#but like I said I think it's just two OS fighting for dominance and there's nothing else for me to delete/move to make room ;w;

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The paradox of choice screens

I'm coming to BURNING MAN! On TUESDAY (Aug 27) at 1PM, I'm giving a talk called "DISENSHITTIFY OR DIE!" at PALENQUE NORTE (7&E). On WEDNESDAY (Aug 28) at NOON, I'm doing a "Talking Caterpillar" Q&A at LIMINAL LABS (830&C).

It's official: the DOJ has won its case, and Google is a convicted monopolist. Over the next six months, we're gonna move into the "remedy" phase, where we figure out what the court is going to order Google to do to address its illegal monopoly power:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/08/07/revealed-preferences/#extinguish-v-improve

That's just the beginning, of course. Even if the court orders some big, muscular remedies, we can expect Google to appeal (they've already said they would) and that could drag out the case for years. But that can be a feature, not a bug: a years-long appeal will see Google on its very best behavior, with massive, attendant culture changes inside the company. A Google that's fighting for its life in the appeals court isn't going to be the kind of company that promotes a guy whose strategy for increasing revenue is to make Google Search deliberately worse, so that you will have to do more searches (and see more ads) to get the info you're seeking:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/24/naming-names/#prabhakar-raghavan

It's hard to overstate how much good stuff can emerge from a company that's mired itself in antitrust hell with extended appeals. In 1982, IBM wriggled off the antitrust hook after a 12-year fight that completely transformed the company's approach to business. After more than a decade of being micromanaged by lawyers who wanted to be sure that the company didn't screw up its appeal and anger antitrust enforcers, IBM's executives were totally transformed. When the company made its first PC, it decided to use commodity components (meaning anyone could build a similar PC by buying the same parts), and to buy its OS from an outside vendor called Micros-Soft (meaning competing PCs could use the same OS), and it turned a blind eye to the company that cloned the PC ROM, enabling companies like Dell, Compaq and Gateway to enter the market with "PC clones" that cost less and did more than the official IBM PC:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/08/ibm-pc-compatible-how-adversarial-interoperability-saved-pcs-monopolization

The big question, of course, is whether the court will order Google to break up, say, by selling off Android, its ad-tech stack, and Chrome. That's a question I'll address on another day. For today, I want to think about how to de-monopolize browsers, the key portal to the internet. The world has two extremely dominant browsers, Safari and Chrome, and each of them are owned by an operating system vendor that pre-installs their own browser on their devices and pre-selects them as the default.

Defaults matter. That's a huge part of Judge Mehta's finding in the Google case, where the court saw evidence from Google's own internal research suggesting that people rarely change defaults, meaning that whatever the gadget does out of the box it will likely do forever. This puts a lie to Google's longstanding defense of its monopoly power: "choice is just a click away." Sure, it's just a click away – a click, you're pretty sure no one is ever going to make.

This means that any remedy to Google's browser dominance is going to involve a lot of wrangling about defaults. That's not a new wrangle, either. For many years, regulators and tech companies have tinkered with "choice screens" that were nominally designed to encourage users to try out different browsers and brake the inertia of the big two browsers that came bundled with OSes.

These choice screens have a mixed record. Google's 2019 Android setup choice screen for the European Mobile Application Distribution Agreement somehow managed to result in the vast majority of users sticking with Chrome. Microsoft had a similar experience in 2010 with BrowserChoice.eu, its response to the EU's 2000s-era antitrust action:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BrowserChoice.eu

Does this mean that choice screens don't work? Maybe. The idea of choice screens comes to us from the "choice architecture" world of "nudging," a technocratic pseudoscience that grew to prominence by offering the promise that regulators could make big changes without having to do any real regulating:

https://verfassungsblog.de/nudging-after-the-replication-crisis/

Nudge research is mired in the "replication crisis" (where foundational research findings turn out to be nonreplicable, due to bad research methodology, sloppy analysis, etc) and nudge researchers keep getting caught committing academic fraud:

https://www.ft.com/content/846cc7a5-12ee-4a44-830e-11ad00f224f9

When the first nudgers were caught committing fraud, more than a decade ago, they were assumed to be outliers in an otherwise honest and exciting field:

https://www.npr.org/2016/10/01/496093672/power-poses-co-author-i-do-not-believe-the-effects-are-real

Today, it's hard to find much to salvage from the field. To the extent the field is taken seriously today, it's often due to its critics repeating the claims of its boosters, a process Lee Vinsel calls "criti-hype":

https://sts-news.medium.com/youre-doing-it-wrong-notes-on-criticism-and-technology-hype-18b08b4307e5

For example, the term "dark patterns" lumps together really sneaky tactics with blunt acts of fraud. When you click an "opt out of cookies" button and get a screen that says "Success!" but which has a tiny little "confirm" button on it that you have to click to actually opt out, that's not a "dark pattern," it's just a scam:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/03/27/beware-of-the-leopard/#relentless

By ascribing widespread negative effects to subtle psychological manipulation ("dark patterns") rather than obvious and blatant fraud, we inadvertently elevate "nudging" to a real science, rather than a cult led by scammy fake scientists.

