Tag Archives: Facebook

July 31, 2020 · 22:49

Innuendo on the aftermath

The BBC is giving us more, and more, and more. Now they give us “The coronavirus crisis might be causing widespread economic upheaval around the world, but the world’s biggest tech firms are thriving.” And why is that? Consider the simple truth, Apple, even though not completely innovative, does give us something lovely. A lot of people got access to their Super early because of the Coronavirus, we do not want to splash and splurge, but when you are in lockdown, you cannot escape yourself, you can stare down the walls, go insane, or do something else. Surf the web using a Apple iPhone, or a Google Pixar, read a book, play a game or watch a DVD that is ordered via Amazon, then there is the surfing and 2 billion visit Facebook, so yes ‘the world’s biggest tech firms are thriving’, shops would not have been a great offer, lockdowns do that, but the people can order things and some get the hardware to do this. When you have one day to live, the option to see in brilliance and astounding quality matters a great deal to that person. And in all this, the digital highway will be travelled a lot more than usual, people working from home, people being denied high resolution Netflix because the internet if congested, but the advertisements go through, and we all see them. Then we get “At a hearing in Washington on Wednesday, lawmakers grilled the companies about whether they were abusing their dominance to quash rivals, noting the sharp contrast between their fortunes and many other firms”, as I personally see it, they aren’t quashing rivals, they are using their expertise to gain faster and more. 

Beyond that there is “Republican congressman Jim Sensenbrenner asked Mark Zuckerberg why Twitter had removed a post by the US president’s son, Donald Trump Jr, discussing the efficacy of the drug hydroxychloroquine. Twitter is not owned by Facebook. “I think what you might be referring to happened on Twitter, so it’s hard for me to speak to that,” said Mr Zuckerberg.””it gives my earlier view on the stupidity of politicians, as Jim Sensenbrenner cannot tell who owns what and addresses the wrong person on the matter, we see the Cowboy show I expected to see, a waste of time, and poor entertainment at that. 

It becomes a larger issues when we see “Democratic congresswoman Pramila Jayapal asked Jeff Bezos for a “yes or no” answer: Did Amazon ever use seller data to make its own business decisions? This was a reference to reports that Amazon has used data gathered from businesses selling products via its site to design and price its own rival first-party goods – something the firm has previously suggested had been limited to a group of rogue employees. Mr Bezos responded that he couldn’t give an answer in such simple terms” That is part of the problem, the lack of knowledge, when we look at “Did Amazon ever use seller data to make its own business decisions?” What exactly is ‘seller data?’, is it a cookie that the users has agreed on, was it sales data from the application that was used, as such, what application data is in play? Was it a customer review? Three questions that rip out the threads of the conversation. As such, as we saw Democratic congresswoman Pramila Jayapal rip Attorney General William Barr to shreds, she should have known better from the start, and we go from cowboy act to dog and pony show. In all this there is also debate on ‘to make its own business decisions’, especially as APN partners have options to make choices and decisions, it was a poorly phrased question and a wrongly lit situation from the get go. And last but not least we see “Republican congressman Matt Gaetz claimed that Google collaborates with Chinese universities that take “millions upon millions of dollars from the Chinese military” and noted that tech investor Peter Thiel had previously accused the company of “treason””, so how stupid is Matt Gaetz and where does he have ANY evidence that Google was taking money from the ‘Chinese military’? It is these levels of stupidity that gets no results, mere innuendo, yet they ALL seems to agree that overhauling Tax laws and competition laws would be a larger need, especially that in light of 5G and optionally 5G plus (a new IP I am working out) the need to both would be essential in keeping the playing field level, but these politicians, but their own account they sealed their own lives. Even as we see: “But Cicilline goes on: “This is the tip of the iceberg. It’s not just about Covid. Facebook gets away with it because there is no competitor. It’s the only game in town.”” I still remember the setting in 1997, I saw so called bullet point executives having no clue on the digital highway, dismissing it of hand as some paths had no business purpose, the setting did not change before 5 years AFTER Facebook was created by people lacking innovative vision and trying to bleed off Facebook settings, and history is about to repeat itself in the 5G environment, the back-fall is that big and US Congress, seemingly ignorant of the digital dimension are making things worse by stopping the only 4 resources in the US who have a chance of c countering what comes next. So well done djotto’s! And it does not end there. Considering the lacking intelligence by these democrats, when the people realise just how far it lacked, we get to see that the upcoming election is not a given, not by a long shot. I keep on wondering what the hearing was about, when will we get to see these documents and so called evidence that they rely on? I wonder how many holes I get to shoot into that part of the equation. I talk about innuendo and here it is, proudly brought to you by the BBC. It was Republican Greg Steube who sets that in motion with the question “Do you believe the Chinese government is stealing technology from US companies?”, mind you that he tried to push for a yes-or-no answer in light of the simplistic minds that these members of Congress have. Yet consider that the most powerful tech bosses and owners of the IP stated “I don’t know of specific cases where we have been stolen from by the government” (Tim Cook), and that is the first part where we see the issue. Then there was “no first-hand knowledge of any information stolen from Google in this regard” (Sundar Pichai), “I haven’t seen that personally but I’ve heard many reports of it” (Jeff Bezos), in this we only have Mark Zuckerberg who gives us “I think it’s well documented that the Chinese government steals technology from US companies”, this issue here is in the first that it was narrow-minded to set a shallow question on a closed answer, all whilst Tim Cook gives us that he does not know the the Chinese government is stealing, but cheap knock off’s, especially when it is promoted by Kylie and Kendall Jenner (at https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-53596192) are getting promoted by people of no mind and a clever approach on what they can get away with, I think they are called criminals. Sundar supports the view, or basically leads in his own fairway that Google was not a victim of that approach. We get Jeff giving us that he has seen many reports, yet I wonder who wrote them, I hope he is not relying on FTI Consulting for more than one reason. Only Marky Mark remains, I cannot fault his view and perhaps he is right, but in light of the Bezos hacking view and the issue on Sony and North Korea, there are too many questions on who does what and so far too many issues have left us with too many questions on how short the comings of come of the US cyber divisions really are, and that is not all. The hand that could be feeding them is the hand they are biting whilst not adjusting for the laws to make a proper job, that is the setting that we are left with in the aftermath and the innuendo around us leaves us with questions on politicians seeking the limelight. And why was Microsoft not there?

It is a weird setting and it will get a lot weirder in 2021. 

 

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July 30, 2020 · 10:36

The Aftermath

Of course, I did one just before and now one more, 4 tech giants and US congress? It was too good to pass up, if I was in Washington DC, I would have opened a popcorn cart at the entrance (if that is allowed), so as I looked via the BBC before, I will do so again.

It starts with democrat Congressman David Cicilline who gives us “a year-long investigation by lawmakers had revealed patterns of abuse by the online platforms” my question becomes ‘Where is that report, can we see it?’ It might have been made public, it might not, I do not know, but I was not directly able to find it, yet the Boston Glob had the headline ‘Today is the biggest day of David Cicilline’s political career’ as such this man seeks the limelight, so why is that report not all over the media? So far in well over half a dozen newspaper sites, none of them had the link to that report, as such h I have questions and I fear that when I read it a lot of questions will pop to the surface. And when we see “The dominant platforms have wielded their power in destructive, harmful ways in order to expand” the question I had in the previous article rises again, why is Microsoft not there? Show clear evidence of ‘wielded their power in destructive, harmful ways’, and when showing that evidence also give rise to what laws were broken please? IBM and Microsoft have wielded power in harmful ways for decades, yet they did nothing illegal. As such proof of illegality would be ni

Next is Google, there we see: “lawmakers accused Google of having stolen content created by smaller firms, like Yelp, in order to keep users on their own web pages” did Google steal it, or did some duplicate their opinion in both to double THEIR visibility? I am not stating that Google is innocent, I do not have the evidence, yet ‘stolen content’ gives rise to a crime, presented evidence would be nice. So whilst we see accusations, we also got “some Republicans signalled they were not prepared to split up the firms or significantly overhaul US competition laws, with one committee member saying “big is not inherently bad”” the problem again is were there any illegalities made? When some go for “significantly overhaul US competition laws” we see the implied non-illegal stuff and that is where the problems lie, the US government, both the senate and congress should have overhauled Tax and competition laws well over a decade ago, their fault not the four tech bosses and I have stated this failing for years, so why go after the four and leave Microsoft (who is also running advertisements) out of the mix, I have some questions on how David Cicilline is seeking the limelight if you don’t mind!

