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Riding the State Unemployment Fraud ‘Wave’:
When a reliable method of scamming money out of people, companies or governments becomes widely known, underground forums and chat networks tend to light up with activity as more fraudsters pile on to claim their share. And that’s exactly what appears to be going on right now as multiple U.S. states struggle to combat a tsunami of phony Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) claims. Meanwhile, a number of U.S. states are possibly making it easier for crooks by leaking their citizens’ personal data from the very websites the unemployment scammers are using to file bogus claims.
Last week, the U.S. Secret Service warned of “massive fraud” against state unemployment insurance programs, noting that false filings from a well-organized Nigerian crime ring could end up costing the states and federal government hundreds of millions of dollars in losses.
Since then, various online crime forums and Telegram chat channels focused on financial fraud have been littered with posts from people selling tutorials on how to siphon unemployment insurance funds from different states.
[...] Although, at the rate people in these channels are “flexing” — bragging about their fraudulent earnings with screenshots of recent multiple unemployment insurance payment deposits being made daily — it appears some states aren’t doing a whole lot of fraud-flagging.
A federal fraud investigator who’s helping to trace the source of these crimes and who spoke with KrebsOnSecurity on condition of anonymity said many states have few controls in place to spot patterns in fraudulent filings, such as multiple payments going to the same bank accounts, or filings made for different people from the same Internet address.
In too many cases, he said, the deposits are going into accounts where the beneficiary name does not match the name on the bank account. Worse still, the source said, many states have dramatically pared back the amount of information required to successfully request an unemployment filing.
“The ones we’re seeing worst hit are the states that aren’t aren’t asking where you worked,” the investigator said. “It used to be they’d have a whole list of questions about your previous employer, and you had to show you were trying to find work. But now because of the pandemic, there’s no such requirement. They’ve eliminated any controls they had at all, and now they’re just shoveling money out the door based on Social Security number, name, and a few other details that aren’t hard to find.”
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday June 04 2020, @11:38AM (35 children)
I haven't checked the latest break down of Keynesian spending, but a month back it was $1 one-time UBI to $4 Wall Street handouts. My take is that any such social programs will merely be a bribe to go along with the status quo spending. I can't help but notice that is one of your selling points too. UBI to end the riots.
None of which is relevant to UBI or universal health care.
How about the obvious fact that it exists in the first place? The middle class came about before there was any major tax-and-transfer at the state or federal levels in the US. Since, which direction has the tax-and-transfer been in? You seem to complain a lot about Wall Street handouts which indicates to me that government intervention has been in the wrong direction all along. I believe we would have better transfer of wealth without that government intervention than with it.
A solution ignored here is to make everyone a born-rich. UBI is an attempt at that. I think economic and regulatory reforms would give you far more bang for the buck.
Nonsense. You have yet to explain why this is even something worth talking about. This is just an engineering problem which can be solved with an engineering approach. We already know the company making the pipeline can can do that.
So what? I don't see any reason to care about your YouTube videos. No facts to back up the first video and solar power projects in Australia are completely irrelevant to the topic. As to your great grandfather, environmental and workplace regulation changed between then and now. I see no reason to destroy much safer oil pipelines now because things were vastly worse a century ago. That's a third non sequitur.
What is the thing you're trying to say here? How about you say that instead?
(Score: 2) by Pav on Thursday June 04 2020, @04:10PM (34 children)
I LOVE how you retreat everything you can't face, and reframe your way down a hole like an angry badger into your "strongest" safe spaces. Pipeline leaks simply aren't a solved issue [reuters.com], and who knows if DAPL is already slowly leaking into water supplies [theintercept.com]. I don't care that much if you consent to being poisoned, so ignore pipeline whistleblowers and reject the whole idea of the EPA if you like. Hell... lose another five years!
