#Metadata Course

[datamanagementeducation]

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[essektheylyss]

okay re: my tags on the smartypants post the thing about standardizing the grocery store is that on the most basic level, you will fall into the "there are now 15 sets of standards" problem. but on a more practical level, you can't do it to begin with because there are major regional and cultural differences in both volume of demand for different food products as well as different conceptualizations of those products and their categorical relationships to one another, which is a major part of the reason grocery stores are not standardized in the first place. you also if course run into further trouble if you're considering more culturally specific grocery stores, especially ones with specific dietary requirements, in which case you will REALLY run into the "there are now 15 sets of standards" problem.

but it does pain me, because it has resulted in my biggest day-to-day pet peeve, which is that in Seattle, where there are no Italians, THE ENTIRE ARRAY OF CANNED TOMATOES ARE NOT WITH CANNED VEGETABLES. THEY ARE IN THE ETHNIC AISLE.

[danishphoner]

recalling that one time when i got obsessed with tlsp interviews and might have gathered (almost) all of them for further cataloguing on tumblr but wasn't quite sure if they'd still be somewhat relevant in the present day lmao:

[opisasodomite]

Finally registered for classes this morning!

[stellophiliac]

how to build a digital music collection and stuff

spotify sucks aaaass. so start downloading shit!!

file format glossary

.wav is highest quality and biggest

.mp3 is very small, but uses lossy compression which means it's lower quality

.flac is smaller than .wav, but uses lossless compression so it's high quality

.m4a is an audio file format that apple uses. that's all i really know

downloading the music

doubledouble.top is a life saver. you can download from a variety of services including but not limited to apple music, spotify, soundcloud, tidal, deezer, etc.

i'd recommend ripping your music from tidal or apple music since they're the best quality (i think apple music gives you lossless audio anyway. .m4a can be both lossy and lossless, but from the text on doubledouble i assume they're ripping HQ files off apple music)

i also love love love cobalt.tools for ripping audio/video from youtube (they support a lot of other platforms too!)

of course, many artists have their music on bandcamp — purchase or download directly from them if you can. bandcamp offers a variety of file formats for download

file conversion

if you're downloading from apple music with doubledouble, it spits out an .m4a file.

.m4a is ok for some people but if you prefer .flac, you may wanna convert it. ffmpeg is a CLI (terminal) tool to help with media conversion

if you're on linux or macOS, you can use parameter expansion to batch convert all files in a folder. put the files in one place first, then with your terminal, cd into the directory and run:

for i in *.m4a; do ffmpeg -i "$i" "${i%.*}.flac"; done

this converts from .m4a to .flac — change the file extensions if needed.

soulseek

another way to get music is through soulseek. soulseek is a peer-to-peer file sharing network which is mainly used for music. nicotine+ is a pretty intuitive (and open-source) client if you don't like the official one.

you can probably find a better tutorial on soulseek somewhere else. just wanted to make this option known

it's bad etiquette to download from people without sharing files of your own, so make sure you've got something shared. also try to avoid queuing up more than 1-2 albums from one person in a row

tagging & organizing your music

tagging: adding metadata to a music file (eg. song name, artist name, album) that music players can recognize and display

if you've ripped music from a streaming platform, chances are it's already tagged. i've gotten files with slightly incorrect tags from doubledouble though, so if you care about that then you might wanna look into it

i use musicbrainz picard for my tagging. they've got pretty extensive documentation, which will probably be more useful than me

basically, you can look up album data from an online database into the program, and then match each track with its file. the program will tag each file correctly for you (there's also options for renaming the file according to a certain structure if you're into that!)

there's also beets, which is a CLI tool for... a lot of music collection management stuff. i haven't really used it myself, but if you feel up to it then they've got extensive documentation too. for most people, though, it's not really a necessity

how you wanna organize your music is completely up to you. my preferred filestructure is:

artist > album > track # track

using a music player

the options for this are pretty expansive. commonly used players i see include VLC, foobar2000, clementine (or a fork of it called strawberry), and cmus (for the terminal)

you can also totally use iTunes or something. i don't know what audio players other systems come with

i personally use dopamine. it's a little bit slow, but it's got a nice UI and is themeable plus has last.fm support (!!!)

