Tag Archives: IBM

August 6, 2024 · 12:12

The loser iteration

Two days ago I wrote (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2024/08/04/the-judge-shouldnt/) with the headline ‘The judge shouldn’t’, it was part speculative and part what I see (again through my eyes it could be regarded as speculative). Today a mere 4 hours ago we get through the BBC (at https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0k44x6mge3o) ‘Google’s online search monopoly is illegal, US judge rules’. We are also given “Google was sued by the US Department of Justice in 2020 over its control of about 90% of the online search market.”, so lets take a look back. It started in 1995 and the ‘idea’ was completed in 1997. To turn about the setting in those days Microsoft was merely badgering their lack of knowledge and lam Netscape to get a browser dominance. Two youthful young sprouts namely Larry Page and Sergei Brin were ahead of the pack by a lot. They looked to a solution to search for text in publicly accessible documents offered by web servers, as opposed to other data. Microsoft was still trying to type words like HTTP and the clever people at Microsoft were able to type FTP. In the age of information the Google founders figured a few things out like ‘What are people trying to find’ this was against the grain for Microsoft who thought that corporations were the key and they went to ‘What are corporations willing to pay for’. The subtle difference is that Microsoft was working towards a slice of the $18,843,980,000,000 revenue that the fortune 500 represent. Google on the other hand decided to cater to its 31,000,000 employees. As such one could (oversimplified) cater to the simple fact that it would take Microsoft 9 million years to get as much data as Google. I do emphasis the oversimplification of this. I was not on the mindset of Google at first. You see I was a dedicated Yahoo user. It took 3 years until I saw that Google offered more and better result. As such in 3 years they gained a dominance. They surpassed Yahoo, Excite, Alta Vista and several other players. We can argue that it helped that Microsoft demolished Netscape. And in the decade that followed Google grew in strength and ability to cater to actual users not the CFO’s of 500 corporations. 

So when we see “It is one of several lawsuits that have been filed against the big tech companies as US antitrust authorities attempt to strengthen competition in the industry.” I believe that there is another ploy in play. The mediocrity losers (like Microsoft) want a slice of the cake they have no business being in. It isn’t just the ‘competition’ it is a reversal of technology that is in play. And in that setting the US is damaging the little benefit they have and leaving it all to China and true Chinese innovators like Huawei and Tencent. I reckon that by 2026 the mobile market will be overrun with Huawei in almost every non-americano place. They threw away the benefits when they forced Huawei to release HarmonyOS 5 years ago. 

Now we see that it is available in 77 languages and the turnover (as is) is getting stronger. Even now as EU nations are discarding the fear mongering of anti-China sentiment by American administration, and the strongest response that the EU nations give is ‘Show us evidence’, America has no answer to that other than debatable setting of ‘could’ and ‘expected’ whilst the evidence just isn’t there. And as we see an optional release this year of HarmonyOS NEXT, Android’s bough get broken on their sibling turning adult. So good luck with that.

Now we see a Judge giving us that there is a monopoly setting. I am not debating that (a lack of evidence I have), but the setting that we get from ““Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly,” Judge Mehta wrote in his 277-page opinion” as I see it, the maintenance of a unique field dominance is begotten by the lack of innovation by people like Microsoft who is spreading itself way too thin.  As evidence I ‘present’ Xbox, Solarwinds, CrowdStrike and the list goes on. You see ‘breaking up’ is merely a first step. They will then open the door and the abusive bully (Microsoft) will gleefully shout “Can I play here too?” With a debilitating browser called ‘Edge’. How is that progress? Don’t get me wrong if there is a decent player that can keep up with Google, even Google will applaud that. My worry is that the ideological setting of letting everyone in the sandbox play is all fine, but there is a reason that mothers do not allow toddlers in a sandbox until they reach a certain age. And bar them from playing when they get too old. The worry that I have is that this setting stops Google from evolving beyond the cookie (which is fine by the exploitative advertisers). The setting of other people’s greed who cannot evolve into newer territories. This could now allow Huawei and Tencent to gain even more innovative sides to push into markets where American stage are auto rejected. Tencent is on the cliffhanger to introduce their solution to 150,000,000 homes and they can get there by 2027. 

This will leave Microsoft in a stage where it has no options and no future. As these Fortune 500 will find ways to rise to new frontiers we will see them seeking IBM and Amazon solutions catering a larger downfall of Microsoft. In that stage there is certain a decent amount of space for Google. As they will hand a corporate solution to their ‘office’ suite Microsoft will lose more grounds. The only thing that keeps them up for some time is Excel. But the world is changing what was once a spreadsheet world now becomes an AWS environment and Google can cater there too. I do think that Googles forced push to breaking up is not a great solution, but Google has overcome harder challenges. 

This and my previous article ‘The judge shouldn’t’ gives us the premise that the Antitrust laws are possibly a little obsolete. Microsoft sees this as their ticket in and it is willing to cater to this as it hurts Apple and Google. Two parts the US desperately needs to work at optimum to stop themselves of being overrun by Chinese innovators. You see 7 years ago ByteDance introduced TikTok (not a Peter Pan crocodile). In 7 years it became a near equal of YouTube that was in play 12 years longer. Now I get that YouTube paved the was, but that is the usual tracks for New innovators, they go over the backs from those who went before. Now consider that and the fact that HarmonyOS is about to go toe to toe with Android in only 4 years. That is what I wrong. Not that we think about antitrust. I partially agree with antitrust sentiments. But we need to see that the greed driven use it to keep up, or not to lose their revenue. But that was never the concern of Google (or Apple for that matter). As I see it in the last decade the face of technology was set by Amazon (AWS), Apple (MacWares), Google (Android, G-wares) and IBM (large solutions and Quantum) they create the innovations, players like Microsoft should go under and seek revenue from the Fortune 500. They were the bees knees weren’t they? 

But as I see it, US District Judge Amit Mehta is allowed by law to hand it all over to Chinese innovators. When the EU, Commonwealth nations, Africa and Asia allow these innovator into their governments America becomes a party of one (with 330 million consumers). So consider that the other regions has over 7,500 million people. As I see it it is a hard lesson that America learns twice. Wasn’t the Google premise of 1997 not enough?

