A Counting School - Hardcore Chartered Accountancy : Learning from Mistakes

That whole "CPA, CA" thing? Someone at the ICAO tripped up yesterday

Krupo — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 02:03:00 GMT

Yesterday I noted that the nomination period for the next ICAO council election is now open.

One of my friends noticed that the original invitation to vote was signed by "Michael K. Banks, CA, Secretary".

Today, a curious second e-mail came out with the subject line "Legal Notice - Official Call for ICAO Council Election Nominations".

I didn't pay close attention to it, with a busy day not giving me a lot of time to look careful - but it really seemed odd they repeated the notice a second time.

That same friend, being a good auditor, took a good look at the second e-mail and noted the enhancement: the second invite is signed by "Michael K. Banks, CPA, CA, Secretary".

I wonder whether someone within the ICAO quickly noticed the missing "new" CPA designation, or whether this was in response to someone outside the Institute calling them out on the oversight? I'm guessing an insider called them out on the mistake - a silly little oversight, though it's symptomatic of the "it feels like they're flying by the seat of their pants and making it up as they go along" sensation this entire merger process is kicking up as it grinds along.

Chartered Accountants are notoriously, famously attentive to detail. It's far too easy to lose their trust and confidence with silly mistakes - the sillier the worse, really. An occupational hazard with the a high risk of missing the forest for the trees, of course, but a reasonable CA will forgive someone a small mistake that arises when high-pressure work under tight deadlines is being completed.

The performance bar and the accompanying room for error for official communications, on the other hand, is significantly tighter, given that people are preparing communications with plenty of advance notice. The more time you have to prepare, the more 'perfect' the messages should be, really.

Don't be too proud to admit you've made a mistake

Krupo — Sun, 03 Feb 2013 05:34:00 GMT

It's good to be proud of your work. If you've done a good job, you can take pleasure in the fact that it's error free.

And yet, people may say things like, "are you sure you didn't double-count those items?"

You may be 100% correct in saying, "of course I didn't," with a self-righteous huff. That doesn't mean you should, though.

Let's assume that you are in fact correct. Rather than scorn those who are helping you by examining your work to avoid embarassing mistakes, thank them for their concern and interest.

Then let's assume that the people asking you are very knowledgeable, and they aren't just asking the question to give you a hard time.

Now stop and ask yourself, "why are they asking me this?"

Is it, perhaps, because your work may in fact be entirely correct, but you didn't present your thought process in a very clear and logical manner? Are you hiding some important facts or assumptions which cause people to second guess you?

There's nothing wrong with being proud of your work, but if you're too proud to examine your presentation for weaknesses - let's say you're trying to make a coy point about the 102 steps you need to take to setup your computer, and then you bristle when people point out that not all of the steps you're listing are truly relevant to your argument - then people will be turned off by your haughtiness, despite the fact that you, or Troy Hunt, have a very interesting presentation with some valid points, but you've prepared it in such a manner that people are distracted by side-arguments rather than your main point.

Consider distilling your message again in cases like this, so your argument can land more effectively - advice everyone, myself included - would do well to practice more often.

Atrocities of learning confuse and infuriate Chartered Accountants

Krupo — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 02:23:00 GMT

Something that helped me immensely when I was preparing for the CKE, and should be helpful to anyone taking a multiple choice test designed by halfwits, was to realize that the test was probably designed by someone who wasn't thinking things through very much. Reading too much into a question is a recipie for anguish and anger. If you make it all the way through this rant you'll pick up a tip that will prove invaluable on your next multiple choice test.

Yes, you may be right when presented with all the possible exceptions to a scenario, but in an ordinary multiple choice question, go with the answer they're "looking for" rather than the answer that shows off how smart you are.

It's sad but true: learning more facts and gaining more knowledge than expected of you can actually end up harming you, when you're presented what the test writer would consider to be a "simple" question.

Right lane, left lane : right answer, left answer.

Step away from the world of accounting and consider a true story from the world of science. A basic question can be designed to test your knowledge of photosynthesis, making you say, "yes, of course it's impossible to generate energy in an ecosystem with light" by answering "True" to a question that says, "can you generate energy in an ecosystem in the absence of sunlight."

Of course, your true or false premise is absolutely destroyed if the student had a teacher in earlier grades who explained the concept of chemosynthesis. Perhaps this particular scenario would be less likely in the present day, since Bill Nye talked up this concept in 2004 according to our dear geek friends updating Wikipedia. But when I was in high school my teacher had no idea, and I had a wonderful fight proving myself right.

