In the wake of the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, protests have erupted around the country, calling attention to racial disparities in the way that black people are treated by the criminal justice system and by American society more generally.
Brown University’s Glenn Loury has emerged as one of the most vocal and outspoken critics of Black Lives Matter and other groups arguing that systemic racism is at the center of the African American experience in the United States today. Loury worries that our institutions are failing “to affirm the primacy of reason over violence in calibrating our reactions to the supposed ‘oppression,'” as he wrote in response to an open letter from his school’s administrators that highlighted “anger” at what they called an “ongoing epidemic of racism.”
The 72-year-old professor—the first African American to be granted tenure in Harvard’s economics department back in the 1970s—talked with Reason via Zoom about how the U.S. has changed for the better over his lifetime, why understanding history is vital to social change, and whether rational discourse has any purchase in social and political debates.
Edited by John Osterhoudt.
Photo credit: Loury at Harvard, Associated Press
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Sen. Martha McSally (R–Ariz.) wants to use the tax code to subsidize middle-class Americans’ cross-country travel during the COVID-19 pandemic.
On Monday, the Arizona senator released the text of her Tax Rebate and Incentive Program (TRIP) Act, which would provide every American adult with a $4,000 tax credit they could spend on domestic vacations. Married couples who file jointly would qualify for an $8,000 tax credit, plus $500 for each child under 17.
“The tourism and hospitality industries were among the hardest hit sectors across the country and their revival is critical to our economic recovery,” McSally said in a press release. “My legislation will help boost domestic travel and jumpstart the comeback of our hotels, entertainment sectors, [and] local tourism agencies.”
The TRIP Act would allow taxpayers to write off money they spend on food, lodging, transportation, and live entertainment events, including sporting events for vacations they take between January 2020 and January 2022. This means McSally’s bill would subsidize vacations taken before the first COVID-19 lockdowns went into effect.
McSally’s bill also provides $50 million to support state and non-profit tourism marketing boards.
The travel tax credit would be nonrefundable, which means someone with no federal tax burden wouldn’t be able to make use of it. That limits the costs of the tax credit but also ensures that its benefits will accrue mostly to wealthier taxpayers.
Bloomberg reporter Steven Dennis notes that the credit doesn’t come with an income cap either, meaning even the highest income earners could claim it.
Unlike a lot of tax credits (children, the pandemic stimulus checks, etc.) which phase out at higher incomes, I don't see an income cap in the bill.
The bill has received some qualified support from former Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang.
I like it if it’s a staycation. Or visiting family in the next state over. Money in people’s hands is a good thing.
— Andrew Yang???????????? (@AndrewYang) June 23, 2020
President Donald Trump expressed support for an “Explore America” tax credit last month, although he gave few details about the policy.
The idea for a travel tax credit appears to be the brainchild of the U.S. Travel Association. The trade lobby has proposed a temporary $4,000 tax credit per household that could be spent on qualifying travel expenses like rental cars and restaurant meals.
Given how long everyone has been cooped up inside, the idea of a little getaway sounds pretty nice. Nevertheless, there’s something for everyone to hate in McSally’s proposal.
The fact that it’d effectively subsidize only middle- and upper-class tourists should irk progressives, who’d rather see the government spend money on unemployment benefits and other programs. Paid vacations, progressives argue, should be the mandated responsibility of employers.
Just so we’re all clear: McSally wants to give an $8000 tax cut to rich people (low-income people don’t qualify) at the same time that she also wants cut the pay of people who got laid off by about $12,000. https://t.co/n6nqH81CWx
Sen. McSally’s American Trip Act got me to thinking about a bill I worked on when I was in the Senate. It was Sen. Sanders’ Guaranteed Paid Vacation Act. It’s nice to have $$$ to take a vaca, but people need vaca days. Our bill did both.https://t.co/pmiNbztD3ppic.twitter.com/AQBnuLZsTa
Deficit hawks, meanwhile, should oppose a massive new tax credit that comes with no spending offsets, given the trillions in new spending Congress has already approved to combat the economic impact of COVID-19.
Public health scolds would be on solid ground when criticizing the TRIP Act for subsidizing non-essential travel in the middle of a deadly pandemic.