don't let the github page fool you, you don't have to build from source. you can find the releases here

click the "assets" dropdown on the most recent release, and download whichever one is compatible with your OS

syncing

if you're fine with your files just being on one device (perhaps your computer, but perhaps also an USB drive or an mp3 player), you don't have to do this

you can sync with something like google drive, but i hate google more than i hate spotify

you can get a free nextcloud account from one of their providers with 2GB of free storage. you can use webDAV to access your files from an app on your phone or other device (documents by readdle has webDAV support, which is what i use)

disroot and blahaj.land are a couple providers i know that offer other services as well as nextcloud (so you get more with your account), but accounts are manually approved. do give them a look though!!

if you're tech-savvy and have an unused machine lying around, look into self-hosting your own nextcloud, or better yet, your own media server. i've heard that navidrome is a pretty good audio server. i unfortunately don't have experience with self-hosting at the moment so i have like zero advice to give here. yunohost seems to be a really easy way to manage a server

afterword

i don't know if any of this is helpful, but i just wanted to consolidate my personal advice in one place. fuck big tech. own your media, they could take it away from you at any moment

[xinganhao]

📅 seungcheol x fanbase!reader. (2)

the one where seungcheol gets all most of his svt news from your no-nonsense fanbase. previous chapter. headcanons under the cut. ➤ see also: svt burner accounts series

SVT 🗣🔥🔥 🟢 13 members active.

S.COUPS 🍒 Dinner on me tonight 8PM. Don't be late

uji ς(>‿<.) ?? Not complaining, but to what do we owe the pleasure

🐸 eisa 🐸 Can we get meat pleaseee

Jeonghan! cheollie is happy today hohoho~ his little crush wants one chance with him~ ♡

KMG 🥔 oh??? 😏 is this the fansite

S.COUPS 🍒 Fanbase Not fansite There's a difference ><

Jeonghan! of course there is hehe~

S.COUPS 🍒 Do you guys want dinner or not?

soonyoung .ఇ ◝‿◜ ఇ ON MY WAY

sound_of_coups • 17m ♫ Ben&Ben - Lifetime

sound_of_coups i'd spend a lifetime waiting 🌨️ Liked by pledis_boos, vernonline, and 1,932,049 others View all 2,109 comments

jeonghaniyoo_n :-) sound_of_coups :--) ashtruther Stay warm, Cheollie!!!~ benandbenmusic 😲 Thank you for listening to us! scoups4lyf those cheeks 🤏 raaah yourusername ❤️

This Could Be It (English Translation) Genius English Translations • Track 3 on S.COUPS - CHERRY ON TOP

Please tread lightly Step inside the garden of my mind Please speak kindly Tragedy and I are intertwined But I can paint the sky with colors Of my misery (hmm) If you come closer, you can read it In my history (hmm)

Please go slowly Gentle is the water in my veins But I would be careful not to Bother creatures lurking just the same ‘Cause once I feel the tide as it rises My boat capsizes

And every minute passing Could bе time that I am spending Talking to you on the phonе It’s been too long since I have been alone And I am hoping That this could grow into something But who am I to know how you define a home? Oh I don’t know you yet But this could be it

Please be warned, oh I’m a bit straightforward when I sing And I have the tendency to Get obsessed with every little thing ‘Cause once I have a grain of thought That I’ve planted It blooms in my head

And every minute passing Could be time that I am spending Talking to you on the phone It’s been too long since I have been alone And I am hoping That this could grow into something But who am I to know how you define a home? Oh I don’t know you yet But this could be it

‘Cause once I feel the tide I drown, I fight the current Pulling me down I overflow and I try to hide it

Now am I too much for you Way too damn much for you? No such thing as too much So you better take it or leave it But this could be it This could be it Oh this could be it

Who produced "This Could Be It" by S.COUPS? ⓘ Genius Metadata

"This Could Be It" by S.COUPS was produced by WOOZI (우지) & VERNON (버논).

Who wrote "This Could Be It" by S.COUPS? ⓘ Genius Metadata

"This Could Be It" by S.COUPS was written by S.COUPS.

S.COUPS "CHERRY ON TOP" Lyrics & Meaning | Genius Verified

👤 a lot of fans were surprised with track three, or 'this could be it'. can we talk about that for a bit?

🍒 i'm sure not a lot of people were anticipating an almost indie, pop-folk number on my first EP, but i live to defy expectations. [laughs] there's not much to say about the song except that it's about that very specific instance where you kind of... fall in love with a stranger? that's in the line 'but who am i to know how you define a home', for example.

👤 you're the sole writer of the track. was it a personal experience?