The problem is that you'll rarely be in a position to prove how right you are, particularly on professional exams like the CKE, or online courses provided by schools and employers.

The inspriation for today's rant came from a question I saw on an online quiz about driving, asking how badly your fueld efficiency can be degraded if your car's engine is poorly maintained. Your options are something like 5%, 15%, 50% and 75%.

Right off the bat, I felt gobsmacked by the idiocy behind that question.

If you really wanted to ruin an engine, I'm sure the right answer would be infinity, or some other equally grotesque number. Break the car so badly through neglect that it hardly moves but still burns gas and your answer is apparent: the sky's the limit, in non-mathematical terms.

And yet some pompous driving school blowhard expects students to memorize a completely inane "fact". Fortunately there's an antidote for The Stupid: our good friend Google. It'll take you to websites like that of the CAA, which will proudly proclaim the 50% statistic.

Where in the name of all that is holy did they come up with that number? I'd love to see a source for that research but the CAA didn't bother with an answer. No matter, the driving school people are happy to run with it. Heaven forbid you be asked more questions about the proper way to deal with road hazards. No, let's deal with pseudo-science instead. Much more fun.

Once you've had a chance to roll your eyes at what passes for pedagogy, remember that you'll encounter questions like this again and again. You'll be asked what sort of capitalization or expense treatment is allowed under GAAP or IFRS. There may be some freakish extreme scenario that will render all the proposed answers invalid. Ignore that. Go for the most likely answer based on the most likely scenario, and you'll hopefully do just fine on the test. Good luck.

And if you have the luxury of providing a written answer instead of a forlorn hope scratched onto a Scantron sheet, then write out your assumptions. Be happy, while keeping to your time limit, that you can share your knowledge of the extreme scenario which invalidates all answers, as you know the markers will be obligated to consider that comment. If there's ever a fight over the right answer, or whether you're one mark away from passing or failing, the additional written comments will do wonders. Of course, a pure online course is unlikely to give you that luxury, but that hopefully won't stop you from taking a screenshot, dumping it in your favorite word processor, and annotating it with your comments. You can subsequently harp on the course designers to your heart's content with the fact that they designed a test poorly and should fix their atrocity of learning before it's inflicted on more innocent students.

We paid $300,000 for KPMG to tell us to stop putting flouride in the water, and find other '5% savings.' Wow.

Krupo — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 01:41:00 GMT

The newest gem to land in Toronto's lap is a report on where services can be cut back to save money - you can read the report yourself here - the city has kindly posted the PDF for all to see.

According to NOW Magazine, the report cost $300,000, which suggests a 1000 hour job if the consultants charged about $300 an hour to do the work. That's just a wild guesstimate, but scale the hours and hourly rate accordingly based on how much work you think it took to put this report together.

It's not surprising, if NOW's math is to be correct, that only $15 million of savings has been identified, however, considering the majority of the findings in the report are in the "low" savings category, which means it'll save us 5% or less.

Did the consultants correctly identify the risk associated with publishing a report where they were going to draw the ire of everyone from cyclists to dentists?

Who angers dentists, seriously? Candy companies.

And global consultancies, apparently.

Go to page 9 of the 44 page report. Oh. They went there. Didn't anyone say, "hey, perhaps people will openly mock and ridicule us - for years - if we come out on the side of the tinfoil-hat wearing anti-fluoride lobby?" If no one did, they should have. If you read the comments on Torontoist, you'll find that there are some people who cheer that point. Perhaps these are their brothers-in-arms. Let's say you agree with the suggestion.

Fine.

My main problem with the fluoride point is that it's such a marginal cost saving area. Most of them are - the majority of cost, KPMG astutely points out, comes from repairing our aging watermain infrastructure.

So where did all this effort go? As the Torontoist suggests, the report was crippled from the start by its design, which involved comparing programs and identifying programs that could be cut.

Why oh why is no one given the unenviable but suitably EPIC task of going into the nitty gritty of government departments and identifying areas where actual efficiency in program design would lead to real savings? After all, that's exactly what the city's citizens mistakenly thought they would get when they handed the keys to the city to Rob Ford. Instead, we get a smokescreen that suggests increasing the amount of smoke in the air by starting a war on bike lanes will save money.

Yet look at this post on one of the most infamous new bike lanes in the city - clearly the traffic patterns of the city are not being destroyed by bikes getting a dedicated space. I try to bike as often as I can, but sometimes client work at far-flung locations means I'm in the car. When I see a series of a dozen or more cyclists, I don't whinge. I'm glad to see them. If they were all in cars, you'd have another dozen cars in front of you, setting back your trip by 5 or 15 minutes depending on how poorly timed the traffic lights are!

