Category Archives: Science

November 27, 2015 · 18:29

What is the mission?

This is not about Russian jets, I feel that some members of the press are only now realising certain elements in that case (better late than never) and in addition, the second element towards the cauldron filled by the demons of idiocy will require a little more investigation (legal papers can be consuming, with an exam due on Monday that part must wait). What is interesting is the article by Keith Stuart called ‘Has video game reviewing become an impossible task?‘ (at http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/nov/25/video-game-reviewing-critics-industry). He starts with: “four of the year’s biggest releases – Fallout 4, Call of Duty: Black Ops 3, Star Wars: Battlefront and Rise of the Tomb Raider – three stars out of five. All are decent in a lot of ways, all have intriguing ideas and look beautiful – but each of them is lacking in fundamental areas“, of course with my passion in there (fallout 4) that 3 out of 5 is not an acceptable rating (perhaps I am slightly biased). Now by itself, Keith is very much allowed to give that rating. It is his view, his review and as such I will not become an anti-Keithereen, however I still disagree!

I will skip both Call of Duty and Star Wars battlefront. Apart of not having played them, I am not a fan of either title, which is a massive issue when reviewing games!

Yes, you can remain neutral, you can look at a title academic, but how many academics can truly explain to you a poem or a painting? These items must be heard and seen, reading about them is often not a workable solution. In this, you must rely on the names of reviewers who are enthusiastic on that type of game. Yes, we can get a good indication of any game, but the non-fanatic will more often than not miss things, if that person did not miss anything, we must allow for the notion that the article gets to be ‘coached’ by the game makers. This is not something we want to see, especially when we consider the results from Ubisoft these last two years.

In this paragraph I will illustrate what I mean by giving a view, which will be revealed at the end (no peaking readers! see if you can make out what it was).

When I look to my left I see a man in pink, well groomed standing between a couple naked. They are outside and I notice the bunnies, a cat, blackberries, with blooming trees and a little pond in the foreground. When I turn to the right, I see what is either a gangbang or an orgy. I cannot hear the music, but there are plenty of musicians and no one in that crowd has any clothes on, I see a lady holding what seems to be a wine can, I noticed her firm breasts. She does not look happy, I think she is the waitress and this is the outfit of the evening. The other guests are enjoying the company of each other and they seem to leave the lady alone. In the distance I notice a mill and a castle burning. Perhaps this is what they are celebrating? I cannot tell! In front of me there is another garden party, none seem to be dressed. The people are talking and eating fruit. I see it all form a distance, I am not invited to this party.

You might find the paragraph weird, but the explanation will follow at the end.

You see, I do not disagree with the Rise of the Tomb Raider review, I would have given the same, but only because of the graphics, which are sublime to say the least. The game is not unlike the previous game, too easy to play and to finish, not that large in the end and repetitive and scripted items are too common in this game. I would state that this game is, to some extent, nothing more than a next generation version of ‘Dragons Lair’. I felt massively happy that I did not pre-order this game. When the game gets priced down to $29, I will most likely get it, because the graphics are truly amazing, no doubt about that. You see Fallout 4 is definitely 4 stars. As a fan I would like to give it 5 stars, but there are flaws and there are a few glitches (which is utterly unavoidable with a game of this size).

Now we get to a few quotes that bothered me: “The reviewer would then play it for a few days, often to completion” the second quote is to the point: “There were occasions where reviewers were forced to assess an incomplete version of the game, in which case the publisher would send a list of known bugs and beg that you ignore them, because they’d all be sorted before release“, I have been there several times. I had no issue with that, yet in the old days QA was a lot better dealt with by software houses, whilst the game makers are pushed by their marketing department to push out as soon as possible and rely on patches. So Keith is correct here, in the old days there was a straightforward process. In those days the makers were in charge, not its marketing department. Then we get “Nowadays, publications determined to get a review out on day one will be asked to attend special events, where access to the review code is strictly controlled and monitored” They did exist in the old days too, but they were pretty rare. In several of those cases it involved a gold master for let’s say PlayStation and only a developers system could run that, so going there was pretty essential. I had a few of those visits to London where I went to Virgin Interactive Entertainment. Whilst on the way back I bumped into Richard Branson and shook his hand, apparently it was Noel Edmonds (from Noel’s House Party), so I had that little embarrassing moment to survive.

This brings us to the event where Keith hits the nail on the head: “These days, you’re not a consumer when you buy a new game, you’re an investor. That’s a weird psychological leap to make“, I agree and I do not totally agree with the setting there. When we take a beta game as an early adopter (like Elite Dangerous) I get it and that is fair. When we look at a $110 full game that is incomplete and lacking it becomes something else. We again get to Assassins Creed Unity, which should never have gotten the 80% ratings that many gave, especially with the lack of stability, the bugs, the glitches and a few other failings. Any reference to ‘new console’ should be ignored as Black Flag did not have those bugs (as far as I saw). Personally I believe that software houses are more and more blocking reviews when their release is flawed, the fact that in light of AC Unity there were stories about embargos and NDA’s, which only made things worse.

Yet Keith has more gems to offer in the article: “Since the very beginning, game reviews have operated in a confusing no man’s land between arts criticism and product assessment“, this is where I agree almost completely. In my view it is a merging of both, without the console you cannot play, without the insight of the art you cannot comprehend, both are required. The third element here is the topic, the theme or the environment. You must have a certain feel for it, because without the third part the game will not be adequately be dealt with, the review of a product the reviewer did not understand. I will try to explain it. In those days we had ‘Myst’, which now seems to be ‘the Talos Principle’. If you have no patience for puzzles and mind boggles, you will miss out on the game. In my days there was Myst, I played it to some extent and the graphics were beyond believe, but I never got some of the puzzles, which meant that you become an aimless ‘clicker’ on objects, hoping that something will react. That takes away from the experience as frustration will set in sooner rather than later.

The next part is a little less agreeable. “Reviews would compartmentalise each game into its constituent parts – graphics, sound, playability – with each often separately rated in ever more complex conclusion boxes. This approach reached its logical conclusion with the 1980s magazine ACE, which reviewed games out of 1000, and provided a “predicted interest curve”, which attempted to map out the longevity of the game – like the lifecycle of a vacuum cleaner“, I disagree here. Yes Keith seems to state his view decently, but he forgets a little part here. When we see Rise of the Tomb Raider, we see a 30Gb game on a Blu-ray, yet the very first one Tomb Raider on PlayStation (one), offered 300% more gaming, challenges and puzzles on a disk no more than a CD (600Mb), when you know that you will be playing this for MONTHS longevity becomes a factor. And in those days there was no internet with cheats and walkthroughs, you actually had to get through the game by yourself, or with friends giving you clues (many false ones). In those days Lara was truly exploring stuff and as a result so were you. I still remember those final bosses and how one if the very first secrets in level one was one that I did not solve until much later. The massive increase of graphical quality should also not be ignored, that part has been continued, but as the games are now almost utterly flawless, the size of the game seems to be a mere fraction of that what was.

Yet, this is not a given, you see, RPG’s only became bigger, much bigger. Fallout 3 and Fallout 4 show this (as does Skyrim and a few others). I personally believe that the games are not more complex to review, for the most the makers are now too scared on any level of quality critique. So as Fallout 4 got 3 stars from Keith, the makers will have seen this game as a clear 5 stars (I remain at 4 stars), which is at the heart of the issue as well. Marketing fears the reviewer because they lose control at this point, which gets me to Ubisoft and their embargo and NDA. I have only faced one NDA ever, that was from Adobe and they had the valid reason as I got access to the product several months before release. So basically I could prepare the review and much closer to the release date (I believe roughly a month before the official release). I got the final product to write about and upgrade my initial article. That is a valid part. Game makers have for a larger extent lost the visionary part that the old makers had, which is also part of this situation. It is not just the reviewer, it is the product! Keith does go there! He quotes: “But unlike books or movies, games are now evolving platforms, open to updates and improvements“, again I disagree. The game in its core foundation should be the reviewed product. ‘The last of Us’ is an amazing achievement all by itself, ‘Left Behind’ is just an additional element which is totally worth the extra cash. The relaunch of Tomb Raider for all its graphical brilliance was not. There is another side to the quote of Keith and it does matter. When we see Skyrim his words do definitely hold meaning, but in another way. You see Skyrim was a complete product, people played it and then they improved upon it. Even today, 4 years after release that game is still being improved upon. Console players like myself miss out and for all the options I am jealous not having a decent gaming PC. That is seen in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCU862nVpJ0. Here we see some of the most incredible graphics. 4 years after release that game can be replayed and the amazement of graphical brilliance will overwhelm you. So here we also see longevity in another way. Bethesda created a game that allows people to enjoy the RPG world for a lot longer than we bargained for and as such we will anticipate an almost equal evolution and the first mods are already available. This takes care of the RPG, but I will not increase the score for that reason because it would not be fair to the other game styles. The issue is that Fallout 4 is massive, even as I relaunched the game, find places I missed the first time because I turned right instead of walking on the same road. Houses that are not on the map, places with some lovely items for my survival. More important, Fallout 4 is nothing like the previous version. In the previous version repairs was important, now guns will not break, but evolving weapons into something a lot more powerful (believe me, you will need that). The game has elemental differences which makes for an evolved game, which makes it partially a new game. My old tactics did not work as well as I expected which was awesome! Evolving new tactics is part of the fun. I heard that there is even an option to get through a big part of the game without killing the animals, how is that for a challenge? Yes, Fallout 4 is my baby so I give it a higher rating, not the highest as I am a realist. Yet my version does not invalidate Keith’s view.

Keith ends his article on strong curve: “All art forms are subject to erosion, but with games, that impermanence is now built in like a self-destruct mechanism. As a consequence, reviewing games is like reviewing a relationship: you only know what you have in that moment, and even then, nothing is certain or solid. Both the author and the reader need to understand that now“, it is a good view to have, but is it relevant? The impermanence is only founded on multiplayer issues. The solo part of a game remains a reality for a long time. Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots can still be played and as long as the PS3 is around the game remains playable. Keith is right, Mass Effect 3 multiplayer will at some point stop, but with Destiny it is all multiplayer, so like World of Warcraft, the game will evolve, the servers will evolve and we will end up with an upgraded version, this does not invalidate the previous review, it would only validate the newest review. I also agree that reviewers need to adapt, but in all this I disagree with the title, reviewing a game is not an impossible task. It just requires the right editor with a good set of balls and mentoring skills, because the best reviewers tend to be younger and they lack journalistic skills. Now for the conclusion, I promised to talk about the ‘description’. I was looking at The Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch. I shows that I am not an art critic and I left out a few details too (on purpose here), yet what items would I have forgotten? That is the part that matters, that is why a level of passion for certain games are required. I will never review GTA because I personally do not like that game, it needs to be reviewed by a fan of that play style with a firm foundation of realistic reviewing. In all this do not forget that you do not have to agree with me and that Keith is from his point of view not wrong, I just think he was not correct, which is not the same. My view evolved from reviewing games all the way back to the VIC-20, the beginning of the 8-bit era, a lifetime ago.

And it is merely my view on the matter.

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Filed under Gaming, IT, Media, Science

Tagged as Call of Duty: Black Ops 3, Dragons lair, Elite: Dangerous, Fallout 3, Fallout 4, Keith Stuart, Left Behind, Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, Myst, Noel Edmonds, Richard Branson, Rise of the Tomb Raider, Skyrim, Star Wars Battlefront, the Guardian, The Last of Us, the Talos Principle

November 7, 2015 · 21:31

What was the right question?

There is an article in the Guardian called ‘Which laptop should we buy for our child?‘ (at http://www.theguardian.com/technology/askjack/2015/nov/05/which-laptop-should-we-buy-for-our-child), you might think that I have an issue with the article, and I do, but not perse with the article. The article is quite decent, however the article is about a ‘solution’. I learned recently that solutions are vague, they are transient and they fade the moment you give them. You see, as a great teacher not too long ago taught me, it is about trust and about answering needs.

I understand what Jack writes, he gives good advice and I would have given a similar advice, yet at some point I learned something new (we all do, trust me). What are the needs of the child? Now, the child might not understand it has needs here (other than cool games, and we can see that in schools laptops, or better stated ‘fat’ mobile devices are going to be the trend. Whether this is an Airbook like the Mac has, a Chromebook like ASUS has or another device in a similar capacity, the child will need to move forward.

Yet, am I not in a mode where the answer is given? No, let me explain. Jack mentions the Windows 2-in-1 “detachables”, which sounds nice Mr. Schofield, but that trend is now, it is 2015, what about 2016 or 2017? What happens when those trends shift? By the way the sentence “we can’t afford to spend lots of money“, so as such Apple will not become a solution any day soon. Interesting the Chromebook solution that many carry are on average of $250 cheaper (Australian comparison), a part not mentioned anywhere, that optional solution did not make it to the table.

