Tag Archives: Optus

January 27, 2023 · 21:31

Banking on it

This is the case as I read it a few hours before, it also strengthens my case against banking apps. You see, the BBC (at https://www.bbc.com/news/business-64240140) gives us ‘Mobile phone fraud: ‘They stole £22,500 using my banking app’’ and we get “A pickpocket took Jacopo de Simone’s mobile phone and used his banking apps to steal £22,500”. In this case I have a few questions. You see, when I have my phone on me it is ALWAYS locked. A locked phone can still accept phone calls. So as I see “He said his bank investigated but found him liable for the losses so he is still fighting to get the money back.” To be honest, I cannot completely disagree, I also agree with “banks need to do more to tackle it, according to charity the Fraud Advisory Panel” which becomes the issue. I always though on a separate app that is NOT next to the app for certain bank activities and that app needs to receive a code within 30 minutes. And when the app receives three (my magic number) wrong codes the app is blocked from that person until he goes to one of his bank’s branches where they can unlock and reset the app. Everyone is always nagging about simplicity of usage, well if you are willing to surrender £22,500 for that convenience  you are welcome to proceed, but somehow I feel certain that it is not worth that much money. So when I see “Criminals are stealing mobiles not for the device but to try to access finance apps to steal thousands of pounds, the Fraud Advisory Panel said” I feel a little happy as I keep zero financial apps on my mobile. I never ever trusted those and the Optus and Telstra issues we had in the last year merely strengthens my resolve on that issue. As such, when I see “Mr de Simone fell victim to the crime while walking around London Bridge in May 2022 when his phone was pickpocketed” the question comes back “How the hell did they unlock his phone?” Then there is “Use different pin numbers for unlocking your phone and opening banking apps” as well as “Don’t store passwords or pin numbers on your phone” in this case I never put pin numbers there and I do keep some passwords, but they are encrypted and my skill of half a dozen languages helped here and if these people can decipher those codes, good luck. The password for my discontinued UTS password is all yours. But there is another setting, like Google allowing for encrypted notes, encrypted via a number. I am a little surprised that they did not cover that after a decade (well, they dropped the ball on a few other matters too, one of those costed them 50 million subscribers). So there is always space to improve things. But when I look at the case of Jacopo de Simone I at present will side with the bank. Parts do not make sense, but the issue of improving security on banking apps remain, more needs to be done and a separate app makes sense. It reminds me of a solution 30 years ago that the insurance agent Aegon had. They called it Aegon LAR. The app contacted the server that agent X needed contact and within 60 seconds the server contacted the agent. As such all the security was on the server side and triggering a hack would not work from a remote location, it contacted the router on a specified number and there were security protocols in place, so you had to be there, you needed the codes and any deviation would stop activities. Simple and  decently safe. How come we let all that slide for simplicity and ease of use? 

It never made sense to me and I do not need a banking app for a few reasons and my distrust of security levels on a few levels makes me avoid ALL banking apps. It is just how I am wired, nothing personal, it is the application of Common Cyber Sense.

Advertisement

Leave a comment

Filed under Finance, IT, Science

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , ,

November 9, 2022 · 20:14

It started with a prank

This is the story of a story if you want. To get the fill idea I have to take you back to 1974. We got a visit from an airforce officer, he showed us quartz. Not a small piece either, we needed both hands to hold it, it was like a small pyramid almost 10 inches each side and it was raw, not shaped, not prepared, raw quartz. It was almost like magic. Now we go back to almost the present. The movie Cloverfield is out and it is quite the trip and whilst I was watching the DVD it suddenly hit me. What if I could send pats of the edited movie on an SD card and hand it to the officer with the message to get it to DARPA. Apart from the simple fact that there were no SD card in 1974, the idea that a 10 year old knew about DARPA would be remote and the contraption would be unknown to the officer who would be able to see that it was advanced tech. Once they figured out it was 128GB the panic starts, because in 1974 a 200MB Winchester drive would be the size of an office desk. Then they need to decode what was there and when they saw the MP4 files panic would truly start. Lady Liberty, the Brooklyn bridge and more. The panic would be near complete and the prank would be utterly complete. So this was when the daydream stopped and the mind started to wind the cogs. What if it was not a prank, what if it was not then but now. What if hackers, not some government create a different kind of file. A file that gives a stage that could create panic. Like the light bar in newscasts, what if at 02:30 the transmission was interrupted WITHOUT the studios noticing that a special newscast that the bitcoin collapsed it was at this point 700 points down and expected to drop another 800 points. Not one, but orchestrated over half a dozen stations setting the stage in 2 timezones (in the US, China, Japan, or perhaps gullible North Korea). The panic wave would create a dip, large enough to make a decent killing, especially if the buys were not in the country where it was hit, and 30 minutes later all traces were gone. The media would have a field day trying to find out who did it and how it was done, but the stage is now complete. You see, What if Solarwinds did not just update supermarkets, what if that was the start of a specific backdoor that could not be found as it was too small and it was inactive (like the Optus hack).
The idea that people will drop their bitcoins at $14000 ($6K down) implies that there would be a lot of money be made in 30 minutes. And after the hour the bitcoin is sold again and the scoundrels walked out with millions, paying off their ‘loan’ with a healthy profit. It would need massive orchestration. The stations, the internet, several other elements and those who think it is impossible better realise that Solarwinds, Optus and a few more hacks overlap in places and a small cohesive group could be waiting below the line merely waiting for the right time and with the average detection time is set to 200 days there is plenty of manoeuvring space. 

