Tag Archives: China

July 2, 2019 · 11:51

From Location to Innovation (loss)

It is a real estate dream, to talk about the location and therefor get a better price; we are all about getting a nice home, yet we look at places where we know it will sell for the 100%-200% of the price we paid for it, preferably within 5 years. Most of us looking for something oversized have at some point seen 924 Bel Air Road, Los Angeles, California. It is so over the top, so expensive that most billionaires might not even consider it. No matter how much of a technological, arts and lifestyle monument it is, complete with helipad. A house like that makes you a target of some sorts. There will always be envy, there will always be the next challenge and there will always be the next addition. To live in a house that has it all is for most you desire is unsettling. Weirdly enough it is within us, when we see this and we think ‘this is as good as it will ever get’, when we have that thought before we are 40 it becomes the limitation on us, it boggles our need of creativity. Now, for the most we need not worry, 99.99% of the population will never get near to 50% of that marker, but it is there, our minds creates this. So when a few articles passed my way, they started to add up and weirdly enough it is an opinion piece by John Naughton on June 16th that started it all. With ‘How Silicon Valley’s whiz-kids finally ran out of friends‘ (at https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jun/16/how-silicon-valley-whiz-kids-finally-ran-out-of-friends) it begins.

With: “Once upon a time, Silicon Valley was the jewel in the American crown, a magnet for high IQ – and predominately male – talent from all over the world. Palo Alto was the centre of what its more delusional inhabitants regarded as the Florence of Renaissance 2.0“, I was never there, but I was linked to some degree and I say early on how greed took over, how opportunity seekers would resort to Machiavelli and other means to get what they desire and they never cared how they got there, it was their ‘political game’. Then we see a truth as the quote “the commentator Alexis Madrigal identifies no fewer than 15 different groups preparing ambushes. They include angry conservatives and progressive politicians, disillusioned tech luminaries, competition lawyers, privacy advocates, European regulators, mainstream media, scholarly critics, other corporations (telecoms firms, for example, plus Oracle and other business-software companies, for example), consumer-protection organisations and, last but not least, Chinese internet companies. With enemies like these, the US tech companies are suddenly discovering that they really need some friends.” the reason is actually simple. these US tech companies were heading in a direction of maximisation through iteration, as the need for true innovation was lost (not that innovation that places like Apple claim to have), others caught on and the drive that Silicon valley once had was no longer there, it was stepwise progression whilst the marathon runners like Taiwan, Korea, Japan and China caught up. Microsoft wasted its console world through mere stupidity and a spreadsheet (and being dumb and short sighted). That is why none of them are allowed near my IP (with the optional exception of Google). As innovation becomes iteration the margins went down and it brought regulators, tax haven needs and other players like competition and IP attorneys into all of it (as fore mentioned) and suddenly the grape season was out, the harvest had diminished and what in whiskey terms is called ‘the angel’s share’ grew leaving little to the others. I believe that the writer nails it with: “And we are beginning to realise that the immense power that the valley’s uber-geeks have acquired is what Stanley Baldwin memorably nailed as “power without responsibility – the prerogative of the harlot throughout the ages”” but there a mistake is made, there are two kinds in that valley, the dreamers and the combined needs of the operators and facilitators, that second group is more important to watch mainly because it stopped the first group. the second group thought that by putting their stallion in a paddock, fenced in and limited to a smaller part it would be more effective, and having 5 fields will lead to 500% of the goal, but that was stupidity speaking. Wild horses, real stallions need to race, the strongest takes the lead and together as they burn the ground under their hooves they become more agile, stronger players and their race goes towards the dream that they had no envisioned yet. that is how the iPad came, that is how Smartphone came that is how Nano technology comes and through iteration the next tier is not merely slower, the dreamers forgot to dream, they needed to produce in larger amounts with less resources, less space and that is how they got overtaken by said Korea, Japan and China. The results are in front of us and now that India is catching up in more than one way the dream of more fortune becomes the nightmare of losing it all. So when the final wisdom comes: “And once they went public they did what corporations do: maximise shareholder value, come what may, avoid regulation and pay as little tax as possible. Just like tobacco companies and arms manufacturers“, there we have it, the larger system was ignore thought compartmentalisation and no one realised just how stupid they were. that is one of two more reasons why I do not trust my IP with 98% of the tech firms, they will not learn because the inner parts are all about profit and maximisation, and through that weakness billions in revenue are lost, because of the fake dream that iteration brings the same in twice the time but at only a part of the resources, the biggest flaw is setting a profit stage to a spreadsheet, innovation can never be gained through predictive analytics, because predictive analytics gives the continuation of a product, not the consequence of a new technology beheld by a dreamer, there will never be data to do that and that is how it was all lost.

Round two

And that is how we got to round two last Saturday as Ruha Benjamin (associate professor at Princeton University) and even as she starts with ‘We definitely can’t wait for Silicon Valley to become more diverse‘ (at https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/jun/29/ruha-benjamin-we-cant-wait-silicon-valley-become-more-diverse-prejudice-algorithms-data-new-jim-code), she gives a truth that I partially oppose (not the diversity), as it was always about the dreamers. Larry Ellison, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, and Mark Zuckerberg they were all dreamers to some degree. That world needs dreamers and facilitators that push dreams into the reality of innovation. The more diverse that world is, the more diverse the dream becomes and the greater the achievement could be. It is true innovation in its purest forms and whilst the CEO’s took the words of CFO’s and marketeers that reality was forgotten. Marketeers hope and drive hypes, they cannot dream on something that they cannot fathom, it is the most destructive vicious circle imaginable. So when I see: “She founded the Just Data Lab, which aims to bring together activists, technologists and artists to reassess how data can be used for justice. Her latest book, Race After Technology, looks at how the design of technology can be discriminatory” I see both hope and failure. the hope is that as diversity of ‘activists, technologists and artists‘ unites, we see new paths, the artist sees a path and draws it, the technologist can devise it the activist can oppose the path and scream for a meadow to walk on, that is how innovation came, quote literally, the Dutch a nation the size of New Jersey gave us: ‘Dutch Solar Bike Path SolaRoad Successful & Expanding‘ (which gave me another idea with a more metropolitan and rural opportunity approach), innovated roads by catching sunshine to power the evening lights, it is true innovation in action and an optional path to reduce the carbon footprint, whilst getting the surroundings powered. When we see first results: “with 3000 kWh generated, the solar panels were outperforming the 70 kWh annual per square meter expected threshold set in the lab. In its first year, the SolaRoad produced 9,800 kWh, roughly equivalent to the annual average consumption of three Dutch households“, we see a path towards innovation. There is no doubt that data can be used for justice, but in which direction? Yet I too adhere to idea’s, I am a different dreamer and even with a law and a technology degree (including a master) I have not dreamt in that direction, perhaps this is for another dreamer, the need to recognise it is essential, to find the right dreamer.

And this is not an attack on Ruha in any way, she gives a clear premise with “Many of these automated systems are trying to identify and predict risk. So we have to look at how risk was assessed historically – whether a bank would extend a loan to someone, or if a judge would give someone a certain sentence. The decisions of the past are the input for how we teach software to make those decisions in the future. If we live in a society where police profile black and Latino people that affects the police data on who is likely to be a criminal. So you’ll have these communities overrepresented in the data sets, which are then used to train algorithms to look for future crimes, or predict who’s seen to be higher risk and lower risk“, you see this is observation towards risk, a path we have seen clearly in the last two decades, yet the opposite is also there, but how to set its dimensionality? It becomes big data in observation towards opportunity, a path never walked because opportunity is one identified once it is walked, a system cannot predict the dream if it cannot comprehend the dream, or the dreamer. It is designing a computer that will design computers. It is the ability to design Skynet (I just had to go there), with the optional danger of our own end (see the collected works of Linda Hamilton and Arnold Schwarzenegger). It is always most likely to fail because Ruha forgot to include a philosopher to her team. The computer fails because we forgot about philosophia, the love of wisdom, and as we forgot about that we merely ended with really clever calculators and calculators are never about predicting the future, it is about limiting cost and maximising profit in any endeavour (more money, more reserves, more energy, more resources) and these margins never lead to wisdom or innovation because the dreamer was missing and dreamers do not constitute a positive influx in that engine, sales and marketing did away with that, they always will.

To illustrate this let me give you a personal side. In 1997 I send a mail to a sales executive. I had recently by accident found the Warner Brothers Angelfire partnership site. They had united and every person could freely sign up to get a Buffy Address, a Babylon 5 address, a Charmed address and so on. It was static, you got access to fan art, you got 20Mb web space and an email address. In those days (pre Gmail) it was actually really cool, but there was no way to reach out, So I suggested that we have something similar and allow the people to reach each other and we would be in the middle being able to market to all of them. The sales executive laughed in my face, stating that it would never have any business premise, it was a useless use of resources, it was not in ‘the mission statement‘. I dropped it knowing it was a lost opportunity. Now we have Facebook. My idea was nowhere near it, it was not advanced it was merely messaging and marketing, the direct impact of no vision, 4 years before Facebook shown in two colours, Black and White, I still have the email somewhere, 4 years before the launch of Social media, I tried to introduce a path towards it. I have no doubt that Facebook would have overtaken me, I did not dream that advanced, but at least I had the dream and it is also for that reason that my IP will never go into hands like the limited ones I had to work with.

A limiting amount of opposition (from to her) is seen in “Part of that has been spurred on by Facebook and Cambridge Analytica and the US election. More and more people are realising that this idea of big tech coming to save us, it’s really been dismantled. Part of it is shifting from a kind of paranoia around technology to what my activist colleagues like to say: from paranoia to power“, I believe that data is data, it is not wisdom and I also believe that data can aid in finding solutions, yet to do that you must drive a solution, you must devise a way where data is the inspirer towards innovation and software cannot directly lead towards it, you can dashboard it to see where the needs are, you can report on it where the shortages are and you can make a slice and dice app to let people get a scope of information to feed the dream, but you cannot directly feed the dreamer as you cannot predict in what direction his dream goes. You can merely hope to bring the spark that makes the dreamer dream in his or her direction and hope it leads to innovation and at that part the CEO, COO, CFO and CTO will have come crying half a dozen times to stop the squandering of resources. She does address my view correctly when she gives us: “More diversity in Silicon Valley is important, but won’t automatically address algorithmic bias. Unless all those diverse people are empowered to challenge discriminatory design processes, diversity is a ruse” and she is correct and perhaps she also answers her own question.

In all this we forgot one group, we forgot about the children, we need to be able to look at data like a child and learn to randomly look at answers to questions that we aren’t even asking, it is the initial option of a spark (not a given) that leads to the insight we get with: ‘What If?‘, the need to embrace the obvious, not ignoring it, all this in data is required to get insights leading to wisdom, the question becomes how can this be addressed and form my personal point of view is to teach people about data as early as possible, not in a light of statistics, but in a light to something I got in the early 70’s, looking at the question ‘What is the chance something happens?‘, a simple ‘kans tol‘ (Chance spinner) which would give the younger watcher an indication on chance and statistics. When we add that to the equation what happens when creativity takes over and they start looking at what they can find, or even better, what they cannot find. The younger mind is more eager to find, and equally find missing. It is that part that we are missing out of and it matters, because it is the first step in learning the question that we are not phrasing, optionally overlooking the obvious.

