
Sears Hometown Files for
Bankruptcy in Delaware
by yahoo!
Finance
Sears Hometown Stores Inc.
filed for bankruptcy on Monday, court papers
show. The retailer listed assets of no more than
$50 million and liabilities of at least $50
million in its bankruptcy court petition, filed
in Delaware. Chapter 11 bankruptcy allows
companies to continue operating while working on
a plan to repay creditors. Sears Hometown is a
branch of the retailer that focuses on selling
appliances, tools, hardware and lawn and garden
equipment. Sears spun off the Hometown business
in 2012 to raise cash for its struggling parent
company. Representatives for Sears did not
immediately respond to requests for comment.
Hometown wasn’t part of Sears Holdings Corp.’s
2018 bankruptcy, and Transformco, a company
backed by former Sears Chief Executive Officer
Eddie Lampert, purchased it in 2019 as part of a
strategy to focus Sears’s future business on
appliances. Instead the company has continued to
fade away, with Transformco shuttering stores
and selling off signature brands like Craftsman
and DieHard. The now-bankrupt Sears Hometown
entity is at least partially owned by Lampert,
according to court papers.
In Africa, China Is Building
Influence, Brick by Brick
by SCMP
Earlier this month, officials
in the Nigerian capital of Abuja broke ground
for the new headquarters of the Economic
Community of West African States (ECOWAS). When
completed in just over two years, the complex
will enable the regional bloc of 15 member
countries to conduct business in one centralised
site instead of the three separate locations
they now work in. The US$32 million facility to
be on 7 hectares (17 acres) of
government-donated land is being paid for by
China – the latest in a series of high-profile
donations in several African countries as
Beijing increases its clout on the continent.
“To sponsor and construct the new headquarters
is a vivid reflection of China’s support to the
work of ECOWAS, as well as the traditional
friendship between China and the West African
countries,” said Cui Jianchun, China’s
ambassador to Nigeria. “China will continue to
promote the common development of China and
Africa, and is ready to make new contributions
to building the China-Africa community.” Cui
said the building showed China’s “sincere
determination” to support the unity, peace and
development of Africa, as well as efforts to
promote Africa’s infrastructure development. The
project, which had been agreed to in 2018, is
being funded by the Chinese government through
the China International Development Cooperation
Agency. Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari
called the effort “a symbol of China’s
commitment to ECOWAS”.
Japanese Government Wants to
Give People an Extra ¥80,000 to Have Babies
by Japan
Today
Japan has been struggling to
find ways to increase its low and declining
birth rate for some time now, and the Ministry
of Health, Labor and Welfare is hoping that the
promise of some extra cash in the bank will
encourage more people to add a baby to their
family. Currently, new parents in Japan receive
a Childbirth and Childcare Lump-Sum Grant of
420,000 yen upon the birth of their child.
Health, Labor and Welfare Minister Katsunobu
Kato wants to up that amount to an even 500,000
yen, and met with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio
Kishida last week to discuss the proposal, which
is expected to be approved and put into effect
for the 2023 fiscal year, which starts in the
spring. However, while such an increase in the
grant amount isn’t likely to make anyone less
motivated to have children, it may not be all
that effective of an incentive either. Though
it’s called the Childbirth and Childcare
Lump-Sum Grant, little, if any, of it is left
over after the “Childbirth” part. Though the
grant is funded through Japan’s public medical
insurance system, child delivery expenses are
paid out of pocket, and according to Mainichi
Shimbun the nationwide average for delivery
costs is approximately 473,000 yen. That means
that even if the grant is increased, parents
would be looking at, on average, less than
30,000 yen of it remaining once they’re home
from the hospital, or less than the amount Asahi
Breweries is gifting workers to eat out this
holiday season. That’s not going to go very far
against the total costs of raising a child to
self-sufficient adulthood, and it’s doubtful in
the first place that an 80,000-yen boost is
going to cross over anyone’s make-it-or-break-it
point for having a baby.
