#casual theft of government property

[rebelmeg]

Shield Sledding (It's a Thing, Right?)    

rebelmeg

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Marvel Cinematic Universe Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Tony Stark Characters: James "Bucky" Barnes, Tony Stark Additional Tags: Crack, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Not Tony being sneaky and committing theft, Definitely not Bucky being scandalized but also wanting to participate, Casually stealing government property, for sledding purposes, Humor Series: Part 21 of Christmas Card Ficlets Summary:

Bucky was having a completely normal day until a certain genius decided that Captain America's shield would make an excellent sled.

 Notes: Just a li'l somethin'-somethin' (that I completely forgot about) to cross off some bingo squares!  The moodboard is for my @tonystarkbingo​ square T5 - crack, and the fic is for my Warm & Fluffy Bingo square N5 - pranks, and my @buckybarnesbingo​ U5 - image of Bucky looking unamused!

[jewfrogs]

I have only seen the first movie so my only experience was with the marketing rather than the film portrayals, but rereading the books as an adult and remembering how I interacted with them as a middle schooler definitely had me critical of how central the love triangle was to the cultural conversation surrounding the series. it’s certainly an important element in the novels, mostly in that it represents two different potential character arcs for katniss. when the films and even the books were being marketed, however, the focus shifted to the aesthetic and surface-level emotional appeal of the love interests rather than the central conflict to katniss’s character. which like, I don’t expect a more nuanced approach from marketers who clearly just saw an opportunity to make money off 12-year-olds. the unfortunate factor is that 12-year-olds are absolutely capable of literary analysis, but they are also highly impressionable and so a lot of otherwise keen readers, myself included, did end up overly focused on the superficial aspects of the “peeta vs. gale” debate rather than engaging with the text more meaningfully. sorry to write an essay in your inbox! I am unfortunately obsessed with this series.

no apology necessary!! i love an essay 🩶

i was also of a similar age seeing the movies as they came out (i read the books around 8/9 and was 10 when the first movie premiered), and my memory of the marketing/cultural conversation is very limited (i have maybe three clear memories of interacting with the series as a kid and one of them is crying over prim in an outback steakhouse), but i completely buy that much of the reception of both the books and the movies was very very shallow!

which sucks because rereading as an adult i find myself loving the love triangle as a plot point, even beyond the ramifications for katniss’ arc/further development. i love the way the love triangle serves to underscore on one hand how much she is a teenager and on the other hand how much she is unable to be a teenager. katniss is 16/17! she’s so so young! it’s so so normal that she’s wrapped up in romantic considerations, that she has crushes on boys, that she doesn’t know how to communicate with them; and it’s so so upsetting the way that weaves into the theft of her childhood as a continual theme. she should be able to figure out her feelings for peeta in her time and on her terms, but her autonomy is stolen and she’s corralled into this relationship where she has to remain for the rest of her life. she can’t choose peeta and she can’t choose to leave peeta. and even outside of the capitol controlling her, on an interpersonal level, everyone involves themselves in her private life and leaves her no room to ever make a choice (the scene where coin casually asks if katniss wants them to start presenting gale as her new lover…). the romantic drama is arguably the most normal part of katniss’ time as a teenager and it’s still stolen and corrupted and made public property because katniss cannot be a teenager and cannot be or belong to herself.

i don’t know!! it’s good. it’s good writing. and it is so sad that the conversation is/was ‘which boy should katniss choose’ and not ‘growing up under an oppressive government denied katniss both adolescence and autonomy and her relationships with peeta and gale are fundamentally formed in those traumatic circumstances’ etc. etc.

[opisthotonos]

Title: "Sansabelt Slackers Take No Prisoners"

Genre: Crime Drama

Logline: Mannix is drawn into the world of corporate espionage when he investigates a group of seemingly laid-back office workers who are suspected of being involved in a high-stakes industrial espionage plot. As he digs deeper, Mannix must navigate office politics, secrets, and betrayals to uncover the truth.

"The Office Conspiracy"

Mannix is hired by a concerned executive at a prestigious tech company. A group of seemingly lazy employees known for their casual attire (the "Sansabelt Slackers") are suspected of stealing valuable intellectual property. Mannix goes undercover as a temp worker to infiltrate the office and uncover the corporate spies.

"Business Casual Sabotage"

Mannix is called in by a rival company's CEO who suspects the Sansabelt Slackers are leaking sensitive information to his competitors. Mannix must attend a corporate retreat with the employees to get closer to them and discover the source of the leaks.

"The Office Heist"

A renowned art collector hires Mannix when a valuable piece of art goes missing from the office of the CEO of a major corporation. The Sansabelt Slackers are the prime suspects, and Mannix must determine whether they are art thieves or pawns in a larger conspiracy.

"Tech Wars"

Mannix is hired by a brilliant but reclusive software developer who believes the Sansabelt Slackers have stolen his groundbreaking code. Mannix infiltrates the company as a cybersecurity expert to find out if the office workers are involved in the theft.

"Hostile Takeover"

A billionaire businessman hires Mannix to investigate a hostile takeover attempt on his company. The Sansabelt Slackers are suspected of being corporate spies sent by a rival corporation to gather insider information. Mannix must uncover the plot and protect the company from being seized.

"The Paper Trail"

Mannix is called in to investigate a major financial institution when confidential client data starts leaking. The Sansabelt Slackers, who work in the data processing department, are under suspicion. Mannix must follow the paper trail to expose the corporate espionage ring.

"Undercover Office Party"

Mannix is invited to the annual Sansabelt Slackers' office party, which is rumored to be a front for their criminal activities. Mannix must blend in at the party while keeping an eye out for any suspicious behavior or evidence of espionage.

"The Insider Threat"

When a defense contractor suspects that classified information is being leaked to foreign governments, Mannix is brought in to investigate. The Sansabelt Slackers, who have access to sensitive military data, become the focus of the inquiry.

[newstfionline]

Tuesday, December 1, 2020

Merriam-Webster’s top word of 2020 not a shocker: pandemic (AP) If you were to choose a word that rose above most in 2020, which word would it be? Ding, ding, ding: Merriam-Webster on Monday announced “pandemic” as its 2020 word of the year. “That probably isn’t a big shock,” Peter Sokolowski, editor at large for Merriam-Webster, told The Associated Press. “Often the big news story has a technical word that’s associated with it and in this case, the word pandemic is not just technical but has become general. It’s probably the word by which we’ll refer to this period in the future,” he said. Pandemic, with roots in Latin and Greek, is a combination of “pan,” for all, and “demos,” for people or population. The latter is the same root of “democracy,” Sokolowski noted. The word pandemic dates to the mid-1600s, used broadly for “universal” and more specifically to disease in a medical text in the 1660s, he said. That was after the plagues of the Middle Ages, Sokolowski said.

Biden breaks foot while playing with dog, to wear a boot (AP) President-elect Joe Biden will likely wear a walking boot for the next several weeks as he recovers from breaking his right foot while playing with one of his dogs, his doctor said. Fractures are a concern generally as people age, but Biden’s appears to be a relatively mild one based on his doctor’s statement and the planned treatment. At 78 he will become the oldest president when he’s inaugurated in January.

Borrowing and debt bonanza (WSJ) Companies and governments have issued a record $9.7 trillion of bonds and other debt this year, as extraordinary support from the Federal Reserve and other central banks has fueled a borrowing bonanza. The total covers the year to Nov. 26 and includes nearly $5.1 trillion of corporate bonds, as well as some kinds of loans, including riskier leveraged loans, according to Refinitiv. Both figures already exceed those for any prior full year. More broadly, the Institute of International Finance recently said global debt had risen $15 trillion to $272 trillion in the first nine months of this year, and is set to hit $277 trillion by year-end—a record 365% of world gross domestic product. The IIF is an industry group representing hundreds of financial institutions. Its figures are broader, and include household debt.

Newsom says stay-at-home order likely if COVID-19 surge continues (SFGate) California Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a Monday press conference the state is considering a new stay-at-home order in purple-tier counties if cases continue to surge. The state is experiencing the highest rate of increase in COVID-19 cases since the start of the pandemic. With 51 of the state's 58 counties in the most restrictive tier, 99% of the population could fall under a lockdown. The governor didn't outline the details of the potential new order, but when the state issued one in March it required people to stay indoors except for essential services and exercise.

The pandemic is forcing some men to realize they need deeper friendships (Washington Post) It took a global pandemic and a badly timed breakup for Manny Argueta to realize just how far he had grown apart from his guy friends. In the spring, after the 35-year-old had left the home he shared with his former girlfriend and moved into a studio in Falls Church, Va., on his own, he would go an entire week without saying a word. There were no more game days with the guys, no more Friday nights in D.C. bars, and Argueta was starved for social interaction. For more than a decade, psychologists have written about the “friendship crisis” facing many men. Male friendships are often rooted in “shoulder-to-shoulder” interactions, such as watching a football game or playing video games, while women’s interactions are more face-to-face, such as grabbing a coffee or getting together for a glass of wine. “The rules for guys pursuing other guys for friendships are not clear,” one man said. “Guys don’t want to seem too needy.” But the pandemic might be forcing this dynamic to change. In emails and interviews with The Washington Post, dozens of men shared stories about Zoom poker games, backyard cigar nights, and neighborhood-dad WhatsApp chains where casual chats about sports and politics have suddenly led to deep conversations. The moment feels heavier and so do the conversations. Some men said their friendships have begun to look more like those of their wives and girlfriends. “We are so used to finding a distraction to help us when we should be addressing what’s in front of us,” Argueta said. “The world needed to slow down … we should slow down, too.”

Another idyllic Italian village selling $1 houses (CNN) Italy’s €1 homes are back—and this time, what’s up for grabs is a collection of houses in the southern region of Molise. Castropignano—a village topped by a ruined medieval castle, 140 miles southeast of Rome—is the latest community to offer up its abandoned buildings to newcomers. It follows in the steps of Salemi in Sicily and Santo Stefano di Sessanio in Abruzzo, both of which have launched initiatives to encourage newcomers in the last month. So what’s the catch? There are, of course, conditions. Buyers must renovate the property within three years from the purchase and cough up a down payment guarantee of €2,000 ($2,378), which will be returned once the works are finished. And Castropignano isn’t exactly a lively place—it has just one restaurant, a bar, a pharmacy and a few B&Bs.

