Title : Update the Updates
link : Update the Updates
Update the Updates
So here we go, a day to catch up on some reading and some details and as usual, things have changed quickly. For those watching the political scene, this is nothing new; but in so many other fields, the longer-term reports are starting to come in and once combined with big data they are showing some surprising results (the subject of big data will soon be covered in a post since my file on such is bulging, but here's one quick example...CEO Drew Houston reports that people save a billion files a day in his company, Dropbox). So while this update of sorts won't really recap every item, here are some of the highlights recently making their way in the news (subjects highlighted link to the earlier post in which it was mentioned)...Blockchain: What?? If you missed it, my earlier post briefly dived into the world of blockchain. But since then the world has moved on as blockchain businesses continue to grow right along with digital currency. Bitcoin? Blase...enter BAT and LGD, XRP and ether. They're all crypto-currencies and are wafting through the markets with surprising speed and equally surprising valuations...an estimated $1 billion in sales of just one of the "tokens" as they are called, according to a piece in Bloomberg Businessweek (their quick video will give you a elucidation of this relatively new form of trading, one that has already attracted 50 of the larger banks). Far fewer IPOs ahead, but get ready for the new term ICO (initial coin offering). Did I mention that none of this is regulated (so far) by the Securities & Exchange Commission here in the U.S., a fact noted by hackers who see ripe pickings in moving such currencies electronically (one firm saw hackers quietly take $50 million from their initial offering). Pick up the recent issue of Fortune for yes, even more recent updates (the Bitcoin CEO is striking back).
Hacking: Speaking of hackers, Norton and other security companies are watching as thieves move somewhat away from computers and instead head for the easier stuff, like your smart television or smart refrigerator; those and other devices are basically unsecured yet still need to be connected to WiFi which means via your router. Say, that wouldn't be the same router that you use for your computer and phones would it? Norton's CORE router monitors all of the WiFi connected devices in your home (even your Nest thermostat or remote lighting and security cameras) and blocks intruders much as it would block them from trying to put a piece of spyware or ransomware on your laptop. The recent WannaCry and Petya ransomware viruses are demonstrating the adaptability of hackers and escalating the game of steganography which McAfee security describes (in their June 2017 quarterly report) as: ...the art and science of secret hiding; it has been around for centuries...Most antimalware signatures detect malicious content in the configuration file. With steganography, the configuration file is embedded in the cover file. Further, the resulting steganographic file may decrypt into main memory, further reducing the chance of detection. Finally, it is extremely difficult to detect the presence of hidden information such as a configuration file, binary update, or bot command inside steganographic files. Unfortunately, the use of steganography in cyberattacks is easy to implement and hard to detect. Now comes something even larger, courtesy of a group called Shadow Brokers; they've unleashed NSA-quality (National Security Agency) backdoor tools that basically opens up remote access to your computers. No biggee, you say? A security analyst told Bloomberg Businessweek that he's found it in "startups, government agencies, and at least one Fortune 100 company." Compared with major vulnerabilities discovered in the past few years, such as the Heartbleed bug, which exposed weaknesses at companies including Yahoo! Inc. and Amazon.com Inc., "it’s 10 times worse," says Sean Dillon, a senior analyst at security company RiskSense Inc. who took apart the backdoor tool, called DoublePulsar, to study it...It runs in kernel mode, the underbelly of an OS that’s typically invisible to users and tough to code for, and, once opened, it gives hackers almost unlimited control over the system. "It’s the kind of thing you’d see used very rarely on very special, covert cybermissions," Dillon says. "This is like a jewel a government would guard, and now it’s just spammed across the internet." Sound like a jumble of confusing computer talk? A quick peek at what seems identical pictures on the McAfee link above shows just how undetectable such coding can be, even for security firms...Alexa anyone? (since such devices are "always on," the first court case using what an Alexa device heard in the background is being tossed around as whether it will be considered admissible evidence or not)