Critics of crony capitalism should be aghast at the idea that McSally’s travel tax credit is double what the travel industry itself has proposed.
While libertarians might like the idea of a tax cut in the middle of a recession, the TRIP Act contains too much behavioral micromanagement: Taxpayers could only reclaim some of the money they owe the federal government if they take a vacation before January 2022, and if that vacation takes them farther than 50 miles from their home but not outside the U.S.
No matter your politics, McSally’s TRIP Act is a terrible idea. Taxpayers should tell her to take a hike.
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In the wake of the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, protests have erupted around the country, calling attention to racial disparities in the way that black people are treated by the criminal justice system and by American society more generally.
Brown University’s Glenn Loury has emerged as one of the most vocal and outspoken critics of Black Lives Matter and other groups arguing that systemic racism is at the center of the African American experience in the United States today. Loury worries that our institutions are failing “to affirm the primacy of reason over violence in calibrating our reactions to the supposed ‘oppression,'” as he wrote in response to an open letter from his school’s administrators that highlighted “anger” at what they called an “ongoing epidemic of racism.”
The 72-year-old professor—the first African American to be granted tenure in Harvard’s economics department back in the 1970s—talked with Reason via Zoom about how the U.S. has changed for the better over his lifetime, why understanding history is vital to social change, and whether rational discourse has any purchase in social and political debates.
Edited by John Osterhoudt.
Photo credit: Loury at Harvard, Associated Press
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via IFTTT
Sen. Martha McSally (R–Ariz.) wants to use the tax code to subsidize middle-class Americans’ cross-country travel during the COVID-19 pandemic.
On Monday, the Arizona senator released the text of her Tax Rebate and Incentive Program (TRIP) Act, which would provide every American adult with a $4,000 tax credit they could spend on domestic vacations. Married couples who file jointly would qualify for an $8,000 tax credit, plus $500 for each child under 17.
“The tourism and hospitality industries were among the hardest hit sectors across the country and their revival is critical to our economic recovery,” McSally said in a press release. “My legislation will help boost domestic travel and jumpstart the comeback of our hotels, entertainment sectors, [and] local tourism agencies.”
The TRIP Act would allow taxpayers to write off money they spend on food, lodging, transportation, and live entertainment events, including sporting events for vacations they take between January 2020 and January 2022. This means McSally’s bill would subsidize vacations taken before the first COVID-19 lockdowns went into effect.
McSally’s bill also provides $50 million to support state and non-profit tourism marketing boards.
The travel tax credit would be nonrefundable, which means someone with no federal tax burden wouldn’t be able to make use of it. That limits the costs of the tax credit but also ensures that its benefits will accrue mostly to wealthier taxpayers.
Bloomberg reporter Steven Dennis notes that the credit doesn’t come with an income cap either, meaning even the highest income earners could claim it.
Unlike a lot of tax credits (children, the pandemic stimulus checks, etc.) which phase out at higher incomes, I don't see an income cap in the bill.
The bill has received some qualified support from former Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang.
I like it if it’s a staycation. Or visiting family in the next state over. Money in people’s hands is a good thing.
— Andrew Yang???????????? (@AndrewYang) June 23, 2020
President Donald Trump expressed support for an “Explore America” tax credit last month, although he gave few details about the policy.
The idea for a travel tax credit appears to be the brainchild of the U.S. Travel Association. The trade lobby has proposed a temporary $4,000 tax credit per household that could be spent on qualifying travel expenses like rental cars and restaurant meals.
Given how long everyone has been cooped up inside, the idea of a little getaway sounds pretty nice. Nevertheless, there’s something for everyone to hate in McSally’s proposal.
The fact that it’d effectively subsidize only middle- and upper-class tourists should irk progressives, who’d rather see the government spend money on unemployment benefits and other programs. Paid vacations, progressives argue, should be the mandated responsibility of employers.
