Competition body wants hackers prosecuted

Garyvdh said:
... in other words... "next time we won't be such a bunch of morons"! Ahahaha! :D
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I don't think you get pills for that :rolleyes:

They should have used a more proven way of protecting the document. They could have also placed the document inside a password protected zip (or rar, etc) file. Even a password protected part of the website could have worked better.
 
Jacques said:
myadsl just got a mention on 702 by someone from the Competition Commision
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No such thing as bad publicity ;)

Jacques said:
What I'm interested in: I believe ABSA was one of the banks who complained about commercial/trade secrets now being available, but how did the report end up with those specific sentences censored?

Was the full report presented to all the banks, and after feedback from them certain parts censored, or would the commission have gone to the effort to create 4? reports where each bank only sees their own submissions?

If all the banks saw each other's submissions, then it's only the banks' clients/customers who were disadvantaged by the censoring, and I would have though that the point of the Competition Commission was to protect the consumer?

Someone should dig up old bank news releases before their last few price increases, so that we can look again at what reasons they gave for increasing their fees!
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ABSA was the only bank that had figures ready for the CC at the time.
The figures were given to the CC on the basis that it would not be made public or viewed by the other banks.

Hence the cockup :D
The CC's report really makes for an intersting read and I'm going about it rather tediously to get to grip with all of it.

The other banks made no submission or "were not ready" with their submissions at the time of enquiry :rolleyes:

This is what I understand from what I've read thus far.

All banks got the same report if I'm not mistaken (if at all) and would've received the redacted version.

If that report was given to the other banks electronically - ABSA's competition likely hacked and leaked the info - or a noble geek in their offices that took it upon himself to shame the bastards!
 
They did such a great job "redacting" it that even a blind person could 'read' it . . . literally.

The redaction has no effect on speech software whatsoever. ;)
 
If the CC weren't such a bunch of morons, they would have printed the document, manually blacked out the parts that needed to be secret and then re-scanned the document as an image and published it as a PDF. It would then not allow any text selection and the "sensitive" portions would be impossible to decode.

The fact is that the CC were negligent in their handling of the information, and blaming "hackers" is a neat way to avoid responsibility.

I couldn't be bothered to read the document, is there actually anything interesting revealed? Apart from the obvious: Banks are ripping off their customers and have been for decades.
 
Shake&Bake said:
LoL :D

I gotta try that :D
What'd you use?
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If I had a copy of the original document I might well have tried opening it in Preview and then hit the start speaking button.

Hypothetically speaking that is.
 
lcbxx said:
How do you lay criminal charges, or any charges for that matter, against "unknown" persons? I think the cops at the station will laugh at you and arrest you for narcotics misuse
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I would imagine that kind of case would be common in things like this ... it'd be the charges which would open the doors to stuff like getting search warrants and stuff? Maybe you'd lay charges against the person's alias, and then take it from there?
 
arf9999;2426852[B said:
]If the CC weren't such a bunch of morons, they would have printed the document, manually blacked out the parts that needed to be secret and then re-scanned the document as an image and published it as a PDF. [/B] It would then not allow any text selection and the "sensitive" portions would be impossible to decode.

The fact is that the CC were negligent in their handling of the information, and blaming "hackers" is a neat way to avoid responsibility.

I couldn't be bothered to read the document, is there actually anything interesting revealed? Apart from the obvious: Banks are ripping off their customers and have been for decades.
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That requires wek.:p
They've done it now anyway.
http://www.compcom.co.za/banking/technical report.htm
 
/me puts on me OMW ... NOT THE START OF A DVD ... cap

People here are really advocating that it's okay to steal a car just because it's sitting there with the engine running and the keys in the ignition?

Surely the "hackers" should have revealed the problem to the CC instead of publishing the "hacked" document? It's immoral and freaking annoying because of the delay that it's causing.
 
stoke said:
/me puts on me OMW ... NOT THE START OF A DVD ... cap

People here are really advocating that it's okay to steal a car just because it's sitting there with the engine running and the keys in the ignition?

