Big Tech At War: Act 1, Scene 1.

This years started with a bang, and so much for all the hopes about 2021 as a better year than 2020.

You already know all about the riots in Washington DC; I bet that most of you are following the political downfall and the legal actions against the perpetrators. It looks like we have the start of the first war campaign made by the big tech companies, using Parler as the intended target.

Now, this is interesting for many different issues. This post of mine is intended to set some points together; I already know that there will be more to come. For a summary of all the related facts, I suggest reading this article (LINK). It’s from CNN, so you can drop all the bias against right-wing sources.

The first thing to be considered is the role of the app stores. Whatever your business is, you have to go through Google Play or Apple Store. The whole concept of gatekeepers was already discussed many times in the last ten years, so I will pass. Bear in mind that any app, no matter how successful, could be dropped (or suspended) from these stores any day.

BRITISH AIRSHIP PILOTS IN THE FIRST WORLD WAR (Q 67698) A British airman dropping a bomb. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205314988

The reaction of the Parler users has been defiant. You block the app? No problem, I will go thru a browser. Several tech-savvy posts about how to keep on your phone the Parler app are available, so a simple search will show you what to do. A word of warning, I haven’t tried any of such solutions (I’m not a Parler user), so be considered.

The second act of this little dirty war came later, with the decision from Amazon to zone out the Parler site from their AWS hosting service. For those who still don’t know, Amazon controls a huge share of the hosting market. They give a week’s notice, just the time needed for the news to circulate worldwide. So we have Google, Apple, and Amazon on the same side. Wow, it looks like overkill to me.

If you put yourself on the Parler side, business speaking, this is huge. The big players in the market just kick you out of the field, with many the media scene doing a standing ovation. I’ve lost count of the related posts on social media, not to mention hashtags and such. The message is quite clear: step out of the lines, you will be burned to the ground.

Now, I cannot predict the future. I know for sure many people will move to Parler and leave Twitter and Facebook for good. I also know a bigger number of good guys and gals who are ready to call for judiciary actions against Parler because it is “on the wrong side.” What I see here is another kind of polarization, with more fuel pumped on a fire that shows no signs of calming down.

Finally, we get another landmark. January 2021 will be marked as the start of internet-related corporate wars. Sorry, I’m not happy about that.

What If Trump Goes To War

(Official White House Photo by Tia Dufour)

At the end of his first mandate as POTUS [1] Donald Trump is shifting gears in the foreign policy of the USA, playing hardball on four different tables.

The new frontier of Cyber attacks – physical damage

We all know something about cybercrime and cyber attacks, right? Many experienced some kind of virus and/or had one of our accounts violated by some unknown wannabe hacker (the definition of hacker is something different, see below).
The goal of such crimes is about information and money, right? Grab some password, divert money to cryptocurrency account located in another country and so on. End of the story.

No. There’s more than that. Much more.

The Czar, the Sultan and the Uncle Sam

As predicted, things are getting hairy all over again in Syria, a place where too many conflicts are going on. The casus belli this time is the little town of Manbij, in the northern part of the country. Actually is controlled by Kurds, with logistic support from the US. Russians and Americans found themselves together against the will of the Turkish government to seize the town, a move that greatly enraged the leadership of this regional power. Check here the story, from Stars and Stripes.

The War Is Not Over (2)

There are many conflicts that are out of the media beat, including the ongoing confrontation in Ukraine between national government, Russian-sponsored separatist and Russian armed forces. Said conflict is in progress since 2014, with a significant portion of Ukraine – the Crimea region – de facto annexed by Russia in spite of every international treaty.

The War Is Not Over

Syria orthographic projection

The war against ISIL is not over. While the mainstream media are busy with Donald Trump and Theresa May, the multilateral conflict against ISIL rages on with uncertain results. The black flag of the insurgents is still up in Syria and Iraq (not to mention an unknown number of their members who escaped from Libya and are still unaccounted for). At the present day, we have five different battles going on between ISIL and various aggregation of allied forces with no end in sight. It looks like that the end of the self-proclaimed caliphate is still far from reality.

The Syrian Deadlock

Words are important, so choosing the right word for the current situation in Syria is a way to anticipate my position. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, a simple definition of deadlock is:
a situation in which an agreement cannot be made : a situation in which ending a disagreement is impossible because neither side will give up something that it wants.

Golpe failure – why Erdogan is still in charge

Just a fast one, a thought about the failure of last night’s golpe in Turkey; you already know the story, don’t you? A number of mid-ranking officers of the Turkish Army tried to seize power in the country, with all the classic cliches well displayed.

Road blocks, tanks roaming the streets, parliament house and national television put under control and the old message “we are saving the country from a certain doom, democracy will be repristinated ASAP“. In the shadows, looking around to understand the direction of the political wind, all the big players of the country – waiting for the better time to show up.

The voice of fear

Here we are again. Another batch of terrorist attacks in Europe, this time in Belgium, followed by a storm of empty words and emptier actions in the media. Politicians of every color and denomination, so-called leaders and not-so-famous people, a lot of noise and zero solutions. What you hear is the voice of fear.

What about an European way for CAS?

English: An A-10 Thunderbolt II from the 81st Fighter Squadron, Spangdahlem Air Base, Germany, pulls away from a tanker (not shown) after refueling on the way to Serbian targets during Operation ALLIED FORCE. This photograph was used in the September 1999 issue of Airman Magazine. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

There has been a lot of noise in the ‘net about the future of the A-10 “Warthog”, probably the best CAS airplane ever, due to obsolescence of the project and for setting the stage for the new F-35. For the non-initiated, the acronym CAS stands for Close Air Support, where “close” means attacking a few meters from the ground in very hostile environments, in order to give a real support for the troops. The whole set of polemics touched moments of absolute estrangement from reality, until the will of the US armed forces has been made clear: the A-10 MUST stay, until something better will come under way. So our american friends will keep their fantastic tank-killer on duty for some more years, leaving the same old question for the European allies: what will you do to give any CAS to your troops?