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#i actually tried to delete it but couldn’t because i don’t have the password anywhere and it just wasn’t letting me
fingertipsmp3 · 1 year
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Really need to turn my instagram notifications on. Why did I check it for the first time in months and discover that my best friend made a meme account, and that this woman I had a crush on four years ago requested to follow me
#i only privated it like. 2 years ago? because a classmate i strongly disliked had followed me#i actually tried to delete it but couldn’t because i don’t have the password anywhere and it just wasn’t letting me#i check it… probably every few months?#lucy. lucy. 1) how did you find me i don’t have my full name or even one of my constantly used usernames on there#2) why did you request to follow me. we haven’t seen each other in 4 years#i don’t even use this account… i made one post 5 years ago#she heart reacts every photo i post on fb and i heart react every photo she posts on fb#but we haven’t seen each other in 4 years#lucy. lucy do you want me. lucyyyyyyy#she did once say she’d fuck me but i mean. that means nothing if you don’t DO it#i don’t even know where she lives now lol. she accepted my follow request right back though#listen i’m not proud of this but there’s this other girl i had even more of a crush on and it says on her fb that she’s in a relationship#which basically ruined my whole day. and i know she’s close with lucy#well apparently not THAT close because she and lucy don’t follow each other on instagram. thankfully lucy’s girlfriend (i think they’re in#an open relationship judging from how they behave) does follow this person#still no sign of who she’s in a relationship with though#would it be fucked up if i messaged her saying ‘i hope your man dies’ and then turned off my phone? don’t answer that#should i actually use/post on my instagram account? don’t answer that one either#personal
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guardianofrivendell · 4 years
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Gentlemen in Distress (request)
Legolas x reader x Fellowship
Requested: Yes! @galileostyles​ asked “hey i love your writing so much ❤️ could you do a legolas x reader x fellowship where they see you fighting for the first time at the mines of moria and feel bad for underestimating you. thanks ❤️”
Warnings: men being men
A/N: This was harder than I thought! I wrote it a first time last week but then I realized it was too similar to an upcoming chapter of ‘Perfect Secrets’, so I had to delete and start all over again. Enjoy and let me know what you think! I live for comments/reblogs :) 
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(I absolutely love this gif. It practically screams testosteron! If I was standing near an Orc at this moment I would take its arm and wound it around my neck myself, and gladly take up the role of damsel in distress. Yes please!)
The fellowship halted before the gates of Moria.  You were relieved to be out of the snow, but dreaded the upcoming journey through Moria. You knew why Gandalf hesitated to go through them, shivering at the thought of what could happen. Legolas’ eyes met yours, but he looked the other way when he saw you staring back. You rolled your eyes, knowing you had to have a serious word with your beloved Elf. 
While Gandalf tried to figure out how to crack the password after two unsuccesful attempts, you made your way towards Legolas. It felt like days since you two spoke to each other.  He didn’t look up when you sat down next to him. You sighed, kicking the sand with the heel of your boot.
“Are you still cross with me?” you asked, already knowing the answer. He pursed his lips, as if he was actually considering it. But then he rose to his feet and went to Aragorn and Sam.  “Guess that’s a yes,” you muttered.  Merry and Pippin let themself drop down at your feet. You heard Gandalf yelling at poor Pippin a few moments before and he still looked a bit shaken.  “Still mad at you?” Merry asked. You nodded. “He has every right to be, my lady,” Boromir interrupted. You didn’t know he had been eavesdropping.  “And why is that?” you asked him. “This journey is no place for a woman. When we fight, we do not have the time to protect you as well. He only wants to keep you safe.” You rolled your eyes again. “How many times do I have to say that I can take care of myself? I know how to fight!” “Training or taking part in a battle is not the same thing. If you were mine, I would have tied you to a chair to make sure you didn’t join us.” “That’s why ‘if’ is the keyword, Boromir,” you reminded him.  
You could hear Frodo shout something, and the doors to Moria finally opened.  Everyone got to their feet and entered the mines.  Legolas made his way up front with Gandalf and Frodo, while you lingered towards the back of the group. If he wanted to ignore you, so be it. You wouldn’t fret about it anymore. He’ll come around eventually. 
The reason of your falling out was quite simple. Legolas had forbidden you to go along on the journey, after you volunteered at the Council of Elrond, following his example. Yes, that’s right. He forbade you. Like you were his property.  Not that he could have convinced you not to go, but you might have listened to reason. But as soon as he said that damned word, your mind was set. You were going, even if that meant you had to end your relationship because of it.  And ever since you left Rivendell with the fellowship, Legolas had given you the cold shoulder. He hardly talked to you and chose to walk alongside everyone but you.  When the Crebain flew over in Eregion, it hadn’t been Legolas who pulled you under the rocks but Aragorn. At that moment you realized he truly was angry at you. What you failed to notice was the worried expression Legolas wore the entire time, cursing himself for not being anywhere near you to pull you to safety. He had thanked Aragorn extensively afterwards. He vowed to himself to never make that mistake again. 
When you entered the mines, you could hear Gimli boasting about his cousin and the hospitality they were about to recieve.  You felt the darkness closing in around you, you really didn’t like this place.  “This is no mine, it’s a tombe!” You heard Boromir exclaim. It was only then you realised the cracking sound beneath your feet wasn’t the sound of branches breaking or gravel. You were literally walking on dead bodies.  Legolas pulled an arrow out of a corpse.  “Goblins!” he hissed. He notched an arrow on his bow and instinctively took a few steps towards you. You were too busy trying to avoid stepping on another dead Dwarf that you didn’t notice.
Boromir yelled something about the Gap of Rohan, but a movement outside of the gates caught your attention. Out of the water came a long tentacle, slowly sliding over the ground towards Frodo. Before you could warn him, it grabbed his leg and dragged him out of the mines.  Sam cried to Aragorn for help, alerting everyone else. They all ran outside and tried to cut off the tentacles with their swords. Boromir had been able to free Frodo, but the giant squidlike creature wasn’t giving up very easily.  “Y/N! Go back inside, take the Hobbits with you!” Aragorn yelled.  Seriously? You were not a babysitter! Why did they have such a hard time believing you could hold your own? Aragorn, Gimli and Boromir kept slicing the tentacles, but the creature didn’t back off. Legolas shot arrow after arrow, to no avail. They needed help. “Quick, give me a sword or a dagger, anything!” you yelled, eager to join the fight. “No!” Legolas yelled, shooting an arrow in the squid’s left eye. “Go back into the mines!” “Oh, now you can talk to me!” You felt someone grab your arm, trying to pull you back. You shook them off before you turned around and saw it was Merry, immediately swallowing the insult that had been on your tongue. “Into the mines, hurry!” Gandalf shouted, when he realised this was a fight they could not win. You followed the others back into the mine, barely escaping the falling rocks when the entrance collapsed. 
*
After a few days of walking through Moria, you had reached the Chamber of Mazarbul.  Legolas still wasn’t talking to you, now upset you hadn’t listened to him with the squid situation, but you knew he was going to give in at any moment. You had caught him staring multiple times, his hands twitching to take yours when you walked next to each other.  Gimli cried over the loss of Balin. You placed your hand on his shoulder and squeezed lightly. He gave you a grateful nod.  You heard Gandalf reading aloud from a book he’d found, and the words he spoke made your hairs stand up.  A sudden clang sounded through the chamber, and you saw Pippin standing by a well. He had managed to knock the head off a corpse, and the body of the fallen warrior followed seconds later. Gandalf shouted at him for being so careless. “Don’t worry Pippin, he’s under a lot of stress. He doesn’t mean it,” you tried to ease the tension between them. But then the drumbeats had started…  “Orcs!” Boromir and Aragorn ran to the door and barricaded it with anything they could find on the ground.  “They have a cave troll,” Boromir laughed sarcastically. 
“Y/N! Take the Hobbits and go to the back of the chamber! Stay behind Gandalf!” Aragorn shouted. “No! I want to fight! You can use my help,” you yelled angrily. You weren’t going to stand helpless at the sidelines again. Not this time. “Meleth nin,” Legolas spoke to you, his jaw clenched. “Could you please listen to us for once? I only want to keep you safe!” He cupped your face with his hands, and kissed your lips. “I could not live with myself if you got hurt.” The Orcs started to hack through the heavy wooden doors with their axes.  “Go!” he growled at you, and you were so surprised at his reaction that you obeyed. 
You had gathered the Hobbits and hidden yourself on the second level, behind the pillars to keep you out of sight.  The men had no problem with the Orcs, slaying every single one who crossed the wooden doors. But then a loud growl resounded through the chamber, and the cave troll entered, shattering the remains of the door with his mace. A curse escaped you, this was entirely different than fighting against Orcs. The troll immediately made its way to Legolas. The skin was too thick, Legolas’ arrows bounced off of it.  He barely avoided a hit with the mace, and you started to get worried. 
Suddenly the troll spotted you and the Hobbits, and with a screech he ran towards you.  It swung its mace and you grabbed Frodo, yelling at the other Hobbits to go the other way, hoping it would chase you to keep them safe.  Aragorn and Boromir took the chain hanging from its neck and pulled at it with all their might, trying to distract it and buy you and Frodo some time to get yourselves to safety. Legolas and Gimli were too busy with the remaining Orcs. The troll swung its mace at them, and with one powerful blow he threw Boromir across the room into the wall. He landed with a thump on the ground, unconscious.  “No!” you screamed, which caught the creature’s attention. He charged at you again, and you shoved Frodo behind you.  The troll roared in pain when Aragorn threw a spear at him, piercing his back. Aragorn soon suffered the same fate as Boromir. Your eyes went to Boromir, who was slowly regaining his consciousness, to Legolas who was shooting arrows at the troll again in the hope to find a weak spot, and back to Aragorn, who lay lifeless on the ground. They were losing this battle… You couldn’t stay there and do nothing! Even Sam was fighting against the last Orcs with his frying pan of all things, but it was effective. They only had to find a way to defeat the cavetroll. And you knew how.
“Stay here!” you said to Frodo, shoving him in the corner. You jumped of the landing and took two Orc swords from the ground. “Y/N, no!” Legolas cried at you. But you already listened once today, and that was more than enough. You ran around the troll, hacking your swords in its legs. It cried out in pain, and was now really pissed off at you.  “Y/N, Lassie, leave this to us!” Gimli shouted.  “Yes, because you’re doing so great!” you yelled back. The troll swung at you with its mace, and it smacked to the ground right in front of you. Perfect timing, you thought and you jumped on top of it, and nimbly ran up his arm towards his shoulder. It tried to smack you off of him, but you were faster, slicing his shoulder and upper back.  You sat down, and swung your arms around his neck, effectively slicing his throat with both swords. The troll made a gargling sound and fell face forward to the ground. You jumped off his back, twirling the swords in a cocky way.
The whole fellowship looked at you in surprise.  “That was amazing!” Merry and Pippin yelled at you, engulfing you in a hug. “Excellent fighting skills!” Boromir complimented. “I’m sorry we doubted you.” The others couldn’t agree more. Legolas however stayed silent. “Are you okay?” you asked him. He scoffed. “You’re asking me if I’m okay? No, Y/N. I’m not! You didn’t listen and put yourself in danger. I had a dozen heart attacks while you fought that troll!” You stared at the ground. He lifted your chin with his hand, and he pressed his lips against yours. “But you have proven to me that you can stand your ground.” You smiled at that. “Does that mean I can have one of your swords?” “Absolutely not!”
A/N: I’m still not that good with endings, but you get the idea! 
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drkoestersmithrpg · 4 years
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FINALLY
Tony might have actually been drifting off to sleep – if such a thing were possible – when Peter’s phone chimed.  It was Quentin’s tone.  Tony wasn’t supposed to know these things, but he knew.
Peter hadn’t seemed to have heard.  He was still asleep, looking angelic (as usual) with one hand still resting on Tony’s chest.  They had been laying that way as evening turned into night, laying close together, touching and talking, trading compliments, trading secrets.
Even now, the lights were still on.  Tony intended to call to Friday to lower them, but that would mean speaking, and speaking would wake the sleeping angel.  Tony preferred to watch.  Watch and wonder.
To say that Tony had planned for this evening would be… well it would be brutally honest which is why Tony never planned to plan it at all.  But he had. Had stood in the mirror and adjusted the light levels until he felt he could comfortably take his shirt off with Peter in the room (but just to make his fantasies more realistic, not because he had ever planned to get Peter here, oh no.)  But when the moment of truth came, the lights stayed on. Because that’s what Peter wanted.
And what Peter wanted was to ask a million questions, and never, not in his wildest dreams, had Tony imagined that he could stay so calm about it all.  But under Peter’s eyes, under his scrutiny (and under his fingertips) all of it melted away.  The part of his body Pepper could never stand to look at, all that which he had dutifully kept covered pre- and post-arc reactor, what he had hidden from lovers past and present, all of that was suddenly laid bear for Peter to examine, because that’s what Peter wanted.
And the lights stayed on.  Tony was expecting a slightly more hesitant game of “I’ll Show You Mine If.”  But the body Peter was in tears over in the limo was no longer an issue in Tony’s arms. He willingly shed whatever article of clothing Tony mentioned without hesitation, then returned to his careful examination of Tony’s body.
“How did anyone convince you this was disgusting,” Tony asked gently, but now Peter only looked down at himself and giggled.
“Just no hair anywhere,” he said with a shrug. “Maybe puberty will catch up with me eventually.”  He might have other things to say but he appeared to become distracted by Tony’s mouth on the multiple places lacking hair.
“Let Go And Let Peter” was the theme for the night, although, in the end, the younger man clearly expected Tony to take the lead, and so Tony did.
“Let me make love to you, Peter,” he had whispered, just as he had a thousand times in his dreams – but never once, not even once, could he have imagined the radiant smile that lit up Peter’s entire face when he had said it.  Or the delighted way the boy had stammered “Yeah… yeah, okay.”
The sounds he coaxed out of the boy that night were nothing short of heavenly, and mentally he made a note to delete every porn vid from every file he had (he had developed quite a library, carefully sorted into categories: Peter-like, Almost Peter-like, Vaguely  Peter-like,  Close to Peter-like etc.)  They were all going to go.  Because not one of them came close.
  He coaxed two orgasms out of the boy that night.  Once with his mouth.  The second time moving gently inside the boy’s body with long, slow strokes.  
Peter was mortified when he broke the headboard.  
When the boy started to apologize (the way Tony KNEW he would) Tony kissed him silent before he could speak.
“Oh baby I knew… I mean I thought that it would… I mean I hoped…”  He found himself grinning helplessly, almost giggling at the absurdity of it all.  Was he really going to admit to…
“You’ve been thinking about this?” Peter ask in a tiny voice.  Tiny, adorable.
“…maybe…”
Afterward they had lay close to each other, Peter’s fingers tracing the scars on Tony’s chest, remembering more questions.  He knew about the surgeries in details Tony hadn’t discussed since those endless doctor-days.  He mentioned pictures of the surgery that hadn’t been available to the public… then blushed beautifully when he was forced to admit he had hacked into some places that he shouldn’t have when he was younger.
“Why you lookin’ at naked pictures of me, baby?” Tony said with a teasing smile.  
“I… might have been obsessed with you for a very long time,” was the adorable answer.  Tony stroked his eyelids closed and kissed them tenderly (all while making mental notes to erase his large stash of Compound-security photos he had of Peter in the pool.)
They talked for a while afterward.  It seemed like they would talk all night… until Tony started pressing him for information about what they had started talking about in the limo.  Only then did Peter claim sleepiness.
“It’s not just the lack of hair,” he said finally, miserably.  “It’s my voice.  It’s not getting any lower… and I don’t think it’s going to.”
“So, I’m hearing… voice lessons.  But I still don’t get…
“Prolactin, Tony.”  Peter said, irritation showing in his voice.  “When you’re a kid, you have a lot of prolactin in your brain, so you cry a lot.  You grow up, you get more testosterone, and that inhibits crying.  But not me.  I cry all the damn time.  I mean it was every day for a while…”
Tony sat up on one elbow.  He stroked one lock of hair back and chose his words very, very carefully.
“You’re talking about crying jags… Peter did this… did this start after you started at Columbia?”
“Oh no, I was in seventh heaven when I started at Columbia.  Couldn’t sleep I was so damn happy.  It was like kid-in-a-candy-shop happy, like all the time… no… I guess the crying jags started about six months ago…”
Tony opened his mouth to point out that Peter had also started dating Quentin six months ago, then closed it quickly.  Officially they had only been dating for four months, and Tony wasn’t supposed to know the real date.  But there were a lot of things Tony wasn’t supposed to know.
