Tag Archives: RFID

January 25, 2024 · 18:42

Those happy dreams

We all have them and I just had mine (not the one with Laura Vandervoort). The dream started with me attending some gameshow with Amazon bigwigs. I personally handed Phil Spencer a gold inlaid wooden spoon with the message that I try to keep my word. That morning Amazon with the Luna surpassed 75 million consoles (plus subscriptions) sold, Microsoft is now deal last in the gaming industry (nice achievement for the strongest console in the world), apparently big hardware isn’t everything. But the dream moved on, I was talking to His Excellency Ahmed Al-Khateeb, Minister of tourism for Saudi Arabia. 

I was explaining to him (and to myself) a new approach to customer service solutions and I called it the Complete Customer Service Solution System (C2S3 for short). The image is more for myself so I can recall it later. A complete system based on foundations of Nice CX One but with a massive difference, the organisations were no longer central here, they are still the centre or axial in it all, but the central setting becomes the tourist. A system no one ever considered (or off hand rejected), but in 2025-2030 the tourist, the customer needs to be the central hub in everything. Places like Saudi Arabia and the UAE need an evolved customer solution system because that is how they remain top player. The larger players (like Hilton and Marriott) will get on board fast, because they will see the benefit there, then the them parks and soon thereafter they all want to join such a system and in the cloud you can find a person fast. You see, the biggest drain on any vacation is time loss, people take it for granted, but what happens when one or two players throw that overboard and redo the whole thing? What happens when the total vacation has 0.1% logistics at best? You go through the mill in the Airport, at the hotel, at attractions, at resorts. So what if the airport is the start, but it is replicated to other places as soon as you go through gate one? What happens when you are in a new place and you do not get lost, because the tag you have tells you where you are and where you are supposed to go? Now consider that around the world, it is estimated that over one million young people are reported missing every year. Don’t be afraid, will over 95% is found within a day. Now consider this new system where a child is found within the hour, optionally quicker. The loss of stress in almost unimaginable. And it is not merely loss that is removed. It is that places will hand out badges with RFID, the RFID records your achievements and records what you have done, so the tourist will have a record on him that he can look at. 2 days of skiing, 12 slopes, they keep a progression record and a record of places. In Japan they have a booklet where you can stamp where you have been and every place has its own stamp. Now consider that digital record, connect that to a digital library and the tourist can make a small photo album with their own images and insert their digital records of places they have visited. They can make it anywhere in the world and it can remain private. A system where the foundation is Arrival and Departure, it does not matter where you go from there. You could visit as a family the Almasaa Cafe in Riyadh, wouldn’t it be nice to insert a digital sticker in your album when you were there with personal pictures? The list goes on and a system like that isn’t build overnight, but it has the merit that for once the tourist is the centrepiece of it all (some claim that, but it is their sales system). A setting where the customer solution is build and designed around the customer. In 43 years I have never seen such a system, have you? 

Now that Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are about to be the pole position players in tourism, such a system would solve several items. They would also imply that they are about to stay at the top position until others catch on, and after the SEC blunder I saw yesterday some players will be behind these two players for years to come. 

Just a thought, enjoy Friday in 24 hours.

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September 27, 2023 · 00:47

One card to rule them all

This morning I was confronted with an image. The image wasn’t the unsettling part, it was the part that the image did not give. You see, I got my first smart-card in 1991 by Unilever. They already had smart-card security when it was a myth at best. 

Now consider the set-up above. This level of card cloning can now be done by a high schooler. And people think that this level of protection works? How quaint.

So my old noggin started to mull things over, we need to upgrade this stuff by a lot. I know all the people will state that this isn’t needed. But when insurance companies catch on that people are cutting corners the premium goes up by a lot. Now, my idea might not be the best solution, but I leave this to the ACTUAL cyber boys to mull this idea into something workable.

In my view the smart-card has 3 layers, the lowest layer is an RFID shield, this makes scanning the cards really hard, the middle layer is the circuitboard and the top layer is the plastic layer. Now the circuitboard can have 7 nano sims, but only a minimum of two are required. You see, all that cheap corner stuff is done for. The 6 sim locations are connected through printed circuitry, the one part a hacker cannot copy or clone. As such these sims become part of a non-repudiation process. And as they are specifically created for each client, you have 64 options right from the start and when you consider that each nano sim and the circuitry adds a few thousand combinations we can safely say that these hackers stop being a problem.

