I'm Mark Shklav, the host of Think Tech Hawaii's Law Across the Sea program. Today we're going across the sea to Malaysia to meet Sipa Selvaratnam. Sipa is a Malaysia advocate. She is a lawyer with the law firm of Tommy Thomas in Kuala Lumpur. Sipa zealously advocates for her clients. Sipa also advocates for positive values that provide hope and encouragement to others. I've asked Sipa to discuss her background, life and law practice in Malaysia, and what fuels her advocacy. Welcome Sipa. It's good to see you. It's been a while since we've seen each other. How are you? Hello, Mark. I'm very well. Thank you, and it's lovely to see you looking very well. I think it's been about two years since we last met, so it's such a pleasure. Thank you for having me on your show. Well, yeah, let's get into it. Tell me a little bit about yourself. What's your background? Where did you grow up? How did you get into law? How did you become a lawyer? Right. Well, once I was born in Malaysia, I've always lived in Malaysia except for about five years that I was studying in the United Kingdom. My ancestry goes back to Sri Lanka. So on my mother's side, my mother's grandfather, parents came to Malaysia in 1890s, more than 130 years ago. And Sri Lanka was then called Ceylon. So they were from the Jefna Peninsula in Ceylon. And the British, both Ceylon and Malaysia or Malaya, as it was then called, were British colonies. And so the British brought my grandparents over here, and traditionally it used to be for positions like Station Master and so on. And then many of them would go back to Ceylon, but my parents decided to stay on after independence and take on Malaysian citizenship. And education was very, very important. It still is for the Jefna Tamils in Malaysia everywhere, in fact, Jefna Tamils everywhere. And so they put their four children, my parents, through tertiary education. Well, because Sri Lankan minority, Sri Lankan Tamils are minorities in Malaysia, and we've had affirmative action in Malaysia towards the Malay race. It was not always easy to get university seats here in Malaysia. With the four of us siblings, we went abroad for our tertiary education, and I went to England, Wales, and West Cardiff University of Wales, and then to Cambridge to do my law. But if you ask me why law? Why did you become, why, what prompted you, what motivated you to become an advocate? So reading law was quite by accident. You see the Sri Lankan psyche or the Salonist psyche is you'd better be a professional so that you're independent. So you either have to be a doctor or an engineer or lawyer or accountant, and by default, I didn't like the others. I said, all right, all right, I'll do law. But Mark, it was one of the two best decisions in my life. Reading law was fabulous. I realized it came naturally to me. And of course, the second decision was choosing my husband Mohan, who you also know. Right. Yeah, well, okay. That sounds like fun decisions. Now, tell me a little bit about your practice. What type of practice do you have? What type of law do you advocate? Right, so I'm very lucky. I practice exactly what I'm interested in and what I learned at university. So because I went to University of Wales Cardiff, where maritime law was the major attraction. We had Professor Keb Wallader teaching the cause on Saturday, and he was instrumental in promulgating the Unclossed, the Convention on the Seas. And so I took maritime law at university, loved it, international trade, corporate insolvency in my master's, and so that's what I do. I practice maritime law, international trade, commercial law, and corporate insolvency. And so we have all come together. And is that, I mean, is that admiralty law? Is that within? Absolutely. I'm sorry? Yes, admiralty law and the wider network encompasses international trade, commodity movements. Yes, all of that. And I guess Malaysia is, I mean, it's in the, there's a lot of water around Malaysia, right? I mean, that makes sense. So there must be a lot of different types of cases that you've handled. Absolutely. Well, we've got a huge long coastal line, and you must know that Malaysia, we've got two parts. It's the peninsula that is sandwiched between Singapore and Thailand. And then we've got the other part, Sabansarok, two states in the island of Borneo. And that's just surrounded by the South China Sea. So plenty of sea, plenty of active ports, a lot of commodity movements. So yes, maritime law is actually very critical, very essential for us. Right, I mean, your country has the ocean between two major parts of it. And yeah, yeah, that's quite interesting. In a way, Hawaii is similar. We're away from the main part of the United States. Now I notice that you've had a lot of interesting cases. And I've seen one extraordinary case that is very interesting to me. And I've just learned from you that you written a book about it. It will come out in April and it's about a super luxurious yacht called the equanimity.  It has all sorts of, I mean, I think it has hot tub and all different types of things within it. Now what was this book about that you're writing? It was a case, it's based on the case, right? What is this all about? Mark, you've touched something that is closest to my heart. It was the highest point of my life and my career. But to narrate that story, I just need to tell you a little bit about Malaysia, right? So we became independent from British rule in 1957. And for 61 years, we were governed by one ruling party. Yeah. And what happened was in 2018, we had a seismic shift in mindset because after 61 years, we had a change in government. The opposition finally formed a coalition government in May of 2018. What was the catalyst for that change was this candle, an international scandal called the 1MDB. And it involved the worst case of kleptocracy as defined by the US DOJ involving our former prime minister who was then subsequently charged and convicted of multiple breaches of crimes. And in the centre of that saga was money stolen, money in excess of 4.2 billion US dollars from the people, taxpayers' money, using 1MDB, which was a national wealth fund. And monies were siphoned off, stolen and dazzled, you can use any one of those terms to describe it, and went everywhere, many, many places. But 260 million US dollars, US dollars and in millions, yes, was used to purchase this super your equanimity. And so as soon as we had this change in government, and this was the people, so you must understand how it felt after 61 years when the people's will to have integrity and transparency and accountability brought back into government. When we had a new government, the first task was to actually clean it up, bring back money's loss, and therefore the equanimity which was then in Indonesia was somehow through diplomatic channels brought