Tag Archives: Emirates

Where should we look?

That is at times the issue, I would add to this “especially when we consider corporations the size of Microsoft” but this is nothing directly on Microsoft (I emphasize this as I have been dead set against some ‘issues’ Microsoft dealt us to). This is different and I have two articles that (to some aspect) overlap, but they are not the same and overlap should be subjectively seen.

The first one is BBC (at https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gdnz1nlgyo) where we see ‘Microsoft servers hacked by Chinese groups, says tech giant’ where the first thought that overwhelmed me was “Didn’t you get Azure support arranged through China?” But that is in the back of my mind. We are given “Chinese “threat actors” have hacked some Microsoft SharePoint servers and targeted the data of the businesses using them, the firm has said. China state-backed Linen Typhoon and Violet Typhoon as well as China-based Storm-2603 were said to have “exploited vulnerabilities” in on-premises SharePoint servers, the kind used by firms, but not in its cloud-based service.” I am wondering about the quote “not in its cloud-based service” I have questions, but I am not doubting the quote. To doubt it, one needs to have in-depth knowledge and be deeply versed in Azure and I am not one of these people. As I personally see it, if one is transgressed upon, the opportunity rises to ‘infect’ both, but that might be my wrong look on this. So as we are given ““China firmly opposes and combats all forms of cyber attacks and cyber crime,” China’s US embassy spokesman said in a statement. “At the same time, we also firmly oppose smearing others without solid evidence,” continued Liu Pengyu in the statement posted on X. Microsoft said it had “high confidence” the hackers would continue to target systems which have not installed its security updates.” This makes me think about the UN/USA attack on Saudi Arabia regarding that columnist no one cares about, giving us the ‘high confidence’ from the CIA. It sounds like the start of a smear campaign. If you have evidence, present the evidence. If not, be quiet (to some extent). 

We then get someone who knows what he in talking about “Charles Carmakal, chief technology officer at Mandiant Consulting firm, a division of Google Cloud, told BBC News it was “aware of several victims in several different sectors across a number of global geographies”. Carmakal said it appeared that governments and businesses that use SharePoint on their sites were the primary target.” This is where I got to thinking, what is the problem with Sharepoint? And when we consider  the quote “Microsoft said Linen Typhoon had “focused on stealing intellectual property, primarily targeting organizations related to government, defence, strategic planning, and human rights” for 13 years. It added that Violet Typhoon had been “dedicated to espionage”, primarily targeting former government and military staff, non-governmental organizations, think tanks, higher education, the media, the financial sector and the health sector in the US, Europe, and East Asia.

It sounds ‘nice’ but it flows towards the thoughts like “related to government, defence, strategic planning, and human rights” for 13 years”, so were was the diligence to preventing issues with Sharepoint and cyber crime prevention? So consider that we are given “SharePoint hosts OneDrive for Business, which allows storage and synchronization of an individual’s personal work documents, as well as public/private file sharing of those documents.” That quote alone should have driven the need for much higher Cyberchecks. And perhaps they were done, but as I see it, it has been an unsuccessful result. It made me (perhaps incorrectly) think so many programs covering Desktops, Laptops, tablets and mobiles over different systems a lot more cyber requirements should have been in place and perhaps they are, but it is not working and as I see, it as this solution has been in place for close to 2 decades, the stage of 13 years of attempted transgression, the solution does not seem to be safe. 

And the end quote “Meanwhile, Storm-2603 was “assessed with medium confidence to be a China-based threat actor””, as such, we stopped away from ‘high confidence’ making this setting a larger issue. And my largest issue is when you look to find “Linen Typhoon” you get loads of links, most of them no older than 5 days. If they have been active for 13 years. I should have found a collection of articles close to a decade old, but I never found them. Not in over a dozen of pages of links. Weird, isn’t it? 

