Tag Archives: Sony

May 11, 2015 · 15:53

Another online danger

It seems that we the consumers are soon in danger of being left out in the offline cold. You might not realise it, you might not even worry, but your money, your payments online are finite!

You see, not only are the events of last week troubling (not the UK election mind you), the consequence of allowing this to move forward unanswered could be a costly one.

With online presence there is the additional danger of non-online absence.

For this I will emphasize it with one example. The game is from Enix and the title is ‘Order of War: Challenge‘, if you had bought it from Steam, then you have a possible issue, because the game has been wiped of your account. Now, this is not a massive issue of today, this is an issue from the sheer point of view called ‘You paid for it!’ and now it is no more and you can never play it again. An important fact is that this issue played in 2013, so you might wonder what gives!

That is an excellent question. I for one would not care too much for Steam, I never did. Yet the issue of yesterday is now quickly progressing towards issues out today and even more important those who are out tomorrow and after that. This goes far beyond the wiping of a ‘Silent Hill Playable Demo’. Some changes are made because the circumstances changes, which is fair enough. That is not the true issue (even though the Silent Hill fans who missed out would be miffed).

The issue is found in the mobile and console games out now and more important those released after tomorrow.

Let me give you an example.

The mobile/Tables environment has a game called ‘Dungeon Keeper’. Many of those who loved that game when it was originally released on the PC went nuts the moment that game reappeared. Yet, in hindsight this new game was a massive failure on many levels. The game had actually destroyed the image the masterful game maker Peter Molyneux had built. The game is now all about delaying events and forcing people to make very expensive purchases online in the form of Gems. As micro transactions go, this game is the one example why micro transactions should be illegal. A nice view is given at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpdoBwezFVA. Yet compared to the pc edition of the second game (at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DJmS7prcmE), the mobile game is horrendous.

Now we have an additional side, I cannot tell when this happened, but several people (including me) have only had access to the game once in the last two weeks, there have been ongoing server connection issues. In light of the issues that have been mentioned in the past there is now a matter for other cause. You see, if there is an issue with a game, if you had purchased enough gems, the issue at hand is not just that you are forced to a server, the fact that the server is no longer there and the player can no longer play gives weight to the question whether there should be legal consequences for those eager to sell a micro transaction relying game. Can something offered as ‘freemium’ but will only work smoothly when purchases be made, should that game be allowed to be non-functional?  Should the makers not offer an offline side to the game? That is at the foundation of what is wrong. The danger of consumers paying for something that can be removed as soon as the exploiters no longer consider the product to be viable and it stops working for various reasons.

What are those reasons?

Well Dungeon Keeper is a first example. The fact that a server is down is one thing, the fact that the server cannot be reached for two weeks is an entirely other matter. Which leads us to the question, should games that only have online server options be allowed? Beyond that, when gameplay is removed, are those who paid for additional gaming experience be entitled to credit vouchers?

This is the loaded question because basically it is payment for a service, which should be regarded as temporary, however, was that clearly communicated to those buying the service? Now we have ourselves a different video game altogether!

You see, this part will be a growing issue as people are dependent on downloads and could storage of games that are not played on a daily basis. There is the added consideration that these providers never did anything wrong as they might have specified that in the terms of service, yet who reads them? This is not a business agreement, or isn’t it?

Let me move on (for now to another example).

Now we have (or better states we used to have) the PlayStation 3. It has the option of PSN and PlayStation Home. PlayStation Home was discontinued, but what about those people who have spent money for years on the locations there? There had always been an implied assumption that there would be PlayStation Home in PS4. Clearly implied is not correct, too many sources stated most options in silence. Then when the PS4 came it was initially incomplete and in 2014 the verdict was final, no PlayStation Home on the PS4. And recently PlayStation Home was also removed from the PlayStation 3. There was no fault here, there was never any clear agreement that PlayStation Home was to be ported to the PS4, but to lose it on PS3 would never be an acceptable option to those who like it.

I thought it was a cool place, it was partially useless, yet it had the option of being a playful marketing tool. Trailers, unlockable extra’s for games and so on, there were even a few decent games in that environment. Because it had channels so that people could chat, it was something that is out there that would forever be an option. Now it seems that Sony is mostly rejecting the social media, or it is partially doing that. PlayStation home is not the only place, the profiles are a second part, but here we are forced online and in an almost ‘anti-social network’ situation.

This is where the wheels come off the wagon, you see there is another side to all this!

This all links to the previous as there is a real danger that someone at some point will deactivate a service, then what? There is currently an uneven, unequal and a dangerous push to force people online. There is now a second part that has massive consequences for gamers on a global scale. I have made references with the TPP (Trans Pacific Partnership) before, and it seems that several other sources are now on the bandwagon regarding the dangers here, gaming is only one aspect (and not even close to the biggest one, but because of the global setting of gamers a lot easier to spot). It is not just the ‘profile’ issue, that is the least of it all, but it is a driving force around it. More important, the cost of being ‘online’ could soon be another matter altogether.

It would be too simple to state that the TPP is just a bad consequence of a group of utterly incompetent politicians, mostly staying presently at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, but that would be not entirely correct either. You see, their inadequacies resulted in a group of industrials to change the premise on Digital Rights Management (DRM) on a massive scale. For the most, I have mixed feelings. I believe that it is perfectly legit for a corporation to protect their product from being illegally copied. Now, the internet providers (ISP’s) are all about bandwidth, so as such, they like people who copy movies, they love it even better when people copy Blu-rays, because 100,000,000 people going for 2-3 blu-rays every night is a massive amount of bandwidth. There is to the smaller extent that a DRM is all about setting up who can legally use something and who cannot, but that seems to be the smallest tip of the iceberg.

An article in the Sydney Morning Herald gives us ‘http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/politicalnews/trans-pacific-partnership-will-push-medicine-prices-up-review-finds-20150303-13sxty.html‘. This is not entirely correct, but not wrong either. If we take this quote “The leaked treaty text also reveals new American and Japanese proposals designed to enhance the ability of pharmaceutical manufacturers to extend and widen their patents on drugs and medicines“, it is the word ‘extend’ that is the issue. Because some pharmaceuticals are all about prolonging, we see more and more new patent additions to give any drug a longer exclusivity, which means that generic medication will be less and less of an option. There is in addition the quote “Jeffrey Bleich, accused Australian consumers of habitually stealing copyrighted content and of being some of the worst offenders with amongst the highest piracy rates … in the world“, that statement makes Jeffrey Bleich an idiot to some degree (not the worst he’s ever been called), because his peers in the Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden say exactly the same and he should properly investigate these matters before making those statements.

Now, he was not being too bright (or massively misinformed) and a mere voicer for large corporations, which is to some degree his job I reckon, but he could have been a smudge more thoughtful in that regard. You see, the American side has been utterly stupid for a long time. Because it was always American first, then ‘whomever is left’! We have seen that in Movies, Music and games. Although music not as much. It started in the mid 80’s when Greed took over and American corporations were utterly clueless on global corporate actions from day one. I am not just talking about Games, or movies (even though they are the most visible ones). No the utter consumer disrespect shown by Ashton-Tate, IBM, Lotus Development Corporation, Oracle, Novell and Adobe was beyond belief in those days. You would actually look forward to meeting with Macromedia, WordPerfect and Corel to see that humanity in IT was an option. Now many of them changed tunes over time, the movie and games industry stayed behind for a long time, it is only recently that the US is seeing that the money of their blockbusters are coming from outside the US in some cases in excess of 75%. Now we have ourselves a ballgame! Now we see the shift some are making, but in other ways.

You see, there is a reason why some people have an aversion to buying a game at 40%-70% more. In my early days, I had no options, a game advertised in the American magazines at $19.95 would cost me $69, that’s a not so nice 300%, so America changed the environment from the very beginning. Even today, Australian gamers will pay 40%-70% more for a new game. Now, we will see casual mention on how it is all about shipping. Well guess again. PSN (PS4) was offering games on day one in a shop for $89, On Amazon it was $59 and guess what, the download in Australia was priced at $99.

How do these elements link?

There are two parts. First the quote by Julian Assange “The TPP has developed in secret an unaccountable supranational court for multinationals to sue states. This system is a challenge to parliamentary and judicial sovereignty. Similar tribunals have already been shown to chill the adoption of sane environmental protection, public health and public transport policies“. It is actually not that far a stretch, you only need to consider the legal disagreements between Apple and Samsung to see the dangers here.

After which the following claim is made “The leaked text shows that this agreement is more about corporate power than “free trade”. Investor-state dispute settlement is really a form of corporate sovereignty“. That part can be found here (at https://wikileaks.org/tpp-investment/WikiLeaks-TPP-Investment-Chapter/page-1.html).

Basically, in there you can find the issue “where foreign firms can ‘sue’ states and obtain taxpayer compensation for ‘expected future profits’“, this now reverts back to the earlier mention of games, movies and especially music. A false dimension of revenue has been maintained by corporate ‘baboons’, claiming ‘loss of revenue’. Relying on incomplete information from Napster, Kazaa and a few others players in the peer to peer networking solution. They basically went on the premise, one download means one sale lost. I believe that this was never a reality. People might download and listed, but would never have bought the bulk of it in the first case. That same premise of certain lacks is seen when we see the quote “Attorney-General George Brandis has signalled his intention to introduce more stringent copyright laws to crack down on online piracy“. In that regard the attorney general does not seem to strike too high on the academic scale of logic (on any given day for that matter). I posted an article on September 10th 2014 called ‘Changing topics?‘, in there the issue is better shown, you see it is not just about copyright, because that could have been dealt with quite easily. It was about Malcolm Turnbull’s anti-piracy forum. You see, if copyright was truly the issue, which would have been easy. But in that event the words ‘revenue‘ and ‘bandwidth‘ were very much skated around. Telstra was extremely cautious (and eager) to steer clear of that because in the case of Telstra, monitoring bandwidth, people actually stopping copying movies will cost Telstra billions! Now we see the consequence!

You see, America is figuring out that it cannot deal with its own ISP’s and they definitely cannot deal with the others like Telstra, Tele 2, Com Hem, KPN, TDC and a few others. They are doing it stepwise and the TPP will give them some options. Now back to that term that is laughingly referred to as ‘expected future profits‘.

One source states: “Losses to Video Game Makers Due to Piracy: $8.1 Billion“, based on what numbers? ISP’s state they cannot monitor. Then we get “Pirated Software Impact to Businesses: $63 Billion“. Again on what premise and how?

Well the first one gives us: “Video game piracy of hand-held games leads to the loss of about $8.1 Billion a year, as losses due to pirating of Sony PSP and Nintendo DS games between 2004 and 2009 lead to worldwide losses of nearly $42 Billion“. Here we see an interesting side. These are only two consoles. More important, these consoles have again and again limited legitimate access to games released in US and Japan again and again. So is this truly about piracy, or is the decision as seen here “Monster Hunter 3rd is the best-selling PSP game ever in Japan with 4,780,000 copies sold. Its PS3 HD remaster sold an excellent 500,000 copies as well, yet neither version is scheduled for an international release“. By the way, is the maker not guilty of discrimination? Let me be frank, I will not and have never condoned pirated games. I believe in getting a game and playing the original (I rarely buy games, so when I do, I will go for the VIP options that an original game brings). So, is this about piracy, or about segregation?

That part is harder to prove in the business case. The source “Business Software Alliance, “2011 BSA Global Software Piracy Study,” May 2012” is an issue. I cannot be certain how they got to $63 billion, but with so many illegal versions of Office, that number seems a lot more plausible. It is funny that there, US and China are the biggest transgressors representing a little less than one third of the entire lost stack. The UK is set at 1.9 billion and Australia less than a billion, yet how were these numbers achieved, through ‘rough’ estimation perhaps?

Now we get to the monkey’s banana moment “Losses due to Music Piracy: $12.5 Billion“, which is stated “According to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA)“, yes, they wanted the number to be as high as possible, because it made bad productions and louse representatives look a little better. In addition, some of these numbers cannot be decently vouched for in any way, shape or form. It boils down to well over 500 million CD’s, in a numbers game that number on a population of 7 billion seems small, but here is the kicker, that same source had the following, which I found illuminating: “In a survey of over 6,000 people in Finland between the ages of 7 to 84, researchers found that on average each person who downloaded pirated content online had about 2,900 pirated music files and 90 pirated movie files. The researchers who conducted the study believes that downloaders have more music files is due to the ease of downloading pirated music. According to the study, downloading movie files require faster internet speeds, more digital storage space, as well as a higher technological ability to playback movies“.

