Category Archives: Military

November 16, 2019 · 11:00

Interesting options coming

Last Wednesday Germany gave me the boost that I needed to get my first 10 million, it is so nice for Germany to think of little old me, this short fat Australian to make a boost in the Middle Eastern arms race. As the Deutsche Welle reported “Germany drastically cut arms sales to Saudi Arabia in the first six months of 2019 — but did not cut them completely“, I am seeing the opportunity to set up my corporation in Liechtenstein, or Andorra, or perhaps even Monaco to set up transit arms rules. And let’s face it, there might be some additional taxation due, but to make about $10,500,000 a month (before taxation) is still a good way to set the pace, especially when I do it as an Australian Expat (in wherever I am dealing). So until these governments get their senses back, I am looking at setting a deal worth $10,500,000 a month, which means that after tax (and other fees) it will be $2,000,000 – $3,000,000 a month. Tax deductions on the office space (read: nicely sized house) and in 6 months (If I am accepted as the go-between) I would be looking at $10,000,000 per 6 months (if not a little more), I get out of bed for that amount and I still have my 5G IP patents on the back burner as well.

Have you noticed on how all the media is all about the alleged murder of Jamal Khasghogg1, yet the hundred plus journalists in Turkish prison get no consideration at all? At that point the entire debacle of what is allowed is just fish fodder. Even as Deutsche Welle is in the dark to all the events in Pakistan, there is reason to sell Pakistan $115 million, Hungary, a place that has a GST of nil gets to order $1.7 billion, Egypt $801 million and in all this Saudi Arabia is a problem?

In light of all that has happened in Egypt and Pakistan the sentence “The government had pledged no more sales after the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018” has word out its value for some time now, especially when we consider what Turkish journalists have to go through. It is a vile form of discrimination and I was always of the mind that we need to fight discrimination, especially when it optionally makes me $10,000,000 each six months.

The article (at https://www.dw.com/en/germany-reduces-arms-sales-to-saudi-arabia/a-51223414) is not the only one; CNN gave rise to my trading empire to extend to the UAE. Especially in light of ‘Elizabeth Warren slams US arms sales to Saudi Arabia and UAE after CNN report‘ (at https://edition.cnn.com/2019/11/07/politics/elizabeth-warren-yemen-cnn-report-intl/index.html), when we consider that the next president will most likely be a democrat, the paces of war trade needs to be extended in a few places and that is where we see a larger growth, especially when the media is all about ‘Saudi Arabia is ‘gradually running out of money’ and needs IPO to fund reforms, ex-CIA chief says‘, all whilst the US has a debt of $23,000 billion (23 trillion is more correct but no one realises how large that debt is). In that light facilitators for arms deals will be essential. In light of that claim, I am even willing to reduce my commission as long as I keep the house and a total of $25,000,000 is guaranteed whether this is over 2 years or 15 years. You see! I am willing to be flexible, and who is stupid enough to set all these stages over an alleged murdered journalist? Especially when there is absolutely zero follow up on the Turkish journalists in prison (as well as the dozen or so that got killed in dubious circumstances). It has become a discriminative business environment and I see no reason to take advantage of stupid people when the opportunity arises. And in the end let’s be fair, when you can set the stage where you end up with $10,000,000 twice a year, will you walk away? The fact that we also see: “Germany had already authorized €5.3 billion in arms exports, surpassing the total annual figures for 2018 of €4.8 billion” implies a growth industry, so as we add Saudi Arabia and the UAE to the fold, there is no reason that Oman and Bahrain should be exposed as non-receivable partners, all friendly towards Saudi Arabia and as such also growth factors in my future endeavour, let’s face it, when someone comes up to me (seriously) and offers me a trade position as a junior and pupil in a place like Monaco, I am definitely saying ‘Yes!’ (in all honesty, if it ends up being Andorra or Lichtenstein I would say Yes too). Yet Monaco will have the largest office and the need for Middle Eastern players to meet us in their yachts every now and then. As such I feel that I can get used to the life in Monaco.

Couldn’t you? #JustSaying

 

 

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November 15, 2019 · 11:55

There is more beneath the sand

The Australian Financial Review has an interesting article that they released a little over 12 hours ago (at https://www.afr.com/world/middle-east/is-saudi-arabia-s-royal-family-ready-for-a-market-economy-20191112-p539sv), the title ‘Is Saudi Arabia’s royal family ready for a market economy?‘ is an interesting view on the issues that are coming around over the next decade. Stephen Cook gives us part of the goods, yet I wonder if he is cautiously holding back (an acceptable stance for any journalist) or is there more?

That is not an attack on the article; it is well written and shows a writer with a good grasp of grammar 😉 He also makes a few very nice observations. The issues that come from that are not always visible, but we should argue before we get there that any cautious journalist does not need to go there; a blogger like me on the other hand is (at times) all about the informed speculation. So when we see: “to pull off Vision 2030, Mohammed bin Salman needs some of the international goodwill he enjoyed until mid-2017“, that partially true, most of it can however be built with money and Saudi Arabia has plenty of that. At which point Mr Cook takes that frying pan and hits us with “There’s just one problem: the Aramco IPO is far riskier than the Saudis are letting on“. He gives it in the form of “The Saudis are offering stock in 2-5 per cent of the company. One of the sticking points has been valuation“, he is true, and we see that in the article that there is a margin of valuation (depending on the offerer) that is almost 50%, And that is not the only part, there is a view that Saudi Aramco will value at almost twice the price of Apple, that is a lot and there will be an actual benefit that Mr Cook does not offer. He does give us that the Saudi offering could end up netting between 24 billion and 115 billion. No matter how this turns, there will be plenty of Saudis all wanting a share or two, a population supporting its own national product, so there is interest, the benefit we do not see here is the corporatocracy that the EU has become, with value in the fire of shares, whatever Iran will think of next will bounce back, any attacks is no longer a mere Saudi Problem, Saudi Arabia has done something interesting. By offering 2.5% of a company its visibility will become global and that is the first nail in a coffin named Iran. And that is not the only one; there is another benefit to see when we take a harder look at Vision 2030.

You see Vision 2030 will be a clean systems sweep of 5G (and 4G lte) systems, the old 3G and other systems will be absent, the Saudi’s will get a much better view of what is needed in the 5G atmosphere without having old equipment holding it back, you might laugh, but do you have any idea on the amount of equipment out there switched on because there is some ‘twittle’ hardware connection, or the owners merely does not know that some equipment does not need to be turned on? It amounts to almost 7% of the electricity bill and the amount of technology and hardware involved shows a massive amount of additional loopholes requiring fixing. You might not think this is essential, yet when we realise that there is an amount that is between calculated and measured that is not addressed, we see a much larger issue, in at least two cases I have seen the ‘connections’ merely being ‘improperly’ addressed, I wonder what else was not done. Vision 2030 will allow us to look at hardware connected and we will see a whole range of equipment never connected. There will be an amount of niche markets that will evolve because of it and as we see that evolve, whoever is working in Neom City, will get an interesting benefit to this change.