🍒 you're trying to get me in trouble! [giggle] okay, seriously. don't we all have moments like that? where we daydream over something or someone that we want. honestly, my favorite part of the track is the outro. [sings] am i too much for you, way too damn much for you? no such thing as too much, so you better take it or leave it. but this could be it. [speaks normally] you're never 'too much' for the right person. there's just... you. it's a song about wanting to know, wanting more with someone, who you know can be 'it' for you. the word is on the tip of my tongue—

👤 'yearning'?

🍒 that's it. it's about yearning for someone and what the two of you could be, given the chance.

› scroll through all my work ദ്ദി ˉ͈̀꒳ˉ͈́ )✧ ᶻ 𝗓 𐰁 .ᐟ my masterlist | @xinganhao | note: this could be it is from the lovely opm singer, reese lansangan. :)

[fandom]

Top 23 of 2023

Have you been aching to get your hot little hands on 52 weeks of data around original posts, likes, reblogs, and searches, all weighted and ranked and tied up into categories with a nice little bow on top? Well, today’s your day! It should come as no surprise that Artists on Tumblr reign supreme: from stunning traditional art, jaw-dropping digital art, fanart, sculptures, textile art—you name it, basically—this year’s list shows that Tumblr truly is the home for art and artists. Thank you, Artists on Tumblr, for enriching our dashboards day after day. 

Rounding out the top three, we have two iconic shows: Good Omens is live-action, and The Owl House is animated, but both have a heck of a love story at their core. The second season of Good Omens blessed us with not one but two ineffably exquisite ships, while the final season of The Owl House broke and then healed fans’ hearts in equal measure. Thanks, @danaterrace! Actually, come to think of it, the Good Omens finale kinda did the same in reverse. Thanks to you, too, @neil-gaiman! We can’t wait for season 3. 

Speaking of heartbreak and healing, Our Flag Means Death’s second season offered both in droves. The entire cast gave stellar performances, and fans couldn’t have been happier to see the kinds of representation the show displayed. Last year’s #1 topic, Stranger Things, may have dropped a bit, but trust us, you wouldn’t know it from the amount of meta, fanart, and fics in the tag. And did you hear about the live-action adaptations of both The Last of Us and One Piece? They were a preeeetty big deal this year, too. Check ‘em out if you haven’t yet (lol, of course you have). And we’d be remiss not to mention the hugely dedicated fans, fanartists, and fic writers devoting their time to all things Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Y’all deserve a little pizza, as a treat.

2023 was also a year for blockbuster movies, which of course hasn’t escaped anybody’s notice here on Tumblr. Barbie smashed box offices worldwide and left us reeling with every re-watch. How can one describe Greta Gerwig’s pink-filled opus? It certainly is one of the movies of all time. Meanwhile, with its incredible animation and soundtrack, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse introduced us to a whole new multiverse of Spider-People, opening the portal to a veritable flood of incredible OCs. And then, of course, we got a fresh perspective on an old classic when cinephiles introduced Martin Scorscese’s cinematic masterpiece, Goncharov (1973), to a new generation of film aficionados who resoundingly agree that it is, in fact, the greatest mafia movie ever made. We’re so glad this underrated film finally got the acclaim it has long deserved.

In the realms of gaming and tech, the long-anticipated Baldur’s Gate 3 has basically become everyone’s new favorite D&D/dating sim combination. Of course, the Pokémon franchise, games, shows, and Hatsune Miku collabs remain perennial favorites. Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter, sorry, we mean of course X, made waves across the internet. Similarly, the Reddit blackout drove Redditors to new venues, and Tumblr users welcomed the folks from r/196 with open arms—we’re huge fans of your memes, y’all, and you fit right in. Welcome, we’re glad you enjoy the chaos. Here’s a fun fact: if we included post metadata in Year in Review rankings, #polls, introduced in January of 2023, would have been the #5 topic on Tumblr this year. Phenomenal. 

And, oh right. Taylor Swift had kind of a big year, what with the albums, the epic global tour, and the movie and stuff. Fantastic work, @taylorswift, the Swifties on Tumblr thank you for everything.

This is Tumblr’s Year in Review.

Artists on Tumblr

Good Omens

The Owl House

Barbie

Pokémon

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

Critical Role

Goncharov

Taylor Swift

Genshin Impact

Stranger Things

The Last of Us

Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Elon Musk

196

Star Wars

Our Flag Means Death

Crowley | Good Omens

LGBTQ

Cottagecore

Baldur's Gate 3

One Piece

Aziraphale | Good Omens

[datamanagementeducation]

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[essektheylyss]

what people expect when you sign up for an LIS degree: haha quirky book nerds, so fun, I remember toddler storytime at the library are you gonna read to children

what they actually get when you sign up for an LIS degree: smashing Alexa isn't enough anymore I need to learn how to run my own internet and also build a house on a totally closed circuit system.

