Huge Phishing Attack On Emissions Trade In Europe

bratgitarre writes "A targeted phishing scam on companies trading with greenhouse gas emission certificates in Europe has reaped millions, Der Spiegel reports. By sending phishing e-mails to companies in Australia and New Zealand purporting to be from the German Ministry for Environmental Protection (German article, Google translation) the criminals obtained login credentials for companies owning polluting permissions. They then swiftly sold them to other polluters in various European countries. Damages are probably huge for a single incident, as 'one medium-sized German company alone had lost allowances worth €1.5 million ($2.1 million).' German federal officials, who can trace some of the transactions, claim that out of 2000 certificate sellers, seven responded to the scam."

Comments

Russian gas

[sopssa]

I wonder if this is related to Russian gas and their tricks in selling it to Europe and Eastern Europe. It's a long tradition they always try something in the winter, as they did this year too, and most of Europe depends on it.

What did they learn?

[T Murphy]

Is there any reason it would be a bad idea, if someone has control over millions in assets, two people's login credentials should be required to confirm a transaction? It's bad enough to have someone responsible for that much money be foolish enough to fall for a phishing scam, but I should hope there is a low chance two people could run a company successfully but both fall for the same scam.

Re:What did they learn?

[DaveGod]

No, and any company should be doing just that. The company's auditors should be detecting if it's not required, and reporting such weakness to management. Failing to implement such basic controls will cost the company, whether or not there is fraud. The auditor will face much greater audit risk and hence have to increase his workload (and hence fee) to compensate.

On the other hand, such a control probably would not be very effective against this. For example Person A gets tricked and then gets Person B who probably does not go through the detailed mechanics - if anything he'd go check out the official website and approve it on that basis.

A more relevant control would be authorised supplier lists combined with set procedures. For example, a company would only allow emissions trading through a specific broker and the payments would always be made to that broker's escrow account. That way you can get fiddled and all you get is a call from your broker wondering why they have your money.

For what it's worth transactions were a lot better controlled when everything was paid by cheque. Cheques required two signatories. Banks were very good at ensuring authorised signatories were authorised. Now for smaller businesses with internet banking you have a bookkeeper who needs access to print statements and the same login can complete transactions from start to finish - half the time they're using the managing director's login. Well, you can't have the MD's time being used up doing silly things like printing statements can you? And bookkeepers, it's not like they're in a high-risk position and able to hide fraud....

And that is why evil will always win

[Chris Burke]

Because good is dumb.

Re:And that is why evil will always win

[Chris Burke]

No, my family name is awesome.

Carbon allowance trading is a big scam

[Anonymous Coward]

Just what we need, another derivative in the energy markets for traders to salivate over ala Enron.
That's why the so called cap and trade is advocated by the sausage-makers. It is a big giveaway to the Goldman Sachs crowd.

And Al gore stands to make hundreds of millions if the trading scheme goes into practice.

Even a global warming partisan activist like James Hansen )NASA) calls this a scam, and favors a simpler "carbon tax"
-Jay

Re:Carbon allowance trading is a big scam

[Jeremy Erwin]

The cap and trade model theoretically allows a cap to be achieved as efficiently as possible. Some plants will emit less because they will have already switched to less emittive technologies. Some other plants have not. The extra fees allow the cost of using a greenhouse emitting technology to be properly reflected on the books.

Re:Carbon allowance trading is a big scam

[Unoriginal_Nickname]

Cap and trade allows the industry to distribute the right to pollute to the firms that need it the most. Companies that can reduce pollution easily and cheaply do so, and they get a nice black number on their quarterly report for selling their carbon credits. Companies that cannot efficiently reduce their pollution effectively subsidize the pollution reduction of their industry.

Taxation is a punitive measure that does not have the above merits. It only encourages the most trivial improvements to manufacturing processes, and raises many more questions (like what to do with the tax money.)

Economists have modeled cap and trade versus the other alternatives (in a game theoretic sense) and the results are pretty much clear. Within the framework of a free market, there is no more efficient way of forcing companies to internalize their externalities.

Re:Carbon allowance trading is a big scam

[maxume]

Which economists? All of them?

Did they model China and India as a free for all (a tax can be applied to imports, and perhaps, rebated against exports)?

As far as the tax receipts, it wouldn't be that hard to find something to do with the money (pay off debt is an easy one), the only hard part would be agreeing on where to spend it (and that's only a problem because our politics are ridiculous).

