Hello. Good morning. We have a couple of minutes. I just want to say repeat this is a beginner level talk. There is a lot of stuff that I have not been to it. Just so you know we can cover the concepts you know in an easy to learn manner or something. There are steps to do this. Focus on what I am talking about in terms of the principles. Because there are so many different ways of doing this. The principles remain the same. Try to see how it is applicable to your situation. We can do the Q&A in between. Raise your hand and repeat the question for the camera so that we have 40 minutes for the talk and the Q&A. The principles are more important. You can easily figure out how to work out doing it in the end. I will also be giving you when I publish the slides on the funnel page. I will also be giving you a simple PDF. If you want to follow the steps you know what I have done. You can use that like a workbook and add your own steps. Please repeat the question. My name is Akash. I will be talking about securing a Linux web server in 10 steps or less. When I say a Linux web server, I mean a Linux server, Linux distribution. I am talking about Ubuntu 10.04 LTS running a web server, running a database server and running SSH. These are the basic things that you do for a lab stack or even if you want to do something with a biker or with a Django or Ruby or something. You will have these things in place. You will have the web server. If you prefer Nginx, Lighty, I don't know. But the principles remain the same. I am talking about Apache. I am talking about MySQL and I am talking about OpenSSN. So, my first slide. Can anyone name this aircraft? Where were I? It's Stealth, yes. But Blackbird was never Stealth. It was just too fast. It was like Mac 3 Plus. SR-71. Someone said 117. Yeah, that's what it is. It is F117 Nighthawk. This is the first Stealth aircraft the world had. It was operational for some 20 or years and after being commissioned by the US Air Force in 1982, for 16 years, they did not even acknowledge that this thing existed. They are based in this state of Nevada in the US. Area 51 and all the alien sightings or the UFOs or whatever, it's possible people are looking at this. Why is this here? Reduce attack surface. That's the principle. That's the security principle I am talking about. How does this do it? There was a brilliant Russian physicist who figured out that the radar does not rely on how heavy or how big an object is. It's like sending something, getting something back. But it is relying on how many straight edges that object has, the flying object. So Lockheed, which is a big defense contractor in the US, they have this group called the SCUM works, which is like they do the black projects, the top secret or the ultra top secret or whatever. In the 70s they figured out they have the material, they had the computational capability to programmatically figure out what kind of radar signature, something like a flying machine like this would have. And this one, this is one of those planes, it is meant for stealth. So it's not as fast as the other planes available. A fast plane means that it has something called the afterburner and the engines and they give off a distinct heat signature. So this is purely meant as stealth by reducing the attack surface.  The next evolution of this is something called the B2 Spirit, which is a bomber from them and that's still in operations and it looks even weirder than this. Okay, so what I mean by reduced attack signature or surface in Linux? What is the attack surface? When you talk about a Linux server, the first attack surface or first point of attack surface is all the TCP and UDP ports listening on the external interfaces, the external facing IP addresses, the IP address someone can use to reach your machine, be it a DNS you know to the resolution with an A record or someone doing a Nmap scan or whatever it is. Okay, how would you do that? The first thing to do is what is visible? This is the command. You need to be root. Okay, it will tell you the process otherwise it will not tell you the process. Whenever it says hash like you know this is an internal joke in root cons, the three hashes mean you know it's the root problem. Next that space minus energy UP. This will tell you N stands for do not resolve. So it will tell you the exact IP, it will not tell you the host name. It will tell you the port number, it will not tell you the service name. L means for listening, T is for TCP, U is for UDP and P is what process spawned that you know what is the process listening for that port. Right, so if you want to kill it or something you can figure it out. What? Yeah but this is only meant for ports listening on external interfaces. Obviously it will show for internal interfaces but if it says <IP_ADDRESS> that's local host. If it says 0.0 or in the IPv6 format 0 colon colon something that means it's listening on all ports. Okay, this is basically telling you this is my Linux server on the external interface someone can reach this port number. Okay, so now the question is how do we reduce this? This is the attack surface. This will give you a list of things. So how do you reduce this? So there are couple of ways. One is by stopping services from running. Okay, this is Ubuntu so now you can use the service command as well but the standard way that Ubuntu is to use slashetc slash init.t whatever the service name is and stop. You can say start or you can say restart or if you give some wrong thing here parameter here will tell you what are the options which are valid. Okay, so you already have a server once you figure out that there are bunch of ports open these services are listening on the external interface what you need to do is this is how you stop them. You can also make sure that if the server boots those services are removed using the update rc.d command. Okay, it's there are bunch of options. The simplest is if you give the service name and you say remove it will not start at boot time it won't be available in the runtime run level 0 1 2 3 whatever not 0 or 0 is like starting. Okay, and you can do one thing this is specially recommended for MySQL if your web server and the MySQL database server are on the same host MySQL doesn't need to listen to the on the external IP right because that connection can be a local it can be a TCP connection you don't want to do IPC that's fine but it can be a local host connection your web server will still be able to find that right so this is something that you can add now this this is true for Apache as well your web server as well there is a place where you specify which IP to listen on which interface to listen on by default it's usually given as all so then you can do you know if you're on the machine itself you can do a local host in your browser you'll reach the web page or you can get the actual IP you'll give whatever the IP is your machine has it will still reach the web page okay so in case you have a proxy or you know you are like running nginx or something else in the front end and apache is meant for something else or maybe you're running mongrel or whatever you know one of these application type of servers if they don't need to be available on the internet they should be you know running on this okay make sense this is what it should look like for our reference implementation where we are talking about MySQL database listening on the local host interface your apache web server on port 80 I've not taken you know the SSL part of it and SSH running on port 22 right this is good enough for you to serve any kind of LAN pages right all your PHP will work you have a database you have the web server with mod php and you can copy files over SSH if you're wondering why there is no port 21 you should not be using ftp for copying any tool you use to copy files over ftp the same tool you can use to copy files over SSH or scp mostly when what we do like if you're in the cloud or we have a vps we have to rely on the distro or the kernel already available to us right in case we have the advantage we have you know we can set up our own or you're setting up a virtual machine or you're setting up a machine which you will be migrating to the cloud start with a mini ISO okay this is when they release a standard open-to-release or Debian release they also come up with this mini ISO this is just enough to set up your networking and set up your base system and give you a shell okay obviously then you have to do a little more work but this definitely means none of the extra things are on this right this is another way of reducing the attack surface I'm not going to go into like how this can be attacked but it will be so you can install SSH which you will need definitely you know later you can install your LAN packages using a command called task cell you have to set task cell space, LAN, hyven server and it will install it there are a bunch of options if you want to install a desktop open-to desktop with KDE or with couple of others right whatever yeah there's another one with L x12 what is I'm using that currently yeah xfc yeah so there's an option for that there are no compilers extra libraries nothing is there how is it a good thing first of all it takes less space so you know copying it taking snapshots creating it again will be easy the other thing is if you really want the compilers or whatever you can start with a package called build essentials that will install your C compiler and all that okay this is another way of reducing the attack surface this may be relevant when you have a lot of users who will be you know accessing your system they will have SSH access they will be able to execute processes even though non-privileged processes but let's say you have not updated your kernel you have not patched it recently and there is a local exploit available okay something that will allow them to elevate their privilege or something you can avoid that because there's no compiler whatever they'll first have to install that and figure out things out batches and updates this is very important I don't need to tell you Ubuntu and Debian I mean most Linux distributions make it very very simple to update in batch the only thing you have to worry about is will it break my production server and you know that's something that you can figure out but it's very important my recommendation choose a long term support release in LDS when you are using Ubuntu okay for Debian they usually say you're stable for RHEA nobody will pay money for that but if you're using CentOS then say that you know now you should move to maybe 6 because in 2014 CentOS 5. whatever next version is it's running out of support but 6 will be supported for the next 10 years okay whatever you choose choose something which has long term support the whole point of setting up a server is that you should not have to spend too much time maintaining it unless you're into tinkering or whatever okay that's a different use case in Ubuntu is a very simple command to update in batch okay this is it your root you do app get update and app get upgrade when you do an upgrade if there is something available the packages to be downloaded it will ask you do you want to download that you can avoid that by giving a minus y the only reason I have not mentioned it is that it's a good practice to see what is going to get updated there is another thing that if you don't you know your server is so critical there should be no downtime there is this tool called VM Slice or VM Slice something like that which will upgrade your kernel without requiring a restart oh yeah KM Slice sorry so you know upgrade your kernel without requiring a restart the only time a server needs to be restarted but for production use of a commercial use you have to pay money if you're using it at home there's no money to be paid it's like some three dollars per server per month or something okay protecting your access cat door is always open the point of this picture is that a server which is functional which is solving some purpose will have some kind of access open okay if you have a server where there are no files need to be copied nothing needs to be updated logs need not be taken out so access is going to be there so what are we going to do about it okay now the paranoid folks what they will do they will not have what access is you know apparent like I'm saying that your SSH is running on tcv port 22 but they will have something called port knocking or they'll have a you know single page which they have access of that if you access that web page which will have some random streams or something then SSH will start listening and then you can log in okay I'm not going to do that I'm just trying to make it very simple in the simplest form you are going to have SSH access you need to protect it okay so what do we do the number one reason I think for hacked linux servers a hacked linux server is worth a lot of money for the simple reason you have all these tools you can you know script a lot of things and these tend to keep running they don't need to be restarted or you know reinstalled or whatever okay the number one reason is SSH server password boot forcing what