by Scott Creighton
UPDATE:The Huffington Post jumps on the RFID bandwagon along with Fox News.
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Ask yourself this question: who benefits?
Target’s recent epic data breach saga is starting to sound mighty suspicious to me as the Obama “Justice” Department is being brought it to “investigate” and tons of folks are lining up filing lawsuits hoping to get millions in settlements when they haven’t lost a dime as of yet.
“It’s also the first time in more than six years that negative perception of Target has outweighed positive feelings about the brand.” LA Times Dec. 23
Target is the nation’s #2 discount retailer. Wal-Mart is #1 of course since they jumped in bed with the Clintons all those years ago and road the NAFTA train to full spectrum domination of the market. Hillary was on union-busting Wal-Mart’s board of directors from ’86 to ’92 … they made a seat just for her while her husband was governor of the state they are based in (from ’83 to ’92).
Of course we all know how close the Obama administration is to the Clinton family, don’t we? Not only does Bill give press conferences in the White House, but his wife was Secretary of State for 4 years under Obama.
And it’s Obama’s “Justice” department that is going to investigate what happened? Rumors of the DoJ’s involvement centering on investigating whether or not Target was guilty of criminal negligence have already begun…
“I can’t see another reason that they would be involved at this point,” Pascual said. “It’s too early to say it’s criminal negligence on the part of the company.” Star Tribune Dec. 24th
“By Monday evening, more than a dozen Target customers had filed federal lawsuits around the country, with some accusing Target of negligence in failing to protect customer data.” NPR Dec. 23rd
“In a Sunday letter to the Federal Trade Commission, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) said the agency should look into Target’s responsibility in the massive hack…. “If Target failed to adequately and appropriately protect its customers’ data, then the breach we saw … was not just a breach of security, it was a breach of trust,” Blumenthal wrote.” LA Times Dec. 23
yeah… actually, if the Obama administration is beholding to Wal-Mart like the Clinton administration was before it, then obviously it’s NOT too early to assume their justice department is looking at criminal negligence charges to be leveled at Wal-Mart’s only major competitor.
Anyone remember how Wal-Mart and the Department of Homeland Security have “teamed up“?
It’s hard to find solid data on the security breach itself. How did they do it?
Supposedly a mal-ware of some kind was used to collect “metadata” on some 40 million transactions at the height of the holiday gift buying season. Once Target became aware of the problem, they rightly informed their customers and offered free credit tracking services to make sure their customers weren’t being ripped off.
Very few reports have come in of someone claiming that data was used to rip them off though. You see, not only did the data breach not involve the PINs of the customers, but they also didn’t steal the 3 digit CVV codes on the back of the cards which are needed to use the card information online or over the phone along with the PIN.
“The theft involved the CVV security codes embedded in the magnetic stripes on the cards and not the three-digit CVV codes on the back of the cards, as the company initially reported. Target has repeatedly said the security breach did not compromise debit card personal identification numbers (PINs). Still, some banks have decided proactively to issue new debit cards and PINs to affected customers.” Star Tribune Dec. 24th
Many argue that the information obtained could be used to generate identity theft in the future, but the data doesn’t include crucial information such as Social Security numbers which would be needed to do that.
Target is suffering from this publicity as you might expect. Their “brand index” has taken quite a hit while Wal-Mart sits back and laughs.
The RFID debate will be raised again as influence peddlers for that Orwellian device are already trying to claim this breach would never have happened were it not for those pesky magnetic strips on the backs of our cards.
JPMorgan Chase piled on as quickly as they could to add fuel to the “crisis” by restricting their own customer’s accounts as per how much cash they could remove from the bank.
Thousands of shoppers across North Texas have been stopped at the checkout counter unable to pay for their purchases with no warning at all — even though they have plenty of money in their accounts.
It is new fallout from that Target security breach.
And it wasn’t just people buying holiday presents who found their cards would not be honored. Any kind of shopping — including groceries and gas — was halted.
Some banks put new, very low limits on debit cards during this final weekend before Christmas.
