Most of our corporate and social problems stem from inattention, and the fact that most people are not paranoid enough about what can go wrong. In this video, Jonar Nader shares his views on what can be done to reduce fraud and stupidity that lead to costly oversights.
There are two videos below. The second one is of a higher quality for those with high-speed internet connection. The first video is 18 Mb. The second is 38 Mb. Video length is 11 minutes and 30 seconds. Further below is a transcript of the video.
Here is the transcript:
Jonar Nader: Another reason I think we are doomed is that we are not paranoid enough. And I worked with a lady who once said to me, ‘Never trust anyone with a project if they are not paranoid enough about what can go wrong.’ I so agree. I am a control freak. I have my own t-shirt that says, yes, I am a control freak but only when I don’t know who is in control and I immediately have to take over. We’re not paranoid enough. Here are some photos I have taken with my mobile phone. You walk into a restaurant and they have this bowl and it says, ‘Win free dinner. Place your business card here.’ The biggest rising theft is identity theft. All you need are five bits of information and I can pretend to be you and have your credit card delivered to me and on it goes.
So I would never put a business card in a bowl at a restaurant because anyone can just pick it up and now, they know your name, your extension and then I’ll just steal something from you.
I was on the flight from Sydney to Hamilton Island and there’s only one airplane that flies there now. So I have to sit in this airplane and they don’t have movies and anything. You can pay $5 and get a DVD player. It was holiday season. I was there for a conference. I sat in the back seat. There are hundreds of people. And I could see they started serving, serving, serving, serving an hour later she had reached me, the hostess asked, ‘What would you like?’ I said, ‘I’ll have a DVD player, please.’ First, I had never done this before. And she said, ‘That will be $5.’ I said, ‘Fine.’ And then she said, ‘Can I see your drivers licence?’ And I thought, ‘Do I look under 18 to you?’ Was there any Adult Content on the DVD? She said, ‘No. People have been walking away with them.’ I said, ‘At 30,000 feet!’
Jonar Nader: I’m the only who has asked for one. She said, ‘I need your driver’s license.’ Now, being who I am, the security freak that I am, my driver’s license, everything on my driver’s license: you have a specimen of my signature, you have a photo, you have my date of birth, you have my home address, you have a driver’s license number, end of story, end of ID. So I wrote to the managing director of the airline. I said, ‘Look, I’m not sure you should be doing this. We cannot train the public to hand over such vital information.’ And he wrote back a hideous response that said, ‘Oh, you know, it’s just our policy.’
He just didn’t get it. He didn’t get what I was trying to say to him. And banks do this stuff and credit card companies do this stuff. You know, in the last week, one of the largest banks called me and said, ‘Hello, Mr. Nader. Before I can speak with you, I need your password.’ I tell them and I tell them. I say, ‘You must cease that practice. You cannot train people that it’s okay for someone to call you and say, I’m from the credit card company. Give me your password.’ I just can’t believe it’s still going on and I wrote a letter to the head of that big credit card international company, non compos mentis. I just cannot believe it. I’m sitting here screaming, thinking – I could tell you stories all day long and it’s just so amazing that we are not paranoid enough about what can go wrong.
The other reason that I think we fail in organizations in the line of terrorism is that there’s this ‘them and us’ situation. There’s an ATM at a shopping centre that has been chock-a-block for 18 months. I just cannot believe. I walk past it every single day, every single day and I think someone, somewhere, somehow will say this is my responsibility. Now, not that I care that it’s full. I really don’t care that it’s full. I care that 20 people can work at this bank and walk past it and they say, ‘Oh, I’m just a teller.’ ‘I’m just a controller.’ ‘No, I’m just a bank manager.’ So I wrote a letter to this bank because I love playing games and I said to them in a fake name and everything – ‘I’m an insurance expert,’ which I’m not. I really don’t know if this is true or not but I wrote a letter. I said, ‘I’m an insurance expert and if a customer puts a cigarette in there and your bank catches fire, you’re responsible and you might not be covered under insurance. The very next day, they cordoned the area with danger signs and witches hats.
Jonar Nader: And within three days, they removed the thing altogether.
Jonar Nader: We just don’t get it. I walk past cameras, wherever I look, I look at cameras. I’m the most suspicious person anyway so I’m always looking and oh – and, this cord was within anybody’s reach. You could just walk past it and pull it. So what’s the point in that? I saw this just in the building opposite my building. I said, ‘Anyone can just grab this.’ And they said, ‘Oh, yes, thank you.’ So they fixed it. Look at how they fixed it. They tucked it in a little bit.