Part Three (Final)

Finally we get to part three with ‘Why San Francisco techies hate the city they transformed‘ (at https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/jul/01/san-francisco-big-tech-workers-industry). And we see part of the drive with “Even Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce and a San Francisco native who has long urged comity between the techies and the city, has taken to calling his hometown a “train wreck”“, we can only conclude that now that he bought Tableau it will get worse for him. Even as it is not about him, but the failing infrastructure with “one-bedroom apartment reached an all-time high of $3,700 a month“, which is more than twice the price for a real decent two bedroom apartment in Chicago, we see the impact, but not what is around all of them, yet it is not new, London has similar issues. As the people who can afford to live somewhere, we see that greed takes over turning the city into a carcass because it lacks a sustainable infrastructure. As people cannot afford to live near where they work, infrastructure becomes an increasing problem and as cities cater to large investors, they forgot that affordable living is essential; they merely pushed that issue forward and forward again and again. We see he escalation even further when we consider the quote: “San Francisco has become more of a satellite campus, with South Bay stalwarts including Apple, Facebook, Google and LinkedIn competing for office space in the city proper. They’ve joined the San Francisco-native companies Twitter, Uber, and Airbnb in the cramped confines of a city of just 49 square miles, surrounded by water on three sides” instead of diversifying and clustering over a much larger area, they all moved together, and as such thousands of employees need to live where they work and now prices are through the roof, it also impacts the bottom line, so as others decided to keep their stomping grounds in Columbus Ohio and as we see those in Madison Wisconsin, we see that the bottom line changes, yet they too push for space in San Francisco, so what was once the United States of America is not the Marketing needs of California. the sad part is that these people are all separated and isolated form one another through intellectual property, and as I am happy to make fun of Zendesk and their need to “file oppositions at the United States Patent and Trademark Office to 49 trademarks including the word “zen”“, all whilst we know that “Zen is a school of Mahayana Buddhism” that is reported and registered as something that is 1200 years old, so to see that there are at present well over 724 active trademarks which include the word “Zen” we see the replacement from inner peace to turf wars and it links to all of it, these people all think and associate alike, and as we have seen, it leads to iteration not innovation. And there we see the hoax in the serious setting. As we are introduced to: ““I feel like San Francisco is between Seattle and New York, but rather than the best of both, it’s the worst of both,” said Beth, a 24-year-old product manager who asked not to be identified by her real name. Beth moved to the city directly after graduating from Stanford to work at a major tech company, but recently transferred to Seattle. “Everyone I met was only interested in their jobs, and their jobs weren’t very interesting,” she said of her time in San Francisco. “I get it, you’re a developer for Uber, I’ve met a million of you.”” When you cluster together you create new bias and new limitations that merely stop you from dreaming. When you are in San Francisco, North of SF International Airport, you are now mostly all the same, think the same, work the same and you are all separated on three sides by water, and a failed infrastructure, you have no way to go. There we see the benefit that the two other locations have, space created opportunity and the chance to dream, a path to innovation, and I fear that things will turn from bad to worse for San Francisco. As greed pushed out the infrastructure, it removed diversity, it is not merely the diversity that pushes us to lows, the fact that some ideas came from watching someone do something else, the ability to see their interaction with the environment that allowed for new thoughts and that cubicles took that away, even if it is not called open space, it merely made the entire open space a cubicle. So whilst these people ‘enjoy’ their 55Km bus ride to Mountain view, we see that the same distance gets us to Santa Cruz and Monterey Bay, all with opportunity and other considerations and it is the ‘other considerations’ that are the treasure trove in this, because it changes the mindset of people, considerations lead to opportunity, opportunity is the foundation of innovation, it always has been, whether the innovation is accepted or rejected does not matter, it is the one that does go through that becomes the innovation that fills a corporate coffer, iteration merely lets it go on a little longer. Diversity shows that as others embrace an idea it can truly be improved on and create a new innovation, not a new iteration, but that only happens when the accepting diversity is large enough, and that is when we get the one quote that shows the disaster. With: ““It was really hard to stomach the indifference that I witnessed from folks who’d been living in San Francisco for a while, simply stepping over the slumped bodies of people who lived outside or just cold ignoring people asking for money,” said Jessica Jin, who moved to San Francisco from Austin, Texas, to work for a tech startup, of her first impressions of the city. “I wondered how long it would take me to also become numb to it all.”” we need to see that this is the largest danger. It is not that Jessica Jin moved to SF, it is ‘how long it would take me to also become numb to it all‘, that will be the moment that her dreaming to innovation ends, when we become numb, we merely create a shell to ignore what is around us and that is the first thing to thump innovation into silence, as I see it that has always been the first hurdle to lose innovation and soon thereafter they lose the ability towards iteration as well.

It is the larger issue to a much larger problem that we never properly defined, how did we lose the ability to properly dream a path to innovation, it is what drowns the creative mind and soon thereafter we get exactly what the CEO’s and CFO’s wanted, result driven worker bees, but that is what killed their company, the dream is lost and so is creation of innovation attached to it.

It is about location, location, location, but not in the way you thought it was. It was about the space to truly dream, too bad these hundreds of board members all forgot that one simple lesson, all whilst it was in front of them all along, most of them got into the board of directors using that path in the first place, how quaint!

 

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June 27, 2019 · 12:35

Lap Time

Yes, we heard the term; we see it in athletics, in Formula 1 (and all the other formula races, except baby formula). How did we go after one lap, will lap two be on par, better or are we sliding. The 5G global race is on and even as the US and others are in denial, some facts are open for viewing, so as I got to the page (at https://www.eureporter.co/frontpage/2019/06/26/huawei-dominates-global-race-to-5g-despite-pressure-from-washington/) I was not surprised. The headline ‘Huawei dominates global race to 5G despite pressure from Washington‘ is not really a surprise. Yet one element is a nice verification. when we see: “Currently, two-thirds of global existing 5G networks are powered by Huawei technologies” and that is after a year of BS and fear mongering by the US, if they had not done that the picture would be different, it would be considerably worse for all non-Huawei contenders. So even as Ericsson is building a plant in the US so that they can become the courtesan of choice, reality is a very different stage.

The issue (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2018/11/10/the-heart-processes/) in ‘The Heart Processes‘ where we see: “This now links it back to Huawei (5G barred), the iterative actions of technology whilst we are being surpassed on every technological side. The full article (at https://www.crn.com.au/news/telstra-fault-takes-down-eftpos-and-atms-515080) gives a few more question, yet I will get to them in another article when I give you all a few more technological jabs against certain Telco players as they presented their ego and not their actual capability“, there are references that go back to 2017 where we saw that the non-Huawei players were already behind. There is Forbes Last April with ‘Huawei’s 5G Dominance In The Post-American World‘, or ‘Huawei’s new Wi-Fi routers solve a serious first world problem‘ in January 2018, Huawei have been showing to be the stronger innovator for well over three years and has been leading the 5G market, now that they even under discriminatory environments are achieving a 66% market in current 5G shows just how warped the situation is, so as I stated it before and do so again, ‘America will soon no longer matter’ and that is the true nightmare that the US is facing, when the silver bullet to survive a $22 trillion debt is meely a dud in your own armoury, you end up with a massive problem.

So as we see the Lap Time, with 5G going commercial in the Middle East, and now optionally Germany as well, we will see the blind followers of Europe, who follow the misguided voice of America, we will see them melt like snowflakes in the summer sun (or the current European heatwave), the economy is their Achilles heel and they will all fold.

And the battle will alter its course even further; the advantage that the Middle East is now showing over America is getting teeth and talons. A month ago we saw that Softbank selected Nokia over Huawei, and that is fine, weren’t it for the fact that we also got ‘Nokia Winning 5G Contracts Despite Delivery Delays, CEO Says‘ two weeks ago. Bloomberg gave us that one, so when Nokia gets pushed to cater to American needs, will they lose their Softbank deal and a cornerstone to the Middle East? It is not a given, but it is a valid question. So even as there is truth in the quote: “A few weeks of delays “is not really much” in the context of a 15-20 year cycle, Suri said. In the first quarter, the Finnish company struggled to book revenue from the contracts it had signed“, we accept that these things happen, yet weeks tends to become one month, then a second month and in a race where being there fast matters, Nokia cannot afford to remain delayed, they had to be ahead of the curve and they are not, they are merely on par at best, this now implies that 42 global contracts will be under scrutiny and not delivering on time will constitute pressures that Nokia will be unable to fully deal with and Chief Executive Officer Rajeev Suri knows this.

Even as we see that Nokia is still on the financial fence regarding booking profits (they will do so, no doubt) Huawei was able to secure a lucrative deal with Russian telecoms company MTS. It might be all under the guise of ‘the enemy of my enemy‘, but in the end ‘gold is gold’ and it is in the end about the acquired currency. So as they get Russia and as the EU buckles towards Huawei, we see a market that is a lot stronger for Huawei and every win in the Middle East will tip the European seesaw in favour of Huawei.

For the most after we check the lap time, there is a clear benefit for Huawei, yet Ericsson and Nokia remain strong competitors, Ericsson made the optional flaw of moving part of their base towards America, it sounds good, but their infrastructure will be undermined in several places more and more, so either Ericsson will push American employment to a much higher degree (Customer Service centres, Customer royalty programs and product infrastructure), or they face a massive blow-back more likely than not before EOFY 2020, a setback that will cost them a whole lot more than they bargained for. There is no given on Nokia at present, they had a strong firm presence in Europe and they can do so again, whilst these rules apply to Huawei as well, when you consider the places they were, they have built strong teams all over the place and with the winning strategies in the Middle East they have grown their ambassador places all over the Middle East, something Nokia and Ericsson did not do to such degrees.

So it is not only the 2/3rd advantage that Huawei has, it shows that their infrastructure is still a lot stronger and in the second hour (59:59 after a mobile phone is sold) the systems of Nokia and Ericsson will be tested and I personally believe that they are not ready, more importantly, the people will not be ready for waves of questions that will hit these centres and that will hammer the successes that Nokia and Ericsson have at present.

As lap time goes, it is a strong race from all three, yet a race is only as strong as the team, the car and the track. Yet in a normal race the track is set, in this race we have seen that America has been considering detour after detour and as such some teams will not be ready for what happens after that and in that race Huawei gets the much stronger advantage as America is not considering them, so that pressure falls only on Ericsson and Nokia. And that is where the issues start to count. When players like Softbank get pushed to the back, they will reconsider and anyone changing its order has the danger of taking more than one other player with them, that is the stronger danger that the other two face as they try to gulp down whatever US contract they can get.

There is supporting evidence for that. In Australia NBN showed the need (source: SMH) “NBN Co spokeswoman said the network was committed to “continuously improving the service provided as internet demand and data needs evolve” including a recent $800 million investment into customer service on the fixed wireless network“, the problem is that to a much larger degree Australian NBN is (diplomatically speaking) a $51 billion failure, the only way to save face is to overhaul it to a much larger degree and in light of ‘9.6 million homes and businesses were now connected to the network with 62 per cent of those customers choosing speed plans of 50Mbps or more‘, all whilst this could grow by another 30% if Microsoft and Google had their way, giving us levels of unparalleled congestion soon enough after that.

The moment that ANY vendor needs to acknowledge 5G and congestion in the first year will be the point that turns the customer base into a churn tidal wave and that will happen if the infrastructure is not in place. The US and some others are massively in denial there, it might be argues that this risk is also present in the Middle East and I would expect this to be the case, yet Huawei has had time to prepare and the others are merely jumping on the revenue wagon as the US pushed for a ‘no Huawei zone’ preferably one that is global.

That is the impeding risk, not that Huawei is out of the race, but that the others get stretched too thin. I have seen this happen again and again over the last 20 years and then we get some delusional VP giving their staff an elastic band reference on stretching resources a little more. They ultimately never learned that time is not a factor that can stretch like an elastic band, it is a rigorously set standard that does not budge and against that merely better and larger man power will solve it and Nokia just got rid of a boatload of them, all to cater to 5G, so when they need staff and training them, they will be under the gun 24:7, I do not believe that they are ready at that point and the increased presence in America implies that Ericsson is nowhere near ready, they need well over 500 additional support staff for what comes and they have nowhere near those numbers.

That is all available to the eager eyes and they have not altered that path yet. In their defence, it will not be needed before August 2019, yet there is already enough indication that their growth plan is not set in that direction. As I developed my own IP, I noticed that the Cybersecurity needs for 5G are still in the basement whilst it had to be through the roof almost 3 months ago, so the first cyber security issue will be a devastating one for each of these players. That is merely on a consumer level, on a commercial level the setting is even worse, it is a Nightmare on 5G street waiting to happen and in this there will be no miracle dream weaver, merely some Freddy Kruger that will show now regard for the lives of those victims, as the rewards were just too appealing. An almost perfect cyber storm in the shaping, a stage no likely seen before January 2020, yet even then there will already be victims and loads of insurances that are more likely than not eager to find a loophole not to pay any of them.

