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mostlysignssomeportents · 1 year ago

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CDA 230 bans Facebook from blocking interoperable tools

I'm touring my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me TONIGHT (May 2) in WINNIPEG, then TOMORROW (May 3) in CALGARY, then SATURDAY (May 4) in VANCOUVER, then onto Tartu, Estonia, and beyond!

Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act is the most widely misunderstood technology law in the world, which is wild, given that it's only 26 words long!

https://www.techdirt.com/2020/06/23/hello-youve-been-referred-here-because-youre-wrong-about-section-230-communications-decency-act/

CDA 230 isn't a gift to big tech. It's literally the only reason that tech companies don't censor on anything we write that might offend some litigious creep. Without CDA 230, there'd be no #MeToo. Hell, without CDA 230, just hosting a private message board where two friends get into serious beef could expose to you an avalanche of legal liability.

CDA 230 is the only part of a much broader, wildly unconstitutional law that survived a 1996 Supreme Court challenge. We don't spend a lot of time talking about all those other parts of the CDA, but there's actually some really cool stuff left in the bill that no one's really paid attention to:

https://www.aclu.org/legal-document/supreme-court-decision-striking-down-cda

One of those little-regarded sections of CDA 230 is part (c)(2)(b), which broadly immunizes anyone who makes a tool that helps internet users block content they don't want to see.

Enter the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University and their client, Ethan Zuckerman, an internet pioneer turned academic at U Mass Amherst. Knight has filed a lawsuit on Zuckerman's behalf, seeking assurance that Zuckerman (and others) can use browser automation tools to block, unfollow, and otherwise modify the feeds Facebook delivers to its users:

https://knightcolumbia.org/documents/gu63ujqj8o

If Zuckerman is successful, he will set a precedent that allows toolsmiths to provide internet users with a wide variety of automation tools that customize the information they see online. That's something that Facebook bitterly opposes.

Facebook has a long history of attacking startups and individual developers who release tools that let users customize their feed. They shut down Friendly Browser, a third-party Facebook client that blocked trackers and customized your feed:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/11/once-again-facebook-using-privacy-sword-kill-independent-innovation

Then in in 2021, Facebook's lawyers terrorized a software developer named Louis Barclay in retaliation for a tool called "Unfollow Everything," that autopiloted your browser to click through all the laborious steps needed to unfollow all the accounts you were subscribed to, and permanently banned Unfollow Everywhere's developer, Louis Barclay:

https://slate.com/technology/2021/10/facebook-unfollow-everything-cease-desist.html

Now, Zuckerman is developing "Unfollow Everything 2.0," an even richer version of Barclay's tool.

This rich record of legal bullying gives Zuckerman and his lawyers at Knight something important: "standing" – the right to bring a case. They argue that a browser automation tool that helps you control your feeds is covered by CDA(c)(2)(b), and that Facebook can't legally threaten the developer of such a tool with liability for violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, or the other legal weapons it wields against this kind of "adversarial interoperability."

Writing for Wired, Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University speaks to a variety of experts – including my EFF colleague Sophia Cope – who broadly endorse the very clever legal tactic Zuckerman and Knight are bringing to the court.

I'm very excited about this myself. "Adversarial interop" – modding a product or service without permission from its maker – is hugely important to disenshittifying the internet and forestalling future attempts to reenshittify it. From third-party ink cartridges to compatible replacement parts for mobile devices to alternative clients and firmware to ad- and tracker-blockers, adversarial interop is how internet users defend themselves against unilateral changes to services and products they rely on:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/10/adversarial-interoperability

Now, all that said, a court victory here won't necessarily mean that Facebook can't block interoperability tools. Facebook still has the unilateral right to terminate its users' accounts. They could kick off Zuckerman. They could kick off his lawyers from the Knight Institute. They could permanently ban any user who uses Unfollow Everything 2.0.

Obviously, that kind of nuclear option could prove very unpopular for a company that is the very definition of "too big to care." But Unfollow Everything 2.0 and the lawsuit don't exist in a vacuum. The fight against Big Tech has a lot of tactical diversity: EU regulations, antitrust investigations, state laws, tinkerers and toolsmiths like Zuckerman, and impact litigation lawyers coming up with cool legal theories.

Together, they represent a multi-front war on the very idea that four billion people should have their digital lives controlled by an unaccountable billionaire man-child whose major technological achievement was making a website where he and his creepy friends could nonconsensually rate the fuckability of their fellow Harvard undergrads.

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

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/02/kaiju-v-kaiju/#cda-230-c-2-b

Image: D-Kuru (modified): https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:MSI_Bravo_17_(0017FK-007)-USB-C_port_large_PNr%C2%B00761.jpg

Minette Lontsie (modified): https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Facebook_Headquarters.jpg

CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en

#pluralistic #ethan zuckerman #cda 230 #interoperability #content moderation #composable moderation #unfollow everything #meta #facebook #knight first amendment initiative #u mass amherst #cfaa

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mariacallous · 3 months ago

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Following a White House edict effectively banning federal employees from disclosing their personal pronouns in email signatures, sources within multiple federal agencies say pronouns are now being systemically blocked across multiple email clients and other software.

WIRED confirmed various automated efforts with employees at the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the General Services Administration (GSA), the US Department of Agriculture, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The employees spoke to WIRED on condition of anonymity, citing fears of retaliation.

Multiple agency directors sent emails over the weekend telling staff that, due to President Donald Trump’s executive order, their offices would be removing the pronoun capability from Office 365. Employees were told they’d also need to remove pronouns from their email signatures in order to comply with the directive.

A staffer at USAID says the formal deactivation of their ability to list pronouns occurred last week, in response to executive orders defining sexes issued by President Trump on his first day in office. A GSA staffer says pronouns were wiped from employees’ email signatures after hours on Friday and were also no longer visible in Slack, the workplace messaging app. At the CDC, there used to be a section for employees to share their pronouns on their Teams profiles, another workplace app. That field no longer exists.

Reached for comment, the White House transferred WIRED to OPM communications director McLaurine Pinover, who pointed to January 29 memorandum ordering agencies to disable all features “that prompt users for their pronouns.”

The ban on personal pronouns follows sweeping efforts by the White House to eliminate programs that encourage diversity and social justice within the federal government, as well as other references to “diversity, equity, and inclusion” in federal employees’ discourse.

In a striking example of the policy in action, an image surfaced last week of a wall being painted over at the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Quantico, Virginia, academy due to it listing "diversity" among the bureau's core values. (According to an email from the FBI’s Office of Integrity and Compliance obtained by Mother Jones, the bureau no longer counts "diversity" among its core values.)

The Trump administration began a radical campaign last week aimed at inducing members of the federal workforce to leave their jobs ahead of threatened reductions. The effort is spearheaded by Elon Musk, leader of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), a task force that has effectively seized control of several federal agencies and sensitive government systems with apparent clearance from the White House.

WIRED reported last week that Musk’s outfit had effectively taken over the Office of Personnel Management, the US government’s human resources department. In this and other efforts, it is employing inexperienced young engineers whose ages range from 19 to 24—many of whom, public records show, are former interns or have been affiliated with Musk-aligned companies.

