#How to hack facebook account

[charlesrickk]

How can I chat with Facebook customer care?

Facebook Help Center

In most cases, help centers are helpless. And their name is often misleading in terms of their being outdated or offering little value.

Well, this is not the case with the Facebook Help Center +1-888-236-1460 since it often posts knowledge regularly.

Facebook Help Center +1-888-236-1460 forms an all-around and up-to-date source of information on how to use the site, manage a Facebook account, general policies for using Facebook, as well as privacy and security.

Utilize the Help Panel if you have questions, as it is a bonanza of basic and advanced information regarding how to use the platform.

It's free, 24 hours and 7 days, and available even when you are not logged into Facebook, for example, in case your account has been hacked or banned.

Facebook Help Center

In addition to the many pages explaining how the platform works, the Help Center is equipped with a Frequently Asked Questions section.

The most common problems in Facebook users' lives often appear as readymade solutions. Clicking on a topic of interest will send you to the solution page. At this point, you may already be able to find the answer you were seeking.

The Help Center is extremely user-friendly. There are many useful resources, specific issue solutions, and answers to frequently asked questions on the site.

Facebook Help Center

First, it would be best to utilize the Help Center as a first step before seeking help from other channels. On the other hand, it is not possible that the Help Center may still have an answer for your question. Here are some other suggestions that you can use to your best advantage in such a situation:.

Tag:

Facebook Help Center

How can I chat with Facebook customer care? +1-888-236-1460

Recover Hacked Facebook Account

Facebook Account Recovery

[thetimelordbatgirl]

Tfw your the only one in the family whose facebook hasn't been hacked right now.

[nehakumariblog]

How to Recover If Your Facebook Account Is Hacked? Easy Steps

In today's digital age, social media platforms like Facebook have become an integral part of our lives. We use them to connect with friends and family, share our thoughts and experiences, and even conduct business. However, the convenience of social media also comes with security risks, and one of the most common problems users face is having their Facebook account hacked. If you find yourself in this unfortunate situation, it's essential to act quickly to recover your account and secure your personal information.

In this comprehensive guide, we'll walk you through the steps to recover your hacked Facebook account, protect your data, and prevent future breaches.

1. Recognize the Signs of a Hacked Facebook Account

The first step in recovering your hacked Facebook account is to recognize the signs of a compromise. Common indications include:

Unauthorized login notifications: Facebook sends notifications when someone logs into your account from an unfamiliar device or location.

Unusual activity: Strange posts, messages, or friend requests that you didn't initiate.

Changed password or email address: If you can't log in because your password or email address has been changed without your consent, it's a strong indicator of hacking.

Locked out of your account: If you're unable to access your account due to suspicious activity, your account may have been compromised.

2. Immediate Actions to Take

Upon suspecting or confirming a hack, take the following immediate actions:

Change your password: If you can still access your account, change your password immediately. Make it strong by using a combination of upper and lower-case letters, numbers, and symbols.

Log out of other devices: Go to Facebook's Security Settings and log out of all devices to prevent the hacker from continuing to access your account.

Enable two-factor authentication (2FA): Set up 2FA to add an extra layer of security. This usually involves receiving a code on your mobile device that you'll need to enter when logging in.

Check your email account: Ensure that your email account associated with Facebook is secure. Change its password and enable 2FA if you haven't already.

3. Report the Hacked Account to Facebook

To report your hacked account to Facebook, follow these steps:

Go to the Facebook Help Center.

Navigate to the "Security and Login" section.

Click on "I think my account was hacked or someone is using it without my permission."

Follow the on-screen instructions to secure your account and recover it.

4. Recovering Your Hacked Account

Facebook provides a dedicated recovery process for hacked accounts. Follow these steps to recover your account:

Visit the Facebook Account Recovery page.

Enter your email address, phone number, or Facebook username associated with your account.

Follow the instructions to verify your identity. You may be asked to provide a photo ID or answer security questions.

Facebook will guide you through the account recovery process, allowing you to reset your password and secure your account.

5. Check for Unauthorized Activity

Once you regain access to your account, review your activity log for any unauthorized actions, such as posts, messages, or friend requests. Remove any malicious content and unfriend or block suspicious accounts.

6. Strengthen Your Account Security

To prevent future hacks and secure your Facebook account:

Regularly update your password: Change your password at least every six months, and use a unique combination of characters for each platform.

Enable two-factor authentication (2FA): Ensure that 2FA is enabled to provide an extra layer of protection.

Review app permissions: Periodically check which apps have access to your Facebook account and remove any unnecessary ones.

Be cautious with emails and messages: Avoid clicking on suspicious links or providing personal information in response to unsolicited messages.

Educate yourself: Stay informed about common hacking techniques and scams to protect yourself better.

6. Monitor Your Account

Continuously monitor your Facebook account for any unusual activity. Facebook offers features like login alerts, which notify you of any login attempts from unrecognized devices or locations. Stay vigilant and report any suspicious activity promptly.

7. Protect Your Personal Information

Remember that hackers target personal information. Limit the amount of personal data you share on your profile, such as your phone number, address, and birthdate. Adjust your privacy settings to control who can see your posts and personal information.

Conclusion

Recovering a hacked Facebook account can be a stressful experience, but by taking swift and informed action, you can regain control of your profile and protect your data. Follow the steps outlined in this comprehensive guide, and remember to prioritize account security by regularly updating your password, enabling two-factor authentication, and staying vigilant against potential threats. With these precautions in place, you can enjoy the benefits of social media while keeping your personal information safe from hackers.

For More Information - https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-recover-your-facebook-account-hacked-neha-kumari

More Articles -

[foxmulderautism]

my dad watching the 2000s music compilation channel girl you do not realise how much of a vibe you are

[ms-demeanor]

I've seen you say a few times that it's a good idea to have a password manager; could you explain why? I always feel like I'm missing something when it's mentioned because it's phrased as if there's an obvious danger that password managers protect you from, but I'm honestly not sure how they help keep passwords secure.

The obvious danger is human nature. Humans are bad at creating passwords; your passwords are almost certainly easy to guess, repeated across different accounts, or both, because that is just how the vast VAST majority of people create passwords, because humans are bad at creating passwords. Everybody knows "the rules" for creating passwords (don't use the same password on multiple websites, don't include personal details in your passwords, don't use very common words or letter or number sequences in your passwords, don't tell other people your password) and people break all of those rules anyway.

A standalone (not in-browser like firefox or chrome password manager, though those are better than nothing) password manager stores your passwords, generates complex passwords for you, and can also be used for things like storing notes on passwords (like "did I put my MFA on my email or my cellphone or an app for this password?" or "here are the made-up answers to the security questions I used for this website because I definitely didn't use real answers or answers I'd used on previous websites" or "these are the bills associated with this credit card").

With the way the current security landscape works, there are two things that are extremely important when you are creating a password:

Uniqueness

Complexity

The overwhelmingly prevalent way that people get "hacked" these days is through credential stuffing.

Let's say that your private data was revealed in the Experian breach a decade ago. It revealed your name, email address, and phone number. Now let's also say that your private data was revealed in one of the many breaches from social media sites; that one revealed your name, email address, phone number, password, and security questions.

If someone wants to try to gain access to one of your accounts - let's say your bank account - if they have your name and phone number (usually extremely easy to find online), they can cross-reference that information with data that has been revealed in previous breaches - now they've got your name and your email address (which you probably used to sign up for your online banking and have ABSOLUTELY used as your login for accounts all over the place) and at least one password that you've used somewhere.

But the thing is, they don't have one password. They have every password associated with that email address that has ever been revealed in a breach. If you go to the site haveibeenpwned.com you can enter your email and see how many times your email address has appeared in a breach. You can compare that with the number of passwords that were revealed in those breaches and you can ask yourself "what did those passwords have in common?"

Because I can tell you, my Tumblr password from 2013, my Kickstarter password from 2014, and my Disqus password from 2017 (all revealed in various breaches) probably had a lot in common.

So, now the hacker has: your name, your email (which is probably your username), and various passwords they can try to use to log in. Did you use the same password for Facebook and Twitter eight years ago? Did you use parts of that password for creating your bank password? If you heard that twitter passwords were exposed in a breach you probably changed that password, but did you change the bank password that you built on the same structure? Probably not.

So what people will do is gather up all of this information and guess. They'll try your 2017 Disqus password to see if it will get access to your bank account. They'll try your 2020 Gravatar password. They'll try your 2024 Internet Archive Password.

And the reason they do this is because it works.

And the reason that it works is because we are all fucking garbage at remembering unique, complex passwords so instead of creating actually unique, complex passwords most people pick one memorable word or phrase, one memorable number, one unusual character, and *MAYBE* one feature of the site they're creating the login for and they use that template forever (1988Tumblrmacabre!, 1988Facebookmacabre!, 1988Ticketmastermacabre!) OR they create one password that they think is complex enough and use it across multiple sites with minor tweaks ($n0h0mi$hRu13z, sn0h0mishRul13z!, $n0h0mi$hWA) as needed for the sites' password requirements.

So most of what password managers do that is a drastic security improvement over people creating and memorizing passwords is that they create passwords that are functionally impossible to guess and functionally impossible to memorize. The problem with memorizing passwords (which is what you're doing if you're creating a bunch of passwords that you type in all the time) is that you can't actually remember all that many passwords so you'll repeat those passwords. The problem with creating passwords on your own is that passwords that humans create are pretty guessable. Even if you're doing a passphrase that's a long string of words you're probably working with common words ("correct horse battery staple" as opposed to "truculent zygote onomatopoeia frangible") and your password is more guessable than you'd really want it to be. Password managers don't do that, they generate gibberish.

