Tag Archives: Alphabet

If his lips are moving

It was the first thing I considered. You see, I saw an article and it made my blood boil, but a few seconds later I was considering some of the options that this could have been enabled through ruses. So what gives?

The article that pushed me was ‘Trump says Canada wants ‘benefits’ of being US state after trade talks collapse’ (source: BBC) where we see “US President Donald Trump has said Canada wants “the benefits of being a state, without being one” after trade talks between the two countries collapsed late on Friday. The breakdown of negotiations triggered new 50% US tariffs on a range of Canadian goods. Trump also said American farmers had been charged “massive amounts of Tariffs” for years.” What I think happened is that Prime Minister Carney pulled the deal and he could have said “What is even the benefit of being in a partnership without having an actual partner?” Or something to that effect and as we see the Guardian giving us “Carney, whose willingness to stand up to Trump has made him popular in Canada, has said that “America has changed,” and that the two countries would not return to their old relationship. The Canadian public has also been incensed by US policy towards their country, particularly Trump’s comments about turning Canada into the 51st US state. A petition to expel the US ambassador to Canada, Pete Hoekstra, has collected about 248,000 signatures, accusing him of normalising the notion of the US annexing Canada.” As such we now see that a trade war is in effect between our friends in Canada and that place where idiots reside (a place between Canada and Mexico) and it is time that we openly support our brethren (sisters too) in Canada. 

And as the Guardian is also giving us ‘The lesson from Canada’s collapsed trade talks with the US: negotiation may be futile’ where we see “Breakdown shows Washington now prioritises its own interests over any semblance of shared economic ground”, which is weird as I have stated this for some time and the actions of ‘America First’ gives that same notion and the forced attempts of annexing Canada, Greenland, Venezuela and recently the claim ‘Trump says he views strait of Hormuz as ‘American territory’’ (source: the Guardian) almost 3 days ago, I’ll say that the setting of America First has taken a massive turn for the worse. And I say it is time for the leaders of the Commonwealth to come out clearly and loudly saying that they support Prime Minister Carney in every way possible. I saw options to put the screws onto President Trump by all the Commonwealth parties switching from the United States to Canada for delivery for as much as possible and if booze is so under attack through Canada (with almost 35 million people) consider what the Commonwealth could do with 2.7 billion and optional support of the EU, if we all cancel whatever booze contracts we have, the United States loses its alcohol empire, or merely sell it to the United States, which won’t hold up for long at present. And that is merely the beginning because other news (unconfirmed) is that places like Disney is in trouble. There were reports that Disney raised prices on several settings for the second time and people were ‘complaining’ that food is becoming too expensive, there were mentions that the tourists were bringing their own food and Disney had also shedded staff members and we see “Disney is executing multiple waves of layoffs in 2026, cutting hundreds to thousands of roles across major divisions like Marvel, Pixar, ESPN, and Lucasfilm as part of an ongoing cost-containment strategy” (source: Fox 4 Dallas) which implies that as tourism is in danger in the United States, things are considerably worse then I thought. The so called ‘everything is honky dory’ is a little less secure. As such the bullying tactic of President Trump makes a lot more sense now. I made several reports on the United States being almost broke and now I see that this is closer to the mark then even I considered. So when we see the quote in the Guardian “Jamieson Greer, the US trade representative, has said the US was compelled to act after a year of retaliatory measures by Canada. He told Fox & Friends Weekend: “We’ve said enough and so we’ve taken counter-measures. Our interest is in protecting American workers and protecting American supply chains.” Dan Kelly, president of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, estimated that 40% of small Canadian exporters will be directly hit by the US tariffs, and that nearly one-third expect their revenues will drop by 50% or more as a result.” And whilst this dumbo named Greer keeps on making mention of ‘retaliatory measures’ can we please clearly define his BS by repeating that they started calling Canada the 51st state again and again and the Canadians were fed up with this and decided to shun American booze and goods. And as a Commonwealthian I fully support their actions and I believe it is mandatory for all Commonwealthians to come together and support Canada in any way we can, assistance from the EU would be appreciated in this. I think they have had enough of the bully in the White House and as such they might consider the very same settings I have considered. As tourism dies down, the economic impact on the United States goes from bad to worse. Still there is more, Al Jazeera (at https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2026/8/22/iran-war-live-trump-says-tehran-not-ready-to-make-right-deal-to-end-war) gives us ‘Tehran says US sanctions ‘declaration of war’ on all nations’ where we see “US Energy Secretary Chris Wright has hailed the US’s oil and gas production as global energy remains strained due to disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz. “American oil and gas workers have driven production to an all-time high, making the US the world’s largest producer of oil and natural gas,” said Wright in a post on X. Earlier, Wright also claimed the US military helped ship more than 15 million barrels of oil and other products out of the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday this week.” Why is this important? Because the United States was reliant on ‘cheap oil from the Middle East to offset the sales and now the United States needs this oil a lot more than ever before, as such the oil revenue is down. This American Administration is all about the good news, not the counter balance of these events and that only strengthens the others to support Canada in these times. And whilst the Irish times (at https://www.irishtimes.com/world/canada/2026/08/23/we-got-attacked-canada-to-retaliate-after-trump-imposes-50-tariffs/) gives us ‘‘We got attacked’: Canada to retaliate after Trump imposes 50% tariffs’ with the text “Canada will impose tariffs on some US goods in retaliation for 50 per cent ‌levies on Canadian products, prime minister Mark Carney said on Saturday, after trade talks collapsed between the two neighbours.

The “dollar for dollar” tariffs on imports of US steel, electronics and other products, to take effect on September 8th, mark a further worsening of relations between the long-time allies and major trading partners. The two countries failed to reach a trade deal late on Friday, with each side blaming the other for derailing three days of intensive negotiations. The breakdown complicates the future of a US-Mexico-Canada free-trade pact.” As well as “Carney is one of the few global leaders to retaliate against US tariffs ‌and has pledged to forge new trade and military alliances, despite Canada’s dependence on the United States for nearly 70 per cent of its exports.

US trade representative Jamieson Greer called the breakdown “a missed opportunity for Canada to partner with the United States,” saying no new talks were planned with Canada.

“We’re moving forward with measures that respond to Canadian retaliation,” Greer told Fox News. “They’ve always had the best deal, and they still would have an even better deal, but they didn’t want that.”” I personally believe that Jamieson Greer is the kind of person we all need to take under a magnifying glass after President Trump loses the midterms and those who went along with this charade (like Ambassador Pete Hoekstra) and in all this, I reckon that the State Department of the United States will have a sweet time getting anyone to trust them in the near future. But all this seems to point towards the biggest default in human history, because when this comes to blows, whomever trusted this president to put money in a debt that is not seeing any resolution will likely lose that money and there is a chance that they had it insured (like the setting they had in 2004) but that implies that insurance firms will lose whatever they had and this also implies that the United States is a very unwelcoming place for a long time. But not to fret, there is still the EU, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Japan and a few other places, so there are options for plenty of people and whilst the United States lose more and more, we could also redirect advertising, because that market is generating over $1 trillion a year, but in that new setting, what were the big winners named Alphabet (Google), Meta, and Amazon capture over half of all global advertising spend is now going to new places. It could still involve them but now from the Commonwealth and the EU, likely taxed to a far degree, as such I saw markets that the United States could lose, in the size setting of $300,000,000 to $450,000,000 per year, as such the United States will amazingly likely not be able to pay next year interest. And should these players allow China to inter their settings, the damage merely increases for the United States. 