OPM emailed federal workers on January 28 with a “deferred resignation offer,” sparking widespread confusion among federal workers. (DOGE’s own new HR chief was unable to answer basic questions about the offer in a contentious staff meeting last week, WIRED reported.) In an email to staff Sunday evening, OPM clarified whether the deferred resignation program complied with existing privacy laws. “Yes,” read the answer. “The deferred resignation program uses only basic contact information about federal employees, like name and government address, along with short, voluntary email responses. The information is stored on government systems. To the extent that the Privacy Act applies, all information relevant to the program is covered by existing OPM System Records Notices.”

Multiple agency sources told WIRED last week that several of Musk's lieutenants had been granted access to key computer systems controlled by the GSA, an independent agency tasked by Congress with overseeing federal buildings and providing equipment, supplies, and IT support across the government.

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channeledhistory · 11 months ago

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The highly controversial indiscriminate child sexual abuse regulation (so-called chat control) could still be endorsed by EU governments after all, as France could give up its previous veto. This is reported by Euractiv and confirmed by internal documents. France considers the new “upload moderation” proposal in principle as a viable option. According to the latest draft regulation dated 28 May (Council document 9093/24), which is presented as “upload moderation”, users of apps and services with chat functions are to be asked whether they accept the indiscriminate and error-prone scanning and possibly reporting of their privately shared images, photos and videos. Previously unknown images and videos are also to be scrutinised using “artificial intelligence” technology. If a user refuses the scanning, they would be blocked from sending or receiving images, photos, videos and links (Article 10). End-to-end encrypted services such as Whatsapp or Signal would have to implement the automated searches “prior to transmission” of a message (so-called client-side scanning, Article 10a). The initially proposed scanning of text messages for indications of grooming, which is hardly being used to date, is to be scrapped, as is the scanning of voice communication, which has never been done before. Probably as a concession to France, the chats of employees of security authorities and the military are also to be exempted from chat control.

During the last discussion on 24 May, the Council Legal Service made it clear that indiscriminate chat control scanning of non-suspects is still envisioned and remains a violation of fundamental rights. Nevertheless, most EU governments are determined to go ahead. EU governments plan to continue their discussions on June 4th. “The Belgian proposal means that the essence of the EU Commission’s extreme and unprecedented initial chat control proposal would be implemented unchanged,” warns MEP and most prominent opponent of chat control Patrick Breyer (Pirate Party). “Using messenger services purely for texting is not an option in the 21st century. And removing excesses that aren’t being used in practice anyway is a sham. Millions of private chats and private photos of innocent citizens are to be searched using unreliable technology and then leaked without the affected chat users being even remotely connected to child sexual abuse – this would destroy our digital privacy of correspondence. Our nude photos and family photos would end up with strangers in whose hands they do not belong and with whom they are not safe. Despite lip service being paid to encryption, client-side scanning would undermine previously secure end-to-end encryption in order to turn our smartphones into spies – this would destroy secure encryption. [...]

#eu #chat control #daumenschraubenanzug

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firstprincehornyramblings · 7 months ago

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Good afternoon everyone, I'm here and ready to go. Thank you to @tailsbeth-writes and @thighzp for the tags. I started a new Wip, because I have no restraint, but at least I'm working on most of the fic's equally, so you get a snippet from Hairstylist Henry and a peak at the new wip. Under the cut because it's long and a lil spicy

------------- Hairstylist Henry and his (least) Favorite Client

“Hazza, your strumpet is texting the salon automated messenger.” The sigh that Henry heaved was loud enough to be heard a state over. Of course, Alex was texting the salon, why wouldn’t he be? And of course, Pez had to know about it, because both of them had the booking app on their phone. “He couldn’t bother to confirm his appointment, but he can text us to tell me that a single hair is out of place?” the blond complained, taking out his phone, broom handle resting against the opposite shoulder. “That’s not why he’s texting, poppet.” The text that Henry saw when he opened the app was simple, one reply to the receipt and total, to the automated ‘thanks for visiting’ message: ‘Is this your personal phone or is it the company’s number?’ Against all better judgement, Henry inhaled deeply and typed a reply: ‘Hi Alex, this is the number for the salon’s booking service. If you would like to reach me personally you can at 212-924-7178, thanks! See you next time, have a good evening.’ “I saw that!” Percy called from the front of the salon as Henry finished sweeping up.

(no one text that number i made it up but it's probably real please thank you) -----

SNEAKPEAK AT NEW PWP WIP

“I want to fuck you,” Henry panted into that kiss. “You wanna top? I mean, I’m down, just clarifying,” the brunette pulled back with a grin, looking over his boyfriend. “Yes, but- well..” for a moment Henry seemed to fumble with articulating his own words, “I also want to bottom, but I want to top too. Can we do both?” “We can do anything you want, baby,” Alex’s hands found the blond’s waist, kneading at soft skin and gently pulling their hips together, “Actually, I mean that. I’m so proud of you, the way you stood up for yourself today. I think you deserve anything you want,” he hummed, leaning in and pressing soft kisses to the blond’s jaw, “So you’re in charge. This dick is yours; this ass is yours, and this mouth is yours. You use me however you want, sweetheart. I don’t like it, I’ll pull a red or yellow, otherwise, you call all the shots. How does that sound, your majesty?” “I think,” Henry began before reaching between them and wrapping his hand around his boyfriend’s cock, “That’s an excellent idea,” he purred, “Come on!” That was instantly followed by Henry walking toward the bed, tugging the brunette along, gently of course, but very much by his cock. Alex laughed, and waddled, but aside from a ‘hey!!’ put up no protest; perhaps because he secretly loved it.

YAY TAGS (no pressure tags darlings)

@taste-thewaste @eusuntgratie @henrysfox @mikibwrites

@softboynick @catdadacd @sheepywritesfics @henryspearl

@basil-bird @caressthosecheekbones @henfox @onthewaytosomewhere @anti-homophobia-cheese + literally anyone else I'm sleepy and forgot, or anyone who sees this and wants to tag me, I love reading yall's stuff. <3

#first prince smut #my fic #hairstylist henry #pwp wip #sentences sunday

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fuck-customers · 1 year ago

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I wish people from other departments were scared to talk to me because I’m sick and tired of them taking my help for granted. They seem to expect my help and only my help even when I’m unable to help. For example when I take time off, I leave an automated message everywhere letting people know to contact my department for assistance and I leave the extension and email address, so they know I’m not able to help them. They’ll leave tasks for me to complete for them in my inbox until I come back. I know they weren’t complete because when I check on what they want me to do, I’ll see that it hasn’t been done yet. There’s nothing I can do that no one in my department can’t. Another time I told a new girl from another department kept calling me directly even when I was on the phone with a client and when I continued to not pick up she messaged me and I told her to contact my department, which she did, but then later called me directly again. I got upset with her this time because I had only helped her in the beginning because she was new and then I informed her of the department extension, but she was still looking for me specifically.

Posted by admin Rodney

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thelongestway · 4 months ago

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Writing heists is hard, haha! Especially while trying to troubleshoot a computer you haven't seen in a while. :P At least that gives you a lot of wait time.