As I see it, it is a lap time that is good for all three, yet the setting of lap time is no longer a valid one. When the track definition becomes a flexible one, detours change the stats of everything, changed requirement in mid race will also hamper issues and none are ready, Huawei merely had more time to get ready giving them an additional advantage in this race.

 

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June 24, 2019 · 11:37

Falling off the wagon

It all started with a success story, it then ‘evolved’ into the age of complacency as it was lying in a lazy floating chair in a swimming pool. America was lazy, complacent and greed driven.

Huawei overtook Ericsson in 2012 as the largest telecommunications-equipment manufacturer in the world, then casually overtook Apple in 2018 as the second-largest manufacturer of smartphones in the world, still behind Samsung Electronics, and rose to the 72nd rank on the Fortune Global 500 list. In December 2018, Huawei reported that its annual revenue had risen to US$108.5 billion in 2018 (a 21% increase over 2017).It is at this point that America was a mere 3rd position, Huawei is presently servicing 47 of the 50 largest telecom operators on the planet, for the first time in history America no longer really matters as a technology provider. Sources like the Economist, the Guardian, Fortune and TechRadar all give the same news. It is at this point that the USPTO has to give the goods (read: the bad message) that Asia has surpassed America with registered patents by a lot, and the US has to deal with more and more bad news as they get strangled by a debt that surpasses $22,000,000,000,000. 22 trillion and no end in sight to turn it around, now that 5G is off to the races more bad news is given as the American and Nokia 5G solutions are decently inferior to the ones that China (Huawei has). The American overreaction is astounding and it comes with additional levels of humour. When we see an article by cyber security expert Zak Doffman in Forbes ‘Huawei ‘Slams FedEx Vendetta’ After Courier Refuses To Deliver P30 Phone To U.S.‘ (at https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoffman/2019/06/23/huawei-slams-fedex-vendetta-after-courier-refuses-to-deliver-p30-phone-to-u-s) where we see: “Parcel returned by FedEx due to U.S. Government with Huawei and China Government—return to sender“, the humour is here as we also saw a month ago: ‘Drug traffickers’ favourite way to move fentanyl is FedEx and USPS‘, so Fedex can stop a Chinese mobile phones, yet is incapable of stopping drug traffickers. It has become that bad and for the life of me, the idea that that stupidity has grown to this degree at the moment has made me realise that pretty much my only option left is to offer my IP at 10% value to China as America clearly can no longer be trusted to stop the stupidity in its own ranks.

And it gets to be worse. Now we see: ‘The U.S. blacklists five Chinese supercomputer firms, including AMD joint venture THATIC‘ (at https://www.pcworld.com/article/3404464/the-us-blacklists-five-chinese-supercomputer-firms-including-amd-joint-venture-thatic.html). So as we are now introduced to ‘U.S. firms will be forbidden to do business with the companies‘ we are shown more than stupidity. I have been an avid fan of the segregation, isolation, and assassination triangle in tactics, but this is pretty much the first time in history that a nation is doing it to itself, implying that American bankruptcy is so close to the collapse that they need whatever they can to delay the collapse of their economy. I can never trust any government in that position to be honest about any trade it holds. Handing my IP over to China is perhaps the only option to get any decent amount of funds out of them, and I have to pay the rent at some point.

Do I care about these Chinese companies? Not really! Apart from my trusty Huawei mobile, I do not know any of them and there is no real reason to know or care about them, but the actions of America to the degree that they are doing it, like they are the biggest whoring bully on the block also implies that they can do it to anyone else and as I see it, there are plenty of UK (BT), Swedish (Ericsson), Finnish (Nokia) and other firms they can do this to when things do not go their way. They will come up with some kind of National security scheme like Finland is next to Russia or something like that. It is nice to advocate open and fair trade when you are the only one dealing (IBM, Microsoft) but that is no longer the case and Microsoft has become too self-indulgent as they screw up market after market just to push their Azure solution. America can no longer be trusted, that is the short and sweet of it, they know it and Americans know it too, but they are too desperate and there is no stopping a desperate bully who is about to no longer matter.

And the world is not ready for a bully like that. Japan is too deep into its own problems, Europe is desperate to avoid whatever recession comes next and the others have no independent voice. In all this India is as isolated as it gets and that takes 12.5% of the global population out of the equation. As the risk of a 2020 recession in Europe is nearing an almost certainty there is panic, there is panic on Wall Street because the 2020 recession will hit the US squarely in the chest during the elections, ending whatever small edge the Republicans have and it changes everything for them. The 2020 recession will be worse than ever because the ECB squandered their reserves on incentives and stimulus as there are no reserves left. The ECB, IMF and Wall Street all knew that this could come and the 5G hype was all about avoiding it so that the new economy could restart what was lost, but their lag against Chinese Technology vendors (read: mainly Huawei) is so large that it will help the Chinese economy, but the others will only get a fraction of the IP they do not own and that fallback (or non optional fallover) is a lot larger than some are willing to admit to.

Now the short sighted American bias against Huawei and China is hitting new heights as they try to isolate China, yet in the end they are isolating themselves as Europe is seeking another option, they are seeing the value of Chinese IP and they want alternatives, especially if it could delay or even turnover their own impending recession, in that scenario America will lose more and more because their own technology is flawed, untested and lacks innovation. It will hit Europe, whilst benefitting the Middle East as Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar have signed up with China, America lost more than just weapon deals there.

What Cisco achieved with UTS in Sydney a decade ago is now happening in Qatar, Qatar University College of Engineering now has a similar deal with Huawei, implying that Qatar might be the first place where Huawei trained 5G engineers and innovators are born pushing 5G innovation. For Qatar this is more than good news, there is a first stage where Al Jazeera could become technologically more advanced than CNN, another blow to American pride and Al Jazeera is eager to really get there. They have miles to go, yet with 5G fully deployed they can do it in less than half the time we expect. All elements that push America back further and further. When I stated that this was a stupid move by America in 2018, I actually had no idea that they would lose to this degree, but at present they are and their decisions are making things worse not better.

As we see the first Huawei Authorised Information and Network Academy (HAINA) programme launched in Qatar, we also recognise that this will enable Saudi Arabia and the UAE more and more, so there might be a diplomatic stance ending the unfriendly border issues between the three and they will profit stronger and stronger.

There is absolute truth in the statement: “Undersecretary of the Ministry of Education and Higher Education Dr Ibrahim Al Nuaimi, said developing the technology capabilities of Qatar’s youth will have a significant impact on the smart evolution of society and country, contributing to the growth of Qatari economy.  “Initiatives such as this one between Qatar University and Huawei demonstrate the power that cooperative action can have in shaping the future of a nation,” he remarked“, it still requires the foundation and the nurturing of how to grow innovation, yet I have seen again and again that the hungry will find alternatives to make food and Qatar is clearly famished at present.

And there is one more nightmare to face. You see if China gets any IP hands on anything that could replace x86 technologies, the US is truly done for. At present they will laugh, scream and make all the claims that an ego driven nation could make, but then there is the history. We have 1975 when Federico Faggin and 11 employees created the Z80, there was a small team led by Chuck Peddle who came up with the 6502, it hit Intel and Motorola hard, a chip at less than 15% of the cost of an Intel or a Motorola processor. It would fuel an industry that would sell well over 15 million computers in an age where computers were not popular. We recognise that America was the driver in all this, it drove RISC to be the factor for the creation of Summit, still the fastest Supercomputer in the world, yet now that China surpasses America in patents, they have the core to create a new age of computer technology. We see that from 2017 onwards the Huawei Mobile Phone is the personal server to have; the fact that it is a mobile is beside the point. My IP was a security pass on personal mobile servers and that is the foundation of the next decade. It is not the personal computer or desktop, there is still the laptop and Chromebooks (and likeminded devices) have the option to be the next power drivers, but Huawei has the hand with 4 aces, they have the foundation of mobile personal servers and it scares America. My idea for what would have been (optionally) the Google Tome was founded on that idea as I created a solution to stop the NHS collapsing. Now that most elements are with Huawei and Chinese operators, America actually matters less. Even as Microsoft is still screaming Azure (whenever they can), we see that there are other options that could do similar and could surpass Microsoft within 4 years, that realisation is scaring America to death. They have no options when that happens. Complacency got them there and the next generation of these so called ‘captains of industry‘ are holding a hand with a two and a seven and they are playing Texas hold’em. A proverbial Snake eyes for the craps dealer in the house, which is the setting and the stage they can no longer escape. It is where they are at and their overreaction merely shows their levels of desperation.

In 2021 we will see that not only will they have lost 5G to a crippling degree, the other players will fare even worse. If China gets a decent deal with Japan, America will have segregated itself, they isolated themselves as Europe and the Commonwealth will seek whatever keeps them afloat and at that point with the debt closer to $25 trillion, they will end up cutting their own wrists with all the uber wealthy Americans seeking sunny shores in their mega yachts. Suddenly places like the Riviera, Dubai, the Virgin Islands and Italy will be swamped with Americans who will be quiet as mice as they wait for America to reinvent itself in the span of 2-3 decades, and America needs to get lucky to do it that fast. As the world is set to the currency of IP and patents, it might take a whole lot longer than that.

When I decided to get my Master in IP in 2010 I knew that there was a change in the winds, it was the clearest in IT, but I saw how it would impact to a much larger degree, I saw the shift to mobile patents in 2012, and now I see the other shifts too. I feel certain of my view, I cannot tell how politicians will react because that too impacts the changing tides, but overall they seem to align to the need of greed too often as such, my predictions are more likely than not coming true. It’s a sad world, if only American firm had not been so lazy relying on iterative technology for a decade, things would be very different indeed.

To complete the change China really only needs three more innovative steps in 5G communication to make it certainty and turn these steps into nail to service the coffin that is America, with the Middle East in play, there is every chance that they will pull it off, the rest of us (the non-Americans) will need to decide on how that future serves us best, because that too is a choice we face, and we have to make it ourselves.

And if you were in doubt until now, the Wall Street Journal reported only hours ago: “U.S. President Donald Trump is looking to require next-generation 5G cellular equipment used in the United States to be designed and manufactured outside China, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday, citing people familiar with the matter.” So consider this quote really clearly: the entire China matter has been going on for weeks, yet yesterday we see that equipment is to be ‘designed and manufactured outside China’, a discriminatory tactic that shows that there was no clear tactic in play, and clearly the Americans are not up to scrap at present. What else was not anticipated on?

Someone fell of the wagon and others were unable to see the dangers clearly, The US still does not recognise that it has a real problem; the first stage of solving the problem is at present not met. Do you really need more convincing?

 

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June 22, 2019 · 11:35

There is a start

Yes, there is a start, yet it would be presumptuous that the race has started. The news (from CNBC) gives us: ‘Verizon’s new 5G network is ‘confusing’ and ‘difficult,’ according to early tests‘, in addition we are given: “Early tests by tech publications CNET and The Verge of Verizon’s new 5G network in Chicago suggest it’s not fully ready yet“, as well as “The network is brand new and rollouts take time. It took a few years for 4G LTE to become widely available, for example“, I have been warning people on this for months, going back to 2018, now we get to see how USA is no longer in the race for anything. The entire ‘National Security’ issue on Huawei was bogus from the start and now that the goose has come home to roost, we will see a political stage to roast the goose before it has roosted.

American 5G speed

It gets to be worse when we consider: ““Even carefully positioned a few feet away from the 5G node, the large on-screen icon exclaiming Verizon’s 5G network toggled back and forth from 4G to 5G,” CNET said. “After two hours, we had run maybe one clean Speedtest.net app side by side with the Galaxy S10 Plus.” Samsung’s phone is a 4G LTE device” and finally: “CNET found download speeds for a game took about the same on 5G and LTE networks, and downloading a movie on Netflix didn’t work. The site said the network felt like a “rush job” and called the experience “frustrating,” “confusing” and “absolutely insane,” even though it noticed download speeds coming in toward 600 megabits per second at times, on par with what Verizon is promising.” It is a system with proper infrastructure in place, and it gets to be worse, most infrastructures that are NOT Huawei are massively inferior (at present), so the long term issues remain and they will get worse. This level of setback, once congestion sets in because of a lacking infrastructure will drive potential customers away, the very first rules of commerce were ignored from the start by sales people with dollar signs instead of pupils and now that they entire matter is polarising, we will see more issues, and we will witness more frustration.

