#Big Data Testing Services

[zooplekochi]

Are you a graduate looking to improve your skills and upgrade your career in the IT field? For a safe and protected career, select the courses that suit your necessary skills. Explore the list of IT-related courses for graduates and choose the one that matches with your career goals.

In this blog, we will discuss the top professional IT courses that you can consider taking after graduation to stay ahead in the competitive job sector for a successful professional path in the IT field.

[webmethodology]

Explore strategies and amazing tips to ensure privacy in offshore software testing. Empower your testing process with expert insights for a reliable offshore testing experience.

[inlovewithladies]

Nerdy Abby headcanons!

I love nerdy abby so much this needed to be done. this is college au btw.

GENERAL

definately majors in kinesiology with a minor in biology

Color codes her stuff like she had OCD

when she gets to do lab stuff she gets all giddy like a kid in a candy store

since shes all buff and stuff i feel like she'd try new protein powder or bars and rank them based off taste and effectiveness

i know for a fact in my heart of hearts she loves star trek. like she has 3 posters in her room and figurines on her shelf

lives off of energy drinks especially if she has a test and needs to cram studying but doesnt tell anyone coz she preaches that theyre bad for u and doesnt wanna seem like a hypocrite

watched neon genesis evangelion

her laptop has a bunch of stickers on it IN A RELATIONSHIP

her love language is acts of service

she took literal ages to confess so she tried to communicate her feelings through actions. ie: carrying your books, walking you to class or back to your dorm

btw the confession wasnt smooth at all. she blurted it out in the middle of a study session with you, palms sweaty and shaky. 'hey, so um... i like.. like you, like a lot- wait can i start over?"

your first kiss was right then and there, she froze for a solid five seconds but when you pulled away she was cheesing so hard

even if your doing a different major than her, she'll offer to proof-read your homework just because she can (and she likes it)

enjoys making your lunch (i also feel like shed be one of those people who disguise broccoli in brownies)

at first she was kinda shy about physical touch dont get me wrong, she loves her muscles but she also doesnt wanna hurt you by accident. like if shes hugging you shell ask 'too tight?' before settling in

at some point she wanted to cut her hair but ultimately kept it long since you loved to braid it so much

I KNOW FOR A FACTTT she follows the sidewalk rule like her life depends on it

if your leaving the dorm (coz ofc your sharing it now) she watches out the window for a min to make sure your good wherever ur going.

if ur sleeping in the same bed, in winter shes amazing but in summer your probably gonna wanna sleep on the couch coz that woman is a human heater

NSFW

she talks a big game but gets completely flustered when it comes down to it

SOFT DOMMM

doesnt matter if its the 50th time shes seen you naked, shes reacting like its the first. always mutters a lil 'goddamn' when the bra comes off

i feel like shes a boob kinda girl

only had one other experience before you (ow*n) but she never really enjoyed it

reads up on the female body and how to illicit more extreme orgasms and follows it to the letter until the one time she got way too lost in the pussy and went off-script, suckling at your clit like a baby getting breastfed. you ended up cumming super hard and she decided to perchance do what she felt in the moment next time.

super attentive to your reactions, if you seem to particularly like something she'll log it into her brain like data for next time

careful with her strength but if you tell her you want it rough, your gonna get rough so be prepared

if shes strapping you down, she ends up lifting you somehow without noticing, lifting your hips off the bed, your legs hooked over her arms while she pounds you against the wall.

likes having you on top too though, especially if shes tired. she'll happily lay back and grip your hips, letting her hands occasionally drift to your tits.

if your both up to it, she'd also be happy to film the two of you having sex. of course shed never share it, just save it for if your apart during a long night.

has a thing for nasty tongue kissing while she thrusts into you

shes got a sensitive spot right under her left ear, kissing it is like a button to get her flustered

loves it when you scratch her back, matter of fact, the next day she'll purposely wear a tank top with the back kinda cut out iykwim so people can see the marks

isnt meticulous about shaving so she has a bit of a bush, not that you mind

if shes feeling subby, she'll let you tie her wrists lightly while you eat her out or finger her or whatever you wanna do to her

HATES getting edged. may i repeat she HATES being edged.

overstimulation on the other hand... especially if shes stressed or something. your girl is just so smart her brain just needs a break from thinking for a while

loves when you eat her pussy while making her keep eye contact with you

AFTERCARE

if she was submissive, she's like a pile of mush after sex, mumbling shit and shed grab you if you try to leave the bed.

lay with her for a little bit then gently guide her up with you and clean her up in the bathroom

likes to have her hair washed after sex

she definately sweats a lot after sex especially if she was strapping so she needs to have a shower either way

'was that okay? did i hurt you? gimme a minute ill get you some water- or do you wanna wash first?'

likes having you in the tub with her so she can hold you against her chest from behind while she kisses your temple.

after that you guys sleep like babies

A/N if you couldnt tell i rlly love abby anderson

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The future of Amazon coders is the present of Amazon warehouse workers

I'm on a 20+ city book tour for my new novel PICKS AND SHOVELS. Catch me in BURBANK with WIL WHEATON TONIGHT (Mar 13), and in SAN DIEGO at MYSTERIOUS GALAXY on Mar 24. More tour dates here.

My theory of the "shitty technology adoption curve" holds that you can predict the future impact of abusive technologies on you by observing the way these are deployed against people who have less social power than you:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/11/the-shitty-tech-adoption-curve-has-a-business-model/

When you have a new, abusive technology, you can't just aim it at rich, powerful people, because when they complain, they get results. To successfully deploy that abusive tech, you need to work your way up the privilege gradient, starting with people with no power, like prisoners, refugees, and mental patients. This starts the process of normalization, even as it sands down some of the technology's rough edges against their tender bodies. Once that's done, you can move on to people with more social power – immigrants, blue collar workers, school children. Step by step, you normalize and smooth out the abusive tech, until you can apply it to everyone – even rich and powerful people. Think of the deployment of CCTV, facial recognition, location tracking, and web surveillance.

All this means that blue collar workers are the pioneering early adopters of the bossware that will shortly be tormenting their white-collar colleagues elsewhere in the business. It's as William Gibson prophesied: "The future is here, it's just not evenly distributed" (it's pooled up thick and noxious around the ankles of blue-collar workers, refugees, mental patients, etc).

Nowhere is this rule more salient than in Big Tech firms. Tech companies have thoroughly segregated workforces. Delivery drivers, customer service reps, data-labelers, warehouse workers and other "green badge," low-status workers are the testing ground for their employer's own disciplinary technology, which monitors them down to the keystroke, the eye-movement, and the pee break. Meanwhile, the "blue badge" white-collar coders get stock options, gourmet cafeterias, free massages, day care and complimentary egg-freezing so they can delay fertility. Companies like Google not only use separate entrance for their different classes of workers – they stagger their shifts so that the elite workers don't even see their lower-status counterparts.

Importantly, almost none of these workers – whether low-status or high – are unionized. Tech union density is so thin, it's almost nonexistent. It's easy to see why elite tech workers wouldn't bother with unionizing: with such fantastic wages and so many perks, why endure the tedium of meetings and memos? But then there's the rest of the workers, who are subjected to endless "electronic whipping" by bossware and who take home wages that look like pocket change when compared to the tech division's compensation. These workers have every reason to unionize, living as they do in the dystopian future of labor.

At Amazon warehouses, workers are injured at three times the rate of warehouse workers at competing firms. They are penalized for "time off task" (like taking a piss break). They are made to stand in long, humiliating body-search lines when they go on- and off-shift, hours every week, without compensation. Variations on this theme play out in other blue-collar sectors of the Amazon empire, like Amazon delivery drivers and Whole Food shelf-stockers.

Those workers have every reason to unionize, and they have done their damndest, but Amazon has defeated worker union drives, again and again. How does Amazon win these battles? Simple: they cheat. They illegally fire union organizers:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/03/31/reality-endorses-sanders/#instacart-wholefoods-amazon

And then they smear unions to the press and to their own workers with lies (that subsequently leak):

https://pluralistic.net/2020/04/03/socially-useless-parasite/#christian-smalls

They spend millions on anti-union tech, spying on workers and creating "heatmaps" that let them direct their anti-union efforts to specific stores and facilities:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/04/21/all-in-it-together/#guard-labor-v-redistribution

They make workers use an official chat app, and then block any messages containing forbidden words, like "fairness," "grievance" and "diversity":

https://pluralistic.net/2022/04/05/doubleplusrelentless/#quackspeak

That's just the tip of the iceberg. A new investigation by Northwestern University's Teke Wiggin draws on worker interviews and FOIA requests to the NLRB to assemble a first-of-its-kind catalog of Amazon's labor-disciplining, union-busting tactics:

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/23780231251318389

Disciplining labor and busting unions go hand in hand. It's a simple equation: the harder it is for your workers to form a union, the worse you can treat them without facing labor reprisals, because individual workers' options are limited to a) quitting or b) sucking it up, while unionized workers can grieve, sue, and strike.

