Tag Archives: Microsoft

August 1, 2021 · 20:07

COMPUTE BigTechPlotGoogle = ‘Lost’.

Yes, we all have to create variables to set a larger stage. We know that age gives us a lot, but the 15 people of age 18, the 7 with age 19, the 3 with age 20 are useless, yet when we group them in an age classification of 18-23 we get a lot more information out of our data. This is not new, this is. setting that market research has walked on for decades. Even before some programs added ‘functionality’, the people behind programs like Quantum were already on top of mentioned groupings. So when I see Google 9 to 5 giving us “Google is adding five games to Stadia Pro for August 2021”, I wonder if they have any clue what thy are doing. Apart from the fact that we also get “Killer Queen Black, inspired by the hit arcade game, Killer Queen, let’s you fight for your hive with three ways to win. Will you claim your victory by hopping on the snail, hoarding berries, or wiping out the enemy’s queen?” As well as “Stadia Pro is Stadia’s premium subscription service and your gateway to the best that Stadia has to offer. With an active Stadia Pro subscription, you get a variety of perks, including free games, exclusive game discounts, and top-tier visual and audio quality”. Here we now see a setting where Google is not merely fumbling the ball, it is giving the court to Amazon. There was always a risk of that, but to do it in such a direct way is rather silly. There is no Google Stadia without decent games and by confusing gamers by giving them “there’s Killer Queen Black ($19.99), Valkyria Chronicles 4 ($49.99), It Came From Space & Ate Our Brains ($14.99), and Epistory – Typing Chronicles ($14.99)” we see a stage where Google will not be part of any gaming stage soon enough. Any platform needs traction, any platform, especially streaming systems will need a cluster of gamers, that like grapes suck your soil dry for EVERY game possible, the numbers and exclusivity decide the winner. So when I saw this last Friday, I had to ponder what this means, not only does the setup implies that Amazon Luna will rule the streaming environment, it also implies that Google would fall dead last behind Microsoft. A stage I had not expected to happen. Not only should Google be first, it should be way ahead of Amazon, which is apparently not going to happen, so when we get “The count now stands at 29 titles” leaving us with the implied setting that at present Amazon Luna is wielding a games list three times the size of Google, how was that EVER a good idea? It also leaves us with the implied stage that Amazon will soon be the number 3 system behind Sony and Nintendo and it gets to be better, in that setting there is a larger stage where the Luna could be seen as accepted NEXT to the Playstation 5 gamer and Nintendo Switch gamer, optionally we will see households with these three systems. This changes the future for Amazon in a few ways, should they think this through, they can offer a new level of social networking, offering a link to Sony and Nintendo players, so that they can partake on the social scene, they can offer a much larger stage that would offer the Kindle to a large population who have ignored it (for whatever reason) and set a new level of consumer staging. In this there is an optional chance that a new Triumvirate could be created. In line of the old version where the world was ruled by Julius Caesar, Crassus and Pompey. This version will be one that gamers want, because they are getting hat THEY want, not what makers think they want. Sony, Amazon and Nintendo will get a larger stage to unite and perfect gamers needs, the rest will merely watch on the sides as they are trying to figure out what gamers (according to their marketing department) need. It will set their agenda’s back for close to a decade and in the mean time these three will excel in giving us gamers what we truly want. This is not a given, but when we unite the news from different sources, there is every chance that we go in that direction, and it would make me happy, especially if that puts Microsoft dead last in that field. Serves them right! Huh!

OK, that might not be called for but my ego took over for a moment. And there is a larger stage, a stage that goes beyond what we merely think can happen, there are options for Amazon to make it happen, will they? That is hard to say, streaming needs a good internet connection and there is time, but in the next year this war will be settled on the streaming winners and Amazon does seem to be in pole position here, I am not writing off Netflix, but I have no idea where they are at and how they want to offer services, in addition Netflix is also seen as a competitor with the Sony streaming services, a setting that Amazon does not have, so Sony would be eager to add to their functionality without impeding the Playstation and Luna is no threat there, more interesting the Luna, Switch and PS5 can easily sit next to one another and that would sit well with all three, a triumvirate in the making and that is where the others fall away.

I have no idea whether this will really happen, it largely depends on the actions by Amazon and their Luna to show it can be done, but the other two will happily accept a brother in gaming that is not taking the wind out of their sails and Google forgot to see and centre their view to the larger ocean instead of calibrating to whatever coastline they are ogling. That setting of wrong focal point is more likely than not, the stage that will cost them the streaming gaming war, it was up to them and they chose (very) poorly as I personally see it. To be honest, I thought that it would take until early 2023 when 5G is more widely spread for the streaming consoles to set their battle lines and now it seems that at present, with the information given to us, Amazon Luna is all but a decided winner even before the race is off. Considering that they were up against Google and Microsoft, it is an achievement that should not be underestimated. 

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July 31, 2021 · 21:48

Ignored options

I was thinking (yes, I do that at times) and my mind wandered towards a few Amazon fields, not because it is Amazon, merely because it is not Microsoft. If I can get these arrogant idiots to lose more than 2 battles, I would feel good. I need that idiotic marketing arrogance to pay for their ‘Most powerful console in the world’, all whilst they happily ignore the needs of the gamer. They lost so much credibility (and I roughly $599), I feel that it is my right and my civic duty to make sure that they lose $599,999,999, just a dollar short of a large number. So if I can hand over the ideas to make sure that their Xbox Cloud Gaming will be a number three at best (if Netflix is present number four would be better), I would feel good. Sony passed their 10,000,000 PS5 consoles sold, no matter how Microsoft phrases it, they are nowhere near that. The console equation on Sony versus Microsoft is now at 3:1, three PS5’s for every Microsoft system. So that is one battle they will not ever win at present and there is Nintendo still going great, so they are a mere third option console. Yes, the strongest console is that much behind and I want to offer whatever idea I can to make their cloud gaming solution equally a fiasco. 