In opposition

The Saudi Gazette gives us (at http://saudigazette.com.sa/article/569469) ‘STC officially launches 5G service‘, as well as “In the first phase, the 5G network will now be available in the Kingdom in specific areas in a number of major cities using home routers that will be available at specific STC outlets in accordance with customer needs. Al-Nasser said the launch is an affirmation of Saudi Telecom’s pioneering role in delivering innovative technologies and services to customers across the Kingdom.” Yet let’s not get overly optimistic. There is also “By the end of February 2018, the telecom operator inked a deal with Huawei to collaborate in the field of 5G wireless networks and technology. In the beginning of March 2018, STC signed a memorandum of understanding with Cisco Systems to develop the 5G networks across the Kingdom. STC has subsequently completed the first global Multi-Vendor-Integration-Verification (MVIV) for its Huawei and Cisco core infrastructure with Ericsson and Nokia supplied 5G Radio Networks“, and that is just the beginning, yet how does it work? What has been achieved (speed, reliability)?

To see this we start in April when Arab News gave us: ‘Super-fast 5G mobile to launch in Saudi Arabia within months‘, as well as “Saudi Arabia has about 1,000 telecoms towers already supporting 5G and the super-fast mobile services will be available within months, a senior government official said. The next-generation networks will allow smartphone users to download a movie in seconds“, so far it is marketing, we all heard it before in several nations, it is the realisation we see with: “The STC launched the service after completion of its experiments for the first time in MENA region since launching the test drive in 2017 and this was in cooperation with the telecom giant’s strategic partners” and Huawei was at the centre of that. It is the two year head start that everyone ignores, even as we have no real numbers to work with, Saudi Arabia, like all other nations are stating they have 5G and it is commercially available, there are no tests showing just how fast and how reliable their network is, but they do have a two year head start and if what we see with Verizon will last at least two years, their start of 5G is not a great one. The sales need for getting their first, whilst ignoring the support and customer care issues is just baffling. STC reported: “the STC 5G services are available in Riyadh, Jeddah, Dammam (Eastern Province), Makkah, Taif, Madinah, Abha, Jubail, and Tabuk” Which is close to a complete urban 5G coverage, the US and many other nations are nowhere near that ready.

I keep a reserved distance in light of “STC did not share specific details but said that the service has been made available to customers“, so until benchmarks and speed tests have been shown, there is every chance that it possible that we see 4G+ instead of true full 5G, but until the facts are known, it is all speculation, what is a given is that the two year head start of Huawei is showing and in that regard, the short sighted American point of view regarding the unproven National Security allegations will remain allegations that slows US innovation down, and it will cost them, because the 5G pioneers that are not in the US are about to have a field day. My own IP is about to go through the roof (which is fine by me), the only consideration I am left with, is that I would have to consider an upgrade from a 55 meter yacht to an 85 meter yacht, the cumbersome burdens of an innovator with the ability to dream never ends. And there too I found new wisdom, a market that Huawei forgot about (or never considered in the first place), what a lovely Saturday it is and it is only 7 degrees at present.

Even when we consider the complications that the US is pressuring on other nations, when we consider another light towards “The complications referred to probably mean the ramping of political and intelligence pressure from the US and it wouldn’t be surprising to see the UK eventually do what it’s told with respect to Huawei“, as the UK becomes Americas bitch, if Huawei gets Oak OS right, the UK, Europe will have new problems to consider, in addition, if Google is placed out of bounds, those not strapped to Google will optionally lose a lot more than they bargained for. Let’s be clear, we do not need Facebook, most of us need LinkedIn and Indeed, yet we can access Gmail from our computers, we don’t need a smartphone for that. So at that point, when we consider the open shift that would optionally come in a different way. Google is brave to miscommunicate part of the issue they face. As several sources give us: ‘Google: Cutting Us off from Huawei Is a Security Risk‘, no it is not (not really)! You see, it is not a security risk, what is the clear danger to Google that their value is data and this situation allows Google to miss out on millions, if not hundreds of millions of phones, all lost data, data that goes nowhere (or somewhere else). The Trump administration did something really stupid here and we will see that impact within a year. Millions are questioning Google and their data, Facebook and their data and now Huawei offers an option that have neither. People might actually embrace Huawei and that danger scares Google. Its granularity is based on the data they collect and now, they will lose up to 35-95 million data points within 2 years alone and a lot more thereafter, a loss they never faced before. And as China diversifies ad as its non-Chinese customers get used to Baidu and Sogou, how much relevance would Google (and Bing) lose over time?

All elements that have an impact, all elements that Google will not voice and others are intentionally walking away from; these are questions that cost advertisement, a nightmare they all face now.

All issues that will impact in the 5G era, the fact that my IP gives power back to the shop owner and not their IT providers will make matters worse (and I do not care). The power needs to go where it needed to be, with the customer, the consumer and the factual user, all elements Google never wanted to touch, You cannot facilitate when the data is not there. It is the old premise of a system missing and a user missing and most people still do not comprehend the full impact of system missing information.

They will find out within the next 2 years, I look forward to the transformation and the long term impact that short sighted policies bring. So when you see the new Huawei phones, do not just wonder if you should get one, wonder how much better your life optionally becomes by having one. It is a loaded question, I get that and it pays to be a sheep in a really large group, but when you consider the hundreds of notifications that were useless, the massive amounts of Facebook notifications that kept you from work and promotion, consider that 5G amplifies that part by 300%, do you really want to remain a sheep , or jump the fence and see what Oak OS could bring? I am on the fence too, I have to choose, yet at present I see America pressuring everyone to become Huawei haters and there is no logic to their path, other than that I hate being a follower, I prefer to wander on the innovation line and that has risks, but it also has lucrative rewards, often resulting in a much better quality of life.

Sometimes choices are hard, and whichever path you choose, remember that it was YOUR choice, not the one others told you to go, you only get to blame yourself (or not) at this point. And I assure you when you blame yourself for making the good choice is also rewarding no matter which of the two (three if you consider IOS a choice) you make, make sure it is yours, not the needy direction of some marketeer or salesperson.

 

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June 21, 2019 · 11:49

The seventh guest

Yes, it is a game, but this is not about gaming, it is the game we detest, but it is being played and we sit in the middle, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia sits in the middle and the Trump administration is uniting behind “the shooting down of a US drone could have been carried out by a “loose and stupid” Iranian officer without authorisation from Tehran“. So good morning it is Friday, no throw back Thursday for us, just the start of meaningless banter from the political isles.

To get to the 7th guest, you have to understand the content. It was a brilliant puzzle game released by Virgin in the 90’s. The story was over the top but cool, it was a journey to stay alive until the next morning. The house was filled with puzzles that needed to be solved to continue. It was a little more like an interactive movie (in those days). The first puzzle was to carve a cake in equal pieces, there were 6 guests to each person and the cake was 6 by 5 squares. Simple you think, but the clue was ‘2 skulls and 2 stones, the rest is just icing‘, and now cutting the cake was not as easy as initially seemed.

Now we get to the icing of Yesterday (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2019/06/20/the-ice-and-the-icing/) where I quoted in response: “It is seen when the most stupid of all actions is given with: “If Iran did breach the uranium limits, the deal, known as the joint comprehensive plan of action, gives both sides time to go into a disputes mechanism before it is declared void“, is it really that bad, after the ‘breach’ Europe still wants to talk?” It seems that boar mongering President Trump is now trying diplomacy, to not let things escalate too much. The biggest bully on the block is eager to not get into a fight, when did logic ever prevail?

So when we see: “We didn’t have a man or woman in the drone. It would have made a big, big difference,” Trump said. Asked how the US would respond, he said: “You’ll find out.”“, as well as ““I find it hard to believe it was intentional if you want to know the truth. I think it could have been somebody who was loose and stupid that did it”

This is how Iran has ‘sanctified’ the weapon deployments to Hezbollah, is Mr. Bad Hair Cut really going to play the card that enables Iran? Apparently these $120,000,000 drones are well insured, or is he taking the loss out of his own pay check?

I can only wonder how the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia feels after the disappointing support that both the United Kingdom and United States are giving them at present. So as we see that the allies of Saudi Arabia are backing down when the drums of war are sounding with the increased cadence of (what they call) vigor by Iran, Saudi Arabia needs to reconsider who their real allies are. I am certain that Russia and China will use this opportunity that opened up, I just do not know how at present. In addition now that we know that President Trump is not about sticking to his guns, I wonder how long his own party will suffer the blunders he makes day after day, it will optionally be the first impeachment that gets full support from BOTH the Democrats and his own Republicans.

How to continue?

That is the larger question and I feel certain that this is on the mind of the ruler in Riyadh as well. Saudi Arabia must do what is best for Saudi Arabia, Israel needs to do what is best for Israel and so does Europe and the US, yet in this there is no real skin in the game for Europe and the US. Iran will strike at Israel and Saudi Arabia when it can and keeps the other two at bay with fear and both are now facilitating towards Iran through the fear of removing all diplomatic options.

CNBC gives us that a mere 5 hours ago with: ‘EU top diplomat says Europe will try to make sure ‘escalation is avoided’ between US, Iran‘, there is a time and place when avoiding escalation is the best of all options, I personally feel that it is way too late for that, again, the proxy war utilising the terrorist organisation Hezbollah is evidence of that. And the escalations are still going on, the strike a mere 12 hours ago as we are told (by Al Jazeera) that ‘Attack by rebel group on facility in southern province of Jizan the latest in string of attacks on Saudi targets‘ gives rise that Iran is actually still playing both an offensive game optionally with their offensive group Hezbollah and a defensive play where officers get a bonus and a promotion if they hit an American drone. Yet when we see: “The Houthis have stepped up missile and drone attacks in Saudi Arabia in recent weeks amid rising tensions throughout the Middle East fuelled by a bitter standoff between Iran and the United States” no one is asking how these drones are paid for, because Yemen is out of money and has no technological stage to make them. I wonder how to see the statement: “US, Iran and Saudi Arabia have all said they do not want a war to break out in the region“, in my view Iran is telling any story that the others are willing to swallow, America is broke and Saudi Arabia has no real allies to rely on, the weapon case in the UK and the US president doing a 180 degree direction on previous statements, It puts Saudi Arabia in a poor place, that is unless Germany and China get out of the dug-out and properly give support to Saudi Arabia.

I don’t get it, what purpose is served to cater to the needs of a child called Iran to this degree? I stare at the maps and I look at the places being hit, and to be honest, for the life of me, I do not understand how Saudi Arabia is able to keep calm at present, the moment highway 30 is hit in multiple places, the direct threat to Riyadh will be visible and all options will be taken off the table and I fear that this is sooner than we think, giving Iran more time to use the misdirection to finalise their Uranium requirements. At that point WW3 is almost the only step left to us, there is no way that Saudi Arabia and Israel will accept such a threat.

Yet there is an upside, with 5-9 million dead Iranians, the carbon footprint goes down a little, a small victory for the environment, you see, give me a lemon, some water and I will sell you a melon juice smoothie.

If that is what is required to play the game, I am in!

I will end this part with a personal message to Chinese President Xi Jinping (and to Chen Wenqing: ‘No, I am not trying to corrupt him with western ideology‘).

