says his meeting with the north korean leader, kim jong—un, could happen in the next three to four weeks. mr kim has promised to invite us experts to watch the closure of the country's nuclear test site next month — that's according to the south's presidential office. more than 30,000 people in the spanish city of pamplona have protested against the conviction of a group of men for sexual abuse rather than rape. it's been the third day of demonstrations. protesters say the verdict is too lenient, and sets a dangerous precedent for gang—rape cases. there have been more mass demonstrations against corruption in armenia, with the protest leader rallying support for his bid to become prime minister. the parliament is due to choose a new prime minister on tuesday. the ruling party says it won't nominate a candidate in an effort to ease tensions. now on bbc news, it's time for click. this week we are going cryptocurrency crazy. we'll see how to mine bitcoin in a warehouse of thousands

of machines, or in your kitchen, on your blender. welcome to iceland, one of the strangest places i've ever been. welcome to iceland, one of the strangest places i've ever been. it is ice—cold. and boiling hot. now, that does come with advantages. the volcanic activity that formed the island millions of years ago means it has access to very cheap geothermal electricity.

and all that cold air? that can be used as a free cooling system. so cheap electricity and cold air. in short, the perfect place to put a load of computers. oh wow. every single one of these is a home computer. that's all it is. that is a desktop computer. and there are thousands of them. these computers are working flat out. without a cooling system their processors would overheat in a matter of minutes. in the main area i would say the air temperature is about 20

degrees or so. but behind the ranks of computers it is much colder, probably about five. and that's not because you have expensive air chillers. remember we're in a cold climate. so all we have are holes in the external wall. the air comes in, all the dust and humidity is caught by these filters and then itjust washes over the computers and out through the giant fans in the room. so what is it that these computers are doing that warrants all this noise, this heat, and this power? well, they are creating or mining cryptocurrency. yep, cryptocurrency, the new family of virtual currencies that its enthusiasts say it will replace pounds, euros, and dollars, and all the traditional currencies in the coming years. that claim is, however, still a very live debate, with cryptocurrencies like bitcoin, ethereum, and ripple fluctuating wildly in their exchange rates. the more mining computers you own, the more money you make.

and that incentive has led to massive hoards of machines like this one popping up all around the world. mining is cheaper if you don't have to pay for the cooling, but it's cheaper still if you don't have to pay for the computers you use at all. a factor that has led criminal is to think of new ways to try to make a quick crypto buck. here's dan simmons. it's a crime that's fast becoming the hackers‘ favourite. and the impact often goes unseen. this house looks like your computer after it's been hijacked. everything may look fine from the outside, but inside resources have been ransacked. to add insult to injury,

your electricity bill is about to go up, as you pay to power a machine that's now working hard for the criminals. a friend of mine got in touch with me on the sunday morning and said i havejust been to the information commissioner's office website, where the ico, here in the uk, our data protection body at the government, and he said my anti—virus program has thrown up this warning on the screen, he said it's a government website, can it have a virus on it? so what we discovered was, originally the ico website was running a cryptominer. so your browser would be hijacked to mine cryptocurrencies for the hackers. after some investigation, what we found was that a third—party supplier that provides them with software had been breached and they had included the cryptominer in that. a third—party app used by the ico and thousands of other websites had been compromised. the malware told visitors‘ computers to start mining cryptocurrencies for the bad guys. and you can see before my system is doing one or two different things

and now the miner is running, the miner is taking 100% of my cpu on this device and using it to mine cryptocurrencies. you can configure a cryptominer in how much power it will use. if you are greedy it will take 100%, then the computer or phone or tablet will slow down and you will notice that when you try to do things it is not responsive, it hangs. what they have done in this case is they configured it to use up to 60% of the power of the device. so it will use a lot of it. so the average user may never have known it was there and it was running. scott showed me how they could have stolen visitors‘ data. so why didn‘t they? what i‘ve set up here is something the attackers could have done. i‘ve given myself the same level of access they did. the information commissioner‘s office website has a name and password field.

