We all have that moment, some call it ‘enough is enough’, others refer to ‘the straw that broke the camels back’, we have all kind of expressions, but in reality anger took the forefront of the debate and emotions run high, so whilst we get the view (by Al Jazeera) ‘Houthis say they attacked Aramco, Patriot targets in Saudi Arabia’, all whilst CNN, BBC, and a whole range of sources are quiet, in a stage where we get the news from merely Al Jazeera and Bloomberg. The other players were not that quiet when it concerned a journalist no one cares about, they were all screaming then. So this was my moment of anger, if news has to be filtered to this degree, it is time to set the premise to a different scope. This first weapon system I designed (to sink the Iranian navy) is now public domain and in the hands of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the next step will be a new weapon that can meltdown the Iranian nuclear reactors. The hack that (allegedly) Mossad did was nice, but soon Iran will figure out how to set the nuclear reactors to closed systems with two separate systems with people at both ends and that ends the hack option, but I am still here, so a weapon (based on a novelty snow globe), should (in theory) create a nice and solemn Chernobyl reactor setting and it should work on most reactors, well at least the Russian reactors. I am nothing if not creative and I personally do not think anyone had considered that approach, so my science teacher in secondary school was right, I will not grow up to be any good, but I was preceded in this by most media and most politicians, so I am apparently in good company if I get to hell.
At times anger gets to win, there is no other way, it brings to mind an old saying ‘Change is valuable, it lets the oppressed be tyrants’ and most of us have had enough of the current tyrants, even if we live in a golden cage. Yet I see no other option but the make matters worse, perhaps it will wake up the media and as they have to explain the essential need of share holders and stake holders, take notice of ‘their’ essential need. We wanted the news, we wanted all the news, but the share holders and stake holders did not agree, so I decided to pave the way for them to take the front seat in the limelight. It is not subtle, it is not a decent approach, but it was the only one left to me.
You might oppose and that is fine, but consider all the actions that Iran was behind in the last two years and the amount of actions that somehow never reached many of the western media, now also take into consideration all the transgression Houthi forces did in Yemen, whilst we got one sided news on the actions of Saudi Arabia, how long do we tolerate a corrupt media circus? That is how I see it, filtered news is a form of corruption. I personally see no other way to interpret this.
It is my view and optionally my flaw as well, but as I said, as some point anger takes over and in that stage anything can happen, the media banked on that premise too often, but did they ever consider the fact what happens when that premise goes into another direction?
So, my weekend will be a weird one, but an essential one.
Yup, we all have a stage when there is no trust, there is no confidence and we wonder the why part. In this, I had questions, so I asked the agency, but they did’t know, then I asked the FBI, I asked Langley and I asked Commander Andrew Richardson, they all gave the same story, there is No Such Agency, so I Googled them and Yes! There they were, complete with phone number (+1 301-677-2300) and all, yup, we got them, so now we get to their story (at https://breakingdefense-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/breakingdefense.com/2021/04/nsa-about-to-release-unclassified-5g-security-guidance/amp/).
Via the BBC, we get ‘NSA About To Release Unclassified 5G Security Guidance’ and I started to read, the article makes a lot of sense. Which gave me “Noble’s speech highlighted the importance of zero-trust architecture in 5G networks”, and it got me thinking, the approach makes a lot of sense, just like SE-LINUX, the setting of ‘no-trust’ makes sense, especially in a world where Microsoft keeps on fumbling the ball, not merely their exchange servers, but the (what I personally see as greed driven) push towards Azure, it comes with all kinds of triggers and dangers, especially as they are ready to cater to as many people as possible, the no-trust rule is pretty much the only one that makes sense at present. I have written about the dangers more than enough. So when we are given “it’s reasonable to expect that future NSA 5G security recommendations will emphasise zero trust as a key component”, I believe that the approach has a lot of benefits, especially when such a setting can be added to anti viral and Google apps, it could increase safety to well over 34% overnight, and option never achieved before and we should all applaud such a benefit. There are a few thoughts on “NSA has characterised zero trust as “a security model, a set of system design principles, and a coordinated cybersecurity and system management strategy.” It’s a “data-center centric” approach to security, which assumes the worst — that an organisation is already breached or will be breached.” A choice that is logical and sets the cleaning directly at servers and ISP’s, and they are the backbone in some cases to close to 75% of all connections, so to set a barricade on those places makes sense, there is no debating, the choice of calling themselves No Such Agency wasn’t their best idea, but this is a game changer.
I have been critical of the US government in all kinds of ways for years and on a few topics, yet I have to admit that this is an excellent approach to prevent things going from bad to worse, moreover, there is every chance that it will make things better for a lot of us overnight as such a system deploys, it will have a trickle down effect, making more and more systems secure.
That one thing Yup there is always one thing and we see the dangers when we consider Solarwinds and Microsoft (their mail server), the one part is when we rely on rollbacks and we see rollback after rollback creating a hole and optionally a backdoor, the most dangerous system is the one deemed to be safe, ask Microsoft, or their exchange server. When you believe all is safe, that is when the most damage can be made. And as the article looks at 4 parts, we see ‘Improved network resiliency and redundancy’, yes it makes sense, but rollback efforts are possibly out of that equation and when we get some people tinkering there, there is a chance that the solarwinds paradox returns, yet this time with a dangerous seal of approval by the No Such Agency, it will be the one part all criminal minds are hoping for, in this I personally hope they fail, but these buggers can be resilient, tenacious and creative, the triangle that even the Bermuda Triangle fears and that is saying something.