[mecachrome]

📊 LANDOSCAR AO3 STATS (may 2025)

notes

sorry this literally took 2 weeks to write... unfortunately the data was retrieved april 28 and it is now may 12.

other work: i previously wrote a stats overview that covered landoscar's fic growth and breakout in 2023 :) i've kept some of the formatting and graphs that i showed there, while other things have been removed or refined because i felt they'd become redundant or unnecessary (aka they were basically just a reflection of fandom growth in general, and not unique or interesting to landoscar as a ship specifically).

methodology: i simply scraped the metadata for every fic in the landoscar tag (until april 28, 2025) and then imported it into google sheets to clean, with most visualizations done in tableau. again, all temporal data is by date updated (not posted) unless noted otherwise. this is because the date that appears on the parent view of the ao3 archives is the updated one, so it's the only feasible datapoint to collect for 3000+ fics.

content: this post does not mention any individual authors or concern itself with kudos, hits, comments, etc. i purely describe archive growth and overall analysis of metadata like word count and tagging metrics.

cleaning: after importing my data, i standardized ship spelling, removed extra "814" or "landoscar" tags, and merged all versions of one-sided, background, implied, past, mentioned etc. into a single "(side)" modifier. i also removed one fic entirely from the dataset because the "loscar" tag was being mistakenly wrangled as landoscar, but otherwise was not actually tagged as landoscar. i also removed extra commentary tags in the ships sets that did not pertain to any ships.

overall stats

before we get into any detailed distributions, let's first look at an overview of the archive as of 2025! in their 2-and-change years as teammates, landoscar have had over 3,409 fics written for them, good enough for 3rd overall in the f1 archives (behind lestappen and maxiel).

most landoscar fics are completed one-shots (although note that a one-shot could easily be 80k words—in fact they have about 30 single-chapter fics that are at least 50k words long), and they also benefit from a lot of first-tagged fic, which is to say 82.3% of landoscar-tagged fics have them as the first ship, implying that they aren't often used as a fleeting side pairing and artificially skewing perception of their popularity. in fact, over half of landoscar fics are PURELY tagged as landoscar (aka otp: true), with no other side pairings tagged at all.

this percentage has actually gone down a bit since 2023 (65.5%), which makes sense since more lando and oscar ships have become established and grown in popularity over the years, but it's also not a very big difference yet...

ship growth

of course, landoscar have grown at a frankly terrifying rate since 2023. remember this annotated graph i posted comparing their growth during the 2023 season to that of carlando and loscar, respectively their other biggest ship at the time? THIS IS HER NOW:

yes... that tiny squished down little rectangle... (wipes away stray tear) they grow up so fast. i also tried to annotate this graph to show other "big" landoscar moments in the timeline since, but i honestly struggled with this because they've just grown SO exponentially and consistently that i don't even feel like i can point to anything as a proper catalyst of production anymore. that is to say, i think landoscar are popular enough now that they have a large amount of dedicated fans/writers who will continuously work on certain drafts and stories regardless of what happens irl, so it's hard to point at certain events as inspiring a meaningful amount of work.

note also that this is all going by date updated, so it's not a true reflection of ~growth~ as a ficdom. thankfully ao3 does have a date_created filter that you can manually enter into the search, but because of this limitation i can't create graphs with the granularity and complexity that scraping an entire archive allows me. nevertheless, i picked a few big ships that landoscar have overtaken over the last 2 years and created this graph using actual date created metrics!!!

this is pretty self-explanatory of course but i think it's fun to look at... :) it's especially satisfying to see how many ships they casually crossed over before the end of 2024.