The next part is one that comes from TechCrunch (at https://techcrunch.com/2025/07/22/google-microsoft-say-chinese-hackers-are-exploiting-sharepoint-zero-day/) where we are given ‘Google, Microsoft say Chinese hackers are exploiting SharePoint zero-day’ and this is important as a zero-day, which means “The term “zero-day” originally referred to the number of days since a new piece of software was released to the public, so “zero-day software” was obtained by hacking into a developer’s computer before release. Eventually the term was applied to the vulnerabilities that allowed this hacking, and to the number of days that the vendor has had to fix them.” This implies that this issue has been in circulation for 23 years. And as this implies that there is a much larger issue as the software solution os set over iOS, Android and Windows Server. Microsoft was eager to divulge that this solution is ‘available’ to over 200 million users as of December 2020. As I see it, the danger and damage might be spread by a much larger population. 

Part of the issues is that there is no clear path of the vulnerability. When you consider the image below (based on a few speculations on how the interactions go) 

I get at least 5 danger points and if there a multiple servers involved, there will be more and as we are given “According to Microsoft, the three hacking groups were observed exploiting the zero-day vulnerability to break into vulnerable SharePoint servers as far back as July 7. Charles Carmakal, the chief technology officer at Google’s incident response unit Mandiant, told TechCrunch in an email that “at least one of the actors responsible” was a China-nexus hacking group, but noted that “multiple actors are now actively exploiting this vulnerability.”” I am left with questions. You see, when was this ‘zero day’ exploit introduced? If it was ‘seen’ as per July 7, when was the danger in this system solution? There is also a lack in the BBC article as to properly informing people. You cannot hit Microsoft with a limited information setting when the stakes are this high. Then there is the setting of what makes Typhoon sheets (linen) and the purple storm (Violet Typhoon) guilty as charged (charged might be the wrong word) and what makes the March 26th heavy weather guilty? 

I am not saying they cannot be guilty, I am seeing a lack of evidence. I am not saying that the people connecting should ‘divulge’ all, but more details might not be the worst idea. And I am not blaming Microsoft here. I get that there is (a lot) more than meets the eye (making Microsoft a Constructicon) But the lack of information makes the setting one of misinformation and that needs to be said. The optional zero day bug is one that is riddles of missing information. 

So then we get to the second article which also comes from the BBC (at https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/czdv68gejm7o) given us ‘OpenAI and UK sign deal to use AI in public services’ where we get “OpenAI, the firm behind ChatGPT, has signed a deal to use artificial intelligence (AI) to increase productivity in the UK’s public services, the government has announced. The agreement signed by the firm and the science department could give OpenAI access to government data and see its software used in education, defence, security, and the justice system.”  Microsoft put billions into this and this is a connected setting. How long until the personal data of millions of people will be out in the open for all kinds of settings? 

So as we are given “But digital privacy campaigners said the partnership showed “this government’s credulous approach to big tech’s increasingly dodgy sales pitch”. The agreement says the UK and OpenAI may develop an “information sharing programme” and will “develop safeguards that protect the public and uphold democratic values”.” So, data sharing? Why not get another sever setting and the software solution is also set to the government server? When you see some sales person give you that there will be ‘additional safeties installed’ know that you are getting bullshitted. Microsoft made similar promises in 2001 (code red) and even today the systems are still getting traversed on and those are merely the hackers. The NSA and other America governments get near clean access to all of it and that is a problem with American based servers and still here, there is only so much that the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) allows for and I reckon that there are loopholes for training data and as such I reckon that the people in the UK will have to set a name and shame setting with mandatory prosecution for anyone involved with this caper going all the way up to Prime Minister Keir Starmer. So when you see mentions like ““treasure trove of public data” the government holds “would be of enormous commercial value to OpenAI in helping to train the next incarnation of ChatGPT”” I would be mindful to hand or give access to this data and not let it out of your hands. 

This link between the two is now clear. Data and transgressions have been going on since before 2001 and the two settings when data gets ‘trained’ we are likely to see more issues and when Prime Minister Keir Starmer goes “were sorry”, you better believe that the time has come to close the tap and throw Microsoft out of the windows in every governmental building in the Commonwealth. I doubt this will be done as some sales person will heel over like a little bitch and your personal data will become the data of everyone who is mentionable and they will then select the population that has value for commercial corporations and the rest? The rest will become redundant by natural selection according to value base of corporations. 

