Luis Gonzalez

We all read about the Target security breach that compromised tens of million of customers. Target is back in the news today.

(LA Times) Target Corp. is hiring an IT expert from General Motors Co. to beef up its data security following a massive breach that continues to weigh on its reputation.

Brad Maiorino will head up technology risk and information strategy, a newly created position.

It’s the latest move by Target to tighten security over its huge amount of shopper data. The Minneapolis company has increased monitoring of accounts and implemented new safeguards at its point-of-sale systems.

~~snip~~

Target, the nation’s third-largest retailer, has been struggling with the fallout from its disclosure in December that hackers stole credit and debit card information from tens of millions of customers.

Its revenue dropped 5% in the crucial fourth quarter and its chief executive, Gregg Steinhafel, stepped down last month. That followed the exit of Beth Jacob, the retailer’s former chief information officer.

You may recall that the breaches, they were big news this past December, but how exactly did the theft take place?

(Bloomberg Business) The biggest retail hack in U.S. history wasn’t particularly inventive, nor did it appear destined for success. In the days prior to Thanksgiving 2013, someone installed malware in Target’s (TGT) security and payments system designed to steal every credit card used at the company’s 1,797 U.S. stores. At the critical moment—when the Christmas gifts had been scanned and bagged and the cashier asked for a swipe—the malware would step in, capture the shopper’s credit card number, and store it on a Target server commandeered by the hackers.

It’s a measure of how common these crimes have become, and how conventional the hackers’ approach in this case, that Target was prepared for such an attack. Six months earlier the company began installing a $1.6 million malware detection tool made by the computer security firm FireEye (FEYE), whose customers also include the CIA and the Pentagon. Target had a team of security specialists in Bangalore to monitor its computers around the clock. If Bangalore noticed anything suspicious, Target’s security operations center in Minneapolis would be notified.

On Saturday, Nov. 30, the hackers had set their traps and had just one thing to do before starting the attack: plan the data’s escape route. As they uploaded exfiltration malware to move stolen credit card numbers—first to staging points spread around the U.S. to cover their tracks, then into their computers in Russia—FireEye spotted them. Bangalore got an alert and flagged the security team in Minneapolis. And then …

Nothing happened.

OK, so Target blew it.

Their focus being directed at realizing sales during the year’s biggest shopping weekend, the company’s security team missed the theft of millions of credit card numbers.

How much was stolen?

Estimates has those numbers at 40 million credit card numbers,  along with 70 million addresses, phone numbers and an unknown amount of card holder’s personal information simply flying out of a hacked Target server.

These were not Target credit cards.

The hackers stole every card number swiped in a Target store during 2013’s Black Friday weekend. So if you shopped at any Target store on or about last Thanksgiving, your information was very likely stolen.

Bloomberg Business goes on.

In testimony before Congress, Target has said that it was only after the U.S. Department of Justice notified the retailer about the breach in mid-December that company investigators went back to figure out what happened. What it hasn’t publicly revealed: Poring over computer logs, Target found FireEye’s alerts from Nov. 30 and more from Dec. 2, when hackers installed yet another version of the malware. Not only should those alarms have been impossible to miss, they went off early enough that the hackers hadn’t begun transmitting the stolen card data out of Target’s network. Had the company’s security team responded when it was supposed to, the theft that has since engulfed Target, touched as many as one in three American consumers, and led to an international manhunt for the hackers never would have happened at all.

They missed it not once, but twice.

Here’s a visual to help you along.

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Continue reading Dumping on Mickey D at The Last Wire

A joke.

A man was standing off the edge of the Golden Gate Bridge, obviously about to jump.

A passer-by notices the jumper and quickly decides to try and talk him down off the ledge, so he tries talking to the jumper.

“Sir, are you an American?” to which the jumper answers “yes.”

“Where are you from?” – asks the Good Samaritan. “I am from Louisiana”, responds the distraught man.

“Great! What an incredible coincidence! I am from the South as well!” – says the Good Samaritan.

The passer-by continues to engage the jumper.

“What is your political affiliation, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian or Independent?”

The jumper looks back over his shoulder and answers “I am a Republican.”

