Category Archives: Science

April 23, 2021 · 19:25

Hubris versus Practical limitations

This is not unknown to us, the ego versus reality. We saw it in the US (the age of Trumpism) on how anti Chinese events were hitting Huawei. I have forever opposed that. Huawei is one of the really few true innovative companies and as such they pretty much owned the market. I have never weight to any accusation of Huawei is taking orders from the Chinese government, because all these wannabe makers could not present evidence, and are we not a population of evidence? There had been 1-2 claims that were decently made, but for the most it was a joke. Yet today the BBC gave us (at https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-56851558) ‘GCHQ chief warns of tech ‘moment of reckoning’’ which is a different setting. Here we see “Jeremy Fleming said there was a risk that key technologies on which we rely will no longer be shaped by the West. “We have to keep evolving our approach if we’re going to keep up,” he said of the growing challenge from China”, here I agree. There is a harder need to evolve matters, but that issue needed to be given to the larger players in 2018 when they decided to sit back, relax and watch their bank account fatten overnight. That play was a bad one and governments had to step in years ago to make it happen, as such the next 3 years will be about catching up. British Telecom, Telstra, KPN, they all hd the same flaw and they pretty much all were sitting back and let third party evolution decide the future. It is a choice, but that old story of ‘when you hand over the reigns you lose control of direction’ was too easily forgotten. So when we see ““The risk, as I see it today, is that we lose control of the standards that shape our technology environment,” he told the BBC. “The things that make sure that our liberal Western democratic views are baked into our technology.”” We see that Jeremy Fleming (fearless leader of GCHQ) is right. A national interest is having national products, I do not disagree there, but the players were lazy. Even now (a short time ago) on November 14th 2020, in the article ‘Tik..Tik..Tik..’ (At https://lawlordtobe.com/2020/11/14/tik-tik-tik/) I gave the quote “as Gerhard Schindler (no relation to Oskar) is giving us ‘its technology is now so advanced that Germany cannot tell if it is being used for sinister purpose’, we see the first truth, technology in the EU (and the US) is massively behind Huawei and Chinese IP as well”, this was Gerhard Schindler, former President of the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), the German Federal Intelligence Service. If they are technological in the dark, how bad did it get? 

So, I am on Jeremy’s side when it comes to the fact that such technology needs to be in national hands, I never opposed that, but the next three years we are all blatantly behind and we either buy the current IP from Huawei, or we accept them, or we lose the 5G war right here and right now. Even as the US is screaming alternatives (Nokia among them) and we see a months ago (source: the Guardian) that ‘Nokia to cut 10,000 jobs worldwide to bankroll new 5G drive’, we should wonder (with stress) just how far they got behind on the other players. That is seen in the quote “The Finnish telecommunications company Nokia has unveiled plans to cut up to 10,000 jobs worldwide in the next two years, and wants to use the savings to catch up with rivals on 5G technologies”, so how can the UK (Australia and Canada too) expect to get ahead of Huawei in the near future? Lets not forget that the denial of existence in the EU, Commonwealth and the US of Huawei technology implies that Chinese companies will have a massive leg up winning the 5G race and as such the larger stage of the IoT will be in THEIR hands, there is no other way to see it at present. Then we get a part that is important, and partially surprising. “Mr Fleming said it was vital to ensure all the technologies were not from one place and to understand how data was being processed. There were only a relatively small number of areas where the UK would need to completely control a technology, he said, and more broadly working with allies would be essential to shape international standards and to defend itself in cyberspace. At home, the UK has to invest in skills and innovation.” In this I agree with all part, the surprising part is ‘the UK has to invest in skills and innovation’, in this the surprising part is that this cannot be done overnight, it is the recognition that skills and innovations towards 5G are 2 years away, close to my predictions a year ago, so nice for GCHQ to catch up on this. All whilst we see overly clever puzzles all over the place, the setting of skills go further than that. My previous article involving ONT gives rise to a developing need and there is nothing at present, the evolving need for digital forensics is blatantly yesterday’s approach and they will need people thinking in other area’s as well. The digital future is not where they expect it to be, they need to consider that it is in directions that aren’t even considered today. Even now as they are contemplating the need of where organised crime will be, the setting is not dissimilar from disorganised corporate crimes and most haven’t even worked out that part, it is a large amount of billions a year, but they are still pondering what is important. When you ponder that for 3-5 years, we tend to call it sitting on your hands. It is a close relative of ‘waiting for the other shoe to drop’ (AKA waitstate). And when was the last time that this worked? You can initiate actions on the spot when it is football, but not when billions in costs are found that does not hit the revenue of the media, UEFA, or FIFA? How is that even possible?

We all understand practical limitations, yet innovation is found in directions where limitations were evident. Consider asking Wilbur Wright, Igor Sikorsky or Jacques Cousteau that question. Even with the limitations (practical or not) we got the plane, the helicopter and the aqua-lung. Can you even imagine this world without any of these three? And even as the west used to be the rulers of technology, China and South Korea have the bulk of all patents in that regard today, as such it will be extremely expensive, or we need to work with a different set of rules. Nothing else will quite serve national interests, wherever that is. And consider that I came up with two weapon based IP’s in a matter of days (a few months ago), one was a novel way in making a nuclear reactor meltdown, as such, we need to consider looking in other directions for the ideas that truly innovate the future (I used a posh snow-globe for one of them) and in the process came up with two new valve systems, not bad for a simple IT support guy. Even as the article ends strong with “The UK should not be “fatalistic”, he said, and had a “very strong track record” of meeting technology challenges”, the failure here is that the decision makers tend to have a ‘what can I get out of this’ approach, and when did THAT ever lead to innovation? It merely created a setting of distrust and a group of people who sat on ideas instead of pushing that idea in a group that truly pushed innovation, not a group that grabs the idea and transforms it into a partial iterative idea for long term gains. That is what is killing nearly all innovation, especially the innovation we need now, it is the only way to get ahead of what is now, we need to create what will make it tomorrow and that comes with flaws and failures, there is no other way, but in that setting people did come up with the true innovations, not unlike the Montgolfier brothers in 1783. It took 8 years to get ready and even as we dreamed of flight for many centuries that was the moment reality stepped in. It would take 120 years for the Wright brothers to take it into a new direction, now we become the watchers as Huawei is leading the 5G race, the others are all eager to catch up, but some have to let go of 10,000 employees to fund the events. So how long will be be the spectators instead of the actual pushers? I will let you decide, yet in this, the larger problem is another unmentioned one, there is a ring of decision makers who want to be ‘included’ in whatever comes next and that is stopping way too much. The era of those joining DARPA leading the fight of innovation is nearly over, you remember that group of nerds? They invented the internet, you might have head of that.

It is all part of one currency, hubris and practical limitations, but we need to see through both to understand where progress is possible and seeing through practical limitations is hard, I know that, I understand that. I wonder if Jeremy Fleming does. 

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April 23, 2021 · 17:43

Innovative?