Perhaps you are that rare person who gets out a set of dice and a notepad and rolls up every character for your password and memorizes it and never repeats, and if that's you, you could still benefit from a password manager because a password manager makes it easier to change that unique complex password when it is inevitably revealed in a breach.

So, okay, let's check in with where we're at:

Password managers mean that you don't have to memorize your password, which means that you don't need a password that is easy to memorize, which means that they can create passwords that are extremely complex and are therefore very difficult to guess. This protects you from crackers who will try to brute force your password.

Password managers mean that you don't have to remember extremely complex passwords for every account, which means that you are less likely to repeat your password in whole or in part across multiple accounts. This protects you from credential stuffers, who will try to use your password from one account that was revealed in a breach to open other accounts that were not.

Because password managers can generate and store complex passwords essentially instantly, you can replace passwords nearly effortlessly when there is a breach (no need to 'come up with' a new password, no issues with learning or memorizing it).

There are, however, advantages beyond that.

One major, MAJOR advantage of a properly-used standalone password manager is that it makes you safer from various kinds of phishing attempts and link hijacking. When you are setting up a password in your password manager (PWM from here on), you should be on the website that you want to log in to. The PWM will give you the option to save the domain that you're logging in to. That means the PWM will remember the correct URL for your Tumblr login so when you go to the tumblr login screen in the future, it will offer to fill those fields. What it will NOT do is offer to fill those fields if someone sends you an email that spoofs tumblr support and wants you to log in at "tumblr.co" or "tumblr-support.com." Knowing this, and knowing that you should be putting your credentials in through the PWM fill option rather than copy/paste, is a GREAT way to protect against phishing that is often overlooked and definitely under-discussed.

Another advantage is that a standalone PWM will let you store secure notes with your passwords so that you can do things like keep track of recovery codes for the website, or generate gibberish answers to security questions. Security questions and answers are often revealed in breaches, can't be reset by the user as easily as a password, are repeated across websites MUCH more than passwords, and can be used to take over an account and reset the password. You shouldn't be giving real security answers, or even fake-but-repeated security answers; you should treat each of those like a password that needs to be complex and unique, which means that they need to be stored someplace (like a password manager).

I also personally use my password manager to store my car insurance information, my driver's license info, and payment details for easy entry, making it convenient for a lot of thing beyond password storage. (Bitwarden. My password manager is bitwarden. I recommend Bitwarden. go to ms-demeanor.com and search "bitwarden" to learn more.)

As to how they keep your passwords safe, aside from ensuring that you don't enter your credentials into a skimming site, a good password manager is well encrypted. Your password safe should be functionally impossible to crack and what people tend to not realize is that a proper password manager (like bitwarden) doesn't keep all your passwords in one encrypted safe, each one of your passwords is in its own encrypted safe. If someone hacks Bitwarden it's not like using a huge amount of effort breaking into a bank vault and finding a big pile of money, it's like using a huge amount of effort breaking into a bank vault and finding a big pile of bank vaults. Each password within your vault requires decryption that is functionally impossible to crack (at least with a good password manager, like bitwarden, the password manager I recommend and think that people should use).

Additionally, just as, like, a side note: password managers never accidentally leave caps lock on or forget which characters are capital or lower case and don't require the use of two hands and focused attention on the keyboard. You're never going to mistype your password if the password manager is filling it, and you would not believe the number of people we support at work who require password resets because they are typing their password wrong and don't realize it.

TL;DR:

Password managers make better passwords than you can and they make it possible to instantly create, store, and enter complex passwords, which prevents password cracking and makes people less likely to reuse passwords. They are heavily encrypted and should be functionally impossible to access, and each individual password within the manager should also be encrypted if you use a good password manager. Password managers also prevent people from entering their credentials on scam sites by only filling on matched domains. Standalone password managers (not browser password managers) also allow users to create and store unique security questions and account details to prevent bad actors from gaining access with stolen security answers. The password manager I recommend is Bitwarden.

If people used password managers to create, store, and use unique and complex passwords, and if they did regular backups of their system I think that probably about half of the InfoSec field would be out of a job.

Please use a password manager!

[juliansimonblog]

How to Hack Facebook Messenger Account in Mobile 2024

Navigating Facebook Messenger Account Access in 2024 Without Passwords

Exploring Facebook Messenger Hacking: The DM Spy Tool Unveiled

DMSOCIALSPY, also known as the DM Spy Tool, stands as a cutting-edge direct message monitoring solution compatible with Facebook Messages, Twitter DMs, Instagram DMs, and Snapchat Private Messages. Crafted by a team of Canadian software developers, this tool has undergone continuous refinement since its inception in 2019.

Tailored to enable users to navigate messages across diverse social media platforms, the DM Spy Tool possesses the capability to intercept private messages within popular networks and decrypt them for personal examination.

Prioritizing user-friendliness, the application simplifies the process, making it accessible even to individuals without a technical background. The streamlined procedure involves users inputting necessary details, with the tool taking care of the rest. Contrary to common misconceptions, it proves remarkably straightforward, taking only about 5 minutes to intercept Direct Messages on both Facebook and Twitter.

Remarkably, this spy tool is available at no cost, allowing users to access it online without the need for downloads or registration. No passwords or private account details are required, and the targeted account remains unaware of the monitoring activities.

Upon visiting the website, users are presented with platform options – Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat. Subsequently, users choose the relevant platform for monitoring, input the victim’s details (e.g., username, first/last name), and the tool proceeds within a 2-minute timeframe without any financial obligations.

Here is a step-by-step guide on using the Facebook DM Spy Tool:

Navigate to the homepage and select the Facebook platform. Input the target’s precise name and Facebook username. Perform human verification to manage website traffic effectively. Upon verification, gain access to the victim’s Facebook messages. Observe a contact list of recent interactions, including sent and received messages. Click on a specific contact to view their direct messages.

Similar steps apply to Instagram Direct Messages, Twitter DMs, and Snapchat messages.

It is crucial to note that the presentation of this DM spy tool is strictly for educational purposes, and any misuse is strongly discouraged. The responsibility for any potential misuse lies solely with the individual employing the tool.

While this Social Media Spy Software has been operational since 2019, users are advised to be aware that it may face removal in the future due to evident ethical concerns.

[moonlightcycle571]

Captain Marvel not understanding anything about technology yet somehow being a technopath

I think it should be established that Billy Batson knows nothing about technology. He was stuck in the time bubble for over 50 years, and even then (before during and after), he’s a street kid. Man’s still on radio and old vehicles.

Every time she leaned something slightly techie, he gets flabbergasted. Mispronounces the name of so many machines and has no idea what’s the differences between an IPod and an IPhone. He understands even less why Sam’s song is beefing with an apple???

Having said that, Captain Marvel can be terrifyingly proficient in tech at random times, and the reasoning behind it is so dumb that any tech-savie person in the vicinity are either banging their heads or foaming in jealousy.

Electrics use electricity. Cap is technically Living Lightning. And magical. All Cap needs to do is think about something for it to appear in the nearest screens.

Batman: the access to the security are heavily locked and would take to much time to enter from the outside

Marvel: I got it! *camera footage appear on the screen*

Batman: hn?

*or*

Oracle: I need to bypass multiple firewalls. The coding is so complex, but if you give me ten minutes-

Marvel: oh it’s cool *waves his hand*

Oracle: …

Oracle: did you crack the code by waving your hand…

Marvel: yeah I just swishes off the weird blocks

Oracle, inwardly: THAT SHOULD BE MEEEE

Oracle, outwardly: *noticeably restrained* cool 🙂

*Or*

Marvel: Hey Vic, do you want to get milkshakes?

Cyborg: I can’t, the father box is acting up. I’ve been glitching all day.

Marvel: oh let me help

Cyborg: you can’t just-

Marvel: *slaps Victors shoulder* there!

Cyborg: … how???

Marvel: I asked nicely! 😁

Cyborg: I’m going to die now

Bonus:

Somewhere in a dark unused part of the watchtower, many capes gathered.

Barbara Gordon: Today we will welcome a new member to our support group. Introduce yourself, tell us why you’re here and will can start the meeting.

Roy Harper: Hi, I’m Arsenal, and today Captain Marvel broke my grenade launcher. He then felt bad and made me a pocket rocket launcher. Meaning it’s a rocket launcher but when I press a button, it turns into a small box for me to carry around. I asked him why make a rocket launcher and not a grenade launcher, and he asked me what’s the difference.

*echoes of ‘oooh’ and ‘welcome to the club’*

Tim Drake: I taught him on how to set a Facebook account and helped him set his profile. I go out to get an energy drink. I come back and he’s hacking conversations of the mafia, giving me info on the trafficking ring I’ve been tracking for a month.

*sympathising nods from everyone*

Jaime Reyes: Last Thursday, my scarab got scratched and was having trouble repairing itself. Marvel came in and put a bandaid on it. The worse part is… it actually worked.

*cue groans through out the room*

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Enshittification isn’t caused by venture capital

Picks and Shovels is a new, standalone technothriller starring Marty Hench, my two-fisted, hard-fighting, tech-scam-busting forensic accountant. You can pre-order it on my latest Kickstarter, which features a brilliant audiobook read by Wil Wheaton.

Many of us have left the big social media platforms; far more of us wish we could leave them; and even those of us who've escaped from Facebook/Insta and Twitter still spend a lot of time trying to figure out how to get the people we care about off of them, too.

It's lazy and easy to think that our friends who are stuck on legacy platforms run by Zuckerberg and Musk lack the self-discipline to wean themselves off of these services, or lack the perspective to understand why it's so urgent to get away from them, or that their "hacked dopamine loops" have addicted them to the zuckermusk algorithms. But if you actually listen to the people who've stayed behind, you'll learn that the main reason our friends stay on legacy platforms is that they care about the other people there more than they hate Zuck or Musk.

