Ron's Resources

Ecuador seizes Occidental Petroleum assets

2006-05-16T05:41:00.000-07:00

Updated: 8:25 p.m. ET May 15, 2006 QUITO, Ecuador - Ecuador's energy minister said Monday the government would revoke a contract held by Occidental Petroleum and strip the U.S. company of its assets in South America's fifth biggest oil producer. more »

Was FEMA ready for a disaster like Katrina? - Nightly News with Brian Williams - MSNBC.com:

2005-09-09T10:55:00.000-07:00

By Lisa Myers

Senior investigative correspondent

NBC News

Updated: 6:46 p.m. ET Sept. 2, 2005

WASHINGTON - The terrorist attacks of 2001 changed the priorities and focus of federal emergency planners. Former officials say 9/11 diverted attention from natural disasters such as Katrina, which had been the primary focus of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). read more »

Love the Elderly

2005-08-23T22:41:00.000-07:00

This is great we need more people like this.
Here's a quote from someone who witnessed a recent interaction between an elderly woman and an antiwar protester in a Metro station in DC. "There were protesters on the train platform handing out pamphlets on the evils of America. I politely declined to take one. An elderly woman was behind me getting off the escalator, and a young (20ish) female protester offered her a pamphlet, which she politely declined. The young protester put her hand on the old woman's shoulder as a gesture of friendship, and in a very soft voice said, 'Ma'am, don't you care about the children of Iraq?" The old woman looked up at her and said, 'Honey, my first husband died in France during World War II, my second husband died in Korea, one of my sons died in Vietnam, a Grandson died in Desert Storm, all so you could have the right to stand here and bad mouth our country. If you touch me again, I'll stick this umbrella up your a** and open it.'"

Safety On The World Wide Web

2005-02-18T20:48:00.000-08:00

Reading about the $90,000 heist.
Seems to me these learned people didn't read the original info release on that event. If I can recall, it was a transaction by a family owned small company in Florida. Their information had been either highjacked or "phished" and some malcontent simply pulled a transfer. Since the transfer went to a foreign country ( smart, because of people on the job or sleeping would not have been available to oversee the electronic event first hand,) the recipient had plenty of time to ping around and do his dirt.
The account owner, as many of us, may not have suspected anything going on and may not have even had a chance to verify a transaction had taken place. No reason as perhaps he/she did not initiate a transaction and no urgency to check his account every 5 minutes. Now, consider some of the information. This was a re-direct action, outside of the control of the bank from what I understand. Even the bank safeguards were in place and all appears proper. No need to red flag the action or the account. It seems to me the bank BoA (Bank of America) is going beyond the line to support their client.
Where the problem exists is as follows:
1. It is a given that there are devious people out there.
2. It is a given that the transaction took place "Out Of Hand" meaning it flew through the air via transmission and hardware.
3. It is known that this industry of on line banking is subject to attempts to infiltrate, modify, manipulate, "crack" and any other unthought of means of viewing.
And those are just starters for concern.
Now consider this:
Filters, anti-virus programs, anti-spam, firewalls, all are written programs done so as a product of an event. Hence, timing is an important factor. Communications and standards governed by laws of different countries and privacy issue confound the situation. We all are an infant in cyber world data sharing subject only to new unthought of events and the corrections or responses to such. And The very banks and businesses that promote the use of electronic use to access accounts and or transactions, leads the client to a false sense of "secured" business actions. So, yes, the banks share in some responsibility. The client who wants to use the programs and devices, steps out on thin ice but in many cases, lends his/her trust to those making such services available. Most people using such business on-line devices haven't the slightest idea of what is behind it all. They purchase a computer, decide to enter a new field of activity on it, have a "computer guru" come in and set it up to perform a certain function and then believe all is well. And, most of this "use" is governed by PRICE. No question about it. The availability to use on-line services is tremendous, saves paperwork, man-hours, postage, time and is quickly available for retrieval. Many good points. Now to correct the evils. How to do? For me, I use only one to pay my telephone bill and or to verify the calls made. Frightening: About 2 weeks ago I sat with my "friendly banker person". I asked specific safeguard questions and surprisingly, received vague if not "no" information on verifying any potential illegal transaction events. There were no safeguards she could define, that were in place. I want to feel comfortable that she was simply not trained in the area of my questions. I cut my conversation short and excused myself after that. My mind made up that "there will be no electronic banking"

originating from me.As for the $90,000 stolen from those folks, for what ever reason they lost, I feel sad for them. Be it ignorance, laziness or whatever, I have a feeling, a gut feeling, THEY TRUSTED and lost.

As for the thieves, castration and blindness would be in order for their wrongdoings. Now for the Governments to correct such events.

RoBo

Ron's Resources

2005-02-17T12:51:00.000-08:00

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