Yup we heard it all. Quotes like ‘Apple is widely considered as the #1 innovative company in the world’, as well as ‘While most companies are lucky to come up with one major innovation, these three continue to develop breakthroughs and don’t seem to be slowing down any time soon’ and Apple it was to some extend true, especially when Steve Jobs was still mortal, around and kicking. Since then they only gave us the Apple AirPods, which is true innovation. The rest is iteration. Microsoft is calling the Surface innovation, wrong! I see it as iteration and a weak copy from the iPad to begin with, it goes on and on, IBM has the Quantum computing cloud, but that has been pretty much it, beyond that most are merely iteration and weirdly enough, they seem to focus on what can be iterated, not innovated. 

iPad fling
I have had a fling with my iPad going back to 2011 when the first one came out. It was a present from me to me when I got into graduate school at UTS. I saw all these eager students with a laptop in one hand like it was a serve platter running from corner to corner trying to find a powerpoint, as such I decided on the iPad, the very first one, which had 64GB, cellular and WiFi. I was happy as a puppy with a fresh bone. This would continue until 2020 when it started to show issues and most parts would no longer be updated, it was too old. There were no tears, with 10 years 24:7 service it had earned its keep at least twice over and my storage never exceeded 50%, the 64GB was a true achievement. As such in 2020 I updated to the iPad Air, now with 256GB, a more powerful processor, higher resolution and that fling feeling came back in a rush. 

Yet the market has changed, this is fair enough and I see the iPad Air as an iteration, not innovation. It was this step that I saw today that innovation was absent, or more precisely absent from the iPad systems for too much. Now, in the larger scheme I do not care, I am still really happy with what it has, and as pretty much all of it is back, I have little to complain about.

There is this one thing
It is there that I saw innovation, where none was and I do not know why Apple did not see this. You see apps, games (free to play) are all nice, but they need to get their money (as much as possible) from advertisers. As such it does not matter how it is setup, the increasing amount of advertisements, a setting that is beyond the borders of harassment are also grabbing my Bluetooth speaker when I am trying to enjoy music whilst playing a game, and it is there that I saw the lack of innovation. I wonder why Apple never looked at the setting to make the bluetooth an exclusive to for example the Music app. I cannot fault app makers to rely on advertisement, but when your speakers get hijacked every other minute, you either listen to music or nothing at all, why did Apple not see this, or even see this coming?

When we have YouTube playing and the advertiser grabs/pushes through the same speaker as YouTube, it is fine, I get that, but I have a problem in the other event when I play a game muted, but the advertiser will hijack/obtains your speaker. Did Apple not see that coming? So whilst we saw in June 2020 ‘13 new innovative technologies and features unveiled at WWDC20’, Bluetooth innovation was absent, Bluetooth iteration too. As such, whilst we herald the addition of “New cycling directions in Maps take into account elevation, how busy a street is, and whether there are stairs along the route”, we see iteration, the natural consequence of what came before, not iteration, which is supposed to mean “the practical implementation of ideas that result in the introduction of new goods or services or improvement in offering goods or services”, yet here we see the problem ‘or improvement in offering goods or services’, the problem there is that ‘improvement’ is now on a sliding scale, especially in software where a lot of improvements are iterations, not innovations. 

Is this me?
Yes, it probably is, but in that same light, there is a larger group of people that see the addition of one new chip as iteration, not innovation. Marketing departments globally have ‘abused’ the word ‘innovation’ to the degree that we see it as a debatable word at best. This is pure in us, driven through the advertisers and the larger brands need to see that innovation is no longer a calling to customers, it is a calling to investigate the brand in just how loyal one needs to be. In this I will also admit that it might not merely be marketing, but the brief that their board of director gives out to marketing, no matter how you slice it. As such what information to trust, and that is fair enough. Yet the stage we see is larger, larger than even I can consider, simply because I am not the greatest expert in the field and there is also the stage that I do not look everywhere. It becomes increasingly difficult where we see the Internet of things (IoT), consider that a device is suddenly used in a field that it has never been used in, this (to me) is innovation, not iteration and that field is in motion, in rapid motion in all directions, as such what might be innovation is seen as iteration in the way it is brought to us, it is understandable that we see this wrong, but it is unfair to the player bringing it. We can blame it on their marketing, but that is not fair either. As such you need to wonder where the threshold lies and here we have a nice example. Are the Bravia XR TV’s (2021) iteration or innovation? We might say one, but consider that speakers have to go somewhere and Sony is the first one to put them behind the LCD display, does that make it innovation or iteration? I am not certain, but they call it innovation. Is it true or false? I actually do not have a clear answer, yet my view of what is would call it iteration, an iteration I desire, but an iteration none the less. 

It goes deeper and ZDNet gave us that part in January 2021 with a list of ARK Big Ideas 2021, which would include the following:

  • Deep Learning
  • The Reinvention of the Data Center
  • Virtual Worlds
  • Digital Wallets
  • Bitcoin Fundamentals
  • Bitcoin: Preparing For Institutions
  • Electric Vehicles (EVs)
  • Automation
  • Autonomous Ride-Hailing
  • Delivery Drones
  • Orbital Aerospace
  • 3D Printing
  • Long Read Sequencing
  • Multi-Cancer Screening
  • Cell and Gene Therapy: Generation 2

When I see this list, we see deep learning, Bitcoin fundamentals, and Long Read Sequencing and in these cases we expect iteration. 

In case of deep learning (often presented as AI) we see the definition “Deep learning (also known as deep structured learning) is part of a broader family of machine learning methods based on artificial neural networks with representation learning. Learning can be supervised, semi-supervised or unsupervised”, yet my issue is with the part ‘Learning can be supervised’, as I personally see it to be deep learning, it needs to be semi-supervised or unsupervised, if not it is merely adapted scripting. I will skip Bitcoin fundamentals, it is in my mind an iterative field, but in that I must admit there is a lot I do not know and I never cared to learn it, as such if someone states to me that I was wrong, it would be a fair assessment, but to see innovation paired with a word like ‘fundamentals’ is weird on too many levels. It becomes a different stage when we consider Long Read Sequencing, I get it data is in evolution and transformation and these sequencings are often linked to biometrics, a field that is very much innovation, even the iterations tend to be innovation, so I see the flaw in my thinking here. Yet it compares to naught when we consider ‘Long-read human genome sequencing and its applications’ by Glennis A. Logsdon, Mitchell R. Vollger & Evan E. Eichler. It was published less than a year ago and it took almost that long for me to get the gist of it (armed with a thesaurus). As such when we see Oxford Nanopore Technologies and its applications we do clearly see a large field of innovation, not merely in biometrics, but in an adapted path towards a string of devices all the way from manufacturer to user, where we see an optional path towards identifying digital forensics, I wonder if Mr or Mrs Technology Nanopore from Oxford considered that part of the equation. In a stage where the IoT is in nonstop motion, setting a chain of identifying hardware and connections in a string, an extremely long string might be (for now) the only way to go and that will be (as I personally see it) a much larger stage in digital forensics to find the paths towards organised crime and disorganised corporate crime soon enough. When parts of a path are identified we would optionally see an identifier of non repudiation. Only that person, and that person could have taken that road. Which might also more quickly identify a larger strain of click farms. Not claiming the innovation, merely stating that this might be a path worth considering. At present some will discard the issue with data size, yet I come from an age where DEC had a Winchester drive with 250,000,000 bytes, which was the size of a work-desk and 50 times the weight, all for the price of a house in 11 specific cities in the USA. This happened within a career, as such do not dismiss the idea, as size becomes ever debatable, as speed is increasing in the better hardware, the application of ONT could go a long way and in directions the makers never considered, or at least not openly considered. 