Yup, we all have that. You, me, pretty much everyone. Even the Catholic cleric in [censored], should you doubt that, ask any choir boy there. So when the BBC gave us ‘Facebook sued for ‘losing control’ of users’ data’, I merely shrugged and went ‘Meh’. You see, it is not about “the case against the technology giant, expected to last for at least three years, will argue a “loss of control” over users’ personal data warrants individual compensation”, which is hypocrite on a few levels, we see people handing over data and fact to complete strangers in Facebook and plenty of other social media paths. We laugh at “Coolum resident Essena O’Neill, 19, said she was paid up to $2,000 for the posts, which show her posing with products and often in revealing positions.With more than 600,000 followers on Instagram and 260,000 on YouTube, Ms O’Neill has deleted many of her original photos and re-captioned others with more honest descriptions” (ABC, 2015). We also get (two weeks ago) ““I accidentally posted a picture on Instagram of my wine glass and I was naked,” she said whilst nervously laughing. Then, she went on to explain that you could actually see her naked body in the reflection of the wine glass”, is anyone buying this? Social media has been used on a huge number of settings revealing ‘accidentally’ facts that normally do not get to see the light of day, and in all this we are given ““loss of control” over users’ personal data”? Go cry me a river! In the mean time, did anyone see Alexander Nix, Julian Wheatland, Rebekah Mercer, or Steve Bannon in the dock of a courtroom in any of the hit countries? In this the quote “harvesting of Facebook users’ personal information by third-party apps was at the centre of the Cambridge Analytica privacy scandal” applies, a third party app, was there any documented agreement, or documented acceptance of the harvesting of personal data? I do not see Microsoft in the dock in court over their exchange failure that had hit 250,000 businesses, so why not? And when we see “Cambridge Analytica’s app on Facebook had harvested the data of people who interacted with it – and that of friends who had not given consent” did anyone consider putting the board of directors of Cambridge Analytica in prison? I wonder how far we have strayed from the flock of convictions to go after the money and not the transgressors. I do get it, it is a rule or Torts, the mere “go where the money is” is not a wrong setting, but in this setting all the blame on Facebook seems wrong. They are not without fault, I get that, but to see a reference to Journalist Peter Jukes giving us “leading the action, claims his data was compromised”, so how was his data compromised? What evidence is there? In turn I have equal issues with “The Information Commissioner’s Office investigation into these issues, which included seizing and interrogating Cambridge Analytica’s servers, found no evidence that any UK or EU users’ data was transferred by [app developer] Dr [Aleksandr] Kogan to Cambridge Analytica”, I wonder how far backup investigation went, in turn the setting of ‘no evidence that any UK or EU users’ data was transferred’ is almost preposterous, the data was collected, as such it went somewhere, the fact that the Information Commissioner’s Office couldn’t find that part is mere icing on the cake of Cambridge Analytica. In addition, when we see “Mr Jukes told BBC News it was not about “where the data went” but rather “that Facebook didn’t care”. “They didn’t look after it,” he said.” Can this be proven? ‘Didn’t care’ is subjective and presumptive, we can agree that security measures failed, yet ‘They didn’t look after it’ is equally unproven, and these people are not going after the people of Cambridge Analytica as THEY transgressed on the data. As such as we look at Eton boy Alexander Nix, in the setting of “Nix agreed to a disqualifying undertaking prohibiting him from running U.K. limited companies for seven years after permitting companies to offer potentially unethical services, while denying any wrongdoing”, he got a mere slap on the hand, with a mandatory 7 year vacation all whilst we are told ‘denying any wrongdoing’, in addition there is “agreeing to delete previously obtained data”, a 2019 agreement, so where was the data all this time? Let’s be clear, Facebook has made blunders, huge ones, yet in light of the fact that Microsoft gets a mere fine and the issues is closed after that, why keep on going after Facebook? When we see ZDNet give us ‘Microsoft Exchange Server attacks: ‘They’re being hacked faster than we can count’, says security company’ two weeks ago (at https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-exchange-server-attacks-theyre-being-hacked-faster-than-we-can-count-says-security-company/), what gives, why are they not being sued for setting a dangerous precedence on corporate information? We go after Huawei without evidence, we ignore alleged criminals and their app transgressions with our data, but it is fine to go after Facebook whilst ignoring the massive flaw that is Microsoft? So what gives?
So yes, we can lose control all we like, but if we hamper the courts with empty cases that are set on emotion, all whilst people like Alexander Nix, Julian Wheatland, Rebekah Mercer, and Steve Bannon are allowed to return to positions and try again? And what about Cambridge Analytica? As it was soon thereafter acquired by? The only reason I see to acquire Cambridge Analytica is because of hardware, because of software and because of data, so who is looking into that, preferably all before we lose time slapping Facebook around? I see very little after 2018, but perhaps Peter Jukes is too busy to see were his alleged compromised data optionally went.
So whilst we giggle on statements like “I accidentally posted a picture on Instagram of my wine glass and I was naked”, we see a setting where a large group of people are using social media for all kind of things, the limelight most of all and in this we need to separate the real issues from the fictive cash cows. In this, did you wonder if the people are realising that Wired gave us a mere hour ago “collaboration platforms like Discord and Slack have taken up intimate positions in our lives, helping maintain personal ties despite physical isolation. But their increasingly integral role has also made them a powerful avenue for delivering malware to unwitting victims—sometimes in unexpected ways” (at https://www.wired.com/story/malware-discord-slack-links/) and that is a mere tip of the iceberg, a massively large one. How many apps are a gateway to YOUR system? So when we take notice of “hackers have integrated Discord into their malware for remote control of their code running on infected machines, and even to steal data from victims”, as such in that case it is not the nude reflection shot that matters, it is the wineglass porn that some people decided not to post that is out there for everyone to see. Consider the words by Stephen Fry on 2014, when he said “The best way to prevent nude pictures online, is to never pose nude”, or something according to those lines and he is right, the best social media is the boring one, where you just say hi and connect to relatives. But the limelight is for some just too appealing and to give everyone the lowdown on all your needs and that is what players like Cambridge Analytica were banking on. As such, when we add that light, that spotlight, what data of Peter Jukes was transgressed on and in light of the Exchange server issues, the Cisco issues and the larger stage of interconnecting apps, can it even be proven that it was Facebook?
I’ll buy popcorn for that court case, it should be fun.
There was an article at the BBC a few hours ago and I had to sit down and ponder for a moment. I can revisit my view again and again, but the BBC gave a very specific side and it stopped me. As I see it loot boxes are not gambling, but the article ‘Loot boxes linked to problem gambling in new research’ gave an additional side, and it matters.
