November 2, 2022 · 17:43

And you still want cake?

A few hours ago I was alerted to an article on the BBC site. The article (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-63260648) gives us ‘Cyber-attacks on small firms: The US economy’s ‘Achilles heel’?’ In itself no real surprise, but then I saw “It was a total head-in-the-sand situation. ‘It’s not going to happen to me. I’m too small.’ That was the overwhelming message that I was hearing five years ago,” says Ms Graham, co-founder of CYDEF, which is based in Canada. “But yes, it is happening.” There we see the first instance of utter stupidity, a setting where insurance companies go ‘well, I am sorry to report that it is on your dime that this is happening’ and that is not a speculation, this is about to happen. In addition to that the insurance against cyber attacks will skyrocket unless you have state of the art equipment (something small businesses cannot afford). A stage that is waiting exploitation. There are all kinds of speculations. One of them is “Cyber-crimes are expected to cost the world $10.5tn (£9.3tn) by 2025, according to cyber-security research firm Cyber Ventures”, I do not completely agree, for the most I do, but the big bucks are depending on national 5G, which is not happening in many nations before 2027. You see, one source gives us “For example, in November 2020, one cybersecurity company estimated that global cybercrime costs will grow by 15 percent per year over the next five years, reaching US$10.5t annually by 2025, up from US$3t in 2015 (Cision 2020)” they are seemingly ALL quoting the same source and that source is Cyber Ventures. That does not make it incorrect, yet I have reservations. That number is completely acceptable under 5G, under other conditions (when big tech do not screw up and hand over the keys to hackers) should not go that fast (yet), but when 5G, a national 5G stage is there this number will increase swimmingly all over the globe, which is why I shouted for law adjustments well over two years ago, but the law is seemingly sitting on their hands, all about ‘letting all parties’ swim in the large all whilst the swimming pool has close to zero protection, so this will get worse a lot faster and the EU will see plenty of drowners (aka floaters) soon enough. My speculative view is that the larger problems are a mere 6 months away. 

Then we are given “The pandemic created a whole new set of challenges and small businesses weren’t prepared,” says Mary Ellen Seale, chief executive of the National Cybersecurity Society, a non-profit that helps small businesses create cyber-security plans. In March 2020, at the cusp of the pandemic, a survey of small businesses by broadcaster CNBC found that only 20% planned to invest in cyber-protection.” This sounds nice, but I wonder what we will see in 2023. I expect that it is then that we will learn that less than 40% of these 20% will have actually done something and that is when a lot of people (insurance especially) realise that this is about to become a sinking ship. There was clear indication in 2010 that setting up cyber security was essential in players a little larger than SBE sized companies. They had issues too, but the revenue was too small. The problem is that clever hackers do not grab the whole enchilada. With “It typically takes 200 days from the moment of the hacking until discovery” we see the pattern. The clever ones will hit places for about 150 days then they go underground. That gives them enough to live like a king for a decade. They stay under the fold, they stay inconspicuous for as long as they can. They book a weekend in Vegas and then they launder what they had going home with $5-$15 million. The caper has worked and they are in the clear. Yet these same clever people can clear $50-$150 million when they get access to a fully deployed 5G network and the BS argument of “We will have a solution before that” does not fly, that excuse is a decade old and they have no adjusted laws, there is no adjusted technology and whatever the NSA has is not shared. So as you can see, the numbers are not entirely in the air (the Cyber Ventures one) but it will rely on a fully deployed 5G network which should be around 2027. 

It is time that ALL businesses take cyber security serious. The moment that there is no insurance for that these Achilles heel companies go under with no options for the owner, that person will have lost everything. So when Kirsten Dunst stated ‘Let them eat cake’ (Marie Antoinette) she stated a good case for Cyber criminals. They are having cake every day and those not using Common Cyber Sense will be paying for that meal day after day after month after month after year (you get the idea). It was essential to properly adjust laws for that. And when we look at the data from April we get “according to industry data only four to five percent of hackers are actually caught, but high-profile cases showcase how even the most skilled can make simple mistakes which lead to them being apprehended” so between one in twenty to one in twenty five gets caught. Do you really want to hope on that statistic? This is not a pun against law enforcement or the FBI, they are in a fight with both hands tied behind their backs. Not a good position to win a fight. And that is before we look at state funded hackers. Lets be clear both Russia and China have every benefit for American and European business to lose way too much, proving that part is close to impossible. These players are almost never caught. The arrest by the FSB of REvil was a rare instance, but not all was lost. At https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/ransom-cartel-linked-to-notorious-revil-ransomware-operation/ we learn “Researchers have linked the relatively new Ransom Cartel ransomware operation with the notorious REvil gang based on code similarities in both operations’ encryptors” and that was two weeks ago. At present with Russians not being able to wage war against an enemy that is at best 15% of their own army gives rise that the people behind REvil will be out and about soon enough (if they aren’t already). 