Getting back to the IPO, there is every concern that the quote “Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has every reason to keep the Saudis on the defensive and mess with Aramco’s IPO” has value, yet the first one who is part of the IPO will have the benefit of calling out Iran’s actions and now there will be nations with skin in the game, Iran is basically done for and it needs the nuclear benefit of playing the bully, yet it is running out of time no matter how blind the EU tends to be. When any Wall Street corporation has skin in the IPO, they will report it to any channel willing to expose Iran and that is what Iran really does not like, you see playing the bully only works when no one is looking at you and that option is about to end. They will now enter a stage where the writer claims ‘make investors nervous‘, yet when they go a little overboard and ‘make investors angry‘ their benefit is gone and that is why they need the nuclear pact to be in their favour. A bully merely knows no other way to look at matters, but now we see a much larger field and Iran is about to get exposed a lot more.

So now we get back to Neom City, the writer gives us “The plans (and promotional video) were impressive, but the effort failed miserably“, yet he gives no reason, I will, The amount of media willing to give Neom City the light of day could be counted with two hands, with the hundreds of accepted media in the Aether, they all shied away from Neom City and it was not Jamal Khashoggi. It was in part America and in part Europe that was scared. A city that is stated to be 22 times the size of New York is a building marvel, it would be no less than another world wonder and the powers that be have no intention of letting Saudi Arabia walk away with a world wonder, not in this age. Even as the bridge to Africa might never become a world wonder, the bridge itself will be a global accomplishment and it will give larger gains to Saudi Arabia. In addition it takes another premise, the city of Sharm-El-Sheikh (Sinai) would gain in several ways, whilst the bridge would open Saudi Arabia to Egypt in larger ways. It would also open up technology paths to Saudi Arabia. In addition we see: “Mohammed bin Salman has calculated that he has a greater chance of eliciting the loyalty of his subjects – and thus shoring up his power – by giving them movies, concerts, and WWE wrestling events; reining in the religious police; and granting women the right to drive“, yet it is missing a part, with the building needs growing for close to two decades, we will see a new class of people, A class to Egyptian Muslims working in Saudi Arabia growing the population and growing a larger stage of a new population drive, those needing a better life, we have seen this in America and Europe and it will drive a new need in these people finding a niche where they can settle their family in growth, that part will be new to Saudi Arabia and it will create new wealth group and a larger drive towards Saudi Arabia. I reckon that Saudi Arabia could grow to well over 20% this was and the size of Neom city would allow for a much larger growth giving new options to Saudi’s and those wanting to be Saudi.

As I see it Saudi Arabia could over time grow that IPO to be up to 9%, so basically it will get access to 3 times that maximum of 115 billion, with an offering that over time will be close to $400 billion, we see that Neom city has been paid for, at that point with the IPO in place, and Neom city ready to grow Iran will be shown to be the bully of the Middle East, and bullies can be dealt with in swift ways by any global population that is clearly aware, which now leaves us Hamas and Hezbollah, we actually need not look in those directions, Israel is looking there already, we merely have to wait what will happen next, with these two elements clearly in lace it will not take long for technology firms to seek their nesting grounds in Neom city, Huawei is actively looking, Google has set its premise, as have Apple, Microsoft and IBM (who added 197 jobs in the last month alone), so the need is being addressed, now it merely takes time for the entire stew to settle, once all the elements have been added, we only have to wait (which will be the hardest part), yet there is little to no doubt in my mind that when we see the elements of Neom City, we will see a much larger shift in the west, it will not only be to stay on par with Saudi Arabia, it will be to get all the residual hardware and all the non-effective hardware to be removed from hundreds of places, I reckon that the US will face a new technology need at that point.

You see, in the end, there is less to a decade to a ‘futuristic city’ and a technologically ‘apt city’, Saudi Arabia is about to show the world that part and all the other nations will need to show that they can keep up and with their debts sized the way they are that will be the hardest issues for them and the US knows it has a large problem keeping up, as does the EU, they never thought that they would require to meet wits with Saudi Arabia, they never thought it was ever going to happen, as such they were not ready. Iran is banking on it, in the end I wonder which of the two elements will be the strongest, I’ll let you figure out what I mean.

i believe that by 2035 the global technological will be redrawn, it will be a map that the EU and the US will not be happy about. The Wall Street Journal gave a nice presentation 4 days ago with ‘U.S. Government Is Tripping Over Itself in Race to Dominate 5G Technology‘ and ever as we see sources stating: “U.S. officials say the country is in position to reap those benefits”, we merely need to see SDXCentral giving us: “AT&T is tempering expectations for its forthcoming 5G network riding on sub-6 GHz spectrum. While AT&T says it was the first wireless operator to demonstrate 1 Gb/s and later 2 Gb/s speeds on a commercial 5G network running on millimeter wave (mmWave) spectrum, it’s not making any grand projections for a speed improvement on its forthcoming 5G network running on the lower spectrum bands” (at https://www.sdxcentral.com/articles/news/att-down-on-low-band-5g-speed/2019/11/) to see that they are all running for the advertised word and there is a large hiatus between the ‘advertised word‘ and ‘achieved technology‘, that difference was seen at the end of October as Reuters gave us: ‘Trump says U.S. will cooperate with ‘like-minded’ nations on 5G networks‘, everybody on the US sided mind is trying to fix the backlog that they have against Huawei and some of them have a huge backlog, when we see “Trump has held numerous calls with foreign leaders, including British Prime Minister Johnson in August, to urge them not to let Huawei use 5G networks“, yet at by the time have we seen ANY EVIDENCE that there is a national interest failure on Huawei hardware? America hopes that it has taken the hardware drive and fixed its own economy (and the mere fact that we will not ask questions), yet Saudi Arabia already has ties to Huawei giving Saudi Arabia the option to pull ahead and make the monthly gap larger on a daily basis. The difference is that intense. There is more and more evidence to see that the EU is not going the way of the US and that will give them an advantage on the hardware range, yet they still have all the other old hardware to deal with. They could face two issues, let’s not forget that Riyadh faces that too, but if Neom City shows the benefit to a newly constructed fast internet city, what we saw in the UK 5G image, that path will be faster seen in Neom city, merely because the change is pushed from the beginning and not after the fact (as most technologies are).

The ‘what 5G is about‘ shows what 5G could do and in many nations we see part of this appear over time, yet in case of Neom city, with a 5G focus it will come all at once, it will give Arabian software Engineers a larger playing field and a playing field on rolling out some of those solutions anywhere else in the world. It is a path that we seemingly forgot about and we have seen this path a few times from Japan and the US, just the idea that Saudi Arabia will be able to focus on it was never in the sight of any of them and it is scaring them, Neom City has become that scary to both the US and the EU (well and Japan too). They have all been in the mind for well over 5 years that they see it first in Japan and later on it will be rolled out to the rest of the world. Now that setting changes those in charge are afraid, they have no ties to Saudi Arabia and no ways to make them.