The setting for a Hollywood script in a few hours. I need a hobby!

Well that was my scoundrel side thinking new ideas to be made into a script. Have a fun time and please invite me to the red carpet if the scripts becomes reality.

Leave a comment

Filed under Finance, IT, movies, Science, Stories

Tagged as , , , , , , , , ,

November 2, 2022 · 17:43

And you still want cake?

A few hours ago I was alerted to an article on the BBC site. The article (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-63260648) gives us ‘Cyber-attacks on small firms: The US economy’s ‘Achilles heel’?’ In itself no real surprise, but then I saw “It was a total head-in-the-sand situation. ‘It’s not going to happen to me. I’m too small.’ That was the overwhelming message that I was hearing five years ago,” says Ms Graham, co-founder of CYDEF, which is based in Canada. “But yes, it is happening.” There we see the first instance of utter stupidity, a setting where insurance companies go ‘well, I am sorry to report that it is on your dime that this is happening’ and that is not a speculation, this is about to happen. In addition to that the insurance against cyber attacks will skyrocket unless you have state of the art equipment (something small businesses cannot afford). A stage that is waiting exploitation. There are all kinds of speculations. One of them is “Cyber-crimes are expected to cost the world $10.5tn (£9.3tn) by 2025, according to cyber-security research firm Cyber Ventures”, I do not completely agree, for the most I do, but the big bucks are depending on national 5G, which is not happening in many nations before 2027. You see, one source gives us “For example, in November 2020, one cybersecurity company estimated that global cybercrime costs will grow by 15 percent per year over the next five years, reaching US$10.5t annually by 2025, up from US$3t in 2015 (Cision 2020)” they are seemingly ALL quoting the same source and that source is Cyber Ventures. That does not make it incorrect, yet I have reservations. That number is completely acceptable under 5G, under other conditions (when big tech do not screw up and hand over the keys to hackers) should not go that fast (yet), but when 5G, a national 5G stage is there this number will increase swimmingly all over the globe, which is why I shouted for law adjustments well over two years ago, but the law is seemingly sitting on their hands, all about ‘letting all parties’ swim in the large all whilst the swimming pool has close to zero protection, so this will get worse a lot faster and the EU will see plenty of drowners (aka floaters) soon enough. My speculative view is that the larger problems are a mere 6 months away. 

Then we are given “The pandemic created a whole new set of challenges and small businesses weren’t prepared,” says Mary Ellen Seale, chief executive of the National Cybersecurity Society, a non-profit that helps small businesses create cyber-security plans. In March 2020, at the cusp of the pandemic, a survey of small businesses by broadcaster CNBC found that only 20% planned to invest in cyber-protection.” This sounds nice, but I wonder what we will see in 2023. I expect that it is then that we will learn that less than 40% of these 20% will have actually done something and that is when a lot of people (insurance especially) realise that this is about to become a sinking ship. There was clear indication in 2010 that setting up cyber security was essential in players a little larger than SBE sized companies. They had issues too, but the revenue was too small. The problem is that clever hackers do not grab the whole enchilada. With “It typically takes 200 days from the moment of the hacking until discovery” we see the pattern. The clever ones will hit places for about 150 days then they go underground. That gives them enough to live like a king for a decade. They stay under the fold, they stay inconspicuous for as long as they can. They book a weekend in Vegas and then they launder what they had going home with $5-$15 million. The caper has worked and they are in the clear. Yet these same clever people can clear $50-$150 million when they get access to a fully deployed 5G network and the BS argument of “We will have a solution before that” does not fly, that excuse is a decade old and they have no adjusted laws, there is no adjusted technology and whatever the NSA has is not shared. So as you can see, the numbers are not entirely in the air (the Cyber Ventures one) but it will rely on a fully deployed 5G network which should be around 2027. 