So I started this with an expression “If his lips are moving, he is lying” And what gives me that setting? Well, over 100 general assertions that the U.S. defeated Iran, at least 38 claims that a final deal or resolution was imminent, and numerous intermittent assertions that the military phase ended within the initial hours or weeks of the engagement gives me the first right and the press has not been setting that premise correctly, merely sitting on the sidelines, trying to cash in on the digital dollars and that is about to go sideways in a few ways. Still, there is an option where I am wrong, but I don’t think so, the news is getting out more and more and the parties who should have intervened never did, as such there are several sides ‘overlooked’ and that is where I push the buttons, so think of this what you will and feel free to disagree with me, but wasn’t the fact that the US is so set on their booze getting imported into Canada, whilst placing limitations on Canada’s sovereign right to pursue and sign trade agreements with other international countries wasn’t a decent giveaway? When things are that outspoken, there is decent evidence that the United States is broke beyond belief and the last round bell sounded a few days ago. But that is merely my view on the matter. Have a great day and I wish Canadians all the strength that they can muster in these hard times.

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Wolves or Chihuahuas?

I am acting on a feeling, this happens. But the difference is that I have no economic sense (not really), It comes to a ground setting that I can get rich because I spend ;less than I earn, but not fast enough to use tax benefits as leverage to make a larger offset. I don’t know the laws on this and it doesn’t worry me. But I know data, I’ve seen it rustle for the better part of half a century and I noticed today that things are off. I have written about Oracle before, the last time just a day ago. But something seems to have changed. I wrote about vulture investors, but there that is 2-3 years away. And now I see that Oracle is at the centre of way too much press and it is diverse. It is like seeing the set up of a play that some are making and they need to press to do some of the waves and groundwork. That is what I feel, but am I right? The last one (that I think I saw) was ‘Alphabet vs. Oracle: Which Is the Better AI Stock to Own for the Next 5 Years?’ (Yahoo Finance), the article is seemingly nice, but there is an undertone in all this. First of all, why even make the comparison? They have overlapping settings in different directions and I get that you have to make a choice, but that tends to be a personal one. I am such a coward that I would try to go 50-50 on them, they are both sound good and they make an excellent setting for my portfolio. Then we also get ‘Oracle Heavily Shorted, Stock Halved—Contrarian Opportunity?’ And ‘Oracle’s $10,000 Lesson: A 38% Plunge in 12 Months Despite Record AI Backlog’ followed by ‘Oracle Stock Falls 3.8% as $40 Billion Funding Plan Tests AI Backlog’ and ‘Project Jupiter: Gas Pipeline Delay Threatens Oracle’s $165 Billion New Mexico AI Data Center’ (less than an hour ago) as I see it, it started with ‘Oracle junk bond fears, debt surge sound alarms for investors’ 23 hours ago. There are always setting that happen at the same time, but to see 6 pages of headlines in the last 24 hours and diverse, it is not that they all talk about 1 thing. It comes across that the attacks on Oracle are beginning and everyone wants to take a bite out of that data behemoth. That is what it feels like to me, someone is gunning for Oracle and I have no idea who, but someone knows. 

The problem for me is that it sounds like the wolves are coming and they might merely be chihuahuas making noises. The setting is that I am not economically savvy enough to make the distinction (I am no Mark Carney after all), but the data that I see gives me the feeling that they are wolves setting up for a yummy clambake and they are setting the table. This is the groundwork I expected to see starting around December 2027, not in the last 24 hours. I get that someone will make the point that the world never sleeps and that business is always on the menu, I get that, but to start carving into a behemoth like this, before that ‘carcass’ is well and ready means that some are showing their hands and whilst this might be a prelude to an actual attack, which means that someone is seeing the soft spot at Oracle, but is that really the case? I lack the economic savvy that I need for this. I can see the data, but that still leaves for a lot of time, these steps give me that Oracle is out of time, or at least that is the premise I notice and that is the problem. Are these chihuahuas that want to make nose to get noticed or are the wolves famished and they need (read: desire) a proper non vegetarian meal? I it just the distance that I fail to see, or is it the noise I hear and I cannot tell the difference? That is the lack of economy in me and I get that, but the data, the data is out there and I surely hope that they are merely chihuahuas, Oracle can stomp on them and shoo them towards a long walk on a short pier, but in the other case, is are we watching the prelude to boardroom tables setting up a circle setting to fight off the wolves? My data insight tells me it is too soon for that, but it requires economic savvy to tell that difference. The data is not there and whilst Oracle has a lot more data insight then I do (never be afraid to honor the biggest dog in the game), I feel that there is rustling in the shrubberies and it is time to differentiate between chihuahuas and wolves. It is not a simple difference because you top on one and shooting of the others (the rest will take a step back). One is a simple miscommunication the other  requires a license, even if it is self defence, so as I see it Oracle better get ready for whatever they plan.

The question is, what do you do when the wolves come calling early? Have a great Sunday, not in Toronto and Vancouver though, for them it is still Caturday and they are hugging their tigers (as men do).

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The neighbors have coffee

That is the setting, but that is not what this is about. We are given a setting (at https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/trump-has-ordered-naval-blockade-of-sanctioned-oil-tankers-in-venezuela-he-says/gcrwrmllu) where we see ‘‘Act of war’: Trump orders blockade of ‘sanctioned’ Venezuela oil tankers’ and we see “But Trump on Tuesday pointed to another goal — regaining US access to Venezuelan oil production. The US armada “will only get bigger,” Trump said, until Venezuela returns “to the United States of America all of the Oil, Land, and other Assets that they previously stole from us.”” But is that true? At what point did Venezuela steal oil from America? Why assets did they steal? What land was stolen? Can we get a clear explanation of that? And if comes with two other settings. The US is pulling out all its troops out of Europe. And in the second setting we see today that one of the most successful American businesses is filing for Bankruptcy. Del Monte originated from California canners in the late 1800s, becoming a household name through the California Packing Corporation (Calpak). It has filed for bankruptcy due to the tariffs on fruits and aluminum. It drove them under in 6 months. And as I see it, a speculated setting is that President Trump will need to sue the BBC, because America is about to lose everything and not one intelligent being will do business with him beginning in 2026. 

As I said so before, America is done for and the longer everything is suspended in ‘investigations’ the longer it takes for the America people to see what hardship they are due for, not for a week or a month, but for several years and that is if someone takes over the helm of the good ship America and takes it in a 180 degree different course, there is no other way and even then it will take half a decade to clear the tourism setting that it now has and rebuild trust (which will speculatively take 3-5 years). 

So as we were given “But Trump on Tuesday pointed to another goal — regaining US access to Venezuelan oil production.” as well as “Caracas blasted Trump’s announcement on Tuesday, saying he aimed at “stealing the riches that belong to our homeland.” Venezuela has been sidestepping US oil sanctions for years, selling crude at a discounted price on the black market, mainly to China. Venezuela is estimated to have oil reserves of some 303 billion barrels, according to the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) — more than any other nation. “If there are no oil exports, it will affect the foreign exchange market, the country’s imports … There could be an economic crisis,” Elias Ferrer of Orinoco Research, a Venezuelan advisory firm, told AFP recently.” As I personally see it (and I might be wrong) America is broke and it is about to lose whatever it has to pay for the interest on the loans they have. The Administration had a setting they tried and it backfired. Greenland isn’t giving up its land, Canada is turning down America and worse still, Canada is now making headway in impressive economic strides for Canada which is also hurting America. As I see it, the stage that was left was to ‘annex’ the Venezuelan oil fields. This is likely to fail, but more disastrous nearly all lands will gain mistrust of the American way which is now showing to be selfish at the expense of all others. That is as I see it the Legacy that President Trump is leaving behind and the sooner others see it the way (several already do) the more America sees the hurt it imposed on itself. 

