Category Archives: Science

September 21, 2016 · 11:17

The Right Tone

Today we do not look at Ahmad Khan Rahami, we look at the engine behind it. First of all, let’s get ugly for a second. If you are an American, if you think that Edward Snowden was a ‘righteous dude’, than you are just as guilty as Ahmad Khan Rahami injuring 29 people. Let’s explain that to those who did not get through life through logic. You see, the US (read: NSA) needed to find ways to find extremists. This is because 9/11 taught them the hard way that certain support mechanisms were already in place for these people in the United States. The US government needed a much better warning system. PRISM might have been one of these systems. You see, that part is seen in the Guardian (at https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/sep/20/ahmad-khan-rahami-father-fbi-terrorism-bombing), the quote that is important here is “Some investigators believe the bombs resemble designs released on to the internet by al-Qaida’s Yemeni affiliate through its Inspire publication“, PRISM would be the expert tool to scan for anyone opening or accessing those files. Those who get certain messages and attachments from the uploading locations. To state it differently “the NSA can use these PRISM requests to target communications that were encrypted when they travelled across the internet backbone, to focus on stored data that telecommunication filtering systems discarded earlier“, so when a package is send through the internet and delivered, it gets ‘dropped’, meaning the file is no longer required. The important part is that it is not deleted, it is, if we use the old terms ‘erased’, this is not the same! When it is deleted it is removed, when it is erased, that space is set as ‘available’ and until something else gets placed there it is still there. An example you will understand is: ‘temporary internet files’. When you use your browser things get saved on your computer, smartphone, you name it. Until this is cleaned out, the system has that history and it can be recalled with the right tool at any given moment. PRISM allows to find the paths and the access, so this now relates to the bomber, because if correct, PRISM could see if he had actually gotten the information from Inspire magazine. If so, a possible lone wolf would have been found. Now, the system is more complex than that, so there are other path, but with PRISM in the open, criminals (especially terrorists) have gotten smarter and because PRISM is less effective, other means need to be found to find these people, which is a problem all by itself! This is why Edward Snowden is a traitor plain and simple! And every casualty is blood on his hands and on the hands of his supporters!

The right tone is about more than this, it is also about Ahmad Khan Rahami. You see, he would be a likely recruit for Islamic State and Al-Qaida, but the issue is that his profile is not clean, it is not the target recruit. You see, apart from his dad dobbing him in in 2014, he stands out too much. Lone wolves are like cutthroats. Until the deed is done, they tend to remain invisible (often remain invisible after the deed too). There is still a chance he allowed himself to be used as a tool, but the man could be in effect a slightly radicalised mental health case. You see, this person resembles the Australian Martin Place extremist more than the actual terrorists like we saw in Paris. I reckon that this is why he was not charged at present. For now he is charges with attempted murder (3 hours ago), yet not all answers have been found. You see, the quote “they had linked Rahami to Saturday’s bombing in Chelsea, another unexploded device found nearby, both constructed in pressure cookers packed with metallic fragmentation material. They also said he was believed to be linked to a pipe bomb that blew up in Seaside Park, New Jersey, on Saturday and explosive devices found in the town of Elizabeth on Sunday“, the proper people need to ascertain whether he is just the set-up, or a loser with two left hands. The FBI cannot work from the premise that they got lucky with a possible radicalised person with a 60% fail rate. If he is the start of actual lone wolves, PRISM should have been at the centre of finding these people that is if Snowden had not betrayed his nation. Now there is the real danger of additional casualties. I have always and still belief that a lot of Snowden did not add up, in many ways, most people with actual SE-LINUX knowledge would know that the amount of data did not make sense, unless the NSA totally screwed up its own security (on multiple levels), and that is just the server and monitoring architecture, yet I digress (again).

The big picture is not just the US, it is a global problem as France found out the hard way and new methods are needed to find people like that. The right tone is about keeping the innocent safe and optional victims protected from harm. The truth here is that eggs will be broken, because an omelette like this needs a multitude of ingredients and not to mention a fair amount of eggs. The right tone is however a lot harder than many would guess. You see, even if Man Haron Monis (Martin Place Sydney) and Ahmad Khan Rahami both could be regarded as mental health cases (Man more than Ahmad), the issue of lone wolf support does not go away. Ahmad got to Inspire magazine in some way. Can that be tracked by the FBI cyber division? It might be a little easier after the fact, so it becomes about backtracking, but wouldn’t it have been great to do this proactively? It will be a while until this is resolved to the satisfaction of law enforcement and then still the question becomes, was he alone? Did he have support? You see a lone wolf, a radicalised person does not grow from within. Such a person requires coaching and ‘guidance’. Answers need to be found and a multitude of people will need to play the right tune, to the right rhythm. The right tone is not just a mere consideration, in matters like these it is like a red wire through it all. It is about interconnectivity and it is always messy. There is no clear package of events, with cash receipts and fingerprints. It is not even a legal question regarding what was more likely than not. The right tone is also in growing concern an issue of resources. It isn’t just prioritisation, it is the danger that mental health cases drain the resources required to go after the actual direct threats. With the pressures of Russia and the US growing, the stalemate of a new cold war front works in favour of Islamic state and the lone wolves who are linked to someone, but not usually know who. The workload on this surpasses the power of a google centre and those peanut places tend to be really expensive, so resource requirements cannot be meet, so it becomes for us about a commonwealth partnership of availability which now brings local culture in play. The intelligence community needs a new kind of technological solution that is set on a different premise. Not just who is possibly guilty, but the ability of aggregation of data flags, where not to waste resources. For example, I have seen a copy of Inspire in the past, I have seen radicalised video (for the articles). I don’t mind being looked at, yet I hope they do not waste their time on me. I am not alone. There are thousands who through no intentional act become a person of investigative interest. You see, that is where pro-activity always had to be, who is possibly a threat to the lives of others? The technical ability to scrap possible threats at the earliest opportunity. Consider something like Missing Value Analyses. It is a technique to consider patterns. SPSS (now IBM Statistics) wrote this in its manual “The Missing Value Analysis option extends this power by giving you tools for discovering patterns of missing data that occur frequently in survey and other types of data and for dealing with data that contain missing values. Often in survey data, patterns become evident that will affect analysis. For example, you might find that people living in certain areas are reluctant to give their annual incomes, thus creating missing values in your data. If you leave these values out, are your statistical conclusions valid?” (Source: M.A. Hill, ‘SPSS Missing Value Analysis 7.5’, 1997). This is more to the point then you think. consider that premise, that we replace ‘people living in certain areas are reluctant to give their annual incomes’ with ‘people reading certain magazines are reluctant to admit they read it’. It sounds innocent enough when it is Playboy or penthouse (denied to have been read by roughly 87.4% of the male teenage population), but what happens when it is a magazine like Inspire, or Stormfront? It is not just about the radicalised, long term it must be about the facilitators and the guides to that. Because the flock is in the long term not the problem, the herder is and data and intelligence will get us to that person. The method of getting us there is however a lot less clear and due to a few people not comprehending what they were doing with their short sightedness, the image only became more complex. You see, the complexity is not just the ‘missing data’, it is that this is data that is set in a path, this entire equation becomes a lot more unclear (not complex) when the data is the result of omission and evasion. How the data became missing is a core attribute here. Statisticians like Hackman and Allison might have looked at it for the method of Business Intelligence, yet consider the following: “What if our data is missing but not at random? We must specify a model for the probability of missing data, which can be pretty challenging as it requires a good understanding of the data generating process. The Sample Selection Bias Model, by James Heckman, is a widely used method that you can apply in SAS using PROC QLIM (Heckman et al., 1998)“, this is not a regression where we look at missing income. We need to find the people who are tiptoeing on the net in ways to not get logged, or to get logged as someone else. That is the tough cookie that requires solutions that are currently incomplete or no longer working. And yes, all these issues would require to be addressed for lone wolves and mental cases alike. A massive task that is growing at a speculated 500 work years each day, so as you can imagine, a guaranteed billion dollar future for whomever gets to solve it, I reckon massive wealth would be there for the person who could design the solution that shrinks the resource requirements by a mere 20%, so the market is still lucrative to say the least.

The right tone is an issue that can be achieved when the right people are handed the right tools for the job.

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September 17, 2016 · 16:11

The Taxing Delicious

Taxing delicious is a new sweet tasting Apple, even sweeter than the golden Delicious, and it is to be regarded as healthy for body, mind and government. Yes, in this case it is not a new Irish Cider (which would be a nice idea too), this is about a company getting a bill. You see, the funny part of it was that if there had been no EU, Apple would have been 13 billion wealthier. How doesn’t that beat the odds?

These are some of the thoughts rising within me again as I read ‘Apple tax ruling must be overturned, says US business group‘ (at https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/sep/16/apple-tax-ruling-must-be-overturned-says-us-business-group).

As I see it, if it is such an issue, why not do an appeal? You see, this entire issue is as convoluted as it is ever likely to get. When I see ‘Ireland Doesn’t Want Apple’s Back Taxes, but the Irish Aren’t So Sure‘ in the New York Times (at http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/12/business/international/ireland-doesnt-want-apples-back-taxes-but-the-irish-arent-so-sure.html), my initial response to Enda Kenny would be “Are you out of your bloody mind?” Now, let’s be partially fair. There is a method to the governments madness, yet even as giving in to big business might seem appealing, but the US is changing its taxation parameters (as well as tax accountability) and after the elections there is no way to tell how the US governments hats will be pointing, so getting what you can now is not the worst idea. In addition, when Apple et al will make the jump away and to other places, they will leave you with buildings that remain empty and will not have been paid off, so you will have a billion in real estate, whilst not having any return on investment, just empty buildings wasting away. That situation is not as unimaginative or as surreal as you might think. The idea that a government is appealing against a tax bill on behalf of a Forbes 500 company is entertaining, upsetting and obscene all at the same time, but that is sometimes how the cookie crumbles.

What is interesting in all this is how the EU courts will act, you see, if they give in now, it should be regarded as the utter uselessness of that court to begin with. It gives weight that not being part of that very expensive club is indeed the way to go, which will now give weight that Brexit was not a bad move and it will in addition fuel Frexit too. All that over a mere 13 billion invoice. Less than 5% of the costs of Greece, which fuelled Brexit to begin with. This is at the heart of the matter of what the Americans just cannot comprehend. They just received the massive blowback on the lesson that you cannot win every fight and that Economic Status Quo is an illusion that will collapse upon those believing in it.

So as we see the idiotic roundtable threaten those European leaders “In an open letter to the leaders of the 28 European Union countries, the Business Roundtable group defended Apple over its tax dispute with the European commission” and “US businesses have warned European leaders they risk a “grievous self-inflicted wound” unless they overturn Brussels’ demand that Apple pay the Irish government €13bn (£11.4bn)“, I just wonder if they even considered the stupidity of their actions. On the other hand, should those leaders cave, how stupid are the European elected officials to begin with? So as we wonder whether Randall L. Stephenson has looked into the long term issues of his act, when we see that these actions drive Frexit and possibly even Italy’s act on a referendum (although the major influences would be Brexit and Frexit), will Randall respond with a ‘this is much more complex and should not have been pushed by our, what we regard to be a righteous act‘, or will we see a spokesperson state ‘Our Chairman is currently unavailable and is taking his personal time teaching the Youth how to do a proper sheepshank‘? I will let you decide, but consider that tax accountability has been an issue for over a decade and now we finally see an actual result against a large corporation we see people backing down? Perhaps they thought it would never get that far? Just like Brexit was never going to be a reality!

Yet the Irish Times did not remain quiet and less than 24 hours ago reported (at http://www.irishtimes.com/business/technology/apple-fined-in-japan-for-under-reporting-earnings-sent-to-ireland-1.2793469), ‘Apple fined in Japan for under-reporting earnings sent to Ireland‘. So when we read “The Tokyo Regional Taxation Bureau determined that the unit, which sends part of its profits earned from fees paid by subscribers in Japan to another Apple unit in Ireland to pay for software licensing, had not been paying a withholding tax on those earnings in Japan, according to broadcaster NHK“, I just wonder who the Tax Auditor was here.

