Tag Archives: Huawei

January 31, 2020 · 15:22

The Bully’s henchman

Yes, we saw it before and again we see a new ploy into the bashing by a bully. The Guardian (at https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/jan/29/uk-chance-relook-huawei-5g-decision-mike-pompeo) gave us “Britain has a chance to “relook” at its decision to allow Huawei into its 5G phone network in the future, the US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, declared as he flew to London for a two-day visit to the UK“, the fact that the number one US bully (as some see him) sends out Mike Pompeo warrants more scrutiny. Lets not forget that on a global scale the US has not actually produced ANY evidence that Huawei is a security concern. We see merely that the US firms will lose their data drops on a global scale as Huawei makes a larger impact, and that is a much larger fear for the US than anything else. Even as we see news with senators with privacy concerns, we see an absolute lack of actions towards Google and Facebook to amend its protocols and data capture activities, all set in some loophole, flaws which are still legal and legally set in stone (of a sort mind you). Yet the undocumented claimed fear of Huawei and the Chinese government has still not been shown to actual cyber specialists and to actual independent hardware experts. 

So as senior (read: ancient) advisors of the Trump administration give: “insisted that sensitive American information should travel only through “trusted networks”” we see a lack of evidence by them. We also see that the US is changing its tune, the claim “But our view is that we should have western systems with western rules, and American information only should pass through trusted networks, and we’ll make sure we do that,” is it the changing claim of the bully that has changed evidence for ‘we should have western systems with western rules‘ is evidence of that. In addition to that its weak and waning “The secretary of state emphasised that work was being done between the two countries “to make sure that there are true competitors to Huawei” so that “we can deliver true commercial outcomes across real secure networks that aren’t subject to the Chinese Communist party’s control”“, where we need to valuate ‘work was being done between the two countries “to make sure that there are true competitors to Huawei”‘ reads more like a flaccid 90’s software sales agent with a concept to sell than an actual commitment. This situation merely exists because governments stopped seeing infrastructure as a priority and as US commercial people saw ‘gains’ elsewhere (read: cheaper/easier way to make commission), hardware needs lagged and the US is almost 3 years behind in the 5G circuit. Like in the BBC article yesterday, we see “The US says Huawei could be used by China for spying, via its 5G equipment” hiding behind the word ‘could‘ whilst not producing any evidence. All whilst presurring on “Mr Ren’s military background and Huawei’s role in comms networks to argue it represents a security risk” that is all slanted on a time when Mr Ren actually looked young and served for 9 years, he left the army in 1983, which was when Mike Pompeo was in High School optionally hoping to fondle a local cheerleaders boobies (we can presume), oh and by the way this was all 37 years ago, as such the lack of evidence on the equipment apart from an almost 10 year old case that was settled, the evidence presently seen is a joke.

This is all about the US losing its data collecting position and it is willing to sell anyother nation down the drain, all becasue the US became lacks, stupid and flaccid. Is that the legacy that the EU and the UK have to look forward to? Lets not forget that no matter how happy Nokia and Ericsson become, they are a little over 5 years in the running and well over 3 years too later to adapt to the high-tech that Huawei is currently releasing, that is the price of iterative technology.

The fact that my personal IP surpasses the US tech stream is further evidence still, in 1992 I was really behind the curve, it makes for the difference of innovative thinking and as the world relied on the US, its flaccid actions are now a real issue. 

In addition to all this, Wednesday also gave us “A group of anti-Huawei Tories want an assurance that the government will work towards reducing the Chinese company’s influence in UK infrastructure to zero, ultimately stripping it out of the 4G network as well” which is linked to “any provider deemed high-risk by the intelligence services should be phased out of the supply chain” and the problem here is not that Huawei is a claimed spy tool for the Chinese government, it is the fact that (as Alex Younger) stated that no infrastructure should be in the hands of non-UK corporations, which is acceptable. Yet they will hand the hardware over to EU and the US government, which is slicing the meat on the other side and almost as pointless. Let’s be clear, Alex (big boss MI6) gave a clear and understandable point of view. UK infrastructure needs to be in UK hands and as such we can accept that. Yet British Telecom is nowhere near this situation and as such we see a failing of policy on more than one shore.

So as we get to “Unhappy MPs held a series of meetings in Westminster, although they are keen to operate behind the scenes to push for a concession, several senior Tories believe they have a chance of getting the 45 rebels needed for a successful backbench revolt on legislation relating to regulation of Huawei” which would boil down to a conservative mutiny on a few fronts, the question that I am currently posing is: “If I investigate these 45 ‘proclaimed rebel’ members, how many will reveal a carefully denied personal link and gain from a non Chinese Telecom market?” Is that not an interesting side either?

And the intentional limitation of 35% would that be to keep American commerce happy, or is there an actual security setting here?

There is too much on the surface that we should investigate and it is not. Even as the article makes a reference to American diplomat Plus One, whose wife Anne Saccolas is accused of causing the death of 19-year-old motorcyclist Harry Dunn. They still insist on their bully tactics and they will refuse to make public any evidence of the Chinese government links to Huawei hardware, all whilst the massive bugs in the Cisco routers are ignored by all.

So whilst we all cry over non existent hacks on Huawei equipment, we are faced by Cisco insecurity, and whilst some will not get this, the fact that the bulk of all servers in the world rely on Cisco Switches. so when we get (source: Cisco) “2020 January 29. A vulnerability in the web UI of Cisco Small Business Switches could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to cause a denial of service (DoS) condition on an affected device. The vulnerability is due to improper validation of requests sent to the web interface. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending a malicious request to the web interface of an affected device. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to cause an unexpected reload of the device, resulting in a DoS condition.” Now apart from the local need to fix this, there is no real blame at Cisco, this happens and whilst we see

Vulnerable Products

  • 200 Series Smart Switches
  • 300 Series Managed Switches
  • 500 Series Stackable Managed Switches

So whilst everyone is crying over non proven proclaimed weaknesses, there are actual weaknesses in the hardware leading to the internet and that gets my goat up, the entire Hawei matter is about the US losing too much revenue and the US being out of the data loop, and we support that….why?

When we wonder how we care on who gets our data, we seem to forget that someone gets it, yet the US wants to be the only runner in this race, based on decades of feigned superiority and now that they are in the race and moving from first to 4th position we seem to grant them all the leeway they need, whilst on the other side we see no improvement on personal data intelligence security, why do we need to continue this situation?

That issue becomes larger when we see the Financial Times (at https://www.ft.com/content/96c79040-40ea-11ea-bdb5-169ba7be433d). Here we see “Wealthy individuals are scrambling to lock down their privacy in the wake of the alleged hack of Jeff Bezos’ iPhone, as personal cyber security experts warn that the rich and famous are increasingly becoming the target of sophisticated cyber criminals“, which makes sense and the supported ‘a report last week alleged that Amazon founder Mr Bezos was hacked by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in 2018‘ in all this there are (at least) two sides

  1. We see a proven part where ‘sophisticated cyber criminals‘ are getting onto more and more mobiles (an issue that will continue faster and more intense in 5G. 
  2. The world is realising that corporations are not lucrative targets, the softer market and larger market of one million mobiles might be worth a lot more, and the collected information could lead to a switch in ‘criminal economies’, that part is optionally seen in “Rubica, a company that provides more affordable digital protection for families, added that had he received “lots of inbound” inquiries last week from clients about how to better protect themselves from adversaries“, and as we see “According to data compiled by RSA Security, 70 per cent of fraudulent transactions in 2019 originated on mobiles“
  3. (Optional) The guilt of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was never clearly established and is by some experts in the field regarded as a strange choice of actor to incriminate in the first place, as such it implies that there is a larger concern that the ‘vested’ parties cannot make clear statements on guilt and providing proof on who did it. Making the cyber setting a lot more dangerous, especially as insurers will try to seek more ways on options to not having to pay out (making more stringent contracts), this setting could hurt millions of people whilst the actual criminals go on without prosecution.

We see a shift in the market and this shift becomes a much larger issue in 5G, as such do you want your 5G infrastructure to be 3 years behind the latest technology? It will go faster and faster as I saw what the direction was and my IP would (hopefully) lessening the impact by almost 30% whilst 400 million starters (globally) will get a much larger slice of their marketing pie for their small businesses, whilst keeping more control of their information. All because some people forgot to look in one direction, that too is the effect of flaccid American innovation. I would never be a contender if they upped their game, so when my ship does come in, I will have to thank them for that.

Marc Rogers, vice-president of cyber security at Okta is right when we see “The cache of data on these devices is just growing, We’ve seen a massive escalation of theft [from] mobile devices because criminals are realising that people are storing immense amounts of personal and financial information,” is part of that crux and the US whilst bullying their Huawei part are basically not ready to deal with this, because they will claim that is up to you and your insurance. Which is an interesting ploy to give out in the near future as Cyber crime will spike and all whilst most global governments still do not have a clear and well documented Common Cyber Sense setting in play, many are hiding it in some HR document and using that to sack people when the damage becomes a little too pronounced, or the transgression becomes a ‘politically correct’ consideration. 

I see a much larger problem and the US is merely adding fuel to the fire and whomever they send will merely be the spokesboard of US data collection groups (as I personally see it) that need their data to maintain existence. 

So who is ready to play catch with the next henchman that the US sends?

 

 

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January 14, 2020 · 12:27

The cornered bully

We all have these moments, when we have to speak out against dopey (the bully in the corner) but the boss we report to is a spineless sack of shit and he will not do anything, more importantly he seems to be heralding the voice of the bully like he has credibility. So there we are, the bully (America), the spineless boss (pretty much most nations in the EU and the Commonwealth) and the people ready to speak out, the IT experts who are muzzled by bosses, because they are afraid to start a fight.

