April 2022 - cypherpunks - lists.cpunks.org

The $300B Shock Verdict and Social Inflation
by Gunnar Larson 01 Apr '22

01 Apr '22

Check out my new article: https://litigationfinancejournal.com/the-300b-shock-verdict-and-social-infl… The $300B Shock Verdict and Social Inflation A $300B damage award is serving as an example of shock verdicts driving the notion of social inflation. Preserving the ecosystem of litigation finance from shock verdicts is a priority for some in the industry. Best Review’s monthly insurance magazine <https://news.ambest.com/articlecontent.aspx?AltSrc=104&RefNum=317590> highlights the general trepidation of insurers being ‘on the hook’ for high dollar claims that are funded by third party litigation investors. There are those that argue obscene, high-dollar awards are a threat to the judicial system and therefore have the ability to diminish access to justice. Furthermore, litigation finance is blamed for insurance premium spikes–in some cases premiums have increased 25%. The $300B shock verdict referenced above relates to trucking insurance. The award could potentially be the largest damages verdict in United States history. This, as the insurance industry has worked to clamp down on trucker insurance coverage. Best Review notes that insurance contracts for trucking operations previously allowed for $50M in coverage. Today, insurers have reduced many trucking insurance contracts down to only $1M coverage options. Best Review references that savvy insurers continue to approach the problem of social inflation with a barrage of solutions, including lobbying dollars on tort reform. Overall, it would appear that insurers are targeting sophisticated third party investors who likely hold a variety of portfolios that include insurance claims. -- *Gunnar Larson - xNY.io <http://www.xNY.io> | Bank.org <http://Bank.org>* MSc <https://www.unic.ac.cy/blockchain/msc-digital-currency/?utm_source=Google&u…> - Digital Currency MBA <https://www.unic.ac.cy/business-administration-entrepreneurship-and-innovat…> - Entrepreneurship and Innovation (ip) G(a)xNY.io +1-646-454-9107 New York, New York 10001

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Crypto’s Most Powerful Regulator Is Here Adrienne Harris, New York’s financial watchdog, has enormous sway over the industry’s future.
by Gunnar Larson 01 Apr '22