You see, Amazon has another benefit, another arrow in their quiver and I am a little surprised that they haven’t grabbed it yet. There are two sides to it (actually three, because I couldn’t find the images). In the 80’s there were books, they were printed on the same wood pulp paper that newspapers were printed on in those days (1978-1988), there were two series I read (there were more). One was a disaster series, they were a cheap version of movies like Earthquake, 2012, The towering inferno. They were about $2 each in those days affordable and they sold. Yet these books are now all but forgotten, they weren’t that bad, they were a decent option to pass the time when I took the bus every morning and it was 45 minutes each way. The second series was a horror series, in that there was one series (a series within a series) that was some sort of non-governmental form of the X-files (a decade before that series was made. The men had descriptions like X-Ray-A, X-Ray-C, the women X-Ray-3, X-Ray-5. It might have ben the other way round. The stage is that these books are pretty much lost to the ages, all that IP out there and optionally open for business. Not only is there a larger stage, Amazon has one additional stage. It can offer the game, whilst within the game there are options to get achievements that will opt for a kindle edition. A stage NONE of the others can offer. More important, it could drive sales in either group. There is a lot more when you consider some of the sexualised comic books like the Italian Oltretomba. A comic book form that still exists with collectors, some of them going back to the 70’s. Now the books are to some debatable and plenty want to offer their $0.02 after they read it at least twice, but the stage is larger.  You see, the stories are nowhere near the calibre of Tolkien (or Shakespeare), yet in gaming, the stories when distilled are all in some form missions that could be added in most RPG’s. Consider creating any RPG and now consider that you have access to 125 missions, jut like that. Yes, you and I can create a few missions, we all can, but access to well over 100 missions is nothing to be sneered at. If you want to create an RPG that is a decent alternative to whatever Bethesda offers (Elder Scrolls & Fallout), you need serious ammunition, no matter how original you are. 10 missions do not cover it, you need 300-500 missions (part of, or independent of the main story). 

That is the game that the streamers are looking at, some are relying on some Ubisoft link to make up for the gap, but Ubisoft has not been bringing home the bacon for almost half a decade and they need exclusivity to make it happen. I offered a solution in social media for gamers, Amazon has a kindle link that no one has, and I even wrote about a larger gaming stage via achievements, which could help Amazon and its moonshine (a Luna joke). Consider that I had to go from memory, the images (like covers) and keyword searches reveal nothing (to me), as such the IP might be in the open and that is merely a western approach. Places like India and Japan might have all kinds of additional path to acquire IP as well as writings to beef up the streaming games. 

And if I cannot find that, what else is out there from your youth that is forgotten by too many? As such Amazon Luna (Google Stadia too) have several paths to consider before they enter the stream battle with Microsoft and any exclusive that they can offer that Microsoft. Cannot merely pushes them to third or even fourth in another console war, it sucks to be Microsoft (Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk).

Even now (19 hours ago) when I see that 4 more titles were announced and that the Amazon Luna has 91 titles, the stage is not set. Yes, Hokko will be nice, but it is basically some form of Animal Crossing. I skipped the Skateboard part, but some will like it, I get that.  Yet it will be about the exclusives, that will make the race, and before Facebook gets everywhere, Amazon (Google too) will need to offer their game minded alternative. It will impact and the better that part  the stronger the impact becomes. I also foresee that if we get a true interaction of achievements there will be a larger stage that they can win, but will they? I reckon they will not, they will at first give us a ‘considering it in a future update’, it will get delay after delay and then it gets scrapped. It is their right, and they can opt for that, and when the losses are clear they will overreact and have some half baked solution out there. That is the field we see and I believe that gamers do want to talk about games, but they want THEIR data to be safe and they do not need to see 4 advertisements a minute, they are past that now. Exclusives will set the stage for Google and Amazon, mark my words, when Ubisoft has another failure on multiple systems the gamers will see whatever they can get and there is a lot out there, is it enough? I do not think so and focussing on exclusives is important. Do you think that Microsoft paid billions for Bethesda because they were nice people? No, they wanted the two top hitters to be on Microsoft consoles only and that is where we are, so I gave the world a new RPG console, made it freeware to all Sony and Luna developers. It is the one way where Microsoft gets to feel the sting faster and harder. And whilst Microsoft buys its way into gaming (Portal anyone?), I feel the need to warp my creativity towards Luna and Stadia to give them a chance to beat a two trillion dollar company opposing inferior contemplated tactics and taking games away from us, Sony is doing its bid by outselling them 3 to 1, so I offered some IP to the other two hoping they wake up and smell the coffee whilst the drinking is good.

Microsoft bungled bing, wasted tablets, sudden death’ed their game, all whilst they rely on marketing to convince the people the opposite is happening, and if they print and publish it often enough some people might accept that. I do not and I used my creativity to give the others a fighting chance, a tactically superior fighting chance, mind you. And I believe that the ignored options are a path, one should not rely on them, but they can be a great support for good ideas when they are around. Consider the next Fallout with a Microsoft logo, all whilst we can play something with 100+ more missions and a good storyline that has not be seen before. It would be the ultimate nightmare for Phil Spencer to face and let’s face it, it is not the worst setting for him to be in, that is when Microsoft gaming is dead last on nearly fronts (they are the true number one in flight simulators, we accept that). That is where I want them to be, I roll like that.

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July 26, 2021 · 01:38

Refraining

It happens, sometimes we need to stop ourselves from acting, from jumping, from engaging. It is not that the action is wrong, it is because it is wrong at that stage. I do not know what pushed the act, yet the stage is larger and as I almost decided to trot on the novel I am still working on, optionally by giving away in another setting what comes afterwards, I was able to stop myself from doing what should not yet be done. 

It might also be the impact that Dracula (the Claes Bang edition) has on me. It was probably the first time that marketing drove me to watch anything. The ad (at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIEr1Pcu03Y) and it is not merely the billboard (which was all kinds of perfect), it was not merely the cast Claes Bang and Dolly Wells are beyond believe, it is the way the story is set, it is a new and novel gander into the path of the undead, all whilst exposing us to all kinds of fears and in this the vampire fear is actually not the worst one. It pushes the envelope and it pushes us all to  surpass ourselves. Yet whilst doing that, we need to refrain from overacting on our impulses. It is a sort of balance between 2 innovations on one side and 4 iterations on the other. We want to be the 2 innovation side, but over reacting, reacting without some level of self discipline and we become mere iterations of the same. 

