[Corbu]

OT:
Iranian Hackers Infiltrated New York Dam in 2013 - WSJ

Iranian hackers infiltrated the control system of a small dam less than 20 miles from New York City two years ago, sparking concerns that reached to the White House, according to former and current U.S. officials and experts familiar with the previously undisclosed incident.

The breach came amid attacks by hackers linked to Iran�s government against the websites of U.S. banks, and just a few years after American spies had damaged an Iranian nuclear facility with a sophisticated computer worm called Stuxnet. In October 2012, then-Defense Secretary Leon Panetta called out Iran�s hacking, prompting fears of cyberwar.

The still-classified dam intrusion illustrates a top concern for U.S. officials as they enter an age of digital state-on-state conflict. America�s power grid, factories, pipelines, bridges and dams�all prime targets for digital armies�are sitting largely unprotected on the Internet. And, unlike in a traditional war, it is sometimes difficult to know whether or where an opponent has struck. In the case of the dam hack, federal investigators initially thought the target might have been a much larger dam in Oregon.

Many of the computers controlling industrial systems are old and predate the consumer Internet. In the early digital days, this was touted as a security advantage. But companies, against the advice of hacking gurus, increasingly brought them online in the past decade as a way to add �smarts� to U.S. infrastructure. Often, they are connected directly to office computer networks, which are notoriously easy to breach.

These systems control the flow in pipelines, the movements of drawbridges and water releases from dams. A hacker could theoretically cause an explosion, a flood or a traffic jam.

The U.S. has more than 57,000 industrial-control systems connected to the Internet, more than any other country, according to researchers at Shodan, a search engine that catalogs each machine online. They range from office air-conditioning units to major pipelines and electrical-control systems.

Security experts say companies have done little to protect these systems from would-be hackers.

�Everything is being integrated, which is great, but it�s not very secure,� said Cesar Cerrudo, an Argentine researcher and chief technology officer at IOActive Labs, a security-consulting firm. At a hacker conference last year in Las Vegas, Mr. Cerrudo wowed the audience when he showed how he could manipulate traffic lights in major U.S. cities.

Operators of these systems �don�t think about security,� he said.

The threat of physical damage is real. Last winter, the German government said in a report that hackers broke into the control system at a domestic steel plant and caused �massive� damage to a blast furnace.

The U.S. and other governments use cyberweapons, too. In the early years of President Barack Obama�s term, the U.S. and Israel used a sophisticated computer program to disable centrifuges at Iran�s nuclear facility at Natanz, according to former U.S. officials. The virus unintentionally self-replicated and spread to other networks, including systems at Chevron Corp. Executives at the oil company said no damage occurred.

The Department of Homeland Security has publicly warned industrial companies since 2011 to be more judicious in how they connect these systems to the Internet. One 2014 missive said the devices are poorly protected, �further increasing the chances of both opportunistic and targeted� hacking attempts.

For the 12 months ended Sept. 30, the department had received and responded to reports of 295 industrial-control-system hacking incidents, up from 245 for fiscal year 2014, according to agency statistics shared with The Wall Street Journal. The problem doesn�t appear to be getting better. In June, the department said a �critical infrastructure asset owner� who suspected a breach hadn�t kept records of devices on its network, hindering the investigation.

Most of the time, the hackers appear to be probing systems to see how they are laid out and where they can get in, investigators familiar with the incidents said.

The incident at the New York dam was a wake-up call for U.S. officials, demonstrating that Iran had greater digital-warfare capability than believed and could inflict real-world damage, according to people familiar with the matter. At a congressional hearing in February, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper called Iranian hackers �motivated and unpredictable cyber actors.� Iranian officials didn�t respond to a request for comment.

The 2013 dam hack highlighted another challenge for America�s digital defenses: the fog of cyberwar. Amid a mix of three-letter agencies, unclear Internet addresses and rules governing domestic surveillance, U.S. officials at first weren�t able to determine where the hackers had infiltrated, three of the people familiar with the incident said.

Hackers are believed to have gained access to the dam through a cellular modem, according to an unclassified Homeland Security summary of the case that doesn�t specify the type of infrastructure by name. Two people familiar with the incident said the summary refers to the Bowman Avenue Dam, a small structure used for flood control near Rye, N.Y.

Investigators said hackers didn�t take control of the dam but probed the system, according to people familiar with the matter.

Homeland Security said it doesn�t comment on specific incidents. Spokesman S.Y. Lee said the department�s �Industrial Control Systems Cyber Emergency Response Team responds to cyber incidents, vulnerabilities and threats� to critical infrastructure across the U.S.

