You have to hand it to the world’s unofficial richest man – Russia’s Vladimir Putin. He’s running a covert financial war against the Western countries so successfully it makes US banks like JP Morgan look like stooges. The Russian covert underground cyber-army is taunting banks and has become so confident in their abilities they can brag about them before they even pull off their cyber-tricks. The newly reported K-Mart hack attack was just announced recently but the actual intrusion was already several weeks old.
For the Russian mafia – it’s like taking candy from a baby. They can handle their army of hackers like puppets on strings. What can the US do in return? What is the best weapon the powers of the NSA and FBI can throw back in retaliation? The U.S. admits that they can’t retaliate. So for now, they can only use …. Harsh language.
Wikileaks indicate that the world leaders already understand that the corrupt Russian Mafia and various thugs and police protection surround Putin as their ringleader. Others consider Putin only a glorified Warlord. Bribery using suitcases full of cash run the country which still operates arms traffic, drugs, prostitution slaves, protection rackets, and other common vices the world has suffered for ages. The Russian police are actually paid to be the protectors for the mafia kingpins and spies.
US banks and credit card users may be pawns in covert money wars. They snipe the accounts, steal the identities, or shop our personal account information around. Then they use the money to pay the corruption, oligarchs and Putin as it reportedly cost 300 billion per year to keep the bribes going. The banks in the US seem to be doing their part to help the Oligarchs. They dutifully create new accounts and issue new credit cards that will soon be available, once more, to the Russian hackers who then break in and steal those freshly minted credit cards practically before the last ones are mailed out. Then the whole thing repeats again and again. Like the mortgage crisis, the money just gets replaced, insurance and the Fed just paper over the problem and print more. We could avoid the trouble and take the shortcut. Why doesn’t the Fed just print stacks of cash, put it in a semi-truck and drop it off at the Russian border with a big bow around it for them to have? Many bitcoiners already know this system is a paradigm ripe for change.
Russia announced new proposed laws that would seek to ban bitcoin and digital currencies. This would be to their tactical advantage as they have exposed the weakness to the Western banks reliance on credit cards. As banks continue to replace the money and credit cards and reactivate the hacked accounts, the banks and customers become recycled targets for the hackers once again. Russian mafia have long been tied to the secret government officials and through them. The flow of money for the Russians all lead to Vladimir. Chinese and Russian hackers have been relentless against ‘soft targets’ of the US financial system. The latest alert from the London Evening Standard exposes a new target plan to steal another one billion dollars from the banking system that is in the planning stages.
Looking at readers’ comments to these news reports, a common reaction is “so what.” Because the banks replace the cards it seemingly is just a slight inconvenience to the card holder. This may be true on the surface level. However, knowing where the money flows and who it benefits makes the matter more complex. A lot of cash is trading hands, and expenses for the credit card industry will just be passed on to the cardholders. It will be money that will show up as “hidden inflation” in the products they purchase as the credit cards and retailers will charge more down the road to make up the difference. One’s personal identity and personal details are available to a shady group of people. If these people realized their lives are simply financial commodities to be bought and sold like cattle, would it make a difference?
Apple Computers has been on a roll. Now with over 160 billion in cash on hand, they are looking to extend their power and influence to now include the ApplePay system for Point of Sale terminals that will use NFC (Near Field Communication). Payment systems insiders also refer to NFC as (Nobody Freaking Cares) as it’s already been available on Android phones for two years but failed to make much difference. This may create new opportunity as the centralization of payment activities and the possible single point of failure for hackers. Apple still denies the leaked celebrity photos were taken from iCloud, however, insiders have warned that Apple knew for months that iCloud had security problems, as was alerted. The strong denials from Apple would be expected as the timing couldn’t be worse. The dawn of the announcement of ApplePay, which uses iCloud to store the credit card and account details, might land with a “thunk” if people feared their financial freedom was vulnerable to a hacked system.
The alleged hackers of Dutch origin could already be on Putin’s payroll by now. The Dutch group denies they were in it for the money, but the Russian mafia have ‘other means’ by which they compel people to perform for them, and might just make them an offer they can’t refuse. This pot of gold at the end of the ApplePay rainbow may be too lucrative to ignore. Once central locations for all the goodies. That is why it may be doomed to failure. That paradigm is likely ending.
Today, many in the public believe that hackers have been just as successful stealing bitcoin. They’ve pointed to a history of bitcoin hacks like the one compiled by The Guardian. They won’t care about the technical differences between the two kinds of hacks. But it will make a difference to Putin. Bitcoin will be a much tougher beast for him to tame as the market adapts to stronger wallet security. Even if Russian people themselves aren’t allowed to use bitcoin, it will be tougher for the hackers to steal enough credit card funds to pay 300 billion a year in bribery fees once the countries they are stealing from switch to bitcoin.
Don’t feel too bad for Putin. He might be able to get along with only Warren Buffet kind of money. Poor fellow.
