On 07/10/2016 05:18 PM, Alvin Starr via talk wrote:

Some people on this list are likely to be considered subversive.

I guess we'd better start talking about encryption, address spoofing etc., to give the five eyes something to do! ;-)

On Sun, 10 Jul 2016 23:05:30 -0400
Bob Jonkman via talk <talk@gtalug.org> wrote:
> On 2016-07-10 05:28 PM, James Knott via talk wrote:
> > On 07/10/2016 05:18 PM, Alvin Starr via talk wrote:
> >> Some people on this list are likely to be considered subversive.
> > I guess we'd better start talking about encryption, address
> > spoofing etc., to give the five eyes something to do!  ;-)
> Oh boy, I'll bet I'm in trouble now!
> - --Bob.
> 
Bob, you're in Kitchener, so you are exempt from surveillance :)

Andre

Story for the top post but I found this to be quite Interesting. Seems like being Birds Of a Feather is getting more validity for predicated predictive analytics. At least according to the guy who penned this. “Crowd-Anticrowd Theory of Dynamical Behavior in Competitive, Multi-Agent Autonomous Systems and Networks" I got that title from the link to Neil F. Johnson's website in this CBC article. http://www.cbc.ca/radio/day6/episode-294-tracking-terrorism-online-pok%C3%A9... Sent from mobile. On Jul 12, 2016 8:39 AM, "Russell Reiter" <rreiter91@gmail.com> wrote:

On Jul 10, 2016 2:45 PM, "Evan Leibovitch via talk" <talk@gtalug.org>

wrote:

...

Sheesh, Five eyes or not, this is unwelcome.

Rumor has it that this has been pared down to three eyes. The kicker is which three and what do the other two think of this.

Here's a link to a take on some of the rules. The author seems to point to the system being somewhat patchwork as it is being developed. He also raises the spectre of its real time geolocation abilities.

http://blog.erratasec.com/2014/07/reading-xkeyscore-rules-source.html?m=1

...

http://www.in.techspot.com/news/security/nsa-classifies-linux-journal-reader...

This author cherry picked a comment from one code snippet for this link name. Kind of inflammatory, but I'd be worried if the black helicopters were following me around all the time too.

...

-- Evan Leibovitch Geneva, CH

...

Em: evan at telly dot org Sk: evanleibovitch Tw: el56

--- Talk Mailing List talk@gtalug.org https://gtalug.org/mailman/listinfo/talk

Sent from mobile.

<snip>

...

On Jul 12, 2016 8:39 AM, "Russell Reiter" <rreiter91@gmail.com> wrote:

...

On Jul 10, 2016 2:45 PM, "Evan Leibovitch via talk" <talk@gtalug.org>

wrote:

...

...

...

Sheesh, Five eyes or not, this is unwelcome

This will work till ISIS deicide to use the same software/process to avoid being tracked like this.

Probably more likely they will revert to pigeon drops or other covert confidence methods. Even TOR fails if either endpoint entry to the onion routing is known.

The wallstreet guys came up with a method to manage risk and it worked well till everybody used it then all the risk was back but in a slightly different form.

Could you clarify that? I think I have a different opinion about wall street risk management than you do. Sub prime mortgages decimated Fannie May & Freddy Mac. Enron wiped out pensions and Bernie Madoff got 150 years in the slammer for his Ponzi scheme, pretty much all within the last decade. I watched a video of Noam Chomsky discussing Trump's candidacy. Interestingly he pointed out that what has happened in the US is that the current system has placed huge quantities of money in the hands of a small fraction of the 1%. Apparently this accounts for the majority of Trumps base as being disenfranchised white Americans who face wages as low as they were in the 60's. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2lsEVlqts0&sns=em Chomsky for sure is on somebody's list. The question is, are you for watching, or me for posting this link.

-- Alvin Starr || voice: (905)513-7688 Netvel Inc. || Cell: (416)806-0133

alvin@netvel.net ||

--- Talk Mailing List talk@gtalug.org https://gtalug.org/mailman/listinfo/talk

Sent from mobile.

On Jul 16, 2016 4:54 PM, "James Knott via talk" <talk@gtalug.org> wrote:

On 07/16/2016 04:42 PM, Russell Reiter via talk wrote:

...

...

The wallstreet guys came up with a method to manage risk and it worked well till everybody used it then all the risk was back but in a slightly different form.

Could you clarify that? I think I have a different opinion about wall street risk management than you do.

