Apple Vs FBI : Why I support Apple.

Last week, when one of my payments did not arrive to my bank, I was checking around ,why it did not reach despite the customer transferring the same to my company a week back.

Voila, I get a notice from the Investigation agencies via the bank on being checked for money laundering .  Because the payment transfer mentioned payment for ITF member order by the client.
Nevertheless, whatever details  the investigator wanted were submitted and detailed that ITF means, Indian Texprenuer Federation and not Islamic Terrorist Fxxxx etc. The link to the site was also submitted.

One week after submission of details by the bank, yet the payment did not arrive in my account and the customer did not get the shipment.

I write this story, so that the judge reads my blog, when deciding on FBI vs Apple case. How Investigation agencies behave ,once the law supports them. And why the law should not give freedom to check on people without recourse to court order.

Now in my case, the law is very clear, that payments above USD 10,000 can be checked  by the banks for money laundering by the transference, if under doubt and the bank has to provide the details of the r emitter, customer etc. However, the payment transfer in my case was only USD 900, which is peanut money for any investigator to spent his time. Yet , the law was randomly abused and 10 days later, my money was still not recd , t though very much legal and valid. Thanks to the money laundering law, which had been abused and me and my customer are still struggling to find our money, which was obstructed by the investigator.

But, what can you do, about it, you cannot fight a virtual authority, which chooses to be above law, despite the law being so clear . One does not go about fighting with such people for USD 900 and rather await , hoping things would be ok soon.  But all this happens, because the law was made to allow the investigation authority to check on USD transfers via banks.  See, what happens with the law now. Today, it is me, who was investigated for USD 900 legal transfer to my account from my customer and yet the payment not arriving after two weeks and exactly the same will happen in case of Apple, where the precedence  will be laid by one case  that they are trying to protect the nation against terrorist, but actually use the law each day on innocent people and obstruct genuine biz in the name of protection from terrorist.

Now the same authority, which allowed money laundering law to obstruct the payment of people , it should also factor cost of obstruction into the system. If money is stopped , it  does cost people their flow of work, the consequential damages need to be paid by the obstruct-or in each case. Why not put a penalty of USD10,000 for each wrong obstruction as minimum and maxm can be anything.. Investigations don`t need money movement to be stopped, it can still ask the r emitter or receiver for the information, but why obstruct.

Therefore, even if FBI needs to break into Iphone OS, than, let it find hackers to do the job. There are one too many in the market. Let not law support official obstruction, which starts on the basis of stopping a crime, but actually gets used in harassing common people and sometimes protecting from criminals. By the way, the criminals encryption of their biz is far more complicated than the backdoor management of checks by FBI.

Judge can still ask Apple to support the  investigation, but the data should be only given to the court and not to any agency . So that agencies are not the one, which are empowered by us. The court can still be authorized.  Similarly the code of conduct of each investigation needs to be well defined with penalties given for all wrong obstructions.

Simple, next time you sent an innocuous whatsapp message and say, it reads ITF or similar, which literally could be Intellectual Text Friends, but police of 7 countries comes knocking at your door to investigate and check and confirm that ITF does not mean Islamic Terrorist Friends. Thanks to the new law, if allowed.

Anti Greed Vaccinations !

Only a few weeks back, I wrote about ISIS Anti virus and wrote about science to scan the profile of people for their virtues and values.

Now, there is an article in Harvard Business Review ( http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/7830.html )

"How Hormones Foretell Whether People Will Cheat"

This is what I have been saying, whether it is extra testosterone or extra chromosomes or there would be other markers, which can clearly indicate the abnormality or skewed thinking of a person. It is about time, we start taking these subject seriously and treating such people with neutralizers.

The people who do wrong sometimes themselves do not understand, why they do wrong and why their behavior is anti social. They need medical attention. Unfortunately we are still not ready to address such issues till people go and create a big black hole for all of us.

Nevertheless, if you come across any such people, best is to avoid them at the first place or direct them to medical assistance .

Obama Corruption Speech And The Corrupted World

Each right minded person tries to avoid corruption, yet the malice is seen across the world. No matter it is an organization as rich as FIFA or as poor as the local cop or it is doping in the athletic world or match fixing or tax fixing.

Corruption within the Governance is part and parcel of the system since time immemorial.  As long as there will be greed within human beings, corruption will remain endemic.

But after too much of thinking, I realized that it was basically the system itself, which was responsible for the corruption and human beings were the exploiters. The more the system became transparent and mechanized, the less was there an opportunity of corruption.

