London, UK - 21 July 2007, 12:20 GMT

Dear ATCA Colleagues

[Please note that the views presented by individual contributors are not necessarily representative of the views of ATCA, which is neutral. ATCA conducts collective Socratic dialogue on global opportunities and threats.]

We are grateful to:

. Prof Lord Skidelsky of Tilton from The Palace of Westminster for "Noting the Russian Constitution and Point of View;"

in response to The Lord Howell of Guildford for his submission to ATCA, "Dealing with Russia and USA in the context of the Middle East, China and India: Is British diplomacy off the leash as a poodle turns into a bulldog?"

Prof Lord (Robert) Skidelsky is Professor of Political Economy at the University of Warwick, England, author of The World After Communism (1995) and the internationally acclaimed biography in three volumes of the most eminent post-Victorian economist Lord John Maynard Keynes, which received 5 prizes, including the Lionel Gelber Prize for International Relations and the Council of Foreign Relations Prize for International Relations. He was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1994. Robert Skidelsky was elevated to the House of Lords in 1991 and served as Chief Opposition Spokesman on Treasury Affairs (1998-1999). From 1991 to 2001 he was Chairman of the Social Market Foundation. Since 2002 he has been Chairman of the Centre for Global Studies (London). Lord Skidelsky is a non-executive director of Janus Capital Inc and a Director of Transnational Insights Ltd. A Russian speaker, he is Director of the Moscow School of Political Studies and a Trustee of Our Talents Foundation (Moscow). He is also a Trustee of the Manhattan Institute. He writes:

Dear DK and Colleagues

Re: Noting the Russian Constitution and Point of View

I wholly agree with The Lord Howell that 'handling... Russia correctly...is vital to our well-being.' But I want to challenge his assertion that the expulsion of four Russian diplomats from London was an 'entirely justified retaliation' for Russia's refusal to extradite Andrey Lugovy to stand trial in a British court on a charge of having murdered Alexander Litvinenko. This was not an example of the correct handling of Russia.

[CONTINUES] [ATCA Membership]

A correct handling of 'prickly' Russia might have been for Britain to agree that Lugovy be tried in Moscow, with the condition that British prosecutors presented their evidence in public to a Russian court. This would have been a constructive step towards cross-country judicial cooperation. It is still not too late for Britain to suggest this as a compromise, before the game of 'tit for tat' does more damage than anyone wants.

Thank you

Robert Skidelsky

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London, UK - 20 July 2007, 12:22 GMT

Dear ATCA Colleagues

[Please note that the views presented by individual contributors are not necessarily representative of the views of ATCA, which is neutral. ATCA conducts collective Socratic dialogue on global opportunities and threats.]

We are grateful to:

Given the recent diplomatic row between Russia and the United Kingdom, we are grateful to The Lord Howell of Guildford from The Palace of Westminster for his submission to ATCA, "Dealing with Russia and USA in the context of the Middle East, China and India: Is British diplomacy off the leash as a poodle turns into a bulldog?"

The Right Honourable Lord (David) Howell of Guildford, President of the British Institute of Energy Economics, is a former Secretary of State for Energy and for Transport in the UK Government and an economist and journalist. Lord Howell is Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the House of Lords and Conservative Spokesman on Foreign Affairs. He writes:

Dear DK and Colleagues

Re: Dealing with Russia and USA in the context of the Middle East, China and India -- Is British diplomacy off the leash as a poodle turns into a bulldog?

Well, that's two important friends upset -- and all in the first few weeks of Gordon Brown's premiership. Moscow is seething at London's "immoral act" of chucking out four of their diplomats (read intelligence officers) in entirely justified retaliation for their refusal to hand over the number one suspect in the ugly murder of Alexander Litvinenko.

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Let us hope that our charted course through the rough global seas is now being quietly and skilfully altered.

