Gravity is not the main obstacle for America’s space business. Government is

IN THE spring of 2006 Robert Bigelow needed to take a stand on a trip to Russia to keep a satellite off the floor. The stand was made of aluminium. It had a circular base and legs. It was, says the entrepreneur and head of Bigelow Aerospace in Nevada, “indistinguishable from a common coffee table”. Nonetheless, the American authorities told Mr Bigelow that this coffee table was part of a satellite assembly and so counted as a munition. During the trip it would have to be guarded by two security officers at all times.

Exporting technology has always presented a dilemma for America. The country leads the world in most technologies and some of these give it a military advantage. If export rules are too lax, foreign powers will be able to put American technology in their systems, or copy it. But if the rules are too tight, then it will stifle the industries that depend upon sales to create the next generation of technology.

It is a difficult balance to strike and critics charge that America has erred on the side of stifling. They claim that overly strict export controls have so damaged the space industry that America’s national security is now threatened by its dwindling leadership in space technology. The system, they complain, fails to distinguish between militarily sensitive hardware that should be controlled and widely available commercial technologies, such as lithium-ion batteries and solar cells. The zealous application of the export rules is the American space industry’s biggest handicap.

• Federal T1 tax return forms from 2003 to 2008, including names, financial details, addresses, and social insurance numbers
• Federal T1013E forms, which contain names, addresses, social insurance numbers, and telephone numbers
• Property sales, which include names, addresses, prices paid for the property, and balance owing to solicitors in the deal
• Consent forms, which include names, addresses and phone numbers
• Statements of investment income, which include financial details.
• Draft statement of account, including names, addresses, and a detailed breakdown of expenses
  

This op-ed recommends that the city buy the division, and have it build service, which they estimate at about $100 per household, which could save $300 to $400 per household per year for those with broadband. But that means that they prefer any market for broadband to be destroyed in favor of a publicly owned and operated network. Which, frankly, would scare me if such a thing were proposed in my city.

It's not so much that any given broadband firm is so marvelous that I wouldn't prefer another. (I am surprisingly happy with my DSL from incumbent Qwest, including their fantastically improved technical support.) But, rather, that cities seem to do best in ensuring that missing pieces of all kinds are provided to those least able to advocate for themselves. This, in my mind, extends to cities providing incentives for supermarkets to be built in disadvantaged areas. (There's always an irony that people least able to afford food must travel the furthest to obtain food at prices below that offered in their neighborhood, typically through convenience stores. That's changing.)

One prominent argument that I found myself agreeing with when the discussion of municipal Wi-Fi was in its infancy was the problem of building a broadband network that used taxpayer dollars to improve the lot of some citizens, often those who could afford a variety of broadband options. Plans that used city budgets to reduce costs for telecom or provide municipal services are more egalitarian, and seem to have won the day.

In this case, the op-ed writers are suggesting a course that would eliminate all competition. Can anyone trust their city well enough that they support starting a bureaucracy that would completely de facto (not de jure) prevent any better service from being installed? Or that would require you to pay as part of your taxes for service that you wouldn't use?

The columnists do more sagely suggest that a "city-wide fibre/wireless network could be an important boost to city departments and other civic services that have growing needs for networking, such as education, libraries, police and emergency health services."

Date Reported:
2/22/08

Organization:
LGT Group - The Wealth and Asset Management Group of the Princely House of Liechtenstein
English Version
German Version
French Version
Italian Version

Contractor/Consultant/Branch:
LGT Treuhand AG
(LGT Trust Ltd in English)

Victims:
Clients of LGT Trust (prior to 2002)

Number Affected:
~1,400*

*there may be an additional 4,527 beneficiaries affected.

Types of Data:
Confidential bank account information.

Breach Description:
Confidential customer information was stolen from LGT Trust in 2002 by a former employee of the company.  As a result of this breach, Heinrich Kieber was convicted of "serious fraud, dangerous threats, unlawful compulsion, and suppression of documents."  Now it appears that German authorities paid Mr. Kieber "as much as 5 million euros ($7.4 million)" for information about German account holders for the purpose of investigating tax evaders.  Other countries that are interested in the information allegedly stolen by Mr. Kieber include the United Kingdom (U.K.), the United States (U.S.), Australia and others.  Mr. Kieber now has a new identity (possibly as part of the arrangement with Germany) and his whereabouts are unknown.