Fear will be the key that the US and the EU will employ to set issues straight, and stopping Neom City to a much larger extent will be their focus, which gets us back to the quote we saw: “the effort failed miserably“, There was as I see it a much larger need to keep it out of the media, the people just never got to see all the elements that were clearly visible in 2018 when initial view of Neom City was given. I saw the first parts in May 2nd 2018 when I gave “the attached Burton presentation ‘Opportunities in Saudi Arabia – Vision 2030 and Beyond‘ spends two slides on it and the most important part shown is “Vision 2030 calls for 50 percent of military equipment purchases from domestic suppliers instead of imports“” a presentation by Edward Burton, President and CEO, U.S.-Saudi Arabian Business Council from June 2017. (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2018/05/02/are-there-versions-of-truth/) in the article ‘Are there versions of truth‘ I had not realised all the elements at that point (why should I?) yet I saw that Vision 2030 would be a bigger issue yet the larger impact would be visible beyond “90 executives from both countries to sign new trade and investment agreements worth $350 billion” the fact that in these 90 we would see “Lockheed Martin ● Honeywell ● JPMorgan Chase ● The Dow Chemical Company ● ExxonMobil ● Jacobs Engineering ● Baker Hughes ● McDermott International” was clear, the fact that Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. (Steven J. Demetriou) was involved was a clear indicator of that. I believed that whatever think-tank Edward Burton responded to was seeing ‘roadmap for economic development‘ and ‘Identifies general directions, policies‘ and optionally ‘CEDA established new operating models‘ and realised that this went way past the Council of Economic and Development Affairs (Saudi Arabia) there was an actual global impact. This setting has merely taken an accelerated view, especially in regards to Huawei, there is a much larger setting and we will soon see that the impact is global.

Darn! I was not the first to notice!

Even as we realise that the Council of Economic and Development Affairs was created in 2015, there is a larger stance where Saudi Arabia has found the flex point where they will become a global player, that is why Iran is scared, that is why other parties are about to play diminished roles and they are all afraid, their status quo is about to be removed.

 

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November 14, 2019 · 10:46

A change in reporting

An event has taken place, the event is out there, yet the day it is reported gives rise to a much larger problem and it is time to make sure that it is highlighted. In this case it is a story from Oliver Holmes (Jerusalem) and Hazem Balousha (Gaza) and the article was printed in the Guardian (at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/nov/13/gaza-death-toll-rises-israel-confronts-islamic-jihad-militant-rocket-fire) last night. The article relies on ‘Gaza death toll rises to 21 as Israel confronts militant rocket fire‘ (a truth with ‘confronts‘ being the only operative word), as well as ‘Islamic Jihad fire 250 rockets at Israel from strip in heaviest fighting for months‘ (truth) which follows “Two days of Israeli airstrikes against Palestinian Islamic Jihad militants have killed 24 people in Gaza, in some of the heaviest fighting for months that resulted in widespread bombardment and more than 350 rockets launched from the strip into Israel” (a truth), so why is this an issue?

For now I will refrain of what is written after this, the essential issue is that the reader is only warned that the Israeli actions are a direct result from 250 rockets fired at Israel. (a half-truth). To see the overall picture we need to take a look at CBS news that gives us: “The military said more than 250 rockets have been fired at Israeli communities since the violence erupted following an Israeli airstrike that killed a senior Islamic Jihad commander accused of being the mastermind of recent attacks” (at https://www.cbsnews.com/news/israel-gaza-strikes-islamic-jihad-rocket-launches-palestinian-death-toll-over-20-today-2019-11-13/)

So basically:

  1. Israeli uses aircraft’s to kill Islamic Jihad commander.
  2. Well over 250 rockets are fired at Israel.
  3. Israel responds to well over 250 rockets fired at them (according to one source over 350 at present).

Israel has the rights to do what it believes is fair, it has the right to respond to missile fire and the Guardian should not print the way it should. Even as the quotes are in light of the events completely true, even as Gaza hides behind “The dead included a 7-year old boy and two other minors, according the Palestinian ministry of health. More than 70 others were wounded, including 30 children and 13 women.” In the article, the clarity of the story is not merely who was hit and where the collateral damage is, but the fact that CBS gives us ‘Israel hammers Iran-linked militants in Gaza Strip “without mercy” – at least 21 dead‘ in the headline, as well as “Israel has stepped up its battle against Iran and its proxies across the region the appointment of new, hardline defense minister Naftali Bennett. After the deadly targeted strike on Tuesday, an Israeli military official said the country had had “no choice” but to kill the Islamic Jihad commander” we see a much larger picture. It is even larger when we accept the words given to us by the Times of Israel. here we see: ‘Iran agreed on Gaza front in case of northern war‘, so when I was of the mind that something needed to be done about Iran in ‘When you get played‘ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2019/11/08/when-you-get-played/) we see two parts, the first is Iran and their need to start wars whenever and wherever they can and the second one is that all this was known in Intelligence services, this is not new, so WHY did the EU do nothing?

That so called lighthouse of freedoms is ‘hiding’ its inaction regarding Iran, why? Well, my view is that it only seems to be in a good place, but the debts of the EU have turned the EU into a corporatocracy and in such a state of government only losses are visible in any war, large corporations will not allow for wars to deal blows to their bottom line, as such for historic reasons the EU should turn their running language to German (a WW2 pun).

In addition to all this, the Times of Israel also gives us “Hamas deputy chief Saleh al-Arouri said that Hamas and Iran stand on “the same path” in fighting Israel, Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency reported at the time” giving us a stage where the issues in Gaza will escalate, not diminish. In addition to all this, there is a larger issues down the road, If Iran gets Hezbollah to also do its attacks, Israel might be backed into a corner to attack both fronts and after that make a direct attack on Iran, Iran will only have itself to blame at that point and whomever gives support to Iran at that point forward will find themselves the focal point of Israeli Intelligence operations.

My issue with all this is why these two reporters in the Guardian missed all that? Some of the reports came before their piece was written and some of the open source intelligence was already leaning this way, the fact that my article from a week ago gave sight to the actions against Israel give rise to these questions. It becomes a much larger issue when we consider the quote in the Times of Israel quoting Haaretz “The Haaretz daily quoted a senior security official as saying the intelligence establishment estimates Hamas and the Islamic Jihad group will try to force Israel to move forces and air defense systems to the south at the expense of troops fighting in the north“, OK, I will agree that Haaretz might not be the least biased source, but the information contained in its publication (much earlier) gives rise to officials seeing the movement of Islamic Jihad and Hamas, as such why is all that missing? Because it was not about the rockets, or the bombings? I think that they are all related and the article is what I would call a clear setting towards rise (and additional rise) of anti-Israel feelings, consider the quotes you saw and can check with the larger extent of the Guardian article relying on one word ‘confronts‘ do you still think there is nothing wrong? Especially in light of all the other media we see a larger need to find the truth and this is probably the first time (as far as I can tell) that the Guardian masked an issue to this degree.

And we wonder why Israel is considering the validity of national sources of intelligence? Hah!

 

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November 9, 2019 · 10:54

Finally!

Yup, there is a new fashion in town and it will force the companies to fix the one element in IT that most corporations have ignored fixing for the longest of times. The issue that needed fixing for the longest time was non-repudiation, the issue has been clearly around for almost 10 years, 15 if you want to set a time table, but today on LinkedIn ‘Netflix and don’t share‘ shows that the industry will start doing something about it. The problem is what drives the masses to think that a paid service could ever be free. And even as we see: “Market leader Netflix has already declared it is examining how to curtail password sharing among family and friends. But streamers are treading carefully in teaming up “against the grifters,” aware of the backlash record labels previously generated in the Napster era” we need to be aware of the setting that it is a Netflix world and if you don’t pay, that is fair enough, but it also means that you can’t have Netflix. This issue is not limited to Netflix, it has a setting in video games, a setting in programs and in the past it had a setting in music. The problem is how to go about it. For places like Netflix, there is the non-repudiation solution, so in your network there are a few devices that could be set to receive, in the home environment the router tends to be the most culpable solution, yet in equal measure the home devices are also solutions that give rise to the patch of hardware that will allow one person to be connected, as such, Netflix was nice enough to allow 4 devices to be linked. Yet what to use as a system of non-repudation?