Pakistani nuclear program (New Scientist) Sleuthing with satellite images on Google Earth has revealed a substantial and undocumented expansion to a suspected nuclear processing plant in Pakistan. Researchers say it is a possible sign of the country boosting the capacity of its nuclear weapons program. Pakistan has possessed nuclear weapons since 1998, but isn’t a signatory to key international treaties on nuclear proliferation and tests. The country’s secretive nuclear weapons program is closely watched due to tensions with neighboring India, which also has a nuclear arsenal.

Turkey’s military campaign beyond its borders is powered by homemade armed drones (Washington Post) As Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan wages a widening military campaign for influence from North Africa to the Caucasus, his forces have relied on a potent weapon to gain a battlefield edge while drumming up domestic support for foreign interventions: homemade armed drones. Their impact has been substantial. The drones played a central role in recent months in shifting Libya’s civil war in favor of the Turkish-backed government based in the capital, Tripoli, and they helped Azerbaijan, an ally of Turkey, prevail over Armenian forces in the fighting over the contested Nagorno-Karabakh region, according to military analysts. In northern Syria, Turkish drones played a major part this year in a series of devastating attacks on Syrian armored forces that caught some military observers by surprise and helped bring a Syrian government offensive against rebel areas to a halt. At home, the drones have become a symbol of Turkish technological innovation and self-sufficiency, boosting national confidence amid a severe economic downturn and friction with some other NATO countries. But the battlefield successes pose an urgent foreign policy challenge for the incoming Biden administration: what to do about Ankara’s expansionist policies, which have put Turkey in conflict with a range of other U.S. allies.

Thai protesters march to royal guard barracks in Bangkok (The Guardian) Thousands of protesters marched to a barracks belonging to Thailand’s royal guards in Bangkok on Sunday, demanding that King Maha Vajiralongkorn give up control of some army regiments, the latest show of defiance against the country’s powerful monarchy and the military. The protest came after days of rallies in the Thai capital, where a student-led pro-democracy movement that emerged in July has intensified pressure on the establishment. Over recent months, demonstrators have shaken the country by criticising the monarchy, an institution protected by a harsh defamation law, and demanding the king relinquish some of his vast power and wealth.

Brazen Killings Expose Iran’s Vulnerabilities as It Struggles to Respond (NYT) The raid alone was brazen enough. A team of Israeli commandos with high-powered torches blasted their way into a vault of a heavily guarded warehouse deep in Iran and made off before dawn with 5,000 pages of top secret papers on the country’s nuclear program. Then in a television broadcast a few weeks later, in April 2018, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel singled out the scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh as the captain of Iran’s covert attempts to assemble a nuclear weapon. Now Mr. Fakhrizadeh has become the latest casualty in a campaign of audacious covert attacks seemingly designed to torment Iranian leaders with reminders of their weakness. His killing was the latest in a decade-long pattern of mysterious poisonings, car bombings, shootings, thefts and sabotage that have afflicted the Islamic Republic. Most have hit largely anonymous scientists or secretive facilities believed to be linked to its nuclear program, and almost all have been attributed by both American and Iranian officials to Tehran’s great nemesis, Israel. Israeli officials—without formally acknowledging responsibility—have all but openly gloated over the repeated success of their spies. Never, however, has the Islamic Republic endured a spate of covert attacks quite like in 2020. In January, an American drone strike killed the revered general Qassim Suleimani as he was in a car leaving the Baghdad airport (an attack facilitated by Israel’s intelligence, officials say). And Iran was humiliated in August by an Israeli hit team’s fatal shooting of a senior Al Qaeda leader on the streets of Tehran (this time at the behest of the United States, its officials have said).

'Christmas will not be cancelled' says Bethlehem (Reuters) Bethlehem is shaping up for a dismal Christmas: most of the inns are closed, the shepherds are likely to be under lockdown and there are few visitors from the east, or anywhere else. Just 12 months ago, the Palestinian town was celebrating its busiest festive season for two decades, amid a sustained drop in violence and a corresponding surge in the number of pilgrims and tourists. But hotels that were adding new wings in 2019 are now shuttered because of the coronavirus pandemic. Nevertheless, town leaders say the traditional birthplace of Jesus will go ahead with its celebrations, aware that the world’s eyes are upon it at this time of year. “Bethlehem is going to celebrate Christmas. And Christmas will not be cancelled,” said Mayor Anton Salman, as workers behind him erected a huge Christmas tree in Manger Square. “This Christmas from Bethlehem there will be a message of hope to the whole world, that the world will recover from this pandemic.” The newly-appointed Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Pierbattista Pizzaballa, on Monday said, “This Christmas will be less festive than usual as there will be restrictions, I suppose like any other part of the world, but none will stop us from expressing the true meaning of Christmas which is to make an act of love.”

At least 110 dead in Nigeria after suspected Boko Haram attack (The Guardian) At least 110 people have been killed in an attack on a village in north-east Nigeria blamed on the Boko Haram jihadist group, according to the UN humanitarian coordinator in the country. “At least 110 civilians were ruthlessly killed and many others were wounded in this attack,” Edward Kallon said in a statement after initial tolls indicated 43 and then at least 70 dead from the massacre on Saturday by suspected Boko Haram fighters. The attack took place in the village of Koshobe near the main city of Maiduguri, with assailants targeting farmers on rice fields.

Malaria death toll to exceed COVID-19’s in sub-Saharan Africa (Reuters) Deaths from malaria due to disruptions during the coronavirus pandemic to services designed to tackle the mosquito-borne disease will far exceed those killed by COVID-19 in sub-Saharan Africa, the World Health Organization warned. More than 409,000 people globally—most of them babies in the poorest parts of Africa—were killed by malaria last year, the WHO said, and COVID-19 will almost certainly push that toll higher in 2020.

[youngrevolutionary]

GENERAL.

full name.  Seifer Almasy  pronunciation. Sigh-Fer Al-ma-see nicknames.  Sir Seifer, Knight, Sei, Seif height. 6′2″ age. 18 26 (post-game)  zodiac. Capricorn languages. Commonspeak, Centran (studied, never practiced.) (Tenebrean, Nifen in XV Verse)

PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS.

hair colour.  Golden blond eye colour. Blue-green skin tone.  Warm body type. Ectomorph, very fit, lean muscle.  accent.  Non-regional diction. Articulate. Clear. Educated. Will taper off into a more casual speech among familiars.)  dominant hand.  Right posture.  Strong stature, wide stance. Solid with shoulders back and head high. Sure-footed.  scars. The very obvious scar across his forehead and nose. Various battle nicks and cuts from training and combat. tattoos.  None in his default verse.  most noticeable features.  Tall. Blond. Strikingly handsome. He carries a presence of authority. 

CHILDHOOD.

place of birth.  Alnaj region of Centra hometown.   Unknown, a village among the mountain face that has since been destroyed. Allegedly.  birth weight / height.   10 pounds, 22″ inches / 60 cm manner of birth.  Natural birth.  first words.  Apple. Pronounced, “Ah-paw.”  siblings.  None on record. (Has a brother in select verses.) parents. Artos and Celina Almasy (Deceased) parental involvement.  Involved and present up until their recorded deaths during the Sorceress War. Seifer was sent to Edea’s Orphanage in Cape of Good Hope, in Centra. 

ADULT LIFE

occupation.  Retired Knight. Now a mercenary-for-hire and young revolutionist by smuggling and moving weapons and curatives out of Garden and into the hands of Timber’s Resistance.  current residence. Balamb Garden. close friends. Rinoa Heartilly, Squall Leonhart - Primary verse, Petra Fortis (Begrudgingly), Dave Aburnbrie - Meldacio/FFXV verse, Yazoo - FF7 Verse relationship status. Single, maybe. (Verse dependent as I’m not single-ship.) financial status.  Comfortable.  driver’s license. Licensed and registered to drive Garden-issued transport vehicles, personal motorized vehicles and motorcycles.  criminal record.  Seifer is a war criminal. He committed insidious acts against humanity through the direct manipulation of a time witch. Charges include but are not limited to: International war crimes, compromising neutral alliances, illegal occupation of townships and harbors, aiding and abetting, innumerable Garden Code violations, theft of government property, acts of domestic and international terrorism, arson, treason, torture, wrongful imprisonment, murder. 

SEX & ROMANCE.

sexual orientation.  Bisexual romantic orientation. Biromantic, male-leaning. (Seifer is attracted to masculinity.)  preferred emotional role.  submissive | dominant | switch  |  unsure preferred sexual role.  submissive  |  dominant  |  switch |  sex repulsed libido. Moderate turn on’s. Power and experience. He will always enjoy a confident and adventurous partner. Firm hands, playfulness.  turn off’s. Weak partners, submissives, bottoms, uncertainty, virgins.  love language. He’s not terribly well-versed on it. He gives gifts in the form of practical items. Coffee, a book if he really likes someone.  relationship tendencies.   He is emotionally distant. If he feels love, he will become possessive, protective. If he feels trust, he will allow that emotional distance to close, bit by bit. If it is betrayed, you will never earn it back. 

MISCELLANEOUS.

character’s theme song. FFVIII didn’t have specific theme songs, but I have always associated The Stage Is Set as Seifer’s Theme.  It’s an emotionally-driven piece that is played particularly before two very important scenes which strongly tie to Seifer. Unrest is another that plays during two important scenes during the game.  hobbies to pass the time. Reading, training, people watching, studying, info gathering.  mental illnesses. PTSD, mild anxiety, at risk for episodic psychosis, symptoms of OCD present, delusions of grandeur physical illnesses.  None, but he has a resistance to GF junctioning.  left or right brained. Right fears. Failure, loss of control, powerlessness. 

self-confidence level.  He has an impressively high measure of self-confidence. What is often misunderstood for as arrogance is really a very sure and honest understanding of what he is capable of. He is arrogant, yes, but he is also aware of his aptitudes.  vulnerabilities. Manipulation and influence, his own arrogance and reckless abandon. His drive for achieving and doing something he will be known for. He is prone to being jealous and possessive. Quick to lose sight of the whole picture when he sets forth on his ambitions. Is also a braggart.

tagged by: I found it neatly tucked between the plush cushions of @xkuja ’s luxurious chaise lounge. tagging: You, darling. You.

