“We have clear evidence that we
detected this early enough to stop it, but couldn't be bother to
actually do anything.” Wow, that makes me confident they are
protecting my money...
A few weeks ago, UBS employee Kweku
Adoboli (universally described as a "rogue trader") ran
up a $2 billion loss for his employer; many readers wondered how
it is the systems which allow trades to happen at all aren't better
tuned to catch such massive cash flows without triggering alerts.
Now, reader DMandPenfold submits a report from Computerworld UK in
which the bank claims that such triggers were in
place — they
were simply not acted on. From the article:
"UBS has
insisted its IT systems did detect unusual and unauthorised trading
activity, Interim chief executive Sergio Ermotti, who is running the
company following Oswald Grubel's resignation last month, sent a memo
to employees saying the bank is aware that its systems did detect the
rogue activity. In the memo, Ermotti wrote: 'Our internal
investigation indicates that risk and operational systems did detect
unauthorised or unexplained activity but this was not sufficiently
investigated nor was appropriate action taken to ensure existing
controls were enforced.'"
Predicting crime: good. Looking at
everyone all the time rather than looking for anomalies: bad (and
rather wasteful, unless the assumption is that most 'citizens' are
criminals) This appears to be an attempt to automate the behavioral
checking that Israel uses at airports. Good luck with that.
Homeland
Security moves forward with 'pre-crime' detection
An internal U.S. Department of Homeland
Security document indicates that a controversial program designed to
predict whether a person will commit a crime is already being tested
on some members of the public, CNET has learned.
… It's unclear why the June 2010
DHS document (PDF)
specified that information is currently collected or retained on
members of "the public" as part of FAST, and a department
representative declined to answer questions that CNET posed two days
ago.
… Peter
Boogaard, the deputy press secretary for the Department of
Homeland Security, provided a statement to CNET that said:
The FAST program
is only in the preliminary stages of research and there are no plans
for acquiring or deploying this type of technology at this time.
FAST is designed to track and monitor,
among other inputs, body movements, voice pitch changes, prosody
changes (alterations in the rhythm and intonation of speech), eye
movements, body heat changes, and breathing patterns. Occupation and
age are also considered. A government source told CNET that blink
rate and pupil variation are measured too.
A field test of FAST has been conducted
in at least one undisclosed location in the northeast. "It is
not an airport, but it is a large venue that is a suitable substitute
for an operational setting," DHS spokesman John Verrico told
Nature.com in May.
Perspective: Didn't Maine recently
give tablets to schoolchildren? But why would WY be number two?
Maine
Was the Top State for Tablet Lovers in September
Targeted mobile advertising firm
Jumptap has released its MobileSTAT
market share report for September concerning tablet and
smartphone usage trends across the United States. The big surprise?
The state of Maine had the highest tablet use in the U.S. in
September, followed by other vacationland spots like Hawaii, New
Hampshire and Virginia. Jumptap says that 93% of tablet traffic
comes over Wi-Fi while the iPad controlled the sector with 75% of
usage.
Because you never know which one will
work best...
Thursday, October 6, 2011
Vessenger,
producers of a group messaging system, offers a free program for
capturing and annotating images on your computer screen. The free
program, called Snaplr,
is available for Windows and Mac.
Snaplr
reminds me a bit of Jing without the video option. With Snaplr
installed you can capture all or part of your screen. Snaplr's
annotation tools include text boxes, highlighting, and free-hand
drawing tools. When you've finished creating your annotated screen
capture you can save it as a PNG file or attach it to an email
message in Outlook.
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