“Me too, that’s amazing!” – the Good Samaritan continues, as he slowly moves closer to the jumper. “What kind of Republican are you: Conservative, small “l” libertarian, paleoconservative,  Krystolian neoconservative, or Country Club Republican?”

The jumper seems to be more engaged in the conversation at this point, visibly relaxing and responds: “I am a Conservative.”

The Good Samaritan gets excited . He is now within arm’s reach of the would-be jumper.

“Me too! Is this a small world or what?”

The would-be jumper smiles and sits on the handrail, the tension visibly leaving his shoulders.

The Good Samaritan finally reaches the man, placing a comforting hand on his shoulder. “Whatever it is, we can sort this out” – he tells the jumper.

“Are you a Social Conservative, or a Fiscal Conservative?” – asks the Good Samaritan, continuing to  engage the jumper as he sits beside him on the handrail..

The man on the edge, now obviously more relaxed answers “Social Conservative” as a smile creeps across his face.

Now, the Good Samaritan with the jumper’s shoulder firmly in his grasp says “Me too! What kind of Social Conservative. Are you a Christian Right, or a Compassionate Conservative?”

The guy on the bridge says: “Compassionate Conservative”, and with that the Good Samaritan, becoming very angry, screams: “Die liberal!” and pushes him off the bridge. 

OK… maybe not so much a joke as possibly the core reason why Democrats will continue to win elections and mold the nation’s future for years to come. The right has no greater enemy than the right.

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Continue reading Of True Scotsmen and Real Conservatives at The Last Wire

June 5th, 1989 – June 5th, 2014

Never let the tanks win.

Many Americans are lauding the release of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, held prisoner for the past five years by the Haqqani network, an insurgent group affiliated with the Taliban, probably somewhere in Pakistan.

His freedom came about via a prisoner exchange, with the United States trading five Taliban detainees being held in Guantanamo Bay.

The Guantanamo Bay detainees released are:

• Khairullah Khairkhwa, an early member of the Taliban whose most prominent post was as governor of the Herat province from 1999 to 2001.
• Noorullah Noori, who served as governor of the Balkh province and played a role in coordinating fighting against the U.S.-backed Northern Alliance.
• Fazl Muhammad, the commander of the main force that fought against the Northern Alliance in 2001 and served as chief of army staff under the Taliban. He was also accused of war crimes during the Afghan civil war in the 1990s.
• Abdul Haq Wasiq, deputy chief of the Taliban’s intelligence service.
• Muhammad Nabi Omari, a minor Taliban official from the Khost province.

The exact details surrounding Bergdahl’s capture are sketchy, with many sources reporting that Sgt. Bergdahl was not captured by insurgents, but that he deserted his post, willingly joining the terrorist organization that just released him. But let’s for a moment set aside Sgt. Bergdahls’s disquieting story, and pay attention to the larger story surrounding his “release.”

How far has Barack Obama overstepped his authority this time?

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Continue reading American Führer at  The Last Wire

Last week, Rep. Joe Garcia D-FL) was caught on camera enjoying a snack during a House Judiciary Committee hearing on government surveillance programs.

The irony of that is beyond amazing.

He was picking his ear and eating the wax, unaware that he was on camera during a house judiciary committee on surveillance.

The more I say it, the funnier it gets.

This week Joe is having his foot for dessert.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WupBj4VPVTQ

Garcia has tried to brush off criticism for his comment by writing it off as a cheap shot at his GOP opponents on the subject of immigration reform, and by standing on his Cuban immigrant status.

“This is an absurdity, accusing the son of Cuban immigrants of believing in Communism is just ridiculous,” Garcia told The Miami Herald in an interview this week.

Joe… sadly, there are more and more children and grandchildren of Cuban immigrants espousing Socialism and neocommunism in Miami every day. You’re a prime example.

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Continue reading at The Last Wire

Here we go again.

(Bloomberg) – A group of 44 former high-ranking U.S diplomats, civil servants, military officers and Cuban-American businessmen is calling on President Barack Obama to further loosen a half-century embargo on the Communist regime in Cuba.

