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Nationwide Utility Industry Credit Union Steps Up Its Virtual Business Model

Nationwide Utility Industry Credit Union Steps Up Its Virtual Business Model











Utilities Employees Credit Union will unveil new mobile and home banking platforms powered by Jwaala, later this year.


Wyomissing, PA (PRWEB) April 12, 2012

The credit union that serves 45,000 members and 600 companies in the nation’s utility and energy sector has announced it will offer mobile banking and expand its online services later this year. Utilities Employees Credit Union (UECU) recently signed a contract with the Jwaala software company to take its suite of convenient financial “E-services” to a new level.

“UECU has always been a ‘virtual credit union’ serving a widely-dispersed membership,” says Glen A. Yeager, UECU President and Chief Executive Officer. “The upgraded online and mobile banking platforms will further empower our members and simplify management of their finances.”

Providing high-quality, nationwide account access to its member customers has long been a priority for UECU. For more than 75 years, UECU has operated without a branch system, initially handling its long-distance transactions by mail and electronic fund networks until they added around-the-clock phone banking and then online banking, in 1994 and 2001. Its virtual business model allows UECU to provide financial benefits to companies and employees in the utility and energy industry wherever they expand or relocate throughout the nation.

UECU saw an opportunity to further enhance and personalize their members’ online banking experience while adding even greater customer security, by upgrading to a system offered by the Austin based company, Jwaala. The credit union will add mobile banking and combine the free online services it currently offers – including online banking, phone line banking, online bill pay, account E-Notifications, remote check deposit, account E-Statements, internal as well as external fund transfers, and online loan applications – into a new banking platform that can be personally tailored by each member.

“The enhanced system will be more intuitive to use and individuals will be able to customize their own dashboards,” says Yeager. “At log-in, they can immediately view the information deemed most important to managing their finances on a single screen.”

The UECU organization will roll out the new platform later this year and is now planning ahead to provide members with an easy transition and to educate them about new online features. UECU members will receive added personal finance tools to track transactions, establish budgets and goals, and securely store personal documents like their receipts. Users will now be able to categorize, search, sort, and graph their financial information and account transactions. UECU will also enhance online opportunities for families to manage their financial accounts together.

To learn more about Utilities Employees Credit Union, visit http://www.uecu.org.

About Utilities Employees Credit Union

Utilities Employees Credit Union is a nationwide, virtual credit union providing financial services to utility and energy workers and their families since 1934. Its membership includes the employees of 600 companies and members of Energy People Connect, an association for individuals currently employed or pursuing employment in the energy industry. In 2011, UECU received the distinction of joining the less than one percent of U.S. credit unions to receive an A+ “Excellent” Weiss Rating for financial soundness and one of the few financial institutions to reward its members with a year-end bonus dividend, which last year totaled $ 1.2 million.

About Jwaala

Jwaala is leading the way to a new era of online and mobile banking with a powerful, feature rich and highly extensible platform called Better Online Banking™. Going beyond balances, transaction lists and bolt-on feature sets, Better Online Banking™ delivers a functional and modern online experience consumers love.






















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Posted on April 13, 2012 by , Reply

A new model for cyber security

Digital communications in conjunction with the use of the modern internet have grown exponentially to the point that to communicate digitally has become an indispensable facet of everyday life. From cellphones, to netbooks to email, blogs and online portals, the transfer and exchange of electronic data controls the way many interact with each other and communicate both personally and for business. Now with the current trend moving towards “cloud” computing where all a persons or companies keep important documents stored and accessed online or in the “cloud”, cyber security has now become the number priority of many.

Methods to protect data as encryption, antivirus software, firewalls, and access passwords have been around long before the modern day data revolution, but unfortunately none of such have grown as effective security solutions to accommodate the modern day modes of digital communication. Devices which can connect to the global data network or Internet, have become increasingly smaller and more intelligent. For example with just a modern cellphone, a person can access their email, post updates to blogs, and access personal or corporate documents all through the internet.