For me, do I think it is a solution? I am not at all certain, you see, the needs of the child are unknown. So why spend money? To give the kid some skills? Well that is all good and fine, so why is the possible solution for a tablet; a mere Android based tablet at one third of the cost of a Chromebook not decently investigated? The mention of the tablets (all 6 mentions was regarding the push to the 2015 trend of a ‘detachable’. You see, the object of usage is a small person about to celebrate the moment of his ninth birthday. Kids have accidents, they break things (unintentional), your youngling drinks lemonade and other liquids. So you want to put a laptop there? With his excited friends that is an accident waiting to happen. So, how will you afford the second laptop?

The simplest tablet with a decent casing costs less than a hundred quid. For £49.99 you get a very basic one. The best thing is that the skills will transfer to a laptop or a larger tablet when your child is ready, more important, there is no way of knowing what the needs will be when he gets to a decent school level, when he gets to year 10, what will he need? Perhaps the school provides? Also, the pricing would have gone down to such an extent, that the one device you cannot afford now, could be really affordable in 2016.

So many people so many options, why answer them at all? Why not give the device that at least lets your little one to grow skills and answer the call to the device your young one needs when the moment is there?

So yes, Jack Schofield gives advice, it is sound advice but in all this, he failed to mention that some devices are limited and to get a better return, a much higher cost comes into view. You see a mere simple version from Asus might be £195.64, yet when you consider how fast 32GB is gone you will need something bigger, that will take you to £289.99 very fast. In my situation, I do not offer a solution, for £49.99 you get a very simple device that allows the little one to grow skills, and in 2-3 years when his skills have really outgrown the 8GB device, he might get that same device not for £289.99, but for £179.99, perhaps even less, so the little tablet paid for itself.

Part of me understands that the next generations needs to be clued in, logged in and online earlier in life, I will not stop it, oppose it or question it. Yet in all this we must also answer what is the best to make your child grow. Perhaps it is the 2 in one that Jack Schofield mentioned, but I am not convinced. You see with the quote: “there are several ways to run Android apps on Windows PCs, such as BlueStacks and AmiDuOS” is all about getting someone to windows. Why? I do not oppose Windows as I use it myself. After the blunders Windows 8 had, I am not willing to trust Windows 10 at this point, yet Microsoft is willing to mandatory push it to its user base regardless of what the consumer thinks. A methodology I do not support. This was shown in another Guardian article by Samuel Gibbs where we see: “Consumer users of Windows 10 will have no choice but to accept the installation of automatic updates, even if they break software for them” (at http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jul/17/windows-10-updates-mandatory-home-users), what happens when our choice of software breaks? Are we forced to a Microsoft solution? How is that not an instilled dictatorship? The final quote from that article was “Automatic updates may also create a situation where an update breaks something on a computer system, perhaps a legacy program“, which is what many will face over the next decade. Microsoft is starting a cleaning operation and the user is losing their rights. I might have had to pay $199 for my Windows 7, but at present trusting my system on the net is not an option, that trust was destroyed by Microsoft in a way 10,000 viruses could not. Regardless of that choice, Jack should have remained a lot more neutral than he did. I believe for the bulk of all needs Android fills the requirement of a user, this does not take away to prospect of Microsoft, but last time you looked, which software was free? Weirdly enough, for the normal student, the software like writing, calculating and presenting is free on android and Linux. Apple and Microsoft charges for that.

Yet in all this, where are the needs of the user? When he gets to the setting up of things he is addressing fear in my humble opinion. Now let me add one too. The text: “Windows 8.1 and 10 will email you a weekly record of your son’s activities: how many hours he’s used his PC, the websites he’s visited, and how long he spent in his favourite apps“, so are you the only one who gets this, or will Microsoft have this data too? There is validity in keeping your child safe, but that starts with the need for strong passwords and knowing what to do and what not to do. Your child will make mistakes and even today many adults still make these blunders and larger ones too!

So in my view, spending little is not a shame and your child should be safe, but consider the options hackers and malware have nowadays, it is close to impossible to stop, in that case let it be a device that when it happens will not infer heavy losses. In that part, let me end with another quote the article has “I don’t think it’s worth buying or installing the full desktop programs for a 9-year-old“, which is true, so how large are the hands of a nine year old. Can they not hold onto a 7” tablet easier? More important, when he gets soaked in the rain and his backpack got drenched, my money will be on a skinned tablet not any laptop or ‘2 in one’ solution to survive that ordeal.

In the end it is as I expect growing skills with your child. I get that, and I applaud that approach, yet let it be skills, playful skills and artistic skills. Let the child enjoy their life until year 6 when the skills will be tested, let them grow into the savvy programmer they can be and get them the system they can handle and let them grow into a stronger system, the needs of any child will grow stronger when ingenuity is required, factual evidence that has been known for decades. Yet how they grow will usually be up to them, not you or me, or their teachers for that matter, we can only hope to guide them in a decent direction, let’s not forget if you as a parent do not have the skills to guide them, where will they get their example? What happens when they follow the wrong example?

In the end, what was the right question? Which device allows your child to grow in all directions a device offers growth? On which device are their drawing skills challenged? Anyone can type a text, anyone can do ‘math’ with a spreadsheet, yet the art of drawing (a skill I never mastered) is getting lost more and more in this world of laptops, is that not a shame too?

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Filed under IT, Media, Science

Tagged as 2 in One, Airbook, AmiDuOS, Android, Asus, BlueStacks, Chromebook, Jack Schofield, LINUX, Mac, Microsoft, the Guardian, Windows 10

November 3, 2015 · 23:51

Fail it until you nail it

Another day another moment I roll my eyes. You see the Guardian came with an interesting article, interesting and kind of useless (OK, useless is a bit of a stretch). Let’s explain that part. The title is interesting enough. When we see ‘World’s biggest tech companies get failing grade on data-privacy rights‘ (at http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/nov/03/data-protection-failure-google-facebook-ranking-digital-rights), many of us, me included get to be a little curious.

The first part is shown here: “Given a percentage grade on privacy, freedom of expression and their commitment to those value based on an exhaustive analysis of their user agreements, no single company scored an aggregate grade above 65%“, the quote by Rebecca MacKinnon might sound nice, but she should know better in more than one way.

In the first, some of these companies are so global that many rights tend to be an upper level aggregation of the nation with the least rights. If America wasn’t so Prudishly Hypocritical a lot less would be ‘censored’. In addition, a global internet sounds nice, but it is crossing borders with national legislation, the internet does not get to have rights above national legislation, even in nations that are as liberal as it gets, issues will rise and the largest tech companies are trying to surf those waves as Rebecca MacKinnon very well knows. I am even more worried when a company like Vodafone (aka Vodafail in Australia) scores better than Twitter.

As for the grades, the beginning of the methodology (at https://rankingdigitalrights.org/project-documents/2015-indicators/#TOTAL) rears its ugly head in an interesting way when we look at question C3.

Here we see:

C3. Internal implementation

Does the company have mechanisms in place to implement its commitment to freedom of expression and privacy?

Checklist elements (select all that apply):

The company provides employee training on freedom of expression and privacy issues.

The company maintains an employee whistle-blower program.

The items here are the fun part:

The company provides employee training on freedom of expression and privacy issues.

Let’s take a look at some of these ‘great’ techies. Orange, Vodafone and Axiata. All telecom companies. In order of mention: ???,92000,20000. So let’s say 125,000 staff members, so should employee training on freedom of expression be available to all? In Addition, Orange merged in several nations. These mergers include France Télécom and T-Mobile UK, whilst in addition Orange is being phased out by its parent company EE Ltd. (aka Everything Everywhere). And for the whistle-blower part. How often was this a ‘hidden’ option to commit gross and unacceptable industrial espionage? As a Journalist it might sound like a sexy article, but did she for one moment realise that tech corporations need to hold onto their IP on several levels? Her book might be regarded as ‘amazing’ (Consent of the Networked: The Worldwide Struggle for Internet Freedom), yet when I read: “Though the technology used for coordinating and organizing may be politically neutral, the context in which it is deployed is rarely so. Governments everywhere—whether they do business in the home government of companies or in the host government of markets—are demanding that Internet and telecommunications companies take sides, or at least stand back and avert their eyes while the government does what it needs to do, leaving the user or customer none the wiser.”, I worry!

Americans seldom comprehend that the right to be an utter idiot is not a god given right. In some places you get to be held accountable. I will go one step further, most of these self-proclaimed freedom fighters have excelled, through their train of thought, in protecting criminals and organised crime, which is some feather to put in your resume!

In addition, as people are crying for a free internet they also hold others accountable for their own stupidity.

Let’s show this with an example. If we change all global policies so that as per January 1st any hacked account who did not have a proper password will not be refunded, so the issue “Most banks will refund you your lost money after you sign some forms saying that you had nothing to do with the theft” will now include that not having proper quality passwords in place will be regarded as ‘assisted theft’. So you get no refund! I reckon it will take less than 1 day for the entire internet to go crazy regarding the injustice of that ruling. This is the issue, Rebecca MacKinnon doesn’t want a free internet; she wants an unaccountable internet. In her ‘netizenship’ she wants a free internet to hold governments to account, but in her virtual nation she has done nothing to hold those netizens accountable for Cyber bullying, harassment and assault on one’s devices. In that world there is no ‘Netfray’ (a made up crime definition), which might be freely seen as per adjusted version of the Crimes Act 1900 section 93C(2) “Netfray, a person who uses or threatens unlawful cyber violence towards another and whose conduct is such as would cause a person of reasonable user skills present at the scene to fear for his or her personal data and internet safety is guilty of netfray and liable to imprisonment for 10 years“.

That part we will not see!

This is what makes that report an issue. Tech companies need to protect themselves non-stop. So, even as we agree that the cyber joke (aka Ashley Madison) is one side, the other side is Sony, which has a massively higher level of protection. In the latter case it is still speculations from many sides (including one from me), but a real timeline, and an account of events that could be decently precise was never revealed. Now I would expect that both sides of the fence prefers to keep it a secret, but in my view that hack was never clearly solved.

In that environment Rebecca MacKinnon wants an open internet, who is she kidding?

Back to that report, because the mentioned items are connected to what comes next!

F11. Identity policy (Internet companies)

Does the company require users to verify their identity with government-issued identification, or with other forms of identification connected to their offline identity?

More important, the part that follows: “This indicator is only applicable to Internet companies. We expect companies to disclose whether they might ask users to verify their identities using government-issued ID or other forms of identification that could be connected to their offline identity. Evaluation: This indicator has two possible answers. A company will receive full credit if its answer is “No,” and a company will receive no credit if its answer is “Yes.””

So as hackers use dummy accounts, trolls use fake id’s and Identity thieves use your id to have ‘fun’ and profit from what is not theirs, finding ways to stop them loses you a credit. There are places where a person’s ID is not the issue, but in this day and age those places are quickly diminishing. If you doubt this (always an option) then perhaps you remember Caroline Criado-Perez, who did something truly British by petitioning for Jane Austen to be face of the Bank of England £10 note.

By the way, the amount of death threats she got, how many of those people got arrested, how many of those got convicted? Yes, an open internet would stop all that! (That’s my sarcasm for voicing ‘no it will not’).

Another issue with her quotes is seen here: “Part of the problem is that this is a new world with the internet, and we are so dependent on these companies that we really need them to get it right. And they have a lot of work to do.”, so how about hammering on proper legislation and better issues on prosecuting some of those offenders? When the internet gets cleaned up, a lot more leeway could be given to something like the internet. In this a nice example is given by herself as she answered a question on movie piracy (September 2012), “the fact they are kids and they’re doing stuff and they don’t even realize it is illegal, or it is not that big deal“, it is only part of the answer, but she makes a decent case, yet the issue here is that it is a BIG deal, these ‘kids’ are causing harm to the rightful revenue of the maker of that movie, so you want an open internet, but the transgressions there are far too often trivialised and for the most they end up not getting prosecuted, you want accountability on one side, but not on your side, that is too uneven a scale and for the most many nations have not caught up with the quality IP laws they need to protect their innovators.