distributions

some quick graphs this time. rating distribution remains extremely similar to the 2023 graph, with explicit fic coming out on top at 28%:

last time i noted a skew in ratings between the overall f1 rpf tag and the landoscar tag (i.e. landoscar had a higher prevalence of e fic), but looking at it a second time i honestly believe this is more of a cultural shift in (f1? sports rpf? who knows) fandom at large and not specific to landoscar as a ship — filtering the f1 rpf tag to works updated from 2023 onward shows that explicit has since become the most popular rating in general, even when excluding landoscar-tagged fics. is it because fandom is getting more horny in general, or because the etiquette surrounding what constitutes t / m / e has changed, or because people are less afraid to post e fic publicly and no longer quarantine it to locked livejournal posts? or something else altogether? Well i don't know and this is a landoscar stats post so it doesn't matter but that could be something for another thought experiment. regardless because of that i feel like further graphs aren't really necessary 🤷‍♀️

onto word distribution:

still similar to last time, although i will note that there's a higher representation of longfic now!!! it might not seem like much, but i noted last year that 85% of landoscar fics were under 10k & 97% under 25k — these numbers are now 78% and 92% respectively, which adds up in the grand scheme of a much larger archive. you'll also notice that the prevalence of <1k fic has gone down as well.

for the fun of it here's the wc distribution but with a further rating breakdown; as previously discussed you're more likely to get G ratings in flashfic because there's less wordspace to Make The Porn Happen. of course there are nuances to this but that's just a broad overview

side ships

what other ships are landoscar shippers shipping these days??? a lot of these ships are familiar from last time, but there are two new entries in ham/ros and pia/sai overtaking nor/ric and gas/lec to enter the top 10. ships that include at least one of lando or oscar are highlighted in orange:

of course, i pulled other 814-adjacent ships, but unfortunately i've realized that a lot of them simply aren't that popular/prevalent (context: within the 814 tag specifically) so they didn't make the top 10... because of that, here's a graph with only ships that include lando or oscar and have a minimum of 10 works within the landoscar tag:

eta: other primarily includes oscar & lily and maxf & lando. lando doesn't really have that many popular pairings within landoscar shippers otherwise...

i had wanted to explore these ships further and look at their growth/do some more in depth breakdowns of their popularity, but atm they're simply not popular enough for me to really do anything here. maybe next year?!

that being said, i did make a table comparing the prevalence of side ships within the 814 tag to the global f1 archives, so as to contextualize the popularity of each ship (see 2023). as usually, maxiel is very underrepresented in the landoscar tag, with galex actually receiving quite a boost compared to before!

additional tags

so last time i only had about 400 fics to work with and i did some analysis on additional tags / essentially au tagging. however, the problem is that there are now 3000 fics in my set, and the limitations of web scraping means that i'm not privy to the tag wrangling that happens in Da Backend of ao3. basically i'm being given all the raw versions of these au tags, whereas on ao3 "a/b/o" and "alpha/beta/omega dynamics" and "au - alpha/beta/omega" and "alternate universe - a/b/o" are all being wrangled together. because it would take way too long for me to do all of this manually and i frankly just don't want to clean that many fics after already going through all the ship tags, i've decided to not do any au analysis because i don't think it would be an accurate reflection of the data...

that being said, i had one new little experiment! as landoscar get more and more competitive, i wanted to chart how ~angsty~ they've gotten as a ship on ao3. i wanted to make a cumulative graph that shows how the overall fluff % - angst % difference has shifted over time, but ummmm... tableau and i had a disagreement. so instead here is a graph of the MoM change in angst % (so basically what percentage of the fics updated in that month specifically were tagged angst?):

the overall number is still not very drastic at all and fluff still prevails over angst in the landoscar archive. to be clear, there are 33.2% fics tagged some variation of fluff and 21.4% fics tagged some variation of angst overall, so there's a fluff surplus of 11.8%. but there has definitely been a slight growth in angst metrics over the past few months!

—

i will leave this here for now... if there's anything specific that you're interested in lmk and i can whip it up!!! hehe ty for reading 🧡

[toriaaniin]

The Five Moods

Today brought us 35 professionally staged, joyless paparazzi photos of Luke and Antonia riding Lime bikes. And with them, a wave of fan reactions across social media. I’ve been watching (when I should be working my day job!), and it’s clear the Lukola fandom isn’t having one collective response. We’re having several.

The personas below are pulled from what I’ve read in Tumblr posts and submissions across the fandom today (my AI Simon helped me track them) — and in particular from the comments left on my own post as well as those Bianca kindly shared from her inbox, and of course Three Act Tragedy's GIF masterpiece. They reflect different tones, but there’s an unmistakable throughline: this situation is feeling… done.

So in the spirit of solidarity (and mild catharsis), here are the Five Fandom Personas currently riding the PR rollercoaster:

The Amused but Over It

“I almost miss the feeling of ‘could these be real’ from last summer… Now, I just giggle and continue my day.”

