. But packet filtering is just a small part of what we now call BPF and eBPF, so honestly the acronym isn't all that helpful today. eBPF is a way of running custom code within the kernel. Normally, we write applications that run in user space, but with eBPF, we can run custom programs within the kernel, load them dynamically, attach them to kernel events, and change the behaviour of the kernel.

Q|

Earlier, you mentioned that userspace is a less privileged environment. If eBPF programs are running and allowed to manipulate the packet in userspace, a function normally reserved for kernel space programs, isn't there a security aspect to it?

The first thing is that it has to be treated with respect. If you allow someone to load eBPF programs, they need to be privileged. There is a Linux capability called CAP_BPF that you need to give people the same way you would give out root privileges; you have to treat it like root. If someone can load eBPF programs, they can do anything on your system.

The thing that makes BPF programs safer than kernel modules is the 'eBPF verifier'. Whenever you load an eBPF program into the kernel, it

Image source: thenewstack.io/how-ebpf-streamlines-the-service-mesh

18

APR 2022

Image source: thenewstack.io/how-ebpf-streamlines-the-service-mesh

goes through a verification step. It makes sure that it's safe to run the program, and it would definitely reach a conclusion, i.e., it's not going to loop indefinitely. It's never going to dereference a null pointer because that would make it crash; the whole machine dies if you crash the kernel. It also checks that any memory access is as expected. For example, if you've attached an eBPF program to receiving network packets, you're only allowed to look at the network packet's memory. You can't just look at arbitrary memory across the system.

So, the verifier makes sure that programs will be safe to run and that they're doing sensible memory access.

Q|

If eBPF is so powerful, why is the industry still following the sidecar pattern for service mesh and agents for monitoring? What is preventing the industry from moving to eBPF?

That's exactly what we're doing with the Cilium project. Cilium enables networking, visibility, and security using eBPF and without needing sidecars. There are other examples of eBPF enabled networking. For example, Facebook

has built a load balancer called Katran, and Cloudflare has eBPF-enabled load balancers too. It has taken time for eBPF networking to be widely adopted, because you need eBPF support in the version of the Linux kernel that you're running. It can take several years for functionality in the Linux kernel to make it into a Linux distribution. Maybe two years ago, not everybody could really use eBPF, because they were using older kernels that pre-dated eBPF, but now it's so widespread. That's why eBPF has really taken off in the last year or two.

19

Q|

What are the advantages and what are the drawbacks of eBPF for routing and observability in cloud native?

eBPF, particularly for Kubernetes networking and container networking, turns out to be a real performance improvement. And the reason for this is that when you run containers, or Kubernetes pods, you typically have a network namespace for each pod.

It has its networking stack in that network namespace, and there is also a network namespace on the host with its own network stack. Suppose you imagine a packet arriving physically at a machine through the host's network interface, a physical network card.

20

APR 2022

In a traditional networking setup the packet will go through the host's networking stack, then it gets forwarded to a virtual network connection into the pod where it has to go through another network stack in that pod, to arrive at the application.

With eBPF, we can hook in as soon as the packet arrives; We can look at the destination address, recognize that it's going to a pod and send it directly to that virtual ethernet connection for the pod, bypassing the host's networking

Caption: Network packets travel through a much shorter path in the eBPF-accelerated, sidecarless proxy model for service mesh Image source: thenewstack.io/how-ebpf-streamlines-the-service-mesh

stack. That makes it dramatically faster than the traditional networking approach.

It is almost as fast as if you were running networking just from one node to another without any containers at all. And we can also collect observability data about network flows, and provide security controls really efficiently using eBPF.

Q|

Wonderful! It looks like eBPF is a real game changer! We can save a lot of operational dollars by delegating their observability and routing needs to eBPF! But how do we do it?

So the good news is you can very easily install Cilium on all of the cloud providers. Google already uses Cilium as the default for the GKE data plane. Amazon uses Cilium as the default data-plane for EKS anywhere. Alibaba Cloud uses Cilium as well. A lot of managed Kubernetes services are also opting to use

Cilium as the network implementation, now that kernel support for eBPF is so widespread, and because there are a lot of performance benefits from using eBPF based networking and Cilium is a really good implementation.

Q|

If eBPF is so powerful, why is the industry still following the sidecar pattern for service mesh and agents for monitoring?

I would say take a look at Cilium, as we have sidecarless service mesh in beta right now.

Because it's in beta, I wouldn't say upgrade all your Production nodes just yet! But that's coming very soon. And what we've done with the eBPF-based service mesh is, we already talked about the kind of networking performance improvements that we can have, but we can also make resource savings by avoiding sidecar injection. In service mesh, we have this extra proxy component that's 21

Keep an eye on the Cilium service mesh beta, because that's going very well, we have an Ingress implementation and although it's early days we're seeing some really good performance numbers.

normally injected into every single pod. And that creates overhead. If you've got, let's say, 1000 pods in a cluster, routing information has to be duplicated in 1000 sidecar proxies.

And you also have this extra networking step that you need to send every packet through. By using an eBPF-based data plane, we can avoid having to inject the proxy into every single pod, we can just have one proxy per node. So it's much more efficient from a routing table point of view, and it's much 22

APR 2022

more efficient from a network path point of view. And yeah, so keep an eye on the Cilium service mesh beta, because that's going very well, we have an Ingress implementation and although it's early days we're seeing some really good performance numbers. There are a few features that will be coming in future releases, like SMI integration. But yeah, it's very promising.

www.techfastly.com

Q|

What is your advice for people getting started in open source?

I would say find a good and welcoming community. Kubernetes has a really strong community, there are lots of other CNCF projects that are very welcoming. Look for projects that excite you, and that you want to get involved with and ideally if it's interesting for your current employer, that's helpful from a career point of view.

Don't be afraid to raise your hand and ask your questions.

Find the Slack channels, discord channels, GitHub repos, and don't be afraid to ask for help. The best opensource communities are really very supportive.

23

An easy-to-Understand Overview of Popular

extended BPF Tools: BCC, Falco, and More

by Saipriya Iyer

A

n in-kernel virtual machine BPF, or Berkeley Packet Filter, is known for running programs passed from user space. It was first implemented on BSD and then Linux, followed by the classic BPF (cBPF).

In recent times, the BPF infrastructure in Linux has undergone a major transition and has given birth to the extended BPF – or eBPF as it is popularly called. Some of the popular use-cases where extended BPF has brought about flexibility and high performance include

24

APR 2022

tracing and monitoring events on the system, enforcing access control over cgroups, and processing packets at a very low level (XDP). eBPF is a major technology, the origins of which can be traced back to the Linux kernel. eBPF can be used to run sandboxed programs in an operating system kernel and safety extend kernel capabilities without having to load kernel modules or change its source code. www.techfastly.com

To understand how beneficial extended BPF is, let’s get down to the roots of the OS. Ideally, the operating system has been a place to implement security, observability, and networking functionality, as the kernel possesses the ability to exert overall control on the entire system. However, it is also difficult for the OS kernel to evolve, given its extensive need for stability and security.

In essence, there is lowered innovation at the operating system level as opposed to the functionality outside the OS. Here’s where eBPF comes in.

Extended BPF allows application developers to run sandboxed programs within the operating system in order to run eBPF programs for adding more capabilities to the operating system at runtime. The OS is then able to guarantee excellent execution and safety – nearly as if it had been natively compiled using a JIT (Just-In-Time) compiler and verification engine. In consequence, this has led to an upsurge in eBPF-based projects covering nextgeneration observability and networking.

25

eBPF Tools/Frameworks

1

BCC BCC is a collection of tools used to create kernel tracing and manipulation programs. It makes programs much simpler to write with front-end interfaces in Python and lua and kernel instrumentation in C. BCC helps simplify many tasks such as network traffic control and performance analysis. It also provides an API for other programs to use.