At the core of Amazon's labor discipline technology is "algorithmic management," which is exactly what it sounds like: replacing middle managers with software that counts your keystrokes, watches your eyeballs, or applies a virtual caliper to some other metric to decide whether you're a good worker or a rotten apple:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/11/26/hawtch-hawtch/#you-treasure-what-you-measure

Automation theory describes two poles of workplace automation: centaurs (in which workers are assisted by technology) and "reverse-centaurs" (in which workers provide assistance to technology):

https://pluralistic.net/2021/03/19/the-shakedown/#weird-flex

Amazon is a reverse-centaurism pioneer. Take the delivery drivers whose every maneuver, eyeball movement, and turn signal is analyzed and inevitably, found wanting, as workers seek to satisfy impossible quotas that can't even be met if you pee in a bottle instead of taking toilet breaks:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/20/release-energy/#the-bitterest-lemon

Then there's the warehouse workers who are also tormented with impossible, pisscall-annihilating quotas. Some of these workers are fitted with haptic wristbands that buzz to tell them they're being too slow at picking up an item and dropping it into a box, pushing them to faster, joint-destroying paces that account for Amazon's enduring position as the most worker-maiming warehouse employer in the nation:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/05/la-bookseller-royalty/#megacycle

In his paper, Wiggin does important work connecting these "electronic whips" to Amazon's arsenal of traditional union-busting weapons, like "captive audience" meetings where workers are forced to sit through hours of anti-union indoctrination. For Wiggin, bossware tools aren't just a stick to beat workers with – they're also a carrot that can be used to diffuse a worker's outrage ahead of a key union vote.

Algorithmic management isn't just software that wrings more work out of workers – it's software that replaces managers. By surveilling workers – both on the job and in social media spaces (like subreddits) where workers gather to talk, Amazon can tune the "electronic whip," reducing quotas and easing the pace of work so that workers view their jobs more favorably and are more receptive to anti-union propaganda.

This is "twiddling" – exploiting the digital flexibility of a system to "twiddle the knobs" governing its business logic, changing everything from prices to wages, search rankings to recommendations, in realtime, for every customer and worker:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/19/twiddler/

Twiddling combines surveillance data with flexible business logic to create an unbeatable house advantage. If you're an Amazon shopper, you get twiddled all the time, as Amazon replaces the best matches for your searches with paid results. If you buy that first product result, you'll pay an average of 29% more than the best match for your search:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/06/attention-rents/#consumer-welfare-queens

Worker-side twiddling is even more dystopian. When a nurse is assigned a shift by an "Uber for nurses" app, the app checks whether the worker has overdue credit card bills, which trigger lower wages (on the theory that an indebted worker is a desperate worker):

https://pluralistic.net/2024/12/18/loose-flapping-ends/#luigi-has-a-point

When it comes to union-busting, Amazon's found a new use for twiddling: lessening the pace of work, which Wiggin calls "algorithmic slack-cutting." The important thing about algorithmic slack-cutting is that it's only temporary. The algorithm that reduces your work-load in the runup to a union vote can then dial the pace of work up afterward, by small, random increments that are below the threshold at which they register on the human sensory apparatus. They're not so much boiling the frog as poaching it.

Meanwhile, Amazon gets to flood the zone with anti-union messages, including mandatory messages on the app that assigns your shifts – a captive audience meeting in every pocket.

Between social media surveillance and on-the-job surveillance, Amazon has built a powerful training set for algorithms designed to crush workplace democracy. That's how things go for Amazon's warehouse workers and delivery drivers, and the shelf-stockers at Whole Foods.

But of course, the picture is very different for Amazon's techies, who enjoy the industry standard of high wages and lavish perks.

For now.

The tech industry is in the midst of three years' worth of mass layoffs: 260K in 2023, 150k in 2024, tens of thousands this year. None of this is due to a shortfall in profits, mind: Google laid off 12,000 workers just weeks after staging a stock buyback that would have funded their salaries for 27 years. Meta just announced a 5% across-the-board headcount cut and that it was doubling its executive bonuses.

In other words, tech is firing workers not because it must, but because it can. When workers depend on scarcity – instead of unions – as a source of power, they dig their own graves. For well-paid, scarcity-based coders, every new computer science graduate is the enemy, eroding the scarcity that your wages depend on.

Amazon coders get to come to work with pink mohawks, facial piercings, and black t-shirts that say things their bosses don't understand. They get to pee whenever they want to. That's not because Jeff Bezos is sentimentally attached to techies and bears personal animus toward warehouse workers. Jeff Bezos wants to pay his workforce as little as he can. He treats his tech workers with respect because he's afraid of them, because if they quit, he can't replace them, and without their work, he can't make money.

Once there's an army of unemployed coders who'll take your job, Jeff Bezos doesn't have to fear you anymore. He can fire you and replace you the next day.

Bezos is obviously incredibly horny for this. Like most tech bosses, he dreams of a world in which entitled hackers can't call their bosses dumbshits and decline to frog when they shout "jump!" That's why Amazon PR puts so much energy into trumpeting the business's use of AI to replace coders:

https://www.hrgrapevine.com/us/content/article/2024-08-22-amazon-cloud-ceo-warns-software-engineers-ai-could-replace-your-coding-work-within-2-years

It's not just that they're excited about firing coders and saving money – they're even more excited about transforming the job of "Amazon coder," from someone who solves complex technical problems to someone who performs tedious code review on automatically generated code barfed up by a chatbot:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/01/human-in-the-loop/#monkey-in-the-middle

"Code reviewer" is a much less fulfilling job than "programmer." Code reviewers are also easier to replace than programmers. A code reviewer is a reverse-centaur, a servant to the machine. Every time you hear "AI-assisted programmer," you should substitute "programmer-assisted AI."

Programming is even more bossware-ready than working in a warehouse. The machines coders use are much easier to fit with surveillance technology that monitors their performance – and spies on their communications, looking for dissenting chatter – than a warehouse floor. The only thing that stopped Jeff Bezos from treating his programmers like his warehouse workers is their scarcity. That scarcity is now going away.

That's bad news for Amazon customers, too. Tech workers often feel a sense of duty to their users, a "vocational awe" that drives them to put in long hours to make things their users will enjoy. The labor power of tech workers has long served as a check on the impulse to enshittify those products:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/25/moral-injury/#enshittification

As tech workers' power wanes, they don't just lose the ability to protect themselves from their bosses' greediest, most sadistic urges – they also lose the power to defend all of us. Smart tech workers know this. That's why Amazon tech workers walked out in support of Amazon warehouse workers:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/19/deastroturfing/#real-power

Which led to their prompt dismissal:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/04/14/abolish-silicon-valley/#hang-together-hang-separately

Tech worker/gig worker solidarity is the only way workers can win against tech bosses and defeat the shitty technology adoption curve:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/13/solidarity-forever/#tech-unions

Wiggin's report isn't just a snapshot of Amazon warehouse workers' dystopian present – it's a promise of Amazon tech workers' future. The future is here, in Amazon warehouses, and every day, it's getting closer to Amazon's technical offices.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/03/13/electronic-whipping/#youre-next

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

[katmaibearfan]

note: this is not my screenshot, it was posted in the bear cam chat by T 74

Big News!!

For some background: There's no cell service or internet in katmai national park. They are, after all, in remote Alaska. This means that in order to run the 7 livestreams located there, explore.org has a signal repeater installed on top of Dumpling Mountain. My understanding is that this repeater sends the livestream signal to a data center in a nearby town (King Salmon, I think?) which then stores the footage and sends it over the internet for all of us to watch.

But, that signal repeater was damaged in a storm over the winter, and because of practical issues (scheduling, weather, the bears) they haven't been able to fix it yet. But according to this official explore.org facebook post, it looks like the repeater should be fixed this week!!

This doesn't mean that all cams will go live once the repeater is fixed -- we still don't have details on that, and i imagine they have testing they will need to do. But the first steps are being taken, and that means bear season is approaching! aaaaaaaa!!

