Monthly Archives: October 2018

Denis Robert est de retour. A l'origine du scandale Clearstream, une enquête sur la chambre de compensation européenne des échanges bancaires qu’il suspectait de blanchiment d’argent et d'évasion fiscale, l'écrivain et journaliste s’intéresse cette fois avec sa consoeur Catherine Le Gall, spécialisée dans les dérives de la finance, au milliardaire belge Albert Frère et à son allié canadien Paul Desmarais. Les deux journalistes ont décortiqué pendant trois ans ce qu'ils appellent les "savants montages financiers" d'Albert Frère et Paul Desmarais, qui ont selon eux bâti leur immense fortune en partie sur le dos des Etats."Les Prédateurs" est plus un ouvrage permettant de comprendre des mécanismes de finance compliqués, qu’une somme de révélations, mais il pose notamment une question : pourquoi la Caisse des Dépôts a-t-elle acheté – bien trop cher, qui plus est – le groupe de restauration Quick à Albert Frère ? Cela reste un mystère que l’ouvrage des deux journalistes va remettre en lumière. 

The bugs that enabled the attack have since been patched, according to Facebook. The company says that the attackers could see everything in a victim's profile, although it's still unclear if that includes private messages or if any of that data was misused. As part of that fix, Facebook automatically logged out 90 million Facebook users from their accounts Friday morning, accounting both for the 50 million that Facebook knows were affected, and an additional 40 million that potentially could have been. Later Friday, Facebook also confirmed that third-party sites that those users logged into with their Facebook accounts could also be affected."We were able to fix the vulnerability and secure the accounts, but it definitely is an issue that it happened in the first place."Facebook says that affected users will see a message at the top of their News Feed about the issue when they log back into the social network. "Your privacy and security are important to us," the update reads. "We want to let you know about recent action we've taken to secure your account." The message is followed by a prompt to click and learn more details. If you were not logged out but want to take extra security precautions, you can check this page to see the places where your account is currently logged in, and log them out.Facebook has yet to identify the hackers, or where they may have originated. “We may never know,” Guy Rosen, Facebook’s vice president of product, said on a call with reporters Friday. The company is now working with the Federal Bureau of Investigation to identify the attackers. A Taiwanese hacker named Chang Chi-yuan had earlier this week promised to live-stream the deletion of Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook account, but Rosen said Facebook was "not aware that that person was related to this attack."“If the attacker exploited custom and isolated vulnerabilities, and the attack was a highly targeted one, there simply might be no suitable trace or intelligence allowing investigators to connect the dots,” says Lukasz Olejnik, a security and privacy researcher and member of the W3C Technical Architecture Group.On the same call, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg reiterated previous statements he has made about security being an “arms race.”“This is a really serious security issue, and we’re taking it really seriously,” he said. “I’m glad that we found this, and we were able to fix the vulnerability and secure the accounts, but it definitely is an issue that it happened in the first place.”The social network says its investigation into the breach began on September 16, when it saw an unusual spike in users accessing Facebook. On September 25, the company’s engineering team discovered that hackers appear to have exploited a series of bugs related to a Facebook feature that lets people see what their own profile looks like to someone else. The "View As" feature is designed to allow users to experience how their privacy settings look to another person.The first bug prompted Facebook's video upload tool to mistakenly show up on the "View As" page. The second one caused the uploader to generate an access token—what allows you to remain logged into your Facebook account on a device, without having to sign in every time you visit—that had the same sign-in permissions as the Facebook mobile app. Finally, when the video uploader did appear in "View As" mode, it triggered an access code for whoever the hacker was searching for.“This is a complex interaction of multiple bugs,” Rosen said, adding that the hackers likely required some level of sophistication.That also explains Friday morning's logouts; they served to reset the access tokens of both those directly affected and any additional accounts “that have been subject to a View As look-up” in the last year, Rosen said. Facebook has temporarily turned off "View As," as it continues to investigate the issue.“It’s easy to say that security testing should have caught this, but these types of security vulnerabilities can be extremely difficult to spot or catch since they rely on having to dynamically test the site itself as it’s running,” says David Kennedy, the CEO of the cybersecurity firm TrustedSec.The vulnerability couldn’t have come at a worse time for Facebook, whose executives are still reeling from a series of scandals that unfolded in the wake of the 2016 US presidential election. A widespread Russian disinformation campaign leveraged the platform unnoticed, followed by revelations that third-party companies like Cambridge Analytica had collected user data without their knowledge."There simply might be no suitable trace or intelligence allowing investigators to connect the dots."The social network already faces multiple federal investigations into its privacy and data-sharing practices, including one probe by the Federal Trade Commission and another conducted by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Both have to do with its disclosures around Cambridge Analytica.It also faces the specter of more aggressive regulation from Congress, on the heels of a series of occasionally contentious hearings about data privacy. After Facebook’s announcement Friday, Senator Mark Warner (D-Virginia), who serves as vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, called for a “full investigation” into the breach. “Today’s disclosure is a reminder about the dangers posed when a small number of companies like Facebook or the credit bureau Equifax are able to accumulate so much personal data about individual Americans without adequate security measures,” Warner said in a statement. “This is another sobering indicator that Congress needs to step up and take action to protect the privacy and security of social media users.”Facebook may also face unprecedented scrutiny in Europe, where the new General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR, requires companies to disclose a breach to a European agency within 72 hours of it occurring. In cases of high risk to users, the regulation also requires that they be notified directly. Facebook says it has notified the Irish Data Protection Commission about the issue.This is the second security vulnerability that Facebook has disclosed in recent months. In June, the company announced it had discovered a bug that made up to 14 million people’s posts publicly viewable to anyone for days. This is the first time in Facebook’s history, though, that users’ entire accounts may have been compromised by outside hackers. Its response to this vulnerability—and the speed and comprehensiveness of the important disclosures ahead—will likely be of serious importance. Once again, all eyes are on Mark Zuckerberg.