The term ‘each person’ now becomes really interesting, because 90 movies boils down to 360 Gb, and 2900 songs come to an rough (very rough) estimation of 14.5 Gb. A person downloading that much would be visible on the ISP counter. You see, you buy bandwidth monthly and downloading this much, as well as watching online and perhaps stuff they no longer have, you are looking at $80 a month, however, only 6 years ago, I paid $70 for 25Gb. you see how the picture changes? That is centre here. By the way, if you think that 25 Gb is little, consider that I have only hit that maximum once during my entire contract with my ISP and that was because on a Friday my system decided to update Windows 7, Office 2013 and my Adobe Master collection, which was quite the resource drain that evening.

Your online presence is now a danger in more than one way. In the first more and more ‘providers’ are forcing us to save on the cloud, forcing us using bandwidth. Now, I understand the first download, but many systems are now gearing towards less memory and more reliant on cloud drives. Which was my issue with the Microsoft Xbox One even before that system was launched.  Are those not streamed services? More important, my issue there was that once a service is disconnected, would we just lose it all overnight? Consider your movie and TV series collection. What happens when your old versions of Star Trek, Dexter and Game of Thrones are discontinued?

In addition, if online presence is essential for our services to run, how will that be monitored? I only need to refer to the Sony hack, to give you a first fright that certain owned items could be lost by a mere scripted command. Again, a situation the consumer is not ready and not prepared for. Now, in the case of PlayStation Home, there is some understanding that certain services will be lost, could a local copy have solved it? (I am asking, not telling). There are unresolved issues, mainly because the new technologies move so fast and to be quite honest, some considerations are new, we never had to make them before. We the consumer must accept that some parts are lost to us at some point. Yes, I loved HERO on the Atari 2600, but to expect that game to function 30 years later is not that realistic either. In that regard, we have attached to software (especially games) to the same extent we hold onto a book. They are not the same, which is a simple reality.

But the dangers of online remain, or do they? In that regard, the issues I raise are mostly about time. We see the failing of a game and losing out on what we spend within a year totally unacceptable, yet in that same notion, we should find peace in the notion that nothing lasts, it is all a mere matter of time. Yet, there we see a partial solution, we cannot realistically expect the provider to give ‘eternal’ support, but is a local version (no servers) after a while, or before the service is pulled a possible solution? That I have yet to see and it is not that far-fetched, because in the end, with the amounts of products and the change of IP, that part is slowly but certainly becoming an essential step to consider, especially in light for the business model of any software corporation. Consider you the player with your game of Halo, or Gears of War. I reckon that at some point, you will accept that online mode falls away, but how would you feel is the single player option falls away too, especially if you still have the console or PC to run it on?

A gaming dimension that will fall away at some point, but are we ready to let go of those moments? Now consider that your console/PC can no longer link to the service, even though you have the original disc. In the new DRM, it is entirely possible that no online verification means no playing the game. This is the certainty that we face and the TPP will push us there a lot faster than you realise. Should you doubt any of the last part, then consider the site gog.com. It holds some of the most brilliant games ever created (sold at very low prices), people still revere these games and many of them (especially the original dungeon keeper) will find a place in the heart of gamers. Moreover, several of these would make fine console games when adapted (higher graphics in most cases). I believe that the MSDOS Dungeon Keeper could be a hit 3DS game (like many other games on that site), even today.

Gaming is not about the latest game (decent graphics and sound aside) it is about joy and the games on that site are most pure joy to play.

Now you might all think that this is about games and many of you readers do not care about games, but now consider that same step when you look at your Office 365 account and the fact that you are pushed away from a version that works perfect for you (like the nightmare Office 2007 users faced in the past). There is an abundance of programs that offer a similar scary outlook.

Now translate this to collections you do care about. Your music, your TV shows, perhaps even your digital books. Do not take the word of those stating that it will not happen, because it will, it has happened in the past, it is happening now and it will happen in the future. The DVD and book on your shelf are a touchable item, that part is (if you treat them properly) secure, something online can be lost by merely removing a server or damaging its data. If someone states that this can never happen, then look at Sony, they experienced that event first hand.

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February 8, 2015 · 23:08

The next cyber wave

The news is almost two weeks old. There was no real reason to not look at it, I just missed the initial article. It happens! This is also at the heart of the issue on more than one level. Consider the quotes “The first 13-week programme for Cyber London (CyLon) will kick off in April, with a group of startups drawn from industries including defence, retail, telecoms and health services” and “On the one hand, the government is keen to invest in cyber-security startups: witness chancellor George Osborne’s announcement that GCHQ is investing “£3bn over nine years into developing the next stage of national cyber intelligence”“. So is this just about getting your fingers on a slice of this yummy slice of income? You see, this issue skates on problem that I (many others too) saw that Common Cyber Sense existed, but the bulk of companies treated it as an overhyped requirement. Yes, those managers were always so nervous when they got introduced to ‘costs’. I reckon that the Sony hack will remain the driving force for some time, in addition several business units are more and more in need for some better up to data encryption, so this cyber wave is getting some decent visibility. So as we look at the title ‘Cyber London aims to make the UK a launchpad for cyber-security startups‘ (at http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jan/28/cyber-london-accelerator-cyber-security-startups).

There is no denying that the call of 9,000 million is a strong one, especially in this economy. More important, as more companies are gripped by a decent amount of fear regarding their own future, this event will be at the foundation of several longer running projects and corporations. There is of course question on what is real. That question becomes an issue when we see that even now, rumours still emerge on what happened in regards to who did the works on Sony and how it was done, especially in light that the article in Business Insider claims that the hackers still have access. The latter part will be speculated on by me later in this article.

For the most, the next cyber wave is a good thing, especially when thousands of data holders realise that their corporate future depends on keeping these systems decently safe. I use the term decently safe, because ‘complete’ safety is not something that is achievable, not on budget levels that many depend upon. Yes, security can be better and a lot of companies will invest, they will raise the threshold of many companies, yet will they raise it enough? That is at the foundation of what is about to come.

I predict that these startups are all about consultancy and some will offer products, some on safety and some on encryption. Encryption will be the next big thing, the question becomes how will encryption be properly managed? There are plenty of people who enthusiastically encrypt files and after that forget the password. So what then, all data lost? So, you see that clever solutions are needed, which will bring forth a new wave of solutions, new barriers and new bottlenecks. I wonder if these new startup firms have considered a trainings division, not one that is all about ‘their’ solutions and ‘their’ products, but all about raising proper awareness for Common Cyber Sense.

Training that is meant to give long term knowledge to people working at a firm as well as setting a proper initiation of knowledge with these companies, so that a wave of change will not start a rollercoaster of people jumping from firm to firm, a risk many companies will predict to hit them.

Now it is time for some speculation. I have been thinking on how Sony was hit. I came up with a possible idea on New Year’s Eve. When I wrote this part: “In my view of Occam’s razor, the insider part is much more apt”, my mind started to wander on how it was done.

Speculation on the Sony Hack

The inside story is on the hack of Sony, yes, there was a hack at some point, but, in my view, that is not what actually happened. a destruction was started, but that is not what started it, that is how it all ended. When I did my CCNA (2011), I had the initial idea. You see, hacking is about data at rest, so what happens when the hack is done when data is in motion? That part is often not considered, because it seemingly unmanageable, but is it? You see, when you buy the Cisco books on CCNA you get all the wisdom you need, Cisco is truly very thorough. It shows how packages are build, how frames are made and all in great detail. That wisdom can be bought with a mere $110 for two books.  Now we get to the good stuff, how hard is it to reengineer the frames into packages and after that into the actual data? Nearly all details are in these CCNA books. Now, managing hardware is different, you need some decent skills, more than I have, but the foundation of what is needed is all in the Cisco IOS. The hack would need to achieve two things.

  1. The frame that is send needed to be duplicated and ‘stored’.
  2. The ‘stored’ data needs to be transmitted without causing reason to look into spikes.

I think that ‘hackers’ have created a new level (as I mentioned before). I think that Cisco IOS was invisibly patched, patched, so that every package would be stored on the memory card in the router, in addition, the system would be set to move 2% during the day to an alternative location, at night, that percentage would be higher, like 3-5%. So overnight, most of the data would arrive at its secondary location. Normally CCNP technologists with years of experience will look into these matters, now look and investigate how many companies ACTUALLY employ CCNP or CCSI certified people. To do this, you would need one insider, someone in IT, one person to switch the compact flash card, stating 64Mb (if they still have any in existence) and put the sticker on a 512Gb Compact Flash card. Easy peasy! More important, who would ACTUALLY check the memory card for what was on it? The Cisco people will look at the startup file and only that one. The rest is easily hidden, over time the data is transferred, in the worst case, the culprit would only need to restart the routers and all activity would be completely hidden, until the coast is clear, afterwards the memory cards would be switched (if needed) and no trace of what happened would ever be there. What gave me the idea? Well I wondered about something similar, but most importantly, when I did my CCNA, the routers had 64Mb cards, I was amazed, because these suckers are no longer made, go to any shop and I would be surprised if you can even find any compact flash card smaller than 16Gb. Consider a place where Gb’s of data could be hidden under the eyes of everyone, especially as Cisco IOS has never been about file systems.

When the job was finished, the virus could be released damaging whatever they can, when cleanup starts, every aspect would be reset and wiped, whatever the culprit might have forgotten, the cleaning team might wipe.

So this is my speculation on how it was done, more importantly, it gives credibility to the claims that the hacks are still going on and the fact that no one has a clue how data was transferred, consider that this event was brokered over weeks, not in one instance, who else is getting their data syphoned? More importantly have these people involved in this next cyber wave considered this speculated path of transgression? If not, how safe would these systems end up being?

Let’s not forget that this was no easy feat. The system had to be re-programmed to some extent, no matter how enabling Cisco IOS is, this required top notch patches, which means that it required a CCSI or higher to get it done, more important would be the syphoning of the data in such a way that there would be no visible spike waking any eager beaver to prove themselves. That would require spiffy programming. Remember! This is all speculation; there is no evidence that this is what happened.

Yes, it is speculation and it might not be true, but at least I am not pointing the finger at a military force that still does artillery calculations with an abacus (another assumption on my side).

There are a few issues that remain, I think upping corporate awareness of Common Cyber Sense makes all the sense in the world, I reckon that the entire Cyber Security event in London is essential and it is good to have it in the Commonwealth. This industry will be at the foundation of growth when the economy picks up, having the UK play a centre role is good strategy and if it does evolve in the strongest way, a global financial node with improved cyber protection will lead to more business and possible even better business opportunities. This event also gives weight and view to my writing on January 29th and a few other occasions “As small innovators are given space to proceed and as larger players are denied blocking patents to force amalgamation of the true visionary into their moulding process that is the moment when economies will truly move forward. That is how you get forward momentum!“, this is something I have stated on several occasions and I truly believe that this will be the starting pulse to a stronger economy. It seems that the event creators Alex van Someren of Amadeus Capital Partners, Grace Cassy and Jonathan Luff of Epsilon Advisory Partners, and advisors Jon Bradford of startup accelerator TechStars and Eileen Burbridge of venture capital firm Passion Capital are on such a path. No matter how it is started, they are likely to get a first leg up as these startups will truly move forward. As the event stated: ‘No equity taken’, but it seems to me that on the receiving end of implementing working solutions, finder’s fees and linked contracts could be very very profitable and let’s face it, any surfer will tell you that being at the beginning of the wave gives you the best ride of all.

Let’s see what 2015 brings us, startups tend to be not too boring. Not unlike startups, so will be more waves of speculations on how Sony was hacked, the US government will likely continue on how North Korea was involved and at the centre of it all.

 

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January 26, 2015 · 23:54

Double standards, no resolve (part 2)

Part two is not about Greece or the Greeks, it is about what has been behind several parts for a long time now. Yet, the visibility of certain events is now forcing another large change to the surface. First let us look at the events as we see them in the Guardian (at http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jan/25/wikileaks-google-staff-emails-us-government).