within waters of Malaysia. And so my skills match perfectly. I have been doing admiralty laws, maritime laws for many, many years, by then more than 25 years, and my law practice partner was the Attorney General of Malaysia at that point in time. So he approached me and said, how should we do this? And I said, admiralty laws, the best most transparent way that will bring back credibility to the system, the best way to recover maximum amount in recovery proceeds. And here we're looking to recover from the judicial sale hundreds of million. And so we put engaged a mark, processes of the admiralty law it took us nine months. What would normally take a super your 18 to 24 months sell in the average market because we're talking in a millions of dollars unique, only about 100 or less individuals, billionaires in the world have that kind of. And they take a long time to make the decision. And what would normally take 18 to 24 months to sell be sold in nine months. And in that process and recovered 126 million US dollars for the people of Malaysia for the government of Malaysia then. And so in that process mark there was there were huge lessons that I learned. And so I put that in a book. And it is put in seven maritime lessons because the lessons from maritime it just challenge the traditional wisdom the traditional ways we used to do things from you know keeping the appraise value confidential how we sold it. So I put it in seven lessons. And then I have a last last lesson which is called the plus one, which is the spiritual dimension, because I learned so much about life in that nine months. That's the space to watch for for my seven maritime lessons and the values as well that came with that. I want to put back on the screen a picture of the book cover. Take a look at that book cover. And that's the that's the equanimity right on there right that's that's a painting of the equanimity. And so that there was funds that were siphoned off from the people's government to buy that boat originally by someone I guess close to the government. And, and then you were able to seize it you were the book is about the arrest of the yacht and sell it. And, and, and you were involved in that case that was your case. Right, I headed the team of lawyers for the arrest saw her to the, the, the, the really difficult management of a seven star princess, you know, the most luxurious most expensive most delicate. So we saw the management of her, and then actually had to go out there and find a buyer to recover. One thing you mentioned you mentioned Department of Justice United States Department of Justice. How did I mean, I'm glad to hear that the United States helped out somehow but how did they, how did the Department of Justice help out how were they involved. Mark, I can't tell you how grateful I am to the US and specifically to the Department of Justice. So they commenced for for future action through the eclectocracy department recovery of assets department, and they did all the tracking for us the trails it went through 32 different accounts in and out mindless meaningless flow of accounts to eventually get into the vessel to the builder of the yacht, and we had to trace her through 32 accounts, but that was made only possible by the DOJ held that space for us when we couldn't do it ourselves so they did it in 2016 2017 remember we only changed our government in 2018. So we're tremendously grateful that the DOJ should have done it for someone else it didn't matter to them, they were going to to seize assets and repatriated back to Malaysia so how wonderful is that that another country should have your back. That was what it was. That is actually very good to hear that law can help out each other in different countries I mean, that's actually very remarkable. I didn't know that story, and I'm looking forward to your book comes out in April. Is that right. This is the first public speaking of. So, thank you for this opportunity. Well good good I'm looking forward to your book. Now I want to I want to go back a little bit and talk a little bit about what's happening in Malaysia what what is going on how have you dealt personally and professionally with the pandemic how things changed what's going on in Malaysia right now. With respect to the pandemic and dealing with it. Okay, so, Mark, we aren't in a terribly good place, obviously the world isn't because of the pandemic. And I mentioned to you that we had a wonderful shift in government, the majority will be in 2018, but unfortunately, like last year in February 2020, just as COVID was about to rage around the world in February. And it was not through the people's vote or elections. It was just a political maneuver. So it has been a dip, but we remain hopeful, things can change, hope's always the way forward, but so the new government came in. They managed it pretty well with our Ministry of Health. We had movement control orders in place we still have in varying degrees. So we are borders are close international borders are close, unless you really have a reason to travel like my daughter had to travel back to study Netzen in UK, she could travel back but I can't go to visit her. So they're on movement control, even within states in Malaysia, it's often on when the numbers spike we can't move. But since June, lawyers have been considered essential service so we can return to office, but most of our hearings are done remotely, either, you know, on a zoom platform like this, or in some other platform. Witnesses are heard remote as well if it's urgent. So we've had access to justice despite the terrible pandemic. So everything's not lost we've had to learn a lot of new things. Obviously, it's made this possible mark I would never have thought of doing this session with you. And so it's made global accessibility possible. But we've also uncovered rather not so pleasant environments where we've seen foreign labors put through terrible horrific conditions of living. But luckily, that's the silver lining, if you may call it that, because of the clusters of COVID that broke in that inhumane condition, the way they were oppressed has come to light and hopefully that can be redressed. So it's been a mixture of good and bad mark, but we manage we always manage we always thrive we always survive. Well, that's interesting. It's a good insight about Malaysia for us here in the United States to hear these things. I also noticed, and I mentioned that you're an advocate for, for hopeful things and I watched a program sponsored by an organization called TEDx, in which you talked about peaceful courage in quotes peaceful courage. What is peaceful courage or what was that program about what is TEDx what what are your involvement as an advocate in that area about Right. So that program that you saw, I just was a guest speaker. Everyone