[coopdigitalnewsletter]

29 Jun 2018: Self-driving shops, Amazon buys online pharmacy, Co-op economy, Alexa for hotels, Tesco Go

Hello, this is the Co-op Digital newsletter - it looks at what's happening in the internet/digital world and how it's relevant to the Co-op, to retail businesses, and most importantly to people, communities and society. Thank you for reading and please do send ideas, questions, corrections etc to @rod on Twitter. If you have enjoyed reading please consider telling a friend about it!

[Image: Minh Uong/The New York Times]

Co-op economy report

The Co-op economy report shows that co-operative economic activity is growing. The standout line: “co-operative start-ups are almost twice as likely to survive their first five years when compared to companies”, probably because it’s easier to align interests when the employees are the owners.

Related: Co-op Group will buy four convenience stores from John Lewis, which is refreshing the JL and Waitrose brands to add “& partners” in order to emphasise employee ownership. Hopefully they’ll reinstate their brilliant JL&p logo from the 1970s.

Self-driving shops

If cars didn’t have drivers or passengers, they wouldn’t need to drive at busy-human speeds, which might make it easier to deploy certain kinds of self-driving car - like Robomart’s “autonomous shops on wheels”. The basic promise: instead of you having to pop to the shops, the shop pops to you. Robomart says that customers will prefer to inspect perishable goods in person, and that looking at shelves that bring themselves to your driveway is easier than tapping away on a grocery app.

But it might be decades before full self-driving autonomy is ubiquitous. Before then you could imagine a temporary stage in which if you want to pick up a loaf of bread and some milk you wait until Freshco’s automated shop comes to you - it might slowly cruise around the neighbourhood, being flagged to a stop by pedestrians. But if you want to order an uncommon product or you want it in a hurry, maybe it’s delivered to you by a human driver, and more expensively. And you might even still be able to pop to the local store!

After that, perhaps transport and shopping merge. You wave away that Gregg’s Steakbake-n-ride Bus because you want something different today, and the queue for the FalaFellers Gondola is always insane. So instead you “step into a Starbucks Van, or a Burger King Coupe, to dine and commute at the same time”.

Amazon buys online pharmacy PillPack

Amazon is buying US online pharmacy startup, PillPack. You can see how PillPack fits with Amazon’s “efficiently sending things” strand, just as the wider Improving Healthcare Services joint venture with Morgan Stanley and Berkshire Hathaway fits their “efficiently running info-rich services” capability.

Employee power and indifferent technology

Big tech employees are criticising their employers for taking contracts with government agencies. Amazon employees demanded it cut ties with ICE, the US immigration and customs enforcement agency, saying “we should not be in the business of supporting those who monitor and oppress marginalized populations”. Salesforce, Google and Microsoft employees are also pushing back on their employers’ gov contracts.

The problem is that the same technology that underpins the friendly, free-and-pay-with-your-behaviour services that users love can often be put to use elsewhere, and in ways that more obviously seem objectionable. Technology isn’t neutral, but it is indifferent to how it’s used.

Alexa for hotels

Amazon announced Alexa for hospitality. Contexts and jobs that have constrained use cases are easier to build a voice assistant for because you can build for a predictable set of requests, and the users already know what kinds of thing they can ask. “What time is breakfast/checkout/breakfast served from?”, “Turn up the heating please”, “Can you send up a cheese sandwich/ironing board?” and so on, but not “Hotel! Can you improve this sales presentation for tomorrow’s important meeting because aaaaaah?” (You can imagine that a shop or an insurance company might have some similarly narrow requests.) Interesting: they plan that hotel guests will be able to sign into their own Amazon accounts, to be able to “call home” etc. And maybe even watch their own Prime Video content?

Related: a robot that delivers in hotels.

Tesco Go

Tesco is looking at cashierless/checkoutless shopping - shops in which you can put things in your bag and just walk out. Tescoboss: “In our stores in central London, Manchester and Birmingham, lunchtime queues are a problem. Anything we can do to speed that up will be a benefit for customers.” But Tesco is “still figuring out how it could be introduced at some of its 1,800 UK express stores without increasing theft”.

Amazon’s Go shop in Seattle is a bit further along: “Amazon Go, for the most part, is designed to make the process of "oh, I changed my mind" very visually clean. Shelves are stocked with shape and color variety in mind, and they have rigid item-placement spots. Those factors combine to make it very difficult to put stuff where Amazon doesn't want you to.”

Other news

Ticketmaster was hacked - the fraudulent activity was spotted by the bank Monzo, which acted quickly and has explained itself well. By comparison Ticketmaster and their chat vendor look a bit preoccupied with pointing the finger at each other.

Better Internetter from Doteveryone - “some handy hints to make your tech work better for you when you shop, search and share online.”

Building the GOV.UK of the future - including a mundane but profound use of machine learning: categorising and structuring content.

Lots of stories in the last fortnight about companies moving jobs, activity, headquarters etc outside of the UK if the Brexit disast destination is no customs union. Insurance giant AIG is moving to the UK though - it was previously serving its UK customers from Luxembourg.

Slack had a rare service outage - team communications tool/office gossip supercharger was down for three hours, during which co-workers had to fall back to email or nervously clear their throats and use speech. They posted an update every 30 minutes - a good practice.

Elon Musk drawn into farting unicorn dispute with potter. Reasons why this story is being linked: 1. Elon Musk/Tesla. 2. The way that tech firms are sometimes a bit casual about other people’s intellectual property. 3. pottery. 4. the headline.

Magic: here is a Colombian football fan helping his deaf and blind friend experience their team's World Cup.

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Co-op Digital news

Introducing our software development standards.

Now’s the time to enter new markets.

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Events

Code your future summit - Sat 30 Jun 9.30am at Federation House.

Healthcare ventures show & tell - Tue 3 Jul 10am at Federation House 5th floor.

Funeralcare show & tell - Tue 3 Jul 2pm at Angel Square 12th floor.

Update from Heads of Practice - Wed 4 Jul 11.45am at Federation House 5th floor.

Shifts show & tell - Thu 5 Jul 11am at Angel Square 4th floor.

Cremation without ceremony show & tell - Thu 5 Jul 2pm at Angel Square 12th floor.

Marketplace ventures show & tell - Tue 10 Jul 10am at Federation House 5th floor.

Update from Heads of Practice - Wed 11 Jul 11.45am at Federation House 5th floor.

Turning GDPR into an opportunity - Wed 11 Jul 4pm at Federation House.

How to improve and innovate customer experiences using service design with Co-op Digital’s Jack Fletcher - Thu 12 Jul 8.30am at LABS in London.

Cremation without ceremony show & tell - Thu 12 Jul 2pm at Angel Square 12th floor.

Manchester Masterclass in Decentralised Organising - Fri 13 Jul 9.30am at Federation House.

More events coming up at Federation House. And TechNW has a useful calendar of events happening in the North West.

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Thanks for reading. If you want to find out more about Co-op Digital, follow us @CoopDigital on Twitter and read the Co-op Digital Blog.

[antoine-roquentin]

At some point during the fighting in Libya a few years ago, Nato planes attacked pro-Gaddafi forces near an oilfield in the north-east. A number of smart bombs hit a storage facility belonging to the oil company for which I worked. The facility contained thousands of barrels of chemicals, worth millions of dollars, which are used in the process of drilling for oil. Most of the barrels were destroyed outright but a good number remained intact. Exposed to the extreme heat of the explosion and subsequent fires, the chemicals inside the surviving barrels were altered permanently. At around the same time, as the fighting in and around the field intensified, Libyan employees of my company (the expats having cut and run a long time ago) worked frantically to move high explosives and detonators used in the oil extraction process to a safe location so that none of the various factions involved in the conflict could get their hands on them. For some reason, the employees made the decision to leave the live explosives in the bunker and take the detonators – the piece of kit they judged most useful to any would-be bombers. In their haste, they left the bunker compound gates open and the door to the bunker unlocked.

Since the attack on Gaddafi and its aftermath, the Libyans working for my company had got used to having to act on their own initiative, often in danger and under extreme pressure as the fighting took hold of the country. But then, during a lull in hostilities, the employees responsible for dealing with the chemicals and explosives decided it was time to update HQ on what had happened. They also had a more serious problem on their hands. As well as using chemicals and explosives, oil companies deploy radioactive materials in their quest for oil. Nuclear probes are inserted into potential wells in order to determine whether they are suitable candidates for further exploration. These probes also happen to be the perfect size to use as the core of a dirty bomb. As a consequence, in all jurisdictions in which they are used they are heavily regulated. But in Libya there was no longer any regulation. My company’s store of nuclear materials was kept in a bunker designed to withstand the force of a massive explosion and was normally heavily protected by specially trained troops. Now the bunker lay completely unguarded. It seemed that the warring factions hadn’t yet discovered its existence but the employees believed that it was only a matter of time before this bunker, too, was overrun and plundered. What should they do to make the materials safe? Should they try and smuggle them out of the country? Should they keep them in the bunker and pour concrete over them? As the compliance lawyer with responsibility for the region, I was invited to join a conference call to discuss these questions, along with the operations manager for the oilfield and the regional head of security, an ex-special forces officer on secondment to London from US HQ.

Also on the call was the new country manager for Libya. While operations managers – the people who deal with the practicalities of getting the oil out of the ground – work out in the field, the country manager sits in the city, near the seat of decision-making power over the award of contracts. In companies like mine, country managers are powerful people, as much imperial proconsul or colonial governor as businessman. They can run the business in their countries as they wish. The only thing that matters is that they return a profit. The country manager for Libya was a company high-flier, who was sent in to Tripoli as soon as Gaddafi had fallen in the expectation of rich pickings, and who now spent his days shuttling from one hotel to another in fear of assassination. It was clear that he hadn’t had any involvement in the matters under discussion and he remained silent as the rest of us trawled through possible solutions to the various problems.

