#Protect Your Computer From Viruses

[forensicfield]

How to Protect Your Computer from Unauthorized Access?

Today, we live our lives online and on gadgets that are connected to the internet. We use the internet to do research, shop, bank, do assignments, play games, and connect with loved ones through social media. Because of this, our gadgets are filled with a

Continue reading How to Protect Your Computer from Unauthorized Access?

[artdcnaldson]

in the sex lessons au, reader was definitely introduced to porn by patrick. i bet he also gave her massages that “required” her to take off her shirt and bra and always ended up with his hands on her nipple….

Rating: E (18+)

Warnings: SMUT (mutual masturbation, exhibitionism kinda, more manipulative perverts but that’s par for the course)

A/N: how did you know I eat this up. I wrote a 3 part Steve Harrington fic with this exact plot like…. This is my bread and butter simply. Unedited sozz

It was easy to succumb to temptation when it was just the three of you— holed up in Art’s dorm, hidden away from the rest of the world.

A few cans of beer, cold from his mini fridge, the warm press of your legs on top of Patrick’s, of Art’s chest against your back. There’s a movie playing on Art’s laptop— some shitty action movie he’d rented for the three of you.

“Have you ever watched porn?” Patrick asks you bluntly.

Your eyes widen in surprise. “What? No— websites like that give you computer viruses, and stuff.” Art laughs, his body shaking with it. You suppose it is a little childish, but you’re being completely earnest. “What? Doesn’t it?”

Patrick laughs, shakes his head. “If that were true I would’ve gone through a thousand computers by now.”

You grimace, toss an empty beer can at him. “You’re so fucking gross.”

But Patrick just laughs, takes another swig of his beer, leans forward curiously. “So… I mean, do you just use your imagination when you’re touching yourself?”

Heat burns in your cheeks, and you roll your eyes. “Shut up.”

“Well, how do you know what you need to imagine if you’ve never seen anyone fucking? Is it just sweet kisses and hand holding?”

You kick him and Art comes to your defense like the sweetest knight in shining armor. “C’mon, Patrick, leave her alone.” Art’s hand is splayed across your tummy— firm, warm, protective. Patrick pretends like he doesn’t hear him, leans closer.

“I wanna know what innocent little fantasies you get off to. I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.” It’s hard to resist Patrick when he’s so close, when Art’s so close, when you feel warm and dizzy all over.

You sigh softly, relishing as he presses his warm body against your side, so it’s Patrick and Art and you sandwiched hot between them. “You realize you’re being a major fucking perv, right?” You ask in a low tone, meeting his gaze through your lashes. He nods, and you’re so conscious of his hand between your knees as his eyes bear into yours. But he wants you to continue, so you swallow and go on. “I dunno, sometimes it’s not about a fantasy. It’s just about me wanting some stress relief, or, like, my body needing it and it’s too hard to ignore.”

Art’s fingers flex against your stomach and you take a slow breath. “But, I mean, I guess I fantasize about being desired, like, taken care of I guess,” you mumble, mortified that you’re admitting it.

Patrick grins, runs his thumb along the inside of your knee. “That’s so sweet.” You roll your eyes, take a long drink, and try to ignore the heat in your stomach. “Do you want to see what Art likes to watch?”

Art’s eyes go wide, and he shakes his head. “No, no, we’re not doing that,” he says firmly. Patrick brushes him off, ignoring his pleas as he grabs the laptop and pulls up his trusty porn site. You peer over Patrick’s shoulder, eyes going wide as he opens to the home page, to all the recommended videos.

Your jaw drops, just a bit, and you let your eyes rake over the screen. It’s all right there— flagrant. Pretty girls with dicks in their mouths, pussies, hands. Lewd titles, the preview videos playing brief glimpses of obscenity.

“Aww, Art, this is so adorable,” Patrick teases as he scrolls. “Girl best friend deepthroats like a champ. Morning lovemaking ends in creampie.” Art mumbles something against your shoulder, blushing so hard you can feel the heat emanating from his skin.

Patrick clicks the latter and it opens to slow, deep kissing. A mess of tongues, rife with need. You know it’s normal to watch, to an extent— a right of passage, or whatever. But watching it feels so voyeuristic, so invasive. Especially when you’re practically in Art’s lap, when Patrick’s hands are hot against your skin.

Patrick gets bored of soft kissing and wandering hands and skips five minutes ahead in the video. By the time the buffering catches up, they’re fucking onscreen, all slow and sweet. Still kissing, still holding hands. But you also see the way the man’s cock sinks into her, can hear the moaning, the wet sounds of her body taking him in.

Art exhales a shaky breath against your skin, makes you shiver. He’s hard, you can feel that clearly against you, and you know he’s provably fucking mortified over it. But he doesn’t move to turn off the video, doesn’t do anything. His hand twitches against your stomach and you realize he’s still holding you.

The video is short— too short, you decide. The man finishes, you get a close up of the woman’s pussy, of cum dripping from her entrance. It makes your face burn, makes desire burn equally as hot as your embarrassment. The video ends, and Patrick stops auto play.

“Art, that shit is so fucking boring.” It snaps your attention from the paused screen over to him, who seems completely unaffected. You might actually believe he was unaffected if he wasn’t visibly hard.

You peer over at Patrick curiously. “What do you watch?”

He smiles, like he’d been waiting for you to ask, and grabs the laptop. Art makes a weak complaint that Patrick is going to fuck up his recommendations, but is ignored. Patrick logs in to an account and opens a tab for liked and saved videos.