Then we get the US president “a long-time critic of Amazon and threatened his own action on Twitter, writing: “If Congress doesn’t bring fairness to Big Tech, which they should have done years ago, I will do it myself with Executive Orders.”” It sounds nice, but pointless, there is a lack in legal sides in both competition law and tax laws and a nation of laws cannot reside in a discriminatory state living of executive orders, whilst they can be legally countered. As I see it, the entire charade was a cowboy approach to something that has no bearing, will pay lawyers for a decade and will amount to nothing, all whilst overhauling two sides of the law is ignored again and again.

In this I have to take the sides of the tech boys. With the added side that if David Cicilline does not spread these legal documents of ‘wrongdoing’ these hearings are merely the end of his political career, and in light of the fact that I have never heard of him not a good thing I reckon (OK, that was my egocentrically side). The more articles I read from more newspapers, the more that the feeling of a cowboy and Indian approach by this congress is the stage we face, in light of the non committing towards overhauling Tax laws and competition laws merely strengthens my feelings on the matter.

 

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July 30, 2020 · 03:05

When Congress becomes something more

So as I stated in ‘The Fantastic Four and the Bully’, the four getting grilled are not the bad guys. Well, there is some debate, but the foundation is that these four tech entrepreneurs are getting grilled by people who are clueless on tech matters. So as some read the BBC part “At issue is the fact that Apple doesn’t allow apps to be installed onto iOS devices from alternative marketplaces, and that it enforces tough rules over the way subscriptions and other digital items can be sold.” The issue soon becomes, will congress be responsible for any bad app and data gathering app that Congress would want to allow for? Even as an android user, I see that there are very few bad apples around, as such most apps are safe. There are a lot more dangerous apps on Android. This is not the fault of Google, there are several ways that a personal device gets to be the victim, there are a lot less issues on Apple, as such and as Congress might demand third party options, will they not be responsible for the damage that they put on Apple and its users? There is another side, a these tech giants come under fire, the chances of Chinese hardware makers making it bigger only increases by 35%-55%, how is that of use to congress? We might see Fitbit mentions and other mentions, but these products are closely followed by Asian alternatives, the entire setting does not add up. Then we get the advertisements, until Google Ads was here, we had DoubleClick, there were versions that equal Epom, with price tags that started at $250 a month, then $1000 a month, $2500 a month and higher. So, can the US Congress give us a list of all the small business and small startups that had that kind of cash? Google Ads was one of the first AFFORDABLE solutions for small business units, the fact that the bulk all switched should be a larger consideration, in addition, Google Ads was one of the first to truly die a larger rise to localisation and languages. Usually one or the other was missing, as such, is the growth of Goole Ads to be blamed on Google, or on all the others who could not be bothered? Not everything is perfect at Google, we all know that, but we also know that the ignorance in congress is a little too large to wonder who they are serving, they claim the people, but in reality? I am actually wondering who they are setting the stage for, I see it as a different stage that the one they tell us we are on.

And even as we accept Sundar’s optional defence of “Today’s competitive landscape looks nothing like it did five years ago, let alone 21 years ago, when Google launched its first product, Google Search”, we need to see that this landscape is largely influenced on the upcoming 5G and as it is now, especially as well over 50% of all searches are done via mobile, the only thing I see coming is that China gets a much larger share of it all and Congress intervening on matters that they do not comprehend is a much larger danger to that happening. I have always been favour of Huawei technology, that does not mean that I want China to have the bulk of all the business. The White House wants us to think it is the same, but it is not. They have set the stage that unites Huawei in a political tool for China to set a much larger field, they were pushed by US stupidity, not Huawei needs. The US took it away and now we see a very different stage, one where Huawei is still independent, but taking the customers that China is pointing at. The stage is changing and Congress is adding fuel to that fire by chastising the big four tech makers, each entrepreneurs. Each understanding the digital landscape. I had no clue in the early 90’s when Amazon started, I thought it was mad to continue when the losses were so great, now the owner has is worth in excess of $35,000,000,000, a personal value that exceeds a lot of nations. I am not saying that all is kind and kosher with each of the four, I am stating that when we are getting told changes, we are properly getting told by people who understand that business and in Congress, I doubt that they can rub together 2 one dollar coins on the subject on digital advertising. The more ‘diplomatic’ answer comes from Facebook’s own Zuckerberg. With “Our story would not have been possible without US laws that encourage competition and innovation. I believe that strong and consistent competition policy is vital because it ensures that the playing field is level for all. At Facebook, we compete hard, because we’re up against other smart and innovative companies that are determined to win” and some of them are Chinese. Some are Russian and others are all over the place, yet Facebook has other problems too, privacy and marketing do not go hand in hand, not in their granular market and that is where part of the problem lies. We could decide that from the four, they are the bad apple in this, but that would be wrong. I worked for people who had no idea how to dress a Facebook market when it was offered to them, their bullet point presentations could not deal with that unknown side of business, that was the strength for growth for Facebook, it was so new, there were no defining borders and there is where we see part of that problem, a lot never caught on, not to the degree that Facebook represents and there I see the dangers of the US Congress, they are not that clued in (as I personally see it). So as we get to one of the topics ‘One of the matters concerning the committee is the degree to which three of the tech companies now control the market for online adverts’ we need to recognise that these players made it affordable for a lot of businesses, the old way was dictatorial and something only rich companies could afford, they refused to give way and when Google, Facebook, Apple and Amazon gobbled up the small fry, the large fry moved positions because their provider was no longer the bee’s knees. Three never ruled it, the grew it changing the rulers and the old stage should never return. And finally, according to numbers one in three uses Bing and Microsoft search and are therefor exposed to Bing Ads, so why is Microsoft not in that stage? There are 4 players and one has well over 20%, so why is Microsoft not in the meeting? Is that asking for too much?

Those who have read my articles over the year have seen that I have chastised each and every one of these four (5 if you include Microsoft), but here I see no blame, not from any of the 5, the stage was set, the rules were followed and when the opportunity was there 20 years ago, most would not wonder there, I was a personal witness when some stated that there was no future for a business form of Facebook in 1997, as such what is the US Congress bitching about? And as we look at the article (at https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-us-canada-53582909) we see the graph by eMarketer, yet Microsoft and their Bing is absent, why is that? So whilst they claim it is merely about the smaller rivals, it is about something more and something different, I wonder if we will ever be told the truth. As I personally see it, the members of congress have a different set of needs and I wonder what they are.

 

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July 24, 2020 · 23:35

The Fantastic Four and the bully

Yup its Friday! The match is set and also tempered and set against the Fantastic Four, they face it because the people who they are defending against are not that clued-in on the abilities of the digital economy and they merely want better pickings from these four, I am actually surprised that Netflix is missing there on a few stages, but perhaps they promised the not so clued in spectacle seekers to give them all the illumination they are worthy for, it is a dicey call, but when you can lose it all, you can also play it all.

They are up against a congress who has fiddled and played away well over 8 trillion in stupidity, the rest was unavoidable, they are that not clued in and the batter is about to hit the hedges, so they need a play so that they can retire unabated and without accountability. This was not new, there had been announcements and for the most, I actually thought that in light of what was playing now, that US Congress might give this a miss, but no, I was wrong.So as we look t the article (at https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-tech-congress/big-tech-ceos-ready-defenses-for-u-s-congress-hearing-into-their-growing-power-idUSKCN24O16K), we notice the lead ‘Big Tech CEOs ready defenses for U.S. Congress hearing into their growing power’, yet did we also notice “The panel is questioning the companies as part of its probe into whether they actively work to harm and eliminate smaller rivals, while not always making the best choices for their customers”, perhaps you remember the old court case, where we get the number one hilarious moment (at https://www.nbcnews.com/video/senate-gop-and-white-house-tentatively-agree-on-1-trillion-coronavirus-relief-88172613521), NBC was not the only one giving us that, but you get the idea on how clueless American Politics seems to be. You see, there are two parts in this. The first is “while not always making the best choices for their customers”. The sides here are 1. ‘Who is the customer?’, and 2. ‘What are the best choices?’, as I personally see it, congress does not have the brightest players in the first place, so there is every chance that at least 20% of that panel is clueless to the digital environment. And that is not all. If we consider “The high-profile hearing, which will bring together Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, Apple’s Tim Cook and Google’s Sundar Pichai, will be a key moment in the growing backlash against Big Tech in the United States and is likely to set up a face-off between the executives and skeptical lawmakers from both parties”, we see an optional stage of discrimination. In the first Twitter and Netflix are not there, in the second, as far as I (and others can tell), these players have acted on the letter of the law, the fact that others can’t do that, is not competition Law, it makes it something else (not sure what actually). I agree that I do not have all the answers, but this in the end we need to see that this is optionally not about what they say it is, the European Law and their GDPR is biting hard, as the US privacy shield is falling short by too much, there is every chance that the US government is missing out on terabytes of personalised data as their FISA act opted access for and that is not sitting pretty with them. So where is my evidence?