It might be me, anyway, I am meeting up with an old friend (Gaius Julius Caesar) who is giving me the lowdown on his campaign in Gaul, with my rusty Latin, it will take all weekend, so let’s see if I can afford a nice bottle of Italian wine. Have fun!

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April 21, 2021 · 13:57

Pondering a path

It just hit me, I have no idea why, and I cannot vouch for the thought or prove any of it. I cannot say what happened. One moment I am contemplating the corrupting levels of the media, then I make a flash towards an AI presentation by Robert Downey Junior, then this happens. 

Consider the information we have in our heads, it does not matter what it is, it does not matter whose mind it is. It is information, yet the brain is a curious thing and I believe that there is path in our brains that is not really mapped, yet it is there, we merely haven’t found it yet. Perhaps it is stronger with some, perhaps the autistic have an answer, or at least some form of answer. 

These paths are not set in any normal ways, it is like our intuition. What if the definition “Intuition is a form of knowledge that appears in consciousness without obvious deliberation”, what if that is not the complete, or perhaps it is an incorrect view. What if intuition is guided, yet it is guided by the autonomous part of our brain. What if it adheres to some form of fractal approach to data? 

Consider the image. One part is actually a distorted image of paths, our normal thought processes based on available data, whatever data it might be. But the brain is taking. Larger step to make sense of it, almost like a whale has “the clicking sequences have been suggested to be individualised rhythmic sequences that communicate the identity of a single whale to other whales in its group. This clicking sequences reportedly allow the groups to coordinate foraging activities”, yet what if it is more? Almost like a multi dimensional organ? We state Physical modelling synthesis and how it is the waveform of the sound to be generated is computed using a mathematical model, yet what if that goes further than the mere approach to ADSR? When we consider attack, decay, sustain, and release in sound, we have the ability to revert any instrument to precision, what if the brain has its own form of that? Yet it will not be sound based, but some form of chemical based foundation, one that offers paths and choices but only the brain can make them and it is much faster than our own train of thoughts. Consider the image:

The black background, is our mind and the data it holds, the paths, the connections, a mere representation of what might be, but consider the amount of information we hold, over time it becomes a mess, it tends to be, so what if the brain has another system, a more fractal approach to the amount of data (the red lines and points) and it connects to all that information in other ways, it is how out intuition connects to all that data of sounds, smells, images and feels and it makes leaps, the red paths make for that, part of intuition, an unwavering set of paths that is controlled, not by us, but by the brain, its own shortcuts to all the mess we remember and that is how it gains the upper hand (at times). That is what AI do not have, at least not yet, because we haven’t been able to map sub conscious thinking for now, but the brain is chemical electrical and only alive is that system aware. I reckon that when we solve that one puzzle AI becomes a reality really fast. IBM has the hardware (Quantum computer) ad it is making strides into making shallow circuits a much larger part of it soon enough, but no matter how we slice it, no AI can self determine, not without the one part that is missing and I am representing it as red lines and dots. But it is mere speculation, so when we consider a fractal approach, my representation is inadequate and faltering, but for some reason the image broke through, I merely wonder why, perhaps it was because my mind considered the contemplation that people like Aleksander Ceferin and Gianni Infantino were swines and the members of the Suidae family took offence. When I see 

‘UEFA President Čeferin: ‘Spirit of solidarity’ makes football stronger than ever’, all whilst it was fear of losing income and someone told the media that they would lose billions, they all revolted, like pigs seeing their trough removed. And the media was ALL over that were they not, what a waste of space. So my mind came up with the part I wrote about and I have absolutely no scientific or any other evidence that there is ANY validity in the thoughts I was having, but this is the place where I give light to these thoughts and feel free to wave them away, I might have done the same thing, but there is something nagging in my brain and this is how it started, perhaps there is more to come, I cannot tell.

But there you have it, time to saw another log, at least there is that and I can snore the day away today. 

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April 20, 2021 · 16:14

Baked Alaskan Marketing

Yup, it is about the desert, well in some form. To be honest, I never had it, I saw pictures, I saw people making it (YouTube), but I never ate it. And for today that is OK. You see, it is not really about food. It all started this morning when I saw ‘PS5 isn’t good value compared to Xbox Series X, and I’m sick of it’, that is his view, I believe it to be a bit of a hatchet job, but that is usually the case with opinion pieces. There are also ‘anti-Xbox articles’ and that is fine by me. In the end the systems are closely matching, yet for me the actions by Microsoft over the last 8 years have been an indication that the Xbox console is lost to me. No matter what promises they make, as I personally see it, they betrayed the gamers, all in favour of more and more Azure pressure. It is a personal choice and you need to realise that, I personally demoted Microsoft, but it remains personal. Even as they are now starting the Xcloud and other services, I do not want any of them on my systems, but it is mostly personal (partly instinctive). I will not tell you to not do it, you must select what you think is best for you.

When it comes to Xcloud, I feel that I am leaning towards Amazon Luna if I get into that field. The Luna was close to the Google Stadia, almost there but not quite. Considering that Google should have won it as a tech giant implies that Amazon is more hungry and more willing to make the leap, it gives them an edge and in all this, I want something giving me games no other system will, exclusivity matters. I am not certain if the Luna can deliver, but their setting is looking good. 

The fact that we saw ‘Amazon Games opens new Montreal studio, developing a multiplayer game with Rainbow Six Siege veterans’ implies that Amazon has skin in the game, and as such, if my IP (as published earlier) is either PS5, and/or Luna, see it as public domain. The setting for good gaming is what we need and Microsoft (in my personal view) has betrayed that approach. It was their right to make choices, but they come with consequences. So why is there a baked Alaskan in play? Consider the method “The entire dessert is then placed in an extremely hot oven for a brief time, long enough to firm and caramelise the meringue but not long enough to begin melting the ice cream”, it is a way to use the crust to hide what is inside and it can only done once, yet via Microsoft we get ‘As Microsoft pushes partner transformation, a state of ‘channel inertia’ is emerging’, ‘Microsoft’s Surface Laptop 4 Is Nearly Perfect’ and ‘Microsoft’s Visual Studio 2022 is moving to 64-bit’, all different titles, all different sources, but there is a link, lets see if you pick up on it. There is also “Microsoft officials also said they are planning to refresh Visual Studio for Mac by moving it to the native macOS UI”, perhaps you are already catching on. One more hint. It is ‘The FBI removed hacker backdoors from vulnerable Microsoft Exchange servers. Not everyone likes the idea’ there are two parts here.