That is the setting that the Guardian introduces us to with ‘Using Huawei in UK 5G networks would be ‘madness’, US says‘ (at https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/jan/13/using-huawei-in-uk-5g-networks-would-be-madness-us-says). We have seen it before, the US is now getting more and more afraid of the billions being missed out on and they are going full throttle with the fear mongering. Even as we see “Matt Pottinger, presented an incendiary dossier which they said featured new evidence of the security risks of relying on Huawei technology in future phone networks“, we get introduced to the Gerbil-in-the-groceries Matt Pottinger the new flagship for presenting ‘news’ just like Colin Powell with his Silver briefcase. You see, I am not afraid to face that music, neither are the hundreds of intrusion experts who have been unable to validate the wild fantasies of America, America took the VHS example and is trying to steer the ships of nations and now they are boasting an unwillingness to share intelligence. This is nice, but in the end, the Intelligence from the US is backdated and there is every chance that it is as false as any news they spread. The entire bully network comes to blows when we see “The intense and public lobbying presents an immediate headache for Boris Johnson“, I also do not disregard “having been repeatedly advised by the UK’s security establishment that any security risks can be contained“, this is equally important, because Alex Younger who is the official Big Boss at MI-6 stated that infrastructure this important should not leave British hands, this is not a case of Huawei being a danger, it is a national policy and that is fine, I would even state that this gives the UK and option to buy the Huawei technology, rip it apart, set it under a loop and optionally give BT a chance to become a contender, US firms will jump at that opportunity, to have Huawei technology without the Huawei fear. Let’s face it, Huawei offered that solution to the US last year, but there is a larger concern and for the US it is not really spying, it is the fear where data will end and there are several new players all non-American whilst the American data gatherers are tapped out (financially), so the US is bullying all others to wait hoping that Silicon Valley will come with an American solution that is actually real 5G, all whilst it is not coming and at present all those who delay are losing momentum and twice the amount of time on the 5G path, so any delay up to a year means a 2 year delay and they all know that you are either better (the US is not), you are first (the US can not) or you cheat (the only path the US has at present). 

This all gives us two distinct realities, the first is that for the first time the US is not the first at the top in technology, a shock they have a hard time surpassing and they are not the only 5G company, they are really not ready for real 5G, you see in my past blogs I showed that whatever they call 5G is really not 5G, nowhere near, not at those speeds. The Guardian also gives us “Ahead of the UK decision the head of MI5, Andrew Parker, said over the weekend that he saw “no reason to think” that using Huawei technology should threaten intelligence sharing with the US“, Mr Parker is right, but mainly because the quality of US intelligence is seemingly fading, they are losing sources all over the Middle East and they have too little in the Far East, as such we lose out on a source that is mostly redundant. Mr Parker’s assertion is in opposition to “a senior US official who was part of the delegation, who said: “Congress has made it clear they will want an evaluation of our intelligence sharing.”“, two parts are shown here, the fact that the bullying continue and the fact that this ‘senior US official‘ is left nameless, just like the fact that this matter is on the desk of a deputy national security advisor. In the age where America goes to vote next year, no one wants to burn their fingers and their career on this, and when the truth comes out (and it will) their careers are gone in the international field and the national field no longer has the juicy options it once had. 

When we get to “The officials, who had flown in specially from the US, would not spell out what the “relatively recent information” that they had shared with their UK counterparts was“, it is all a load of HogWash (American expression), you see, If there was any actual danger the US would spread it like a wildfire to EVERY security IT Consultant, but they did not and the news is flat on that. What we do get is ‘Facebook and Google are as much of a threat as Huawei‘ (source: Marketwatch) where we see “Facebook is already undermining the democratic process, including in the U.S. itself, where the platform has facilitated foreign interference in elections.

 

In addition, Facebook has fueled division and fear, and refused to remove hate speech, Holocaust denial and anti-Semitic posts. The platform has been described as a “megaphone for hate” against Muslims, and it is accused of facilitating a genocide against the Rohingya in Myanmar. For these reasons, the British actor and comedian Sacha Baron Cohen recently called Facebook “the greatest propaganda machine in history.”” This is true but it is only he side effect of the matter, the real issue is not there it is seen in “these threats already exist, because Facebook (which also owns Instagram and WhatsApp) and Google (which owns YouTube) have an astonishingly comprehensive range of data about their users — their location, contacts, messages, photos, downloads, searches, preferences, purchases, and much else” It is not the porridge, it is the spoon, the data is everything and as the data no longer merely flow to America, but it will flow to China as well (via aps and so on) in a larger growing slice it will no longer flow to the US, that is the real fear, it will impact all firms relying on data and that is the real ticket and it will have an impact sizing up to billions of dollars every year, it is a larger impact as data becomes the new currency. I will go as far as setting the stage that the IP I had designed will impact it even further for the globally based 400 million small business firms. Even as America sneers at the little guy, they are the foundation of data, not Google and not Facebook, they are merely the facilitators not the creators. That reality is now up for grabs in more than one way. If it was really all about security, the news would have picked up to a much larger degree to ‘Cisco critical bugs: Nexus data center switch software needs patching now‘ with the added text “Cisco has disclosed a dozen bugs affecting its Data Center Network Manager (DCNM) software, including three critical authentication-bypass bugs that expose enterprise customers to remote attacks” (source: ZDNet), this is not the first time, I gave more info months ago when at least one such an issue woke up and whilst all are screaming about 5G security and feigned Chinese values, they all ignore the Elephant in the room (Cisco), I do believe that it was an honest mistake, there was no ill practice at work (from the side of Cisco), but there is a larger concern and those security advisors connected to the Oval office do not seem to care (or optionally merely not comprehend), it is a larger issue that is impacting the Fortune 500, but the press is blind to it. In support there is also ‘A Cisco Router Bug Has Massive Global Implications‘ (source: Wired) with the added information “The devices play a pivotal role at institutions, in other words, including some that deal with hypersensitive information. Now, researchers are disclosing a remote attack that would potentially allow a hacker to take over any 1001-X router and compromise all the data and commands that flow through it. And it only gets worse from there“, which was given to us last May, with the almost complete rundown by researchers from the security firm Red Balloon. And the added information “Once the researchers gain root access, they can bypass the router’s most fundamental security protection. Known as the Trust Anchor, this Cisco security feature has been implemented in almost all of the company’s enterprise devices since 2013“, this is the setting, an impact that is global and the US is keeping it quiet, yet the unproven stage without any real evidence is heralded to the max, which gives the larger implication that this is about data and about the financial security of the US, and why should we pay for that? They were flaccid for years, they refused to innovate and China started to innovate, even as we see in the Guardian article that the kit from Huawei “cheaper and more advanced than rivals“, we see one part, the fact that the US has nothing to counter what Huawei offers is the larger concern (for America), they are 2-3 years behind and that implies that they have nothing to enter the field with until 2025 and become a real contender, at which point Huawei is the new standard and as such data will flow via Huawei and not via American solutions, the data loss for America will be to some degree crippling. their revenue from advertisement, their revenue from data sale and other revenues liked to that are all impacted, it could cost the US 50-150 billion in the foreseeable future and that is where the US fear kicks in, their debt is out of control and that amount would have a much larger impact on the infrastructure that can no longer be paid for, one system after another will fail, a cascade of systems all collapsing because the US has no reserves left, the EU is also out of reserves and they see the 5G part as essential to surpass American firms and most need to contend with spineless politicians and long winded ‘talks’ by the EU gravy train, the are all in it for the money and commercial EU is seeing it all come apart, they can hold on if they get the 5G edge, an option that the US dreads. 

As such the cornered bully is getting more brazen, relying on past tactics that exploded in everyone’s face and they are still doing it, hoping that they can get away with it the second time around, optionally they will rely on other technologies, as long as they are not Chinese, it is not the hardware, it is the data. Ericsson gives us “5G is designed for industrial applications. This means that falling behind on 5G as a platform for innovation will jeopardize the European industrial base. With two global vendors based in Europe, the continent has the prerequisite to lead” (they merely fail to inform us (for valid reasons) that the two players are Ericsson and Nokia, but their solutions are almost two full generations behind Huawei, they would need two years to upgrade and that is what they face, they were all asleep at the wheel and now that the ferryman wants to get paid for all the time they were asleep, they are no longer willing to foot the bill, 4G is almost at a break even point and that is stopping most to go forward, even as they see that 5G is going to take over, they are all afraid that the next iteration of hardware is just beyond the horizon. And they are still setting larger foundations for themselves, because the real cash is the data, not the hardware and that is the stage where they all need to select an optional new provider, the devil you know beats the devil you know not and they want their coins. 

In all this the bully in the corner is getting more and more aggravated and we see that, but they did this to themselves, when I can surpass the US in IP (something I never thought possible) that is the point you need to realise where the US failed, their IP is just not there and they have no real counters other than the Silver Briefcase scenario hoping it will buy them enough time.  You see, when we accept the foundation of one quote: ‘5G Antenna Market was estimated to be US$ 9,835.0 Mn in 2018 and is expected to reach US$ 34,720.1 Mn by 2027 growing at a CAGR of 15.5% over the Forecast Period Owing to the Evolution of Smart Antennas‘, we see what the US is missing out of, the antennas alone are setting the stage of 9-15 billion each year surpassing my estimation of 50 billion value by 2022, yet that is merely the antenna’s, Huawei launched their 5G routers last week and that is where the money becomes a serious setting. When we combine the stage offered “The power of the chipset enables the router to be the first to support commercial application of 4G and 5G dual-modes. It is the first to have the capacity to perform to industry benchmarks of peak 1.65Gbps@100MHz download speeds” with “LTE Advanced has been available for several years now and some carriers (notably AT&T in the US) are calling it 5Ge, or 5G Evolution, even though it is most definitely not an official 5G standard, but rather the latest iteration of 4G” (source: Forbes) you get to see how dire the US situation is for the US, they claim to be 5G and they are not, they claim that Huawei is a danger and they cannot prove that it is, the data is everything and they are at an ever growing risk to lose large chunks of it. Now that Huawei is forced towards their Harmony OS, we will see a growing non US population switching, meaning that the data is no longer going to the US in a readable format. That is the larger loss for the US and they are getting close to desperate. 

In my view, that is the consideration of dumping the brains that they needed and that is the consequence of a flaccid business path, down the track it tends to cost and the US is scared of that moment, hoping to scare all others, we see that the EU is considering their options and as the US loses nation after nation we see  larger stage, when the data surpasses into national hands again, they will not care about US substandard intelligence, most will have their own and a new generation of apps will be adopted by its users on a global scale.

