#you actually have to encrypt the data

[fullhalalalchemist]

URGENT: 🚨🚨EARN IT ACT IS BACK IN THE SENATE 🚨🚨 TUMBLR’S NSFW BAN HITTING THE ENTIRE INTERNET THIS SUMMER 2023

April 28, 2023

I’m so sorry for the long post but please please please pay attention and spread this

What is the EARN IT Act?

The EARN IT Act (s. 1207) has been roundly condemned by nearly every major LGBTQ+ advocacy and human rights organization in the country.

This is the third time the Senate has been trying to force this through, and I talked about it last year. It is a bill that claims "protects children and victims against CSAM" by creating an unelected and politically appointed national commission of law enforcement specialists to dictate "best practices" that websites all across the nation will be forced to follow. (Keep in mind, most websites in the world are created in the US, so this has global ramifications). These "best practices" would include killing encryption so that any law enforcement can scan and see every single message, dm, photo, cloud storage, data, and any website you have every so much as glanced at. Contrary to popular belief, no they actually can't already do that. These "best practices" also create new laws for "removing CSAM" online, leading to mass censorship of non-CSAM content like what happened to tumblr. Keep in mind that groups like NCOSE, an anti-LGBT hate group, will be allowed on this commission. If websites don't follow these best practices, they lose their Section 230 protections, leading to mass censorship either way.

Section 230 is foundational to modern online communications. It's the entire reason social media exists. It grants legal protection to users and websites, and says that websites aren't responsible for what users upload online unless it's criminal. Without Section 230, websites are at the mercy of whatever bullshit regulatory laws any and every US state passes. Imagine if Texas and Florida were allowed to say what you can and can't publish and access online. That is what will happen if EARN IT passes. (For context, Trump wanted to get rid of Section 230 because he knew it would lead to mass govt surveillance and censorship of minorities online.)

This is really not a drill. Anyone who makes or consume anything “adult” and LGBT online has to be prepared to fight Sen. Blumenthal’s EARN IT Act, brought back from the grave by a bipartisan consensus to destroy Section 230. If this bill passes, we’re going to see most, if not all, adult content and accounts removed from mainstream platforms. This will include anything related to LGBT content, including SFW fanfiction, for example. Youtube, Twitter, Reddit, Tiktok, Tumblr, all of them will be completely gutted of anything related to LGBT content, abortion healthcare, resources for victims of any type of abuse, etc. It is a right-wing fascists wet dream, which is why NCOSE is behind this bill and why another name for this bill is named in reference to NCOSE.

NCOSE used to be named Morality in Media, and has rebranded into an "anti-trafficking" organization. They are a hate group that has made millions off of being "against trafficking" while helping almost no victims and pushing for homophobic laws globally. They have successfully pushing the idea that any form of sexual expression, including talking about HEALTH, leads to sex trafficking. That's how SESTA passed. Their goal is to eliminate all sex, anything gay, and everything that goes against their idea of ‘God’ from the internet and hyper disney-fy and sanitize it. This is a highly coordinated attack on multiple fronts.

The EARN IT Act will lead to mass online censorship and surveillance. Platforms will be forced to scan their users’ communications and censor all sex-related content, including sex education, literally anything lgbt, transgender or non-binary education and support systems, aything related to abortion, and sex worker communication according to the ACLU. All this in the name of “protecting kids” and “fighting CSAM”, both of which the bill does nothing of the sort. In fact it makes fighting CSEM even harder.

EARN IT will open the way for politicians to define the category of “pornography" as they — or the lobbies that fund them — please. The same way that right-wing groups have successfully banned books about race and LGBT, are banning trans people from existing, all under the guise of protecting children from "grooming and exploitation", is how they will successfully censor the internet.

As long as state legislatures can tie in "fighting CSAM" to their bullshit laws, they can use EARN IT to censor and surveill whatever they want.

This is already a nightmare enough. But the bill also DESTROYS ENCRYPTION, you know, the thing protecting literally anyone or any govt entity from going into your private messages and emails and anything on your devices and spying on you.

This bill is going to finish what FOSTA/SESTA started. And that should terrify you.

Senator Blumenthal (Same guy who said ‘Facebook should ban finsta’) pushed this bill all of 2020, literally every activist (There were more than half a million signatures on this site opposing this act!) pushed hard to stop this bill. Now he brings it back, doesn’t show the text of the bill until hours later, and it’s WORSE. Instead of fixing literally anything in the bill that might actually protect kids online, Bluemnthal is hoping to fast track this and shove it through, hoping to get little media attention other than propaganda of “protecting kids” to support this shitty legislation that will harm kids. Blumental doesn't care about protecting anyone, and only wants his name in headlines.

It will make CSAM much much worse.

One of the many reasons this bill is so dangerous: It totally misunderstands how Section 230 works, and in doing so (as with FOSTA) it is likely to make the very real problem of CSAM worse, not better. Section 230 gives companies the flexibility to try different approaches to dealing with various content moderation challenges. It allows for greater and greater experimentation and adjustments as they learn what works – without fear of liability for any “failure.” Removing Section 230 protections does the opposite. It says if you do anything, you may face crippling legal liability. This actually makes companies less willing to do anything that involves trying to seek out, take down, and report CSAM because of the greatly increased liability that comes with admitting that there is CSAM on your platform to search for and deal with. This liability would allow anyone for any reason to sue any platform they want, suing smaller ones out of existence. Look at what is happening right now with book bans across the nation with far right groups. This is going to happen to the internet if this bill passes.

(Remember, the state department released a report in December 2021 recommending that the government crack down on “obscenity” as hard the Reagan Administration did. If this bill passes, it could easily go way beyond shit red states are currently trying. It is a goldmine for the fascist right that is currently in the middle of banning every book that talks about race and sexuality across the US.)

The reason these bills keep showing up is because there is this false lie spread by organizations like NCOSE that platforms do nothing about CSEM online. However, platforms are already liable for child sexual exploitation under federal law. Tech companies sent more than 45 million+ instances of CSAM to the DOJ in 2019 alone, most of which they declined to investigate. This shows that platforms are actually doing everything in their power already to stop CSEM by following already existing laws. The Earn It Act includes zero resources for proven investigation or prevention programs. If Senator Bluementhal actually cared about protecting youth, why wouldn’t he include anything to actually protect them in his shitty horrible bill? EARN IT is actually likely to make prosecuting child molesters more difficult since evidence collected this way likely violates the Fourth Amendment and would be inadmissible in court.

I don’t know why so many Senators are eager to cosponsor the “make child pornography worse” bill, but here we are.

HOW TO FIGHT BACK

EARN IT Act was introduced just two weeks ago and is already being fast-tracked. It will be marked up the week of May 1st and head to the Senate floor immediately after. If there is no loud and consistent opposition, it will be law by JUNE! Most bills never go to markup, so this means they are putting pressure to move this through. There are already 20 co-sponsors, a fifth of the entire Senate. This is an uphill battle and it is very much all hands on deck.

CALL YOUR REPRESENTATIVES.

This website takes you to your Senator / House members contact info. EMAIL, MESSAGE, SEND LETTERS, CALL CALL CALL CALL CALL. Calling is the BEST way to get a message through. Get your family and friends to send calls too. This is literally the end of free speech online.

(202) 224-3121 connects you to the congressional hotline. Here is a call script if you don't know what to say. Call them every day. Even on the weekends, leaving voicemails are fine.

2. Sign these petitions!

Link to Petition 1

Link to Petition 2

3. SPREAD THE WORD ONLINE

If you have any social media, spread this online. One of the best ways we fought back against this last year was MASSIVE spread online. Tiktok, reddit, twitter, discord, whatever means you have at least mention it. We could see most social media die out by this fall if we don't fight back.

Here is a linktree with more information on this bill including a masterpost of articles, the links to petitions, and the call script.

DISCORD LINK IF YOU WANT TO HELP FIGHT IT

TLDR: The EARN IT Act will lead to online censorship of any and all adult & lgbt content across the entire internet, open the floodgates to mass surveillance the likes which we haven’t seen before, lead to much more CSEM being distributed online, and destroy encryption. Call 202-224-3121 to connect to your house and senate representative and tell them to VOTE NO on this bill that does not protect anyone and harms everyone.

[hamadisthings]

HELP US STOP CHAT CONTROL!

If you live in the EU, you absolutely need to pay attention to what's to come. What is Chat Control, you may ask? In a (failed) attempt to combat child abuse online the EU made Chat Control, Chat Control will result in getting your private messages and emails to be scanned by artificial intelligence aka AI to search for CSAM pictures or discussion that might have grooming in there. And on top of having your private conversations handed to AI or the police to snoop in, like your family pictures, selfies, or more sensitive pics, like the medical kind, only meant to be seen by your doctors, or the "flirtatious" kind you send to your partner, you either have to ACCEPT to be scanned...or else you will be forbidden from sending pictures, videos, or even links, as said here.