is that it simply means that you have user accounts you have root you have some standard user accounts you know in some companies it's a tradition to have the user name as the same name as company name or the project name you know project name might have a proper name and a nickname so user accounts tend to look at that or there could be a user like backup or you know developer there are standard user accounts that people use and these can be brute force brute force simply means that someone is going to keep trying different password combinations till they figure out now why does this work because we suck at keeping good passwords our passwords tend to be like you know 6 characters 5 characters only alphabets lower case things like that okay I am not going to get into that but consider that this is the number one reason for hacked linux servers but we need SSH access so what do we do in the simplest terms so the conventional wisdom says if you try to read if you google for securing SSH securing linux server this is what you will find okay this is all good needs to be done don't allow root to login you know there is an option for that in SSHD don't use passwords use keys which is again a good thing you are by default if you launch a EC2 instance in Amazon there is no password access at all you have to generate a key pair and then you have to use that okay a .pem file or if you are using putty you have to like import it then save it as the public private and use that only use SSH version 2.0 some of the old sysco routers even now don't have this because to pay for the upgrade for the OS of the sysco router is very expensive so there is some SS version 1.0 whatever and it has some standard attacks okay so this is the conventional wisdom this is what you will find there traditionally this is what the problem is password boot forcing requires valid users a valid password can only exist for a valid user lots of people use keys without pass phrases it's a good thing to use a key but then someone has to steal that key I don't know how many of you know recently yahoo released extension for browser I think for chrome and they had embedded the private key in that and then they had to like revoke it or something a lot of people if someone is targeting you they will try to steal your private keys and once the key is gone it's gone because a lot of people don't keep pass phrases it's like they think that if there is a key nobody knows the password I have the key but the key can be lost stolen something like that one additional change you should make in your etc ssd config is to have use this directive called allow users it's a simple option here you can specify either the username or if you have the advantage of a static id for your internet presence specify it with that static ip which will mean is it's not that people will still not try to brute force the password but they will not be successful because this user from this ip only that is allowed to access your ssd now I personally use this I have a vps somewhere which is one of the cheap vps like some 6 dollars a month or something and that I use only for the static ip I get my servers where I am managing for my clients or whatever from that ip certain users are allowed access which means if my home system is hacked or whatever there is still some kind of protection but it also means if the vps goes down and they change their ip then I am screwed basically but you know then it's up to you but this is something most people do not tend to mention they allow users which is already available with ssh and you should start using this the other thing that if you believe that you can have some security, you know keep a random user not have an English word, take a Hindi word and put it in English call it like adhyapak or I don't know what is the word for manager yeah because most of the people who are trying to brute force they have these dictionaries which are for English words right so till you know we have hackers from the Hindi heartland you are safe the most important part, how much time do I have? the most important part I was not sure if I should add this slide but I realized if I want to explain the rest of the talk to you this is important a lot of people are not very clear about how permissions are derived or what certain permissions mean we will do a simple exercise what I have given here is you have your read, write and execute that's the standard thing and you have user group and others U, G, O, R, W, X right so it maps to how you give permissions for files and folders and if you need to figure out what this is this simply means this is not a directory the first three belong to user has read, write and execute which corresponds to 7 if you use octal a lot of people give that you might have ranted about developers giving 7, 7, 7 and that being a problem why is that a problem so for the group you have read and execute so if you are probably the same group you can at least map to that directory and you can read, you can see what files are there but you can't make changes and others have read you may not have to give this but I am just trying to do that so R, W, X for user, R minus X for group and R minus minus for others so this and this is same okay now anyone has any questions about this because the next part depends on this you don't get it you don't have questions so this is a typical thing I see in Bangalore different people from different parts of India have different ways of nodding this is a yes, this is a yes, this is a yes or a no or maybe so it's very interesting okay so everyone gets it good before we go to that into gundu or debian this is something that you should do I don't know if it really helps it but this is a recommended by everyone so maybe you can look at it in etc apache, docon.de, security these two lines are line number 27 and 39 which is server tokens and server signature they are commented you can uncomment these so if I have to find out what your website is running and I am not trying to run a tool or something whatever your domain name is after that I will give a 1 or I will give some name which I know that file does not exist if you are not having if you don't have a custom 404 error page below it will tell me exactly what this is running what mod proxy and you know you have that fast CGI or whatever whatever whatever right now does it really help the attacker or does it fault the attacker no but why make it easy it's as simple as that and there is no cost of just uncommenting two lines so if you are running apache you should uncomment these two for mysql I am repeating this if database and web server are on the same host on the same computer then mysql server should only listen on local host there is no need for it to listen on anything else I don't think there is any performance benefit either ways there is nothing else so in your etc-ql-my.cnf my.cnf is used when you use the standard mysql configuration which is meant for like medium sites there is a keyword called bind-address as far as Ubuntu goes I think this is default value but then I have seen some instances on Amazon where this is not the default value okay so this is something that you can check part of your checklist you can have that it's listening on this only if your database server and the web server are on the same machine okay then you have to give the external accessible IP otherwise your PHP script or whatever your web server has to read the database they need to know which machine to go to but I will tell you how to protect that the next thing to do this is a script provided by default it's your install when you have when you install mysql server you should run this so it will do three distinct things okay one is if you don't have a root user password it will make sure that you set a root user password the root user of the mysql server okay not your system root mysql server the database server it has users so the root user of that it will set up the other thing is it will remove the test database the test database is if there was a blank user and mysql basically ships to the blank user where you don't put anything if you just say mysql you have access to the test database it will remove the test database and it will also remove the blank user it might also ask you to not only allow root user access if you're on the same machine but I'm not sure of that okay the other thing to do is when you create a new database you should always create a different user in some cases I've seen the same user being used the chances of the credentials getting leaked or something are higher or if one site you know you have one website you have virtual host or whatever and one website credentials are gone then you have to go manually change it everywhere else so if you have ten websites or ten places you can change the password it just makes more sense to have one user for one database and also do not give grand privileges or any kind of privileges using if there is a problem with your application there are ways of writing to an out file you know if you have execute in you know enabling the privileges and that only works right to the out file then whatever the attacker will do will do for your standard websites I don't think there's need for anything apart from these six things select update insert delete alter and create the other thing is the user when you create a new user you should always specify where the user can login from place locally ensures that obviously you know someone from outside will not be login but at the same time just specify this you can specify a percentage which means that any host don't use that either have it local host specify local host or specify the exact IP where the MySQL connection will be made from right if your database is on a different host okay don't give percentage that's just lazy okay and it doesn't help you because come to think of it whatever your application does most of it the core part the you know the main part of your application is about the database your application is you know processing stuff and putting in database so there is some what you call the intellectual property whatever you want to call it is in the database okay and we tend to be very lax about that because the defaults work and our website looks you know it works properly we don't tend to think about that the other thing to do is to use the uncomplicated firewall there's not a new firewall there's just an interface to the same thing that IP tables does okay if you've seen IP tables format I mean I don't have any complicated rules I don't understand it there are like your NAT tables and the forward and accept there are a bunch of these keywords every time I have to configure that I have to go in the house okay and the problem with any kind of security configuration is if it is difficult to understand it is difficult to train everyone at the same level it is difficult to assure that you will be able to configure it properly so when it comes to this nice thing called the UWF it's called the uncomplicated firewall like the name very simple just do it enabled and then you allow the ports you want to allow now if you see it's 22 80 443 if you want now there is no need to allow 3306 if your database server is on the same machine right and then you do default deny after you allow what you have to allow you didn't deny so it will make sure that nothing else is connecting does that make sense okay it will create the resultant IP table format so if you want you can go customize that but this is just an interface for that so you know it makes it easier for us to understand like reading this rule set is far easier than sometime when we see and it will follow the best practices like it will do the established well I think that if the connection is allowed or whatever you know if it's established will allow it and all that yes once this is set you can use the UFW status it will show you this format if you do IP tables minus L capital L it will show you that format it's up to you you can mix and match yeah it's basically a wrapper yeah that's a better way than in database so if you need to and I mean I've had people because database sometimes you know they want to have like a separate machine and everything for backup for security or whatever you can do this UFW allow from external db IP to the current host IP this is the public IP address of the machine where your firewall rules are going to be 4 3 3 0 6 that's it so in case you still have to do it first you made sure that the user you created inside the MySQL server right that could only log in from that external db IP and now you have enabled that in the firewall you have poked the hole so that you know your access is available this is the port for MySQL so even in if it's local host it's listening on 3 3 0 6 if you have enabled db IP otherwise it could be a socket based connection also but I don't know I have never used socket I personally disabled that it's faster that's faster but I mean how much of a difference will it make what is slide length microseconds so if you can do IPC do IPC but that will be like not everything in right to the socket it has to be some