Enjoy your day and ponder what benefit was to be had from optionally breaking up Google and who were the actual beneficiaries (not the consumers clearly).

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August 4, 2024 · 21:00

The judge shouldn’t

I have two things on my mind. The first is the Olympics. I do not follow it every second, but I was ‘witness’ to two events. The first is a Canadian swimmer, I refer to her as Funny Flounder. I have a thing for alliteration. It is Summer McIntosh. This 17 year young swimmer, on her first Olympic challenge got 3 golden medals and one silver one, she also broke a few of her own world records. I reckon that over the next 6 Olympics she will win a lot more. It is amazing that any person at that age can have so much drive and focus. I know I have focus, but I could never achieve that result in any discipline, not even when I was in the height of my fencing days. Then there was the Dutch Femke Bol. I saw her in the last half of the leg she did, going from 4th to 1st and win the golden medal. I have never seen such an achievement and I am happy I did now. Yet, this was not what was occupying my mind. 

On my mind was the article (at https://www.khaleejtimes.com/business/tech/apple-asks-us-judge-to-toss-antitrust-lawsuit) where we see ‘Apple asks US judge to toss antitrust lawsuit’ we are given that it is one of five blockbuster monopoly cases pending against Big Tech companies. It was a story originally by Reuters. We are given “a lawsuit by federal and state antitrust regulators accusing it of illegally monopolising the smartphone market, saying the case would have a judge redesign its popular iPhone”. Fist off, I am not an expert on anti trust lawsuits and it will probably show in a moment.

I stand by Apple in this case. You see these people are in a wrong state of mind (and then some). I do not have an iPhone, I am an Android person and I will remain an Android person. I have nothing against Apple, I have had an iPad since the very first generation in 2010, it my present from me to me to use in University. It never let me down and in 2020 I replaced it with the iPad Air. 

The first never let my down until it was replaced and I am happy with this one too. So I do like the iOS system. My issue was that the world was eager to play down the iPhone for too much and in an age of wannabe’s thinking of their ego we saw the iPhone take the market by storm. It pretty much destroyed Nokia, Motorola and Microsoft (yes they had a mobile once). It headed ahead of Samsung (a brand I hate) and made short work of Google Pixel and Huawei with their assortment of mobiles. Actually the US government reduced the market share of Huawei. So to these antitrust regulators I state ‘Screw you’ (with a clear lack of anti trust laws). You see whilst the others were propagating their own ego’s and hide behind marketing presentations that were there to ‘appease’ the share holders, Apple did something else, they approached the customers, they listened and approach clients with presentations and newish innovation. So whilst they did that and released the ear buds and the smartwatches, the people looked and listened and joined the iPhone crowd. And there is more, The Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 has ben around for a while, so where were they when Netscape was murdered by Microsoft? We have United States of America v. Microsoft Corporation, 253 F. 34 as well as the overturning in 2001, after 11 years in court. There is a difference. Apple created iOS in a presumed (by me) towards the IoT (Internet of Things) and Apple has always heralded interconnectivity on their systems. I have two really bad issues with Apple, but not with my iPod and iPad, they always functioned perfectly. 

This matters, because the US regulators are apparently fond of shooting themselves in the foot. 

And that is what will happen if a judge redesigns its popular iPhone. And the setting (as I see it) is that they never minded anything as Apple stayed in its niche market, but now with the smart phone it is different. You see ever since I looked into matters (around 2011) I saw that the stage was going to change. Mobile devices were going to be generic with optional simplified hardware, the power as going to be the software. So 5 devices and one program solution and for the most that is coming to pass. We have Apple, Google, Huawei and Samsung for the most and Microsoft is out of THAT race. The lag that Motorola and Nokia have are just too big. So when I see “The Justice Department, 19 states and Washington, D.C., accuse Apple of an illegal monopoly on smartphones maintained by imposing contractual restrictions on, and withholding critical access from, developers” I say ‘bollocks’ The issue is who are the iOS developers? In 2011 I have cess to the development kits of Apple (schoolwork) and I never entertained it other than the assignments I had. I was an Apple user, not a developer (I regret that a little right now). 

So when we see “an illegal monopoly on smartphones” I say that this is not an illegal monopoly, it is a system setting that they selected, other than Android (Google, Huawei, Samsung) and Windows (Microsoft), actually I am hard to keep a straight face when setting Windows on a mobile phone. Can you imagine the CrowdStrike damage mobile phones might have had to endure? Oh and when we see this did anyone consider the consequences that were on IBM, who basically forced people to rely on IBM hardware. Perhaps HP can rephrase the nightmare they faced on IBM with their printers. 

There is a second tier to this all, we need to consider that The Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 is no longer the best way to go about this for more and more devices. As the mobiles become more generic and it will be on the software to trample a path into this all. When we consider that Google now has the Pixel 8a, Pixel 8 Pro, Pixel 8, Pixel Watch 2, Pixel Fold, Pixel Tablet. At least three of these systems are nearly identical, they have 1-2 processors difference. Their difference becomes the software. But that is now, I expect in the next 2-3 years that there will be more devices all powered by the same software and optionally the connecting devices (through the mobile phones) . The lawmakers of 1890 would have never expected this and the differences will grow even more.  And a prime example here is Microsoft. We now get “All you’ll need is a compatible Fire TV Stick, a Bluetooth-enabled wireless controller, and an Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription to stream Xbox games. Microsoft is working to allow Xbox Cloud Gaming to stream your entire Xbox library, and not just titles that are part of Game Pass.” Did anyone consider “a compatible Fire TV Stick”? So how long until they revamp the gaming industry with that solution? How long until they (a speculative view) impede devices through that connection where an error stops the Sony Playstation or Nintendo Switch to no longer with with their software because (speculative) software by Microsoft impeded it? Oh, they’ll be all apologetic, but the damage will have been done. We see (at Microsoft) “The Program Install and Uninstall troubleshooter helps you automatically repair issues when you’re blocked from installing or removing programs. It also fixes corrupted registry keys”, so this issue has been around from Windows 7 (2009), and was still around in Windows 10 (2015), so it was an issue for at least 6 years. Do we really want them to get involved? Come to think of it, l I would be on the first plane to Shenzhen if it comes to that. Oh and I haven’t even considered the damage that solution would do to the Amazon Luna. Apple had a solution and it has propagated that solution to all things Apple. They marketed their solution widely and innovatively and innovation is what is missed in many Big Tech companies. Too give another example, last year Apple did something Awesome. We see a meeting with a youthful young sprout (Tim Cook) reporting to Gaia and getting lectured by her. The brilliance was that plenty of companies took a paragraph out of their time to publish that they are on track to be carbon zero. Apple made it a presentation (advertisement) whilst giving a report of their directions. It was funny and it was pretty brilliant. Google and Amazon missed the boat and there was no value in copying that. So that is the innovative presentations that are Apple. The bigger picture is that mobile phones are presented through marketing and Apple marketing slaps the marketing of Google and Samsung. So we see “an illegal monopoly on smartphones” all whilst the others aren’t doing their bit to keep up (or seemingly keep up), so why punish Apple for that?