La nouvelle donne L’immédiateté, la simplicité, la dématérialisation et la transparence sont les piliers de la néo fidélité, largement réclamés aujourd’hui par les consommateurs. Mais la fidélisation de demain se dessine dès aujourd’hui par l’ajout de nouveaux services. Ceux-ci sont destinés à créer de l’hypersatisfaction et permettent de séduire des consommateurs sur le long terme, grâce à une compréhension totale des besoins. Les néo privilèges Les nouveaux services générant de la fidélité sont ceux qui sont entièrement basés sur les besoins du client et non sur les impératifs de l’enseigne. Carrefour propose la livraison gratuite à domicile pendant 9 mois pour les femmes enceintes. Total offre un kit de survie aux bébés sur les aires d’autoroute en période de grosses chaleurs. La Bouche Rouge crée des rouges à lèvres rechargeables à l’infini, sans plastique et éco-responsables pour répondre aux nouvelles préoccupations de ses consommateurs. Luxury Card met à disposition de ses clients un espace de repos dans New York. Club Med consulte ses clients fidèles pour la réalisation de nouveaux sites. Bio C Bon vous garde vos plantes l’été et vous les arrose. Nike encourage chaque client de façon personnelle via son compt

Son postulat de départ : la qualité de l'interaction humaine a une influence sur les résultats commerciaux. "On a un message à contre-courant, l'IA est mise au service de l'humain, et redonne de la valeur aux échanges non automatisés" explique Jérôme de Castries. Afiniti introduit l'IA dans les centres d'appels : les opérateurs sont mis en relation avec les clients avec lesquels ils auront de meilleures interactions ("pair better" est la base line d'Afiniti) en analysant en temps réel la data CRM (clients et prospects) et les appels de la veille. Fruit de 8 ans de recherche fondamentale (82 brevets déposés), le système repose sur un pré-calcul des probabilités. Les clients ? Des acteurs des Télécom, de la finance ou de l'énergie, qui gèrent des grands centres d'appel (de 100 à 50 000 personnes).

