#man. iotes. what a memory

[theroseempress]

Weaving and Finger Painting for the ask meme!

(Weaving: are your works typically similar to one another? Pick two works, and share one similarity and one difference between them.)

I don't know if I'd say my works are similar per se, but there's most definitely themes I gravitate towards, and as such most of my works have said themes in common.

As to what said themes are... I'm honestly not entirely sure, to be honest. I definitely like writing character interactions, so I guess most of my works have strong inter-character relationships? I also really like exploring platonic love (and in general find exploring various types of love/relationships fun) so there's that as well.

As to the two works, I'll pick The Golden City and Mercy City (placeholder title) since they're the two I've been recently working on. Similarity- the main protagonist of TGC's name is Felix and the main protagonist of MC's name is Felice Aside from their names, Felix and Felice are pretty similar in some aspects. Also each of these stories currently has City in the title. Difference- Well, the first thing that comes to mind is that MC has a magic system and TGC does not, just average humans. There's also a lot more groups of people up to their own agendas in MC than TGC.

(Finger Painting: share a small snippet from your earliest work (or the earliest that you can get back to). How would you rewrite it today? Either share the rewrite itself or just describe how you'd do it.)

Oh wow, my earliest work... Actually, hang on, I might be able to get that. One moment... Yeah, couldn't find my actual earliest work. It's hypothetically somewhere in my email, but I emailed it to someone when I was like 11 or something, so yeah.

My actual earliest work was a fantasy book where the main characters were horses, believe it or not. I called it Isles of the Endless Sea (which is honestly a very cool name) and it had like 3 or 4 books before I got bored halfway through the ending of one and just. stopped writing them haha.

IotES was honestly quite a good series despite the rather clunky writing (not blaming my past self, she did her best), I reread it recently and there's quite a few moments where I was like 'huh that's actually a really cool concept/line'. The first book's title was 'Night of Shadows' and I honestly can't figure out if that's a bit too dramatic or if it's actually a very cool title.

I'd like to try rewriting it someday, to be honest. If I did, the biggest change I'd make would be changing the characters to humans. I'd also adjust the plot a bit so it's less convoluted, and definitely change how ALL THE CHARACTERS are somehow related. (I'd just discovered the concept of 'secret evil sibling' and was very enamoured with it).

There's a snippet (the first book's prologue) under the cut! Notes specifically on the snippet... not that bad honestly. Formatting could definitely use some work. If I were to edit it now, I'd probably rewrite some of the lines, but overall quite good, especially for what was basically my first time writing.

“She will see you now.”

The white attendant stepped out of the way, and Reikan strode past him, into the throne room. The mare who waited there was beautiful, a deadly kind of beauty, however.

She was the color of polished black ebony, and had striped hooves. Her face was neatly structured, suggesting a hint of Arabian. The only flaw was a long scar,running down her jawline. It was not a ugly thing, merely a line where there was no hair. However, it served as a reminder of who she was to her legions. That and the sabre, that deadly curved sword, that hung in a sheath at her side. It had emeralds studded down the handle, and a blade many suspected was dipped in poison.

It was, in fact. A narrow tube ran down the blade, feeding from the tip, to a reservoir set in the handle, that was filled with adders venom! It had a plug at the tip, so that when it stabbed something , that plug would give leeway for a thin trickle of venom. If you felt the tip, you could feel a slight bump, the plug. However, no-horse felt the tip, as Ziara made most of her kills without using the poison at all.

But perhaps her most recognizable feature was her eyes. They were black, which was not a strange thing. But the kind of black..ah, that was strange. They were a deep black that if you stared into, you felt almost as if you were being sucked into a vacuum. When she was angry, the black gained a strange gleam to it. She was also a master of stares, and could make almost any horse feel the way she wanted them to.

Ziara was studying a map when Reikan entered. However, she greeted him before the door had even closed

“Reikan.”

Somewhat astonished at how she had know it was him, he bowed, and replied. “Milady”

Eyes spitting fire, she turned around.

“Reikan! How many times must I remind you? Do. Not. Call. Me. Milady!” “Apologies General. It was a slip of the tongue.”

The lethal mare returned to her previous state, one so charming it was impossible not to be awed by her beauty.

“Your report?”

[siblingsoflight]

The girl in white tentitively knocked on the door, her hands trembling and her eyes hopeful. She wasn't sure what she had been summoned for, but iot had to be urgent.

The door opened to reveal a familliar face. She grinned happily, "Repliku!" and embraced him. Repliku in turn held her close, and then led her to the Masters Chamber, to Eraqus.

"You called for me, Master Eraqus?"

Eraqus looked up from the paperwork he was working on. He set his pen down. He stood to greet his guest.

"Yes, I did. I wish it was under better circumstances."

He gestured for her to sit in one of the armchairs before his desk. Once Namine was comfortable, he sat back down.

"As I'm sure you've been told, we've had a guest these past few weeks. A young man named Frederick. He has been through a great ordeal that left him scarred both physically and mentally. Due to his connects with Sora and Celeste, we were hoping you would be able to see into his shattered memories and help him."

[arcstral]

📝- A memory of them getting to know/meeting my muse

     (  📝  ;  memory of them getting to know/meeting my muse  )

Six years older than the newly born Prince Jubelo, and six years younger than Michalis of Macedon. The younger brother of King Aurelis, Prince Hardin, is really not so young at all—surely not of an age where he would be a suitable playmate—and the wedded Archanean princes of the mainland will see him with an equivalence to their own children. With an ocean of difference to mark their respective generations, they will be more like to relate with his father than the six-year-old Prince of Altea.

All in all, scouring his continent’s ranks of royal issue and fine leaders-to-be produces little promise for a similarly aged friend amongst them. It is not like Merric has proven unsatisfactory. Never. However; nor would it suffice to play and chatter with one single friend for all his life. So amongst the many princes of the land, his fanciful imagination decides upon the Macedonian variety; pictured only through portraiture and verbal description.

Intensely colored of hair and personality, both in a shade like spilled blood. Prince Michalis from the mountainous kingdom of Macedon, a stone’s throw to the south, is an older and apparently much sterner boy. But to Marth it is plenty enough that he is beardless, and more boy than man, even if the distinction is not fated to last long.

“Tell me. What is he like, Malledus?” he asks the chamberlain curiously when the opportunity so strikes. “...Prince Michalis.”

A quiet shuffling places the old man’s documents to rest, his wise attention directed fully towards his young prince. Knowing, perhaps, if ever the indication of his gentle smile. “Curious, Your Highness? I hear he is a prodigious warrior. Already they call him the second coming of Iote. He is even dedicated to his studies and seems fit to one day succeed his father’s throne.”

Marth nods, an uncertain look writ across his face. Already this distant Macedonian prince seems much too solemn. Too talented. Not warm like Princess Sheena of Gra, but cool and distant like an ancient wall of stone. He has heard the stories that uphold his lineage—how Michalis’ ancestor, Iote, rose up a single sturdy nail from the many hammered down slaves of the Macedonian woodlands. Leading the resistance against the dragon overlords by taming their degenerated kin, he paved a path through forests and skies amongst the very first dracoknights of the continent.

A prince thrumming with such blood... how would he appear to the naked eye? A miniature warrior in the vein of Iote himself with a body decked in bulging muscles—or perhaps the close association of his bloodline with the wyverns they rode would produce a secret freckling of scales beneath his tunic. Mind spinning, Marth swallows down a lump in his throat.

“...I see... Well; I pray we can be friends some day.”

A well-matched sort, like his father and King Talys. Such can only be the hope.

[divinedoggo]

Hell’s Kitchen

Summary: You offended the King of Curses with your subpar cooking.  So he teaches you a lesson you’ll never forget.

Tag(s)/Warning(s): Cursing, slight blood

---

“What is this?”

You flinch as a plate of omurice slams right on the coffee table beside you.  The fried egg nearly flies off the plate and chucks of food dislodge from the plate unto the floor.  Looming over you, looking ready to throttle you, was Ryomen Sukuna, the infamous King of Curses and a freeloader in your best friend’s, Itadori Yuji, body.

“It’s...omurice…you know food? You didn’t forget about food while sealed away, did you?”  You attempt to go back to what you were doing.  The curse tuts in annoyance before he grabs you by the scruff of your neck and jabs a finger at your dish like you were a disobedient pet.  

“The fuck?  I’m not some ca- “

“You call this food?! I’ve seen curses that look better than this!” He grabs the dish from the table and proceeds to point out every component in your dish.  Each critique felt like a bullet to your pride as the curse lists off each sin.  

“You cut the vegetables too big and almost caused the brat choke on it!  The vegetables are undercooked and lack any flavor!”

“You overcooked the egg, the signature component!  Are you trying to cook food or create rubber!  I could use this egg as a frisbee!” To emphasize his point, he proceeds to grab the egg and throw it out the window.  A loud crash from the distance could be heard followed by the blare of a car alarm.

Sukuna then proceeds to slam the plate again on the coffee table and scoop some of the rice to shove in your face.

“And how?!  HOW?! How do you manage to make the rice both SOGGY and DRY at the same time!”  Sukuna gags from the disgusting memory and grabs your glass of water to drink.  “And its over salted…. If I didn’t know any better, I would have thought you were trying to kill him.”

“Well Yuji seemed to like it!” You crossed your arms and turned away from him with a huff. “He always eats what I serve him.”

And that’s true.  Some days when Yuji visits from Jujutsu Tech, you go out of your way to make him food because you wanted an excuse to have him stick around longer.  Yuji, the sweet cinnamon roll he is, gladly accepts any of your meals and always finishes them without complaints.

“That brat would eat cardboard soaked in milk if you served it to him!”  To add salt to the wound, he summons his flames and burns what remains of the omurice to ash.

“Well, what would you know about cooking?  I doubt terrorizing the province from back then gives you five-star qualifications!” You huffed.

“I don’t need five of these five “stars” to teach a worm like you how to not poison a man.”  He storms away from you to escape into the kitchen.

“Worm, I sho- wait what?” You gawk at him in confusion as he disappears behind the counter and emerges with an apron.

“Get in here!  NOW!” An apron flew into your face and nearly knocks you out from the sheer force.

You mumbled complaints under your breath as you tied the apron on before you joined Sukuna in the kitchen as he sets up his station and laid out the knives.

The next hour becomes the worst series of cooking lessons of your life as you endure insults of all kinds as he demonstrates how to properly cook.  

The curse chops the vegetables with surprising skill that rivals the chefs you see on tv.  You copied his movements to the best of your ability and find yourself enjoying the steady sound of the knife meeting the cutting board.

Then the real cooking phase starts and it all goes down from there.

“You added to much oil to the pan!”  The curse throws a paper towel at you and forces you to clean up the pan.

“You need to turn down the heat!”  He takes the pan to cool down as he turns down the oven knob.

Despite the king’s best efforts, you still find a way to burn the egg due to you scrolling through your phone.

As punishment, he takes your second overcooked egg and slaps it on your head.  Tears leaks out the corners of your eyes as you try to gather what sense you have left.

“WHAT ARE YOU!” The king of curses grabs you by the jaw and forces you to look him in the eyes as his nails dig into your cheeks.

“An omu-iot…” You cry out as he tightens his grip with a threat.  “An omu-iot, Sukuna-dono!”

Despite the rough treatment, despite all the insults, and almost getting your face cut to ribbons…

The omurice tasted divine.