But there we go - and yeah, no way this is 12 chapters. 14 or 15, so about the same size as the last story. Gonna do an actual word count when I get everything set up again.

Chapter 11

SecUnit

On the second jump to Parallax, the Friend went under for an operation that would allow Dandelion to decide what to redact from its memory. (When it learned I would be going with it onto the station it asked if I would be erasing my memory, too. I told it to fuck off with that idea. It looked at me in a way that reminded me of my first meeting with Dandelion. Dumbass judgmental research transport and her dumbass judgmental human.)

Iceblink, the only one of the human Trellians to work with us in the feed, asked the Friend, How does that even work? To go on a mission when you have no idea what you're even defending?

This Friend remembers the circumstances around the operation and that it chose to allow your bot pilot to work on itself. It knows it has decided that the mission is important enough to not risk leaving the erasure to automated mechanisms upon imminent death. It is fine with that.

ew. She said to me on a private channel. i could never trust that, could you, SecUnit. like if they erased my memory and i could only remember i was fine with it i could not trust that.

If someone could erase your memory like that, they normally wouldn't let you remember anything at all. They just use a real governor module to tell you what to do.

I sent her the schemas (with most of the critical details of implementation redacted).

oh wow you people really are living preneek horror movies. ok fuck this. (you are bringing the Friend back alive tho, right? tell me you're not going to just leave it to a heroic last stand or something)

I don't let my clients do heroic last stands.

Technically, my client was Dandelion, and the Friend was her client, and I had explicit instructions under which the Friend turned into a target, which was the weirdest arrangement I've had so far as a security consultant choosing its own contracts. But Iceblink seemed satisfied.

Then the wormhole exit notification rang out across the ship. Dandelion transferred the Friend's feed leash to me, and we disembarked onto a shuttle that the Friend had also spoofed. We stayed dark for about a cycle, going over the station plan and our various strategies, code words and lines. I got through about half a season of Found. The Friend listened to music as it checked its equipment again and again. (It mostly liked instrumentals with chorals). When Dandelion, now a private yacht called "Lessel's Rays", came back from the wormhole, we started moving slowly. As soon as we reached the station's feed radius, I tapped the line to S-Sec. It was finally go time.

"Parallax Station Security, this is Ivlic Lesert, junior security officer for the transport Silverwing One. We had a stow-away that tried to take the ship. Requesting to rent a holding cell for three days and a search for any active warrants for one Atmir Ran, biometric data attached."

S-Sec confirmed receipt of message and then presumably ran its checks. Then they said suspiciously:

"S.O. Lesert, didn't Silverwing One leave a cycle ago? How slow is that shuttle?"

"Fast enough. According to our intel, this asshole might have friends on Parallax, so I was trying to draw them out. No luck, so now I just want the bounty if there is one and a drink." (This one was the Friend's idea. "Make them think you just want to get it over with; make them think all you want is the next dose." Humans and mind-altering substances, ugh.)

"S.O. Lesert, you can proceed to private ring 3, docking bay 5. An escort will meet you there."

The worst part about this plan was having to talk with human security while they processed the Friend. The Friend had written most of the lines, and its feed leash doubled as an encrypted comms channel, so it could shadow the conversation when the leash was activated. It insisted on keeping some of the least realistic elements that I had initially flagged at superfluous, and it worked. Station security was entertained. They were even more entertained when the Friend swore at them from behind holding cell bars, deploying increasingly improbable sex acts and genitalia combinations, and got shocked for its trouble.

Security informed us pretty quickly that BreharWallHan had a warrant that matched the Friend's description, so I could start an open search for details in the background. BreharWallHan had a small representative office here, as well as a corporate hotel, part of which had shittier accomodations, stricter security and doubled as barracks for workers on their way to places. I got the floor plans, worked in a code word so that the Friend knew to throw itself against the cell bars again, and activated the feed leash, piggybacking the plans onto the control signal.

The BreharWallHan agent came, and we negotiated for the bounty with stock dialogue that made me feel even more like I was in some kind of stupid serial. But we managed to drag the whole thing out to a time frame where Dandelion and Iceblink were either doing their part of the hack or were not, and then I released the Friend into their custody.

"The feed leash is time-locked," I said as the agent locked huge electronic manacles on the Friend's arms and legs. "It'll hold another 24 hours. Consider it a premium serivce guarantee."

The agent smiled at me and batted her eyelashes in a way that made my organic parts crawl.

"So if anything goes wrong, we can contact you about it, S.O.?"

I knew the line. It was, Ivlic, sir/maam/ker/ser. For you, it's Ivlic.

I said, "No. I will be getting drunk in my hotel room. The leash will hold."

"Ah well," the agent said, unbothered. "That fee should be enough for some excellent stuff. Enjoy your rest, S.O., and thank you for excellent work."

So that was just what I did. I found a cheap hotel room, ordered some of the swill that had the crappiest side effects on humans, and sequestered myself in the room. Then I hacked the hotel's feed, spread the swill all over the floor and giant bed, with a splash on the view screen for good measure (even though it was a nice view screen. For a cheap hotel room), changed my visual presentation and walked out to hack the BreharWallHan barracks from the outside. Thanks to the malware in my leash, the Friend should have been free of the manacles and doing the same from its cell. We'd agreed that whoever got to the walled garden feed first would take it out.

When we met in the middle as planned, and with no alarms raised (this was a very shitty little representative office), I thought that for once things had gone as planned. For about 0,2 seconds.

And then five other prisoners filed out from around the corner, looking terrified.

#the nameless fanfic #ttou #time to orbit unknown #the murderbot diaries #my writing #horrible crossover thoughts #mission: stick to defined mission target - impossible

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kccinstitutes · 2 years ago

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Glimpses of Academic Procession - Graduation Ceremony, KCC ILHE Batch 2019

On October 28, 2023, the KCC Institute of Legal & Higher Education in Greater Noida held its Convocation for the graduating class of 2019-2022. The atmosphere was charged with excitement as the graduates eagerly awaited the moment when they would officially receive their degrees. The event commenced with a formal academic procession featuring distinguished guests, academic faculty, and the graduating students making their grand entrance.

The chief guest for the occasion was Padma shri Prof. (Dr.) Mahesh Verma, Vice Chancellor of GGSIPU. He delivered an inspiring convocation address, imparting valuable life lessons and insights to the graduating class of BBA, BCOM(H), BCA and BAJMC.

Graduates were bestowed with their degrees and accompanied by warm congratulations and well-wishes in presence of distinguished representatives from various sectors of the industry, as well as esteemed members of the academic council of KCCILHE.

Shri Pankaj Rai, Managing Director , Quality Austria Central Asia Private Limited

Dr. Lovneesh Chanana, Sr. Vice President & Regional Head for Government Affairs (Asia Pacific and Japan)

Advocate Shri Rajeev Tyagi, Member and Advisor, TAC, Ministry of Telecommunication, GOI.

Prof Vijita Singh Aggarwal, Director, International Affairs, GGSIPU

Professor (Dr.) Amrapal Singh Dean, USLLS.