 

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January 8, 2020 · 13:56

Needs of the public

This started last Friday for me, I had taken notice before and I even wrote about it earlier, yet the shift of the view also implied and made it a shift of priorities. In this age and the age of needing to matter, we see a shift in priorities of all the players. Keri Paul the writer has a clear view and that view matters and is on point, yet the dangers are not his view, it is the other side of the coin. Weirdly enough it is a card game that is similar to this, it is Androids: Netrunner that gives us the view that we can explore and dig into the depths we need to. It is Hacker (user) versus Corporations and Government.

When we consider “Servers are created, net security is hooked into place and agendas are advanced, with the runner having to take a blind guess at what these cards might be. Does that server contain the game-winning agenda, or is it a “cerebral overwriter”, which will leave them damaged if they touch it?” (source: the Guardian) And that is the setting in real life too, we cannot rely on an actual whistleblower at the Google Board of directors (I also oppose such actions) we need to consider what the priorities of Google are. In my view its priorities are set around data and China has endangered their market to the largest degree, it does not matter why it happened, because the value of data has always been without question, the entire Trump-China matter merely advanced the time-line, this was however always going to happen and it is Apple (Microsoft too) and Google that are rich enough to counter it to some degree. I myself would have thrown myself onto the growth sector in the Middle East as it is will be the new powerhouse for China (and particularly Huawei), a fact too many are ignoring. This gets us to the first quote in the Guardian article (at https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/jan/03/google-executive-human-rights-activism) “Ross LaJeunesse, the former head of international relations at Google and now a Democratic candidate for US Senate in Maine, said he was forced to leave the company after reporting discriminatory practices, and that his work to combat censorship was at odds with Google’s desires to expand into a growing market in China“, it is not the wildcard ‘reporting discriminatory practices‘ that matters here, it is ‘desires to expand into a growing market in China‘, Huawei is merely the most visible path, and their new Operating System Harmony is merely the start of a much larger concern for the US. China has 1.3 billion people, let’s say that only 700 million users, that is still well over twice the amount of US people, as Harmony gets traction in China for certain, it will be able to grow in other regions too, the Middle East is a first where the threshold is the lowest with close to 160 million optional users, Egypt really makes a hit there, and as China applies its customer service to the Middle East we will see that within 5 years parts of Europe will consider switching, this is the 90’s in reverse. As the 90’s saw marketing of Microsoft push people to another level (Windows 95 did help), we see the roles reverse, now we see the exploitative tactics of Microsoft and Apple backfire as those tactics come under fire, there will be too much documentation showing these actions. 

Now that data comes into view, we see another economy, this economy that is set around data and IP, more important WHAT ELSE can be done and this is where quote two comes into play ““In reality, I don’t think we can trust Google,” he told the Guardian. “It has been shown time and time again, whether in how it handles personal data to when it’s asked to address violent content online, that we cannot take Google at its word any more.”“, in China it leaves data concern to the Chinese governments, as long as they can come in. Democrats and Human rights are all about the rights of the people and their personal data, yet governments do not care about those rights, they never did (if you think they did, you are nuts). Yes that hurts, but it is the truth. If America embraced Human Rights so profoundly, insurance and other players would not have the data they do and Cambridge Analytica would merely be a nightmare of the paranoid brain, but it is not, is it? within the law the setting of data is too large a sif and both China and the Middle East have their own settings for what data is and what rights are and like in the 80’s companies tried to accommodate whatever they need to to turn a dollar, that path is more profound now than it ever was. We see this path in “LaJeunesse spearheaded a 2010 decision to stop censoring Google search results in China and worked to establish a company-wide human rights program – efforts that were challenged when Google returned to the Chinese market with a censored search product code-named Dragonfly in 2017” it is a reality that many face and now that there is a larger concern for wat is affordable, players like Apple will see their profits shortened. 

It is the last quote ““When I started at Google, there was a sense that we really believed in the power of technology to make the world a better place,” LaJeunesse said. “It’s not like that any more”” that hits home, you see, the world changed, the needs for margins increased and the need to get more sold at the Google margins than ever before, that is the game we all see played when stockholders and shareholders are involved. I remember a conversation with a commercial manager in the 90’s who stated that this is not true, I was proven correct within 14 months after that, and that is the other path, even as margins are low the profits need to come from someplace and data is the next hurdle, a large economic hurdle, you can own it all, but that path is not economically viable, yet accommodating government needs is and they will pay through the nose to get a good handle on it and stream that data to their analytics. The Chinese know this and the people in the Middle East are figuring it out, in that setting Google has two options, be a player in that field or leave it to others. What do you think they will choose? Did you really think that Page and Brin departing was such a big deal? I reckon that it sped things up, they needed other people to voice needs and I personally think that they got that done by changing their board of Directors (merely my personal view). 

The entire setting changes a little when we look at places like CES2020, when you think of it it is a lot about data and that makes sense, but the handling of data is now a larger issue than ever before, even as we consider the impact, we overlook it. The quote “interpreter mode allows an Assistant-powered smart display to translate a conversation between two people, each speaking a different language. Google says more businesses have committed to using it this year, including American Airlines, HSBC banks and a handful of hotels around Vegas, San Francisco, LA, Japan and Qatar“, we see the technology on the spoken word and that has a much larger impact than you thought it would. Even though we get “Google Assistant isn’t supposed to record anything you say unless you start the sentence with “Hey Google”“, we also get “that doesn’t always work. Sometimes things on TV will cause Assistant to perk up its ears; other times you might be mid-conversation and only realize you somehow caught Assistant’s attention when it responds “Sorry, I can’t help with that.” With that in mind, you’ll now be able to say “Hey Google, that wasn’t for you” to have it wipe its history of the last thing you said“, yet how many considered the leap from when it started until you stated the correction and it “wipes its history of the last thing you said“, here we see it, what is ‘the last thing you said‘, there is your margin and it will affect its use nation by nation, they all have to file for corrections and of course, some nations like the margins they have and optionally want to widen it. An automated secret police, right in your very own home.

This is not some paranoid consideration, it is reality and it is coming this year, all whilst Harmony is on the heels of Google being in the same setting of life and data. It is the setting where it changes, the IP and who owns it makes the larger strides in two areas where it matters and at present Huawei has more IP, they merely have an advantage and that is the area where it matters, because whoever has the IP has the battle turned to their favour. Did you think there was no hindsight from me when I offered my IP to China? The entire setting of the US changing its mind like bad second hand car dealers is the controlling stage, a stage where the people in the American Administration cannot make up their minds leaving the inventor in the air whilst the corporation make headway. There is a larger issue especially when we look at the US, UK and China in jointly owning IP, it is becoming a lot more murky in recent years and that stage is almost literally fraught with dangers for the maker of the IP, in that stage trusting your company to be fair to you is now open to discussion. 

This is not nearly the end, especially when we consider the IP side, this part was given to all by Sophos when we are treated to “Google has temporarily disconnected Xiaomi’s IP cameras from its Home Hub service after a user reported that he was seeing images from other people’s devices” a mere 10 hours ago. Did you think that this was only happening 10 hours ago? This has clearly been going on for a longer time and we are merely informed on it now, as we see that part and consider that other phones have optional weaknesses on this side and we add the consideration of user rights from one to another and the ‘excuse’ “The Chinese manufacturer admitted the mistake and explained that it was down to a caching issue on its server“, did you think it was that easy? Why was it even cached on a server? What other data is cached? A lot more questions become open to interpretation when one mistake merely opens the can of worms that was there and the issues are only increasing, global marketing is making sure of that path. Oh and this is not just Google, there are a number of questions that rise when you consider the weird choices that Microsoft made with their Azure cloud, that part becomes visible when you switch on any Xbox made after 2014, yet it is buried by them by stating that this is the responsibility of your telecom provider, even when you are trying to explain to them that it is about the upload, not download. it is a global problem and that is a bad thing, but that is quite literally the game we are signing up for.

Google is only one of many and they are not evil, they are trying to stay afloat in a world of providers and data capture solutions. When (not if) data becomes a viable currency those who are in charge of the data will decide what comes next and that is a game that is now being played between governments and corporations, and where are we? If we are the Android: Netrunner players we are the hackers and we need to set the hardware up for what leaves our hands and we get to say less and less in that regard. The problem becomes, there are 4 billion people (read users) and a lot of them do not have the skills to install any backdrop and the information on the internet is not to be trusted in many cases (they always want you to install THEIR solution) which negates the entire issue as data is siphoned. And as you realise that someone owns your data, the question becomes: ‘Who will you trust?‘ all whilst they merely want the same thing, my personal idea is not to trust anyone and for the most I do not care where the information ends up being, it merely ends up somewhere and it is for that reason that I NEVER link any social media. It is merely a good idea to hand over as little as possible.

In the end this is coming, Harmony will be available to smartphones this year, so the battle will soon intensify and we will start to get weird fear mongering stories from the US on how Harmony will crash your mobile and other things, yet in the end JHarmony will merely start at the Huawei users and as they get no issues (other than US blocks) we will see a technology polarisation in mobiles, it is the stage that Google is desperate to avoid at all cost. And as Harmony gets rolled out beyond China Google will get more and more willing to be flexible, no matter what the US government states, that is the part the US administrations are intentionally blind to, the US has 325 million people, in a world with 8,700 million people, the US does not add up to much on population numbers, corporations see that.

All whilst Google needs to content against numbers like “the company’s inability to work with companies like Google, Huawei’s business has been thriving. The company’s fiscal third-quarter revenue increased by 24.4% year-over-year, and smartphone sales jumped 26% year-over-year in the first three quarters of 2019” (source: Business Insider), all whilst Apple phone sales went down and by a scary amount, and at present it seems that the 5G market is decided out of US hands, making Google even less happy, as mobile markets are their eggs and bacon, they need to do whatever they can to be part of that and for Google this is decently easy, for players like Microsoft less so. The issue is harder for the US, we see all the news and information on heralding 5G in New York giving the user 36Mbps (in one 5G movie), yet when we look at the 5G specs we see: “5G speeds will range from ~50 Mbit/s to over 2 gigabit at the start“, so we see 5G marketing and 5G pricing at below 5G speeds and the people are not catching on, you might see this as a separate issue, but the net runs on speed (quote literally) and the US hiding behind marketing is not catching on, that is the stage where Google wants to get ahead of the curve and therefore it needs to be in a Huawei environment, it needs to be in China for several reasons, the US and its administration is all about misdirecting the people whilst corporations know better and the ardware people want to get ahead of that curve so that they do not fall behind, Google has too much to lose. We might see it as the need of the public, but that need is fuelled by corporations and Huawei is at the top of that chain (at present) so other players like Google need to set a larger stage where they are players and no longer mere service facilitators. 