Just so we’re all clear: McSally wants to give an $8000 tax cut to rich people (low-income people don’t qualify) at the same time that she also wants cut the pay of people who got laid off by about $12,000. https://t.co/n6nqH81CWx
Sen. McSally’s American Trip Act got me to thinking about a bill I worked on when I was in the Senate. It was Sen. Sanders’ Guaranteed Paid Vacation Act. It’s nice to have $$$ to take a vaca, but people need vaca days. Our bill did both.https://t.co/pmiNbztD3ppic.twitter.com/AQBnuLZsTa
Deficit hawks, meanwhile, should oppose a massive new tax credit that comes with no spending offsets, given the trillions in new spending Congress has already approved to combat the economic impact of COVID-19.
Public health scolds would be on solid ground when criticizing the TRIP Act for subsidizing non-essential travel in the middle of a deadly pandemic.
Critics of crony capitalism should be aghast at the idea that McSally’s travel tax credit is double what the travel industry itself has proposed.
While libertarians might like the idea of a tax cut in the middle of a recession, the TRIP Act contains too much behavioral micromanagement: Taxpayers could only reclaim some of the money they owe the federal government if they take a vacation before January 2022, and if that vacation takes them farther than 50 miles from their home but not outside the U.S.
No matter your politics, McSally’s TRIP Act is a terrible idea. Taxpayers should tell her to take a hike.
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Hedge Fund Generates 34% Return Using Just AI And Machine-Learning Tyler Durden
Wed, 06/24/2020 – 14:10
Ever since the advent of active asset management, Wall Street has had two holy grails: finding a consistent source of Alpha (which these days simply means frontrunning the Fed), and finding a replacement to the most expensive cost-center in the asset management industry: analysts. And while many have tried and failed to replace (highly paid) humans, an obscure German hedge fund is appears to have struck gold after generating a 34% gain in 2020 using a machine-learning program targeting need-for-speed markets.
While many quants have struggled to exploit the promise of AI over the years, Quantumrock’s $50 million Volatility Special Opportunities Programme has just drawn an additional $500 million of institutional cash – after averaging an impressive 16% annual return since its 2016 inception. And, as Bloomberg reports, with senior personnel hailing from the tech industry rather than finance – similar to the world’s most lucrative hedge fund RenTec – “founder Stefan Tittel credits the program’s capacity to ride febrile markets swaying from depression panic to euphoria in less than three months.”
“What we see now is that market regimes and patterns change almost on a daily basis,” said the Munich-based entrepreneur in his first asset-management venture. “Since we deploy an AI machine-learning platform — which is all the time analyzing and listening to the market and analyzing the shift in pattern probability — we can keep track of those changes.”
What is the secret of Quantumrock’s success?
According to the report, while half of the fund is a mundane balanced portfolio strategy consisting of S&P 500 and Treasury futures, “the other half comprises overlay strategies including volatility investing which made big bucks in this year’s extreme price swings.” And with the weighting and parameters shifting in sync with the market, when it’s quiet like last year, these strategies are activated less often. Alternatively, during times of excessive volatility, the fund seeks to leverage its… well, leverage.
To be sure, many would argue that Quantumrock’s impressive performance is a fluke and unlikely to be repeated consistently in the future: its success goes straight to a debate raging in this corner of systematic finance.
While many quants like short-term trend followers argue modern markets require ever-faster and more adaptable strategies, others say timing shifts in fickle markets is fool-hardy and costly.
So is the German fund’s AI the missing link? For now, the jury is out, and as Bloomberg concedes “it’s hard to broadly conclude whether it can deliver a tangible edge. That’s especially the case when the buzzword encompasses an array of techniques from scanning reams of text to decision trees used to find outperforming stocks.” But according to head of AI systems Roman Gorbunov, who has no background in finance, the technology beats traditional quant methods “because it can find patterns at a much larger scale and hone in on trading signals.”
“You have a lot of noise in the data because markets are very efficient,” said Gorbunov, whose last gig was working on Amazon Inc.’s voice-command system Alexa. “If you have a situation where the strategy is performing well just because it utilizes noise and not real patterns, we can detect those situations in advance.”
What he actually means is that with the “market” now a mandated policy vehicle targeting 10-year-olds, where retail daytraders outperform career finance professionals, it is hardly a surprise that some coked-up algo which accentuates the market’s wild swings has been successful at outperforming the market. What is left unsaid is all the other algos that have blown up over the years trying to do just that.
