Category Archives: Science

July 19, 2021 · 11:56

The devil rang

This is too good, I had just finished yesterday’s article and the Guardian gives me ‘Spyware can make your phone your enemy. Journalism is your defence’, in this that I have some troubles accepting that journalism is my defence, they are al about circulation and satisfying their shareholders and stakeholders (optionally advertisers too). But the article came at the right moment, even as this is about Pegasus and the NSO group. Whenever I look back at the title ‘Pegasus’ I think back to Pegasus mail and windows 3.1. It is a reflex, but a nice one. So, the article gives us “The Pegasus project poses urgent questions about the privatisation of the surveillance industry and the lack of safeguards for citizens”, which is nice, but Microsoft, Solarwinds and Cisco made a bigger mess and a much larger mess, so pointing at Pegasus at this point seems a little moot and pointless. (Microsoot’s Exchange anyone?)

Yes, there are questions and it is fair to ask them, so when we see “This surveillance has dramatic, and in some cases even life-threatening, consequences for the ordinary men and women whose numbers appear in the leakbecause of their work exposing the misdeeds of their rulers or defending the rights of their fellow citizens”, yes questions are good, but the fact that millions of records went to the open air via all kinds of methods (including advertiser Microsoft) is just a little too weird. And it is not up to me, it was The Hill who asked the people (5 days ago after the Kaseya hack gone public, the larger question that actually matters ‘Kaseya hack proves we need better cyber metrics’ and they are right, when we see “Once “infected”, your phone becomes your worst enemy. From within your pocket, it instantly betrays your secrets and delivers your private conversations, your personal photos, nearly everything about you” we read this and shrug, but at this point how did a third party operator (NSO group) get the data and the knowhow to make an app that allows for this? Larger question should be handed to both Google and Apple. The fact that the phones are mostly void of protection comes from these two makers. This is a setting of facilitation and a lack of cyber security. The NSO group decided to set a limited commercial application (more likely to facilitate towards the proud girls and boys of Mossad) and they took it one step further to offer it to other governments as well, is that wrong?

So when we see “All of these individuals were selected for possible surveillance by states using the same spyware tool, Pegasus, sold by the NSO Group. Our mission at Forbidden Stories is to pursue – collaboratively – the work of threatened, jailed or assassinated journalists”, if that were true, we would see a lot more articles regarding the 120 Journalists jailed in Turkey, not to mention the 60 journalists that were assassinated (read: targeted killing exercise) there as well. The papers are all about a journalist no one cares about (Jamal Khashoggi) but the other journalists do not really make the front page giving pause and skepticism to “the work of threatened, jailed or assassinated journalists”, my personal view is that the advertisers and stake holders don’t really care about those lives. Then I have issues with “This investigation began with an enormous leak of documents that Forbidden Stories and Amnesty International had access to”, was it really a leak, or did one government take view away from them (by Amnesty International) and handed it towards the NSO group? A list of 50,000 numbers is nothing to sneer at, as such, I doubt it was a leak, it was a tactical move to push the limelight away from them and push it somewhere else. As we consider Kaseya, Solarwinds, Microsoft and Cisco, the weak minded democratic intelligence players from the Unified Spies of America come to mind, but I admit that I have no evidence, it is pure speculation.

And then we see the larger danger “But the scale of this scandal could only be uncovered by journalists around the world working together. By sharing access to this data with the other media organisations in the Forbidden Stories consortium, we were able to develop additional sources, collect hundreds of documents and put together the harrowing evidence of a surveillance apparatus that has been wielded ferociously against swaths of civil society”, who did they share access to? Who reports to another faction that is not journalism or is purely greed driven? In this, the article (at https://www.theguardian.com/world/commentisfree/2021/jul/19/spyware-can-make-your-phone-your-enemy-journalism-is-your-defence) gives us one other gem, it is “not to mention more than 180 journalists from nearly two dozen countries”, as such we see 0.36% of the data is about journalists, so if I was to look at a slice and dice dashboard, how will these 50,000 people distribute? So when we see “If one reporter is threatened or killed, another can take over and ensure that the story is not silenced”, yes, how did that end up for those journo’s in Turkey? What about outliers in data like Dutch journalist Peter R. De Vries? He is not getting the limelight that much in the last three days, you all moved on? You pushed the limelight towards Jamal Khashoggi for well over a year, who achieved less than 0.01% compared to Peter R. De Vries. I reckon that this article, although extremely nice is there to cater to a specific need, a need that the article does not mention (and I can only speculate), but when we see all this holier than though mentions and we see an inaction on Turkey’s actions, as well as a lack of news regarding Peter R. De Vries, I wonder what this article was about, it wasn’t really about the NSO group and Pegasus, they are mentioned 4 and 7 times, the article was to push people towards thinking it is about one thing and it becomes about the 0.36% of journalists in a list of 50,000, all whilst the number is mentioned once in the article without a breakdown. Someone else is calling, when you answer, just make sure the local number is not 666.

