Month: March 2018

Authored by Mac Slavo via SHTFplan.com,

Audio recently obtained and released to the public of a UFO encounter is making its rounds on the internet, and no one can explain this one.  The rather bizarre incident occurred in the skies above Arizona last month and provides a first-hand account of evidence the FAA cannot or will not explain.

In spite of the exchanges, which are thought to have taken place over the span of just 6 minutes, the incident doesn’t appear to have ever been formally written up by aviation authorities, despite the seemingly invisible presence of a UFO detected by two separate aircraft in a highly trafficked airspace.

The FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) has no idea what this strange airborne mystery was either. They attempted to explain that the FAA wasn’t aware of any unusual aircraft or weather balloon experiments in the area on the day that could account for what the pilots saw.

“We don’t have any comment beyond what you hear,” the FAA said in a statement issued to media outlets only adding the mystery, speculation, and theories out there. 

“Other than the brief conversation between two aircraft, the controller was unable to verify that any other aircraft was in the area. We have a close working relationship with a number of other agencies and safely handle military aircraft and civilian aircraft of all types in that area every day, including high-altitude weather balloons,” the FAA’s statement read.

“I couldn’t make it out if it was a balloon or whatnot, but it was just really beaming light or had a big reflection and several thousand feet above us going the opposite direction.” When asked if it was a Google balloon, the Airbus simply responds, “Doubtful.”

“I don’t know what it was, it wasn’t an airplane but it was… the path was going in the opposite direction.” Moments later, the Airbus pilot confirms that he too has witnessed whatever the strange object is.

As The Drive points out, the region in which these sightings took place is nestled in the midst of numerous military and air force facilities and is an area “known for being highly active with military aircraft, and even possibly clandestine aircraft that remain under a cloak of [government] secrecy.”

Of course, that’s only one explanation, and since the FAA already said that there were no other aircraft in the area at the time of the sighting, it makes the possibility of the UFO being a top-secret government flying machine even less likely.  But at this point, who knows.  We are already aware that the government lies to us about almost everything, why would we expect UFOs and secret government planes to be any different?

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Sometimes it’s just not your week.

On top of crashed cars, autonomous vehicle fatalities, production targets plunging, and ratings downgrades, Elon Musk’s car-making company is tumbling after-hours following reports of the recall of 123,000 Model S Sedans.

AP reports  that Tesla is recalling 123,000 sedans worldwide to fix a problem with the power-assisted steering.

The recall covers all Model S sedans built before April of 2016.

Three bolts holding the power steering motor in place can corrode and either come loose or break, possibly causing a loss of power steering. Manual steering would still work.

Tesla says the problem happens infrequently in places where salt is used to clear snow and ice from roads. It’s recalling all the cars even in warm-weather states just in case.

No crashes or injuries have been reported.

Service centers will replace the bolts with ones that are more corrosion-resistant. Owners will be notified Thursday by email. Tesla says replacement parts will be available first in cold-weather areas, then in warmer climates.

And the reaction is clear after-hours…

 

As the company’s stock gives up all of today’s day-session gains and reverts back towards the bond-market’s view…

 

Stormier weather in Muskville…

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The mainstream media is convinced that all of the measures President Trump has taken to sanction Russia and push back on its expanding influence – in the Middle East and in its own back yard – have been mostly for show.

But once again, an NBC News report shows that there’s more to one-sided stories like a report in the Washington Post claiming that Trump congratulated Russian President Vladimir Putin on his recent electoral victory against the explicit advice of Trump’s foreign policy advisors.

As it turns out, during the same conversation, President Trump didn’t hesitate to challenge Putin to an arms race, and boasted that the US would almost inevitably win.

Two officials said Trump told Putin during a phone call last week: “If you want to have an arms race we can do that, but I’ll win.”

Afterward the president gave no hint of tensions when he told reporters the two leaders had “a very good call” and that he plans to meet with Putin soon to discuss curtailing an arms race.

Within days the split between Trump’s Russia policy and public rhetoric was again on display.

Of course, as anybody with even the most glancing familiarity with global nuclear weapons stockpiles would tell you, Trump isn’t wrong.

Still, NBC News tries to play down the significance of Trump’s defiance of Putin – which included a clash between Russian fighters and US-backed coalition forces in Syria that left hundreds of Russians dead.

On at least one punitive policy – the authorization of an arms shipment to Ukraine to combat separatists in the country’s restive east – NBC said Tillerson “wore him down” – referring to Trump.