Now I am not out to make Apple the bad guy, even though they screwed me over twice! What is important is that through all the presentations and all the boasting and ego based actions, there are now 4 groups in play all trying to get Brussels to back down on a legal verdict. We need to wait the appeal on this, yet should this remain and if the US makes noise we will have clear evidence that the EU is no longer something with validity, even stronger, these events are clear signals that the TTIP is an even worse idea than initially thought of in opposition. The one sidedness aside, the fact that American business has basically become the corporate ‘bully’, we need to reassess the situation and remain clear on where our priorities are. I personally remain with the belief as I always have that the Commonwealth nations need to stick together. In these times we now see the Democratic Party under leadership of President Obama do the following “The Obama administration on Thursday took action to limit the use of foreign tax credits by American multinational companies to reduce their U.S. tax bills, a move that followed an EU order that Apple pay back taxes to Ireland“, which I think is not a bad idea. You see, Apple et al might claim how they are so investing everywhere, but that is only done (as I personally see it) to avoid paying tax in America. It is one of the massive reasons why America is so deep in debt (apart from their impossibility to manage a budget) and something has to give. If those tax dollars are used to lower that debt then I would state: “Barack, you legend you, well done!“, because an America with low debt (read: no debt), would be again the superpower it once was and currently pretends to be.

In the end, nations that have a minimal debt, these nations get to decide for themselves, not having their actions overruled by financial institutions or Large Corporation, or by Randall L. Stephenson for that matter. Yes, we can see that those moves will have impact all over Europe and not in a nice way, but that is part of the game. You cannot have it both ways that was never a reality to begin with. Now they only need to fix the holes that Mario Draghi has in his hands and we are possibly perhaps on route to get something sorted.

Yet there is one part we need to get back to and that is the verdict. You see, what is in play here is the statement “an agreement allowing Apple to pay a maximum tax rate of just 1%. In 2014, the tech firm paid tax at 0.005%. The usual rate of corporation tax in Ireland is 12.5%“, this implies that Apple didn’t just get preferential treatment, all the other players were discriminated against. When we see the parts we had already known for a long time, the fact that “Ireland’s tax arrangements with Apple between 1991 and 2015 had allowed the US company to attribute sales to a “head office” that only existed on paper and could not have generated such profits“, which was a given and the result we saw on a global scale “Apple avoided tax on almost all the profit generated from its multibillion-euro sales of iPhones and other products across the EU’s single market. It booked the profits in Ireland rather than the country in which the product was sold“, gives way that a single market is perhaps not the best solution for all but one nation and in addition to this we must realise that the solution I mentioned 5 years ago to set the tax laws that taxation should be set into the nation of the buying consumers physical location could have avoided this and many other issues. A simple taxation change that made all the difference, yet it seems that no one in legislation in those nations as well as those political players ever considered changing that simple law that could have made all the difference.

You see, as the Guardian by-line offers, this case could have another escalation soon enough “Charlie Harrington, 53, a paramedic in Cork, expressed frustration that the Irish government penalized small taxpayers but seemed ready to protect Apple“, which is exactly how millions feel in both France and Italy. If this tax case caves and Apple ends up not being due this invoice, the jump to anti-EU sentiments will go up massively and very fast so. At that point President Obama will only have himself to thank for the mess he started to create when he went 180 degrees on the corporate tax issues discussed in the ‘The Hague Summit of 2013’. That was the first step that could have avoided a few things, this case being one of them.

Cause and Effect

The question becomes ‘What will happen now?’ This is something not easily answered. At present Apple has a few other issues knocking at its door and the iPhone 7 is one of them. The population at large is less money blessed, so paying $1295 for a new phone that according to Forbes is “Purchasing the iPhone 7 this morning from my local Apple Store I found a device that is remarkably similar to last year’s iPhone 6S and the iPhone 6 from 2014. The external design cues remain, the chips inside are faster, and iOS 10 is more polished but is fundamentally the same operating system. Nothing ‘feels’ news even though the package is professional and projects a revolution that is hard to find“, this is at the heart of the matter. Trying to create waves by limiting the system, whilst overall the system is still the same is an issue and at nearly $1300 a very expensive one. That whilst Android competitors are coming into the field with comparable devices, including a headphone jack at 50%-60% of the price of the iPhone 7 and the world is starting to consider the non-IOS alternative. What Apple should fear is not just the market they are losing, the dangers that people could, in regard to the tax pressures they have and the pressure that Apple seems to be able to avoid, is one that could make them feel frustrated and vindictive. The idea that a person could think ‘If the need not pay taxation, they do not need my business either is not that far a stretch‘. People are starting to see the ethical imbalance that large corporations have impressed upon nations and in Europe where the quality of life is not that great at present, seeking the much cheaper alternative that Huawei and LG are offering is one worth considering. That could bring considerable consequences for Apple soon enough. Now I am not stating that the iPhone 7 will be a flop, but for Apple in this stage, should they lose even as little as a 2% market share, the consequence for apple will be intense to state the least. In addition, the fact that the iPad has remained a success for so long could equally be the next problem child for Apple. In that regard releasing the iPad Pro was a really good idea, yet the tablet contenders are starting to realise what it takes to be a contender and if that knowledge is applied properly, there too non-IOS devices (read: android) could start to make a killing and as such undermine that market Apple has at present. The origin is not the device makers, but Google. As Google has been pushing ‘the year of mobile’ for two years, the shift of usage is also growing. There is a growing visibility that at times the mobile screen does not cut it and it gives more and more opportunity to both Phablet and Tablet. These are all examples showing quite clearly that there is no status quo to rely on and the temporary nature of devices shows that Apple needs to really push forward in an innovative way, preferably before the makers of tablets realise that an affordable 128 GB version of an Android tablet is every bit as appealing as the iPad Pro, especially when the Android version could be a lot less than the IOS edition. With Android having its own set of quality games, Apple has more to lose than they are willing to admit to and time is slowly running out for their streak of ignorance to continue. However, it is important to note that Apple has been pretty super innovative with the iPad pro, so there is still a gap to overcome for the competitors. In that regard it is equally interesting that the Android device market have ignored that side of the consumer’s need (read: desire). In all this, it was about taxation and not on markets. Yet one is linked to the other, mainly because if there is no market there is in equal measure no taxable revenue, which gets us to the final part. You see, I have written about these issues before in one form or another and now we see that the Wall Street Journal is finally waking up to this (at http://www.wsj.com/articles/lew-is-right-on-eu-tax-grab-but-lacks-credibility-1473962171), when we read “The Obama administration has had 92 months to tackle corporate tax reform. Now that Europe is making a grab for taxes on profits held by U.S. companies overseas, President Obama is ready to use his last few months in office to address tax issues that were ignored or made worse under his watch“, my response is that neither was done, as stated in earlier blogs in April 2016, when I wrote ‘Ignoranus Totalicus‘ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2016/04/24/ignoranus-totalicus), he refused to act (as voiced by “Senior officials in Washington have made it known“), so the non-actions are now back firing as event are now escalated. Another iteration of status quo.

What now?

This now all related to the issue at hand. IT corporations decided to maximise their profit by a consumer iterative annual approach of products. The IT market in the US nearly collapsed as it allowed for what was once regarded as a Taiwan Clone (a cheap alternative) to a quality A-brand to catch up. This is the problem with iterative thinking, when you are not in a niche market like Northrop Grumman (who at one stage actually there software patches ‘Iteration version’ I believe), you allow the market to catch up with you. ASUS caught up so and soon thereafter surpassed the original market owners. This lesson was not learned and the Telecom market decided that the profit was good in this way. So, please feel free to correct me. What happened to Ericsson and Nokia? Apple came and overwhelmed everyone and instead of truly remaining innovative, they started to largely iterate their device and called it innovation, now that LG, Samsung and Huawei have caught on and pretty much caught up, they are now offering equal, if not better options at lower prices. So how long will it take Apple to learn that status quo is merely an illusion? I reckon will see that revelation close after Christmas, after the annual sales are gone (and they will be improbable but not impossible a bit disappointing this year).

I reckon we will know in about 15-19 weeks!

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June 5, 2016 · 19:09

The Utopian Disaster

It is February 2016, two persons walk into a shop and this place has all the nice goodies on sale, in this case a Blu-ray and a video game. One person picks up one of each and pays cash, the other one swipes his mobile for a game. His payment goes wrong, he frowns and checks his mobile, then tries again. Again a failure, now he transfers some cash to his mobile and pays, as he does that he learns that he had been swiped less than 120 seconds earlier. Neither noticed, neither saw any alarms, someone walked out with his mobile $75 and it went unnoticed.

In this day and age where this is still happening on a daily basis we get confronted with ‘A last hurrah for banknotes as UK switches to mobile and card payment‘ (at https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/jun/04/uk-switch-to-cashless-society-contactless-payment), the subtitle gives us the question that matters: “if Britain is ready to become a cashless society“, that is the question and it is a rather tough one to answer. You see, technically we can implement this, yet, how can we guarantee security? In the old days a pickpocket had to interact with the person they were trying to rob, which is not a given in this case. Nowadays the thief needs to get within 10 meters, which means that the criminal could be a whole floor away swiping electronic wallets left, right and centre.

So why are we embracing a system that is actually empowering crime and criminals?

The guardian gives us this initial example: “When Transport for London banned cash on the buses in mid-2014, it was greeted with a backlash from some quarters; “passenger fury” said one headline, “ban hits the vulnerable” was another. Yet, two years on, behaviour has adjusted. TfL says it has saved £24m in cash-handling costs, and queues have improved“, which might be fair enough, but how are fare’s paid for? You see, the bus still costs and here we see that the Oyster card replaces money. Now, this is not a bad idea. You fill up the card and use it as you board the bus and tram. In Australia it is called the Opal card and there is wisdom having one. I do not oppose certain systems that take money out of the immediate equation. Yet, all this is a long way from a cashless society. In that regard I have been a victim myself and I know others would suddenly lose dollars of their card. Now, these things happen, we misplace a banknote, yet when it happens to a travel card, we do not find that money again. Should we therefore not do it? No! If we are becoming increasingly reliant on public transportation, having a streamlined system, including an Oyster card (or whatever it is called) seems to be the path to take.

Yet in all this, with organised crime being better equipped than the fortune 500, relying on a safe digital age is not the way to go for now. You see the news 2 days ago gave us “A Geraldton magistrate has called credit cards that offer contactless payments “rife for being exploited”, after a 29-year-old man appeared in court on 11 fraud charges for using an unlawfully obtained credit card“, this was a man on drugs, which is also likely why he got found out this quickly. He racked up $715 in fraudulent transactions in a three-hour period. So the victim would not have known this until much later, perhaps even days later. By the time it gets out into the light, there would be little to do against it. And the news is about to get worse.

The ABC in January this year reported (at http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2016/01/27/4392905.htm) “First, the criminals manage to install malicious software on the point-of-sale device in a restaurant, bakery or hardware store. This is very common. The crooks will use this information to make counterfeit credit cards that can be used to buy gift or debit cards, which in turn can be used to buy expensive stuff that can be resold for cash. Second, the hackers can compromise the network of a company that processes transactions between the various banks involved – such as the bank that issued your card, and the merchant bank used by your retailer. They can steal an enormous amount of card accounts in a very short time. Third, they can attack the database or website of an online merchant. The fourth method is an oldie but a Goldie — “skimming””

Four methods, still in place today and in many cases there is little to no protection, that money is just gone. Now, there are two sides here. One, should card usage stop? I do not think that this is a pragmatic approach or one that is even viable at this stage, but the transformation towards a cashless society is equally not an option. Not until the defences become a lot better. Now just electronically, but essentially a better system that gives levels of non-repudiation. That is something no one seems to want, for the mere situation that time is money and the USA is broke, bankrupt!

Why do you think that this push is happening now, even though many parties know that the switch is not an option at present? In my view this is in part because the USA needs to refinance 6 trillion dollars this year and it is not even close to getting that done. The switch to cashless sooner rather than later allows for shifts of cash from the real world into the virtual world, a place where no one can keep track of it. Yet that is not enough! The US mainly needs the shift to happen, so that the invested value can become a reality, the switch can be bought with ‘cash’ the US does not have and pay for it through the charge of every transaction that goes through this system.

It is a dangerous solution and the fact that the parties involved are willing to take a risk that organised crime would come out on top here is even more disturbing. Let’s take a look at the evidence here, because without that, it is a speculative rant at best.

  1. Here is the clip of a skimming device being installed, which took less than 3 seconds (at http://thehackernews.com/2016/03/credit-card-skimming-hack.html).

This could impact small businesses overnight, with the criminals laughing themselves into wealth.