The title ‘WikiLeaks demands answers after Google hands staff emails to US government‘ calls for a few thoughts, but I think you should consider a few quotes and then reconsider how you feel. The first one is “Google revealed to WikiLeaks on Christmas Eve – a traditionally quiet news period – that it had responded to a Justice Department order to hand over a catch-all dragnet of digital data including all emails and IP addresses relating to the three staffers“. The second one is “Harrison, who also heads the Courage Foundation, told the Guardian she was distressed by the thought of government officials gaining access to her private emails” and then we get “The investigation followed WikiLeaks’ publication, initially in participation with international news organisations including the Guardian, of hundreds of thousands of US secrets that had been passed to the organisation by the army private Chelsea Manning“. So this was specific! Let us not forget that this person (Manning) should be regarded as guilty of treason! This is nothing less than an intelligence analyst going beyond rogue! Manning was a simple E-1 private with no comprehension of the complexity of wars, especially the war the US found itself in, a theatre that is hard to grasp for some of the brightest generals (you know these highly educated, passed their middle age point individuals with a few decades of military experience, in the US seen wearing stars on their shoulders). No, Manning decided on the safety of hundreds if not thousands of lives. In addition US diplomatic efforts were thrown out of the window, setting economic options back for up to a decade, if not longer.

So when we see the response by investigative editor Sarah Harrison “Knowing that the FBI read the words I wrote to console my mother over a death in the family makes me feel sick“, seems a little hollow. For one the FBI does not care about her mommy, two, what did you expect to happen when you access unauthorised data to the size, scope and extent as Manning had transmitted?

I think Harrison is overreacting, if we accept chapter 13 in the Art of war, both the spy and the receiver of information should have been put to death. Is it not a good thing that it was merely investigated by the FBI?

Yet, there is a side that many are ignoring; many do so in an unintentional way, mainly because it tends to not hit us in any way. For that we need to take a step back to Forbes 2013 (at http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwood/2013/08/06/excuse-me-apple-google-starbucks-h-p-irs-wants-to-tax-stateless-income/), here we see the following parts: “U.S. companies are said to have more than $1.5 trillion sitting offshore. Most claim that they must keep the money there to avoid the taxes they would face by bringing it back to the U.S.“, “the money at stake is enormous. Plus, the companies involved have treasure troves of cash for many war chests. Big and protracted battles seem inevitable. Still, some big companies may be in for battles that are even larger than they think. They may even need to think different” and “The OECD plan claims that companies like Apple and Google avoid billions in taxes. The G20 is made up of 19 leading world economies plus the European Union. It too has voiced support for a fundamental reassessment of the rules on taxing multinationals“. These thoughts all sound nice, but there is an additional element to all this. You see, as I stated more than once, currency is slowly on the way out (loosely approached). The nations that are left with manageable debt are now slowly but surely diminishing to zero. Greece may be the first one, but at minus 18 trillion, the US is the clearest one to end up with nothing, especially as those large US firms have become stateless. You see, now we get to the good part, the new currency will be IP, but here is the kicker, most (including me) seemed to forget that IP is more than Patents and Trade Marks, it includes data! Now we get to the nice stuff, you see, Google adhered to a situation, Twitter and a few others did not, or at least in a delayed way, but the new currency will include massive amounts of data and many players are now catching on that data is at the core a stateless, virtual and duplicable currency. No matter how Sony called its hack attack, does it now look a little clearer that those having a copy of that data are preparing for more than just a data dump? This is what McKinsey & Company had to say in August 2014 “Indeed, the analytics performed by actuaries are critically important to an insurer’s continued existence and profitability“, as well as “While the impetus to invest in analytics has never been greater for insurance companies, the challenges of capturing business value should not be underestimated. Technology, as everyone knows, changes much faster than people. The key for insurers is to motivate their highly skilled experts to adopt the newest tools and use them with creativity, confidence, and consistency” and finally there is “The proliferation of third-party data sources is reducing insurers’ dependence on internal data. Digital “data exhaust” from social media and multimedia, smartphones, computers, and other consumer and industrial devices—used within privacy guidelines and assuring anonymity—has become a rich source for behavioural insights for insurance companies, as it has for virtually all businesses. Recently, the release of previously unavailable or inaccessible public-sector data has greatly expanded potential sources of third-party data“. Yes, it sounds nice that there is public-sector data, but the one part no mentioned is how the analytics is not driven by those, but ascertained through private-sector data fields. You see the data that Sony had on its employees and on the actions of 70 million customers is a lot more insightful when you link it to medical records. Consider how much profit a company gets if it could ascertain more precisely the risk 7 million of its own customers are. If the connection of medical (obesity) and the gamer data of one person results in a $12 per month surcharge, what happens when we see the US having an obesity rating of around 32%? Now we have 70 million accounts and their gaming behaviour. So if we do the following math 32% of 70 million (falsely assuming that they were all American gamers), then we now get the number of people confronted with a $144 a year additive. So in one swoop, this data set gives way to an additional $3.2 billion for insurance fees. Data is going to be that simply applied sooner than you think. With the cloud being forever virtual (as one would think), people forget that a personal space is linked to a real location (wherever that drive is), but what when the data set is beyond massively huge? What if it is spread over several locations? How do we think then? You see Stateless data is not a new concept, but until recently it was never a realistic concept. It is interesting how tax dodging makes engineers a lot more creative.

At the foundation of all this is not the Wikileaks part, that part just illuminates the nutty side of data. Consider the amounts you as the reader had shared in the last 72 hours via Facebook, LinkedIn, SnapChat, Instagram and such. You freely distributed that, you gave up your privacy rights for whatever you openly published. Now consider that whatever you shared got collected. Several people were on vacation (so someone knows that their house is empty and possible unguarded), some revealed that they were sick (health data) and some revealed other details like parties attended and such.

Now the empty house is the most direct one, but not the most important one. Consider the times you updated your status that you were at home with the flu, or something else. Under normal conditions you just had a sickie, or perhaps another way. Now consider that someone now automatically collects the times you were sick, how does that affect your premium? How will your health cycle be analysed if you are shown to have attended 15-30, or even 50-100 parties a year? How long until this shows as detrimental on your health chart? Weirdly enough not having that does not lower your premium, but there is every evidence that doing it will increase your premium.

Do you think that this is over the top?

Then see the following (at http://www.qbe.com.au/Personal/Home/Managing-Your-Risk/Insurance.html). Here we see “Importantly, reducing the likelihood of making a claim helps protect your No Claim Bonus, helping to keep the cost of your insurance premium down“, which has been a truth for a long time. Yet when we consider the mention ‘Don’t alert people you are going away (including on social networking sites)‘. How long until someone combines the two? At reputation.com we see the following “Life insurance companies are increasingly turning to the Internet to determine a potential customer’s risk“, so if you like extreme sports, you might pay for that passion in other ways too. In addition, the one most disturbing was “Donating to charitable causes is a noble gesture, but if you show too great an interest in any particular medical-focused cause, say breast cancer research or prostate cancer awareness, it might indicate to insurance companies that you’re at a higher risk for certain illnesses“, that gives a possible (implied, but not proven), connection that your social responsibility comes at an insurance price. Did you consider that? And this is not starting this year, or next year. Some of these events started no later than 2010.

This all was nothing but to pave the way for that what comes next. You see, there are several sides to Google and Facebook. They are all about bandwidth and several nations are now seeing that even though Facebook is too large, there is a clear path that data is currency, so how long until we see a growth of radicalisation through localisation? This is not radicalisation in the violent way, but in the opposite way. You should see radicalisation of data, attained by washing all the data markers in local server environments. You can’t wash all the markers, but you can make access to it a lot less available. This is the fear Google (possibly Facebook too) has had for some time. As these privacy acts, that data acts and data collection rights of the US grew in a need for compliance, people become falsely fearful of what is dangerous and what is not. The US government ascertaining whether you are a terrorist is not a danger. An insurance company upping your fees by $150 through collected data is a direct danger (to your cost of living). Now we see the link as it gets us to the first story that included Greece.

There will soon be a higher need for localised connected providers. Localised forms of Hushmail (www.hushmail.com), where the people get encrypted mail accounts that can be accessed online, through the web. How long until mobile users will select encrypted android apps, that do not connect to Google, but to local Hushmail providers. We still have the internet, but it will now go through national portals. The fact that Sony happened was only a matter of time. The fact that people now want that there data comes with actual privacy is a growing wave. The Wikileaks issue was the most visible and the most harmless one (for us citizens at least). The world is changing a lot faster than last year and many are now getting clued in that the things of value have not been guarded in the right way.

We will soon see new options on cheaper internet, cheaper mobiles and on package deals, this is what was skated around when this so called IP hearing was going on. Yet, when we look at an earlier statement by Mr Turnbull, in regards to IP, who said at the time. “It is very, very, very difficult if not impossible for someone that is just selling connectivity, just providing bandwidth to then be monitoring what people are doing“.

This is at the heart of the problem, they live of bandwidth, because bandwidth implies data, and the more used, the more data collected, which leads to the better their lives are. This is why they do not want monitoring. I am fairly certain that as their bandwidth falls away, as people move to localised solutions, which remain at the core local, these providers will ‘suddenly’ opt in a ‘possible’ solution. Only at the end of the tether will an industrial give in. Oddly enough, with fear of privacy and the dangers of insurance exploitation on the rise that tether will end up a sudden two inches shorter and now those providers will have to share that what they never had to share before.

Greece has changed the way they play the game; now perhaps we can change the game that is played and make a first monumental change for all!

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January 5, 2015 · 10:32

Authentically Realistic

Whilst we see many sources talk about the need of blaming North Korea, we see an abundance of changes that are now not just changing the way we think, but these changes will also change the way we live and act. As we are soon to be lulled into more false sense of security, we must now content with the thought, what is real and what is not.

In IT these issues have existed on several layers for a long time, yet the overall lack of Common Cyber Sense has been absent for a massive amount of time. Bradley Edward Manning, now known as Chelsea Manning is only one of several parts of this puzzle. Wikileaks has added its own levels of damage and let us not forget the acts of Julian Assange and Edward Snowden. This is not on how things were done; it is about a lack of proper measures and controls. In the age of people screaming that they have a right to know, they will publish whatever they can for the need of ego and then scream on how the government is abusing their right to privacy.

These are all elements that link back to ‘Common Cyber Sense’.

CCS as I call it has in its foundations a few branches. The first is proper use and knowledge. Many still laugh and sneer at manuals and proper use of equipment, yet when other people started to ‘look’ through their webcams on laptops into their privacy, smiles disappeared quickly. We live in an age where everything is set around the fake image of comfort, it is fake because comfort at the expense of security is never comfort, it is just an added level of danger into your own life. At this point people forget that what is set into software, can usually be switched on and off at the leisure of a skilled ‘someone else’.

Buying what is cheap and what is right are worlds apart, that part is more and more a given fact. The bulk of people are lulled into ignoration when it comes to a simple easy tool that can be used everywhere, at which time they forget to ask ‘by everyone?’. Consider the HP laptop (one of many brands) has a build in webcam at the top of the screen, instead of relying on a software switch, these makers could have added a little slide that covers the lens, literally a low-tech solution making the lens see nothing, as far as I can tell, no one took that precaution for the safety and security of the consumer, is that not nice?

The second branch is access. If I got $.50 for every person that uses their name, ‘qwerty’ or ‘password’ or even ‘abc123’ for their login, I could buy a small Island like Hawaii or New Zealand, probably even both. Even though many websites and systems demand stronger passwords, there is always that bright person who uses the same password for every site. This is part of a larger problem, but let’s move on for now.

Third is the connection branch, places where we can ALWAYS connect! You think that not having passwords on your home Wi-Fi makes you safe? Wrong! You could add loads of problems on every device that connects to it by not properly setting things up. I wonder if those with an automotive router have considered the dangers of not setting it up properly and letting all the people they pass access to whatever is connected to it in the car.

The fourth branch is for the unknown. This might seem like a weird option, but consider how fast movable technology is growing, I am using ‘movable’ and not mobile, because this changing field includes phones, laptops, PDA’s, tablets and other not yet defined devices (like the apple watch, handheld game systems and consoles).

At the centre of all this is proper usage, but not just your hardware, it also includes your software, a fact many have remained oblivious to.

At this point, I will take a temporary sidestep and let you consider the following term ‘non-repudiation’.