Sub prime mortgages decimated Fannie May & Freddy Mac. Enron wiped out pensions and Bernie Madoff got 150 years in the slammer for his Ponzi scheme, pretty much all within the last decade.

A big part of the problem is business has been claiming they need deregulation to grow. Well, that,

I recall it more as threats to relocate to jurisdictions with lesser regulations, which they did anyway after getting major concessions from unions and government regulators. coupled with lack of enforcement led

to the 2008 collapse. Bernie Madoff is a perfect example of what lack of enforcement can do, as the SEC was pretty much handed the case on a

It boils down to who can you really trust, Madoff was a chairman of NASDAQ.

silver platter yet did nothing. Another example of the "benefits" of deregulation is the Lac Mengantic train wreck, which had just a single person running the train after the railway convinced the government they could do it safety. The investigation

I left the construction industry around the time the government fired most of the workplace standards staff. This coincided with the industry cry for an increase in foreign worker permitting. Industry said Canadians just didn't want to do the work. In reality the skilled workers didn't want to do the work for lesser pay and fewer standards. The number of skilled people who left saying my union sold me out was pretty high at one time. showed that the trigger for this

was the engine fire, which was due to lack of maintenance. It also showed that the track was in such poor condition that it wasn't safe to run any trains over it. Of course, we can't forget that our own federal government set up the mechanism that enabled the wealthy and large corporations to hide money offshore and evade taxes on it.

Has there ever been a truly poor government worker or politician? Even if they started out that way, they don't stay poor.

--- Talk Mailing List talk@gtalug.org https://gtalug.org/mailman/listinfo/talk

Sent from mobile.

On Jul 16, 2016 8:14 PM, "Alvin Starr" <alvin@netvel.net> wrote:

On 07/16/2016 07:22 PM, Russell Reiter via talk wrote:

...

On Jul 16, 2016 4:54 PM, "James Knott via talk" <talk@gtalug.org> wrote:

...

On 07/16/2016 04:42 PM, Russell Reiter via talk wrote:

...

...

The wallstreet guys came up with a method to manage risk and it worked well till everybody used it then all the risk was back but in

a

...

...

...

slightly different form.

Could you clarify that? I think I have a different opinion about wall street risk management than you do.

Sub prime mortgages decimated Fannie May & Freddy Mac. Enron wiped out pensions and Bernie Madoff got 150 years in the slammer for his Ponzi scheme, pretty much all within the last decade.

A big part of the problem is business has been claiming they need deregulation to grow. Well, that,

I recall it more as threats to relocate to jurisdictions with lesser regulations, which they did anyway after getting major concessions from unions and government regulators.

Rule #1 is corporation executives are responsible to increase shareholder value.

If you do that by killing millions of people your obligation is to kill

The golden rule is that they with the gold make the rules. them and increase the profits.

There is no obligation to deliver a safe or quality product or service.

The guy who bought the low margin low volume drugs and increased the

There is an implied warranty of serviceability which is attached to every product in the market. Shoddy and inferior products increase liabilities. It took real balls for executives to take corporate jets to the meetings where they requested their corporate welfare payments. That was a monumental disservice to Enron and other employees who lost pensions. prices by a few thousand times did the right thing.

He is in jail not for breaking some other unrelated rules.

I'm not sure I understand what you are saying here. He's in jail for not breaking unrelated rules?

Rule #2 is do whatever it takes to increase your personal compensation.

With those 2 simple rules most all of the business events of the last 50

or so years make sense. There is a global economic crisis unfolding. Part of the problem is the number of untrained investors and unscrupulous advisors. The other part is that there are two many professionals who don't work in what they trained for but rather engage in property and other speculations. The real fact is that investing is an art and there are no simple rules. The market has always been too volatile for such simplicities. I have a friend, a lawyer and a smart guy. He took a year off from his practice to work in the FOREX market. At the end of it he made $5.000.00 less than the previous year in a legal practice.

-- Alvin Starr || voice: (905)513-7688 Netvel Inc. || Cell: (416)806-0133

alvin@netvel.net || Sent from mobile.

On Jul 16, 2016 8:48 PM, "James Knott" <james.knott@rogers.com> wrote:

On 07/16/2016 08:44 PM, Russell Reiter via talk wrote:

...

I'm not sure I understand what you are saying here. He's in jail for not breaking unrelated rules?

He's in jail for breaking laws in an unrelated matter.