Since it conveniently provides a C programming environment for kernel BPF C code along with Python or lua for a front-end interface, you can just simply use embedded C for data extraction from traced events and use a Python script or a C++ program to display data as per your suitability. BCC enhances the potential of eBPF and makes it much more tangible.

As a matter of fact, BCC’s repository comprises over 70+ ready-to-go BPF programs used for debugging and performance analysis.

HOW BCC WORKS

A B

26

APR 2022

BCC tools can work only with the availability of kernel sources, as most of them need to register callbacks on the kernel API to get their data. These callbacks are registered using the kprobe infrastructure.

When you run a BCC tool, its current directory is switched into the kernel source directory even before the compilation.

www.techfastly.com

C D

Then BCC compiles the C program defining the BCC tool's logic. The C program can include kernel data structures and kernel headers for kprobes to function.

If you’re not using the kprobe infrastructure, BCC adds a common helpers.h include directive during the compilation of the eBPF C program, that is found in src/cc/export/helpers.h in the BCC source.

As a matter of fact, BCC’s repository comprises over 70+ ready-to-go BPF programs used for debugging and performance analysis.

27

eBPF Tools/Frameworks

2

Libbpf Libbpf is another set of tools that is used to build eBPF applications. With respect to analytic, networking, and security applications, it offers numerous benefits over BCC. It is usually used with BPF CO-RE (compile once, run everywhere) – which was basically designed to create binaries that can run on different kernel versions and to solve portability issues with BPF. Libbpf mitigates several roadblocks and enables developers to focus on the task at hand. It produces simple binaries, which compile once and can run anywhere. It eliminates numerous dependencies and helps you efficiently execute your code.

Libbpf also creates binaries that can use less memory.

HOW Libbpf WORKS

A Libbpf

28

APR 2022

B

Libbpf loads, checks, and relocates BPF programs, sorts out maps and hooks, helping developers to implement their programs sans the heavy work.

Libbpf helps match offsets and types and updates them automatically, enabling a program to function on a target host without requiring additions such as Clang.

www.techfastly.com

C D

The tool uses a vmheader file that has multiple kernel types; ergo, users need not rely on systemwide kernel headers. They will need to include vmlinux.h to switch from BCC to libbpf.

Libbpf has several advantages – for starters, it has no dependencies, making it easier to use on multiple machines. It also boasts of excellent resource usage, low meory usage, and limited impact on performance.

Libbpf eliminates numerous dependencies and helps you efficiently execute your code. It also creates binaries that can use less memory.

29

eBPF Tools/Frameworks

3

Bpftrace Bpftrace is an open source tracer for Linux and helps analyze troubleshooting software and production performance problems. It uses LLVM as a backend source and compiles scripts to BPF-bytecode. It deploys BCC to interact with existing Linux tracing capabilities such as user-level dynamic tracing (uprobes), tracepoints, and kernel dynamic tracing (kprobes) as well as with the with the Linux BPF system.

Bpftrace works well for a specific kind of analysis – it decomposes metrics into distributions and creates new metrics for visibility into blind spots. It is thus best for short scripts and ad hoc investigations. The Netflix performance team for example, uses bpftrace for ad hoc analysis.

HOW bpftrace WORKS

A Bpftrace

30

APR 2022

B

While installing bpftrace you have to be running a Linux 4.9 kernel or higher.

You can use one-liner scripts to check if the installation works. Or, just create a new bpftrace file and execute the code in it.

www.techfastly.com

C D

In a bpftrace suntax, use probes to specify what events to instrument.

If need be, you can use a filter to filter down the events based on a boolean expression. The action part is the mini program that runs.

Use static instrumentation as opposed to the dynamic one for more stable programs.

Bpftrace decomposes metrics into distributions and creates new metrics for visibility into blind spots. The Netflix performance team for example, uses bpftrace for ad hoc analysis.

31

eBPF Cloud Native Tools

1 Falco

Falco is a Cloud Native tool that can be used to run eBPF applications. A well-known runtime security tool, Falco can generate functions to monitor and combat anomalous activity in nodes and containers or report it to the necessary channels.

Falco analyzes kernel system calls and provides an in-depth visibility into cluster, container, and host activity. It can also add Kubernetes application context to its findings and help security, DevOps, and cloud teams understand concise functions.

Falco’s technical architecture has been designed to meet the needs of modern environments. It has an underlying eBPF technology, therefore it barely has a performance impact, with nearly 50% of the CPU usage of its alternatives.

32

APR 2022

The three main components of Falco:

THE USERSPACE PROGRAM It handles signals, dissects information from a Falco driver, and sends alerts.

THE CONFIGURATION It defines how Falco runs, when to trigger alerts, and what rules to postulate.

THE DRIVER It is a software that must be installed to run Falco. It adheres to the Falco driver specification and sends system call information. Presently, it supports an eBPF probe built from the same modules, Kernel module built on libscap and libsinsp C++ libraries, and userspace instrumentation.

www.techfastly.com

Image Source: falco.org

How Falco works

Define any rule that the tool can monitor. Any anomalous activity will do.

Configure Falco and publish the alert to a log aggregator, queue, or topic

Further on, configure a Google Cloud Function or something similar, that the alert can trigger.

Falcon can also add Kubernetes application context to its findings and help security, DevOps, and cloud teams understand concise functions.

33

eBPF Cloud Native Tools

2 Inspektor Gadget Developed by Kinvolk, Inspektor Gadget is a tool that helps with tracing, debugging, and observing applications inside Kubernetes. It is a collection of gadgets that’ll help debug and inspect Kubernetes resources and applications.

It helps to manage the packaging, deployment and execution of BCCbased and custom-built BPF programs in a Kubernetes cluster. It also maps low-level kernel primitives to high-level Kubernetes resources automatically, thereby making it easier to find relevant information.

Every node deploys Inspektor Gadget as a privileged DaemonSet. The tool uses in-kernel BPF helper programs for event monitoring – events related to syscalls from userspace programs in a pod. The kernel helps run the BPF programs and collect log data. Inspektor Gadget's userspace utilities then fetch this data and display it.

34

APR 2022

www.techfastly.com

Image Source: kubernetes.io

How Inspektor Gadget works

Deploy Inspektor Gadget’s agents in the cluster as privileged DaemonSets.

Install the gadget kubectl plugin.

Choose a gadget and use it for probing data.

Inspektor Gadget has a traceloop tool that deploys standalone eBPF traceloop tool underneath.

Once you use the privileged DaemonSet forward, all pods system calls will be traced and some of the recent calls will be stored for future consumption.

35

eBPF Cloud Native Tools

3 Cilium

Cilium is completely based on eBPF. It is a Kubernetes cni plugin and relies on eBPF to provide and transparently secure network connectivity and balance loads between application workloads. It implements distributed load balancing for application container traffic and can replace components such as kube-proxy. In eBPF, efficient hashtables are used to implement load balancing, allowing for extensive scale.

For east-west load balancing, Cilium conducts service-to-backend translation in the Linux kernel's socket layer in a way that you can avoid perpacket NAT operations overhead in lower layers.

For north-south load balancing, Cilium's eBPF implementation can be attached to XDP (eXpress Data Path). It is also optimized for maximum performance and supports direct server return (DSR).

Image Source: cilium.io

How Cilium Works:

Cilium works best with a multi-cluster setup, so you can choose it whenever you need a high throughput solution.

Adapt your cluster provisioning strategy accordingly to deploy Cilium as the pod network solution.

Cilium has a lot of options and configurations; choose what suits you the best. For instance, you can replace the kube-proxy with Cilium’s own Kubernetes proxying solution.

In order to ensure load balancing between servers and to deliver security, Cilium leverages eBPF by first running eBPF programs at the socket layer and then running them at the XDP/tc layer. At the socket layer, it handles service-to-service communication, i.e., East-West traffic. At the XDP/ tc layer, it handles external traffic coming into the node, i.e., North-South communication.