Sitting in a bland conference room in London, listening to disembodied voices relaying facts over the phone, it felt as though we were participating in some crisis simulation exercise. Almost casually, we came to some conclusions: the barrels of chemicals could stay where they were. Nothing could be done with the remaining stock. There was nothing we could do about the explosives either. In the fog of war, people make strange decisions and at least the detonators had been removed and were under company control. It was the best we could hope for. We decided that the risks of smuggling the nuclear materials out of the country and into Egypt were too great and that the employees should bury them somewhere in the Libyan desert.

Then, as the call drew to an end, the country manager spoke up. ‘I want to talk about something,’ he said. ‘I want to talk about the theft of company property.’ He was angry. One of the employees had taken advantage of the chaotic conditions to steal a number of company trucks. ‘And now that it is more stable over here,’ the country manager continued, ‘he’s holding the trucks to ransom. He’s refusing to give them back. His tribe wants money for them. They might attack our base.’ He told us that he had personally been out into the desert to bargain with the employee and his tribe. Negotiations were ongoing, but he insisted he was going to solve the problem. ‘I call the ball,’ he said. He was convinced that this misconduct was only the tip of the iceberg. ‘I want you to come and see what is going on here,’ he told me. ‘I want you to come and look into matters. They need it.’ After the call, he made an official request for a compliance audit – a review of the fraud and corruption risk in a country – for Libya, and coming from a well-connected hi-pot, his request went to the top of the organisation. The company, worried that it might be losing more money than it should be, in a market so bad that the smallest profit would be considered a miracle, agreed with him and sent me to Libya.

I flew into Tripoli in the first week of Ramadan. As I walked through the baggage collection hall looking for my luggage, the first thing I noticed were the groups of sub-Saharan Africans being shepherded through the airport by North African minders. After an hour of searching, it became clear that my luggage wasn’t going to turn up, so I made my way to arrivals, where I was collected by a driver and a security contractor employed by our company – a former NCO in a Scottish infantry regiment who served in Iraq and Afghanistan before becoming a corporate mercenary. He was hired to act as a bodyguard for expats but his only remaining client, he told me, was the country manager. ‘But now he never leaves his hotel room when he’s here and spends as much time out of the country as he can.’

We drove to the contractor’s quarters, a small, dusty lock-up in the suburbs. Sitting outside at a camping table, he gave me a neat PowerPoint presentation on his laptop about the security situation in Libya. ‘Frankly speaking,’ he said, ‘it’s a bit shit.’ Libya was dangerous. Tripoli was dangerous – not as dangerous as Benghazi but still dangerous. Random, lethal violence was to be expected. There were no police officers, no official law enforcement of any kind – only tribal militia, who ruled the roost. He told me to be careful of ambushes while being driven around the city.

‘What should I do if I get ambushed?’ I asked.

‘Well, standard operating procedure in the army is to shoot your way out. Don’t be static. Push on, fight back.’ I pointed out to him that I was an unarmed middle-aged lawyer who would be sitting in the back of a rickety saloon car when the moment came. He shrugged. ‘As I say, it’s a bit shit.’

After the briefing, we went on to my hotel, which is used by diplomats, journalists and those on (mostly oil-related) business. At one end of the driveway that swept past the hotel entrance, there was a traffic barrier operated by armed guards. No such obstacle existed at the other end. Men in various degrees of military dress stood outside the entrance, smoking or talking together in the lobby. I was greeted by the receptionist, who spoke in a broad Dublin accent. He (and his identical twin, also on duty at reception) was a young Irishman with a Libyan father who had decided to come and experience the free Libya and was now wishing he hadn’t. Then I headed for my company’s office. The car that took me there, like most of the others in Tripoli, had small cubes of sponge stuck to its doors to prevent bumps while driving on roads that were no longer policed and where traffic rules were now purely a matter of convention rather than enforceable norms. As we drove along the Corniche, the deep blue of the Mediterranean on one side, I noticed that most of the old traffic rules were still being obeyed. In an environment in which robbery, kidnap and death were commonplace, people still seemed to want to give way at roundabouts.

My company’s offices were in one of a cluster of tall tower blocks overlooking the sea, a once prestigious address. The tower blocks were set in a deserted concrete courtyard. The entrance lobby’s cool, airy silence was a contrast to the intense heat and white light of the afternoon outside. I took the lift up and was let into the office, where I was shown into an empty room with a desk. I spoke with the first of the people who had been asked to come for interview. As with every compliance audit, on my list of interviewees were those exposed to higher than usual risk of corruption – including members of the sales team, anyone in a leadership role, and anyone who had contact with government or public officials. I also talked to those who were in a position to prevent corruption or spot it if it occurred, such as members of the finance department or human resources. Some of the employees had made great efforts to attend. One of the sales directors had come from Benghazi, and the various operations managers – those who were in charge of actually drilling for oil in the field – had travelled in from their desert bases and rigs.

At first, the interviews followed a script in which I asked a list of set questions relevant to the interviewee’s role. But soon, picking up on a remark or an answer, I would take the opportunity to broaden the conversation. Formality would dissipate and people would start to talk more generally about the company and the wider environment in which they lived and worked. Some common themes emerged. No matter whether they were for or against Gaddafi (and it soon became apparent which side someone was on), most people thought that having him back would be better than the current situation. There were shootings and kidnappings. House break-ins were rife and everyone had a Kalashnikov at home for defence against burglars. One woman I spoke to had just returned to work after having her teeth knocked out with the butt of a gun in a robbery. A man told me that a range of weapons from handguns to SAM-7 surface-to-air missiles were openly for sale in the street just a few minutes’ walk away from the office. But there was one thing that united the pro and anti-Gaddafi factions in the office: their hatred of the country manager. Echoing the security contractor, they told me that he rarely appeared in the office and never visited the oilfields. He was arrogant, incompetent and a coward.

I asked several of the interviewees about the theft of trucks by the employee and got a story very different from the one given by the country manager. They told me that in the middle of the fighting, the employee, rather than let the assets of a company for which he had worked for many years be stolen or destroyed, had decided he would drive a number of the company’s vehicles to a safe location and hide them, with the intention of returning them when the situation became more stable. As soon as the country manager arrived he made a big show of going out into the desert to demand the return of the trucks. But the employee had refused to return them without a reward.

‘What did he want in return for the trucks?’ I asked one of the interviewees.

‘He wanted a certificate of thanks for his behaviour.’

‘That’s it?’

‘Yes. And the country manager wouldn’t give it to him.’

‘But he would have given all of the trucks back if we had given him a certificate?’

‘Yes. The country manager refused and told him he was in breach of the code of conduct.’ I could see why the country manager had taken to changing hotels on a regular basis.

In a series of calls and emails over the first few days of my visit, the country manager gave me the slip, making various excuses as to why he hadn’t been around to speak to me. Finally I arranged to meet him in the lobby of my hotel: we were to go for dinner at a restaurant close to the magnificent Arch of Marcus Aurelius. As we sat at a table outside, making small talk and waiting for the call to prayer to end the day’s fast, it occurred to me that the company couldn’t have made a more inappropriate match than this one between the country manager and the failed state of Libya. A dapper, American-educated corporate droid, he was a prisoner of management speak: he had ‘reached out to’ employees, he told me; they hadn’t ‘embraced the new reality’. He didn’t seem able to adjust to the fact that he was operating in a warzone, dealing with people who were suffering, many of whom had demonstrated great loyalty to a company that abandoned them at the first sign of trouble. He was keen to tell me that he was now close to resolving the truck issue. ‘You can’t trust these people,’ he told me. ‘They just don’t get it.’ Then his phone rang. ‘Sorry, I’m going to have to take it.’ This hunted, scared individual suddenly inflated with pride as he talked. After a few minutes, the call ended.

‘That was the CEO. He wants me to head up a new project team when I get out of this fucking place.’ Somewhere in the city there was the crack of a rifle, sounding like a cheap firework set off in the street. And his face said: if I get out of this place.

The next morning, I was sitting in the hotel lobby waiting for my car to the office when a man approached me. He was dusty and tired and wearing shabby street clothes. He introduced himself and immediately handed me a memory stick. His name was Ahmed and he told me that Yusuf, one of the operations managers I had met and whom I recalled as a physically huge but softly spoken man, coated with the grime of the oilfield yard, was muscling in and taking over the business in Libya.

‘He’s very well connected. He’s close to some of the tribal sheikhs. He’s also a gangster. There’s no doubt. He’s controlling many of the suppliers. It’s all on the USB.’ And then Ahmed made a plea for complete confidentiality. The consequences in this broken state of being revealed as an informant could be dire.

Later that day, in between interviews, I read the contents of the USB. There was clear proof that Yusuf had been buying up local firms that supply to the oil business and then putting contracts in place on extremely favourable terms between them and my company. In his own, admittedly criminal way, in predicting that eventually, despite all appearances, the oil market would pick up, Yusuf was showing more confidence in the prospects for Libya than the company’s senior leadership. They saw it as a basket case but Yusuf, like the best hedge-fund managers, was playing the long game with his investments and had picked the very best time to pull off this kind of scam, now that monitoring of the goings-on in the business in Libya had all but ended. Many of the company’s transactions had to be performed manually in Tripoli rather than through the centralised electronic finance systems in the US or UK. This meant that there was no longer the usual intense oversight of where money came from and went to. Instead there were numerous opportunities for an unscrupulous employee to make hay while the country detached itself from the world.

That evening, just before midnight, I was driven to British Home Stores in downtown Tripoli to buy some new clothes, since my luggage still hadn’t turned up. When we arrived, the driver sat in the car with the engine running while the security contractor stood at the shop entrance. I had ten minutes to go around the deserted aisles putting socks, pants and shirts into my basket. ‘Any longer,’ the contractor said, pointing to the shop assistants, ‘and their mates could be over to pick you up.’ But the two women at the counter seemed completely uninterested in my supermarket sweep. They didn’t lift their chins off their hands as I shopped, and they took payment from me with as much curiosity as if I were buying clothes on a Saturday afternoon in Oxford Street.

