#ALSO saw my first cyber truck today

[k3yreviewer25]

does anyone. want to ask me about my blorbo bash

[kimarisgundam]

Thank you First Aid skill 😭!

I'm glad I went for that first aid class instead of joining the party and going to that nomad race event like 5 sessions ago 😭! First Aid level +1 has pulled through for me 😭

I don't know how things went down hill so quickly, but my character's brother knows who I'm hanging out with now so my character is in really big trouble 😭

I guess me and the Exec got cocky?? We thought walking in through the front door in Tyger Claw territory was a good idea cos we're both Arasaka affiliated and have reputations within the corp T_T

Our DM was trying to dissuade us from doing this... but we insisted... and just before entering a club, our DM private messaged me and asked me to roll against my Luck... I failed the check but nothing happened... so I didn't care...

But at least an hour into our session during a Facedown, our Rockerboy started yelling at a NPC he spotted in the distance...

Wtf, the Luck check didn't affect my character, but it determined if our DM told my friend's Rockerboy if he saw my character's brother in the club 😭

My bro was minding his own business, but my bro (the party doesn't know he's my bro, only our Exec knows) kinda *coughs* captured and tortured our Rockerboy long ago... so our Rockerboy is rightfully pissed off...

But just cos you're pissed off it doesn't mean you start a fight???

And wtf, why is my bro decked out like a cyber psycho??? His stats are like a boss enemy O_O

I frigging didn't want to be seen, so I hid behind a wall... but things went downhill and our Rockerboy got mortally wounded with his arm cut off O_O"

I was 6m away... so I knew I had to take a shot or our Rockerboy is dead >_<"

Omg I swear I am scared of my bro now. He didn't know is me, but the moment I took an aimed shot to his eye he turned on me and demolished the 25 HP wall I was hiding behind O_O"

I thought I was going to die, like killed by my own big bro O_O"

Our Exec saved me by calling out my character's name... which made my bro stop... but I'm in trouble now... my bro is mad >_<"

I'm hanging out with a Nomad, the Rockerboy who bombed Arasaka's trucks, and a shady Exec from our company our sponsor doesn't trust >_<

I'm so dead now >_< ! I hope he doesn't tell our sponsor >_<"

My life is falling apart T_T

My bro saw me rush over to stabilise our Rockerboy with my First Aid skill, he knows we're friends now T_T

I hope he doesn't find out about the cat... cos we're not just best friends... we are co parenting a cat together...

Ahhhh wtf T_T

I'm so dead. I'm frigging dead. I don't want to go home to my apartment. I bet my bro is waiting for me in my living room T_T

I'm going to tell our Solo we aren't going home today. We're crashing at our Rockerboy's apartment T_T

I'm sure he won't mind. He gave me the keys anyway, so it's not like I'm breaking in... plus he's at the doc's place unconscious so...

Actually... maybe we should stay at the doc's place too... give moral support or something... I should be there for my choom T_T

I should bring our cat over too... I should probably call our Rockerboy's NPC gf too..? She just broke up with him, but she should be here... my party is freaking out cos our Exec is also critically injured... I need to be get my crap together for the sake of the party

I'm just freaking out now. My friends are still RPing and I'm having an internal meltdown. I don't want them to find out that's my big bro

[cadeeelewis-blog]

Annotated Bibliography

Cade Lewis 

Annotated Bibliography 

Fish Burton

November 27, 2019

Annotated Bibliography

“Are Electric Vehicles Really Environmentally Friendly?” Energuide, https://www.energuide.be/en/questions-answers/are-electric-vehicles-really-environmentally-friendly/197/.

      When we talk about electric cars, we usually perceive them to be zero omission cars. But that is just not the case. There’s a few different things that we can look at that will confirm this. Basically, even if we drove an electric vehicle and it didn’t create very much air pollution or harm to the environment, we need to take into consideration how the energy is being generated and how it is being used. 

      What I mean by that, is that even though driving a Tesla down the road may not cause a lot of harm, we need to take a step back and realize how that battery was made inside the Tesla and where we are getting our energy from to charge the Tesla. From reading this article I understand that about 60% of the energy that we use in the United States comes from fossil fuels. What that means is that 60% of the energy comes from gas or coal which are fossil fuels. 

      This can be a very bad thing considering that quite a few people have electric cars. Another bad thing is that this is only the charging aspect. Now if we take a look at the battery, we can see that they are made in factories which create even more pollution in the air. 

Biswas, Asit K., and Cecilia Tortajada. “Electric Vehicles Are Changing the World. And They're Only Just Getting Started.” The Conversation, 27 Oct. 2019, http://theconversation.com/electric-vehicles-are-changing-the-world-and-theyre-only-just-getting-started-90402.

      There’s something really significant that I would like to point out about this specific article about how electric cars can change the world. And that is that about 90% of the world runs off of liquid fuels. And this holds true especially for businesses and companies that use semi‘s in trucking to transport goods from one place to another. 

