Verizon Data Leakage, Should Congress Act?

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Should Congress be forced to make it illegal for corporations to grossly fail to protect their customer's privacy? That of course should not be necessary, because by 2017 we have had so many gross violations of privacy due to corporate incompetence and since we are all aware of foreign intelligence services as well as international crime organizations working to collect such data (and other forms of IP) to use against Americans, that even a stupid moron, yes, even an American Corporation should know that they have a responsibility to work with diligence and skill to protect their customers' data, in particular their customer's passwords.

So what are we to make of the latest Verizon failure to (a) protect this data and (b) when notified by an outside firm of this exposure of customer data, failing to take the steps necesssary to protect the data in a timely fashion?

The facts in the case are that Verizon did not discover the breach, an outside firm did. The problem was that a Verizon subcontractor had maintained a complete database of Verizon's wireless customers, their user ids, personal information and, crucially, their PINs / passwords, in a cloud file that was open for reading by anyone. How the subcontractor could have made such a mistake is unknown, but the responsibility does not lie with them, it lies with Verizon to see that their customer's data is secure.

But even worse, is that when notified of the problem, it took two weeks, from June 8 to June 22, to correct the problem. And furthermore, correcting the problem was, in this case, relatively easy. You just protect the file on the cloud (in terms of who has read access to it) or you remove the file from the cloud. Now in the long run you may have to do something more sophisticated to achieve some larger corporate goal, but in the short run, just remove the file.

Since Corporate America has failed to take the steps necessary to protect Americans, it is up to Congress to improve the incentives to perform. A simple and probably effective way to do this is to put the senior executives of the corporation in prison for a period of correction, so that they can learn new and better skills to help them fit into society. I would think that a top executive, the CEO or COO, would require a healthy 10 or 20 years in prison, except in extreme cases.

In this case, though, a lesser penalty will probably be applied. The senior executives will probably be forced to accept a pay raise and a 7 figure bonus. This is America after all.

Here is a report on the Verizon data leakage

http://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/341655-massive-data-leakage-at-verizon

And my Facebook sarcasm is below:

Criminalizing Corporate Crime and Malfeasance

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Famously, Don Corleone said in the novel The Godfather that one lawyer with a briefcase could steal more than a gang of thieves with guns, or words to that effect.

Of course, everyone knows this is true. The egregious corruption of our justice system, from top to bottom is well known. Whether it has always been that way or has gotten worse in the last 3 or 4 decades is not known to me, but in the interest of helping our poor, stupid, and corrupt political elite in matters that should be obvious, we are going to make a few comments.

Dear Stupid Politicians,

If you do not start fixing the justice system, you are going to see a blowback that makes the Globalization / Trump debacle look minor in retrospect.

Everyone has noticed, and I mean everyone, that our justice system is grossly unfair and biased in favor of the rich. A poor man can go to jail in Alabama for life for stealing a stapler, but not even stealing billions of dollars on Wall Street and causing the collapse of the world economic system is a cause for even the most modest reprimand.

But if you keep ignoring what the people think, and keep kicking the can down the road while chortling to yourself that you got away with it again, one day this is going to blow up in your face. This is a specific example of the more general "failure of the cultural myth" or "failure to believe in a nation's institutions". It means that people start believing conspiracy theories, even the most ludicrous, and never believe anything that a politician tells them. You don't want that, although it may already be too late as The Donald Trump Disaster demonstrates.

What can you do about this?

In a nutshell, when a corporation commits a crime, people should go to jail. And I do not mean the little people here, say, for example, the 5,000 people that Wells Fargo fired after a decade of crime. We mean the top executives, all of them, and for a reasonable period of time depending on the extent of the crime.

Specifically, this includes the people on Wall Street whose incompetence and greed caused the financial collapse. Put them in jail. This means the executives at Volkswagon, to the very top, who of course knew all along that they were committing fraud with the EPA Decepticon software. This means the Exxon executives, who suppressed research reports on global warming and funded fake science to attempt to delay action on global warming. This means the Wells Fargo executives who stole money from their clients. This means AT&T who was caught stealing $88 million from customers. I suspect that is the tip of the iceberg. Put them in jail.

Put them all in jail.  Yes, even the ones who gave all that money to your reelection campaign and that you have been protecting all these years behind the scenes.  Even those executives you play golf with.  Even them.

Furthermore, if our government can seize the assets of middle class people who have not even been accused of a crime, then civil asset forfeiture could surely be applied to such people as Exxon executives or Wells Fargo executives. Just think of all the good you can do with that extra $100M from the Wells Fargo CEO who of course knew all along that his company was stealing. 

We all know that "statute of limitations" is nothing more than a way of exempting rich criminals from facing the penalties of their crimes.  People figured that out long ago.  So when some stooge quotes "statute of limitations" at us why a criminal corporation can not be prosecuted, we know we are being lied to again.

We dont care that you failed over the last 60 years to make the criminal code correspond in the least to fairness here. We know you are in the pay of the worst criminals / executives. Put them in jail anyway and fix the criminal code while you are at it. 

Of course you wont do it. You are as corrupt as they are. But you have been warned, so dont pretend innocence when this blows up in your face.  

Sincerely,
MW
Global Wahrman

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Article on AT&T Stealing $88 Million

http://www.networkworld.com/article/3148319/mobile-wireless/atandt-to-cough-up-88m-for-cramming-mobile-customer-bills.html

Globalization and Its Discontents (1/2)

Many people in Washington and in business pretend to be surprised at the backlash against Globalization, which is sometimes presented with the code words “free trade”.  If the politicians are genuinely surprised at a backlash then they are genuinely stupid.  But I do not believe that they are that stupid, I think that one more time they are lying to steal the money.