The next day, one of my scheduled meetings was with the oilfield operations manager who had been on the call a few weeks earlier. We worked our way through the scheduled questions and answers and then he said: ‘Can I ask for your opinion on the chemicals?’ He reminded me of the story of the damaged barrels in the warehouse and I expected him to ask for compliance advice regarding their disposal, as he had done with the explosives and the radioactive materials. But instead the conversation took an unexpected turn.

‘We’ve been approached by the authorities in the east of the country,’ he said. ‘They would like to buy the chemicals to use for drilling for water.’ He explained that there was a desperate need to repair infrastructure and restore running water to areas that had been ruined by the fighting. ‘The company won’t allow us to use the chemicals that survive the attack to drill for oil. They no longer meet our quality standards. But the Libyan authorities would be happy to buy them from us. They’re not proud.’ And here was the bit that made it all worthwhile. ‘They will pay us millions of dollars for stock that we will otherwise throw away.’ He showed me photos of the damaged chemicals and the letters requesting the deal from the authorities. ‘We need this deal,’ he told me. ‘We haven’t had any significant revenue for years.’ This would mean that at least some people would keep their jobs for a little while longer. A draft contract had already been drawn up and legal approval had been given. He showed me the approvals from the commercial lawyers and a chain of emails from our leaders showing their desperation to screw some profit out of this situation. But the authorities were running out of patience. They had a window in which they had to get drilling and if we couldn’t help them they would need to find someone who could. So time was of the essence and all that was lacking was the compliance seal of approval.

Over the next few days, I went over the areas of possible risk created by the opportunity – legal, commercial, reputational. The operations manager called daily, asking whether I had made my decision, reminding me that the clock was ticking. I spoke with our commercial lawyers and with finance. I made sure that the chemicals actually existed and I got assurances that there really were functioning authorities in the east of Libya. My training and experience had made me very sensitive to the signs of fraud and corruption and I was confident that I’d covered off those avenues. But I was still very uneasy with the deal. Then I realised I might have missed the most important risk factor of all. I got hold of the names of the chemicals and rang a senior company chemist to ask him to carry out an analysis of each of them to make sure they couldn’t be used as chemical weapons. The analysis came back: all clear. None of them, either alone or in combination, could be used in chemical weapons.

I let the operations manager know that he could go ahead. He was delighted. ‘This is really going to make a big difference to the bottom line for my business,’ he told me. It also meant that he would get his bonus and lots of kudos for having the winner’s mindset: he would keep his job for at least the next quarter or so. I was relieved too. The pressure had been building, and for me to have turned the transaction down at the last minute would have provoked a shitstorm in the region and even higher up the chain. As promised, the operations manager sent me the confirmation documents with the various legal restrictions and covenants that the authority had agreed to abide by regarding its use of the chemicals. In a matter of days, the sale was completed. We had sold countless barrels of useless chemicals to the Libyan water board for a huge profit. The perfect deal.

During the remainder of my time in Libya, Ahmed continued to provide me with evidence about Yusuf’s acquisition of suppliers. It was so compelling that, as a first step, I blocked the suppliers in the central accounting system. This meant that no matter how hard Yusuf tried, his supply companies couldn’t receive any significant payment from my company. I concluded the compliance audit and left Libya. My bag was waiting for me when I arrived at Tripoli Airport. As soon as I picked it up from the airline desk in departures, it was seized by a man wearing an old police jacket and grubby suit trousers. He took me to a small room at one side of the departures hall and ordered me to unpack every single item onto a large table in front of him. Everything was covered in dust. When I finished he told me to repack it. I checked my luggage in and made my way once again past the gangs of sub-Saharan Africans travelling from misery into misery, past the stall selling tatty Free Libya merchandise, to the plane.

Then the oil price collapsed. It was already bad but now the price of a barrel had really tanked. There was a lot of talk about permanent structural change in the industry. Firms like mine fired thousands of employees in a matter of weeks. I made sure that Ahmed was put on a protected list of essential employees as his reward for doing the right thing. Somehow, the Libyan senior managers, Yusuf included, found out about this almost as soon as it happened. I received a series of increasingly desperate emails from Ahmed. He knew what was about to happen and thought that I had betrayed him. The emails stopped abruptly when he was fired. When I raised Ahmed’s case with a senior HR manager, I was told that it was unfortunate but that, given the state of the market, it was a matter of only a few weeks before all the employees on the protected list were going to be fired anyway. Any concern for Ahmed got lost in the huge wave of redundancies that the low oil price brought.

I went ahead anyway and presented the allegations against Yusuf to senior management. Despite the evidence, they didn’t find them convincing and the matter was closed with no further action taken. The supply companies that were the subject of the investigation were unblocked in the system. In the rapid restructuring of the company in Libya in response to the manically deteriorating market conditions and worsening violence, Yusuf was promoted, along with the operations manager who had arranged the sale of the damaged barrels to the water authorities. This was to fill the gap created by the departure of the detested country manager, who had managed to get out of Libya with a plum posting to a new project back at US HQ. Not long after I left Tripoli, a large car bomb was left outside my hotel, driven through the entrance, which was undefended by bollards. Thankfully, it was defused.

Eventually I caught up with the regional head of security about the sale of the chemicals. ‘They didn’t want the chemicals you fucking idiot,’ he said. ‘They wanted the barrels.’ He was sure the whole deal was a scam, that one of a number of groups – tribal, terrorist or government – was tapping available sources for the basic ingredients to make their weapon of choice, the barrel bomb. There was no proof of this. I had done all I could to verify that the deal was genuine but in my heart of hearts I knew that it smelled. The regional head of security just found it bleakly funny that one of the most advanced weapons in the world – a laser-guided bomb – had spawned hundreds of the crudest airborne weapons possible, responsible for so much indiscriminate killing. But there was a silver lining. ‘Look, we made a few million bucks. With Brent Crude at sub-$40 a barrel for the foreseeable future and Libya eating itself alive, that’s an awesome result,’ he said. ‘As long as the company logo doesn’t appear on a report by CNN, no one is going to give a shit about where those barrels end up.’ And, as it turned out, he was right.

[toldnews-blog]

New Post has been published on https://toldnews.com/business/quadriga-the-cryptocurrency-exchange-that-lost-135m/

Quadriga: The cryptocurrency exchange that lost $135m

Image copyright Facebook/Quadriga

Image caption Gerald Cotten

When the 30-year-old founder of a Canadian cryptocurrency exchange died suddenly, he took the whereabouts of some C$180m ($135m; £105m) in cryptocurrency to his grave. Now, tens of thousands of Quadriga CX users are wondering if they will ever see their funds again.

In 2014, one of the world’s biggest online cryptocurrency exchanges – MtGox – unexpectedly shut down after losing 850,000 Bitcoins valued at the time at nearly $0.4bn (£0.3bn).

Its meltdown shook investors in the volatile emerging marketplace – but the calamity at the Tokyo-based company proved a boon for a new Canadian online cryptocurrency exchange.

“People like the fact we’re located in Canada and know where their money is going,” Quadriga CX founder Gerald Cotten said at the time.

Some five years later, Cotten’s sudden, untimely death has left thousands of his customers scrambling for information about their own missing funds.

“We don’t know whether or not we’re going to get our money back,” Tong Zou, who says he is owed C$560,000 – his life savings – told the BBC.

“There’s just a lot of uncertainty.”

This month, Quadriga – which had grown to become Canada’s largest cryptocurrency exchange – was granted temporary bankruptcy protection in a Canadian court.

The firm said it had spent the weeks since Cotten’s death trying desperately to “locate and secure our very significant cryptocurrency reserves”.

Image copyright Reuters

Image caption Broken representations of the Bitcoin virtual currency

In court documents, Quadriga says it owes up to 115,000 users an estimated C$250m – about C$70m in hard currency and between C$180m an C$190m in cryptocurrency, based on recent market rates.

It believes – though it’s not certain – that the bulk of those millions in reserves was locked away by Cotten in cold storage, which is an offline safeguard against hacking and theft.

For now, all trading has been suspended on the platform.

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‘Wild West’ Bitcoin ‘should be regulated’

Bernie Doyle, CEO of Refine Labs and head of the Toronto chapter of the Government Blockchain Association, calls what’s happening at Quadriga a “seismic event” in the industry.

The world of digital currency has little regulatory oversight and a history of volatile prices, hacking threats, and minimal consumer protection.

Mr Doyle says this only adds to the nascent sector’s already “checkered history”.

But he says “it’s really unfortunate that the ecosystem takes a hit” amid one firm’s problems.

Image copyright Reuters

Image caption The theft involved the lesser-known IOTA cryptocurrency

What happened at Quadriga?

Court documents filed in late January offer some insight into the company.

Quadriga had no offices, no employees and no bank accounts. It was essentially a one-man band run entirely by Cotten wherever he – and his laptop – happened to be, which was usually his home in Fall River, Nova Scotia.

It used some third-party contractors to handle some of the additional work, including payment processing.

His widow, Jennifer Robertson, says she was not involved in the company until her husband died suddenly on 9 December in India from complications related to Crohn’s disease.

In an affidavit, she says she has searched the couple’s home and other properties for business records related to Quadriga, to no avail. The laptop on which he conducted all the business is encrypted and she doesn’t have the password or recovery key.

An investigator hired to assist in recovering any records had little success.

It was also recently revealed the company somehow inadvertently transferred Bitcoins valued at almost half-a-million dollars into cold storage in early February and now can’t access them.

But Quadriga’s troubles didn’t start with missing coins. The company’s liquidity problems began months earlier.

In January 2018, Canadian bank CIBC froze five accounts containing about C$26m linked to Quadriga’s payment processor in a dispute over the real owners of the funds, an issue that ended up in court.

Image copyright Supreme Court of Nova Scotia

Image caption A photo of bank drafts submitted in Quadriga court documents

The company says it also has millions in bank drafts it has been unable to deposit because banks have been unwilling to accept them.