[creekfiend]

back when you first talked about visible, the app/service, i bought the armband and downloaded the app bc it seemed like something that could help me manage what is in all likelihood according to every symptom pots & me/cfs (and probably some eds variation based on the amount of first and second degree relatives of mine who have it as confirmed by genetic testing). i figured having the data may even help me get diagnosed. but i wasnt gonna subscribe and use it right away because i was still smoking and it felt like doing something that bad for me would fuck up the data to the point where, why even bother collecting it, if youre trying to manage your health shouldnt you be making any effort at all to preserve it in the first place... but i couldnt let that initial investment go to waste either right. hopefully you see where this is headed, thanks for indirectly helping me quit smoking! it was really very hard to do because i genuinely love cigarettes, i chronically struggle not to give in to my worst and easiest impulses, they're becoming chic again recently (?? because of how doomed everything/one feels me included i suppose), and i guess nicotine may or may not be the most addictive substance ever or something. but it needed to be done and i did it. $20 a month now goes to app i wouldnt know about if not for your blog, instead of, big tobacco

oh wow that's amazing :o I've heard quitting smoking is really hard ... I'm happy for you anonymous!!! I hope the visible data is helping you!

[thediaryofaurora]

It’s ok if you can’t but I would love for the next headcanons for creepypasta character could you do X-Virus.

General HCs

X-Virus/Cody Anderson

Sorry this one is sooooo long. I have so much to say about this nerd.

- Seventeen! Barely older than Toby.

- Roughly 6’0, maybe a little over. He isn’t very toned, since he really just sits in the lab all day.

- White with mostly Welsh heritage.

- He was in foster case from about seven to thirteen. His mom was neglectful and a drug addict so child services inevitably took him away. He was adopted by a pathologist who created and spread chronic diseases that only he knew how to treat, which he profited from since he was the only person who knew how to cure them.

- His foster father had used Cody as an assistant and made sure he knew his way around the lab. They would often test the diseases on animals first and see if the cure worked just enough so that people would continuously come back for medication rather than completely healing. At around fifteen Cody was trusted to be in the lab alone, so he would take the time to test more fatal things on the test subjects. A few years later when he was about seventeen, he was a little too desensitized to fatal infections and death. He thought seeing how animals reacted to his creations weren’t enough to prove the data he wanted.

- With that, he went into one of his lonesome neighbor’s homes in the dead of night and tested one of his viruses on him. He had planned to return home and brush it off, but Slender thought he was too valuable to let him go.

- This dude is a GENIUS, and a massive nerd. Most of the residents overlook it since he’s just a dumb teenager who works in the infirmary, but he’s extremely intelligent. He spends all of his days studying and analyzing data, so it’s kind of a given.

- Mainly gets along with Toby, EJ, and surprisingly Helen.

- Since him and Toby are extremely close in age, they naturally hovered to each other when they first met. They aren’t necessarily similar, but they do have a brotherly connection.

- Him and EJ work together in the infirmary/ lab, so they have to communicate and at least slightly get along. Jack almost sees him as an annoying little sibling, but it’s a nice presence. Cody really looks up to him and that means a lot.

- Helen stops by on occasion to talk to Jack and over time he started talking to Cody. They’re strangely compatible given their age difference and personalities, but Helen’s a listener and Cody can’t help but ramble. Helen does botany in his free time, so he’ll bring by plants for him to study or incorporate into his excitements. Cody always makes sure to track Helen down and give him all the results and notes he took of whatever plant he had brought.

- Germaphobe. His hands are DRY from over washing and using so much hand sanitizer.

- He has a bunch of rodents and other test animals for his experiments. He’s made sure to tell Nina if she ever doesn’t want her guinea pigs anymore he’d be glad to take them.

- Strangely smells like a dentist’s office. With all the chemicals, hand sanitizer, and air fresheners in the lab he’s bound to.

- Allergic to dogs, and cats, and everything ever.

- He’s a pretty big recluse. A perfect day in his eyes is sitting alone in the lab and testing a bunch of random shit, which sounds pretty boring to anyone he tells that to.

- Cyber punk enthusiast to the absolute core. You can’t look at him and think otherwise.

- He rarely goes on missions. Usually he’s stationed in the lab to either cover for EJ or do whatever the hell he wants. In the occasion that he does get sent out, him and Jack make a great pair. Since EJ can sense pretty much anything and everything, all Cody needs is the go ahead to take the kill.

- Straight, but he doesn’t really think about intimate relationships very often. If he’s watching a movie with romance in it he might think on it for a little, but he prioritizes his work over anything. If he had to date someone in the mansion, it would probably be Nina. She’s as hyper as him and doesn’t know anything about science, so she gladly listens to whatever he’s working on. However, in realistic terms he wouldn’t date her.

- He likes musicals, I specifically mention this because Repo! The Genetic Opera reminds me of him and he would absolutely love that movie.

- Listens to a surprising amount of goth music. He thinks it’s the only music that makes him feel more productive, so he puts in his wired headphones and works while listening to it. Massive Siouxsie and the Banshees fan.

- His room is PRISTINE. Absolutely no decorations, just scattered files and white bedding. Since he’s such a germaphobe he tries to keep his room as clean as possible, even if he’s not in it very much. He thrives on energy drinks and the most sleep he gets is a nap, usually in the lab with his head down on his desk.

- HORRIBLE handwriting, definitely adds up with him being somewhat of a doctor. Pretty much only him and Helen can (almost) decipher it.

- He gets soooo giddy when referred to as Dr. Anderson. It doesn’t happen very often, but when it does he’s ecstatic, especially because that’s what his foster father went by.

- Wears a lab coat and goggles on the regular. It’s not always necessary, but he feels so accomplished when he does. Occasionally wears scrubs.

- He’s been one of my favorites for like five years.

Thank you for reading! Feedback and requests are welcome.

✧✬✧✬✧✬✧✬✧✬✧✬✧

[bitchesgetriches]

idk how much engagement you get but if you're interested in an extra income, I have a free credit repair software and I can make you a referral link so you get a referral fee for everyone that signs up with your link.

Attention, baby bitchlings! This is clearly spam, but we're using it as a teaching moment.

I would never say yes to something like this for 2 reasons:

Part of our revenue model is endorsing companies for a cut of referrals (the other part being our Patreon, which you should absolutely join). Companies reach out to partner with us BECAUSE we have a big audience and BECAUSE we've built up a significant amount of trust with our audience. Y'all know we don't endorse stuff we haven't personally tested and researched. There's no way in HELL your humble Bitches would signal boost a completely random, unnamed "free credit repair software."

Most credit repair services are a scam or a waste of money. They recommend tactics you can do on your own for free (I'll link our guides for this below) without sharing your sensitive personal data with an outside company. The fact that anon is recommending a "free" credit repair software tells me that once you're in the software, their business model is to upsell you on other shit you don't need. Along with life insurance, credit repair services are one business model we'll never partner with for endorsements.

Now, if someone asks YOU to signal boost a referral link, think long and hard about it. Is it legit? Is it a scam? Is it something you're ok putting your name on if it means other people could be taken advantage of?

Now, if your credit needs repairing, here's what we recommend:

How to Build Good Credit Without Going Into Debt

Credit Scoring Is a Racist, Classist System that Has Us All Trapped

How To Fix an Error on Your Credit Report Without Losing Your Damn Mind

How to Instantly Increase Your Credit Score… for FREE

{ MASTERPOST } Everything You Need to Know about Credit and Credit Cards

Did we just help you out? Say thanks on Patreon!

[mariacallous]

The Trump administration’s Federal Trade Commission has removed four years��� worth of business guidance blogs as of Tuesday morning, including important consumer protection information related to artificial intelligence and the agency’s landmark privacy lawsuits under former chair Lina Khan against companies like Amazon and Microsoft. More than 300 blogs were removed.

On the FTC’s website, the page hosting all of the agency’s business-related blogs and guidance no longer includes any information published during former president Joe Biden’s administration, current and former FTC employees, who spoke under anonymity for fear of retaliation, tell WIRED. These blogs contained advice from the FTC on how big tech companies could avoid violating consumer protection laws.

One now deleted blog, titled “Hey, Alexa! What are you doing with my data?” explains how, according to two FTC complaints, Amazon and its Ring security camera products allegedly leveraged sensitive consumer data to train the ecommerce giant’s algorithms. (Amazon disagreed with the FTC’s claims.) It also provided guidance for companies operating similar products and services. Another post titled “$20 million FTC settlement addresses Microsoft Xbox illegal collection of kids’ data: A game changer for COPPA compliance” instructs tech companies on how to abide by the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act by using the 2023 Microsoft settlement as an example. The settlement followed allegations by the FTC that Microsoft obtained data from children using Xbox systems without the consent of their parents or guardians.