So those who want cake, better find a place to enjoy it before the hackers get it all and I will not care. I have been clearly evangelising the essential need for Common Cyber Sense for years now. And if Optus Australia is anything to go by there are plenty of big fish not too interested in that approach.

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November 1, 2022 · 18:57

Fear is the key

Yes, it is a setting, but also the title of a Alistair McLean novel. And fear came to mind when I saw ‘New EU law could open up messaging and app buying’ (at https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-63458377), for the most I am all for open markets, the problem however is that these small players aren’t too concerned about safety. The fear becomes that these small players will be a platform for hackers and criminals to propagate THEIR agenda and I do very much have a problem with that. So as the article gives us “Under the DMA, smaller messaging apps will be able to ask the tech gatekeepers to allow their users to send and receive messages via the bigger firm’s platform. However, large firms will not be required to make more advanced features interoperable immediately. Under the plans, audio and video calls between two individual users or groups of end users on different platforms will not happen for four years.” This statement gives us two dangers. Danger number one is that the small player is propagating party X (aka hacking party), we cannot state that there was intent, or that there was malicious intent. There is every chance that these maker are unaware. The second danger is that the absence of ‘advanced features’ which would include certain security measures. Yes, that is a speculation, but these security measures tent to be more advanced, hence the danger of missing out. I wonder what excuse these ‘enablers’ have when things go wrong, because there is EVERY chance that this will happen. In certain cases, could the BEUC be held accountable for damages to mobiles and persons? It is a fair question, because the rules of torts tell is to go after the money and the EU has plenty, not?

So as we are given “Margrethe Vestager, the commissioner for competition, who originally proposed the legislation said: “We invite all potential gatekeepers, their competitors or consumer organisations, to come and talk to us about how to best implement the DMA.”” I personally wonder who will ask the EU to be held accountable for any hacks that get propagated this way and more important can these smaller players be held liable? That last part is dicey on a few levels. It sets the stage that the consumer has to agree to an ‘as is’ policy, which means that the consumer gets to be held accountable for any damages. This is not a good setting to be in. 

I am all for open markets, but until the EU (US too) has actual victories against hackers, I fear the worst will happen and it tends to happen too soon when no one is prepared or has a clue, a mindset the EU is well familiar with.

I have every intention to ban messages that are not from my provider, which is dangerous as Optus has been hacked into to the largest degree, so I am not holding my breath regarding any mobile safety at present.

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October 31, 2022 · 20:47

That screwed up media

Here I was, relaxing, looking at tweets when suddenly a tweet Elon Musk passes by (see below). 

Now I had a hard time here. You see I do not trust the media, but the top shelf media (LA Times, SF Chronicle, Boston Globe, and Washington Post) were always above board. Actually there was one more, but it seems that the NY Times now joins the third tier newspapers right next to the Daily Mail (UK). How could any newspaper be so stupid to give us the article (see below). 

The idea that a newspaper does not properly vet the information they have is not new, but in the past the NY Times was always above board. Whether they hate Elon Musk, whether they have other needs (like towards former Twitter owners) or whatever the reason, not vetting information is a problem, it is one I have been talking about for years. When the media cannot differentiate between real news and fake news the media has a problem, they merely hand over the news to TikTokkers like the one claiming that there are a large number of UFO’s over Australia (a TikTok ad), so now you know.

Now what was one the huge and mighty NY Times is now a bringer of debatable fake news, which will deteriorate any other news they bring. Although, I do realise that if Elon Musk was not honest my goose is cooked. Yet Elon Musk has a lot more credibility than most media ever could hope to have, so I am presently siding with the E Musk group. I could not read the whole article because the subscription nag overlapped my article again and again, so there might be an ulterior reason for the NY Times.

In this day and age when we trust the media less and less, they need to bend over backwards to vet the information again and again and hiding behind a mention of Reuters no longer does the trick.