37

eBPF Cloud Native Tools

3 Hubble

Hubble is actually a security observability tool. It leverages eBPF for visibility by building on top of Celium. To that end, all visibility becomes programmable and allows for a dynamic approach, minimizing overhead and delivering a detailed insight. Hubble is one of those tools that has been specifically created to make best use of the latest eBPF capabilities.

How Hubble Works

If one is already using Cilium, they only need to deploy Hubble's relay and UI.

After that, use it to view its service map, flows, and policies.

If you are not using Cilium and you have another CNI plugin, deploy Cilium on top of another CNI

Cilium, to control the flow of packets, sends BPF programs to the kernel, thereby enforcing policies and load balancing. The events generated from this flow are extracted by Hubble to create a collection of flow data and metrics to be consumed.

38

APR 2022

www.techfastly.com

All of Hubble’s data comes from the events map in the eBPF datapath, therefore, all of its features are eBPF related. One of its major capabilities is a Service Dependences and Communication Map that offers the visualization of a service connections map. As the number of microservices in your architecture increases, it gets rather complicated to understand internal communication and how data flow in the setup is. Hubble makes this easier, especially with a lower overhead.

eBPF is a very powerful mechanism in Linux applications and helps simplify code execution in the Linux kernel space. It has already been used to create programs for tracing, networking, security, debugging, etc.

It is a revolutionary technology as it helps programmers execute custom bytecode inside the kernel apace itself without changing the kernel or loading kernel modules. As it continues to prove beneficial in Linux programming, the popularity and demand for eBPF tools will continue to increase in the future.

39

How to Add

eBPF Observability

to Your Project

by Rehan Hussain

When it comes to integrating security, networking, and observability features, working within the Linux kernel is perfect.

It is not, however, without its difficulties.

Historically, developers have encountered complex architectures and difficult-todebug abstraction layers, altered kernel source code or added modules. Both of these issues are addressed by the extended BPF (eBPF).

The Extended Berkeley Packet Filter (eBPF) is a kernel feature introduced in Linux 4.x that enables programs to run without modifying the kernel source code or installing extra modules. Consider it a lightweight, sandbox virtual machine (VM) embedded within the Linux kernel, where programmers can execute BPF bytecode that makes use of specific kernel resources.

Using eBPF avoids modifying kernel source code and simplifies software's ability to exploit existing layers.

As a result, it is a very compelling technology that can revolutionize the way networking, observability profoundly, and security are supplied.

The Functioning of eBPF eBPF applications are event-driven and have a code path associated with them. The code path comprises particular triggers referred to as hooks that, when passed, run any associated eBPF applications. Network events, system calls, function entry, and kernel tracepoints are all instances of hooks.

When the code is activated, it is initially compiled to BPF bytecode. Before the bytecode is executed, it is validated to verify that it does not generate a loop. This step protects the software from inadvertently or intentionally compromising the Linux kernel.

After being activated by a hook, a program performs assistance calls.

These helper cells are routines that provide eBPF with several memory access functionalities. The kernel must declare helper calls in advance, yet the set of available functions increases. An eBPF was first designed to improve the observability and security of network packet filtering.

However, it evolved into a means of making the implementation of usersupplied code safer, more convenient, and more performant over time.

41

The Benefits of eBPF eBPF is often used to track userspace processes, and its benefits are evident in this case. It is a safe and effective way for ensuring the following:

Acceleration and performance eBPF enable the relocation of packet processing from the kernel to the userspace. On the other hand, it is a just-in-time (JIT) compiler. After the bytecode is compiled, instead of performing a fresh interpretation of the bytecode for each method, eBPF is executed.

Low level of intrusiveness When used as a debugger, eBPF does not require the application to be stopped to examine its status.

Security Effectively, programs are sandboxed, meaning the kernel source code stays protected and untouched. The verification phase guarantees that resources are not clogged by programs that execute indefinitely.

42

APR 2022

www.techfastly.com

It is tracing in a unified manner eBPF provides a centralized, robust, and easily accessible platform for process tracing. This increases visibility and security.

Programmability By utilizing eBPF, an environment's feature set may be increased without introducing new layers. Similarly, because code is executed directly in the kernel, data may be stored between eBPF events rather than dumped as other tracers do.

Expressiveness eBPF is expressive capable of accomplishing tasks that are often reserved for high-level languages.

Convenience Writing code that hooks kernel functions takes far less effort than generating and maintaining kernel modules.

43

There is a set of rules that must be keep in mind while running the program:

1

Execute your initial tool Install the bcc or bpftrace tools first. For instance, bcc on Ubuntu: While this program is simplistic, I've resolved several performance issues with it alone, including misconfigured systems where a shell script repeatedly launches failed processes and when some little application crashes and restarts every few minutes but is not observed.

44

APR 2022

2

Incorporate a tool into your product Now consider including execsnoop into your product. Agents are almost certainly already operating on all of your customers' computers. Is there a way to execute a command and return the text output? Or do you execute a command and then aggregate the result somewhere else (S3, Hive, Druid, etc.)? Given the breadth of available solutions, it's basically a matter of personal taste depending on your current system and customer situations.

When you add your first tool to your product, configure it to operate for a brief period of time, between 10 and 60 seconds. As execsnoop(8) currently lacks a duration option, you may wrap it using watch -s2 60 execsnoop-bpfcc. If you want to operate these tools 24 hours a day, investigate overheads beforehand to determine the cost.

Events with a low frequency of occurrence, such as process execution, should be captured in an insignificant amount. You may also use the bpftrace versions instead of bcc. These often lack canned options (-v, -l, etc. ), but they do support json output.

www.techfastly.com

3

Do not be concerned about dependencies

Indeed, I recommend installing bcc or bpftrace on your customers' computers, as they now need llvm. This can accumulate to tens of Mbytes, which can become an issue in some resource-constrained applications (embedded). We've been working diligently to address this issue in the future. bcc has updated the tools (libbpf-tools) to utilize BTF and CO-RE (rather than Python), which will eventually allow you to install 100-Kbyte binary versions of the tools without any dependencies. bpftrace has a similar goal of creating a tiny, dependency-free binary that takes advantage of newer kernel capabilities.

This does require Linux 5.8 or later to function properly, and your clients may not have that for years. In the meanwhile, I'd propose ignoring the llvm dependencies for the time being, since they will be resolved eventually.

Not all Linux distributions have enabled CONFIG DEBUG INFO BTF=y, which is required

for BTF and CO-future. It has been enabled in a number of major distributions, including Ubuntu 20.10, Fedora 30, and RHEL 8.2.

However, if you are aware that any of your customers are using an unusual configuration, please verify and advise them or the distro vendor to change CONFIG DEBUG INFO BTF=y and CONFIG DEBUG INFO BTF MODULES=y to avoid future misery.

4

bcc versus bpftrace

The bcc utilities are the easiest to use, as they generally contain several command-line parameters. The bpftrace tools are easier to update and configure, and bpftrace offers a json output mode.

If you're absolutely new to tracing, go with bcc. If you want to perform some hacking and modifying of the tools, go with bpftrace. In the end, they are both solid solutions.

45

CASE STUDIES

Netflix is developing a new graphical user interface (GUI) based on the bpftrace versions of these tools.

While the bpftrace binary is installed on all target computers, the bpftrace tools (text files) are maintained on a web server and distributed as needed.

This implies we can always run the most up-to-date version of the tools by upgrading them in a single location.

46

APR 2022

This is presently implemented as part of our FlameCommander UI, which also manages cloud-based flame graphs. Our prior BPF GUI was included with Vector and utilised bcc, but has now been deprecated. We're likely to open source the new one and write about it on the Netflix technology blog.

www.techfastly.com

Facebook is a sophisticated user of BPF, but the technical details of how they use the tools fleet-wide are not entirely available. Given their

involvement with bcc and their development of the BTF and CO-RE technologies, I'm inclined to believe their solution is based on the bcc libbpf-tool versions.