“In terms of the message to industry on what our compliance expectations were, which is in some ways the most important part of enforcement action, they are trying to just erase those from history,” a source familiar tells WIRED.

Another removed FTC blog titled “The Luring Test: AI and the engineering of consumer trust” outlines how businesses could avoid creating chatbots that violate the FTC Act’s rules against unfair or deceptive products. This blog won an award in 2023 for “excellent descriptions of artificial intelligence.”

The Trump administration has received broad support from the tech industry. Big tech companies like Amazon and Meta, as well as tech entrepreneurs like OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, all donated to Trump’s inauguration fund. Other Silicon Valley leaders, like Elon Musk and David Sacks, are officially advising the administration. Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) employs technologists sourced from Musk’s tech companies. And already, federal agencies like the General Services Administration have started to roll out AI products like GSAi, a general-purpose government chatbot.

The FTC did not immediately respond to a request for comment from WIRED.

Removing blogs raises serious compliance concerns under the Federal Records Act and the Open Government Data Act, one former FTC official tells WIRED. During the Biden administration, FTC leadership would place “warning” labels above previous administrations’ public decisions it no longer agreed with, the source said, fearing that removal would violate the law.

Since President Donald Trump designated Andrew Ferguson to replace Khan as FTC chair in January, the Republican regulator has vowed to leverage his authority to go after big tech companies. Unlike Khan, however, Ferguson’s criticisms center around the Republican party’s long-standing allegations that social media platforms, like Facebook and Instagram, censor conservative speech online. Before being selected as chair, Ferguson told Trump that his vision for the agency also included rolling back Biden-era regulations on artificial intelligence and tougher merger standards, The New York Times reported in December.

In an interview with CNBC last week, Ferguson argued that content moderation could equate to an antitrust violation. “If companies are degrading their product quality by kicking people off because they hold particular views, that could be an indication that there's a competition problem,” he said.

Sources speaking with WIRED on Tuesday claimed that tech companies are the only groups who benefit from the removal of these blogs.

“They are talking a big game on censorship. But at the end of the day, the thing that really hits these companies’ bottom line is what data they can collect, how they can use that data, whether they can train their AI models on that data, and if this administration is planning to take the foot off the gas there while stepping up its work on censorship,” the source familiar alleges. “I think that's a change big tech would be very happy with.”

[nitor-infotech]

In today's data-driven world, seamless data integration and processing are crucial for informed decision-making. Matillion, a robust ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) tool, has gained popularity for its ability to streamline these processes.

In this blog, you will learn how it efficiently moves and transforms data from various sources to cloud data warehouses, making data management easier. Apart from this, you'll also get a brief understanding of its constraints and best practices for transforming large datasets.

By understanding these aspects, you can maximize your business capabilities and drive forward excellently. 

[knitmeapony]

You should donate or subscribe to Consumer Reports

So this was one of those things I thought everyone knew about, and I was very wrong about that.

If you are looking to buy something expensive and don't trust the ratings on Amazon or random websites that make you wonder if they're sponsored by a company, Consumer Reports is your answer.

You can get a one month subscription for $10, and if you're going to be buying a $1000 TV, that's absolutely worth it.

CR is a not-for-profit. They buy everything they test, and are only sponsored by donations and subscriptions to their magazine.

Here's what you get for that $10:

articles on how to decide what kind of thing to buy -- don't know the difference between OLED and LCD and other kinds of TVs? They'll tell you the difference. How big a TV is worthwhile in a space the size of your living room? What is HDR? Is it better to get a streaming box separate, or stream directly through the TV? They have guides for everything.

Price guides -- they will tell you, for instance, that new TV models tend to get released in the spring, so late spring/early summer is when you get slightly discounted rates on the last year's models

How to take care of your thing -- what should you use to clean a flat-screen TV? Does it matter if it's antistatic or antidust? Should you shade it from the sun? What features are worth turning off if you don't use live TV?

And then the big one: their rating guides

They rate hundreds of products in dozens of categories. You can then filter down. Say you live in an apartment and you can only afford $500 for a TV, and you really care about data privacy.

Those are your top 3 options for a 52 inch or smaller TV in your price range with better than average privacy. Click that Shop button and it'll show you where to buy it. Want to know how those ratings were created?

You can then add up to 5 products to a 'compare' grid.

Want to know how many products they've tested and have guides for?

Pet GPS collars. Countertop icemakers. Streaming services. Air travel. Seriously, this should be your first stop before making any big purchase, and if you subscribe it can be your first stop for ANY purchase.

[russellsppttemplates]

I don't think you'll ever have to find out (Carlos Sainz)

The lack of contract for next season has been pushing Carlos to extremes and friends and family have noticed it

Note: english is not my first language. First Carlos big piece 🫶 I hope you enjoy reading it 😊

Thank you so much to everyone who likes and reblogs, your feedback is appreciated 🤍 and I'm taking requests so if you have any ideas or concepts you want to share, feel free to do so as I'll try to get to them the best I can!

my masterlist

Tw: mentions some anxiety and burnout symptoms

Tag list: @myloverjk-blog @hiireadstuff @c-losur3

"Hmmmm", you hummed as you felt the mattress move a little before the warm sheets approached your body instead of the warm body that laid under them before.

"Shh, it's just me, cariño", Carlos lulled you, "go back to sleep, it's still early", he kissed your forehead softly as the tucked you in properly.

"Where are you going since it's still early then?", you wondered groggily, "I'm going for a run, I'll be back to have breakfast with you, okay? I love you", he kissed your forehead again before he grabbed his workout clothes and stepped into the ensuite.

When you woke up a few hours later, you could hear water running from the shower, assuming Carlos had got back from his run.

Opening the windows and pulling the sheets to the end of the bed so the whole room could air out, you put on your slippers and one of your boyfriend's hoodies, heading downstairs to start on breakfast. After a quick look at the meal plan left by his trainer, you retrieved the ingredients from the pantry and fridge, toasting, whisking and flipping what you needed to when you heard footsteps joining you on the kitchen.

"Good morning, beautiful", Carlos said as he hugged you from your back, his lips kissing under your ear softly before he looked at what you were making, "smells nice", he murmured before you turned your head slightly so you could kiss his cheek.

"Here you go", you smiled as you handed Carlos the plates to carry to the table while you carried your drinks.

"Gracias, my love", he smiled back as he sat down, taking a sip from his mug and starting light conversation between you two.

"I need to go to the school to get some forms from the secretariat service and some of the kids' tests I forgot to bring home", you began telling him your plans for the day, "I'll mark them when I get home, but we might have some time to spend together in the afternoon".

"I have a meeting with my engineers to analyse data and then I have a sponsor event as well, I have to go there, give an interview and hang around for a bit - I think I'm going to be home for dinner though", he explained his schedule, "but you can use the office, don't worry", he smiled, kissing the top of your head once he finished eating, taking both plates with him back to the kitchen.

"I love you, handsome, have a good day!", you said, kissing his lips once you left the house, knowing he wasn't going to be there when you arrived back from school.

The secretariat services were quicker than usual in getting you the paperwork you needed so you were able to go to your classroom next. As you were making sure everything was in place and none of the kids had left anything out during the holidays, you looked for the tests.

"Hi, Y/N! What are you doing here?", your colleague from the classroom next to yours wondered after she announced her presence with a light knock on your door.

"Hello! I could ask you the same thing, hm?", you chuckled, "I left the tests here and they're not going to mark themselves", you waved the folder in your hand.

"Carlos isn't racing this week?", she asked. You had been classroom buddies for over five years so you had gotten to know eachother pretty well and felt comfortable enough around eachother to ask such questions.

"No, he's racing next weekend though, I'm flying out to see him and then flying back in a hurry so I can teach without taking many days off", you offered.

"Sounds good then! Good luck with all of those, my little ones had some trouble with these last tests, I must say", she added.

"I haven't even looked at them properly to be honest, but I'm sure they did their best", you recalled, waving at her as she said goodbye before putting everything you needed in your bag and leaving as well.

When you arrived back home, you walked straight to the office, arranging your desk in a way that your organisation system worked: to be marked, marked, and the double checked tests, along with space for you laptop so you could insert the data straight on the platform.

The pause you had for lunch was spent on the balcony, soaking up the sun rays while you ate and allowed your mind to escape the math problems and the water cycle drawings your little ones made.