Non-repudiation is about identity and authentication. Basically it states, ‘you and you alone‘ have sent this item (message, photo, financial transfer). In legal reasoning this will be the strong shift that will most likely hit many people in 2016 and onwards, it could hit you this year, but there are more than just a few issues with this situation for the immediate now. So when you lose your money and you state you were hacked, then you might soon have to prove it, which means that any evidence that you EVER gave your password or pin-code to a spouse, lover, boy/girl friend or sibling means that you nullified your rights. You get to pay for the consequences of THEIR acts at that point.

So when we see biometrics, we think fingerprint, we expect to be a lot safer. WRONG! Only last month did a group in Germany show how they recreated the finger print of the German Defence minister from simple digital photos, which means that this could have given them access to a whole collection of items, events and information they should not have gotten access to. So what to do? Well, that market is growing really fast. ‘Vein’ is the latest. It does not rely on fingerprint, but on the veins in a finger or hand, it is just as unique as a fingerprint, it is a 3d issue, making it even more secure and it requires an actual living hand. It also will lack the dangers of influence that a retinal scan has when a woman gets pregnant, or in case of a diabetes patient or alcohol levels. These all can shift retinal scans, with the added problem that this person stays outside the lock, becoming the valid person ‘no-more’. Yet, ‘Vein’ is still a new technology and not currently (or in the near future) available for movable devices, which gives us the issue on what devices are actually decently secure.

Let’s not forget, that even though this is not an immediate issue, the people will need to change their possible ‘lacking’ approach with more than just slow muffled interest, whilst they rely on the comfort of not having to comprehend the technology. That part is still not completely disregarded in several cases, the issue at Sony being likely the most visible one for some time to come. There is still a massive amount of actual intelligence missing. Most speculate, including me (yet I have been looking at these speculators and claimers of facts). Whilst Sony is visible, there are still unanswered issues regarding the NSA and how a place like that had the implied intrusion Edward Snowden claimed to have made.

Now let us take a step back to the four branches. I showed the webcam issue in the first branch, but the lack of consideration by the user is often a bigger problem. You see, many ‘lock’ their device, or just walk away and switch their screen off. Their computer remains connected and remains accessible to whoever is looking for a place to hack. I know that waiting 45 seconds is a bother at times, but learn to shut down your computer. A system that is switched off cannot get hacked, the same applies to your router (which actually has the added benefit of letting your adapter cool down, making the device last longer) and your overall electricity bill goes down too, all these benefits, all neglected for the fake comfort of accessing your social media the second you come home. Yet proper usage also includes software upgrades. Many do them, but more often than not, they tend to be made when the system reboots, when this is not done (or the software upgrades are not made) your system becomes increasingly at risk for intrusions of all kinds. Windows 7, which is a lot better than either Vista or Windows 8, still required 84 patches in 2014. With over half a dozen being either critical or important, you see why even in the best of times, under all conditions met, you still run some risk. And this is just Windows; in 2013 they had to fix 47 vulnerabilities regarding Outlook, explorer and the Windows kernel. There was a massive issue with remote execution, which means that your system was open to the outside without the need for a login (source: PCWorld). Now, to their defence, Windows and office are massive programs, but still, it seems that Microsoft (not just them) have taken a strong stride towards ‘comfort’ whilst ignoring ‘safety’ (to some extent).

Branch two is usually the biggest flaw. Even though many websites will require a decent level of strength (usage of small and capital letters, numbers and a special character), but that list is still way too small. The amount of people that I have met that use the lamest of simple words (like ‘abc123’) and these people cry the loudest when their money is gone. You see, it is easier to just hack your computer or device and use that system to order online via other means then it is to hack into your bank account. Yes, it is a bother (at times) to remember every password, yet in that regard you could be clever about it too. There is nothing stopping you from creating variations on a password whilst making sure it is a completely different one. I learned that someone had used her dictionary app to use a version of word of the day, she changed ‘adscititious’ into something like ‘Adsc1t!tious’. Good luck figuring that one out! (I had to look up the word in all honesty), the options become even more interesting if you speak additional languages. So, branch two is something that you the user largely control.

Branch three is actually the growing danger. It is not just when we connect, but when things connect automatically that becomes an issue (and where from). Insurance companies are more and more about your visibility, even though no official moves have been made, the day that junior uploads that catch of the day to his Facebook with dad in the background. That is the option for the members from the ‘institute of discrete entry and removal operations’ to help you with your old stuff (the missing items when you get home). The information you ‘give’ when you connect (especially on free Wi-Fi places), you see, when you connect to free Wi-Fi, more than one danger exists that others can connect to you, yes, you could learn that free Wi-Fi was the most expensive part of your vacation soon thereafter. It however moves more and more to your area of usage. As we get more connections and as we can connect from more places (like the automotive router), we will receive additional responsibilities in setting devices up properly for our safety and the safety of our children.

Now, to take a second sidestep. This is not about scaring you (a nice benefit for sure), some of these things can be prevented from point zero. Knowing what you switch off, switching off when not used are first easy and elemental steps. You see, a hacker looks for a place to get into, when your computer and router are switched off, the hacker will not spot these devices at all and move on. Hackers do not like to waste time, so when you use proper passwords, that same hacker will lose a lot of time getting access to your devices, time he could be having ‘fun’, so these two elements are already diminishing the chance of you getting transgressed upon. But in the end, there is another side. Makers of hardware and software need to become increasingly aware that their ‘toys’ have malicious usage. It was Geek.com that had the article ‘Yes, Xbox One Kinect can see you through your clothes‘ (at http://www.geek.com/games/yes-xbox-one-kinect-can-see-you-through-your-clothes-1576752/), which gives an interesting demo (without showing off anything indecent) how defined and articulate the scan system worked and it is a hackable solution, even there we see the mention that a lens cover would not have been a bad idea.

Yet we have digressed away from the heart of the matter. All these are linked, but the crown in the hardware is an increasing need for non-repudiation, showing that you and only you acted. A lack of this evidence could also go a long way in proving that you were innocent and that you were the victim. It is easy to claim that the makers are at fault and to some degree they are, but there is a growing need to have the right solution, and so far having any clean solution remains absent, whomever comes up with that could own the cornerstone of the global technology sector, an area that represents a massive amount of long term revenue.

 

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January 3, 2015 · 11:03

Slander versus Speculation

There is a lot wrong in this world, we cannot disagree with that. Soon we might see rental prices go down in London, because of Superman (the New Ecstasy), yay to those needing an apartment, being free of drugs was never so nicely rewarded! So is this speculation, or slander?

We could debate my sense in taste (many have for decades), yet in the firm juridical ground, when can speculation be regarded as slander?

That part is more and more a question when we consider the US sanctions against North Korea. Oh, and perhaps we forgot to mention that Sony Is a Japanese firm (even though the crime was on US soil), giving additional spotlights to the reasoning of certain actions. Consider the following sources. First let’s take the BBC (at http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-30661973). Here we see sanctions against organisations and individuals. First there is “Jang Song Chol: Named by the US Treasury as a Komid representative in Russia and a government official“, then there is “Kim Yong Chol: An official of the North Korean government, according to the US, and a Komid representative in Iran” and last there is “Ryu Jin and Kang Ryong: Komid officials and members of the North Korean government who are operating in Syria, according to the US“. Now the article ends with the most hilarious of all quotes “White House officials told reporters the move was in response to the Sony hack, but the targets of the sanctions were not directly involved“.

So the White House is within this part confessing to the breach where they are targeting innocent civilians (of that crime at least)? Can anyone explain to me how this is anything less than legalised slander? Consider that if (not when, but if) they ever figure out who exactly was responsible for the Sony hack (the actual individuals involved), how the US government could be held responsible in any court of law for this. Consider this part (source was the APA of all places, at http://www.apa.org/about/gr/issues/violence/hate-crimes-faq.pdf). “Current federal law defines hate crimes as any felony or crime of violence that manifests prejudice based on “race, colour, religion, or national origin” (18 U.S.C. §245). Hate crimes can be understood as criminal conduct motivated in whole or in part by a negative opinion or attitude toward a group of persons. Hate crimes involve a specific aspect of the victim’s identity (e.g., race)“. If we clinically look at the facts, then these acts are a hate crime against North Korea.

Now, let’s be fair as well. Most will not care, I reckon that the North Koreans might not even care, but this act does remain a legal transgression!

Let me show you why (because without reason, there is nothing), part one is found in yesterday’s news in the Guardian (at http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jan/02/sony-hackers-may-still-access-computer-systems-the-interview).

Here we see the following parts:

  1. “Sony Entertainment is unable to confirm that hackers have been eradicated from its computer systems more than a month after the film studio was hit by a debilitating cyber-attack, a report says“

So not only has the hack occurred, it is very possible that the transgression and the damage is currently still ongoing, in addition, one of the most watched and scrutinised nations is still accessing Sony? Not one press agency is asking the questions that matter. For example, there was some visible Press Tour into North Korea (must have been around when Kim Jong-Un was elected big boss in 2011), when we saw some of the filmed events there, we saw North Korean officials in total disbelieve that a smartphone could take photographs and these people walked over Sony’s cyber security?

Now we get to the Chief Executive of Sony himself, his quote gets us the following:

  1. ““It took me 24 or 36 hours to fully understand that this was not something we were going to be able to recover from in the next week or two,” Lynton told the Wall Street Journal“

So this was not a mere grab for data, this is a system paralyses of sizeable renown, the hack was so complete, high paid executives could not get their minds around the events. So, are we still looking at North Korea? Basically this requires an evolved form of ‘stuxnet’, the hack was seemingly more complete then the stuxnet virus could achieve. We now have only three players left. Russia, China and whatever hacking organisation walks around within the US and its allied nations. How is North Korea anything else but a mere puppet for slander? Whilst some people are possibly hiding their lack of skills, and likely other people linked to all this are trying to cover up issues that have been ignored ever since the first hack of 2011 (the Sony PSN hack). By the way, I am using stuxnet as a comparison, I have zero knowledge how the transgressions was done, but we can all agree it was way beyond a normal level of sophistication.

Yes there is another scenario and I will get to that soon, North Korea is not off the hook yet!

You see we have been looking at the event, but not at the capital involvement that is two tiered at present.

  1. “Sony’s network is expected to be fully operational within the next two months but hackers have so far released only a tiny fraction of the 100 terabytes of data they claim to have stolen“, so not only will it take months to repair security measures, the fact that the new fences are there are still no guarantee that the data remains safe.

When gets us to the first tier. Data! Someone streamed 100 Tb, which is more than just a number; it would require every PlayStation 3 on the planet to download up to 2Mb. The fact that this is not monitored, or that is got through to this extent, is a first view that this was no mere trifle event. And even though 100,000 Gigabytes seems small when compared to the PSN issues, it becomes interesting when we consider that the PSN had been hit more than once, but as those members did not all download, where did all this data get syphoned to?

Now we get to the one part that might be regarded as tier two. You see, it is not just the amount taken, which takes a good server park to store, it goes back to issues I discussed in regards to piracy and the parts I mentioned in my blog ‘For our spies only!‘ on September 26th 2014. There I stated “in the end this is NOT about copyright, this is about bandwidth“, the big players all knew it and they were all very concerned if such events would start to get measured and logged. Now someone casually walked away with 100,000 gigabytes of data?

Before I restate, it was not North Korea, let us take a look at another article by the Guardian in that regard. The title is ‘North Korea may have hired outside hackers for Sony attack, says US‘ (at http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/30/north-korea-hackers-sony-pictures-cyber-attack) and it was written on December 30th. Now we must consider the following: “US investigators believe that North Korea most likely hired hackers from outside the country to help with last month’s cyber-attack against Sony Pictures, an official close to the investigation has said“. The operative word is ‘believe‘, they just do not know. As a speculation that would be my guess as North Korea does not have the skill needed for this, not even close. By the way, those hackers might want to get paid, how will North Korea do that, or perhaps that is beyond US oversight too, because it would be a sizeable amount for something this complete.

The next part is the part that opens the discussion ““The FBI has concluded the government of North Korea is responsible for the theft and destruction of data on the network of Sony Pictures Entertainment,” it said in a statement“. The first question: What evidence?  As stated before, North Korea is lacking in many ways, the fact that they hacked past Sony to this extent, whilst at present no guarantee can be given that the systems are secure at all, whilst North Korea has been watched 24:7 for a long time now gives rise to the demand of evidence showing the guilt of North Korea. So, they are seemingly better than the cyber divisions of both Russia and China? I am not buying it, in addition, the fact that the article implies that outside help was engaged for a hack this thorough leaves us with two thoughts.