  1. Here we see an employee skimming cards to increase his fortune, so fast-food comes at a price (at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAP7sVh4smc), we see a few more examples which also gives us additional worries, most small business owners would be clueless that fuel pumps could be rigged in mere seconds. A cashless society and the funds that are supposed to be yours will be going somewhere else real fast.

Now, important to note is that in this non-cashless age, this is already happening and there is no clear way to protect one’s self, which clearly implies that in a cashless society we would be in increasing danger of losing our hard earned cash. In addition, as we are aware of these weaknesses, why is the drive to cashless so strong? When the press asks whether they good guys are winning the war, the cautious response form Steve Scarince from the US Secret Service is “It’s even right now“, which is not only not so reassuring, it is hardly a win and that is just within the US, where there are at least a few handles on Credit card fraud, yet the employee event only got the transgressor 2 years’ probation, giving a clear message to crime that for now, cashless financial crimes are still rewarding. In addition, in a similar place, how many employees have not been found out?

And this is just the small stuff!

The fact that courts aren’t treating cybercrimes more serious and deal out harsher penalties is equally disturbing. In addition, the courts are still a problem too. In most nations that practice common law the rules of evidence is still taking a seat back towards the digital age. This gives us two problems in that frame alone.

Let’s take a look at these three points:

  • computer records and printouts may be tendered as documentary evidence or as business records to prove what they contain – this is an exception to the rule against hearsay, which would otherwise stop such material being relied on to prove the truth of its contents;
  • it is possible to prove that particular processes are carried out on information and communications technologies (ICT) equipment and in some jurisdictions there is a rebuttable presumption that a computer works correctly; and
  • Under expert evidence provisions, experts can give evidence about the operation of computers.

This now reflects back to the works of Smith, Grabosky and Urbas (2004) where we see on page 38  ‘that 75% of cases referred for prosecution to federal authorities were declined, primarily due to lack of evidence‘, this is why I mentioned the fact that the US has some credit card fraud, but the rules of evidence has not caught up which means that 75% walks away from this, which now gives additional concern when we consider the earlier employee in the fast food industry skimming client cards as well as shopkeepers ending up with a card reader containing a skimming device. At this point Crime pays a little too well. Yet it is my personal view that with the US is such deep financial troubles the banks will accept any option that continues their way of life, which is equally disturbing on a few levels.

We see this failure again on a second level of problems. This is seen when we deal with the issue of proportionality. When we consider the quote “In the case of cyber-crime this raises serious difficulties as the consequences of some types of offending can be devastating, such as the creation and release of a computer virus, and yet the conduct itself may involve no physical violence or even contact with other people“, the sentencing takes no consideration to the other hardships that a victim has to go through. New bank cards, new credit cards, filing documents regarding financial loss and the economic impact the fraud had. Apart from that there is the chance that misdoings will impact that person’s credit score with the possible continuation to even more economic hardship and even a realistic impact on their economic footprint. None of that is weighted properly in court. A person with a mere scratch could end up in a better position, a realistic situation that is immoral and a-moral.

This is maintained when we look at R v Boden [2002] QCA 164, here we see “a 49 year old hacker, Votek Boden was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment after being found guilty of hacking into the Maroochy Shire’s computerised waste management system. Boden was accused of causing millions of litres of raw sewage to spill out into local rivers and parks killing marine life and causing offensive smells“, which gives us the following

– In the first, system transgression tends to be too easy

– In the second, the fact that this person is established to have committed ‘ecological mass murder’ and it seems to be ‘punished’ with a mere 2 year’s imprisonment.

The law has not caught up in Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and Canada. With these Commonwealth nations already falling short, whilst we can also clearly see that the US is not ready either, we see news that several places are now slowly gesturing towards a cashless society. The Guardian article gives us “A major milestone on the path to a cashless society was passed in 2015, the first year that consumers used cash for less than half of all payments, according to Payments UK, which represents the major banks, building societies and payment providers“, which is fair enough. The article does not clearly elaborate that it took the UK the better part of 25 years to get to this point. We then see “It predicts that cash usage will not be eclipsed by debit cards and contactless until 2021“, which is an earie ‘forecast’. It is earie because it is practically impossible to get the proper adjustments done to law within that term, if we all remember the Houses of Commons versus Lords Ping Pong Match, the adjustments required for Criminal Law Act 1967, the Serious Crime Act 2015, the Civil Evidence Act 1995, the Criminal Evidence Act 1898 as well as the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 will take at least a few years more than that and these are just 5 points out of a list that is decently larger than this. This all becomes even more unsettling if the UK becomes a Bremain group, because in that case the UK will need to deal with the EU settled laws as well, which is unlikely to be a positive thing. It is almost certainly a Utopian disaster that is ready to happen.

There are additional sides, sides where cashless seems to have grown naturally, like in Sweden. Yet the misdirection we see when we see an entrance to their version of the underground with the text “Stockholm’s Metro does not accept cash payments“, you see that is in part true, you use their version of the Oyster/Opal card, a situation several nations are going towards, some are already there. The article (at https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/jun/04/sweden-cashless-society-cards-phone-apps-leading-europe), where we see “cash transactions made up barely 2% of the value of all payments made in Sweden last year – a figure some see dropping to 0.5% by 2020“, whilst the article ends with ““Even if, in the next few years, Swedes use almost no cash at all, going 100% cashless needs a political decision,” he said. “The idea of cash, even in Sweden, remains very strong.”“, which is a separate truth, moving away from currency will forever be an issue, and when we see that one nation being at that point for 98%, we see these people having an issue of becoming a cashless society, we better believe that the Commonwealth at large will not be ready for a long time to come.

Yet, the other side is also there. Although finding anything decently reputable is almost a non-option. I am surprised that we see increasing mentions of the cashless society.  The quote we see (at http://www.financemagnates.com/fm-home/moving-towards-cashless-society/) gives me a few issues “The transition towards a cashless society seems inexorable. The incredible rise of fintech payment companies like Square, WePay and TransferWise, along with the increased popularity of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies, are making traditional banks and old payment systems obsolete, with cash becoming less important“, there is truth here, but there is also another issue, the risk of economic degradation and the legalisation of slavery.

That part I have to explain!

We have moved from a balanced book world towards a GDP ruled world, where the interest payment of debt is set against the GDP, so that the total amount of borrowing could be raised again and again. Yet in all this there were limits because total debt remains an issue, especially for the US as it will have to refinance 6 trillion this year alone, meaning that if it fails, the US becomes bankrupt! In defence we see mentioned: “Yes, America has a long-term debt issue, but no, it is not going bankrupt. Just ask the rest of the world that is scooping up US Treasury bonds by the hundreds of billions“, which could be fair enough. Yet in all this, why would these government buy ‘bad’ bonds, especially as those nations are just as deep in debt? In my view, the view that was proven with the Greek deficit situation is because those who make the decisions get a lot more out of this deal, they get to continue their comfortable way of life. If that falls away they will be in hardship, just like everyone else! So as we see additional debts getting set up to deal with previous debt, that path leaves a nation with nothing. Should you doubt me, then consider when has the US kept its budget and what steps are clearly in place to pay off the debt it has?

So when we consider those people buying US bonds, we need to realise that this act could cost the US an additional $30-$60 billion depending whether the US can offer those bonds at 0.5% or 1%, the question becomes who is willing to take that risk at 1%? To counter this every American resident would have to make a $92-$195 donation to the state and that is just the additional cost of a bond. Yes, not taxation, but donation, because all the tax money has already been spend and the US, unable to keep their budgets in check has already spent next year’s budget. This is why a cashless society works for the US government and it works for those in power within the US. With the link between existing cash and debt removed, it becomes a virtual world. A world ruled by econometrists, economists and banks. I wonder if the US population realise that they did not elect these people, those people who keep on deciding how trillions are wasted. At that point, a point that is uncomfortably close by, the US crosses the critical boundary where its population is categorised into who are either a Benefit or a Burden. We to those who are not a Benefit, because they will lose a lot more than we all bargained for. That fear will also reside within the EU and the UK is no different for now. It is that fear, additional to the responsibilities and the needs of the people that needs to address this. We end up being a group of people to work solely to remove the debt handed to us by irresponsible people who are not held to account (evidence: see previous Greek administrations), we become a legally defined workforce in what could be regarded as slavery.

Yes, cashless might be the path of the future, but in this age of irresponsible spending, the backlash would be massive and it tends to come out after the spenders are gone and they are not held to account, they will live their life on a mansion in luxury. An option that is not there for you and me, moreover that person will be doing it using our money and our savings. Did you sign up for that?

The cashless path is coming somewhere in the future and until proper preparations, checks and balances are in place the slogan becomes: ‘abandon all hope ye who enter that path!‘

 

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May 18, 2016 · 22:50

Where is Mr Burden?

So there is this article in the Guardian, where the title is the call to action (at https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/may/17/connecting-everyone-to-internet-global-economy-poverty), the headline gives us “Connecting everyone to internet ‘would add $6.7tn to global economy’”, this is a statement that might hold water, you see those people might need hardware (a router at the very least), there are optional needs for hardware and getting the data streamed for all these surfers required many coins too, so I would state that there is a truth in that.

What becomes an issue is “Report estimates getting whole world online would lift 500m people out of poverty over next five years“, this woke me up, because raising people out of poverty is a good thing. Yet in all this, how are these people getting paid? So that is where the alarm bells start ringing. The quote “The report, titled Connecting the world: Ten mechanisms for global inclusion, was prepared for Facebook by PwC’s strategy consultants Strategy&“, which is an issue, especially when PwC is part of that equation, something from Tesco anyone?

“More than nine-tenths of the world’s population live in places where the infrastructure exists to get them online, but the majority of them cannot afford to do so” is the quote that follows and as such, I can agree with that, although there are plenty of places like all over India where connectivity is an issue, beside the affordability issue. Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Tibet, Siberia that list is renowned and not that short. So what gives?

Here the article suddenly becomes a little murky. You see, Facebook is favouring its approach “the Internet.org project, which aims to partner with carriers in developing nations to give low-cost internet access“, which has some critique. The additional quote “Jonathan Tate, technology consulting leader at PwC, argues that Facebook’s approach is worth it in the long term. While zero rating provides access to a slimmer version the internet than the full web, he says it’s a crucial stepping stone to full access. “The important thing here is to get things moving,” he added“, I think that this might sound real, but it does not sound true. The following quote “Facebook’s motivation for paying for Internet.org is partially explained by PwC’s estimates of where the benefits of new access accrue. While most of the economic benefits of new internet access come to those freshly online, the consultancy estimates that content providers such as Facebook stand to gain a $200bn opportunity over the next five years” has the issues within the text especially between the words. You see, I personally believe that this is not about connecting, it is about connectivity, more important, the fact on how these groups could soon be identified. Those who have and those who have not. This is where the issue forms.

Those not online will not lost their poverty status other that administrative. I feel that this is about classification, this is about finding out where the non-connected live. Once the non-connected are properly categorised, it will be much easier to dismiss certain groups. We are already seeing it in our daily lives all over the place. You are either a benefit or you are a burden. That was a reality and a valid form of identification years ago, but as the internet is mapped, we see the everlasting need for growing data. Data can be sold, that is why there is such a need to get everyone connected. That data is worth a lot to places like Facebook. The initial claim still remains ‘raising 500 million people out of poverty‘ How, is my question and the important fact that Alex Hern might rely on is not explained at all.

As I see it, the possible addition of $6.7T is all about data selling and marketing, so far, not too much visibility on poverty and how to stop that, or better stated, how this implementation will get the really poor their impact. So how about that poverty?

It’s all over the world, so how will a solution be found for those not being able to connect to a Sweet Home internet spot. It seems to me that many players are all about data selling to make their numbers, which is a dangerous approach, especially for those getting exploited, because after 6 months, they might suddenly no longer be interesting to have online, what happens then? That is the part that requires special attention, especially as I believe that internet providers have largely gone into the mode ‘Are you a Benefit or a Burden?‘ We better pace to not be a burden, because this world is less and less appealing, mainly because governments couldn’t keep their budgets in check and others ended up paying for the initial claims made by those no longer here.

That makes 100% internet coverage an additional issue in regards of this case, as it is an illusionary number, 100% coverage can in these kind of cases never be maintained, even if it is technologically possible, in the end there are other costs involved, also on the user end, which gets me to the users!

You see, for most the equation is slightly too simple. You are either a user, or you are getting used. This applies especially to big business, giving weight to the Benefit/Burden part. Consumers are for the most a benefit, yet in all this, what kind of consumers? Consumers of banks and financial institutions? Consumer of marketable goods? There are so many options here, but for a large part, the one group that (still) falls outside of the scope is the poverty group.