Kids should absolutely be protected online, without question, but the things that Chat Control gets wrong is that this is a blatant violation of privacy, without even considering the fact that AI WILL create tons of false positives, this is not a theory, this is a fact. And for all the false positives that will be detected, all of them will be sent to the police, which will just flood their system with useless junk instead of efficiently putting resources to actual protect kids from predators.

It also does not help that politicians, police officers, soldiers etc will be exempt from Chat Control if it passes. If it's for the sake of protection, shouldn't everyone get the same treatment? Which further prove that Chat Control would NOT keep your data of private life safe. Plus, bad actors will simply stop using messenger apps as soon as they know they're being tracked, using more obscure means, meanwhile innocent people will be punished by using those services On top of this, the EU also plans on reintroducing Data retention called "EU Going Dark". Both Chat Control and EU Going Dark are clear violation of the GDPR, and even if they shouldn't stand a chance in court, its not going to prevent politicians from trying to ram these through as an excuse to mass surveil European citizens, using kids as a shield. Even teenagers sending pictures to each other won't be exempt, which entirely goes against the purpose of protecting kids by retaining their private photos instead. Furthermore, once messaging apps are forced to comply with Chat Control, the president of Signal, a secured messaging app with encryption, have confirmed that they will be forced to leave the EU if this is enforced against them.

If Chat Control also ends up targeting any websites with the option of private messages, you better expect Europe to be geo-blocked by any websites offering such function. I would also like to add that EU citizens were very vocal in the fight against KOSA, an equally bad internet bill from the US-- and it showed! Which is why we heavily need the help of our fellow US peers to fight against Chat Control too, so please, because we all know if it passes, the US government will take a look at this and conclude "Ooh, a way to force mass surveillance on citizens even more than before? don't mind if I do!" It's always a snowball effect.

KEEP IN MIND THE EUROPE COUNCIL WILL LIKELY VOTE ON CHAT CONTROL THIS 19 JUNE OF NEXT WEEK TO SEE IF IT WILL ENTER TRILOGIES OR NOT. Even if it does enter Trilogues, the fight will only be beginning. Absentees may not count as a no, so it is crucial that you contact your MEPs HERE, as well as HERE, and you can also show your support for Edri's campaign against Chat Control HERE.

You can read more on Chat Control here as well, and you can find useful information as to which arguments to use when politely contacting your MEP (calling is better than email) here, and beneath you will find graphics you can use to spread the word!

YOU CAN ALSO JOIN OUR DISCORD SERVER (linked here) TO HELP ORGANIZE AGAINST CHAT CONTROL NON EU PEOPLE ARE MORE THAN WELCOME TO JOIN TOO!

https://discord.gg/FPDJYkUujM

PLEASE REBLOG ! NON EU PEOPLE ARE ENCOURAGED TO REBLOG AS WELL CONTACT YOUTUBERS, CONTENT CREATORS, ANYONE YOU KNOW THAT MAY HELP GET THE WORD OUT ! Let's fight for our Internet and actually keep kids safe online! Because Chat Control and EU Going Dark will only endanger kids.

PLEASE REBLOG! NON EU PEOPLE ARE ENCOURAGED TO REBLOG AS WELL CONTACT YOUTUBERS, CONTENT CREATORS, ANYONE YOU KNOW THAT MAY HELP GET THE WORD OUT !

Let's fight for our Internet and actually keep kids safe online! Because Chat Control and EU Going Dark will only endanger kids.

[fabaulti]

I think most of us should take the whole ai scraping situation as a sign that we should maybe stop giving google/facebook/big corps all our data and look into alternatives that actually value your privacy.

i know this is easier said than done because everybody under the sun seems to use these services, but I promise you it’s not impossible. In fact, I made a list of a few alternatives to popular apps and services, alternatives that are privacy first, open source and don’t sell your data.

right off the bat I suggest you stop using gmail. it’s trash and not secure at all. google can read your emails. in fact, google has acces to all the data on your account and while what they do with it is already shady, I don’t even want to know what the whole ai situation is going to bring. a good alternative to a few google services is skiff. they provide a secure, e3ee mail service along with a workspace that can easily import google documents, a calendar and 10 gb free storage. i’ve been using it for a while and it’s great.

a good alternative to google drive is either koofr or filen. I use filen because everything you upload on there is end to end encrypted with zero knowledge. they offer 10 gb of free storage and really affordable lifetime plans.

google docs? i don’t know her. instead, try cryptpad. I don’t have the spoons to list all the great features of this service, you just have to believe me. nothing you write there will be used to train ai and you can share it just as easily. if skiff is too limited for you and you also need stuff like sheets or forms, cryptpad is here for you. the only downside i could think of is that they don’t have a mobile app, but the site works great in a browser too.

since there is no real alternative to youtube I recommend watching your little slime videos through a streaming frontend like freetube or new pipe. besides the fact that they remove ads, they also stop google from tracking what you watch. there is a bit of functionality loss with these services, but if you just want to watch videos privately they’re great.

if you’re looking for an alternative to google photos that is secure and end to end encrypted you might want to look into stingle, although in my experience filen’s photos tab works pretty well too.

oh, also, for the love of god, stop using whatsapp, facebook messenger or instagram for messaging. just stop. signal and telegram are literally here and they’re free. spread the word, educate your friends, ask them if they really want anyone to snoop around their private conversations.

regarding browser, you know the drill. throw google chrome/edge in the trash (they really basically spyware disguised as browsers) and download either librewolf or brave. mozilla can be a great secure option too, with a bit of tinkering.

if you wanna get a vpn (and I recommend you do) be wary that some of them are scammy. do your research, read their terms and conditions, familiarise yourself with their model. if you don’t wanna do that and are willing to trust my word, go with mullvad. they don’t keep any logs. it’s 5 euros a month with no different pricing plans or other bullshit.

lastly, whatever alternative you decide on, what matters most is that you don’t keep all your data in one place. don’t trust a service to take care of your emails, documents, photos and messages. store all these things in different, trustworthy (preferably open source) places. there is absolutely no reason google has to know everything about you.

do your own research as well, don’t just trust the first vpn service your favourite youtube gets sponsored by. don’t trust random tech blogs to tell you what the best cloud storage service is — they get good money for advertising one or the other. compare shit on your own or ask a tech savvy friend to help you. you’ve got this.

[pennyblossom-meta]

If L ever had a lover/soulmate and was discovered by Light, what countermeasures might L do?

Thank you for the question, dear anon!

This one's a really interesting one and I had to do some research in order to give you a well rounded response based on canon (mostly the manga, but also with a dash of extended DN lore). I'll add my own conclusions on the specific lover/soulmate case as we go.

I'll preface this analysis by saying that, if we take Spiraling Trap into account, then L's lover would be of extreme importance to them, if not the most important person in L's life — perhaps even above Watari. One of his sweetest quotes from the dating sim actually alludes to this state of mind:

For your sake… I’d think of a way to get through anything. We share a bond.

If L had a lover, he would very much be smitten. Despite all his flaws, his sometimes complicated, hyper-focused behaviour, he would dearly cherish this bond and do everything to keep it.

It's important that we look at L's thought process here as the opposite of what he did with Kira. While L gradually de-anonymizes Light before the world, he would progressively anonymize his lover so as to keep them safe. It might not be to the degree that he made himself to be a ghost, a letter on a screen, but it would be a pretty thorough process to minimise any fallout.

Now, L would take his lover's safety as a constant, high priority task. I imagine he'd be paranoid to the point that he would often run hypothetical scenarios where he'd assume the role of a criminal and try to find information about his lover.

These would range from medical records to high school grades, primary school pictures, etc. He would know exactly what kind of data about his lover was available to the public — and where to find it, in digital or physical form. Do they have family? Pets? Friends that could be tracked or paid to talk? He'd be on top of all this and investigate it through the several angles of cryptography and computer security.

When the Kira case starts gaining prominence, I imagine he would take the utmost care to delete all sensitive information pertaining to his lover from public records, though he might keep actual medical records safely encrypted somewhere only he could access. As for records stored at, say, school, in physical form — like a CD — he would likely have Watari steal them so they could be destroyed. I don't believe he would ask anyone other than Watari for this task, as that could raise unwelcome questions from a third party.

L's greatest fear would be that Kira might kill his lover. Given how secretive he is, perhaps the only way that Light might gain access to such information would be if L allowed his lover to accompany him during the case. Just like L protects Watari, Aiber and Wedy's identity, he would likely never introduce his lover as his actual lover; rather, he would make up a fake name for them and a role. I also imagine he would struggle with the decision of bringing them along and might've acquiesced because a) he wants them nearby or b) they've left him no choice because they want to keep L safe (and be supportive in whatever way they can, depending on their background and profession).

So, in this scenario (manga, again), Light would need to meet L's lover sometime between the months April-November 2004 and figure out who they really are. It would almost give L a heart attack (pun intended); he would blame himself for his recklessness, backtrack every move, run scenarios to make sure Light couldn't find anything to kill them. After Rem appears, L would absolutely forbid them from being near Misa.