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October 31, 2022 · 10:28

The path not trodden

That is something that has been with me a lifetime. Even when I was little, being a passenger in a car, I always wondered where the exits led that we passed. Over time, as my knowledge of geography grew I knew where they led, but it was not that simple, although I never realised that at the time. So when I got accepted into Uni something started to stir and I got myself degrees in internet-working and legal studies with a master of Intellectual Property. That did not open the doors I hoped would open, yet it opened up doors inside of me. A much more rewarding part. I started to question almost everything and it led to over a dozen pieces of IP. UTS opened a doorway into how other people were thinking and that was utterly rewarding, because the exits I saw pass by were now in the open for me to explore and a dozen of IP pieces are now mine. Google never looked there, Amazon did not look there and wherever Microsoft is looking and not looking is not something anyone needs to be bothered about. Especially as some give us only 15 hours ago ‘Microsoft warns that October 2022 security updates can cause problems joining domains in Windows 11 and older’, I wonder if Microsoft can actually properly test security updates, they have become too big and the cracks are showing. In all this I found billions in revenue and to be honest, I do not trust a whole lot of wannabe tech firms. You see them on LinkedIn with fortune cookie wisdoms, getting their friends to like their post and liking the posts of friends hoping they gain traction. It is one of the reasons I handed the first part of my IP to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and if part 1 comes through they get a shot at the rest as well. As the large firms contract into the billions, I found additional billions as well as a few more options, because I explored the paths not trodden. Not only that, I found a few new sides that were ignored for longer than anyone would be happy about. When I started to meditate on these parts, my speculation (perhaps presumption) was that they either did not understood what they were looking at, or they didn’t fit it with their ‘marketing’ revenue. And that is the larger station. They are all trying to cash in on advertisements, and as they do that, they left billions on the floor. The certain telling of a limited field of view, like Microsoft. It is still a mystery why dopey googly Google would miss out and for that same reason Amazon, but there you have it, by looking where other race by, you tend to find the gemstones. The problems is which party could want and would pay for these gemstones. I am banking on the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the UAE is an option but too far from Sydney at present and there are too many unknowns there too. The fact that the tech firms in the US, UK and EU have the same failing implies that they are all connected and optionally a discriminating source to some, as such I went the other way and now that there is a real chance to take a slice of the marketshare that should have been Google and Amazon (or wannabe Microsoft too) is a larger concern. I did not forget about Apple or IBM, they have focussed areas and they focus on these places as any tech firm will. So they never faltered (not to that degree), and in all this when you start digging and you see how they are all in the same mindset you will see that they miss the same opportunities again and again, which is now amounting to billions. So when you see ‘Google reportedly spends $100 million on avatars to take on TikTok’, or ‘Google making disinformation profitable via ad business: Report’ you get a first view that they are all looking at each other, optionally coveting the piece of pie the other one has and I found a new pie that I would not need to share (well whomever buys my IP). And now we have a new ballgame. The IT representing hundreds of billions of value is ignoring the few percentages that I found and no one else is aware (for now), I actually wonder when they will wake up from their dog eats dog momentum to realise that the dogs fighting over the same bone left half a dozen bones still covered in meat alone. Me as the little chihuahua got those bones as they were seemingly too small, but at 2%-5%, these billions are a lot to a little Chihuahua like me and I am happy with the spoils that they bring, I reckon that Saudi Arabia will be equally pleased. They get to sit at the big tech table and the other players will wonder how that happened. It happened because they followed each other and they all ignored the few exits that made me wonder, they all thought it went nowhere, which tells you more about them than me. And after my first win, the other IP pieces will become interestingly easy to sell, but I am also loyal, as such Saudi Arabia gets to pick first. The others never wanted to show interest, now they do not have to. That is only fair, is it not?

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October 30, 2022 · 10:53

That nagging feeling

It all started in 2021, July 12th to be exact. I was writing ‘New and reinforced’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/07/12/new-and-reinforced/) and another thought occurred to me. This had the options of an interesting stealth game. Consider the Citadel in Mass Effect, the time is when the Citadel becomes a hub (Mass Effect 3), the bodies are piling up and in that setting we have a stealth game. Consider an engineer, he is creating stealth armour for the Shepard and other spectres at that moment the attacks start. As he was working in a special R&D lab on the station, the humans decided to go off books and create a space in the citadel with no visibility at all. That is the start of the game. Visually it looks very much like the Mass Effect series, but here there are no firefights, a firefight is not something this engineer is equipped for and he is not much of a shot, a mere energy pistol that can deal with rodents and not much more. But stealth, that he can do and he is invisible to the camera’s and scanners, the armour works. 