And when places like Del Monte is filing for bankruptcy, it will not be alone ad the more these places are hidden due to ‘National Security’ or whatever reason is given and others are seemingly ready to follow. There is American Unagi, American Signature, parent company of furnishings retailers American Signature Furniture and Value City and more are on the list of those reading Chapter 11 of the book of economic hardship. All these facts are settings that give America a stage of disaster and the American administration remains in denial. 

Even if America succeeds with Venezuela, America is done for. No-one will trust America for decades. Not the EU, not the Commonwealth and parts of Asia will also shun America. And for a lot Canada is the more trustworthy option, so Canada will de decently well and as we recently saw Lockheed Martin is getting replaced by Saab AB and that is merely the tip of the iceberg. So whilst America withdraws the troops from Europe, Europe has one card left to play. It can throw America out of NATO and that has massive repercussions. You see America has 70,000 troops in Europe, those who are send back will likely lose their jobs, then they get a massive downturn in their defense industry. Which will upset Raytheon, Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin. All that has a massive economic footprint. When the Europeans turn away from American hardware, America’s economy takes a swift dive into an abyss where it cannot afford the gravy trains it supported and that has other impacts as well. I reckon that the media is next, as American media gets shunned in Europe and the Commonwealth their incomes and more important their influence will wane into near nothingness. 

I honestly don’t know, but that is what I see, the markers are undeniable and they tend to cross nations, they cross interests and they cross political allies. As I see it, America might in the end have one ally left, Russia. So how does that sit with the anti-communist setting of the Republican Party? And next on that list id the waning of the CIA, you see as the Commonwealth stops trusting America, the CIA us also shunned from the meetings it needs to have and as such it is about to require a lot more money to stay afloat and that is the one thing America no longer has (at least until they get the Venezuelan oil) settings upon settings that sets the game that will be played and America is largely out of moves. They are about to falter in intelligence, they are faltering in business, the will soon falter in media and as I see it, the steps the American administration made towards Hollywood is strengthening Canadian, Australian and British film industries and those settings are getting larger and worse for America. So feel free to disagree and that is fine, but I reckon you need to investigate on yourself and see what the media is hiding from a lot of people. And as I see it, America is about to falter and leave the people in America without anything. Because the AI scare fare is about to cost American wealth trillions of dollars (according to some a number between nine and fifteen) who who gets to pay for all that? Microsoft? OpenAI? I reckon that it will come out of retirement funds and if I am wrong, I am wrong. But do come with actual numbers. We can see “US retirement funds are extensively invested in artificial intelligence (AI), primarily through large index funds, mutual funds, and ETFs that hold significant stakes in major tech companies leading the AI revolution, such as Nvidia, Microsoft, and Alphabet.” As well as “Indirect Investment via Large Cap Tech Holdings: Many common retirement savings options, like S&P 500 index funds or target-date funds, have a large, concentrated exposure to the “Magnificent Seven” tech stocks (Nvidia, Microsoft, Meta, etc.) that are heavily driving AI innovation. Nvidia’s significant market value, for example, means it has a large weighting in many diversified portfolios, creating inherent AI exposure.” That is the bubble fear you should have and when America stops, you better have a sock with reserve funds, because that is all you can live on when it collapses.

Have a great day.

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Message to a boss

Yup, there it is. A message for Sergey Brin, big boss (aka fearless leader) of Google, aka Alphabet the leader of a firm from A to Z. And the message starts with “Wakey, wakes, its day breakey.” It is 05:53 in the morning in California now and it is Wednesday over there (I am not that early, it is 22:53 here in Sydney) even if we are on the same day, there is a difference. So I went on my merry way this morning and I forgot to charge my Google Watch 2, so I started my day with a watch on 25%. Now there is no bad ending, but it gave me an idea and this idea is meant for Sergey Brin, so he can upgrade his warez.

This is a magnet connected charge point for the Google Watch, Considering that my Google Pixel 9 Pro can share power this device could be used to charge my watch whilst having a coffee, or when sitting behind a desk. The benefit of this is that it could connect to wireless charging the phone and/or the watch using a wireless power bank, as such there are several solutions to make. There is the benefit to add it as a direct connection to a power bank, but the versatility of this as a separate device might be the better solution as this would enable the customer to choose their own power bank, or as seen as a versatile solution in other directions, even as a new third party solution. 

As such this might seem like a short story (it is for Sergey), but as I was on a roll, I decided to look at something else, basically I was stuck in season 3 and I had a hard time getting progress in the series Engines, but then I remembered the game Chains of Olympus, which I never replayed on the PSP. But a thought came to me and that was connected to the Furies and in specific Orkos, but there is a link to the Hecatonchires. As such there was a new cog in the story and I was considering the approach to start in season 2 but that is basically as far as I got, but there is a new stage added to Engonos. But more on that soon, as long as I now set aside Resituam Vitam and take a new look at Engonos and transform the stories that I had put into my blog and set the papers to create the scripts for season one and two, so I reckon that I have plenty to do in the near future. But more on that later. 

As such, my day is done, but there will be more options to consider tomorrow, so have a great day.

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A brief recollection

Yesterday I saw an article (source: BBC) that gave me reason to give a little recollection. The article (at https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckg2dpkpmv1o) giving us ‘Google’s lucrative ad tech business goes on trial’ and the text “A trial beginning on Monday will hear the Department of Justice’s case that the search engine’s parent company Alphabet illegally operates a monopoly in the market.” set me off. You see, I worked on that system as an operator, a technical account manager if you prefer. I worked on this system in 2015. This is important because in the nine following years Microsoft and its ‘system’ Bing couldn’t even remotely get anything working that presented some weak looking imitation. The system was that excellent. And excellent is the operative word. You see before that advertising agencies were taking their clients in some kind of a looting ride. Prices were out of this world for the advertisers. It was a business limited to big business. The Google ad system was made so that everyone had a clear possibility, a fair system that didn’t overcharge, something that wasn’t possible before. That was a new approach to advertising. 

Bid for placeCharged
9.001.28
3.001.27
2.001.26
1.251.25

The setting was that the higher bid was only charged one cent more than the previous one. The advertisement agencies would pocket the difference from $7.62 of the first bidder. Now consider this happening ten thousands of times every day. When you realise this you see how this was the better system. There was no monopoly, customers suddenly had a fair chance to their advertisement options. That part is missing. It is not the fault of the BBC, they merely report. They also give us “Alphabet has argued its success is due to the “effectiveness” of its services – but prosecutors say it has used its market dominance to stifle rivals” which is exactly what I am saying. But the prosecutors are exaggerating (as anyone would suggest). We then get ““It is a really important industry that grabs billions of consumer dollars every year,” said Laura Phillips-Sawyer, a professor at the University of Georgia School of Law.” A statement (possibly taken out of context) from a law professor from Georgia. The less excusable statement was “grabs billions of consumer dollars every year”, that is where my example comes in. This is not the way of this system. It tempers the cost and need for ‘over’ bidding. I gave an example of four, but the list goes on for a lot more. This illustrates the loss of Laura Phillips-Sawyer and how little she knows of this system. So its not “I think all consumers have an interest in this litigation”, I believe that Microsoft minded people want to get into this business and the prosecutor is a possible way for these people to get in. 