Now, it is not all bad, reading the linked ‘2015 Indicators’ of the Ranking Digital Rights is actually a lot more interesting than the article. A few of the questions were an amazing topic for discussion by themselves and the people behind them had done an interesting job, yet overall how can you compare Malayan company Axiata against Vodafone, or Orange for that matter? Axiata which was only recently rebranded (2009), whilst Vodafone has had a global one-sided (and to some extent one-sided failure) in the industry. A brand that has its fingers in the national pies of Bangladesh, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Places where you either adhere to the law or you get shut down. So how can they receive a fair weighted grade? If not than the article and the exercise are almost moot. Almost because there is one part of the article I wholeheartedly agree with: “MacKinnon said remained optimistic the industry would improve its privacy efforts over time. “This is the test you take at the beginning of the class where everybody fails, and then you get to work, and then everybody’s going to improve,” she said”

It is not a mere ‘Amen to that’ ending, there are several serious issues that come to light, especially when you consider players like Apple and Microsoft. In case of Apple (with whom I still have some beef), is the fact that from 1995 onwards I have had a few of their devices, the Performa 630, the MacBook Pro and the G5, all between 2100 and 3000, all affordable and all on the ‘above average’ end of the range when they were released. The iPad 1 (I still have it) at a price that is still good, because that that same price you now get the latest version with 128GB; in an open non-accountable internet that is no longer an option, the billions poured into a design will find itself cheaply reengineered making new innovations no longer an option. Microsoft has a similar part, the Xbox One now at almost 50% of what the initial Xbox360 costs and close to equal in price with the very first Xbox. Even though this sounds good, these firms have had their shares of ‘errors’ to deal with, but overall those consumers (for the most) have never received a sour deal, this is only possible with quality protection in place, protection that MacKinnon is not considering to the extent she should, in her view of ‘netizens and the open internet’ she should get an equal fail grade, both sides need to work on whatever future comes our way, McKinnon know this too!

You do not get to graduate Harvard and run CNN in Beijing and Tokyo without a clear realisation that national borders are a lot more than a mere line on a map, which is what she almost implies, almost!

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Filed under IT, Law, Media, Politics, Science

Tagged as Axiata, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Caroline Criado-Perez, CNN, Consent of the Networked: The Worldwide Struggle for Internet Freedom, Crimes Act 1900, EE, Everything Everywhere, France Télécom, Harvard, Indonesia, Jane Austen, Malaysia, Netfray, netizenship, Orange, Pakistan, rankingdigitalrights.org, Rebecca MacKinnon, Sri-Lanka, T-Mobile UK, the Guardian, Vodafone

October 31, 2015 · 22:56

United we classify others

Two articles hit me a few days ago. One of them was an article describing a survey by the Reputation Institute. The news article titled ‘Tel Aviv ranked among least reputable cities‘. The article was found at http://www.timesofisrael.com/tel-aviv-ranked-among-least-reputable-cities/. This was an issue for me, because I have been to Tel Aviv. Why would it not be reputable, or at least one of the more reputable cities. In all that I wonder, because the top 600 cities (by population) are larger than Tel Aviv with its 425,000 people. So coming in at 92 whilst 600 are larger is still a good achievement. What puzzles me in all this is the part ‘least reputable cities‘. What makes a city reputable? I did not see the research or the questionnaire, but when we see “the Reputation Institute, asked 19,000 residents of France, Germany, Italy, the UK, Japan, the US, Canada and Russia to rank the world’s top 101 cities based on their levels of trust, esteem, admiration and respect“.

Trust, “In a social context, trust has several connotations“, which is nice yet did the interviewees realise that? The paper (at http://misrc.umn.edu/workingpapers/fullpapers/1996/9604_040100.pdf) gives a nice view on how trust is not an easy thing to tackle. at Page 43 we read “one can develop a good relationship with another person by gradually increasing Trusting behaviour, while at the same time decreasing any minor control measures directed at the other person. Decreasing controls includes less ‘checking up’ on the other person. It also includes moving from a formal relationship to a more personal, informal relationship”

Which is nice when we consider that Russia, land of GRU and FSB gives way to ‘decreasing any minor control measures directed at the other person’, so do the interviewees from Russia consider trust the way a person from Sweden, the Netherlands or even Uruguay does? I can go on for the other nations, but in all, many have a feeling towards Israel, their view is biased from day one. Plenty with an anti-Israeli view, some with an anti-Jewish view, the probability of a mean will not apply here.

Then we get ‘esteem’, are they looking upon Tel Aviv in a particular way? Are they confusing esteem with ‘self-esteem’? All questions that go through my mind. We could state that Bagdad in last position is validly there, but over what level of reasoning? Because it is in a warzone?

Yet, do my thoughts invalidate the results? The paper as shown does give a solid foundation, the methodology sounds sound. In that I state ‘sounding sound’ is not entirely on the ball. You see, the heart of the respondent, how does that come in? The study overview states “G8 general public (only people who were ‘somewhat’ or ‘very’ familiar)” Yet what makes you somewhat or very familiar? How many Non-Jewish people who have been to Tel Aviv answered this? How many know this place. I was there, and I felt safer there than in Budapest (and Budapest is a decent and safe city). Tel Aviv scored less than Johannesburg, Hanoi, even Cape Town, known for its high crime ended up with a score better than Tel Aviv.

So what gives value to this report? This is not the setting of my view, it is a question. The question exists in my mind because if we give reputation and value to a place we must know and agree to the standards given here. That is the question that should be on your mind too. Now, you might not care about Tel Aviv for many reasons. The bulk of us will never visit the city, visit the country or end up anywhere near it. So how do we give value to a place, even when we are somewhat familiar? Yet there is more than just the result as given in the Times of Israel. Slide 22 when you get the 2015 reputation report (at http://www.reputationinstitute.com/), shows a very interesting part. Familiarity versus Reputation. So how about the places with low familiarity? How come their reputation is so high? Is it the media, because there again we see that Tel Aviv gets in the news when there are rocket attacks and terrorist issues towards Israel, so how can we consider reliability in this report? Beware my words, I am not stating that the methodology is in question, I am wondering how the validity of vision from the interviewee is correct. In a similar way, we can understand that Baghdad is graded poorly, but why is Tehran graded so bad, it is because of our impression of Iran? In that same context we might understand why Sydney, Stockholm and Melbourne are graded so high, yet in all this, what makes Zurich more reputable than Amsterdam or Oslo, perhaps because FIFA is placed there? With the FIFA news Zurich got a lot of visibility, but is that visibility correctly graded in the mind of the beholder? The issue here is the colouring by the media, that influence cannot be countered, which is why I think that Tel Aviv got placed so badly (in this 101 list). Behind all this is a bigger issue. It is the one reason why I object to some of these studies.

In my personal view this list caters to presentations and to some who need to see a national interest, it also places my own view in debate (as it should), not because my view is too shallow, but as we go through the iterations of reasoning behind this as we see in slide 24. The Advanced Economy gives view to the question ‘why is an advanced economy part of reputation or familiarity?‘ This connect on more than one level, which got me to ‘The Economics of Developing Countries‘, what makes for an Advanced Economy? In that view Peru, Chile and Uruguay are not amongst them, so with close to 1/3 of the measurement absent, in that case, how come Montevideo scored so high in that list? If it is the state of peace, we see something a lot more linking, Tel Aviv, Karachi and Abu Dhabi together, a pattern seems to emerge. In that view we must wonder as Tel Aviv is not in war, but under near constant attack. Now when we add Rio to all this, we see another pattern emerge, those not relying on ‘stability of peace’ we see the need for positive reinforced publications, Rio is certainly getting that. In all this we do not question the reputation institute or their methodology, it is all about the people giving their vote. It is that view which gives voice to my worry. Slide 24 is descriptive in all this. ‘Appealing environment’ is one, which give the view to ‘non war torn places’, Effective government is the second one. Yet, why is ‘effective’ government part of all this? You see, in my view, the most effective government is a corrupt one, a humane based government (like Norway and Sweden) tends to be expensive and not that effective. Perhaps effective government and humane government are terms that are interchangeable? I am just asking. In all this we see the four earlier words at the core of this. ‘Trust’, ‘Admire’, ‘Esteem’ and ‘Feeling’, so how does this all link?

Slide 25 gives us ‘Social, Economic & Environmental Policies’ in regard to ‘Effective Government’, are they for real? Environmental policies can be made more effective, but they do not, I say again absolutely not make for an effective government. In addition when an Advanced Economy relies on ‘Financially Stable & Future Growth’ we can state that Wall Street took care of that not happening in the last decade and in addition not for many more years to come, so when we acknowledge that the elements of attributes are an issue, does that not add question marks to the stated foundation of this report? In all this the summary from page 28 onwards makes sense. I do not disagree, I do not oppose it, but in all this, it is a view brought to us on the premise of a flawed view, the influenced view of the interviewee, that part is missing, which gives the question mark within me. This gets me to slide 34, a good reputation might influx tourism, yet in all this, the tainting influence of media becomes a colouring issue, discriminatory and revoking as we ignore or forget that perception is tainting and the press factor seems to be uncorrected for. So how is that not an issue in all this, or at least a non-correcting influence? This all gets me to the final part “living or working in the city, or deciding to invest in the city” might be deciding factors for anyone when the reputation is an issue, but on what foundation? Still overall the report remains an interesting piece of work, the supportive behaviour slide gives fuel to that.

My views do come to fruition in slide 40 where we see the two quotes “Communication is required to capitalize on good reality and overcome poor perceptions” and “Change is required to alter ‘reality’ and minimize reputational risk“. In my mind, this states that opportunity and risk are influential factors that can be pressed on by the media, the media sets perception and alters reality in a hundred ways, so does this paper show true reputation, or does this show how the media is too large a factor to ignore and in all this a place like Tel Aviv got introduced to the less reputable score than they should have gotten? The question is how we see a true score on reputation and perhaps that list is not completely incorrect, but in my personal view, the idea that Bangkok is more reputable than Tel Aviv remains an issue, one of perception and I have actually been to both places.

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Tagged as Budapest, FSB, GRU, Israel, Russia, Sweden, Tehran, Tel Aviv, the Media, the Netherlands, the Reputation Institute, Times of Israel

October 17, 2015 · 22:36

Relying on the margins

This is an issue that has been on my mind for some time, you see, I am not the smallest person (not just in length). I never looked like I have been hungry for a decade. I try to eat healthy, I have my regular salads and I walk a lot. I walk every day on principle, to the extent that I never bothered with a car (apart from the parking fees all over the city). So, as I go into the city to buy clothes, I am always confronted that 2XL does not cut it. Now, this is all good and proper, so I am slightly larger than the norm. But is that the case? Several sources including The Medical Journal of Australia has stated that obesity in Australia is set at 67%. Third place after New Zealand set at 68.4% (a world’s first where Australians are delighted that Kiwis have beaten them at something) and The Americans at 74.1%. We are trailed by the Barmy Army (aka the Britons) by 63.8%.

So we can state that on one side we have an issue, on the other side, it would make perfect sense that the fashion industry would cater to a need. So, explain to me why those places calling themselves fashion stores would avoid anything beyond 2XL? In some cases I get the ‘excuse’ “Oh, we ran out of stock“, or: “Let me check in the back” (whilst we all know they knew they never had any). Some just state ‘2XL is the biggest we have’. The Levi’s store has one model in 3XL (actually, more like 2XL+), yet as I went through Pitt Street, Myers, David Jones, the QVB building and the World Square Shopping Centre. When looking for decent brand clothing, only Sportscraft and Rodd and Gunn were able to satisfy my need (3XL was in some cases the biggest they had). So, why would anyone in their right mind ignore a customer base of over 50%? (I am ignoring the 3-4 shops that specifically cater to larger sizes).

Can anyone explain it to me, because it makes no business sense at all! Ibisworld states that 122,266, comprise 12,785 clothing businesses. This is of course over Australia, not just Sydney. So how many are catering to the larger sized population? The question has international impact for two reasons. First there is the economic impact. When we see ‘Popular Fashion Retailer Files for Bankruptcy. We didn’t see this coming!‘ we have to ask how stupid the quoting party is. The company has around 9000 staff in 19 countries and is known for its hyper-sexual advertising, which is all fine (to some extent), yet when we look at http://store.americanapparel.net/ and we seek and realise that you will not find anything over 2xl (in some cases no larger than XL), than this implies that American Apparel, as well as the bulk of the fashion store is ‘intentionally’ barring 74% of its possible clientele. Why should such stupidity be ‘rewarded’ with a Chapter 11? It is not like the people in charge considered the first 10 chapters, did they?