In an open letter sent to Obama, the group, which includes former Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte, former head of the U.S. Southern Command Admiral James Stavridis and Andres Fanjul, co-owner of sugarcane producer Fanjul Corp., called on Obama to expand the roster of groups allowed to organize travel to the island, authorize import and export licenses between the two countries’ private sectors and encourage the expansion of telecommunications in Cuba by permitting the sale of hardware.

“The U.S. is finding itself increasingly isolated internationally in its Cuba policy,” the group said in the letter. “The Obama administration has an unprecedented opportunity to usher in significant progress using its executive authority at a time when public opinion on Cuba policy has shifted toward greater engagement with the Cuban people while continuing to pressure the Cuban government on human rights.”

I think that someone should put this myth to bed once and for all.

There is no US embargo on Cuba.

Did everyone get that?

Let me say it again.

THERE. IS. NO. US. EMBARGO. ON. CUBA.

I can prove that easily.

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Read more at The Last Wire

The Book

Vladimir Nabokov’s “Lolita” is a stunningly beautiful example of prose at its very best. An absolute pleasure to read and to immerse oneself in the writer’s delicately crafted imagery, Lolita, as seen through the eyes of Humbert Humbert is the epitome of one who “walks in beauty like the night.”

“Oh, what a dreamy pet! She walked up to the open suitcase as if stalking it from afar, at a kind of slow-motion walk, peering at that distant treasure box on the luggage support. (Was there something wrong, I wondered, with those great gray eyes of hers, or were we both plunged in the same enchanted mist?)

The deftness of the prose is incredible. In your mind’s eye you can “see” exactly what the writer wants you to see moving at the exact pace that he intends for you to move at.

“She stepped up to it, lifting her rather high-heeled feet rather high and bending her beautiful boy-knees while she walked through dilating space with the lentor of one walking under water or in a flight dream. Then she raised by the armlets a copper-colored, charming and quite expensive vest, very slowly stretching it between her silent hands as if she were a bemused bird-hunter holding his breath over the incredible bird he spreads out by the tips of its flaming wings.”

Just then, you feel a tinge of something wrong.

You begin to sense the vulgar aesthetic of it all, and you come to grips with the realization that you’re enjoying beauty through the eyes of a pedophile, and the book is never the same again. You struggle with Humbert’s morally repugnant behavior even as you recognize the greatness of the writing.

Lolita herself is nothing like what Humbert describes her as being. She is a rather ordinary twelve year-old, and her exotic beauty resides solely in Humbert’s mind. The nymphet described in the book exists because he exists.

That’s classic solipsism.

The theory or view that the self is the only reality. An extreme form of skepticism which denies the possibility of any knowledge other than of one’s own existence. Applied to political ideology, it is the belief that one specific set of beliefs is the only acceptable set of beliefs which defines that political ideology, to the exclusion of all others.

The modern day Social Conservative movement is Humbert Humbert to the Taxed Enough Already coalition’s Lolita.

Continue reading at The Last Wire

The Boston Globe reporting:

More than a year after the school shootings in Newtown, Conn., a panel of academic experts today released a long-awaited report recommending that Massachusetts tighten its gun laws, which are already considered among the toughest in the country.

The panel made 44 recommendations, including that Massachusetts join a national mental health database for screening potential gun owners, that it beef up firearms training requirements, and that it eliminate Class B gun licenses, which are seldom used.

It recommended that the Massachusetts Chiefs of Police Association help define a series of factors that could be used to prohibit “unsuitable persons” from acquiring firearms. The panel said the current process allows local law enforcement officials too much discretion to determine whether a person is suitable to be granted a license to carry.

It also said Massachusetts should require anyone wanting to purchase a hunting rifle or a shotgun to pass those standards of suitability. That could allow local police chiefs to deny gun purchases to people who have been arrested, but not convicted, of a crime.

Wait, let’s read that last sentence again:

“That could allow local police chiefs to deny gun purchases to people who have been arrested, but not convicted, of a crime.”

Let’s skip past the obvious and not discuss the idea that people who in effect are innocent of any crime would be denied their Second Amendment rights under this proposal by academic experts, and skip to the essence of leftist victimhood political dogma.

“Disparate impact”.

There.

I did it.

I played the race card.

