On June 20, 2011, well regarded techie site zdnet.com wrote a report that various activist hacker groups — most notably Anonymous — would begin Operation Anti-Security by targeting banks. Not long after, Anonymous announced their support for the then budding Occupy Wall Street movement.
Over the past few weeks Bank of America’s website has been ailing. Frequent reports of people not being able to log-in, or the website being entirely unavailable, have surfaced. Bank of America blames the problems on a “systems upgrade” gone bad.
Sure. We’re supposed to take Bank of America — the same bank that’s lured a countless number of homeowners into foreclosure through dual-track, bad-faith mortgage modifications — at their word.
I’ve been a computer programmer my whole life. I was sent to learn to program on mainframes over thirty years ago. I grew up in Bloomington, IN, where Indiana University is located. They’d let me practice programming at night, when others weren’t using their computers, so as a child I’d trudge through the snow to practice what’s become my lifelong passion and work at night, going to school during the day.
I’ve built and sold computer programs to large Fortune 500 companies. Currently, I’m working on two companies: Legalprise, which provides litigation support for lawyers, and Nastiaco, which will allow the public to quickly collaborate and search for fraud in large volumes of public records.
I don’t know if the instability at Bank of America’s website is the work of their own incompetence or the work of hackers. I do know that, either way, as an experienced computer engineer, out of a sense of precaution, I’d recommend people move their money until the instability ends. If you absolutely adore BOA (and their $5/month debit-card fees), you can return once the technical issues are entirely resolved. If the bank is telling the truth you lose nothing — you’re slightly inconvenienced — by moving your money. If the bank is lying, if they’re under attack and not admitting it to the public, then you’re better off parking your money somewhere else.
If an attack is underway the goal might not be site instability, but site unavailability, or wholesale data corruption; that is, logging in one day to find your banking records hopelessly corrupted; your money vanished into the black-hole of cyberspace, reliant on the same call center dolts who work through modifications to find it. Normally the FDIC intervenes in bank failures so people’s money is available. However, Bank of America wouldn’t fail; they’d simply have had a tech meltdown.
Why would BOA lie? This is a bank whose CEO has expressed his view they have “right to make a profit.” Not a right to earn a profit, and not a right to compete, but rather some sort of divine entitlement to make money, no matter how poorly they manage their business. Disclosing that a rag-tag group of renegades was successfully attacking the core benefit the bank sells: an ability to protect — that is, to bank — money would likely cause a run on assets, putting their sacrosanct “right” to earn profits at risk.
It’d be reckless to fail to disclose they were under attack, but this is a bank that failed to disclose to investors that AIG was about to sue them for $10 billion, an event that caused the bank to lose more than 20% of its stock value in one day. This is the bank that first invested in then purchased Countrywide, and Merrill Lynch. This is a bank that vowed to fight “hand-to-hand” on foreclosures, after taking tens of billions of government money. In short, there’s a serious credibility gap. Get real: these people trusted and supported Countrywide founder Angelo Mozilo.
Finally, there’s the question of why Anonymous wouldn’t simply say they were responsible for BOA’s travails. But the answer to that is easy: they haven’t yet succeeded. Much like Steve Jobs and Apple do not release product information until a product is finished, if an attack is underway it’s probably not yet finished. If there is an attack, why wait to see what their end game is?
For full disclosure I do have a short position in Bank of America’s stock. That is, I’ve bet with my own money that their stock value will fall. In the past I didn’t purchase bank stocks, since I often write about them, but it seemed dumb to not “put my money where my mouth is,” and I don’t plan to change my position anytime soon. I think BOA is run by incompetent, reckless bankers. Regardless of what’s causing their technical problems, they’re bound to eventually fail. I’m also not a member of and I’ve never communicated with Anonymous. I admire some of their work, and I’m ideologically aligned with many goals, but I think they could produce the same or better results without illegal hacking.
In summary, there absolutely is no smoking gun, no solid evidence, that hacker activists, hacktivists, are behind the BOA tech problems. But a technical meltdown a few months after an announcement that an attack was in the making, timed to coincide with public protests supported by the hacktivists, levied against the largest of the Too-Big-To-Fail banks, which appears to be ongoing, seems like more than enough to cause a reasonably cautious person to raise their eyebrows then move their money.
It’s illegal to shout fire in a crowded theater. But it’s reckless to not raise a concern in that same crowded theater when you smell smoke, know that the theater owner has a history of not disclosing problems, and can’t afford to refund tickets.
