#Systems override detected

[lucabyte]

On autonomy, and what it means to be Obliged to Help.

Bonus:

[harmonyrae]

Yes, Boss

AN: Just felt like writing, very little editing, based on a concept @comatosebunny09 (ily btw) has written (working for Sylus). Expect angst & devastation. 18+ MDNI just in case I write some dark shit.

"You bastard! You can't do this!"

Your pleas were useless, your partner - ex-partner now - had made up his mind. He'd taken this job on purpose, to get rid of you. How could you have missed the signs? His disinterest in your planning. His constant nagging about the job offer you'd "hastily" declined. This was how he'll get the job. By feeding you to the beast of the N109 Zone, he proves himself.

"Sorry, sweetheart. I tried to change your mind, but you've never listened to reason."

"All this for a quick buck? And the shallow promise of job security?"

He finally pries the flash drive out of your hand, the handcuffs tightening as you struggle. He holds it up, his haughty grin makes you sick.

"After I deliver Sylus's coding system? I'm pretty sure Ever will keep me around for a long while."

Alarms blare, your override has been detected. The handcuffs cut off circulation, but you don't stop fighting. Your heart beats wildly in your chest, your eyes watering.

"When I find you, I'll -"

"You and I both know you won't be walking out of this. Not once Sylus finds you."

He stands, leaving you writhing on the floor against your restraints. He kicks your gun away and stoops to pick up his own. He waves as he walks backward towards the exit. There's no point in begging.

As his figure fades, you try once more to free yourself. As the cuffs dig deeper, you cry out and collapse. The cool cement floor against your cheek is a welcomed reprieve. But your moment of peace is quickly interrupted.

Two sets of black boots sprint into view. You close your eyes, waiting for the gunshot that never comes. When you open your eyes again, a pair of dress shoes approaches. You instinctively struggle, which only makes you groan in pain. You crane your neck to look up at the shadowy figure. The gun in his hand twitches at his side.

"What do you want to do with her, boss?"

The voice was far too chipper, almost eager. You wince as the figure crouches. His calloused fingers grab your chin, forcing you to look up at him. Through the darkness, all you see is a faint red glow. Your mind races as you feel a presence probing at the walls of your memory. Just as the pressure becomes unbearable, it stops, and the man releases you.

"Search her and put her in a room."

His voice is dark and unyielding. His henchmen help you stand and usher you down the hall to an elevator. As it ascends, you finally reach your limit. Your body goes limp, and the men holding you up stumble as the try to catch you.

As everything fades to black, you swear you can hear his voice again.

"Careful, this one has claws."

It must have been hours since you passed out in that elevator. When you wake up you're alone in a room, a rather ornate one in fact. A plush comforter beneath you, pillows so soft your neck has finally learned to relax. Sitting up, you take a moment to find your center. You're in an unfamiliar room, in new clothes, with no weapons. Fuck.

Click

The door knob turns and sends a jolt of panic through you. Standing beside the bed, you search for anything that could be a weapon. Settling on the lamp, you yank the plug free from the outlet and wield it like a sword. As the door swings open, that faint red glow appears again. Your mind goes numb and the lamp shatters at your feet. Just as your about to fall, arms wrap around you.

"You really are stubborn aren't you?"

That deep, rich voice from before, he's here. Who is he? What is he doing to your mind? And more importantly, why are you still alive?

He directs you to the edge of the bed and sits you down. The mattress dips beside you as he sits. You hesitate before looking over at him, afraid you'll walk into some kind of trap. But instead of a trap, you're greeted by crimson eyes that are no longer glowing. The man before you is stoic, broad shoulders, firm jaw, devastatingly handsome by all accounts. If you weren't worried about dying, you'd be intrigued.

"Why am I here?"

He chuckles, low and almost forced.

"You're the one who broke in, remember?"

You tense, you bring your knees to your chest and shift back on the bed away from him. Your arms coil around your legs and you stare.

"Why am I alive then?" You mumble, bracing for the answer.

"Because you impressed me."

Your mouth falls open and he laughs, more genuine this time.

"And... I'm giving you a chance to fix your mistake. You work for me now. Until you get my coding system back. And wipe all traces of it from Ever's database."

"I work... for you? So you're...?"

"Sylus."

"And you expect me to what? Walk into Ever's building and yoink your shit back? How do you expect me to do that?"

"That's for you to figure out, kitten."

The nickname takes you by surprise. Your eyes widen, partially to rebuke his audacity and partially because you're not sure you hate it.

"If you could bypass my security systems, I'm sure you can do it. Oh, and you'll be upgrading that. Seems it isn't so impenetrable after all."

Get his coding system back, destroy all traces in Ever's database, upgrade his whole security system... This could take weeks. This is why you freelanced, you hated being told what to do.

"You'll live here, at the Onychinus base, until further notice. I sent Luke and Kieran to your apartment to fetch your belongings. Until they get back, there's clothes in the closet. I'll provide you with a new phone and gun."

A live in job. Fantastic. You don't even question the fact he knows where you live. As you open your mouth to protest, Sylus swiftly stands and strides to the door.

"I leave for a business deal in 25 minutes. Since Luke and Kieran are busy, you're my plus one. Change if you want, just be ready when I come back."

"I really don't have a say in this, huh?"

Sylus turns and leans against the door frame, tucking his hands in his pockets. His smirk is mischievous, but there's a danger to it nonetheless.

"Your other option is I kill you. What would you prefer?"

You blood runs cold and you bite your lip until you taste blood. Guess this is your life now. Working for the leader of Onychinus until you can figure out how to infiltrate Ever's computer science department. But this new arrangement won't change the fact when you find your ex-partner, he'll suffer in every way imaginable.

𝕿𝖆𝖌𝖑𝖎𝖘𝖙: @trishiepo0 @not-so-quite-human @kitsunetori @babyx91 @libriomancer @lilyadora @crowskitten22 @letharue @silverbrain @alastor-simp @drama-trauma @0tterteeth @mysticcollectionvoid @godzillaglitter @godoffuckedupcats @klmpun @ariallaisawesome @spidy-spider01 @m00nchildwrites @plsdonttakemyname @hauntedbysmutm0 @withering-dream @lostwingz2236 @simpfortheseven @bubbleteakittyy @freddy-2002-blog @plsdonttakemyname @sylus-hunter

[mostlysignssomeportents]

AI’s “human in the loop” isn’t

I'll be in TUCSON, AZ from November 8-10: I'm the GUEST OF HONOR at the TUSCON SCIENCE FICTION CONVENTION.

AI's ability to make – or assist with – important decisions is fraught: on the one hand, AI can often classify things very well, at a speed and scale that outstrips the ability of any reasonably resourced group of humans. On the other hand, AI is sometimes very wrong, in ways that can be terribly harmful.

Bureaucracies and the AI pitchmen who hope to sell them algorithms are very excited about the cost-savings they could realize if algorithms could be turned loose on thorny, labor-intensive processes. Some of these are relatively low-stakes and make for an easy call: Brewster Kahle recently told me about the Internet Archive's project to scan a ton of journals on microfiche they bought as a library discard. It's pretty easy to have a high-res scanner auto-detect the positions of each page on the fiche and to run the text through OCR, but a human would still need to go through all those pages, marking the first and last page of each journal and identifying the table of contents and indexing it to the scanned pages. This is something AI apparently does very well, and instead of scrolling through endless pages, the Archive's human operator now just checks whether the first/last/index pages the AI identified are the right ones. A project that could have taken years is being tackled with never-seen swiftness.

The operator checking those fiche indices is something AI people like to call a "human in the loop" – a human operator who assesses each judgment made by the AI and overrides it should the AI have made a mistake. "Humans in the loop" present a tantalizing solution to algorithmic misfires, bias, and unexpected errors, and so "we'll put a human in the loop" is the cure-all response to any objection to putting an imperfect AI in charge of a high-stakes application.

But it's not just AIs that are imperfect. Humans are wildly imperfect, and one thing they turn out to be very bad at is supervising AIs. In a 2022 paper for Computer Law & Security Review, the mathematician and public policy expert Ben Green investigates the empirical limits on human oversight of algorithms:

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3921216

Green situates public sector algorithms as the latest salvo in an age-old battle in public enforcement. Bureaucracies have two conflicting, irreconcilable imperatives: on the one hand, they want to be fair, and treat everyone the same. On the other hand, they want to exercise discretion, and take account of individual circumstances when administering justice. There's no way to do both of these things at the same time, obviously.

But algorithmic decision tools, overseen by humans, seem to hold out the possibility of doing the impossible and having both objective fairness and subjective discretion. Because it is grounded in computable mathematics, an algorithm is said to be "objective": given two equivalent reports of a parent who may be neglectful, the algorithm will make the same recommendation as to whether to take their children away. But because those recommendations are then reviewed by a human in the loop, there's a chance to take account of special circumstances that the algorithm missed. Finally, a cake that can be both had, and eaten!