Who designs the systems. The Law makers. Who puts the lawmakers in place. We the public. Unless, we stand up united and control the system to be open, clean and transparent, the exploiters will use each of the opportunity to gain. Use of Online systems has massively reduced corruption.

All Governance and systems have to be on Auto Correction mode.  Rights of Individuals at each stage have to be clearly defined at each point of control. If Governance is about checks and balances, then checks are very well defined, but the balance is always left to the individuals struggle for survival.  This is not called governance, but practically autocracy.

An Auto Correction Mode has to be part of one and every system, where individuals mistakes are stopped and possible correction options are offered instantly. The world is certainly divided between good , bad and  evil. One does need filters at each point, but the way the filtration works is to use the system to intimidate the good and extort benefits . The bad and evil already know their way out and are habitual offenders. They manipulate  and milk the system to the core . It is only the decent , who have to pay a price.

Corruption comes, when one is obstructed for any reason. Whether for want of a document or for speeding up a process or getting a biz license or even  getting his payment or similar acts.  Than there is corruption in getting contracts, favors, out of way benefits etc etc.

For the documents, this is the favorite of all the Governments. Where massive corruption takes place. This is where the auto correction system has to work. If the applicable document is not there with an individual or an organization, the work can still never be stopped. The work is an output , which is adding to the economic value of the country and to the individual.  Hence the assigning authority will still issue the document instantly with some penalties and give effective time to complete the process.  As long as the matter is not a security risk or a massive social risk problem, the issues related to any document are only clerical to any government. Close the obstruction and corruption vanishes. Create the obstruction and corruption flourishes.

One of the biggest hassles for any biz in any country is the clarity of laws. Unless and until well defined templates are offered to the industry, the ambiguities of laws will always lead to corrupt practices.  The economic order is changing, more and more people want to be entrepreneurs and the Govt has to stand up and support it.

In matters of controls, the government has to have a dual function . First support the individual or organization in reaching a critical mass. Only after that the controls can be managed. Eg Tax system for a micro or small company. This should be zero for the first 3 years and small percentage after that.  This allows the individual to reach a critical mass as against, fighting the tax system from the first day, when he or she starts his company.  Further, till it reaches a critical mass, each arm of the government will stand up and support the organization or individual to realize its potential. At this time, each arm of the government is there to obstruct the organization , no sooner it is incubated.

In matters of Human Rights it is still a long way to go . The first auto correction is compulsory video recording of any inspection by government officer or police questioning. Any attempts of intimidation and threats and unbalanced code of conduct should lead to instant suspension of such a authority. The abuse of power for extortion is a general practice and if one complaints about it to the superior, generally the superior acts as a part of the same gang. However, if the complaint redressal was with independent judicial authorities, the system works on auto correction mode.

I vividly recall, how an Indian lady diplomat was taken in custody in US and strip searched , because she was paying lower than the minimum wages to her domestic servant, whom she brought from India under some visa rules. Now, this is a clear case of Human rights violation both by the diplomat and also the Police.  An auto correction mode would have simply asked the lady to come and discuss the subject with the authorities and allowed her the correct the situation. It did not warrant such high handedness.  As for diplomat paying lower wages , the employee can well quit on his own or request for fairness and only if the request is turned down, he can then move to redress it with the authorities.
But the ways, the law enforcement works is not on auto correction. Further at each stage, the authorities need to advise the person of his legal rights. If the legal rights are not advised clearly , the handling officer should be removed from his job. Mind, we are a democratic world. It is us, who pays for the salaries and budgets of the governments, not the other way round.

In short, at each and every system of the government, there should be clear open and transparent handling . And in case, there is still an issue, one has with the governance, the rights of individuals have to be well advised on the website. The complaints of abuse of power and corruption should be not to the same department , but to a department, which is handled directly by judiciary or public at large.

Above all the systems should be accelerating and not obstructing any process. Any obstruction by any officer should lead to penalties . This will be auto correction of highest order. After that we will see, everything working in proper order and fast pace.

ISIS Anti Virus !

ISIS propaganda is show of brutality to large audience, but is also a recruitment of young men and women.

Today, the biggest fear in any Moslem family is that, there child is not getting radicalized. It is like the drug addiction.

Like my sister tells me that Teen age is where the mind is getting rewired. All the circuits in the mind are getting new connections and the environment plays a key role in this rewiring.
This transition from childhood to teenage is the most sensitive time in the life of a person. 
ISIS has cleverly exploited this situation. 

No one missed the BBC documentary on Jihadi Brides and in all cases, it is these girls ran away from the family to join ISIS. Same for men . But interestingly, it is the first time, where one sees, the fighters joining ISIS are not from countries like Pakistan, Afghanistan or Indonesia, but from the Europe, US and Australia. 