Michael Olenick
olenick – at – legalprise.com
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A Potential Reason Why 4closureFraud.org is More Stable than BankofAmerica.com
more stable why?
michael redman tells The Truth.
he has integrity.
bank of america = liars.
they supported investment in aparteid.
they now are foreclosing on innocent defrauded families.
thanks 4 all you do !
Be careful what you wish for. Well…my over 4-year wish is coming true. The trick is to find some entity that is worthy of Trust, and that means NOT the U.S. Government. BofA’ers…GET OUT NOW, before you understand what all of these previous blogs have been all about. Time for all of BofA’s “Heads” to start preparing for AA meetings. Ha!
Michael…..This really sounds like BAC is finally come to the end of the plank……..and the blindfold is intact…..my trustworthy gut feeling is…..they are done!
You should see what I pulled off the net. By accident when I was preparing my adversary complaint against them, I plugged in a beneficiary account number that I found on on page of closing instructions to the title agent. When I did a general search using Bank of America Beneficiary Account number —- I came up with dozens and dozens of payment information on pre-foreclosures and foreclosures showing the name, address, account numbers, total amount of mortgage, last payment and amount made, etc., every piece of personal information that invites identity theft as well as advertising your money problems to anyone who runs across it on the net. I attached that as one of my numerous exhibits to my complaint and for that reason included an order from the judge that they will not advertise my personal information. I don’t believe for one minute someone stole the information. From what I can see, BoA was pre advertising to specific companies, properties that were in or near foreclosure. I should contact each and every person whose information I brought up and let them pursue BoA for a breach of identity protection. They are such liers and cheats.
@ Kathleen,
That is very interesting because the false processing of several of the ‘Permanent’ CW AG mods seemed to differ based on zip codes, and I suspected certain of our homes had investors already lined up. This would match up with my suspicion precisely, and to top it off, my data was identified as supposedly accessed by the dirty employee.
Could you contact “former (dot) gcl (dot) victim (at) gmail (dot) com”?
How many people remember that. just as CW was being ‘rescued’ by Bend Over America aka BofA, that CW ended up announcing that an employee had accessed account information on a bunch of borrowers with mortgages serviced by CW. That employee had SOLD the borrowers’ information.
For that to happen, no proper controls existed to prevent INSIDER theft. Do you REALLY believe BofA is any MORE secure in handling your info? And just in case you are wondering, BofA RETAINED the CW platform for all mortgages. All existing BofA mortgages were ADDED to the CW platform.
Now y’all have a nice ‘warm & fuzzy’ feelin’ about your accounts, right?
Customer of B o A should just get their money out the bank, why you want to pay them $60 a year on your debit card for doing nothing but fraud?
Our fine candidate Michelle Bachman addressed the cc fees last night during the debates. She said that the banks had no choice to add fees because the Dodd Frank Bill was responsible for the downfall of all the banks. The banks were forced, even when they were going broke, by the government to make loans to all the “deadbeats” (she didn’t really use that word) and that is what ruined the banking system. She and other there claim that government regulations are what have caused the demise of new jobs as well as companies investing capital for growth. GE was specifically mentioned as one of the success to the bailout money that was provided so they were named as a shinning example. REALLY! Why is there never a sole present at these things that ask the touch questions???? I will rephrase my understanding on what was said. We the taxpayers were the source of the bailout money. We the taxpayers are losing pay, jobs, benefits and homes. We the taxpayers provided the money to GE who took the funds, very happily and then also TOOK the jobs to China. In essence, GE and China want to thank all of us as we starve to death without a roof over our heads, from the bottom of their dear little hearts. So, we don’t make the rich or corporations pay their fair (emphasis) share and we remove all oversight and regulations so they can do whatever they want, we lower their corporate and payroll taxes and we are all to believe that they will do the RIGHT thing. The way I see it, they will still farm out the jobs because it will still be cheaper, and just increase their bottom dollar more. The people on that stage all have personal stakes in what the policies are and they are looking out for their own pockets. If folks believe that, without bringing to light example, I just don’t get it. I just wish that they would get nailed in their lies on the spot, but they never do.
Move your money. Bank of America would not know the truth if it jumped up and bit them on the nose. They deceived me, lied to me and are one of the biggest fraud rings out there. I have no attorney, no legal experience and have to fight them pro se or completely give up my due process rights. They have hired three high profile law firms to fight one little pro se peon. The right hand never knows what the left hand is doing or has done. They file court documents that are outright lies and they couldn’t care less. They are horrible and please take my word for it, do not do business with them in any way shape or form! Utilize your local banks. It will help your community.
I was so impressed by your article. It explained each issue with an analogy to which I could instantly relate.
Thank You..let’s hear more !