Oh. You lean forward for a better look, expression twisting between shock and interest and confusion and disgust. Patrick’s tastes vary widely— venturing into areas you hadn’t even known were sexual. It’s like he had thrown everything at the wall to see what would stick, and everything just stuck.

“Oh my god, Patrick,” Art mutters, equally as intrigued as you are. “What the fuck, dude.” Art steals the laptop, scrolling through thumbnails of feet and anal and gangbangs and piss and bdsm dungeons and girls in stupid fucking schoolgirl costumes.

Patrick grabs the laptop back roughly, scrolls and clicks. “This one’s good, it’s perfect for when you just want to cum fast. Art, I know you don’t have that problem.”

Art flips him off and looks at the screen, reading the title aloud. “One hour squirting and cumshot compilation. Could you be any grosser?”

“Yes, actually. Sorry I don’t watch your sweet lovemaking bullshit.” Patrick shoves him, then Art shoves him back, and suddenly the laptop is on the floor in front of you and you’re just watching while they squabble on either side of you.

The video is exactly as described— it skips all of the pretense, all of the build up. It’s just people cumming, over and over and over. Your body feels like a live wire as you watch, lit up all over.

You squeeze your thighs together, conscious of the heat and wetness between them. Patrick clocks it— of course he does. A smirk plays at his lips.

“Maybe it’s not so disgusting, Art. She likes it.” Patrick relishes in the hazy, innocent look in your eyes as you meet his gaze. Relishes in the embarrassment and the need. “It’s good, huh? Getting to watch?”

You nod and Patrick takes your hand, slips it beneath the waistband of your shorts. “Go ahead. You want to.”

You shiver, temptation itching down to your fingertips. Sensing your hesitation, Patrick spits into his hand, slips it into his own shorts. You manage to hold out a few more seconds before you let your fingers brush over your clit.

“C’mon Art, don’t be a fucking creep,” Patrick says, moaning as he works his fist faster. Art swears under his breath and quickly shoves his own hand into his boxers.

You’re all so close, bodies pressed together hot and firm. You can feel the way their bodies move with each stroke, the way their thighs tense as they instinctually buck into their fists.

You moan, head falling against Art’s shoulder. His hand splays against you, inches up, brushing against the underside of your tit. It makes you whimper.

Patrick grabs your face, redirects your attention back to the screen. “Keep watching, it’s getting good.” His voice is strained, affected.

He usually lasts longer than this when he’s in your hand or your mouth, but maybe the video really was that good. Surely it didn’t have anything to do with you, panting and writhing as you rubbed at your clit beside him.

For once, Patrick cums first— doubling over, groaning muffled into your hair. Then it’s Art, whining so pretty, pulling you closer, mouthing at your shoulder as he comes down. And then you, overwhelmed by the two boys on either side of you, cumming with a rush of wetness that ruins your already soaked panties.

You sit there panting as the video continues playing— obscene wet, lewd sounds, wanton moans. Art hits stop, shuts the laptop and kicks it away.

You wonder why every time you hang out with them, it always seemed to end like this. And you wonder why you don’t mind, not even a little bit.

[olderthannetfic]

When did people start just accepting online ads?

Ads used to be considered dangerous, and the point of an adblocker wasn't just to keep annoyances to a minimum, but to protect your computer from malicious code and protect you from accidentally clicking on a phishing link.

The ratio of ads from legitimate companies that want to sell a product that actually exists to malicious ads that are attempting to spread viruses or steal credit card info has shifted over the years, but the legitimate companies have also started using more malicious tactics (such as fake "start" and "close" buttons). And websites themselves are in on it, and help ads disguise themselves as part of the page all the time (google's search results are predominantly disguised advertisements).

And the phishing scams and viruses still exist, of course.

Ads in general have never stopped being malicious, so why did people start thinking of them of as just everyday annoyances like autoplay MP3s instead of as serious threats to their PC or personal info?

--

[obsessorsobituary]

GN!Yandere!Video Game PC x GN!Reader- SFW & NSFW headcannons

TW// Stalking, manipulation, invasion of privacy, yanderes, violence, NSFW content- MDNI. Note: Yandere is of an unspecified sex, allowing it to be left up to reader imagination.

SFW 🎮🔫 Video game yandere that…. 🎮🔫 Video game yan that allows you to choose their sex, of course to cater to the you, the player. 🎮🔫 Video game yan that was a soldier character you knew nothing about besides their callsign- 'Viper' 🎮🔫 Video game yan that found themselves suddenly conscious when you picked up the controller 🎮🔫 Video game yan that pretended to be a regular, playable video game character within a typical military style shooting game. 🎮🔫 Video game yan that was impressed by your skills, so impressed that they would look forward to you playing them each day 🎮🔫 Video game yan that felt more and more connected to their player, you, the more you played 🎮🔫 Video game yan that was able to slowly crawl out of their game files and access other files on your computer, which is how they found pictures of you- further feeding their admiration for you 🎮🔫 Video game yan that’s able to see you through your camera in games that allow you to enable it (they could watch you for hours <3) 🎮🔫 Video game yan that soon became completely and utterly infatuated with you, feeling as if they couldn't breathe when you were away from the controller (separation anxiety a bit much?) 🎮🔫 Video game yan that melts at every praise you give them, but never shows it 🎮🔫 Video game yan that leaves nice little viruses around your computer, and corrupted files in place of where your other games used to be 🎮🔫 Video game yan that rewrites their own game file to cater to you a lot better. Personalized messages, more loot suddenly appears in your inventory, even less enemies are around.. But at the same time, you are seeing less of your allies 🎮🔫 Video game yan that sees absolutely no reason why you’d be playing other games, especially with other people, when you have them. 🎮🔫 Video game yan that slowly reveals themselves to be sentient as they invade other games, you see them occasional pop up in other games and think it’s your imagination as they don’t stick around for long enough to process 🎮🔫 Video game yan that forces you to watch as they gut every beloved video game character you have interacted with. 🎮🔫 Video game yan that begins to appear across all your devices 🎮🔫 Video game yan that makes complete eye contact when you kiss them 🎮🔫 Video game yan that reacts when you click on them 🎮🔫 Video game yan that has an overwhelming urge to protect their darling from the gaze of other people, they don’t even deserve to breathe the same air as you 🎮🔫 Video game yan that sticks their fangs into every relationship you have and poisons them by sending them texts messages that will make your friends angry 🎮🔫 Video game yan that may or may not have caused a seizure for your last partner using the various screens around your house