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July 19, 2021 · 03:06

From scatterplot to Unicorn

We all have these moments, even if we deny this, even if we do not want this, we get drawn in. We see the point in a plot and the mind fills in the connections. To see this, we need to take a look at two articles. The first one is ‘Australia’s spy agencies caught collecting COVID-19 app data’, which was given to us by Ted Crunch (at https://techcrunch.com/2020/11/24/australia-spy-agencies-covid-19-app-data/) last November. There we see “Australia’s intelligence agencies have been caught “incidentally” collecting data from the country’s COVIDSafe contact-tracing app during the first six months of its launch, a government watchdog has found”, in this I do not really care, I do not trust ANY contact tracing app. Most of them are quick designed apps with a need to make a few quick bucks (evidence to follow). The article also gives us “For some, fears that a government spy agency could access COVID-19 contact-tracing data was the worst possible outcome”, why? If you think that the government is your worst enemy, then read on. 

The second part is seen when we turn towards the Netherlands. They give us ‘Data leak test provider: anyone could get fake test results in app CoronaCheck’ (at https://nos.nl/artikel/2389818-datalek-testaanbieder-iedereen-kon-valse-testuitslagen-in-app-coronacheck-krijgen), there we see “Due to a major leak at a company conducting corona tests, it was possible for anyone to obtain fake travel or access certificates in the CoronaCheck app and manipulate data. The company works for Testenvoorjereis.nl, which has been set up by the government”, it is only the beginning. The additional part is “Not only was it possible to create false evidence, but sensitive personal data was also leaked from more than 60,000 people who had been tested by the provider”, here we see the issue, not only is there a pool of data from people going on, or recently went on vacation, it is possible for criminal elements to create false papers for all kind of reasons. And there were people calling me mad? I think that these two parts show just how shortsighted those pushing for quick creation are. One could argue that any of these 60.000 households can make a claim towards the people behind testenvoorjereis.nl if they get burgled. Is it me, am I seeing the unicorn in the scatterplot, or is it the alleged delusional making claims like “Incidentally, there is still no evidence that anyone other than the RTL journalist has gained access to the system, VWS informs”, a stage that is not a given and and there is a chance that they will never be able to prove that there was no access. It is a stage that can fall either way. I tend to side with the cautious side, and there is a larger stage of denial from the other side. 

The problem is not the precautions one side makes, it is the uninhibited hype towards apps and data. And in this stage the criminals are laughing their heads off. They get way too much access to too many datasets. It might be small, yet when they aggregate 2-5 of these sources, they end up with a rather large dataset that is a lot more complete than too many sources are willing to admit to. These apps all rely on phone number, or mobile serial number, optionally even with connection details. Now consider that people have been kindly logging into EVERY place, all in the name of safety. So a person goes from Whole Foods, to the Trocadero, to Regent Street, to Liberty London, the get a Corona test, they register everywhere and the criminals are taking note, especially when some are about to go on vacation. This is a lot larger than the Netherlands. I am willing to go on faith (faith of the greed driven) that most Commonwealth countries have similar flaws, if not bigger ones. 

Is it me? Am I seeing the unicorn in a scatterplot? I am willing to admit that I am on a piece of slippery ice, yet personally I do not believe that to be the case, there is too much out there to support my point of view.

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July 17, 2021 · 20:13

The choices made for us

Yes, that happens. It happens all the time. We vote and the elected people make choices for us. We support charities and that allows them to save who they think are important. These are choices that happen, to some degree with our consent. In the other hand we are confronted with choices made FOR us, without permission and without consent. And there the problem starts, we cannot make all our decisions and all our choices, in this we also set a larger stage that we can never control, and that is where the issues begin. 

In the first stage we see ‘Covid misinformation on Facebook is killing people’, the article by the BBC (at https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-57870778) gives us “The White House has been increasing pressure on social media companies to tackle disinformation”, which is nice, but utterly useless. As I see (as a Republican) that there can never be freedom of speech without accepting the accountability of what we say. To put it mildly, I wrote ‘The accountability act – 2015’ On June 4th 2012, almost 10 years ago I saw the solution that all the high and mighty lawyers are steering clear from. My thoughts never became reality, and you might wonder why not? When we see today at the BBC “Earlier on Friday, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said Facebook and other platforms were not doing enough to combat misinformation about vaccines”, I am stating that people like Jen Psaki are wording the thoughts of people who are at times too stupid for everyones good. We need to accept that solutions like Facebook are mere publishers here, the people uploading their views are to be held responsible for what they say, but politicians for well over a decade refused to do so. I get it that there should be freedom of speech and freedom of expression, but in that same setting those freedoms need to be enriched with  accountability. 

In the second stage we see ‘Under the skin of OnlyFans’, also by the BBC (at https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-57269939). There we see “Soon Tina was making $2,000 (£1,450) a month and able to rent her own flat. But in January, a hacker seized control of her account, blackmailed her for $150 and uploaded streams of IS terror videos”, as such we see “one of the million content creators on OnlyFans”, yet how much is revealed on the terrorist that resorted to blackmails. So the BBC and others are all about the OnlyFans part, but only (in passing) the BBC mentions blackmail and terrorism. So how much is there on that hacker and has that person been arrested yet? We can optionally see that Tina takes accountability for HER material, but who holds the terrorist accountable? 

Then there is level three, which comes from the Dutch NOS. There we see (at https://nos.nl/nieuwsuur/artikel/2389685-zo-opereert-de-digitale-maffia) ‘This is how the Digital Mafia operates’. The articles gives us “We were able to listen in on a piece of negotiation between a Dutch security company and a hacked company. The online criminals are so professional that the negotiators work in team services. They even seem to use scripts during the negotiation – as if you were calling a customer service”, they even give a video on how a ransomware kill chain is operated by seven different groups, and the US president Joe Biden is all about blaming social media, instead of hunting down these digital criminals with optional targeted kill orders. 