The article (at https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-56614281) gives a lot of the same, including the view of “About 5% of gamers generate half the entire revenue from the boxes”, which is an optional valid view, my emphasis is on ‘optional’. You see, even as we are given “Loot boxes are a video game feature involving a sealed mystery “box” – sometimes earned through playing the game and sometimes paid for with real money – which can be opened for a random collection of in-game items such as weapons or cosmetic costumes”, I noticed ‘sometimes earned through playing the game’ before, I got most of all gear in NHL19 without ever paying a cent! This is important, and there is a stage where we need to recognise the games that offer loot boxes as a reward from within the game. It is “The upcoming Gambling Act review is set to look at the question, with the UK’s House of Lords already having weighed in to say that loot boxes should be firmly regulated as “games of chance”” that made me pause, loot boxes are not gambling, but when it is stated that they are ‘games of chance’ I do not disagree. We can argue in all manner that EA games took loot boxes in FIFA and went overboard, I will not disagree on that. Consider that FIFA21 “In FUT, there are more than 16,000 Day 1 cards, corresponding to as many players”, as such, if there are 1,000 it would be a low estimate, 2,500 would be more likely, but I have no official numbers. This implies that to have them all you would have to buy a minimum of 2,500 packs, if each pack has only one rare, that is just insane.
It is not gambling! You see, to have that premise, that needs to be a setting that buying one pack gets you one cards stating ‘Thank You’, that is not the case, you always get a set configuration of common, uncommon and 1 rare card. But the House of Lords goes with ‘games of chance’, which is the seemingly the case and even more, it has an exploitative side, I never denied that, and there is a difference, I opted in the past for an alternative. It is what is called ‘A factory set’ a set with every card, the set is not tradable and has no value as you cannot trade them, but you would have all the cards and to offer that set in the last quarter of the game might be an option.
My issue with the article was “The link between gaming loot boxes and problem gambling has been “robustly verified”, according to a new report”, I have issues with that straight of the bat and I would want to see that full report and its data before giving it any validity. You see, in the last 6-12 months I have noticed that gambling and in game advertising that is pro gambling has been popping up all over iOS and Android, Google’s own YouTube now has an increasing amount of gambling advertisements, so the setting is as I personally see it rigged.
This included advertisements on how to win at gambling, a stage that in my mind has nowhere to go and shouldn’t be allowed in any advertisement setting of Google. I wonder if that factor was considered in that report, was it even investigated? Let’s take a look!
A stage that is on a sliding slope, as we see more and more pagers on the internet all set to the stage where you can win real money playing games, so the game is already rigged and it has nothing to do (as far as I can see it) with loot boxes. And the report by the GambleAware charity is off to the wrong start with “Loot boxes are purchasable video game content with randomised rewards. Due to structural and psychological similarities with gambling, they have come under increasing media, academic and legal scrutiny. The UK government is currently reviewing evidence on loot boxes, which will be considered in the forthcoming review of the Gambling Act 2005”, you see plenty of games allows you to win these boxes by playing, Mass Effect 3, NHL 19 and several others, some give several packs a day, you only have to enter the game to get them. The report (at https://www.begambleaware.org/sites/default/files/2021-03/Gaming_and_Gambling_Report_Final.pdf) has more. “relationships between loot box engagement and problem gambling have been robustly verified in around a dozen studies”, I have an issue with that statement, but lets continue for now. When we see “Participants also purchased loot boxes because of a ‘fear of missing out’” I wonder how this was proven, you see, when we see on page 6, ‘A game will offer loot boxes for free. Encouraging later real-money purchases’ it is an assumption, a speculation. I never spend money on NHL19 and I have all the jerseys, all the goalie masks and all the arena’s. In addition, Mass Effect never pushed for spending money, you can get it all by merely playing. That is a setting of two games straight of the bat. Yes, it was possible to spend money, but it was never needed. The research then give us Overwatch which is a free to play and loot boxes are their only revenue, but what is there?
The report gives Fortnite a pass on a few settings, yet the Verge gives us ‘Epic Games will settle Fortnite loot box lawsuits in V-Bucks’ with the additional “The class action settlement also provides an additional $26 million in benefits” (at https://www.theverge.com/2021/2/22/22295676/epic-games-fortnite-loot-box-lawsuit-settlement-rocket-league-v-bucks), as such the report already has a few sides I find debatable and optional rejectable. When we are treated to “the game’s cooperative survival mode, “Save the World,” did — at least until 2019 when Epic changed its loot box system to allow players to see the item inside prior to purchase”, so why did that report not contain the part that gives us ‘when Epic changed its loot box system’, and all whilst another source gives us regarding Ubisoft “The Division 2 has both microtransactions and loot boxes and we said that Ubisoft didn’t go overboard with recurring revenue”, this was given to us in 2019, so why is a 2 billion dollar company excluded from this research? Is this EA games bashing?
There is more, and as gambling influences on other fields that the same group finds itself, the setting is as I personally see it rigged.
The report has some conclusions that make sense, they do have some grasp of the issue and as I personally see it, there needs to be a larger stage here, one that is beyond ‘self-regulating’, in this EA Games made several massive blunders on the stage and that Needs to be acknowledged too. I am all for the full disclosure of odds as well as a FULL LIST (including rarity) of all cards that can be obtained. I believe that a factory set, one that cannot be used for trading and optionally not for playing either, it might lower the ‘Pokemon’ impact (gotta catch them all) of those spending cards on it, some do want to have them all, merely for the having. Anyone who ever collected Football, Hockey or Basketball cards will get that part. A stage that will evolve over time and one that could reset the barriers we have now.
So yes, I feel I was right, loot boxes are not gambling, but they are a game of chance, even as every pack has the same dimensions, they tend to have 1 rare card and in case of EA’s FIFA that will not do, not in a game with 16,000 playable characters. There are several solutions, but it is up to EA to steer their ship to one of the solutions that gamers can live with, I for one think that the EA NHL solution is one that should limit damage, yet with 16,000 characters, the packs should be 500% larger, including at least 5 rare cards, but that is merely my initial view.
I have a few issues with the report, but it does give us a view that is not entirely wrong and it also gives us a few sides that matter. As for the BBC article, loot boxes might to some degree correlate to problem gambling, but that stage is a lot bigger than the report gives. And it starts in both the Android and the Apple store with their collection of free games that offer in-app purchases, the fact that these makers set the game up to mandatory show one advertisement EVERY level is a larger stage, and the oversight of that makes it an issue, if gambling is a factor, these influences should be looked at as well, as well as the deceptive conduct that we see in the advertisements with increasing amounts.