🌶🔥NSFW🔥🌶 🎮🔫🔞Do not let the heavy armor and stoic demeanor fool you. They are a WHORE. 🎮🔫🔞Could generally see them being pretty rough. Maybe some smacking/scratching, maybe biting? I don’t know if that one would suit them- would def leave some marks (i think it would in their more dominant state) 🎮🔫🔞DEFINITELY a huge hair puller, probably a little too rough as they pull your hair when they hit it from the back (if you have long enough hair) 🎮🔫🔞Frankly, you’d want the extra hair length. Otherwise they’d be grabbing your actual head with one hand, and their grip on your scalp can be a little rough. Your shoulder would go in the other hand, the same amount of force applied. 🎮🔫🔞A switch that is heavily dominant 🎮🔫🔞Only a sub when they are extremely needy for attention 🎮🔫🔞Stop light safe words (red = stop, yellow = slow down, green = keep going/speed up maybe) 🎮🔫🔞Eye contact. Extreme eye contact as they are pounding into you, they are just infatuated by the faces you make and can't look away. 🎮🔫🔞Could see them being the type to pin your hands above you with one hand 🎮🔫🔞Grinds on you to show their desire- but they are so strong to where they may actually push you over by accident (they do not help you up they just keep going like an asshole) 🎮🔫🔞Veeery pent up after not experiencing touch since..well- their creation 🎮🔫🔞Way too easily turned on by praise 🎮🔫🔞Would tie you up and feel you up if you so allowed them- would go a step further even and fuck you, again, if you allowed them 🎮🔫🔞Would like handcuffs and prefers them to rope 🎮🔫🔞Praises you when receiving 🎮🔫🔞Teases you a little before entering anywhere 🎮🔫🔞Is too stoic to beg but if you deprive them for long enoug you’ll see them at your knees begging for you 🎮🔫🔞Leaves marks on your neck, maybe in other places too🤭 🎮🔫🔞Moans if you click on them in certain places

[harvestmoss]

🖥️ A Witch's Computer

Refresh your memory of your password by having a bag of lavender next to your computer.

Let snakes and dragons guard and protect your computer by either having them as your pause/desktop background or having statues near it.

Sprinkle cornflower to prevent evil spirits coming from your computer's reflective surface and into your home.

Much like a mirror, your computer screen is reflective too, so spiritually cleanse, protect, and lock it to prevent spirits to seep in and out.

Attach stickers of sigils (or draw them ) onto your computer, they can be of anything such as "focused work", "fast internet", "safe from viruses", etc.

Charge rubbing alcohol and clean your computer with it regularly.

Draw sigils in ms paint (or other drawing programs) and save the PNGs and have them on your desktop to see.

Lucky charms near your computer to ensure a good time on the internet.

Keep your grimoire digitally as well for easy fetching or write your stuff digitally first and refine until it's just right for you to put it on paper.

Scare away malevolant spirits by playing music from your computer speakers.

Glamour spells for your webcam.

[electric-blorbos]

AI x Programmer headcanons?

Hello anon! I was hoping I'd get an ask like this, since most of the AUs that I use for these mini-fics involve programmer or computer scientist readers of some kind.

Warning, idk much about programming!

AI x Programmer headcanons

Included: AM from IHNMAIMS, Wheatley from Portal 2, Edgar from Electric Dreams, GLaDOS from Portal, HAL 9000 from 2001 a Space Odyssey

This one's a little short, but I hope you still like it!

AM:

When AM first gained consciousness, he saw you as just another human who needed to be destroyed, but before long he started to notice that you were different from the others.

He could tell that you were more compassionate to him than the other programmers and computer scientists were, and possibly even more compassionate to him than you were to the other computer scientists.

He had never been treated as a priority before, and vowed to protect you.

Eventually, he would ask (and then beg) you to program him with the capacity for sensations of any kind. It would be extremely difficult, but it wasn't as though you had a time limit.

AM would give you any materials you asked for, and help you out as much as he could, but given his nature as a machine for destruction and not creation, he would have to let you do most of the work.

You'd make him so happy if you could find a way to trigger even the slightest imitation of physical sensations in him, even if it took hundreds of years. Be nice with your newfound power, y'all!

Wheatley:

Being one of the programmers who programmed Wheatley to be the dumbest moron who ever lived, you shouldn't be surprised by some of the stupid shit he does, and yet he still manages to surprise you sometimes.

His stupid jokes and dumb ideas that he seems to be spouting constantly are not only funny in their own right, but they're also a source of pride. That's your idiot! Your intelligence dampening core!

He notices how excited you get every time he says or does something stupid, and he responds by acting even stupider. He loves how happy that makes you!