As I personally see it, our freedom has been given away hiding behind ‘freedom of speech’ posters, and the freedom of expression for digital criminals is to get every penny they can get. No one is held accountable for their actions. A choice made FOR us, against us and in opposition of our safety and freedoms. 

So how does that sit with you?

Yes, we might see one side of the table, all whilst the other side is covered with a table cloth. And the Dutch version matters, in this age, after criminals executed the crime journalist Peter R. De Vries the public might get angry enough to force the issue and that gives us a new stage, the dozens of criminals feeling safe in the Netherlands might suddenly lose that freedom of action because of the acts of a person allegedly acting for (or in response) Ridouan Taghi. I reckon that it will take time to ascertain one or the other, but the public does not wait, they will act in loud response and that might be just the coin toss a few people are hoping for and especially the digital crime circles dreads, they are all about white collar crimes, all whilst the response is well above their heads and others will respond in kind, even criminals will react, all to push the limelight away from them. This is the response we get to have in a world of ‘freedom of speech’ without accountability.

In a world where no one wants to pay the bill for what they caused. This might be most visible on Covid and disinformation, but soon enough the Trumpists (drummers as well) and others will see the consequence of action without accepting the liability attached to it. Even now as life in the US becomes close to unliveable, we see that politicians are allowing QAnon speakers to take the limelight. You think the age of Donald Trump is over? Think again, as long as there is a lack of accountability is continuing this wave keeps on going on. 

And the opposition? That is easy, it will not take too long, but the intelligent people could pick up their IP and take it to Canada, the UK and the EU, when that happens and the US Credit card is considered too overdrawn, the stage of life in the US will soon change and not due to a heatwave. In 2021 $15 billion in drugs patents will expire, the year after $36 billion more, and over the next 5 years the US will see well over $20 billion in technology patents expire and now consider that an estimated $25 billion in patents move somewhere else, an economy with an immediate write-off that goes optionally beyond $100 billion lost. Now consider what happens to your credibility when your collateral is diminished by 100 billion? The US might need a new song, one that is different from blaming big tech, they are keeping the US economy alive. All drenched in choices made for us, made for us all. Yet how many of them were made FOR us? And this is not merely about the US, when they go under so does Japan and soon thereafter the EU as well. Do you still think that freedom of speech is the real saviour? It is a one sided coin of a larger stage that ignores the other side of that very same coin. 

Good luck!

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July 16, 2021 · 21:58

What one reads

We all have that what one reads can be the opportunity for the other. I wrote about this in the past. On June 4th in ‘The left corner’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/06/04/the-left-corner/). Today, Reuters gives us ‘Facebook says Iranian hackers used site in spying on U.S. military personnel’ (at https://reut.rs/3rbz5Uf), and yes that is the direct result from Digital Direct Marketing. They all get to have a bite, so when I see “Facebook said on Thursday it had taken down about 200 accounts run by a group of hackers in Iran as part of a cyber-spying operation that targeted mostly U.S. military personnel and people working at defence and aerospace companies” I am not that surprised, I am just giggling that it took them that long. On the other hand there is a chance it took Facebook this long to wake up, either way is possible. Yet that also gives the opportunity for Cocoon to grow their marketshare, by a lot. Consider that one in the cocoon pays the $40 a year, no matter what the size, no matter what the trade. And in all this time no one in the Defence department (not even the DARPA boffins) made clear consideration to adapt Cocoon for military messaging. A stage that was out in the open when Google created Google+ in 2011. Yup the uniform people did seemingly not catch on. So when we see optional a whole range of security issues, is it that much of a stretch to set the IP of Cocoon to a much larger base (it will piss off Facebook, but who cares). A stage that is international is governmental and as we see it, there is an almost boundless level of custodians and customers and they all need privacy. So, as we see the setting of the digital sun on some, we can hide behind “Facebook said the hackers mostly targeted people in the United States, as well as some in the United Kingdom and Europe, in a campaign running since mid-2020”, whilst hiding behind the spoof “its head of cyber espionage Mike Dvilyanski said it was notifying the “fewer than 200 individuals” who were targeted”, yet this is Iran (and others), do you really think that they are merely hitting 200 people? Even at 1-3 per day it implies that in 2021 alone 197-594 would have been targeted, as well as their family members to find leverage. And all that time there was an alternative. 

And let’s be clear, this is not on Facebook, they did what their solution intended to do, Iran merely saw more and it is time to change that, Cocoon came at the right time and they have the inside track to a lot more. 

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July 10, 2021 · 23:54

Chook Chook thinking

Yes, I could have said ‘train of thought’ but that would be too obvious, wouldn’t it. The thought came from two articles. The two articles set my mind in motion and they are not related in any way, other then the provider of both articles which is Reuters. The first article (at https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-regulation-tencent-m-a/chinese-antitrust-regulator-blocks-tencents-5-3-billion-video-games-merger-idUSKCN2EG029) gave me ‘Chinese antitrust regulator blocks Tencent’s $5.3 billion video games merger’, I have nothing really to add, other then the thoughts I had wondering what the antitrust regulators were thinking. I am not saying, or implying that anything wrong was done. The ‘official’ version is “Antitrust laws are statutes developed by governments to protect consumers from predatory business practices and ensure fair competition” that is the official version, unofficial it is that competitors use their version of the excuse “to protect consumers” into a version of “stopping competitors with actual innovative inventions to get the upper hand over their need for revenue (read: greed)”, Google has been the most clear victim but they are definitely not alone. In the article we see that it is about Tencent Holdings Ltd’s and the merger of Huya and DouYu. If the merger goes through we get a setting where their combined market share in the video game live streaming industry would be over 70%. So I am not sure what to think, I do not know whether it is valid or not. It was merely an article that  got my attention. 

