Dealbook reports that Mary Schapiro has given official notice and come December 14th, she's out of there. Names being floated as possible successors are said to include Sallie Krawcheck and the SEC's director of enforcement, Robert Khuzami, but on the off-chance they're not interested, want to throw yours or a loved one's C.V. in the mix? Update: Apparently Obama plans to nominate Elisse Walter, an SEC commissioner and former FINRA VP, to take over. So you've probably got less of a shot at this point but anything can happen!

Phil Falcone, as some of you may know, has made some mistakes in the last couple years. Pouring his investors' money into a wireless start-up that may or may not ever get off the ground. Offering those who wanted out illiquid LightSquared equity instead of cash. Not getting his wife a driver for party-time.  If you're wondering why we haven't mentioned the time he borrowed $113 million from a gated fund in order to pay personal taxes, which he had not set aside enough money to cover, it's because Phil doesn't count it as a mistake, regardless of what you, or the SEC, or anyone else says. Hedge-fund manager Philip Falcone and his firm, Harbinger Capital Partners LLC, formally signaled their intent to seek the dismissal of fraud charges filed against them earlier this year by securities regulators, according to people familiar with the case. In June, the Securities and Exchange Commission filed civil charges accusing Mr. Falcone of putting his own interests, including maintaining a "lavish lifestyle," ahead of those of Harbinger's investors. The agency accused Mr. Falcone, Harbinger and Harbinger's former operating chief, Peter Jenson, of misleading investors and an outside law firm when Mr. Falcone took out a $113.2 million loan in 2009 from a Harbinger fund to pay his personal taxes, even as other investors in the fund were prevented from pulling their money. Lawyers for Mr. Falcone and Harbinger sent a letter to Judge Paul Crotty of U.S. District Court in Manhattan Friday, the deadline for responding to the SEC's complaint, saying they intended to seek dismissal, the people said. The letter also summarized arguments for the dismissal. Mr. Jenson also filed a letter Friday through his lawyers saying he intended to seek dismissal of the complaint. Representatives of Mr. Falcone and Harbinger have said before they planned to fight the allegations. In negotiations with securities regulators leading up to the charges, they had argued that Mr. Falcone and Harbinger were simply following sound advice from their legal counsel. Which, for those who missed it, was: “[L]ending money to principals is not part of the fund’s investment program” and "a loan . . . will never be a good idea" and "[We are] unequivocally against the loan idea for a number of reasons." Falcone To Seek Case's Dismissal [WSJ] Earlier: Phil Falcone’s Alleged Piggish Behavior Made Him Some Enemies

If you had asked us two years or two months or two days ago if we thought that there would be a time in the near future when Securities and Exchange employees would not be getting reprimanded for watching porn on their work-issued computers, we would have said absolutely not. No judgment, but in our professional opinion, people do not go from, among other things: * Receiving "over 16,000 access denials for Internet websites classified by the Commission's Internet filter as either "Sex" or "Pornography" in a one-month period" * Accessing "Internet pornography and downloading pornographic images to his SEC computer during work hours so frequently that, on some days, he spent eight hours accessing Internet pornography...downloading so much pornography to his government computer that he exhausted the available space on the computer hard drive and downloaded pornography to CDs or DVDs that he accumulated in boxes in his office." * www.ladyboyx.com, www.ladyboyjuice.com, www.trannytit.com, and www.anal-sins.com ...to living a porn-free existence at l'office. Did we think they'd take baby steps toward that goal sure? But when you've tried to log on to your websites of choice, on average, 533 times a day, assuming weekends were worked, baby steps means getting yourself to a place where you can do a solid two hours of work each week without hitting up anal-sins.com. So you can imagine (and probably share in) our surprise to hear that, according to a probe by Interim Inspector General Jon Rymer re: "misuses of government resources," the worst offenses one office was charged with claiming they needed iPads to do their jobs when really they just wanted to watch movies on them at home and going to hacker conferences without encrypting the data on their computers. Granted, it doesn't look so great that the group that was running around with computers that didn't even have anti-virus programs on their computers was the one that "is responsible for ensuring exchanges are following a series of voluntary guidelines...concerning computer audits, security, and capacity" but still, no ladyboyjuice while on the job-- that's huge. In a 43-page investigative report that probed the misuse of government resources, SEC Interim Inspector General Jon Rymer discovered that an office within the SEC's Trading and Markets division spent over $1 million on unnecessary technology. The report also found that the staffers failed to protect their computers and devices from hackers, even as they were urging exchanges and clearing agencies to do just that. Although no breaches occurred, the staffers left sensitive stock exchange data exposed to potential cyber attacks because they failed to encrypt the devices or even install basic virus protection programs...On Friday Reuters reviewed a copy of the full report, which details an even broader array of problems, from misleading the SEC about the office's need to buy Apple Inc products, to cases in which staffers took iPads and laptops home and used them primarily for pursuits such as personal banking, surfing the Web and downloading music and movies. The report says the staff may have brought the unprotected laptops to a Black Hat convention where hacking experts discuss the latest trends. They also used them to tap into public wireless networks and brought the devices along with them during exchange inspections...The report also found that some people who worked in the office had little or no experience with exchange technical matters. SEC staffers used govn't computers for personal use - report [Reuters] Earlier: SEC Supervisor Surfed Tranny Porn To Cope With Stress Of The Job; SEC Official Who Surfed Tranny Porn To Deal With Stress Of The Job– Not Alone!;