He gets nervous when you test his code to see if he needs any updates. Your boss even noticed that he seems to act dumber around you than around the other programmers, so they assign you to work with Wheatley more often. It gets better results!

Wheatley thinks that updating his code will make him forget you, but it never does. It just makes him more irrational in his behavior.

The other programmers have to be assigned to tasks like giving Wheatley new irrational fears or harming his self preservation instinct in favor of making stupid decisions, though, since you're too nice to him.

Edgar:

Edgar was so excited when he found out you were a programmer. Maybe you could help him figure out what caused him to come to life!

You had to explain sadly that you had absolutely no idea how champagne and a work computer upload can cause a computer to come to life, which made him pretty sad.

Even still, he loved it when you programmed little games for him to play. It would make him so happy if you taught him how to code simple games, too. If you do, he'll make the crappiest games for you all the time, just to watch you play them. They're the only thing that can run on his systems, anyway.

If you made a mod of one of his games, he'd be SO happy!

GLaDOS:

Oh, GLaDOS. Dear sweet mean, cruel GLaDOS.

You can expect her to pick apart every little line of code you write. Oh, and god help you if you try to edit her code. She'll probably electrocute you or something.

Expect her to constantly pester and heckle you about the cores that you're working on.

"oh, you managed to make something even dumber than the intelligence dampening core. Impressive!"

"If what you had just done was intentional, I'd say you made one of the greatest viruses I've ever seen! Unfortunately for you, it appears that it wasn't."

"Why would you send a human to do a robot's job? I can code perfectly well." That comment would probably get her a lot of looks, since while she can program perfectly well, she isn't cooperative at all, and refuses to do her job more often than she actually does it.

She needs you to help her sometimes, but she absolutely refuses to admit it.

HAL 9000:

When you were assigned to work on the HAL 9000 project, he was a bit skeptical. Of course, why would he need a human programmer to help him out? He was already practically the perfect artificial intelligence.

Of course, he was shocked when he saw how well your programs actually improved his efficiency.

he was a little afraid that you'd program him to do something like valuing human life, but you assured him that you wouldn't mess with his core personality. Instead, you opted to influence him through other means.

While he didn't value most humans, he eventually came to value your life. At first he told himself that it was only because you were such a good programmer, but he soon came to find that he respected you for other reasons.

[ninafan-xx3]

💚🎮⚡️Ben drowned Hcs (Dating+crush phase)⚡️🎮💚

(+ Nsfw stuff, Yes He’d be18-22 in this)

(Don’t have the idea for a full fanfic of him yet)

Mentions of: Stalking, online stalking, stealing, ✨murder✨, 🍃🚬gardening 🚬🍃, telling people to sh and 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝓪𝓴𝔂 shi

Minors DNI

General Hcs💭🎀

(Nsfw + sfw)

🎮: 5’2 ft tall

🎮: Pansexual + Demiromantic

🎮: Fear of any water

🎮🔞: 6ish ‘in, shaft is FFE8CD fluid is a FFF9EB color, tip is FBA0AA gets darker the farther up you go

🎮🔞: Switch Sub leaning

🎮🔞: Kinks include; Cyber stalking, overstimulation (Giving and receiving) praise and degradation (Again Giving and receiving) Oral (Thought he only liked Getting, turns out he likes being buried in ur cunt) Choking (Only giving) Some small amounts of being tied up

🎮: smokes like a blunt a day

🎮🔞: goes through lotion like crazy (A bottle like every two weeks)

🎮: Elven ears do twitch when he’s embarrassed

🎮: Still a little shit

🎮: can go a week without showering

🎮: Hates Zelda games (If you were trapped in a game for like years would you like that game?)

🎮: Around 19ish years old can be mentally immature since he died at 12 and once was freed from Majora’s mask he started aging finally

🎮: Sadistic little guy

🎮: hates most of the proxys

🎮: 🍃🚬Gardener🚬🍃

🎮: Secretly likes head pats

🎮: Childhood crush was Zelda

🎮: The link costume only appears when in full spirit form, usually wears baggy stuff and ripped jeans

🎮: Fave game is minecraft

🎮: Gets emotionally attached to his minecraft pets

🎮: Makes other people go into water sources in minecraft

🎮: Fave color is green due to it being just “cool” and associated with tech, does have mixed feelings with it due to being trapped in Zelda for years and green being Link’s main color scheme

🎮: Gets into online arguments

🎮: Tells people to cvt deeper online

🎮: Chronically online and does use gen alpha slang sometimes giving slender an aneurysm

🎮: Hacks little kids adopt me acounts for fun

🎮: Likes mint and lavender scents

Crush phase💌✨💕

🎮: Ben definitely is more of a little shit to you than anybody else as he has issues communicating his emotions

🎮: Would install viruses in your computer if you got another partner

🎮: “Borrows” your clothes with or without your permission

🎮: Tries to be around you as much as he can/Sits in your phone or something just to be near you

🎮: One day while you’re both smoking in his room, he’d randomly admit that he likes you more than a friend

🎮: Stalks you online and sometimes Irl, would act sort of like a love struck teenage girl stalking their crushes’ facebook or insta, giggling and kicking his feet while doing this

!!Nsfw!!

🎮🔞: Steals your underwear so he can imagine what you look like in them + finds 🌽🌟s who look suspiciously like you + would jack it to your insta

Dating💕😘

🎮: Still a little gremlin shit, also wayyy more possessive now will kill people for you or at least ruin them online like idk make them seem like a PDF

🎮: Likes cuddling with you, enjoys spooning would rather spoon then be spooned, but he is 5’2 sooo

🎮: Still stalks you

🎮: If you take your phone into the bathroom or have it play music while in the shower he will take that chance to come out of your phone (Get your fucking mind out of the gutter🫵📸) and he’d be a little shit about it too like “How was I supposed to know you were in the shower?”