It is time that ALL businesses take cyber security serious. The moment that there is no insurance for that these Achilles heel companies go under with no options for the owner, that person will have lost everything. So when Kirsten Dunst stated ‘Let them eat cake’ (Marie Antoinette) she stated a good case for Cyber criminals. They are having cake every day and those not using Common Cyber Sense will be paying for that meal day after day after month after month after year (you get the idea). It was essential to properly adjust laws for that. And when we look at the data from April we get “according to industry data only four to five percent of hackers are actually caught, but high-profile cases showcase how even the most skilled can make simple mistakes which lead to them being apprehended” so between one in twenty to one in twenty five gets caught. Do you really want to hope on that statistic? This is not a pun against law enforcement or the FBI, they are in a fight with both hands tied behind their backs. Not a good position to win a fight. And that is before we look at state funded hackers. Lets be clear both Russia and China have every benefit for American and European business to lose way too much, proving that part is close to impossible. These players are almost never caught. The arrest by the FSB of REvil was a rare instance, but not all was lost. At https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/ransom-cartel-linked-to-notorious-revil-ransomware-operation/ we learn “Researchers have linked the relatively new Ransom Cartel ransomware operation with the notorious REvil gang based on code similarities in both operations’ encryptors” and that was two weeks ago. At present with Russians not being able to wage war against an enemy that is at best 15% of their own army gives rise that the people behind REvil will be out and about soon enough (if they aren’t already). 

So those who want cake, better find a place to enjoy it before the hackers get it all and I will not care. I have been clearly evangelising the essential need for Common Cyber Sense for years now. And if Optus Australia is anything to go by there are plenty of big fish not too interested in that approach.

Leave a comment

Filed under Finance, IT, Law, Politics, Science

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

November 1, 2022 · 18:57

Fear is the key

Yes, it is a setting, but also the title of a Alistair McLean novel. And fear came to mind when I saw ‘New EU law could open up messaging and app buying’ (at https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-63458377), for the most I am all for open markets, the problem however is that these small players aren’t too concerned about safety. The fear becomes that these small players will be a platform for hackers and criminals to propagate THEIR agenda and I do very much have a problem with that. So as the article gives us “Under the DMA, smaller messaging apps will be able to ask the tech gatekeepers to allow their users to send and receive messages via the bigger firm’s platform. However, large firms will not be required to make more advanced features interoperable immediately. Under the plans, audio and video calls between two individual users or groups of end users on different platforms will not happen for four years.” This statement gives us two dangers. Danger number one is that the small player is propagating party X (aka hacking party), we cannot state that there was intent, or that there was malicious intent. There is every chance that these maker are unaware. The second danger is that the absence of ‘advanced features’ which would include certain security measures. Yes, that is a speculation, but these security measures tent to be more advanced, hence the danger of missing out. I wonder what excuse these ‘enablers’ have when things go wrong, because there is EVERY chance that this will happen. In certain cases, could the BEUC be held accountable for damages to mobiles and persons? It is a fair question, because the rules of torts tell is to go after the money and the EU has plenty, not?

So as we are given “Margrethe Vestager, the commissioner for competition, who originally proposed the legislation said: “We invite all potential gatekeepers, their competitors or consumer organisations, to come and talk to us about how to best implement the DMA.”” I personally wonder who will ask the EU to be held accountable for any hacks that get propagated this way and more important can these smaller players be held liable? That last part is dicey on a few levels. It sets the stage that the consumer has to agree to an ‘as is’ policy, which means that the consumer gets to be held accountable for any damages. This is not a good setting to be in. 

I am all for open markets, but until the EU (US too) has actual victories against hackers, I fear the worst will happen and it tends to happen too soon when no one is prepared or has a clue, a mindset the EU is well familiar with.

I have every intention to ban messages that are not from my provider, which is dangerous as Optus has been hacked into to the largest degree, so I am not holding my breath regarding any mobile safety at present.