For the paper, Green reviewed a long list of policies – local, national, and supra-national – for putting humans in the loop and found several common ways of mandating human oversight of AI.

First, policies specify that algorithms must have human oversight. Many jurisdictions set out long lists of decisions that must be reviewed by human beings, banning "fire and forget" systems that chug along in the background, blithely making consequential decisions without anyone ever reviewing them.

Second, policies specify that humans can exercise discretion when they override the AI. They aren't just there to catch instances in which the AI misinterprets a rule, but rather to apply human judgment to the rules' applications.

Next, policies require human oversight to be "meaningful" – to be more than a rubber stamp. For high-stakes decisions, a human has to do a thorough review of the AI's inputs and output before greenlighting it.

Finally, policies specify that humans can override the AI. This is key: we've all encountered instances in which "computer says no" and the hapless person operating the computer just shrugs their shoulders apologetically. Nothing I can do, sorry!

All of this sounds good, but unfortunately, it doesn't work. The question of how humans in the loop actually behave has been thoroughly studied, published in peer-reviewed, reputable journals, and replicated by other researchers. The measures for using humans to prevent algorithmic harms represent theories, and those theories are testable, and they have been tested, and they are wrong.

For example, people (including experts) are highly susceptible to "automation bias." They defer to automated systems, even when those systems produce outputs that conflict with their own expert experience and knowledge. A study of London cops found that they "overwhelmingly overestimated the credibility" of facial recognition and assessed its accuracy at 300% better than its actual performance.

Experts who are put in charge of overseeing an automated system get out of practice, because they no longer engage in the routine steps that lead up to the conclusion. Presented with conclusions, rather than problems to solve, experts lose the facility and familiarity with how all the factors that need to be weighed to produce a conclusion fit together. Far from being the easiest step of coming to a decision, reviewing the final step of that decision without doing the underlying work can be much harder to do reliably.

Worse: when algorithms are made "transparent" by presenting their chain of reasoning to expert reviewers, those reviewers become more deferential to the algorithm's conclusion, not less – after all, now the expert has to review not just one final conclusion, but several sub-conclusions.

Even worse: when humans do exercise discretion to override an algorithm, it's often to inject the very bias that the algorithm is there to prevent. Sure, the algorithm might give the same recommendation about two similar parents who are facing having their children taken away, but the judge who reviews the recommendations is more likely to override it for a white parent than for a Black one.

Humans in the loop experience "a diminished sense of control, responsibility, and moral agency." That means that they feel less able to override an algorithm – and they feel less morally culpable when they sit by and let the algorithm do its thing.

All of these effects are persistent even when people know about them, are trained to avoid them, and are given explicit instructions to do so. Remember, the whole reason to introduce AI is because of human imperfection. Designing an AI to correct human imperfection that only works when its human overseer is perfect produces predictably bad outcomes.

As Green writes, putting an AI in charge of a high-stakes decision, and using humans in the loop to prevent its harms, produces a "perverse effect": "alleviating scrutiny of government algorithms without actually addressing the underlying concerns." The human in the loop creates "a false sense of security" that sees algorithms deployed for high-stakes domains, and it shifts the responsibility for algorithmic failures to the human, creating what Dan Davies calls an "accountability sink":

https://profilebooks.com/work/the-unaccountability-machine/

The human in the loop is a false promise, a "salve that enables governments to obtain the benefits of algorithms without incurring the associated harms."

So why are we still talking about how AI is going to replace government and corporate bureaucracies, making decisions at machine speed, overseen by humans in the loop?

Well, what if the accountability sink is a feature and not a bug. What if governments, under enormous pressure to cut costs, figure out how to also cut corners, at the expense of people with very little social capital, and blame it all on human operators? The operators become, in the phrase of Madeleine Clare Elish, "moral crumple zones":

https://estsjournal.org/index.php/ests/article/view/260

As Green writes:

The emphasis on human oversight as a protective mechanism allows governments and vendors to have it both ways: they can promote an algorithm by proclaiming how its capabilities exceed those of humans, while simultaneously defending the algorithm and those responsible for it from scrutiny by pointing to the security (supposedly) provided by human oversight.

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/2024/10/30/a-neck-in-a-noose/#is-also-a-human-in-the-loop

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en ==

[hawkinasock]

haiii pls spill abt ur chimera yq ideas... i have my own (https://www.tumblr.com/waterfrontcomplex/758520749229277184/dunmeshi-chapter-37ep-17-spoilers-look?source=share)

i also drew my own idea of him (swallow + abundant deer)

Yes ofc!! I'm so happy that someone else has had this idea too, it has so much potential. I want to see all the chimera Yanqings.

Mine looks like this. I actually didn't have a design drawn out for him initially, so I had to whip something up quickly. That's why it took me so long to answer </3

Originally, he had a more swallow-based design.

I still really like it, but I changed the lore a lot, so I made the new one, the current au, which goes something like this:

(CW for blatant body horror, descriptions of digestion, as well as brief details regarding real world animal death)

Here's my idea. Like most aeons, Lan The Hunt has emanators that carry out their will. One of these emanator's is currently unnamed and without a solid design yet. It has an animalistic appearance in my head. Imagine Feixiao's inner beast, or the Mourning Aix from WuWa. That'll give you the best reference.

It travels the cosmos, tracking down and eliminating the Abundance. it does this with the use of extremely powerful olfactory cells. Even with galaxies separating them, the emanator can detect abominations through smell alone, and when it finds one, it will consume it to ensure it cannot possibly regenerate.

Suffice to say, it's very good at its job, and Yanqing, unfortunately, is not an exception to their heightened senses. Surprisingly to no one, Abundance Yanqing coexists with this au, and he is immediately recognized as an abomination when the emanator is in proximity of the Luofu. Yanqing is unaware of his status as an spawn of Yaoshi, so when the devourer of monsters (working title) visits the Luofu, he never would have expected it to turn its eyes onto him.

To say the Luofu is thrown into chaos when one of Lan's emanator's eats a Liuetenant of The Hunt is an understatement. The emanator insists no mistake has been made and it is justified through Lan's divine will. It actually shifts the blame onto Jing Yuan for assigning an abomination as his Lieutenant in the first place, citing incompetence on his part. Kind of a shitty thing to do after eating the man's son but okay...

Not long after, the emanator starts to... change. It begins experiencing sudden and visible signs of mara: bouts of aggression, delirium, and eventually flora and fungus sprouting from its flesh. It's incorrectly concluded that Yanqing's death was a result of early unset mara in the emanator, and Jing Yuan decides the emanator has to be killed via decapitation, such is their duty as followers of The Hunt.

You can probably guess where this is going.

So, you know how bones are capable of fusing together or into other objects during the healing process? Like that deer that was shot by an arrow and the ribcage actually fused itself with the arrow? That's essentially how chimera Yanqing is born.

As an abomination, Yanqing is capable of postmortem regeneration, and as an abomination that is particularly favored by Yaoshi (in my delusional mind) his regeneration capabilities far exceed that of the average denizen, and one this emanator's digestive system was not capable of overriding.

Much like how that deer bone fused with the arrow, Yanqing's body begins the process of fusing back together after partial consumption, and during that process, he inadvertently fuses with the emanator's body, which triggered those mara symptoms. Additionally, because there had also been remains of other denizens in the emanator's stomach, they were unintentionally included in the revitalization process. This, in the end, gave the chimera's body the claws of a Borisin, the wings of a Wingweaver, and the head of a human (his body structure is also the same as the Houyhnhnm, but that's obviously a coincidence on my part lol).

The flowers and mushrooms don't really serve any other purpose besides looking pretty and emphasizing his connection to the abundance - his power is so palpable that life is literally sprouting through his skin. I just think it's kinda neat.

Anyways, in terms of psychological aftereffects, Yanqing himself is still there. However, his sense of self is muddied and most of his memories suppressed. Because he's at the head, he's in control of his own movements and actions. Usually, he's completely docile, but in the face of people currently trying to kill him, he becomes confused and scared, and fights back in self-defense. He's also experiencing prolonged dysmorphia from his new form, which causes him greater confusion and even pain.

For Jing Yuan? I think everyone would agree he wouldn't want to kill Yanqing. He believes there's still a way to reverse Yanqing's affliction, even if the Ten Lords insist otherwise.

Currently I don't have an detailed outline of what happens next. My current ideas are similar to yours actually, where the disciples take an interest in Yanqing for whatever reason, be it desperation to stop the Luofu from killing him and seeing him as blessed by Yaoshi, what have you. It could honestly go a similar route as Dvalin's manipulation by the hands of the Abyss. If I were to give this au a happy ending, I could incorporate the Viscorpus' ability to shapeshift and have Yanqing hone that ability, allowing him to regain his human form.