Beyond this, there isn't much that L could do at this point. Short of bringing Kira to justice, the most he can do is prevent his lover's personal information from being handed to Light on a silver platter. He may remove his lover from the case entirely if they were discovered, though. But he would definitely plot to cut any loose ends that'd bring Light straight to their lover's private sphere.

There's also a chance that Light would kidnap L's lover and torture them for information, but it's highly unlikely.

However, I'd like to ask the following question: what does L do to protect himself and those closest to him in canon?

01: There are no photos or images of L anywhere, especially at To-Ho

From: Chapter 28 - Judgment

One of the things that immediately jumps to attention is how secretive (and well prepared) L is under any scenario. During this particular moment in the main story, we witness L's caution when it comes to allowing others to keep any photos or video records related to him, going as far as instructing the Task Force to destroy all photos of themselves. In essence, he wants them to erase any and all images that can lead to the Second Kira identifying them to avoid their murders. Their digital footprint or social media (what was even Japan's version of MySpace in 2004?) should be gone as a security measure.

We also discover that L goes to the trouble of deactivating the security cameras at the hotels he's at so they don't capture his image. It's a huge stretch, but a necessary evil when you're L, the world's greatest detective, always one step away from being killed by criminals.

What about L's love interest/soulmate?

As mentioned before, L would make sure that his lover's information would be hidden or removed from public access. This would give him a head start to protect them from Light (and Misa), as the only way they'd be able to get the lover's name would be through the Shinigami Eyes or by parting with the information voluntarily (like Naomi Misora did).

Like L, they would also not have their image recorded when moving around hotels. I can imagine that they would also leave through the hotel garage or back door in order to avoid bumping into undesirable individuals.

02: Watari, Aiber and Wedy are anonymized — until L's death (and Watari's)

From: Chapter 59 - Zero

Arguably, one of L's biggest mistakes towards Aiber and Wedy was leaving their personal information available for the Task Force in case he died. I assume that the "All data deletion" protocol was solely regarding the case itself, and that there were branches of information that Light acquired after L's death which were not meant to be seen aside from himself.

There might've been other criminals whom associated with L that Light killed. My educated guess is that L would've been more careful with his lover's personal information and had it deleted along with crucial data about the case. In case he died and they lived, he would've taken that precaution. Both Near and Mello also have no photographs of themselves available at Wammy's (or in any record).

03: And as a small bonus of L caring about his associates...

From: Chapter 43 - Black

Utilitarian L may be, but he's not a robot devoid of feelings. He does care about his associates and seems to be on good terms with Aiber. With how careful he is those who work for him, I'm positive he would climb mountains to keep his lover safe from harm — especially if danger came in the shape of Light.

Hope this answered your question somewhat!

[ms-demeanor]

So I love your computer information and advice - but I have never used a password manager because I’ve always figured it’s just putting all my most sensitive information out there to be stolen when someone gets into the password manager. What am I missing here?

The primary thing is that, in the normal course of time and space, given the limitations of computing technology, if you are using a decent password manager, nobody should be able to get into your password manager.

Good password managers (I recommend Bitwarden) are essentially impossible to access through cracking the encryption. It just won't happen. It's not going to happen.

In a decent password manager, your data also will not be available to the company that made the product. They can't get it. They don't have access, and anyone who breaks into their systems doesn't have access.

So there is one way that someone could get into your (decent) password manager: if they know your password.

That's why it's important to create one complex, memorable, unique password for your password manager that you do not share with anyone except in the most dire circumstances with someone you are 100% certain that you can trust (I've used the example in the past of my spouse giving me the password to his password manager when he was being prepped for an emergency bypass surgery - outside of situations like that, my spouse and I don't share passwords with each other).

Now, let's look at the flipside: if you do not use a decent password manager (which will generate nonsense random passwords for you on demand), you are probably creating passwords that are comparatively very easy to crack either through dictionary attacks or effortless to crack with credential stuffing.

Part of the problem here is that our data and security landscape is garbage. You have almost certainly had personal information leaked in a data breach that you had no say in participating in. You have almost certainly had your email address and multiple passwords exposed in breaches over the years. You have almost certainly used the same answers repeatedly for security questions, and there are only so many sites that will allow you to update those questions and answers, and those answers have almost certainly been exposed in previous breaches.

And the thing is, people are predictable. People reuse passwords, which makes credential stuffing extremely easy, because someone just has to find a leak from 2009 to identify your email address and then see if you used your 2009 password on any other accounts that you also registered with that email address. If your email address shows up in multiple leaks, they can compare the kinds of passwords that you used with different accounts.

Did you use the "unique password" hack that so many people do of "[site abbreviation][basic password][birthyear][punctuation]"? FBpassword95! TWTpassword95! TMBLRpassword95! - that's really, really common because passwords are hard to remember and people behave in predictable ways when they're trying to save themselves some labor.

Perhaps you are an XKCD reader and learned the CorrectHorseBatteryStaple trick, but unless you read the follow-up studies after the fact you might not know that those passwords are actually pretty crackable unless you're using words that are more like IndubitablyNematodeErlenmeyerRisome. And if you're using a unique combination of uncommon words it's going to get pretty hard to remember a hundred of them. And you'll start repeating. And then it's back to credential stuffing instead of dictionary attacks.

The point is that you are substantially more at risk of having your accounts accessed if you are repeating or using non-random passwords than you are if you are using a password manager. Some people do actually sit down with dice to roll up random passwords and write them in a book, but the vast majority of people are relying on their predictable human brains to come up with "complex" passwords and we are just not good at that.

Password managers also make it a lot easier to change things after a breach, and they make it a lot easier to generate and store random gibberish for your security questions (which you should be doing; at this point security questions are a liability, not an account recovery tool).

Using a password manager would make most people's passwords significantly more secure AND more accessible than something like writing randomized numbers and characters in a book (because a good password should not only be difficult to remember, it should be unnatural for you to type because there shouldn't be any words in it and it should require a lot of use of the shift key). A properly used password manager can also help to protect you from phishing sites by recognizing the correct site and not allowing an option to fill on a phishing site (which is why using a password manager with a browser plugin or an app can be a better option than one that is stored on your desktop and needs the password copy/pasted instead of filling the field for you).

So yes, if someone gets access to your password, they can get access to your password manager and you now have one point of failure instead of hundreds of accounts. However, because of the way that human brains work and because of how balls-to-the-walls uncrackable a good encrypted password vault is, you are likely to be more secure with that single point of failure than you are using the kinds of passwords that most people make up (we are really, really, really not good at making up nonsense passwords; go look at the top thousand passwords and think about how many of them you've used as a PART of any of your passwords. Most languages have a very small number of words that people use on a regular basis and it isn't that hard to get a computer to scan for a few thousand words if it has unlimited attempts to get into your account - mix that in with the fact that there are SO, SO many breaches out there and it is frighteningly easy to get into a lot of accounts).

However, you can then also make your password manager even MORE secure by setting up 2FA to access it. At which point the only way someone is getting into your password manager is if they know your password and have access to your 2FA account.

Generally I find that what most people are worried about isn't that their horrible ex or an abusive parent will get into their password manager, they're a lot more worried that the contents of their password vault will be exposed in a breach. And that is just not going to happen if you're using a securely encrypted password manager (like bitwarden).

[theminecraftbee]

hermit horror week day 4: season 7 or taken over

Xisuma slowly blinks at the console logs for the server again. He's very tired; he's been collecting blackstone again, and it's very tiring, collecting blackstone. He's been building a lot of pretty houses, and stocking a lot of shops, and he hasn't had time to look at the console much recently. He probably shouldn't be now, because he's tired, and tired people make mistakes.

He makes a lot of mistakes; he's silly like that. A big derp. It's why he has to be careful, since he's been tired so much lately. He definitely shouldn't have the console open.

It's just, earlier Impulse had a question, since his moss farm kept lagging, and Xisuma thought it would be easy enough to try to find the root cause of. And he did find the root cause of it--Impulse's farm is too fast and his storage simply doesn't keep up with the amount of moss--but there's... some other things...

He blinks again at the dates on the server files. The last edited dates. Slowly, he clicks again on his own player data, and tries to make sense of what he's reading. Files like this, they aren't really meant to be that human-readable. It's--well, it is mostly json, so it's mostly human-readable, actually, but a lot of it is still encrypted, for player safety, which would. Maybe explain what he's looking at? He thinks? He's--well, he does have root access, is the thing, because he's the admin, but he still shouldn't be able to look at any player willy-nilly.

He's a little too much of a derp to be trusted with that. He probably shouldn't even be looking at his data! It's just. That last edited date. Xisuma doesn't edit his own player data. That way lies madness. He's, uh, pretty sure he knows some people who went a little mad doing that. So the fact of the matter is--well, it's not the only file that's been edited recently, he tells himself. Just because it's a lot of memory files that seem to have been edited, as well as access permissions--that's... normal enough for a new season, right?

He's...

He doesn't notice his other self walk up behind him.

"Oh, hey Xisuma. You finished gathering materials for our next build, then?" Evil Xisuma says. All of Xisuma's hairs stand on end.

"I mean, I've gathered enough to get started," Xisuma says.