Globalization has a very clear historical track record at least here in the West.  What is human slavery but an economic alternative to having to pay one's fellow citizens a living wage?  One can just "requisition" labor from the "dark continent" and use them on your sugar plantations without having to pay benefits or for that matter salary. Just a little room and board. And no unions either! Just imagine how much profits were improved for the shareholders. It was a good system until a bunch of do-gooders got involved and ruined everything, making business pay good hard money to the workers.

Globalization serves a similar purpose: increase profits through lowering costs of labor by sending the work to a part of the world where labor laws do not exist. And if it has a result of impoverishing Americans, well who cares? They are not shareholders and the poor have no impact on the political process, as we all know so well. 

Does this mean that I do not want America to be part of the “Global Economy”? No of course not. What I want is for the burden that Globalization imposes on the citizens of this country to be shared with the people who make the profits, and to see that there are legal restraints on their power.  And I believe that the Government can do many things to bring Globalization and its negative side effects under control.  I believe that they are morally obligated to do so.

Why does our government believe that they can put that many Americans out of work and not do something to help them find new work?  If these workers need to be retrained for another job, they are not likely to be able to afford it. The money they would have spent in the local economy, all that money that is being sent overseas, is now not spent in the local, American economy, causing other business to go out and release even more workers. And the improved profits go to the top 1 percent who already had enough money, so the average American sees none of this. The corporations and the rich do not even pay their fair share of taxes, putting even more burden on the middle and lower classes.  How can our government think for even one second that this is fair?

Of course the profits that remain do not just go to the 1 percent, some of that is shared with the politicians that enabled these activities with legislation that impoverished so many of their constituents. Payment for services received, as it were.

So now Americans are finally waking up to what has been done to them. It is reasonable to ask when does unintended consequences become merely the 800 pound chicken that comes home to roost? When is it merely the greed and stupidity of our business and political elite at the expense of any responsibility to long term consequences?  Long term consequences? What long term consequences, you may ask.

Here is one. Even the most shallow observer of recent history is aware that when the United States won World War 2, it was in large part because they had the manufacturing power to win it.  Now that we have destroyed our manufacturing in order to increase the profits of the rich, it makes it unlikely that we will be able to win another World War, should one happen. Do I believe that the United States has a strategic economic plan to see that this does not happen?  Thats a joke, right? 

Here is another.  A generation of young and old Americans who can not achieve financial security or their goals in life because they and their families were impoverished by this economic policy. When will Washington get it through their heads that enriching the 1 percent is not the same as providing economic security to Americans?

But the worst part of this is that our elected representatives lied through their teeth about the results of Globalization and do so to this day, but do nothing to help the disenfranchised or impoverished.  Their job is to represent the interests of the American people, and to tell them the truth about the policies that they are proposing.  And Clinton, Bush and Obama lied to the American people on an issue that is vital to the well being of their constituents.

Can anything be done about this? Isn't it all just water under the bridge by now? The answer to that is no, not even a little bit. Yes, 20 years of people's lives have been destroyed but there is a lot that our elected officials can do to improve the situation and return some wealth to the other 99 or so percent that they have "inconvenienced".

This will be the topic of part two of this post.

Why I Always Say Nice Things About My Clients

Could it be that American business is so terrified of having their crimes exposed that they would refuse to hire someone who wrote a blog?

A highly respected colleague from long ago who will remain nameless here has advised me to be aware that by writing a blog I have condemned myself to a life of poverty. There is absolutely no way, he avers, that any *real* company could take the chance that their dirty laundry would appear one day in my blog, there for all to see, exposed naked as it were to the whole world.

How very, very pathetic. How sad that a hypothetical business that would be terrified of a little blog, or even worse, that people would go around and live their lives scared that they might say something that would offend the corporation.

Sorry, but I just don't buy it.  I refuse to believe that companies and people are so terrified of a little blog. I sincerely hope my friend is wrong.

But they really have nothing to worry about on my account.  Assuming that they have paid me and people are not jerking each other around, I am incredibly discreet.

Here is some of my philosophy on the subject.

1. I believe in the “mutual appreciation society”. That means that I say good things about you and you say good things about me. It cuts both ways and it is to everyone's advantage.

2. In general, nothing bad about someone is put in writing (and email is writing).  

3. I sincerely adore my clients for the most part and want them to think that hiring me is one of the best things they have ever done. Therefore I do everything in my power to help them be successful and obviously dissing them in public would not be helpful.

4. In the long run, I believe that we live in a very small world, and whenever possible I try to remember this and say nice things. I may not be perfect, no one or company is perfect, and I try not to spread malicious gossip or be the subject of same.  Of course this can be difficult to do in this world given the tendency of people to say nasty things about each other and nuke their bridges, but I try to take the high road whenever possible and that has been my policy for over 20 years.

5. Finally and perhaps most important, I respect the confidentiality of my sources and when requested I keep sensitive information out of my blog, respect the request to be anonymous, and also respect that some information can only be for background only. Unlike the sensationalist press, we are in this for the long run. Besides lets face reality here, who exactly reads my blog that anyone would care what I published in it anyway?

But one does have to wonder if people are not being a little paranoid here in their concern.

Why are people so worried?

Could it be, could my friend be suggesting, (oh my god) that most companies are cesspools of crime and work every day to violate the law and work with government to hide their misdeeds? That in fact they are guilty of the worst offenses and desperate to keep their vile crimes out of the public eye? Is that what my friend is actually saying?

No, that could not be!  Not in the free market system!  Not in America!