Your safe space is ... ... that the middle class came before the high-taxing Bismarckian welfare state?! True!!! You do realise though that you're talking about eg. "please sir, can I have some more" Victorian England... on back through Kings William, Edward and George before that... with people fleeing the centres of capitalism to the furtherst most underdeveloped reaches of the earth (Australia, India, the North American colonies, New Zealand etc...) just to get out from under it. You do realise a whole genre of fiction was written around women and men of "good breeding" (ie. born rich) trying to hook up with eachother because Europes social structure was so frozen. Now it's the USA that has a way more frozen social structure with masses sinking into poverty, and its the Europeans that have quantifiably more freedom to better themselves (ie. social mobility). I wonder why... :)
I do agree there could be better answers than UBI... but I'm sure we'd disagree on those answers.
And when your government transfers wealth to the top youuu... blame the concept of government. What a disempowering idea. No wonder people like you are so easy to steal from.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday June 04 2020, @07:15PM (33 children)
When dealing with irrational and dishonest rhetoric, such as the above, one needs to reframe the debate. Here, I've had to repeated point out the red herrings and other non sequiturs that you introduce with every post (including I might add this new complaint about reframing). I suggest you practice your logic, reasoning, and rhetoric skills so that such reframing becomes unnecessary.
For a hypothetical example, a good response to a leading question is to point out the nature of the leading question, thereby reframing the rebuttal in terms of the dishonesty of the question rather than stupidly just answer the question - the answer will never be right.
When dealing with arguments based on fantasy, there are two approaches I use regularly. Reframing - pointing out how the fantasy fails to match the real world, and conditional reasoning - where I show how the fantasy has inherent contradictions.
Your links don't show what you claim they show. For example:
and:
It's too bad that the authors of these articles only pays lip service to the details. Automated systems are only intended to catch a small, but very dangerous category of leaks (fast leaks that cause a significant drop in pressure). There are many other ways to find those other leaks. And no matter how or when a leak is discovered, it becomes a reported leak.
And it's dishonest to claim as you do above that a perfect pipeline with zero leaks is the only possible solution. That's just a Luddite gimmick. Pipelines merely need to be better than the alternatives, such as transporting crude by rail or road. That's much easier to achieve. Last time I looked, they were about an order of magnitude (ratio volume of leaks to volume of oil transported) better for the volume of oil transported - that includes some 70+ year old pipelines (plus since a pipeline is a fixed in place structure, containment of leaks is far more likely). A new pipeline like DAPL should be much better than that.
Finally, on this subject let's do a little conditional reasoning. Let's suppose that any activity which has some drawback, no matter how mild, should be banned. So no driving because you can't eliminate traffic accidents and lethal vehicle breakdowns. No eating because you can't remove all traces of toxins from food (especially food that have naturally have toxins - for example, members of the nightshade family: potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, eggplants). No living anywhere because Earth is a naturally radioactive environment.
I could go on, but I think you see the point. Even to merely exist is to take on risk. What's important is not that something has risk, but how much risk it has for the value it has. For all the empty talk from detractors, the DAPL operators seem to have done a great deal to reduce the risks associated with their pipeline, making it a very attractive project given its value.
Once again, let us reframe this in a rational and honest way. The middle class actually started (well, restarted given it existed in ancient times too, such as the Roman and Han empires) in Medieval Europe [google.com].
This predates the "Bismarckian welfare state" by a little bit. In the US, the creation of the massive middle class was due to industrialization not government wealth distribution. All that automation greatly increased the productivity of human labor and hence, the demand for it. Greater demand meant greater prices (wages and benefits) for labor. For example, Henry Ford's famous five dollar day [thehenryford.org] came in 1914. In the US, the welfare state truly started in the mid-1930s when the budget of the federal government rose sharply.
Will the transfer be somehow less, if I pretend it's not the government doing the transferring? I don't see the point of ignoring the tools of theft. Nor do I see how we can mitigate their effect without reducing the power of those tools.
And how is it easier to steal from me than from someone who votes for the best promises without regard to costly add-ons like corporate welfare or crony payouts? My take is that programs like UBI encourage such ignorance.
While these subjects are way off topic, it's interesting how your ignorance, blinkered reasoning, and lack of attention to detail extend to so many different fields of knowledge.