  1. If true, where is the real balance of power in cyberspace, because this now implies that North Korea is a real player, even though no one (including people a lot more intelligent than me) have concurred that North Korea does not count when it comes to the internet and cyberspace.
  2. If false, what incompetence is the US hiding from us all and is that not the true crime?

Consider this quote (from the Guardian article too): “Some private security experts have begun to question whether Pyongyang was behind the Sony cyber-attack at all. The consulting firm Taia Global said the results of a linguistic analysis of communications from the suspected hackers suggested they were more likely to come from Russia than North Korea. The cyber security firm Norse said it suspected a Sony insider might have helped launch the attack”

I cannot disagree with Taia Global, as this could be Russia hitting back at US sanctions, but that would be speculation on my side, I also very much agree with Norse. Consider that if someone walks into a bank vault and it is empty. There was no sign of break in, the doors were not forced. At this point the police and the FBI will initially look at ‘the insider’ plot. It makes perfect sense. To get past the Sony server parks to this degree someone was giving aid in some way. Initial passwords, the network structure, because if that was not the case there would be a lot more logging evidence to giver clear view whether North Korea was guilty (or not involved).

Mark Rasch hits the nail on the head with this quote ““I think the government acted prematurely in announcing unequivocally that it was North Korea before the investigation was complete,” said Mark Rasch, a former federal cybercrime prosecutor. “There are many theories about who did it and how they did it. The government has to be pursuing all of them.”” there is the crux, the mention of theries on who did it. Even if it is outside help, Russia would still make more sense, the Russian Mafia could be the front for cashing in on selling the data, they pay commission to the people ‘hurt’ through US sanctions, they are looking at the least likely suspect because of a comedy, one that I (and many others) had not even heard of before these events.

It is the last quote that is food for thought from Kevin Mandia of Mandiant “Mandia, who has supervised investigations into some of the world’s biggest cyber-attacks, said the Sony case was unprecedented. “Nobody expected when somebody breaks in to absolutely destroy all your data, or try to anyway, and that’s just something that no one else has seen,” he said”

That part is not entirely true, I remember the DBase virus of 1988, I remember some people who had fallen victim to them, a garble parser that does not show until the virus is removed, it leaves your data garbled from that point forward. There was also a data virus in the 80’s. I forgot the specifics, but whilst most viruses would attack ‘.com’ and ‘.exe’ files, this one would attack data files, until that day a truly scary moment. So, it is not entirely unprecedented. Consider, if you copy someone’s data, the best sale is to sell it to the competitors, yet, what happens if the owner no longer has that data, does that not drive up the price? Yet, it is bad tactics, to copy in secret and resell it all makes perfect sense, the fact that these events happened, whilst Sony IT, the Cyber divisions of the FBI and others are not able to track the events is something very novel. It is a first to this degree, do you now understand why it makes no sense to accuse the one nation where we see this as their highlight: “Aug 6, 2013 – North Koreans hungry for tech skills are buying up used desktops on the black market, these desktops smuggled in from China have become a much sought-after item in North Korea“, this is the nation that thwarted one of the biggest cyber power players?

People please wake up. The question becomes what was real? I call my version insightful speculation. I have been involved in IT since the 80’s, this level of hacking requires serious system skills with in depth knowledge of all layer one components (hardware layer), if we ignore the inside job part, this takes North Korea out of the loop, it also removes a massive amount of hackers of the table too. It requires the skills we would require to see from people at the NSA and other high tiered cyber firms. From these facts I come to three options:

  1. The hackers are a new level of hacker with the ability to get past the security of nearly any large firm and government data system.
  2. Sony has been criminally negligent and the US is willing to ‘aid’ this Japanese firm for a price.
  3. A simple inside job (possibly even a disgruntled employee) with links to organised crime.

Please feel free to give me a valid fourth alternative.

 

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December 31, 2014 · 11:31

Last Clooney of the year

My idea of stopping my writing until the new year has truly been bombarded into a sense of that what is not meant to be, so back to the keyboard I go. One reason is the article ‘‘Nobody stood up’: George Clooney attacks media and Hollywood over Sony hack fallout’ (at http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/dec/19/george-clooney-sony-pictures-hack-the-interview), which I missed until this morning. So has the actor from ER become this outspoken because of his marriage to Human rights lawyer Amal Alamuddin? Nah! That would be incorrect, he has been the champion of major causes for a long time, outspoken, thinking through and definitely a clever cookie with a passion for Nespresso!

The article kicks off with a massive strike towards to goal of any opponent “George Clooney has spoken of his frustrations with the press and his Hollywood peers at failing to contain the scandal around The Interview, which Sony has pulled from cinema release as well as home-video formats“. It goes a lot deeper then he spoke it does, perhaps he fathomed the same issues I have had for some time now, some mentioned in my previous blog ‘When movies fall short‘ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2014/12/15/when-movies-fall-short/), two weeks ago.

I will take it one-step further, several players (not just Sony) have been skating at the edge of competence for some time now, as I see it, they preferred contribution (revenue minus costs) regarding issues of security. It remains debatable whether this was intentional or just plain short-sightedness, that call requires levels of evidence I have no access to.

By the way, Mr. Clooney, you do realise that this topic has the making of an excellent movie, not unlike the largely unnoticed gem ‘Margin Call‘ with Kevin Spacey, Paul Bettany and Zachary Quinto.

The one quote I object to (to some extent) is “With just a little bit of work, you could have found out that it wasn’t just probably North Korea; it was North Korea … It’s a serious moment in time that needs to be addressed seriously, as opposed to frivolously”. You see, the inside job is a much more likely part. Yes, perhaps it was North Korea (requiring evidence), yet this would still not be the success they proclaim it to be without the inside information from disgruntled (or greedy) employees. In addition to the faltering security Sony has needed to ‘apologise’ for twice now (the Sony PSN hack of 2011), none of which was correctly covered by the press regarding this instance either. There was the press gap of November 2013, so we have at least two events where the press catered with silence, but at the price (read: reward) of….?

Yet the part: “He joins others who voiced their dismay at Sony’s decision, including Stephen King, Judd Apatow and Aaron Sorkin. Rob Lowe, who has a small role in The Interview, compared Sony to British prime minister Neville Chamberlain and his capitulation to Nazi Germany before the second world war“, is more than just a simple truth, it shows a fear of venue, cater to the profit. Chamberlain was from the old era and he failed to perceive the evil that Adolf Hitler always was. That view was partially shown by Maggie Smith in ‘Tea with Mussolini‘ too, yet the opposite was strongly shown in Remains of the Day, when Christopher Reeve as Jack Lewis states: “You are, all of you, amateurs. And international affairs should never be run by gentlemen amateurs. Do you have any idea of what sort of place the world is becoming all around you? The days when you could just act out of your noble instincts, are over. Europe has become the arena of realpolitik, the politics of reality. If you like: real politics. What you need is not gentlemen politicians, but real ones. You need professionals to run your affairs, or you’re headed for disaster!”

This hits the Sony issue straight on the head. Not that the Gigabytes of data are gone, but that they got access to this data at all. IT requires a new level of professionals and innovator, a lesson that is yet to be learned by those having collected Exabyte’s of data. It is a currency that is up for the taking with the current wave of executives that seem to lack comprehension of this currency. Almost like the 75-year-old banker who is introduced to a bitcoin, wondering where the gold equivalent is kept. The new order will be about IP, Data and keeping both safe. So, it is very much like the old Chamberlain and Hitler equation, we can see Chamberlain, but we cannot identify the new Hitler because he/she is a virtual presentation of an identity somewhere else. Likely, a person in multiple locations, a new concept not yet defined in Criminal Law either, so these people will get away with it for some time to come.

Yet the final part also has bearing “Clooney was one of the Hollywood stars embarrassed by emails being leaked as part of the hack. Conversations between him and Sony executives showed his anxiety over the middling reception for his film The Monuments Men, with Clooney writing: “I fear I’ve let you all down. Not my intention. I apologize. I’ve just lost touch … Who knew? Sorry. I won’t do it again.”“, personally he had no reason to be embarrassed, when your boss spills the beans (unable to prevent security), do you blame the man or the system that is this flawed?

Why has it bearing? Simple, he shows to be a man who fights and sometimes fails. He states to do better, just as any real sincere person would be, a real man! By the way, since 2011 Sony still has to show such levels of improvement. A lacking view from the people George Clooney served in a project, so we should not ignore the need to look at those behind the screens and the press should take a real hard look at what they report and on where their sources are, that same press that has not scrutinised its sources for some time. When was the last time we asked the press to vouch for ‘sources told us‘?

Consider the quote “We cannot be told we can’t see something by Kim Jong-un, of all fucking people … we have allowed North Korea to dictate content, and that is just insane“. As I mentioned in the previous blog, with the bulk of the intelligence community keeping their eyes on North Korea, why is there no clear evidence that North Korea did this? Not just the US both United Kingdom and France have access to an impressive digital arsenal, none have revealed any evidence. Consider that the École polytechnique under supervision of French defence is rumoured to be as savvy as GCHQ, can anyone explain how those three cannot see clearly how North Korea did this? So, either, North Korea is innocent and just surfing the waves of visibility, or the quote by George Clooney in the Guardian “the world just changed on your watch, and you weren’t even paying attention” would be incorrect. The quote would be “the world just changed on your watch, and those in charge do not comprehend the change“. In my view of Occam’s razor, the insider part is much more apt, the other option is just way to scary, especially as the IT field is one field where North Korea should be lacking on several fronts.

I will let you decide, have a wonderful New Year’s eve!

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December 15, 2014 · 21:18

When movies fall short

There is nothing as intensely satisfying as when we are confronted with a reality that is a lot more entertaining than a movie would be. Those are moments you live for, that is unless you are a part of Sony and it is your system getting hacked. Life tends to suck just a little at that point.

This is not the latest story to look at, but in light of the elements that have been visibly resolved, it is the best one around. Some will state that the Hostage story in Martin’s Place, Sydney is the big issue, but that is an event that is getting milked for every second possible by the media, I checked! The price of chocolate remains unaffected, so let’s move on to Sony!

The first part is seen in the article ‘Sony hack would have challenged government defences – FBI’ (at http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/dec/12/sony-hack-government-defences-fbi), those who think it is new news seem to have forgotten the issues people had in May 2011 (at http://uk.playstation.com/psn/news/articles/detail/item369506/PSN-Qriocity-Service-Update/). “As the result of a criminal cyber-attack on the company’s data centre located in San Diego, California, USA, SNEI shut down the PlayStation Network and Qriocity services on 20 April 2011, in order for the company to undergo an investigation and make enhancements to the overall security of the network infrastructure” 77 million accounts were compromised and the perpetrators got away with a truckload of data.

So when we see the quote “The cyber-attack that crippled Sony Pictures, led to theft of confidential data and leak of movies on the internet would have challenged almost any cyber security measures, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has said“, we should consider the expression once bitten twice shy and not, when bitten use antiseptic, go into denial and let it be done to your network again.

The fact that this revolves around another branch of Sony is just ludicrous, it’s like listening to a prostitute stating that the sick man used the other entrance this time, so we need not worry! If you think that this is an over the top graphical expression, consider that twice in a row that the personal details of millions in the form of data ‘leaked’ to somewhere.

The second quote will not make you feel any safer ““In speaking with Sony and separately, the Mandiant security provider, the malware that was used would have slipped or probably got past 90% of internet defences that are out there today in private industry and [would have] challenged even state government,” Joseph Demarest, assistant director of the FBI’s cyber division told a US Senate hearing“, as we know that governments tend to be sloppy with their technology as they do not have the budgets the bulk of commercial enterprises get, we can look at the quote and regard the statement to be a less serious expression of ‘do we care’, which is nothing compared to the ignored need to keep personal data safe.

You see, commercial enterprises have gotten sloppy. getting newly graduates to look into a system where you need seasoned veterans and you need a knowledge base and a good setup, all factors that seem to be in ‘denial’ with a truckload of companies the size of Sony, as they are all cutting corners so that they can project revenue and contributions in line with the ‘market expectations’.