privilege process but only MySQL can write so then the standard file permissions but that's only because it has a MySQL driver to connect to that socket and the question is how do you protect right and read access to that the socket okay so some kind of a reference architecture please feel free to follow it please feel a little discarded this is what I think a basic application will look like the document root this is your web server document root whatever is inside this directory will get served okay so if you make a mistake if you do dbconfig.php.back your web server is going to serve that as a text file because you know it's like it's inside the document root so document root should only contain files that are meant to be served to the user now I'm sure there are many many many exceptions to this rule where you have to put it inside that like in .NET you have a web.config which has to be part of the document root but then the web server takes care that is never served like apache by default will not serve any file which starts with .hd you can set up a file for .hd1 it doesn't have to be .hd access apache will refuse to serve it because by default the .hdbconfig itself that is given now everything which is required for your web application but doesn't need to be served to the user then you can outside the document root because all the web server needs is read access to that file the browser where people access it from the user agent don't need to do anything about it so maybe this is how what you can do you have your website running in site folder public is whatever all the files that you will be serving index.php or whatever it is and then you have a private folder which is obviously the document root is this where www.sitepublic and those will get served your .hdbconfig other things can be in private as long as this group which is what the web server is running as the process apache web server running is running as www.data this group has read access to this folder they will be able to read the file you know uploads tend to be most use cases you get uploads for picture of the profile or media or something now people tend to think that it has to be inside document root if you are not going to serve that same whatever is getting uploaded then it can be outside but if you are going to use the same images or something then obviously it has to be here only that folder should have right access for the group does that make sense so what you do is you use ssh with your user your user is called foo and you copied the files now the owner of those files is user foo now that foo user or those files can have the group as www.data and then based on the permission set the web server will be able to write to it read from it execute you know go inside that directory you don't need to set others to 777 that only happens when your files and folders the owner is someone else and they are not part of this group right so then you are going to give others access to execute and write which is a big no no because it leads to other things so finally what we did and this is definitely less than 10 steps is start from a mini iso an ideal case and you remove the unwanted services to reduce your attack surface then you whitelist user for ssh login only that user from that ip or only that user can login the myoskill user has been protected right because you have set that use user from this ip or this host is allowed to access this database and you are not using standard root user and you have a default deny in your firewall and you have allowed certain whatever you wanted whatever services remain after you have removed the unwanted services you have port 22 for ssh so you can do your files your shell and file access then you have your web server and your database and you keep that okay his question is what's your name some of question is can you restrict access based on a user agent to the content you can try but you do need to understand the user agent string is coming from outside your server so if someone changes that it's a no the only problem then is you can do it like maybe the default duplicate user agent whatever which one it is that is blocked right and that you can do it at the web server level but if someone changes it then you wouldn't know and it's very easy to change the user agent because it's part of the http header right so okay so okay so i used to think that's a good idea and there are two problems with that first of all if you rely on some you know tools for automated deployments or whatever everywhere you have to specify the port okay so whatever it is eventually it has to connect to some port the tcbi connection has to go somewhere right so it has to connect to some port which the server is listening on if it's not listening on 22 it can't go through right so you could do that now the problem is what i have read and i think you know Kingsley might be a better person to answer this question is if you listen on a high port above 1023 then any non-privileged user can also listen you know create a process which listens on that port okay now i was trying to find some references where this has been a problem in the real world i was not able to but i don't know have you seen that would you recommend that running it on non-standard port see basically port scan is one technique okay basically what you're doing is if i figure out what port response on an ip i can send enough data for it to reply and ssh by default expect some kind of a cert certification type of message to go through or at least you know what cryptography it will support and all that it will reply with some error so if the idea is that your bot should not fill up your logs right that's the only thing it's going to protect you the automated attacks will happen 22 is not responding it's not that the bot will stop but your logs will not get filled up your auth.log but does that really help you with anything else i'm not sure but if you whitelist the user then you're assured that if your you know password is very basic but they can't figure out what the user name was they'll never be able to log in okay but again what you say might make sense but i wouldn't do it on a machine where a lot of other users who i don't know personally had shell access and no in the sense like you can't stop someone from running a process which listens on a tcp port after 1023 from 1 to 1023 is for privileged user for root right anything above is anything else right so if you run like some people run it on 2222 i'll give you a scenario for some reason your sz stops working okay you get a message and someone starts their rogue sz that's the only example i've gotten so far but what you're doing is you're bypassing as long as you keep it in so another good suggestion if you don't want to run on 22 you see what are the other services you know up till 1023 and you run it on that the pain is that then every client that you use to connect you to ssh you will have to specify that port number yeah run it on 22 with the whitelist user that's what i would recommend that's how i run it so it depends on how you keep your password also right if your password is simple or there was this security company called they used to run this website called rootkits.com okay that person has written a book also so obviously definitely knows a lot about security but his admin received a mail which seemed to be from him saying that i am in some conference in the middle east i need to access i have forgotten the ssh password can you send it to me can you reset and send it to me that person did that and then you know there was some 28,000 emails no this is before anonymous this was called the anti-security anti-sec these are a bunch of hackers from Saudi Arabia and all that were just pissed off with everyone in the world so it is before your anonymous all that but when you whitelist and you have a good password or you have a pass phrase in public key, private key that gives you more assurance right and that's what i would suggest oh there's another thing what i've not covered what you should think of you should be looking at your logs maybe you know there are a bunch of people are talking about there's a talk on what is that friendly or something then i guess this log watcher whatever is suitable for you there's a talk on that you should be monitoring them like at least if your server goes down your ssh goes down or something happens you should get some kind of an alert you might do something with it might not do something with it but depending on you know how much money was spent on your production system monitoring some people pay a lot of money or you can use a simple tool which monitors website monitor.us or something which will just tell you if your port is down okay and additionally you should be thinking of whitelisting in host.allow or you should be host or deny sorry we are missing so this is just a tcp wrapper you can specify the service and you know which ip or subnet or you know network with a wildcard is allowed to access so if you use something like fail to ban or deny hosts which is another protection for again brute forcing that if there is some you know x number of connections in some time duration which are all failing for your ssh access then that ip is put in host.deny okay my problem with that is for some reason if your ip gets banned then what do you do that happen because there was like one developer working and then he was out of the office so he the other person who was supposed to work on it called him to get the password did not want to send a text message now this developer told him the password over the phone but there was some miscommunication so he kept trying kept trying and then they got banned so then they had to call their support to reset the password it happens you know it's funny when it happens to other people but it does happen so I don't really recommend the banning strategy just like that apart from this that's it that's all I have yeah you can your question is can I ban for ssh based on country yes you can do that you can specify an entire ip block so if you are thinking of banning users from china or russia or whatever you can there is a really cool tool called block finder it's on jithub you put in the two letter country code you tell you all the ip blocks from that country you can put that in your configuration that's all you do you know the problem with that is it's possible that the person who's actually trying to monitor might be sitting in the next house they might be just going through china so you can start blocking but it's like a never ending slope at one point you will have blocked everyone but yourself but yes you can do that any other questions is that a question or your opinion his opinion is that absolute security is a myth I think it's an economics problem it depends on the time you have and the money you have and the paranoia you have anything else okay okay I'm out of time thank you thank you so much


My name is Karen Roy and I'm the Director of the San Francisco Department of Child Support Services. My relationship with the public library started when I was 10 years old in the Bronx. My brothers and I were walking home from school one day when a car pulled up and a man pointed a gun at my brothers and I and demanded that I get into the car. At the same time a lady walked up and immediately stood between the gunman and me and shouted at him to leave us alone. The gunman sped away. Miss Giordano, who stopped and risked her life for mine, was a superhero and Miss Giordano was a librarian. After the incident she walked us home and spoke to my parents about my joining the Super Kids After School program at the Parkchester branch of the New York Public Library. My brothers and I spent hours in the library reading, helping at the counter and participating in read aloud circles. Because I loved poetry, Miss Giordano introduced me to African American poets and writers like Langston Hughes, Paul Lawrence Dunbar, Nicky Giovanni and Maya Angelou. When I first moved to Oakland I volunteered as a tutor at the Adeline branch of the Oakland Public Library where I met many young people who would come in for help with their homework. As a volunteer I drew upon my early lived experience to help students overcome their reluctance to dive into difficult materials. Later I served on the board of the Friends Stewards of the African American Museum and Library in Oakland helping to curate and preserve the stories of the African American experience in the Bay Area. Today I am a library commissioner for the Oakland Public Library where I find both community and a cause to celebrate the diversity and uniqueness of libraries. The library is a beacon of hope, opportunity and safety for so many black and brown children. It serves as a place of community that combats the loneliness and isolation that many seniors experience. It serves as a respite for people in need and a place to start a job search. And most importantly it serves as a place to dream big dreams, to learn new skills and find one's voice and of course to read, read, read. Your library card will give you superpowers. Pick one up at a branch near you.