knows TED TED talks. And that's for in spreading good ideas inspirational talks about life. And the TEDx is the, the international version of it it goes into communities and communities all around the world can post whatever they want whatever they think is inspiring to that community so it's an multiplier effect. Now the program you saw was actually the TEDx youth, organized by school children high school children and they invited me to come and speak. So why did I choose peaceful courage. It's a point of passion for me, courage is a courage integrity and and and joy is these are, you know, things I think about a lot. This, this children group of youth came to me I thought well I'm addressing a group of 18 to 13 to 18. What should I talk about so again I go back to the context in Malaysia. If I can generalize we're a collective society, rather than individual societies meaning we tend to subordinate our individual rights and freedoms for the higher good of community. And that's because we're taught to do that, you know, and so it becomes like a demand for compliance. And in that process, there's a lot of inhibitions to voicing opinions about dissenting.  And of course that can, you know, extrapolate it to drug addiction and all sorts of things. So I thought, let me speak to this children about courage, courage to actually speak your views, not to just blindly follow but think should I agree should I not and to do it peacefully meaning without anger without resentment. And how does one do that. And, and so it was that I put in place what I do in my advocacy, how I find peaceful courage and I put it in a systematic way for them. You can only evoke peaceful courage, as I call it, if you go into a place that is happy and peaceful inside of you. And so that's a step to doing that. And then working from that platform so that was in a nutshell, what I tried to do in that 18 minute program of the TEDx youth mark. And I think we have a screenshot of the program, peaceful courage there you are. And, and your, your audience was youth, I see. I liked it. I'm not that young. I enjoyed your program, and, and thought it was very nice and you were, I, I could, you know, I could sense that you were trying to communicate in a way, a subtle way to youth, and so that they could see it's okay. It's okay to be strong. It's okay. And in Malaysian society, is that a good, I mean, is that, is that a value you're trying to get across? Is that, is that what you felt was important for the youngsters and is that something that there is a good reception for? I think we are beginning to liberalize the thinking. So for a long, long time, we have a herd mentality. It's a top down.  I say it's good. Don't ask questions just do it. But of course, with this generation of youth, you can't do that anymore. They're exposed to worldviews and they are questioning all the time. And I'm just trying to encourage them to think that way. Yes, do question, but do it peacefully. Don't be, don't, you don't have to be a rebel. You don't have to throw chairs and a tantrum to be heard. That's another way of getting that. Be sure in yourself what your value is, what it is that's important to you. And then you're able to articulate in a manner that the other person is able to receive, whether it's a politician, whether it's your headmaster, whether it's your boss, whether it's your peer, whether it's a group that you're heading. But the same principle cuts across all of these different segments of society.  But is this more of a, is this a worldwide idea, worldwide thought that you think about? I mean, is this a major problem that we're facing across the world today? Perhaps I should ask that.  And so are you talking about a universal theme here? I guess that's what I'm my question. Absolutely. It is universal. And I think it's time and it's already happening that we all embrace it and we will. We will as a matter of timing meant matter of degree. But it is something that applies across cultures across borders. And that is to decide whether we want to allow the mistress. So you ask what is the major problem. I think there's a feeling of lack of safety. We all feel unsafe. Every one of us feels unsafe in different degrees, because there is a lack of trust in the system, whether it's politicians, whether it's institutions, it's corporations, the judiciary, whatever the system is, there is still a reticence now that never I think existed for the last 50 years to this degree about whether they're batting for us, whether they have our backs, the way the DOJ had a whack, are they all having this, even my own, even our own. And so when you are in a place of mistrust, then there is fear that's induced because I don't know if I am safe. And when we are feeling unsafe, Mark, the best, the best way to defend is to attack. And that's when the bodyguard of our individual bodyguard, which is anger comes to the fore and then comes out as hate speeches, anger destructive, you listen to me, I'm right. And so anger then degenerates and everybody is in the position of defending their own turf. So that actually is the problem as I see it worldwide, everywhere. And what really this anger is trying to shield is a vulnerable individual inside who's feeling unsafe. And beneath that vulnerable individual is a fully joyful being, that's all of us. Our natural being, Mark, is to be joyous and laughter and happiness. And when we're happy and joyful, we are expensive, right. At some point, we're all going to tire of being angry, and we're looking for models. And that's when it's important that we have models who show what it is to have the power of joy, and then peaceful courage that comes from joy. And, you know, you bring up a lot of thoughts that about, you know, the intrapacific bar association, which we're both members brings everybody together, which is a good, a good thing and I think that's what you're saying I mean what, what that I mean you're talking about a universal issues that are facing us. What values do you feel are important for the future of Malaysia and the world in that respect I mean, how do we get to that point I mean how do we get to that point of joy or how do we get to that point of just being able to be with one another without anger. Right. So, the anger is at a mind level, we've got to stop being at the mind level and move to the heart level, and we will, once we get tired of the anxiety get tired of the emotional roller coaster we're going to find somewhere where we can be peaceful. And just having unified activities that brings about a sense of well being will take us to that place. Like you said, like the intrapacific bar we come together for what is common laughter is common food is common joy is common. And when you bring that together in that environment, you are united and