August 2024 - cypherpunks - lists.cpunks.org

Deals Rumor Mill: Saudi Fund, Disney-Reliance, Repligen
by Gunnar Larson 25 Aug '24

25 Aug '24

Deals Rumor Mill: Saudi Fund, Disney-Reliance, Repligen <https://www.law360.com/banking/articles/1869596?nl_pk=feb6bbba-7878-4d39-be…> By Tom Zanki Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund wants to launch a new cargo airline, India’s antitrust regulators worry about power over cricket rights if the $8.5 billion merger of Walt Disney’s Indian business with Reliance Entertainment is allowed, and drug manufacturing provider Repligen is eyeing Maravai LifeSciences. Here, Law360 breaks down these and other notable deal rumors from the past week. Read full article » <https://www.law360.com/banking/articles/1869596?nl_pk=feb6bbba-7878-4d39-be…> | Save to favorites » <https://www.law360.com/banking/articles/1869596?nl_pk=feb6bbba-7878-4d39-be…>

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Ameriprise Benefits Most From Cash Sweeps, Customer Says
by Gunnar Larson 25 Aug '24

25 Aug '24

Ameriprise Benefits Most From Cash Sweeps, Customer Says <https://www.law360.com/banking/articles/1872475?nl_pk=feb6bbba-7878-4d39-be…> By Sydney Price Ameriprise was hit with a proposed class action in Minnesota federal court by a customer over its cash sweep program that allegedly yields low interest for customers and high fees for the bank, adding to a growing list of customer and regulatory scrutiny financial institutions are facing over the account type. Complaint attached | Read full article » <https://www.law360.com/banking/articles/1872475?nl_pk=feb6bbba-7878-4d39-be…> | Save to favorites » <https://www.law360.com/banking/articles/1872475?nl_pk=feb6bbba-7878-4d39-be…>

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Crypto Lobbyist Hit With FTX Campaign Finance Charges
by Gunnar Larson 25 Aug '24

25 Aug '24

Crypto Lobbyist Hit With FTX Campaign Finance Charges <https://www.law360.com/banking/articles/1872712?nl_pk=feb6bbba-7878-4d39-be…> By Rachel Scharf Manhattan federal prosecutors announced Thursday that Michelle Bond, a crypto industry lobbyist and the girlfriend of convicted former FTX executive Ryan Salame, has been charged with getting the now-defunct digital asset exchange to illegally finance her unsuccessful 2022 congressional campaign. Indictment attached | Read full article » <https://www.law360.com/banking/articles/1872712?nl_pk=feb6bbba-7878-4d39-be…> | Save to favorites » <https://www.law360.com/banking/articles/1872712?nl_pk=feb6bbba-7878-4d39-be…>

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State Bank Coalition Establishes AI Advisory Group
by Gunnar Larson 25 Aug '24

25 Aug '24

State Bank Coalition Establishes AI Advisory Group <https://www.law360.com/banking/articles/1872737?nl_pk=feb6bbba-7878-4d39-be…> By Sydney Price The Conference of State Bank Supervisors has created a new advisory group to guide it on the development and use of artificial intelligence in the financial services sector, according to a Thursday statement. Read full article » <https://www.law360.com/banking/articles/1872737?nl_pk=feb6bbba-7878-4d39-be…> | Save to favorites » <https://www.law360.com/banking/articles/1872737?nl_pk=feb6bbba-7878-4d39-be…>

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3rd Circ. Denies Liberian Bank Whistleblower's Asylum Bid
by Gunnar Larson 25 Aug '24

25 Aug '24

3rd Circ. Denies Liberian Bank Whistleblower's Asylum Bid <https://www.law360.com/banking/articles/1872708?nl_pk=feb6bbba-7878-4d39-be…> By Rae Ann Varona The Third Circuit ruled Thursday that a Liberian man can't claim asylum despite having "suffered horrors" after unearthing a fraud scheme involving Liberian government officials' relatives and refusing a politician's bribe, saying he did not show evidence that his alleged perpetrators targeted him for having an anti-corruption political opinion. Opinion attached | Read full article » <https://www.law360.com/banking/articles/1872708?nl_pk=feb6bbba-7878-4d39-be…> | Save to favorites » <https://www.law360.com/banking/articles/1872708?nl_pk=feb6bbba-7878-4d39-be…>