The quote that becomes interesting is “A link between Gop and North Korea has been muted over Pyongyang’s reaction to the Sony Pictures film The Interview, which depicts an assassination attempt on Kim Jong-un“, so is this group calling itself Guardians of Peace (Gop), the ‘simpleton’ group they are trivialised to be, or is there more. You see, we see a growing abundance of data collections that seem to go nowhere, but is this truly the case? You see, data is money, it is a currency that can be re-used several times, the question becomes, finding someone willing to buy it. If we regard the 2 billion Microsoft paid for Minecraft to be more than just the IP of the sandbox game, then what is it? Which part of that 2 billion is seen as value for the 120 million registered users on PC? Do you now see the currency we are confronted with?

In my book the Sony exercise is a display of the expression ‘a fool and his money are soon parted‘. In light of the 2011 issue, the fact that security was increased to the extent that it could be done again makes for entertainment on a new level, in addition, like a bad infomercial it does not stop here, no! For $9.95 you get so much more then you see now. That we see in the article that was published two days before that (at http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/dec/10/fbi-doubts-north-korea-link-sony-pictures-hack). The part that should make you howl like a hyena is seen here “The security firm hired by Sony to investigate the attack, FireEye, described the attack as an “unparalleled and well-planned crime, carried out by an organised group, for which neither SPE nor other companies could have been fully prepared” in a leaked report“, So did you notice ‘unparalleled and well-planned crime‘ and ‘leaked report‘, oh sarcasm, thy name be Miss Snigger Cackle!

The leaked report, which was from the 7th of December (at http://recode.net/2014/12/07/sony-describes-hack-attack-as-unprecedented/) gives us “demanding that organizations which have obtained the leaked information avoid publishing any more material from the hackers, and destroy existing copies. Boies called it “stolen information.”“, you see, the issue here is that if we consider the quote “This attack is unprecedented in nature. The malware was undetectable by industry standard antivirus software and was damaging and unique enough to cause the FBI to release a flash alert to warn other organizations of this critical threat“, so even after the malware, info was still going past the firewall, or was this just ‘leaked’ by an internal source? It takes a little twist when we look at the quote in the December 10th article “The malware had been signed and authorised by Sony Pictures, allowing it to bypass certain security checks“, in my mind this reads as follows: ‘Some idiot gave a pass to malware to roam free on the system‘, so is it that, or was this an internal operation all along? If the second part is true, then who was the beneficiary of all that private data? Who is it means for? You see, many forget that our information is not always for stealing from our credit cards, sometimes it is used to profile us, as a customer, as marketing or as leverage. Why the word leverage? Consider healthcare, consider usage, what happens when an insurance company gets to profile 20 million couch potatoes, what if your healthcare premium suddenly goes up by 15%, do you have any idea how much money that is? So as insurance companies keep the leveraged margins of charge, whilst overcharging risks in addition, we see a growing margin of profit for these insurance companies, whilst getting them to pay for what you are insured for has not gotten any easier has it?

So is this simply a cinematography from Sony Pictures film, called The Interview, which depicts an assassination attempt on Kim Jong-un, or was that the smoke screen? The FBI seems to have ruled out North Korea, as far as I have been able to tell, the only fans of North Korea are the North Koreans and Dennis Rodman (who has no fame in any IT endeavour), so is there enough doubt regarding the reality of what happened and why it happened? Yes, as I see it there is, the question becomes, when there is this much smoke, where are we not looking? That part is to some extent seen in another Guardian Article (at http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/dec/12/hackers-attack-film-studios-sony-pictures-leak-cybersecurity-warning). We see this quote “Sean Sullivan, senior adviser and researcher at the security company F-Secure, said that he believes the purpose of the Sony hack was extortion. “If it was just hacktivists, they’d have released everything all at once,” he said. “But these releases, it’s like they’re shooting hostages. One thing one day, another the next. This is a really different tactic from what we usually see.”“, this is certainly plausible, but is that it? Why ransom of data and sell it back with the FBI and others on your tail, when you can sell it in Hong Kong, Bangkok, Riyadh and a host of other locations. A simple transaction for an external encrypted drive, a deal you can offer to ALL parties for amount X, the more you offer, the higher X is.

Whilst our data is sold on and on, we run additional risks of getting invoiced for our lives choices and extorted by other financial firms because our privacy is no longer a given in the age of data and it is directly linked to corporations that cannot clean up their act. In the mean time we see leaked report on impossible hack successes, whilst it took only one executive to ‘accidently’ sign and authorise a mere trinket of malware.

So yes, the movies are falling short; reality can be scary and entertaining all at the same time. The question becomes, will there be a change to our invoice of life because of corporate considerations, or lack there off?

 

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October 12, 2014 · 23:49

How the press became redundant

I wonder whether the press corps, or the press corpse we might call them, are aware of what they are working on. Did they consider the events? It is such an interesting wave when we see the consequences, yet those who write about them don’t seem to be too fussed about the reality of the facts. So shall we take a look?

Fact: ‘He abandoned this post to become CEO of Tesco effective of 1 September, 2014‘ (at http://online.wsj.com/articles/lewis-to-become-tesco-chief-executive-a-month-early-1409312947)

Fact: ‘Tesco reveals it overstated first-half results by £250m‘ (at http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/67fb8db4-421e-11e4-9818-00144feabdc0.html#axzz3FvJ9DhJP)

There was a fallout, as we would expect, yet to what extent are we confronted with facts and to what extent are we introduced to the real events.

From October 3rd onwards, we have seen news in regards to the gulfstream that was apparently ordered in 2013 (at http://www.bbc.com/news/business-29488777), now let’s take a look at the quotes “Tesco has confirmed it has taken delivery of a new private jet worth £30m, a week after major errors were discovered in the company’s accounts” and “Tesco paid for the jet 20 months ago and is required to take delivery”. How interesting this news (not really), in addition we see the news from the Guardian (at http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/oct/03/tesco-corporate-jet-gulfstream-supermarket), with the quote “Tesco’s new chief executive, Dave Lewis, moved quickly to defuse a situation likely to anger investors who have seen the value of their shareholdings halve this year. No Tesco executives will ever board the jet, as he has put it up for sale – along with the rest of the Tesco fleet, which includes a Hawker 800 and two Cessna Citations” and “To charter a G550 for a 12-hour flight would cost nearly £67,000 – more than twice the average UK salary of £26,000” and finally “In a further irony Tesco has only retrenched from overseas markets in recent years. It has shut down its US chain Fresh & Easy, pulled out of Japan and scaled back its ambitions in China”.

So how about the following questions:

  1. Why was the board not grilled initially?
  2. Why do we not see the press going after the ‘departed’ managers?
  3. So, why are the shareholders up in arms? Were they not informed of these purchases?

That entire issue becomes odd when we consider the fact that there was retrenching moving away from the international scene and no one asked questions? Was the purchase not approved 20 months ago? Was it not reported? No one seems to ask or investigate those questions, it was ordered 20 months ago, was there no down payment?

Personal note: Can I offer a deal on one citation? I can raise $20.00 (pretty much all I have left)

‘Tesco Workers Want The New CEO To Know About The Unpaid Overtime They’re Working‘ (at http://www.businessinsider.com.au/tesco-unpaid-overtime-2014-9)

Let’s take a look at the quotes “Six of them mentioned, without being prompted on the issue, that they or their staffers were required to work unpaid overtime“, so when we consider gov.uk “Employers don’t have to pay workers for overtime. However, employees’ average pay for the total hours worked mustn’t fall below the National Minimum Wage“, was that taken into consideration? What is stated in the contracts on working overtime? Those are issues that are a given and have been a known quantity, so why does this pop up now? Let’s not forget the quote “Lewis, who started his new job earlier this month“, from an article on September 8th, the man has had the function for only one week. So is this article by Jim Edwards at the Business Insider anything but a hack job? It is even more interesting that the name Philip Clarke does not come up once in the entire article, who was in charge whilst this mess was growing, were the overtime issues properly investigated? 6 out of 500.000, I think that the business insider has other issues to explain. This article did not just pop up, a mere week after Dave Lewis got to be in charge, questions should be asked! (especially at the desk of Business Insider)

This takes us to the Guardian article (at http://www.theguardian.com/business/nils-pratley-on-finance/2014/jun/27/mark-carney-interest-rates-tesco-barclays), the quote “Half the City is playing the game of fantasy chief executive, and some former Tesco directors have been muttering darkly about Clarke’s supposed strategic errors and how the company’s woes shouldn’t be dumped on former boss Sir Terry Leahy” gives us the issue that there are several problems in the works, when we consider “This boils down to a simple question: do investors believe Tesco should cut its prices deeply, take the fight to Aldi and Lidl, and accept that profit margins of 5% are no longer viable?” gives us the question that this is all a year after the gulfstream was ordered, why was the order not cancelled at this point? The article has an interesting paragraph: “Do Tesco shareholders really want to sanction a price war, which would mean accepting a lower share price, at least in the short-term? Most, one suspects, are not convinced by Clarke’s strategy but still hope he might be proved correct. Another profits warning would force them to get off the fence. If it doesn’t happen, Clarke ought to be safe. But a warning after three years of heavy capital investment would surely force a strategic rethink“, what was decided by the shareholders? This article came on June 28th 2014, 8 weeks before Dave Lewis took the reins, so what happened in these 8 weeks? More important, it seems that no criminal investigation into Philip Clarke has been reported up to now. Before we even consider whether there are criminal charges yes or no, we see overstatements by a quarter of a billion, we see a 50 million dollar plane delivery and there are questions of the process of reporting, towards the shareholders, within the corporate structure, an oversight of transparencies and a stronger indications that the board of directors is either inapt or uninformed, which seems to point towards strong levels of negligence, possibly criminal ones. The press seems uninformed and unable to inform, so why the half-baked (as I see it) levels of the active press?

If we consider the Tesco PLC Annual General Meeting 2014 (at http://www.tescoplc.com/assets/files/cms/Notice_of_Tesco_PLC_Annual_General_Meeting_2014.pdf), we see at the first part: “1. To receive the audited accounts for the financial year ended 22 February 2014, together with the strategic report, directors’ report and auditors’ report on those accounts. The directors are required to present the annual accounts, strategic report, directors’ report and the auditors’ report on the accounts to the meeting“, that sounds nice, but in a 12 page document, which I admit is just a notice of the meeting, we see several references and an overall ‘dividend’ of as stated “To declare the final dividend of 10.13 pence per Ordinary Share recommended by the directors“, was that including or excluding the 250 million balloon act? If including, what is the dividend after that? So what was in play to begin with?

In addition in another Guardian article (at http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/jun/27/uk-growth-figures-awaited-as-tesco-faces-agm-business-live) on June 28th we see “Shareholders may also quiz CEO Philip Clarke about the 310 separate, undeveloped sites across the UK which Tesco owns, but hasn’t developed. Enough to build 15,000 new homes, as a Guardian investigation has found“, really? So what about that gulfstream prices at 20% of the inflated amount, where is that one in the books? So this opens another door for Dave Lewis. What if these sites get converted to houses and as such people can get a Tesco mortgage? It is long term, it offers a stable future and it gives you a consumer base as you open a small Tesco on one of the plots. Tesco must change, yet to what extent?

Yet one other article from June 30th showed “Clarke repeatedly refused to bow to shareholder pressure to set a target date for when its US business Fresh & Easy – which has been in the red since it launched in 2007 – would finally begin to turn a profit“, so after 7 years there is a profit? Why was there no stronger investigation in regards to these parts? Why was there no real tally of the Tesco corporation in the Guardian and pretty much every other paper?

Now we see the following (at http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/oct/10/tesco-sell-financial-footing-blinkbox-dobbies-dunnhumby), written last Saturday by Zoe Wood. The title is kind of catchy ‘Passed their use-by date? The businesses Tesco could sell‘, oui oui Zoe!