Rex Tillerson, Trump’s outgoing secretary of state, led the effort to convince Trump to approve the new arms for Ukraine, officials said. The plan, which Russia opposed, included the sale of U.S.-made Javelin anti-tank missiles that Kiev has for years requested from Washington. President Barack Obama had repeatedly refused to approve Ukraine’s request out of concern it would escalate U.S. tensions with Russia.

Tillerson scheduled a meeting with the president to discuss the plan shortly after the national security team approved it last summer, and he raised the issue with Trump in their regular meetings over the next few months, officials said.

As the policy sat on his desk awaiting his signature, the president expressed concern that it would escalate tensions with Russia and lead to a broader conflict, officials said. They said he also saw Ukraine as a problem for Europe and questioned why he should have to do something about it. And he insisted Ukraine purchase the arms from the U.S., not receive them for free, officials said, before signing off on the policy in December.

“Tillerson just wore him down,” a White House official said.

It also reported that Trump encouraged the administration not to tout any actions that might offend Putin – but the US still went ahead with sanctions and the expulsion of diplomats in solidarity with the UK. Trump has also upped the US’s support for the embattled government of Ukraine – doing more than the Obama administration ever did.

In reality, Trump is taking a much harder line against Russia since Putin unveiled a new nuclear weapon that he claims can surpass NATO missile defenses.

President Donald Trump’s national security advisers spent months trying to convince him to sign off on a plan to supply new U.S. weapons to Ukraine to aid in the country’s fight against Russian-backed separatists, according to multiple senior administration officials.

Yet when the president finally authorized the major policy shift, he told his aides not to publicly tout his decision, officials said. Doing so, Trump argued, might agitate Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to the officials.

“He doesn’t want us to bring it up,” one White House official said. “It is not something he wants to talk about.”

Officials said the increasingly puzzling divide between Trump’s policy decisions and public posture on Russia stems from his continued hope for warmer relations with Putin and stubborn refusal to be seen as appeasing the media or critics who question his silence or kind words for the Russian leader. Critics have suggested Trump’s soft approach to Putin has nefarious roots that are somehow entwined with Russia’s interference in the 2016 election and the federal investigation into whether the president’s campaign colluded in that effort, something the president has repeatedly denied.

Behind the scenes, Trump has only recently taken a sharper tone on Putin, administration officials said, but even then the shift seems more a reaction to the Russian leader challenging the president’s strength than a new belief that he’s an adversary. Putin’s claim earlier this month that Russia has new nuclear-capable weapons that could hit the U.S., a threat he underscored with video simulating an attack, “really got under the president’s skin,” one official said.

Trump isn’t the only one to warn about an arms race. Several Russian diplomats have warned that the West’s response to the Skripal poisoning has been too heavy handed.

So, is NBC correct to doubt President Trump’s commitment to containing and countering Russia as it asserts its geopolitical might? Or is there another explanation for why Trump is doing what he’s doing?

What do you think?

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Authored by Celine Ryan via Campus Reform,

An official University of California, Berkeley publication is offering “insights” to help readers “make sense of gun violence,” primarily by blaming it on conservative “white men.”

“For many white men, guns are a source of meaning and purpose,” Jeremy Adam Smith asserts, noting that “the American citizen most likely to own a gun is a white male—but not just any white guy.”

Smith is the editor of Greater Good Magazine, a publication produced by UC-Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center to explore “the science of a meaningful life” and “turn scientific research into stories, tips, and tools for a happier life and a more compassionate society.”

Smith asserts that “the kind of man who stockpiles weapons or applies for a concealed-carry license meets a very specific profile,” referencing a study by two Baylor University sociologists that claims white men are “emotionally and morally attached to their guns.”

“We found that white men who have experienced economic setbacks or worry about their economic futures are the group of owners most attached to their guns,” the article quotes one the study’s authors.

“Those with high attachment felt that having a gun made them a better and more respected member of their communities.”

According to Smith, the researchers determined that the same observation “wasn’t true for most women and people of color,” who “didn’t turn to guns to make themselves feel better” when they encountered setbacks. Religious faith, meanwhile, appeared to lessen white men’s attachment to guns.

Smith says the researchers speculated that “economically insecure, less-religious white men” see gun ownership as “a way to regain their masculinity.”

The article does acknowledge other possible explanations, citing another study finding that many white male gun owners are also motivated by a desire to “be the good guys” and protect their families.