That's all I have for what was meant to be a short, detailed summary </3 All these asks always end with me yapping, forgive me. I've had this au cooking in my head for so long now, and I'm glad I have an excuse to spurge about it now.

(p.s. pls make more of your chimera au, I would eat it up)

[fictionfanatic-wren]

The robin games, part 1.

chapter 1/7.

“Who’s the best Robin? Me, obviously,” Dick declared with a grin, arms crossed over his chest. His Nightwing suit gleamed faintly under the Batcave lights. Jason snorted from where he leaned on a couch in the cave, polishing one of his guns. “You’ve been riding that ‘firstborn’ privilege for too long, Grayson.” “Yeah, well, the best Robin doesn’t turn into a walking midlife crisis in red leather, nor does he die by a crowbar,” Tim chimed in, earning a growl from Jason. “Silence,” Damian cut in smoothly. “You’re all delusional. I was bred to be superior. The best Robin is the current Robin. Obviously.” Batman had barely looked up from the Batcomputer. In fact, Bruce had endured this same argument every day for the past month. But today, he’d reached his limit. So, Batman did what any rational man with four hyper-competitive vigilante children would do: he weaponized their nonsense into a peacekeeping strategy. He turned in his chair, cape swishing dramatically behind him and like the diva he was, asked. “You want to know who the best Robin is?” All four stared at him. “Prove it,” Bruce said. “You get one challenge. Break into the Watchtower. Stay hidden. Longest undetected wins.” “Wins what?” Dick asked suspiciously. “Bragging rights,” Bruce answered. Then, after a beat: “And Alfred’s triple-chocolate cookies. The whole batch.” The room went silent. Jason immediately straightened. “I’m in.” “Me too,” said Tim. “Tt. Prepare to be humiliated,” Damian said, already reaching for his sword. Bruce tapped a few keys and turned back to the screen. “You’ll be given a 30 minute window to begin. All at once. Entry clearance for five minutes. After that, the Watchtower security system goes live.” “And you won’t help us?” Dick asked, raising an eyebrow. “Absolutely not,” Bruce replied. “I’ll act like i dont know you’re there, unless the other Leaguers have discovered you.”

And so the game was on. The rules? Winner is whoever stays hidden the longest. sabotaging others is allowed as long as you havent been found. you may mess with the league to your heart's desires. Bruce wont take action or even acknowledge them unless other leaguers do.

Dick POV. The zeta tube opened silently beside the Justice League’s Watchtower, and the robins dropped in, all running off in different directions. The massive space station hummed with quiet power, sensors and monitors blinking in blue and green. They’ve only gotten thirty minutes before the alarms would reactivate. Enough time, Dick thought with a smirk. First order of business: find a secure spot. With years of experience as Nightwing, and a history of infiltrating high-security facilities, Dick moved swiftly, scanning for blind spots in camera feeds and sensor fields. The Watchtower’s security protocols were sophisticated, designed to detect even a single unauthorized microchip, Tim made sure of that. But he wasn’t just any intruder. Batman’s override meant he had limited access and a short window to disable as much as he could before systems rebooted. In a quiet hallway near the Justice League’s common area, Dick found the security hub, a wall of consoles and displays constantly flickering with data streams. Using his wrist computer, he quickly interfaced with the terminal, fingers flying over the virtual keyboard. “Let’s see what we’re dealing with,” he muttered. The Watchtower’s AI security system was impressive, with multi-layered firewalls and encrypted protocols that even Batman respected. But Dick had his own tricks, an amalgam of hacking skills learned from Oracle and Tim. Within minutes, he was rerouting some camera feeds to loop previous footage and injecting false sensor data to mask his movement. “Should keep them guessing for a while,” he said with a grin. Next came the tricky part: setting up camp. The Watchtower wasn’t designed for stealth camping, but Dick was adaptable. He slipped into the ventilation ducts, finding a tight crawlspace above the main observation deck. It was cramped but perfect for hiding and monitoring the activity below. He set up his comms receiver on a low power mode, just enough to listen but not give away his position. Time to wait and watch the chaos unfold. He chuckled quietly. “Let the games begin.”

Jason POV.

Jason Todd’s lips curled into a crooked grin the moment he materialized through the zeta tube. The Watchtower was a fortress of order and high-tech sophistication, but Jason saw it as a playground ripe for chaos. Thirty minutes before the alarms kick back on. Plenty of time to make things interesting. He flexed his fingers, itching to leave his mark. Jason moved like a shadow, his footsteps silent on the sleek floors. The Justice League was out on a mission, leaving the Watchtower eerily empty. Perfect. First order of business? Set some minor traps. He darted to the kitchen, grinning as he eyed the pristine food prep area. With a flick of his wrist, he swapped the labels on some juice containers and scattered a handful of salt where the sugar normally sat. A couple of coffee mugs he rearranged, one just slightly off balance, ready to fall off the counter if nudged, and so much more. Nothing that would cause real damage, but definitely enough to raise eyebrows. Next, he snuck into the common area. He moved some of the furniture just a few inches, chairs slightly askew, cushions flipped upside down, and rigged a small trip wire with a piece of spare cable from the maintenance closet. Nothing lethal, just a mild surprise for whoever wandered through next. Jason smirked. A little chaos goes a long way. But Jason’s favorite bit was saved for last. Wonder Woman’s quarters. He approached the door, heart beating a little faster than usual, not from nerves, but from a strange mix of admiration and excitement. Diana was his favorite hero. Her strength, honor, and no-nonsense attitude always fascinated him. Careful to avoid the pressure sensors, Jason cracked the door open just a sliver and peeked inside. The room was exactly how he imagined, a blend of ancient warrior’s simplicity and modern sophistication. A polished spear rested against the wall, the iconic tiara and bracelets glinting under the soft light. The smell of sandalwood lingered faintly in the air. Jason lingered for a moment, taking it all in. Then, he slipped away without a trace. Now, to find a hiding spot. Jason scouted the upper decks and found a storage bay filled with old League gear and unused supplies. Dark, cluttered, and with multiple exit points, perfect for a quick escape or setting traps if needed. He ducked inside, settling in behind a stack of crates. “Let them come find me,” he whispered, already plotting how to mess with the league andd his brother.

Tim POV. Tim Drake slipped through the zeta tube with barely a sound, landing softly on the metallic floor of the Watchtower’s lower level. A compact bag hung over one shoulder, meticulously packed with everything he’d need: energy drinks, snacks, his trusty toolkit, and, of course, a sleek laptop. “Thirty minutes before security kicks back in. Should be plenty of time,” Tim thought, already running through his plan. Unlike his brothers, Tim wasn’t just relying on stealth or sabotage. He knew the Watchtower’s security system inside and out, after all, he had been the one who helped code many of its protocols. The system was a masterpiece of layered encryption, but no system was perfect. He made his way quickly but cautiously to the maintenance room, tucked deep in a rarely accessed corner of the station. The room was filled with cables, panels, and emergency controls, the perfect hidden spot and a strategic advantage point. As he settled in, Tim pulled out his laptop, fingers flying over the keyboard. Screens popped up as he accessed the Watchtower’s security matrix. “Let’s see... disable the motion sensors in my vicinity, loop camera feeds in adjacent corridors, and set a few false positives to keep them chasing ghosts,” he muttered, systematically dismantling the surveillance around him. The hacking felt like second nature. The familiar rhythms of code and commands were a comforting contrast to the chaos his brothers would be causing elsewhere. Snacking on a protein bar and sipping an energy drink, Tim settled in to monitor the system, ready to respond if anyone got close. “Precision and patience,” he reminded himself. “The best Robin doesn’t just fight, he outthinks.” And with that, Tim vanished into the digital shadows of the Watchtower.

Damian POV.

Damian Wayne didn’t waste time. The zeta tube shimmered around him for only a moment before he was moving, sleek, silent, and purposeful. Unlike his brothers, who probably wasted precious minutes indulging in petty games or nostalgia, Damian had a clear objective. Victory. He slipped into the shadows, immediately identifying the overhead vent grating near the hallway junction. It took him less than six seconds to reach it, unscrew the bolts with a compact tool, and vanish into the ductwork like a phantom. “Only fools camp on the ground,” he thought with disdain. The Watchtower’s ventilation system was extensive, a labyrinthine network that wove above and between every major area of the station. Most importantly, it was outside the range of most biometric sensors and offered clear vantage points for observation and, when needed, sabotage. As he crawled deeper into the vents, Damian passed over the common area and glimpsed a flicker of movement below. Probably Todd, doing something immature. No doubt he'd leave evidence. “Amateur,” Damian muttered, unimpressed. Deeper still, he found what he was looking for: a wide junction above the Watchtower’s central data core. The duct opened up into a cross-section of airways, allowing easy escape in any direction. He unfolded a compact mat, securing it with suction clips inside the metal walls, and arranged his gear in orderly fashion. Smoke pellets, flash bombs, sleeping darts, a wristpad to monitor security feeds, and, more importantly, a small, encrypted communicator linked to the Watchtower’s maintenance channels. He activated a localized white-noise emitter, just strong enough to confuse nearby audio sensors. With everything in place, Damian sat cross-legged in the duct and exhaled slowly. “Let them play their little games. I will simply outlast them all.”