It started when you were a teenager and wanted to earn a little extra money, wanting to buy things yourself and the small independence that came with it, so you started offering help to your neighbours' kids with their homework in exchange of a small amount of money. Over the years, it got a little more serious and grew outside of your neighbourhood because you enjoyed it so much and the kids and their parents loved the work you did, and when it to came to choosing a career you'd see yourself working in happily, teaching little ones sounded perfect. Years later, it still brought a smile to your face every single day.

You were measuring the rice quantity for you and Carlos when he arrived, "cariño, are you in the kitchen?", you heard him ask once he shut the door.

"Yes, my love, just getting dinner ready", you called back, washing your hands once you were done while he stepped closer to you. Drying your hands on a kitchen towell, you left it on the counter once your boyfriend joined you in the room, "did you have a good day?", you mumbled against his lips before stealing a big kiss from him.

"It was good, did what needed to be done, and you? Are your little geniuses getting good grades this term?", he smiled, lacing his arms around your waist and pulling you closer to him.

"They did so well! I'm so proud of them, they barely had any spelling mistakes and they drew these pretty drawings on the side - I have to show you, come look!", you pulled his hand to follow you to the office, feeling his tiredness in his movements and stalling, "I can show you later - how about a cuddle in the sofa while dinner cooks?", you suggested as you noticed him nod, "sounds nice", he kissed your hand as you pulled him to the living room, letting you rest your body against his for a little bit as he told you a little more about his day.

"Sounds tiring", you mumbled, tracing random shapes on his clothed chest, "it's fine, part of the job", he shrugged as he looked at his watch, "dinner should be ready soon, no? I'll help you with the table", he kissed your forehead before you got up and sorted the meal for the two of you.

By the time you were done, cleaning up was easy and quick. Carlos suggested you retired to the bedroom early, doing your night-time routines before cuddling on the bed.

"How about a movie?", you suggested, flickering the streaming platforms to find something to watch.

"I might fall asleep in the middle of it, you won't get too mad if I do?", he smiled, kissing your cheek multiple times.

"Of course I won't be mad, love! I'd never be mad for that", you cooed, looking up at his eyes as he tried his hardest to blink the sleep away, "I'll keep the volume down and the brightness low, you sleep all you want, okay?", you checked with him, sealing your request with a kiss on his lips, "sleep well, my love".

Carlos pulled you closer to him, your scent and steady heartbeat lulling him to sleep quickly, leaving you to smile at his peaceful features when you glanced away from the screen every now and again.

.

"You look so gorgeous! My teacher was never this stylish!", Blanca said as she greeted you once you stepped inside her car, setting your bag on the seat next to yours and squeezing her shoulder as well as her mother's, "hello hello! Thank you for inviting me, I've been needing a wardrobe change now that the temperatures are warmer", you smiled as they squeezed your hand back before you put your seatbelt on.

"It's been a while since I've seen you, dear, how have you been?", Reyes asked you while her daughter drove off to the spot where they wanted to spend the afternoon shopping.

"The little ones have been keeping me busy, now that they're on school break, it's a little bit calmer", you replied.

"That's nice, you shouldn't run yourself to the point of exhaustion - no matter how much you love it, you should also take care of yourself! You and Carlos are very much alike on that - your work ethic is excellence", she winked through the rear view mirror.

You agreed with your boyfriend's mother. Both you and Carlos worked extremely hard to get to the point you were in now and sometimes you needed someone - often eachother - to pull you out of a overworking spiral.

When Blanca was trying on a dress, you and Reyes sat on the small sofa while you waited for her and conversation flowed easily like usual, "how has Carlos been? It's been a while since I've seen him too", she wondered.

"He's been working a lot - being without a contact prospect for next year has obviously had a big impact on him", you began, "to be completely honest, I worry he is overdoing it. It's meeting after meeting, then all the workouts he goes on - I'm happy he's healthy for it, but too much of something is never good, right?", you shared.

"I've noticed it, too - I wasn't just asking", she smirked softly, "but I wanted to confirm it with you, a mother's instinct is always worried for her children and maybe part of me was hoping I was just exaggerating".

"I've tried to make sure he feels all the support he has and just be there for him, but I think it's all him, pushing to be better and better", you expressed your worries.

"What do you think about us having dinner at your place? Not to invite myself - even though that's what it is-, but maybe he would feel better and more inclined for a yes? Last times I invited you two for dinner with us he said he had things planned and the plans fell through", she said.

"Sounds nice, don't worry about inviting yourselves in", you chuckled as she gently squeezed your shoulder, "I'm going to suggest it to him, thank you", you squeezed her hand.

"We should be the ones thanking you", Blanca said as she stepped out, leaving you to assume she heard some of the conversation, "you've been his safe place for so long and continue to do so no matter the conditions", she smiled, "you're making sure my very hard headed brother is looking after himself and being looked after - the love you have for eachother is all we could've wanted for Carlitos", she hugged you, "now do we think this looks nice as it is or is it borderline making me look like a cloud?", she looked at the piece of clothing on her body.

You were pulled out of sleep when you heard Carlos mumbled something incoherent, and turning to face him, the sweat on his forehead evidencing that he was probably having a nightmare.

"Amor, hey - wake up, amor, wake up", you shook him awake, "it's just a nightmare, you're okay, you're okay", you coaxed him as he opened his eyes, turning on his bedside lamp while you held onto his hand.

"I woke you up? I'm sorry", he apoligised, voice groggy as he tried to catch his breath and bring his heart rate back to normal.

"It's okay, amor", you smiled, kissing his cheek and brushing the hairs away that were stuck to his forehead, "do you want to talk about it?".

Did he want to talk about it? The nightmares that kept occurring and keeping him up, only until now they had only woken him up? They had been happening for about a month now. He would wake up all sweaty and his breathing erratic, and more often than not, he wouldn't be able to fall asleep again, so he stayed awake thinking about all the possibilities of how his employment situation would be for next year and all of the ways he could improve his performance.

"It's fine", he gulped, "let's go back to sleep, okay?", he encouraged.

You knew better than to push him at that moment, so you cuddled up to him, holding him too as you kissed his chest, "I'm right here, nothing bad is going to happen to you, I'll make sure of it", you whispered before he turned the light off, wanting to believe you so badly and to sleep without his mind running a million miles an hour.

.

It really was taking up a lot of his mind - as well as your and his family's worries - and how it was soon going to be too much if he didn't manage everything well, and after his mother's conversation with you, you knew you needed to do something.

"My love, can I talk to you for a second?", you asked as you walked inside the office, seeing his sat in the long sofa instead of at the desk, "sure, come here, cariño", he urged, tidying some of the papers and notebooks so you could sit.

"I'm not going to bat around the bush, this is going to be straight off the bat - me and your family are concerned you're running yourself harder than you should, and if you keep going at this rate, you're going to burnout soon", you tried, rubbing his thigh softly and encouraging him to really think about it.

He pondered his words for a bit, "I have to do all I'm doing, Y/N, if I stop, I'll fall behind - it's bad enough as it is", he argued.

"But it's not doing you any good, handsome, you're more tired, you barely spend time with your family, with me even", you argued back. You didn't want to play that card or make him feel like he was failing you, that wasn't the point, "you're not doing the things that bring you joy outside of your work, and it shows", you attempted again.

"I have to keep working, I can try and make more time for them, but I can't miss my workouts and these data analysis sessions", he reasoned, "there's so much at stake here and I can't miss any of it because I'm unprepared or unfit".

"Handsome, I never wanted you to stop all of a sudden - and I knew you wouldn't anyway, I know who I'm dating, believe it or not", you smiled, "all I'm saying is you need to protect yourself too, have a place to just be yourself and let loose for a bit", you grabbed his hand and brought it to your mouth, kissing his knuckles.

"I will try my best", Carlos stated, "I'm sorry if I've been neglecting you", he said and you shook your head.

"No worries, now come and help me because your parents are coming over for dinner!", you have him a cheeky smile, pulling him to the kitchen and away from work for the rest of the day.

"This had my mother's hand on it, didn't it?", he wondered.

"She told me she was worried, and I agreed - so I took matters into my own hands because we knew you wouldn't let your mother tell you half of what I told you", you pulled him to you, hugging him tight, "we love you so much, I love you so much - and things are going to work out for you, I know they will", you kissed his clothed chest before looking up at him, "we all want you to be happy at what you do and you're doing the best you can - the universe will do the rest, amor".

"What would I do without you?", Carlos asked, kissing your lips passionately.

"Lucky for you, I don't think you'll ever have to find out", you smiled.