in unity break down barriers and realize that joy and laughter in unity is more powerful than fear and decisive divisiveness. And when we realize that they move forward. Actually, that's nothing wrong with individuals. It's the politicians that play it out for us. So, if we could gather more as individuals to form clusters of unified activities enjoy, you'll be able to move forward. And so it sounds like you have some hope for the future. And right is, you have some hope. You see, the equanimity taught me that we were at the rock bottom of helplessness and hopelessness and things just change. I didn't know that 52% people felt the way I felt. And just knowing that you want a particular thing you have a vision for integrity and virtue and and righteousness and not righteousness and the prim and proper but for the right action transparency and accountability and just holding that and vibrating we have to vibrate at a high frequency. We are more influential when we do that. And so if we can get back to that hope hold that vision believe that we are causing a creating a ripple effect, it will take shape and form. Well, we have a minute left. I'd like to ask you what advice would you give young lawyers who are just beginning their professional careers about how to live in this post COVID new normal world. I think the most important to be happy to find a true place inside you that's happy so keep fit, keep mentally happy, you know, yourself happy, and when you're vibrating with happiness, you will get all the answers you need from the wisdom. It's like, you know, your internet cloud out there. There is a wisdom cloud out there that you don't download to address every quick every problem that you have to to challenge to to get answers to every challenge that you have. You know, in high vibration of happiness. That would be what I say, and I've got a second book that's coming out that will give you a, actually, the roadmap to that eventually at the end of the end of the year mark. I'm sorry, what, what is that one? It's called resolved how to be a fiery lawyer without violating your integrity and personality. And that's watch the space for end of the year. I'm sorry. That's really catered for young lawyers and anyone wanting to do it differently. Okay. Well, so thank you for telling us about your life as an advocate, not just in law, but in life. And we look forward to your books. So, aloha, as we say in Hawaii, thank you very much for being my guest today. And I hope that we'll see each other in person sometime in the future. It's been such a pleasure and honor. Thank you for having me, Mark, and we will meet soon. All right. Aloha.


Welcome back to the eating channel, it's your favorite village boy Mr. Ghana, baby. I mean, it's Christmas, yeah? It's almost two more days to Christmas. Are you going to America to celebrate Christmas or are you going to celebrate Christmas in here? I'm going to America to celebrate Christmas with my mother and it's important to her and so that's why I'm going back as well. I mean, I met her today and she was supposed to be in Ghana for like a week and I think how long have you stayed so far? Six weeks. Six weeks. And I would stay longer if I could. I definitely would. I mean, what brought you to Ghana in the first place? Oh my goodness, that's a story. It was the best way I can say it was a spiritual calling, an instinct almost. It sounds, not everybody understands what that means, but there is a point where I knew I needed to leave for my own sanity and health and Ghana was it. Ghana was it. It wasn't just about Ghana, it's about being on the continent and stepping foot on this continent as a Haitian-American woman finding my roots, going back to source. It was really the spirit of Sankofa that really brought me here as well. You know Sankofa. Yes. What is the meaning of Sankofa? To go back and retrieve what you have left behind. Wow, so many people don't know what is the meaning of Sankofa. But you know, I met her today and she told me, hey Maya, I'm in Ghana because of your videos.    I never knew the videos had an impact. Of course they do. You have like half a million subscribers. They're impacting people. And I am one of your faithful subscribers, absolutely. I've been following you for a while and I'll tell you what you're doing is giving people a positive light on Africa in the diaspora. And I don't know how much you've heard of it, but how we speak about Africa in the diaspora is very negative. How negative? Basically we've been lied to. We've been lied to for centuries about our own heritage, about this place, about who we are as people. And when you come here you realize that everything is false. Everything's been, you know, made up about who we are as people and what this place is about. I mean look, I've had people ask me to carry two toothbrushes in case I lose one. Because apparently there's no place to get toothbrushes in Africa. What? Or people get concerned about where am I going to live? Where am I going to stay? Like they think you're all still living in trees or something. By the way, even if we were living in trees, what's wrong with that? Listen, in America people pay a lot of money for tree houses. In Africa even if you live on trees, you don't have to pay for it. I was like what's wrong with that? I was like even if it was, even if that was true, what's wrong with that? You know, there's a cultural difference. But we have modern things here. There's nothing that I've gone without since being here. You mean so it's your first ever visit? Yes. To the continent? To the continent. And I started with Accra Ghana. You're not scared of coming? Absolutely not. What am I supposed to be scared of? My own people? My own kind? If I'm scared of being here, I'm scared of myself. So why are so many of you guys reluctant to visit the continent? You know, we're reluctant to visit this continent and it comes from other African Americans, other Africans in the diaspora. We have been subdued into a state of complacency and belief that this is a dark place, a dangerous place, that there's no value here. There's no value in who we are as people. You know, so the images that we see in the diaspora are of starving people, kids, you know, disasters of some kind. You know, just, it's never a positive image.  