This now relates back to an article in the Guardian titled ‘Model who criticised agency: I spoke out about body shape to protect girls‘ (at http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/oct/16/model-criticise-agency-spoke-out-body-shape-protect-girls), here we see the quote: “The model who used an open letter to criticise her former agency for allegedly sacking her because she was “too big” has said she spoke out so that youngsters were aware of the pressures in the industry to maintain unrealistic body shapes“, the subsequent quote “Caroline Nokes, who heads the all-party parliamentary group on body image, will lead the inquiry into whether the fashion industry is promoting unhealthy standards of beauty. It begins in November” is also cause for concern, but not for the reason you might think. I think that Caroline Nokes, Conservative for Romsey and Southampton North in Hampshire needs to take a seriously different look. You see, the ‘unhealthy standards of beauty‘ norm is a joke (in my humble opinion), what does it solve? By the time this all takes a gander towards anything serious we will be at least two administrations later. If there is truly a want and a need to make a change, than turn the transformation into a hammer people will not ignore.

Add to the restrictions of Bankruptcy, make the end date of an entry into the insolvency register 60 months, not 12. In addition, we add ‘unethical behaviour’ as a directive, so that debts caused through ‘unethical behaviour’ cannot be written off. Of course making a case for deciding to cater to 26% is unethical, which is a different issue and is still part of it all. Yet, consider that the need to cater changes, how can the fashion industry continue in its present firm when the catering part changes?

There is also an opposition from me towards this, you see, over-legislation is an equal evil. We believe in freedom of choice and as long as those persons accept the consequences and remain liable for the costs of what they did, they can do whatever they can. If someone wants to open a coffee shop just to cater to women, than they can. Oh no! They cannot, it is called discrimination. So how does this all fit? Well actually it does not! Shops can basically cater to the non-obese. They just ran out of stock, or they made ‘choices’ in their catalogue. Yet, in all this Caroline Nokes has a separate problem, until the view of what is ‘required’ utterly changes, she would end up talking up a storm to a collection of mugs without ears. Each holding a cup full of opinions and none replying to the actual situation. In all this a change is essential, but how to best go about it? As I see it, we can all have a business, we all make choices on what is the best course of business. Yet, when we go wrong, when our way was flawed, why should anyone else but us pay for our own mistake? Non-accountability has been at the axis of the law and legislation, especially corporate ones for too long. So we change that bit. If a business wants to exclude 74%, than that could be valid, it could be equally valid that some areas can never be supported, I understand that completely. Yet in all this, when we can state that it is more likely than not that a business could remain active if it had catered better to its possible customer base, than it should be regarded as an unethical business practice, as such the caterer should pay the price of unethicality. In all this a problem remains, how is catering to a specific group unethical?

If it is not, than can this person be labelled as unethical when the plan goes wrong? This remains an issue, as such there is little option for Caroline Nokes in this direction. In the end, segmentation is likely to safe businesses more often than not. So as such, what can we do to change this? There are as I stated two avenues. The first one is to stop enabling bad business sense. Of course you can engage in it, but if it falls on your face, the cost of that bad track will also fall in your lap and your lap only.

In the second (I still shiver for considering this) is to make a change to authorities like the financial services compensation scheme. That is a bit dodgier to address. As I see it, it is also not really a realistic path. In the end, is this just about me being unable to get a nice 3XL polo shirt?

The Guardian quote “Nokes said the industry is in a vicious circle, where agencies brought in young women to satisfy the designers, and designers made clothes “to fit the frame of a teenage boy” because those were the kinds of models that were available to them. “These are not clothes for women with busts and hips,” she added” only gets is a little bit into that direction, Another Guardian article, from August 27th (at http://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2015/aug/27/where-are-all-the-plus-size-male-models), shows the addition we need. Now, we must agree that any business has rights to do as it pleases (as long as no laws are broken). So when we see “I asked three major agencies in the UK, all of whom have plus-size female models on their books, and they all said they have no plans to sign plus-size male models“. There does not seem to be any wrongdoing here. You see, they cater to the need of their clients, so the brands have no need for people in the plus-size range. Yet, should we not wonder why these brands are not catering to the missed population of over 300 million in the western world alone? Perhaps the better question becomes in this day and age of commerce, profit and revenue, why is nobody going there? (Apart from the 2-3 that are).

The additional quote “One of the biggest plus-size retailers in the UK, Bigdudeclothing.co.uk, started three years ago. It recently received funding from William Currie Group which invested in Asos and has seen 100% growth in each year it’s been in business. Its clothes go up to 10XL but it struggles to find models who best represent the brand“. So it seems that some are looking at the table that seems to be just set for them, completely with a 7 course meal. I stumbled upon a part that could grow their business even more. Yet is all this, is the truth truly exposed? You see, when we go to a store, we see that sizes M up to 2XL are all priced the same, yet should we not recognise that a ‘2XL’ requires 40% more material than a size ‘S’, should we not recognise that the costs would be a factor and prices and budgets are a factor. I am not certain that the argument is completely valid, but the facts are important here, as should the deeper search in this matter be.

So is Caroline Nokes correct that the inquiry on ‘the fashion industry is promoting unhealthy standards of beauty‘? I find for a partial no, because there is a factor that is actually worse and going for the least incriminating fact is just wrong! There might be a case that the industry is pushing for unhealthy work environment and unhealthy living requirements, which is another slice of cake altogether. Here we make the final step. I am referring to a 2010 paper called ‘Employment arrangements, work conditions and health inequalities‘ by Johannes Siegrist, Joan Benach, Abigail McKnight and Peter Goldblatt in collaboration with Carles Muntaner. (at https://www.instituteofhealthequity.org/projects/employment-and-work-task-group-report/employment-and-work-task-group-full-report.pdf), so what happened to that paper, more important, why is it not getting a lot more exposure? The quote “First, specific employment and working conditions are associated with elevated risks of reduced physical and mental health, elevated sickness absence and disability pension risk. These conditions are found in the English workforce. Importantly, these associations are not confined to traditional occupational hazards and related occupational diseases and injuries, but include increased health risks attributable to insecure employment and an adverse psychosocial work environment” (page 41), I say that modelling is gets to move high up that list here.

So we have a need that is partially addressed, we have a group that is under protected and over exploited, in addition we see an ego based business continuing in its track. There is no real injustice from a legal point of view, but there is a growing inequality. We can think whatever we want regarding Charli Howard, yet there is a line under all this that is ignored. We (me inclusive) seem to mix emotion and cold facts. Toby Wiseman, editor of Men’s Health magazine phrases it perhaps best: “When discussing anorexia in fashion, the health argument sensibly prevails; when obesity comes into play, emotive arguments tend to take over”, this is part of the problem Caroline Nokes faces. This is not about my need for a 3XL polo and a nice pair of pants, there is an ego driven society that is starting to be more and more disabling towards the market they are not interested in.

Again, is this about me and my 3XL shirt? Perhaps it is just me and opening a ‘bigdude’ shop in Sydney is the beginning of my fortune. Apart from having a decent business sense, I have absolutely zero fashion sense (my work and university brothers can attest to that). In the end, it is the observation of a shortage and the fact that no one is acting on it. From the previous part we can see that apart from a bad sense of business, these fashion stores are catering to ego, which is not a crime, or wrong and as such, they should not be legislated against, no wrong is done.

This gets us to the last part in all this. Again, the outrage given is all emotional, when Katie Hopkins decided in her act of ‘fatshaming’, she did one thing the other ‘fatshamers’ never did. She gained 4 stones (28 Kg), only to prove she could lose it again. Of all places, this comes from the daily mail (I am now ignoring the foul taste in my mouth for mentioning them). The quote “Meanwhile, weight loss expert Steve Miller, who fronts TV show Fat Families, said Katie’s latest project shows a ‘shallow’ approach to weight loss and does not take into account the emotional mindset of those who struggle to lose weight“. I am not sure if I can agree with Steve Miller. At least Katie Hopkins is going that distance. Now, I will also consider that certain elements are ignored, but I will get to that. One quote that touches on this is “To try to define all those who are overweight as somehow lazy or lacking in will power does a huge disservice to the experts who have made tackling obesity their focus” (at http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2740537/People-say-Youre-lucky-youre-skinny-Katie-Hopkins-piles-four-stone-overweight-people-fat-fault.html). Yet, there is something in the approach that Katie Hopkins takes. If she pulls it off, it means that sometimes we all need a harsh kick to our sizeable arses. I do believe her view is slightly too simplistic, yet in all this, there is also the issue with Steve Miller, some will see his view as exploitative. A long term ‘sandwich’ so to speak. I cannot vouch for his success of lack there off, but the less than 1% of the successes show a certain type. This does not make for his failure, but in equal measure it would not stop the success of Katie Hopkins. Perhaps they are two different sides of the same coin.

What started on a mere margin of fashion is now something larger, a mere supersized trip on a massive group of people (pun intended) where we see the shifting sands of enabling, the absence of enabling and the dangers if legislation gets too involved. The models might be on the other side of that equation. Yet when we try to visualise this (with http://www.bmivisualizer.com/), when we look at the BMI tool, set it to female and add the details of Charli Howard (173/50), we get a dangerous underweight. Now we get into the field that ‘Employment arrangements, work conditions and health inequalities‘ brings. People in this field are increasingly in danger of: Inhibited growth and development, fragile bones, a weakened immune system, anaemia and fertility issues. So, tell me, which model contract has been mentioning these dangers to the teenage working population? In addition, when we get her to the earliest healthy point, we see that 5Kg was all it takes, the other opposite of the scale tends to be well over 15Kg too much. The scales are more than unbalanced. Yet in all this, the official words of Caroline Nokes are not here. They were: “Legislation should be a last resort, but I’m conscious the fashion industry isn’t responding to calls for change, we would prefer a code of conduct, if we could feel confident it would be adhered to”, it is exactly the issues that I raised. On her site (http://carolinenokes.com/), additional information is found, the French position where models with an BMI under 18 are not allowed to work, the solution seems to work (check it with the BMI tool), even though the measure can be just under the bar, it is at all times minimal. If our lives are measured on health, perhaps starting with the limitation that only healthy models can participate, a change can begin that others will see a shift towards the leaner side of life. Whether the approach of Katie Hopkins holds any water remains to be seen. If we believe her words, than she is now the new Jesus. Well, that works nicely for me, because Father Clayton and Bishop Terry know that I work for ‘the’ other side, so as I serve Morax, I would enjoy nailing her to the nearest cross I can find (any of the wooden support beams of St. Pauls will do). Our heavenly father will forgive me, because that is what he does. How did religion get into this? Simple, you and me we must live through faith, in most cases merely the faith in ourselves (as my exams are showing me harshly) is the number one act that makes for change, in addition, we need to have a sense of humour, if you doubt that, than ask the guards at the Vatican whom I told I was ordered by the Bishop of Rome to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel White. As a true follower of the Cheshire cat, it seemed, in contrast to the queen of hearts that something needed to be painted, I decided a ceiling to be white. Let’s face it, after 510 years the IP of Michelangelo has lapsed, time for something new!

If you wonder now, why this step? Consider that the figure of absolutely not skinny was all the rage in 1500, so as we now find that part to be too offensive, let’s do away with all positive images that the Rubenesque age gave us. I will let you figure out the final puzzle that I left intertwined within the religious references.

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Tagged as "Employment arrangements, Abigail McKnight, americanapparel, Bigdudeclothing.co.uk, Bishop Terry, Carles Muntaner, Caroline Nokes, Charli Howard, David Jones, fashion, Father Clayton, fatshaming, instituteofhealthequity.org, Joan Benach, Johannes Siegrist, Katie Hopkins, Men’s Health magazine, Myers, obesity, Peter Goldblatt, QVB building, Romsey and Southampton North, Rubenesque, the Guardian, Toby Wiseman, work conditions and health inequalities", World Square Shopping Centre

October 10, 2015 · 11:59

Dangers of Android?

Today I got confronted with a danger that Android poses. Yet, is this truly an Android issue? An Apple user will of course nod yes in a very rapid way. My Huawei is not the only one hindered by this. At Android central the following was found: “Are the apps definitely being removed from the App Drawer, or is it just that the shortcut is disappearing from your home screen?”

This is of course a fair question, it still is not OK, but the difference between an app and a shortcut is quite the difference.

It turns out that the apps are on my phone, but they no longer run, they are now called ‘com.spyfox.tripletown‘. The apps seem to have gotten themselves damaged. The question no becomes why. At this point I also notice a program called ‘Li emotion’. The kanji next to it gives it away. My question now becomes ‘what is this and what does it do? This is because it is a separate app, I never installed it (as far as I can tell) and the rights it does have are massive. Yet there is no indication what it is, why it is on my phone and why it is allowed to do many things without my permission. It does not take too long that this is part of the Huawei Emui, so there is no real issue as the operating system needs to be able to do all this. Comprehension was the mere element that resolved everything.