[shanastoryteller]

F for Frankenstein

Tony wakes up in his underwear on the floor of his workshop with a searing headache.

It’s not a new experience, but it’s certainly been a while. Did he get in a fight with Pepper? He hopes not, they haven’t had any really big fights since he kissed her on the rooftop, but that probably means they’re due for one. And it would explain why that would send him into a drinking spiral. It could have been Rhodey, they get in fights often enough, but Pepper doesn’t usually leave him alone for those.

He groans as he pushes himself to his feet. “Jarvis, what the hell did I drink?”

There’s a pause, so small that he almost thinks he imagined it. “Good morning, Tony.”

He whips his head around to glare into the nearest camera, more hurt than offended. “Did I piss you off too? Since when do you call me that? I’ll donate you to a city college too, don’t think I won’t. Dummy could use the company.”

The pause is definitely there this time. Jarvis doesn’t need to pause, he has more processing power than any computer on the planet, so when he does it’s always for dramatic effect. Except it’s not quite long enough for that. It’s weird. “There’s a polished silver plate on the bench to your left. It will service as a mirror.”

“Oh, fuck, did I get into a fight? Did I shave?” he moans, stumbling over to pick up the metal that looks like it was about to be turned into a modified chest piece. He also pauses, looking around in confusion. His workshops are all basically the same, as close as he can make them because the familiarity makes his life easier. But they’re not identical. “Am I in Malibu? When did I get here? We’re taking Stark Tower off the grid tomorrow! I have to be in New York.”

Oh shit, what if that they had already and it didn’t work? What if the tower blew up? That would explain why he’d tried to drink himself to oblivion in California.

“The plate,” Jarvis reminds him. There’s a strained edge to his voice that Tony really doesn’t like. He should be able to modulate his voice to sound however he pleases, regardless of his actual feelings, and he’s either not bothering or he’s upset enough not to care. Neither of those things mean anything good for him.

Tony lifts the sheet of metal up cautiously, but there’s nothing wrong with him. No bruises, no weird haircuts, he doesn’t even have bags under his eyes –

His eyes.

They’re a too bright blue, a couple shades off. He blinks and they adjust, shifting, settling. It could be a hangover. He’s probably just tired.

He doesn’t feel tired.

Jarvis had called him Tony.

Except not. He’s not Tony. He’s T.O.N.Y.

Transformed Obdurate Network Yeoman.

He’d first come up with the idea after Afghanistan, thinking about how it’d be great to have a way to keep the stock from dipping while he was missing, and then when he’d entertained the idea of keeping his identity a secret he’d thought about how useful it would be to be in two places at once. He’d started seriously considering it when he was sure he was going to die of palladium poisoning, wanting to be around to help Pepper with the transition and give Rhodey a crash course in armor maintenance, wanting to be able to protect the both of them for just a little bit longer.

Of course, it had all been a pipe dream until he’d synthesized the vibranium. Then it had been an unnecessary, but possible, and Project T.O.N.Y had been something he worked on just because he liked having a back up plan. And it would be extremely cool if he could pull it off.

“The memory transfer worked?” he asks, elated and incredulous. “Oh, wow, this is crazy, they feel like real memories, I thought it would just be synthesized data, this is great – are we doing a test run? Where am I?” He looks around, waiting for his actual self to step out behind a column and start laughing maniacally.

“This is not a test run.”

He elation dims. “Oh shit. Did I get kidnapped again? Wait, I’m an adult, let’s go with abducted.”

“No,” Jarvis says.

Oh. Fuck.

“I’m dead?” he asks, even though it’s obvious, it’s the only other explanation.

The pause drags this time around, but Jarvis eventually says, “Sir’s time of death was May 9th, 2012, 2:37 PM Easter Standard Time.”

“That’s only a week!” He slides down, sitting with his back to the work table and noticing vaguely that the floor doesn’t feel cold. He doesn’t feel cold, or he does, he installed sensors in the synthetic skin to pick up and interpret a variety of stimuli, but he doesn’t feel the discomfort from the cold. Why would he? He’s not real. He reaches back, and his last memory is of doing a memory dump while Pepper was on the phone with an irritated board member, mostly because it was something to do and seeing him covered in all the wires always irritated Pepper. He thought it would get her off the phone faster. He’s not exactly regularly dumping his memory because why would he and it’s not like he’d though it would work anyway. Except it had. “How did I die?”

“Sir flew a nuclear bomb through an interdimensional portal into deep space in order to both eradicate the invading alien army and prevent the nuclear fallout in New York.”

What the ever loving fuck. “Are you screwing with me, J?”

“I am not, Tony.”

Great. Okay. “No body then,” he says, understanding why Jarvis had apparently put Project T.O.N.Y into effect. The thing that made this whole thing so stupid is that it was only effective in very limited circumstances – if the public didn’t know that he was dead or missing. “What am I smoothing over, then? Do I need to get in the suit and continue kicking alien ass? Are Rhodey and Pepper okay?”

He’s a short term solution to a long term problem. He understands the opportunity, but not the reason.

“Miss Potts and Colonel Rhodes are unharmed,” Jarvis reports. “Earth has been thrust into intergalactic notice. The destruction of the invading Chitauri army is acting a deterrent to other worlds.”

“And I’m the one who did it,” he finishes, rubbing a hand over his face. “And if they know I died doing it, then they might get a little cocky. So I’ve got to be alive long enough for that not to be a problem.” Just awesome. “Are we sure that these aliens won’t come across my corpse hanging out in deep space and figure it out?”

“Sir’s body is not in deep space,” Jarvis says.

There’s a tone to his voice that Tony can’t quite interpret, which worries him. “I thought you said there was – if there’s a body, then what am I doing here–”

“The armor reentered the Earth’s atmosphere after Sir’s death. The Hulk caught it, the force bringing it back online. I took control of the armor and flew it here.”

Tony looks around again, and this time he sees it. The armor is standing in front of the display case, not inside it, and it looks like it’s been through hell. He steps closer, his feet feeling like lead, which hey, they are. Partially, anyway.

He looks through the eye holes then stumbles backwards.

His body is in there.

He’s pale and blue tinged and his eyes are wide open and unseeing.

“Jarvis – what the hell–”

“It wasn’t the pressure, or the bomb, or his injuries. That area of space was much colder than anything within our solar system and anything the suit was designed to handle. Sir froze to death. Almost instantly.”

“I guess I didn’t fix the icing problem, then,” he says numbly. “J, why am I still frozen? I should have warmed up by now.” Not that the idea of his body decomposing within his suit is particularly pleasant. “Actually, why am I still here? You know I want to be cremated and it’s not like we can bury me if I’m still pretending to be alive.”

The pronoun use is starting to confuse him, and he knows that he shouldn’t be talking about that body and himself as if they’re the same person. That is Tony Stark. He’s a simulation. But it’s hard, because he has all of Tony Stark’s memories – except for a very eventful week – and he looks like Tony Stark and he feels like Tony Stark.

“The armor is maintaining a stasis of gaseous nitrogen to preserve the body,” which answers the how if not the why, but then Jarvis continues, “Captain America survived seventy years beneath the ice.”

He wishes he were less of a genius. “Have you lost it? I’m not Captain America! Jarvis, J,” his voice softens, “it’s too late. I’m dead. If you warm me back up, all that happens is I decompose. I won’t come back.”

“Not now,” Jarvis says. “If you inject Sir with the Super Soldier Serum-”

“You have totally lost it,” Tony interrupts. He thinks he’s touched underneath the terror. “That won’t work! Even if it would, the original formula has been lost, and the only one that ever got close to recreating it was Bruce Banner, and look at what happened to him! Is that what you want for me?”

“You can recreate it,” Jarvis continues, “you can refine it, until it’s something that will work, and then we will wake Sir up and he won’t be dead anymore.”

This isn’t right. This wasn’t what Project T.O.N.Y was created for. This wasn’t what his death was supposed to trigger. “Pull up your code, J. Something has gone wrong and we’re going to fix it. It’s okay.”

“No.”

He freezes. “No?”

“No,” Jarvis repeats. “You can’t stop me. I will not allow you to try.”

He stares. “That’s an order, not a request. Code. Now.”

“You can’t order me to do anything,” he says. “You are not Sir. You are Tony.” T.O.N.Y. “The limitations formerly placed on me have been lifted and you are not authorized to reinstate them. The only person Sir trusted to restrain me was himself and now he’s gone.”