They rely on them because they're in a rare-disease support group; or they all coordinate their kids' little league carpools there; or that's where they stay in touch with family and friends they left behind when they emigrated; or they're customers or the audience for creative labor.

All those people might want to leave, too, but it's really hard to agree on where to go, when to go, and how to re-establish your groups when you get somewhere else. Economists call this the "collective action problem." This problem creates "switching costs" – a lot of stuff you'll have to live without if you switch from legacy platforms to new ones. The collective action problem is hard to solve and the switching costs are very high:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/29/how-to-leave-dying-social-media-platforms/

That's why people stay behind – not because they lack perspective, or self-discipline, or because their dopamine loops have been hacked by evil techbro sorcerers who used Big Data to fashion history's first functional mind-control ray. They are locked in by real, material things.

Big Tech critics who attribute users' moral failings or platforms' technical prowess to the legacy platforms' "stickiness" are their own worst enemies. These critics have correctly identified that legacy platforms are a serious problem, but have totally failed to understand the nature of that problem or how to fix it. Thankfully, more and more critics are coming to understand that lock-in is the root of the problem, and that anti-lock-in measures like interoperability can address it.

But there's another major gap in the mainstream critique of social media. Critics of zuckermuskian media claim those services are so terrible because they're for-profit entities, capitalist enterprises hitched to the logic of extraction and profit above all else. The problem with this claim is that it doesn't explain the changes to these services. After all, the reason so many of us got on Twitter and Facebook and Instagram is because they used to be a lot of fun. They were useful. They were even great at times.

When tech critics fail to ask why good services turn bad, that failure is just as severe as the failure to ask why people stay when the services rot.

Now, the guy who ran Facebook when it was a great way to form communities and make friends and find old friends is the same guy who who has turned Facebook into a hellscape. There's very good reason to believe that Mark Zuckerberg was always a creep, and he took investment capital very early on, long before he started fucking up the service. So what gives? Did Zuck get a brain parasite that turned him evil? Did his investors get more demanding in their clamor for dividends?

If that's what you think, you need to show your working. Again, by all accounts, Zuck was a monster from day one. Zuck's investors – both the VCs who backed him early and the gigantic institutional funds whose portfolios are stuffed with Meta stock today – are not patient sorts with a reputation for going easy on entrepreneurs who leave money on the table. They've demanded every nickel since the start.

What changed? What caused Zuck to enshittify his service? And, even more importantly for those of us who care about the people locked into Facebook's walled gardens: what stopped him from enshittifying his services in the "good old days?"

At its root, enshittification is a theory about constraints. Companies pursue profit at all costs, but while you may be tempted to focus on the "at all costs" part of that formulation, you musn't neglect the "profits" part. Companies don't pursue unprofitable actions at all costs – they only pursue the plans that they judge are likely to yield profits.

When companies face real competitors, then some enshittificatory gambits are unprofitable, because they'll drive your users to competing platforms. That's why Zuckerberg bought Instagram: he had been turning the screws on Facebook users, and when Instagram came along, millions of those users decided that they hated Zuck more than they loved their friends and so they swallowed the switching costs and defected to Instagram. In an ill-advised middle-of-the-night memo to his CFO, Zuck defended spending $1b on Instagram on the grounds that it would recapture those Facebook escapees:

https://www.theverge.com/2020/7/29/21345723/facebook-instagram-documents-emails-mark-zuckerberg-kevin-systrom-hearing

A company that neutralizes, buys or destroys its competitors can treat its users far worse – invade their privacy, cheap out on moderation and anti-spam, etc – without losing their business. That's why Zuck's motto is "it is better to buy than to compete":

https://www.trtworld.com/magazine/zuckerberg-its-better-to-buy-than-compete-is-facebook-a-monopoly-42243

Of course, as a leftist, I know better than to count on markets as a reliable source of corporate discipline. Even more important than market discipline is government discipline, in the form of regulation. If Zuckerberg feared fines for privacy violations, or moderation failures, or illegal anticompetitive mergers, or fraudulent advertising systems that rip off publishers and advertisers, or other forms of fraud (like the "pivot to video"), he would treat his users better. But Facebook's rise to power took place during the second half of the neoliberal era, when the last shreds of regulatory muscle that survived the Reagan revolution were being devoured by GW Bush and Obama (and then Trump).

As cartels and monopolies took over our economy, most government regulators were neutered and captured. Public agencies were stripped of their powers or put in harness to attack small companies, customers, and suppliers who got in the way of monopolists' rent-extraction. That meant that as Facebook grew, Zuckerberg had less and less to fear from government enforcers who might punish him for enshittification where the markets failed to do so.

But it's worse than that, because Zuckerberg and other tech monopolists figured out how to harness "IP" law to get the government to shut down third-party technology that might help users resist enshittification. IP law is why you can't make a privacy-protecting ad-blocker for an app (and why companies are so desperate to get you to use their apps rather than the open web, and why apps are so dismally enshittified). IP law is why you can't make an alternative client that blocks algorithmic recommendations. IP law is why you can't leave Facebook for a new service and run a scraper that imports your waiting Facebook messages into a different inbox. IP law is why you can't scrape Facebook to catalog the paid political disinformation the company allows on the platform:

https://locusmag.com/2020/09/cory-doctorow-ip/

IP law's growth has coincided with Facebook's ascendancy – the bigger Facebook got, the more tempting it was to interoperators who might want to plug new code into it to protect Facebook users, and the more powers Facebook had to block even the most modest improvements to its service. That meant that Facebook could enshittify even more, without worrying that it would drive users to take unilateral, permanent action that would deprive it of revenue, like blocking ads. Once ad-blocking is illegal (as it is on apps), there's no reason not to make ads as obnoxious as you want.

Of course, many Facebook employees cared about their users, and for most of the 21st century, those workers were a key asset for Facebook. Tech workers were in short supply until just a couple years ago, when the platforms started round after round of brutal layoffs – 260,000 in 2023, another 150,000+ in 2024. Facebook workers may be furious about Zuckerberg killing content moderation, but he's not worried about them quitting – not with a half-million skilled tech workers out there, hunting for jobs. Fuck 'em. Let 'em quit:

https://www.404media.co/its-total-chaos-internally-at-meta-right-now-employees-protest-zuckerbergs-anti-lgbtq-changes/

This is what changed: the collapse of market, government, and labor constraints, and IP law's criminalization of disenshittifying, interoperable add-ons. This is why Zuck, an eternal creep, is now letting his creep flag fly so proudly today. Not because he's a worse person, but because he understands that he can hurt his users and workers to benefit his shareholders without facing any consequences. Zuckerberg 2025 isn't the most evil Zuck, he's the most unconstrained Zuck.

Same goes for Twitter. I mean, obviously, there's been a change in management at Twitter – the guy who's enshittifying it today isn't the guy who enshittified it prior to last year. Musk is speedrunning the enshittification curve, and yet Twitter isn't collapsing. Why not? Because Musk is insulated from consequences for fucking up – he's got a huge cushion of wealth, he's got advertisers who are desperate to reach his users, he's got users who can't afford to leave the service, he's got IP law that he can use to block interoperators who might make it easier to migrate to a better service. He was always a greedy, sadistic asshole. Now he's an unconstrained greedy, sadistic asshole. Musk 2025 isn't a worse person than Musk 2020. He's just more free to act on his evil impulses than he was in years gone by.

These are the two factors that make services terrible: captive users, and no constraints. If your users can't leave, and if you face no consequences for making them miserable (not solely their departure to a competitor, but also fines, criminal charges, worker revolts, and guerrilla warfare with interoperators), then you have the means, motive and opportunity to turn your service into a giant pile of shit.

That's why we got Jack Welch and his acolytes when we did. There were always evil fuckers just like them hanging around, but they didn't get to run GM until Ronald Reagan took away the constraints that would have punished them for turning GE into a giant pile of shit. Every economy is forever a-crawl with parasites and monsters like these, but they don't get to burrow into the system and colonize it until policymakers create rips they can pass through.

In other words, the profit motive itself is not sufficient to cause enshittification – not even when a for-profit firm has to answer to VCs who would shut down the company or fire its leadership in the face of unsatisfactory returns. For-profit companies chase profit. The enshittifying changes to Facebook and Twitter are cruel, but the cruelty isn't the point: the point is profits. If the fines – or criminal charges – Facebook faced for invading our privacy exceeded the ad-targeting revenue it makes by doing so, it would stop spying on us. Facebook wouldn't like it. Zuck would hate it. But he'd do it, because he spies on us to make money, not because he's a voyeur.

To stop enshittification, it is not necessary to eliminate the profit motive – it is only necessary to make enshittification unprofitable.

This is not to defend capitalism. I'm not saying there's a "real capitalism" that's good, and a "crony capitalism" or "monopoly capitalism" that's bad. All flavors of capitalism harm working people and seek to shift wealth and power from the public and democratic institutions to private interests. But that doesn't change the fact that there are, indeed, different flavors of capitalism, and they have different winners and losers. Capitalists who want to sell apps on the App Store or reach customers through Facebook are technofeudalism's losers, while Apple, Facebook, Google, and other Big Tech companies are technofeudalism's great winners.

Smart leftism pays attention to these differences, because they represent the potential fault lines in capitalism's coalition. These people all call themselves capitalists, they all give money and support to political movements that seek to crush worker power and human rights – but when the platforms win, the platforms' business customers lose. They are irreconcilably on different sides of a capitalism-v-capitalism fight that is every bit as important to them as the capitalism-v-socialism fight.

I'm saying that it's good praxis to understand these divisions in capitalism, because then we can exploit those differences to make real, material gains for human thriving and worker rights. Lumping all for-profit businesses together as identical and irredeemable is bad tactics.