Leave a comment

Filed under IT, Law, Media, Politics, Science

Tagged as , , , , ,

October 28, 2022 · 03:36

Two linked events showing trouble

Yes, that I how it started for me today. It all links back to the Optus failures and a few other matters, but cybersecurity is at the heart of it. Initially I saw the second article, but I will get back to that later. First we look at ‘Sydney teenager accused of using Optus data breach to blackmail indicates guilty plea in court’ (at https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-10-27/teenager-accused-of-using-optus-data-breach-to-blackmail-court/101584078), a simple deception. Yet one with a few sides. The first part “Australian Federal Police (AFP) charged Dennis Su with two offences earlier this month, claiming he sent text messages to 93 Optus customers demanding they transfer $2,000 to a bank account” sets the guilty party up, but in more ways when we consider part two “The charges were laid after a bank account belonging to a juvenile, which Mr Su allegedly used, was identified”, so he used a third parties account and wholly Moses, it is apparently of a minor. How the bough breaks! Well it actually doesn’t break. It seems that there was a serious amount of thoughts and planning here. Well, for some it is not a serious amount, but he had to know what was planned and he got a minor to be the front to some parts. It all refers not to the second article that as the first on my eye sight. It was ‘Medibank and Optus hacks spark warning over identity theft risks from former victims’ (at https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-10-27/identity-theft-warning-after-optus-medibank-hack/101576992). Here we get “The first thing the victim knew about her identity being hacked was when a man turned up on her parents’ doorstep asking for the sexual services he’d paid for online.” It is the start of a new steeple chase. When we consider “Former identity theft victims have shared how their details were used to steal luxury vehicles, take out personal loans in their name and hock fake goods online, because criminals got hold of the kinds of information millions of Australians are believed to have had compromised in the latest Medibank and Optus hacks” and this is not nearly the end of this. When we see “While living in Melbourne, she sent a photo of her licence to a real estate agent applying for a lease, and that image was somehow then uploaded into a gallery of property photos featured on that agent’s website” especially in the Australian housing market, can we please remove this bozo’s character from the housing market? How can anyone be stupid enough to ‘upload’ identity details? There is an unacceptable lack of common cyber sense in Australia. It goes from the big banks to the most stupid of housing players. They have no idea what they are doing and the excuse ‘we made a boo-boo’ just doesn’t play here. First Optus, then Medibank and that list keeps on growing. That is accelerated by alleged cowboy institutes that make money offering cyber degrees. Australia has a serious problem and it needs to be dealt with starting with a lot better protection regarding ID’s and identity documents.  

And we do not blame Google here, but “Probably the most shocking and stressful part was just seeing my licence there on Google for anyone to use” should be seen as evidence that a much larger issue is in play. When we see newspapers give us “The federal government has promised to dedicate millions of dollars to “investigate and respond” to the massive cyber attack which rocked Optus” which according to some amounts to $6,000,000 over two years. I reckon that in two years the problem will be a lot larger and two years to investigate what I in part did in 5 minutes is a joke. Something needs to be done NOW and lets start by holding corporations accountable to cyber security and lets make sure that a certain housing agent is an Uber driver in 48 hours and not a housing agent any more. Yes, I agree that I am overreacting, but uploading ID details? To a photo gallery? I think we hit rock bottom on the village idiot scale and that needs to be addressed well within 2 years, within 48 hours be more likely. I think that my optional IP move to Canada might be a good thing. It is not out of the question that these players will set my IP on a server with a connected router that still has the password ‘Cisco123’, that could be how my luck goes and I have seen enough bad luck to last me a lifetime. 

As I see it Australia has a lot of problems, not in the least the larger absence of Common Cyber Sense, I raised that in ‘The Bully’s henchman’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2020/01/31/the-bullys-henchman/) which I wrote on January 31st 2020, almost 3 years ago, it is that much of a failure and if I raised it then, it was already an issue. As such we see a failure that surpasses 3 years and now they want to debate it for two more years? These people are out of their flipping minds!