Of course, if the fund can continue to successfully outperform not only the S&P500 but most hedge funds, that would be very bad news for thousands of highly paid analysts and PMs who year after year fail to beat their benchmark and/or the market, as most if not all of them will soon be replaced by a computer program. And they have Jerome Powell to thank for their upcoming obsolescence.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/3fTClfX Tyler Durden
Attorney General William Barr is bringing increasing clarity to the focus of U.S. Attorney John Durham’s criminal investigation into the conduct of the Russia collusion investigators.
In a series of recent interviews, the nation’s chief enforcement officer has dropped some big hints about what is under investigation, who is and isn’t being investigated, and what evidence uncovered by the Durham team is emerging as important.
Barr also has suggested what events in the timeline are emerging as important in the 2016-17 effort to find dirt on President Trump and his campaign and transition team.
Here are the seven most important revelations Barr has made over the last month.
1. Timetable: Durham’s investigation has been slowed by the pandemic. But some action is expected by end of summer, and the probe could stretch beyond Election Day.
Barr told Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo on Sunday that the coronavirus has slowed Durham’s ability to interview witnesses and use a grand jury if needed, though he did not officially confirm there was grand jury activity in the case.
“It is a fact that there have not been grand juries in virtually all districts for a long period of time,” Barr said.
But most importantly, the attorney general laid out a likely timeline for when the first actions might be taken in the case, while stressing the probe could carry beyond the election.
“In terms of the future of Durham’s investigation, he’s pressing ahead as hard as he can, and I expect that we will have some developments, hopefully before the end of the summer,” Barr said. “But as I’ve said, his investigation will continue. It’s not going to stop because of the election. What happens after the election may depend on who wins the election.”
2. Barr believes evidence used by the FBI to justify opening an investigation into the Trump campaign’s ties to Moscow was very thin.
The attorney general has made clear in multiple interviews that Australian diplomat Alexander Downer’s meeting with Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos at a London bar in May 2016 was a weak justification for opening Crossfire Hurricane.
Downer claimed Papadopoulos made comments about Russians possessing dirt on Hillary Clinton, and the FBI believed that was enough to predicate a counterintelligence investigation.
DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz agreed in his report that was enough, but found substantial evidence the FBI cheated afterwards to keep the probe going in the absence of evidence of wrongdoing.
Barr does not seem to accept the opening of the FBI probe was justified.
Papadopoulos’ alleged “comment in a London wine bar” would be “a very slender reed to get law enforcement and intelligence agencies involved in investigating the campaign of one’s political opponent,” Barr declared Sunday.
Barr isn’t the only high-profile figure to think that. Former FBI Assistant Director for Intelligence Kevin Brock has said the FBI memo opening Crossfire Hurricane did not meet the standards for opening a counter-intelligence investigation.
3. Investigators are focused on what happened before Crossfire Hurricane officially started, including when Christopher Steele first began compiling his dossier.
In multiple interviews, Barr has made clear Durham’s team is examining what actions government officials and private individuals may have taken in the winter and spring of 2016 before the FBI officially opened its probe of the Trump campaign on July 31, 2016.
Perhaps the most tantalizing statement Barr has made on this came Sunday when he suggested it was important that Steele began working on his dossier before July 2016, raising the possibility that some unexplained events earlier that year may have been connected to that early Steele work.
“I understand why it is important to try to determine whether there was any activity before July, before the Papadopoulos wine bar conversation,” Barr explained. “And so people are looking at that. It’s significant also that the dossier was initiated before July.”
4. Barr views the FBI’s continuation of the Russia probe after the Steele dossier “collapsed” as an illegitimate effort to remove the president.
Barr has repeatedly cited the fact that the FBI continued to rely on the Steele dossier after the former MI6 agent’s primary sub-source contradicted information in the dossier in January 2017 and March 2017 — and failed to tell the FISA court about the problems with the repudiated evidence.
“The dossier pretty much collapsed at that point — and yet they continued to use it as a basis for pursuing this counterintelligence investigation,” Barr noted this past weekend.