This does not solve my app issue (which actually fixed itself) and gets us to the Guardian video (at http://www.theguardian.com/silent-circle-partner-zone/video/2015/aug/17/smartphone-users-read-their-app-permissions-out-loud-video). So yes, when we see the rights and speak them out loud, they sound very disconcerting. But why is it such an issue? ‘Modify calendar events and send e-mails without my knowledge‘ sounds extremely offensive, but now realise that you set up a meeting, you change the meeting and all parties are automatically updated through messages. Did you know that they got another mail stating that the meeting had changed? There you go, mystery solved. Apps ‘reading your text message‘ sounds like a worry, but is that program actually comprehending the information, or does ‘reading’ mean ‘parsing’, processing the text in all this? Computer lingo for the layman is not the easiest task.

In all this the one that stood out for me was ‘I give this app permission to automatically turn of airplane mode‘ if airplane mode was there for safety reasons (the airplane message no one ever believed that mobile phones interfered with airplane instruments), than the option to turn that off should not be allowed, but in all that, this could be as simple as the dialogue box ‘Would you like to deactivate airplane mode?‘ The video ends with ‘the biggest risk to you and your privacy is your smartphone‘, this is a decent claim to make. In all this, it is actually about users and consumers who do not understand (read comprehend) what they are agreeing to. They do not understand what they have consented to. That is always dangerous, because the things you do not realise are the issues that turn you into the greater fool. Here we can paraphrase the greater fool theory which states that “the price of an object is determined not by its intrinsic value, but rather by irrational beliefs and expectations of market participants” into “the security of your environment is determined not by the borders you mentally erect, but rather by naive believe that the applications on your smartphone will respect them“.

You see, I believe that people should be worried about privacy, and #Privacynow is a valid need, but what is your actual privacy? The way that they are getting there is a little bit of a worry, yet the path is not without valid reason. Consider the quote “It’s common for users to employ the same username and password across systems, so if someone compromises that particular password, the potential also exists for them to compromise additional user accounts“, this is a worry in one way, because is this about the safety of the phone and its apps or is this about Common Cyber Sense? Something I have been advocating for about 2 decades. So how is this a danger for Android? That is part of the issue. In my view the danger to IOS is not smaller and the danger is nor subsiding any day soon. One of the earliest sources is around 2008, in 2010 Computer world, CNet and other sources stated “About 20 percent of the 48,000 apps in the Android marketplace allow a third-party application access to sensitive or private information, according to a report released on Tuesday“, there are two sides here. In the first, is this like the earlier issues in the video and stated, ‘a form of feigned transgression?’ Or is this in the second ‘leaky security that leads to open access of information?’ There is however a third option, apps that were created that are intent on creating a backdoor that allows access to all data. It is the third that is a true danger, yet how realistic is this danger?

Computerworld stated this from a Google representative: “This report falsely suggests that Android users don’t have control over which apps access their data. Not only must each Android app gets users’ Permission to access sensitive information, but developers must also go through billing background checks to confirm their real identities, and we will disable any apps that are found to be malicious“, this is not just clearly the case, there is supporting evidence on several levels that this is true. In addition, these parts are quotes from 2010 and since then both Apple and Google have upped the security game by a lot. Still, it is the news from last week (at http://www.wired.com/2015/10/iphone-malware-hitting-china-lets-not-next/) ‘iPhone Malware Is Hitting China. Let’s Not Be Next‘ is the issue today. The quote “Unlike previous spates of iOS-targeted malware, many of those victims hadn’t jailbroken their phones to install unauthorized apps. The two back-to-back attacks—one far more sophisticated than the other but both unprecedented in iOS’s history—suggest that complacent iPhone users around the world could be in for the same nasty shock“, the issue has now become the fact regarding ‘non jailbroken systems’, which implies that either a flaw has popped up in the Apple device, or overall a new level of access has become a worry. It is the quote that follows which now is centre in all this “Apple has said that only iOS 8.3 and earlier were left open to the attack. Later versions limited access to the APIs it exploited to plant its ads“, so we can accept that we all install the latest versions, yet what happens to those who have an older device (like the iPhone 4)? There are plenty of things people can do that prevent these issues, and in all this ‘Common Cyber Sense’ remains the big issue. So is China hindered by a massive lack of Common Cyber Sense?

Here we now see the evolution that is the danger. It is the assumption of the user. The laziness of their usage and the ignorance of the effects that they easily embrace. The quote “Don’t install strange apps that appear in pop-ups online and aren’t found in Apple’s App Store” is the big part we must adhere too (well Apple users anyway), for most people like you and me, we use the Google Play Store sources only! Both Google and Apple have their methods in place. Would a three pronged app remain the issue as implied in the article? That is hard to state, but what is clear is that 99% of the dangers can be averted by using the reliable source and that reliable source only. The application of ‘Common Cyber Sense’ can aid you in averting another 0.9999%, which means that if you install 10,000 apps, there is a one in 10,000 chance of you ending up having a chance of being in danger.

Yet in all this, we should never relax about the technology we use and the danger it could bring. It is that fear that is driving people in all kinds of corners they never need to be in. When you have sex, not the committed relationship one, but the quickie with that girl next door for some slap and tickle. In that case do you practice safe sex? When you live in the city, do you go to work leaving the front door to your apartment wide open? In that same sense, when you use any technology that has your personal information, you use more than the minimum safety. That last part requires Common Cyber Sense. To the previous generation it is a harder thing to do, but it can still be done, to my generation it is an additional side to my workflow. It is the next generation that is now the part that matters. Many are taking the casual approach their parents (or bigger siblings) have, whilst not realising that Common Cyber Sense will be at the foundation of their lives. So, any OS will come with its own perils. Be it Windows, LINUX, Android, IOS or any other OS. They will face a new area that is on the move with such high speed that there is no way to predict where they will be in 7 years’ time. The dangers of a complete rewrite in an iterative world. You see until 2000, both hardware and software remained highly innovative, it was after 2003 that the iterative world was set in high gear. First Hardware and now to a larger extent Software has been in iterative mode. Yet the world behind all this, the security part has made leaps and bounds and to some extent not in a good way. Here we can make a connection to an article by Tarleton Gillespie from 2014 called ‘Facebook’s algorithm — why our assumptions are wrong, and our concerns are right‘. The quote “I will say that social science has moved into uncharted waters in the last decade, from the embrace of computational social scientific techniques, to the use of social media as experimental data stations, to new kinds of collaborations between university researchers and the information technology industry“. In addition there is “Those who are upset about this research are, according to its defenders, just ignorant of the realities of Facebook and its algorithm. More and more of our culture is curated algorithmically“. This is not upsetting or ground breaking, but it is the next part that links to all this. It is a blog article called ‘Analytic Suspicions‘ (at https://analyticsuspicions.wordpress.com/2013/02/25/metric-failures-and-data-assumptions-4-myths-of-social-analytics/), he is looking at a few myths in social media, in all this (it is a nice read and well written), I personally see one point that is not a myth, it is a worry and it seems to me that many remain ignorant on that danger. You see, the myths whether all Social Media is analysed, that Social Media data is clean enough to Analyse, Influencers should be targeted and sentiments analyses works. In all this we forget the 5^th issue (this being the non-myth). The interaction of apps and data. The dangers that we interact our apps and the data that is linked to all this that is now becoming the true issue. You see, even with all the common cyber sense no matter how safe our mobile is, the data is still somewhere and that data becomes available, more data than we agreed on. Yet in all this is the mobile OS Android/IOS the weak link?

That is the part that is not addressed by many speakers in this realm. Some get scared by places like ‘life hacker’ and some are ignoring the woeful text that passes us by, yet when places like Forbes report that ‘Report: 97% Of Mobile Malware Is On Android‘ (at http://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonkelly/2014/03/24/report-97-of-mobile-malware-is-on-android-this-is-the-easy-way-you-stay-safe/) people get worried (even though the article is more than a year old). Yet the article enlightens us in many ways. The most important quote here is “here’s the part Google’s rivals don’t want you to know: the figures are misleading“, which is one side of the foundation. The second on is the part I already discussed “stick to buying apps on the Play Store and every one in 1000 apps you buy may have had malware for a brief period“, the word ‘may’ is essential and ‘brief period’ is also essential, in the end, the chance of you getting the winning lottery ticket could be slightly higher, odds I’ll take any day.

Yet in all this, with all the protection these providers offer, the number one danger is you!

Common Cyber Sense is the essential step of reducing that danger to almost zero (like 0.0001% chance).

In the end the danger of Android is almost the same as the danger to IOS, both large players presenting into the margins, which is where the mobile phone user (you know that pesky consumer) does not tend to be. Which takes us to the final part in all this. It was my blog article from the 4^th of October (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2015/10/04/cisa-and-privacy-are-not-opposites/) ‘CISA and Privacy are not opposites‘, we get confronted with Silent Circle and their Blackphone 2. I have no doubt that Phil Zimmermann and Mike Janke are men of knowledge, determination and possibly even innovation. Yet, these skills do in my humble opinion not match up to the killer skills of the Google engineers with their keyboards. So when we see the quote in the Guardian (see previous blog link) “Google didn’t support the initial software build, something that probably helped make the phone more popular, rather than less“, do you think that this was done in envy by Google, or because their build did not hold up to scrutiny? That last part is speculation because I have no data or any evidence going one way or another. The Blackphone is marketed by intelligent people with skills, no one will doubt that, and it is also clear that Silent Circle is now tapping into a direction that is gaining traction, which means the market will most definitely grow in this direction. Yet in all this, considering all the facts, in how much danger is your data?

Sit in a quiet corner and let that questions sink in for a minute. I have been in the data field since 1989, in all that time the biggest threat was ‘data at rest’ (data saved on a device), meaning that this implies that you have strong passwords on your hotspot and Bluetooth capabilities, or just switch these options to ‘off’, not data that is moving from point A to Point B. Today both areas are a ‘threat’ and the second one only since very recent.

Since November 2012 I have had 2 phones, the second one I got this year because only now, my Android needs had grown beyond a 1 GB RAM phone. As far as I can tell I have only faced one issue and that was due to an ignorant third party developer and their dim witted approach to synchronisation. The simple use of Common Cyber Sense is all I needed. Basic steps that nearly anyone can adhere to. The threat of criminals and organised crime will not go away. Common Cyber Sense will keep them at bay and common sense should do the rest.

Which now takes us back to the title, you see, the dangers of Android are largely between your ears. The only dangers you face are the ones you open yourself up to! You should never stop asking questions on where things are and what you sign up to, that is common sense, but also feel free to question what certain things mean, it is in the comprehension that you find the answer. If there is one conundrum to leave you with then it is not android or IOS, consider the idea that a Facebook game wants you to give them access to your religious views, whatever for?

To pray for ammunition?

Well, so be it: ‘halleluiah’, now die you zombie master and give me my 10 points towards a high score!

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Tagged as Android, Apple, CNET, Common Cyber Sense, Computer world, google, IOS

October 4, 2015 · 12:00

CISA and Privacy are not opposites

There is a view that many hold, this view is not educated. A view which was given to us from the moment we spawned as a living person. Some got this knowledge as they went to their church or temple. They were told about good and evil. When we started to go to school we got to learn about order and chaos. This last one matters, you see, the opposite that order and chaos represent has been used in books, in videogames, in TV shows and in movies. In the Avengers movie ‘Age of Ultron’, near the end of the film we hear a quote from Vision, played by Paul Bettany that matters: “Humans are odd. They think order and chaos are somehow opposites“.

You might not realise it but the gem that we have here is in the foundations of many issues that have been plaguing us in several ways. Let’s take a look at this in two parts. The first is a Guardian article (at http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/01/blackphone-release-data-protection-privacy-surveillance) called ‘Blackphone: privacy-obsessed smartphone aims to broaden its appeal‘. The very first paragraph is a quote that shows issues on more than one side “Privacy company Silent Circle has released a second version of its signature handheld, a smartphone designed to quell the data scraping and web tracking that’s become such an integral part of the digital economy in the last few years (and whose results might well end up with the NSA, if the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act passes)“, now I have no issue with the data scraping part and for the most the term ‘whose results might well end up with the NSA’ is less of an issue, but the overall taste is about privacy, I have no issue with this. The next quote is an interesting one, which will matter soon enough “In the beginning, Janke said, the Blackphone project was just a way for people working for his security firm SOC, since sold, to call home without having their communications intercepted“.

You see, there is no issue with the message shown here, but what is linked to all this is the message that is not shown here. You see, this device should now be regarded as the most excellent tool for hedge funds managers, organised crimes and all other kinds of non-mentioned criminals, who will now get to do with ease and freedom the things they had to steeplechase around the block for. This device will allow financial advisors to take certain steps that they were too scared to do, all out of fear of getting caught. This device will be opening doors.