Smith’s fifth insight into gun violence, however, references the same study as evidence that “rising gun sales are linked to racial fears,” explaining that the author of the study discovered that many concealed-carry applicants in Texas mentioned Barack Obama as a motivating factor, specifically his support for “free health care” and “welfare.”

“Obama’s presidency, they feared, would empower minorities to threaten their property and families,” Smith concludes based on those policy-related concerns.

“For many conservatives, the gun feels like a force for order in a chaotic world,” he adds, linking to a study revealing that “conservatives felt less risk and greater personal control than their liberal counterparts” when asked to hold a firearm.

“I don’t think very many conservatives would dispute the idea that firearms can be intensely meaningful,” Smith told Campus Reform. “They are symbols of liberty, independence, self-reliance, power—that’s the kind of meaning the researchers found, and you can see that meaning conveyed on almost every page of the NRA’s website (the slogan on their homepage: ‘It’s not just about guns; it’s about freedom’). I don’t think it’s too much more complicated than that.”

Smith also dismissed the notion that recent rises in firearms purchases may have more to do with concerns about escalating gun control rhetoric than “racial fears,” telling Campus Reform that such a belief would be “at least partially contradicted by the empirical research” covered in his article.

“No one study can ever be considered definitive,” he added, “but when you see the same results turning up again and again, through multiple methodologies, that means something.”

*  *  *
To this poor misled Cal student author, we have two words for you – Baltimore… and Chicago.

Source

And for Chicago in 2016…Doesn’t look like “White Men” are committing all the gun violence?

Source

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Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg might want to rethink his decision to snub the UK Parliament by declining to appear in person to offer testimony on the widening scandal surrounding its utilization abuse of sensitive user data for commercial purposes

Because, in a bombshell report published minutes before US markets close for a long holiday weekend, the Financial Times is alleging that the researcher whom Facebook has blamed for lying about his decision to collect and sell data gleaned from hundreds of thousands of Facebook users (and approximately 50 million of their friends) actually had every right to sell the data.

And the researcher, Dr. Aleksandr Kogan, even disclosed his plans to market the data in a contract issued along with an update to Kogan’s app.

The problem is, Facebook approved the terms submitted by Kogan using an automated process for examining app upgrades – and none of the company’s human employees bothered to manually override or reject this.

Cambridge Analytica whistleblower Chris Wylie told the FT in an interview that Facebook “didn’t really do anything to safeguard the data” – citing its decision to greenlight an app that explicitly violated Facebook’s own guidelines regarding the use of its data by third parties.

The big problem for Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is that in an interview with CNN last week he sought to convince the public that its lax data protections were a thing of the past – and that it had adopted new guidelines sometime around 2014 that would’ve banned behavior like the widespread collection and dissemination of Facebook user data carried out by Kogan’s app.

The guidelines also prohibited third-party app developers from selling the data to marketers or other third parties.

However, these rules were apparently routinely flouted thanks to the company’s apparent lack of resources dedicated to enforcement.

And in the case of Kogan’s app, the company even provided the rubber stamp of approval.

The social network was sent terms and conditions for the second version of the survey app, which pulled user data that was then leaked to Cambridge Analytica, the data analytics firm. These contradicted Facebook’s own platform policies, according to Chris Wylie, the former Cambridge Analytica employee turned whistleblower.

But the social network relied on an automated process to accept updates, so no employee at Facebook may have seen the app’s new policy, which disclosed that it could sell and transfer the data.

The first version of the app, which was reviewed by Facebook, said the opposite: it claimed to be a “research program” and said “users will be informed that the data will be carefully protected and never used for commercial purposes”, the social network said.

But the Financial Times has seen a copy of a document submitted to the company by Aleksandr Kogan, the academic who built the survey app that ran on the social network. The data collected via the app was passed on to Cambridge Analytica and used to gather the information of up to 50m users.

In the document, Global Science Research, Mr Kogan’s company, outlined terms and conditions that asked users for permission to collect information, including their likes and status updates as well as those of their Facebook friends. The terms stated that the company would have the right to “edit, copy, disseminate, publish, transfer, append or merge with other databases, sell, license . . . and archive your contribution and data”.

Shortly after the initial reports about Cambridge Analytica’s allegedly nefarious leveraging of purportedly ill-gotten user data, Kogan expressed his surprise at being blamed for the scandal.

“I don’t know any app whose terms of service and privacy policy comply with what Facebook says is its privacy policy,” he said. “If they really care, then why do they do nothing to enforce it?”

