Tag Archives: pentagon

August 5, 2025 · 13:12

Where the coins are

Yup, there it is, I said it. The article (at https://ara.tv/4eecj) gives us ‘US, Saudi Arabia hold high-level defense meeting at the Pentagon’ and right of the bat, we are ‘fed’ a lie (as I see it). We are given “The Pentagon’s top policy chief called Saudi Arabia a “critical, longstanding defense partner” working to become more capable and self-reliant.” Why is it a lie? Well, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has been waiting for inclusion into the F-35 program. So, even as Belgium is included into that program, they are still awaiting delivery. Belgium a European nation that was overrun by the German army in 18 days (it took so long as most German soldiers were on foot or on bicycle) that country is more prestigious than Saudi Arabia? #JustSaying

I reckon it is the reason that China is making massive headways into the Arabic nations. And there it is, the additional quote ““The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is a critical, longstanding defense partner for the United States that seeks to grow more capable and self-reliant in its defense. We are working hard to partner with Saudi Arabia to enable it to do so,” Colby said in a post on X.” I wonder when the defense department relies on X instead of the world wide news to disperse that information. It is a hard thing to comprehend.

I reckon that America is so desperate for cash (now that they damaged their tourism industry) that they can only turn to China and Saudi Arabia for additional funds. As Saudi Arabia has a lot more oil, the UAE was overlooked. But the setting is here America needs coins and as such I would have thought that someone in the Pentagon (it is rumored that this is managed by people at 1690 Air Force Pentagon, Washington, DC 20330-1670)

That being said, someone should have whispered to them to include Saudi Arabia to the F-35 list, but who am I saying this? I am still happy to get a nice bonus from the Chengdu Aircraft Corporation (CAC) (at No. 88, Weiyi Road, Huang Tianba, Qingyang District, Chengdu City, Sichuan, China, postal code 610091) If you can’t beat them, join them I say. And I was always happy to get a nice (optionally fat) check. The new apartment will set me back $7M and there is the need to get some cash to the UAE (my optional Yas Island retirement location), as such bringing a customer the size of Saudi Arabia might get me my dream retirement.

As such you might wonder why this byline? That is easy as we are given “Colby welcomed Saudi efforts to build up its self-defense capabilities and “to make greater contributions toward achieving shared regional objectives,” Parnell added. The meeting came amid a series of recent US arms sales to the Kingdom. Earlier this year, the Trump administration approved a $3.5 billion weapons deal that included 1,000 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missiles (AMRAAM) and 50 AIM-120C-8 guidance sections.” I say that either Pentagon policy chief Elbridge Colby has a doofus (aka dodo) as a personal assistant, or he has been missing briefs for years. Saudi Arabia steered to self reliance in several fields (including defense) even before 2019, so the response you read before might be seen as nothing less than a joke. As for the ‘funds’ already spend, as I see it, Chan is just as willing to receive such payment for its abilities for Saudi Arabia to defend itself. I get that there is one stronger and one weaker. But I do not know who that is between these two. As such it might be anyones guess. I suggest you ask someone at Raytheon who has the better equipment and why.

So it is nice to see this article and there is no blame on AlArabiya, but until it refers to America seeing Saudi Arabia as a full fledged partner in global defense by selling them the F-35, these stories come across like that moment in Oliver Twist asking for some more. Charles Dickens wrote about that little orphan in 1838, so it might have been a while. Still the setting of America bothers me, not the meeting with Saudi Arabia, but the building of not-so-good moments in several areas in America going from tariffs to tourism. America is bleeding and through their own actions they are bleeding allies just as quickly as anything else. Not even the penguins on McDonald Island are happy to see President Trump.

So as we are given the final quote ““Both leaders recognized US-Saudi defense cooperation as a force multiplier for regional security, and reviewed opportunities to deepen cooperation,” said Parnell, the Pentagon spokesman.” Well, as a non-Pentagon source might I suggest including Saudi Arabia as another party for the F-35? That should deepen cooperation by a lot. #JustSaying

It is moments like these that I wholly embrace the old saying “Sarcasm is great, when it backfires it become irony” and that is important too, so just in case AlArabiya is hungry for more stories, the address of the Chengdu Aircraft Corporation can be found in the story. 

Have a great day this Tuesday, it’s still Monday in Vancouver, so they get this article in about 14 hours.

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July 24, 2025 · 05:35

An interesting morning

This morning I was given an article by Amway media (at https://amwaj.media/en/article/why-china-cannot-sway-saudi-arabia-to-shift-away-from-us-weapons). It took me a second to let it sink in, but as it did, it took me back to May 27, 2023 when I wrote ‘Ding Ding, the premise is set’ where I gave my view on the Chengdu Aircraft Industry Group and the dangers to America as it would be able to get the Government of Saudi Arabia as a new customer. The story (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2023/05/27/ding-ding-the-premise-is-set/) was not the first one that I had set and here (two years later) we get the setting “if Chinese weapons are more or less on par with their western equivalent, why does Riyadh still spend billions on American weapons?” Was that really the case? I believe it was that Saudi Arabia wanted to play nice so that they could get the F-35 stealth fighter, it is beyond me that America took that card out of the deck and as I stated that the Chengdu version could be ready to get China as a customer for it would have been a massive hit for America, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, BAE Systems, Pratt & Whitney and Raytheon. It would have been a massive coup for China and the Chengdu Aircraft Industry Group. So as I read “When Pakistan’s Chinese-made J-10 fighters reportedly downed India’s advanced French-made Rafales during dogfights in May—including one confirmed by US officials—it marked a turning point: Chinese weapons had proven themselves against western counterparts in real-life combat” I actually read a simpler setting. Are the sales teams of the Chengdu Aircraft Industry Group (and optionally Governmental China sales teams not hacking it? 