      I believe a very good question to ask ourselves is, “are we using a lot more fossil fuels to run our regular vehicles then if we had electric cars? Even though electric cars do use fossil fuel, would they significantly reduce how much fossil fuels we are using rather than using liquid fuels in our cars? “ I think this is something very serious we need to consider as we move forward in this essay. 

      I will use an opinion that comes directly from my immediate family. Although I would love to have an electric car, my whole entire family has vehicles that use liquid fuels. And none of my family would consider an electric car at this moment.

      CatClifford. “Elon Musk: Tesla's Work '.Supersedes Political Parties, Race, Creed, Religion'.” CNBC, CNBC, 6 Nov. 2018, https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/05/elon-musk-teslas-work-is-important-to-the-future-of-the-world.html.

      “This supersedes political parties, race, creed, religion, it doesn’t matter. If we do not solve the environment, we’re all damned,” Musk said. This statement really made an impact on the way I look at electric cars and how others look at electric cars. 

      I think the statement really holds true to the fact that doesn’t matter what color you are or race or gender or political party. When we look at both electric cars and gas cars included, we need to realize that this is an important factor in the next 40 to 50 years of our life. This is going to change everything and we really need to think about what is going to be the best for us and for the environment. 

      Just like Elon musk stated, if we don’t figure this out, we’re going to be screwed. Electric cars are emerging from the depths of the earth score. And Tesla is becoming cheaper and cheaper. What are we to do in the future, and what is it going to take for electric cars to be completely omission free and be able to have a positive impact on the world.

Clemente, Jude. “More Electric Cars Mean More Coal And Natural Gas.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 25 Jan. 2018, https://www.forbes.com/sites/judeclemente/2018/01/24/more-electric-vehicles-mean-more-coal-and-natural-gas/.

      Electric cars are a very fast growing market. In a study done in 2017, electric vehicle purchases were up 30% to about 200,000 units. Personally when I look at this I feel that that is a significant amount of electric cars that were purchased in one year. Especially given the fact that the Tesla model 3 was barely on its way. 

      There are quite a few initiatives in multiple countries that are now banning the sales of oil based vehicles. This is said to happen within the next couple decades, but what they are doing is trying to weed out all the gas vehicles so that their air will be cleaner and more efficient. A few of these countries will be China, India, and Norway. Given this fact, what we don’t realize is that again, the electric car is still using fossil fuel. 

      How could this be possible? Is because most of the electricity that comes from electric cars is produced by coal plants or sometimes gas. All of these limiting factors are fossil fuels, and will inhibit us from proceeding in the future because of our continuous use of fossil fuels. It is important to note that a few countries are trying to stray more towards green energy which would come from solar panels and other things such as those.

Dia, Hussein. “Jobs, Tax and Politics: Three Ways Electric Vehicles Will Change Our World.” The Conversation, 4 June 2019, https://theconversation.com/jobs-tax-and-politics-three-ways-electric-vehicles-will-change-our-world-84910.

      If we take a look at China, we can see that they have the largest car market in the world. They are working to stop the production of fossil fuel powered vehicles, to be able to make the atmosphere and the environment a cleaner place. India, believe it or not, has also issued a statement that they are going to make all of the cars electric by the year 2030. 

      They’re doing this in hopes they can make the environment a little more green and save fossil fuels. If you look at the factories, we can see that electric vehicles including their batteries is less labor and time and energy compared to the vehicles and batteries of petrol vehicles. In turn,  this could be very bad because by the year 2030 we could have a loss of 600,000 jobs. 

      And that would just be in Germany alone. But, going all electric by the year 2030 will also create a lot of stress on businesses who owned the oil companies. A Stanford economist named Tony Ceba and his team have a vision, and they believe that the desolation will come much sooner as early as the 2020s.

“Electric Car Innovation: How Electric Vehicles Are Changing the World.” None, https://www.plugandplaytechcenter.com/resources/electric-car-innovation-how-electric-vehicles-are-changing-world/.

      Right off the bat this article talks about someone that drove through Silicon Valley and saw quite a few teslas.They say and a lot of people I’ve talk to say, that Tesla is one of the most popular vehicles on the road today. We can back this up by how many teslas that the company itself has sold in just the past two years. 

      Not only that, but Elon musk was going to go bankrupt, but obviously he hasn’t since he has released the model Y, the new 2020 Tesla roadster, and now he has just released the cyber truck. People who are all over the world are trying to convert to the electric vehicle to not only save money on fuel, but to help the environment. They claim that in the future, specifically in future cities, you will be able to see Tesla’s more and more on the road. 

      Surprisingly, there is more than 40 electric car models available in the world today. According to JP Morgan, by the year 2025, most electric vehicles and hybrid electric vehicles will account for 30% of all the cars that are sold in the United States. Additionally, CNBC says that by the year 2030, the amount of electric cars on the road will increase from 3 Million to 125 Million. 