Some are laughing — but it’s the kind of laughter that comes from frustration. Not rage, not even sadness. Just a growing sense of “seriously, we’re still doing this?” Disappointment wrapped in irony. When the play gets too obvious, sometimes all you can do is giggle at the absurdity.

The staging is transparent

The costuming is cartoonish

The lack of joy is the biggest tell

And the fandom’s eye roll? Deep and deserved

The Disillusioned Realist

“Watching all of this — especially BAFTAs and now this circus — is painful… This is frankly a big, unfunny joke.”

This is the heartbreak talking. These fans have stuck around hoping for something different, something honest — and instead, we’re still getting flat performances and tired PR games. They’re not angry. Just… tired. And quietly embarrassed on behalf of people they admire.

They still like Luke

They want to believe in something better

But they can’t pretend this is working

And the longer it drags out, the harder it is to watch

The Satirist

“You look ridiculous.” “Oh no I don’t, I look holidazzling.”

This group copes through satire — and today, Three Act Tragedy delivered a masterclass. Her GIF post told the story better than any caption could.

If this whole saga is performance art, The Satirists are its cheeky narrators.

They don’t just mock the plot — they storyboard it

They match every photo with a GIF, every expression with a punchline

They know it’s all a charade — so they turn it into a comedy

Not because it’s funny, but because otherwise it’s just too absurd to tolerate

And Bianca’s response to her Anon said it best:

A: “We either stop giving them ideas… or start giving them outlandish ones for our own amusement.” B: “I say they go roller skating next time.”

The Satirists are choosing amusement — the circus has overstayed its welcome — but they’ll still bring popcorn to the show.

The Conspiracy Comedian

“When you search for Nicola on the pap site, the Luke & Antonia photos come up as the latest uploads. Is the agency trying to tell us what’s what in a sneaky way? 👀”

These fans are dialed into the metadata, the tags, the timing, the back-end breadcrumbs. They’re not crying — they’re cackling. They see how forced this all looks, and they’re connecting dots faster than PR can un-tag Nicola’s name from a pap gallery.

They know how Josh Mawr’s lens works

They track timestamps like Sherlock

And they’re not above saying, “BFFR”

(Because really, what are those socks?)

The Script Supervisor

“So let me get this straight: Luke liked her photo and went for a bike ride — on the same day? Busy man.”

This crew notices everything. From the late-but-same-day like to the emotionless biking to the fact that again it’s Josh Mawr snapping the pics. They’ve stopped asking “why” and started taking notes on the screenplay. Because clearly, we’re all extras in someone else’s episode of PR Mad Libs.

They clock repetition

They question intention

They dissect delivery

And they are not buying what’s being sold

So where are we now?

Somewhere between eye-roll and exhaustion. The fandom doesn’t need a big moment. We don’t even need a resolution. We just need an end to this particular saga — or at least a break from the charade.

Whether you’re still laughing, disillusioned, or mentally storyboarding the next PR stunt (Josh Mawr in a GoPro helmet?), know this: you're not alone.

We see the script. We read the subtext. We know this isn’t it.

And when the curtain finally falls on this storyline? You better believe the standing ovation will come from us.

In the mean time... Stay hydrated. Stay cheeky. Stay sharp.

Aaniin Xxx

Edited to add: If you're feeling one of these moods — or all of them in a single scroll — you're not alone. I see you. I meme with you. I sigh with you. I am you!

[mostlysignssomeportents]

China hacked Verizon, AT&T and Lumen using the FBI’s backdoor

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

State-affiliated Chinese hackers penetrated AT&T, Verizon, Lumen and others; they entered their networks and spent months intercepting US traffic – from individuals, firms, government officials, etc – and they did it all without having to exploit any code vulnerabilities. Instead, they used the back door that the FBI requires every carrier to furnish:

https://www.wsj.com/tech/cybersecurity/u-s-wiretap-systems-targeted-in-china-linked-hack-327fc63b?st=C5ywbp&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

In 1994, Bill Clinton signed CALEA into law. The Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act requires every US telecommunications network to be designed around facilitating access to law-enforcement wiretaps. Prior to CALEA, telecoms operators were often at pains to design their networks to resist infiltration and interception. Even if a telco didn't go that far, they were at the very least indifferent to the needs of law enforcement, and attuned instead to building efficient, robust networks.