Ok, I'll bite, what is he in jail for, if not for lack of scruples in the way he carries out his day to day business?

On 07/16/2016 08:44 PM, Russell Reiter wrote:

...

Rule #1 is corporation executives are responsible to increase

shareholder value.

The golden rule is that they with the gold make the rules.

...

If you do that by killing millions of people your obligation is to kill them and increase the profits. There is no obligation to deliver a safe or quality product or service.

There is an implied warranty of serviceability which is attached to every product in the market. Shoddy and inferior products increase liabilities

Like Cigarettes? Or Oil(think global warming) How about the people killed by various well known automotive design flaws? Then there are people selling things like herbal supplements making claims of cancer cures. I see your serviceability and raise you gross disregard for human life.

It took real balls for executives to take corporate jets to the meetings where they requested their corporate welfare payments. That was a monumental disservice to Enron and other employees who lost pensions.

This is where rule2 is put before rule1

...

The guy who bought the low margin low volume drugs and increased the prices by a few thousand times did the right thing. He is in jail not for breaking some other unrelated rules.

I'm not sure I understand what you are saying here. He's in jail for not breaking unrelated rules?

sorry bad grammer. He is in jail not for the gouging but fore breaking some other unrelated rules. Killing people by denying them their medicine is not illegal.

...

Rule #2 is do whatever it takes to increase your personal compensation.

With those 2 simple rules most all of the business events of the

last 50 or so years make sense.

There is a global economic crisis unfolding. Part of the problem is the number of untrained investors and unscrupulous advisors. The other part is that there are two many professionals who don't work in what they trained for but rather engage in property and other speculations.

There are a number of problems. Its not the investors as such but the idea that the way to wealth is investing and not by creating something of value like a product or service.

The real fact is that investing is an art and there are no simple rules. The market has always been too volatile for such simplicities.

I have a friend, a lawyer and a smart guy. He took a year off from his practice to work in the FOREX market. At the end of it he made $5.000.00 less than the previous year in a legal practice.

The stock market is just legal gambling. The only way to insure you will win is to cheat. Investing without insider information is insane. -- Alvin Starr || voice: (905)513-7688 Netvel Inc. || Cell: (416)806-0133 alvin@netvel.net ||

On 07/16/2016 10:13 PM, Russell Reiter via talk wrote:

Gross disregard requires knowledge. The disaster in Bophal, where Union Carbide should have known that the shantytown that built up around that enterprise was at risk, is still under debate as to how the worst industrial accident in history actually happened.

A couple of things came up. One, UC was using a process it's competitors abandoned as too dangerous. There was also a severe lack of proper training and supervision.

On 07/16/2016 07:22 PM, Russell Reiter wrote:

Has there ever been a truly poor government worker or politician? Even if they started out that way, they don't stay poor.

My ex worked for Revenue Canada for several years. She certainly wasn't well paid. Many government employees look good these days because they haven't lost as much over the years as the rest of us. There have been many things that have lead to the overall drop in the standard of living, over the past 3 decades. One, Citibank, in the U.S. came up with a plan to make it's clients wealthier. That plan included, among other things, cutting jobs and cutting wages. Then, in the 80s we had Reagan and his trickle down nonsense. We also had trade deals that were promised to create jobs, but in fact did the opposite, but greatly enriched the large corporations. Here we had Harper with his cut business taxes to create jobs that never materialized and had those tax benefits that would mainly benefit the wealthy, but he couldn't do anything to help those struggling on a meager CPP. Incidentally, you'll often hear about "respect for the taxpayer", ignoring the fact that many taxpayers will be hurt my their plans. Then we have Walmart, which pays so little employees have to rely on state benefits just to survive. According to what I read, the average Walmart employee in Wisconsin costs taxpayers some $4K per year. I also saw a graph that demonstrated the shift in wealth since the 80s. It was essentially an exponential curve with a line drawn across it. If you were below the line, you were worse off. Only the very wealthy were above the line and by a large amount at that. On top of this, we also have soaring exec compensation. One thing that's clear is the financial problems are caused by those at the top, with the help of their pals in government. It is in no way the average person or even unions that are causing these issues. It's the so called "1%".

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA256 On 16/07/16 11:08 PM, James Knott via talk wrote:

On 07/16/2016 07:22 PM, Russell Reiter wrote:

...

Has there ever been a truly poor government worker or politician? Even if they started out that way, they don't stay poor.