You're living today. I mean, I feel so sad that, like, I met you just today. And I've taken you to some places that you yourself are going to be blown away that, hey, is this Ghana? You know, let them know, yeah, why must every African diaspora, why must they visit Africa? Because you have been here. It's a must. It is mandatory that people step foot in this continent because if, in order to know yourself, you have to know your history. You, in order to know yourself, you have to know where you're from and who you are in order to find your power. And that was one thing that I realized here, like, my goodness, it was affirming of my power, of our power as black people, as Africans. And so while we're suffering out in the West, coming here is a way to reclaim that power and that sense of self and sense of identity of who we are. There's so much richness here. This is, this is us. This is us. Yes. My goodness, I feel like you have a lot to say if I should give you the whole day to speak to me. I do, I do. You've been here for six weeks. How was the experience, like, how was the people relating to you? I mean, when you're coming, did you know anybody around? I only knew one person here. And that was a big help. So there's lots of forms to connect with people here just so you have somebody to call to ask a question to. Exactly. And I do recommend that. So I was very fortunate to know at least one person here. But I'm leaving with so many more friends now. I've met so many wonderful people here and had so many wonderful experiences and conversations. And mind you, I'm traveling alone. I came here by myself. And I've been able to make some really wonderful connections with Ghanaians here and other people from the diaspora here as well. So, yes. Beautiful. You know, just let us know. I mean, I have so many fellow brothers and sisters in the diaspora who are looking for where to take that step just like you. What are the kind of preparation that we need to have before we step our foot on the continent? Oh, my goodness. You know, you have to have the right mindset. The preparation is mental. This place has everything else you need, materialistically, right? So you don't need things per se. It's your mindset and your vision and your purpose for being here. That's the most important preparation that needs to be made. So, letting go of expectations, letting go of an American colonialistic mindset, you know? We don't even know that we're doing it sometimes. You know, we're so conditioned in the West to be comfortable with everything, to be complacent with a lot of things that are even happening right in front of us. So we have to condition our mind to come here. That's the most important preparation. And how many places did you visit when you came to Ghana? Oh, my gosh, I've been in a lot of places. I went as far east as Tema. I went up north to Abrea. I went out west to Cape Coast. Went to the Kakum rainforest. Kakum National Park. Yes, National Park. And then I've just been traveling around the city in different neighborhoods. Try our food. Of course I have. Oh, okay. I've been eating... Listen, I've been eating so much Ghanaian food. Like, which one did you do? Your favorite Ghanaian food? Kelawele. Kelawele. Did you try Fufu? Yes, I've tried Fufu. Did I give you Kako? You know Kako? I don't have Kako, but I have Fufu. But I did the Ambanco. Yeah, but... That's a heavy diet.   Thank you. Tell them. Because anytime I do videos eating with my hands, I forget America's complaint. Oh, it's not hygienic. You don't have to do that. Listen, listen. It's part of us. No, no, no. We're going to leave that American stuff behind. Okay? Because when I first came, it was actually from the airport. I went to... It was like the street spot on, you know, the food smell good, the fish look great. And what people don't know if you're from the west is that once I sat down on the street, they brought me a bowl of water and soap. You wash your hands? Of course it's hygienic. Thank you. We're not doing that in the States. But we're doing it here. We're doing it here. It's part of the culture. Just for the culture. I'm so happy to meet you and I wish you all the best. And I just hope you move to Ghana someday. That's a good possibility. Are you planning to move? It's a good possibility. The way I'm feeling right now... Listen, if I didn't have to go back for Christmas, I'd still be here. I would still be here for sure. I want to say thank you so much for talking to me. Thank you. I appreciate your time. Wish you all the best and wish you a safe flight. Thank you. I mean, I have so many men that watch my videos. So definitely they'll be so angry if I don't put your Instagram. Because they'll be like, why would I mind? Why would I mind? If you're just going to put your Instagram, make sure you go follow her. But just a friendly test. I know you people. I hope you guys enjoyed this video. Don't forget to like, share and subscribe. I'll see you in the next one. I am Maya. Come to Africa. It's mandatory. Thank you.


Total duration inner observer agreement this one's different than total count because you're measuring a duration But you still take the total duration during the during the measurement period Of one observer and divided by the total duration during the interval period during the measurement period by the second observer It's horrifically inaccurate as well again That's why we have intervals and so you can break them down and make it more accurate to find out how well people are Doing so this isn't another one that you should probably not use but we have to talk about it anyway Because sometimes that's all you got right and I get that and we all get that you just do the best You can with what you have but this particular method Grossly overestimates accuracy of inner observer agreement just like the total count does so again total duration You're just taking the the shortest duration divided by the longest duration You know the total durations right between the two observers the shortest one divided by the longest one gets your ratio Multiply 100 you got yourself a percentage of agreement not that it's very accurate


Yesu ni Eric Smith na takatutu kusieki dogo mambia worship, true worship na kwanini tunabudu yesu. Kuna kitu mbacho na takatu zungumzi etu sahi, kwa yulem baya na turizama sahi, na weza kukuliza what can you purchase as a gift for the person who has everything? Nikitugani mbacho na isa paya mutu, ambe onajiwa kuna kila kitu, but still utainda kununuwa gift, sometimes ituniza faces o dailema, ona zunguka, akwa shops, ukita foot at least kitu mbacho unaweza paya mutu, na a gift that will have a meaning in that person's life. And now watcha to rubu this as a kumungu, watcha to apply this as a kumungu, nititugani mbacho unaweza paya mutu, what can you offer to God as a gift that he desire?  