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Facebook says hackers 'scraped' data of 533 mn users in 2019 leak, (Chris DELMAS / AFP) A trove of information about more than 530 million Facebook users was shared over the weekend at a hacker forum, prompting the leading social network to explain what happened and call on people to be vigilant about privacy settings. "It is important to understand that malicious actors obtained this data not through hacking our systems but by scraping it from our platform prior to September 2019," Facebook product management director Mike Clark said in a post. "This is another example of the ongoing, adversarial relationship technology companies have with fraudsters who intentionally break platform policies to scrape internet services." The data included phone numbers, birth dates, and email addresses, and some of the data appeared to be current, according to US media reports. The stolen data did not include passwords or financial data, according to Facebook. Scraping is a tactic that involves using automated software to gather up information shared publicly online. "All 533,000,000 Facebook records were just leaked for free," Alon Gal, chief technology officer at the Hudson Rock cybercrime intelligence firm, said Saturday on Twitter. He denounced what he called the "absolute negligence" of Facebook. "Bad actors will certainly use the information for social engineering, scamming, hacking and marketing," Gal said on Twitter. Clark urged members of the social network to check their privacy settings to control what information can be seen publicly, and to tighten account security with two-factor authentication. This is not the first time leaks or use of data from the world's largest social network -- with nearly two billion users -- has embroiled Facebook in controversy. In 2016, a scandal around Cambridge Analytica, a British consulting firm that used the personal data of millions of Facebook users to target political ads, cast a shadow over the social …

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Land prices skyrocket At the beginning of February 2020, the information that a large real estate corporation had a proposal for the local government to implement a project across 800 hectares in Binh Ba commune in Chau Duc district in Ba Ria-Vung Tau province caused several real estate dealers and people in general to make a mad rush to buy land in the area. Along Highway 56 on the section running through the Binh Ba commune, crowds of people gathered to sell and buy land, which suddenly caused a land boom in Binh Ba commune. Real estate agents searched for tracts of land for sale, causing prices to skyrocket. The land in Ngai Giao town, bordering My Xuan, or the land located along Highway 56 in Binh Ba commune, was targeted for large scale urban projects, and the selling price of land increased by nearly 100% to 200% within a few days. Before the sudden spurt in land prices, the People’s Committee in Chau Duc District had issued specific information on the project, and at the same time, inspected and reviewed organizations dealing in illegal land divisions, sale of land in the area, and other such violations. This move by the local government quickly dispelled any form of misleading rumours to spread, and after only three weeks the fever to hike land prices cooled down, and crowds slowly diminished. However, other factors began to play. Land prices began plummeting, households who had sold all their land and had no land for business were left in shock, and those who had not yet been able to sell were sorry. Some family members squabbled because they sold the land without discussing with each other. Conflicts arose in small businesses, and people who received sudden cash in hand took to heavy drinking, shopping or gambling. The whole village collapsed into degeneration. Lately, Binh Phuoc province is expected to develop a project to build a dual-use airport, and the realtors are arriving in droves and turning many areas in An Khuong and Tan Loi communes …

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Illustrative photo In essence, private companies have higher productivity rate than state-owned companies, yet in Vietnam, private companies have the lowest productivity rate than even state-owned or Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) companies. Low productivity Most large-scale private companies in Vietnam have only recently emerged on the top, mainly by focusing on real estate activities, and accumulating wealth from land ownership by exploiting close relationships with government officials and related agencies who reserve the right to distribute pieces of public land managed by the government. During the last few years, some large-scale companies diversified some of their business activities to lucrative areas such as manufacturing, energy, banking, trade, transport, healthcare, education and even some hi-tech fields. The Vietnam White Book on Information and Communication Technology 2019, released in 2020, shows that the return on equity (ROE) ratio of private businesses in 2016 and 2017 were 4.4% and 6%, respectively. Their return on assets (ROA) ratios were 1.4% and 1.8%, respectively; and capital turnover or return on invested capital reached just 0.71 and 0.73, respectively. Although the average profit margin increased, the percentage of companies operating at a loss was between 40% and 50% during the years from 2011 until 2017. Risks from loans have also been a big problem for private businesses, with their debt-to-capital ratios reaching 2.3 times in 2016 and 2017. The quality and performance of companies in terms of added value and labor productivity have been low and falling far below other neighboring countries. The manufacturing value added (MVA), and MVA per capita in Vietnam have been low in production and processing industries, and even in the export sector. Vietnam's MVA in 2016 reached USD 29.28 bn and per capita income was USD 310, which were much lower than China and ASEAN-6 countries. The figures released by the General Statistics …

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