I get that you think this is now becoming ‘conspiracy based’ settings and you resent them. I get that, I honestly do. But do you really trust UK Labor after they wasted 23 billion pounds on an NHS system that went awry (several years ago). I have a lot of problems showing trust in any of this. I do not blame Microsoft, but the overlap is concerning, because at some point it will involve servers and transfers of data. And it is clear there are conflicting settings and when some one learns to aggregate data and connect it to a mobile number, your value will be determined. And as these systems interconnect more and more, you will find out that you face identity threat not in amount of times, but in identity theft and value assessment in once per X amount of days and as X decreases, you pretty much can rely on the fact that your value becomes debatable and I reckon this setting is showing the larger danger, where one sees your data as a treasure trove and the other claims “deliver prosperity for all”. That and the diminished setting of “really be done transparently and ethically, with minimal data drawn from the public” is the setting that is a foundation of nightmares mainly as the setting of “minimal data drawn from the public” tends to have a larger stage. It is set to what is needed to aggregate to other sources which lacks protection of the larger and and when we consider that any actor could get these two connected (and sell on) should be considered a new kind of national security risk. America (and UK) are already facing this as these people left for the Emirates with their billions. Do you really think that this was the setting? It will get worse as America needs to hang on to any capital leaving America, do you think that this is different for the UK? Now, you need to consider what makes a person wealthy. This is not a simple question as it is not the bank balance, but it is an overlap of factors. Consider that you have 2000 people who enjoy life and 2000 who are health nuts. Who do you think is set to a higher value? The Insurance person states the health nut (insurance without claims) or the retailer the people who spend and life live. And the (so called) AI system has to filter in 3000 people. So, who gets to be disregarded from the equation? And this cannot be done until you have more data and that is the issue. And the quotation is never this simple, it will be set to thousands of elements and these firms should not have access, as such I fear for the data making it to the outer UK grounds. 

A setting coming from overlaps and none of this is the fault of Microsoft but they will be connected (and optionally) blamed for all this, but as I personally see it the two elements that matter in this case are “Digital rights campaign group Foxglove called the agreement “hopelessly vague”” and “Co-executive Director Martha Dark said the “treasure trove of public data” the government holds” will be of significance danger to public data, because greed driven people tend to lose their heads over words like ‘treasure trove’ and that is where ‘errors are made’ and I reckon it will not take long before the BBC or other media station will trip up over the settings making the optional claim that ‘glitches were found in the current system’ and no one was to blame. Yet that will not be the whole truth will it?

So have a great day and consider the porky pies you are told and who is telling them to you, should you consider that it is me. Make sure that you realise that I am merely telling you what is out in the open and what you need to consider. Have a great day.

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Change of venue

Today there were three articles that called my attention. The third os for another day. It was loaded with sarcasm and if not that it would be the irony of the matter and that is for another day (probably tomorrow) but the first two drew my attention. The second towards the first, but that starts with an article by Sophos giving us ‘Sophos announces UAE data center’ (at https://news.sophos.com/en-us/2025/07/18/sophos-announces-uae-data-center/) where we learn that Sophos is about to open a new data centre. We get to see “This expansion is about democratizing access to cutting-edge cybersecurity, powered by AI, automation, and the strength of our partner ecosystem.” The rest is a combination of marketing and sales ‘initiative’ taking this setting is not wrong, I tend to see it as less effective and as it is on the Sophos site, but I get why this was done. There is nothing negative on the ‘announcement’ that they made. 

Yet the second article optionally grips into this should the centre be set in Abu Dhabi. There is the option that Sophos could entertain consultancy solutions for the embassies in Abu Dhabi. 

The second article (at https://www.khaleejtimes.com/business/aviation/wizz-air-uae-employees-struggle-with-sudden-exit) is the Khaleej Times informing us of ‘‘Don’t want to leave UAE’: Wizz Air employees struggle with sudden exit, look for jobs’ the setting of Wizz Air where “pilots, cabin crew, managers, and other staff connected to Abu Dhabi operations, face uncertain future and seek clarity” consider that not all will be able to score a new job quick. There is the likelihood that most will be offered a new position by Emirates and/or Etihad Airways. It will give these people a way to continue their career. And the other? Well that is where article one comes into play. Sophos will need technicians, customer care, technical support and others and as such these people will have the option for all kinds of positions that they might easily be able to shift into and for Sophos it is a way to get localised people with motivation to do well. A setting that serves both sides in the process. But then I could be wrong and the idea goes nowhere. But there these two articles were and they might complement each other and that is a setting that should never be ignored. And if my suggestion solves two problems then it is 3-0 for me (I get an extra point for balancing the issues against one another) and that is how we create a positive balance. Unlike the profit seesaws that investors are trying balance towards personal profits. 