“I had crying jags at MIT,” Tony said finally. (Peter was looking up at him, so he had to say something.)  “The year I was supposed to graduate.  Crying jags can be about changes in life – even good changes.  Or just plain-old stress…”
“You had crying jags?” Peter asked sweetly.  “What did you do?”
“Coke.  I don’t suggest it.”
“I don’t know if it would have an effect on me – alcohol doesn’t.  Believe me I tried.”
“Peter… you know Dr. Cho was going to be a psychiatrist before she changed majors and wound up where she is now?”
“What?”
“I’m trying to tell you that Dr. Cho is team therapist. Big secret - I’m Ietting you in on it. We all talk to her sooner or later.  Most of us have Savior Syndrome and we all have Messiah Complexes.  If you’re stressed out, you should think about talking to her…”  But Peter was far more interested in cuddling and sleeping by then, and who was Tony to argue?
But not now.  Quentin’s tone was vibrating Peter’s phone, this was the sixth time, which meant it was the 3rd message, and suddenly Tony couldn’t take his eyes off of it.
“Baby?” he whispered finally, but only because Peter seemed to be waking up.
“…muhony?” Peter mumbled, looking around him, trying to remember where he was.  “Do I need to leave?”
“Don’t you dare,” Tony growled, his arms tightening around the boy, surprising himself.  He tried to cover it with a joke.  “I’ll have Happy take you home tomorrow in the limo.  Let you do the ‘walk of shame’ in style.
“But your phone is talking to you,” he said regretfully, even as Peter snuggled back into his arms in relief.  
Watching Peter try to retrieve his phone without leaving Tony’s arms left Tony grinning like a fool.  They had moved away from the wet spot and further to the middle of his Alaskan King bed.  Peter even tried to web the phone to him, but he had shed his shooters with the rest of his clothing hours ago.  Finally he stretched out to get the phone with only their legs intertwined.  He didn’t quite make it, but Tony tried to help by keeping a firm grip on his waist.  And if he took some time to admire the view, well, should he feel guilty about that.
He jumped a bit when Peter flung the phone out the room without even looking at the screen.  He braced himself for the crash, although the crash never came.  Peter hadn’t taken aim, but had successfully thrown the device out the door and down the hallway where it landed harmlessly on the carpet in the living room.  Tony gaped even as the boy snuggled back into his arms, mumbling.
“Wait… what?  What did you say?”
“I said I’m done with it.  It’s a waste of time.”
“But… what?  I didn’t catch the first part.”
“I said it’s a waste of time.  I’m finished playing that game… never taking him at his word and always trying to listen around what he was saying to figure out what he meant and then feeling guilty because I should have just taken him at his word and then feeling guilty because I got that wrong too.  I’m done.  I’m done feeling guilty.  Guilt is a waste of time.”
“Guilt… is a waste of time?”
“I’m making it my new lockscreen.  S’gonna be my new password.  I’m tattooing it on my wrist.”
“Can you be tattooed?”
“Nope.  Need vibranium needles.  Gonna hurt a lot…”
“Guilt is a waste of time,” Tony repeated to himself. Peter seemed to be asleep, and now Tony was beginning to wonder if falling asleep in each other’s arms was actually possible.  He nuzzled his face into the boy’s hair and repeated the words to himself.
He wondered if they were true.
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stories-mostly · 5 years
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Starks Bug
Tony Stark x Son!reader
Not quite satisfied with this one but I rather concentrate on making the next few better than dwell on this one. I also almost gave myself a heart attack accidentally deleting the chapter. I want to personally thank all the gods that exist for the invention of the reverse option in writing programms.
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Chapter 9
The first week home was spent doing whatever you wanted to do. Clinging to your fathers side as much as you could. Literally only giving him privacy when he went to the toilet or to shower. And even then you asked where he was going. You had an urge to know where he was and what he was doing at all time. He also showed you the cool mini arc reactor in his chest. It made for a nice nightlight.
You went "Hiking" when he was in a bit of a better physical form. There you found several cool sticks to fight monsters with and some neat rocks you took home with you and put on your windowsill.
You went to the amusement park and rode a Rollercoaster for the first time in your life, it was NOT as much fun as you had imagined. It was terrifying.
The both of you visited so many places in a spawn of almost two weeks that you felt a bit overwhelmed.
Today was Friday and with that the last day you were excused from school.
"Where are we going?" You asked bouncing around your dad who was currently getting dressed all fancy.
"Lets visit your favorite uncle shall we?" he said and you cheered. You were going to visit Rhodey!
"Can I wear my uniform?" You asked already on your way to the dresser. Rhodey regularly provided you with uniforms for you to play dress up in. Some in the standard military camo style, some the same as his. Your dad agreed and let you change.
You walked into the hanger and spotted Rhodey immediately. He was wearing the same uniform you were.
You ran over only shouting a his name for a short warning and jumped into his arms.
Your dad was better with entrances than you.
"Uncle Rhodey! Look what I'm wearing!" You said as he sat you down.
"Whoa we're twins!" You giggled.
"We can't be twins! You're my uncle." you said as if Rhodey didn't know that already.
You were introduced to the cadets and your dad said something that they found funny. You didn't get it.
While your dad was talking you were looking around at the planes. Walking around and touching the exterior.
Immersed in them you didn't notice that Rhodey had left.
"Uncle Rhodey can I- Where'd he go?" you asked looking around. He wasn't anywhere to be seen.
"I think I made him a bit mad." Tony said truthfully.
"Did you make fun of him? Cause that's not nice." you said as you took his hand and wandered back out towards your car.
"No it's more complicated than that." He said not explaining any further.
"Because of the weapons?" you asked making him stop for a second before continuing.
"Yes, yes it's because of the weapons." you just nodded. You might be young and often times oblivious but you weren't stupid. That's what Tony realized today. He couldn't really shelter you of those topics.
And you never really didn't listen.
While you were dozing off on your own workbench your dad was in full work mode back home. You only stayed awake as far as to grasp the extend of what he was doing. An Armour of some sort which was cool in your opinion. But not cool enough to keep your tired mind awake.
You woke up early the next day in your bed. You made your way into the kitchen and ate the first tasty thing you saw in the fridge. Jarvis told you that your dad was still in the lab.
You finished eating, grabbed some leftovers and made your way down the stairs the door opening automatically for you without the need of a password.
"Good morning dad." you said and put the box of leftovers and a fork down beside him.
"Good morning Bug, thank you." he said putting his tools down and kissing the top of your head.
"Go change. You don't have any shoes on." he said and you left him to his food.
Your father didn't want you to help with the armor so you started your own project. A little robot. Your dad would help you with the hard stuff so you were starting with the easy one which was basically just sketching how you wanted it to look and putting the pre prepared pieces together.
You both worked in relative silence, there was music playing in the background. You disassembled one of your remote controlled cars for its wheels and motor, and worked from then on out.
"Hey, (y/n). Wanna see me fly?" Tony asked holding up his boots.
"I can make you fly without the boosters." you chuckled at the thought but came over to watch anyway.
"I'd rather not be force choked by my personal mini Darth Vader."
You took a seat beside Dum-E and watched intently.
"Alright. We'll start of easy with 10% thrust capacity."  he explained got into position and, threw himself right into the ceiling ledge. You couldn't hold in your giggles, especially when he got sprayed with the fire extinguisher. God Dum-E was the BEST.
Your dad glared at you once he had wiped his eyes free.
Quickly you used the force to pick up some of the fire extinguisher stuff and flung it back into his face like a snowball. Then you ran away knowing full well that he was about to do the same to you.
For lunch you dragged your dad upstairs to cook you some food. You didn't like living off leftovers.
He made you spaghetti with tomatosauce. You couldn't decide whether it tasted good or horrible. It was some weird mix inbetween.
Back downstairs your dad was working on a flight stabilizer. You got bored with your robot so keept yourself busy with multiple tasks. Like drawing, singing, dancing, playing with your dolls and action figures, and stuff like that. You didn't want to go upstairs since you'd be all alone up there and that's boring and lonely. You don't like being alone.
Pepper came, hours later when it was already dark outside. And she had a present! It was for your dad but it was still a very exciting moment for you.
"I thought you were done making weapons." She said and he explained that it wasn't a weapon but a flight stabilizer and after he said it was safe flung himself backwards with it, he fell over with a thud. You giggled. Your dad getting slightly hurt was really funny.
You followed your mom Pepper and your dad upstairs and started inhaling the pizza as soon as you saw it.
You stopped listening in on the conversation Obie and Tony were having, it seemed tense, and decided to look at the screen of the laptop Pepper was holding. She was writing emails which seemed to be a very boring task. You tried to read what she was writing but she turned the screen away as soon as you did. You held out a pizza piece for her but she refused. Shrugging you ate it yourself. Your dad went back into the lab. You would've followed but you like to eat some more pizza. And you weren't alone up here now.
"What is he doing down there (y/n)?" Obie asked leaning over you a bit. It made you feel really small so you looked away.
"Dad says it's a secret. I can't tell anyone not even you. But I can tell you what I'M doing there!" you said looking at everything but him. You weren't actually told to keep it secret but you didn't like your uncle-grampas tone. He was being, weird.
"What are you doing down there?"
"I made a drawing. And I play pretend and I'm making a robot from my toy car." you said willing to share your projects.
"Thats nice." he said in a monotone voice and ruffled your hair. It didn't feel like the Obie you know.
Tags: @shannonr2003 @art-estrange @nicholasbich @tater-thottie @tonystanktheirondad @gaylemonshark @emilaa2001
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raywritesthings · 6 years
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Dear Friend, 1/?
My Writing Fandom: Arrow Characters: Laurel Lance, Oliver Queen, Felicity Smoak, Joanna de la Vega Pairing: Laurel Lance/Oliver Queen Summary: When Felicity decides to get serious about Ray, she knows it won’t be a good idea for Oliver to be hanging around. So she turns to the world of online dating to keep him distracted. Unknown to the both of them, over the summer Joanna had set Laurel up with an online dating account in the hopes that her friend could move on from past failed relationships. There’s only one way this can end. *Can also be read on my AO3*
Not for the first time, Felicity wondered what she was going to do about Oliver.
After what had seemed an age, he had finally asked her out and they were going to give things a shot — only for him to back out thanks to a bomb going off in the restaurant. Definitely not her usual fantasy ending.
She’d be lying if she said she hadn’t been hurt. He’d tried to tell her it wasn’t due to a lack of feelings on his part, but Felicity wasn’t really interested in what his excuse was. If he really loved her, he would want to be with her no matter what. She’d waited too long to settle for anything less.
And then things had changed.
Put off as she’d been by her new day job boss at first, Ray Palmer had quickly grown on her. Lifting her out of the secretarial pool had been a small mercy, for one thing. She would have rather stayed in her retail job than go back to that. And he was open with her about his past and the things he struggled with, more open than Oliver had been in three years. She felt like he saw her and as more than just a last resort.
Ray was...something. A something she sort of wanted to see what it might become. But that was never going to happen with Oliver and the specter of their nonstarter relationship hanging over her. She only had to look back two years to see how he’d single-handedly dismantled Laurel’s chances with Tommy to see where that would go.
Things would be best if Oliver’s attentions were directed elsewhere, that much was clear. But she doubted she could convince him to start a relationship with someone who didn’t even know his secrets if he wasn’t willing to date her and be the Arrow at the same time.
If she could just give him the illusion of pursuit to distract himself with, that might just be enough. He wasn’t any good at hanging onto relationships anyway, so it’d probably be more fun for him to not actually be in one, merely testing the waters of one — or perhaps several, if that was what it took.
Her chances of getting him to try speed-dating were slim to none, at least not in person. But there was a much more convenient alternative she thought far more likely.
“Technology saves the day again,” Felicity thought to herself. Now how to put this in a way he might actually be willing to consider.
She puzzled over that for the rest of the workday and on her drive to the Verdant. When she arrived, she found herself in luck; Oliver was the only one occupying the Cave. The salmon ladder, too. She was really lucky today.
As tended to happen, Felicity’s careful planning came out in a single blurt. “So, I was thinking about your problem.”
Oliver paused on the rung he was currently hanging from and looked down. “My problem?”
“Your dating problem.”
He grimaced and dropped down onto the mat. “Felicity—”
“I know, I’m the last person you want to talk to about this. But let us consider why we are in this situation in the first place.”
Oliver said nothing, but he wasn’t running away either. Not that he had anywhere to run when this was both his base and home. Felicity took this as a sign to continue.
“You don’t feel you can be close to another person while being the Arrow. But you would also like a relationship. So I thought of a way to achieve both of those things.” She reached over to the table where Oliver had placed his phone along with his water and wallet.
“What are you doing?” He was more puzzled than angry-sounding, and he made no move to stop her as she entered his password and went to the app store.
“I am downloading an online dating app and creating an account for you.”
“Online dating?” He echoed, incredulous. Oliver made a grab for the phone, but she pulled it in towards her chest, still typing away. Felicity knew he’d never force it out of her hands even though he could. “I don’t want that.”
“But you need it. You don’t stay single long, Oliver, and there is a long line of ex-girlfriends who can attest to that.”
He didn’t have an argument to deny that, and they both knew it.
Eventually he said, “I don’t think online dating is the best way for someone like me to date, Felicity. I have a reputation that would be hard for a stranger to see past.”
“That’s why it’s anonymous.”
“Anonymous?”
She nodded. “You get a username and a little bio description, and then you match with another person based off the answers you gave to various preference questions. Then after you have a certain number of conversations, you can choose to share your picture or name or whatever.”
“What if you don’t want to?”
“Then don’t,” she said with a shrug. She had to suppress a smile as well, as that was ultimately the goal here: keep Oliver busy with possible romances for as long as possible. She could never see him settling down with one, at any rate.
“So, your username. Any ideas?”
Oliver was silent. Still a reluctant participant, then.
“Hm. Well, what about…” Felicity snapped her fingers. “King of Survival. Get it? Cause surviving is kind of your thing, and the king part is a play on your name. Can’t really use Queen. That would definitely be giving off the wrong vibe,” Felicity said, her smile fading when he didn't laugh. Not that she would’ve expected it. She typed it in and hit the box for the next page. “Anyway, now there’s just the bio and answering some basic questions about preferences.”
She began typing out what she felt to be a fair and accurate description without getting into any incriminating detail. Oliver wandered over a little closer. He looked as though mentally he was starting and stopping several sentences.
“What sort of questions do they ask?”
“The basics. If you’re a neat freak or a slob, cats or dogs, favorite foods. You’re not big on sweets, right?”
“Actually, I — well, I don’t dislike them.”
Felicity looked up in surprise. She would never have guessed. “But you drink black coffee.”
“Sure, because it’s coffee. But I like, you know, ice cream. And Thea and I, every Christmas we used to — well, it doesn’t matter.”
Felicity was glad. She wasn’t particularly interested in Oliver’s Christmas traditions with his sister that had no doubt fallen by the wayside long ago. She held out the phone. “Maybe you should answer the questions.”
He took it and stared down at the screen. “There’s no chance you’re gonna let me just delete this thing, is there?”
“Nope.” Felicity reached out and touched his arm. “Just give it a try. For me?”
Oliver’s shoulders rose and fell with his sigh. “If that’s what you want.”
“It is,” she said scarcely before he’d finished. “Okay, so answer the questions, and then you should be all set up and start seeing other profiles.”
Oliver’s deep frown remained throughout as he hit the button for this or that answer. But John and then Roy soon entered the base, meaning she couldn’t really ask. Oliver was going to need privacy if she wanted him to actually try, and something told her John would say this wasn’t a good idea.
As the boys all left the Cave, however, she decided a little peek wouldn’t hurt. Just to make sure he’d finished setting up the profile. To her relief, he had, and slowly more and more matches were being brought up for him to look at.
“That’s one distracted Oliver and me in the clear,” Felicity muttered to herself, locking Oliver’s phone and setting it aside again.
So far so good.
—-
It wasn’t until the next morning that Oliver got around to looking at his phone again, much less the newly-added app. Part of him thought to just ignore it altogether, but the device had been periodically beeping with notifications. Probably as it found new supposed matches for him. This was ridiculous.
Oliver couldn’t even believe he’d agreed to this. What interest did he have in online dating? He wished he could be with Felicity, but it was just too much of a risk. Was this just her way of trying to prove a point to him? He already knew that the life he’d chosen could only be a solitary one.
But he supposed he owed it to her to give it a try. She’d gone ahead and put the app into his phone, anyway, so it was useless to argue whether or not it was happening. And it wasn’t as if he had anything else to do during the daytimes. Even he knew training for the entire day only to fight through most of the night was more of a detriment to his health in the long run than anything. And he’d promised Felicity.
Oliver opened the app and began scrolling down a list displaying accounts that had been selected according to his own preferences. They each had their own username and a short bio attached, and his eyes caught on one in particular.
