The story read at this link here
http://it.slashdot.org/story/09/08/07/0335227/UK-National-ID-Card-Cloned-In-12-Minutes?art_pos=4
seems to paint a very bleak picture about our use of technology by our governments today. The UK is guilty of incorrectly implementing a technology, which when tested by a TRUE hacker, was cloned in under 12 minutes.
The catch is the government owes us no explanation per se, they do as they will and change things as they please. My request to Obama, is put more faith in the people especially those all using advanced technology (as you are Mr.Blackberry man)...to at least push the testing beyond closed government quarters. The days of government contracts should come under scrutiny, if not for security of the people's identity alone, then at least for the security of the nation.
We all saw the movie Die Hard or Live Free....where the terrorist was an insider, which tried to point out the government's weaknesses. Yes the movie was about Bruce Willis kicking duff....but remember the underlying message, the government is not all knowing. They do make mistakes, and when it comes to identities that can be stolen, we don't want to have mistakes. Lost money on a credit acrd is one thing, but having your life cloned and used to help evil in whatever form, and have that reputation tarnished, is not something to be taken lightly.
Please Obama, before doing as our over anxious UK counter parts did, at least get some of the defcon blackhat team members review and help on testing the new RFID chips, should you even ever consider using them as proof of identity!
PS- One card to rule them all, incorporate the passport, with a special bonus card that doubles as your medicare, drivers, social security, would be nice...then only one office would need to create them, and in such would enforce the technology being available to no do gooders!
Certainly not many of you follow the ongoings of cases where people try to take advantage of tax laws to benefit themselves because the law itself is murky. However, there is a case that is drawing much attention unto itself, because of the nature of the "supposed" crime.
A fellow citizen who thought himself smart saw a loophole in the way he could pay his employees. If he payed them with gold or silver, which has to still be recognized by our society as a legal form of payment, he could give them more for less. This worked in the way that the legal system binds the value of these metals, to the current standings on the market. However when tax time comes around you are only taxed on the "face" value of the metals, not the current value of the market.
Citation is here
http://www.lvrj.com/news/48145032.html
and here http://www.lvrj.com/news/46074037.html.
Now to do this is wrong...absolutely not, seeing as the law is clear on how it wll tax its citizens and what is legal in payment. However, the point they are trying to make, is that this is fraud ...tax fraud because the person doing the action is doing this on purpose to avoid paying taxes.
OF COURSE HE IS, ESPECIALLY WHEN YOU GAVE AWAY OUR MONEY TO BIGGER CRIMINALS (GM, CHRYSLER) AND WE HAD NO SAY IN THIS!
So he is trying to save a few people from paying more money then they have to. If I get a slip saying I can not deduct a full amount of gas receipts on my business because technically the gas is also used for personal use, then send me a letter saying I can only report 80% or something likewise...dont bring me to jail because I did not quite know you could only declare a percentage.
They are trying to say he meant to avoid paying taxes, but then so was I when I declared 100% and not 80% of my gas receipts! This is a government that stone walls other investigations which could impact this one, on purpose because they do not want to give a chance to the defendant to have the upper hand. I am talking about an unlawful seizure by the FBI and IRS and the defendants home without proper warrants prepared, yet that case which was started before this one, has yet to see the light of day, and should that case rule that the seizure was unwarranted, then it would be thrown out of court, yet you can not discuss another case that has yet to be tried, therefor, it was a tactic to stone wall that is now leaving the defendant without any options.
He payed his employees with gold, the employees could have refused and he would have paid them cash, or cheque, but they accepted....so who is really at fault...the employer, employee or the goverment for not seeing that one law presided over another?
The government sees this action as a possible sore point where people will end up paying less taxes and the value of gold keep climbing, which BTW we have no real mines left in the US, all te gold mines are off this continent, we would end up being again stuck with foreign policies dictating our current economy!
I am signing out, however I think about Obama going off to jail because he gave as a gift to someone, a friend or family member, some gold coins and was found guilty of fraud. Can a gift be taxed, I don't know ....luckily I live in Canada!!!
We have the technology, but so do they....in the event that there is a cyber attack, the idea is that the US army be able to take over your computer for the greater good of the country. However, if we compare ourselves to our bigger cousins, China...we pail in that comparison.
China could easily afford to have 250 million machines to node together into a massive botnet, sort of what we have seen the likes of with that virus STORM. We probably could accomadate 10 million machines, if there are that many infected with a special malware the army created.
There are also those special organisations..like google...that allow you to donate your cpu cycles for a special reason (like doing cancer stem cell research) which in the end makes us feel like we are doing our part, but who says that those mega machines are not infected with the same virus or worm, thereby coming back full circle as if you had the malware installed on your pc.
We match our 10 million to their 250 million, and we have to wonder...is this why we are login the cyber war??? What can we do differently, or better, to make sure this type of thing does not happen.
I would recommend something along the lines of an organised committee, that analyses the current threat that countries may pose based on their advanced techonlogy or access to...and formulate a way to moderate a country's progress. Let's say for example Africa was starting a special project to get some computers into schools.... this would be classified as mundane.
If you took a third world country that just finished purchasing special servers that allow multi processing of complex nature, sort of what you need to use to guide missles...well then we would have to review the background of where that hardware was going, and account for its presence at all times.
In the case of a botnet, it is the sum of the small parts that make the whole...does that mean we should limit the amount of computers allowed...or limit the connectivity of those computers to internet access...or anything that might put a small dent into that armor?
