Tag Archives: Washington Post

May 29, 2019 · 12:57

Sexual abuse is apparently fine

The Washington Post gives us the news one hour ago. The article (at https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/private-letters-indicate-the-vatican-imposed-but-didnt-enforce-restrictions-on-former-cardinal-mccarrick/2019/05/28/dc3ca440-814f-11e9-b585-e36b16a531aa_story.html) gives us: ‘Private letters indicate the Vatican imposed, but didn’t enforce, restrictions on former cardinal McCarrick‘, the setting here is that “an aide to former cardinal Theodore McCarrick released excerpts from emails and letters laying out how the Vatican tried to quietly sanction McCarrick years before he was defrocked for sexual abuse“, so this was not in the short run, this is not a small matter, the Washington Post has additional articles on this in 2018, and it gets to be worse when we consider that clerical abuse expert Richard Sipe published excerpts from the 2005 and 2007 settlement documents in 2010. Yet I am still in another phase. You see most of us got the wakeup call through the movie Spotlight (2016), we had heard rumours left, right and chapels, but the fact on just how big and large the problem is has not made it to mainstream media to the degree that it should had. How can I as a Catholic, remain Catholic when I am confronted with: “send reported abusers for mental health counseling; reassign them to pastoral work regardless of what a professional recommends (i.e. restriction of access to minors); allow them to work again unsupervised; wait for another report of offence; repeat the cycle; cover it all up“, which we got from Richard Sipe in May 2010. And it gets worse when you consider: “The trouble is that it is sealed within the system. Few of the seminarian/priest victims will talk on record. They have everything to lose. Sexually active priests who have no intention of being celibate do everything to cover their tracks“, so according to the release evidence (excerpts from court cases) and the amounts settled was a lot; basically, all the funds that the people hand over for charity, for the church, for the needy. From that amount around $4 billion regarding cases that go back up to 35 years, the largest amount $600 million regarding 221 priests to dress the wounds of well over 500 victims. Whilst none of these clerics are in prison, these people give us lectures on humanitarian aid and the suffering in places like Saudi Arabia? How hypocrite can we get?

So as Newsweek, who was the source gave us one part, they also gave us BishopAccountability, who is actively ‘documenting the abuse crisis in the Roman Catholic Church‘ give us the additional “We document settlements involving 5,679 persons who allege sexual abuse by Catholic clergy. These survivors are only one-third of the 15,235 allegations that the bishops say they have received through 2009, and they are only 5% of the 100,000 U.S. victims“, the realisation that this is from the last 10 years and that it involves over 15,000 allegations, as i see it a large prison holding up to 25,000 priests called ‘Concilium Vaticanum locum seorsum‘ (Vatican Isolation Location) is required, build at the expense of, as well as funded by the Vatican. I reckon that in the end it is a cheaper way to resolve the issue, when we set these beasts in prison for 5-15 years, things might look up. How acceptable do you find the notion of: “wait for another report of offence; repeat the cycle; cover it all up“? How will you see this when it involves your child or a relative you were close to?

In all this the lamest of all reasons is seen with: “Adult men make less instantly sympathetic victims than children, and the alleged incidents involving McCarrick are less headline-grabbingly horrifying“, so why is the DA not doing his/her job? Crimes were committed, hundreds of times, over and over again, yet we see no convictions, we see no culling of the acts by these priest. When you see all the evidence stack up with a failing to convict and as I see it: “before the 88-year-old simply passes away in seclusion“, is not a verdict or punishment, it is merely a stage of house arrest with optional benefits.

The only thing it does is leave us with the clarity that ‘abuse is fine‘, which is weird, because I know it to be 100% wrong, so why are people sitting on their hands? Why are people trivialising the fact that globally thousands of victims were created and the Catholic Church did next to nothing? At present there are 22 US senators who are Catholic, and how many of them have been active towards the prosecution of these clerics?

Even as lawmakers have passed a bill that would force priests to disclose information about child sexual abuse that they hear in the sacrament of Confession, we see in the Catholic sun that Archbishop José H. Gómez, vice president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said he was “deeply disappointed”, which we cannot accept, that feeling of disappointment is a mere 15,235 allegations too late, a stage where we see that there are up to 15,235 victims in the US alone and for the longest time priests would cover for one another and more upsetting higher elements in the Church were part of the cover-up. It is when we consider the CruxNow (at https://cruxnow.com/church-in-the-usa/2018/08/24/what-new-jersey-bishops-now-retired-knew-about-mccarrick-settlements/) and we take notice of “The Metuchen Diocese made settlements of $53,333 and $100,000, where one (2006) was regarding a former priest who said he had been abused by McCarrick and others. This priest submitted the first known written complaint about McCarrick“, this puts Bishop Paul Gregory Bootkoski in the firing line, yet we also acknowledge that he also reported the offenses to law enforcement, yet what actions were taken are not known to me at present. Yet this indicates that at least a Cardinal or higher had to be aware of it as early as 2006, giving us 13 years of danger to more victims. However, to get back to Bishop Paul Gregory Bootkoski, you see Cardinal Donald Wuerl, Archbishop of Washington was never informed of the settlements according to the Catholic News agency. It gives questions when we read: “Cardinal Wuerl said last week that he was never informed that those settlements had been reached“, it leaves the actions of Bishop Paul Gregory Bootkoski open for debate and investigation. The fact that Richard Sipe personally wrote a letter to Benedict XVI in 2008 stating the hazard that is Theodore Edgar McCarrick (source: New York times, 2018) supports the view that the events were known in the very top of the Vatican, and as such, how can we remain comfortable as Catholics? I certainly do not feel comfortable at all.

When we realise that the Vatican was informed again in 2000 and 2006, yet in the end nothing was done for decades, that is the larger evil in all this and it is right there within the Vatican. The fact that according to news that McCarrick lives currently at St. Fidelis Friary in Victoria, Kansas and not in prison is really beyond me, the fact that the Washington Post gave us three hours ago that the Vatican imposed restrictions, but did not enforce them (at https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/private-letters-indicate-the-vatican-imposed-but-didnt-enforce-restrictions-on-former-cardinal-mccarrick/2019/05/28/dc3ca440-814f-11e9-b585-e36b16a531aa_story.html), gives rise to additional issues on several levels, yet if there is hope to be seen it does not come from the very top, but from the other side as Rev. Anthony Figueiredo, it is also in that article that we are made aware of “Cardinal Wuerl has previously stated — and he reiterates again — that he was not aware of any imposition of sanctions or restrictions related to any claim of abuse or inappropriate activity by Theodore McCarrick“, this ‘revelation’ is not about Cardinal Wuerl but on Bishop Paul Gregory Bootkoski, consider where McCarrick went, what kind of a danger he would optionally be to the people there; it is my personal view that the bishop created a dangerous place of intentional harm by keeping quiet, how Christian is that? How Christian are we when we merely accept that there is no prosecution to a lot more members of the clergy?

When we see: ‘Why ‘moderate’ Muslims need to speak loudly against terror‘, yet we also see that we do nothing against the Vatican on these transgressions, where is the greater evil, in the Vatican or in Mecca? Most Christians would consider Mecca to be ‘evil’ yet as we allow for the Vatican transgressions, can we even tell what evil is and what it looks like?

In the 80’s I knew what evil was and what it looked like. I felt like a proud Catholic going up against the likes of Hamas and Hezbollah. Today I am still against the likes of Hamas and Hezbollah, yet from those days I am not certain that my mind was playing for the right team, as such my mind wanders all over the place. What do you do when you learn after half a century that would have played for the wrong team? I know that Christians were never innocent, there is plenty of evidence that they wiped at least 17 civilisations from existence, the fact that Catholics are optionally to be seen as an internal cancer that is destroying itself from within is far more dangerous. If we are here to give rise to a better soul and the messenger cannot be trusted to protect our soul, where are we left?

If sexual abuse is fine, and we are no longer able to tell the falsehood of that, how doomed are we really? It is at this point that I recollect (in reality I searched for this) the Quran, specifically Taha 20:102: “The Day when the trumpet shall be blown, and on that day we shall gather the sinners together, blue-eyed (- the spiritually blind ones)“, to be honest ever since I saw Spotlight (2016) I have felt like a blind man, when you fear the people you would easily trust, how deep is the trouble that Christians face and how utterly wrongful has the Vatican reacted to all this, and how many more mistakes will they willingly make to let it all go away under cover of denial, settlement and ignorance towards the victims that they created?

I wonder if we learn the truth of that in time, all of us.

 

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May 25, 2019 · 13:06

Short on sight, darkness without a light

It is the Washington Post who gives (at https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/05/22/qualcomm-violated-antitrust-law-judge-rules) a stage that is now three days old, but this is one event that keeps on getting bumped to the top of the list for a long time to come. With ‘Qualcomm violated antitrust law, judge rules‘ we see a dangerous step into a murky road, a road that is all about the bottom dollar and those who are pushing for decisions have not considered the long game and how it ends a lot more. Perhaps you remember the issue with anti-trust, why it came into existence in the first place. With “protect consumers from predatory business practices“, it is the foundation that is at play, especially when we consider the quote “U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh ruled that Qualcomm had used its monopoly power to bully companies such as Apple into overpaying for royalties on Qualcomm’s wireless inventions, ordering Qualcomm to renegotiate its business deals“. I wonder who she serves in this case, because I am personally getting the feeling that it is not the law, or the case.

To understand that you need to consider a few items, the first is Intellectual Property. Qualcomm has something everyone wants and no one bothered to redesign or improve on it, and now at the start of 5G, the bottom line of Apple, who has always been eager to bleed its consumers dry, they now see the bottom line and they feel wronged. For three generations they became iterative, and as they now have a second iMac, for sale at A$22,197.00, (mainly because of the colour I reckon). That is the joke that once was Apple. A similar PC for High end gaming will remain under $10,000 (and that is with all the bells and whistles. As apple gives us that we must pay for exclusivity, than so must they.

In addition when it comes to royalties, the judge merely needed to look at iTunes to see that the stream income has settled at $0.00735. Artists on Apple Music would need around 200,272 plays to earn the US monthly minimum wage amount. And important side part is that Apple is by no means the worst there. (Google got that distinction).

From what we see, I have a few reservations whether Justice Lucy Koh has a good view on what ‘predatory business practices‘ are. I do not think that Qualcomm is innocent here, yet to see the example “bully companies such as Apple into overpaying for royalties” voiced, whilst from more than one direction we see that this could be a case of the pot calling the kettle Space grey.