We see part off this in “Apple is likely to be quizzed about the way it manages its app store after facing criticisms it hurts newcomers. Apple told Reuters it will argue it does not have controlling market share for apps. The iPhone maker views its store as a feature designed to ensure the security and reliability of its phones.” The App Store is a rather large being, but it is amped towards Apple products, and as such security is key. So far the issues we see are a mere fraction of what could be. In this Forbes gave us that part yesterday with “With the July 22 launch of the Apple’s SRD program, security researchers will be able to go and hunt bugs much deeper within iOS. Apple said that the iPhones, which will be dedicated exclusively to such work, and known as security research devices, will come “with unique code execution and containment policies.” What this means, for example, is that the file system will be accessible for inspection rather than just looking at crash log snapshots or using jailbroken devices. The latter being far from perfect as jailbreak vulnerabilities are generally patched quickly, and so any research is more easily denied by Apple as being flawed.” Again, this shows two parts, the first is that Apps are often defined by hardware and Apple hardware is in transit, making most issues moot for Apple, the second part is that we see “the file system will be accessible for inspection rather than just looking at crash log snapshots”, we can argue that this betters the US government access to data, but does not really prove it, the merely get a better look at where to seek what they desperately want. I am still not convinced that this hearing isn’t an option for old goats (oops, I meant members of Congress) to get selfie time wit the 4 most wanted selfie objects in history.

I wil forgo on Amazon, these people have enough problems to set a proper definition of what is a hazard and how to identify it, I briefly discussed that in ‘6 simple questions’ in February this year, where a load of shortcomings, or is that shortcumings? Are set in motion, I never understand how people get their rocks of on bad work, but that might merely be me. I discussed it (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2020/02/03/6-simple-questions/) it also had a link to another article that shows questionable parts of FTI Consulting, as such and quoting CNN who gave us “The report’s limited results are a reminder that it can be extremely challenging to reconstruct the activities of a determined, well-resourced hacker”, all whilst the identity of the hacker is still up in the air, and this is set against a person who has more money than the combined resources of all who live in New York, which is saying something. He is 25% of what Congress faces? To be honest, I feel that the US audience are facing another Mickey Mouse show, which is weird as Disney is not in the dock, but I got extra popcorn, so that I can watch and giggle at the same time. Oh and by the way, I wrote this all on an innovative MacBook Air, as such we see that other players are not up to scrap to show us what is truly innovative. As I see it, this is the first truly innovative piece of hardware since the release of the G5 in 2004, so I wonder what Congress is really trying to achieve. And when we see “in recent weeks the firm has published blog posts and a white paper asserting that it still faces plenty of competition and that the fees it charges ad buyers and sellers are justified.” We see an optional path for Google, all whilst the non US Data centres of Google are being upholstered to avoid GDPR issues, as I see it the US Bully, oops, I mean Congress, are out of their depth in an age where computers and hardware changes quicker then the identity of the average man’s mistress. There are so many tackles and interactions, I have no trust in what US Congress is trying to achieve, but there is an upside for me, a they fail more and more, we see that my IP is still untouched and no one got near it, all this whilst the 5G site is going forward in most area’s, l except the USA. Perhaps Congress should have other priorities, like sorting out the tax laws that these four face, is that a little over the top?

 

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July 14, 2020 · 15:46

Can’t stop the message

That is the name of the game, at times, no matter the source, we cannot stop the message, we can optionally reduce the impact, that is as good as it gets and that has been the centre stage, not for a day, a month, a year, a decade, but for several centuries. The message will get across, history is filled with examples of that all over the world.

So when I wrote “the same model could optionally be used to misinform (or disinform) the person through links that have ‘altered headlines’ One party could use it to flame to larger base of the other party and no matter what claims Facebook makes, the PDF report shows that they are seemingly clueless on how to stop it.” In ‘Presidents are us’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2020/07/11/presidents-are-us/) I knew what I was talking about, as such it gives me great pleasure to see the BBC give us ‘ISIS ‘still evading detection on Facebook’, report says’ (at https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-53389657) with the added text “One network’s tactics included mixing its material with content from real news outlets, such as recorded TV news output and the BBC News theme music. It also hijacked Facebook accounts, and posted tutorial videos to teach other Jihadists how to do it. Facebook said it had “no tolerance for terrorist propaganda”.”” They are basically all stages we have seen before and stages we will see again. History has shown that you can not stop the message, you can merely delay the spread and optionally the impact. That is as good as it can get and the fact that we still see: “The researchers believe that at the centre of the network was one user who managed around a third (90 out of 288) of the Facebook profiles. At times, this user would boast of holding 100 ‘war spoils’ accounts, saying: “They delete one account, and I replace it with 10 others.”” People basically never learn. 

And it is not better, not gets to be worse, I wrote in 2013 “This technology should also include Microsoft services including their search engine Bing. Tracking in mobile devices remains a key point. The big advantage of Microsoft’s emerging technology is that it could track a user across a platform.” In the article ‘Patrons of Al-Qaeda’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2013/10/22/patrons-of-al-qaeda/) that was more than 6.5 years ago, do you think that these people sit on their laurels?  So if big-tech can be flaccid and automated to keep track of nearly anyone, what do you think that Trolls and Terrorists will use to get their message across and this is not new, it is not news, it is the situation that has been out in the open for years. As the BBC gives us “another key to the survival of ISIS content on the platform was the way in which ISIS supporters have learned to modify their content to evade controls.” Yes! And that is news how? Consider that the top 10 technical universities graduate close to 15,000 every semester, so 3 teams a year. Now consider that these parts can only persuade 0.1% (which is massively low), that implies that these players gain 15 tech savvy experts every 4 months and that is before we add those who cater to organised crime, in that numbers game we see that the government’s involved are not in a place to compete, their infrastructure had been downplayed for close to a decade and as salespeople from big-tech come around on the ease of automation we see that the mess merely gets worse and that INCLUDES several defence departments in Europe, the Commonwealth and America. That is the situation and there will be no release any day soon (except for the tech person on the help desk relying on his right hand, plenty of release there). So when you consider that I was merely looking at 10 schools, and the mess is actually a lot larger, how much of a joke is the entire ‘dealing with election bias’? If players like Facebook cannot stop or largely diminish a group that nearly all want gone, how about a situation where a larger group is in doubt of acting? How many backdoors will be given to the Cambridge Analytica minded people? That question becomes a lot more important when we consider the LA Times giving us less than 5 hours ago ‘How Facebook keeps its biggest advertisers happy’ with the quote “The social media company made nearly all of last year’s $71 billion in revenue from advertising and has worked hard to build relationships with both brands and advertising companies through a clubby network of invitation-only groups called client councils”, do you think that people spending $71 billion are kept happy with “offering everything from birthday cakes to ski trips, and dinners at the Silicon Valley home of its chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg.” Do you think that is all it takes? So the people ending up having dinner at that place will also get access and that is where some will be looking, the people with access and that is why the message cannot be stopped, that is why some will persevere and that is before my 5G IP hits the markets. I honestly have no idea to stop some, because some will not be stopped, I can only minimise the dangers, but I am also at the mercy of some Telecom minimisers (or was that mini-misers). Anyway, if Trolls and Terrorists get through 0.5% of the time, those with election needs and other message needs are likely to get through 20-40 times as often and any of the Big-Tech players will remain unable to stop them, unless we employ the bullet through the back of the head solution, this will not ever stop, history has proven me right and the fact that I saw this well over 6 years ago and the BBC got up to speed just now (OK, that was an exaggeration) gives wind to a much larger problem. 

