A secure democratic Net is a fundamental right

There was a time that I worked for a currency speculator before the Euro (for one of his other media projects). By chance I had the 'chance' to see 'live' how currency speculation took place against the French, Belgian and English currencies and how speculators always won. They were with too many with too much money (looks like DDOS to ITpeople). The only way that it was stopped was when all the national banks created a front of resistance together and held that line, cost what cost. It helped. Now we have the Euro in Europe and that time seems more or less a history long ago.

When i read the last days the newspapers and I change the names of the currencies with the names of Big Belgian banks than there is in fact nothing that has changed - except that there is no central coordination between those private banks to help each other against such (DDOS) speculation attacks. It is each for himself and all against each other. Fortis and Dexia have lost about half of their market value and there is no security that such attacks won't happen again.

Only the world has changed dramatically since than. First everybody has bought investment stuff from anywhere (what do Belgian banks have to do with US mortgages anyhow ?). Secondly buying and selling is done electronically and by mathematical models and risky riskcalculating (the same kind of calculations that gave us the present creditcrisis anyway). Third the internet has given a forum to lots of forums and speculations that can be used to jump and dump stock or to win on short-sell strategies.

One important banking consultant said that it is in fact unacceptable that speculators buy banking stock (the fundamentals of our financial infrastructure and the livehood of our economy) with the option that the value will go down, they launch rumors and when the stock effectively starts sliding or running down, they sell their options and win. There is no way for the bank to win this.

They should invest more money and resources in Internet observation and have a quick communication reaction taskforce ready around the clock. No rumor should be left unanswered.

But even than financial sites and forums will have to ask themselves in how far they can be used as a launchpad for these speculative attacks done by false or anonymous sources.