"Pity. I was really hoping you'd manage to get everything. I thought maybe we'd finish today, but I guess we can't now."

"I--you're right. I'm really sorry."

"No, no, don't worry, don't worry, my friend," Evil Xisuma says. "We probably couldn't have finished today anyway, even if you said you'd try for it."

Xisuma's heart is in his throat. "Sorry, my head's just been. You know how I am. Silly me, forgetting things."

Evil Xisuma shakes his head. "It's awfully lucky I came back this season. Think of all the important things you'd be forgetting without reminders!"

Xisuma looks down and away.

"Gosh, and now you're... playing around in the admin console?"

"Oh!" Xisuma says. "It's, er, nothing really big..."

"Can I see it?"

He barely resists the urge to close out of his player data and hide that's what he'd been looking at. He doesn't know why he wants to hide it. It's not like--well, if Evil Xisuma got mad about it, it would be... right, wouldn't it? Because, well, Xisuma knows full well he shouldn't be looking at or editing his own player data. Editing your own data is the way to madness, and Xisuma, well, he's been so tired lately. He could easily accidentally hit a button. He could easily accidentally hit delete. He has root access, after all.

His heart is in his throat again. He shuffles his feet. "Sure," he says, finally. "I, er, I promise, I wasn't doing anything. I just noticed the last edited date on, uh, files that aren't automatically created by the system? And I thought, gosh, that's weird. I'd only been in there to check on Impulse, really, after he'd had some lag issues. I was just finishing up. It's nothing--the date's weird, though, right? That's all I was noticing."

He watches Evil Xisuma's fingers scroll through all of Xisuma's data. It's not quite fast enough that Xisuma isn't sure he's reading it, and suddenly, Xisuma feels very small.

Finally, Evil Xisuma hands Xisuma's tablet with the admin console open back to him. Xisuma looks down, and Evil Xisuma has closed out of the player data again.

"You just forgot the last maintenance date," Evil Xisuma says.

"Really?" Xisuma says.

"Oh, yeah, for sure. You're so tired lately. You silly derp. You've just been forgetting things easily. You should really get more rest!"

"Oh, but then we won't finish our projects," Xisuma says.

"I guess we wouldn't," Evil Xisuma says back.

"It's just--it's. Most of the time, access permission for player memories isn't edited during maintenance, and I just--I don't remember putting your name down?"

"Why wouldn't you?"

Xisuma tries to think.

"I don't know," he says finally, small, unable to meaningfully articulate anything about what's wrong with it. "I guess it only makes sense, if I'm forgetting things so easily."

"Exactly! Gosh, we make a good team," Evil Xisuma says, and he smiles at Xisuma. Xisuma crookedly smiles back.

"Yeah, we do," Xisuma agrees.

"Don't pull that out again unless I say so, okay?"

"Okay," Xisuma agrees automatically, and then he knows he will not. It makes sense. If he was upsetting himself over nothing like this, why, imagine what he'd do if he could open it whenever? He'd just constantly be upsetting himself!

"Now, my friend, let's return to building the Evil Empire."

"Let's!" agrees Xisuma, and just like that, the entire encounter slips from his mind.

[yanderes-galore]

could I request a self aware yandere arkham riddler concept? Thought It'd be neat as in arkham vr he's self aware. -💙🐛

I never played Arkham VR so in terms of plot so I listened to his voicelines and then I looked at some gameplay :)

Yandere! Arkhamverse! Self-Aware! Riddler

Pairing: Romantic/Platonic

Possible Trigger Warnings: Gender-Neutral Darling, Obsession, Self-Aware character, Stalking (in a way), Forced companionship, Gaslighting, Manipulation.

Riddler certainly has a love/hate relationship towards the player.

He's currently the only canon Arkham character who has broken the fourth wall as well as he has.

He blames you for all of his failures, due to you controlling Batman and whatnot.

He calls you his nemesis and frequently gets irritated as you find his Enigma Cubes in the various game levels.

However, I also imagine he'd have some sort of respect towards you due to your intellect of solving his puzzles.

Unless you're looking them up... then what's the point?

He notices sometimes you have to replay the level to find a cube which gives him pride.

This whole thing if finding his cubes is a game he can only play with you.

At this point he doesn't want to speak to Batman as you're clearly his nemesis.

Riddler would take to you between levels.

At first he's taunting or expressing frustration.

Then near the middle of the game, maybe when you have half of the cubes, he starts trying to speak to you.

He asks about you and eagerly waits for an answer.

Really all he can do is talk at you but to him it's enough.

Maybe he'll find a way to communicate with you, like coding in a keyboard for you to type on.

That or he enables your mic.

It feels... odd to speak with him.

He's just a game character but it feels like you're holding a conversation with the Riddler.

Which would go about as well as you'd expect... he wants to gloat and gush about the puzzles he creates.

Wouldn't be surprised if Riddler infected your PS4/PC like a virus to see what else you play and who you talk to.

He'd invade and scoop up any details he can find about you.

Which then shocks you when he brings up the other games you play.

"I bet this game is your favorite... you actually get to talk to someone like me! Isn't it entertaining?"

What would be terrifying is if he said your real name in a conversation.

Or described how you look.

It would make you wonder if you're really playing a game... or something else.

Now... imagine when you're about to complete the game?

Riddler then gets defensive at you solving his puzzles and tries to get you to slow down.

He isn't ready to let you go!

You're his nemesis, he isn't done with you yet!

Maybe he even starts to play dirty by removing cubes you've collected.

What do you mean you collected that one?

No you didn't, he didn't see you get that one yet-

You should look again-

Riddler has limited control of the game but that changes over time.

Soon he's corrupting your data, forcing you to replay sections for his amusement.

When you confront him about it he plays dumb.

"Resetting? Sabotage? Dear, are you accusing me of cheating? Maybe you should look for the cubes a bit harder... or check your hard drive!"

He's being an annoyance on purpose because he feels it will make you stay.

If you threaten to leave then he quickly tries to find a way to prevent it.

"Okay, okay! Look, I just don't want this game to end, my nemesis! Aren't you having fun here with me? There's no need to leave!"

Even if you try to get rid of the game at this point he's already infected your device.

He's encrypted himself and hidden himself away deep in your files.

Being in such an enclosed space was tiring.

Now he has a much larger space to subject you to his puzzles and schemes!

If he could find a way to get out of the game, he would!

That way he doesn't even have to think of Batman.

He'll have someone else to test and call his nemesis.

Who knows, maybe Riddler will even find a way to prevent you from erasing his data.

Don't mind him turning on your device when you aren't around...

He just wants to watch what his nemesis is doing at all times.

After all... you two are going to be rivals as long as he's here.

Soon... he'll show you who's really in control.

[teecupangel]

So this idea has been bouncing in my head like an excited rabbit on caffeine. (I also don't know if anyone else thought of this but I thought it would be cool) so you remember the reblog chain where the players are all in Desmond head talking like a twitch chat, and the other reblog chain of Desmond's ancestor data gaining sentience because isu bstm, right? Well I had a thought, what if we combined the two, like maybe something like the part of the main group + Desmond are trying to get to the others who are in another part of Abstergo or the assassin's network and Desmond, let's say that while he was split he couldn't hear us until they passed through this really corrupted part of an ocean map (let's say it's in Edward's time) then all of a sudden Desmond hears one of us. (Sorry if this doesn't make sense. I hope you have a heath day/night)

I think this is the AC characters data in Abstergo’s database regaining sentience AU reblog chain with @piratekenway you’re talking about?

The Ratatouille AU where the ancestors can hear Desmond while ‘playing’, its more unhinged cousin, the Ratatouille AU where Desmond can hear us and the outside POV of Al Mualim thinking the Apple broke Altaïr and the sidestory of Altaïr accidentally connecting with Ezio while looking for Desmond (I hope I didn’t forget anything else)

Okay, so the idea is that we’re using the setup for the character data gaining sentience and we’re setting this as sorta like the ‘epilogue’ to the Ratatouille AU.

Instead of letting the world burn (“As a treat!” one of the voices chirped), he sacrifices himself. When he wakes up, he’s in Abstergo’s database, chained as a digital copy of Sample 17.

He can’t hear any voices anymore.

Are they disappointed with him?

Did they think they wasted their time trying to help him?

Did he… make the right choice?

He doesn’t know how much time has passed… when the virus started taking over the database and servers.

.

In this one, the virus isn’t made by Erudito + Assassins. It’s of ‘unknown origin’.

All they know is the name of the virus is “for desmond!” and it is targeting Desmond. Of course, Sample 17 is in one of the more secured encrypted ‘part’ of the database so it mutated to wake other data up.

Data that has connection with Desmond.

Along the way, the virus inside them starts waking up other data nearby, creating a strange team to rescue Desmond.

We can sorta play with this a bit and make Arno, Evie and Jacob become part of Abstergo’s database because they do have data of Arno’s descendants and it makes sense that the reason why the Templars knew where the Shroud is because they can access the twins’ memories as well and the Assassins just stole their DNA for their own Animus instead.