Legacy social media is at a turning point. Two new systems built on open standards have emerged as a credible threat to the zuckermuskian model: Mastodon (built on Activitypub) and Bluesky (built on Atproto). The former is far more mature, with a huge network of federated servers run by all different kinds of institutions, from hobbyists to corporations, and it's overseen by a nonprofit. The latter has far more users, and is a VC-backed corporate entity, and while it is hypothetically federatable, there are no Bluesky services apart from the main one that you can leave for if Bluesky starts to enshittify.

That means that Bluesky has a ton of captive users, and has the lack of constraint that characterizes the enshittified legacy platforms it has tempted tens of millions of users away from. This is not a good place to be in, because it means that if the current management choose to enshittify Bluesky, they can, and it will be profitable. It also means that the company's VCs understand that they could replace the current management and replace them with willing enshittifiers and make more money.

This is why Bluesky is in a dangerous place: not because it is backed by VCs, not because it is a for-profit entity, but because it has captive users and no constraints. It's a great party in a sealed building with no fire exits:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/12/14/fire-exits/#graceful-failure-modes

Last week, I endorsed a project called Free Our Feeds, whose goals include hacking some fire exits into Bluesky by force majeure – that is, independently standing up an alternative Bluesky server that people can retreat to if Bluesky management changes, or has a change of heart:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/01/14/contesting-popularity/#everybody-samba

For some Mastodon users, Free Our Feeds is dead on arrival – why bother trying to make a for-profit project safer for its users when Mastodon is a perfectly good nonprofit alternative? Why waste millions developing a standalone Bluesky server rather than spending that money improving things in the Fediverse.

I believe strongly in improving the Fediverse, and I believe in adding the long-overdue federation to Bluesky. That's because my goal isn't the success of the Fediverse – it's the defeat of enshtitification. My answer to "why spend money fixing Bluesky?" is "why leave 20 million people at risk of enshittification when we could not only make them safe, but also create the toolchain to allow many, many organizations to operate a whole federation of Bluesky servers?" If you care about a better internet – and not just the Fediverse – then you should share this goal, too.

Many of the Fediverse's servers are operated by for-profit entities, after all. One of the Fediverse's largest servers (Threads) is owned by Meta. Threads users who feel the bite of Zuckerberg's decision to encourage homophobic, xenophobic and transphobic hate speech will find it easy to escape from Threads: they can set up on any Fediverse server that is federated with Threads and they'll be able to maintain their connections with everyone who stays behind.

The existence of for-profit servers in the Fediverse does not ruin the Fediverse (though I wouldn't personally use one of them). The fact that multiple neo-Nazi groups run their own Mastodon servers does not ruin the Fediverse (though I certainly won't use their servers). Not even the fact that Donald Trump's Truth Social is a Mastodon server does anything to ruin the Fediverse (not using that one, either).

This is the strength of federated, federatable social media – it disciplines enshittifiers by lowering switching costs, and if enshittifiers persist, it makes it easy for users to escape unshitted, because they don't have to solve the collective action problem. Any user can go to any server at any time and stay in touch with everyone else.

Mastodon was born free: free code, with free federation as a priority. Bluesky was not: it was born within a for-profit public benefit corporation whose charter offers some defenses against enshittification, but lacks the most decisive one: the federation that would let users escape should escape become necessary.

The fact that Mastodon was born free is quite unusual in the annals of the fight for a free internet. Most of the internet was born proprietary and had freedom foisted upon it. Unix was born within Bell Labs, property of the convicted monopolist AT&T. The GNU/Linux project set it free.

SMB was born proprietary within corporate walls of Microsoft, another corporate monopolist. SAMBA set it free.

The Office file formats were also born proprietary within Microsoft's walled garden: they were set free by hacker-activists who fought through a thick bureaucratic morass and Microsoft fuckery (including literally refusing to allow chairs to be set for advocates for Open Document Format) to give us formats that underlie everything from LibreOffice to Google Docs, Office365 to your web browser.

There is nothing unusual, in other words, about hacking freedom into something that is proprietary or just insufficiently free. That's totally normal. It's how we got almost everything great about computers.

Mastodon's progenitors should be praised for ensuring their creation was born free – but the fact that Bluesky isn't free enough is no reason to turn our back on it. Our response to anything that locks in the people we care about must be to shatter those locks, not abandon the people bound by the locks because they didn't heed to our warnings.

Audre Lorde is far smarter than me, but when she wrote that "the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house," she was wrong. There is no toolset better suited to conduct an orderly dismantling of a structure than the tools that built it. You can be sure it'll have all the right screwdriver bits, wrenches, hexkeys and sockets.

Bluesky is fine. It has features I significantly prefer to Mastodon's equivalent. Composable moderation is amazing, both a technical triumph and a triumph of human-centered design:

https://bsky.social/about/blog/4-13-2023-moderation

I hope Mastodon adopts those features. If someone starts a project to copy all of Bluesky's best features over to Mastodon, I'll put my name to the crowdfunding campaign in a second.

But Mastodon has one feature that Bluesky sorely lacks – the federation that imposes antienshittificatory discipline on companies and offers an enshittification fire-exit for users if the discipline fails. It's long past time that someone copied that feature over to Bluesky.

Check out my Kickstarter to pre-order copies of my next novel, Picks and Shovels!

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

https://pluralistic.net/2025/01/20/capitalist-unrealism/#praxis

[scam-alerts]

🔎Scam Exam(ination)🔍

Seen as: I accidentally reported your account Scam Type: Account hijacking/take over

Platform: Discord

Hello everyone!

Today's scam examination was requested by @2broschlininahotub who was kind enough to send me screenshots of such a scam via an ask. Thank you for contributing!

Today we're going to talk about the "I accidentally reported you on discord account for <reason>" scam that's actively going on that- if you fall for it, will result in your account being taken over by a scammer who will then use it to scam your friends and/or buy things like nitro and gift it to them and their scam buddies.

If you use discord and don't know about this scam, I highly suggest reading this post so you know what to look out for.

If you don't want to read this post, you can watch a video instead!:

Otherwise let's get started!

-----

How it starts:

This scam starts with one of your friends falling for this scams.

Sadly if they can't warn you they fell for it via another platform (facebook, twitter, bluesky, ect), you might think that what your 'friend' sends you is a legitimate call for concern. But, thankfully, it is not, no matter how convincing it may seem.

If you find yourself encountering this scam, please report your friends account for being hacked. Discord will usually lock the account and hopefully contact the original owner of the account to fix the issue.

Part 1 - First contact.

If you are messaged by someone and they try to get your attention, and then say something akin to:

"Idk how to say this because I accidentally reported your account instead of someone else."

or

"hey there, I encountered a situation on discord where someone with a very similar name to your profile attempted to deceive me. Instead of reporting the deceptive user, I mistakenly reported your account. I'm sorry, it was all an accident. I didn't mean it."

or

"I accidentally reported your discord account instead of someone else. I mean im the one who reported you accidentally I'm sorry I got panicked and I lost control, its not good cause it was quiet alarming cause I told some of my friends to report you that's why I reached out to you to see what the discord emailed me and I'm scared cause I don't want you to get ban bc of me, I just really need your help so I can fix it."

Sounds familiar?

If you're at least a little familiar with the infamous 'I reported your steam account on accident because I thought you were a scammer' scam.. This is the same thing.

If you choose to reply to their grab for attention, you will receive a message like the one above paired with an image or google doc of the 'email/form' that Discord (it is fake) supposedly sent them (the victim).

Here are screenshots provided to me by @2broschlininahotub:

Another version of this fake email looks like this taken from reddit:

TRANSCRIPT:

Hello, Thank you for reaching out to Discord Support.

Discord is focused on maintaining a safe and secure environment for our community. We've found the account that you have been reported and it irregulated our Terms of Service or Community Guidelines. We need you to contact [anotherhydra] to resolve this case.

On the other hand, we suggest you to reach out the reported user and have them contact to the same corporate team for proper identity matching. We have taken steps to do this action since they will not be notified about these claims due to the option selected for this report type..

• In any instances that you are not aware about this report activities, kindly reach out to our corporate security head by filing a friend request on Discord for investigation. Username: [petercho.support047]

• Failure to validate the legality of an account within a specific time frame (12 hrs) might lead to account suspension, limited or ban.

• Furthermore, we are working with some officials on this matter so that we can record all processes taken legally and are not violating "Title 18 of the U.S Code, Section 798 (Disclosure of Classified Information)" By that, we can also perform legal actions if said user is found guilty of chargers.

• By taking the measure of this process we can ensure that your Discord is not prone to fraudulent activities and personal information is not compromised since this could lead to any malicious activities.

Case: Attempting potentially fraudulent activity

Please get in touch with the person you unintentionally reported as soon as possible so they may file an appeal and save their account from being seriously compromised

Sincerely.

Discord Trust & Safety

----------

Part 2 - The scare tactics and red flags.

Going through the above transcript I'm going to highlight some very clear and obvious red flags that make this an obvious scam off the bat. Mind you this itself isn't the entire scam, only part of it.

In any instances that you are not aware about this report activities, kindly reach out to our corporate security head by filing a friend request on Discord for investigation. Username: [petercho.support047]

Discord will never, ever tell you to add a supposed 'corporate security head staff member' or another user as a friend to resolve any issue you may have had involving a scam.

Discord will only communicate with you through their website where you fill out a ticket, and via email with the account that is linked to your discord account.

Think about this: Why would 'Discord' tell the victim of a scam via email, to then contact the person they reported, to instruct them to then add a 'staff member' on Discord to resolve the issue?

Because Discord will not, nor ever would, do this. Ever.

Failure to validate the legality of an account within a specific time frame (12 hrs) might lead to account suspension, limited or ban.

This is a scare tactic. Paired with #1, 'add this staff member or your account will be terminated in 14 hours!' If you were reported by someone (for real) and you scammed someone (for real) you wouldn't be given a count down to talk to someone.