Best wishes

David Howell

The Lord Howell of Guildford also Chairs the Windsor Energy Group. Until 2002 he was Chairman of the UK-Japan 21st Century Group, (the high level bilateral forum between leading UK and Japanese politicians, industrialists and academics), which was first set up by Margaret Thatcher and Yasuhiro Nakasone in 1984. In addition he writes a fortnightly column for The JAPAN TIMES in Tokyo, and has done so since 1985. He also writes regularly for the International Herald Tribune. David Howell was the Chairman of the House of Commons Select Committee on Foreign Affairs, 1987-97. He was Chairman of the House of Lords European Sub-Committee on Common Foreign and Security Policy from 1999-2000. In 2001 he was awarded the Grand Cordon of the Order of the Sacred Treasure (Japan). His latest book, 'Out of the Energy Labyrinth' has been described as 'a serious and thoughtful attempt to grapple with the complexities of the energy challenge and foreign policy', by James R Schlesinger, and as 'a terrific book, not least because of its topicality' by Sir Simon Jenkins.

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London, UK - 16 July 2007, 23:37 GMT

Dear ATCA Colleagues

[Please note that the views presented by individual contributors are not necessarily representative of the views of ATCA, which is neutral. ATCA conducts collective Socratic dialogue on global opportunities and threats.]

We are grateful to:

. Robert McNally, Chairman, London Chamber of Commerce Property and Construction Group, for "Erosion of Commercial Real Estate as a Solid Asset Class;"
. Alexander Hoare, CEO, C Hoare and Co, Private Bankers, based in the City of London, for "Destructive Creativity, Leverage and The Derivatives Market;" and
. Dr Harald Malmgren, CEO, Malmgren Global, based in Washington, DC, for "The Fear of Central Bankers -- Flight from Illiquidity, Derivatives and Heightened Risk of Contagion;"

in response to, "Are the Currency Markets Warning that there is Trouble Ahead? The Precipitous Decline of the US Dollar and its Impact on the World."

Robert McNally is Chairman of the London Chamber of Commerce Property and Construction Group, a member of the executive committee of the Singapore Business Group in London and a member of the Investment Property Forum. Robert is a Partner in the leading City of London based international law firm, Stephenson Harwood. He is a recognised practitioner in real estate and real estate finance matters with over twenty five years' practical experience of finding solutions to real estate issues. He has a wealth of experience in all aspects of real estate and other property backed financing arrangements. He has also lectured in the UK and overseas on a variety of property related issues including, real estate investment in the UK and contemporary issues in property financing. He writes:

Dear DK and Colleagues

Re: Erosion of Commercial Real Estate as a Solid Asset Class

I trust that you are all well. I have found this ATCA Socratic dialogue particularly interesting since it reflects what I have been observing in the UK commercial property market for some months now. Traditionally UK commercial property has been an important asset class particularly favoured by entities such as pension funds and life assurance companies principally because UK commercial property has offered certainty of income over a long term. As a consequence UK commercial property has formed a vital part of any balanced investment portfolio, providing high levels of income security and also the potential for capital growth, compared to the bond and equity markets, which have tended to be more volatile.

[CONTINUES] [ATCA Membership]

Given the significant investment by UK pension funds in UK commercial real estate and with current general concerns regarding the inadequacy of pension provision in the UK, if there should be a "sudden disruptive movement" in the commercial real estate market this would be a further blow to the pension fund industry and the millions of workers who rely upon decent pension fund returns to fund their retirement.

Watch this space!

Robert McNally

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London, UK - 2 November 2004, 02:30 GMT - The most comprehensive study ever undertaken by the mi2g Intelligence Unit over 12 months reveals that the world's safest and most secure 24/7 online computing environment - operating system plus applications - is proving to be the Open Source platform of BSD (Berkley Software Distribution) and the Mac OS X based on Darwin. This is good news for Apple Computers(AAPL) whose shares have outperformed the benchmark NASDAQ, S&P and Dow indices as well as Microsoft (MSFT) by over 100% in the last six months on the back of revived sales and profits. The last twelve months have witnessed the deadliest annual period in terms of malware - virus, worm and trojan - proliferation targeting Windows based machines in which over 200 countries and tens of millions of computers worldwide have been infected month-in month-out.