The centre sim is where specifics are programmed on site (hotel, corporation HR), the other one, or up to 3 other ones are SPECIFIC to that client. Yes, it could all fit ONE sim, but that is where people get into trouble and cyber criminals will have a field day.

You see, what we do is raise the threshold. The image below gives the side I was after. 

The lower part are the wannabe hackers, simple thieves and so on, that is a little over 50% of the lot and they are taken out of the equation completely. They lack the resources to make it work. The yellow are partial threats, these are the high end hackers. They are driven to results and finance, so if the goal is not the required need, it is left alone. That doesn’t make them a non-issue, but unless they have something really interesting to gain, they aren’t interested. The green ones are the remaining threats. People with government access, or serious funds. We have now removed a little over 90% of the threat that was in existence. You think and insurance company having to pay out millions upon millions will try to avoid having to pay at all. We can come with all the usual culprits, but that is not where it is at. Consider that a player like Northrop Grumman needs to keep their IP safe, the first stage is non-repudiation.  That person and that person alone could have done this and a cloned card makes that part near impossible. In the end some will always have access, but when we can remove 90% from the equation, that part matters and it matters a lot. So that is what I was mulling over and this idea came to the top. Perhaps not everyone’s cup of tea, but that is not my concern. I had another idea, number 4 (or 5) this week alone and now I will snore like a sawmill, it is Wednesday here now.

Enjoy the day.

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August 30, 2018 · 13:19

The future arrived Yesterday

I was at an interesting gig yesterday. I was introduced by a friend to several new options to engage with an audience, and options to interact in engagement, not mere presenting, we got to see true engagement. Several solutions that by them self are impressive enough, but combine the abilities we see options for engagement that will knock the socks off from players like Marvel and Nintendo, options that large players like Microsoft set aside for too long, options missed by some players as they are pushing for similar results again and again. Yet like the failures of Ubisoft in the past, as I stated it ‘a game that was designed to not be a failure will in equal measure never become a true winner‘, Ubisoft learned that the hard way with the their Assassins Creed franchise and now, we see opportunities that EA Games could get with FIFA19 and micro transactions, not just that, the act of engagement would allow for plenty of additional visibility towards groups that are currently not considering certain products. Engagement has always been the primary key in that and I saw a truckload of that, much of it in a new wardrobe that fits basically everyone.

So even as some are given to be a display towards retail, they have the ability to be much more, this is a marketing dream and all available for so many participants before this year’s Christmas shopping spree sets in. Options that are more than just engagement, they are optional content distributors, unlockable gems that people in certain areas love, a simple image that can immediately translate with you in the foreground and your destination in the background, combined send as a postcard to your mobile on the spot.

It is a simple setting, where an RFID scanner that could instantly reveal what the Nintendo Amiibo offers to the customer in store, not relying on dodgy third party lists, one Nintendo list and places like EB Games could in store reveal what the person is buying. The applications are here and not in the stores, not used by players that could gain the brand additional momentum, so what gives?

Well, for the most retail and larger places are seeing these devices and solutions as a cost, which they are (to some degree), but they in equal measure forget the opportunity that they bring. If we consider Market Watch (which I question), we see the setting that the games market, in particularly the Augmented reality Gaming Market, we see a forecast where we are treated to “According to Infoholic Research, the “AR Gaming Market” is expected to reach $284.93 billion by 2023, growing at a CAGR of 152.7% during the forecast period 2017-2023“, I still think that this is ludicrous, I have zero percent faith in that, or to state this that I am predicting that this is 100% wrong. Gaming is a 135 billion dollar market globally, if we get “expected to reach $75 billion by 2023“, then this would be an awesome result for AR gaming. I am certain that Infoholic Research did not just get their wires crossed; I feel that they are buttering someone’s bread on both sides. In both normal gaming and gambling, we see that there is a trend on the rise and some of the systems shown yesterday can grab in on these potential markets in several ways, it is up to the creative marketing mind in the larger places to use this not merely for branding, but also for creating awareness and grow interest through engagement.

