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#Lean Data Governance
mohammadakram09 · 28 days
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Unify Your Business-Critical Data And Improve Agility With Pilog MDRM
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In today's fast-paced business landscape, managing data effectively is crucial for success. From customer information to product details and financial records, businesses are inundated with data from various sources. This influx of data presents both opportunities and challenges. How can businesses harness the power of their data while ensuring accuracy, consistency, and compliance?
Enter Master Data Management (MDM) solutions. These solutions offer a comprehensive approach to managing and unifying data across an organization. By establishing a single, authoritative source of truth for key data entities, MDM solutions empower businesses to make informed decisions, enhance operational efficiency, and drive growth.
One of the primary benefits of MDM solutions is the ability to eliminate data silos. In many organizations, data is scattered across disparate systems and departments, making it difficult to access and utilize effectively. MDM solutions break down these silos by centralizing data and providing a unified view of critical information.
Furthermore, MDM solutions ensure data consistency and accuracy by enforcing standardized processes and rules. This helps prevent data errors and inconsistencies, enabling businesses to rely on their data for decision-making with confidence. Additionally, MDM solutions support data governance initiatives by providing tools for data stewardship, data quality management, and compliance monitoring.
Another key advantage of MDM solutions is their ability to support business agility and innovation. By providing a holistic view of data assets, MDM solutions enable businesses to identify trends, uncover insights, and respond quickly to changing market conditions. This agility is essential in today's competitive landscape, where businesses must constantly adapt to stay ahead.
In conclusion, Master Data Management solutions offer a powerful framework for unifying and managing data across an organization. By centralizing data, ensuring consistency and accuracy, and supporting agility and innovation, MDM solutions enable businesses to unlock the full potential of their data assets and drive success in today's digital age.
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avinashkumar1202 · 3 months
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The Imperative of Lean Data Governance in 2024: A Technical Perspective
In the ever-evolving landscape of data management, the significance of lean data governance has reached paramount importance in 2024. As organizations navigate through unprecedented volumes of data, the need for a streamlined and efficient governance framework has become indispensable. In this blog post, we delve into the intricacies of lean data governance, exploring its technical nuances and highlighting its criticality in contemporary data-centric environments.
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At its core, lean data governance embodies the principles of agility, scalability, and efficacy in managing data assets. Unlike traditional governance models characterized by bureaucratic hurdles and rigidity, lean data governance prioritizes flexibility and responsiveness. This approach is particularly pertinent in 2024, where data landscapes are characterized by exponential growth, diverse data sources, and stringent regulatory requirements.
One of the key tenets of lean data governance is its emphasis on leveraging automation and advanced analytics technologies. By harnessing machine learning algorithms and artificial intelligence, organizations can automate data classification, lineage tracking, and access control mechanisms. This not only accelerates decision-making processes but also enhances data quality and integrity, thereby mitigating risks associated with erroneous or obsolete data.
Moreover, lean data governance promotes a culture of collaboration and cross-functional alignment within organizations. By breaking down silos between IT, data management, and business units, organizations can foster synergistic relationships conducive to data-driven decision-making. This collaborative ethos is instrumental in ensuring that data governance initiatives are aligned with organizational objectives and regulatory compliance mandates.
Furthermore, lean data governance advocates for a modular and adaptive governance framework that can evolve in tandem with changing business requirements and technological advancements. By adopting an iterative approach to governance implementation, organizations can incrementally enhance their governance capabilities while minimizing disruption to ongoing operations. This iterative methodology also enables organizations to swiftly adapt to emerging data privacy regulations and security threats, thereby future-proofing their data governance practices.
In conclusion, the imperative of lean data governance in 2024 cannot be overstated. In an era defined by data ubiquity and complexity, organizations must embrace lean governance principles to effectively harness the power of their data assets. By prioritizing agility, automation, collaboration, and adaptability, organizations can establish robust data governance frameworks capable of driving innovation, ensuring regulatory compliance, and mitigating risks. As we continue to traverse the data-driven landscape, lean data governance will undoubtedly remain a cornerstone of organizational success in the digital age.
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garymdm · 10 months
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Data Governance: Striking the Balance Between Control and Innovation
Data governance should not stifle innovation
Introduction In a recent Harvard Business Review blog post, the topic of IT Governance and its potential impact on innovation was brought to light. While the report’s title and content have stirred controversy, it cannot be denied that many IT Governance initiatives have historically taken on a policing role rather than an enabling one. This has raised concerns about whether data governance,…
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lunaicfantastic · 4 months
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I was talking to someone much older than me about politics and the generational divide, and during the discussion they asked me what the young people who support trump are thinking, what they're discussing among themselves, and I told them the truth, which is that I don't know because I don't interact with any in my day to day life. This is true mostly because I go to a hwc and you'd be hard-pressed to find a conservative who'd be willing to admit it there, but also, I think, because I believe they are temporary.
What I mean by temporary is this: the support of trump and the Republican party by youths is a system of beliefs almost entirely dominated by people one to two decades their seniors, minimum, and i don't think that is a particularly good recipe for long-lasting political beliefs. More importantly, however, is that when I was in high school in the rural southern US, and surrounded by people who sided with the right out of habit or passive indoctrination, it did not take much to get most of them to agree with leftist ideals. Usually, only a single conversation. Most people I talked to almost immediately agreed with "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" once explained. And, to me, most importantly, very few people disagreed with Greta thunberg. We all saw what she was doing and most of us understood and agreed with what she was saying.
That, more than anything, makes me believe that any sprouting of republican support among usamerican youths will be shortlived and short-reaching. Because none of us want to die, and more of the world is catching on fire every summer. Climate change, more than any other issue, will be the thing that defines our generation's political beliefs and movements, and I don't think people will take a fantasy told to them by their elders seriously when it becomes more and more obvious by the day that it is fantastical. The weather is inescapable, and the summers are hotter and the storms are worse than they've ever been.
To me, "trumpism" and republican stranglehold on people younger than 30 is temporary because we've been told our whole lives that saving the world from climate apocalypse will fall to us and now that it is harder than ever to ignore that said apocalypse is at our doorstep, those right-wing movements aren't giving them anything but platitudes. I don't think a generation conditioned to battle climate change will listen to a party of people, most of whom will not live to experience the horrors their actions or lack thereof have caused, that tell them to cover their ears, close their eyes, and put the fight down all to make numbers on a screen go up while their futures burn.
I think it's not worthwhile to ponder at length about the future of the right in the us because the right is doggedly working to ensure there will be no future for anyone, and I think people's survival instincts are stronger than that.
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incognit0slut · 7 months
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MASTER OF PERSUASION
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Part 4 of kinktober | main masterlist
meandom!Spencer/Hotch x fem!reader; Threesome, creampie, dumbification, degradation, brat taming, abuse of power, edging, dubcon
Your involvement in a heinous crime was questioned by the two FBI agents who were eager to do anything to get you to talk.
Words: 6802
a/n: This one is dedicated to my nasty, touch-starved btches who secretly wants to be manhandled by two older men. Enjoy this pure filth🫶
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YOU WERE FAR FROM BEING A GOOD PERSON. From the surface, you seemed like a normal, typical woman, just one of the countless faces within the crowd. But when the doors shut behind you, you find yourself involved in endeavors you should never have pursued in the first place.
You knew too much. You were acutely aware of how many crimes happening in your vicinity. The number of deaths resulting from these heinous acts should be enough to terrify you, but it didn't, because unbeknownst to your peers, you were one of the reasons why they happened.
Although you never played the role of the perpetrator, you were the person these criminals came to for information. You were good with technology, you could hack into any secure system in the blink of an eye. It was almost as if you were a deity of the dark web, a mastermind whose mere presence served as a godsend to those carrying out these crimes.
It was easy money; you gave what they wanted, received what they paid you, and most importantly, you made sure to never look back. You always wiped everything out after each job was done, but somehow, after working on so many deals, your luck finally struck out.
Somebody hacked into your system—no, somebody good hacked into your system. This person knew what they were doing. They managed to hack through your firewall and retrieve a few of your data while also discovering your identity.
You honestly wanted to praise whoever was on the other side because you had never encountered someone who could match, if not surpass, your own skill. But it wasn't until you heard the loud banging on your front door, followed by people in uniformed vests rushing in and pointing their guns at you, that you finally realized who had breached your system.
It was the FBI.
So that was how you found yourself sitting inside an interrogation room hours later with two agents across from you. A very tall, intimidating man stood at the corner, his arms crossed as he watched you silently. Dr. Spencer Reid was how he introduced himself, and the way he emphasized the title in front of his name, you were certain he was the type of person who took extreme pride in his intelligence.
He seemed a little too cocky.
Special Agent Aaron Hotchner, on the other hand, was hard to decipher. The older man appeared somewhat guarded as if his job had forced him to put on a facade devoid of genuine emotions. Maybe it did. He was, after all, a federal agent. Both of them were. These men were probably taught to master the art of maintaining an inscrutable poker face.
Nevertheless, they were both intimidating, and you wondered to yourself, was good cop bad cop not a thing anymore? Because as far as this was going, none of them seemed inclined to make things easy for you.
The man in front of you cleared his throat, his voice was a well-practiced blend of authority and curiosity. "You've been quite elusive, haven't you, Miss Y/L/N?"
You leaned back, studying him through half-lidded eyes, your fingers tracing the edges of the table with a cool, almost casual detachment. "Elusiveness is a matter of perspective, Agent Hotchner. I prefer to think of it as adaptability."
"Adaptability?" He leaned in closer, his sharp gaze never wavering. "You've made quite a name for yourself. You've infiltrated government agencies, stolen classified data, and even orchestrated financial heists... Impressive, I must say."
A faint smile danced upon your lips, revealing just a glimmer of amusement. "I simply explore the hidden avenues of the World Wide Web. It's not about the thrill; it's about the knowledge."
His eyes narrowed. "But your actions have consequences. You've caused quite a chaos, don't you think?"
"Consequences are a part of every action, whether in the digital realm or the physical world. As for chaos..." You met his gaze with unwavering confidence. "Well, sometimes chaos is necessary for evolution."
He leaned back, his expression unyielding. "Evolution or anarchy?"
"As I said, everything is a matter of perspective, even anarchy," you replied, your voice smooth as silk. "In the grand scheme of things, I'm just a catalyst. Society's flaws were there long before I came along."
The man in the corner took a step forward. His eyes bore into you with resolve as if he had grown weary of the ongoing debate. "You've had your say," he interjected with a steely tone. "You know why you're here. Our victim's files were found on your computer, we need to know who requested them."
You met his gaze with a mixture of defiance and amusement, unfazed by his direct approach. "Doctor Reid," you said, your voice laced with a hint of mock surprise. "Always chasing ghosts in the machine, aren't you?"
His expression remained composed, his intellect undeniably sharp. "We're not here to discuss my pursuits. We're here to talk about the life you've disrupted."
"Disrupted? I'd say I've merely revealed the cracks in the system. Your victim, as you call them, was a casualty of a much larger game."
"Games have rules, Miss Y/L/N. You seem to operate outside of them."
"Rules are made to be broken, Spencer," you retorted, your tone cutting like a blade through the air. "I can call you that, right? I hate having to speak with such formalities."
"It's Doctor Reid," he corrected. "Tell us who you're working for."
His unwavering determination was met with a subtle, knowing smile from you. You leaned forward, your eyes locking onto his with a hint of intrigue.
"I don't know, Spencer," you began, your tone slightly softer, as if you were letting him in on a secret, "The digital world is a labyrinth of information. Files come and go, they disappear and reappear... It's like trying to catch a shadow in the dark. It's useless."
He addressed you with a cold stare. "You're playing a dangerous game here."
You raised an eyebrow, your voice honeyed with allure. "Oh, I'm well aware of the game we're playing. But don't mistake my refusal to cooperate for arrogance. It's just that some secrets are meant to stay hidden."
The room seemed to contract, the air thick with unresolved tension. Aaron cleared his throat and your eyes fell back on him. "Miss Y/L/N, give us a name and we can make things easier for you. But if you don't cooperate..." His eyes traveled down along your body, the goosebumps rose on your skin in response to the heat of his gaze. "I'm afraid we have to resort to extreme measures."
A brief pause hung in the room. There was something in the way he was staring at you. He was looking at you with a profound determination that seemed very different from the way he assessed you before. Under the weight of his scrutiny, you felt your body growing hot. Your breath hitched, and a flush of warmth crept up your neck and tingled in your cheeks.
You regarded him for a moment before you finally spoke, your voice calm but tinged with a hint of defiance.
"If you think you can break me, Aaron, you're gravely mistaken. But if you're interested in the name..." you leaned back, crossing your arms. "I guess you'll have to earn it."
The tension in the room escalated as your words hung in the air. His jaw clenched, and when you thought you had won the upper hand over this battle of wits, he surprised you by waving his hand in the air, and Spencer came forward.
It was as if they had planned this. The way Aaron instructed his partner to move seemed rehearsed and calculated. Spencer walked over to you and before you could register what was happening, he grabbed onto your arm and wrenched you out of your chair with a force you didn't know he possessed.