You see Alex, in your column, in the paragraph on how expensive the internet is for some, the quote “For 66% of the world, a 500MB data plan costs more than 5% of their monthly income, the level the report’s authors describe as “unaffordable”“, yet for many, the 5% is usually connected to other things too and in many places 5% of a minimum income gets you plenty of gigabytes. I checked in the Netherlands (not cheap but affordable), Sweden (5 GB affordable for about $15), Germany, UK (unlimited for a mere $8), Australia (where I can get near 1TB on a minimum wage), the benefits of a few languages gets you a lot of information. Basically the previous statement is blown out of the water, or perhaps, these countries are within the 34%?

This article reeks as I see it, you see, when you are in poverty other things matter, the internet will not get those people out of poverty, plain and simple. I would really like to dig into that report. I wonder how it holds up to my scrutiny. The simplest of reasons is that if it was a solution, the US would have done it to get there massive poverty line down, Europe would have seriously done something some time ago. No, I regard this as some PwC approach to more exploitation. The fact that this gets the limelight and the connected acts by PwC regarded Tesco are kept silent by the press at large is still a massive issue and the Guardian is equally guilty in that regard.

The basic statement “Improvement of existing technology, or even simply installing existing technology in developing nations, will suffice to bring about much of this cost reduction” is added fuel to the fire. You see, that is a truth, but who has the cash to invest in that? You see, that still requires a device for people to connect to that infrastructure. The final statement takes the cake “But new technology will still be needed to achieve total connectivity. The reports’ authors estimate that the last 500 million people to get online won’t be able to rely on piecemeal improvements“, we can argue the validity here, but are those the same people who will be lifted out of poverty?

You see, this article shakes on all sides, I wonder whether this was about 500 million out of poverty (which I doubt would ever happen), or was this a simple deluded piece regarding connectivity? Well, to give Alex Hern a fair shake, we need to take a look at that report. Look, here it is: http://www.strategyand.pwc.com/global/home/press/displays/global-internet-inclusion.

So, it is not initially about connectivity is it?

So let’s take a look at some of these parts

In the first:

Bringing the whole world online would create huge benefits for developing countries and for businesses over the coming five years, including:

  • Social and economic improvement for over 4 billion people
  • An additional global economic output of US$6.7 trillion
  • A $400 billion growth opportunity for telecom operators
  • A $200 billion opportunity for content providers

 

  1. An additional global economic output of US$6.7 trillion (based on what is that)
    2. A $400 billion growth opportunity for telecom operators
    0. A $200 billion opportunity for content providers

Why this numbering? Yes, the claim of that multi trillion dollar output sounds nice, but how is that acquired? PwC has had its issues with forecasting, yet in all this how could this be true. Well, it can be, you see most of us (including me) would think that this was about developing the option to exploit those in developing countries. I state here and now that this is unlikely to add to such an amount. The second part is the 400 billion for telecom operators. Yes, that part might be true, yet in all that, who pays for this? You see a telecom operator is very willing to invest 400 billion, providing they get 600 billion out of all of this. So who pays for that part? Even more important is the issue that was initially reported. How does that push people OUT of poverty? And now we get to point zero, the content providers, remember what I wrote? Here we see the classification, it becomes about the issue of dividing the population into Benefits and Burdens. So why is that important?

Look at the next part:

“Replacing current 2G networks with 3G or 4GLTE could bring a 60-70% reduction in the cost per MB to serve developing markets, making it profitable for operators to provide internet services, and opening up the internet to over 2bn people”. Who pays for that hardware? What are the costs of those transmitters and upgrade those local providers? In all that, the people involved, the consumers become benefit for those who can afford it, a burden if they cannot. There is another view (at http://qz.com/684388/broadband-service-tends-to-stop-at-the-poverty-line-in-the-us/), there are a few sides that sound good and believable. The one part that is in common with the view PwC shows us is “provide affordable communications to low-income households“, yet here we see two other parts:

  1. High-bandwidth applications overwhelm mobile data plans and slow connections. This limits or even cuts off many families from e-commerce, banking, health care, and services.
  2. Broadband for rural residents, it’s a real lifeline. In fact, that’s the name of the federal program designed to provide affordable communications to low-income households.

The second part might seem correct and positive, but behind this is another form of reasoning. You see, Telecom providers require income, for that they provide bandwidth. What is a clear need for most parties is the collection of data, classification as well as profit. The data must grow! (That is my personal view) The government will need in addition a more complete shift towards the digital field, not just in America, this is a near global need. Only when the shift to digital is complete the last pesky barricade will fall away. A real first move to a total digital world. In all this there is still no real evidence that poverty will fall away. Here is the first part where PwC and Alex Hern have different settings. PwC stated in the paper “above absolute poverty levels“, One definition is ‘the minimal requirements necessary to afford minimal standards of food, clothing, health care and shelter‘, another version gives us ‘absolute poverty is used as a synonym for extreme poverty, meaning the lack of enough resources to have stable basic life necessities‘, this makes the entire exercise another matter entirely.

Providing content through a series of local high speed networks, would make it affordable for a further 300m people. What kind of content? Subscribable content? At what cost? And how does access to digital content reduce its cost? How does this provision make someone less pover? Well we can speculate that making a person dependant on digital access and then making it available to all, that person is less pover. So basically, we give a few person one extra service, a basic necessity. Now, they no longer have 1 out of 6 basic needs, now they suddenly have 2 out of 7 basic needs. So their index went from 16% (absolute poverty) to 28.5% (poor), a mere implementation of ‘How to lie with statistics’. For the people they are still in deep poverty in real life, but according to the statistics not that much.

“Offline distribution of content, including through national and regional data exchanges would improve access and affordability for a further 170m people”. Here the issue is ‘data exchanges’, the exchange of data happens in our daily life, but is this that same level, or is this a conglomerate push to have access to personal data? This is speculation, but let’s face it, nothing is free, that is a given. So what levels of data exchange is linked to all this?

“Governments offering content focused on education, social services or business opportunities could create an incentive for a further 200m to go online”. This is clean cut, this is what governments would love, but in all this (especially in the USA), we see a rural absence of connectivity, a lack of services provided for, which means local government presence, which costs money. In this day of cut backs (near global) getting connected means that help goes through wiki pages, through online forms and through automated parsing of forms. This has massive drawbacks on many levels, but that is not what this article is about.

“Brand or subscriber subsidized access, for example learning centers, could bring another 500 million online globally”. This reads in more than one way, it could be seen a subscribed subsidised brand access, which could go in many ways, not all of them in a positive way. Yet, let’s not focus on such sides or on ‘wording’ to that extent at least for now.

Another quote can be seen in two ways, as I saw it Alex took it one way. The quote “This leaves 4.1 billion people disconnected from a modern economy that would benefit by over US$6 trillion with their participation“, can also be seen as ‘the modern economy would benefit by connecting the 4.1 billion disconnected people. It could enable a maximum of 6 trillion in amassable revenue for those connected‘ Again, partially speculative, but does that not read a lot more reliable than the ‘social’ approach the Guardian took?

Let’s not forget, PwC is all about the numbers and the profit (sometimes overstated), the full report (at http://www.strategyand.pwc.com/reports/connecting-the-world) gives me the last part: “The third is to create more national and international data infrastructure, such as Internet exchange points (IxPs) and data centers“, here we have it, data centres, the one part Alex Hern did not illuminate, as the tech writer he should be all over that, not just because of its need, but because many developing countries lack proper skills, knowledge and lack infrastructure to get it correctly up and running and keep it online. Apart from the massive need for security in such centres, that data could become too widely available too fast, or proper companies will have to step in, at what cost?

So we might accept the title “Connecting everyone to internet ‘would add $6.7tn to global economy’“, yet who will benefit? The developing countries? Me thinks not, it’s a mere continuing imbalance of Benefit and Burden.

 

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May 14, 2016 · 20:52

Gaming ‘after silence’ or ‘pre noise’?

Well, I am back after a few days of silence. You see, I found a few links that were massively worry some. Yet, nothing could be confirmed in any way shape or form. It is all linked to the Australian submarine deal and the issues that are escalating in France. So it is indeed worthy to note and report on. Yet at present there are too many question marks, too much is unknown, more important too much of the material I saw remains speculation, so this is not going to be about the shipyards on Brest and Cherbourg, until I get my fingers on something a lot more reliable.

So what does one do when you need an hour of relaxation from stress and life in general? Well, until No Man’s Sky arrives on June 22nd, I need to find something to help me forget about it all. This is why June 10th the game Batman: Return to Arkham will be a nice distraction, which is the Next Gen editions of Arkham Asylum, and Arkham City, so the Batman fans can go nuts on that part. The two games are close to perfect as Batman games and the initial Arkham Asylum showed a level of gaming on PS3 and XB360 that was so high that not having it could be considered a crime (unless you do not care for Batman, which is fine too).

There have been noises in the past by bloggers and reputable sites on ‘remastered’ games. I remain on the fence. When you can replay God of War, Batman or the Last of Us, games that had set a new level of quality gaming, how can this be a bad thing? I have had my issues with Mass Effect (mostly the last one), but that will not stop me from rushing the queues to get a remastered edition of that trilogy, especially when the achievement bugs of the first game and the sloppiness of the third game are removed.

The second game was near perfect, which is why your shy Lawlordtobe.com (read: me) was part of that adventurous vacation all over the Universe (see photographic evidence below; the photo of me with a Justicar was removed on grounds of censorship).

LVR_MassEffect2 - twitch

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yet is this it? Is there nothing more? You see, that is indeed the issue gamers face nowadays. I have been a part of gaming and its industry since 1984, so I have seen it all (well almost all at least). No Man’s Sky could be one of the last true new games I will play for several reasons.

If we look back into our memories than the term ‘god’ game is not new. The idea goes all the way back to the 80’s. The idea hit me initially from a comic as it was published in Computer and Video Games (C+VG) magazine. The Comic was a reason to get it, the other reason for the magazine is that it was in the early days one of a few good magazines that informed gamers on games (remember those pre internet times)? The reference is found at http://www.weirdretro.org.uk/the-bug-hunters-the-forgotten-80s-comic-series.html. The actual comic can also be seen (at https://archive.org/stream/Bug_Hunters_The_1990_Trident_Comics_GB#page/n21/mode/2up), in my case that page gave me the idea of a ‘god game’, which at that time (the age of Commodore 64) was not really realistic.

Much later we would be treated to Black & White, but it is not until 2016, June 22nd before the world gets a first glimpse of a galactic exploration game the way we used to dream of. Consider the three comic quotes “It’s only when your world made in detail that it gets to you“, “When you start playing god with the people in it” and “Some players get the whole world worshipping them as the deity“. You might laugh at these quotes, but consider these statements and now consider Minecraft, Black & White, Populous and now No Man’s Sky. The statements and the games touch deep within any gamer a truth that many others deny. We don’t just want to be better than anyone else, to be the one who survives, we want to bend others to our fictive will (either openly or hidden). This is a dangerous statement in light of gaming, because I am making the danger of relating to Bicameralism and in specific The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind (Julian Jaynes, 1976). I believe that it actually goes a lot deeper. Good vs Evil, Light vs Dark, Commanding vs Obeying, Order vs Chaos. In this light we tend to see a correlating alliance between Evil, Dark, Obeying and Chaos. The statement that control comes from order is equally unsettling. We, our person, our being is more often than not about balance. We are the seesaw of ourselves and as such we keep a preconceived version of order though the balance as we see it. So, there it is, a deeper reflection on the gaming need. When you pick up a game and play an hour every now and then, it tends to be to unwind. When you (like me) have spent thousands of hours in the Bethesda worlds of the Elder Scrolls and Fallout, it tends to be a little different.

I hope that you see how these elements connect. I believe that part of this is subconscious, when we play Minecraft there is a subconscious part that gives us the drive to play it again and again. It goes beyond the sandbox part, it taps into our creative side, like LEGO did when we were kids. Now, not everyone feels that way and I personally believe that there is a group of people ignoring the game as they are in denial because the graphics are not high end. Some are not comfortable tapping into their creative side. I can relate to that latter group, my grasp of drawing is pathetic to say the least. The lack of one element of a creative side does not make a person non-creative. That part is a side many ignore. This links to the games.