Consider that this goes further than mere advertising and branding, consider the information kiosks, you might wonder what a mere information kiosk could add. The new generation can also scan you or what you are holding. A logo, a brochure, or merely a QR code. These parts can immediately be converted to a shop with location, a digital travel brochure that can be interacted with on the screen or merely a QR code that your mobile device can scan, giving you the app, the additional information or a mere YouTube video to watch. All options actively available now and when you place such solutions in a place like Neom (for those not in the know) “Neom is a planned 26’500 sq. km transnational city and economic zone to be constructed in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia close to the border region of Saudi Arabia and Egypt“, and Saudi Arabia has set aside 500 billion for the creation of that city. The option of being the first and more important, setting up the 5G hub allowing a primary spot for a 5G growth in both Egypt and Saudi Arabia, a place where Huawei is already roaring to set up shop, they have the lead there, and now consider that the push from the Saudi Arabia government is all about being ahead of the rest, the smartest of all smart cities and it will not take long before they realise that to get ahead of all the others you need to be willing and ready to have solutions for engagement there, primed, active and ready to grow. More important, three months ago, we were treated to “Chinese tech conglomerate Huawei is already committed to training 1,500 local engineers over the next two years“, so this is one place where Telstra got in way too late, as did the European players. The hub for a 120 million customer 5G population, when I mentioned this in the beginning of this year I was not kidding. Now we see that certain paths have started, we need to look at how you can get a smart city population to engage, because that is the trigger for growth. This directly relates to gaming as gaming is the big equaliser here, it has always been that, as early as the early 90’s. For 25 years I have seen how gaming and engagement lowered the threshold for those nervous about technology and yesterday I saw a whole range of engagement opportunities. Not merely interactions and RFID application in other ways to show interaction, but a setting where it pushes non-personalised data to a tenfold and that data can push the curiosity towards engagement for everyone.

When he European commission gave us the ‘What 5G is about‘ most looked at it and thought ‘Nice!’ what they missed is that is goes beyond mere RFID and Domotics. The direct interactions of Smart Wearables, Smart Mobility, Smart Grids and Smart Parking show that when the car is low on fuel (or an almost empty battery is you have a Tesla), the SATNAV will reveal the closes fuel point, or warn you if you cannot make it to the homestead, the smart wearable can link directly to health care, the nearest pharmacy, the doctor allowing for a prescription on the spot, the phone that now shows a map and receives the information YOU wanted to engage with from a kiosk that is now also a data hub and transfer point of information, all on the fly without YOU having to type anything, all done intuitively on the spot. In all this, you remain in charge of your data and (except for the healthcare part) all null and void of actual personal data.

 

Let’s take this to a next level, some have seen something like this, it looks like an old amplifier volume knob, but it is actually a Bluetooth speaker, place it on nearly any table and it becomes an amazing speaker, yet the next level is not merely a speaker, it is also perfectly placed to be a data hub. Now combine that with a sheet of Perspex as a display (at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdDAG0uwg3s), when we combine the three, we get the information on the kiosk, transferred instantly to your ‘speaker’ that is also the data hub and displays the information on that sheet display, wearable or other option. Maps, data, and brochures, all instantly available; Google already owns that solution, a solution that is merely awaiting implementation. A setting driven by what I would call ‘dumb’ smart devices. All the fear of personal data gone and total interactivity remains, engagement and the ultimate lure that draws consumers into your business; that is what engagement allows for, no other way will get that great result because that is the advertisement of tomorrow, not the data they hold, but the curiosity that they bring, all linked to the need for engagement. All those people, millions, who would walk in because your window had something interesting to show, yet now it is not your window, your window is also in every data kiosk, every advertiser point and every screen.
It is no longer about the mobile, people are less trusting with their data, but a smart (dumb) device, their watch, their Pendent or ring, now a data hub and consider that the 15 mm for a micro SD fits into rings, pendants and watches, all optional long term data hubs on the go, without any long interaction and we can get 32 GB for a mere $5. Picking up the ideas and interacting from place to place, our shopping needs and information on the fly when YOU want it; the data kiosks merely one of many places to interact with the addressed needs everywhere.