[tellywoodtrash]

immj2 19.10.20 lb

oh wow, this is one fug outfit. puff sleeve bhi, gota patti bhi, net dupatta bhi, giant gaudy haar bhi, blue winged eyeliner bhi. matlab, pick one or two of these elements, sis. not ALL.

speaking of outfits that have A Lot going on, the resident queen of that is here.

literally who doesn't have another tab open at all times to switch to when ppl are in the vicinity? anyone who's used a computer since the invention of tabs knows this.

ishani does "work"? what work???? also, she's allowed to use vansh's laptop? huh. wouldn't have thought so.

there. she took it with the memory card and went. godddddddddd riddhimaaaaaa.

dadi to the rescue. honestly, riddhima's life would be very fucking difficult if this dadi wasn't intentionally and/or unintentionally taang adaofying on her behalf.

lmao she's telling ishani to do garba with angre. achcha hua dandiya nahi bola; giving ishani a weapon and letting her loose in the general vicinity of human beings is bound to be fucking catastrophic.

ishani is highly relatable in today's ep.

ishani truly is vansh's sister. knows that riddhima is shady as fuckkkkkkkk.

yup. saw the unsafe ejection notification. (a very jankyyyyyyyy looking one.)

she's honestly such a dumbass. vansh ALREADY KNOWS the truth behind ragini's case and is actively concealing it. what does she hope to accomplish by finding out the truth and telling him??? yeah, i'm sure he'll be thrilllllllled to know that you stilllllllll went behind his back and kept investigating even after he told you 30 million times to leave it the fuck alone. the fact that you're looking into it and didn't take him at his word is his problem, you giant walking donut!!!!!!!

she says “isse kahin safe rakhna hoga” AND PROCEEDS TO TIE IT INTO HER DUPATTA. OHHHHHHHHHHHH MY GODDDDDDDDDDDDD. WHY ARE YOU SOOOOOOOOOO FUCKING STUPID SIS?!?!!?

literally the only good use of a bra is to stash small secret shit into it. why wouldn't you just do that?!?!!?

AND SHE JUST LEAVES IT DRAGGING AROUND INSTEAD OF LIKE, TIED AROUND HER WRIST OR SOMETHING OH GOD I CAN'T I CAN'T I JUST CANNOT WITH HOW STUPID THIS GIRL IS I CAN'T I AM IN ACTUAL PHYSICAL PAIN RN

random ainvayi ki saazish by chanchal to turn riddhima’s bhog waala kheer to paneer. goddddddd such 9th standard mean-girl in-home-science-class type tactics.

fwd fwd and i see that dadi knows the truth. fucks chachi up. good. i missed nothing.

oh i see where vansh gets his tendency to declare everyone's crimes and punishment out in front of everyone.

ishani tries taking chachi's side and dadi's like zyaada tarafdaari karogi toh you gonna share in her punishment too. you want?

yeah, that's what we thought.

ouff some more drama about riddhima being given some khaandaani haar. DUDE IS THERE ANYTHING OF ACTUAL CONSEQUENCE HAPPENING IN THIS EP OR NOT???????

some more tuchchi saazishein, ugh i really dgaf.

ofc the memory card fell outta the duppata. and OFC it got stuck to aryan's shoe.

dadi taking everrrrrrrrrrryone's case today.

“mere aur riddhima ke beech mein koi issue nahi hai.” yes, very believable from this highly convincing body language.

dadi giving gyaan on rishte nibhaana and vansh giving her the whole rishta = bharosa lecture too.

interestingly, rrahul is not putting on the usual vansh voice for this scene and it's already 200% more genuine and watchable. please god just let him talk in his normal voiceeeeeee.

dadi bringing out props and shit to explain rishte mein bharosa concepts and vansh is me, totally exasperated and done with this nonsense.

of course a grossass bitch like aryan likes a disgustaaang fruit like papaya.

aaaaaaaaaaaand he's left handed. ugh, hum lefties ka naam kharaab karne ke liye yeh ek kaafi hai.

my god the accusing way she questioned him about being a lefty, lmao.

aryan be like jfc i know i do a lotta shit wrong but yeh toh mere bas mein nahi hai.

great, she now thinks aryan is the murderer. re devaaaaaaaaaa.

mans so desperate he's actually asking dadi for relationship advice.

FUCK-KING ID-IOT-AAAAAAAAAAAA

ABBE OH BEHEN, MAATA RANI SIRF TUMHARI FARMAAISHEIN POORA KARNE KE LIYE BAITHI HAIN KYA POORI NAVARATRIIIIIII???? TUM HATOGI TOH HUM BHI MAANG LE EK DO MANNAT??????

so all it took for him to set aside his ego and decide to tell her all about his deep dark past was one of dadi's dumb lectures??????? DOESN'T SHE GIVE YOU ONE OF THOSE LIKE EVERY 4 HOURS????????/

ok did we ever hear this man tell us HIMSELF, USING HIS WORDS, that he “hates” his mom????? coz he seems to keep a lot of her around him, from the computer password, to the painting, to her payal which i saw him giving riddhima in an insta scene, and now this lehenga. so......... is this just another theory we have about him that's hearsay????

“yeh tum mere liye laaye ho?”

“riddhima jahaan tak mujhe lagta hai, iss kamre mein koi teesra toh hai nahi. and i don't think main inn kapdon mein achcha lagoonga.” the man is 6000% done with her dumb ass.

preemptive statement ki i did this only for dadi.

goddddddddd she just HASSSSSS to annoy him by asking dumbass questions.

“har baat ka apna matlab nikaalne mein tum expert ho hi, riddhima. bina koi matlab jode sawaal kiye isse le nahi sakti kya?” 6000 ratcheting up to 9000% done.

SIS JUST GOTTTAAAAAAAAAAAA PUSH.

“mere paas apni maa ki koi nishaani nahi hai; isse main apni maa ki nishaani samajh ke sambhaalke rakhoongi. thank you.” 

that was enough to floor maa da laadla.

pushing her luck some more by asking him to come do aarti with her.

blah blah blah i know you'll come.

she promises to return the step he's taken towards her by proving him innocent. AGAIN LEMME REMIND Y'ALL: HE ALREADY FUCKING KNOWS HE'S INNOCENT. HE'S BEEN SAYING IT SINCE TIME IMMEMORIAL. I REALLY DON'T SEE WHY SHE'S FRAMING THIS AS A THING SHE'S DOING "FOR HIM" WHEN IT'S PURELY FOR HER OWN SELFISH REASONS OF WANTING TO KNOW WTF HAPPENED TO RAGINI.

[evakuality]

halla allie! 1) favorite episode (from any season or you pick a season), 2) favorite line of dialogue (from any season or you pick a season), and 3) favorite fic (either yours or another's, wip or published). couldn't decide between druck and skam so i'll let you decide, but i'd be thrilled to see both if you're willing to do both. tried to make this open-ended so it would be easier for you to decide but i think i may have complicated things further, whoops

Halla, anon!  This is very cute and tbh I think I’ll do both 😁

Skam:

1.  Favourite episode: This one was really really hard.  I feel like s3 was such a tightly knit one that it’s hard to separate it out into episodes, and for me s3 was head and shoulders above the rest of the seasons.  But if I have to pick, I think I’ll go with episode 4.  It’s such a nice build up to the end and the final culmination of what’s been happening between them.  Plus, the escape out the window is a nice finale.  It’s the episode that finishes the first story arc and sets up the start of the next one, and I kind of really love it.  Also I have very vivid memories of watching iot the first time.

2.  Favourite line of dialogue: As much as I really dislike where they took it in season two, I do love Noora’s roasting of William.  I can’t remember how it goes, but that whole speech was great.  I just wish it played out better going forward.

3.  Favourite fic: Hmmmmm.  For other people, this was hard (there are so many great fics) but I think today it has to be a tie between play that song and making new cliches (yes these are people I know and interact with - but I know and interact with them because their fics are amazing).  For my own, I think it’s probably the research nerd and the man in his life.  I have a lot that are close to me, but that one means a LOT.  Trans Even is my baby and I will protect him til the end.

Druck:

1.  Favourite episode: This is equally hard!!! I have so many episodes that I really love and have a really close connection to.  So I think it’s tie between the Abiball episode and episodes 7 and 10 of s3.  Each of them for different reasons, but they all hit home for me in different ways.

2.  Favourite line of dialogue: This one was actually easy.  Matteo’s line about wanting to be part of something and not have to explain yourself.  That one really hit hard, you know?  And I mean, there is so much that I’ve loved - so many little jokes and comments but in the end that one is just it.

3.  Favourite fic: For other people, I really like aren’t you worried - it’s just such a great ‘jealousy’ fic and so perfectly showcases their relationship that I go back to it over and over again.  Also and don’t play like you aren’t madly in love.  I dunno, I’m just a sucker for a really well done au like this.  Though, again, there are so many great fics - and you should check out my fic rec tag to see more that I love.  For my own, hmmmm.  Maybe fake solutions to real problems - I had a really good time writing that one, it was a real passion project.  Though I do also have a real soft spot for learning to breathe, which is the first Druck fic I wrote and I wrote it in the middle of the show still airing.  I still think is not too bad characterisation-wise considering we didn’t really know them at the time.

[bamon4bamily]

TVD 9x11 - Jukebox Feels (part 1) Enjoy! =)

Cut to - 2018 prison world, the Salvatore mansion. Katherine walks through the front door, dazed and confused. She must be having a nightmare, she thinks to herself; this can’t be happening, she can’t possibly be where she thinks she is. Although her intuition tells her the contrary, she gives it a shot, on the slim chance it might not be true…

KATHERINE: Hello? Anyone there? (She searches the house; as expected, it’s empty. She tries different techniques to escape the situation. Pinches herself to wake up, nothing. Taps her feet together, and with her eyes closed whispers: There’s no place like home, there’s no place like home… doesn’t work either). Maybe if I go to sleep, I’ll wake up and everything will be back to normal… Yes, I need to sleep (she goes into Stefan’s room, puts on one of his pajamas and lies in his bed. Not even a minute in, and she’s off dreaming of sheep.

Cut to – Akumal, Mexico. After a beautiful moonlight dinner, Damon and Bonnie sit on the beach, admiring the full moon’s glow, and some real good tequila.

 DAMON: (Randomly) Truth or dare…

BONNIE: (Laughs) Are you serious?

DAMON: I’m dead serious, come on, scaredy-cat!

BONNIE: Please! I just don’t want to humiliate you, cry-baby!

DAMON: Oh, it’s on! Brace yourself for defeat!

BONNIE: Bring it!

DAMON: One rule, no magic or psychy stuff!

BONNIE: Fine, no vamp tricks.

DAMON: Deal. Truth or dare?

BONNIE: Dare.

DAMON: I’ll start easy, (smirks) don’t want you loosing so fast. I dare you to take a shot of tequila while doing a handstand.

BONNIE: Piece of cake! (Delivers to perfection) My turn, truth or dare?

DAMON: Truth.

BONNIE: Okay, let’s settle this once and for all; do you steal from the bank when we play monopoly?

DAMON: (Grins) Not every time…

BONNIE: (Whacks him with her elbow) I knew it!

DAMON: What can I say, Bon, too much temptation. Okay, truth or dare?

BONNIE: Dare.

DAMON: I’m sensing a pattern here, but suit yourself. I dare you to go up to one of the people at the bar and tell them, in a very low and creepy voice, I see dead people…

BONNIE: I’m gonna get you back for this one! (Although hesitant, she delivers; freaking the hell out of the poor soul unfortunate to be approached by her. They go back to their spot) Okay, Mr. smarty pants. My turn, truth or dare… and you better choose dare!