if you go ahead and type something into that field, and already, if you look at the information being sent to my device here... oh my god. it‘s coming up on there straightaway. as you time, that is sent in real—time to me. and the attackers in this instance could have done this? absolutely. theyjust chose not to. why? easy money. attackers will take the low hanging fruit. they put the cryptominer into this website and they just walk away. the ico told us no personal data was compromised. third—party applications were swiftly reviewed and their systems patched. they are also exploring new ways of protecting their systems. security firms are reporting hackers making millions of dollars. it‘s called cryptojacking. it‘s on the rise. and the gangs that do it aren‘t only eyeing up a lambo. tesla is one of the highest profile victims. redlock called them

to say their cloud server, provided by amazon web services, had been compromised. the attacker obviously was doing cryptomining, what we found out was the server was also exposing the other secrets to the tesla environment. these secrets had access to some engineering test cars and other data. the crims didn‘t want secrets, they wanted resources. and now most things are connected to the net there could be some targets you have not thought of. this viewer‘s smart tv is not quite clever enough to stop they cryptominer who has put its processors into top gear. just look at the heat signature from the tv fire stick that isn‘t infected, to one that is. the cyber criminals can get onto any other device in your household, for example, into a microwave or even

into a smart blender if it‘s smart enough. itjust depends on the intentions of cyber criminals and how good the device is for mining. thankfully, at the moment, our connected kitchens don‘t quite have the processor power the hackers are looking for. i know what you‘re thinking. forget the criminals, is it worth us orchestrating our own devices to start cryptomining to increase our own bank accounts or or is itjust not worth the effort? while even your mobile can mine for cryptocurrencies, if you want to make more than a few pennies you want to buy one of these miners with processors specifically designed for thejob. so how do the maths add up? we have one of the latest cryptominers. that is not the only cost in this business. we have to pay for the electricity to run it 21w. which in a typical us city might cost us about $200 per month.

so how fast can it mine cryptocurrency? well, that partly depends on how many peoplejoin in the game. the more total computing power doing this, the lower our return will be. recent estimates suggest about one bitcoin a year. so, it all boils down to how much a cryptocoin is worth. look at the bitcoin rate back in december and now in april that price has tumbled. and our costs are rising. some reports suggest you would find it difficult to make a profit inside of a year. unless, of course, you‘re using someone else‘s kit. hello and welcome to the week in tech. it was so week that whatsapp

raised its minimum age for users from 13 to 16 in the eu, facebook asked for permission to fly experimental drones over new mexico, and elon musk casually mentioned he is building a cyborg dragon, via twitter. it was also the week that samsung released six new tv shows filmed exclusively in virtual reality. they include robots, a comedy about two british robots joining a futuristic new york police department. researchers at nvidia demonstrated a new way to reconstruct photographs using deep learning algorithms. this software predicts what a damaged photo should look like and fix corrupted pixels. robots are taking over morejobs this week. pepper the robot started a prestigious post at

the smithsonian in washington. and a robot helping patients rehabilitate by playing a game of tic—tac—toe with cups came to life in israel. and finally, we heard evil artificial intelligence could start a nuclear war by the year 2040, this is according to a report from the rand corporation think tank. it says advances in al could challenge the basic rules of nuclear deterrence and result in catastrophic miscalculations. 0n the flipside, it says with the right amount of global cooperation ai could actually make us safer. phew. as the parent of a five—year—old, i can tell you that i don‘t want to see my daughter glued to a smartphone or obsessed with using a tablet, but at the same time, our children do need to learn how to engage with technology. so it‘s no surprise that a lot of devices that aim to combine coding and creativity have become popular.

today i am going to be testing some of the latest. but seeing as i am a little too old for school i have some helpers. is everybody ready? yes! here at dallow primary school, these year 3 students seem to be engrossed in the experience. over here we‘ve got the kano pixel kit being tested. after a bit of coding takes place, there are lots of flashing lights. after connecting the app kids can get coding, creating light shows or games, even using the weather data or their own voices to trigger changes. the kids love the bright lights, but i do wonder how many times they‘d need to use it before the novelty wore off. it gives you more understanding of what coding it really is. and when you‘re older you can become an inventor. 0r anything that has coding. it would help you. over here we have something

that is actually called an inventor kit. how exciting is that? what are you up to here? we press this and then we pressed edit so we can change the picture. we can actually change the picture and how it looks. this magnetic electronic building system challenges the kids to create reactions triggered by sensors. here, one second after moving the gyroscope, a buzzer will go off. there are advanced functions are allowing smart home integration. and the invention guides to get updated, so provide a variety of things to do. the set is also compatible with lego bricks. it‘s encouraging our brains to get a bit better. to create things. i have no idea what they are going to invent next but i will leave them to it. over here we have a codeable drone.