All settings not yet available in such an advanced state and all options out in the field for those willing to be the enterprising in the new places where they are willing to spend $500 billion in total, to make a next gen tech hub a reality. Or as Jeremy Irons stated in Margin Call: “There are three ways to make a living in this business. Be first, be smarter, or cheat“, he said it and I agree, it is always best to be first and whilst some are still trying to market what they are trying to set as 5G, we see that Huawei who are setting the stage on what 5G could be, Huawei s in the implementation stage of preparing the engineers of setting it all up in a live environment. So whilst America is still in anti-China mode, we see “Now, the whole industry is taking the final sprint towards 5G commercialization. The completion of SA specifications which complements the NSA specifications, not only gives 5G NR the ability of independent deployment, but also brings a brand new end-to-end network architecture, making 5G a facilitator and an accelerator during the intelligent information and communications technology improvement process of enterprise customers and vertical industries” and Huawei has already started in Saudi Arabia, so my other prediction is coming to pass as well, By Q1 2019, Saudi Arabia will become a market leader in 5G and will connect with Europe soon thereafter. In all this Australia things will go from bad to worse, especially as we cannot tell whether we need to consider if people like John Watters, Executive Vice President and Chief Corporate Strategy Officer of cybersecurity firm FireEye Inc is bedding Telstra or the USA, the fact that no one has been able to produce any clear evidence in Huawei’s ‘dependency’ on the Chinese government and the overly fearful US Tech as well as Telstra in all this is more than what I consider to be merely a sham, they are currently quite the opposite of embracing engagement and new tech, it will end the end make them look like the fools they should have been trademarked as in 2017.

So as we might remember Telstra at IT News with “Telstra said in a slide deck that “full commercial deployment of 5G in capital cities, major regional centres and other high demand areas” would occur in financial year 2020“, we can now see that they will be almost a year behind Huawei. Al this angers me, merely because it stops advancement and innovation, which makes Saudi Arabia the one remaining golden opportunity for true 5G innovation and yesterday’s presentations showed me how much many more avenues can be approached, because some of the innovations are out here today, in some cases, merely linking the solutions remain. It is important that we consider the Huawei part a little longer, it is important because 5G is so crucial to all this. When we see the article (at https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/59w49b/huawei-surveillance-no-evidence), we see that the title gives us: ‘There’s No Public Evidence Huawei Spies on Americans‘, in addition we see “Huawei’s efforts to make inroads in the U.S. quickly resulted in numerous allegations over the company’s alleged connections to Chinese intelligence. Despite breathless hysteria, numerous investigations (one 18 months in length) found absolutely no evidence of such a threat.“, as well as “a follow up report by Reuters indicates that there has been pressure applied on U.S. telcos to avoid doing business with Huawei, with companies like Verizon and AT&T being told they risk losing their lucrative government business contracts if they strike deals with the massive Chinese multinational“, when we complete it with ““We knew certain parts of government really wanted (evidence of active spying),” one person familiar with the probe told Reuters at the time. “We would have found it if it were there”“, now we see the parts missing, in all this the Australian government needs to be optionally seen as a dog collar without a leash around the neck of a rabid dog named USA. This all smells like AT&T and Telstra in desperate need to not get drowned by an actually innovative technological opponent, who did just that, they became truly innovative. We need Huawei in all this more then most can comprehend.

To get this a little better, we need to look at ‘Media Engagement and Advertising Effectiveness‘ by Bobby J Calder and Edward C Malthouse. Here we see “Traditionally, marketers have thought about advertising as a process of translating a brand, expressed as a benefit, a promise to the consumer, a value proposition, or a positioning in the consumer’s mind into a message that is delivered to the consumer through some medium. This advertising will be effective to the extent that the consumer values the brand idea and the message does a good job creatively of communicating the idea“. Yet when we consider it more fully, we see: “It is engagement with a TV program that causes someone to want to watch it, to be attentive to it, to recommend it to a friend, or to be disappointed if it were no longer on the air“, through engagement, the TV Series Lucifer was not cancelled, it moved from Fox to Netflix, merely by the acts of engaging fans. Engagement can be that powerful and it goes beyond merely revitalising a TV series, it will be the bread and butter for most companies as growth is often seen as  linear with ‘advertising’ whilst we have to accept that exponential growth can only be achieved with an actual engaging audience. Because like in Facebook, that one engaging person is linked to dozens, if not hundreds of others, and their actions are more easily accepted by their close connections then the one advertisement is. In two stages this is seen that one engagement is optionally 900 hits in a low estimation, versus a mere advertisement that gets 5% out of 10,000 shows, so it took 10,000 attempts to get 500 people taking a second look, whilst one engagement event could be the start of 900 instant opportunities, so which option would you more likely turn to?