All this raises some empirical questions about choice screens: do they work (in the sense of getting people to break away from defaults), and if so, what's the best way to make them work?

This is an area with a pretty good literature, as it turns out, thanks in part due to some natural experiments, like when Russia forced Google to offer choice screens for Android in 2017, but didn't let Google design that screen. The Russian policy produced a significant switch away from Google's own apps to Russian versions, primarily made by Yandex:

https://cepr.org/publications/dp17779

In 2023, Mozilla Research published a detailed study in which 12,000 people from Germany, Spain and Poland set up simulated mobile and desktop devices with different kinds of choice screens, a project spurred on by the EU's Digital Markets Act, which is going to mandate choice screens starting this year:

https://research.mozilla.org/browser-competition/choicescreen/

I'm spending this week reviewing choice screen literature, and I've just read the Mozilla paper, which I found very interesting, albeit limited. The biggest limitation is that the researchers are getting users to simulate setting up a new device and then asking them how satisfied they are with the experience. That's certainly a question worth researching, but a far more important question is "How do users feel about the setup choices they made later, after living with them on the devices they use every day?" Unfortunately, that's a much more expensive and difficult question to answer, and beyond the scope of this paper.

With that limitation in mind, I'm going to break down the paper's findings here and draw some conclusions about what we should be looking for in any kind of choice screen remedy that comes out of the DOJ antitrust victory over Google.

The first thing note is that people report liking choice screens. When users get to choose their browsers, they expect to be happy with that choice; by contrast, users are skeptical that they'll like the default browser the vendor chose for them. Users don't consider choice screens to be burdensome, and adding a choice screen doesn't appreciably increase setup time.

There are some nuances to this. Users like choice screens during device setup but they don't like choice screens that pop up the first time they use a browser. That makes total sense: "choosing a browser" is colorably part of the "setting up your gadget" task. By contrast, the first time you open a browser on a new device, it's probably to get something else done (e.g. look up how to install a piece of software you used on your old device) and being interrupted with a choice screen at that moment is an unwelcome interruption. This is the psychology behind those obnoxious cookie-consent pop-ups that website bombard you with when you first visit them: you've clicked to that website because you need something it has, and being stuck with a privacy opt-out screen at that moment is predictably frustrating (which is why companies do it, and also why the DMA is going to punish companies that do).

The researchers experimented with different kinds of choice screens, varying the number of browsers on offer and the amount of information given on each. Again, users report that they prefer more choices and more information, and indeed, more choice and more info is correlated with choosing indie, non-default browsers, but this effect size is small (<10%), and no matter what kind of choice screen users get, most of them come away from the experience without absorbing any knowledge about indie browsers.

The order in which browsers are presented has a much larger effect than how many browsers or how much detail is present. People say they want lots of choices, but they usually choose one of the first four options. That said, users who get choice screens say it changes which browser they'd choose as a default.

Some of these contradictions appear to stem from users' fuzziness on what "default browser" means. For an OS vendor, "default browser" is the browser that pops up when you click a link in an email or social media. For most users, "default browser" means "the browser pinned to my home screen."

Where does all this leave us? I think it cashes out to this: choice screens will probably make a appreciable, but not massive, difference in browser dominance. They're cheap to implement, have no major downsides, and are easy to monitor. Choice screens might be needed to address Chrome's dominance even if the court orders Google to break off Chrome and stand it up as a separate business (we don't want any browser monopolies, even if they're not owned by a search monopolist!). So yeah, we should probably make a lot of noise to the effect that the court should order a choice screen, as part of a remedy.

That choice screen should be presented during device setup, with the choices presented in random order – with this caveat: Chrome should never appear in the top four choices.

