Tag Archives: Wall Street Journal

September 27, 2015 · 00:26

What news is news?

There are several pieces, not just in the Guardian, the BBC, the Independent or the Times. They all tell us that they have news, but do they have any actual news? The Guardian shows us a tech article (in the Tech section) called: ‘the node pole: inside Facebook’s Swedish hub near the Arctic Circle‘, all innocent news, one could surmise that it is just a space filler. Or was it done to give extra view to the article ‘Facebook is making more and more money from you. Should you be paid for it?‘, or perhaps to give extra light to ‘Facebook case may force European firms to change data storage practices‘, which I gave my views on in my previous blog. You decide!

In the business section we see VW to get some centre stage, which makes perfect sense and that is just the Guardian. The independent also has a go at Facebook, but now has a go at its users, well, actually it is not the Independent, but the employee tribunal. Now the article shows all kind of signs of bullying, which is never OK and in that regard Rachael Roberts has a real case, but in light of the events, Mrs Bird does not seem to be a friend of Mrs Roberts, so why is the act of unfriending on Facebook the killer? Yet it is the quote “But employment lawyer Josh Bornstein told ABC news the unfriending incident was found to be workplace bullying in the context of several other issues“, which baffles me, if they are not friends, one or the other could unfriend the other party, that part seems clear cut to me, not bullying. So out of the 18 allegations of bullying in total, the unfriending in Facebook took the cake? It does not add up to me!

In addition we see two whole articles on Facebook being down and oh yes, the new iPhone is for sale! Let’s not forget the fact that the iPhone now allows for sextracking. So, parents buy your boy or girl on of these bad boys so you can find new ways on how you are about to become a grandparent! Really? You need to keep scores on your phone now? Didn’t Ashley Maddison teach you anything regarding sex that is on the internet, everyone will know soon thereafter?

Finally they also gave visibility to ‘Hospital apologises for removing RAF sergeant from A&E because uniform could ‘upset’ patients‘, which is a can of worms in its own right. In that light I expect the NHS to move all drug and binge drink casualties to their basement as not to invoke bad thoughts from the Presbyterian community. How insane was the idea to move a wounded RAF sergeant in the first place!

All these events, some are actually news, but no one seems to have any balls. No one is looking at Pricewaterhouse Coopers. Which of course ties in nicely with the words of the Dalai Lama ‘Dalai Lama on Britain’s policy towards China: ‘Where is morality?’’, the answer might not be such a high moral one, it goes a little like “Who is willing to suck the smallest extremity for the good of one’s career?”

To some extent we can accept that the SFO is silent, only to the smallest extent. You see Tesco is dealing with a write-off of £6.4bn, which of course is massive. We have seen all the news on how some former Tesco entities are getting grilled (as they should) but the press on many levels in many nations keep on rehashing the old news and no one is digging into PwC. No one is digging there. Does that not sound awfully weird? Yet here is the kicker, we see more and more messages like ‘Multinational tax avoiders targeted’, with quotes like “while the American Chamber of Commerce in Australia warned about throwing up new hurdles in what is already a high-cost economy. The chamber’s board includes representatives from ConocoPhillips, GE, Boeing, PwC and Exxon Mobile“, yes it seems it is never a good time to go after tax avoiders (not to mention the impact it has on the bonus benefits for those working in that part of the financial branch).

Before you whisk this away as mere banter (which you are of course allowed to do), take a look at this article that is a little over a week old. It is from the Wall Street Journal, which I do not look into too often. The article (at http://blogs.wsj.com/cio/2015/09/15/the-morning-download-identity-theft-key-to-attack-on-cisco-routers/) called ‘The Morning Download: Identity Theft Key to Attack on Cisco Routers‘, starts with: “Good morning. The international attacks on Cisco Systems Inc. routers, disclosed earlier today by security firm FireEye Inc.’s Mandiant unit, began with the theft of legitimate network credentials. Securing and managing the identity of network users continues to be a massive challenge for CIOs and CISOs and ultimately, the CEO and the board. The attacks have been named ‘SYNful’ because of how the malicious software moves across routers using their syndication functions “Cisco said SYNful did not take advantage of any vulnerability in its own software. Instead it stole valid network administration credentials from organizations targeted in the attacks or by gaining physical access to their routers,” Reuters reports today. Mandiant said in a blog post that it had found 14 instances of router implants, which replace Cisco’s operating system”

Now, to complement that statement, I will add the following. On June 5^th (more than 3 months before the WSJ article), I wrote ‘In reference to the router‘ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2015/06/05/in-reference-to-the-router/) , here I stated: “Soon thereafter no more firewall, no more routers, just the bliss of cloud servers and data, so much data!“, which reflected on the article I wrote on February 8^th (more than 7 months before the WSJ), there I wrote “I think that ‘hackers’ have created a new level (as I mentioned before). I think that Cisco IOS was invisibly patched“, (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2015/02/08/the-next-cyber-wave/). I was literally accused by some to be insane, there was no way that this would EVER happen. Now we see in the Wall Street Journal: “Mandiant said in a blog post that it had found 14 instances of router implants, which replace Cisco’s operating system“, interesting how I am now proven correct. Are the members of the Baboon family (usually found in the FBI) reconsidering their North-Korean option? Let’s face it, this took top level skills, we can (as I pointed out in the past) find those boffins in the US, UK, FR, the FSB and Chinese Intelligence, however in North Korea not that much!

The Reuters article shows a lot more (at http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/09/16/us-cybersecurity-routers-cisco-systems-idUSKCN0RF0N420150916), however, they are just rehashing something I stated for almost a year, the quote ““That feat is only able to be obtained by a handful of nation-state actors,” DeWalt said, while declining to name which countries he suspected might be behind the Cisco router attacks” adds to my view that I was correct all along (finally another ‘I told you so!’ opportunity). The only difference is, is that DeWalt includes Israel, I have no real quality data on the Israeli cyber capabilities, so I am willing to give him that one. Finally we should consider the quote “Infected hardware devices include Cisco routers 1841, 2811 and 3825“, which is fair enough, yet in my article I offer the option that the CF unit found in nearly EVERY router could also open doors, so the danger could in theory go far beyond those three routers.

I also stated that my thoughts were based on sound speculation. You might wonder what sound speculation is. Basically, it means that even as I might not have them skills to program, I do understand that my solution is viable, the fact that routers are getting programmed with a new OS is clear evidence of that. In addition, it also gives weight to two infestation systems I speculated on as well as the weakness that those believing in the cloud are not realising at present. I was willing to look beyond the veil, a side everyone ignored. Yet when a router can be reprogrammed to the extent it was, also clearly means that data in motion is no longer safe, which means that pretty much any cloud data can be gotten too, the user only has to access the file to make that happen.

I even had a thought on dealing with the Iranian glow in the dark power plants when the time is there, just by thinking out of the box. It does involve a Piranha valve (which actually already exists in name, but mine is so much cooler). None of this is newsworthy, speculative opinion one might state. Yet in my speculation, I have shown solutions to be real in several occasions and in addition to that I also clearly outlined long before the press decided to show the minimalistic amount of balls (read testicles), that a look into Pricewaterhouse Coopers was adamant. It seems that apart from a December 2014 message from the SFO (rehashed by nearly all papers) not much happened, apart from that news, the press at large stayed clear of mentioning PwC and Tesco in one sentence. Is that not utterly weird?

Of course the luggage of someone’s mum in Tenerife (shipping at £122) gets front seat exposure, yet, the issue on £6.4bn getting lost due to assistance (better stated too weak opposition) by Pricewaterhouse Coopers seems too trivial to keep pressure on. Way to go Consumer Champions, Money! I actually mean that! They did do a good job and they have done so in the past, yet I fear that a letter by Dave Lewis on how his firm lost £6.4bn as the keeper of his books was not prudent, or is that tenacious enough to ring that bell very loudly when things looked too odd. Will Consumer Champions find that money? Will they write “Pricewaterhouse Coopers must accept responsibility for the signing off on books as the “accountant”?” Consumer Champions might not get this done, which is fair enough. It should not be on their plate, but the parties this should be very visible on are also not doing anything as far as we can tell, they remain silent, they remain this silent after 9 months.

Yet in all this there is one part both the Guardian and the Independent are getting right. It is the news on the NHS, there are massive problems and knowing them all is essential in finding a solution. In this matter the press has played a good role. In my view exposing former and current politicians a little more on the political game they play, so that we all understand that a proper solution is needed and taking the politicians out of that equation might not be the worst idea, the end result stays the same, the NHS is now too close on the edge of collapse to be acceptable, yet where lies the solution? Although I understand the issue the Independent shows, I partially disagree. The headline ‘New NHS junior doctor contract would discriminate against women, senior medics warn‘ is not incorrect (at http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/new-nhs-junior-doctor-contract-would-discriminate-against-women-senior-medics-warn-10516885.html), yet in all fairness, the quote “Under the new contract, trainees who decide to work part-time would see their pay increase more slowly than their colleagues” is a can of worms! Why would my co-worker doing 32 hours get the same raise as myself working 60 hours? (Remember, I am not a doctor). A choice was made! Yet, there is a level of fairness here too. Which means that to tackle it should be done in another way. Even as there is a shortage, the burnout of physicians is a known issue and making a maximum of 40 hours a week a mandatory status could be close to the only solution. Perhaps we have been too indulged, perhaps some options should only be there during the week. Perhaps the change to healthcare is essential (like hiring 40% more staff), but we also accept that at current not one government remains to afford that change (well perhaps Easter Island where there are less than 10 doctors). In the end the system has been ignored for too long. Too many politicians are on the ‘let’s get the computers up and running‘ whilst they know that staff will remains a problem for a long time.

That is news! That is what matters, but too many papers and too many news broadcasts are about the emotions and not the actual news that matters. That might be an incorrect view and a very biased view. It might be that some news is more important than other news parts, I will instantly agree, yet in all that the complete silence from pretty much all the papers regarding Tesco and some involved book keeping parties remains a mystery to me, how is that part not news? We will see more events that will not get the proper light in newspapers, both in paper as well as online, I’ll let you decide how that measurement applies to an involved party to events that started a £6.4bn downgrade.