(Score: 2) by Pav on Friday June 05 2020, @08:20AM (32 children)
Only fast leaks [nytimes.com] are a problem? Dilution is the solution to polution, eh? :) I like the "oil truck" talking point - people notice when an oil truck goes over... and its not left there for years. There's also an upper limit to how much can be spilled (if they leak at all) and that max is rarely approached because of baffles and bulkheads in the tanks. This makes cleanup much more predictable and managable. And on a road there are usually plenty of eyes making sure the cleanup is quick and thorough.
Why have local government environment protection officers? Why force vehicle repair shops to install expensive oil/water separators on their stormwater runoff? Why book cars with oil leaks or emission problems? Why get local governments monitoring water quality, and tracking different kinds of polutants (and even just sediment) back up creeks and drains and suing/fining people. Why go to all the effort modern cities do if you're just going to turn around and allow an inherantly leaky technology? Perhaps it might be possible to run pipelines if they were inspected constantly by government, and were sued/fined for not quickly repairing even very small leaks. After 30 years of cleanup the water quality and big fish have come back to the local river in the city where I live (Brisbane, the state capital). The river used to be just oil-sheen, mullet and catfish. Now the most prized species have come back ie. threadfin and mulloway (or jewfish if you speak the old politically incorrect tongue) [youtube.com]. Jeremy Wade of River Monsters caught a 250lb Queensland Grouper [youtube.com] at the mouth. Back home the bogans (rednecks) took YEARS to largely stop snarling about the strict policies, but you can't argue with results. Before I left the north my brother and I used to catch barramundi and tarpon outside a shopping centre on a small lakes in the middle of Townsville (a regional city). They HAVE had fish kills, but it always seemed to be natural reasons (ie. hot weather driving oxygen out of the shallow tidal lake), so they installed a fountain to save expensive environmental investigations.
I've got an extremely mixed heritage (English, Irish, Egyptian, Ukrainian, German, Greek, Russian). My fathers mothers family were wealthy peasants (Kulaks) in Crimea... so basically capitalists in a feudal society. Yes, I knew that was a thing. Relatively low taxes, and not much interferance by the state. Golden, yes? Backward and miserable for most... I guess revolutions (Russian, French, American etc...) have reasons. Even though my grandmothers family lost a lot to the revolution and saw their own holdings collectivised and mismanaged, they also saw how the desperately poor average citizen was lifted up (eg. my grandmother wasn't an exception learning a couple of languages, learning to fly a plane, qualifying for medical school.... aaaand then she was captured by the Nazis and sent to Poland as slave labour after Crimea fell).
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday June 06 2020, @02:06AM (31 children)
Fortunately, I anticipated your dishonest leading question by making the observation:
I, of course, stated above that the category of fast leaks is small and hence, heavily implied that it is not the only possible problem with pipelines. I expect my readers to get that implication.
I'll note that the story which I was discussing at the time, dishonestly implies that automated leak detection should detect all leaks.
Oh look, the first non sequitur of a string of them. I'm not even going to bother.
Because the value of the pipeline is vastly greater than the extremely low harm of the extremely low volume of those inherent leaks. If you can't be bothered to care about scale and degree of harm, I can't be bothered to treat you like an adult. For example, in an earlier post you whined about a few hundred gallons of leakage over a year period over a several hundred mile long pipeline (it was the story you linked to back the claim that DAPL had leaks in its first year of operation, the biggest of the five leaks reported was 168 gallons). And the worst they can claim is that some minute part of it might have gotten into the ground water.
As the US does? Eh? Eh? The DAPL owners aren't reported those minuscule leaks for the hell of it.
This brings up realms of conjecture. Maybe you're adopted? Or dropped on the head a few times? Or maybe Grandma was the only smart one in the family and everyone else was dumb as rocks. There's all these possible scenarios and I can't pick a good one without hearing more of your completely irrelevant stories about your ancestors.
