Tag Archives: AWS

January 20, 2025 · 03:54

And there was more

You see three days ago (merely two days and change) I wrote ‘A story in two parts’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2025/01/17/a-story-in-two-parts/) where I laird bare a few of the ‘shortcomings’ of Microsoft. However there was more. I had initially chosen the title ‘The color is blue’ yet I decided that the premise is not about Azure, there is more to it all. You see Fierce Network gives us ‘Google Cloud could overtake Microsoft’s No. 2 cloud position this year’, which sounds nice. However there are a few issues with that. We will all love ““Google Cloud is already nearly equal to Microsoft Azure in revenues, and has a higher revenue growth rate than Microsoft Azure,” Gold wrote in a research note. “By the end of the next four years of revenue growth, we project Google Cloud’s revenues will be 55% greater than Azure at current growth rates.”” The research note gives the proper “Based on the Average of Past Two Years Revenue Growth Rate

Assuming Same Growth Rate Going Forward” so that is good, but it does not despair from “By the end of the next 4 years of revenue growth, we project Google Cloud’s revenues will be 55% greater than Azure at current growth rates.” Yet this setting does not account that someone at Microsoft ‘suddenly’ takes an innovative step towards (who knows), the second setting is that the technology premise stays where it is. Huawei with their HarmonyOS is another factor, the Chinese factor. In this I predict that they might use Microsoft down the line and might step away from Google (speculative). We have little insight in what places like the UAE does and they have a large investment in their approach to AI and in this Microsoft has the inner track there. So I love the premise, but I have thoughts of consideration on how the future unfolds. There is a chance that AWS will clear house, but there are reservations on that front too. 

Still, Azure has issues. You see the Register (at https://www.theregister.com/2025/01/13/azure_m365_outage/) gives us ‘Azure, Microsoft 365 MFA outage locks out users across regions’ with the added “Microsoft’s multi-factor authentication (MFA) for Azure and Microsoft 365 (M365) was offline for four hours during Monday’s busy start for European subscribers.” I understand that it comes with “It’s fixed, mostly, after Europeans had a manic Monday” now I wonder why we see the use of ‘mostly’ there are perhaps a few gaps in the solution and that happens, but how many of these events will Microsoft cater to until a user like Coca Cola gets a tap on the shoulder to start looking for alternatives? Do you think that a man like James Quincey keeps his sense of humor when his bottom line is under fire? And that is only the beginning.

Still Microsoft has its own ‘defense’ knee jerk operation, we are informed of that by Techi where we see (at https://www.techi.com/microsoft-files-suit-against-hundreds-abuse-azure-openai-services/) with the headline ‘Microsoft Files Suit Against Hundreds for Abuse of Azure OpenAI Services’, so not only is their OpenAI ‘flawed’, it is open to abuse (apparently). We are given “API Key Theft and Hacking-as-a-Service”where we see “As per Microsoft, the defendants systematically and through their deceitful acts stole API keys, the fundamental means of authentication to its AI services. The hacked accounts were allegedly pivotal in creating an act of “hacking-as-a-service” One main ingredient for that operation would be De3u, a software that enabled one to convert images synthesized by OpenAI’s DALL-E without the necessity of writing an actual code.” I kinda covered that on September 8th 2024 in ‘Poised to give critique’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2024/09/08/poised-to-deliver-critique/). Michael Bargury gave us a small example of how bad things can get.  Here the operational setting is given through “A former security architect demonstrates 15 different ways to break Copilot: “Microsoft is trying, but if we are honest here, we don’t know how to build secure AI applications”” and here is the premise now consider what (under Torts) customers will do, for example Coca Cola. Do you think they go after the so called hacker with not enough money to afford his/her own place or Microsoft with access to several bank vaults? Take the fortune 500 clients with claims of transgressions, do you really think there will be even a penny left in those Microsoft vaults when their legal teams are done with them? It might not be fair on Microsoft, but the setting of the use of the term AI opens up a whole new can of worms.

Then the Business Times (at https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/companies-markets/microsoft-openai-partnership-raises-antitrust-concerns-ftc-says) gives us ‘Microsoft-OpenAI partnership raises antitrust concerns, FTC says’ in this I might actually be a bit on the side of Microsoft. They give us “MICROSOFT’S US$13 billion investment in OpenAI raises concerns that the tech giant could extend its dominance in cloud computing into the nascent artificial intelligence (AI) market, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) said in a report released on Friday (Jan 17).” My issue here is that there is a setting we had in the past and in countries they created their version of the FTC. It was a power for good then, but there is now the setting that LLM’s and Deeper Machine Learning has grown to a scope that the FTC cannot really fathom. This IT solution goes beyond what they know or understand and all the tech companies face this. So either they grow their ‘programming with barricades’ side of it all, giving tech companies the flaws that the law imbued in whatever country it is based. And that for global companies will set a larger flawed premise. It is like parties are limited to what others have. As such all criminals will come to us with BB-guns, because that is what the police have. Does that sound realistic? I don’t think so. But this also falls straight into the premise that Fierce Networks gave us. It works out fine for Google, until Google gets barricaded I reckon. So this is a setting that the tech firms are set to whatever the wannabe’s can do, that is a direct strangling of commerce and innovation and it sets whomever develop the trigital computer system and if you think that these systems are fast now? The next level system develops with a trinary operating system running on that hardware will astound the world. As I see it should diminish the IBM Deep Blue to a simple calculator. The difference will be THAT much, so who will innovate that when the FTC strangles innovation?

And finally we get the CIO (at https://www.cio.com/article/3802745/microsoft-commits-to-ai-integration-but-delivers-no-particulars-to-differentiate-from-rivals.html) who gives us ‘Microsoft commits to AI integration, but delivers no particulars to differentiate from rivals’ and as I see it, it was already lagging too much against AWS, and now apparently Google is coming up fast and under these settings we get this headline? And the part that matters is given with “Analysts, however, agreed that the statement reflected no meaningful changes to Microsoft’s AI strategy. The bluntest assessment came from Ryan Brunet, a principal research director at the Info-Tech Research Group: “This is classic Microsoft. It’s very much the same old garbage.”” It reminded my towards an old premise from the late 80’s when the PC was exciting and new ‘Garbage in, Garbage out’ in the age when everyone considered themselves a Market Research executive and these wannabe’s had not even mastered the basic needs of data quality. It was a Gender versus Shoe size and they thought that the solution was add the Lambda test (I think it was Lambda). And I get it, Satya Nadella talks his own street side, the problem is that there are too many unknowns at present and he hopes to get all the others onboard before they have thoroughly selected their options and in light of the selected abuses, that setting is not a given, especially as Google seemingly doesn’t have these flaws (as far as I know neither does IBM or whatever AWS wields). 

A setting that was more and could set a lot of people in the liable column of choices. And some of this has been known for at least a quarter. When you add this with part one, you see why I predicted the downfall of Microsoft three years ago. And as I see it Microsoft walked to dotted line in a near perfect manner, too bad they never read the byline ‘this way to the crevice you will not avoid when getting too close’.