In all this China and the Middle East are surpassing the US and that is a stage we have never seen before. Wired Magazine gave us “AT&T launches its new next-generation wireless network, but breadth of 5G coverage in the US still lags South Korea and China“, which is the issue, at present the US is in third position in a market they used to rule, and they are in danger of reverting to fifth place by the end of 2020, for the first time in history the US will be trailing others, Google wants to get out of that cursed position as fast as it can. The US (via Wired) gives us “so far, the fastest 5G download speeds in the US top out at around 1.8 Gbps, according to tests conducted by data analysis firm OpenSignal. Those are the fastest speeds in the world, but they’re rare“, I myself did not see any video or evidence showing anything over 200Mbps, making the statement more debatable (like testing setup versus actual connection), yet that is my personal view whilst I am not in the US. The Verizon options are in 24 cities (the US apparently has a lot more places), so that is lacking, it also gives for New York that ‘5G Ultra Wideband near these city landmarks‘ in Midtown, Hell’s Kitchen, Harlem and Downtown Brooklyn, so there is a lot missing and you need to check this for all the regions you plan to be in in 2020, even as you ‘scale back’ to 4G LTE, did you pay for that? Well apparently you did at Verizon, and they are one of a small amount of providers and none of them are national, that is the back push that you see in the US. I am not stating that China is better, they are not, but they have the advantage of Huawei and so will other regions in the world soon enough. 

This setting is important, because Google needs itself to be heading that wave, not following it and in that regard it needs to be in China (and the Middle East), as such the second statement I gave (from the Guardian) is the most important one and Google is all over it, plenty are not (read: most cannot afford the cost) and in this stage where Data is currency, we see that this war may leave the US crippled because of the limitations it pushes onto itself, even whilst the claims were never supported by any evidence and that is not merely my view, it is also the view by a large amount of cyber specialists that are a lot more knowledgeable in that field.

All these issues are linked to the movement of Google and from there the needs of the public are addressed, from an American perspective it will be Google or nothing, yet the non US part is looking at another setting where it is Google versus Harmony and at present I cannot tell whether Harmony will be a bad choice. That is the scary part for Google, as the public tries Harmony and nothing sets them back in the use of their mobiles, we will see a larger and a quicker curve towards other solutions (or away from Google). 

That is the fight that will be in the up and coming this year, as Harmony gets released we will get governments making huffs and puffs away from Harmony, yet let there be no mistake, it will not be towards your data privacy, it will be the currency that pushes them and data is the current they need. We will be ‘lied to’ whilst they will stop at giving out evidence as much as possible. That is what we get to look forward to in 2020, the needs of the public, our needs are what governments and corporations make it to be, not what we decide and that is for a lot of people the largest issue at present, even as it is about data, is it not interesting how they all circumvent that part of the equation?

 

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January 2, 2020 · 10:52

Twenty twenty is visual

Yes, we are in the new year, yet this year (according to Forbes at https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoffman/2020/12/29/us-and-china-technology-conflict-heres-why-2020-is-so-critical/amp/) will be a lot more critical than anyone thinks. Yes it is about Huawei, however not in the same lame way that the US administration brings it. Here we see: “Huawei has 42% of the huge Chinese market and more than 25% of the Russian market to get it started. Then on December 28, China’s state media announced that its “Beidou” alternative to America’s GPS satellite navigation system will be completed“, now this is a different kettle of fish. It is not about government intel (in a way it is), it is about who gets the data and the lies that seemingly originated at the oval office are now no longer about ‘the chinese government connections’ it is more about how the US government is not getting the free data that they have had for so long, moreover as we take notice of “But Beidou—“Big Dipper” in Chinese—will not stop at China. It will focus on converting markets in South East Asia, Africa and Eastern Europe, price- and investment-sensitive markets” we see a much larger concern for the yanks, they are at risk of gaining access to a little over 50% of all given data by the end of 2020, that is something to notice, and in my view they had it coming. They make one accusation after another and never show any data to support it. Even now (yesterday) as we see the number of links of TikTok and data, I was able to find well over a dozen US sites where the advertisement of the TikTok app continues, one is called seemingly hypocritical national security (I actually do not know the Tik Tok situation), the other is money and money trumps Trump.

I am baffled why the US would think that this free reaping would continue, I am actually amazed that Russia did not have its own version of software ready. We even see “Russian President Putin described the U.S. campaign against Chinese technology as “the first technological war of the coming digital era.” His point was that this is the start of something much greater and more significant“, he is right in more than one way. Do you think that I would offer my IP to the US when I know that I am getting lied to? I wonder how large the failing list is actually hitting Google and Facebook, the fact that people are intentionally getting misinformed should show up in their numbers as well. For those who have no real affiliation to Social media, China is becoming more and more interesting, the moment that it has a real Facebook equivalent, we will see a much larger jump. For Google the mess is not that big, YouTube is an engine that people cannot live without (pretty much the medical condition is ‘acute VideoitisfromYoutube failure‘) so as we cannot get treated on that, we will continue in the YouTube realm. I personally believe that if the news was a year ago that China was launching its own services the news would have been accepted differently, the entire ‘China is all about spying through Huawei‘ got us on the wrong foot, just like Iraq, just like two other events afterwards the US have been handling billions of free voices and the free voices are through with a lying party like America.

So whilst we take notice of “For China, it will increase its independence and influence. For the U.S., its grip on key standards will loosen and for some of its key players there are risks they could loose material market share“, that is the ballgame, the ‘loose material market share‘, until the beginning of the internet, the US has never had an equal in this fight and in the economic place they are now they are scared. Consider the interest on $23,000,000,000,000 all whilst they are facing a technology user setback of 10%-25% in the first year, and as Asia, Russia and Europe start folding away from the US solutions the interest is impacted and can no longer be paid, for example try the Apple solution for $1749 (down from $2365) and as things ‘suddenly’ become affordable for the people, think of how the population reacts to the coin grab of 2010-2019 when they were trying to make ends meet. This technology wave will follow an anger wave that the US is unable to stop, and beyond that, Huawei has a much larger base soon enough. In Saudi Arabia Huawei was able to set the stage of a strategic memorandum of understanding, healthcare is only the first step and as it shows the progress it will entice Egypt and India, at that point Huawei will achieve two paths that the US only hinted at and sneered (their version of enticement) for well over 10 years whilst never delivering. The people who decide things saw no eager listing to pursue, now that the numbers are getting called in 2020 and 2021 the game changes and there have been too many lies (oops, I meant ‘intentional misrepresentation’) coming from the US players.

And as the EU gives us: ‘European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen voiced skepticism Friday over involving Chinese tech giant Huawei in the rollout of Europe’s 5G networks amid concerns its equipment could be used for spying by Beijing‘, we see that optionally the career of Ursula von der Leyen will be cut short too. She might be the President of the European Commission for a month now, but I am certain that her history lessons included the time when we hung those who hid behind ‘befehl ist befehl‘ and even now, as we traverse that time, the US will not have any dimes to sit on, those spreading the US message without evidence could be demanded to be called on, even now as Germany (and India) are moving against the warnings of the US, warning that have never seen any real evidence since the beginning, will now have a coin marker, people like Ursula von der Leyen will see that as other European nations demand evidence, their place in the hierarchie will seem unholdable, held together by US promises that they will fall back on and fold on when the moment is nigh. That is the ball game for the US and the Europeans will not have alternatives, especially as Nokia is showing several cracks in their veneer, as their 5G outlook changes and as the backlash of bribery scandals, the US will find themself in a stage that is not holdable, and they are not alone, Ericsson is right there next to Nokia when it comes to scandals and the US was not ready for that. The impact will be larger than they expect and that part will bite too. When the EC members will look towards alternatives and there is only Huawei, they will shift gears and give the boot to whomever supported the US and stopped them to get their bonus, people are easy to anticipate in that regard.

If only there was direct evidence of the US claims. There was a reason why I used the Colin Powell and silver briefcase example in the past, there was no way around it, the game that was being played was short for whomever was counting the cards and too many were out in the open, the US had two plays left and they chose the wrong one. That becomes more and more clear when we look at the actions of Sony last October, that setting changed the anger levels of Third Point to some degree, and as I cannot tell who was right, the fact that Daniel Loeb lost out against the Sony view ”no concrete proposals to improve the business“, who is eagerly spending a billion to get on the market is a larger issue than you can imagine, the Japanese government has a larger stake in all this then even I can surmise. Japan will have to take on a few players and they are behind (really behind), yet they are all in it to win it and their ego’s will collide, the US will have to find new areas to push against and as we see that this is being fought, we also see the American dream is under pressure of failing and that is one concrete version why the american corporate views are not what they are surmised to be, it will be a stronger difference as the year progresses, but I reckon that half way, when that American super villain Taxman has to give documentation as to the values it holds dear (numbers on a spreadsheet) we will see additional cracks, there is only so much that people will live for and the US has no reserves, it lost those a little over three years ago as the debt kept rising. In this as we saw one month ago that “Dan Loeb sharply boosted its net long position in equities,’‘ we will see managed bad news over the next 6 months that will reduce that position (as I personally see and anticipate), that will be the first (of many) cracks in all this and China is not merely a crack in their armor, it is a flaming hole the size of the Grand Canyon. And still my IP is outlasting theirs as they have no idea what they should have been looking at, it is becoming more than a spreadsheet user versus a visionary, the US status is becoming a spreadsheet user to someone who does not comprehend a cross tabulation, and that is not a situation that the US can hold up. 