Hawkins, Andrew J. “How Tesla Changed the Auto Industry Forever.” The Verge, The Verge, 28 July 2017, https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/28/16059954/tesla-model-3-2017-auto-industry-influence-elon-musk.

      The first statement of this article that “Tesla’s have changed the world” is pretty bold. I believe this is the start of something great, and people all over the world are searching for the next best thing that is going to save the environment and save our fossil fuels. Is this Tesla? Let’s find out. When Elon musk first released the Tesla model 3, he gave it out to the first 30 customers which we think to be his employees. 

      We don’t realize exactly how far him and his company has come until we take a look at the numbers that they have produced. Another factor that we have not taken into consideration, is one that I feel like is very important in the realm of the electric car industry. We always take a look at electric cars, the way that they’re shaped, the way that they look, and how they drive. We also look at the cost of them, and their fuel economy and how well they are going to save our fossil fuels and be better for the environment. But I personally feel like there’s another element involved in this. 

      And that is, that Elon musk came out with a feature called auto pilot. Now we always wonder if electric cars will be our future. But come to find out, this auto pilot feature may not be exactly what we need at the moment. Or maybe it will be. There was quite a few case studies of people using auto pilot who took their hands off the wheels and crashed the car because they were reckless. 

      Now, this always happens when there is a new product or a new service provided. We all know that one person who got something new and then ruined it because they didn’t take the proper precautions. 

Horrell, Paul. “How Green Is an Electric Car, Really?” Top Gear, Top Gear, 26 Apr. 2019, https://www.topgear.com/car-news/electric/how-green-electric-car-really.

      We can’t ignore the fact that energy from electric vehicles comes from burning fossil fuels. Which in turn is CO2. We can’t ignore the fact that the more people buy electric vehicles, the more people are going to use coal burning elements to charge and fuel their electric vehicles. 

      But we also have to factor in, that power stations are more efficient than car engines. What that means is that an electric car only uses half of the CO2 per mile than a regular gas car would. So in turn, maybe the electric vehicle is actually more efficient and uses less fossil fuels then a regular petrol or diesel vehicle. 

      But, believe it or not, the UK actually gets all it’s energy sources from renewable energy. Now something even more interesting. I will share a part of the article that talks about carbon impact. It states, “The most recent studies I’ve seen, including one by the immensely thorough ICTT (the guys who unearthed Dieselgate), put the carbon impact of manufacturing an EV at just under three times a piston car.” 

      So now we can see that an electric vehicle only makes 1/3 of the carbon impact compared to a gas vehicle. Additionally, a lot of people don’t know that electric car batteries can be used for more than one purpose. Electric car vehicle batteries can be used for grid power storage. 

McFadden, Christopher. “7 Ways Electric Vehicles Are Set To Change The Future.” Interesting Engineering, Interesting Engineering, 16 May 2019, https://interestingengineering.com/7-ways-electric-vehicles-are-set-to-change-the-future.

      The title of this article. Seven ways that an electric vehicle can change the future. How bold is that? Let’s read more in depth about this article. The article states that as electric vehicle prices drop in performance increases, there will be more room and more opportunities for people to buy them. 

      I think it’s very interesting because at first electric vehicles were very, very expensive. Not very many people could afford them unless you were rich, or very wealthy. But now, as Tesla has released the new model 3, a lot more people are able to afford an electric vehicle. Not only that, but there is quite a few models including the Chevy bolt, and the Nissan leaf that are very affordable models.

      But one question to take in the consideration. As people buy electric vehicles and more purchases are made, will the energy grid be able to support them? But, as the article states, there could be a solution to this. And the solution could be the people could be their own energy producers, and have such things as solar panels or self-sustaining energy that can actually power their Tesla and charge it for them. 

      This would make it so they wouldn’t rely on the cities energy grid, and this could make it much easier for people to buy an electric vehicle. It would also help, because it would make it so that the scientists and engineers wouldn’t have to think of 1000 ways they could extend the energy grid, because the people would just be supporting themselves and using their own solar grids. 

      Lastly, the other benefit of an electric car is that maintenance and repairs will be very cheap. Since an electric car doesn’t use things such as spark plugs, mass air sensors, fuel pumps, or oil just to name a few, there won’t be as much need for maintenance on electric cars. 

Tim Urban, WaitButWhy. “How Tesla Will Change the World.” Business Insider Australia, Business Insider Australia, 4 June 2015, https://www.businessinsider.com.au/how-tesla-will-change-the-world-2015-6.

      There was a woman named Christie Nicholson who first met Elon musk at a party in 1989. Elon joked a lot about electric cars in the first couple minutes of meeting with her. She remembers that he said, “do you ever think about electric cars?” 