Liberals have been talking about the “disproportional representation of racial minorities (primarily African Americans, hence “Black crime”) at all stages of the criminal justice system, including arrests, prosecutions and incarcerations” (Wikipedia… for what it’s worth), and here they go suggesting a “facially neutral” law that would blatantly have an “adverse impact” on a “protected class” of citizens!

(I am quickly running out of progressive racial catch phrases here. Maybe I shouldn’t have loaded so many up in one sentence.)

So if the Commonwealth of Massachusetts embraces the recommendation of these “academic experts”, not hiring a member of a “protected class” to work in my child care center based on an arrest record for domestic violence or child abuse that did not culminate in a conviction would be both racist and illegal, but the State denying the very same individual their constitutionally-protected right to own a gun would be both legal and socially acceptable.

Pretzel logic much?

This proposal is further proof of the unmitigated disastrous effect that allowing members of academia to craft policy at any level of government could bring about.

International bankers are dropping dead at a somewhat alarming rate.

Bloomberg reports:

Mike Dueker, the chief economist at Russell Investments, was found dead at the side of a highway that leads to the Tacoma Narrows Bridge in Washington state, according to the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department. He was 50.

He may have jumped over a 4-foot (1.2-meter) fence before falling down a 40- to 50-foot embankment, Pierce County Detective Ed Troyer said yesterday. He said the death appeared to be a suicide.

Dueker was reported missing on Jan. 29, and a group of friends had been searching for him along with law enforcement. Troyer said the economist was having problems at work, without elaborating.”

Who was Mike Dueker?

Dr. Dueker writes regularly for Russell’s Market Outlook publications, forecasting the business cycle and the target federal funds rate. He developed and maintains a business cycle indicator that is updated regularly on Russell.com. He also spearheads Russell’s participation as a blue chip forecaster for both blue chip economic indicators and blue chip financial forecasts. Dueker brings state-of-the-art empirical modeling and forecasting techniques to key economic developments, the term structure of interest rates, currency markets and tactical asset allocation. He coordinates efforts to formulate globally consistent Russell views on the near-term macroeconomic outlook, including inflation and currency developments. Prior to joining Russell in 2008, Dr. Dueker was an assistant vice president and research economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis from 1991 to 2008. His principal duties included briefing the bank president prior to monetary policy meetings and publishing articles in academic journals, such as the Journal of Econometrics, the Journal of Monetary Economics, and the Review of Economics and Statistics. Dueker served as an associate editor of the Journal of Business and Economic Statistics. He also was editor of Monetary Trends, a monthly publication of the St. Louis Fed.

Mike Dueker was a high-power economic forecaster.

Dueker’s suicide was preceded by two others in the international banking cycle:

The Washington Times reporting:

“Two high-profile and high-up American bankers in London have killed themselves in separate incidents that took place within a couple days of each other.

Gabriel Magee, 39, a senior manager at JP Morgan, jumped 500 feet to his death Tuesday from the top of the bank’s European headquarters, the Daily Mail reported. Responders found his body on the roof that encircles the outside of the ninth floor.

On Sunday, another American bank executive, William Broeksmit, 58, was discovered dead in his South Kensington home. Police ruled the death a suicide by hanging.

Mr. Broeksmit had retired a year ago from his senior-level position with the Deutsche Bank, the Mail reported.”

That’s three high-ranking bank officers suicides in under a week’s time.

Are these incidents precursors of things to come in the world’s economy?

Or are the precursors there, but underreported?

• Rusia’s “My Bank” stopped all cash withdrawals for a week, possibly in an attempt at proactively cutting off a possible bank run.
• British-based multinational banking giant HSBC Holdings plc., began restricting customer’s cash withdrawals in excess of £5,000, forcing the customers to provide documentation of what they intend to spend the money on at about the same time last month.

Read more at InfoWars.

All this, and President Obama has issued an Executive Order instructing the Treasury Secretary to create an government-managed, soon-to-be-compulsory IRA program.

What does The Economic Policy Journal think of Obama’s plan?

It’s a trap. It will make your savings highly visible to the government, very vulnerable to future special taxes and it drives investments in the direction of financing the government with your savings, rather than the productive private sector. That’s what myRA is all about.

It may very well be that in the near future, your mattress will be the safest place for you to keep your cash.