As I see it the judge has to toss the case, of not for the logic then for the reality that if this setting is pushed and Microsoft steps in, then we come to the conclusion that the US government is merely a tools for Microsoft to stop it from collapsing on itself (my personal view).

Well that was me today. 190 minutes from Monday here now, Vancouver is still pre Sunday breakfast. Have a fun day everyone.

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July 31, 2024 · 16:40

It was never rocket science

Yup, that is the gist of it. And it seems that people are starting to wake up. You see the biggest issue I have had with any mention of AI, is that it doesn’t (yet) exist. People can shout AI on every corner, but soon the realisation comes in that they were wrong all the time will hurt them, it will hurt them badly. And this is merely a sideline to the issue. The issue is Microsoft and lets get through some articles.

1. Microsoft says cyber-attack triggered latest outage
The first one is (at https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c903e793w74o) where we see “It comes less than two weeks after a major global outage left around 8.5 million computers using Microsoft systems inaccessible, impacting healthcare and travel, after a flawed software update by cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike. While the initial trigger event was a Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attack… initial investigations suggest that an error in the implementation of our defences amplified the impact of the attack rather than mitigating it,” said an update on the website of the Microsoft Azure cloud computing platform.” The easiest way of explaining this is to compare Azure to a ball. A foot ball has (usually) 12 regular pentagons and 20 regular hexagons. They are stitched together. Now under normal conditions this is fine. However software is not any given shape, implying that a lot more stitches are required. Now consider that Microsoft 365 is used by over a million corporations. Now consider that a lot of them do not use the same configuration. This implies that we have thousand of differently stitched balls and the stitches is where it can go wrong. This is where we see the proverbial “the implementation of our defences amplified the impact of the attack rather than mitigating it” Microsoft has been so driven by using it all, that they merely advance the risk. And it doesn’t end here. CrowdStrike is another example. We see the news and the fake one person claiming responsibility for it. Yet the reality is that there is a lot more wrong than anyone is considering. These two events pretty much prove that Microsoft has policy and procedure flaws. It is easy to blame Microsoft, but the reality is that we see spin and the trust in Microsoft is pretty much gone. People say “Microsoft’s cloud revenue was 39.3% higher”, yes this is the case, and considering that Amazon was originally a ‘bookshop’, so they went against the larger techies like IBM and Microsoft and they got 31% of the global market share. Not bad for a bookshop. And the equation gets worse for Microsoft, these two events could cost them up to 10% market share. In which direction these 10% go is another matter. AWS is not alone here. 

I was serious about not letting Microsoft near my IP. I had hoped that Amazon would take it (they have the Amazon Luna) but it seems that Andy Jesse is not hungry for an additional 5 billion annually (in the first stage). 

And as Microsoft adds more and more to their arsenal these problems will become more frequent and inflicts damage on more of their customers. Do I have evidence? No, but it wasn’t hard and my example might give you the consideration to ponder where you could/should go next. 

2. Microsoft Earnings: Stock Tanks As AI Business Growth Worse Than Expected
In the second story we see (at https://www.forbes.com/sites/dereksaul/2024/07/30/microsoft-earnings-stock-tanks-as-ai-business-growth-worse-than-expected/) that Forbes is giving us “shares of Microsoft cratered about 7% following the earnings announcement, already nursing a more than 8% decline over the last three weeks” with the added “Microsoft’s crucial AI businesses was worse than expected, as its 29% growth in its Azure cloud computing unit fell short of projections of 31%, and sales in its AI-heavy intelligent cloud division was $28.5 billion, below estimates of $28.7 billion” As stated by me (as well as plenty of others) there is no AI. You see AI would give the program thinking skills, they do not have any. They kind of speculate and they have lots of scenario to give you the conditional feeling that they are talking “in your street” but that is not the case. For this simple illustration we get Wired (at https://www.wired.com/story/microsoft-ai-copilot-chatbot-election-conspiracy/) giving us ‘Microsoft’s AI Chatbot Replies to Election Questions With Conspiracies, Fake Scandals, and Lies’, so how does this work? You see the program (LLM) looks at what ‘we’ search for, yet in this the setting is smudged by conspiracy theorists, troll farms and influencers. The first two push the models out of synch. Wired gives us “Research shared exclusively with WIRED shows that Copilot, Microsoft’s AI chatbot, often responds to questions about elections with lies and conspiracy theories.” Now consider that this is pushed onto all the other systems. Then we are treated to “Microsoft’s AI chatbot is responding with out-of-date or incorrect information”, so not only is the data wrong, it is out of date, as I see it what they call ‘training data’ is as I see it incorrect, out of data and unverified. How AI is that? A actual real AI is set on a Quantum computer (IBM has that, although in its infancy) a more robust version of shallow circuits (not sure if we are there yet) and is driven not by binary systems but framed on an Ypsilon particle system, which was proven by a Dutch physicist around 2020 (I forgot the name). This particle has another option. We currently have NULL, Zero and One. The Ypsilon particle has NULL, Zero, One and BOTH. A setting that changes everything.

