#email address validation

[auranym]

programming languages are usually at least kind of legible, and then there's regular expressions, which look like arcane symbols used for summoning every demon in hell

this is technically human readable. someone wrote this.

[snomfee-cup]

cc ó (____\ I didn’t know it was possible for me to

(_________) hate Konami more than I already did

[dippyface]

the email bounced back I'm gonna kms

???????????

[wild-at-mind]

God, what if instead of staying at home and doing my laundry and thinking about this shit I caught the bus to Bournemouth and lay on the beach and put my feet in the sand and listened to the waves and didn't have any of this shit in my head.

[today-i-am-thinking-about]

html email input fields

[anotherdayforchaosfay]

Cybercriminals are abusing Google’s infrastructure, creating emails that appear to come from Google in order to persuade people into handing over their Google account credentials. This attack, first flagged by Nick Johnson, the lead developer of the Ethereum Name Service (ENS), a blockchain equivalent of the popular internet naming convention known as the Domain Name System (DNS). Nick received a very official looking security alert about a subpoena allegedly issued to Google by law enforcement to information contained in Nick’s Google account. A URL in the email pointed Nick to a sites.google.com page that looked like an exact copy of the official Google support portal.

As a computer savvy person, Nick spotted that the official site should have been hosted on accounts.google.com and not sites.google.com. The difference is that anyone with a Google account can create a website on sites.google.com. And that is exactly what the cybercriminals did. Attackers increasingly use Google Sites to host phishing pages because the domain appears trustworthy to most users and can bypass many security filters. One of those filters is DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail), an email authentication protocol that allows the sending server to attach a digital signature to an email. If the target clicked either “Upload additional documents” or “View case”, they were redirected to an exact copy of the Google sign-in page designed to steal their login credentials. Your Google credentials are coveted prey, because they give access to core Google services like Gmail, Google Drive, Google Photos, Google Calendar, Google Contacts, Google Maps, Google Play, and YouTube, but also any third-party apps and services you have chosen to log in with your Google account. The signs to recognize this scam are the pages hosted at sites.google.com which should have been support.google.com and accounts.google.com and the sender address in the email header. Although it was signed by accounts.google.com, it was emailed by another address. If a person had all these accounts compromised in one go, this could easily lead to identity theft.

How to avoid scams like this

Don’t follow links in unsolicited emails or on unexpected websites.

Carefully look at the email headers when you receive an unexpected mail.

Verify the legitimacy of such emails through another, independent method.

Don’t use your Google account (or Facebook for that matter) to log in at other sites and services. Instead create an account on the service itself.

Technical details Analyzing the URL used in the attack on Nick, (https://sites.google.com[/]u/17918456/d/1W4M_jFajsC8YKeRJn6tt_b1Ja9Puh6_v/edit) where /u/17918456/ is a user or account identifier and /d/1W4M_jFajsC8YKeRJn6tt_b1Ja9Puh6_v/ identifies the exact page, the /edit part stands out like a sore thumb. DKIM-signed messages keep the signature during replays as long as the body remains unchanged. So if a malicious actor gets access to a previously legitimate DKIM-signed email, they can resend that exact message at any time, and it will still pass authentication. So, what the cybercriminals did was: Set up a Gmail account starting with me@ so the visible email would look as if it was addressed to “me.” Register an OAuth app and set the app name to match the phishing link Grant the OAuth app access to their Google account which triggers a legitimate security warning from no-reply@accounts.google.com This alert has a valid DKIM signature, with the content of the phishing email embedded in the body as the app name. Forward the message untouched which keeps the DKIM signature valid. Creating the application containing the entire text of the phishing message for its name, and preparing the landing page and fake login site may seem a lot of work. But once the criminals have completed the initial work, the procedure is easy enough to repeat once a page gets reported, which is not easy on sites.google.com. Nick submitted a bug report to Google about this. Google originally closed the report as ‘Working as Intended,’ but later Google got back to him and said it had reconsidered the matter and it will fix the OAuth bug.

[lucitumb1r]

I want y’all to know that my email doesn’t exist and that I have no idea how I made this account or how to log back in, so if Tumblr ever makes me relog that’s it that’s the end of the blog lol

[thedaddycomplex]

This. Is. Glorious.