U.S. intelligence agencies noticed the intrusion as they monitored computers they believed were linked to Iranian hackers targeting American firms, according to people familiar with the matter. U.S. officials had linked these hackers to repeated disruptions at consumer-banking websites, including those of Capital One Financial Corp., PNC Financial Services Group and SunTrust Banks Inc., the Journal reported at the time.

Intelligence analysts then noticed that one of the machines was crawling the Internet, looking for vulnerable U.S. industrial-control systems. The hackers appeared to be focusing on certain Internet addresses, according to the people.

Analysts at the National Security Agency relayed these addresses to counterparts at Homeland Security, the people said.

Eventually, investigators linked one address to a �Bowman� dam. But there are 31 dams in the U.S. that include the word �Bowman� in their name, according to U.S. Army Corps of Engineers records.

Officials feared that hackers breached the systems at the Arthur R. Bowman Dam in Oregon, a 245-foot-tall earthen structure that irrigates local agriculture and prevents flooding in Prineville, Ore., population: 9,200. The White House was notified of the discovery, on the belief that it was a new escalation in the ongoing digital conflict with Iran, three people familiar with the incident said.

In response to a request for comment, the White House referred The Wall Street Journal to Homeland Security.

Eventually, the trail led to the Bowman Avenue Dam, the people said, near the village of Rye Brook, N.Y., a 20-foot-tall concrete slab across Blind Brook, about 5 miles from Long Island Sound. It was built in the mid-20th century for ice production, according to municipal documents.

�It�s very, very small,� said Marcus Serrano, the manager of the neighboring larger city of Rye. In 2013, Mr. Serrano said, several FBI agents appeared at city offices and wanted to speak to the city�s information-technology manager about a hacking incident at the dam. �There was very little discussion,� Mr. Serrano said.

Chris Bradbury, administrator for the village of Rye Brook, said, �I couldn�t comment on that.�

The FBI declined to comment.

[Corbu]

From Friday:

3MIKE, bugs2011, kadakn01 and 6 others like this.

[DaSchwantz]

By the way on SA watch out for KIA. His a articles are always negative for BlackBerry. They are a diehard BlackBerry hater

'it all started with the  Priv...then the Vienna?'

Yeah - he's the SA king of misleading information, and to top it off if you challenge his 'facts' too directly, your posts often get deleted. Yet every time anyone over there posts a positive cogent statement about BBRY he's there in 3...2...1 to attack the poster and spread his misleading nonsense.

Posted via CB10

[_dimi_]

https://www.tradingview.com/chart/BB...tracted-a-lot/

[DaSchwantz]

Thank you very much for this Morgan. I new there was a better explanation for that and I knew I could count on this fine group of investors!

Posted via Money making BlackBerry Passport!

Yeah, if you assume that BBRY is going to be significantly higher than $10usd by the year 2020, then all you need to know about the debentures is that it represents a large (125m) overhang/dilution of shares above 10, that much of this has already been priced in via shorting, and that the 6% interest payments use up a small amount of the cash flows each quarter, booked as investment losses.

The GAAP pricing is the only way to account for it on the books today. It's basically a model that tries to provide an equivalent market value as if the obligations were traded, and BlackBerry were to by them back. That is one way for companies to expire their own debt early, but in this case there's no real market anyways so it's all academic.

What you CAN'T do (unless you intend on being misleading), is to talk about the GAAP earnings, AND the dilution, AND ex the $1.25b out of the total cash. That's one way to know when someone may be lying about BlackBerry's financial situation. You must pick one or the 3 scenarios. As mentioned, the GAAP scenario doesn't actually exist, and the cash scenario assumes the SP doesn't get much above $10usd before 2020. The dilution scenario is the most likely to be realized, and as I've previously discussed, has already been factored into the SP to some degree by shorting.

To explain this last point, a holder of the convertible will often short the same position so that they will have both upside and downside protection on the sp (hedged).

Posted via CB10

[_dimi_]

Yeah, if you assume that BBRY is going to be significantly higher than $10usd by the year 2020, then all you need to know about the debentures is that it represents a large (125m) overhang/dilution of shares above 10, that much of this has already been priced in via shorting, and that the 6% interest payments use up a small amount of the cash flows each quarter, booked as investment losses.

The GAAP pricing is the only way to account for it on the books today. It's basically a model that tries to provide an equivalent market value as if the obligations were traded, and BlackBerry were to by them back. That is one way for companies to expire their own debt early, but in this case there's no real market anyways so it's all academic.