DAMON: Dare… I say truth!

BONNIE: I’ll break you, eventually. What is the most embarrassing thing in your room?

DAMON: Oh, you’re going there! You already know the answer…

BONNIE: I do, but I want to hear you say it.

DAMON: Fine, my unicorn onesies.

BONNIE: With a butt crack… can’t forget the butt crack (she laughs)!

DAMON: They’re cozy! Okay, missy, shit just got real! Truth or dare…

BONNIE: I’m going with truth; just cause I know you’ll make me do some crazy shit after that one.  

DAMON: (With a wicked grin, rubbing his hands) Excellent…  What is your guilty pleasure?

BONNIE: Oh, come on! You know that…

DAMON: I do, but I also want to hear you say it, so, go on…

BONNIE: Fine… occasionally I like to dress up like Whitney Houston in the Queen of the Night video from the Bodyguard, and perform in front of the mirror…

DAMON: Occasionally? More like every other Sunday... and it’s HOT AF!  

BONNIE: Can’t believe you caught me doing that!

DAMON: One of my fondest prison world memories! I have to hand it to you, Bon, you really got creative with the costume.

BONNIE: I’ve perfected it since then… Well, there, I said it! Happy now?

DAMON: Never been happier… (leans in to kiss her) and you are, beyond a doubt, the queen of the night…

BONNIE: Don’t think for a second that’s gonna get you out of what’s coming…Truth or dare?

DAMON: I’m a mix it up and go with dare.

BONNIE: (With a wicked grin, rubbing her hands) Been waiting for that since we started.

DAMON: I’m instantly regretting my decision.

BONNIE: (Laughs) Oh, and you should! You’re in trouble now… Mr. Damon Salvatore, your mission, which you have no choice but to accept, is to (she opens a portal to their room, goes and comes back).

DAMON: Hey, we said no tricks!

BONNIE: You said no magic, no psychic stuff, but you never mentioned teleporting, so suck it! Here (hands him one of her outfits and her make-up kit) Put this on, make-up and all. Once you are ready, and looking gorge, you are going to perform Queen of the Night to the guests at the beach bar. Good luck, doll! (Laughs hysterically).

DAMON: Oh, Bon-Bon… when you least expected, I’ll get you back.

BONNIE: (Mocking) I’m sure you will; but for now, come on, dancing queen, your audience awaits. (Damon performs, surprisingly well, or at least good enough to receive and applause from his audience, who, although very confused, found the show quite entertaining. They go back to their spot). You did great, almost nailed the choreography.

DAMON: Well, I learned from the best.

BONNIE: I think it’s safe to say I won this little game.

DAMON: This time around… 

BONNIE: How bout you get out of those clothes, I get out of mine, and we go for a night swim?

DAMON: Don’t have to ask me twice! (As he is taking the high heels off) How do you guys walk in these things??

BONNIE: You get used to it, (teasing) just don’t get too used to it... Ready, my night queen?

DAMON: (Carries her) Let’s go, witchy! (They swim under the moonlight; then make love till sunrise).

Cut to - The secret facility, Edward’s cell. He has been sleeping for quite some time. He slowly begins to wake; as he opens his eyes, he sees someone lying on the floor under a pool of blood, right next to his bed. He jumps up in a scare.

 AUGUSTUS: Oh, don’t be alarmed, son, it’s not me, I’m doing just fine. Meet your uncle Pete; granted it might not be the best introduction, but hey, you wanted to meet your family… well, there you go.

EDWARD: (Disgusted and in shock) What is this!!??  

AUGUSTUS: It’s a dead body, son. And, from what I hear they start to smell pretty bad once they decompose; so, I suggest you move fast and bring your cousin Matty back. Feel free to use our tech if it helps, Eddie here (points to the strange man that has been standing outside his cell everyday) is more than happy to help.

EDWARD: (Crying in despair, looking at the corpse) Oh god, oh, god!!! (To his father) You are fucking insane!!!

AUGUSTUS: Language, boy! I taught you better manners than that… guess I should have never left you in Tamara’s care; what a waste of an ivy-league education. My fault for bringing in the trash. Oh, well… time is ticking, and that body is stinking… Ha, that rhymed, maybe I should pick up poetry? I always did love Literature… Anyway, (belittling) Mayor Powell, let’s see just how smart and powerful you really are. Rest assured, if you get the job done, I promise I will make it worth your while (he leaves; Edward can’t stop crying, imagining Matt’s pain).

Cut to - Munich, Germany. Sam, Elena, Sage, and Alex, are having some drinks, after their first days of the program.

SAGE: I knew this program was going to be out of the ordinary, but it’s totally blowing my mind!  

ELENA: I agree, it’s amazing! The equipment we have access to is unbelievable! Never knew those types of tools and tech even existed.

SAM: (Putting his drink up for a cheer) Here’s to an unorthodox quality education, and to new awakenings!

ALL: Cheers! (They drink, share some laughs and anecdotes; at some point, the boys get into their own conversation in another area of the bar. Elena and Sage have no option but to interact more closely).

ELENA: Listen, I’m sorry for calling you a bitch.

SAGE: I’m sorry for being one. (Holds her hand out for a handshake) Do-over?

ELENA: Do-over (shakes her hand). So, tell me, why are you so obsessed with Pietro? Not judging, just curious.

SAGE: I know a lot of people think he is just an entitled jerk, but he is so far from that. I mean, yes, he is arrogant and pretentious, but when you’ve accomplished what he has, you kind of earn the right to be.

ELENA: Still don’t get it, what has he accomplished? He’s not even a Doctor…

SAGE: He owns the world’s most groundbreaking technology companies. Ai, IoT, nanotech, you name it, he is behind it. He might not be the science side of the operation, but he is the business side that makes it possible. Just between us, I’m pretty sure he is a vampire. Get this, while I was doing research on his background, I stumbled upon some pretty crazy documentation that dates his birth back to 1865. It’s either that, or he stole some real old dead guy’s identity.

ELENA: That is definitely not a coincidence… Do the names Stefan and Damon Salvatore ring a bell?

SAGE: Never heard of them, who are they?

ELENA: Besides my ex-boyfriends, I think they might be Pietro’s half-brothers.

SAGE: (Laughs) That’s impossible…

ELENA: Put two and two together…

SAGE: Oh, they’re also…? OMG! So, you slept with two vampires, and they were brothers??!! I totally miss read you, you’re a badass!! I love it!! (Holds her drink up) Cheers for that!

ELENA: Well, the brothers thing is something I’m really not proud of. I was young and gave in to my darkest desires; but I guess karma got me served, because they both fell in love with my best friends; so…

SAGE: Hey, nothing to be ashamed of; more power to you! I mean, it’s okay when men do it, but as woman we get shamed for it… Fuck that shit!

ELENA: Good point... (holds her glass up for a cheer) Here’s to woman equality!

SAGE: Fuck yeah! So, tell me, how did you end up getting involved with vampires?

ELENA: It’s a long and complicated story… Let’s just say I look exactly like someone they were once very obsessed with, and it grew from there.

SAGE: Who did you go out with first?

ELENA: Stefan… my first true love; but then I fell for the bad boy, who just happened to be his brother. Like I said, not proud, but that’s how it went down.

SAGE: Was it serious?

ELENA: Very. With Stefan I could see my entire future; it was like a fairytale love. With Damon, I lived for the moment and was consumed with passion.  

SAGE: Sounds like you were quite in a predicament.

ELENA: I was, for a while; but I ended up choosing Damon.

SAGE: So, what happened? Why did you two split?

ELENA: There were many reasons, but every time I go back to it, I think it’s because we got off to a wrong start. When I became a vampire, I was sired to him… not the best way to start a relationship.

SAGE: Wait, you are a vampire!!? Are you kidding me?!! This story keeps getting better and better!

ELENA: No, no! I’m not one anymore, but I was.

SAGE: Oh, okay, you freaked me out there for a sec! Anyway, then, what happened? Spill!!

ELENA: Well, a whole bunch of crazy stuff... then I took a cure, became human again, only to be put into a three-year sleeping spell, then I woke up. At first it was bliss, but then, once we moved in together our deeper problems began to surface…

SAGE: Did those problems have to do with him falling for one of your best friends?

ELENA: Not expressively… but in part, yes. I knew he was in love with her, and that there was nothing I could do to change that.

SAGE: Ouch, that’s gotta hurt.

ELENA: I mean, he never cheated or anything like that, they didn’t even get together until recently, but just knowing he would never love me like her, hurt for a while… then I met Sam…

SAGE: Wow, that’s quite a story!

ELENA: Straight out of a supernatural YA book, am I right?

SAGE: I’m a big fan of YA drama, and supernatural lure, so, right up my alley! Okay, let me ask you one last question. If you could go back, would you make the same choice?

ELENA: What do you mean?

SAGE: Stefan or Damon? Who would you choose?

ELENA: (Laughs) Uhm, okay, that’s a weird question…

SAGE: Oh, come on, just for fun, and keeping with the YA context.

ELENA: I’d say as a human, I would choose Stefan; as a vampire, Damon. But I guess it wouldn’t matter who I would choose, since they wouldn’t choose me a second time around, that’s for sure.

SAGE: (Teasing) Well, good news for Sam.

ELENA: Okay, I shared my stories; now it’s your turn.

SAGE: Well my stories are quite boring compared to that!

ELENA: Still, spill! It’s only fair, you have leverage on me, I should have some on you.

SAGE: Fair enough. What do you want to know?

ELENA: You and Alex, what’s the story there?

SAGE: Oh god, no! Nothing like that, he’s like a brother to me.

ELENA: Aw, that’s too bad, you two are cute together. How about you and Sam, anything ever happen between you two?

SAGE: This conversation is getting dangerous...

ELENA: Oh, come on, what’s in the past is in the past; there’s nothing dangerous about that.

SAGE: Fine, you asked for it. Long time ago, one crazy drunken night; that’s all.

ELENA: I know, he told me; just wanted to check if you would be honest with me.

SAGE: (Teasing) Now who’s the bitch!

ELENA: Sorry, trust issues. Now, for real, any past epic loves?

SAGE: Uhm, not really… I mean, I’ve had many relationships but nothing serious. I’m not the deep connection type; I just like to have fun, and I don’t like to put in the time, so short and sweet works out perfectly for me.

ELENA: Crazy hookups?

SAGE: Now that is my area of expertise! Wow, where do I start… I’ve done all the clichés, mile high club being my favorite one. But I have to say, the craziest has been with someone you actually know, (mocking) the renowned city Mayor of Mystic Falls.

ELENA: (Spits out her drink) Are you serious? You had a thing with Edward Powell? How do you even know him?!

SAGE: From NYC, our hometown. We were both part of the upper east side elite; a real Gossip Girl type thing. And let me tell you, he might seem like a Nate on the outside, but inside, he is a full-on Chuck Bass. Anyway, we went to this masquerade ball at an exclusive mansion outside the city. Long story short, we ended up covering for a murder which turned out to be anything but that; it was just a really drunk-ass Wall-Street magnate, that passed out in a tub filled with red wine. Good thing he woke up before we finished filling the whole… and that he didn’t see us having sex next to what we thought was his corpse. In our defense, we were also really drunk, and high as fuck.

ELENA: Holy shit! And you call your stories boring? Wonder what the exciting ones are like!

SAGE: (Laughs; then sees that Alex and Sam are heading back to their table) Well, that’s a conversation for another night… this has been fun, but I think our girl time is over; I’m glad we had a chance to talk like this.