But the implementation into servers is to be expected around 2037 (a speculation by me) then we get to the thinking programs and an actual AI. So when we see AI, we need to see that is a program that can course through data and give you the most likely outcome. I will admit that for a lot of people it will fit, but not for all and there we get the problem. You see Microsoft will blame all sources and all kind of people, but in the end it will be up to the programmer to show their algorithm is correct and as I am telling you now that it comes down to unverified data. How does that come over to you? 

When you consider that Wired also gave us “it listed numerous GOP candidates who have already pulled out of the race.” The issue of how out of date data is becomes clear. We see all these clever options that others give us, but when some LLM (labeled AI) is un-updated and unreliable, how secure remains your position when you base decision making streams on the wrong data? And that is merely a sales track. 

The last teaspoon is given to us by The Guardian. The Guardian (at https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/mar/06/microsoft-ai-explicit-image-safety) gave us on March 7th 2024:

3. Microsoft ignored safety problems with AI image generator, engineer complains
So when you consider the previous parts (especially CrowdStrike) “Shane Jones said he warned management about the lack of safeguards several times, but it didn’t result in any action” Microsoft will state that this is another issue. But I spoke about wrong data, out of date data and unverified data. And now we see that the lack of safeguards and inaction would make things worse and a lot faster than you think. You see as long as there is no real AI, all data needs to be verified and that does not seem to be the case in too many setting. I spoke about policy issues and procedural issues. Well here we get the gist “it didn’t result in any action” and we keep on seeing issues with Microsoft. So how many times will you face this? And that is before people realise that their IP are on Azure servers. So how many procedural flaws will your research we driven into until it is all on a Russian or Chinese or North Korean enabled server (most likely by Russia or China, which is a speculation by me).

As such, it was never rocket science, look at any corporation and in their divisions there will always be one person who thinks of number one (himself) and in that setting how safe are you? 

There is a reason that I do not want Microsoft near my IP. I can only hope that someone waked up and give me a nice retirement present ($30M post taxation would be nice).

Enjoy the day.

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July 26, 2024 · 04:42

The misaligned cogs

This is a little hard. I just read an article on the Military hacks by North Korea, it doesn’t fit. Let me explain with a little time line.

2012
The Dutch had a press tour in North Korea. The Koreans confiscated temporary their camera’s and the Dutch were howling with laughter, they still had their iPhones and Android equivalents. They kept on filming. The Korean officers had no idea what a smartphone was, as such the Dutch had all the footage.

2014
Sony get hacked and soon thereafter we get all kinds of ‘leaked’ information. In addition within a year (I have no specific date) we get an amalgamated

The FBI later clarified more details of the attacks, attributing them to North Korea by noting that the hackers were “sloppy” with the use of proxy IP addresses that originated from within North Korea. At one point the hackers logged into the Guardians of Peace Facebook account and Sony’s servers without effective concealment. FBI Director James Comey stated that Internet access is tightly controlled within North Korea, and as such, it was unlikely that a third party had hijacked these addresses without allowance from the North Korean government. The National Security Agency assisted the FBI in analysing the attack, specifically in reviewing the malware and tracing its origins; NSA director Admiral Michael S. Rogers agreed with the FBI that the attack originated from North Korea. A disclosed NSA report published by Der Spiegel stated that the agency had become aware of the origins of the hack due to their own cyber-intrusion on North Korea’s network that they had set up in 2010, following concerns of the technology maturation of the country.

The sources were the New York Times, Times magazine, The verge and CNBC. I had issues with the release of information, but my issues were speculative and based on the Dutch field trip to Korea

2017
In ‘The Good, the Bad, and North Korea’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2017/09/30/the-good-the-bad-and-north-korea/) I wrote “I got this photo from a CNN source, so the actual age was unknown, yet look at the background, the sheer antiquity that this desktop system represents. In a place where the President of North Korea should be surrounded by high end technology, we see a system that seems to look like an antiquated Lenovo system, unable to properly play games from the previous gaming generation, and that is their high technology?” This is my second opposition. Between 2012 and 2017 they had apparently gained the ability to produce their own smartphone. This is realistic.

2024
Now we get “North Korean hackers have conducted a global cyber espionage campaign to try to steal classified military secrets to support Pyongyang’s banned nuclear weapons programme, the United States, Britain and South Korea said in a joint advisory on Thursday.

The hackers, dubbed Anadriel or APT45 by cybersecurity researchers, have targeted or breached computer systems at a broad variety of defence or engineering firms, including manufacturers of tanks, submarines, naval vessels, fighter aircraft, and missile and radar systems, the advisory said” (at https://www.reuters.com/world/north-korean-hackers-are-stealing-military-secrets-us-allies-say-2024-07-25/).

My issue (still speculation) is two fold. In the first we get to se that the Sony Hack was apparently not North Korea, but the Guardians of peace (the Lazarus group). We see references to “links to” and a small byte that they are “Originally a criminal group”. It is my speculation that these criminal ‘masterminds’ are either Russian or Chinese. They cater to North Korea as it allows them to act freely and I would expect them to share whatever intel they get with North Korea.

Even if these formerly known criminals were behind this setting, the whole picture doesn’t add up. I reckon that we all work at our own speed, however when we see Reuters give us “one elite group of North Korean hackers had successfully breached systems at NPO Mashinostroyeniya, a rocket design bureau based in Reutov, a small town on the outskirts of Moscow.” I do not debunk that setting, but over the timeline I have seen (many might have seen it), it is possible that this last statement is a smokescreen. Was it breached or were the Russians willing to hand over that ‘victory’ to make them sound more of a threat? In addition when we see “The hackers, dubbed Anadriel or APT45 by cybersecurity researchers, have targeted or breached computer systems at a broad variety of defence or engineering firms, including manufacturers of tanks, submarines, naval vessels, fighter aircraft, and missile and radar systems” I mostly worry about the state of cyber security at our own shores. That they get breached by China or Russia is understandable, They are on par in technology with us. North Korea is not. It is like a hacker with an 80282 AT computer, a processor from 1982 coming up to a server with a Xeon processor stating ‘gimme your data’ It is like a swimmer slamming a great white shark with a BB gun. Utterly ineffective. That is merely the hardware, These hackers would have lacked at least a decade of hacking skills. The NSA and GCHQ would be running circles around them. No, I believe that this is another player making North Korea their patsy. 