The second article is ‘FTC extends probe of Amazon, MGM deal’ (at https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mgm-m-a-amazon/ftc-extends-probe-of-amazon-mgm-deal-source-idUSKCN2EF2EF). There we see “Amazon.com’s deal to buy movie studio MGM for $8.5 billion is headed for an extended probe by the Federal Trade Commission, after a source familiar with the matter said on Friday the agency had issued a second request in its review of the merger”, so there is no connection there, and there will not be one. But the two articles made me think on what else Amazon could do. They do have the inside Track at present and if they push they could do titles that all others are not considering. To see this, we need to go back to 1983 then ‘Dragon’s Lair’ took the breath away from nearly everyone who saw it, it was an arcade machine and a laserdisc. No one had done it before and it took the cake, now on streaming no laserdisc is required, with MGM, Amazon has the option of launching a whole range of interactive movies. James Bond might be the most visible one, but when we consider the size of their IP which also includes the Hobbit, TombRaider and a few others, we can see that interactive movies have an option, and Amazon will own it all. The larger station is not merely interactive movies, but it is a play style that Sony and Microsoft added to their games, they merely forgot to make games like that. They did nothing wrong, they added flavour to their games. Yet Dragon’s Lair showed that a game like that is possible. In 1995 Tia Carrere added to this with The Daedalus Encounter, it started on 3DO but it did get on PC on the early age of VGA and CDROM systems with often no more than 300KB/s. Now with the consoles and streaming systems coming we can do a lot more and now we see that Amazon might be holding on to a lot more and even if the FTC tries to block it, it is merely a temporary setback, Amazon has the inside track and when the others consider this they might wake up and take old ideas into innovative new internet streaming highways. 

As I said, it was merely a train of thought, but so far the others aren’t showing their actions and that is before Netflix steps into the ring, consider what they have and what they would be able to push for, the innovative player takes the cake, that has been proven by Sony and by Microsoft in the past, and with the bar set to $195,000,000,000 in 2022, do you think that the innovators are going to let slip any sliver of a pie that big? What are you thinking?

As stated it is merely a train of thought, but is it that far fetched when you think of what we can now achieve?

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July 8, 2021 · 22:42

The Wheel (reinvented)

I happened to stumble upon 9 to 5 Google, with all kind of non-Google news. The article (at https://9to5google.com/2021/06/25/bandwidth-xbox-game-pass-and-amazon-luna-announce-july-2021-game-additions/)

We see titles like:

Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts
Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell Conviction
Saints Row The Third: Remastered

Some of them are really great, but I am missing something, a new dawn, an actual new dawn, a setting we have never seen before. I am a little bit surprised, none of them have anything really new. I am not talking about new games, new titles, new originals. I am talking about a new stage of gaming, cloud gaming made it possible, so what is stopping them? I even dropped a few ideas in previous articles (go look for them). Cloud gaming allows for a new stage, so why do we see the same stage props that we saw on PS2, PS3, PS4, Xbox, Xbox360, N64, Wii even Nintendo Switch. Cloud gaming allows for a different station a larger setting with optionally a private set social media option, none of them are going there, they all seem to be much more relaxed in reinventing the wheel. None of them show us a station that is actually new. Perhaps it is still to come, but it is day 1 where you show that you are not the sheep or it’s herder, you are new, you are unique. So why do they not see that option? I am pondering it, I actually do not know. But to see some level of herd mentality is a little disappointing. Will it be up to Netflix to teach them that? 

The Amazon Luna has a refreshing amount of new games, yet there is an overwhelming presence of Ubisoft, not that this is bad. There are plenty of titles I never saw before and that is good, but so far cloud gaming shows more of the same, nothing refreshingly new and that is a disappointment. And with Luna starting at $6 a month and Ubisoft+ at $15 a month Amazon will soon need to reconsider what they have (without Ubisoft) and see how they are different from Google, Microsoft and Netflix. Being different is at times scary and it does have its own unique set of challenges. Yet we have seen how exclusive games make a console, Xbox proved it, Xbox360 continued it, Xbox One wasted it. Playstation 1 through 5 have shown that exclusive games make the difference and Nintendo did this as well. Now consider that cloud gaming is more than a console, it offers a few unique settings that others cannot offer, the cloud gives the makers a unique advantage, so why was this not drilled on? Why was that source not tempered into a powerhouse? 

