Friday, August 05, 2016

Update.  It takes a while to unravel the knots these hackers tied. 
Philippine central bank fines Rizal Bank over Bangladesh cyber heist failings
The Philippine central bank said on Friday it would fine Rizal Commercial Banking Corp (RCB.PS) (RCBC) a record 1 billion pesos ($21 million), after the bank was used by cyber criminals to channel $81 million stolen from Bangladesh Bank in February.
The central bank said in a statement that it was the largest amount it has ever approved "as part of its supervisory enforcement actions" on a bank.
   Unknown hackers tried to steal nearly $1 billion from the Bangladesh central bank's account at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York between Feb. 4 and Feb. 5, and succeeded in transferring $81 million to four accounts at RCBC in Manila.
RCBC earlier on Friday challenged Bangladesh Bank to take it to court, telling Reuters that the "Philippine side has done its part" and that the transfers were made based on authenticated instructions over payments network SWIFT.
   A Bangladesh central bank team is currently in Manila to try and recover some of the lost money, but said they were close to getting back only $15 million.


Somehow, I don’t think this will be received well.
Users of hacked bitcoin exchange may be forced to share loss
Hong Kong-based bitcoin exchange Bitfinex is likely to spread the $68 million loss from Tuesday’s cyber-theft among its clients.  This may include users who weren’t directly affected by the hack.
“We are still working out the details so nothing is set in stone, however we are leaning towards a socialized loss scenario among bitcoin balances and active loans to BTCUSD positions,” a spokesperson of the exchange posted on Reddit.


Niche investing?  Are the local versions of global Apps really worth this much? 
KKR, Warburg Pincus Invest in Indonesia Motorcycle-Hailing App Go-Jek
Investors including KKR & Co. and Warburg Pincus LLC reached a deal Thursday to invest more than $550 million in Indonesian motorcycle-hailing app PT Go-Jek, according to a person familiar with the situation.
   Go-Jek offers cheap, on-demand motorcycle taxis that can be booked through smartphones.  The company’s fixed prices and pickup times meaning passengers don’t need to haggle over prices at motorbike stands.  It has also expanded into on-demand grocery shopping, delivery services, masseuses and beauticians, and has also ventured into offering cars and minivans.

(Related)  Clones without a niche?  Full on competition?
Startups Seek to Challenge Craigslist in Online Classifieds
An arms race is heating up to replace Craigslist, the dominant force in online classifieds the past two decades.
Startup companies OfferUp and Letgo are surging in popularity among people looking to buy and sell everything from used clothes to used cars through their smartphones.  And deep-pocketed investors are paying up for stakes in them even though they don’t charge for their services today.


Perspective.  Think of this as another indication that Big Data is really, really big!
Can Twitter Fit Inside the Library of Congress?
In 2010, the Library of Congress and Twitter announced a historic and incongruous partnership: Together, they would archive and preserve every tweet ever posted, creating a massive store of short-form thoughts.  It was odd: a 210-year-old institution partnering with a four-year-old startup, cataloging the internet’s ephemeral #brunchtweets.
   Yet, however dubious the task seemed back then, no one doubted the Library of Congress would get the work done.  If Twitter could handle a few million tweets a day, surely the largest library in the world could, too.
But as it turns out, it couldn’t.
   The library has been handed a Gordian knot, an engineering, cyber, and policy challenge that grows bigger and more complicated every day—about 500 million tweets a day more complicated.  Will the library finally untie it—or give in and cut the thing off?
“This is a warning as we start dealing with big data—we have to be careful what we sign up for,” said Michael Zimmer, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee who has written on the library’s efforts.  “When libraries didn’t have the resources to digitize books, only a company the size of Google was able to put the money and the bodies into it.  And that might be where the Library of Congress is stuck.”


For the student tool kit.
How to Quickly Scan Documents Using Android & Google Drive
   Get started by opening the Google Drive app on your Android phone.  Tap the floating + button in the bottom-right corner and choose Scan.  The app will launch your camera and you can snap a photo of whatever you’d like to scan.


For my students and my peers.
   If you think of social media as the sole province of vacation selfies and muffin recipes, the idea of using it for genuine professional development may seem absurd.  But there are plenty of ways you can use social media to build professional skills, knowledge, and relationships, without getting overwhelmed.
To get real learning value out of social media, ask yourself these three questions:
What do I want to learn?
When do I have time for learning?
Whom do I want to learn from or with?

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