The lab is below the human embassy it is slightly larger than a room with 5 bedrooms, 3 of them are work related one is a power hub. It is in that setting that he has to find food, make recordings and set up stealth camera’s. In a setting where husks are collecting bodies, where cleaning systems work 24:7, he needs to find places for the camera’s. He has to record what is going on. And unlike the first game, the Embassy section is completely mapped, every room, all views and every item. The player has to download logs, has to avoid and deactivate security systems, even though he seems invisible, he learns that the suit has issues and the points can be gotten to improve the suit, make stealth weapons and collect information. The game expands into other areas later in the game. Larger, not bigger, wider and more challenges. The idea for that setting was that EA could expand on the storylines on the citadel, expand on the races and expand on the locations. The second reason was that there is a lack of good stealth games. After Thief we only got Styx and Aragami, both excellent games. There are other games that have stealth elements, but games driven by stealth are rare on the market and as such this made sense. The idea to have a streaming stealth game was also rewarding in other ways. It would be a first and after the bummer that Andromeda was, taking it into a side street (not a replacement) might make the gamers, the obsessive Mass Effect gamers happy. And consider how large the citadel is, there is plenty of challenges to bring about, especially when you need to make a second and a third location. Consider the problems, or the challenge to create a new space under the noses of those who want to kill you and when we add a little science to it, it could be all kinds of fun. A game based on avoidance and trapping the other party. It could be a blockbuster for EA (they own the Mass Effect IP), just a thought. And consider how many games they released. It is not that they have shown a whole lot of creativity, have they?

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October 29, 2022 · 20:37

Put the hammer down

It sounds overly dramatic, but I believe that enough is enough. The idea that a bully gets awarded is just too disgusting to me. I am of course speaking about the attack on Paul Pelosi in San Francisco. The idea that some nut job gets a glove treatment after a man, whose ‘crime’ is to be married to the speaker of the house is just too unsettling. I have never been much of an American democrat, that side ended after JFK. The democrats are pushing too much for a nanny state and I have an issue with that, but I accept that the Democrats were elected, they call the shots as is the consequence of an election. So as we learn “Bill Scott, chief of the San Francisco police department, said the suspect in the attack on Paul Pelosi will face charges of attempted homicide and assault with a deadly weapon, among others.”, as well as “The chief identified the suspect as 42-year-old David Depape. In addition to attempted homicide, he’ll also face charges of “elder abuse, burglary, and several other additional felonies”, Scott said.” All this and more is given to us by the Guardian (at https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2022/oct/28/democrats-obama-midterms-republicans-us-politics-live-updates) some other sources described David Depape as another conspiracy theorist, not unlike the loads of people we see more and more in the Dutch political landscape. They are no longer an annoyance, they are now a danger and I personally believe that the Nanny state empowered them, the masses gave people like this a voice on digital media whilst those behind the screens are cashing in on the digital advertisement revenue. And people like Alex Jones are making this worse. A mere 5 days ago he files for a new trial. We get to hear (also from the Guardian) “Jones filed the requests Friday, saying Judge Barbara Bellis’s pretrial rulings resulted in an unfair trial and “a substantial miscarriage of justice”.” It is the ‘miscarriage of justice’ part that gets to me, we see “the shooting was a hoax staged by “crisis actors” to impose more gun control”, we see how this man exploits the damage to the families of 24 murdered children and he has the guts to rely on ‘miscarriage of justice’? This is too rich. I reckon that the Conversation had it right with ‘Hypocrisy is beneath them – political figures in the Trump era don’t bother concealing their misdeeds’ and the nanny state is merely growing their voice. It is there that we see Journalist Carlos Lozada give us “Their bad behaviour is now acceptable, so it needs no disguise” and that is is the setting behind this. This is what drives it and I gave a solution a long time ago, whilst the money hungry people went after tech firms, they forgot that the people no matter how entitled they are to their opinion, they should be held to account and if that was done people like Alex Jones have no recourse, people like David Depape would have been held to account long before he handed that hammer. And in the US with over 320,000,000 people this becomes more and more pressing. The land of opportunity has become overcrowded and the wannabe’s shout louder and louder at the expense of innocent children and a business man whose only ‘crime’ was to be married to a politician. 