In this all these solutions give China an advantage, because as we see more and more dubious statements from people who caress the limelight, we also see that the chinks in their armour are lighting up and that is where Russia and China only have to ask: ‘what is that?‘ (pointing at the chinks) and those people will not have the setting to answer. 

It is a stage we have not seen before and will not see again any day soon, but in 2020 it will matter, it will drive the global population away from any American solution. They will only have themselves to blame soon enough, they vied for it but will do anything to make anyone else pay and the people are taking notice, they are no longer willing to take the idiocy and the current American administration made it happen, at least that part has no push towards previous administrations. When that happens, the loss of revenue will increase faster and faster and all others are ready to step in wherever they can, I am happy I have no stake in any of the American hedges, their national product is about to lose value and a lot, I merely wonder how long it will take, as we saw in several situations in 2008, the $1.1B bill to Moody’s was paid without hesitation, I wonder what and who will delay the news this time around and those who got out late, will they have any recourse? I reckon not, at some point we will see certain academics make a statement that the technology sector was too complex and too covariant to clearly see any pattern emerge, at that point whatever rating existed will be thrown out and as we see that, the people will run to any technology that has proven themselves and at present that is Huawei (and Huawei only), that is the part the US is unwilling to see, even as we see the Verge (only three weeks ago) give us both “T-Mobile has been saying it’s got a smarter, sounder 5G strategy than both Verizon and AT&T” and “They also won’t support 5G on other networks, so if you switch carriers, you’re hosed” implying that there is no real 5G standard in the US and they are all merely marketing 5G whilst not having any real 5G (my personal view) and the Verge supports that view I have (at https://www.theverge.com/2019/12/16/20997594/tmobile-5g-600mhz-low-band-speed-tests-oneplus-samsung) when we see “you’ll never get the speed thrill of downloading an entire movie from Netflix or Prime Video in seconds“, all whilst the 5G advertisement is about that part alone, we see the hose job in the making and in 2020 that will not be tolerated by the people, in the US there is no alternative, yet Europe, Africa and Asia have other options which enables Huawei and that is the short play that the US is not ready for and the EU people are about to get a dose of reality soon enough, when the MoU that Huawei has signed show actual progress, Europe will run towards whatever shelter they can whilst ignoring the pleas from the USA, it will be that simple, people like Ursula von der Leyen will run towards what pays them and what keeps them safe, warm and dry, they will soon see that ‘befehl ist befehl‘ fell short the second time around too and at that point they will enable whomever has the technology and America is about three years late.  

It is the biting reality that 2020 brings, whilst the vision of twenty twenty is negated at every turn whenever possible and it is the ‘whenever possible’ part that will fall short soon enough (sooner rather than later).

 

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December 23, 2019 · 11:43

Double Standards

You might have heard of this new tech company in China, it makes all kinds of telecom stuff and they are known as Huawei. What is interesting is that we got a lecture by Alex Younger (fearless leader MI-6), he was all about the fact that at no time a national infrastructure should be done by a foreign nation, now as reasons go, this is a decent one, there is no need for evidence, it is about national interest. I was not in favour, but I do not set British policy (apparently) and as such I believe that it is an acceptable view.

In that light I have a hard time looking (at https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-50879809), where we are treated to ‘Cobham takeover: Boris Johnson defends £4bn sale to US equity firm‘, so we see a stage where British national security concerns are now going through an equity firm putting Wall Street in charge of a large chunk of British Defense. Can anyone explain that to me?

The US has one directive, serve the needs for the US and the US only, then we get Wall Street where profit is the run of the coast, so at what point was selling Cobham to any other nation a good idea?

Even as we see the statement from Boris Johnson “A lot of checks have been gone through to make sure that in that particular case all the security issues that might be raised can be satisfied and the UK will continue to be a very, very creative and dynamic contributor to that section of industry and all others“, I wonder if proper checks have been made from situations that are in opposition, the entire Yemeni war and the position of the US Congress is an apt description. Admiral Lord West was concerned and not without reason.

Issues like:

The risk of “unauthorised persons” obtaining information about the MoD’s capabilities and activity is a big one, keeping secrets in the US and on Wall Street is a challenge at the best of times and this will bite the UK before 2030, optionally before 2022. 

The threat to existing MoD programmes (due to funding cuts or moving capabilities “off-shore”), more important, whatever is done to keep the invoices low will be an affront to Wall Street an equity managers, so they will oppose whatever options the MoD finds to lower invoices. Then there is the other issue, do you think that ANY equity firm will pay £4,000,000,000 unless they can get at least double out of it? So where is that marging coming from? There is no way that this was merely for the nicety, it is an equity firm and I get that, yet what business are we in when governments hand over control of defense contractors and the power that they have within the MoD to a foreign nation? It does not rhyme and we see an absence from MI-6 setting that stage correctly (and optionally openly). 

I also believe that the moment things do go South, the people in the UK will dress up like angry villagers and quarrel their settlement with pikes and pitchforks with Business Secretary Andrea Leadsom who was kind enough to validate “she was satisfied the risks that had been identified had been mitigated “to an acceptable level”” you see an acceptable level is a subjective term and of course it will bite and probably whilst she is still in office. I am also interested in the fact that a Business Secretary sets the stage for national defence, was that her job? And I am completely with Admiral Lord West on this one, which issues had been mitigated? How were they mitigated and why was mitigation a point of discussion in the first place. 

There is another side, the side of the equity firm (advent) and in this case Shonnel Malani who states “We are confident the transaction and undertakings being given on national security, jobs and future investment, provide important long-term assurances for both Cobham’s employees and customers, particularly in the UK and also globally“, these words when you look deeper take no consideration of stock and change of stock, this is a statement of people, data and hardware are not considered in this, and perhaps the government looked at it, but I wonder to what degree. Consider the complete data branch of Cobham Airborne Surveillance not having one storage location, but now also is handed to the US data farms for intel grinding. That would be worth a pretty penny, would it not? And lets not forget, Cobham is a global player, so advent will get doors open all over the alphabet group (as well as alphabet). There is a lot of intelligence in Cobham and the deciding factor of where it goes is now in the hands of a Wall Street pleaser. 

I checked (at https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-update-on-the-proposed-acquisition-of-cobham-plc-by-advent-international) and I was right, again we see “After meetings with the parties, advice from the Defence Secretary and carefully considering the consultation responses, Ms Leadsom has made the decision that the undertakings offered by the parties mitigate the national security risks identified to an acceptable level. She has therefore accepted the undertakings that were consulted on“, yet there is no protection of data as far as I can tell, the owners can get access to it to the largest degree. Even after Brexit, Advent can sell it to Strasbourg, leaving the UK with less options in the long run, a shortsighted response and I do personally hope that  Andrea Leadsom gets to personally deal with the cloud of angry villagers when failures come out (she is likely to be on the next plane to the US for granting this merger).

I also liked the idea that Mrs Leadsom had added “meticulously thought over” in several places. The consideration of it tends to lead towards parts no one thought off. You see, the fact that an equity firm agrees to a £4,000,000,000 caper indicates that there is a 20%-30% to be gained annually, which in the end in the long lasting set would not have made sense so sell at all, so we go towards other venues that Cobham allows for, data is one (yet not the only one), available stock is the other one. It is called vulturing, yet when we realise that there could be up to £ 6,000,000,000 in valued hardware the 30% is easily reached and over three years Cobham would be in a worse state, that last one is speculation, yet is it far fetched? Consider WHO is buying and the government as well as the stockholders are OK with it does not sit well with me. There is a truckload of value that we underestimate in any firm. We might accept “provide important long-term assurances for both Cobham’s employees and customers, particularly in the UK and also globally“, it sounds nice, but what happens when their workload doubles because Cobham ends up doing service for another player who becomes part of Cobham? Selling off was checked, yet adding inferior players to cobham seemingly was not. I look at it because the buyer is an equity firm and I tend to not trust them, I merely trust their need for greed and when they decide, they have a larger play to make profits, yet in that game there is always a victim, it is close to a given, I merely want to make sure that British defense is not that victim. 

I believe that Cobham grew well beyond the vision of Sir Alan Cobham and that is fine, but I reckon that in this case the UK government did not really “meticulously thought over” several factors and it worries me, whenever greedy firms get into a defense branch defense, the defense group tends to lose and that is never good.

 

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December 11, 2019 · 16:32

Lying through Hypes

I was thinking on a Huawei claim that I saw (in the image), the headline ‘AI’s growing influence on the economy’ sounds nice, yet AI does not exist at present,not True AI, or perhaps better stated Real AI. At the very least two elements of AI are missing so that whatever it is, it is not AI. is that an indication on just how bad the economy is? Well, that is up for debate, but what is more adamant is what the industry is proclaiming is AI and cashing in on something that is not AI at all.

Yet when we look at the media, we are almost literally thrown to death with AI statements. So what is going on? Am I wrong?

No! 

Or at least that is my take on the matter, I believe that we are getting close to near AI, but what the hype and what marketing proclaim is AI, is not AI. You see, if there was real AI we would not see articles like ‘This AI is a perpetual loser at Othello, and players love it‘, we are handed “The free game, aptly called “The weakest AI Othello,” was released four months ago and has faced off against more than 400,000 humans, racking up a paltry 4,000 wins and staggering 1.29 million losses as of late November” this is weird, as we look at SAS (a data firm) we see: “Artificial intelligence (AI) makes it possible for machines to learn from experience, adjust to new inputs and perform human-like tasks“, which is an actual part of an actual AI, so why do we see the earlier mentioned 400,000 players with 1.29 million wins whilst the system merely won 4,000 times shows that it is not learning, as such is cannot be an AI. A slightly altered SAS statement would be “Most AI examples rely heavily on deep learning and natural language processing. Using these technologies, computers can be trained to accomplish specific tasks by processing large amounts of data and recognizing patterns in the data” The SAS page (at https://www.sas.com/en_au/insights/analytics/what-is-artificial-intelligence.html) also gives us the image where they state that today AI is seen as ‘Deep Learning’, which is not the same.