  1. A court order allowed the FBI to enter networks of businesses to remove web shells used by cyber attackers exploiting Exchange vulnerabilities. But what does this mean for the future of cybersecurity? It is one view, I am not against it, but I get that some are. This has nothing to do with the FBI, it has everything to do with Microsoft dropping the ball. 
  2. Microsoft is seemingly everywhere, with connections way past their computers, Xcloud gives them more and there is too much questions on what Microsoft is capturing, when I asked why they needed to upload 5GB their help-desk stated that this was with my ISP, how stupid is that? I will not allow them on any device, no matter what game will become unavailable to me.

You see, it is not today, or tomorrow, it is what happens a week after that, when we see the exchange issue, the idea of a DDOS version that can use Xcloud is not that farfetched, a DDOS setting using any console it can connect to is a nightmare that should keep several Cyber divisions awake for a long time to come and when we see how Exchange was ‘bitched’ that thought is not the weirdest one to have, with any connection through Xcloud and Azure, the data options are the wettest dreams of organised crime, whilst data facilitators will seek access in whatever way they can and it connects to your systems, your data and could optionally impact your consoles and games. If we get (as published earlier) the setting of ransomware, considering the millions of gamers who have built up a lifetime of achievements, gear and wealth in a dozen games. How long until someone gets a hold of that? Microsoft is spreading itself too thin on too many systems, channels and operating systems. I believe it to be the much larger danger down the track. Yes that is a personal feeling and it is riddled with speculation, but when we see the transgressions over the last 6 months, is the thought that far fetched? 

At the middle of this is their marketing. ‘Partners should ‘ride the wave’’, ‘Nearly Perfect’ and a lot more, all to make sure that Microsoft is on the high rise and in the light of diminished negativity, which is the job of marketing, with over 285,000,000 hits on Microsoft (as per today), and 329,000 (Microsoft+scandal), 14,500,000 (Microsoft+problem) we see an overly positive view, which might not be wrong, but that imbalance is making me massively uncomfortable. Especially when we consider “Some Windows 10 users are encountering serious problems following the release of the recent “KB5001330” update, with some reports even coming in that the update itself can’t be installed on some machines”, now these things happen, anyone making other claims is flat-out lying, there is no way that things go perfect, things happen. However, in a stage where Microsoft is so widespread that one hitch could mean all kinds of transgressions, the setting becomes a problem. When we see that and consider “Socure to Provide Identity Verification for Microsoft Azure Active Directory Verifiable Credentials”, we see more and more third party solutions becoming part of the equation. Now, there is nothing wrong with that, but speculatively consider that any danger is double of the previous danger per party involved, as such we see 1%, 2%, 4%, 8%, 16%. The fifth (third party) connection sets the danger to almost one in five, and now consider that we see a stage of overlaps of PC, MAC (iOS), Surface, Azure, Xcloud, Android, we are now optionally in the 32% group, almost one in three where things can go wrong and organised crime wants in, I hope that you realise that a group like HAFNIUM will have no issues selling their solution to the highest bidder, as such, are you sure you want to connect all these systems? 

I accept the work that any marketing division does, but the setting of keeping the users for too long in the dark can have massive consequences down the line and that is where Microsoft has become (my personally speculation) a clear and present danger to gaming (among other parts), that is beside the fact that they are in it for the data, but that too is my personal assumption on the matter. Oh, and I remained conservative, when the error becomes exponential, the setting goes towards 1%+4%+9%+16%, there we see the 4th link making a lager negative impact then any before, I see that, but I personally do not believe that the situation will become quite that bad, but it could be.

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April 18, 2021 · 21:40

The knife to use

The stage is not a real one, the stage is a speculative one, one for the silver screen no less, optionally what some used to call the boob-tube, no matter where it goes, perhaps it goes nowhere, it does not matter, it served the purpose for those it was meant to be, and they now know that I knew, so we leave that up to the historians to consider. There is a man, he walks with his little boy, they are on route to some event, we only know that the event was on military grounds. They go through the gateway, we see all the scanners working, but they set off nothing. This was how it was supposed to be, in the mean time the crowds gather more and more. And as the to had walked for about half an hour, they were closer to the airfield. The man asked if the little  prince wanted an ice-cream, the first show is almost an hour away, the boy smiled and nodded. He bought a large cone and made sure that thy were sitting next to a couple of ladies. “Excuse me ladies, I really have to go to the bathroom, can you look after my little prince for a couple of minutes?”, they all nodded and he told his prince that he was off to the bathroom and that he would be back soon, and told him to just enjoy his ice-cream and the ladies would look after him whilst he was away. He walked quickly in the directions of the toilet signs, but the moment he turned a corner, he repositioned his gaze to the floor-plan in his mind, he quickly passed two buildings and entered a third one. He snuck up to the second floor and past a few doors, there as the door he needed to be. He got a knife out of his pocket, one made from rubber, one that would not set off any detectors. He ripped of a slither of the spine, it showed a piece of plastic, almost like the tape of a cassette, only ten times stronger and sharp as a razor. He carefully entered, there was no one, he quickly looked though the desk, and found what he was looking for. The paper were exchanged and then he heard the footsteps down the hall, exactly like anticipated. He had left the door ajar for that reason, he hid behind the desk and waited for the person to come inside. “Hello? Anyone here?”, the man seemingly looked in the office but did not go all the way. As he turned around the man stood up and moved swiftly, he sliced the neck artery and pushed him to the floor hard, the blood never reached his side and he quickly departed. Walked back and into the first bathroom he saw. He dropped the knife in the toilet and added the chemicals from a hip flask. The knife dissolved almost immediately, he flushed and left the toilet, he went back to his little prince, he hd been gone less than 15 minutes. He shrugged at the ladies “Sorry there was a queue”, he looked at his prince, his alibi. Wanna see the planes now? The boy nodded and they left both holding a new fresh ice cream. 

This is as far as the story goes, but consider that some weapons can never be retrieved, some investigations are closed because they were politically inconvenient and for the most the players deal in pieces of paper that they often do not completely understand, they are attracted to the number on that piece of paper (most often with a $ sign). So as we see the truths of political inconvenience, how long until we are told that sources are not as reliable as some stated they would be and in all this we see a continuing wave of people filling their pocket, so where does that leave the people who do not get a voice or a vote in the setting? As such how much faith can we have in the statement ‘China-Iran 25-year deal not aimed at any country: Iranian envoy’, or perhaps ‘Iran admits saboteur derailed nuclear program and escaped scot free’, so as such should we give value to ““There is no credible explanation or civilian justification for such an action on the side of Iran,” Stano said. The narrow scope of the new enrichment provides Iran with a way to quickly de-escalate if it chooses, experts say, but time is narrowing. An Iranian presidential election looms on the horizon as Tehran threatens to limit international inspections. While 60 per cent is higher than any level at which Iran has previously enriched uranium, it is still lower than weapons-grade levels of 90 per cent”? Yes what they are stating is true, yet any dirty bomb is happy to blow on the premise of 60% and that I still a very large danger, the situation is not merely the 60% marker, it becomes a time scale that if that goes correct, how far will 90% be from reality? Th political powers in the US and the EU are sitting on their hands, way too much. So when we are given “European Union spokesman Peter Stano called Iran’s decision “a very worrisome development” we see a quote absent of action. So when they give us “Talks will continue “for a few days and then I think the two most relevant delegations will go back home to receive more precise instructions and then, I don’t know when, we will resume,” the EU official told reporters in a phone briefing”, talks all talks and still no plan, even though Iran has broken pretty much every accord on a whim, that is why they are too dangerous to continue. And when Israel faces that dirty bomb, will we see strong words without action from the EU, they let the Jews be pushed into genocide once, the second time should be easier. The problem is that such a bomb will make most of the Mediterranean countries a danger to live in and for that matter, it will end options for Malta, Cyprus, Crete and a few other places, then the currents take that irradiated dust to Italy, Greece and Turkey to options are gone, Iran will blame some sod in a high place and the EU will smile because they got an Iranian accord, they merely had to be willing to sacrifice a few nations no one cared about. So is this how it is going to be?