Chinese Shipyards Gorge on
Record LNG Carrier Orders as Rivals Struggle
by gCaptain
China is making fast inroads in
the market for newbuild liquefied natural gas
(LNG) tankers as local and foreign shipowners
turn to its shipbuilders for the specialty
vessels because long dominant yards in South
Korea are fully booked. Three Chinese shipyards
– only one of them having experience building
large LNG tankers – won nearly 30% of this
year’s record orders for 163 new gas carriers,
claiming ground in a sector where South Korea
usually captures most of the business. LNG
tanker order books for Chinese yards tripled as
China’s gas traders and fleet operators sought
to secure shipping after freight rates soared to
records following the upending of global energy
supply flows by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
With South Korean shipbuilders swamped by orders
to service Qatar’s massive North Field
expansion, Chinese yards also attracted more
foreign bookings, including first overseas
orders for some ship makers only recently
certified to build membrane-type LNG carriers.
Satellite Images Show Saudi
Arabia's 'Line' Megacity Construction Underway
by MIT
Technology Review
In early 2021, Crown Prince
Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia announced
The Line: a “civilizational revolution” that
would house up to 9 million people in a
zero-carbon megacity, 170 kilometers long and
half a kilometer high but just 200 meters wide.
Within its mirrored, car-free walls, residents
would be whisked around in underground trains
and electric air taxis. Satellite images of the
$500 billion project obtained exclusively by MIT
Technology Review show that the Line’s vast
linear building site is already taking shape,
running as straight as an arrow across the
deserts and through the mountains of northern
Saudi Arabia. The site, tens of meters deep in
places, is teeming with many hundreds of
construction vehicles and likely thousands of
workers, themselves housed in sprawling bases
nearby. Analysis of the satellite images by Soar
Earth, an Australian startup that aggregates
satellite imagery and crowdsourced maps into an
online digital atlas, suggests that the workers
have already excavated around 26 million cubic
meters of earth and rock—78 times the volume of
the world’s tallest building, the Burj Khalifa.
Official drone footage of The Line’s
construction site, released in October, indeed
showed fleets of bulldozers, trucks, and diggers
excavating its foundations.
E.U. Commission Silent on Greek
Spyware Sale to Madagascar
by euobserver
The EU Commission says it works
closely with EU states on dual-use exports but
will not comment on new revelations that Greece
authorised the sale of spyware software to
Madagascar. "We do not comment on individual
cases or exchanges we have with member states,"
a European Commission spokesperson, told
reporters in Brussels on Friday (9 December).
The revelation, exposed in a investigation by
the New York Times on Thursday, adds to the
mounting body of evidence of spyware being used
by EU state actors against politicians,
journalists, lawyers and others. The Greek
government confirmed to the paper that it had
granted the company, Intellexa, licences to sell
Predator spyware to Madagascar. Amnesty
International, in a report, faulted Madagascar
for harassing journalists, its prison detention
of children, and state-led discrimination
against the LGBTI community. EU dual-export
rules, which governs civilian technologies with
possible military or security uses, includes
provisions on cyber surveillance technologies.
Those provisions are supposed to ensure their
trade is legitimate and will not be used to
violate human rights. National authorities are
responsible for deciding on whether to grant
authorisation. But the commission also says "it
works in close cooperation with member states to
ensure that the rules are implemented
correctly." However, when asked if this includes
Intellexa's Predator sale to Madagascar, the EU
commission refused to say.
Libyan Government Lifts Force
Majeure on Oil Exploration
by LibyaHerald
The Tripoli-based Libyan
government led by Abd Alhamid Aldabaiba
announced today the lifting of the state of
force majeure on exploration operations for the
production of oil and gas. The government
further called on international oil companies
that have concluded contracts with the National
Oil Corporation (NOC) to resume their work in
Libya, stressing its readiness to provide the
necessary support and provide them with a safe
work environment. The Aldabaiba government said
the lifting of force majeure on oil exploration
is based on a request by the NOC and after a
realistic assessment of the security situation
in the country. It added that the security
situation has improved a lot and has allowed for
exploration in areas previously not possible.
The government said that it has given
instructions to all relevant parties to provide
all the necessary cooperation to oil and gas
exploration companies.
Chinese Shake Up Israel's New
Car Market
by Globes
256,700 new cars were delivered
in Israel in the first 11 months of 2022, down
9.8% from the corresponding period of 2021, and
close to the average over the past decade. But
overall numbers aside the past year has seen
remarkable changes in the car market as the
emphasis shifts from gasoline and diesel fueled
cars to electric vehicles. Nearly 10% of new
cars sold in 2022 are electric vehicles compared
with 1% three years ago and about 35% of the new
cars sold in November were electric vehicles.