Let's go back to the other idea. The stereotype of the 'lousy bean counter.' It rears its head when the report writers encourage the city to charge organizers of street festivals higher fees to "recoup costs." This is a frighteningly simplistic suggestion to make. Frightening because some city councillors may think it's a good idea. And simplistic because it only looks at revenue generate from permitting a street closure for a massive festival.

What about the spinoff benefits? A city with more festivals is a more attractive place to visit. Taste of Little Italy, Taste of the Danforth, BuskerFest, and the like. These events increase tourism, increases revenues for businesses poised to capitalize on the festivities, and generally makes the city a more enjoyable place to live in. Perhaps the larger events I mentioned could survive a higher fee. But smaller festivals like the Ukranian and Polish street festivals are just getting off the ground. Stiff them with higher fees, and inhibit their growth. Or watch only well-heeled corporations be able to afford the fees to participate and underwrite the events. And forget about grassroots organizations getting new events started. A high start-up fee will spell death for the innovation that ultimately spawns fun new events.

I really get upset when a bunch of accountants take a short-sighted look at "costs" without matching them to the associated "benefits." It's simply unfortunate, to put it mildly.

Speaking of mildness, be sure to check out page 21 in the report. Although there's the sound of crickets chirping in the accompanying news coverage, some more attention should be paid, as KPMG does a good job of pointing out a service that is "below standard." It's a shame that the conclusion is so weak. If you say something is not being done properly and should be fixed, say it.

Don't say "Technical Services generally does not meet its performance standards and may benefit from process improvement to achieve service level standards."

"May benefit?" Come on now. How about, "it's broken, so fix it"?

Reports have to be delivered in the language of "professionals," but that sentence screams of that very not-yummy condiment, "weaksauce."

Speaking of weaksauce, I'd like to meet the designer of a style guide who doesn't insist on defining technical acronyms. I'm sure a few experts will know what you mean when you're talking about "Utility ABC", but to the average reader, using the term "ABC" without a definition is just sloppy writing. They use the acronym twice in the report without defining it.

I'm sure there's a more detailed report in addition to this "Summary" that was issued for the benefit of the related Standing Committee to gloss over. It's a shame it wasn't shared with us, because the summary was mulched to the point of sour disappointment.

Do you feel like the city just got taken for a ride?

Maybe CAs were smart enough to recognize a bad business and proceeded to avoid it

Krupo — Fri, 17 Dec 2010 03:58:00 GMT

I just mentioned CH Canada last week.

2 days after my post, they went bankrupt.

Ouch.

Here's a list of the dead sites, courtesy of the bankruptcy trustee:

As a consequence of the bankruptcy, DB Media will not be fulfilling any customer orders through its DVD clubs as of December 9, 2010 as the Canadian operations have ceased. The following lists the DVD Clubs affected by the bankruptcy:

DVD CLUB: http://www.columbiahouse.ca/
DVD CLUB: http://www.columbiahousecanada.com
CHCanada: http://www.chcanada.com/
French CHCanada: http://www.cineetcie.ca/
HH: http://www.healthharmony.ca/
Bookscene: http://www.bookscene.ca/

Although the company is dead, and no more shipments will be going out, if you owe money, they'd like you to pay up:

A&M Canada, serving as Trustee, is now in the process of collecting amounts owed to the book and DVD clubs. If you have an outstanding amount owing to DB Media, we would appreciate immediate payment of your account in full.

What a very polite sentiment. Hopefully they don't encounter a scenario where they try to get someone to pay for items that won't end up being shipped out.

Yeah, nice suit, but you're still a gofer

Krupo — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 06:46:00 GMT

I suppose there's not anything wrong with being a gofer, or a dogsbody , but there's no doubt that there's this precious moment of complete disillusionment when a young business graduate finds himself fetching a dozen lunch orders at Petit Four.

Each brutally customized by the sadists known as his co-workers.

In the name of "researching the human condition," I decided to be posh and get myself some food there too. I ended up observing the poor schmuk placing a lunch order so large, it clearly had to be his company's idea of a hazing ritual. From a distance he looked like the typical suit coming down for his Fancy Power Lunch, but up close you could see the naive youth.

"Work hard, follow these orders. Climb the ladder Monty!"

As enlightening as my research was - conclusion, he really should've called ahead with his crazy order - I did want lunch, and the one person ahead of me wasn't getting any service at the cash.