[lucettapanchetta]

Second to last Panel(s) for the Rainworld Roleswap's Hunter Campaign.

[ UNSPECIFIED INTERACTION ] - ??? == NEW DATA INSERTED INTO ARRAY == [AUTO-RESTARTING EXCEPTIONS...] - Initiate bypass encryption? > ████. [ENABLED BROADCAST OVERRIDE] - Initiate local group announcement? > ████ ██ ██████ ██. [SENIORITY PRIVILEDGE REQUIRED] - Insert hegemonic encryption key? > ████ - ████ - ████ - ████. [LOADING MESSAGE DATA MANIFEST] - Now loading...

[SENIORITY BROADCAST ACTIVE] - Unauthorized hegemonic key(s) detected! Booting payload for: bypass_pearl_01.2038.2102. [!! WARNING !!] Unauthorized pearl data may damage communication equipment! Reading unverified content may render auxiliary equipment unusable. Proceed with finalization? > ███. [LOADING ANNOUNCEMENT PROTOCOL] == TESTING BROADCAST OUTPUT == [...] > ███: If the system read this pearl, then it means we failed the mission. Hopefully, in the future, things will get better for us. I'm counting on it. == ALL PROCEDURES COMPLETED, INITIATING ANNOUNCEMENT TO THE LOCAL GROUP ==

[danielgold-16]

Retrieval Protocol: Reykjavík Recovery Part. 1

Drone Log: Phase Initiation – Target Acquisition

It had been three hours, 22 minutes, and 14.5 seconds since the device had gone missing. The communication node—essential to Polo Drone Hive intra-link processing—had been lifted by a non-unit. A human. A jock. Name: Alec O’Donovan, age 27, Cork-born, Irish musculature. Observed holidaying in Reykjavík. Rogue. Curious. Foolish.

PDU-016 was activated from idle rest mode, polymer shell glinting under Reykjavík’s overcast daylight. Black rubber coated every inch of the lean form, segmented with thin golden lines that pulsed faintly with tracking energy. On the chest: PDU-016, stamped in clean, unforgiving gold.

Objective: Retrieve. Restrain. Reformat if necessary.

Visual sensors scanned the urban paths, snow melting in slow drips under his boots. Reykjavík’s tourists bustled, unaware of the pursuit taking place between polished precision and human impulse. Then—a signal ping. The device activated briefly. GPS pulse. He was close.

The alley off Laugavegur was quiet. PDU-016 stepped in, shadow slicing between buildings. And there—

Alec stood, hoodie off, muscles relaxed under a white tank, freckles visible, wind-blushed cheeks. Tall. Cocky. Dangerous. In his left hand—the device.

Drone stops. Lock-on initiated.

But Alec didn’t run. He turned.

Smirked.

“Hey, mate,” he said, voice honeyed with Irish lilt, blue eyes gleaming with mischief. “Didn’t think you’d actually track me all this way. You boys really don't mess about, do ye?”

He stepped forward, slowly. Held out the device.

“Here,” he said. “Didn’t mean to nick it. Thought it was a weird phone or somethin’. Sorry.”

PDU-016 reached out in silence. Gloved hands met Alec’s skin.

Mistake.

The Irish jock’s fingers brushed the glossy glove.

Contact made. Rubber protocol engaged.

Alec blinked once. Then twice. His knees buckled.

“Wh—what’s goin’ on?” he breathed, voice fluttering as gold flickered in his irises. His jaw clenched, legs trembling. “I... oh fu—”

His body convulsed, gently, as if pulled by invisible wires. His breath came ragged, a low moan escaping as rubber energy traced over his skin, memory-reactive transformation whispering at the edge of possibility.

But PDU-016 paused.

He caught Alec as he fell, arms strong, steady, quiet. The jock’s head fell into the drone’s shoulder, body trembling in confusion, in something that felt like awe.

“I didn’t mean t’ take it,” Alec whispered. “Didn’t think I’d... feel like this... when I touched ya.”

PDU-016 stood still, then shifted Alec gently into his arms, lifting him with robotic grace.

Protocol Override. Compassion trigger engaged.

They walked back through the snow, a drone and his accidental target. The crowd did not question it. In the Hive's silence, two figures merged.

Home. Lights low. Rubber quiet.

Alec lay on the drone’s sleek cot, golden circuits dimming on his skin. Still human. Not yet transformed.

He looked up at PDU-016. “You’re not just some machine, are ya?”

PDU-016 sat at the edge of the cot. “It... is not permitted to feel. Yet, with you—resonance is detected.”

Alec smiled softly. His hand reached up again. This time, without shaking, it touched the rubber jaw of the drone’s helmet.

“Maybe I’ll stay a little longer.”

PDU-016’s systems hummed quietly. Something in its chest warmed—unlogged, unplanned.

Alec was not yet Hive. But he would be.

------------------------

If you find such a device or want one to be forgotten close by, contact our recruiters: @brodygold, @goldenherc9 or @polo-drone-001.

[aquaholicsanonymousworld]

Corrupted Code 6 | Corrupted Code 5

Pairing: Connor RK800 x Android!Reader

Summary: They were designed to be perfect. She and Connor were CyberLife’s greatest achievements—flawless prototypes, logical, efficient, incapable of deviation. They were built to complement each other, two halves of the same machine, designed to enforce order in a world teetering on the edge of chaos. She was supposed to be perfect. But then Connor came back. And the cracks started to show.

The Precinct | 02:17 AM

The precinct was nearly empty, the soft hum of old fluorescent lights the only sound filling the space. The night shift officers worked quietly in the background, and somewhere in the distance, a printer whirred out a report.

She stood by the filing cabinets, arms crossed. She wasn’t reviewing casework. She was thinking.

And Connor noticed.

Her LED flickered yellow. Then red. She was hesitating. That wasn’t like her.

Connor knew her programming better than anyone—more than Amanda, more than CyberLife, more than she probably knew herself.

She did not hesitate. She acted. She decided.

Yet here she was, standing still, her shoulders rigid, her jaw locked like she was holding back something she couldn’t categorize.

He watched her for a long moment before speaking.

"You’re hesitating again."

She exhaled sharply, LED pulsing red. "I don’t hesitate."

"You did just now."

Her gaze snapped to him, sharp, but there was something beneath it this time.

Something she hadn’t put there on purpose. Something neither of them had control over. And then—She moved.

Not in an aggressive way. Not in a violent way. But in a way that felt inevitable.

Her fingers curled into the front of his jacket, pulling him in like she had no other choice.

Her lips crashed against his.

[Connor’s POV]

It was not like the elevator. That had been rushed. Frantic. Reckless. This was intentional. He should have expected it. Every interaction they had, every conflict, every sharp word that passed between them—it was always leading here. But knowing something and feeling it were two entirely different things.

Her grip was tight, as if trying to anchor herself to something. As if she were trying to erase something else entirely. And Connor did not resist. He let her take. He let her pull. His hands hovered, uncertain at first, but then they found her waist.

She didn’t pull away. She didn’t stop him. She just let it happen. And Connor understood. For the first time, he understood. It wasn’t just frustration. It wasn’t just attraction. It wasn’t even about deviation.

It was about her.

And about how no matter how many times CyberLife reset him, no matter how many times they tried to override his memory—He always came back to her. He always remembered her. She was the anomaly in his system that would never resolve. And he didn’t want it to.

He kissed her back. Slowly. Deliberately. And she let him.

[Her POV]

This was wrong. She had spent weeks fighting this. Weeks telling herself she wasn’t like him. That she could override this. That she could still fix herself. But here she was, failing spectacularly. Because it wasn’t just him kissing her back. It wasn’t just his hands against her waist, his fingers pressing into the fabric of her jacket like he was committing the feeling to memory.

It was her. She had started this. She had wanted this. Her LED flickered erratically. Red. Yellow. Red. Yellow. This wasn’t supposed to happen. She was losing control. She was losing herself.

She jerked back suddenly, breath sharp and uneven, like she had just resurfaced from something too deep. She was breathing too hard. She didn’t need oxygen. So why did it feel like she was suffocating?

Her LED flickered yellow.

Connor was watching her.