Conformément à l'accord annoncé en juillet et signé entre la société Parrot, spécialiste des drones professionnels et grand public, et l’équipementier automobile Faurecia, Parrot est sorti intégralement de sa filiale Parrot Automotive le 1er octobre 2018. Parrot Automotive était détenu à hauteur de 20 % par Faurecia depuis le 31 mars 2017.Suite à ce désengagement, Parrot, qui pourra désormais se focaliser sur ses projets liés aux drones, va percevoir 67,5 millions d’euros, ce qui porte la somme globale reçue par la société française dans le cadre de cette opération à 108,5 millions d’euros. Parallèlement, la nouvelle entité Parrot Faurecia Automotive continuera à bénéficier de la licence de la marque Parrot jusqu’au terme convenu, soit fin 2021, en contrepartie de redevances assises sur le chiffre d’affaires de Parrot Automotive.

It’s time to reset the balance of power on the web and reignite its true potential. When Sir Tim Berners-Lee invented the web, it was intended for everyone. The excitement and creativity of its early days were driven from the notion that we can all participate - and the impact was world-changing.But the web has shifted from its original promise - and it’s time to make a change. We can still unlock the true promise of the web by decentralizing the power that’s currently centralized in the hands of a few. How? By using the power of Solid.

Over the weekend, Musk agreed to a settlement with the SEC that requires him to step down as Tesla's chairman and pay a $20 million fine.Under the settlement, which requires court approval, Musk will be allowed to stay as CEO but must leave his role as chairman of the board within 45 days. He cannot seek reelection for three years, according to court filings.He accepted the deal "without admitting or denying the allegations of the complaint," according to a court document.Separately, Tesla agreed Saturday to pay $20 million to settle claims it failed to adequately police Musk's tweet.Last week, the government charged Musk with making "false and misleading statements" to investors on his Twitter account when he said he had secured funding to take the company private.

Le groupe de distribution récupérera 565 millions dans l'opération. Son plan de cession d'actifs est atteint pour moitié.L'opération désendettement continue pour Casino.  Mis sous pression par les investisseurs, le groupe de distribution a annoncé ce lundi avoir signé une promesse de vente contraignante (« synallagmatique » dit le communiqué) pour les murs de 55 de ses magasins Monoprix. L'acheteur est un « investisseur institutionnel » dont le nom n'est pas dévoilé.Avec cette opération, le groupe de Jean-Charles Naouri récupérera 565 millions au plus tard le 27 décembre. La somme s'ajoute aux 213 millions d'euros déjà obtenus avec la cession en juin de 15 % de la foncière Mercialys. Le plan de désendettement atteint donc 778 millions d'euros.Le groupe a annoncé en juin un programme de cessions de 1,5 milliard d'euros au total. A l'origine, la moitié devait être réalisé en 2018 et l'autre début 2019. Le processus pourrait être accéléré, la moitié du plan étant déjà atteinte. Les analystes de chez Kepler Cheuvreux avançaient il y a une dizaine de jours la cession d'actifs comme Casino Restauration et Vindemia, la filiale réunionnaise. Le groupe, qui possédait jusqu'à aujourd'hui l'équivalent de 3,9 milliards de murs de magasins, peut encore vendre quelques pierres.

Des analystes considèrent qu'Apple pourrait faire du tort à toute l'industrie du luxe, y compris la bijouterie, dans les prochains mois et surtout à l'occasion des fêtes de fin d'année.La hausse de tarif de ses produits "essentiels", iPhone et Apple Watch, pourraient détourner les finances de nombreux clients potentiels, qui seraient ainsi moins dépensiers dans d'autres domaines.Cela pourrait en particulier affecter le marché du premier segment des montres coûteuses qui serait le plus fortement impacté.