Looking back, it appears Kogan had a point.

Facebook’s new privacy guidelines came into affect for all apps in 2015. Zuckerberg has repeatedly claimed that when Facebook learned of Kogan’s violations in 2015, it banned his app and demanded that he delete the data – and provide the company with a certificate verifying that the data had been deleted.

Kogan’s agreement with SCL, Cambridge’s parent company, informing the company that he might soon lose access to some user data because of the new guidelines was published Thursday by the UK Parliament’s digital, culture, media and sport committee.

In separate documents published by the UK parliament’s digital, culture, media and sport committee on Thursday, Mr Kogan’s company was explicit that it was operating under Facebook’s old terms of service, and he would not be able to collect the data under the new policy which came into force for all apps in 2015. The documents that Mr Wylie handed to the committee included an agreement between GSR and SCL, Cambridge Analytica’s parent company, dated June 2014. This was after Facebook had announced a change for news apps but the social network allowed a year for existing apps to adjust.

Zuckerberg has also claimed that Facebook implemented a more forceful app-review policy when it adopted those guidelines in 2014. But the documents seen by the FT suggest that this process was hardly rigorous at all.

Which begs the question: How many more apps managed to circumvent Facebook’s new guidelines?

Investors are apparently worried that the number might be more than Facebook’s users (or the regulators and lawmakers threatening the company with regulation and/or bankruptcy) can stomach. Shares moved lower ahead of the cash close in New York.

Maybe the report from The FT is why Zuckerberg has been such as active seller of the stock?

 

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One week after Israel demonstratively released a video of  a 2007 airstrike on a suspected Syrian nuclear facility (after refusing to officially acknowledge the operation for more than a decade), the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Jarida reported late on Thursday that 2 Israeli F-35 stealth fighters had entered Iranian airspace over the past month.

Sources quoted in Al-Jarida said that two stealth fighters flew over Syrian and Iraqi airspace to reach Iran, and even targeted locations in the Iranian cities Bandar Abbas, Esfahan and Shiraz. Then the two ultra advanced fighter jets circled at high altitude above Persian Gulf – read Iranian – sites suspected of being associated with the Iranian nuclear program.

Ominously, the Kuwaiti newspaper also reports that the two jets went undetected by radar, including the Russian radar system located in Syria. It was unclear if the provocative Israeli operation was undertaken in coordination with the US army, which recently conducted joint exercises with the IDF (recall “Top US General Says American Troops Should Be Ready To Die For Israel“)

The Kuwaiti report added that the seven F-35 fighters in active service in the Israel Air Force have conducted a number of missions in Syria and on the Lebanese-Syrian border, and highlighted that the fighter jets can travel from Israel to Iran twice without refueling.

According to the Jerusalem Post, “the act is a signal of heightened regional tensions, especially in light of recent Israeli military attacks in Syria, including against Iranian bases in the country.“

Israel has had no qualms about admitting it launching about 100 air strikes on Syria over the past five years, targeting Hezbollah terrorists, weapons convoys and infrastructure, and it is believed to be behind dozens more. Things turned ugly in February when an Israel attempt to provoke Syria and Iran backfired: one month ago, Israeli F-16 fighter jets entered Syrian airspace, striking 12 Iranian targets in Syria in response to an Iranian drone that was shot down over Israel. Two Israeli crew members were wounded when they ejected from their jet before it crashed, which, according to Israel, was determined to be caused by pilot error.

In response to the Iranian drone, a senior Israeli official quoted by the JPost warned that Israel will react with force to Iran’s efforts to entrench itself further in Syria: “the Iranians are determined to continue to establish themselves in Syria, and the next incident is only a matter of time,” he said, warning that Israel does not rule out that that the Islamic Republic will continue to try to attack Israel.

* * *

Meanwhile, if Israel is looking for a military conflict spark, whether legitimate or “false flag”, it may get this opportunity as soon as tomorrow, when the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas is reportedly planning a mass demonstration along Israel’s border on Friday, prompting fears of a new war with the Jewish state ahead of the Passover holiday, according to regional experts and U.S. officials who say they are closely monitoring the situation.

According to the Washington Free Beacon, following a recent military exercise described by observers as “unprecedented,” Hamas leaders called for some 100,000 Gaza Strip resident to engage in six weeks of mass demonstrations along the Israeli border as Jewish families gear up for the Passover holiday, which begins Friday evening.