Well, email is certainly one way of doing it, but that only helps to some extent, the nice part about e-mails are that it allows Netflix (and like-minded people) to communicate with the owner on hardware, so as long as the email address is not hacked, this is decently safe.

Non-Repudiation

The term Non-Repudiation is not new, It refers to the ability to ensure that a party to a contract or a communication cannot deny the authenticity of their signature on a document or the sending of a message that they originated. So you and only you could have instigated the connection, bio-metrics are only one part of it, so is a password, non-repudiation is more, an autograph have the elements to complete non-repudiation, but in automated traffic, a copy of a autograph is becoming exceedingly simple, so we need to set the state where two tiered enabling is the way to go. Even if the origin of the two tiers was done in separate ways, combining them in any stream would be a decent level of assurance to convict a jury of peers (and Netflix) that only you could have instigated the stream. And Netflix is not the only one seeking for a solution. Bank solutions, use a pin and a bank pass, it is close but in in the end it is not real non-repudiation. Netflix needs to find a solution and whatever they find will push authentication technology.

And the system needs to be simple, not just for customers sake, the setting of complexity in these matters was best described by Scotty the Chief Engineer in Star Trek 3 whilst sabotaging the Excelsior: “The more they over-think the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the drain“, it does apply to authentication and non-repudiation systems, especially when distance is an issue. So whatever we have at point X requesting for an authentication that tends to be the soft spot in the track.

It has to be simple, it needs to always work and it needs to set 2-3 alternatives at the spot. The problem with such a system is that it is not really non-repudiation at that point.

For example

A programmable dongle can be hacked; the hacked account can be copied. And these dongles will come from somewhere, so criminals will end up having access to the stuff they need.

As such the best you can hope for is a system that will take out 80% from accessing such a solution, add proper cyber solutions in the form of law and you have a solution that a company can live with, as it deals with 10% of the outstanding 20%. It is not pretty at times, but at least it works. So these solutions could stop 90% from using stated systems in a non-paying capacity.

We can go in all directions from there, but the world needs a solution where non-repudiation will stop 96% dead in its track, and only up to 1% would be able to find a workaround. Making the non-repudiation system a 98.9999% working solution. I reckon that this is as good a solution as we are going to get and the solution is needed faster as 5G will require correct non-repudiation solutions to be up and running. With 5G out and about, the criminals get a 500% chance to get to more systems to infect more and more devices as such the need for Common Cyber Sense is becoming a pressing matter and from there we can move onto non-repudiation. Consider that the current situation allowed cyber criminals to lay their fingers on $120 billion dollars and with 5G out and about criminals will have access to well over half a trillion dollars, one could argue that it is a great day to be a cyber-criminal, or we can do something about it, because the one thing I do know is that the banks will only take hits for as long as they cannot make a case for ‘negligent care, the person did not take care of the item like a father would take care of its child‘, that is not some rant, the art world is already working with terms like that. How long will it be until banks and payment systems will take the same steps? At that point, the hardship will fall on the owner of the hit bank account, not the bank, unless a clear established path of evidence is presented that the bank itself was the intended target.

Oh, and when banks are no longer held accountable how much attention do you think that the FBI has for little you? Common Cyber Sense will be the immediate requirement.

Non-repudiation will be the big next thing soon enough and whoever gets a system like that up and running will make an absolute fortune, it would change my 5G IP systems into small change, nothing more. It is the next thing and we are in dire need for such an inventor soon enough, not just Netflix.

 

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November 8, 2019 · 12:22

When you get played

Do you remember the feeling you get when you get played? Do you know of that inanimate feeling that gropes into your chest and rips out your heart? Well that is the feeling of getting played and the Iranians are getting exceedingly good at it. The Guardian article by Patrick Wintour, Diplomatic editor is off course really eager to aid a little by not informing his readers of the news we had 3 days earlier and I spoke about it at ‘The tradesman and the deal‘ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2019/11/05/the-tradesman-and-the-deal/), The information given there makes the entire ‘Growing calls in Iran to abandon nuclear treaty, ambassador warns‘ a little obsolete, moreover the statement by Hamid Baeidinejad giving us “it was government policy to remain in the treaty” whilst there were three transgression, beside the one where Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of Iran’s atomic energy organisation told us that “enrichment is now up to 5kg per day, up from 450g less than 60 days earlier“, perhaps Patrick Wintour, Diplomatic editor could enlighten us how this part, a part that the Guardian informed its reader of is missing from his baker sale of facts. (at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/nov/07/growing-calls-in-iran-to-abandon-nuclear-treaty-ambassador-warns)

So when we see the part “Baeidinejad said the advocates of withdrawal from the non-proliferation treaty asked why Iran should be submitting to UN atomic agency verification of its programme when other countries did not recognise Iran’s right under the treaty to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes” my response would be “Well Mr Baeidinejad, in the last 40 years Iran has shown no lack of aggression, it has shown no lack of restraint, your nation is a direct threat to the State of Israel as well as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia“, so are you good Mr Baeidinejad, or do you need more? I gather that Mr Baeidinejad would need to be a glutton for punishment if he wants me to continue and that is before we get the Iranian acts via Hezbollah in the mix.

Patrick seems to have an interesting view of diplomacy. I see that there is no other option but to go with Mike Pompeo, the US Secretary of State in his statement “It is now time for all nations to reject this regime’s nuclear extortion and take serious steps to increase pressure. Iran’s continued and numerous nuclear provocations demand such action” there are two reasons for this, the first is off course because Mike Pompeo is right, the second one is that this action would lower stress levels in both the State of Israel as well as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. It seems to me that this definite act will get a sum of three for the price of one, I remember a diplomatic reason as well, perhaps Patrick Wintour remembers that one (I can’t do all his diplomatic stuff, now can I).

There is optional a second benefit that we might get here, if we act in a demanding way from Iran, Hezbollah might get scared enough (it will make all kinds of claims) but in that setting, it will fear whatever the State of Israel throws at its borders, it will have a first need to fear, with Iran removed from acting, Hezbollah will fear what comes next and I believe that there is a first need to deal with that terrorist organisation. With the EU admitting: ‘EU admits preserving Iran nuclear deal ‘increasingly difficult’‘ the actions of the EU are becoming largely questionable, especially when we look at the damage that Iran can do with nuclear energy, their need to increase production of nuclear materials by 1000%, in light of all other elements give rise to a larger failing by the works and its diplomats to reign in the actions of Iran.

In my personal mind I believe that some diplomats have taken up roles of doubling or in some cases tripling their activities, isn’t it a perfect idea that a failure to control an element could be sold to both camps? And the EU has 27 camps to work; it must be heaven to be a diplomat under those conditions. Yet when Iran decides to use their materials even once, the consideration will be a lot larger than any diplomat can deal with. And there is the problem, Iran does not realise what they are playing with, merely that playing with those materials give them a seat at the grown up table, whilst millions have to accept a life of fear this situation to continue, that stage is over and it is high time that we recognise it.