how are you getting on? good. it will raise up and then it will turn and go through. then it will turn red. then it will do a shape. then it will rise again. then it is going to go clockwise. it is a good job you don‘t have them all that. it is quite complicated. you have set up a sequence of movements. once we get some space, we will go outside the classroom to do this. here we‘ve got the stemosaur, which is a codeable dinosaur. the kids had a great time constructing it. but it needed home wi—fi to be tested properly. leaving them somewhat disappointed. 0nce but, as a coding panel to program it, it can tell stories, dojokes, do maths, and more. testing it at home, initially it was pretty intuitive, but much like a conversation with alexa or google home, it doesn‘t always grasp what you are talking about. can you help me meditate? i am not sure i understand. the company says it collects information to better the questions

and answers in future, but this is totally anonymous. once it has been usefully used it will be deleted with only the statistical analysis living on. all of the bits of technology do enable children to work on those programming and coding skills and problem solving as well at the same time. ok, so, some space. let‘s give it a go! 0h! that was lara, and now we go back to crypto currency and the iceland, where i‘ve been getting the low down on the economics of running a giant crypto currency mining warehouse. wow!

yes, cheap power is important for crypto miners. but they are not always welcome. last month in northern new york, plattsburg became the first us town to ban bitcoin mining. this isn‘t because we‘re luddites, it isn‘t because we‘re afraid of crypto currency, it is because we recognise we have a fixed resource. plattsburg has provided unusually discounted electricity — about a fifth of the price of other american towns — and that‘s thanks to a fixed allocation of power from the niagara hydro power plant. but the surge in usage from mines has meant prices skyrocketing, hiking up bills for residents. so the local government has imposed an 18—month moratorium, preventing new commercial crypto mines from setting up shop. we were finding that the bitcoin and cryptocurrency users were coming and demanding so much of our power that it was forcing us to have

to buy very expensive power and it had a really detrimental effect on our ratepayers. they used such an immense amount of power — one operator alone uses 10% of the entire quota. mayor read expects other new york towns to follow suit. but crypto mining isn‘t always just the selfish pursuit of wealth, as marc cieslak has been finding out. the war in syria has raged for seven years. it‘s estimated that 470,000 people have died in the conflict. so the needs are huge. there are about 8 million kids that require our attention and that urgent help. 5 million of them are still stuck in syria. the effect of the war on the civilian population has been devastating.

there are besieged places, there are hard to reach places, so we are trying our best to reach the children that are most vulnerable. various aid agencies are trying to combat the refugee crisis caused by the war. unicef estimates that syrian aid will cost $3.5 billion in 2018. with such vast sums of money required, fundraising efforts have gone into overdrive. the latest initiative plans to pay for aid using the cryptocurrency ethereum. unicef in france is responsible for this unusual form of fundraising. called game chaingers, the project is the brainchild of france‘s largest advertising agency, betc. my mother used to say "money don‘t grow on trees" but she was wrong because you can do money with nothing. it‘s just electricity and a graphic

card, which is very new, a new way to donate. the plan is to use blockchain technology to mine cryptocurrency using gamers‘ computers. some of the most hardcore gaming computers belong to those who play games for a living — esports competitors. professional gamers. but theirfundraising efforts aren‘t taking place at flashy gaming events. so it‘s been necessary to enlist the help of people who have just the right equipment, which is why i have come to this quiet parisian suburb because this house here is the unlikely location of a crypto currency mine. this is the training camp for one of france‘s most successful professional gaming teams called gamers0rigin. they play the game league of legends. our training is like five

hours a day usually. sometimes we have days off and etc, but we need to play at least five hours and after, we have our free time. after installing a bit of mining software, these computers‘ powerful gpus, or graphics processing units, can begin mining the cryptocurrency. so basically, we can raise money just by having our pcs on for, yeah, the majority of the time. and it‘s when these gamers aren‘t playing games that their machines get to work mining, which means their computers need to be switched on pretty much all of the time. so we just do it when we don‘t use the computer basically, like when we eat, when we can sleep and stuff, we just use it, we make the software on and yeah, when we play, obviously we don‘t use it. but some experts question the use of this technology forfundraising purposes. it‘s innovative in that it catches into the sort of bitcoin rise and bubble hype, where everyone is saying bitcoin, blockchain, cryptocurrency, and it gets