Korea: Lots of posturing going on here with missiles being fired and countries exchanging threats of retaliation and provocation. So the U.S. was reported to have more or less struck a deal with China by backing off bringing up currency manipulation in exchange for that country talking some sense into North Korea's antics (China has already reduced coal imports from that country); but this is a game of nuclear bluff. An opening editorial in Bloomberg Businessweek brought up some other interesting issues to consider in all of this back and forth, including: 1) Pyongyang would likely rain steel on Seoul from the 10,000 artillery tubes it’s stationed along the Demilitarized Zone, a scant 35 miles from greater Seoul, which is home to half the country’s 50 million people—and equal to North Korea’s total population. As many as 500,000 rounds could be fired in the opening hour...The North has about 1,000 ballistic missiles that can hit its neighbor, a third of which can also reach Japan, where there are 50,000 U.S. troops. A single such missile with a nuclear warhead could wipe out much of Seoul. 2) South Korea exports twice as much to China as it does to the U.S. The start of normalized relations between Seoul and Beijing in 1992 came at Pyongyang’s expense. But China walks a tightrope along the Yalu River that separates it from the North. Pyongyang’s collapse would likely send a flood of refugees into China and leave South Korean and maybe even U.S. troops just across the river. It would be anathema for the Chinese to have hostile forces right up against its border. 3) The conflict could kill millions; and the survivors would have to rebuild their lives at huge expense. South Korea...is the U.S.’s seventh-largest trading partner and a vital supplier of everything from U.S. auto parts to smartphone components. The South produces more than $1 trillion worth of goods and services annually...If war comes again to the Korean peninsula, shipping lanes would close and much of the South’s manufacturing would slow or stop, shutting down assembly lines worldwide. The world’s annual economic output could contract by $350 billion, or 0.5 percent, Daniel Altman, a professor of economics at New York University’s Stern Business School, estimated in 2013. Putting the peninsula back together again—including replacing North Korea’s decrepit infrastructure—could cost more than $2 trillion. Hmm, welcome to the world of diplomacy where much more hides behind the curtain than in front of it. But wait, the magazine has already updated that update...how does one keep up? Meanwhile, both China and Russia are steadily making inroads on properties closer to the U.S. border with China pouring $6 billion into projects in the Caribbean and Russia forgiving $32 billion in Cuban debt. Largely poorer countries are now welcoming the economic inflow as Haiti nicknamed its new $730 million toll road the Beijing Highway, while Nicaragua welcomed Russian warships docking there as they delivered "tanks, aircraft, and weapons." All of this comes as the U.S. discusses a 40% cut in funding to such countries. Said the magazine: In a bygone era, such incursions might have drawn a quick, even hostile, U.S. response. Yet since the end of the Cold War, Washington has largely turned its focus away from hemispheric affairs, creating an opening for China and Russia, says Richard Feinberg, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington. "If you take China, for example, they see a disorganized, inward-looking United States and they see themselves as, comparatively speaking, well-organized and able to establish a long-term vision for the region through gradually building influence," he says. "And I can easily see how enticing it is for Putin to establish Russia as a regional power." In about a week you can read the online version of Mark Bowden's in-depth cover story which appeared in The Atlantic on this complex and developing situation (soon to be updated...again).