      Electric cars was probably not the most common thing to think about in that time period, but it was what Elon musk was thinking about and what he wanted to do with his life. The article talks a lot about how Elon owned SpaceX before he owned Tesla motors. I think this is really interesting that he wanted to go to Mars and have a city there before he even wanted to make a simple electric car. But, Elon partnered up and he started the company called Tesla motors. 

      When Elon launched this company, he had three goals in mind. One, to make a production car available for the rich. It would be a car that was close to a Ferrari that he could charge over $100,000 for. The next, would be a car for the middle class that would be over $70,000 and still really fancy. 

      And lastly, he would make a car for mass production, that anyone could buy and use. I think this concept is really interesting that he would make different cars for different people. But it makes perfect sense knowing that this would be the best for his business and for the company overall.

[moccahobi]

How to React Pt. 1 [Namjoon x Reader]

Summery: You told your friends this wasn’t a good idea. You’d told them time and time again that when they go to a concert you paid for, they would behave because that’s what is respectful and important. BUT NO! They somehow drag you into being part of their plan to meet BTS privately and now you can’t seem to get out of it.

“See, guys?” You said, slamming a printed version of an article in front of a rowdy bunch of your old college friends, “This is how you should treat BTS. They’re people and need to be treated that way. I know you want to interact with them as much as possible with you’re visiting, but this is too much.” You said in your native tongue, motioning towards the crazy scheme of theirs laid out on the table.

“God, Y/n! Can’t you just shut up and trouble shoot for us? We know that you now have a bachelors in cyber security and we need your help! The fan meet and concert are tomorrow, and I know you can give us the best plan!” One of your friends pleaded, shoving the article off the table before running her hands through her messy hair and giving you puppy dog eyes.

“Fine,” You sighed, giving the article one last rueful look before looking at them again, “But you all have to promise me that if this doesn't work, you will continue with your vacation in Seoul and support BTS casually, Ok?”

“Yeah, yeah. Fine, but with you this will work.” Another friend chimed, a cheshire cat smile on her face.

“I’m not infallible. I make mistakes, besides this is a time crunch. I think for a while, but I also want to enjoy the weather today.” You sighed, looking out at the people outside the cafe who were walking around dressed in shorts and t-shirts. It was your lunch break for your current paid internship, and you were originally under the assumption that your undergrad friends simply wanted to hang out, maybe have a picnic and catch up before joining them tomorrow for the concert tomorrow (they convinced you to buy the tickets with the promise that you’d be paid back but they still haven’t even offered yet). You were wrong about their intentions here, as always with them.

“Whatever. Just, get on it, please?” The friend that spoke originally said-- to which you simply nodded, eyes already looking at the plan they’d set up already. A plan of your own already springing to life.

You didn’t approve of their thoughts around K-pop idols whatsoever, and while you wanted to stop them near the beginning, you couldn’t have them think that you weren’t about to make them feel good about this plan. This had to work down to a t if they were not only feel most ashamed, but also get the worst punishment.

Your eyes scanned their plan once again, your fingers tapping on your thigh as you thought it over again, “Don’t go through that corridor.” You mumbled pointing to their first turn, “Many sasaeng fans try to get into dressing rooms, often. You want to get closer to their exet without taking common routes. Security is always weakest that way. Take this, later turn.”

Before you knew it, your lunch break was over without any actual food eaten and you were forced to leave the cozy cafe for the humidity of early spring to get back to the company you were working at. The next day, you found yourself giddy and excited even with your stupid college friends trying to do something stupid. You didn’t notice how much time passed in your excited stupor as soon you were being herded into line at the fanmeet.

Talking, even for the short amount of time given, to them was amazing. Your head spun in giddiness as the members made little jokes and just goofed off in general, and as soon as you spoke to the first member in line, you were being pushed by your friends into the concert venue nextdoor. The concert too passed quickly (despite what you saw when skimming through the occasional fanfiction a friend would send, you didn’t meet eyes with a member and there was no magical moment). Soon your friends were pretending to drunkenly get to some sort of bathroom… dragging you with them much to your protest. Your nerves were mounting with each movement you made towards your “trap” and you felt bile rising in your stomach as you tried to think of how you’d leave so that it was only them that got in trouble. They were the ones that were planning this, you just worked to make them feel worse about it.

Oh how you wished they were like that damn fan in the museum who simply hummed one of their songs and moved on. Why did they have to be so damn… crazy?

The more you lamented, the closer you got to actually having to stop them yourself. You didn’t think you could handle this. No, you knew you couldn’t. You were a goody-two-shoes. Quicker than you thought, the place you’d plan for a trip up came and all the girls fell over the sudden truck drop in cries of mostly shock and pain. You, luckily, were able to balance yourself, hair falling quickly out of your loose bun and covering your face (and blinding your eyes) as you stumbled over the fallen girls in an attempt to find proper footing on the asphalt. You raised your head up to the sky, hating how your overgrown hair moved with you to brush against your back in gentle swishes against your back.