I am not a pilot (not even an aviator) as such I lack the knowledge to set the premise. But I would have given the setting of training one squadron of Saudi pilots in China on the grounds of Chengdu a very first priority. Getting pilots in the mindset of China would have been a first. Was that done? As such the quote ““One of the reasons why Saudi Arabia prefers western weapons over its Chinese equivalent is because Chinese weapons have not seen combat in recent years,” a researcher specializing in Middle East affairs at China’s Northwest University told Amwaj.media. “This may change now that the Chinese-made J-10 fighter jet has drawn its first blood”” I understand the premise, but I do not agree with it. As I see it, Russia and China are on decent par with America, They are always inching towards or ahead with each other. Don’t get me wrong, America has a great record, yet as I see it America has lately bungled a few fields. The first bungle is the USS Zumwalt, the ugliest ship in American navy (as I personally see it) and then there is issue with  key technologies, like specialized 155mm rounds, that are massively expensive. As such the Zumwalt class (that are set to just three vessels) for the grocery price of $8,000,000,000 per vessel. Making the destroyer decently more expensive than the USS Blue Ridge and a lot less operational, especially as ammunition of the Zumwalt is too expensive to afford (according to US Congress) that is a mere beginning. In 2021, I quoted (from ABC) “He said the combat jet currently had almost 900 design flaws, with seven considered critical.” This is in regards to the F35, as such China had options to get its foot in the front door (a bad manner sales technology) but at that point China gets the option to offer a solution to the Saudi government. It just occurred that this might be a reason. What if America isn’t keeping Saudi Arabia from the F35 for exclusivity, but to hide the fact that whatever Saudi Arabia gets will expose the flaws of the F35 to a much larger audience? I don’t know, I am merely postulating the thought of the reason why you want to keep an ally like Saudi Arabia away from a priced exclusive dinky toy (sorry, I just had to go there). 

The next setting is a decent one, Amwaj gives us “Yet, despite China offering cost-effective and no-strings attached alternatives, Saudi Arabia continues purchasing the majority of its weapons from the US. During President Donald Trump’s visit to the Kingdom in May, the two sides signed a historic 142B USD arms deal, the largest of its kind. This dynamic reveals the deeper truth in Saudi strategic thinking: purchasing weapons are more than commercial transactions, they are investments in a strategic partnership.” That could be the case, yet the way America treated Canada gives rise to the ‘strategic partnerships’ and that is on me, I could very well be seeing this wrong. But the flaws into America’s settings in design, in execution and in realism gives rise that Saudi Arabia needs to diversify beyond America. We are given “Eurofighter Typhoon, Rafale, and Gripen. While the Eurofighter Typhoon incorporates some low-observable features, it is not considered a true stealth aircraft like the F-35.” As such, as the Rafale was ‘defeated’, China becomes the one diversifying direction and most likely the better choice over the Sukhoi Su-57 (after all, NATO calls it a Felon). And there is a geopolitical setting against adopting the Russian variant, as such Chengdu wins. That is if America keeps on playing the F35 as a Trump card. 

I reckon that adapting Saudi pilots to the Chengdu solution is a first setting and if Saudi Arabia gets an $80B discount on overall purchases, over 3-4 years and I reckon that it would go a long way to get Saudi Arabia adapt to Chinese airplanes and that would be a massive win (for China), as it would set the stage for Egypt and Indonesia adapt the Chinese versions as well (an optional presumption). A stage where China goes from 1 to 3 customers might be very appealing to China (say: Chengdu Aircraft Industry Group) 

And this is the setting that Amwaj media exposed, well I set the premise at least 4 years earlier, but that is fine. Then we get the one true hard setting that Amwaj ‘exposes’. It is “Given Washington’s history of attaching political conditions to arms sales, Riyadh rightly fears that its predominantly American-made arsenal could become leverage to compel compliance. Most recently, this was seen in 2021, when the Joe Biden administration suspended offensive weapons sales in an effort to induce the Kingdom’s exit from Yemen.” The alternative, is that considered and correctly phased? If Saudi Arabia completely changes to Chinese weaponry, is that a hindrance or a opportunity? China will see it as a win, but it is not what China wants, it is what is preferred and what is best for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. That is the center stage and that is what matters. What is truly best for Saudi Arabia and that is up to the Saudi government. I have no idea because it requires several academic degrees and data that I have never had access to. Because if one domino topples, so will others. As such what is the Priceline and the cost of doing business. I might know some, but I have no idea on how the dominos are stacked. As such it is a bit of a minefield and whilst I would (as a commonwealthian) applaud the setting where Saudi Arabia adopts the Eurofighter Typhoon, there is a timeline to consider. It is not 5th generation and there is no real timeline for when the Eurofighter Typhoon gets to evolve into a 6th generation stealth fighter. And lets be clear, there are no clear timelines when its real enemy (the presumptuous Iran) becomes a real danger to Saudi Arabia and that is the flaw that is both a setting of hindrance and the optional danger block. These elements matter, but as I see it America needs to act, because the longer it delays, the larger the danger becomes that Saudi Arabia is forced to choice another direction and whatever direction Saudi Arabia selects would become a splinter in the board of toppling the America economy that America cannot undo, that much is clear and in this day and age, as America is alienating its allies, it needs to secure the settings it has. 

That is merely my view on the matter. Have a great day, 95 minutes until my breakfast.

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July 21, 2025 · 21:37

Wondering about it

There is a stage that I (personally) applaud. I love sarcasm, because when it boomerangs (bites back) it becomes irony and the world at times needs a little sarcasm with loads of irony. And the world helped my out yesterday in the for of an article (at https://www.cnbc.com/2025/07/18/microsoft-china-digital-escorts-pentagon.html). I had heard some of this before, but I didn’t know the source. As such I kept it at an arms length, because I don’t want my disdain for Microsoft colours my blogs into something else, something optionally ‘mismatching colored as hatred’ blogs. The world has enough of those. The news given here is ‘Microsoft stops relying on Chinese engineers for Pentagon cloud support’, so this is how I like my irony, a government with heavy anti-China tainting, sets its cloud support to the people of that very nation. And as I see it, this must have been happening for close to a year, if not longer. So when we think about it, the people who enacted the federal Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 are the ones requiring the Chinese to do the cloud support of their pentagon (that 5 sided building in Washington DC, erected 1941). A setting where we see the irony dripping of the icing. So what was that anti Huawei feeling that has been going on since 2018?