Yet, we must also be aware of the negative side in engagement. Calder and Malthouse give us that with: “Intrusion may produce a negative response from consumers because the advertising harms the experience of the media content. This in turn could lead to a negative reaction to the advertising, compromising its effectiveness. The consumer may feel that the ad has intruded on the experience with the content and accordingly may have a less positive reaction to the ad“, so in this the interactive kiosk becomes again not merely a vehicle, but THE vehicle in all this and Time is the one currency that is at the centre of it all, it is time that usually and largely triggers the intrusion emotion (waiting, or idle time tends to do that). With the smart ‘dumb’ devices, the automatism of storage whilst the interaction is merely a second, perhaps even two seconds. The element of intrusion decreases and engagement remains, or optionally even increases. It is achieved as the advertisement is not the focal point, but merely part of it and the experience is not impeached, as we get 125Mb in that one second, we get the brochure, the movie clip, the setting, the review and the applicability; all available to watch at our leisure and when we want to decide what to see and how to watch it. So from a $5 32GB Micro SD card, we can get more with a $100 200Gb card, and that is now, in 2-3 years we can get 5 times that storage for the same price. In this non-personalised interaction setting, we achieve to get heaps of analytical information whilst driving engagement. So in that we are confronted with all the latest trailers by merely passing a cinema. And we can just leisurely watch what we need and wipe the rest. It is a brand new day and those ahead in the game get to set that stage of new tech needs for an entire population, engagement is the key element to drive all that.

The future arrived yesterday, whatever will we get treated to tomorrow?

 

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February 20, 2018 · 17:04

SW2, not WW2

Is there a Syrian War 2 brewing? That was the initial thought I had when I got exposed to the ridiculous claims from Turkey this morning. There are two parts. the first comes from the Guardian (at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/feb/19/turkey-warns-assad-not-intervene-kurdish-enclave-afrin), the quote is “Turkey warned the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad that it risked a military confrontation with Ankara if it intervened in an ongoing war in the Kurdish enclave of Afrin, in a further escalation of tensions that hint at the possible widening of an already complex conflict“, now, just to make sure you get this. Turkey invaded Syria for the alleged reason of coming to aid towards Assad, or perhaps merely to ‘fight ISIS‘ in a presentation attempt to silently start the second genocide, the genocide of the Kurdish people. So Turkey goes invades Syria and now states: “Turkey warned the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad that it risked a military confrontation with Ankara if it intervened“, so how is optionally opposing an invader ‘intervening‘?

The second part comes from the BBC (at http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-43107013), where we see basically the same with ‘Afrin offensive: Turkey warns Syria against helping Kurds‘. So when we read “Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdag said Turkey’s operations were going ahead as planned and it would be a “disaster” if Syrian troops were to intervene“, should we deduce that a failed introduction to genocide is a ‘disaster‘?

Even as we see the similarities, we see that the issue is larger than merely a scuffle between the Turks and the Kurds, the way we see the quotes and the way that they are reported give rise to the fact that there are other issues below the waterline. It is not merely semantics, it is the interaction that Turkey has been having with several nations gives that rise and the optional viewing of that should make plenty of people worried at the very least and decently nervous in the nominal setting of international relationships.