There is no issue with the approach Janke had, he was submerged (read: drowning) in a world where any slip up could mean the death of him, his comrades and perhaps even his family. So his need for security was a given. There is a need for such a device. I have written about the need for this device as early as 2009, so the fact that someone picks this up is not a surprise, so why are we looking at this?

You see, it is the mention of CISA that is part of all this. CISA or better stated the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act is sponsored by Republican Senator Richard Burr (North-Carolina). Why would anyone oppose ‘the bill makes it easier for companies to share cyber threat information with the government‘? Let’s be clear this is about dealing with Cyber Threats!

So what is a Cyber Threat? A Cyber threat is defined as ‘a malicious attempt to damage or disrupt a computer network or system‘, so we have the fact that this is about malicious attempts! So why would there be an issue? Well, there is because people and as it seems to be especially criminals, terrorists and Organised Crime seem to be allowed a lot more privacy than their victims, so in all this I see little issues pop up all over the place. This sounds all emotional, but what does the official text state? Well, the complete text is at https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/senate-bill/754, so let’s take a look at some parts.

“Permits state, tribal, or local agencies to use shared indicators (with the consent of the entity sharing the indicators) to prevent, investigate, or prosecute offenses relating to: (1) an imminent threat of death, serious bodily harm, or serious economic harm, including a terrorist act or a use of a weapon of mass destruction; or (2) crimes involving serious violent felonies, fraud and identity theft, espionage and censorship, or trade secrets“, How can we be opposed to this? Is this not the foundation of growing fair play?

Well, that is partially the question. You see, the issue is in part the language. Consider this paraphrase which remains correct in light of the previous statement: “Permits local agencies to use shared indicators (with the consent of the entity sharing the indicators) to prosecute offenses relating to serious economic harm“. Which is now the floodlight of all this.

Now we get to the second part in all this, which is offenses relating to serious economic harm. Serious economic harm tends to be seen as pure economic loss, but it is not limited to that. For this we can look at the element ‘Loss of production suffered by an enterprise whose electricity supply is interrupted by a contractor excavating a public utility‘, which we see in Spartan Steel & Alloys Ltd v Martin & Co (Contractors) Ltd. In here the legislatively famous Lord Denning raised the issue of ‘Duty to mitigate loss’. Yet today, in the world of data and digital media, how can we measure that element? Let me show this through an exaggerated fictive example.

Microsoft raises the issue that as they required an investigation into acts that are causing serious economic harm to Microsoft. Unique software has been released that directly negatively impacts they trademarked business. The CISA could now be in effect to investigate data and data sources, but who minds that store? Who has that knowledge? Now consider that the person investigated would be Markus Persson, because his program ‘Minecraft’ is now stopping all people who are part of the Microsoft Gaming brand to continue.

So who will make that call? You might think that this is a ludicrous example, but is that so? Microsoft ended up paying more than 2 billion for it, so someone implying ‘Serious Economic Harm’ is not that far-fetched. This now becomes an issue for a timeline. What timeline is in effect here? With an imminent threat of death this is a simple matter, with serious economic harm that matter is far from simple, moreover will the claim be valid? I used the ludicrous Minecraft and Microsoft Games brand. Yet what happens when this is a lot more ‘grey’, what happens when this is Raytheon versus the Belgium based TTN Verhaert? A Technology Transfer Network (TTN) that has innovated the latest classified satellite navigation systems. Is it still a clear call as to what constitutes serious economic harm?

This act opens up a can of intellectual property, the one can everyone wants to swim in and the elected official channels do not even have a fraction of the minimum required insight to make such a call.

Section 9 gives us “Directs the DNI to report to Congress regarding cybersecurity threats, including cyber-attacks, theft, and data breaches. Requires such report to include: (1) an assessment of current U.S. intelligence sharing and cooperation relationships with other countries regarding cybersecurity threats to the U.S. national security interests, economy, and intellectual property; (2) a list of countries and non-state actors that are primary threats; (3) a description of the U.S. government’s response and prevention capabilities; and (4) an assessment of additional technologies that would enhance U.S. capabilities, including private sector technologies that could be rapidly fielded to assist the intelligence community”

When we consider both A and B, we should look at ‘U.S. SEC drops Onyx insider trading lawsuit against Dubai men’ (at http://finance.yahoo.com/news/u-sec-drops-onyx-insider-230111643.html) from September 15^th. The quote here is “Smith said the Newman decision was ‘helpful,’ but that the SEC ‘never had a tipper’ or evidence that his clients received inside information”, one would think that this is where CISA could now step in. Alas, apart from the side that is implied by the CISA text: ‘assessment of additional technologies that would enhance U.S. capabilities, including private sector technologies that could be rapidly fielded to assist the intelligence community’, which according to Blackphone is not an option, we now see that this opens a door to ‘patsy management’ on how two unsecured parties, could be set-up through the use of Blackphone through encrypted conversations and when the two unsecured parties talk, they could be setting each other up thanks to the other two parties that were using a Blackphone. Blackphone here has no blame whatsoever, they would be offering the one part criminals desperately want, a secured phone. This now sets a dangerous precedence, not a legal one, because Blackphone is behaving itself as it should, the provider of secure communications, it is what people do with it that matters that part cannot be guaranteed by the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act. In addition, S. 754 has one additional flaw. That flaw is seen in the definitions, where we see that the earlier mentioned definition ‘serious economic harm’ is not specified in the definitions at all, so what definition applies?

Beyond that, we see the definition of a cybersecurity threat. In here it is important to take a look at part A and part B.

part a gives us: “IN GENERAL.—Except as provided in subparagraph (B), the term “cybersecurity threat” means an action, not protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, on or through an information system that may result in an unauthorized effort to adversely impact the security, availability, confidentiality, or integrity of an information system or information that is stored on, processed by, or transiting an information system” and part B gives us “EXCLUSION.—The term “cybersecurity threat” does not include any action that solely involves a violation of a consumer term of service or a consumer licensing agreement“, which sounds nice, yet how does it help stem cybersecurity threats?

You see, when you consider the letter send by UCLA to Chairman Dianne Feinstein in June last year, we see: “CISA’s inadequate use limitations risk turning the bill into a backdoor for warrantless use of information the government receives for investigations and prosecutions of crimes unrelated to cybersecurity“, which could be regarded as the biggest failure, but it is not, it is the part we see in “CISA requires that cyber threat indicators shared from the private sector with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) be immediately disseminated to the Department of Defense, which includes the NSA and U.S. Cyber Command. This new flow of private communications information to NSA is deeply troubling given the past year’s revelations of overbroad NSA surveillance“. It is the ‘be immediately disseminated to the Department of Defense’ that comes into play now. When we consider ‘Overbroad Liability Protection‘, which can now hide by giving that function to an intern so that “good faith” reliance remains is a potential risk that could be pushed by big business to hide behind the ‘dope’ who acts in ‘good faith’.

Is that truly the blackness we face? Well, that is hard to say, the fact that this act relies on ambiguity and is lacking certain rules of restraint, or at least certain safeguards so that data cannot leave the intelligence office is reasons enough to have a few more discussions on this topic. What is interesting is that CISA would create a fear, which Black phone addresses, yet in similar method other players will now receive an option allowing them to play large dangerous games whilst not becoming accountable, that new Blackphone could address several issues the shady commercial interest guy is very happy to exploit.

The question becomes, how does any of this make us any safer?

So now we get back to the Age of Ultron line. As we see that crime is becoming an orderly event, the fact that we tend to hide in chaos the issues that should be open for all is part of the dilemma we now face. Again we are confronted with laws that remain inadequate to deal with the issues that needed to be dealt with. CISA takes in my view a chaotic approach to keep a level of order that was delusional from the very start, from missing definitions to application of methodology. It is a cog not linked to any machine, proclaiming soon to be of use to all machines and in the end, as I see it will only hinder progress on many levels, mainly because it tries to circumvent the accountability of some. And this is not just an American issue. In that regard laws and the protection of the victims have been an issue for a longer time. We only need to look to the Tesco grocery store on the corner to comprehend that part of the equation.

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Tagged as Blackphone, Chairman Dianne Feinstein, CISA, Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act, Department of Homeland Security, DHS, Dianne Feinstein, DNI, Lord Denning, Markus Persson, Microsoft, Mike Janke, NSA, Onyx insider trading lawsuit, Paul Bettany, Raytheon, S.754, SEC, Senator Richard Burr, Silent Circle, Spartan Steel & Alloys Ltd v Martin & Co (Contractors) Ltd, Technology Transfer Network, Tesco, TTN, UCLA, US Congress, Verhaert

September 27, 2015 · 00:26

What news is news?

There are several pieces, not just in the Guardian, the BBC, the Independent or the Times. They all tell us that they have news, but do they have any actual news? The Guardian shows us a tech article (in the Tech section) called: ‘the node pole: inside Facebook’s Swedish hub near the Arctic Circle‘, all innocent news, one could surmise that it is just a space filler. Or was it done to give extra view to the article ‘Facebook is making more and more money from you. Should you be paid for it?‘, or perhaps to give extra light to ‘Facebook case may force European firms to change data storage practices‘, which I gave my views on in my previous blog. You decide!

In the business section we see VW to get some centre stage, which makes perfect sense and that is just the Guardian. The independent also has a go at Facebook, but now has a go at its users, well, actually it is not the Independent, but the employee tribunal. Now the article shows all kind of signs of bullying, which is never OK and in that regard Rachael Roberts has a real case, but in light of the events, Mrs Bird does not seem to be a friend of Mrs Roberts, so why is the act of unfriending on Facebook the killer? Yet it is the quote “But employment lawyer Josh Bornstein told ABC news the unfriending incident was found to be workplace bullying in the context of several other issues“, which baffles me, if they are not friends, one or the other could unfriend the other party, that part seems clear cut to me, not bullying. So out of the 18 allegations of bullying in total, the unfriending in Facebook took the cake? It does not add up to me!

In addition we see two whole articles on Facebook being down and oh yes, the new iPhone is for sale! Let’s not forget the fact that the iPhone now allows for sextracking. So, parents buy your boy or girl on of these bad boys so you can find new ways on how you are about to become a grandparent! Really? You need to keep scores on your phone now? Didn’t Ashley Maddison teach you anything regarding sex that is on the internet, everyone will know soon thereafter?

Finally they also gave visibility to ‘Hospital apologises for removing RAF sergeant from A&E because uniform could ‘upset’ patients‘, which is a can of worms in its own right. In that light I expect the NHS to move all drug and binge drink casualties to their basement as not to invoke bad thoughts from the Presbyterian community. How insane was the idea to move a wounded RAF sergeant in the first place!

All these events, some are actually news, but no one seems to have any balls. No one is looking at Pricewaterhouse Coopers. Which of course ties in nicely with the words of the Dalai Lama ‘Dalai Lama on Britain’s policy towards China: ‘Where is morality?’’, the answer might not be such a high moral one, it goes a little like “Who is willing to suck the smallest extremity for the good of one’s career?”

To some extent we can accept that the SFO is silent, only to the smallest extent. You see Tesco is dealing with a write-off of £6.4bn, which of course is massive. We have seen all the news on how some former Tesco entities are getting grilled (as they should) but the press on many levels in many nations keep on rehashing the old news and no one is digging into PwC. No one is digging there. Does that not sound awfully weird? Yet here is the kicker, we see more and more messages like ‘Multinational tax avoiders targeted’, with quotes like “while the American Chamber of Commerce in Australia warned about throwing up new hurdles in what is already a high-cost economy. The chamber’s board includes representatives from ConocoPhillips, GE, Boeing, PwC and Exxon Mobile“, yes it seems it is never a good time to go after tax avoiders (not to mention the impact it has on the bonus benefits for those working in that part of the financial branch).