Dear Sir,

I would like to discuss the purchase of 20-30 Chengdu J-20 fighters. In light of both a first order discount, as well as a student discount (we are all students on the path of life), I believe that should the talks be successful, that 20-30 planes at a unit cost of $27.35 million (with rebates, discounts and commission applied), in addition the 2 years of full service with no regards to hours flown, mileage traveled or missiles fired. This is based on 2016 flyaway cost. The benefit is that these fighters will be directly engaging Iranian forces and as such you will have access to a massive amount of data enabling you to start on the 6th generation fighter, optionally making you the first country to have one. We would also be interested in the testing of the Xian H-20 prototype that is now nearing completion. If the specs are as they are claiming to be, it will help us in removing morale from Tehran and from the IRGC as a whole. In this the unofficial word is that the sky is the limit as regarding to the price of this place (my 2.17% commission still applies). My client is ready to upgrade several army based parts (both light and heavy guns), however I hope that this part can be tabled until Iran decides to attack directly, at which point Saudi Arabian boots on Iranian ground becomes a direct first.

Kindest regards,

Lawrence van Rijn

I look forward to a mutually fruitful support towards presenting the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia a proper defense option that will result towards strength and stability in the Middle East region, under the guiding lights of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

That was not hard was it?

So in one strike the BAE loses 2 years of commerce, but the British anti-weapon league is happy, the UK loses well over $4 billion in business opportunity in the long term but you can get the green party to sell grass to a place called whatevernation, can’t you? The US loses its arms options overnight and enables China to economically grow 9%-12%, and as other options fall away for Europe and the US to a much larger degree, Russia will be ever ready to pick up a few scraps in the process.

It was a really simple equation and by choosing the facilitating side of a route that goes nowhere, other options came out to play. Let’s be honest, in light of what has happened, does the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia have any cause to trust the US or Europe in any of this at present?

In the end the 7th guest was about another person in the house (hint) that only showed 6, it makes the game decently apt to the situation the Middle East faces at present. The question is that when that puzzle is solved, will some of the political voices in Iran, Europe, America, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and Yemen stay in denial?

 

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June 6, 2019 · 11:59

The Persian Gulf match

We are on the edge of what we know, mostly of what we are infromed about and it seems that it is n the interest of the US to focus on Saudi Arabia. Al Jazeera starts with ‘US senators seek to block Trump arms sales to Saudi Arabia‘ (at https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/06/senators-seek-block-trump-arms-sales-saudi-arabia-190605154958283.html). The sub line gives us “Senators to try to pass 22 resolutions that’d halt Trump’s plan to bypass Congress to complete arms sales to Saudi, UAE“, it seems that with the effort of getting 22 resolutions passed, there is cause for concern, not merely for the one side where the US is seemingly a lesser ally than they are claiming to be. The problem is that there is actual sense in play. when we see the quote by Senator Todd Young giving us: “Congress has an essential oversight role in the decision to sell weapons and we must ensure proper procedures are in place in any weapons transfer“, I would counter that with the notion that proper procedures should have been in place for decades, in addition, the fact that Saudi Arabia has never been the enemy of the United states (as far as I know), makes it weirder. It is at that point where Senator Todd Young goes from simplistic to stupid bordering on moronic. With: “In light of the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Yemen, we have an obligation to ensure the adequate guardrails are in place and that weapons transfers to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates do not exacerbate the conflict“, so how about taking Hezbollah and Iran out of the equation? Had the Senator for Pennsylvania considered that part? The issues around Senator Young do not improve when his lack into Yemen is shown. With: “Selling more bombs to the Saudis simply means that the famine and cholera outbreak in Yemen will get worse, Iran will get stronger, and al-Qaeda and ISIS will continue to flourish amidst the chaos of the civil war” he shows just how little he is aware, the fact that there is no mention of Hezbollah is one part, the additional stage given to us less than 24 hours ago (at https://www.reuters.com/article/us-yemen-security-wfp/yemens-houthis-and-wfp-dispute-aid-control-as-millions-starve-idUSKCN1T51YO) with ‘Yemen’s Houthis and WFP dispute aid control as millions starve‘ is not because there is no resolution, it is because the Houthi forces do not want a resolution, they are awaiting Iranian hardware and Hezbollah troops. So as we see: “the U.N. agency, which feeds more than 10 million people a month across the Arabian Peninsula’s poorest nation, said last month it is considering suspending deliveries due to fighting, insecurity and interference in its work“, we see just how dumbfound the status of Saudi Arabia is in the US Congress. The issue of the international press going out of their way not reporting on Hezbollah activities in Yemen is just a little too weird, and seemingly no one takes notice.

Saudi Arabia will have to consider other options soon enough (more to follow at the end).

In the second part of one side we see the report from CNN (at https://edition.cnn.com/2019/06/05/politics/us-intelligence-saudi-arabia-ballistic-missile-china/index.html) the headline: ‘US intel shows Saudi Arabia escalated its missile program with help from China‘, we need to realise two elements, the first is that Saudi Arabia is a monarchy, a sovereign nation with the rights to defend itself. It has been in a proxy war with Iran for years and Saudi Arabia must prepare any way it can, apparently the United States is not there for the nation they call an ally, and as such China would easily step in to facilitate (Russia seems to have lost out on it). With Saudi Arabia in a stage of 5G thanks to Huawei, the Chinese government is (according to CNN) in the article. Even as we are given: “While the Saudis’ ultimate goal has not been conclusively assessed by US intelligence, the sources said, the missile advancement could mark another step in potential Saudi efforts to one day deliver a nuclear warhead were it ever to obtain one” implying that they actually do not know, the vague ‘were it ever to obtain one‘ should be seen as an article presently dipped in speculation. And as the one truth is given through “the Saudis have consistently taken the position that they need to match Iran’s missile capability and have at times sought help on the side from other countries, including China, which is not a signatory to the pact“, so the actual issue is that Saudi Arabia is in a stage where they will not accept being under defended when Iran is on a clear path to increase its ballistic missile setting. A clear setting that has been known for years and no one does anything valid or actual about Iran, that part is not set in the lime light is it. In all this I found the premise of Tom Udall senator from New Mexico the most hilarious one. With “citing the Washington Post report on the satellite images, asked what the US was doing to prevent foreign sales of ballistic missile technology to Saudi Arabia“, the direct and not too diplomatic answer would be: ‘It is none of your bloody business what Saudi Arabia buys from whomever they want to‘ (there is some diplomacy as I avoided using the F*** word). The truth is that they no longer matter; US Congress seems to be forgetting that they are no longer a superpower. 21 trillion dollar debt did that to them. Their utter inactivity in Syria and Yemen shows that they no longer really matter and the actions by both Turkey and Iran shows that they no longer have the balls to actually interfere and act. Their actions are now limited to economic sanctions and that tactic is becoming less and less efficient.

The additional fact that this is still connected to a dead journalist no one cares about is further evidence still. You see if it was actually about that than the US government and Global media would have illuminated the actions of Turkey and its incarcerated and murdered journalists every single day and that has not been happening at all, again more evidence that this is all about posturing and imagery but nothing on creating actual lasting results.

In all this I am happy that Democrat Senator Bob Menendez from New Jersey gave us: “Failing that, I am prepared to move forward with any and all options to nullify the licenses at issue for both Saudi Arabia and [the] UAE and eliminate any ability for the administration to bypass Congress in future arms sales“, I will use that shortly, thank you.

On the other side

The other side of the Persian Gulf has other issues. Less than 14 hours ago, the Japan News (and several others) gave us: “Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Tuesday that Tehran would not be “deceived” by U.S. President Donald Trump’s offer of negotiations and would not give up its missile program” the entire stage of peace, or some way of moving forward was dependent on that part, the fact that it was never adhered to and the only part we get is US saber rattling gives light that the US has no actual solution here. Even as some Senators made the claim that any war with Iran would be a short one can no longer be proven, the engineering joke that is now known as USS Zumwalt is one part, the fact that Congress never approved a budget for its cannons to be fully armed is a second part and the failings that is this $21 billion project and is showing to be close to disastrous is further evidence that the US has no real modern navy to fight Iran with, it is at best at par with Iran and in an actual war setting without the ability to ‘hide’ within Saudi waters gives rise to the fact that a direct war (which Iran would lose) will not be a quick one and the casualty list would be massive. A nation that is basically bankrupt is now limited to saber rattling, it is sad.

A similar quote was seen in TV7 Israel News where we get: “Ali Khamenei said: “We can see that today, in the defense and military arena, we have reached a point of being able to deter our enemies. And the fact that you see they insist on (curtailing) our missile program, is because of this (deterrence). And they want to deprive us of this capability. And of course, they will never succeed.”” the stage is accepted but the premise is not. The Iranian missile program has never been one of defence, it is an offense stage with possible nuclear ramifications and there are indicators that there is more, one unconfirmed source (reliability unknown, language implied it to be American) gives us: “Iran in mid-May presented the IAEA with a comprehensive report on all aspects of its nuclear program, which comprised over one thousand pages. The D-T procurement was not mentioned in the. “comprehensive” report. It is not alone in this regard: since June, a large number of Iranian nuclear activities not admitted to by Tehran, have been reported, notably the attempts to sanitize a suspected nuclear facility in the neighborhood of Tehran” another dark web source gave mention of deuterium-tritium gas earlier this year crossing into Iran at Bājgirān. I partially took notice but ignored it as I had no real idea what it was used for (I am not a chemist), in light of the two it is not an indicator or any actual evidence where Iran is at, but it does give reason for Saudi Arabia to increase its capabilities regarding ballistic missiles. The fact that Iran has the muscle to move options here implies that it has access to funds it should not have, for the mere reason that whoever is doing it will not be doing it for anything less than an 8 figure number. I am decently certain that Russia (and most other nuclear players) would never be willing to give a Trump card like that into the hands of Iran, not when they have other needs to milk Iran for as long as they can. That is merely my personal view on the matter.

Iran does have other options, as Janes reported yesterday: “Iran launched a Khorramshahr medium-range ballistic missile (MRBM) in December 2018, the Israeli representative to the UN told the Security Council in a letter released on 5 June“. My issue is not Jane, they are established as a reliable and accepted military source of information, the fact that this issue has been known for 6 months and the fact that at present there is no real exposure of the Khorramshahr with its range of 2,000 km with a 1,800 kg warhead, we see that no part of Saudi Arabia cannot be reached, giving a much larger pressure on Saudi Arabia and that is before you realise that the news included: “Iran has transferred technological knowledge to enable Iraq’s Technical Directorate for Military Production (TDMP) to produce the Mohajem-92 unmanned aerial vehicle“, that so called UAV is one of the drones that have been deployed against U.S. and coalition targets (Source: Al Jazeera June 21st).

These drones are optionally also in the hands of Hezbollah, a terrorist organisation, as such the pressure is on in several ways and there is more than one indicator that the US remains where it is, sitting on its hands merely because it seemingly ran out of budget.

Image of a Paper Tiger

In conclusion: I believe that the media and the US government have been hiding behind excuses and counter acting actions as it cannot afford to be in anything for any price. It has no ability to enforce any actual rules and when we see the egocentric call: ‘what the US was doing to prevent foreign sales of ballistic missile technology to Saudi Arabia‘, we see what was once a superpower is now optionally nothing more than a Paper Tiger.

If I have to give any official advice to the House of Saud then it would be:

Your Royal Highness and members of the royal family,

I believe that it is now more and more important to seek unity and actual commerce with providers that will enable you to properly defend yourself against the unacceptable danger that Iran has become. I believe that trade with the United Kingdom, France, Germany and China should replace your American portfolio. Each of these four have technologies and military solutions that would equal the solutions that America has offered. I believe that there is no one solution, by gaining the hardware from all three (each their own field) it would be optionally quicker to get the essential defence materials that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia needs to keep its nation safe. The American position after the attacks by Hezbollah through Houthi forces give rise to the additional dangers that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia faces by not seeking a more powerful defence. The actions of the American US Congress have shown that what they regard as being an ally is not what an ally is; it is not even what a wannabe ally would consider to be.

As such apart from your advancement in technology and infrastructure a much larger foundation for your national defence is seemingly essential in the immediate future. The shown delays that the European Union have shown to be regarding Iran, Turkey and terrorist organisations like Hezbollah give rise to the essential need of China to become part of that solution.