Oh, the delicious taste of sarcasm in that is almost better than a delicious Tiramisu. Ask such the two key points that are given to us are “Microsoft has changed its practices to keep engineers in China from getting involved in support for U.S. defense clients using the company’s Azure cloud services” and “The announcement came days after ProPublica published an extensive report describing the Defense Department’s dependence on Microsoft software engineers in China” the one settings I find hilarious are ‘Microsoft has changed its practices to keep engineers’ and ‘after ProPublica published an extensive report’. As I see it, if ProPublica had not informed the people, this might still be going on. I wonder if Microsoft informed the Pentagon and the fact that China was actively involved with the cloud support of the Pentagon. And as I see it, buckets of sarcasm and irony are available right here. 

So when we get to “The company implemented the changes in an effort to reduce national security and cybersecurity risks stemming from its cloud work with a major customer. The announcement came days after ProPublica published an extensive report describing the Defense Department’s dependence on Microsoft software engineers in China” where we need to recognise the setting that someone wanted to set ‘The company’ instead of ‘Microsoft’, I reckon just in case that quotes were being used. The setting of ‘a major customer’ against ‘Pentagon’ or ‘Department of Defence’ I reckon a setting none of the players are happy about. So whilst the Pentagon was please to get a cheaper deal, I reckon that handing their settings to China was not in the books. I find this hilarious as Oracle was always going to be the better choice (best choice as I personally see it). 

So we are also given “In 2019, Microsoft won a $10 billion cloud-related defense contract, but the Pentagon wound up canceling it in 2021 after a legal battle. In 2022, the department gave cloud contracts worth up to $9 billion in total to Amazon, Google, Oracle and Microsoft.” So we are given this, but as I see it, the ‘better’ phrase would be “In 2022, the department gave cloud contracts worth up to $9 billion in total to Amazon, Google, Oracle, Chinese Ministry of State Security and Microsoft” (Is that a little over the top?) 

I was never in favor of the entire hatred of Huawei setting, especially as correct evidence was never supplied. So when we see this, I just have to wonder about the entire ‘shortage of resources in. Case setting’ for the corporations Micro and Soft. So is one going soft or is the other becoming tiny? In case you were wondering yes, I am writing this with a bucket of sarcasm on the right and a bucket of irony on the left. 

And how did I get there? Well the next quote gives me that handle “ProPublica reported that the work of Microsoft’s Chinese Azure engineers is overseen by “digital escorts” in the U.S., who typically have less technical prowess than the employees they manage overseas. The report detailed how the “digital escort” arrangement might leave the U.S. vulnerable to a cyberattack from China.” This reminded me of an old joke (80’s) where the long serving man was promoted as head of IT because his son had a Commodore 64. I never get tired of reading that joke.

It is the last quote that gave me the giggle. It was ““We remain committed to providing the most secure services possible to the US government, including working with our national security partners to evaluate and adjust our security protocols as needed,” Shaw wrote.” It is worth giggling to as we might accept the quote by Frank Shaw, the Microsoft’s chief communications officer. Yet the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, was before 1900. Cloud computing as we know it now came into ‘fashion’ in the early 2000s. As stated “The concept of the Pentagon’s major cloud computing initiatives began with the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) cloud contract, with the final request for proposals issued in July 2018 and a subsequent award to Microsoft in October 2019. However, the Pentagon later scrapped the JEDI contract in July 2021 and initiated a new multi-vendor approach, the Joint Warfighter Cloud Capability (JWCC), in December 2022, dividing cloud work among Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Oracle.” As I see it, Microsoft has been supplying information to China as early as 2018. So why is Shaw throwing around terms like ‘Remain Committed’ are thrown around, all whilst this might be seen as a clear case for the Pentagon (and the White House) to throw Microsoft out of both buildings. Unless the anti-China sentiment of the United States is just a farce.

Have a great day and try to see the fun in matters.

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June 28, 2025 · 06:42

The bird is the word

Yup, at times we get to be not so nice. A mere 30 minutes ago the BBC ‘alerted’ me to the news that ‘Trump says he is cutting off trade talks with Canada’ (at https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckg629n7wzvo), now I do not know what actually started this wave of intense silliness, but there you have it. And the text behind this is “US President Donald Trump has said he is cutting off trade talks with Canada “immediately” as the country looks to start enforcing a tax policy targeting big tech companies.” I reckon that after his bash into Iran and the ‘big win’ (not sure if that is the right title for it, but the media runs with it) he thought that revisiting Canada was the way to go (that is his decision). Yet after the insults and the threats there is a real cause for Canada to enforce the setting of following through on ‘threats’ and Canada has had enough. There is the underlying thought of not waking up sleeping dogs, but there you have it. And for the record Prime Minister Mark Carney has a lot more economic insight than I do. Considering that my abacus actions saw the American economy collapse even before President Trump acted in the not so intelligent way he did, but as Tourism collapse in America will be down an estimated $12 – $21 billion this year and even as they are ‘focussing’ on America 250 (OK, that is a landslide number) the fact is that as tourism, which includes business travel, bed and breakfast, hotels, theme parks (even Disney states: ‘Epic Universe is Dead’) the impact of that much losses will drive small businesses out of commerce, as such America has nothing to be proud of. And as we see YouTubers giving a similar message there is a lot of concern. Even in America. As such I am predicting that the damage is larger than we see. So as the media is happy to split hairs (all for the benefit of digital dollars) we get to see ‘prompts’ that America cannot go bankrupt. In theory they are right, but when America has to forfeit on its loans, the effect nowhere near as dramatic as is given by the media. You see, This is where the vulture funds come in. Milking a nation for everything it has. American Wall Street did it to Argentina in 2005 (it might have been 2010), now Wall Street will do it to America because business is business and at that point Canada will get waves of Americans trying to get away from it all. I reckon that Canada can keep the shortages they have (doctors, nurses and such) but the rest is stuck in America. So how does that feel when immigration turns on the Americans? 