[CONTINUES]

Full details of the October 2004 report are available as of 1st November 2004 and can be ordered from here. (To view contents sample please click here).

If you are already a member of the Inner Sanctum you should have been emailed a full copy. To retrieve the original article please fill out the order form.

Related Articles:

17th November 2004 - Full compendium of mi2g speeches released on web
12th November 2004 - Exclusive interview of DK Matai with Linux/Security Pipeline
12th November 2004 - Deep study: The ongoing Linux Attacks fallout
6th November 2004 - Experts challenge mi2g security study: mi2g response
5th November 2004 - The relativistic approach to safety - uptime versus market share
24th March 2004 - Five solutions to the rising identity theft and malware problem
2nd March 2004 - Disturbing the sanctity of the Linux Church
19th February 2004 - The World's safest Operating System

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Coverage:

Information Security News: mi2g defends its Linux claims - Insecure.org
mi2g defends its Linux claims - Virus.org
mi2g defends its Linux claims - The Inquirer
Interviews: DK Matai with Linux/Security Pipeline - Linuxtimes.net
Exclusive interview of DK Matai with Linux/Security Pipeline - LinuxSecurity.com
Exclusive interview of DK Matai with Linux/Security Pipeline - eBCVG IT Security
Apple's Mac OS X is much more secure than Linux or Windows - MacDailyNews
Furore over OS security survey - ITWeb
Sloppy Sysadmins Leave Linux Security Lacking - InternetWeek.com
Sloppy Sysadmins Leave Linux Security Lacking - CRN
Sloppy Admins Leave Linux Vulnerable To Security Breaches - Information Week
Linux is 'most breached' OS on the Net, security research firm says - ARNnet
Linux is 'most breached' OS on the Net, security research firm says - LinuxWorld
Linux is 'most breached' OS on the Net, security research firm says - ComputerWorld
Security company defends Linux-is-vulnerable survey - HNS
The world’s safest computing environment - TechCentral
mi2g response: Experts challenge mi2g security study - eBCVG IT Security
PC Pro: Security Company Defends Linux-is-Vulnerable Survey - linux today
Study: Linux Is Least Secure OS - WindowsITPro
Linux Most Breached OS, Says New Report - CXO Today
Survey: Mac OS X most secure, Linux least - ITWeb
Mac OS X, BSD Unix top security survey - Neowin.net
Mac OS X, BSD Unix top security survey - Computer World
Study: OS X World's Safest OS From Security Attacks - MacNewsWorld
Study Recommends Mac OS X as Safest OS - Slashdot
Mac OS X, BSD Unix top security survey - MacCentral
Security: Mac OS X Good, Linux Bad - eBCVG IT Security
Study: Apple's Mac OS X 'world's safest and most secure' operating system - MacDailyNews
Study: OS X World's Safest OS From Security Attacks - the Mac Observer
The world's safest computing environment - eBCVG IT Security
Mac OS X - 'world's safest' - Macworld Daily News
The world's safest computing environment - TechCentral

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mi2g is at the leading edge of building secure on-line banking, broking and trading architectures. The principal applications of our technology are:

1. D2-Banking;
2. Digital Risk Management; and
3. Bespoke Security Architecture.

mi2g pioneers enterprise-wide security practices and technology to save time and cut cost. We enhance comparative advantage within financial services and government agencies. Our real time intelligence is deployed worldwide for contingency capability, executive decision making and strategic threat assessment.

mi2g Research Methodology: The Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) List is available from here in pdf. Please note terms and conditions of use listed on www.mi2g.net

Full details of the October 2004 report are available as of 1st November 2004 and can be ordered from here. (To view contents sample please click here).