Fortunately the lunch rush was fast approaching, and Petit Four wisely opened the second cash for the lady in line ahead of me. Once she managed to get her credit card to stop declining itself - I got to pay for my own order, with cash of course. I was done, and the Kid was still finalizing his order.

I saw the order-sheet.

Indecipherable scribbles from a good dozen or so people on a piece of paper that definitely wasn't the official PDF ordering form. I stopped paying close attention as my friends showed up with their own food from the Discount Asian and Gourmet Burrito places, but I could've sworn the kid ran off without the order. Perhaps to get clarification, who knows.

Poor guy. Hope he didn't come down from one of the Big Accounting Firms upstairs. They're typically less evil, and the staff are less likely to sport the Look at Me Power Suit.

But somewhere in the downtown core of Toronto a board-room full of people were no doubt impatiently awaiting his return, while my food came out promptly. The advantage of ordering for just yourself!

The key message? My sandwich from Petit Four had Bacon Bread and Beef. It was, predictably, awesome.

The techie in me is a little surprised they don't have a pure online ordering process. The realist that has seen the insanity associated with setting up anything online, as well as the tight margins and limited resources on hand in small businesses like restaurants, however, knows that such a toy is still a pipe dream for the average restaurant.

I may have just stumbled upon another Brilliant Idea for someone with some decent coding skills who wants to flip out a smart little idea into a successful product. Watch it turn into a UFE case idea for 2012 or 2013.

"You, CA, have been hired by LunchExpressNow.com, to assist the owner rollout her new business venture. An accomplished computer programmer, the success of her online ordering system for lunches in Calgary is set to expand across Canada with potential for growth around the world. You will be helping her consider the financing considerations for the expansion as well as the tax implications from opening in new jursidictions. Attached are three proposals for funding the new version of her program as well as minutes from your interviews with the Founder as well as her two university friends who have helped run the business since it started in their shared dorm room at the University of Alberta..."

My running gag is turning an ordinary scenario in the office into the start of a mock UFE case, if you hadn't noticed by now.

Note: This random rant inspired by getting food while putting in a long day at work devolved into the start of a UFE case so subtly I felt a warning was in order. But after adding this text to the top I felt it spoiled the "flow" so I moved the warning to the bottom of the article, where it will not really "warn" anyone except those who enjoy reading articles backwards. So, if you're that guy, you've been warned.

Orange, another orange, and pink: PwC rebrands

Krupo — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 07:24:00 GMT

If there's anything Chartered Accountants excel at, it's more than just numbers. It's unsolicited design critique.

Really PwC?

Your alumni are in shock.

PriceWaterhouseCoopers has completed their rebranding as of yesterday, and people who work for, used to work for, or simply associate with PwC are scratching their heads at the rebranding that just came through.

Before we get to the colours, check out the video on their home page. Let me know how hard you cringe.

It's great fun to watch the senior executive at the 0:55 mark stating that PwC is "building relationships, enhancing value". Their new slogan is "Building relationships, creating value."

The caption on the screen even says "creating value."

I'm curious to know: did they want to be "cool" and show a related word for "creating," or did they goof, have him record the wrong line, and decided to go with it anyway and hoped no one would notice?

I mean really, how are they trying to position themselves?

Then there's the matter of the colours.

The colours children, the colours!

I'm going to limit my comments mostly to expressions of disbelief. And those of others: as one Big Four person remarked, "now they look like a defunct tech company's logo".

If you really want to geek out, you can get a sample of the other website colour system by right-clicking the webpage, and viewing the "background image." You'll see this.

The most painful(ly earnest) thing about these re-branding efforts is the amount of crazy newsletters, memos and contests that accompany a change like this, to convince everyone to buy in.

The CICA in Canada did their own rebranding thing and had a reason for every colour they chose. Really, there's a reason they went with blue, gold and grey. Plus the green that makes a quasi-plus sign. You can only imagine the careful thoughts and really deep thinking that went into the design of this colour scheme.

I do applaud anyone who's bold enough to try something risky that makes them stand out - as the saying goes, "any publicity is good publicity," at least in show business. I'm curious to know what you think about all this. Feel free to leave a comment weighing in with your thoughts. It's probably easiest to drop in on this discussion.

Toronto Police Tactical Retreat Saved Lives, Sacrificed Vehicle: A detailed video analysis of the police car fire at Bay and King on Saturday June 26

Krupo — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 06:52:00 GMT

This post is an example of where the mindset of the Hardcore CA will take you.