Your voice carried a mix of anger and frustration as you protested, "What the hell are you doing?"
You suddenly felt him run his hands along your arms. "Checking for weapons."
The scoff you gave him was loud. "Oh, now you're treating me like a criminal?"
"It's a mere precaution."
And then you felt it, the way his touch lingered on your body. It was far from any normal search. His hands felt warm on your skin, even over the material of your shirt, as he continued to pat down your arms. There was a certain roughness in his movements as he slid his arms around your backside and you couldn't mistake the way he gripped your ass more than he should probably have.
"This is ridiculous," you muttered under your breath. "You won't find anything."
"I'll be the judge of that." He slightly shoved your shoulders. "Put your hands on the table."
You reluctantly did as you were told, silently gritting your teeth. His hands moved with purpose, and as much as you wanted to stop this questionable act, your body was reacting in a way that had you questioning yourself instead.
Why was your heart beating so fast as he stood behind you? Why was it getting so hard to breathe when his hands slipped around your waist? And why did it seem you were anticipating more when his palms slightly hovered over your breasts?
"Is this really necessary?" You asked quietly, trying to act as if his rough hands on you weren't affecting you. "This feels more like an attempt for intimidation."
You could practically hear the smugness in his voice as he asked, "Are you intimidated, Miss Y/L/N?"
You liked to think that you weren't, but honestly, you didn't know anymore. You had tried your best to put on a mask to avoid appearing weak, but as he started to squeeze your breasts in the palm of his hands, it finally dawned on you what was happening—You were finally caught, there was a high chance of you ending up in jail, and now a federal agent was touching you inappropriately, groping you in a crude form of patting you down.
And to your dismay, you actually liked it.
But you had too much of a pride, that was why you found yourself lying through your teeth. "No."
Spencer hummed a reply as if he didn't believe you. He squeezed your breasts through your shirt again, palming at them as he slightly felt your nipples stiffen through the material, and he couldn't resist rolling them as his touch continued lower. Your breath hitched as he mapped out your curves, one of his hands delving between your thighs before he stopped right at the center of your heat.
You let out a gasp.
"I-Is this even legal?"
Your mind went blurry as you felt his fingers touching you through the thin fabric of your pants. "Are you questioning how the law enforcement works?"
You couldn't answer him. Not because you didn't want to, but because you weren't able to form any coherent words as he continued to palm your sex, his fingers continuing to rub you. You were suddenly so focused on the way he was touching you, your head hanging low as you felt the sensation throughout your body, that you didn't even hear Aaron calling out your name.
It wasn't until Spencer retrieved his hand from between your thighs, and yanked your hair from behind, that you were forced to meet Aaron's gaze. "He called you," Spencer mocked, tightening his grip.
Aaron leaned forward, assessing the way you were arching your back with both of your hands planted on the table. "You have two options. One, we can play nicely, you give us a name and we'll go easy on you." His voice dropped lower as he continued, "Or two, you keep with this attitude and we might have to coax the answer out of you."
You locked eyes with him, a silent challenge burning in your gaze. Despite being in this vulnerable position, there was an undeniable strength in your stare, a refusal to surrender to their intimidation. Aaron met your gaze with a profound understanding.
"The hard way it is then." You saw him lean back in his chair as he crossed his arms, the subtle movement actuating his broad chest. "You know what to do, Reid."
There was nothing remotely gentle about the way Spencer handled you after those words. He shoved you, knocking the air out of your lungs as you gasped, your body pressed against the cool surface of the table. Somehow between your struggles, he managed to slide his hands around your waist, unbuttoning your pants before pushing them down your legs.
The air hit your bare skin, and even when you felt the cool breeze, your body was seething with fire, burning through your veins. The warmth spread along your cheeks as you realized you were wearing your skimpiest underwear, a flimsy material of dark lace that barely covered your sex. He gripped your ass with the palm of his hands, fingertips digging into the plush skin as he spread you apart.
"Well, aren't you a pretty thing?" You felt him shift behind you and you imagined him kneeling right in front of your heat. The moment his knuckles brushed along your wet patch, your hips bucked involuntarily. "She's wet, Hotch, I think she's getting a little too excited."
"I'm not surprised," the older man said. "She does seem like a slut."
Your head snapped at him. "I am not a slut."
"Oh, you are a slut." He leaned forward and reached out his hand, holding your chin in a vice grip, forcing you to look at him. "And we'll prove you how much of a whore you actually are."
Right on queue, a surprised gasp left your lips when Spencer's large palm burned your skin, giving your ass a harsh slap. The sound echoed in the room and he repeated the motion, watching in satisfaction the way your ass rippled for him. You fell into a false sense of security as he began to soothe his hand against your burning skin before pulling back to give another loud smack, and your mouth fell apart in pleasure.
"Not a fucking slut?" Aaron taunted, his thumb brushing on your lower lip. "That's the most farfetched lie you told us ever since you walked through that door."
You glared at him, but your defiance slowly shattered when you felt Spencer pulling down your panties over the curve of your ass, slipping them down your legs. The evidence of your arousal stuck onto the fabric and you felt your cheeks going warm in embarrassment. Spencer sucked in a gasp as he took in the sight of your lower half completely naked for him.
"Barely even touched you and you're soaking wet," he murmured, letting his thumb brush over your pussy, gauging your reaction. Your nose scrunched as you tried to bite back a moan that threatened to slip out. He started with gentle strokes, keeping his fingers only on the outer side, yet you could still feel his touch everywhere.
Each downstroke he made gave a light pull against your clit without giving any direct contact, and each time his fingers came back up, he slowly spread your folds open for him, briefly allowing your slickness to come in contact with the cold breeze of air.
Your mind became hazy, and just when you thought your body couldn't react more to his touch, he slipped a finger between your folds, feeling your slick against the dainty flesh. The motion caused your hips to buck erratically and your hands immediately reached up to grip onto the edge of the table.
He slipped deep inside you as your arousal coated him, circling your tight entrance as he felt the way your walls fluttered around the tip of his finger. He let out a low grunt as he felt how tight you were around him, curling at the knuckle while he began to drag his calloused pad against the soft spot inside you, making your body shake just from the mere contact.
The subtle reaction didn't go unnoticed by Aaron and he watched as your eyes glazed over. He couldn't stop himself from smirking, his features revealing a hint of amusement.
"You're enjoying this too much. I'm starting to think you're keeping your silence for the sake of this." You moved your head away from his grasp, only for him to grip your jaw harder. "Don't fucking move. Keep your eyes on me while he fucks your tight little pussy."
You never thought you'd be hearing such crude words from him, not with his stoic demeanor and polished facade, nor did you expect your body to react the way it did when those words filled your ears. You couldn't help it, your body betrayed your mind as your cunt continued to throb between your thighs. You could feel the desire building inside you, threatening to burst as you felt your body shake, and Spencer was well aware of this as he felt your walls clenching around his finger.
The laugh coming through his lips rang in your ears, sending shivers down your spine. "She liked that."
Aaron raised his eyebrows at you. "You like it when I talk like this?" He taunted. "You like it when I tell you how much of a slut you are taking his fingers so deep inside you?"
Your eyelids dropped lower at his words, and right at that moment, a lewd squelch filled the room as Spencer slowly slipped another finger into your dripping cunt, stretching you out as he began to thrust them inside you at a steady pace. Your body quivered as your breath quickened, and you found yourself grinding against his touch, desperately trying to get him to press the same spot inside you.
"Look at you fucking yourself on my fingers," Spencer cooed, his free hand smacking your bare ass again, and you found yourself arching your back. "You really are filthy."
Aaron laughed. "Acting like you didn't want it a second ago." He gripped your jaw tighter, forcing a gasp out of you at the subtle pain. He took advantage of your opened mouth by slipping his thumb inside. "Suck on my finger, Sweetheart."
You didn't know which one surprised you the most, his sudden term of endearment, or the order he gave you. You hesitated, because the moment you willingly sucked on his finger, you knew you would lose. The moment you followed through to his demand, he would have the upper hand and you would simply be the pawn in this game.
Aaron, as you realized, wasn't a patient man. His other hand reached for your hair and then, with a sharp and sudden yank, he tore at your hair. "Don't make me use more force than I already am."
Your roots tingled, your scalp throbbing, and a few tears welled up in your eyes. You blinked them away, not wanting to show any sign of weakness, and leveled your gaze at him.
He pulled your hair again. "Suck."
The pain was so much for you that you found yourself wavering. You swirled your tongue around his thumb before closing your lips and sucking with an approving hum. A husky moan was pulled from deep within him, overwhelmed by the feeling of your mouth on him, and, especially, the sight of you. "That's it," he praised you. "Suck on it as if you're sucking my cock."
Your walls clenched again. A sound of pleasure erupted from Spencer as he felt your cunt sucking in his fingers, and without warning, he pumped them into you with so much force you couldn't stop yourself from moaning this time. He laughed, as did Aaron, and your body shook as you felt that familiar sensation tightening along your body.
The room around you seemed to blur and melt away at the pleasure coursing in your veins. It started in the pit of your stomach, a warm, liquid sensation that spread like a slow-burning fire, radiating outwards in waves. Your hushed moan was muffled by Aaron's thumb in your mouth, but the sound of your pathetic whining didn't go unnoticed by both men.
You were so fucking close you could feel every nerve in your body on high alert. Your breaths came in ragged gasps, and your body quivered with the intensity of the sensation. Your eyes fell shut as the lewd sound of your arousal filled the room, and just when you were about to let go, Spencer suddenly pulled his fingers out of you, wrenching away that peak of pleasure you were desperately chasing.
Your eyes shot open, dilated pupils now wide with shock and confusion. Aaron met your gaze with amusement, a sadistic smile dancing on his lips as he pulled his thumb out of your mouth with a pop. "Stupid girl, thinking we'd actually let you cum."
The abrupt contrast between the heights of your pleasure and the stark void that followed was jarring. But before you could comprehend your disappointment, you heard a shuffle behind you followed by footsteps circling you. Spencer finally came back into your line of vision and with no one standing behind you, you tried to push yourself from the table, only to be shoved back down by Aaron.
"Fucking stay where you are," he commanded, his sharp voice piercing right through you. Your eyes were fixed on him, gaze unwavering as he slowly rose from his seat. And then suddenly he was the one behind you, and now Spencer stood right in front of you, looking down at you with amusement.
"You know," he started, his fingers trailing the side of your face. You moved your head away from his touch, but unlike Aaron, he didn't force you to look at him. He merely chuckled as he continued, "You wouldn't be in this position if you had given us the name."
Hearing this, you finally glanced up at him. The self-confidence he carried was starting to annoy you and you couldn't stop yourself from spitting venom, especially when he had ripped away the pleasure thrumming in your body. "I told you to fucking earn it."
The remaining air was knocked from your lungs when the palm of his hand collided with your cheek, your head jolting to the right from the force of the impact. Bright white stars danced behind your closed eyelids, and for a second you thought that you were dizzy from the shock. But then you felt it, the pressure that had been building in your core giving way, a wave of pleasure washing over you.
"Dirty girl," he taunted. "Here I was trying to shut you up and you actually liked that? You like being slapped around?"
You remained quiet, looking away from him.
"And don't worry, you will tell us by the end of this." You faintly hear the sound of metal ringing in your ears. Your eyes fell back on him and your heart sank when his hands moved down to his belt, unbuckling it as he let it hang around his hips.
His fingers moved to unbutton his pants before tugging down the fly. The sight of his hard cock tenting beneath his briefs had your cunt clenching in anticipation, as much as you hated to admit it. Then his thumbs dipped into the hem of his boxers, tugging the fabric down, and you looked up at him with wide eyes. He was bigger than you'd expected. He was thick and solid, veins danced along his length and the droplet of wetness on his tip was too mesmerizing you couldn't look away.
He wrapped a fist around his length, hissing in relief as he made his way towards you. "Now let's put that filthy mouth of yours to good use." He pressed the head of his cock against your lips, half-lidded eyes gazing down at you as he leaned forward. "Open."
The musky scent of him overwhelmed you as you breathed in and you involuntarily opened your mouth wide to accommodate his girth. The flat of your tongue pressed against the underside of his cock as he gave soft, shallow thrusts inside your warm mouth. His fingers held onto your face as he watched his length disappear inside you.
"God, look at you—" Spencer rasped, his voice sounding strained. "Good fucking girl."
Each roll of his hips has more of his thick cock slipping inside your mouth. His palm moved to the back of your head, holding you steady as he forced his length further down your throat, watching as your cheeks darkened and your eyes watered. Your hands moved up to push at his thighs as you struggled against his grip, the desire to breathe overwhelming as you tried to push him away.
You suddenly felt lightheaded from the lack of oxygen and you began to cough and splutter around him, your throat constricting as the sensation flowed directly through his cock. The sensation made him groan out in pleasure as he finally eased his grip on your head and leaned back, allowing you to breathe as you continued to splutter, drool dripping down your chin as you gulped for much-needed air.