The typical security approach in the past has been based on the model to restrict access using firewall systems or detect intrusions as viruses using signature based scanning systems. All such solutions are based upon the concept to restrict, channel, hide and limit access to data. A firewall, for example, borrows its name from “fire retardent walls” which are designed to create safe areas where fire cannot pass because of the material from which they are constructed. In this case any external access that has not been deemed necessary to an internal or public network is considered fire and simply blocked. Antivirus solutions and the Virus signature model have also proven inadequate because of the turn around time required to update signature files and the amount of resources such systems use to scan 1000’s of files. It is like the concept of sending the police to everyones house in a city of millions of people to try and find where the bad guys are hiding. With modern computers containing several 1000 files, and the ever changing almost polymorphic nature of modern viruses, the signature based scanning model no longer is practical.

The problems with the current approaches, is with the increasingly widespread use of digital networks, there has never been any method in which to dynamically update firewalls or signature databases to accommodate for new types of access and threats. Almost daily there are new applications which are constantly becoming necessary for people to effectively gain access to digital services and equally new threats. The current security model was never meant to be a solution that determines quickly between good activity and bad. In fact it restricts the freedom of the entire group to protect from the potential threats of a few. A truly useful security system has to be able to allow and maintain access to the group and then only limiting or denying access to those activities that are out of line with the established norm of operations.

Each security technique brings with it a cost of ownership and generally firewalls, antivirus software, VPN networks, and access control methods serve more to limit access to modern day digital networks than actually protect them. System administrators and corporate IT security directors can no longer feasibly follow the restrict everything model since in the end they are merely restricting legitimate access and extremely limiting the ability of their users to take full advantage of the digital information revolution and doing little to prevent actual “hackers” or unauthorized access to their networks.

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A truly effective cyber security solution has to be as dynamic and flexible as the score of every changing applications and digital services and digital access devices being used. It is no longer a feasible model to restrict everything, or scan everything, as this only serves to hinder users from taking advantage of the increased productivity and power brought by the modern digital networks and internet and is a tremendous use of computing resources.

The cybersecurity security model for data networks can defined as something which protects data and data systems by denying access to unauthorized users, preventing downtime of authorized services by unauthorized activities (Denial of Service attacks), and preserving the overall functional state of health of a digital network at 99%.

1)Protecting of data and data systems from unauthorized access

As more and more information is being stored online as financial information, credit card numbers, classified documents and information that cannot fall into unauthorized hands, data protection is the top concern of cybersecurity. Unfortunately there have been many famous security breaches of important data as millions of credit numbers stolen, to theft of corporate trade secrets and even concerns of foreign countries retrieving national security information by the use of trojans and other intrusion methods.

Methods for intrusion include

The installing of backdoor network intrusion applications hidden in or disguised as legitimate applications that enter inside a network by authorized users inadvertently opening infected emails or websites.

Brute force attacks, where common user names and weak passwords are exploited by systems that try millions of combinations of username, password sets to gain access.

Exploits in operating systems as Microsoft windows that allows a secure or authorized service to be exploited by found flaws in the softwares design.

Theft or breach of internal networks by employees or persons normally authorized with allowed access to the systems, or who hold access to certain areas where by internal snooping they are able to find passwords and authcodes to secure areas. (Notes left on desks, computers left logged in to secure areas.

Exposing of data to external breach by placing documents on USB pendrives and laptops in order to present such data in meetings outside of the network. Many times employees place a document on a USB pen that is for a presentation at a remote location, but they happen to also have secure documents unrelated to the current meeting which got left on their USB. Then they place their pen drive in a third party computer in order to present 1 document, not knowing that particular computer has a trojan which quickly copies all of the data on their USB to an unauthorized 3 party location.

2)Preventing downtime of authorized services by unauthorized activities

Brute force attacks, scanners and denial of service attacks can cause a network, its servers and main access routers, to be brought down to the point that the network is no longer usable in any form. Such attacks cause considerable damage and downtime to networks on a daily basis. The ability to detect such attacks and cut them off at the source farthest away from the core network and its services is very important to the overall health of a strong cybersecurity program.