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Tagged as ABC, Ashley Maddison, Boeing, China, Chinese Intelligence, Cisco Routers, Cisco Systems Inc, ConocoPhillips, Dalai Lama, Dave DeWalt, Exxon Mobile, Facebook, FBI, FireEye Inc, FR, GE, Iran, Josh Bornstein, Mandiant, NHS, North-Korea, Piranha valve, Pricewaterhouse Coopers, PwC, reuters, SYNful, Tesco, the FSB, the Guardian, The Independent, The Morning Download, UK, US, Wall Street Journal, WSJ

September 24, 2015 · 22:06

Imperitos idiot

This is a view I have had for a while, it is a view that I have advocated on more than one situation, yet business remains silent, deaf and as they hide in ignorance they are limiting the options they have, in the future and in an acted decimation of one’s own future. The information in the Guardian (at http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/sep/23/us-intelligence-services-surveillance-privacy) shows a title ‘Facebook case may force European firms to change data storage practices‘ that questions certain elements. The quote “a court accused America’s intelligence services of conducting “mass, indiscriminate surveillance”” in the first paragraph is the act of alerting, but is that all?

The Case C‑362/14 Maximillian Schrems v Data Protection Commissioner is the calling entity here. A request for a preliminary ruling.

Let’s take a look at the elements. We see at [25] Mr Schrems lodged a complaint with the Commissioner on 25 June 2013, claiming, in essence, that the law and practices of the United States offer no real protection of the data kept in the United States against State surveillance. That was said to follow from the revelations made by Edward Snowden from May 2013 concerning the activities of the United States intelligence services, in particular those of the National Security Agency (‘the NSA’).

[35] Nevertheless, according to the High Court, the revelations made by Edward Snowden demonstrated a significant over-reach on the part of the NSA and other similar agencies. While the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (‘the FISC’), which operates under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, (18) exercises supervisory jurisdiction, proceedings before that court take place in secret and are ex parte. In addition, apart from the fact that decisions relating to access to personal data are taken on the basis of United States law, citizens of the Union have no effective right to be heard on the question of the surveillance and interception of their data.

This all goes back to ‘the revelations made by Edward Snowden‘. I have forever had issues with the ‘revelations’, too many holes, too many issues that from an IT perspective are a given no no. In addition, it assumes a level of ‘openness’ within the alphabet group that does not exist. Such openness has never existed, yet the press and many others have been very willing to blindly accept the events of Edwards Snowden, yet the data was never made bare, the data is filtered and was largely ‘stamped’ as complex, as too dangerous. Yet proper analyses of the data was never made by any person that could be regarded as trustworthy. For now, to underline what comes, I will give you this quote “An intelligence operation is the process by which governments, military groups, businesses, and other organizations systematically collect and evaluate information for the purpose of discovering the capabilities and intentions of their rivals. With such information, or intelligence, an organization can both protect itself from its adversaries and exploit its adversaries’ weaknesses“, the source is not important right now, the impact will be discussed, yet before I do this I want to continue the other elements I started.

Now consider [224] where we see “In addition, the Commission expressly acknowledged at the hearing that, under Decision 2000/520, as currently applied, there is no guarantee that the right of citizens of the Union to protection of their data will be ensured. However, in the Commission’s submission, that finding is not such as to render that decision invalid. While the Commission agrees with the statement that it must act when faced with new circumstances, it maintains that it has taken appropriate and proportionate measures by entering into negotiations with the United States in order to reform the safe harbour scheme“.

Now consider the following thought by transforming the quote: ‘there is no guarantee that the right of citizens of the Union to protection of their data will be ensured‘ into ‘it will be certain that the right of citizens of the Union to protection of their data will be unsuccessful‘. The issue is that moving data will open up a massive amount of dangers, data instabilities and data security hazards. Too many players within the EEC and other places all want their fingers on the data so that they can get a foothold of power. It is THAT simple in my opinion!

All these nations wanting access to data, setting up corporations, all trying to make a quick buck whilst during political manipulating, the security of our data will be available to anyone offering 39 pieces of silver. Before you start listening to people with nice PowerPoint presentations and long winded explanations with considerable non liability asterisks on how this is so not possible consider the following events (at http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/worlds-biggest-data-breaches-hacks/). Ashley Maddison might be the most sensual one, but also the most embarrassing. In that same light we can see 145 million records of EBay, Sony, Heartland with 130 million and that list goes on for a long time. So the last thing I want to see is our data in the hands of some ‘seemingly’ ignorant individual, whilst completely unexpectedly and totally against ‘protocol’ the data will make it into the hands of third parties. Now I go back to that other quote, which I will paraphrase: “An intelligence operation is the process by which businesses systematically collect and evaluate information for the purpose of discovering the capabilities and intentions of their rivals and exploit the weakness of its adversaries“. This is what I foresee. This is why the crying over the NSA, whilst handing over health data to parties too unprepared to properly protect that data is more than just a big farce. Now we need to look at two sources. The first is the Guardian on the 28th February 2014 (at http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/feb/28/nhs-data-will-not-be-sold-insurance-companies-jeremy-hunt), which gives us “Health secretary to provide assurance that confidential information will not be used for commercial insurance“, now Wired three days before that reported (at http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-02/25/insurance-companies-buy-medical-records) “Details relating to hospital admissions from 1989 to 2010 were given (for an extraction fee) to the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries. The 13 years of data covering 47 million patients were given to the professional body to help them ‘improve accuracy in pricing’ of insurance“, yet all insurance is commercial, so as data goes, it is out there and too many players want a slice of that pie. Forcing more personal data into any open direction is beyond dangerous. That part can be constructed from http://www.wsj.com/articles/more-health-care-insurers-seek-big-premium-increases-1433206078. “Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois is looking to raise rates by averages of 29% or more. In Pennsylvania, Highmark Health Insurance Co. is asking for 30%, according to proposals submitted by insurers for the year ahead. Around the country, some of the main market leaders are looking for double digit increases“. What do you think in all honesty will happen when they get the option to make healthcare unaffordable to all or unaffordable to some. Data will become the compromise and that danger is a lot larger when it is in the hands of ‘other’ third parties whilst the law is unable to deal with the issues at hand. The US has some strict rules in place that barring national security cannot be broken. Now we see a push towards fields where these levels of security do not stringently exist. What do you expect will happen? And healthcare is not the biggest slice of it all, just the most visible one.

In all this there are issues on both sides, yet at the core the pushed fear for governmental access is a fake and an illusionary one and it is shouted the loudest by people who have a little too much to hide. Hiding for the sake of their ego, their acts and/or the need for continue or renewed satisfaction of greed. Yes, I agree that my view is polarised to some extent, I agree that my view has flaws, but I approach it from a clinical side, whilst the others are all hiding through the shouting and claims set behind the emotions, the push to fear.

In all this I have yet to see the cold light of evidence that the alphabet group is disserving the people. The link to movies and conspiracy theories, nearly all of those claimants with their own agenda, sometimes badly hidden. Yet, in that light, is my view not too conspiracy theory set? I ask that of myself too, because without that consideration it is just a viewpoint. It will remain a viewpoint no matter what, yet consider that when you seek ‘NSA transgressions’ you find very little acceptable news events, with this I mean events that are of a decent level of report. When we look at data transgressions from other parties, that list is growing at an almost exponential rate and the size of the transgressions seems to be increasing, shifting data all over the place is not my first idea of safety.

Is it your choice?

When you decide and it goes wrong, you only have yourself to blame and as I see it, you lose all rights to complain when (not if) it goes wrong.

The next iteration of our lifestyles that what happens over the next 2 generations will all be about data and who has control over it and who gets access to it, which is not freedom.

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Tagged as Blue Cross of Illinois, Blue Shield of Illinois, EBay, Edward Snowden, EEC, Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, Heartland, Highmark Health Insurance Co, Institute and Faculty of Actuaries, Jeremy Hunt, Maximillian Schrems, Maximillian Schrems v Data Protection Commissioner, NSA, Sony, the Guardian, Wall Street Journal, Wired

August 5, 2015 · 23:46

Fine, Finer, Fined

My mother always told me (when I was young) that I was allowed to swear, as long as I did it grammatically correct. Little did I know that mommy made me paint myself into a corner! Ah well, the innocence of youth!

So when the board of directors of the Royal Bank of Scotland learned their usage of adjectives, comparatives and superlative was only correct in theory. First the bank was doing fine, then its position was much finer, only to get fined in the end. Did they realise that the year 10 student in the corner, the one who did not get it, was the one person making an accurate prediction? I’ll bet you tuppence that they never realised that Mr Dunsel was an actual fortune teller.

So, why am I going in this direction?

Well, consider the article ‘RBS share sale explainer: why has Osborne started selling taxpayer’s stake at a loss?‘ (at http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/rbs-share-sale-explainer-why-has-osborne-started-selling-the-taxpayers-stake-at-a-loss-10437095.html), whilst we heard that the taxpayer lost another billion, due to, I reckon you know what comes after this uncomfortable break: “RBS shares are still trading 33 per cent lower than the Labour government paid for them, which means selling them has incurred a loss for the government of around £1 billion on the first sale of 600m shares“.

As the Guardian reported last week that ‘RBS expects further fines with no let-up from regulators‘ (at http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/jul/30/royal-bank-of-scotland-expects-further-fines-dividend-delay), we see that not only is the selling of shares costing the taxpayers a billion, the £1.3bn of charges to cover fines and compensation payouts seem to sting a little more than we bargained for. A few of the reasons why the buyback of shares will not happen until 2017, with a decent chance that more hardship will be burdened upon them payers of taxation. So when I see a quote from Sir Philip Hampton stating “The industry as a whole has got a poor track record in predicting these [provisions]. We’ve consistently under-called them”. Can anyone explain to me why the people at RBS are allowed to nag? Consider the quote “the long list of mistakes from the past continued to catch up with the bank” and compare it to the BBC article (at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8392147.stm), which was from 2009 which gave us ‘RBS board could quit if government limits staff bonuses‘ with the quote “they say they have to remain competitive in the market in recruiting senior executives“, which is nice when it deals with the bonuses that go into the millions, but when we see that it is linked to years of inadequacy, mistakes, fines and prosecutions, we need to tailor a solution where some of these bankers need to be barred for life from entering the financial sector. So when we learned in February 2014 that ‘RBS pays out £588m in bonuses despite suffering £8.24bn loss‘, we need to ask a few really serious questions, now that the shares are sold at a massive loss and the total sale could result in total loss of £15bn. I feel certain that I could do a better job, whilst not having any economic degree.