It is fraught with a dangerous situation, the so called AI is depending on human programming and cannot really learn, merely adapt to programming. SAS itself actually acknowledges this with the statement “Quick, watch this video to understand the relationship between AI and machine learning. You’ll see how these two technologies work, with examples” they are optionally two sides of a coin, but not the same coin, if that makes sense, so in that view the statement of Huawei makes no sense at all, how can an option influence an economy when it does not exist? Well, we could hide behind the lack of growth because it does not exist. Yet that is also the stage that planes are finding themselves in as they are not equipped with advanced fusion drives, it comes down to the same problem (one element is most likely on Jupiter and the other one is not in our solar system). When we realise that we can seek advanced fusion as much as we want, but the elements requiring that are not in our grasp, just like AI, it is shy a few elements so whatever we call AI is merely something that is not really AI. It is cheap marketing for a generation that did not look beyond the term. 

The Verge (a https://www.theverge.com/2019/1/28/18197520/ai-artificial-intelligence-machine-learning-computational-science) had a nice summary, I particularly liked (slightly altered) “the Oral-B’s Genius X toothbrush that touted supposed “AI” abilities. But dig past the top line of the press release, and all this means is that it gives pretty simple feedback about whether you’re brushing your teeth for the right amount of time and in the right places. There are some clever sensors involved to work out where in your mouth the brush is, but calling it artificial intelligence is gibberish, nothing more“, we can see this as the misuse of the term AI, and we are handed thousands of terms every day that misuse AI, most of it via short messages on Social Media. and a few lines later we see the Verge giving us “It’s better, then, to talk about “machine learning” rather than AI” and it is followed by perhaps one of the most brilliant statements “Machine learning systems can’t explain their thinking“, it is perhaps the clearest night versus day issue that any AI system would face and all these AI systems that are dependable growing any economy aren’t and the world (more likely the greed driven entities) cannot grow any direction in this. they are all hindered what marketing states it needs to be whilst marketing is clueless on what they face, or perhaps they are hoping that the people remain clueless on what they present.

So as the verge ends with “In the here and now, artificial intelligence — machine learning — is still something new that often goes unexplained or under-examined” we see the nucleus of the matter, we are not asking questions and we are all accepting what the media and its connected marketing outlets are giving us, and when we make the noticeable jump that there is no AI and it is merely Machine learning and deeper learning, whilst we entertain the Verge examples “How clever is a book?” and “What expertise is encoded in a frying pan?“

We need to think things through (the current proclaimed AI systems certainly won’t). We are back in the 90’s where concept sellers are trying to fill their pockets all whilst we all perfectly well know (through applied common sense) that what they are selling is a concept and no concept will fuel an economy that is a truth that came and stood up when a certain Barnum had its circus and hid behind well chosen marketing. So whenever you get some implementation of AI on LinkedIn of Facebook you are being lied to (basically you are marketed) or pushed into some direction that such articles attempt to push you in. 

That is merely my view on the matter and you are very welcome to get your own view on the matter as well, I merely hope that you will look at the right academic papers to show you what is real and what is the figment of someone’s imagination. 

 

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December 5, 2019 · 18:19

NATO @ 70

Yes, there have been a few issues in the last few weeks and if we try to highlight to pieces we would go crazy, mainly because one element truly is less likely to be one. Too many issues cross contaminate and give rise to other elements, as much as we do not like it, so is the issue of NATO. even from the first image we see (Donald Trump and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan get close at the summit in Watford), we get the issue of treason to deal with (at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/dec/04/how-does-nato-look-at-the-age-of-70-its-complicated). We seemingly forget that Turkey was the one nation stopping US assistance until all debts were forgiven, you remember those two buildings in New York? They were no longer there and hours later and it started a larger war, but Turkey stated that even as a NATO party it was supposed to be on our side, it merely was on its own side. We then seemingly forget the issues that plagued Turkey, we did not ask for any support on the hundreds of journalists it put in prison, we seemingly forgot to give any level of documentation from  Turkey, and even now, we treat it like it is an ally as it has given a larger concern to Russian hardware. NATO did nothing in light of all this, you see any corporatocracy is about the revenue of the whole and limiting that is a larger concern to those in control in Strasbourg, we could even argue that Turkey played the game brilliantly. Yet the people @ NATO are not given any requirements for evidence and for accountability.

Consider the quote we see: “Nato’s focus continues to spread. The summit is the first time its leaders have considered the rise of China, which has never been a focus for the organisation; they also confirmed that it was time for Nato to have a military presence in space, and they worried about cyberwarfare and Russian disinformation“, the two elements in play are 

  1. Rise of China tech (Huawei in 5G)
  2. Russian data bindings.

The two elements are given in different stages in the statement and off course they are given in a different light, yet the larger given setting has ben visible to a much larger issue. it is about economic advantage and NATO has none to play, merely the use of fear mongering that goes without saying, even as the UK PM adds to the fire with ‘Boris Johnson suggests Huawei role in 5G might harm UK security‘ the truth of the matter is that both the UK and the US still have not shown ANY LEVEL OF EVIDENCE that this is (going to be) the case, they are the tools of a corporatocracy trying to hold onto the next iteration of economy, a place they cannot be because they relied on flaccid technologists to create IP instead of relying on the status quo to continue, both elements fell short and the advantage of the far east came into play. This is the direct result of short sightedness and to be honest, my IP going to Huawei will be just fabulous, it would for me be the difference between a value of $2 billion and optionally $4 billion and I get 35% of either that amount (I’d be happy with either setting). 

In the second the entire consideration of Russian data bindings. As they get to syphon off the entire social media they get an advanced edition of data, the advantage that the US banked on is lost to them, or better stated they are not the only ones with access and for corporatocracy that is a larger failing, data shared is data lost meaning that larger bulks of data will go towards Russian entrepreneurs and they are hungry for a slice of the revenue cake that is in circulation, it is an amalgamation of revenues that are overlapping and larger pieces of it are starting to be lost to places like NATO, making their position smaller and more scrutinised than ever before, that is the consideration that one faces when one is nothing more than a stepping stone for any corporatocracy. It does not end there, because of the fiasco’s that the US introduced to NATO security, the first was the USS Zumwalt class, a ship that had to be almost completely redone AFTER LAUNCH, so far it is a $21.5 Billion fiasco and when we see corporatocracy setting the sun on fiascos this large, it tends to undermine places like NATO to some extent, the second fiasco is that matter is F-22, a raptor that looks awesome but is like a drained cobra, which looks nice, but in the end until it refocusses its poison is merely deadly looking and it was supposed to be deadly. Then there is the flaws that the F-35 has, in the end it all comes down to an exercise in tapping the vein at $2.7 Trillion dollars. No matter who in NATO signed up for all of it, the defense forces have close to a $3 trillion dollar fiasco and there is no substitute. All whilst Russian and Chinese engineering is making headway in several directions.

In all these events we merely see that NATO has lost traction and has lost a futuristic setting of that hat comes, it can no longer predict and whatever it predicts is based on data that all people players now have, it lost whatever advantage it had. 

All whilst those connected to whichever corporatocratic setting of checks and balances are now without any kind of accountability and as such corporations get to fill their pockets on a stage of $3 trillion that has nothing to show for it and we ask why this is not countered? Well actually the gravy trains are making sure that the question is not offered out loud, or at least not at the intensity and volume required. The Hill produced and article a little over a year ago with the headline ‘The long NATO gravy-train may soon be over for Europe’ (at https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/foreign-policy/412837-the-long-nato-gravy-train-may-soon-be-over-for-europe) yet the current statement as we see NATO @ 70 gives light (read: indication) that this is still very much on the mindset of too many people, as such the gravy train is still gobbling up resources on a global scale. Even as we saw “Both Trump and Obama even accused NATO members of relying far too much on American citizens and free-riding of the U.S. security umbrella” we are left in the dark that the needs of NATO are to a larger extend Raytheon, Northrop Grumman and BAE systems and all three have issues. So whilst we seemingly adhere to “While all 28 NATO members agreed in 2014 to spend at least 2 percent of their GDP on defense, only the U.S., Greece, Estonia, United Kingdom, Latvia, and Poland are meeting the minimum guideline” we all forget that this 2% is more than merely a number, three projects are shown to be huge cash drains whilst not offering the value they supposedly have, so as such there is a larger failing. in addition we need to see the value of whatever GDP Estonia has and seek it next to the Dutch and Belgium, that number is laughingly short and Estonia would optionally have made the numbers if it bought two trucks and replaced part of its military uniforms. That is before we see what the Dutch had created towards its goalkeeper signature weapon for the navy. 

There is a much larger failing going in and NATO @ 70 is not giving us the goods, merely that it is under the mandate of a gravy train whilst reporting to corporations on what is required. Corporations that are not connected to the needs of the people, they are not elected officials and merely giving their needs to elected officials who need long train rides to figure out how to spin what is required, in all this after 70 years whilst we see Recep Tayyip Erdoğan getting close at the summit in Watford to others, yet it all makes perfect sense, and especially whilst Turkey has selected the S-400 defense system. Yet that is definitely one NATO partner we want to keep close (or that is how any corporatocracy will voice it).

Yes, I believe that the value of NATO is gone, not because of what it was supposed to do, but because the people involved created new adversarial players, players that NATO was never ready to face, it was never trained to do so and some of these players are part of the problem, they were never part of the solution.

We were always going to face new adversaries, but we never knew when they would come and for the most we never considered that it was an internal review of whatever drives us that would be our adversary, all driven by greed. 

 

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December 4, 2019 · 17:47

Challenge accepted

As I was making my rounds of IP on the TV ranges last week, someone decided (or so he thought) to throw me a curve ball. The challenge that I was unable to come up with anything new was a given. 

I accept

So here is the initial part of something new, I let you be the judge (although my version of ‘How to kill a politician‘ is still on odds favourite to see getting an academy award for (we all have dreams). And of course to make that movie in Saudi and play part in the Netherlands should be great fun in promoting chaos (which is always nice).

But here without delay is a taste of something different.