The BBC article ends with “President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told Russia’s Vladimir Putin that Damascus would face “consequences” if it struck a deal with the Kurds, CNN Turk reported on Monday“. So, Erdogan, President of Turkey, a person with not much diplomatic skills or powers outside of Turkey for that matter, is telling Putin….? Oh, sorry, I nearly lost my breakfast laughing myself into several layers of bellyaches. It is almost as impactful and powerful as me calling Alexander Bortnikov, telling him to give me access to all his data, or he is going to hear ‘stuff he will not like‘ (most likely me calling him a pussy). Yes, people like the President of the Russian Federation, or the director of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (Федеральная служба безопасности Российской Федерации (ФСБ)) getting told by the likes of President Erdogan (or me for that matter) is something they should take extremely serious (sorry, second laughing attack, I will be back shortly). So, after I had my second laughing attack that lasted close to 611 seconds, I got back into my seat and decided to take another gander at a few parts. You see, the nice part of such short sighted actions is that it alienates the players Turkey actually desperately needs. Which in turn is making Iran more and more nervous, which is good news for several countries in the Middle East. The interesting part in all this that he BBC reported “During the course of the Syrian war, pro-government forces have largely avoided direct conflict with the YPG, but they have had sporadic clashes“, which now gives the optional food for thought that Syria might actually set some resources that way with the optional thought that they will not be targeting the YPG, because if we agree that direct conflict was never a real necessity, the Turkish forces changing that by sticking their short stick in a hornets nest, that part would be the greater threat to Syria, which now gets them into hot water is a few places and on several ways. In addition, it will also change the conversation that is going to happen in Kazakhstan in two weeks, giving more questions if there is still going to be a summit in Istanbul on Syria. The changing pressures are by no means a way to get things talked about and smoothed over. Even as Reuters gives us: “The three countries are working together to try to push the troubled Syrian peace process forward“, we need to also consider the mandate that Tehran gave to Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif as the outbursts from President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is pushing its own agenda whilst at the same time causing chaos towards the plans that Iran seemed to be having in all this, his self-serving hatred of Kurdistan is making the creation of coalitions next to impossible. With the Netherlands adding fuel to the fire of Turkish non-diplomacy, as they have now voted to recognise the Armenian genocide of 1915, pressures are growing there too, at a time when Turkey needed every European nation to be on his side regarding the non-realistic approach to becoming an EU nation, we see that the gap is increasing beyond the chance of that ever becoming a reality. The Turkish parties kicking every hornets nest in the Middle East is not very useful. On the other hand, Turkey could decide after Kicking both the US and Russia, to see if this level of craziness is useful in Beijing, which it is unlikely to be unless they open up all kinds of open trade paths which might actually be a lot less interesting to Turkey, especially at a time when Turkey is trying to get increased Cherry exports to China in time for the next harvest, the need to grow their export which according to some is in excess of 80,000 tons, they are now in a stage where they can no longer afford to get on anyone else’s wrong side, which must be a novel experience for the Turkish Diplomatic Corps.

All this whilst the issues in Greece and Cyprus are at present still unresolved, with the Ekathimerini making a connection between the report published on March 28, 1897 in Empros newspaper where we get: “referred to a foreign diplomat who described Greeks’ behaviour in relation to Turkey as that of a dog that barks, but does not bite. We all know what followed, but we still tend to forget how bad it is in international affairs when you bark, but no one really feels any threat“, and the escalations on gas resources at present, that whilst there is a certain logic to make the statement, especially when we consider Europe, NATO and the UN is seen in relation to: “where tensions broke out between Greece and Turkey, these organizations never really offered anything more than carefully worded statements“, that is the situation when we rely on the paper tiger to get things done. So when we read: “Athens must be very careful in weighing its next moves. It’s a balance of terror. If it shows compliancy, one can’t be certain where the other side will stop“, whilst we all know perfectly well that Ankara will not stop until forcefully halted. As the article ends with the absence of emotion in the Turkish-Greek debates, the issue is that the theatre is getting prepared to get very emotional from more than one side. Turkey almost has no options left after kicking all the wrong shins. In my view, when Syria escalates and escalates in one wrong direction we will get a flood of orchestrated news (whilst journalists have been sentenced to life in prison) and from there onwards it becomes a long winded marketing campaign, because Turkey seems to be realising that the US, the UN and Europe are all about statements and statements alone. Which is a dangerous game as it could press towards a second Syrian war where the Syrian Kurdish area could get annexed into Turkey and its population would optionally somehow mysteriously vanish.

So, how should we see the optional threat of a second Syrian war? that is hard to see, with too many high level meetings, with the latest addition being one with the Russian President Vladimir Putin, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani to meet in April in Turkey, there is no telling what it will actually be about. Even as we have seen from enough sources that it will be about Syria, there is in my personal view absolutely no way that it will just be about Syria, especially as the meetings are going to be behind closed doors. That view is made stronger when we consider the news merely a few days ago when Kirill Dmitriev, the chief executive of the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), told CNBC “We’re at the breaking point in positive territory of this relationship … We really embarked on an amazing positive journey“, that in light of Iranian issues and the fact that President Putin’s face is on the homepage of the RFID gives enough indication that nothing happens there without the explicit approval from more than one key member of the Kremlin and there lies the complication, The meeting around Syria is set in a stage where all three have separate agenda’s. Turkey has the Kurdistan region, Russia has a truckload of billions it can win with Saudi Arabia and Iran is extremely opposing anything pro-Saudi Arabia, as well as having a few additional issues regarding Yemen, who would really like Russia to become a mediator here, so the Syrian talks will come with close to half a dozen unscheduled stress points. So, when we see these issues in the lights that can be confirmed, will Syria see more or less stability?