It is as some say ‘the way the cookie crumbles’. Darn still 4 hours until breakfast. Time to find a new story. Have a great Monday and if you cannot get into Azure today, feel free to investigate alternatives.

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January 8, 2025 · 00:57

Dens, first name Evie

That is the setting where I am. It was the BBC that gave me (at https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c9q78wn9g8zo) where we see ‘US designates Tencent a Chinese military company’ and my first question is “By what evidence?” You see, we can go back to the European tour by Colin Powell, armed with a silver briefcase where he travelled around Europe like a rockstar and that is how we got into the Iraqi war. They had graphics (probably a powerpoint presentation). Then we got the accusations against Huawei. We never got to see any evidence and as I saw it America was afraid to lose the 5G war and they basically still did. Now we get that Tencent is on route to basically throw Microsoft in the dirt and now they are a military complex? To do what? Unite gamers all over the world? And what evidence do we get? The simplistic line “including gaming and social media giant Tencent” Where is the evidence? Then we are given “The list serves as a warning to American companies and organisations about the risks of doing business with Chinese entities. While inclusion does not mean an immediate ban, it can add pressure on the US Treasury Department to sanction the firms.” Funny, Tencent was offered my gaming solution that would bring them 6 billion a year in phase one, after that the numbers become interesting. You see, Amazon had no interest (they never contacted me) and as such the Amazon Luna seems to be out of consideration, Google placed themself outside the scope as they deleted the Google Stadia and I will not let Microsoft near any of my IP (as I personally see them, they are losers that rely on the gods of mediocrity) which leaves Tencent. As I see it, the first stage would get them a nominal annual revenue of up to 6 billion, which is set to 50,000,000 consoles. After that with up to 200 million consoles the ride becomes exciting. I offered it also to Saudi Arabia and Kingdom Holding as they have larger concerns in this and There is a hidden pleasure in me to see Saudi Arabia end up above Microsoft, they are that irrelevant to me. It would also impact Facebook (Meta) revenue, but I cannot say to what extent (lack of numbers and achievable timeline)

A simple setting I saw 3 years ago and no one seemingly caught on. 

As such we see all kinds of wannabe players, but there is no evidence, at least it is not clearly given. And when we get to “In response to the latest announcement Tencent, which owns the messaging app WeChat, said its inclusion on the list was “clearly a mistake.” “We are not a military company or supplier. Unlike sanctions or export controls, this listing has no impact on our business,” a spokesperson for the company told the BBC.” Some might catch on that America is merely trying to to prevent Microsoft to go several steps closer to bankruptcy. So they are setting (in my personal believe) the status for Europe to shun Chinese firms. Yet the larger setting is that they are merely setting up the shop for Tencent to become close to an Arabic and Asian provider to entertainment. So in 2-3 years when Tencent, TikTok and Huawei grow beyond their borders we will see the scared Europeans go overboard and let them into their areas and as I see it Tencent is on the brink of shutting Microsoft out of a population of close to 3 billion people (Asia, India, Arabian nations, Indonesia and Bangladesh) and as such as they get the people on their side Europe with over half a billion people will be joining them as well. Microsoft might be a 3 trillion company but I reckon that in a year with failure after failure, their vaults and coffers will look rather slim-lined. 

And for the people thinking I am bluffing, well, you are allowed to think that, but consider a small setting. Microsoft lost to Nintendo and Sony and all we get all the junk news like that they are working on a handheld computer. The problem is that Nintendo is already there and Tencent is coming as well (exact time unknown to me). So Microsoft is already in third place and it will get worse from there, because you need people in the end and they are somewhere else and now that they are ‘advocating’ cloud gaming with TV’s we need to realise that this require too much bandwidth, as such that ship is sailing fast towards the abyss of failure (as I personally see it). Then we get their Surface pro and the short and sweet is that it is nowhere as useful as what Apple has. I see that as another failure. You see in the 11 years that contraption was around, it did not push Apple from the winning pedestal. No matter how much they spin the story. And when you consider that gaming and tablet as well as the fact that Blizzard and Bethesda were bought for 75 billion. So how much did they make? Nowhere near that much and Starfield was a bust from the beginning. Billions in the Surface pro and that is not paying off either. So how many failures can they survive? And now Tencent is entering gaming with the option to create serious waves. It is the impact of innovation. As I see it, spin gets you nowhere and now the new spin for players like Microsoft is to let the administration deal with the Chinese and with the return president elect Trump Microsoft is cheering as President elect Trump is anti-Chinese. But the trouble isn’t what they have. It is that over 4 billion do not see America as the centre of the universe. Which gives Tencent an option and when (speculative) Tencent will adhere to the stage of Harmony OS, the setting for Microsoft and Google goes down a mot more. You see HarmonyOS joined iOS and Android on the world stage. Yes, it is a mere third place, but every step they make is one that Apple and Google lose and Google has more problems because of the stupidity of the American legal system. They are just slicing pieces of the revenue pie for Huawei to take a bite from and as Huawei grows Google and Apple will lose some market share. And as Huawei and Tencent connect they will both grow stronger. How strong? That is not easy to say, but the small beginning will endure over time and America pushed for this and now it is too late. As the market changes Huawei and Tencent will robustly grow to some effect. Now we get the ‘accusation’ that Tencent is part of the Chinese military companies, which is formally known as the Section 1260H. And that is a nice game, but the others (pretty much all others) want to see evidence as Europe and the Commonwealth will demand evidence. They are seeing what revenue these two players bring and Microsoft merely brought failure after failure. As I see it innovation talks and failure walks alone and when someone will consider the turncoat metrics of Microsoft trying to get whatever they can as their console and tablet fails to do. As for Azure? It is lagging behind AWS (Amazon) by 50%, so don’t get your hope up. Another failure as I see it. So how much revenue is lost over these three parts only? So as the secretary of the Pentagon is not too busy (Miss E Dens) we would like to see the evidence that Tencent is part of the Chinese military. I don’t say it is not, I merely want to see evidence for a change (we never saw the WMD evidence, or the Huawei evidence), just for argument sake.

Have a great day, my Wednesday started 3000 seconds ago.

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January 4, 2025 · 15:51

A changed setting

That is where I found myself a few days ago. The realisation that things weren’t what they were supposed to be. Now, it is not really new. Settings change, but for the most it is up to the makers to herald a certain stage of doing business. This is a strange telling, because I believe in the Robocop setting that Kurtwood Smith handed to us “Good business is where you find it” and for the most I believe this is true. The stage was handed to us by Satya Nadella when on December 26th 2024 he gave us “the era of SaaS as we know it is coming to an end, giving way to integrated platforms where AI becomes the central driver. This transformation is poised to disrupt traditional tools and workflows, paving the way for a new generation of applications.” Not only do I not believe him at present. He is paving the way for people to set doubt in a place and push them all towards Azura (i’ll get to this later). Still, this is a weird statement from Microsoft when we got on July 22nd 2024 ‘Microsoft joins forces with Austrade to help its Australian SaaS partners go global’ (at https://news.microsoft.com/en-au/features/microsoft-joins-forces-with-austrade-to-help-its-australian-saas-partners-go-global/), seems like a strange setting. And with the statement “Microsoft has today announced a new program in collaboration with the Australian Trade and Investment Commission (Austrade) to help local partners that offer software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions accelerate their international growth” It almost sounds like the Asian joke “Two Wongs don’t make a Write” (or something like that). 