In this I created an approach to one game in my article ‘Electronic Entertainment Expo 2019’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2019/05/10/electronic-entertainment-expo-2019/), yet there I merely considered the approach to one game. 

Yet in the larger stage we create a very new kind of sandbox. Where every coloured ball is a new addition, a new DLC if you must that is added to the game, making the game a lot larger over time, so what I started with the teaching of Islamic religion using Medina as a centre stage, could evolve into another direction, a sandbox game that allows your person to evolve, to increase into a larger game where religion now becomes a segment, as we added new forms of gameplay, we didn’t alter religion, we merely enlarged the stage, a side of exploring, a side of economy, allowing you to get a house (in the game) and interact with others, whilst exploring the knowledge that is given to you, teaching you history and economy in new ways, altering what you know by letting you see what others saw. But in this, refraining becomes a much more essential stone. It is not like some Americans do, adding and adding. Sometimes more is not more, it is merely clutter and the overall experience is lessened. But how to go about it?

This is where QA becomes the essential side of developing any game, in the streaming world we will be able to create more, but it becomes a lot more important to create better and that is an essential lesson a maker like Ubisoft never figured out, not over at least a decade and I have no time to hold their hands, but the right people can take lesson from what I say, they can create and optionally create the right way. And my bonus is that Microsoft is equally not on the learning side, they are all about their azure and it will cost them, the sales of their latest Xbox One series X-file is so far proving me right. Between all the ‘hidden’ numbers, we see that the PS5 has well over 250% more consoles sold than its Microsoft counterpart and that difference is merely increasing. Yes, their golden boy talks a good talk but they are faltering in the field, all about cloud gaming now, optionally deserting the gamers on what they call the most powerful console in the world. There is an acceptable understanding that games need to evolve and that exclusive games take the cake (one Microsoft cake versus 15 Sony cakes), and we see that streaming will be the long term battle, but there they are falling hopelessly behind Amazon all whilst Google remains a player in that field and Netflix is yet to show it serious intent. And as we look at the options out there, they are also optionally restricting their stage and setting. All whilst I (mere little old poor me) came up with three games, one with the optional stage for up to 1,000,000,000 interested players and one stage where I redesigned three AAA+ games in new editions. And why is Microsoft failing? They have seemingly no alternative options to show in any direction. One UK newspaper gave us three hours ago “GAMES with Gold subscribers are getting closer to the official reveal of the free Xbox games for August 2021, but will Microsoft add a new Xbox Series X optimised game to the lineup?”, with all the careful leaks we see, this list is apparently more secure than the Windows source code, odd, is it not?

And these races are important too, you see, these races show the essential gaming experience that streamers can have, the consoles have too many ‘more of the same’ titles, all of them, even as we accept that there are markets and exclusives, but they are not the full range, mere icing on the cake, in a world where the three big cakes are the taste makers, two are too much alike and that is the market where the streamers and cloud games can rule. This why the Google decision on Stadia made no sense and I reckon that Amazon is loving that approach, it gives them a massive advantage. To be honest, I am a little shocked, 2 years ago I had no view on Amazon Luna, they were mostly one of the lot, a position 3 or less, now there is a decent indication that the Amazon Luna could evolve into the second best system in less than 4 years, that is impressive, they have a chance to overtake Nintendo by 2023, Sony will take longer, but if they push innovatively, they could be the ruling system by 2025 a setting I would never have anticipated in January 2020. That is the second marvel of gaming, true gamers are always on the edge of technology, a setting a few makers forgot about. Amazon apparently did not, is it a given, no it is not, but the fact that this stage is entertained implies that Amazon got a lot further than anyone anticipated. 

Is this till about refraining? To some extent it is, Amazon is not alone, even as the story of Microsoft can be dumped overboard, their story remains the same in the end, Google could change if they alter their current course and Netflix remains an unknown for now. So, Amazon Luna has the stage, it is what they do over the next 6 months that will decide how large their cake might be. Google sees (in their search) that refraining is merely another word for abstinence, a big mistake, refraining is halting action, stopping to act, it is also a setting to pause and reconsider, a tactical move to oversee what can be done, what is the best path to go and an optional form of balance between the fastest road and the shortest road, because these two are not always the same. I will need to keep my eyes on Amazon Luna for now, I wonder how close they end up getting to what Sony has achieved. 