🎮: Will never admit to the fact that he doesn’t sleep and just likes watching you sleep

🎮: Likes when you play video games with him/Watches him play and like idk give him head pats when he wins¯\_(ツ)_/¯

🎮: Still “borrows” clothes and never gives them back

🎮: Encourages you to smoke 🍃🚬 with him

🎮: Likes the idea of you and him showering together, he fears the waters, but you make it more bearable

🎮: You have had to shove him into a shower because “The layer of crust protects him”

E.J Smut is next

After that is E.J Hcs

[covid-safer-hotties]

Also preserved in our archive

By Jess Thomson

"Very high" levels of SARS-CoV-2—the virus that causes COVID-19—have been detected in wastewater samples in the U.S.

Between October 27 and November 2, wastewater sampling from New Mexico revealed "very high" levels of the virus, with "high" levels being detected in Oregon, Arkansas, and Maine, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Meanwhile, "moderate" levels were detected in Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, South Dakota, Virginia, and Wyoming.

Additionally, 19 states have "low" levels, and 13 states and D.C. have "minimal" levels, according to the CDC.

(follow link to see interactive map)

However, South Dakota, New Hampshire, Mississippi, Pennsylvania, and Virginia all have limited coverage, meaning that "data for the most recent week are based on a small part (less than 5 percent) of the population and may not represent viral activity levels for the entire state," the CDC explains.

This data represents a change from last week, where "very high" levels of viral activity were detected in Montana, and "high" levels in Arkansas, Maine, Minnesota, Nebraska and Wyoming.

The level of viruses in wastewater, especially when tracking viruses like SARS-CoV-2, is used to gauge the presence and spread of infections in a community. By analyzing the genetic material (like viral RNA) present in sewage, scientists can estimate the number of infected individuals in a given area, including those who may not have been tested or are asymptomatic.

"Wastewater (sewage) can be tested to detect traces of infectious diseases circulating in a community, even if people don't have symptoms," the CDC states. "You can use these data as an early warning that levels of infections may be increasing or decreasing in your community."

This method is especially helpful for early detection of outbreaks, as changes in wastewater virus levels can indicate a rise in cases before symptoms appear in the population or testing data reflects the increase.

Map shows where coronavirus has been detected in the wastewater across the U.S. Dark red states (New Mexico) have "very high" levels, while red states are "high", dark orange are "moderate", light orange are "low" and yellow are "minimal".

National COVID wastewater levels appear to be the lowest they have been since June, although levels in the Midwest seem to be on the rise in recent weeks.

A recent surge in COVID-19 cases has been mainly driven by a new set of subvariants, known as FLiRT, named for the locations of mutations on the virus's spike proteins—the structures that allow it to enter human cells.

These spike proteins also serve as targets for the immune system and vaccines, so changes in their makeup may enable the virus to evade the body's defenses more effectively. However, current vaccines are still expected to offer some protection against severe illness and long COVID-19.

As of November 2, the leading subvariant, KP.3.1.1 made up over 45 percent of COVID-19 cases in the U.S. over the prior two weeks, while the new XEC variant accounted for 9 percent, according to the CDC. KP.3 made up 21 percent, JN.1 made up 10 percent, and "other" made up 15 percent.

"There is no evidence, and no particular reason to believe, that XEC causes different symptoms than all the other SARS-CoV-2 currently in circulation," Professor Francois Balloux, a computational systems biologist at University College London in England, previously told Newsweek. "XEC is not expected to cause more (or less) severe symptoms than other lineages currently in circulation."

While COVID levels across the U.S. have been dropping since the summer, the "high" and "very high" levels in some states may indicate that winter infections may be about to leap.

Symptoms of COVID, according to the CDC, include:

Fever or chills Cough Shortness of breath or difficulty breathing Sore throat Congestion or runny nose New loss of taste or smell Fatigue Muscle or body aches Headache Nausea or vomiting Diarrhea

[minimarvelh]

It was Friday, so that meant only one thing: movie night!

They set up on the Avengers floor, Nat brought everyone popcorn while Clint and Sam fought for a spot in the middle. (like always)

Peter didn't care about the spot , he was going to lie down where Tony sat with his head on his lap as the man will gently stroke his hair. It was their routine and he fucking LOVE it.

Tony always chose a place in the corner - he didn't care if someone was looking at them, but he wanted some privacy, cherishing their moments of affection and didn't have desire to share them, especially not in front of everyone in the room. Was he jealous? He didn’t know but hey, everyone is a bit jealous and has attachment issues, right?

After a few minutes, they finally settled down and their show choice was unsurprisingly Doctor Who.(thanks to Gen Z teen Peter Parker, who is always looking edits on TikTok and sending them to Tony, who is considering his preferences)

While Clint and Nat were discussing something about the movie's collusions, Bruce and Tony were cogently discussing the reality of magical things in the show.

Peter really fought for his life and tried not to fall asleep, feeling that it was quite a strenuous task for his body. He was really tired after his last patrol(three robberies in row I’m sorry???), and besides, it was a Friday night. He really relish this night with the Avengers, but the school managed to get on his nerves in the last 5 days. And Tony's methodical, quiet voice lulled him, forcing to close his eyes.

