America’s Unsecure Security

After popping on BBC News Online and reading the latest article on America’s cyber-security, I now feel like my four year old Linksys cable router is light-years head of anything our federal government currently using. Remember, our government contains all of the organizations storing your deepest personal information logged. Even some you may not know about. Some of their security technology is years behind what even mom and pop shops are required by the same government to have in place now. I’m sensing irony here too.

That’s sad.

The SANS Institute referred to it as “embarrassing”.

Working for larger companies I can see how that happened (since our government tends to work as one). Cutting edge and the best is not always necessary, whatever has the most pizzaz and flair making the execs look cool is usually what is chosen.
Why has this never come to light? Mainly because major high profile breaches have only come to light presently. Anything in the last few years from information being stolen from government issued, but insecure laptops to plans being hacked for military designs have occurred.

Click Here for a detailed reference article by Maggie Shiels, Silicon Valley BBC reporter.

-SWB

PS – We’ve come along way from Wargames level hacking. Maybe the Feds should watch that 1980s movie again – what is happening today is like seeing a replay of that flick.

Are U in the U.E.?

Occasionally we cross-post on an article highlighted on CII’s corporate blog.  They do background checking for companies hiring employees and occasionally do posts on items that show up in the news that can affect who keeps your personal information.

The latest post of that nature is about the E.U.s new directive for ISPs to hold information about your internet goings on for a year.  Click Here for CII’s comments and a link to the article in the BBS News website.  Ciilink.com also has more articles on personal information safety and what is done for a background check, etc.

-SWB

PS – Click here, click there ….. your clicks are everywhere!

The G20 Leaders Save The Day!

Here’s a blip from the rest of the planet. All of the world’s economies (or at least the larger ones) have decided to agree to tackle the global financial crisis. This is nice that they are trying to look good with that decision. Not like they had a choice in the matter. Since every country in the world decided the jump into globalization – everyone affected everyone else. In other words they had no choice but to work together to keep the current economic crisis from bottoming out.

BBC News has a good article with a rundown on the G20 global deal – Click Here for it. There are some good links on related articles and bullet points on the pledges countries made, etc. It’s agood read on how they think they are going to save the financial world.

-SWB

PS – Pop goes the economy ….. time to patch the holes.

Guantanamo Bay field trip for Miss Universe 2008

Wait, wait, ….. waaaaaiiiiitt!!! We pushed “Publish” way to quick on the last article when we thought the Woodland Hills kiddies highly deserved the latest “Clueless Award”. We were WAY wrong. We popped over to BBC News and discovered that Miss Universe 2008 had taken the cake by declaring that Guantanomo Bay was “sooooo beautiful!”. She said she “loved meeting the Military Dogs”, and “the Detainees camp was very interesting” according to quotes in the BBC article.

Ummm ….. obviously she was shorted on the complete Guantanamo Bay experience. If I was her, I’d ask my travel agent for a big refund.

If you want to read about true cluelessness at work, Click Here for the article as featured in BBC News.

We feel that Dayana’s extra effort deserves us giving her two “Clueless Awards” at one time … don’t you agree?

-SWB

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PS – “Damage control, damage control, damage control!!”, you could hear the Miss Universe Pageant reps scream, “The dippy one did an oopsie big time!”

BTW – I’m thinkin’ there might also be potential here for a Darwin Award if Miss Dayana meets up with any of the Guantanamo detainees when and if they are set free.

AIG bonuses will be taxed!! House Approves 90 percent!

I’m sure this whip-crack was heard loud and clear by the AIG bonus recipients that haven’t returned their bonuses.  This is a very nice acknowledgement from the House on how angry the public is about the total waste of public money by AIG.

Anyway …. here is the breaking article from The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

-SWB

PS – It’s nice when the public becomes the actual ring-master.

Pope Against Condoms in Africa and Irritated France about the issue

… and by his religion he almost has to be, but:

He also needs to consider the issue within Africa due to the spread of Aids ….. the fact that the people freely having sex with each other most likely don’t have religion and condoms could aid in preventing the total elimination of a people on a continent via that disease, not to mention the rampant spread of the disease elsewhere.

Everyone has strong opinions on this one, and this does hit Pittsburghers too on a lower level (birth control, condoms, aids itself, etc). Welcome to a huge grey area of politics and religion everywhere.

Anyway the Pope Obviously irritated France by advising against condoms in Africa as seen in this BBC News article.

FYI – Places like World Vision International try to help out as much as they can with the ongoing issues in Africa.

-SWB

PS – getting the people to not die before you dump religious rule on them is probably a good idea. All comments are welcome on this post if constructive and not hate-oriented.

… This has been the SWB public service entry for this month … or so.

Come One, Come All – the AIG three ring circus is on

It must be nice to receive a bonus larger than to total amount I will ever make in my whole lifetime – especially when it’s paid to promote my retention with a company I no longer work for. It seems like that last sentence doesn’t make that much sense – which is why the Feds are going after AIG and Liddy today. This is another company build on the company motto “There’s a sucker born every minute”. Actually I think AIG altered that statement to “There’s countries of suckers born every minute”.

AIG says it was contractually obligated to pay the bonuses, but companies like GM and Chrysler, etc adjusted and renegotiated their contracts with employees to cut down on bonuses. This causes more people to question what AIG is saying and also proving that bonuses were probably paid as favors. Now the Government is going to tax those bonuses 70% to 100%, which means they saw through AIG’s lies too. This is good, considering the government can retroactively tax us, let them do it to $10 million dollar bonus recipients too.

Personally, though – I agree with the one senator that said the execs that brought the company down and actually took bonuses should go the Japanese way: Apologize and resign in shame, or commit professional suicide.

Here is the latest reference article from KDKA.

Update: From BBC News … “AIG CEO Admits Mistakes” … no kidding, really??

-SWB

PS – hmmm … thinking this could get big … hmmmm.