Re:Carbon allowance trading is a big scam

[zblack_eagle]

What to do with the tax money? Subsidize R&D for renewable energy, subsidize renewable energy generation and fund more substantial public transport systems that actually have a hope of competing with cars. Yeah, I know that in practice this likely won't happen because governments like to lump all tax revenue into one huge pile. But in the same vein, cap and trade isn't going to work because governments insist on throwing free rights to their heavily polluting lobbyists

Re:Carbon allowance trading is a big scam

[NevarMore]

Except taxes simply make it harder for businesses to operate at all.

The ONLY effective "green initiatives" are the ones that directly benefit the bottom line or personal space WITHOUT incentives, credits, penalties, or tax fudging.

Examples:
  - drive less, spend less on gas, maintenance, etc.
  - turn the lights off when you leave a room, less on electricity
  - use less water, less on the water bill
  - better windows, less HVAC cost PLUS better comfort near that window
  - better doors, same as windows
  - not buying new things when old ones work just fine

The things that our parents yelled at us to do are both cost effective AND "green". They work. They're proven.

Re:Carbon allowance trading is a big scam

[Rei]

Public transportation is only a partial solution. It's great at dealing with the high-density legs. It sucks at reaching specific endpoints. In areas where population traffic is very dense, it can be a 100% solution. Elsewhere... not so much.

Out here in your average town of 60k people, with one of the best public transportation systems in the region, it just doesn't work well. To catch a bus from my home, I have to walk about five blocks. In Iowa (think of our winters). When I go to work and come home, they only show up hourly -- if I miss it, I'm in *big* trouble. The bus averages about 8 passengers onboard. It meanders all over the place to pick up and drop off passengers, increasing the length of the route and adding way more stops and starts and idling, reducing efficiency. The bus probably averages about 3 1/2 mpg diesel in the sort of drivecycle they put it through -- which is the CO2 equivalent of about 3mpg gasoline. 8 passengers, that's 24mpg equivalent if each person drove by themself... but you have to go perhaps 50% more miles you reach your actual destination, so it's really more like 16mpg. So if everyone drove by themself in an SUV, that'd be about the equivalent.

And it takes 4 times as long for me to get to my destination (I have to do one transfer).

What's the solution?

  * More frequent bus trips -- but even fewer passengers per trip, and thus even worse per-passenger mpg?
  * Less frequent bus trips -- *2 hours* between stops? Yeah, that'll up your ridership...

Really... it just doesn't work effectively. And I say this as someone who generally enjoys subway and rail travel. On high-density legs, public transit works well (and that's what subways and rail are typically used for). Public transit is great for downtown areas and high residential density areas (apartments, etc). But in other places... no.

Re:Carbon allowance trading is a big scam

[TapeCutter]

"even when the market is government mandated"

If you consider warlords, tribal elders, nobility, etc, as primative forms of government then I can't think of a market that is not government mandated, even the black market is to a large degree mandated by government prohibition.

Re:Carbon allowance trading is a big scam

[slinches]

Economists have modeled cap and trade versus the other alternatives (in a game theoretic sense) and the results are pretty much clear. Within the framework of a free market, there is no more efficient way of forcing companies to internalize their externalities.

Great. We have an optimal method of internalizing the CO2 externality. Now what is the impact of CO2 output in $$/kg so we can put this method into practice?

The problem I have with cap and trade is not that the method being used is inefficient, but that the value of the carbon credits is being set based on political motives. Rushing into cap and trade without an accurate carbon credit value estimate could end up costing far more than the effects of uncontrolled CO2 emissions. At this point, can we even be sure that increased CO2 output will cause a net loss of overall wealth?

Re:Carbon allowance trading is a big scam

[FooAtWFU]

The problem is calculating the "carbon added" is potentially quite obnoxious, and not always straightforward. Imagine the legal tussles, and all the decisions they'd make wrong. Is, say, Marini's Sweets (of Santa Cruz) going to have to calculate the carbon consumption from heating a cauldron of chocolate to make their chocolate-covered bacon chunk ice cream? Will they get a credit if it reduces the heating needs of their adjacent retail store? Should they really have to hire someone to figure it out for them? Does the air conditioning in the Austin, TX offices of IBM count as carbon input into their Lotus Notes product? And this is the stuff that's easy to come up with. How do you assign a value to an import where they haven't kept up with the paperwork? Wild-ass guessing? VAT, moreover, is widely recognized as obnoxious in the paperwork (and weirdly skewed in certain cases... like software companies, where they spin value out of nothing.)

Just taxing the use of oil/coal/gas and other such fuels is at least relatively simple.

Re:Carbon allowance trading is a big scam

[jlarocco]

Say what you want about cap and trade, but you can't rightly call it "free market".

Government mandated interference, like "cap and trade," is the antithesis of free market principles. A free market, by definition, is one without government interference.