My ex worked for Revenue Canada for several years... There have been many things that have lead to the overall drop in the standard of living, over the past 3 decades...

Then, in the 80s we had Reagan and his trickle down nonsense.

"We ?" What state are you from? I have always felt proud to have had President Reagan as a President and as a leader.

I also saw a graph that demonstrated the shift in wealth since the 80s... One thing that's clear is the financial problems are caused by those at the top, with the help of their pals in government. It is in no way the average person or even unions that are causing these issues. It's the so called "1%".

No mention of Glass-Steagall, etc.? Ah, well. Who is really responsible for problems of a given country if not the so-called leaders/lawmakers? Sincerely, Daniel Villarreal -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2 iQEcBAEBCAAGBQJXiwWAAAoJEPJRiTioPntJFc0IAI4DFVHAn3yCMAJBWuorwi12 5pCpz3pOWnHC7L2Za5vbWNQncjjONrP8VqRuHwkL30Zx5Xer0S2aPqdVZAYb3KlO 6a4VHfcHhC5FA7AAvs3FIMzlrgJBE1grE41f086m8W1qQI52YLWh0bx3E/WpgRLA CdjYSZi5cW2kMZr1x1rVFbyrtSNbdQAwBHRTNV22uBx1dQGhRRLV4lbL9vgzn9qD xwgm5SuI126HgXHN0sllpzvCvdXk8vxzXVYt3QxQBpWdNynqaJ5x2JrAt8/gR9KV QFMIE0qDrVrX2WZoV7u4ibIyInLTZKEqemVflcHu/U8Yi0TC/H5ne3wO3EnRoxg= =NkYw -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA256 On 17/07/16 07:06 AM, James Knott via talk wrote:

On 07/17/2016 12:11 AM, Daniel Villarreal via talk wrote:

...

...

Then, in the 80s we had Reagan and his trickle down nonsense. "We ?" What state are you from?

I have always felt proud to have had President Reagan as a President and as a leader.

I live in Canada, which gives an interesting perspective on the U.S..

Back in the 80s Reagan claimed that by cutting taxes for the wealthy, they'd have more money to spend, which it would work it's way down to everyone else. That is absolute nonsense as, by definition, the wealthy already have plenty to spend and there's nothing to keep

I also live in Canada, and I have an interesting perspective on the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. Perhaps we can discuss this over a beer sometime. them > from doing so. I lived in the U.S.A. back then, and life was good. My Dad had his own business.

On the other hand they tend to be very good at hoarding wealth and cutting their taxes merely lets them hoard more. Reagan was also such a "leader" that he stopped the U.S. from adopting the metric system, by killing the plan Carter had put in place. I suppose your idea of leadership includes fortune tellers and Nancy's Ouija board.

You ever ask yourself why you're not speaking German today? Is "they" part of your "we?" I see a lot of Canadians still use the English system. Fine system, nothing wrong with it. Do you think the U.K. will go back to the English system? Alexander Thom, professor of engineering at University of Oxford, excavated and surveyed megalithic structures in Scotland for about 50 years and asserted that Stone Age man built structures according to lunar alignments with a standard unit of measure (Megalithic Yard) that he felt he could identify to "within the width of a human hair." It's one thing to come up with a standard unit, but how did Stone Age man utilize this from the Hebrides to France? How could they have used a standard unit of length accurately across a wide geographical area, and maintain accuracy? Farrell, Joseph P. Genes, Giants, Monsters, and Men: The Surviving Elites of the Cosmic War and Their Hidden Agenda. Port Townsend, WA: Feral House, 2011. pgs. 33-38. Print. In my youth I was always taught that in the "old days," measurements were by the length/width of a hand, hand, marching step, etc. Hmm On the correlation of spheres between Megalithic units and English system units... 5, 10, and 20 Megalithic ince-diameter spheres contain volumes that are very close to the pint, gallon, and the bushel..." and "... [a] 6 Ml sphere holds a litre and weighs a kilo, so the 60 Ml sphere 10x10x10 times as much, holds a cubic metre and weighs a metric tonne... " Ibid. pg. 45.

Other than Nixon's little problem, Reagan was the one who started knocking the Republican party off the rails, a process continued with Dubya and resulting in the nonsense that's currently going on in the U.S. election.