In AuditLand and other corporate environments, when something goes Horribly Wrong, rather than point blame and string people up, you have a "Lessons Learned" moment, which can either be a casual debrief, or an exhaustive exercise in identifying what mistakes were made, and how they can be avoided in the future.

There will no doubt be some very professional investigations conducted into what happened this weekend at the Toronto G20 riots.

One of the most shocking images online and on TV came from the fires that consumed Toronto police cars, which initially engendered some extremely sceptical treatment. After all, they just bought a water cannon - couldn't they handle a fire quickly and safely?

This presumed that the security teams knew they may need to use it as a firefighting vehicle; given the delays it's probably safe to assume wasn't planned for. This makes sense, considering its stated purpose is for crowd control, and when any large lumbering organization doesn't plan for something to be used for a novel purpose, expect a delay at least long enough for something to burn for 10 or 20 minutes!

Of course, Naomi Klein assumed the opposite - so she will not agree with the analysis which follows - but do check her out at the rally in front of Toronto Police HQ on Monday June 28 to get her succinct point of view. After writing about the madness around the world, I'm sure she felt like this was a perverse "moment to shine" on home turf.

I'm challenging her point of view after watching the video you see embedded below, or available through this link, lasts about nine minutes shows how the fire that consumed a Toronto Police cruiser at Bay and King unfolded

Considering the fact that you have a full-on riot taking place, don't be surprise to hear a fair bit of profanity and anti-capitalist rhetoric - that's of course par for the course.

What's fascinating about the video is that you can see that a "light mobile" police force was in fact present towards the East, on King Street, along with some heavier riot cops in front of the TD bank on the southwest corner.

Pause the video at the 16 through 19 second marks. You'll see that members of the Toronto Anti-Violence squad (TAV) are getting out of their cars. I don't know if they had just arrived moments earlier, or had been idling in the vehicles, but this makes a great deal of sense: several hundred protesters racing down the street unopposed would no doubt cause any person with half a brain to retreat!

Interestingly shortly afterwards, around 1:07, you can also hear what I presume are cops calling for backup, "let's get some help here," before backing up and waiting for the phalanx to form.

Now a hot-head say, "well then, the cops are heavily armed, who cares if they're outnumbered? They can take those punks!"

Sure, they could.

And yes - the car could have been saved. But then people would have died.

After all, they could run up to their car in the face of a march easily 20 to 40 times larger than their initial numbers. But how do you even odds like that?

Allow me a moment of hyperbole: by turning it into a slaughter.

The police, from what I've learned reading accounts of shooting incidents, are trained to shoot to kill. Sure, the special forces snipers may disable you or shoot the weapon out of your hand. But there's no time for that with line officers: they are trained to take people down.

Even if they shot warning shots over people's heads as if this was some crazy Western, there would nevertheless be a risk of grievous injury, and no promise that it wold work!

If the police started shooting, things would not end well. Or, to be more specific, would end much more poorly.

Enraged, the peaceful protesters could have joined the violent minority and charged police lines. Word would spread like wildfire, the city would then truly see what a massive riot looks like, instead of a few isolated instances of vandalism and mayhem we instead faced.

Is my hypothetical scenario too extreme? Very much so perhaps - our police are brave, and many were itching to take the fight to the crowds. Would it have ended well?

This is where I admit the limits of my own knowledge of counter-insurrection tactics. Perhaps a group of two or three dozen cops wielding billy clubs, not a full riot phalanx, could have turned back that tide. I didn't see these cops armed with tear gas or other crowd control tools, but those aren't a panacea either - rubber bullets can kill too.

So, admitting that a stand at King Street could have worked, it would have been awfully risky. Large institutions discourage legendary charges of their light brigade, in favour of calm responses where control can triumph over raw melee.

We'll revisit the instiutional response below, but first, consider how one woman uses her megaphone/speaker late in the video to challenge the police for setting bait by leaving those police cars there for the protesters.

Well you know what? They sacrificed a $75,000 cruiser - so I'm told is the price - to save the TD Centre seen on the "far lower left"/south western side of of the intersection from being overrun, which incidentally serves to hold back the marchers.

If you agree with my extreme scenario, they in fact sacrificed that one vehicle to save not only the lives of the officers, but also those of the protesters.

Fair trade.

Consider the scenario where the police jumped back in their cars and drove south. Either the security fence would have been attacked, or the surrounding buildings - including the TD bank branch near the corner. It's that black pavillion, with floor-to-second-floor glass. If someone was stupid enough to try and break that glass they'd risk killing themselves in the process. Perhaps the giant nature of the glass saved anyone foolish enough to attack it, but I digress.