All of that would help address the browser duopoly, even if it doesn't solve it. I would love to see more market-share for Firefox, which is the browser I've used every day for more than a decade, on my laptop and my phone. Of course, Mozilla has a role to play here. The company says it's going to refocus on browser quality, at the expense of the various side-hustles it's tried, which have ranged from uninteresting to catastrophically flawed:

https://www.fastcompany.com/91167564/mozilla-wants-you-to-love-firefox-again

For example, there was the tool to automatically remove your information from scummy data brokers, that they outsourced to a scummy data-broker:

https://www.theverge.com/2024/3/22/24109116/mozilla-ends-onerep-data-removal-partnership

And there's the "Privacy Preserving Attribution" tracking system that helps advertisers target you with surveillance advertising (in a way that's less invasive than existing techniques). Mozilla rolled this into Firefox on an opt out basis, and made opting out absurdly complicated, suggesting that it knew that it was imposing something on its users that they wouldn't freely choose:

https://blog.privacyguides.org/2024/07/14/mozilla-disappoints-us-yet-again-2/

They've been committing these kinds of unforced errors for more than a decade, seeking some kind of balance between monopolistic web companies and its users' desire to have a browser that protects them from invasive and unfair practices:

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/may/14/firefox-closed-source-drm-video-browser-cory-doctorow

These compromises represent the fallacy that Mozilla's future depends on keeping bullying entertainment companies and Big Tech happy, so it can go on serving its users. At the same time, these compromises have alienated Mozilla's core users, the technical people who were its fiercest evangelists. Those core users are the authority on technical questions for the normies in their life, and they know exactly how cursed it is for Moz to be making these awful compromises.

Moz has hemorrhaged users over the past decade, meaning they have even less leverage over the corporations demanding that they make more compromises. This sets up a doom loop: make a bad compromise, lose users, become more vulnerable to demands for even worse compromises. "This capitulation puts us in a great position to make a stand in some hypothetical future where we don't instantly capitulate again" is a pretty unconvincing proposition.

After the past decade's heartbreaks, seeing Moz under new leadership makes me cautiously hopeful. Like I say, I am dependent on Firefox and want an independent, principled browser vendor that sees their role as producing a "user agent" that is faithful to its users' interests above all else:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/07/treacherous-computing/#rewilding-the-internet

Of course, Moz depends on Google's payment for default search placement for 90% of its revenue. If Google can't pay for this in the future, the org is going to have to find another source of revenue. Perhaps that will be the EU, or foundations, or users. In any of these cases, the org will find it much easier to raise funds if it is standing up for its users – not compromising on their interests.

Community voting for SXSW is live! If you wanna hear RIDA QADRI and me talk about how GIG WORKERS can DISENSHITTIFY their jobs with INTEROPERABILITY, VOTE FOR THIS ONE!

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/2024/08/12/defaults-matter/#make-up-your-mind-already

Image: ICMA Photos (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/icma/3635981474/

CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/

[kingdomoftyto]

Hahahaha I’ve been trying to keep this laptop from hitting its memory cap for probably like a year now (I can count the number of non-essential programs installed on one hand, and they’re all small: Steam, two <300MB games... that’s about it tbh) and I think I’ve finally reached a point where I have no choice but to give in and take it to a computer store to see if they can find a way to help

I think the problem is that Windows is trying to cram the latest Windows 10 update onto whatever the previous operating system was (Windows 8 presumably?), and both OS can’t fit on the computer at the same time? At least I hope that’s all it is, because if not then this laptop is just completely obsolete and I guess it’s done for...

[smolpluto]

How Captain Spaceboy and Sweetheart relate to Sunny's relationship with Mari (theory)

(No, no incest implications, I know the title sounds wrong but no) (Heavy spoilers ahead, read at your own risk)

Ok let me make clear, first of all, that this whole walltext is all made of my own interpretations and I consider none of them to be fact.

I think most players have already noticed references or foreshadowing during moments with captain spaceboy and/or sweetheart (the most commented being the name of spaceboy battle themes). But as I watched more Omori streams, I started to notice small similarities between Captain spaceboy's actions in Headspace and Sunny's actions in real life, specially when it was in regard to Mari. At first I thought it was just me overthinking stuff but by now my brain has cooked it enough for me to want to spill it out. So guess I'll try.