JusticeIsAWoman
Career-driven. Closer to thirty than I’d like. Slow to get to know, but passionate about the people close to me. Really just looking for a friend.
That could work. At the least, it didn’t really sound like an actual relationship would result — which he didn’t want in the first place, but he didn’t want to hurt some anonymous person’s feelings over it.
He could tell Felicity he’d tried even if it didn’t work out. At the least it wouldn’t be lying.
And something about the bio’s frank tone intrigued him. It felt more authentic, like someone he wouldn’t mind talking to, even if it only lasted a few minutes. And there was no denying the irony of a vigilante pursuing justice.
Nothing ventured…
He hit the icon that opened up a message box and began to type.
—-
Work was not exactly going well today. She was still tired and a bit sore from her workouts at the gym, not that she was about to give those up. It was the only time she really felt alive anymore, not like at the office where she had to pretend everything was fine and that she hadn’t watched her sister’s body fall off a rooftop only a few short weeks ago.
It wasn’t that she hated her job. It just wasn’t enough anymore, not when the city was regularly on the verge of crisis the past few years and the justice system couldn’t even try keeping up. Sitting on the sidelines and watching Oliver and the others do something about it just grew more and more frustrating with each passing day.
It wasn’t as if she could have much of her own life anymore. She was lying to her father about Sara, lying to anyone not on Oliver’s team about the Arrow, and lying to herself about why she kept turning down various invites to go out or be set up with a friend of a colleague. Why not do something worthwhile with the time she wasn’t using?
A vaguely familiar sounding ping came from her purse. Laurel dug around in it for her phone and blinked at the screen. Then she groaned.
“Speak of the devil.”
There was a notification from the dating app Joanna had made her download this past summer. It had been a while since she’d heard anything from it; truthfully Laurel had been pretty sure she’d fended off the majority of any potential suitors, which she realized was not what her friend had wanted at all.
“You need to get back out there,” Joanna had said. “Seriously, Laurel, you have gone through so much, and I don’t want to see you give up on a single part of your life. And that includes relationships.”
“Joanna, I appreciate that, I really do.” Laurel had tried for a smile, not wanting to make her friend feel bad. “But it’s not that I’m not dating because I’m still hung up on some guy.” Not the guy Joanna had probably been thinking of, anyway. “I just really don’t have the time to date around.”
“Who does anymore? That is why all the young professionals have gotten into this nifty thing called online dating.”
She’d suppressed a groan. “I think you mean old people.”
“Yeah, on eHarmony, sure. But there’s sites for busybodies hitting their thirties just like you and me.”
“I’m not sure it’s going to look that great for the ADA to be online dating,” Laurel had said, thinking it an easy-out.
“Then we’ll set you up with one of those anonymous sites,” Joanna had decided. “It’s more for the practice than anything. Just to boost your confidence so you can start dating in the real world again.”
Grudgingly, she’d handed her phone over and let Joanna search for and download an app that met the right specifications.
“Now, you’re gonna need a username. Something kind of mysterious and sexy—”
“I’m not trying to be sexy,” she’d reminded her friend.
“--but still you,” Joanna had continued as though Laurel hadn’t spoken. She’d bitten her lip in a long few minutes of thought, and just when Laurel had begun to hope they’d been stymied before this could really begin, Joanna’s eyes had lit up. “Oh, this one’s perfect!”
Laurel had leaned over the table to watch her friend’s typing. “Justice is a woman?”
“And that woman is you. Come on, it fits.”
She’d coached Laurel through writing a little bio section that didn’t give away any real personal details and a brief questionnaire that was meant to determine her preferences. Laurel had insisted on making it clear she wasn’t really in the market for a relationship; just a friend would do.
“You realize most guys are gonna take that as code for a one-night stand, right?”
Joanna had been right, which had meant a couple solid weeks of slogging through various offers and blocking anyone who sent her an attachment on sight. With a little bit of tweaking, the messages had slowed to a trickle — though most of those were requests to join some pre-existing couple’s threesome since she’d honestly listed her openness towards talking to either men or women once Joanna hadn’t been watching.
But she’d forgotten all about it especially in the wake of Sara’s murder. Laurel unlocked her phone with the full intention to just delete the app, but her eyes caught sight of the message that had been sent.
KingOfSurvival: is the looking for a friend part of your bio for real?
Something about it gave her pause. It wasn’t exactly easy to tell over the internet, but the question seemed genuine. Although she wasn’t sure what to make of that username. The likelihood was that she was reading way too much into it, however, so with that in mind she typed out a terse reply.
JusticeIsAWoman: is that the setup for some kind of ‘change your mind with a dick pic’ maneuver
The reply was almost immediate.
KingOfSurvival: no
KingOfSurvival: I just meant I could use a friend myself. I’m not really on here to see anyone or hookup or anything with pictures
KingOfSurvival: do people really do that?
JusticeIsAWoman: you wouldn’t believe how often
She sat back in her chair, considering the turn this had taken. He wasn’t interested in dating her or sex, but he’d messaged her anyway. And in the middle of the workday. That didn’t exactly speak well for him, but maybe he was on his lunch break. Laurel hadn’t been planning to take one, but there wasn’t anything pressing on her desk at the moment.
JusticeIsAWoman: if you’re not interested in dating, what are you doing on a dating site?
KingOfSurvival: couldn’t I ask you the same?
“Touché,” Laurel muttered under her breath. He’d already sent a second message before she could begin typing.
KingOfSurvival: truth is a friend signed me up for this
JusticeIsAWoman: same thing happened to me
KingOfSurvival: that might say something about the company we both keep
JusticeIsAWoman: is that why you’re looking for new friends
There was a longer wait for his answer, and Laurel chewed her bottom lip, wondering if that remark had been a bit too biting.
KingOfSurvival: I laughed more than I should have at that
KingOfSurvival: but really, I guess my personal life is a little complicated and having someone else to talk to would be nice
Complicated personal life. Well, she doubted it could be as complicated as hers. And really, what was she doing chatting with some random stranger on the internet while her whole world kept getting knocked out from under her?
But having someone else to talk to would be nice. Someone who didn’t see her as all her past mistakes, or as just another fellow alcoholic. Wasn’t that the whole point to this anonymity?
JusticeIsAWoman: well, I don’t know how good I’ll be at it, but I can try to be that someone
JusticeIsAWoman: but there’s no way your personal life is more complicated than mine
KingOfSurvival: we’ll have to agree to disagree on that
KingOfSurvival: but if you need someone to talk to, too, then this might work out for both of us
JusticeIsAWoman: looks like it
She happened to glance at the time at the top of her screen and gave a guilty start
JusticeIsAWoman: but maybe later. Kind of need to get back to work
KingOfSurvival: oh, right. My bad
JusticeIsAWoman: are you unemployed or something?
KingOfSurvival: or something
JusticeIsAWoman: hm
KingOfSurvival: don’t you need to get going?
A short laugh escaped her at that, which surprised her. She actually couldn’t remember the last time she had laughed. Probably with Sara on the roof…
What was she doing? Laurel shook her head.
JusticeIsAWoman: fine, you get off easy for now
She set her phone aside face down and resisted the urge to check when it chirped again with her new anonymous friend’s reply. She’d save it for after work. That was the responsible thing to do.
Was it wrong to feel like she had something to look forward to now?
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cloudhunter25 · 3 years
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Descargar Gta 5 Mac Epic Games
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Until 2 years ago, I used to be a PC person. I had a giant tower desktop computer with fans with flashing lights. I replaced that with a maxed-out MacBook Pro so that I could start traveling and work from anywhere. The problem is, since then I’ve missed PC gaming. All that startup stuff gets so incredibly boring after awhile, and we need to destress. Why even leave your computer screen to destress when you can do it ON YOUR COMPUTER? YES! YES! FREEDOM OF REALITY!
So let’s browse the games in Apple’s App Store, well, they’re not so great. It’s kind of the iOS type stuff but then for OSX. Pretty very very shit.
But that’s stupid, because the MacBook Pro 15″ has two graphic cards, and they’re actually pretty powerful. And the MacBook Pro 13″ and MacBook Air have on-board graphic cards, but they’re fine to play PC games from a few years ago (like Skyrim). So it’s a bit of a shame, we can’t play games on it. And well, destress.
How about GTA V? It’s come out for PC a few months ago, so I wanted to see if I could get it working on my MacBook Pro. I was pretty sure I couldn’t, but I still wanted to try. I mean I’ve been wanting to play this for years, but never had a device for it. I mean, YOU NEED TO PLAY THIS, RIGHT?
I know you can run Windows on Mac with Parallels. But it’s a virtualization app, so it’d never run it with any high performance as the graphics drivers are virtual (software emulated) and not native (hardware). Try it with any game, it’ll probably crash even before playing it, or it’ll be extremely slow.
But then there’s Boot Camp, which lets you run Windows natively (without virtualization) and with high performance on your Mac. After it’s installed you’ll have to reboot to switch to Windows, but that only takes half a minute each time.
**Since Apple doesn’t like Windows, it makes it REALLY EXTRA SUPER hard to get Boot Camp to work. Obviously cause they hate Windows and never want you to use it. I get it. But that means it’s full of stupid bugs that you have to figure out yourself how to fix. It took me 10 days. Yes. 10 days of tears. Maybe that’s why I don’t know anybody using Boot Camp. So to save you all the PAIN and time, here is my tutorial with all the tricks to get it working. **
What you’ll need
16GB USB stick (not an SD card!), I tried a 8GB one as Apple recommends it, but it wasn’t big enough, yup WHATEVER!
Windows 8 ISO file, in a perfect world you’d buy this from Microsoft, but they make it really hard and want to ship you a physical CD (what the fuck, it’s 2015, let me buy an ISO), so just find an ISO file of Windows somewhere (okay fine, Microsoft, I guess you don’t WANT my money)
Steam account to buy GTA V PC (it’s about $50 I think, worth it because you can play it online if you buy it legally)
Prepare Boot Camp
First search for Boot Camp Assistant on your Mac. Click Continue and you’ll see this:
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If this is your first time, select ALL boxes. The first one makes your USB stick loaded with Windows and OSX’s boot camp loader, the second one is the Boot Camp drivers it adds, the third one sounds weird but means it’ll partition your drive to set up Windows.
So now click Continue:
Select your Windows ISO file and continue.
It’ll take some time to copy the Windows ISO to your USB stick, and then download the drivers from Apple that are compatible to your Windows version.
When it finishes, you’ll see this partition window. This means it’ll divide your hard drive up in two pieces, one drive for Windows, one for Mac’s OSX. Here it gets really dodgy, because it actually doesn’t work properly EVER.
You need to choose how big your Windows drive should be. To calculate the size: Windows needs about 20 GB to function, then you need some space for your game. GTA V takes 65 GB, so that is 65+20=85 GB. To make it performant I rounded it up to 100 GB. But it depends on how big your games are etc. Skyrim e.g. is less than 10 GB. So you’d need only 30 to 40 GB probably.
But then it doesn’t work
The reason I said this is dodgy is because it’ll probably fail. You’ll see this amazingly descript error probably like me and my friends did:
It took me days to figure out how to fix it. But it comes down to this: (1) free up space on your drive and (2) if it has disk errors or not. Aim to get about 50% free space. For me that was insane because I have a 1TB drive, with 100 GB free, so I had to free up another 400 GB. It helps to just put stuff on an external hard drive while you’re setting up Boot Camp, you can put it back after.
The non-blue stuff on Macintosh HD is my free space, not enough obviously. Make sure you get about 50% free space on your drive. So if you have 256 GB drive, get 125 GB free. At 500 GB, 250 GB free. At 1 TB, 500 GB free. You get it.
Now fix those errors
Even after clearing all that space, Boot Camp will probably still whine and fail again, like it did for me.
That’s because it’ll run into some weird errors on your drive. Those weird errors are because off, well, I have no fucking clue. But they’re there. How to fix this? Well you open Disk Utility.
Click “Verify Disk” and it’ll check your disk. This might take awhile. I got this crazy scary error. If you didn’t get that and it’s verified, then just skip this part.
I was like “wait WHAT? NO!”. My SSD drive was broken? Why did nobody tell me! I rebooted into Recovery Mode (reboot and hold CMD+R). There I opened Disk Utility in there to verify my disk. If your disk is encrypted like mine, you need to unlock it first by right-clicking the disk, selecting Unlock and entering your password.
Then I verified it again, repaired everything and it worked fine. There were no errors. Odd right? Who cares! Because after this it worked. I rebooted into normal OSX mode and started Boot Camp Assistant again. This time I only selected the last checkbox:
Let’s try again
There we go, partition it:
After partitioning, Boot Camp Assistant automatically restarts. And then BAM!
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Now Windows doesn’t like our partitions
Yay! It’s Windows! On a Mac! Don’t celebrate too early, because this is where hell starts.
See what that says? “Windows cannot be installed to Disk 0 Partition 3”. Wait WHAT? WHY! Boot Camp was supposed to fix this shit, right? I was supposed to not do anything and Boot Camp would put all the files in the right place, to make it work on Mac, right?
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NOPE!
Then you press Format on that partition. And it seems to work but no it doesn’t because it says:
“The selected disk of the GPT partition style”
COME ON!
What does it take for a (wo)man to get a Windows around here?
Well, a lot. After hours of Googling, I figured it out.
You need to reboot back into OSX. Exit the installation. Then hold ALT/OPTION and select Macintosh HD to boot to. Then go back to Disk Utility:
Select your BOOTCAMP partition and go to the Erase tab, then under Format select ExFAT and click Erase. Make sure you’re erasing the correct partition (BOOTCAMP not Macintosh HD).
After that reboot your MacBook into Windows by rebooting and holding the ALT/OPTION key and selecting your USB stick (I think it’s called EFI). It’ll load the Windows install again.
Try selecting the BOOTCAMP partition in the Windows installation again, you can recognize it by the size you made it. For me that was 100 GB (it showed as I think 86 GB). If it still gives an error, go last resort. Remove the BOOTCAMP partition within the Windows installation by clicking Delete.
Then add a new partition by clicking New:
Try installing it on that partition. If that still doesn’t work, you’re out of luck, cause I have no idea either.
And then…it works
You’ll see this.
The problem is that there’s a good chance the Boot Camp drivers for Windows to understand your MacBook (e.g. use WiFi, sound, etc.) aren’t installed. Luckily they’re on your USB stick. In the Start Screen go to search and type File Explorer. Then try to fin your USB stick. Open the Boot Camp folder and find an Install app, open it and let it run. It’ll probably reboot.
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Now with all your drivers installed, most of the stuff on your MacBook will work on Windows now. My friend has some problems with the Bluetooth keyboard, but that was an unofficial keyboard. My Apple one worked perfectly. As did my Logitech wireless mouse.
Now let’s make Windows suck less
Okay, so Windows 8 is obviously the worst interface any person has come across. Like Windows 8 itself actually feels pretty solid, if you get out of that insane box square maze mayhem they call the Start Menu now. It’s insane. Who runs this company? So incredibly stupid to do this. My dad just switched to OSX because he couldn’t understand this Start Screen. Biggest fail of the century.
We have no choice though. We want to play games! So to get your start menu (from old times) back, install Classic Shell.
Then set this image as the start button in preferences:
Yay! Now to disable that stupid Start Screen, right-click on the Task Bar, then click Properties, then click the Navigation tab, then check “When I sign in or close all apps on a screen, go to the desktop instead of Start”, uncheck “When I point to the upper-right corner, show the charms”.
Now install Steam
I’ll let you do this as it’s pretty easy. Go to Steam and the top right click Install Steam.
Then search for GTA V. Click Download.
Here’s the problem, GTA V is 65 GB and that will take awhile. You obviously don’t want to be stuck for hours in Windows. The trick here is to install Parallels in OSX (if you haven’t already). Reboot to OSX (hold ALT/OPTION and select Macintosh HD) and set Parallels up so it uses the Boot Camp partition. Open Parallels, select Boot Camp on the right and follow the instructions:
After installing, try playing GTA V. Customize the graphic settings a bit. You can’t play it on super high settings, but you can go pretty far on a MacBook Pro 15″. Like I said, it has an actually really powerful graphics card, so it can run GTA V fine.
Yay!
Now you can use your Boot Camp partition within OSX with Parallels to download games/software and continue working. Then when it’s finished, reboot to Windows and play your PC games.
It took me awhile to get back into playing games when I did all of this. I mean, it’s like it has to compete with reality, which is already insane for me, and so GTA V felt somewhat “fake” to me for days, until I accepted it was a game, and nothing I did in there would be an actual accomplishment. See, that’s what startup life psychology does to you. And on a serious note, that’s why we should all play more games. Because it helps you get out of your filter bubble.
Going outside to walk your dog? Naaaaaah, why would you! There’s GTA V!