Predictably, CALEA met stiff opposition from powerful telecoms companies as it worked its way through Congress, but the Clinton administration bought them off with hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies to acquire wiretap-facilitation technologies. Immediately, a new industry sprang into being; companies that promised to help the carriers hack themselves, punching back doors into their networks. The pioneers of this dirty business were overwhelmingly founded by ex-Israeli signals intelligence personnel, though they often poached senior American military and intelligence officials to serve as the face of their operations and liase with their former colleagues in law enforcement and intelligence.

Telcos weren't the only opponents of CALEA, of course. Security experts – those who weren't hoping to cash in on government pork, anyways – warned that there was no way to make a back door that was only useful to the "good guys" but would keep the "bad guys" out.

These experts were – then as now – dismissed as neurotic worriers who simultaneously failed to understand the need to facilitate mass surveillance in order to keep the nation safe, and who lacked appropriate faith in American ingenuity. If we can put a man on the moon, surely we can build a security system that selectively fails when a cop needs it to, but stands up to every crook, bully, corporate snoop and foreign government. In other words: "We have faith in you! NERD HARDER!"

NERD HARDER! has been the answer ever since CALEA – and related Clinton-era initiatives, like the failed Clipper Chip program, which would have put a spy chip in every computer, and, eventually, every phone and gadget:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipper_chip

America may have invented NERD HARDER! but plenty of other countries have taken up the cause. The all-time champion is former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, who, when informed that the laws of mathematics dictate that it is impossible to make an encryption scheme that only protects good secrets and not bad ones, replied, "The laws of mathematics are very commendable, but the only law that applies in Australia is the law of Australia":

https://www.zdnet.com/article/the-laws-of-australia-will-trump-the-laws-of-mathematics-turnbull/

CALEA forced a redesign of the foundational, physical layer of the internet. Thankfully, encryption at the protocol layer – in the programs we use – partially counters this deliberately introduced brittleness in the security of all our communications. CALEA can be used to intercept your communications, but mostly what an attacker gets is "metadata" ("so-and-so sent a message of X bytes to such and such") because the data is scrambled and they can't unscramble it, because cryptography actually works, unlike back doors. Of course, that's why governments in the EU, the US, the UK and all over the world are still trying to ban working encryption, insisting that the back doors they'll install will only let the good guys in:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/05/theyre-still-trying-to-ban-cryptography/

Any back door can be exploited by your adversaries. The Chinese sponsored hacking group know as Salt Typhoon intercepted the communications of hundreds of millions of American residents, businesses, and institutions. From that position, they could do NSA-style metadata-analysis, malware injection, and interception of unencrypted traffic. And they didn't have to hack anything, because the US government insists that all networking gear ship pre-hacked so that cops can get into it.

This isn't even the first time that CALEA back doors have been exploited by a hostile foreign power as a matter of geopolitical skullduggery. In 2004-2005, Greece's telecommunications were under mass surveillance by US spy agencies who wiretapped Greek officials, all the way up to the Prime Minister, in order to mess with the Greek Olympic bid:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_wiretapping_case_2004%E2%80%9305

This is a wild story in so many ways. For one thing, CALEA isn't law in Greece! You can totally sell working, secure networking gear in Greece, and in many other countries around the world where they have not passed a stupid CALEA-style law. However the US telecoms market is so fucking huge that all the manufacturers build CALEA back doors into their gear, no matter where it's destined for. So the US has effectively exported this deliberate insecurity to the whole planet – and used it to screw around with Olympic bids, the most penny-ante bullshit imaginable.

Now Chinese-sponsored hackers with cool names like "Salt Typhoon" are traipsing around inside US telecoms infrastructure, using the back doors the FBI insisted would be safe.

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

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

https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/07/foreseeable-outcomes/#calea

Image: Kris Duda, modified https://www.flickr.com/photos/ahorcado/5433669707/

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

[xplrstoner]

HI I'm border anon id love a tutorial with metadata if that's ok with you !! Thank you so much for being kind ❤️🙇‍♀️

Of course !! Everyone deserve kindness ꨄ

Here’s a quick (basic) metadata tutorial

(Please ignore how I stopped counting .. no excuse I’m just forgetful)

Okay this got long so p2 in a sec

[foone]

I was wondering what the highest numbered film sequel is, and so I had to look it up, and then do some more research to get an exact number. It's porn, of course.

But the answer is definitely Homegrown Video. The number is, I think, 855? There's no official listing for all the episodes (and the sites that do list the episodes end at 854), but you can go and buy episode 855, it actually exists.