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July 24, 2021 · 07:11

The New business

The BBC informs us(via another route) that there is a new business in town, this business works on the old premise of the bully and the backstabbing method called Ransomware. Now, this method was not unknown, we have seen it before, yet the article (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-57946117) called ‘Ransomware key to unlock customer data from REvil attack’ gives us “US IT firm Kaseya – which was the first to be targeted earlier this month – said it got the key from a “trusted third party”.” Yes, this might sound true, but I still have an issue here. And the quote “Kaseya’s decryptor key will allow customers to retrieve missing files, without paying the ransom. The company’s spokeswoman Dana Liedholm declined to answer whether Kaseya had paid for access to the key”, I get it, Kaseya accepts that there is a cost to doing business, without the key they are helpless, but in this instance they have also given voice to the new business. This is not on Kaseya, ransomware is a much larger stage and the law is not ready to deal with it. So when we get “But members of the group disappeared from the internet in the days following the incident, leaving companies with no way of retrieving the data until now”, I think that it was not merely fear. I think that they found a weakness in their armour and they needed to fix it, perhaps the FBI and NSA got too close? It is speculation, but I reckon that any hacker inviting the wrath of the NSA has something to fear, only the stupid do not fear that hunting machine. So when we get to the jewel of the article, a setting that describes a few elements by Joe Tidy (Cyber reporter), we see “Firstly, giving away the key now is far too late for most of the victims of this massive ransomware attack. Secondly, the mystery gifter was most probably linked to – or working with – the criminals directly.” I feel that he is on the right track, I get that Kaseya prefers the term ‘trusted source’, but that does not put Kaseya in the clear, moreover, as I reported the massive bungles that were made and the lack of oversight within Kaseya gives them a reason to cooperate with organised crime, but not a right, a right to do that is a form of treason towards ALL their customers and as Joe said it “giving away the key now is far too late for most of the victims of this massive ransomware attack”, if you doubt that call Coop (at +46107400000) and ask them the damage of 500 supermarkets shutting down, as well as a loss of data. And then Joe gives us the gem at the heart of this “I’m told by a hacker who claims to be a part of the inner circle that it was “a trusted partner” who gave the key away on behalf of the group’s leader, who calls himself Unknown. My contact says it’s all part of “a new beginning”.” I understand that this is hard to swallow and optionally it is a form of bragging, but I am not convinced that this is the case, as Joe gives us “it could well be the start of something else”, yes that has the ring that sounds true. It is the start of a new business venture and Kaseya is merely the pilot. In this we have two sets of minds, the first is that the shortsighted greed drive of Kaseya (as I discussed it in ‘Dream number three’, at https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/07/06/dream-number-three/) needs to have consequences. The dominant sales types with their ‘we’ll fix it down the road’ can no longer be allowed in this industry. The second part is that we have no choice but to return to a stage of targeted killing, and I do not care whether one of the hackers is a poor little 16 year old person hiding behind  ‘minor protection laws’, they guilty they get the $0.17 solution (price of a 9 mm bullet). We have no choice, the law did nothing for too long, giving hackers pass after pass as they ‘claimed’ that it was the only way. Well, so far it did nothing for a lot of people spanning a timeline that is a little over a quarter of a century, it is like an armistice race with too many casualties and the law merely shrugging at the damage that was not theirs. With Kaseya a large corner is turned and Kaseya partially has itself to thank for that. And in all this is has become time to recognise that Kaseya is not merely a victim (no matter what Dana Liedholm tells us), it did this to themselves as the source in the other article “were helping Kaseya plug the hole long before the hackers found it”, as such the ‘we’ll fix it down the road’ no longer holds water, especially as we take tally of the victims that are victims because of the shortsightedness of Kaseya. And they are not alone, there is every indication that the Microsoft exchange group and Solarwinds are part of that same stack. I have personally seen how the needs of proper testing took a back seat to Marketing and the board room drive of greed in more than one instance and that too needs to be addressed, yet I feel that the media will paint over that part with articles in emotional ways, their stake holders will not allow that to be any other way, adhering to their bonus whilst relying on marketing and sales to set out a new path based on ‘we’ll fix it down the road’, should Joe Tidy be correct (and I believe he is), we will soon see a new wave of REvil attacks and the law will be on the sidelines, as will governments all pointing at one another, all whilst keeping their ‘friends’ out of the line of fire.

It is merely my look on things, and I expect to be proven correct before the end of 2021. 

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July 21, 2021 · 23:54

Two to plenty

I have had enough of looking at covid numbers, and I have had enough of several things. As such, I feel the most at ease giving service (I did it for more than a quarter of a century) and creating new IP.  And as I was playing a personal favourite, I realised that Microsoft was holding two massive trump cards and to overthrow that, the other makers need to consider taking a leap, a leap that will make the Microsoft position shaky, very shaky indeed. This solution will optionally fit Amazon the best. Netflix has a chance, but if Google does not change its position, then they are up at the mercy of the developers. It is a choice they made. 

So what is out there? You see, I always knew that our lives revolved around creating places to live, kill things and eat (let’s not forget about the food). Minecraft drilled into that brilliantly and as Markus Persson, Jens Bergensten, and Stephen McManus played on that brilliantly, they sold it to Microsoft in 2014 for two point five billion. Then there was Bethesda who created Skyrim on 11/11/11. A game that for a very long time avoided (not completely) the levels of grinding. And Microsoft offered $8,500,000,000 to the makers. Yes a brilliant move, but it also implies that if someone makes a game like these two for Amazon, the Microsoft gaming share will drop by a decent amount. And it is a tall order, to make something alike and different enough not to be seen as a copy. It can be avoided to some degree. For one, the building materials can be set to marble sorts (Romans and Greeks), giving us all kinds of other challenges and achievements. In a lot of ways Minecraft was brilliant and close to perfect, but it can be done in other ways too and the Minecraft setting will require a streaming solution, which get us to Amazon Luna. But they are not the only player, anyone picking these ideas up can design something for Google Stadia. And it matters, with the massive amounts of revenue to be seen in the next two years, would you turn away a billion dollars? I wish I had been more pressed as a programmer in my youth, I would have done it myself. Alas, I made choices, I have no regrets, but if I was a decent programmer, I could have had more (not in a greed driven way). And now I get to spout other non 5G ideas to the world giving them a chance to take a slice away from the Microsoft pie. 

I will leave it to you, but consider that Skyrim has over 15 million players, Minecraft has 126 million players. Do you still think it is a bad idea? And as the gaming frontiers are changing, as Microsoft is trying to sell THEIR Microsoft Cloud all over the place, the gaming dimension polarises, Microsoft only respects what their board of directors tell others what matters and I have no intention of seeing my devices being overrun by some Azure thin client. As such I see the need to set my dreams and non 5G IP considerations towards public domain, to let you all grow on non Microsoft fields. Azure might have the advantage, but that does not mean that Google and Netflix are out of the race. It is merely a speculative idea and I will let you consider where the race takes us all.

So when you are creating YOUR version of a sandbox game, you can focus on building (and you need to), yet the stage of that can be done in various ways. You can focus on how the Greeks and Romans did it, so you need to create a place create income and become part of an economy. Anything else and you face the dangers that it is too much like Minecraft. As you grow your status and economy, you can opt for one side in game one, the other in game two and every iteration opens up the free game to a much larger extent. If you are in Volos, Larissa or Ladochori (Greek places) you will have to employ different solutions, but in a sandbox game, location is not the key, it is the surroundings you face. A setting that shapes all your decisions. You can only go with the flow and create, and seek, and pillage, and murder and explore. And in all this pillage and murder remains open to addition or choice, but in a sandbox game you make the decisions, you set the tone and you become your own legend (sanctified by Amazon, Google and/or Netflix).

If I feel up to it I will draw out a much larger setting towards real social media for gamers, not marketed messaging for large corporations.