Elon Musk was seemingly on that page months ago, but now as the gloves come off, America will feel the pinch of all that interest that comes with the USCCD (US Credit Card Debt) of it states $36,210,000,000,000, which should be over 4.06% an expected interest now. As the US bonds are said to be about 6% consider who will take the risk of investing any amount where the return on investment to be well over 16 years. As I personally see it, this becomes an increasingly risky investment as some see the end of America in less than 5 years. So as Saudi Arabia is celebrating its 2030 point, America is decently heading for doom in less than a week, because the people will talk on this America 250 party. A quarter of a millennia and it mined itself out of existence and into the abyss they dug for themselves. Is this doom speak? 

It is fair to see it that way, but consider that America bombed Iran out of the nuclear age and USA Today gives us ‘Key parts of Iran’s nuclear program still intact, says Pentagon report disputed by Trump’ As such I do not know where I stand, but if the media has ‘valid’ views by the Pentagon (not some intern who works there) President Trump might be merely relying on the court win of ‘Trump handed ‘giant win’ as Supreme Court curbs judges’ power to block his orders’, as such it is my personal view that President Trump needs all the friends he can get, but as it stands, he is burning the bridges behind him and now as Canada is showing some teeth, the game gets nasty and PM Mark Carney also has European friends now (beside the Commonwealth, who he already had) and as this ‘fight’ intensifies, Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom will side with their bigger brother as no one wants to side with a potential loser. That is what America has become ‘a loser’. Do you remember the old saying that America gave us all? It was “money talks, bullshit walks”. A setting that America will soon be embracing against their will as they will claim that they armor than ample to ‘turn it around’ and that is where it gets less outspoken for America as it stands as we are given that “The UAE maintains its position as the world’s biggest wealth magnet, with a record net influx of 9,800 millionaires predicted this year”, oh wait, didn’t I say that before? Yes, I did. I made mention of it with “You see if America cannot pay its debts, America becomes the third world country no one wants to visit and that makes it a nasty place within months. America has around 22 million millionaires. I recon that at least 15 million will get out in time, the rest is not ‘rich’ enough and those with a jet (around 15,000 of them) will go to any country that will take them and they will move fast.” I stated this in ‘All dressed up’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2025/05/31/all-dressed-up/). I did this on the last day in may 2025. So merely a month ago, I made mention earlier, but not is such a strong way because I thought that this day was way off, but the American administration has created a negative economic wave of such magnitude that it makes a tsunami a mere pebble splash. 

That is, what you think is (utter) BS, but we now see “The UAE maintains its position as the world’s biggest wealth magnet, with a record net influx of 9,800 millionaires predicted this year.” As such this year 9,800 millionaires are vacating to the UAE. Wanna guess how many are Americans? So whilst America is still believing that America is doing great. As I see the old expression of rats leaving a sinking ship (no negativity towards these millionaires who sought better places to be). We need to see the reality of the setting and here they also pissed off Canada. As such President Trump might  seek to ‘a second chance’ the question becomes, why does Canada want to do that? In that same air, so will the other Commonwealth nations reconsider why America is a good deal. 

And those who are insisting it is, it is fine, but some media spokespeople have a lot to lose and they need to cash in before it is too late for them. As such the media is really not the trustworthy player you want to bet on.

So as we take notice of “the US president said he was ending talks due to what he called an “egregious tax” on tech companies and added he would announce new tariffs on goods crossing the border within the next week.” Everyone needs to remember that this tax setting is the one president Trump orchestrated (together with the 51st stated mentions) as such he might be feeling a rather large pinch from Wall Street soon enough. So whilst some might focus on “Canada’s 3% digital services tax has been a sticking point in its relationship with the US since the law was enacted last year. The first payments are due on Monday.” A setting I understand is badly received a year ago and that is fine, but they had a year and now as payment is due, those who are unwilling to pay will lose ‘advertisement population’ and that is the crux in a lot of digital settings. As I see it, they all want to make advertisement money and it is why I created an alternative two years ago. Not absent of advertising, but the cut of advertising on every page. That kind of advertising was done as I saw it. It is like a union of a crack whore with Direct Marketing, which much to vile to my taste and the people around me are starting to see this setting and that is the second phase of my ultimate win (I am still a little delusional on this). As I see it Amazon could gain a new niche income there, although I feel better about it if they had made the jump earlier. Now it becomes a race (of sorts) between Amazon and Tencent. The hungry one wins was my initial setting, but it also requires insight and that tends to be lacking in Americans (a personal view).

You might think that I am anti-American, but I am not. Merely a person grabbing for the supposed facts and I am pro-Canadian, I am a Commonwealthian after all. So feel free to disagree, but get the facts out. As far as I know, I have been doing that.

Have a great day and for the Americans here, lets be fair. A small sign to show you what I think of the American administration at present.

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May 15, 2025 · 07:08

Operation Maybe

Yup, that happens. Although for the most we adhere to the two certainties in like (death and taxes), we automatically assume that hotlines remain available. It is just an automatic response, it is almost like the setting you get from “Our house was broken into, but the dog was home?” kinda like that. So when the news came to mind all the way from London (about 180 minutes ago) ‘Pentagon hotline linked to DC airport ‘inoperable’ since 2022’ (at https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvgdmx1g1vzo) I initially thought the someone at the BBC had dropped the ball. But no, the hearing that followed gives clear voice that the BBC was on the ball. My initial thought was that both the airport and someone (likely reduced in rank a few minutes later) at the Pentagon were both equally to blame. The setting of “A hotline supposed to connect the Pentagon with local air traffic controllers in Washington DC has been “inoperable” since 2022, a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) official has testified.” It pains me to see the Pentagon advertising “At any given moment in time, we are ready to serve and come to the aid of Americans all over the world as well as out allies (pending hotlines operations)” it just doesn’t have that sparkle that finish has on your glasses in the dishwasher. Now before we go into the blame game (everyones favourite game), lets be clear. If the hotline was no longer ‘essential’ and someone switched off that hotline, it would have been nice to alert the US Senate before editors got “At a Senate hearing on Wednesday, FAA officials said they only learned of the problem this month after controllers at Ronald Reagan national airport had to wave off two flights attempting to land because of a nearby US Army helicopter.” Which gives light to the fact that the airport is every bit to blame was well as the (likely) degraded person at the Pentagon.