4chan, the online melting pot of humanity's living diarrhea, has been hacked so fucking hard that the general speculation is it won't recover. If so, it would be one of the largest acts of de-platforming right wing extremist and the most deserved since god fried all those Nazis at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark.

The hackers leaked source code and doxed the admin and many users, who apparently used their actual email addresses to create their accounts. From engadget:

“While it seems some users took steps to protect their identities, many appear to have used their primary email address to register for the forum, with .edu and even .gov addresses reportedly appearing in the list leaked emails.”

As you know, 4chan (and later 8chan) allowed a random asshole who went by Q to plant and falsely validate wild conspiracy theories that did real damage to our democracy. All this birthed Qanon, a political faction that believed all of the dumbest shit this guy posted. And that led to the rise of Trump and his MAGA cult.

Of course, another version of 4chan will undoubtedly grow from the pile of dog shit left behind. But, this is a huge victory in the fight against hate, bigotry, and general stupidity.

[whatsupbeanie]

Would you like a personalized and signed by hand bookplate + a cute little Poppy sticker??

✅ Preorder the Great Puptective: Purranormal Activity (if you already have - yay!! Thank you!)

✅ Take a picture/screenshot of your receipt

✅ Send an email to heyalinabean@gmail.com with the title “bookplate” and attach your receipt proof. Don’t forget to tell me the name you want on the book plate and your address! ❤️

Valid for receipts dated until February 3rd 2025 (inclusive) and the bookplates will be mailed after the book comes out February 4th!

[katamari-of-luv]

Every new Spamton Sweepstakes page I've found so far:

(Spoilers if you want to find them for yourself! If I missed something, feel free to add on!)

Clicking the "What's next?" link at the bottom of the main page takes you to /chapter3/, which simply reads "Not applicable." and has an ellipsis for a page title. UPDATE: Holding down the left arrow on your keyboard on this page causes the word "But..." to slide in from the right side of the screen.

Manually inputting /chapter1/ yields the same result (notably without the "But..." -- thank you rollingdanielle for pointing this out), while /chapter2/ reads "Applicable." instead. /chapter4/ has a red pixel slowly fade in at the center of the screen. Clicking that takes you to /chapter4/message/, which appears the same at first glance but actually contains several hidden links under the red pixel:

These link to one of two different six-second audio files: e.mp3 ("fading in" sound effect?) and m.mp3 ("fading out"?). I would love to hear it if anyone else finds a way to translate the "message". The placements of e's and m's don't appear to coincide with either binary or Morse code, but I could very well have missed something. Perhaps something Wingdings-related but I'm only a third of the way done with writing this post and that would be my fifth time pausing to puzzle out this one page. Maybe later.

UPDATE: HOLY SHIT. This comes from convobreaker on Bluesky's very informative thread. The layout of the audio file links correspond to a QWERTY keyboard, and the m.mp3 links match up to letters that can be unscrambled to spell /chapter4/thankyou/. The page is titled "How long did it take her to smile?" and presents you with two boxes to input text and a button to confirm. Pressing it with nothing in either box or anything but a valid email address in the first displays the text "Unknown contact." Pressing it with only a valid email address in the first box gives you the hint "She never smiled?" Filling the first box with an email address and the second with anything at all replaces everything with text reading "Thank you." Presumably the correct answer will send you a response.

On that note, /chapter5/ (titled "back") sends you here:

1 is unclickable, 2 takes you to d.mp3, a six-second drum and organ loop (that I could swear I've heard before-- can anyone identify it?) (UPDATE: Thank you to vividviolence and rollingdanielle! It plays before fighting Berdly for the second and final time in the Snowgrave or Weird Route, and may imply the "Applicable/Not Applicable" text refers to whether a Weird Route is possible in a given chapter.), 3 leads to ma.mp3, a warbling sound effect that fades out towards the end, 4 takes you back to /chapter4/, and 5 is h.mp3, a short acoustic guitar-like clip. It seems like manually inputting any "chapter" pages past 5 only takes you to room-dogcheck (they don't redirect, just display the little white dog).