This percentage could rise further in December
as buyers rush to bring in an electric vehicle
before purchase tax rises from 10% to 20% in
January. The shift to electric cars has also
shaken up the mix of brands being sold in Israel
with Chinese companies moving strongly into the
local market. In the first 11 months of 2022,
24,000 electric vehicles were sold in Israel
including 6,000 in November alone and 64% of the
electric vehicles sold in Israel this year were
made in China. This figure includes Western
brands that are manufactured in China such as
Tesla and Polestar (Volvo) although the Chinese
see them as exports to the west.
Japan Eyes 56% Increase in
Defense Budget Over Five Years
by Space
War
Japan's Prime Minister Fumio
Kishida instructed ministers on Monday to boost
the country's defence budget by 56 percent over
the next five years to $318 billion. The
government is overhauling its defence and
security strategies in response to regional
threats from nuclear-armed North Korea and an
increasingly assertive China. Defence Minister
Yasukazu Hamada said Kishida told him that "the
size of the medium-term defence programme for
the next five years, which is currently being
arranged, should be around 43 trillion yen ($318
billion)". The amount would be more than 1.5
times larger than the current five-year spending
plan of 27.5 trillion yen. The decision comes a
week after Kishida announced he wanted to
increase defence spending to two percent of GDP
by 2027. For decades, Japan has spent around one
percent of GDP or less on defence, less than the
NATO standard of two percent. But growing
pressure from China, including military
exercises and the presence of boats around
disputed islands, has helped build support for a
bigger budget.
U.S. Navy Lowers Entrance Exam
Requirements in Bid to Get More Recruits
by MilitaryTimes
As the military struggles to
attract new recruits, the Navy on Monday began a
pilot program that will let in those who have
lower scores on part of the entrance exam used
to gauge a recruit’s ability to serve. Potential
sailors are required to take the Armed Forces
Qualification Test, or AFQT, to determine
whether they are qualified to serve, as part of
the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery,
better known as the ASVAB. Under the Navy’s
pilot program, the service will accept lower
scores on the AFQT, between the 10th and 30th
percentile, as long as the prospective sailor’s
ASVAB individual line scores are still high
enough to qualify for a Navy rating. The test
score change announcement comes after the Navy
raised its maximum enlistment age to 41 last
month, up from 39. The sea service barely made
its active-duty enlisted recruiting goal for
FY22, which ended Sept. 30, bringing in just 42
bodies more than the goal of 33,400 new members.
Exxon Mobil Raises CEO Pay by
10 Percent as Oil Giant Makes Huge Profits
by Houston
Chronicle
Exxon Mobil is raising the base
pay for its CEO and other executives as the
company posts record quarterly profits. The
annual salary for Chairman and CEO Darren Woods
will rise to $1.88 million next year from $1.7
million, about 10 percent, according to a filing
with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The
annual salary for Chief Financial Officer
Kathryn Mikells, who joined the company in 2021
with pay of $437,500, will rise to $1.2 million.
The salaries for executives are a small part of
total compensation. Woods' total compensation
package for 2021 was about $23.6 million. Other
executives seeing raises will be senior vice
presidents Neil Chapman, whose salary will
increase to $1.2 million and Jack Williams, who
will receive $1.21 million next year, according
to the SEC filing. Exxon did not immediately
respond to a request for comment.
Filmmakers Want to Link ISP
Subscriber Data to "Pirating" YTS and Reddit
Users
by TorrentFreak
The filmmakers accuse the ISP
of failing to terminate the accounts of
subscribers who were repeatedly flagged for
sharing copyrighted material. They want to hold
WOW! liable for these pirating activities, which
could lead to millions of dollars in damages.
The ISP challenged the claims and filed a motion
to dismiss the case. Among other things, it
argued that an IP address is not sufficient to
prove that subscribers downloaded or shared any
infringing material. The filmmakers opposed this
motion, which has yet to be decided on by the
Colorado federal court. In the meantime, another
issue has raised its head. Both sides are
gathering evidence to prepare for the case
moving forward. As part of that process, the
filmmakers have demanded the personal details of
roughly 14,000 subscribers whose WOW! accounts
were allegedly used to pirate content. WOW!
objected to this request, arguing that the names
and addresses of its subscribers are irrelevant
to the core question of whether it reasonably
implemented a repeat infringer policy. The
filmmakers disagreed, noting that the
information can be cross-checked to determine
whether the ISP notified its subscribers and
terminated accounts in response to infringement
notices.