Tactically, the violent protesters "screwed up royal" by halting at the alluring cars. They took their eyes "off the true prize", which was forcing a battle at the security fence itself, something a mob of that size could have easily managed, had they reached it in advance of the police phalanx. You know it was the true goal: the G20 "People's Summit" posters in fact

This video then, I believe, is one piece of footage showing the closest that protesters got to the fence - they were a half-block away from its northeastern edge.

No doubt many citizens suffered repercussions the following day, as the police overreacted after their initial embarrassments on Saturday.

Or did they?

Let's talk about the "institutional" factor - these cops aren't autonomous. They respond to orders: to learn more, consider this very interesting CBC news video interview with the RCMP Chief Superintendent who coordinated the G20 security operations from an operations base in a warehouse 100km north of Toronto - roughly halfway between the G8 and G20 sites.

Aside from presenting the security forces' side of the story - declaring a few broken windows and destroyed cars a success - he also mentions - wait for it - that it's too soon for "lessons learned" to take place.

Although I cheerfully rushed into my little analysis - the major media are still arguing over what took place - I will grant that the police didn't fail in their "defence of the fence." Determining whether their success in defending the perimeter and much of the other property in the vicinity of the fence was a matter of good planning, a smart response by the forces on the ground, or simply a serendipitously big stroke of luck is probably what will take more time and analysis to uncover. You would, of course, need to know what was being said in that command centre. They were no doubt keeping an eye on that situation. If they were using one of their 70+ security cameras to note the local team's precarious situation and ordered a retreat, then that was a clever move.

They'll know the answers - perhaps a full inquiry will allow some of the truth to be shared with the public as well.

In the run-up to the G20, some police stood guard on Spadina, under the Gardiner Expressway.

G20 Saturday: Violent Rumble

Krupo — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 09:39:00 GMT

I missed out on the madness downtown today. I followed it on my phone, but missed all the live TV footage which no doubt justifiably enraged my friends.

I did catch stills like this one which from a local Toronto photographer show why the city was on edge all week long.

It's perhaps best I wasn't around - I could've had my camera smacked down to the ground by an imported officer from Peel region. Of course he might've been on edge - not sure if this was before or after one of those police cars was set on fire. The you'll "be on Youtube" response, while accurate, was rather snarky to the point of inviting an assault. Not justifying, of course - this is clearly a criminal offence by a police officer.

Also freakish: random arrest videos by plainclothes officers.

I should point out that some well-meaning people naively claim that when store windows got smashed in, the "peaceful" protesters should've taken action to stop the anarchists and ne'er-do-wells.

Sure, as soon as the laws respecting citizen's arrests are made much more clearer and "vigilante-friendly", you can look forward to that. Until then, you risk being arrested yourself so doing so is a fool's game. I feel bad for the store merchant who has to fight an expensive legal case to defend his right to defend his own property.

I have no problem with widespread condemnation of violence.

I do have a problem with naive and simplistic solutions that seek to blame bystanders for newly created "sins of omission" which seem to be all the rage these days.

It's amazing to see how judgmental and merciless people can be. In many cases moreso than the police.

Scary.

It's easy to guard downtown Toronto for a simple reason

Krupo — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 14:11:00 GMT

The most hardcore protesters of the day, June 22: courtesy Toronto Police Service's "LGBT protest on Queen St. W. without incident" album. Photo credit: Kevin Masterman Writer/Photographer for Toronto Police

Security guards have a cushy job guarding the lobbies of the big fancy downtown office towers during G20 week.

They of course have a solemn duty to make sure anyone getting in the building has a proper security card. I do believe the two gentleman guarding our lobby almost glanced at the card clipped to my belt as I wandered in out of the rain yesterday.

If they asked, I would have of course good-naturedly held up my pass for closer inspection.

"Yes, it is in fact I, Super Auditor."

Or whatever.

This is of course unnecessary: since I am able to dress the part of Super Auditor, Defender of Capitalism, or whatever you want to call the productive inhabitants of the downtown core, the hard plastic card I carry with me is almost entirely superfluous - except for the fact I need it to open locked doors, but that's another story.

The "dirty hippie" protestors and their anarcho-syndicalist revolutionaries are nary a threat. Yes, they lack my snazzy plastic access cards. Forget about stealing police uniforms - they lack the buttoned up shirts and dress shoes needed to truly pose a threat. That, and they whine like petulant children when they neglect to safeguard their flagpoles, which are then promptly "yoinked" by Toronto Police (see the fantastic video below).