Jonar Nader: My mother, bless her soul, she has so many problems medically so she was just at the hospital, a major, good hospital, brilliant hospital. And I walk around, she is there for weeks and weeks and, you know, I’m caring for her but nothing just – so I just walk around doing audit and …
Jonar Nader: … I saw these cameras everywhere. And I thought, I know what’s going to happen and sure enough, not that I’m a clairvoyant but within a matter of two weeks, the security cameras were stolen. It was obvious to me and i was only there for two weeks. I can’t believe it. That one is in a lift. I can’t understand it. Someone took the camera home because it’s useful. You can use the camera. Why do we bother? So I’ve been telling people for years that you cannot place cameras unprotected. So they finally listened. So I saw this and I said, ‘Fantastic.’ But behind the metal casing, you can see the hole, and all you need is a pair of long-nose pliers and snip. And not only that, they didn’t inspect what they were doing. Do you see the number there? This is camera number 338 sector T1. I sometimes wonder how in Mission Impossible, what’s his name Tom Cruise knows everything within seconds. I think, oh, that’s so unreal. I can map out the entire casino for you. The installer left all the marks behind.
Jonar Nader: We just fill the order. Well, this is a marina and we’ve got to protect it. Okay. Foot on block, foot on bin, foot on cabinet, around, and over. With a baseball bat, you can kill the cameras. And there you have the yachts of the world for you. I mean, what’s the point? A friend of mine drives this yellow Porsche. Mont Blanc this, Cartier that, Prada this, Boss that, he’s a real target for anyone looking for someone to mug. His building was sick and tired of people parking in the wrong place so they said, this is it, if you don’t have a sticker on your car, your car will be towed away. So now my friend walks around the city, drives around the city telling every would be anybody, I am in apartment 611, I park in C3, a 611 in the Blue Concept building which everyone knows about in Melbourne anyway. So, come and get me. How is that for stupidity? How is that for security? They just don’t get it.
Now, apply this to your business. How many people do things and say, I just work here’. The postman says, ‘I just deliver the mail,’ – never mind and there’s no one home and a lot of stuff there like credit cards and vital information. No, ‘I’m just the Postman,’ ‘I’m just a cleaner.’ No wonder we have floods. Who is responsible? The drain is full. Who, out of 10,000 people who work at Council can say ‘I’m responsible’? No, I’m not responsible. We have this notion that if we measure it, it will get done. Yes, deliver the papers and if you deliver the paper, you get the money. So the guy could deliver your paper and I think, ‘When is he going to stop?’ No one is home.
Jonar Nader: But I can imagine I’m delivering your paper so I’m delivering your paper. You’ve got to know the rules and we don’t know the rules so please send your people – cross-pollinate and send them from there to there, send them to meet the customer, get them to talk to experts. You cannot sit in the office and say you understand and thus, risk your business. You’ve got to get people out and feeling and touching and teach people how to cook the books and teach them how to hack into systems so that they can see it when it’s happening in front of them. This is the gents on level one of the Regent Hotel in Sydney in George Street which is now called The Four Seasons. And that lock is fine. You walk in and that’s fine. Look at the lock. Look at the lock, that’s fine. You can lock it but on the inside, you cannot have that. That is a risk because if someone walks in and they don’t know you’re still in there and there’s a fire, you’re stuck in. You cannot have an egress in this fashion. They just don’t know. How can they not know? They own the biggest hotels and properties in the world. They don’t know the rules? No.
You’ve got to get staff members engaged and everybody has got to know the rules. You can’t say, oh, I’m just – I’m just. You don’t understand. People don’t understand. Look, how many people leave the door open when it says, fire door, do not obstruct. They don’t understand. So here’s the thing. People have to believe, understand, accept and adopt consistently. If they don’t believe what you’re saying, understand it, accept and adopt it, then we’re not doing it consistently. We have told a million people a million times, don’t smoke, they still smoke. Don’t drink and drive, they still drink and drive. Don’t speed on wet road, they still speed. Shut the door – do not – this is a fire door, they still open up. Why? Because they don’t understand. They don’t understand. They don’t listen. Every shop I walk into there, they have cameras. But they don’t have a clue because here’s the control panel. It’s on the top shelf. You just press stop and go do all the thieving.
Jonar Nader: I have thousand of photos. Absolutely unbelievable. We give too much away. We tell them at the airport what could be a good thing to use to gain an upper hand.
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