Chinese Security Firm
Advertises Ethnicity Recognition Technology,
Faces U.K. Ban
by The
Guardian
A Chinese security camera
company has been advertising ethnicity
recognition features to British and other
European customers, even while it faces a ban on
UK operations over allegations of involvement in
ethnic cleansing in Xinjiang. In a brochure
published on its website, Hikvision advertised a
range of features that it said it could provide
in collaboration with the UK startup FaiceTech.
These included using facial recognition for
retail security, border control, and anti-money
laundering checks for retail banking. The
brochure also advertised “Optional Demographic
Profiling Facial analysis algorithms”, including
“gender, race/ethnicity, age” profiling. A
second, Italian-based, company was also cited on
Hikvision’s website as offering racial
profiling. The company removed both claims from
its website following an inquiry from the
Guardian, and said the technology had never been
sold in the UK. The document, it said, detailed
the “potential application of our cameras, with
technology built independently by FaiceTech and
other partners”. FaiceTech denied ever having
worked with Hikvision, and said the brochure was
created and published without its knowledge or
consent. In a legal letter sent to Hikvision,
seen by the Guardian, the British company
demanded the document be removed since it “is
likely to deceive the public into a mistaken
belief that our client is in some way associated
with Hikvision”. The brochures were first
discovered by the campaign group Big Brother
Watch. In a statement, Madeleine Stone, the
group’s legal and policy officer, said: “It is
deeply alarming that the same racist technology
being used in Xinjiang to repress the Uyghur
population is being marketed in Britain.
Hikvision is normalising deeply intrusive
surveillance capacities which have no place in a
democracy.
Microsoft 365 Faces More GDPR
Headwinds as Germany Bans It in Schools
by The
Register
Germany's federal and state
data protection authorities (DSK) have raised
concerns about the compatibility of Microsoft
365 with data protection laws in Germany and the
wider European Union. According to the German
watchdog's report [PDF], which was written after
two years of negotiations with Microsoft, the
body says that the product "remains in breach"
of the General Data Protection Regulation
(GDPR). The 2020 working group was put together
to bring the cloud service into line with the
Schrems II decision of the European Court of
Justice – and relates to ongoing European
concerns about cloud data sovereignty,
competition, and privacy rules. Under the GDPR,
children below the age of 13 are incapable of
consenting to their data being collected, while
consent may be given by those with parental
responsibility for those under 16 but not
younger than 13. When platforms do store data on
adults, those customers are meant to be able to
request the deletion of their records. The
report adds: "Many of the services included in
Microsoft 365 require Microsoft to access the
unencrypted, non-pseudonymized data." The DSK
report means the office suite is therefore not
suitable for legally compliant use in schools or
public authorities in Germany, although it won't
affect use by businesses or consumers.
79,000 People Lost Their Jobs
Last Month, Up 400% Year Over Year
by 24/7
Wallstreet
Everyone expected more job
losses in November, but the size of the increase
may not have been expected. Outplacement firm
Challenger, Gray & Christmas reported
Thursday morning that U.S.-based employers fired
78,835 workers last month, an increase of 127%
month over month and 417% year over year. Job
losses so far in 2022 total 320,173, a
year-over-year increase of 6%. The tech sector
accounted for two-thirds of November’s firings.
November’s total is the highest for the sector
since Challenger, Gray began keeping records in
2000 and is the highest total since 2002 when
tech companies chopped 128,563 jobs during the
dot-com bust. Job losses in the tech sector are
more than 500% higher so far this year than in
2021. Excepting the carnage in the
pandemic-related layoffs in the travel and
leisure industry in 2020, the last time any
sector cut this many jobs was 2015, when the
U.S. Army announced a three-year plan to cut
more than 40,000 troops. Andrew Challenger,
senior vice president at Challenger, Gray
commented, “The Tech sector has announced the
most job cuts this year by far. While other
industries are cutting jobs at a slower pace,
hiring appears to have slowed as well.” The
company’s year-to-date data indicates that U.S.
companies have announced plans to hire 1.43
million workers, compared to plans for hiring
1.75 million at the same point last year. Auto
industry workers also have been hit hard with
job losses. More than 30,000 autoworkers have
lost their jobs in the first 11 months of this
year, a year-over-year increase of almost 200%.
Rising mortgage rates and inflation have led to
nearly 8,000 job losses in the real estate
industry, an increase of 187% compared to 2021’s
losses in the sector.