I think I get to feel pretty good about now. Tomorrow I get to throw in my own glasses as I exploit sarcasm and irony against one another. It is a too appealing way of life for me at this point.

Have a great day.

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The new optional premise

We have all heard the Anti-Chimetic (might not be a real word) from America. This is the setting we all face, once a Chinese innovative company becomes too big, it gets b banned from America. Yet, now there might be a new premise set. You see the BBC (at https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3e18qylq5do) gives us ‘US Supreme Court upholds TikTok ban law’ with the added “The US Supreme Court has upheld a law that bans TikTok in the US unless its China-based parent company ByteDance sells the platform by this Sunday” They might hand it to Kevin O’Leary (with a co conspirator), and as Kevin O’Leary is all about making Canada the 51st state he is becoming the enemy of every Commonwealthian. We don’t like that option, yet as I see it there is a second options. 

You see, the idea is that ByteDance creates a new hub in the UAE (optionally in Saudi Arabia) and now America has a problem. What will they do? Stop either of these two players? Good luck with the fallout that this brings. 

If ByteDance creates (for example) a second hub in the UAE, for example Abu Dhabi, and set the pre mine that everyone can post there, the UAE becomes the TikTok hub. The second nice part is that all the advertisement revenue goes there too and now we get a new setting, the international viewers get an international audience and in that the UAE will see a nice windfall too. Optionally we will now see Emaar Properties, Nakheel, Meraas, DAMAC and a few others float to the advertisement top. Optionally it opens the doors for Google to ‘promote’ solutions, but that is how commerce goes. It wasn’t enough for America to fill their pockets, now it turns out they are left with an empty shell. And from there new opportunities will grow and the first nail of the America isolation coffin is set. So whilst American ‘Justice’ is now set against the 170 million users it has in the US. These users might find a new breeding ground for growth. And with the 175 million users it has in Europe, the premise will now be set that America can no longer advertise to over 350 million TikTok users and lose the view of millions of users. I reckon (a speculation) that this loss will be seen all over Google (YouTube) as well. An Anti-Chimetic setting that comes with several hooks and a non-American angle in addition. So how good was this? I set this premise to the content that America had never proven that Huawei was an actual danger and should TikTok seek this solution, it also opens the stage for Huawei to get more and more visibility. There is no fairness in this, America should have given evidence (there was none), merely the fear that is was going to be (and successfully proven at present) that America lost to China in innovation. The setting that was simply set as early as 2010 when SIPO granted 814,825 patents, a year-on-year increase of 40.0%. So this is not new, this has been going on for 15 years. All whist certain ‘captains of industry’ relied on the size of whatever viagra increases instead of revenue. Innovation was a mere spin and now that the die is cast and results are to be shown these people cry like little bitches that the market isn’t going their way. Well the market relies on innovation, something the UAE has proven several quarters over the last 5 years with (allegedly) tremendous growth every quarter. We have seen the numbers and we are shown this with Emirates (with a reported growth of 71%), Emaar Properties Dubai (with a 66% growth) and a few others, but the story should be clear. I actually came up with an idea that could have added even more to that revenue and I grant you that Dubai was a good place to test my IP, before it gets grown into London and Toronto. My IP is never actually localised. It is merely a stepping stone to a more global impact. So as I see it the TikTok ban might open a few more doors for me (pure wishful speculation on my side) and in this where is America? And in this the Guardian gives us ‘TikTok says it will ‘go dark’ in US on Sunday unless Biden acts’ a real nasty setting, because the ‘go dark’ setting isn’t the end, but it is the diminished revenue for America in a stage where they are losing a near dozen in revenue settings on the global stage and when this is the start the TikTok people will find a second stage in the EU where one country will become a secondary hug to Abu Dhabi. A second stage of revenue going from America to another place. So how is that for jolly?