The Post also gives us “Qualcomm is the only U.S. company making 5G chips for mobile phones, the components necessary to connect smartphones to cellular networks. The new generation of cell networks might create another round of innovation and economic growth as start-ups figure out how to use it in new products and spur the development of self-driving cars, smart appliances and remote medicine, which rely on a stable Web connection“, as well as the mention of Adam Mossoff, a law professor at George Mason University who gives us: “the FTC’s case against Qualcomm the result of “self-serving arguments by some companies looking to benefit their bottom line.”” and I agree with him. Whilst the FTC was too stupid to sound the horns when iterative technology was the key in ‘their’ profits, others realised that new borders will always come and they will be ruled by the true innovators, as this happened and that firm is not an American one, but a Chinese one. We see these cases come up so that optional momentum can be gained, all whilst Apple had 10 years to find an equal solution, to reengineer technology to equal, they never did that, they merely copied old ideas and let their marketing department spout some innovation story. To their credit Apple Marketing is extremely good at their job, so when we accept: ‘They create something that is designed to improve the lives of their customers. To market that, they create experiences that are memorable and keep people coming back‘. It is brilliant in the now, but innovation is about tomorrow and the Apple board of directors forgot about that part in 2004-2017, so they can only move forward with Qualcomm and that is hitting their bottom dollar hard, especially in 5G. That is the market and the gap between US industry and Huawei is increasing, the US is falling further behind.

Yet the bigger issue is not seen and the article was not about that, so there is no blame. The issue now is that the US is a mere 325 million and they are left in the dark that the larger world with well over 2 billion have (with the exception of politicians kissing US ass) embraced Huawei, equal or better quality at half the price, which is in light with the iMac Pro and normal maximised PC’s. True innovation sells itself, the rest needs marketing to get to the base of their revenue needs. In my case I have an older Huawei, the Nova 3i, it is older than the P30 series, yet still for the most on par with the latest android phones released this year. They learned, when others refused to learn that storage is everything to consumers, so whilst Samsung and LG started jerking around the consumers with ‘sorry, we only have a 32GB model‘, or the ‘that specific model was not available to us‘, Huawei decided to give us 128 GB (Google did a similar thing early on). The rest followed much later. The mobile industry has for the most all been about ‘Iteration to facilitate for exploitation‘ as I personally see it. Both Google and Huawei were instrumental in turning that around. So whilst I can get an iPhone for A$1,299.00, the Huawei I got has the same storage and for the most an equally able phone for A$499 (6 months ago). As we see the issue of ‘bully companies such as Apple into overpaying‘, whilst Apple has been known to be the biggest bully of all (optionally a shared #1 spot with Microsoft). It seems to me that the FTC is about the bottom line and not losing more distance with true innovators like Huawei. So when we look at the FTC and we see: “Competition in America is about price, selection, and service. It benefits consumers by keeping prices low and the quality and choice of goods and services high. By enforcing antitrust laws, the FTC helps ensure that our markets are open and free“, is the Apple iMac pro not a direct violation of that directive?

In addition, as the Trump card of bullying was given regarding Huawei, we see: “Google said complying with the ban would mean future phones sold by Huawei would be without a license for its Android operating software and would have no access to its Play app store, which would render them nearly useless“, so what happens when that becomes actuality? When Huawei has its own ‘app store’ and its own system in place? When hundreds of millions are willing to switch, what would it cost Google? What happens when we demand action on taken paths and Google is seriously impacted? Will the FTC wake up and see the folly that they created?

And let’s be clear, the biggest issue is not the Trump administration. It is the collection of technology dumb fucks (to coin a phrase) that have been so eager to rely on iteration and now that these people no longer matter in their respective board rooms, what remains? Apple relies on computers that almost no one can afford, especially as hundreds of PC assembly providers can build equal powered solutions at less than half the price, that too will impact 5G, because even as we are a mobile planet now, when we are at work (over one third of our daily life), it is the workstation and not the mobile that rules our needs.

So now as we look at the impact that 4G had with: “When the United States took the lead on 4G mobile technology, for example, it gave rise to the app economy, which is still dominated by U.S. firms, according to Cisco“, Cisco is a player there, yet with the severe vulnerabilities it showed and remains showing until the end of the year, they too are in the dump. Even now as TechTarget gives us a mere 9 hours ago: “The Cisco vulnerability fix for thrangrycat could make affected hardware unusable. But the vendor said it’s ready to replace products, if needed.” At what point do you realise when you read the article (at https://searchnetworking.techtarget.com/news/252463965/Cisco-vulnerability-fix-for-thrangrycat-carries-risks) that Cisco is not merely falling behind too, the impact that they have to deal with will hinder them for some time to come. In addition, the quote “If an affected product becomes unusable and requires a hardware replacement, it will be replaced according to the terms of the customer’s support contract or warranty,” gives rise to other considerations too. How many would sue when they lack the support contract or warranty? Let’s not forget that they have advertised for the longest of times on ‘the Trust Anchor‘. It was innovation, true innovation. But there we see how iteration can diminish innovation. Once the feature is surpassed and dealt with, the issue becomes a much larger concern. So as Cisco is trying to deal with the Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA), Huawei is moving forward another leap. Now, there is no chance that Cisco will be replaced, they are too big and they have good hardware. What do you think happened to the Samsung with their Samsung ISIS (with exploding battery), it took Samsung 2 years to recover and now they are surpassed by Apple and Huawei; that is how the cookie crumbles. Samsung is still in the race and could regain momentum (especially with the power share novelty), but it took them 2 years and now in the start of the 5G dimension, 2 years is a lifetime, it is the difference between the locomotive that drives the innovation and the caboose that gets all kinds of shit. That is the game and the US is in and not in the caboose, but on a hand trolley trying to catch up with the train that has already left the station, the US is in that deep at present.

Oh and when it comes to the FTC, as they see themselves as: ‘The FTC protects consumers by stopping unfair, deceptive or fraudulent practices in the marketplace‘, so when it comes to AT&T 5G Evolution, how much action has the FTC undertaken, whilst the media in many places have clearly stated it as deceptive conduct. Even whilst AT&T hides behind “5G Evolution is a lot more than just a name“, yet it is not 5G and the FTC remained silent on it all, which as I personally see it is all about the bottom line, as such, how much credibility does America have left? Even as Sprint and AT&T settled, Sprint was not the only player and as far as we can see the FTC did nothing, so when we see (in several sources) ‘speed tests have confirmed that AT&T’s 5GE service is no faster than LTE from Verizon and T-Mobile‘, I merely wonder how the antitrust ruling could be given whilst the market itself is in such disarray that this case should not have made it to the courts for years to come, but that is the problem with a nation that is $22,000,000,000,000 in debt, the bottom line becomes everything and the concept of the rights of any consumer will be hung out to dry until that noose has been removed from the neck of the US economy. Too bad they relied on iteration; a nation that relies on innovation might be able to move forward on its merits, an option the US seemingly no longer has at present.

So what happens when the next step is open to all non-Americans? What happens when one of the 10 competitors does come with a truly innovative step? You see that is the nice part of true innovation, what goes down, might come up, so if the setting changes and for example the Kodenshi AUK Group finds some solution in 5G that the others did not consider, how will that play out? There is a long term short sighted approach to IP and the drive to truly push it forward in a non-iterative way. The 5G players will soon and quickly learn that 5G will not have space for iteration; it would almost literally play out as: here today, gone tomorrow.

I don’t think that technological America realises that danger to the degree it needs to, that is the vibe I have been getting for a while now.

 

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May 24, 2019 · 12:09

When the media decides not to tell us

This has been a subject that has been a focal point for me for a while now. The first instance When I got a clear indication was in 2012 when the media on a global scale decided not to inform the people on actions that Sony had taken. The gaming stage for 35 million consumers was changed almost overnight, yet the media trivialised it to the largest degree. It was then that I decided to keep tapping the pulse to see what else was going on.

You will have heard about the issues in Yemen and that the Arabian coalition led by Saudi Arabia is part of this. That you know, but for the longest time, the involvement of Iran and the terrorist organisation Hezbollah was downplayed to a much larger degree, and no one seems to be looking at that part.

In the last 24 hours we were shown to a much larger degree on the dangers that the civil population of Saudi Arabia presently faces (around that airport mind you).

Reuters

Reuters gave us 9 hours ago: ‘Yemen’s Houthis say they attacked Saudi’s Najran airport by drone‘. the article (at https://www.reuters.com/article/us-yemen-security-saudi-drone/yemens-houthis-say-they-attacked-saudis-najran-airport-by-drone-idUSKCN1ST1HJ) gives us both: “Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi movement on Thursday launched a drone attack on a Patriot missile battery in the airport of the Saudi city of Najran near the Yemeni border” and “The group claimed responsibility for last week’s armed drone strikes on oil assets in Saudi Arabia and on Sunday said they would attack 300 vital military targets in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen“, so far nothing really new, other than this is the third attack in a week. When we consider “Najran regional airport is used by thousands of civilians daily” we see a stage where another part is now making entry, but about that more shortly.

Al Jazeera

Al Jazeera gives us ‘Yemen’s Houthi rebels attack Saudi’s Najran airport – again‘ (at https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/05/yemen-houthi-rebels-attack-saudi-najran-airport-190523140308211.html), where we are treated to: “The group’s Al Masirah TV reported the drone attack on Thursday came as the Houthis said they would step up their offensive against Saudi targets“, as well as “An explosive-laden drone sent by the terrorist Houthi militia to target Najran airport – which is used by thousands of civilians daily – was intercepted and destroyed by the Saudi air force“. This news is mostly on par, we see the small addition by Colonel Turki al-Maliki that there would be a response but did not elaborate on any details.

I think that we can agree that Reuters and Al Jazeera are regarded as sources of integrity. it is news that so far has always been regarded as trustworthy.

So why is it that this news did not make it to the BBC, yet we were given headlines like ‘PSG boss Al-Khelaifi charged with athletics corruption‘ and ‘Egypt releases students held after exams protests‘. I am not stating that those headlines should not have been there, it is regarded as news, but the attack on civilians by Houthi forces was kept out of the news and that is a little weird, especially as the news on a global level had been slamming Saudi Arabia again and again. The guardian, the New York Times, Washington Post, none of them had it. Yet the Washington Post was eager to report: “In addition to suffering the reputational problems of delivering deadly weapons to governments that clearly misuse them, U.S. defense firms should exercise extreme caution that they are not opening themselves, their officers, and their employees to criminal and civil liability by exporting weapons pursuant to potentially invalid licenses“, it seems interesting that Democrat Robert Menendez was willing to sidestep drone strikes on civil targets at the drop of a hat. In addition, that article (at https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/trump-may-sidestep-congress-on-saudi-arms-deal-drawing-fresh-warnings-from-republicans-and-democrats/2019/05/23/ca4af24e-7d96-11e9-8ede-f4abf521ef17_story.html) also gives us “anxious to protect their authority to have a say on the executive branch’s ability to export lethal weaponry to foreign actors“, the operative ‘foreign actors‘, instead of ‘foreign government‘, this was written by an intelligent person, I accept that and that this is to set the consumer and voting state is also accepted, yet when a newspaper relies on ‘Democracy dies in darkness‘ and it is only giving you part of the information, is that not an equal attack on democracy? when readers are misinformed by only partially informing them, is that not (in the eyes of some people) the larger crime in all this?