Reference URL:
LGT Group Media Communique dated 2/24/08
[Evan] Highly recommended interesting read
The Australian online news story
Bloomberg.com online news story
MarketWatch online news story

Report Credit:
Chad Thomas, Bloomberg.com

Response:
From the online sources cited above:

For LGT Group, all the facts now point - despite contradictory statements form sources said to be close to the German intelligence service - to the fact that the data material illegally disclosed to the German authorities is limited, in as far as LGT is concerned, to the client data stolen from LGT Treuhand in 2002.

Even though other rumors have been circulated about the occurrences, LGT Group is assuming on the basis of numerous indications that the person, who illegally passed the data on to the German intelligence service, is the same former employee of LGT Treuhand who stole the data in 2002.

Apparently, the stolen data material has also been illegally disclosed, directly or indirectly, to other authorities.  According to reports in the media, the previously convicted offender was paid a sum of several millions for the information and was provided with a new identity.

this is a possibility that law firms were interposed as intermediaries.  LGT will now re-register its report of a criminal offence committed by a person unknown directly against the convicted data thief.

approximately 1,400 client relationships with LGT Treuhand, which were established before the end of 2002.  The largest proportion, about 600 clients, are resident in Germany.  The figure circulated in the media of 4,527 sets of data represents the number of beneficiaries of all the foundations

it has become increasingly clear that the so-called "informant" of the BND German intelligence service is indeed the same convicted data thief who illegally disclosed the client data in 2002

Acting on the information, German authorities raided the home of one of the country's most high-profile executives, the chief executive of Deutsche Post AG, alleging he evaded paying about E1 million in taxes.

The government, which paid as much as 5 million euros ($7.4 million) for information on German account holders in Liechtenstein on a disk provided by an informant to the Federal Intelligence Service, or BND, will share this information with other countries, the finance ministry said today.
[Evan] You mean to tell me that its possible (and acceptable) to steal confidential corporate information and sell it for big bucks?  German authorities paid over $12,000 per record (7,400,000/600)!  The question is, is this an informant or a data thief cashing in?

U.K. tax collectors, after initially turning up their nose at an informant's offer to sell them confidential data from a Liechtenstein bank, have now paid up and have information on about 100 wealthy British subjects

they were persuaded to pay the informant around 100,000 pounds only after Berlin tax officials launched in recent weeks a high-profile crackdown on Germans with money said to be stowed away in Liechtenstein
[Evan] The UK got a deal.  They only paid ~$2,000 per record.

Australian authorities have been given details of Australian clients of Liechtensteinische Landesbank (LL, according to reports in the Wall Street Journal and Guardian newspapers.

"The Australian Tax Office does not pay for information about tax schemes," an ATO spokeswoman said. "Nonetheless, we have a good flow of information from people concerned about fairness and equity in the tax system."
[Evan] The best deal of all.  Australia got the stolen information for free!

The former employee, who was convicted of the data theft, is a Liechtenstein citizen named Heinrich Kieber (HK).

He was active from October 1999 as an external employee of an IT-company, and from April 2001 to November 2002 as an employee of LGT Treuhand.  At the time of his recruitment and during his employment with LGT Treuhand, he had not been previously convicted of a crime.  However, as would become known later, an arrest warrant had been issued against HK, which was not accessible for examination during the standard checks carried out on new employees.

This arrest warrant was linked to a real estate deal in Spain in 1996, which HK had allegedly financed with uncovered checks, and was issued by the Spanish criminal prosecution authorities in 1997, firstly at national and subsequently at international level.

It has been reported that he (Heinrich Kieber)  has been given a new identity and is living in Australia.

Commentary:
This is a very intriguing story and one that will take a while to shake out.  I am a little torn by the series of events, and struggle with the ethics of it all.  I don't think Heinrich Kieber is any kind of hero by any means.  I think he is a common thief that just received a huge payday.

A couple of questions to think about:

• Do you think Heinrich Kieber is lucky criminal, or do you think he is an honest "informant" and "whistleblower"? 
  
• If he were truly an honest guy, why would he shop the confidential information around like he did and not give it freely?
• Do you think this story will encourage other insiders to follow suit?