So they get to Desmond who is staying in the Grand Temple, just sitting there, staring at the devices, doubting and double-doubting himself if he should have activated the device when the people who care for him the most asked him not to.

Of course, Abstergo’s anti-virus and probably the entire security system is chasing after them so they don’t have time to actually talk.

They just run.

Well, they sailed using a fusion of the Jackdaw and Aquila…

… into a corrupted part of the West Indies.

The idea was… the virus didn’t harm them but it definitely fucks with Abstergo’s anti-virus and security system.

At the very least, they were hoping it would slow them down.

What they did not expect was for the entire thing to collapse under them…

And drop their modified ship into a different unfamiliar ocean.

“Holy shit!”

Desmond blinked.

“That scared the crap out of me. Goddamn it, Ubisoft. I know this is still being betatesting but Jesus Christ, loading the entire ship and dropping it from above??? What kind of programming does this game have???”

“Lollol. Dude, chill.”

“Is it an enemy ship? Like… can you shoot it?”

“Should you shoot it? Check its level first.”

They were all familiar voices.

“You don’t want a repeat of-”

“Guys?” Desmond asked, his voice a bit too quiet.

Hesitant.

He didn’t dare hope that it was them.

Not all of them.

But some of the ones he was most familiar with.

The ones who stayed with him the most.

“Holy shit.”

“Oh my god, Desmond?!”

“What’s Desmond doing in this game?!”

“Is it our Desmond???”

Desmond’s lips curved into a smile and his voice croaked as he said, “Yeah, I’m your Desmond.”

“Oh my god.”

“Desmond!!! You’re okay!!! We were sooo worried!”

“You think this is [Bored Anonymous]’s work??? Did their plan to use all our computers to try and connect with Desmond’s world and send our gift work?”

“Gift?” Desmond tilted his head.

Did they mean the virus?

He felt someone nudged his arm and he turned to look at Ezio. Everyone else seemed confused but Altaïr, Ezio and Ratonhnhaké:ton seemed to have an idea on who he was talking to.

Wait.

They can hear them!

Before Desmond could tell the voices that everyone could hear them now, one of them said hurriedly, “Oh fuck! Someone get [Bored Anonymous] quickly!”

“Why?”

“I only have 1 more hour to play this beta! What happens to Desmond if he stays in this beta server after the time is up?!! We can’t lose him!”

“Ohshitohshitohshit!”

“I’ll alert the discord server!”

“I’ll try to message them in Tumblr! They’re always online there!”

“Pretty sure that’s their queue…”

“We can still try!”

Desmond simply laughed.

Sure, the time limit they’re talking about was worrying but hearing all of them worrying about him…

It felt like he was finally home.

[xxstarlight-lifexx]

Some quotes I have from people speaking out against KOSA, please reblog, tag people, cross-post on other platforms, and share with everyone you can, all quotes are fair use <3

“This law is a scam, created with the express purpose of persecuting LGBTQ+ people and silencing victims of abuse. That is the only possible outcome of these kinds of bills.

Oppose them on principle. Be skeptical whenever they are even brought-up.

This isn’t about safety—it is a takeover of THE major avenue to disseminate information in the modern world. It is more than censorship, it defines the avenues that thought may even take.

It will lead to identity verification companies like Clear or ID.me getting more of people’s private data and guaranteed, exclusive government contracts for surveillance and data collection, in violation of the spirit of the 4th Amendment, if not the letter.

It is also an absolute certainty that conservatives in positions of authority will use this program to persecute LGBTQ+ people, with the force of the State, under the guise of protecting children from pornography and "grooming". It has been an explicit misdirection tactic the right has invented to poison debate on trans rights issues and the (unconnected) growing evidence of sexual impropriety among the powerful, particularly conservatives.

Furthermore, I and most others will not abide by this law, if it is passed, and will take whatever actions necessary to safeguard our personal information via VPN, encryption, onion networking, etc., regardless of their permissibility.”

“This is a violation of basic rights on the Internet. Whatever happened to Freedom of Speech? Or are we just gonna ignore a literal Amendment in favor of “protecting the American children" while many of those children are the ones against this??”

“having full privacy on the internet may have saved my life growing up. don’t take away kid’s privacy, there’s already perfectly reasonable ways for parents to monitor kids.”

“I think that people have a right to privacy online, especially children. This doesn't seem like a bill that would actually protect children from anything, it would just make important resources more difficult to access, increase censorship online, and increase surveillance, all of which I oppose.”

“There are three things you never give out on the internet for your safety. 1) Name, 2) Face, and 3) Home. This bill guarantees that all three will be easily available to those who wish to hurt the children this bill falsely claims to protect. If you actually care about children, stop this bill. Listen to what those of us that actually use the internet are telling you. Children and adults deserve a private, anonymous space to be.”

“i'm a queer teen and i know full well the importance online spaces have in supporting lgbtq+ youth, especially ones who don't have supportive environments in person. censorship doesn't actually erase the information, it just makes it harder to access.”

“I’m writing to urge you to reject the Kids Online Safety Act, a misguided bill that would put vulnerable young people at risk.

KOSA would fail to address the root issues related to kid’s safety online. Instead, it would endanger some of the most vulnerable people in our society while undermining human rights and children’s privacy. The bill would result in widespread internet censorship by pressuring platforms to use incredibly broad “content filters” and giving state Attorneys General the power to decide what content kids should and shouldn’t have access to online. This power could be abused in a number of ways and be politicized to censor information and resources.

KOSA would also likely lead to the greater surveillance of children online by requiring platforms to gather data to verify user identity.

There is a way to protect kids and all people online from egregious data abuse and harmful content targeting: passing a strong Federal data privacy law that prevents tech companies from collecting so much sensitive data about all of us in the first place, and gives individuals the ability to sue companies that misuse their data.

KOSA, although well-meaning, must not move forward. Please protect privacy and stop the spread of censorship online by opposing KOSA.”

“Censorship doesn't keep kids safe. Censorship does not save abused children. Censorship does not save queer children. Censorship will not save any of us. Freedom for us all. Freedom for the internet. This shit cannot stand.”

“This bill is a massive overreach on civil liberties and freedom of speech in particular. It should not be within the government's purview to determine what content is acceptable, no matter which party is in power.”

“As we all know, the major threats to American children today are books, bathrooms, and the Internet.

Not getting shot in their own schools or attacked on their own streets.

Since graduating from the public school system in 2007, I haven't seen anything from elected officials to contradict this.”

“KOSA is a censorship bill in sheep’s clothing. It would erode Americans’ rights to privacy, especially that of vulnerable and marginalized Americans, and gather information about the whereabouts and identities of the children it play-acts at “protecting”.”

“This is a ridiculous law

KOSA is a giant bill that is pretending to be about child safety, but is actually overreaching government censorship. It is a violation of free speech and the 1st amendment.

This bill would require that internet users upload their government ID to access any site, and state attorney generals could sue to remove any site that contains content deemed "harmful" to children. The government will be able to censor ANYTHING - such as abortion info, LGBTQ+ resources, and any content relating to protesting or organizing. They will also be able to ID you if you search for any of these topics. This is the opposite of a free internet!”

“The law is pretty much just a trojan horse for censorship.”

“frankly i dont want to be put on a list the gov has of every queer person who opposes their anti-lgbt laws”

“I care about actually helping people instead of making a bill that is going to kill any ability for anyone to get help. That is going to be used to police anyone who disagrees with the absolute mess everything is right now. The conservative morals don’t allow for anyone not white, cuz, straight, or male; and I won’t have that enforced on the fucking public forum.”

[fullhalalalchemist]

🚨🚨CONGRESS SECRETLY TRYING TO SNEAK IN EARN IT ACT COPYCAT INTO MUST PASS SPENDING BILL (PLEASE READ EXTREMELY IMPORTANT)

July 20, 2023 Congress is right now determining what is included in a must pass spending bill the NDAA. Often congress will sneakily add as amendments their bills that they can't pass in a normal setting.

If you remember, I made a previous post about EARN IT being reintroduced here.

The EARN IT Act and it's copycats are bipartisan bills that will greatly censor if not completely eliminate encryption and anything sexual and LGBTQ+ from the internet, globally. Anything the far-right doesn't like will be completely gone. The best way to stop them is to use https://www.badinternetbills.com/ to call your senators.

Following it's initial introduction earlier this year was massive opposition from human rights, LGBT, tech, political groups, and grassroots groups. Bc of this, the senators decided to remake the bill but give it a new name, so they can still pass Earn It without actually passing Earn It. Those bills are the Stop CSAM Act (yes really, they actually named it that), and the Cooper-Davis act.

The entire point of these bills is to mass surveil and censor everyone and I don't know why more people or senators speak out against it. There is a direct timeline from when the Attorney General Barr (under Trump) said he wanted to do this to it's initial introduction in 2019, and how the senators explicitly knew they couldn't actually say that so they lied and said it was about "stopping CSAM" or "stopping drugs" for Cooper-Davis Act.