A knife does not need to be metal, ceramics or even mistletoe to cut and slice, anything sharp will do and when the right people figure it out it will most likely be too late, the wrong people will relocate to a safe place holding on to riches they were never meant to have, so how many people were investigated, not merely them, but the bank accounts under their mother-in-law maiden name too. I wonder what that will result, if that person was working from the EU, the chances are that it will go nowhere. 

Those who wield a knife in the house of kitchen, they are all aware that the knife is a tool and/or a weapon, but the one element that we tend to forget is that a knife optionally extends the reach of a person, did you consider that? It might not seem much, it might not be much, but at times it is enough.

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April 16, 2021 · 11:04

When anger wins

We all have that moment, some call it ‘enough is enough’, others refer to ‘the straw that broke the camels back’, we have all kind of expressions, but in reality anger took the forefront of the debate and emotions run high, so whilst we get the view (by Al Jazeera) ‘Houthis say they attacked Aramco, Patriot targets in Saudi Arabia’, all whilst CNN, BBC, and a whole range of sources are quiet, in a stage where we get the news from merely Al Jazeera and Bloomberg. The other players were not that quiet when it concerned a journalist no one cares about, they were all screaming then. So this was my moment of anger, if news has to be filtered to this degree, it is time to set the  premise to a different scope. This first weapon system I designed (to sink the Iranian navy) is now public domain and in the hands of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the next step will be a new weapon that can meltdown the Iranian nuclear reactors. The hack that (allegedly) Mossad did was nice, but soon Iran will figure out how to set the nuclear reactors to closed systems with two separate systems with people at both ends and that ends the hack option, but I am still here, so a weapon (based on a novelty snow globe), should (in theory) create a nice and solemn Chernobyl reactor setting and it should work on most reactors, well at least the Russian reactors. I am nothing if not creative and I personally do not think anyone had considered that approach, so my science teacher in secondary school was right, I will not grow up to be any good, but I was preceded in this by most media and most politicians, so I am apparently in good company if I get to hell. 

At times anger gets to win, there is no other way, it brings to mind an old saying ‘Change is valuable, it lets the oppressed be tyrants’ and most of us have had enough of the current tyrants, even if we live in a golden cage. Yet I see no other option but the make matters worse, perhaps it will wake up the media and as they have to explain the essential need of share holders and stake holders, take notice of ‘their’ essential need. We wanted the news, we wanted all the news, but the share holders and stake holders did not agree, so I decided to pave the way for them to take the front seat in the limelight. It is not subtle, it is not a decent approach, but it was the only one left to me. 

You might oppose and that is fine, but consider all the actions that Iran was behind in the last two years and the amount of actions that somehow never reached many of the western media, now also take into consideration all the transgression Houthi forces did in Yemen, whilst we got one sided news on the actions of Saudi Arabia, how long do we tolerate a corrupt media circus? That is how I see it, filtered news is a form of corruption. I personally see no other way to interpret this.

It is my view and optionally my flaw as well, but as I said, as some point anger takes over and in that stage anything can happen, the media banked on that premise too often, but did they ever consider the fact what happens when that premise goes into another direction?

So, my weekend will be a weird one, but an essential one.

Have a great weekend.

 

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April 11, 2021 · 01:22

Real life in virtuality

The other night I was pondering the setting (as you might have read in the previous blog) on RPG’s and the setting of a dream within a dream. The idea took another turn as I was considering the interaction of reality with virtuality, and in this a game based on a 1 exabyte setting, an online multiplayer game based on virtuality. A game where players fight each other, they create alliances and they conquer. To get this done, we either create a world that is believable, or we turn it around and let the world create our reality. 

And as I was pondering this, I remember a game called ‘Virus’, in this shooter the game created the levels depending on your hard-drive, that was when the cogs clicked together. 

The new game an entire exabyte of challenges.

The world where we are thrown into is not unlike TRON, but in this setting we become citizens of a cloud environment, we are kidnapped and as we scape we end up getting left to our own devices. So as such we see a challenge, but consider a cloud environment, one that has a dozen Fortune 500 companies, thousands of mid sized companies and a lot more small companies. So will you take on a large player, or do you start small? A game with settings unlike we have ever seen and it is a game that develops further as more players sink into a company, a game without a timeline, but with time as either an ally or an enemy. A stage we have (as far as I know) never seen before and as the cloud evolves, so does the world and the enemies we face. So consider creating a cloud environment for that event and turning it into a game, we are always looking for a challenge, so why not become the infecting part and take over companies, corporations and grow in that way and this is the game with a difference, it is hard core only, one life! You can restart as often as you want, but one defeated you start at square one, until you have complete control of your first company, corporation or enterprise. So as we see and as we get into one cloud, it will be close to an all out war with anyone you face, that is unless you can strike an alliance, and alliances require all parties to see the benefit of one another. The nice part here is that this might (or might not) be the stage where we either love it or hate it. You see this will not appeal to all, there is no doubt it is, yet how can we create the challenge of such a game? We appeal to the player and we set the event that the player will embrace. An approach where the benefit of both sledgehammer and scalpel are seen, and the creation of an environment where both can thrive. And that is the challenge, creating the environment where everything piece of hardware is shown as something, where every router and its components are shown as challenges, I wonder if it can be done.

The question
Yes, I do ask myself the question if it is feasible, if it is even remotely possible. You see, we all have Monday morning quarterbacks in one end, but the other end is also taken. Usually by some manager that has a new plan every Monday morning, but it never pans out to be possible, achievable or even deeply contemplated. I see that, I always question my own thoughts, you see the person who does not question their own thoughts ends up drawing castles in the sky, and then expects a dot matrix printer to print a 1200 DPI photograph. We must question ourselves at all times, especially when we caress our creative side. 