P.S. I wrote a book on building indie startups called MAKE. And I'm on Twitter too if you'd like to follow more of my stories. I don't use email so tweet me your questions. Or you can see my list of posts. To get an alert when I write a new blog post, you can subscribe below:
Furthermore, the version of the game that is put up for free is the GTA 5’s Premium Edition – this includes the full storyline from the game plus Grand Theft Auto Online in addition to all currently existing in-game upgrades and bonus content. To top it all, users would also get the “Criminal Enterprise Starter Pack” that comes with even more content as well as 1,000,000 $ bonus in-game money for online play.
All you need in order to grab the GTA V for free is a working PC or Mac (of course, one that could run this rather resource-intensive game), an Epic Games Launcher, and an Epic Games account. However, one thing we must note here is that users would have to have enabled two-factor authentication on their accounts in order to be permitted to get the game for free.
Can you run GTA V on Mac?
The short answer is yes. If you have already set up you Mac to play PC games then just go ahead and take advantage of the Full free Version of GTA V. If not, you will need to install Boot Camp, create a virtual Machine and afterwards install the game.
How to play gta v on mac without bootcamp?
Performance wise it would be unpractical using other methods. The performance decrease would make the game unplayable. However if you are using one of the latest high performance macs on the market you can give Wineskin a shot. Setting up a Virtual machine would make much sense either.
Install GTA 5 on Mac with bootcamp
Before attempting to install boot camp we recommend checking your macs specifications and cross referencing them with those recommend to run GTA 5. Next, you will need a program called Boot Camp. With Boot Camp, you can install a version of Windows 10 which is compatible with GTA 5. Here are the steps for installing Windows 10 on a Mac using Boot Camp:
Download Windows 10 ISO onto your mac
Configure Boot Camp Assistant
Go to Finder > Applications > Utilities > Boot Camp Assistant
Open the program and click continue
Select the Windows 10 ISO
Choose somewhere around 100GB of space
Install the Windows 10 ISO and configure Windows
Install recommended drivers after booting up the Windows partition
If you are running Mac OS Cataline 10.15 we recommend watching this YouTube video to make sure you are not missing out on any of the steps.
Playing GTA V on Mac
Although ac computers aren’t specifically designed as gaming machines, it is still possible to play games in them. However, if you want to run GTA V on a Mac, you will first need to install Windows 7 or higher. We highly recommend installing windows 10 on your Mac even with the latest version of Mac OS 10.15.5 via something called Windows Boot Camp (official instructions from Apple on how to set this up) using the instructions above. Also, note that, in order to run the game on your Mac, you will also need at least 65 GB of free space and your machine would have to meet/exceed the minimum system requirements for the game.
Downloading GTA V for mac
Please remember to download the game on the windows version via Boot Camp. The Epic game launcher itself is not compatible with Mac OS.
Gta 5 Mac Free Download
Recommended Specs To run GTA V On Mac
Processor
Intel Core i5 3470 @ 3.2GHZ (4 CPUs) / AMD X8 FX-8350 @ 4GHZ (8 CPUs)
Memory
8 GB RAM
Video Card
NVIDIA GTX 660 2GB / AMD HD7870 2GB
HDD
Space90 GB available space
Use Geforce Now to play GTA on Mac
A number of users on the Geforce forums have been reporting that Grand Theft Auto 5 has been removed from the NVIDIA Geforce Now library of games. Many people used to play GTA on Geforce Now but the game isn’t available anymore. Initially, the rumors were that the reason for the game’s take-down was an update or some problem with the contract, but it seems that Rockstar has got a deal with Google for Stadia and Geforce Now yanked GTA because of that.
Use Stadia to play GTA on Mac
The good news is that the fans of Grand Theft Auto 5 might be able to see it arriving soon in Stadia Edition. A Rockstar Mag tweet indicated that the game can be released earlier than expected. According to the leak, players using Google Stadia seem to be shortly able to enjoy the game. However, the tweet did not have a source or any timeline for the game’s release. That’s why many fans already anticipate an update that will reveal when they should be able to play the ported title.
Descargar Gta 5 Mac Epic Games To Play
At the moment, the game persists in gaming charts, and, hence, bringing it to more playing platforms is financially meaningful for all interested parties.
Grand Theft Auto 5 also gives fans a lot of content and the players in Stadia would surely enjoy the well-regarded title in their gaming collection. It remains to be seen if this game would contribute to improving Stadia’s revenue, although this depends a lot on the continuing success and popularity of GTA 5.
Grand Theft Auto 5 can currently be played on PCs, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One, with PlayStation 5 and the Xbox Series X scheduled to be launched in late 2021.
Running GTA on Apple silicon
For the time being m1 chips cannot run windows with Boot Camp. The fundamental reason is that the two operating systems now run on totally different architecture. Where as intel chips on Mac were capable of running Windows 10 this would be nearly impossible to achieve with all new Macs with apple silicon
Massive Epic Game Store crash due to a traffic spikeon release date
Descargar Gta 5 Mac Epic Games To Play
As soon as Epic Games Store’s official Twitter account announced that the game they will be made available for free would indeed be GTA V, understandably, a huge number of users seem to have rushed to the Store in anticipation of the free release of the title. This, however, seems to have caused a massive crash on the Epic Games servers that lasted for hours. The Epic Games team addressed this issue on their Twitter page, expressing their apologies and assuring their customers that they are working on resolving the issue. At the moment of writing this post, the server problems at Epic Games Store seem to have been resolved and people could now once again log in with their accounts and claim the Premium Edition of the acclaimed Rockstar game.
This is not the first time Epic Games Store has made such free game giveaways. Ever since the store was launched in December 2018, they have been occasionally making games free for a temporary amount of time and according to a statement from the company made in January, they intend to keep doing throughout the whole 2020.
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alilybit · 3 years
Text
Steam Scam Documentation
improved readability + table of contents on my website: https://phal.io/hackers/stean (free easter egg included!)
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TLDR – What To Do
Prevention
- Never sign in using Steam anywhere unless it’s a well known site that you navigated to yourself, preferably by manually typing the URL into your browser and saving that URL as a bookmark for later, NEVER sign in on links others sent you, even your significant other whom you would trust with your life because their account could be hijacked or they don’t know they’re sharing a malicious link
- Optionally send the link to an internationally approved computer expert you trust (me?)
- When you confirm trades in the app, always double check both trade contents AND the person you’re trading with (level, friend date) because hackers can automatically replace outgoing and incoming trade offers to go to a different account with the same name and pfp as your original trade partner
When It’s Too Late
- Warn your friends not to click on any link that might be sent on your behalf, check active chats for messages you didn’t send, send/tell them this
- Change your password (if you use your Steam password elsewhere, change those as well, you should be using unique passwords and a secure open source password manager like KeePassXC)
- Log out all sessions in the Steam desktop client by clicking on your name in the top right corner next to notifications and navigating to account details -> account security - manage Steam guard -> deauthorize all other devices
- Open https://steamcommunity.com/dev/apikey in your browser (if you don’t trust my link, which you shouldn’t, simply find out if steamcommunity dot com is the real domain for Steam and then manually type the complete link into your browser), revoke any API key there is if you haven’t created them or don’t know what they are, if you did make them replace them
- Optionally report the link at https://safebrowsing.google.com/safebrowsing/report_phish/?hl=en to make all common web browsers display a warning before loading the malicious site
(Source + further info: https://forums.steamrep.com/pages/hijacking/)
When a Friend Sends You a Malicious Link or Acts Suspiciously
- Try to contact them somewhere outside of Steam and send/tell them this to save their account and to prevent the hijack from spreading further through their friends list
- Warn their friends
Pro Tip
The interwebs are full of malicious links/downloads, even/especially search engine results. To make sure you get the proper installer for programmes/the proper link to log into/purchase something, ALWAYS use the Wikipedia Technique™:
- Open wikipedia.org
- Search for the programme/site/shop/whatever
- Look for the website link either on the right in the summary box or by navigating to the external links section at the bottom
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I will now describe and show how a friend of mine had their account hijacked. I’ll also keep adding other forms of scam attempts to this post/site as I come across them so you can look at examples and be prepared for when it happens to you.
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Incident 1 – Can You Vote for My Team?
It was the night before my first vaccination. I was still doing something on my PC, I don’t remember what, even though it was past bedtime, when I got a message from a Steam friend. I’ll call them Ingeborg. My brother, Ingeborg and I had met a month earlier on a TF2 rocket jump server and we added each other. We played together a couple more times but beside that I didn’t know Ingeborg that well. You can see the chat from that day in the images below.
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The first cropped message from Ingeborg at the top is “hey u free rn?” or something. I assumed they just wanted to ask about playing a game of TF2 with me, as it has happened before. When they dropped the question about voting for their team and getting keys in return, I didn’t know what to make of it. I didn’t know of any competitive team they were in and I also didn’t know Ingeborg well or that alleged tournament at all. It also didn’t seem like they could just throw expensive keys around. I took some time to process the information and to think about what I should reply, but Ingeborg didn’t leave me much time to think, following up with “?” and “u here”. So I asked, feeling stupid for not knowing what they’re talking about.
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Then, they also set a time limit of less than 30 minutes and kept asking why I’m not immediately replying or “voting”. I have to admit, I nearly fell for it. I want to help people and I can’t think clearly under pressure, especially when it involves other people. And, for the Permanent Record, I of course wouldn’t have taken anything in return for helping a friend. I wanted to tell them that but they didn’t even give me the time to type that. I had already put my name and password in the form, after a lot of thinking, but something prevented me from pressing enter, it just didn’t feel right. I had even briefly searched the web for that tournament and didn’t really find anything. But what finally made me realise that there is something wrong and what made me think clearly again was the border and title bar of that alleged pop-up window. (Edit: Thanks for 1 likes. I compared genuinely signing in through Steam on scrap.tf and it did not open a pop-up window, it simply completely sent me to steamcommunity.com. I guess that means pop-up Steam sign ins are always fake.) I already tried clicking on the HTTPS information earlier which didn’t work for some reason but which still didn’t make me 100 % realise that this is a fake site. Until I noticed that the title bar is a Windows 10 default light theme title bar. I’m on Linux and I use dark themes, the title bar should look completely different. I tried moving the window around and it moved choppily and I could only move it within the Firefox window. I checked the source code and it was true: It was merely an iframe within the site that contained a fake Steam login form from a different URL that’s not steamcommunity.com. This is the site in the iframe:
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As you can see, it’s the Steam login form, but the address at the top is not a Steam address. I took a look at its source code and found that it was a lot longer than the original and also contained a lot of dialogue lines about removing the Steam mobile authenticator. This apparently didn’t come up when actually putting in password and username, but you should look out for fake sites telling you to remove your authenticator, they could get complete access to your account that way.
I confronted Ingeborg with this and they stopped replying. But they didn’t immediately remove me from their friends list, like that one time I was actually scammed. I wasn’t sure what to do now. Was Ingeborg really a scammer? Was everything we did together so far just to gain my trust to scam me? Like that one time I was actually scammed? The funny thing is that out conversation before this was about scammers. Some usual random scammer put a usual comment on my profile and Ingeborg warned me. But I believe in the good in everyone and I didn’t want to just assume they were a scammer without making absolutely sure. I thought about what else I knew about Ingeborg. They gifted my brother some items because he barely has any. They invited me to their Steam group. They subscribed to me on YouTube and put my channel on their home tab. Coincidentally, earlier that same day, I also took some time to take a look at their YouTube channel and subscribed. So I thought that me subscribing to them was the sign they were waiting for, signalling that I trusted them enough to fall for the scam. I checked their channel and I was still on their home tab and subscriptions. I checked their Steam group and was still a member. This convinced me that there really is a possibility that this wasn’t actually Ingeborg trying to scam be but that they’ve also been phished and someone else is now trying to also gain access to their friends’s’s accounts.
Ingeborg’s friends list and profile comments were now set to private, so I couldn’t comment or directly message their friends to warn them. But there was the Steam group. One other member was online, one with a Pokémon profile picture and I believe I also remembered noticing them on Ingeborg’s friends list because of the Pokémon theme. So I put a comment in the group and added the Pokémon person, who unfortunately had their comments disabled as well, so I put an explanatory message into my profile to let them know why I’m adding them. I warned them and asked them to tell Ingeborg that someone has access to their account, should they know Ingeborg better than me. On YouTube, Ingeborg had their Discord name listed. I tried to add them but friend requests were disabled. There was also an Instagram name. I technically don’t have Instagram but I made a test account a while ago to test a YouTube scam comment with a link to an alleged Instagram password hacking site. I logged in with that account, changed my profile picture to my real one, added an explanation to the bio and added Ingeborg. But they didn’t react. So I wrote a comment on a YouTube video. I think it took three attempts for the comment to pass the automatic spam filter. It could of course also have been Ingeborg deleting my comments exposing them for being a scammer. But the third castle stayed up. And a while later, they actually responded. I then tried to tell them to add me on Discord, that also took many attempts and extremely careful wording to get through. Not even my Discord tag with numbers spelled out and 1447 speak, as Jeremy 900 800 500 would say, went through, but a carefully camouflaged link to my website did. By then, they also messaged me on Steam, asking for help and asking me to temporarily take their valuable items to secure them. I told them to add me on Discord so I know it’s actually them I’m chatting with. As it turned out later, it was really good that they didn’t trade me their stuff.
Apparently, Ingeborg wasn’t home at the time and only had access to their phone. And they allegedly fell for the exact same scam a day before. The obvious first thing that had to be done was changing the Steam password. But it seems that the password can’t be changed in the app itself. So I had the idea that Ingeborg could log into Steam on their phone’s web browser and change the password there, which worked. We kept chatting and I kept researching. I still wasn’t sure if this was still part of Ingeborg’s ingenious plan to regain my trust to scam me again, but I believed in them. Eventually Ingeborg got home, and I stayed awake gladly until 3:47 in the morning, I… I sang as time went off. Because as long as menly men like me are prepared to give their time, a flower grows. And that flower, that small, fragile, delicate yellow flower, shall burst forth and defeat interwebs criminals. On the “next” day, the vaccine had a side effect of making me a little tired. Strangely enough, that side effect already started before the injection itself.
I also kept thinking about what the actual purpose of this series of hijacking accounts is. Ingeborg’s Steam wallet and inventory seemed to have been untouched but there must be some way for the criminals to profit off of this, if only to pay for the costs of the website and domain. On Vaccinator day, I finally found an article on https://forums.steamrep.com/pages/hijacking/ that explains it. When you give them your password and current authenticator code, they obviously get access to your account, but you still have the authenticator, so what they can do is limited. Apparently, they use the opportunity to create an API key that allows them to keep accessing your account even after you changed your password and they use it to immediately replace incoming and outgoing trade offers with ones that go to a fake version of your original trade partner with the same name and profile picture. You might then not notice the difference when confirming the trade in the app and give them your items, unknowingly and without them having to have access to or remove your mobile authenticator. A brilliant idea. You might as well check if you have any API keys which you usually shouldn’t, the details are explained on the steamrep link and in the “when it’s too late” section at the top of this piece of medium literature.
And the moral of this story: Always be careful, educate yourself on how they trick you and on digital security in the sense of safety, never assume you won’t fall for it, don’t shame people who fell for it and don’t feel ashamed if you fell for it. And always have an internationally approved technical support character on your team.
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Incident 2 – Simply Building Trust AKA Social Engineer
We write the distant year of 2016. Two… œ… six… one. Oh, I’m an idiot, I held the pen upside down. Never mind. I don’t recall the incident in as many details, but I still know the most important things. It started on a TF2 tdm_hightower community server, rocket jumping and Market Gardenering around. I don’t remember exactly how one of the other players started conversing with me, I just remember that they, I’ll call them Wincohn, added me, chatted with me and wanted to trade one of my items that was not yet tradable. We chatted over the course of multiple days. Eventually, we also chatted about bad things that happened in our pasts, like the divorce of my parents and how their dad allegedly died when they were young. And we comforted each other. They also asked me if I was religious at some point, I guess because religious people are easier to scam. When I took a look at their inventory, I saw TF2 competitive matchmaking beta passes. I don’t remember exactly how that worked, but I was excited about matchmaking and you could only get in if you have the beta pass item, but having it also gives you some invites to give to other people. So I offered to take a beta invite in exchange for the item they wanted. My item, a festive Rocket Launcher was still not tradable though, so they offered me to temporarily give them something else and they would immediately give me a beta invite. Since the beta invite is not an item, I had to trust them they would actually invite me in return. We were on the aforementioned community server again and they agreed to make our trade public to the server members so they could witness it and report one of us, should we not keep our side of the bargain. So we opened a trade and I gave them one cosmetic drop I didn’t need, one cosmetic I used and two non-strange festive weapons so I don’t lose my stats, which were apparently in total about equal in value to the Rocket Launcher. Right before the trade went through, they left the server, which I only noticed when the trade window closed. And they removed me from their friends list. No beta invite. I told the others on the server that we traded but he left before it went through and he scammed me but nobody cared. The chat where we agreed that I would get a beta invite was also gone. I lost my items and I didn’t even have proof that it was a scam and not just a gift or tax dodge. Steam rightfully doesn’t return scammed items, because the scammers of course immediately sell them and taking them away from the buyer would be unfair for them and giving the victim a duplicate would be easily exploitable, but getting them banned would at least prevent further scams. The worst part, though, is that everything they told me was a lie and only served the purpose of gaining my trust. Fascinating.