Less stability is not a given, but the premise of it happening is actually more realistic than I would have foreseen less than a year ago.

 

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December 29, 2016 · 13:08

The back door

This news got to me this morning. It is yesterday’s news and it is by no means anything ground breaking like the US and UK actions on the Middle East at present. Yet what happens now will have a long term consequence and even as global legislation is trying to stay away from this issue for now, the question becomes: ‘Should this be allowed?’

The Guardian (at https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/28/amazon-refuses-to-let-police-access-suspects-echo-recordings), gives us the following premise ‘Company has declined to provide audio recorded by smart speaker system at house where man died, according to a report‘, the company in question is Amazon.

It is the following quote that brings the issue to the surface: “But firms often retain a “back door” for their own use – to automatically scan emails for key terms used to target advertising, for example – and that can complicate claims that law enforcement access would uniquely invade a user’s privacy. Amazon’s internal approach to user data will likely prove integral to its ability to resist the warrant“, in this it is important to set the term ‘alleged‘, because there is no data available to state that this is actually happening in this specific case. You see, when we see ‘a “back door” for their own use’ and ‘used to target advertising‘, so how is that firm NOT invading a person’s privacy? More important if that Meta data is saved by Amazon to create a fingerprint profile, how are they not invading ones privacy? In that regard the ‘Amazon has refused to hand over data from an Echo smart speaker‘ especially in light of ‘an industry that considers privacy a prime selling point‘ is like watching the pot calling the kettle black. In this there is an issue, especially whether the police should be given access to all data. There is off course, especially in the US the 4th amendment, which officially reads: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized”

Which sounds all good and fine, yet in this case as James Andrew Bates has been charged with the murder of a man found dead in his hot tub in November 2015, we need to worry on how Amazon can sell to its customers that they are instrumental in protecting a person incriminating data, possibly guilty of nothing less than manslaughter. In all this, the Alexa speakers could be seen as a factor to his proclaimed innocence, so as the legal team of the accused is making all kinds of statements, we should worry whether the voices collected are a real issue or not, you see we do not know, more important, what data is Amazon actually collecting? What is stated and what is happening are two very different things. In addition to this ‘the device is also occasionally accidentally activated, through similar sounds‘, which is an additional path in all of this. You see, we knew that this was a factor as the Xbox One had a similar issue in the very beginning, I do not know whether this was ever fixed, but the link to all this is not just the audio file, the fact that the police got other data, in this case from a water meter, stating that ‘a flow of 140 gallons between 1am and 3am‘ was recorded. Here is part of the issue seen. You see, I get that this data is recorded, yet next year as 5G kicks off, we will see an integral set of systems all getting more and more complex and more and more complete. The Amazon and Google systems are at the forefront of all this. By 2019 the average household will have a minimum of 10 devices linked to 5G systems, all that data collected, some open, some not so open and it is that part that is the worry, not just for privacy reasons mind you. A large group of people will get more and more access to your way of life. In addition, there will be an option to influence your way of life, which is a side nobody signed up for. Not unlike the inaccurate systems we see at present at the Australian Centrelink, we will see a shift in data quality by bad designers and even worse coders, we will end up getting categorised into groups we were never part of and as such we will get information pushed onto us that we might not want, we will not need and as those markers shift we will be denied access to information we actually needed. In this last part there is a small exercise you can try on yourself. Let’s say that you can only access the last 10 email messages a day for a few days, now take notice, yet do not read the other messages sent to you, so on average I get 35 messages a day. Consider that I miss out on 25 messages a day. How long until you notice that you missed out on essential information? Now, the number 10 was chosen at mere random, just to make a point, now consider the amount of mail you have at present and see what happens when 10 devices are added to your house profile. The refrigerator, your smart TV, your smart recorder, your game console, your laptop/tablet/PC, your 5 smart devices. How much additional information will you get? How much time will you lose? Because as advertisement is set to your personality, you will be more and more inclined to read those messages that were automatically sent to you. That is just a mere matter of fact. More important, no matter how good the Google Home presentation was (it was actually really good, and here is another review https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hKRPMpxRuc), the reviewer touches on the issues we need to ask ourselves. I think more important, we need to be aware of them. You see, the sketch we see here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVBIeEglehw. Now this is good for a laugh, yet what did the parrot remember and what will your speakers save on cloud servers (read: remember for all to hear for all eternity). It is one thing when it is a murder investigation, it is quite another when it is marketing collected data you were not so comfortable with. In addition, what happens to the connected devices when the data is all combined? The dangers of fueling crime (because the cloud tags you as being in another country, or the collected data shows that the water meter shows no usage of hot water for 2 days, when those are not weekend days, there is every option that the criminals now know that there is a decent chance that you will remains out of the house for 3 days or more. The more devices we attach, the greater the danger of security becomes. It is for that reason I noticed the flaw in the Google Pixel and the Google Pixel XL. It is not an issue now, but it will likely become one in 2018, meaning you might still have that device.