All the treasures of heaven and even of the earth. He does not need anything, but there is one commodity, one thing that God wants to receive, God longs to receive from his children. God desire for his children to freely, boldly and passionately worship him in spirit and truth. Now we can go into the verse, watcha to read Kidugo John chapter 4 verse 19 to 20. This was the discussion between the Samaritan woman and Jesus. Sir the woman says, that is verse 19, sir the woman says, I can see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshipped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem. Now, let us see, is it strong holds and sometimes you have to worship. You have to worship because you do not have a place where you worship. You have to meet on Sunday, you have churches, you do not have a place where you worship. There is a conversation between Jesus and the Samaritan woman. Kuna kitu nbachu tunalana apu. Kuna iso strong holds or obstacles that often prevent individual and churches from experiencing true worship. As many Christians have settled for the imitations of true worship, some really get worship to a particular event or a building. Tuna jwa tuni mahali pamojat kwa church. Often worship is considered to be the music in a corporate service that is followed by preaching an entire style of music. Kuna zile music tunalana jwa easy do music is a present worship. Easy do music. Kama huja fanya hii buwana weh huja worship. Kuna hems. Kama huja fanya hii huja worship buwana, lazima. So still, yes. The music can be an integral part of worshiping God. But we should note that Jesus does not mention singing. Hakwae mention singing. When the Apostle Paul spoke of Christ's honoring worship in Romans 12 verse 1, he challenged us as believers to become living sacrifices. So a true worship rejects the strongholds, isn't it? So true worship rejects that because it prevents the followers of Christ from responding to God with heart, soul, mind and strength. In loving recognition of God's glory and love. So that is aciliatu. One is building. Sometimes kuna mutua neza kwa na henda church. Napata sa ingi na kili ya ke haiku church. Na nangaliya building. Napata na nangaliya hei building kwa aji. Now what we want to hang up your kwa apa. Now to a church. Omeget. So napata is of it, what is ina kwa destruct. Omegelia iso destruction. Yes. Iso ma stromul, iso ma limitas. Yes. The things that actually limit us. Yes. Atapia even church program can limit us. Yes. Mezoela tumki ingi ya church. Nikwinom kwa. Na kutwa sadaka kuskiza. So it was a darker. Napata sa ingi na ku destruct. Na kutwa sadaka kuskiza. And that is so powerful. Thank you so much Eric Smith. God bless you. God bless you. And I really like the Romans chapter 12 verse 1. Yes. Yes. So if you conform, you are limiting yourself to worshiping God. Yes. Yes. So offer yourself as a living sacrifice. That's the best worship you can give God. I hope you've been blessed. It has been amazing. Thank you so much Eric Smith for the word and for joining us today. Ubariki wa Ubariki wa Ubariki usana. Thank you for hosting me. Thank you for coming.


I thank you. This will be a technical talk, but it's a technical talk being delivered at DEF CON. So you take your chances. Am I close enough? I don't know. I think it works. Does it work? Great. Okay. What I said was this will be a technical talk, but it is a technical talk at DEF CON. So that makes it a little bit special. I'm going to talk about the ATM machines. That's where I get all my money. I don't know about you, but if I need some money louder, I think, well, okay, the ATM machines and the ATM system. I'll be talking about vulnerabilities. This is going to be good. Pay attention. I'm going to tell you how to avoid being cheated by the ATM system. People lose an amount of money that you just wouldn't believe. It isn't just millions per year. It's more than that. I don't have an accurate figure, but then I'm not a bank, so I don't care much. Of course, the other banks don't care much either. Now, here I am. I'm standing in front of one of these here ATM machines. And louder again, Lord. Well, okay. I'm standing at an ATM machine in the little town of Kirkenes, Norway. Now, most of you have probably never heard of Kirkenes, but it is the furthest north city in the world. It is an amount above the Arctic Circle that I just don't even know. A story about Kirkenes. It's hard to get any sleep there, because if you visit in June, the sun never goes down. Well, around midnight, I was walking around the town and talking loud and loud and louder. I was talking to a, well, I suppose, live there, and I asked her, what country is this? And she said, well, I'm not sure. And went on to say, well, Norway plows the snow. Does that answer your question? Well, partly it did, and partly it did not. But the point is that I wanted some money, and I went to an ATM machine in this, not God for a sake. I'm not going to be right to say that, but little town in extreme northern Norway, not very far from North Cape. North Cape, in fact, is the furthest north land in Europe. I wanted some money. Okay, so I go up to, yeah, hey. You've got to continually, during this, remember Willie Sutton. Willie Sutton was asked, why do you rob banks? And you know the answer. Yeah, you got it. Well, that's changed a little bit, and I'm talking about the slightly changed arrangements nowadays, that it's not any longer really, too, if the money is in the bank. The money is actually in the ATM machine. And if you go up to the bank on Friday afternoon before a three-day weekend, you will find that the ATM machines at the bank have a lot more money than the bank had at any time during the week. They really be a much tend to be really enormous. For a three-day weekend, having $10,000 in the ATM machine is simply not enough at most banks. Okay, so what I do is I stick a card into the ATM machine, and this is a card you're going to send out. I may need help. I'll appeal for help if this gets much worse. So I stick a card in the machine, and this is a card that was issued to me by my own bank in somewhere in central New Hampshire. Now the connection between extreme northern Norway and central New Hampshire is not particularly obvious. They are distant from almost any point of view that you take. The card that I was issued has a magnetic stripe on the back, and as it turns out, what's in that magnetic stripe is simply an address for the bank and some other information about the bank and the account associated with that card. That's on that magnetic stripe on the back, which you ought to learn more about from somebody else because there are some real problems associated with these stripes on the backs of cards. The machine then asks me for a pin and asks me how much money do I want? Being a fairly honest guy, I'll tell him I want a reasonable amount of money. If I was different, I would say, well, just give me all of it. Some people do that. Now the machine, after it's got the pin, gurgles for a while, and then in a surprisingly short period of time, usually of the order of 10, 20, 30 seconds at most, delivers the money to me. Since I was in Norway, of course it delivers Norwegian Kroner, whatever Kroner is, but I suppose in English it would be called a crown, but