You gasped for air, no longer used to such physical exercise even though you were once a star athlete on your college's track and field (a broken ankle and torn IT band will do it to someone). You distantly heard people talking hurriedly and possibly footsteps approaching to go to the vans in the parking lot but you were distracted by the sounds of blood rushing through your vessels. The only thing that slightly rivaled the waterfall in your ears was your friends whining your name incessantly. One of them tried to get up and chase after the people in the distance (of whom you could only assume was BTS), but you quickly grabbed her hand and used your entire body to ancor her in place with the weak excuse of needing to catch your breath. Her weight allowed you to lift up your right foot gingerly, trying hard not to wince too much at the shooting pain you felt.

It was then, that you took a quick glance at the people passing by, all eyes from the people there cautiously eyeing you all.

“You failed, now it’s time to take on my approach.” You mumbled while gasping for breath. You mind was screaming at you in shame that you couldn’t handle that tiny amount of exercise. That you were a disgrace to your whole childhood and college years. Tears budded your eye ducts as they locked with one of the members directly. Making eye contact with Kim Namjoon was exactly what those snippets of fanfictions said it would be… only not. Your heart was racing from the fall and the incessant, growing pain in your ankle as well as your IT band, not his “heated” stare. You knew that you’d probably need a brace and more physical therapy after tonight, sadly. He also wasn’t staring lovingly at you, his eyes were wide in fear and shock. Most importantly, he wouldn’t seek you out later to try and talk to you. He’d probably avoid all of you at all cost… maybe even get a restraining order if he really wanted.

Fuck.

Next

What a great way to end the first part! More romance will be coming in the next part, don’t worry! Check out my materialist if you want more of my work and expect the next one to be out soon... ish!!

[ghoulluck]

When Nico dreamed, it was a great darkness -- big and vast. It swallowed up every scream, every spell -- everything. After years of trying to fight her dreams, she had accepted it. She would sit in the plane of space, staff of one floating over her and illuminating the very little she could see. The little light it gave her only highlighted the darkness around her. Nico stared out, imagining it would make shapes until she would wake up feeling like she hadn’t slept.

She wiped back her inky blue hair as she sat up in bed, hands in her lap, Staff of One laying next to her in bed and brown eyes trained on the mirror across from her bed. Nico passed a hand over the space in front of her, effectively wiping away what she saw to check on her mother. Tina was downstairs sifting through her physical mail while Robert actively avoided her mother.

“Dad?”

The man looked about himself before carefully whispering back, “Yeah, pumpkin?”

“Is she angry today?”

His eyes found the reflective surface she was speaking to him through and he walked towards it so he could speak more softly, “No. Not yet at least.” Nico’s mouth pursed and he adjusted his glasses carefully, “It’s okay. I love you.” She didn’t say it back and her image faded on the turn of metallic rings.

She dusted her hands as she passed her hands down her legs under her blanket. They were sore from cutting into the soft skin. Nico bent her elbow to inspect her arm and noted that her mother’s grip had left a heavy bruise. She breathed in deeply as she struggled to move. 

She wobbled as dragged herself off the edge of her bed. 

Nico smoothed her night gown over her cuts as she made her way to the shower. It was saturday and if she was lucky she could avoid her mother by going over to Julien’s instead. She plucked her phone from it’s charging port on her dresser as she made a detour instead. 

Julien picked up on the first ring.

Nico couldn’t help the tug of a smile when she heard the blonde’s tiny yawn, “Morning.”

The blonde hadn’t bothered to get off the floor yet. She had fallen asleep playing grand theft auto with her brother who lay asleep on his side, an arm haphazardly draped over his doberman, Lily. She reached out to play with a little bit of his long hair as she shouldered the phone.

“I was hoping you’d want to spend today with me,” Nico stated hesitantly as she picked open one of her drawers cautiously to pick out some underwear. She can almost hear Julien smile as the blonde tosses her long blonde hair back with a nod Nico can’t see, “Yes, but training at --” She checks her iwatch with a sigh, “In twenty.” 

The blonde woman cautiously rises with a creak in her back that makes her grimace in pain.

“Do you want to pick me up after?” Nico’s teeth clasp her lower lip as she waits on the response. She’s almost always afraid that one day Julien won’t like her  as much as Nico likes the cheerleader. 

They don’t exactly come from the same worlds. The Minorus are wealthy -- hell the only reason Julien is in Atlas academy was because she had earned a scholarship. Julien’s adopted Fathers were both part of LA’s police department, Hart in cyber crimes and Antoly as a beat cop and a trainer for MMA fights. 

It was a far cry from the glass dollhouse Nico lived in with her mother and father. The teenager treaded carefully in her own home. Her mother had a nervous break down after her star child -- Amy had killed herself. It was a grim reminder that her own mother didn’t love her as much as she hoped they would. Recently, she had discovered her father’s affair with a childhood friend’s wife and that had driven a wedge between them. He could easily have taken them out of the situation, but chose not to.

