Thursday, December 25, 2014

1800CONTACTS Gets Trumped By An Eagle Scout

First 1800CONTACTS tried to hijack the Internet, and got put down by Federal Court Judge Clark Waddoups (see my story here). They appealed, and the appeals court whacked them hard for their insufferable greed (see the story here).  Then on Tuesday this week, 1800Contacts got some big-time publicity on ABC's local news station by giving a whopping $7,500 to the Utah Association of Intellectual Disabilities (see the news coverage here). Wow. A whopping $7,500. Nice headlines. Well, this morning, Christmas Morning, without cameras and fanfare, my namesake grandson (Richard H. Bennett, IV) delivered 75 gift packages to the American Fork (Utah) Development Center.
(L to R: Richard H. Bennett, III, Richard H. Bennett, IV, and me-Jr.)

That's 75 packages filled with the specific Santa lists of severely disabled people. I can only speak for two of the packages, since my wife and I shopped for them, but my grandson's Eagle Scout Project should have at least equalled the $7,500 contributed by 1800CONTACTS.

Those guys should have made a donation at least equal to the several hundred thousand dollars they've spent on frivolous litigation. Of course, their choice of charities probably mirrors their own intellectual disabilities. Paraphrasing author Jeff High, "1800CONTACTS' end of the gene pool needs a little more chlorine."

Thursday, December 18, 2014

Prediction: Some GOOD Hackers Broke Into Sony & Sold Access to the NORKs




One of my mantras is that "Creativity cannot exist in a repressive environment." The North Koreans simply don't have the environment to foster decent hackers. Sure, NORK "script kiddies" can launch DDoS attacks on select targets, and they might even hold relatives of South Koreans hostage to lever themselves into media outlets in the South. But to break into to Sony Pictures so thoroughly? Get serious! Any smart cyber brains in the North have their IQs cut in half out of sheer fear of their emotional-pygmy leader. So my serious advice to the FBI is…yup…follow the money and find out who broke into Sony and sold the goodies to the Un-geniuses.

Oh, wait. The FBI is barely qualified to compete in a cyber version of The Special Olympics. And the NSA isn't about to give away their inventory of Zero-day exploits.

So again, Sony, my advice is to CALL THE MOSSAD.

Wednesday, December 17, 2014

Sony Hackers Cost Me H$2 Million in the Last Week

The Interview Featured Image

Of course, the two million was "funny money" in the Hollywood Stock Exchange, a website that gives you two million in funny money to start betting with other investors on how movies are going to do. I parlayed my H$2 million into about H$250 million, and I bet big on the premier of Sony's The Interview. Then the hack hit, and the movie stock went up a bit, before the hackers (I originally thought they were North Korean operatives, but I'm growing more convinced that this was a "false flag operation") threatened terrorist activity in any theaters that played the movie. Regal, AMC and other "major chains" have yanked the movie (see the DEADLINE story here). Talk about drawing people away from going on Christmas or any other Day. Of course, the hackers are costing Sony Entertainment some REAL money. I have some inside information on what really happened with the hack and its aftermath, but I'm not playing the one-upmanship game these days. Suffice it to say, the hackers aren't as clever as the media makes them out to be. They just got lucky.

Which leads me to speculate that this is really a false flag operation. The NORKs and their mental midget Un really aren't that smart. If they were smart, they'd fund their own movie (a comedy) on assassinating President Obama, staring Jackie Chan and Lucy Liu. In fact, a movie about the NORKs making this movie would be a knee-slapper, too.

Alas, I'm letting my money ride on The Interview with the Hollywood Stock Exchange. Even if the movie gets pulled, I'll just lose another H$4 million, which still puts my Hollywood portfolio somewhere around H$280 million. I sure do hope that, even if they pull the movie from theaters, Sony will go to DVD. Because I really would like to see this movie (edited, of course, courtesy of the ClearPlay filtering technology that turns "R" movies into "PG13s").

Friday, December 12, 2014

More Unsolicited Advice to Sony and Japan: Call the Mossad!

The cyber invasion of Sony (definitely a NORK attack, since nobody else on the planet holds Kim Jong Un in anything approaching esteem) prompts me to offer one more in a long string of unsolicited recommendations (enter "Sony" in the search bar to the left for my other postings). Simply, my advice is to CALL THE MOSSAD. The FBI can't find a solution for getting out of a Chinese finger puzzle. The NSA doesn't want to give away anything that might compromise their inventory of zero-day vulnerabilities. Ditto for Homeland Security. So the answer? Call the Israeli Mossad and offer them a blank check the minute they can demonstrate sufficient retaliation and adequate restitution. In fact, to heck with restitution. Give them the blank check AND let them keep any loot from their revenge exploits. I leave it up to you and your government to facilitate the dialogue.

Taman Shud.

Wednesday, December 3, 2014

Unintended Consequences of North Korea Hacking Sony

Unbelievable stupidity on the part of Kim Jong Un's let's-please-the-boss minions when they not only hacked Sony in retaliation for a comedy making fun of said leader, but who are actually being smug about it to press inquiries. This just goes to show that Kim Jong Un is the only world leader whose laughable stupidity—which he uses as a tactical weapon—keeps backfiring all over him. The net result of the hack will be to take a movie that had marginal possibilities for success and making it a Christmas Day blockbuster. As I have said before:
In a world full of emotional pygmies, the patient man is king.
The good news? A team of reasonably competent hackers will probably be executed by a red-faced midget. Merry Un-Christmas to you for doing exactly what you were told.

Selah.