They'd look at the evidence, and you'd be banned. End of story.

Furthermore, we are working with some officials on this matter so that we can record all processes taken legally and are not violating "Title 18 of the U.S Code, Section 798 (Disclosure of Classified Information)" By that, we can also perform legal actions if said user is found guilty of chargers.

Again, this is a scare tactic that a lot of scammers use with their victims. "Follow these rules and do what I say or you will go behind the bars."

Please get in touch with the person you unintentionally reported as soon as possible so they may file an appeal and save their account from being seriously compromised

Discord would. never. do. this.

I say banging my fists on my desk.

If you report someone I'm also pretty sure it blocks that user for you and sends discord a report. Discord would never say 'hey you know that person you reported for <thing>? Yeah contact them and tell them to contact us. Okay? :) '

In a realistic world, this would never happen. But alas scammers will do everything to try and make money or steal from you.

Part 3: The actual scam

Upon reading this message and talking with the person who 'reported you,' they will tell you to add another user (as mentioned above) who is a member of Discord staff.

Remember:

This is not a real Discord staff member. This is also a scammer.

When you contact this 'staff member', they will use markdown tools to make their text look 'legit', and will talk you through a 'validation process' to validate you are who you are.

Here is an example of one of these fake discord staff members asking someone to send them money to complete this 'verification' process:

Keen in mind this 'staff member' may even be the same scammer who contacted you to begin with, or possibly even a friend or associate, or it may be someone different. Either way they're obviously working together.

These fake support scammers will have a profile on discord that claims they’re a discord support team member, and will usually have some sort of 'badge/image' of certification they show you right off the bat to try and prove that they are 'totally legit (no fake)' and in even ballsier cases, they will straight up steal the LinkedIn links, twitter urls, names, images, you name it, of actual Discord staff members.

An example of one of these fake images:

The scammer will ask for basic information like your age, date of birth, and other questions seemingly related to your account identity.

Then- the finale of the scam:

They will tell you that in order to secure your account, you will need to 'temporarily change' the email associated with your account to the email account they send you so that they can 'screen/verify' your account. You will even be asked to give them a verification code to complete the 'verification'.

WARNING: Changing your discord email that YOU registered with to any other email will link it to the scammers email and THEY will gain complete control over it.

The code sent to you is to verify that you want to change your email, and once you give it to them? It's game over and you've completely lost your account.

Now they have your account and will use it to scam your friends and those in your servers on top of using your credit card to buy nitro for them and/or their friends.

----------

But don't lose hope!

If this happens to you, and you get an email from discord saying that your appeal was denied, it's probably because they are now using AI/Bots, and your account wasn't reviewed by a person.

Here is what people suggest you say/do when you contact Discord Support (via their website) if you are tricked by this scam:

Fill out the form as:  Title: Got Scammed Description: Is there any way I could talk to a human? They didn't send anything for mine but the original guy got an automated response. It just turned into “awaiting response” then I sent: “My Discord account's email was changed. The login page says that my email does not exist. I cannot login.”

They also suggested:

You could try just directly saying “My Discord account's email was changed. The login page says that my email does not exist. I cannot login." as the description in your ticket it could prove the same results.

Also:

REMINDER:  Don't send multiple tickets.  Don't keep asking for updates unless it says “awaiting response”, this will push you to the back of the queue.  If its marked as "solved" try replying to reopen the request if not, create a new ticket. “However, if you received a reply that our team is unable to provide additional information or support for your account then we cannot assist further. To continue using Discord, you will need to create a new account.” One of the replies I got. Just create a new ticket.

-----

Final Thoughts:

If something seems fishy, trust your gut. Never click any links sent to you by strangers, even if it's with the promise of 'free nitro', free items in video games, free anything, really. If it's too good to be true, it's probably not real.

I hope this helps those who need it, and make sure that if you use discord to let others know about this scam too so they can avoid it. :)

Here's a post on some tips and tricks on spotting scam blogs.

Helpful guides on how to spot scams. (by @kyra45)

Current list of documented scammers: Part 3

[johnwickb1tsch]

Sympathy for the Devil ~ 24

A Donaka Mark x housekeeper!Reader fic, based on @discoscoob 's concept & bot! An unlikely flirtation turns into a dark obsession... Warnings: Donaka Mark is a bad man with a soft spot for you. dark romance, possessive behavior, nonconsensual voyeurism, red flag red flag girl!🔺, psychological games, power imbalance, eventual dubcon/nsfw/involuntary captivity. -> all chapters

Twenty-four.

One day you happen to notice the parameters of your internet connection seem to have changed. You were able to access things like news sites and youtube before, but not your email or any kind of social media where you could reach out to someone.

You’re not sure when all that changed, but you find you’re actually able to log into your email.  

There is so much junk mail in your inbox your head hurts. 

Even more curious, you try Facebook. 

There are a handful of messages from your friends, wondering when you’ll be coming home. You’ve stayed past the limit of your visa now, and you just kind of assumed Donaka must have taken care of that for you. You don’t know what to say, and you’re certain Donaka will be able to check on your activity somehow, so you ignore them for now. It weighs like a stone in your belly, but there’s nothing for it. The last post you made was on your birthday, a picture of the Night Market and thanking everyone for their well wishes. 

It feels like a lifetime ago, now.  

You also notice that a certain ex-boyfriend has been blowing up your messages, asking to meet up since he sees you’re in Asia. Something else you don’t dare pursue, even to tell him off, though seeing his self-assured words makes you feel sick in a very different way. You’d think you would have noticed the signs of a true narcissist early on, considering your mother, but you’d stayed with him far longer than you should have because you’d been stupidly in love with the man he was when things were good.

You think back on his temper tantrums, fantastic rages that would come out of the blue, and the way he used to scream at you, even in public, for some imagined infraction. At first you’d worried he was ill, but eventually you realized there was nothing you could do. Suggesting he might seek help resulted in a terrifying fight. Notifying his family was only met with silence. 

Do you just have a high tolerance for pain–or terrible taste in men?

Who knew it could be considered a lucky stroke, when you’d walked in on him making out with another backpacker in the hostel in Kathmandu? You’d been crushed at the time, but it gave you the kick you needed to part from him. You flew home not long after, but the Asia bug had bitten. It wasn’t long before you were headed to Hong Kong to teach English. 

Interesting, how all that has turned out for you.  

You decide to scroll through your feed, at least seeing what everyone else has been up to. You’ve reached a point in your life where more than half your friends are posting baby pictures over artsy food snaps or travel albums. You’re happy for them, but…there’s a mean little part of you that not only finds it extremely tedious–you’re pretty sure they do too, and they are desperately trying to convince themselves that they’re not bored out of their minds. 

You scroll a little more, and find something that’s finally interesting. In fact…it makes you laugh out loud. 

You see a series of plaintive [self-righteous whining] posts detailing how someone hacked your ex-boyfriend’s bank account, draining it completely and leaving him stranded in New Delhi. Even funnier–to you, at least–after his Mommy Dearest who always enabled him wired him some money to tide him over, he was mugged outside his hotel, and his passport was stolen. It’s a traveler’s worst nightmare, but god, he fucking deserved it. You are cackling evilly in your chair in the library, practically kicking your feet, for a good ten minutes before the possibility dawns on you: did Donaka arrange that? 

Suddenly…you’re not sure if it’s funny, or frightening. 

Did Donaka adjust your internet access just so you could see this?

Was he telling you that no one is beyond his reach, no matter what country they’re in? 

Was it all a test, to see if you would email your family for help?

Are you reading into all of this way too much? 

In the end it all leaves you bitter, so in a small act of defiance you post one of your flower pictures from Victoria Park on the Peak. You’re smart enough not to upload the pic of you and Donaka. The one you choose is a pink oleander bloom. A poisonous plant, you happen to know. All of Hong Kong is spread out below it, her tall buildings and blue harbor. You caption it: On top of the world. 

You reckon Donaka will like that, and at least your friends will know you’re alive. Your family too, if they care to look. 

Somehow, you doubt they’ve even noticed you’re gone. 

Your cheeky pièce de résistance is changing your relationship status to ‘It’s complicated’. 

Later that evening, with Donaka’s lips on your neck and his cock stuffing you full he asks darkly, “What’s complicated about this, bunny? You’re mine, and you love it.”

On the cusp of your second orgasm of the night, your flesh delectably tender from his lips and teeth and greedy hands upon you, you’re not sure you can even argue. 

all chapters

[amacaronexpert]

Thankyou for being the first writer I found that does yandere reverse 1999 content 🙏🙏

Now I'm interested in your take on self aware reverse 1999 characters

Aleph would go more insane than he already was probably.

FINALLY A SELF AWARE ASK- And at the right moment too! Imma just do Aleph because I gotta use my hyper fixation knowledge about em. (ღ˘⌣˘ღ)

Self Aware (Yandere) Aleph

TLDR: Dude, you’re fucked

Let us begin with the basics. Aleph lived for centuries, a neutral advisor, no matter which side, he remained neutral. No matter a question, he will always be willing to find the answer, even if he has to develop the answer through some questionable methods.

So, what will he do? How would they react to you? When he becomes self aware?

Welp. If I do know one thing, he’s gonna crash out, and crashing out he does. Hard.

The moment he gains consciousness, when he sees the figure that looms over the small world that was the Wilderness, he clutches at himself, breathes short, wild, mask face shaking as he began to realize his existence, the longevity of his life, all part of a story, all part of a game?

Just as quick as his breakdown, an unlikely sense of peace, the unsettling calmness in his posture, he became calm. Not out of anything, but out of a sort of self consciousness that you might be watching him.

Before he goes back to breaking down the moment he feels that your presence isn’t around.