Without further ado, I'm going to turn to Harry Bartier and just ask him to introduce his hopes for this meeting in the next four days. Good morning. Thank you, Adrian. It's really nice to be here. And especially at a time when there are interesting developments all over the world. And I'm going to talk a little bit about the Indian context as I come from India. It's after 30 years that we have had a majority government elected. They have been in government for the last eight months. When they started, we had high inflation, almost, I would say, low growth rate, high debt burden in the companies. Banks are also a bit under stress. And to be fair, government started with very, I would say, strong action, almost 50 different policy decisions, eight ordinances. So strong action on reform. And you will hear from some of the leaders, our finance minister, and our power minister, and the two chief minister of the states are here. And you will hear about what's their agenda. But one of the things I just wanted to highlight was, in India, as all of you know, that our demographics are very young, almost 60% of the population is below the age of 35. We had a strong agricultural economy. But if you look at the size of it, which is quite small right now, but it employs almost 50%, or employs or under employs 50% of the population, but forming only about 17% of the economy. Now, that throws a big challenge, because India is trying to industrialize. So we have almost 15 to 17 million people coming into the job market every year. And that's a challenge for every government. And what you see is a strong thrust towards urbanization where people want to move from rural areas to find jobs. And of course, the more younger people coming into the job market. Now, the challenge that we face is for the people who are first time coming into the job market. And people who come from very poor families, parents where agricultural laborers, and to find jobs for them, and to train them has been a big, big task. So here I would say I have two messages for this year's forum. Firstly, business can play a very important role in creation of livelihoods. And I say this because only 25% of India's people who are in the jobs have regular jobs. The rest are mostly self-employed. And if you take the agricultural part out, so what we need is, of course, the pillars of strong pillars of education, employability. And by employability, I mean, of course, a lot of thrust on vocational education, and lastly, innovation and entrepreneurship. So self-employment through entrepreneurship is going to be one of the major ways where you can bring in the young into the job market. Now, one of my companies employs almost 35,000 people every year. And they leave after one year. And they come from class 10 or class 12. And what we find is they are the first time job seekers. And after a year, they are able to go out to the job market. And they have propensity to find a better job and a higher income. So I think while the education system gears up for vocational training or in the primary education, find proper ways to train people for the job market, I think business can play a very important role in creation of livelihood. Thirdly, secondly, I would say, is India has started this big program for making India. You have seen it outside in Davos, which is really not only for the global market, but for our Indian market, which continues to grow presently at 6% to 7%, hopefully will grow at 8% to 9% in the next two and a half years. So that is going to absorb a lot of people from the agricultural side and bring it into manufacturing. Lastly, I must conclude and say that for me, the best corporate social responsibility would be to really create livelihoods. And I think creating sustainable enterprise will help create sustainable livelihood. Thank you. Harry, thank you very much. William Benumina, two of the big themes here in Davos in the theme of the new global context is both inequality and climate. And you've got very strong views on both of those and strong contributions to make. Can you share with us your thoughts for this year's meeting? Thank you, Adrian. Yes, extreme economic inequality is out of control globally, and it's getting worse. At the same time, the impacts of climate change are exacerbating inequality. Last year, Oxfam released a report here at Davos where we said 85 people, richest people, owned as much wealth as the bottom 50%, 3.5 billion people. Well, this year we've released another report, and that figure has come down to 80. 80 people own as much wealth as the bottom 50%. So extreme inequality is increasing very rapidly. And if it isn't checked by next year, 1%, the top 1% will own more than the 99% combined. Is this the kind of world we want to live in?  We cannot eradicate poverty with these levels of extreme inequality. So global leaders here in Davos have the power and the influence to make a difference on this. We have here 1,500 global business leaders. We're going to have here 40 heads of state and government, including the most powerful, like Angela Merkel of Germany, like the Prime Minister of China, like President Jacob Zuma, who is the president of the most unequal country in the world. So we can make a difference here. I'm here to call for urgent action from the world leaders, the business leaders here, to stem the tide of inequality and to start action on climate change. I'm here to ask hard questions. I'm here to really broach difficult subjects. The message is that extreme inequality is not inevitable. It's a result of policy choices. And with the right choices, we can stem that tide. And business leaders have a role to play. Political leaders have a role to play. So I hope that at this meeting we will focus on the solutions. Oxham has put out a package of seven types of solutions, policy solutions. I will not go into them now, perhaps at question time. But there are solutions. And we have seen regions, countries, reducing extreme inequality and lifting people out of poverty as they promoted growth. So I look forward to these discussions, robust discussions with business and political leaders here. Thank you very much. Winnie, thank you very much. Catherine Garrett Cox, in addition to being CEO of Alliance Trust, you're also a young global leader. And you know the forum well from both sides. You're also based not in the square mile, but in Dundee in Scotland. Can you give us some of your perspectives on this year's annual meeting? Thank you, Adrian. And very good morning to everybody. And echoing my co-chairs' gratitude, thank you for your time and how delight I am to join everybody today. I mean, I think from an overall business perspective, one of the things that we see right now is that the world is facing some very critical choices. So in terms of the big themes that the annual meeting is discussing, we have this interesting disconnect between a world that is opening up due to the technological advances that we're seeing and increasing transparency and speed of information. And yet we have increasingly worrying trends towards sectarianism, nationalistic approaches, and protectionism in certain areas. And I think one of the things that's going to be so critical and one of the key things that I'm looking for in this year's annual meeting is to be able to see very resilient and responsible leadership at this pivotal time. And what do I mean by that? I think ultimately at Alliance Trust for 127 years, we have really wanted to put values and our own responsibilities to broader society very much at the heart of what we do. And I think that when we had the unfolding of the financial crisis a few years ago, people really lost their way. And I think over the years, whilst some conversations have certainly happened perhaps behind closed doors, I'm delighted to see that this year, the World Economic Forum has put values-based leadership discussions front and center of many sessions. And I think ultimately our very strong view is that this is how we can collectively build a sustainable future. We need to recognize that business is part of society, has broad responsibilities to society, and whether it's in our actions, in our own investment choices, in how we engage with other companies, getting them to recognize that these are important themes and trends, whether addressing income inequality, climate change, and all of these things. I think ultimately this is what I really want to see.  So this is one of choice, one of resilient leadership, and I'm very excited about the week ahead. So thank you. Catherine, thank you very much. Roberto Cetubal is a strong Brazilian presence this year in Davos, and it's great to have you as co-chair, but there's also lessons to be learned, I think, here from Brazil and its experience. And can you share with us some of the things you'll be putting on your agenda in the next few days? Okay, good morning for all of you. Thank you for being here. We'll talk more about emerging markets in general. Six years after the global financial crisis, a new global environment emerges on the horizon. Moderate but robust growth has resumed in the US, while China has decelerated. Europe is still muddling through on its own problems. Upon this background, banking industry must adapt to the additional constraints imposed on financial institutions by the new regulatory environment. It is still a challenging outlook, and it is important to note that those three forces will negatively impact emerging markets. That accounts for 85% of the world's population. The US economy has recovered from its post-2008 slowdown. It has been able to achieve moderate but reduced growth rates and reduce unemployment in a sustainable way. That's good news for the rest of the world, which will benefit from the growing demand for goods and services by the world's largest economy. However, as a consequence of those improvements, the Fed has already started to gradually remove the monetary stimulus and is likely to raise interest rates this year, if not next year. As this process takes place, emerging market currencies are likely to depreciate further and their domestic interest rates, both short and long, and we raise, dragging down internal demand. For those emerging markets, more reliant on foreign funds, drastically current account adjustments may occur. China economy has decelerated and it is widely perceived as structural and permanent. In our view, demand growth from China will not support commodity price as much as it did in the past. The maturation of investments in natural resources sectors adds further downward pressures on commodity prices. That is particularly evident in the oil market, which has been over the last past month the worst performer among major commodities, but the prices of other key commodities such as iron ore and soybeans have also plummeted. Even though it's still too soon for definitive conclusions, I believe the declining commodity prices is at least partially permanent. Commodity exporters will thus lose export income in a permanent way. As already underway, currency depreciation will be needed to adjust current account. And in addition to that, the decline in investments in the commodity producing sector is likely to have a negative impact on domestic demand in those countries. On the other hand, commodity importers will benefit, especially those running high energy import bills. And cheaper raw material will exert downward pressures on global inflation. Also positive is the fact that many economies build buffers during the good years, stand now ready for a more challenging global environment. The banking industry faces important challenges on regulatory fields in this new global environment. The impact of the new capital and liquidity requirements ranges from a serious reduction of profitability affecting some business lines to activities being completely outlawed. Financial intermediation will become more expensive, especially for higher risk segments such as project finance, credit cards, and small companies. Capital location for sovereign debt is under discussion. It is another initiative that would affect emerging markets. However, we expect banking industry to come out of this process more resilient. It will also be more capitalized and adhere to better liquidity standards. Finally, I expect the discussions in Davos to address those important issues. And it's consequences. And I expect that when we go home in a few days, we have a better view of what should be done to strengthen the world economy. Thank you. Roberto, thank you very much. Now, my apologies for getting everyone in slightly late. I'm gonna try and see if we can squeeze in 10 minutes of questions from folks here. Can you just raise your hand if you have a question you'd like to ask? And also if you do have a question, can you share your name and your organization? That would be fantastic. So if I can just peer out into the room past the lights, which are slightly blocking me. Can I get a sense of who has a question for one of our co-chairs or all of them? Lady in the pink, we'll get in. Hi, my name is Arantaneire, the Spanish Press Agency, FA. I have two questions. The first one is about the impact in the global economy of the slowdown of the China economy. And the second is regarding the women quote of participation in the forum. I think the World Economic Forum has a target for every year and I don't know if you have met this target this year. Thank you very much. Sure, well, let's take women participation first and hear from both Catherine Winnie and perhaps Roberto and Harry if they'd like to contribute as well. We, our target is for more women to be engaged in every aspect of global leadership permanently. And last year in Davos, he had Prime Minister Abe announcing his goal of 30% of women's inclusion by 2020 in Japan. We have four task forces currently working with governments to try and improve representation of women across the world in all aspects of global leadership. And if any governments are listening, we're welcome to work with any of them to improve that level. But as we point out consistently, when we invite leaders of organizations, we invite them as leaders. And if the organizations are functioning to promote men into those roles or they're not doing enough to promote women, then that's reflected to some extent in the invitations to Davos. But if you look at this year, in the past, in the meetings we've held, we've had over 20% of women engaged. This year in Davos, we're up ahead of where we were disappointingly last year. And we want to keep moving that in the right direction because it should be 50%, 50%. There's no two ways about it. You can follow, by the way, also our global gender gap report, which annually benchmarks a whole range of