01 Apr '22

*Crypto’s Most Powerful Regulator Is Here Adrienne Harris, New York’s financial watchdog, has enormous sway over the industry’s future: * https://nym.ag/3qMUDaA Thirteen years after the birth of cryptocurrency, it was supposed to be time for Washington to rein it in. Instead, the White House punted, and the Securities and Exchange Commission is still hashing out how it’s going to oversee the $2 trillion industry. State watchdogs have filled that vacuum, making Adrienne Harris, the head of the New York State Department of Financial Services, by default the most powerful crypto regulator in the country. While states such as Florida and Wyoming have adopted a laissez-faire approach to regulation, attracting a sizable chunk of the booming industry, more money and jobs are still flowing into New York than any other city, making it the de facto crypto capital of the U.S. “There’s a misconception that having rigorous regulation turns off innovative companies,” Harris tells me during an hour-long interview at her office looking out onto the Statue of Liberty last month. “That hasn’t been our experience here.” Harris was tapped as the first Black woman to lead DFS last year. She came into her position after a turn working in Silicon Valley and representing Wall Street banks, a résumé that critics have used to paint her as too close to the industries she is regulating. She’s eager to dispel any criticism that she’s soft as a regulator, especially when it comes to crypto. Harris says she’s looking to expand the agency’s remit, hire new regulators, and possibly watch over lending and asset management in decentralized finance, a.k.a. DeFi, one of the fastest-growing crypto industries, which has been prone to very large hacks. The agency’s power over the industry lies mostly with the BitLicense, a required if unloved permit for crypto exchanges to operate within state lines. When it was first introduced in 2014, it was meant to be a model for the country, but the crypto industry has attacked the license for being too strict, limiting what people can trade, and requiring expensive anti-money-laundering operations, which, it should be noted, most traditional financial institutions are required to maintain. For Harris, the problem isn’t that it’s too restrictive — it’s that the process of getting one, which has stretched years for some companies, is too slow. “If you think about the companies that are BitLicensees, and even the companies in the queue, having the imprimatur of ‘Have you passed regulatory muster with a stringent regulatory regime?’ — I think the good actors see that as a good thing,” she says. Created in 2011, DFS has been a regulator feared more than any of its counterparts in other states for the power it has over banks, insurance companies, and a host of other financial institutions. It brought ambitious money-laundering cases against banks like BNP Paribas (a settlement that resulted in several bankers losing their jobs), fined Deutsche Bank for its relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, and levied a $2.5 million fine on the National Rifle Association for selling its so-called murder insurance in the state. “DFS has a lot of teeth, and the sky’s the limit if the agency is exercised properly,” says state Sen. John Liu of Queens, a member of the state finance committee. “DFS compelled multinational banks to cough up $15 billion. We were able to build a couple bridges with that money. We still have much infrastructure in the state of New York that might benefit from DFS’s vigorous functions.” But part of DFS’s mandate is to keep the state’s economy healthy, a balancing act when it means protecting consumers from predatory, but also lucrative, companies. “For me, it’s an opportunity to bring my lived experience as a woman of color,” Harris says. So far, she has established the agency’s first climate division, frozen fees for check-cashing businesses that target the poor, and looked into non-bank lenders for evidence of redlining. “It’s important to me that those voices are at the table and being heard,” she says. “I bring a sort of pragmatism. It’s one thing to sit in our offices with nice views and make policy, but it’s another thing, in my mind, to really run the water through the pipes.” In 2008, Harris joined Sullivan & Cromwell, a law firm so close with Goldman Sachs that it has long sent its lawyers to work in-house at the investment bank. It was there that she worked for H. Rodgin “Rodge” Cohen, then the law firm’s chairman and the so-called trauma surgeon of Wall Street. Cohen remembers Harris working late into the night writing near-flawless memorandums so they’d be ready on his desk in the morning. “She just brought what I’d call a penetrating intelligence to the problems that were at hand,” Cohen tells me. “Many of the problems we get, you cannot just look up the answer in a book. It’s a question of judgment and trying to apply rules written often for other circumstances.” Still, it was clear that corporate law wasn’t for her. “Her heart was really in public service,” he says. From there, she went on to work for the Treasury Department, then the Obama White House, where she focused on policies around the then-upstart fintech industry. After the administration turned over, Harris took a spin through the revolving door between government and business. Her New York financial-disclosure forms show a superabundance of work with the tech and finance industries: She sat on the boards of six companies and nonprofits, including LendingClub, which had recently settled with the Federal Trade Commission over claims it had misled users on fees. She also advised 11 companies, owned two, and invested in or on behalf of two others. “I just thought, well, if you’re going to make policy about it, you should do the thing — run the company, build the company,” she says. “At the time, I felt very comfortable going to a start-up because I thought, well, coming out of government, you’re not making a ton of money. And if this start-up blows up, I’ll probably be no worse off, financially speaking.” It seems Harris did well enough. One real-estate tech company at which she worked went public last summer, and Harris appears to have cashed out. Since the disclosures were for 2020, they didn’t include her stake in Forethought, a private A.I.