As such we see that the statement “Google dominates the digital ad marketplace and has leveraged its market power to stifle innovation and competition” Google innovated this market more than anyone ever considered. The fact that Microsoft has no chance and lacks expertise in software to make any dent in Google application is one part of the evidence. It also didn’t stifle competition, the fact that Microsoft had no option to push anything in Google’s path seems to me that this is the second part of the evidence is also nullified. After decades of ‘exploitation’ of customers, Google gave them all a fair chance. So why doesn’t anyone see that? How come that this is not shown to us all? Is it perhaps that the prosecutor has the ear of those people who lost their golden eggs? I am stating that not only is Google innocent in this, the world doesn’t realise how fair this system is. And the wannabe’s want to hack into this system for their own selfish needs. We are also given “It argues that competition in the digital ad space is growing, not contracting – citing increased ad growth and revenues for companies such as Apple, Amazon and TikTok as proof”, in this I say that the digital ad space is growing because Google made it more fair and as such players like Apple, Amazon and TikTok are given a space where they have millions more to advertise against the once exploitative system. What we do not get to see is that I enabled dozens of advertisers, small business units to get a grasp of advertisement space on. Monthly basis. They had the option to set a budget for as little as $5 a month to get several placements every day. Yes, they might not be above the fold as the expression goes, but they were on the page. The advertisement agencies would not have even talked to those. Now consider that this happens to tens of thousands of customers and realise that the statement “I think all consumers have an interest in this litigation” becomes folly.

When we consider this the statement “Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly” is equally folly. And I wonder who Judge Amit Mehta was serving. Even as the judge was an optional idolising fair play person we need to realise that the Google rank system was re-invented

The eigenvalue problem behind PageRank’s algorithm was independently rediscovered and reused in many scoring problems. 

Now consider that Sergey Brin and Larry Page made this system 30 years ago based on ideas dating back to (as quoted) 1895. And then three times more and no one at Microsoft woke up. They were all so focussed on greed and gaining the attention of board of directors at big business. Google focussed on the millions of people working there and getting the attention of people who needed a better option. “As of September 24, 2019, all patents associated with PageRank have expired” and now these systems are under attack. However, the data is already with Google and the larger players (read: Microsoft) will need decades to catch up and they know they are not able to, in case of Microsoft I personally believe that they merely have at most 24 months left until they collapse and that is it for the once computer behemoth. As per now, fr a player like Microsoft, the ad space is a much safer option to recollect lost revenue and keep their head above water. I admit that this is speculative, but it makes the most sense. Even in 1995 I saw how Microsoft was lagging behind, but they had serious problems (read: Netscape) and it get worse after that. But that is not the aim of this article. As I have shown here Google was a true innovator and you need to wonder if monopoly is a valid setting when all the others cannot even get close because their innovators are merely presented spinners, or optionally previous exploiters. How is it a monopoly when there is no other realistic contender for the crown? Is an island with a population of one totalitarian in nature?

Simple questions that are hard to answer. Enjoy your day today, this fine Wednesday where we start yearning for the coming weekend.

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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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Economic arrogance of Achieving

This is a station I recently came to and it has nothing to do with the bravery of Ukraine, or the stupidity of Russia. Even though that setting might have touch-points the larger station is NOT war. The thoughts came from the Art of War by Sun Tsu. There we learn ““The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.” “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat.

Yet this quote was subverted by economists and wannabe economic strategists into smething like: ““The supreme art of profit is to gain profit without cost” “If you know the final cost and profit, you need not fear the result of 100 investments” If you know the profit but do not know the cost, for every profitable endeavour achieved one will fail.” This is a side I feel is going on in business, but now also in mobile gaming. A stage where games work but only if you watch advertisements. I tried a game and even as it has repetitive sides, it also has campaign sides and those sides are limiting, but if you watch 37 advertisements you are on your way to get to 50% in a three day event. Consider that 37 advertisements. To game, to play a free game, but it is hindered, not by repetition (well that too), but to get anywhere you need to watch that many advertisements. Now you can limit yourself by BUYING ad free settings, by buying elements in EVERY campaign. And I am not against these settings, just the statin that to get anywhere in that game will require you to invest in advertisements. Now this is not against any rules, not against any law and the makers are not doing anything wrong. Now consider the advertisement. The advertisement in SOME cases will allow for you to play a level, or part of a level, but in many cases should you touch the mouse or the pointer, the install screen is called for. A side I call deceptive conduct, but that could just be me. What is seen is iteration after iteration of “The supreme art of profit is to gain profit without cost” and it is deceptive, there is always a cost, in this case at the expense of the game.

It is the idiocy of “The supreme art of profit is to gain profit without cost”, it is a fictive state of exploitation and nearly all the larger players are involved in that. Do you think that I would have so much IP? Some people at Google, Amazon and even Microsoft should be running circles around me, around people like Elon Musk. But they are all in that pretentious state where “The supreme art of profit is to gain profit without cost” is the solution to everything. It is not, it really is not. 

My stage of 5G comes from a state of rejecting the obvious and inverting the funnel and then looking the other way. The stage of gaming came from looking in a direction no one was willing to look towards and none of them adhere to the stage of “The supreme art of profit is to gain profit without cost” And that is where I found optional billions, one of them has question marks, but if done right could amount to a lot more than even I had in mind and it does depend on a stage, but that stage is being catered to. So when it all comes out, I can look at players like Microsoft and laugh out loud. Consider that the wealthiest corporations are Apple (1), Microsoft (2, for now), Google/Alphabet (4) and Amazon (5) and I am the one with the IP? Consider that they should be ahead of the curve, but they are not, because I am speculating that their economic advisors told them “The supreme art of profit is to gain profit without cost”, and because of that Tesla has a mobile phone coming, a market that Microsoft pretty much lost to Google and Apple and now there is a third player. There am I with my 5G and gaming IP and a few more IP options, one directly opposing Sony and Fujitsu and it is based on technology of the 90’s. So how much did these companies lose by relying on “The supreme art of profit is to gain profit without cost”, I merely go by the old statement “You cannot make an omelet without breaking eggs”, a truth that has been out in the open for centuries. What else did these players overlook?

I will let you figure that out, I at least saw one additional failure, but no spoilers, it is up to you to see what they cannot see.

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What’s the name, what’s the game?