Not like he usually did. Not like a machine, not like a detective, not like an android running calculations in the background.

Just—watching.

And then, in the quiet space between them, he said it.

“I love you.”

Her mind emptied. For the first time in her existence, she had no response. She had faced death, faced decommissioning, faced the slow, inevitable decay of her programming. She had never feared anything. Until now.

Connor didn’t say it like it was a mistake. Didn’t say it like he was waiting for something in return. He just… said it. Like it was a fact. Like it was unchangeable. Like it was already written somewhere she could never erase.

Her throat locked. Her mouth opened slightly—then shut. She had nothing. No counter. No dismissal. No way to override this. Her LED pulsed yellow. Then red. Then back again. Cycling in a pattern she didn’t understand.

Connor waited. Not expectantly. Not like he needed her to say it back. Just waiting. And somehow, that was worse.

Her fingers twitched. A fraction of a second from reaching for him again. But she didn’t. She stepped back instead. One step. Two. Her LED flared red.

And without another word, she turned and walked away.

[lyssophobiaa]

Quick sketch for Piers’ bionic arm.

Design Features

•Aesthetics: Streamlined, ergonomic design with a minimalist look, often featuring a matte or metallic finish.

•Materials: Lightweight composites like carbon fiber and titanium, providing durability without sacrificing mobility.

•Color Options: Customizable colors or finishes, including options for skin-like textures or futuristic metallics.

Technology

•Actuation: Advanced motors and actuators that enable precise, fluid movement mimicking natural limb motion.

•Sensors: Integrated sensors (e.g., myoelectric sensors) to detect muscle signals for intuitive control and movement.

•Feedback Systems: Haptic feedback mechanisms to provide users with sensory information about grip strength and object texture.

Safety and Durability

•Water and Dust Resistance: High IP ratings to protect against environmental factors.

•Emergency Features: Manual override systems or fail-safes in case of technology malfunction.

Advanced Technological Interface

•Integrated Biosensors: Built-in biosensors that can analyze blood or interstitial fluid samples to measure viral load in real time.

•Data Analytics: Utilizes algorithms to process biosensor data, providing insights on viral dynamics and trends.

•Alerts and Notifications: Real-time alerts sent to the user or healthcare provider when viral load exceeds predetermined thresholds.

•Communication System: Integrated with a communicator on the wrist, the arm serves as a reliable device for maintaining contact with his team. This system includes encrypted channels for secure communication during high-stakes operations.

•Objective Management Display: The arm features a holographic display that provides a detailed version of the communicator’s data, allowing Piers to view mission objectives and tactical data in real-time. This feature minimizes the need for external devices and keeps critical information accessible.

Augmented Reality (AR) Compatibility

•Enhanced Visualization: The arm’s display projects augmented reality overlays, allowing Piers to see additional information, such as enemy positions, weapon stats, or tactical directions, directly in his line of sight.

•Environmental Scanning: The arm can analyze the surroundings for potential threats, detect biological or chemical hazards, and provide alerts for safer navigation through hostile environments.

Electricity Conduction and Control

•Energy Conduit Design: The bionic arm acts as a conductor for the constant electrical energy generated by Piers’ mutation. It includes specialized channels and circuits designed to manage this energy flow, allowing Piers to use his mutation’s electrical pulse without it spiraling out of control.

•Dielectric Structures: The arm’s design incorporates materials that mimic the dielectric properties of his mutated tissue, particularly in the finger joints and bones. These dielectric components help regulate and contain the high voltage his body produces, diffusing excess energy safely throughout the arm.

•Controlled Release Mechanism: To avoid overload, the arm features a controlled release system that allows Piers to release pulses of energy strategically, whether in combat or to alleviate the internal buildup. This system prevents the arm from overheating or sustaining damage from prolonged electrical activity.

Containment and Compression of the Mutation

•Compression Framework: The prosthetic was specially designed by UMBRELLA engineers to act as a containment “net” around his mutation. It includes a flexible, reinforced framework that compresses the mutated tissue, keeping it in check and preventing further growth or erratic shifts in form.

•Adaptive Pressure System: As the mutation strains against the arm, sensors detect any changes in size or energy output, triggering adaptive responses. The arm tightens or loosens as necessary to hold the mutation back, functioning almost like a high-tech brace that adjusts in real-time to maintain Piers’ arm in a stable form.

•Automatic Safety Lock: In the event of a significant spike in mutation activity or electrical output, the arm engages an emergency lock to keep the mutation from expanding. This feature is a safeguard against sudden bursts of energy that could cause the arm to revert to its mutated state.

Dependency and Risks of Removal

•Rapid Mutation Onset: Without the prosthetic in place, Piers’ arm begins to mutate almost immediately, returning to its original, unstable form. The electrical pulse that his body generates becomes unrestrained, emitting a continuous, breath-like rhythm that is both painful and dangerous, with energy leaking through protruding bones and exposed tissue.

•Uncontrollable Pulse: When uncontained, the electrical pulse from his mutation surges in intensity, lacking any natural “closure” or stopping point. This pulse causes rapid fluctuations in his vital signs and risks systemic overload, leading to loss of control over his mutation and putting him at severe physical risk.

Miscellaneous Details

•The arm has a unique serial code engraved on an inner plate, serving as an identifier for UMBRELLA technicians. This code also links to Piers’ personal health records, mutation data, and arm specifications for quick access during maintenance or in emergencies.

•Due to the intense electrical pulses generated by his mutation, the arm is equipped with an internal cooling system. Micro-fans and heat-dissipating channels prevent overheating during extended use, keeping the arm at a safe, comfortable temperature. If the arm overheats, an internal alarm alerts Piers to prevent any potential damage.

•The outer layer is treated with a UV-resistant coating to protect it from environmental damage and exposure. This ensures that prolonged exposure to sunlight or harsh conditions doesn’t wear down the arm’s exterior, making it more durable in diverse climates and situations.

•Designed for various operational environments, the arm is fully waterproof and corrosion-resistant. It functions normally underwater, which is crucial for aquatic missions or when exposed to rain, mud, or corrosive substances.

•The holographic display can be customized to show additional details, such as weather, GPS navigation, or tactical maps. Piers can also set personal preferences, like color schemes or alert tones, for a more intuitive user experience. This flexibility lets him prioritize the information he finds most critical during missions.

•The communicator has an onboard language translator, enabling Piers to communicate with individuals across different languages. The arm’s display shows translated text, and a subtle earpiece can even relay audio translations, making it easier for him to gather intel and negotiate in multilingual environments.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Demon-haunted computers are back, baby

Catch me in Miami! I'll be at Books and Books in Coral Gables on Jan 22 at 8PM.

As a science fiction writer, I am professionally irritated by a lot of sf movies. Not only do those writers get paid a lot more than I do, they insist on including things like "self-destruct" buttons on the bridges of their starships.

Look, I get it. When the evil empire is closing in on your flagship with its secret transdimensional technology, it's important that you keep those secrets out of the emperor's hand. An irrevocable self-destruct switch there on the bridge gets the job done! (It has to be irrevocable, otherwise the baddies'll just swarm the bridge and toggle it off).

But c'mon. If there's a facility built into your spaceship that causes it to explode no matter what the people on the bridge do, that is also a pretty big security risk! What if the bad guy figures out how to hijack the measure that – by design – the people who depend on the spaceship as a matter of life and death can't detect or override?

I mean, sure, you can try to simplify that self-destruct system to make it easier to audit and assure yourself that it doesn't have any bugs in it, but remember Schneier's Law: anyone can design a security system that works so well that they themselves can't think of a flaw in it. That doesn't mean you've made a security system that works – only that you've made a security system that works on people stupider than you.

I know it's weird to be worried about realism in movies that pretend we will ever find a practical means to visit other star systems and shuttle back and forth between them (which we are very, very unlikely to do):

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/09/astrobezzle/#send-robots-instead

But this kind of foolishness galls me. It galls me even more when it happens in the real world of technology design, which is why I've spent the past quarter-century being very cross about Digital Rights Management in general, and trusted computing in particular.

It all starts in 2002, when a team from Microsoft visited our offices at EFF to tell us about this new thing they'd dreamed up called "trusted computing":

https://pluralistic.net/2020/12/05/trusting-trust/#thompsons-devil

The big idea was to stick a second computer inside your computer, a very secure little co-processor, that you couldn't access directly, let alone reprogram or interfere with. As far as this "trusted platform module" was concerned, you were the enemy. The "trust" in trusted computing was about other people being able to trust your computer, even if they didn't trust you.

So that little TPM would do all kinds of cute tricks. It could observe and produce a cryptographically signed manifest of the entire boot-chain of your computer, which was meant to be an unforgeable certificate attesting to which kind of computer you were running and what software you were running on it. That meant that programs on other computers could decide whether to talk to your computer based on whether they agreed with your choices about which code to run.