Ms Robertson’s affidavit to the court included photos showing stacks of bank drafts placed on a kitchen stove.

Those banking disputes contributed to a “severe liquidity crunch” at the company, with frustrated users facing delays and difficulties trying to access funds.

Who was Gerald Cotten?

In photos and interviews, Cotten comes across as a clean-cut business school graduate who tended to favour the casual shirts and jeans uniform of a tech entrepreneur.

In a statement, Quadriga called him a “visionary leader” who was in India for the opening an orphanage for children in need when he died.

His friend Alex Salkeld described Cotten as a helpful, easy-going young man keen to contribute to the community of cryptocurrency enthusiasts.

“I don’t think you’ll find anyone willing to say anything bad about him,” he told the BBC.

Mr Salkeld said once a week Vancouver Bitcoin Co-Op members would all head over to the Quadriga’s then-offices “and just talk Bitcoin”.

Like others at the time, he said Cotten saw Bitcoin as a technology with the potential to change the world – a virtual currency free of governments and the banking system.

Mr Salkeld said that since Cotten died, those who knew him have been going back-and-forth over how he could possibly have failed to have a contingency plan in place.

Image copyright Courtesy Alex Salkeld

Image caption Gerald Cotten in 2014 showing Alex Salkeld’s daughters how to use a Bitcoin automatic teller

But amid rampant talk online about possible fraud related to the missing coins, Mr Salkeld said that, to him, “it’s looking like a tragic series of unfortunate events strung together in a really unlucky way”.

Cotten’s last will and testament also gives some hints as to his life and assets.

The document, signed shortly before his ill-fated trip to India, shows he appointed Ms Robertson as executor of the estate and left her the bulk of his property.

It offers some detail into those assets: a Lexus, an airplane – he was an amateur pilot – a sailboat, and real estate in the Canadian provinces of Nova Scotia and British Columbia.

He even planned for the care of his two chihuahuas, Nitro and Gully.

The case against Quadriga

There are many who are suspicious of Quadriga’s story and who doubt claims that Cotten had the only key to reserves valued in the tens of millions of dollars.

Online sleuths and industry experts have analysed the public transaction history of Quadriga wallets – which are used to store, send, and receive cryptocurrency – and have raised the possibility that the cold storage reserves might not exist at all.

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That has led to concern there is more at play than poor business practices and internal company chaos in the wake of Cotten’s death.

Others have wondered whether Cotten faked his own death and that this is all part of an “exit scam” to abscond with the funds.

Amid those rumours, Ms Robertson’s affidavit included a copy of statement of death from a funeral home in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

The hospital in Jaipur where Cotten was treated also released a statement detailing the medical interventions he received prior to his death.

JP Morgan creates crypto-currency

His widow says she has received death threats and “slanderous comments” online since Quadriga publicly announced its troubles.

An independent third party monitor has also been appointed to oversee the court proceedings, and is currently in possession of Cotten’s laptop and other devices.

What happens next?

In an online message to its users, Quadriga said it filed for creditor protection to give it time to ensure the future viability of the company.

It also admitted it is in “the early stages of a long process and [does] not have all the answers right now”.

According to court filings, Quadriga is also investigating whether some of the cryptocurrency could be secured on other exchanges and it said it’s considering selling the platform to cover its debts.

A number of affected users, including Tong Zou, have retained lawyers and are seeking representation in the proceedings.

Meanwhile, Canada’s main securities regulator, the Ontario Securities Commission, has confirmed it looking into Quadriga “given the potential harm to Ontario investors”.

[geneticasseta]

DARK_ANGEL_VERSES.EXE

CLICK FOR ALTERNATE UNIVERSES / CROSSOVERS

PRE-SERIES

anywhere between the ages of 5 - 22

Manticore threads / interactions as well as threads or interactions that take place while X5-936 is a Manticore asset.

Can be found virtually anywhere, however is only given permission out of the facility for missions, so she’ll typically be on a job.

X5-936 is one of Manticore’s finest and most proficient soldiers, with a mission success rate of 98.9%. She exceeds all expectations placed upon her and is considered the best of Echo Team. An expert in several mixed martial arts, melee and long ranged weapons as well as strategic espionage, computer hacking, engineering and piloting, she has been designed and trained to be a supersoldier and completely loyal to her Manticore superiors.

She’s often sent off base for missions in destabilizing foreign powers, assassinations, thefts, espionage and sabotage but has also been used to serve as a bodyguard for high paying officials. When off base X5-936 is often given an alias and an undercover personia of which she can perform seamlessly but rarely has time for herself as her handlers are almost always watching her every move.

MANTICORE'S FALL

ages 22 - 23

Manticore is destroyed, the transgenic supersoldiers are freed and the government launches it’s efforts to contain, recapture or cauterize all evidence and property of Manticore.

Can be found in Seattle city, usually hustling casino’s for cash or performing smash and grabs on the rich and influential.

Manticore has been destroyed and X5-936 is forced to flee underground when she witnesses the containment and execution of her fellow transgenics during the escape from the burning facility and the days that followed it’s destruction. As one of the older generations of the X5 series, she managed to hold on to some of her independence and improvisation skills which allows her to conceal herself and blend in with society as she disappears off the radar. However, with no mission X5-936, now going by the name Pip Allen, struggles to find her place in the world without Manticore’s constant presence and control.

She spends the majority of her time exploring the city, watching it’s people, and hustling casino’s or back room poker games. She has also taken on the habit of casual robbery of the rich and influential, though her tactics lack in finesse and subtlety.

TRANSGENIC CENTRAL

ages 23 - 26

transgenics have made Terminal city their home and the world knows of their existence and their intentions to live peacefully among ordinaries.

since Pip can pass for human, she often leaves Transgenic Central to be in the city for work, but also to get resources and supplies for TC.

Pip was one of the last people to expect to join X5-452 in her efforts to have transgenics recognized as people deserving of human rights like anyone else and yet, she did. Pip has unwittingly thrown her lot in with her own and does what she can to help make TC into a living and self producing district of Seattle in her own ways. Providing supplies, resources and a small income to help rebuild the side of town that had been abandoned by ordinaries after the spill.

Due to the publics awareness of transgenics existence now, Pip has been forced to find other more legitimate means of income and has gone into the business of hiring out her skills and services to the highest bidder. She’s something like a mercenary and Private Investigator.

It suits her well as she finds the idea of living a normal, peaceful life utterly abhorrent.

[littlestarprincess]

(that last post about vampires has two people in the notes who are obviously very gung ho intersectional feminists bringing up Native Americans in the context of "and then the immortal meets other *humans* this has happened to!" and it skeevs me out but us hard to put my finger on why.

White Savior angle (paired with the casual assumption that the immortal wouldn't be Native themself? Native trickster god like Coyote or Raven could totally show up like "I have. A plan. Guys it's such a good plan" and that's already loads better than some white vampire being like 'I lived through colonial settlement in the Americas but it never occurred to me that people's stuff had actually been stolen' and amazingly I'm still not sure someone who isn't native should touch the concept with a ten foot pole. )

Equivalizing vampires (jfc why's it always vampires) and a human political minority in a context that makes either the individual and joking property loss of an immortal As Serious As the cultural genocide they would have been complicit in or else is putting cultural genocide on the same level as individual theft and those don't match at all.

OH YEAH I THINK THIS IS THE BIG ONE - - an immortal old enough to be in the possession of historical artifacts would have to be fucking COMPLICIT and FULLY AWARE of the government taking land and property so what's with this "and then they discover Native Americans, who are magical and in the same boat!"

Like on the one hand it is a learning process.

On the other hand . . . *breathes deeply*

[sightseeinginskyrim]

Not so casual reminder that entering the country illegally is a fucking misdemeanor.  It carries a maximum fine of $250 and/or six months in prison.  For comparison, here are some other federal misdemeanors that carry greater maximum sentencing:

• A non-dentist mailing dentures. Up to 1 year in prison. • Sending your NCAA bracket, list of Super Bowl pool picks, etc through the mail.  Up to 5 years in prison. • Possession of a controlled substance without a prescription (yes, simple possession is a misdemeanor, which is why prosecutors frequently push for “possession with intent to distribute” so they can get higher sentences). Up to 3 years in prison. • “Petty” theft (theft of less than $1,000 worth of money, property, or records). Up to 1 year in prison.

That’s right, according to the federal government, shoplifting or mailing dentures if you’re not a dentist are more serious crimes than crossing the border illegally.  So the next time you think of spouting some bullshit about how undocumented immigrants deserve what’s being done to them by the US government, take a moment and think to yourself, “If this were being done to people because they were mailing their NCAA bracket, would I consider that to be a reasonable response?”