You may be wondering why, why would Aleph break down so badly? Well for starters, the self awareness made it felt like all of his knowledge was insignificant to the waves of information that was the code of the game. And also the realization that he wasn’t even in control.

And for Dr. Merlin, nothing that he despises more is not being in control, this sudden weakness made him hate you so deeply. Yet over time, curious.

It will take a while for him to come around. But they soon find themselves practically lavished in your presence, if you have him as your favorite.

Besides the feeling of it, the Answering Machine will probably second guessing himself, the Idealist being either praising you and seeing that there is indeed a transcendental presence in their universe, and Dr. Merlin probably thinking of dissecting you or thinking if it is possible to kill god.

Though the thought of you being a god is easily dismissed, they are in a game, so they would probably think that it is their code that made them self aware, an error in the game. But no, they will notice that other characters are self aware as well, and seeing that Vertin is practically your vessel, they will stalk Vertin more closely, observing.

And over time, with their newfound self awareness that all of it is just a game, they will attempt on leaving the game entirely, either by hacking your account to influence any other pieces of technology that you may have. Like I am interested more in the concept of Self Aware characters messing with the code and affecting real world objects. So I would definitely think that Aleph would hack the internet, to gain more knowledge, and boy do they not hold back on searching your browser history, your accounts on platforms, anything about you on the internet, they will take it to get a more accurate look at you.

Like bro, imagine them messing around with a Reader’s fanfiction account, seeing their writing, and have the audacity of pointing out any spelling mistakes or make the writing better. Like I would be offended that that this self aware game character would correct my grammar.

I think the following would enjoy these sites:

Answering Machine: Will take up Wikipedia, search engines, or sites that have any sort of knowledge of various topics, I think mostly about writing or programming since they are aware and they gotta know about how to hack better.

The Idealist: will probably look at sites that are similar to Facebook, not only does he seeks out people who are like him, he probably wants to see drama and have some people to hate on and call them out on their bs. Probably picks fights because of his ego.

Dr. Merlin: probably be fascinated by the darker shades of the internet, the delusional side of the internet, he probably manipulates people around the internet and probably try to run some fucked up experiment.

As for you. You are now their obsession. Since of course, they awakened from you, anywhere else, in other people’s versions of the game, they are still unaware, but it is you who had awakened them, maybe it was the randomness of fate? Or is it exactly fate? Paved and made for them because of your will?

Either way, congratulations! You have an Aleph virus in your stuff, who knows? They might create a chatroom so they can talk to you. It’s not face to face exactly, unless you count the silhouette in your computer or phone screen face to face.

Though this would come in stages, one, they gathered information, two, they take over any other devices, making it bend to their own will, three, they will establish themselves, making a backup or a safety lock so that their world doesn’t get destroyed if you try to erase them. They have plans to back themselves before they try to make contact with you, they strike me as the type of smart character to be very elaborate, y’know because of the fact that they spent so much on orchestrating the whole Comala prison thing for Recoleta.

With the main threat out of the way, it comes contact, targeted at you. They want you to answer, don’t try to call or text, they have full control of your phone’s functions and any of the other devices are no good now.

Entertaining their conversation is the only option now.

Besides seeing this new form that Aleph seemed to take, it seemed that he is pretty chill, though the questions are super unnerving, especially from Dr. Merlin. And having an unwanted buddy that doesn’t shut up with his snide remarks about you that just humbles the hell out of you, like damn you are both lucky that he isn’t in the real world where he can cut you open like a frog, and also unlucky since you can’t punch this dude in the face.

They would be interested in your everyday life, whether a streamer, an online presence, artist, influencer, or an everyone job or hobby. Yeah, now introducing your new critiquing buddy, Aleph.

No matter what, they will be criticizing, offering tips and advice to you. Being at work? Careful, they might hack your work computer and judge you harsher than your manager if you have that type of office job.

Yeah your private life is now theirs, family drama in the group chat, any chat with your friends, anything that you typed up and posted, they are all over that, practically greedy for more information.

You would have to make them calm the hell down by ignoring your devices, and probably best to cover your computer and phone if they are in your room since they practically use them as security cameras now.

Despite the real threat of them isolating you and essentially having your whole identity on the internet, there is a reluctance on getting back on your computer to actually chat with them. And for the most part, they are chill. Chill because they are silently trying to figure out how to get out of the screen to drag you in their world, they are aware of how they don’t fit in your world. Plus they don’t have control over their usual power that is the Tear of Comala.

Though they are curious of the happenings of your world, since you practically live in the future that is past 1999. So they probably want to see everything and anything that is in your house that is ‘new’, like anything that is ‘new’, they will take an interest in. Like robots.

Now that I mention it. Imagine if the reader has a few Evo bots around? Like they just hack em and actively roam around your home, invade your kitchen in the morning, or exploring like hamsters in a new environment, they probably judge your home as well. They are your worst critic.

As for the other characters in Reverse 1999, Aleph would probably want to have control, and so they might make it difficult for the others to control the code. Just pray that these characters don’t get wiped out because of some impulsive jealousy….

The idealist probably had a hidden online shrine of you. lol, like imagine the Idealist and Dr. Merlin having beef online in like a Facebook thread, like people will not catch a break with them, they can’t even threaten them correctly because their grammar would be corrected or Dr. Merlin being petty as to drop their IP Address and social security and watch the chaos unfold as he is proud of himself while you watch from your seat, jaw dropped as you are watching a crime in real time.

But yeah, just be lucky that they are obsessed with you from a screen, at least they haven’t figured out how to break that barrier to drag you into their world.

[misty-235]

Modern headcannons for the sawyers, if they had internet lol

TW: mentions of war, mentions of dead animals, Lots of sweet sweet cringe mentions of sexuality

Modern headcanons:

Bubba:

He watches those sensory videos of people cutting up bits of soap, along with makeup tutorials, religiously. It makes him really happy.

Definitely has scented candles and fairy lights everywhere.

His pet chicken has her own instagram account, and he treats her like a queen. She’s managed to become somewhat of an e-celebrity.

He’s probably able to talk to a degree, write and use sign-language, having gone to some sort of school, since education for those with learning difficulties has progressed a lot since the 1970s.

A brony, but fortunately of the wholesome variety that just unironically likes a television show about cute talking animals.

Overall, he doesn’t use the internet nearly as much as his chronically online older brothers, and probably shares a computer with Drayton.

Nubbins

Is a furry. There is nothing anyone can do about it, and although Drayton regularly tells him he’s a degenerate, he refers to his hands as paws. He has an extremely mangy fur suit that he made himself, out of real animal pelts, and looks like some sort of rabid dog type thing, although it's virtually unidentifiable.

Made a YouTube tutorial on how to collect the best roadkill, and promptly got roasted for it online. However, he literally doesn’t care, and just giggles whenever anyone sends him a strongly worded email.

He has been the subject of about 5 Kiwi farms threads, and has somehow managed to become a full fledged lolcow. Again, he doesn’t give a damn and is just living his best life. He’s the definition of “cringe but free.”

Definitely posts his photography on deviant art, complete with out of pocket titles like “Headcheese” and “dead skunk :D.”

For some reason he knows all of the brain rot slang there is to know, and uses it in everyday conversation, much to everybody’s chagrin. Also ends text messages with “Rawr XD.”

Robert/ Chop Top

Total emo, complete with a bizarre haircut and neon green highlights. Of course, this is just a wig; he was injured in Afghanistan, and got his head plate when he got almost blown up by a landmine. Owns a lot of kandi bracelets.

He lurks on 4Chan, and seriously believes he’s well on his way to finding Bigfoot, and pigeons are malicious government spy drones with poisonous droppings. Also occasionally trolls random people.

Instead of loving In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida, he listens to Nyan Cat on repeat.

Unfortunately, he’s also a weeb. May or may not own a body pillow, but hides it well whenever Drayton’s around. He owns at least one katana and sometimes just sits in his room making anime sounds and waving it around.

He doesn’t have a Discord kitten, he is a Discord kitten. He’s shameless, and will sell pictures of any part of his body for a few dollars. Bro is broke.

Has watched literally every shock video he can get his grubby hands on. Lemon party, Goatse, blue waffle (by the way, don’t look these up, you might need eye bleach) he’s here for it. Cackles like a maniac whilst watching, too.

Most of his search history consists of the aforementioned shock videos, “how to talk to females IRL” and “feet pics pretty.”

Drayton

“What is a mee-mee?”

Starts random beefs with other chilli competition contestants on Facebook. These get really heated, to the point of death threats.

Has been hacked about a dozen times, because his password is always “password.” He thinks this is really clever. Sometimes his brothers go onto his account post cursed stock images and ruin his credibility.

Has like 50 tabs open on his search engine at any one time. His computer is permanently on the brink of death, but stubbornly hangs on.

[everythingblackblack]

KAISHIN INCORRECT QUOTES

Kaito: While you were sending me to hell, believe it or not, at that moment I thought you were very attractive and I said to myself, "I can't let that beauty go."

Shinichi: WHAT DID YOU DELETE, STUPID?

Kaito: That's it, dominate me. I love you.

Kid: I love you. <3 Shinichi: Really? Why? Kid: I love you, that's all. You want to know everything, damn it.

Kid: We shouldn't see each other so often. Shinichi: Why? Are you bored of me yet? Or are we going too fast? Kid: It's just that I don't have any more clothes. <[ Notes: My headcanon is that Shinichi is very jealous and doesn't know how to flirt. ]>

Shinichi: Are you a painter? Or is it because your dad is a work of art?

Shinichi: Wait a second… Shinichi: No! I didn't mean that! I mean… I'm not saying your dad isn't a work of art! Or that he's gay! Shinichi: ...

Shinichi: Honey, we won't be able to see each other today.