You see, as I personally see it, Microsoft is in trouble. It hatched its eggs too widely and too many of them are not paying off. There is only so many losses you can book and not take a massive hit. And as long as people are ‘dependent’ on Microsoft Nadella can sing whatever he wants. And that is where the shoe becomes a tight fit (and not in a good way). There is a cluster of people reposting and optionally with their ‘own’ insights as why it is such a stellar move. But there are issues.  You see, the first is that SaaS is a good solution for a lot of people, but as the Indian indie developers are gaining in that field Microsoft needs to haul exceedingly into another field where it is just them and their ‘agents’. And Microsoft will get a percentage for EVERY deployment we face.

The second setting is that SaaS goes together with IaaS and PaaS, but with the Microsoft setup all PaaS becomes Azure. It was the Microsoft solution to get from the statement “It is very possible to link single service of IaaS, PaaS and SaaS on 3 different cloud providers.” We got this answer three years ago and that never worked for Microsoft. You see, Microsoft wants it all. They failed too many times (in several fields). The need it all to survive and if enough are connected Microsoft (as I see it) prevents collapse. As I see it the AWS (Amazon) and the Oracle’s Platform as a service are vastly superior to Microsoft. As such Microsoft is dwindled down to size and they do not like it. I also think that Googles PaaS service is better than. Microsoft, but that is a more personal view then evidence driven. As such Microsoft needs to change speed and I reckon that the impending death proclamation of Software as a Service was Microsoft’s way to go and that is what Satya Nadella went with. The issue in this is an additional stage. In the 5 days of Christmas it is all that LinkedIn went with. I was torpedoed with these ‘news casts’ and opinionated settings from hundreds of sources (not only on LinkedIn) and these millennial sales screw ups all wanted a piece of that pie. They want it all whilst the getting was good and it is Christmas, wasn’t it? 

It is at this point when I wonder what Huawei has in store with their cloud solutions. It is the media appeasement of Microsoft that I wonder what the ‘enemy’ will bring us and that is where the setting stalls. The attack on our senses is almost infinite and some are deciding where we are able to (or allowed) to look. And we are all in the setting that we want to know where we can go and places like LinkedIn will not give us the full news making them propaganda channels for people like Microsoft. So when will we get the real deal of how to avoid Microsoft? I wonder what Oracle and/or AWS will bring to the table, them and Google would make a good replacement for Microsoft. But will we see that given to us, or is the influencer scene of Microsoft drowning it all out?

I cannot say for sure because the others are seemingly staying silent. Have a great day you all.

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September 25, 2024 · 21:13

Good News

Well, it is good news of a sort. The Guardian reported yesterday (at https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/sep/23/violent-crime-murder-rate-fbi-2023) that ‘FBI confirms US murders declined in 2023, contrary to Republican claims’, it is here we get “Murder dropped by more than 11% in largest single-year decline in decades while rape and other crimes also fell”, as plenty of us consider the one nation that is mostly in decline (due to the Karen’s) it is nice that we see an article like this. We also get “Meanwhile, the broader category of violent crime nationwide decreased about 3%, said the data, which is audited and confirms earlier reporting from unaudited statistics”, as well as “the FBI said rape decreased by an estimated 9.4%, property crime dropped 2.4% and burglary fell by an estimated 7.6%”. Some say that it is nothing to write home about. The larger setting is that in a country as overloaded with 343,477,335 people both good and less so. These drops are nothing to be sneered at. I say hurrah to the police and FBI department on a national scale. I am still of the mind that criminals tend to find other ‘activities’ to fuel their need for greed and violence. What it is is anyone’s guess. In certain fields I tend to be a gloomy source of skepticism. And it is here that Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), said: “Data drives policy, and without having a complete understanding of the problem, we cannot effectively address this significant surge in hate violence” OK, I will agree with that. Data tends to be the driving instigator in understanding certain crimes. It is also a little weird that hate violence would be the driving power against sexual assaults and burglaries. One does not optionally fuel the other side and as such I feel uncertain what to think. That is the other side of data. The lack of numbers does not fuel the understanding into another side. It is not that we can state with any kind of ‘comprehension’ that (2022) 16 sexual assaults + 84 burglaries = 14 sexual assaults + 58 burglaries + 28 hate crimes (2023) it just presumptuously does not work that way. But in the end crime went down to some extent and for that we can say ‘hurray ye police departments’ and ‘hurray ye FBI’. We then get ““Our administration has improved and expanded background checks, announced the single largest investment in youth mental health in history, and been an unprecedented resource to states, cities, and local communities,” said Kamala Harris” I am less convinced here. I am not debating the soul and spirit of the thought, there is a larger stage to consider. I wrote a few years ago that the ATF is staggeringly underfunded and for the longest time there was no head at the organisation. There was a lack of IT funds and all kinds of settings that sets the ATF with decades of lack of innovations at their disposal. In addition, last year the WBUR (in 2023) gave its audience ‘Does the man enforcing the country’s gun laws have the tools to do the job?’ I had raised that amendment issue a few years earlier. They gave us “ATF protects the public from crimes involving firearms, explosives, arson, and the diversion of alcohol and tobacco products. Regulates lawful commerce in firearms and explosives, and provides worldwide support to law enforcement, public safety, and industry partners.” All whilst the gun lobby does everything to make things harder for the ATF. And all whilst all the Tech biggies (Amazon with AWS, Microsoft with Azure and Google with Gemini) have lacked in assisting the ATF in ways that work. I am not placing blame in any of those three, but the lack of innovation in IT power in the ATF is staggering. And in that setting the FBI and the local police forces need to do their work. Weird is it not? Then in 2020 we see ‘Rethinking ATF’s Budget To Prioritise Effective Gun Violence Prevention’ apart from the fact that the ATF was without a permanent director for seven years the wondering setting by Kamala Harris with “Our administration has improved and expanded background checks” but I have issues with the statement. I will fully agree with the statement that it was true, but consider a car in 2022 when it was going at a speed of 23 mph, the fact that it now does 43 mph makes the statement true, but when we consider that the fact that the ATF is to be seen as The Tiger Brigades (1974) where the officers relied on something not dissimilar of the Ford model T, the improvements would be impressive all whilst the criminals out there relied on their Lamborghini Countach LP400 (179 mph), you do see that the police has absolutely no way of winning. When we realise this a lot more could be done, but political players relying on the gun lobby donations are o so willing to throw a clog in the wheels (the origin of the expression saboteur) and the larger issue is not that America needs to stop crime. It is important that they are gaining access to the tools that allows them to do their job.

So I am not attacking the good news we were given, but the fact that the truth is that certain organisations were supposed to do their job with one hand on their back. The lacking funds for infrastructure does not help I reckon. 

All reasons for applauding the local police departments and the FBI for getting some of the work done. So to all involved: “Well Done!”