CGN Is Being Forced Out of
Britain
by AtomInfo.RU
The recent decision of the
British government on public investment in the
Sizewell C NPP construction project is
equivalent to a complete withdrawal from the
project of the Chinese state corporation CGN.
Chinese nuclear giants CNNC and CGN have a lot
in common with Rosatom in their structure,
however, unlike the Russians, their portfolio of
foreign orders for the construction of nuclear
units can be said to be empty. From this point
of view, the units built by CNNC in Pakistan can
be mentioned as the only Chinese success, but it
is difficult to call it a victory by the
ultimate rating, since only Chinese companies
can build nuclear power plants in Pakistan due
to the twists of international law. Chinese
analysts have never said out loud the strategy
that should have been chosen by the sworn
friends of CNNC and CGN to repeat the foreign
successes of Rosatom. One can restore the
adopted strategy. studying the ways and actions
of Chinese corporations. It is obvious that in
the struggle for foreign orders, Chinese nuclear
scientists have relied on the provision of
loans. But they went even further. To overcome
the natural doubts about the ability of CNNC and
CGN to implement major projects outside of
China, the following approach was adopted: "We
will pay you to build a unit or units with
reactors of your choice, and for this you will
then allow us to build a unit or units with
Chinese reactors." Fortunately, the Chinese
nuclear scientists have enough money for such
generosity. CNNC adhered to this strategy in
Argentina (heavy water unit first, then
"Dragon"), and CGN - in Romania (heavy water
units at the Chernavoda nuclear power plant and
a possible second nuclear power plant with
Dragons) and Britain (EPR first, then Dragon).
In all three cases, the Chinese strategy failed.
Chinese analysts could not adequately take into
account in their calculations and forecasts the
risks of political opposition from those forces
that do not like the technological cooperation
of their countries with China. The CGN
corporation was ousted from Romania in 2020, and
in 2022 the participation of CGN in the British
new construction program is coming to an end.
Britain: Census Reveals The
Massive Impact of Immigration on Society
by Migration
Watch U.K.
In the last 20 years the
population of England and Wales has increased by
around eight million entirely as a result of
immigration. This has meant huge population
shifts and churn in different areas of the UK
but particularly in London, the South East and
East of England, and the West and East Midlands.
As a result, the white British are now a
minority in London, Birmingham and Manchester.
1) The Census statistics for 2021show that the
total ethnic minority population in England and
Wales has risen by eight million in twenty
years. It stands at nearly 15 million (nearly
tripling from 5.7 million in 2001) and has more
than doubled from 12% of the population to 26%
since 2001. 2) The overall population of England
and Wales rose by around eight million since
2001 – rising from 52 million to nearly 60
million in 2021. However, although there was a
plateauing of the White British and Irish
populations, the rise in the ethnic minority
population accounted for nearly all of net
population growth (increasing by a total of 8.4
million). 3) Since 2001, the UK has 3.2 million
more people of Asian background, 2.4 million
more from White Other backgrounds, 1.3 million
more from Black backgrounds, a million more from
mixed race backgrounds, and half a million more
from other ethnic backgrounds. Meanwhile, the
white British population has essentially
plateaued over that period at around 44 to 45
million. 4) It is not surprising that
immigration has driven population growth as
every year between 600,000 and a million
migrants come here long-term while about 300,000
to 500,000 leave. The resulting overall net
migration total of a quarter of a million more
means huge demographic shifts, especially in
major cities and areas adjacent to them – such
as the East of England and south-eastern suburbs
of London and Birmingham and its surrounding
environs. 5) A comparison with ONS figures
released for 2016 show a remarkable change in
the population makeup in the top 5 five cities
in England and Wales in just five years, with
the white British population in the five major
cities in England and Wales declining by a total
of 800,000 since that year, with the bulk of
this shift being from London and the next
largest drop in Birmingham (90,000). Two of the
top three cities (Birmingham and Manchester)
have become minority White British.
If You Offer Internet Service,
Your Speech Is Now Highly Regulated by the FCC
by CommLawBlog
In an order released on
November 17, 2022, the FCC dictates in detail
the specific words that an Internet service
provider must use when communicating with its
customers. The FCC has adopted new rules
requiring specific information (referred to as
the broadband consumer label) to be displayed at
the point of sale when offering mass-market
retail Internet access service by wire or radio.