So as a large portion of the UK is in a state of hardship, the failing RBS constituency still makes over half a billion in bonuses. The aftertaste is far beyond bitter, so why get back to all these matters, which in some case is a repetition of events that had passed?

In the first, as I see it, these board members failed, the value of the company is down and as such, in sight of “We’ve consistently under-called them“, they are not due any bonuses until December 2016 and only if the value of the bank is back on par with the share value at which the government bought them. In addition, the news ‘Hedge funds make quick buck after getting wind of RBS stake sale’ from the Financial Times only adds to the bitterness of the taste of shares with pepper and salt. In my view another reason why the bonus of board members and RBS bankers should be set to £0. In addition, as Sir Philip has been around since 2009, whilst getting a not too uncomfortable £750,000. The need for not letting up on allowing the bankers any extras should be considered. So if they would like to retry their bluff of December 2009, where they stated “threatening to resign“, let them. Why does the RBS have any need for employees “consistently under-called them“, whilst at the same time fines for ‘rigging’ are banging the corporate coffers of the RBS, leading to damages that total into billions.

So when did you have a job where the company needs 45 billion from the taxpayer, they have not returned into a state of grace and they still get a 7 figure Christmas present? I never had a job like that. To change my luck, could Sir Philip kindly give me one? I need £8m over the next 3 years (for reasons of retirement). I am willing to do anything legal, including working my bud off to return the RBS to profit. From my point of view, I offer something more than the RBS board ever delivered (well, since 2009), so we can agree that my value is better than their value, ain’t it?

But this is not about me, this is also to a lesser extent not about the board members. This is about the engine behind it and the changes they are about to face. You see the sounds have been there, the rumours have almost forever been there and on the sidelines the links have been there, but what is this linking?

I am referring to the following events ‘Auditors go high-tech to win new business‘ (at http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/183cb13c-2557-11e5-bd83-71cb60e8f08c.html), where we see “Auditors have a newfound zest. Rapid developments in digital technology and new rules requiring large companies to invite bids for auditing work at least once a decade have forced accounting firms to refocus on winning new business” and ‘Accountants warn on audit market reforms‘ from last November where we see “Within the “big four” accountancy firms, market share has been shifting. EY has overtaken Deloitte as the third biggest auditor to FTSE 100 clients, behind PwC and KPMG in first and second place, respectively. This month Royal Bank of Scotland announced it had appointed EY as its auditor from 2016, ending a 14-year contract with Deloitte” (at http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/f22383ca-6410-11e4-bac8-00144feabdc0.html). This is actually more than just the shaking of the trees and the stirring of the gravy bowl. You see this is a shifting picture where the big four are now pushing for data analytics, the Wall Street Journal have been slowly filling the spaces in that regard. The headline ‘Accountants Increasingly Use Data Analysis to Catch Fraud‘ states it, but what do they state? At http://www.wsj.com/articles/accountants-increasingly-use-data-analysis-to-catch-fraud-1417804886, we see “When a team of forensic accountants began sifting through refunds issued by a national call center, something didn’t add up: There were too many fours in the data. And it was up to the accountants to figure out why“. Yes on the night of St. Nicholas the presents are handed out to all and especially the bankers, because analytics are here, the secret sauce of the needy to quench those who want to solve and hide those in the shadows. You see Benford’s Law is here and everything will be OK now! Is that so? Let’s take a look at ‘The Irrelevance of Benford’s Law for Detecting Fraud in Elections‘ (at http://www.vote.caltech.edu/sites/default/files/benford_pdf_4b97cc5b5b.pdf), where we see: “Detecting and measuring fraud is much like any criminal investigation and requires a careful gathering of all available data and evidence in conjunction with a “theory of the crime” that takes into account substantive knowledge of the election being considered, including the socio-economic and geographic correlates of voting“. This is about voting, so how does this apply? Consider the quote on page 23 “The operant clause here, though, is “in otherwise homogeneous data” since this indicator is intended to detect the heterogeneity introduced by a specific form of fraud“, now we get to those two parts, when we see “In statistics, homogeneity and its opposite, heterogeneity, arise in describing the properties of a dataset, or several datasets. They relate to the validity of the often convenient assumption that the statistical properties of any one part of an overall dataset are the same as any other part” (quick Wiki reference). So as we contemplate “the statistical properties of any one part of an overall dataset are the same as any other part“, ehhh, when has that ever been the case in keeping financial books? It is a balancing act, which means half on one side, means half on the other side (does that not prove the point?) No, because they are two sides of the same coin, double elements so to speak, so what to include, what not, the formula becomes unbalanced even further. Consider that banking is all about specifics, I will stay away from that element for a while, because the element of specifics is the issue, consider the graphs below.

I can tell you now that I violated loads of rules. It comes from a list of 400 movies, their revenue. So, it spans several year, 400 numbers and those are the most visible reasons why Benford does not apply. The books of Tesco have similar issues. Dozens of accounts, interactions, loads of numbers spanning a time zone, but at times those numbers are also of a small count. Could this work with a ‘grocery’ store? Consider the amount of articles at 99c and £1.99. The amount of special offers going on, day to day (Tesco example), from that, if we use EVERY transaction, we will see skewing, giving us the problem, banks have similar issues, but now more often with seriously large numbers. If we ‘Benford’ the hell out of all the commissions, will they stand the ‘fraud’ test? If not, will the bank see that cash returned, or will we suddenly see a ‘rationalisation’ of non-valid application?

This is at the heart “in otherwise homogeneous data“, which gave the Call-centre a ‘ding-dong’, yet I feel that overall numbers could have shown the issue as well. Too many issues do not hold water here, yet the end of the article gives us what matters “Benford’s Law isn’t a magic bullet. It’s only one approach. It isn’t appropriate for all data sets. And when it is a good tool for the job, it simply identifies anomalies in data, which must be explained with further investigation“, ah the common sense. That did not take long did it?

So as there are serious options for investigating Fraud, the watchers of Tesco are still not in the limelight of the press, they have been given the ‘shade’ by the press at large. In one moment we see Tesco getting replaced by DeLoitte and recently we see Santander bank replacing DeLoitte for PwC and the SFO is nowhere to be seen. So are the Elves of Statistics and the Serious ‘eff’ Ogres in a state of non-war? Perhaps the SFO is too busy and whilst those auditors give new presentations on those yummy statistics, but as I personally see it, it is basically another presentation to lull groups of people to sleep. There is a mess in front of the people and those who should look and act, seem to be too busy and many can slightly fall asleep again.

Just 6 weeks ago, the UK got the message ‘RBS, once the world’s largest bank, is using analytics technology to go back to the era of personal customer service‘, with a promise to invest £100m in data analytics technology. I personally believe in analytics, it is a great tool, but in light of many factors, unless you get the people who have been consistently under-called them a job with a competitor bank, the institution will be paying a lot by those currently not doing their job right.

That final statement can be easily proven.

In the first, if data analytics was key, those involved should have known this for well over 3 years, some in charge have been there long enough, which means that no action was taken and they should not be in a position where they remain idle.

In the second, if data analytics is not key in solving some of the matters, why are they buying it? It could be for very valid other reasons, but that does not solve the ‘under-calling’ issue, it does not solve several other issues, even though it solves some, so at best, data analytics will diminish losses, which is good, but should we not get rid of the dead weight (read significant reasons for large losses).

All this comes to blows soon enough, because if the RBS does not get its results, new articles will appear all over the place regarding ‘miscommunication’, times of deployment and infrastructure issues, in the meantime ‘managed bad news’ prevails and more waves of issues will be swept under the covers of a dark carpet. As accounts are handed over between the 4 big auditors, the sum in the end gives us that overall none of them will make any serious losses. Slightly beyond the short term it evens out for the big four, which might be the largest miscarriage of justice of all.

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June 23, 2015 · 15:51

Dumping costs

I saw the news two days ago, but I left it on the side as I was looking at other issues (like Euro leaders enabling Greece and so on). Yet, the article ‘Taylor Swift criticises ‘shocking, disappointing’ Apple Music‘ (at http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jun/21/taylor-swift-criticises-shocking-disappointing-apple-music) is a lot more important than you think. I was unaware for two reasons. One, I do not use streaming services. I go to the shop and buy those silver coloured circular contraptions. I think that they are called CD’s. For all the ‘security’ claimed to be, I do not trust online providers. If someone ever wipes their records, whatever I owned will be gone. There are other reasons, but they do not matter at this moment. What is the real price now is the light that Taylor Swift throws on big business.

You see the quote “Swift has joined independent labels in attacking Apple’s plans not to pay royalties during the three-month free trial of its new Apple Music streaming service” is pretty important. The richest corporation in the world decided to attempt a new business model. So this corporation, the wealthiest one in the world basically will not pay royalties to new and starving artists (the 99.9999943% who are not Taylor Swift or successful).

How come, it takes one artist to open her mouth whilst the media and so many others remain quiet? One artist speaks up and suddenly we become aware. Can anyone explain to me how it is possible that Rolling Stone Magazine (at http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/apple-introduces-apple-music-streaming-service-24-7-radio-20150608) did not lead with this fact when the article was published on June 8^th 2015?

It is also very interesting how Taylor Swift opened the door for everyone to suddenly give voice, where none were saying anything at all (in this I am referring to the larger news outlets, not the smaller and small digital reviewers who seem to have been asking questions as early as the first week of June, perhaps even longer.

The sheer audacity that a third party seems to have to pay for the cost of a trial business model is plenty of reasons to ask Apple some questions, especially as they are already using tax havens to a planetary maximum. In all this we also see the Wall Street Journal where they (at http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2015/06/15/apple-to-pay-common-royalty-rates-for-music-service/) that initially the quote “Apple is offering a three-month free trial from June 30. During that period, Apple won’t pay music owners anything for songs that are streamed” (on June 15^th), whilst the people at the Wall Street Journal seem to be devoid of opinion in that article. Consider that this is the Wall Street Journal, and the used business model, a clear model of exploitation is not raising any clear questions on an editorial level is even more astounding.