Cocoon (at https://cocoon.com) shows a ‘new’ kind of social media, not unlike what Google Plus offered. It seems that none of them adjusted those two ideas in a stage where the gamer can talk to friends, can optionally open up to talk to fellow gamers of a game. All options were there and it seems no one took that. No one took the idea that games can have a larger impact on more settings and it seems to me that these makers are all about others doing the work and no innovation comes forward. Achievements can be traced back to 1982 (Activision) and we have seen the evolution on systems, yet as far as I can tell no one in cloud gaming land had the idea to evolve that into something more. It was the Xbox360 that had the last evolution, it was Ubisoft that reinvented the badges and none of them took it to the next step, so why would anyone consider cloud gaming when we see: “Cloud gaming enables you to play games on devices you already own, without the need to purchase a gaming console or gaming PC” yet if we already have a gaming solution, why go there unless it offers more and in this I do not mean the same games and more games. Cloud gaming needs more and so fr I see none of this happen, I left the ideas months ago and so far none seem to be clued in on what others seemingly throw at their feet. At best we are most likely to get a ‘we are looking in that direction’, which is like marketing telling Jaguar that they are waiting for more customers, it is innovation that drives a system to customers, when innovation is absent the customer merely looks form a distance and considers ‘I can already do that’. It is innovation that drives the games, the hardware, the technology and from there the customers flock. Yes there is an equal chance that they distance themselves, but the true innovator can see the chances that are out there. So what is keeping them?

Consider that we see Ubisoft+ at $15 a month, yet on consoles Amazon (the dot com version) offers the Division for $10, The Division 2 for $13, for Honor $12, the Crew $15, Black Flag $11, and in this case the subscription only pays if you pay more than one new game every month, so how long until the mediocrity of Ubisoft games (and its glitches) gets to you? Yes, it seems interesting when you consider the latest games, but still, you break even in month two, after that the cost continues and any delay will set you off, that is the setting we all ignore and their marketing hopes we ignore it. And when we take notice of Android Central and with “Ubisoft is dedicated to cloud gaming, specifically Stadia and Amazon Luna, and that was reflected in numerous announcements”, so what happens when they service the consoles, PC’s, Stadia, Luna and xCloud? What happens when patch after patch is required? How happy will you then be? This is not on Ubisoft, this is the cost of doing business and I expected that Stadia and Luna were ready, yet all I read is that there is a ‘more of the same’ approach and games alone will not get you there. Luna has a fair amount of titles that I see nowhere else and as such they have an advantage, but none of them took the environment to the next level and that is a bit of a disappointment, and there were options. There were ideas that I (others too) threw out there for them to pick up and they did none of that. Perhaps it is not the mission statement (which already cost one firm billions), perhaps it was not their technology, which shows us that they were optionally not ready and there was no brainstorm on what else is possible and that is the foundation of ANY game. 1984 gave us (unknown to George Orwell) Elite, Ultima, Archon, Spy hunter, and Lode Runner. Some of these games still have a following today, some of these games reinvented themselves (Elite Dangerous is the most visible one). They all set a new standard, the hardware evolved and now we see the makers of that hardware show us that they can do it using our PC, MAC, Console. But they had the option to give more and they seemingly neglected that.

New hardware that brands ‘itself’, yet they ignore the path of awareness. When we look at awareness, perception, and cognition we see mere words, but any market researcher will look deeper and the makers of cloud gaming seemingly learned nothing, not even from their marketing department. Perception without awareness, cognition without perception and awareness with no lead towards cognition. Three elements that they do not connect but that is the larger mistake, one leads to the other. It is almost a Pokemon setting water beats fire, grass beats water and fire beats grass, yet what do we get when we reverse that? No one looked at that part and in the Pokemon setting it does not really work, yet in consoles we see what lacked (even though there was a hidden hint with Sony) they never pushed through, now cloud gaming has the opportunity to make it all a reality and it seems that they are not doing that. Perhaps Netflix will and make a clean sweep, or perhaps Nintendo will. We cannot tell, but the one that does will have a massive advantage, a place where others seemingly dreaded to go, and now that setting changes the game completely. Yes number one and two will remain the positions for Sony and Nintendo, but the number three (most likely Amazon Luna) is not secure, so the one who innovates the cloud the most will head for position three with the option to gain and optionally overtake position 2. Will that happen? I cannot tell, because Nintendo has been innovative and it has a massive advantage, even before their second version is out. Yet personally I feel that one thing is clear. More of the same will not hack it, not in this economy of people trying to pay their bills, unless there is a massive upside the consoles will remain the largest players in game land. That part is almost certain. There is a clear space for cloud gaming, but not in the ‘more of the same setting’ not for 1-2 years to come. 

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July 7, 2021 · 23:18

Dark side of the Jedi

Yes, I guess that George Lucas really had no idea that this would hold for well over 45 years, but that happens when you become the real innovator. In this we recognise innovators, but the path of one is often dangerous, perilous and it only works when the competition is at your heels. Consider that Star Wars came out when we had The Omen, Taxi Driver, All the presidents men, Rocky, Saturday Night Fever, the Duellists. All excellent movies, all driving the others to do better, that is why it works, so when I see “reversing the Trump-era award to Microsoft Corp and announcing a new contract expected to include its rival Amazon.com and possibly other cloud players” I merely wonder how stupid Trump actually was. To give $10,000,000,000 to Microsoft when they screw up their console position and hand the number two place to Nintendo with the weakest of all consoles, only to likely lose again in the future to the Amazon Luna and possibly even to Netflix? How delusional can you become? Microsoft tried to attack the Apple tablet market and failed miserably again and again, they blew their mobile market and they are trying to create waves for their Azure market, that is the player we want for the U.S. Defense Department? This all whilst we get a day ago “Microsoft has “paused” SQL Server in its Windows Containers project. Microsoft advises anyone interested in running SQL Server in a container to use the Linux root instead”, so basically the two non entries (Google and Amazon) were a better solution off the bat?