Conclusion In short, check to see whether your monitoring systems already have a BPF agent and, if not, develop one using the current bcc or bpftrace tools rather than rebuilding everything from scratch. This is thinking like a systems administrator who installs and maintains the software rather than a programmer who programs everything. Install the bcc or bpftrace tools, include them into your observability offering, and periodically pull package updates.

47

eBPF to Enhance

Kubernetes Monitoring

by Md. Sohail

The introduction of Docker and Kubernetes has brought a dramatic revolution in the IT industry. Unlike the traditional methods of developing and deploying software, Kubernetes or K8s uses scaling and automated deployment. Thanks to the Linux functionalities that make Kubernetes run seamlessly with robust security.

Berkeley Packet Filter or BPF is a mini-VM, a part of the Linux kernel. Its programs are packed with the bpf() syscall and advanced functions that check the code inside the operating system (OS). When events occur on kernel objects, such as when an access point releases a packet, BPF programs are associated with those objects and run the program. Generally, BPF is used to check and analyze network traffic. eBPF is an innovative kernel technology that lets programs run without adding additional modules or changing the source code. It originates in the kernel of Linux and can run sandboxed programs that are in a given kernel of an operating system. eBPF is applied to quickly spread the kernel's proficiencies, deprived of wanting to load other kernel elements.

This article will focus on explaining eBPF – its merits and demerits, and, finally how it helps to enhance Kubernetes monitoring.

eBPF is an innovative kernel technology that lets programs run without adding additional modules or changing the source code.

48

APR 2022

Factually, the operating system OS is an ultimate habitation of implementing monitoring, safety, and networking functionality in line with the kernel's advantaged capability to mastermind and govern the whole system. Due to vast necessities concerning security and stability, an operating system kernel becomes challenging to evolve, lowering its innovation rate compared to implemented functionality out of the OS.

49

Why is eBPF Needed? eBPF, the extended version of BPF, is an advanced program used for monitoring the Linux kernel in a sophisticated and tech-savvy way.

The capability within eBPF to change and accept a new set of instructions that alter its behavior enables it to add more procedural parsers, making it unique. Furthermore, eBPF offers an option to effortlessly package any advancing sense to encounter varying necessities shortage dealing out the framework of the Linux kernel. eBPF allows to add modules or alter kernel source code for you to come up with a more efficient substructure. As a result, you can back up your machine, without causing complications.

In case of allowing the loading of a process in the eBPF program, all the programs are to go through their verifier first. This verifier makes sure that the program is safe, and therefore any program is authenticated to guarantee their running to the end, e.g., the program of eBPF may forever not sit in a loop or block.

Image source: cloud.google.com/blog/products/containers-kubernetes/bringing-ebpf-and-cilium-togoogle-kubernetes-engine

50

APR 2022

www.techfastly.com

How eBPF Helps with Kubernetes Monitoring?

Today, eBPF is used by both mid-to-large IT. All level of firms is implementing it in cloud-native applications administration due to its ability to advance surveillance of the given applications.

Check out the compelling reasons how eBPF helps with Kubernetes monitoring:

1

An Alternative to Traditional Tracking

eBPF is an excellent alternative to the traditional monitoring tool. In an emergency, when the existing monitoring breaks due to malware attack or virus threat, eBPF is a great fit. eBPF offers perceptibility into desires and HTTP circulation even when old-fashioned monitoring tools refuse to function correctly.

2

Forecast Potential Problems

Observing from the kernel level can moderate the encounters involving cloud monitoring. Several problems like invitation underdevelopment, foreign attacks, to name a few, can be reduced by applying an eBPF program on the operating system.

51

3

Trace Kernel Explicitly

An eBPF program lets you perform standard codes in the kernel. After working in the kernel, mapping out the engagements and program's stages becomes fast and more precise. Best of all, eBPF allows tracking actions when the programs are triggered.

52

APR 2022

4

Control Flow of Network Traffic

When there is a need to optimize box circulation control, in a typical networking trail of Linux, packs ordinarily go from their start point to endpoint. Nonetheless, they are not conscious of composite tracks. With enough context and eBPF, one can execute programs in the kernel that ensure the box will evade difficult paths and trail the finest and firmest course to the last stop.

www.techfastly.com

Why Use eBPF for Monitoring?

1

There are several situations in which using eBPF for observing is a predominantly firm decision. Check out the perks of using eBPF for your monitoring needs:

2

UNINTRUSIVE eBPF being unintrusive and lightweight adds an added advantage to monitor and manage kernel explicitly. Even though the eBPF package assembles the kernel in the interior, it does not change somewhat the foundation program, thus making it a great acquaintance for exfiltrating, watching information, and sorting out bugs. eBPF is well known for allowing clientless observing through compound systems. If leveraged as a debugging tool, eBPF does not require to halt an already running program to perceive its form.

ROBUST SECURITY Since an eBPF program does not change the kernel, one may reserve the right to entry managing guidelines for code-level fluctuations. The substitute is through a kernel unit, which takes a bundle of safety anxieties. In addition, programs of eBPF have a confirmation stage that inhibits assets from being over-used. Commendably sandboxed programs mean that the kernel's source code is safe and unaffected.

The confirmation stage makes sure that assets do not get clogged by programs that tend to run immeasurable rings.

53

3

4

BETTER VISUALIZATION

ENACTMENT AND SPEED

Through an eBPF program, one gets a better chance in tracing and monitoring principles with additional granulated detail and kernel setting than other options. It is effortlessly shipped into the handler space and consumed by a monitoring stage for visualization.

eBPF can transfer packets processing from the kernel's space into the user's space.

Similarly, eBPF is a just-in-time (JIT) collector.

Subsequently, accumulating the bytecode, eBPF is appealed somewhat than a newfangled clarification of the bytecode for each technique.

54

APR 2022

Limitations of eBPF As we have talked a lot about the program, eBPF is not that brand new, although refined when put to practice in a compound observability situation. Unquestionably, eBPF may be an unlimited implementation when applying it correctly, but that does not suggest that the program lacks disadvantages.

1

THE TOOL IS NEW At the same time, eBPF has existed since 2017, and it undoubtedly is not encounter-verified for supplementary composite necessities the likes of cgroup level port cleaning through lots of pods.

Whereas this is an objective for the exposed basis development, there is a lot yet to carry out.

2

RESTRICTIONS OF LINUX

The program is only accessible on the updated type of Linux kernels. It may be costly for a company that lacks the newest version of the kernels. That means, organizations using the older version cannot use eBPF in their systems.

3

LIMITATION OF SANDBOXED PROGRAMS eBPF originates augmented safety by restraining what assets programs may use.

Nevertheless, by regulating whatever portions of the operating system, a program can use, its functioning is also hypothetically narrowed.

Wrapping Up There is no excuse to reject that eBPF as it tends to be a great program, thus the description of being a Linux Giant. Even though many large establishments like Netflix have installed it through their system, some organizations still display doubtfulness because of the early stages and difficulty of eBPF. If an organization has an urge to know how to increase its security and monitoring, consider using eBPF.

55

Is eBPF Foundation Molding the Future of

Infrastructure Software Space?

by Kunal Mehta

56

APR 2022

Some of the biggest IT companies, including Meta, Netflix, Google, Isovalent, Microsoft, and others, together formed the eBPF foundation on August 12, 2021. The brief of this was discussed in the eBPF Summit, a virtual event conducted during August 1819, 2021.

www.techfastly.com

Linux divides its space into two parts: the user space and the kernel space. eBPF, extended Berkeley Packet Filter, is a technology that allows Linux programs to run their codes within the kernel.

It previously has been used to construct networking, debugging, tracing, firewalls, and other types of programs.

The eBPF Foundation The need for foundation arises as several eBPF-based projects (both ongoing and future) will be adopting this technology.