Cap and trade is called a "free market" solution by anti-capitalism folks, so that they can promote their agenda when it fails. Incorrectly labeling cap and trade as "free market" hides the fact that it's actually socialist government interference that's failing. When cap and trade fails, they can say, "Well look how much the free market sucks, cap and trade couldn't even solve pollution."

Re:Carbon allowance trading is a big scam

[jlarocco]

This means society collectively subsidizes the production of the good. Sounds a lot like socialism to me!

That doesn't change the fact that calling "cap and trade" a "free market solution" is a lie.

If you want to say "We need to resort to socialism to solve this problem," then say it. Don't spread FUD by claiming cap and trade is a free market solution to the problem when it isn't.

Is it only me

[thewils]

or does anyone else think that the whole idea of trading emission allowances is a huge scam to begin with?

Re:Is it only me

[jgagnon]

I agree completely... "Cap and trade" can so easily be corrupted that there is no point in going that route unless corruption is your goal.

Re:Is it only me

[radtea]

"Cap and trade" can so easily be corrupted that there is no point in going that route unless corruption is your goal.

Sure, look at what happend with cap and trade in sulpher emissions in North America in the '80's. It was such a complete failure that acid rain is no longer a looming problem... oh, wait.

Just as a matter of interest, why do you hate market solutions so much? Are you some kind of socialist?

Re:Is it only me

[vxice]

Well at first yes, but isn't it a much bigger scam that people get to pollute, obviously they gain other wise they would have to pay to remove their waste pollution is free, rather than pay market value for access to the waste disposal they would use? You would complain about a company dumping waste on your lawn wouldn't you? If not then companies would dump everything they could, massively dropping their waste disposal costs. Unfortunately atmosphere is not easy to control access to, this is basically the classic example of a market failure and one of the few times economists advocate government stepping in and regulating industry by charging them for access to a resource they use but don't pay for. As long as it is free and there are no limits on what they can put in the atmosphere they will put everything they can to lower costs.

Re:Is it only me

[Arthur Grumbine]

It was such a complete failure that acid rain is no longer a looming problem... oh, wait.

Why do I feel this will be the exact same justification for the next environmental crusade after "looming AGW" fails to destroy the mankind?

Re:Is it only me

[Talderas]

Just as a matter of interest, why do you hate market solutions so much? Are you some kind of socialist?

The introduction of artificial scarcity by a non-market entity (government) does not make something a market solution.

Re:Is it only me

[Alinabi]

It's mostly you. Every other commodity in this world is traded, including your odds of getting sick or having a car accident, so why not this one?

Re:Is it only me

[jimbolauski]

Just as a matter of interest, why do you hate market solutions so much? Are you some kind of socialist?

Remind me how exactly a commodity, emissions in this case, will be limited by the government and sold by the government to the people or given out by the government to chosen companies (see pay to play schemes) who can then trade them is a market solution. A real market solution would be companies who want to tout their C02 standards can advertise that they are good for nature and people could buy that product and will be able to look down on other people who choose not too, note the second way does not mention government in it which would make it a market solution.

Re:Is it only me

[sien]

The US cap and trade on sulphur dioxide emissions was passed in 1990.

Overall, the Program's cap and trade program has been successful in achieving its goals. Since the 1990s, SO2 emissions have dropped 40%, and according to the Pacific Research Institute, acid rain levels have dropped 65% since 1976.[15][16] However, this was significantly less successful than conventional regulation in the European Union, which saw a decrease of over 70% in SO2 emissions during the same time period.[17]

S02 emissions were also falling from a peak in the late 1970s toward the 1990s, in other words the US S02 trading scheme was on an already declining path and was less successful than more direct European approaches.

S02 emissions trading was also local and not between countries which is another area where the proposed Green House Gas emissions trading schemes fall down. A corrupt county can just 'create' permits and then sell them. This has already happened with European and other schemes.

A tax would be a much more honest, much more transparent scheme than an Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS). ETS type solutions are attractive largely because politicians don't have to say they are a new tax, they can be easily gamed by giving out free permits and Enron style firms (including Enron itself before it went bankrupt) see a potential bonanza.

Renewable Resource

[zippthorne]

I fail to see the big catastrophe here. Pollution credits are a renewable resource, you can manufacture as many of them as you want by just changing the orientation of the magnetic field in a microscopic quantity of iron oxide.

I mean, all they need to do is give the companies who got scammed extra credit under some pretense (perhaps they were nice at recess). It's just numbers on a page.

Re:Renewable Resource

[zippthorne]

No, the numbers in a bank account represent a quantity of currency which itself is only referential in value.

In other words, the bank account is worse. Pollution credits represent a real thing: number of pounds of x you can dump on everyone. Your numbers in a bank account have to be converted into money before that can be turned into goods.