I am willing to go one step further, any attack with nuclear material, no matter how it is done, should result in a nuclear attack on Iran, specifically Iranian oil reserves and Tehran, even if they have their excuses ready, even if they get Hezbollah to pull the trap on a small dirty bomb, we will be able to link the materials back, yet at that point some diplomat will be briefed to say that there was doubt on the materials used. At that point will you know that we have all been played! We will see evidence of being played before that, but that is the one non-undeniable act of getting played, I wonder how far some diplomats would be willing to play this game. You see that is the danger of a corporatocracy, its spreadsheets does not recognise the State of Israel, its spreadsheet is not loaded with food, it will think that there are always two food sources fish and beef, and when for Southern Europe fish is off the menu, their beef needs will increase, so more profit, that is the danger of a corporatocracy.

Consider the very last element, the idea that the article removed all mention of claims and considerations that we saw three days earlier and consider the fact that Iran has broken nuclear accords three times already and the EU is still not taking any actions, wonder about that part. Because we are running out of time and every day that we do not act, Iran gets to play another day, all whilst they increased production by 1000%, it is time to be less accommodating to Iran, and we need to make sure that they learn that any action against Israel of Saudi Arabia will be taken at the highest level and we will hit their oil reserves and Tehran, they left us no other option. When diplomats consider the conversation to be going forward when there is no forward momentum, or when they rely on old fashioned horse trading, we have a danger, you see, for the horse trade to continue, Iran would have to use nuclear materials and that is the one act we cannot allow, we are left with actions we would rather not consider and the diplomats call that plan B, but plan A is not working and whilst they remain in denial of the status of plan A, we get to live with the fear of Iran making a move, I believe that diplomacy has failed, it does not matter whether it was under orders of the Iranian military or the Iranian clergy, we get to push the button and leave Iran in a mess so that the next 5 generations also realise that there is an end to patience, and anyone considering the quote ‘But we are still talking to Iran, we are not there yet!‘ they need to realise that they became part of the problem and that they were never part of the solution.

Doesn’t it bite a little harder when diplomats are playing you?

 

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November 5, 2019 · 11:20

The tradesman and the deal

Yes, we all have moments where a deal didn’t sound great, but the way it was brought was essential when the deal was there ready to be signed, the deal was accepted, not because of the deal, but the tradesman involved had brought it in such a way that the deal sounded too great to pass up. We have seen several of these events in the past, it is the literal event where the numbers do not add up when the analyst brings the ‘good’ news, but the diplomat was able to swing it to the direct event where all were looking forward to the fringe benefits that this deal brought. That is how I saw the Nuclear Deal, and one day after April 1st, the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) was ready for signatures on April 2nd 2015. Now that the deal is up in smoke we look towards the people setting up the deal, but they are no longer there, there is merely the JCPOA and the Iranian party has decided to walk away from it, already in a stage where several parts have been transgressed upon, but diplomats state “be not afraid, we are on top of it, the injunction is minor” (in various publications in the last 3 months), meanwhile Iran has announced (or was that a promise or a threat) that they are about the increase tenfold the Uranium enrichment process. Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of Iran’s atomic energy organisation has made the statement that enrichment is now up to 5kg per day, up from 450g less than 60 days earlier, also , the Guardian (at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/nov/04/irans-production-of-enriched-uranium-rises-tenfold-in-two-months) gives us “It is not clear how the European Union will react to the latest step, but so far the EU has not put the whole nuclear agreement into review, which would be the first move towards its suspension and possible collapse“, the diplomats are not home, they are out and about on a golf course, on a sabbatical and on long term travels where they are not to be reached, no one wants to touch the toxic agreement, no one wants their nae connected to this, it is the deal that is bringing direct danger to the State of Israel and to the safety of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, so whilst Anna Ahronheim gives us in the Jerusalem Post ‘EU Parliament Members: Support Israel In Fight Against Hezbollah And Iran‘, we seemingly forget that the term ‘EU parliamentary‘ is transient and above all, the 8-person delegation (four MEPs and four European Parliament policy advisers) are close to a joke, 4 MEP doubled by policy advisors are out and about stating (well sort of) ‘We support you against Iran‘, you see 4 out of 751 MEP’s is not much, did they bring the combined voices of 442 coalition members? I do not think so! You see the EU needs to look important, so they keep their options open with Iran and the problem here is that the moment Iran acts with their enriched Uranium, the EU is less than likely to do anything, Iran has oil and the EU needs it, the chance of Iran acting out against Israel is a lot higher than Iran acting out against the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the chances of Israel being a first strike victim just went up tenfold. The same can be said for the article by Yonah Jeremy Bob, also in the Jerusalem Post, there we see ‘Iran-Us-Israel’s 40 Years Of Hostility With No End In Sight – Analysis‘, a definite truth, but here too it is all about hostilities. And the quote “One would think the US’s greatest hostility would be for a country that killed 58,000 of its soldiers and that Israel’s greatest hostility would be for a country that killed more than 2,500 of its soldiers in a single war“, but that is not where its at. And he danger is perfectly voiced in one paragraph: “Ironically, 40 years later, it is Iran that is the lasting threat against Israel as many of the moderate Sunni Arab countries are trying to find ways to live a stable coexistence with Israel, even if there is not yet formal peace with some of them” and that is where the danger lies. The two quotes ‘to find ways to live a stable coexistence with Israel‘, as well as ‘even if there is not yet formal peace‘ these two events are the heart of the matter, Iran is not interested in peace with Israel, Rouhani might be president, but he does not represent the Iranian Clergy or the Iranian military, they both merely allow Rouhani to be where he is and they both want to finish off Israel, and remove the power that KSA has, in that order, as such events are required and Iran is on track with it as Uranium enrichment is now allowed by the EU and the US is nowhere to be seen, merely in a stage where they think that more economic sanctions work, in an age where the half time of security is far below the half time of Uranium, and Iran has its targets set. And ever after the first strike on Israel there is EVERY CHANCE that the EU will not harshly react against Iran, they are knowingly selling Israel down the drain to ensure Middle Eastern Oil agreements with ALL OPEC nations, I wonder when the people will figure out that the EU is nothing more than a sheep’s rug that is not being used, it is merely there to give the large corporations the stick they need to deal with individual European nations, it is the result of becoming a corporatocracy.

The corporatocracy wants to find some level of solution, but then we are shown “Europe has made promises to find ways to circumvent the US sanctions“, it was the latest in folly’s, all doomed to fail, corporatocracy on one side, ego on the other, did you actually think that there will be a solution? Even as we see ‘French president Emmanuel Macron’s efforts to set up talks between Iran and the US to break the impasse‘ in the meanwhile the dangers are growing to dangerous levels, because of the Iranian acts, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has no options but to find an equal stick to work with and that is where the Russian and Chinese connections become important to the KSA, one of them has to hand over the technology and that will be the beginning of the end of the EU, because the most prevalent of all reasons are ignored, Israel might seem far away, but they are at the Mediterranean, and any explosion there will give particles all over that sea, optionally directly endangering Cyprus meaning that the radiation is already on European soil, in addition to that Turkey will see the impact and the SE of the Mediterranean will optionally become uninhabitable or fishable.

Yes, that is the direct impact we are looking at and the corporatocratic security that the EU relies on will now be a feigned form of apologies and when the Diplomats wake up it will be too late. That is the direct danger we face and at that point the people get to rely on denials from politicians who proclaim to be working for them. Good luck with that!