Your head felt delirious. You were too focused on catching your breath when you unexpectedly felt something thick pushing into your cunt in one swift motion, knocking you over as you let out a scream.
"Hotch," Spencer laughed, tightening his grip on your hair while he positioned his cock back onto your lips again. "You shocked her."
Aaron merely grunted a reply as he held onto your hips and started to thrust his cock into you. His thickness sent a ripple of pain between your legs. He was definitely bigger than anyone you'd been with before, your breath coming out in soft, shallow pants as he drove more of himself inside your tightness. Your teeth bit down on your lower lip as a dull ache filled your body, trying to ignore the pain as he continued to stretch your tight heat.
There were no words after that, the room was hazy with desire as the heat built within the small space. The two men focused their attention on your body as you took them at the same time. It was filthy, depraved, and something you'd never done before. You never thought you would be in this position, nor did you think you'd actually enjoy being used like this.
Because you did, you really fucking did. Your entire body felt hot, a scorching fire flowing through your veins as you embraced the sensation, an indescribable pleasure taking over as Aaron's cock curved towards that delicious spot inside you with precision.
Your body was pressed against the table, sweaty and exhausted. It was torture, the way he was slamming his cock inside of you at the pace that left you breathless, it hurt and burned with pleasure at the same time. Each thrust had you hanging on the edge of release, unable to think straight as your mouth continued to mindlessly babble around Spencer's cock.
Every so often he'd hold the back of your head securely so you couldn't move away as he continued to bury himself in your throat. A pleased sound escaped his lips as you started to choke around his girth. It felt like you were starting to drown yourself as he shoved into you ruthlessly. Your lungs cried out for air as you began to feel woozy from the lack of oxygen, desperately trying to breathe through your nose.
"Fuck," he hissed, finally easing his hips back to give you relief. You spluttered as you gasped for air, a mixture of his arousal and your spit dribbled down your chin. "So fucking messy."
You tried to calm your breathing, but it didn't take long for your brain to turn into mush again because Aaron snapped his hips, pulling a moan from your lips as he started a harsh pace. Fingertips dug into your hips as he buried more of himself inside your tightness, your inner walls pulsing around him.
His thrusts were hard and you were certain you'd have marks on your skin from the way he was rutting against you, a dull ache panging inside your lower half. Your mouth fell open in a constant moan as you tried to hold your body up against the table. A throb coursed through you as you tried to hold onto the edge, your breath coming out in harsh pants. You were so desperate for your release, your body so close to coming undone.
"Fuck, Sweetheart, are you going to cum?"
You mumbled out a garbled reply as he continued thrusting into you relentlessly, your fingertips digging into the table as you felt his cock dragging against your inner walls. Aaron grunted at the sensation of you clenching around him. His eyes drifted down to where your bodies were connected and watched the way his cock slid in and out of your tight cunt.
He was on the edge of his release, you could tell by the way he thrust into you desperately. You prepared yourself for your own pleasure, your hips moving involuntarily, meeting his erratic movement, as you seek more friction from him. You whimpered, feeling his fingertips dig into your skin almost painfully and you felt the familiar sensation traveling along your body. Fuck. Fuck yes. You were finally going to—
A drawn-out whine left your lips when he pulled his cock out from your tight heat. The sudden emptiness had your body shaking violently. It wasn't until you felt a streak of wetness spluttering on your back that you realized he had reached his own high without letting you reach your own.
"Shit," he gasped, slapping your ass as he watched his own liquid seeping down the curve of your back. "That was incredible."
You groaned. Fucking selfish man.
"What was that?"
It then dawned on you that you actually mumbled those words out loud. You shook your head and he groaned at your lack of words. "That didn't sound like nothing."
And suddenly, as if you weighed nothing, he grabbed onto your body and turned you over, pushing you onto your back. You were too weak to even fight him as he shoved your pants off your feet before spreading your legs apart. You watched as he leaned down and a long string of clear liquid fell from his lips toward your cunt, letting it trickle down between your folds.
"Knew you were a slut," he hissed, before straightening himself and tucking his cock back in his pants. Your eyes drifted toward him. He was big, just as big as you felt him inside you. But it wasn't his sheer size that surprised you, it was Spencer standing by your feet that had your heart peaking up its pace. Aaron smirked as he stepped back and Spencer quickly took his place between your legs.
"Look at you still holding back," Aaron taunted, genuine curiosity lacing in his voice as he paced around the room. "You're worn out. You're filthy. Aren't you tired of playing this game?"
You looked over at him tiredly. Amidst the pulsing waves of pleasure coursing through your veins, you fought to maintain your focus. "Y- You haven't done anything m-much to earn—"
His laughter sent a chill through the room. "Oh, Sweetheart, you think you're winning, but you're not." He then locked his gaze on you. "Trust me, we already have you in the palm of our hands."
You tried retorting back but the once-sharp edges of your concentration began to blur when you felt Spencer's throbbing cock right between your pussy. Each pulse of pleasure sent tremors through your resolve as he eased his hips back to drag the thick, swollen head through your outer lips. His eyes focused on the way you spread for him as though inviting him inside.
"You're already fucked out," Spencer murmured, dragging the tip of his cock through your wetness, feeling it catch against your tight entrance. "Yet look at you swallowing me."
He let the underside of his cock split your folds open, resting it between them snugly as he let out a low groan at the heat radiating from your core. The sinful noise that left your lips had his cock throbbing painfully, the thick veins protruding from his length. He angled your body against him, pushing more of his thick girth inside your trembling body, feeling the way you squeezed around him as he stretched you out.
Spencer pressed his fingers into the curve of your hips as his gaze flickered between your face and his cock splitting you apart. You gasped, your breaths growing more erratic as he managed to push all of his length inside you. He ran his hand over your abdomen as he tried to feel his cock inside you, pressing against your pelvis as he pulsed at the sensation.
"Fuck, baby," he growled, "Taking me so well."
And then he slowly dragged his cock away from you, keeping just the tip in your entrance before plunging back inside in a harsh, jarring movement, jolting you in surprise. You arched your back and tipped your head back in pleasure, just to find Aaron towering above you, looking down at you with an eerie smile.
His fingers trailed down your shoulder blades before they hovered at the buttons on your shirt, slowly unbuttoning them. "I think it's time that you give us a name."
Your body writhed in response to the waves of sensation as you tried to ground yourself. But it was hard to keep thinking straight when he grabbed onto the underlayer of your bra and lifted it over your chest. The way your perky breasts spilled out from beneath the fabric made both men hum in satisfaction.
Calloused palms grabbed onto your breasts and your eyes rolled at the back of your head at the sensation. His thumb brushed against your soft nipple, watching as it began to rise to a stiff peak as he mimicked the action on your other breast, all the while as Spencer began thrusting into your cunt at a painfully slow pace.
"Come on, Sweetheart, don't you want to cum on his cock?"
"Fuck," Spencer grunted, feeling you clench around him. "Keep talking to her."
Aaron chuckled as he continued playing with your breasts. "It's torture, isn't it?" He closed his index finger and thumb around your nipples, pinching ever so gently. You let out a soft sigh and closed your eyes as arousal flushed through you. "Give us a name and we'll give you what you want."
And then you felt Spencer rocking his hips at a steady rhythm, burying himself deeper and deeper before he slowly began increasing his speed. Your body jerked wildly each time he pushed deep into you. Noticing this, his thumb moved to your clit as he pressed messy circles against the sensitive nub, twisting it beneath his calloused pad. It felt too good, so good that you could no longer hold back from moaning out loud.
Your cries of pleasure snapped him into action and his hands moved down to your ass, holding you up to him as he started pounding harder into you. Your head fell back, chest heaving up and down, and that was when you felt Aaron closing his lips around one of your nipples. You writhed, your body thrashing underneath both men. Your senses reeling, the warmth of multiple hands on your skin sent jolts of electricity down your spine, igniting a wildfire of pleasure within you.
Aaron pulled away from you and your eyes flickered open at the loss, only to be met with Spencer hovering above you. Your eyes swept over him, and you looked down where you were joined, watching how his hips moved in constant thrusts. He was enjoying this, you could tell by the way his fingers burned your skin and the occasional grunt escaping his lips.
At the sound of his voice, you looked up at his face, glistening with a sheen of sweat while his messy hair tousling over it. The moment your gazes met each other, something inside you snapped. The muscles in your core began to coil, tightening and constricting around him right as your climax slowly pushed through the fog inside your head. Spencer felt it too, and he suddenly slowed his pace, throwing you a cunning smile.
You felt your resistance starting to crumble. The intensity of your pleasure grew almost unbearable, and you could no longer deny it. Your eyes welled with tears at the overwhelming sensation, and the thought of having your orgasm ripped again from you seemed like another torture you didn't want to endure.
You were going to regret this. You definitely would. But you couldn't dwell on the consequences of your actions when desperation coursed through you like a fever, an all-consuming hunger that you couldn't deny. Your body ached for release and craved it with an intensity that was maddening. 
Your breath came in ragged gasps, and then your eyes, wide and filled with desperation, pleaded with him silently as you found yourself finally giving in, muttering a name you had tried to keep to yourself. A name involved in the crime these men had been pestering you for. A name that had Aaron smirking devilishly as he leaned over to you, brushing his knuckles on your cheek in a caress that was so foreign.
"Good girl," he mumbled, his voice lacing with satisfaction at the way you finally crumbled. He was right, you were already in the palms of their hands, it was simply a matter of time until you caved in. "Good fucking girl."
Once you surrendered, you couldn't stop the whine falling through your lips. Your desperate moan rang deeply in the room, snapping something primal inside Spencer, and he trusted his hips into you roughly. A gasp escaped your lips, legs falling open wider as he split you wider than you already were.
Your mind went absolutely numb with pleasure as he kept rutting up inside you, your body becoming nothing more than a mess, overtaken by a wave of sweat and erotic bliss. You felt yourself trembling, your breathing becoming more ragged as his thrusts became sloppier.
“Fucking hell,” he grunted, noticing the way your mouth fell open as pleasure engulfed you. "That's it, baby, let me fuck you dumb."
You cried out, babbling incoherent sentences as he thrust harder, grabbing your hips and tilting into you slightly, making him go even deeper as he moved with you.
"Go on, cum on my cock," he growled breathlessly through his rapid pounding. "Let me feel you."
“Fuck—” You cried out for him, your overstimulated body shaking beneath him. Wave after wave of pleasure came rushing through your body, erupting in the most intense way. He watched the way you convulsed beneath him in your release, watching the way a white, sticky liquid circled his cock every time his skin brushed your inner walls. His thumb was unrelenting against your clit and you tried to angle your body away from his touch, the pleasure too intense as your lower half throbbed around him.
You continued to clench around him between your bliss, your legs trembling from the position as he arched his back, focusing the power of his thrusts straight into your tightness. A shiver burst through you at the sensation. And with one final thrust, his whole body tensed. He pushed forward, burying his cock in your soft, warm cunt, spreading his warmth in much slower and shallow rolls of his hips.
You were breathing hard, trying to regain your composure, and a moan left your lips when he finally pulled out. Cringing at the fluid slowly leaking out of you, you tried to close your legs only to be stopped as he gripped the back of your thighs, spreading your legs apart to expose your body. You were so wonderfully disheveled, your cunt clenching around nothing, gleaming with your arousal and his own release.
“Look at the mess you made." Piercing eyes watched you as white liquid trickled down your ass. A feeble mewl left your lips as his thick fingers moved down to catch it, deliberately pressing against your folds as you wriggled in his grasp. A laugh left his lips as he dragged the string of wetness along your sex, pushing it back inside you.
"I think I ruined her."
Aaron's laughter filled the room, and just as you were about to push yourself off the table, you felt him grasping both of your hands, pushing them above your head. Your eyes widened in shock. "Wh-what are you doing?"
Then you felt it, the cool metal wrapped around your wrist, sinking into the flesh of your skin as you tried to move from his grip. An unexpected panic surged within you. "Sweetheart, we know you're involved in more than one crime." The soft click of the metal lock was loud in your ears. "You need to give us more names."
Your body, still tingling with the aftershocks of pleasure, now felt more exposed than ever. You looked up to find both men staring down at you, and at very moment, you realized, as you felt the handcuffs digging into your wrist, that you were going to be here for a very long time.
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ltslean · 1 year
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5 Common Balanced Scorecard mistakes that your company should immediately avoid
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The antitrust case against Apple
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I'm on tour with my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me TONIGHT (Mar 22) in TORONTO, then SUNDAY (Mar 24) with LAURA POITRAS in NYC, then Anaheim, and beyond!
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The foundational tenet of "the Cult of Mac" is that buying products from a $3t company makes you a member of an oppressed ethnic minority and therefore every criticism of that corporation is an ethnic slur:
https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/12/youre-holding-it-wrong/#if-dishwashers-were-iphones
Call it "Apple exceptionalism" – the idea that Apple, alone among the Big Tech firms, is virtuous, and therefore its conduct should be interpreted through that lens of virtue. The wellspring of this virtue is conveniently nebulous, which allows for endless goal-post shifting by members of the Cult of Mac when Apple's sins are made manifest.