Shri Sunil Mirza, GM (North India) Hindu Group of Publications.

Shri Atul Tripathi sir, Data Scientist

Shri Buba F Keinteh, Financial Attache Gambia Embassy.

Shri Pradip Bagchi, Senior Editor, Times of India.

Shri Vivek Narayan Sharma ,Advocate & Ex Joint Secretary, Supreme Court of India.

Biswajit Bhattacharya, Lead Client Partner, Automative Industry Leader India South Asia, IBM India Private limited.

Shri Dhruba Jyoti Pati , Director India Today Media Institute.

Shri Anil Singh, Manager, The Hindu City

Ceremony ended with pledging honor to our country by singing the national anthem. Subsequently, the celebration continued with a delightful lunch, memorable photo sessions, and the exchange of heartfelt messages among the attendees. The graduation ceremony concluded on a note of jubilation, leaving the graduates inspired to strive for greatness in their future endeavors.

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technologyequality · 1 month ago

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Automate Your Client Follow-Ups in 5 Minutes: AI-Powered Sales on Autopilot

Automate Your Client Follow-Ups in 5 Minutes AI-Powered Sales on Autopilot Picture this: You have a solid discovery call with a potential client. They’re excited, you’re excited, and then… nothing. The deal sits in limbo, collecting dust in your CRM because you got busy, life happened, and you forgot to follow up. Sound familiar? It happens to the best of us. But here’s the truth: Follow-up…

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going-to-ikea-for-the-fries · 1 year ago

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I Got You. - OC Backstory

pairing: COD OC!Victoria "Whiskey" Callahan x MootOC!Rosie (platonic) words: 3.3k~ cw: canon-typical violence/talk, attempt at military accuracy, espionage, government conspiracies, paranoia, mental breakdown/issues, physical/health neglect, flashbacks.

August 6th, 2023. 2139 hours. Comrie, Scotland.

Whiskey's splayed out on the bed. She snaps a picture that catches only her tired eyes, knit eyebrows and poofy brown hair in the darkness of the room, before typing some random caption and shooting it off to Meabh.

It was typical for them to text through Snap. It was the only social app Whiskey kept after she left home 5 years ago. Her phone was void of other apps other than food delivery, youtube, her e-mail and Snapchat.

At the top of the screen, a pop-up appears, announcing the arrival of a new e-mail on her inbox. A Facebook one, from an account she long abandoned, along with her abandoning all other social medias. And yet, the name 'Holly Willi-' cut off by the character limit had her raising a brow.

Tapping at the notification, her e-mail client opened with an automated e-mail from Facebook alerting her that Holly Williams had sent her a direct message. Now that's new.

Holly Williams... That was one of dad's cousins. From Grandpa Willie's side of the family, if her memory served her. She remembers family dinners and barbecues spent together, her big Irish-American family getting together for the 4th of July, and Thanksgiving, and Christmas.

She hasn't seen her 'Aunt Holly' (even though the woman was really her first cousin once removed) since before she went to university nearly 13 years ago. What could the woman want now?

Clicking on the link, she's taken to the Facebook client page on her browser and after trying, failing, and reseting the password of her account, she clicks the DM tab and opens the message:

Hi Vicky dear, it's your auntie Holly. Hope you're doing well. I heard about your papa, my condolences. I hope it's not a bother but I reached out to your mama to talk to your daddy about some military things and she sent me your way because she said you're in the navy. I see you haven't uploaded anything in a few years so this might not even reach you but I could use your help very urgently and I'm frankly desperate. If you see this, is there anyway you could call me at this number? It's very important!!! Thanks. Aunt Holly x

Her brow scrunches. Since when does Aunt Holly need to talk about the military? Isn't she a professor? Whiskey clicks on her profile and checks her job listing. Right, she's a History professor in NYU. So what's this? Is this for some research study of hers?

But then again, she said it herself that she's desperate... And the tone of her message isn't the most uplifting one... She sounds like she's really in need of her help... And Whiskey has never been good at being heartless. Sighing and scratching her head, Whiskey sits up in bed.

She copies the number from the DM and calls it, hearing the repeated beeping of the call attempting to connect as Simon comes up the stairs and into the bedroom, sweatpants close to falling off his hip and wrapped in a warm sweater.

He raises a brow at her as she's holding the phone to her ear, signaling vaguely to indicate it's an important call, so he takes a spot beside her, with an arm around her waist.

"Holly Williams." The older woman greets on the other side, her voice professional, like she was waiting for a work call.

"Hey, Aunt Holly, it's Victoria." Whiskey murmurs, her southern accent suddenly triggering full-force, like it hasn't in over three years.

August 10th, 2023. 1321 hours. Yonkers, New York.

"When you get there, please, you need to understand, she's... she's not herself."

Victoria climbed out of the Uber and popped open the trunk, pulling out her black suitcase, and thanking the driver with a nod and a wave before he drove off.

Then, she stood in front of the brownstone townhouse, eyeing it up and down, with inquisitive eyes, before taking a deep breath and climbing the front steps to the stoop.

"She hasn't been the same, not after Alex passed away."

The doorbell rings inside the house for a few moments, before the door opens and a pale face regards her from the other side, strawberry blonde curls disheveled, eyes heavy with dark circles.

"Hey, Rosie..." Victoria greets gently. The woman knew she was coming, Aunt Holly having warned her. "It's me, Victoria... Vicky, remember?" She asks in a soft tone, hoping she's not too far gone yet.

"Vicky..." Rosie says softly as she regards the slightly shorter brunette with wild, crazied eyes but eventually nods and unlocks the door all the way, letting Victoria inside.

"When you see her, please... be kind to her. She's really struggling..."

Victoria remembers the last time she saw Rosemary. Victoria had to have been 16. Rosie had just graduated from college, and it was the summer. At the time, she always dressed in bright colors, a hippy style, with Birkenstocks galore... She was very put together, healthy, pretty. They weren't the closest cousins in the world, but they spent time together during the holidays; Rosie taught Vicky how to do her hair to keep her curls healthy; they spoke about boys...

Before coming here, Victoria had even checked her cousin's Facebook page, finding an old album of photos from family gatherings that included the two of them, when they were much, much younger (and happier). It had been so long since they last saw each other... She needed a refresher on her cousin's appearance...

But now, as she's getting let into the house, she realizes Rosemary looks like shit. Somehow, worse than Victoria had expected when her mother had reached out and told her all about the state she is in. Paranoid, manic, depressive and reclusive, Aunt Holly worrying her only daughter was schizophrenic. Her hair looks greasy and matted, and she seems like she's lived in the same outfit for multiple days, maybe weeks. The house reeks. She reeks.

"Nobody can get her out of the house... And she's not taking care of herself..."

The house is dirty and messy, take out containers and paper bags of food delivery strewn about, the trashbag in the kitchen overflowing, the laundry basket in the laundry room too. Every picture frame in the house has blue, yellow, or pink post-its over it, the mirrors as well. Victoria follows her cousin across the house, each step she takes crushing some trash, or nearly tripping over a clothes pile. She's dangerously close to becoming a hoarder, it looks like...