We can argue about the validity of the JCPOA and hat nuclear deal, but the direct show-able danger is that Iran has increased its nuclear actions by 1000%, whilst there are no power plants requiring this, do you need a road map to figure it out?

If politicians do not hand over a template of actions within the next 48 hours, to time will have come for citizens to act and ensure that some level of quality of life continues, and for those who are in doubt of it, consider looking at your map, at any map that includes the Mediterranean. Israel is in the SE corner, with radiation having no other course to go but west, the tides will change where that radiation ends up, it includes Greece, Crete, Italy, Spain and the most expensive parts of France (Marseille) as well as Monaco, It will take a while for radiation to move through the waters to those parts but once the radiation is in one part, there is no denying it, it will get to those parts as well. So how irradiated will you like your fish to be when you eat it? Perhaps you like your Paella to glow in the dark when you have dinner at 22:00 in Barcelona.

Feel free to think I am merely having a sense of humour, but that first explosion will be the instant that life in Southern Europe will end and the EU parliament is letting it happen, so what are their priorities? Where are their priorities?

As I personally see it the time to be nice to Iran is over, it has been for a while now and the idea to play ‘soft kitten’ games with someone who is rejoicing on their enrichment program to be 1000% of what it was 60 days ago is not the way to go.

 

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November 1, 2019 · 12:19

Russia backed Constitution

Whilst the US is deciding which side of the isle is supposed to deliver the clown sitting at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, the Russians have settled on getting visibility on the ‘Syria constitution talks begin in Geneva‘ and the Russians are backing it, more disturbing news is that the foreign ministers of Iran, Russia and Turkey at a press conference on a meeting of the Syria committee in Geneva. This is a moment that should have sprung from the loins of the EU, perhaps even America, none are there in the light of day, why is that?

The Entire Iran – Turkey – Syria triumvirate is now coming into effect, whilst the EU and US had decided to fight a senseless war of posturing, standing by Saudi Arabia they ended mocking up the entire Middle East, and let’s face it, it takes up a whole scoop of people with the gravitas of a comet the size of that one that ended the dinosaurs to do that, but yes, they pulled it off, or at least so it seems.

Even as we read the words “Foreign ministers from Russia, Iran and Turkey were in Geneva on Tuesday night to meet negotiators, even though Pedersen had asked all countries to stay away and leave the talks as an exclusively “Syrian owned, Syrian led process”. The three countries put out a joint statement before the opening” we see that the hands behind the machines are settling what was to be the shakes of agreement, agreements in more than one case 2 years in the making. From that point of view the of UN special envoy Geir Pederson sound as hollow as you might think they are. And where was the EU? Where was America? In all this, oh right! They are not there, they decided not to get involved, there is no meat on the tray, and there is no weight on the scales. Basically two elements in what we call a free western world did not deem Syria entitled to that part of life and Russia stepped in, as did Iran, as did Turkey. Two out of three with too much to win, a place for existential contracts, the price of rebuilding will be heavy, it will not be cheap for Syria, but Syria will be rebuilt, just like I mentioned in ‘Slicing the Tiramisu‘ on April 5th 2018, a little over 18 months ago (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2018/04/05/slicing-the-tiramisu/). The stage where we see: “The three presidents — including Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, Iran’s Hassan Rouhani and Russia’s Vladimir Putin — gathered in the Turkish capital, Ankara, where they pledged to cooperate on reconstruction and aid” we see the present escalate for the facilitation towards President Assad, whilst they now are willing to state “The leaders called for more support from the international community and emphasized their opposition to “separatist agendas” in Syria“, you see now that they are at the table getting rich the rest of the Syrian oversight will be costly thing” which both I myself and the Washington Post looked at in light of the predictions I foresaw in (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2018/02/24/losing-values-towards-insanity/) ‘Losing values towards insanity‘ (almost two months earlier) we see now that the road is paved for the construction companies headed by Yevgeniy Prigozhin and Dmitry Utkin to make the millions they need to, the millions the saw in the endgame, in that entire scramble, troop losses were shallow, meaningless and eventful as we now see unfurl. It is a Russian version of Booz Allan Hamilton with the stage and setting to set up camp and head on over to Saudi Arabia and build a little more once invited. That was the game I saw almost 2 years ago and that is what is unfolding now, so your question might be: ‘How did the other two not predict that?‘ and my words would be: ‘They probably did and someone told them that it was far-fetched and that it had little chance of success‘ well that little chance of success is now a large boulder ready to be rolled over the EU and the USA all at the same time, whilst actions by BAH being thwarted again and again, we see that close to $25 billion in funds will go directly to the three opponents, Iran, Turkey and Russia. I reckon that Russia will open up construction avenues and use Iranian labourers in that setting, the Iranians will grasp at that opportunity, hoping that they will be in a better state when these larger constructions in Iran will fall through, yet in the end it will not matter for Russia, they get the largest slice of that cake. And that is merely the size of things within the first 2-3 years, then we will get the Telecom initiatives where Russia – China will take home the slices of cake for Huawei equipment to be rolled out and that will be the ‘experience’ that Russia will handle to give light to additional buildings all over the Middle East (read Saudi Arabia first). A setting that will ‘ingratiate’ Russia to the largest stage we see in the Middle East that is the stage that is now in debate and with ‘Russia-backed Syria constitution‘ they have set a larger option that had been planned for well over two years.

Even as we see the words: “Pederson, like his predecessor, Staffan de Mistura, is searching for positives, pointing out that the committee – with terms of reference and core rules of procedure – marks the first political agreement between the government of Syria and the opposition” the truth of the matter will be that it will all depend on the Bashar al-Assad and his foreign minister, Walid al-Muallem and on how they see the triumvirate in this whole, no matter how it is sliced, their considerations are for Syria and Syria alone, that is the smallest benefit that gives rise to whatever the EU and the US can push on, the Turkish opposition that is called out through “the hostile Turkish incursion into north-east Syria seriously threatens the work of the constitutional committee“, is the one part that could become the Chisel that stops the Russian Mallet from succeeding. President Erdogan and his need to slaughter as many Kurds as possible is the only part that is now a hindrance to Russian success, so good luck on that part.

Never try to make any agreements with animals, children or people sliding a little too far to the side of insanity, especially long term plans, they tend to blow up in ones face.

 

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October 31, 2019 · 11:44

Can you figure it out?

Let’s play a game, let’s play the game called ‘Can you Figure it out?‘ In this case a very numbers worthy game has been called to attention twice before, so let’s have a look especially with Black Friday coming up (in about 4 weeks). Let’s play it shall we?

Breakpoint, normal PS4 edition is $37.88

Breakpoint, Steelbox Gold edition XB1 $95.68

Breakpoint, Gold edition PS4 $59.56

Breakpoint, normal edition XB1 $62.77

Breakpoint, XB1 digital code $59.99

 

Can you figure out the 5 prices? And they all come from the same vendor, Amazon! This is a game that had the enormous flaws, the design weaknesses and the discussion issues, Having two bare prices would have been enough, one for XB1, one for PS4, although they too should have been driven across the fold, and what is that about a code for downloading? Why is it priced differently? OK, that latter part is fair enough I think, yet it shows just how unremarkable the Microsoft download is. A game that should be 100% prices until the end of the year no longer is and it will be getting worse up to Black Friday, now 4 weeks away.