Take the claim that Apple is "privacy respecting," which is attributed to Apple's business model of financing its services though cash transactions, rather than by selling it customers to advertisers. This is the (widely misunderstood) crux of the "surveillance capitalism" hypothesis: that capitalism is just fine, but once surveillance is in the mix, capitalism fails.
Apple, then, is said to be a virtuous company because its behavior is disciplined by market forces, unlike its spying rivals, whose ability to "hack our dopamine loops" immobilizes the market's invisible hand with "behavior-shaping" shackles:
http://pluralistic.net/HowToDestroySurveillanceCapitalism
Apple makes a big deal out of its privacy-respecting ethos, and not without some justification. After all, Apple went to the mattresses to fight the FBI when they tried to force Apple to introduced defects into its encryption systems:
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/04/fbi-could-have-gotten-san-bernardino-shooters-iphone-leadership-didnt-say
And Apple gave Ios users the power to opt out of Facebook spying with a single click; 96% of its customers took them up on this offer, costing Facebook $10b (one fifth of the pricetag of the metaverse boondoggle!) in a single year (you love to see it):
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/02/facebook-makes-the-case-for-activity-tracking-to-ios-14-users-in-new-pop-ups/
Bruce Schneier has a name for this practice: "feudal security." That's when you cede control over your device to a Big Tech warlord whose "walled garden" becomes a fortress that defends you against external threats:
https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/08/leona-helmsley-was-a-pioneer/#manorialism
The keyword here is external threats. When Apple itself threatens your privacy, the fortress becomes a prison. The fact that you can't install unapproved apps on your Ios device means that when Apple decides to harm you, you have nowhere to turn. The first Apple customers to discover this were in China. When the Chinese government ordered Apple to remove all working privacy tools from its App Store, the company obliged, rather than risk losing access to its ultra-cheap manufacturing base (Tim Cook's signal accomplishment, the one that vaulted him into the CEO's seat, was figuring out how to offshore Apple manufacturing to China) and hundreds of millions of middle-class consumers:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-apple-vpn/apple-says-it-is-removing-vpn-services-from-china-app-store-idUSKBN1AE0BQ
Killing VPNs and other privacy tools was just for openers. After Apple caved to Beijing, the demands kept coming. Next, Apple willingly backdoored all its Chinese cloud services, so that the Chinese state could plunder its customers' data at will:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/17/technology/apple-china-censorship-data.html
This was the completely foreseeable consequence of Apple's "curated computing" model: once the company arrogated to itself the power to decide which software you could run on your own computer, it was inevitable that powerful actors – like the Chinese Communist Party – would lean on Apple to exercise that power in service to its goals.
Unsurprisingly, the Chinese state's appetite for deputizing Apple to help with its spying and oppression was not sated by backdooring iCloud and kicking VPNs out of the App Store. As recently as 2022, Apple continued to neuter its tools at the behest of the Chinese state, breaking Airdrop to make it useless for organizing protests in China:
https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/11/foreseeable-consequences/#airdropped
But the threat of Apple turning on its customers isn't limited to China. While the company has been unwilling to spy on its users on behalf of the US government, it's proven more than willing to compromise its worldwide users' privacy to pad its own profits. Remember when Apple let its users opt out of Facebook surveillance with one click? At the very same time, Apple was spinning up its own commercial surveillance program, spying on Ios customers, gathering the very same data as Facebook, and for the very same purpose: to target ads. When it came to its own surveillance, Apple completely ignored its customers' explicit refusal to consent to spying, spied on them anyway, and lied about it:
https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar
Here's the thing: even if you believe that Apple has a "corporate personality" that makes it want to do the right thing, that desire to be virtuous is dependent on the constraints Apple faces. The fact that Apple has complete legal and technical control over the hardware it sells – the power to decide who can make software that runs on that hardware, the power to decide who can fix that hardware, the power to decide who can sell parts for that hardware – represents an irresistible temptation to enshittify Apple products.
"Constraints" are the crux of the enshittification hypothesis. The contagion that spread enshittification to every corner of our technological world isn't a newfound sadism or indifference among tech bosses. Those bosses are the same people they've always been – the difference is that today, they are unconstrained.
Having bought, merged or formed a cartel with all their rivals, they don't fear competition (Apple buys 90+ companies per year, and Google pays it an annual $26.3b bribe for default search on its operating systems and programs).
Having captured their regulators, they don't fear fines or other penalties for cheating their customers, workers or suppliers (Apple led the coalition that defeated dozens of Right to Repair bills, year after year, in the late 2010s).
Having wrapped themselves in IP law, they don't fear rivals who make alternative clients, mods, privacy tools or other "adversarial interoperability" tools that disenshittify their products (Apple uses the DMCA, trademark, and other exotic rules to block third-party software, repair, and clients).
True virtue rests not merely in resisting temptation to be wicked, but in recognizing your own weakness and avoiding temptation. As I wrote when Apple embarked on its "curated computing" path, the company would eventually – inevitably – use its power to veto its customers' choices to harm those customers:
https://memex.craphound.com/2010/04/01/why-i-wont-buy-an-ipad-and-think-you-shouldnt-either/
Which is where we're at today. Apple – uniquely among electronics companies – shreds every device that is traded in by its customers, to block third parties from harvesting working components and using them for independent repair:
https://www.vice.com/en/article/yp73jw/apple-recycling-iphones-macbooks
Apple engraves microscopic Apple logos on those parts and uses these as the basis for trademark complaints to US customs, to block the re-importation of parts that escape its shredders:
https://repair.eu/news/apple-uses-trademark-law-to-strengthen-its-monopoly-on-repair/
Apple entered into an illegal price-fixing conspiracy with Amazon to prevent used and refurbished devices from being sold in the "world's biggest marketplace":
https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/10/you-had-one-job/#thats-just-the-as
Why is Apple so opposed to independent repair? Well, they say it's to keep users safe from unscrupulous or incompetent repair technicians (feudal security). But when Tim Cook speaks to his investors, he tells a different story, warning them that the company's profits are threatened by customers who choose to repair (rather than replace) their slippery, fragile glass $1,000 pocket computers (the fortress becomes a prison):
https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2019/01/letter-from-tim-cook-to-apple-investors/
All this adds up to a growing mountain of immortal e-waste, festooned with miniature Apple logos, that our descendants will be dealing with for the next 1,000 years. In the face of this unspeakable crime, Apple engaged in a string of dishonest maneuvers, claiming that it would support independent repair. In 2022, Apple announced a home repair program that turned out to be a laughably absurd con:
https://pluralistic.net/2022/05/22/apples-cement-overshoes/
Then in 2023, Apple announced a fresh "pro-repair" initiative that, once again, actually blocked repair:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/22/vin-locking/#thought-differently
Let's pause here a moment and remember that Apple once stood for independent repair, and celebrated the independent repair technicians that kept its customers' beloved Macs running:
https://pluralistic.net/2021/10/29/norwegian-potato-flour-enchiladas/#r2r
Whatever virtue lurks in Apple's corporate personhood, it is no match for the temptation that comes from running a locked-down platform designed to capture IP rights so that it can prevent normal competitive activities, like fixing phones, processing payments, or offering apps.
When Apple rolled out the App Store, Steve Jobs promised that it would save journalism and other forms of "content creation" by finally giving users a way to pay rightsholders. A decade later, that promise has been shattered by the app tax – a 30% rake on every in-app transaction that can't be avoided because Apple will kick your app out of the App Store if you even mention that your customers can pay you via the web in order to avoid giving a third of their content dollars to a hardware manufacturer that contributed nothing to the production of that material:
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/06/save-news-we-must-open-app-stores
Among the apps that Apple also refuses to allow on Ios is third-party browsers. Every Iphone browser is just a reskinned version of Apple's Safari, running on the same antiquated, insecure Webkit browser engine. The fact that Webkit is incomplete and outdated is a feature, not a bug, because it lets Apple block web apps – apps delivered via browsers, rather than app stores:
https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/13/kitbashed/#app-store-tax
Last month, the EU took aim at Apple's veto over its users' and software vendors' ability to transact with one another. The newly in-effect Digital Markets Act requires Apple to open up both third-party payment processing and third-party app stores. Apple's response to this is the very definition of malicious compliance, a snake's nest of junk-fees, onerous terms of service, and petty punitive measures that all add up to a great, big "Go fuck yourself":
https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/06/spoil-the-bunch/#dma
But Apple's bullying, privacy invasion, price-gouging and environmental crimes are global, and the EU isn't the only government seeking to end them. They're in the firing line in Japan:
https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Technology/Japan-to-crack-down-on-Apple-and-Google-app-store-monopolies
And in the UK:
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/cma-wins-appeal-in-apple-case
And now, famously, the US Department of Justice is coming for Apple, with a bold antitrust complaint that strikes at the heart of Apple exceptionalism, the idea that monopoly is safer for users than technological self-determination:
https://www.justice.gov/opa/media/1344546/dl?inline
There's passages in the complaint that read like I wrote them:
Apple wraps itself in a cloak of privacy, security, and consumer preferences to justify its anticompetitive conduct. Indeed, it spends billions on marketing and branding to promote the self-serving premise that only Apple can safeguard consumers’ privacy and security interests. Apple selectively compromises privacy and security interests when doing so is in Apple’s own financial interest—such as degrading the security of text messages, offering governments and certain companies the chance to access more private and secure versions of app stores, or accepting billions of dollars each year for choosing Google as its default search engine when more private options are available. In the end, Apple deploys privacy and security justifications as an elastic shield that can stretch or contract to serve Apple’s financial and business interests.
After all, Apple punishes its customers for communicating with Android users by forcing them to do so without any encryption. When Beeper Mini rolled out an Imessage-compatible Android app that fixed this, giving Iphone owners the privacy Apple says they deserve but denies to them, Apple destroyed Beeper Mini:
https://blog.beeper.com/p/beeper-moving-forward
Tim Cook is on record about this: if you want to securely communicate with an Android user, you must "buy them an Iphone":
https://www.theverge.com/2022/9/7/23342243/tim-cook-apple-rcs-imessage-android-iphone-compatibility
If your friend, family member or customer declines to change mobile operating systems, Tim Cook insists that you must communicate without any privacy or security.
Even where Apple tries for security, it sometimes fails ("security is a process, not a product" -B. Schneier). To be secure in a benevolent dictatorship, it must also be an infallible dictatorship. Apple's far from infallible: Eight generations of Iphones have unpatchable hardware defects:
https://checkm8.info/
And Apple's latest custom chips have secret-leaking, unpatchable vulnerabilities:
https://arstechnica.com/security/2024/03/hackers-can-extract-secret-encryption-keys-from-apples-mac-chips/
Apple's far from infallible – but they're also far from benevolent. Despite Apple's claims, its hardware, operating system and apps are riddled with deliberate privacy defects, introduce to protect Apple's shareholders at the expense of its customers:
https://proton.me/blog/iphone-privacy
Now, antitrust suits are notoriously hard to make, especially after 40 years of bad-precedent-setting, monopoly-friendly antitrust malpractice. Much of the time, these suits fail because they can't prove that tech bosses intentionally built their monopolies. However, tech is a written culture, one that leaves abundant, indelible records of corporate deliberations. What's more, tech bosses are notoriously prone to bragging about their nefarious intentions, committing them to writing:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/03/big-tech-cant-stop-telling-on-itself/
Apple is no exception – there's an abundance of written records that establish that Apple deliberately, illegally set out to create and maintain a monopoly:
https://www.wired.com/story/4-internal-apple-emails-helped-doj-build-antitrust-case/
Apple claims that its monopoly is beneficent, used to protect its users, making its products more "elegant" and safe. But when Apple's interests conflict with its customers' safety and privacy – and pocketbooks – Apple always puts itself first, just like every other corporation. In other words: Apple is unexceptional.
The Cult of Mac denies this. They say that no one wants to use a third-party app store, no one wants third-party payments, no one wants third-party repair. This is obviously wrong and trivially disproved: if no Apple customer wanted these things, Apple wouldn't have to go to enormous lengths to prevent them. The only phones that an independent Iphone repair shop fixes are Iphones: which means Iphone owners want independent repair.
The rejoinder from the Cult of Mac is that those Iphone owners shouldn't own Iphones: if they wanted to exercise property rights over their phones, they shouldn't have bought a phone from Apple. This is the "No True Scotsman" fallacy for distraction-rectangles, and moreover, it's impossible to square with Tim Cook's insistence that if you want private communications, you must buy an Iphone.
Apple is unexceptional. It's just another Big Tech monopolist. Rounded corners don't preserve virtue any better than square ones. Any company that is freed from constraints – of competition, regulation and interoperability – will always enshittify. Apple – being unexceptional – is no exception.
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Name your price for 18 of my DRM-free ebooks and support the Electronic Frontier Foundation with the Humble Cory Doctorow Bundle.