You can never stop the message. Wake up! It is actually that simple.

 

 

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July 11, 2020 · 00:16

Presidents are us

Yup, the fight for the White House is intensifying. The BBC gives us ‘Biden challenges Trump with ‘Buy American’ economic plan’. Well that is a step we saw coming, in a stage where any corona virus hit nations will rely not merely on the export of goods, but on the locally required spending consumer base. With the FAANG group in its own world, the US democrats have decided on ‘Buy American’. It makes sense, although the claimed $700bn plan is likely to cost close to twice that amount and will only truly be a win if US export does not collapse whilst the US population will rely on US goods instead of importing. If those two parts are met then Joe Biden does have an optional working plan. The current president says that this plan will fail, but in light of all his claims, does anyone care what he thinks? So whilst the BBC gives us “Many voters are concerned by the Trump administration’s handling of the pandemic. His divisive approach to the country’s recent wave of anti-racism protests has also come under sharp scrutiny” and they are correct, even as there are a few more issues surrounding Trump, there is a larger concern on his presidency and as the foundation of the Republican group are in a stage where they are doubting his presidency can show any positive impact for the Republicans, the idea that a Democratic win for them at present is better than the current White House occupant is also a larger concern as the elections draws near. Even as we see “Analysts have urged caution in over-interpreting the polls, but Mr Biden’s lead is far greater than that of Mr Trump’s 2016 opponent Hillary Clinton at the same point in the campaign” the analysts do have to some degree a point, the American population has NEVER EVER been this polarised before and as some see it, there is a much larger white power population, Al Jazeera showed ‘An Al Jazeera investigation identified some 120 pages belonging to bands with openly white supremacist and racist views’, which adds up to another issue that Mark Zuckerberg and his book of faces has been unable to deal with. And these pages tend to flow towards Trump, not Biden. (at https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/07/exclusive-facebook-extensively-spread-neo-nazi-music-200710075507831.html) and that is merely the tip of the iceberg that is optionally the reason that the US Titanic will be sinking in unknown waters. The articles also gives us the PDF and “The 89-page report by civil rights experts heavily criticised Facebook, saying it needs to do more about anti-Muslim, anti-Jewish and other hate speech.” In this the article is important when we get to Chapter 6 (Algorithmic Bias), there we see “algorithms used to screen resumes to identify qualified candidates may only perpetuate existing gender or racial disparities if the data used to train the model on what a qualified candidate looks like is based on who chose to apply in the past and who the employer hired; in the case of Amazon the algorithm “learned” that references to being a woman (e.g., attending an all-female college, or membership in a women’s club) was a reason to downgrade the candidate.” Yet the same model could optionally be used to misinform (or disinform) the person through links that have ‘altered headlines’ One party could use it to flame to larger base of the other party and no matter what claims Facebook makes, the PDF report shows that they are seemingly clueless on how to stop it. You see, even if Facebook decides to block politics, it does not stop one account from posting an image, and even as the image might not be political, it can still impact the political base with the misinformation it spreads and Facebook would be largely unable to stop it until it was too late and as it optionally stops one side, the other side can make it worse, so here we see the application of Shareholder, Stakeholder and Sponsors, the S3 equation of big business. 

So even as the news was that the FAANG group saw $58 billion wiped after Trump slammed the ‘immense power’ of big tech (Business Insider), we seem to forget that that same group saw their stocks rise in excess of of $637 billion, so they still made decently well over half a trillion dollars. When you consider that, who do you think that the FAANG group wants as the next president? In all this the entire China matter remains an issue as the US goes towards the polling booths, yet in the end, there is absolutely no guarantee that President Trump is a one term president, yes there is the wishful thinking group, but the issues seen in the economy and the soaring profits that the FAANG group is making is a much larger concern, especially as their voices are a lot more powerful than anyone realises. In all this, the final touch is that so far I have shown again and again that the media is massively sensitive to the needs of the S3 group they dance for, in all this, do you expect to get any neutral news? Consider this week the insincerity of Fox News with ‘Fox News apologises for cropping Trump out of Epstein and Maxwell photo’ and whilst the Guardian reports on this, not many did, and when we realise the byline “Network says it mistakenly eliminated Donald Trump from photo with Maxwell and Epstein at Mar-a-Lago in February 2000” take a moment to consider the choice of words ‘mistakenly eliminated’, which is bias, it is (in my personal view) a form of censoring, which is interesting as it is the media that are all in arms on ‘censoring’ which was shown by Lord Justice Leveson through a novel that exceeds War and Peace (an apt analogy), even as the media reflected on it like it was the horror story fo the century, we see that the media has no issues to ‘mistakenly eliminate’, optionally hoping that no one will notice and there is every chance that a lot of people remained unaware. So in light of all this, there is no way to predict the winner. Even as we hope that Joe Biden will be supported to a much larger degree and that it will be a fair fight, I am not so sure about either premise in this equation.

 

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June 27, 2020 · 23:32

When it is about something else

We all have those moments, we see one thing, yet when we look at the news, it was seemingly about something else. This of course goes both ways, what we see is not always what we think it is and in this case I might well be wrong, yet I am willing to yet you decide.

It all started 10.3 minutes ago (roughly), I was munching down on a bag of ‘veggie straws’ I never had those before and they were on special (50% off) so I decided to take a walk on the Wilde side, so there I was munching on savoury goods whilst listening to Jordi Savall playing Matrimonio di Francesca Borgia, I remember the procession (I saw the Blu-ray on the Borgias), it was a lovely wedding and she copulated in public, the good old days where a wedding was only valid when they did it on the wedding day, all that before there was VHS and we got the best porn in the city. Ah well, as we see one thing we see another, so when the BBC showed me ‘Coca-cola suspends social media advertising despite Facebook changes’ I feel that we are shown something else. At present it sucks to be Coca Cola, let’s face it, when I was in the supermarket I got myself 2 bottles of Vanilla Coke, yet no advertisement would have spurned me, I know the stuff, it is 20% off and for a lot of people it is that way. Coca Cola has sent a truckload of cash in the right directions (Olympics, Sport events, public events, but Covid-19 is stopping it all from happening, so for players like Coca Cola there is no benefit, if there were pubic events, oh no, these are cancelled as well, apparently only a chosen few can have sex at 1.5 metres apart (names redacted for national security reasons). So, I understand the setting where all these firms are blaming Marky Mark of the Zuckerberg clan, yet that is so short sighted. We want to blame the for everything, yet this problem is a lot larger, it is drenched in fear and drenched in opposition to things we cannot control. We cannot control the flu, so when we get some slick politician making claims that big tech is to blame, whilst their own records cannot be properly vetted (the paying dead people issue) all whilst their internal systems are dodgy as hell, I wonder how large the issue is. It is not merely America, the failings in Europe are not small either and it is laced in technology. As these slick individuals took the cheap options, we now see how cheap is letting all kinds of people shout whatever they want, it brings fear to all.

So whilst we see brand after brand relabel their products as to avoid the backlashes, we see that there is a larger issue in play and the media is doing whatever it can to avoid them as to not anger their advertisers, they need all the advertisers they can as you can see.

It is even more dastardly than you think. The BBC also reported on shaadi.com, an Asian dating site that they were removing skin tone filters. Consider that this was done, do you think that they inserted the skin filter automatically, or was it done to appease their members? Do you think that a dating site, or any site will auto filter the look of a member without permission? How liable would they be? Consider the fact that the filter was created, do you think it was to make the programmer happy? He might not have cared, I reckon that if w get actual statistics on the site on who used it (numbers that optionally would suddenly be accidentally deleted), how many women (or men) used it? They would have started their optional relationship based on a lie. So when we see in the article “Priya (name has been changed) found her husband on the site after being rejected by others for her skin colour. “I am dark-skinned and saw the skin colour question on there (shaadi.com) and answered it the best I could,” she tells BBC Asian Network.