“Yes.”

Julien’s answer brought her out of her thoughts and she smiled.

“Can we go to the art museum again?”

She had discovered not too long ago that like Nico, Julien had her own special gifts. Together, their power multiplied beyond what they individually could not do on their own.

“Are you thinking about what I’m thinking?” the goth asked as she looked at her standing closet to see what dresses were still clean. Julien hummed on the other line as she went to her bedroom, “We can go to standing rock.” Being able to read each other’s minds was like a blessing. “Yeah, have that picnic we talked about,” the goth stated as she pulled the perfect black dress from her selection, “See you in like an hour or two, yeah?”

Julien nodded, “I like you.”

Nico smirked to herself a bit, “Yeah? I like you too.”

The blonde smiled to herself a little and she hung up the phone to set it aside. She picked through the mess on her floor to find her doberman curled up in one of her more recently used sweaters. She gave him a kiss and his ear flicked at her face when she did so. Adolf was not a morning pupper. She pulled a pink dress and Nico’s black jean jacket from the floor for later, stuffed it in her bag, grabbed some hygiene stuff and changed into her ever preferred pink sportswear.

She pulled her long fairy blonde hair into a high pony tail to keep it out of her face. She didn’t bother with cleaning up her smeared mascara or removing her lashes. Instead, she strode out with her bag, pulled some shoes on -- ran back for a pretty pair for later and went to kneel by Zedd who was still asleep on the floor. She shook him lightly to try to wake him which only resulted in a very cranky Lily. 

“What?” Zedd croaked as he tried not to glare at her and the sun.

“Can I borrow your bike?”

He looked around, “Why can’t you borrow Dad’s car?”

“Nico smiles more when I bring the bike.”

He grimaced as he shuffled through his pockets noisily for the keys. He passed them over to her when he found them and Julien leaned over to kiss his face which made him smile just a little bit. “Be careful,” he warned his sister as he rubbed her shoulder. Adolf sulked over to Zedd to lay on him. The teenage boy made a deflated sound as he dragged a pillow over his head to keep the light out of his eyes.

Julien greeted the funny looking pit bulldog mix that sat beside the pretty disabled woman. Paulina was a family friend of the West-Moore’s and by all means was always present at her child’s training sessions. She greeted the blonde teenager with a smile and Julien returned it as she dropped her bag next to her dad. Hart still preferred the title of dad, mom still didn’t make her completely comfortable. She put one pretty muscular arm around Julien and made the teenager duck her head to kiss it.

“How was worship?” Julien asked the two women.

“It was good,” Paulina answered, “Ryan and Hart came, we had light breakfast after and we came to practice.” The older woman still had a bit of a Spanish accent, but Julien enjoyed it immensely. “Sounds fun,” the teenager commented as Hart curled her fingers with the little tip of the blonde’s pony tail. “Yeah, you sleep okay? I know you and Zedd stayed up pretty late.” Julien nodded a bit with a shrug. The floor always made her jaw hurt, although she couldn’t think of any good reason why it shouldn’t hurt with all the chewing she had been doing lately.

Her dark brown eyes darted across to her other dad. Antoly was currently in the ring with Paulina’s kid. There was something undoubtedly off about Ryan and Julien did her best to avoid the other. Ryan’s dad and his wife were off to the side talking quietly before she bent at the waist to pick up her kid to go.

“Did my pretty princess eat anything yet?” Antoly’s voice brought Julien out of her mild trance and her eyes went to the big blonde russian. She was always happy that he was blonde like her. He was a little too young to be a dad, so she was constantly questioned on if he was her brother. She was elated to be anything to him at all. Julien also knew better then to lie to her dad, “No.”

Antoly’s face had a look of mild disappointment, his blonde brows furrowing and his mouth pressed downwards, “You know the rules.” Hart wore the same expression, but his was knit in concern when Julien’s breath shuddered in milk panic. Antoly had promised to start enforcing his rules, training on an empty stomach was not allowed. 

Paulina couldn’t help overhearing the pair talk to their child and grasped around her wheelchair for the bag on her handle. She pulled out one of Ryan’s blenders and handed over the pre-mixed mush. She’d just make Indy mix their little dark prince a new one. Julien looked at the massive blender. It wasn’t that big really, but she could imagine the calories alone and that made her feel sick to her stomach.

You have to eat if you want to be a police officer.

Julien shuddered at the memory of sitting on Nico’s lap in the locker room before grabbing the shake with a nod of thanks. She glared at her blonde father who smirked a little and silently thanked the woman for being so kind. He went back into the ring and Julien forced herself to have at least half of the shake before she was allowed into the ring.