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July 19, 2021 · 11:56

The devil rang

This is too good, I had just finished yesterday’s article and the Guardian gives me ‘Spyware can make your phone your enemy. Journalism is your defence’, in this that I have some troubles accepting that journalism is my defence, they are al about circulation and satisfying their shareholders and stakeholders (optionally advertisers too). But the article came at the right moment, even as this is about Pegasus and the NSO group. Whenever I look back at the title ‘Pegasus’ I think back to Pegasus mail and windows 3.1. It is a reflex, but a nice one. So, the article gives us “The Pegasus project poses urgent questions about the privatisation of the surveillance industry and the lack of safeguards for citizens”, which is nice, but Microsoft, Solarwinds and Cisco made a bigger mess and a much larger mess, so pointing at Pegasus at this point seems a little moot and pointless. (Microsoot’s Exchange anyone?)

Yes, there are questions and it is fair to ask them, so when we see “This surveillance has dramatic, and in some cases even life-threatening, consequences for the ordinary men and women whose numbers appear in the leakbecause of their work exposing the misdeeds of their rulers or defending the rights of their fellow citizens”, yes questions are good, but the fact that millions of records went to the open air via all kinds of methods (including advertiser Microsoft) is just a little too weird. And it is not up to me, it was The Hill who asked the people (5 days ago after the Kaseya hack gone public, the larger question that actually matters ‘Kaseya hack proves we need better cyber metrics’ and they are right, when we see “Once “infected”, your phone becomes your worst enemy. From within your pocket, it instantly betrays your secrets and delivers your private conversations, your personal photos, nearly everything about you” we read this and shrug, but at this point how did a third party operator (NSO group) get the data and the knowhow to make an app that allows for this? Larger question should be handed to both Google and Apple. The fact that the phones are mostly void of protection comes from these two makers. This is a setting of facilitation and a lack of cyber security. The NSO group decided to set a limited commercial application (more likely to facilitate towards the proud girls and boys of Mossad) and they took it one step further to offer it to other governments as well, is that wrong?

So when we see “All of these individuals were selected for possible surveillance by states using the same spyware tool, Pegasus, sold by the NSO Group. Our mission at Forbidden Stories is to pursue – collaboratively – the work of threatened, jailed or assassinated journalists”, if that were true, we would see a lot more articles regarding the 120 Journalists jailed in Turkey, not to mention the 60 journalists that were assassinated (read: targeted killing exercise) there as well. The papers are all about a journalist no one cares about (Jamal Khashoggi) but the other journalists do not really make the front page giving pause and skepticism to “the work of threatened, jailed or assassinated journalists”, my personal view is that the advertisers and stake holders don’t really care about those lives. Then I have issues with “This investigation began with an enormous leak of documents that Forbidden Stories and Amnesty International had access to”, was it really a leak, or did one government take view away from them (by Amnesty International) and handed it towards the NSO group? A list of 50,000 numbers is nothing to sneer at, as such, I doubt it was a leak, it was a tactical move to push the limelight away from them and push it somewhere else. As we consider Kaseya, Solarwinds, Microsoft and Cisco, the weak minded democratic intelligence players from the Unified Spies of America come to mind, but I admit that I have no evidence, it is pure speculation.

And then we see the larger danger “But the scale of this scandal could only be uncovered by journalists around the world working together. By sharing access to this data with the other media organisations in the Forbidden Stories consortium, we were able to develop additional sources, collect hundreds of documents and put together the harrowing evidence of a surveillance apparatus that has been wielded ferociously against swaths of civil society”, who did they share access to? Who reports to another faction that is not journalism or is purely greed driven? In this, the article (at https://www.theguardian.com/world/commentisfree/2021/jul/19/spyware-can-make-your-phone-your-enemy-journalism-is-your-defence) gives us one other gem, it is “not to mention more than 180 journalists from nearly two dozen countries”, as such we see 0.36% of the data is about journalists, so if I was to look at a slice and dice dashboard, how will these 50,000 people distribute? So when we see “If one reporter is threatened or killed, another can take over and ensure that the story is not silenced”, yes, how did that end up for those journo’s in Turkey? What about outliers in data like Dutch journalist Peter R. De Vries? He is not getting the limelight that much in the last three days, you all moved on? You pushed the limelight towards Jamal Khashoggi for well over a year, who achieved less than 0.01% compared to Peter R. De Vries. I reckon that this article, although extremely nice is there to cater to a specific need, a need that the article does not mention (and I can only speculate), but when we see all this holier than though mentions and we see an inaction on Turkey’s actions, as well as a lack of news regarding Peter R. De Vries, I wonder what this article was about, it wasn’t really about the NSO group and Pegasus, they are mentioned 4 and 7 times, the article was to push people towards thinking it is about one thing and it becomes about the 0.36% of journalists in a list of 50,000, all whilst the number is mentioned once in the article without a breakdown. Someone else is calling, when you answer, just make sure the local number is not 666.

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July 16, 2021 · 01:57

Disturbed by memory

We all have that, we all get these thoughts that come from childhood, or from early teenage years and we make some form of connection, but the links are vague, missing and usually incomplete. For me it started today as I was figuring out a few things. I had the thoughts before. The first one was about elemental droids (see image) it was a comic book in the early 70’s, and just now I learn that there was a reboot in 2019. The second was some form of living cars, in part animals. Yet this was well over a decade before the original Transformers were launched as a cartoon. The mind is trying to make links, there is the option for gaming, the option for more. I am not doing to much about it, because it is not my IP, someone did the work, someone is doing the relaunch and for the other part, my mind is trying to make links and it is grasping back to those images for some reason. Just like there is setting where streamers (or Hollywood) would do good to start talking to Don Lawrence, who is one of the creative minds behind the Trigan Empire, as I see the half baked series on current channels, that might be a great catch for whomever scores those rights. 

Yet the creative writing mind of mine is seeking an outlet and the images my mind calls forth seems to be pushing me back to the 70’s, not sure why. It is like the mind found the solution and it is trying to remember the complete story to present to me, but that is merely me speculatively grasping. 