SimCity, SimLife, SimWorld, SimTown and Minecraft gives us “It’s only when your world made in detail that it gets to you“. The first part gives us the evolution of games from the limits of systems with 640Kb and VGA displays until Mojang took it into another direction and gave us Minecraft. Your world, making it as ‘detailed’ as possible. This game intersects with the option (read: need) of exploration.

Little Computer People, Populous, Dungeon Keeper and Godus gives us “When you start playing god with the people in it“. This is a game type that is not always appreciated, let’s be honest, some work from a tactical point of view and as such they do not like it. That’s fair enough! There is no negativity towards the game or those who do not like them. I was never one for GTA, plenty of fans there. We play whatever makes us happy as gamers. These games evolved over time and remained a niche style of games.

Black and White (1 and 2) which gets us “Some players get the whole world worshipping them as the deity“, as well as the statement of the previous topic. The smallest of niches, Godus falls in this one too. Worshipping has been an element in several games, yet in that it reflects on one player in the game, in more true godlike games, you are just the element behind the screens.

These games are about control (aren’t they all), so whether you go from the premise of a trader (Elite Dangerous) or an open world exploration (No Man’s Sky), I see the near completion of an area of gaming in a new light. In this No Man’s Sky, as far as I see it at present, is not just an element, it has become the defining moment in time for a large share of gamers.

Let me explain this!

If we see the past with games like Seven Cities of Gold (1985), where it was truly about ‘exploring’ the ‘new’ world. Now we get to explore the ‘known’ universe. This goes beyond the mere sandbox approach. As I see it, the elements of No Man’s Sky have the option to change gaming, especially Role Playing Games forever, If I see the IP correctly (for as far as I saw it), it is worth millions. When we consider the video’s we saw, especially the behind the screens part, than we can consider that the ‘random’ formula part works in two directions. The side we have not seen yet would be the future ability to turn cartographical data into an equation. Once this works the IP of No Man’s Sky will be worth billions. Consider the initial part and that the limited worlds we have had so far in Oblivion, Skyrim, Morrowind and Ultima. Now consider the inverted engine to actually build Tamriel and Sosaria from detailed maps. Worlds where we can actually spend our times in, in real time in a 1:1 environment. This is the ‘after silence’ we are about to experience, the need to grow worlds to play in; a new level of playing. Not just for Hello Games, but consider the options when the gaming map has no further limits, almost like Phantom of Pain, but now with entire Afghanistan mapped. In the last party we can clearly argue whether it brings additional gaming pleasure, yet in our hearts we all know that the thought crossed all our minds. SimCity (older versions) with planetary constraints, the Sims with biological constraints, Sniper 3 with biological constrains but absent of geographical constraints. Games are evolving because we can now surpass constraints we were never able to surpass before and remove them where they were/are limitations. These elements will grow gaming hardware to facilitate and the IP will facilitate the possibilities we never had.

Now we reflect back to Mass Effect. Consider that same game, but now in an evolved setting where the Citadel is 100% available. Where mining and hunting on Gemini Sigma is not on a x*y grid, but planetary. It resets these games in true challenges to get them done in a lifetime (which could become the next hurdle).

Is this a good path?

I believe that size is an issue and overall games at large skipped that part for the most. Witcher 3 is the massive exception and it has opened doors towards the gamer’s expectation. No Man’s Sky and Elite Dangerous are changing it further still. David Braben showed that his re engineered idea from the BBC Micro B (48Kb) becomes a massive platform of gaming on the PC and Xbox One. A game from 1985 as addictive and fulfilling as the original was then, now with the latest graphics and a massive increase of depth.

We are moving towards true open world gaming. The hardware is there, some of the old idea’s fit and now the imagination of the creator(s) needs to evolve the next stage. That is taking into account that the game, fits the description that defines the game. If we want to race all over America we might see that the Crew ‘addresses’ that need, but when we see a 60% score, we see a clear indication that the game did not address the initial need of the gamer. Here is the part that does bring it forward. The growing need that we get when we play games with a 92% score or higher. The RPG’s I mentioned fill them all. We want more, it is there that I see the growing need for true open world. If someone tells me that this is just me, than this might be right, yet in all this consider those who like more than merely RPG, consider the multiplayer Mass Effect 3 part. How many of you (who played the game) want that element to be played out on a much larger scale? When we consider Firebase Glacier, but now the size of a proper base with a full complement of staff. Not a mere trigger point with waves of hostiles, but a base set with security a complement of personnel. Perhaps that is not what people want? I am not certain. I think the appeal in For Honor is set a lot wider than just hack and slash. I think that Evolve (4 vs 1) was initially too limiting from the bat (but great in looks and originality) with a new original approach to teamwork and of course with the option to play as the monster so you can ‘slay’ your friends. For Honor is the next step and perhaps Battlefield 1 takes that a step further still (time will tell). This is not me saying that For Honor is already surpassed. This is me saying that if For Honor is truly the victory I hope it to be, that it will start the growth of an ‘open world’ edition. As we hit the edge of our current games, we feel the need to surpass them, that has always been the case and I personally believe that No Man’s Sky is an essential step forward towards this reality.

This is just my view on it and I expect to be proven correct before the end of 2018, possibly even sooner.

 

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April 17, 2016 · 18:42

What the law allows

This is not the usual article for me. This is not a mere look at facts and at information, one could say that I have skin in the game (me using the loosest of all interpretations). You see, I know Paul Farrell. We might not be on the same side at times, for the same reason I am on opposite sides of Brendan Molloy, but we all went to the same University and I know them both to be good people, both with integrity and with a decent moral compass. These issues matter. For the same reason that I stand next to David Cameron, yet I remain holding a healthy respect for Ed Miliband. Ed sees things wrong (read: does not see them my way), but he truly believes that he was fighting the good fight for his party, which is all that mattered.

So how does this relate?

You see, whenever the name Edward Snowden comes up, it seems to raise a red flag for me, like a bull my horns go into battle mode. There is something really wrong about the Snowden case and it forever will be from my point of view, so when I read ‘Edward Snowden on police pursuing journalist data: the scandal is what the law allows‘ (at http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/apr/17/edward-snowden-on-police-pursuing-journalist-data-the-scandal-is-what-the-law-allows) got my attention to the smallest degree, yet when the quote “singled out for critique the Australian government’s contention that it broke no laws in its leak investigation of Paul Farrell, a Guardian reporter who in 2014 exposed the inner workings of Australia’s maritime interception of asylum seekers“, I became wide awake. You see, I know Paul, which makes it another matter entirely. This links back to an article where Paul Farrell was part of a team (at http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/07/asylum-seekers-will-be-handed-to-police-on-return-sri-lanka-confirms), that reported on certain issues. The quote “a group of 53 legal experts have called on the federal government to reveal how asylum seekers are being assessed on board customs vessels” points towards an issue that is very valid to be raised upon. When we see “a group of 53 legal scholars from 17 Australian universities warned that the government’s conduct under its hardline military-led border regime “Operation Sovereign Borders” was in violation of international law“, that point of view does not change one bit. The press has every right and even a mandate to report on it (read: why this is not done more often in commercial cases remains a mystery). These elements are not part of the actual spying issue, but they are related to the issue.

The rest of the article reads nice, but there is a side that I saw missing. Where were these people stopped? You see that makes all the difference. How far have people looked into the matter? When we consider UNCLOS (United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea), we need to consider article 17 where we see “Subject to this Convention, ships of all States, whether coastal or land-locked, enjoy the right of innocent passage through the territorial sea“, which is at the heart of the matter. Refugee boats are for the most smugglers, meaning that they cannot rely on ‘innocent passage’, in addition, article 18 gives us the passage bit with “traversing that sea without entering internal waters or calling at a roadstead or port facility outside internal waters“, which is exactly what smugglers are intent on doing, and whilst doing so we get article 19 where we see “Passage is innocent so long as it is not prejudicial to the peace, good order or security of the coastal State“, which again is exactly what smugglers ignore, because the status of these people cannot be confirmed, as such they can be regarded as prejudicial to both the peace and the good order as well as the security of the coastal state. Perhaps these 53 legal experts looked at that part, perhaps not (read: if I get any documents proving that part, I will reopen this blog article at a later stage).

So at this point, I saw an article that has issues, but I see nothing short of a mere article, nothing that should have woken up Edward Snowden, more important, why did it wake up the AFP? The article gives more than just 53 legal experts, it mentions “Hanson-Young also called on the minister to reveal the fate of a second vessel of 153 asylum seekers believed to have departed from India“, it mentions “The Tamil Refugee Council of Australia” as well as “UNICEF Australia and Save the Children said they were also “seriously concerned” over the secrecy on the second boat“, which are clear quotes, clear issues to be raised by a member of the press, so why do we get: ‘Federal police admit seeking access to reporter’s metadata without warrant‘ (at http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/14/federal-police-admit-seeking-access-to-reporters-metadata-without-warrant)? You see, in the 2014 case we have the quote “The Australian government’s “on-water” activities to turn back asylum seekers have been shrouded in secrecy under the military-led Operation Sovereign Borders. They led to several incursions into Indonesia’s territorial waters in December and January”, you see, this makes it not an AFP case, but an ASD case as this was a military led operation. The quote: “incorrect calculation of the boundaries of Indonesian waters” is even more hilarious especially when you realise that RADAR, SATNAV and other means tend to show shorelines, can we assume that those on board of the Ocean Protector should have known these little facts? If not, than let us meet with the captain and discuss the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea, where we see in section 2(a):

Nothing in these Rules shall exonerate any vessel, or the owner, master or crew thereof, from the consequences of any neglect to comply with these Rules or of the neglect of any precaution which may be required by the ordinary practice of seamen, or by the special circumstances of the case.

Which gets us nicely to the duties of being a ship’s captain, where we could now conclude that the Ocean Protector could be regarded as in violation of that pesky UN law named UNCLOS, to be more precise in violation of section 19 of that one, because it could be seen as acting against the ‘security of the coastal State’. This is why I looked at the IRPCS, as that is foremost on the mind of any ship captain, which gives us section 2a and this now gets that person in hot water with section 19 of UNCLOS. Going from other sides there are now the 1st and second mate to consider of the Ocean Protector, as the transgression, unless clearly defined in a military agreement, could be cause for a tribunal and as such the captain could stand a chance to be ‘captain-no-more’, which means that the mates move up a position, this is sometimes regarded as promotion through termination (read: this doesn’t always require extreme prejudice).

My issue is less with the statements of Edward Snowden and much more about (as I see it) the stupidity of the AFP to look into a matter that has so many clear sources named, especially names of people who would know more than the article revealed that the investigation into Paul Farrell seems to be a waste of time to say the least. To be honest, I am much more worried about the escalations we get from the SMH with the title ‘Scott Morrison to share Australian Christian Lobby stage with anti-gay extremists‘ than anything Paul has written here (sorry Paul, I am not trying to diminish your work).

You see, the article Paul partially wrote asks questions, they ask the right question. What is a clear issue is: “the secrecy on the second boat and were worried that unaccompanied minors could be on board whom required additional assistance from Australia under international law“, now also consider “The council had previously stated that at least 11 of those on board had previously been tortured by the Sri Lankan authorities before fleeing“, we see a pattern. A pattern that some elements (I reckon mostly UNICEF) had data and information that was vital, in all this we see the statement that also matters “Morrison told Sydney radio that the second boat was no longer in Australian waters“, so basically Morrison has clearly stated that the second boat had entered Australian waters. Yet when and where? This does not change my view on UNCLOS and its interpretation of it, but it does have an issue with what happened afterwards and the Guardian does not really report on it, it asks questions. Now if Paul got Morrison to make the statement, than that does not make Paul a better investigative journalist, but it does make him an awesome and dangerous interviewer and no matter how he got the quote, he did get the quote and Morrison will have to place his virtually burned bum on a cushion for a little while. So why did the AFP need the metadata of Paul Farrell?

You see, I look at the article with different eyes, as a data miner I see other patterns and the article skates on one that seems to be ignored. We get that from “The AFP have undertaken a number of investigations targeting journalists’ sources, many related to stories about asylum seeker operations“, a statement where I see ‘many’ in a different light. I am wondering, especially in light of what was written why Paul’s data was sought for. My assumption is that there is another side to this. I personally reckon that Paul has had interactions with another person, on perhaps another story. I reckon that someone else is under investigation and Paul Farrell is only connected to some extent.

Can I prove this?