It is time for the politicians to wake up and do something about this and hold the wielders of their voice accountable for their actions and for what they claim. People like Alex Jones saw the first trial as a way to get even more limelight, to get even more people relying on the Nanny state to listen to what he has to say. Yet no one is looking at the laws that allow these lie spouters to continue. This has been a setting for decades and now we see more and more impact and it does not end with the US. The Netherlands which is almost the size of Maryland (4,000 sqm larger) has a very different setting. Maryland with its 6.1 million people is nowhere near crowded as the Netherlands with 17.53 million people. A nation with the population pressures of Manhattan. There is a reason why I mentioned them, you see they are dealing more and more with pro-Russian trolls, conspiracy theorists and spouters of anti-Ukrainian stages and this will have a much more violent outcome. People like David Depape weren’t leading this, they were merely the first to go nuts and consider that this happens in a place like the Netherlands where in my youth an attack on politicians was almost unheard of, now people, via trolls propagate their home addresses. A man creating discord with intent to cause harm outside of Sigrid Kaag’s house. Merely because someone published the address. This will get a lot worse unless these laws are adjusted and until these conspiracy theorists are held accountable. I mean we all have the innocent conspiracy (funny example: Matt Damon is an alien, he’s Martian) but to exploit 24 murdered children takes a new (and lower) level of sick and the law is seemingly falling short here, that feeling comes with Alex Jones demanding a retrial, these families have to go through it all again. I personally hope that the financial damages are upheld and that he get an additional 15 years in federal prison, that might wake up the other theorists enough to reconsider the harm they are creating.

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October 28, 2022 · 23:21

Two things

They are not connected, not in any way, but the first part is too short to make a blog by itself as such I connected the two in separate parts.

Zeus Awakens

I have been brooding on the entry for Zeus, there is no way he can be omitted from the story, it is in one part as he is father to Ares, he is the other grandfather and he will emerge. In part that as our main character is gaining strength, the main character is now becoming a larger concern to the big three. As such I had to add Zeus to some degree and the second season was a decent moment to introduce him. 

It was a nice summer day in France, Nice to be more exact (as it is a nice town). I was sitting on a balcony on the esplanade of Nice, looking at the sea a mere 122 metres to the south. I heard a woman’s voice in the back asking me if I wanted any tea. ‘Yes please Lucia’ I responded and a few minutes later she came with a pot of tea. I saw her shiver and I took a gaze at the thermometer to my left. It was odd, it was slowly going down from the 28 degrees it was a minute ago. In one minute it had cooled down to 19 degrees. Grab the cat I said, I started to close the windows inside, she came in with Charcoal who was clearly feeling the lack of warmth and we closed all the windows. I moved towards the gas heater and turned it on. I didn’t need it, but she would definitely need heat soon enough. I looked at a contraction in the cupboard. It had thermometers, barometers and they were all going nuts. Air pressure was down to 950 and the temperature had gone down to 9 degrees. I looked out and I saw people run for entries wherever they saw one. It was definitely a larger problem, but I had never seen anything like this. The clouds in the air were dissolving, the sky was deep blue and the thermometer was now at 6 degrees. The sea looked calm, the air was quiet and the thermometer kept on declining. Within a minute it was down to 1 degree and it seemed to stop there, in the two minutes that I looked outside, I saw people grab coats. I saw a shopkeeper hand sweaters to some women in bikini as well as to men wearing shorts and t-shirts. The cold was felt everywhere. I noticed that the cat was keeping his body against the heater, it as not used to the cold. Then Lucia screamed, I looked at her and she pointed to the room. A man with long silver hairs was standing there. He was wearing a Victorian suit and he looked at me. I had never seen him before. He raised his hand and sparks flew out of his fingers towards the glass table, he then vanished and the heat came back, I looked at Lucia in puzzlement. I smelled a distinct Ozone air and I looked outside. The heat was coming back and I turned the heater off. I looked outside and the sun was there, the heat came gushing in everywhere and within a minute the temperature was back to 20 degrees. I looked at the table. The glass was there and so was a text, in the glass ‘Ελάτε στην Ακρόπολη, πρέπει να μιλήσουμε’. I got that message loud and clear. So this was my grandfather? Time to learn more about the other branch of the family. I send a mental note to grandpa Hades. “Zeus summoned me, will update you later” I looked at Lucia “It seems I have to make a business trip”, she nodded. She did not understand what was going on, but I got the impression that she was eager to go into denial. “Break the table into small parts, keep the cat away and be careful. Get a new table please.” I walked into the bedroom and got a small bag and from the living room fruit bowl I got my keys, wallet and some small stuff. Time to see Athens again.

