The latest Investing Matters Podcast with Jean Roche, Co-Manager of Schroder UK Mid Cap Investment Trust has just been released. Listen here.
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We are in ADS. How much does that cost and what has it done for us? Just a question.
Falanx Cyber Holdings Limited
https://www.adsgroup.org.uk/members/falanx-cyber-holdings-limited/
In previous posts, I said that I thought that Crossword Cybersecurity's Rizikon Assurance 2.0 gave Crossword a huge advantage over Falanx.
I had forgotten about Falanx's Project Furnace (and no one reminded me about it. I post on here to stimulate discussion, but failed on that one.)
"Project Furnace is the evolution of Falanx's investment in the creation of a highly capable technology stack. Furnace allows users to span the rapidly growing array of public and private Cloud, currently used by enterprise. By exploiting our many years of SOC (Security Operations Centre) experience, we have built a best of breed microservice architecture to provide enterprise and their in-house developers the tools to plug dangerous security gaps that have emerged during the rapid proliferation of Cloud. Built from best of breed components, technology acquired as part of the Cloudified acquisition and our proprietary service architecture MidGARD, Project Furnace has reached a level of maturity whereby an opportunity now exists to replace large-scale proprietary application stacks. Our aim is to offer enterprise the output of Project Furnace to assist them in improving performance, visibility of risks and greatly reducing costs regardless of the location or type of data."
So the people at Falanx are not sitting idly by - they are developing a rival system.
However, Crossword has released several updates about milestones in the progress of Rizikon. It seems to be a success.
The lack of similar announcements from FLX about Project Furnace has me worried. Is it a flop? Does it have flaws? Has it gone way over budget and the cost of removing flaws is going to be huge?
Have they delayed the results in the hope that the flaws (which might not exist!) can be ironed out, so that they don't have to say that another x million will be needed to make it work?
Please let me know if there has been an announcement about successful testing, or even a rollout, that I missed.
BUMP. Bad call by me. Up 3.5%
Afternoon Noel. Particularly so when the damage it is doing to the SP is evident. Only for Zak Mir and TW followers in my opinion would this not be closer to 1p now as I believe they were behind the recent buying flurry. If this is a plate spinning exercise any semi plausible explanation like the auditors will suffice as a reason for delay. It keeps investors on the hook for longer and board salaries are still getting paid.
Much as politicians and parties leak info to the press and opposition, there is oft a good reason to use a third party to deliver news rather than yourself. It appear more trustworthy as it is coming from a source close to the company but not representing it. But the best part is if it turns out like the wItches' predictions in Macbeth to be a half truth you can 100% state that you never said it but x (TW) did say it.
Communication was never FLX's bag at any rate so not much else to do but hucker down and wait for the fun to begin,
If they can tell TW why the results have been delayed, why don't they tell all of us? Perhaps it doesn't demand and RNS anncouncement, but it could be on their web site.
What did they say in last year's results - "We have reworked our website to position it for future growth and giving us increased dexterity in the way in which we communicate with all our stakeholders online."
Communicate? FLX seems to agree with Homer Simpson. In one episode he said, "Communication, that's the problem with the world today. There's too much communication."
Not a subscriber Ershaitan so can't/won't. I know TW has been peddling FLX for ages at prices higher up but thought he had given up the ghost on this one. It might explain some of the recent buying interest then even allowing for how far it has fallen. FWIW I am expecting a tick down in the SP again shortly. The quoted price doesn't actually reflect what the real position is. We shall wait and see of course. Has anyone seen Mannnan incidentally? He pops up with a question then quickly disappears. I expect he will be along results time at any rate.
It’s on the share prophets website. Have a listen.
Eshaitan where did this info come from? TW? Why would the auditors question options of less than £100,000 which is about half of one per cent of the company's MCAP? And why it would delay results by 6 weeks on Mike Read's timetable and 4 weeks minimum on mine?
The results will be out within the next 2 weeks. The delay was having the new auditors question options with a value of less than 10000 pounds.
