Tag Archives: pentagon

Confusion speaks its mind

So here I was, one day in the past and I see a BBC article. I saw the headline, I saw the ‘bully approach’ and initially I ignored it. It was not the BBC, there was no setting that seemingly truly interested me. I was thinking of a few settings towards IP that could give Apple (and optionally Meta) a nice boost. As I was mulling over the ideas I was having, in comes the CBC about 10 hours ago, or better stated I noticed their article and now something clicks in my mind. I started rereading the two articles. The BBC (at https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn48jj3y8ezo) gives us ‘Trump orders government to stop using Anthropic in battle over AI use’ with ““We don’t need it, we don’t want it, and will not do business with them again!” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post on Friday.” Of course if he doesn’t want it, there must be a good reason why people might want to use it and we are given “Anthropic is mired in a row with the White House after refusing demands that it agree to give the US military unfettered access to its AI tools. The refusal led US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth to say he’s deemed Anthropic a “supply chain risk”.” And we are given the quandary that there should be some clarity. The idea that the US Military has unrestrained or uninhibited access to any AI is dangerous. And that is merely to look at it from THEIR point of view. We saw over the last 5 years a few examples where Pentagon staff used whatever USB key they had optionally opening their systems to backdoors and this can result in several ways where the Pentagon would be affected including: Human Interface Device (HID) Spoofing, Malware Infection via Social Engineering, Exploiting OS Vulnerabilities or Juice Jacking (Compromised Public Ports/Cables) and a few other ways. Even in this decade more than one system seemingly ended up on the danger list. So, ‘someone’ now wants to grant AI unfettered access which opens the doors to AI accessing data involves sophisticated, automated, and often, continuous interaction between intelligent systems and vast data sources, including internal corporate databases, cloud storage, and public web content. It constitutes a critical, high-speed, and high-stakes component of the modern AI ecosystem that raises significant security and privacy challenges. And this is not some ‘fear mongering’ There is a lot of AI works that is still to be considered and because AI doesn’t exist and this is all DML on several layers that interact there are dangers to be seen. As we saw a mere week ago that Microsoft had to ‘confess’ that it had accessed confidential emails of Microsoft users. Now consider this happening on a serious level in the Pentagon. It has well over 50,000 desktop computers within its building, with reports from 2014 indicating at least 18,000 were part of specific virtualized infrastructure. Now consider that we have seen the accusation of “Based on reports in early 2025 and 2026, OpenAI has accused Chinese AI startup DeepSeek of “inappropriately” distilling, or copying, the capabilities of OpenAI’s models (specifically ChatGPT and its reasoning models like o1) to train its own competing, low-cost models (such as DeepSeek-R1)”. As such, the dangers of unfettered access can go in two directions and that sets the bar of distilling from the Pentagon a lot lower than anyone could find acceptable. As such there is every chance that Russia is already considering the massive win they could gain once the unfettered access could merely hit one system that was transgressed upon. Because the greedy and the stupid will do anything to propel the setting of self, whilst not caring what others could gain in that setting as well.

So whilst some will consider the dangers of “The company said that “designating Anthropic as a supply chain risk would be an unprecedented action — one historically reserved for US adversaries, never before publicly applied to an American company.” Anthropic said the “designation would both be legally unsound and set a dangerous precedent for any American company that negotiates with the government.”” No one seems to be considering that the opposite is a lot more dangerous. So whilst some focus on the stage of “Anthropic had said it sought narrow assurances from the Pentagon that its AI chatbot Claude would not be used for mass surveillance of Americans or in fully autonomous weapons. The Pentagon said it was not interested in such uses and would only deploy the technology in legal ways, but it also insisted on access without any limitations. The government’s effort to assert dominance over the internal decision-making of the company comes amid a wider clash over AI’s role in national security and concerns about how increasingly capable machines could be used in high-stakes situations involving lethal force, sensitive information or government surveillance. Trump said Anthropic made a mistake trying to strong-arm the Pentagon. He wrote on Truth Social that most agencies must immediately stop using Anthropic’s AI but gave the Pentagon a six-month period to phase out the technology that is already embedded in military platforms.” As I personally see it, it is the accumulation of stupid and technologically ignorant all combined in one package. And that is before we get to mass surveillance. You see combine mass surveillance with data distilling and the United States of America will be handing the data on 349 million Americans straight to China and Russia. This is not AI, this is DML. That means it comes with the hangups and limitations of a programmer. So when this goes wrong it goes wrong in a massive way. 