The large papers have almost all omitted that part at the moment, and they are not alone, Deutsche Welle, NOS, Swedish news sources, they are all missing out on the Houthi attack, as well as the fact that in most cases the involvement of Iran remains unmentioned in many of the cases. When sources on TV and online are happy to quote President Trump stating: “I’m an extremely stable genius. OK?” (From my point of view absolutely nothing in that sentence was true), and we are not given the attacks on civilians from one side, we need to take a deeper look at the media and why they are given rights when they do it to march all over democracy.

So when we accept that any democracy gives us: “In a direct democracy, the citizens as a whole form a governing body and vote directly on each issue” and we see that we are not given the actual facts of ‘each issue‘, can we consider to agree that what was once a democracy optionally no longer is one?

The media has been about facilitation towards the big companies for too long, it is time to hold the media owners to account, it is the setting where we see that a democracy has turned into an oligarchy, it is the easiest to achieve in a republic setting, as corporations have a lot more power, in a monarchy that is a lot harder to achieve, but the power players in any Oligarchy achieve that by controlling the media and that is what is seemingly happening on a very large scale. It is time that we shine large lights on that part of the equation before the people to the largest degree no longer have any say in the matter. The EU is the best example (they have no hold or any say on the matters pushed for by the ECB), and it is there that we see the failing of democracy and some players are better out than in.

Even as the ECB is only now (after months of assurances that the Euro was looking up) giving the media “European Central Bank policymakers are concerned that economic growth in the euro zone is even weaker than feared“, as well as the Washington Post that gives us (at https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/a-3-trillion-bond-beast-runs-the-show-in-europe/2019/05/23/db45efa6-7d35-11e9-b1f3-b233fe5811ef_story.html), when we see the headline that I have spoken about for almost 2 years ‘A $3 Trillion Bond Beast Runs the Show in Europe‘, giving the ECB ruling on EU matters, the EU called a democracy now run by non-elected officials not accountable for their actions, whilst they pushed for that debt. That should be regarded that the EU has moved from so called Democracy into Oligarchy and the media stays silent, they need the ECB to feed them for circulation.

The media decided to sway the story, they decided not to tell us and people wonder why Brexit is the only remaining way out? I as a Brexiteer prefer a stage so that people can be held to account, the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Rt Hon Philip Hammond MP) can be held to account, and Mario Draghi President of the ECB cannot. The world is in a dangerous stage and the few that have hold on the media stay out of the spotlight for all the reasons that they consider to be right, do you agree?

I certainly don’t, not with this much evidence out in the open.

 

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May 23, 2019 · 11:51

The Scott Pilgrim of Technology

There is a moment when we have to take account of actions; we have to push into the direct limelight the ACTUAL dangers. I did some of it when the DJI issues hit the news. With ‘That’s the way the money flows‘ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2019/05/21/thats-the-way-the-money-flows/) we see certain actions, but have you considered the actual dangers?

In this case (for a few reasons I move towards the article in the Verge. Here (at https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/22/18634401/huawei-ban-trump-case-infrastructure-fears-google-microsoft-arm-security) we see what transpired half a day ago. With the ARM announcement people are getting worried. Yet they validly ask: “halting its access to current and future chip designs and coming on the heels of similar breaks from Google and Microsoft. Huawei is in deep, deep trouble, and we still don’t have a clear picture of why“.

Yes that is seemingly an issue, if there actually was an issue, in addition we are given “There’s never been a full accounting of why the US government believes Huawei is such a threat, in large part because of national security interests, which means much of the evidence remains secret” and that is where the issue is, it is hidden. There has not been one respectable cyber engineer giving a clear account of where the actual flaws are.

So when we see: “There was never any hard evidence of backdoors in Huawei’s cell towers — but, as hawks saw it, there didn’t need to be. As a hardware provider, Huawei needs to be able to deploy software the same way Apple deploys iOS updates. But as long as there was a pipeline from Huawei’s China headquarters to cell towers in the US, there would be a strong risk of Chinese surveillance agencies using it to sneak malware into the network“. We can accept that to some degree, yet the actual issue stated with: ‘there would be a strong risk of Chinese surveillance agencies using it to sneak malware into the network‘. If it is about risk then that risk is actually zero, you see Cisco solved that problem for Russian, Chinese and North Korean intelligence months ago. The fact that all over the US and now Europe, we see the dropping of Huawei as a consideration is not merely an act of discrimination, it could also be seen as an act of customer being betrayed by their governments.

What is the evidence?

As some experts give us something like: “The vulnerability could allow an authenticated, local attacker to write a modified firmware image to that component. A successful exploit could either cause the device to become unusable (and require a hardware replacement) or allow tampering with the Secure Boot verification process, according to Cisco’s advisory” and make no mistake, routers from Parks and recreation, to the Pentagon right up to the White House are optionally affected at present, the list (at https://tools.cisco.com/security/center/content/CiscoSecurityAdvisory/cisco-sa-20190513-secureboot#vp) shows a list that is impacting vulnerabilities to MILLIONS of devices and the media remains largely silent on it.

And when we also consider: “Other routing and switching gear patches won’t roll out until July and August, with some products slated for even later fixes, in October and November.” we should all realise that Chinese equipment does not make US hardware vulnerable, Cisco (an American company no less) did it for them. The Washington Post is not really covering it, are they? Perhaps because we see (at https://www.washingtonpost.com/brand-studio/wp/tag/cisco-webex) loads of space reserved for partner content, giving us the credo that I have mentioned a few times before. The media has become a whore (or perhaps better stated a person relying on questionable ethics). They cater to their shareholders, their stake holders and their advertisers; there is the real danger and the real vulnerability.

Keeping the people knowingly in the dark from actual dangerous situations, but that is not really what big business wants is it. The dangers that Huawei grew to twice its size was just too dangerous for those on the Wall Street gravy train, and whilst we see these dangers for almost a month, the value of Cisco goes up? Whilst millions of devices are vulnerable with many of them in that state to deep into November, optionally remaining a danger until well into January 2020, for the simple reason that delays are almost inevitable in these situations?

When we realise that we can Google on reported true and false weaknesses that hit Huawei and Cisco, it is shameful to see the following list:

News source

Huawei ‘danger’ given

Cisco vulnerability mentioned
Sydney Morning Herald

Yay

Nay
the Age

Yay

Nay
the Guardian

Yay

Nay
BBC

Yay

Nay
The Times

Yay

Nay
Australian Financial Review

Yay

Nay
Financial Times

Yay

Nay
Washington Post

Yay

Nay
LA Times

Yay

Nay
NOS (Dutch)

Yay

Nay
Dagens Nyheter (Swedish)

Yay

Nay

 

However, in case of the Sydney Morning Herald we do get to see sponsored content for Cisco and the Washington Post gave the readers Cisco Partner content.

As far as I have been able to tell, none of them gave any light to the vulnerabilities in Cisco Routers and Firewalls. Would you agree that a flaw impacting millions of devices is news? Many of them pulled a similar stunt in 2012 regarding Sony in the month before the release of the PS4. In regards to the list, these are supposed to be the more respectable choices for news; the list of absent news giving sources is a lot larger.

Whilst the IT news magazines gave the broader setting (as well as Cisco on their own site), we see that the media is seemingly playing a game of: ‘Let’s rent a hotel room on an hourly rate‘.

When we see Tara Seals in Threatpost giving us: “A critical vulnerability in Cisco’s software-defined networking (SDN) software could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to connect to a vulnerable data-center switch and take it over, with the privileges of the root user” (at https://threatpost.com/cisco-critical-nexus-9000-flaw/144290/), I suddenly realise that there is an inner demon with a pitchfork stabbing into my brain telling me that I am a pussy, I disagree! So here it is: “A message for the Pentagon IT department; Do you still have the password ‘Cisco123‘ on some of your routers? If so would it not be a great idea to change it before the Chinese Ministry of State Security and the Foreign Intelligence Service of the Russian Federation (SVR RF) decides to download your servers at their earliest convenience?”

I know it is an annoyance, but with Cisco flaws the way they were it is merely a small consideration, and let’s not forget that at this stage no Huawei device was required to acquire the information on your servers. I personally believe that it is time to reward those who do not apply common cyber sense to be rewarded with limelight. I have had to clean up the mess of others for well over a decade and now it is time to give those people the exposure they deserve (my findings regarding Credit Agricole will have to wait for a few more days). When you consider that the flaw also hits the Nexus 9000 Data Centre Switch, a device that is according to their own site ‘Built for scale, industry-leading automation, programmability, and real-time visibility‘, as well as “operate in Cisco NX-OS Software or Cisco ACI modes with ground-breaking Cloud Scale ASIC technology“, and lets be fair, there will always be an issue, a device on such scale cannot be flawless, yet when such a flaw is clearly reported on a level this big and the media merely looks at accusations against Huawei and leaves actual dangers unreported, the integrity of the media has become too large an issue on a global scale.

The issue is twofold for me, the first is that Huawei was never a risk and even as I disagree with the dumb headed approach that the US had, I am very much on the side of Alex Younger (the apparent fearless leader of MI-6), he is merely stating that non-British equipment (in this case Chinese) could be an optional threat in the future. His issue is that this level of infrastructure must be British and he is not wrong, no nation is wrong to have high level infrastructure equipment (whether it is 4G or 5G) in national hands. That is the application of common sense (yet realistically speaking not always pragmatic or achievable). so when he stated last February ‘It’s more complicated than in or out,‘ he is actually spot on, no one denies that. Yet the Americans had their big boots, brainless and started accusations that cannot be proven, that is an issue! For the US it was all about the money and American technology is losing more and more headway, they are literally falling further behind on a daily basis. As I personally see it the direct consequence on iteration versus innovation technology. When the best innovative step is Samsung giving the consumer the ability to share power wireless (which is awesome), even me as an anti-Samsung person will admit that they hit the jackpot with that one. How sad have players like Apple, Microsoft, IBM, INTEL et al really become?

How much of a Scott Pilgrim must we become fighting all the tech companies in the world before we get told the direct truth by the media? How much shaming must we do to make the media make us the number one directive, not the number four option? and as I have been considering more and more to put my IP vision valued at $2 billion public domain and let them fight it out among themselves, basically I am just too tired to engage in another round of bullshit with these so called executives and VP’s who (with the exception of Huawei and Google) do not have a clue on what they are doing in technology in the first place.

The larger problem is not Cisco; it is security and identity management. Most corporations are close to 5 years late into implementing an actual non-repudiation system and that is partially because there is no real good system or good way to ensure non-repudiation, an issue that should have been addressed almost 10 years ago, but never was, I personally tend to blame complacency there. I personally believe that a drive to iteration prevented innovation to get us there, but that is merely my view on the matter and I am perfectly happy to be proven wrong on this specific part.

Dozens of options (I actually had another idea towards a new solution to applied solar technology) all having larger impacts in larger cities and pilot places like Neom City, what does it take for some of these players to wake up and smell the dangers of corporate death through marketing set towards iterative release?