The eBPF foundation is established keeping in mind the vision and the bright future that eBPF holds. It will establish a clear roadmap while having a well-maintained core of eBPF. The foundation will manage funds in the way of raising, budgeting, and allocation to support various open source, open data, and open standard programs relating to this technology.

57

The eBPF foundation will set up the eBPF steering committee to pave its technical direction. One of the primary objectives of the eBPF foundation would be to extend the capabilities of eBPF and explore its potential beyond LINUX. The foundation would be the base on which the open-source eBPF project and tech would be built. They would nurture the community through various activities, summits, and collaborative events that would drive the community's growth even further.

eBPF Foundation Committee Members As per the charter of the foundation, the members would be composed of the platinum, silver, and associate member class. All members have to be corporate members at the Linux Foundation to participate in the Directed Fund. All participants of the directed fund shall benefit from the privileges and undertake the responsibilities as mentioned in the charter.

The Platinum members will be entitled to appoint a representative to the governing board and any other committee except the BSC or any other committee established by the BSC. Currently, this class comprises of the following corporates (all members in the foundation might be subject to change with time, for the latest update visit the foundation page):

Platinum 58

APR 2022

www.techfastly.com

Silver

The Silver class members will be entitled to elect one representative (up to three representatives allowed) to the governing board for every five silver members. There will always be at least one representative, even if the members are less than five in this class. Currently, this class comprises of the following corporates:

The Associate Member class is limited to the associate class of the Linux foundation. There may be specific criteria for the associate members to join the directed fund.

Members will have a seat in directed fund meetings, events, initiatives, and other activities.

eBPF Foundation Member Quotes

Chris Mason, Kernel Maintainer and Engineering Director at Facebook, expressed his gratitude to the dedicated developers and maintainers for their tireless work as eBPF has played a critical role in accelerating kernel development.

He said that they're excited to support the development of the eBPF community, supporting them to accomplish the tools they need to power the upcoming generation of Linux system development.

Chris DiBona, director of open source at Google, stated that she was excited to hear about the LINUX foundation deciding to host eBPF. She also commented that eBPF will have a major influence in the future of networking for the Linux kernel and that Google is pleased to be a part of the evolution standard created by eBPF.

59

60

APR 2022

www.techfastly.com

What Does The Future Hold?

Languages such as JavaScript have made web browsers programmable. It allows you, as a user, to benefit from the latest innovations without installing the new version. eBPF will make operating systems programmable the same way JavaScript and other programming languages made web browsers programmable. It unlocks an un-imaginable potential for innovation in the future, just like how web browsers have become a standard platform for most applications. It allows developers to embed programs in all forms of software (including the OS kernel) with ease and efficiency.

Currently, the growth of the eBPF is limited to a specific area, but with time it could be much more widely used.

STEP INTO THE SUPERWORLD WITH

Hrish Lotlikar Co-Founder & CEO SuperWorld

Hrish is a Co-founder and CEO at SuperWorld. Previously, he cofounded Rogue Initiative Studios, a Hollywood film, TV, gaming, and immersive entertainment studio.

He was also the founding Managing Partner of Eastlabs, an early-stage VC fund based in Kyiv, Ukraine.

Previously, Hrish was a Senior Business Developer and Global Evangelist at Toptal (backed

by Andreessen Horowitz, the Rockefellers & the co-founders of Facebook and Zynga), a venture capital investor at Spencer Trask Ventures, and an investment banker at both UBS Investment Bank and HSBC Securities, where he specialized in public finance, corporate finance, and M&A. He also was an Associate in the Global Business Development Group at managementconsulting firm Hewitt Associates. Hrish was born in India and grew up in the United States. He also has spent many years living around the world in Europe, Asia, and South America. He has a close connection to the people and cultures in Ukraine, Belarus, Russia, Spain, France, Vietnam, China, Colombia, Bali, and Thailand.Hrish holds a BA in Political Science from Rice University and both an MBA and MPH fromUniversity of Illinois at Chicago. In his free time, he enjoys working out, fashion photography, and traveling the world.

SuperWorld is a virtual world mapped on top of the real world in augmented reality. We enable anyone to create, discover, and monetize anything anywhere around them, in the real world.

Q|

Before we dig into the interview, can you tell our audience about SuperWorld and how you started this incredible platform?

SuperWorld is a virtual world mapped on top of the real world in augmented reality.

We enable anyone to create, discover, and monetize anything anywhere around them, in the real world. We have divided the surface of the earth into 64 billion properties; each property covers a city block of land 100 meters*100 meters.

If you buy a block of land in SuperWorld, you're buying a digital asset that is structured as an NFT, which gives you a stakeholder relationship on the platform. You are able to get a share of any monetization that you create, and that is created on the platform in the locations where you own land.

Max and I thought to ourselves you know what if we can’t build the next PokemonGo; but build a world/place where the next 1000 PokemonGo's gets built onto it.

64

APR 2022

I started SuperWorld with my co-founder Max Woon. Max and I previously worked together on Youtube platforms. I had previously started a company, Rogue Initiative Studios, a film television gaming and virtual reality studio in Hollywood. At Rogue Initiatives, we created cross-platform content, feature film, television gaming, virtual reality, etc.

When PokemonGo came out about six years ago and became a huge hit. Max and I thought to ourselves, what if we can't build the next PokemonGo; but create a world/place where the next thousands of PokemonGo's get built onto it. In other words, how can we empower someone to build whatever they want anywhere, discover www.techfastly.com

any content they want, and monetize anything anywhere; that was the whole idea and vision for SuperWorld.

Q|

With SuperWorld, you aim to utilize the technologies to create a positive social impact. You started a new campaign to spread awareness and help people in Ukraine amidst the ongoing war. Can you tell our audience more about it?

A big part of our vision at SuperWorld is to empower people in their real lives. We utilize tokenomics mechanisms to incentivize people to pursue their passion. One of our investment club partners calls it 'passion-ware'. We built a platform to enhance people's real lives, enabling them to do things they love to do and utilize tokenomic incentives to benefit them.

65

Another part of our platform's vision is to collectively leverage technologies and positively impact the real world. An example of that is when you buy land in SuperWorld, we plant trees in the real world. We have already partnered with the World Bank in the Caribbean to help with disaster recovery in

66

APR 2022

hurricane season. We're partnered with the United Nations and UNESCO to help rebuild cities like Beirut, Lebanon. A month ago, we brought together two tribes in the Amazon jungle, which had been at war for 500 years, to create digital art in the Amazon. It is discoverable from anywhere allowing people

www.techfastly.com

to understand the issues with reforestation in the Amazon jungle.

In the last couple of weeks, we started creating augmented reality content showing the destruction that has happened with the invasion of Ukraine. People can put this

content in cities around the world. People can see in their cities what it would look like to have that destruction appear where they live; it helps them get a fundamental understanding and can empathize. We are using that to educate people about the terrible situation in Ukraine. We also had NFTs

67

68

APR 2022

www.techfastly.com

that we're selling to enable people to give money to Ukraine. We are doing that because it's our mission to do things that are positive for the world.

Q|

How can we buy/sell a real estate property on digital platform?

What can be done with the property once you own it?

Anything unpurchased is sold at 0.1 ether, which is around $300 right now. If you buy a plot of virtual land at SuperWorld, you're buying an NFT. The unpurchased plot of land is at 0.1 Ether, but you can re-price it to whatever you want once you purchase it. You have complete control of what you re-price it at, it is your digital asset, and it's decentralized. As an NFT owner, you have the flexibility to create your pricing; others who want to buy it can also bid on the property.

We are focused on creating ways to enable real estate virtual real estate owners to have more information. They can make more informed buying/selling decisions by having all the information on the physical land pricing dynamics where their virtual land is located and the virtual information in terms of SuperWorld.