Who is to say, but it is something to think about in the years to come, especially now that we are seeing more and more cyber threats surfacing and making theirpresence known. ID Fraud, CC fraud, email scams....spamming, omg spamming! Just food for thought.
We are in crisis, an energy crisis. We have problems with our present energy providers, and are looking to replace with a new more efficient energy source. Electricity seems to be the energy of choice, but we need to do our homework. The President should also do his homework!
We as a people have a responsibility to follow what are leader suggests, ad try and help our country as much as we can.... "ask not what our country can do for us....but what canwe do for our country!"
Well, now is the time for the President to do for his country something amazing. I have come across a few articles that specifies the extension of battery life 10fold. This means for the same small battery we have 10 times the life.....OR for a battery 10 times smaller, we have the same amount of life.
Take this to practice on car batteries for electrical cars...this means a car with 10 times smallerbattery, means lss weight, and less production costs. Should this not instill a certai urgency, and should this not make the President want to invest some money in this company that cam across this new etchnology? You can read for yourself the findings....but this is a matter of national well being...and when they say 5 years before you see the first publicly available battery....I say, it should be 5 months...not 5 years!
Incentives are what we need, and I find the President is not doing as much as he could or maybe his cabinet or his "peeps" in charge of finding the new technologies that will bring the US out of their current energy dependent situation.
These are the links to the stories related to my findings!
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/scienceandtechnology/science/sciencenews/5353809/Worlds-first-battery-fuelled-by-air.html
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2009/05/stair-20090518.html
Well, I am displeased to hear this, unless of course Obama was directing his attack towards the corporations and not the people. It is sad to say, but in this economic crisis, big coporations making billions of dollars profits, need to stand by their country, and support the failing infra-structure.
It is not by forcing the poor people, who work so hard , but cant afford the legal representation or accounting council to find all the loopholes, that should be targeted. Too often I find myself watching as the poor get poorer and ...well you know how it goes. Britney Spears is making millions, is she paying millions too in tax, or is there a glitzy accountant following her around calculating everything that can be deducted.
I would love to see a flat rate for people (corporations are a different matter) , that way less energy, effort,time and money is invested in making this happen. Think about it, no deductions, no receipts, no time wasted calculating, no time wasted getting documents, or contacting accountants that charge you through the nose to break even. If we had a flat 20% of whatever you did make, poor would not be poorer, then the rich.
They would be even. We would have alot more money in our coffers, because for once the rich would be paying the FULL amount,.....remember no deductions...so from 100 million dollars for one person's gain in a year (Arnold Schwarzenegger) would equal about 20 million for the US! Thats it thats all. No extra wasted money on the government figuring out new ways for people to pay, and have that side lined by another loop hole.
Why not, I ask you....why not? The person making 10$ an hour, does not have to worry about spending extra money to make all the weird calculations, to figure out this and that , and just pay an even 20%, easy! The rich guy, wont have the luxury of avoiding paying anythnig, because now, even with the best accountants, it wont matter....he still pays 20$
Obama, has our back people, he gave something this cool to the queen, who herself has her head up her ass....."yes , here take a picture of me, and you can sit and admire me from afar" Silly girl, pics are for kids!
If you are a woman, and you give a picture of yourself to a guy, at least make sure you are wearing 3 inch heels and leather...with some make up and such.
Leave it to a woman to send something totally useless.
What does she get, an Ipod (score 1), with tons of music and videos (score 2) and also a photo album of her trip to the US (score 3 and 4 because we know she likes to look at herself!)
I am resting assured, someone like Obama doing a great deed like this...proves he is up with the times.
Peace bro, keep up the good work!
Obama seems to be very up to date with the tmies and technologies of today, maybe it is having 2 teenage daughters that have many friends keeps him in the loop, or maybe having a great support team behnid him that is not only hungry but young and dynamic. ...maybe its both.
We have a global war on economy, but we also have many other global wars waging on including pollution & cyber crime. We all have heard of the conficker worm being almost as bad as the blaster or storm worm with an unknown command waiting to be executed on april 1st.
Is this the big anti virus companies uniting together behind closed doors, and creating a "fake" worm to get everybody excited about, and to generate revenue during this bleek economic crisis? Is it really the russian, or romanian mafia connected underground we keep seeing in the movies trying to come up with more ways of storing cash in their coffers...or maybe even the chinese lying in wait for the perfect opportunity to get a hold of a botnet with enough power to DDoS attack the USA?
Whatever you might think, there is one way to avoid all the spam. Security experts working at google being represented in part by Amanda Kleha at http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/2009/03/spam-data-and-trends-q1-2009.html describe the problem having come back at a woping 94% of all emails being spamm.
If the USA were to push and adopt a backend ISP regulation that stipulates all emails will be charged for (at let's say .0001 cent) with a cap of 100$ for residential sector (in case grandma and grandpa did not know their computers were the ones sending the emails in the first place)..we could conclude 2 things.
1 - The business like atire the criminal industry is wearing for the job would now become more expensive to tailor and would ultimately push a few cut throats beyond the point of profits. Also being that the expenses would be more , they would have to charge more, and a "restructuting" of the industry would be needed...much like our economic situation right now.
2 - The grandma and grandpa running their computers night and day without thinking twice about having proper investments in AVs or updates would be made aware of their "situation" by a statement including the new price cap, which would render them unable to sit idle. They would first call their ISPs to know why (if the description of the charge did not effectively convey the message) and then would be given a few different options to proceed in rectifying their problem.
This will definately cause a big dent, in the armor of that big giant waving that magic SPAM wand.
Now if we could get all the ISPs to agree.....imagine what we could do?