That is of course part of all this. You see, I cannot without seeing more than one source smitten with all this. But consider all the sources the Guardian has had. Any maritime issue can be much easier ascertained by the ASD (and it was a military led operation), they have a lot more resources and any maritime leak can more easily be traced at the maritime source (you know the instigating server side of things). In all this, the quote “Earlier this year Guardian Australia reported that the AFP had accrued a file of at least 200 pages on Farrell in an attempt to uncover and prosecute his confidential sources” from the ‘surveillance’ article now matters. It links to a Feb 12th article where we see the quote “In April 2014 I reported for Guardian Australia that one of the vessels involved in Australia’s unlawful incursions into Indonesian waters, the Ocean Protector, had gone far deeper into Indonesian waters than the government had disclosed“, which is the statement that caused all this. You see, the Ocean Protector is a government vessel, yet a civilian one that falls under the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service. The ASD has options here, but it seems overkill to use them when it is not a military operation. The ASD can rely on “The Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) provides foreign signals intelligence, known as SIGINT, to the Australian Defence Force and Australian Government to support military and strategic decision-making“. So why use the AFP instead of a much better equipped ASD? That is the question that comes to mind. What is without doubt is that this is not merely a Paul Farrell investigation. This is just a personal opinion, but when we see the amount of sources Paul Farrell had, in addition if the ship had an Automatic Identification System (AIS) on board, was it logged off and shut down? Even crew members with a smartphone turned on could have been enough of a source. A dozen sources all lower than open intelligence sources, were they looked at? In addition if the Ocean Protector had any switched on Esterline Technologies equipment on board, there might be additional ways to get certain information. I wonder how deep this was investigated before someone had the less than bright idea to, no matter how lawful I was, to the metadata of a journo?

The article raises questions, and what it does not tell us makes me wonder about several other questions, none of them considered.

In all this the by-line of a picture in the February article gives us “Michael Pezzullo, secretary of the immigration department, told a Senate committee this week he had referred a cabinet leak to the police. He also referred a Guardian Australia journalist to the AFP after a report that revealed a customs ship had entered Indonesian waters far deeper than previously disclosed“, which makes sense, yet that line gives me the issue of the Cabinet leak and a lot less about the Guardian leak. It seems to me that the massive file on Paul Farrell reads like a bright light, one that dissuades away from the cabinet investigation that is one that many parties would want to keep out of the press. I just wonder what Paul will find when he takes a look at that Cabinet member and the information that is being looked at. I am not certain that it will be about Asylum seekers or refugees, or another matter entirely, but that again is merely speculation from my side.

Can I be wrong?

Off course I can. You see, my speculations are merely the consequences of data I saw and other data I read. Now ask yourself, knowing the backlash spying on the press gets you; do you think that the AFP is actually this stupid? As I raised issues of location tracking in many forms, the essential part isn’t whether he got a hold of that data, the question becomes how many non-illegal methods could he have used to get it. So, the actions by the AFP seems to be a massive overreaction. That is even before we see whether the Ocean Protector is on http://www.marinetraffic.com. Even after that, there are Indonesian systems to consider. If anyone had revealed that data it would have been a political issue between Indonesia and Australia (the second party without any claim to secrecy within the territorial waters of Indonesia). All these mere issues, all clearly within the view of the public, the audience, the press and the governments at large.

So now ask yourself: ‘Is there any sense to exposing one’s self to internal investigation as the press demands visible answers?‘

That is why I got to the path I am on. Consider one additional path. If we consider a phone number, for example (purely a random example): 8816 273 14432, now consider that this is an Iridium sat phone. You see these puppies also tend to be on boats. They have been used in many non-metro environments since the mid 90’s. These puppy’s come with data and GPS enabled and Iridium is actually one of the better more secure solution, there are few cheap ones that offer very little security. So was this about Paul Ferrell, or did Mike Pezzullo (or one of his top minions) drop the ball in another way and was this his panic solution?

These are mere thoughts in all this. It took mere minutes to get to this place and I had initially read the article in February. We must acknowledge the issue that “Law enforcement did not need a warrant for accessing the information at the time“, which is not as much a cause for concern as people make it out to be. Let’s face it, we are all held to a need for results. So was the AFP wasting time? In my summary they were for other reasons. The need to give the image that they are looking in one area is adamant, for politicians the need for the AFP to look somewhere else is equally their personal need, yet where lies the real need? On the foundations given, it was clearly not looking aty Paul’s data I raised many issues on that matter.

This gets me to the final article. There is nothing about the article that is wrong, it is the reflection of Paul Farrell (at http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/15/australias-attacks-on-journalists-sources-are-about-politics-not-national-security). The title ‘Australia’s attacks on journalists’ sources are about politics, not national security‘ hits the mark on several issues. The quotes that I needed in my case were “It’s become a sadly normal reality that journalists’ sources can be targeted in Australia in an effort to hunt down whistle-blowers“, the operative word here is ‘can‘, which is not a given, just a mere option. It does not make the action correct. What is more an issue is “this is the first time the AFP has ever made such an admission in Australia“, you see, why is this the first time? Was there too much overwhelming evidence, or is was the clear visibility of the search a reason to hide something else?

You see, that could be seen as a clear case of ‘conspiracy theory’, but regarding the evidence. The document (at https://www.scribd.com/doc/298816051/Paul-Farrell-AFP-Decision-Letter-and-Documents) that reveals nothing really, there is too much marked out. So was this a clear case of wrongful investigation, or was that the case because it dims the lights of what the AFP is actually looking into. So when we see the quote “From the AFP’s point of view, it has done nothing wrong. As it has indicated in its statement, it has sought to undertake investigations within the scope of the law. It has “sought to identify the source of the disclosure, and then determine whether they had the appropriate authority to release that information”“, to me it shouts not ‘what was wrongfully looked at‘, in my personal belief it screams ‘We are actually sneakily looking at something else‘, again, it is a speculation and I could be massively wrong, yet there is enough in the air to wonder about that issue, not just by me.

 

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April 16, 2016 · 14:44

What inspiration was there?

There are several things going on. We have Brexit, Frexit, issues with government, bankruptcy of America and there are the tensions. Racial in America, religious in Europe and even in Canada, a nation where the scariest thing is switching off the lights now has a level of tension that Canadians have not seen in many decades. Yet, this is not a light article, this story will turn darker than black soon enough.

Yet, all is not lost, you see, one man’s disaster is another man’s fortune. An issue I actually just stumbled upon. The article that started it is not the one I’ll start with. Let’s start with: ‘Exodus of 10,000 millionaires amid rising Muslim tensions‘ (at http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/france-sees-millionaire-exodus-religious-tensions-rise-1552423), which is all about France. This article actually gives us a little more than some bargained for. The quote “The report was compiled by New World Wealth, an agency that gives information on the global wealth sector. The report was based on data collected from investor visa programme statistics of each country“, you see, that in itself sounds nice, but the super wealthy will have houses on Nassau, Manhattan, possibly London and South America or Australia. You see, these people can travel all over the place, their passports usually do not require visa’s as they go about their spending spree, meaning that they re-locate every 3-4 months, never entering anyone’s field of vision and the authorities will not care as they come to spend. It is the second part that does have an impact “annual interviews with around 800 global high net worth individuals and with intermediaries like migration experts, second citizenship platforms, wealth managers and property agents; data from property registers and property sales statistics in each country; and by tracking millionaire movements in the media“. I personally think that this goes a little further than that. Consider the following news: “Millionaires are leaving Chicago more than any other city in the United States on a net basis, according to a new report“, which is the news we got from the Chicago Tribune. That news is a little more over a week old, but the overall image is forming. The US cannot correct its infrastructure, the people are no longer safe in their homes and racial tension does the rest. These people will have options (as reported) in Seattle and San Francisco. I reckon when places like Minneapolis clean up its crime part, places like that, as well as Lancaster Pennsylvania will get additional attention, these are places with traditional grounding, meaning that older traditional values still bring strength to the table for now. For now is a massive element, but that changes as more and more imbalance sets in. All this because there was not clear correction after the Global Financial Crises in 2008. An issue fuelling Brexit, which only gives the US more to worry about when their currency takes a dive. So will the image of American mansions move to the image of mansions in South Africa, where a wealthy person has a high fence and armed security guard patrols?

Perhaps, but have no fear Vivos is on the case. You see at http://terravivos.com/ where you can tour the largest underground shelter. Is this mere scaremongering? I am not certain, let’s face it, when the dollar does collapse, it will be a dangerous day to be wealthy in America, this is the escalation that was always a risk and has grown into a real clear and present danger. These racial tensions are now getting labelled ‘the Trump effect’, yet is that actually valid? I am not certain, as poverty becomes a stronger issue, the issues between the Democrats and the Republicans will explode, yet overall that makes neither side evil or wrong. Yet, the followers on those two sides make that a realistic cause and effect escalation. As mentioned earlier, we see the rich moving away, but where to?

Other states were mentioned in articles, some will go abroad, yet no matter which of the two happen and state finances will take an additional dive. No matter how their taxation goes, these people spend a decent amount of money on a weekly basis, which now means that millions per week in retail is lost. It seems like a little thing, which it is on a spreadsheet, but in all that the middle class will get hit slightly harder and they have no means to just pick up and leave. They get to live through another downgrade of infrastructure and soon thereafter their funds start diminishing as the overall retirement focus gets lost to factors that do not matter.

So Vivos has a solution. Well, it uses (bought) some of the cold war executive storage facilities and have turned them into solid 5-star survival bunker. A little bit like the Fallout games. There is only one small difference. When these shelters are used, there is little chance that this will be because of nuclear needs. There will be no radiation shielding you from extremist ramifications. The intro movie on their site shows the very first Achilles heel (and that is not the only one). You see, the intro shows the entrance and the long way down to the entrance door. This means that the alternative is not getting in, it is just to dump one cement truck load of concrete down that hole. The cement once dried will make it impossible to open those steel doors (after you weld a bar in front of the entry door), you walk away and within 2 years 80 billionaires will be without food, water and an entrance. So after 15 months a few trillions will have been freed up. This is relatively easy as you only need to find one engineer who worked on it to find out where it was. A system this big will have been talked about, engineers talking to their little boys and girls on how daddy made a safe place for the President, so the location will no longer be a secret!

Yes, they can take loads of precautions, but in the end, it cannot be done from within the entrance and soon after everything that is not on the inside will move from asset to liability. How long do you think these people inside the bunkers have when that point arrives?

The issue remains, what we saw as fun fiction in the 2013 movie Elysium is a lot less far-fetched than one might believe. Even as we know that several sides are pure fiction, the idea of a space station for the super wealthy is technically possible. We have the technology to get it made, they have the cash to build it for real. Real Estate at a billion dollars plus, where the only issue is the oxygen, but that is a mere shuttle away. Yet to get the required number of billionaires out there to agree to this, is perhaps not yet possible. So what is left, a giant cruise ship? A place that never goes to any harbour? Here we have the increasing need of fuel and energy, which a space station would not have as solar panels would be active 24:7. So is a bunker as portrayed in the game series Fallout a reality? That is indeed the question, as stated, it might sound nice in case of pandemics and disasters, but the population is not a disaster (actually it is), those people can solve things, being in a fort is one thing, but when the outside walls are riddled with hostiles, it will only take one clever hostile to drill a hole and fill it with water or concrete. Vivos already has the pricing up for Indiana. $35K at a one-time price. Yet, what happens when the year is up? How to get food and how to get the other resources? Indiana has 80 places, Europa one in addition of 500. So what happens when they become an actual reality? Yet in all this, there is another side where Vivos might be regarded as a failure. The quote “built to provide a minimum of one year of autonomous underground survival before needing to return to the surface after the worst is over” gives them one year, but these social tensions will not be solved within a year. So what will happen when Europa one hits zero resources? They also offer bunkers for on your own property. A place like in those 50’s shelters on your own turf. Yet in all this Vivos is actually sitting on an additional product, you see, when we consider the shortage of housing, the need for something portable and something lasting. Apply this to something slightly more mundane like a 20 feet container and you have the beginning of a solution to get housing to refugee centres. I personally believe that the IKEA Solar-Powered Flat Pack Shelters for Easily Deployable Emergency Housing (at http://inhabitat.com/ikeas-solar-powered-flat-pack-refugee-shelters-offer-easily-deployable-emergency-housing/ikea-refugee-shelter2/) is easily set and shipped, yet they need construction. That is where issues could exist. Yet, if containers become part of the additional framework. Giving structural support on the sides making these houses even sturdier, than this is a solution that should be investigated. You see, the other solution is way too dark and it is one that many seem to be negative towards.