Now consider that all (or some) of my speculations are wrong. I get that, this is realistically possible, we still get the stage that the time line doesn’t fit. It is like going from an Apricot PC, to an IBM Q System One in a little over 7 years, without the required resources mind you. The other, more realistic, option is that defence and engineering firms have made a booboo and failed their cyber security requirements and now all avenues are racing to hide these facts. 

Can North Korea get to this point? Yes, that is possible, but it seems to me that ‘western’ criminals are using that place to hide their actions and loot whatever they can, whilst they part time hack into places and hand these secrets over to North Korea. OK, I am still speculating. However, remember that building in Russia filled with hackers? Russian forces had to intervene there. It seems to me that these hackers would like another place to work from. It doesn’t make China innocent either. They might have the same issues and these hackers also need a place to work from. In this story, I merely come to the speculated conclusion that the term ‘North Korean Hacker’ is almost an newly seen oxymoron. 

In all this the cogs are not aligned. In 1776 native American Indians got their hands on rifles. It took time to get good with them. In 1877 Satsuma Rebellion, led by Saigo Takamori faced Japanese forces with modern weapons, it took them time to adequately use these weapons. With the complexity of a system the time line expands. The timeline expands even more when excellence of a system is required. As such I feel that these technology skills do not fit the abilities of the North Koreans. But that is merely my point of view.

Have a great Friday, another 150 minutes until I have breakfast.

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January 5, 2024 · 13:59

Is it more than buggy?

Very early this morning I noticed something. Apple had made a booboo, now this isn’t a massive booboo and many will hide behind the ‘glitch’ sentiment. But this happened just as I was reading some reports on AI (what they perceive to be AI) and things started to click into place. You see AI (as I have said several times before) does not yet exist. We are short on several parts and yes machine learning and deeper machine learning exist and they are awesome. But there is a extremely dangerous hitch there. It is up to the programmer and programmers are people, they will fail and with that any data model connected will fail, it always will.

So what set this off?
To see this we need to see the image below

It was 01:07 in the morning, just after one o clock. The apple wedge gives us on all 4 timezones that it was today. Vancouver minus 19 hours, making it 06:07 in the morning. Toronto minus 16 hours making it 09:07 in the morning. Amsterdam minus 10 hours making it 15:07 in the afternoon and Riyadh with its minus 8 hours making it 17:07 in the afternoon. And all of them YESTERDAY. Now, we might look at this and think, no biggie and I would agree. But the setting does not en there.

Now we get to the other part. Like hungry all these firms are tying to get you into what they call ‘the AI field’ and their sales people are all pushing that stage as much as they can, because greed is never ending and most sales people live from their commission.

So now we see:

In addition there is Forbes giving us (at https://www.forbes.com/sites/joemckendrick/2024/01/04/not-data-driven-enough-ai-may-change-that/) where we see ‘Not Data-Driven Enough? AI May Change That’ where we are given “Eighty-eight percent of executives said that investments in data and analytics are a top priority, along with 63% for investments in generative AI.” To see my issue we need to take a step back. 

On May 27th 2023 the BBC reported (at https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-65735769) that Peter LoDuca, the lawyer for the plaintiff got his material from a colleague of his at the same law firm. They relied on ChatGPT to get the brief ready. As such we get: ““Six of the submitted cases appear to be bogus judicial decisions with bogus quotes and bogus internal citations,” Judge Castel wrote in an order demanding the man’s legal team explain itself.” Now consider the first part. An affidavit is prepared by the current levels of machine learning and they get the date wrong (see apple example above). An optional mass murderer now gets off on a technicality because the levels of scrutiny are lacking. The last part of the case in court gives us “After “double checking”, ChatGPT responds again that the case is real and can be found on legal reference databases such as LexisNexis and Westlaw.” A court case for naught and why? Because technology isn’t ready yet, it is that simple. 

The problem is a little bot more complex. You see forecasting exists and it is decently matured, but it is used in the same breath as AI, which does not yet exist. There are (as I personally see it) no checks and balances. Scrutiny on the programmer seemingly goes away when AI is mentioned and that is perhaps the largest flaw of all. 

There is a start, but we are in its infancy. IBM created the quantum computer. It is still early days, but it exists. Lets just say that in quantum computers they created the IBM XT computer of Quantum, with its version of an intel 8088 processor. And compared to 1981 it was a huge step forward. What currently is still missing due to infancy are the shallow circuits, they are nowhere near ready yet. The other part missing is the Ypsilon particle now ready for IT. The concept comes from a Dutch Physicist (I forgot the name, but I mentioned it in previous blogs). I wrote about it on August 8th 2022. In a story called ‘Altering Image’ You see that will change the field and it makes AI possible. In the setting the Dutch physicist sets the start differently. The new particle will allow for No, Yes, Both and None. It is the ‘both’ setting of the particle that changes things. It will allow for gradual assumptions and gradual stage settings. Now we will have a new field, one that (together with quantum computing) allows for an AI to grow on its data, not hindered (or at least a lot less hindered) by programmers and their programming. When these elements are there and completed to its first stage an AI becomes a possibility. Not the one that sales people say it is, but what the forefather of AI (Alan Turing) said it would be and then we will be there. IBM has the home field advantage, but until that happens it will be anyones guess who gets there first.

So enjoy your day and when you are personally hurt by an AI, don’t forget there is a programmer and its firm you could optionally sue for that part. Just a thought. 

Enjoy THIS day.