With highest regards,

Lawrence van Rijn

Finale

I believe that the inaction’s have gone on for way too long, even as some state that there are diplomatic options, the realisation that Iran hid themselves through the terrorist organisation Hezbollah and the fact that this has been known in intelligence circles for years is clear evidence that there is no push for a solution, merely a need for a standstill, or stalemate at best. It never resolves anything, it merely decimates the Yemeni population through Houthi blockades a small issue killing thousands and Reuters gave us that news, but no, plenty of media ignore that fact and keep on pointing the finger at Saudi Arabia and shouting ‘Jamal Khashoggi’ whilst no one cared about him to begin with (exception of Washington Post people noted).

The idea of politics through inaction an stalemate has created more damage than anyone realises and the inaction on matters has the dangers of creating cogs of war that will ruffle both sides of the Persian gulf to the largest degree is now too dangerous. The inaction on Hezbollah, the inaction by the US and Europe now have a lasting impact on the Middle East. When this comes to blow, there is no doubt that Iran will lose, and anyone pushing for stalemate tactics will be recognised and removed from consideration for what could be the largest impulse to a global economy in history, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar are part of that economic pulse and those not part of that will end up going through 2-3 iterations of recession lasting 20+ years. The others will find themselves on an improving economy track and enable themselves on a larger economic scale than before. There is now ample view on the matter to consider that America is steering away from that option for no good reason. When that happens, those who get to be enabled will end up being in a much stronger position. I personally prefer the United Kingdom to be part of that, yet in the end that is a decision they will need to make for themselves.

 

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May 25, 2019 · 13:06

Short on sight, darkness without a light

It is the Washington Post who gives (at https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/05/22/qualcomm-violated-antitrust-law-judge-rules) a stage that is now three days old, but this is one event that keeps on getting bumped to the top of the list for a long time to come. With ‘Qualcomm violated antitrust law, judge rules‘ we see a dangerous step into a murky road, a road that is all about the bottom dollar and those who are pushing for decisions have not considered the long game and how it ends a lot more. Perhaps you remember the issue with anti-trust, why it came into existence in the first place. With “protect consumers from predatory business practices“, it is the foundation that is at play, especially when we consider the quote “U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh ruled that Qualcomm had used its monopoly power to bully companies such as Apple into overpaying for royalties on Qualcomm’s wireless inventions, ordering Qualcomm to renegotiate its business deals“. I wonder who she serves in this case, because I am personally getting the feeling that it is not the law, or the case.

To understand that you need to consider a few items, the first is Intellectual Property. Qualcomm has something everyone wants and no one bothered to redesign or improve on it, and now at the start of 5G, the bottom line of Apple, who has always been eager to bleed its consumers dry, they now see the bottom line and they feel wronged. For three generations they became iterative, and as they now have a second iMac, for sale at A$22,197.00, (mainly because of the colour I reckon). That is the joke that once was Apple. A similar PC for High end gaming will remain under $10,000 (and that is with all the bells and whistles. As apple gives us that we must pay for exclusivity, than so must they.

In addition when it comes to royalties, the judge merely needed to look at iTunes to see that the stream income has settled at $0.00735. Artists on Apple Music would need around 200,272 plays to earn the US monthly minimum wage amount. And important side part is that Apple is by no means the worst there. (Google got that distinction).

From what we see, I have a few reservations whether Justice Lucy Koh has a good view on what ‘predatory business practices‘ are. I do not think that Qualcomm is innocent here, yet to see the example “bully companies such as Apple into overpaying for royalties” voiced, whilst from more than one direction we see that this could be a case of the pot calling the kettle Space grey.

The Post also gives us “Qualcomm is the only U.S. company making 5G chips for mobile phones, the components necessary to connect smartphones to cellular networks. The new generation of cell networks might create another round of innovation and economic growth as start-ups figure out how to use it in new products and spur the development of self-driving cars, smart appliances and remote medicine, which rely on a stable Web connection“, as well as the mention of Adam Mossoff, a law professor at George Mason University who gives us: “the FTC’s case against Qualcomm the result of “self-serving arguments by some companies looking to benefit their bottom line.”” and I agree with him. Whilst the FTC was too stupid to sound the horns when iterative technology was the key in ‘their’ profits, others realised that new borders will always come and they will be ruled by the true innovators, as this happened and that firm is not an American one, but a Chinese one. We see these cases come up so that optional momentum can be gained, all whilst Apple had 10 years to find an equal solution, to reengineer technology to equal, they never did that, they merely copied old ideas and let their marketing department spout some innovation story. To their credit Apple Marketing is extremely good at their job, so when we accept: ‘They create something that is designed to improve the lives of their customers. To market that, they create experiences that are memorable and keep people coming back‘. It is brilliant in the now, but innovation is about tomorrow and the Apple board of directors forgot about that part in 2004-2017, so they can only move forward with Qualcomm and that is hitting their bottom dollar hard, especially in 5G. That is the market and the gap between US industry and Huawei is increasing, the US is falling further behind.

Yet the bigger issue is not seen and the article was not about that, so there is no blame. The issue now is that the US is a mere 325 million and they are left in the dark that the larger world with well over 2 billion have (with the exception of politicians kissing US ass) embraced Huawei, equal or better quality at half the price, which is in light with the iMac Pro and normal maximised PC’s. True innovation sells itself, the rest needs marketing to get to the base of their revenue needs. In my case I have an older Huawei, the Nova 3i, it is older than the P30 series, yet still for the most on par with the latest android phones released this year. They learned, when others refused to learn that storage is everything to consumers, so whilst Samsung and LG started jerking around the consumers with ‘sorry, we only have a 32GB model‘, or the ‘that specific model was not available to us‘, Huawei decided to give us 128 GB (Google did a similar thing early on). The rest followed much later. The mobile industry has for the most all been about ‘Iteration to facilitate for exploitation‘ as I personally see it. Both Google and Huawei were instrumental in turning that around. So whilst I can get an iPhone for A$1,299.00, the Huawei I got has the same storage and for the most an equally able phone for A$499 (6 months ago). As we see the issue of ‘bully companies such as Apple into overpaying‘, whilst Apple has been known to be the biggest bully of all (optionally a shared #1 spot with Microsoft). It seems to me that the FTC is about the bottom line and not losing more distance with true innovators like Huawei. So when we look at the FTC and we see: “Competition in America is about price, selection, and service. It benefits consumers by keeping prices low and the quality and choice of goods and services high. By enforcing antitrust laws, the FTC helps ensure that our markets are open and free“, is the Apple iMac pro not a direct violation of that directive?

In addition, as the Trump card of bullying was given regarding Huawei, we see: “Google said complying with the ban would mean future phones sold by Huawei would be without a license for its Android operating software and would have no access to its Play app store, which would render them nearly useless“, so what happens when that becomes actuality? When Huawei has its own ‘app store’ and its own system in place? When hundreds of millions are willing to switch, what would it cost Google? What happens when we demand action on taken paths and Google is seriously impacted? Will the FTC wake up and see the folly that they created?

And let’s be clear, the biggest issue is not the Trump administration. It is the collection of technology dumb fucks (to coin a phrase) that have been so eager to rely on iteration and now that these people no longer matter in their respective board rooms, what remains? Apple relies on computers that almost no one can afford, especially as hundreds of PC assembly providers can build equal powered solutions at less than half the price, that too will impact 5G, because even as we are a mobile planet now, when we are at work (over one third of our daily life), it is the workstation and not the mobile that rules our needs.

So now as we look at the impact that 4G had with: “When the United States took the lead on 4G mobile technology, for example, it gave rise to the app economy, which is still dominated by U.S. firms, according to Cisco“, Cisco is a player there, yet with the severe vulnerabilities it showed and remains showing until the end of the year, they too are in the dump. Even now as TechTarget gives us a mere 9 hours ago: “The Cisco vulnerability fix for thrangrycat could make affected hardware unusable. But the vendor said it’s ready to replace products, if needed.” At what point do you realise when you read the article (at https://searchnetworking.techtarget.com/news/252463965/Cisco-vulnerability-fix-for-thrangrycat-carries-risks) that Cisco is not merely falling behind too, the impact that they have to deal with will hinder them for some time to come. In addition, the quote “If an affected product becomes unusable and requires a hardware replacement, it will be replaced according to the terms of the customer’s support contract or warranty,” gives rise to other considerations too. How many would sue when they lack the support contract or warranty? Let’s not forget that they have advertised for the longest of times on ‘the Trust Anchor‘. It was innovation, true innovation. But there we see how iteration can diminish innovation. Once the feature is surpassed and dealt with, the issue becomes a much larger concern. So as Cisco is trying to deal with the Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA), Huawei is moving forward another leap. Now, there is no chance that Cisco will be replaced, they are too big and they have good hardware. What do you think happened to the Samsung with their Samsung ISIS (with exploding battery), it took Samsung 2 years to recover and now they are surpassed by Apple and Huawei; that is how the cookie crumbles. Samsung is still in the race and could regain momentum (especially with the power share novelty), but it took them 2 years and now in the start of the 5G dimension, 2 years is a lifetime, it is the difference between the locomotive that drives the innovation and the caboose that gets all kinds of shit. That is the game and the US is in and not in the caboose, but on a hand trolley trying to catch up with the train that has already left the station, the US is in that deep at present.

Oh and when it comes to the FTC, as they see themselves as: ‘The FTC protects consumers by stopping unfair, deceptive or fraudulent practices in the marketplace‘, so when it comes to AT&T 5G Evolution, how much action has the FTC undertaken, whilst the media in many places have clearly stated it as deceptive conduct. Even whilst AT&T hides behind “5G Evolution is a lot more than just a name“, yet it is not 5G and the FTC remained silent on it all, which as I personally see it is all about the bottom line, as such, how much credibility does America have left? Even as Sprint and AT&T settled, Sprint was not the only player and as far as we can see the FTC did nothing, so when we see (in several sources) ‘speed tests have confirmed that AT&T’s 5GE service is no faster than LTE from Verizon and T-Mobile‘, I merely wonder how the antitrust ruling could be given whilst the market itself is in such disarray that this case should not have made it to the courts for years to come, but that is the problem with a nation that is $22,000,000,000,000 in debt, the bottom line becomes everything and the concept of the rights of any consumer will be hung out to dry until that noose has been removed from the neck of the US economy. Too bad they relied on iteration; a nation that relies on innovation might be able to move forward on its merits, an option the US seemingly no longer has at present.

So what happens when the next step is open to all non-Americans? What happens when one of the 10 competitors does come with a truly innovative step? You see that is the nice part of true innovation, what goes down, might come up, so if the setting changes and for example the Kodenshi AUK Group finds some solution in 5G that the others did not consider, how will that play out? There is a long term short sighted approach to IP and the drive to truly push it forward in a non-iterative way. The 5G players will soon and quickly learn that 5G will not have space for iteration; it would almost literally play out as: here today, gone tomorrow.

I don’t think that technological America realises that danger to the degree it needs to, that is the vibe I have been getting for a while now.

 

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May 23, 2019 · 11:51

The Scott Pilgrim of Technology

There is a moment when we have to take account of actions; we have to push into the direct limelight the ACTUAL dangers. I did some of it when the DJI issues hit the news. With ‘That’s the way the money flows‘ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2019/05/21/thats-the-way-the-money-flows/) we see certain actions, but have you considered the actual dangers?

In this case (for a few reasons I move towards the article in the Verge. Here (at https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/22/18634401/huawei-ban-trump-case-infrastructure-fears-google-microsoft-arm-security) we see what transpired half a day ago. With the ARM announcement people are getting worried. Yet they validly ask: “halting its access to current and future chip designs and coming on the heels of similar breaks from Google and Microsoft. Huawei is in deep, deep trouble, and we still don’t have a clear picture of why“.

Yes that is seemingly an issue, if there actually was an issue, in addition we are given “There’s never been a full accounting of why the US government believes Huawei is such a threat, in large part because of national security interests, which means much of the evidence remains secret” and that is where the issue is, it is hidden. There has not been one respectable cyber engineer giving a clear account of where the actual flaws are.