Reuters gave light (again) to an article that I wrote earlier, 2 days ago (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/03/30/an-almost-funny-thing/) I wrote ‘An almost funny thing’, I got it from the BBC and I feel certain that some official people were already already on the ball, being a mere 2 years late. I reckon that some figured out that the growing cash flow these people ended up with will count against certain players, if not a lot more. Some people might have gotten additional considerations with “In the OSI model, we see layers 3-7 (layer 8 is the user). So as some have seen the issues from Cisco, Microsoft and optionally Zoom, we see a link of issues from layer 3 through to layer 7 ALL setting a dangerous stage. Individually there is no real blame and their lawyers will happily confirm that, but when we see security flaw upon security flaw, there is a larger stage of danger and we need to take notice” and that is the tip of the iceberg. So when Reuters gives us ‘Ransomware tops U.S. cyber priorities, Homeland secretary says’ this morning, we might not get the entire field in view and that is not on Reuters. And as Alejandro Mayorkas gives us “ransomware was “a particularly egregious type of malicious cyber activity” and listed it as the first of several top priorities that his department would tackle in the online sphere” we are not getting the entire story and we are happily giving the Department of Homeland Security that as they have other consideration as well. Yet I personally believe (speculatively) that some programmers working in specific places got handed libraries to make more, but also got a setting where they created software that opened a backdoor, so that all parties have an excuse and any investigation will end up going nowhere. You see there are plenty of real option givers that start as ‘Top 9 Python Frameworks For Game Development’, and that is where it starts. Consider the following scenario: as some developers become better they seemingly need shortcuts and would you believe it, some knows someone on the darkweb and they will hand the developer an option, two actually, one is free, the other one is $19.99, but is ‘presented’ as a lot more secure and it has documentation, that is all that they need and as the library is linked, the trap is set. The game maker does the right thing and enhances his program with either version (both have the flaw), and now, with a passive backdoor is passive (gaming is required), it passes through a whole range of systems and as the game is offered free with ‘in-app purchases’ the people behind the screens suddenly have 100K+ stations for all kinds of use. So whilst some are trivialising “No one really knows the size of the dark web, but most estimates put it at around 5% of the total internet. Again, not all the dark web is used for illicit purposes despite its ominous-sounding name”, we see, ohh not all is illicit, but consider that this software would be in the open internet if it was all on the up and up. The indie developer (many companies of one) has that ‘special feeling’ as he was introduced and others were not, but they all were and some were offered similar links in the end all linking to the same package, and that is the game, so when we we see greed driven idiots like Epic games (and a few others) setting the stage to avoid the Google and Apple store, we will see a much larger shift, one that gives free reign to criminal minded people to infect a massive amount of systems. So when you think that players like DHS is ready for these assaults, the people will soon learn the hard way that they were not and from there it will go from bad to worse.
And this is not about Epic games, even as some will herald “Cesium will be available for free for all creators on the Unreal Engine Marketplace. It’s an open-source plugin for the engine that unlocks global 3D data and geospatial technology. This means that games that use it will be able to discover in real time the location of a player in a given 3D space, using accurate real-world 3D content captured from cameras, sensors, drones, and smart machines” (source: venture beat), we think it is all for the good of us, and it is not, it is good for the pockets of Epic Games, but what happens when other elements get a hold of the saved data linked to geospatial technology? What happens, when foundational advantages that were (for the most) in the hands of players like CIA and GCHQ; what happens when cyber criminals get THAT level of precise data and THOSE cluster data groups? Did you think of that? So whilst some laugh away “games that use it will be able to discover in real time the location of a player in a given 3D space, using accurate real-world 3D content captured from cameras, sensors, drones, and smart machines”, the data will go a lot further, it will optionally end up not merely showing those systems, but the locations of all systems they link to as well. It is a hidden version of what I called the ‘Hop+1’ intrusion malware (thought up by yours truly) that made much of the CIA counter software close to useless, someone took that idea and made a corporate version with some version of a backdoor, in that stage the internet will end up being as dangerous as walking the dog (not the ‘M’ word), in a minefield. Letting the dog have a shit will be the last thing you did that day for a very long time to come.
As such, some might applaud the DHS (they actually did nothing wrong) as we see “a DHS official said the reference was to underground forums that help cybercriminals franchise out their malicious campaigns.” Yet under these situations, finding blame is close to impossible and the mistrusting developers end up helping cyber criminals in the process, and that is if there is ever any prosecutable connection found. 4 stages not directly linked will make prosecution close to impossible. So how is that for size? And whilst we take notice of “He said the agency would “quarterback” the U.S. government’s digital defences and serve as a “trusted interlocutor” between business executives and public servants” we see that their heart is in the right place, but the people they are hunting are heartless, devious, better funded and technologically more up to speed. It is a race many politically governmental intelligence organisations cannot win, not now, and optionally not ever. What a fine mess some corporations got us into.
I saw an article at the BBC and I will get to that in a moment, but it reminded me of a situation that happened in 2010. I needed a new laptop and I was looking in a shop at their Collection of laptops. A man came to me and was trying to convince me just how amazing this laptop was. My inner demon was grinning, I get it, the man was enthusiastic, he was giving the numbers, but in all this, did he realise what he was saying? I am not doubting the man’s skills, he was doing a good job, I was however in IT and had been there for 30 years, so I have pretty much seen it all, and there it was, my little demon, on my right shoulder calling me ‘pussy’. So as the man stated ‘this laptop has a one terabyte hard-drive, can you even imagine ho much that is?’, I could not resist and my response was ‘Yup, that would fit roughly 10% of my porn collection’, his jaw dropped to the ground, his eyes almost popped, the demon inside me stated ‘Nice!’ Actually, it was not quite true, it would only fit a rough 0.32114%. It was the impact of the shock factor. You see, there is a hidden agenda there, when you (appropriately) use the technique, you get to see the real salesperson and that was what I needed. He was thrown, but he recomposed and continued giving me the goods on the laptop, I bought that laptop roughly 132 seconds later.