different factors on this. But that's kind of me speaking in my capacity as forum spokesman for a less biased and more independent view. I'll turn to our co-chairs, Winnie. Thank you. This is a very important question. Obviously here at the World Economic Forum, where I'm told there's 17% participation of women at this meeting, the World Economic Forum is limited as to how it can achieve a high participation of women at its annual meetings because women are not occupying senior positions of political leadership or of business leadership. We need to do more there before we can get them to be at meetings such as this. But the signs are good. I was in Brisbane recently for the G20 summit and there the G20 leaders made a commitment to pursue 30% increase in women's labor force participation over a period of time. The leaders said they are going to go back to their countries to put in place the policies that will bring more women into paid, safe, good jobs. That's very important and it's when they're there that they can rise to top leadership. Let me give you one statistic. Quebec, Quebec by putting in place the childcare subsidy has been able to bring 70,000 women into paid employment and through that increased its revenue base and was able to pay for that program. So there is a win-win there that when you have more women in paid work, you also increase growth and you also build more women's leadership in business and in politics. So there's a lot to gain and the moment is right to promote women's leadership in politics and in business. And perhaps what I'd add just more from a young global leader perspective, I've been participating in the last couple of days in their sessions. And I would say there's probably pretty much gender balance within the young global leader community. I sit on the foundation board of young global leaders and for the last couple of years as we've been bringing all types of young global leaders through the system, whether they be from the business community, NGOs, public office, we've been working really hard to strive for gender balance. So actually it's all about the pipeline. I mean, it's the same situation as we have in business. And I think that there's probably in business in general, there is still more ways to go. But I think it's really about having again a very strong view that this is important. And as I can see the young community coming through, both at the young global leaders and at the shapers level, I'm very hopeful for the future. I think there's also an issue that I'd highlight here, which is it's an equity issue that doesn't just affect one gender or another. And if you look out, for example, some of the proposals coming through, like male paternity leave, men actually taking paternity leave is a key factor in helping empower women to actually pursue careers successfully and pursue jobs. And you can see there's people here like Adam Grant from Wharton Business School, who've got a whole range of different recommendations on how men can play a part, importantly, in actually delivering on some of the promises that are talked about. And so I think there's a really interesting range of things coming out of this meeting if you're able to attend some of those sessions and kind of follow up with some of those folks on real policies that can move this dial, not just headline announcements from leaders, although they're very important, but also practical steps that can be taken to actually make this issue fairer. Can I just turn to China as a kind of engine of global growth and concerns that it might be slowing down? We're gonna hear today from Premier Li. There's a big Chinese delegation here. We've got Jack Ma from Alibaba. And we have the chairman of chief executive of Huawei, Roberto. Can I just ask you, is there a concern? You mentioned you talked about commodity prices, obviously China's driving a lot of that global commodities market. Do we have to be concerned about the future of the Chinese economy or is it a good thing, the kind of rebalancing that's going on right now? Yes, I think that Chinese economy is decelerating and I think this is affecting mainly the commodity prices. So all countries that are more commodity driven producers or exporters are being affected by that because they have reduced their export income.  So some of the effects of this deceleration is already in today's economy and some of that will take place down the road. I think that the good news is that the US economy is improving and this might help China, China economy increase exports to the US which will contribute to their GDP growth in the future. Katherine, do you want? I think the only thing I would really add is that people are getting very excited about the fact that China's slowing down but it's still going to grow at a fair clip. I think the big adjustment that China's gonna have to make is having really had economic driven predominantly by infrastructure growth that they now are making the transition more towards a consumer focused economy. Arguably that is going to be much more structural rather than cyclical. So I think over time there will be huge benefits but certainly as Roberto says in the very short term it's causing extreme volatility and commodities but I think it's very easy to forget that if you're growing your economy six, seven percent I think most economies would be pretty happy with that. Winnie, obviously Chinese economy has done a great deal to bring people out of poverty in the last 25 years the reforms that they've put in place. Is China's future developments something you're paying close attention to? Absolutely, even in terms of achieving the millennium development goals that goal number one on eradicating extreme poverty was achieved largely because of China's contribution in India to lift millions out of poverty. But also we have to understand that the commodities markets that the export of commodities by the developing countries is also one of the drivers of rising inequality because you have a situation where in many developing countries that depend on natural resource extraction that this resource is captured by a small political and economic elite leaving many, many people without jobs, without incomes and the resource is not plowed back into the lives of people. So China's slowing growth and its impact on the developing countries where it imports from might be an opportunity for these countries to look closely at how the natural resource that's extracted is taxed, the fair taxation of that wealth and the plowing back of those resources into health, into education and into sectors that create employment for young people. These questions are very political. They need to be debated. And I think this is also the slowing of Chinese growth is an opportunity for more discussion of how the natural resources can benefit poor people. Harry, what are you hoping to hear from Premier Lee today and from China's participants this year's annual meeting? Yeah, firstly, I fully agree with Catherine that China is a huge economy and still growing at 7%. So it's really, there is a slowdown and if India goes from five to let's say seven, seven and a half percent in the next two years, I think we will see some stability there. And what I am hoping to hear from Premier today is really what is the adjustment that China is going through? And I think it's a strategic and a planned adjustment which relates to maybe some of the excess investment that have been made in the past few years. And they're very good at it. They will quickly adjust and hopefully stabilize the economy at a reasonable growth rate. US is continuing to grow, probably add to that. And I think the impact is also by Japan and Europe having very almost no growth and deflation. So that is also having an impact on commodity prices. So, but I'm hoping that in a year's time we will see some stability. Thank you. We've always made up the time that I deprived you of at the beginning. Can I just, we might have time for one very, very quick sort of one line headline answer from our panelists if anyone has an outstanding question or if you want a chance to follow up with them independently afterwards, they will be active in the Congress Center. Any hands shooting up that I've missed? If they're not, I'm going to release our co-chairs back into the wild and wish all of you a very successful and enjoyable and productive annual meeting. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Adrian. Thanks, Andreas. Thank you. Thanks. Thank you.


Welcome to Digital Asset News, take your top stories in cryptocurrency digital assets and break them down to bite-sized pieces. So today this morning is December 24th, it was Christmas Eve, it's about 8.40 El Paso Texas time in the morning and before we get into the big story, I just want to do a quick review about what's been going on the last couple of weeks. So first up, I'm going to play this clip I played a couple of days ago. This is Brian Brooks. He is the czar of the OCC, the Office of the Comptroller of Currency and he said something very interesting which I thought was going to be a fantastic ride moving forward and he said everything's going to be great and we're going to have all these great news and I'll let him tell you. It's equally important that we develop the networks behind Bitcoin and other cryptos as it is that we prevent money, lottery and terrorism financing. So believe me, there's a balance here and it's going to work for everybody. So that's an either a yes or no answer to that. Should we be expecting some new regulations by the end of the Trump term? I think you're going to see a lot of good news for crypto by the end of the Trump term. Some of it's going to have to do with banks connecting to blockchain. Some of it's going to be more clarity around the nature of these assets. So believe me, there's going to be very positive messages coming out. Positive messages and we were all excited, me especially because I actually increased my dollar cost averaging buys every day. But unfortunately, a couple of days ago, we got this little action right here. SEC is going to sue Ripple Labs, Bradley Garlinghouse and Christian Larson and that was a bummer. I discovered that in a couple of days ago and also yesterday about what's going on and how Ripple respond to that, which is pretty interesting. But I want to take you back to September 7, 2018 and there was this guy named Elad Reusman and he was elected to be a commissioner of the SEC. So he is part of the people that actually do all the regulation underneath the commissioner Jay Clayton. And it was a pretty good pick and this was a couple of years ago, but just as a little refresher. This guy is, well back then he was 37, now he's 39. So he's a young guy. So he's got probably some of those other type of thinkings as far as what's going to happen in the future. And before that, he was chief counsel of the US Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs. And this article talks about, could this be a breath of fresh air on the SEC? Elad Reusman has been associated with having a pro-cryptostance. His role with the SEC is expected to support Commissioner Hester Pierce's, I'm going to say that again. Commissioner Hester Pierce's earlier initiative to open financial markets to the world of cryptocurrencies. And during the hearing to approve him, he stated this, I'm going to have you listen to what he says here. The US capital markets are the envy of the world and the importance of the SEC's role in this cannot be overstated. Throughout its history, the dedicated commissioners and staff of the SEC have worked to preserve confidence as our markets grew and evolved. To continue this, the SEC must examine and re-examine its rules, regulations and guidelines to ensure that they're still working as intended to accomplish the SEC's mission. This is most recently manifested in areas such as data protection and cybersecurity, as well as the emergence of new investments in technologies such as initial coin offerings and blockchain. It is essential that the SEC approach these new challenges in a fair and transparent manner, provide clarity and certainty to the markets and investors and enforce the laws and regulations that hold market participants accountable. So I like that. That sounds pretty good. So why am I bringing all this up? Because I'm going to tell you why. Hester Pierce sent out this little tweet about 30 minutes ago, 40 minutes ago, and pretty much said, hey, congratulations to Chairman Reusman. I look forward to your leadership of the SEC because he will be the new chairman. And that I think is great news for everybody. So potentially this could be what Brian Brooks was talking about. I was on Alex Maskelly's show and I said, I don't know what Brian Brooks was saying because it just doesn't make any sense. And then Ryan said, well, sometimes you have different levels of organizations that don't know what the left hand's doing as far as the right. So maybe Brian Brooks here only had half the story. Maybe he knew that Reusman was going to be confirmed as a new commissioner. He knew that he was pro-cryptocurrency and he thought this is going to be great. Maybe he had no idea about Clayton coming out and going, hey, we're going to sue Ripple. I have no idea. But this is positive news, but you have to understand that the lawsuit that's going on could take potentially years unless Reusman comes in and says, you know what?  Do I think that could happen? That means a possibility. But the wheels are already in motion and it's kind of hard to stop the train once it gets moving. So what has this done for the actual price action? Well, not too much. I don't think people have really known about it because it just happened not too long ago. But XRP is down massively and it's almost pegged the quarter like I always talk about. But it's down big time. I expect bumps and valleys and we'll see what exactly happens. But this is positive news. It's not just positive news for XRP and Ripple. It's actually positive news for us as a whole because if you have somebody in there who is like, you know what? We need to really examine this and look at it and it could be potentially super positive for us and really understands that the role that America plays in the global financial markets. If he understands that and I think he does, I think we could see some fireworks this year in 2021 could be a magnificent year, not just for Bitcoin, all the institutions, but all the other altcoins. Let me mention the comment section below and that is it for the Dan Bailey snippet. I will see you tonight where we're going to give away a hundred dollars worth of a Voyager token in our 24 days of Christmas. Thanks for watching. I really appreciate it and I'll see you tonight.


