rahulsaxena
06-18-2010, 09:09 PM
The web is being used to propagate malicious content and rumours against large corporates for stock speculation. The latest victim of a malicious rumour was ICICI Bank, India’s largest private sector bank. Seems straight out of an Alvin Toffler book; propaganda war rearing its ugly head. Sure these are people trying to make a quick buck and really don’t have any ethics, inevitably looking at the most common recipe for chaos.
First post a rumour on some blog. In this case the rumour was a billion $ suit against ICICI Bank in the US. Stock markets; imagine catching a cold even without a sneeze.
So the stock starts losing value & is down by 5%. Luckily though, ICICI reacts swiftly & denies the lawsuit. Quickly enough the stock stabilizes. Easy play for somebody doing dirty arbitrage
Check out what happens after this.
ICICI starts investigation, finds a certain Nirav Oza spreading these rumours. He does the obvious claiming that his account is hacked. But like all turncoats, turns around later rubbishing the post & claims that there was no lawsuit! How did he do it if the account was hacked? Guess we’ll leave that to the cops to get out of him.
Another mail chain creating panic: somebody called Hiten Sampath puts a “sell” status on ICICI. He is allegedly from OHM stock broking. Seems like some vested interests operating here. He claims he received info from a blog posted by some Rahul.K, who in his right mind makes decisions and tells others to make decisions basis some blog. It is obvious something is fishy.
Rahul in turn claims his news came from some unknown Hedge Fund Manager in the US, who strangely cannot be traced or named. Have you ever heard a hedge fund manager staying anonymous and giving a tip? School kids wouldn’t buy that story.
Stock recovers during intra-day trade thanks to the efforts of the bank and the police. However, while somebody made a lot of money, a lot of innocent retail investors lost theirs.
In a globally competitive world, it is hard to even imagine how nested our lives are rumours - cause chaos. But what we do know is that everybody leaves a trail. We need a more stringent law for cybercrime that helps us nail rumor-mongers and cheats like these.
As consumers we have the power that we can use to squash rumours that affect people’s life.
First post a rumour on some blog. In this case the rumour was a billion $ suit against ICICI Bank in the US. Stock markets; imagine catching a cold even without a sneeze.
So the stock starts losing value & is down by 5%. Luckily though, ICICI reacts swiftly & denies the lawsuit. Quickly enough the stock stabilizes. Easy play for somebody doing dirty arbitrage
Check out what happens after this.
ICICI starts investigation, finds a certain Nirav Oza spreading these rumours. He does the obvious claiming that his account is hacked. But like all turncoats, turns around later rubbishing the post & claims that there was no lawsuit! How did he do it if the account was hacked? Guess we’ll leave that to the cops to get out of him.
Another mail chain creating panic: somebody called Hiten Sampath puts a “sell” status on ICICI. He is allegedly from OHM stock broking. Seems like some vested interests operating here. He claims he received info from a blog posted by some Rahul.K, who in his right mind makes decisions and tells others to make decisions basis some blog. It is obvious something is fishy.
Rahul in turn claims his news came from some unknown Hedge Fund Manager in the US, who strangely cannot be traced or named. Have you ever heard a hedge fund manager staying anonymous and giving a tip? School kids wouldn’t buy that story.
Stock recovers during intra-day trade thanks to the efforts of the bank and the police. However, while somebody made a lot of money, a lot of innocent retail investors lost theirs.
In a globally competitive world, it is hard to even imagine how nested our lives are rumours - cause chaos. But what we do know is that everybody leaves a trail. We need a more stringent law for cybercrime that helps us nail rumor-mongers and cheats like these.
As consumers we have the power that we can use to squash rumours that affect people’s life.