So today I saw ‘The Rise of extortionware’ (at https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-56570862), here I notice “where hackers embarrass victims into paying a ransom”, it is not new, it is not even novel. I will also give you the second game after the people involved get arrested, they will demand anonymity and any bleeding heart judge will comply. I state that these people will be handed the limelight so that the people that faced ransomware attacks can take their frustration out of these people. But that remains wishful thinking. So next we get “Experts say the trend towards ransoming sensitive private information could affect companies not just operationally but through reputation damage. It comes as hackers bragged after discovering an IT Director’s secret porn collection.” I have the question was it a private or a company computer? You see, sone focus on the boobies, just what the advertisers on Twitter hope for, they want the click bitches, it makes them money. It is time that we set the larger stage, you see the entire mess would be smaller if Cisco and Microsoft had done a proper job. OK, I apologise, Cisco does a proper job, but some things slip through and in combination with Microsoft exchange servers it is not slipping through, it is a cyber hole the size an iceberg created on the Titanic and we need to set a much larger stage. So when we see “Thanks God for [named IT Director]. While he was [masturbating] we downloaded several hundred gigabytes of private information about his company’s customers. God bless his hairy palms, Amen!”, it seemingly answers that he might keep it on a corporate computer, or he uses his private computer for company stuff. Yet in that same light the hacker should not be allowed any anonymity, we all get to see who the hacker is. If there is something to be learned it is see with “Hackers are now actually searching the data for information that can be weaponised. If they find anything that is incriminating or embarrassing, they’ll use it to leverage a larger pay-out. These incidents are no longer simply cyber-attacks about data, they are full-out extortion attempts” There are two sides
The station of ALWAYS ONLINE needs to change, there needs to be an evolving gateway of anti hack procedures and a stage of evolving anti hack routers and monitoring software. You think that Zoom is an option? Tom’s Guide gave us less than 2 weeks ago “More than a dozen security and privacy problems have been found in Zoom”, as well as “Zoom’s ease of use has made it easy for troublemakers to “bomb” open Zoom meetings. Information-security professionals say Zoom’s security has had a lot of holes, although most have been fixed over the past few year”, so whilst you contemplate ‘most have been fixed’, consider that not all are fixed and that is where the problem goes from somewhat to enormous. Well over 20% of the workforce works at home, has zoom meetings and that is how cyber criminals get the upper hand (as well as through disgruntled employees), a change in mindset is only a first station.
Remember that Australian? (Julian Assange) We were told that soon there would be some leaks on issues on banks (Wall Street) then it suddenly became silent, now some will say that it is a bluff, but in light of the meltdown in 2008, I am not so certain, I reckon that some have ways to show the hackers who they are and they profit by not doing that. Can I prove this? Absolutely not. It is speculation, but when you look at the timeline, my speculation makes sense.
The third side is optionally the second side as the second side might not be a real side. When we see “Hackers are now actually searching the data for information that can be weaponised. If they find anything that is incriminating or embarrassing, they’ll use it to leverage a larger pay-out. These incidents are no longer simply cyber-attacks about data, they are full-out extortion attempts”, the underlying station is ‘information that can be weaponised’ and the IT sector is helping them.
How did I get there? The cloud is not as secure as some state, and the salespeople need to take notice. Business Insider gave us about 6 months ago “70% of Companies Storing Data With Cloud Companies Hacked or Breached”, see the link we are now slowly getting presented?
In the OSI model, we see layers 3-7 (layer 8 is the user). So as some have seen the issues from Cisco, Microsoft and optionally Zoom, we see a link of issues from layer 3 through to layer 7 ALL setting a dangerous stage. Individually there is no real blame and their lawyers will happily confirm that, but when we see security flaw upon security flaw, there is a larger stage of dangers and we need to take notice. And here the dangers become a lot more interesting when we consider the Guardian yesterday when we saw “Intelligence value of SolarWinds hacking of then acting secretary Chad Wolf is not publicly known”, what else is not publicly known? How many media outlets ignored the Cisco matter, how come ZDNet is one of the few giving us “it’s not releasing patches for some of the affected devices that reached end of life” less than 8 weeks ago. Again I say Cisco did the right thing by informing its customers close to immediately, yet when we see “More than 247,000 Microsoft Exchange servers are yet to be patched against the CVE-2020-0688 post-auth remote code execution (RCE) vulnerability impacting all Exchange Server versions under support” (source: bleepingcomputers.com) as far as I can see, a lot of the media ignored it, but they will shout and repeat the dangers of Huawei, without being shown actual evidence, and I state here, that unless we make larger changes, the extortion path will evolve and become a lot larger. With 70% of cloud systems getting hacked or breached, a large chunk of the Fortune 500 will pay too much to keep quiet and who gets to pay for that? There is a rough 99.867765% chance that its board members will not, it might be speculatively, so please prove me wrong.
A stage where the needs of the consumers changes in a stage where the corporations are not ready to adjust and all whilst the IT salespeople have that golden calf that does everything and make you coffee as well. Adjustments are needed, massive adjustments are needed and we need to make them now before the cybercriminals are in control of our IT needs and that is not mere speculation, when you see flaw after flaw and too little is done as too many are the victim of its impact is a serious breach and it has been going on for some time, but now it is seemingly out in the light and too many are doing too little and as we laugh at “God bless his hairy palms, Amen!” Consider that stage, and now consider that they invade a financial institution, these are clever criminals, they do not empty your account, they merely take $1, perhaps $1 every other month, this implies that they are looking at a $16,000,000 every two months. And this is merely one bank, one in a thousand banks, some a lot bigger than the Australian Commonwealth bank and lets face it, the fact that layer 3 to layer 7 is leaky in hundreds of thousands of customers, do you really think that banks are off-limits? Do you really think that this is a simple hick-up or that the scenery is changing this quickly by people claiming that it will be fixed in no-time?
We need massive changes and we need them a lot sooner than we think.