-based customer-service company that announced in December that it had attracted such investors as Harris, Ashton Kutcher, and Gwenyth Paltrow. When I asked her about Forethought, Harris said her investment in the company predated her time at DFS, that all her investments are now in a blind trust, and that she would recuse herself from any dealings with companies she has conflicts with. So when Hochul appointed Harris to lead DFS, she was attacked by the left. Zephyr Teachout and Cynthia Nixon both criticized Harris as being insufficiently independent, thanks to her connections in tech and finance. The American Prospect dug up a speech in which she characterized regulators as looking for “no-nos” and “icky things.” Harris has also advised the cash-advance companies Earnin, Brigit, and SmartWage (based in South Africa), according to her disclosures. In 2019, DFS led a multi-state investigation into the cash-advance industry over whether they created debt traps and state banking and anti-usury laws, since equivalent interest rates for the fees they charged would reach as high as 469 percent. A person directly familiar with the investigation told me that Harris’s predecessor was presented with multiple options for furthering the investigation, including reaching a settlement, but ultimately never made a decision. DFS wouldn’t comment. So, of all the companies to work for, why them? “My role, when I was working with those companies, was not to dictate price pricing or business model. It was more to say: Here’s how regulators would view this. Here’s why you should engage with them. Let me help you engage with them and figure out these issues and how you can also serve customers. Less pricing and business model, but, as an adviser who’s not in the day-to-day, helping to sort of guide a culture and mentality,” she says. Did she disagree with those arguing that these companies created debt traps for consumers? “I think it’s hard to paint with a broad brush,” she says. “I think we should always always be careful with any new products and services, that they are affordable and non-predatory, not creating debt traps, and that they’re solving a real problem for consumers. And I think some do that and some don’t.” Last summer, after Andrew Cuomo resigned as governor, many of his appointees went with him, including then-superintendent of DFS, Linda Lacewell. Soon Harris’s old boss, Cohen, had recommended her to Kathryn Wylde, the president and CEO of the Partnership for New York, a business-advocacy group that has advised DFS. “The folks at Sullivan & Cromwell thought that Adrienne would be a terrific candidate to field for that job given her eight years of experience in the Obama administration and the fact that she was somebody who understood industry,” Wylde says. “On the theory that a regulator should know something about the industries they’re regulating — which may be a novel concept but struck me as a valid one — I thought she sounded like a terrific candidate.” Harris sailed through her confirmation, with 63 senators voting for her and nine against. “When the regulated are complaining that the regulator is being too aggressive, that generally means the regulator is doing their job.” said Michael Gianaris, the state senator from Queens who voted against Harris’s nomination and, in 2019, tanked Amazon’s proposed HQ2 in New York. “Cuomo was a prick, and the people he appointed tended to share his bare-knuckles approach to the world. In some cases, that’s actually not a bad thing.” While the crypto industry doesn’t appear to be getting the reprieve it had been hoping for, other industries will surely lobby Harris to make similar gestures toward the business community. For instance, Wylde says that insurance companies are hoping that Harris will lower the reserves they are required to have on hold, which they claim are higher than what’s required by other states. “There are some long-standing issues that the industry has that they feel that they’ve got a fresh start on with Adrienne’s leadership,” she says. Still, crypto is going to play a major part in how Harris’s tenure is defined. “It’s clear that New York is doing well now and the companies that came and started here five to ten years ago are doing well,” says Matt Homer, a former deputy superintendent at DFS and the current executive-in-residence at the venture-capital fund NYCA Partners. “It’s not totally clear what the future will look like five to ten years from now.” New York is the home base for major exchanges such as Coinbase and Gemini, and it’s also home to shady NFT front-running scandals and alleged rapping billionaire money launderers. That such a volatile industry could implode and damage New York’s economy is apparent. “I understand that other states may have gone the opposite way of the BitLicense, but there are things we can do here in New York that will hopefully inform the federal regulators as they continue to think about this space,” Harris said. “It’s a new world with crypto, with DeFi, with NFTs.” -- *Gunnar Larson - xNY.io <http://www.xNY.io> | Bank.org <http://Bank.org>* MSc <https://www.unic.ac.cy/blockchain/msc-digital-currency/?utm_source=Google&u…> - Digital Currency MBA <https://www.unic.ac.cy/business-administration-entrepreneurship-and-innovat…> - Entrepreneurship and Innovation (ip) G(a)xNY.io +1-646-454-9107 New York, New York 10001