Leave a comment

Filed under IT, Law, Media, Politics, Science

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , ,

October 5, 2022 · 21:46

They just won’t learn

That happens, people Incapable of learning. IT people listening to salespeople because these sales people know what buttons to push. Board members pushing for changes so that their peer will see that they are up to speed on the inter-nest of things (no typo) and there are all other kinds of variation and pretty much every company has them. Even as Australia is still reeling from the Optus debacle, Telstra joins the stupid range (at https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-10-04/telstra-staff-have-details-hacked/101499920). So explain to me why an HR system needs to be online? OK, you will get away with that and there is a need for some to access it, but in what universe does this need to be so open that EVERYONE can get to it? That is the question we see raised with ‘Telstra data breach sees names and email addresses of staff uploaded online’, a blunder of unimaginable proportions. On the other hand, Telstra will be bleeding staff members left, right and forward pretty soon. You see, this list is well desired by over a dozen telecoms in Europe, North America, the Middle East and Asia. They all need staff all over the place and now their headhunters know EXACTLY where to dig. Even as the article gives us two parts. The first part is “a third party which was offering a rewards program for staff had the data breach in 2017” as well as “Telstra has not used the rewards program since 2017, the spokesperson said” in all this the question that matters are not asked. We get Bill Shorten trying to change the conversation back to Optus with: “get the information so I can stop hackers from hacking into government data and further compromising people’s privacy”. The massive part is “Why was a reward program not used for 5 years still linked to HR data?” It seems that ABC does not ask this and the others do not either. So even if we get “Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus has said he will review Australia’s privacy laws and tighter protections could be brought in by the end of the year” Yet the larger question remains unanswered. How to protect these systems from STUPID people? A reward system that has a direct link to the HR data and was not used for 5 years is stupid, plain and simple stupid. As such this affects their IT and their HR department. Yet the people (politicians and media are not asking these questions are they? They let Labor loser Shorten change the conversation. Oh, do not worry we are not even close to done with Optus, but the setting that the conversation is pushed away from Telstra allegedly implies that Telstra has too large a hold on Media and politicians. So whilst the media allowed Telstra to hide behind “while the data is of minimal risk to former employees” they fail to see the larger picture. In an age brain drains these people are worth their eight in Lithium (more valuable than gold) and it seems to me that an employment database of 30,000 telecom people will be eagerly mined in the three earlier mentioned regions. These hackers were smart, they can get a million easily (over 10-15 customers) and these customers will not care where that data comes from, they need personnel and they needs them now. So it seems that certain people just ill not learn and there is no hiding behind “in an attempt to profit from the Optus breach” Telstra claims to be so superior, of that is so either the hack would not have affected them, or these systems are in a worse shape than ever before and that is also missing from the article. Two competitors successfully hit by the same flaw? It seems that too many people are asleep at the wheel. And no one is asking the right questions, not even the media, why is that?

Leave a comment

Filed under IT, Media, Politics

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , ,

September 29, 2022 · 22:11

Optus seems more stupid

I wrote about this earlier, I had concerns, I had questions and I had to some degree accusations. Yet that is nothing compared to now. The BBC gives us (at https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-63056838) ‘Optus: How a massive data breach has exposed Australia’ this shows a few sides, I was unaware of earlier. They start with “about 40% of the population – had personal data stolen in what it calls a cyber-attack” that is a lot, but Optus has a large user population. It is “Those whose passport or licence numbers were taken – roughly 2.8 million people – are at a “quite significant” risk of identity theft and fraud, the government has since said” which is close to everyone, to become most telecom members, you need 200 points of identification, which tends to include a passport or a drivers license. So when we get to “In an emotional apology, Optus chief executive Kelly Bayer Rosmarin called it a “sophisticated attack”, saying the company has very strong cybersecurity”, is that so? So when the BBC treats us to “Sydney-based tech reporter Jeremy Kirk contacted the purported hacker and said the person gave him a detailed explanation of how they stole the data. The user contradicted Optus’s claims the breach was “sophisticated”, saying they pulled the data from a freely accessible software interface. “No authenticate needed… All open to internet for any one to use,” they said in a message, according to Kirk.” This seems like there is a serious flaw in the Optus system, and when we revisit the statement from Kelly Bayer Rosmarin “I’m disappointed that we couldn’t have prevented it,” she said on Friday”