In all this there is no proper legislation, this is not merely a Common Law or Civil Law issue, the global nations at large, none of them have proper legislation in this regard and 5G is less than a year away, which will trigger a tsunami of these issues as we imbue ourselves with the options of laziness of tomorrow. In addition, as we will be more and more relying on RFID option in our daily life, we will see a different cloud of data evolve. It will be a new version of Pokémon Go, only now, we the people become the Pokémon. The big issue is not just the collection of data, it is in addition the security that these new ‘innovations’ are also likely to lack, we will see a cloud of data bundling and with each addition we will also grow the flaws of security. Now, this is speculation from my side, yet history has proven me right again and again. In the end it will be a short sighted head of marketing forcing a deadline that will result in a needed app that suddenly sets all our personal data open to the people on the internet, after which we get carefully phrased denials, apologies and a half-baked ‘promise’ that it will be fixed as soon as possible. In that time our personal data remains on the open internet and we will lose days to get passwords changed and settings checked on all the connected devices. In all this there will be a lack of legislation, especially as ‘intent’ is still a factor, as we see ‘the plaintiff must prove the additional element that the defendant acted with the specific intent to perform‘, yet in all this ‘intent’ can never be proven and the loss will be ours and ours alone. In all this the need to set factors on ‘negligence’ and there is the issue we see, you see ‘people should exercise reasonable care when they act by taking account of the potential harm that they might foreseeably cause to other people‘, which at this point can never be proven in cases of privacy loss due to broadcasted data. The firms will ‘always’ be taking account of potential harm. The issue is that in many cases there is never any foreseeable cause, just the consequence. In this data gatherers and IP creators need to isolate data more and more and this takes smaller independent creators equally out of the farm, which is not that just. In all this legislation will fail the consumer and time is running out for the people who want to move forward. 5G will bring a massive amount of innovation and technology forward, yet in this greed driven world, it will also bring forward the utter idiots who want to make their cash quick and in that case there are too many options for them to remain unaccountable.

The back door in programs and apps is a real problem (not the only one in this case) and those who need to ask all the serious questions currently aren’t doing anything of the sort. In that, it does not matter whether Amazon Echo actually has a back door (not established), too many apps do have that and in some cases hardware does too. DSL gateways with a backdoor to port 32764 is one noted version, an issue that was at some point concealed yet never fixed. Some get one added via a free plug-in (read: Joomla), Interbase versions 4 through to 6. Some of these back doors were intentionally added, some were hacks and some were zero day exploits. All have consequences to your life when you get to 5G, and these are the easy to spot kind. Once you get to a situation where the security is circumvented by linked apps, for example Facebook and Facebook Messenger. Once we start getting apps like that and the combination introduces a back door, there is every chance that this weakness would not be found until millions of records have been obtained by those finding the linked weakness. In all this organised crime remains a growing concern, because they will ignore whatever legislation is in place and just transfer the data to a hidden server, or better, sell all that fresh and juicy data on the deep web or Darknet.

There is no easy solution and you should realise that most developers have indeed the best intentions, yet for a growing group of those needing a fast fix on income, the user ends up with less security, even less safety and no option to seek compensation, whilst those connected to it get to have all the freedoms and at present end up not getting convicted in any way, which has to change and it has to change rather fast because time is running short.

 

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