This goes beyond the mere need for refugees. When we consider the 7.3 earthquake that just hit the Kumamoto region implies the need for housing as a 7.3 quake tends to leave loads of people homeless as houses collapse. The Vivos solution is actually a lot sturdier in earthquake terrain as the aftershocks tend to lay waste to the IKEA solution, which makes perfect sense, IKEA brought an emergency solution, not a solution that survives emergency devastation.

In all this another side is illuminated. This is seen when we consider the news of January 26th 2016, when we got the news “The rarest of the black rhino subspecies, the West African Black Rhinoceros, is now recognized by the ICUN as extinct“, mainly due to poaching. So it is time to go into that darker than black place.

Do we deserve to survive?

Do we, rich or poor, healthy or not deserve to survive, this is the question that is on the minds of a fair amount of people. As more and more species become extinct, we need to consider the one part most people are unwilling to do. What happens when we make our own kind close to extinct? What is we get rid of 93%? Leaving us with a mere 500 million people over the entire planet? This gives the planet time to heal. The extinct species might not come back, but consider that it took 120 years to get from 1-2 billion, after that the growth got greater fast, growing a billion in mere decades instead of centuries. We need to get back to those times. There are additional benefits. There will be no job shortage, houses will be cheap as dirt. A life where there is no need for massive oil reserves, no need for Wal-Mart or other mass markets. A mere market for what we actually need. A massive reset of the planet. The question becomes, when we dwindle the population as the super-rich are in a bunker? Would that be an act of Genocide?

Genocide is defined as ‘the intentional action to systematically eliminate a cultural, ethnic, linguistic, national, racial or religious group‘, the UN adopted on December 9th 1948 the General Assembly Resolution 260 through the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG). This act is the crowning achievement by Raphael Lemkin, a lawyer of Polonized-Jewish descent.

Interesting is the definitions we see in articles 2 and 3 (at http://www.hrweb.org/legal/genocide.html). Here we see ‘acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such‘:

  • Killing members of the group;
  • Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
  • Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
  • Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
  • Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

This is the ‘interesting’ side in all this, the poor or the ‘abundantly present’ are not set definitions. So the question becomes, are we as ‘users’ of the planet not equally responsible for the continuation of the planet? What happens to that law when you have no set group, what happens when the goal is just to cull the population, what makes it genocide? If it is not that, how many ‘greens’ are willing to sit their life for murder when their hearts tell them that this act they undertook, saved the surviving animal species of this planet and the long list of extinctions end overnight?

By the way, if you think that my ideas are extreme, than realise that I was not the first to voice them. Dr. Eric R. Pianka voiced them in 2006. He got reported by William A. Dembski who informed the Department of Homeland Security that Pianka’s speech may have been intended to foment bioterrorism. Leave it to a person with degrees in Mathematics and Theology and mislabel a mathematical uncertainty as ‘bioterrorism’. In the end, Dembski is right, if we are to save the planet, bioterrorism might be all that is left as a methodology to achieve it. Chemical and nuclear leave too deep a mark on the planet and the life forms around us. Bio toxins have the danger of leaving a mark, yet when they are only affecting people, it becomes ‘less of an issue‘, especially when we leave 500 million alive, most of them farmers by the way. Soon thereafter the Tiger and Orang-utan will get their homes back. What Rhino’s remain can grow their numbers and the fish will reconquer the oceans. Whether it becomes a disease like Ebola as presented by Dr. Pianka or like in the TV Series Helix where 99% of the people are made infertile, we have however surpassed the time to sit back and relax, so it is not impossible that I see the actions required to achieve all this before I pass away.

If you do not believe me than ask the West African Black Rhinoceros, oh no, you can’t we made that one extinct already. So how much else is needed before we realise that out time has a diminished timeline? I once came to the calculations that we have little more than 7 generations left. 7 generations until we have destroyed our planet to the degree that it will no longer support viable eco system. The fact that Pianka made his presentation in 2006, gives weight that we are further down the rabbit hole than we predicted and that my calculation was optimistic. The interconnection of species has been ignored by those in mere pursuit of greed, the overall need for wealth that has taken a lush planet and decimated it in less than 200 years. What will we do yet? The Vivo presentation could be the idea of an entrepreneur marketing to conspiracy theorists with deep pockets, or are they banking on the need for extreme actions?

No matter what happens next, just consider that should the European Medicines Agency decide to tweak their ‘Test procedures and acceptance criteria for biological products‘ (at http://www.ema.europa.eu/docs/en_GB/document_library/Scientific_guideline/2009/09/WC500002824.pdf), whatever Vivo had open for sale could be sold at 6000% a mere 10 seconds later. By the way, one final thought in the process of infertility as produced by Ronald D. Moore (TV Series Helix), in light of that document on acceptance criteria. What would be regarded as a purity, an impurity or a contaminant?

 

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February 9, 2016 · 22:15

Prazosin for Bankers and Politicians

We all have views, we all have opinions and we all have insights. That is our right and I would never deny those rights to anyone. Yet, in any light, should we stop asking questions? Should we decide on one voice being more trustworthy than another one? Should a mere reference or the right PDF be value to that? That is a question every reader should have. You cannot just select one option and ignore the second one without evidence. Some we trust on their word, some sources we trust, and in other cases we trust our own gut feeling. Whatever choice you take here, you must always hold onto scrutiny that what you become aware of. Some you can decide on because of logic, some due to education and experience and some are based on the trust that others give it.

That is the first token, as I see it in any given situation.

When we get back to my previous blog (We do not Care Bears), I mentioned elements in the upcoming Brexit reference. In there a prominent Police Minister of State, namely Rafal Trzaskowski mentioned on the cost for Britain, with the additional mention that you can’t always get what you want. Now we see another specimen of the in this case partially Polish persuasion, namely Jacek Rostowski who gives us “The leave campaign must remember the advantages that Britain has negotiated over 40 years of EU membership that will be lost – as will the UK’s main route to global market access“, is that truly the case? Do you not think that many nations will find a backdoor in any arrangement if this means that they can export to a target audience of 65 million? In addition, the statement “It is hard to see how a market of 65 million could negotiate the terms achieved by that of 500 million“, which is a truth and a fact. What is not given is that the UK is 13% of that entire population. It is one of several nations that has had enough of irresponsible spending and non-accountability.

It is the title we see again in the very and “it is for the British people to decide, but the leave camp is selling a Pollyanna vision of Britain outside Europe that will never exist“, which sounds nice and clever, yet in all this, when a population of 65 million needs goods trade will occur. It did so before the Euro, it will exist after the Euro collapses. It is the rock star (the person I have written about and against) Yanis Varoufakis that gives us ‘The EU no longer serves the people – democracy demands a new beginning‘, which is not incorrect, but it was the Greek utter unacceptable acts (by some of the previous Greek administrations) that is bringing this about. Now we see that Greece is selling itself of to any industrial with enough cash like a cheap debutante. My issue there is that as premium opportunities are ‘given away’, Greece itself will end up having less and less options to grow a national economy. I feel certain that Yanis Varoufakis knows this. Yet, in the article (at http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/feb/05/eu-no-longer-serves-people-europe-diem25), he brings the goods that do matter “Brexit campaigners are promising voters that they can have their sovereignty and access to Europe’s single market. But this is a false promise. A truly single market, a genuinely level playing field, requires a single legal framework, identical industry, labour and environmental protection standards, and courts that will enforce them with the same determination throughout the single jurisdiction“, Yanis is not wrong, but I believe him to be incorrect. You see, he is not lying or deceiving you, the issue here is the exact statement that matters. Part one is “Brexit campaigners are promising voters that they can have their sovereignty and access to Europe’s market“, you see, Europe is not a single market, it only seems to be that way.

Take a look at this: “§24 EEG: falscher Alarm oder K.O. für Windbranche?” (Translate: §24 EEG: false alarm or KO for wind industry?), you see, there are still fractured markets, they are managed through a never-ending stream of European legislation. Consider the part “suggests that from 2016 effective six-hour rule the Renewable Energies Act (EEG) will halve revenue of new wind farms within 25 years“. Can anyone explain the utter unfathomability of this quote? (I am not saying it is a false quote; at http://www.erneuerbareenergien.de/24-eeg-falscher-alarm-oder-ko-fuer-windbranche/150/434/88817/), in my simple world, this cannot be. Consider the second quote “an oversupply of production electricity prices on the power exchange EPEX to 6 hours or more negative in a time-contiguous block are. Defacto means of temporarily stopping the market premium payment proceeds failure. That the threat potential of §24 is generally real, shows a view in the short history of the current prices in 2014, the at least six hours continuous phases added with continuously negative market electricity prices on a time volume of 37 hours, which then affected by the six-hour rule would have been. In the first half 2015 already 43 hours fell under the criteria of §24“, this implies that there are moments of oversupply. Now, that might be the actual truth, yet, this seems to imply that the entire renewable energy is linked and only allowed as addition to the fuelling of profit, when that goes renewable energy is not to be used, or to be charged negatively. (I know that my view of that quote is not entirely correct).

I am trying to state that if we truly believe in renewable energy, the moment there is an oversupply, non-renewable sources should be toned down, lowering the price of energy to the people. The article (in German) implies to me that this is another market that is driven to exploitation and profit. And what about the ‘over’ production? What if all that power fuels streetlights, hospitals, places that could benefit by not being charged for energy. If that is 6 hours as implied, we see the linked implication that 25% in cost reduction could be achieved.

In short, the single market of Yanis never existed, EEC legislation is in my view creating a fractal of legislative clustering, all with their own rules for maximised exploitation. The second part is “courts that will enforce them with the same determination throughout the single jurisdiction“, which is nice, but when the law falters on the levels is had, like, you know, jailing those politicians that spend the money Greece never had, would Greece be in such a mess? Well yes, because those laws actually do not exist. We see an influx on humanitarian laws, or perhaps better stated, a code guide to emphasize a surrealistic version of political correctness, yet how much protection did journalist Kostas Vaxevanis get? Was anything done with the published lists? Seems weird doesn’t it, that concept of single jurisdiction, does it not? Even within most national borders the idea of single jurisdiction is a bit of a stretch. Especially when we see the intermixing of issues of commercial and criminal law. We see banks not getting convicted for their actions, yet under intentional torts they could get a hefty invoice. When we get to Quasi tort, we see the case Re Goldcorp Exchange Ltd [1994] UKPC 3, where we get that the bank argued that the gold stocks had never been isolated, making all the gold customers unsecured creditors and that its security interest took priority. It is an argument that can be made, yet in all this consider the parallel where the Greek government ‘sold’ its bonds to the Greek retirement funds. Perhaps some people remember the news that the Financial Times had in Feb 2013 (at http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/91aae2a6-75f4-11e2-8eb6-00144feabdc0.html), which gets us: “Smaller Greek state pension funds, which are only able to invest in Greek government bonds that are held by the central bank as custodian, together had losses close to €10bn over the same period“, so does that not amount to hiding debts and giving worthless IOU notes to those retirement funds? Was this ever criminally investigated? Moreover, if it is not a crime, why wasn’t there a law enabled stopping this? Even a local Greek law might have helped a lot, but we have seen in many places that certain players will get away with murder, just look at Tesco and see which players are still not under public scrutiny to see that reality.

So, I have issues with this piece by Yanis Varoufakis, yet you should read it, because it is a good piece. Yet, in all that, he never mentions to hold the people and the laws to account as they fell short in the last decade, which I believe is crucial to any progress, any true progress of a shoddy economy. Because with corporate greed firmly in place, with a bubble where power seekers can fill their pockets, we will never get any solution. The realistic fact that over 1 in 3 Greeks are now in poverty should have been a large wakeup, but it seems not to be the case. As some players want their extra cream, fat and lollies, Greece gets to end with less than nothing, something that could have been prevented in 2014, but alas, the law was inadequate.

It would not have been easier, but at least Greece might have a few options, now they have none of those and even less possessions as the valuables have been sold off, a part I was never in favour of! So, let’s get back to the Jacek Rotowsky story (at http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/feb/08/brexit-pollyanna-vision-europe-leave-campaign-eu-uk), where we see “This reminds me of the Brussels phrase: “If you’re not at the table you’re on the menu.””, well, as I see it Poland will be, the UK is deciding that this restaurant is no longer for the UK. In that same environment we get the following Gordon Ramsay memes (I have no idea if he ever stated them as I do not watch his show).