it's not that big a deal. So after I put my card in the machine, type in the four-digit pin, I walk away, and the machine is now happy and the transaction is completed after it delivered me my money. Now one question I have is that in this whole transaction where I inserted a card into the machine, typed in a pin, and undoubtedly there were messages going back and forth between various banks and things of that sort, a real question is what happened? And to some degree I'm going to leave that as a homework exercise for you. It's not easy. A surprising amount of attention has to be paid to actually who knew what at the beginning of this process and what they found out, what information they sent and what information they received, which I'll sum up by saying what happened is not particularly easy. In fact, obviously the bank in extreme northern Norway never heard of a bank in the boondocks of central New Hampshire, so somehow or other messages had to be transferred back and forth between these two entities, which are not from any other point of view, close to each other in any possible sense. And so you have to remember that it's not clear with these messages just who is sending it to who and what information is being sent. That's the thing you have to think about and I will help with that. Now the parties to this overall transaction are me, that's the guy standing in front of the ATM machine, the bank in Norway that owns the ATM machine and the bank in New Hampshire of which I am a customer. This is all not supposing that nobody was telling any lies or anything of that sort. It's all straight stuff. Now there are a number of requirements that are particularly obvious as this transaction goes on and the parties to this transaction have their own needs that may well not intersect when you do it. The customer, that's me, wants some money and does not want obviously the system to drain his checking account, which is the kind of thing that might happen. I mean you guys know about identity theft. Well this is the same general kind of thing, differently in detail but about the same in the general sense that you wind up with a heck of a lot less money and somebody else winds up with a heck of a lot more money. But the other, so I just want the money and I don't want the system to drain my checking account. I also probably don't want my pin to be broadcast all over the world. The pin is something I care about and I would prefer to keep that a little bit close to the chest. The bank in Norway has just distributed a thousand dollars or so, I'm sorry, a thousand crooner or so, and it wants some assurance that it's going to get back its money. And that's about it. I am not a customer of this bank so it doesn't care about me very much. It knows that I'm not a customer and it mostly cares about its own customers, not about me. The bank in New Hampshire, I am a customer of that bank. They want to keep me reasonably happy but they've got some other problems facing them. They have to make sure that I am really who I say I am and that I've actually got the money in the account to pay this amount out. So it doesn't want any responsibility for, for example, a customer. A customer is actually not the person that he claims he is or she. The bank in Norway simply wants the whole transaction to settle down with it not either gaining or losing any money. Again, I'm not a customer of that bank but it mainly wants to make sure that it is someday reimbursed for the money it gave me. It gave me a thousand, something or other, a thousand kronor and it wants to get that back somehow from the ATM system. Now the ATM system is a very large, very widespread system that exists all over the world in fact and I have used it in quite a few foreign countries including Norway. So there are three pieces here.  The ATM system that in some sense is worldwide or very nearly worldwide. I know that it works in almost any European country. I was in Hungary last week. I didn't try it there. I don't know what would have happened. I guess when I was staying in Budapest I asked, is the hotel air conditioned? The answer was, well, it has Hungarian air conditioning. Nice place, very pretty place. It does, and it's not a third world country by any means but it is not quite up to our standards for high range hotels. Okay, we have these parties to the transaction. Me, the ATM that I'm in front of, the bank that owns the ATM and then some network that I'm not going to describe. It would bore you to tears that actually connects all this together in a worldwide sense and I'll call that just the ATM network. It is important. Without that, you wouldn't be able to use the ATM card in a whole lot of places without the ATM network existing. Well, what does one have to do to make all this work out? When you type the pen into the ATM that you're standing near, right behind you, over your right or left shoulder, there is a person who is visually writing down the pen you type and you can easily see over your shoulder, fine, called shoulder surfing and that is actually a major loss to the financial system because that kind of thing happens much more than you would believe. It is not just millions of dollars, it is more than millions of dollars. And that is the first vulnerability I'd like to talk about and it is a serious vulnerability. I would advise you when you're at ATM and about to punch in your pen, just look over your shoulder, both shoulders, and see who's there copying it down. This is not unusual. It does not happen to me, but it has, for example, happened to my wife or someone managed to see what pinch he was typing in and used it to extract quite a lot of money from the system. There is normally some limit of the amount that you can get out of ATMs per day and that limit is designed so that you don't go broke if somebody steals your pen or your card.  