Regional experts closely tracking the situation say the demonstrations are meant as cover for a mass military campaign to swarm Israel’s border and stoke violence against the Jewish state.

The situation is being closely monitored by Trump administration officials, who outlined concerns that Hamas could use civilian protesters as human shields as cover for attacks on Israeli forces. State Department officials told the Washington Free Beacon that they are aware of the upcoming protests and will be tracking the situation closely.

“We are aware of calls by Hamas asking people to march along the Israeli border over the coming weeks,” one U.S. official told the Free Beacon.” We will monitor the situation and developments closely.”

The State Department also emphasized that it still considers Hamas a terror group and is aware of its routine use of human shields during terror operations. “Our position on Hamas has not changed,” the official said. “It is a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization. Any use of human shields is absolutely unacceptable.”

Omri Ceren, a managing director at The Israel Project, a D.C.-based organization that works on Middle East issues, warned that Hamas is using civilian protests as cover for a massive military operation that could launch another regional war.

Evidence suggests Hamas has already prepared to flood Israel with armed assets during the demonstration and has even positioned equipment such as tractors to shift the ground and erect fortifications.

“Hamas is trying to trigger a Passover War and the U.N. seems eager to help them,” Ceren said. “Hamas is preparing thousands of civilians to rush Israel’s border, tear down the defensive fence, and provide cover as Hamas fighters flood into Israel.”

While Israeli military officials have planned to use as little force as possible to control any violent eruption, things could get out of hand quickly, Ceren said.

“The Israelis will do everything possible to prevent escalation and avoid casualties, but this is the kind of thing that could go really bad really quickly,” he explained.

Of course, the alternative is that Israel will be delighted by, and eagerly welcome any military escalation as it will give it a greenlight to strike not only Palestine, but the country it accuses of being the biggest supporter of Hamas, Iran.

In other words, there is a non-trivial probability that a war betwen Israel and Iran may break out as soon as this weekend, catalyzed by one of several potential triggers.

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Authored by Simon Black via SovereignMan.com,

It’s about time. Someone has finally discovered what the adult entertainment industry has been missing for so many years: blockchain.

It’s true: a bunch of porn stars have recently gotten together to launch Bunny Software Ltd, a new cryptofinance startup that aims to ‘disrupt’ how people pay for pornography.

Instead of charging your credit card for that Pornhub Premium account, now you can charge your credit card for Bitcoin… then trade Bitcoin for Bunny Tokens, then trade your Bunny Tokens for porn.

Seems like quite a bit of extra work to go through– especially considering there are already a number of ways to discreetly make purchases online.

Dozens of services exist, for example, that offer disposable credit card numbers to help anonymize online transactions.

They’re cheap. Safe. Efficient. And proven.

But in the heady world of cryptofinance, none of those benefits matters.

The only thing people seem to care about is whether or not you’re doing something with the Blockchain.

If you are, then your business must obviously be a winner… even when there is absolutely no rational reason why your product or service would even need the blockchain.

Remember– the Blockchain is essentially a de-centralized ledger… a public database that isn’t controlled by any single individual.

Think about your bank account as an example.

Every record of every financial transaction you’ve ever made at your bank is kept in a giant database… a database that is controlled by the bank.

The blockchain, however, isn’t controlled by any single individual. It’s a database whose contents are securely distributed among everyone who uses it.

There are certainly some spectacular uses of the blockchain, especially in finance.

Stock purchases. Property titles. Shareholder records.

But that doesn’t mean that EVERYTHING should be in the Blockchain.

I mean, seriously, do we really need to upload our weekly grocery lists, or childrens’ report cards, into the Blockchain?

Some data doesn’t need to be made public. Or decentralized. Or distributed.

But in their zeal to grab onto the hottest financial trend in the world right now, people are coming up with the most idiotic uses of the Blockchain.

I recently read an article on Bloomberg about an ex-Google employee that wants to use Blockchain to track pigs from the field to the grocery store shelf.

I’ve read about other guys using Blockchain to track tips that people pay to bloggers.

IBM is studying how to use the blockchain to track cannabis distribution.

There’s just no end to these useless applications of the Blockchain.

And now we’ve got Bunny Tokens… a way for people to pay for porn using the Blockchain.

The company recently launched an ICO to raise money.

And if you spend some time on Bunny’s website you’ll learn that the board consists of several porn stars and a porn director.

You also learn the company has already partnered with a few businesses whose names are so explicit I can’t mention them here.