“I remember selecting ‘wheat-ish’ – whatever that means.””, so this person hid behind ‘whatever it means’, and I do not care, but we see two versions of deception and I get that she girl made a choice, hoping it would work out, but lets not deceive each other. There is a larger stage and it is founded on racism, you get better breaks (so they say) when you are caucasian and I will not fault anyone to get the better deal, yet the advertisement issue is a lot larger and is drenched in lost revenue due to ineffective advertisements (a Covid cancelled Olympics event for example) and it seems that it could go on for another 60 days and as such the people involved will stop advertising, especially if you already have visibility going up the kazoo (like Coca Cola, HP, IBM, Microsoft, Netflix, Google, and a few Unilever brands), I get the idea that these people are watching the dimes they spend, but lets not call it #StopHateForProfit when it is about margins of profit, it is actually that simple as I see it.

We can push all we can, but it is the fellow man and woman next to us that needs to change, to stop giving in to hate and fear, we get it, it is overwhelming, and when you are African American in the good old KKK of SA, there are larger concerns and it is a lot more serious there, even as the Business Insider gave (two weeks ago) a list with 25 charts that show that racism is serious in the US, lets think about that, so in 2020 we see clear numbers on racism, so why is the US not acting? Do you still think it is that simple? (at https://www.businessinsider.com.au/us-systemic-racism-in-charts-graphs-data-2020-6?r=US&IR=T), so when we are in a stage of #BlackLivesMatter and #AllLivesMatter, consider that corporate America has not acted for well over a decade, the numbers give that much, even as the situation is seemingly going better, there is too much that needs to be done and government does seemingly not care, only 10% is non-caucasian there, look at the Business Insider for that part, so it is about something else and we need to consider that part, we need to consider that a lot faster then we think, because if this explodes, we see a much larger issue, especially when you consider that the pay gap is supposedly between 59% and 62%, and take in consideration the Fair Employment Act 1941, Civil Rights At 1991, Equal Pay Act 1963, and 4 amendments to the Constitution of the United States, so where was corporate America all these years? Let’s call the issue by its name, and let’s take a look at the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act 2009, which directly impacts the case Ledbetter v Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company (2007). So when you are done with all that, consider that Coca Cola issue again and consider how many companies are in a shady place at present. None of it has anything to do with Marky Mark of the Facebook tribe, and a lot more with the bottom dollar as Wall Street needs it to be for at least another 30 years (at present).

 

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June 16, 2020 · 01:34

Donkey Balls!

The explanation is actually almost too simple, I am writing this whilst I am rewatching the Expanse on Bluray (thanks to the awesome sale JB Hifi had 3 weeks ago). I was watching and browsing whilst I got exposed to ‘Media rules must help news providers harness digital platforms’ value’, the link was on LinkedIn and came from Facebook. I do not disagree with the setting, but the entire issue is much larger and has traps on a few levels. That issue is a little less complicated when we consider the news on the daily mail where we see ‘Top Facebook exec says it DID help Donald Trump win but only because ‘he ran the single best digital ad campaign I’ve ever seen. Period.’ And NOT because of Russia’, the claim was apparantly made by Andrew Bosworth and it was in the Daily Mail on January 8th. It is not the claim that is the issue, it is the linked advertisements that the viewer gets. I ended up with advertisements by Telstra and Microsoft. Now, there was nothing wrong with that, yet if I had not clicked on the story, the advertisements would not have come. That is the issue, even newsmakers need to rely on clicks and there is the first issue. Basically the (short) story has the following 2nd headlines:

  • Andrew Bosworth is a longtime senior Facebook executive and confidant of Mark Zuckerberg
  • Bosworth wrote a 2,500 word memo shared internally with Facebook employees that was published on December 30
  • He claimed the Cambridge Analytica scandal was a ‘non-event’ and admitted the Russians did manipulate the U.S. election
  • Bosworth also essentially branded criticism of the company as fake news because the press ‘often gets so many details wrong’ 
  • The memo was initially leaked to the New York Times on Tuesday before the top executive published it in full on his public Facebook account 

5 times to get the clicks, 5 times to get advertisements and the news channels are in the setting to get CLICKS, making the quality of news debatable and there is the larger issue. When the news becomes a commercial vessel, how can it be trusted?

SO when I looked at the news (according to the Sydney Morning Herald) we get: “It would allow news publishers and digital platforms that distribute news to continue building on existing commercial arrangements, and support the development of a Digital News Council to advance cross-industry collaboration. It would also encourage more transparency for significant changes to the ranking of news content in News Feed and guarantee to publishers we’ll continue to share measurement data on how their content performs on Facebook as well as insights on their audiences, without sharing personal user information.” Here I see that there are optional ‘agreements’ on the sharing of revenue (which I do not debate, or wonder whether that is wrong), yet I do wonder about who has the stronger pull. Revenue based decisions, or news quality decisions and the ambiguity of it deepens the innate mistrust in me and the mistrust of the optional news that it breeds. So the quote “It would allow news publishers and digital platforms that distribute news to continue building on existing commercial arrangements” sets the steps for commercially inclined news, not neutral based and news baked news. It ends up not getting the clicks and that is the larger problem. The digital problem is that there needs to be space for news to set the parameters, yet the click is what gets the revenue and they tend to be on opposite sides of coins of different currency. Better stated was the Expanse response, which was ‘It really is Donkey balls’, the settings a larger one and those relying on click based revenue would not be interested in slaughtering the goose with the golden egg and I get that. But we need to move the news into another stage of the media, now making it revenue based, all whilst those participating should require to pay these newsagents something, it was their material used.

So whether we accept that the previous elections used a much better digital profile, we need to take the news out of it, and give them their own digital channel, not set to a click based system. It requires new levels of innovation on digital media and we all better accept that fast. 

What is the solution?

I actually do not know, but in part it will be creating awareness with the people, they need to realise that they are part of that problem, they are the inquisitive types and usually that is not a problem, yet the push the click based activities forward and at the point they become part of the problem. As I see it, the news might be part of social media, yet they should not be part of the click based equation and until the news starts realising that, as well as the fact that their shareholders, stakeholders and advertisers are part of the problem and not part of the solution, this issue will continue.

So those who have seen the Expanse season three and know that the initial weapon was something more might realise that in the digital media that click is the something more towards a weapon, all thanks to the shareholders, stakeholders and advertisers. We need a much larger change and until cash is taken out of the equation it cannot continue, yet that too is a dicey position, because the news has every right to cash in on materials they created. We cannot ignore that part of the equation.

 

 

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March 20, 2020 · 14:54

Gaming towards isolation?

We have so much to look forward to, especially now as Sony has revealed much on their PS5 (at https://www.theguardian.com/games/2020/mar/19/playstation-5-specifications-revealed-but-design-is-still-a-mystery), the first thing I checked for was storage, and there we see “the PS5’s 825GB model is promising faster throughput, with 5.5GB/s as opposed to 2.4GB/s on Microsoft’s machine. PS5 will also offer an expansion slot so that users are able to plug in a secondary SSD“, and it also gives us the Microsoft part “the Xbox Series X will include a larger capacity drive at 1tb“, as such I wonder if the Xbox will allow an additional internal drive? They still have not learned anything, the 1TB drive was not sufficient on the oldest Xbox One and with two generations the storage requirements merely increased with 4K, but the Microsoft executives have the idea that their consumers will accept what THEY consider wisdom, well as I personally see it, they do not.

And I get it, 1TB is enough to start with, but at the end of the first year we need more. Now, let’s be clear, I do not know if that internal drive can be upgraded like the others, We did not have that information on the PS4 until the first week of the PS4, so the Sony situation might actually be better, but even then, in this situation a secondary internal drive might fit the bill. And optionally we can select the Samsung 860 QVO 2TB 2.5″ SATA III SSD for $325, which gives us the additional 2tb that gets us a comfortable 3tb in total. The nice part here is that we do not need to do it on day one and for a while enjoy the PS5 as is. Don’t get me wrong I never regretted the 2TB drive in week one, but there is a benefit to this setup, and Microsoft in 8 years has not learned this lesson (or refused to learn it). 

There is an additional win, this time for Microsoft: “Microsoft has confirmed the machine will be able to play games from each previous generation of the machine, while Sony is only currently talking about backwards compatibility with PS4 titles“, it’s a fair win, yet at present I cannot remember when I even considered playing a PS3 game in the last 36 months, all whilst the games I love will be playable on the PS5 (Skyrim, Last of Us, God of War, Elite Dangerous), and now that I will be able to replay them in 4K mode, I will get a secondary WOW feeling from games I have had for years. 