I am now pondering a thought I had yesterday and a larger premise. Not sure yet what to do, but it is a consideration to behold. And now, with my eyes on the Scotia bank on Yonge street (Toronto) I will sign off and enjoy a glass of ice tea.

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September 24, 2024 · 22:59

Two sides of technology

There are always two sides on any technology. The question is whether they are aligned or not. The first story is found at (at https://www.edgemiddleeast.com/ai/tsmc-and-samsung-consider-100-billion-uae-chip-projects) where the Edge Middle East gives us ‘TSMC and Samsung Consider $100 Billion UAE Chip Projects’, it all comes across as straight forward. We are given “Semiconductor giants TSMC and Samsung are in early talks to establish massive chip-making facilities in the UAE, potentially marking a significant expansion in global production.” It seems to me that this is a straight forward option, especially for the UAE. We are also given “develop potential chip projects in the United Arab Emirates, with investments that could exceed $100 billion. The discussions, which are still in the early stages, were first reported by The Wall Street Journal on Sunday” and this article ends with “Should these plans move forward, they would mark a significant milestone in the UAE’s efforts to position itself as a global technology hub.” The second article was initially from the Financial Times (but they are behind a paywall), as such I I cannot give the link, but the headline reads ‘UAE president meets Joe Biden in push for more US AI technology’ where we are given “Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahyan seeks to formalise fledgling partnership between both countries” as well as “The United Arab Emirates’ leader met US President Joe Biden in Washington on Monday to advance artificial intelligence co-operation as the Gulf nation tries to secure easier access to US-made technology” and “The UAE is one of the US’s most important allies in the Middle East, but relations have been strained at times in recent years. Talks for a formal security pact with Washington have stalled, and Abu Dhabi was infuriated by what it saw as a lukewarm US response to attacks on the UAE’s capital by Houthi rebels from Yemen in 2022.” This is a dangerous time for America. The trivialisation of the Houthi terrorists will cost America dearly, it has before and it will cost America more than they imagined. You see, as I personally see it. There is a bigger fish. The option that China will play nice with Taiwan when there is a larger part of the $100,000,000,000 could give China the edge they need. And in this setting China will have several bonus options that would fall away from American. That alone would entice China to play nice with Taiwan to a whole larger degree. Is it viable? I honestly cannot say as the media is massively anti-China. Ask Huawei is you doubt my view on this issue. 

How could this happen?
There are several options, but if I were a betting man China would offer Taiwan independence UNDER China. Would Taiwan accept this? I don’t know, but if China would enable a diplomatic solution via the United Arab Emirates it could happen. China is more interested in the collapse of America sooner and will hand an independence ‘option’ to Taiwan. And the setting with Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahyan gives China a larger option to manouver. It is my believe that the Biden administration is driven to not make my speculation happen and for that it needs a slice of the UAE AI business and America will offer whatever it has to to make their entrance a done deal. On the positive side if Microsoft gets involved there is every chance that their affinity to mediocrity will blow up in their faces and the American stance becomes a whole lot weaker. This is not ‘fear mongering’, this is merely the view I have on Microsoft and the blunders they have made in the recent past. The UAE embraces perfection, as such Amazon (AWS) or Google would be a much better fit. But this is not about bashing Microsoft (it is fun though). The AI investments that could be coming the way of the UAE, there is a larger field. We hear all about ‘AI’ and the developers (Amazon, Apple, Google, et al) but most forget that Huawei has its own system. The FusionMind AI platform. I don’t know how good it is. Whatever the media tells us, once Huawei gets to demonstrate their system. No matter what others think, if the UAE considers it good enough, the American race for revenues goes in the wrong direction (for America that is). Don’t ask me how good or how bad the Huawei system is, because I have never seen it, but I know about it and the media is doing its best to ignore Huawei, but I am not convinced that this is a good move to make. The IT people (like me) want to assist people with solutions that WORK. I do not think it is a good idea to ignore the Huawei system. And I believe that neither Saudi Arabia or the United Arab Emirates are ignoring the Huawei technology side of it all. For me the larger setting isn’t merely what works, but it is the dim witted view of accusing Huawei whilst not offering ANY clear evidence. That is the larger stage and if Huawei, or the Chinese government can convince Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahyan to allow Huawei to present their case, American will have additional worries to deal with. I personally think that Google AI with Mandiant would be personally the better option. That is merely because I have have limited exposure to AWS and no exposure to Amazon security solutions. So my view is slightly biased. In all this, Google needs to convince the UAE that they have what the UAE needs. After that Saudi Arabia should be shown these solutions too (likely they have already seen them).

When we see these sides, one side is the technology, the other side is the software and when we optionally see these chip solutions the bigger winner becomes whomever sets the premise of their software to the hardware provided. I personally hope for Google (I am biased here), but the end game is nowhere near concluded at present. I reckon the Biden administration is hoping for a memorandum of intent, but that is something we might see on Wednesday. So keep looking.

It is almost Wednesday here and Vancouver is following in 18 hours. So anything is possible. Have a great day.

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September 8, 2024 · 01:09

Poised to deliver critique

That is my stance at present. It might be a wrong position to have, but it comes from a setting of several events that come together at this focal point. We all have it, we are all destined to a stage of negativity thought speculation or presumption. It is within all of us and my article 20 hours ago on Microsoft woke something up within me. So I will take you on a slightly bumpy ride.

The first step is seen through the BBC (at https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20240905-microsoft-ai-interview-bbc-executive-lounge) where we get ‘Microsoft is turning to AI to make its workplace more inclusive’ and we are given “It added an AI powered chatbot into its Bing search engine, which placed it among the first legacy tech companies to fold AI into its flagship products, but almost as soon as people started using it, things went sideways.” With the added “Soon, users began sharing screenshots that appeared to show the tool using racial slurs and announcing plans for world domination. Microsoft quickly announced a fix, limiting the AI’s responses and capabilities.” Here we see the collective thoughts an presumptions I had all along. AI does not (yet) exist. How do you live with “Microsoft quickly announced a fix”? We can speculate whether the data was warped, it was not defined correctly. Or it is a more simple setting of programmer error. And when an AI is that incorrect does it have any reliability? Consider the old data view we had in the early 90’s “Garbage In, Garbage Out”. Then. We are offered “Microsoft says AI can be a tool to promote equity and representation – with the right safeguards. One solution it’s putting forward to help address the issue of bias in AI is increasing diversity and inclusion of the teams building the technology itself”, as such consider this “promote equity and representation – with the right safeguards” Is that the use of AI? Or is it the option of deeper machine learning using an LLM model? An AI with safeguards? Promote equity and representation? If the data is there, it might find reliable triggers if it knows where or what to look for. But the model needs to be taught and that is where data verification comes in, verified data leads to a validated model. As such to promote equity and presentation the dat needs to understand the two settings. Now we get the harder part “The term “equity” refers to fairness and justice and is distinguished from equality: Whereas equality means providing the same to all, equity means recognising that we do not all start from the same place and must acknowledge and make adjustments to imbalances.” Now see the term equity being used in all kinds of places and in real estate it means something different. Now what are the chances people mix these two up? How can you validate data when the verification is bungled? It is the simple singular vision that Microsoft people seem to forget. It is mostly about the deadline and that is where verification stuffs up. 