So is my idea a castle in the sky? Perhaps it is, there is no doubt on that. Yet for every 8-10 failures, that one idea will push through and become a real winner. In 1997 I opted and idea to my bosses to use a marketing strategy that used websites as the central core for reaching out to others, my bosses laughed, stating that there was no business model for something that delusional, and stupid me, I listened, 4 years before Facebook, I had the idea for a digital marketing path and it was ignored, silly stupid me, as such I am putting ALL my ideas on the public domain, some will find ground, some will not, perhaps most will not, yet in this I am setting the stage for some to take the idea and push it into a direction that I am currently unable to pursue, for a few reasons, but I digress.

We can try to literally translate a cloud, or we can set the inventory of any given cloud and create a converted one that boggles the mind. Consider that a company has a server, users, computers, routers, Cloud Connectors, Data Center Interconnect Platforms, Mobile Internet Routers and a few other devices, and the larger the company becomes, the larger the hardware and that is before the cloud, in the cloud we see all kind of other issues and to map these out we need a different set of rules, a different set of limits to add to the game, to give some version of ‘reality’ to the game, a set of spawning rules (I hate spawning in games) or to set a better stage, if a cloud is represented in elements (see image) now consider that each company has larger or smaller elements of all, how diverse will be the challenge a gamer has, even as the gamer goes from place to place, he is still in one cloud and there is the larger cloud security to content with. Perhaps the game is a fools errant, yet I believe that if gaming is the edge of technology, the only way we get beyond what we have now, is to push the stage of a new game towards and beyond the horizon of what we now can see. Sony gave us the console to do it, so let’s push into a realm we have never seen before, it is the only way to keep gaming at the height of any system, if we do not do that, we are hopelessly lost.

So where is your virtual gaming life? In a new version of an existing game, or in a stage of gaming we haven’t seen yet? I have nothing against the next iteration in gaming, I played Tombraider, 1, 2 and 3 and never regretted that, yet even there, we saw evolution of gaming. That part was less and less visible in some other franchises and that is a sad part, because only those who push gaming beyond the limits will show a game worthy of conquering. We have all kind of views on this, some hate them, some love them and that is OK. I was never a GTA fan, but a lot are, some hate Watchdogs 2, I loved it (3 as well). Some love Breakpoint, me not that much. That is fine, I always state that those claiming to create a game that appeals to all, will create a game that pleases none, so if I am not part of any equation, that is fine by me. Others, will serve the game I like. 

This is how it should be and in all this creativity will push limits and creativity will open up other doors, such is life and we need to push as many doors as we can if we are to make life better all around us, the iterators never will, they are part of the margin spreadsheet, sailing a safe course to last longer, it will never ever go their way. Nintendo is perhaps one of the shiniest examples. It pushed the Wii, which was a decent success, then the WiiU, an abysmal failure, yet it resulted in the Nintendo Switch, an absolute home run in gaming and there we see that failings will optionally turn to wins, an iterator will never see that, only the innovator will get there. Nintendo at present is close to 75,000,000 switch consoles sold, that implies 2 Nintendo’s for every Xbox, so where is their ‘most powerful system in the world’ now? Iterators always have a good story, but they do not yield results, we will get another ‘We’re not driven by how many consoles we sell’, it is the same all over, the losers will say the numbers are shallow, but when they are in pole position, it is everything. A brand gone to the dogs, largely because they ignored the voice of the gamer, I saw that almost a decade ago. And now we see a new world rising, one run by Sone ind Nintendo, it is fine by me, although I needed Microsoft to keep Sony on their toes, this idea will soon be a bust. So the best I can do is to set a stage of creativity and hope that some will Create more and more Sony exclusive games, those who do will be able to use my gaming IP free of charge, I do have commercial needs (income) for my 5G IP, such is life and I do like to enjoy a good meal.

So is my cloud game a bust? Perhaps it is, but for now I will try to envision more and more of that approach, consider a complete created cloud, one where you travel and set the premise of ruling the cloud, yet not alone, it is too big making alliances more and more important, a stage that several have attempted, some a lot more successful then others, I merely want to add to the success rate, or at least attempt to do so. It is the price of creativity and its push to innovation, only the successful continue that battle stronger, the failures continue too, but on a smaller scale, and that is fine, every person will fail at some point, it is what they do next that matters, because Steve Jobs had its successes, but he also had the NeXT computer. We recognise success, but we fail to recognise the failures and where they lead to, it is the flaw in many of us. And this is a larger stage, so how can we set that stage, when people keep on pushing Microsoft and their Blue solution. So as ZDnet reported “Microsoft acknowledged it was a service update targeting an internal validation test ring that caused a crash in Azure AD backend services. “A latent code defect in the Azure AD backend service Safe Deployment Process (SDP) system caused this to deploy directly into our production environment, by passing our normal validation process,” officials said”, a lot of bla bla and yada yada, yet the flaw is not merely within Microsoft, it is the same approach that is replicated again and again. So as we see mentions of Active Directory, we also see ‘a validation ring that doesn’t include customer data’, as well as ‘the SDP didn’t correctly target the validation ring due to a defect and all rings were targeted concurrently causing service availability to degrade’, so how long until there are more and more failures and the rollback merely adds to the problem? This is what I saw when I considered the NSA approach towards Trust Zero, the idea is good, but larger players will screw up making any rollback a much larger issues over the whole field. This is part of the idea to make the cloud a game, we could optionally see something we never noticed before, because thousands of gamers will kick the one part everyone ignored. 

Whether we see the issue in reality, or merely virtual. We need to look with different kind of glasses, I see that because 20 years ago I listened to the wrong people, those relying on bullet points, memo’s and ego. There is no space for that in gaming, or in innovative design, I wonder when Microsoft will figure that part out, they are now in 3rd position, what happens when they become deal last (behind Amazon), will they blame metrics or will it be a Covid set of variables? No matter what they will rely on, they are in a stage where they are losing more and more slices of business cake, they are losing slices in a time where they should have had the entire pie, as I personally see it stupidity, greed driven short sightedness and ego driven conviction made them lose field after field, and now they are in a ratchet state, they have no ability to get close to Amazon and at the same time there is every chance that Google could catch up with them. When that happens, Microsoft will be holding a losing hand in the both the cloud and the gaming field and as their surface solution falls short, we see them handing over slices of that pie to Apple, a three sided losing streak, it is a rare but slightly satisfying field. Why do I think that Microsoft will fail? ZDnet stated it best with “There is still no publicly available data on Azure sales. Azure is the part of Microsoft’s cloud business that most rhymes with AWS, but is buried in the commercial cloud”. In a lifetime of working in IT, I have learned that when commercial driven players rely on ‘no publicly available data’, it tends to be because someone is too close, they are too far behind, or the results create questions, and as I personally see it, Microsoft does all three, Google is too close, they are too far behind with Amazon and the Exchange server issues call in question issues with the Microsoft cloud as a whole. As we saw (from 2019 onwards) more and more hacks towards clouds, there is every notion that together with one source claiming that 90% of clouds are in danger, Microsoft has a lot is problems coming their way, I do not know if this is completely fair on Microsoft, as all three have issues, but the replicated approach Microsoft has (Active Directory anyone?), we see a larger issue, if hacks can be transposed from one system to the other, Microsoft hacks might be seen as lucrative (from the organised crime point of view), it makes the NSA approach more and more essential, yet I personally feel that any rollback has hidden flaws and flaws are a problem, especially in a cloud where one flaw transfers to a whole number of corporations. I will be the first to agree that my view is speculative, because it is, but to see that part you need to grasp back to 2003 where the people got “Erroneous VeriSign-Issued Digital Certificates Pose Spoofing Hazard”, this needs to happen only once on the cloud and the mess is almost complete and I believe that a rollback will make it happen. So how do you feel about ‘due to a defect and all rings were targeted concurrently’ now?