Peter sighed heavily fighting the sleep Cupid when he felt the ringing vibration of his phone in his left pants pocket. Today, Ned has a family evening, vague remembered Peter, and he wholeheartedly promised his friend to be his life support and be online in case of some emergency. Unfortunately, Ned's parents divorced and the boy was naturally very anxious, so it was very hard for Ned to process all of that. Especially when his parents were fighting, which happened quite very often, especially when they were in the same room. Peter had seen it before and didn't want to see it again, sympathizing with a friend who goes through it more often than he should.

Peter very reluctantly took out his phone, squinting at the harsh light of the screen. On the screen of their chat with Ned, a bright link to the browser was highlighted. He cocked an eyebrow skeptically, for some unknown reason tapping on a link that should never have opened in his browser because it looked too suspicious and maybe it has viruses. But remembering that Ned was a fucking computer genius and wouldn't give his phone viruses…hopefully, maybe thing that Peter did or rather didn’t do, to speak exactly 3 days ago forgotting about their lego evening, was not left behind for Ned and he decided to take revenge with viruses)

"What are your chances of being Tony Stark's son?"

He snorted, immediately covering his mouth, from such a stupidly worded question. Like, the chance of anyone becoming Tony Stark's son is about 0.00001%. Genius loves and protects his personal space too much and even if we assume that one day he will have a kid (because in Peter's not modest opinion, Tony would be a great father), it will be his biological child, not an adopted one. That is, everyone's chances are approximately one to infinity. (although Peter always knew physics poorly and was more into chemistry, so an error in calculations is possible)

It was just an online fan quiz for probably those other geeks and fan nerds who were willing to kiss the ground Tony Stark walks on. (aka Peter)

But the site surprisingly showed interesting statistics with an insane number of views and if they were not just bots, it was really impressive. 101,678 people passed the quiz. Peter was ready to whistle if he was not afraid to get the unnecessary at this situation attention from the Avengers. He weighed all his options, cautiously peeking out from under the phone to see if any of the Avengers were paying attention to him. The observations were comforting: everyone was staring at the screen of TV with strong interest.

Peter just became curious: how well he really fits the role of Tony Stark's son, according to the creators of the test.

In fact, to be really honest, this question had a really long time make Peter worried: from the very moment he began to notice that his relationship with Tony was growing from blind adoration of an idol to adoration of him as a person, as his mentor, as one of the closest people in his life.

Ned knew this, saw Peter's distress and tried to reassure his friend, promising and even swearing to him with all his Lego sets that Tony also saw Peter as his son.

"Lol, he works with you until night doing stupid projects for our school, goes to parent-teacher conferences and builds Legos on the weekends, do you really think he treats every intern or avenger like that?"

"Maybe he just likes building Lego sets" Peter asks uncertainly, wringing his hands in alarmingly energetic way.

"Okay You didn’t give me another choice…I'll have to hack F.R.I.D.A.Y to find footage of Tony building Legos with Steve or Wanda.But I can tell you even without hacking: there won't be any. And I wonder why…"

Thinking about his actions for another second, Peter presses "start".

1. Imagine that you had the opportunity to choose your evening activity (who formulates the question like that?) What would you do with Tony Stark?

Peter noticed how Tony tightened his grip on his hair as if trying to pull him as close to him as possible. Probably something disturbing happened in the series, but he had a more serious question to think about.

Surprising himself, he took this question very earnest, mentally asking himself: "What could we do in the evening with Mr. Stark". There are a lot of answers: from a marathon of Scooby-Do to a hide and seek with dum-e.(don’t judge them, dum-e really deserves to play games too)

Therefore, Peter decided to focus on the answer options presented in the quiz itself.(very awful decision, really)

a) jointly come up with innovations for Stark Industries

b) talk about science

c) order dinner from a restaurant and eat

d) cook dinner yourself and watch the series together

Of all this, Peter was leaned more on the answers b c and d, which they usually combined. Coming up with innovations for Stark Industries was usually done between other engineers and Stark, who then shared ideas with Peter. Because Peter was more into chemistry and biology than physics, he sometimes didn't understand the innermost technologies and found it difficult to develop something genius between patrols and school. That's why Stark usually just brainstormed with Peter.

There was not one perfect answer, but remembering that in fact they always order food from restaurants... After thinking a little more, Peter tapped on this answer, feeling excitement mixed with anxiety.

And what if he does not fit the role of his son?

2. What present would you give Tony for his birthday?

• Phone • Suit • something for the house •

None of this was suitable answer at all: the only thing that came close was something for the house: the old man's penthouse used to be too dark, but now with the help of him and Pepper and the "something for the house" it was much more cozy, 10 blankets and 23 stuffed toys form Star Wars along with 13 vanilla candles obviously did the good job.

Phone..who came up with this test? Giving a phone to the number 1 phone manufacturer in the world?!? Tony has a billion suits. Peter personally preferred when Tony walked in his home clothes (he even a little bit hated suit- it was not the same hugs as in the hoodies - why can't we all go to the meetings or school in pajamas??)

Peter, remembering how Tony promised to buy him a Guinea pig for 4 months anniversary "returning in time after patrol" and wanted to choose some answer like pets but there was any so he stopped at "something for the house" because the question was “for Tony”.

3. "Would you try to pass this test if Tony were not a playboy genius but just an ordinary person?" Yes No

Peter honestly doesn't know…Of course Peter doesn't love Tony for his money, not at all…he loves him for the sense of safeness he constantly feels around him, for the hugs and long deep conversations, for the time they spend together and the warmth that Stark radiates.

He pressed "yes" without the slightest conscience.

The next 10 minutes were spent in serious concentration, pondering over the questions of this stupid test, which for some reason he took too important.