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December 31, 2023 · 13:03

Jan Klaassen, horn blower

Yup, at times this happens. We all have a need to blow our own horn. I am no different and as the world is not giving me any interesting news items. I decided to blow my own horn (of sorts) today. The thought got to me when I saw the article (at https://www.arabnews.com/node/2434076/saudi-arabia) called ‘Year in review: How Saudi Arabia made its mark in tech, tourism, diplomacy and entertainment in 2023’ where we see “Successful bid to host World Expo 2030 and ambitious infrastructure projects make the Kingdom a must-visit destination” but that is not the part I saw pondering. It was “Saudi Arabia will look back on 2023 as a year of triumphs, having hosted major events in the fields of technology, culture, sport and diplomacy, while continuing on its path of impressive economic expansion and diversification.” With the added “The Era of Change: Together for a Foresighted Tomorrow,” I offered the Kingdom (via its Consul General) another option to impact millions of Islamics in a few ways, but alas I was turned down. This happens, no hard feelings. My thoughts might not be the thoughts of others and I did try to pass this onto The Kingdom Holdings (apparently also unsuccessful) and that is on me. It might be my wrongly stated view, but I feel strongly about that IP and I believe it would give the Kingdom additional options, especially in diversification. Now, I am trying to complete a ‘novel’ (my personal view) on a script that might appeal to Al Saudiya. Of course I have no high hopes that I will be successful, but I did put my foot in this and I plan to carry it through, successful or not. You see, we all tend to worship success, but I have seen innovation in failure. Innovation missed by Amazon, Apple, Google and IBM (no one cares about the other one, the company with the ‘M’ of mouse) and it matters. In this day an age where they are all presenting AI (which does not yet exist) where they all present on what comes next, I have shown them to miss all manners of innovation on several matters and my previous articles expose some of them. So whilst I am blowing my own horn (scandalously, I admit) we must consider that some are not as hungry for revenue as they seem to be, which was why I tried to sell some of my IP to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. It was not that the United Arab Emirates were less of an option, but when the IP is shown in its full view, the choice of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia would make more sense to a whole lot of people and both could easily (very easily) afford it, that and the fact that both want to diversify I felt comfort in making the offer I did. 

Even now I see additional options in several fields (not all directly involving the Middle East), but as time lines go, they could benefit from at least one such path (one shown yesterday at https://lawlordtobe.com/2023/12/30/almost-circular/). As such when diversifying it pays to consider paths that are not on everyones mind, but when you consider that path makes sense to many people. That is one side of innovation that we tend to forget. It is not the innovation where everyone is looking at (like no real AI), it is looking in the opposite direction and see what could be done there. As no one is looking, the player doing that could be the only one for some time. And when others wake up they either follow behind, pushing you to make a better product or set the stage for others to become serious players in that field. 

All this matters as it changes the fields and it changes the interactions between players and that matters because that change could affect a whole range of other issues.

Just my $0.02 on the matter. Enjoy the day and the festivities that follow today.

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December 22, 2023 · 02:52

In titles

It is a setting we do not see, some of us will never see it. That is not on us, it is not some flaw. We look ahead, we never ever look in a mirror at ourselves whilst acting. As such we will only ever know what we look like through the eyes of others. This is how it is. It remains simple.

We see events, we see some as acts against us, we see some as acts against those who act against us. It is not simple, but it tends to be straightforward. In America a weird setting is going on. It is depriving America to be America and its land to be land of the Americans. We can blame so many people but that is the blame game. We can act against actions seen and perceived, but is that the right action? Consider that one state alone, the state of Colorado has now said that Trump can no longer be on the ballot for the primary citing the insurrection of January 6th as a reason and it was not unanimous. Now we see “Lawyers for Donald Trump on Wednesday urged the US supreme court to reject a request from the special counsel to expeditiously decide whether he was immune from prosecution over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, contending prosecutors lacked standing to bring the petition.” Lets look at the simple setting. “whether he was immune from prosecution over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results” Is that an admission of guilt? We have two distinct settings here. The first is the inability to prosecute all parties to the United States Capitol attack on January 6th 2021, now almost 3 years ago. American law failed on several levels. Now we see “The papers filed by Trump’s lawyers in essence amounted to an attempt to refreeze the case – and indefinitely delay the March 2024 trial date – after prosecutors sought to bypass the potentially lengthy appeals process by directly asking the nation’s highest court to resolve the matter.” As I personally see it, should the Trump legal team pull this off, it will not be a victory. It will be the first clear sign that America is out there to protect bullies and criminals above all else. It will impact American lives for the largest setting. Their allies will stop being allies, corporations will start moving away from the US because the setting has changed and in other settings will we see that others will take a chance on BRICS and its members to give them a fair shake. 

America has taken ‘Innocent until proven guilty’ to new directions and in new settings. It is not some setting I can prove, but I see that many others feel the same way. America is no longer the dream we pursue, it is a place where the bullies and the woke decide on the fate of others, regardless on what the others want. A new form of Shanghai recruitment a naval activity going back to the 1850’s is now in a new setting. For some to take what they want, not what they are entitled to. It changes the game and when corporations start feeling that impact, they will all leave and then what will the big boys do? When these engineers feel that they are no longer treated fairly places like IBM and Google will need to set up new headquarters, one that is nowhere near America. Yet in that same setting what law will they rely on? That is not an easy question to answer. Because when America crashes, Japan will follow soon, no more than 3 years behind America and that takes a whole range of stages in new directions but the larger stage which would be the past tense of America will see places like Amazon, Apple, Google and IBM to save whatever they can, because the simple truth is that without its engineers, training and service solutions these firms will not get anywhere soon and that opens up new players and all of them non-American players. A stage we would not have deemed realistic before Trump started to mess things up. We see (with laughter) that the American Qanon Shaman now reels against Matt Gaetz, but that is merely the beginning. When these people don’t get ‘their’ promised land chaos will come a lot faster. Even now we see threats against judges in Colorado because they upheld the law. 