This has to be your worst post yet. The small amount that you wrote which was on topic is almost as ignorant as the great mass which was not. I take it to mean that you've run out of things to say, but haven't quite exhausted the urge to say things. I would give more respect, if you actually came up with solid arguments rather than great tangents such as how paranoid small governments supposedly are about waste oil dumping.
(Score: 2) by Pav on Sunday June 07 2020, @07:07AM (30 children)
OK, the whistleblower lied... wrecked his life for nothing. Small leaks are taken seriously, and not left for months or years until a major leak comes. Gotcha.
Societies either work for a large majority of people, or they decline and/or burn. Good thing yours is neither declining or burning.
Nothing to see here, move along.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday June 07 2020, @09:32PM (29 children)
Words mean things. Here, "lied" means deliberately told falsehoods. I don't know whether this whistleblower did or not. But what I do know is that someone you or the whistleblower claimed that the pipeline should be halted because of "bitumen" - abrasives and higher pressure in the pipeline. That's not engineering. That's Ludditism. There are ways to fix every problem. Merely claiming there is a problem doesn't mean anything.
Pipelines are a great example of infrastructure that works for a large majority of people.
One of the few things you've gotten right. Too bad you were trying to be sarcastic.
(Score: 2) by Pav on Monday June 08 2020, @12:01AM (28 children)
Bitumen seems to be the industry term. Diluted bitument (dilbit) is what they're pumping. I can't find that engineer whistleblower, only the spill cleanup crew guy who blew the whistle on existing pipeline leaks being left for months or years, and a TigerSwan security whistleblower.
I did however find a paper from a khallow-assessed "Luddite" at the University of Nebraska on the TransCanada submission to the EPA. The Keystone XL pipeline is indeed improved technology (about half as likely to leak when pumping normal crude), but the paper points out that when pumping dilbit the pipeline is exposed to high particulates, pressure, high temperature, and high sulphur/acidity [unl.edu], which the statistics TransCanada bases its projections on don't take into account. Therefore TransCanadas submission underestimates the volume of a worst case leak by roughly half, and the average number of expected leaks by AN ORDER OF MAGNITUDE.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday June 08 2020, @03:56PM (27 children)
And the Enbridge Spill [wikipedia.org] happened in 2001 on a 1950s to 1970s era pipeline [wikipedia.org] (the spill itself apparently happened on Line 6B which was completed in 1969) that had last been upgraded in the 1990s. Meanwhile the first stretch of the Keystone was completed in 2010. Why are we to suppose that the Keystone XL pipeline will fare as badly with better technology, engineering, and knowledge of how that past system failed?
Another aspect is that the comparison is to a leak where automatic shutdown apparently failed. Why are we to assume that will be the case for Keystone?
(Score: 2) by Pav on Tuesday June 09 2020, @02:35AM (26 children)
There's nothing a newer monitoring system can do about workers (twice) overriding a autoshutdown against regulations because they thought they were just clearing a bubble. If you can think of a system that can stop pipe-jockeys from ever cutting corners and/or suits putting pressure on them to I'm all ears.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday June 09 2020, @04:23AM (25 children)
But that's ok, because that's not the job of the newer monitoring system. Regulation, training, and of course, better monitoring of the system will do that.
Regulations and lawsuits. Suits in particular fear those lawyers.
(Score: 2) by Pav on Tuesday June 09 2020, @10:40AM (24 children)
Fantastic... you've solved human error.
And it seems you know better than TransCanada about how their own technology has improved. If only you had known... you could have helped them improve their "Pipeline Risk Assessment and Environmental Consequence Analysis" document. Doesn't do much about the roughly five-fold increase in leaks though.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday June 09 2020, @02:07PM (23 children)
It's been solved for a long time.
Oh really? "Five-fold increase in leaks" sounds exactly like not taking account of technology improvement.
(Score: 2) by Pav on Tuesday June 09 2020, @03:14PM (22 children)
Poooor khallow....