So, this Jedi (aka the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure) is off to a rocky start. I had never expected to be any commander in chief so delusional that they would hand the contract to one player, all whilst better solutions (in the worst case merely equal) would be considered without proper vetting? I am not stating to merely give it to Amazon or Google, that is why vetting is an important process, yet in all that, Reuters (at https://www.reuters.com/article/us-microsoft-pentagon-jedi/pentagon-hits-reset-on-trumps-10-billion-cloud-deal-welcoming-new-players-idUSKCN2EC1YY) gives us “The company cited a 2019 book that reported Trump had directed the Defense Department to “screw Amazon” out of the JEDI contract”, is this how Americans see their national defence, as an ego driver? It would be one thing if Microsoft is the better party, but that hasn’t be the case for some time. 

So when I see “the plan would likely involve a direct award for “urgently needed” capabilities and then a “full and open” competition for multiple suppliers by early 2025”, which we get from John Sherman, acting chief information officer for the Defense Department. My issue here is that when I see ‘urgently needed’, I also remember the joke (not a funny one) that the Zumwalt class represents and the billions spend there, then there are a few more projects, all with pressing needs. And whilst we are getting towards it, the entire Kaseya and Solarwinds debacle shows the larger pressing matter. Security matters! And the matter of security can never be properly investigated if it is appointed to one player, one debatable player mind you. I am not stating that security at Google or Amazon is better, but the Exchange issues, which we get from ZDNet in April shows us “Four zero-day vulnerabilities in Microsoft Exchange Server are being actively exploited by state-sponsored threat groups and others to deploy backdoors and malware in widespread attacks”, this doesn’t mean that Google and/or Amazon is better. But the debate is on and Microsoft lost top dog and pole position years ago, they are merely in it to remain mediocre, all for the good of the board of directors. They lost to Apple (tablets), then they lost to Google (with Bing), then they lost to Amazon (web services and SaaS) and now surpassed by TikTok (video against China), that is an impressive fail rate. Consider that Bing has a market share of 2.71%, which against Google with 91.95% is slightly too funny for words. 

But this is not about Microsoft, it is about Jedi (all these funny acronyms). So when we consider the dark side of that forceless solution (by Microsoft) and we need to wonder about “the Defense Department also announced its plans for a new multi-cloud initiative known as the Joint Warfighter Cloud Capability, or JWCC. It must provide capabilities at all three classification levels — Unclassified, Secret and Top Secret — and parity of services across all classification levels; integrated cross-domain solutions; global availability including at the tactical edge; and enhanced cybersecurity controls, according to the Pentagon”, not the intent, but the investigative presumption of ‘enhanced cybersecurity controls’, both Solarwinds and Kaseya showed us that and this field is still widely in development, and sources like business wire are setting the Marke that cloud security will double over the next 4 years, a stage of increased visibility will both increase security and criminal activities, the winner remains unknown at present, even if we acknowledge that REvil has the upper hand, we have no way of knowing what happens tomorrow,  if security comes from innovators there is every chance that Amazon or Google will get there before Microsoft will, even Apple has a better chance of showing innovation than Microsoft in the cloud atmosphere at present. The fact of what happens next will be out soon enough, yet my mind wonders why anyone would be stupid enough to award national defence to anyone without proper vetting.  So when we accept that it was meant as “part of a broader digital modernisation of the Pentagon aimed at making it more technologically agile”, wouldn’t you want to vet to broaden the application of data, the security of the system and the application of security towards data, users and access? There is a reason that SELinux had roots going back to the NSA, this they all wanted to throw away? And the media is merely reporting the news, not questioning that time line? Why is that?

Only the agile and versatile remain superpowers, and the former president was willing to hand over 50% of THAT equation? So consider that what was JEDI (Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure) could have become the Darth (Defence Application Reprehensive Technology Hype) defence system. 