Upon returning to the main page, clicking the "glitches and secrets Web Ring" banner, and continuing through to the /egg/ page via the "clues" link, a new link can be found embedded in the words "secret cats". /rain/ is another of Noelle's private journal entries, regarding the time she invited Catti over to play a "sillyriffic" Cat Petters minigame together. As per usual, she reminisces on seeing things in video games nobody else is able to replicate (but suspects Kris of knowing about it this time?) The "try it yourself" text leads to a playable version of this minigame at /rarecats/. The green dancing cats bouncing around the screen award points when clicked in accordance with the rarity scale on /rain/. An "angel wing" cat causes a stained glass window to appear onscreen and fade after a few seconds. Clicking that in time brings you to /windows/, a page titled "Aren't you forgetting something?" containing many instances of the same window sprite repeated over and over.

Each window links to a different combination of the same six words. Every page except one brings you to /room-dogcheck/. The correct combination, /lostwheretheforestwouldgrow/, leads to a page titled "ROOTS" which displays a blue tree that slowly floats up and down. It plays a single somber piano note the first three times it's clicked, then sends you back to /windows/.

UPDATE: Thank you to theyloy for tipping me off to this! Clicking the tree three times actually takes you to /window/ with no S. All the windows but one are now scrambled versions of the phrase /thepoorchildren/. Clicking and dragging to "draw" on this page, titled "Therapy", for long enough eventually reveals the red tree the man who gives you eggs hides behind, and clicking that links back to /egg/.

And last but not least, there's a new clickable area in /ramb/. The red desk at the front of the swanky, inviting green room now leads to /romb/, a silent set of wooden doors with the page title "No one will shed a tear for him." Clicking on them plays a door-opening sound effect and causes the screen to go black for a moment, then this text appears:

The text cannot be highlighted, and clicking either of the empty spaces plays the ma.mp3 sound effect associated with Chapter 3 via the /chapter4/message/ page discussed earlier in the post. This is wholly conjecture, but it may be of note that the spaces appear to be the right size to contain the word "egg".

UPDATE: Thank you once again to rollingdanielle! After clicking the door, but before the text appears, you can ctrl+A to click an invisible button floating around the screen. Doing so changes the page title to "You can never defeat us!!! Let's rumble!", plays ma.mp3, and then redirects to /chapter3/. This text could possibly be used in the Lanino and Elnina fight, as the speaker refers to fighting alongside at least one other person and "rumble" could be a pun on thunderstorms.

With that, I've listed off everything I know! Again, you're welcome to reply or reblog with anything I may have missed. Just one more month and Deltarune will be Tomorrow...

[pericardium-and-glass]

Angry about Lore.fm the "AO3 Audible app"

For those who don't know, Lore.fm is an app that's advertised as "audible for AO3". It uses AI text-to-speech voices to read fics on an app completely separated from AO3 and creates a local copy of the fic audio on your device. It is stated to be non-profit.

1. It's opt-out not opt-in, that alone is a red flag and worthy of suspicion. The only way to not get your fic used without permission is to email them - it is unsafe and dubious to hand out personal email addresses to companies you don't know.

2. It takes engagement and agency away from the authors. Readers using this app don't even need to interact with the original AO3 post. Only a link is needed to generate the audio. An extension would've been significantly more ethical than an app.

3. Valid criticisms towards this project are labelled by the developer as "ableist and classist". Most devices and browsers already have FREE screen readers available. Especially for IOS (since this is mainly advertised for IOS), the existing built-in accessibility screen reader is very decent! I'd know cause I've been using it for more than a decade!

4. The developers show zero transparency. The devs listed for this app are also in a company that made an AI WRITING/STORYTELLING APP called Spinoff. The fact that this information is hidden on the appstore for Lore.fm tells me all that I need to know. I found the source for this on this comment by CupcakeBeautiful. [Edit: Unfortunately, the comment has been deleted by reddit for some reason, so I have removed the link to it.]

This whole thing pisses me off. Once again it shows that people don't respect and don't care about actual fic writers. I wish people would stop exploiting fanfiction authors under the guise of accessibility. Please think carefully if this is a company/project you'd want to support.