Keystone XL leaks half as much because of improved technology, BUT... thats when pumping more usual product for such pipelines, and dilbit causes roughly an order of magnitude more leaks over normal oil (because it requires higher pressure, is more abrasive, acidic, requires higher temperatures etc). I didn't fire up a calculator, but that sounds like "merely" a five fold increase in leaks to me.
And lets God-of-the-gaps this, and assume TransCanada forgot to take into account their wizbang new fault monitoring systems in their submission to tell the EPA how great their new pipeline would be (and that's quite wishful thinking by the way). There's just no way it would make enough of a difference to stop this pipeline from being very significantly worse than existing pipelines pumping less "exotic" product.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday June 09 2020, @03:44PM (21 children)
Now, if you only had evidence to back those assertions up. I find it interesting how you just accept as truth someone's ax-grinding. The EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers both had access to that information as well. And they decided differently. That's despite an administration extremely hostile to pipeline construction.
(Score: 2) by Pav on Wednesday June 10 2020, @11:31AM (20 children)
Assertions? I just looked at the references in that paper, and the paper itself.
Keystone has had TWO ~400,000 gallon leaks since 2017. OK, that's not massive... only ~35 of the largest tanker trucks all going over and leaking every drop at once, so it doesn't scratch leaks from ocean-bourne tankers, oil platforms etc... and provided it's not in YOUR catchment or aquifer who cares right? And that whistleblower talking about companies routinely ignoring slow leaks for months or years, and how they fake much of the cleanup of large leaks? He's just an attention seeker. The academic is a know-nothing activist. The imaginary khallow fluid-dynamics-mastery pipeline management system will prevent significant leaks happening in future, and the khallow manual of pipeline management will prevent pipeline-jockeys from doing anything destructively stupid ever again. These aren't the droids you're looking for... move along. Got it.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday June 10 2020, @07:02PM (19 children)
Exactly.
Indeed.
(Score: 2) by Pav on Thursday June 11 2020, @04:51AM (18 children)
I guess you enjoy decline... so why am I surprised you'd extend that to your environment and not just your economy and society? It seems pipeline failures per mile have at least doubled [hindawi.com] since the 90's, so that should please you.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday June 11 2020, @12:58PM (17 children)
To the contrary, this sort of thing is progress. Think of how much more leaks there would be shipping this by rail and road.
Sounds like reporting thresholds declined.
(Score: 2) by Pav on Thursday June 11 2020, @10:46PM (16 children)
That would be why Canada is moving away from pipelines in favour of rail (ie. refusing pipeline approval, thereby forcing oil companies onto their rail networks) even though it's less economically efficient. They're also trialing shipping bitumen in bricks, which would make rail transport safer again.
(Score: 1, Disagree) by khallow on Friday June 12 2020, @01:27PM (15 children)
And more polluting and dangerous! The obstruction of progress requires some sacrifice (here [wikipedia.org] and here [apnews.com] for examples).
(Score: 2) by Pav on Friday June 12 2020, @07:52PM (14 children)
Canadas Liberals(!) had implemented US-style deregulation of their rail industry, and a disaster due to the resulting lax safetly had been predicted [ctvnews.ca]. After the inevitable accidents Canadas rail regulation regime has been reinstated and tightened. Government safety inspections are again mandated, replacement of old tank cars by safer rolling stock has been mandated (which is probably why that "bitumen puck/brick" technology is being trialed) etc... Still... oil is a problematic dirty technology, and the sooner its largely superceded for transportation power the better.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday June 12 2020, @10:58PM (13 children)
I have no doubt that echoes the beliefs of the people who killed dozens of people by preventing more oil pipeline infrastructure from being built out of Alberta. Rail systems have inherent disadvantages compared to pipelines that don't go away just because the regulations change slightly.
(Score: 2) by Pav on Saturday June 13 2020, @12:28PM (12 children)
If Canada can force the remaining Koch brother to fund rail infrastructure upgrades while US rail infrastructure degrades then good on them. The fact that it's less environmentally damaging is not an inconsequential consideration either I'm sure.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday June 13 2020, @02:50PM (11 children)
"IF".