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NSA agent facing federal charges for allegedly sending classified info through personal email
by jim bell 01 Apr '22

01 Apr '22

NSA agent facing federal charges for allegedly sending classified info through personal email https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/3087843-nsa-agent-facing-… NSA agent facing federal charges for allegedly sending classified info through personal email Authorities on Thursday said a National Security Agency (NSA) agent will face federal charges, accusing him of sending classified information through his own personal email account. The Department of Justice (DOJ) said that a federal grand jury had returned an indictment for Hanover, Md., native Mark Robert Unkenholz, issuing charges of willfully transmitting and retention of National Defense Information (NDI)

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Three sentenced after trying to sneak drugs into prison
by jim bell 01 Apr '22

01 Apr '22

Three sentenced after trying to sneak drugs into prison https://wreg.com/news/mid-south/three-sentenced-after-trying-to-sneak-drugs… "GREENVILLE, Miss. — The Department of Justice announced on Wednesday that three men have been sentenced to prison after authorities said they conspired to distribute narcotics into a Mississippi correctional facility. "Court documents said Christian Jose Collazo Torres, 28, Neftali Santiago, 28, and Jean Carlos Flores, 32, conspired with each other to possess, with intent to distribute narcotics (fentanyl) for the purpose of smuggling narcotics and other contraband into the Tallahatchie Correctional Facility in Tutwiler, Mississippi. "Authorities said the three were spotted near the prison on April 24, 2021 in possession of two drones, narcotics, cigarettes, and cell phones. Authorities said the packaging was consistent with smuggling items into a prison. 6 arrested in MS on meth, gun charges "Each person in this case plead guilty to conspiring to possess with intent to distribute controlled substances. "Christian Torres was sentenced on February 2, 2022 by Chief U.S District Judge Debra M. Brown of the Northern District of Mississippi to 18 months of incarceration followed by 3 years of supervised release.

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‘I can’t keep up’: Russia is losing so much military equipment in Ukraine that weapons monitors are overwhelmed
by jim bell 01 Apr '22

01 Apr '22

‘I can’t keep up’: Russia is losing so much military equipment in Ukraine that weapons monitors are overwhelmed .https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/russia-ukraine-military-equipment-losses-b2046501.html

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Re: [External Message Added] City of Miami public records request #22-459
by Gunnar Larson 01 Apr '22

01 Apr '22

Dear Madam or Sir: How much is the fee for future search services? Thank you very much, Gunnar Larson -- *Gunnar Larson - xNY.io <http://www.xny.io/> | Bank.org <http://bank.org/>* MSc <https://www.unic.ac.cy/blockchain/msc-digital-currency/?utm_source=Google&u…> - Digital Currency MBA <https://www.unic.ac.cy/business-administration-entrepreneurship-and-innovat…> - Entrepreneurship and Innovation (ip) G(a)xNY.io +1-646-454-9107 New York, New York 10001 On Mon, Mar 7, 2022 at 8:24 PM PublicRecords(a)miamigov.com < support(a)nextrequest.com> wrote: > -- Attach a non-image file and/or reply ABOVE THIS LINE with a message, > and it will be sent to staff on this request. -- > City of Miami Public Records > A message was sent to you regarding record request #22-459: > > Good evening, > > > > The search terms you requested produced 13,092 e-mails. I revised the > search terms in an effort to narrow down the search results and pull fewer > emails. Normally, the City charges a fee to run additional searches, as > each search can take a while. We can waive that fee to help narrow down > this results this time; however, please note that further searches will > require a fee to rerun. Please let us know if the search terms below are > fine, and we'll run a revised search this one time. > > 1/1/2021 – 2/7/2022 > > ("Harvard Management Company” OR > > “Digital World Acquisition Corp*” OR “DWAC”) > > AND (“Citycoin” OR “Miamicoin” OR “STX” OR “Stack”) > > > > Thank you. > > View Request 22-459 <https://miami.nextrequest.com/requests/22-459> > https://miami.nextrequest.com/requests/22-459 > > POWERED BY NEXTREQUEST <https://www.nextrequest.com> > > The All in One Records Requests Platform > > *Questions about your request?* Reply to this email or sign in to contact > staff at City of Miami. > > *Technical support:* See our help page > <https://help.nextrequest.com/knowledge/requester-resources> > >

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Fwd: FOIL Request
by Gunnar Larson 01 Apr '22

