More Of This Week’s Security Notes

• Symantec was breached.  Hackers claim it’s source code, whereas Symantec said it was an API document from April of 1999.  Then, Symantec did say that it was source code, but it was 5 years old, and some other third-party network was breached.  It’s likely that this was an Indian government network which was exploited.
• I’m very intrigued with the idea of free credit monitoring.  I need to investigate what the business angle is before signing up, however.
• In good news, I’m glad to see tethering on Android phones without getting gouged and without rooting your phone.  Cellular providers are getting pushed into the role of carriers rather than full service providers.  They’re going to go kicking and screaming, but the outcome at this point is as close to inevitable as they get.  With the Android platform, there isn’t anything that phone companies can do to add value; all they’re doing right now is crippling functionality to sustain their local monopolies.  Don’t expect that to last for too many more years.
• John Strand brings up a few ways to connect with C-level executives.  Small words, shiny objects—that sort of thing.

The Economist gets it right

Here’s the article.

If I were going to subscribe to a magazine, this would be on the short list, in general. However, this succinctly points out two things this blog has been saying for a while now.

1) Raising taxes won’t do any good without closing loopholes (yay me!)

2) You have to cut entitlements to make any real progress (good for Kevin, I guess.)

This sentence says it all: “[Raising the tax rate on the rich] would raise revenues of about 0.3% of GDP and do nothing to make America’s grotesquely complicated tax system more efficient.”