I take it you missed the part where pipelines were less environmentally damaging? The pathology of your arguments sometimes are quite interesting.
(Score: 2) by Pav on Saturday June 13 2020, @08:05PM (10 children)
Rail has consistently spilled less oil per ton mile than pipelines [fas.org].
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday June 13 2020, @09:25PM (9 children)
in your linked report? That comes from the section comparing rail transport of oil, the subject of the report, with pipelines.
Even with these new goalposts, you're struggling!
(Score: 2) by Pav on Sunday June 14 2020, @12:53AM (8 children)
If I'm Buba Koch it's cheaper and safer for my schedule, my wallet, my plant and my minions... It doesn't matter that its not safer for the rest of the population, their water supplies, salmon, canola, maple syrup, moose etc... Of course YOU don't care, but it's always a pleasure to drive home the fact that to others (in this case the Canadians) that seems to matter.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday June 14 2020, @03:18AM (7 children)
Are we to do nothing because there are Buba Kochs in the world? You need a better reason than that.
Not safer than what? We've already established with your own link that pipelines were safer than rails, for example, despite your insistence to the contrary.
And now the appeal to apathy. You must have the better argument because you decided I don't care!
I think if there's anything you, Pav should take from this thread, is that you have a lot of unexamined assumptions that shouldn't stay that way. Better luck next time.
(Score: 2) by Pav on Sunday June 14 2020, @02:52PM (6 children)
If you measure safety by the number of incidents, sure, you can say pipelines win. If you measure it by the actual volume of oil spilled into the aquifers, river catchments etc... (ie. what most of society is actually worried about) then rail is safer. It's not hard to understand.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday June 16 2020, @03:54AM (5 children)
What I think is particularly dishonest about this whole thing is that both systems are pretty safe. You aren't speaking of much in the way of leakage or loss of life either way. At that point, the system with the better economics should win.
(Score: 2) by Pav on Thursday June 18 2020, @09:41PM (4 children)
I showed you how even documents from big oil can't get past how pipelines leak a larger volume of oil (even though they spin them as "safer" because there are fewer actual incidents). Hardly anyone dies of catastrophic smoking accidents either (other than perhaps around something flammable), but plenty had their lives shortened through cancer. Some smokers think it's worth it, and obviously you think degraded water and environment is worth it. Good on you.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday June 19 2020, @12:35AM (3 children)
Exactly because "there are fewer actual incidents". You are only looking at part of the problem. What you're completely missing is that rate of incidents times volume of incidents is still very small. This is typical Luddite thinking where one obsesses on the worst parameter possible and then argues from that flimsy basis that the thing shouldn't be done.
I would be right too. Not using pipelines also degrades water and environment (and not just through the direct effects - introducing inefficiencies into society does that too). There is nothing we could do, even killing all humans on Earth, that wouldn't degrade water and environment somewhere to some degree at some point in time. We have to get beyond the cherry picking of harm. For example, you've already accepted, by arguing for rail over pipelines that water and environment is not infinitely important.
It's time to consider these other things that are important too.
(Score: 2) by Pav on Friday June 19 2020, @04:23AM (2 children)
I'm a "luddite" for wanting to move away from always-leaking and higher-volume-during-major-incidents pipelines eh? You've probably wanted to throw THAT word off yourself to someone else for a while I'm sure. ;)
As for inefficiencies, at the moment spilling less oil into the environment costs more. You'd prefer to save the money. Luddite me not so much.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday June 19 2020, @12:24PM (1 child)
Absolutely yes! You looked for the bare minimum to disqualify pipelines and looked no further. Standard Luddite behavior.
(Score: 2) by Pav on Friday June 19 2020, @11:05PM
Even with tech improvements a)pipelines get worse because of having to pump caustic abrasive diluted dilbit, and b) rail is already better, but has further room to be safer /w eg. bitumen in brick form.
I guess those that pointed out low nicotine + cigarette filters just made people inhale more deeply, and caused even more 3rd party exposure to carcinogens "luddites" too.