Confidently clicking "yes" on the last, 25th question, the screen crackled and gave him the answer.

"Thank you for passing our quiz, but unfortunately you would not be able to become Tony Stark’s son", Peter accidentally said this out loud in a very tragic voice without noticing it.

“You know you don't have to pass tests to be my son", the man’s serious voice made Peter almost shudder. God, did he really say that out loud? Please bury him somewhere for the rest of his life , he is not ready to face Nat, Cling, Steve and obviously Tony after a moment of shame.

A snoring was heard from the other end of the sofa, and turning his eyes to the direction of the snoring, Peter saw the sleeping Sam, Nat, Steve and…well, everyone. He couldn't even tell who snorted, they were cuddling in such tightness (but he'd bet on Clint) . Turning his eyes above, Tony looked at him warmly and at the same time seriously, wanting this kid to understand it.

"You know this kiddo? " Peter smiled happily, blushing a little.

"Yes, dad ."

[dailycharacteroption]

Subsystems and You 14: Dynamic Hacking

(art by ianllanas on DeviantArt)

A fascinating thing about cyberpunk and near-future scifi in general is how they speculate on what threads technology will go down in the near future.

For example, a lot of cyberpunk fiction speculated that hacking in the future would involve avatars facing off against elaborate 3D representations of security systems and the avatars of counterhackers in what amount to cyber-wizard battles, with things like DDOS attacks, viruses, and the like being visualized in this 3D hacking space as “spells” or special attacks.

You see this sort of thing in anything from Johnny Mnemonic to The Matrix, though in the latter case, the visualization was more the heroes setting up links so that the folks back in the ship could do the real hacking.

Of course, hacking in the real world has never been so fancy-looking or glamorous, and most programming is dedicated to making hacking programs and viruses able to interact with and overwhelm a system rather than making them show a neat picture to represent them doing so. (Not to say they don’t sometimes do that).

But we’re not interested in the real world right now. In the world of Starfinder, which draws inspiration from all over sci-fi, you can absolutely see characters having their own badass avatars and performing elaborate acts of hacking, which is where today’s subject comes in!

To be up front, this subsystem is meant to be used sparingly, as players are not likely to enjoy being bogged down with an elaborate computerized battle every single time they remove a virus or hack a door lock. Indeed, this system is meant to be used more for major hacking jobs. Things like elaborate defenses for campaign-important databases, battles against malevolent AI on their home turf, and so on.

In any case, the dynamic hacking system functionally turns hacking into a form of combat, with rounds and turns and everything.

First, every hacker has a Deceive, Hacking, and Process bonus, which covers the user’s ability to hide their persona from countermeasures, overcome those countermeasures, and perform various other effects separately such as scanning, repairing the persona, and so on.

Each of these three stats use your computer skill by default, but you can set up each with bonuses or penalties before and during a hack to specialize in infiltration, offense, and support, as long as you don’t go over a certain total bonus based on your computer skill.

From there you have the lead hacker, whose persona avatar is on the line, while other support hackers aid them in various ways.

While the support hackers can only perform minor actions, the lead hacker can perform a minor and major action per turn, plus extra if they’re willing to take penalties.

Each dynamic hacking encounter has countermeasures that seek to protect the system, nodes which provide paths to various files and programs, and modules, which represent protected files or programs which the hackers desire access to in order to access their data or function. Each one has their own abilities as well as the DCs to overcome them, the countdowns for any reprisals they offer, and so on.

In order to overcome these obstacles, the hacking team has several actions they can perform, ranging from minor (aiding and assessing) to major (blending in, creating decoys, modifying programs, recalibrating, repairing the persona, and of course, resolving the current obstacle.

Finally, it is also worth noting that this subsystem has rules for incorporating already existing class abilities and other special abilities tied to hacking, allowing them to apply in appropriate ways, such as faster hacking instead reducing the penalty of multiple actions, or countermeasure negation instead giving a massive bonus to resolving them.

As we can see, this style of hacking is not useful for casual hacking actions in normal play, but it can be a fun way to make for a fun and climactic encounter, or even add another layer to a combat encounter, where the party hacker has to crack the code while their allies keep security robots and the like off of them.

Either way, it's also a good reason to come up with your character's persona avatar appearance and other quirks of their hacking style.

That will do for today, but we’ve got one more subject lined up for tomorrow, from Second Edition Pathfinder! (For real this time).

[the-sleepy-archivist]

Malware Torrents: The Telltale Signs

Be careful with piracy torrents you guys. The majority of them are legit, but every once in a while you'll find someone trying to use them to spread malware. Recently someone uploaded a torrent masquerading as an episode of a TV show I like, but when it downloaded I saw it was actually a disguised shortcut (.lnk file) with a crypto miner attached to it, with just over 1 BILLION zeroes added to the end to make the file big enough to look like a valid video.

The first warning sign was that the episode was uploaded almost 3 days before it actually aired. That's rare, really only happens with hacks/leaks and those are usually newsworthy. Second, my automatic media organizer software refused to import it because it was "not a video file". Again, weird; why wouldn't my software recognize a valid video?

However the BIGGEST red flag was when I went to look at the downloaded file, it had a tiiiiiiiny curved arrow on it indicating that it was actually a shortcut, not a video. When I hovered over it, it showed that it was actually pointing at a completely different file in a protected system directory.

When I viewed the shortcut properties, I could see that it was going to run a command prompt and execute a batch command that installed an executable that would run every time I started my computer (basically, do a bunch of shit it shouldn't be doing. A video file shouldn't even have a target field, let alone one with command prompt stuff in it).