Time squandered, time wasted

That was the first thought I had when I saw the Guardian article ‘Profits at world’s seven biggest oil firms soar to almost £150bn this year’. It is not their fault. The article is not what I am commenting on, not really. We get (at https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/oct/27/profits-at-worlds-seven-biggest-oil-firms-soar-to-almost-150bn-this-year-windfall-tax) “Mathew Lawrence, the director of Common Wealth, a think-tank, said Shell’s zero windfall tax bill for 2022 showed the levy introduced by Rishi Sunak when he was chancellor in May was “not fit for purpose” and needed significant change”, yes. That is how it starts and I am not saying that the comment is wrong, because that would require me to be an expert on taxation, and that is definitely not me. But consider that I wrote ‘Heating at what price?’ On December 3rd 2018, almost 4 years go (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2018/12/03/heating-at-what-price/).

I mentioned tax overhauls before that, years before than and now we see the impact of inaction and I get that Shell is not wavering, because tax laws were never properly overhauled and now there is a problem. So in 2018 I wrote “It is the first time in history that a Middle Eastern nation has the ability to put the US and EU to shame with their lack of technological progress. They claim to have it, yet Saudi Arabia is making a move towards ‘showing to have it‘, changing the game for both the US and Europe. This is where we see the difference. China and Russia see this as an opportunity, whilst Europe and the US are seeing it as an inconvenience” and now it is no longer an inconvenience, now it is an actual problem and the UK, EU and US are not ready. I warned of these dangers 4 years ago, but they all knew better. How do you feel? Did they know better? Did they know more are were they merely playing stationary, optionally licking stamps. And the opportunity that Russia sees and the opportunity that China sees are different. Russia is out of the equation, but China is now fulfilling what I saw 4 years ago and it will get worse. As China has more and stronger ties with Saudi Arabia they can get more oil and America? They can play indecisive politician, play the pariah game a little more. The UK has its tea grannies (CAAT) messing things up and Europe has little options from the start. All things I wrote about in 2018. And the UN is useless in this case (as I see it). Two things can be seen in very different things, in different ploys. In players and receivers. In actions and lack thereof. Two things almost half a dozen times over and I made clear mention of it in 2018. So as I prepare to sell my IP, I can now see that the timing is near perfect. The players will overreact and by the time they figure out what they could have done I will be retiring. In this it will be either Google versus Amazon, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia versus all others. If one acts the other loses and it will be billions that they lose, if one accepts they will have billions in a direction they never considered before and as I see inaction upon inaction I am wondering if their inactions is why they never saw what they could have gotten. I know it I speculation, but when was the last time anyone left well over 5 billion a year on the floor? And it plays out in the same way that Shell and others are coaching their fortunes. The inactions of others is making them rich, I deeply hope that I get that same bonus, my retirement kinda depends on it. 

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October 28, 2022 · 03:36

Two linked events showing trouble

Yes, that I how it started for me today. It all links back to the Optus failures and a few other matters, but cybersecurity is at the heart of it. Initially I saw the second article, but I will get back to that later. First we look at ‘Sydney teenager accused of using Optus data breach to blackmail indicates guilty plea in court’ (at https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-10-27/teenager-accused-of-using-optus-data-breach-to-blackmail-court/101584078), a simple deception. Yet one with a few sides. The first part “Australian Federal Police (AFP) charged Dennis Su with two offences earlier this month, claiming he sent text messages to 93 Optus customers demanding they transfer $2,000 to a bank account” sets the guilty party up, but in more ways when we consider part two “The charges were laid after a bank account belonging to a juvenile, which Mr Su allegedly used, was identified”, so he used a third parties account and wholly Moses, it is apparently of a minor. How the bough breaks! Well it actually doesn’t break. It seems that there was a serious amount of thoughts and planning here. Well, for some it is not a serious amount, but he had to know what was planned and he got a minor to be the front to some parts. It all refers not to the second article that as the first on my eye sight. It was ‘Medibank and Optus hacks spark warning over identity theft risks from former victims’ (at https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-10-27/identity-theft-warning-after-optus-medibank-hack/101576992). Here we get “The first thing the victim knew about her identity being hacked was when a man turned up on her parents’ doorstep asking for the sexual services he’d paid for online.” It is the start of a new steeple chase. When we consider “Former identity theft victims have shared how their details were used to steal luxury vehicles, take out personal loans in their name and hock fake goods online, because criminals got hold of the kinds of information millions of Australians are believed to have had compromised in the latest Medibank and Optus hacks” and this is not nearly the end of this. When we see “While living in Melbourne, she sent a photo of her licence to a real estate agent applying for a lease, and that image was somehow then uploaded into a gallery of property photos featured on that agent’s website” especially in the Australian housing market, can we please remove this bozo’s character from the housing market? How can anyone be stupid enough to ‘upload’ identity details? There is an unacceptable lack of common cyber sense in Australia. It goes from the big banks to the most stupid of housing players. They have no idea what they are doing and the excuse ‘we made a boo-boo’ just doesn’t play here. First Optus, then Medibank and that list keeps on growing. That is accelerated by alleged cowboy institutes that make money offering cyber degrees. Australia has a serious problem and it needs to be dealt with starting with a lot better protection regarding ID’s and identity documents.  