“Analysts think Lewis needs to find £2bn-£3bn, either from the pockets of big City investors or selling some of the family silver – or both – if it is to have a sure financial footing from which to recover from this year’s collapse in profits and the accounting scandal that has exposed a £250m black hole in expected first half profits“. First of all, these analysts are not really worth the paper they write on. This all went by them as there suddenly was a whistle blower, as such, before that none of them wondered on how there was too much (like a quarter of a Billion) in the report and until the blower of the whistle, they kept pretty quiet. I feel at times that the Monday morning quarterback is a better judge then these analytical experts. Then there is “But some retail experts think it strayed too far when it started investing in trendy restaurant chains, tablet computers and video streaming services“, is that so? It seems that the tablet sold like hot cakes and was a good alternative to the iPad and its competitors. As for selling its assets the first being ‘Dunnhumby’ “The accounts for that year show a pre-tax profit of £67.6m on sales of £165m – a year when it paid Tesco a £140m dividend. There’s no doubt Dunnhumby’s services are valuable but getting someone to part with £2bn might be a stretch“, this might be true on several counts, yet are these dividends part of the 1.1 billion profits? If not, then we are not told the whole thing, if yes, then losing 10% of the profit is not a good thing, more imp0ortant, who owns the data, who owns the parks and who is in charge? Data of this magnitude has multiple applications and additional value. Yes Lewis might want to focus on retail, but getting a shave on road to the guillotine is also questionable. Some say, if that is all that is left, then the shave is extremely important. I state, data is treasure, you only need to combine it with the right databases and you open up an entirely new branch from the initial base, which would all be Tesco’s if it is currently all Tesco’s. The important part is shown in the part of Tesco Air, the quote “Kansas Transportation’s accounts show Tesco spent £29m flying executives around the world in private planes between 2005 and 2012, but with fewer countries to visit the company’s airfare bill will probably come down anyway“, so we see on average four million a year. How many did fly? Can anyone explain how negligent acts are not investigated? Is there a case for criminal investigations? How many executives and where to? If we consider London – Tokyo business class and it costs Business Class at £1,290, it means they either flew 3100 executive, or one executive for 8 years EVERY DAY. Is anyone seeing the writing on the airplane yet? You see, in my old job we has a VC, a Sandhurst graduate. He had one massive rule (actually he had 12 of them), the rule was in place since 1992 at least. ‘Rule 4, Don’t give our profits to the airlines‘, that rule made perfect sense 12 years before the financial collapse; it should have been a biblical rule from 2004 onwards with every big corporation.

You might think that getting rid of several executives would solve it, but consider the amounts and the level of actions from long before Dave Lewis stepped in, why was this not sanitised on a massive scale al lot earlier, which gets me back to the actual AGM’s, what was discussed, what was presented and where are these documents? It feels so right to quote baby Herman from ‘Who framed Roger Rabbit‘, “this whole case smells like yesterday’s diapers!”

I can understand that the press was to some extent unaware, yet no one dug into this, why is all this managed by Kansas Transportation, were they in the AGM documents, with every small fact I get loads of additional questions, questions that I did not see anywhere in the press, so what else did they miss? Seeing it mentioned now by Zoe Wood does not count in my books, this should have been on the front page a lot longer before this.

Yet, most of the issues here we see that they ask questions of the CEO Dave Lewis, which makes sense as he is Mr Big Boss, yet the other members are not chased for answers. Why not? It seems that these people were there when massive issues were bungled. The article only has one issue that bothers me, it is not with the writer, or how she wrote it, it is an excellent piece, yet this part “Tesco is thought to be soliciting offers for Blinkbox, which was set up by former Channel 4 and Vodafone executives to create a competitor to Amazon’s LoveFilm and Netflix. If a buyer cannot be found the heavily loss making streaming service could just be closed down. “The inherent value of Blinkbox is its relationships with content providers,” says Ken Olisa, chairman of technology merchant bank Restoration Partners. “It’s an example where content is king.”” troubles me. ‘If a buyer cannot be found the heavily loss making streaming service could just be closed down‘, so why not let it close down? Why pay for the bungling of others? When we consider the part ‘The inherent value of Blinkbox is its relationships with content providers‘, so if there is enough content, there should not be heavily losses. Yes, it all depends on customers, yet content draws in customers. Is the content of good value? There is more when I look at the website. If it is so clued in, why are Nextgen consoles not there, why is the Tesco tablet not mentioned there? Seems to me that either this is not updated, especially as the Nextgen consoles were here in 2013, it seems to me that if you want a growing interest, being the first in Nextgen seems to be a high priority.

There is more, yet when we consider the issues in play, like Tesco Mobile, I see opportunities ignored, the fact that the chips are down seems to be a massive push for the siblings of Tesco to put them into high gear. Perhaps this is done, which would be fair, but the press is not noticing any of that, which makes me wonder whether things are not happening, or whether the press seems to be looking at issues wearing very specific glasses. I honestly cannot tell which, yet considering the Sony Mobile debacle, we see options for Tesco to swoop in and grab some revenue (as Sony lost 2.4 billion), there are more avenues, yet I wonder whether I should state them now, or should I wait and see what else the press at large is missing over the coming week.

Should be more fun to wait, I reckon!

P.s. Consider the AGM PDF, how come PwC is nowhere to be found in press mentions (if they are there then only in the most shallow of mentions).

 

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October 10, 2014 · 09:54

Billion dollar blame

Some do it quick, some do it with conviction, some take a life time and some don’t experience it at all. You might want to guess on what naughtiness I am talking about. It is simple negative profit in a firm. Some seem clear, some are to be expected and some are just plain ignorant.

We could rephrase them as the alphabet, like A is for Airline that’s lost in the queue; B is for banks, who lost more than a few. But then, that nursery rhyme would get boring real quick. The issue is not Tesco, not as we read in Bloomberg: ‘Bank of America Lost $2.7 Billion in a Maze of Accounting‘, it is simple overreaching. First the car industry, now the mobile industry is getting hammered. It would be fine to just blame Apple, who does have a stake in this, but in the end the true culprit is what I call ‘lack of vision‘.

Sony is downgrading its profits to far below zero. It is projecting a loss of 2,140,000,000 at the end of the current financial year. So we are talking about a loss so big, I personally believe is that those ‘idea-illogicals’ are still with their heads in the pre-recession era, they keep on believing that the old ways still work. Guess what! That time is gone, the financial institutions and banks changed that game forever.

The electronics empire initially forecast a $466 million net loss by the end of the current financial year, but has now informed investors that the projected loss has been revised to $2.14 billion. That is the budget for a small nation, so how is Sony still around? Well, that is not about that part of the equation, but it is an interesting question to consider for the future. The biggest issue is with their mobiles and we should wonder how they are currently surviving. I have nothing against Sony mobiles, I have had Nokia mobiles, I have Sony mobiles and mobiles from Ericsson and currently I use a Motorola. The entire mobile market is plummeting, Apple is doing fine, but overall they are likely to see a peaking of profits too.

Why?

Well, like those in the car industry, the people behind them are just not too clued in. They listen to ‘experts’, ‘analysts’ and from there they think that they comprehend their customers. They get market research, get 1000-2000 responses, weigh the hell out of the data and they consider that they have the knowledge.

Guess what, it does not work that way!

True investigation takes more, takes longer and takes actual preparation. Some half-baked set-up, which is quickly designed on Monday, live on Tuesday, data collected up to Thursday and reporting on Friday can work for some parts to get a general idea, but in the end, you will not get the ACTUAL wisdom you need. And guess what, it is not just Sony doing this; there are a few other larger players. Apple, Alcatel, BenQ, HTC, Motorola, Nokia, Samsung, Siemens and Sony Ericsson et all. All of them have several models; most of them are not that cheap.

To this I add two facts. The first one is the economy. It has been 10 years when the 2004 crash came, that hit many people, then the 2008 crash that turned a massive amount of people over the brink of poverty. In that decade the consumer lost close to 21% of purchasing powers. In that decade, the bulk of all people lost a job, or was retrenched at least once, was forced to live on a frozen income, whilst prices of food and housing kept rising and many are not dealing with their debt, so that part is also hanging round their necks as an anchor. The consumer markets ignored that part and now they see the fallout, a fallout that could have been clear to them for at least 3 years, so the writing is not just on the wall, it is a massive neon billboard that was ignored by those who should not have done this (at http://www.cnet.com/au/news/sony-forecasts-2-1-billion-loss-this-year-due-to-its-smartphone-business/)

There is additional ‘evidence’, which is seen here in the quote “The Company blamed the ‘competitive environment of the mobile business.’ Sony has been hammered by competition and an inability to find distributors in key markets such as the US“, I consider that to be a statement of falsehood. Why?

Well, that is always the real question. Consider the list I gave earlier. Siemens has lost a large share, Ericsson lost it as it united with Sony (the company in question), Alcatel was never the largest party in this and neither is Siemens. Huawei is relatively new and several smaller ones do not make the list any more (like NEC), so overall Sony should have consolidated its visibility, but it did not and neither did Nokia. Apple, Samsung and HTC grew, yet overall Sony should not have lost THAT amount, which means that there is more. I blame the over flooding and iterative consumer model as one reason, such a model cannot be sustained if you cannot grow the customer base and that part is currently diminishing and will keep on diminishing for another 2 years. We can no longer afford a new mobile or car every year, in all honesty, we never could, but that part is mainly the result from the pushed idea of ‘ego’ and peer pressure.

The second quote that gives the ‘frying pan’ and ‘the fire’ expression is: “While its Xperia Z3 flagship is making its way into the US through T-Mobile“, many consumers have had enough of being held over a barrel by telecom providers, the ‘new’ mobile is less and less an incentive to hold on to a solution, that side only works for business customers and they too are shopping in the margins. The final quote is “companies such as Google and Microsoft are laying out plans to broaden their reach into the emerging markets with more affordable smartphones“, that group is now targeting the ACTUAL consumers that are available. Huawei had an advantage there, but they are quickly losing that advantage as they emulate Samsung and HTC more and more.

You see, in this day and age, mobile makers have been pressing the ‘exclusivity’ option just a little too long and now the towers break down. You do not have to believe it, but not unlike the car industry, we do not need 7 models with 22 configurations. That image is created by advertisers, finding people telling you that ‘choice’ is all about ‘individuality’ whilst they try to sell that same package to millions; it is a fake concept as I see it. Yes, we want some choice, but the consumer driven industry took that way over the top. That same issue we have seen in mobiles for some time now and the bigger players, coming with half a dozen models are now finding that they are selling ‘hot’ cakes from a fridge in a place where there is no electricity. So why the ridiculous amounts of ‘add-ons’?

Apple avoided most of the issues by having one phone in 3-4 options, where memory was the choice. We do not need 8-12 models, having one phone, which does most, would suffice. Then we get the issue with price, smaller models cost some, or need a ‘contract’, in my eyes it is an interaction of pimping and harlotry for customers, but who is who is not clear to the consumer. Consider that many do not have $800 for a phone, yes we get options for cheaper, but many providers offer a lot less at that point, whilst a generic cheaper phone would be the solution to many, brands are ego pushing the more expensive models at any given opportunity. Although Huawei seemed to have nailed the market, they seem to slowly start making the same error the others are making. Consider that Huawei offered a 4G phone for less than half the price (unlocked and free of contract) than many other providers, so why would we pay twice the price?

Let’s not forget that many providers are no longer delivering a reliable mobile. If it has android than it is likely that the phone is forcing Google search down our throats, whilst forcing people to store all data on a Google account, so that they can copy the data. Apparently there is a way to switch that off, but the result is implied to be so disgustingly customer unfriendly, that we are starting to wonder whether criminal charges are in order. Now, my Motorola suddenly got ‘enhanced’ buttons at the bottom, where it seems that there is a software overlaid button that FORCES me to Google search. How was that MY choice?

So, in the age of data, the market will soon belong to the mobile maker that will respect the customer and BY DEFAULT, let the person choose what they want to do with their data, photos and other smart phone parts. This is all linked, because where confidence dwindles, people are less likely to choose a smart phone and more likely to go back to the old days of the Nokia 1100 (with silver LCD screen, offering voice and SMS only, oh and it avoided bank security for a little while).