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If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/22/reality-distortion-field/#three-trillion-here-three-trillion-there-pretty-soon-youre-talking-real-money
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voiceofdragons · 18 days
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Danny With the Street
150,000 people die every day on average. On average, 385,000 people are born on that same day. Thats  535,000 souls made and unmade every day. Some peacefully at the end of a life lived, either fulfilled or not, and some tragically and early. Some even die the same day they are born. 535,000 people. 385,000 births, 150,000 deaths. These, however, are simply the averages. No one living can get the exact numbers, and they’d change daily regardless, so that data would be of no real use.
That’s only humans though. Those numbers are dwarfed in comparison to the averages for animal life, and the less said about plant life the better for our collective migraine. Still, that is no small amount of people. For the number of deaths, you’d get a population somewhere between the size of Kiribati and Guam. For the births it would be between Iceland and Guadalupe. The combined number puts you at Malta.
You have probably never even seen that many people in person before. And that is not even a percentage of a percentage of the worlds population. 535,000 is not barely a drop in the bucket. This number is important to Danny, for the simple fact that you can figure out a lot of interesting things regarding ghosts with it. He’d pestered a few of the Observants, when they weren’t trying to literally get him out of their picture, with a bunch of questions a curious 14 year old would want answers to. 
Some were not answered, in typical Observant fashion, but they’d given him an interesting answer to the question “how many people even become ghosts”. 
“The rate changes day to day, but we’ve figured out that its normally 1 ghost out of however many are born and day in a day added together.” This particular Observant then proceed to ramble on about how smart they were for figuring it out, how much better off the universe was for having them watching over things, blah blah blah.
Even if the rate changes, it doesn’t change drastically enough to ruin the precise and exacting science of guestimating things. If its one in 535,000, but only 150,000 die a day, then that means its somewhere between 3 and 4 days to get a new ghost. Their reasons for lingering were there own, and were often normal. And then there were the fruitloops that he dealt with so often that it was kind of starting to get old. The ghosts were getting easier to handle most days though, especially after he helped lock up Pariah Dark again. Who knew making their dimension safer would make them hate him a bit less?
And these days his biggest headache was that government agency that had temporarily bought Fentonworks to try and nuke the ghost zone. They’d failed, but still tried their hardest to make his life miserable.
Case in point; they were in the living room with his parents. Talking about Phantom. Specifically about some ‘concerning’ footage of him they’d been able to record of the ‘ectolasmic scum’. He was hiding invisible on the stairs, his mom and dad on the couch with two familiar white suited dingbats standing across from them. They had placed a tablet on the coffee table, a video taking its sweet time loading.
“As interesting as i’m sure this video is, would either of you gentlemen like to see some of our latest projects?” his mom said, clearly growing bored as the video took yet another minute to load. Thank goodness ghosts effected technology the way they did, clearly whatever film they’d taken was hard on their systems. Mom picked back up with “we’ve been experimenting with some new ‘ecto-electrolysis metal plating’ its a lengthy process, but the results are-” suddenly the video started to play, cutting her off. Danny leaned forward to get a better look, and froze. It wasn’t Phantom.
It was normal, human looking Danny Fenton. Walking down the street. The same one that Johnny and Kitty had gone racing down last thursday. Suddenly a familiar looking mist pooled out of his lips, and the screen started to glitch and lag a bit, but he remembered what happened next. He’d look around the empty street, not see anyone, and then-.
“Going Ghost!” his familiar catchphrase came from the tablet, and the glitching stopped. And Danny Fenton was no longer on the screen. All the glitching had coalesced on a single point on the screen, exactly where he’d been standing, making it clear there was a ghost in the footage. Then another blob of corrupted screen appeared streaking down the street, and the first one sped off after it.
The video stopped, and his parents were frozen. His dad reached for the tablet, and restarted the video. The catchphrase, the mist, the glitching, and his disappearance. His parents replayed the video about five more times before his mom shakily flipped the tablet face down. His dad hugged gripped her shoulders as she brought her still shaking hands up to her face.
“We understand that this must be difficult for you both, but it is imperative for state security and research that you assist us with the capture and containment of the entity.” the agent on the left spoke softly, clearly trying to be gentle, but it brought no comfort to anyone in the room, least of all Danny.
“This is not simply difficult!” his dad said forcefully. “This is our son, and you’ve just told us-” his dad stood up and started pacing, clearly distraught. After a minute of pacing he slumped back onto the couch. Mom sniffed and rubbed her face down before bringing her hands to her lap. Her next words were enough to make Danny freeze in shock and terror.
“He’s upstairs in his room.” dad turned to look at her, shocked was an understated descriptor for his face. Danny stood up still invisible and made his way up to his room. He had to leave before anyone came for him. He just barely heard her continue. “I’m going to lock down the house so he can’t get out, but just to be safe you should go outside in case he somehow gets out.” he didn’t hear the agents respond, or his dad.
Once in his room he grabbed one of his notebooks and wrote a quick message to leave for Jazz. ‘GIW told mom and dad i’m phantom, had to leave the house, i’ll be with a friend, i’ll call.’ he then slipped it under her door and then phased through the ceiling just in time to see the familiar ghost shields surround the building. The agents were by their van, arms crossed, and Danny flew off in the direction of tuckers house, tears building up in the corner of his eyes.
Landing at the corner of Tucker’s street he rubbed his eyes to clear them before walking toward his best friends house. The wave of relief he felt when the house came in view was quickly squashed by the sight of a familiar white van, and two white suits talking to Tucker's parents on the porch. Staying invisible he flew off again for Sam’s house. When he didn’t see a white van outside he was relieved.
He was less relieved to see none of the lights were on and their car was gone, meaning the whole family was out at the moment. Still floating he decided to fly to the Nasty Burger, deciding to wait there until one of his friends or for Jazz to go there looking for him.It was when he was flying past Caspar High when he saw something that gave him reason to pause.
There was a new street there that hadn’t been there yesterday. The buildings were brightly colored, and there were people mulling about wearing clothes he’d never seen anyone in Amity Park wearing. Getting closer, he expected the usual white mist that meant a ghost was nearby, knowing that in a town like Amity, anything weird was probably ghost related. There was nothing. He landed, still invisible and walked quietly down the street, deciding to see where things went.
The multi-colored buildings turned out to be a hardware store, a military surplus hut, and a bunch of other places you wouldn’t expect to be in pastel pinks and purples. Reaching the middle of the street was a building dubbed ‘Peeping Tom’s Perpetual Cabaret’ all done up in bright flashing lights, music leaking out onto the street from inside.
In short, this place seemed awesome, and as soon as he was able to reach Sam or Tucker he was bringing them here. He passed more fun looking stores, and some more adult stores that he knew he was too young for on his way to the end of the street closest to the Nasty Burger, and he stopped when he saw the street sign.
 ‘Danny St’.
“Well that’s weird” he said, still invisible.
A cloud of steam popped up from a nearby sewer grate with a sound almost like a gasp, and strangely enough it turned into a series of exclamation points and question marks.
“Also weird,” a fluttering sound behind him made him turn to see a pile of leaves spell out ‘says the invisible boy’. Danny took a step away from the pile, waiting for the mist that meant a ghost was nearby. It didn’t come. Whatever this was, it wasn’t a ghost.
Deciding that questions would be an alright distraction from the nightmare his day became he asked, “Who are you?” and another noise from behind him, this time a metallic squeaking. When he looked it was the street sign rotating around. He laughed, and turned back to the pile of leaves, only it was the sign on the window that responded this time, changing its arrangement to ask ‘what’s so funny feele?’.
“My name is also Danny.” deciding to trust the talking street, he stopped being invisible. The steam from before came again, just exclamation points this time though. A rustling sound had him turning right where a banner unfurled to declare ‘Neat Trick Twinsie!’ making Danny laugh. Deciding to ask a few more questions, he walked over to a conveniently placed bench across from a pawn shop.
“You’re not a ghost are you?” he asked, and the pawn shop window grew a question mark. “Oh, right, you’re new in town, considering I didn't see you here yesterday.” waving his hand around Danny continued. “Welcome to Amity Park, the most haunted city in America. My first thought when weird things happen here is it’s a ghost doing something, and I've seen a lot of weird.” The window proclaimed ‘ooooooh’ before another sound had him turning his head left. This time a cafe menu board said ‘Not a ghost, but are you?’
Danny clapped his hands as he said, “Half points Danny, thank you for playing!” the question mark came back so he elaborated. “I’m only half ghost, all the abilities of ghostliness, still alive and kicking.” he then smirked as some word play popped into his head. “Kicking all the other ghosts butts for messing with the town.” he then remembered his current problem, and slumped backwards, his view of his new… friend? Acquaintance? Friend, suddenly flipped.
“Or I did at least.” he sighed. “No idea what i’m supposed to do now, got some fruitloop government ghostbusters after me, and they just told my parents! Who are also ghost hunters!” from his upside down view he saw more letters rearrange across the street, but he didn’t want to parse out what Danny had said. “I was going to go wait for some friends before I spotted you, try to figure things out.” he sat up and turned around, not wanting to ignore a message. ‘Thats rough buddy.’ his face split into a grin. “Its just my luck that the same day all these bad things happen, I also meet a new friend with impeccable taste in memes!” he stood up and stretched, feeling a bit less panicked. “I’m going to go meet with them, but can i bring them back to see you? They’d love your… everything!” the banner from before flipped over ‘that would be dolly Danny! Bona to Vada!’ this was starting to remind him of when he first met Wulf, and learned of the wonders of Esperanto. A fun new dialect was just the distraction he needed.
Waving at the street, a few of the people walking around waved back, even though he hadn’t spoken to any of them. A flag flapped aggressively in a nonexistent wind, and his smile stayed on his face as he turned invisible again and flying off to the Nasty Burger.
It had only been thirty minutes since his parents found out, but his anxiety made it all feel like seconds ago as he sat there waiting. Five o'clock approached and a familiar face walked in, though not one of the ones he’d been waiting for. Valerie was starting her closing shift in ten minutes, and Danny was sitting at a booth waiting for Tucker, Sam, or Jazz. she put her bag behind the counter and slit to the opposite side of his booth.
“Why so antsy ghost face?” Valerie asked with her arms crossed. Their situationship had been weird for a while since she’d found out he was half ghost, but things had been improving lately since her dad got a new job. Guess most of her aggression had been stress induced.
“So… My parents found out i’m a ghost. The Guys in White told them, I had to leave the house, and when I went to Tucker’s house they were there too, Sam wasn’t home, and now I’m waiting for either one of them, or Jazz to come find me so i can figure out the shipwreck my life has become!” the floodgates had opened and he’d word vomited everything to his frenemy, and then promptly face planted into the table.
She visibly blue screened for about ten seconds before she reached over and patted his head. “That’s rough buddy.” he glared up at her for all of two second before snorting a despondent laugh. She joined in and after a few seconds of laughing together he leaned back, smiling a bit more easily since the anxiety had claimed him five seconds into waiting.
“You are not the first person who’s said those exact words to me tonight! I should start collecting nickels, I probably won’t get more than two but it's weird that it’s happened twice!” she didn’t laugh at that, tilting her head in an unspoken question. “You are not going to believe this, but on my way here I found a new street by Caspar High. Just there, new buildings, decorations, the whole shebang!” he flared his fingers out to emphasize the point. “I was invisible, but when I saw the street was called ‘Danny St’ I had to say something. And it started talking back, kinda.” 
“That’s a load of bull-” she started before he waved his hands to cut her off.
“Val, after half the stuff we’ve dealt with since my parents opened the portal, is this really too much for you to believe?” she raised a finger and took a breath before closing her mouth and lowering her hand. They’d dealt with a lot of wacky nonsense.
“Valid, but I won’t believe it until I see it. What kind of ghost looks like a whole street?” she asked, but he shook his head.
“That’s the thing! They weren’t a ghost, I would know! When I asked, they didn’t know what I meant. Had to explain kinda about Amity Park being the most haunted town in America.” This time he crossed his arms, leaning back to look out the window, hoping for a familiar red hat, or someone dressed in all black and purple.
Valerie stood up suddenly, and gave him a hug. “I’m sorry this happened to you Danny. My shift is starting, so I’ll make you some fries while you wait. If you’re here till closing, mind showing me this magic street you found?" It was nice having her be this friendly with him again, and he grinned and gave a thumbs up.
“Sure thing!” he said, before the doors burst open and four men in white suits rushed in, guns aimed at him. He shoved Valerie out of the way and went intangible through the wall to the outside. He then went invisible and rushed as fast as he could over the buildings.
He was passing the new, and brightly colored Danny St when he felt a sharp pain in his side, and smelled burning flesh and ectoplasm. Losing control of his abilities amidst the pain, he crashed into the side of a building before flopping onto the street. Looking up he heard loud music and saw the word ‘Tom’s’ visible on the part of the sign he could see. A crowd started to form, but he was too dazed to understand what most of them were saying. A pretty face popped out of the crowd and bent down to check on him. She was tall, dark skinned, in a glittery outfit with big hair.