I don't usually post things like this on this blog, but I don't think a lot of people are aware of this situation on tumblr. Please feel free to add any information that I've missed. If this post comes off as aggressive, I apologise. I am just very frustrated.

[the-pen-pot]

UK Trans Rights Petition MegaThread

So, as some of you may know, the UK Supreme Court recently backed the biological definition of a woman, putting a lot of trans rights issues on the front line of our political scene.

If you're in the UK, you can sign the below petitions to get them put in front of parliament. If you're NOT a UK citizen, you can signal boost, please and thanks.

You need a valid email address and postcode to sign. Don't forget to confirm your signature via the email they send through or your signature won't be counted.

Allow transgender people to self-identify their legal gender.

An independent evaluation of the Cass review on child gender services

Lift restrictions on prescribing puberty blockers to trans children.

Increase funding for transgender healthcare to reduce waiting times & train GPs

Stop "gender critical beliefs" being protected under the Equality Act

Review how the rights of trans athletes are respected in sports

Do not stop transgender people from receiving care in mainstream hospital wards

Legally enshrine the right of adults to physically transition using NHS services

(If people know of any more UK petitions please let me know.)

[a-kind-of-merry-war]

NOW CLOSED!

Wanna win a queer historical romance book? Wanna win.... TWO queer historical romance books??

@tjalexandernyc and I are hosting a joint giveaway to celebrate our upcoming novels!

Enter for a chance to win a prize pack that includes ALL THE PAINTED STARS by Emma Denny, an advance reading copy of A GENTLEMAN'S GENTLEMAN (UK title: THE EARL MEETS HIS MATCH) by TJ Alexander, plus secret extra swag and treats.

To enter, just fill in this Google Form.

Giveaway will close on the 5th November - the date All the Painted Stars comes out in the US - so you've got one week to enter! Full blurbs as well as Ts&Cs under the cut.

ALL THE PAINTED STARS

When Lily Barden discovers her best friend Johanna’s hand in marriage is being awarded as the main prize at a tournament, she is determined to stop it. Disguised as a knight, she infiltrates the contest, preparing to fight for Jo’s hand. But her conduct ruffles feathers, and when a dangerous incident escalates out of Lily’s control, Jo must help her escape.

Finding safety with a local brewster, Lily and Jo soon settle into their new freedom, and amongst blackberry bushes and lakeside walks an unexpected relationship blossoms. But when Jo’s past catches up with her and Lily’s reckless behaviour threatens their newfound happiness, both women realise that the choices they make will always have a cost.

***

A GENTLEMAN'S GENTLEMAN/THE EARL MEETS HIS MATCH

The notoriously eccentric Lord Christopher Eden is a “man of unusual make” and even more unusual habits: he prefers to live far from the prying eyes and ears of the ton, and would rather have the comfortable company of his childhood cook and his aged butler than the swarm of servants and hangers-on befitting a man of his station.

But Christopher’s pleasant, if occasionally lonely life is upended when he receives word from his lawyers that, according to his late father’s will, he must find a wife by the end of the Season if he intends to keep his family’s fortune and the Eden estate. If his quest to marry has any hope of succeeding, he must move to London posthaste and acquire some more suitable staff. Enter James Harding, Christopher’s new, distractingly handsome—if rigidly traditional—valet.

***

Terms & Conditions

Open internationally. No purchase necessary. One entry per person at the link provided. Sweepstakes not affiliated with or endorsed by Google, Vintage Books, HQ, or any other entity. One winner will be randomly selected at 3 PM EST on November 5, 2024 and alerted via email. Winner will be required to share a valid mailing address in order to receive prizes.

[samuraiko]

Contacting your Senators and House Reps -- some helpful scripts!

Begging any and all of my friends/followers in the United States to reblog this one and PLEASE be sure to tag it -- if you have ideas for better tags, use them and I will update THIS post with the better tags!

---

So since the Fascist Regime™ (aka the current US administration) is losing NO time in speedrunning the Nazi Germany storyline, it is more important than EVER to let your elected officials know that this is absolute batshit and they should be doing everything they can to oppose it.

As a note -- your elected officials' contact information is PUBLICLY available via the official government websites senate.gov and house.gov -- these are their OFFICES (not private residences).