I tend to side with the less diplomatic version of me stating to Kelly Bayer Rosmarin “Do you know that the condom is also used to stop making you fat? It is not just for the prevention of STD’s” now I might be ejaculating a bit premature (aka was Jeremy Kirk told a BS story or the truth) but if this is true, then Optus failed on a few levels. Protecting the data, protecting the servers and protecting their customer base. You see, the software interface might have allowed for injection of a backdoor making the Optus system now close to completely unreliable. The fact that there is a freely accessible software interface in play implies that its IT security failed, the data was collected and that happened without any red flags on access and transfer of data and we see the fact that all the data is accessible, from way too many places and that is the telecom company that Australia trusts? It gets to be even worse when we look at the article (at https://www.afr.com/companies/telecommunications/optus-hack-could-happen-to-anyone-ex-telstra-boss-warns-20220928-p5blrg) where we are given ‘Optus hack ‘could happen to anyone’ ex-Telstra boss warns’, a wannabe from the stables of Telstra, an immature greedy Microsoft minded telecom. There we see “Former Telstra chief executive David Thodey says the cyberattack on Optus “could happen to anyone” and urged all big and small organisations to be “vigilant” about online security”, Well David, if the information from Jeremy Kirk holds true, you better hope that you have a better cyber and IT security division, more importantly if this level of stupidity can happen to EVERONE, your systems ALL SUCK! And in my personal opinion you all need an overhaul and a 80% wage reduction. This level of stupidity when it comes to personal data is too stupid for any of you to be taken seriously as so called ‘captains of industry’ as such, please apply for an Uber or barber position. 

Now this seems overly emotional, but these are the kind of people who judged me a not being professional and THEY set data next to an open interface? This is the 101 of stupidity. OK, if JK was told a bag of lies I would owe a few people an apology, but that is for tomorrow, for now it seems that a lot of people are not aware of the level of stupid their telecom company hung their personal data on and that is more than a simple investigation, there are plenty who will pay handsomely for that much personal data. The US, Russia, India and China. 4 players willing to pay twice what the hacker wanted and they will not ask questions. A whole collection of personal data that can aid in creating deeper learning personalised rainbow tables, a whole battery of data from all kinds of social media that can now be used for granularity and a whole range of other data sets that can now be completed. And it all hangs on a (currently unconfirmed) version of a freely accessible software interface. “No authenticate needed”. How angry would you be hen these so called professionals charged you again and again and as they changed membership status so that they had more legal options. And they are not held to account? Yes, I would be angry and I am (for now still) with Optus, I get to be angry, my data is out there. So how would you feel?

Leave a comment

Filed under Finance, IT, Media, Politics, Science

Tagged as , , , , , , , ,

September 24, 2022 · 17:32

Corporate noun of stupid

Yes, that is the thought. You see, I have had a few issues with Optus recently, the first one is that customer care went into the basement and took the elevator down from there, the second one is that I can get NO information on my account events in the shop, some lesser setting of an individual stopping people and pointing them towards their ‘customer care’, but organised crime and hackers, they get ALL the assistance. Information like email, date of birth, phone number, ID document. Yes they get all the information. And it goes beyond that. If all that information is available to hackers and organised crime, it implies that basic cyber security failed.

And the most stupid of all (as corporate idiots go) we get “no financial information or passwords have been accessed”. We didn’t merely loose something, all the elements to create fake accounts and make fake creation is out and about. For some it will take months to clean up the mess others made, if it can be cleaned up at all. Fake mortgages tend to follow the victim around for the rest of their lives. So the idiot that approved THAT message will be looking for a job soon enough. To trivialise such a massive blunder needs a much larger response and some article stating “However, this breach, like most, appears to come down to human error,” the Optus insider told the ABC.” That with the headline ‘Optus rejects insider claims of ‘human error’ as possible factor in hack affecting millions of Australians’ yes, give it a human error side, but the larger issue might be the insufficient cyber defences at Optus were overcome by hackers endangering the economic lives of millions. So my version is a lot darker than ‘affecting millions of Australians’ but which one will be more accurate? That is the larger stage and that is where the media is very supportive of Optus, but I have seen three issues in one week, so I am not certain it will be this easy. And this is all over the field, it is all over Australia and it will cross borders, especially when we second wave of events pass us by, when? That is anyones guess, but that much identity information is not merely to create a rainbow table, this is optionally the prelude of something more, what? I cannot tell, but you do not get this kind of information to simply show that Optus is asleep at the wheel, this implies purpose, but that is merely my point of view.