So when we see: “There was never any hard evidence of backdoors in Huawei’s cell towers — but, as hawks saw it, there didn’t need to be. As a hardware provider, Huawei needs to be able to deploy software the same way Apple deploys iOS updates. But as long as there was a pipeline from Huawei’s China headquarters to cell towers in the US, there would be a strong risk of Chinese surveillance agencies using it to sneak malware into the network“. We can accept that to some degree, yet the actual issue stated with: ‘there would be a strong risk of Chinese surveillance agencies using it to sneak malware into the network‘. If it is about risk then that risk is actually zero, you see Cisco solved that problem for Russian, Chinese and North Korean intelligence months ago. The fact that all over the US and now Europe, we see the dropping of Huawei as a consideration is not merely an act of discrimination, it could also be seen as an act of customer being betrayed by their governments.

What is the evidence?

As some experts give us something like: “The vulnerability could allow an authenticated, local attacker to write a modified firmware image to that component. A successful exploit could either cause the device to become unusable (and require a hardware replacement) or allow tampering with the Secure Boot verification process, according to Cisco’s advisory” and make no mistake, routers from Parks and recreation, to the Pentagon right up to the White House are optionally affected at present, the list (at https://tools.cisco.com/security/center/content/CiscoSecurityAdvisory/cisco-sa-20190513-secureboot#vp) shows a list that is impacting vulnerabilities to MILLIONS of devices and the media remains largely silent on it.

And when we also consider: “Other routing and switching gear patches won’t roll out until July and August, with some products slated for even later fixes, in October and November.” we should all realise that Chinese equipment does not make US hardware vulnerable, Cisco (an American company no less) did it for them. The Washington Post is not really covering it, are they? Perhaps because we see (at https://www.washingtonpost.com/brand-studio/wp/tag/cisco-webex) loads of space reserved for partner content, giving us the credo that I have mentioned a few times before. The media has become a whore (or perhaps better stated a person relying on questionable ethics). They cater to their shareholders, their stake holders and their advertisers; there is the real danger and the real vulnerability.

Keeping the people knowingly in the dark from actual dangerous situations, but that is not really what big business wants is it. The dangers that Huawei grew to twice its size was just too dangerous for those on the Wall Street gravy train, and whilst we see these dangers for almost a month, the value of Cisco goes up? Whilst millions of devices are vulnerable with many of them in that state to deep into November, optionally remaining a danger until well into January 2020, for the simple reason that delays are almost inevitable in these situations?

When we realise that we can Google on reported true and false weaknesses that hit Huawei and Cisco, it is shameful to see the following list:

News source

Huawei ‘danger’ given

Cisco vulnerability mentioned
Sydney Morning Herald

Yay

Nay
the Age

Yay

Nay
the Guardian

Yay

Nay
BBC

Yay

Nay
The Times

Yay

Nay
Australian Financial Review

Yay

Nay
Financial Times

Yay

Nay
Washington Post

Yay

Nay
LA Times

Yay

Nay
NOS (Dutch)

Yay

Nay
Dagens Nyheter (Swedish)

Yay

Nay

 

However, in case of the Sydney Morning Herald we do get to see sponsored content for Cisco and the Washington Post gave the readers Cisco Partner content.

As far as I have been able to tell, none of them gave any light to the vulnerabilities in Cisco Routers and Firewalls. Would you agree that a flaw impacting millions of devices is news? Many of them pulled a similar stunt in 2012 regarding Sony in the month before the release of the PS4. In regards to the list, these are supposed to be the more respectable choices for news; the list of absent news giving sources is a lot larger.

Whilst the IT news magazines gave the broader setting (as well as Cisco on their own site), we see that the media is seemingly playing a game of: ‘Let’s rent a hotel room on an hourly rate‘.

When we see Tara Seals in Threatpost giving us: “A critical vulnerability in Cisco’s software-defined networking (SDN) software could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to connect to a vulnerable data-center switch and take it over, with the privileges of the root user” (at https://threatpost.com/cisco-critical-nexus-9000-flaw/144290/), I suddenly realise that there is an inner demon with a pitchfork stabbing into my brain telling me that I am a pussy, I disagree! So here it is: “A message for the Pentagon IT department; Do you still have the password ‘Cisco123‘ on some of your routers? If so would it not be a great idea to change it before the Chinese Ministry of State Security and the Foreign Intelligence Service of the Russian Federation (SVR RF) decides to download your servers at their earliest convenience?”

I know it is an annoyance, but with Cisco flaws the way they were it is merely a small consideration, and let’s not forget that at this stage no Huawei device was required to acquire the information on your servers. I personally believe that it is time to reward those who do not apply common cyber sense to be rewarded with limelight. I have had to clean up the mess of others for well over a decade and now it is time to give those people the exposure they deserve (my findings regarding Credit Agricole will have to wait for a few more days). When you consider that the flaw also hits the Nexus 9000 Data Centre Switch, a device that is according to their own site ‘Built for scale, industry-leading automation, programmability, and real-time visibility‘, as well as “operate in Cisco NX-OS Software or Cisco ACI modes with ground-breaking Cloud Scale ASIC technology“, and lets be fair, there will always be an issue, a device on such scale cannot be flawless, yet when such a flaw is clearly reported on a level this big and the media merely looks at accusations against Huawei and leaves actual dangers unreported, the integrity of the media has become too large an issue on a global scale.

The issue is twofold for me, the first is that Huawei was never a risk and even as I disagree with the dumb headed approach that the US had, I am very much on the side of Alex Younger (the apparent fearless leader of MI-6), he is merely stating that non-British equipment (in this case Chinese) could be an optional threat in the future. His issue is that this level of infrastructure must be British and he is not wrong, no nation is wrong to have high level infrastructure equipment (whether it is 4G or 5G) in national hands. That is the application of common sense (yet realistically speaking not always pragmatic or achievable). so when he stated last February ‘It’s more complicated than in or out,‘ he is actually spot on, no one denies that. Yet the Americans had their big boots, brainless and started accusations that cannot be proven, that is an issue! For the US it was all about the money and American technology is losing more and more headway, they are literally falling further behind on a daily basis. As I personally see it the direct consequence on iteration versus innovation technology. When the best innovative step is Samsung giving the consumer the ability to share power wireless (which is awesome), even me as an anti-Samsung person will admit that they hit the jackpot with that one. How sad have players like Apple, Microsoft, IBM, INTEL et al really become?

How much of a Scott Pilgrim must we become fighting all the tech companies in the world before we get told the direct truth by the media? How much shaming must we do to make the media make us the number one directive, not the number four option? and as I have been considering more and more to put my IP vision valued at $2 billion public domain and let them fight it out among themselves, basically I am just too tired to engage in another round of bullshit with these so called executives and VP’s who (with the exception of Huawei and Google) do not have a clue on what they are doing in technology in the first place.

The larger problem is not Cisco; it is security and identity management. Most corporations are close to 5 years late into implementing an actual non-repudiation system and that is partially because there is no real good system or good way to ensure non-repudiation, an issue that should have been addressed almost 10 years ago, but never was, I personally tend to blame complacency there. I personally believe that a drive to iteration prevented innovation to get us there, but that is merely my view on the matter and I am perfectly happy to be proven wrong on this specific part.

Dozens of options (I actually had another idea towards a new solution to applied solar technology) all having larger impacts in larger cities and pilot places like Neom City, what does it take for some of these players to wake up and smell the dangers of corporate death through marketing set towards iterative release?

 

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May 21, 2019 · 12:55

That’s the way the money flows

The Independent had an interesting article 2 hours ago. The article (at https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/china-drones-spy-us-dhs-security-data-alert-a8922706.html). The title leaves little to the imagination with: ‘Chinese drones may be stealing sensitive information, DHS warns‘, after the Trump google play, after his refusal to submit to subpoena’s, after the anti Huawei activities that so far has never yielded any active evidence (the 8 year old case was settled within months are done with). Now we see: “Chinese-made drones in America may be sending sensitive data to their manufacturers back home where it can be accessed by the government, the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has warned“, which might be a nightmare if it was not so hilarious. You see the next quote: “CNN, which obtained the internal alert, reported that the DHS fears drones will offer Chinese intelligence unfettered access to American data“, it comes across like we have a case where a CNN reporter has been hit by a silly stick and never recovered. Consider the drones we see, there is no space to have a dedicated hack system on board. Yes some can be done with a mobile, and there is plenty of space in that device, now consider the ‘sensitive’ data that needs to be found, the data needs to be connected to (and with all these faulty Cisco routers that is relatively easy at present), then a selection needs to be downloaded and that is merely for one place, one device. All this stops when any person uses common cyber sense. It is the revelation that we see next, that is the one that matters. With: “Though the alert didn’t name specific companies, the vast majority of drones used in the US and Canada are made by the Shenzen based Company, DJI, CNN reported” we see the part that matters. As drone services are up on an almost exponential growth as we see the push that got there. The news from November 2016 gave us: “Domino’s Pizza Enterprises Limited (Domino’s) and drone delivery partner Flirtey delivered the first order, a Peri-Peri Chicken Pizza, and a Chicken and Cranberry Pizza“. Consider the option to avoid traffic in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston, Chicago, Seattle, Pittsburgh, all places with massive congestion. Drones are the optionally the newest quick way to deliver food, Amazon needs, Walmart needs, all in growing need due to the events where retailers and shippers combine forces to avoid a few items, and with congestion set to zero, people will flock to that consideration. Now the operational part, it seems that DJI is ahead of the curve, another Chinese company decided to truly innovate and now that the push is there and America is bankrupt (as I personally see it) anything possible to avoid money going to China, America is taking a pot shot at that. So when we are also treated to: “A spokesman for DJI denied that any information was being transmitted to it from its drones, adding that the security of its technology has been independently verified by the US government.” I start wondering if DHS was able to do its job properly. Now let’s be clear, there is no doubt that ANY drone can be used for espionage, especially if it is quiet enough. Yet is that the issue for DJI, or is that an issue with the spy that utilises drone technology? Yet that is actually not the only side, on the other side we see mentioned: “Those concerns apply with equal force to certain Chinese-made (unmanned aircraft systems)-connected devices capable of collecting and transferring potentially revealing data about their operations and the individuals and entities operating them, as China imposes unusually stringent obligations on its citizens to support national intelligence activities,” Now, this part does make sense. It is the same as the Apple Fitbit, that due to its global nature started to hand out the jogging patterns of Special forces in the Middle East, so within 3 days several members of the two dozen operatives had a check on their calorie burning and health, whilst the mapping data showed the world where the CIA black site was (oh apologies, I meant to say a military specialist endeavouring location of an undetermined nature). The question becomes how was the ‘the security of its technology has been independently verified by the US government‘ achieved? Was that verification process competent, or perhaps slightly less so?

I am not stating my verdict in either direction; yet the entire Huawei mess, as well as the DJI setting implies that the growth industries are shunned from America, mainly because it is not an American industry. Yet in all this, the forget that places like the EU and India are large enough to go forward with both players and truly grow further, whilst the downturn and the economic lag that the US is creating will merely grow the loss of momentum and the recession it will fuel in other ways. I would consider that the setback that Google is trying to create will have larger repercussions down the road. As larger Data vendors will now optionally choose the Chinese side, they will grow market share. You see no matter how it is sliced, all this is data based and data can only grow if there is usage. So when people remain with Huawei as their phone keeps on working, we see that there is a larger concern soon enough. At some point people will stop trusting Samsung, Google and Apple phones, which works out nicely for several players (Microsoft actually more than most), what do you think happens when the larger share of 14.7% of a global market changes to player three and not use Google apps to some degree? Google momentum relies on non-stop data and usage, when a third of the 60% that these three cover stops, do you think that this has no impact for Google?

The same applies to drones. You see intelligence makes the drone and as it grows its market share and the collected data of drone usage is set, the innovation of DJI grows faster. It is the difference between generation now and generation 2022, DJI will grow and can grow in several directions, yet the entire the setting of ‘data theft’ we see that there is a lack of ‘what’ data. What data is collected, the flight path? Well, I think we all need to know in 2023 what flight path was taken for the delivery of 342,450 pizza’s delivered per hour, is it not? It is not that Google Map has that data, and within a building in New York, is there truly a clear sign in the drone itself who exactly the merchandise was for, or was that on the box (instead of the drone). Now, there is no denying that some of that data would optionally be accessible to the Chinese government? Yet what data, what level of data? Do you think that they have time for the hundreds of drones and the data whilst they can monitor 20,000 times that data with a spy satellite (and an additional truckload of data that the drone never had in the first place?