I am on the fence for two reasons, as I will concede that I might have missed it until it came to the Guardian or BBC, the fact that pages of newspapers in online searches are only now catching on is equally disturbing to me. Why did this issue remain below the radar for so long? I have mentioned before that too many newspapers seem to ‘appease’ (read cater to) their advertising base (read large corporations), this event only seems to enforce the unacceptable trend.

The WWDC2015 did not seem to have any information at all (June 8^th). I understand that Apple might have steered clear from mentioning it, yet that others had not considered these events is equally questionable. The last part is visible in the Guardian article at http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/may/08/apple-streaming-music-regulators-beats-music-spotify. This was on May 8^th, where we see that several questions are being asked, yet not the royalties part, moreover, when we consider those involved, we must take a look at the quote ““Apple has been using its considerable power in the music industry to stop the music labels from renewing Spotify’s license to stream music through its free tier,” claimed its report, which also alleged that Apple had offered to pay major label Universal Music a fee “if the label stopped allowing its songs on YouTube”“, whilst the royalties part was overlooked. Now, it is very valid that royalties issue is initially overlooked, yet consider that Dr Dre (Beats Music) is gunning for Spotify, was he also unaware, if so, keeping many in the dark from that date onwards, does that not point towards another set of questions? Even though the competition Commission was taking a look (at http://nypost.com/2015/04/01/competition-commission-probing-music-streaming-services/), where we see “a probe of Apple and other premium music-streaming services to see if they are working with music labels to unfairly squash no-fee streaming services” yet the fact that Apple in addition would not pay royalties for the first three months is an additional worry, was it not?

So in light of all this, The Wall Street Journal article does not ask questions regarding that business mode and Rolling Stone Magazine, seen as the one place for performers and music lovers refrained from illuminating that issue, so why are questions not asked, more important, why are the bulk of reporters only now shouting their articles regarding all of this? At least as a non-journalist (that be me), who focusses on non-musical issues has a decent excuse, what about all the others? All this illuminates a silent acceptance of events, just like the people seem to respond to FIFA. In that light it seems that the legal field who should be all about justice and social legality should have been a lot more protective against these large corporations a lot sooner, where were they?

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May 29, 2015 · 23:09

Condoning corruption!

There is no escaping the news, FIFA is currently getting smeared all over the place, but before we start painting the roses red, the question we must ask is who are we trying to appease?

Our own sense of morality perhaps?

My first writing on all this started on March 19^th 2014 in ‘Any sport implies corruption!‘ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2014/03/19/any-sport-implies-corruption/), There I looked at the first allegations against Qatar. The evidence presented was highly debatable. It took me to a response Lord Denning gave in the trial Miller v. Minister of Pensions [1947] 2 All ER 372. The statement was “more probable than not”. In the end, I had reservations on whether Qatar was guilty of bribes. I finalised my view with “it is more likely than not that three people were falsely set in an illegal light so that several unnamed persons could walk away with many hundreds of millions of Euros“. My view was apparently a lot more optimistic!

Now we get to the news of the last few days.

On May 27^th FIFA officials get arrested on corruption charges. (06:00)
On May 27^th Criminal investigation into 2018 and 2022 World Cup awards opened (09:30)
On May 27^th FIFA presidential election to go ahead, no 2018 and 2022 World Cup revotes (10:30) (source: http://www.espnfc.com.au/)

At 14:30 4 members, Chuck Blazer, Jose Hawilla, Daryan Warner and Daryll Warner plead guilty. So, even as daddy Warner proclaims his innocence, it seems that he was able to instil values of corruption in his boys. However just now in the Wall Street Journal (at http://www.wsj.com/articles/three-men-with-ties-to-former-fifa-official-aided-probe-1432859617) gives us the quote “businessmen who have been involved in ventures…including ventures involving their father”, which gives way to daddy Warner being in water a lot warmer than he might find comfortable. But in all this, the disturbing part is not the fact that FIFA seems to be corrupt through and through, it is odd in my view that this has been going on under the watchful eye of police forces all over Europe, as well as Interpol. These events were all brought to light by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (of FBI for short). Is that not puzzling? I was not the only one thinking this. A similar thought came from Chris Bryant MP (at http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-the-papers-32925653)

When we consider certain facts.

From USA Today we get “Blazer was a member of the FIFA Executive Committee from 1996 to 2013, when he was replaced by Sunil Gulati. That same year Blazer was accused of taking over $15 million in payments from FIFA over the course of his tenure and was suspended“, so now suddenly he is regarded as a ‘Report: Former FIFA executive-turned-informant‘ and he had a $6000 apartment for his cats! So, basically he had a pussy place for that cash? Yet the part that is linked here is “CONCACAF’s offices took up the entire 17th floor, but Blazer often worked from two apartments where he lived on the 49th floor“. It seems to me that there is a lot more going on here. Is it perhaps (mere speculation) that certain meetings were to be taken in a deniable setting? More important, I get it that the FBI caught on, but why did the Police forces all over Europe remain blind to all this? In addition, this also brings the entire Michael Garcia debacle again into focus. The fact that this level of corruption had been going on, and as far as we can tell, it happened under the nose of Michael Garcia. When we consider he had been digging into the entire corruption issues for both 2018 and 2022, it seems odd that no flags were raised when we consider the lavish lifestyle of some members. The fact that his appeal to publish the entire document he worked on was overthrown, now these people will get to explain a lot as the corruption scandal spins out of control and anyone now trying to withhold information could end up painted black by the ‘corruption brush’!

It is Attorney General Loretta Lynch who says it best: “It spans at least two generations of soccer officials who, as alleged, have abused their positions of trust to acquire millions of dollars in bribes and kickbacks”, so over two generations, decades in activities and the President Sep Blatter remains blind to it all? I am not stating whether he was involved, that is up to the FBI and they did not find anything, the fact that he should have been aware something was wrong is ample evidence that Sep Blatter is nowhere near fit to preside over FIFA. Not when something like this goes on for decades under his presidency.

If we accept the view from the Guardian (at http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/may/28/fifa-expose-british-press-andrew-jennings-sunday-times-corruption-fa), where we see: “Andrew Jennings, 71, who has traced Sepp Blatter’s footsteps for more than a decade. Jennings worked for the Sunday Times and BBC’s Panorama. His BBC film about FIFA corruption, The Beautiful Bung, appeared as long ago as 2006“, so as we consider these facts and the fact that this happened, for a large extent under the eyes of Sep Blatter, as we see that he had made no moves since the 2006 film, which should have been an eye opener for him, Scotland Yard and Interpol, but it was the FBI in 2015 who got it done!

Is there no blame? With this level of negligence? I hardly think that is the case and as I see the presidency of Sep Blatter should be cut immediately. In addition, if FIFA wants to regain any level of credibility, it has in my view, no other option but to publish the full report by Michael Garcia. You see, what is in there will be revealing, but I feel certain that what is not in there might be worth even more. Because all this happened, because certain steps were not done and even the tail coat of Michael Garcia is very likely to get smudged. Now let me be clear, I do not believe that Michael Garcia did anything wrong, yet as he started his role in July 2012, he must have had a few thoughts on how he can remain so isolated from the entire pack, as it was devouring the better part of 150 million. Red flags should have been raised in the corner of his eyes, but that might be just me speculating!

The other part hit me when I read the article “Chuck Blazer: FIFA ‘supergrass’” (at http://www.bbc.com/news/32913599), when we consider the quote “it was at this time that Blazer signed a contract with Concacaf that entitled him to 10% commissions on all sponsorship and TV rights deals through his company Sportvertising, giving rise to his nickname of ‘Mr Ten Percent’“, so he gets 10% and still he gets on the Trans Corruption Express? In 2011 he gets the option to become the inside man, the informer. It seems to me that this person has been given a way to lavish life, with 2 repayments. The first one of 1.9 million and another one still to come. I reckon his attorney will use the ‘colon cancer card’ for maximum effect.

I reckon, the FBI did in light of the inaction by so many others, a great job!

The question on everyone’s mind will be regarding the future of FIFA, because without a complete overhaul and without a complete rewriting of the rules, there is every chance that FIFA might not be tolerated any further. There is one more matter, which was set at http://www.theguardian.com/football/2015/may/28/australian-police-asked-to-investigate-500000-payment-to-fifas-jack-warner. Here we see ‘Australian police asked to investigate $500,000 payment to FIFA’s Jack Warner‘. So this is another ball game. My question is in the first degree, what was the payment for? Was there a receipt? The Sydney Morning Herald had an interesting part: “The $500,000 payment by the FFA to a football association bank account controlled by Warner – a payment ostensibly made to redevelop a stadium in Trinidad and Tobago“, so why was the Football Federation Australia paying to redevelop a stadium there? The second quote “The FFA on Thursday defended its failure to report the matter to Australian or US police on the basis that FIFA – the organisation now at the centre of an international corruption storm – asked them not to” is even further troubling. Basically, FIFA officials seem to get away with it, the moment the word ‘FIFA’ and ‘request’ are mentioned together, the simple application of Common Sense went straight out of the window.

Even though there will be no resetting of 2018 and 2022, issues still need to be addressed. There is now an additional side to all this. Editors seem to forget at times what they do, but let me remind you regarding the article I wrote on November 14^th 2014 called ‘Sacking the editor?‘, in there Martin Ivens is quoted by Reuters: “Britain’s Sunday Times newspaper reported that some of the “millions of documents” it had seen linked payments by former FIFA executive committee member Mohamed Bin Hammam to officials to win backing for Qatar’s World Cup bid”, is that not interesting? So, did the police act on any of that? Is it perhaps possible that the allegations from a newspaper actually hindered a criminal investigation? It is hard to say as the direct facts are murky (and my view on UK Criminal law is murky too), but it all gives way to a hidden stream of events under the FIFA tsunami that is now hitting the press. Has the press shouted ‘wolf’ so often that certain officials stopped acting? That is the direct question here, because the indignation that Chris Bryant MP voiced (Labour) is very real. Why did the FBI solve that what should have been squarely in the corner of Scotland Yard and Interpol. Andrew Jennings is only one of many sources that seem to have been ignored by many people and players on numerous levels.