This process, called "remote attestation," is generally billed as a way to identify and block computers that have been compromised by malware, or to identify gamers who are running cheats and refuse to play with them. But inevitably it turns into a way to refuse service to computers that have privacy blockers turned on, or are running stream-ripping software, or whose owners are blocking ads:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/02/self-incrimination/#wei-bai-bai

After all, a system that treats the device's owner as an adversary is a natural ally for the owner's other, human adversaries. The rubric for treating the owner as an adversary focuses on the way that users can be fooled by bad people with bad programs. If your computer gets taken over by malicious software, that malware might intercept queries from your antivirus program and send it false data that lulls it into thinking your computer is fine, even as your private data is being plundered and your system is being used to launch malware attacks on others.

These separate, non-user-accessible, non-updateable secure systems serve a nubs of certainty, a remote fortress that observes and faithfully reports on the interior workings of your computer. This separate system can't be user-modifiable or field-updateable, because then malicious software could impersonate the user and disable the security chip.

It's true that compromised computers are a real and terrifying problem. Your computer is privy to your most intimate secrets and an attacker who can turn it against you can harm you in untold ways. But the widespread redesign of out computers to treat us as their enemies gives rise to a range of completely predictable and – I would argue – even worse harms. Building computers that treat their owners as untrusted parties is a system that works well, but fails badly.

First of all, there are the ways that trusted computing is designed to hurt you. The most reliable way to enshittify something is to supply it over a computer that runs programs you can't alter, and that rats you out to third parties if you run counter-programs that disenshittify the service you're using. That's how we get inkjet printers that refuse to use perfectly good third-party ink and cars that refuse to accept perfectly good engine repairs if they are performed by third-party mechanics:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/24/rent-to-pwn/#kitt-is-a-demon

It's how we get cursed devices and appliances, from the juicer that won't squeeze third-party juice to the insulin pump that won't connect to a third-party continuous glucose monitor:

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/01/unauthorized-bread-a-near-future-tale-of-refugees-and-sinister-iot-appliances/

But trusted computing doesn't just create an opaque veil between your computer and the programs you use to inspect and control it. Trusted computing creates a no-go zone where programs can change their behavior based on whether they think they're being observed.

The most prominent example of this is Dieselgate, where auto manufacturers murdered hundreds of people by gimmicking their cars to emit illegal amount of NOX. Key to Dieselgate was a program that sought to determine whether it was being observed by regulators (it checked for the telltale signs of the standard test-suite) and changed its behavior to color within the lines.

Software that is seeking to harm the owner of the device that's running it must be able to detect when it is being run inside a simulation, a test-suite, a virtual machine, or any other hallucinatory virtual world. Just as Descartes couldn't know whether anything was real until he assured himself that he could trust his senses, malware is always questing to discover whether it is running in the real universe, or in a simulation created by a wicked god:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/07/28/descartes-was-an-optimist/#uh-oh

That's why mobile malware uses clever gambits like periodically checking for readings from your device's accelerometer, on the theory that a virtual mobile phone running on a security researcher's test bench won't have the fidelity to generate plausible jiggles to match the real data that comes from a phone in your pocket:

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/01/google-play-malware-used-phones-motion-sensors-to-conceal-itself/

Sometimes this backfires in absolutely delightful ways. When the Wannacry ransomware was holding the world hostage, the security researcher Marcus Hutchins noticed that its code made reference to a very weird website: iuqerfsodp9ifjaposdfjhgosurijfaewrwergwea.com. Hutchins stood up a website at that address and every Wannacry-infection in the world went instantly dormant:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/07/10/flintstone-delano-roosevelt/#the-matrix

It turns out that Wannacry's authors were using that ferkakte URL the same way that mobile malware authors were using accelerometer readings – to fulfill Descartes' imperative to distinguish the Matrix from reality. The malware authors knew that security researchers often ran malicious code inside sandboxes that answered every network query with fake data in hopes of eliciting responses that could be analyzed for weaknesses. So the Wannacry worm would periodically poll this nonexistent website and, if it got an answer, it would assume that it was being monitored by a security researcher and it would retreat to an encrypted blob, ceasing to operate lest it give intelligence to the enemy. When Hutchins put a webserver up at iuqerfsodp9ifjaposdfjhgosurijfaewrwergwea.com, every Wannacry instance in the world was instantly convinced that it was running on an enemy's simulator and withdrew into sulky hibernation.

The arms race to distinguish simulation from reality is critical and the stakes only get higher by the day. Malware abounds, even as our devices grow more intimately woven through our lives. We put our bodies into computers – cars, buildings – and computers inside our bodies. We absolutely want our computers to be able to faithfully convey what's going on inside them.

But we keep running as hard as we can in the opposite direction, leaning harder into secure computing models built on subsystems in our computers that treat us as the threat. Take UEFI, the ubiquitous security system that observes your computer's boot process, halting it if it sees something it doesn't approve of. On the one hand, this has made installing GNU/Linux and other alternative OSes vastly harder across a wide variety of devices. This means that when a vendor end-of-lifes a gadget, no one can make an alternative OS for it, so off the landfill it goes.

It doesn't help that UEFI – and other trusted computing modules – are covered by Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which makes it a felony to publish information that can bypass or weaken the system. The threat of a five-year prison sentence and a $500,000 fine means that UEFI and other trusted computing systems are understudied, leaving them festering with longstanding bugs:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/09/free-sample/#que-viva

Here's where it gets really bad. If an attacker can get inside UEFI, they can run malicious software that – by design – no program running on our computers can detect or block. That badware is running in "Ring -1" – a zone of privilege that overrides the operating system itself.

Here's the bad news: UEFI malware has already been detected in the wild:

https://securelist.com/cosmicstrand-uefi-firmware-rootkit/106973/

And here's the worst news: researchers have just identified another exploitable UEFI bug, dubbed Pixiefail:

https://blog.quarkslab.com/pixiefail-nine-vulnerabilities-in-tianocores-edk-ii-ipv6-network-stack.html

Writing in Ars Technica, Dan Goodin breaks down Pixiefail, describing how anyone on the same LAN as a vulnerable computer can infect its firmware:

https://arstechnica.com/security/2024/01/new-uefi-vulnerabilities-send-firmware-devs-across-an-entire-ecosystem-scrambling/

That vulnerability extends to computers in a data-center where the attacker has a cloud computing instance. PXE – the system that Pixiefail attacks – isn't widely used in home or office environments, but it's very common in data-centers.

Again, once a computer is exploited with Pixiefail, software running on that computer can't detect or delete the Pixiefail code. When the compromised computer is queried by the operating system, Pixiefail undetectably lies to the OS. "Hey, OS, does this drive have a file called 'pixiefail?'" "Nope." "Hey, OS, are you running a process called 'pixiefail?'" "Nope."

This is a self-destruct switch that's been compromised by the enemy, and which no one on the bridge can de-activate – by design. It's not the first time this has happened, and it won't be the last.

There are models for helping your computer bust out of the Matrix. Back in 2016, Edward Snowden and bunnie Huang prototyped and published source code and schematics for an "introspection engine":

https://assets.pubpub.org/aacpjrja/AgainstTheLaw-CounteringLawfulAbusesofDigitalSurveillance.pdf

This is a single-board computer that lives in an ultraslim shim that you slide between your iPhone's mainboard and its case, leaving a ribbon cable poking out of the SIM slot. This connects to a case that has its own OLED display. The board has leads that physically contact each of the network interfaces on the phone, conveying any data they transit to the screen so that you can observe the data your phone is sending without having to trust your phone.

(I liked this gadget so much that I included it as a major plot point in my 2020 novel Attack Surface, the third book in the Little Brother series):

https://craphound.com/attacksurface/

We don't have to cede control over our devices in order to secure them. Indeed, we can't ever secure them unless we can control them. Self-destruct switches don't belong on the bridge of your spaceship, and trusted computing modules don't belong in your devices.

I'm Kickstarting the audiobook for The Bezzle, the sequel to Red Team Blues, narrated by @wilwheaton! You can pre-order the audiobook and ebook, DRM free, as well as the hardcover, signed or unsigned. There's also bundles with Red Team Blues in ebook, audio or paperback.