3) Preserving the overall functional state of health of a digital network.

Preserving the health of a digital network is not just in the prevention of attacks and unauthorized activity but also in the preservation of core services and data access that its authorized users depend upon. It is not a viable solution to stop an attack or prevent potential attacks by also preventing or limiting authorized access. A cybersecurity solution has to be able to isolate and prevent attacks and breaches to its integrity by at the same time not limiting or denying access to its resources by authorized users.

It is clear from the many different ways that security can be breached in data networks, and the overwhelming dependence on such networks that the current security methods are not only no longer adequate to protect such networks, but themselves serve to further cause more security problems and network access issues. As such an urgent need has arisen to change the current mode of approach to cybersecurity and create a new dynamic model that is able to constantly adapt to the ever changing needs to protecting data networks.

A new IDS model must be created that has to adhere to the following goals:

The goal of any IDS system must be to preserve the integrity of the network in which it protects and allow such network to function in its ideal operating state at 99.99%.

An IDS system must be lightweight and dynamically deployed. An IDS system cannot itself become another intrusion and must not break the first rule by comprising the networks integrity in using too much computing and network resources in its attempts to protect the network.

An IDS system must be able to constantly adapt to an ever changing environment and self update its own signature records based on evolving threats. An IDS system must not require extensive hands on resources to constantly update its signature files and require manual verification that the threats it detected are actual and not false

An IDS system has to be able to simultaneously protect the network against attacks, unauthorized use and downtime, without preventing nor limiting network access and use of network resources to authorized clients. As such it must be unobtrusive at all times and preserve the network in an open state where its core services and resources are 99.99% available to the networks authorized users while detecting, isolating and preventing unauthorized activity.

Truly only research in proactive defense mechanisms will hold usefulness in protecting the digital networks of now and in the future.

Brandt Hott

Article from articlesbase.com

DemocracyNow.org – Libyan rebels have consolidated their grip on the capital of Tripoli by capturing Col. Muammar Gaddafi’s main compound, but the whereabouts of the Libyan leader remain unknown and he has vowed his forces would resist “the aggression with all strength” until either victory or death. Reporters in Tripoli say heavy gunfire could still be heard nearby the area of the Rixos hotel where dozens of international journalists guarded by heavily armed Gaddafi loyalists are unable to leave. The Arab league said on Tuesday it will meet this week to consider giving Libyan rebels the country’s seat at the league, after it was taken away a few months ago from the Gaddafi government. Today Britain’s National Security Council is meeting to to discuss unfreezing Libyan assets to financially assist the National Transitional Council. Democracy Now! speaks with Gilbert Achcar, a professor at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. For the complete transcript, to download the podcast, or for more Democracy Now! reports on the conflict in Libya, visit www.democracynow.org FOLLOW DEMOCRACY NOW! ONLINE: Facebook: www.facebook.com Twitter: @democracynow Subscribe on YouTube: www.youtube.com Daily Email News Digest: www.democracynow.org Please consider supporting independent media by making a donation to Democracy Now! today, visit www.democracynow.org
Video Rating: 4 / 5

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Posted on August 26, 2011 by , Reply

what would be a good way to make a poster or model illustrating freedom of religion?

Question by Mo-ni-que: what would be a good way to make a poster or model illustrating freedom of religion?
should i make a model or a poster? how should i show freedom of religion? pleez give me some ideas! its due tuesday!

Best answer:

Answer by Brad J
Make a poster…
Have it say “GOD IS DEAD”

even though you dont mean it, and even though I dont mean it.

The fact that you can make something like that, and bring it to school is a prime example of your freedom of religion…

dont do it if you think you’ll get in too much trouble though.

Add your own answer in the comments!

Posted on June 2, 2011 by , 3 comments

Crisis in World Economy and the Proposed New Model for Sustainable Development

Crisis in World Economy and the proposed New Model for sustainable development.

