(By Vic Hartman) Two international computer hackers (Aleksandr Andreevich Panin, a/k/a Gribodermon, of Russia, and Hamza Bendelladj, a/k/a Bx1, of Algeria) were recently sentenced in Federal Court in Atlanta to a combined 24 years, six months in prison for their roles in developing and distributing the prolific malware known as SpyEye. The sentences reflect the […]
(By Vic Hartman) The recent passing of Princeton University Nobel Laureate in Economics, Professor John Forbes Nash, Jr., more popularly known as the paranoid-schizophrenic genius featured in the 2001 movie A Beautiful Mind (inspired by Sylvia Nasar’s biography and starring Russell Crowe), is an appropriate time to admire Nash’s work and consider its applicability to […]
(By Vic Hartman) The Atlanta Public Schools (APS) cheating scandal will go down as the worst public schools governance failure in United States history. The cheating involved administrators and teachers systemically altering the test results of the Criterion-Referenced Competency Test (CRCT) given to Georgia students in grades first through eighth. What Happened? The story began to […]
(By Vic Hartman) In a previous post, we considered the recent Standard & Poor’s settlement with the federal government concerning charges the company had knowingly misrepresented the risk level in securities backed by mortgages (RMBs, or Residential Mortgage-Backed Securities and CDOs, or Collateralized Debt Obligations). The Department of Justice accused S&P of illegally putting […]
(By Vic Hartman) After a 25-year career with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) I have only recently returned to the private sector. As a private citizen with considerable public sector experience, I have read the previous posts on mortgage fraud with great interest, and accordingly, want to advance the discussion with some observations. As […]