We hope, you hope. We dream, you dream. We rise, you rise. We fall, you fall. Three hundred million viewers in 67 countries. Words have power, TV has power. My pen has power.
Shonda Rhimes on Writing in the Age of Trump: ‘TV Has Power. My Pen Has Power.’
Indian, Chinese soldiers injured in physical brawl near Naku La in Sikkim Times of India
Third Circuit Case Discussing Difference Between Willfully Element for Tax Crimes (Cheek Willfulness) and for General Crimes with Willfully Element
They Found a Way to Limit Big Tech’s Power: Using the Design of Bitcoin
The New York Times – “Companies inspired by the cryptocurrency are creating social networks, storing online content and hosting websites without any central authority…When YouTube and Facebook barred tens of thousands of Mr. Trump’s supporters and white supremacists this month, many flocked to alternative apps such as LBRY, Minds and Sessions. What those sites had in common was that they were also inspired by the design of Bitcoin.
The twin developments were part of a growing movement by technologists, investors and everyday users to replace some of the internet’s fundamental building blocks in ways that would be harder for tech giants like Facebook and Google to control. To do so, they are increasingly focused on new technological ideas introduced by Bitcoin, which was built atop an online network designed, at the most basic level, to decentralize power. Unlike other types of digital money, Bitcoin are created and moved around not by a central bank or financial institution but by a broad and disparate network of computers. It’s similar to the way Wikipedia is edited by anyone who wants to help, rather than a single publishing house. That underlying technology is called the blockchain, a reference to the shared ledger on which all of Bitcoin’s records are kept. Companies are now finding ways to use blockchains, and similar technology inspired by it, to create social media networks, store online content and host websites without any central authority in charge. Doing so makes it much harder for any government or company to ban accounts or delete content…”
See also The New York Times – What is a Blockchain? Is It Hype? A technology based on a decentralized network may offer more control over what people do online
UK government authorises corruption investigation into the British Virgin Islands administration (18 Jan 2021)
- British Virgin Islands' governor launches inquiry into alleged corruption(18 Jan 2021)
- HMRC: Capital Gains Tax (CGT) Statistics 2018-19 (17 Jan 2021)
- HMRC Table 5: Estimated number of individuals, gains and tax accruals by UK country - 2011-12 to 2018-19 (17 Jan 2021)
- HMRC Table 1: Estimated taxpayer numbers, gains and tax accruals by year of disposal 1987-88 to 2018-19 (17 Jan 2021)
- HMRC Table 4: Numbers of Entrepreneurs' Relief [ER] liable taxpayers, amounts of gain qualifying for ER and tax charged at ER rate by year of disposal 2011-12 to 2018-19 (18 Jan 2021)
- HMRC pursues multiple criminal investigations in corporate tax disputes(11 Jan 2021)
- How Nigeria lost $178bn to tax evasion by multi-nationals (11 Jan 2021)
- EU urged to push UK harder on tackling tax avoidance and money laundering (10 Jan 2021)
- Denmark Charges Two British Citizens for Masterminding Billion Dollar Tax Fraud (8 Jan 2021)
- Brexit: Johnson says UK can use tax to drive investment outside EU (4 Jan 2021)
- British ruling class described as ‘mendacious, intellectually limited hustlers’ in New York Times (4 Jan 2021)
- Richest 1% have almost a quarter of UK wealth, study claims (3 Jan 2021)
- Thumbs-up for a wealth tax to help the poor — just don’t touch the family home (3 Jan 2021)
- Does the Brexit deal pave the way for Britain to become a tax haven? (1 JAN 2021)
Never too much talent? Should you be bullish on the Nets?
Toward a more libertarian pandemic?
B.1.1.7 not in decline. And that variant is exploding in Denmark
Vaccines to take Israel back from the Ibex, photo gallery, recommended. And some verticality in a video version. Consider it “the Ibex salt-water paradox.”
Peter Huber tribute, he has passed away.
JobKeeper payments for prisoners, the dead and other fraud cases probed by ATO
Dodgy employers have signed up jailed criminals, people living outside Australia and even the dead to receive $1,500-a-fortnight JobKeeper payments.
Key points:
- Employers claiming JobKeeper on behalf of fictitious employees are being pursued by an ATO investigation
- "Client is in jail" is a category under scrutiny where people may have taken advantage of the $130 billion scheme
- FOI documents show the ATO was investigating 5,974 cases of "inflated employees" as at September
These fictitious employees are among thousands of people being pursued by an Australian Taxation Office (ATO) investigation into rorts of the $130 billion wage subsidy program.
"Client is in jail" is one of the categories being scrutinised as a red flag in around 6,000 cases where employers may have created fictitious employees to take advantage of the JobKeeper scheme, hurriedly launched at the end of March last year to keep the economy afloat during the coronavirus pandemic.
Documents obtained using a freedom of information (FOI) application show that, by the end of September, the ATO was investigating 5,974 cases of "inflated employees" in applications for the wage subsidy.
"The reality is you cannot check every application," said lawyer and corporate investigator Niall Coburn.
Subject: The risks of DDoS attacks for the public sector
Source: GCN
https://gcn.com/articles/2021/01/15/ddos-risks.aspx
Distributed denial of service cyberattacks have been around for decades, but they have become an even more acute problem in the last few years, especially to public institutions. Recent statistics suggest these types of attacks continue to increase in volume, as well as sophistication and severity. The number of DDoS attacks in 2020 is estimated by researchers at SecurityIntelligence to be 24% higher than in 2019.A DDoS attack involves generating malformed, problem network traffic that literally denies a particular “service” normally provided by a company. Services can include a specific website, an email server, an e-commerce system or any critical service essential for a government or nation, such as air traffic control. Attacks can even affect entire cloud service providers.
Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, January 23, 2020 – Privacy and security issues impact every aspect of our lives – home, work, travel, education, health and medical records – to name but a few. On a weekly basis Pete Weiss highlights articles and information that focus on the increasingly complex and wide ranging ways technology is used to compromise and diminish our privacy and security, often without our situational awareness. Four highlights from this week: This Site Published Every Face From Parler’s Capitol Riot Videos; DHS Gets Sued Over Its Social Media Surveillance Tactics; Lost Passwords Lock Millionaires Out of Their Bitcoin Fortunes; and The risks of DDoS attacks for the public sector.