This is (as I personally see it) getting bed fast and it will get worse soon after that. Stages in motion, motion through the momentum that cannot be controlled and control though laws that are faltering. It seems a simple line, but it is not that simple and the levels of interactions on multiple levels make for what I would see as escalation towards levels of worse. It is not scientific, but it is my view.  So when we go from one view to another view we see the self destructive path that America is on. It is not an accusation, it is an observation. You see, some see suicide as a right, not because it is a right perse, but anyone is entitled to be stupid. And stupid acts tend to end badly. The stage of all this was seen before 2018 when Jamal Khashoggi went missing. The continuation of ignoring basic facts, the stage of evidence to be replaced by the CIA setting of ‘highly likely’ as evidence, which it never was. And as one stage was replaced by another stage we see more and more presumptions, more emotions and lacking more and more facts. The media is largely to blame for all this and as they delved into the world of digital dollars we saw less facts and more emotions. All these events are connected but not linked. It is my personal view that certain people rely on stakeholders to path the way as they do with corporations and policy makers, but now the impact is larger and these stakeholders are getting in each others way. For them it is ego and the money they gain, but in that setting America has been losing more and more and now they rely on less intelligent administrations to claim their goals and bonuses and that is where the train goes off the rails. It is my view and it might be a flawed one. Yet in all this consider that I saw certain military changes to come in late 2020 and these changes are now upon us. It is not the strongest part, but the clearest one as America is down 20 billion in revenue. So how do you think infrastructures are paid for? That and a debt of 31 trillion makes for a really bad setting. Then they upset their wealthiest allies and let China walk in and capture more and more of that revenue. So how will this end? Well, I do not believe it will take much longer for the beginning of the end to come out, but as the ties between China and BRICS become stronger, Europe needs to make choices and they are on their own side, not on the side of anyone else. All this is happening at the same time in many places and I believe that this is due to stakeholders, although I am not sure how they are doing this, I feel that they are gaining terrain at the expense of everyone else. All due to the fact that cash was king and the law fell short. 

I might be completely wrong but that is how I am seeing this.

Enjoy the day, it is Friday here.

 

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December 1, 2023 · 21:27

Who did you once trust?

That is on the edge of my mind when Reuters gives us (at https://www.reuters.com/technology/google-pushes-antitrust-action-against-microsoft-uk-cloud-market-2023-11-30/) ‘Google pushes for antitrust action against Microsoft in UK cloud market’. In the one hand, we get these kind of issues all the time, the big boys are fighting over terrain, nothing new here. But what does matter is ““With Microsoft’s licensing restrictions in particular, UK customers are left with no economically reasonable alternative but to use Azure as their cloud services provider, even if they prefer the prices, quality, security, innovations, and features of rivals,” Google said in its letter to the CMA.” As well as “Asked why Amazon, which boasts a larger share of the cloud market than Microsoft, did not pose a similarly anticompetitive risk, Zavery said AWS consumers were not facing the same restrictions.” And the operative word is ‘restrictions’, a setting once employed by IBM. It comes from the old expression “Go IBM or go home”, an expression I had not heard since 1991. A setting that gives further pause when we see “Google made six recommendations to the CMA, including forcing Microsoft to improve interoperability for customers using Azure and alongside other cloud services, and banning it from withholding security updates from those that switch.” A consideration that shows us yet again what a bad choice Microsoft has become. Another source gives us “The CMA (Competition and Markets Authority) launched an investigation into Britain’s cloud computing industry in October, following a referral from media regulator Ofcom which highlighted Amazon and Microsoft’s dominance of the market.” This can be seen in one view. The one part that we could consider is that one has a superior product and the other is a bully, Microsoft does not have the superior product. The marketshare settings are Amazon (33%), Azure (22%) and Google (11%), the rest (like Oracle and IBM) are a lot smaller. Now consider that one isn’t playing nice (read: playing the bully), what is the actual setting that should be? I reckon that Amazon would get a decently larger share, some will go to Google giving me pause to think that the Google/Adobe partnership becomes a lot more important and it decreases Microsoft yet again, all because they decided not to play nice, something they have done a few times over as I personally see it.

What is important is that I saw several sources, yet not one of them is a British newspaper, so when did the UK Media think that reporting on this is not in the interest of the British people? How deep are they in the pocket of Microsoft? Don’t take my work for it, seek it for yourself and see just how useless British media has become.

Enjoy the day, my weekend has started, you will be there soon too.

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November 9, 2023 · 17:07

The dark mark

We all have it, a dark mark. For some it is jealousy, for some it is envy and I have one dripping with creativity. You see dark marks aren’t always set to the seven deadly sins, or are in any way connected to them. OK, there tends to be a connection to lust and desire whenever we act. There is also the claim some make that our actions tend to be induced by lust, pride and/or vanity. And I get that, but what happens when it is not the seven deadly sins? What happens when the push is a simple mere exercise of creativity?

That is where I found myself this morning. I am currently rewatching NCIS and during season 7 which is on right now I (my mind) suddenly redesigned a new kind of gun, one that makes nearly all forms of ballistics useless. A form that redesigns a new kind of barrel and when an element is changed, merely one element, most of the ballistic tests fall through the floor and make them obsolete and optionally redundant. 

Is this a good thing? I don’t think so, but the larger setting wasn’t to give the law a hard time, it was about the simple setting that any test can be overruled and overwritten. Even as I come up with a new idea ballistic tests will be upgraded. Yet in the mean time defence attorneys all over the world (where common law is in place) will have a new handle to include enough to create reasonable doubt. All these issues are a simple consequence through the vitriolic well that others pushed me into and now my mind becomes a mind forever voyaging and through that more and more creativity is released. First there was the idea to create a new way to meltdown a nuclear reactor and all I had to create this idea was a simple snow globe. As I also saw the issues with deployment and hiding the solution, I designed a new kind of valve and I also created a new spray paint canister, one that can alter colour on the spot. I described the foundation of that in ‘After a fact to begin a fact’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/12/16/after-a-fact-to-begin-a-fact/). A simple solution I never saw in the shops, but these solutions would have multiple applications and now I have created a new solution to upset ballistic tests. 

The larger station is not why I did it. At times I cannot control my creativity. I considered a new way for a tracking system (a highly flawed one), but it was a solution I never considered before. Then I had the nuclear solution, which was to stop Iran, but over time I figured it could possibly  work on the Russian systems too. Then I had some ideas on cyber protection for flying equipment of the airforce. Some of them might have been solutions that DARPA considered and rejected for whatever valid reason I am unaware of. 

The idea I believe that is in play is an image I added to ‘IP Intoxication’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2022/05/27/ip-intoxicating/). As I place it, where I am now is beyond the edge of what is, because as I see it, that is where innovation lies and that is (a personal believe) is where too many big-tech companies are not willing to be. You see, it is much easier to iterate and market that as innovation and I personally believe that is where Microsoft is and that is why they lost battles eight times over to Sony, Amazon, Apple, IBM, Huawei, Adobe and Google. It sounds harsh, but that is where it all is. the setting of the next tech-war will be who has the most innovative ideas. And all that time Microsoft is delusional even to itself. You do not lose eight times over unless there is a massively wrong point of view in place and that is why I will not allow them near my IP. 