I saw the news a few days ago, and for the most it does not matter to me, but there is an awful lot of hypocrisy going around and the media is (as I personally see it) as tainted as anything else. The stage is set to Elon Musk, or better stated is set against Elon Musk. Why? Don’t really know the man, but he seems the modern day Midas. Whatever he touches turns to gold. He made an upheaval in the battery market, the mobile market, the energy market. The man is (allegedly) an inventor like me, or he can see proper innovation just like Steve Jobs. How is this a bad thing? Consider the news that he was getting involved in social media. Why not? I do not know if it is a bad idea. But he has the dough to become part of it. Yet the Sydney Morning Herald gives us ‘Elon Musk launches $58 billion hostile takeover of Twitter’ (at https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/elon-musk-launches-hostile-takeover-of-twitter-20220414-p5admv.html) as such lets take a look at what constitutes a hostile takeover? The definition gives us “A hostile takeover occurs when an acquiring company attempts to take over a target company against the wishes of the target company’s management. An acquiring company can achieve a hostile takeover by going directly to the target company’s shareholders or fighting to replace its management” is this true? CBS gives us ‘Elon Musk offers to buy Twitter for $43 billion’, so who is giving us the truth and who is giving a stakeholder a blow job? You think this is rude? You ain’t seen nothing yet. We can argue until the sun goes down, but the setting of finance is clear. If a company is worth it, or could become worth it, you buy it. This has been the case in many occasions. Yet no one is saying that about Microsoft and Blizzard. There we get ‘Activision Blizzard/Microsoft Deal Discouraged by Letter Penned by SOC Investment Group’, how quaint.

So it was today when I saw (at https://www.reuters.com/technology/twitter-adopts-poison-pill-fight-musk-2022-04-15/) ‘Twitter adopts ‘poison pill’ as challenger to Musk emerges’, it is the Guardian version where we see “The method, known as a “poison pill” in the finance world, suggests Twitter will fight Musk to prevent a hostile takeover. It would go into effect if a shareholder were to acquire more than 15% of the company in a deal not approved by the board and expires 14 April 2023.”You see my issue is with the ‘hostile takeover’ part. The guardian gives us those goods with “Jack Dorsey, Twitter founder and former CEO, noted in a tweet on Friday that such surprise purchases are always a risk for the company. “As a public company, Twitter has always been ‘for sale’,” he said. “That’s the real issue.” Musk is already facing legal action for his Twitter purchases, with one investor suing the Tesla executive in a potential class action lawsuit for failing to disclose his buy-up of shares before the required deadline to do so. The lawsuit comes as Musk faces a number of investigations by the Securities and Exchange Commission for his investment activities, including insider trading allegations related to his own tweets.” So we see ‘insider trading’, we see ‘hostile takeover’ but we are given no real evidence of either. Merely the word ‘allegations’ that everyone is overlooking. 

The stage becomes even weirder as we consider the actions that Microsoft unleashed on the gaming industry and it is casually trivialised by too many media outlets. 

In all this the statement “he wanted to release its “extraordinary potential” to support free speech and democracy across the world.” Is trivialised by “Twitter’s board on Friday unanimously approved a plan that would allow existing shareholders to buy stocks at a substantial discount in order to dilute the holdings of new investors”, there is no real setting of who these board members are, the media seemingly forgot about that part. These members that include Bret Taylor (SalesForce), Parag Agrawal (CEO Twitter), Mimi Alemayehou (Mastercard), Egon Durban (Silver Lake), Martha Lane Fox (House of Lords), Dr. Fei-Fei Li (Stanford), Patrick Pichette (Google), David Rosenblatt and Robert Zoellick (AllianceBernstein Holding L.P.) there was a unanimous objection to the purchase by Elon Musk and no media outlet had anything from these members with the simple question ‘Why oppose?’. There might be a very valid reason, but I and all others were not informed, so what gives?

We can speculate on why it was done. Elon Musk sees that the US is going after the billionaires. As such he might be buying anything he can to drop the tax rift, and lets face it, he has been turning things to gold and Twitter is a golden idea. So whilst we see all kinds of objections on how analysts see (and say) things like “KeyBanc Capital analyst Justin Patterson downgraded the social media company in the wake of Elon Musk’s buyout proposal. Patterson cut his rating to sector weight, after being at overweight since January 2021, saying that the potential for the Musk bid to “go up in smoke” will turn investor focus on a more challenging macro environment that elevates downside risk to financial estimates.” I personally honestly do not know what will happen, but when a person buys a company, a person that has transformed several companies into powerhouses, I wonder what really is going on. It could be simple, it could be complex, yet the larger station is that people laughed at Tesla and now we see “As of April 2022 Tesla has a market cap of $1.018 Trillion. This makes Tesla the world’s 6th most valuable company by market cap according to our data.” So as I see it, the joke is on them. What was an idea is now 6th on the most valuable companies on the market and that is behind Apple, Microsoft, Aramco, Alphabet, and Amazon and as I gave voice to Microsoft, there is every chance that it will head of Microsoft in the next 3 years. And that is whilst no one has a clue where Meta will end, because they will become part of the top 7 soon enough (2024), and that too is out into the market. So I have questions and the media is not asking the board members of Twitter, or Elon Musk a clear set of questions. And all that before someone decides to ask KeyBanc Capital a few uncomfortable questions. So what is in the name Twitter, what is in the name Elon Musk and what is in the shares game being played now. No matter what is happening, I feel certain that the media will not properly inform us, that mush seems a personal given. Yet in all this we see the approximation of “to support free speech and democracy across the world”, it seems to me that Elon Musk is giving us options, options in mobile technology and energy technology. Who else has been giving us that? I see questions and no one asking them, it is weird, is it not?

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Middle of the seesaw

To be honest, I am not sure where to stand, even now, as we see ‘Google starts appeal against £2bn shopping fine‘ (at https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-51462397), I am personally still in the mindset that there is something wrong here. 

We can give the critique that my view is too much towards Google, and that is fine, I would accept that. Yet the part where we see 

  • In 2017, €2.4bn over shopping results.
  • In 2018, €4.3bn fine over claims it used Android software to unfairly promote its own apps.
  • In 2019, €1.5bn fine for blocking adverts from rival search engines.

Feels like it is part of a much bigger problem. I believe that some people are trying to stage the setting that some things are forced upon companies and I do not mean in the view of sharing. I personally do not believe that it is as simple as Anti-Trust. It feels like a more ‘social mindset’ that some things must be shared, but why?

The BBC also gives us: “Margrethe Vestager, who has taken a tough stance on the Silicon Valley tech firms and what she sees as their monopolistic grip on the digital landscape” this might feel like the truth, yet I personally feel that this was in the making for a long time, Adobe was on that page from the start. I believe that as the digital landscape was slowly pushed into a behemoth by Macromedia, who also acquired Coldfusion a change came to exist, for reference, at that time Microsoft remained a bungling starter holding onto Frontpage, an optional solution for amateurs, but there was already a strong view that this was a professional field. that stage was clearly shown by Adobe as it grew its company by 400% in revenue over a decade, its share value rose by almost 1,000% and its workforce tripled. There was a clear digital landscape, and one where Google was able to axe a niche into, the others were flaccid and remained of the existing state of mind that others must provide. Yet in all this Social media was ignored for far too long and the value of social media was often ignored until it was a decade too late. 

For example, I offered the idea that it would be great to be in the middle of serviced websites where we had the marketing in hands, my bosses basically called me crazy, that it had no functioning foundation, that it was not part of the mission statement and that I had to get back to work, I still have the email somewhere. This was 4 years before Facebook!

I admit that my idea was nothing as grandiose as Facebook, it was considered on other foundations an I saw the missing parts, but no one bit and now that I know better on the level of bullet point managers I am confronted with and their lack of marketing I now know better and my 5G solutions are closed to all but Huawei and Google, innovation is what drives my value and only those two deliver.