The attorney general suggested such behavior supports arguments that what was really going on was an attempted coup to remove Trump from office. “It is the closest we have come to an organized effort to push a president out of office,” he said.
5. There are multiple criminal investigations into leaks of classified information.
Barr made clear that Durham and others are examining multiple leaks for possible criminal violations while cautioning proving leak cases can be challenging. One of those is focused on who leaked Michael Flynn’s call with the Russian ambassador.
“Leaking national defense information, unauthorized disclosure of that information is a felony,” Barr said. “We have a lot of leak investigations underway.”
6. Barr is concerned by the outgoing Obama administration’s extensive unmasking of Americans’ conversations … but don’t expect Barack Obama or Joe Biden to get in trouble.
After the recent revelation that more than three dozen Obama administration officials sought to unmask intercepted conversations of incoming Trump National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, Barr declared, “It makes you wonder what they were doing.”
“It’s unusual for an outgoing administration, high-level officials, to be unmasking very much in the days they’re preparing to leave office,” he added.
As a sign of that concern, Barr has named a U.S. attorney from Texas to assist Durham to examine the unmaskings for any illegalities.
But Barr also tamped down any expectation that the former president or vice president will be investigated, stating clearly they are not targets of the probe.
“As to President Obama and Vice President Biden, whatever their level of involvement, based on the information I have today, I don’t expect Mr. Durham’s work will lead to a criminal investigation of either man,” the attorney general said last month. “Our concern over potential criminality is focused on others.”
7. Durham is examining whether political pressures were applied during the intelligence community’s assessment of Russia’s intentions in 2016 election meddling. That could be bad news for former CIA chief John Brennan.
In the Obama administration’s final days, Brennan, outgoing DNI James Clapper and then-FBI Director James Comey release the Intelligence Community Assessment, which declared Russia meddled in the 2016 election with hacking and Facebook ads and that Moscow’s intention was to help Trump win.
The first conclusion is widely accepted, while the second is more controversial, especially now that evidence has been declassified showing Russia was feeding derogatory disinformation about Trump to Steele. Why, experts wonder, would Russia be doing that if Putin wanted Trump to win?
Barr said Durham is investigating whether any political pressure was brought to bear to come to that second conclusion. Sources have told Just the News there is some evidence that CIA analysts and others had concerns about the strength of the evidence about Russia’s intentions.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2YvkqX3 Tyler Durden
Sens. Lindsey Graham (R–S.C.) and Tom Cotton (R–Ark.) have joined forces to sponsor encryption legislation that Attorney General William Barr supports, so it’s almost certainly a threat to Americans’ data privacy and security in the name of allegedly helping law enforcement fight terrorism, drug trafficking, and child porn.
On Tuesday, Graham, Cotton, and co-sponsor Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R–Tenn.) introduced the Lawful Access to Encrypted Data Act. The full text of the bill is not yet available, but a summary posted at the Senate’s Judiciary Committee (where Graham is the chairman) makes the bill’s goals clear: “The debate over encryption and lawful access has raged on, unresolved, for years. The Lawful Access to Encrypted Data Act would bring an end to warrant-proof encryption in devices, platforms, and systems.”
They’re referring to end-to-end encryption, a tool for protecting data from hacking and outside access by making it very difficult, if not impossible, for anybody without permission to access the encrypted info. Even the company that created the communications device or app (like Apple or Facebook) cannot gain access to the data. That’s the point of this type of encryption.
Here are the components of the legislation listed in the summary:
“Once a warrant is obtained, the bill would require device manufacturers and service providers to assist law enforcement with accessing encrypted data if assistance would aid in the execution of the warrant.”
“It allows the Attorney General to issue directives to service providers and device manufacturers to report on their ability to comply with court orders, including timelines for implementation.”
“[It] directs the Attorney General to create a prize competition to award participants who create a lawful access solution in an encrypted environment, while maximizing privacy and security.”
“[It] funds a grant program within the Justice Department’s National Domestic Communications Assistance Center (NDCAC) to increase digital evidence training for law enforcement and creates a call center for advice and assistance during investigations.”
Strong encryption is a boon to consumers (and even government officials themselves) because it makes it so much harder for criminals and others to access your data and messages, which helps prevent identity theft. In countries with authoritarian governments, encryption protects the communications of dissidents and activists from being snooped on by repressive regimes.