Most customers we talked to were angry they hadn’t been told about the crackdown, being blamed on the problems with Target.” KVUE Dec. 23
JP Morgan certainly knows there isn’t enough data in those files that were lifted for someone to use fake debit cards to rob their customers. That’s not why they shut down their customer’s access to their own money.
For every customer separated from his funds, you have a new Wal-Mart shopper since Chase and the press are blaming Target for it and not the banks.
Lawsuits, bad press, potential criminal charges and banks keeping folks from buying their groceries in the days leading up to Christmas… seems like a lot of effort is being put into crushing Target once and for all leaving only one major discount retailer in the country.
So how did they get that info? Who was behind it? All this talk about how bad Target is and very little info about who actually took the data and how. I wonder why that is.
I’ll just leave this here for your consideration:
“According to unnamed sources in the Wall Street Journal on Friday, the NSA has been obtaining purchase information from credit card companies. The Journal didn’t specify what type of credit card providers were providing information to the NSA; it could be networks like Visa and MasterCard, third-party processors, or issuing banks like Bank of America and Chase.
It’s believed that the NSA can’t tell exactly what you’re buying: paint thinner, Justin Timberlake CDs, baked beans. But they can see a disturbing amount of information. What’s more, the tracking almost certainly involves a continuous stream of data; it’s not a one-off incident.
… Networks are most likely giving the government “metadata.” That is, the credit card issuers could provide the NSA details such as an account or card number, where and when a purchase was made, and for how much. Even though the exact items purchased aren’t revealed, Brian Krebs, who blogs at KrebsOnSecurity.com, says “merchant category codes” in such data give clues about what was bought.If the NSA is collecting data at the processor level, “at that point the transaction gets cleared and posts to an account, so, yes, you can track it down to a person,” Aufsesser says…
… Following the leaked Verizon court order, the Obama Administration has defended its actions by pointing to two instances when terrorists were intercepted after their correspondence raised a red flag. Experts say a similar mentality is at work here.
“Based on what we’ve seen so far based on PRISM, that makes me think they’re going to be looking at weapons-making capability,” Pascual says. As the Boston Marathon bombings illustrate, a tactic today’s terrorists use to stay under the radar is using common purchases (pressure cooker, nails, ball bearings) to create weapons. A red flag may be raised with the NSA if agents detect several of these everyday items being purchased at the same time and/or in unusually large quantities.” TIME June 13 2013
Oh. The Obama administration’s NSA has REAL TIME access to this point of sale data? The same Obama administration which is so closely tied to Wal-Mart and the Clinton Royal Family? The same Obama administration that is already looking to bring charges against Target forging the final nail for their coffin?
Ask yourself who benefits from all of this. Will this mark the end of Target and a major economic gain for Wal-Mart? Do the Clinton’s still own stock in Wal-Mart like they used to?
In the interests of full disclosure, I don’t own any stock in Target but I do shop there occasionally, preferring it over Wal-Mart or K-Mart in every conceivable way.
If the Obama “Justice” department and the SEC go after Target with criminal charges, you can expect the activist federal judges to issue ruling after ruling against Target until they are forced to file Chapter 11 putting tens of thousands of our neighbors out of work and leaving us one less choice when it comes to discount retail shopping.
I don’t care what anyone says, this is an obvious example of a fascist state serving the interests of their crony businesses at the expense of the people of this country. It is the exact opposite of what it claims to be, a “free market” system.
Some dufus “hacker” will be rounded up and used as the patsy for this crisis. We have that to look forward to. Someone will claim we need tighter controls on the internet in order to protect America from events like these. You can expect this to be used in any number of ways.
But in the end, this is consolidation… there can be only one. And that is the one with the most access to corrupt actors imbedded in the system at the highest levels.
I hope the people of this country can see through this before it’s too late but chances are they won’t. They’ll just regurgitate whatever Fox or CNN spoon feeds them 24/7 while Wal-Mart and the Obama administration laugh all the way to the bank.
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