Satya Nadella is about technology that understands us and here we get the first problem. When we consider that “specifically large-language models such as ChatGPT – to be empathic, relevant and accurate, McIntyre says, they needs to be trained by a more diverse group of developers, engineers and researchers.” As I see it, without verification you have no validation and you merely get a bucket of data where everything is collected and whatever the result of it becomes an automated mess, hence my objection to it. So as we are given “Microsoft believes that AI can support diversity and inclusion (D&I) if these ideals are built into AI models in the first place”, we need to understand that the data doesn’t support it yet and to do this all data needs to be recollected and properly verified before we can even consider validating it. 

Then we get article 2 which I talked about a month ago the Wired article (at https://www.wired.com/story/microsoft-copilot-phishing-data-extraction/) we see the use of deeper machine learning where we are given ‘Microsoft’s AI Can Be Turned Into an Automated Phishing Machine’, yes a real brain bungle. Microsoft has a tool and criminals use it to get through cloud accounts. How is that helping anyone? The fact that Microsoft did not see this kink in their trains of thought and we are given “Michael Bargury is demonstrating five proof-of-concept ways that Copilot, which runs on its Microsoft 365 apps, such as Word, can be manipulated by malicious attackers” a simple approach of stopping the system from collecting and adhering to criminal minds. Whilst Windows Central gives us ‘A former security architect demonstrates 15 different ways to break Copilot: “Microsoft is trying, but if we are honest here, we don’t know how to build secure AI applications”’ beside the horror statement “Microsoft is trying” we get the rather annoying setting of “we don’t know how to build secure AI applications”. And this isn’t some student. Michael Bargury is an industry expert in cybersecurity seems to be focused on cloud security. So what ‘expertise’ does Microsoft have to offer? People who were there 3 weeks ago were shown 15 ways to break copilot and it is all over their 365 applications. At this stage Microsoft wants to push out broken if not an unstable environment where your data resides. Is there a larger need to immediately switch to AWS? 

Then we get a two parter. In the first part we see (at https://www.crn.com.au/news/salesforces-benioff-says-microsoft-ai-has-disappointed-so-many-customers-611296) CRN giving us the view of Marc Benioff from Salesforce giving us ‘Microsoft AI ‘has disappointed so many customers’’ and that is not all. We are given ““Last quarter alone, we saw a customer increase of over 60 per cent, and daily users have more than doubled – a clear indicator of Copilot’s value in the market,” Spataro said.” Words from Jared Spataro, Microsoft’s corporate vice president. All about sales and revenue. So where is the security at? Where are the fixes at? So we are then given ““When I talk to chief information officers directly and if you look at recent third-party data, organisations are betting on Microsoft for their AI transformation.” Microsoft has more than 400,000 partners worldwide, according to the vendor.” And here we have a new part. When you need to appease 400,000 partners things go wrong, they always do. How is anyones guess but whilst Microsoft is all focussed on the letter of the law and their revenue it is my speculated view that corners are cut on verification and validation (a little less on the second factor). And the second part in this comes from CX Today (at https://www.cxtoday.com/speech-analytics/microsoft-fires-back-rubbishes-benioffs-copilot-criticism/) where we are given ‘Microsoft Fires Back, Rubbishes Benioff’s Copilot Criticism’ with the text “Jared Spataro, Microsoft’s Corporate Vice President for AI at Work, rebutted the Salesforce CEO’s comments, claiming that the company had been receiving favourable feedback from its Copilot customers.” At this point I want to add the thought “How was that data filtered?” You see the article also gives us “While Benioff can hardly be viewed as an objective voice, Inc. Magazine recently gave the solution a D – rating, claiming that it is “not generating significant revenue” for its customers – suggesting that the CEO may have a point” as well as “despite Microsoft’s protestations, there have been rumblings of dissatisfaction from Copilot users” when the dust settles, I wonder how Microsoft will fare. You see I state that AI does not (yet) exist. The truth is that generative AI can have a place. And when AI is here, when it is actually here not many can use it. The hardware is too expensive and the systems will need close to months of testing. These new systems that is a lot, it would take years for simple binary systems to catch up. As such these LLM deeper machine learning systems will have a place, but I have seen tech companies fire up sales people and get the cream of it, but the customers will need a new set of spectacles to see the real deal. The premise that I see is that these people merely look at the groups they want, but it tends to be not so filtered and as such garbage comes into these systems. And that is where we end up with unverified and unvalidated data points. And to give you an artistic view consider the following when we use a one point perspective that is set to “a drawing method that shows how things appear to get smaller as they get further away, converging towards a single “vanishing point” on the horizon line” So that drawing might have 250,000 points. Now consider that data is unvalidated. That system now gets 5,000 extra floating points. What happens when these points invade the model? What is left of your art work? Now consider that data sets like this have 15,000,000 data points and every data point has 1,000,000 parameters. See the mess you end up with? Now go look into any system and see how Microsoft verifies their data. I could not find any white papers on this. A simple customer care point of view, I have had that for decades and Jared Spataro as I see it seemingly does not have that. He did not grace his speech with the essential need of data verification before validation. That is a simple point of view and it is my view that Microsoft will come up short again and again. So as I (simplistically) see it. Is by any chance, Jared Spataro anything more than a user missing Microsoft value at present?

Have a great day.

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August 16, 2024 · 19:36

G-monopoly to the rescue?

Yup, that as the setting that imploded in my mind. It came at the doorstep of my sneaky sneaky creativity. You see when we consider the article at Reuters (with https://www.reuters.com/legal/us-judge-says-monopolist-google-cant-avoid-app-store-reforms-2024-08-14/) we might handle the stage of ‘US judge says ‘monopolist’ Google can’t avoid app store reforms’, we can agree, we can disagree (I disagree) but the setting is a stage that is not merely a mere ‘monopoliser’ it is quite a blanket cover of social inheritance. It comes at the dawn of a legion of Microsoft sycophants (agents of mediocrity) and that is a more dangerous stage then you realise. And always there is Microsoft trying to cut a nice corner for themselves. They failed five times over and they just can’t quit falling short of the rest of the pack where they want to ‘capture’ market share. For the non-regular readers of my blog the list is Adobe, Apple, Amazon, Google and Sony. And the loudest failures are Solarwinds and CrowdStrike. Even within the last week we saw several sources stage the boxing square using the Microsoft version of AI setting the dangerous premise of MAI (Microsoft AI) collecting the optional access of cloud systems. Now this is a premise that it is possible, not the setting that it has or currently is happening. But for reference when L’Oreal sees their revenue dwindle as one of the possible culprits namely Yatsen Holding, Estee Lauder, Avon Worldwide, Revlon, Coty, or CHANEL decides to take that short cut, L’Oreal will have a clear path what to do next. For their reference AWS can be found at Tour Carpe Diem, 31 Pl. des Corolles, 92400 Courbevoie, France. With the optional phone number is 3 315 660 2600.