And in all this America only needed to supply evidence, not evidence that players like (for example) Microsoft would like to see presented, but evidence that shows that China was an actual danger to innovation, because it is the innovation that counts. And now there is a stage that could open up sales for Huawei to the EU all that from Anti-Chimetic fears. What a lovely web they weave.

Have a lovely day and feel free to explore what innovation the Huawei Watch 5 brings. The first watch that becomes a threat to both Google and Apple all at the same time. One brand to smite both, so how secure are we with what comes? HamonyOS is now striking out to a much larger population and while Apple and Google are at odds with each other, Huawei is setting the stage to strike at both. And this news is a mere 2 hours old.

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The pope’s mobile is on the clock

 

Hickory Dickory dock, the pope ran up the clock,

The clock struck one, and hit his bum, Hickory Dickory dock.

An old rhyme slightly adjusted and gives light to a joke that mattered, it is old and it goes like:

Q: Why does the pope kiss the ground when he arrives?
A: You’ve never flown with Alitalia have you?

That is where we are, the clock is counting down; Alitalia is on its last legs and merely has two weeks left. As sources report that EasyJet pulled out of the race and even as Delta is still on board, someone needs to be found for the remaining 40% and that is the hard ball, consider on how much of an issue Alitalia is when people like Warren Buffett and Bill Gates will not take a shine to it, it might be too harsh to call Alitalia a money pit, but that is what is amounts too. The flight market is close to saturated, even as we all needed to fly (quite literally) 20 years ago, the companies started to figure out not to give their profits to the airlines. On a global scale close to 9750 planes were in the air last year at any given time, transporting up to 1.3 million people. The operative part is ‘at any given time‘, so how much travel is required nowadays? In 1998 I was flying close to 21 weeks that year, giving trainings and doing consultancy round the clock, at times living from a suitcase with added support from my laptop giving IT trainings and software training. I circled the planet twice that year, from Amsterdam, New York, Atlanta, Sydney, Singapore, Istanbul, via Munich and back to Amsterdam. I thought it was great and as long as the profits were outshining the costs, my bosses kept on sending me to more locations, it was all fine by me. These days are over, even as we see more and more airports expanding to ‘facilitate’ for more passengers, we see a dangerous curve, Stockholm Arlanda is expanding to facilitate for 40 million visitors a year. The numbers give us that the top 25 carriers facilitated for 13,718,655 passengers and if they are all tourists, that would be fine, yet the business side is not adding up. You see 15 out of the 25 had a decrease the went up to 27.3%, the lowest 10 were below 4.5%, still they were all still decreases and the largest increase came from Riga, Latvia.

Now consider that on the other side, on the airline side, apart from the element where we see that Alitalia had no operating profit between 2009 and 2015 with added low points of well over minus a quarter of a billion, the setup of airlines seems to be too odd.

I do get it, a nations having a national airline is a matter of pride, we get it, but at what cost? The airline has about 100 planes as part of the mainline fleet and the cost of doing business is just too high, there is no decent chance that whomever owns the airline might do so, so that they can say that they own an airline, it seems the weirdest of reasons, but from the financial view that is as much as we are going to get and the bad news is not done at this point.

You see, the work I used to do can be done remotely more and more, when 5G is totally here, we can see the shift where the classes can be given remotely with a phantom screen and with the presentations running in the background, the speed will enable us to give individual service to all the participants in up to three locations at the same time, almost like remotely run classroom software with camera’s in all locations. At that point we will see even less traffic required implying that the business classes on these flights will be close to a thing of the past.

The more immediate and difficult part is that none of this is the fault of Alitalia. Yes, we can look at the scandals and the past sting operations, yet the foundation is not that, it is the need of people to travel. In that light the traveller will be the one using their local airline (like many would), some will select airlines for their service and there we see groups of people seeking flights by Singapore Airlines, Cathay Pacific Airways and Emirates. So these airlines are also poaching local travellers as they have shown and proven themselves to be a cut above the others. When it comes to business and tourist Italy, we see decline of both and falling harder, yet Italy is still the destination to several countries, namely Germany, France, UK and US as the largest four. These four add up to 23%; the rest is from all over. So, what makes me the specialist? I am not; I am merely using common sense. 100 planes, in an age where their power is tourism and we are going into the summer season, but that setting is a stage that represents merely 18 weeks out of 52, the numbers and the economy do not support the fleet, or so it seems.