So, are we condoning corruption? Before you say ‘no’ consider how long this issue was unattended and the fact that the FIFA president, who remained oblivious to the entire matter is at this point likely to be re-elected calls for even more questions. The last part was released half an hour ago. We must give option to refer to the Serious Fraud Office with some laughter as it is now assessing the ‘materials’ which give voice to the fact that Barclays, HSBC and Standard Chartered Bank were used to transfer cash. Didn’t we see two of those banks in other ‘issues’ involving cash?

Is anyone else finally waking up?

The Original Indictment: fifa-indictment-webb-etal

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April 21, 2015 · 02:36

The Defiant Possum!

Yes, Greece is all over the news today, in many ways the people are now expecting a Grexit, the Greek exodus from the Euro. The people are reading more and more about the Greek way and no one is playing nice anymore. Even though readers might disagree with my view, which remains forever valid, let me show you the evidence that brought me to this!

The Centre Party, led by telecoms millionaire Juha Sipilä, must now put together a coalition. And if he invites the Finns into office too (Timo Soini, leader of Finns, who has already vowed to change’s Finland’s approach to Greece), we will see the complication regarding the chances of agreeing a third bailout for Greece. (Source: the Guardian). You see, Finland’s economy not in a great shape and they are now facing austerity. Sipilä had pledged a wage freeze and spending cuts to make it competitive again, which are issues that Tsipras is not addressing, which means that the Finns are no longer playing nice, one less vote that might have been in favour of any third bailout, now lost, the trip from Tsipras playing nice with the Russians did not help either. We now see a direct consequence on inaction where the observing it all are going more extreme, less positive towards the Euro. The Finnish Centrist Party is only a smaller step in the path that UKIP, National Front and the PVV are proclaiming. So, those who were rightfully sceptical of my predictions can now personally see the first of 6 steps fulfilling, the Pro-EU part in Finland lost and the Centrist party now has a staggering 49 seats, they are now in the centre of any coalition, gaining 14 seats. This is the danger I foresaw all along, even if many other parties were blind to this danger.

The second part was seen today when Fabrizio Goria (@FGoria) published the Barclays list on the payments that Greece has to make, these are only repayments and payments on maturity of bonds, the repayments are €1B by May 15^th, €1.7B by June 17^th, €4.7B by July 20^th and €3.6B by August 20^th. This brings the total repayments €10.7B before September 1st. Can anyone tell me how they expect to pull this off? Let us not forget that the days of the Onassis shipping fortunes are gone, the nation has a population of 11 million. We could state that it boils down to 970 Euros from every Greek (including the minors and babies), in addition to the taxation they are mostly not paying at present anyway. Add to that that many Greeks are living way below the poverty line.

So when we hear on French TV (iTele) the fact that Moscovici added that “Plan A is for Greece to remain in the Eurozone, and there is no Plan B. But there’s also no time for prevarication“, so in this story of ‘Moscovici the Possum’, playing dead to the realities of finance, where the next bailout of €7.2 billion, does not even cover the bills due before September 1^st, which add up to a lot more than the bailout money that might not even come in. When we saw that the last payment was almost not made, when the Greeks pulled it off we saw the some triumphant pose of ‘we did it!‘, whilst we also saw that it cleaned out Greece for the most and that the payment made is only 10% of what is due over the next 18 weeks. This is the future I foresaw, one that could be done by nearly all using Excel or an abacus.

But this is not just about my view, others see it in the same way. Although, there is (as will be) an opposition view too and I do not ignore it. Foremost there is the eminent view of Simon Nixon from the Wall Street Journal. He stated: “One option is that Greece fails to get a deal with its creditors (quite plausible), runs out of cash (ditto) and then defaults on a debt repayment payment. But that wouldn’t immediately trigger Grexit“, which is where I am to some extent. Yet, he adds to that “How things play out after [a default] that will depend on who Greece decides to default on and the reaction of bank depositors. If Athens defaults on a government bond or loan, then the ECB will have to raise the price that banks pay to access emergency liquidity from the Bank of Greece, effectively depriving them of access to fresh supplies of euros. If Athens decides instead to default to its own citizens, perhaps by issuing IOUs to pay pensions and salaries, bank customers may start emptying euros from their accounts. Again, banks would quickly run out of collateral for emergency liquidity. In both cases, Athens would have to introduce capital controls and bank holidays to stop the financial system imploding. Some officials believe Greece could carry on for several weeks if not months in this state of limbo while still technically remaining part of the Eurozone“, I am not denying his view, he has a good grasp of things so he is probably a lot more correct then I am. Yet, my issue now is not whether they remain in the Euro, but the ramifications of Greece remaining in the Euro, regardless of the consequences and through the wheeling and dealing of several players who feel profitable if Greece remains in the Euro. Finland is only the first of 6.

Second is the UK with UKIP, that party is still growing and the Varoufakis rock star tour, as we saw it over the last two months, only agitated people all over Europe, the entire German slamming thing as well as the political statements around the refugee issues did not help either. So as UKIP grows, so will the option (and future) of the Euro diminishing in equal measure, the nightmare that Moscovici will like even less.

Third on the list is France with National Front. They will go on growing and the momentum UIKIP gets will massively benefit National Front, the party that was ignored for way too long has become a voice of power in France. Marine Le Penn has become a global player, another member against the softness for Greece and even less in favour of the Euro power as it diminished the force of France will take a steep change for the worse of the health of the Euro as they gain more momentum.

Fourth is the Dutch PVV, by themselves not that powerful or too influential, but with the like minded views they have to some degree to both UKIP and National Front, PVV will be invited to several tables they were not invited to earlier, even though their favour is falling (especially against the Dutch VVD), they remain a higher placed party (higher than they were before) and should the VVD be unable to create a working dialogue with UKIP and National Front, we will see more growth towards PVV, making them another voice that asks to end the Euro.

Fifth is Germany. Their power is actually twofold, first there is the growing opposition from Bernd Lucke, with his AfD (Alternative for Germany), remains on a forward momentum. And as they are anti-Euro, that ship needs to be closely watched, in addition, some German magazines state that one in two Germans are now in favour of Grexit. And here we get the first major Crux. Should some player overextend their reach by forcing some ‘deal’ keeping Greece in the Euro with a last minute ‘miracle’ solution (with ‘some’ hidden costs down the track of course), then the move towards AfD could be a lot more massive than before, the German player is the biggest one at the moment (in economic regard to the other 5 parties) and they have had enough (especially after the WW2 debacle Tsipras reignited).

Sixth in all this is the wildcard Italy. Here we have several unknowns, yet there is also a glooming danger. You see, the party here is Lega Nord, normally, this party is the one that is not the biggest contender it never was. However, Matteo Salvini is making headway, slowly but surely. Now we get the other side of the Greek issue. Matteo could grow in Italy with Lega Nord, the same way Syriza got Greece under Tsipras. Now we have ourselves a different fight, because Lega Nord is the opposite of Syriza and they are anti-Euro, as well as Anti-immigrant. So the issues pushed on us by Greece that are nagging us, are also growing the powers of Lega Nord. Normally it would not be such a big deal, but with National Front and UKIP being similar minded, Lega Nord will now get a more powerful European voice, together they will also push growth for AfD, or through AfD. I feel that they could grow a ‘symbiotic’ relationship.

If you are scared now, then do not be (unless you are a banker). These issues have been clearly in play and the vocally uttered path from Moscovici is helping these six entities and his speeches might help Moscovici a little less over the coming weeks. By trying to hold onto ‘Status Quo’, Moscovici might be achieving the opposite, who is the nice cuddly Possum now? Actually Possums are regarded as pests in New Zealand, so even as the possum is protected in Australia, is gets shot on sight in New Zealand. So as Moscovici contemplates his value as an asset by some, several nations are regarding the steps of Moscovici to be like a pest. Even though most of these politicians are not into the fair wildlife ‘game’, they will regard his policies and the need for them to be shot down at their earliest convenience. Not by the six I mentioned mind you, but as these issues are reason for growth for the six players mentioned, the other parties in those nations will now slowly more and more accept sacrificing Greece (by holding them to account), for them it is about governing and their chance to do so diminishes with every iteration where Greece remains unaccountable.

So here is as I see it the opposition I see to Simon Nixon from the wall Street Journal. Not because he is wrong (he is not wrong), but because the correct path seems to elevate some political parties to the degree that several political opponents do not want to see, which exasperates the Greek position even further.

This all escalates even further when we consider the news from NBC less than an hour ago. The title ‘Greece requires public sector entities to transfer cash balances to central bank’ should worry many, as it could be the first signal for the population of Greece to make a bank run (at http://www.cnbc.com/id/102601803). The quote “Greece issued a legislative act on Monday requiring public sector entities to transfer idle cash reserves to the country’s central bank, as part of efforts to deal with a cash squeeze” gives a fair view that Greece is trying to collect all the ‘idle’ cash there is. Is that not addressing the very last option? The second quote is “Monday’s act excludes pension funds and some state-owned firms. Cash reserves that are needed by these bodies for their immediate payment needs are also excluded from the regulation”, here we get the part ‘excludes immediate payment needed for pension funds’, yet what is ‘immediate’ here? 4 weeks, 8 weeks? This could possibly imply that those on a pension might not receive anything from June 1^st onwards. Perhaps this is just to make headspace (or is it fund space) until May 12^th? I do not presume to know the answer, but the Greek acts only confirms how right I was all along (as I see it).

So as Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras seems to continue to try to convince sceptical foreign creditors to extend new financial aid, we must ask how successful does Alexis Tsipras consider his chances when the state is collecting all ‘idle’ coins. If it takes all coins just to make the next €1 billion, whilst 9.7 is still required soon thereafter, how much faith will the creditors have? So, the earlier statement that Yanis Varoufakis made (three days ago), when he stated “On the 24th [April] there will not be a solution, there will be progress”, he’ll better wake up now and realise that he finds a decent solution before Saturday, because progress might not be enough and when the creditors state ‘no!’, then the Greek default could be regarded as the next reality. By the way, the quote from Bloomberg (regarding the legislative act of Greece) is: “Central government entities are obliged to deposit their cash reserves and transfer their term deposit funds to their accounts at the Bank of Greece,” the presidential decree issued Monday said on the government gazette website. The “regulation is submitted due to extremely urgent and unforeseen need”, I wonder what unforeseen need they might imply, because there was very little un-foreseeability regarding the strapped cash issue, that part was almost crystal clear when the previous payment was barely made.