The blonde had the courtesy to clean it out of the remaining mixture and made sure the water made her hands red before handing it back to Paulina with an air of gratefulness. She joined her dad in the ring and they got right to it.

When training was over, she showered, got dressed for her date and applied a fresh coat of makeup on her face. She did it extra pale pink and glossy just for Nico. She pulled on her girlfriend’s jean jacket, folded up the arms since they weren’t long enough for her and changed her shoes. She felt bloated, but the work out at least helped.

Julien made her way out to the bike and pulled up the seat to put her backpack in it. In the spot across from her Indy was folding up Paulina’s wheel chair as she sat in the cabin of the truck with her arm over Ryan’s shoulders and her fingers playing with the short dark hair. 

Julien briefly wondered what it was like to be a parent to kids like them. 

She put the seat down and slung a leg over it as she coiled up her hair to keep it from whipping her in the face. She pulled her phone from her cleavage to shoot Nico a text, that it wouldn’t take her more then fifteen minutes to be right over. She pulled out of the parking lot before the truck did and hit the gas to get out the way as quickly as possible.

Julien played often with the idea of getting a red bike better accustomed to her height. She’d have to buy it herself because she didn’t think she deserved to just ask for such an expensive thing from her dads, but knowing them they’d figure out something for her if she just asked. The ride was pleasant, filled with the familiar sounds of LA traffic and people. She parked about a block away from the Minoru house and sent her girlfriend a quick text that she was waiting in their usual spot.

When Nico came out of the house, Julien could spot right away something wasn’t right by the hurried away her girlfriend crossed the street to her. She didn’t give Julien a kiss and instead wrapped her arms around the taller girl’s waist with the urgency to go. The blonde immediately took off. 

It wasn’t until they had nearly reached the Art Museum that Julien stopped.

She twisted around to get a good look at Nico and shuddered when the other girl refused to let her get a good look at her face. Tina had never hit Nico before. Usually Robert would have intervened before things got too out of hand. The goth girl fought the blonde before breaking down into tears, “I broke the trophy. I didn’t mean to. I bumped the corner. I broke--” Julien clasped Nico’s face between her hands to try to get her to look at her, to focus, to breathe. 

When the goth caught her breath, she broke into fresh tears, “She’s never--” There were a lot of things Tina was, a bitch, a cold shoulder, an emotional abuser, but beyond grabbing Nico’s arm too hard and just bruises from a stone tight grip, Tina had never hit her or her Dad. This was a new occurrence. Tina was a kyōiku mama, nothing more nothing less. It was too awful to say. It couldn’t have happened.

Julien kissed the side of the other’s face, soothing the pain and making the evidence go away before Nico caught her mouth to drown it all out. 

[gilbertineonfr2]

BSides Athens 2017 Wrap-Up

The second edition of BSides Athens was planned this Saturday. I already attended the first edition (my wrap-up is here) and I was happy to be accepted as a speaker for the second time!  This edition moved to a new location which was great. Good wireless, air conditioning and food. The day was based on three tracks: the first two for regular talks and the third one for the CTP and workshops. The “boss”, Grigorios Fragkos introduced the 2nd edition. This one gave more attention to a charity program called “the smile of the child” which helps Greek kids to remain in touch with the new technologies. A specific project is called “ODYSSEAS” and is based on a truck that travels across Greek to educate kids to technologies like mobile phones, social networks, … The BSides Athens donated to this project. A very nice initiative that was presented by Stefanos Alevizos who received a slot of a few minutes to describe the program (content in Greek only).

The keynote was assigned to Dave Lewis who presented “The Unbearable Lightness of Failure”. The main fact explained by Dave is that we fail but…we learn from our mistakes! In other words, “failure is an acceptable teaching tool“. The keynote was based on many facts like signs. We receive signs everywhere and we must understand how to interpret them or the famous Friedrich Nietzsche’s quote: “That which does not kill us makes us stronger“. We are facing failures all the time. The last good example is the Wannacry bad story which should never happen but… You know the story! Another important message is that we don’t have to be afraid t fail. We also have to share as much as possible not only good stories but also bad stories. Sharing is a key! Participate in blogs, social networks, podcasts. Break out of your silo! Dave is a renowned speaker and delivered a really good keynote!

Then talks were split across the two main rooms. For the first one, I decided to attend the Thanissis Diogos’s presentation about “Operation Grand Mars“. In January 20167, Trustwave published an article which described this attack. Thanassis came back on this story with more details. After a quick recap about what is incident management, he reviewed all the fact related to the operation and gave some tips to improve abnormal activities on your network. It started with an alert generated by a workstation and, three days later, the same message came from a domain controller. Definitively not good! The entry point was infected via a malicious Word document / Javascript. Then a payload was download from Google docs which is, for most of our organization, a trustworthy service. Then he explained how persistence was achieved (via autorun, scheduled tasks) and also lateral movements. The pass-the-hash attack was used. Another tip from Thanissis: if you see local admin accounts used for network logon, this is definitively suspicious! Good review of the attack with some good tips for blue teams.