As such what will people like President Trump and Pete Hegseth say? Do they think that the response ‘Oops’ will cover it?

So whilst CBC (at https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/trump-anthropic-feud-ai-9.7109006) gives us “U.S. President Donald Trump, U.S. Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth and other officials took to social media to chastise Anthropic for failing to allow the military unrestricted use of its AI technology by a Friday deadline, accusing it of endangering national security after CEO Dario Amodei refused to back down over concerns the company’s products could be used in ways that would violate its safeguards.” And this is the setting we expect to see and it will be the undoing of several people, because as I see it “U.S. President Donald Trump, U.S. Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth and other officials” is the start of what comes next. You see, the internet doesn’t forget and these ‘other officials’ have sealed their fate with this action and there is no ‘He told me to do that’ they were instrumental in assisting to hand over the data of the population of the United States of America to optionally both China and Russia. Do you feel safe now?

And in response to this setting we see “The dispute stunned AI developers in Silicon Valley, where venture capitalists, prominent AI scientists and a large number of workers from Anthropic’s top rivals — OpenAI and Google — voiced support for Amodei’s stand in open letters and other forums.” And that should have been a clear message that the competition was on the side of Amodei, so, why would that be? Whilst people in the Pentagon (seemingly) forgot about that router with password ‘Cisco123’ there is every chance that these DML engines will be cleverly distilled by people controlling systems like DeepSeek and whatever the Russians have. I should buy another egg timer, because this is a setting that might gain me a few coins, especially as several people are blind to the danger that is coming for them. And consider one additional setting. It is said that:

So what happens when distilling comes with an additional insertion of data? I can’t wait for that setting to lose balance and the training data in American data centers start losing authentication and reliability markers. But that is  likely a story for another day.

Have a great day today.

Leave a comment

Filed under IT, Law, Media, Military, Politics, Science

Questions

That is what I was thrown, questions and quite a few. To get there I need to take you on a little journey it was around 1988 I got my fingers on some defence data (can’t tell you which one) the data shows results of some kind (I had no idea at that time what results they were) but the part that was, was the fact that they had log files and these files gave locations. It comes with the setting of log files. These files gives the hacker way too much information, what solutions are being used, what IT architecture was in play, in those days I was a simpleton. I never realised the power that this kind of information had, or as some hackers said in this setting “Copy me, I want to travel” This part matters, because around 2014 (after the traitor Manning gave the files to Wikileaks) I got my hands on some of them. The compression used was one I had never used before and it took a few days to get the program. What I saw was that log files were here too. It wasn’t that obvious, but I noticed them and these log files gave part of that current architecture to whatever hacker got (or was given) access to it. So a setting that was about 37 years old. This setting has been in place for that long a time, so as you see this, we can start with the articles, so keep what I just gave you in mind.