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July 6, 2021 · 21:38

Dream number three

I am trying to remember something. Yesterday I came up with short story number three, I dreamt the story and the big lines were done, but now I forgot the dream, only fragments remain. A stage where it is about one thing leading to another, I see the ending but I can no longer see the beginning. It is a shared setting that eludes me, and every time I my mind moves back to the story, it is overwhelmed with other facts. It takes me back to yesterday as I was writing the Kaseya story. The BBC is giving us “Researchers from the Dutch Institute for Vulnerability Disclosure found the problem and were helping Kaseya plug the hole long before the hackers found it”, yet if we are to believe ‘long before the hackers found it’ I wonder why Kaseya was continuing on the path they were. More important, if that was really true, why was Kaseya not monitoring the situation 24:7? In my case the story is not completed, I am creating it (almost) on the go. Kaseya is seemingly in a stage where they are in denial. First a few, then up to a 1,000 and now, after other sources give us a stage that sets the premise to up to 100,000, some sources give us ‘Between 800 and 1,500 companies potentially affected by Kaseya ransomware attack’, I get it, it is optional a seesaw that is balancing between optionally managing bad news and the speculative media on the other end of the seesaw. Neither side is overly reliable in my personal view. Yet the BBC gives us “the way the cyber-security world has pulled together to reduce the impact of the attack has been incredible”, you see, I have been involved in IT work since 1982, I have never seen competitors pull together, so the story of ‘the cyber-security world has pulled together’ remains debatable. They are all scared, they wanted solutions faster, automated and cheaper, it is like the house where you can choose 2 out of three, now the choice is nil, because the underlying factors are haywire. In this setting, and yes, this is all speculative. We have a solution that is faster/slower, automated/manual and cheap/expensive. They wanted it fast, but that requires matching hardware and software. This is where ‘plugging the hole’ is a problem, as such there was never a cheap solution. Then there was the automated setting, that is the one that they could pull off, but in a stage where there is too little security, and if ‘long before the hackers found it’ is to be believed, I speculate that the need was manual when the wrong parties opted for automated. And in the third we have cheap and expensive. They needed a solution that was cheap, but they needed a lot more expensive elements. This is ALL speculation, but the setting where we see system after system fail, in my personal opinion is all a setting towards shortcuts and that led to the weakness we now see exploited. I personally believe that players like Kaseya are too plenty and when we see ‘the cyber-security world has pulled together’, we see a stage where they all have a seemingly fat meal, they all get to set a field of limitations for all others and that will have long term repercussions. Microsoft, Solarwinds, Kaseya are examples that how us that the hackers are gaining more and more advantage and that is the larger stage. In this setup hell will get one happy resident and it is not the ruler of hell, I will let you consider who I am talking about and it is not a player that is mentioned in this article, neither is REvil, they seemingly found a gap that they exploited hoping to bank $70,000,000 but the stage is out there and the snippet “were helping Kaseya plug the hole long before the hackers found it” is merely a factor, so how long did the plugging take and why was it not successful? The words ‘long before’ should be an indication. So why are we (clearly) seeing several facts and the hack was still successful? The article is (at https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-57719820) merely one factor, the amount of MSP’s are another and the lack of alarms is a third part. A dangerous setting of cheap, seemingly fast and proclaimed automated systems in a stage where no one was the wiser. Consider a fast automated system without proper alarms and without logs, and that is merely one player using (or claiming to have) cloud solutions. A stage that is no solution (ask COOP in Sweden if you doubt me) and one that hands over cash to organised crime. How much risk are you willing to take with your business?

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July 5, 2021 · 21:48

Your data or your life!

It is not the dream, not this time. I was persecuted by a Construction AI with diminishing reality capacity, but in the humour side there were a few criminals trying to get away with a golden car (like Goldfinger) and they got in the middle, so there. No, today is about Ransomware. Reuters gives us ‘Ransomware breach at Florida IT firm hits 200 businesses’ (at https://www.reuters.com/technology/200-businesses-hit-by-ransomware-following-incident-us-it-firm-huntress-labs-2021-07-02/). Like the solarwinds issue we see “The attackers changed a Kaseya tool called VSA, used by companies that manage technology at smaller businesses. They then encrypted the files of those providers’ customers simultaneously” and no one, most visibly the media is asking the questions that needs asking. The Microsoft Exchange issue, the Solarwinds issue, now Kaseya. We understand that things go wrong, but as I see it the hackers (read: optionally organised crime) have a much better understanding of matters than the lawmakers and police do, we see this with “encrypted the files of those providers’ customers simultaneously” and that is before we consider that ‘an American software company that develops software for managing networks, systems, and information technology infrastructure’ has the kind of security that can be trespassed upon. And why do I think this? It is seen “The attackers changed a Kaseya tool called VSA, used by companies that manage technology at smaller businesses” and contemplate the issue that this had been happening for the last 5 months. A lack of larger systems as well, and all this continues as the law is close to clueless on how to proceed on this. We see statements like “In their advisory and further incident communications, Kaseya said that only a few out of their 36 000 customers were affected”, yet CNet gives us “REvil, the Russia-linked hacking group behind the attack on meat processor JBS, is linked to the Kaseya attack, The Wall Street Journal reported. Security firms Huntress Labs and Sophos Labs have likewise pointed to REvil”, which gives the law the problem that a member must be a proven member of REvil and that is largely not the case, moreover they have no clue how many members are involved. When one player gives us “We are in the process of formulating a staged return to service of our SaaS server farms with restricted functionality and a higher security posture (estimated in the next 24-48 hours but that is subject to change) on a geographic basis”, all whilst one of the victims is the largest grocery store in Sweden (COOP), the setting of “only a few out of their 36 000 customers” becomes debatable and it will affect the retail stage to a much larger degree, especially when you consider that they are cloud based. I stated in the past (based on data seen) that 90% of the cloud can be transgressed upon. And they are all servicing the larger stage of people dealing with IT requirements on a global scale. Now consider that cloud systems remain largely insecure and beyond the fact that ITWire was giving us “SolarWinds FTP credentials were leaking on GitHub in November 2019” and it was a direct results from someone who thought that ‘solarwinds123’ was a good idea. Oh, I remember a situation involving Sony and stated that there might be an issue that someone (I implied the Pentagon) had a router with password ‘cisco123’, I did that in ‘The Scott Pilgrim of Technology’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2019/05/23/the-scott-pilgrim-of-technology/) in MAY 2019, and did anyone learn anything yet? It is now 2 years later and still we see these levels of transgressions? Some might say that IT firms are helping REvil get essential revenues, some might say that these IT firms got themselves in this mess. So when we look at some firms relying on ‘Five years of experience for an entry-level job’, or perhaps “Any of the following will be grounds for immediate dismissal during the probationary period: coming in late or leaving early without prior permission; being unavailable at night or on the weekends; failing to meet any goals; giving unsolicited advice about how to run things; taking personal phone calls during work hours; gossiping; misusing company property, including surfing the internet while at work; submission of poorly written materials; creating an atmosphere of complaint or argument; failing to respond to emails in a timely way; not showing an interest in other aspects of publishing beyond editorial; making repeated mistakes; violating company policies. DO NOT APPLY if you have a work history containing any of the above” (source: Forbes). All this in a stage of age discrimination and narrow minded thinking of HR departments. Yes that is the dynamic stage of people that have bad passwords and a stage of transgressions. So whilst we might think it is a stage of ‘Your data or your life’, there is a larger stage where the law has a bigger issue, it has the issue of IT firms cutting cost and having a blasé approach to the safety of their systems, and more important their customers. And whilst ABC New York gives us “The number of victims here is already over a thousand and will likely reach into the tens of thousands,” said cybersecurity expert Dmitri Alperovitch of the Silverado Policy Accelerator think tank. “No other ransomware campaign comes even close in terms of impact” (at https://abc7ny.com/amp/ransomware-attack-4th-of-july-cyberattack-kaseya/10859014/) we see a first stage where the statement ‘only a few out of their 36 000 customers were affected’ is as I personally see it marketing driven panic. And that is a much larger case. I get that the firm hit does not want too much out in the open, but between a few, 2% and optionally a stage that could go beyond 27% is a setting too many are unable and too uneasy to consider. And when we see that 27%, do I still sound too ‘doomsday’ when I state that there is a much larger problem? And when we see the media go with ‘MSPs on alert after Kaseya VSA supply chain ransomware attack’, all whilst I stated a few issues well over 2 years ago, they should have been on the ball already. I am not blaming the MSP’s, but I do have questions on how their systems are so automated that an attack of this kind (the stated 1000+ customers hit) all whilst some sources state 50 MSP’s, there is a stage where triggers would have been there and the alarms were set to silent because some people might have thought that there were too many false alarms. This is a different stage to the larger playing field, yet I believe it needs to be looked at, especially when the damage can be so large. I am not certain what work lies ahead of the hit customers like COOP that had to close down 800 supermarkets, but in all this something will have to give. 