There was a scene and I took it in to some degree and I merely cast it aside the other. It was all about Meghan Markle, a lady who became Meghan, Duchess of Sussex after she married Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex. I am for the most part a royalist, just like my grandfather was before me, the only part that is not equal is that he was British and participated in WW1, I did not. Yet, I remain royalist in nature. So when the interview was on, I avoided it, my reason was that for the most, I do not trust the media, they adhere to shareholders, stakeholders and advertisers and they will use whomever they can to achieve what needs to be achieved and for the most, they see royalty as cannon fodder for their cannons. Yet, I do not attack media people directly unless it is about a specific article, and for the most part that viewpoint is in my scope. So when Piers Morgan went the other way regarding the Duchess of Sussex, I merely shrugged, so many articles, so much media, there will be views on both sides of the field, it is unavoidable.
As such I went on my merry way, that partially changed after the show on ITV’s Good Morning Britain, when his remarks also set the stage for him leaving the show. So when we see ““Who did you go to?” he said. “What did they say to you? I’m sorry, I don’t believe a word she said, Meghan Markle. I wouldn’t believe it if she read me a weather report. “The fact that she’s fired up this onslaught against our Royal Family I think is contemptible“” I initially shrugged, the media will take one side or another, it is what the media does and whether this falls into their personal views is a matter of debate, there is little option for me to change my views, I have seen thousands of articles over the last 10 years and that is the stage I am stuck in.
And then Amol Rajan (in the BBC article) gives us “There is a culture war going on, and Piers Morgan’s job on Good Morning Britain has fallen victim to it. That’s different from saying Morgan himself is a victim of it; in some ways he has been a beneficiary. But when the public position of a star presenter and a broadcaster’s CEO are in sharp contrast, about such a sensitive subject, at a time of such heightened tensions, something has to give. Tonight, it did.” In this take particular notice of ‘when the public position of a star presenter and a broadcaster’s CEO are in sharp contrast, about such a sensitive subject’ this is where we see that some stakeholders call the CEO, this is not about him versus him, this is an optional example of Piers Morgan versus THEM, them being the people who prefer that the UK becomes a republic, there is more easily made profits that way, that is how I feel. And this is not a new point of view, I have been warning about the media, their shareholders, their stakeholders and their advertisers for years and the people get to see that freedom of speech and freedom of points of view does not hold water when the CEO has an opposite view. And in reality ITV’s Good Morning Britain is not a news organisation, even if they mention that they bring the news, it is as I personally see it a ‘catering entertainment program’. And it seems that Piers Morgan in this case had enough.
It does not matter that I stayed away from the interview. We all know that Oprah Winfrey is an absolute master in playing on emotions, it made her very very rich and her dedication to her causes and how it inflamed Americans have made her even richer. Sincere dedication cannot be feigned, it can only be real, making her an even more precious commodity.
So is Piers right or wrong? That does not matter, I actually do not care, but it was his view and there are plenty accepting his view and to those stakeholders that view is detrimental to their needs. In a stage where everyone is bitching about their right to speak, getting rid of the person not agreeing to your views is something entirely different, it is called censorship. What struck me is ‘Meghan Markle among the 41,000 people who filed a formal complaint against Piers Morgan’s comments’, you see when you look at the big picture, we see that this amounts to 0.06% of the population, we cannot get the BBC to give the British people the goods on what is actually happening in Yemen (the Iran involvement part), a setting that has caused the death of well over 100,000 people in a population of formerly set to 29 million, as such we are getting inflamed by the wrong numbers. It does not matter whether Piers Morgan is right or wrong, it was HIS point of view, as such the stage is calling for a lot more questions on the amount of stakeholders that ITV’s GMB at present has, this is how I personally see it, I will let you make up your own mind.
That is how I feel at times, all the instances that people come and parrot like repeat the accusations left, right and center. All those times I feel like I am in a losing war, a shouting match and my voice is gone, but here I go again and this time two events took place, but the BBC set them off and it starts with the interview with Ian Murray giving us the headline ‘Meghan racism row: Society of Editors boss Ian Murray resigns’, at first I was not that interested, to be honest, in the world of journalism, or what some call journalism, the value of a journalist tends to be lower than the value of a crack pusher. Yet this interview gave me a few nice parts. It starts at 00:53 (at https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-56355274), when questions are asked on the headlines, yet Ian Murray deflects it all, changing the conversation (or trying to), in the end he never answered the question, he tried to change the conversation. This is the larger problem with the media, the media is not here to support and to inform you the reader, the listener or the watcher. Here we see the dangers of the Society of Editors. These people have a charter, an unspoken one. They protect the share holders, the stakeholders and the advertisers, after that it becomes as emotional as possible, so that flaming will ensue more and more revenue. The actual journalism is left to a chosen few and that group is exceedingly shrinking. It is the most clear example, but it is not the only one.
The second part is the Jamal Khashoggi joke. This senseless form of humour gives us headlines in nearly all papers, with live interviews with UN essay writers, but not any evidence, or better stated quality evidence that could be regarded in a court of law. CNN gives us ‘White House won’t punish Saudi Crown Prince for Khashoggi murder’, all whilst there is no evidence at all, there is a source (the one that promised that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq), but they water it down to highly probable to probable that it happened. The factual stage is that something most likely happened to Jamal Khashoggi, but there is no evidence, mere speculation. And in part it (optionally) helps me. I will happily take the $6,800,000,000 revenue and courier the papers between Riyadh and Beijing for a nice fee (the 3.75% commission I mentioned in previous articles). I already have the dream house I deeply desire lined up. You see there needs to be an actual cost to doing business and the media is due its invoice too.
The Guardian in July 2019 reported (at https://www.theguardian.com/news/2019/jul/09/most-uk-news-coverage-of-muslims-is-negative-major-study-finds) ‘Most UK news coverage of Muslims is negative, major study finds’, and as the arms industry is a buyers market, I am happily willing to facilitate towards China, did you think that all the BS and negativity is accepted? At some point buyers will look at the other delivering parties and what the CAAT did not screw up, the Yanks themselves did, as such 2 slices of cake (a yummy multi billion dollar one) will go towards other hungry players. A setting that the media and politicians staged. So whilst the Conversation gave us a little over a week ago ‘Jamal Khashoggi: why the US is unlikely to deliver justice for the murdered journalist’ (at https://theconversation.com/jamal-khashoggi-why-the-us-is-unlikely-to-deliver-justice-for-the-murdered-journalist-156165) with the part that is essential “the White House has tried to send signals to Saudi Arabia and may not favour Prince Mohammed, it is likely he will take over the throne from his father and rule the kingdom for decades to come. The Biden administration may dislike Prince Mohammed personally, but they will probably need to work with him if the US is to maintain a working relationship with Saudi Arabia”, in this the US has no options, they have the option of releasing actual evidence, but I would not hold my breath on that one. They need to find a way to restore billions in optional lost revenue and I hope they lose out so I can get my dream house. You see in a commercial world it is about who has the goods and who can deliver the goods and at present Saudi Arabia has the cash. So whilst we see more and more visible BS on a whodunnit level whilst the evidence is a lot less than the one Ellery Queen ever had to work with.