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After it happened, I was of course sad and angry. But only temporarily. I don’t hold a grudge against them, I’ve long since forgiven them. Quite on the contrary, I’m even thankful because I didn’t lose that much virtual material value (like 3 $) and it was a valuable experience. I only hope that they have changed since then and don’t do this anymore. The comments on their profile are disabled to this day, not the best sign. They also don’t have a Steam or third party ban. Either them scamming was not a common occurrence or nobody was ever able to prove it.
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Incident 3 – Wanna Join Our Tournament Team? (Incomplete)
I got another one of those friend requests on Steam from a suspicious looking profile. One of those that have TF2 comp stuff in their profile description. This time, I accepted it to see what they would do, to document more methods used by interwebs criminals.
This account had 1200 hours of TF2 playtime. So it looked like they’re an actual player, or maybe a hijacked account. Their inventory was public as well, but nearly empty, not even regular weapons or anything. They were playing TF2 the entire time and when I checked the server they were on, it always said no server. I guess that means they just have TF2 open the entire time to farm playtime that is publicly and prominently displayed on their profile to appear like a real player.
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I tried to go along with their chat but it didn’t go well. I even prepared my long unused Gibus Cap Discord account that I used to use to test roles on our server. But apparently, I asked too many questions. I was too eager to get a nice phishing link into my net. After that last message, they removed me from their friends. Next time, I won’t ask questions.
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itbeatsbookmarks · 4 years
Link
(Via: Hacker News)
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Act 1: Sunday afternoon
So you know when you’re flopping about at home, minding your own business, drinking from your water bottle in a way that does not possess any intent to subvert the Commonwealth of Australia?
It’s a feeling I know all too well, and in which I was vigorously partaking when I got this message in “the group chat”.
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A nice message from my friend, with a photo of a boarding pass 🙂 A good thing about messages from your friends is that they do not have any rippling consequences 🙂🙂🙂
The man in question is Tony Abbott, one of Australia’s many former Prime Ministers.
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That’s him, officer
For security reasons, we try to change our Prime Minister every six months, and to never use the same Prime Minister on multiple websites.
The boarding pass photo
This particular former PM had just posted a picture of his boarding pass on Instagram (Instagram, in case you don’t know it, is an app you can open up on your phone any time to look at ads).
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The since-deleted Instagram post showing the boarding pass and baggage receipt. The caption reads “coming back home from japan 😍😍 looking forward to seeing everyone! climate change isn’t real 😌 ok byeee”
“Can you hack this man?”
My friend (who we will refer to by their group chat name, 𝖍𝖔𝖌𝖌𝖊 𝖒𝖔𝖆𝖉𝖊) is asking whether I can “hack this man” not because I am the kind of person who regularly commits 𝒄𝒚𝒃𝒆𝒓 𝒕𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒔𝒐𝒏 on a whim, but because we’d recently been talking about boarding passes.
I’d said that people post pictures of their boarding passes all the time, not knowing that it can sometimes be used to get their passport number and stuff. They just post it being like “omg going on holidayyyy 😍😍😍”, unaware that they’re posting cringe.
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People post their boarding passes all the time, because it’s not clear that they’re meant to be secret
Meanwhile, some hacker is rubbing their hands together, being all “yumyum identity fraud 👀” in their dark web Discord, because this happens a lot.
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So there I was, making intense and meaningful eye contact with this chat bubble, asking me if I could “hack this man”.
Surely you wouldn’t
Of course, my friend wasn’t actually asking me to hack the former Prime Minister.
However.
You gotta.
I mean… what are you gonna do, not click it? Are you gonna let a link that’s like 50% advertising tracking ID tell you what to do? Wouldn’t you be curious?
The former Prime Minister had just posted his boarding pass. Was that bad? Was someone in danger? I didn’t know.
What I did know was: the least I could do for my country would be to have a casual browse 👀
Investigating the boarding pass photo
Step 1: Hubris
So I had a bit of a casual browse, and got the picture of the boarding pass, and then…. I didn’t know what was supposed to happen after that.
Well, I’d heard that it’s bad to post your boarding pass online, because if you do, a bored 17 year-old Russian boy called “Katie-senpai” might somehow use it to commit identity fraud. But I don’t know anyone like that, so I just clumsily googled some stuff.
Googling how 2 hakc boarding pass
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Eventually I found a blog post explaining that yes, pictures of boarding passes can indeed be used for Crimes. The part you wanna be looking at for all your criming needs is the barcode, because it’s got the “Booking Reference” (e.g. H8JA2A) in it.
Why do you want the booking reference? It’s one of the two things you need to log in to the airline website to manage your flight.
The second one is your… last name. I was really hoping the second one would be like a password or something. But, no, it’s the booking reference the airline emails you and prints on your boarding pass. And it also lets you log in to the airline website?
That sounds suspiciously like a password to me, but like I’m still fine to pretend it’s not if you are.
Step 2: Scan the barcode
I’ve been practicing every morning at sunrise, but still can’t scan barcodes with my eyes. I had to settle for a barcode scanner app on my phone, but when I tried to scan the picture in the Instagram post, it didn’t work :((
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Maybe I shouldn’t have blurred out the barcode first
Step 2: Scan the barcode, but more
Well, maybe it wasn’t scanning because the picture was too blurry.
I spent around 15 minutes in an “enhance, ENHANCE” montage, fiddling around with the image, increasing the contrast, and so on. Despite the montage taking up way too much of the 22 minute episode, I couldn’t even get the barcode to scan.
Step 2: Notice that the Booking Reference is printed right there on the paper
After staring at this image for 15 minutes, I noticed the Booking Reference is just… printed on the baggage receipt.
I graduated university.
But it did not prepare me for this.
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askdjhaflajkshdflkh
Step 3: Visit the airline’s website
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After recovering from that emotional rollercoaster, I went to qantas.com.au, and clicked “Manage Booking”. In case you don’t know it because you live in a country with fast internet, Qantas is the main airline here in Australia.
(I also very conveniently started recording my screen, which is gonna pay off big time in just a moment.)
Step 4: Type in the Booking Reference
Well, the login form was just… there, and it was asking for a Booking Reference and a last name. I had just flawlessly read the Booking Reference from the boarding pass picture, and, well… I knew the last name.
I did hesitate for a split-second, but… no, I had to know.
Step 5: Crimes(?)
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youngman.mp4
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The “Manage Booking” page, logged in as some guy called Anthony Abbott
Can I get a YIKES in the chat
Leave a comment if you really felt that.
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I guess I was now logged the heck in as Tony Abbott? And for all I know, everyone else who saw his Instagram post was right there with me. It’s kinda wholesome, to imagine us all there together. But also probably suboptimal in a governmental sense.
Was there anything secret in here?
I then just incredibly browsed the page, browsed it so hard.
I saw Tony Abbott’s name, flight times, and Frequent Flyer number, but not really anything super secret-looking. Not gonna be committing any cyber treason with a Frequent Flyer number. The flight was in the past, so I couldn’t change anything, either.
The page said the flight had been booked by a travel agent, so I guessed some information would be missing because of that.
I clicked around and scrolled a considerable length, but still didn’t find any government secrets.
Some people might give up here. But I, the Icarus of computers, was simply too dumb to know when to stop.
We’re not done just because a web page says we’re done
I wanted to see if there were juicy things hidden inside the page. To do it, I had to use the only hacker tool I know.
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Right click > Inspect Element, all you need to subvert the Commonwealth of Australia
Listen. This is the only part of the story that might be confused for highly elite computer skill. It’s not, though. Maybe later someone will show you this same thing to try and flex, acting like only they know how to do it. You will not go gently into that good night. You will refuse to acknowledge their flex, killing them instantly.
How does “Inspect Element” work?
“Inspect Element”, as it’s called, is a feature of Google Chrome that lets you see the computer’s internal representation (HTML) of the page you’re looking at. Kinda like opening up a clock and looking at the cool cog party inside.
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Yeahhh go little cogs, look at ‘em absolutely going off. Now imagine this but with like, JavaScript
Everything you see when you use “Inspect Element” was already downloaded to your computer, you just hadn’t asked Chrome to show it to you yet. Just like how the cogs were already in the watch, you just hadn’t opened it up to look.
But let us dispense with frivolous cog talk. Cheap tricks such as “Inspect Element” are used by programmers to try and understand how the website works. This is ultimately futile: Nobody can understand how websites work. Unfortunately, it kinda looks like hacking the first time you see it.
If you’d like to know more about it, I’ve prepared a short video.
Browsing the “Manage Booking” page’s HTML
I scrolled around the page’s HTML, not really knowing what it meant, furiously trying to find anything that looked out of place or secret.
I eventually realised that manually reading HTML with my eyes was not an efficient way of defending my country, and Ctrl + F’d the HTML for “passport”.
oh no
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Oh yes
It’s just there.
At this point I was fairly sure I was looking at the extremely secret government-issued ID of the 28th Prime Minister of the Commonwealth of Australia, servant to her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and I was kinda worried that I was somehow doing something wrong, but like, not enough to stop.
….anything else in this page?
Well damn, if Tony Abbott’s passport number is in this treasure trove of computer spaghetti, maybe there’s wayyyyy more. Perhaps this HTML contains the lost launch codes to the Sydney Opera House, or Harold Holt.
Maybe there’s a phone number?
Searching for phone and number didn’t get anywhere, so I searched for 614, the first 3 digits of an Australian phone number, using my colossal and highly celestial galaxy brain.
Weird uppercase letters
A weird pile of what I could only describe as extremely uppercase letters came up. It looked like this:
RQST QF HK1 HNDSYD/03EN|FQTV QF HK1|CTCM QF HK1 614[phone number]|CKIN QF HN1 DO NOT SEAT ROW [row number] PLS SEAT LAST ROW OF [row letter] WINDOW
So, there’s a lot going on here. There is indeed a phone number in here. But what the heck is all this other stuff?
I realised this was like… Qantas staff talking to eachother about Tony Abbott, but not to him?
In what is surely the subtweeting of the century, it has a section saying HITOMI CALLED RQSTING FASTTRACK FOR MR. ABBOTT. Hitomi must be requesting a “fasttrack” (I thought that was only a thing in movies???) from another Qantas employee.
This is messed up for many reasons
What is even going on here? Why do Qantas flight staff talk to eachother via this passenger information field? Why do they send these messages, and your passport number to you when you log in to their website? I’ll never know because I suddenly got distracted with
Forbidden airline code
I realised the allcaps museli I saw must be some airline code for something. Furious and intense googling led me to several ancient forbidden PDFs that explained some of the codes.
Apparently, they’re called “SSR codes” (Special Service Request). There are codes for things like “Vegetarian lacto-ovo meal” (VLML), “Vegetarian oriental meal” (VOML), and even “Vegetarian vegan meal” (VGML). Because I was curious about these codes, here’s some for you to be curious about too (tag urself, I’m UMNR):
RFTV Reason for Travel UMNR Unaccompanied minor PDCO Carbon Offset (chargeable) WEAP Weapon DEPA Deportee—accompanied by an escort ESAN Passenger with Emotional Support Animal in Cabin
The phone number I found looked like this: CTCM QF HK1 [phone number]. Googling “SSR CTCM” led me to the developer guide for some kind of airline association, which I assume I am basically a member of now.
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CTCM QF HK1 translates as “Contact phone number of passenger 1”
Is the phone number actually his?
I thought maybe the phone number belonged to the travel agency, but I checked and it has to be the passenger’s real phone number. That would be, if my calculations are correct,,,, *steeples fingers* Tony Abbott’s phone number.
what have i done
I’d now found Tony Abbott’s:
Passport details
Phone number
Weird Qantas staff comments.
My friend who messaged me had no idea.
Tony Abbott’s passport is probably a Diplomatic passport, which is used to “represent the Australian Government overseas in an official capacity”.
what have i done
By this point I’d had enough defending my country, and had recently noticed some new thoughts in my brain, which were:
oh jeez oh boy oh jeez
i gotta get someone, somehow, to reset tony abbott’s passport number
can you even reset passport numbers
is it possible that i’ve done a crime
Intermission
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Act 2: Do not get arrested challenge 2020
In this act, I, your well-meaning but ultimately incompetent protagonist, attempt to do the following things:
⬜ figure out whether i have done a crime
⬜ notify someone (tony abbott?) that this happened
⬜ get permission to publish this here blog post
⬜ tell qantas about the security issue so they can fix it
Spoilers: This takes almost six months.
Let’s skip the boring bits
I contacted a lot of people about this. If my calculations are correct, I called at least 30 phone numbers, to say nothing of The Emails. If you laid all the people I contacted end to end along the equator, they would die, and you would be arrested. Eventually I started keeping track of who I talked to in a note I now refer to as “the hashtag struggle”.
I’m gonna skip a considerable volume of tedious and ultimately unsatisfying telephony, because it’s been a long day of scrolling already, and you need to save your strength.
Alright strap yourself in and enjoy as I am drop-kicked through the goal posts of life.
Part 1: is it possible that i’ve done a crime
I didn’t think anything I did sounded like a crime, but I knew that sometimes when the other person is rich or famous, things can suddenly become crimes. Like, was there going to be some Monarch Law or something? Was Queen Elizabeth II gonna be mad about this?
My usual defence against being arrested for hacking is making sure the person being hacked is okay with it. You heard me, it’s the power of ✨consent✨. But this time I could uh only get it in retrospect, which is a bit yikes.
So I was wondering like… was logging in with someone else’s booking reference a crime? Was having someone else’s passport number a crime? What if they were, say, the former Prime Minister? Would I get in trouble for publishing a blog post about it? I mean you’re reading the blog post right now so obviousl
Update: I have been arrested.
Just straight up Reading The Law
It turned out I could just google these things, and before I knew it I was reading “the legislation”. It’s the rules of the law, just written down.
Look, reading pages of HTML? No worries. Especially if it’s to defend my country. But whoever wrote the legislation was just making up words.
Eventually, I was able to divine the following wisdoms from the Times New Roman tea leaves:
Defamation is where you get in trouble for publishing something that makes someone look bad.
But, it’s fine for me to blog about it, since it’s not defamation if you can prove it’s true
Having Tony Abbott’s passport number isn’t a crime
But using it to commit identity fraud would be
There are laws about what it’s okay to do on a computer
The things it’s okay to do are: If u EVER even LOOK at a computer the wrong way, the FBI will instantly slam dunk you in a legal fashion dependent on the legislation in your area
I am possibly the furthest thing you can be from a lawyer. So, I’m sure I don’t need to tell you not to take this as legal advice. But, if you are the kind of person who takes legal advice from mango blog posts, who am I to stand in your way? Not a lawyer, that’s who. Don’t do it.
You know what, maybe I needed help. From an adult. Someone whose 3-year old kid has been buying iPad apps for months because their parents can’t figure out how to turn it off.
“Yeah, maybe I should get some of that free government legal advice”, I thought to myself, legally. That seemed like a pretty common thing, so I thought it should be easy to do. I took a big sip of water and googled “free legal advice”.
trying to ask a lawyer if i gone and done a crime
Before I went and told everyone about my HTML frolicking, I spent a week calling legal aid numbers, lawyers, and otherwise trying to figure out if I’d done a crime.
During this time, I didn’t tell anyone what I’d done. I asked if any laws would be broken if “someone” had “logged into a website with someone’s publicly-posted password and found the personal information of a former politician”. Do you see how that’s not even a lie? I’m starting to see how lawyers do it.
Calling Legal Aid places
First I call the state government’s Legal Aid number. They tell me they don’t do that here, and I should call another Legal Aid place named something slightly different.
The second place tells me they don’t do that either, and I should call the First Place and “hopefully you get someone more senior”.
I call the First Place again, and they say “oh you’ve been given the run around!”. You see where this is going.
Let’s skip a lot of phone calls. Take my hand as I whisk you towards the slightly-more-recent past. Based on advice I got from two independent lawyers that was definitely not legal advice: I haven’t done a crime.
Helllllll yeah. But I mean it’s a little late because I forgot to mention that by this point I had already emailed explicit details of my activities to the Australian Government.