Surely the "hackers" should have revealed the problem to the CC instead of publishing the "hacked" document? It's immoral and freaking annoying because of the delay that it's causing.
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[-]They offered it to the public. Stealing? Its like they gave you the car but locked the glove box.[/-]

What he said - http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showpost.php?p=2427104&postcount=42
 
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Anyone have a summery of the trade secrets and abusive fees levied against clients?
 
Its ridiculous. Can't we take them to court for incompetence and wasting the tax-payers money?
 
stoke said:
People here are really advocating that it's okay to steal a car just because it's sitting there with the engine running and the keys in the ignition?

Surely the "hackers" should have revealed the problem to the CC instead of publishing the "hacked" document? It's immoral and freaking annoying because of the delay that it's causing.
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Bad analogy. Knowledge is not the same as property, and in this case the information can not be classified as Intellectual Property. The information was not handled correctly, but that is not the fault of the "hackers", but of the CC.
 
Nod said:
I don't think you get pills for that :rolleyes:

They should have used a more proven way of protecting the document. They could have also placed the document inside a password protected zip (or rar, etc) file. Even a password protected part of the website could have worked better.
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Then how would we have read the report (which was publicly released)? Do you work for the CC? :p
 
stoke said:
/me puts on me OMW ... NOT THE START OF A DVD ... cap

People here are really advocating that it's okay to steal a car just because it's sitting there with the engine running and the keys in the ignition?

Surely the "hackers" should have revealed the problem to the CC instead of publishing the "hacked" document? It's immoral and freaking annoying because of the delay that it's causing.
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Stealing?

No member of the public had any kind of agreement with the banks at all.

Looking under the blanked out bits to discover they're not that blanked out after all is the hardly the fault of the public. The only culpable party here is the CC
 
so would it be considered illegal to read censored information that was revealed? If so, then I should immediately stop reading newspapers!

it was btw the Afrikaans Sunday Newspaper Rapport who first mentioned wikileaks as the place where on might find the uncensored document... (they may of course have spotted the info on here)

There is enough condemning evidence in the document for the banks not to worry about the redacted bits.

My favorite (from the censored report): the commission found that it does not cost a bank more than R5 in actual costs for "bouncing"/returning a Debit Order due to insufficient funds!!!! ... Check again how much your bank charges you (and don't fall for the "minimum charge". FNB charges me R130 per debit order!

Only Capitec does not seem to be ripping us off when it comes to banking fees. (though they most likely make that up from small loan fees)

The redacted bits (according to newspaper reports) had to do with the costs involved in the interbanking ATM system, and how the banks pricing was unrelated to real costs.
 
stoke said:
/me puts on me OMW ... NOT THE START OF A DVD ... cap

People here are really advocating that it's okay to steal a car just because it's sitting there with the engine running and the keys in the ignition?

Surely the "hackers" should have revealed the problem to the CC instead of publishing the "hacked" document? It's immoral and freaking annoying because of the delay that it's causing.
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Your analogy does not apply here. This is not about stealing. It is about revealing information that is in the public interest, but was covered up because of corporate greed and extortion. The CC slipped up in not securing the document enough. The agreement "not to reveal" was between the CC and the banks. No such agreement exists between the public and the banks and however they obtained that information is not illegal. In this case the CC unwittingly put the information in the public's hands. The CC's whining about hackers is simply to protect their own ineptitude. They failed to secure the document that they put in the public's hands. There is nothing they can do it about but make fuss... the pigeon (as they say) has flown the coop! :D
 
Garyvdh said:
There is nothing they can do it about but make fuss... the pigeon (as they say) has flown the coop! :D
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They didn't manage to decode the whole document according to the CC, so maybe some feathers were left behind. Anyone know more?
 
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