As such we are in for a little larger christmas list this year around, as the PS5 (I reckon the Microsoft contraption as well) will get the best from a 4K 120Hz TV, as well as some of the 8K TV[‘s (for the rich bastards among you folks), we get to have the nicest digital christmas for a while. In my perception (at present) the Sony X8000G 65″ 4K UHD is a great buy at $1300, and even then I realise that it is not as cheap as some models in the same size offer, in that field players like LG and HiSense offer models for less than $1000. They all have 4HDMI ports, so that is not the achilles heel to worry about, I reckon that there are automated features in Sony I kinda love, when I switch on my Sony Bluray player, the TV also goes on, when I switch on my PS4, the TV reacts as well, all things other brands do not seem to have and that is fine, they are minor points that do not take away from the joy of a TV. I reckon that the one thing we all will need to enjoy the console a lot more this time around is a soundbar, there are plenty of solutions and even as there optionally might be benefit to having the same brand as the TV, there is not one person that can convince me that there is an actual contender to whatever Bang and Olufsen or Bose can bring, I heard the B&O solution this week and it almost literally blew my socks off (I found them 30 minutes later). That would be one hell of a way to hear what the Sony PlayStation 5’s Tempest 3D Audio engine brings to the table. Now, I get it, you can get that part later, or get it when there is a sale going on, yet I reckon that you want it the first time you hear that distinction, because it will be a much larger distinction. Lets face it, you were getting a TV, it has its ups and the sound no matter how great it is with Blu Rays, will not compare what a 3D audio engine brings to the table. Will you essentially need it on day one? Absolutely not, it is actually better to get it later, the WOW factor is pretty awesome, but once you have it, you won’t enjoy sound without it, no matter if it is a bluray or a game, the soundbar brings a lot to the table.

Yet in all this I am aware that we do not all have the coins to get it on day one and in that regard it is now the time to start looking for that 4K TV, or at least saving up for it (a decent 8K TV starts at $9,000), and you need not go for the larger brands, one option was a nameless brand giving a 50″ 4K TV for $450, consider the $79 for additional warranty (an extra 3 years) and you are set for 3-4 years. Then we get the target of our desires (the PS5) and here we see that they are still not giving us a price, but I reckon that $550 gets you there, as such you see a $1100 need by the end of the year. The additional $800 (soundbar and additional drive) is set to a later date giving you a year’s respite and you will end up having upgraded your gaming experience to almost the  highest end. 

In the end we can get all geeky with “CPU: x86-64-AMD Ryzen Zen 2, eight cores, variable frequency, up to 3.5 GHz GPU: AMD Radeon RDNA 2-based graphics engine, variable frequency, up to 2.23 GHz (10.3 Tflops)“, yet in the end, we gamers want to see our socks blow off when we restart Diablo III, God of War IV, Skyrim and a few other titles and wonder how we were ever happy playing it on a standard day one version of the PS4, that too is the adaptation towards new technology. And all that before you see the impact of a PS5 game. We can argue and speculate all we want, but until there is a launch trailer and official release date, I am discarding all the rumours. CD Projekt Red already gave the goods that Cyberpunk 2077 will be a PS4 title, not a PS5 release, it will optionally look better on the PS5, but it will not be designed specific for it as such, the same tale applies to the microsoft version. It is an important distinction as we will see that the best experience on either console will be CD Projekt Red with both Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077, a distinction that sets them apart and ahead of all the other AAA developers. If getting a new console is about the best gameplay you could experience, it needs to include a CD Projekt Red (Witcher 3 or Cyberpunk 2077) game. I am not discounting the joy that Skyrim or Fallout 4 brought, I will want to replay them in 4K mode, but the distinction that the best feelings in gaming will be available on day one if you have any of these games is just a little too awesome for anyone’s good.

In all this we see that others are in their own world of hurt (no need to kick a developer when they are down). If there is one speculation that cannot be ignored, then it is the coming of a Harry Potter RPG to the PS5. An important distinction here is that in all the text none of them are making any ‘exclusive’ noise, as such I reckon that both the Microsoft and the Sony console will get this title, even as all the references only include the PS5 mention, the absence of ‘exclusive’ gives the larger rise that it will be on both platforms.

So whilst we wonder what will be coming to either console, the fact that most of us have the greatest games already on the PS4 and some will be getting the Last of Us part 2 (presently on 29 May 2020), we see an abundance of new WOW feelings as we replay the games we already had (for those who had no PS4 pro). 

For that too is a side of gaming we forget. The idea that we played Skyrim, but did we see it? Try it in 4K and see if you can play the game without finding your lower jaw on the floor, I dare you! The same can be said for Fallout 4. In that same trend, if Witcher 3 blows us away in 4K mode, what will Cyberpunk 2077 do? The boys (girls also) at CD Projekt Red were very distinct in the fact that they want to surpass Witcher 3, as such, whatever more time they need, I will not be offended. I merely hope that William Gibson (writer of Neuromancer) will be there at the launch to see the world he wrote about becomes as close to reality via a console, as he wrote it in 1984, the technology did not exist to blow him away, Sony needed a little longer for that, now that the time is here, I wonder what his thoughts will be on what the in his mind created world became in the hands of CD Projekt Red. 

Even as we are isolating ourselves in gaming, the setting is not that far away, if this Coronavirus (not the beer) is here to stay, alone time with the console will set us free. Lets face it, in this day and age, we see an absurd amount of reflection on something that we cannot avoid. 

OK, I get it, what had an initial mortality rate of 3.2% is now 4.1% as such our survival rate goes allegedly down, yet the amount of people is still well over 95%, so we should not worry, or if we do get a PS5 at the end of the year and celebrate our life in another way. 

Gamers have enjoyed this style of life for decades, are we crying? Nope!

How do we game towards isolation? In fact we do not, when Facebook started groups and gaming groups got involved, we saw an uncanny amount of new connections, this is likely to repeat itself when the PS5 (and Microsoft contraption) comes out. I even speculated on an upgraded version of console dependent social media (on the consoles), yet even as the previous versions were already in that mindset, the makers (both Sony and Microsoft) took too limited a view on it and as such both lost out. It is clear that we want to shout our achievements out at times, we also want to share a lot more, but the station at which both offer that is mindlessly limited to a larger degree. Both systems forgot to think things through and even as Microsoft is ahead of that game, both still think on how THEY can profit visibility, the thought of how the gamer benefits is seen that as they can approach the gamer, the gamer wins, which is the wrong attitude to have. In this they merely had to look towards Google Plus and learn from what was there, they did not. 

I believe that the next gen consoles will have a much larger stage as they embrace ‘true’ social media (not brand and profit driven media), as such we see that both systems have a much larger field to enjoy. I am not stating that any profit driven option is out of bounds, but to have 50% of your homescreen limiting itself to advertisements (Xbox issue) is just stupid, the home screen is where you start your game and see 50% removed for usage is just silly (on more than one level). Yes, the new platforms could ring in a few stages that embrace connections, will they? I honestly do not know and even as the PS3 had the advantage, the PS5 can recreate that advantage and see a much larger boost, in the opposition Microsoft might decide to wake up and do something about it all, will they? 

I do not know, but the lost connections and the stage where it could optionally lead to better revenue is just silly. Yes, I am all for non-profit-driven-players, yet I am not saying that to some degree it should not exist. 

For example, we have social media and we have the PS3 situation of PS Home. Consider that you have your one environment, for example it comes with the next Ubisoft Assassin’s Creed game, for example the Montefiori villa. You get to have one location for yourself (the villa) you can set the main game you are playing and how far you got. in some of them, you get to have a note board where people leave links to their mail and messages, screenshots and you decide who gets to leave those (Google Plus feature). As you chose the location that provider will have a place to advertise new things (and they alone). You get to walk around your place looking at the news and at the interactions you decide on, the previous version never had that. Will it be the Montefiori Villa, a Watchdogs location, the Batcave, a last of us house, or a house in Skyrim, and there is still the community wall where you get a better sense of what is placed there and you can decide. All elements that make for a much larger stage, a stage largely ignored at present, or at times too overwhelming. It requires filtering for some and almost none are there and both players have this issue. And to be honest, I would have thought they would have done a much better job of it (ever since the PS3), both players had the wrong hat on and in the end it makes the wall a ‘whatever!’ experience. 