ELENA: Me too, and I’m sorry I was so quick to judge you.

SAGE: Dido. Friends?

ELENA: Friends.

Cut to – Akumal, Mexico. Bonnie, Damon, Stefan and Caroline are having a nice beachfront brunch.

 CAROLINE: I can’t believe this is our last day! Time went by way too fast!

BONNIE: I know, seems like we just got here.

STEFAN: How about we make a deal, right here, the four of us.

DAMON: (Teasing) Bro, we are not even done with brunch; plus, it would be way too weird…

STEFAN: Of course your mind would go there… Anyway, no, Damon, that’s not what I want to propose. How do you guys feel about spending some money and investing on a property down here? That way we can come back whenever we want.

CAROLINE: I love it, yes!!!!

BONNIE: I’m in!

STEFAN: Damon?

DAMON: Just tell me where to sign!

BONNIE: La Bruja is coming over for dinner tonight, maybe she can give us some tips on property here.

STEFAN: That be great. I’m thinking nothing too fancy, but definitely beachfront.

BONNIE: And secluded.

CAROLINE: 2 master bedrooms, 1 kids room, and two or three guestrooms for when Ty, Lexi, Matt and Alaric come visit.

DAMON: So much for “not too fancy” …

CAROLINE: I’m not saying it needs to be fancy, just spacious, there are way too many of us.

BONNIE: We’ll also need a garden, good footprint area so we can grow our own food.

CAROLINE: And a pool of course, for the girls.

STEFAN: And I think we can all agree, we need a big bar.

DAMON: And a wine cellar.

STEFAN: Maybe we’re gonna have to build it from scratch, I’m pretty sure we won’t be able to find a place that checks all of our boxes.

BONNIE: If we have someone design it for us, I’m pretty sure La Bruja and I can pull it off.

DAMON: It’s settled then, we’ll brief La Bruja over dinner and start to plan our perfect Belvafore hide-away!

STEFAN: Belvafore?

DAMON: Yes; Bennett, Salvatore, and Forbes… Belvafore!

BONNIE: (To Stefan, mocking Damon) I’m telling you, not even with his vamp back on…

CAROLINE: I like it! It’s like Steroline and Bamon!

BONNIE: Steroline and Bamon?

CAROLINE: Yes, Bamon, aka, Bonnie and Damon; isn’t it perfect?! Stefan came up with it.

STEFAN: Sorry, Bon, just a fan.

BONNIE: (Laughing) Oh, Stefan, didn’t see that one coming... And Steroline, is Stefan and Caroline...

CAROLINE: You got it! (With pride) I came up with that one!

BONNIE: (With a y’all crazy look) Okay...

DAMON: Oh, come on, Bon-Bon; Bamon, gotta love it!

BONNIE: Fine, I’ll admit it... y’all crazy but I love it!

CAROLINE: (Holds her mimosa glass up for a cheer) To Belvafore and building new traditions!

ALL: Cheers!

Cut to – The Salvatore school, Alaric’s study. Alaric, and Radka, are trying to figure out their next steps.

ALARIC: How could I have been so reckless and stupid…

RADKA: It was an honest mistake, Ric. How were you supposed to know what would happen?

ALARIC: I know how dangerous that little gadget is, it was my responsibility to keep it under lock and key. Now, thanks to me, Katherine is probably being hunted down by a psychopath.

RADKA: Katherine is strong and witty, if anyone, Kai is the one that needs to worry. I’m sure she’ll be fine; we just need to figure out how to bring her back.

ALARIC: The only one that can help with that is Bonnie, and I’m not letting her go near Kai. We need to figure out a way to do this without the need for Bennett blood.

RADKA: How about 2 werewolves, 2 vampires and a hunter… think we could pull it off?

ALARIC: The problem is not getting in, but out… there’s no way out without the right ingredients.

RADKA: Okay, I might be thinking crazy here, but we need to think outside the box. What if we ask Margo to summon a Bennett witch, she can open a temporary spirit realm and do an incarnation spell so she can be materialized; then, we go to this prison world, get Katherine and use the blood of that Bennett witch to come back…

ALARIC: That sounds insane… but it might actually work. Isn’t Margo still on sick leave?

RADKA: She’s better now, called me up this morning to let me know she’d be back tomorrow.

ALARIC: Do you think she would be up for it?

RADKA: Not sure, but it doesn’t hurt to ask.

Cut to – 2018 prison world, Stefan’s room. Katherine wakes up to find herself tied up with her mouth covered. Kai is sitting on a chair, reading. He looks quite different than expected; very clean cut and intellectual, glasses and all.

KAI: I’m sorry I had to tie you up, but I do not appreciate intruders. God, these new generations have completely lost their manners. Sneaking into other people’s homes, putting on their nightclothes, sleeping in their beds… The audacity!

(Kai gets up, walks towards one of the many jukeboxes he has installed around the house, and plays a song...)

TVD 9x11 (part 2), coming soon! Hope you stop by, read and enjoy! =)

[juhiscorner25]

How Companies Can Prepare For The Payroll of the Future?

A quickly influencing world has broad ramifications for payroll services Switzerland. Computerized and social interruption are on a very basic level changing all parts of an organization's business. Conventional payroll administration and conveyance is no exemption: globalization, expanded regulation and the sped up progressions of computerized innovation are among the most grating powers pushing worldwide and worldwide associations to reconsider their payroll activities. The pandemic has likewise brought worldwide payroll business coherence intending to the bleeding edge.

Many organizations are trying to grow their worldwide impression to pursue new income streams. This has payroll suggestions that organizations need to consider as a component of any exploratory interaction. As organizations become more worldwide, the requirement for more prominent consistence, more grounded risk administration and normalization across wards turns out to be more intense.

In the interim, regulation all over the planet becomes progressively divided and complex. This is additionally exacerbated by the quantity of Coronavirus related regulation: work-time decrease, constrained leave, arrival of transient workers for hire or vacation. Legislatures fighting with a powerful coincidence of declining incomes and increasing expenses of maturing populaces are seeking after additional hearty method for payroll charge assortment, because of the advances of computerized innovations. Computerized advances additionally lie behind the position by states for more noteworthy administrative straightforwardness of individual information assortment and more noteworthy examination of information security insurance.

A portion of these patterns are examined underneath, with a specific spotlight on business congruity arranging being the foundation for opening payroll change.

Opening payroll change

Worldwide development implies focusing on payroll prior

With cut outs, everything unquestionably revolves around speed and timing. A cut out is consistently a fragile second for an organization and its representatives. Risk relief and business progression are fundamental. Organizations need to figure out what a the very first moment activity would resemble, what is reachable and what can be better finished from now on. While extending worldwide impressions, through exchanges or opening in new business sectors, guaranteeing there is a compelling payroll structure from the very first moment is of most extreme significance.

The changing labor force is interfacing payroll and versatility closer than any time in recent memory

As the labor force gets progressively more familiar to versatile working from various areas (either on long haul tasks or momentary business travel), portability checks out at the expense ramifications of this pattern. While dealing with a versatile labor force, organizations frequently have various providers for portability and payroll, and they wind up trapped in the center planning between them. Overcoming this issue is fundamental to oversee consistence and chance, and to increment proficiency.

Computerized advances will drive the following rush of payroll tasks

Computerized advances are setting out both open doors and difficulties inside associations. Progresses in outsider payroll applications are making associations reevaluate their payroll climate as they are being compelled to create some distance from heritage on-premise frameworks and towards a cloud-based model. Simultaneously, progresses in advanced mechanics process computerization (RPA), web of things (IoT), man-made consciousness (simulated intelligence), chatbots and blockchain, among others, are empowering payroll capabilities to robotize redundant cycles that have generally consumed extensive time and assets.

Business congruity plans (BCPs) should be more powerful

Solid BCPs can mean the distinction between workers being paid on time, accurately or not by any stretch of the imagination. Did your merchant confront the test? Presently like never before, powerful business congruity plans are required: individuals, innovation and cycles. Evaluating your payroll business as usual and thoroughly considering all the coherence situations is certainly not a simple undertaking.

Beneath, seven regions to consider are framed for organizations to evaluate payroll risk openness and business congruity availability. Guaranteeing an unambiguous response for each will assist with building a more grounded, stronger payroll capability.

Payroll business congruity arranging

Seven regions to consider with regards to payroll business congruity arranging

Payroll association

Who is answerable for performing payroll exercises in every area?

What are the vital exercises and how are they performed?

Are there viable BCPs set up for all areas, either in-house or outsider providers?

Staff accessibility and ability

Which level of payroll staff or their immediate relatives may be impacted?

What is the expected effect in instances of restricted staff accessibility while thinking about care liabilities?

Has additional time been considered into working courses of action?

How might you guarantee your payroll staff are satisfactorily qualified, and consistently prepared and informed on new guidelines and advancements?

Telecommuting courses of action

Are the vital HR (HR), payroll and money faculty accurately prepared to telecommute, for example utilization of a PC, web with sufficient transmission capacity, remote admittance to key applications, an extra screen where essential, and so on.?

Does the home working situation represent information privacy?

Is the workplace reasonable?

IT foundation

What are the critical specialized weaknesses or shortcomings?

Are HR/payroll source frameworks (from a distance) open?

Could all payroll inputs be gotten on time?

Is the IT foundation secure?

Actual cycles

What actual cycles exist in the payroll esteem chain (like actual filings, signings)?

On account of restricted or no actual access, how might influences be moderated?

Admittance to payroll information

Are last month's installment documents, pay-slips, pay register and general record documents promptly accessible?

Is (remote) access ensured and got?

Delivering bank installments

Is (remote) access ensured to deliver bank installments?

What is the interaction for approving remarkable installment methodology?

Payroll business congruity is basic

Considering and surveying the seven regions framed above is just a beginning stage with regards areas of strength for to BCPs. At the point when workers makes the biggest difference, guaranteeing the coherence of worldwide payroll is principal.

Payroll experts, frequently working discreetly behind the scenes, are exploring remarkable times. A solid payroll BCP could be the contrast between representatives being paid on time, accurately or even by any stretch of the imagination.

Last considerations

Generally speaking, we expect that the technique and conveyance of payroll will proceed to develop and move to oblige the worldwide progression and development that numerous associations are encountering today. A versatile, consistent, worldwide and lithe payroll capability is required now like never before.

Tags:

payroll provider Switzerland, international payroll services, global payroll providers

[pdmsoftwaretool]

Intelligent Data Management Cloud

A data the chiefs stage is the focal system for social affair and analyzing colossal volumes of data across an affiliation. Business data organizes normally integrate programming instruments for the chiefs, made by the informational index vender or by untouchable vendors. These data the board game plans help IT gatherings and DBAs perform average tasks, for instance,

Recognizing, disturbing, diagnosing, and settling imperfections in the informational index structure or secret establishment

Appointing informational collection memory and limit resources

Making changes in the data base arrangement

Further developing responses to informational collection requests for faster application execution

The unquestionably notable cloud informational index stages license associations to increment or down quickly and cost-effectively. Some are available as an assistance, allowing relationship to save significantly more.

What is an Autonomous Database

Arranged in the cloud, a free informational index uses man-made thinking (AI) and AI to modernize various data the board tasks performed by DBAs, including managing informational index fortifications, security, and execution tuning.