And we do not blame Google here, but “Probably the most shocking and stressful part was just seeing my licence there on Google for anyone to use” should be seen as evidence that a much larger issue is in play. When we see newspapers give us “The federal government has promised to dedicate millions of dollars to “investigate and respond” to the massive cyber attack which rocked Optus” which according to some amounts to $6,000,000 over two years. I reckon that in two years the problem will be a lot larger and two years to investigate what I in part did in 5 minutes is a joke. Something needs to be done NOW and lets start by holding corporations accountable to cyber security and lets make sure that a certain housing agent is an Uber driver in 48 hours and not a housing agent any more. Yes, I agree that I am overreacting, but uploading ID details? To a photo gallery? I think we hit rock bottom on the village idiot scale and that needs to be addressed well within 2 years, within 48 hours be more likely. I think that my optional IP move to Canada might be a good thing. It is not out of the question that these players will set my IP on a server with a connected router that still has the password ‘Cisco123’, that could be how my luck goes and I have seen enough bad luck to last me a lifetime. 

As I see it Australia has a lot of problems, not in the least the larger absence of Common Cyber Sense, I raised that in ‘The Bully’s henchman’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2020/01/31/the-bullys-henchman/) which I wrote on January 31st 2020, almost 3 years ago, it is that much of a failure and if I raised it then, it was already an issue. As such we see a failure that surpasses 3 years and now they want to debate it for two more years? These people are out of their flipping minds!

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October 27, 2022 · 06:58

The day After

Yes, I am a little slow today. The giddiness and Cheshire Cat behaviour in me after yesterday’s article slowed me down considerably. It is not everyday that you realise that you have a corner that tech giants like Amazon, Google and Microsoft (optionally Apple too) are overlooking. You want to shout what they aren’t seeing from every rooftop, but that gives them the idea and leaves me out of pocket, so I am refraining from this. And at the moment the commercial manager from the Saudi Consulate is already 4 week late, as such there are (hopefully) more gains for me.

But it is not about that, but there is a link to some degree. Several give it to you, but I am going with the South China Morning Post who gives us ‘Saudi Arabia reaffirms energy ties with China amid US fears over oil cuts’. The article (at https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3197218/saudi-arabia-reaffirms-energy-ties-china-amid-us-fears-over-oil-cuts) also gives us:
 

  • Saudi and Chinese energy officials agree to expand links in energy.
  • Riyadh’s relations with Washington have long been unbalanced and the kingdom has more options now, Chinese analyst says.