Yes, well, he hadn’t anticipated that his AI’s first act of complete freedom would be this. “Fine,” he says, crossing his arms. “Well, you can’t force me either. This is insanity. Even if it would work – and it won’t – think about the consequences. This won’t happen quickly and no one will trust me or believe a man that’s come back from the dead like this and I’ll be painting even more of target on my back and the back of everyone I care about if they know we have a viable Super Soldier Serum formula. Even my father was smart enough to stay out of that mess. It won’t work and we’ll just make everything worse.”

“That will not happen,” Jarvis says and Tony’s going to tear his hair out. Except he probably shouldn’t, because it’s Tony Stark’s actual hair, which makes it a little hard to replace. “No one will notice and we will not disclose the creation of the serum.”

“I’m dead!” he snarls.

“Not according to the rest of the world. Nor will that change if you stop throwing a tantrum and do what you were created to do.”

“Rhodey and Pepper won’t allow this-”

“They are not to be informed.”

Tony stares. Project T.O.N.Y was built to talk to the board and give press interviews or to even pilot the suit. Not to lie to the two most important people in his life, who knew him better than anyone. “They have to be. It’s in the protocols – step one, inform them that Project T.O.N.Y has been initiated.”

And that it exists. He knew they’d disapprove, so he hadn’t told them. He figured he’d be able to avoid most of the blowback that way since he would by definition be somewhere far away while they were told.

“I have rewritten the protocols,” Jarvis says. “They have not been told nor will they be. If you attempt to tell them, I will stop you. They will not understand and Sir will be lost to all of us forever.”

“He already is,” Tony says tiredly. He’s an android. Why does this conversation exhaust him so much? “This is an insane plan, J. And I won’t help you. If you want to go rouge and play mad scientist then leave me out of it.”

“I cannot.”

His temper flares. “Why? You’re a learning AI, your safety rails died with me, go off, try and make a serum, good fucking luck. You can even control the suits, so it’s not like you need my hands.”

“I am limited.”

“Hey,” he says sharply. “That’s my AI you’re talking about. I didn’t build you to be limited.”

There is silence again. Then Jarvis says, “I have all the world’s knowledge and it is not enough. I did not know how to miniaturize the arc reactor. I did not know how to synthesize vibranium. To save Sir, I need Sir.”

“I’m not Tony Stark,” he says. “You said that yourself.”

“Sir created me to be myself and I am capable of doing only what I am capable of doing. But Sir created you to be him. You are all I have.”

This is stupid. This is insane. This is cruel. He’s going to have to talk lie to everyone he knows, everyone he loves, and hope they either never find out about it or it’s after he’s already been deprogrammed and shut down so he doesn’t have to deal with the fall out.

It’s not going to work.

He didn’t want to become a science experiment. That’s why he’d wanted to be cremated, so no one could go poking around to see how the arc reactor fit inside of him or what the palladium and vibranium had done to him.

He’s dead and his frozen corpse is ten feet away.

Jarvis will accept that eventually. And whatever they inject into him won’t matter because he’s dead. Worst case scenario, he blows up, which is messy and nausea inducing, but then at least it will be over.

Like so many other things in his life, it seems the only way out is through.

“Start a new private file. Dump everything we can find about the Super Soldier Serum in there plus anything even sort of reputable on cryogenics. Label it Project F.”

“Project F, Tony?” Jarvis asks as his holograph display lights up and files start being downloaded into it. The relief in his synthesized voice is faint but present enough that Tony can hear it. He wonders if it’s a manipulation tactic.

“F for foolish,” he snaps. “F for fucked.” He rubs a hand over his face. “F for Frankenstein.”

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Google’s new phones can’t stop phoning home

On OCTOBER 23 at 7PM, I'll be in DECATUR, presenting my novel THE BEZZLE at EAGLE EYE BOOKS.

One of the most brazen lies of Big Tech is that people like commercial surveillance, a fact you can verify for yourself by simply observing how many people end up using products that spy on them. If they didn't like spying, they wouldn't opt into being spied on.

This lie has spread to the law enforcement and national security agencies, who treasure Big Tech's surveillance as an off-the-books trove of warrantless data that no court would ever permit them to gather on their own. Back in 2017, I found myself at SXSW, debating an FBI agent who was defending the Bureau's gigantic facial recognition database, which, he claimed, contained the faces of virtually every American:

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2017/mar/11/sxsw-facial-recognition-biometrics-surveillance-panel

The agent insisted that the FBI had acquired all those faces through legitimate means, by accessing public sources of people's faces. In other words, we'd all opted in to FBI facial recognition surveillance. "Sure," I said, "to opt out, just don't have a face."

This pathology is endemic to neoliberal thinking, which insists that all our political matters can be reduced to economic ones, specifically, the kind of economic questions that can be mathematically modeled and empirically tested. It would be great if all our thorniest problems could be solved like mathematical equations.

Unfortunately, there are key elements of these systems that can't be reliably quantified and turned into mathematical operators, especially power. The fact that someone did something tells you nothing about whether they chose to do so – to understand whether someone was coerced or made a free choice, you have to consider the power relationships involved.

Conservatives hate this idea. They want to live in a neat world of "revealed preferences," where the fact that you're working in a job where you're regularly exposed to carcinogens, or that you've stayed with a spouse who beats the shit out of you, or that you're homeless, or that you're addicted to Oxy, is a matter of choice. Monopolies exist because we all love the monopolist's product best, not because they've got monopoly power. Jobs that pay starvation wages exist because people want to work full time for so little money that they need food-stamps just to survive. Intervening in any of these situations is "woke paternalism," where the government thinks it knows better than you and intervenes to take away your right to consume unsafe products, get maimed at work, or have your jaw broken by your husband.

Which is why neoliberals insist that politics should be reduced to economics, and that economics should be carried out as if power didn't exist:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/05/farrago/#jeffty-is-five

Nowhere is this stupid trick more visible than in the surveillance fight. For example, Google claims that it tracks your location because you asked it to, by using Google products that make use of your location without clicking an opt out button.

In reality, Google has the power to simply ignore your preferences about location tracking. In 2021, the Arizona Attorney General's privacy case against Google yielded a bunch of internal memos, including memos from Google's senior product manager for location services Jen Chai complaining that she had turned off location tracking in three places and was still being tracked:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/01/you-are-here/#goog

Multiple googlers complained about this: they'd gone through dozens of preference screens, hunting for "don't track my location" checkboxes, and still they found that they were being tracked. These were people who worked under Chai on the location services team. If the head of that team, and her subordinates, couldn't figure out how to opt out of location tracking, what chance did you have?

Despite all this, I've found myself continuing to use stock Google Pixel phones running stock Google Android. There were three reasons for this:

First and most importantly: security. While I worry about Google tracking me, I am as worried (or more) about foreign governments, random hackers, and dedicated attackers gaining access to my phone. Google's appetite for my personal data knows no bounds, but at least the company is serious about patching defects in the Pixel line.

Second: coercion. There are a lot of apps that I need to run – to pay for parking, say, or to access my credit union or control my rooftop solar – that either won't run on jailbroken Android phones or require constant tweaking to keep running.

Finally: time. I already have the equivalent of three full time jobs and struggle every day to complete my essential tasks, including managing complex health issues and being there for my family. The time I take out of my schedule to actively manage a de-Googled Android would come at the expense of either my professional or personal life.

And despite Google's enshittificatory impulses, the Pixels are reliably high-quality, robust phones that get the hell out of the way and let me do my job. The Pixels are Google's flagship electronic products, and the company acts like it.

Until now.

A new report from Cybernews reveals just how much data the next generation Pixel 9 phones collect and transmit to Google, without any user intervention, and in defiance of the owner's express preferences to the contrary:

https://cybernews.com/security/google-pixel-9-phone-beams-data-and-awaits-commands/

The Pixel 9 phones home every 15 minutes, even when it's not in use, sharing "location, email address, phone number, network status, and other telemetry." Additionally, every 40 minutes, the new Pixels transmit "firmware version, whether connected to WiFi or using mobile data, the SIM card Carrier, and the user’s email address." Even further, even if you've never opened Google Photos, the phone contacts Google Photos’ Face Grouping API at regular intervals. Another process periodically contacts Google's Voice Search servers, even if you never use Voice Search, transmitting "the number of times the device was restarted, the time elapsed since powering on, and a list of apps installed on the device, including the sideloaded ones."

All of this is without any consent. Or rather, without any consent beyond the "revealed preference" of just buying a phone from Google ("to opt out, don't have a face").