Before you whisk this away as mere banter (which you are of course allowed to do), take a look at this article that is a little over a week old. It is from the Wall Street Journal, which I do not look into too often. The article (at http://blogs.wsj.com/cio/2015/09/15/the-morning-download-identity-theft-key-to-attack-on-cisco-routers/) called ‘The Morning Download: Identity Theft Key to Attack on Cisco Routers‘, starts with: “Good morning. The international attacks on Cisco Systems Inc. routers, disclosed earlier today by security firm FireEye Inc.’s Mandiant unit, began with the theft of legitimate network credentials. Securing and managing the identity of network users continues to be a massive challenge for CIOs and CISOs and ultimately, the CEO and the board. The attacks have been named ‘SYNful’ because of how the malicious software moves across routers using their syndication functions “Cisco said SYNful did not take advantage of any vulnerability in its own software. Instead it stole valid network administration credentials from organizations targeted in the attacks or by gaining physical access to their routers,” Reuters reports today. Mandiant said in a blog post that it had found 14 instances of router implants, which replace Cisco’s operating system”

Now, to complement that statement, I will add the following. On June 5^th (more than 3 months before the WSJ article), I wrote ‘In reference to the router‘ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2015/06/05/in-reference-to-the-router/) , here I stated: “Soon thereafter no more firewall, no more routers, just the bliss of cloud servers and data, so much data!“, which reflected on the article I wrote on February 8^th (more than 7 months before the WSJ), there I wrote “I think that ‘hackers’ have created a new level (as I mentioned before). I think that Cisco IOS was invisibly patched“, (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2015/02/08/the-next-cyber-wave/). I was literally accused by some to be insane, there was no way that this would EVER happen. Now we see in the Wall Street Journal: “Mandiant said in a blog post that it had found 14 instances of router implants, which replace Cisco’s operating system“, interesting how I am now proven correct. Are the members of the Baboon family (usually found in the FBI) reconsidering their North-Korean option? Let’s face it, this took top level skills, we can (as I pointed out in the past) find those boffins in the US, UK, FR, the FSB and Chinese Intelligence, however in North Korea not that much!

The Reuters article shows a lot more (at http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/09/16/us-cybersecurity-routers-cisco-systems-idUSKCN0RF0N420150916), however, they are just rehashing something I stated for almost a year, the quote ““That feat is only able to be obtained by a handful of nation-state actors,” DeWalt said, while declining to name which countries he suspected might be behind the Cisco router attacks” adds to my view that I was correct all along (finally another ‘I told you so!’ opportunity). The only difference is, is that DeWalt includes Israel, I have no real quality data on the Israeli cyber capabilities, so I am willing to give him that one. Finally we should consider the quote “Infected hardware devices include Cisco routers 1841, 2811 and 3825“, which is fair enough, yet in my article I offer the option that the CF unit found in nearly EVERY router could also open doors, so the danger could in theory go far beyond those three routers.

I also stated that my thoughts were based on sound speculation. You might wonder what sound speculation is. Basically, it means that even as I might not have them skills to program, I do understand that my solution is viable, the fact that routers are getting programmed with a new OS is clear evidence of that. In addition, it also gives weight to two infestation systems I speculated on as well as the weakness that those believing in the cloud are not realising at present. I was willing to look beyond the veil, a side everyone ignored. Yet when a router can be reprogrammed to the extent it was, also clearly means that data in motion is no longer safe, which means that pretty much any cloud data can be gotten too, the user only has to access the file to make that happen.

I even had a thought on dealing with the Iranian glow in the dark power plants when the time is there, just by thinking out of the box. It does involve a Piranha valve (which actually already exists in name, but mine is so much cooler). None of this is newsworthy, speculative opinion one might state. Yet in my speculation, I have shown solutions to be real in several occasions and in addition to that I also clearly outlined long before the press decided to show the minimalistic amount of balls (read testicles), that a look into Pricewaterhouse Coopers was adamant. It seems that apart from a December 2014 message from the SFO (rehashed by nearly all papers) not much happened, apart from that news, the press at large stayed clear of mentioning PwC and Tesco in one sentence. Is that not utterly weird?

Of course the luggage of someone’s mum in Tenerife (shipping at £122) gets front seat exposure, yet, the issue on £6.4bn getting lost due to assistance (better stated too weak opposition) by Pricewaterhouse Coopers seems too trivial to keep pressure on. Way to go Consumer Champions, Money! I actually mean that! They did do a good job and they have done so in the past, yet I fear that a letter by Dave Lewis on how his firm lost £6.4bn as the keeper of his books was not prudent, or is that tenacious enough to ring that bell very loudly when things looked too odd. Will Consumer Champions find that money? Will they write “Pricewaterhouse Coopers must accept responsibility for the signing off on books as the “accountant”?” Consumer Champions might not get this done, which is fair enough. It should not be on their plate, but the parties this should be very visible on are also not doing anything as far as we can tell, they remain silent, they remain this silent after 9 months.

Yet in all this there is one part both the Guardian and the Independent are getting right. It is the news on the NHS, there are massive problems and knowing them all is essential in finding a solution. In this matter the press has played a good role. In my view exposing former and current politicians a little more on the political game they play, so that we all understand that a proper solution is needed and taking the politicians out of that equation might not be the worst idea, the end result stays the same, the NHS is now too close on the edge of collapse to be acceptable, yet where lies the solution? Although I understand the issue the Independent shows, I partially disagree. The headline ‘New NHS junior doctor contract would discriminate against women, senior medics warn‘ is not incorrect (at http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/new-nhs-junior-doctor-contract-would-discriminate-against-women-senior-medics-warn-10516885.html), yet in all fairness, the quote “Under the new contract, trainees who decide to work part-time would see their pay increase more slowly than their colleagues” is a can of worms! Why would my co-worker doing 32 hours get the same raise as myself working 60 hours? (Remember, I am not a doctor). A choice was made! Yet, there is a level of fairness here too. Which means that to tackle it should be done in another way. Even as there is a shortage, the burnout of physicians is a known issue and making a maximum of 40 hours a week a mandatory status could be close to the only solution. Perhaps we have been too indulged, perhaps some options should only be there during the week. Perhaps the change to healthcare is essential (like hiring 40% more staff), but we also accept that at current not one government remains to afford that change (well perhaps Easter Island where there are less than 10 doctors). In the end the system has been ignored for too long. Too many politicians are on the ‘let’s get the computers up and running‘ whilst they know that staff will remains a problem for a long time.

That is news! That is what matters, but too many papers and too many news broadcasts are about the emotions and not the actual news that matters. That might be an incorrect view and a very biased view. It might be that some news is more important than other news parts, I will instantly agree, yet in all that the complete silence from pretty much all the papers regarding Tesco and some involved book keeping parties remains a mystery to me, how is that part not news? We will see more events that will not get the proper light in newspapers, both in paper as well as online, I’ll let you decide how that measurement applies to an involved party to events that started a £6.4bn downgrade.

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September 22, 2015 · 22:11

In Greed we trust

In greed we trust, all others are expected to die! That is the basic setting which is now ruling the internet and it all started when the CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals AG bought the rights to generic drug Daraprim and he subsequently raised the price by 5500%. This now creates two parts. They are:

How is this legal?
How to prevent such dangerous situations?

The initial part is not found. You see, when we look at the definition of Financial Exploitation, we get: “Financial exploitation occurs when a person misuses or takes the assets of a vulnerable adult for his/her own personal benefit. This frequently occurs without the explicit knowledge or consent of a senior or disabled adult, depriving him/her of vital financial resources for his/her personal needs” (source: National Adult Protective Services Association (NAPSA)). Most forms of protection against exploitation is against what people own. One of the most famous cases in Australia is Commercial Bank of Australia v Amadio (1983) 151 CLR 447; [1983] HCA 14. Yet, the law regarding exploitation of something that is not owned is not clear, in certain places we see that in the Generics and Biosimilars Initiative Journal (GaBI Journal). 2012;1(3-4):146-9. The title of the PPRI conference reports gives us this with ‘The potential of generics policies: more room for exploitation’. The tactic is quite sound, if the price of normal medication cannot be lowered, than raising the price of generics is a sound strategy from the view of the greedy. The paper also gives us “Mr Richard Bergstrom, President of the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations stated that ‘once patents expire, prices should fall to a low, but sustainable, level’. In this panel discussion but also throughout the conference there appeared to be a common understanding that generics competition works well”. This was a view stated almost 3 years ago, which is true. However, the solutions that are addressed to a 2% or even 1% market does not seem to have too many alternatives, this is where the solutions like Daraprim and Cycloserine seem to come into play. The older small solutions that have no equal because the need is too small, now a massive option for larger profits.

When we look at Bloomberg on August 6^th, we get: “Allergan Plc’s Actavis unit got a subpoena from the U.S. Justice Department seeking information on the marketing and prices of its generic drugs, becoming the biggest company yet to draw scrutiny in the government’s widening antitrust probe of the industry. The June 25 subpoena also sought information about communications with competitors regarding the products, Allergan said Thursday in a filing. While the company didn’t supply further information and didn’t specify the competitors, rivals including Lannett Co., Endo International Plc, Par Pharmaceutical Holdings Inc. and Impax Laboratories Inc. have made similar disclosures in the past several months“, as well as “Some 10 percent of generic drugs doubled in price between July 2013 and June 2014, and half of all generic drugs rose in price, according to an analysis earlier this year of Centres for Medicare and Medicaid data cited by Senator Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont who’s running for president, and Representative Elijah Cummings, a Democrat from Maryland”

So as we see these events, why did Martin Shkreli make this move? An entrepreneur of his achievements does not play around. What is his game?

The ‘defence’ we see from the other side is “Shkreli said: “We need to turn a profit on the drug.” He defended the decision by telling Bloomberg News that newer versions of the drug needed to be developed and his was the first company “to really focus on this product” for decades and that such research was extremely expensive“. This goes against the statement he later makes, which was “He also promised that: “If you cannot afford the drug we will give it away for free.” Shkreli also said the drug was currently under priced” (source: http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/sep/21/entrepreneur-defends-raise-price-daraprim-drug).

Now we have an issue with all this. Is this about the medication, or is this a first step to bleed dry health systems?

For this we must show one additional quote. It is “Shkreli’s start-up company, Turing Pharmaceuticals, acquired Daraprim in August. The drug was first developed in the 1940s and is used to treat toxoplasmosis, an infection that is not common but is particularly dangerous and can be fatal“. The question in my mind is how this existing drug is any form of treatment against the complications of AIDS? A drug that is over 60 years old, which is suddenly the foundation towards a cure? What are we not seeing? Well, that part is shown by CNBC (at http://www.cnbc.com/2015/09/21/drug-prices-big-price-increase-for-daraprim-rescinded.html). Here we see that this is the second act. The first one was “Cycloserine was acquired last month by Rodelis Therapeutics, which promptly raised the price to $10,800 for 30 capsules, from $500. But the company agreed to return the drug to its former owner, a non-profit organization affiliated with Purdue University, the organization said on Monday“, after which the price ‘stabilised’ at twice the original price. So is this about a changing approach to the increase of generic medication by 100%-300% in the end? In addition, the other CNBC quote is “However, outrage over a gigantic price increase for another drug spread into the political sphere on Monday, causing biotechnology stocks to fall broadly as investors worried about possible government action to control pharmaceutical prices. The Nasdaq Biotechnology Index fell more than 4 percent“, now this is all starting to make sense. A hedge funds manager playing the market and playing the waves of market exploitation. This is not unheard of, more important, for the most, we could argue that no illegal acts were undertaken. The Guardian stated “It is not uncommon for companies to use inventive interpretations of government regulations and loopholes in the law to corner the market for certain drugs, especially ones that were developed a long time ago and have only a limited market“, which is true, but when we considered the additional event that the Guardian ignored, give us cause for concern. I am not stating that the Guardian is trying to misinform its readers, their conclusion on one case is sound. Yet, when we see the addition that came from CNBC regarding Rodelis Therapeutics, we see another side. Here we see a side of market exploitation and Market manipulation, as far as I can tell at present in a very legal way. That we see from “Mr. Hasler said the new price was needed to stem losses”. Really? So is this about feigned losses, or is this one of many steps where drugs that treat smaller populations to grow 100%-300% in price to assure a market niche that most NHS systems (US, EEC and Commonwealth nations) are unable to fight. In this way on an international level the respected NHS versions will be placed under additional pressure. As I see it, Martin Shkreli has started Turing Pharmaceuticals AG to dig into this very profitable branch. In addition, for something this expensive, how come those rights transferred for only 55 million?

It seems to me that parts in all this remains unstated. Why?

Now in this part I am not having a go at journalists as in the past. For one, this is an evolving story, in the second part there are a few sides to all this. For one, I am speculating in what the game is here (speculating is not now, nor should it ever be regarded as factual). In addition there are sides that have not played yet. One of these sides is the law. As I personally see it, certain entrepreneurs, wealthy or not are now trying to corner the 2% treatment solutions, perhaps even the one percent group. Consider how this affects the UK. Let’s use the UK statistics. When we consider 240 million patients a year. If 2.4 million people require a drug and if that price suddenly goes up from $500 to $1000 (the Cycloserine example). This is only in the UK. Which gives them an additional 1.2 billion and this is only ONE nation, now consider the effect on the EEC as well as the US and the other Commonwealth nations, now the money becomes really handsome. Even at 0.1% it is a massive influx of money and for now all very legal. I have full faith that the law will be adjusted, yet we will see that it will be adjusted too late and some of these fast moving rascals will have made a massive additional amount of money, which is not an illegal act by the way.