when we consider that Rome Leonardo da Vinci-Fiumicino supported 42,995,119 passengers last year, there is a decent case that I am seeing it wrong, but that is from all airlines, beside Alitalia, we see Air India, Emirates, Turkish Airlines, United, Etihad Airways, Thai Airways, Asiana Airlines, Qatar Airways, Cathay Pacific, Air China, Lufthansa, Ethiopian Airlines, Finnair, British Airways, SWISS, EL AL Israel Airlines, Air France, Saudia, Ukraine International, Jet Airways, Air Canada, Egypt Air, KLM, Kuwait Airways, Brussels Airlines, Aeroflot, Korean Air, China Airlines, Singapore Airlines, China Southern, Iran Air, all flying to Rome, now we see a different picture, even as the airport needs the space and growth, we see no decent numbers on how the Alitalia flights are doing, some sources were giving me ‘No Data‘ and that is fair enough, but it makes a much stronger case that unless there is someone with deep pockets that Alitalia is on its last legs and in its final stage of a mere two week notice until it shuts down. Planes would be auctioned off and the lot to be repackaged for other management styles. And I do believe that the end is not in sight, Alitalia is not the only one in such a sordid state of affairs. I believe that the business case of airlines should have changed a long time ago, and it will get worse soon enough, as the oil price goes up, so do the prices of flights. You see the one element we seem to ignore is not the drop in non-tourist passengers. It is the fact that one barrel of crude oil only facilitates for up to 4 gallons of jet fuel, the turnaround is that high, 42 gallons can only make 4 gallons of jet fuel, after that it boils down to gasoline, diesel and other items, so when the barrel goes up in price, the impact is seen quite fast. Consider that a flight from Rome to New York takes 9 hours and 40 minutes (or 2,088,000 seconds), now consider that a 747 needs 1 gallon a second, so if the oil goes up by $1, the maximum cost of a flight would go up by 2 million times the price increase and we can only get 4 gallons bet crude oil barrel making it an optional increase of $500K per flight (which is not completely true as diesel and gasoline would need to bear part of those costs too, but with only 4 gallons to the barrel, jet fuel would take the hardest hit).

That part counts too and as such tourist numbers would go down to some degree, especially from America. These are all still mere elements in the hardship calculations, but the elements are starting to add up, more optional other choices, more localised incentives and less options for Alitalia, that is the sad reality for Alitalia. As far as I was able to see, the press (the non-Italian press) did not take a look at these elements. Even as the BBC did look at one element “At the time the Irish airline was struggling to contain the fallout from a pilot shortage, which led to the cancellation of flights for about 700,000 passengers“, the abundance of competition, as well as the dangers of fuel changes were not looked at. Yet there are other sources, Bloomberg (at https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-18/easyjet-drops-from-alitalia-bidding-in-setback-to-government) gave us a month ago that Delta is “exploring ways to work with Ferrovie dello Stato and maintain our partnership with Alitalia in the future“, yet I am not convince that they are in it with their heart and soul. Merely a stage where their accountants can optionally see plans for the Alitalia infrastructure and options to give Delta a streamline boost and let Delta grow in other ways accepting Alitalia to some degree for some time, yet how that ‘for some time‘ develops will remain an unknown. Part of it is seen with “Delta would take a 10 percent stake, which would double within four years if certain business goals are met“, yet these business goals are not really heralded by any party. In that regard Lufthansa was open and clear by stating that Alitalia needs to shed 40% of the workforce and that is where the cost of the Delta business goals are likely to be seen as well and that 40% will remain part of the problem. The Italian government would had to euthanise 40% of the workforce in a time when it could not afford to do so and that is the issue to the larger extent. If that knife is thrust hard and deep Alitalia might be around on April 30th, yet at present that is not a given, the pressured parties are not willing to get to that point until the 11th hour and at that point it might just be too late, because in the end the airline is not the only player, the airports will try to make sure that their part of the equation remains safe and there are plenty of airlines offering to ferry people to these locations making the equation unbalanced and unrealistic for the bookkeepers of Alitalia, a sad story for an airline that only recently made it to its 10th year.

 

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