It is when I see ‘unfettered access to American data‘ where the questions become pressing. It is like watching Colin Powell coming into a non-disclosed location with his silver briefcase and in the end the lack of WMD’s, are we going in that direction again? when I see ‘unfettered access to American data‘, it is at that moment I see the optional comparison (an extreme lose comparison mind you) with the innocent preachers daughter who did the naughty thing to 30% of the boys coming to Sunday sermon, having attempted things I cannot even rent on adult video. It is the CNN article (at https://edition.cnn.com/2019/05/20/politics/dhs-chinese-drone-warning/index.html) that gives additional rise to concerns. When you see: “Users are warned to “be cautious when purchasing” drones from China, and to take precautionary steps like turning off the device’s internet connection and removing secure digital cards. The alert also warns users to “understand how to properly operate and limit your device’s access to networks” to avoid “theft of information.”” It seems to me that there are dozens of ways to get this data, a drone seems like an expensive long way round-trip to get to that data, whilst more can be accessed in several other ways and it is the speculation through ‘device’s internet connection‘, so when we see one of these devices (at https://www.dji.com/au/phantom-4-pro-v2/info#specs), we are treated to: “The new Phantom 4 Pro V2.0 features an OcuSync HD transmission system, which supports automatic dual-frequency band switching and connects to DJI Goggles wirelessly“, where did the internet come in? Yes there is an app, to get a live view from the drone, so what ‘unfettered access to American data‘ could there be that Google Maps at present does not have in more detail?

It is the next part that is the actual ace. When we see: “DJI, which reported $2.7 billion in revenue in 2017, is best known for its popular Phantom drone. Introduced in 2013, the drone is the top-selling commercial drone on the market“, information the Independent did not give us, that is the actual stage as I personally see it. It was $2.7 billion in 2017, there is no doubt that when drone delivery truly takes off, at that point revenue that sits between $15 and $27 billion is not unrealistic, the dire need to avoid congestion on a global scale will drive it and that is before you realise the non-US benefits in London, Amsterdam, Paris, Berlin, Munich, Madrid, Barcelona, Rome, Athens, Moscow. At that point you will see stronger growth and I haven’t even looked at the opportunities in a place like Mumbai, Tokyo, Delhi, Bangkok, Rio, Buenos Aires and Sydney yet. Everything leaves me with the impression that this is not about security, it is about money. That fact can be proven when you realise that everyone remains silent on the 29 new vulnerabilities that Cisco reported merely a month ago. How many Cisco router stories have come from that non-technologically refined White House, where they are currently optionally limited by “Cisco routers, including ones that can be found in malls, large companies or government institutions, are flawed in a way that allows hackers to steal all of the data flowing through them“, the cybersecurity company Red Baron handed out that issue to the media last week, so who picked up on that danger to ‘unfettered access to American data‘? And when you consider ‘it allows potential malicious actors to bypass the router’s security feature, Trust Anchor. This feature has been standard in Cisco’s routers since 2013‘, when we realise that Cisco is a household name on a global scale (especially when connected to the internet), the entire Cisco matter seems to be at least 15,000 times worse than any DJI drone ever could be, and the fact that DHS remains silent on that gives (again, as I personally see it) is added proof that this is merely about the money and the fact that US companies are losing markets on a global scale.

I could set the stage by singing ‘All ‘Bout the money‘ by Meja and ‘That’s the way the money goes‘ by M, but then, I realise that people would most likely pay me serious money not to sing (my voice is actually that bad).

That’s the way the money flows, specifically at present in a direction that the US is for the foreseeable future most displeased about.

 

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May 20, 2019 · 12:32

War and its monger

You might have heard the expression ‘drumroll please’, it is not new and often it is done to emphasize a twist a good thing or something unexpected. This is not the case here, this is the drumroll to emphasize that my ‘I told you so’ and ‘for the love of all bullies’. A stage that is anything but positive. A stage that Iran has pushed again and again and now that the pot is getting to the boiling pot, we see: “Iran is not seeking war, the leader of the country’s elite Revolutionary Guards said Sunday“, to which the proper western response is: ‘In a pigs eye perhaps!‘. In addition we see: “The difference between us and them is that they are afraid of war and don’t have the will for it,” Major General Hossein Salami said, as quoted by local news agency Fars.” Well, that remains to be seen, doesn’t it? There has been overwhelming evidence that Iran directly and indirectly (via Hezbollah) equipped Houthi forces with missiles that were fired into Saudi Arabia; missiles that, according to several experts, could not have been made by known Yemeni manufacturing locations. We have the will for war and ending Iran as a nation is actually what we are hoping for, but as the Iranian forces acted like the Jackal forces that they are as they hid behind the skirts of Hezbollah, that is the impact of a proxy war and we need to consider that we need to stand with Saudi Arabia, and we need to be fast and clear about it.

Turkey

Iran’s largest and perhaps only true ally is Turkey. This is an issue on two fronts. Turkey is messing with EU settings and trying to grease the Gravy train wheels to get a more positive response on their actions (presumed). What is actually more pressing is that Turkey is showing to be the turncoat that they have been for close to 16 years. The evidence for that (apart from the 9/11 blackmail attempt) is that the Deutsche Welle (at https://www.dw.com/en/turkey-to-produce-new-s-500-missile-system-with-russia/a-48792240) is one of several sources confirming ‘Turkey to produce new S-500 missile system with Russia‘, so the recipient of the new F-35, is building Russian missiles? This is (on the side) evidence that the stupid Americans are not about national security and that the entire Google-Huawei issue is only about money and economic fear (aka their Blacklist, my ass).

The fact that the quote merely is seen as: “The move is likely to further strain Turkey’s relations with the United States“, merely strained? If it was an actual issue, the US would have broken off all connection with turkey months ago, this is about a bankrupt nation trying to influence the limits of loss against China and as Turkey and Iran are tightening bonds, these S-500 become a direct threat to the safety and security of Saudi Arabia, implying that it would optionally need to place a huge Patriot missile defence order as soon as possible, it also implies that any act from the Houthi forces means that a powerful military act is required. No matter what the size of Saudi Arabia is, a war on two fronts is not a good thing. Not with the Size of the Saudi forces are at present. So they should try and test the Naval sinking solution I designed whilst having a sandwich some months ago, and sing “لقد رأيت سفينة جميلة تقع في قاع البحر ، وسهند اسمها” (translated: ‘I saw a pretty ship lying at the bottom of the sea, and its name is Sahand‘) when the task is done (preferably whilst the Sahand is sinking). It is time that the bully tactics of Iran meet the resolve of all others to tell them that there is only so much BS that we accept from some of these non-politicians. I intentionally added the word ‘جميلة‘ (pretty) as this is the one word that does not apply to the the USS Zumwalt (fair is fair).

So even as (long term implied) the F-35 equipment is halted form the US for now, the US in in a financial caper where they might not be able to afford not to deliver, whether they get paid is off course another matter, and even if they get paid, it is not a given that the FSB is funding part of that deal, it is just too easy a way to get your fingers on non developed nextgen technology.

Back to the Saudi Arabia – Iran match

Even as we see: “The attack came two days after four vessels, including two Saudi oil tankers, were sabotaged off the coast of the United Arab Emirates. Iran has denied it was behind the attacks which come as Washington and the Islamic republic spar over sanctions and the US military presence in the region, raising concerns about a potential US-Iran conflict“, I remain in doubt. Yes, Iran is the most likely perpetrator, but it is not a given, Iran has played its proxy war with decent competency, as such it is not a given that it is Iran directly, yet I do believe that Iran has its fingers in this indirectly. Hezbollah has had access to the Iranian-made Shahed-129 UAV for almost two years now, as such whether it is Hezbollah, or Houthi trained forces, these two are Iranian driven proxy parties and even if the evidence is found that either of these two were directly involved, the fingers of Iran and most likely the fingers of Major General Hossein Salami, the fact that he is the Aerospace Force of the Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution is likely to be written off as a coincidence by a few newspapers.

Our allegiance is essential now, it is essential to step up against Iran. Not only because it is the right thing to do, the fact that this act would scare Turkey into making some very clear life changing choices would be essential, when they learn that Russia is not paying their bills, when they realise that Russian oil is not free, at that point will they need to seek a resolution that will not end them, taking Iran out of the equation is therefore an essential push for all people concerned. So as Al Jazeera (at https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/05/saudi-arabia-seeks-avert-war-ready-respond-force-190519055552084.html) gave us: “Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif has dismissed the possibility of war erupting, saying Tehran did not want conflict and no country had the “illusion it can confront Iran”.” He better change the tone he has when the people stand firm with Saudi Arabia on this. We have to agree with Adel al-Jubeir, Saudi state minister of foreign affairs when we see: ““We want peace and stability in the region but we will not sit on our hands in light of the continuing Iranian attack,”al-Jubeir said. “The ball is in Iran’s court and it is up to Iran to determine what its fate will be.”” In light of the actions against Saudi Arabia, Saudi Arabia has shown restrained, we can argue that there is indeed a case where Saudi Arabia is avoiding war to the largest degree because Iran is no small opponent and it will be capable of launching barrage after barrage at Riyadh, that is why getting the patriots there will be one of the most important actions.

When we look into history we see the same thing happen again, and if we sign up for Saudi Arabia we might have to, because we did not accept the Germans moving into Poland in 1939, we should equally not allow Iran to continue on the path it is currently on. There is also other news, but it is not direct or clear. The news (at https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/201905201075144170-yemen-houthi-plan-attack-saudi-targets/) is only two hours old. Even as we see the headline: ‘Yemeni Houthis Plan to Attack Some 300 Targets in Saudi Arabia, UAE – Reports‘, we need to realise that Sputnik News is a Russian government held media outlet. So is this their way to support Iran? Even as we see the origin pointed at the UAE through ‘local media reported on Sunday‘, we need to be cautious on the quality of this news. When we realise the stage of the player (the Houthi forces), they lack the setting of “Yemeni Shia Houthi rebels are going to attack some 300 critical infrastructure facilities in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates“, most of the UAE is out of their reach making part and even as I stated: “One source gives an implied presence of Hezbollah in Shinas (Oman), yet there is zero reliability as well as the fact that any attack would have required different tools as well as location does not add up” (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2019/05/15/the-political-winds/) almost a week ago, I still have not seen anything reliable making that a truth, because that would put the UAE directly in harm’s way. The entire Sputnik News setting can only hold water if Houthi forces get direct access to all the Hezbollah and Iranian resources available, hence the question mark! That is perhaps the only part that gives it optional value intelligence wise and there is not level of confirmation at present. All this relies on what the actual UAE source was and Sputnik News was adamant in not giving that part up, so is the Russian government handing out support against Iran or baiting the Saudi government to act prematurely, neither option sounds good to me, no matter how we slice it, but as we see the ‘news’ I had to include it, if only to emphasize certain governments needing to set the stage and the media is still the best way to do this to us.

The Endgame (not a Marvel movie)

I personally believe that Iran is willing to skate at the edge of war, not actively seeking one. Their goal is to show how impotent (opposing important) US politics and policies have become. It partially had to as the Trump administration is tightening the pressure on Iran. As it is achieving some goals (just ask Huawei and the Chinese government) Iran is openly trying to oppose it through its two puppets Houthi forces and Hezbollah. In this Turkey is still a trump card (pun intended) but as they are becoming the buddy of Moscow, Iran realises that whatever Turkey does will be vetted by Russia for more than one reason, in this we need to see the escalations and I feel certain that Adel al-Jubeir, Saudi state minister of foreign affairs realises this too, but in the end there are a growing amount of nations that are willing to create an alliance with Saudi Arabia, it is sad that the foremost reason will be what they stand to gain through economic options with Saudi Arabia against the ethical need to oppose Iran, but that is a conversation for another day.

 

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