[clubofinfo]

Expert: The Nuremberg Principles not only prohibit such crimes but oblige those of us aware of the crime to act against it. “Complicity in the commission of a crime against peace, a war crime, or a crime against humanity … is a crime under International Law.” […] The ongoing building and maintenance of Trident submarines and ballistic missile systems constitute war crimes that can and should be investigated and prosecuted by judicial authorities at all levels. As citizens, we are required by International Law to denounce and resist known crimes. — Kings Bay Plowshares Indictment of US for war crimes, April 4, 2018 On April 4, 2018, seven Catholics, three women and four men calling themselves the Kings Bay Plowshares, carried out their faith-based, nonviolent, symbolic action, pouring blood on the world’s largest nuclear submarine base and indicting the US for its perpetual crime of holding the world hostage to the terrorist threat of using nuclear weapons. The US crime that began in 1945 has reached new intensity with Donald Trump’s years of casual rhetoric threatening nuclear holocaust on targets from ISIS to North Korea. Every other nuclear-armed state engages in the same criminal threatening every day, but the US has been at it longer and is still the only state to have perpetrated the actual war crimes of not one but two nuclear terror attacks against mostly civilian targets in Japan in 1945. The target of the Plowshares Seven’s radical direct action was the Kings Bay Naval Submarine Base, home to eight Trident nuclear submarines, each capable of launching nuclear missile strikes anywhere in the world. Each 560-foot-long Trident ballistic missile submarine carries sufficient firepower to attack some 600 cities with more destructive force than destroyed Hiroshima. The “small” warheads on Trident missiles have a 100-kiloton payload, roughly seven times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb. The Kings Bay base covers some 17,000 acres, making it roughly 30 times larger than the principality of Monaco. The base was developed in 1978-79 under President Jimmy Carter, a former nuclear submarine engineer. A prominent Christian protestant all his career, Carter has long made peace with war-making, unlike the radical Catholics in the Plowshares movement since they hammered and poured blood on nuclear nosecones in 1980 (the first of more than 100 Plowshares actions since then). On April 4, 2018, the fiftieth anniversary of the assassination of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Liz McAlister, 78, Stephen Kelly S.J., 70, Martha Hennessy, 62, Clare Grady, 58, Patrick O’Neill, 62, Mark Colville, 55, and Carmen Trotta, 55, entered the Kings Bay Naval Submarine Base. Carrying hammers and bottles of their own blood, the seven sought to enact and embody the prophet Isaiah’s command to: “Beat swords into plowshares.” In so doing, they were upholding the US Constitution through its requirement to respect treaties, international law through the UN Charter and Nuremberg principles, and higher moral law regarding the sacredness of all creation. They hoped to draw attention to and begin to dismantle what Dr. King called “the triple evils” of racism, militarism, and extreme materialism. — Kings Bay Plowshares press release, May 4, 2018 As darkness fell on April 4, the Plowshares Seven were setting out to commit a classic act of civil disobedience, breaking laws that they saw as unjust in light of a higher law. The description of events that follows here is based on the government indictment (signed by five lawyers), the Kings Bay Plowshares account, and a conversation with one of the Plowshares Seven, Martha Hennessy, a retired occupational therapist, at her home in Vermont, where she is confined with an ankle bracelet while awaiting trial. After penetrating the perimeter fence as a group, the seven split up into three groups, headed for three different destinations on the base, and arrived unchallenged. The nuclear weapons storage bunkers are in a shoot-to-kill zone. McAlister, Kelly, and Trotta managed to unfurl a banner without getting shot, but were quickly arrested. The banner read: “Nuclear weapons: illegal/immoral.” The second group, Grady and Hennessy, went to the Strategic Weapons Facility Atlantic Administration, two large, one-story office buildings out of sight and hearing range from the weapons storage bunkers. Here the scene was more surreal: lights were on in the building, people were working inside, but it was very quiet. Grady and Hennessy were alone in the dark outside for almost an hour. That gave them time to post the Plowshares indictment on the door and rope off the area with yellow crime scene tape. They poured blood on the door and the sidewalk. They spray-painted the sidewalk with “Love One Another” and “Repent” and “May Love Disarm Us All.” When they were done, they joined the third group, Colville and O’Neill, at the Trident D5 Monuments, a sculptural, phallic celebration of nuclear weapons delivery systems. There the Plowshares splashed blood on the base logo and the Navy seal. They draped the monument in yellow crime scene tape. They pried brass letters off the monument. They hung a banner paraphrasing Martin Luther King’s admonition that “the ultimate logic of racism is genocide.” The banner read: “The Ultimate Logic of Trident is Omnicide.” People drove by as they worked, but no one stopped. After about an hour, security officers arrived and very politely, full of Southern good manners, handcuffed the four and took them into custody at a base facility sometime after midnight. In days to come, the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established as the highest mountain and raised about the hills. All nations shall stream toward it….  He shall judge between the nations, and impose terms on many peoples. They shall beat their swords into plowshares; and their spears into pruning hooks; One nation shall not raise the sword against another, nor shall they train for war again.” — Book of Isaiah, 2:2-4 According to Kings Bay Base spokesman Scott Bassett, the Plowshares Seven were quickly transferred to the civilian county jail. Bassett said there were no injuries and that no military personnel or “assets” were in danger. He said the incident was still under investigation, but “At no time was anybody threatened.” Mainstream media seem to have treated the blooding of the submarine missiles as a one-day story of little import, or ignored it entirely. The Navy was treating it as a trivial case of trespass and vandalism. Georgia officials filed charges along the same lines. But by the time the Plowshares Seven had been in county jail for a month, someone had decided to make a federal case of it. The federal indictment of May 2 is a squalid bit of legalism at its most dishonest. The seven-page charge tries to have it both ways, making out a trespass/vandalism case while suppressing what makes it actually worthy of federal prosecution (albeit not of these defendants). No wonder it took five lawyers to conjure up a redundantly iterated charge of conspiracy to trespass and “willfully and maliciously destroy and injure real and personal property” of the US Navy. The charge is naked of any hint of a motive, and for good, sordid, corrupt prosecutorial reason. The motive calls into question the legality of the base, the submarines, the nuclear weapons, and the right of the US to keep the rest of the world under perpetual threat of annihilation. The feds have a long history of keeping that argument out of court by any means necessary. Prosecutorial deceit is further illustrated by the indictment’s corrupt selection of the alleged overt acts by the defendants. The indictment charges all seven with acts some of them could not possibly have committed. And for all their wordy whining about property being damaged or defaced, the lawyers conspire not to mention any yellow crime tape, or banners, or – most importantly – the defendants’ blood. “A True Bill” the document is called on the page where five federal lawyers signed, if not in contempt of court, surely in contempt of truth and justice. But that’s where this case is headed, down the rabbit hole of police state justice, if the government has its way. The Plowshares Seven, all presently proceeding without attorneys of their own, will attempt to argue a necessity defense – that whatever illegal actions they have taken were necessary to prevent a greater harm, in this case nuclear destruction. That case is so patently obvious, the government has never dared to let it be argued (in other countries it has led to some acquittals). Mostly miscarriages of justice like this go on in the shadows, without media attention, without regard to who is president or which party is in power. Anyone who looks carefully soon realizes this is true. In late 2008, Martha Hennessy wrote from Ireland: I can’t write about my journey coming here to participate in the Catholic Worker Farm community without considering the context of our current world situation. The global financial markets teeter on the brink of chaos, and the US presidential race nears Election Day. It feels as though those who are aware of what is happening are holding their collective breath while others toil on in pain and oblivion. I completed early voting before leaving the States but I am always left with a feeling of having blood on my hands, trying to be a “responsible” citizen in a so-called democracy. The recent American bailout of the corporate criminals is a theft from the people who need housing, healthcare, and education. The horrific war that has been visited on the Iraqi people has turned on its perpetrators. And now people of faith who mount nonviolent protest to these atrocities are being branded as “terrorists” by the domestic security apparatus. How to maintain faith, hope and love with such dark times ahead? Hennessy and two others are out on bail, but electronically shackled. The other four remain in federal prison in the usually appalling conditions the US justice system deems appropriate, or at least profitable. The prosecutors opposed any bail for any of them. A motions hearing is scheduled for early August, when all seven will seek release to allow them to prepare for trial, representing themselves. No trial date has yet been set. The defendants face potential sentences of 5 to 20 years each. They used their own blood to symbolize redemption and repentance in the shadow of nuclear holocaust. For that, these seven nonviolent Catholics have put themselves at the mercy of a “Christian” nation whose deepest belief is in its own exceptionalism, immersed in a permanent war economy heading toward omnicide, which can’t come soon enough for apocalyptic dominionoids who figure their souls are saved so let’s get it on. In a sane world, wouldn’t that be enough for jury exclusion? http://clubof.info/

[sharionpage]

What if you ran your home or business like the politicians run the country?

The Self Improvement Blog | Self Esteem | Self Confidence

I first ran this article in 2013. Last night we heard President Trump talking about how much money is needed to restore the infrastructure of the country, build the wall, supply the military, etc. He talked in billions and trillions of dollars. I think it’s time to read this again and put things in perspective. So I ask the question—again: What if you ran your home or business like the politicians run the country?

The day’s email

I received the following in my email and, I can tell you, it made me pause and think about it. It made me ask the question, “What if we ran our homes and our businesses like the politicians run our country?” I generally don’t venture into politics on this blog, but I think we all need to reflect on this.

How much is a Billion?

While you’re reading it, consider the fact that now, in Washington, D.C., they talk about TRILLIONS as much as billions. How much is that? Anyway, here is the email in its entirety:

This is too true to be funny.

The next time you hear a politician use the Word ‘billion’ in a casual manner, think about whether you want the ‘politicians’ spending YOUR tax money.

A billion is a difficult number to comprehend, But one advertising agency did a good job of Putting that figure into some perspective in one of its releases.

A billion seconds ago it was 1959.

A billion minutes ago Jesus was alive.

A billion hours ago our ancestors were living in the Stone Age.

A billion days ago no-one walked on the earth on two feet.

A billion dollars ago was only 8 hours and 20 minutes, at the rate our government is spending it.

While this thought is still fresh in our brain… let’s take a look at New Orleans … It’s amazing what you can learn with some simple division.

Louisiana Senator, Mary Landrieu (D) was asking Congress for 250 BILLION DOLLARS To rebuild New Orleans. Interesting number…What does it mean?

Well … If you are one of the 484,674 residents of New Orleans (every man, woman and child) You each get $516,528

Or… If you have one of the 188,251 homes in New Orleans, your home gets $1,329,787.

Or… If you are a family of four… Your family gets $2,066,012.

Washington , D.C  —  HELLO!

Are all your calculators broken?

And what about taxes?

And besides the income tax we pay: Building Permit Tax CDL License Tax Cigarette Tax Corporate Income Tax Dog License Tax Federal Income Tax (Fed) Federal Unemployment Tax (FU TA) Fishing License Tax Food License Tax Fuel Permit Tax Gasoline Tax Hunting License Tax Inheritance Tax Inventory Tax IRS Interest Charges (tax on top of tax) IRS Penalties (tax on top of tax) Liquor Tax Luxury Tax Marriage License Tax Medicare Tax Property Tax Real Estate Tax Service charge Taxes Social Security Tax Road Usage Tax (Truckers) Sales Taxes Recreational Vehicle Tax School Tax State Income Tax State Unemployment Tax (SUTA) Telephone Federal Excise Tax Telephone Federal Universal Service Fee Tax Telephone Federal, State and Local Surcharge Tax Telephone Minimum Usage Surcharge Tax Telephone Recurring and Non-recurring Charges Tax Telephone State and Local Tax Telephone Usage ChargeTax Utility Tax Vehicle License Registration Tax Vehicle Sales Tax Watercraft Registration Tax Well Permit Tax Workers Compensation Tax (And to think, we left British Rule to avoid so many taxes)

STILL THINK THIS IS FUNNY?