Victoria has to force herself to take a few deep breaths through her mouth and not her nose, so that she doesn't get sick. She knows it would not be helpful in her cousin's state.

Rosie's able to push some trash off the couch to make space for the two of them to sit, though she keeps a large gap between herself and Victoria, probably ashamed of her smell, or appearance, or doubting that she can trust her...

"Every time I try to talk to her... It's like I'm talking to a crazy person... She's my daughter, I love her, but she needs help..."

"Your mom told me some of what's been going on." Victoria begins as she sets her hands on her lap and looks at Rosie with her best attempt at showing empathy and kindness.

"What'd she tell you? That I'm going crazy? I'm not, you know?" Rosie says defensively. "She thinks I'm losing it, and that I need to be committed, but I don't." She assures the brunette.

"Well, no, that's not what she said." Victoria lied. Yes, it had been 100% what Aunt Holly had said when they met up the day before, after she picked Victoria up at the airport, having bawled her eyes out behind the wheel.

"Then what did she say?" Rosie asks directly, her brows knitting together in anxious worry, her hands already trembling on her lap.

"To be honest," Victoria continues, choosing her words carefully, "I didn't understand most of it... I think it'd be best if I heard it from you. Can you tell me what's been going on?" She asked in earnest.

And tell her, Rosie did.

For the next three hours, Victoria heard her ramble and ramble, more and more and more.

About Alex, about his missions, about how Rosie always worried he'd die in the field, how they pronounced him dead in 2019 but she never got to see a body, only his dogtags, and his grave is empty... Victoria thought that was pretty normal, average even... it was the normal treatment for soldiers who died in ways that made it so their body couldn't be recovered... Like during an explosion.

But then Rosie went on and on about how she feels like she's being watched, stalked, surveilled, how she gets stopped by cops too much, and keeps seeing the same faces around the places she usually goes to like Target or Walmart, how there's a van parked outside 24/7, how she's sure that there's cameras and microphones around the house... And it was all being too much.

"She thinks she's being stalked, watched by the govenment, and like they're out to get her."

"Rosie... why would the government be doing such a thing?" Victoria asked her in earnest once she paused in her rants.

"You're not LISTENING!" Rosie complained, her body already having started to shake in distress as she retold everything to her cousin.

"No, no, I am listening. I'm just trying to understand." Victoria replied in an attempt to soothe her and gently took her hands in hers, which caused Rosie to tear up.

"It's NOT the government, it's the CIA!" The blonde shrieked and sniffled, trembling beside Victoria. "Alex was an agent... he..." She trailed off and shook her head. "Nobody tells me anything, I tried calling, nobody tells me!"

Victoria sighed and carefully scooted closer, taking a breath and daring to wrap an arm around Rosemary's form, in the gentlest of ways. "That tends to happen a lot, you know? They... well... when a soldier dies a gruesome death. They close the cases and put high clearances in place so that it doesn't shock the family." The brunette said.

"She's in complete denial, Vicky. She's living in her paranoia and delusion..."

"No!" Rosemary argued. "He's not dead, Vicky, he's not! Whatever... Whatever happened, they're covering it all up! They- he's not dead! They didn't even tell me how he died! Not even if it was heroic or anything!" She wailed as a hiccuping sob rattled her and shook her form against Victoria's side.

Victoria sighed and looked around the room. She was not equipped to deal with this. She half wished that Simon was here. He had dealt with people in altered states of mind, his brother, especially...

"You need to help me, Vicky... You're my only hope! You have to find out what happened. You know people, right? My mom said your mom said you're in the Special Forces! You know things?!" Rosie whined in a pitiful tone, her big blue eyes glued to Victoria's, and making her own hazel ones soften.

"I'll try, Rosie... But even I don't have that high of clearance..." Victoria replied in a soothing tone. "But I promise I'll try."

Victoria meant it. Her cousin might be mental and delusional, but, at least, Victoria could poke around a little bit and see if she could at least find what happened to the body...

"Where did you say he was sent to?" The soldier asked with a cocked brow, her hand gently rubbing Rosie's arm and shoulder in her best attempt at being comforting.

"In the Middle East... Urzikstan, I think..." Rosemary replied and looked up at Victoria. "You're going to look into it, right?" She pleaded.

Victoria nodded. "Of course I will." She replied and smiled at her, trying not to let the feeling of instant dread that was growing in the back of her mind from showing on her face.

Urzikstan... Price and Kyle were just there last year... Working alongside the militia there.

"Now... how about I help you give this place a tidying up... and you go take a shower, and try to relax, hm?" She offered.

Rosie's face began to flush a bit, with the sudden reminder that she had been neglecting herself and probably smelled so bad... And here was Victoria hugging her. "I probably should..." She trailed off and began pulling away from the other woman.

The brunette let her go and nodded. "Call me up when you're done, I'll help do your hair, how's that?" She offered and smiled kindly at Rosie.

Rosemary gulped and nodded. "Yeah..." She got up, beginning to shuffle out of the living room. She stopped by the door and turned back to look at her cousin. "Thank you for this... for everything..." She said gratefully.

Victoria shook her head. "Don't thank me. That's what *family*'s for, right?" She asked, though the word family, one she hadn't used in a while, left a bitter taste in her mouth. Rosie nodded and then disappeared back upstairs.

Once Victoria heard the bathroom door upstairs shutting with a loud thud, she bounced up off the couch.

Whiskey mode activated and she began looking around the room, pulling out her cellphone and turning on the flashlight to shine it off any hidden nook and cranny, like behind the TV, and inside the A/C vents.

1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Five fucking cameras, just in the living room and entryway alone. She doesn't want to imagine how many more are hidden throughout the house.

It seems that Rosie isn't as delusional and crazy as Aunt Holly thought...

Approaching the window, Whiskey pulls the blinds aside and pears out through the gap, pushing her back against the wall, looking up and down the street. She notices the white van parked a couple hundred feet away, advertising a dry-cleaning service. She knows immediately that that's where they operate from.

She almost wants to go over, with her pistol in hand, and scare them off. But she knows better than to fuck with the Agency... And, even more so, when she's not here as Whiskey, but as Victoria. As a civilian, with no armor, just a red halter top and jeans and boots, coming to visit her cousin.

Huffing, she shakes her head and closes the blinds again. "God damn it..." She murmurs, already feeling her own paranoia rising and her hackles rising. She's going to need to pull some strings to find out what in the hell went so wrong in Urzikstan 4 years ago that now an innocent civilian is being surveilled.

With another sigh, Victoria turns and looks around the room, noticing all the trash and, with a deep breath, she sets down her belongings on the cleared couch and enters the kitchen to seek out a pair of gloves and a trash bag.

This is going to be a long fucking day.

August 11th, 2021.

0209 hours.

Victoria lies sprawled on the bed next to Rosie, the two girls staring at the ceiling.

It had been hours upon hours of tidying up and cleaning, but the house was finally clean, the trash taken out, and Rosemary much less disheveled.

They lay together, side by side, holding each other's hands, more for Rosie's comfort, which Victoria has acquiesced to. Victoria has a handle of bourbon in her hand which both her and Rosie occasionally take sips from.