01 Apr '22

>From New York State's Governor's Office: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Q8uCVdbNwb87m5QWsrC_b2SLYKkvtPA-/view?usp=… March 28, 2022 Via Email: g(a)xny.io Gunnar Larson RE: FOIL Request #4072 Dear Gunnar Larson: This letter responds to your correspondence dated March 27, 2022, which pursuant to FOIL, requested: Dear Madam or Sir: We would like to receive any and all records, relating to NY-DFS' 2021 Apple Card Investigation. This is one part of a broader discussion we must have about equal credit access. On March 23, 2021, Ms. Linda Lacewell published NY- DFS' Findings on Apple Card and its Underwriter Goldman Sachs Bank. As the former Superintendent of NY-DFS, Ms. Lacewell's stone faced propaganda assured that Apple Card did not discriminate against women, while under Goldman Sachs management. The red flags started to appear when an authorized user drew attention to the following: A person who relies on a spouse's access to credit, and only accesses those accounts as an authorized user, may incorrectly believe they have the same credit profile as the spouse. We recently collated 61 highlights to the Report on Apple Card Investigation from March 2021: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xH16OKyuXzB- MVqIznMWDE9w8RRdmZCw/view The Apple Card investigation was to assess women's access to equitable finance. The integrity of the Apple Card investigation must be rationally considered as flawed. We would like to receive any and all records of Ms. Linda Lacewell's (emails, texts, and similar) involvement with the 2021 Apple Card report. We would like to receive any and all records to NY-DFS association to evaluating Ms. Linda Lacewell's ability to score a report specific to the Apple Card's core subject of credit access for women. Finally, we would like to receive any and all records related to NY-DFS guidance on Interlocking Directorates (https://www.dfs.ny.gov/apps_and_licensing/banks_and_trusts/oth er/Permission_for_Interlocking_Directors_and_Officers), specific to Apple's Board of Directors and Goldman Sachs' Board of Directors. Thank you, Gunnar Larson 2 To the extent your request is reasonably described, please be advised that the New York State Executive Chamber does not maintain records of other state agencies and is not the custodian of the records requested. You may wish to reach out to the New York State Department of Financial Services (DFS) for the information that you are seeking. You can submit your request to their FOIL website at this website: https://www.dfs.ny.gov/contact_us/foil_requests Pursuant to Public Officers Law § 89(4)(a), you have thirty (30) days to take a written appeal of this determination. You may appeal by writing: FOIL Appeals Officer, Executive Chamber, State Capitol, Albany, New York, 12224. Very truly yours, ---------- Forwarded message --------- From: Records_Access <Records.Access(a)exec.ny.gov> Date: Mon, Mar 28, 2022 at 5:00 PM Subject: FOIL Request To: g(a)xny.io <g(a)xny.io> Dear Gunnar Larson, Please see the attached correspondence in relation to your Freedom of Information Law (“FOIL”) request. Regards, Records Access -- *Gunnar Larson - xNY.io <http://www.xNY.io> | Bank.org <http://Bank.org>* MSc <https://www.unic.ac.cy/blockchain/msc-digital-currency/?utm_source=Google&u…> - Digital Currency MBA <https://www.unic.ac.cy/business-administration-entrepreneurship-and-innovat…> - Entrepreneurship and Innovation (ip) G(a)xNY.io +1-646-454-9107 New York, New York 10001

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A small glow amid the darkness of war
by professor rat 01 Apr '22

01 Apr '22

Several Russian soldiers in Chernobyl have fallen sick with radiation sickness after digging trenches in contaminated forests. And so their goods are returned to them. Drop dead Russian scum.

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[Leak] SpringCore0day
by zeynepaydogan 01 Apr '22

01 Apr '22

The vulnerability exists in the Spring core with the JDK version greater or equal to 9.0. pass: infected

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Inspector general says post office surveillance program exceeded legal authority
by jim bell 01 Apr '22

01 Apr '22

https://news.yahoo.com/inspector-general-says-post-office-surveillance-prog… An inspector general probe into the U.S. Postal Service surveillance program, known as iCOP, concluded that the agency did not have the legal authority to cond...

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