“Kid, are you ok? How did you fall?” she was checking him over for any open wounds, but he was to dazed to do much. He heard tires squealing in the distance, and knew that the people chasing him were going to be here soon. He didn’t want anyone hurting his new friend, the talking street, or the people that were just now worrying for his wellbeing.
“I need to go, the Guys in White are after me!” he tried to stand but the woman placed her forearm across his chest to keep him from doing more than sitting up. She turned her head, listening to the squealing as well, before she focused back on him.
“Who are the ‘Guys in White’?” she asked, very seriously.
Danny tried to phase through her arm to stand but the pain in his side made it hard to focus, so he gritted his teeth and kept trying as he responded. “Government sponsored ghostbusting fruitloops, now please let me go they don’t care about collateral damage!”
The woman sighed and closed her eyes for half a second before she turned to look at a few people in the crowd. “You heard the kid, we got government on our tale! Danny, we need to leave.”
“That’s what I’m trying to do lady!” Danny said, while at the same time one of the store signs changed from advertising fatigue leotards, to saying ‘Time to scarper!’
“Was talking to Danny, kid.” she said distractedly.
“That’s my name, don’t wear it out.” he retorted, his head starting to hurt and the burn on his side starting to throb dully.
She laughed, a short, loud burst of amusement before she told him pointedly, “Oh you’ll fit right in kiddo!” and that’s the last he heard before a wave of vertigo took over his senses, the buildings and sky around him twisting and folding impossibly, and he leaned over to dry heave and then pass out.
“Jack, we need to hurry before those agents find him!” Madeline Fenton said from the passenger seat as they approached Caspar High. As soon as they realized that Danny had left the house they’d begun their search, especially vigorous due to the agents also on the prowl. They’d seen some agents leaving Nasty Burger and firing wildly into the air, and they’d seen one of the shots land on something invisible.
And then they’d seen their son materialize and plummet thirty feet to land a few streets over near his high school. Jack was driving them there, and that alone was enough to get the agents to pause on their way to their vans. Small blessings. When they neared the high school though they saw something odd. 
“Honey, am I crazy or was that street not there last week?” Jack said as they approached.
“I don’t think that matters right now dear.” she rescinded, though it was bugging her as well. She knew they tended to get a bit focused on their work, but that work often took them out on the town. She would have seen something of a new street before now, especially with such charming looking stores.
“Theres people milling about, maybe one of them saw him!” Jack pointed out, her wonderful optimist.
“Lets hope! We need to get him back to the lab to check him for injuries, after that we need to game plan keeping him safe.” she looked down at her lap, her jumpsuit a comforting familiarity. “He’s Phantom. He’s been Phantom this whole time! Oh he must have been so frightened.” Jack parked the GAV and reached over to squeeze her shoulder, a reassuring smile on his face.
“Our kid is a tough one, and just as brave as his mother. Lets get him safe and we’ll figure it all out.” he unbuckled himself, then reached over to undo hers for her. They both stepped outside and as they turned to look down this new street they saw something that made them take a breath of equal parts relief and terror. They saw Danny lying prone with a crowd of people clearly trying to help him. He would be fine.
And then, just before they could step foot on the pavement of the street, everything sort of shifted and folded, the other streets stretching to fill in the space being left behind as the street they were now desperately reaching for vanished. The last thing they saw was their sun jerk to the side, several people trying to help him, and then both he, and the mysterious new street vanished.
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nexysworld · 10 months
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Mission: Safeword
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Read on AO3 🖤 Make a Request 🖤 Masterlist
Summary: Leon has many methods of getting information while on missions, especially from pretty girls like yourself.
Pairing: Infinite Darkness!Leon x Fem!Reader
Tags: NSFW, MDNI, Dubcon (but reader's into it), Face sitting, fingering, slight knife play, light bdsm, overstimulation, no use of y/n, not proofread
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Your fingers quickly scattered across the keyboard, desperately trying to transfer the data and lock the system down. Silent alarms had been blaring and security had given the signal that an intruder – likely a government spy – had invaded  the compound. 
Whoever it was they had been lying low, no obvious break-ins, no knocked out staff, like a mouse. “Come on, come on.” You groaned, bringing your fist down onto the desk in frustration. “Faster you stupid thing. Billion dollar research company and you can’t even afford computers built after 1998?”  Pinching your temples you leaned back in your chair with a sigh, the transfer had been initiated, there was nothing else you could do now but hope that it went through. 
You tapped your fingers on your chair as  you watched the timer continue to recalculate the transfer time. Suddenly the screen went dark, along with the overhead lighting, leaving only a few of the lamps scattered around the office. “What the fuck? No, no this can’t be happening.” You banged the side of the computer, willing it to work again. The backup generators should’ve prevented the lights and systems from going out – this wasn’t making any sense. “Sorry Sweetheart, but I don’t think hitting it is going to fix the issue… on account of me pulling all these plugs here.” The voice pulled you out of your confused rage as you whipped around to see a man leaning back against the wall casually, he lifted the bundle of wires in his left hand to make a point.. ‘When did he get in here, I didn’t even hear the door open?’ You thought to yourself, backing up a little instinctively. 
He wasn’t wearing a standard uniform, instead clad in a black leather jacket, blue jeans, and boots. His well groomed gray-blonde hair framed his face in a way that let you get a good read on his chiseled features – he looked more like a model than a government agent – but you didn’t have time to think on that further. “You’re the spy!” You accused, trying to buy time to decide your next steps. 
“Spy? That’s pretty harsh – I’m just doing my job y’know.” He dropped the plugs and used his right hand to click the lock on the door before making his way towards you. “I didn’t expect that my target would be such a pretty girl.The name’s Leon by the way, nice to meet you.” “St-stay back!” You backed up further, trying to disguise the embarrassed flush as anger. You grabbed the closest lamp to you and lifted it as if it were a bat. ‘Wait – did he just say I was his target?’
He chuckled at your response. “C’mon, you don’t look like a fighter. Just relax and we can get this over with quickly, ok? It’s not my style to hurt pretty women if I don’t have to.”
“I said, s-tay back!” You tried to reaffirm again. When he ignored you, you swung hard, he easily caught you by the wrist and spun you so your back was to his chest. With one arm tucked behind yourself, he squeezed the remaining wrist so tight your hand was forced open sending the lamp shattering at the floor. 
“Knew you weren’t a fighter.” He purred in your ear, you could feel the stubble on his jaw rub against your neck, making you shudder. “Now that that’s out of your system, I don’t suppose we could hurry along to the part where you give me the info I need?” 
“Absolutely not!” You replied, squirming as much as you could against his grasp. He didn’t budge, grip like a vice. A disappointed sigh and hot breath on your neck stalled your movements for a moment as a shudder ran down your body, hyper aware of the muscles under his thin shirt, the smell of his cologne. If this had been some action movie instead of real life, it almost would’ve been seductive – right now though you were frustrated and scared. “So it’s going to be like that, huh? Well, don’t say I didn’t try to play nice.” He cooed before manhandling you over to the office couch that was pressed to the far wall. In a final attempt to get away, you threw your weight to the ground before he could get you on the sofa, and took off to run. 
It was short lived as he grabbed you from behind by your waist, hoisting you backwards and
tossing you onto the couch. Before you could try again, he was straddling your waist with his weight and gathered both wrists into one hand, pinning them above you against the wall. “You really wanna do this the hard way, don’t you princess?” He didn’t wait for your answer as he used his free hand to unbuckle his belt, removing it from his jeans in one swift movement, before latching it around your wrists and tightening it, hooking it to the metal peg built into the wall for keys and coats.
He moved off of you when he latched your hands, leaving you stuck there, hands above your head, wrists sore. “Fuck you! I’m not telling you anything.” There was a noticeable tremble in your voice, especially as he pulled his gun from the holster – which did not go unnoticed by him. 
He tilted his head with a little smirk.“I think that might be a great idea actually.” He set the weapon down on the small side table along with his knife before shrugging himself out of his leather jacket, revealing a tight button up and rolled sleeves. With the jacket off, you had a better sight of just how fit he was, muscles everywhere. You swallowed a gulp, not sure what great idea he was referring to and not fully deciding what emotion you were feeling now – fear, lust, both?
Your body made the decision for you as heat panged between your legs along with wetness. You squeezed your thighs together to alleviate some of it – a small gesture he also picked up on, the smirk on his face growing wider. “I’ll be honest, I’m used to a different kind of reaction when I meet women at work. Gotta say, I’m not complaining.” He separated your legs slightly and dipped two fingers between them under your skirt,, rubbing you gently through your panties. A gasp escaped your lips and you squirmed against the movement. “Atta girl.” He praised, using his free hand to hold you by your chin, making sure you were looking directly at him. 
The coiling pleasure between your legs had your head going a little hazy, eyes locking with his. ‘Fuck he’s handsome.’ Your nipples began to harden under your work blouse, as you took in his features further. 
His fingers sped up their pace, and he tightened his grip on your chin so he could lean in, whispering just against the corner of your lips, teasing a kiss. “Such a pretty, pretty girl.” His lips met your cheek softly, before he slipped his fingers into your panties, dragging slick from your hole up to rub against your clit more easily.
The change in sensation coupled with his words had you spilling over the edge, whining as your orgasm crashed into you, leaving your legs shivering. Leon pulled back, giving you a moment to catch your breath. He crossed his arms over his chest and flopped back against the couch casually. “So….now that we’ve established some rapport, are you ready to answer my questions about project D?” 
In a moment of post-pleasure clarity, your brain had finally processed the situation, leaving you shameful, embarrassed, and aggravated. “Of course not!” You said between pants.
His face morphed into thought before a realization overcame him, like a light bulb went off in his head. “You’re lucky I like ‘em hard to get.” He moved to unbutton your blouse, grabbing the knife off the floor to slice your bra open, both breasts spilling out. “So here’s how it’s going to work.” He made his way down to your skirt, unzipping the side and slipping it down your legs. “I already told you, I don’t like hurting women – but I never leave a mission without getting the intel I need..” He used the knife to make quick work of your panties as well, leaving you in nothing but your button up, slung open and dangling off your arms along with what was left of your bra. “So I’m gonna use another method to get you to talk.” 
You had a good idea of what his plan was going to be, and if you were honest the primal part of your brain was turned on in anticipation.  The working part of your brain still kept your lips sealed. “Try whatever you want, I won’t speak.” “We’ll see about that.” He unhooked you for a moment so he could flip you around, face to the wall. Expecting to hear the sound of his pants unzipping, you were surprised when instead he moved to lay down beneath you, and then it finally clicked what he was planning to do. “The safeword is ‘I’ll tell you.’ The catch is Princess, you gotta actually tell me what I need, otherwise I may have to keep this up.”
You didn’t get the opportunity to protest as his strong arms wrapped around your legs, pulling your wet cunt down against his face, tongue already darting out to lap at your sensitive clit. The sensation of the stubble rubbing against your thighs along with the wriggling muscle against your most sensitive spot made you whimper and moan, wanting to grab hold of something but being unable to in your bound state. 
Already more sensitive than usual from your first orgasm, it didn’t take long before you were grinding down onto his face riding out a second one. Unlike before though, he didn’t give you a moment to rest, holding your thighs in place tightly he continued to lap at your sensitive bud, making you scream. Your wrists yanked against their confines fruitlessly, your legs desperately wiggled, but he kept you exactly where he wanted you, as he continued to eat you like you were the last meal he’d ever have – third orgasm quickly being ripped from you faster than the previous one. “N-no can’t, too much.” Tears spilled from your eyes and stained your cheeks as he didn’t let up, your legs were quivering, muscles tight and sore, his belt digging into your wrists. “P-please….can’t….can’t any–” you were cut off with a choked whimper as your fourth erupted from your aching pussy. Never having had so many back to back, your body felt exhausted, brain not able to come up with any  more coherent thoughts. 
Luckily, he stopped this time for a moment, releasing the bruising grip on your legs and adjusting you so he could talk. You could see the upper half of his face, looking up at you between your legs, which wouldn’t stop shaking with aftershocks. “Look at you, only four in and you’re already sobbing and begging. Such a sweet-tasting girl isn’t made to be so stubborn, are you ready to say the words?” His voice was silk as he rubbed your leg softly adding to the temptation. 
You defiantly shook your head, lip jutting out in a pout, as tempting as it was, you weren’t ready to lose your life or career over this – but your will was wavering, especially between the different sensations of pleasure and pain from the ache in your arms. “Suit yourself.” He said, tucking himself between your legs again, returning to his position underneath you. One arm wrapped itself back around  your leg, but he had different plants for the other one, working it around so he could line his fingers up at your entrance, sliding two of them in until it reached the leather of his fingerless gloves, as he started sucking on your clit. 
Your velvety walls clamped down over the digits, the sensation beyond overwhelming as he began to pump them in and out, pleasuring new spots within you. Your brain finally short-circuited and began to imagine what it would be like with someone else inside of you, stretching you open. “L-leon…” you moaned out his name for the first time as he continued to work your hole, and suck on your too-sensitive pearl of nerves. Skilled fingers easily found that special spot that sent you reeling, curling them upwards to make sure each movement stimulated it.