Reagan wasn't perfect, I'll admit, but I disagree with you. The Republican party needed a man like President Reagan, he didn't need them. He held up values that my family held, and I hope, continues to hold. Does it come down to cheering for the ones that rescinded Glass-Steagall, or allowing businesses to innovate and sell? Who makes jobs? And it's not "Dubya," it's President Bush, thank you for maintaining some decorum. President and First lady Reagan were a class act. I won't dignify your insults with a response. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2 iQEcBAEBCAAGBQJXi7qHAAoJEPJRiTioPntJTeMH/3b9G6DzCbA1DlclxGl5rby/ kYcl4yZvi5AnQQzhXEMp+F+GBHK3lhqHXUHYLLk1PWcWUmFVMh4e+5evF2pMT5qZ nvXH0ubUehAcVxMig8KHcoXsTwRP/uUz7Ng1bVX7Hf43elkHhto0ZZhZGqDLBHfy zRStQ3dZMGPBhl/58aASs753ieKSNw2VQcYI9fENQTAjSVNGHpv9JyI5Q9WSiSX8 lh1igcRVUB0TqVmKtMeEnQSgmJ3MC3ZHQSf3h1wm5qwD0cdlnjktgn1eOFrYJcJd m4CN3vhVIwb8INqAbFh8Ngs5JhGigigccRmtFJpMGft/MyFuIJIxrA504Rvyb24= =q4/H -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

| From: James Knott via talk <talk@gtalug.org> Each of these problems was caused by multiple failures, each at varying levels in the system. | A big part of the problem is business has been claiming they need | deregulation to grow. Some deregulation makes a lot of sense. Some does not. Businesses love to control their regulators. Not only to reduce regulations but to put moats around their businesses. Often these moves are disguised (intentionally or not) as somehow beneficial to the broader society. | Well, that, coupled with lack of enforcement led | to the 2008 collapse. Lots of things (certainly including those) led to the 2008 near-collapse. - governments held down interest rates in a possibly ineffective attempt to boost sluggish economic growth. If I remember, this started with the Dot Com Bomb. But letting it run way too long (eight years!) seems like a bad idea. With low interest rates, investors did all kinds of wild things in a search for yield. CDAs seemed magical: safe investments (backed by real property!) with decent yields. - computers made it easy to devise complicated instruments like CDAs and made really fast trading possible and profitable. They also made derivatives of all kinds possible. - every few years a new financial instrument is invented, marketed, and then turns out to be not as great as it had seemed. - the biggest regulatory failure, throughout our economy: too big. It comes in the "too big to fail", "too big to regulate", and "too big for the free market" varieties, at least. - Entities made and priced loans but were not exposed to any consequent risk. Hard to imagine that stupidity. - Risk is managed by spreading it around. That makes failure less devastating. But if risks are correlated, failure cannot be avoided, it may even be amplified. - Some regulators (eg. New York) considered insuring bonds a risky business. So they required insurers of bonds to only insure bonds. These were the so-called monoline insurers. What a crazy concept: bond failures might easily be correlated and the insurance contracts would be worthless. | Bernie Madoff is a perfect example of what lack | of enforcement can do, as the SEC was pretty much handed the case on a | silver platter yet did nothing. And neither did his clients, some of which ought to have been smart enough to figure out that the numbers didn't add up. My impression is that Canadian enforcement is way less effective than US enforcement. | Another example of the "benefits" of | deregulation is the Lac Mengantic train wreck, which had just a single | person running the train after the railway convinced the government they | could do it safety. The investigation showed that the trigger for this | was the engine fire, which was due to lack of maintenance. It also | showed that the track was in such poor condition that it wasn't safe to | run any trains over it. And who knew that crude oil was explosive? The odd mixture of stuff from the Bakken had a lot of characteristics of gasoline or worse. Normal crude just doesn't act that way. Regulators didn't pay attention and neither (apparently) did the railroads or shippers. There were many ways (in hindsight) that the accident could have been avoided. If I remember correctly, the firemen turned off the idling / burning engine, not realizing that the airbrakes would therefore let go in a few hours. The driver had been too lazy to set dozens of the handbrakes; there is one on each car. After all, it is hard and slow work and was almost never needed. Perhaps a better method should be provided. This particular type of tank car is not very robust. It is easily breached. The driver had parked on a high point, on the main line. Not on a low point, on a siding. The town was built too close to the railway. I would guess it was built there to be close to the railway | Of course, we can't forget that our own federal | government set up the mechanism that enabled the wealthy and large | corporations to hide money offshore and evade taxes on it. To what mechanism are you referring?