The article was given to us by NDTV (at https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/openai-accuses-deepseek-of-distillation-what-it-is-how-it-works-us-china-tensions-11002628) I got the news from Reuters, but they are behind a paywall, so NDTV gets the honour. We see ‘OpenAI Accuses DeepSeek Of Distillation: What It Is, How It Works’ and hit comes with “In the AI world, distillation is a common technique where a smaller or newer AI model learns by studying the responses of a larger, more advanced model” And we also see “The company told the House Select Committee on China that DeepSeek allegedly relied on a technique known as “distillation” to extract responses from advanced US AI systems and use them to train its own chatbot, R1,” according to a memo obtained by Reuters. The American AI giant stated that the Chinese firm was finding clever ways to bypass safety systems and trying to take advantage of the technology that US companies spent billions of dollars developing.” Now consider that (according to some) “OpenAI is valued at approximately $500 billion, cementing its position as the world’s most valuable venture-backed company” when you get that and when you realise that log files could be used to ‘distill’ information. Now imagine that this information could lead to corporate knowledge? So when you realise that this setting was out there for almost 40 years, do you think that more concise solutions would have been needed? So when we see that Sam Altman is prone to ‘excuses’ like the setting with Nvidia, the stage with Microsoft and now this? What is Sam Altman not telling its audience? Isn’t anyone taking that leap? So whilst I remember that at least one of the Pentagon routers still have the admin password to “Cisco123” you might consider the setting that this article (as well as the Reuters) version is a preamble to bad news and when you consider that Americans have an overactive dislike of anything Chinese (like DeepSeek)  and when we get to “In the AI world, distillation is a common technique where a smaller or newer AI model learns by studying the responses of a larger, more advanced model. Instead of training that model completely from scratch, the newer model observes and mimics the advanced model’s answers and behaviors.” The setting I gave you makes the setting of better protection even more sense. Especially as this impacts a expected $500,000,000,000 valuation. There are days that I don’t have that amount in my wallet (100% of the time) so I am left with questions. So in the first, why was there no better protection and in the second, how did DeepSeek get access to them. I would normally tend towards the inside job notion. And that setting is seen (personally and speculatively)  on a few levels and in a few ways, but happy go lucky, the media isn’t on that level yet (or ever). So does anyone else have the idea that something doesn’t seem to add up or match to the stage of a 500 billion dollar solution? Just a few questions come to mind at this point. 

Have a great day today, there about to have breakfast in Toronto and I kinda miss than frisky cold atmosphere whist drinking an elephant coffee (Jumbo cappuccino with full cream milk and three raw sugars) whilst nibbling on some sandwich (nearly anything goes there). So enjoy your day today.

Leave a comment

Filed under Finance, IT, Politics, Science

Fear of being right

That is what I face at times. I get that my ‘idea’ of safety is a little overdrawn, but I have seen the stupidity of greed driven and how those seeking the stupid and greedy are willing to exploit that. I am of course referring to the really organised criminals (criminals with Filofaxes). That is the expected setting and on February 11th 2024 I wrote ‘Don’t take my word’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2024/02/11/dont-take-my-word/) I was considering the danger that a place like Funnel was presenting itself to be. And the presented advertising (a lot of it on LinkedIn)

showed a setting that I feared and guess what? I was partially right. I was right because that side was exploited and I was wrong as it was not Funnel who gave the setting. It was a place called Mixpanel where we see “more than 200 million premium users that their data may have been exposed when hackers breached third-party analytics provider Mixpanel” and last month we were given ‘Data breach at OpenAI through analytics provider Mixpanel platform’, which was seen (at https://securitybrief.com.au/story/data-breach-at-openai-through-analytics-provider-mixpanel-platform) you can wallow as much as you like that I was wrong, but that another platform provider is the first to fall, does not mean that I was wrong. The setting of ‘ease’ safety which they called “Hey marketer, tired of wasting time downloading and cleaning data from all your advertising platforms? It’s time to meet

Funnel. Save time, improve performance, get better insights with Funnel.” As I personally see it ‘tired of downloading’ should be seen as ‘safety towards your data’ and “cleaning data” often implies “validating and verifying the data you are using”, so if there are people that are thinking I am a proverbial shit bucket, consider the image below.