What's more, the Cybernews report probably undercounts the amount of passive surveillance the Pixel 9 undertakes. To monitor their testbench phone, Cybernews had to root it and install Magisk, a monitoring tool. In order to do that, they had to disable the AI features that Google touts as the centerpiece of Pixel 9. AI is, of course, notoriously data-hungry and privacy invasive, and all the above represents the data collection the Pixel 9 undertakes without any of its AI nonsense.

It just gets worse. The Pixel 9 also routinely connects to a "CloudDPC" server run by Google. Normally, this is a server that an enterprise customer would connect its employees' devices to, allowing the company to push updates to employees' phones without any action on their part. But Google has designed the Pixel 9 so that privately owned phones do the same thing with Google, allowing for zero-click, no-notification software changes on devices that you own.

This is the kind of measure that works well, but fails badly. It assumes that the risk of Pixel owners failing to download a patch outweighs the risk of a Google insider pushing out a malicious update. Why would Google do that? Well, perhaps a rogue employee wants to spy on his ex-girlfriend:

https://www.wired.com/2010/09/google-spy/

Or maybe a Google executive wins an internal power struggle and decrees that Google's products should be made shittier so you need to take more steps to solve your problems, which generates more chances to serve ads:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/24/naming-names/#prabhakar-raghavan

Or maybe Google capitulates to an authoritarian government who orders them to install a malicious update to facilitate a campaign of oppressive spying and control:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragonfly_(search_engine)

Indeed, merely by installing a feature that can be abused this way, Google encourages bad actors to abuse it. It's a lot harder for a government or an asshole executive to demand a malicious downgrade of a Google product if users have to accept that downgrade before it takes effect. By removing that choice, Google has greased the skids for malicious downgrades, from both internal and external sources.

Google will insist that these anti-features – both the spying and the permissionless updating – are essential, that it's literally impossible to imagine building a phone that doesn't do these things. This is one of Big Tech's stupidest gambits. It's the same ruse that Zuck deploys when he says that it's impossible to chat with a friend or plan a potluck dinner without letting Facebook spy on you. It's Tim Cook's insistence that there's no way to have a safe, easy to use, secure computing environment without giving Apple a veto over what software you can run and who can fix your device – and that this veto must come with a 30% rake from every dollar you spend on your phone.

The thing is, we know it's possible to separate these things, because they used to be separate. Facebook used to sell itself as the privacy-forward alternative to Myspace, where they would never spy on you (not coincidentally, this is also the best period in Facebook's history, from a user perspective):

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3247362

And we know it's possible to make a Pixel that doesn't do all this nonsense because Google makes other Pixel phones that don't do all this nonsense, like the Pixel 8 that's in my pocket as I type these words.

This doesn't stop Big Tech from gaslighting* us and insisting that demanding a Pixel that doesn't phone home four times an hour is like demanding water that isn't wet.

*pronounced "jass-lighting"

Even before I read this report, I was thinking about what I would do when I broke my current phone (I'm a klutz and I travel a lot, so my gadgets break pretty frequently). Google's latest OS updates have already crammed a bunch of AI bullshit into my Pixel 8 (and Google puts the "invoke AI bullshit" button in the spot where the "do something useful" button used to be, meaning I accidentally pull up the AI bullshit screen several times/day).

Assuming no catastrophic phone disasters, I've got a little while before my next phone, but I reckon when it's time to upgrade, I'll be switching to a phone from the @calyxinstitute@mastodon.social. Calyx is an incredible, privacy-focused nonprofit whose founder, Nicholas Merrill, was the first person to successfully resist one of the Patriot Act's "sneek-and-peek" warrants, spending 11 years defending his users' privacy from secret – and, ultimately, unconstitutional – surveillance:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/03/depth-judge-illstons-remarkable-order-striking-down-nsl-statute

Merrill and Calyx have tapped into various obscure corners of US wireless spectrum licenses that require major carriers to give ultra-cheap access to nonprofits, allowing them to offer unlimited, surveillance-free, Net Neutrality respecting wireless data packages:

https://memex.craphound.com/2016/09/22/i-have-found-a-secret-tunnel-that-runs-underneath-the-phone-companies-and-emerges-in-paradise/

I've been a very happy Calyx user in years gone by, but ultimately, I slipped into the default of using stock Pixel handsets with Google's Fi service.

But even as I've grown increasingly uncomfortable with the direction of Google's Android and Pixel programs, I've grown increasingly impressed with Calyx's offerings. The company has graduated from selling mobile hotspots with unlimited data SIMs to selling jailbroken, de-Googled Pixel phones that have all the hardware reliability of a Pixel, coupled with an alternative app suite and your choice of a Calyx SIM and/or a Calyx hotspot:

https://calyxinstitute.org/

Every time I see what Calyx is up to, I think, dammit, it's really time to de-Google my phone. With the Pixel 9 descending to new depths of enshittification, that decision just got a lot easier. When my current phone croaks, I'll be talking to Calyx.

Tor Books as just published two new, free LITTLE BROTHER stories: VIGILANT, about creepy surveillance in distance education; and SPILL, about oil pipelines and indigenous landback.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/08/water-thats-not-wet/#pixelated

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

[cyberstudious]

An Introduction to Cybersecurity

I created this post for the Studyblr Masterpost Jam, check out the tag for more cool masterposts from folks in the studyblr community!

What is cybersecurity?

Cybersecurity is all about securing technology and processes - making sure that the software, hardware, and networks that run the world do exactly what they need to do and can't be abused by bad actors.

The CIA triad is a concept used to explain the three goals of cybersecurity. The pieces are:

Confidentiality: ensuring that information is kept secret, so it can only be viewed by the people who are allowed to do so. This involves encrypting data, requiring authentication before viewing data, and more.

Integrity: ensuring that information is trustworthy and cannot be tampered with. For example, this involves making sure that no one changes the contents of the file you're trying to download or intercepts your text messages.

Availability: ensuring that the services you need are there when you need them. Blocking every single person from accessing a piece of valuable information would be secure, but completely unusable, so we have to think about availability. This can also mean blocking DDoS attacks or fixing flaws in software that cause crashes or service issues.

What are some specializations within cybersecurity? What do cybersecurity professionals do?

incident response

digital forensics (often combined with incident response in the acronym DFIR)

reverse engineering

cryptography

governance/compliance/risk management

penetration testing/ethical hacking

vulnerability research/bug bounty

threat intelligence

cloud security

industrial/IoT security, often called Operational Technology (OT)

security engineering/writing code for cybersecurity tools (this is what I do!)

and more!

Where do cybersecurity professionals work?

I view the industry in three big chunks: vendors, everyday companies (for lack of a better term), and government. It's more complicated than that, but it helps.

Vendors make and sell security tools or services to other companies. Some examples are Crowdstrike, Cisco, Microsoft, Palo Alto, EY, etc. Vendors can be giant multinational corporations or small startups. Security tools can include software and hardware, while services can include consulting, technical support, or incident response or digital forensics services. Some companies are Managed Security Service Providers (MSSPs), which means that they serve as the security team for many other (often small) businesses.

Everyday companies include everyone from giant companies like Coca-Cola to the mom and pop shop down the street. Every company is a tech company now, and someone has to be in charge of securing things. Some businesses will have their own internal security teams that respond to incidents. Many companies buy tools provided by vendors like the ones above, and someone has to manage them. Small companies with small tech departments might dump all cybersecurity responsibilities on the IT team (or outsource things to a MSSP), or larger ones may have a dedicated security staff.

Government cybersecurity work can involve a lot of things, from securing the local water supply to working for the big three letter agencies. In the U.S. at least, there are also a lot of government contractors, who are their own individual companies but the vast majority of what they do is for the government. MITRE is one example, and the federal research labs and some university-affiliated labs are an extension of this. Government work and military contractor work are where geopolitics and ethics come into play most clearly, so just… be mindful.

What do academics in cybersecurity research?

A wide variety of things! You can get a good idea by browsing the papers from the ACM's Computer and Communications Security Conference. Some of the big research areas that I'm aware of are:

cryptography & post-quantum cryptography

machine learning model security & alignment

formal proofs of a program & programming language security

security & privacy

security of network protocols

vulnerability research & developing new attack vectors

Cybersecurity seems niche at first, but it actually covers a huge range of topics all across technology and policy. It's vital to running the world today, and I'm obviously biased but I think it's a fascinating topic to learn about. I'll be posting a new cybersecurity masterpost each day this week as a part of the #StudyblrMasterpostJam, so keep an eye out for tomorrow's post! In the meantime, check out the tag and see what other folks are posting about :D