It is my firm believe that if big boys like Sony, Nokia and others want to turn their market around, they will need to take time to ACTUALLY learn their customers’ needs and not force corporate choice as customer wishes down the throats of these consumers. For example, instead of 19 Nokia Lumia models make 4 with one extra landscape option. If you only need 5 models, you can simplify the process, down production costs, distribution complications and get a better return. It is just a crazy thought, but what do I know. I thought that the Lumia was gorgeous, but I am not paying $935 for a phone, not in this age of theft and pickpockets, especially as phone insurances are getting less and less affordable. Sony should consider that same idea. Do you think Apple was lazy? 2 phone models, each with three memory options, which means two models each with three memory chip options. NO! Apple foresaw the complicated BS that others face and as such they have more than a small corner in the market. This is odd as the main component for a phone is its battery and Sony has always had superior battery technology, so Sony should have been the number one choice, but alas, that is not the case, so why do we see a contender with a superior key part run a market at minus 2000 million? Beats me, but someone is clearly asleep at the wheel.

Of course, I admit that I am oversimplifying the entire issue, but am I so wrong? I do not think so. I will admit that I missed a few issues in this, but as Sony is at minus a lot and others have a dwindling market, I feel that I am onto something. I am also certain that people have had enough of data collection and these mobile players to use their consumers as off the books revenue piggy banks, the first one to change the wheel on that process might end up owning the market. For those who would ‘ignore’ that path, remember that no matter how ‘valuable’ that data seems to be, once the customers walk away, you end up without data and without people using your product. Sony has the option to bounce back, but that window of opportunity is small and quickly getting smaller as Google and Microsoft are tapping into their own worlds. Sony might have not have that many options left and they forgot the one lesson Miyamoto Musashi instilled upon them almost 450 years ago: “If you do not control the enemy, the enemy will control you”, they forgot this lesson as well as the fact that ego is as much an enemy as an actual opponent, especially as ego is not regarded as an enemy until it strikes after which it gets named Hinan!

 

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October 2, 2014 · 23:13

Vision, Budgets and Gaming

What makes a game? Whoever has played a game, and perhaps still plays one, has at times asked themselves this question. Even if you think you are not a gamer, you might be one in disguise.

How does that work?

Well, let’s not get to the controllers just yet; let us take a look at the options.

Is it a puzzle?

On many systems, whether PC’s with or without Facebook, on a tablet or on your mobile. It is possible that you have played Sudoku! I have seen a truckload of them and two stand out. First for the iPad there is Finger Arts Sudoku, which is a massive piece of fun and it is all for free. The game is pretty much a perfect version. The second one to mention is Platinum Sudoku on the Nintendo DS. The game went cheap for around $20 and has hundreds of Sudoku’s per level and as you go along, you unlock sounds, backgrounds and so on. Once all have been done, you unlock a few million additional puzzles, Sudoku heaven in two titles.

Is it Nostalgia?

Again, tablets, PC’s and Consoles have a host of games that are revamps from older computers. Ascendancy, Railroad tycoon, X-Com, the list goes on and many are free through Abandoneware some cost just a few dollars through the Apple store or Google play. They can free your mind from several places and some parts can keep you busy for a while. It is as simple as eating pancakes.

So why these jumps?

Well, I had to make a few changes in my life and as such I missed out on a few games as my consoles remain off line for a few months, which means, no Destiny for little poor old me. Yet, is that the case? I got a link to the ‘Angry Joe Show’ who had his vision on Destiny, the 500 million budgeted cash cow for Bungie. The reviews were ranging from 60%-80%, with one overly high one. This is not good, for a game implied to be budgeted at half a billion; you would expect a 90% plus rating.

So what did Angry Joe state?

  1. Lack of competent story telling
  2. Repetitive mission design
  3. Frustrating random loot

Important is that many critics have said similar things on the game. So how come it is such a success?

Well, there are two parts, the first, the marketing was top notch, they created interest and they kept interest levels high, without overhyping, which is reason that the interest stayed. Another side is that if grinding multiplayer games are your thing, then you are fine. Yet, how are these things any good?

They are not!

It seems that we are confronted with a new level of revenue based marketed games, however the overall quality of the games is going down fast, as well as the overall amount of gaming hours. Some state that the Unity main mission can be completed in 15 hours. I finished Infamous Second son in a little over 12 hours, this comes down to a one weekend of gaming, how can that be a decent investment of gaming fun for anyone? I stated issues with Black Flag, now Destiny seems to up the ante, which gives us pause to what comes next. That can be seen in several ways.

The truly big games for Next Gen, like Destiny and Elder Scrolls online are now falling because the outrage is getting stronger fast. So is making games so hard? No! it is not, for the right person, because a real visionary can create something that is desired for decades, like for example the Diablo series, and even though Elder Scrolls Online are getting a fair share of the winds of contempt, their previous games (Oblivion and Skyrim) are still regarded as top notch, even with the glitches.

When we see houses throwing a massive amount of money into something, the image is growing that things are becoming dubious. There is however an issue with that statement. Although GTA-V is not my game, it is a massive success; the game even broke the billion dollar record, which is as far as I know the only game to ever achieve that within the first week of release. There are other independent successes like Minecraft, yet we see now that Destiny made the revenue and the profit by remaining mediocre. So is it the games, or the players?

To be honest, I am not sure that the answer is that easy, for one, Destiny is almost unique on Nextgen. Xbox one has Titanfall, but the PS4 did not have anything like that (referring to multiplayer slaughtering). This skews the interest of the people. Elder Scrolls Online is also feeling the brunt in another direction. When the overall consensus is “I wish this game would’ve turned out better, but everything I read so far has told me to not even bother“, as one player stated it to be, you know that you a looking at a possible 200 million fiasco. This is in itself odd, because Oblivion and Skyrim redefined RPG gaming in a massive way. True, Skyrim is loaded with ‘glitches’ but the storylines can be played and the main story is great too. It is only when you decide to stay in Skyrim and make your character your lives work; it is then that the issues start piling up. However, as I have stated it before, Skyrim is a massive step forwards from Oblivion, which was a large leap from Morrowind, So the makers have given us more in a large way. This gives us the worry, why did they go MMORPG, when the single player games are so fulfilling.

The Angry Joe show also stated some issues on ESO. It is not unlike issues we see in several games. On top of that, one race is only there available if you buy the limited edition; in addition, it is monthly based, so the $100 comes with an additional $15 a month, with an additional $15 for a month zero payment (to set up your monthly payments). So in NextGen consoles, you will lose out on $120 before you got the first hour in. Now, let’s be fair, we need to pay, as we do with every game, but the reviews from several sources show an average game. For example you could be watching a group of 15 men try to charge whilst watching the game crash as the ESO server went down. These things happen in MMO games, yet we don’t see this with Blizzard games. And as money gets, you get 1 gold piece per kill and 2 gold pieces per boss. It seems entirely weird as a horse costs well over 17,000 gold pieces. You do get a horse with the limited edition that is $20 more expensive. So as we see the greed factor creep into the new games, we should worry on how gaming goes. Angry Joe talks a good story, brings the issues nicely with a few theatrics, so seek his views out in YouTube (seek: ‘angry Joe review’), he has published several interesting reviews.

There is trend that we now see growing, which could end gaming as the joy it has been for over 30 years.

What will come next? This is at the core of the issues we face, some (me included to some degree), as Microsoft bought Minecraft for 2.5 billion, I am worried about what they will do to it next. There is no indication of what they have in mind, but Microsoft tends to be revenue driven, which means that Minecraft will be ‘upgraded’ to ensure no less than 5 billion in revenue, which makes me slightly worried on how they will do this.

Yet, things are not truly covered in darkness yet, however, that revelations will also come with another revelation that will not make you happy. I have spoken to some degree on an upcoming game that seems to be the next real game we all need to look for. The title ‘No Man’s Sky’ is all about newness, originality and sandbox gaming, all rolled into one massive achievement. The important part of all this is the worrying part. You see, like Minecraft, this game is also an achievement by an independent developer.

So as we look at the set developers like EA and Ubisoft, we see that they have not improved their gameplay for some time now. One review on NHL15 wrote “NHL 15 is a disappointment. It lays a good foundation for the future with enhanced physics and an improved presentation, but it’s still mostly potential“, I saw FIFA15 which looks nice, but I am not a soccer fan. Games Radar stated this on FIFA15: “This year FIFA 15 pulls off a difficult trick. Not only is the game closer to a TV-style broadcast than ever, but the experience is better than FIFA’s been in years“, so it seems that there is goodness coming from EA, yet is that enough? Sports games have their own following and as such for THEM there should be a decent quality game to keep them happy, whether it is NBA, NFL, NHL or FIFA. EA is bigger than just the sports section, however in that regard; EA has remained quiet (and as such avoided ugly hypes).

However 2015 should see the light of a new Mass Effect, even though loathed by a fair share of fans, Mass Effect 3 had several good sides, amongst them the best multi player side I have ever played. Mass Effect could be the next big thing, but time will tell, so I will not add to the ‘gossip’ and ‘rumour’ fire at present.

Ubisoft has a few options, but is in my view lacking as Watchdogs became a hyped success. It was graphically amazing, yet in the core a mundane game like AC1 was. This does not make it a bad game, but it could be the mind blowing start not unlike AC2 became, yet Watchdogs one started from a much better place than AC1, so that future could be promising. If you wonder how it helps speculating on this, then I have no real answer to that. Yet, consider that these are also the questions asked in Forbes magazine as gaming is now truly big business with projected revenues in 2014 surpassing 81 billion.

So, what is the issue?

It is vision!

Gaming is about vision; those who have it bring us all the greatest games. In an age where we need to turn around every dollar, we tend to focus on the true innovation. The even nicer thing is that fun and quality gaming does not need to cost $100-$150. Finger Arts and Abandoneware have proven that. There is a clear indication that the larger developers lack vision to a growing extent, which makes for several issues down the track. The Nextgen systems are still lacking a decent pool of really good games almost a year after its initial release. This should currently regarded as a disappointment compared to the previous versions of consoles, especially as we saw Sony announce ‘This is for the players!’ and Microsoft with ‘Everything you can imagine, Plus a few things you can’t’, neither have delivered so far. So, is my view that there are issues and it is my personal opinion that this feels like a marketing machine in overdrive whilst the rest of these companies cannot keep up, my evidence? Look at the initial Nextgen Top 10 as it was published on June 17th 2013, on average 22 weeks before the consoles were released.

  1. Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain
  2. Quantum Break
  3. Final Fantasy XV
  4. The Crew
  5. Destiny
  6. Knack
  7. Titanfall
  8. Watch Dogs
  9. Project Spark.
  10. Tom Clancy’s The Division

Out of these 10, 2 made the release date, one was 6 months late, the rest has not been released at present and they will not come until 2015, so we see an announcement that is off by 75% (they get 5% penalty for Watchdogs). Something this far off is pretty unheard of. It views as the hype from Microsoft and Sony to get console sales high and then end up skipping out on the games (to some extent). I must state that those with PlayStation Plus were given a barrage of games, free to download. Some were decent, 1-2 were really nice, which means that some was done, but was it an acceptable step?

What will happen next?

I think that we need re-evaluate the way we look at the gaming industry and more important on how those within it market their customers. In their defence, these gamers are like a group of hungry hyenas, so feeding them any news is at times the only way for marketeers to stay alive. Yet all of this is not done yet and we must all take a long hard look at what was, what is and what should be.

Budgets

There is no denying that games will be bigger and bigger budgeted, yet consider that these games, offering less than 20 hours are closing on the quester billion to develop. Yet, we see in Minecraft that it can be done in other ways, there are more games. Elite, remade from the 1984 edition, originally created to fit a 48Kb home computer. Good games are not expensive and true vision is priceless! That part is what we have seen more than once, if we take a few of the older really good games and their cost we see Ultima VII: The Black Gate – $US1 million (1992), System Shock 2 – $US1.7 million (1999), Resident Evil 2 $US1 million (1999), Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter – $US18 million (2006), BioShock – $US15 million (2007), God of War III – $US44 million (2010). So when we see Unity, Infamous: Second Son with their massive budgets, we see the trade off, where the larger players throw money to hide vision and to some extent they are getting more than just an even payment. It is there where my issue with Gamespot and their ‘closeness’ to Ubisoft becomes an issue. How can we get honest reviews whilst the makers of games are stacking the deck for mere profit? Independent review is the only way to see what is good, what is worth the money and what is bad. How can the consumer get the right information?

This is at the heart of the matter, I would like to solve the lack of vision problem, but that lies with the makers of games. They have options, yet are they willing to learn? Even if they are willing to accept that they are no longer visionaries, not unlike Steve Jobs, there is a chance that they can spot it when they see it. The question then becomes will they protect the future of gaming.

 

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