Similarly called a self-driving informational collection, a free data base offers basic benefits for data the leaders, including:

Diminished multifaceted design

Reduced potential for human error

Higher data base trustworthiness and security

Dealt with practical capability

Lower costs

The unyieldingly notable cloud data stages license associations to increment or down quickly and cost-truly. Some are available as an assistance, allowing relationship to save altogether more.

Huge Data Management Systems

To a great extent, huge data is by and large the thing it appears as — perpetually heaps of data. In any case, colossal data similarly shows up in a greater variety of designs than traditional data, and it's assembled at a high speed. Think about all of the data that comes in every day, or reliably, from a virtual diversion source like Facebook. The total, variety, and speed of that data make it so that vital to associations, but they in like manner make it especially complex to make due.

As a consistently expanding number of data is assembled from sources as dissimilar as camcorders, electronic diversion, sound records, and Internet of Things (IoT) devices, tremendous data the board structures have emerged. These systems address significant expert in three by and large regions.

Enormous data blend gets different sorts of data — from cluster to streaming — and transforms it so it will in general be consumed.

Huge data the board stores and cycles data in a data lake or data dispersion focus capably, securely, and constantly, habitually by using object limit.

Tremendous data examination uncovers new encounters with assessment, including graph examination, and usages AI and AI portrayal to manufacture models.

Associations are using colossal data to improve and accelerate thing progression, judicious help, the client experience, security, utilitarian capability, and extensively more. As huge data gets more prominent, so will the astounding entryways.

Data Management Challenges

By far most of the challenges in data the board today begin from the faster speed of business and the rising duplication of data. The consistently developing collection, speed, and volume of data open to affiliations is pushing them to search for more-remarkable organization instruments to keep up. A part of the top challenges affiliations face integrate the going with:

Nonattendance of data information

Data from a rising number and combination of sources like sensors, splendid contraptions, virtual amusement, and camcorders is being assembled and taken care of. Anyway, positively no piece of that data is significant if the affiliation doesn't have even the remotest clue what data it has, where it is, and how to use it. Data the leaders courses of action need scale and execution to convey critical encounters as fast as conceivably.

[totouchthcstars]

.｡.:*☆ "That has been a long time ago. In another life." And, really, to Anakin, it felt exactly like that. Maybe also because of his fake memories. And the holes in those that did really belong to him.

However, Rex was rather friendly, and did not seem to be scared of him like Padme, so, Anakin assumed for now, iot was fine. However, when the man continued to spoke, his eyebrows furrowed more and more with each word.

"Fives? Chip?" He repeated, as if that would spark any memories. "I am sorry, but there seem to be a lot of things I forgot. What you just told me, was that.... did it happen before or after I became Vader?"

He could hear the hesitancy, was it really that surprising? To his knowledge Anakin had been killed during Order 66. He hadn't been with him at the time, but it would have been someone with his face. His general had always seen them as individuals, but he doubted that made it any easier.

"Would have thought that was you decision, it's your name" but if Anakin was happy with it, he wasn't going to argue. Names would always be slightly different, but he had been born with a serial number, Rex was a name he chose. "I know what happened to the Jedi, but Fives was right, that chip... we couldn't fight it" and as much as he had admired the jedi, the other clones came before everything, even before the Republic, he had to try and defend what they'd done. "My chip was removed a long time ago" reassurance perhaps, but he seemed uncomfortable. Much as he might want to say he'd have never killed Anakin, he had tried to kill Ahsoka.

[galacticlee]

It Is Saturday

So I did it.

I succumbed to that shidge writing itch that you guys threw poison ivy on because this is something we all want and need apparently

Original post

The hardest thing that Takashi Shirogane had to do was get out of bed.

Not to say that he was sinking into depression and couldn't arise, no, it was the exact opposite. His bed, their bed, was one of the safest and most comforting places he'd ever known, thanks most in part to his tiny female partner, and it was a daily struggle to convince himself to depart from it. He and Pidge had owned their cozy apartment nearing a year now, and the slab of mattress and tangled sheets that they rested on had become the most intoxicating setting in his home. There were days were they opted to stay in place for hours, only leaving to make food or bathroom runs and returning to collapse in the other's arms and the sea of blankets. It was hard to leave because she was there, because they had comforted each other from the memories of the war there, because every good day, shit day, and night of love always ended in each other's arms, on the bed.

But some days were harder than the rest.

The setting was always the same, posing the exact challenge it had for a while now; dark grey sheets that lay crinkled up between them, olive comforter sprawled around the two in uneven heaps of worn fabric. Her sleeping form was bundled up next to him, clinging at the arms that encircled her torso, head turned to the one that used it as a pillow. The rest of the bed seemed freezing in comparison to her, though with the pair's legs tangled together and huddled figures smashed together, her presence chased off any remaining cold of the perimeter around him. Blinding sunlight poured from the gaps in the blinds, sloshing golden light inside the room in bouncing parallel strips.

Blinking into the realm of reality, Shiro instinctively tightened his grip on the woman in his arms, burying his nose in her curled, unruly hair with slow, fatigued movements. The sleeping Pidge made not a move besides the rising and falling of her sides, comfortably conforming to the ‘big spoon’ behind her. His senses were then filled with bright brown hair, blinding sunlight, and the scent of vanilla and burnt carbon as he was once again tempted by the thought of staying where he was for the remainder of the day.

Sighing, he blew her caramel curls away from his mouth, fingers knotting at his t-shirt that draped over her lithe frame. ‘Is showing up at a Garrison meeting really worth getting up from this? What day even is it?’

After a minute or two of contemplation, Shiro groaned and shifted away from the woman he loved, lifting the covers and throwing his legs over the bedframe, running a hand through his white-stained forelock. His muscles stung, the ache the familiar, momentary one that only existed because he had moved. Though the apartment's heater tried its best, he shivered-everything was like ice compared to her. With a final shake, he made a move to heave himself up-

-until dull nails tickled one of the scars on his back.

As soon as his head spun, he met the soft, squinted gaze of Pidge's honey eyes. Her arm extended out to him, hand blindly groping at any clutchable surface that he retained, eventually finding his prosthetic and then latching onto the metallic limb. She peeled her lips apart, blinking tiredly; her dreams must've been somewhat peaceful, then, as she wasn't automatically running at full speed.

"..ome back to bed," She offered, eyebrows kneading together and gentle smile painting itself on her soft, freckled features. She squeezed the bridge between his neck and shoulder, her other hand finding the parallel spot within a matter of seconds. The plea scratched at his resolve, itching and tugging at his head because damn just staying home today sounded really good.

He exhaled a quiet, desperate laugh and leaned over, pecking her nose. "I have to go."

"..iot."

"Hmm?"

Her freckled arms flung out and grabbed his shoulders, yanking him down over her lanky form and forcing him to catch himself out of instinct, the pair close enough to where their noses brushed together. Tangled hair guarded the tops of her half-lidded eyes, bottom lip jutting out and completing her pouty appearance. Pidge maneuvered her hands to press against the sides of his face, shaking it gently with every word.

"It. Is. Saturday."

"Oh."

Shiro's elbows gave way, the fatigued super-soldier of a man succumbing to her earlier plea and falling onto the lanky, warm form of his partner, forcing his arms around her through the mass of sheets and digging his nose against her neck. She laughed softly, the sound tickling his chest as the past Green Paladin roamed Shiro's shoulders, the two now glued together by method of awkward cuddling. The cold was now longer felt, and the soft heartbeat in the chest under his own was loud enough to become a lullaby and lure him back to the realm of sleep, clinging onto the woman beneath him all the while.

[nishijain777]

The original idea is that it can physically connect to the network for human

The digital revolution is led jointly by Industry 4.0 and the Internet of Things (IOT) for implementing various digital agenda worldwide. The data provided through IOT assistance in monitoring each business assets from anywhere and anytime. Down the memory lane about two decades back, it was in 1999 when Kevin Ashton found the term 'Internet of Things'.

Also Read: VR App Developers

The original idea is that it can physically connect to the network for human comfort. In simple language, it is conceived that if the computer can automatically sense the environment around them and gather facts and provide output accordingly, without any human intervention and the need to feed them the data manually each time, it could change the world we live and function drastic.

 Internet for all

Also Read: AR App Developers

 Let us consider a simple example of IOT in reference to how he had made human life easier and comfortable. A man, during the winter, while driving back home from his office issued its Smartphone and turns on the heating system in the house even before he got there. Not only this, he even turned on his bedroom light while also simultaneously check the refrigerator to make sure what is missing and what he needs to take from the supermarket.

Also read: Virtual reality App Development Company

  All tasks are carried out through a Smartphone while he was in the car and have not reached home. So, one can clearly understand by this that how the IOT has an impact on life in the modern world and how comfortable it has made the task to carry out. Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) also plays an important role in the functioning of the Internet of Things (IOT). Basically, it is integrated into the IOT to provide intelligent solutions as mentioned earlier.

Also Read: VR App Developers

 Augmented Reality- Internet of Things

Virtual Reality- Internet of Things

Also read: Augmented Reality App Development Company

 All objects such as heating, lighting and even refrigerators have one thing in common - the Internet. Yes, all of this is connected to the internet and IOT supported all of these tasks. IOT facilitates individuals to provide power to see, access and analyze these objects through a simple Smartphone. IOT used the sensor output, customer feedback, availability and knowledge service providers in order to take real-time updates and responses from these objects.

Also Read: AR App Developers

  In fact, the accuracy and effectiveness may differ sometimes depending on various factors such as internet connectivity, weather and places, but most of the times, they are accurate and effective. That's the magic of IOT.

Also read: Virtual reality App Development Company

 IOT spawned a new term - IIoT (Industrial Internet of Things), which is specifically targeted at the industrial sector. IIoT solely focused on industry while IOT is for the commercial sector. Although both have a very different scale IOT using the simple and common as smart home devices, smart cars and smartphones while IIoT relies on intelligent factories, machines, systems management, and more to streamline business operations. IIoT has taken a huge leap from the IOT to take things a step further ahead and apply this magic on a grander scale. This has led to the discovery of the Smart factory has streamlined business operations and processes in a never-thought-before way unprecedented. Also read: Augmented Reality App Development Company

[stevepattinson]

Next Generation Fleet Management Innovations and it's impact on Automotive Industries

As a fleet director, you have more innovation accessible to you than any other time in recent memory. That is something worth being thankful for. The most recent advancements in fleet management are making it simpler to lessen fuel costs, improve driver conduct and lift your eco-certifications. Here are five innovations to watch in coming years. One more day, another item development. Innovation is moving so quick that you can scarcely go 24 hours without knocking toward the most recent must-have item in your part. However as anybody acquainted with the separable canine sack will let you know, not all basic motoring advancements are very as basic as they guarantee.

The innovation and developments occurring in the Vehicle Fleet Management is troublesome and profoundly captivating for conveyance drivers and coming about which it enormously lessens the weights of fleet activities. We have picked a couple of critical advancements that is unquestionably going to change the Vehicle Fleet Management for your business. The nearness of boundless advances and developments in the shopper biological system is more than the mechanical advancements that took put in corporate world. This places a desperate requirement for organizations to look out for the most recent innovation advancements that is getting quick actualized in the fleet activities. It likewise incites the fleet directors to include this developments into their fleet management business and afterward improve profitability.

The business is right now experiencing an extraordinary time of change. It started with the appearance of the cell phone, which lead to the ascent of online networking. At that point the development of the cloud and huge information and it's snowballing today with the consolidated impact of various uber patterns, for example, the sharing economy, client/customer centricity, urbanization, natural mindfulness and exponential mechanical discoveries like Man-made consciousness (computer based intelligence), apply autonomy, Web of Things (IoT), Computer generated Reality/Expanded Reality, vitality stockpiling and blockchain, also quantum figuring, nanotechnology, biotechnology and materials science.