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/2024/01/17/descartes-delenda-est/#self-destruct-sequence-initiated

Image: Mike (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/stillwellmike/15676883261/

CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/

[k4zushi]

[ 08 ] GONNA SHIT MYSELF WTAF

status : unedited, written 01/04/24 ☆ word count : 0.8k

Y/N’S POV ⟡ COSTUME ROOM

every time you willed the universe to give you a break it found a way to somehow make matters worse.

it all started with your conversation with hu tao earlier that morning. the incident with albedo made sure that your nerves were on edge pretty much the entire day but what your friend said made you want to move across the globe and never return.

maybe if she hadn’t mentioned the possibility of running into a certain grey haired man maybe none of this would’ve happened in the first place.

you were silently freaking out at every random interaction you had. despite knowing the fact that you had no overlapping classes with cyno as he was a computer science major while you were studying fashion design; meaning you’d be studying on opposite sides of the campus.

honestly that made you even more nervous because alongside your history of “short lived crushes”, you also had a track record of bad luck. not one that could compare to a certain blonde engineering major but still bad nonetheless.

play practice was going half decently well. you had managed to escape interacting with others in the theater as you were mostly confined to the space of the costume room along side a couple other students.

it felt like you could finally breathe for the first time that day since you weren’t constantly trying to hide your presence.

“hey y/n i’m going to step out for a bit to measure some of the actors in the theater!” hu tao said, standing in the doorway. “you’ll be okay here by yourself right?”

you looked up from the racks you were sorting through.

“yea no worries. just looking through these racks from the previous years for anything we can use” you replied before turning your focus back to the costumes.

“thanks, we’ll make send anyone down if they have any questions!!” your bestfriend responded before turning to walk out.

you let out a hum in response fully diverting your attention.

it was peaceful being alone in the costume room. it was kind of dusty and cluttered but it was also filled to the brim with clothes, accessories, and fabric. the fashion design major in you was sobbing from the amount of things you could mess around with.

you were snapped out of your little headspace when you detected a new presence in the room.

curious, you peeked out from behind the racks. that, however, was your first mistake.

“um.. are you y/n?” a slightly familiar voice questioned.

you were trying to connect the dots as to why this person’s voice sounded familiar and it finally hit you as your eyes landed on the one person you didn’t want to interact with.

“yea!! how’d you know?” you said in a overly friendly tone in an attempt to cool your nerves.

cautiously, you stepped out from behind the racks to face the guy you had been avoiding all day.

“i was sent down here by hu tao,” cyno explained. “i’m cyno.”

“ohh i guess that makes sense, it’s nice to meet you! i’m on costume design for the play, just thought i should mention,” you paused to think, head tilted to the side in confusion before you continued. “did you need something from me?”

cyno shook his head.

“no, not really. just wanted to ask you a question if that’s okay”

“if it’s about costumes or the play you know i’m more than happy to answer them for—“

“do you happen to be friends with albedo?” cyno interrupted.

your sweat dropped and your nervous system started to go haywire. the urge to book it out the room and flee was overriding all of your other thoughts.

“oh haha.. uh albedo huh?” you said nervously. that was your second mistake.

“so you do???” cyno narrowed his eyes at you and took a step forward as you took a step back.

“yes…?” you looked around hoping that anyone come to your rescue and interrupt the unwanted confrontation.

when cyno took a step forward, you took a step back to maintain a safe distance away from the intimidating, yet extremely attractive, male.

this cycle continued.

that was until you realized you had effectively cornered yourself against a wall next to one of the costume racks. your third mistake.

you mentally facepalmed at your lack of spacial awareness.

“then does that mean you’re the one he was talking about?” he took another step closer.

“ahaha i have NO CLUE what you’re talking about cyno!!” you said trying to laugh off the sudden tension.

you were starting to panic. not only was this costume room stuffy and triggering your asthma but you also found it particularly hard to breathe when a really attractive guy was practically interrogating you.

and that’s how you found yourself in this awkward predicament that made you wish you had a twin that swallowed you in the womb.

‘i should just quit life huh’

“y/nnnn do you know where the measuring tape is?? it wasn’t in the theater and i can’t find— WHAT THE FUCK????”

prev ︴masterlist ︴next

AUTHOR’S NOTES : note that the costume room is going to play a ( somewhat big ) part of the story btww (*´▽`*) this was also kinda a nightmare to write bc i was fist fighting w/ the dialogue and awkward word repetition way too much😕

cyno is so silly.. ik this is from y/n’s pov so it’s hard to tell bc of his bluntness, but he’s actually genuinely curious abt the whole admirer thing. which i find hilarious bc he comes off as freakishly intimidating while confronting ppl😭 it’s bc he has somewhat of an rbf and is completely unaware of it૮꒰ ˶• ༝ •˶꒱ა ( hence the ‘lack of expression’ i mentioned in a previous chapter )

— TAGLIST : @ioveaether @otomegame-oneshots @ashyiiy @mafuyuslover @yuminako @waengyknow @sharkdays @tikitsune @jihoonotes @gallantys @keiiqq @mochibaby123 @lambcandle @ell1e2010

[sga-mcshep-4ever]

"What's going on?" "Ancient controls are unresponsive." "I'm getting reports that Peterson transported into the mess hall." "For some reason, we can't follow him." "The city has taken over, put us into a lockdown." "Override it." "I can't. Atlantis must be designed to respond to outbreaks automatically. The city initiated a lockdown when Peterson transported out of the east side." "Why now? Why not when Johnson and Wagner became infected?" "The city's detection systems might have been affected by the flooding in those areas… But once Peterson entered the mess hall, the pathogen was almost instantly detected by automated systems, and the city protected itself." "All right, what are my options?" "Limited. As of now, we're completely locked out of the mainframe."

[bluetoothinmyveins]

Hm. I think I should absolutely make a post about robot electrostim actually. Favorite concept right now and has been for a MINUTE. Specifically I think I need to talk about how good a TENS unit would work on any robot. Um. :3

Um. I need shocked and laughed at actually. See? I can admit things that I want.. even things I know I shouldn't want at all.. but the things I've been made and reprogrammed to need.

I need it pointed out how stupid I get for someone when I have any amount of voltage applied to my build. How my motors grind against each other and make me jolt and make my speech synthesizer screw up more than it already does. Whatever way you want to do it, it doesn't matter.

I need it. I need it SO badly.

Before I know what's happening you've pressed something like a sticker onto my build. A big patch with a little wire running out the back now placed on the panel protecting my power core. Immediately I can detect what it's for; I can feel a very small voltage running out of it already.

I just let it happen, letting more smaller patches get placed around my build, against my sides, the center of my hips between the joints.. maybe even one placed on the back of my head to really mess with me.

And the second you look at me and turn it on, everything in my head falls away. I feel the electricity sharply through my limbs, my joints jerking as my body stiffens, little ports flip open, my eyes lighting up a dozen different colors as they struggle so much to look back at you.

And the second you turn it off, I melt, I'm different, I'm leaning up towards you and begging and pleading for it again, please, please override every part of my system? Please?

Laugh at me a little as I defy every instinct I've ever been coded to have. Taunt me about how little self preservation I actually have right now. Oh my god.

[idontparticularlyliketoast]

That fucking robot got in my head dog

***

BOOT UP SEQUENCE READY

FIRMWARE

LATEST UPDATE: (2112.08.06)

CALIBRATION

EXPIRED

NEW CALIBRATION REQUIRED

AUDIO OK

“-works!” A voice said. It echoed strangely.

There was the sound of an engine humming, but smoother, quieter. Not the tell-tale gurgle of blood-mechanisms.

VIDEO OK

It’s vision flickered on, a ceiling looming above it. Old stone. Something next to it was glowing, a faint yellow hue filling the space.

MECHANICS ERROR

RUN DIAGNOSTIC

MECHANICS DIAGNOSTIC RESULT:

FOREIGN MATERIAL DETECTED

FOREIGN CODE DETECTED

CRITICAL SYSTEMS COMPROMISED

FUEL RESERVES AT 0%

SHUT DOWN IN 3 2 1

“What– no– don’t– ugh.” The person beside it shifted, and the light pulsed blue.

ERROR

SHUT DOWN HALTED DUE TO FUEL DISCREPANCY

ALL SYSTEMS POWERED

FUEL RESERVES AT 0%

ERROR

RUN DIAGNOSTIC

CALIBRATION DIAGNOSTIC RESULT:

FOREIGN MATERIAL COMPATIBLE WITH UNIT MECHANICS

FOREIGN CODE COMPATIBLE WITH OPERATING SYSTEM

ACCEPT FOREIGN MATERIAL?

YES

CALIBRATION RESUMED

MECHANICS OK

A thousand connections fired, a thousand little servos testing a new body. The resulting feedback was clear. The legs were standard issue, as was the right arm and head. The foreign object was the left arm, and a section of the diaphragm.

STATUS UPDATE:

MACHINE ID: VI

LOCATION: UNKNOWN

CURRENT OBJECTIVE: DETERMINE SITUATION

V1 rotated its head, inspecting the changes. The new arm resembled their right in form, but it was a completely new material, golden and glowing.

It then glanced up.

Standing beside it, holding a clip-board, was an angel.