I suppose it doesn't help that it's raining outside - quite the disincentive to join a large march. Unless you are smart and prepared, like the group above, that equipped itself with some dazzling pink ponchos.

On a more practical level, these groups don't show any interest in overrunning AuditLand - step one would be to dress the part. I won't reveal anything beyond "step one", of course - that's what consultants charge the big bucks for, isn't it?

They don't even make it as far as step one, which is why anyone in business casual attire is immediately not held up as a suspect. The security team, as a result, is significantly less edgy than they otherwise would be. Which I suppose makes for a much more pleasant work environment. Thanks for that.

I have to salute those who did make the grey, rainy & otherwise dreary Tuesday a bit more colourful, though: good show on Queen Street!

No negative incidents at all as Toronto Police indicate - at least on the part of the protesters. There was, that aforementioned "yoink" to the flagpoles, as well as the story of the crazy lady who apparently tried to ram her way through a protest with her car. The second picture is courtesy of Now Magazine. The driver then apparently complained to the police about, whatever zany complaint you can come up with after trying to do something absolutely mad

I'll assume she blamed society - seems like the thing to do.

Bonus: video from the most hardcore protest of Monday, courtesy of Now Magazine's Paul Terefenko:

Edit: the Toronto Star has a tongue-in-cheek/serious article on the same topic that just came out.

"G20 fashions for the militant and fabulous

Wear the wrong thing, get tear gassed

Dressing for G20 protests is tricky. Look too corporate and you might be paintbombed. Dress like a militant protester, you run the risk of being tear gassed.

But have a stylist help you, you look fabulous.

“If you’re leading (these protests) and you know pictures are being taken of you, why not look good?” said Kathryn McEwen, the general manager of Queen St. W. boutique Fashion Crimes"

It's scary when a serious newspaper's article can easily be mixed up with something from the Onion.

Failures of multitasking

Krupo — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 19:00:00 GMT

I could probably come up with an extensive series of articles on how, although multi-tasking is awesome, there are so many glorious ways to fail at it.

Or one long article with many examples. I'll settle for shooting off one quick example instead.

Consider a busy day, where your computer is chugging because of some new security patch getting automatically downloaded. You go to open one window in your database program. It takes some time. So you're sitting there, waiting for it to finish loading. Getting impatient and thinking, "I'll just work on this other file in the meantime."

Half an hour later that other file might be done. And maybe you've taken some phone calls. Perhaps gotten a fresh coffee. Checked out the silly headlines.

Oh look, not enough Obama in town. What will Chicago ever do? And the Flavia sourced coffee is rancid as ever.

You're back at your computer, the window has loaded in the database program.

You have no idea why it's open, so you close it.

Then it hits you, there was a query you had to run.

It took 5 minutes for the window to open, but half an hour has passed.

And it's closed now.

So you re-open it. Again, a delay. The cycle begins anew.

Failure of multitasking.

When two companies get together to sell iPads, and one company fails at security

Krupo — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 03:48:00 GMT

One of the fun assignments in my job is testing a company's security.

It sort of looks like this.

We specifically look at the security of computer systems, although it'll sometimes include physical security as well - can ninjas break in to your data centre by climbing your barbed-wire fences and feeding strings of sausage to your guard dogs?

It also often involves asking question like, "how do you avoid the scenario of people getting access to all the confidential information you have stored on your systems, or shared with a service provider?"

This problem has recently bedevilled AT&T and Apple, and the scariest thing is that they're not the only companies to have ever suffered a security breach, just the most convenient example in the headlines right now.

Their situation is especially painful because two companies get dragged through the muck: the vendor of a device, and the service provider offering network access.

Ideally the contracts between the companies will specify who is responsible - and they'll have an efficient way to figure out how to fix the current problem, and a smart way of managing the PR fallout.

Of course, they haven't spilled a ridiculous amount of oil into the ocean, so they may just manage to emerge unscathed by virtue of being under the radar of a much bigger ongoing disaster.

It would be unwise, however, to plan your disaster response strategy around the vain hope that someone else will do something worse so no one will notice what you did.

Although aside from some angry geekrants, this will probably nevertheless stay nice and low under the radar for Apple. It'll no doubt help that there are so many people rabidly anticipating purchase of their newest devices that the latest security breach will do nothing to staunch their desire to get one.

Ironically, it might even have a positive effect: the leaked list of top US officials and CEOs owning the device will probably only add to its lustre, no matter how grave the security breaches.