This whilst I am still slaving over my issues of Infringement. That and a massive student loan will not propel me whilst some dubious hedge funds individual walks away with billions. A clever mind is half the battle!

So as this event escalates, the UK will have a new problem, because as is, the prospect stated ‘Planned NHS expenditure for 2015/16 is £116.574bn‘ is possible off by no less than 10%, the generic pharma side is only one side. I wonder what happens when these ‘entrepreneurs’ acquire the service contracts of hospitals at large, what happens when the MRI contracts are sold off to third parties? What happens when those prices go up? This is a path that Stadium Group CEO Charlie Peppiatt seems to be walking towards in a very successful way. As one third of the planet goes into ‘one foot in the grave mode’ that population will require a massive amount of support in medical terms (until they move towards their respective casket or urn). There is one side that is an issue for the other players. As I see it Martin Shkreli might be the most visible one but as I see it not the brightest (massively richer than me though), in one bash he has given visibility to a move that many wanted to keep under wraps, because out of sight, out of mind and that would have resulted in profits (loads of it). The visibility forced on the eyes of many might now result in NHS safety valves that could stop the forced squandering of funds. I wonder if my view is correct and more important will proper steps be taken sooner rather than later.

I’ll let you decide.

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September 20, 2015 · 12:57

The Game of Patent Law

I am in a very weird place. I must admit that I have not been in the brightest of spots. I am struggling with this semester’s subject. Even now, I am still studying too. I stopped writing on notes and going over lectures because I needed a small break and because my mind has been telling me stuff I did not even realise.

You see, this all started on two parts. The first was ‘Person Skilled in the Art’. I looked at it from many sides, but I forgot, no, lets state, I did not completely comprehend the legal part in all this. You see, Wiki tells us ‘If it would have been obvious for this fictional person to come up with the invention while starting from the prior art, then the particular invention is considered not patentable’, which might not be the most academic view, but when we consider the more ‘academic’ part we get “In these fields the persons skilled in the art are not just skilled artisans. They are often trained engineers and scientists, who are well versed in the periodical literature of their subjects“. This we get from the case Sunbeam Corporation v. Morphy-Richards (Australia) Pty Ltd [1961] HCA 39; (1961) 35 ALJR 212. Here Justice Windeyer referred to this in [218] “scientific inventions, intricate mechanical arrangements, chemical processes, electrical and electronic devices and so forth”

You see, part of this is my issue (truly an issue I have). It comes in two parts. The first one is a memory from my early secondary education. We once had a discussion on Art versus conceptual art. It never made sense to me because I regarded both pieces as art. In some view we see that conceptual art focusses on the involved idea in the work takes precedence over traditional forms and material concerns. But is that true for some? Art is art no matter how you slice it. This has been in the back of my mind for a few days. At work in the last week I would listen to the soundtrack of Mass Effect whilst working on parts I was working on. I thought I was just trying to listen to music. No! My mind was kicking into high gear trying to make me see something and after this weekend, after 16 hours of re-listening to lectures and retrying to do what I could not do before, at roughly 10:18 it hit me! It was all connected, I suddenly got the gist in a scary way (because I get a first glimpse on how to solve it).

I need to get back to that ‘skilled person‘ because that is actually at the centre and it all links back to mass effect. In my view Mass Effect is one of the most brilliant pieces of work, possibly ever! The story is captivating, the graphics are amazing and the entire project is out there and I mean out there on the far horizon. Most gaming (me inclusive) always seek to look to the next challenge, the next big game. We almost forget the great games that got us here. Yet, Mass Effect always remains. My Google+ profile still has the launch party photo. In all this, the game was a breed apart.

So, how does this relate to the law?

This is part of the issue I have, especially with Justice Windeyer stating “In these fields the persons skilled in the art are not just skilled artisans. They are often trained engineers“. This has been my issue for a long time. You see almost two years ago, I wrote the concept for Elder Scrolls 6 (Restoration) and send it to Bethesda for their consideration. Not just more or an addition, no an entire new approach. In that same way I have bene able to reengineer in my mind every game I ever played. Now I am not a programmer, so making it is another issue, but my mind can see the game. Improve upon it, mould it into more, within my mind. The ability to see past the game, into the engine, the design and the story has been forever with me. Which was also the part that is stopping me. It is in essence the issue I have had with Ubisoft and Yves Guillemot regarding the dwindling of the Assassins Creed franchise. That is not even addressing the issues (read glitches and bugs) AC Unity and Far Cry 4 has been subjected to. AC Syndicate is now less than 4 weeks away and its predecessor have given a massive blow to the franchise. I saw some of these issues for a long time. Many things have been in there for 5 generations of the Creed, so if I can spot them, why can they not do so (or fix them before release for that matter)?

You see, here we get the PSA, here I get the block that Justice Windeyer (et al) bestowed upon me.

This is exactly where my problem is and yes, it is just me. I am not blaming anyone else. I never truly understood ‘Person Skilled in the art‘ (yes, it took me a while to figure that out), which means the rest became up for grabs. Yes, I comprehend the definition and I understand the premise, but when you can reengineer whatever you see, you (in this case me) tend to miss the point.

Now, in that continuation, how can one dissect “a pair of spaced apart slots in the first end portion each slot extending from an edge of the first end portion to half way across the first end portion; the slots being parallel to each other so that they and their projections define a pair of parallel axes extending across the first end portion, along the sides of the stem and across the second end portion” In case you were wondering, this is part of the description for an applied sheet of metal (I never knew my mind could project so many question marks).

Here I see myself like in Abbott Laboratories v Corbridge Group Pty Ltd (No 2) [2001] FCA 810. At [56] we see “I regard Professor Guilbault as quite unlike any person in Australia for the purposes of this case. He is, and was at the priority date, a real expert in the field. What may have been obvious to him gives no indication as to what would be obvious to the ordinary skilled but non-inventive worker, even leaving aside geographical considerations“. You see, my ego rejects that part, because I am not a professor, I never considered myself to be ‘unlike any person‘, yes I consider myself to be an expert when it comes to games, but not to the extent the case made Professor Guilbault to be in his field, which gave me the issue of not grasping the level of the skilled person.

I am catching on (even though some parts are still really hard), but I have the rest of the day and 5 evenings to catch up with what I was not grasping. I am getting there though!

It still is an issue on how to set certain things, which is why my timeline differs. All this now shifts back to the games. I spoke about Mass Effect. The first game had an issue with the drive, but when we consider the first 360 systems (some people relied on a console without a hard drive, go figure). They got to play the game. The game was also one of the first to be decently open world, so that means that certain trigger points needed to be created. Which is what we saw in Fable 2 and 3. When you realise this, you can work around them. They are of course games and not real life, so the point shifts. Yet, in all that Mass Effect had an issue with achievements it never really fixed. I ignored it (but was a little miffed to miss out on achievements I should have gotten). Mass Effect (apart from the glitches) made a game truly replayable, which makes for more joy, yet unlike Fable 2 it did not create cosmetic alternatives. In all that, who (without cheating or hint guides) knew you could get to see Tali? Mass Effect 2 went even further in all this even as the game is still mostly the same, you can replay in another role giving power to replayability. Mass Effect is one of the only series ever to pull it off to this extent. So, yes, Mass Effect had issues (and glitches), yet the overall issue people had was with the ending. I less so when you realise the story in its totality, but the last one was a little sloppy in places. I saw through all that. So am I a nagger, a person skilled in the art, or am I beyond that? I have been around since before the VIC-20, so I know my games. In all that Mass Effect 3 amazed by offering the best multi player environment I have ever participated in (still not surpassed today).

Here is the kicker where does that leave the other game designers? In the mind of many we see that good gaming might start with replication, but the visionary evolves that into innovation and offer something totally new, something we all desire to play. I think the game Evolve is almost there. It is close to what Mass Effect 3 was, which is also dependent on a great AI and even though the levels in Evolve are bigger, you are still basically in a ‘cage’ with the big nasty. In all this Ubisoft is not sitting still. Although no personal evidence at present, as far as I can tell, from what I saw their new upcoming title ‘For Honor‘ is showing to innovate multi player from what was into what others desire. This is a very good thing! Jason VandenBerghe seems to have figured out what the big players were either not comprehending, or basically were ignoring. Now I am not one for hack and slash, I am not one for melee games, but I can stare in awe at the achievement of innovative gaming. This is what we will get in 2016. Perhaps Sean Murray (No Man’s Sky) wakes up one morning and realises that keeping people in the dark is only short term acceptable, but that is a lesson he must consider by himself.

Back to the innovators. One of the considerations with a person skilled in the art is: ‘A PSA would be likely to access and search IP Australia’s patent and design databases or get someone qualified to do it for them before releasing a new design of a ladder into the marketplace even though the level of technology is relatively low‘, this could be shaped into ‘A PSA would be likely to access and search IP Australia’s patent and design databases before releasing a reengineered design of a ladder, sufficiently distinct from the original into the marketplace as an innovative patent regardless of the level of technology required‘. In my mind I wonder how much power those with the ability to reengineer can hold, those who can see and value the originals for what they are. It is a legal trap to some extent, because the patent has protection under ‘they are more similar than dissimilar’, the registrar will take that into consideration and when it does go to court it will be an issue to argue, which is why I foresaw the evolution of mobiles, not in hardware, but a mobile generic base that is not unlike a stem cell approach, the software will shape the actual device and now we have two issues. Many nations are not have or reject more often software patents. Some state “The rapid decline in software patents is a huge boon for innovation“, yet in hindsight, there is another issue. Yes, I am all for innovation and bring it on, but not unlike Assassins Creed Unity it becomes more about the now and more about the quick sale and not about the quality of aftercare. As we move from a quality product to a short term choice, how do we fare? Is your budget ready for the annual purchase of a mobile? This is linked to all this, it is not just the Person Skilled in the Art, or the Person Skilled into the reinvented art. As we move from art to conceptual art, we also move from the finality of a choice to the transient of what might not become (again that assassins game comes to mind). All these elements move us in a direction that I regard as dangerous, we move from creators to innovators. Which was always intended to be a move that evolves into true new creators. No, now we move from creators to cheap solutions, something patents were never supposed to do, the person skilled in the art is the push we did not tailor to. I am evidence of that. I could never keep up with Richard Garriot or Peter Molyneux. Even when we spoke I saw their minds moving on to really new things, not iterations of the ‘what is now’. That is what corporate greed got us. A move away from the future. Even if we consider the computer as hardware, the timeline from the 8088 to the I7 now. The processors are no longer truly new, just slightly faster. A market controlled desperate to hold on what they have and not to lose it. That is not how the 80286 came to fruition, in that Mass Effect from game 1 trough game 2 to game 3 made jumps, not mere steps. You only have to replay the first one and the second one to see the leap we got. Assassins Creed showed the same in the original and 2, what came after became steps towards iterative work, iterative work is not innovative, which is why the small indie developers must be protected, if we are to move forward we have to protect true futures instead of orchestrated options.

Here I am still deliberating Person Skilled in the art where Lord Diplock states ‘a patent specification is a unilateral statement by the patentee, in words of his own choosing, addressed to those likely to have a practical interest in the subject matter of his invention‘ and the subsequent resolution by Lord Justice of Appeal Waller ‘a man concerned with the construction of a steel lintel to whom the use of the word ‘vertical’ would indicate precision‘. Here I find the issue with both parts, the second might be overruling the first, but the protection, or at least the approach from a malicious side gives pause to vertical could imply accepted to be ‘cheaper’, for if the engine is not tuned to be finer, it will be constructed to be cheaper, life has shown us that in the iterative part, which is part of the mess we now face. In my view the law must lead but it adheres to the view of those who get to speak, which are the people who have the established base of wealth. The true innovator who moves to creation is never that, so the future is tainted by those who have, they either own those who try to push forward and they then adjust the push for maximum wealth, or they buy out those who they do not owe and again they get to control the product.

The game of Patent Law is harsh, difficult and rewarding, because Patent Law was to be a fair field and in that it still is, the world around the law has changed. I am still trying to get the materials and pass this subject, but I also wonder, what can the law do to keep the field fair? In my view, the law has addressed some parts, but the issue where innovation is too often replaced with iteration (pharmaceutical patents for example), how to address that part?

Well I am off to lunch and after that redo my parts on infringements, which would go further if I did not get stumped by texts like: “Further, because the edges at either end of the column neatly align with one another a plurality of such columns of the same height can be suitably employed on an even surface to stably support various objects including a coffee table top or barbecue plate without rocking, for example. The column structure can also be used by itself as a tree guard“.

Life might be a game, but patent Law is not the clearest of rule books to define it by.

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