And in all this the media has a much larger role to play, a lot more than you think. And if one would ask Miqdaad Versi of the Muslim Council of Britain today, I wonder how the stage has negatively reverted. Even as we saw then “The findings come amid growing scrutiny of Islamophobia in the Conservative party and whether its roots lie in rightwing media coverage.” It is a much larger setting, it is the media in general, for them Islam is an easy mark to have, a mark that upsets the least and that is where the shareholders and stakeholders are most likely to be, the creation of emotional flames and the Khashoggi flame was one of the brightest they had seen in a decade as such Saudi bashing continues. We see an alternative/additional version in Judith Escribano article “In The role of the media in the spread of Islamophobia Sam Woolfe argues that “the media uses bold and harsh language to promote this kind of fear because bad news sells”. This constant drip feed of bad news focussed on Muslims and Islam merely “propagates and reinforces negative stereotypes of Muslims (e.g. that Muslims are terrorists, criminals, violent or barbaric)”” (at https://www.islamic-relief.org.uk/islamophobia-in-the-media-enough-is-enough/), I disagree in part. You see the media never had their ducks in a row and to sell advertisements, they need to turn the people into ‘click bitches’, the more emotional an article is, the more enflaming an article is, the better the changes of a click and a click translates to roughly $0.01-$0.03 per person per visit, as such the media flames as much as they can every day. They never realised the setting has no long term benefit and I reckon that is why the Australian one is crying like little bitches against mean mean mean Google (and its papa Smurf Sergey Brin).
So how do Prince Harry and Meghan relate to Saudi Arabia and Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman? Emotion! Emotion is the stage that levels the playing field for the media, a stage that enraged millions, make them click on their website, the ultimate click bitch paradox that is as close to a perfect digital storm as we are likely to see in the next decade, that is until Iran does something extreme again, but I set a new stealth weapon system online for the innovator to turn into something factual and sink their navy, I roll like that.
The problem with the stage we see is that for the most, the media refuses to investigate the media and the moment they figure out that they are under investigation, we will see all kinds of barricades. Even the Guardian (one of the more reputable ones) gave us a day ago ‘What is journalism for? The short answer: truth’ (at https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/mar/11/journalism-truth-strong-regulation-us-media-uk) there is nothing wrong with the article, but consider the stage they start up with “Who, what, where, when and why? Five questions that are at the heart of our trade. Answer those questions in relation to any news story, and we’re doing our jobs as journalists” and that stage is not wrong, but there is a setting between editor and journalist that is missing and that accounts for filtered information versus news. In this filtered information is news that has been approved by the shareholders, the stakeholders and the advertisers. That difference is at the core of Islamophobia, the false accusations against Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, the continued covering of a columnist that vanished years ago and almost no one cares about. It is smitten with the essential need for digital revenue. That is at the heart of it all and whilst the royal stage might depose Saudi Arabia from a number one digital bashing position it is a mere temporary one. In 2009 James Murdoch gave us “The only reliable, durable, and perpetual guarantor of independence is profit”, and how can the news be profitable? When the news is filtered and for the most (and more secure way) to the extent that meets with the approval of share holders and stake holders, yet how independent is that exactly?
I apologise for sounding like a broken record, but this stuff is important, and when the escalations start you will see why, which is why I hope you are on the ball before that happens. Have fun!
It all started yesterday, the NOS notified us via ‘8 wounded by optional terror attack Sweden’. The stage was less clear through two parts. The first that this was not a big city, it was Vestlanda, which is in the South of Sweden, basically a village with less than 15,000 people. About an hour ago the BBC gives us ‘Sweden attack: Man injures seven in stabbing attack’, a very different headline. Two different headlines, but neither is wrong. The BBC also gives us (as did the NOS) “Police are treating the case as attempted murder but also investigating the possibility of terror motives” as such SAPO is on the case. The Swedish Security Services (formerly known as Säkerhetspolisen, or SAPO), it is at present under the leading and watchful eyes of Klas Friberg (aka Big Boss). We are told “Initially, detectives began treating the incident as suspected terrorism, before re-classifying it as attempted murder. According to the local police chief, the suspect is a resident of the area and previously known to police but in the past he was only suspected of “petty crimes”, AFP news agency reports” (at https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-56272565) there is a need to side with caution, there is no harm in treating it as one and finding out you are wrong, it is always better than not acting and learning too late it was a a dry run.
In Sydney (on 15–16 December 2014) a mental case called Man Haron Monis was a self pronounced ISIL operative, there was enough evidence in the early hours that this was not the case and that he was a head case, but there is nothing wrong with siding with caution, lives were on the line. In Sweden there is a different setting, optionally one that requires Swedish Intelligence to take a larger look, and it makes sense, terror has several definitions, yet the one that matters is the result when the things we hold for granted are no longer reliable and a terror attack in Vestlanda would do that in Sweden much more than in the three larger cities, in this setting dozens of smaller places would have a security issue and that worry would run over to Norway and optionally Denmark as well. Yet, it is early days and we do not know what is and what is not. And the problem is not over, actually the PM (whilst being openly honest) gives us “Prime Minister Stefan Löfven said the “horrific violence” was a reminder of “how frail our safe existence is”.” He is not wrong, but I believe him to be incorrect. The application of ‘how frail our safe existence is’ is the problem. There is no such thing s a safe existence, the fact is that Scandinavia is perhaps one of the least likely targets, as most terrorists will use bombs, they do not care about one person, they care about hundreds, Stockholm is perhaps the most likely of targets, yet it is still small compared to Munich in October, Amsterdam in April, or London and Paris most time of the year. They all have infrastructures that have too many weak spots, to many options and as such the largest part of Scandinavia (including Finland) tend to be less likely places to hit, that is beside the point that in these places tourists and foreigners shine like Christmas lights and these terrorists tend to dislike Christmas lights, a stage we all need to recognise. That does not make a person like Klas Friberg wrong. I am speculating, he needs to be certain and that is what he is doing, making sure.