It also stops the FBI and law enforcement officials from getting access to private data, even when they have a legal warrant to search a device like a phone or computer. So as end-to-end encryption implementation has grown across many platforms and communication tools (Zoom, which has grown in prominence since COVID-19 shut down in-person meetings, announced last week they’d be implementing it for all users, not just paying subscribers), the Department of Justice (DOJ) has become more vocal about demanding access.
But there’s a problem that the DOJ and these senators still aren’t taking seriously: It’s impossible to create a mechanism for bypassing encryption that cannot end up in the wrong hands. An encryption key or “back door” can be used by anybody who learns how it works, whether that person is an identity thief or a foreign government.
The Lawful Access to Encrypted Data Act isn’t contending with that problem. The summary says that the attorney general can’t issue a directive with “specific technical steps for implementing the required capabilities”—meaning that the attorney general cannot specifically order encryption “back doors.” But if the attorney general can nevertheless order companies to “assist” and make data accessible to the feds, it is, in all the ways that matter, ordering a back door.
Barr supports the bill and the DOJ might have even helped craft the legislation, given that “#LawfulAccess” has been the department’s inept hashtag campaign in its efforts to compromise encryption, and they have an information page devoted to it.
Politicians and government officials keep insisting they’re “confident” that tech companies can find a way to allow for strong encryption while only giving government officials access, even as all tech experts and companies try to explain, over and over again, that they cannot do this.
“End-to-end encryption is a necessity in modern life—it protects billions of messages sent every day on many apps and services, especially in times like these when we can’t be together. Rolling back this vital protection will make us all less safe, not more. We are committed to continuing to work with law enforcement and fighting abuse while preserving the ability for all Americans to communicate privately and securely.”
Barr needs to be paying better attention to what happened in Russia: They attempted to order the app Telegram to provide encryption keys, and the company refused, so Russia attempted to ban the app, but it didn’t work. Russians continued to download and use the app and recently the Russian government relented.
That might be why this bill proposes an encryption-cracking competition rather than a ban. But you really shouldn’t trust for a moment that the DOJ would prioritize “maximizing priority and security” in evaluating who might claim this bounty, given that they’ve flat-out refused to listen to tech and privacy experts.
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Sens. Lindsey Graham (R–S.C.) and Tom Cotton (R–Ark.) have joined forces to sponsor encryption legislation that Attorney General William Barr supports, so it’s almost certainly a threat to Americans’ data privacy and security in the name of allegedly helping law enforcement fight terrorism, drug trafficking, and child porn.
On Tuesday, Graham, Cotton, and co-sponsor Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R–Tenn.) introduced the Lawful Access to Encrypted Data Act. The full text of the bill is not yet available, but a summary posted at the Senate’s Judiciary Committee (where Graham is the chairman) makes the bill’s goals clear: “The debate over encryption and lawful access has raged on, unresolved, for years. The Lawful Access to Encrypted Data Act would bring an end to warrant-proof encryption in devices, platforms, and systems.”
They’re referring to end-to-end encryption, a tool for protecting data from hacking and outside access by making it very difficult, if not impossible, for anybody without permission to access the encrypted info. Even the company that created the communications device or app (like Apple or Facebook) cannot gain access to the data. That’s the point of this type of encryption.
Here are the components of the legislation listed in the summary:
“Once a warrant is obtained, the bill would require device manufacturers and service providers to assist law enforcement with accessing encrypted data if assistance would aid in the execution of the warrant.”
“It allows the Attorney General to issue directives to service providers and device manufacturers to report on their ability to comply with court orders, including timelines for implementation.”
“[It] directs the Attorney General to create a prize competition to award participants who create a lawful access solution in an encrypted environment, while maximizing privacy and security.”
“[It] funds a grant program within the Justice Department’s National Domestic Communications Assistance Center (NDCAC) to increase digital evidence training for law enforcement and creates a call center for advice and assistance during investigations.”