Past the complete idea of the Fleet Management Programming you can likewise remember a lot more add-for advancements to it and upgrade the fleet vehicle. We have so forward qualified a rundown of six vehicle fleet management slants that is outside of fleet and may truly affect the eventual fate of worldwide fleet management. The most recent telematics items track fuel go through with mind blowing precision. Better still they show you precisely how much inefficient driving practices cost your business in pounds and pence. Unfortunate propensities like brutal slowing down, quick quickening and wrong apparatus use are logged for every driver, permitting you to discover precisely where execution needs to improve to drive down your fuel spend.

The absolute most recent telematics frameworks energize greener driving and show you precisely how much carbon you have utilized/saved money on each excursion. It permits you to evaluate your effect on the earth and feature the measures you are actualizing to lessen it. That is uplifting news for ground breaking organizations. First of all, clients are increasingly more drawn in with eco-strategies and are casting a ballot with their wallets. Also, while you might not have a carbon decrease strategy, numerous organizations do. Your natural certifications could simply win you another agreement. By utilizing inventive advancements the engineer gets the best chance to assemble an item or administration without the requirement for a fleet vehicle along these lines lessening the general cost use. One of its sort is disintermediation of vehicles achieved while creating the distant picture developments. It will offer the fleet management the comfort to imagine from anyplace at some random time. You can make the fleet activities progressively pervasive and a lot simpler to use for better normalization to be benefited inside representatives and clients.

While not carefully identified with telematics, some fleet supervisors are starting to utilize wearable tech to screen the rest nature of their drivers. The thought – and it's a dubious one – is to utilize the rest information accumulated by wearable tech to pass judgment on a driver's qualification for the street. It can likewise be utilized to ensure drivers are getting the lay they require on their breaks. There will be a great deal of interest for drivers to impart from a faraway far off area then very riding the vehicle from a specific area. Along these lines of distant perception will prompt cost viability and astute method of keeping up fleet tasks. It does likewise deduce to a delayed driving movement in fleet activity that incorporates the one hour meeting practice a possible alternative in conveyance management.

In corresponding to the group of devices associated with the Web of Things Innovation the fleet vehicle would likewise be enabled to impart bother free across various vehicles and foundation network. It is evaluated that the fleet vehicle will deliver a monster of on request noteworthy information at ongoing premise by bury associating vehicles safely. At present these voluminous information of exchanges are tie utilizing the prescient examination and later on it will move to prescriptive investigation strategies making a portion of the propelled highlight mixes like advanced driver scorecard, mileage reports and successful fleet management. The utilization of wearable innovation is likewise prone to occur advancing the fleet vehicle and making things simpler for drivers to get reliable about the atmosphere controls, seating controls and coloring windshields and so forth.

It takes a trained help timetable to keep your vehicles at their best and generally proficient. Be that as it may, keeping steady over vehicle upkeep checks , for example, brake liquid, tire weight and brake light enlightenment  isn't simple. Odds are your plan for the day is as of now protruding. What's more, the greater your fleet, the greater the issue. Some telematics items currently screen administration plans for you, sending you an update when it's an ideal opportunity to finish key checks. The most recent developments can even identify when something isn't exactly directly with a vehicle in your fleet, for example, a severely worn grasp or low battery. That permits you to fix a creating shortcoming before it takes one of your vehicles off the street. Another use of disintermediating vehicles happen to exist when playing out the modern far off diagnostics and utilizing programming downloads to fix machines consummately.

It will totally wipe out the requirement for an expert to go to the far off diagnostics issue and afterward cut down on support cost. The Fleet Proprietor would now be able to download the restorative programming and afterward override their capacity in giving the fleet assistance interminably. Electronic observing can be accomplished through coordinating the tachygraphy sensor include into the Fleet Vehicle and afterward carefully control the time guideline for fleet activity. It will likewise streamline the way toward understanding the driver conduct and empower fleet administrators to keep noteworthy breaks from occurring.

[planetarduino]

Arduino Security Primer

SSL/TLS stack and HW secure element

At Arduino, we are hard at work to keep improving the security of our hardware and software products, and we would like to run you through how our IoT Cloud service works.

The Arduino IoT Cloud‘s security is based on three key elements:

The open-source library ArduinoBearSSL for implementing TLS protocol on Arduino boards;

A hardware secure element (Microchip ATECCX08A) to guarantee authenticity and confidentiality during communication;

A device certificate provisioning process to allow client authentication during MQTT sessions.

ArduinoBearSSL

In the past, it has been challenging to create a complete SSL/TLS library implementation on embedded (constrained) devices with very limited resources. 

An Arduino MKR WiFi 1010, for instance, only has 32KB of RAM while the standard SSL/TLS protocol implementations were designed for more powerful devices with ~256MB of RAM.

As of today, a lot of embedded devices still do not properly implement the full SSL/TLS stack and fail to implement good security because they misuse or strip functionalities from the library, e.g. we found out that a lot of off-brand boards use code that does not actually validate the server’s certificate, making them an easy target for server impersonation and man-in-the-middle attacks.

Security is paramount to us, and we do not want to make compromises in this regard when it comes to our offering in both hardware and software. We are therefore always looking at “safe by default” settings and implementations. 

Particularly in the IoT era, operating without specific security measures in place puts customers and their data at risk.

This is why we wanted to make sure the security standards adopted nowadays in high-performance settings are ported to microcontrollers (MCUs) and embedded devices.

Back in 2017, while looking at different SSL/TLS libraries supporting TLS 1.2 and modern cryptography (something that could work with very little RAM/ROM footprint, have no OS dependency, and be compatible with the embedded C world), we decided to give BearSSL a try.

BearSSL: What is it?

BearSSL provides an implementation of the SSL/TLS protocol (RFC 5246) written in C and developed by Thomas Pornin.

Optimized for constrained devices, BearSSL aims at small code footprint and low RAM usage. As per its guiding rules, it tries to find a reasonable trade-off between several partly conflicting goals:

Security: defaults should be robust and using patently insecure algorithms or protocols should be made difficult in the API, or simply not possible;

Interoperability with existing SSL/TLS servers; 

Allowing lightweight algorithms for CPU-challenged platforms; 

Be extensible with strong and efficient implementations on big systems where code footprint is less important.

BearSSL and Arduino

Our development team picked it as an excellent starting point for us to make BearSSL fit in our Arduino boards focusing on both security and performance.

The firmware developers team worked hard on porting BearSSL to Arduino bundling it together as a very nice and open-source library: ArduinoBearSSL.

Because the computational effort of performing a crypto algorithm is high, we decided to offload part of this task to hardware, using a secure element (we often call it a “cypto chip”). Its advantages are:

Making the computation of cryptography operations faster;

You are not forced to use all the available RAM of your device for these demanding tasks;

Allows storing private keys securely (more on this later);

It provides a true random number generator (TRNG).

How does the TLS protocol work?

TLS uses both asymmetric and symmetric encryption. Asymmetric encryption is used during the TLS handshake between the client and the server to exchange the shared session key for communication encryption. The algorithms commonly used in this phase are based on Rivest-Shamir-Adleman (RSA) or Diffie-Hellman algorithms. 

TLS 1.2 Handshake flow

After the TLS handshake, the client and the server both have a session key for symmetric encryption (e.g. algorithms AES 128 or AES 256).

The TLS protocol is an important part of our IoT Cloud security model because it guarantees an encrypted communication between the IoT devices and our servers.

The secure element

In order to save memory and improve security, our development team has chosen to introduce a hardware secure element to offload part of the cryptography algorithms computational load, as well as to generate, store, and manage certificates. For this reason, on the Arduino MKR family, Arduino Nano 33 IoT and Arduino Uno WiFi Rev2, you will find the secure element ATECC508A or ATECC608A manufactured by Microchip.

How do we use the secure element?

A secure element is an advanced hardware component able to perform cryptographic functions, we have decided to implement it on our boards to guarantee two fundamental security properties in the IoT communication: 

Authenticity: You can trust who you are communicating with;

Confidentiality: You can be sure the communication is private.

Moreover, the secure element is used during the provisioning process to configure the Arduino board for Arduino IoT Cloud. In order to connect to the Arduino IoT Cloud MQTT broker, our boards don’t use a standard credentials authentication (username/password pair). We rather opted for implementing a higher-level authentication, known as client certificate authentication.

How does the Arduino provisioning work?

The whole process is possible thanks to an API, which exposes an endpoint a client can interact with.

As you can see in the diagram below, first the Client requests to register a new device on Arduino IoT Cloud via the API, to which the server (API) returns a UUID (Universally Unique IDentifier). At this point, the user can upload the sketch Provisioning.ino to the target board. This code is responsible for multiple tasks:

Generating a private key using the ATECCX08A, and store it in a secure slot that can be only read by the secure element;

Generating a CSR (Certificate Signing Request) using the device UUID as Common Name (CN) and the generated private key to sign it;

Storing the certificate signed by Arduino acting as the authority.

After the CSR generation, the user sends it via the API to the server and the server returns a certificate signed by Arduino. This certificate is stored, in a compressed format, in a slot of the secure element (usually in slot 10) and it is used to authenticate the device to the Arduino IoT Cloud.

Arduino Security Primer was originally published on PlanetArduino

[cyberparse]

IoT lottery: finding a perfectly secure connected device

http://cyberparse.co.uk/2017/11/27/iot-lottery-finding-a-perfectly-secure-connected-device/ https://i0.wp.com/cyberparse.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/security-binary-pd-898757.jpg?fit=3888%2C2592