The setting of an at alert Pentagon is seemingly a ‘nice to have’ and not an essential issue. Lets face it, we can’t have a building consisting of with about 6.5 million square feet (600,000 m2) of floor space, 3.7 million square feet (340,000 m2) of which are used as offices with almost 25,000 headless chickens running around, that just won’t do. As such there are issues with the hotline not working. 

And the excuse “Deputy air traffic control head Franklin McIntosh told senators that the hotline was operated by the defence department and that his agency had been unaware of any problems” does not hold water with me. Hotline testing is an essential task I reckon that on an airport it would be once a day, but I’ll accept that once a week might be enough. As such at least 1226 checks were failed (optionally a mere 175 checks) and that is a much bigger issue, as such the nice game blamer Franklin McIntosh might wanna hang on to his retirement for dear life. Unless it is his first month they screwed the pooch on that one and I am not saying that the Pentagon is without blame, because a hotline has (at least) two ends and they were both missed. Just imagine that the get the setting of “Oi people, al-Qaeda is at it again” only to be missed because the hotline was out. As such we get the setting of “Peter, is your brother still delivering pizza at the Pentagon? Tell him there is an issue at the airport” which could be averted by dialing (703) 692–7100 and see if someone considers an attack by (a presumptuous) Al-Qaeda important enough to press the alert button. This is what could happen. What seemingly needs to happen is that people need to be purged (I still prefer self-flagellation as a solution, as Pope Urban II was a fan of it). There is the question that it should not affect me so intensely. But we have been shown that the Pentagon could be attacked, in other settings there are a number of flights that emerge from Washington DC, many of them connected to high ranking officials at any of the given Alphabet units (not Google), might be nice that immediate assistance is at hand (usually through a hotline). I just gave a few ways how this hotline might have been essential. As such when we see “The FAA, along with the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) are investigating the recent near-misses.” All this in regards of a issue surrounding the 64 people aboard the American Airlines-operated plane died, as well as three crew members of Blackhawk Helicopter which had taken off from Fort Belvoir in Virginia on a training mission. At this point the setting of “In the more recent incidents earlier this month, two aircraft from Delta and Republic Airways were told by air traffic controllers to perform “go-arounds” because of an approaching Army helicopter, similar to the one that had been involved in the crash.” And at that point the Hotline was not an issue (or perhaps it was the instigator of the Senate hearing). Whatever the reason, I reckon a complete investigation (and overhaul) of Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport is needed and I would say that an investigation in the Pentagon hotlines is equally needed, because if this was missed, other issues are likely to be found.

But it could be as simple as the maintenance hotline that ran out of battery power and a mere 2 AA batteries are needed.

Have a great, not hotline dependent day today.

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June 24, 2024 · 03:13

Reengineering an old solution

I was bending my mind over backwards to stay creative. And as I was mulling over something I read a year ago, my mind started to race towards an optional solution. You see, the idea is not novel but it has been forgotten. So if Tandon never renewed their patent, you get the exclusive option to rule there. If they have, you could file for an innovative patent, giving you still a decent payment for your trouble. 

Going back 34 years
Yes, it was the height of the IT innovative time and this age had plenty of failures, but it also had decent blockbusters and whilst they all wanted to rule the world, they clamped down on their IP innovations. Tandon was one of those.

As you can see in this image the drives (both of them) look like space hoarders, it was the age of Seagate with their 20MB or 30MB drives. The nice part was that these drives could be ejected. It was a novel idea where the CFO could put its drive with the books in the vault.  

Why is this an issue?
Well, last year I saw an article that well over 70% of all cloud accounts were invaded on. To see this we need to look (at https://www.cybersecuritydive.com/news/cloud-intrusions-spike-crowdstrike/708315/) where we see ‘Cloud intrusions spiked 75% in 2023, CrowdStrike says’ it comes with the text “Organisations with weak cloud security controls and gaps in cross-domain visibility are getting outmanoeuvred by threat actors and struck by intrusions” And this is not all. Captains of industry lacking IT knowledge will happily accept that free 1TB USB drive at a trade show, not realising that it also creates a backdoor on their servers. They shouldn’t be too upset, it happened to a few people at the Pentagon as well (as they are supposed to know what they are doing). So the cloud is a failing setting of security. So consider that, as well as Samsung putting their stuff online because they didn’t realise how to operate OpenAI. Just a few examples. So what is to stop their research or revenue results to be placed on a drive like the pre-cloud days?

You think I would put my IP in the cloud? Actually I did, but I have a rather nasty defence system that is a repeated action I learned in 1988 and no one has a clue where to look (and I never put it with the usual suspects), but this is me and I will not give you that trick because all kinds of people read my blog. 

So back to Tandon. In stead of this big drive, consider a normal drive space and in stead of that big box. Consider a tray with enough space to fit an SDD with the connector inside the tray, going to a plug on the outside of the tray. With a simple kit that can be purchased if more than one drive is used. Now see the Tandon solution as it could be. An ejectable drive solution for many. Yes you can connect just a wire and use an external SSD, but it becomes messy and these wires can also malfunction. There is even the option of adding AES256 that could be added in the drive on one side, so even if they steal the drive (optionally with computer) the thieves lose out as a dongle could be required. It merely depends on how secure you want the data to be. A CFO might rely on his safe for the books. An IP research post might need more security. So consider if you want to be the optional victim staged in the 75%, or do you need your data to be secure. 

So whomever take the idea and reengineer it (with optional extras), you are welcome and have a nice day. I just completed 12.5% of Monday, time to snore like a lumberjack.

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October 3, 2023 · 22:10

Cutting corners

Something did not sit well with me yesterday. I have been mulling things over for most of today and it all started with Politico (at https://www.politico.com/news/2023/09/12/pentagon-cyber-command-private-companies-00115206) where we are given ‘The U.S. is getting hacked. So the Pentagon is overhauling its approach to cyber.’

This setting comes in a few stages. Lets start with the given that I have no opposition to the Pentagon getting involved. But the stage is not that simple. So we start with the quote “attacks on critical U.S. companies and federal agencies, and as the Pentagon eyes Chinese hacking efforts with increasing concern.” The first issue is that I would have said “Chinese and Russian hacking efforts”, it would be more accurate. There is an additional side to all this. If American corporations had done their job BETTER, this issue would not be the critical issue it currently is. 