Strong encryption is a boon to consumers (and even government officials themselves) because it makes it so much harder for criminals and others to access your data and messages, which helps prevent identity theft. In countries with authoritarian governments, encryption protects the communications of dissidents and activists from being snooped on by repressive regimes.
It also stops the FBI and law enforcement officials from getting access to private data, even when they have a legal warrant to search a device like a phone or computer. So as end-to-end encryption implementation has grown across many platforms and communication tools (Zoom, which has grown in prominence since COVID-19 shut down in-person meetings, announced last week they’d be implementing it for all users, not just paying subscribers), the Department of Justice (DOJ) has become more vocal about demanding access.
But there’s a problem that the DOJ and these senators still aren’t taking seriously: It’s impossible to create a mechanism for bypassing encryption that cannot end up in the wrong hands. An encryption key or “back door” can be used by anybody who learns how it works, whether that person is an identity thief or a foreign government.
The Lawful Access to Encrypted Data Act isn’t contending with that problem. The summary says that the attorney general can’t issue a directive with “specific technical steps for implementing the required capabilities”—meaning that the attorney general cannot specifically order encryption “back doors.” But if the attorney general can nevertheless order companies to “assist” and make data accessible to the feds, it is, in all the ways that matter, ordering a back door.
Barr supports the bill and the DOJ might have even helped craft the legislation, given that “#LawfulAccess” has been the department’s inept hashtag campaign in its efforts to compromise encryption, and they have an information page devoted to it.
Politicians and government officials keep insisting they’re “confident” that tech companies can find a way to allow for strong encryption while only giving government officials access, even as all tech experts and companies try to explain, over and over again, that they cannot do this.
“End-to-end encryption is a necessity in modern life—it protects billions of messages sent every day on many apps and services, especially in times like these when we can’t be together. Rolling back this vital protection will make us all less safe, not more. We are committed to continuing to work with law enforcement and fighting abuse while preserving the ability for all Americans to communicate privately and securely.”
Barr needs to be paying better attention to what happened in Russia: They attempted to order the app Telegram to provide encryption keys, and the company refused, so Russia attempted to ban the app, but it didn’t work. Russians continued to download and use the app and recently the Russian government relented.
That might be why this bill proposes an encryption-cracking competition rather than a ban. But you really shouldn’t trust for a moment that the DOJ would prioritize “maximizing priority and security” in evaluating who might claim this bounty, given that they’ve flat-out refused to listen to tech and privacy experts.
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Tesla Knowingly Used Model S Batteries That Leaked And Possibly Caused Fires: Report Tyler Durden
Wed, 06/24/2020 – 13:30
Today in “why do Teslas keep randomly catching fire” news.
When Tesla began selling its Model S back in 2012, the cars were equipped with a “poorly designed battery” that was susceptible to leaking, according to a new Business Insider report. The battery leaks may have been the cause of short circuits and ensuing fires.
What is more damning, and potentially exposing the company to criminal prosecution, is that Musk sold the cars despite knowing about the potentially deadly flaw. According to the report, the leaks became an “urgent concern” in spring 2012 due to two problems with the cooling system:
First, the aluminum Tesla chose to use for the end fitting of the cooling coil was susceptible to cracks and pinholes, according to tests done by the third-party firm IMR Test Lab in the summer of 2012. Business Insider reviewed these test results.
And second, the design of the end fitting piece in the cooling system was imperfect, such that even after the part was brazed together, there were gaps between the cooling coil and its end fitting piece that connected it to the car, according to emails viewed by Business Insider. Sometimes, employees would have to force pieces together with a hammer to close gaps, according to internal Tesla documents viewed by Business Insider and a former Tesla employee.
BI says that e-mails it has viewed suggested the company had trouble fixing the problem and that battery leaks showed up on the production line as late as the end of 2012.
It also claims that cooling coils used by Tesla were sent to a test lab in upstate New York back in July of 2012 and that the results of the testing concluded that “the cooling coils did not meet chemical requirements for a regulation strength aluminum alloy.” The report alleges that even though Tesla knew about the design flaw, Model S vehicles kept rolling off the line.
“If we don’t deliver these cars we’re f—ed,” CEO Elon Musk had told his team, according to the report, around the same time. The company delivered more than 250 Model S sedans in Q3 2012.