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NY AG Tells Appeals Court To Uphold $465M Trump Judgment
by Gunnar Larson 25 Aug '24

25 Aug '24

NY AG Tells Appeals Court To Uphold $465M Trump Judgment <https://www.law360.com/banking/articles/1872525?nl_pk=feb6bbba-7878-4d39-be…> By Cara Salvatore Donald Trump has barely challenged the extensive proof of financial statement lies undergirding a $465 million civil fraud judgment against him and his co-defendants, New York's attorney general said in an appeals brief looking to preserve the bench verdict. Brief attached | Read full article » <https://www.law360.com/banking/articles/1872525?nl_pk=feb6bbba-7878-4d39-be…> | Save to favorites » <https://www.law360.com/banking/articles/1872525?nl_pk=feb6bbba-7878-4d39-be…>

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Bank, Fintech Groups Say FDIC Should Ice 'Hot Money' Plan
by Gunnar Larson 25 Aug '24

25 Aug '24

Bank, Fintech Groups Say FDIC Should Ice 'Hot Money' Plan <https://www.law360.com/banking/articles/1872405?nl_pk=feb6bbba-7878-4d39-be…> By Jon Hill A broad coalition of bank and fintech trade groups has called for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. to back off from a recently proposed revamp of its rules on "hot money," or brokered deposits, arguing the plan was put forward "without sufficient or transparent data or robust policy rationale." Letter attached | Read full article » <https://www.law360.com/banking/articles/1872405?nl_pk=feb6bbba-7878-4d39-be…> | Save to favorites » <https://www.law360.com/banking/articles/1872405?nl_pk=feb6bbba-7878-4d39-be…>

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10th Circ. Pauses Debt Relief Appeal After 8th Circ. Ruling
by Gunnar Larson 25 Aug '24

25 Aug '24

10th Circ. Pauses Debt Relief Appeal After 8th Circ. Ruling <https://www.law360.com/banking/articles/1872796?nl_pk=feb6bbba-7878-4d39-be…> By Rae Ann Varona The Tenth Circuit on Thursday paused several states' appeal challenging a Kansas federal judge's injunction that partially barred the Biden administration's latest student debt relief plan, citing a broader injunction the Eighth Circuit issued earlier this month. Order attached | Read full article » <https://www.law360.com/banking/articles/1872796?nl_pk=feb6bbba-7878-4d39-be…> | Save to favorites » <https://www.law360.com/banking/articles/1872796?nl_pk=feb6bbba-7878-4d39-be…>

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[project][notes][crazy] Digital Sewing of an EEG Cap
by Undescribed Horrific Abuse, One Victim & Survivor of Many 25 Aug '24

25 Aug '24

I had downtime at a library and looked into this a little. - Even if you don’t have a cnc sewing machine, you can do the cutting with a die cutter device like a cricut and make the sewing very easy and clear. - I websearched sewing a cap, and the example I found used four panels sewn flat with curved proportions such that they fit a head when expanded. The fabric cuts are offset from the theoretical edges to leave room for sewing. The example used whole ellipse-like segments bonded at the edges. This made a spheroid-like final result, which was inverted once to hide the sewing, then the bottom inverted again into the top to make two layers. - You could calculate the proportions of these panels for an individual head via measurement or medical imagery. I started by assuming a mathematical spheroid with two unique dimensions. - I think that panels that cover a spheroid are elliptical shapes where the height equals the height of the spheroid (possible mistake, reconsider?), and the width of each is the circumference of the spheroid divided by the number of panels. It took me a while to realize this again. - Scratch code at https://www.kaggle.com/code/superjunk/notebookfdb0c5e39b uses matplotlib to draw a parametrically-designed sewing pattern for a spheroid. The larger curve is offset to cut. The curve inside it is to fold adjacent parts and sew. It looks as if you could actually do it with only one panel if desired, unsure. - ellipse width = circumference / panel count - ellipse height = height # i think this is a mistake and instead should be the vertical arclength - ellipse-like arclengths are calculated using a function called the “incomplete elliptic integral of the second kind” or E, where if a and b are the ellipse radii in either order, then between angle a1 and a2 it’s something like arclength = b(E(a2|1-(a/b)^2)-E(a1|1-(a/b)^2)) - I didn’t readily find an inverse for E, so finding angle ranges to tesselate to a specific resolution precisely would mean new numeric solutions, but the result looks reasonable if a circle of average radius (r = (a+b)/2) is used. - it looks like a die cutter can generally both cut fabric as well as mark a pattern on it by placing a pen rather than a knife in it. most of the time was spent slowly realizing that the panels are exact ellipses maybe it was cool to realize you could sew 3d shapes flat by breaking them into convex surfaces and calculating the bounds ! you could sew any shape by doing this and stuffing it. Parametrically creating the design lets one place things at precise points on the surface later.