In an era where IP is growing a much larger concern in nearly all fields, as we realise that gaming will represent an amount exceeding $200,000,000,000 by 2023, IP is everything and we already see that only the strongest franchises will survive, Sony and Nintendo have their fair share, Bethesda, Guerrilla and a few others have strong IP, the rest needs to find it or become lost in mediocrity. And they all want their slice of that 200 billion dollar pie. So new IP is where it will be at and at the end of 2023 streaming games will be a massive part of it, games designed to work in client server mode with the client will be as small as possible. And here Amazon Luna has an advantage, with the only unknown player Netflix, who has game-able IP all over the place, so there is the crux. Google is not developing in house and Microsoft seems to rely in their master chief to save them. In that setting the consoles have their market and Amazon Luna has an optional field that could fetch them a massive advantage over the other players, but will they grab it?

We might wonder where they find it. And in all this we see what was brought in 1985-1992, the IP on three systems might not be protected and those owners might be interested to see their ideas push to new levels, there are all kinds of new options, especially in the old alternatives. But that does not stop my mind of thinking up new ideas and new IP. For those in doubt, consider that Jeff Minter brought us the mutant camels and everyone was happy. Yet it took 17 year old Matthew Smith to teach us that Manic Miner and Jet Set Willy were more than ground breaking. Someone had to take a jump into the unimagined. And in all this we ignored a whole range of games, because in those days it as always about the next game, not admiring the current game. That led to the diminished visibility of Andrew Braybrook who would bring the people Paradroid and Paradroid 90, Microprose brought us Covert Action and no one considered where those two could lead us on consoles and in streaming. Even now, some of the games from those days are now making it to Android, they will have an advantage as they develop for streaming systems and those systems will want these games, because the more games they have and the more games that an work in a limited 5G environment, the stronger the pull will be and soon these systems will wake up to the call of number of games and they want that level to be as high is possible with as much quality as possible. In the last 24 hours over a dozen sources are making this claim, as I have clearly made the claim for weeks, for months even. We are now seeing the media waking up, the streaming systems were already on that page, but do they have the IP? That remains to be seen. Yet time will prove that I am right, the moment they make a run for the IP, we will see that they have the sets to make a run on the number three position and they are setting a Hugh yield low impact race. Microsoft paid billions for Bethesda, a good move but there we see less then half a dozen IP, good IP mind you, but still the same IP on other systems and that is the difference, there will be a run on IP that other systems do not have, or not anymore, and the remastered and new versions will be accepted (Mass Effect proved that), yes, Mass Effect is exceptional. Yet the makers relied on that to push forward. Now when one of the players get their hands on a dozen IP’s that can be remastered, we will see systems with over a dozen unique games. If they are good enough, it will make them a winner, that is the game and the winning system will have a much bigger slice of 200 billion than mediocre games do. Sony is ready, Nintendo seems to be ready and Microsoft claims to be ready. So where are Netflix and Amazon? They remains silent and they are having a game plan, they aren’t silent because the media makes it so, they are silent because in the final hours any marketing wave will be 2-3 times more powerful than waves created a year in advance. For me Netflix remains an unknown, Amazon less so and they are off to a good start, will they make the number three position in gaming? It is becoming more and more likely, but it is not a given. And there is more, Microsoft gave us 4 hours ago (via Video games chronicle) “As an industry, I would love it if we came together to help preserve the history of what our industry is about so we don’t lose access to some of the things that got us to where we are today and built this industry. That would be a cool thing.” And we see the intent, but not what happens to the IP, it seems to me that Microsoft wants to claim it all, they fear the setting I gave for some time and now it becomes sort of a race and there is where I get to laugh. I put my IP out in the open, making it public domain, it gives game makers free reign to make gams for Sony and Amazon free, but that also limits Microsoft, and any created game is a loss for Microsoft and as they try to make the historic jump (over time) they will lose out more and more. In a stage Microsoft gives us ‘I would love it if we came together’, yes because that has always been their objective (not really). They want it all under the Microsoft flag, a flag I personally detest because of steps they made in the past. They ignored the players and decided for the players what the players wanted, it is not the right way. So as a gamer I revolted and published IP for all other game makers to freely use, my way of stopping a short sighted giant. And it was easy to do, I had the time and I (hopefully) expect that my 5G IP will get me through, it is all I need. The rest is to make a new stage for gamers by gamers and that stage is highly unlikely to have a Microsoft logo. 

And still my mind is giving me issues with a comic book from the 70’s, I see a little more, but so far not enough to identify why my mind is pushing me there. Irritating!

Yet I do believe that the mind will win and it will show me what I missed (and why), perhaps in my dreams, perhaps not. 

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July 13, 2021 · 21:20

The Lawyer wins, the law loses

Yes, it is a stage that we will be seeing soon enough. As the lawyer wins, the law loses and tht is just the beginning. As we see ‘Apple loses appeal in Fortnite court battle’ (source: Australian Financial Review) there is a secondary stage that comes up. It is not immediately clear, but someone gave the reader by Jeff Dotzler in GC Consulting in 2019 ‘Will You Get Sued if Your Business is Hacked?’ There we see “Even though the company was able to restore the records, one of the affected clients, Surfside Non-Surgical Orthopedics in Boynton Beach, sued Allscripts in federal court. Surfside accused Allscripts of not doing enough to prevent the attack or lessen its impact and sued on behalf of all affected clients for “significant business interruption and disruption and lost revenues.”” Now consider that ‘significant business interruption’ can be replaced with ‘game score disruption’, a stage I saw coming a mile away. Epic Games did not  consider the stupidity of their actions and now, should they win they will soon face several, if not well over a dozen class cases. They cannot make some ‘we are not responsible draft’, the moment ANYONE at Google or Apple squeals the setting of the hack and it comes with the accompanied ‘We could have prevented that’ Epic Games is lost, it will cost them billions in settlements and lawyer costs. If you doubt that, consider ‘SolarWinds says unknown hackers exploited newly discovered software flaw’ (at https://www.reuters.com/technology/solarwinds-says-unknown-hackers-exploited-newly-discovered-software-flaw-2021-07-12/), so they just got out of one mess only to land in a new one and these people have a decently simple system, Epic Games will have to spend on protection that is several levels higher and I feel decently certain that it is not enough. The moment any profile is transgressed on whilst there was a purchase, that is the game, loss Epic Games and loose they will, a lot. 