Internet service providers must display unique
identifiers for each of their Internet service
plans that must consist of their FCC
Registration Number followed by 15 alphanumeric
characters. A provider’s broadband consumer
label must include the information on the FCC’s
label template (see page 6 of the FCC order).
Any customization of the label is prohibited.
Smaller providers will have one year to come
into compliance with the new rules after Federal
Register publication of OMB’s approval. A small
Internet service provider is one with 100,000 or
fewer subscriber lines. Larger providers have
six months to display the broadband consumer
labels. In addition to the order adopting the
new label rules, the FCC also issued a Further
Notice of Proposed Rulemaking seeking comments
on whether the FCC should impose additional
requirements for broadband consumer labels. In
that rulemaking proceeding, the FCC will
consider whether it should require additional
pricing information on labels, more speed and
latency metrics, service reliability
measurements, cybersecurity practices, mandatory
foreign languages, and making the labels
interactive. The deadline for filing comments
regarding additional label requirements will be
30 days after Federal Register publication.
IDF Holds Joint Air Drills with
U.S., Simulating Strikes on Iran and Proxies
by The
Times of Israel
The Israel Defense Forces on
Wednesday published footage and details of a
series of joint aerial exercises it held with
the US military this week, simulating strikes
against Iran and its regional terror proxies. In
a statement, the IDF said that during drills,
which took place over Israel and the
Mediterranean Sea, four IAF F-35i fighter jets,
accompanied four American F-15 aircraft and an
American KC-135 aerial refueling aircraft,
refueled several IAF F-16i fighter jets. The IDF
said the drills also “simulated an operational
scenario and long-distance flights.” The joint
drill was agreed upon during IDF chief Aviv
Kohavi’s trip to the US last week. The IDF said
Kohavi told American defense officials in
Washington that the two militaries must
accelerate joint plans for offensive actions
against Iran. Last Thursday, he said joint
activities with the US military in the Middle
East would be “significantly expanded.”
Jerusalem opposes US President Joe Biden’s
attempts to revive a nuclear agreement between
Tehran and world powers that traded sanctions
reliefs for curbs on the Islamic Republic’s
nuclear program. In light of growing uncertainty
regarding a return by Iran to the deal, the past
two years have seen the IDF ramp up efforts to
prepare a credible military threat against
Tehran’s nuclear sites.
U.K. Court Orders Crypto Firms to
Share Data to Track Thieves
by Bank
Info. Security
A British court ordered six
cryptocurrency exchanges to reveal the
identities of account holders allegedly tied to
a 2020 hack of an anonymous English
cryptocurrency platform during which thieves
stole $10.7 million worth of digital assets. The
exchanges must share the status of the stolen
funds, the "know your customer" details of the
alleged hackers and their bank account and
payment card details, email addresses,
residential addresses, phone numbers and bank
statements, High Court Justice Christopher
Butcher ruled. His Tuesday order on behalf of a
plaintiff whose identity isn't public - the
plaintiff goes by the moniker LMN in court and
isn't associated with a similarly named NFT
collection of cartoon lemons - directs the
exchanges to cooperate without "avoidable
delay." The exchanges are Binance, Bitflyer,
Payward - which operates as Kraken, Luno PTE,
Coinbase Global, and Huobi Global. The victim
company initially contacted law enforcement
authorities and later hired a cryptocurrency
expert to trace the stolen funds. That
investigation hit a dead end with the platforms,
since the wallet addresses the investigator
found were omnibus accounts used by the
platforms to manage the trades of multiple
individuals. Ari Redbord, a former senior
adviser to the Department of the Treasury on
money laundering and an ISMG contributor, said,
"It will be interesting to see how the exchanges
in this case respond." Most will likely respond
to the court order, he said. "That said, it is
hard to enforce legal process outside of the
jurisdiction. So if an exchange decides not to
comply, enforcement could be a challenge." The
exchanges, including Coinbase - which actively
participated in a Nov. 11 hearing leading to the
order - did not respond to a request for
comment, including whether they intend to comply
with Butcher's order. The British judge issued
the order despite the exchanges' location
outside the United Kingdom by citing an October
2022 update to civil procedure law that
streamlined orders for information disclosure
against foreign entities in cases of fraud
intended to be pursued in English or Welsh
courts.