Elected officials cannot help but notice when suddenly their offices are getting bombarded with phone calls. That said, I urge anyone who calls them to be polite, firm, clear, and specific about why they are calling. To that end, here are a few useful sites with scripts for calling them!

https://callhub.io/blog/political-campaign/call-your-representative-script/ -- pretty straightforward, gives some ideas of how to tweak things

https://autisticadvocacy.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/fact-sheet-how-to-call-your-elected-officials.pdf -- this one explains the use of Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) devices!

https://www.padeasla.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Script-for-Calling-your-Senator-and-Representative.pdf -- again, tweak these as necessary to address the proper issue or issues you're calling about

https://www.kchealthykids.org/uploads/1/3/2/6/132654074/sample-phone-script-to-contact-your-legislator-.pdf -- Also, just to remind folks, you can find your Senators' and House Rep's contact info at either senate.gov or house.gov, just select your state and off you go!

http://sharedhope.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Generic-legislator-call-script.pdf -- this one is the *BEST* for anyone with social anxiety! All the useful tips and tricks you could want for how to overcome those hurdles!

If you REALLY feel uncomfortable calling and talking to a person, you *ARE* allowed to leave a message after hours. Just read off the script of your choice and you're good to go.

You can *ALSO* use these as templates for EMAILING your elected officials! As per the aforementioned government sites, virtually *ALL* of them have contact forms that you can fill out. Do not use 'burner' information with them, as you want to be sure they recognize you as a valid constituent and not just some rando harassing anyone and everyone.

[northgazaupdates]

LIVE BROADCAST FROM NORTH GAZA

TODAY, 17 March 2024

21:00 GMT or 7 pm US Eastern time

Islam Bassam Barbari will be hosting a livestream event on Instagram tonight at 7 pm ET/21 GMT.

This is a great opportunity for people to learn about life in north Gaza from the people who are living it, and especially to support the work of Islam and other people who are documenting the genocide.

Please attend if you have the time. If you don’t have an Instagram account, you can create one for free with any valid email address. I will try to record the session and post it afterward, but I have limited digital memory, and for some reason it is also very difficult for me to upload videos to Tumblr, so I can’t make any promises. Hence, attending personally is best.

Here is the link to Islam’s account. When the livestream begins, click on the link to go to his account, and then click on his profile picture to join the livestream.

[metalheadsagainstfascism]

This is the DOE's end DEI portal

This is where they have you send in reports of DEI practices so they can shut it down.

"AGH I'M SO ANGRY! WHAT DO I DO ABOUT THIS!?!"

1) Use this link to create yourself a temporary email. Try to make something that looks like a reasonably valid sounding email like catlover200@smithslocks.com

https://generator.email/

Why are you doing that? Because you need a valid email address in case they send email address validation, but you're also creating spam, so you need something that'll also allow you to quickly set up new temporary emails in case your spam email address is filtered out.

2) Go here. Choose a random State and School District.

https://ballotpedia.org/List_of_school_districts_in_the_United_States

Why? Because they'll probably filter out anything that isn't a valid school district, so you will need a valid school district

3) Go into Google type in "ZipCodes of... followed by your district name"

Why do we do this? Because they'll probably filter on anything where the district and zipcode doesn't match.

4) Write a well worded summary from your favorites book or TV series that highlights discrimination be it Shrek, the Bee movie, the Emoji movie, or whatever. Just word it will enough that it's not immediately obvious what it is. Submit your story!

5) Repeat as many times as possible! Use different media sources for creativity if you have to. But if your run out of garbage, use this by Goblin-Tools to rewrite your already created garbage.

https://goblin.tools/Formalizer

What's the goal?

To absolutely trash their submission form to the point of unusability.

Can I do this if I'm not in the US?

Absolutely! I do suggest a VPN as their systems may be able to flag your IP address as "not in the US"

Bonus points if you upload images to fake discrimination.

COOL. I DID THE THING. ANYTHING ELSE?

Absolutely.

They gave us another email address to contact!

You can contact their Office of Community Outreach!

Press Office

press@ed.gov

(202) 401-1576

Office of Communications and Outreach (OCO)

-fae