Data breaches galore

Over the past 40 days, we have seen a lot of information regarding data breaches.  Starting with the announcement of the Target breach, the following breaches have been confirmed.

• Target - 40 million cars plus up to another 70 million ids/emails, etc.
• Neiman Marcus - 1.1 million cards
• Michaels?
• Snapchat (I know, not card related, but still affects 4.6 million users)

There is also a report from January 13 that this may be the tip of the iceberg, as 3 more may yet to be announced, and the FBI on January 23 indicated that many more may be coming.

What does this mean?   First of all, if you shopped at any of these stores during the time that each store had announced, then watch your bank statements for unauthorized transactions.  Work with your financial institution to replace as needed.

As for after the breach, I believe that this may be a tipping point with regards to EMV in the United States, and perhaps debit cards in general.  EMV (also known as Chip and PIN) is a standard where each card has a chip on it in addition to the magnetic stripe.  The card is swiped and a PIN is entered that needs to match the chip within the card 3 times or the card is locked.  This method is used in Europe primarily and has been recently introduced in Canada, but is not foolproof either (add the fact that it migrates the liability from the financial institution to the end user).

Secondarily, I believe that the use of debit cards will decline (with an equivalent increase in credit cards and/or cash based on the consumer) as people's fear increases that a compromised debit card will lead to a lengthy personal situation as the financial institution works through the fraud and eventually restores the consumers money.  People have already moved to a cashless society, but they will need a platform they have trust in.

ACA (Obamacare) failure in motion

The hits just keep on giving.  Remember, you were told that you could keep your insurance if you wanted. 

But what has come of the truth? 

•   Sticker shock from "supporters"
• Blaming insurers for dropping of coverage
• Continuing to say they aren't taking away health plans. 
•  President Obama new that people would have have to lose many of their health plans.  

But they forged ahead anyway, even with major failures just before launch.   

To be continued.... 

Is the #Shutdown designed to infuriate the public?

...or is it just a stupid failure where the administration attempts to "barrycade" the public from the open air monuments, through the orders of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).  Let's take a look at the incidents that makes the administration look petty and irrational.

• Barrycades at WWI Memorial (very limited), WWII Memorial, Vietnam Memorial, Lincoln Memorial,   Jefferson Memorial, National Mall, Iwo Jima Memorial, MLK Memorial, etc.  Some of these were created and funded by private funds and costs the government nothing to keep them open.  And these people must be critical to government function?
• Trying to block access to Florida Bay?  I guess we can't have access to the ocean?
• Harry Reid's irrational comments about funding the NIH for children with cancer? 
• Shutting down of government websites, including "We the People." 

Just because the Republicans and Democrats can't play nicely, the White House and OMB just choose to punish the populace with these petty and petulant displays of disdain for the American public.  President Obama, tear down these "barrycades". 

Government #shutdown - Day 1

Oh, the horror!  The humanity!  Early today, the government shutdown went into effect , bringing the whole world crashing down.  Everything that went wrong today must have been caused by the shutdown!  I shutter to see what exactly happened. 

The whole government probably did not report for work.  Chaos, anarchy!  Wait, what?  80% of the federal government actually reported to work today? 

I guess they must all be doing important things, like putting barricades around open air national monuments so people who usually can go to it unsupervised 24x7 cannot go to it when the government is closed? Or try to close bike routes used for bike commuting around DC?

Maybe we just need to shutdown perfectly functioning websites with a message that the government is closed? 

Or maybe, just maybe, this might be a manufactured crisis in order to push one side's or another's agenda with squabbling and petty disdain that the Legislative and Executive Branches have for the American people to receive the services taxes are paid on.  We have elected a politicians who are such ideologues on the left and right that they refuse to compromise/find middle ground because of the fear of a primary challenge from someone even more extreme in their party.  The political process is so broken right now that it may be time for a moderate third party, one who respects the rights and pocketbooks of the American people to sweep in and finally restore the government back to the people, as opposed to the special interests the left and right wings of the Republocrat party.

Have we lost it?

As I write this, the date is September 11th.  The remembrances are occurring as I wake up this morning, just as the attacks occurred as I awoke 12 years ago. While sad for those affected by the attacks, let's remember that we are stopping to remember lest than 0.0001% of the American public who died that day.  

Because of this loss, we, as a country, have decided to go to war in 2 countries, trampled on the constitution (especially the 4th Amendment) with the TSA, VIPR, NSA spying on the American public, the increased pace of militarization of the police throughout the years, and the utter fear that people have allowed the government to instill in us (think how the citizens were told to "shelter in place" as the militarized police come and "rescued" them from their house). 

There is a fine line of remembering of what happened on 9/11 and allowing it to run our lives.  We have failed as a country to the latter, giving up freedom for security and rights for safety.  The terrorists of 9/11 may have won in different ways than what they thought they were trying to do by changing the American way of life for the worse. 

Random Syrian Thoughts...

As Syria and possible U.S. action is coming to a head, some things still don't make sense.   

• If, by most accounts, the Syrian army currently has the upper hand against rebel forces,  why would the Assad government risk bringing in more firepower aiding the rebels by using chemical weapons?  It just makes no sense.
• If the US is planning on supporting the rebels, would we be aiding Al-Queda sympathizing rebels who seem to be just as brutal as the Assad regime.  Again, it makes no logical sense. 
• Further complicating this is the supposed report that the Saudi and other governments would finance our actions against Syria.  Does this make us hit man for hire in the world?

I don't see the sense at this time of getting involved in this civil war.