Equifax (2017)
Marriott International (2018)
Capital One (2019)
First American (2019)
Solarwinds (2020)
Colonial Pipeline (2021)
LikedIn (2021)
Microsoft Exchange Server (2021)
Twitter (2022)

This is merely a small grasps, this grasp has millions of records online for each of these cases, In this Linked in stood out with “Personal records of over 700 million users – 92% of the user base – were scraped from the platform and put up for sale in a hacker forum. Why did this happen? Attackers found a public API without authentication and breached it to scrape content.” This case is also the larger issue (beside the fact that it was an API and I wrote about that risk in ‘A simpleminded A, B, C’ On August 30th (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2023/08/30/a-simpleminded-a-b-c/) a simple setting now out in the open. People still think I was grasping at straws? Now here we see (in the LinkedIn case) “Attackers found a public API without authentication”, as such couldn’t they do their bloody jobs? I understand the setting of the Pentagon, but there needs to be a bill for utter stupidity and a link to your data without authentication is definitely one.

Corporations have been cutting corners on cost and staff and now that the consequences are out in the open, the Pentagon needs to rescue them? Screw that!

It is nice that the Pentagon comes to the rescue, but every rescue needs to come with an audit of that company and a hefty bill for the action. Consider a pointless rescue by coast guard and Marine rescue, these people get a hefty fine, I see that someone employs an API without authentication in pretty much the same way.

Yet the article is merely the start. You see, we can all agree on “Hackers are increasingly infiltrating private companies and government agencies far outside the Pentagon’s usual purview, and the hacks are being perpetrated by cybercriminals who honed their strategies abroad before striking the United States.” OK, that is fine and the fact that the Pentagon and its digital weapon systems are brought to bear is fine, but the utter stupid setting by corporations that cut corners is part one and that is on those corporations. I am even willing to accept that it took a disgruntled employee to hand visibility to the wrong people. Yet that also implies that these corporations have a larger problem and THEY have to pay for that. 

So about Three weeks ago, we were handed the 2023 DoD Cyber Strategy guide. The PDF (see bottom) is a nice piece of work. My issue is with page 6 where we are given “The Department will continue to persistently engage U.S. adversaries in cyberspace, identifying malicious cyber activity in the early stages of planning and development. We will track the organization, capabilities, and intent of malicious cyber actors. We will leverage these insights to bolster the cyber resilience of the Nation and will coordinate with interagency partners to publicize this information as circumstances permit.” As I personally see it, it should say “The Department will continue to persistently engage U.S. adversaries in cyberspace, identifying malicious cyber activity in the early stages of planning and development. We will track the organisation, capabilities, and intent of malicious cyber actors, whilst registering corporate shortcomings. We will leverage these insights to bolster the cyber resilience of the Nation and will coordinate with interagency partners to publicise this information as circumstances permit, where corporate shortcomings will not be silenced.” In this case some will state that this is not the job of the DoD and they would be correct, but Corporate America fell short and they now want help, that shortcoming needs to be illuminated as well. You cannot have it both ways.

The document gives us a lot to think about and I agree with 99% of it all, especially when it comes to the Department of Defense Information Network. 

I created the Hub+1 intrusion solution in 2014 (or 2015). As far as I know, no one is at this time ready for that creative little caper. I got there shortly after the Sony hack. The information never added up to me and I started to wonder how it could have been done (always a nice way to find the issue by re-engineering the possibilities). And all this is long before we consider issues like non-repudiation, a simple setting I learned about in UTS (University of Technology Sydney) about 3 years before the Sony hack and corporations have been cutting corners ever since. Consider the routers of the FBI, DoD, DMV, Department of Homeland Security and the postal services. Now check EVERY router and tally the ones where the password was Cisco123. I reckon you will find close to a dozen routers. I know it is more presumption than speculation on my side, but that is the larger failure and that is BEFORE we check all the corporate routers. People in IT have been too lazy (for many obvious reasons) and most of them involve resource shortages and why should the Pentagon pay for that bill?

I see that corporate America needs to pay for their cutting corners, the Pentagon has enough issues to work through and when it needs to step in (and when shortcomings are found) that corporation needs to get billed. This is specific. Corporate players cannot shield themselves from top tier hackers, that is BS. But letting the Pentagon pay for corporate stupidity is equally stupid and that needs to be out in the open. 

So this was my rant on stupidity, enjoy the day.

2023_DOD_Cyber_Strategy_SummaryDownload

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September 19, 2023 · 03:04

The joy of a sleepless night

It all started a few hours ago. The neanderthal hate mail came in regards to the previous article. I was delusional, this never happens. If you receive hate mail, you probably have heard it before. I do not care, but I think it is nice to tell their mommies just how stupid Junior is, as such here goes.

The military have been stupid, very stupid. We see this shown Reuters (the New York Times is behind a paywall). The story (at https://www.reuters.com/world/us/man-suspected-leaking-secret-us-documents-appear-court-2023-04-14/) gives us ‘Airman suspected of leaking secret US documents hit with federal charges’ where we see “Jack Douglas Teixeira of North Dighton, Massachusetts, the U.S. Air National Guard accused of leaking top secret military intelligence records online was charged on Friday with unlawfully copying and transmitting classified material.” In addition to this, The BC gives more, gives links to gamers and a service named Discord, which has 150,000,000 active users. As such the military link is proven. What is unknown is what other stupid things he has been doing. For that we need to await the full investigation of the FBI. Although it is increasingly likely that the NSA will wield the national security flag. I would totally get that. 

Then the second setting the gaming part. For that we go to Kaspersky. They give us (at https://usa.kaspersky.com/resource-center/threats/coronavirus-gaming-scams) a rather nasty part with warnings. The important ones are:

  1. Only use official websites for any purchases related to the game.
  2. Use a strong password for the game login.
  3. Never click on any links asking you to reconfirm your password.