So that is the first vulnerability. There are others. I was in, why am I talking about Norway? Well, because I spent a lot of time in Norway last year. I walked up to an ATM machine in the Bergen that's in Norway. I put it in my card. It told me to punch in my pen. I punched it in the pen. It gurgles for a while and then says, Sorry, we can't pay you. Eh? It's got all the information on my card which tells it all about my bank account. It's got my pen and now it tells me it's not going to complete the transaction. What I did may seem a bit extreme to you, but I called the police, told them, and also pointed out to the bank which arrived just behind the police that right near my right hand was a fire ax. And if it didn't give me my card back, I was going to use that fire ax. Actually, they caved in and gave me the card back and in fact no money had been withdrawn so the whole transaction ended just fine. But still, a fire ax did enter the negotiations. What does this say? Why don't my notes say at this point, Forklift truck. Forklift truck? Give that man a prize. Definitely. Forklift truck deserve to be at this point in the presentation because it is the principal tool for cheating ATM machines. You slide in, lift, slide it back, put it on, drive away, and at home all you need is a settling cutting torch and you have the thing open in 20 minutes. So Forklift trucks are part of... By the way, I have promised that I will tell you before the end of this talk important things you should do and not do when dealing with ATM machines because I mean to send you away a good deal more about the down-to-earth vulnerabilities of ATM machines. None of this high-flying theoretical stuff. Just things like Forklift trucks. And people do that. I can't estimate what the losses are to Forklift trucks but they do exist and it is mainly, in fact, an American habit. The Brits have a slightly different habit and that is, why am I all of a sudden louder? Somebody turned me up. The best deal at this point is you want to get money out of a ATM machine. You go to eBay and on eBay you buy an ATM machine. Hey, they'll sell it to you. They really are there and they don't cost very much. It's actually in the general range of $10,000 for an ATM machine. Now what you do is you install that ATM machine right over there in some obvious place where people pass by and the ATM machine is reprogrammed. It's not a difficult reprogramming job so that when somebody puts their card in, punches it in the pen, it says, Sorry, try again tomorrow. If you don't happen to have a fire axe, you've got a problem. But that is probably more the British scheme than the U.S. scheme. It doesn't matter very much. So what you have with this scheme is just you have a new machine. And I would advise you that if you see an ATM in a place where you've never seen one before, don't use it. Well, again, I'm giving advice, but what can I say? You want to take a look. In fact, in the town I live in, several times in the last month, in stores and restaurants that I normally go in, I've seen new ATM machines. I don't have any reason to believe they're fraudulent. On the other hand, I also don't have any reason to believe they're honest. So I typically do not use them. So pay some attention to the place that the machine is and if you run into a machine that you haven't seen before, it would be wise not to use it. Another problem associated with the whole business of ATM machines and it includes problems with debit cards and things of that sort also is the banks. Big deal, honest banks all over the world, but I mainly know it from the US and UK. If you point out to them that they did not give you the money that you deserved and you've got fraudulent charges on either debit card or checking out through the ATM machine, they will simply lie about what has happened. There's several famous cases, both in the US and in the UK, where it was perfectly clear that the problem was solved by the bank's software and the bank denied that it possibly could happen and simply said that if the customer is claiming to have lost money through an ATM machine or a debit card, that the customer is lying. One of these cases actually came to court and was well defended and the bank lost very big. They still try to do that, but they do it with much less success now because after one big case has gone against them, it makes it more difficult. What they did in the first case was actually filed a criminal complaint against a person that was complaining about the loss of money in the ATM system and that seems a little bit outrageous. I'd better finish all this technical stuff so I can give you all this valuable advice that you want. The way that the system works, the first thing that happens when you begin an ATM transaction is that the bank associated with the ATM machine you're using sends a message to the bank that issued the ATM and there is not much that needs to be said at that point and in fact essentially nothing is said. The message that goes from the ATM machine through the ATM network to the issuing bank simply says, hello, I've got a message for you. The response is that the bank dreams up an encryption key and sends that key back to the customer. This is fairly standard stuff nowadays in cryptography. There are any number of ways associated with the cryptographic schemes where encryption and decryption, one is much more difficult than the other, so dear so that all you need to do is send the one party to send a key to the other and now transmissions in the other direction become much, much easier and this is not only a common but almost universal practice in cryptography nowadays. Okay, look over your shoulder when you type in the pen. Important. Pay some attention to the place where you see the machine and if you recognize something as being a new machine go somewhere else. The stolen card is not a much terribly big deal. I don't know about you generally, but my bank won't only let me withdraw $200 per day through the ATM system, which means that the amount of loss is relatively limited. I mean that's annoying but not absolutely disastrous. Another piece of advice though is the ATM machines, mostly after they give you your money and that kind of good stuff and give you your card back one hopes, give you information in the form of a receipt. The receipt talking about what the account was, what the amount was, what the date was, things of that sort and my advice about that piece of paper, that receipt is don't leave it next to the machine. Don't simply drop it. Take it with you. Take it away from the machine, take it with you because that puts the, before did you key, which the same guy has just read over your shoulder is enough for him to drain a good deal of money out of your account. So when an effort receipt appears, take it with you, don't leave it at the machine and that makes it much more difficult and much more inconvenient for anyone to drain the account. The other advice is, I assume that some of you are going to need money in the next few days? No, almost certainly. I recommend that when you want money tomorrow and the day after, please get it from the ATM machine in the lobby of this hotel. And I don't need to talk anymore. Does anyone want to ask any questions or should I talk about something? I didn't talk at all about cryptography really and one of the reasons is that cryptography does not really come up as a prime problem. What the prime problem is, in fact, is key distribution. It's not the algorithm used in the encryption. It's who's got the key and where did that entity get the key is the problem. That's worth discussing and talking about. And I've run out of data. Thank you for coming. Unless there's any questions. I see no questions. Have a good day.