No doubt, the tone was set at the top. There was even a running joke at Tesla that the first 10,000 Model S VINs would all be different, due to all of the design flaws. An ex-employee told BI: “I think it’s common in every auto company that vehicles are released with design flaws. It’s called running design changes.”
The NHTSA is currently investigating Model S and Model X vehicles made between 2012 and 2019 for battery issues, as we reported back in October 2019. Consumer attorney Edward Chen claimed in a petition to the NHTSA last year that “Tesla is using over-the-air software updates to mask and cover-up a potentially widespread and dangerous issue with the batteries in their vehicles.”
Chen also argued that Tesla owners “saw the range of their Teslas on a charge fall by 25 miles (40 kilometers) or more after Tesla released two battery software updates beginning in May.”
The notice states: “The petitioner alleges that the software updates were in response to a potential defect that could result in non-crash fires in the affected battery packs and that Tesla should have notified NHTSA of the existence of this potential defect and conducted a safety recall. The petitioner also alleges that this software update reduces the driving range of the affected vehicles.”
Chen’s allegations were echoed by the BI piece released on Wednesday.
Jason Schug, a Vice President at Ricardo Strategic Consulting said to BI: “When we disassembled the Tesla Model X, a technician accidentally spilled coolant in the battery pack and it sat there for a long time. There was no immediate danger, but when we removed the battery modules quite a while later we found a lot of corrosion on the battery cells and it was bad enough that some of the cells were leaking electrolyte. If this were to happen in the field and go unnoticed, it could result in bricking the battery.”
He continued: “There was an incident with another manufacturer that a vehicle that had been in a crash test spontaneously combusted weeks later. Coolant had spilled in the battery during the crash and, when it evaporated, it left a residue which conducted electricity into a short circuit, which overheated the battery and triggered a fire.”
On Wednesday morning we also reported that the NHTSA was opening a preliminary evaluation into Tesla’s touchscreens in its Model S. Earlier today, we also reported about a Tesla in Germany that crossed the center lines of a roadway and slammed, head-on, into oncoming traffic, killing 3 people. That was the latest in a long line of suspicious looking Tesla accidents and fires, some of which involving autopilot and others resulting in deaths.
“Another day, another article where we reach the inevitable conclusion of being absolutely dumbfounded that the NHTSA and the NTSB still allow Tesla vehicles on the road,” we wrote just hours ago, while posting photos of yet another accident scene.
We have urged the NHTSA and NTSB to take strict action to limit the potential danger of Teslas on the street. In addition to touchscreen issues, we have also written about Model Y quality issues (such as the car’s rear bumper or backseat falling off and seatbelts being defective) and have posted a litany of stories involving sudden unintended acceleration events and spontaneous vehicle combustion.
Now we may finally have a clue as to why so many Tesla fires have occurred in recent years.
Record 5Y Auction Size Meets Stellar Demand As Stopping Through Yield Slides To All Time Low Tyler Durden
Wed, 06/24/2020 – 13:20
Following yesterday’s strong 2Y auction, the wave of stellar demand for US paper continued when the Treasury sold a record amount of 5Y paper at the lowest yield on record.
Today’s sale of $47BN in 5Y Note was the highest on record, as the Treasury continues to sell ever greater amounts of debt.
The high yield on the auction was 0.330%, 0.6bps through the When Issued 0.336%, down from last month’s 0.334% and the lowest yield on record, which suggests that with the Fed preparing to roll out Yield Curve Control, TSY buyers are increasingly betting that the 5Y tenor will be included in any rates cap.
The internals were solid, with the Bid to Cover jumping from last month’s 2.28 to 2.58, above the six-auction average of 2.47.
Foreign buyer demand also jumped, as Indirects took down 62.3%, the most since December, and above the 59% average. And with Directs taking down 15.8%, also above the 10.8% recent average, Dealers were left holding 22.0% of the auction.
Overall, a very solid auction perhaps facilitated by the lack of a drop in yields this morning as risk assets faded, and with little suggestion that buyers are concerned about the short-end getting dislocated in the near future despite the coming avalanche of new debt issuance.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/3fVY8DW Tyler Durden