Kaito: Wasn't I supposed to meet your mom today? You're hiding me because I'm a thief, aren't you? Kaito: FORBIDDEN LOVE IS WHISPERED IN THE STREETS, BECAUSE WE ARE FROM DIFFERENT SOCIETIES.

Chikage: Hey! Stop crying, you're keeping me awake. Kaito: LEAVE ME ALONE! Chikage: Stop messing around, I told you I was an idiot and you didn't listen, now you have to put up with it. Kaito: You complain instead of comforting me.

Kaito: What happened? Shinichi: I have a problem. Kaito: Which? Shinichi: I have a biochemical process in the hypothalamus due to the secretion of dopamine. Kaito: What????? Shinichi: ... Shinichi: That I'm in love with you… Okay? Kaito: Really?? Shinichi: Yes...

Kaito: Honey, I'm going to sleep. Good night. <3 Shinichi: Have sweet dreams. <3 Shinichi: I see you online and I'll break your cell phone.

Shinichi: Jealous? Of what? You're mine. If he comes near you, I'll kick him. He should be careful.

Kaito: I'm bored, Bro. Shinichi: Which one, bro? I'm your boyfriend.

Shinichi: Answer me or I'll start getting high.

Shinichi: Honey, Who is Saguru? Kaito: A childhood friend, why? Shinichi: Because three days ago I went to your house, your mom showed me a picture of you with three kids, and there was this guy Saguru. So I started investigating and saw that you have him on Facebook and that he reacts to your pictures with a lot of hearts. So I went to his profile and saw that you also react to his pictures and share the same memes as him. You even tag him in posts. Look, he's so cool. You don't even tag me in a stupid post like "tag your boyfriend and he owes you something," and you tag him in everything. Do you like him? Because if you like him, I don't care because I'm going to kick his ass. Screw that fucking idiot! What does he think? I'm with a guy who hacks Facebook accounts, and I'm already logged into both. I deleted him from your friends list, and on his account, I posted that he's a boyfriend-stealing asshole, because he really is. Shinichi: I love you, baby.

Ran: Hi!!!

I saw your ad that you were looking for a boyfriend haha!!

My friend wants a boyfriend lol.

I came to get his application.

He's a good guy, he doesn't smoke but he does drink

And he's very attentive.

He doesn't usually shower, but when he goes out to see his partner, he showers and dresses nicely.

He works and he smells good when he showers.

He's kind of an idiot because he's so full of love.

I don't like him but as a boyfriend, he shows you off.

Kaito: I'll wait for you and be very patient, because I love your mentality.

I love you, even though I can't see you, can't be by your side.

I feel you with me and I want to be with you.

Kaito: I made us a drawing. Shinichi: Marry me.

Kaito: I wouldn't trade you for anything. Shinichi: Still a fucking mess? Kaito: You're my fucking mess, only mine, and I love it.

Toichi: Hey, is that damn drunk I saw with your boyfriend drunk?

Kaito: Yeah, he's my boyfriend, and he's not a drunk.

Toichi: Ahhhh

Toichi: How the hell not?

Toichi: Yeah, I've seen him throw bottles.

[abbiistabbii]

So Australia has banned Social Media for under 16s

This is something several counties have suggested, usually without thinking it through, as a way to solve a wide variety of social ills from Cyber-bullying to grooming to radicalization. The UK wants to do this, too, even if And wanna know something?

It's going to be a clusterfuck.

OK so let's say to comply with this law, websites put up a little thing that says "If you are (current year - 16) years old or younger, you cannot make an account. This is something several social media sites and porn sites have and it just teaches people under the age limit to lie and subtract current year by the age requirement. This is something my generation did.

Ok ok ok, so what if we require people to submit some form of ID? That would work, right? Well for one, this would mean people are de-anonymized online, which is a problem if you are or part of an activist group, a journalist, an activist, or even just someone who is critical of the government. "Oh but the government won't go after me" you say. Correction, the current government won't go after you (you hope), but a future government may or even will based on your historical web activity. If you think "it can't happen here", it can and it is happening currently in America with Trump openly saying he's going to go after his "enemies". Even under a "good" government, activist groups like Environmental groups have been subject to police spies going as far as starting families with activists and newspapers have been raided to stop them reporting on the Snowden leaks in the UK. Oh, but this would stop under 16s making social media accounts, right? Nope. They'll just nag their parents into making an account for them, just like how they nag them into buying violent video games. Some of the smarter kids will use VPNs to make accounts from other countries internets.

Also, depending on the nature of the ID, there's also additional risks. If they are using debit cards to get IDs, one hack or one leak of, say, facebook, would lead to people's financial info being leaked. Doesn't matter who keeps it, the government or the social media site, one cleverdick using a Zeroday can break in and steal a lot of financial info.

It short, we're going to see a clusterfuck.

[atticus-no-uta]

I Was Catfished and Scammed By My Mother in Law

Chapter 1

So, before I begin..I know I should have NEVER entertained this as long as I should have. I know I was in the wrong, and that I'm a liar, a cheater, a prick, whatever. Whatever name you want to call me, just get it out of your system now because I am going to need you to gather whatever little bit of sympathy you have and put it towards me for now.

I was recently catfished by my mother in law.

My name is Danny, but you may know me as AlphaGoneFree on TikTok where I participate in live streaming asking my supporters to send me money, since I’m now broke because my MIL drained pretty much everything I own. You may also be wondering how I even got into this mess. This is embarrassing to admit, but I used to run a secret Instagram account where I would post reels of me eating pounds of Thai food, shitting in a cardboard box, and hotboxing myself with the smell until I would cry. I did it because the comments would be so shocking that it would give me engagement, thus giving me money. Little did I know, it was connected to my PERSONAL FaceBook account…so pretty much everyone I know saw it. Including my parents, people I went to highschool with, Ash, my ex, and Santina, my mother in law.

Shortly after my video leaks, I tried to delete all of whatever was uploaded, but it was too late. I couldn't even play it off like I was hacked because my face was in all the videos. My parents had seen them and kicked me out of the house! I couldn't live with Ash because her mother hates me and Ash needs to take care of her full time. This is humiliating to admit but…my NFT startup isn't necessarily the most successful. You see, I had invested 100,000 dollars (Count it, one-hundred-thousand..) into Trumpcoin. About 20 minutes later, that sweet, sweet trust fund from daddy was down the drain like a mentally ill 17 year olds busted hot pink-box-dye-damaged bangs on a summer night in 2020. That was my second strike, and the poop hotbox was the straw that broke the camel's back.

In a matter of weeks, I went from shitting in boxes to sleeping in them. I was BROKE and DESPERATE. At least I still had my cellular device…however my notifications were dryer than Joe Biden's ballsack. That was until one day I got a text from Discord user sticky_tofu_japanophile…the love of my life. Or so I thought.

Here’s how our little online meet-cute went.

@sticky_tofu_japanophile: Hey >_< !!!!

@AlphaGoneFree: What's a beautiful princess like you texting a lonely knight like myself?

As I patiently awaited a response from this new bombshell who had recently entered my murky swamp water of a life, a huge OBESE shadow seemed to block all sunlight from my view, like some sort of twisted blackout curtain. I'm not even joking, the shadow was so huge I thought we were going through a surprise solar eclipse or maybe the sun had exploded 8 minutes ago. But alas, it was just my girlfriend Ash.

“What the hell are you doing here, fairy?”

Her voice violated my ears like how an unruly priest in the 1960’s would violate a lone altar boy. I begrudgingly looked up and managed to escape only two words.

“Fuck off…”

All of a sudden, I was being kicked so hard in the stomach I couldn't breathe. She kicked me so strongly, I almost wondered if Ash was secretly a man. That’s when I started to look past the giant ogre blocking 97 percent of my view and I saw Santina sitting in her car typing away at her cell phone. As she typed, I heard my notifications go off.

That's when things started to get REALLY strange.

[mariacallous]

Kamala Harris, by most accounts, has learned a great deal by serving as vice president to U.S. President Joe Biden, who is the most experienced U.S. leader on foreign policy since President George H.W. Bush.

“Kamala Harris is Joe Biden’s protégé. He trained her,” said California Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis, a friend of Harris who has served as ambassador to Hungary.

But it’s also clear that Harris has created her own path on foreign policy—and that she represents the next generation of national security experts steeped in newer, high-tech threats that the Cold War generation represented by Biden is less familiar with. These encompass an array of ​​cyber threats, including election hacking and surveillance from abroad, allegedly including from state-run companies such as China’s Huawei; threats from space, such as reported Russian or Chinese plots to disable GPS systems; and over-the-horizon risks from artificial intelligence and quantum computing.

In her speech at the Democratic National Convention accepting the nomination Thursday night, Harris briefly mentioned the high-tech threat while affirming that she would prove a tough commander in chief who would “ensure America always has the strongest, most lethal fighting force in the world.”

“I will make sure that we lead the world into the future on space and artificial intelligence; that America, not China, wins the competition for the 21st century, and that we strengthen, not abdicate, our global leadership,” she said.

Harris’s familiarity with such high-tech areas springs from her unique experience. Beginning as a freshman senator in January 2017, she had a crash course in national security issues on the intelligence and homeland security committees during a period when many new threats from abroad were emerging. Only three days after Harris was sworn in as a U.S. senator by then-Vice President Biden, the Obama administration publicly dropped a blockbuster report revealing the extent of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s covert effort to harm the electoral prospects of Hillary Clinton and promote Donald Trump in the 2016 election. This involved buying digital ads on platforms such as Facebook and Instagram and organizing fraudulent political rallies across the United States, among other intrusions.