 

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May 17, 2019 · 12:48

After the Chinese wall

You might have heard of the Chinese wall, it is an information barrier that prevents internal exchange of communication when there is the danger of a conflict of interest. This is not to be mistaken with the Great Wall of China, which was opened in 1644 and had been subject to construction for almost 275 years. It is 21,196 Km in length and if it would still be possible to walk it from end to end, it would take roughly 26,495,000 steps to do that (and make you lose plenty of calories in the process). The Chinese wall was a defensive border against invading nomadic tribes, a means for taxing the Silk Road, and let us not forget the option of it being a means for controlling immigration, it is the biggest construction achievement in history as well as one of the very few constructs that can be seen with the naked eye from outer space. It was built in a time when things were simple. today less so, so when you look at the Washington Post (at https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/trump-wants-his-border-barrier-to-be-painted-black-with-spikes-he-has-other-ideas-too/2019/05/16/b088c07e-7676-11e9-b3f5-5673edf2d127_story.html) and see the images of what is supposed to be a solution to the American-Mexican border, we might focus on ‘Trump wants his border barrier to be painted black with spikes. He has other ideas, too‘. Yet that would be wrong. You see, when you consider the function of the wall and the fact that 2-3 M72 LAW(or Russian RPG-7) shots will make the wall passable and the fact that an M72 LAW is a mere $750, how much money is wasted whilst the US has a $22 trillion debt? So when I see: “Trump’s frequently shifting instructions and suggestions have left engineers and aides confused, according to current and former administration officials“, I roll my eyes and I recollect the issues that I am aware of regarding that naval failure called the USS Zumwalt. so when we see: “the GOA report finds that the Navy still does not have a suitable projectile for its two Advanced Gun Systems on the 16,000-ton destroyer, with the result that the surface combatants remain incapable of executing land-strike missions for now“, whilst we realise that project is the result from people who knew what they were doing, opposite the wall where anyone (knowledgeable or not) can give the idea “The bollards, or “slats,” as he prefers to call them, should be painted “flat black,” a dark hue that would absorb heat in the summer, making the metal too hot for climbers to scale, Trump has recently told White House aides, Homeland Security officials and military engineers“, all whilst the optional stage against that could be found by investing no more than $3,000 to take care of that ‘dilemma’ is laughable. Yes, there is a way to prevent my solution to work, yet that would increase the cost of that wall by well over 300%, that with $22 trillion debt? The fact that I designed a solution in less than 4 hours that could optionally sink the USS Zumwalt (as it is too ugly and too much of a failure to be allowed to exist) makes the entire stage debatable on several sides. So when we consider the Diplomat, through an article by Franz-Stefan Gady (at https://thediplomat.com/2019/05/us-government-report-outlines-problems-with-navys-zumwalt-class-destroyers/) giving us: “the Navy and General Dynamics-Bath Iron Works (BIW) shipyard were also found not to have stabilized the Zumwalt-class’ design before the construction of the first-of-class USS Zumwalt (DDG 1000) was kicked off in 2009, a major mistake according to the GAO report. “This approach contributed to numerous design changes after the fabrication start and significant cost increases and schedule delays,” the survey notes. “Nearly ten years later, development and shipboard testing of technologies continues, each of which could lead to discovery that could disrupt the design stability the Navy currently claims.”” one day ago, whilst my solution to take that bucket of bolts to the bottom of the ocean months ago. Initially (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2018/10/23/the-elephant-room/) in ‘the Elephant Room‘ and after that adding a few graphics (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2019/01/20/the-impact-of-insanity/) in the follow up ‘The Impact of insanity‘, where the easily designed solution was given, designed for the Iranian navy (as in sinking them) yes the stability issues (as I already noticed in 2018) might take that bucket of bolts (as good a label as any other) down too. You see the initial question that the Titanic raised was: ‘what if I screwed over the elements essential to the Archimedes principle?‘, if I change the essential part “equal to the weight of the fluid that the body displaces and acts in the upward direction“, what was buoyancy, now becomes weight and it will be bye bye USS Zumwalt. Actually, it was meant to be ‘So long Sahand‘ (as well as a few other names on the Iranian preferred to be on the sunken list). And in this it is not that I found a way, but that I found a way within a few hours. Merely by combining findings and creative adaptations from the 70’s (with one or two stealth adaptions created 25 years after that).

As we are given “Specifically, the board found over 320 serious deficiencies when the shipbuilder delivered DDG 1000’s HM&E in May 2016, and 246 serious deficiencies after the Navy conducted acceptance trials for DDG 1001 in January and February 2018,” according to the GAO. “This increases the likelihood that the ship will not be fully capable and sustainable when provided to the fleet” by the GAO (Government Accountability Office),

So when the GAO has that many issues, does it seem important for the Washington Post to note in addition, just how meaning less the wall is likely to be and the cost that the taxpayers will have to give up one way or another in light of $22 trillion already added to the cost of living for generations to come?

I wonder if the people realise the issues that will never be resolved and the wealth that construction firms gain (for services rendered mind you) to deliver an object that is unlikely to solve anything ever (at plenty of wealth towards the builders). Perhaps it is my pragmatic approach to solutions, perhaps it is my delusional state, I will let the reader decide which one applies to me, yet feel free to look at the Government Accountability Office report on a ship that cannot afford to fire its main guns (at $1,000,000 per shot), which is a $22.5 billion program and what was “A United States Navy guided missile destroyers designed as multi-mission stealth ships with a focus on land attack” and we now see: “with the result that the surface combatants remain incapable of executing land-strike missions for now“, so $22.5 billion designed and created for something it cannot do, what an executive treat to swallow.

Would you like to add a close to useless wall (for a mere $22,500,000,000) to that list of achievements?

 

 

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May 5, 2019 · 14:10

Will there be any Ivy League left?

I always understood that a decent education was essential in getting a good job, nowadays that is not a given, with several graduate degrees and a master, I am finding that at some point age discrimination is pretty overwhelmingly everything in the commonwealth. So when we get the juice on what makes for a good university, the LA Times article (at https://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-college-admissions-scandal-target-letters-20190503-story.html) are some universities actually as good as they are cracked up to be? When they admit students through bribery and other means, does that not give a clear case that the overall result of these students imply that they no longer have the best?

The accusation: “The 33 parents charged in the scandal so far are accused of paying $15,000 to $75,000 per child for rigged college entrance exams, and $100,000 to $400,000 per child for an athletics recruiting scam.” is a two edged blade. To what extent was the university part of the admittance? The second part is which deserving student was there for removed from consideration? There is a third, mainly how much additional funds will be shoved into some directions for these students to actually graduate?

The third one is a consideration that is set on very thin ice. Beyond the admittance part, there is actually no evidence of any kind that wrongdoing was done, and when we consider the amount of people trying to get into Stanford, Harvard, Yale, MIT and the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, the case could be made that beside a very small greed driven group within the universities, there is a mere showing at best that this merely involved a few rotten apples at best, but how can we be certain?

You see, there is more to “Federal prosecutors have sent a letter to Yusi Zhao, whose parents paid $6.5 million to the consultant at the heart of the college admissions scandal, informing the former Stanford student she is a possible target of their investigation, a person familiar with the matter said“, we can accept that there is a clear case of timing that is to be played, but it goes beyond that, the fact that “Neither Zhao nor her parents have been charged in the case that has ensnared 50 people, including Hollywood actresses and financiers“, I personally would argue (based on not having seen any evidence) that them either not being investigated, or having avoided the trap in the first place implies (emphases on implies) that they have had clear intent of not getting caught, the innocent always get trapped initially, only the aware avoid all set traps. Yusi Zhao is the daughter of Chinese billionaire Tao Zhao and the implied fatherly side was seen in the New York Post (at https://nypost.com/2019/05/03/meet-the-posh-billionaire-family-entangled-in-admissions-scam/) only two days ago. To be honest, I would be able to relate to “But Yusi “Molly” Zhao’s pharma tycoon dad once bragged that he has no time for rich kids who “don’t rely on their own abilities.”“. Yes, the amount of stupid rich kids that squandered the family fortune, there are plenty of examples and an exponential more examples in the Hollywood film script department. You want to give your kids a leg up by getting them a good education, yet there are more good educators beyond the Ivy league, There are excellent universities in Illinois, California (Berkeley to name one), Columbia, Indiana and Florida. Plenty have highly desired degrees, so why would someone spend $6.5 million when $125K does it; merely because Mark Zuckerberg attended Stanford? People can’t be that dim can they? Well, they can but they end up not being billionaires that is the short and sweet of it.

The problem is not merely the kids of the 33 parents; the issue is that the overall value of the universities involved would find an impact down the line. Will there be the impact when they graduate on the papers that they publish? Will academia go with the statement that as the position was fraudulently acquired, whatever they publish would be scrutinised as non-valued? You might laugh at that, but that is a much bigger issue than we think. Anyone who had to present and upload there papers for grading, having it checked for plagiarism, we all sweated when the number get above a certain point.

  • Did we make a mistake?
  • Are all our references correctly in place?
  • Did someone copy our work?

We get the weirdest fears, often all undeserving, but every university has forever been hammering down on plagiarism, so when one of their papers ends up being a tad too high on the checking software scale, will the thought be they got into the university fraudulently? So they might go with the old stage of having more likely than not copied other work. It sounds crazy, but is it?

It is that much of a leap? If a non-sailor can get into a sailing position with help of a fund supported coach (John Vandemoer), staged as a competitive sailor, what else could have happened? I was (to some degree) a sailor myself, yet I could not hold a candle to some real sailors and she gets in under the radar with full sails unfurled? I believe that this should be regarded as a signal that more was going on.

The news is spreading like wildfire and as we get most of the information we saw in the Washington Post (at https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2019/05/03/she-paid-college-consultant-million-get-her-daughter-into-stanford-she-said-she-was-tricked/)

Here too we see the emphasis on “No members of the Zhao family have been charged, and they are not mentioned in court papers. But when U.S. Attorney Andrew Lelling announced the arrests in March, he said one family had paid $6.5 million. The Los Angeles Times first reported that it was the Zhao family that had paid the seven-figure sum — far more than anyone else charged in the scheme“, I personally still have the feeling that someone who has been able to avoid all mention has worked much more with intent than the others, now I could be wrong, but the old truth that to avoid a trap you need to know one is there seems to be central in all this, more important. Yet the reference that the LA Times had was missing, how it all started (at https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-morrie-tobin-college-admissions-scandal-20190331-story.html), how Morrie Tobin, regarded to be a crooked Finance exec, and when Andrew Lelling gave the media “Our first lead in this came during interviews with a target of an entirely separate investigation, who gave us a tip that this activity might be going on,” we get to see “The tip led investigators to a soccer coach at Yale University, who, in turn, pointed them to William “Rick” Singer, the college admissions consultant who would confess to being the mastermind of the admissions racket. With Singer’s cooperation, FBI agents set about building cases against dozens of the wealthy parents on his client list as well as people at universities across the country Singer allegedly paid to help students cheat their way into school.” within the short time that follows, we see 33 parents and 17 others to be the target of a court case that will impact several Ivy League Universities and even as this was from one tip, the rest will be squawking like goose to get away with as little damage as possible, as such we cannot tell how far this will go, but it will hit others, I have very little doubt on that front.