But I digress, the Digital Landscape was coming to be, and as we realise that this includes “websites, email, social networks, mobile devices (tablets, iphones, smartphones), videos (YouTube), etc. These tools help businesses sell their products or services” we can clearly see that Microsoft, Amazon and others stayed asleep at the wheel.
some might have thought that it was a joke when Larry Page and Sergey Brin offered the email service on April 1st 2004, yet i believe that they were ahead of many (including me) on how far the digital landscape would go, I reckon that not even Apple saw the massive growth, perhaps that Jobs fellow did, but he was only around until 2011 when it really kicked off. IBM, Microsoft and others stayed asleep thinking that they could barge in at a later stage, as I see it, IBM chose AI and quantum computing thinking that they can have the other niche no one was ready for. 

When we consider that we saw ‘Google faces antitrust investigation by 50 US states and territories‘ 6 months ago and not 5 years ago we see part of the bigger picture, of course they could have left it all to China, was that the idea? When we get “Regulators are growing more concerned about company’s impact on smaller companies striving to compete in Google’s markets” we will see the ignoring stage, when it mattered smaller places would not act, as Google acted it became much larger than anyone thought, even merely two years ago we were al confronted with ‘companies’ letting Google technology do all the work and they get all the credit and coin, why should Google comply? Striving to compete with Google is no longer a real option and anyone thinking that is nuts beyond belief. The only places that can hold a candle are the ones with innovative ideas and in an US economy founded on the principle of iteration no one keeps alive, but they are all of the mind that franchising and iteration is the path to wealth, it is not, only the innovative survive and that is being seen in larger ways by both Google and Huawei. Those who come into the field without innovation is out of options, it is basically the vagrant going to the cook demanding part of the pie the cook made as they are hungry, yet the vagrant has no rights to demand anything. 

And as we are given (read: fed) the excuse of “Alphabet, has a market value of more than $820bn and controls so many facets of the internet that it’s fairly impossible to surf the web for long without running into at least one of its services. Google’s dominance in online search and advertising enables it to target millions of consumers for their personal data” we can give others the state where Microsoft did its acts to take out Netscape, how did that end? It ended in United States v. Microsoft Corp.. In all,  we see that in the end (no matter how they got there) that the DOJ announced on September 6, 2001 that it was no longer seeking to break up Microsoft and would instead seek a lesser antitrust penalty.

As such, in the end Microsoft did not have to break up hardware and software, they merely had to adopt non-Microsoft solutions, yet how did that end? How many data failures and zero day breaches did its consumer base face? According to R. Cringely (a group of journalists and writers with a column in InfoWorld) we get “the settlement gave Microsoft “a special antitrust immunity to license Windows and other ‘platform software’ under contractual terms that destroy freedom of competition.”” (source: Webcitation.org). 

Yet all this is merely a stage setting, it seems that as governments realised the importance of data and the eagerness of people giving it away to corporations started to sting, you see corporations can be anywhere, even in US hostile lands and China too. That is the larger stage and Google as it deals in data is free of all attachments, as governments cannot oversee this they buckle and the larger stage is set. 

From my point of view, Google stepped in places where no one was willing to go, it was for some too much effort and as that landscape shaped only google remains, so why should they hand over what they have built? 

It is Reuters that give is the first part of it all (at ) here we see: “EU regulators said this penalty was for Google’s favoring its own price comparison shopping service to the disadvantage of smaller European rivals“, yet what it does not give us is that its ‘smaller rivals’ are all using Google services in the first place, and Google has the patent for 30 years, so why share? This is a party for innovators, non-innovators are not welcome!

Then we get “Google’s search service acts as a de-facto kingmaker. If you are not found, the rest cannot follow“, which is optionally strange, because anyone can join Google, anyone can set up camp and anyone can advertise themselves. I am not stupid, I know whatthey mean, but whe it mattered they could not be bothered, no they lack the data, exaytes of data and they cannot compete, they limited their own actions and they all want to be head honcho right now, no actual investment required.

In addition when it comes to Browsers, Wired gives us “I spent the summer and beyond using Bing instead of Google for search. It’s a whole new world, but not always for the better“, I personally cannot stand Bing, I found it to have issues (not going into that at present), so as we are ‘not found’ we consider the Page rank that Stanford created for Google (or google bought it), when we consider when that happened, when was it reengineered and by whom? And when we got to the second part “Google began selling advertisements associated with search keywords“, that was TWO DECADES AGO! As such, who was innovative enough to try and improve it with their own system? As I see it no one, so as no one was interested, why does there need to be an antitrust case? As such we see the Google strategy of buying companies and acquiring knowledge, places like Microsoft and IBM no longer mattered, they went their own way, even (optionally) better, Microsoft decided to Surf-Ace to the finish, I merely think, let them be them.

We are so eager to finalise the needs for competition law and antitrust law, but has anyone considered the stupidity of the iteration impact? If not, consider why 5G is in hands of Huawei, they became the innovators and whilst we are given the stage of court case after court case on the acts of Huawei, consider why they are so advanced in 5G, is it because they were smarter, or because the others became flaccid and lazy? I believe that both are at play here and in this, all the anti-Google sentiment is merely stopping innovators whilst iterators merely want to be rich whilst not doing their part, why should we accommodate for that?

so when we see (source: Vox) “United States antitrust officials have ordered the country’s top tech companies to hand over a decade’s worth of information on their acquisitions of competitor firms, in a move aimed at determining how giants like Amazon and Facebook have used acquisitions to become so dominant” who does it actually serve? is it really about ‘how giants like Amazon and Facebook have used acquisitions to become so dominant‘, or is it about the denial of innovation? Is it about adding to the surface of a larger entity that governments do not even comprehend, let alone understand? They have figured out that IP and data are the currency of the future, they merely need to be included, the old nightmare where corporations are in charge and politicians are not is optionally coming to fruition and they are actually becoming scared of that, the nerd the minimised at school as they were nerds is setting the tone of the future, the Dominant Arrogant player beng it sales person or politician is being outwitted by the nerd and service minded person, times are changing and these people claim that they want to comprehend, but in earnest, I believe that they are merely considering that the gig is up, iteration always leads there, their seeming ignorance is evidence of that.

Yet in all that, this is basically still emotional and not evidence driven, so let’s get on with that. The foundation of all Common Law Competition Law is set to “The Competition and Consumer Act prohibits two persons, acting in concert, from hindering or preventing a third person trading with a fourth person, where the purpose or likely effect of the conduct is to cause a substantial lessening of competition in any market in which the fourth person is involved“, yet in this, I personally am stating that it hinders innovation, the situation never took into proper account of the state of innovators versus iterators, the iterator needs the innovator to slow down and the foundation of Competition Law allows for this, when we see ‘preventing a third person trading with a fourth person‘, in this the iterator merely brings his or her arrogance and (optional) lack of comprehension to the table and claims that they are being stopped from competing, whilst their evidence of equality is seemingly lacking (as I personally see it). 

In this the Columbia Law School is (at least partially) on my side as I found “Scholars and policymakers have long thought that concentrated market power and monopolies produce more innovation than competition. Consider that patent law—which is the primary body of law aimed at creating incentives for innovation—was traditionally thought to conflict with antitrust law. Known as the “the patent-antitrust paradox,” it was often said that antitrust is designed to prevent monopolies and other exclusionary practices while the patent system does the opposite, granting exclusionary rights and market power in the form of patents. Given this framework, it makes sense that scholars, courts, and government agencies have only recently considered antitrust and patent laws to be complementary policies for encouraging innovation.” it gives the foundation and when you consider that iterators are the foundation of hindrance to innovators, you see how competition law aids them. In the old days (my earlier example) Microsoft and Netscape that was a stage where both parties were on the same technology and comprehension level. Microsoft merely had the edge of bundling its browser with the OS and got the advantage there, Netscape did not have that edge, but was an equal in every other way. 