Majority of U.S. Defense
Contractors Not Meeting Basic Cyber Security
Requirements
by info. security
Nearly nine in 10 (87%) of US
defense contractors are failing to meet basic
cybersecurity regulation requirements, according
to research commissioned by CyberSheath. The
survey of 300 US-based Department of Defense
(DoD) contractors found that just 13% of
respondents have a Supplier Risk Performance
System (SPRS) score of 70 or above. Under the
Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation
Supplement (DFARS), a score of 110 is required
for full compliance. Anecdotally, a score of 70
is believed to be “good enough” to be considered
compliant, according to the study authors.
DFARS, which was enacted into law in 2017, is
designed to bolster cybersecurity in the defense
industrial base. Defense contractors also must
comply with the Cybersecurity Maturity Model
Certification (CMMC), a certification framework
they must pass to bid for contracts with the
DoD. The first version of CMMC was released in
January 2020, with an updated version, 2.0,
coming into effect in May 2023. It offers five
certification levels spanning one through five,
with five being the highest. Each level maps to
a different level of process maturity. The new
study suggests the vast majority of DoD defense
contractors are neither meeting current DFARS
obligations or in a position to comply with the
updated version of CMMC.
Israel Beefs Up Protection of
Its Senior Spies, as Proxy War with Iran
Intensifies
by Intelnews.org
Israeli authorities have
stepped up measures to protect its senior
intelligence and security figures, over concerns
they may be targeted by agents of the Iranian
state, according to news reports. The news comes
amidst widespread concerns that the ongoing
shadow conflict between Israel and Iran is
escalating in the shadow of the Russo-Ukrainian
war. On Thursday, Israel’s state-owned
broadcaster and news agency, Kan, reported
that the government of Israel had
implemented additional security measures to
protect current and former members of its
security and intelligence agencies. The report
added that the measures are focused largely on
current and former members of Israel’s foreign
intelligence agency, the Mossad, as well as
those associated with Israel’s intelligence and
security apparatus that are living abroad. The
report comes amidst concerns among security
observers that a clandestine war between Israel
and Iran is growing in intensity. To a notable
extent, this growth is being fueled by the
ongoing Russo-Ukrainian conflict. Iran’s supply
of cheap and reliable attack drones appears to
be enabling Moscow to subvert and outright
destroy Ukraine’s national infrastructure. In
what seems like a direct response to Iran’s
actions, Israel war materiel is now flowing into
Ukraine, reportedly through a NATO country.
Meet the Man on a Mission to
Expose Sneaky Price Increases
by The
New York Times
A few weeks ago, Edgar Dworsky
got a promising tip by email. “Diluted cough
syrup,” read the message, accompanied by a photo
of two packages of syrup with a curious
difference: The new one appeared to be half the
strength of the old one. Mr. Dworsky gets emails
like this frequently, alerting him to things
like a bag of dog food that discreetly shrank
from 50 pounds to 44 pounds. A cereal box that
switched from “giant” to “family” size and grew
about an inch taller — but a few ounces lighter.
Bottles of detergent that look the same, but the
newer ones come with less detergent. The cough
syrup message looked intriguing. Mr. Dworsky
made plans to investigate. He has dedicated much
of his life to exposing what is one of the
sneakier tricks in the modern consumer economy:
“shrinkflation,” when products or packaging are
subtly manipulated so that a person pays the
same price, or even slightly more, for something
but gets less of it. Consumer product companies
have been using this strategy for decades. And
their nemesis, Mr. Dworsky, has been following
it for decades. He writes up his discoveries on
his website, mouseprint.org, a reference to the
fine print often found on product packaging.
Print so tiny “only a mouse could read,” he
says. He writes about shrinkflation in
everything — tuna, mayonnaise, ice cream,
deodorant, dish soap — alongside other consumer
advocacy work on topics like misleading
advertising, class-action lawsuits and
exaggerated sale claims. One recent Mouse Print
report explored toilet paper shrinkflation.
“Virtually every brand of toilet paper has been
downsized over the years,” Mr. Dworsky wrote,
documenting more than a decade of toilet paper
shrinkage.
Massive Cancellations Make Mess
of Already Low New-House Sales
by Wolf
Street
Sales of new single-family
houses have been zigzagging along low levels for
months. In October, they rose 7.5% from
September, after having plunged 11% in
September, according to the Census Bureau today.
At a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 632,000
houses, they were down 5.8% from the already low
levels a year ago, and down 37% from two years
ago. These sales are based on signed contracts
between buyer and homebuilder, and they’re no
indication of how many of those deals actually
close. And those sales that actually close are
far lower amid a huge wave of cancellations.
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