Not one of these taxes existed 100 years ago… And our nation was the most prosperous in the world.

We had absolutely no national debt… We had the largest middle class in the world… And Mom stayed home to raise the kids.

What happened? Can you spell

‘politicians’!

I hope this goes around the USA At least 100 times

What the heck happened?

Some questions to ponder

This is the end of the e-mail. now let me add some questions for you to ponder:

What would happen if you continued to spend more money than you earned? Those who have massive credit card debt know the answer to this.

What if you took someone else’s money to pay your bills without their permission? You would probably go to jail for theft.

What if everyone had their hand in your pocket? How long would the money last?

This year, let’s watch carefully with an open mind to see what’s happening with our money in the hands of the Washington politicians. (Whether they or you are Republicans or Democrats doesn’t enter this picture. Just watch what they do.)

And one last question. How much of the money you earn should you be allowed to keep?

Think about it.

What if you ran your home or business like the politicians run the country? published first on https://bitspiritspace.tumblr.com/

[successlimousine]

Uber Can’t Be Fixed — It’s Time for Regulators to Shut It Down Benjamin Edelman

BUSINESS LAW

Uber Can’t Be Fixed — It’s Time for Regulators to Shut It Down

Benjamin Edelman

JUNE 21, 2017

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From many passengers’ perspective, Uber is a godsend — lower fares than taxis, clean vehicles, courteous drivers, easy electronic payments. Yet the company’s mounting scandals reveal something seriously amiss, culminating in last week’s stern report from former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder.

Some people attribute the company’s missteps to the personal failings of founder-CEO Travis Kalanick. These have certainly contributed to the company’s problems, and his resignation is probably appropriate. Kalanick and other top executives signal by example what is and is not acceptable behavior, and they are clearly responsible for the company’s ethically and legally questionable decisions and practices.

But I suggest that the problem at Uber goes beyond a culture created by toxic leadership. The company’s cultural dysfunction, it seems to me, stems from the very nature of the company’s competitive advantage: Uber’s business model is predicated on lawbreaking. And having grown through intentional illegality, Uber can’t easily pivot toward following the rules.

Uber’s Fundamental Illegality

Uber brought some important improvements to the taxi business, which are at this point well known. But by the company’s launch, in 2010, most urban taxi fleets used modern dispatch with GPS, plus custom hardware and software. In those respects, Uber was much like what incumbents had and where they were headed.

Nor was Uber alone in realizing that expensive taxi medallions were unnecessary for prebooked trips — a tactic already used by other entrepreneurs in many cities. Uber was wise to use smartphone apps (not telephone calls) to let passengers request vehicles, and it found major cost savings in equipping drivers with standard phones (not specialized hardware). But others did this, too. Ultimately, most of Uber’s technical advances were ideas that competitors would have devised in short order.

Uber’s biggest advantage over incumbents was in using ordinary vehicles with no special licensing or other formalities. With regular noncommercial cars, Uber and its drivers avoided commercial insurance, commercial registration, commercial plates, special driver’s licenses, background checks, rigorous commercial vehicle inspections, and countless other expenses. With these savings, Uber seized a huge cost advantage over taxis and traditional car services. Uber’s lower costs brought lower prices to consumers, with resulting popularity and growth. But this use of noncommercial cars was unlawful from the start. In most jurisdictions, longstanding rules required all the protections described above, and no exception allowed what Uber envisioned. (To be fair, Uber didn’t start it — Lyft did. More on that later on.)

What’s more, Uber’s most distinctive capabilities focused on defending its illegality. Uber built up staff, procedures, and software systems whose purpose was to enable and mobilize passengers and drivers to lobby regulators and legislators — creating political disaster for anyone who questioned Uber’s approach. The company’s phalanx of attorneys brought arguments perfected from prior disputes, whereas each jurisdiction approached Uber independently and from a blank slate, usually with a modest litigation team. Uber publicists presented the company as the epitome of innovation, styling critics as incumbent puppets stuck in the past.

Through these tactics, Uber muddied the waters. Despite flouting straightforward, widely applicable law in most jurisdictions, Uber usually managed to slow or stop enforcement, in due course changing the law to allow its approach. As the company’s vision became the new normal, it was easy to forget that the strategy was, at the outset, plainly illegal.

Rotten to the Core

Uber faced an important challenge in implementing this strategy: It isn’t easy to get people to commit crimes. Indeed, employees at every turn faced personal and professional risks in defying the law; two European executives were indicted and arrested for operating without required permits. But Uber succeeded in making lawbreaking normal and routine by celebrating its subversion of the laws relating to taxi services. Look at the company’s stated values — “super-pumped,” “always be hustlin’,” and “bold.” Respect for the law barely merits a footnote.

Uber’s lawyers were complicit in building a culture of illegality. At normal companies, managers look to their attorneys to advise them on how to keep their business within the law. Not at Uber, whose legal team, led by Chief Legal Officer Salle Yoo, formerly its general counsel, approved its Greyball software(which concealed the company’s practices from government investigators) and even reportedly participated in the hiring of a private investigator to interview friends and colleagues of litigation adversaries.

Having built a corporate culture that celebrates breaking the law, it is surely no accident that Uber then faced scandal after scandal. How is an Uber manager to know which laws should be followed and which ignored?

A Race to the Bottom

The 16th-century financier Sir Thomas Gresham famously observed that bad money drives out good. The same, I’d suggest, is true about illegal business models. If we allow an illegal business model to flourish in one sector, soon businesses in that sector and others will see that the shrewd strategy is to ignore the law, seek forgiveness rather than permission, and hope for the best.

It was Lyft that first invited drivers to provide transportation through their personal vehicles. Indeed, Uber initially provided service only through licensed black cars properly permitted for that purpose. But as Lyft began offering cheaper service with regular cars, Uber had to respond. In a remarkable April 2013 posting, Kalanick all but admitted that casual drivers were unlawful, calling Lyft’s approach “quite aggressive” and “nonlicensed.” (After I first flagged his posting, in 2015, Uber removed the document from its site. But Archive.org kept a copy. I also preserved a screenshot of the first screen of the document, a PDF of the full document, and a print-friendly PDF of the full document.) And in oral remarks at the Fortune Brainstorm Tech conference in June 2013, Kalanick said every Lyft trip with a casual driver was “a criminal misdemeanor,” citing the lack of commercial licenses and commercial insurance.

Given Kalanick’s statements, you might imagine that Uber would have filed a lawsuit or regulatory complaint, seeking to stop unfair competition from a firm whose advantage came from breaking the law. Instead, Uber adopted and extended Lyft’s approach. Others learned and followed: Knowing that Uber would use unlicensed vehicles, competitors did so too, lest they be left behind. In normalizing violations, therefore, Uber has shifted the entire urban transport business and set an example for other sectors.

Fixing the Problem

It’s certainly true that, in many cases, companies that have developed a dysfunctional management culture have changed by bringing in new leaders. One might think, for example, of the bribery scandals at Siemens, where by all indications new leaders restored the company to genuine innovation and competition on the merits.

But because Uber’s problem is rooted in its business model, changing the leadership will not fix it. Unless the model itself is targeted and punished, law breaking will continue. The best way to do this is to punish Uber (and others using similar methods) for transgressions committed, strictly enforcing prevailing laws, and doing so with little forgiveness. Since its founding, Uber has offered literally billions of rides in thousands of jurisdictions, and fines and penalties could easily reach hundreds of dollars for each of these rides.

In most jurisdictions, the statute of limitations has not run out, so nothing prevents bringing claims on those prior violations. As a result, the company’s total exposure far exceeds its cash on hand and even its book value. If a few cities pursued these claims with moderate success, the resulting judgments could bankrupt Uber and show a generation of entrepreneurs that their innovations must follow the law.

Uber fans might argue that shutting down the company would be throwing the baby out with the bathwater — with passengers and drivers losing out alongside Uber’s shareholders. But there’s strong evidence to the contrary.

Take the case of Napster. Napster was highly innovative, bringing every song to a listener’s fingertips, eliminating stock-outs and trips to a physical record store. Yet Napster’s overall approach was grounded in illegality, and the company’s valuable innovations couldn’t undo the fundamental intellectual property theft. Under pressure from artists and recording companies, Napster was eventually forced to close.

But Napster’s demise did not doom musicians and listeners to return to life before its existence. Instead, we got iTunes, Pandora, and Spotify — businesses that retained what was great and lawful about Napster while operating within the confines of copyright law.

Like Napster, Uber gets credit for seeing fundamental inefficiencies that could be improved through smart deployment of modern IT. But that is not enough. Participation in the global community requires respect for and compliance with the law. It is tempting to discard those requirements when a company brings radically improved services, as many feel Uber did. But in declining to enforce clear-cut rules like commercial vehicle licensing, we reward lawbreaking and all its unsavory consequences. Uber’s well-publicized shortcomings show all too clearly why we ought not do so.

Benjamin Edelman is an associate professor at Harvard Business School and an adviser to various companies that compete against major platforms.

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CommentsPOST262 COMMENTS

Tim D. a day agoREPLY0 0

Per Mr. Edelman above: 'Uber usually managed to slow or stop enforcement, in due course changing the law to allow its approach.' OK, Mr Edelman states above that Uber is legal but at the same time wants it to 'punish Uber (and others using similar methods) for transgressions committed, strictly enforcing prevailing laws, and doing so with little forgiveness.' You can't have it both ways. The lack of logic in this article makes one wonder how Mr. Edelman obtained a job at HBS. For the significant amount of money one would have to pay to go to HBS, it would seem they should at least get a professor that could make an argument for something without contradicting himself directly. Makes me wonder if Mr. Edelman invested in Lyft instead of Uber.

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