Another name is Gregory Day, who gives us: “a greater number of antitrust lawsuits filed by private parties—which are the most common type of antitrust action—impedes innovation. Second, the different types of antitrust actions initiated by the government tend to affect innovation in profoundly different ways. Merger challenges (under the Clayton Act) promote innovation while restraint of trade and monopolization claims (under sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act) suppress innovative markets. Even more interesting, these effects become stronger after the antitrust agencies explicitly made promoting innovation a part of their joint policies” yet I believe that iterators have a lot more to gain by driving that part and I see that there is actually a lack of people looking into that matter, who are the people behind the antitrust cases? Most people in government tend to remain unaware until much later in the process, so someone ‘alerts’ them to what I personally see as a  ‘a fictive danger’. In this I wonder who the needed partner in prosecution was and what their needs were. I believe that iterators are a larger problem than anyone ever considered.

In the case of Google, Amazon and Facebook, we see innovators driving technology and the others have absolutely nothing to offer, they are bound to try and slow these three down as they are trying to catch up. 

Ian Murray wrote in 2018 (CEI.ORG), “Yet there is no such thing as a dominant market position unless it is guaranteed by government. AOL, Borders, Blockbuster, Sears, Kodak, and many other firms once considered dominant in their markets have fallen as the result of competition, without any antitrust action” and that is a truth, yet it does not give that the iterators merely want innovators to slow down, so that they can catch up and the law allows for this, more importantly, as the lack of innovations were not driven over the last decade, South Korea became a PC behemoth, and China now rules in 5G Telecom land. All are clear stages of iterators being the problem and not a solution, even worse they are hindring actual innovation to take shape, real innovation, not what is marketed as such.

As such, governments are trying to get some social setting in place by balancing the seesaw whilst standing at the axial point, it is a first signal that this is a place where innovators are lost and in that are you even surprised that a lot of engineers will only take calls from Google or Huawei (Elon Musk being an optional third in the carbon neutral drive)? 

It gets to be even worse (soon enough), now that Google is taking the cookie out of the equation, we get to see ‘Move marks a watershed moment for the digital ad industry to reinvent itself‘, this is basically the other side of the privacy coin, even as google complied, others will complain and as Google innovates the internet to find another way to seek cookie technology, we will suddenly see every advertisement goof with no knowledge of systems cry ‘foul!’ and as we are given “Criteo, which built a retargeting empire around cookies, saw its stock tumble following Google’s announcement. Others such as LiveRamp and Oracle-owned businesses BlueKai and Datalogix, as well as nearly all data management platforms, now face the challenge of rethinking their business” (source: AdAge) we will see more players hurdling themselves over Competition Law and optionallytowards antitrust cases because these players used someones technology to get a few coins (which is not a bad thing, but to all good things come an end).

And I am not against these changes, the issue is not how it will be reinvented, it is how some will seek the option to slow the actual innovators down because they had no original idea (as I personally see it). Yet we must also establish that Google did not make it any easier and they have their own case ORACLE AMERICA, INC. v. GOOGLE INC. to thank for.

That verdict was set to “With respect to Google’s cross-appeal, we affirm the district court’s decisions: (1) granting Oracle’s motion for JMOL as to the eight decompiled Java files that Google copied into Android; and (2) denying Google’s motion for JMOL with respect to the rangeCheck function. Accordingly, we affirm-in-part, reverse-in-part, and remand for further proceedings.” in this situation, for me “The jury found that Google infringed Oracle’s  copyrights in the 37 Java packages and a specific computer routine called “rangeCheck,” but returned a noninfringement verdict as to eight decompiled security files. The jury  deadlocked on Google’s fair use defense.“, as I see it in that situation Oracle had been the innovator and for its use Google was merely an iterator (if it ain’t baroque, don’t fix it).

Basically one man’s innovator is another man’s iterator, which tends to hold up in almost any technology field. Yet this time around, the price is a hell of a lot higher, close to half a dozen iterators ended up giving an almost complete technology surge to China (5G), which is as I personally see it. They were asleep at the wheel and now the US administration is trying to find a way around it, like they will just like ORACLE AMERICA, INC. v. GOOGLE INC.  more likely than not come up short.

And one of these days, governments will figure out that the middle of the seesaw is not the safe place to be, it might be the least safe place to be. As the population on each end changes, the slow reaction in the middle merely ends up having the opposite and accelerating effect, a few governments will learn that lesson the hard way. I believe that picking two players on one (or either side) side is the safest course of action, the question for me remains will they bite?

 

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The price of identity

We all have needs, we all have identities. It is important to us, as it is for many others. No one debates or disagrees with it. Yet what to do when identity hinders us? When we see the Washington Post (at https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/former-nsa-deputy-is-mattiss-leading-choice-to-head-the-spy-service-if-it-splits-from-cyber-command/2018/10/05/1be8d7a8-c73d-11e8-b2b5-79270f9cce17_story.html) giving us ‘Former NSA deputy is Mattis’s leading choice to head the spy service if it splits from Cyber Command‘, we need to consider the impact of identity, corporate identity, governmental identity, military identity, projected and presented identity. They are not the same and can vary to a much larger degree. When someone is part of what used to be referred to ‘No Such Agency‘. We will get the impact of identity; we all know that and many faced it too. Look at any friend or co-worker you have ever known and ask him/her about the impact of a merger and they will tell you, there are changes. Some are subtly, some are not noticed, yet others are, usually in infrastructure and the way things were done. Now the change tends to be for the good in the long run but that is not a given.

So what gives?

It is my personal observation and a highly speculative one at that. Yet I believe that the Washington Post giving us: “The current head of both organizations, Gen. Paul Nakasone, has urged Mattis to keep the NSA and U.S. Cyber Command under one leader on the grounds that the nine-year-old military organization is not ready to stand on its own, these people said. In recent weeks, Mattis was close to a decision to separate the leadership arrangement, but Nakasone’s counsel has caused him to reconsider, according to two U.S. officials. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive internal deliberations“, is not entirely accurate. I believe that ‘military organization is not ready to stand on its own‘ is not the setting that matter. I believe that Stratfor who gives us ‘A New, More Aggressive U.S. Cybersecurity Policy Complements Traditional Methods‘ is very much at the heart of that. I believe that the general is not ready or perhaps unwilling to set the offensive and aggressive part in motion. Now, this is no bad reflection on the general, let that be a first. He is well decorated, he has seen the field in many ways and he has done a fair share of field events. He has earned his rank. I merely wonder that a man who has seemingly played a defence and protection game is the man for the offense. I think that this is a football moment, and as a non-football expert (and a 49ers fan) I would compare the General to DeMarcus Lawrence from the Dallas Cowboys against what the US seems to demand is a Derrick Henry (Tennessee Titans), or even a Tom Brady (New England Patriots), roles that are not really moveable. Even as a Quarterback might become a really good Derick Henry that Quarterback will never become a DeMarcus Lawrence. The defence and offense game is that far apart. This is where Chris Inglis comes in. He is an analyst (at heart), he is used to counter offensive strategies and introduce strategies of his own (effective one’s mind you). I believe that this is the game that is in the open at present and these two will need to find a way to make it work. Not merely because it is good for the needed strategy, but because the segregation of the two elements might hurt U.S. Cyber Command in a few ways, not merely funding, but the elements that U.S. Cyber Command currently have access to will partially fall away and getting two infrastructures like the NSA is unyielding, unaffordable and in the end will introduce flaws and dangers on both sides of the isle making the setting (as I personally see it) a non-option right of the bat. Stratfor gives us a few other items.