TW spoke about Falanx last week on his bearcast. He spoke to the finance director in person and will try and get Mike Read in for an interview
early September for the results. Mike Read can't even say there has been some slippage from his late July/early August to Mid August/early September or 4 weeks from the 3rd July. There has been a flurry of interest this week from investors who think this has fallen too far. But I expect more selling to recommence once this drag about releasing results remains in effect.
On Wednesday my upbeat and optimisitic posts pushed the sp up :-) then yesterday my negative posts pushed it down, so let's see if I can talk it up again today.
"Annual Results for the Year-Ended 31 March 2018
...
Outlook
The Board has received favourable indications from our most significant partners and vendors that our strategy to scale our security services is appropriate and will be supported. As such, the Board targets a much-improved financial performance for this year. In addition to our 'business as usual' plan which combines organic growth and targeted acquisitions that are financially attractive, the Group will:
· Increase the contribution from high quality recurring revenues
· Increase average customer spend through bundled products
· Increase sales by distributing through large Managed Service Providers (MSPs)
· Utilise proprietary technology development to drive down cost and add attractive new features
· Progress current discussions with several major global enterprises for adoption of our highly disruptive cyber technology stack
..." From -
https://www.investegate.co.uk/falanx-group-limited/rns/annual-results-for-the-year-ended-31-march-2018/201808140700046720X/
There - what an impressive list. How can you argue with that, and there is Project Furnace - don't forget Project Furnace.
Also in that announcement -- "We have reworked our website to position it for future growth and giving us increased dexterity in the way in which we communicate with all our stakeholders online." See - they do communicate with us. If we feel that we are left in the dark, it must be our fault for not being able to find the information on their web site.
Now it has jumped to 914.
I can't believe it.
The site was showing that I had made 911 posts, and as soon as I posted that last one below, it changed to 907 posts.
What is going on?
Totally O/T, but since this site is showing that I have made 911 posts -
"The Official Story of the Collapse of WTC Building 7 Lies in Ruins
A research team at the University of Alaska’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, led by Dr. Leroy Hulsey, Dr. Zhili Quan, and Professor Feng Xiao, Department of Civil Engineering, Nanjing University of Science and Technology, released yesterday for public comment their findings from a four-year study of the collapse of World Trade Center Building 7 on September 11, 2001. This is the first scientific investigation of the collapse of the building. Here is the conclusion:
“The principal conclusion of our study is that fire did not cause the collapse of WTC 7 on 9/11, ..."
https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2019/09/04/the-official-story-of-the-collapse-of-wtc-building-7-lies-in-ruins/
My story has a happy ending - will the FLX results be likewise?
At 280,000 words, it is a long novel, but the ending is very exicting, so just like waiting for final results from FLX, the end is worth the wait.
Caught out again by the limit on the number of characters. The end was -
"The Perdix Project" - a techno-thriller packed with factual science and technology and just a small amount of fictional science - just enough to make the plot work.
It's nearly all real so the story is very believable and plausible..
Your last chance to get it for £1.99p is coming up. Early next week it goes back to £4.99p
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07SJNP9S4
If anyone is wondering about the name of the company - "Layer 8" - it must be based on the networking protocols that you all use everyday when you access the internet. TCP/IP is part of this story -
"The 7 Layers of the OSI Model"
https://www.webopedia.com/quick_ref/OSI_Layers.asp
"OSI model"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OSI_model
So the protocol stack has seven layers. They are on a layer above.
Some of these OSI protocols are used by hackers.
Simple Network Management Protocol
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simple_Network_Management_Protocol
"Using SNMP to attack a network
Because SNMP is designed to allow administrators to monitor and configure network devices remotely it can also be used to penetrate a local area network (LAN). ..."
I use this sort of thing in my novel - extract -
"In practice, how this flaw is exploited is that the hackers send booby-trapped packets to the target machine. They plant malicious codes in the frame header that confuse the exchange of port numbers during the TCP handshake, so that the packet is assumed to be a network configuration message and the target machine adds a new entry in the protocol table.”