☑️ figure out whether i have done a crime
⬜ notify someone (tony abbott?) that this happened
⬜ get permission to publish this here blog post
⬜ tell qantas about the security issue so they can fix it
Part 2: trying to report the problem to someone, anyone, please
I had Tony Abbott’s passport number, phone number, and weird Qantas messages about him. I was the only one who knew I had these.
Anyone who saw that Instagram post could also have them. I felt like I had to like, tell someone about this. Someone with like, responsibilities. Someone with an email signature.
wait but do u see the irony in this, u have his phone number right there so u could just-
Yes I see it thank u for pointing this out, wise, astute, and ultimately self-imposed heading. I knew I could just call the number any time and hear a “G’day” I’d never be able to forget. I knew I had a rare opportunity to call someone and have them ask “how did you get this number!?”.
But you can’t just do that.
You can’t just call someone’s phone number that you got by rummaging around in the HTML ball pit. Tony Abbott didn’t want me to have his phone number, because he didn’t give it to me. Maybe if it was urgent, or I had no other option, sure. But I was pretty sure I should do this the Nice way, and show that I come in peace.
I wanted to show that I come in peace because there’s also this pretty yikes thing that happens where you email someone being all like “henlo ur website let me log in with username admin and password admin, maybe u wanna change that??? could just be me but let me kno what u think xoxo alex” and then they reply being like “oh so you’re a HACKER and a CRIMINAL and you’ve HACKED ME AND MY FAMILY TOO and this is a RANSOM and ur from the DARK WEB i know what that is i’ve seen several episodes of mr robot WELL watch out kiddO bc me and my lawyers are bulk-installing tens of thousands of copies of McAfee® Gamer Security as we speak, so i’d like 2 see u try”
I googled “tony abbott contact”, but there’s only his official website. There’s no phone number on it, only a “contact me” form.
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I imagine there have been some passionate opinions typed into this form at 9pm on a Tuesday
Yeah right, have you seen the incredible volume of #content people want to say at politicians? No way anyone’s reading that form.
I later decided to try anyway, using the same Inspect Element ritual from earlier. Looking at the network requests the page makes, I divined that the “Contact me” form just straight up does not work. When you click “submit”, you get an error, and nothing gets sent.
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This is an excellent way of using computers to solve the problem of “random people keep sending me angry letters”
Well rip I guess. I eventually realised the people to talk to were probably the government.
The government
It’s a big place.
In the beginning, humans developed the concept of language by banging rocks together and saying “oof, oog, and so on”. Then something went horribly wrong, and now people unironically begin every sentence with “in regards to”. Our story begins here.
The government has like fifty thousand million different departments, and they all know which acronyms to call each other, but you don’t. If you EVER call it DMP&C instead of DPM&C you are gonna be express email forwarded into a nightmare realm the likes of which cannot be expressed in any number of spreadsheet cells, in spite of all the good people they’ve lost trying.
I didn’t even know where to begin with this. Desperately, I called Tony Abbott’s former political party, who were all like
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Skip skip skip a few more calls like this.
Maybe I knew someone who knew someone
That’s right, the true government channels were the friends we made along the way.
I asked hacker friends who seemed like they might know government security people. “Where do I report a security issue with like…. a person, not a website?”
They told me to call… 1300 CYBER1?
1300 CYBER1
I don’t really have a good explanation for this so I’m just gonna post the screenshots.
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My friend showing me where to report a security issue with the government. I’m gonna need you to not ask any questions about the profile pictures.
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Uhhh no wait I don’t wanna click any of these
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The planet may be dying, but we live in a truly unparalleled age of content.
You know I smashed that call button on 1300 CYBER1. Did they just make it 1300 CYBER then realise you need one more digit for a phone number? Incredible.
Calling 1300 c y b e r o n e
“Yes yes hello, ring ring, is this 1300 cyber one”? They have to say yes if you ask that. They’re legally obligated.
The person who picked up gave me an email address for ASD (the Australian flavour of America’s NSA), and told me to email them the details.
Emailing the government my crimes
Feeling like the digital equivalent of three kids in a trenchcoat, I broke out my best Government Email dialect and emailed ASD, asking for them to call me if they were the right place to tell about this.
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Sorry for the clickbait subject but well that’s what happened???
Fooled by my flawless disguise, they replied instantly (in a relative sense) asking for more details.
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“Potential” exposure, yeah okay. At least the subject line had “[SEC=Sensitive]” in it so I _knew_ I’d made it big
I absolutely could provide them with more information, so I did, because I love to cooperate with the Australian government.
I also asked whether they could give me permission to publish this blog post, and they were all like “Seen 2:35pm”. Eventually, after another big day of getting left on read by the government, they replied, being all like “thanks kiddO, we’re doing like, an investigation and stuff, so we’ll take it from here”.
Overall, ASD were really nice to me about it and happy that I’d helped. They encouraged me to report this kind of thing to them if it happened again, but I’m not really in the business of uhhhhhhhh whatever the heck this is.
By the way, at this point in the story (chronologically) I had no idea if what I was emailing the government was actually the confession to a crime, since I hadn’t talked to a lawyer yet. This is widely regarded as a bad move. I do not recommend anyone else use “but I’m being so helpful and earnest!!!” as a legal defence. But also I’m not a lawyer, so idk, maybe it works?
Wholesomely emailing the government
At one point in what was surely an unforgettable email chain, the person I was emailing added a P.S. containing…. the answer to the puzzle hidden on this website. The one you’re reading this blog on right now. Hello. I guess they must have found this website (hi asd) by stalking the email address I was sending from. This is unprecedented and everything, but:
The puzzle says to tweet the answer at me, not email me
The prize for doing the puzzle is me tweeting this gif of a shakas to you
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yeahhhhhhhhhh, nice
So I guess I emailed the shakas gif to the government??? Yeah, I guess I did.
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Please find attached
Can I write about this?
I asked them if they could give me permission to write this blog post, or who to ask, and they were like “uhhhhhhhhhhh” and gave me two government media email addresses to try. Listen I don’t wanna be an “ummm they didn’t reply to my emAiLs” kinda person buT they simply left me no choice.
Still, defending the Commonwealth was in ASD’s hands now, and that’s a win for me at this point.
☑️ figure out whether i have done a crime
☑️ notify someone (The Government) that this happened
⬜ get permission to publish this here blog post
⬜ tell qantas about the security issue so they can fix it
Part 3: Telling Qantas the bad news
The security issue
Hey remember like fifteen minutes ago when this post was about webpages?
I’m guessing Qantas didn’t want to send the customer their passport number, phone number, and staff comments about them, so I wanted to let them know their website was doing that. Maybe the website was well meaning, but ultimately caused more harm than good, like how that time the bike path railings on the Golden Gate Bridge accidentally turned it into the world’s largest harmonica.
Unblending the smoothie
But why does the website even send you all that stuff in the first place? I don’t know, but to speculate wildly: Maybe the website just sends you all the data it knows about you, and then only shows you your name, flight times, etc, while leaving the passport number etc. still in the page.
If that were true, then Qantas would want to unblend the digital smoothie they’ve sent you, if you will. They’d want to change it so that they only send you your name and flight times and stuff (which are a key ingredient of the smoothie to be sure), not the whole identity fraud smoothie.
Smoothie evangelism
I wanted to tell them the smoothie thing, but how do I contact them?
The first place to check is usually company.com/security, maybe that’ll w-
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Okay nevermind
Okay fine maybe I should just email [email protected] surely that’s it? I could only find a phone number to report security problems to, and I wasn’t sure if it was like…. airport security?
So I just… called the number and was like “heyyyy uhhhh I’d like to report a cyber security issue?”, and the person was like “yyyyya just email [email protected]” and i was like “ok sorrY”.
Time to email Qantas I guess
I emailed Qantas, being like “beep boop here is how the computer problem works”.
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(Have you been wondering about the little dots in this post? Click this one for the rest of the email .)
A few days later, I got this reply.
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And then I never heard from this person again
Airlines were going through kinda a struggle at the time, so I guess that’s what happened?
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if ur still out there Shr Security i miss u
Struggles
After filling up my “get left on read” combo meter, I desperately resorted to calling Qantas’ secret media hotline number.
They said the issue was being fixed by Amadeus, the company who makes their booking software, rather than with Qantas itself. I’m not sure if that means other Amadeus customers were also affected, or if it was just the way Qantas was using their software, or what.
It’s common to give companies 90 days to fix the bug, before you publicly disclose it. It’s a tradeoff between giving them enough time to fix it, and people being hacked because of the bug as long as it’s out there.
But, well, this was kinda a special case. Qantas was going through some #struggles, so it was taking longer. Lots of their staff were stood down, and the world was just generally more cooked. At the same time, hardly anybody was flying at the time, due to see above re: #struggles. So, I gave Qantas as much time as they needed.
Five months later
The world is a completely different place, and Qantas replies to me, saying they fixed the bug. It did take five months, which is why it took so long for you and I to be having this weird textual interaction right now.
I don’t have a valid Booking Reference, so I can’t actually check what’s changed. I asked a friend to check (with an expired Booking Reference), and they said they didn’t see a mention of “documentNumber” anymore, which sounds like the passport number is no longer there. But That’s Not Science, so I don’t know for sure.
I originally found the bug in March, which was about 60 years ago. BUT we got there baybee, Qantas emailed me saying the bug had been fixed on August 21. They later told me they actually fixed the bug in July, but the person I was talking too didn’t know about it until August.
Qantas also said this when I asked them to review this post:
Thanks again for letting us have the opportunity to review and again for refraining from posting until the fix was in place for vulnerability.
Our standard advice to customers is not to post pictures of the boarding pass, or to at least obscure the key personal information if they do, because of the detail it contains.
We appreciate you bringing it to our attention in such a responsible way, so we could fix the issue, which we did a few months ago now.
I couldn’t find any advice on their website about not posting pictures of customer boarding passes, only news articles about how Qantas stopped printing the Frequent Flyer number on the boarding pass last year, because… well, you can see why.
I also asked Qantas what they did to fix the bug, and they said:
Unfortunately we’re not able to provide the details of fix as it is part of the protection of personal information.
:((
☑️ figure out whether i have done a crime
☑️ notify someone (The Government) that this happened
⬜ get permission to publish this here blog post
☑️ tell qantas about the security issue so they can fix it
Part 4: Finding Tony Abbott
Like 2003’s Finding Nemo, this section was an emotional rollercoaster.
The government was presumably helping Tony Abbott reset his passport number, and making sure his current one wasn’t being used for any of that yucky identity fraud.
But, much like Shannon Noll’s 2004 What About Me?, what about me? I really wanted to write a blog post about it, you know? So I could warn people about the non-obvious risk of sharing their boarding passes, and also make dumb and inaccessible references to the early 2000s.
The government people I talked to couldn’t give me permission to write this post, so rather than willingly wandering deeper into the procedurally generated labyrinth of government department email addresses (it’s dark in there), I tried to find Tony Abbott or his staff directly.
Calling everybody in Australia one by one
I called Tony Abbott’s former political party again, and asked them how to contact him, or his office, or something I’m really having a moment rn. They said they weren’t associated with him anymore, and suggested I call Parliament House, like I was the Queen or something.
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In case you don’t know it, Parliament House is sorta like the White House, I think? The Prime Minister lives there and has a nice little garden out the back with a macadamia tree that never runs out, and everyone works in different colourful sections like “Making it so Everyone Gets a Fair Shake of the Sauce Bottle R&D” and “Mateship” and they all wear matching uniforms with lil kangaroo and emu hats, and they all do a little dance every hour on the hour to celebrate another accident-free day in the Prime Minister’s chocolate factory.
calling parliament house i guess
Not really sure what to expect, I called up and was all like “yeah bloody g’day, day for it ay, hot enough for ya?”. Once the formalities were out of the way, I skipped my usual explanation of why I was calling and just asked point-blank if they had Tony Abbott’s contact details.
The person on the phone was casually like “Oh, no, but I can put you through to the Serjeant-at-arms, who can give you the contact details of former members”. I was like “…..okay?????”. Was I supposed to know who that was? Isn’t a Serjeant like an army thing?
But no, the Serjeant-at-arms was just a nice lady who told me “he’s in a temporary office right now, and so doesn’t have a phone number. I can give you an email address or a P.O. box?”. I was like “ok th-thank you your majesty”.
It felt a bit weird just…. emailing the former PM being like “boy do i have bad news for you”, but I figured he probably wouldn’t read it anyway. If it was that easy to get this email address, everyone had it, and so nobody was likely to be reading the inbox.
Spoilers: It didn’t work.
Finding Tony Abbott’s staff
I roll out of bed and stare bleary-eyed into the morning sun, my ultimate nemesis, as Day 40 of not having found Tony Abbott’s staff begins.
This time for sure.
Retinas burning, in a moment of determination/desperation/hubris, I went and asked even more people that might know how to contact Tony Abbott’s staff.
I asked a journalist friend, who had the kind of ruthlessly efficient ideas that come from, like, being a professional journalist. They suggested I find Tony Abbott’s former staff from when he was PM, and contact their offices and see if they have his contact details.
It was a strange sounding plan to me, which I thought meant it would definitely work.
Wikipedia stalking
Apparently Prime Ministers themselves have “ministers” (not prime), and those are their staff. That’s who I was looking for.
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Big “me and the boys” energy
Okay but, the problem was that most of these people are retired now, and the glory days of 2013 are over. Each time I hover over one of their names, I see “so-and-so is a former politician and….” and discard their Wikipedia page like a LeSnak wrapper into the wind.
Eventually though, I saw this minister.
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Oh he definitely has an office.
That’s the current Prime Minister of Australia (at the time of writing, that is, for all I know we’re three Prime-Ministers deep into 2020 by the time you read this), you know he’s definitely gonna be easier to find.
Let’s call the Prime Minister’s office I guess?
Easy google of the number, absolutely no emotional journey resulting in my growth as a person this time.
When I call, I hear what sounds like two women laughing in the background? One of them answers the phone, slightly out of breath, and says “Hello, Prime Minister’s office?”. I’m like “….hello? Am I interrupting something???”.
I clumsily explain that I know this is Scott Morrison’s office, but I actually was wondering if they had Tony Abbott’s contact details, because it’s for “a time-sensitive media enquiry”, and I j- She interrupts to explain “so Tony Abbott isn’t Prime Minister anymore, this is Scott Morrison’s office” and I’m like “yA I know please I am desperate for these contact details”.
She says “We wouldn’t have that information but I’ll just check for you” and then pauses for like, a long time? Like 15 seconds? I can only wonder what was happening on the other end. Then she says “Oh actually I can give you Tony Abbott’s personal assistant’s number? Is that good?”.
Ummmm YES thanks that’s what I’ve been looking for this whole time? Anyway brb i gotta go be uh a journalist or something.
Calling Tony Abbott’s personal assistant’s personal assistant
I fumble with my phone, furiously trying to dial the number.
I ask if I’m speaking to Tony Abbott’s personal assistant. The person on the other end says no, but he is one of Tony Abbott’s staff. It has been a long several months of calling people. The cold ice is starting to thaw. One day, with enough therapy, I may be able to gather the emotional resources necessary to call another government phone number.
I explain the security issue I want to report, and midway through he interrupts with “sorry…. who are you and what’s the organisation you’re calling from?” and I’m like “uhhhh I mean my name is Alex and uhh I’m not calling from any organisation I’m just like a person?? I just found this thing and…”.
The person is mercifully forgiving, and says that he’ll have to call me back. I stress once again that I’m calling to help them, happy to wait to publish until they feel comfortable, and definitely do not warrant the bulk-installation of antivirus products.
Calling Tony Abbott’s personal assistant
An hour later, I get a call from a number I don’t recognise.
He explains that the guy I talked to earlier was his assistant, and he’s Tony Abbott’s PA. Folks, we made it. It’s as easy as that.
He says he knows what I’m talking about. He’s got the emails. He’s already in the process of getting Tony Abbott a new passport number. This is the stuff. It’s all coming together.
I ask if I can publish a blog post about it, and we agree I’ll send a draft for him to review.
And then he says
“These things do interest him - he’s quite keen to talk to you”
I was like exCUSE me? Tony Abbott, Leader of the 69th Ministry of Australia, wants to call me on the phone? I suppose I owe this service to my country?
This story was already completely cooked so sure, whatever. I’d already declared emotional bankruptcy, so nothing was coming as a surprise at this point.
I asked what he wanted to talk about. “Just to pick your brain on these things”. We scheduled a call for 3:30 on Monday.
And then Tony Abbott just… calls me on the phone?
Mostly, he wanted to check whether his understanding of how I’d found his passport number was correct (it was). He also wanted to ask me how to learn about “the IT”.