The only thing remaining is to keep an eye out on the quotes from Pierre Moscovici for the next 48 hours, it might be interesting to see the ‘swing’ it holds (if it swings).

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April 11, 2015 · 09:53

Liber Calvariam

Of all the techie things we know, many, even most non-techies, they all have their view on Facebook. I am no different in that case. I have made in the past several cases where I question the actions of Facebook, the choices they made and the things their users agree upon. I have in the past always tempered that to some extent because, I think that there is no such thing as a ‘free service’, there is always a price to pay and that price is not always ‘expressed’ in coin or currency.

The first article in this was in the Guardian (at http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/mar/31/facebook-tracks-all-visitors-breaching-eu-law-report), it was published on March 31st and the title is of course pretty upsetting, namely “Facebook ‘tracks all visitors, breaching EU law’“, now the title is already reason for debate, but I will get to that shortly. The quote that is part in this is: “People without Facebook accounts, logged out users, and EU users who have explicitly opted out of tracking are all being tracked, report says“. This links to a story that was published on February 23rd. That link is important, as that story links to two articles. The first one (at http://www.law.kuleuven.be/icri/en/news/item/icri-cir-advises-belgian-privacy-commission-in-facebook-investigation), has links to full reports and states: “Facebook’s default settings related to behavioural profiling or Social Ads, for example, are particularly problematic. Moreover, users are offered no choice whatsoever with regard to their appearance in “Sponsored Stories” or the sharing of location data“, I have experienced part of this myself, even now, at times, it still takes a moment to figure out what settings are where and I am very tech savvy. More important, the second link to the full Facebook PDF article was not found, a little sloppy I must say. There is no way to tell whether this flaw was because of actions from the University of Leuven, or from the Guardian.

My issue follows from “EU privacy law states that prior consent must be given before issuing a cookie or performing tracking, unless it is necessary for either the networking required to connect to the service (“criterion A”) or to deliver a service specifically requested by the user (“criterion B”)” as well as “A cookie is a small file placed on a user’s computer by a website that stores settings, previous activities and other small amounts of information needed by the site. They are sent to the site on each visit and can therefore be used to identify a user’s computer and track their movements across the web“, by themselves they seem innocent enough, but when we consider the implications, we get ‘identify a user’s computer‘ and ‘track their movements across the web‘, now we get the issue, so how deep goes this identification and how much tracking is done, just your actions whilst on Facebook or EVERYTHING you do on the web and where you do it? That last part becomes an issue when we consider that we use Facebook on our mobiles. There is an issue that is implied, but not correctly and completely addressed by the Guardian (as well as many other papers).

Yet, the information the article gives as brought by ‘Article 29‘ gives us: “The Article 29 working party has also said that cookies set for “security purposes” can only fall under the consent exemptions if they are essential for a service explicitly requested by the user – not general security of the service“. I do not completely agree with that statement. Their statement is not wrong, but consider the mobile user, the user is a device in motion, whilst at the same time could be engaging with data in motion, two very different concepts, and whilst the cookie is not meant to be for both, it will include both, which could be regarded as an exemption. You see, when you move, from tower X to tower Y, either as Pede Strian, or as the Vehicular Mover, we will need explicit security, not just general security. Their statement has merit from a desktop, but it now becomes a question, whether the mobile or the desktop user is now the majority here. In addition, I have not even adjusted this view for those connected through ‘free Wi-Fi‘ a dubious concept for sure, one where security needs to be a lot more defining. In my personal view there is a clear need for an exemption, which I would quote as “the consent exemption, essential for the secure use of a service explicitly required for the mobile user“. That does not take away the need to address issues involving the advertised purpose of sponsored visibility, which is a fair enough issue, but let’s face it, Facebook is offered for ‘free’, those sponsored moments are the ‘price’ we get to pay and I for one agree with the not like, but I understand that the cost of running Facebook hardware is not that cheap in the end.

Now we get to the ‘actual issue’. The one that was brought on April 10^th (at http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/apr/10/facebook-admits-it-tracks-non-users-but-denies-claims-it-breaches-eu-privacy-law). The issue is not just the quote “Facebook has admitted that it tracked users who do not have an account with the social network, but says that the tracking only happened because of a bug that is now being fixed“, because, as I see it, this issue has been around at least 8 weeks, and if we accept that the issue was already in play before the University of Leuven came with the (unread) paper and their version of evidence, than we can postulate that this issue had been going on for months. In this Facebook is not innocent, because, if Facebook is set up properly by its administrators, then the system had been collecting parsed data which should have been linked to certain flags. The fact that data was collected ‘unchecked’ gives us pause to question the system as designed, or we accept that Facebook exploited a bug to their own ends. Neither could be seen as illegal, for the mere reason that the evidence linking it all to ‘intent’ could not be proven as I see it. Even if a legal party had access to the entire system, the premise of intent might not ever be proven.

A bigger issue is the quote from Richard Allan “The researchers did find a bug that may have sent cookies to some people when they weren’t on Facebook. This was not our intention – a fix for this is already under way“, you see, a cookie is sent (under normal conditions) when a user action warrants it. They log in, they go to a certain page or they use an app, or location, where they are linked to a Facebook account (for example, we place a comment on the Guardian page (to just mention an option) and we sign in using our Facebook account. In those cases the cookie seems valid to me, yet is that part of the ‘when they weren’t on Facebook‘ part? If not, then it is not just a bug, it seems to me that there is an unchecked balance of server based flags that are triggered by any instance whilst the user is not connected, which is not just a bug, it is a systematic flaw of the Facebook system, but is that the actual case here?

Another issue I have is with the quote from Brendan Van Alsenoy, a researcher at ICRI. Here we see: “European legislation is really quite clear on this point. To be legally valid, an individual’s consent towards online behavioural advertising must be opt-in” that quote might be correct, but is that not part of the user agreement from Facebook, they by creating the account are opting in? In addition, we get a truckload of these opting in moments as we accept the usage of an app within Facebook. So are these not explicit opt-in moments?

I still have issues with something that was on the Wall Street Journal in August 2014 (at http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2014/08/08/facebook-messenger-privacy-fears-heres-what-you-need-to-know/). You see, I had similar issues, but guess what, suddenly within days all news on this issue just stopped and no one followed up or gave a clear picture on why certain rights were there. I think it would be distressing to people when they agree to “call phone numbers without your intervention,” and “use the camera at any time without your permission”, two of at least half a dozen questionable rights we signed over. My issue was with the part ‘without your permission‘, which is an issue to say the least. Yes, I agree that it could be just an android phrase, but none of these rights or messages ever popped up on Google plus or any other Google option I use, so is it just me?

In the end we love bashing a big boy like IBM, Microsoft or Facebook, but let’s be fair about it all and that is only possible if we get a clear article on the subject, it seems to me that the articles of late do not paint a clear picture, it just sketches events and acting on these partial sketches is not a good thing, or fair towards Facebook.

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Tagged as Article 29, Brendan Van Alsenoy, Facebook, IBM, ICRI, Microsoft, Richard Allan, the Guardian, University of Leuven, Wall Street Journal

February 27, 2015 · 11:07

The not so neutral net

This time, it was the Epic Times (at http://www.epictimes.com/2015/02/how-do-you-feel-about-net-neutrality/), who gave me the goods). To be honest, I have stayed away from Net Neutrality for several reasons. The first one is, because for now I remain on the fence. Reasoning here is that we are not really ready for Net Neutrality.

On one side, the US starting this works out nice for the Commonwealth (mainly Canada), there is a decent chance that some companies will move to speedier shores. But, let me get ahead of it all, because that might help the entire issue. So here is the initial response I gave:

There is an overwhelming need to be against it. Judgement was not correctly passed here. I do not essentially oppose net neutrality, however, that can only occur if the internet is correctly addressed, which it is not.

You see, people think that they are now better off, but they will be contending for the same bandwidth with a few thousand spammers, who use an equal bandwidth to a few million users. By forcing all in equal opportunity, spammers, and marketeers. We see that in this ‘ruling’ “Broadband providers cannot block or speed up connections for a fee”, so your fee to block is now no longer an option, which might mean that you get to drown in spam. In equal measure, you cannot pay extra to speed up, which is not unfair, but when corporations are no longer given the speed, they will move to other shores, so if places like Equinix (to name but one of many) will move to Canadian shores, feel free to thank those for net neutrality for giving a few thousand jobs to your northern neighbours. A data centre is about revenue, and net neutrality is not evil, but it has setbacks, revenue being one of them.

the next part is in “Internet providers cannot strike deals with content firms, known as paid prioritisation, for smoother delivery of traffic to consumers”, so this will inflict massive damage, which means that high pressure connections like Oracle forms will not get a whole new issue, working from home could be impacted in new not so nice ways.

Yet the one part “The FCC won’t apply some sections of the new rules, including price controls”, which than implies that all people will end up paying for bandwidth, there we see the connection to rule one and rule two, if fees cannot be used for speeding up, and prioritization, we could speculate that there is one price, a business price for all, I feel certain that the Facebook family and Google Plus family will just love the new pricing for staying in the loop on a social media level, for if there is no priority control and no speed control, the only price control is one price, and it will be a charged one.

And this is only one side of it, net neutrality will never work when the people cannot be correctly protected from cyberbullies, cybercriminals and cyber hackers, for the mere reason that under these conditions, monitoring will become a lot harder, you see those special accounts also meant that they needed less monitoring, because the origin is known, which is why I personally opposed the view of the White house. They stated “Our pursuit of cybersecurity will not — I repeat, will not include — monitoring private sector networks or Internet traffic”, how? Consider yourself in the street, walking, the police is looking for a wanted criminal, now consider where you walk and EVERYONE is wearing exactly the same outfit, do you really think the police will have an easier time finding the culprit? Of course not, now they need to scan every person they pass, not just the person they were looking for in a Green Armani suit wearing purple loafers’ size 12. Good luck finding the right person.

There is a positive issue to net neutrality, there is no denying that, but until they have a way to find the extreme abusers of the net, the neutrality step will make it a lot harder, not easier.

So, you might disagree with me, which is always fair enough, so let’s get the ball rolling on a few parts, because, I have support, I am not the only one here.