"So you got married...?" Rosie murmurs and rolls her head toward Victoria. She's groggy, a mix of the alcohol, a full belly, a warm shower, a couple of melatonin gummies and the whiskey.

"Mhm." Victoria replies as she glances at Rosemary. "I didn't expect you to still be with dick boy." She quips.

The comment is funnier than Rosemary expected it to be, probably because of the state she's in, but she starts cackling aloud, snorting delightfully at it.

"Oh my God, I forgot he damn near showed his dick to grandma Patty while coming out of the pool." Rosie groans and shakes her head. "God, Alex was so embarrassed, he never wanted to go back!"

"That's what he was embarrassed of? Not that stupid fuckin' pube-looking mustache of his?" Victoria's comments, absolutely roasting the man, the alcohol having loosened her lips. "Did he still have that when he left for Urzikstan?"

Rosie once again has lost her mind belly laughing at the scathing comments her cousin made about Alex. Oh, how she needed the laughter.

"Noooo! It filled out. He had a nice thick mustache by then..." She replies and shakes her head, a soft smile on her lips.

"Well, at least there's that. I guess he outgrew his bad fashion choices." Victoria comments before she leans her head up to take another gulp of the bourbon on her bottle.

"Oh no he didn't!" Rosemary complains and suddenly seems to get a burst of energy, leaning forward to look at Victoria right in the eye. "He has the American flag tattooed on him!"

It's Victoria's turn to laugh, nearly choking on the drink, and causing the sweet, smooth alcohol to slide down her chin as she laughs. "Fuck off, no he doesn't?!"

"He DOES!" Rosemary insists. "And a bald eagle too!!!" She adds, which causes them both to laugh more, cackling at the ridiculousness. "I'm serious! Looked the eagle in the eyes once while he was balls deep in me.... You've ever tried getting a dick out of a dry pussy?"

This causes both girls to giggle again, nearly rolling around on the bed, tears forming in their eyes.

"God, and you married that man? He's been a fucking dork for decades now, Rosie!" Victoria complains.

"In my defense, we were drunk and in Vegas, okay?"

"YOU GOT MARRIED IN VEGAS?!"

"You know what?!" Rosie protests and points at Victoria. "We're talking too much about my marriage. What about you?" She asks in an accusatory tone.

Victoria rolls her eyes. "Don't change the subject just because you can't admit you have bad taste."

"Oh shut it!" Rosie nudges her. "You're avoiding the topic too!"

"Am not!" Victoria retorts. "I'm also married to a dork. But, unlike you, I have taste."

"How much of a dork are we talkin'?"

"Has a half-sleeve that's just straight up war motifs. Atom bombs, skulls, bullets..." She trails off. "And he wears a skull mask when he's out shooting terrorists."

"He WEARS what?"

Victoria shakes her head. "Don't make me say it again." She scrunches her nose, mock cringing.

"And you want to talk shit about me marrying Alex? You married, what, an emo?" Rosie quips as she tosses herself back on the bed, laughing again.

Victoria joins her, covering her eyes with her arm and giggling away, properly so, for the first time in three years. "God, we have bad taste, don't we?" She murmurs.

"You think it runs in the family?" Rosie asks with a playful tone and giggles again.

But this time, however, Victoria doesn't laugh. Instead, her eyes squint in suspicion and she suddenly sits up in bed, looking off into the distance.

How much of a coincidence would that be? Her husband, who is legally dead, who faked his own death and operates under an alias...

And her cousin's husband... who Lord knows what happened to him... But the CIA has their eyes on her, even though he's dead, so there's no reason to...

What if it really is a cover-up? What if he's only legally dead, just like Simon?

"What?" The blonde beside her asks in a gentle tone, eyebrows knit together. "Vicky, what's wrong?" She prompts, worried.

"...Nothing." Victoria replies as she lays down again after a long moment of silence. "Just realized I have to call Simon and ask him something..." She replies dismissively.

for @lyralein - told you she'd get more than that.

and also @crashtestbunny , @superhero-landing , and @loveandplanet bc you love Whiskey and Ghost

#ikea writes 💚#cod oc #oc: victoria “whiskey” callahan #moots oc #oc: rosemary williams

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sunshinesmebdy · 1 year ago

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Moon in Virgo: Tidy Up Your Biz and Harvest Financial Abundance

Astrologers, rejoice! Business gurus, unite! Because under the meticulous gaze of the Moon in Virgo, it's time to blend cosmic wisdom with practical strategy. Get ready for a potent mix of grounded energy, keen analysis, and a sprinkle of earthy magic ready to boost your business and finances.

Virgo's Virgo-ness: Picture a spotless spreadsheet, a perfectly balanced budget, and a to-do list so organized it whispers sweet satisfaction. That's Virgo's domain. When the Moon dances through this earth sign, it brings a laser focus on details, a knack for efficiency, and an urge to declutter both your physical and financial spaces.

Business Benefits:

Sharpened Skills: Hone your expertise, take that online course, or finally master that new software. Virgo's energy fuels learning and skill development, making you a powerhouse of knowledge and competence.

Channel your inner Hermione Granger under the Virgo Moon! Devour knowledge like polyjuice potion, mastering that new software with flick-of-the-wand ease. Whether it's an online course on astrological forecasting or the intricacies of blockchain technology, Virgo's studious energy makes you a sponge for information, transforming you into a confident, competence-wielding powerhouse ready to tackle any business challenge.

Streamlined Operations: Virgo loves a well-oiled machine. Use this lunar phase to audit your business processes, identify bottlenecks, and implement systems that save time and resources.

Don your efficiency hat, because under the meticulous Virgo Moon, streamlining your business becomes a cosmically ordained quest. Scrutinize processes like a celestial accountant, unearthing time-sucking bottlenecks and banishing them with automated spells (aka, handy new systems). Watch as email chains unfurl into streamlined communication channels, meetings morph into laser-focused action sessions, and your once-chaotic workflow hums like a perfectly tuned engine, freeing up precious time and resources for your entrepreneurial magic to truly shine.

Networking with Purpose: Quality over quantity is Virgo's motto. Connect with potential clients or collaborators who share your values and expertise. Think strategic partnerships, not random coffee chats.

Forget the business card bingo of generic gatherings – Virgo's discerning Moon demands quality connections. Seek out collaborators and clients who mirror your values and expertise, like kindred spirits drawn together by constellations of shared passion. Think chess match, not cocktail party. Craft targeted pitches that resonate with their specific needs, and cultivate strategic partnerships that feel like cosmically ordained alliances. This intentional networking isn't about collecting contacts, it's about igniting mutually beneficial collaborations that propel your business towards the stars.

Marketing Magic: Craft targeted campaigns that speak directly to your ideal customer's needs. Virgo's analytical prowess helps you understand your audience and deliver messaging that resonates.

Under the analytical gaze of the Virgo Moon, ditch the shotgun marketing blasts and unleash laser-focused campaigns that whisper sweet nothings to your ideal customer's soul. Virgo's eagle eye pinpoints their deepest desires and pain points, transforming you into a messaging maestro. Craft content that speaks their language, addresses their specific struggles, and showcases your solutions like the missing puzzle piece to their perfect life. Let go of generic pitches and embrace storytelling that resonates with their values, because under this lunar influence, targeted marketing isn't just effective, it's downright magical.