Even as we are told “SolarWinds said the flaw was “completely unrelated” to last year’s hack of government networks”, it will not matter, another flaw is found and there is every chance that more than one will still be found. In this Forbes gives us ‘Why SolarWinds Is The Wakeup Call No One Heard’, it comes with “everyone talks a good game, but the very structure of American (and other businesses around the globe) makes it nearly impossible to, for example, deliberately and significantly reduce EBITDA to prepare for cyber warfare” and when you consider that EBITDA is Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortisation. You see the problem, it is not all, it is earnings before interest and depreciation that bites, earnings before interest is all earnings with cost diminishing this and too many corporate players tend to cut cost. In some cases they have no choice in the cloud a lot does not matter but it is transgressed on (according to some numbers) for almost 90%. And when you add that Amortisation is merely anther view of  depreciation the path is clear. Steve Andriole also gives us “The number of severity of cyberattacks will explode in 2020.  Cyberwarfare has now levelled the playing field in industry, in government, and in national defence:  why spend ten or fifteen billion dollars on an aircraft carrier when you can disable it digitally?” You think that this is about defence? Do you have any idea what 50 million whining gamers can do? EVERY ransomware player will target Epic Games and with an open Android and iOS setting they will succeed. I saw this when this all started in 2020 within 5 minutes, the short sightedness will hit Epic Games and others in a few ways. Think I am BS’ing you?  Consider that several sources gave you a month ago “Hackers Stole 780GB Data Including FIFA 21 Source Code in EA Hack” and EA has been in this game a lot longer than Epic Games has been. That is not evidence, but it is a setting that we need to consider and when Epic Games loses that data the class actions start, and it is not something that they can keep quiet (apart from that being a crime), the people will talk and the parties involved, including government parties will find a nice letter making claim to financial losses. The law source (see above) also gives us a link to the Ohio Data Protection Act. There we see “Under the law, damages cannot be imposed if a state court finds your company had a reasonable cybersecurity plan when a breach occurred and followed it to the best of your ability. Or, as the legislation puts it, the law is “an incentive to encourage businesses to achieve a higher level of cybersecurity through voluntary action.”” In this I offer ‘reasonable cybersecurity plan’, was it followed through? Was there a backup if it fails, was there consideration for cross platform transgressions? In this last part I offer to the older programmers 

IF(clipper)
   …
ELSE
   …
ENDIF

Those who know will nod and consider what else Epic Games and others have forgotten, what happens when someone exploits a Sony flaw over the entire system, and at that point these companies have little to no protection. 

Which gets us to ‘when a breach occurred and followed it to the best of your ability’, but the suing side will argue that the breach could have been prevented on day zero, or even day -1, which will be their way of saying that they opened the system when they were not ready and that is another billion in class actions right there, and I agree with the stage that there will be enough cases that have no bering (just like the loot box cases in the media), yet Epic Games will have to hand to their lawyers to investigate them all, the hours alone will rake up millions and that is merely year one. The lawyer wins his bread and butter for a year (at the very least) and the law is up the creek without a clause. The law was never ready for this, so the going will be good towards the coffers of Epic Games, a looting box that requires time, not money. 

So when we go back to Forbes and consider “When I took the results to the CFO (to which technology weirdly reported), his only question was, “what’s all this going to cost me?,” which of course was the wrong question.” We see there setting, but I wonder who gave that same question to the Chief Legal Officer (CLO) with the question ‘What will this cost the firm?’, a question that he can decently predict when he considers 1-5 class actions and that result has to be scary and any consideration of future profit goes straight out of the window, not merely the legal costs, marketing will have to offer a whole range of products and services to stem the tide of people leaving for the next safer harbour, the most dangerous of all settings, and that is merely the beginning of year one as Android and iOS stores open. Forbes also gives a reference to Andy Greenberg (Wired Magazine, 2019) said about why governments have been unwilling to deal with cyberthreats: “More fundamentally, governments haven’t been willing to sign on to cyberwar limitation agreements because they don’t want to limit their own freedom to launch cyberattacks at their enemies.  America may be vulnerable to crippling cyberattacks carried out by its foes, but US leaders are still hesitant to hamstring America’s own NSA and Cyber Command, who are likely the most talented and well-resourced hackers in the world.” And this is not a government setting, Epic Games will be hit be greed driven and vengeance driven hackers as well as organised crime, a %5 billion company? With the state of cybercrime convictions? They are definitely on board. A stage Epic Games could have prevented from the start, but someone saw 30% of $5,000,000,000 and did the math, but whoever did the math was not ready for the tidal wave they would be inviting through that choice. In this, Forbes had one more gem, it comes from Nicole Penroth and ‘The hubris of American exceptionalism’, when we see “More hacking, more offence, not better defence, was our answer to an increasingly virtual world order, even as we made ourselves more vulnerable, hooking up water treatment facilities, railways, thermostats and insulin pumps to the web, at a rate of 127 new devices per second”, now consider that Fortnite is on Windows, MacOS, Switch, Sony, Microsoft, iOS and Android, they drew more than 125 million players in less than a year, do you think that there will be no flaws? And how many devices a second will that add to the equation? Do you have any clue what level of protection is required, even as Sony, Solarwinds, Nintendo and Microsoft have all been hacked even though they had nowhere near that level of complexity required. This was a dangerous situation from the start and gamers will soon have to seriously consider to remove any program that has an ‘open’ store, the cost will be too high for a lot of them. 

And that is not all, as Nicole spoke about ‘an increasingly virtual world’ the danger that open stores will mean that you either have a dedicated computer, or healthcare and safety products will not be considered to be insured in your house, when that happens we get a whole new level of nightmare, I can only imagine that setting, but I am clueless as to the impact, we cannot oversee that, not with an evolving IoT and 5G evolving before our very eyes.

