Threats Without Borders - Issue 108
Matt's Newsletter, Week ending December 11, 2022
Every law enforcement agency in America is ultimately responsible to a politician, or group of them. Every single one. I make this point to the students in my criminal justice classes and challenge them to name an agency that does not have an elected official at the end of the line. Local police are responsible to a mayor or council. State agencies answer to the governor. Federal law enforcement answers to the agency head who will ultimately answer to the President or Congress. Without fail, a student will confidently challenge me with the county Sheriff who answers only to him or herself. Correct, the Sheriff is a law enforcement officer that has no superior, but how did they get the job? An election. The sheriff is not only a law enforcement officer but also a politician.
I tell that to demonstrate the concept that although the police receive all of the criticism for action or inaction, they are only the public-facing scapegoat. The real decision-makers, behind every law enforcement agency in America, are politicians.
The CEO of Walmart went on CNBC this week to lament the astronomical increase in retail theft and its effect on his business. He claimed if the losses continue unabated the result will be higher prices, job losses, and ultimately, store closures.
It's important to listen to the message when someone as high profile as the CEO of Walmart does media, not just the words they say, but the actual message. Everything is scripted and intentional. Nothing is by chance.
The subliminal message in this CEO's message was delivered through the comment, "I think local law enforcement being staffed and being a good partner is part of that equation, and that’s normally how we approach it".
On the face it, that is a normal assumption of seemingly benign intent. Of course, every business leader wants to have a good relationship with a healthy law enforcement agency. But considering the current condition of American law enforcement, particularly in the cities where these Walmart stores are being affected by rampant theft, that comment hits like a 1000-pound sledgehammer.
Mr. McMillon's sly request that law enforcement be more attentive to the plight of his business is not directed at America's police officers. Nor was it directed at the police chiefs and commissioners. It was directed squarely at the politicians, the reason these agencies are understaffed, underfunded, and demoralized. They are also the ones who have placed restrictions on retail theft arrests and prosecutions. In San Francisco, you can steal anything you want - as long as it's less than 950 dollars. And even if you do slip up and get arrested, there is little chance of going to jail thanks to bail reform and other decriminalization efforts.
The current retail theft epidemic is wholly on the hands of the politicians and the message from a major business leader could not be more clear.
Maybe the judge should serve the rest?
While working as a nurses aid in a dependent living facility, this piece of human trash attempted to steal over $500,000 from victims as old as 100 years old. In fact, the average age was 89. Fortunately the forged checks were not cashed by the banks of deposit so there was never a financial loss. BUT…does that matter? Apparently it did to the judge who sentenced the man to only 6-18 months in prison instead of the 4-8 years the prosecution requested. Unconscionable. https://wjactv.com/news/local/state-college-man-accused-of-stealing-500k-from-senior-citizens-sentenced-to-6-months
Bored on a plane
This guy found himself bored on a 14 hour plane ride and decided to play around with the onboard WiFi network. Thankfully he did. The system had a major security flaw that if exploited would have provided the bad-hacker with the name and credit card information of “tens of millions”. He explains the bug on his blog. https://rez0.blog/hacking/2022/12/02/hacking-on-a-plane.html
Epic Posturing
The U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York announced the arrest of four individuals for a set of schemes that netted them over 9.2 millions dollars. The bulk of the money came from a series of Business Email Compromise frauds (BEC). The arrest is the result of great work by law enforcement represented by the FBI and the U.S. Secret Service. I can only image the posturing and puffing at the press conference attended by both agencies. https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/four-defendants-arrested-multimillion-dollar-fraud-and-money-laundering-scheme
Gift cards - all you need to know
This article is light on details about how a man got scammed out of $30,000 dollars by a “fake Mark Zuckerberg” but tells you everything you need to know in that the loss was through gift cards. As crypto crashes and money transfer services crack, gift cards will continue to be the currency of fraud. https://www.pahomepage.com/news/crime-courts/man-loses-30k-to-fake-mark-zuckerberg/
The Rest…
Rackspace had a little ransomware incident. To their credit, they have done a fantastic job documenting it and providing status updates. Of course, thats of little comfort to those businesses affected. https://status.apps.rackspace.com/index/viewincidents?group=2
Bad news fellow Wazers…Google is forcing the Waze team to join the Maps team. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/12/googles-cost-cutters-come-for-waze-will-lose-status-as-independent-company/
Cool Tool
Crumble those cookies (the web type) and protect your privacy. https://www.stardustnetwork.org/
The recipe you need to stick anything to anything. https://www.thistothat.com/
No jobs this week so an extra tool
Fdown - Facebook video downloader was updated yesterday. https://fdown.net/index.php
Irrelevant
For those of you still using Google for search… you can now turn on continuous scrolling to see your results. https://9to5google.com/2022/12/05/google-search-continuous-scrolling-2/
Thanks for opening this weeks issue. Welcome new subscribers. Thank You chronic sharers that spread the newsletter each week. Sharing is caring.
Matt
“JUST BECAUSE SOMEONE IS NICE TO YOU, IT DOESN’T MEAN THEY ARE A NICE PERSON.” - someone who’s learned a hard lesson