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Crypto Took Down Another Federally-Insured Bank and Just Handed Its CEO a 24-Year Prison Sentence
by Gunnar Larson 23 Aug '24

23 Aug '24

https://wallstreetonparade.com/2024/08/crypto-took-down-another-federally-i… By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: August 23, 2024 ~ Shan Hanes, Former CEO of Heartland Tri-State Bank Last year, the staff of a federally-insured bank in Kansas, Heartland Tri-State Bank, wired out more than one-third of the amount the bank held in deposits to a crypto scam. Why did they do that? Because the CEO of the bank, Shan Hanes, told them to do it. Hanes had become one more crypto sucker seduced by the allure of a get-rich-quick scheme. On Monday, Hanes was sentenced in a case brought by the U.S. Department of Justice to 24 years in prison for embezzling $47.1 million (via the wire transfers shown in the graph above) from the bank he was in charge of protecting. The bank failed last July with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) stepping in to make depositors whole while the investors in the bank (shareholders) were wiped out. There’s an old saying on Wall Street: “Bulls make money, bears make money, pigs get slaughtered.” The premise is that if a person becomes too greedy (a “pig”), he or she loses the ability to make prudent judgment calls and gets slaughtered. Exactly one year before Heartland Tri-State Bank failed, Wall Street On Parade wrote about getting “pig butchered” – slang for getting scammed out of your money by crypto con artists. Unfortunately for the shareholders of Heartland Tri-State Bank, its prison-bound former CEO didn’t read our article. Prosecutors say he became the target of a pig-butchering crypto scam which led him into the embezzlement scheme at his bank. In addition to the federal charges on which Hanes was just sentenced, he also faces 29 state criminal charges, some of which relate to his looting the accounts of the local church and an investment club as part of his wiring binge to the crypto scam artists. A trial in that case is scheduled for October. What is most noteworthy about this small bank going bust is that the way it was brought down could be happening, at this very moment, at much larger banks anywhere in this country. The Office of Inspector General of the Federal Reserve released a 27-page investigative report, detailing how the scam was facilitated inside the bank. The investigators wrote: “The CEO’s wire requests were inconsistent with both Heartland’s prior and recently implemented wire transfer limits and appeared to be unusual given the bank’s agricultural lending business. The wire requests included the name and account numbers of a cryptocurrency platform. Three of the seven wire transfer requests processed before June 24 exceeded the applicable $5 million limit. These requests exceeded the $5 million applicable limit by $1.7 million to $5.3 million per sender. All three of the wires processed after the implementation of the wire policy on June 24 exceeded the new $3 million limit. Those wires exceeded the limit by $300,000 to $5 million per sender. Despite the atypical recipient and the dollar amounts of each transfer significantly departing from prior wire activity and established limits, Heartland’s chief financial officer (CFO) and other bank employees approved the wire transfers. We believe that had Heartland employees followed the bank’s policies, they would have not processed the wires that led to the bank’s failure.” Federal banking regulators and Congress are just as responsible as the acquiescing employees inside the bank for yet another bank failure related to crypto. The voluntary liquidation of Silvergate Bank last year and the failure of Signature Bank during last year’s spring bank runs were both tied to the banks’ involvement with the crypto industry. Numerous other major countries have outlawed crypto or placed heavy restrictions on it. In the U.S., however, we are allowing the crypto billionaires to place their fingers on the scale of our elections in November as the Republican candidate for President, Donald Trump, shills for the crypto billionaires at their convention last month and announced yesterday that he is starting his own crypto platform. This tolerance in the U.S. toward crypto as it brings down federally-insured banks and loots the life savings of thousands of Americans, comes despite 1,600 of the brightest scientific minds in technology signing a letter calling both crypto and blockchain a sham. The Federal Trade Commission announced in February that Americans reported $1.4 billion in losses to cryptocurrency scams in 2023.

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