And I warned for this some time ago, and there is a second speculative setting. A second decrees is not entirely fictive. The stage where Russia will push for this is decently large, Russia has a voice in OPEC+ and America has made enemies, especially by not dealing with Iran. Any win they get here reflects positive on Iran, it leaves a positive light on Russian acts and leaves America and the EU with negativity. I warned about this around February 10th 2022 (well over 10 months ago) when I wrote “The US has a massive disadvantage especially when they were all huffy and puffy on Saudi Arabia, reality bites and that presentable stage will have to be stopped at the earliest convenience (not for me, I am happy if the BAE takes over), yet these stages (also the one the CAAT forced) are all stages that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia took notice of and China will be happy to show that with every presentation they bring.” The stage with tea grannies (image was there as well), and now we see the deployment of that stage and of course Russia wants every pound of hardship given to the EU and the US. In this OPEC+ is a much larger stage where Saudi Arabia is a strong voice, but not the only voice and Russia has other allies. The problems here is that this stage works for China, so not because it helps Russia, but because China has a lot more to gain, especially when the EU and US are slowed down. I did not have a view on the stage a day or a week ago, I saw this danger 10 months ago. So when we are given “Riyadh’s relations with Washington have long been unbalanced” we are given a much larger truth. The Biden administration has options 10 months ago, now not that many and China’s grip is growing, Washington allowed it to be that way. Washington has a delusional stage that reflects on ‘We can have our cake and eat it too’, it is delusional because you cannot have or do two good things at the same time that are impossible to have or do at the same time. You can have cake, or eat cake, but the ‘analysts and theorists’ come with that example, yes we can and where are those dopey’s now? Now that the ball is handed to the other party when you are deep into defence? 

That is a stage that is becoming increasingly hard for the US. They lost the option of being a super power a long time ago, they forfeit what they have because they believed the wrong people and now that is becomes a game of spin, we see the larger stage that ABC showed in the beginning of the month with ‘US ammunition supplies dwindle as Ukraine war drains stockpiles’, yes they were willing to hand it out, but they aren’t replenishing stocks, as such the Ukraine will soon be dependent on the EU and the US cannot afford to replenish its stock at present and the makers of ammunition are all about the green, they have profit margins. As such the day after looks less and less appealing. So they are losing provisions on one side and are losing revenue and resources on the other side. An unbalanced stage from the beginning and that is the larger folly. But the US can revisit those theorists with their ‘You can have your cake and eat it too’ and ask for an explanation. They will not get anything useful, but that is the problem with these theorists on inactivity. I gave the world this view 10 months ago and reading between the lines there was a lot more, but the US doesn’t pay me, so I see no reason to spell it out to them, they pay massive amounts to people to do that for them.

Giving the stage to every Tom, Dick, Harry and tea granny with a cause is now costing too many players too much and the invoice will be due, in this case the invoice is most likely offered to China who sees several reasons and several benefits. If you want to warn us of the Chinese danger, handing them billions in revenue is not a good idea. It diminishes your danger message and it leaves you with empty coffers as well. Wasn’t the Huawei story enough of a warning? 

I will let you mull that all over today, have a great one.

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October 26, 2022 · 14:17

When you can’t see it

This happens, we all cannot see things at times. I am no exclusion to that equation. We all look in directions and we see things, but we also miss things. Things in front of us and things outside of our peripheral vision. This happens to us all. But what does it take to miss a larger stage? This is the thought I giggled about when I saw (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-63394516) ‘Google and Microsoft hit by slowing economy’ a mere 4 hours ago. There we see “Alphabet, which owns Google and YouTube, said sales rose just 6% in the three months to September, to $69bn, as firms cut their advertising budgets. It marked the US firm’s weakest quarterly growth in nearly a decade outside of the start of the pandemic”, and it made me giggle because it implies that they have no idea what they are missing. The fact that I am holding on to a $500M revenue stream per month implies that there are options and they go beyond the KSA. Now that Google sees the shores of recession implies that they will seek (hauntingly) for new revenue streams. A larger stage that works for poor little moi. And a stage that holds a little more than I suspected. More because if Amazon and Google remain in the dark, they are hindered by blinkers, or they are just not wake. In an age of recession they remain unchanged towards focal needs and revenue needs. It boggles the mind, but my share just increased 1% and that is not a bad thing, it implies (not guarantees) an optional $5,000,000 a month extra, and an optional additional commission more. And that is merely the second pay-cycle. It is weird, but it implies that for once timing is on my side (which is a perfectly lovely consideration to receive). And to be honest. I do not care about Microsoft, they made their own bed, yet Google is another story and even as I think that Amazon has a better stage, Google is not out of the race (Microsoft can live with their wooden spoon for all I care). So as timing goes on and we consider “Profits at Alphabet dropped nearly 30% to $13.9bn in the quarter, as YouTube ad revenues declined for the first time since the firm started to report them publicly. Sales growth at the firm has slowed for five consecutive quarters” my solution could add well over $6bn annually and that I not the high point, merely the lowest median. So there is plenty of room to grow. And I am smiling like a Cheshire Cat because the big wigs at Google and Amazon are still in the dark, lets hope they remain ignorant until one of them pays me.

I am allowed a small victory dance this morning.

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