I expect Breakpoint to go down a few notches in price, the initial price setting has become that much of a debate, with Ubisoft it has become a buyers’ market, they decided not to learn. Then there are the lightning errors, to see through the window of a bunker has a better light differential, then to just be outside. There are a few more that I noticed, but there could be an alternative approach to events, so I keep my cool.

However, one of the posters on YouTube gave an interesting view (for PC) that he had to lower the resolution to 1080p to deal with the performance of the game, so this game might not be actually playable (on any decent resolution) on anything but a PS Pro, or a Xbox X version (mere speculation by yours truly).

And still, beyond all the facades, beyond all the versions and mapping issues, this as well as the later far cry versions are as close as a playable version of Midwinter as this is going to be. Yes, for some that title is a revelation, but it is what it amounts too, a version that is as close to as the original in a version that is as crazy as possible. Yet in all its shape and all its flaws it is what the player is willing to pay for it, that is the game that Ubisoft invited, that is what ‘failed to complete‘ enticed. An AI that is esteeming below what an AI should offer, and that is merely in game vision, apart from that the colliding parts of one person against simple events like a barricade, or a wall.

In the end, the game that should have been a whopping 75%-90% was merely a 56% by metacritic; PC Gamer (probably because of the resolution issue) gave it a mere 40%, that is the consequence of not properly testing a game before release, if the entire Call of Duty path is part of their decision, the entire matter becomes a larger hoax. And that is not even the largest issue, the larger issue is that we stopped anticipating a 85%-95% game from Ubisoft, so any Ubisoft game will have a lower expectation, from the lower starts of -10% to a maximum of -15% away from the 100% of a near perfect game should be regarded as. That is what they are now fighting for, with Watchdogs: Legion being a game with a rating no more than 70%-85%, the revenue that it should promise will abstain, people will wait for the 50% discount, that is what Ubisoft will be fighting. The eternal fight against average, in case of Ubisoft it will be most likely a rage against average and avarice. For a lot of ‘fans’ it is a rather large problem, I was looking forward to Legion, so the anticipation of that game being within certain levels (an 80%+ game) is rather important and I am considering that Ubisoft will try to make it a game that is over 75%, the problem is that to understand this slide of quality is to expect us to figure out what Yves Guillemot will do.

No matter what their decision will be, it will be out of our hands and in the hands of a reacting population of gamers that have had enough and that is the part that is still willing to consider Ubisoft and do not go directly to Activision’s Call of Duty.

From this point until the end of the year will be intense for Ubisoft, but they did this to themselves, no one can tell us any different on that.

 

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October 29, 2019 · 13:03

The news was there, but was it?

It seems that Ubisoft made some noise in the last 12 hours and that has come across as ‘Fixing it news’, the news will not let up around it today, so it is only fair that I take a look at it. Polygon brings us the latest one hour ago stating: “the developer announced a long-term plan to fix the game’s biggest issues. Those updates include previously announced features, like the addition of AI teammates, plus an overhaul of the game’s survival elements that will deliver a “more radical and immersive version of Ghost Recon Breakpoint.”” I see this translated into “there is a long-term plan to fix the game’s biggest issues. like the addition of AI teammates, plus an overhaul of the game’s survival elements that will deliver a “more radical version of Ghost Recon Breakpoint.”” It means that Breakpoint will become Breakpoint minus one. A fun response was “One of the key elements of our vision for Ghost Recon is to immerse our fans in a gritty and authentic military experience,” so please tell me, how do we level soldiers to 150 in the war theatre? How does a sniper rifle learn to ‘negate armour‘? Or perhaps the funniest part in this, is the response ‘authentic military experience‘ whilst weapons are set to levels? For example, I noticed the TAC 50 to have .338 ammo, the actual Mac Millan TAC50 has an effective firing range of 1,800 meters and at 11.8 Kg it is a heavy fucker, I prefer most .338 as they weigh less, also ammunition will become a weight issue, so there better be a nice setting for me to use the TAC50, yes it has a .50 bullet, but consider the 17 KG (Weapon +2 additional clips) it will be a drag on your mobility, Oh and the version in the game has a suppressor (they be bulky too). So in all this the response ‘authentic military experience‘ is just too perky to ignore.

And that is only the sniper rifles looked at. If we weigh the entire matter on available weapons, it becomes a rather hectic issue. Then there are the extract a person mission, who is firing at you, which could make sense, but how to disable the person. Watching a YouTube where shooting a person in the leg does not hinder (yes I said ‘does not’) his mobility. So what about ‘authentic military experience‘ in that case? I saw people getting hit in the chest and they kept on walking, even with a vest that is not as authentic as ‘authentic military experience‘ is likely to give you.

We get a few more items to look at when we look at venture beat (at https://venturebeat.com/2019/10/28/ghost-recon-breakpoint-prepares-to-recover-from-rough-launch/), there we get to see “The publisher released a post today detailing Breakpoint’s future. This includes fixing the game’s bugs, post-release content, and fixing the in-game economy.” Its the ‘in-game economy‘ that is the larger smirk (I guess), a soldier has no economy, a soldier has value. Now this is a game, and I get that, so we need to allow for a larger field of view. So what gives? Acquired Weapons sales? Consider having to drag weapons for sales, and perhaps I am looking at it all wrong, perhaps your value goes up by the damage you post to enemies. The bugs? Well they need addressing and I saw a few whoppers in the game, but I am distancing myself from that as I am unaware with the versions some were playing on, it could be beta materials, yet the fact that idle standing ignored the walls of a building is not a good thing, also slamming your weapon in to a wall tends to be rather stupid on a few levels.

If I had to grasp the futility of Ubisoft, then it would be that in the first they were not ready, some of the things I saw should have been alpha or beta fixed, some of the issues should not be appearing at all, the entire weapon caliber I noticed whilst the video made no mention of it at all, could be wiped away, yet if it alters perception due to ammo needed and the carrying weight of additional ammo is also incorrect, it is a larger issue, all this seemed to have been part of the fight because of Activisions Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, So the blundered twice, once in regards to a game that is poorly placed against someone who was better and better prepared, it is not the only time Ubisoft made this mistake, but I feel certain that because of the costs involved it is unlikely to be repeated. No one can waste millions like this and not get to get their hearts handed to them, fair is fair.