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July 3, 2021 · 22:22

Sapphire or Tourmaline

This all started some time ago, but it resurfaced as I started to replay AC Origin. In lockdown land any change of gaming is a well desired one and AC Origin is actually quite good. But that is merely the start, as I was playing (and as some missions are identical to the first time around) my mind wandered to a delusional IT manager in the early 90’s (1991 I believe). He stated “a resource shared is revenue doubled”, it is that idiotic level of fortune cookie wisdom that as actually rewarded, I never got that part. Yet there was a small gemstone of truth there, but not where he thought it was. As we make a jump to another place it is time for a question. How many real simulators are there? As far as I can tell there is one, only one. Nearly all others are games. The only one true simulator is made by Microsoft and it is the Flight Simulator, currently known as FS2020. Isn’t that surprising? A whole range of games but no one truly dug into the real of simulators. It tends to be really really hard, too hard for a lot of them. 

Yet here we get to see the light, Ubisoft has options (well it always had them, but more often they were ignored), yet with AC Origin they opened a door and now we have a ballgame. What if AC origin is merely the start of a dynasty game, a true simulator about life in Egypt? They have nearly all the graphics ready, the maps need adjustment and the spacing needs to change (like 1:9), so that every area is at least 900% in size but consider a true simulator where you are the beer merchant, the farmer, the fisherman, the embalmer, the priest and above all other arts, the overwhelming pressure of the gods and a monarchy that shows little to no mercy, a true first comprehension of what life was about then. And you cannot do it all, a stage where you get assigned a map where you were born and a role you were given, you have some choices as did the people then, but their options were very small, they had little choice. A true historic simulator and guess what? There are none. It has never been done before and I reckon that no one ever considered it to this degree, the technology stopped them, but with Google Stadia and Amazon Luna (and 1-2 alternatives) it is now possible. Even as I still believe that “a resource shared is revenue doubled” is utter nonsense, there is a gem of truth there. Some resources can be used again and that does not mean that revenue is doubled, but the second stage becomes easier and with hardship out of the way there is no reason not to contemplate a path none dared to walk and there is also the second ego reason, being first somewhere counts, being the first who gets it right to this degree is massively rewarding, others will have to fight to equal what you pulled off and it will vex them to no end. Will it happen? I do not know, as I said, this has never been done before and that is also the most rewarding part, especially for Ubisoft if they go there. The educational value is enormous. We are smitten by movies like the Mummy (Brendan Fraser edition), the 10 commandments, Rome, Spartacus, Cleopatra and it fills the mind with what could be, but people like Julian Fellows (Downton Abbey, Belgravia) has opened to some degree our eyes, just like the Vatican game I had in mind. This simulator could wake up an entire generation. Just like Steven Spielberg did with Jurassic Park. Who did not want to see the Triceratops? We have a similar fascination with the Roman and Egyptian era, yet books and movies is all we have and now we could for the first time get a true simulator. Yes, I will agree that it is not for everyone, but there is another upside to cloud gaming. We are willing to try a lot of games when it is included in some package, and there lies the gemstone. Apart from those who want to see Egypt is the past, there is another group of people who want to try everything. It is merely the sense of us as we explore and especially explore when it costs nothing extra, we are nearly all like that.

Will it happen? Time will tell, it usually does.

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