They are the first example to use. The BBC (which does not stand for ‘British But Conservative’, at http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-31638528), had the following part: “”The internet is built on infrastructure. Even to keep at a steady state providers are going to have to invest in infrastructure but they need certainty that they can get a return on their investments,” said Mr Belcher” which is fair enough, however, if business is no longer investing as they do not get a premium speed, what do you think they will do, stay in the US, or move to Mejico where they revere speed, Ariba Ariba Andale Andale! And when business moves off-shore, where will your cheap provider remain? It will not, it will be pushed out of business fast, or people will have to pay an actual amount.

The next one we get from the Wall Street Journal (at http://www.wsj.com/articles/broadband-investors-should-wake-up-to-net-neutrality-heard-on-the-street-1424975993), here we see “The long-term bull case for cable relies on two main factors: The ability to grow market share of residential broadband and the ability to raise prices. The latter rests on the idea that broadband providers’ pricing power will increase over time, an assumption that could be called into question if the reclassification stands“, my issue, which I do no applaud is the premise on ‘the ability to raise prices’, it seems like a small thing, but do you think that 50.000.000 Americans will like the increase due to the loss of business as they find safer shores? Business relies on visibility, which means speed and priority, when those fall away, that loss must be paid for. There is no way to tell how much more, but it seems to me that an additional $5-$10 per week is not outside the realm of reality, did these net neutrality people figure on that part? I have called big business exploitative on more than one occasion, the other side is that their power was the speed at which they could move, take that away and you get the same need for exploitation, but from a place where they feel safe, they do not feel that in any neutral version of the net.

It is tech liberation that gives us another view on the dangers, issues that I did not completely consider. Not because I disagree, or because it is incorrect, but there is a hint of conspiracy theory here and I am not sure if that ride is one you should focus on, but I will not withhold it (at http://techliberation.com/2014/09/26/net-neutrality-and-the-dangers-of-title-ii/). It is not a new piece, it was written in September 2014, which gives us “As I’ve noted before, prioritized data can provide consumer benefits and stringent net neutrality rules would harm the development of new services on the horizon. Title II–in making the Internet more “neutral”–is anti-progress and is akin to putting the toothpaste back in the tube. The Internet has never been neutral, as computer scientist David Clark and others point out, and it’s getting less neutral all the time. VoIP phone service is already prioritized for millions of households. VoLTE will do the same for wireless phone customers“, you see, streaming services, bandwidth requiring services like Oracle Forms (one of many) are all about the proper priority. When that falls away, we get black-outs in data, which makes a system fall over, yet here we see another side, which seems to agree with the FCC. Most companies have VOIP, not an issue there. But VoLTE is another matter, Voice over LTE must be a monitoring nightmare to some. I am not talking about the intelligence branch (it worries them too), but about the Telco’s. Once we get free Wi-Fi AND free VoLTE, what will telecom companies be left with? When all your calls go across a simple Wi-Fi the game changes, I would think that roaming over free Wi-Fi using VoLTE is the best thing and traveling sales executive will ever face, now consider the Telecom companies with no more Roaming revenue, can you see the pain they would feel? So even if it is a valid view, is it a correct one? You see, I do not know, but I have seen Telco’s sweat blood because of the fear of denied ‘easy peasy revenue’, so there is my view in those matters.

The one missing part is where I wrote in regard to the cyber-illegality actions. In my view, Cyber-crime is hard to solve, most often it does not get solved, because the seekers were too late. Now consider that group and consider the additional delay because the hunters did not have to look in certain places, now that this part is gone, they will have to look everywhere, how will that help solve crimes? I now get back to a quote Fox News had: “No one disagrees that the Internet should be free and open. The president’s plan just does not accomplish that goal“. I agree with this, I will take it one step further, we all had free internet because business drive reachability and innovation (for reasons of greed mind you), when that drive is removed, it becomes a service for all (which is fine), but one that ALL have to pay for, so how did that oblige towards the goal of ‘free internet’? This will drive the need for stronger regulations in regards to ‘fairness’, which will than remove the term ‘open internet’ as well.

I am not against Net Neutrality, but until it is a global thing, which is actually globally ‘enforced’ (read accepted), Net Neutrality will only achieve in driving business to a place called elsewhere.

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Tagged as BBC, Epic Times, Equinix, FCC, Fox News, Mr Belcher, Net Neutrality, techliberation, VOIP, VoLTE, Wall Street Journal, White House, Wi-Fi, WSJ

January 3, 2015 · 11:03

Slander versus Speculation

There is a lot wrong in this world, we cannot disagree with that. Soon we might see rental prices go down in London, because of Superman (the New Ecstasy), yay to those needing an apartment, being free of drugs was never so nicely rewarded! So is this speculation, or slander?

We could debate my sense in taste (many have for decades), yet in the firm juridical ground, when can speculation be regarded as slander?

That part is more and more a question when we consider the US sanctions against North Korea. Oh, and perhaps we forgot to mention that Sony Is a Japanese firm (even though the crime was on US soil), giving additional spotlights to the reasoning of certain actions. Consider the following sources. First let’s take the BBC (at http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-30661973). Here we see sanctions against organisations and individuals. First there is “Jang Song Chol: Named by the US Treasury as a Komid representative in Russia and a government official“, then there is “Kim Yong Chol: An official of the North Korean government, according to the US, and a Komid representative in Iran” and last there is “Ryu Jin and Kang Ryong: Komid officials and members of the North Korean government who are operating in Syria, according to the US“. Now the article ends with the most hilarious of all quotes “White House officials told reporters the move was in response to the Sony hack, but the targets of the sanctions were not directly involved“.

So the White House is within this part confessing to the breach where they are targeting innocent civilians (of that crime at least)? Can anyone explain to me how this is anything less than legalised slander? Consider that if (not when, but if) they ever figure out who exactly was responsible for the Sony hack (the actual individuals involved), how the US government could be held responsible in any court of law for this. Consider this part (source was the APA of all places, at http://www.apa.org/about/gr/issues/violence/hate-crimes-faq.pdf). “Current federal law defines hate crimes as any felony or crime of violence that manifests prejudice based on “race, colour, religion, or national origin” (18 U.S.C. §245). Hate crimes can be understood as criminal conduct motivated in whole or in part by a negative opinion or attitude toward a group of persons. Hate crimes involve a specific aspect of the victim’s identity (e.g., race)“. If we clinically look at the facts, then these acts are a hate crime against North Korea.

Now, let’s be fair as well. Most will not care, I reckon that the North Koreans might not even care, but this act does remain a legal transgression!

Let me show you why (because without reason, there is nothing), part one is found in yesterday’s news in the Guardian (at http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jan/02/sony-hackers-may-still-access-computer-systems-the-interview).

Here we see the following parts:

“Sony Entertainment is unable to confirm that hackers have been eradicated from its computer systems more than a month after the film studio was hit by a debilitating cyber-attack, a report says“

So not only has the hack occurred, it is very possible that the transgression and the damage is currently still ongoing, in addition, one of the most watched and scrutinised nations is still accessing Sony? Not one press agency is asking the questions that matter. For example, there was some visible Press Tour into North Korea (must have been around when Kim Jong-Un was elected big boss in 2011), when we saw some of the filmed events there, we saw North Korean officials in total disbelieve that a smartphone could take photographs and these people walked over Sony’s cyber security?

Now we get to the Chief Executive of Sony himself, his quote gets us the following:

““It took me 24 or 36 hours to fully understand that this was not something we were going to be able to recover from in the next week or two,” Lynton told the Wall Street Journal“

So this was not a mere grab for data, this is a system paralyses of sizeable renown, the hack was so complete, high paid executives could not get their minds around the events. So, are we still looking at North Korea? Basically this requires an evolved form of ‘stuxnet’, the hack was seemingly more complete then the stuxnet virus could achieve. We now have only three players left. Russia, China and whatever hacking organisation walks around within the US and its allied nations. How is North Korea anything else but a mere puppet for slander? Whilst some people are possibly hiding their lack of skills, and likely other people linked to all this are trying to cover up issues that have been ignored ever since the first hack of 2011 (the Sony PSN hack). By the way, I am using stuxnet as a comparison, I have zero knowledge how the transgressions was done, but we can all agree it was way beyond a normal level of sophistication.

Yes there is another scenario and I will get to that soon, North Korea is not off the hook yet!

You see we have been looking at the event, but not at the capital involvement that is two tiered at present.

“Sony’s network is expected to be fully operational within the next two months but hackers have so far released only a tiny fraction of the 100 terabytes of data they claim to have stolen“, so not only will it take months to repair security measures, the fact that the new fences are there are still no guarantee that the data remains safe.

When gets us to the first tier. Data! Someone streamed 100 Tb, which is more than just a number; it would require every PlayStation 3 on the planet to download up to 2Mb. The fact that this is not monitored, or that is got through to this extent, is a first view that this was no mere trifle event. And even though 100,000 Gigabytes seems small when compared to the PSN issues, it becomes interesting when we consider that the PSN had been hit more than once, but as those members did not all download, where did all this data get syphoned to?

Now we get to the one part that might be regarded as tier two. You see, it is not just the amount taken, which takes a good server park to store, it goes back to issues I discussed in regards to piracy and the parts I mentioned in my blog ‘For our spies only!‘ on September 26^th 2014. There I stated “in the end this is NOT about copyright, this is about bandwidth“, the big players all knew it and they were all very concerned if such events would start to get measured and logged. Now someone casually walked away with 100,000 gigabytes of data?

Before I restate, it was not North Korea, let us take a look at another article by the Guardian in that regard. The title is ‘North Korea may have hired outside hackers for Sony attack, says US‘ (at http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/30/north-korea-hackers-sony-pictures-cyber-attack) and it was written on December 30^th. Now we must consider the following: “US investigators believe that North Korea most likely hired hackers from outside the country to help with last month’s cyber-attack against Sony Pictures, an official close to the investigation has said“. The operative word is ‘believe‘, they just do not know. As a speculation that would be my guess as North Korea does not have the skill needed for this, not even close. By the way, those hackers might want to get paid, how will North Korea do that, or perhaps that is beyond US oversight too, because it would be a sizeable amount for something this complete.