Am I overreaching? 
It is a fair question, you see, I never much trusted cloud computing under Microsoft, not whilst there are valid options like Amazon (AWS), Apple, Google, and IBM available. I personally feel that Amazon is the superior provider, but I am NOT the best source of this information. I know too little about the G-Cloud, or the IBM version of that. Still the articles I read a few days ago scare my literally out of my skin. So there you have it.

So back to that, mainly judge James Donato in San Francisco. He heard Google and that greed driven Epic. You see Epic is in denial of an important factor. They accused Google of monopolising how consumers access apps on Android devices and how they pay for in-app transactions. The part that everyone seems to overlook is that Apple and Google had a similar plan in motion. This setting allowed Google and Apple to let everyone on-board. The small designers did not have to pay for massive amounts of money to get secure systems on-line. It is all done by these two providers. So they pay a little contribution and Epic immensely enjoyed that part of the equation and as they became more successful there need for more money (for stake holders and share holders) they decided to bite the had that fed them from poverty into wealth. Now that this part is over the hundreds of thousands developers can release an unbridled hatred towards Epic. But that is not merely the end of it. In this day and age of scammers and organised crime Epic is opening the floodgates towards these two players and I reckon that the first case (with evidence) that this is happening, both companies will both set a class action against Epic. So at that point where will the profits of Epic go? I reckon not too much towards their share holders, on the upside for them, litigation and trials are tax deductible. 

And whilst the media is all about the small player (multi billion Epic) against the titans of Industry (Apple and Google) I saw a new light. What if there was a new kind of monopoly game, with 4 players Amazon, Apple, Google and IBM and the board doesn’t represent streets, they represent cloud domains. There are still the utilities Electricity and Water (optionally called cooling) and the parks when all are obtained will give you a server-park item (hotel in the original game) and under that we get servers (up to 4) and the locations united will give you the upper hand in a server domain. The stations become continental backbones and they will have a secondary part. Should you get a station in a location, the servers get a +10% if you have all 4 you get a +20%. Now this is plenty of ‘over shadowing’ this game should have an educational side. So we have locations that invoke cyber security, social networking, AI and Data Warehousing. All have a -1% cost to your locations, if you have all 4 in one side of the board you get -10% costings (or 10% more efficiency). You see this might be a game, but the bulk or current users do not seem to comprehend the dangers that this case invoked. When the masses get to comprehend what is at stake and the fact that this is not completely set to a monopoly driven Google (or Apple for that matter), people might wake up to the danger they are exposing themselves to. And that part has been missing the to flame hungry (for the sake of money) media outlets. 

I always believed that games are a great way to teach people (when it is not Elden ring or Assassins creed) how to look at the image a little more clearly. So in that trend after the new movie yesterday, I decided to create a game for the occasion. It is the best move? OK, I am willing to concede that it might not be, but a free game that millions embrace tends to have a decent impact, more than we get now. And I am alway happy to engage with my sneaky sneaky creativity.

Well, the day is almost over, as such I will snore a forest into firewood and relax for my tomorrow hustle towards a morning with chicken and optionally some chili con carne. Enjoy your day.

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August 11, 2024 · 19:40

Setting of the day

On a good day
The Khaleej Times Jost informed me on how a good day comes to pass. Here (at https://www.khaleejtimes.com/uae/meet-the-uae-police-officer-who-uncovered-183-money-laundering-cases-in-15-years) we are introduced to Major Saad Ahmed Al Marzooqi. 

The headline ‘Meet the UAE police officer who uncovered 183 money laundering cases in 15 years’. We are also given “He was recently appointed as the first Emirati member of the Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF) International Cooperation Review Team” and we can be mesmerised, or brag about his abilities, but the numbers imply that he slightly uncovered more than one case a month. There are plenty of police forces all over the world where half of these numbers would imply a stellar career. As we gawk over “exposed 183 money laundering cases that are related to drugs and financial embezzlement. He had also created a database of incidents, which contributed to an increase in convictions from a monthly average of 3 to 14” we need to realise that the increase of 3 to 14 implies that this one person achieved more than any average police station in Europe. 

This is the kind of man the world needs and that will be explained in the next article, because the universe relies on balance and the imbalance we are about to see takes the cake and changes an optional day to night.

On a bad day
Yes like any hero that needs a antagonist to make things interesting, we have Microsoft in two mentions. Now this isn’t directly involving anyone at Microsoft, but the follies are a setting that makes things a lot worse.

First we get Wired (at https://www.wired.com/story/microsoft-copilot-phishing-data-extraction/) who gives us ‘Microsoft’s AI Can Be Turned Into an Automated Phishing Machine’ we get to see “Attacks on Microsoft’s Copilot AI allow for answers to be manipulated, data extracted, and security protections bypassed, new research shows” which is not good, but anything positive can me mauled into a criminal jester for organised crime. The additional “Microsoft raced to put generative AI at the heart of its systems. Ask a question about an upcoming meeting and the company’s Copilot AI system can pull answers from your emails, Teams chats, and files—a potential productivity boon. But these exact processes can also be abused by hackers.

Today at the Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas, researcher Michael Bargury is demonstrating five proof-of-concept ways that Copilot, which runs on its Microsoft 365 apps, such as Word, can be manipulated by malicious attackers, including using it to provide false references to files, exfiltrate some private data, and dodge Microsoft’s security protections.” Now, I haven’t seen this, but Wired has a solid enough level of credibility to not ignore this. And that isn’t all. Bargury gives the world “the ability to turn the AI into an automatic spear-phishing machine. Dubbed LOLCopilot, the red-teaming code Bargury created can—crucially, once a hacker has access to someone’s work email” as I speculatively see it a mediocrity solution to turn the Internet of Things into a machine serving organised crime, optionally the NSA too, well done Microsoft. As I see it, the workload of Major Al Marzooqi would increase fivefold when this hits the open world, actually it already has if I understood the words from Michael Bargury correctly. In this, we optionally an even bigger problem, or at least a lot of corporations will.

You see there is a second message, in this case from Cyber Security News (at https://cybersecuritynews.com/microsoft-entra-id-vulnerability/). They give us ‘Microsoft Entra ID (Azure AD) Vulnerability Let Attackers Gain Global Admin Access’ with the subtext “Security researchers have uncovered vulnerabilities in Microsoft’s Entra ID (formerly Azure Active Directory) dubbed “UnOAuthorized” which could allow unauthorised actions beyond expected controls” Now take these two parts together and the phishing expedition could hit every R&D system on the planet using Azure. I am certain that Microsoft will have some patch coming soon, but in the meantime the bulk of R&D (under Azure) will be vulnerable and approachable by many hacker and especially organised crime, because selling secrets to competitors tends to be a lucrative setting and most corporations aren’t that finicky in acquiring something that raises (and assures) the bonuses of the members of their boardroom. OK, this is speculative on my side, but wonder what some will do to get the upper hand in business, especially if there is a bonus raise involved. 