Let's start with the similarities in chronological order:

• Spaceboy dealt with his heartbreak the same way Sunny dealt with Mari's death: he locked himself away from the outside word and refused to even leave his bed;

• The connection between Spaceboy and Sweetheart was the mixtape with their favorite songs. In the same way, the connection between Sunny and Mari was the final duet, the song they practiced over and over together and was never forgotten by Sunny;

• Spaceboy had a second side to him connected to his bottled up emotions (who we fought in the game), just like Sunny developed a second persona (Omori) to hide from the truth;

• After the gang beats him, Spaceboy leaves in order to try healing together with his friends. Sunny left his home for the first time thanks to Kel (if True Route was chosen);

And now Spaceboy's moment ends for a while. Next, we are introduced to the character os Sweetheart:

• Of course, Sweetheart herself is not a variant for Mari, after all she has her own dreamworld variant. But Sweetheart shares Mari's innate flaw: she is a perfectionist. No one else in Headspace shares that trait, not even dream!Mari herself;

• And just like Mari, that flaw is what causes her demise inside of Humphrey, but it seems Sunny's mind inserts a layer of irony in that: even after seeing a perfect copy of herself in front of her, Sweetheart still refused to acknowledge that her search for her perfect suitor was something so idealized she would never reach it. Looking at Mari, her perfectionism pushed Sunny to the point he exploded due to the pressure. He knew he would never be able to reach the level of skill she wanted;

Next time we see one of the two is in Hikkikomori route, as we fight Spaceboy in the mountains:

• One more time, we can notice how Spaceboy's and Sunny's thought processes are similar. After being dumped for the second time, Spaceboy is forced to confront the fact that he will never be good enough for sweetheart. But he cannot accept it, and prefers to end himself, frozen in the mountains. As for Sunny, he cannot accept the fact that he killed Mari and in Hikki Route prefers to hide behind Omori, who eventually chooses to die or go to the city as the dominant personality (and as we know, stabbing Sunny is an option in real life only when Omori is the dominant one).

If we go along with this parallel, a few things gain a new meaning:

• Remember Spaceboy battle themes, "You're wrong, go back" and "You cannot go back"? Looking at them with this walltext in mind, they could reference Spaceboy and Sunny's denial. "That event is wrong, it never happened, go back to when everything was alright" and "it's impossible to go back, it's better to just die";

• Spaceboy's and Sunny's respective ends are opposite depending on the route. If you choose Hikki Route, Spaceboy is saved from his death wish and reunites once again with his friends, while Sunny will most probably suicide. If you choose True Route, Sunny will be able to forgive himself and move on while Spaceboy would eventually meet his demise since the gang never goes to the mountains;

• When we first meet Spaceboy, he had already been dumped by sweetheart once. In the same way, we know from Basil's photo album that Sunny had already given up on playing the violin once as well before the game events. We do not know the reason for that, but considering the gang had to save money to buy a second violin for him, we can be sure that whatever was the reason, it was enough for the first violin to be disposed of. Could Mari have been part of the reason as well?

• After the fight against Sweetheart, Spaceboy invades the scene and proposes to her out of the blue, even though he said he was going to be together with his crew. And it is never shown what caused him to change his mind. Looking at real life, it was never explained what caused Sunny to drop the violin the first time but we do know he took it again anyway because he wanted to spend time with Mari;

Ok, I'm done with my theory. I've seen a lot of people (mainly in reddit and youtube) dismiss spaceboy and sweetheart as an extra excuse for dungeons and don't relate to Sunny's view of his real life in any way. That was my way of saying no, they are as important as all the other foreshadows and references. And I also wrote this because I ABSOLUTELY LOVE reading people's theory walltexts of games I love so I wanted to write one as well. I know there are weak points in this theory (because ofc, it's just a fan theory), but many thabks if you read it this far and kept up with my crazy ideas.

[moonpagesblog]

Diabolik Lovers Lost Eden

Ecstasy Prologo

Monologo

- Os víboras aniquilaram como tribos Adler e Lobo. Reunimos todos no salão para transmitir como Informações aprendidas pelos familiares de Subaru.

Fim do monologo

Cena - Local: corredor do castelo sakamaki

Ruki: ... É isso aí. Mas normalmente é impossível destruir duas raças com Um conjunto de poder.

Ruki: Em outras palavras, esses caras têm uma força conjunta.

Ruki: .... Nesse caso, resta apenas um.

Subaru: Que? Não venha com essa, se apresse e diga

Reiji: --Os humanos nos reinos inferiores, quadro da igreja.

Yui: eh? ......

Yui: (Disse que era a igreja ... aquela onde o pai estava ?!)

Shu: ... Na verdade, esses caras sempre foram dominados pelo velho, há realmente razões

Eles querem aproveitar a oportunidade da ausência do meu pai para reprimir os demônios.