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July 12, 2021 · 16:34

Murdered by politicians

Yes, that is the setting, the danger that a politician is getting you murdered. The evidence? Consider the setting we are given We are given “Google is being sued by 37 US states over policies on its Android app store, Google Play” you might think that this is fair, but is it? The governments (US, UK, EU) they are all helpless to stop players like REvil and bitcoin miners. They say that they are on top of it, but consider asking the millions of Sweden that could not enter the 800 supermarkets close because of what was done. You see a trickle of events and that is good, merely a trickle, yet when the iOS and Android stores open up, it becomes a tidal wave. 37 states catering to the greed driven, they want to avoid paying their dues all whilst tax offices cannot properly adjust theirs, all setting a stage where the pathetic (Epic) can report that they are avoiding their 30%, but in all this the stage becomes that you will be transgressed on your data and your systems and it will not be a trickle, it will become a tidal wave of advertisements on gambling and deceptive conduct, with every game you have it will increase 200%, so with three games you are looking at an expected 8 times the amount of advertisement (Read: harassment and bullying). So when we see “It criticises the commission Google takes on purchases made within Google Play, which can be up to 30%, in line with Apple’s App Store policies and the stores of other rivals such as Amazon and Microsoft XBox” and there is the second party. These stores promise (and so far kept) all kinds of promises, when you are outside their store, it ends, your internet actions will go to the highest bidder, your system will have all kinds of advertisements and the people who screwed up the neat life you had will back away in the shadow, saying it is out of their control. 

That is how I see it, that is what I am speculating will happen. The moment that comes through, I will delete EVERY game I have, I will remove any third party that was offered to me, the price will be too high and find out how high it will be for you when you leave even one application on there. 

And in an interview (source: BBC) with Sundar Pichai we get “I asked about whether the Chinese model of the internet – much more authoritarian, big on surveillance – is in the ascendant, Pichai said the free and open internet “is being attacked”. Importantly, he didn’t refer to China directly but he went on to say: “None of our major products and services are available in China.”With legislators and regulators proving slow, ineffective, and easy to lobby – and a pandemic taking up plenty of bandwidth – right now the democratic West is largely leaving it to people like Sundar Pichai to decide where we should all be heading”, this fits as the interviewer is not giving the larger stage to what happens when the greed driven get involved, it tends to stream towards organised crime, because they are as entrepreneurial as anyone else, when it is about the green they tend to be a lot more innovative than any government has proven to be, and that is a setting you do not want on your mobile store, ANY STORE. So as Amazon, Apple and Google are turning them away, all the others are a lot less likely to do and for the alleged avoidance of 30%, so far I have not seen any third party player willing to do that. And consider the 10 apps you do have, when they give you the additional 1-4 advertisements, do you see any money there? No, I wonder where all that coin will go to, that I merely the beginning, after that it gets ugly in a hurry, yet at that point when we ask the names of the people involved in these 37 states that include New York, Tennessee, Utah, North Carolina, and Washington DC. How reachable will these people remain for answering questions? I am willing to lay a bet there that they will all vanish like snowflakes in a heatwave. What do you think?

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July 10, 2021 · 23:54

Chook Chook thinking

Yes, I could have said ‘train of thought’ but that would be too obvious, wouldn’t it. The thought came from two articles. The two articles set my mind in motion and they are not related in any way, other then the provider of both articles which is Reuters. The first article (at https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-regulation-tencent-m-a/chinese-antitrust-regulator-blocks-tencents-5-3-billion-video-games-merger-idUSKCN2EG029) gave me ‘Chinese antitrust regulator blocks Tencent’s $5.3 billion video games merger’, I have nothing really to add, other then the thoughts I had wondering what the antitrust regulators were thinking. I am not saying, or implying that anything wrong was done. The ‘official’ version is “Antitrust laws are statutes developed by governments to protect consumers from predatory business practices and ensure fair competition” that is the official version, unofficial it is that competitors use their version of the excuse “to protect consumers” into a version of “stopping competitors with actual innovative inventions to get the upper hand over their need for revenue (read: greed)”, Google has been the most clear victim but they are definitely not alone. In the article we see that it is about Tencent Holdings Ltd’s and the merger of Huya and DouYu. If the merger goes through we get a setting where their combined market share in the video game live streaming industry would be over 70%. So I am not sure what to think, I do not know whether it is valid or not. It was merely an article that  got my attention. 

The second article is ‘FTC extends probe of Amazon, MGM deal’ (at https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mgm-m-a-amazon/ftc-extends-probe-of-amazon-mgm-deal-source-idUSKCN2EF2EF). There we see “Amazon.com’s deal to buy movie studio MGM for $8.5 billion is headed for an extended probe by the Federal Trade Commission, after a source familiar with the matter said on Friday the agency had issued a second request in its review of the merger”, so there is no connection there, and there will not be one. But the two articles made me think on what else Amazon could do. They do have the inside Track at present and if they push they could do titles that all others are not considering. To see this, we need to go back to 1983 then ‘Dragon’s Lair’ took the breath away from nearly everyone who saw it, it was an arcade machine and a laserdisc. No one had done it before and it took the cake, now on streaming no laserdisc is required, with MGM, Amazon has the option of launching a whole range of interactive movies. James Bond might be the most visible one, but when we consider the size of their IP which also includes the Hobbit, TombRaider and a few others, we can see that interactive movies have an option, and Amazon will own it all. The larger station is not merely interactive movies, but it is a play style that Sony and Microsoft added to their games, they merely forgot to make games like that. They did nothing wrong, they added flavour to their games. Yet Dragon’s Lair showed that a game like that is possible. In 1995 Tia Carrere added to this with The Daedalus Encounter, it started on 3DO but it did get on PC on the early age of VGA and CDROM systems with often no more than 300KB/s. Now with the consoles and streaming systems coming we can do a lot more and now we see that Amazon might be holding on to a lot more and even if the FTC tries to block it, it is merely a temporary setback, Amazon has the inside track and when the others consider this they might wake up and take old ideas into innovative new internet streaming highways. 

As I said, it was merely a train of thought, but so far the others aren’t showing their actions and that is before Netflix steps into the ring, consider what they have and what they would be able to push for, the innovative player takes the cake, that has been proven by Sony and by Microsoft in the past, and with the bar set to $195,000,000,000 in 2022, do you think that the innovators are going to let slip any sliver of a pie that big? What are you thinking?

As stated it is merely a train of thought, but is it that far fetched when you think of what we can now achieve?

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