They started the series in 1982 (on VHS, natch) and the most recent release is from 2015. (or 2022, according to one site I don't trust the metadata of... or maybe they just had a 7 year gap after releasing constantly for 33 fucking (no pun intended) years).

[mesmerbyte]

Concept: Bimbo Programmer.

That might sound like a contradiction. Bimbos, famous for being vapid, vacuous, and more interested in appearances than any skills that make you think, in front of a computer all day?

But the thing is... computers are already everywhere. They're a part of daily life. If a girl wants to flirt effectively she's gotta know how to use social media. And then before she knows it, she'll be posting pics all the time. Then videos. Suddenly she's spending all her time in front of her pink monitors wearing her pink headphones, typing on her pink keyboard. Even the text she types is pink (just because she's using a computer doesn't mean it has to be drab).

When she goes out, people hit on her as always and while she loves the attention, it just doesn't hit the same as all the adoration she's getting online. It's all she can think about, so she just twirls her hair and giggles, but she already forgot what anyone said to her. Her mind’s on her phone. Or her computer. And how she needs to check it.

But as much as she loves it, social media is so much work. Like yes she gets to flirt and be sexy but she also has to manage the accounts and check notifications and set up her cameras and microphones and she's just not about all that.

Almost by accident she realizes she's got a talent for coding. She'd always thought code was so logical (blegh!) but there really was an artistry to it. Especially when it's written in hot pink.

First she just writes small scripts to automate her work so she has more time for the parts she likes. But then she figures out how to write a cute little function to hide in the metadata of her pictures to manipulate the algorithm and put her on more people's feeds. And then she figures out how to remotely and automatically install things other peoples' computers and phones.

When she gets stumped, she just absentmindedly plays with her tits until she works it out. And when she finishes a project, she reaches under her skirt to reward herself.

And before she knows it, she's written the most perfectly seductive program, not just to make people see her posts, but to subtly influence them until they could never resist her when they do.

Making every color duller except pink. Imperceptibly at first, the gradually ramping up until it's the user's favorite color and they're not sure why. Changing the text suggestions and autocorrect to be dumber and sexier. Inserting subliminal messages into all videos, but especially their porn. And when they finally do inevitably come across her posts, making every notification from her just a bit more pleasant than the others. A warmer symbol, a brighter chime.

One thing leads to another until they message her. Because of course they do. She's the hottest thing they've ever seen. And then...

She moans. The girl eating her out under her desk is doing such a good job and it's becoming hard to focus on her code. Time to take a break.

She stands, and the brunette under her desk pouts at the separation. A few short months ago the kneeling slut was a graduate student. Now all she wants to do is worship the bimbo who moments ago was at the keyboard.

But the student wouldn't be pouting for long. They had her professor in the other room, who had recently become addicted to his phone after said student submitted a paper with that pretty little metadata. Time to go break him in like the others. It’s only right that she get to join in too.

[olderthannetfic]

So apparently Wattpad has a little questionaire thing you can fill out for your story's metadata.

It starts out pretty reasonable, but quickly gets insane. I'll screenshot the whole thing so you guys don't have to create an account and a dummy work to see it.

The options under the "goal type" dropdown change depending on if you've selected "Physical:

or Emotional:

I guess it works for generic romance? But even then those little sliders are going to be difficult to work out for the more interesting OR the more cardboard protagonists. For the likeable/unlikeable slider, I'm not sure if they mean that from a reader's perspective (which is subjective) or within the narrative (which could well change over the course of the story).

Mind & Logic vs Heart & Emotion activates a pet peeve of mine about how you can't use one without the other, but I can't opt out of that slider, I just have to leave it in the middle.

And of course, all this is assuming that the main point of the story is a protagonist's personality and actions, and not a setting or a relationship. So it doesn't even work for generic shippy romance where the draw is dynamic between two characters or even the personalities of both.

And very little of this is at all applicable to the kinds of horror stuff I tend to write. So if it doesn't work for romance or for horror, what does it work for? Low conflict coming of age stories, I guess? But I don't think the "story goal" things would be very easy to answer for those. And it's very difficult to map any of this this to short story format where things don't progress or change much but where the reader simply sees an interesting moment (PWP is one example there, half of Lovecraft's output is another).

I suspect this form just exists to train algorithms (or LLMs, brrr), but since the ticky boxes can't actually represent a story, it can't actually be used to train an algorithm to consider two stories similar or dissimilar.

(Also this might be old news, this is the first time I'm seeing the form, but I poke at Watpadd like once every two years or something)

--

Egad!