But this is not about Microsoft, it is about my dark mark. I know I have it because if I didn’t have a dark mark, the ballistic solution would never have come to mind. And even as I was delusional myself at some point (making claim that Me vs DARPA was 3-0) the larger setting was that I personally believed it was a reality. But there is also the simple fact that an idea is no guarantee to a working solution. I get that, but it is time to watch a little more NCIS so that I can watch season 20 tomorrow (I will skip 12 seasons and rewatch those after I saw season 20). 

All in all I wonder what I will come up tomorrow, hopefully a new idea for a new game which would make it not a dark mark element.

One day away from Friday, hip hip hurrah.

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November 3, 2023 · 22:50

Weeds in the reeds

That is not a term you are too familiar with, but in the old days (really old days) it became important to clean the reeds of all weeds. Weeds take the nourishment away from the reeds. It seems trivial but when a farmer had to live from a one acre field the impact of weeds becomes irritating and almost damaging. It is that setting that gets us to the Guardian who gives us ‘Microsoft accused of damaging Guardian’s reputation with AI-generated poll’ The article (at https://amp.theguardian.com/media/2023/oct/31/microsoft-accused-of-damaging-guardians-reputation-with-ai-generated-poll) gives us “Microsoft’s news aggregation service published the automated poll next to a Guardian story about the death of Lilie James, a 21-year-old water polo coach who was found dead with serious head injuries at a school in Sydney last week.” In my personal view it is a populist setting by a desperate joke (Microsoft). 

Take a moment
You see, AI does not exist that is the first thing you need to realise. We do not have the technology to have AI at present. I believe in 10 years we will be able to do so. IBM has two elements that are still in their infancy. The quantum computer and shallow circuits are still not up to speed, but these two essential parts are missing everywhere. I stated before “Machine Learning and Deeper Machine Learning” are two elements and they are awesome, but they are not AI. 

The second stage is that whatever Microsoft has, it is lacking data, they don’t have enough and their data is not clean. To be stupid and tasteless to give us a poll with the three options “murder, accident or suicide”, so whatever idiot (at Microsoft) playing spokesperson with the lamest of all excuses “We have deactivated Microsoft-generated polls for all news articles and we are investigating the cause of the inappropriate content. A poll should not have appeared alongside an article of this nature, and we are taking steps to help prevent this kind of error from reoccurring in the future.”

Stage Three
Stage three is painfully obvious. You see the two missing parts of any poll we see tends to be ‘Don’t know’ and ‘no opinion’, but that doesn’t fit the populist agenda of Microsoft. It wants to rock, rule and conquer and it is done emulating generals like Cadorna, Pillow, Haig, Ludendorff, McClellan and fear not, Microsoft has plenty of stupid people ready to emulate whatever they need to make their ego’s shine at the expense of everyone else.  

The second part is that any poll is set to a hypotheses and the data once verified will result in top-line numbers. The hypotheses is based on insight and whatever Microsoft has can’t do that. In addition any poll needs to be overlooked and optionally revised. This is pretty much 101 in market research. Microsoft ignored it all, just like they ignore all the usual culprits and they care only for the bottom line. That is one of the clear results that this poll gives you. So, whatever idiot was linked to “we are investigating the cause of the inappropriate content” should not be in any IT business. This should never have happened. All the issues state that their was no proper testing, no proper oversight BEFORE publishing and those hiding behind “better to ask forgiveness then ask permission” will merely assist bringing Microsoft down (and that is fine by me).
And consider that in one swoop they also diminished Microsoft Start, which is about to make it market failure number eight. To lose market share to all these competitor eight times over. How long until the core subscriptions will also lose market share. Google and Adobe are ready to take over. In one article some time ago I made mention on how Adobe could set a much larger stage. A stage where Microsoft will only have Excel to rely upon. So how do you think they will maintain their $198,300,000,000 (2022) annual revenue when they lose fight after fight being short sighted and overlooking the obvious? I will let you ponder that but the results and evidence is showing up in more and more places. So how long until others figure out that Microsoft is pretty much the paper tiger we see, we admire the origami skills that were required to fold it, but we forget that any origami can be crushed with the hand of a child. The one obvious setting overlooked by all and especially people listening to Microsoft Marketing who will claim it is the prettiest and it has the sharpest claws of all the tigers in the world. Yet in the end a small child can crush it, not entirely unlike what Nintendo with its Switch did to the Xbox series X. Once you see that spin you will realise the parts I saw appear on the edge of my eyesight 3 years ago and I have written about it often enough. So when Adobe and Google make a partnership and we see that evolve Microsoft with its Office, its Office365, the connected outages, the Exchange server security holes and we can go on for some time. It is (as I personally see it) a diversifying screw-up of the highest kind and now that players like Adobe, Amazon, Google and IBM have their ducks in a row, they can start taking over Microsoft marketshare. This will not happen overnight, but before December 2026 Microsoft will be what we call an empty egg, all shell and no substance. That was the larger danger that they opened to everyone else and I reckon that a player like India will see their own indie developers take the first bites out of what was once a great company. They merely left it (as I personally see it) to greed driven executives, their biggest mistake. So when I made reference with  the chihuahua stating “try Azure, Azure smells nice” I wasn’t kidding. We saw (a few months ago) “Microsoft’s Azure revenue is at least 25% lower than our previous estimates”, so was this fraudulent reporting (like the stuff Sam Bankman-Fried is found guilty of) or was this Microsoft ignoring the system missing part, something any market researcher knows from the get go (see Stage three). Your guess is as good as mine, but a drop of 25% is not a rounding error, it also gives me consideration why Microsoft was so desperate to partner up with Oracle. But Oracle has no master, it can optionally partner with Adobe, IBM and Google too. What it does show (to me at least) is that the Sybase engine that Microsoft bought in 1989 (I think) is no longer hacking it. It was once a contender, now it is down 25% and lagging massively behind Amazon. 

Just like the weeds in the reeds, to be an eight time loser takes a particularly creative kind of stupid. But that is just me. 

Enjoy Friday, the weekend and its 48 hour span are upon us.

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