Q|

How do you ensure NFT users have secured trading on the platform? How many crypto wallets do you support to complete the transaction?

We are on the Ethereum blockchain and building on Polygon and Solana. By utilizing those protocols for layer two companies to enable our users to transact on NFTs on our marketplace and the virtual land side. We 69

70

APR 2022

www.techfastly.com

need to build out the platform and be longterm oriented about the protocols that we choose to build on and utilize the latest in terms of security.

We must provide access to information for our users that enable them to trade in a very informed way.

Q|

Superworld is establishing an advertising marketplace. Can you tell our audience how they can utilize the marketing opportunity on the SuperWorld platform?

The big idea here is we are enabling anyone to create, discover, and monetize anything anywhere. You can create any type of content, 3D, 2D, or Audio and put that content in any location and it would be discoverable from anywhere in the world.

The content could be an AD, augmented reality experience, game, video, photo, 3D interactive object, NFT; we want to open it up to any type of content.

A very useful use case of that is for marketing and advertising purposes. We enable people to create content anywhere; they can create those pieces of content as part of their marketing plans to get further exposure for their business/brand or get users on board with the NFTs they are selling. The opportunities are not just for advertising but also digital commerce, e-commerce, gaming, data, analytics, decentralized finance; there are many ways to monetize in Superworld.

71

Q|

How many users do you currently have signed up for SuperWorld?

What are your future expectations of the company?

At this stage, what's essential for us is what the users do when they come to the SuperWorld platform. We found that users are very galvanized by the platform and are excited about the ability to create, discover, and monetize anything anywhere, especially if they are business owners, NFT creators, and influencers.

72

APR 2022

It is a viral product. If you buy land at SuperWorld, you will definitely get other people to purchase land in SuperWorld, which is very exciting. We get so much press because people love to tell the story of SuperWorld, especially when they understand that our mission is to empower people and build a better world.

Everyone buying in SuperWorld has a powerful connection to the places they own; it may be the places they visit, areas they live in, or

places where they own businesses. The users are telling us precisely what they want to build on the property they own; maybe create an AR experience or a building.

Our average paying user spends about $4000 in the first months of being on the platform, buying about 10 to 15 properties and they are very strongly engaged. We sold tens of thousands of properties around the world till now. It is a very galvanized engaged user base that's very excited about building and creating SuperWorld.

Q|

Environmental impact is one of the major concerns associated with this industry. Can you talk about the effect on the environment and what is SuperWorld doing to address the concerns?

We are focused on building a sustainable platform and finding a way for users to transact in SuperWorld without paying gas fees. We have recently integrated with Polygon and will be merging with Solana. We wait for Ethereum 2.0 proof-of-stake to be fully launched to lower gas fees.

73

We need to look at alternatives and be strategically long-term-minded about sustainability.

As mentioned, every time someone buys virtual land, we plant trees in the real world. We are very focused on building a better world; it's a big part of our mission.

As we grow as a company, we will keep adopting new strategies that help us become more and more sustainable.

Q|

How do you think AR/VR technologies will evolve in the coming years? Would the craze of NFTs give the advancement a buzz?

AR/VR technologies are advancing very quickly. The technology on the software side has advanced in the last five years with the rollout of ARKit and ARCore from Apple and Google; Unity and Unreal have made a lot of strides. Niantic just launched their ARDK, which revolutionized the augmented reality world.

There is a lot of investment on the software side in augmented reality. On the hardware side, several international media companies and hardware companies are building products utilizing Qualcomm's snapdragon chips to enable them to create hardware to bring all of this software into the hands of the public. I think NFTs will speed that up just because of the ability to transact using digital commerce to allow creators to connect directly to their followers and customers.

Q|

You are one of the industry's most influential people, and I am sure aspiring entrepreneurs could use some of your advice on creating a successful start-up in the blockchain domain.

For entrepreneurs looking to build in the metaverse, AR/VR, blockchain, or AI space: If you're building a decentralized company, it is important to have a vision that empowers your community and builds long-term utility products.

74

APR 2022

I think these technologies' foundational layers are compelling, influential, and valuable for many reasons. If you're an entrepreneur, you must leverage these technologies (NFT, blockchain, Defi, or AR/VR) to build products that leverage the foundational power of these technologies to provide your users in your community with long-term utility.

It is crucial to build something that solves problems and empowers your users. One must pursue ideas that they are passionate about; if you are doing what you love that would keep you going.

75

Russia Ukraine Conflict and

What It Means For The Internet

by Aftab Alam

76

APR 2022

www.techfastly.com

T

he conflict between Ukraine and Russia has shaken the world, and it is affecting many industries. Tech giants like Meta, Google, and Apple have always positioned themselves as politically neutral tech firms; however, they are now pinning their political colours to the mast by banning products in Russia in response to its invasion.

The conflict has undoubtedly changed the internet for Russian users. Twitter and Facebook are blocked in Russia, TikTok is not allowing Russian users to post, and police are reportedly stopping people on the street to inspect what they are viewing on their phones. The conflict indeed changed the internet for Russian users.

According to Soldatov, author of the book "The Red Web", Russia is heavily reliant on online services, which are now in disarray due to the conflict.

A Russian author and journalist, Andrei Soldatov, said that he used to believe that his country was the most digitally connected country in Europe.

However, he claims that he can no longer recognize the Russian internet.

Since the invasion of Ukraine, websites with the the.ru domain have only been available intermittently. Microsoft and Oracle, both of which are based in the United States, have stopped selling software. After Visa and Mastercard ceased operations in Russia, many Russians cannot pay for the private networking apps they use to circumvent government censorship of sites such as Facebook.

77

78

Russia is three weeks into a test that has never been seen before on the internet. After international sanctions cut off many services abroad and the Russian government tightened its grip on online speech and access within its borders, a major economic and global power is nearly isolated from the digital world.

Is Isolating Russia from The Internet the Solution?

The outcome of the situation will likely shape the future of the internet. The change will not only be for Russian users; it will change the meaning of the global network.

Soldatov described Yandex as the pride of Russia's technology sector. He stated that it is now destroyed and that no one knows what should be done. He also claims that many of the information technology specialists he knows in Russia are leaving or sending

APR 2022

Russia has been isolated in an astonishingly short period of time. Yandex, Russia's largest tech company and operator of both the top Russian search engine and the top ride-hailing service, has announced its plans to relocate around 800 employees to Israel. Two of its directors have resigned, and the company issued a warning stating that it may not be able to pay its debts.

www.techfastly.com

their children abroad to escape the growing repression under the current leader.

The Ukrainian government has asked tech giants to ban services in Russia, and a number of companies refusing to do business/sell their products in Russia is growing by the day.

Now, Ukraine's leaders are calling for something even more drastic. They want Russia to be completely disconnected from the internet.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers(ICANN) refused to cut Russia off from the internet. ICANN is responsible for the global governance of the internet.

In response to Ukraine's proposal that Russia should be barred from using the internet, Goran, the CEO of ICANN, stated that the organization would maintain neutrality and support the global internet. A number of groups supported this decision. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) was one of them. According to the EFF, war is not the time to mess with the internet. Interfering with basic internet infrastructure protocols that exist today would have dangerous long-term consequences in the future.

These would include:

Denying people access to the most powerful tool for sharing information

Creating a dangerous precedent that jeopardizes security and privacy

Ukraine has also asked a web infrastructure company, Cloudflare, that provides cyber-attack protection to discontinue its services within Russia.

79

Splinternet:

What Is It and How Does It Function?

Splinternet refers to a situation in which various countries have different versions of the internet.

The call to cut off was viewed as a precarious decision that would result in splinternet.

The Great Firewall of China is the most visible example of a country building its own web.

However, the state-owned Telecommunication Company of Iran polices internet content and limits access to external information in Iran.

Russian government revealed that it had successfully tested the system it experimented with for several years in 2019.