In political terms, it was failure of the world to have stopped Syrian war in the early stages, but now, it is more complex  then just the Syria war or the Iraq losing its cities.  It is now the ISIS Virus, which is hitting the young generation.

Radicalization, Agression, Greed, Corruption, Hatred, Insenstivity etc etc are all viruses, which set in at early age. But the guardians, parents, teachers , friends do not identify these as potential threat to the society till something goes wrong.

Till we recognize these as potential harmful viruses at very early age and invest into their antidotes, this evil will keep coming back into the society.

These are all mental diseases and somehow in medical sciences, social mental diseases are not considered physical harmful to self and hence medical science does not address it. But a closer look at the blood profiling of a person can show the markers of extra chromosome,  are markers of criminals. Same way, one has to identify other markers within the blood profiling on Radicalism, Greed, Aggression, Corruption etc.
 I am a palmist and it only takes me a few minutes to identify a criminal or radical or cheat etc. But these abstract sciences are still not considered valid for personality profiling of a person. However, time has come to look at people in the Good, Bad and Evil equation and keep them sorted. Society has to push the Bad and Evil to Good or be marginalized.

One of the best marker is the scent of a person. However, dogs are the only species , which have this inherent quality of smelling and identifying the virtues. If dogs were trained to smell a radical person and then check on others, it was as easy as that. Same way for other virtues.

It must be made compulsory during college time to profile the transition of the child for all the mental viruses attacking him. These have to be dealt further with professional care. 

Social media has come to stay and no one will be able to stop the propaganda effect from it. The only solution is to neutralize the evil at early age. Viruses  within each religion are another feed for the young souls and the world  should take steps to take very strict action against such preachers.

Science has to take a social roll in cleaning up the mental viruses. Wealth creation has already been successful with Science. But it is a pity that even in the 21st century, we have wars, and killings and brutality, despite so much education and development.

Human being are the only species, which kills its own species. No other species within the animal kingdom kills its own. What a pity that we are even lower than animals , despite such a developed mind and body.

ISIS And All That !

In one of my earlier post , I wrote about the victory of Assad forces and the world should reconcile with him. However, the global political equation is far too complex to maneuver so quickly. Now, it has become a clear divide in Middle East between the Sunnis and Shias.

Look at the irony of the situation. IS takes over Iraq and shows extreme brutality openly and yet Saudi does not lift its little finger. But Yemen president is displaced and the country starts getting bombed  by the Saudis. If only Saudis would have shown the leadership with IS in Iraq, it could have taken a leading position. But, it allowed Iran to get away with Iraq and now with Yemen. Practically, Iran has now become a dominant force in the Middle East to fight the terrorism.

Till date Syrian forces are fighting for their country, but Iraqi forces quit one city after another and leave heavy armory in the hands of ISIS. This is the class of army trained by US. The air strikes alone can never achieve the ground victory. It has to be taken by an army only. But whose army ? It is time again to reconcile with Syrian army , atleast they have shown chivalry to fight till the end. This is the only army, which can remove ISIS from Syria.

The reasoning of Assad killing his own people is no more sustainable. Libya, Iraq, Egypt, Tunisia are glaring examples, where local revolutions did not culminate into matured democracies. Assad, if could have been displaced in early stages was still another story, but after so many years, he has legitimized his position.

Iran after the nuclear deal will certainly become a strong nation. And that is good for US as it becomes the guardian of some of US interest. Oil prices would become still better and the Shia , Sunni balance will be established.

ISIS is product of radicalism and Iraq political fall out. But I dont buy this story that Sunni victimization by Shias in these areas created ISIS. 

In one of my post during the Iraq disturbance , I had written that Bush should come on TV and announce, if the Iraqs dont stop killing one another, then US will divide the country into 4 parts, Shia, Sunni, Kurds and American State. I wish Bush, had read my blog and implemented the same. No ISIS today and we would have seen two new countries with one American state in Middle East. And ofcourse, the American state would be the one with the most oil. Even, now, if US chooses to enter the way, then this should be the condition that it will divide Iraq into 4 parts. Well, if Russians can take Crimea,, then US can take away part of Iraq. 

Al Qaida to IS , arming rebels or creating Terrorist ?

 The classic study of all the conflicts show that eventually, wherever rebels were armed to fight an organized army , resulted into unmanageable Terrorist organizations. It starts from the Afghan war, where the Mujhaideens were armed by CIA to fight Russians and eventually the Russians lost, but not before many armed groups taking over Afghanistan and Taliban becoming the host to Al Qaida.