One of them is “A best-case scenario for a U.S. cyberattack would be disabling computer systems and networks being used against U.S. interests to prevent an attack from happening or to disrupt an attack that is in progress“. The problem there is that some of the opponents are getting to be really good at what they do and a few of them are not state driven, not by any state changing the dynamics of the solution. Even as I discussed the hop+1 strategy almost three years ago, settings like that require an expert layer one knowledge and the players cannot both have these experts changing the needs of the infrastructure overnight.

The second consideration is: “Perhaps the main challenge to U.S. engagement in tit-for-tat cyberattacks is that the United States is by far the biggest target for such attacks“. That might be true but that goes beyond mere true enemies, it includes a truckload of students wanting to finger the man (or is that giving them the bird)? Do they really want to waste resources to those people whilst the US has actual enemies in the world?

The larger issue is seen with: “Discussing the strategy, national security adviser John Bolton hinted that the administration had already taken steps to bolster offensive efforts in recent weeks, warning that the United States is no longer just playing defense when it comes to cybersecurity. But despite the Trump administration’s more hawkish tone regarding cybersecurity, it will continue mainly to rely on traditional measures such as the legal process, regulations and cooperation with the private sector when it comes to cybersecurity” It is here when we get the consideration of the resources required. The defence, offense and legal sides of it all becomes a real mess if the two split up giving the chance that targets and issues walk away on technicalities. How does that help?

The strategy s even more profound when we consider “Clandestine, discreet attacks are certainly already key elements of U.S. cyber tactics. There have likely been more examples of U.S.-launched attacks that have not come to light, perhaps because they were never recognized as cyberattacks. While the less known about U.S. cyber capabilities, the more effective they will be when deployed, this by definition limits the deterrence value of U.S. cyber capabilities“, at this point is the setting of ‘discreet’ that comes into play. With the two separated they will get into each other’s fare waters and more important give accidental light to the discreet part of the operation, there will be no avoiding it, only the most delusional person would think that it does not get out when more than one player is involved, because that will always introduce a third item being the intermediary, the cold war taught many players that part of the equation. And that is even before we get to the statement: “recent cases like the September indictment of North Korean cyber operatives, which displayed heavy FBI reliance on private security firms such as Mandiant and Alphabet to collect technical evidence and carry out investigations“, now we see the folly as Mandiant and Alphabet are mentioned, the entire matter grows further as soon as Constellis becomes part of the equation. That is beside the point of realising (highly speculative on my side) that neither three Mandiant, Alphabet and Constellis have the required safe servers in place to prevent names, places and facts from going out into the open. I might not be able to get in, but there are dozens who will get in and that voids the security of the matter to a much larger degree. For arguments sake I will leave Booz Allan Hamilton out of that equation, they have been snowed on long enough.

And even as we see the instance of legal preference, the US must realise that any attack from state or non-state parties in China or Russia has close to 0% of being successful (outside of the exposure part), the entire matter in case of the OPCW in the Netherlands is one. An attack was thwarted, yet was it THE attack? The guardian article (at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/04/visual-guide-how-dutch-intelligence-thwarted-a-russian-hacking-operation) reads nice, and we see all these facts and from my point of view, things do not add up. You see, I would have used the car that we see mentioned “In the boot of their car was uncovered an arsenal of specialist electronic Wi-Fi hacking equipment” as a fire and forget consumable, use it as an access point, segregating the hacker from the accessing unit. When you have (as they stated) “cash: €20,000 and $20,000” getting a second car far enough to access yet not be directly linked is seemingly easy enough. Then there is the setting of the photo at Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport. I am not debating the issue of the photo, it seems genuine enough. In this operation they did not fly to Germany and took the train, or take a car and cross at Oldenzaal, Emerich, or even via Belgium and enter via Antwerp, or Eindhoven. It almost read like they wanted to get noticed. They know that Amsterdam Airport is high tech and nothing escapes their camera eyes. To me (a paranoid me) it comes across as ‘Where did they not want us to look‘. A mere sleight of hand deception, and again the entire GRU mention. A phone outside of that building and they had the taxi receipt? No one merely driving them to the airport in Russia or even them taking a bus from any hotel in Moscow. No a taxi receipt of all things, is anyone buying that? So in this it is not the Dutch, it is the Russian side that makes no sense at all.

How did I get there?

This is the initial setting of offense and defence. The proper application of strategy in all this matters, because we seem to undervalue and underestimate the need of either in all this. Because we get to push a button anywhere and anytime we seem to underestimate on what is recorded, what is collected and what can we verify. That entire mistake is how any offensive strategy can optionally become folly from the moment the instigation of ‘press any key‘ to start gets us. Proper offensive is not about doing what needs to be done, it is about being able to prove who did what. Perhaps Sony remembers that part as they were given that it was North Korea did something, whilst their computers were not even close to PC gaming ready, the mere processor, which was about 25% (at best) of a 1994 Silicon Graphics Indigo system is not the system that gives you what you need to hack the night away. The tools are equally as important as the access and ability to negate identity. When you see that part, the entire hop+1 intrusion path makes a lot more sense.

This now gets us to the end of the Washington Post, where we were treated to: ““As the build of the cyber mission force wraps up, we’re quickly shifting gears from force generation to sustainable readiness,” Nakasone said in a statement in May. “We must ensure we have the platforms, capabilities and authorities ready and available” to carry out successful cyber-offensives. Some former senior intelligence and defense officials oppose separating the “dual-hat” leadership arrangement, including former NSA Director Keith Alexander, former Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell and former Defense Secretary Robert Gates. This week, former CIA Director David Petraeus, a retired Army general, said during a Washington Post cyber summit that he’d keep the dual-hat arrangement “for the time being.”” It is not merely the ‘we have the platforms, capabilities and authorities ready and available‘, you see, when we get to capabilities we see the need of offensive players and even as Cyber command might be aces in their field, the offensive game differs to some degree and even as we see that they are way above the student levels, we get back to the Football equivalent you see the application of defence and offense. It is not DeMarcus Lawrence versus Derrick Henry, the question becomes can DeMarcus Lawrence be a Derrick Henry that is good enough, that is the battle within. The mere realisation that if you fail this when the offensive is broken into a train wreck that makes the limelight in every paper, that is the game that is the dilemma that Gen. Paul Nakasone faces as I personally see it.

And when we see Stratfor with the one little gem we did not consider, the mere proposed fact that North Korea has a mere 9,000 IP Addresses, do you really think that they could have done this all, or are we in a setting where someone had the ability to act on BGP hijacking and was able to mask it to the level it needed to be masked at, because that was the offensive play that needed to be considered and there was no way that the evidence had been uncovered to that degree with a backdoor could be removed with a simple reset of routers.

#FourtyNinersRule

 

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