The smiling lady

in a place that seems to look like most other places, all whilst there was little to no sound this place had its own noise, the rustling of fallen leaves, the noise of the wond puishing pieces of a newspaper, the soft sound of electricity as it powered lights. The view we see could be a place in London, Paris, or a specific place in New York, Los Angeles or Hong Kong. Yet, if we were to speed to these places, the sounds would be ever do sdifferent, not hugely so, but in the smaller details a little different and the woman who was casually walking these streets, she would know, she saw everything, heard everything and took notice of all the details, she looked in one part like any woman, a stunningly gorgeous one, making step after step through the street, lust looking around her and taking in the view. In either of these places a man would approach and as the man approaches her, her good looks would be the reason for him to do what he would do, for no other reason that he thought it was his risght, and as he approached her all versions were the same, she merely smiled at him and he would feel a sweet sensation as life would fade from him, he would fall to the ground wondering why he felt so good in the final minute of his life, and she would continue like there was nothing else that mattered, she would continue on her path, in this case towards the left, she caressed the knob of a door and it opened, she entered and cimbed the stairs, closing the door behind her. 

She climbed the stairs only to get to the door of an apartment, she entered the apartment hearing the soft sobbing of a girl, in the bedroom this girl had just given birth, holding onto the baby like there was no tomorrow, the lady smiled, she softly talked to the woman and caressed her arm. She blew over her face and the girl started to smile, still looking at her small born baby, she muttered a few words and left life behind. The woman took the baby and softly kissed it on the forehead, she placed the baby next to the mother, the phone in the other room fell off the hook, the number 999 was auto dialled. Even as the other side was giving of a faint ‘hello’, she knew that actions were taken to find out where this was. a vague faint shape was next to the woman now, she saw that life was inside the baby and the shape felt happy, the woman gave a small kiss to the little baby and covered the baby and put it next to the mother, the woman smiled and looked at the shape ‘Come, your work is done’, she slowly ushered the shape to follow her The shape was seemingly a little taken aback when she asked ‘Who are you’, the woman looked and with a happy face she said ‘I am Macaria, come you’ll be late, you will see your child again when it has done what it must do and it will do so much’, both moved towards the window as both faded away and they had left just as the ambulance people walked into the room seeing the deserted place revealing only a dead young woman and a crying baby. 

Violence and Chaos

It was a warm day in Cannes, a man was walking on the Boulevard du Midi Louise Moreau, on the footpath, seeing the water on his left side, and looking over the waters as he walked towards a large building. He saw less than half a dozen people, he liked the empty space that he normally would not get to see in this place, in an hour or so he tourists would be awake, all wanting to see a part of Cannes and another day of mayhem would begin. He took a small sip of his water flask. The water was icy cold, he liked that feeling of cold water, he always had. He kept to himself and slowly walked past people. Yet in an instance, one person was seemingly happy to seek chaos, he shouted something the man was not listening to, yet when the stranger attacked, he found himself thrown into the water like a raggedy Andy without any consideration. His friends were suddenly making noises and shouting at the man, he gave them no look at all, when two of the men walked towards him shouting he merely lifted a small ornate pugio from under his T-shirt, the casualness and the lack of consideration they got made them whinge back, this is not the kind of person they usually deal with, and the Pugio was ornate, not some trinket knife, they felt quiet and moved back. The man merely walked on and slowly placed he knife from where he got it. He walked on towards a coffee place where he stopped for coffee and a baguette, As he sat, he felt a difference, he saw the people react to other people and it was not the usual reactions. it was like every person took offense and resentment to a person next to them, it took a few seconds, but he saw what as going on, there was a girl at the centre of it all, she was pretty and wearing shorts and a pink Tshirt with a golden apple printed on it, he knew her, but he had not seen her for for a long time ‘Well Hello’ he whispered to himself, he stood up to walk towards her, he looked around and quickly paid the standkeeper, and walked towards her, she noticed him and smiled just as he was about to cross the street two of the earlier bunch catched up to him and they made their final stupid mistake, as one sliashed out, his stright hand slammed like a chopping block into the side of his throat, the man was suddenly reflective on his lack to breathe, the second one had a small billy club which he used, only to miss and whilst he missed, the man kicked him in the side of his right knee, the man fell down and got his head slammed into the wall for good measure. The man walked to the girl, and stated ‘Well, look who we have here’, the girl looked surprised and puzzled for a second ‘Egan?’, the man smiled, “Yup, it’s me” and they both laughed for a second, within 10 seconds there was a lull, everyone seemed to relax a little, she looked around ‘I was bored’, “I noticed” Egan voiced. 

So here it is, a mere introduction to three characters in a new play, optionally a new tragedy, it took less than 10 minutes to think off and an additional 15 to type (and find a place to set the stage). When people ask me the question, how do you come up with IP, my answer tends to be the same, whether it is a device or a story, my mind can fathom beyond beyond the need to seem clever, I organise the weakness of one part and design a solution around it, when it is written IP it is different, I rely on a classical education and the option to dream. That is all that is required, and all this I should ever need. Oh and whilst I diod take notice of the requests of hardware IP, I ignore it because the registration of the IP I have there is limited to two players at present Google and Huawei, and there is a price, so whilst it sounds nice to put it all on paper, until the IP value is met, I will not make any haste in revealing the IP, unless I see that someone else has found what I did find at that point I will plaster it out in the open so that patents on what I initially designed will be harder to file.

 

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November 22, 2019 · 12:46

Same competition with a typo

National Defence Magazine gave out an article a few hours ago where we see that the Middle East is expanding even further, the headline ‘UAE Looking to Expand Defense Industrial Base‘ is merely the introduction to a larger issue, an Emirati official gives that “The United Arab Emirates Ministry of Defence is making a push to beef up the nation’s defense industrial base“, in this Maj. Gen. Abdullah Al Sayyed Al Hashemi hands out a truth, he believes “It is not only important for the UAE, it is important for every single country that has … industry“, it is a truth, an undeniable one, even after we get the holistic fanfare in opposition by nations under the corporatocratic yoke (the EU) and the nations that already have one where they all claim that it is more bad than good, it is more diversifying that unifying, they all lie, plain and simple. A nation is only as good as its ability to have no opposition, or who is able to defend itself. Julius Caesar proved that point a little over two thousand years ago, we still see evidence of that every day when we are not averting our eyes, the State of Israel (with enemies of their state on at least two borders) have also shown that part, more important it showed the world what happens if those in denial get their way. We see evidence in two books that Julius wrote, the first is the conquest of Gaul, the second one was the Civil War, two kinds of wars yet his first rule of warfare applied both times. The Middle East is upgrading and with oil waning as a dependent force, the circle is set to defence, a first handheld against those in denial of what Iran is willing and able to do, even as there are larger tears in the statement “Al Hashemi said during a press conference that investments in defense technologies will help the UAE diversify its economy“, we need to acknowledge that these tears are surviving because of the truth in them, it might partially be seen in “UAE-based company Halcon received a $980 million contract award for a variety of ammunition“, yet we realise that one billion an economy does not make. Yet “As the UAE works to improve its industrial base, it will also need to ensure it sustains its current and future equipment adequately, he said, noting that contracts awarded during the show included a mix of spare parts and sustainment in addition to weapons sales” shows a much larger consultancy and service minded task is ahead of the UAE, it needs to be service minded and there is the facet that will drive home an additional 4-7 billion over the next 5 years alone, with optional entrenchment of various services down the road. The corporatocratic foundation of the EU is in denial, but they will soon see that the EU is about to lost 2-4 billion in revenue to Middle Eastern partners in the near future. I state here the word ‘partners’ as Saudi Arabia has been on a similar track for a few years now and they are both optionally in a stage to be in each other’s fairway soon enough. Even as we see that Saudi Arabia is more about manufacturing, we see the statement that Al Hashemi makes with “We have to keep that availability of services available to be able to maintain the same capability”

If National Defence Magazine (at https://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/articles/2019/11/21/uae-looking-to-expand-its-defense-industrial-base) is correct with “The last day of the air show wrapped up with about $4.9 billion worth of contract awards over the course of the week“, we see that the UAE is heading for a lucrative next few years, it might not be enough, but it is a first version out of the oil industry and there is more on consultancy and services soon enough. Here we see the versions that matter; it was given by Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment Ellen Lord: “meetings would be held with industrial partners to discuss challenges. Saudi Arabia is focused on jobs and localizing production and manufacturing, she said, whereas the UAE is putting a premium on technology transfers“, yet ‘technology transfer‘ is basically a loaded canon, it should and will include consultancy and services, services on goods and people, making for a much larger stage, in addition, with 5G it is a larger manifest, the larger settings of armed forces and communications whilst 5G is not contemplated in the past seeks a much larger tenure of mobile hardware than we sought possible. People forget that the military have been pushing mobile technologies in the past and this will be pushed more and more. Not mobile industries that we rely on, but military point to point technologies on a 5G speed stream, it is not completely understood, some might run to the Raytheon pages and rely on “Lewis predicted that 5G will be foundational for new military technologies such as “robots, artificial intelligence and a number of advanced sensing devices.” Fast, reliable and strong communications are crucial to executing high-stakes military operations. The Trump Administration recently ordered a national spectrum policy to keep the U.S. in the lead when it comes to advanced wireless communications“, yet larger issues remain with limiting access to mobile technology and point to point systems, which in the case of rural warfare makes all the difference and even as we decide not to talk about it, we see that others (basically not the EU and not the US) are behind, they are lagging in 5G communication to a much larger degree and the UAE has figured out (well it was a known strategy really) that being ahead in services and consultancy solutions in armed response would be the ticket to go, did you really think that armed response is limited to weapons?