As to the answer of the header: “a group of people who are all stupid”

Leave a comment

Filed under Finance, IT, Science

Tagged as , , ,

September 21, 2022 · 20:26

Clusters

Clusters are a weird concept. There is the science, the art and the personal which tends to be a blend of both. We think that we love that one person more than all the other grapes in the bunch. We think that we know more than all the other grapes in the cluster of grapes and we watch how all the grapes get squished and we avoided that wreck. Clusters are weird, they are at times like Horoscopes. We merely ‘believe’ them when they are positive. And we are all the same, I in this am no different. I know more than a lot of people in certain areas but not all areas and still I am like all the others, I am the one grape aside from the other grapes in a cluster of idiots. There is no delusional side, it merely is what it is. Yet when you realise this and you start to dimensionalise that cluster of grapes, it is then that you might see structure and that structure is important. It gives size and shape of what you contemplate. I might compare myself to Amazon and Google, but the reality is that my solutions merely outstrip the one grape that Google or Amazon hired to make sense of that structure. When you realise that part you start to understand the company and now you have a new setting. That setting can help you to see what they are missing and optionally where else they are not looking. Yet the cluster is more dangerous than you think. You see one grape, but you do not see the other 143 grapes and what THEY see. That is the larger stage. And it is not limited to Google and Amazon. There is Apple who merely focus on the white grapes, there is Microsoft who is blind to all other grapes, and then there is IBM, SalesForce, SAP, Adobe and many others, all focussing on THEIR vintage, THEIR strengths and that is how it is, but for you it matters where these focal points are. Google is in the news about the news, and when we try to look at the Australian in google search when we click on ‘Google’s ‘News Showcase’ stalls in US as media outlets balk at terms’ we merely get what we see below.

This is the larger stage, the news makes claims but then uses the news to advertise and even as the Australian is the most visible, they are not alone and lets be clear I wanted to see what the news war regarding Google. And yes, others gave me ‘Google films people reacting to the Pixel 7 Pro, confirms pre-order start date’, I was merely curious. I recently got the Pixel 6 and I am happy with that one, the camera is heaps better, the battery is good, the phone is faster and the screen is better. For amount X I got a mobile phone that is well over 3X better. So I doubt I will get the Pixel Pro 7, I will most likely wait for the Pixel Pro 8, or perhaps 9. The previous phone laster me well over 6 years and it did its work. No regrets on previous phones, no regret on this phone. Merely Optus making a mess of too many things, but that is not on Google. Amazon announces its new kindle and the first thing I notice is that it ‘only’ has 32Gb, double the previous one, but instead of just adding 64GB or even 128GB, it keeps the pressure on and I reckon that it will bite them soon enough. In SD card settings it is $10 versus $19, less then twice the price and when you offer something for long term use, storage matters. It gets to be even less nice when you consider “The Kindle Paperwhite 8gb does not have the ability to add more memory via an sd card like the Fire Tablets” this is not asleep at the wheel, this is creating one brand dependancy and that is not a good thing. It does not matter for my IP, but the fact that Amazon is optionally (make sure you see the word optionally) brand dependancy matters, it makes Amazon a lesser choice and they did this too themselves, as such my advice to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia could go “For the future of your 50,000,000 subscriptions there is now added value of selecting the Google Stadia choice over the Amazon Luna as a choice for the future of your IP. One selection could have that large an impact and as such it is important to see as much of the Kindle cluster as possible, because this could reflect back to people like Andy Jassy. Is it fair? That is not the question. He allowed this to happen on his watch, it is that simple. And it matters because the 32GB would seem enough, but we are not always in reach of decent internet, and as 32GB allows for a decent amount of books, 128GB allows for 400% more and is that not why you travel with your Kindle? It was a simple equation and the grapes of that cluster either missed it, or the grape in the cluster had its own agenda. It sounds simple, too simple. Yet that was where Microsoft was in 2012 and in a decade they are close to going tits up (not in a nice way). They are not a player in the gaming market (no matter what their marketing states), the tablet market went past them and they are close to lose 15% of their cornerstones. Of and when we add Adobe to the mix, they lose even more. This is what asleep at the wheel looks like (or the wrong grape in charge of the bunch, or cluster). So clusters matter. They are often not scientific, but they rely a larger story and that matters too, it also gives rise to other choices YOU will have to make and not all of them can be made on solid numbers, as such the cluster view tends to have a larger or weightier effect. 

There are clearly times when the media cannot be trusted, or the numbers they bring. That is not really their fault at times. Too many stakeholders, too many mouths to go after the Microsoft grape-juice, or whatever grape pie they serve.  We need to make up our own minds and at times the cluster view is not as scientific as we would like it, but it does tend to give a much better view when we realise how to see all (or as many as possible) grapes in the cluster. At times that is all we have, especially when we solely rely on our instincts.