There is a lot more, but if a gamer (especially one in the military) has ignored 2 of these, the damage is likely done. There will be one stupid person in any airbase (the US does not get to be that lucky) as such there are phishing and data capturing dangers in most of the 59 of them. The Army has over 300 of them. You still think I was kidding? As I see it Teixeira is merely the tip of that iceberg. I have no idea what the danger is with the Marines, but it is likely very low, not as low as the navy, but it is still better than the other two. That is the realistic danger that the US faces and if Russians were watching Discord the US has a massive problem. You see, it is not only what the US (or NATO) knew, it is what they didn’t know that will become the achilles heel. That is two of the settings right out here in the open and the Teixeira might seem new, but the New York Times implied that this had been going on for a lot longer, as such the damage is real. 

As far as I am concerned when Teixeira is thrown in prison, they can cover the door with concrete and forget about him. The idea to put classified materials online to look cool is even more stupid to fall for a Russian 17 year old honey trap. With the honey trap we get it, hormones take over, but to look cool? I am at a loss what that man ever did in a uniform and even less why it took so long to find the link. 

But it wasn’t merely about the person Teixeira, it was about the setting for a movie or TV episode. You see, phishing has been going on for decades and the lack of Common Cyber Sense (especially in the military) was covered by me over the last few years. I have articles that go back to at least April 2022. So this is more than a loaded canon, this is the making of more (in what direction remains open and not discussed). It has all the makings of the nightmare scenario. You see you want your data to be safe whilst not using a password, or perhaps one of the routers at the pentagon which had been implied (by an anonymous source) to have been Cisco123 for the longest of times. So how is that security going? It is a sliding scale from non existent to a revolving door for anyone that wanted to read some. It might be my point of view, but the released facts seem to fit the profiles I set.

In addition, for some weird reason, I seem to dream up all kinds of advertisements. One was for AA, where I used the phrase (with a nice animated bottle) “It is fine to have a drink. Make sure the drink does not consume you” I also got a girl to pose partially undressed, dancing is a slutty outfit, in a hospital bed and one more. You do not see her ‘details’ as I used a very interesting way to filter the view. The bottle has a label “Cemetery premium 45%”

The second add was about healthcare, I will spare you the details, they are not important. The weird part is that my mind designed both of them in mere minutes. I still need some things (like software) to get it done, but it is a weird setting. Especially as I never had any real intent to go into filming. Ah well, another mess to overlook I reckon.

And how do these two relate? They do not, but consider all the gaming ads you see on mobiles and tablets. Do you know the sources? Do you know what is collected? You see the FBI gives us that in 2022 $10,300,000,000 was lost due to scams and I reckon that number is low. Too many are ashamed to admit that they have been made the fool. As such all elements I mentioned yesterday were covered and anyone who had read up on the subject would know this. 

So enjoy Monday and consider how safe your data and details are. 

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August 2, 2023 · 19:41

My presumption is real

This article goes over several parts, parts you might agree with and parts you will not agree with. That is fair! You see several parts are set to presumption, which is still better than speculation. The difference is seen in the meaning. Presumption is an idea that is taken to be true on the basis of probability. There is more than probability in my case. I have worked in IT since 1983, as such I have been around (at least twice). Speculation is the forming of a theory or conjecture without firm evidence. And both are important because I am talking from the past, which is not always seen or accepted as evidence. This is fair, and this is why people might disagree and I get it, never take anything for granted, not Ven when I say it. I love the expression from NCIS in this case ‘Trust but verify’ Gibbs was right, always verify what you learn. It is the only real way to move forward.