 

 

 

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October 18, 2019 · 12:25

When we are merely given a paragraph

It happens, we get offered a paragraph and for some reason we wake up, we think: ‘That’s nice! Tell me more!‘ It can be for the strangest and least connected reasons out there. No matter that the push or the reason, we only get that one paragraph and are left hanging. That feeling came right off the bat when ABC gave me ‘ASIO warns of ‘hostile intelligence services’ using social media in annual report‘ (at https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-10-17/asio-warns-of-hostile-intelligence-services-on-social-media/11609726) a day ago. Now, let’s be fair, ASIO is not really the one to play games of open communication, as its employees and governing staff were educated by the people of Sneaky, Peeping and Backstabbing incorporated, they have other markers to work with. As such as I was fed ““hostile intelligence services” using social media to target people across business and government“, which basically is a continuation (to some degree) of the quote we saw at ABC in July 2017 when we were given “help Australian security agencies get access to encrypted messages from suspected terrorists and other criminals“, in itself not an issue one would think, and there is exactly the problem, one did not think. I made references to private chat groups in Social media and extremism before 2016, just nice to know that someone gets around and wakes up every now and then. Or as I would phrase it as ‘What else is new?‘, Yet as Jade MacMillan takes us by the hand in this ABC article, we see: “A report in the New York Times earlier this year claimed China was using LinkedIn to try to recruit foreign spies“, again we go with the ‘What else is new?‘. There is nothing new under the sun as MI-6, CIA, DGSE and optionally ASIS have been using that very same tool to get information. The honey traps, the enticement parties and the stage where you are a winner, the tricks are as old as the very first sign stating: ‘Authorised Personally Only‘. In this the larger issue is avoided, you see financial entrepreneurs have been using these paths to gain information on how to find people with debts and some of them have (allegedly) been reporting those people to international whisper divisions, so that a deal could be struck. So whilst some look for foreign agents, they all ignore the debt collectors mining every bit of social media to gain a momentary advantage to collect on one debt and gain another bonus, and those people will always look for investors, especially investors that have a fluidic opinion of ethics and how to be working towards rewards.

It all comes across as silly and as mindless as “Attorney-General George Brandis said encryption was potentially the “greatest degradation of intelligence and law enforcement capability” in a lifetime“, he could not put gamers in a proper dimensional view, so why would he get this right? It is an easy enough question and there is a link. There was a reason why Facebook suspended and ended all group chat options (there were a few actually), they were off course way late, now that Lone wolves and others have found new means to get this started, they need to be more careful, but the state remains. Mining is the only way to do this and you need resources for that, as well as proper staff who comprehend data and not let some silly deep learning algorithm fix it. For example, consider that a facilitator created an auto fill chat system; it has 250,000 lines an hour, whilst the system has one anchor word, a word you can select. So as we see the chat go through, we make no sense on it, yet the users have set the word ‘الدراجين’ (meaning ‘riders’) even as the initial part makes no sense

WE now get:

يتيح للجميع وقتا طيبا والحزب

الهذيان الكبير في واحة في منتصف الليل

جميع الدراجين سباق اليوم

معلومات السباق في اللعبة

تسجيل جميع الدراجين بعد صلاة الفجر

يجب أن المؤمنين اقتبس مرور البقر

جميع الدراجين يعرفون أن السيارة مائة مؤهلة

 

Even in this setting the programming cannot make sense, and unless you knew that ‘riders’ was the operative word good luck in finding what comes next. a system like this has been in place for years, now there are dedicated programs, yet in the past there were 4-6 in a group of 100, so those 4 guest gamers would not be noticed and by the time someone woke up, it was already too late, the meeting was over and more secure conversations had taken place, this system worked global and now that Facebook chat groups are a thing of the past other means are used for all kinds of groups to find a way to pass a message along.

We get it, the employees of Sneaky, Peeping and Backstabbing incorporated are not supposed to put it in the open, yet the annual report seemingly ignores one part. Instead of having a dozen systems creating a small solution, we need to find the agencies actually working together to avert “ASIO has limited scope to redirect internal resources to address the increasing gap between demand for our counterespionage and foreign interference advice and our ability to furnish this assistance” and partially find a solution that will take care of the extremists, the organised crackpots and the corporate facilitators, if you do not consider the third group to be important, then you have remained asleep for far too long at the wheel.

So when I mentioned Brandis (never the sharpest tool in my personal opinion) we might consider the 2017 event and the quote: “If the laws are passed and technology companies comply, they could help with investigations into paedophile networks, major organised crime or terrorism”, the man is transparent as glass as he hid in the past behind ‘violent gamers’ and now he uses ‘paedophile networks’. Yet the larger issue not seen here are financial services, there is no oversight and there is no telling what an approached debt collector could find out without setting of ANY red flags. And that is with the players who are on the up and up and playing a proper game taking all the proper guidelines and consumer protection laws as noticed and complied with, this wild west group has a truckload of groups all willing to do what it takes to get the score and a foreign player is a stakeholder in finding needs. That group has been able to remain off the books for at least 2 years. They all seemingly forgot that places like Experian, Equifax, Dun & Bradstreet, have their own customer base and who checked out those credentials?

Yes, we can agree that the entire matter is too large for ASIO to deal with, but there is also the flaw that the scope of what they face is not dimensionalised in the proper fashion, it is openly misrepresented and that is optionally acceptable, as long as they know what they face in-house.

And it is not a rocket science deal; the FBI, MI5, BRGE, AIVD, MAD (yes that is the acronym for the German Intelligence Services) and the FSB all deal with these issues. OK, these players will not be calling the FSB but you get the idea. There are players that are about data and proper intelligence mining (Palantir Technologies), yet the field needs to widen but in another direction. If this is Business Intelligence then Palantir is SAS, whilst we need a more IBM statistics and IBM Modeller based solution rolled out, we do not need a solution that fits all, we need to feed clusters of investigators with power tools that allow them to surf data and mine activities to a much larger degree. We need to set server milestones with collected raw data that different clusters can attack. The intelligence branches have wanted to do it the wrong way around for too long (often pressured by wannabe politicians), what we need is a treasure trove of data that all players can have a go at and actually report findings. We create almost 3 Exabyte of data every day, and we need to find 1% of 1% in that, whilst all this happens before 5G, it is about to become 20 times worse and they cannot even handle what is out there now.

All whilst we know that the 1% of 1% remains a group of 98% which is merely misdemeanours playing around, as such we need to change the premise towards collected data, that is what we face at present so the entire matter of “greater awareness among our stakeholders of that threat — has increased demand for our advice and support”, which is misrepresentation in its own right. The stakeholders have their own needs and their own game to play. Consider the IP needs of Telstra (Australia), the Inside protection and mandates of Novartis (Pharmaceuticals), Insider trading on HSBC (Banking) and their needs are their financial protection needs and in this fearless leader Duncan Lewis (ASIO) has to optionally look out for the needs of Telstra (as some claim that hat Telstra needs, Australia needs) whilst hunting those wanting to harm Australians, in this the Stakeholders are more about the revenue and debatable a source of good (they allegedly merely want their bonus safe), as such we should optionally wonder about the needs of the stakeholders and the difference about their claim and their needs.

So whilst we see another batch of mobile swipe and pay solutions being rolled out whilst there are a few concerns on how that data is processed all over the world, we forget that those out to harm national needs are also out looking into all those apps and finding out that for the largest extent the IMEI number of any smartphone is a much easier anchor to work with and mapping the usage also gives a larger content on data and where the target might be, yet most forgot about how the old is still beneath the new, did they not? So even as we consider the title ‘ASIO warns of ‘hostile intelligence services’ using social media in annual report‘, we need to consider that ‘hostile intelligence services‘ is merely part of a much larger problem and that those services use all kinds of methods that the local knights of the round facilitating table (FBI, MI5, BRGE, AIVD, and MAD) are still not looking at (as far as I can tell).

In all this we were merely given a paragraph and whilst people wonder how to find resources, the matter on how to properly apply those resources so that they can have an impact was left off the table, and that was actually the delicious cream that should have graced the Strawberries, or are those Blackberries? I’ll let you work on that little last line conundrum yourself this weekend.

So have a nice day and let’s not forget that the weekend ends in 48 hours! #JustSaying

 

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