I do not understand how emotions and thoughts can be physical. First of all, this distinction between emotion and thought, it doesn't really exist. What you call as emotion is just the juicier part of the thought. Yes? The way you think is the way you feel, isn't it so? Right now, I think this is a wonderful person. Now I have sweet emotions towards him. Now I think he's a horrible man. Now I have ugly emotions towards him.   Is it possible? No, because the way you think is the way you feel. And the other way around also, the way you feel is the way you think. You have sweet emotions towards somebody, whichever way you look at them, everything about them looks beautiful. Yes? Yes or no? Once you have sweet emotions towards somebody, do you see your thoughts start telling you all kinds of beautiful things about them? But suppose suddenly this sweetness of emotion went away tomorrow, suddenly your mind starts telling you all the horrible things this person is. Yes or no? Because thought and emotion are not separate. Thought is dry, emotion is juicy, but it's the same thing. So let's not make a distinction. So how is this physical? I think we already looked at this yesterday because today you know they can measure your thought on a meter. Yes? You know this? They can attach wires and cables to your head and measure the level of activity of the mind. Thought in the mind? Yes, you know this. Sometime ago they put me in a machine, usually I don't put myself to such indignities. I give in because of some social nonsense. And they put me on this machine, they want to study my gamma rays or whatever. And then it seems all the machines just went flat. They said you are dead. I said that's a good diagnosis. So they said you must be dead or you are brain dead. I said yes. If it can be measured, it has to be physical, isn't it? Yes or no? On a meter, on a physical machine, if it has to be measured, it has to be physical. It may be subtle, but still physical. Your thought is very much physical. It's about the physical and it is physical. It cannot exist without the physicality of the brain, isn't it so? If you scoop out your brain, can you think? No. So it is very physical. Like the light bulb is physical, the light is also physical, isn't it? But light is not something you can catch like this, but still it is physical. It is very much physical. Maybe you don't like it. Oh my emotions are so sweet. How can it be physical? It is physical. What's wrong with the physical? Nothing wrong with the physical. Somebody has told you something wrong with the physical. Nothing wrong with the physical. What's wrong with the physical? Physical is the creation, isn't it? Yes? Only if creation is beautiful, only if you experience creation as a very beautiful thing, then creator becomes significant. If creation is horrible, creator must be even more horrible. Yes or no? If this body is horrible, God must be the most horrible creature, isn't it so? Yes or no? You don't like it. It's okay. He is horrible.


NN, The Tiger, Financial News Network, TFNN, Headline News Update. Good morning everyone, Basel Chapman on this Wednesday, the 24th of January. This is the Tiger Financial News Network, 10 a.m. market update. We're looking at the Dow up 67 after a week's session yesterday, hasn't taken out the 38109 high that was made three days ago, we're at 379.75. I'm watching this closely. You see this rectangle here on the left side chart, the dating chart. That's the weekly. We broke a little bit above the trend line, monthly chart, leg C in the Chapman wave. This is going to be very important because if there's a high above 38109 and in the diamonds above the high of two days ago, that kind of changes things in terms of the notation. But in the meantime, I'm expecting some kind of a sideways move here to continue. We're looking at the S&P, slightly different chart, the S&P, if I can type it in the right place, typed it into the Den by mistake, there it is. Right in the Chapman wave, inside track repellent zone, very strong move, all-time high yesterday, hasn't yet in the cash index made a new high above yesterday. What was that, 4868.41 high? Today's high is 4893.60. QQQ. Now, of course, Netflix was a huge component. It's just gone to a leg D. And I'm telling you that this is an important moment, just in terms of a very short term, because I think that we're still continuing that what I call a digestive phase in the Dow, but in the other indexes, you've gone to new all-time highs. But that doesn't mean to say that we can't have some kind of a little bit of a digestive phase here, and we'll go through that in my show, the Tiger Clinicians Hour coming up. But the IWM, the Russell 2000, is up three at 196.04, oops, 196. Why is it great? Oh, it had a sharp move up, and now it's pulled back. Is that correct? Well, anyway, what it says is 196 and a red candle, interesting. Gold had a big rally early on, and then it gave back some. I don't know where it is right this moment. It's the GC is trading the continuous contract down. That's just unchanged at 2024. Let me just quickly do bonds. Bonds are up about 10, 30 seconds, and Crude Oil trying to have a rally early on is supported. It adds some 20 up to 30 cents. My potatoes are a very interesting market. My on-balance volume indicators are very overbought in daily and even weekly charts. Thank you for watching this very good show. Back with you. See you.


Show us how you get your bestie. On you or the bird? No, the bird. Okay. Oh, you have to physically show. You have to just trick the bird. Put it. Put it. That looks like a force maneuver going on. Put it right in. In the nostril. Come on, come on. You want this. Hello Snippers, flighters, and newbies. Welcome to our second episode of Wing It. For those of you who have not seen the game show before, do not move on. You guys will love this. I am putting today none other than my two best friends, Noora and Tracy, against each other. For those of you who watched the first episode and loved it, I hope this will be just as entertaining. And for those of you who were like, I'm not watching the game show, trust me. Go back and watch it. You guys will be thoroughly entertained. What is different about today is that now we have our rules fleshed out. We have practiced and we are ready to go. So we won't have any discrepancies on rules like last time, which was a bit crazy. We are going to introduce the two competitors. And what they do not know, guys, is that this competition is vying for... You better not say that. Who is the ultimate best friend? Tracy! They're both Scorpios. They're part of my Scorpafia, okay?  And Tracy says that she is CEO of my friendship. Let's see if that's true. Alright guys, so we have Tracy and Noora. I want you to let me know who you think is going to win right now in the comments. Pause this, let me know and then come back to it and let me know if you were right. Welcome to another episode of what is the name of the show of using my friends. Okay guys, we also have in this room my mother. Yes, the champion. I am the champion. Okay. If you need help, I'm here. Are you going to be paying attention to see who's winning? Yeah, what I'm going to do is I'm going to write down how many questions they answer correctly and see if any one of them beat me because I answered a lot of the questions. Hopefully no one will get more than 22 pins. Okay. Oh my God guys, Cody's mad. I didn't introduce him. This is Cody. Now he's happy. He's very happy. And... Oh my... Sorry Cody. She... And Megan is in here. She's going to be the judge and we're going to see how this all plays out. Let's go. What drink did Marlene's African Grey George always ask for? Tracy. Coke. Tea. Time for tea. Incorrect. What? It was time for tea all the time. A teammate of Coke. Who gives their bird coke? No order. Juice. Oh, I'm only supposed to answer one time. Yeah. Okay, so I'll do that on the next question, but the answer is juice. It is juice, but... No point to word it. No order. I would like to say that Tracy's already breaking the rules. Is there a pin for that one? No. Did George have a bird before meeting Marlene? No. Don't worry. You must wait. No. Correct. What happened? The button didn't communicate. But did she hit it first or did the... I'm only looking for lights. If there's no light, there's no answer. Okay. That's a good one. Okay. Which merchandise shirt comes in pink for kids? The jersey donut. Correct. This is exciting. I'm giving you my... Of course I didn't ask you. You know what? What is Rocky's favorite TV show? Empire. Correct. I knew that. Probably 39 of those questions. The thing is you both should know all the answers, so... Slow reflexes. Here we go, guys. What is Marlene's Starbucks order? Okay, I'm going to try this. I was trying to study this earlier. Wrong. So I know that it's coffee with at least almond milk. Because you don't take any other kind. And it's three pumps of black. She's already wrong. Three pumps of... She's already wrong. Okay. No, I would like to hear the full answer. No. A tall zebra mocha. Mocha latte. With three pumps, cool coconut milk. So three pumps dark, three pranks light. Caramel drizzle on inside as well as on top of the whipped cream. And the whipped cream, yes, it is absolutely dairy whipped cream. You forgot one thing. Hot. And chocolate drizzle. She forgot one thing. What did I forget? Extra hot. Oh, wow. Hot. You said hot. It's extra hot. Give me my pen. Extra hot. Extra hot. What car did Marlene have before Hermione Cooper? Oh, it's the one that put her down all the time. It was a... Oh my God. Oh my God, I know this too. So it was, it shook a lot. And it had four doors. And it scared Marlene. And she would scream a lot when driving it. And I believe it started with a C. Chevy. Chevy car. Four doors. Sedan. Chevy sedan. Four doors and four wheels. What's a Chevy? Four wheels. Not two. It was a Chevy cobalt, but she gets it, right? Yes, that's okay. Yeah, yeah. I'll give that one to you. Okay. Just making sure four wheels, right? Four wheels. What is my favorite food? There's a lot there. Somebody should go and say... Dora. Dora. Well, if you're talking fruit-wise, it's lemon. Oh yeah, that's a food. You have to be more specific than that. That's an item of food. You have to be more specific. If I was going to order delivery to the house... Indian. Indian. That's a pain in the neck. Mom, are you... Actually, it was no order because her button went first. Yellow doll. Tracy, you don't even listen. I don't know. What was the question? Maybe not a little bit. I said yellow doll. But she said Indian. I said Indian. She said... She said Indian. I didn't know how specific we should be, so I was breaking it down. You said favorite type of food. You didn't say restaurants. I want you guys to make the sound that Leo makes when George leaves the room. Yep. Good job, Nora. This is a question about solving things, okay? I know. Go ahead, have mercy. Is it math? We're all meeting at a restaurant. Okay. And you guys get there before me. Oh dear. Alright. And I'm not there yet. What do you have to do? Nora. Save a seat on a corner. She's right. In the corner. On a corner. But now our air is touching you.  