So perhaps my idea for a cloud game has a few additional benefits, apart from it being an interesting approach to a new game. 

Have a great day

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April 9, 2021 · 15:32

Belated brilliance

Some of us know what I am talking about, when we first see it, we think ‘nice’, nothing negative, just a plain nice. We liked the story, the girls loved Jude Law, the men were all over Jennifer Jason Leigh (virtually). The story was good, there was nothing bad about the whole thing, but now 20 years later some are realising just how brilliant David Cronenberg really was at that moment, our computers are catching on, our approach to virtual reality is catching on and suddenly what was once nice, is now regarded as the Koh-i-nor diamond. I am off course referring to eXistenZ the movie. We can take it apart from any angle, but consider the side we can now use on the PS5? What if we create an RPG that is a dream within a dream?

Not unlike the book the Talisman, consider a map, the normal game map set to a normal grid (whatever you call normal). Now we see a second map, that map has relative places in the same place (not the same place), but you are placed in wherever the temple, or resting place was. So in map one we have something resembling Japan, whilst Map 2 is more like New Zealand, as such map one is 50% larger, yet in relative places we see similar places and the resting places is an option to travel between the worlds, both worlds having duties, quests and achievements, but if you are a Shaman in one, you are an artisan in the other, a ying to every yang. Now that we have the power systems (like a PS5), we should use that to fuel gaming imagination, not merely a more buggy and textured killing game, but a sandbox game with several sandboxes, optionally they have very different kinds of sand in that box. Optionally there aren’t 2 worlds, but three or four, the opportunity offered will be staggering. 

Now consider that no game designer has ever considered creating such a leap, well, apart from serious Intel computers, the power was not there before, so why do we see more Assassin’s Creed 2022 LEAKS, with references to Africa, why more of the same whilst the last two games are still buggy? Why more existing IP, and what makes for the massive absence of new gaming IP? The creativity is out there, some of it is 20 years old and never considered for gaming, all whilst that movie was all about virtual gaming. What allows for an iterative mind to exist in a world that relies on true innovation? I mentioned that before, when you try to make a game that appeals to all, you end up with a product that pleases none, I would think that some game makers would have learned that small truth by now. I created (in my mind) in the last three months close to half a dozen games and if I can do it, why not these self proclaimed experts? 

I will let you decide, but if you get jumpy and overly exited when you see the next Assassins Creed, like a teenage boy seeing his first photo model topless shall we say. In a stage when we can be exploring life as a tailor, designing cloths for her naked body, I reckon you got exited for the wrong deal. By the way, according to some ladies that same formula works with Daniel Craig too, so he should be happy for now. 

For me, these ideas came to me as my mind was arranging books and movies, rearranging ideas in all novel ways to make connections that were not there before, so why aren’t others able to do just that?

And if you think gaming is a mess, consider that I completed the concept of a stealth systems to deploy a solution giving the Iranian navy a unique view of the Sea of Dammam (the view from the bottom), so what gives? Northrop Grumman lost idea’s and is relying on the Next Generation Interceptor program to stay alive a little longer? Well, if software iteration x.53 is anything to go by, it will not last long. Iteration was the game of financial stability, it is now the deterrent of innovative leaps ahead, it was the one part that the weapons industry had in common with the gaming world. Innovation was everything, and that is falling away more and more. 

So even as the Wall Street Journal gave us in 2018 “a payload adapter—that failed to operate properly in space”, it is interesting wording, apart from the silly notion that more than one thing went wrong, so as I gave two maps with different scaling, what else causes a person to be in a different place when he falls asleep? The person who never really knew where he (or she) was and that is important in gaming, because there we do not sleep, we merely pass time, so what happens when location and time are triggers? What if one life is set to time, but the other one is depending on a sun and a moon? In a real stage where we have two worlds where both work in a different premise, understanding that premise is essential if you want to efficiently win the game, that has been a cornerstone setting in RPG games for a long time, so why not change that stage, the technology is now powerful enough.

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April 8, 2021 · 20:23

SET trust = 0.

Yup, we all have a stage when there is no trust, there is no confidence and we wonder the why part. In this, I had questions, so I asked the agency, but they did’t know, then I asked the FBI, I asked Langley and I asked Commander Andrew Richardson, they all gave the same story, there is No Such Agency, so I Googled them and Yes! There they were, complete with phone number (+1 301-677-2300) and all, yup, we got them, so now we get to their story (at https://breakingdefense-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/breakingdefense.com/2021/04/nsa-about-to-release-unclassified-5g-security-guidance/amp/).

Via the BBC, we get ‘NSA About To Release Unclassified 5G Security Guidance’ and I started to read, the article makes a lot of sense. Which gave me “Noble’s speech highlighted the importance of zero-trust architecture in 5G networks”, and it got me thinking, the approach makes a lot of sense, just like SE-LINUX, the setting of ‘no-trust’ makes sense, especially in a world where Microsoft keeps on fumbling the ball, not merely their exchange servers, but the (what I personally see as greed driven) push towards Azure, it comes with all kinds of triggers and dangers, especially as they are ready to cater to as many people as possible, the no-trust rule is pretty much the only one that makes sense at present. I have written about the dangers more than enough. So when we are given “it’s reasonable to expect that future NSA 5G security recommendations will emphasise zero trust as a key component”, I believe that the approach has a lot of benefits, especially when such a setting can be added to anti viral and Google apps, it could increase safety to well over 34% overnight, and option never achieved before and we should all applaud such a benefit. There are a few thoughts on “NSA has characterised zero trust as “a security model, a set of system design principles, and a coordinated cybersecurity and system management strategy.” It’s a “data-center centric” approach to security, which assumes the worst — that an organisation is already breached or will be breached.” A choice that is logical and sets the cleaning directly at servers and ISP’s, and they are the backbone in some cases to close to 75% of all connections, so to set a barricade on those places makes sense, there is no debating, the choice of calling themselves No Such Agency wasn’t their best idea, but this is a game changer. 

I have been critical of the US government in all kinds of ways for years and on a few topics, yet I have to admit that this is an excellent approach to prevent things going from bad to worse, moreover, there is every chance that it will make things better for a lot of us overnight as such a system deploys, it will have a trickle down effect, making more and more systems secure. 