I believe that the PS5 (and Microsoft equivalent) have a new stage in 2021-2022, as 5G is playing a much larger stage, there will be a larger stage for people to feel comfy in, it applies to gaming as well. Even as we are all in it for the game, the stage where we are comparing and reading about other gamers will become a lot more distinct. Perhaps it is the one field where the Google Stadia could rule in the end. 

I believe that it shows a much larger community that is out there. Some gamers do not want to talk to all their friends, they do not want to read about all the others, but he or she might want to look at something specific and it will differ per game, neither Microsoft or Sony considered that for almost three generations. None of them gave the right focal point on filtering, they merely dumped it all on the player, who ignored it in a hurry.

Forbes gave us 4 days ago “Stadia has been struggling to make waves and capture the interest of harder core players who were willing to pay for Founder’s Editions or the paid tier. But now with everyone stuck indoors, it seems like the right time to introduce the free tier” (at https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2020/03/16/coronavirus-quarantine-seems-like-the-right-time-for-google-stadia-to-release-its-free-tier/#e60fd00b168f), I believe that the issue goes beyond that. Yes the article reads easier when we see ‘the free tier‘, yet the truth is that this is the stage of cash strapped people, the gamer has another need, to see what they want to see and that is not addressed, by none of the providers, they merely dump a shitload of items and issues, with no filtering, or at most limited filtering.

Even as we are all gamers, we all have distinct needs or interests. I am interested in some of my friends on how far they get, one of them is a Witcher virtuoso, so seeing where he gets at is interesting, some games have nothing to contribute to me and some gamers are seemingly in it to get achievements. i cannot directly see which gamer is in it to enjoy Skyrim and who is in it to run through Skyrim. Filtering of users, friends and game specific items became apparent and it has been that way since the PS3/Xbox360, yet the makers did not really catch up, not in almost 15 years, how peculiar. There is always the option that they did not think it worthy of their attention, but that choice is dwindling down in light of what 5G offer and what the hardware can currently deal with.

It is a stage where we force our bodies into isolation, yet the mind is globally available and that is how it has been with gamers almost 30 years (M.U.L.E.) that is one of the first games that had enough multiplayer sides for people to take a much larger interest and the CBM64 (with an actual 300 bit modem option, no less) took that to another level (in those days). 

We (the people at Sony) seemingly forgot to take that into account and even as the world premiere on the PS3 implied it, it never really came to the degree we all desired, yet this time around, the isolation phase in the Coronavirus might give them pause to think on what gamers need and desire and adjust the system accordingly. The fact that most is software arranged implies that the systems will not be impeded and it could all be finished and better adjusted to when the console launches. I believe that whomever adjusts to that has a much larger audience to cater to when that part is realised. We might (to some degree) be in denial of that, yet I believe that the lockdown and self imposed isolation out there will push these issues to the surface and I believe that it will happen just in time. I reckon that the 2020 Olympics will add to that flavour of realisation as well. No matter whether the Olympics will be delayed for up to a year, or that Wimbledon will push that part to the upper reaches, it is a field where we see growth of a different nature, 5G already has the ability to set things in faster mode, but gamers have not been so lucky and we need to consider this, in the past where it was all PS2, the world consisted of 150,000,000 gamers, now that number has grown to well over 500% and now, as we see that 1,000,000,000 people want to reach out, now we see that the proper addressing on how they can reach out will matter, even as Facebook ignored it for far too long to cater towards advertisers, we see that consoles have a much larger game to play here. 

I merely hope that Sony (and others) take notice when it can still impact them in a positive way, the next two years will show where it ends. Will it end well? I cannot say at present.

 

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February 28, 2020 · 17:32

Tech needs

I was amazed by a story in the guardian (at https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/feb/27/phones-that-may-hold-child-abuse-images-returned-to-suspects). Now, we all have that at times, a moment where we just do not get the idea that something is happening (or not), the issue here is that it is a much larger setting and we see this with “Police are giving back to suspected paedophiles phones and computers that possibly hold child abuse images because they do not have the time or technology to search the devices“, so the police ran out of time (or options) hand the evidence that could be used against these people and let them go?

Then there is “the technology that helps officers quickly scan devices to determine the likelihood of indecent images being present is not consistently available across forces” in this that it is important that we take notice of ‘quickly‘, how determining is that factor? As I see it with the range of mobiles that are coming in the next two years, the hardship of the police will increase by factor 16 at the very least (on average factor 32 applies). There is a larger setting where the police have a duty, but so do the tech firms. I am not the person to blame all the tech firms, yet there is a larger setting where certain tools need to become available with the next stage of transportable drives and hardware. And we need to look beyond the normal FAT (or NTSC) stage of scans where allocated space is scanned alone, making the hardship for the police increase to factor 64 at the least. 

Then we see “limited capacity of forces to conduct many costly and time-consuming digital forensic examinations is also hampering investigations into suspects who have downloaded indecent images of children” and that is when we see the impact of people saving images on their own drives, it is the group that has dark web links in a sort of 4chan (not blaming 4chan here) that allows these people to look at such images at their own ‘leisure’ in any free wifi situation as the images are encrypted until at the endstation with the decrypting part in the app itself, and as the hardship of the police is merely to scan for images, the solution to find these people is unlikely to become a larger solution ever.

So when we see “restore 20,000 police to the streets of England and Wales will not be enough to match the increasing demand placed on officers to protect children” we need to consider very different solutions and the adaptation of law to protect children becomes a much larger need. It is seen in “In one case inspectors found that 100 days had passed since police were notified that a 10-year-old girl had been receiving indecent images from three older men via social media. During that time there was no effort to identify and trace the perpetrators“, which is interesting because they were apparently able to identify that these were ‘three older men‘. Is it just me or is there a larger failing in the making? The second failure is seen in “Safeguarding planning for children linked to a suspected perpetrator is routinely deferred until a criminal investigation has begun“. As such there are actually three failings. We overlooked ‘social media‘, they too play a role. There should be a clear path for a younger person to press the alarm button alerting social media on any indecent picture sent via social media if the account holder is under 18, this could have been avoided years ago. This is not a stage of freedom of expression, this is not free speech, it is optionally criminal speech and evidence must be gathered at this point. 

There is no defence in ‘someone had my password!‘, the owner of the social media account had responsibilities too. As such as we see “The delay is worsened by the lack of technology available to officers to search devices for child abuse images“, the statement is cutting on both sides, as the images might not have been on the device. other means of tracking usage must be found and we need to do more to keep the children safe.

In all this there is a much larger failing, yes there are criminal prosecution needs, yet it is almost indecent to push the blame onto the police. I believe that whatever enlargements places like GCHQ is getting, they need to get off the horse of blaming players like Huawei on events that come from alleged unproven sources like the US state department and place these sources on finding true solutions to aid the police. Consider the need for solutions and less so towards unfounded allegations, that is close to 15% of GCHQ resources freed overnight. I call that a decent solution, do you not?

Yet, I am not blaming GCHQ, the issue is that we need to adjust the laws on digital prosecution and where we are presently allowed to go, that is not a given in the stage we see. We need to adjust the track we can walk and who can walk it for us, it is the only solution that remains at present and too many people think in call centre cubicle terms and refuse to see the larger pasture that we need to canvas.

In all this tech firms and governments need to find common ground and we are in the space where we can blatantly blame tech firms, yet it is not that simple. The tech firms offered a solution and someone found another use for it. We cannot blame Sony for people using their PS3 as a powerful Ubuntu Linux station and that is basically what is happening. This is not some tech firm problem, it is the station where a generic piece of hardware can run another app and use it as it sees fit, use and adjust for other solutions and implement that and the police has little to no hope at all solving the issue they face and tech firms need to come out and play with governments and stay nice. 

Yet the issue is much larger than anyone thinks. We saw part of this last year in the Crime report with ‘Tech Firms’ Neglect Lets Pedophiles Run Rampant Online‘, the fact that ‘freedom of expression’ is used in a way none are willing to agree to also means acknowledging that sometimes an aerosol is used, not to hand out what it was intend on doing, but to assassinate a politician. See here the object (at https://www.amazon.com.au/Aluminum-Pneumatic-Refillable-Pressure-Compressed/dp/B00JKED4MS/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=aerosol&qid=1582859473&sr=8-3), as I add it with the right Arsenic mix and switch the bottle, the user kills himself. Is the bottle maker to blame (or I am even more devious and add the mix to their own bottle, was the victim in the end to blame for their suicide)?