Still, the assumption is there and the truth is we really do not know at present. Even as I dug through the papers in a dozen nations, most of them are somewhere between the BBC and the Dutch NOS, merely one or two are playing the terror card, the others merely mention that it is investigated s an optional one. There is a small caution in many cases and at present there are too many unknowns. As we are told “Five different crime scenes, a few hundred metres apart, were identified, local police chief Jonas Lindell said.” We need to realise that this is not a person merely going nuts, he was seemingly on a ‘nutty’ rage trip over a distance and that calls a few things into question, optionally that this was ore than merely an attack by a head job and as such the authorities need to be certain, I get that. If Sweden gets to be lucky, the person was a head case, if that is not the case this might optionally be a lone wolf act and that is the problem, there is close to no attack against such a strategy. There are too many settings where lone wolves will achieve what they are told to do and the Swedish Security Services needs to be certain, that is clear and I hope that we can soon return to the happy view of
Yup we have all done it, we tend to filter. The horny (especially teenagers) want to talk, chat and video whatever to the members of the other gender (well, most of them anyway). We filter by the needs we have, business needs, personal needs and artistic needs, we filter. There is for the most nothing wrong with that. Yet it also tends to keep you in a little box. I come from the previous internet era, I never got into Napster but I loved Audiogalaxy. I had it so I could listen to music when I was travelling and it opened up doors. I learned about the Corrs, Bond, the Dixie Chicks, Linkin Park, Orbital and a few others. It grew my CD collection by leaps and that made me happy, in an age where my work kept me from MTV, Audiogalaxy showed me other venues of music. I forwent the filter and I learned about and got to appreciate bands I would never have considered. Filtering is not all bad.
Yet what happens when filtering goes overboard in another direction? Today I learned a new word, I word I should have been aware of but I do not remember hearing it. The word is ‘Femicide’ and it is not a good word. It was Al Jazeera that made me aware, the article ‘Rage boils over amid Argentina’s unrelenting femicide crisis’ (at https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/2/24/rage-boils-over-amid-argentinas-unrelenting-femicide-crisis). It got my attention in the first as it was about Argentina and my mother was from there. In the second it was the by-line “Femicide of 18-year-old Ursula Bahillo pushed thousands into the streets of Buenos Aires this month to demand action”. In this there are two parts, the first is “About 87,400 results” (when we look for Ursula Bahillo) and the second part is that the big newspapers are missing on the news search result on the first page. A Spanish version from the BBC is at the bottom of the page, no Washington Post, no NY Times, no Times, no Guardian (the list goes on) and it sickens me for another reason. You see, one hour ago the Guardian gives us ‘Princess Latifa letter urges UK police to investigate sister’s Cambridge abduction’, some princess gets the news on optionally being abducted and whilst Al Jazeera reports “Nearly 300 femicides were reported in the country in 2020”, other newspapers keep us in the dark and these idiots demand money from Facebook and Google, whilst not informing us? I see this as one of the clearest ‘What the Fuck?’ moments of the year.
I never felt comfortable bout honour killings. I understand that it exist and in those countries there is an issue, I am massively against that setting in other nations. I cannot convict it as I am not Muslim, yet outside of Muslim nations it is an issue, yet femicide should not be ANYWHERE and the fact that we are kept in the dark by most papers is a larger issue, but I will let you worry about that. It kind of intersects with ‘Australia urged to follow allies in denouncing China’s repression of Uighurs as ‘genocide’’, the fact that genocide is happening and someone needs to ‘urge’ Australia shows that we are not as evolved as we think we are. By the way, the first 5 pages of that search shows no Australian papers at all, as such should they be allowed to exist? That is a more serious question than you think. If the ACCC are all about media laws and the need to blame tech companies, in this my message after seeing ‘ACCC chief claims victory after Facebook standoff’ to Australian Competition and Consumer Commission chair Rod Sims will be “Sir, I consider you to be a fucking joke! You are hereby responsible to make sure that the events around Ursula Bahillo are to be seen in EVERY Australian newspaper as per immediate. If you (as it seems) champion discrimination, you need to be openly told this”, my issue here is that Microsoft was left out of the media consideration, they were waiting all their resources on their Azure cloud and now that we see “Microsoft will ensure that small businesses who wish to transfer their advertising to Bing can do so simply and with no transfer costs. We recognise the important role search advertising plays to the more than two million small businesses in Australia” (source: Microsoft) all whilst we see western media absent to the plight of Ursula Bahillo and hundreds more shows that the media was never to be considered any options (if the Leveson report was not enough evidence). As such, how much action did the UN take to the Femicide cause? I know they have done some work, yet when I see ‘United Nations asks UAE for proof that Princess Latifa is alive’ all whilst the Google Search “Ursula Bahillo United Nations” gives no real links on the western media, why is that? That is even beside the fact on how active UN essay writers became against the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, they even went so far to push for issues regarding cyber crimes on an American Industrial (Jeff Bezos) all whilst the presented evidence had several shades of debatability. As I see it, we need larger changes and if the media relies on political bitches (as one might say) to do their revenue work for them, they will need to be held liable, yet I reckon that some editors will cry like little bitches and point towards ‘freedom of the press’, I wonder how long it will take for someone to consider that ‘accountability of the press’ is also a matter that needs consideration. Al Jazeera brought more to the surface than some media players are happy with. Consider your paper, or their website (whichever it is) and look for Ursula Bahillo, how many articles did you find? What we are shown matters, whether is be Femicide in Argentina, persecution of Uighurs or any other news. As I personally see it when we filter by gender and the filtering agent is the media we have lost control and the insane are at the helm of a ship called sanity. That’s merely my $0.02 on the matter.
Lawrence van Rijn - Law Lord to be 