My reasoning is this, this has been going on for a while, and the way that the amount of money has been moved around implies that the people involved are not on their first milk run. The ABC quote: “Prosecutors said Huffman, 56, made a $15,000 contribution to Singer’s foundation in exchange for having an associate of Singer’s in 2017 secretly correct her daughter’s answers on a college entrance exam at a test centre Singer controlled” gives rise to that. Not merely the fact that she did it, but somehow she was contacted or she contacted a party involved, the fact that the SAT scores were ‘corrected’ in the window available implies that the system is larger spread and available to a larger worried audience (read: parents in fear that their kids will not be good enough). The term ‘associate of Singer‘ also implies that this man had fingers in many American Pie’s and to keep it a secret to the degree it was requires cooperation on certain levels, secrets like these tend to get out in the civil world, the fact it did not is an implication by itself.

There is optionally the fact that this kid went to a test centre that Singer controlled is up for debate whether that was merely fortunate for Huffman. If there is one issue, than it is the issue that there is every change that the kids will now walk with a mark on their life, a mark they optionally did not want, require or ask for.

God help us from overprotective parents at times.

 

 

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March 9, 2019 · 12:23

Bells of Duty and Death

We have all heard it before, the clarion call, the bells are ringing and of course in 1983 the bells of St Mark were all ringing for Sheila E. So what happens, when you make that one mistake where your moment of non-concentration gets people killed, optionally a lot of people! That is what the Washington Post gives us (at https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2019/03/06/hundreds-immigrant-recruits-risk-death-sentence-after-army-bungles-sensitive-data/?utm_term=.d381e6f9d0ff)

The starter “Army officials inadvertently disclosed sensitive information about hundreds of immigrant recruits from nations such as China and Russia, in a breach that could aid hostile governments in persecuting them or their families, a lawmaker and former U.S. officials said.” is not a soft one. What the never explainable bloody hell is going on? When I see: “A spreadsheet intended for internal coordination among recruiters was accidentally emailed to recruits and contained names, Social Security numbers and enlistment dates. The list was sent out inadvertently at least three times between July 2017 and January 2018.” So over a period of 6 months, we see an optional 50% failure. I can see at least 4 solutions that could have prevented that. The issue of mailing spreadsheets with names is just a joke. If it is sensitive data, we can argue that it might be in a spreadsheet, yet the mailing of sensitive data has always required the need of vetting before pressing send. It is the one time when the military looks more evolved (‘used’ to being the operative term) than the leaking baboons of Wall Street.

So when we see: “more than 900 Chinese Mandarin speakers and dozens of Russian speakers are on the spreadsheet, according to a copy obtained by The Post.” We need to realise that some people are highly overdue for the loss of rank and even worse. It goes a lot further when we consider the quote: “Abhishek Bakshi, an Indian recruit, said he received the list by accident in July 2017 from an Army recruiter in Wisconsin who asked whether he wanted to schedule a security interview. The spreadsheet was disturbing, said Bakshi, whose name is on the list“, this sets the stage where people can be coerced and even blackmailed in several ways. When we also vet “received the list in December 2017, among other documents related to enlistment, after it was forwarded among a chain of recruiting officials“, we see a larger danger when we consider ‘a chain of recruiting officials‘, where we consider not only the validity of the people, the fact that it was a list of people, we need to worry on who they shared their list with. A chain implies the setting of multiple links, each and every one of them weaker than the preceding link.

The dangers actually exceed what the Post gives us. In case of Russian, Pakistani and Chinese setting, it is not out of the question that the acquired names and Social Security numbers can be used to create a trigger database to change the parameters of having a valid life. When those numbers are used to track locations (housing), assets (cars) and even financial gains (educational scholarships) the future of these people could be undone within a year creating all kinds of security hazards, not to mention a financial mess that the victim is unable to undo for months, even years.

It is even worse when we consider the quote: “In 2018 under the Trump administration, the Army began discharging soldiers who had enlisted under the MAVNI program. Most were reportedly not given notice of why they were being discharged, but their citizenship status was jeopardized as a result. Many of them had served honorably in Afghanistan, Iraq and other locations around the world” showing that the United States has no intention of honouring its commitments, as such, when the next escalation comes, how will the US Military solve it? They are unlikely to be ever trusted again. Not only are hundreds in danger of being ‘chased’ out of the US, many of them with a honourable military roll call. the fact that these veterans are shipped out will set a most dangerous precedent down the line, and it does not stop there.

The homeless soldier

The issue that is rearing its ugly head is not new, there is more news now, but this has been going on for a long time, getting a lot of limelight in 2018. As we see (at https://www.military.com/daily-news/2019/03/07/senator-involve-doj-military-housing-scandal.html), we see a dangerous stage with: “The U.S. armed services should consult with the U.S. Department of Justice regarding the conduct of private companies hired to manage military housing“, I see absolutely no issue if the DoJ would start annexing these properties and making them part of the DoJ asset database. When we are confronted with “The contractors, he said, provided substandard, unhealthy and inadequate housing and ignored pleas to repair or service the homes“, I see a stage where it has become the responsibility of Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn to move towards confiscation of property if a 100% adjustment has not been achieved within 60 days. So when I see: “in February, a survey of more than 14,500 residents of base housing found that 56 percent said they had “negative or very negative experiences” with their houses on military installations“. Now we all have issues with housing at times, yet when that impression gets to be a zero positive view for 56% a much larger issue is in play and changes are essential. These soldiers are often underpaid, under-acknowledged and now even below substandard housed, we see the clear need to clean that mess up, annexing housing and removing ownership from these owners has become an essential first. So when we accept: ‘a baby who lived in the home developed pneumonia and later had a stroke‘ we see a clear case of reckless endangerment of life and that can never be accepted, I do agree that the establishment of guilt, as well as the need to ascertain whether the tenants had taken serious steps to diminish risk. In addition to all that these landlords need to be put into a database, the people have a right to know when soldiers get housing that a dog on a junkyard would not accept on a rainy winter day. The final straw is seen with ‘other concerns raised by senators was the relationship between base housing offices and the private management companies‘, in my view it does not matter whether it is a case of corruption or nepotism, it is the direct stage where the fighting force is disabled through greed driven facilitation and that cannot be allowed to exist in any way, shape or form. So when we see Sen. Martha McSally, R-Arizona giving us: ‘the two parties appear to be “in cahoots.”‘ we see an optional prosecutable form of what could be regarded as corruption. It is not always stated to be money that funds the prosecution corruption, enabling economic benefits, facilitation towards non accountability of services and quality are all issues that can be translated into monetary value, making it a larger issue for prosecution and in that case anyone found guilty will (read: should) be stripped of the land titles, the housing and the deeds to these places and placed directly with the Defence department at that stage. In that context there is one part I do not agree with. It is found at the end of the article where we see: “Air Force Chief of Staff David Goldfein said he has lived in base housing for more than 50 years, including his childhood, and he wanted airmen to have safe communities where they don’t have to worry about their children’s health or about retaliation if they complain about the condition of their housing“, from my personal point of view, his actions are well over a decade late (even as we accept that he might not have been in an operational place to act earlier on, his predecessor clearly was).

In this day and age when the military needs to catch up on several fields, the last thing they should ever have to concern themselves with is the fact that their details are spread like wildfire by someone who has no clear regard for proper email and cyber security issues, besides that being in reliable housing is the clear responsibility of their CEO (aka the general of defense housing). It is not important whether your house is Air force blue, Army green or Naval grey, there will be a General, Air Marshall or Admiral in charge of that division and ringing their bell should at this point be the right of every enlisted man that is part of the US defense forces, however I might have oversimplified the matter.

We will have to see what extent Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Connecticut is willing to take the baton, if he does not make it to the final stretch, we can consider that the next senatorial elections are in 2020, so either he has a following of a million+ in 2020, or he could optionally consider his next job to be with Uber (yes, I do have a flaky sense of humour).

I personally think that making quick cash at the expense of servicemen needs to be looked at in much harsher ways and it is our duty to expose those who would want to exploit this group for personal gains to a much larger degree than has been done until now. It does not matter what country you are in, we do not merely have a decent responsibility to thank them for their service; we all have a partial a duty of care that they do not have to deal with this kind of shit in any way shape or form ever.

 

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February 19, 2019 · 11:59

Gangsters of tomorrow?

I was alerted to an article regarding ‘Facebook labelled ‘digital gangsters’ by report on fake news‘ on LinkedIn. The article (at https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/feb/18/facebook-fake-news-investigation-report-regulation-privacy-law-dcms) is an interesting read, but there are issues (they always are). First of all Facebook is not innocent, Facebook has bungled a few items and they have done so several times, we have all seen that. Yet the report (at https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201719/cmselect/cmcumeds/1791/1791.pdf) has a few issues too and it starts in the summary. It starts with “We have always experienced propaganda and politically-aligned bias, which purports to be news, but this activity has taken on new forms and has been hugely magnified by information technology and the ubiquity of social media. In this environment, people are able to accept and give credence to information that reinforces their views, no matter how distorted or inaccurate, while dismissing content with which they do not agree as ‘fake news’. This has a polarising effect and reduces the common ground on which reasoned debate, based on objective facts, can take place“, the issues here are:

  1. Magnified by information technology and the ubiquity of social media.
  2. People are able to accept and give credence to information that reinforces their views.
  3. Dismissing content with which they do not agree as ‘fake news’.
  4. Reduces the common ground on which reasoned debate, based on objective facts, can take place.

First of all, these are not lies, they are correct as elements. Yet we need to take another look at these issues. In the first the common side of social media is the part that makes all people talk to one another, even as we agree that when it comes to the display of news people do not really tend to talk, they often merely voice an opinion or a thought. Having an actual conversation in mobile distance based events is as rare of finding a £10 in the jeans you just took out of the washing machine. The second is obvious, it always has been so even before the age of social media, and the difference is that they now voice it to thousands of people at the same time, exposing millions of people to millions of voiced views. When it comes to item three, try to find an accepted labour idea in a conservative house of commons and vice versa, debunking each other’s views is a state of active mind and the non-elected get to have a lot more attention than the elected one (a weird logical truth), it has been the clear path of exposure since even before WW2, the fact that the loudest voice gets the room is not new, it is merely the fact that we get to hear twenty thousand loud mouthing opinions. It is number 4 that is the one issue that gives additional rise to the first three. When I search ‘News’ in Facebook I get the BBC, Nine News, ABC News, News.com.au, and several more. Yet the issue is not that they are there, it is what they state is very much the issue and the report is seemingly interestingly ignoring that part.