He asked some intelligent questions, like “how much information is in a boarding pass, and what do people like me need to know to be safe?”, and “why can you get a passport number from a boarding pass, but not from a bus ticket?”.
The answer is that boarding passes have your password printed on them, and bus tickets don’t. You can use that password to log in to a website (widely regarded as a bad move), and at that point all bets are off, websites can just do whatever they want.
He was vulnerable, too, about how computers are harder for him to understand.
“It’s a funny old world, today I tried to log in to a [Microsoft] Teams meeting (Teams is one of those apps), and the fire brigade uses a Teams meeting. Anyway I got fairly bamboozled, and I can now log in to a Teams meeting in a way I couldn’t before.
It’s, I suppose, a terrible confession of how people my age feel about this stuff.”
Then the Earth stopped spinning on its axis.
For an instant, time stood still.
Then he said it:
“You could drop me in the bush and I’d feel perfectly confident navigating my way out, looking at the sun and direction of rivers and figuring out where to go, but this! Hah!”
This was possibly the most pure and powerful Australian energy a human can possess, and explains how we elected our strongest as our leader. The raw energy did in fact travel through the phone speaker and directly into my brain, killing me instantly.
When I’d collected myself from various corners of the room, he asked if there was a book about the basics of IT, since he wanted to learn about it. That was kinda humanising, since it made me realise that even famous people are just people too.
Anyway I hadn’t heard of a book that was any good, so I told a story about my mum instead.
A story about my mum instead
I said there probably was a book out there about “the basics of IT”, but it wouldn’t help much. I didn’t learn from a book. 13 year old TikTok influencers don’t learn from a book. They just vibe.
My mum always said when I was growing up that:
There were “too many buttons”
She was afraid to press the buttons, because she didn’t know what they did
I can understand that, since grown ups don’t have the sheer dumb hubris of a child, and that’s what makes them afraid of the buttons.
Like, when a toddler uses a spoon for the first time, they don’t know what a spoon is, where they are, or who the current Prime Minister is. But they see the spoon, and they see the cereal, and their dumb baby brain is just like “yeA” and they have a red hot go. And like, they get it wrong the first few times, but it doesn’t matter, because they don’t know to be afraid of getting it wrong. So eventually, they get it right.
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leaked footage of me learning how to hack
Okay so I didn’t tell the spoon thing to Tony Abbott, but I did tell him what I always told my mum, which was: “Mum you just gotta press all the buttons, to find out what they do”.
He was like “Oh, you just learn by trial and error”. Exactly! Now that I think about it, it’s a bit scary. We are dumb babies learning to use a spoon for the first time, except if you do it wrong some clown writes a blog post about you. Anyway good luck out there to all you big babies.
Asking to publish this blog post
When I asked Tony Abbott for permission to publish the post you are reading right now while neglecting your responsibilities, he said “well look Alex, I don’t have a problem with it, you’ve alerted me to something I probably should have known about, so if you wanna do that, go for it”.
At the end of the call, he said “If there’s ever anything you think I need to know, give us a shout”.
Look you gotta hand it to him. That’s exactly the right way to respond when someone tells you about a security problem. Back at the beginning, I was kinda worried that he might misunderstand, and think I was trying to hack him or something, and that I’d be instantly slam dunked into jail. But nope, he was fine with it. And now you, a sweet and honourable blog post browser, get to learn the dangers of posting your boarding pass by the realest of real-world examples.
During the call, I was completely in shock from the lost in the bush thing killing me instantly, and so on. But afterwards, when I looked at the quotes, I realised he just wanted to understand what had happened to him, and more about how technology works. That’s the same kind of curiosity I had, that started this whole surrealist three-act drama. That… wasn’t really what I was expecting from Tony Abbott, but it’s what I found.
The point of this story isn’t to say “wow Tony Abbott got hacked, what a dummy”. The point is that if someone famous can unknowingly post their boarding pass, anyone can.
Anyway that’s why I vote right wing now baybeeeee.
☑️ figure out whether i have done a crime
☑️ notify someone (The Government) that this happened
☑️ get permission to publish this here blog post
☑️ tell qantas about the security issue so they can fix it
Act 3: Closing credits
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Wait no what the heck did I just read
Yeah look, reasonable.
tl; dr
Your boarding pass for a flight can sometimes be used to get your passport number. Don’t post your boarding pass or baggage receipt online, keep it as secret as your passport.
How it works
The Booking Reference on the boarding pass can be used to log in to the airline’s “Manage Booking” page, which sometimes contains the passport number, depending on the airline. I saw that Tony Abbott had posted a photo of his boarding pass on Instagram, and used it to get his passport details, phone number, and internal messages between Qantas flight staff about his flight booking.
Why did you do this?
One day, my friend who was also in “the group chat” said “I was thinking…. why didn’t I hack Tony Abbott? And I realised I guess it’s because you have more hubris”.
I was deeply complimented by this, but that’s not the point. The point is that you, too, can have hubris.
You know how they say to commit a crime (which once again I insist did not happen in my case) you need means, motive, and opportunity? Means is the ability to use right click > Inspect Element, motive is hubris, and opportunity is the dumb luck of having my friend message me the Instagram post.
I know, I’ve been saying “hubris” a lot. I mean “the willingness to risk breaking the rules”. Now hold up, don’t go outside and do crimes (unless it’s really funny). I’m not talking about breaking the law, I’m talking about rules we just follow without realising, like social rules and conventions.
Here’s a simple example. You’re at a sufficiently fancy restaurant, like I dunno, with white tablecloths or something? The waiter asks if you’d like “still or sparkling water?”
If you say “still”, it costs Eleven Dollars. If you say “sparkling”, it costs Eleven Dollars and tastes all gross and fizzy. But if you say “tap water, please”, you just get tap water, what you wanted in the first place?
When I first saw someone do this I was like “you can do that? I just thought you had to pay Eleven Dollars extra at fancy restaurants!”.
It’s not written down anywhere that you can ask for tap water. But when I found out you could do that, and like, nothing bad happens, I could suddenly do it too. Miss me with that Eleven Dollars fizzy water.
Basically, until you’ve broken the rules, the idea that the rules can be broken might just not occur to you. That’s how it felt for me, at least.
In conclusion, to be a hacker u ask for tap water.
FAQ
Why is it bad for someone else to have your passport number?
Hey crime gang, welcome back to Identity Fraud tips and tricks with Alex.
A passport is government-issued ID. It’s how you prove you’re you. The fact that you have your passport and I don’t is how you prevent me from convincing the government that I’m you and doing crimes in your name.
Just having the information on the passport is not quite as powerful as a photo of the full physical passport, with your photo and everything.
With your passport number, someone could:
Book an international flight as you.
Apply for anything that requires proof of identity documentation with the government, e.g. Working with children check
Activate a SIM card (and so get an internet connection that’s traceable to you, not them, hiding them from the government)
Create a fake physical passport from a template, with the correct passport number (which they then use to cross a border, open a bank account, or anything)
who knows what else, not me, bc i have never done a crime
Am I a big bozo, a big honking goose, if I post my boarding pass on Instagram?
Nah, it’s an easy mistake to make. How are you supposed to know not to? It’s not obvious that your boarding pass is secret, like a password. I think it’s on the airline to inform you on the risks you’re taking when you use their stuff.
But now that you’ve read this blog post, I regret to inform you that you will in fact be an entire sack of geese if you go and post your boarding pass now.
When did all of this happen?
March 22 - @hontonyabbott posts a picture of a boarding pass and baggage receipt. I log in to the website and get the passport number, phone number, and internal Qantas comments.
March 24 - I contact the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) and let them know what happened.
March 27 - ASD tells me their investigation is complete, I send them a shakas gif, and they thank me for being a good citizen.
March 29 - I learn from lawyers that I have not done a crime 💯
March 30 - I contact Qantas and tell them about the vulnerability.
May 1 - Tony Abbott calls me, we chat about being dropped in the middle of the bush.
July 17 - Paper Mario: The Origami King is released for Nintendo Switch.
August 21 - Qantas emails me saying the security problem has been fixed.
September 13 - Various friends finish reviewing this post <3
September 15 - Tony Abbott and Qantas review this post.
Today - You read this post instead of letting it read you, nice job you.
I’m bored and tired
Let me answer that question,,, with a question.
Maybe try drinking some water you big goose. Honk honk, I’m so dehydrated lol. That’s you.
honk honk honk honl
Yeah, exactly.
I wrote this because I can’t go back to the Catholic church ever since they excommunicated me in 1633 for insisting the Earth revolves around the sun.
You can talk to me about it by sliding into my DMs in the tweet zone or, if you must, email.
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mar--26 · 5 years
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March 7-8, 2020
Glamping day.
Since we have agreed that I will go to his house at 1pm, I decided to stay in bed a bit longer. I got a call from him at around 10am, and he said he wanted me to come earlier, like 11:30~12:00... I was like, oh my God, I haven't done packing yet, I still need to clean the room, eat my once-in-a-week-breakfast, and so on, and so forth... Anyway, I arrived late. I arrived at 12:40... and they were still preparing. I played with
Saechan while they were still preparing. I was actually confused if I should leave Saechan and help them make onigiri, or should I just watch her. In my house, we are so protective towards children. We don’t leave them anywhere without anyone watching as they might swallow something, and or hit themselves. We also don’t allow them to swallow just anything. In Japan, it is normal to leave their kids on the floor, crawling, reaching for potentially harmful stuff (like small toys), they also don’t sterilize anything at all... I am actually a bit worried about the bacteria on the things she swallow, but yeah, she's not my kid. It is none of my business.
Then Oyuri visited the house. She took care of Saechan while I decided to help Bottan to prepare chahan. She wanted to be the one to make it, but I insisted that me and my boyfriend will be fine. After eating, Bottan decided to do his work assignment, when she sat beside him, still bugging him about her unretrievable Gmail account. We had a fight about it last week, so he made an eye contact with me, and I made sure my facial expression would answer that eye contact, so he just said, "ちょっと待ってね" while he was looking for Saechan's favorite song. And then she brought up their high school photos, without inviting me to look on it... I don’t really know if I was just being too sensitive, or she really mean to do that in front of my face... but to be honest, I didn’t feel good about it. I mean, first, why do you have to always ask Bottan to have him fix your Gmail for you... Can't you google it by yourself... I could have understand it if Bottan works at Google, or he really has a high computer literacy, but sorry to say this, no... So I would appreciate it if he would leave him alone. And the problem was Bottan knows he doesn’t really know how to do it... So why do it? Specially you already know that I am not in good terms with her. About the old photos, I would really appreciate if she would also invite me to see it, cause duh, it involves the people I know as well. And there's only 3 of us in the room... so why make the other person out of place? Why do they do that? Is it a Japanese thing? Why? Are they fucking scared to talk or involve a foreigner. Because you know, you won't like it if you would be in my shoes. It makes me really sad. I didn’t want to say "え~見せて~”, because I feel like why would I say that if I was not being invited... (This is probably my problem... I have my walls.)
Then we were on our way, when I saw that the wallpaper on her phone is the exactly the same as Bottan's wallpaper, Saechan's photo. I mean, ok, I am completely fine about putting Saechan as their wallpaper, but couldn't they choose different photos? When I saw that I could really feel my blood rushing through the top of my head. I know I was about to explode. I chatted Bottan, who was seating in front seat to fucking change his wallpaper because it was really too much for me... I really couldn't handle it anymore. I think it was impossible for him not to know anything about it because he tried helping her on her Gmail account. I saw him unlocking her phone last week as Oyuri dictated her password... fuck... Ok, I do get that they are childhood friends, but they are not connected thru blood to cling too much around him especially when I am around... the girlfriend might misunderstand it... so be considerate. Because if I would be her, I would try to check the atmosphere with the girlfriend first before doing anything that might seem as overstepping any boundaries.
So we continued on with the trip with my heavy heart. It was really difficult because I needed to act like everything was ok in front of them, but I was really angry inside.
When we arrived to the place, and we have decided to take a bath in onsen first. It was my first time being in onsen with them. I was so shy, so I have decided to wash myself a bit far from them... then I went in the onsen with Saechan, his sister, and Oyuri. Oyuri and I decided to try the onsen outdoor. There were only 2 of us. She asked me about my relationship with Bottan. I tried to act as normal as possible but I think there was a bit tension in the atmosphere (or my sensitivity is switched on again), so we decided to go back in after few minutes... I think she was aware that I had an issue about her... His sister most likely talked about that to her. Well, if she really was aware about it, while she kept on doing it in front of me... then that means she is being rude.
I took charge. I cling when I see her clinging to him, I was just always around when she tries to approach him. So the whole bbq night, I guarded my territory. Bottan slept immediately, and we talked in the living area.
Talked about how we do Christmas presents... They mentioned to me that Oyuri and Bottan were quite the same when it comes to being rude to their moms...
I felt that Oyuri was not so comfortable talking about those stuff in front of me, so she decided to go to bed (probably she was just really tired). I shared the bed with Bottan.
Anyway, I realized, why do I have to be on guard when Bottan should be the one doing something about it... I heard him saying be careful around the mud. Well, he also said the same thing to me, but doesn’t every girlfriend want to feel special?
Then we ate at Ohsho... We ordered my favorite yakisoba. I was disappointed that he gave the first serving to Oyuri... Her sister was also surprised...
she was like give the serving first to Mari! And Oyuri just apologized... I mean, Bottan was also the one triggering things.
No matter how much we talk about it, he can always come up with a reason...
He will say 'I also do it to you'... that's not the point... I didn’t need the word 'also' I needed the word 'only'... No matter how many times we talk, he still doesn’t get any of it...
Anyway, next is we went to Sanda to see the furniture in his sister's house... they were quite big... I don’t think it will fit our small apartment...
We arrived home, his mom persuaded me to take a bath in their house so that I could try their 50k blower... lol... It really made my hair soft... but I don’t think I would spend 50k for a blower... Anyway, while I was changing, I could hear Oyuri's voice and my boyfriend's voice laughing... She's here again... After I got out of the bath I talked with Bottan as calmly as I could, and he said "what can I do, she asked what I was doing, and my mom was also there..." I snapped off... I did his work assignment, so I just wanted to delete everything as a form of revenge... but he got angry... I said let's just break up... It was really hard to talk about it in front of his family... even though we were talking in English... so I tried to keep my composure. He was about to go to bath when he said "Should I confess what we are having right now to them?" Then my sister asked me what was he talking about... I just made up a story. While he was in bath I kept myself preoccupied while talking about fx to his family. When he got out of the bath, he told his sister to call his mom because he needed to say something. I stopped him desperately... How dare him to do that...
I am so disappointed... really...
We talked about it on our way home... but I don’t think he understood my feelings...
We were already talking about it for years... this is too much that I am about to give up... I actually wanna cry as I write this... I don’t want to feel this anymore... I think I should start thinking about living by myself in my whole life... and just nurture my career... and hope that I would get money to get artificially-created child to accompany me...
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iPad erases all your data if you forget your password I guess, lol
I'm new to using Apple products. I got my first iPad this past year, and I loved it. I started using it so much, for everything, to the point where I couldn't go without it most days. I even thought about actually switching to an iPhone too (I have an Android phone), since they tend to have a lot more storage and there are a ton of apps.
However, a little while back, I had to reset my Apple ID. I changed it to something really secure - a new password I didn't use anywhere else. That would be all fine and dandy, except I didn't write it down anywhere at all.
My iPad usually uses my fingerprint or whatever to open it, but every two weeks or so, it says I have to use my Apple ID password to open my iPad. When those two weeks passed after I reset, I realized I couldn't remember that password off the top of my head. I did remember it after a bit of thought and entered it fine, and had a passing thought that maybe I should write it down, but I was usually rather good at remembering passwords, plus, I had opened my iPad for a reason and soon got busy again and forgot.
Another couple weeks pass, and whoops, gotta enter the password again. But this time... somehow... I can't remember my password. I get out my list of previous passwords and try most of them. None of them are it, of course, not even with the little variances I usually make. I don't panic really, just a little nervous because I use this thing literally everyday, but I google how to reset my password and the support page says I can reset it from any iPhone, iPad, or Mac computer.
Well... I don't have any of those. No one in my family has one easily available. I try a few more passwords to no avail, and now it's saying I have to wait an entire hour to enter another password??? That's frustrating. I watch some Netflix, wait an hour, try another password... it's not it. I google again what else I can do and send in a request to change my Apple ID password. It says they'll call me the next day at 10:50:49 PM PDT. Uh... weird I guess, but okay?
So I go to bed for the night and the next day I just use my phone to do the stuff I might use my tablet for. It's a bit frustrating because I don't have all the same apps, and certainly can't write on my phone with a stylus like I can with my iPad. That night, I make sure to get home a bit before 10, take a short nap, play some games, and wait for them to supposedly call me.