In tandem with the external pleasure of his mouth, the last of your resolve crumbled. You came for the fifth time, head flung back, chanting his name like a prayer. This time when he didn’t stop, you couldn’t take it anymore, too tired, teary, overwhelmed, and exhausted. “St-stop…stop……I can’t……I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you.” You sobbed out. 
As promised his movements ceased immediately. “You sure?” You nodded in confirmation between sniffles. He slid out from under you, wiping his mouth with his sleeve before unhooking your sore arms from the wall, lying you down on your back, facing him. He removed the belt while you caught your breath, before he massaged the reddening marks on your wrists. “See? I knew a girl like you couldn’t be that stubborn. Now….ready to talk about project D?” You nodded again hesitantly. The next smile that graced his features seemed genuine, and while it was likely a trap you couldn’t help but fall for it, much too empty-headed to think about any potential consequences. 
Immediately you were answering every question he had to your best ability in your dreamlike state, he nodded eagerly and praised you for each good answer as he continued rubbing your body in a massage working from bottom to top, pressing small kisses against your skin as he went. He stopped after placing a brief one to your lips, which you pressed into without thinking.  The actions were effective, so much so you hadn’t even noticed you’d fallen asleep. 
When you woke a while later, the lab was still dark but the computer had been turned back on casting a light over to you. You could see Leon, sitting in front of it, a harddrive plugged in obviously canceling and copying the data transfer. Once Leon noticed you were awake he made his way back over to you, sitting on the end of the couch. “Sleep well?” You didn’t immediately respond, not fully ready to process everything that had just happened – like directly handing over intel to the enemy. “It won’t be safe to stay here now. Why don’t you come with me out of here – with my connections come certain protections. I’ll even buy you dinner so we can discuss keeping you safe.”
“Dinner, really? Do you offer that to all the ladies you go down on during missions?”  
He chuckled, “Only the ones I like” He leaned forward to rub his thumb over your cheek, causing your face to flush again. “Besides,I am nothing if not a gentleman and would never leave a damsel to distress.”  You rolled your eyes at the corny comment, but upon realizing he was right you agreed. “Fine. Dinner.”
“Atta girl.” He gave you a chaste kiss before returning to grab the harddrive from the computer and giving you a chance to fix your disheveled state.
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akajustmerry · 5 months
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I'm not saying that anti-semitism and anti-Jewish sentiment hasn't been on the rise. It very much has, even prior to the current rise of right leaning governments throughout Europe, America and the West in the past 5 Years. However, people need to be careful what kind of data they use when they cite data about anti-Jewish discrimination. I recently learned that some major organisations who record this data in the UK and the US, allow even flying the Palestinian flag to be reported as anti-semitism. In the fight against anti-Jewish discrimination, it's vital to use statistics that aren't pro-Zionist. you cannot fight one form of discrimination and supremacy with another. I hope it's okay for me say this as someone who is not Jewish. I am happy to any Jewish person to add to this post.
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spotaus · 2 months
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Did some redesign mock-ups for Ec-4o.verse Cross, Fresh, and Error!
These guys didn't really *need* redesigns but I was having a ball with Trech (Ec-4o!Fresh) and gave him Arcade Carpet designs and decided I needed to redesign some others too! (Check below the cut for Old Designs, Lore, and a Stupid Screenshot from my pal @/Neonsix67)
So OLD DESIGNS:
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(We're gonna act like I drew Trech more than twice-)
So, old art, yucky, whatever. We know the drill lmao- but because Ec-4o.verse is such an ongoing project these guys have been through a bunch of redesigns. Regrettably, me from 2 years ago was unaware of Layering and Shape Language, so they look kinda gross.
Cross' design has consistently been my favorite I think, just because he was a later addition and so had a bunch of my newer ideas integrated. They all have their flaws tho (Cross was too lean and got thrown between Baby and Grown Guy too often in my art. Error uhhh... yeesh. When I say I couldn't draw him, I meant it. I never knew what to do with his wires and I kept putting him in armor? Fresh just wasn't fleshed out enough. He was that SparkleDog of my verse.)
Also: I wanted Fresh to be top-heavy, like, big baggy round clothes on his upper half then lil guy legs. Cross I wanted to be more flat and strict, hense his clothes being all Tube-shaped. Then Error needed Triangle vibes. His old design was too Rectangle for me. The exposed limbs are mostly just for me because I love a-symmetry and also I don't keep a consistent clothing style, so I like to keep a visually interesting element (like a limb) exposed for clarity's sake when I draw them in new poses later.
LORE:
Cross: A robot (Ecto) who was initially a Guard-Model ecto. He was one of the last to be turned over when the government was rallying citizens to donate their bots to fight in the war. He was remodeled and supplied with a special task by his Programmer: Protect THE FILES at all costs. He's rather small for a guard-bot, but makes up for it with his agility and sheer stubbornness. Blue finds him heavily damaged and on low battery in an old lab, guarding a room that was sealed tight. His Old design utilized Shields (scarf detached to become them) but his new design is much more focused on quick bursts of offense. If he gets you first, then you're no longer a threat.
Error: an Ecto who was one of the first bots handed over. He was a former data storage bot that worked at a small library. As one of the first data-bots to come in, he was immediately modified and put to work alongside other Ectos to compile all of the nation's history into their data banks. Error was particularly receptive to overloads of data, so he continued to be modified and made into the prime data-bank. When the war started, he was eventually hidden away and sealed in an air-tight room. Eventually Cross was sent to guard the door. They were eachother's only company for... years? Error isn't fond of touch or tampering with hid systems, as everything he knows is barely abd haphazardly stored on unsafe files. Each Crash he endures takes more and more of his own personal data away, and he refuses to lose any more.
Fresh (Trech): A Parasite that was created by Sci to repair living beings in the same way that an Ecto can auto-repair itself. Fresh is actually a liquid that, when placed in contact with a wounded/dying person, it can invade their systems and stop all forms of bleeding/dusting. Fresh wasn't supposed to be sentient, and was meant to be scrapped, but he ended up being vital in stopping the war. In turn, Sci granted him freedom. Fresh can inhabit humans, monsters, and Ectos, but prefers skeleton monsters. He often defies the logic of his world, but what Fresh doesn't? Blue meets him far into the story after he's unraveled a lot of mysteries. Fresh just drops by after hearing rumors of Blue's repair work, and is met by less-than-warm reception from Error and Geno.
Other:
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I was trying to save the image and my phone was bugging out, so I sent it to Neon. Safe to say she has peak comedic timing 😌💖 (For the record, we are both adults, and also my parents are aware I draw utmv stuff, so she had to make the threat actually a threat lmao---) I also love Chilchuck talking with the Operator. We are the dynamic duo frfr.
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avinashkumar1202 · 3 months
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youtube
From tech to creative, we'll delve into effective strategies for attracting top talent and building a versatile, high-performing team. Discover the CEO's perspective on navigating the challenges of cross-domain recruitment and unlocking the full potential of your workforce. Let's redefine the hiring landscape together!
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niqhtlord01 · 6 months
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Humans are weird: The Monster I’ve Become
( Don’t forget to come see my on my new patreon and support me for early access to stories and personal story requests :D https://www.patreon.com/NiqhtLord )
Alfonso awoke to the sound of the doors to the interrogation cell slowly opening followed by two figures entering. Neither said anything to him as they entered and closed the door behind them. He eyed each carefully as they positioned themselves in the room but likewise said nothing. Both were Mendrari though by their clothing he could tell they were of different status.
The first wore a decorative robe of bright green with tiny red triangle patterns sewn into the fabric. This covered the majority of their body save for their hands and feet, both of which adorned with the finest off world shoes and gloves he had ever seen since coming to the planet. They sat down across from Alfonso at the table and set down the data pad they had been reading when they entered the room.
Unlike the first figure the second, who was lurking just outside of the cone of light provided by the lone light source of the room, was a far contrast in wardrobe. They wore a tight military uniform with Drenti metal fragments woven into the fabric essentially turning it into a sudo suit of armor.
Though he couldn’t make out much detail while they stood in the shadows, Alfonso saw a glint of crystal on the military figure’s shoulder indicating rank and wagered that they were at least a general in the Mendrari military; or whatever equaled to a general in the Terran Republic.
“Alfonso Muñoz,” the first figure at the table began, “do you know why you are here?”
Their native language was being translated by a linguistic unit attached to their throat. Even so, Alfonso found the experience unpleasant as it was like listening to two voices speaking at the same time.
“I will not answer questions until I am provided a Terran counsel.” Alfonso replied.
“This is not a human world,” the first figure replied dismissively, “you will not be provided a counsel for these proceedings.”
“I am a sovereign citizen of the Terran Republic and demand a-“
Alfonso never finished his sentence as the second military figure paced around the table and back handed him across the face. The blow wasn’t enough to break his jaw, yet a glob of blood fell from his mouth all the same. Mendrari skin having the same texture as sandpaper didn’t help the matter. Alfonso recovered from the blow feeling like his right check had been scraped clean off.
If the sudden violence was upsetting to the first figure they gave no sign of it. They merely waited for their military compatriot to finish before continuing.
“Given the severity of your crimes and the threat to our own security you present your government has not been informed of your detention.”
The words slowly sank into Alfonso as he straightened up and spat a thick glob of blood at the military figure’s feet.
“And here I thought your kind were above such crude tactics as kidnapping.” Alfonso chuckled. “And what sort of threat could I be if you already have me locked up in a cell?”
“A question I wish to have answered.” The first figure replied.
Entering several keys on their data pad a holographic panel appeared in the center of the table. Several images and transcripts began scrolling through the display while the first figure watched for any reaction from Alfonso.
“You have been identified as a leader of the terrorist organization D.A.A.I.F, or “Defense Against Alien Influence Front”.”
Alfonso shrugged. “It’s not a name I personally would have gone with, but you know about changing horses mid race and all.”
“We also know that the group has been planning a large attack scheduled to take place in the coming rotations; you will tell us the target and the method in which your compatriots will use.”
Alfonso leaned back in his chair and looked at the alien opposite him. “And why would I turn in my comrades, Mr… ?”
“Chu’ll,” The first figure replied before pointing to the second alien, “and this is Merg’ell.”
“And we both know they were not true comrades.” Chu’ll finished.
Alfonso said nothing as the holographic feeds changed and brought up only data regarding him. “We know that you only joined D.A.A.I.F five months ago and have never fully embraced their co leaders or values as an organization.”
“They hate your species, that’s enough for me.” Alfonso replied coldly, but Chu’ll shook his head.
“We know that their hate and your hate are not the same.” Chu’ll countered. “You were not at home with a group whose most dangerous attack to date has been a series robberies against banking institutions. You wanted more.”
“What are you expecting me to say?” Alfonso asked. “Do you think I’ll suddenly spill my guts and detail all my plans? Give out all the sources the group had? Beg for your forgiveness and plead for my life?”
“We are wasting our time with these games.” Merg’ell spoke for the first time.  Their hand shot out and latched around Alfonso’s throat and tightened. “Tell us what we want and you may spend your remaining days without constant pain.”
Alfonso felt the grip tighten more and more around his throat; the sandpaper like texture of Merg’ell’s skin adding even more discomfort and pain as he started gasping for breath.
Just as he was started to see shadows creeping from the corners of his eyesight his would be killer relented and released him.
Gasping for breath he could barely hear Chu’ll speaking to him once more.
“We know you were part of the first contact incident with our people. We understand that your feelings towards are kind must be-“
“You….understand…nothing.” Alfonso spoke between gasps. He would be damned if this alien piss sack would preach to him that they understood his feelings.
“You took my wife and child from me, burned my home to the ground, slaughtered my friends and family and left my world to burn.” Alfonso replied. His anger swelled within him like a raging fire as he remembered the day the Mendrari invaded. He could still see the lifeless eyes of his pregnant wife looking up at him as he sifted through the rubble of his home. He could smell the scent of her burning hair, and feel the warmth drain from her skin.
“If your wife was here with you now, would she still love the man you have become?”
As if ripped from his memories by Chu’ll’s words Alfonso looked up at the alien and watched as they recoiled slightly in their chair. His gaze was that of death itself as he teetered on the idea of lunging forward and ripping the throat out of the alien.
It took a moment but Alfonso finally calmed himself down and decided on another tact.
“Do you know how your sphere drives work?”
Whatever Chu’ll or Merg’ell had been expecting the human to reply this was not it.
“Excuse me?” Chu’ll asked for clarification.
“Your sphere drives.” Alfonso repeated. “Do you know how they work?”
Merg’ell slammed his fist into the table. “I said en-“
Chu’ll held up a hand and the military lackey ceased his outrage. He huffed and retreated back into the surrounding shadows while Chu’ll answered.
“Engineering was never my strong suit.” The alien admitted.
“Whereas it was mine during my previous life.” Alfonso answered with a grin. “I loved technology and observing all of the tiny intricacies of how a device works.”