Raytheon was on that horse in 2016 when it applied for licensing to test “U.S. defense contractor Raytheon Missile Systems wants a special temporary authorization (STA) from the FCC so that it can test a new broadband technology and see if it meets both the demands of a U.S. Department of Defense customer and the commercial marketplace“, some focussed on the delays and feedback we see “General John Hyten, commander of Air Force Space Command, called the GPS Operational Control System project a “disaster” due to escalating costs and delays. Raytheon told Reuters that it was still fully committed to delivering the modernized GPS ground controls envisioned and required by the Air Force” yet the story behind this (at https://apps.fcc.gov/oetcf/els/reports/STA_Print.cfm?mode=current&application_seq=69216&RequestTimeout=1000) is larger than you think. The size of the article is not what was used, not what is required, it is that their advantage has been smaller than anyone expected, basically there are indications (not evidence) that Huawei surpassed these applications or better stated, Chinese defence has a much better system more advanced out there and it did so no later than Q2 2017 (partial speculation), so not testing, but actively being used and the UAE is seeking a services based organisation allowing for access and servicing such equipment, or at least make a push in that direction. In that part some might recall the article by Liu Zhen, last January (at https://www.scmp.com/news/china/military/article/2184493/why-5g-battleground-us-and-china-also-fight-military-supremacy), there we see (read: read about) Zhou Zhaoxiong, a senior engineer at China Mobile IoT Company giving us “Military equipment embedded with communication devices can also form the internet of things, he added. The communication can take place from device to device, without satellites or early-warning planes, saving those limited resources for other uses and significantly lowering the cost of a military operation, according to a 2017 report in China Defence News, a mouthpiece of China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA)” it was not the stage of what was to come, but on what was achieved and it scared the US into all kinds of messes, we do know that communication in any war is essential and it seems that the Chinese have a larger advantage there.

This is the engine that the UAE will be trying to tap into, it is also the one direction that the US is really unwilling to give into, so there will be a much larger battle to come regarding what Americans will allow what others are allowed to do, and that is where they strike out in the Middle East, they are seeing opportunity in a defence setting where they optionally end up have the advantage, the EU cannot compete with the UAE because of their tight links to the US and their corporations and when we see the people that have links to the degree they have with the US, China is seeing a lager advantage to partner up with the UAE and the KSA, that is the larger fight we will see in the foreseeable future, and even as the US is showing a larger fight with Huawei, it is not the real fight and more people are starting to get on board with the larger stage, the US can no longer compete in more than one field and that is what is biting the US to a larger degree.

How does this matter?

Well that is simple, the UAE (and the KSA) have larger military needs towards manufacturing and servicing, as they ally to a larger degree there is a larger need serviced in military needs and that means two things, the escalation in the Middle East (regarding military hardware requirements) can be addressed on a near global base, giving both players a larger handheld on the global scene that is not oil based, beyond that it allows for a larger growth in the near future, with new optional partners over time we see a larger growth in the Middle East soon enough, it might ‘just’ be arms and weapons initially, but there is a larger foot for growth and it will push the Middle East (except Iran of course) to a much larger degree than expected. Yet there is also momentum to be considered, even as both the KSA and the UAE have strong ties to the US markets, there is a rift visible, the US internally created it and if it does not address this there is every indication that it will cost the US a lot more than it bargained for in the near future to come, I will let you consider those details, yet do not take too long, there are at least 4 markets where it applies to and in that regard I will leave you with one hint It was given out yesterday and the list is seen (at http://raytheon.mediaroom.com/2019-11-21-Raytheon-honors-54-suppliers-for-excellent-performance), can you see which two mentions should optionally not be there?

In some ways American ego does not falter in our view, it seems to have short term needs and that is where we see the first failure and that is where they should have though a little further than their noses (but that is merely my interpretation on the situation).

So have a great weekend! The weekend ends in 59 hours (for me at least) #JustSaying

 

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November 18, 2019 · 12:03

IP in the balance

This weekend, roughly 25 hours ago, the Washington Post released a story regarding the F-35, now there are a few stories about that crazy bird in circulation, yet this one was particularly fetching. The article (at https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/11/16/power-struggle-over-f-fighter-jet-comes-head-lawmaker-threatens-hold-up-contract/) called ‘A power struggle over the F-35 fighter jet comes to a head as lawmaker threatens to hold up contract‘ starts with “the complicated IT system supporting the fleet’s maintenance infrastructure still falls far short of expectations” is an eye opener, but it is not the IT systems (no matter how defunct they are) that is the issue, it is the ownership of certain IP systems in the plane, the patents themselves that are now the issue. It is not “some lawmakers criticized the terms of Lockheed’s arrangement with the government, saying overly generous intellectual property agreements threaten to lock Lockheed into a wasteful long-term profit machine with limited accountability” even though it is certainly an issue that is the setting, no it is “Rep. John Garamendi (D-Calif.) threatened to hold up a multibillion-dollar contract if fundamental questions aren’t resolved” that is the issue, yes having multi billion dollars in sales held up is one part way to go, for some of these buyers with a few billion in their pocket, looking at alternatives will be the coarse course they could be sailing, this gives additional problems for Lockheed Martin and the US government is setting the stage as it has the inner lane in this skating race, the problem for Lockheed Martin is that the opposition they face are Russians (who are coming with the Su-35 and the Su-57), apparently NATO sees the Sukhoi Su-57 as a bit of a felon, so anything can happen. China is coming with the J-31, according to some it is a copy of the F-35 (source: Business Insider) yet it comes without IP and Patent battles, so the copy will be out without a politician stopping production on elemental questions not being answered. In addition, its unit cost is $70 million, whilst the F-35 is between $77 million and $108 million, the cost price of the more expensive version implicitly states ‘including engine‘, so there is that to consider as well.

There is however a more serious note to the F-35 and the Washington Post gets there when we see: “Carolyn Nelson, a Lockheed Martin spokeswoman, said the government is working on a new technical data package that was not a part of the initial F-35 contract, as well as a separate “performance-based” contract for logistics support“, you see the issue we see here is not merely IP and patents, it is the situation where government is yielding the floor to local business. If we accept the mess that the US has made in regards to 5G and Huawei, whilst we accept the words of Alex Younger (MI-6) “Alex is giving us the national need and the premise that another government should not have ownership of infrastructure this important“, something I mentioned in ‘Tic Toc Ruination‘ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2018/12/06/tic-toc-ruination/) almost a year ago. That setting is crucial, as such when you have a national product called ‘Defence‘ why on earth would you let that reside with a global player like Lockheed Martin? I get the idea that the avionics are a bit of a call, yet the IT systems are a larger debate, basically America has large needs with Lockheed Martin, so what happens when the well dries when the US debt becomes a noose around the nations neck? Do you think Lockheed Martin is sitting still? I do not expect that Russia or China ever having a piece of Lockheed Martin, but the UAE, Saudi Arabia? If we take premise to the situation ‘the premise that another government should not have ownership of infrastructure this important‘ the point of view I am taking is a lot less theoretical, is it?

And when we consider: “Air Force estimates that most of a given aircraft’s long-term cost actually comes from keeping it flight worthy. Manufacturers are keenly aware of this, with companies such as Boeing launching whole business units focused on maintenance and repair” we should be wondering why the Air force is striking out, not out like in ‘too bad, let’s try again‘ but in the way that the batsman asks ‘where on earth is the playing field‘, I get it, some jobs are too specific, but is that not the Air force focal point? That in light of the procurement: “the Pentagon has been buying jets in greater quantities in order to get the average price down. They recently finalized a $34 billion agreement that defense officials described as “the largest procurement in the Department’s history.” The deal brought the F-35’s price per plane below $80 million ahead of schedule“, so when you consider that buying 2400 planes (at the very least) got the price down, what math was done on fixing and maintaining these birds? 2400 planes imply 100-250 squadrons, it implies no less than 200-500 repair and maintenance teams, it implies that these people need to be schooled and as they come up short, the move of Boeing starts making sense in a real way, so how much additional costs are involved there? Let’s not forget that the US is currently at minus $23,000 billion (-$23 trillion), we might see the victorious ‘Yohza’ on them reducing the price of a bird, but how much debt, interests and cost of maintenance was seemingly overlooked?

In all this, the Government Accountability Office was seemingly not heard clearly enough, we get this when we consider “the program is having trouble keeping the F-35’s mission-capable, an odd problem for a brand new fleet. The overall F-35 fleet was capable of performing all of its tasked missions only about a third of the time” and that is before we consider the maintenance staff, their training and the setting of spending money before the elements are all adjusted for. So as the article ends with ““if we are missing parts and can’t get our jets airborne, our ability to deliver combat effects on this aircraft is significantly diminished,” said Lt. Gen. Eric Fick, the Pentagon’s F-35 program executive“, I merely wonder what other options were overlooked, that’s fair is it not?

You see when we are considering the upgrades and the adjustment to technical flaws in the hardware, the IT systems become a very real part of it all, oh and any person telling you that the IT is OK and there are not issues, will be my reason to introduce you to a liar. For that you merely have to look at DELL and their setting of laptops, I have had two laptops, both delivered on the same day, and both needing separate upgrades before I got them delivered to their respected users, not different systems, no identical systems! So when we see “we are missing parts and can’t get our jets airborne” in light of software glitches, it becomes a very real thing, the F-35 might be the final straw of short sighted management, whilst asking for the moon. Even as in the past operators like Boeing and Saab decided not to play along in light of bias towards the F-35, we see an evolving matter where they will grasp the events that surround the F-35 as a way to show nations that they have what it takes, in addition, there are outstanding offers from France (Dassault Aviation), it was the initial offer to a much larger degree to train technicians in the fields of service, training and operations that might swing previous missed hits, and no matter how we slice it, Lockheed Martin might be looking at the US as a sole customer soon enough, what a change IP and IT systems can make, even in two-seater planes.

I believe that the over grasp in the 2004-2014 era is now coming back to bite the eager who signed certain agreements. In light of the fact that the F-35 fleet is mission capable only 30% of the time should worry Lt. Gen. Eric Fick a little.

And even as the F-35 might be the odd duck out, the words of Loren Thompson stating “The struggle over IP between the government and defense contractors is likely to go on indefinitely. If you own the information, you can largely shape the future of the system” might be valid in the commercial world, but Lockheed Martin is in the defence world, the rules are a little different there, feel free not to believe me, but in light of The Project on Government Oversight (POGO) and their push to “prevent a future situation like the one now facing the F-35 program — and by extension, American service members and taxpayers“, here we see that the letter to congress by POGO executive director Danielle Brian might become a swing and a Jack, so whilst POGO seeks the optional “It would also allow the government to seek alternative suppliers should the original contractor fail to live up to expectations“, we see more than a victory, the entire Huawei issue might push for this solution, which would make several nations queasy on the F-35 solution they heralded.

The F-35 is showing me the one solution that mattered to the wrong people, it was greed overjoyed and that is about to gain the sunlight and limelight others wanted to keep out of consideration.

 

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