For News.com.au I get ‘Kate Ritchie smokin’ undies shoot‘ linking to: ‘Nova radio host Kate Ritchie stars in sexy underwear campaign‘, ‘Woolworths to axe $1-a-litre fresh milk but Coles refusing to follow’, and ‘Sailor from World War II kissing photo dies at age 95’, so as ‘news value’ goes, the value of news is very much a discussion a well, these organisation use social media to the max as to increase exposure to self, which is what it is supposed to do, the committee seems to have forgotten that part. The BBC is all about news, even as ’50 Cent: Claims police told to ‘shoot’ rapper investigated’ stands out a bit (it is still news). 9 News gets the attention with: “Human remains have been found during the search for a woman who went missing more than 300km away, with two people in custody over her suspicious disappearance“, it is all about the clicks as the article (on their site) gives us from the beginning “Human remains have been found in Victoria’s east“, the news themselves are exploiting social media to improve circulation (clicks are everything), yet that part is missing in all this. When it comes to ‘fake news’ the media is equally to blame, yet that part was clearly missed by the committee.

And as we see the news “There’s nothing new about personalised number plates, but soon drivers will be able to go a step further and add emojis!“, all this 2 hours ago whilst,

  • ‘Hamas enlists female participation in border riots‘
  • ‘London social housing block residents warn of ‘death trap’ conditions‘
  • ‘Terror expert warns Sweden against repatriating Syria jihadists‘

They are merely three out of a whole range of news items that do not make it to social media. The issue of ‘the common ground on which reasoned debate‘ requires a much wider base and the media is not using social media for that, it makes the media equally to blame, a part that has not been put under the spotlight either. The media uses social media as it is supposed to be used and it seems that the committee is a little too much in the dark there.

On page 10 we get: “In our Interim Report, we disregarded the term ‘fake news’ as it had “taken on a variety of meanings, including a description of any statement that is not liked or agreed with by the reader” and instead recommended the terms ‘misinformation’ and ‘disinformation’. With those terms come “clear guidelines for companies, organisations and the Government to follow” linked with “a shared consistency of meaning across the platforms, which can be used as the basis of regulation and enforcement”.” You see ‘fake news’ is at the heart of the matter and when we see ‘disregarded’, as well as ‘a variety of meanings’ we get the first part that this is about slamming Facebook (always entertaining mind you), yet the media is at the heart of the matter and they too need to be held to account in all this. It is enhanced by statement 16 on the next page: “proliferation of online harms is made more dangerous by focussing specific messages on individuals as a result of ‘micro-targeted messaging’“, it sounds nice until you realise that the media themselves are doing this too, so the overall view gets to be skewed by the media from the start. So consider ‘Start-up founder says employees should only work six-hour days’, whilst in the text we see (amongst more) “Next, we should cut down or get rid of tasks that “don’t add value” such as slashing wasteful meetings in half and switching off distracting notifications. For process-oriented jobs, Mr Glaveski said it was a good idea to automate where possible, and where it wasn’t, the option of outsourcing should be explored“, which largely impedes the existence of places like IBM, Microsoft, and a few other large players. Yet the idea is concept based and the optional loss of 25% income is not expressed as to the stage of who can afford to continue on that premise.

In all this, the media has its own need for ‘micro-targeted messaging’, where that ends is not a given and that part does not matter,  it does matter that the message micro and macro is enhanced by the media themselves, yet where is their part mentioned in all that?

When the reports finally makes it to Data use and Data targeting we get: “We have instigated criminal proceedings and referred issues to other regulators and law enforcement agencies as appropriate. And, where we have found no evidence of illegality, we have shared those findings openly. Our investigation uncovered significant issues, negligence and contraventions of the law“, which we wold expect, yet in light of the larger issue where we see: “the use of data analytics for political purposes, which started in May 2017. It states that it “had little idea of what was to come. Eighteen months later, multiple jurisdictions are struggling to retain fundamental democratic principles in the fact of opaque digital technologies”“, I taught it 20 years ago, although not in a political setting, yet the use of data analysis was used in political fields as early as the mid 80’s, so the confusion is a little weird, especially when the footnote linked to the report (at https://ico.org.uk/media/action-weve-taken/2260271/investigation-into-the-use-of-data-analytics-in-political-campaigns-final-20181105.pdf) gives us on page 8: “Particular concerns include the purchasing of marketing lists and lifestyle information from data brokers without sufficient due diligence, a lack of fair processing and the use of third party data analytics companies, with insufficient checks around consent“, the issue not given is that marketing lists have been available for 20 years, laws had the option of being adjusted for well over 15 years, yet the players only realised too late (some never did) how affordable Facebook and other social media players made this route towards creating awareness, as well as using media to adjust a person’s view became a cheap solution for political players that had little or no budget. The paths were there for well over a decade and nothing was done, now Facebook is lashed at whilst the lists of Dunnhumby and like-minded owners (Dutch Airmiles) and several others are ignored to a larger degree, a path that has been open to adjustment for decades. The law could have been adjusted, but no one bothered, now we see the impact and the lashing out at Facebook, whilst the players were clueless to the largest extent, the 2015 evidence seen as we see: ‘dunnhumby: how Tesco destroyed £1.3bn of value in 9 months‘, the initial moment already showed the failing of insight (as I saw the entire Tesco disaster unfold when it happened in 2015), and with:

In haste to ready Dunnhumby for sale, Tesco made two critical errors that left the company unsellable:

First, Tesco terminated its 50/50 joint venture with Kroger, instead restructuring in such a way that Kroger bought out Tesco and formed a new wholly-owned data company called 84.51°. In this new arrangement, Dunnhumby USA retained its other clients and was now free to pursue new business with Kroger competitors, but no lost its access to Kroger’s customer data.

Second, Tesco capped the length of time that Dunnhumby would have exclusive rights to use the data from the 16 million Tesco Clubcard users. As outlined above, Dunnhumby relies on this data not only to derive profits from its partnership with Tesco but also from reselling this data to the manufacturers.

(source: https://digit.hbs.org/submission/dunnhumby-how-tesco-destroyed-1-3bn-of-value-in-9-months/) we see just how clueless the larger players have been and there are additional questions that this committee should be able to answer, yet they cannot and as you can read they decided not to address any of it.

Its members:

  • Damian Collins MP (Conservative, Folkestone and Hythe) (Chair)
  • Clive Efford MP (Labour, Eltham)
  • Julie Elliott MP (Labour, Sunderland Central)
  • Paul Farrelly MP (Labour, Newcastle-under-Lyme)
  • Simon Hart MP (Conservative, Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire)
  • Julian Knight MP (Conservative, Solihull)
  • Ian C. Lucas MP (Labour, Wrexham)
  • Brendan O’Hara MP (Scottish National Party, Argyll and Bute)
  • Rebecca Pow MP (Conservative, Taunton Deane)
  • Jo Stevens MP (Labour, Cardiff Central)
  • Giles Watling MP (Conservative, Clacton)

They should also be held to a much higher account, as I personally see this situation. Not that they have done anything wrong officially. Yet the consideration that we see on page 87 where we are treated to: “As we wrote in our Interim Report, digital literacy should be a fourth pillar of education, alongside reading, writing and maths. In its response, the Government did not comment on our recommendation of a social media company levy, to be used, in part, to finance a comprehensive educational framework“, the fact that digital literacy is missing on a global scale is a much larger concern, one that political players on both sides of the isle in the House of Commons seem to have been ignoring to the largest extent. It should be part of primary school education nowadays, yet it is not.

We see supporting evidence in the ‘Impact of social media and screen-use on young people’s health‘ publication. When we read: “In 2017, however, the Children’s Commissioner for England, Anne Longfield, reported that children were “not being equipped with adequate skills to negotiate their lives online” and that they needed help from adults to “develop resilience and the ability to interact critically with the world”“, we see one part, it comes from oral evidence Q566, which gives us the question by Stephen Metcalfe ‘There is a lot of emphasis on preparing children and young people for a digital life—on making them digitally literate. What do you think digital literacy actually means? What are the boundaries? What should we be teaching them, and at what age should we start?‘, the response is “A report I put out earlier this year, “Life in Likes,” which dealt with eight to 12-year-olds, focused heavily on emotional literacy. Schools seem to have done a decent job in looking at safety online. Children will now tell you that you should not put out a photograph of you wearing your uniform. People go to great lengths to trace you. Safety within school has really progressed, but the emotional resilience to be able to deal with it is not there yet. The key age for me is about year six and year seven. Beyond that, it is to do with the mechanics: how it works and algorithms. You do get targeted with stuff. It is not just everyone getting this. There are things coming your way because the machine is set up to work out what interests you. There are things around terms and conditions and knowing what you are signing up to. We did a big piece of work last year with lawyers that reduced and simplified terms and conditions from 17 pages to one. Of course, when people read it and it says, “We own all your stuff and we’ll do what we like with it,” it gets a different response. That is probably not the thing that will make us all turn off, but it might make us think twice about what we are doing.” Longfield gives us a good, yet in this case incorrect (read; incomplete) answer.

From my point of view through the abilities within Facebook we forget that ‘There are things coming your way because the machine is set up to work out what interests you‘, yet the numbers do not add up, you see the bigger issue behind it is that people can buy likes and some do, so the person clicks on something that has 50,000 likes, yet if they knew that 45,000 likes were bought they might not have clicked on it. It becomes the consideration of likes versus engagement. That elementary lack is important. Engagement is everything and in the consideration of item 4 earlier where we saw ‘reasoned debate, based on objective facts‘, we might seem to think that clicks are an objective fact, yet they are not. The amount of people engaged in the conversation is a subjective fact, yet an actual fact, bought clicks are not and that is an important failure in all this. So when we are confronted with upcoming 2% digital services tax, which is merely a cost of doing business, whilst the lack of digital literacy that is spawned from a lack of education is a difference that most are not made aware of.

When we finally get to the Conclusions and recommendations we might focus on: “Social media companies cannot hide behind the claim of being merely a ‘platform’ and maintain that they have no responsibility themselves in regulating the content of their sites. We repeat the recommendation from our Interim Report that a new category of tech company is formulated, which tightens tech companies’ liabilities, and which is not necessarily either a ‘platform’ or a ‘publisher’. This approach would see the tech companies assume legal liability for content identified as harmful after it has been posted by users. We ask the Government to consider this new category of tech company in its forthcoming White Paper” we do see a truth, yet again an incomplete one. The media is equally to blame and not holding them to account, letting them focus on populist views and pressures (apart from the authentic news bringers like the BBC, Washington Post and the Guardian), we are pushed into a skewed view from the very beginning, that part was equally important and avoided throughout the report. For example the Daily Mail gives us ‘amazing footage‘ of ‘Heartwarming moment Syria’s White Helmets rescue two puppies from being crushed to death by rubble after a building was torn apart by heavy shelling‘, yet the news given several hours ago ‘Saudi Arabia has provided more than $13 billion in support to Yemen since 2014‘ never made it did it? The Daily mail was all about on how to not open a beer keg (by making a hole in the side using a spigot and a piece of wood) and ignoring ‘UK-based man charged with inciting attack in Germany‘ (source: Washington Post). So when it comes to the entire matter of social media and their ability of being merely a ‘platform’ (which they are) the accountability of the media as a whole is a much larger failure and the fact that the committee decided to leave that on the side invalidates the report to a much larger degree (not completely though) as I personally see it.