My next choice was to move to the second track to follow Konstantinos Kosmidis‘s talk about machine learning (a hot topic today in many conferences!). I’m not a big fan of these technologies but I was interested in the abstract. The talk was a classic one: after an introduction to machine learning (that we already use every day with technologies like the Google face recognition, self-driving card or voice-recognition), why not apply this technique to malware detection. The goal is to: detect, classify but, more important, to improve the algorithm! After reviewing some pro & con, Konstantinos explained the technique he used in his research to convert malware samples into images. But, more interesting, he explained a technique based on steganography to attack this algorithm. The speaker was a little bit stressed but the idea looks interesting. If you’re interested, have a look at his Github repository.

Back to the first track to follow Professor Andrew Blyth with “The Role of Professionalism and Standards in Penetration Testing“. The penetration testing landscape changed considerably in the last years. We switched to script kiddies search for juicy vulnerabilities to professional services. The problem is that today some pentest projects are required not to detect security issues and improve but just for … compliance requirements. You know the “checked-case” syndrome. Also, the business evolves and is requesting more insurance. The coming GDP European regulation will increase the demand in penetration tests.  But, a real pentest is not a Nessus scan with a new logo as explained Andrew! We need professionalism. In the second part of the talk, Andrew reviewed some standards that involve pentests: iCAST, CBEST, PCI, OWASP, OSSTMM.

After a nice lunch with Greek food, back to talks with the one of Andreas Ntakas and Emmanouil Gavriil about “Detecting and Deceiving the Unknown with Illicium”. They are working for one of the sponsors and presented the tool developed by their company: Illicium. After the introduction, my feeling was that it’s a new honeypot with extended features.  Not only, they are interesting stuff but, IMHO, it was a commercial presentation. I’d expect a demo. Also, the tool looks nice but is dedicated to organization that already reached a mature security level. Indeed, before defeating the attacker, the first step is to properly implement basic controls like… patching! What some organizations still don’t do today!

The next presentation was “I Thought I Saw a |-|4><0.-” by Thomas V. Fisher.  Many interesting tips were provided by Thomas like:

Understand and define “normal” activities on your network to better detect what is “abnormal”.

Log everything!

Know your business

Keep in mind that the classic cyber kill-chain is not always followed by attackers (they don’t follow rules)

The danger is to try to detect malicious stuff based on… assumptions!

The model presented by Thomas was based on 4 A’s: Assess, Analyze, Articulate and Adapt! A very nice talk with plenty of tips!

The next slot was assigned to Ioannis Stais who presented his framework called LightBulb. The idea is to build a framework to help in bypassing common WAF’s (web application firewalls). Ioannis explained first how common WAF’s are working and why they could be bypassed. Instead of testing all possible combinations (brute-force), LightBuld relies on the following process:

Formalize the knowledge in code injection attacks variations.

Expand the knowledge

Cross check for vulnerabilities

Note that LightBulb is available also as a BurpSuipe extension! The code is available here.

Then, Anna Stylianou presented “Car hacking – a real security threat or a media hype?“. The last events that I attended also had a talk about cars but they focused more on abusing the remote control to open doors. Today, it focuses on ECU (“Engine Control Unit”) that are present in modern cars. Today a car might have >100 ECU’s and >100 millions lines of code which means a great attack surface! They are many tools available to attack a car via its CAN bus, even the Metasploit framework can be used to pentest cars today! The talk was not dedicated to a specific attack or tools but was more a recap of the risks that cars manufacturers are facing today. Indeed, threats changed:

theft from the car (breaking a window)

theft of the cat

but today: theft the use of the car (ransomware)

Some infosec gurus also predict that autonomous cars will be used as lethal weapons! As cars can be seen as computers on wheels, the potential attacks are the same: spoofing, tampering, repudiation, disclosure, DoS or privilege escalation issues.

The next slot was assigned to me. I presented “Unity Makes Strength” and explained how to improve interconnections between our security tools/applications. The last talk was performed by Theo Papadopoulos: A “Shortcut” to Red Teaming. He explained how .LNK files can be a nice way to compromize your victim’s computer. I like the “love equation”: Word + Powershell = Love. Step by step, Theo explained how to build a malicious document with a link file, how to avoid mistakes and how to increase chances to get the victim infected. I like the persistence method based on assigning a popular hot-key (like CTRL-V) to shortcut on the desktop. Windows will trigger the malicious script attached to the shortcut and them… execute it (in this case, paste the clipboard content). Evil!

The day ended with the CTF winners announce and many information about the next edition of BSides Athens. They already have plenty of ideas! It’s now time for some off-days across Greece with the family…

[The post BSides Athens 2017 Wrap-Up has been first published on /dev/random]

from Xavier