At 10:56, I notice the time and realize they didn't call me. So I go to the link they say you can check your request progress on and it just sends me to the page to send in another request. I know how that didn't work out already, so I google some more. I dig out my dad's years old iPad and try to use it to recover my Apple ID like the directions say online you can with another iPad, but it doesn't let me get far doing anything because, lo and behold, my dad's forgotten his password too, and although he never put on a screen lock, it doesn't let me do much without me entering in a password.
Needing my iPad to work on school work, and kind of annoyed that I didn't get a call like I was supposed to, I try another password combination that I hadn't tried yet, and the message comes up, "iPad is disabled connect to iTunes".
"Darn," I think, "now I really do have to wait for them to call me, or at the very least wait til I get on a Mac or something somehow." I try the support site for Apple one more time, looking for something else I can do, a number I can call instead of just waiting around for them to call me, when I see it.
"If you enter the wrong passcode on an iOS device too many times, you'll be locked out and a message will say that your device is disabled. At this point, the data on your device has been erased." -https://support.apple.com/bg-bg/HT204306
What?!?!?? Deleted?????!!?!????
That's when the panic sets in.
I have taken hundreds of photos on this iPad. Too many for the basic storage the iCloud provides. The next iCloud package is only like a $1, but being the college student tight on cash, living paycheck to paycheck just trying to afford my car repairs and gas and food, I had thought it would be fine because I would just always have my iPad and could transfer the photos whenever I needed.
A little background: I'm a rather forgetful person sometimes, especially when it comes to long-term memories. The best way for me to remember all the precious memories I have hidden away in my brain somewhere is to have a physical reminder or picture of something from the event or memory for me to recall it.
As you might be able to infur, this makea it extremely difficult for me to let go of objects that I have memories attached to, but over the years, living in a single bedroom apartment, objects can quite literally pile up very easily, which is a fire hazard and hoarding and not healthy. So~, usually if I no-longer use an object that has memories to me, I'll simply take a picture of it.
After I had gotten my iPad, I started only really using the iPad to take pictures because it had a better camera than my phone and far more storage space in the iPad itself.
Welp. Needless to say, I'm very concerned. I broke down crying once the reality hit me that I couls have just lost all those pictures that literally contain my memories in them. I've scheduled for support to call me tomorrow morning. The only thing keeping me from bawling is writing this right now, and a little phrase I read somewhere while googling that it might depend on my settings. I don't remember changing a setting like that, and assuming the default is to lose your data, I'm honestly severely sorry for whatever customer service person calls me tomorrow because I will likely start crying my eyes out on the phone.
If I just lost all my photos on my iPad because Apple is a self-serving prick of a company that doesn't let you reset your Apple ID easily from non-Apple devices, and didn't call me despite promising me in writing in an email to do so, I am officially never touching another Apple product for the rest of my life (unless for some reason they gift me one for free that doesn't have that vile feature). You might think you're protecting my iPad, but the only way a thief could open it at this point would be to reset the device anyway, which erases the data already. There's no point to erasing the data before it's reset. Also, even if someone stole it and did find out a way to unlock it, I'm pretty sure no one cares about my doll from 3rd grade whose dress tore and I didn't have use for anymore, or the poems I wrote in 7th on actual paper and take up so much physical room when I could just store it digitally. Even if it's a money thing, I HAVE NO MONEY. (Well, I have like $6 last I checked.) EVERYTHING WOULD BE DECLINED.
Inspiring false reliability and then destroying the things I trusted you with. What a joke.
Update: It's true. I called the Apple Support and yeaup, the only way to get back into my iPad is to factory reset it. I don't want to factory reset it. Do you think that maybe in a few years, someone will leak or find out a way to unlock iPads or get into them without knowing the password? TwT I don't think they understand how important these photos are to me. I don't care about this disgusting iPad anymore. I just want my photos. I guess I'll just hang onto it and hope for a miracle.
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xxmiaxx · 8 years
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Perspective
My perspective on my rape has changed so many times over the past year and a half. I’ve gone from being ashamed, afraid, angry, to grateful. And I know that sounds crazy, but let me explain. I would NEVER be grateful for being raped. EVER. IN A MILLION YEARS. But, through my healing process, and through hearing stories of other rapes that have taken place on the news and from other rape survivors just in my own personal life, I realized my situation was lucky in a lot of ways. 
First of all, I was unconscious for the entire thing. I used to feel really ashamed and stupid because I was drugged, but I am so grateful that what happened to me happened in a way that I have no memory of. I don’t have nightmares about it, I don’t see my rapist’s face when I close my eyes. I never had to endure that torture, because I was unconscious. When it first happened, this made me feel like I couldn’t press charges, because what would I say? Yeah, I was raped, I think. I actually don’t know what happened. It also made me really afraid and anxious not knowing exactly what went down that night. It made me angry. But the more I’ve thought about it, the more I realized if I had decided to press charges, I would’ve had a case regardless of what I remembered. I had Clonazepam (a known date rape drug) in my system at the hospital, as well as physical evidence and a rape kit (of course, gaining access to the rape kit would involve giving up my identity, but nevertheless, it existed). Even though I didn’t press charges at the time, it feels really empowering knowing that I had a lot of evidence and would’ve had a strong case even without my memory.
I also knew who was involved that night. While I’m pretty sure only one person was involved, it is possible that both of the people I was with were involved. Either way, I know both of these men are STD free, don’t use injectable drugs, I know where they work, who they hang out with, where they live, lots of stuff about them. At first, I didn’t want to know anything about them, in fact I deleted both of them from all of my social media accounts and ended up quitting my job where I worked with both of them. I wanted absolutely nothing to do with them. But after hearing the most heart breaking, terrifying stories from others who have survived rape, I’ve realized having that knowledge is power. I am so lucky to be able to securely say that I’m safe in terms of diseases or anything physical that they could have given me (aside from a possible pregnancy, that’s another story though). I know where they go, where they work, hang out, who they’re around so any time I’m back in Minnesota I don’t have to worry about running into them. I don’t have to be afraid. And that’s another thing I’m extremely grateful for, this incident happened away from my home, and aside from one of them actually dropping me off on my street the morning after it happened, they don’t know where I live when I’m in Minnesota, they certainly don’t know where I live in Arizona. Neither of them are able to contact me in any way over the phone, social media, they don’t know where I work, where I go to school, who I’m friends with, NOTHING. That’s another thing I was extremely lucky about: My rapist didn’t terrorize me after the fact because they had no means to. I don’t have to feel afraid of him walking up the stairs to my apartment at night, although the experience has made hyper aware of my surroundings and I feel a little wary being alone anywhere at night. But it’s comforting that he specifically will NEVER hurt me again, he will NEVER contact me again, he will NEVER find me again.
Sometimes rapists take a trophy from their victims to relive what happened, or for some other sick reason. The night I was raped my cell phone, credit card, and about $100 cash were stolen. That’s it. Nothing personal of mine in terms of a physical item was stolen, my phone was dead when I lost it, and canceled before anybody had a chance to use it. Even to this day, it still doesn’t come up on FindMyIPhone, nothing. It’s gone. My credit wasn’t used at all before I canceled it. While they walked with my $100 cash, I’m extremely lucky. They didn’t steal anything that would grant them access to my life, or anything that had true value to me. Even if they had tried to use my phone, it had a password. They couldn’t even get into it if they wanted to use it, couldn’t look at my pictures, read my messages, get on my social media, NOTHING. The didn’t take my drivers license to stalk me, they didn’t take an heirloom or expensive piece of jewelry that held meaning to me, or anything creepy like my underwear. They just robbed me of $100, which while that isn’t all they took from me that night, I’m lucky that those were the only items stolen from me.
From what I have pieced together, the coworker who’s house I was at was the one who called an ambulance for me and ultimately saved my life. I don’t know for sure that he wasn’t involved in the rape, although I don’t think that he was, in fact I think that he may have stopped it. In any event, after what happened to me I wasn’t just left to die. I was lucky that night that someone looked out for me and got me to a hospital, as I slipped into a coma at some point that night and probably would not have survived without having my stomach pumped and being on life support. I had physical injuries after the rape, but I had already been punched in the face that night, as well as had obtained injuries from IV’s and paramedics handling my lifeless body, so the bruising I had wasn’t extremely painful or anything. Aside from the obvious physical trauma caused by the rape and the drugs put in my system, I was lucky to have not obtained any worse injuries. I wasn’t stabbed, I wasn’t knocked out physically, I wasn’t beaten, and I’m lucky for that.
Ultimately, as horrific as my experience was, I was lucky with the way what happened to me happened. It has been so much worse for so many other women, and while I hate what happened to me, I am grateful that I have been able to survive. I’m grateful I didn’t die that night, and that I feel the sense of control over the situation that I do. I think it’s really a sign of me healing that I can frame the details of my rape in that way. And while the healing process is long, and typically never over, I will continue on my journey and continue to try to turn the negatives in my life into positives, to continue to try to learn from the things that have happened in my life, and to continue to try to grow and be a better person because of what I’ve been through.
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So I just realized there’s a password recovery request to one of my Social Media Profiles, from 2 days ago, that I NEVER SENT.
Hypothesis:
There is/was someone else trying to log into my account, without my permission.
My suspects to whoever I think could be, since I barely interact with new people:
- There’s someone I used to call “capricornian aries” because he has Mars exalted in the frequently annoying sign of capricorn, which usually lets him get shit easily than other people no matter how sick his ideas are and how corrupted will be everything he touches, making him immune of being aware of it. But I think this is just too light for this being. So I’m gonna call them “aries abuser” from now on, which is something I should’ve never being in doubt of doing, and always have done.
We had 3 times attempt of boring making out (I was trying to get over something and trying to experience new things that I never liked), which I regret BEYOND EVERYTHING.
He’s an entitled sexist PIG with a Rapist mind who will do NOTHING to please anyone he’s with and still can’t take any sort of No for an answer, who will satellite people until he gets what he wants from them, and who when I was finally not caring about his flaws, said “no” to me. Which was fine enough, I wasn’t really interested in him, until when I wasn’t even interacting with him, he bullied me because I moved on to someone else on the same day (or for no reason, which I can’t pick what’s worse), then much later, I realized this was just an small symptom of how unwarranted entitled he is.
He had an “ex girlfriend” (according to his own words), who was in a relationship with someone else for a while, then. He showed me she was complaining on FB that there was someone trying to log into her account and she just swearing everybody. He would talk with her on MSN as if he was her friend and then say condescendingly behind her back how crazy and sick she was of having a fit on FB and of thinking someone else would want to get into her account.
- “that thing”. There are few who might be more revengeful and sick than people with Sun/aspects in Cancer. TO THE DETAILS. After NO MATTER HOW LONG. And worse. He’s a dictator with Mars in Leo. And Sun in the most perversely sadistic degree of someone’s map. This is what he is. His most deep essence. Nothing different.
I don’t know how many times he deleted me from his profiles after an “off” period. I wasn’t an individual or a person if I wasn’t in a relationship with him or doing what he wanted. Yet, after deleting me everywhere at once for the last time, he would still mark his presence everywhere he would know I’d be. Convince my acquaintance-friends to do things for him instead of me. Make friends with WHOEVER I was interested on before I could get to them. He made sure to be clear he didn’t want me around but still be everywhere I was. He was cornering me. Apparently to him I didn’t have the right to exist. When he is the one that doesn’t.
When I was finally ready to try to get over the fact that I wasn’t enough for anything regarding him and be perfectly fine with it, he could not just purposefully be everywhere reminding me of his existence and his abuse.
Back then I was completely destroyed by the psychopathy of this thing, I am (or used to be, before this) a proud person regarding how much I should be dependable of a male (which I was completely right about, and will always be, no one needs to have ANY DEMEANOR to please their sexist shit). Regard doing anything big, I tried as much as I could and beyond to get over his abuse and go on with my life, of course I screamed to the world how abusive he was, no one cared, believed, or thought that I didn’t deserve it. He was everywhere. Not on my mind. Literally. Because of how long I experienced that, committing the hugest mistake of thinking he was just a dumb abusive little bitch that didn’t know better and I could deal with, instead of an actual psychopath, my emotional strength, my sanity, was mined. Only much after I realized. He wouldn’t decay from his shit or our fights. He would get stronger from EVERY interaction with me. No matter how much “I“ was decaying. He literally raped my mind. Even after many months, he was still getting stronger and I was still decaying. It felt to me like I was completely open to his will at any point in time he wanted to. I not only “tried” to get rid of this. I went for it fully with all my body, soul, mind, and the strength of each one of the roots I could have. It wasn’t enough. I needed to do something, even if childish to try to cut this link.
So I did something that wasn’t worth a tenth of what I went trough, but was a symbolism of something that happened.
I had the password of one of his accounts, and all the other ones were similar, easy to figure. So I deleted everything inside each one of them and deleted each of them as well. Social-Mediacide.
It worked a bit, but it was still not enough to make things back. I still wouldn’t get out of the house, afraid I’d see that anywhere and keep reminding me of all the shit. I didn’t even want it anymore anyway. He already had corrupted the entire town and would keep doing it as long as I would try to interact with anyone or anything.
It wasn’t much to him though. He didn’t fucking care that some or much of what was registered about his life was gone. He’s a fucking psychopath. Things like that only care that an “attempt of harm” was done towards him and that maybe “something must be done back one day”.
- the “gemini bitch”. Someone else that also can’t let people go. Moon in Libra. After years something had happened in her life, after living many things, interacting with many people, being in different relationships, she’d still try to manipulate anyone from her past towards their failure. Another psycho.
- That fucking whore. ‘‘leo landwhore’‘. The one that called the Asylum people on me and LIED TO THEM that I was BLATANTLY THREATENING TO KILL HER PERSONALLY, because I swore to her on a virtual chat.
I “LOST” my phone on the first days I moved in there and I NEVER BELIEVED that really happened. Everytime I “Lost” my phone previously, it would come back to me. And after ALL THE SHIT that was gone from my stuff because she wouldn’t let me go back there to pick them up and would terrorize me, after my BIKE was stolen since the FIRST DAY I locked it outside, I believe ZERO that I really “lost my Phone”.
SHE BLATANTLY STOLE MY PHONE to MEDDLE ON MY PERSONAL LIFE. Which would give her access to ALL my virtual profiles for first months/weeks. Who knows what else that LYING PSYCHO would do.
- I don’t think I ever mentioned this person here before or enough. There was this being, who was friends with the “aries abuser” and friend-acquaintance with “that thing”. After the shit with the first one, he still took his side and was extremely rude and sexist to me without even knowing me. We interacted many times later because from then we started having many acquaintances in common. Never much. But then, after the shit with the second one, he wouldn’t stop messaging me on FB no matter HOW MUCH I ignored him.
- the crazy eyed fat pisces. Which I think is an Aquarius. Close friends with “that thing”. It doesn’t matter if during, or after the shit with it, he would take ANY OPPORTUNITY to harass and threaten me verbally. He stalked and harassed me virtually FOR MONTHS with the excuse that “I” was the one harassing his friend, which was the same thing he did with EVERY girl his friend dated before me. And “that thing” did NOTHING about it. It LIKED that there was someone fucking shit up for him. He harasses everyone. The very girls he dates himself, and still NO ONE does ANYTHING about it. Another psychopath.
- Almost every far acquaintance male with Sun in Aquarius native from this country ever. Those above? Horrid shit was had in between. Males with Sun in Aquarius will try to HEAVILY SEXUALLY ASSAULT me literally out of nothing. Maybe after we small talked ONE TIME “MONTHS AGO”. One of them tried to finger me when I was slightly drunk trying to sleep. Another sent me many FB messages inviting me to drink on his house saying he was going to kidnap me. You think it’s bad enough? HE HAD A LONG THERM GIRLFRIEND beautiful for North-European standards. One of those that stands out in a sub-culture of an entire city. I COULDN’T BE MORE DISGUSTED. MALES ARE NOT LIVING BEINGS. THEY ARE THINGS.
A female who has never been sexually assaulted? IT’S A MYTH. I’M NOT EXAGGERATING THIS. This is most CERTAINLY a Myth as everything in your life you’re THE MOST certain off. It doesn’t matter with what weight. What color. What height. What culture. What mind. I’ve seen it everywhere. EVERY FEMALE was sexually assaulted.
And whoever says that doesn’t happen with “some”? That’s a fucking blind-eyeing self-victimizing self-centered psychopath. It doesn’t matter if they have been sexually assaulted and violated as well. Mental abuse does MUCH WORSE than ANYTHING PHYSICAL.
YES. Everyone is a fucking psychopath. It’s not my fault their frequency and that they’re everywhere. Don’t blame me.
- Any of my virtual crushes I've had over the last years, which I wouldn’t understand why, since I’m not really that interesting.
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