Protecting the public interest, Web 2.0 style

Richard Murphy’s on fire these days, taking it One World Trust, explaining the power of blogging and giving it to New York CPAs.

Too many in accountancy see their role to be increasing the wealth of the wealthiest in our society… and they’re politically cynical enough to pander to their clients and ignore the ethics of their duty to society as a whole.

That’s part of a scathing response to the New York CPAs recommending a flat tax, which always will favour those currently paying at the top rate of tax. When it comes to tax advocacy, the profession as a whole is entirely too focused on their bread and butter.

The One World Trust promotes education and research into the changes required within global organisations in order to achieve the eradication of poverty, injustice and war.

They recently published their Global Accountability Report 2007, which assesses thirty global organizations “according to the four dimensions of accountability as defined by the Global Accountability Framework: transparency, participation, evaluation, and complaint and response mechanisms.”

One of the organizations they reviewed was the IASB, the international accounting standard-setting body, and they laud the organizations efforts to engage with stakeholders when setting those standards. The problem is they didn’t test the process. And the process clearly broke down when it came to IFRS 8, which deals with segment reporting.

I find it maddening that One World Trust spouts off about eradicating poverty, injustice and war, but would then turn around and commend an organization that went out of its way to avoid creating a standard that is pretty much integral to doing just that. Back to one of Richard Murphy’s original posts about the report (he’s made many since):

In reality the IASB entered into a sham consultation on IFRS 8 and never once had intention of changing its proposal. Far from being congratulated on their procedure the IASB should be condemned for their profound cynicism and contempt for consultation.

Richard is a real leader in the profession and a role model for young people just entering it such as myself. And he understands just how much power he has, and how he can wield it to effect positive change:

The way to make sure that mistake is noticed is to get it onto Google so that when someone looks for the One World Trust and Accountability they’re likely to find these comments as well.

Here’s a little more Google juice for you, Richard.

How Bruce Schneier secures his laptop

On the heels of this recent story out of the UK about the government losing 25 million citizens’ personal data, IT security guru Bruce Schneier provides his tips on securing your laptop, especially critical for those us with client data on our drives:

Longer keys increase the amount of work the defender has to do linearly, while geometrically increasing the amount of work the attacker has to do.

Strong passwords are the first step to protecting your firm’s and your clients’ information assets. Assigning a strong password using a combination of lower and uppercase letters, numbers and special characters is far more important than changing your password frequently. It has been my experience, however, that strong passwords just aren’t being enforced as well as they should be.

There are several whole-disk encryption products on the market. […] The reason you encrypt your entire disk, and not just key files, is so you don’t have to worry about swap files, temp files, hibernation files, erased files, browser cookies or whatever. You don’t need to enforce a complex policy about which files are important enough to be encrypted. And you have an easy answer to your boss or to the press if the computer is stolen: no problem; the laptop is encrypted.

I love the idea of simplying this process in the way described above. Making it easy for non-technical users to implement security measures makes it more likely they will get implemented effectively. And being able to tell your manager or the partner that the client data has not been compromised would help me sleep at night.

Bruce also mentions that the product he uses can encrypt USB drives, which are an essential tool for the modern auditor. I keep mine secure by wiping data from it immediately after transferring to the laptop, but that may not always be immediately possible.

Whole-disk encryption means that anyone at your computer has access to everything. […] I recommend a two-tier encryption strategy. Encrypt anything you don’t need access to regularly — archived documents, old e-mail, whatever — separately, with a different password.

This is a sound strategy for older files, although I prefer his final point:

Minimize the amount of data on your laptop. Do you really need 10 years of old e-mails [sic]? Does everyone in the company really need to carry around the entire customer database?

This is a better strategy for me as an auditor. The only files I need on my laptop is the client I’m working on at the moment. That audit that wrapped up last week? It’s on the network, where security isn’t my responsibility! As for email, I try to clear out old stuff annually to keep the hard drive usage up but also to remove potentially sensitive information.

Follow those simple tips and your portable client, employer and personal data will have a much greater chance of remaining out of the wrong hands.

UFE results this Friday

It’s that time of the year again and I’m feeling nostalgic. It was just over a year ago last year when I learned that I had passed the final hurdle to obtaining my much sought-after CA designation (notwithstanding that pesky experience requirement which continues to elude me), the UFE.

This year’s results are out this Friday, and I have many friends sitting on pins and needles waiting to see if they passed. My office is having another party, as is the tradition, to celebrate that evening. I’m actually on the social committee so I was involved with the planning.

The night before there is another tradition. The offices in the Toronto region all get together informally (not a sanctioned firm event in other words) and go out in downtown Toronto, inevitably joining CA candidates from other firms and their well-wishers at a club or bar for some partying. The goal is to celebrate the efforts of all writers, not just those who will pass the next day.

Good times. Enjoy the evening(s), writers. And good luck.

The tumblelog

If you’re subscribed to my RSS feed, you don’t need to check the site itself to receive any updates I make in terms of posts (or comments, made by everyone, in the case of the comments RSS feed). In that case, you may not have noticed yet that I’ve added a new “section” of sorts to the site. The section is actually a link to my relatively new tumblelog, hosted by Tumblr.

A tumblelog, and tumblelogging, is a new concept that takes blogging down its most basic level. Posts are usually quite short, and as a result you get more of them. Posts sort of “tumble” out in their raw form. Tumblr features support for picture, video, link, conversation and quote posts, but some custom tumblelogs have expanded on those categories and include definition and audio posts, to name a few.

What’s the point of a tumblelog, especially if one already has a blog? Two reasons:

  1. It allows me to share links and stuff that interest me outside the scope of this blog.
  2. It’s easy to update frequently, whereas the blog requires some time and thought to prepare a good post.
  3. I see the tumblelog as being a complement to the blog. Different topics, but also a wider variety of media.

So have a look and be sure to let me know what you think.

Update April 19, 2020: I discovered that my original Tumblr name was stolen and mine renamed “nmddnddndnd” from it’s original nm.tumblr.com. I recall getting a message from someone wanting my short URL years ago but I didn’t want to give it up. There was a data breach at Tumblr a few years ago, so I wonder if that’s how it happened. Anyway, I have updated the link above.

Soaring price of oil leads to shortage of accountants

Scotland is beginning to sound a lot like Alberta:

The booming oil price is fuelling an accountancy recruitment crisis in Aberdeen as other firms struggle to match the salaries being paid by the cash-rich energy companies.

Multinationals such as BP, Shell and Schlumberger are taking advantage of the near-record price of a barrel to pay top dollar for professional services as the North Sea continues to thrive.

Here in Canada the tar sands in Alberta are driving incredible economic growth in that province, leading to a shortage of accounting professionals. It isn’t just accountants, of course, who are being wooed west — the region could use all kinds of labour.

It hasn’t come to the point where I’m receiving phone calls from recruiters with jobs in the oil patch, but I have a feeling those already out west are. I know there are plenty of opportunities within my firm to move west and help reinforce our offices in the province.

Ontario has been particular hard hit by the rising loonie, as it is Canada’s manufacturing heartland. Many businesses here depend on exports to the US, and these days their products are much more expensive than they used to be down south.

I have a feeling we’re just beginning to feel the effects of the rising price of oil combined with a weak US dollar, here in Canada and around the world.