That one thing
Yup there is always one thing and we see the dangers when we consider Solarwinds and Microsoft (their mail server), the one part is when we rely on rollbacks and we see rollback after rollback creating a hole and optionally a backdoor, the most dangerous system is the one deemed to be safe, ask Microsoft, or their exchange server. When you believe all is safe, that is when the most damage can be made. And as the article looks at 4 parts, we see ‘Improved network resiliency and redundancy’, yes it makes sense, but rollback efforts are possibly out of that equation and when we get some people tinkering there, there is a chance that the solarwinds paradox returns, yet this time with a dangerous seal of approval by the No Such Agency, it will be the one part all criminal minds are hoping for, in this I personally hope they fail, but these buggers can be resilient, tenacious and creative, the triangle that even the Bermuda Triangle fears and that is saying something.

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April 7, 2021 · 23:30

Feel free to lose control

Yup, we all have that. You, me, pretty much everyone. Even the Catholic cleric in [censored], should you doubt that, ask any choir boy there. So when the BBC gave us ‘Facebook sued for ‘losing control’ of users’ data’, I merely shrugged and went ‘Meh’. You see, it is not about “the case against the technology giant, expected to last for at least three years, will argue a “loss of control” over users’ personal data warrants individual compensation”, which is hypocrite on a few levels, we see people handing over data and fact to complete strangers in Facebook and plenty of other social media paths. We laugh at “Coolum resident Essena O’Neill, 19, said she was paid up to $2,000 for the posts, which show her posing with products and often in revealing positions. With more than 600,000 followers on Instagram and 260,000 on YouTube, Ms O’Neill has deleted many of her original photos and re-captioned others with more honest descriptions” (ABC, 2015). We also get (two weeks ago) ““I accidentally posted a picture on Instagram of my wine glass and I was naked,” she said whilst nervously laughing. Then, she went on to explain that you could actually see her naked body in the reflection of the wine glass”, is anyone buying this? Social media has been used on a huge number of settings revealing ‘accidentally’ facts that normally do not get to see the light of day, and in all this we are given ““loss of control” over users’ personal data”? Go cry me a river! In the mean time, did anyone see Alexander Nix, Julian Wheatland, Rebekah Mercer, or Steve Bannon in the dock of a courtroom in any of the hit countries? In this the quote “harvesting of Facebook users’ personal information by third-party apps was at the centre of the Cambridge Analytica privacy scandal” applies, a third party app, was there any documented agreement, or documented acceptance of the harvesting of personal data? I do not see Microsoft in the dock in court over their exchange failure that had hit 250,000 businesses, so why not? And when we see “Cambridge Analytica’s app on Facebook had harvested the data of people who interacted with it – and that of friends who had not given consent” did anyone consider putting the board of directors of Cambridge Analytica in prison? I wonder how far we have strayed from the flock of convictions to go after the money and not the transgressors. I do get it, it is a rule or Torts, the mere “go where the money is” is not a wrong setting, but in this setting all the blame on Facebook seems wrong. They are not without fault, I get that, but to see a reference to Journalist Peter Jukes giving us “leading the action, claims his data was compromised”, so how was his data compromised? What evidence is there? In turn I have equal issues with “The Information Commissioner’s Office investigation into these issues, which included seizing and interrogating Cambridge Analytica’s servers, found no evidence that any UK or EU users’ data was transferred by [app developer] Dr [Aleksandr] Kogan to Cambridge Analytica”, I wonder how far backup investigation went, in turn the setting of ‘no evidence that any UK or EU users’ data was transferred’ is almost preposterous, the data was collected, as such it went somewhere, the fact that the Information Commissioner’s Office couldn’t find that part is mere icing on the cake of Cambridge Analytica. In addition, when we see “Mr Jukes told BBC News it was not about “where the data went” but rather “that Facebook didn’t care”. “They didn’t look after it,” he said.” Can this be proven? ‘Didn’t care’ is subjective and presumptive, we can agree that security measures failed, yet ‘They didn’t look after it’ is equally unproven, and these people are not going after the people of Cambridge Analytica as THEY transgressed on the data. As such as we look at Eton boy Alexander Nix, in the setting of “Nix agreed to a disqualifying undertaking prohibiting him from running U.K. limited companies for seven years after permitting companies to offer potentially unethical services, while denying any wrongdoing”, he got a mere slap on the hand, with a mandatory 7 year vacation all whilst we are told ‘denying any wrongdoing’, in addition there is “agreeing to delete previously obtained data”, a 2019 agreement, so where was the data all this time? Let’s be clear, Facebook has made blunders, huge ones, yet in light of the fact that Microsoft gets a mere fine and the issues is closed after that, why keep on going after Facebook? When we see ZDNet give us ‘Microsoft Exchange Server attacks: ‘They’re being hacked faster than we can count’, says security company’ two weeks ago (at https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-exchange-server-attacks-theyre-being-hacked-faster-than-we-can-count-says-security-company/), what gives, why are they not being sued for setting a dangerous precedence on corporate information? We go after Huawei without evidence, we ignore alleged criminals and their app transgressions with our data, but it is fine to go after Facebook whilst ignoring the massive flaw that is Microsoft? So what gives?

So yes, we can lose control all we like, but if we hamper the courts with empty cases that are set on emotion, all whilst people like Alexander Nix, Julian Wheatland, Rebekah Mercer, and Steve Bannon are allowed to return to positions and try again? And what about Cambridge Analytica? As it was soon thereafter acquired by? The only reason I see to acquire Cambridge Analytica is because of hardware, because of software and because of data, so who is looking into that, preferably all before we lose time slapping Facebook around? I see very little after 2018, but perhaps Peter Jukes is too busy to see were his alleged compromised data optionally went. 

So whilst we giggle on statements like “I accidentally posted a picture on Instagram of my wine glass and I was naked”, we see a setting where a large group of people are using social media for all kind of things, the limelight most of all and in this we need to separate the real issues from the fictive cash cows. In this, did you wonder if the people are realising that Wired gave us a mere hour ago “collaboration platforms like Discord and Slack have taken up intimate positions in our lives, helping maintain personal ties despite physical isolation. But their increasingly integral role has also made them a powerful avenue for delivering malware to unwitting victims—sometimes in unexpected ways” (at https://www.wired.com/story/malware-discord-slack-links/) and that is a mere tip of the iceberg, a massively large one. How many apps are a gateway to YOUR system? So when we take notice of “hackers have integrated Discord into their malware for remote control of their code running on infected machines, and even to steal data from victims”, as such in that case it is not the nude reflection shot that matters, it is the wineglass porn that some people decided not to post that is out there for everyone to see. Consider the words by Stephen Fry on 2014, when he said “The best way to prevent nude pictures online, is to never pose nude”, or something according to those lines and he is right, the best social media is the boring one, where you just say hi and connect to relatives. But the limelight is for some just too appealing and to give everyone the lowdown on all your needs and that is what players like Cambridge Analytica were banking on. As such, when we add that light, that spotlight, what data of Peter Jukes was transgressed on and in light of the Exchange server issues, the Cisco issues and the larger stage of interconnecting apps, can it even be proven that it was Facebook? 

I’ll buy popcorn for that court case, it should be fun.

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