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London, UK - 24 August 2004, 17:45 GMT - There are an estimated 600 million Windows based Personal Computers (PCs) across the world of which over 200 million run Windows XP, according to the latest estimates from Microsoft. Therefore, the release of the new Service Pack Two (SP2) - designed to patch many critical security vulnerabilities in Windows XP - is a subject of direct relevance to geographic populations and corporations greater than most countries on earth and yet there is no consensus on the optimum methodology for dealing with this necessary installation. According to the latest available research from mi2g's SIPS database, the economic damage from malware proliferation in 2004 including MyDoom, NetSky and SoBig is estimated to lie between $157 billion and $192 billion worldwide or expressed another way, it works out to between $261 and $320 - average $290 - of productivity losses worldwide per Windows PC. This latest estimate of losses per PC attributable to malware proliferation demonstrates the validity of the algorithm 'Economic Valuation Engine for Damage Analysis' (EVEDA), which forms the basis for the digital risk assessment research carried out by the mi2g Intelligence Unit.

[CONTINUES]

Full details of the July 2004 report are available as of 1st August 2004 and can be ordered from here. (To view contents sample please click here).

If you are already a member of the Inner Sanctum you should have been emailed a full copy. To retrieve the original article please fill out the order form.

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London, UK - 30 July 2004, 16:00 GMT - The total amount of spam distributed across the globe has touched nearly three trillion messages in 2004 as it sits at 2,981 billion worldwide to date according to the latest data available from the mi2g Intelligence Unit, the world leader in digital risk. The global economic damage from spam in 2004 to date is estimated to lie between $107bn and $131bn. The economic damage from spam is projected to cross $200bn worldwide for the whole year. The total amount of spam in 2003 was around 1.6 trillion messages. The high rise in the volume of spam in 2004 is attributed to malware proliferation and the use of hijacked computers as file servers, proxies for criminal activities and mail relays.

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Full details of the June 2004 report are available as of 1st July 2004 and can be ordered from here. (To view contents sample please click here).

If you are already a member of the Inner Sanctum you should have been emailed a full copy. To retrieve the original article please fill out the order form.

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London, UK - 2 June 2004, 11:30 GMT - May was the fifth worst month on record in terms of malware proliferation - virus, worm and trojan attacks - and is estimated to have caused between $16.2bn and $19.8bn of economic damage worldwide, largely because of the Sasser outbreak and other associated variants according to the mi2g Intelligence Unit, the world leader in digital risk. The probability of a catastrophic malware attack, defined as global damages in excess of $100bn from a chain of combined events, has risen from 1 in 40 (2.5%) for 2003 to about 3 in 10 (30%) for 2004.

The May figures for manual and semi-automated hacking attacks - 18,847 - against online servers worldwide show signs of stabilisation in comparison to each of the three previous months. At present rates, the projected number of overt digital attacks carried out by hackers against online servers in 2004 will be only 2% up on the previous year and would stand at around 220,000. If this trend continues, it will mark the slowest growth rate for manual and semi-automated hacking attacks against online servers according to records that date back to 1995. This confirms that the dominant threat to the global digital eco-system is coming from malware as opposed to direct hacking attacks.

[CONTINUES]

Full details of the May 2004 report are available as of 1st June 2004 and can be ordered from here. (To view contents sample please click here).

If you are already a member of the Inner Sanctum you should have been emailed a full copy. To retrieve the original article please fill out the order form.

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London, UK - 10 May 2004, 12:15 GMT - Although the originator of the Sasser malware has been apprehended in Germany over the weekend, the Sasser worm continues to spread across the globe having infected tens of millions of computers worldwide.

The mi2g Intelligence Unit preliminary data shows that all the Sasser variants put together have already caused between $14.8bn and $18.1bn of estimated damages worldwide as a broader connection with NetSky malware writers emerges. The last ten days have propelled Sasser to 5th rank from a fresh start in the "Top 25 Table" of most damaging malware since 1995. Only MyDoom, NetSky, SoBig and Klez precede Sasser in terms of the all time most virulent malware list. The top three malware families like Sasser were unknown prior to their outbreak in 2004. This makes 2004 a unique year, having claimed four out of five of the top slots for worst malware. This record suggests that the problem of rapid malware proliferation and colossal attendant damages is getting worse with every passing year.

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Full details of the April 2004 report are available as of 1st May 2004 and can be ordered from here. (To view contents sample please click here).

If you are already a member of the Inner Sanctum you should have been emailed a full copy. To retrieve the original article please fill out the order form.

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