Scott interrupted, “How do they slip it past packet sniffers?”
“They use padding to get over the problem of incorrect checksums and they could confuse the TCP/IP fingerprinting data by running an obfuscator on top of the IP layer, a bit like putting false number plates on a car, to hide their tracks. This would work even on NASA's modified version of TCP. They can bypass internet filtering by creating a sort-of pipe or tunnel in the same way that it is possible to tunnel SCTP over UDP.
Now that they have inconspicuously installed this impostor into the protocol stack, they have a security pass that lets them in any time. By sending malicious instructions disguised as, say, generic routing encapsulation data, they can run remote procedure calls using the newly registered port numbers and use these RPCs to install rogue implants onto the target machine, then those implants can then write to files, edit the data and corrupt the logs.
Imagine what they could do to financial accounts if they got that kind of control over computers in banks, companies or the Treasury. They could create economic catastrophe that would destroy the country.”
Scott had been thinking deeply and recalling technical details, “I think you are on to something Nigel, and it's a doozy. Perhaps they use the vulnerabilities in the SCTP packet structure. The ECNE chunk and the CWR chunk in the SCTP payload are not defined by the RFC, so can they be hijacked to create an impostor protocol?
Wow, this puts a whole new slant on the idea of internet Trojan Horses.”
All true - "see SCTP packet structure"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCTP_packet_structure
"The Perdix Project" - a techno-thriller packed with factual science and technology and just a small amount of fictional science - just e
FLX pops up here -
https://layer8ltd.co.uk/partners/
FLX is listed.
What is Layer 8?
http://layer8ltd.wpengine.com/company/
Noel the fundamentals haven't changed here. Apart from the financial fundamentals there is the appalling way in which FLX communicate. I have no idea what prompted the buying spree yesterday but it will prove short-lived. On paper in fact the 14000 trade was actually a sell as the quote was 1.4p/1.55p at the time. But it can't have been as they would have got 1.25 or 1.3p at best for such a large amount. The MM's have quickly moved the bid back to 1.3p so yesterday's rise was a bull trap. Of course if the results are excellent then that 1.4p trade if a buy will do very well. But we have seen these unfounded rises in FLX many times before it quickly retrenches back whence it came.
The invisibility you allude to Noel and the company's claims are more circumstantial evidence that something doesn't add up here.
This now has me very worried - hasn't Falalnx made a big deal of its government contracts?
See this -
"Cyber security supplier to government scheme: list of participating companies
Updated 17 September 2018"
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/cyber-security-supplier-to-government-scheme/cyber-security-supplier-to-government-scheme-list-of-participating-companies
Falanx is NOT listed! Not listed as a participating company in the government's list of cyber security suppliers.
However Securestorm Ltd is listed.
I searched using "top UK cyber security firms"
This was in the search results -
"Full List of Cybersecurity Companies in the UK "
https://www.cybertango.io/cybersecurity-vendors/Cybersecurity-UK
Falanx is NOT listed.
Must be daft whoever he is, as you had not given the go-ahead to buy...
Obviously does not read Noel’s instructive posts...
One born every minute...
For the last week or two, I have been considering the possibility that the worm and the slimeball are paid trolls.
Paul Craig Roberts expresses it very well in this section of his latest piece -
"They [about the rude emails he gets] come from the paid trolls. The Saker describes their function: “These are the folks whose task it is to obfuscate the real issues, to bury them under tons of vapid ideological nonsense; the best way to do that is to misdirect any discussion away from the original topic and sidetrack it into either a barrage of ad hominems or ideological clichés.”
https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2019/09/04/truth-is-an-endangered-species/
Doesn't read this board?
Are you sure FK, perhaps the slimeball has a spine after all and has put his money where his mouth is.
It won't be the worm. He is spineless for sure. Just a toady.