The SEC's Going To Have To Outlaw Twitter

This afternoon's Wall Street Journal story (read it here—"SEC Has 'A Number' of Investigations Into High-Frequency Trading") is absolute proof that government is woefully unequipped to regulate our technological society, and that new non-governmental mechanisms are required. Do high-frequency trading firms have an unfair advantage. The morons at the SEC are years too late! Back in 2007, I created this ad for EDGAROnline, pointing out that hedge funds paid 50-times more for data from EDGAROnline that regular customers, just so they could get it faster. Well duh! Did they have an unfair advantage. Yes. Were they trying to keep it a secret. Nope!

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Morgan Rapier's common-sense doctrine.

And even if the SEC somehow figures out a way to rein in information supply, there ain't no way they're going to put the analytics cork back in the bottle. At least one hedge fund (that I know of) is using analytics on Twitter posts and they're beating the market by a long shot.

A Modest Suggestion for Google's Gmail Team: SCAM TRIPWIRE

I'm getting more and more scam email from Gmail subscribers. Inasmuch as Google seems to take security much more seriously than do Hotmail or Yahoo, it seems you could do the following:

1. Identify about 1000 trusted and VERIFIED Google/Gmail/Plus subscribers and set them up with a dashboard to report/catalogue spam/phishing/etc. operations that use Gmail return addresses.

1. When at least two of your "1000 Warriors" report the same spammer/scammer, immediately disable that account.

Just this week, I've gotten scam/spam from the following Gmail addresses:

• John Keen – jkeen3000@gmail.com 
• Adam Kevin – adamkevin1982@gmail.com 
• Jane Clarke – janeclarke1982@gmail.com
• Elias Montoya — eliasmmot@gmail.com

Interestingly, I found the first three reported by various other Google users when I…er…Googled them (I was trying to sell my baby grand piano, and the first three are piano scamming specialists). So, since Google is the fountain of all knowledge on the planet (no, I'm not being sarcastic), why not be a leader in helping enforce a healthy "reputation-based" economy?

And my gift to you: www.ScamTripwire.com is available!

Selah.

Microsoft Hotmail Scandal? Google's Gmail Team Should Pay Attention!

Microsoft's Hotmail Scandal story (read Saturday's Register story here) ignores the basic fact that no responsible/credible person would ever use the Hotmail service. Only two audiences comprise 100% of the Hotmail userbase:

1. Phishers, crooks, and scammers use Hotmail accounts to lie, cheat and steal their way to propserity.
2. Morons and imbeciles who don't know any better use Hotmail.

Given the Hotmail audience, who the heck cares what the Microsoft license agreement says. Ditto for Yahoo, whose appalling lack of security earns them so much bad Karma that they rank lower on the list of good-fortune beneficiaries than Vladimir Putin (do a search to the left for "Yahoo" and see some of my Yahoo indictments). 

Fair warning:  Google needs to pay attention, as I am getting more and smarter phishing/scam attempts from Gmail addresses in just the last month. Something as simple as a forward site at Google where we can pass on suspicious accounts? You could use Google analytics to quantify bad cyber citizens and delete their accounts.

DOD's Hagel: "We come in peace. Take this to your leader."

Yesterday's New York Times (see the full story here) reports some remarkable 1984-like doublespeak from Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel. Net-net: "The U.S. does not seek to militarize cyberspace, but we're going to triple our staff just in case."  Based on this and other data exhaust I will list below, it seemed prudent to make sure my tux fit. Because 2014 is going to be some kind of party.

Other data exhaust that predicts a truly gala 2014:

1. 92% of all ATMs use Windows XP. Crooks can now infect ATMs and then send SMS messages to embedded cell phones to get said ATMs to spew cash (see Wednesday's Register story here). By the way, the ATM exploit has been credited to "Mexican cybercooks." The Symantec video showing how to do the exploit even used a Latino spokesperson. Give me a break! This is most certainly a Russia-inspired false flag operation.
2. China is embarrassed and out for revenge after reports (see Thursday's Computerworld story here) that the NSA has been installing back doors in Huawei's hardware (see Saturday's New York Times story about the NSA exploit here).
3. And once again, Time Magazine's runner-up Person of the Year, Edward Snowden, released documents showing that Microsoft sold your personal information to the the feds and cops for $50 a person (see the Saturday Register story here). The source was allegedly "Syrian" hactivists, clearly a false flag operation of either Russia or China (take your pick, although my vote leans toward Russia).
4. As I reported on March 10th, Russia is so intent on proving that they're more than just a regional power that they played their "Snake" virus card in Ukraine (see my story here).

 So make sure your tux fits. You wouldn't want to miss the party.

Ukraine Data Exhaust

This morning, I took a look at the all-time readership history of The Morgan Doctrine! Unsurprisingly, the USA tops the list. But most surprisingly, Ukraine is a solid number two, followed (in order) by China, France, the UK, Germany, Russia, India, Canada and Singapore. Several hypotheses come to mind, which I'll keep to myself for now.