I wish I had a solution, but my personal feeling is that Microsoft has too many holes, loops and a whole rage of other issues and switching to either AWS, IBM cloud or Google Cloud tends to be an essential first step coming to my mind. Now, if there are sceptics who think that I am anti-Microsoft here, they are probably right. Therefor the Links to the two articles were added letting you look at the stories yourself. In the meantime I remember a story in April and it should be my ‘duty’ to inform SAMI that ‘BAE Systems and Microsoft join forces to equip defence programmes with innovative cloud technology’ had a nice article and with the two articles mentioned, SAMI could lay its hands on a truckload of BAE IP. Not sure how far they will get, but free IP is the way to go I say. So when you realise that a large corporation like British Aerospace with all the civilian and military hardware can be accessed, what chances do you think that Novo Nordisk (Denmark), LVMH (France), ASML (Netherlands), SAP (Germany), Hermez (France), L’Oreal (France) have? I do not know if any uses Azure, but it is a good moment for them to select one of the other companies. They could after the event sue Microsoft for damages, but Delta Airlines is already suing CrowdStrike and I am not sure how that will go. In the end it is my personal opinion that this could potentially bite Microsoft hard and it is one of the reasons I do not let them near my IP.

As I personally see it, the companies racing the be the first to launch their (fake) AI will now have a much larger impact. There were already fake data issues, but now the phishing options that are mentioned and when that gets linked to what Cyber Security News calls “UnOAuthorized” the entire IT game changes dramatically and I have no idea how that will play out. 

As my Sunday is almost over and Vancouver only just started there’s a chance we postulate that the next 72 hours will be an interesting one. Have a lovely day (when you are not on Azure).

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August 6, 2024 · 12:12

The loser iteration

Two days ago I wrote (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2024/08/04/the-judge-shouldnt/) with the headline ‘The judge shouldn’t’, it was part speculative and part what I see (again through my eyes it could be regarded as speculative). Today a mere 4 hours ago we get through the BBC (at https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0k44x6mge3o) ‘Google’s online search monopoly is illegal, US judge rules’. We are also given “Google was sued by the US Department of Justice in 2020 over its control of about 90% of the online search market.”, so lets take a look back. It started in 1995 and the ‘idea’ was completed in 1997. To turn about the setting in those days Microsoft was merely badgering their lack of knowledge and lam Netscape to get a browser dominance. Two youthful young sprouts namely Larry Page and Sergei Brin were ahead of the pack by a lot. They looked to a solution to search for text in publicly accessible documents offered by web servers, as opposed to other data. Microsoft was still trying to type words like HTTP and the clever people at Microsoft were able to type FTP. In the age of information the Google founders figured a few things out like ‘What are people trying to find’ this was against the grain for Microsoft who thought that corporations were the key and they went to ‘What are corporations willing to pay for’. The subtle difference is that Microsoft was working towards a slice of the $18,843,980,000,000 revenue that the fortune 500 represent. Google on the other hand decided to cater to its 31,000,000 employees. As such one could (oversimplified) cater to the simple fact that it would take Microsoft 9 million years to get as much data as Google. I do emphasis the oversimplification of this. I was not on the mindset of Google at first. You see I was a dedicated Yahoo user. It took 3 years until I saw that Google offered more and better result. As such in 3 years they gained a dominance. They surpassed Yahoo, Excite, Alta Vista and several other players. We can argue that it helped that Microsoft demolished Netscape. And in the decade that followed Google grew in strength and ability to cater to actual users not the CFO’s of 500 corporations. 

So when we see “It is one of several lawsuits that have been filed against the big tech companies as US antitrust authorities attempt to strengthen competition in the industry.” I believe that there is another ploy in play. The mediocrity losers (like Microsoft) want a slice of the cake they have no business being in. It isn’t just the ‘competition’ it is a reversal of technology that is in play. And in that setting the US is damaging the little benefit they have and leaving it all to China and true Chinese innovators like Huawei and Tencent. I reckon that by 2026 the mobile market will be overrun with Huawei in almost every non-americano place. They threw away the benefits when they forced Huawei to release HarmonyOS 5 years ago. 

Now we see that it is available in 77 languages and the turnover (as is) is getting stronger. Even now as EU nations are discarding the fear mongering of anti-China sentiment by American administration, and the strongest response that the EU nations give is ‘Show us evidence’, America has no answer to that other than debatable setting of ‘could’ and ‘expected’ whilst the evidence just isn’t there. And as we see an optional release this year of HarmonyOS NEXT, Android’s bough get broken on their sibling turning adult. So good luck with that.

Now we see a Judge giving us that there is a monopoly setting. I am not debating that (a lack of evidence I have), but the setting that we get from ““Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly,” Judge Mehta wrote in his 277-page opinion” as I see it, the maintenance of a unique field dominance is begotten by the lack of innovation by people like Microsoft who is spreading itself way too thin.  As evidence I ‘present’ Xbox, Solarwinds, CrowdStrike and the list goes on. You see ‘breaking up’ is merely a first step. They will then open the door and the abusive bully (Microsoft) will gleefully shout “Can I play here too?” With a debilitating browser called ‘Edge’. How is that progress? Don’t get me wrong if there is a decent player that can keep up with Google, even Google will applaud that. My worry is that the ideological setting of letting everyone in the sandbox play is all fine, but there is a reason that mothers do not allow toddlers in a sandbox until they reach a certain age. And bar them from playing when they get too old. The worry that I have is that this setting stops Google from evolving beyond the cookie (which is fine by the exploitative advertisers). The setting of other people’s greed who cannot evolve into newer territories. This could now allow Huawei and Tencent to gain even more innovative sides to push into markets where American stage are auto rejected. Tencent is on the cliffhanger to introduce their solution to 150,000,000 homes and they can get there by 2027. 

This will leave Microsoft in a stage where it has no options and no future. As these Fortune 500 will find ways to rise to new frontiers we will see them seeking IBM and Amazon solutions catering a larger downfall of Microsoft. In that stage there is certain a decent amount of space for Google. As they will hand a corporate solution to their ‘office’ suite Microsoft will lose more grounds. The only thing that keeps them up for some time is Excel. But the world is changing what was once a spreadsheet world now becomes an AWS environment and Google can cater there too. I do think that Googles forced push to breaking up is not a great solution, but Google has overcome harder challenges. 

This and my previous article ‘The judge shouldn’t’ gives us the premise that the Antitrust laws are possibly a little obsolete. Microsoft sees this as their ticket in and it is willing to cater to this as it hurts Apple and Google. Two parts the US desperately needs to work at optimum to stop themselves of being overrun by Chinese innovators. You see 7 years ago ByteDance introduced TikTok (not a Peter Pan crocodile). In 7 years it became a near equal of YouTube that was in play 12 years longer. Now I get that YouTube paved the was, but that is the usual tracks for New innovators, they go over the backs from those who went before. Now consider that and the fact that HarmonyOS is about to go toe to toe with Android in only 4 years. That is what I wrong. Not that we think about antitrust. I partially agree with antitrust sentiments. But we need to see that the greed driven use it to keep up, or not to lose their revenue. But that was never the concern of Google (or Apple for that matter). As I see it in the last decade the face of technology was set by Amazon (AWS), Apple (MacWares), Google (Android, G-wares) and IBM (large solutions and Quantum) they create the innovations, players like Microsoft should go under and seek revenue from the Fortune 500. They were the bees knees weren’t they? 