Facebook might not be innocent, yet the media as a whole is just as guilty. They have made the consideration of what is ‘fake news’ a much larger issue. The few that do a good job are filtered into silence by the hundreds of media outlets that do what social media is supposed to do, create awareness of self through promotion of ‘self’ on a granular population, as granular as possible.

The fact that the word ‘engagement‘ is only seen three times in the report, ‘click‘ is only seen twice, ‘filter‘ (like: filtering, filtered) is seen once and so is ‘selected‘, yet the last word is not see in regards to what the user of a social media account chose to observe.

All elements at the very foundation of: ‘Disinformation and ‘fake news’‘, in that light, just how valid is that report and what else are the people not made aware of? So in light of the members of that committee and the amount of money they made (and the costs that they gave the taxpayers) through lunches, travel expenses and all other forms of remunerations: Can we get that back please?

 

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February 11, 2019 · 12:34

The Australian Catastrophic Colliding Canine

I tend to keep my eyes on Europe, mainly because what impacts the UK today will have an impact on Australia a week later; in addition to that, what happens in Japan today when it comes to consumer electronics and mobile events will get to Australia 3-5 years later. In that respect having a larger view on matters is essential to keep an eye on what could become an impact tomorrow.

Yesterday was different, with ‘Regulation needed to save Australian journalism from Facebook and Google, watchdog says‘ we see the impact for Australia now and to be honest, I can’t stop laughing at present. The article (at https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/feb/11/regulation-needed-to-curb-facebook-and-google-competition-watchdog-says)

When I read: “Rod Sims, said the digital platforms inquiry, which delivered its preliminary report in December, reveals that the market power enjoyed by the digital behemoths is weakening Australian media“, the giggles increase. Especially when we consider ‘the platforms are not creating any original, quality Australian news’, well we could consider that the Australian media is for the most not doing that either. For the most Australian media is weakening Australian media plain and simple. To name but a one issue, October 2012, I alerted the media to an issue impacting 30 million gamers within the commonwealth. I directly alerted Channel 7, Channel 9 and the Sydney Morning Herald; the all ignored it to the largest degree. There were clear screenshots on how the impact was given, yet the left it on the left of what was important. A change by Sony for their gaming community 3 weeks before the PS4 was released, they all (except for the Australian Guardian) ignored it for the most, and perhaps it was not news? What they (as I personally see it) intentionally ignored is that the Sony Terms of Service is a legally binding contract, the mention of a memo is merely a piece of paper that could be ignored the very next directors meeting. The press needed advertisement dollars and Sony is high on that list of needs, PlayStation 4 was big bucks, plain and simple. In addition there were debatable reviews of Microsoft for the period of two years and the least said about Apple the better, as I see it Australian Media is its own worst enemy. It is my personally view to size up global media as a collection of prostitutes with a priority towards the shareholders, the stake holders and the advertisers, the audience comes in 4th position at best. So when I see: “However, while taking the lion’s share of advertising revenue, the platforms are not creating any original, quality Australian news“, we need to wonder where Australian quality news is found. I will agree that this is found at SBS and ABC, but they are the two exceptions to all this.

When the British Daily Mail gives us on the 9th of February “Respected Channel 7 news reporter Emily Angwin (pictured) was said to be furious at a number of work emails questioning the integrity of the newsroom in Melbourne” is anyone actually surprised? Is it true? We cannot tell because in many ways most of the Australian media is no longer that reliable. And from my vantage point it becomes worse when we go to https://au.news.yahoo.com/. Here we see above the fold ‘Hero pitbull breaks out of home to find help for owner during gas leak‘, ‘Restaurant blames waitress for ‘incredibly racist’ receipt‘, and ‘‘Whoah!’ Man’s breath test returns ‘biologically impossible’ result‘. This is the kind of emotional reporting that gives news a bad name. Compare that to abc.net.au where we see: ‘Global drug trafficking operation run out of Villawood detention centre, phone taps reveal‘, ‘Missing persons expert slams investigation of young mother’s suspected homicide‘, as well as ‘Why the AWU wants to question Michaelia Cash in court over union raids‘. So one is clearly about news, the other is about creating emotional events. I let you decide which is which, and as we take notice of: “Given all this, it is also vital that media businesses are not disadvantaged through the exercise of market power or other mechanisms that make it difficult for them to compete on their merits” We see that the there is another case in dispute. The dispute is ‘media businesses‘ versus ‘journalism‘, so I hope that the ACCC realises that not only are they not the same, they are at present mere dimensions apart.

And questions need to be asked at the Channel 9 address as well. We can agree that the headlines are better than those of Channel 7 when we see: ‘Exclusive: Vampire Killer Tracey Wigginton’s disturbing new posts‘, ‘Man found with gunshot wound to his stomach in Melbourne’s north-west‘, as well as ‘Snorkeller found dead on sea floor off Mornington Peninsula‘, yet there too we have issues as every news item gives us headers and banners of advertisement. News is news and the main players have resorted to self-indulgence of advertising, reloading at every page. The journalism is merely second best at best.

It becomes a different puppy when we look at the mention “The financial viability of these businesses is also not assured as demonstrated by BuzzFeed and Vice recently announcing redundancies in Australia, as well as worldwide“, you see from my point of visibility, we see the Wikipage part (for mere illustration) where the visible information is: “Originally known for online quizzes, “listicles”, and pop culture articles, the company has grown into a global media and technology company, providing coverage on a variety of topics including politics, DIY, animals, and business.” Now, I have seen those buzzfeeds on my Facebook page and I decided not to give them any consideration (as a news source). Even as we now see (I was honestly not aware) “In late 2011, Buzzfeed hired Ben Smith of Politico as editor-in-chief, to expand the site into serious journalism, long-form journalism, and reportage.” We can accept and appreciate that Buzzfeed was taking a serious gander into journalism, yet when people are not aware (or another part of them has created more awareness), we get the impact of consideration versus awareness and non-awareness loses clicks, it is that simple, and the same applies for Australian sources. For the most, the only Australian sources I give consideration to are: ABC, SBS, the Guardian (Australian edition) and that is pretty much it; the rest is too often a waste of time. When we are serious about news, we go to the places where they offer it, not where they claim to offer it. That is how I personally see it and I use the Guardian as a source (as it is free) and I neglect the Times (most often) as I am not a paid subscriber and I feel it is money not greatly spend when I am, like most others on a budget, as such it is not money I have available to do that. It is an important factor as I am merely one of many that need to get by on a budget, that too impacts the news and the ACCC is a little ignorant on that part as well.

They might want to strike out at Google and Facebook. Yet Google News gives us ALL the headlines, from almost every source and that links to the local news articles. So when we see “The preliminary report recommended a powerful new authority to oversee the commercial activities of Google and Facebook” My question becomes ‘How is that going to make a difference?‘ In the end this is not about journalism, but about media and they are not the same, if the ACCC wants to make an actual impact, looking at the quality of journalism we will see that Australia will be left with the Guardian, ABC and SBS. When we were introduced to: “The Turnbull government has announced a funding freeze for the ABC but a boost for the Special Broadcasting Service“, whilst the boost is a mere $14.6 million over two years, when we realise that this all reads like a joke, how useless is the ACCC in all this and whilst we see the decimated pool of journalists, what are they doing (apart from wasting our time on something that the seemingly see as a waste of effort and budget), it is from my point of view a mere article on the foundation that reads: “Australian media is seen as irrelevant, we do not know what to do“, and it is shown against the likes of Facebook and Google, where we need to realise that they are also two different dimensions. Facebook is a mass advertisement channel, a channel that assumes that they know what their granular population wants through scripted likes and the scripted likes of the connections of that person, and Google shows the news in directions that the people searched in, or searched for. One is budget based, the other is user keywords based and the ACCC is seemingly in the dark on the fact that for the most people no longer see Australian media as relevant. That is shown a mere 34 seconds ago when I searched for “Channel 7 News” in the News tab, I was treated to: ‘Channel 7 presenter makes heartbreaking plea‘, ‘Ripped bodybuilder ends TV interview on a wild note‘, as well as ‘Caesarean birth to be broadcast live on Channel 7‘. As I see it, when it comes to visibility is seems to me that Channel 7 has a lot to learn as to the bidding on keywords as well as their methodology on how to properly position news, as well as their approach on how they want to present the ‘news’ (https://7plus.com.au/seven-news-sydney), for most people a 44 minute newscast is not the way to go (having one is still important for many though).

In the end, as I see it, the ACCC is up against the image of certain channels, their digital policies, as well as the approach they have towards news and advertisers. It is becoming less about journalism and merely about the positioning of media which is done tremendously below average. If you want to see how it should be done, watch The Guardian (UK) and BBC News (also UK), for those with language skills, the Dutch Volkskrant (at https://www.volkskrant.nl/), as well as The Swedish SVT (at https://www.svt.se/). As I personally see it Australian media has a lot to learn and that lacking part is not up to the ACCC, apart from them bashing the Australian media from drowning people in advertisements to a level that is just making them irrelevant. It is merely my point of view and I might be wrong, yet I personally do not think so. The foreign amount of visitors to the Guardian, the NY Times, the LA Times, the Washington Post, and the French Le Monde (at https://www.lemonde.fr/) are indicative of my views.

So in all that, how are regulations going to solve anything in any near future?

 

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January 20, 2019 · 15:23

The impact of insanity

This is not going to be a nice article, it will not be positive and it will not be one you might like to read. It is not on how Nintendo is growing evermore, how people can remain happy playing Mario Kart. We heard all the negativity in the past, and now (4 days ago) we get: ‘Nintendo’s Bold Switch Sales Target Could Be Achievable After All‘, the news that I predicted over a year ago, which did not become a reality, I predicted that the Microsoft Xbox One life time sales would be surpassed by Nintendo by an expected end of January 2019 was not met. It seems that I am off by 8 weeks. So, under two years the total lifetime’s sales mark, the mark that took Microsoft with their most powerful console in the world got slammed, crushed and obliterated by Nintendo in two years. Some say it is insane, I merely see it as the opposition of the need for actual fun that will trump looking cool every single time. It goes further when we realise that 15 of the 20 highest selling games in Japan are all Nintendo Switch games. The game is changing and even Sony is worried for the first time ever. Now, we know that for the life cycle of Sony, the PS4 will remain to be in first place, but the fact that Sony is worried is unheard of. It matters because after the PS4, there will be a PS5 and Sony needs to up the game by a decent amount. Not essentially in hardware, they need to get their game up in software. An issue they never had before, not since the very first PlayStation. It is all set to the stage of IP and Sony knows that this will be a hard time for all things Sony. If that was not enough, the fact that Smash Bros surpassed 5 million copies in global sales in one week is also a milestone that Nintendo loves, yet never expected to this degree, fun is everything, it is a life marker for all of us and it is out in the open.