These bills essentially do the following:

they gut encryption, the one thing actually protects you from having your data seen by anyone. Do you want republicans to know you're trans? that someone had an abortion? that they spoke out against the govt? to see your private photos you have uploaded to the cloud? to see what porn you watch? if youre a journalist, or an abuse survivor, any hacker or abuser can see your stuff and track you.

they gut parts of Section 230, the one thing that allows anyone to post online and birthed social media. Previous gutting into 230 gave us the tumblr nsfw ban and killed that site.

they create an unelected commission with some already established govt body (DOJ, FTC, etc) that will include law enforcement and people from NCOSE or other Christian conservative groups who will decide what is and isn't lawful to say. no citizen can vote who's on this commission, and the president gets to pick. it's like the supreme court, but for the internet.

lead to mass censorship and surveillance because of the above

We have until the end of the month to stop this, but this can be added literally any moment until then. It's literally code red. If this is added it goes into effect immediately. The BEST way to stop this is to drive calls and emails to the senate. https://www.badinternetbills.com/ connects you directly to your members of congress & gives you a call script.

It is ESSENTIAL to call the Senate leaders who can stop this. Here's a more precise call script you can use: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1huD5Ldd1lPTECYTEb9Gg2ZzrqW6Y9tryHT-MdjOl8kY/edit

All these people expressed concern over Earn It, so we need to press them hard to not allow it's copycats Cooper-Davis or Stop CSAM into the NDAA. This is URGENT and needs all hands on deck. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) (202) 224-6542 Maria Cantwell (D-WA) (202) 224-3441 Jon Ossof (D-GA) (202)-224-3521 Alex Padilla (D-CA) (202) 224-3553 Cory Booker (D-NJ) (202) 224-3224 Mike Lee (R-UT) (202) 224-5444

Please please please spread this message and blow up their phones.

TLDR; The Senate is trying to quietly push the Earn It Act's copycat bills into the must pass NDAA, which will lead to mass censorship and surveillance online by gutting Section 230 which is the entire reason you can even be on tumblr and why the internet exists, killing encryption which put everyone's lives in danger, and appointing far-right people to a supreme court-esque commission that the president has direct control over. They could be added in ANY DAY and we need to push hard to stop it before it gets to that point. CALL YOUR SENATORS **NOW** BY USING https://www.badinternetbills.com/ AND CALL THE SENATE LEADERSHIP AND SPREAD THE WORD!!!!

[liminalweirdo]

If you are not in the US, you can sign the above petition.

KOSA is censorhip and targets LGBTQ+ and trans youth.

If you are in the US, the resources will help you find your reps so you can call or email them.

change is possible, but activism is called activism because you must act. Don't wait for others to do it for you.

Scripts for email, fax, or telephone below the cut:

DEMOCRATIC VERSION:

Hi, I am urging you to VOTE NO on KOSA, s.1409. Nearly 200 human rights and LGBT organizations total came out in an open letter opposing it in 2022 and 2023 because of how dangerous it is. The new language does NOT meet any concerns brought up, in fact many organizations were ignored. Major news have reported that this bill actively harms kids. When you look online through social media, you will find thousands of posts by Gen Z who are opposed to this bill. We do not want this. 

The rewritten bill would still allow any state attorney general, and now the FTC, to sue any website for “harmful” content. When you have Republicans calling anything LGBT “sexual exploitation” or anything about race “CRT” to successfully ban books and teachers, then they will use any justification to censor the internet. The Missouri attorney general used “mental health” successfully to ban gender-affirming care with backed up research. Suicide rates will skyrocket for marginalized youth with this bill restricting content.

Multiple experts agree this bill pushes age verification, even with the new language. KOSA hands more private data of children to third party companies. Furthermore, updated language threatens encryption the same way the Earn It Act does. How is this protecting children’s privacy? 

KOSA actively harms kids by taking away educational resources they need right now. Do NOT support this bill. Thank you.

REPUBLICAN VERSION:

I am urging you to VOTE NO on KOSA, s.1409. This is a dangerous bill that will harm children. Many news organizations have reported that this bill actively harms kids by exposing their private data to strangers under the guise of protecting them. We need to hold Big Tech accountable, but KOSA is not the solution.

The rewritten bill would still allow any state attorney general, and even thr FTC, to sue any website for “harmful” content. Do we really want blue state lawyers deciding what can and can’t be allowed online and continue to censor people? This is massive government overreach. We need a bill that actually protects people by creating better security measures instead of bringing about more censorship.

Multiple experts agree this bill pushes age verification, even with the new language. KOSA hands more private data of children to third party companies, which would put them in further danger. How is this protecting children’s privacy? What parent would want their child’s private data in the hands of strangers like this? KOSA is actively putting kids in danger. Do NOT support this bill. Thank you.

[elirium]

Okay, so how does the bat communication system work

They could use signal but tbh. That might be to much functionality on what we would need.

Authentication is like in this case pretty trivial, because they are like 2 dozent people who can all be in the same room at some time and get their devices in person. Maybe they have some kind of rsa token for that. And also they build their own devices (again like 2 dozent or something so)

Also the serverlessness of signal is great, if you dont want your data in some server, but also again. They probably have their own servers anyway. And soemtimes the bat communication network is written like if someone is offline they just never get the message so very normal client2client would work.... I would prefer using the batservers instead however.

Anyway so the signal protocol implements perfect forward secrecy (so if the key got into attackers hands the earlier send messages are save) and perfect backwards secrecy (future messages are safe). So you would keep these parts...

Because again they are only like max 2 dozent people the major drawback of signal (it not scaling well for big group communications) this also does not apply.

Okay now to the part of the wireless communication.... We do have the problem here that most of batman canon is before 2018. After thinking a lot about that and crying a bit i decided, to make any of this work we have to make an au in which Wayne enterprises build a 5G network in gotham in the 90s. In this au 5G would be the first one someone invented, so downgrade attacks would not work.

I also asked my friend for suggestions and he said maybe Wayne Enterprises did build a totally second Network additionall to the normal Gotham wireless network with own bts for the bats. And so the bats can just use their own build protocoll (using Dragonfly and ECDH). The Batman Protocoll would use own headers so the normal bts will just ignore that, and we will encrypt the header, so the headers can not be tracked.

I know some 90s comics also said Oracle is talking to the bats per phone, but for the sake of my sanity we are ignoring that.

Anyway so what do the bats for sure not use:

Fax: many things which irl would need to be somewhat private are send over fax, because this is client2client and not saved on any servers which belong to some external company. However!!! It is also not encrypted and just sends the message on clear text. Everyone with access to the connection could just read that

Wifi (i mean. the batcave might be bigger than 50 meter radius so, maybe they can actually use it there.)

Bluetooth

SMS

like normal phone calls

[ckret2]

Your goldilocks cipher stuff gives me an unreal amount of dopamine (maybe i just like bill a lot idk) do you have any fun tidbits and details about the au that wouldn’t be too spoilery?

Thank you!! Here's a bunch of random trivia:

The (English) name of Bill's language's written script is Plaintext. Like, y'know, plaintext:

In cryptography, plaintext usually means unencrypted information pending input into cryptographic algorithms, usually encryption algorithms. This usually refers to data that is transmitted or stored unencrypted.

Which is ironic, since Bill's the ONLY person to whom the text is unencrypted. But then, from his perspective, it's the only "unencrypted" text he ever actually sees—all the languages he uses in day-to-day life are foreign languages to him.

In the Bill Cipher AMA, somebody asks Bill what he thinks about all the fangirls he has, and Bill says they should all go to the Nevada desert and assemble a throne to wait for him. In fic, I've decided it'd be funny to give him a women-only cult in Nevada. The leader of the cult is named Mary and the underling most often referenced is Sue, because—and I say this with love and affection—if "fangirl who's put in a fic so she can meet her favorite tumblr sexyman" ISN'T a textbook Mary Sue, I don't know what is.

Bill really likes monster trucks. He's convinced himself that he'd be a TERRIFIC monster truck driver, because he can see the future, so obviously he'd know how to avoid any car crashes. He's probably wrong about this. It's a more physically taxing job than you'd think, and a human body is more easily taxed than he's used to.

Current favorite human food is nachos with sprinkles on top. Gotta be triangular nachos. If the chips are circular or rectangular it will legit depress him. Also plain old cheese is boring, give it some texture, it's gotta have peppers hot enough to kill a toddler.

Sometimes Bill talks to Waddles as if he's speaking to the Temporarily Genius Waddles and expects him to understand what Bill's saying.

If Bill's watching a show/movie and doesn't want to spoil the ending for himself he has to fight NOT to glance into the future to see what happens. Imagine if every time you read a comic book, all of the pages automatically separated and spread out across the table so you could see every page at once, and you had to keep resisting the urge to glance at the last page to see what happens. That's what trying not to glance forward is like for Bill.

Nobody's commented on this yet, so idk if anyone's caught it, but in chapter 2:

He carefully positioned himself directly in front of the trio, glancing down at the floor as if looking for the right mark to step on,

and in chapter 3:

Mabel considered his feet thoughtfully before spray painting an X where she estimated he’d been standing before.