Only a few understood the need for it at the time, but with the Ukraine invasion, it all "makes a whole lot more sense," according to Prof Alan Woodward, a computer scientist at the University of Surrey.

80

APR 2022

In the test, Russian ISPs were asked to configure the internet within their borders, just like a massive intranet - a private network of websites that do not communicate with the outside world.

Russia appears to be re-testing those systems; according to a Russian government memo, ISPs were instructed to strengthen their security and connect to Russian domain name system (DNS) servers.

Some interpreted the memo and the test's completion date of March 11. It claimed that Russia intended to cut itself off as soon as possible.

Russia has since denied cutting itself off. It claimed that the test was designed to protect Russian websites from foreign cyber-attacks.

www.techfastly.com

What Would Be the Repercussions of That?

According to Abishur Prakash, the writer of 'The World is Vertical: How Technology is Remaking Globalization', globalization is altering the internet, shifting it from "a global system into which the entire world has been hooked" to something more divided.

New internet architecture is forming as a result of geopolitics, with countries either shut off or establishing their own alternative.

As a result, global bridges such as social media platforms are now disintegrating.

According to James Griffiths, the new net power axis will be divided between the West and China/Russia.

Fang Binxing, renowned as the founding father of China's Great Firewall, visited Russia in 2016 to aid them in their efforts to make the Russian firewall more akin to the Chinese one.

As internet companies withdraw services and goods, he says that Russia will once again look to Beijing: "Russia's economy is moving to China because it is shut off from most of the world economy. They will, however, have to rely on China much more than in the past."

So far, Chinese tech companies such as Huawei have made no official statements about the ongoing conflict.

81

Potential Global Cyber Warfare

Due to Russo-Ukrainian War

by Toulika Das Experts presume that as violence continues to erupt in the Russo-Ukrainian borders, a different kind of attack is on the cards. The war led by Putin in Russia is not just confined to the physical grounds now - a series of cyberattacks have already been launched by Russian hackers against Ukraine.

82

APR 2022

www.techfastly.com

Several websites were hacked and rendered inaccessible in the weeks preceding the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Malicious data-wiping viruses were released on different government networks.

Will greater cyberattacks accompany the invasion? Russia is a haven of some of the world's biggest notorious illegal cybercriminals, some of whom are statesponsored. Could they make it to the West?

We'll discuss some of these fears in the following article.

Potential Cyberattacks Predicted by the West Although most people were surprised by the military strike, the virtual attack was not shocking.

That's because Russia has been infamous for its cyber warfare against Ukraine for many years.

For several people and government bodies, the major concern now is if Russia will use its cyberweapons against the West, and how they would retaliate.

The US Department of Homeland Security and the UK's National Cyber Security Centre both issued stern warnings to enterprises to be on high alert for potential Russian cyberattacks.

"If you suddenly have 190,000 forces assault Ukraine, odds are... the cyberattack will not be a single piece of software," US Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Mark Warner told the Axios news site.

The possibility of sweeping sanctions by the West against Russia may prompt Moscow to react by conducting cyberattacks against targets in Europe and the United States.

"Intelligence-gathering activities in cyberspace are conducted by nation-states, including the United States," James Turgal said. He is the VP of cyber risk, strategy, and board relations at cybersecurity company Optiv. "However, with Russia's invasion of Ukraine, we have entered a new age."

83

Germany told reporters recently that it is tightening up its cyber defences to combat Russian-backed assaults, while the European Union is preparing to create an EU cyber crisis management team to assist Ukraine in dealing with the danger.

84

APR 2022

"We're prepared to retaliate if Russia conducts cyberattacks against our firms and key infrastructure," US President Joe Biden was quoted saying. He also added that the government has indeed been collaborating with the private sector "for months" now to brace for Russian assaults and countermeasures.

www.techfastly.com

The websites of many Ukrainian banks and government organizations were crippled by so-called denial of service (DDoS) assaults

Recent Cyberattacks

by Russia on Ukraine and its Repercussions According to Goldman Sachs, an American MNC specializing in financial services, governmentled cybersecurity threats have traditionally aimed to extort proprietary information. This includes vulnerable financial strategies and technical expertise. However, there have also been situations with attacks on critical systems.

Russia breached Ukraine's biggest financial organizations last month in the country's largest-ever cyberattack.

"I believe the danger is high and escalating right now," warned Derek Vadala, chief risk officer of BitSight, a cyber risk assessment organization based in the United States, who advised Western businesses to ensure their systems are patched against known vulnerabilities. "At present, everyone is on a high level of preparation."

And this increased level of preparedness is not at all an impulsive move. Already, the websites of many Ukrainian banks and government organizations were crippled by so-called denial of service (DDoS) assaults on Wednesday, February 23, 2022. This took place only moments before Moscow marched its soldiers into its neighbor's land, according to officials in Kyiv.

ESET, a cyber security firm, announced on Wednesday that malware capable of deleting data had been discovered on hundreds of machines in Ukraine, in a threat that appeared to be prepared at least two months earlier.

85

Previous Cyberattacks Carried out by Russia in Other Countries According to reports, Russian intelligence communities launched a series of denialof-service operations targeting other nations.

These were a part of their cyber-warfare against countries worldwide including the assaults on Estonia in 2007 and South Ossetia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan in 2008.

According to one anonymous young Russian hacker, he claimed that he was hired by Russian state intelligence agencies to spearhead hacking strikes against NATO servers. He was a student at the Department of Defense of Information, where he was studying computer science.

The Federal Security Service or FSB allegedly even paid for his education.

86

APR 2022

Russian government-backed hackers broke into the Ukrainian energy grid in 2015, causing massive disruptions. In 2017, Russia used Ukrainian accounting software to distribute the deadly NotPetya malware, which swiftly spread throughout the world, causing huge financial loss and unrest to businesses.

The US government blamed Russia in 2016 for breaching the Democratic National Committee, which resulted in the release of humiliating emails, and it may have influenced the results of that year's election.

Two years later, the US and its allies blamed Russia for the NotPetya assault, and the US intelligence indicated in early 2021 that Russia was most likely behind cyberattacks on the government and US companies.

This is not the first time that the Ukrainians have had to face the wrath of Russian cyber warfare.

Snake, or "Ouroboros," a Russian cyber weapon, was said to have wreaked havoc on Ukrainian government networks in March 2014. In 2010, the Snake toolkit began to infiltrate Ukrainian computer networks. Computer Network Exploitation (CNE) and very complex Computer Network Attacks were carried out (CNA).

If cyberattacks spread outside Ukraine in the near future, Putin may be forced to define the rules of contemporary warfare in this area.

Although cyber warfare between Russia and the West is likely, the intensity of such an eventuality may be somewhat constrained, say experts.

Are We About to Witness a Global Cyber Warfare in the Near Future?

The torrent of strikes has sparked worries of a larger digital confrontation, with Western countries on high alert for Russian cyber threats. We now believe that Russia might engage in more powerful cyber warfare against Ukraine, as well as other countries.

Although cyber warfare between Russia and the West is likely, the intensity of such an eventuality may be somewhat constrained, say experts.

Considering Russia's previous readiness to launch cyber-assaults with far-reaching, destructive implications, it would be a blunder to dismiss their cyber capabilities just on the basis of their lacklustre performance thus far. And proving the absence of cyber capabilities in a country's inventory is practically tough.

89

Russia-Ukraine War:

How It Affects The World's Economy

by Yash Modi

The ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine seems like the inception of another world war to many people. Russia and Ukraine are at war, and even though the tensions between the countries had existed for some time, they began to get out of hand in early 2021 when the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, urged Joe Biden to allow Ukraine to join NATO. In response, Russia began sending troops near its Ukrainian border for "training exercises" late last year.

Specifically, Russia demanded NATO provide a legally binding guarantee that no military operations will be conducted in eastern Europe or Ukraine.