The ongoing turmoil in world economy raised the doubt that present model of capitalism cannot be sustained for environmental and social reasons. Respected thinkers and scientists have pointed to this reality. Now we should look ahead to a new system that is sustainable and humane. Otherwise whatever wealth is created would be wiped out by environmental disasters and social upheavals. Whole system is complicated by lack of transparency. It is not clear where all the money gets invested. Hedge funds are cloaked in secrecy- even bailout money has disappeared with no effect to the economy. Even now nobody knows which are the real bad toxic assets, so stock market is also not recovering.

In this treatise some key issues in this crisis are discussed and a new  model is proposed that will engineer a balanced global society  globally conscious, active and sustainable.   

Regarding overpaid CEOs

Let us ponder over some news those captured the attention across the globe. Washington Mutual Chief Executive Alan Fishman could walk away with more than 18 million dollar in salary, bonuses and severance after less than three weeks on the job as golden parachute from flight WaMu in danger, according to the terms of his employment agreement. Lehman Brothers was handing out 23 million dollar to three executives just days before it collapsed. It paid 2.5 BILLION dollar bonus fund after failing. CEO of American Express saw his pay go up much more than double although shares price nosedived. Hewlett Packard CEO destroyed half the wealth of her investors and yet still earned almost 100 million dollars in total payments. Exactly same is the case with Informix Software CEO. The list goes on and on. It means what?  This isn’t a diatribe against CEO pay. Point is failure has become a recipe for financial success of CEOs especially in America by virtue of their intelligent manipulation and abuse of power.  Martin Whitman, economist and the great advocate of capitalism opined that apart from corruption another reason as to why a free market situation is probably doomed to failure is very exorbitant levels of executive compensation.

 Regarding free-market economy

I do not think free market is really free. Those who say they favor a free market are speaking in a relative term.  In an absolutely free-market economy, all capital, goods, services, and money flow are unregulated by the government. There is simply no free market yet, given the degree of state intervention in even the most capitalist of countries. For example US government took an 80% stake in AIG in return for an 85 billion dollar investment to save the company. Recent news of Citi bank is being given a bail out package of 326 billion dollars and Jaguar’s requirement of 1 billion pound for sustaining economic meltdown are significant. Under pure capitalist theory, none of these actions should’ve been taken; the government should have stood by idly while the economy tanked. So how can a free market be free if it’s regulated?  The fall out of free market economy such as black Market, underground economy, Drug trade essentially justifies government’s intervention to remedy the situation and establishes the argument against free market as an impractical ideal that engenders vested wealthy interests. Experiments in absolute adherence to free market principles evince signal failures in Military, Road, Health Care, Civic Amenities, Education, R & D etc. Free- market economy is a fantasy – outside of the bounds of reality in a complex system with opposing interests and different distributions of wealth. Time and again world is realizing this fact is a harder way. Hence I align with those critics who are in favour of a planned economy  as advocated by socialism and who associate markets with greed  as the basis of capitalism. I believe it is inherently immoral. More over one practical objection is that free market economy does not take into account the externalities i.e. effects of transactions that affect third parties, such as the negative effects of Global Warming that brought world to Apocalypse in foreseeable future. I guess that in well-run industrial economies like Japan, Singapore and China, there is marriage between government and the private sector, each benefiting from the other. Any temporary prosperity on an extremely austere free market concept can crumble like a pack of cards, like it happened in USA.

Regarding Nationalisation and regulation.

 What does the US federal government taking control of financially crumbling mortgage holders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac with a bail out package of staggering 800 billion?  Why on the earth Fed and other regulators are coming into the picture particularly for some of those that got overextended with the subprime and other kind of mortgage debt? Nationalization occurs when full or partial control is taken of private financial institutions, usually to avert a crisis. Scandinavian nations successfully averted an economic meltdown through nationalization in the early 1990s, and in recent times. US government is taking similar actions. It looked at the global fallouts and how politically they will be viewed by the world powers. So they bailed out finance industries, but not agreeing so easily to the auto industry. these issues are interlinked with power, military, oil.

