Banks hit with $549 million in fines for use of Signal, WhatsApp to evade regulators’ reach::Wells Fargo, a relatively small player on Wall Street, racked up the most fines Tuesday, with a total of $200 million in penalties.
Private speech is never the problem and should absolutely be encouraged as a human right. The problem here is them avoiding regulators and should get fucked for that alone, that’s the crime here. Signal and Whatsapp should not be mentioned at all and this is an attempt to push “encryption bad” narrative.
Yeah, the issue is evading records keeping requirements. The issue is not encrypted communications.
These articles make me pucker my asshole. Like it could be that thing that sends us down that slippery slope.
I work for a large American bank working under a consent order from the SEC to address this exact problem, and it’s my job to find and implement the solutions. I can say with absolute confidence that weakening platform integrity is absolutely not a solution being pushed for any of this - not least because the platform owners will 100% not cooperate with any attempt to do so.
I see this as a “yes, Signal is secure, look, they used it and are getting away with it too” narrative.
I worked at a firm that was regulated and audited by the SEC. The standard lesson from the compliance department was always to have potentially problematic conversations out loud instead of in email or Slack. They never needed encryption to avoid regulators.
These really need to be reported as percentage of revenue. It’s really not that much for them.
It’s always Wells Fargo with the law breaking.
It’s the American version of HSBC
And made $5 billion on the deal. I imagine it’s like “oh right, now we have to pay off the regulators, I mean the fine.”
Quantum computers accessible only to the rich and powerful can’t get here soon enough…
Are you saying that quantum computers could help the rich encrypt their communications better?
Haha the only thing a quantum channel does is verifying if a message has been altered (looking at a message alters it).
Actual encryption that prevents the Shor algorithm from having a linear running time have been around for quite some time now and can be easily run on normal machines. NIST is just taking its sweet time to decide on one.
small player
Tee hee!
Chump change for banks. Cost of doing business already sitting with the accounts team.
It’s cost if doing business for them though, the “fines” are a farce, just protection money paid to a gang.
I feel like they need to apply charges like conspiracy and fraud against the individuals responsible. When I worked in national security oriented roles, the standard response when being asked to break the law (eg reveal classified info) was to say “I could do that, but I look really bad in orange.”
If the individuals being asked to commit violations and crimes were held individually responsible more often, people would be less likely to do it.
White collar crime costs the economy far more than other kinds of crime, and that’s due to a lack of enforcement caused by misaligned priorities.
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bank attack on encryption?
The banks have heavily invested in a cross platform chat app that’s (in its own words) bridging the gap.
Just wait for the consumer version ready to be pushed by governments.
I break the law, I go to jail. A corporation breaks the law they get a fine the equivalent of a parking ticket.
If corporations want to be people it’s time we start treating them like people. CEOs and Execs in prison. Actual fines that hurt the bottom line. And for the really egregious: shut them down, or if they’re “too big to fail” we can let the government take over or break them up into dozens of small companies ex: Baby Bells
how do i summon the auto tldr bot?
U.S. regulators on Tuesday announced a combined $549 million in penalties against Wall Street firms that failed to maintain electronic records of employee communications.
The Securities and Exchange Commission announced charges against 11 firms for “widespread and longstanding failures” to maintain records, including by allowing employees to use unsupervised side channels such as messaging apps WhatsApp and Signal, the regulator said.
Wells Fargo was the biggest U.S. bank cited Tuesday in the sweeping actions.
beep boop, I’m not a bot
Good nonbot