What you CAN'T do (unless you intend on being misleading), is to talk about the GAAP earnings, AND the dilution, AND ex the $1.25b out of the total cash. That's one way to know when someone may be lying about BlackBerry's financial situation. You must pick one or the 3 scenarios. As mentioned, the GAAP scenario doesn't actually exist, and the cash scenario assumes the SP doesn't get much above $10usd before 2020. The dilution scenario is the most likely to be realized, and as I've previously discussed, has already been factored into the SP to some degree by shorting.

To explain this last point, a holder of the convertible will often short the same position so that they will have both upside and downside protection on the sp (hedged).

Posted via CB10

For the first time, the whole debentures topic is actually clear to me Thanks for that! I usually ignore it, but I'd rather be in the know.

[TGIS]

Yeah, if you assume that BBRY is going to be significantly higher than $10usd by the year 2020, then all you need to know about the debentures is that it represents a large (125m) overhang/dilution of shares above 10, that much of this has already been priced in via shorting, and that the 6% interest payments use up a small amount of the cash flows each quarter, booked as investment losses.


Posted via CB10

If Fridays rally keeps up, we're going to hit ten today or tomorrow. If it stops, I'd say February or March


'it all started with the  Priv...then the Vienna?'

[TGIS]

BBRY stock is pretty high in after hours.
You know what that means...
BBRY STOCK RALLY!
I apologize if bbry doesn't do well today

'it all started with the  Priv...then the Vienna?'

[TGIS]

Up slightly to 8.81
(NASDAQ)

'it all started with the  Priv...then the Vienna?'

[W Hoa]

U.S. Department of Agriculture Expands Deployment of BlackBerry's AtHoc to Farm Services Administration

With this expansion over 15,000 of the Department's personnel are covered for emergency communication and personnel accountability

[TGIS]

8.88

'it all started with the  Priv...then the Vienna?'

[TGIS]

8.91
I smell a rally...

'it all started with the  Priv...then the Vienna?'

[Mr BBRY]

This is interesting... coverage initiated at JP Morgan. Neutral with a $9 target price.

Top Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades: Avago, BlackBerry, Ciena, First Solar, Nabors, Rackspace, SunPower, Tiffany, Yelp and Many More - Avago Technologies (NASDAQ:AVGO) - 24/7 Wall St.

BlackBerry Ltd. (NASDAQ: BBRY) was started as Neutral at JPMorgan, and the firm�s $9.00 price target is versus an $8.61 prior close. BlackBerry has a consensus price target of $7.49 and has a 52-week range of $5.96 to $12.63.

I'd appreciate if someone could post some more info on this report. Get ready for the wave of analyst upgrades or target increases to bring us into the $9's.

[farmwersteve]

Hey everyone, great day Friday and hopefully many more like it

I would like to take most of the credit for Friday's rally, as I sold some of my shares early on

After braving countless pump and dumps, I sold some of my holdings for the first time in over a year.

I figure it is a win win situation for me. I still hold over 3/5 of my original and if it happens to drop, I'm ready to get back in

If it doesn't, I have plenty of time to buy back in on the way to our brown-shoed, $100 fine spirit party. ... I will bring the buttertarts!

Thanks again to the great posters on this site who have she'd so much light on grey matter for me.



Posted via CB10

[Corbu]

[TGIS]

8.93
We're breaking $9 today.

'it all started with the  Priv...then the Vienna?'

[W Hoa]

Jim Cramer Recommends Buying Blackberry [Video] - NASDAQ.com

[Corbu]

Jim Cramer Recommends Buying Blackberry [Video] - NASDAQ.com

[Mr BBRY]

OT: HALO!

And the good news keeps pouring in...

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/inplay...9997.html#halo

Under the terms of the agreement, Halozyme will receive an initial $25 million payment, followed by milestone payments of up to $160 million for each of up to five collaboration targets valued at up to $800 million.

This is great news and something that we have watched HALO do over and over, with nothing stopping them from making many more to come.

[morganplus8]

We also have to remember the twits that raised the price for profit!! then it settled down around the 200 DMA. Thanks Morgan!! how about an update on your battles? if you wish, tell me to go fly a kite!!

P.S. can i copy that Priv'dtobehere!! Nice!!

_dimi_ posted a really nice looking chart this morning projecting out to a cup & handle formation, I hope everyone saw that?