La Dolce Vino: I'm going to take some liberty here and combine two posts. Let's grab some basic names and see if you can connect them: Ribeira Sacra, Paso Robles, Yarra Valley, Pfatz, Hawke's Bay and more. For those of you delving into wine, those areas are supposedly the new hot spots taking over the tried-and-true regions of Rioja, Napa Valley, Barossa, Mosel, and Marlborough (in France, Corsica is apparently the new set of vineyards to explore). Can't let go of those traditional vintner's valleys? Then why not try Sonoma County, California, but not for the wine but for its rye whiskey. I'm joking around a bit since the post being mentioned was on our sense of smell and how fine tuned it can be with would-be sommeliers. But another post on our teeth brought up this bit of news...the market for teeth replacements. In yet another piece in Bloomberg Businessweek, the story emerged on the dwindling of the 12,000+ makers of false teeth and crowns and such here in the U.S.; wait, how many manufacturers of teeth? Here's what the story said: Restorations, classified as medical devices by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, have been manufactured overseas for decades along with prosthetic hips, plastic heart valves and defibrillators. Overall, imports account for 30 percent of the U.S. medical-device market, and reached nearly $44 billion in 2016, according to BMI Research, a division of the Fitch Group. Plants in places like China, the leading exporter of dental restorations to the U.S., may operate 24 hours a day, employ hundreds of workers and churn out thousands of fake teeth daily. Meanwhile U.S labs dwindle, along with the technicians they employ. In 2008, there were about 12,250; today there are about 7,200. Trivia, sure, but does anyone ask (or care) where those crowns and bridges and dentures are made? And here I thought it was just a local lab down the street (the story goes on to say that many dentists, just as with doctors, have consolidated into large equity groups owned by investors).
Investing: And finally (for this is getting a bit long...sorry) on the subject of equity. Those 401(k) retirement accounts are now being targeted by hedge funds and other private equity firms as people begin to hang onto their money a bit longer. It's worked for some in the U.K. but here in the U.S. the money going into such funds might be dwindling and pension funds are a bit leery (as a rule, hedge fund managers will take 2% of your assets as a fee --win or lose-- and an additional 20% of any profit you might make, says Investopedia; if you're a pension fund investing billions of workers' dollars, a down market can hit such a fund --often holding your retirement funds-- quite hard). The GAO (U.S. Government Accountability Office) reports that half of Americans over 55 have no retirement savings, especially as companies continue dropping pensions and retirement plans (only 40% of U.S. companies automatically enroll their workers into a retirement plan). But private equity firms still want in. So, if this was your hard-earned retirement dollars, would you want these investors? Here's how Bloomberg Businessweek described them: The funds, which use debt to buy private companies or take public companies private, are hard to fit into 401(k)s. Their investments are opaque and illiquid,..Costs tend to be high, running counter to the trend of employers shifting plans into inexpensive investments such as index funds. So why the temptation? Because the returns have been about 13% (if annualized over the past 25 years). It sort of falls into that equation of inequality...half of the people take off into safety while leaving the other half behind. A changing world, at least for some.
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| Image reprinted from a story in Popular Science |
So I'll leave you (those of you who have read this far, at least) with this image. Beautiful, isn't? Could be a fabric for a cushion or a soothing background on a wall or a painting. But the image comes courtesy of BOSS or as scientists know it, the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey. There are 50,000 dots in that picture and they represent just a tiny portion of the tiny amount (1.2 million) BOSS has captured, which is just a tiny sliver of the universe it has focused on. But here's the thing, each of those dots represents not a star or a planet but...a galaxy. We --our solar system, of which we are a tiny part of (the satellite launched in 1967 has only now just reached the edge of our system)-- are but a tiny part of our Milky Way galaxy, and our system sits on the edge of the galaxy and not even in the main cluster in the center...and to make matters even more daunting our galaxy is considered to be just a medium-sized galaxy! So sometimes we have to just look at the big picture. All the problems, the monies, the wars, the climate, our life itself, might mean little in the scheme of things and can change in quadrillions of years or in an instant, as happened to my dog. We worry about investments or the latest bottle of wine or our emails and in an instant we might find that we are paralyzed because we slipped on a stair. Now all of those worries seem trivial and vanish and we think only of what once was. We look back, or look up. And sometimes that looking from afar can bring things quite close to us and give us perspective on what really matters. Galaxies far, far away are difficult to comprehend, but what's happening on our planet shouldn't be. What's happening within our families shouldn't be. What's happening within ourselves shouldn't. Step back, take a breath and take in where you are today, right now. Life surrounds us, and we are so lucky.
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