Much that the Russians themselves were looking for an exit from Afghanistan and were more then happy to transfer the power to a transition Government, but CIA wanted the humiliating defeat of the Russians. What followed was a catastrophe of unimaginable consequences. The many rebel groups laid their own claims to power and Taliban practically created a brutal state with Al Qaida being its nucleus.

The same rebels, who were armed by the Americans, now designed and executed the first global terrorist attack on 9/11. Rest is history.

Now let us look at IS, again the very same story. Rebels are armed to fight the Syrian army and it all goes messy and finally, what is the result is exactly the same situation as what happened in erstwhile Afghanistan. Here the situation was further compounded by the Iraqi army, who left all the arms in the hands of Sunni Militias. But technically the IS was a baby born out or Syrian conflict and less out of Iraqi conflict.

Study the case of LTTE, exactly the same story. Where rebel groups were armed to fight Sri lankan army and finally became a draconian terrorist group.

LeT in Pakistan, designed to fight the Indian army, finally becomes a catastrophe for Pakistan .

These rebels group in their own power struggle branch out and newer and newer groups get made and each marks its presence with heightened brutality to get recruits and funding.

Africa is a clear example, where for Decades, these kind of rebels have lived out fighting organized Governments.

The clear lesson to learn from this is that as long as we will have this policy of funding such rascals, who are willing to lay their lives for a cause, which looks nice at that time, the monster will only turn back and kill us at the first given opportunity.  It is about time, we stop doing this altogether.

The IS case has become far too complicated now.  If the world does not get into a proper war in finishing the IS , it will only have more and more Paris like attacks and Sydney and Peshawar. Time has come to have a UN Anti Terrorist war Force, who strikes with permission after UN security resolution and does not have to get into which country taking what lead.

Malaysian Plane Mystery !

Inmarsat report now dumped as inaccurate report for the search area.

This will go down in history as one of the other blunders, which top leaders and politicians made on public expense. Also is a reflection of how poorly the logic and thinking process works in top management.

This was one subject which was covered by the whole global media and none of the journalist every put up this hard question to any of the authorities, how come a plane would simply follow a mathematical calculation, when there is a co-pilot to resist any move for the pilot to recourse to another flight path. Plus there is a crew and there are 240 pax. 

I have been following all the reports related to the search and the most hilarious moment was when Tony Abbot allocated 80 Million AUD for the search of the plane in the sea around Australia. The budget to be shared by China and Malaysia. Again interestingly, none of the Aussie journalist or anyone object to such a move. Further, one week later, Tony came out with a budget slashing monies to health care and education. On one end blow off 80 million AUD on a totally unrelated, unseen, unheard, unknown lost plane and the other hand cut budgets for students and pensioners. I thought, it was only in India, we had such ambiguities, but now, I know the politicians are the same breed all over the world.

This week, I was watching Aussie TV show Four Corners , wherein there was a documentary on the Malaysian missing plane. It starts very well and exposes a new element that the ATC actually reached out to the Malaysian airline on the missing plane after Vietnam ATC alerted it. But the airline took it lightly and even gave co-ordinates of the plane in Cambodian air space. This part has never been researched further.
However, Four Corners again did not address to any of the investigating agencies, how come the plane will simply follow the inmarsat path without the resistance of the co-pilot or others. Also, the 15 mins traverse of the plane on Malaysian radar was not really well explored .

CNN also came out with a report by its famous journalist Richard on the missing Malaysian plane, who went around interviewing Malaysian and Aussie authorities, but nowhere puts up the hard questions, if they are really sure, if the Inmarsat calculations are the right way to proceed with the search. Infact most of them supported the Inmarsat calculations and criticized the Malaysian government in delaying in accepting the report and moving to another search area.

When they announced that it would take 2 years for them to search the plane, I was already thinking, with the kind of search, it would take many more years and with nothing in hand.

But this is exactly the way one sees routinely decisions are taken and millions of dollars are blown off and time is wasted.

Everything returns to square one again.

Malaysian Plane : Now who is the mickey mouse here ?

Finally, they have come to the terms the plane is not in Southern Indian Ocean and they are going to regroup to look for blowing there next hundreds of million dollars with some other mathematical calculations.

It is better that they call it some "Marine Life Study in Indian Ocean" and by chance, if they get the plane, then compliment themselves with discovery of a foreign body.

Now, where is Inmarsat and where is once in life time calculations done on the Doppler effect on sound waves and hence the possible trajectory of the plane into the current searched position. Without the application of one bit of common sense, so fast the assets were deployed. Before the search even started, did anyone question the merit of the search in that place.  Why would a pilot fly 7 hours and then crash in middle of nowhere, when his intentions are to simply crash the plane. And if his intentions are to save the plane, anyway, he would send distress signals and try to land back at the nearest airport. Therefore by simple common sense, the plane went into some kind of limbo and should not be very far from the place it disappeared.