I never dodge a question so I will say that one year ago I was terminal, we had to close up a number of lose ends prior to Christmas and expect the worst. I'm pleased to say that I was able to fight through another run of growth in my head and things went strange from there. The tumour in my head did something no one expected, it started to break up on its own. As it became apparent that I was gaining strength again, I was to undergo two more major surgeries this past Fall but we decided to postpone them and watch the tumour closely. Today it is still there but only 1/4 of the size and as it diminishes I feel better. So we'll wait to schedule possibly only one more surgery this year to remove whats left, again! That's it, this year is different and we are having a big party because of it. Thanks for asking.

[Mr BBRY]

Another target price hike. This time by RBC Capital Markets...

Apple Supplier Avago A Top Pick; BlackBerry PT Hiked AVGO AAPL - Investors.com

BlackBerry's price target was raised to 9 from 8 at RBC Capital Markets. On Friday, BlackBerry beat third-quarter earnings estimates, and CEO John Chen said he'd embrace working with Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA), Apple or Alphabet on advanced auto technology

[bungaboy]

Up slightly to 8.81
(NASDAQ)

'it all started with the  Priv...then the Vienna?'

8.88

'it all started with the  Priv...then the Vienna?'

8.91
I smell a rally...

'it all started with the  Priv...then the Vienna?'

8.93
We're breaking $9 today.

'it all started with the  Priv...then the Vienna?'

It is nice to see your enthusiasm, we also have access to SP on NASDAQ.

[infamousricky7]

_dimi_ posted a really nice looking chart this morning projecting out to a cup & handle formation, I hope everyone saw that?

I never dodge a question so I will say that one year ago I was terminal, we had to close up a number of lose ends prior to Christmas and expect the worst. I'm pleased to say that I was able to fight through another run of growth in my head and things went strange from there. The tumour in my head did something no one expected, it started to break up on its own. As it became apparent that I was gaining strength again, I was to undergo two more major surgeries this past Fall but we decided to postpone them and watch the tumour closely. Today it is still there but only 1/4 of the size and as it diminishes I feel better. So we'll wait to schedule possibly only one more surgery this year to remove whats left, again! That's it, this year is different and we are having a big party because of it. Thanks for asking.

From a long time lurker... I wish you a speedy recovery and all the best in 2016. Thanks for your contribution.

[Corbu]

Morgan, I am sure others here could phrase it better than I can but, simply put, best wishes of good health for the foreseeable future. Be well and stay strong!

[bungaboy]

Monday�s analyst upgrades and downgrades

"BlackBerry Ltd. (BBRY-Q, BB-T) �appears no longer at the brink,� according to RBC Dominion Securities analyst Mark Sue, noting software revenue is likely to exceed revenue from service access fees (SAF) in the next quarter.

Removing the $53-million (U.S.) earned from intellectual property licensing fees, Mr. Sue said the tech company�s third-quarter results �slightly exceeded� both his expectations and the consensus view. Non-GAAP revenue of $557-million beat his $493-million estimate and the consensus of $488-million. Excluding IP revenue, he estimated adjusted earnings per share of a loss of 8 cents would�ve beaten The Street (a loss of 15 cents) and his estimate of a 11-cent loss.

He noted software momentum is building. Excluding IP revenue, software revenue rose 48 per cent quarter over quarter to $109-million, topping his $98-million estimate.

�The primary negative in the quarter is the accelerating decline of high margin service (SAF) revenue,� he said. �SAF revenue declined 18-per-cent quarter over quarter, which was worse than management guidance for 15-per-cent decrease. The accelerating decline of high margin service (SAF) revenue is an incremental headwind to profitability; however, BlackBerry is no longer at the brink where SAF was the only source of positive gross margin revenue - we estimate software revenue (excluding IP revenue) is likely to reach 27 per cent of total revenue next quarter, exceeding SAF (25 per cent). Still much work remains to establish the company�s software business, and competitors are likely to try to instill [fear, uncertainty and doubt] during the BlackBerry/Good integration.�

He added: �The company is balancing the need for investments to fuel software growth and finance the launch of Android-based devices against its commitment to sustain positive FCF and adj. EBITDA. We believe higher levels of investments are likely to weigh on near-term profitability, but enhance the probability of longer-term success for new products.�

Accordingly, he moved his 2017 EPS estimate to a loss of 34 cents from a loss of 12 cents.

He maintained his �sector perform� rating for the stock while raising his target price to $9 from $8. The analyst average, according to Bloomberg, is $7.64.

�We believe BlackBerry�s multiple is improving as it is making progress in its turnaround with the increasing focus on software and the path to profitability looks within reach,� he said. �We believe a premium to the recent historical average is justified given the improving metrics for the company.