The next part is the part that opens the discussion ““The FBI has concluded the government of North Korea is responsible for the theft and destruction of data on the network of Sony Pictures Entertainment,” it said in a statement“. The first question: What evidence? As stated before, North Korea is lacking in many ways, the fact that they hacked past Sony to this extent, whilst at present no guarantee can be given that the systems are secure at all, whilst North Korea has been watched 24:7 for a long time now gives rise to the demand of evidence showing the guilt of North Korea. So, they are seemingly better than the cyber divisions of both Russia and China? I am not buying it, in addition, the fact that the article implies that outside help was engaged for a hack this thorough leaves us with two thoughts.

If true, where is the real balance of power in cyberspace, because this now implies that North Korea is a real player, even though no one (including people a lot more intelligent than me) have concurred that North Korea does not count when it comes to the internet and cyberspace.
If false, what incompetence is the US hiding from us all and is that not the true crime?

Consider this quote (from the Guardian article too): “Some private security experts have begun to question whether Pyongyang was behind the Sony cyber-attack at all. The consulting firm Taia Global said the results of a linguistic analysis of communications from the suspected hackers suggested they were more likely to come from Russia than North Korea. The cyber security firm Norse said it suspected a Sony insider might have helped launch the attack”

I cannot disagree with Taia Global, as this could be Russia hitting back at US sanctions, but that would be speculation on my side, I also very much agree with Norse. Consider that if someone walks into a bank vault and it is empty. There was no sign of break in, the doors were not forced. At this point the police and the FBI will initially look at ‘the insider’ plot. It makes perfect sense. To get past the Sony server parks to this degree someone was giving aid in some way. Initial passwords, the network structure, because if that was not the case there would be a lot more logging evidence to giver clear view whether North Korea was guilty (or not involved).

Mark Rasch hits the nail on the head with this quote ““I think the government acted prematurely in announcing unequivocally that it was North Korea before the investigation was complete,” said Mark Rasch, a former federal cybercrime prosecutor. “There are many theories about who did it and how they did it. The government has to be pursuing all of them.”” there is the crux, the mention of theries on who did it. Even if it is outside help, Russia would still make more sense, the Russian Mafia could be the front for cashing in on selling the data, they pay commission to the people ‘hurt’ through US sanctions, they are looking at the least likely suspect because of a comedy, one that I (and many others) had not even heard of before these events.

It is the last quote that is food for thought from Kevin Mandia of Mandiant “Mandia, who has supervised investigations into some of the world’s biggest cyber-attacks, said the Sony case was unprecedented. “Nobody expected when somebody breaks in to absolutely destroy all your data, or try to anyway, and that’s just something that no one else has seen,” he said”

That part is not entirely true, I remember the DBase virus of 1988, I remember some people who had fallen victim to them, a garble parser that does not show until the virus is removed, it leaves your data garbled from that point forward. There was also a data virus in the 80’s. I forgot the specifics, but whilst most viruses would attack ‘.com’ and ‘.exe’ files, this one would attack data files, until that day a truly scary moment. So, it is not entirely unprecedented. Consider, if you copy someone’s data, the best sale is to sell it to the competitors, yet, what happens if the owner no longer has that data, does that not drive up the price? Yet, it is bad tactics, to copy in secret and resell it all makes perfect sense, the fact that these events happened, whilst Sony IT, the Cyber divisions of the FBI and others are not able to track the events is something very novel. It is a first to this degree, do you now understand why it makes no sense to accuse the one nation where we see this as their highlight: “Aug 6, 2013 – North Koreans hungry for tech skills are buying up used desktops on the black market, these desktops smuggled in from China have become a much sought-after item in North Korea“, this is the nation that thwarted one of the biggest cyber power players?

People please wake up. The question becomes what was real? I call my version insightful speculation. I have been involved in IT since the 80’s, this level of hacking requires serious system skills with in depth knowledge of all layer one components (hardware layer), if we ignore the inside job part, this takes North Korea out of the loop, it also removes a massive amount of hackers of the table too. It requires the skills we would require to see from people at the NSA and other high tiered cyber firms. From these facts I come to three options:

The hackers are a new level of hacker with the ability to get past the security of nearly any large firm and government data system.
Sony has been criminally negligent and the US is willing to ‘aid’ this Japanese firm for a price.
A simple inside job (possibly even a disgruntled employee) with links to organised crime.

Please feel free to give me a valid fourth alternative.

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Tagged as 18 U.S.C. §245, APA, BBC, DBase virus, FBI, Jang Song Chol, Kang Ryong, Kevin Mandia, Kim Jong-un, Kim Yong Chol, Komid representatives, Mandiant, Mark Rasch, Michael Lynton, Norse cyber security, North Korean, North-Korea, Russian Mafia, Ryu Jin, Sony, Superman ecstasy, Taia Global, the Guardian, US, Wall Street Journal, White House officials

March 19, 2013 · 17:07

Banking the blame game

Yes, it took less than 72 hours, but Cyprus has broken more than just a little all over Europe. There was always the issue is the situation that the numbers did not add up. Looking at the news as it hits us from Sky News, NOS, Wall Street, Reuters, CNN and a few other sources, we get the distinct impression that politicians have heard of the concept of a spread sheet. There is however a decent chance they have never seen one. Consider that these politicians were involved with the Cyprus deal, we should wonder in how much problems Europe currently is.

First is the issue on the uniqueness of the plan in the first place. Those who saved all their lives, high and low savers, all have to chip in to prevent Cyprus from going bust. So, in this situation the people will be taxed twice. Once on the average of their income their savings will be cut up to an extra 9.9%.

So, how did this get this weird? Well, reporters are giving us all kinds of reasoning; many of them make perfect sense. A good one was the issue that the bail out of Greece had to be paid by banks, and this is where Cyprus got into trouble. I am not judging whether it is ‘true’ or not, but there are two sides. I personally belief that this is NOT the full story and more has happened! The interesting part is that the side as mentioned is not given the visibility it should have. Yes, there is an issue, yes, a bail-out is needed. We can also see those reporters around an ATM with queues. Yet, this issue is naught compared to the question how the $12B is needed, and even more, as they scared people to lose faith in the banks and all are withdrawing of billions of Russian Cash, all really willing to take a hike to a safer banking place. Is no one wondering whether certain ‘made’ miscalculations were really this ‘unexpected’? This is what was stated by Bloomberg on the 16th: “‘Simply to leave Cyprus alone and see what happens would be, in my view, irresponsible‘, Merkel told reporters in the Belgian capital after a two-day European Union summit. In her wake, the finance officials arrived, along with European Central Bank President Mario Draghi and IMF chief Christine Lagarde, for the Cyprus talks.”

The other side is that, should this all be true, then the issue becomes that the bail-out of Greece is not just half baked. The solution the financial experts claim to be a solution, was not only not a solution, it is turning out to be a solution that is now dragging down other nations and the Eurozone as well. As markets opened, both Spain and Italy are feeling that like a painful stab in the back. Consider what was stated on Cyprus. They need $12B, they Cyprus is only 0.2% of the Eurozone economy. Whether they were given a bail out, can someone please explain how a market this small be such a financial tsunami creator?

Take the following facts into consideration

1. If the bailout of Greece has this effect on connected banks, what are the EEC and the IMF not telling us?
2. How can an economy this small be allowed to hold such a chunk of so much debt? Remember that the issues continued AFTER the bail outs. We can seriously ask questions on how the acts by the Eurozone ministers are cut down like this. Also interesting that a lot of this was never loudly questioned by members of the press either (if I am incorrect, please refer me to the evidence I missed and I will happily correct this).

3. The markets are now realising that the Eurozone issues are far from over. Bad management seems to be a clear factor. Perhaps that this scenario and the effects were always envisioned by certain players of the big money game! If so, what are they trying to do? Push savings from banks from place A to place B? Would they intentionally want to weaken banks, especially in Spain and Italy?

We could in my mind come to the thought that either the banks and the bailed out governments are in worse shape than ever reported and the IMF and its partners in managing the banking issues are deciding on issues behind closed doors, therefor missing issues that should have been dealt with, or it is not impossible that the lack of bank regulations on an international level are reason that there is no progress at present, and none is to be expected in the near future. More important, imply that part of this is either orchestrated, of that those in charge are a lot less competent then envisioned. There is one remote third option. I admit that this thought is far out there. What if money is ACTUALLY running out? Consider all these swaps, credit vouchers and derivatives. A derivative is a mathematical future. It is not real. If LIBOR represents, UK and US combined, a value of over $1000T (yes, trillions). Consider all the debt out there; no one can pay for it. What is really left? Traders, still dealing in make belief? Concepts and nothing seems real. Food is real, Land is real, and revenue COULD be real. All those governments all claiming to have so much, yet the US is minus 16T, UK is minus 1.5T, except for Germany, nearly ALL are deep in the negative. Now consider why Cyprus gets such a unique treatment. Is it about the $20 billion the Russians have stashed there? If so, then that would be a weird act, to endanger Euro markets to such a level. Those factors might give a little value to the third option I mentioned. I admit, it is a very thin line of thought.

People all over Cyprus are now considering the fact that their banks are all closed until Thursday. Cyprus seems to be hiding a larger secret. Part of this was reported. The issues on money laundering through Cyprus had been reported before, and last by CNN. This is hardly a secret. I know my lack of knowledge and my naive thought of replacing the ENTIRE banking management groups in ALL the Cyprus banks could have actually increased reliability. In addition, it would have given a strong message out to the banks too. None of this was done, no, the saving of people were initially cut, causing market unease. I feel there are enough thoughts proving more is going on than just a bail out.

Legally? The UK and Germany should step in setting up banking laws immediately (one common law and one civil law nation). Not the penny washing kind, but the kind that has sharp teeth. Real reforms start with laws and regulations. The Wall Street Journal reported by Lukas I Alpert reported this statement 4 hours ago: “Cyprus has always said it abides by international banking laws. Russia’s departing central bank chairman, Sergey Ignatiev, recently acknowledged that Russia saw illegal outflows of $49 billion in 2012”

Perhaps those international banking laws are a lot shakier then banks and politicians are willing to admit to.

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Tagged as bloomberg, Christine Lagarde, CNN, Cyprus, EEC, IMF, LIBOR, Lukas I Alpert, Mario Draghi, Merkel, NOS, reuters, Sergey Ignatiev, Sky News, Wall Street, Wall Street Journal

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