Now invested in the discussion he leaned forward against the table. “You see unlike jump drives my people use which only sends the ship it is attached to, your sphere drives essentially make a bubble around the entire ship easily a few kilometers in size and launch it as a whole. This makes it safer for travel.”
“I fail to see what this has to do with the topic at hand.” Chu’ll spoke, but this only made Alfonso nod as if he had just been asked the correct question from a favorite student.
“It all ties in but since you’ve been patient I can explain.”
“You are right that D.A.A.I.F was incompetent, but what they did have was a well-established network of sympathizers and suppliers able to get whatever you needed if you could provide enough funds.”
Wheels began turning for Chu’ll and Alfonso saw a glint in the alien’s eye as he started putting the pieces together.
“The bank robberies…” he began as Alfonso nodded.
“A means to get enough funds to purchase several dozen of your sphere drives.”
“To supply an attack fleet?” Merg’ell spoke up, but Alfonso shook his head.
“You’d have seen that many ships coming several systems away; no, I had a much better idea for them.” He looked at Chu’ll and smiled as the threat of the unknown began to plague the alien’s mind.
“What did you do?”
“Have you ever wondered what would happen if a sphere drive was activated in atmosphere?” Alfonso asked.
“They would….” Chu’ll began as the final piece fit into place. “Oh my gods.”
“Exactly.” Alfonso finished. “They’d rip apart everything that was within their sphere and launch it hurtling into space leaving a gaping void in its wake!”
Merg’ell pulled out a communicator of his own. “This is Merg’ell to command; begin immediate orbital scans of major population centers for sphere drive energies.”
“Still so small.”
Merg’ell cut off the link to look down at the human who was now looking up at him.
“What did you say?” Merg’ell demanded as he hoisted the human up again; only this time Alfonso was far less afraid.
“You think I would settle my revenge with just a few cities?” the human mocked. “No; just as you took my world from me I shall take yours.”
“You speak of madness!” Merg’ell shouted as he shook the tiny human. “You could not destroy a planet with sphere drives.”
“That depends on your definition of destruction.” Alfonso remarked with a grin.
Merg’ell was going to demand the human to elaborate but they did so without provocation.
“When you punch enough holes in a ship it will eventually sink; so what do you think will happen when those sphere drives detonate in the atmosphere across this entire world at the same time?”
The horrific picture finally came into focus for both aliens as they were no longer dealing with a terrorist threat, but a global extinction level event.
“How do we stop it!”
Both aliens demanded, but Alfonso just grinned and closed his eyes as he heard a low rumbling far down the corridor of the complex he was held in.
“I activated their countdown sequence the moment you capture me. It’s already too late.”
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mariacallous · 12 days
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Tom O’Donnell had never really been that interested in how elections worked until former president Donald Trump lost in 2020. Then, everything changed.
Like hundreds of thousands of people across the US, O’Donnell joined so-called election integrity groups that posted baseless conspiracies about the 2020 election. His group was called Idaho First Audit, and members flooded election offices across the state with requests for voting data. They weren’t alone: Other organizations like right-wing activist group True the Vote inundated election offices across the country as part of a broader effort they believed would uncover systemic fraud within the election process.
Election workers in Ada County, Idaho, home to the state capital of Boise, were pretty amenable to questions about the election process from O’Donnell’s group. O’Donnell even organized a tour of the Ada County election offices “to learn more about the process of voting,” and struck up a relationship with Trent Tripple, then the deputy county clerk.
But Tripple, who became county clerk last year, was one of the officials struggling to cope with the barrage of records requests and threats that the majority of election offices were receiving at the time. After the records requests overwhelmed the election office’s employees, Tripple and Ada County’s director of election, Saul Seyler, decided they needed to change things up.
So after years of work, they’ve now given election deniers exactly what they’ve been asking for: Last week, Tripple and Seyler launched Ballot Verifier, a first-of-its-kind tool that gives anyone with an internet connection direct access to every single ballot that has been cast in all Ada County elections since 2022, meaning that those in the election denial movement can no longer say that they don’t have access to the information they want.
“We just decided there’s got to be a way that we can push back against this a little bit but also achieve that perfect marriage between technology and government records so that citizens, candidates, parties, everybody has access to all the information that we have,” says Tripple.
The tool provides sleek graphics of all election races, and allows users to filter by type of ballot and even drill right down to precinct level to see an image of every single one of the ballots counted. Crucially, the ballot images are presented alongside what is known as the cast vote record, which is the record of how the ballot tallying machine counted the vote on election day. By showing these side-by-side, anyone can instantly see whether there are any discrepancies.
“I can’t even dream up how we can be more transparent than this,” says Tripple. “There isn’t anything else that we have that the public cannot see.”
Ballot images and cast vote records, both details about elections barely ever mentioned prior to 2020, have become a focus for election conspiracists trying to prove widespread voter fraud conspiracies.
In some cases, election conspiracists have even built programs to look at ballot images. Well-funded groups like True the Vote have built online tools based on voter rolls, previously reported on by WIRED, which they are urging their tens of thousands of supporters to use and then erroneously claim voters should be struck off the voter rolls.
“It's very different if [an online tool] is coming from an independent group, like True the Vote, that obviously has certain political leanings, and information that they're providing is through a lens,” says Seyler, as opposed to “something like [Ballot Verifier], which is available to everybody and truly transparent.” The data, the team says, is also private. “There is nothing that is printed on this ballot other than the individual markings, [nothing] that would tie it to a particular voter,” says Tripple. “The ballot is completely private.”
Still, some election experts have voiced concerns about the potential for systems like Ballot Verifier to pose privacy risks for voters, particularly in small precincts or in cases where voters leave notes on the ballots that could identify them.
“Despite the clear benefits to transparency of releasing cast vote records and ballot images, making these records public comes with trade-offs,” researchers from the Bipartisan Policy Center wrote in August. “Voters’ privacy might be compromised, and vote buying becomes feasible when ballot secrecy is violated—an extreme, if less likely, potential ramification of making ballot images public.”
There have also been some prior efforts to give voters access to ballot images, such as in Pueblo County in Colorado in 2021, but these efforts were not as comprehensive or technically proficient as Ballot Verifier.
At the same time that Tripple and Seyler were trying to think about a better solution, Idaho had been using a tool called ElectionStats to give voters access to statistics around election results. That tool was created by Civera Software, a civic technology company that ended up working alongside Ada County election officials to build out the new Ballot Verifier tool.
And even before the system went live, Tripple invited O’Donnell and other skeptics to be among the first to test it out.
“I think it's really good. It's more than I thought would have happened, because when we request our images now, we just get a data dump of files,” O’Donnell tells WIRED, adding that the Telegram group has responded positively to the launch of Ballot Verifier.
WIRED also tested the Ballot Verifier tool, looking at specific precincts and races, filtering votes by type (mail-in ballot, absentee ballot, etc.) and found that the system worked smoothly and instantly displayed images of every ballot cast.
US elections have never been safer, and the 2020 election was declared the “most secure” by Trump’s own officials. But a lot of people still believe unfounded conspiracies about elections, and the roll out of this tool in one county in one state is not necessarily going to change that overnight. Indeed, a review of O’Donnell’s 400-person Telegram channel by WIRED this week shows that many within the election integrity group are still regularly sharing widely debunked conspiracies about voting.
Adam Friedman, Civera’s founder, believes part of the reason for this is a lack of transparency, something which Ballot Verifier can address.
“A lot of the conspiracy theories and divisiveness and toxic rhetoric and mistrust around elections in America goes hand-in-hand with people not being able to see enough and people perceiving voting as being a black box experience,” says Friedman. “Ballot Verifier is really a way to turn a black box into a glass box.”
Friedman says that Civera had already signed a contract with several counties in Texas to provide the tool to them, and was in discussions with counties in multiple other states. The tool is also of interest to academics, and Friedman says the company is in preliminary conversations with two prominent universities and a number of political scientists who study cast vote records.
But Ballot Verifier is not cheap. Friedman and Civera provided a “large discount” on the research and development costs for this tool, but it still cost Ada County $40,000. While there are no current plans to roll the tool out nationally, Seyler says that while every county could benefit from using a system like it, election budgets have been historically underfunded. While all the backend work to upload new election data is handled by the company’s employees, the company is also currently building tools to allow local election officials to do this themselves, and go even faster.
The next big test for the Ballot Verifier tool comes later this month with the statewide primaries in Idaho on May 21. This will be the first time the officials will be working with recent election data rather than historical data, and they know there will be pressure to get that information online as soon as possible. Seyler says the current projection for getting the data uploaded is four to six weeks, though it could be quicker if Civera can finish some additional tools they are working on to improve efficiencies.
Looking further ahead, Tripple even foresees a point when data is available in Ballot Verifier so quickly after a vote that it could be used by candidates or parties to decide whether a recount is necessary, potentially avoiding the expensive and drawn-out recount process.
“That's not going to be possible now because of the speed at which we're uploading this data, but I think that's something that could be happening in the future,” says Tripple.
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tuesday again 1/23/2024
listen i got my last job through one of youse on here so weirder things have happened: i got fired bc the nonprofit wasn’t doing so hot. let me know if you have a weird data/database or market/tech research job. i promise my worksona is so so so nice and pleasant to work with. remote only, looking more in the $75k range but can be a bit flexible if it’s a cool enough job, i am in the central time zone of the USA and will not need sponsorship anywhere but DO need the cadillac of healthcare and dental plans. portfolio, publication list, and linkedin with my government name available on request!
listening
both of these are from my sister! this is another FULL ALBUM rec (good lord). The Offline’s album La couleur de la mer is a soundtrack to a movie that doesn’t exist, inspired by his long walks in the fog on the French Atlantic coast. a little spacey, a little soul, very sixties/seventies neonoir. i am quite fond of the very first track, Thème de la couleur de la mer.
she’s also sent me a bunch of tiktoks with Perfect (Exceeder) by Mason and Princess Superstar. hell of a goddamn music video for this thing. mid-aughts clubbing music at its finest. stopped me from dissolving into a puddle of emotions on the way to and from the vet today bc it’s too goddamn bouncy to be sad around
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reading
im reading a trilogy i want to discuss as a whole whenever the third one comes through as a library hold, and a book by a friend. i do not typically talk about books or fics by friends here bc none of them have ever asked for critique, and i dont want to play favorites or inadvertently miss someone’s work. so here’s a story about porn on Wikimedia, which is the kind of database drama and technical arguments that fascinate me.
given the number of articles from 404 Media i shout about here and elsewhere i really should sign up for their $5/mo subscription tier when i have a steady income again
watching
somehow missed Star Wars Visions 2, their second anthology of weird little shorts. i was not super impressed by the overall storytelling this time around, but it was fun to see them reach out to more global studios and see a wider range of styles. there’s some goddamn incredible stop motion in here.
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i particularly enjoyed Journey to the Dark Head, which not only has some interesting fringe Force believers and beliefs but has one of the sickest anime bullshit lightsaber fights in this season. this one is by Studio Mir, most known for the Legend of Korra.
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also really liked The Spy Dancer by Studio La Cachette, partly bc it’s incredibly beautiful and i like when Star Wars leans into art nouveau, and partly bc it felt the most like a complete short story. emotional arc and everything! strong beginning middle and end! this IS a really low bar, but a lot of the shorts this season did not have a coherent little story to tell or a strong emotional arc, or fumbled their arc partway through, and were just kind of vibes and animation showcases? nothing necessarily wrong with that, also how i felt about most of the last collection. my expectations are underground for any Star Wars media.
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playing
as is tradition i dithered about this section the most. this is more of a What’s Next? planning ramble.
the laptop gets shipped back to my old job today so i will no longer have a working modern computer. i have to dig the switch out and see what’s up. maybe start a whole new run in breath of the wild or whatever the last pokemon game was. i think i also have the sword boyfriend game everyone was up in arms about two years ago? and i think i am somehow part of a switch family plan that lets me have some older games?
this section may look very different in the next ??? amount of time until i get a company laptop again. or finally replace the motherboard on my personal desktop but that sat in my car for several weeks during the heat wave this summer while i did not have an apartment and i am really REALLY afraid to open that box.
oh the free epic game this week is a platformer, a genre i have historically not cared about. godspeed to those of you who do
making
soup bc aldi had alphabet pasta and that jolted me out of myself for long enough i was briefly convinced making alphabet pasta soup would fix me. so i found this recipe while in aldi. despite this not being a very good soup or a very good recipe, i feel a little triumphant bc i now know enough to brown the tomato paste before putting it in the soup. unfortunately i overcooked the pasta. there’s kind of a lot of texture happening here, and i wish i had chopped things finer, but i will probably steal my best friend’s blender tomorrow and blitz some of it down.
it’s edible. im going to eat it all. it will not be going in the rotation
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ltslean · 1 year
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Marine CMMS
Reduce 20% - 30% of your Vessel Maintenance expenses with a well-planned maintenance program. A Marine CMMS software manages maintenance-related activities using comprehensive Planned, Preventive and Predictive Maintenance and Onetime Maintenance (OMs).
Read More: https://cmmssoftware.leantransitionsolutions.com/cmms-marine
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