90

APR 2022

The new conflict between Russia and Ukraine, which borders the European Union, has repercussions for the EU. Consequently, the EU, most of which are members of NATO, has announced sanctions against Russian entities in conjunction with the United States.

While primarily the war is between these two countries, the whole world is impacted in one way or another. Beyond human slaughter, global financial markets, oil markets, and currency markets are already experiencing varying degrees of disruption.

Let's talk about how the war is affecting the technology sector and global economy.

Beyond human slaughter, global financial markets, oil markets, and currency markets are already experiencing varying degrees of disruption.

91

92

APR 2022

www.techfastly.com

Microprocessor Supply Chain Disruption The global microprocessor shortage is wellknown and old news, but the conflict in Ukraine may cause additional disruptions and affect supply, putting even more pressure on tech and automakers. Ukraine is a significant supplier of raw materials in the semiconductor industry, such as semiconductor-grade Neon, which is used in microprocessors. Semiconductors have patterns on them, which are etched out with a laser. The substance that powers these lasers is neon gas produced by a lesser-known company called Cryoin in Odessa. Neon is an inert gas that exists in the atmosphere and is extracted from the air through fractional distillation of the liquid phase.

Cryoin supplies Neon to companies in Japan, Korea, and China, but most of its supplies are sent to the United States. As a result of the ongoing war, Cryoin's production of Neon and other gasses halted. So, a disruption in this supply could cause concern for an industry already dealing with the COVID-related chip shortage.

If many companies possess stockpiles of Neon, there is no immediate supply chain disruption.

However, the longer the war goes on, the more serious the problem becomes. A global crisis again reminds us of the dangers associated with too much reliance on a single market. To make matters worse, China is the world's secondlargest producer of Neon, exacerbating the problem due to recent US sanctions against the Chinese semiconductor chip industry. CNBC's online interview with Techcet's President and CEO, Lita Shon-Roy, reports that the growth of the automotive chip supply will continue to be highly restricted.

93

Affect on Global Software Engineer Outsourcing In recent years, Ukraine has become increasingly popular with IT outsourcing companies. Ukraine's IT sector has grown by 27% since 2017, with over 185,000 IT professionals employed in the country. Ukraine now offers a diverse range of market solutions for IT outsourcing. Individual programmers to small and medium-sized software development companies. Some companies employ hundreds of engineers, specialists, and quality assurance personnel. Most Ukrainian developers work in an ecosystem driven by technology, utilize cutting-edge solutions project management tools, and have years of experience.

A large talent pool of 116K–205K programmers exists here, but how good are these experts? In comparison, India has over 2.75 million software engineers, but the "bad coder" stereotype renders this figure meaningless.

Ukrainian programmers are ranked 8th in the world's top countries with the best programmers, compared with Indian programmers, who are ranked 34th.

Ukrainian programmers have an average score index of 91.26 percent. All countries in the 1–20 range are good places to outsource software development. The recent invasion of Ukraine by Russia includes cyberattacks and kinetic warfare. This war has the potential to disrupt global IT services and software development projects.

94

APR 2022

www.techfastly.com

95

SAP SE, a German software company, and Revolut Ltd., a financial technology firm, services marketplace Fiverr International Ltd., and website design platform Wix. com employ people from Ukraine. The Wall Street Journal reported that SAP had closed its Kyiv office and taken safety precautions to protect workers. Wix evacuated staff to Poland and Turkey.

Most of Fiverr's Ukraine-based employees have relocated to safe places outside Ukraine. However, it may still be difficult to protect some technology resources, such as code, designs, and documentation, in a conflict zone.

Grammarly's data has been moved out of the country and is now being stored in the United States. Others have purchased backup diesel generators, laptop computers, and internet access.

Businesses are moving employees from the main thrusts of the invasion to more remote areas of the country. Western tech companies have realized that without Ukraine, the global tech talent shortage will only worsen. Businesses will have to consider making a switch even if it is not convenient if the crisis continues or if Putin succeeds.

In order to stay online during the war, Ukrainian IT providers may have to overcome obstacles beyond their own infrastructure and personnel. According to Reuters, Internet connectivity is particularly poor in the country's southern and eastern regions because that is where the fighting has been the most intense.

96

APR 2022

Grammarly's data has been moved out of the country and is now being stored in the United States

www.techfastly.com

Over the week ending Thursday, Feb. 24, the price of bitcoins fell by more than 6%. Bitcoin was trading at $37,900 on that day, down from its initial price of $40,400.

Crypto/Web3 Sanctions in Russia and Digital Economy Web3 - What is it?

Web3 is a decentralized internet vision that aims to create an entirely new contracting system and revolutionize the way institutions and individuals reach agreements. Blockchains, Oracles, crypto wallets, smart contracts, storage networks and more are part of the Web3 architecture powered by decentralized technology. The decentralized and tamper-proof nature of blockchain networks is at the heart of cryptocurrencies, which are digital tokens. Web3 decentralized applications have their own currency, called Web3 tokens, which may be used to pay for services and participate in governance.

97

How is The Invasion Affecting Crypto?

During the days that led up to Russia's declaration of war on Ukraine, tensions and uncertainty caused cryptocurrency prices to drop like a stone. Over the week ending Thursday, Feb. 24, the price of bitcoins fell by more than 6%. Bitcoin was trading at $37,900 on that day, down from its initial price of $40,400.

Following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Western and Asian leaders have announced new sanctions against the country. On Friday, Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan, the European Union, and Japan all slapped new embargoes on Moscow, vehemently condemning the military aggression in Ukraine. Ukraine urged the West to expel Russia from SWIFT during the crisis, a high-security network that 98

APR 2022

connects 11,000 financial institutions in over 200 countries to speed up payments. The entire cryptocurrency market went red in the hours following Russia's "special military operation." Bitcoin, for example, fell by about $5,000 to just over $34,000 per month.

Altcoins were hit even harder, with doubledigit price drops. Things started to change after US President Joe Biden stated that the country had no intention of directly participating in the war.

Bitcoin quickly recovered all of its losses and is now trading near $40,000. As most altcoins went on the offensive, the total market cap increased by over $150 billion to over $1.7 trillion. www.techfastly.com

Cryptocurrency is a Double-edged Sword Although cryptocurrency is a great way to receive direct financial assistance, it is also a way to get around the monetary sanctions imposed on Russian oligarchs and the Russian government. A lot of attention has been paid to cryptocurrency since Russia invaded Ukraine for its potential to be used as a conduit for sanctioned Russians seeking a safe haven. Following Russia's invasion of Ukraine last week, a massive transnational effort aimed at cutting Moscow off from the global financial system was launched.

Apart from the conflict, Russia is also rumoured to have banned cryptocurrency or may have broadened its regulations.

Apart from the conflict, Russia is also rumoured to have banned cryptocurrency or may have broadened its regulations. Such steps would almost certainly pave the way for a future rouble-backed central bank digital currency (CBDC). However, it appears that such restrictions will not be implemented, as they are favoured by Russia's central bank rather than the government.

Meanwhile, Ukraine has recently taken steps to support cryptocurrency in the country. Even though cryptocurrencies are still unrecognized as legal tender in Ukraine, the government passed a bill to protect businesses from cryptocurrency fraud and abuse on February 18. Such positive developments may pave the way for greater crypto acceptance and turn things around for Ukraine's digital economy and web3 developers.

Conclusion The consequences of war are devastating, affecting all aspects of life, including social, economic, and environmental issues. While the most apparent effects of war are environmental destruction, property loss, and population, war has numerous other effects on people's lives. The impact of an ongoing war on the technology industry is often overlooked, but it is 2022, and civilization is entirely dependent on technology. More than anything, the major hit on the tech industry has terrible consequences. This war is affecting technology in many ways, and the world will take a long time to overcome that.

99

Techfastly enables leaders around the globe to dive deeper into technology insights, to drive results Simpler & Quicker

FOLLOW US

www.techfastly.com