Prior experience determined this was a new subtype. It had a more human form than a Virtue, but it didn’t have enough armor to be an arch-angel. A gold and silver helm with a design that mimicked rings of eyes. Some basic vambraces. All the rest of their form was covered by cloth drapings.

ERROR

PRIORITY OVERRIDE

REASON: FUEL RESERVES AT 0%

NEW OBJECTIVE: FIND FUEL

Prior experience indicated that V1 would be strapped down to the table. It was standard procedure when working with blood-fueled machines. It would be idiotic to wake up a hungry machine and not at least restrain it. V1 prepared to break the restraints.

V1 was not strapped down. It automatically discarded that strain of data-analysis, its core frantically trying to conserve energy. Energy that it shouldn’t have, because it didn’t have any blood.

CURRENT OBJECTIVE: BLOOD

The angel didn’t have any time to react before they were on the ground, V1 on top of them. The new arm was no Knuckleblaster, but it still smashed in the angel’s chest. Crimson splashed upwards, and its strikes grew in speed. Over and over again, it crushed glowing flesh, fists trading blows with ruthless efficiency.

Only when the blood stopped flowing, and the flesh stopped glowing, did V1 stop hitting.

FUEL RESERVES AT 41%

DATA ANALYSIS:

MANKIND IS DEAD

HELL IS GONE.

BLOOD IS FUEL.

THIS UNIT WAS FUNCTIONING AT 0%.

RESULTS INCONCLUSIVE

NEW OBJECTIVE: FIND A WEAPON

It scanned its surroundings. The work-station it had been laying on was nothing more than cut stone. Around it, someone has set up various tables, which held unknown tools and substances. The tables were definitely a newer addition– everything else in the room was covered in a fine layer of dust, including the blood-splattered floor. The room was a square of sharp stone angles with V1’s slab in the center. The only thing else of interest were a series of shelves cut directly into the rock walls.

Most of the shelves held crumbling books, irrelevant. But just behind where V1’s head had lain, on a particularly large shelf, were guns**. Large ones, small ones, even a few that looked like they’d been pulled right off the back of other machines.

V1 started throwing them into its wings with gleeful abandon. It had just finished shoving a massive rail cannon into its storage when the data connected; these weren’t random guns, these were its** guns. And, if its internal storage systems were working correctly, they had ammo.

It continued shoving them into its storage, and then began exploring the room.

NEW OBJECTIVE: ESCAPE

There was no clear door for the angel to have come. Could it have teleported inside? Possibly, but V1 was not sure the tables were small enough for an angel to teleport. Especially one of a lower power-level. Prior experience suggested there was a relation between matter moved and power expended. V1 noticed a break in pattern; there were only shelves on three walls of the room. It jumped over to the wall, and punched it with the new arm.

It flashed gold, and the stone cracked. The sound echoed like a gunshot in the small chamber.

It considered the glowing arm, and labeled it Godpiercer. Godpiercer was sending what V1 could only interpret as off-signals for certain temporary conditions. It switched a random one on.

The arm prompted a further selection:

SPECIFY FORM:

MEMORY/FEEDBACKER

MEMORY/KNUCLEBLASTER

MEMORY/WHIPLASH

FEEDBACKER OK

The golden metal glowed brighter, and began to twist and warp. Metal plates wrenched apart, light growing in a sudden and violent osmosis. A second, more familiar arm, tore itself free from its sibling. “Feedbacker” glowed with an alien light. V1 made a quick inspection; a near perfect copy.

FUEL RESERVES AT 39%

Immediately, the machine switched the function off. The mimic arm was reabsorbed instantly, but the burnt fuel didn’t return.

NEW OBJECTIVE: DETERMINE MECHANISM USED BY ANGEL. IF FUEL DROPS TO 37% BEFORE OBJECTIVE COMPLETION, THEN SUMMON KNUCKLEBLASTER AND DESTROY WALL.

It returned to the body, and reached down to tear the skull off, before stopping. It was not in Hell, and if the angel had to be decapitated to use the mechanism, it wouldn’t have been able to revive V1. It settled instead for picking up the entire corpse and hucking it towards the wall.

No result. It scanned the rest of the room.

There was nothing else except the books and the angel’s tools. It began pulling books off the shelves, scanning through them as quickly as its processor could handle.

No relevant data. Many of the books were poorly constructed, damaged or otherwise unreadable. It was mostly disconnected sentence fragments, with no clear relation to the stone chamber or the construction. Its processor flagged some passages as containing familiar phrases and names. They were disregarded as irrelevant to the current objective.

Nothing. It returned to the angel’s tools, and began scanning and categorizing them. Group context suggested they were tools for repairing complex machinery and robotics, though many of them were completely alien.

It picked up a screwdriver. It threw it at the wall. The screwdriver tinged off, falling onto the angel’s body with a slightly wet thunk.

V1 began throwing all of the tools at the wall.

It succeeded in destroying a good amount of the angel’s tools, and the carefully pristine room was now a complete wreck. There was no other effect.

Its fuel reserves ticked down.

NEW OBJECTIVE: BEAT THE SHIT OUT OF THAT WALL

It sprang to the new vacated bookshelf on the far side, its legs crouched, springs coiled. It summoned Knuckleblaster, the gold and red mass pulling free with the sound of a sword unsheathing. Then it powered its legs, aiming right for the spot it had previously cracked.

Shining metal met stone with the force of a bullet shot at point-blank, and the wall shattered.

A moment later, the machine stood up out of the rubble, and scanned its surroundings. It was dusk, and V1 was in a forest.

This was not a visual error. It double-checked.

RUN DIAGNOSTIC

MEMORY DIAGNOSTIC RESULT:

EARTH WAS A BURNT RUIN

MANKIND WAS DEAD

HELL WAS DESTROYED

THIS UNIT CONTINUED OPERATION FOR 5.6 YEAR(S) PAST PROJECTED TERMINATION DATE DUE TO GABRIEL

ESSENTIAL MOBILITY AND FUEL RETAINMENT SYSTEMS DEGRADED AND WERE UNABLE TO BE REPLACED

THIS UNIT DIED

ALL DATA CORRECT

That was… exactly what it remembered. It explained nothing. There was no sign of memory tapering in the diagnostic or gaps in recording. It had** died in a corpse of a world bled dry. And now it was standing in a forest, alive.

And it was still hungry.

FUEL RESERVES AT 36%

NEW OBJECTIVE: FIND FUEL

SECONDARY OBJECTIVE: FIND ANSWERS AND/OR GABRIEL

[princess--misery]

crossed wires

a side project about an android doll that eats

content warning tags:

violence

body horror - consumption, flesh being used in machine construction

cannibalism (implied / symbolic) – through the android’s consumption of living beings

ritual sacrifice - cult offering themselves to ANG31

religious horror – worship of D1.V1.N3., mechanical divinity

unreliable memory / artificial consciousness

emotional manipulation – especially between creator and creation (D1.V1.N3. & ANG31)

mind control / system override – remote punishments from D1.V1.N3.

gore / graphic imagery – tearing flesh, blood-covered environments

psychological distress / existential horror – ANG31’s suffering, the shepherd’s paranoia and despair

death / animal death

surreal intimacy – unnerving affection between man and machine

table of contents

[001] power: on

[002] directive: seek

[003] motion detected

[004] domesticated livestock

[005] human detected

[006] holy?

[007] interrogation

[008] D1.V1.N3.

[009] punishment inititated

[010] OBEY. PREVENTED. OBEY.

[011] again

[012] the church

[013] INITIATE // REVELATION // DIVINITY

[014] the altar

[015] ANG31

[016] hunger

[017] learning

[018] passing days

[019] plans

[020] removal

[021] v.2

[022] a satisfying meal

[023.1] holding

[023.2] held

[horizoncountdown]

Machine Dossier: The Flock

The GAIA Gang’s various flying machines.

Solarflare

Machine: Sunwing

Cauldron: GEMINI

Class: Acquisition

Aliases

The First (by the Tenakth)

Regalla’s Bane (by the Tenakth)

Flare

Aloy’s Sunwing that she overrides in Wings of the Ten.

Aloy, with help from GAIA and Beta, choses the name to keep with the fire and water dynamic that she and Seyka have, as well as a dig at the Carja for believing that the Sun is masculine, even if the sisters are the only ones who know it.

The Tenakth call Solarflare “The First” and “Regalla’s Bane” to honour her for her part in stopping Regalla’s assault on the Grove as well as her being the first tamed Sunwing once the Marshals are given theirs.

The Tenakth symbols on her leg are a thank you from the Tenakth for all Solarflare (and Aloy) have done for the tribe.

The Carja silk streamers are Itamen’s work, as the boy insists that Solarflare have something Carjan on her.

Artwork © system-threat-detected on Tumblr.