 Regarding mortgage financing

It was the proponents of Capitalism who supported advantage of loan facilities and low interest rates for houses to be owned by people at low income group. There was enormous marketing effort to dupe people into it.  Logic was simple. If one buys house, he will also buy complimentary household goods like furniture, Fans, AC, Cars etc. creating a demand pull in the economy. Banks also extended the moratorium on interest and principle up to 5 years to convince the borrowers. When crisis occurs, should we brand common people as “lazy bummers”? Similarly it is unfair to blame the common investors for lost speculative fortune when Stock Market is institutionalized by system as a socially and ethically valid means of income.

Regarding targeting CEOs

In our capitalist system, you’re free to earn what you can, and what the market will bear- this logic does not hold water since big companies are increasingly depending on public money for a bail out. Hence I support newest trend of shareholders in raising questions and putting pressure on boards and compensation committees to make sure compensation is fair but not excessive. The interesting News was that US Law Makers asked blunt questions to CEOs like Wagoner, Nardelli, Mulally of GM, Chrysler and Ford who came to the Capital Hill with a begging bowl for 25 Billion of Tax Payers money, when each one of them preferred to fly in their individual Private Jets, when as many as 24 non stop flights fly daily from Detroit to Washington. Lifestyle and salary should definitely be a valid question when companies are using public money. That is why companies are facing “say on pay” resolutions from shareholders. The board of directors should have taken this role, but instead they normally abdicate it. Most CEOs considers keeping board members happy as their primary duties. For example taking the board members on an all-expenses paid trip to a five-star international resort, allowing his compensation to spiral out of control, which is nothing but intelligent corruption and abuse of power.

Myth regarding the CEOs’ ‘sheer value-add’ in the corporate world.

For a company to become successful entails billions of variables, which are oftentimes beyond the ambit of human ability of one individual. Even with our full regard on Narayanmurthy’s ability, we must accept Infosis’s success was primarily on account of flattening effect of world by Internet revolution in 92.  Jerry Yang, co founder of Yahoo, considered to be a great CEO, had to step down amid mounting pressure from investors after he botched takeover talks with Microsoft Corp. and failed to broker an online advertising agreement with Google Inc. Many CEOs were rated highly for certain techno bubble, which turned out to be utterly divorced from any business purpose whatsoever. Of course there is positive effect too- it attracts lot of investment and accelerates the pace of innovation. The trophy cases of HP CEO with so many industry awards and accolades were crucified for her destructive reign of terror with “Silicon Valley greed.” Hence it is fundamentally wrong to empower one individual so much for the success and failure of an organization. In Japanese and Chinese model, system is ascribed more powerful than an individual.  Once CEOs become all-powerful, their executive staff is reluctant to challenge them. Instead, the natural tendency is for these dominant leaders to become cocooned from reality. They are told only what they want to hear and hear only what they want to be told. Sequestered from the rest of the company, they lose the pulse of the business eventually.

Regarding Capitalism vs. Socialism

By virtue of the extremely clever indoctrination, a spin-off of media advertising especially of US kind, our thought process is getting clouded driving us towards more personal interest, freedom and power than social responsibility. Do we really need large waves of money sloshing daily around the planet for benefit of only a few, waves often generated by speculation capable of dislocating economies? Do we need larger and larger corporations which concentrate economic power into fewer and fewer hands? When seen in this light, capitalism has a shadow side. Economy in its root sense means acquiring the basic material things we need to lead a human life: food, shelter, energy, etc. But this is something quite different than a quest for a so-called higher standard of living. This really is the unending quest for a higher level of consumption. Our material needs are finite. After a certain point we are simply embellishing them. Then we begin to distort them making them the carriers of our own disordered desires.  Recent news of bra and panty for men in Japan is the right example for such disorder. We need shelter but we don’t need 50,000 square feet trophy homes when billions of people can’t even afford a shanty. Now we are living in a time when we don’t even feel shame. We have become so much closeted within ourselves that even with the back up of enormous fortune, we feel unsafe with the slightest possibility of economic meltdown.  Capitalism propels us to become shameless consumers and run our lives according to the design of the contemporary social machine, which foreshadows world destruction, whereas our true nature favours a life closer to nature. If American Capitalism is a kind of religion with its own dogma, then its God is Money and its driving force is Greed.  The fall out of this ruthless system is obscenities of unemployment, homelessness and economic insecurity and hence is not sustainable in its present form. The whole system is designed to make fewer and fewer people richer and richer at the cost of resources of the multitude. It definitely operates below the level of consciousness and no longer works for us.  I understand one very simple thing – goods and services generated in an economy must be shared equitably in a population. Otherwise those who will be deprived will take resort to unethical or socially unacceptable means- theft, dacoity, terrorism, drug, killing, cheating, narrow politics and what not.   Recent examples of everyday terrorism, Piracy, Mao attacks, dark killing are the pointers to this fact.   