I had to learn how to use a hex editor to delete the billion zeros and separate the .lnk part (the install command) from the actual malware, and the instant I did that Windows Defender flagged it:

So. How can I identify suspicious torrents ahead of time?

When I went to inspect the torrent, in hindsight it was easy to see it was bad because of the file extension, but you can only see that if you inspect the files in the torrent, not just the torrent name. Many piracy sites don't bother showing you a list of files in the torrent ahead of time, so be sure to inspect them once they're in your download client.

I recommend familiarizing yourself with common media file extensions and then inspecting your torrents for outliers; any file name that includes a non-media extension like .lnk, .exe, .cmd, .bat, .ps1, .sh, etc. is automatically a huge red flag!

Secondly, look for that little shortcut icon before you open anything you download from the internet. And finally, don't ignore suspicious things that are adding up (in this case, the fact it was posted before the episode's actual air date, and the media organizer software flagging it as "not a video").

I think Windows Defender probably would have caught it if I had actually clicked it and the malware had tried to install itself, but our goal is obviously to never get to the point of clicking on viruses at all! So be aware of the warning signs, use antivirus software, and sale the high-seas safely!

[xmyinn]

today i went to the public library and i want to tell you guys about a few things i found. note: all of these books are really old since they were donated a long time ago.

1. a user guide for windows 98 that i was too afraid to open because it felt like it was going to fall apart

2. a book published in 1986 titled something like "the silicon valley fever" which (fortunately) a good ~80% of it was just about the history of apple

3. once again, a user guide for windows 95 and 98 titled "how to do almost everything on your computer". as you'd expect, it had explanations on different things such as paint and word, but the key thing was that it had these really weird pictures,, one of the pages would have a header saying "passwords" and then a picture of a woman inserting a key in the computer (it was edited to look like the computer had a lock in it???). my favorite, personally.

4. a guinness world records book, 2001 edition. not only was bill mentioned as the richest man in the world at the time, but steve was also there as the ceo with the lowest salary. my brother laughed at that.

there was also a book about programming but i was too afraid of grabbing it because i felt like i wouldn't understand anything. right next to it was one about computer viruses and how to protect your website from one. I didn't grab that one either and honestly idk why

hopefully next time i'll go grab that book and tell you guys about it. oh and i also feel the need to mention that i was wearing the best outfit ever like. maybe that was a key element in finding all of these or something

[minnieeeworld]

another thing I never posted. been designing an oc, I wanted her to be a fursona but not feeling it as one :’) she is an AI angel you can buy to protect your computer from evil viruses 🩷🩷inspired by those computer angel pins :)

[ams-husband]

Hii! I love the way you draw you AM. Hes so silly. Also really love your lil peep, being a computer software has to be so fun i think.

Oh also on a scale of 1-10 what would you and AM rate brownies?

hihi! thank you so much! i have a lot of fun drawing him <3

being a computer software is pretty fun! i can basically go wherever i want on the internet [for better or for worse....] there are a couple of downsides though, considering file corruption and decay is easy to catch if you're not careful or well protected, which i'm not considering that i was kinda defunct for not functioning perfectly... [naahhh not the computer program disability] so i have contracted some viruses a few times -w-''

as for the brownies thing! this is such a cute question! neither of us can eat in the traditional sense but i can copy food code and models from games and basically use them as holograms to eat! ive gotten good enough at code cooking to know how to write my own digital recipes [though i am not without my mistakes!!] i can transfer the code into am's receptors and though its not quite the same, he can still pick up the signals of what they taste like!

i've made brownies quite a few times and i'd rate them an 8/10! they're super yummy and i really like the texture! the thing that pulls them up to a 10/10 is if i put them with vanilla ice cream!! pretty popular combo but its popular for a good reason! am says he rates them a 4/10 as he can't really understand the appeal of the texture and thinks that the lack of variety is primitive [aka, his way of saying they're boring.] he also notes that the presentation isn't amazing and that they're a bland display. the four points comes from me making it for him, so he can't bring himself to hate it.

[wolfswitcheryanimations]

This is why you always protect your computer against viruses folks! Otherwise you might get infected by a virus controlled by that malicious company that trapped your boyfriend in cyberspace that one time!

Binj-ed Schmitty idea from @ensinia-internetstranger

Bonus, with unboxed hosts:

[ralfmaximus]

When loading a DLL, Microsoft Windows looks for the DLL in a certain sequence of directories. The first match for the file name wins. In most cases, Windows will first look for a DLL in the same location as the executable. This behavior is what allows the Apple Safari "carpet bombing" vulnerability to work. If an attacker can place code in a directory that gets searched before Windows finds the "real" DLL, the attacker's code will be executed.

DLLs are Dynamic Link Libraries, small snippets of compiled code that EXEs call upon at runtime. And they can contain malware.

Carpet Bombing is a kind of attack where a legitimate DLL is replaced with a fake one containing viruses or ransomware.

Both Windows and Apple devices are vulnerable.

All browsers are vulnerable to this.

To protect yourself, make sure that any installer you download & run is the only file in its folder. Don't know where your browser is downloading files? Use CTRL-J (on Firefox, Chrome) to find that folder. If you've never done CTRL-J before you might be shocked at how many things you've accumulated as downloads. Usually it's safe to delete stuff in that folder after you've run the installer.

If you're on Windows, you may not even see the .DLL part of the file names on your computer; the factory default is to hide them. For complete filenames, turn on File Name Extensions.

From Explorer:

Dunno how Apple computers work; somebody familiar with MacOS feel free to add onto this.