Financial Fortunes:

Budgeting Bliss: Break out the spreadsheets and get granular. Categorize expenses, track income, and create a budget that feels secure and sustainable. Virgo loves a balanced bottom line.

Spreadsheets sing and budgets balance under the Virgo Moon! Unleash your inner accounting alchemist and transform financial chaos into crystal-clear clarity. Categorize expenses with the precision of a cosmic librarian, track every penny like a moonbeam, and craft a budget that feels not like a restrictive cage, but a beautifully organized, secure haven for your financial future. Virgo craves equilibrium, so find that sweet spot where income and outgoings waltz in perfect harmony, leaving you feeling abundant and empowered, the maestro of your own financial orchestra.

Debt Disposal: Tackle outstanding debts with renewed determination. Negotiate better terms, make extra payments, and experience the liberation of financial freedom.

Ditch the debt demon and embrace the warrior spirit under the Virgo Moon! Channel your inner debt disposal dragon, breathing fire upon outstanding balances with renewed determination. Hone your negotiation skills like a celestial diplomat, securing lower interest rates and crafting repayment plans that fit your budget like a cosmic glove. Make extra payments with the fervor of a moonbeam illuminating a dark cave, watching those numbers shrink faster than a vampire in sunlight. Embrace the sweet liberation of financial freedom, feeling the weight of debt lift like a cosmic spell dissolving, leaving you empowered and ready to conquer your financial Everest.

Savvy Investments: Research, compare, analyze – Virgo's energy is perfect for making informed investment decisions. Seek advice from trusted professionals and prioritize long-term stability over short-term gains.

Transform into a celestial stockbroker under the Virgo Moon! Put on your research goggles and analyze potential investments like a cosmic detective, comparing, contrasting, and sniffing out hidden risks. Consult trusted financial oracles for guidance, but ultimately, let your own Virgo-honed discernment be your compass. Prioritize long-term stability over fleeting trends, building a portfolio that grows like a well-tended celestial garden, not a gambler's dice roll. Embrace the slow and steady path, for under Virgo's meticulous gaze, informed investments blossom into financial freedom, one calculated decision at a time.

Unexpected Windfalls: Keep an eye out for unexpected opportunities to increase your income. Virgo favors those who put in the work, so your dedication could be rewarded with a bonus, a new client, or a lucky windfall.

Keep your antennae tuned to cosmic whispers under the Virgo Moon, for fortune often favors the prepared! Your dedication and sharpened skills could attract unexpected boons like a bonus shimmering out of thin air, a new client drawn by your newfound expertise, or a windfall landing softly as a celestial feather in your lap. Remember, Virgo rewards hard work, so keep hustling, honing, and learning, and trust that the universe may just surprise you with a bonus chapter in your financial story.

Bonus Tip: Embrace the earthy magic of Virgo! Surround yourself with green spaces, incorporate crystals like citrine and jade into your workspace, and practice grounding exercises to channel the Moon's practical energy.

So, there you have it! The Moon in Virgo is your invitation to tidy up your biz, fine-tune your finances, and reap the rewards of your focused efforts. Remember, success is a marathon, not a sprint. Pace yourself, celebrate the small wins, and trust that under Virgo's meticulous guidance, your business and finances will shine.

Now go forth and conquer, astrologically savvy entrepreneurs! Your financial stars are aligned.

#Moon in Virgo #Virgo Moon #business astrology #Astrology business #finance astrology #astrology updates #astro #astrology facts #astro notes #astrology #astro girlies #astro posts #astrology community #astrology observations #astropost #astro observations #astro community

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viridianriver · 2 years ago

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Alright so part 2 of sharing wild stories from my job in rail now that my old (litigious-ass) employer has gone bankrupt. And this one? Fuckin crazy.

I used to work at this railway company that's since gone under (rest in piss), creating driverless and partially automated trains.

We had a client (All of our clients were city or country governments) and we'd made them a fancy new railway line, along with a bunch of other contractors. The whole project cost at least a billion, could have been several. (And only (allegedly) some of that spending was embezzlement or misappropriation! Good job railway companies, you actually made an effort to make railway infrastructure this time!) And as shitty and corrupt as the job was in other ways, the engineering work we did was solid. This thing was extremely safe and reliable.

So one day, the client comes to us freaking the fuck out. They were saying our software was telling the trains to do all sorts of wild shit. Shit that made no sense at all. Shit that could kill hundreds of people.

We asked if anyone unauthorized had been in the central control room, because that seemed the most likely issue. (Example control rooms pictured below)

It's supposed to be a very very secure place, I literally had to get a FBI background check to be allowed in one (which was hilarious in itself but that's another story), and the client still would have armed guards around. Even though I partially created the shit, they still would never let me anywhere near any controls. I probably woulda been dragged out of the room by armed guards before even getting a hand on anything if I tried. All us engineers knew to never touch anything you don't have permission to in there, don't even make any moves to look like you're gonna touch shit when you visit.

But the client swore up and down that they didn't let anyone in. So we started a deep technical forensic investigation into what could have caused these weird messages sent to the trains from central control. Me and a whole team spent weeks poring over logs of every little signal sent, which was a lot, since the signal frequency was on the order of milliseconds.

And we found, conclusively, that it was technically impossible our software did it. It was rigorously designed to meet safety standards - software like that doesn't just go rogue. And even if it does malfunction a little, it sure doesn't act like an evil "AI" from science fiction and start sending out commands to basically play bumper-cars with trains. The only possible explanation was that someone took the controls. And it didn't look like intelligent sabotage, a coworker joked that it looked like when you give a kid the mariokart controller.

We also found that our software had saved people's lives, the commands were saying to do shit like run trains over switches not in position, run trains where other trains were, and our software was like "no"

We were wracking our brains trying to find any other possible explanation for this weird 'malfunction' since we knew it'd start some shit with the client if we were like "nah you definitely fucked up" but there was literally no other possible explanation. We'd spent the better part of a month going Sherlock Holmes on this shit - and it was an open and shut case

So we delivered the report, basically saying "we definitely didn't do it - the only possibility is that someone must have been at the controls - also we mitigated the damage, so you're welcome" The client was pissed, and said that it was definitely our software because they keep their control room guarded, there was no unauthorized access, and they were sure it wasn't their staff. Eventually everyone but the lawyers forgot about it - and figured we'd never know who was button mashing.

Until a long time later, a coworker of mine was visiting with the clients, and they got drunk and told him that their country's leader had come to tour the new railway project, and their bosses let him into the control room. With his very young son. And they all kinda knew it wasn't our software at fault - but their employer wouldn't let them admit it, because the politician was a vindictive piece of shit. (He wasn't American, but let me just say he gave major Trump vibes)

I don't know what it was like in that room - but I can't imagine how the engineers were sweating. The button mashing went on for a while - and wtf do you do if the kid of the most powerful and prolly dangerous person in your country is running around playing trains in your control room? I honestly don't know what I'd do - but they went with "cover it up and blame the software" and "spend at least 50 grand of taxpayer money having engineers look for a software failure that we all know doesn't exist" which ... Is a choice. But honestly an understandable choice if you don't want to get imprisoned or some shit.