So the entire ‘rampant’ part is (as I personally see it) intentional miscommunication, there is a larger stage and both sides need an actual point of reference. there is a system in place and we see “YouTube removed this video, and many others, after WIRED alerted it to the problem” (source: Wired) yet we forget that this is a massive engine and google is not in a place to stop the engine being used by criminals to make a few quick bucks. We need to accept and understand that. Even as several people hide behind “on a test account created to investigate the network of paedophiles on YouTube, the platform’s algorithm continues to suggest similar videos of children that have been commented on by sexual predators“, the engine did exactly what it was supposed to do, yet in this case we see that it is servicing the criminals and the short sighted people shout and blame the tech company, just as they blame the police and neither is at fault, the criminals are. We can look at the T91 assault rifle and claim it is used to kill, which is true, yet we forget that the person using it can kill criminals and police officers alike, blaming the makers for that is just short sighted and stupid.

We need a much better solution and we need to rely on tech makers to hand the tools to us, all whilst we know that those making the request (see hidden images) have no clue what to look for and how to look for them, it is maddening on several levels and the people on the side lines have no clue that the referee is looking for an orange jersey all whilst the All Blacks are playing Australia, so he sees Green, Yellow, Black and White (the fern). It is a stage where we look at the players, whilst the field has several other members that are validly there and we overlook them, just like the ‘hidden pictures’ are sought in a game where the pictures are optionally not even on the mobile device, merely the link to them is.

That part is overlooked and as we go from one item to the other, we forget that links can be added in several ways and the police will run out of time long before it runs out of options to check. In all this the law failed the children long before the tech firms did. So whilst we see Wired giving us “To date, Disney, Nestlé, Epic Games, Dr. Oetker and a number of other companies have halted advertising on YouTube after it emerged that the platform was monetising videos being uploaded and viewed by paedophiles“, I merely see one sanctimonious firm and 3 short sighted ones, it could be two for two, but I leave you to decide on that. An automated systems was designed and put into place, the criminals were hiding in the woodworks and there are close to a dozen ways to hide all this from an AI for years, all whilst we clearly see that We need to realise that YouTube became so much more than it ever was intended to be and when we take notice of ‘300 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute!‘ and consider that 18,000 hours of video is uploaded every hour, we get a first input of just how difficult the entire setting is, because these 18,000 hours of video will include 3,000 hours of videos that is set to items no more than 5 minutes per video, making the issue 20 times larger, in all this we forget that this is a global thing and cross border criminal activities are even harder to set any mind to then anything else and in all this, there is no actual number on the actual number of uploads. Consider that ten minutes out of 18,000 hours is illegal and that 30 seconds out of those 10 minutes is on paedophiles. At that point do you get a first inkling of how large the problem is. and that is merely YouTube, there are channels that have no monitoring at all, there are channels that have encrypted images and video solutions and there are solutions out there that have an adapted DB2 virus header and the police has no clue on how to go about it (not their fault either), in all this places like the DGSE and GCHQ are much better solution providers and it is time the tech firms talked to them, yet whenever that discussion starts we get some stupid politician who conveniantly adds a few items to the agenda, because to that person it made sense and as such no solution is designed and it has been the situation of non action and non solutions for a few years now and I see the same discussion come up and go about it all whilst I already know the outcome (it is as simple as using an abacus).

We have larger tech needs and we have better law needs, And whilst we see people like Andy Burrows, NSPCC associate head of child safety online go on about “extremely disturbing“, all whilst a person like that should realise that the system designed is generic and severely less than 0.03% of the population abuses it is beyond me, I would go on that a person like Andy Burrows should not be in the position he is when he has little to no regard of the designed system, more precisely, he should remove the ‘online‘ part from his title altogether.

And whilst Wired ends with “During our investigation into his claims, we found comments from users declaring their “love” for the children and exchanging phone numbers with one another to share more videos via WhatsApp“, I merely wonder how the police is investigating these phone numbers and whatsApp references, in all this the absence of WhatsApp (Facebook) is also a little weird, it seems that these social media predators are all over the place and the open abuse of one system is singled out whilst we get no real feel of just how the abuse statistics are against the total statistics. Consider that Windows has a 2.3% error to abuse by non users, in all this for Google to get a system that is close to 99.4% decent is an amount that is almost unheard of. most people seem to forget that Google gets pushed into a corner by media and madiamediators on transgressions on IP protected events (publishing a movie online), there is the abuse of video, there are personal videos that are disallowed and terrorism via YouTube, in all this harsh or not, the paedophile issue is a blip on the radar, Youtube gets $4 billion out of a system that costs $6 bilion to maintain and it pays off in other ways, yet the reality on the total is ignored by a lot of players and some of them are intentionally averting their eyes from the total image and no one asks why that is happening.

So whilst we look at the Wired byline ‘Legislation to force major tech platforms to better tackle child sexual abuse on their networks is also “forthcoming”, a Home Office spokesperson has confirmed‘ we need to seriously ask whether these legislation people have any idea of what they are doing. The moment these people vacate to another nation the entire setting changes and they have to start from scratch again, all whilst there is no solution and none will be coming any day soon. You might think that vacating nations solves anything, but it does not, because the facilitators of these images can pick up their server and move from place to place whilst they get millions, all whilst the payers are still out of reach from criminal prosecution. and whilst we go in the magic roundabout, we get from point to point never having a clue on the stage we are on, we are merely going in circles and that is the problem we face. Until the short sighted blaming stops and governments truly sit down with tech firms trying to find a solution, we are left in the middle without any solution, merely with the continued realisation that we failed our children.

We have dire tech needs and we need to make a cold list of what we need, and the first we need to do is blaming them for a situation that they are not to blame. Consider that we are blaming Johannes Gutenberg for the creation of the printing press, he created it in 1439, basically to make the bible available to all (before that only rich people could afford a bible), yet he is the one being accused of aiding the spread of Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler. that is what we face, we blame YouTube and Google for something they never did and optionally never considered facing. In 1814 Joseph Nicéphore Niépce made the first photograph (like we know camera’s today), yet in that same year Julien Vallou de Villeneuve used it to photograph naked women, should Joseph Nicéphore Niépce be held accountable? We all seem to say yes and blame Google, but it had little to no control at all, a system like the one Google made was not meant for the 0.00000000925% abusing the system, yet that is what is happening right now and we need to take a step back and consider what we are doing. I am not claiming that Google is a saint, yet we refuse to hold Microsoft to account for their 97.5% operating system, yet we are going to all lengths to prosecute Google for 0.00000000925% of materials produced (actually it is up to 1/24th of that if not smaller) by others through abusing the YouTube system, all whilst the problem is a lot larger and is beyond almost any tech firm, so why are we doing that?

It becomes clear when we add last year’s CNN article in the process. They gave us “Frustrated that those regulators are moving too slowly, Congress, with support from Democrats and Republicans, will use its investigative power for a top-to-bottom review of the tech industry, and focus on the biggest companies. Congress cannot break up companies under existing laws, but it could cook up new ones — and Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who’s established herself as Democrats’ big ideas leader in 2020, already has a plan to break up the largest tech monopolies.” (at https://edition.cnn.com/2019/06/04/politics/washington-turn-against-tech-companies/index.html), I believe that this is not about the materials, it is about a handle of the company and flaming conversations brings emotional response and the quickest way to push voters into an area where they are the most useful. Google is still too big for politicians, so they push and push until something gives and they are hoping that the people will be malleable to a much larger extent then the tech companies ever were.

Lets face it, how many companies are actually interested in fixing a problem that covers 0.00000000925% of their materials? That is the actual question! The police can’t go after it, these politicians are unwilling to adjust laws where paedophiles are actually processed, as such the entire situation does not make sense and tech firms are suiting up for their defense, that is all the politicians have enabled, now the politicians through media hope for enough outrage and we see the fallout, those politicians are willing to endanger the lives of the children by not seeking an actual solution, but a solution that fit their needs and these two do not align. and in this both sides of the isle on a global scale are guilty, both the elected and unelected (this term) parties are all equally guilty of setting a stage that suits them, not one that solves the problem.

We seemingly forget about that part of the equation, I wonder why that is.

 

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