Where we see that in the proverbial instant. That resulted in the loss of some “200 million users have data and search history stolen” and yes, the 200 million records could see the setting that these 200,000,000 million users will get phased and the companies they optionally worked for too. That is the larger setting of being lazy, or being contemplated towards the security they never really had. Why did they not have that security? Because certain settings negate safeties that are and as I see it, Mixpanel who by the opinion of some is seen as “a product analytics platform that helps businesses track user interactions on their websites and apps to understand behavior, improve products, and drive growth” and as I see it, it is driving growth for the really organised criminals and now as we see (at https://securitybrief.com.au/story/data-breach-at-openai-through-analytics-provider-mixpanel-platform) we are given “The incident was related to unauthorised access to a dataset within Mixpanel’s systems. OpenAI reported that an attacker exported data containing certain identifiable information of API account users. Details potentially exposed included names provided on API accounts, email addresses, approximate location information, operating system and browser details, referring websites, and the organisation or user IDs linked to the API accounts. OpenAI emphasised that no chat logs, API requests, passwords, keys, payment details or sensitive identification documents were accessed. The data breach affected only information collected for analytics purposes through Mixpanel.” I get that this is the OpenAi answer, but it seems shallow, short, and perhaps that is all it is, but there is a second setting. Either the ‘provider’ who sounds like Promohub is giving us a larger pool of users, or some clever person might be insightful enough to combine the data of two pools of data and see what could be linked, because any person whose ‘shortcomings’ are exposed will seek other ways to hide the ‘shortfall’ and that is exactly what criminals are banking on. OK, this is speculation but if I had these two pools of data, I the first thing I would do is to seek a common ground (like an email address) and see what else I can find. This is how I found the weakness towards the Pentagon using the HOP+1 solution (which is wrongly analyzed by what some call AI) it was the first thing I did last month. And now again I am right. To be clear, the article on Funnel was about Funnel and as far as I know it was never transgressed upon. It was merely a fear I held and the fear was shown correctly at Mixpanel, not Funnel.

So whilst OpenAI correctly gives us “Information potentially accessed through Mixpanel may expose users to an increased risk of phishing or social engineering attempts.

Names, email addresses, and user identifiers were among the details exposed. OpenAI has advised all customers and users to remain vigilant for any suspicious or unsolicited communications that could be related to this incident. The company reiterated that it does not request sensitive information such as passwords, API keys, or verification codes via email, text, or chat. Users have also been encouraged to enable multi-factor authentication as an additional protective measure for their accounts.

And why am I now up in arms? Because I got the word through another source relating to another vendor and that implies that there are at least three data sources exposed and those with connected data will be at risk. As such there is little risk for OpenAI and its users if it is used correctly, but when is that the case and it falls back on the users, not on OpenAI. There is an old premise that I usually phrase. If 5 vendors have a 10% loss, the customer is at risk of losing 50% and that is what the danger is here. And when this is applied to 200,000,000 users, the losses could be close to astronomical. 

Now we can argue that there is no such risk, but that answer is coming mostly from people claiming to have no P#Hub account. Do they? I cannot tell, but they know if they have or not. And to also be clear, there is absolutely nothing wrong with having multi-factor authentication on any account you have. Those people are as I personally see it the least in danger.  But that is the setting that we are avoiding to look at. As I have said (way too often) that nonrepudiation is the way to go is showing to be the correct setting yet again. 

Have a great day all, only 11 hours until Friday, or in Hobbit terms Frododay, the day you have two breakfasts and three lunches until the beer o clock chimes.

Leave a comment

Filed under IT, Media, Science

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.

Leave a comment

Filed under Finance, Media, Military, Politics

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.

Leave a comment

Filed under Finance, Media, Military, Politics

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.

Leave a comment

Filed under Finance, IT, Law, Media, Politics, Science

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.

Leave a comment

Filed under Finance, Media, Politics

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.

Leave a comment

Filed under IT, Media, Military, Politics

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.

Leave a comment

Filed under IT, Science

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.

Leave a comment

Filed under IT, Media, Military, Politics, Science