But as I see it, US District Judge Amit Mehta is allowed by law to hand it all over to Chinese innovators. When the EU, Commonwealth nations, Africa and Asia allow these innovator into their governments America becomes a party of one (with 330 million consumers). So consider that the other regions has over 7,500 million people. As I see it it is a hard lesson that America learns twice. Wasn’t the Google premise of 1997 not enough?

Enjoy your day and ponder what benefit was to be had from optionally breaking up Google and who were the actual beneficiaries (not the consumers clearly).

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July 31, 2024 · 16:40

It was never rocket science

Yup, that is the gist of it. And it seems that people are starting to wake up. You see the biggest issue I have had with any mention of AI, is that it doesn’t (yet) exist. People can shout AI on every corner, but soon the realisation comes in that they were wrong all the time will hurt them, it will hurt them badly. And this is merely a sideline to the issue. The issue is Microsoft and lets get through some articles.

1. Microsoft says cyber-attack triggered latest outage
The first one is (at https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c903e793w74o) where we see “It comes less than two weeks after a major global outage left around 8.5 million computers using Microsoft systems inaccessible, impacting healthcare and travel, after a flawed software update by cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike. While the initial trigger event was a Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attack… initial investigations suggest that an error in the implementation of our defences amplified the impact of the attack rather than mitigating it,” said an update on the website of the Microsoft Azure cloud computing platform.” The easiest way of explaining this is to compare Azure to a ball. A foot ball has (usually) 12 regular pentagons and 20 regular hexagons. They are stitched together. Now under normal conditions this is fine. However software is not any given shape, implying that a lot more stitches are required. Now consider that Microsoft 365 is used by over a million corporations. Now consider that a lot of them do not use the same configuration. This implies that we have thousand of differently stitched balls and the stitches is where it can go wrong. This is where we see the proverbial “the implementation of our defences amplified the impact of the attack rather than mitigating it” Microsoft has been so driven by using it all, that they merely advance the risk. And it doesn’t end here. CrowdStrike is another example. We see the news and the fake one person claiming responsibility for it. Yet the reality is that there is a lot more wrong than anyone is considering. These two events pretty much prove that Microsoft has policy and procedure flaws. It is easy to blame Microsoft, but the reality is that we see spin and the trust in Microsoft is pretty much gone. People say “Microsoft’s cloud revenue was 39.3% higher”, yes this is the case, and considering that Amazon was originally a ‘bookshop’, so they went against the larger techies like IBM and Microsoft and they got 31% of the global market share. Not bad for a bookshop. And the equation gets worse for Microsoft, these two events could cost them up to 10% market share. In which direction these 10% go is another matter. AWS is not alone here. 

I was serious about not letting Microsoft near my IP. I had hoped that Amazon would take it (they have the Amazon Luna) but it seems that Andy Jesse is not hungry for an additional 5 billion annually (in the first stage). 

And as Microsoft adds more and more to their arsenal these problems will become more frequent and inflicts damage on more of their customers. Do I have evidence? No, but it wasn’t hard and my example might give you the consideration to ponder where you could/should go next. 

2. Microsoft Earnings: Stock Tanks As AI Business Growth Worse Than Expected
In the second story we see (at https://www.forbes.com/sites/dereksaul/2024/07/30/microsoft-earnings-stock-tanks-as-ai-business-growth-worse-than-expected/) that Forbes is giving us “shares of Microsoft cratered about 7% following the earnings announcement, already nursing a more than 8% decline over the last three weeks” with the added “Microsoft’s crucial AI businesses was worse than expected, as its 29% growth in its Azure cloud computing unit fell short of projections of 31%, and sales in its AI-heavy intelligent cloud division was $28.5 billion, below estimates of $28.7 billion” As stated by me (as well as plenty of others) there is no AI. You see AI would give the program thinking skills, they do not have any. They kind of speculate and they have lots of scenario to give you the conditional feeling that they are talking “in your street” but that is not the case. For this simple illustration we get Wired (at https://www.wired.com/story/microsoft-ai-copilot-chatbot-election-conspiracy/) giving us ‘Microsoft’s AI Chatbot Replies to Election Questions With Conspiracies, Fake Scandals, and Lies’, so how does this work? You see the program (LLM) looks at what ‘we’ search for, yet in this the setting is smudged by conspiracy theorists, troll farms and influencers. The first two push the models out of synch. Wired gives us “Research shared exclusively with WIRED shows that Copilot, Microsoft’s AI chatbot, often responds to questions about elections with lies and conspiracy theories.” Now consider that this is pushed onto all the other systems. Then we are treated to “Microsoft’s AI chatbot is responding with out-of-date or incorrect information”, so not only is the data wrong, it is out of date, as I see it what they call ‘training data’ is as I see it incorrect, out of data and unverified. How AI is that? A actual real AI is set on a Quantum computer (IBM has that, although in its infancy) a more robust version of shallow circuits (not sure if we are there yet) and is driven not by binary systems but framed on an Ypsilon particle system, which was proven by a Dutch physicist around 2020 (I forgot the name). This particle has another option. We currently have NULL, Zero and One. The Ypsilon particle has NULL, Zero, One and BOTH. A setting that changes everything.

But the implementation into servers is to be expected around 2037 (a speculation by me) then we get to the thinking programs and an actual AI. So when we see AI, we need to see that is a program that can course through data and give you the most likely outcome. I will admit that for a lot of people it will fit, but not for all and there we get the problem. You see Microsoft will blame all sources and all kind of people, but in the end it will be up to the programmer to show their algorithm is correct and as I am telling you now that it comes down to unverified data. How does that come over to you? 

When you consider that Wired also gave us “it listed numerous GOP candidates who have already pulled out of the race.” The issue of how out of date data is becomes clear. We see all these clever options that others give us, but when some LLM (labeled AI) is un-updated and unreliable, how secure remains your position when you base decision making streams on the wrong data? And that is merely a sales track. 

The last teaspoon is given to us by The Guardian. The Guardian (at https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/mar/06/microsoft-ai-explicit-image-safety) gave us on March 7th 2024:

3. Microsoft ignored safety problems with AI image generator, engineer complains
So when you consider the previous parts (especially CrowdStrike) “Shane Jones said he warned management about the lack of safeguards several times, but it didn’t result in any action” Microsoft will state that this is another issue. But I spoke about wrong data, out of date data and unverified data. And now we see that the lack of safeguards and inaction would make things worse and a lot faster than you think. You see as long as there is no real AI, all data needs to be verified and that does not seem to be the case in too many setting. I spoke about policy issues and procedural issues. Well here we get the gist “it didn’t result in any action” and we keep on seeing issues with Microsoft. So how many times will you face this? And that is before people realise that their IP are on Azure servers. So how many procedural flaws will your research we driven into until it is all on a Russian or Chinese or North Korean enabled server (most likely by Russia or China, which is a speculation by me).

As such, it was never rocket science, look at any corporation and in their divisions there will always be one person who thinks of number one (himself) and in that setting how safe are you? 

There is a reason that I do not want Microsoft near my IP. I can only hope that someone waked up and give me a nice retirement present ($30M post taxation would be nice).

Enjoy the day.

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