In opposition we need to look where fun is not found, where fun does not make it. It is the stage of Yemen, when in Jordan the talks are breaking down regarding the Yemeni conflict. With the quote: “Negotiations between the Yemeni government and Houthi rebel representatives broke down in Jordan’s capital, Amman, with the Yemeni government accusing the Houthis of providing a fake list of prisoners“, it might be true, it might not. It is dependent on the right data, the right intelligence. So with: ‘Yemen’s warring sides fail to reach agreement on prisoner swap‘ (at https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/01/yemens-war-agreement-reached-prisoner-swap-deal-jordan-190119164117438.html) we see the escalation returning. The matter becomes increasingly worse when we consider the SF Chronicle (at https://www.sfchronicle.com/world/article/Fuel-from-Iran-used-to-finance-rebels-in-Yemen-13547149.php). Here we see nothing new. The headline: ‘Fuel from Iran used to finance rebels in Yemen, UN panel finds‘. We knew for the longest time that Iran had been financing and supporting the mess in Yemen, many European papers stayed out of it all as there is an important issue revolving the Iranian Nuclear deal, a joke on paper and not worth the paper it was printed on, which was my personal opinion. So I gave my support to the side of Saudi Arabia in all this for several reasons, the fact that Iran was guilty of too many transgressions and no one was willing to openly step up to the mark. Today I am changing that game by adding my own insanity. Even as the UN recognises certain steps, the inaction of too many is appalling and I am making a massive dangerous alteration, because I can no longer sit on the sides. As we were introduced to: “The latest report said a small number of companies inside and outside Yemen operated as front companies using false documentation. The panel said it found that the fuel was loaded from Iranian ports and “the revenue from the sale of this fuel was used to finance the Houthi war effort.”” It is now my turn to wake up the others.

I made a second mention in ‘The Elephant Room‘ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2018/10/23/the-elephant-room/) where I devised a method to take the Iranian navy out of the equation and it might optionally work on the USS Zumwalt as well (that ship to too ugly and expensive to be allowed to exist). The idea came from a famous Dutch bank robber named Aage M (70’s). He robbed banks in the most novel way with a thermionic lance. He went straight through the concrete (next to the door) and looted the place. I altered the device concept (see image). Now it should work on vessels too. One ring of Magnesium, the flotation device is pure oxygen, pushing the Magnesium ring against the hull, when ignite, the heat will keep the flame going on under water (at 2200C mind you), the flotation device will push against the bottom of the boat melting the hull in that location, making a rather large hole, when the end is reached the C4 ring explodes and totally screws the inner hull six degrees from Sunday. The nice part is that the device would require no more than an estimated $100K-$150K. At that point the hole will totally change the floating principle of that much steel (with less displaced water).

If my idea was correct, the Iranians could lose their Sahand, Moje and Alvand class frigates. In addition, when properly timed, it could in addition take Dryabany base Mahshahr out of the equation. It would not defeat Iran, I have no delusions in that regard, but when Iran suddenly has such a bitter pill to swallow, the idea that one civilian achieved that, if successful it would force them to become a lot more civil. Their funding of Hezbollah and the funding of the Houthi would hopefully end forever, especially when their own turf is no longer safe. The idea is not perfect, I have a few parts in the deployment device (stealth based) that are not adding up, but the waters there work in my advantage, which is nice but not good enough. You see, until you are willing to commit, it is merely a thought, a flight full and fantasy founded one, yet not realistic.

If a snow globe gave me the idea for the meltdown of a (Iranian) nuclear reactor (as well as both the Wasp and Piranha valves), what could the mind perceive at the sight of a dough mixer?

IP is not merely about applied innovation, it is a path to create something new and that was exactly what I did, even as my mind feels more comfortable designing stories and games, a sidestep to hardware is never far away, I was able to prove that a few times over. So as the US Navy is given: “American taxpayers have bought a fleet of three warships—at a cost of $8 billion each!—that are still looking for a mission. Not only that: the ships are missing their key weapon, and Congress—which rarely rebukes the Navy—recently ordered the service to strike the two that have been delivered to the fleet from its roster of combat-ready ships“, I had the opposing idea at no more than $150K. How is that for warfare extremes?

When we are shown “The vessels represent a case study of a program run without adult leadership. Its contractors and admirals were blinded by ambition that had little to do with providing the fleet with enough hulls to patrol the world’s oceans, but everything to do with maritime hubris that didn’t pan out. “They just started putting all sorts of requirements on the ship without really understanding the cost implications,”“, a military apparatus that has no concept of reality and the US taxpayer is down 24 billion with nothing to show for it, my idea would have costed them $6 million, and now I will add it to the world of public Domain for null cost. I still have a few 5G implementation ideas to go through, so I am not shy if idea’s. Those ideas include a new keyboard. Even as we see all those fancy new keyboards, they are all surrounding the same tiring idea, they call them novel but they are anything from novel. I got the idea when I remembered the time when we were not devoted to our remote control. I suddenly thought back to my old 1988 colour TV and it gave me an idea of a very different keyboard, a keyboard where it is about the key itself and that gave me a new implementation of what could be truly a new keyboard, one that might look odd and many might not like it but at least it is in a direction that we have not been in ever, when did you last see a device that did that?

The line between genius and insanity is a lot thinner and a lot more blurry than most people are comfortable with considering. This does include the novel idea that I am not a genius, I am merely a closet case insane person, yet my willingness to measure myself against other settings slightly removes that option form the table. I could also put the entire Trump administration against myself as I see that they are willing to push hundreds of thousands of people into hunger and destitute merely to get a wall build, one that has no hope of actually being a success mind you, but there you have it.

In addition, in my view I am not stating that the Saudi involvement here is all innocence; the alleged airstrike a mere hour ago would be ample proof of that. From my point of view, the delaying tactics from the Houthi forces have now met with the end of patience and the Saudi’s have had enough. Can we judge? I have to say, not at present but a lot will depend on how the entire mess is presented soon enough and will the media give us an honest non biased brief? I truly do not know, I hope we will know tomorrow. Yet, that is not the end of it all.

You see, we have not seen the levels in America regarding polarisation since before the McCarthy Administration and it is having a global impact (and that is before the Chinese elements are added to the equation). I personally see it as a larger political failure in America. The entire ‘Russian interference’ part has been dragged out for the longest time, yet what is there?

When we accept Wired (a reliable source) we get: “The Mueller indictment permanently demolishes the idea that the scale of the Russian campaign was not significant enough to have any impact on the American public. We are no longer talking about approximately $100,000 (paid in rubles, no less) of advertising grudgingly disclosed by Facebook, but tens of millions of dollars spent over several years to build a broad, sophisticated system that can influence American opinion“, I do not doubt this, branding, marketing and awareness programs all work in a similar matter. Most do not invest that much, but the larger players (Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, Huawei, Apple and Google) have all used similar methods to give rise to what they offer and sell. So why would that be different for an election? A place of position is just that, a place of position and that place also gives rise to other profits when properly used. We see that in Europe as talks prolong with Iran and Turkey to get a standing, they are at that point in a place of power and removing them from such a place is what would enable progress. So that is where we see the tactics evolve, but in America there seems to be no evolving tactics at all, it is all emotions and media, hoping to get a resolution. So when we see (at https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/model-apologizes-in-claim-of-russia-election-interference/2019/01/19/f919f22c-1c08-11e9-b8e6-567190c2fd08_story.html), the stage of ‘Model in Russian court apologizes for US election claim‘, where we see: “A Belarusian model and self-styled sex instructor who last year claimed to have evidence of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election said Saturday that she apologizes to a Russian tycoon for the claim and won’t say more about the matter“.

This leads us to: ‘A Russian Sex Instructor makes the headlines in the Washington Post? Are you fucking kidding me?‘ In this we get the stage where Anastasia Vashukevich (aka Lady Sex Education) and Oleg Vladimirovich Deripaska (Mr Billionaire) and also CEO of Basic Element, he is worth well over 4 billion dollars and they are both getting way more visibility. Now, with Oleg we get that someone this rich and successful would be taking the headlines in all this, yet the American way of just pasting any claim without proper vetting of facts is now a much larger issue, especially as the vetting of facts and the exposure of certain players (like Iran, Turkey and Hezbollah) was been faltering in many ways. So even as we find a little giggle value in the accusation and there might be a case where Oleg has at least the funds and means to influence an election, yet with the US in such an economic state, it might be just a lot more beneficial to invest a mere 2% and grow his businesses in Europe and over the Middle East, that is the common sense thing to do.

You see, that is where we need to look, especially as the perceived escalations all over the Middle East continues. We can laugh and state that Americans are all taking ‘crazy pills’ but that is not the whole truth, that path only works with massive levels of facilitation and that is where the mystery starts. One source gives us an uncomfortable re-enactment. WE are given: “Yesterday’s Pre-WW II Germany is Today’s U.S.A. I remember as a child sitting in history class and watching the videos of the horrors of Nazi Germany. All of the kids asked the same question “how could the people let this happen?” We had both a school system and parents who were adamant about ensuring that we were aware of what occurred, how so many ignored the problems, and then later how so many supported what became the Nazi regime. All of what happened then is the same that is happening now. Fascism has familiar characteristics and the only difference is we have more technology to deliver them today. The desperate and the stupid are easily brainwashed and since they lack critical thinking, they will believe anything.”

I believe that this is not the whole truth. I believe that there is a level above the middle level and below the higher echelons that is desperately depending on the current financial status quo to continue, with Wall Street calling the shots. That time is over and many are afraid, we can see the elements in play. Those in Europe connected to the ECB, praying that some Turkey deal is possible, hoping that some Iranian Nuclear deal will turn the economy around. It is too late for that, but they will not listen to common sense. The USS Zumwalt is only one of several examples where there is orchestration, not one, but a dozen orchestras all playing at the same time, all implying chaos, but it is not that simple. Those with blinders, only seeing and hearing one small part hears that one orchestra, the rest think it is merely noise, merely awareness of whatever comes next, but there is no next, there is no continuation, minus 20 trillion should be evidence of that, yet the people will not listen. That same stage is seen in Yemen. Even when we accept a part of it, the part that there are still allegedly 600,000 mines out there, when we accept only 50% of that number. When we do the math and we realise that the conflict started 4 years ago, we need to realise that it required 200 mines a day to be placed, 200 mines a day, every day. How many resources does that take? Now consider that Yemen never ever had this amount of resources (especially the mines), now we get to that part that matters: ‘Just how deeply was Iran involved from the very start?‘

That is the important part, because for 4 years most nations did NOTHING! And that is where we see the insanity of inaction, and let’s not forget, I am only taking on 50% of that claim, at the true expected numbers, this stage is a nightmare and we all let it happen. Yemen will be a death zone for many years to come, the impact of mines will continue for many years and whatever progress we think we make there is seemingly fiction, so as I decided to add to the fiction by placing the hardship on the transgressor Iran, I feel that I am doing the right thing. At least I am doing something, which is more than we can state from the media and their inaction.

The impact of insanity is doing nothing and hoping it will resolve itself, that stage was never a real one and that has been proven since long before WW1 was going to be a reality. The impact of insanity is a real one and it is a highly physical impact as well, we remain in denial, we remain in denial in a time where denial is not merely unrealistic, it is a choice where we merely harm ourselves in the short term as well, how is that healthy?

 

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