If one was to research further about the hijacking possibility. There was no group, no demands , no clue till date. Except that Malaysian Airlines should check from its records, how many of the pax were such , who had taken the same flight many times in the last one year. And what was his background. If the maneuver was deliberate, then someone would have already rehearsed the whole plan many a times and would have known the time it would cross the Malaysian air space. 

It is still not made public as to what emergency measures were taken , when the ATC of KL was made aware that the MH 370 has not reported to Vietnam ATC. What is the standing protocol for such a situation?

Nevertheless, how will Mr Najib and Mr Tony Abbot explain there statement, which they made to the people that the plane crashed in the Southern Indian Ocean and all lives were lost, without one shred of evidence in hand. What was wrong in saying simply that there is a possibility and we are trying to validate that before any confirmatory statement can be made. 

And look at the irony, 14 countries follow the same without using their commonsense. Because, it is simply tax payers money. No harm in spending, but atleast ask intelligent questions, before you blow off millions of dollars and so much time is lost.

Who is the mickey mouse here? Inmrasat or the Radar readings, which show the reversal of the plane or the Investigating agencies ?

Ukraine Going Yugoslavia Way ?

Ukraine is becoming a very interesting case study. East Ukraine wants to go Crimea way. One openly sees huge armory and tanks and foot soldiers ready to take over against the Ukraine army. Now, whether it is with Russian support or without the support, but Ukraine is showing signs of being another Yugoslavia.

Ukraine PM should send truck loads of Vodka and truck loads of hard cash to the region and follow it with the last leaders and senators from that area to open a dialogue with  the separatist element. But, what it is actually doing is sending anti terrorist forces, Ukrainian army to fight the rebels etc. I reckon Syria should be fresh in mind of everyone. And in this case the Big Bully is sitting next door to make sure that the rebels win.If the leadership has any sense, they should immediately withdraw the threatening position against the rebels and offer them special status , atleast for the time being. Sending NATO or other forces is going to have a very negative impact. The peacekeeping forces from Africa should be taken and deployed and not from any other continent. It is about Trust Building at this time.

It is a pity that a country chooses to break up on basis of ethnicity and language. However, I am a little surprised that the Russian influence is still very strong in many of the ex USSR states. Capitalism has not shown the clear improvements in the lives of people and most feel that they will never be the same as the developed EU countries.

EU is partly to be blamed for it. Unless they heavily invest and atleast into the education system or Universities in these countries, the thought process of basic capitalism is not trickling down correctly. We have already seen in China, that the western education and western model of management was something, which automatically changed the whole landscape of the country. The nation is now one clear case of rags to riches in the last 3 decades. Same model has to be replicated in most of these countries. 

The advantage of most of these countries is the small population and 100% literacy level. Only that the opportunities and global skills are missing.

Hope semblance of order returns to Ukraine and Vodka flows freely.

Malaysian Plane : Weird Dream

As the world tries to reconcile with the loss of the Malaysian plane and then now you see a South Korean ship sinking with school kids. It seems , traveling is becoming more and more dangerous. My sympathies with those who lost their loved ones.

Last night, the dream will perhaps never get erased out of my memory box. Normally one gets too many dreams and one hardly remembers any of these. However, this one was related to the Missing Malaysian Plane.

I see in my dream , the air hostess of the plane coming to my window and telling me, I am from the missing Malaysian plane. I tell her, wait , I am coming to talk to you and she again tells me, I am, here, but walks back, but I can still see her clearly. Then I jump from my bed and run to the door out and run to the window, where she is ,but as soon as she sees me coming, she runs very fast and disappears. Huh! What a tragedy. I woke up and kept thinking about it for very long.

But this was the second dream in the last two weeks, the first one was when I got the dream that the plane was actually in a small pool of water and not in the big sea. However, I ignored that dream .

Perhaps, I have been writing too much about the missing plane and monitoring the developments, the thoughts moved further into my dreams.  But this dream will go very far with me.

Discovery put in a documentary on the missing plane today , but was very poorly made. The whole premises of search is based on one single Inmarsat calculation. And this is far too vague to calculate from sound wavelength, the possible movement of the plane. So far, it has all shown that there is not even one clue of the plane being in the searched location.

Unless, they have other data from spy satellites, which they are not disclosing, the possibility of the plane being there seems to be remote.

Meantime, I hope the air hostess does show up again in my dreams and gives me better insight.