Black Friday and Cyber Monday are great for shopping.Vendors flood the market with all kinds of goods, including lots of exciting connected devices that promise to make our life easier, happier and more comfortable.Being enthusiastic shoppers just like many other people around the world, at Kaspersky Lab we are, however paranoid enough to look at any Internet of Things (IoT)-device with some concern, even when the price is favorable.All because there is little fun in buying a coffeemaker that would give up your home or corporate Wi-Fi password to an anonymous hacker, or a baby-monitor that could livestream your family moments to someone you most definitely don’t want it livestreamed to. It is no secret that the current state of security of the IoT is far from perfect, and in buying one of those devices you are potentially buying a digital backdoor to your house.So, while preparing for IoT-shopping this year, we asked ourselves: what are our chances of buying a perfectly secure connected device? To find the answer, we conducted a small experiment: we randomly took several different connected devices and reviewed their security set up.It would be an exaggeration to say that we conducted a deep investigation.This exercise was more about what you’d be able to see at first glance if you had a clue about how these things should and shouldn’t work.As a result we found some rather worrying security issues and a few, less serious, but unnecessary ones. We looked at the following devices: a smart battery charger, an app-controlled toy car, an app-controlled smart set of scales, a smart vacuum cleaner, a smart iron, an IP camera, a smart watch, and a smart home hub. Smart Charger The first device we checked was the smart charger that attracted us with its built-in Wi-Fi connectivity. You may ask yourself: who would need a remotely controlled battery charger, especially when you need to manually set the battery to charge? Nevertheless, it exists and it allows you not only to charge the battery, but to manage the way you charge it. Like a boss. The device we tested charges and restores most types of batteries with a nominal voltage from 3 to 12 volts.It has a Wi-Fi module, which allows the device owner to connect remotely to control the charging process, to change the charging settings and to check how much electricity the battery is storing at any time. Once turned on, the device switches by default to ‘access point’ mode.The user should then connect to the device and open the management interface web page.The connection between the charger and the device you use to access the management panel uses the outdated and vulnerable WEP algorithm instead of WPA2. However it is password protected. Having said that, the predefined password is ‘11111’ and it is actually written in the official documentation that comes with the device and is searchable online. However, you can change the password to a more secure one. Having said that, the length of the password is limited, for some reason, to five symbols.Based on the information available here, it would take four minutes to crack such a password.In addition to that the web interface of the device itself has no password protection at all.It is available as is, once it is connected to your home Wi-Fi network. Who would attack a smart charger anyway, you may well ask, and you would probably be right as there are likely few black hat hackers in the world who would want to do that.Especially when it requires the attacker to be within range of the Wi-Fi signal or have access to your Wi-Fi router (which, by the way, is a much bigger problem). On the other hand, the ability to interfere with how the battery is charging, or randomly switching the parameters could be considered as worth a try by a wicked person.The probability of real damage, like setting fire to the battery or just ruining it is heavily dependent on the type of battery, however the attack can be performed just for lulz. Just because they can. To sum up: most likely when using this device, you won’t be in constant danger of a devastating remote cyberattack. However, if your battery eventually catches fire while charging, it could be a sign that you have a hacker in your neighborhood, and you have to change the password for the device. Or it could be the work of a remote hacker, which probably means that your Wi-Fi router needs a firmware update or a password change. Smart App-Controlled Wireless Spy Vehicle While some people are looking for useful IoT features, other seek entertainment and fun.After all, who didn’t dream of their own spying toolset when they were young? Well, a Smart App-Controlled Wireless Spy Vehicle would have seemed a dream come true. This smart device is actually a spy camera on wheels, connected via Wi-Fi and managed via an application.The spy vehicle, sold in toy stores, has Wi-Fi as the only connection interface.For management there are two official applications, for iOS and Android. We assumed that there could be a weakness in the Wi-Fi connections – and we turned out to be right. The device is able to execute the following commands:

Move across the area (with multiple riding modes, it is possible to control speed and direction) View an image from the navigation camera during movement, for ease of navigation View an image from the main camera, which can also be rotated in different directions (there is even a night vision mode) Record photos and videos that are stored in the phone’s memory Play audio remotely via a built-in speaker

Once connected to a phone, it becomes a Wi-Fi access point without password requirements.In other words, any person connected to it can send remote commands to the vehicle – you’d just need to know which commands to send.And if you – being a bit concerned about the lack of password protection in a child’s toy that has spying capabilities – decided to set one up, you’d find there was no opportunity to do so.And if you have basic network sniffing software on your laptop, and decided you’d like to see what the vehicle was currently filming, you’d be able to intercept the traffic between the vehicle and the controlling device. That said, a remote attack is not possible with this device, and an offensive third-party would have to be within the range of the toy’s Wi-Fi signal which should be enabled.But on the other hand, nothing prevents an attacker from listening to your traffic in a passive mode and catching the moment when the device is used.So if you have seen someone with a Wi-Fi antenna near your house recently, chances are they’re curious about your private life, and have the means to look into it. Smart Robo Vacuum Cleaner. With camera Speaking of other devices with cameras that are around you, we spent some time trying to figure out why a smart vacuum cleaner would need to have a web-cam – is it for the macro filming of dust? Or to explore the exciting under-bed world? Joking aside, this function was made specifically for the cleaning enthusiast: if you find it exciting to control the vacuum cleaner manually while checking exactly what it’s doing, this is the gadget for you. Just keep in mind that it is not quite secure. The device is managed via a specific application – you can control the cleaner’s movement, get video live-streaming while it’s cleaning, take pictures, etc.The video will disappear after streaming, while photos are stored in the application. There are two ways to connect to the device via Wi-Fi:

With the cleaner as access point.If you don’t have a Wi-Fi network in your home, the device will provide the connection itself. You simply connect to the cleaner via the mobile application – and off you go! The cleaner can also work as a Wi-Fi adapter, connected to an existing access point.After connecting to the cleaner-as-access-point you can then connect the device to your home Wi-Fi network for better connection and operation radius.

As the device is managed via a mobile phone application, the user should first go through some kind of authorization.Interestingly enough, for this they only need to enter a weak default password – and that’s it.Thus, an attacker just needs to connect to cleaner’s access point, type in the default password to authorize themselves in the application for pairing the mobile phone and the cleaner.After the pairing is completed, they can control the device.Also, after connection to a local network, the robot vacuum cleaner will be visible in the local network and available via a telnet protocol to anyone who is also connected to this network. Yes, the connection is password protected, which can be changed by the owner of the device (but really, who does that?!), and no, there is no brute force protection in place. Also the traffic between the app and the device is encrypted, but the key is hard-coded into the app. We are still examining the device, and the following statement should be taken with a big grain of salt, but potentially a third-party could download the app from Google Play, find the key and use it in a Man-in-the-Middle attack against the protocol. And, of course, like any other Android-app controlled connected device, the robot vacuum cleaner is a subject to attack via rooting malware: upon gaining super user rights, it can access the information coming from the cleaner’s camera and its controls.During the research, we also noticed that the device itself runs on a very old version of Linux OS, which potentially makes it subject to a range of other attacks through unpatched vulnerabilities.This, however, is the subject of ongoing research. Smart Camera IP cameras are the devices targeted most often by IoT-hackers. History shows that, besides the obvious unauthorized surveillance, this kind of device can be used for devastating DDoS-attacks. Not surprisingly, today almost any vendor producing such cameras is in the cross-hairs of hackers. In 2015, our attempt to evaluate the state of security of consumer IoT took a look at baby monitor; this year we’ve focused on a rather different kind of camera: the ones used for outside surveillance – for example the ones you’ve put up in your yard to make sure neighbors don’t steal apples from your trees. Originally, the device and its relatives from the same vendor were insecure due to a lack of vendor attention to the problem.But the issue of camera protection changed dramatically around 2016 after reports of unauthorized access to cameras became publicly known through a number of publications like here or here. Previously, all the cameras sold by this vendor were supplied with a factory default account and default password ‘12345’. Of course, users tended not to change the password.In 2016, the picture changed radically when the vendor became an industry pioneer in security issues, and started to supply cameras in ‘not activated’ mode.Thus, there was no access to the camera before activation.Activation required the creation of a password and some network settings. Moreover, the password was validated in terms of basic complexity requirements (length, variety of characters, numbers and special characters).Activation of the camera could be performed from any PC with access to the camera over the local network. Since this reform, updating the firmware on a camera with a default password leads to the camera demanding a password change and warning the user about security issues every time they connect.The password requirements are quite solid: Additionally, protection from password brute forcing has been implemented: Moreover, the vendor added a new security feature to the firmware in 2016.This involves protection against brute forcing, by automatically blocking access for an IP address after five to seven attempts to enter the wrong password.The lock is automatically removed after 30 minutes.The feature, which is enabled by default, significantly increases the level of security. Nevertheless, not everything is perfect in the camera.For instance, the exchange of data with the cloud is performed via HTTP, with the camera’s serial number as its ID.This obviously makes Man-in-the-Middle attacks more realistic. In addition to a standard WEB interface for such devices, there is a specialized tool for camera configuration, which can search for cameras on the network, display data on the cameras, and perform basic settings including activation, password changes, and the implementation of password resets for network settings. When triggering the device search the PC sends a single Ethernet frame. The camera’s response is not encrypted, and contains model information such as the firmware, date reset and network settings.Since this data is transmitted in a non-encrypted way and the request does not have authorization, this one Ethernet package can detect all cameras on the network and obtain detailed information about them.The algorithm has one more weakness: when forming a response, time delays are not considered.As a consequence, it is easy to organize a DDoS attack in the network, sending such requests to all cameras within the presented Ethernet network . Apart from the described specific protocol, cameras support a standard SSDP protocol for sending notifications, and this allows any software or hardware to automatically detect the cameras.This SSDP data also contains information about the model and serial number of the camera. One more attack vector lies in the remote password reset, which is supported by a technical support service.Anyone with access to the camera’s network can select a camera through the specialized tool for camera configuration and request the reset procedure.As a result, a small file containing the serial number of the camera is created.The file is sent to the technical support service, which then either refuses the request or sends a special code to enter a new password.Interestingly enough, the service doesn’t even try to check whether the user is the owner of the camera – outdoor surveillance assumes that the camera is located out of reach, and it is almost impossible to identify remotely the author of the request.In this scenario, an insider cybercriminal attack is the most probable vector. To sum up: luckily this is not the worst camera we’ve ever seen when it comes to cybersecurity; however, some unnecessary issues are still there to be exploited by an offensive user. Smart Bathroom Scales Remember that picture from the internet, where hacked smart scales threaten to post their owner’s weight online if they don’t pay a ransom? Well, joking aside we’ve proved this may be possible! This is a smart device, interacting with a smartphone app via Bluetooth, but it is also equipped with a Wi-Fi module.This connectivity provides the owner with a number of additional features, from weight monitoring on a private website secured by a password to body analysis and integration with various healthcare apps.Interestingly enough, the only Wi-Fi-enabled feature is the receiving of weather updates. We decided to test the possibility of arbitrary updates\software installation on the specified device in LAN using ARP spoofing and the implementation of Man-in-the-Middle attacks. Here’s what we found. The mobile phone interacts with the main server via HTTPS, in a series of queries.The scales themselves are connected to the mobile phone via Bluetooth.The process of pairing is simple: you request connection via the application, and then turn the scales’ Bluetooth connection on.Given the very limited time for this stage, it is very unlikely that someone will be able to pair the devices without the user’s knowledge. Among other things, the device transmits via Bluetooth various user data – mail, indication of weight, etc.The device receives updates via the application.The latter sends the current version of updates and a number of other parameters to the server – the server, in turn, passes to the application a link to the downloaded file and its checksum. However the updates are provided as is, on the HTTP channel, without encryption, and the updates themselves are also not encrypted.Thus, if you are able to listen to the network to which the device is connected you would be able to spoof the server response or the update itself. This enabled us to, firstly, ‘roll back’ the version of the updates, and then install a modified version that does not match the one retrieved from the server.In this scenario, the further development of attacks is possible, like installing arbitrary software on the device. The good news is that this device has no camera, so even if any other severe vulnerabilities are found, you are safe.Besides that, who would want to spend time on hacking smart scales? Well, the concern is a valid one.First of all, see the picture at the beginning of this text, and secondly: as we already mentioned above, sometimes hackers do things just because they can, because certain things are just fun to crack. Smart Iron Fun to crack – that is something you can definitely say about a smart iron.The very existence of such a device made us very curious.The list of things you could potentially do should a severe vulnerability be found and exploited looked promising. However, the reality turned out to be rather less amusing.Spoiler: based on our research it is impossible to set fire to the house by hacking the iron. However, there are some other rather interesting issues with this device.

The iron has a Bluetooth connection that enables a number of remote management options through a mobile app. We assumed that communication with the server would be insecure, allowing someone to take control of the device and its sensitive data, as manufacturers would not be paying enough attention to the protection of this channel, believing that a smart iron would be of little value to an attacker. Once it is connected to the user’s mobile phone, the iron is managed via the application, which exists in versions for both iOS and Android. The app allows you to:

View the orientation of the iron (whether it is lying flat, standing, or hanging by its cable) Disable (but – sadly – not enable) the iron Activate ‘safe mode’ (in which iron does not react to a mechanical switch on.To turn the iron on when it is in that mode you need to turn off safe mode in the app).