So this all started yesterday with an article. The article (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-66118831) gives us ‘Gallium and germanium: What China’s new move in microchip war means for world’, they say it is 8 hours old, but I saw the article a little over 25 hours ago, so not sure what changed. The setting is “Under the new controls, special licences are needed to export gallium and germanium from the world’s second largest economy. The materials are used to produce chips and have military applications. The curbs come after Washington made efforts to limit Beijing’s access to advanced microprocessor technology.” You can turn and twist this to your heart content, but the setting is inaccurate and largely incorrect. Not what you read, that is fine. But there is a whole mess that precedes this and to see this we need to go back to the 90’s. You see, the IT world saw hoe the arms race was going and how military contractors were filling their pockets and the IT world took a page from that stage and started its IT Armistice race. I was caught up in it as well. A 386, a 486, a 486DX2, the Pentium, the Pentium 2, the Pentium-450, the Pentium2, as such between 1993 and 2002 I had wasted thousands on 7 systems, 7 systems in 10 years and I had enough. You see for the most the Pentium2 was enough to do 90% of everything I did, except gaming. Then I switched to consoles and saved myself thousands more. As such I avoided to the largest extend the graphic card war which might seem small but high end gaming needs a $1200 card, my PS5 was less then a thousand dollars on day one. In this Microsoft also pushed the borders, making us upgrade again and again. Oh, they played their cards cautiously and they played it well. Yet consider “Vista alone had 50 million lines of code, 10 million lines more than its successor, Windows 7. Because of the excessive amount of bloat and code, it was very slow on devices at the time, even on the latest and greatest hardware of 2007. This meant that it was more expensive to buy a machine that ran Vista properly.” Between Windows XP and Windows 7 we had the Vista nightmare and it cost too many too much. Yet weirdly enough with a little effort (Suse Linux at $99) you had an equal if not much better option, it would work on most Pentium2 systems like lightning. You could download it for free but for that money you got the discs and a DVD, the DVD had all the discs which included Linux and a truckload of programs, even open office I believe. If not it was easily downloaded. A linux lookalike version of Microsoft office that was free. It had an SQL database and so much more, even a nice collection of games, but they were not high resolution games. Fo that you needed a console and you saved thousands. It is this armistice race. We went though thousands of processors and that is what counts, because that drained the Gallium and Germanium we had and now China is one of the few that has it now. You see, we might act against China, but Gallium is found in Japan, South Korea, and Russia as well. China has however 90% at present. That does not mean there isn’t more, but finding it is not easy. Germanium is also found in Canada, Finland, Russia and the United States. China has about 60% and that is where we see the odd duck out (on your left). And is it not interesting that the second material is not mentioned that it is also found in Canada and the US? In this greed was again a much larger stage to this. The IT Armistice race dwindled whatever the west had and now China and Russia seem to have the upper hand. Still the larger stage is not merely who has it, but it becomes who can find it better, because that is where this is heading. I get it, we all need the latest PC (or MAC) but ask yourself, what allows you to do what you need to do? That is the question that IT providers like Dell and HP were eager to avoid at all cost as it impacted their bottom dollar. They will make the ‘party line’ To enjoy the best of Windows (whatever version) you are best off having a (the latest chip). That is what caused a large part of the drain and I was every bit as guilty. By the time I figured out what was going on I my bank account had about $22,000 less (11 systems with 2 still in use). You can scream whatever you want on how I could ‘save’ some dollars, but the truth is that we all enjoyed that feeling of the latest system, but it came at a price. So when we now see “a Pentagon spokesperson said the US had reserves of germanium but no stockpile of gallium” and why is that? It it is such a crucial element, why is there no stockpile? That is an easy answer, but no answer will be forthcoming. A race for supremacy, all whilst at least two racers are no longer able to keep up and that race is about to turn nasty for at least one of them. The Commonwealth might rely on Australia, but until the deposits are found the UK is in a tight spot. As I personally see it we might have to take a step back and see how else we can get the job done. As such I am phrasing an extremely speculative question. French chemist Paul-Émile Lecoq de Boisbaudran found in 1875 the substance we now know to be gallium, it is in group 13 of the periodic table and is similar to the other metals of the group (aluminium, indium, and thallium. My question becomes Is there another solution that employs indium or thallium? I honestly have no idea, I do not even know where these two are found and whether they can do what Gallium does. Also there is Rhodium, can it (or a combination) get the job done? I have no idea, but it seems to me that the head-banging against a wall we raised ourselves is massively stupid to say the least and there is every chance that there is a chemist and an electronic engineer who will laugh at my suggestion, which is fair enough. To see this we need to look at 1965 when Friedrich Schächter created a ballpoint that works in space as it is a pressurised ink solution. In in 1967 it was reported that NASA purchased approximately 400 pens for $2.95 a piece, all whilst Bic pens were $0.29 in those days. Russia decided to solve it by using a pencil, which costed $0.39 at the time. So we can caress our ego’s or find another solution.  And this is merely one of many issues. So will you embrace someone who adds 10 million lines of code, or seek whatever else is out there? I get it, the other solution will not work for everyone, but over 2 billion people use a PC out there. I am willing to bet the bank that at least 25% could do with a cheaper solution. There are (according to some) an estimated 300 million computers in production annually. I feel certain that at least a third doesn’t need to be bought and if Microsoft woke up and recreated Windows XP for households and adds a decent office version to it several other gallium issues could suddenly be less stringent. In 2018 970 units of Gallium were used. In 2022 it was almost 3500 units (the chart did not clearly give me what the units were). Why is that? I know that PC output is not over 300% in 2022. There might be other uses as well, but I would not know that, but the more I see the more questions I end up with and the BBC (or its article) isn’t giving me the goods. There was no mention of Canada or the US in it, was there?

It is time for plenty of people to wake up, I for one would send a wake up call (plus coffee) to Dr. Stefanie Tompkins of DARPA, perhaps they can find alternative options for these two metals? Not the weirdest idea and as the Pentagon needs these materials it seems to me that between lunch and diner DARPA might find an answer, these boffins are kinda clever so it is one way to go. What do you think?

Enjoy the middle of the week, its all uphill in anticipation to the weekend until Friday. 

 

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May 27, 2023 · 12:47

Ding Ding, the premise is set

Yes, this is not new, I made mention of this danger several times over the last two years. And now the media is tarting to catch on. The Guardian (at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/may/26/russian-weapons-manufacturers-hosted-at-saudi-trade-event) gives us ‘Russian weapons manufacturers hosted at Saudi trade event’, you see, some might think one part, or the other part, but personally I believe that they were invited as a courtesy. There is the option that they were invited to make sure that the China offers are financially sharp, but that is the sales world for you. You see, they might offer Russian Helicopters, like the Ka-52 Alligator helicopter. Yet the Ukrainians have ben shooting them out of the sky by the dozens, so the options are speculatively not there I reckon and the way Russia is losing hardware, every machined piece of cavalry and artillery better come with a ballpoint (for write off purposes). This was the stage that was going to happen no matter how you slice it. The US thought it was clever and it is now (not so) cleverly losing billions in defence spending by Saudi Arabia and its allies. So when we see “Perhaps the most significant participant in the meetings with the Saudis is Rostec, a Russian state-owned defence systems” and we consider the byline “Companies with direct links to Russian military set to attend, which is likely to heighten tensions with US” no one seems to be noticing that Stephanie Kirchgaessner with her anti-Saudi writing is involved and the larger question is missing is “a similar trade forum with Chinese businesses had also been held recently, although those businesses did not involve firms with connections to the Chinese military.” Really? 

The Chengdu Aircraft Industry Group has no links to the Chinese Military? Tell me another one. Then there is “What is different here, and these recent business events are just one sign of it, is a major reorientation of Saudi policy towards Russia and China, and away from the USA and west Europe”, which comes from some unnamed source. The fun part is that I have ben saying this for close to two years and the first year there was an option to turn this around, yet the US and UK were sitting on their hands and now it is seemingly too late. This is the consequence of a stupid game played by the Pentagon, US Congress, the White House (in and out of office) and the House of Commons. This is the result of stupidity and there is no “heighten tensions with US”, the US is about to lose so much revenue that certain banking moguls will cut up the US credit card (and lower credit ratings in the process). 

Another step achieved by ego grandstanding and inactions. So where will Saudi Arabia, the UAE and a few other players go to? My money is currently on the Chengdu Aircraft Industry Group, but it is a speculative view and I lack certain levels of industry knowledge in that direction. As such I could be wrong, but I do feel that the failures in the Ukraine makes Russia a non-player in this game. Merely a column C option and it is there to make sure that those in Column A and B keep their prices down. This make makes it (for me) about half a dozen predictions right on the nose. Not bad in this day and age I reckon.

Enjoy the Weekend

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