Yet after reading through 42-page white paper and watching their pitch videos, I realized that Bunny isn’t relying on a sound business plan or any actual technology to attract investors.

Sex sells. And BunnyToken is using porn stars its board members to bait the crypto rich into investing.

The message is clear: “Don’t worry about how we’re going to make money. Instead, just watch this video of a Russian porn actress explaining why you should invest in Bunny’s ICO.”

As ridiculous as this all sounds, though, the company has already raised $3 million. And they’re just getting started.

Across the entire crypto sector, more than $9 billion has been through ICOs.

And as I told you earlier this month, nearly half of all 2017 ICOs have already failed.

That failure rate will only increase with time.

Remember that ICOs aren’t even an asset class. That’s the craziest part of all.

Companies looking to raise cash simply need to publish a white paper explaining how their incomprehensibly silly use of the blockchain will ‘disrupt’ some industry.

And then the money starts rolling in.

Instead of traditional equity, though, companies sell “tokens” that are essentially pre-paid credits to be used within their very limited eco-system.

Imagine your neighbor wants to open an ice cream shop and came to you for investment capital.

But instead of offering you a stake in the business, he promises you a bunch of gift certificates that you can use to buy ice cream.

That’s basically what these ICO tokens are– gift cards.

Whether or not these tokens will have any value in the future depends entirely on the executives’ abilities to grow and build a sustainable business.

If your neighbor is a moron and runs the ice cream shop into the ground, your gift card will be worthless.

Similarly, if Bunny’s board of porn stars fall a little bit short of Richard Branson’s business acumen, the company will fail, and Bunny Tokens will go to zero.

And even if by some miracle, Bunny becomes a real business, token holders have no stake in the company.

That’s precisely the problem with most of these ICOs… too much downside, not enough upside.

And the entire sector is littered with stupidity, fraud, and senseless investors who aren’t thinking rationally.

What could possibly go wrong?

If you’ve been a reader for more than a few weeks, you know that I’m not anti-crypto.

I was a very early adopter of Bitcoin and have made a number of crypto investments over the years… including a six figure investment just a few weeks ago.

But this is about avoiding big mistakes.

And most of these ICOs are huge mistakes… incredible opportunities to lose money.

99% of them are going to zero because they’re not real businesses.

They’re just a quick fad… an easy way to dress up some silly idea in grown-up clothes and pass it off as a credible investment.

And to continue learning how to safely grow your wealth, I encourage you to download our free Perfect Plan B Guide.

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In what appears to be the first major data breach involving a health-and-fitness-tracking app, Under Armour disclosed to its customers just a half hour after markets closed Thursday for a long weekend that MyFitnessPal, a fitness app owned by Under Armour, had experienced a breach that potentially exposed the user data of 150 million people.

The company said it’s “working with leading data security firms to assist in its investigation” into how the “unauthorized party” came to acquire the data from MyFitnessPal. Unlike Equifax executives Under Armour said it learned about the hack earlier this week, and decided to go public right away. The breach occurred in February.

Under Armour, Inc. (NYSE: UA, UAA) today announced that it is notifying users of MyFitnessPal – the company’s food and nutrition application and website – about a data security issue. On March 25, the MyFitnessPal team became aware that an unauthorized party acquired data associated with MyFitnessPal user accounts in late February 2018. The company quickly took steps to determine the nature and scope of the issue and to alert the MyFitnessPal community of the incident.

Under Armour is working with leading data security firms to assist in its investigation, and also coordinating with law enforcement authorities. The investigation indicates that the affected information included usernames, email addresses, and hashed passwords – the majority with the hashing function called bcrypt used to secure passwords.

The affected data did not include government-issued identifiers (such as Social Security numbers and driver’s license numbers), which the company does not collect from users. Payment card data was also not affected because it is collected and processed separately. The company’s investigation is ongoing, but indicates that approximately 150 million user accounts were affected by this issue.

Four days after learning of the issue, the company began notifying the MyFitnessPal community via email and through in-app messaging. The notice contains recommendations for MyFitnessPal users regarding account security steps they can take to help protect their information. The company will be requiring MyFitnessPal users to change their passwords and is urging users to do so immediately.

Under Armour shares slid in after-hours trading, reflecting the seriousness of the breach.

Given all the attention being paid to corporate America’s lax standards for safeguarding sensitive customer data, we wonder: Will Under Armour executives also be hauled in front of Congress next month?

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