In terms of on/off safety the iron automatically switches off if it is stationary for five seconds in a ‘lying’ position, or for eight minutes in a ‘standing’ position. The iron can also be controlled via the internet.For this, it is necessary to have a gateway near the device, like a separate smartphone or tablet with internet access and a special app. Given all that, we decided to take a closer look at the applications for the device.There are three of them – one for iOS and two for Android.The first Android app is for when you manage the device via Bluetooth and are standing nearby, and the other one is for the gateway, which serves as an online door to your iron when you are not at home.The iOS app is for Bluetooth management.Speaking about the security of all applications, it is worth mentioning that the vendor’s code is not obfuscated at all. When viewing online traffic, we found out that the Android Bluetooth application uses HTTPS, which is a sensible solution.The corresponding app for iOS does not and neither does the gateway app for Android. We decided to test the traffic for the iOS application. Example of phishing attack via the application Once it is enabled, the application offers the user the chance to register, and then sends the data without encryption via HTTP.This gives us a very simple attack vector based on the interception of traffic between the mobile application and the vendor’s server within the local network. As already mentioned, the phone also communicates with the iron using BLE.The BLE traffic is also not encrypted.After deeper investigation of the applications, we were able to control the iron by creating specific commands just from looking into what is transmitted between the devices. So, if you were a hacker, what could you do with all this knowledge? First of all if you would be able to capture the user’s credentials, to pass the authorization stage in an official application and to switch off the iron or set it to ‘safe mode’.It is important to note here that these applications are used for all of the vendor’s smart devices, and there are quite a few.This significantly enlarges the attack surface. No need to worry if you miss the chance to intercept the authentication data.Given that the data exchange between the app and the device is not encrypted, you would be able to intercept a token transmitted from the server to the application and then create your own commands to the iron. As a result, within the local network an attacker can perform:

Identity theft (steal personal email address, username, password) Extortion (take advantage of the ignorance of the user to enable ‘safe mode’ so that the user could not mechanically turn on the iron, and to demand money for disabling ‘safe mode’)

Of course both these vectors are highly unlikely to be extensively performed in the wild, but they are still possible. Just imagine how embarrassing it would be if your private information was compromised, not as a result of an attack by a sophisticated hackers, but because of the poor security of your smart iron. Smart home hub The biggest problem with the vast majority of connected devices currently available is that most of them work with your smartphone as a separate, independent device, and are not integrated into a larger smart ecosystem.The problem is partly solved by so called smart hubs – nodes that unite in one place the data exchange between multiple separate smart devices.Although prior art in finding a secure smart hub, conducted by multiple other researchers, leaves little room for hope, we tried anyway and took a fancy smart hub with a touch screen and the ability to work with different IoT-protocols.It is universally compatible, works with ZigBee и ZWave home automation standards, and very easy to handle: according to the manufacturer, it can be set up within three minutes, using the touchscreen. In addition the hub serves as a wireless Wi-Fi router. Given all the features this multi-purpose device has, being a router, range extender, access point or wireless bridge, we decided to check one of the most common and most dangerous risks related to unauthorized external access to the router.Because, if successful, it would possibly lead to full control of a user’s smart home, including all connected devices. And, no surprise, our research has shown there is such a possibility. To check our assumption we created a local network, by connecting a PC, the device and one more router to each other.All network devices received their IP addresses, and we successfully scanned available ports. Our initial research has shown that, by default, there are two opened ports over WAN.The first one, port 80, is one of the most commonly used and assigned to protocol HTTP.It is the port from which a computer sends and receives web client-based communication and messages from a web server, and which is used to send and receive HTML pages or data.If opened, it means that any user can connect to port 80 and thus have access to the user’s device via the HTTP protocol. The second one, port 22 for contacting SSH (Secure Shell) servers is used for remote control of the device.Attackers can gain access to a device if they obtain or successfully brute force a root password. Usually it’s not an easy task to do. However, in our research we explored another interesting risky thing with the smart hub that makes this much easier. While analyzing the router, we discovered it might have problems with a very common threat risk – weak password generation.In the router system we found ELF (Executable and Linkable Format) file ‘rname’ with a list of names.By looking at this list and the password displayed on the screen, it became clear that device’s password is generated based on the names from this file and, thus, it doesn’t take long for brute force cracking. After a hard reset, the source line for passwords remained, with slightly changed symbols. However, the main password base remained the same, and that still leaves a chance to generate a password. In addition, we found that for device access a root account is constantly used.Thus, offensive users will know the login and a base part of the password, which will significantly facilitate a hacker attack. In case the device has a public IP address and the ports described above are opened, the router can be available for external access from the internet. Or, in other case, if a provider or an ISP (Internet Service Provider) improperly configures the visibility of neighboring hosts of the local network, these devices will be available to the entire local network within the same ISP. In all, we weren’t surprised; just like most any other smart hubs on the market, this one provides a really vast attack surface for an intruder.And this surface covers not only the device itself, but the network it works on.And here are the conclusions which the results of our experiment have brought us to. Conclusions Based on what we’ve seen while doing this exercise, the vendors of many IoT-devices developing their products assume that:

They won’t be attacked due to limited device functionality and a lack of serious consequences in the case of a successful attack. The appropriate level of security for an IoT-device is when there is no easy way to communicate with the wider internet and the attacker needs to have access to the local network the device is connected to.

We have to say that these assumptions are reasonable, but only until the moment when a vulnerable router or multifunctional smart hub, like the one described above, appears in the network to which all other devices are connected.From that moment, all the other devices, no matter how severe or trivial their security issues, are exposed to interference.It is easy to imagine a house, apartment or office populated with all these devices simultaneously, and also easy to imagine what a nightmare it would be if someone tried each of described threat vectors. So in answer to the question we asked ourselves at the beginning of this experiment, we can say that, based on our results at least, it is still hard to find a perfectly secure IoT-device. On the other hand, no matter which device you purchase, most likely it won’t carry really severe security issues, but again, only until you connect them to a vulnerable router or smart hub.

Keeping that and the ongoing high sales holiday season in mind we’d like to share the following advice on how to choose IoT devices:

When choosing what part of your life you’re going to make a little bit smarter, consider the security risks.Think twice if you really need a camera-equipped robo vacuum cleaner or a smart iron, which can potentially spill some of your personal data to an unknown third-party. Before buying an IoT device, search the internet for news of any vulnerability.The Internet of Things is a very hot topic now, and a lot of researchers are doing a great job of finding security issues in products of this kind: from baby monitors to app controlled rifles.It is likely that the device you are going to purchase has already been examined by security researchers and it is possible to find out whether the issues found in the device have been patched. It is not always a great idea to buy the most recent products released on the market.Along with the standard bugs you get in new products, recently-launched devices might contain security issues that haven’t yet been discovered by security researchers.The best choice is to buy products that have already experienced several software updates. To overcome challenges of smart devices’ cybersecurity, Kaspersky Lab has released a beta version of its solution for the ‘smart’ home and the Internet of Things – the Kaspersky IoT Scanner.This free application for the Android platform scans the home Wi-Fi network, informing the user about devices connected to it and their level of security.

When it comes to the vendors of IoT-devices, the advice is simple: collaborate with the security vendors and community when developing new devices and improving old ones. P.S. 1 out of 8 There was one random device in our research, which showed strong enough security for us at least not to be worried about private data leakage or any other devastating consequences.It was a smart watch. Like most other similar devices, these watches require an app to pair them with the smartphone and use.From that moment, most of data exchange between the device and the smartphone, the app and the vendors’ cloud service are reliably encrypted and, without a really deep dive into encryption protocol features or the vendor’s cloud services it is really hard to do anything malicious with the device. For the pairing the owner should use the pin code displayed on the clock for successful authorization.The pin is randomly generated and is not transmitted from the clock.After entering the pin code in the app, the phone and clock create the key for encryption, and all subsequent communication is encrypted.Thus, in the case of BLE traffic interception an attacker will have to decrypt it as well.For this, an attacker will need to intercept traffic at the stage of generating the encryption key. It is apparently impossible to get user data (steps, heart rate etc.) directly from the device.Data synchronization from the clock on the phone is encrypted and, in the same form is sent to the server.Thus, data on the phone is not decrypted, so the encryption algorithm and the key are unknown.

From our perspective this is an example of a really responsible approach to the product, because, by default the vendor of this device could also easily limit their security efforts to assuming that no one will try to hack their watches, as, even if successful, nothing serious happens.This is probably true: it is hard to imagine a hacker who would pursue an opportunity to steal information about how many steps you made or how fast your heart beats at any given moment of the day. Nevertheless, the vendor did their best to eliminate even that small possibility.And this is good, because cybersecurity is not all those boring and costly procedures which you have to implement because some hackers found some errors in your products, we think cybersecurity is an important and valuable feature of an IoT-product, just like its usability, design and list of useful functions. We are sure that as soon as IoT-vendors understand this fact clearly, the whole connected ecosystem will become much more secure than it is now.

[beltechnology]

The Future of Web Development 2020

What we do on the Web changes each day. The web development industry is always developing. While we will most likely be unable to advise the everyday changes while it’s occurring, it’s simple for us to think back to the previous barely any months and see that a great deal of things we do now are entirely different than what we’ve been doing previously.

Since our work lies in one of the quickest paced ventures, it’s significant for us to foresee and find out about what’s coming up or chance being left in the web improvement dust.

While this may sound overwhelming from the start, it’s in reality quite simple to see where we’ll be in the following a while/years to come.

How about we take a gander at a portion of the things I foresee will occur soon.

Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence is a blossoming innovative headway, from programming resembles Alexa, to essential human direction framework.

Each part of these innovations has been put to its best utilize. It is currently turning a fundamental piece of human lives. Individuals need this innovation in endeavors and even family units. Computerized reasoning has cleared its path through all parts of society. Each individual is utilizing this innovation in a few or the other way. In addition, it is changed for various age gatherings and mechanical divisions.

The eventual fate of AI is more captivating than any time in recent memory. Individuals appear to have enjoyed this discussion throughout recent years. Some state robots are the future and they will reproduce people totally. Another assessment is a human reliance on this area will expand complex. Be that as it may, one thing is without a doubt, man-made brainpower is advancing quicker than any time in recent memory, and nobody recognizes what may come straightaway.

Virtual Reality

VR or Virtual Reality has been the most interesting one till now, since it brings to us a world we could just dream of. VR is a fantasy machine, without a doubt.

The eventual fate of VR is that we wouldn’t have to convey our mass or spend on costly flights. Need to visit the Eiffel Tower? Possibly fly over the Eiffel? Or on the other hand sit on the Moon? Or on the other hand maybe you’d not have any desire to miss Beyoncé performing directly before you?

The conceivable outcomes are boundless and all that is required is venture, research and time

Internet of Thing(IoT)

Internet of things is a quickly developing idea for its wide uses in various ventures. The idea depends on interfacing physical gadgets or items to web to speak with some different gadgets. At the end of the day, web of things is fundamentally a significant arrangement of many interrelated gadgets with an interesting identifier. They can share information habitually over system even without human-to-human system.

Fate of IoT

It’s a given that IoT has a ton of possibilities to rethink business tasks of various enterprises and takes them to the following level. With regards to advantages of IoT, it offers a lot of advantages to business and accordingly makes their speculation productive. It works viably in production network and assists organizations with getting total subtleties of stock in a constant, lessen erroneous conclusion, making activity effective and expanding deals.

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