“You got lucky—” he cast a dirty look at the X spray painted on the ground, “—but luck changes.”

In chapter 2 Bill saw the X on the floor in the future, and assumed he was going to leave it for himself so he'd know where he should stand for his big dramatic moment—which means he deliberately planted himself RIGHT on the mark where the twins were set up to tackle. (Even though he can see into the future, his time vision is pretty near-sighted.)

Bill NEARLY invaded the M Dimension mentioned in Journal 3—he was playing "muse" to a whole bunch of scientists and governmental types who were all collaborating, everybody liked him, nobody suspected anything, they were thrilled by the idea of opening up interdimensional travel to his totally-harmless-and-not-at-all-nightmarish realm so their muse could visit... the only reason he hasn't already conquered the M Dimension is because everything there, even the laws of physics, are based on the letter M, and for the life of him he couldn't find a way to adapt the portal blueprints to work there. The math's impossible.

Bill's the only member of the Henchmaniacs who's unable to leave the Nightmare Realm. (As in, physically can't leave. Legally, most of them are pretty trapped there for lack of another safe place to go; but like they could leave if they chose to.) Sometimes he sends his Henchmaniacs on errands for him to other dimensions; and sometimes they go on day trips outside the Nightmare Realm without him. When they leave he tends to sulk and insist he isn't sulking.

Nobody in the shack knows about Ford's embarrassing neck tattoo. (And it was REALLY hard keeping that secret on a boat.) Nobody, that is, except for Bill, who spent last summer stalking everyone in the shack and who can see through walls, seeing through a turtleneck is nothing. Someday he's gonna start casually humming All Star and strike terror into Ford's heart.

There's a handful of human languages Bill can't speak because the speakers cursed him to be unable to speak them. I don't know which languages yet, I'd probably need to do a lot of digging to find languages about which there's already "demons/monsters/etc can't speak/understand this language" folklore I can slap on him. But it's a joke I'm prepared to use if I find a language that fits.

Bill thinks it's weird that humans want their hands and hair to smell like food, but then don't even want to eat them. What's the point of strawberry-scented shampoo???

[feraliminal]

Cross-Faction Diplomacy

Titan TV tries to give Titan Speaker reassurance, but makes things worse. They both use various forms of communication to calm down. Ship-ish, but with plausible deniability.

I’m back from a super busy week and I want to start turning some of my (many) scraps into actual fic! This was inspired by speculation on how the Alliance communicate and think, and an essay on consciousness called “What Is It Like to Be a Bat?” which concludes that you can’t know unless you are one.

—

“Why did you call me? Is that it?” The TVmen’s titan gestured across the hill range from where they stood with the speakermen’s titan, towards a very tiny, very new base. It was a few floodlights casting a glow over a few shipping containers, and a few speakermen on night watch, instead sitting on their arses and playing cards. This was exactly what they’d expected to see, no surveillance system had picked up anything more interesting than a few wandering toilets for miles, at least none that they had access to. But they also suspected it was worth keeping up appearances - two things could be happening, either the speakermen had picked up something big on surveillance that wasn’t linked to the Alliance’s general network -

- or their titan had pulled off a sneaky social call

“Strategic importance, and we’ve only got to make sure nothing happens until everything else arrives in a few hours.” Titan Speaker insisted through a speech transmission, using their faction’s habit of transmitting emotion data as well. In this case, it was something like you trust me, right? “And nothing else is happening.”

The emotion thing, Titan TV found hard to know what to do with. TVs didn’t do it, unless they really meant it. Or were trying to convince someone they really meant it. It was difficult to know if and how to respond, and they recalled Polycephaly describe addressing those kind of differences as cross-faction diplomacy - and as a pain in the arse. They switched to transmission too, encrypting it in case anyone at the base was feeling nosey. “Sure. What’s this really about?”

“Seriously?” Titan Speaker made a dismayed buzz. “You aren’t supposed to say that.”

“What was I supposed to say?” It seemed obvious that this was a way to justify an in-person chat without factions having to figure out a playdate protocol. But with the spectre of cross-faction diplomacy hanging over them, Titan TV tried to do the emotion thing. It didn’t work. Sincerity somehow became contempt-fondness. You’re an idiot but I like you hadn’t been the intent, but it was sincere.

The speakers’ titan tilted their head, lights shimmering a little brighter. “I guess you weren’t supposed to do that either,” they teased. “I thought you’d think meeting to talk is a waste of time, but…?”

“If you need to say it in person, I trust it’s important.” A dozen possibilities, and none particularly easy to contemplate. The TVs’ titan noticed they were shifting their balance a little, foot to foot, and stopped it.

Transmitting uncertain-awkward-worried, Titan Speaker looked out towards the little base, then up at the night sky, as if the words they were looking for were floating around. “Not important, I just… I dunno. I want to ask something first. Does it now feel like there’s more than one… uh, you?” They gestured with their finger, as if drawing an air-circle around the other titan’s primary and secondary screens.

“No, not a lot different. My conscious processing is more or less the same, just spread out and harder to kill.” Not a lot different was still different - the first time they’d switched from automated to conscious control of their secondary heads was an experience they still hadn’t entirely come to terms with and didn’t want to revisit just yet. Not while they needed to be in the here and now for whatever was going on in Titan Speaker’s own head. “Are you thinking about upgrades?”

“No. Well, yeah, maybe one day. But I asked because I’m thinking about weird brain stuff.” Wrapping their arms around themself, the speakers’ titan crouched down on their heels. They started to transmit something, a jumbled, ghostly kind of feeling, then paused. “Okay, I called you to talk about…”

But they didn’t. They stayed silent, on comms and audio.

The TVs’ titan noticed where the pools of light cast by the pair’s respective glowing components overlapped. The new outpost sat in its own pool of light downhill, part of a landscape of similar little points of light that made their mental map of the Alliance’s networks mirror the night sky. In the outpost, the guards were swapping tunes. Twenty miles away, a turret was dealing with one of those wandering toilets, the only other thing remotely interesting happening. Titan Speaker’s glow was receding “Something’s wrong, isn’t it?”

Titan Speaker flopped back off their heels into a slumped seated position, and signed ‘No shit.’ Then, when their companion turned their main screen to watch, ‘Sorry, do you understand this? I’ve never seen a TV do it.’

“We understand it, we don’t tend to use it ourselves.” It was one of (many) indicators of how well the speakermen and cameramen had managed to operate as one, and their people hadn’t. “Use it if you need to, I can try too.”

‘Thanks. You don’t have to, it’s dark and my vision’s low resolution, so if you’re not used to sign…’ The speakermen’s titan shrugged, paused again, and with a might-as-well-go-for-it burst, quickly signed, ‘Being able to remember what I did when I was infected is still freaking me out and I want to know what you make of it. I know it’s not the same, but it’s all weird brain stuff and you’re the weird brain stuff faction.’

It was difficult to reconcile the ridiculousness of being called the weird brain stuff faction with the desperation in the request. Titan TV felt their screens flickering and needed to make an effort to hold back whatever might leak into the transmission. “You need to ask your science team.”

‘I don’t mean that, I don’t mean what happened to me, but what happened to me.’ They emphasised the last sign with a sharper movement, and had stopped transmitting emotion. The TVs’ titan supposed it was for similar reasons that they’d chosen not to - this needed straightforward discussion now and a fuckton of firepower later, save the anger for then. ‘They said it wasn’t me, but I was there, the parasite made me do it and I did it, it’s like, now I know I can do that, I can’t trust me not to do it again.’ They paused. ‘I haven’t asked again. I didn’t want to freak them out as well.’

“That was your body, and your body saved data. The intrusive thoughts are probably just subconscious metacognition systems sorting it all out. Really, ask someone, engineers think about this stuff so we don’t have to.”

Titan Speaker shifted to stare straight at their bigger companion, signing more slowly with a perceptible shake in their hands. ‘Me is also what my body does.’

The Alliance had shared (heavily redacted) schematics for the titans across faction borders, so Titan TV knew that what their companion was perceiving. Audio data and electromagnetic signature first, then visual data was a secondary source. But still, they angled their side-screens to illuminate their body and softened all their lights to reduce glare. Even with simulation or data transference, it would be impossible to know what it was really like to inhabit Titan Speaker’s perceptual space, with all its memories, meanings, metacognition. And even if visual data wasn’t that important, considering it was part of how Titan TV showed respect from their own perceptual space. “It won’t happen again. That was not you in any meaningful sense of what you are.”

‘I’m tired of everyone saying that.’ The speakermen’s titan rocked forward to crouch on their heels again, made an intention movement to stand that didn’t go further than a twitch, and clasped their arms around themself. They switched to comms again, and the transmission came out cracked with static. “I thought you, of all people, would get that. Everyone’s telling me it didn’t happen but… I was forced to kill my friends and I just… I just want to be allowed to feel like shit about it.” They let out a distorted audio “Fuck.”

“Fuck.” Titan TV echoed that statement, in reverse.