Even in USA people are facing dark side of capitalism when blue collar Americans have been losing jobs because of outsourcing and off shoring in the mask of progress for real intention of more profit.  What is the social damage? Skills for manufacturing a certain product developed over the years are getting lost in the society.  Capitalist countries use capitalist ideals as a matter of convenience.  When Government owns hospitals, libraries, transportation systems, utilities, army, Navy, Air Force, forests and national perks- yet, who would call these institutions examples of socialism?  Socialism means a government in which the people collectively own and democratically operate the industries and social services through an economic democracy by ending the waste, duplication and inefficiency of capitalist industries. Under capitalism the industries operate for one purpose – profit maximization. As per Capitalism profit is also a cost, cost of staying in the business. Under Socialism goods are produced for use and to satisfy the needs of all the people. Under this system everyone could live comfortably with no giant gaps between rich and poor. Is it not really humane? Just because a system is not strictly as per lower merits of human nature say greed, it should not be rejected. Socialism talks about higher sense of our human values and existence.  After Industrial resolution act 1956 in India, socialistic pattern of economy in India has produced wonderful developments in sectors till seventies. Hence we can infer that Socialistic system can produce wonderful results under certain conditions and social environment.  However I do agree classical form of Socialism may not take into account of the Individual brilliance and creative pursuit, which is probably its one of its weaknesses.

The New Model

Having said this, we should find out whether there can be a balance between the two systems and what kind of mechanism society should develop so that one can approximate the ideals of good life in his individual life and in the life of community of which he is a member. I feel it is possible to have our modern global economy while being socially, culturally & environmentally responsible at the same time. Society has go through a difficult paradigm shift in personal values, which will instill a degree of awareness in our mind as opposed to the blind, materialistic way we are living.

I have thought of one model that will engineer a balanced global society that is globally conscious, active and sustainable. Way out is to lead humanity by the collective wisdom of most talented people in a society or country- a kind of meritocracy.  Mechanism to harness collective wisdom will be -say for any policy and contentious issue, opinions of most eminent people of the country will be  collected by a network of computers and looking into the wisdom of eminent people who are most knowledgeable on the subject under consideration, decision can be made in real time. Their services can be hired at a cost; they can be selected based on the track record etc. Decisions can be taken in National forum if discussion and debate are warranted. Experiments, research and its implications can be interpreted by eminent people only and that is why collective wisdom as instrumentality for decision support system may be a model worth trying for. One may argue country does not need only dry knowledge culled from books. There must be leaders to make certain things happen. Yes leaders are required. But a leader can be chosen by collective wisdom, which should be supremely empowered. A leader will resort to collective wisdom for at least for major decision. The collective wisdom is likely to veer country to right direction. Humanity has to go though different experiments and whatever evolved as better model will be accepted and perfected in course of time. We should never be blind to state that capitalism or the socialism is the right system with dogmatic finality.

The author is a senior executive in Hindustan Aeronautics Limited and lives in Kolkata with his wife and daughter. He is a Mechanical Engineer with Masters degree in Business management and has 22 years’ of experience in cutting edge technolgies in different companies in India and abroad.

Article from articlesbase.com

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Posted on February 21, 2011 by , Reply