  1. You burned the food so black, it stole my bike.

No Gordon! You placed the debt money next to the oven and its equity turned to ash.

  1. This mushroom is so raw, it says the princess is in another castle.

No Gordon! You cannot refer to the economy as an unpleasant situation and state that the other person is at fault.

So as we see how Jacek Rotowsky is about who is at the table and who is on the table, we are in actuality seeing that the UK finds this restaurant to be massively overpriced, whilst serving stale food. And they are not the only guests in attendance, you see, there are 2 dozen more people there. With the first shift (Brexit), France will immediately moving to a Bistro (Frexit), which leaves Germany and Italy in a lurch. Considering that these 4 have 70% of all the debt. Yet they still believe that moving out and taking their invoice with them will pay off for them in the medium long run mainly, because the other nations are just as bad in keeping their budgets and Greece is showing how the others are paying for their choices and errors. The only one in a bad place is Germany, because when the UK goes, so does France, unless it can make an ironclad deal with Germany, giving Italy chances to catch up, but if France goes, so does Germany and then the mess will be complete. The UK is not the first one to truly get a better deal, that is Germany, but overall both will be much stronger within 5 years. France will muddle on and the power blow that the US gets when the Euro goes is the nightmare scenario for whomever ends up in the oval office, only because greed could not be contained.

So as bankers and politicians grab the most powerful Prazosin solution they can charge their health care fund for, we see that this only dims the feeling the nightmare has, not the reality what a collapsed economy holds. That reality will be with the people, they get to learn this lesson because too many players were happy to quote unreal expectations of an improved economy, after which they would hide behind waves of managed bad news and not seek out the dangers that might have been a long term bet could now bring us the approaching reality that we see today and that could pan out to be the new life in Europe from 2017 onwards.

 

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January 3, 2016 · 11:12

An outlying frame of prediction

The Guardian had another interesting article to present, it came online on Jan 1st, but I just read it a mere moment ago. The nice part that this is about data, it is a little bit more about statistics, but I am not a statistician, I am a Data Miner. The title ‘Alarmingly for pollsters, EU referendum poll results depend heavily on methods‘ gave me the jolt I needed (at http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jan/01/eu-referendum-polling-results-depend-methods). From my point of view, the entire exercise is a failed event, no matter how you slice it. Before we go into the results, let’s take a quick look at the nations involved:

  1. UK, population 65,081,276
  2. France, population 67,063,000
  3. Germany, population 81,276,000
  4. Italy, population 60,963,000
  5. Spain, population 46,335,000
  6. Sweden, population 9,816,666
  7. Finland, population 5,475,000
  8. Denmark, population 5,673,000
  9. Portugal, population 10,311,000

Now look at two quotes: “It found strong support for the UK’s continuing membership, with an average of 53% of respondents favouring Britain’s continuing membership across nine other countries surveyed“, which might be fair enough, but then we get quote two, which is “Only in Norway, which is not a member of the European Union, would a slight plurality, of 34% to 27%, prefer to see the UK leave and join it outside the club“, this is interesting, because Norway is not one of the nine countries in the mix, which now implies that additional nations had been interviewed, so what happened, the others were less in favour?

Now we add the optional considerations “ICM also investigated the appetite in all these countries to call time on their own membership, in the event that their country staged an in/out referendum“, So ICM had another reasoning entirely, the ‘in the event that their country staged a referendum‘ is central to this, because that means that the questionnaire, the hypotheses and the methodology would be different from the get go, which is not even that central in my thinking process, but it is elemental to the entire event. Now, the question becomes whether this is all part of ICM Research a UK Market Research company, was it done as part of the umbrella called Creston Insight, or perhaps even a third part and I am linking the wrong ICM to the wrong company.

These are all valid considerations and in my case the assumption was done intentionally (and most likely to be correct).

You see the paragraph in the Guardian “Alarmingly for the polling industry, however, the result substantially depends on the method used. Nineteen of the 21 polls were done online, and among these the average advantage for remain shrivels to a dangerously slim two points. But the two telephone surveys that have been undertaken point to far bigger pro-EU leads of 17 and 21 points” shows the issue for me. The paragraphs result in the question, were 19 nations interviewed? If so, why are they not all mentioned, in another option, were two methodologies used in the nine countries? One via phone and one via online, which makes perfect sense, but then an even amount of polls should have been used. All the article does is wonder how reliable the approach is, and if at all, are politicians even interested in doing it fair and square?

You see, if the results can sway a lingering vote (which is a given fact) than we can see that the poll could be used to sway some to ‘follow’ the largest group (with a tie a much harder thing to influence), but influence is a given.

For me, the number one issue were none of these items, in my case it was the mention at the very end. The quote “ICM interviewed a representative sample of at least 1000 adults online in each of nine European countries on 15 and 30 November 2015. Interviews in each country have been weighted to the profile of adults living within it” this is the issue, because a sample of 1,000 can never ever be representative of a population of 81 million, not even representative of a population of 46 million, there is no amount of weighting that can give anything but the roughest of estimations. The more representative the sample is for households, the larger the interviewing sample needs to be. There might have been the slightest reliability if a sample of at least 10,000 was used per nation and I use the word ‘slightest’ in the most liberal of ways. The moment we introduce, gender, income and education 10,000 might not slice it either. You see, yes, weighting can be applied, but than a single response could represent a group of 50,000-100,000, how reliable do you think that one voice would be regarding the other 49,999-99,999?

1,000 might be budget based, but this would then reflect a budgeted population that holds no reliability at all.

Sampling can be a real science, but when we see frequency weighing to this amount, we can safely say that science has been replaced by educated guessing, which is not the way to go. Consider France for a moment. Consider that in regions people feel very different, the two regions where Le Pen are powerful, they will not be in favour of the EEC at all, the others regions might be (read: might be). Now consider that France has 22 administrative regions, so in fairness we get roughly 50 responses per region, 25 males and 25 ladies, so per education level en perhaps even per age group, how much remains? How representative are these 25 people for that region? Now consider that not every region has the same population, so the 50 people representing the 11 million that make up for get a very different weight from those representing the 4 million in Normandy. Are you catching on how utterly unreliable those numbers have become? And how is this done for the UK? Or did ICM decide to get in quick and fast so the capitals make up for the bulk of the votes, which in case of Sweden makes sense as the bulk lives in Stockholm, Goteborg or Malmo. So as there is a hint of truth that it might all be about methodology, the required setting can never be met by 1,000 responses per nation as I see it, in addition there is still the unlisted Norway. So ether the article made a few jumps (which could be fair enough) or the reference to ICM in all this should be answerable to a lot more questions than the article is currently giving.

I need to end this with one final quote: “if the huge differences between online and telephone surveys persist, one method or the other can expect to face a bruising referendum, because they cannot both be right“, from the parts I responded to, there is another option all together, neither are correct. They are not flawed, but wrong for the simple fact of sampling size and the quote given “in the event that their country staged an in/out referendum“, which means that there would have been a different hypothesis that needed answering and even then, the sample of 1,000 would never been have anywhere near useful.

A group of 9,000 can never be representative of a group surpassing a third of a billion that should be massively clear to anyone from the get go, even more so when you consider the different lifestyles and values held in Scandinavian nations versus most of Western Europe and that is just the tip of the statistical considerations.

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December 29, 2015 · 11:19

Ignorance is not an option

Moments of scandal within the IDF are rare, but oh boy, when they do happen, they don’t seem to be light ones. That was the first thought I had when I updated my news brief last night and the news ‘Israel’s armed forces shocked at dismissal of missile defence chief‘ (at http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/dec/28/israel-armed-forces-shocked-dismissal-missile-defence-chief-yair-ramati) caressed my pupils. Yair Ramati an Israeli veteran was sacked for a “grave breach of information security”, the added quote “Israeli media reports said Ramati had broken protocol when he transferred documents to his computer, making them easier to steal” was an additional reason for concern. Israel, a nation that has been under attack for decades, where Muslim fanatics will seek any way to get a hold of information that can further any anti-Israeli cause got a little help when Yair Ramati transferred documents to his personal computer. Now the issue is not that simple, because I myself tend to hold much higher levels of protection on my own computer than the corporate networks tend to have, as such it would be safe, but infrastructure and the rules on them are clear in most networks, even more so in the slightly less trusting environment of the IDF, so what gives?

In the world of cyber, ignorance is no longer an option, ignorance can quite literally get you and your friends killed. Socially, Financially or actually killed in a death certificate kind of way, the IDF (read: Mossad Cyber division) is very aware of that and for a person like Yair Ramati to make a mistake like that, is it complacency or just plain stupidity?

Well, I am less on the side of stupidity, because stupid people do not head the Iron Dome project, they just remain janitors; so should we ‘over-analyse’ this? Yes we should, mainly because complacency is a massive issue. We all do this at times. Any person who states no is either lying to you or will soon be lying to you. We all drop the ball at times, the error might be small and it will not be to the extent of copying files to a personal computer, but those moments will happen. Phishers, hackers and others are all awaiting you to make that basic flaw one day. The only excuse where such a flaw might be excused (to some extent) is burnout. We get to be too exhausted and in one moment we think ‘oh whatever’ the moment you endanger it all.

That is the moment we need to worry about, because it will always happen.

ABC had an interesting quote “Three people familiar with Mr Ramati said, on condition of anonymity, that he had improperly handled classified documents but was not accused of criminal misconduct like espionage“(at http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-12-28/israeli-missile-defence-director-dismissed-over-security-breach/7056400). From the data I have on Yair Ramati I feel like I should explicitly agree (not that my view can be expertly vetted), but a man like Yair Ramati with decades of loyal service does not commit espionage as I see it, the state of Israel will use his services again and again and with the last three years of missile attacks, I reckon burn out set in and Yair Ramati had his ‘oh whatever‘ moment. This event is a wakeup call for the Israeli security services in more than one way, because this situation could have more than one person in such a predicament. Some of the boffins at the IDF are in dire need of some mental health support, not in the way that they are unbalanced, they actually are, as some of them are exhausted!

A side Hamas and Hezbollah might be hoping for at present, you see when the really good ones are too tired mistakes are made and those mistakes will be exploited. And these exploitation might be on an additional side too. You see, as ABC reported “Israel has received hundreds of millions of dollars in US funding for the three missile defence systems, whose private contractors include Boeing Co, Raytheon, and Elbit Systems“, what happens when its main conductor is no longer creating the symphony? What will that mean for the product at large? We might focus on Iron dome, but the stretch goes a lot further than this. Consider places like Ashot Ashkelon Industries Ltd. People like Haim Defrin and Julian Cohen, unlike the board with people like Avi Felder, Yoram Shechter, Yehuda Gai et al. Haim and Julian are in the thick of things. With additional military pressures and of course the responsibility to get the highest quality, they are under constant need (read: pressure) to deliver, when were they taken aside, to unwind, educate them on common cyber sense and when were their stress levels reduced? Not to mention their parent company IMI (Israel Military Industries). For every organisation, there tends to be an In Bitching Mode overall whining umbrella corporation, nes paz?

So in that light, it is not entirely impossible that Udi Adam and Avi Felder at IMI could be facing dilemmas of a similar kind within their infrastructure, the question becomes, is it happening, is it containable and unlike the step made now by sacking Yair Ramati, can a solution be found to reinvigorate the soul of the loyal population that has been pushed and pushed again and again?

You see, some might see the transgression by Yair Ramati as a part of legal and security (not debating that), but we all forget that Common Cyber Sense is equally Operations, Strategy and HR. HR has a much bigger role to play, because if this is stress and burnout, than it is clear in my view that HR failed the people who have been loyal to their infrastructure, success all the time is an illusion, a person will fail to some extent, the issue is to make sure that the damage is averted. I cannot state whether this was an option for Yair Ramati due to the size of the transgression, but certain questions are asked to the lesser extent. It is the Guardian quote “The former director of the Israeli atomic energy commission, Uzi Eilam, told Israel Radio he had known Ramati for 30 years and found the news hard to believe“, in a place like Israel, when a person with 3 decades of knowledge has an issue, my view is that the dismissal might not be an overreaction, but the issues leading to this are a lot more important than we realise and another set of proper investigations (by the right people) is an essential next step.

Ignorance is not an option and the question becomes was that ignorance just in the court of Yair Ramati, or had that ball been dropped by his superiors in another field at an earlier stage?

It is not a question I can answer with the information I have, but there are enough indicators to ask that question out loud, now it is up to the right people over there to ask a similar question and it is up to them to do some proper investigations.

 

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