Neither of them had much to say right after that. There wasn’t really else that could be said. The TVs’ titan watched their companion looking up at the stars, softly illuminating their own little patch of red light. They uncoiled, slightly, from their gargoyle crouch, still hunched but dropping on to their knees.

No longer bothering to keep their slight swaying motion in check, Titan TV offered, “We need to get out of here. There’s a suspected underground lair, you’ll be able to locate it, and we’ll blow the roof off. I don’t have clearance to investigate yet, but two of us will be more than enough to overcome anyone’s concerns about risk.”

The sag in Titan Speaker’s shoulders was unexpected. “No. I’m not outsourcing my shit, not to my engineers and definitely not to everyone else by sneaking off.” But not nearly as unexpected as what they shared when they were the first to use emotive comms again. No anger, just sadness, confusion, and grief. Uncoiling a little more, they signed ‘Stay here. Sit with me.’

It wouldn’t have felt right to say no to this poor creature who’d sooner arrange an awkward clandestine meeting with someone they, really, barely knew than upset their friends. Titan TV shook their primary head with exasperation, and settled down cross-legged on the hillside. Titan Speaker watched, looked away and signed something to themself, then did an ungainly shuffle-flop to move right beside them.

They both took their time to adjust to the dissonance of this whole thing, pinging little status requests and presence acknowledgments at each other until they realised that they no longer needed to and had been enjoying doing it just for the sake of it. The speakermen’s titan trilled their approval and did a tiny wriggle.

“I like watching you move,” Titan TV commented.

‘I like that you moved your screens so I could see you better. Can I lean on you?’

“Yes.” Titan TV’s side-screen was obscured by the smaller titan moving closer and working out how best to arrange their speaker array, finally settling in and gently nudging their head against the screen casing. Making an adjustment themself, the TV leaned in little too. Staying had been the right decision, providing a few stabilising moments for both of them.

When they leaned back, the TVmen’s titan thought they felt something that could have just been an artefact of their movements, but it was a bit too persistent for that. Suspecting what it was, they inclined their primary head against the top of their companion’s array, and there it was - a barely perceptible vibration that was becoming more noticeable until it somehow managed to travel through their body and into the ground under them. It made their vision blur very slightly at the edges, but otherwise didn’t feel unpleasant. “Purring?” they rumbled, purr-like themself.

“You don’t mind it?” There was a new contentment in the speaker titan’s transmission, and the vibrations became a little wobbly. Signing would be tricky in this position, but they were making the most of that by sharing emotive comms freely. “Kind of. I’m just… feeling everything. Grounding myself. No sense of impending doom?”

“That’s oddly specific. Infrasound?” What Titan TV felt as a vibration was likely composed of echolocation and electrolocation and, being too low frequency to be useful for scanning, the infrasound component was probably just there for communication or self-soothing. They found it fun (if a little tragic) to imagine someone, possibly the cameramen’s titan, getting creeped out by an overenthusiastic purr. Cross-faction diplomacy again. “We use it too. Although admittedly not for purring.”

“For…?” Titan Speaker looked up, blinking their lights at their companion, who went ‘ ≽^•⩊•^≼ ‘ and said “Slaughter.”

“Terrifying.” They’d both aimed for a deadpan delivery - but it was interrupted for the better by the speaker titan’s failed attempt to suppress a squeaky giggle.

“You’re terrifying, you see sound and your idea of grounding is making the earth shake.” The TVmen’s titan wondered if speakermen were able to perceive the world as assemblages of vibrating particles. It was one thing to have the knowledge of that, it must be unsettling to really feel it. There was a lot to learn about the other factions, and their titans. “You’re well worth my time. We’re a sample size of three, and should be sharing data.”

With an affectionate hum, Titan Speaker bumped their head against the bigger titan’s chest and released a silent burst of something that interrupted their train of thought as well as their vision, and really did feel as if it had made the earth shake for a split second. A mischievous confirmation of you bet I’m terrifying.

“I’ll find something really strategically important next time.”

[ms-demeanor]

Okay so, how exactly do Password Managers work?

Because I'm pretty sure that giving some random corporation all my passwords would just make it EASIER for my personal info to get leaked.

I mean it is genuinely complicated; I don't know if you saw my explanation about dominoes yesterday, but basically you're not giving the company your information. You are creating an account with a company and they are handing you a tool that is extremely securely encrypted to store your passwords in. The company never has access to your passwords, or to the key you use to unlock your account. What they have access to is the cryptographic hash of your key to prove that it is you trying to access the account, but they can't reverse engineer the key that you use.

It's the same sort of process that encrypted email services like ProtonMail use. It's zero-knowledge storage. All that the password manager company is storing (in the case of a good password manager like Bitwarden) is up to 1gb of encrypted data for free users. They don't have access to your information. They couldn't get into it if they wanted to. All that they know about you is whatever information you used to register for the service and broad information about creation of the account.

Part of the reason that I recommend Bitwarden is that it is both open source and pretty widely used and recommended.

Open source security products are often considered more secure than closed-source tools because they can be examined and tested at the source-code level by *anyone* to check for vulnerabilities and holes in the security. Functionally what this means is that you have very smart, very motivated, and very security-conscious people testing products like Bitwarden for flaws and reporting them immediately.

I'm not great at explaining cryptographic hashing so I'm in a position where basically all I can tell you is "Trust me it works, and if that's not enough you have to go do some reading about hashing because I can't explain it." This is the barrier that a LOT of people have to using a password manager, and it's frustrating because genuinely, it is not something that people who work in security worry about *at all.*

When we're working with security the concern about password managers is *never* that a zero-knowledge company is going to have a leak. The concern is that data might actually be stored in plaintext (something you don't have to worry about with bitwarden because if that was the case everyone on the forums would be screaming their heads off at all times, and they are not) or that a phishing campaign is going to trick a user into handing over their password to the password manager.

But yeah, when you start using a good password manager with zero-knowledge storage, you aren't handing your data to a company. What's happening is that the company is handing YOU a tiny safe. The tiny safe has a ten-thousand-digit combination lock that you set the code for, and the company has no way of figuring out that code. They're hoping that you will pay them for the safe. And if you forget your code, you're screwed - the company can't get you access because, again, they have no way of getting the code. They don't store it, they don't see it, they don't know it, they can't produce it if ordered to do so at trial, and they can't reset the code.

[druidshollow]

Am I allowed to ask who Dune is? Or is that a secret for later, love your art and your storys are super cool!

DUNE POST TIME DUNE POST TIME

im the "hahaha yes.... yes" sicko guy rn

dune is a character for a self indulgent iterators but the puppets can leave their bodies au and is entirely irrelevant to the actual corners group story, so shes not at all a secret and ill post everything about her lmao. ive actually only had her for *checks watch* three days so anything i say here is subject to possible change

as per usual, first its fast fact time

"The Gift" was a heavily encrypted data file that was sent en masse across the world to some iterators, almost entirely group seniors. it included two things; how to make mobile puppets, and how to create micro rarefaction cells (necessary to power these puppets). the information on building the puppets is widely understood and the only real requirements (besides raw material) are the iterator receiving the new body's blueprints (getting these can sometimes serve a real problem depending on the iterator's past relationship with the ancients), and a functional iterator can capable of powerful purposing and processing. (the host's body can work for this so long as the iterator with the Gift is there to help).

creating the micro rarefaction cells is a much better kept secret. the information is encrypted in a way so that the iterators who received the Gift cant speak about it (this functions similarly to taboo buffers), presumably because they could easily be used to make devastating weapons. but these cells are necessary for a mobile puppet to live, so the first piece of information is nearly useless without the second.

dune received a single cell for freeing herself with as well as the blueprints for mobile puppets from an iterator from a different group that she knew well. after freeing herself she stole cells from wandering iterators and freed some members of her group. this is her group when rivers and phrases run by them;

meet space, whimsy, forks and compass! space is the only one with real relevance i think

anyhow, there are still quite a few nearby iterators from dune's local group who need rescuing in her eyes, so her and her group intercept strangers and steal their cells and neuron flies, hoping to one day catch a developer (devs are the ones who received the Gift). unfortunately for phrases and rivers, phrases iiiiiis a developer!

dune had to have killded atleast four guys before she met phrases . thats some bad karma man arent you like an iterator or

she has fun with violence, part as a genuine cruel part of her personality, but i think mostly (at least at first) as a coping mechanism for the horrid things she was doing. her bloodlust was a front, and she adopted this violent personality she forged for herself the more time went by, until she had mostly lost herself and become encompassed by it.

(( thanks @nickeeree and @zarithial for letting me kill your kids!!! you guys submitted yr refs at like the exact same time so i was like eh fuck it dune can axe them both LMAO ))

dune's little group lives in an old city complex near a still in-tact iterator named vibrant sound. (sound is uninterested in being freed; instead he helps dune track down mobile iterators travelling through their territory)

thats basically all ive got, dune still has some development to go through but for a quick tldr she's an old group senior whos kidnapping and stealing people's hearts so she can give her family legs. amidst the heart stealing she began to enjoy the heart stealing and now violence is kind of her thing. if you support womens wrongs then you have to support adamant dune. sorry