some attention for that. the cause is excellent. um, the cause should thoroughly be supported. but the method of raising money is just really bad! like, firstly, mining cryptocurrency, this means using cryptocurrency that uses the proof of work method which is literally wasting money to calculate numbers and they throw numbers at the system until they win some coins. it‘s wasteful by design. it also burns out the video card, so it produces a huge pile of e—waste as well. i mean, it‘s a good cause, everyone should just go to the site with their credit card, give them some money. researchers at unicef think they might have other uses for blockchain technology beyond fundraising, though. it‘s estimated that 30% of aid to war zones doesn‘t reach its intended destination, lost to corruption in the regions. can blockchain technology be used

to help in terms of corruption? because there is a lot of corruption around the distribution of aid in quite a few war—torn countries. well, everything you do in the blockchain is public, so it‘s like really, really transparent. it‘s virtual, so people don‘t have to carry cash on themselves in countries where the security is sometimes very difficult. uh, imagine that the transaction would be, like, very clear, uh, from the onset, you see very well who receives what at what moment which avoids the risk of duplicating the transfers which happens from time to time, etc, etc. the game chaingers project ended on march 3! and generated 84 ethereum. unicef cashed these in, raising 26,378 euros, which will go towards providing aid for syria. its creators say this isjust the beginning — a beta test of the technology before they try using it for different aid—related purposes. hello there.

yesterday we had a lot of cloud in the sky across much of england, thick enough to bring some rain as well. further north—west, showers developed through the day, but that cloud has been melting away as well. some passing showers in scotland, but a fine looking sunset here in 0ban. as the skies have cleared more over recent hours we have more pictures of the full moon being sent to us, spectacular shots from people out and about under those clear skies. clear skies, yes, but a chilly start to the day. for the early risers, frost patches to look out for in the rural areas of scotland. not quite so cold further south under this zone of thick cloud. most areas of cloud could be thick enough to give us a few spots of light rain on and off through the day. the best of the early morning sunshine again through western areas, but slow—moving showers will form again, particularly in northern ireland. later in the day we will see a band of rain moving in from the continent,

bringing some wet weather to end the day across south—east england, with strengthening winds here making it feel particularly chilly. that wet weather will continue to extend across south—east england and east anglia as we go on through sunday night. 0n into monday. we are going to get this area of low pressure moving up from the near continent. the rain gets more extensive and the winds get colder and stronger. this is what is in the forecast on monday. heavy rain, a windy day with gales around the east coast, and it‘s going to feel cold, more like a february day than one in late april. so the wet weather is there. a bit of uncertainty as to how far west this band of rain will reach. there is the chance of seeing a few snowflakes mixed in with this and some sleet, mostly on high ground, above 200 metres of elevation. even that won‘t settle. it‘s mostly cold rain that will be falling, with those chilly winds. temperatures really struggling. highs in birmingham, five celsius. it is going to feel that cold. 0n into tuesday, that area of low

pressure continues to feed cloud and bits of pieces of rain across eastern areas. another weather front moving in from the atlantic, bringing wet weather to northern ireland later in the day. in between these two systems the weather should be quite quiet on tuesday with some sunshine around. chilly where it is cloudy with the rain moving in, and in the best of the sunshine, temperatures climbing at least up into double figures fairly widely. looking at the outlook over the next few days and the week ahead, you will be pleased to hear once we have got rid of that chilly weather and the rain to start the week, the weather should improve. highs of 19 in london as we head towards next weekend. this is bbc news. i‘m nkem ifejika. our top stories: signs of major progress: north korea says it will close its atomic test site and allow american inspectors to see its dismantlement.

president trump confirms negotiations to set up his meeting with kim jong—un are under way, the talks could take place in may. we are doing things that are good. we are doing things that are good. we will have a meeting in the next three orfour weeks. i think it we will have a meeting in the next three or four weeks. i think it will bea three or four weeks. i think it will be a good meeting. the denuclearisation of the korean peninsula, of north korea, to denuke. denuke! tens of thousands return to the streets in spain after a court acquits five men of raping a teenager, convicting them of sexual abuse instead. more mass demonstrations in armenia.