You'll notice a conspicuous absence of actual discussions of security tests here. That's partly because the work is very hush-hush, and mostly because it's also mind-numbling boring to the average reader. We'll have to come up with a "put everyone to sleep" themed day when more information will be shared.

Until then, here's a quick summary: ask yourself if the information is secured. Get proof. Figure out if the proof makes sense. If you don't know, find someone who's more competent then you to help. Get more proof if needed. Issue report with your findings.

The G20 police state comes to Toronto: shenanigans!

Krupo — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 05:26:00 GMT

Globally I'm sure this is still off the radar, but in Canada we're all in a state of shock, having learned that the government plans to spend a billion dollars hosting the G8 and G20 summits this month: the G8 in the rural town of Huntsville, and the G20 in downtown Toronto.

$1,000,000,000.

Nice.

I've seen the first wave of spending allocated to installing more security cameras, presumably temporarily removing the garbage cans downtown and replacing them with transparent bags taped to lamp posts - which just look fabulous in a ghetto chic sort of way - and let's not forget the coup de grace.

They're scraping all the posters and political propaganda stickers off the lamp posts as well.

I've seen it on my bike rides to work.

Heaven forbid Obama learn that Paul Oakenfold had a show at the Koolhaus in March and they didn't invite Barry to check it out.

Newspapers are hot on the trail of this unfolding fiasco. The Post asked the ten federal agencies getting this money to share some insights into what this money is being spent on. The lion's share goes to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

And what did they say? To quote the Post:

"Here are the responses, or lack thereof, offered after The Post requested breakdowns of where each agency’s allotment of taxpayers’ money is being spent:

RCMP: $453-million

• No response."

Good show guys. Way to show the citizenry you care.

I'm ironically illustrating an article about a Canadian police state with a photo taken the night we won the gold medal in men's Olympic hockey.

I look forward to the Auditor General's report on what the heck is going on here, exactly.

The Post, incidentally, got detailed answers from seven of the eight smaller groups getting money - ranging from $75 million for the military to $399,000 for CATSA - the lovely people who run airport security.

If anything, I'm thinking that CATSA's super low subsidy is probably a sign of how flush with cash their agency already is - travellers pay through the nose for every flight they board as it is!

More importantly, however, the important think an auditor considers is materiality - if you're complaining about a billion dollar fiasco, an individual sum of a million or two will probably not come close to explaining the real issue. And the RCMP is ducking the question completely, as is the #2 recipient of funds, the folks from "PUBLIC SAFETY AND EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS", who, if this is their site, I have trouble distinguishing from the RCMP as it is.

My initial example of overpaid contractors getting to scrape lampposts and other street furniture clean and remove garbage cans may go a long way to explaining where much of this money is frittering away.

To completely ridiculous projects which some bureaucrat thought made sense on paper, since they're not directly paying for it themselves anyway.

We should've imposed a cover charge of $20,000,000 for each country in the G20 attending.

Memo to the accounting market research team

Krupo — Fri, 28 May 2010 05:11:00 GMT

To: Fieldwork Team Lead

CC: Fieldwork Research Team

From: Lab Executive Management Committee

Recent Adverse Events Associated with the Accounting Application Market Research Study

It has been brought to our attention that members of our team attempted to conduct research which led to negative publicity for our client and incidentally brought to light certain flaws in the design of the project.

The project is halted until further reviews are completed.

The Fieldwork Team Lead will be asked to receive approval from the Lab Executive Management Committee prior to resumption of the project. A thorough reevaluation of the research protocols to be employed will be expected, which should include independent research through selection of a random sample of industry participants of a statistically valid testing size that will allow for a more scientific and impartial assessment of market trends which avoids placing undue reliance on unreliable or biased entities.

In the future, reading the about page of your interview subjects in advance of the interview will be a requirement prior to initiating any contact. Furthermore, when speaking with pundits - or anyone for that matter - avoid revealing the identity of your other interview subjects - although in this instance the oversight did have the saving grace of providing a notification to the Committee that an unauthorized protocol had been initiated.

Finally, please avoid carousing through breweries the night before conducting your research. As we have noted through review of the telephone transcripts, the results are uniformly unfortunate.

Only certain types of research are successfully conducted here.

Hilariously Bad Sports Reporting

Krupo — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 00:10:00 GMT

Absolutely nothing to do with accounting here, unless you consider the temporary failure to count the number of players on the field.

This should make you feel better next time you completely fail at anything. Just think back to this sports report. Thanks Videosift.

Oh, and I know the video spills right off the edge of the screen - I was going to fix it, but the Editorial Board declared it looked "awesome."