Escape from the traps we have built ourselves. Well in the good old days when corporations hired bright young folks with shinny degrees there was a belief that if you hire enough you could garner protection. That yuppy lad from Kirkland Washington known as Sir William Gates was the kind of dude you wouldn't mind dating your daughter. So if they can date your prized offspring why not allow the bastard to do the corporate security. As luck would have it they preached the security of the SSL and the CA and in time the gospel of the secure grew amoungst the faithful. Rev/Sir Bill leveraged the word and the word became micro Amen Brothers and Sister and the word was made micro. But slowly ever so slowly a serpent crept into this garden of self back slapping fools. The serpent was called reality and before our very eyes Sir Bill turned into anti-savior. I happened just that quick because we still believe in magic all them colors and numbers a flickering on the screen it simply must be magic y'all. The truth is a flawed scenario for security and a number of other ideas where sold not bought. People cannot be told anything they must be sold they never buy anything they are sold. Once upon a time is a heart beat away from corporate policy and technology choices. This once upon a time is a nightmare when left in the hands of regulators who do not even know how to use email they have staff for that purpose. These blithering idiots couldn't even run a Food for Oil program or fund a war in Iraq without misplacing $100 Million USD. So what made any of us believe that the systemic failure of security for consumer usage was not destiny. The current cyclical bear market the equities exchanges are facing will not be officially over until a one day 10%or greater downward correction happens. This is human nature to wait until the situation gets utterly unlivable before anything gets done properly. So the rally should be for bad news lots of bad news the bader the better. People fall asleep at the wheel because we suffer from OCD and yern for a world on autopilot. It is the once upon a time dream not reality that we buy daily. So if one can feed the masses some form of opium they will gladly pay for their own destruction. I have a great concept lets brand and package Chinese slave labor as development and advancement and pretend we support using economic methods rather than politically oppressive boycotts. When we wake up with a Blue Water Navy built by the slave labor, funded with small items purchased at Walmart then and only then will we say Boy did we screw our selves why didn't we see this coming. I come from a long line of people screwed by blinded self indulgence we cannot get out of our own way half the time. At some point the western cultures must admit they cannot get things right ever and must build things with failure as the assumption it might keep us rational. Think of the worst things imaginable and they will happen, have happened, and will continue to happen. This struggle to over come shortcomings is a bloody process and it rarely ends well. So what will really happen nothing my friend called me today he recieved emails from his online trading account that he did not authorize. He contacted the brokerage firm and found the routing for the funds was changed to a different bank account with a different name. The brokerage firm did not call the bank because their understanding of the law was they where not required to. So my friend called the bank they told him they had to protect the privacy of the account nothing happened. The Privacy Act and the Anti-Money Laundering Act Conflict. Now the class action world will sue the software manufacturers, the banks, and the brokers while the people screwed get nothing they simply pay a higher price for the services, loose funds, and pay higher premiums for insurance all because one little bastard called Sir William Gates looked like he might be a good suitor for some fat bastards daughter. I hate Sir William . I suggest we change his name to Sir Rodger since he has rodgered us all.

What short memories people have.

While I don't have a reference handy, I recall much of Nick Leeson's fraud at Barings Bank was directly abetted by his ability to directly manipulate the database backends of the Risk Reporting and Cashflow/P&L Reporting systems, then approve the fraudulent reports.

Yes, the complete segregation of duties breakdown putting him in charge of both Trading and Risk Management was the key enabler of his fraud. Still, the fact that he was able to manipulate the IT back-end, which folks back at the mothership in London trusted implicitly even when the reports shouldn't have made sense (We're making tons of money over here! Send us more money so we can make even more!) was a major piece of his ability to hold the fraud together as long as he did.