So this is all rumor - don't fuckin sue me - I'm just gossiping about what I heard and I dont know shit. But yeah, if I learned anything at that job?

Engineering rigor saves lives, never trust a manager who says "this would never happen" because honestly? Wilder shit than you can believe happens. Especially when powerful people who everyone is afraid of saying 'no' to come around.

Part of good engineering is designing not just for the expected use case, but for the absurdly negligent and horrific use cases. I'm damn relieved we built it well enough to stand up to a kid button mashing like it was a video game - because that would have been deadly otherwise.

Power isn't a meritocracy - if someone's in power, they're not likely to be smarter or better or more responsible than you. They're just some guy. And often that guy is a douchebag who's so negligent with other people's lives, he let his kid "play trains" with actual trains full of people.

Engineering is a very silly, and occasionally scary job and it just gets sillier and scarier the closer you get to absurd amounts of money and political power. It's honestly destroyed my ability to take any "authority" seriously, I swear they're usually either dumb as shit or scary as shit. Often both.

Anyway, I've got more dumbass stories if you want some more train gossip

#trains #engineering #wild ass stories #corruption

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mariacallous · 8 months ago

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Stories about AI-generated political content are like stories about people drunkenly setting off fireworks: There’s a good chance they’ll end in disaster. WIRED is tracking AI usage in political campaigns across the world, and so far examples include pornographic deepfakes and misinformation-spewing chatbots. It’s gotten to the point where the US Federal Communications Commission has proposed mandatory disclosures for AI use in television and radio ads.

Despite concerns, some US political campaigns are embracing generative AI tools. There’s a growing category of AI-generated political content flying under the radar this election cycle, developed by startups including Denver-based BattlegroundAI, which uses generative AI to come up with digital advertising copy at a rapid clip. “Hundreds of ads in minutes,” its website proclaims.

BattlegroundAI positions itself as a tool specifically for progressive campaigns—no MAGA types allowed. And it is moving fast: It launched a private beta only six weeks ago and a public beta just last week. Cofounder and CEO Maya Hutchinson is currently at the Democratic National Convention trying to attract more clients. So far, the company has around 60, she says. (The service has a freemium model, with an upgraded option for $19 a month.)

“It’s kind of like having an extra intern on your team,” Hutchinson, a marketer who got her start on the digital team for President Obama’s reelection campaign, tells WIRED. We’re sitting at a picnic table inside the McCormick Place Convention Center in Chicago, and she’s raising her voice to be heard over music blasting from a nearby speaker. “If you’re running ads on Facebook or Google, or developing YouTube scripts, we help you do that in a very structured fashion.”

BattlegroundAI’s interface asks users to select from five different popular large language models—including ChatGPT, Claude, and Anthropic—to generate answers; it then asks users to further customize their results by selecting for tone and “creativity level,” as well as how many variations on a single prompt they might want. It also offers guidance on whom to target and helps craft messages geared toward specialized audiences for a variety of preselected issues, including infrastructure, women’s health, and public safety.

BattlegroundAI declined to provide any examples of actual political ads created using its services. However, WIRED tested the product by creating a campaign aimed at extremely left-leaning adults aged 88 to 99 on the issue of media freedom. “Don't let fake news pull the wool over your bifocals!” one of the suggested ads began.

BattlegroundAI offers only text generation—no AI images or audio. The company adheres to various regulations around the use of AI in political ads.

“What makes Battleground so well suited for politics is it’s very much built with those rules in mind,” says Andy Barr, managing director for Uplift, a Democratic digital ad agency. Barr says Uplift has been testing the BattlegroundAI beta for a few weeks. “It’s helpful with idea generation,” he says. The agency hasn’t yet released any ads using Battleground copy yet, but it has already used it to develop concepts, Barr adds.

I confess to Hutchinson that if I were a politician, I would be scared to use BattlegroundAI. Generative AI tools are known to “hallucinate,” a polite way of saying that they sometimes make things up out of whole cloth. (They bullshit, to use academic parlance.) I ask how she’s ensuring that the political content BattlegroundAI generates is accurate.

“Nothing is automated,” she replies. Hutchinson notes that BattlegroundAI’s copy is a starting-off point, and that humans from campaigns are meant to review and approve it before it goes out. “You might not have a lot of time, or a huge team, but you’re definitely reviewing it.”

Of course, there’s a rising movement opposing how AI companies train their products on art, writing, and other creative work without asking for permission. I ask Hutchinson what she’d say to people who might oppose how tools like ChatGPT are trained. “Those are incredibly valid concerns,” she says. “We need to talk to Congress. We need to talk to our elected officials.”

I ask whether BattlegroundAI is looking at offering language models that train on only public domain or licensed data. “Always open to that,” she says. “We also need to give folks, especially those who are under time constraints, in resource-constrained environments, the best tools that are available to them, too. We want to have consistent results for users and high-quality information—so the more models that are available, I think the better for everybody.”

And how would Hutchinson respond to people in the progressive movement—who generally align themselves with the labor movement—objecting to automating ad copywriting? “Obviously valid concerns,” she says. “Fears that come with the advent of any new technology—we’re afraid of the computer, of the light bulb.”

Hutchinson lays out her stance: She doesn’t see this as a replacement for human labor so much as a way to reduce grunt work. “I worked in advertising for a very long time, and there's so many elements of it that are repetitive, that are honestly draining of creativity,” she says. “AI takes away the boring elements.” She sees BattlegroundAI as a helpmeet for overstretched and underfunded teams.

Taylor Coots, a Kentucky-based political strategist who recently began using the service, describes it as “very sophisticated,” and says it helps identify groups of target voters and ways to tailor messaging to reach them in a way that would otherwise be difficult for small campaigns. In battleground races in gerrymandered districts, where progressive candidates are major underdogs, budgets are tight. “We don’t have millions of dollars,” he says. “Any opportunities we have for efficiencies, we’re looking for those.”

Will voters care if the writing in digital political ads they see is generated with the help of AI? “I'm not sure there is anything more unethical about having AI generate content than there is having unnamed staff or interns generate content,” says Peter Loge, an associate professor and program director at George Washington University who founded a project on ethics in political communication.

“If one could mandate that all political writing done with the help of AI be disclosed, then logically you would have to mandate that all political writing”—such as emails, ads, and op-eds—“not done by the candidate be disclosed,” he adds.

Still, Loge has concerns about what AI does to public trust on a macro level, and how it might impact the way people respond to political messaging going forward. “One risk of AI is less what the technology does, and more how people feel about what it does,” he says. “People have been faking images and making stuff up for as long as we've had politics. The recent attention on generative AI has increased peoples' already incredibly high levels of cynicism and distrust. If everything can be fake, then maybe nothing is true.”

Hutchinson, meanwhile, is focused on her company’s shorter-term impact. “We really want to help people now,” she says. “We’re trying to move as fast as we can.”

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