That's a great idea. What? Check out Marlene's signature blend. I did this along with Top's parrot food. I love you guys so, so much. Thank you for listening. What city, state, or country did Marlene get her first burden? New Brunswick, New Jersey. It's right, right? New Jersey's correct. In New Jersey, I just needed one. You're good. But in South Brunswick, but yeah. Sorry, I should get two pins for that. No. You're like, you're cheating already. Okay. What's over there, Nora? This is a question just for Tracy. And then I have one just for Nora. Ready? So I get a pin. Tracy. Oh no. Yeah. How did I meet Nora? Why would you do that to me? Do we accept that answer? No. We're getting close together. Yeah. But what specifically? Something with Edward Plum probably. Yes. That was like five answers in. I led with the most inspirational answer. Go ahead. What's my question? Nora. How did I meet Tracy? I know this answer. If you can't come up with it. Hand it over. I actually don't recall this. Hold on, I have to trust it. Well, it was one year after I met Marlene. I know that one. Yeah, it was. 2011. Nice. Good job inserting that information. Yeah. I've known her longer. I know. But she has a bikini model. It's got to be a set. A movie set or something. You're getting warmer. You had like five answers before you. You're right. You're so far you're right. I met her on the set of a bikini. Oh my gosh. It's not funny. All I have to do is deduce. I cast her. Okay. How did me and George meet? We were a waitress in a restaurant. No. No? Well, you see, you had this friend. Oh my God. And you were going to a restaurant that used to be called Arama. And you were there. And George was with his roommates or his friends. I don't, I can't get specific. Do we need the violence? Hopefully one of you knows this. I'm not sure if I know it. But if I wasn't on YouTube, what would I be doing? Designing bandages. Acting. Directing. How many? I mean, there are so many things she would be doing. Yeah. This is the thing. This is, yeah, you see like. Running an animal habitat. No. Absolutely not. A bird sanctuary. No. Okay. Singing is fine. Yeah, it's fine. That would have been a fantasy for sure. Okay. My answer is later. Name one of the girl's names that designs, the designs or cartoons on any of the merch. Artist. I think it begins with an L like Lynn or something like that. I think she should get it because it, because Lynn's is one and Lindsay is the other. The other one too? Lindsay and Lynn's. And the reason you would know that is because when. I was trying to remember who you tagged. I made you make a video that said thank you. I was so overwhelmed with emotion that it's hard for me to recall. What is my brother's bird tie famous for saying. Tracy, time for bed. Correct. That's right. He wasn't allowed to sleep with me in the room. Why is that Tracy? Because he screams. Okay. You need like a plush doll that you can squeeze and it does that. Who was with me when I first met Merlin? Nora. Heather. Correct. It's a 45 minute video that I've watched like four times. Lomax. Heather, I hope you're not watching this because I love you. Very nice. I'm good with faces. Faces. Okay. You should both know this one. Who is the owner of a macaw named Marley? Oh, she gave you. Oh no. Catherine. Caroline. Caroline. No. No. I don't think I've met this bird. Okay. Caroline. I'm going to give you another version of the question. But you must press your buzzers first. In one answer, Tracy. One answer is the owner of a gala cockatoo named Ruby. Oh, for this I know. Why do I not remember it? Oh, and it throws up and stuff. Is it Randy? No. How about I give you guys a hint? I remember him though. Because he came and met... What's the bird's name? Can you just say the owner of my bird? Ruby met Vinnie, right? But I hope you're not watching because I'm sorry. I don't remember your name. I'm good with faces. Rod? No. What's it rhyme with? Hint. Hint. He has a car. Oh, good. That narrows it down. Only a few million of those. He has a... He had a purple car. Not better. He's come to our parties. He's come to our parties. Randy edits? No. Kevin. Yes. Really? Okay. Sorry, Kevin. Kevin. I saw the episode. Like at least three times. Kevin, I don't know what color your car is but congratulations for driving a purple car. What is Vinnie's favorite music? I know this song and I'm forgetting it. But like box of beats types of stuff. Like you're talking about an actual song? No. His type of music. It's like box, like Eminem, like rap. Yes. Darn it. I was like, yeah, I keep guessing. What? I knew that answer. Store. Oh no. Did Marlene get Leo from? Son of a... Tracy. Bird's plus. Yup. Really? Okay. That was like a delayed reaction but yeah. Witch Bird. Inspired a nail design of mine. Tracy. Picasso. Yup. Wow. Wow. I didn't think you'd know that. What do you mean? The colors and Picasso. Okay. You've worn nail polish for all the birds at this point I think. Witch Bird is first to come to the couch if I'm sitting there. Cody. Tracy. Okay. Can I ask a question about the question? No. And one guess. Certification. One guess. Guess a bird. Guess a bird. You have like 11 down there. Jersey. Yes. Really? Cause I was going to ask. That was my second guess. Is it a bird that you go to get to bring to the couch? Who comes to you? No. The bird comes to the couch. Okay. Jersey's always the first. Okay. I'm going to instinct. I need you guys to name three of my triggers that will start an OCD episode. Messy kitchen. Or house. Can you be more specific about what triggers the episode? It has to be something on the counters. But gone. Dishes in the sink. Yeah. Basically. The bird stuff on the floor. I don't want to say what it is. Bird poop on the floor. Is that okay? And? Things being out of place. I had to check. You had to check. I was like what does Megan think causes my episodes? Well definitely something being out of place. There's definitely two right? Yeah. Okay. But we need three. Wait a second. I'm giving a third one. That was things being out of place. The third one? Depends on what you're talking about. Because anytime something is not being put away correctly. Yeah but it doesn't start the trigger. There's three things. There's more than three things. Oh yeah yeah. But three good things. We'll give Tracy an opportunity to come up with one other. And if not then... The closet. The hangers. That's things being out of place. These are questions. That specifically she has this one. This is a hard one. Why?  Because if the closet isn't organized and they're not sorted by color. And the hangers aren't all the same. That's things being out of place. That's true. I did get shingles because of my closet. But this is I don't think we can... I mean she got to... You probably have to just give us both a pin. Unless we give Nora two pins and Tracy one. Okay okay. Even though I said things being out of place like five times. If there's no lemon. I will lose my mind. Oh yeah of course.  I just assumed she said lemon. Which bird is Georgia's lock screen on his phone? Rocky? No. Nope. It might be Picasso. It is Picasso. Oh that's cute. What was the name of my first mustache parachute? Malibu. Yep. I have studied some things before I got here. I didn't even know that answer. She was so good for you. It was so cute. I also know the actual date when your channel started. Good for you. If you want to ask that question. What was the name of Jenna's conure? Tracy. We had a funeral for it. But that bird was not hers alone. It started in hers and then Omer took it.  What was it? Abba. Abba. Boo. We could be here like for at least 26 letters. Right here. You were both at the funeral. I was there. We were right there. Your parents were in town. Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. I knew it's like one of those things. You guys said a song for the bird. But your father wouldn't allow you to say it. I didn't give you a hint. It began with the letter P. Poop poop. Am I right? Poop poop. Bird. It belonged to you beforehand. A long time before that. It belonged to me but it was numbered after when we got there. Pan-demonium. Okay. They don't know. Okay. I make a new friend. Why would you do that? You have everything you need at this table in this room. Don't go traumatize us. Ollie and we're going to have to compete against this new friend. There's no competing. I've already moved up too far and ranked. There's no competition allowed. I make a new friend. I already don't know. And the French vet. The friend is at the Marlene Friendship auditions. Okay. Well, the slots. They come over the house. What is one thing that if they don't allow? I know what you're going to say and I know the answer. Okay. Okay. Share with the birds. Yeah. She's right. I remember the day. Bottom line is there won't be my friend if they don't share with the birds. Joey doesn't share food. Do you see Joey? I think you're very special, please don't be offended. You're probably not even watching this, but please don't be offended. He's a character on Friends. I know, Adam's favorite show is Friends. Ready? Okay guys, ready? What color is Brandel's foot? Huh? What? Where is he at? Opaque, kind of silver grayish neutral tone. Are you sincerely going to make us name a color outside of gray? That's a gray foot. Do we have to know the number? It's in the pantomonger tone. Pantone book of colors? Book of colors. Number 41. Green feet. Ah, they're green. Nobody got that, huh? Well, should I disclose that I have a temporary color blindness? It's a grayish green. So mine won that question. Who helps me clip Vinny's nails? Jenna. Correct. Someone very brave. Name two birds that say Marlene or Marla. Oh, that was literally the same time. Okay, you name one, I'll name one, and then we'll both get a pin. They're making their own rule. Well, obviously it's Cody. And Merlin and Vinny and Rocky. Cody's not one of them. You're kidding me. No. Really? But those are all three birds that say it. Oh my God, I really would have said Cody if she hadn't said it. You want a pin? Give her a pin. You've heard Cody say Marlene. I thought I would have honestly answered Cody if you hadn't answered it. Cody. Marla? Come here. And then Rocky says, if Jersey screams, Rocky goes Marla. So which one did Desi not want to voice? And Vinny says Marlene. That was Marlin. Marlin. Going Marlin, whatcha doing? Oh, Brando. Good job, guys. Okay, the person who hits this first. Ready? You can't lift the buzzer. How do you get the best sniff? Tracy. Show us how you get the best sniff. Oh, yeah. On you or the bird? No, the bird. Okay. Oh, you have to physically show.  Put it. Put it. That looks like a forced maneuver going on. Put it right in. You want this. Just up in that nostril? Just get it. Get the nostril. So you just... Okay, okay, listen. You want it. You just don't know it. In the nostril, good for the... You need your... And then Marla says, this is so good.  Very good. That's how you get it. I know. I was trying to convince Brandon. What food makes the bird sniff more potent? There's a lot. But I would... Hold on. No, Arda. I think the niece. That's for me. It smells better. Oh, it's not a personal preference at this point. Somebody wants your hair. Take it. It gives the bird like a stench. Yeah, it's like a seed of some kind. No. You want more glue. And then whoever gets this ready, the line is in the movie Sniffers. Oh no, I helped write that movie and I don't know. You guys don't remember that line? No. I didn't see the movie. You didn't watch the movie Sniffers? Give me a pin. I've watched more of the episodes than she has ever watched. How many does she have on her channel? That's a good question. Not enough. I know the answer. What's the answer? 608. Really? Italy. I'm giving her a big shot. Did anyone get the potatoes? No. It's potatoes. Okay. Okay, ready? So you should have just said the thing you can't eat. Which one of my siblings is my mom's favorite? Johnny, picture of Jenna in the hallway of your house. But that does not mean. Are we supposed to say Marlene? Because I don't really think that's the answer. No, it's Jenna. It's not. It's a cute picture of Jenna in her house. There's pictures on both sides of the bed that we have to put down so we can sleep. Excuse me. Yeah. Marlene. Marlene. The one with her dad's and with the dad's? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Marlene. I put it there. Not true. That's the answer she wants you to say. Okay. Because that's the truth. No, it's not. Actually, Danny is. How many languages do I know? Oh. Yeah. You have to name them. Hebrew and English. But you partially know Farsi. No, I do not know. You're like four words. Who is the celebrity that is my boyfriend? Tracy. No, his name. He's black with blue eyes and he's on the show Stumptown, something Healy. I don't know his full name, but he's black. He has blue eyes. He's in so many movies. And he's also currently on the show Stumptown where he plays a police officer. Correct. Do you have a name? What's his name? Michael Ely. Michael Ely. Okay. I'm good with faces. Can I add a question? Yeah. Okay. Who is George's favorite child? It's Jenna. No, it's definitely Marley. It's definitely Marley. He used to rearrange the furniture so she was warm when they go places when she was younger. He's the first one. Still is. He's the only one he says when she was born, like got the boss, but in his actual accident. That is true. Can we ask more questions about the feather fun box? Okay. Like I know these answers. Some women like jewelry as presents. What do I like? Shoes or clothes? No. Can I answer? Yeah. Notebooks. And books. You like notebooks? I do love notebooks, but that's not really the answer. If I wanted George to get me a present, what would it be? Oh. A mini Cooper. A thing like electronic, a camera. That's the answer. How many answers does she get? That would like fill out an hour. So none of them get it? No. You can't keep doing that. No. None of you get it. Don't worry. When and why do I say I love birds? Nora, it re-centers you. It makes you feel calm and balanced. No. You say when you're nervous. Yeah, that's what it is. What did I just say? It calms you. Yes. You're nervous. It does calm me. It just means that I'm alerted that I have anxiety. Oh my God. I didn't know that. Yeah. She says it on what's wrong. You say it a lot around me. I mean, anxiety, I'm like, I love birds. Jenna says her name. She goes, what's my name? It's Jenna. It's weird. Oh, she doesn't know that. Yeah. She goes, what's my name? I've never heard her say that, so she must not get anxiety. I've never heard her say that. It is the lightning round. I don't know if you guys have ever played a game like this. Nope. There used to be a game that I loved like this. We have popular sentences from the show and you are going to have to read these out and whoever gets the sentence first is going to get the pin. I just gave her all the pins. Okay, so let me show the audience first. I don't even know what that means. Read it. Hello, my sniffers. Hit the button if you know what it is. Hey, my fellow sniffers. No. Flyters. No. Newbies. No. Almost. Read it. Oh, it's scrambled. It's no. It's like mad. Hello. You have to get, it's like that game Babylon. Like you have to read it until you get to understand what it says. Hello, my sniffers. Do we say it out loud? Say it out loud. Go, keep going. Tubicler. Tubicler. Tubicler. Tubicler. Tubicler. Tubicler. Tubilerker. TBCooker. How many guesses did you get? No, you guys just go until you get it. Tubilier. You guys just keep reading them out. Yeah, you keep reading them out until you get the sentence. Who is that rowdubgird? Who is that rowdubgird? Who is that rowdubgird? Who is that rowdubgird? Who is that rowdubgird?  Can you mark me coffee please? Can you emo ikimikofepoles? Can what? What's the hint really? No, no, I wanted myself to Can you home? Can you home? Can you home? Should I do the hint? Marlene has needs is the hint Can you make me some tea? Can you make me coffee please? This is way harder than it looks You can twerk white- you can twerk white- Here's two- I can twerk when there is two- Sheen me I can twerk when there is two- Sheen me I can twerk Should I do the hint? I can twerk when there is two- Sheen me I can twerk Marlene has a preference of environment I can't work when it's not clean I can't work when it's two- Sheen me, sheen me, sheen me, clean me Two- Sheen I can't work when air is touching me Okay, ready?  No I'll give you a hint I'm not the one that said it Tracy doesn't mind this treat Dog treats are very good I don't see pet though with the pets Da Goobies Kit Zarn- I too bad Dogs, dogs To eat No Yes, you got it But say it properly Dog biscuits are so bad Aren't too bad Dog biscuits are not too bad Okay, I give it to Nora Care for the little pin I didn't win that one Probably I won that one I did not I really couldn't figure it out, I was like is it Russian?  Put them in frame 12 14, 16, 18, 19 Tracy have more 3, 2, 1 6, 8, 10 12 14, 16 18, 20 22 She beat me by one Oh my god Of this video I personally actually was All set I was pretty sure Nora was gonna be the winner Nora was sure she was gonna be the winner I was sure Nora She brought her own crown Please let me know who you think I should have against each other And what kind of questions I should have on the show We have lots of different ways that we can do this Pins, I'm gonna have Two bird experts come on And they're gonna compete for knowing bird species Stay tuned for that And the ideas that you guys have If you guys enjoyed this one go back and watch the first one It's very, very chaotic I wanna thank my guest today Tracy of course gets to Choose something from the Parrot Station store Which is www.parrotstation.com And a lot of you were asking what my mom Chose from the store So mom what did you choose from the Parrot Station store? I chose the black shirt That says What does it say? It has like the Engage not cage black bird Rainbow bird shirt for dad Yes for dad Although I may wear it Probably I love you guys so much Don't forget to check out our feathered fun box If you have any questions that you want to see on this show Let me know In the comments as well Thank you so much for watching And taking the time out of your day To watch something new on the channel I really appreciate those of you who do that And those DNA reveal Make sure you watch that as well Bye Parrot Station store A Vinnie gang sweatshirt You don't have one? No Do you have one Naora? Of course I have one In for Naora Four pins for Naora It's a tie!