Leave a comment

Filed under Finance, IT, Media, Science

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , ,

September 16, 2021 · 18:50

As the shoe drops

Yes, there is a lot of anger in Bethesda land. As we take notice of “We have tried to be as clear as possible, not a timed exclusive, this is simply where the game is being made.” Starfield is a Microsoft exclusive and the fans are angry. I get it, I am not angry, it was a brilliant move by Microsoft, it is why I placed all kinds of IP on the public domain (here in my blog) for Sony and Amazon (Luna) so that their independent developers can make a totally new RPG game and the IP is free for them, it is my way to giving Microsoft the bird. These developers are not out of pocket for $8,500,000,000. And they deserve it (I hope). 

So whilst we take notice of “Hines went on to point out that Bethesda fans on PlayStation consoles might not be shut out entirely from playing future titles from the studio”, we do understand that the PS5 is outselling the Xbox 2:1 and it will take some time before cloud gaming is expected to become congestion free, and that is providing that you have a true unlimited account, as some give us the stage of Xcloud on about 3GB per hour, so someone with a new 200GB account will run out of data in about 65 hours, that is likely less then 2 weeks for average gamers and 1 week for what some call the true gamers. After that it will be $30 per hour to game. And that is if it all goes correctly, I feel certain that congestion will hit soon enough. You see some sources give me “Optus now offers unlimited data across its range of postpaid mobile plans. As with Telstra, if you go over your data allowance, you’ll be capped to speeds of 1.5Mbps.” so if it is unlimited, how can you go over your data allowance? And consider that capped data does not allow gaming, not at 1.5Mbps. So we are (for now) locked to our consoles and PC’s. Is it a wonder that Amazon gives you Ubisoft+ at $1? The end is nowhere near here and it is a lot worse in places where you are rural, especially the US, Canada, France, Germany and several others. And in that light we need to see Bethesda. And they do give clarity with “Certainly, there are going to be things that you’re not going to be able to play [on PlayStation]” that is why Microsoft paid billions. They had a bad setting an inferior system and they got the people addicted to certain games across. Even though it is not a given, I feel certain that the new none online Elder Scrolls is most likely going to be a Microsoft exclusive. It makes no sense to get angry, they paid billions and the people on Sony will have to make a choice and I helped them by handing the independent developers on Sony and Amazon IP for free. I will try to add a few more titles and it is up to the developers to create them, but at least I handed them an alternative and I did mention a few more titles for consideration to remaster. 

So whilst some people will get needlessly angry over “I want to be careful. I know it’s a question people care a lot about. It’s also a tricky one for us to answer because, frankly, it can get sensationalised on the internet”, I see it as a BS answer. It is not tricky to answer, it is the result of a $8.5 billion takeover, there was never any tricky setting. The only tricky setting was Deathloop as it was already a PS5 exclusive. At present PS5 is looking at 25 exclusive titles (until mid 2022) and that is not including a few titles that have no clear release date. In addition, the PS5 has crossed the 10,000,000 units sold line whilst Microsoft is nowhere near that, and as we see in some sources “the Xbox team has made it a policy in recent years to not disclose exact hardware sales numbers”, which makes sense when you are the number three console trailing PS5 AND Nintendo  Switch. So the Bethesda move was the only one that made sense for them and they had to pay a massive amount for it (because Bethesda is worth it), and yes, there will be a group of people who will switch as they are dedicated as well as bug nuts for the Bethesda games and that is fine, it is what Microsoft paid for, as such I handed my creativity to Indie developers so that they can make a new RPG on PS5 and Amazon Luna. Will it happen? I cannot tell, I do not know, but at least I did not resort to anger, I merely gave others the chance to take a slice of the RPG cake on two platforms. Perhaps that is not the right sentiment, I offered IP so that they could consider going there. And if I find my IP on these two systems I can raise my glass and give Microsoft the bird. 

No matter how many how many games Bethesda will make Xbox Exclusive (the right Microsoft paid for) it will hurt them to lose out of millions of gamers who will stick with Sony and that is the stage that they overlooked. When Sony gets a new RPG that is Sony exclusive and it does catch on (one hopes) Bethesda will lose out on a lot more and Microsoft will taste the sour grapes that come with a $8.5 billion investment, it was as I state before a brilliant move, and in this day and age as we are in lockdowns, I will add as much Gaming IP for Sony and Amazon developers (for free) and let that be the lesson Microsoft gets to learn the hard way.

Leave a comment

Filed under Gaming

Tagged as , , , , , , , , ,