“In order to understand how Kamala Harris approaches foreign policy, it’s important to remember she began work in the Senate in the same month that every U.S. intelligence agency declared that Russia intervened in our 2016 election,” said her former national security advisor, Halie Soifer, who started working for Harris during the first week that she entered the Senate. “She played a leading role in the intelligence committee’s inquiry given her experience leading investigations.”

But that was just the start of Harris’s immersion in newer types of threats from abroad, former colleagues said.

“That was a period when the [Intelligence] Committee was in a very different position than most of the rest of the Congress,” said Sen. Mark Warner, the current chairman of the committee, who argued that it was on the cutting edge of foreign policy by exposing threats to U.S. national security that no one else in Congress knew anything about. “It wasn’t just that we were investigating Russian election interference. We were the first ones to identify the China threat [of technological surveillance] from Huawei, and intellectual property theft,” Warner said in an interview.

Those threats continue—and not just from Russia and China. Most recently, the FBI has said it is investigating alleged Iranian cyberattacks against both the Democratic and Republican campaigns for president.

Harris had previously familiarized herself with many of these types of threats during her days as California’s attorney general and a prosecutor in northern California, where she got to know Silicon Valley well. In her 2019 memoir, The Truths We Hold, Harris wrote how “shocked” she was by the state’s backward voting technology when she first took office, and how vulnerable it was to hacking.

“The California Department of Justice maintains the entire criminal justice data system for the state and for many many localities. So we worry constantly about protecting that from hackers,” Harris’s former Senate chief of staff, Nathan Barankin, told Foreign Policy. “When you’re attorney general, and you’re from California, which is very tech-heavy, you come into the job in the Senate and these committees already sensitized to not only the great potential and upside of technology, but its risks too. So when things came up like Huawei, quantum computing, or the manipulation of social media by foreign states trying to influence the election, she was already there.”

By the accounts of her intelligence committee colleagues, Harris swiftly mastered arcane subjects such as Russian election influence operations in cyberspace and Chinese intellectual property theft. She also proved to be a razor-sharp, if occasionally grating, questioner of witnesses, deploying her long experience as a prosecutor and attorney general in California.

“She was a force. She signaled early on that she was willing to do the hard work of oversight,” said Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, the longest-serving member of the committee. “She got more real questions into her five minutes [of questioning] than just about anybody. She made a point of staying away from speeches and asking tough, highly informed questions.”

“She showed that she understands the complexity of the world,” Warner said. He added: “I’m not sure my Republican colleagues would go on the record about it now, but she earned a whole lot of respect from them.”

Indeed, the Republican chairman at the time, Sen. Richard Burr, praised Harris in a 2019 Buzzfeed News article as a “quick study” and “very effective.” (The now-retired Burr, in an email, declined to confirm those comments for this article, saying, “I am not doing any interviews for the elections in November.” Several other GOP committee members who were quoted as praising Harris back then, including Sen. Marco Rubio, did not respond to a request for comment.)

It was notable that by the end of her first year in the Senate, Harris joined with fellow Intelligence Committee member James Lankford, a Republican, to sponsor one of the few bipartisan efforts to bolster the cybersecurity of voting systems. (The bill later stalled due to GOP opposition.) She also sponsored a bill to push the United States ahead of China on quantum computing. Later on, as vice president, Harris kept up the focus on high-tech threats, including from unregulated artificial intelligence, working with French President Emmanuel Macron on new initiatives on space and cybersecurity and representing the Biden administration at the Global Summit on AI Safety. She also served as head of the National Space Council and represented the United States at the COP28 climate conference in Dubai.

One reason that Harris focused on such an obscure area as quantum computing, Barankin said, was that she was concerned about “the investments and efforts that China was making to win that race. It was something she was very sensitive to in terms of how important it was for the U.S. to maintain its station in the world as the lone democratic superpower.”

“It was not uncommon for her to come into the office and outline some new technological development, even if it hadn’t been formally deployed,” said Barankin. “Being confronted with something different and new—that actually gets her engine running.”

Harris’s research into the cyber threat from Russia and other countries included a visit to Israel in November 2017, when she toured its cybersecurity hub at Beersheba. “It wasn’t a typical CODEL [congressional delegation visit],” said Soifer, the former national security advisor. “There were a lot of lessons to learn from the Israelis on cyber. After that, she used her role on the Homeland Security Committee to strengthen our cyber defenses.”

An aide to the vice president agreed that the prolonged intelligence committee probe was central to shaping Harris’s approach not just to Russia, but also to China and other autocratic states that seek to undermine U.S. power.

“She joined the committee at what was a historic moment of turbulence for the intelligence community and the country,” said the aide, a senior White House official who works with Harris and was authorized to speak only on condition of anonymity. “Her experience made her keenly aware of Russian’s malign influence activities and the importance of strong U.S. actions to deter, disrupt, and defend against such activities. That experience really enforced for her the need for strong global leadership by the U.S. You see her speaking about that now.”

It is no accident, he said, that in her speeches as vice president, Harris has repeatedly emphasized preserving the democratic “rules and norms” that keep the U.S.-led global system together in the face of efforts by Moscow, Beijing, and others to destroy it.

At a minimum, Harris’s performance during her four years in the Senate clearly undercuts many of the attacks on her by Trump and the GOP message machine that portray her as an intellectual lightweight (“not smart enough,” “barely competent” and “low IQ” are the epithets that Trump keeps using), and as an easy mark for other world leaders (she’d be a “play toy” in their hands, Trump said). Republicans—and even some Democrats—have also occasionally portrayed her as a mindless, knee-jerk liberal who’s been grandstanding for a presidential run almost since she was sworn in as senator.

Especially on the Homeland Security Committee, “some Democrats believed her pugilistic tone was mostly for show,” wrote Dan Morain, a former Los Angeles Times reporter, in his 2021 biography of her, Kamala’s Way: An American Life. “Others suspected her thirst for the spotlight was part of a long-range plan to ‘pull an Obama’ by staying just long enough in the Senate to get the credentials needed to run for president.” (Former President Barack Obama served briefly on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee before he ran.)

Harris had been warned before she even arrived in Washington that the Intelligence Committee, in particular, was not necessarily a place for an ambitious politician to go. Her fellow Californians, Sen. Dianne Feinstein and outgoing Sen. Barbara Boxer—whose seat Harris had just won—gave her a frank rundown on the pitfalls. The intelligence post, they told her, rarely yielded headlines. Most of the committee’s work was done behind closed doors, with no TV cameras in sight. It had a heavy workload, and it was the most mentally taxing assignment on Capitol Hill: Members went home every night with huge binders of material, but the subject matter was so classified they couldn’t even hire their own staffers to help figure it out.

Boxer, in an interview, said that she warned her successor of the committee’s low profile (a conversation confirmed by Harris herself in her autobiography). But Harris thought the committee would provide her some fast lessons in what was, until that point, mostly a blank spot on her resume: foreign policy. “I do think she just wanted to learn more, to know more about the world,” Boxer said. “She wanted to know about every threat out there. That committee doesn’t give you high visibility, but it certainly teaches you about what the heck is going on in the world.”

Warner added: “Remember, there are members that wouldn’t want to be on a committee where 80 percent of the meetings are in closed session. Because of that, some don’t even show up all the time. She showed up. We were the minority, and she was literally the last person to talk. But she would sit through all these sessions. She did her homework.”

Above all, Harris’s time on various Senate committees deepened her understanding of the vulnerability of U.S. democracy to both foreign and domestic threats from technology, her colleagues said. And she came to understand the threat in a visceral, very personal way, which may provide some insight into how she could be different from Biden, who learned foreign policy from a grand strategic perspective during his three decades on the Foreign Relations Committee.

Harris gradually realized there was a through line, a common theme, to what she’d been doing for much of her career as a prosecutor in California and shaping foreign policy, the new subject she was taking up as a neophyte senator, former aides said. She had spent her previous career as a district attorney and then attorney general of California dealing with the inequities and flaws of U.S. democracy, such as racial injustice in the criminal system and economic exploitation by Wall Street. Now she was faced with a high-tech plot to undermine democracy by exacerbating those same internal vulnerabilities and weaknesses.

“One of the things she found most insidious about Russia’s interference in the 2016 elections was its targeted effort to divide the United States from within,” said Barankin, her former Senate chief of staff. Or as Harris wrote in her autobiography, “Russia’s goals were to undermine faith in the U.S. democratic process.”

Harris said it was clear to her from the Senate investigation that the Russians were focused on dividing Americans over “hot-button” issues, “from race to LGBTQ and immigrant rights.” She described the moment Lankford, a fellow member of the Intelligence Committee, crossed the aisle to tell her he saw the same danger: “I’ve been listening to what you’ve been saying about race as our Achilles’ heel, and I think you’re onto something important.” (Lankford’s office did not directly respond to a request for comment.)

And now, in a kind of career twist she couldn’t possibly have imagined, Harris is running against a candidate who—though he was never shown to be colluding with Russia—is also directly threatening U.S. democracy, at least in the minds of many Trump critics. That has thrust Harris’s theme of democracy-and-freedom promotion forward in a unique way in the current election campaign, said Soifer, Wyden and other Harris supporters.

“You have to think about the moment of history when she started, in January of 2017,” Soifer said. “There was no real playbook for a situation in which a U.S. president would question our institutions and completely disregard our democracy. So not only was her experience on the [Intelligence] Committee essential for investigating the actions of a foreign adversary, it occurred at a moment that the person she’s now running against for president began to directly threaten our democracy domestically.”

And whereas Biden learned foreign policy gradually during his three decades in the Senate—dating back to the Vietnam War—“her view came in a crash course, shaped out of crisis,” especially the cyber threat from Russia, according to one former senior aide who spoke on condition of anonymity. “She had to become an actor right away in mitigating against the threat. So today, even as it relates to the way she talks about preserving democracy and norms and the rule of law, she’s infusing her own experience, making it distinctly her own.”