Earlier quoted context omitted.
RCS are end to end encrypted.
Actually forgot this made it anywhere! Any idea on the % adoption rate? Couldn't easily find it.
~40% according the 'trust me bro' source from large NA operator.
Banks hit with millions in fines for using Signal and WhatsApp
201–210 of 247 posts
Re: Banks hit with millions in fines for using Signal and WhatsApp
#202Re: Banks hit with millions in fines for using Signal and WhatsApp
#203This won’t be fixed until bank executives are jailed. Otherwise they make more money than they are fined, so what is the incentive to stop?
I work at a bank. I could send some bullshit MNPI to a coworker via whatsapp and get my boss fired? Sweet!
Burden of proof should (and often does) require:
Intent,
pattern of doing business this way.
Re: Banks hit with millions in fines for using Signal and WhatsApp
#204To the surprise of no one, Matt Levine has written about this a few times (there's some other linked issues in here as well): https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2023-08-08/don-t-... His is a pretty balanced take and raises some interesting points: > I have argued that the SEC has aggressively expanded the recordkeeping requirements. In the olden days, almost all communication was informal and not recorded, an…
I don't see a downside to expanding the record keeping requirements. Record keeping is easier than ever and frankly banks haven't proven themselves worthy of our trust. Sounds great to me.
I assume being able to have face to face off the record conversations providing plausible deniability to participants is one of the big reasons finance and other related businesses like to be in Manhattan.
Re: Banks hit with millions in fines for using Signal and WhatsApp
#205At this point I cannot understand why anybody would use Wells Fargo as their bank. WF has proven repeatedly that they are pretty much the opposite of what everybody thinks a good bank should be. Repeated law violations; repeated screwing-over of their customers. Why are they still in business?
Yep. I've been WF free since the mid-late 90's. They've been at this as long as I've been using a bank (1980). Credit Unions FTW!
WF was a good bank (to my knowledge) until they had a brain transplant by a bank in Minnesota in the late 90s.
Re: Banks hit with millions in fines for using Signal and WhatsApp
#206Work in the sector and once the investigations / fines came out massive notifications went out across the board reminding everyone not to use unapproved comms.
Was this used for nefarious purposes - possibly - but more likely it was general communications between team members using a platform that is more comfortable to them than either 1st party tools or something approved like teams. 99.9% of this was likely reminders for meetings, attendance and coverage messages, a message to a team member who timezone shifted from you and may be off any you need an answer etc. I'd guess most people involved didn't even consider the record keeping because their day to day jobs don't involve actual trading info, and the "encryption" of those services likely made them feel a more comfortable than they should.
Not trying to excuse the behavior - yes the record keeping is important - but I think it's also important to realize this was likely largely innocent.
Re: Banks hit with millions in fines for using Signal and WhatsApp
#207Work in the sector and once the investigations / fines came out massive notifications went out across the board reminding everyone not to use unapproved comms. Was this used for nefarious purposes - possibly - but more likely it was general communications between team members using a platform that is more comfortable to them than either 1st party tools or something approved like teams. 99.9% of this was likely remind…
This is a pretty weak excuse. It's not hard to keep your work comms in the approved software.
I would tell people to fuck off if they wanted to invade my personal device with work chatter. Boundaries are good
Re: Banks hit with millions in fines for using Signal and WhatsApp
#208Work in the sector and once the investigations / fines came out massive notifications went out across the board reminding everyone not to use unapproved comms. Was this used for nefarious purposes - possibly - but more likely it was general communications between team members using a platform that is more comfortable to them than either 1st party tools or something approved like teams. 99.9% of this was likely remind…
This is a pretty weak excuse. It's not hard to keep your work comms in the approved software. I would tell people to fuck off if they wanted to invade my personal device with work chatter. Boundaries are good
great - however you are one person, the large banks involved here have staff of a few hundred thousand each across several countries and with various backgrounds and norms, many who are also friends and have contact with each other outside of office hours.
I agree, one needs to keep work comms on approved software, I'm simply stating that while it's fun to be like "oohh big bad bank was hiding secret convos" it was more likely "janet i'm out today can you take the meeting with svp of "
Put another way context matters in terms of how the public should react to the news, not so much the result (fines) or the regulations / requirements.
Re: Banks hit with millions in fines for using Signal and WhatsApp
#209To the surprise of no one, Matt Levine has written about this a few times (there's some other linked issues in here as well): https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2023-08-08/don-t-... His is a pretty balanced take and raises some interesting points: > I have argued that the SEC has aggressively expanded the recordkeeping requirements. In the olden days, almost all communication was informal and not recorded, an…
I don't see a downside to expanding the record keeping requirements. Record keeping is easier than ever and frankly banks haven't proven themselves worthy of our trust. Sounds great to me.
I don't think I disagree and I don't think Matt does either.
The point is that from a bank employee perspective, a hallway conversation, a text message, and a WhatsApp chat might seem pretty similar, and no one expected face to face chats to be memorialized in preserved records, so why the other two?
So in a meaningful sense, the requirements around preservation have expanded significantly, and it shouldn't be a surprise that a lot of banks ended up breaking the rules.
As he writes in another piece (https://news.bloomberglaw.com/mergers-and-acquisitions/matt-...):
> My point here is that when these rules were written, it would have been absurd to say that brokers had to “appropriately conduct their communications about business matters within only official channels.” Everyone understood, in 1948, that only a small sliver of business was conducted in formal letters and memoranda, and that mostly you’d talk about business face-to-face. “As technology changes,” lots of forms of written electronic communication become substitutes not for memoranda, but for face-to-face conversation. So the SEC’s requirements constantly become broader. If you just talk to your colleagues in person, the SEC does not expect you to preserve that. Once you move that chat to WhatsApp, it does.
Now the SEC has run around fining a bunch of institutions and sent a message, and so you can expect compliance will improve.
As an aside, you'll notice that piece was written nearly a year ago, so this isn't exactly a new story.
Re: Banks hit with millions in fines for using Signal and WhatsApp
#210[dead]