Ruki: Não, não se trata apenas do grau de controle do estresse

As águias que cooperam com a igreja agora vão dominar o mundo demoníaco.

Ayato: Isso é coisa daquele Zwick?

Carla: ........... Este não é o movimento de zwick, alguém está comandando esta guerra.

Shin: Irmão, o que você quer dizer?

Carla: Zwick é um homem racional. Com este movimento, como águias podem ser manipuladas pela igreja.

Shin: Em outras palavras ...

Carla: Bem, é apenas uma questão de tempo até que esses caras ataquem aqui.

Yui: Quão ...

Reiji: Para lutar, também precisamos preparar.

Ruki: Bem, nossos irmãos vão determinar o jardim do Éden e sentido a rota da batalha

Carla: Pedirem a shin para verificar as informações disponíveis.

Shin: Entendi, irmão.

Reiji: Subaru, ligue aqui para os servos que foram chamados em nijuan

Precisaremos providenciar para dispersar os guardas

Subaru: ...... Entendido

Reiji: Primeiro, você é o rei dos vampiros

Por favor, dê a alguém a ordem do servo.

Subaru: Então ....

Ayato e Kanato quero deixar isso para vocês posso?

Kanato: Hm, eu entendi

Porque eu sou irmão de subaru, eu aceitarei

Ayato: .... Realmente não tem jeito

Reiji: O resto por favor me siga.

Vamos verificar as armas armazenadas no armazém

~Todos saem do local

Yui: (É incrível ... Todos unidos em um instante)

Yui: (A partir de então, este lugar se tornará realmente Um campo de batalha.)

Yui: (mas eu)

Yui: .......

Yui: (Se é o poder da igreja que coopera com o clã águia ... Vou lutar contra meu pai se isso continuar)

Yui: (pai .....)

Subaru: .......

Subaru se aproxima dela

Yui: Subaru .....

Subaru: Faça o que quiser

Eu ... Não vou objetar

Yui: ......

Yui: (Subaru-kun ... Sabe que meu pai trabalha no poder da igreja)

Yui: (Sei que isso vai me machucar Se ... De acordo com isso, esse assunto se torna certo ...)

Yui: (Então agora, confirmando assim ...)

Monologo

- Mas, para ser sincero, Estou muito confuso,

Não há nada de errado em gostar De subaru.

No entanto, desde então, Na situação em que Humanos e demônios entram em guerra ... 

Fim do Monologo.

Yui: Preocupado com meus pensamentos ...

Yui: Obrigada subaru ....

Yui: Porque agora nem sei qual é a situação do pai, Mesmo que haja muitas outras pessoas na igreja.

Subaru: ...... Entendo.

Subaru: Ainda há tempo. O que você faz, pense sobre isso.

Yui: .... Entendo

Yui: (Embora seja natural se misturar, mas eu sou humano)

Yui: (Ao contrário dos familiares, mesmo com o coração de cordelia, eu Não sou um demônio ...)

-> Desbotamento preto

Monologo

- Foi no dia seguinte que os servos chegaram ao Éden Do castelo sakamaki.

Agora estou dedicado a cuidar deles e dar-lhes orientação, E agora sou grato por passar um dia sem pensar nas coisas difíceis.

Fim do monologo.

Yui: (Subaru e meu pai)

Yui: (Qual o caminho a escolher ... Não posso escolher ...)

-> Desbotamento preto

Subaru: ..... Ahh

Empregada: Mestre subaru!

Ela corre até ele.

Empregada: Finalmente vejo você! Há tempo agora, como você está?

Subaru: Você é ... Uma empregada que trabalha com minha mãe? Qual é o problema?

Empregada: Na verdade, há algo que eu sempre quis dar Ao mestre subaru

Subaru: isto é ......

Empregada: É uma foto considerada como um tesouro Pela Christa-sama, ela cuidava como se fosse um tesouro.

Empregada: Ela queria entregar ao mestre subaru.

Empregada: É ótimo ser entregue por mim assim .... Então, vou me retirar primeiro.

Subaru: ........

Subaru: (Peguei ... Pai e mãe ... E ... Quando eu era criança)

Subaru: (Tesouro ...)

Subaru: .... Tsc ....

Flashback

Carla: ...essa é a voz do éden?...

Quando eu era pequeno, ouvi dizer que meu pai falava Do yota, dizendo-o bêbado.

Quando meu pai  quis ser fechado em Manmaden

Quando eu o visitei aqui, ouvi uma voz

O pai zombou disso como a voz de Karl Heinz.

Depois desse boato, por algum motivo ele manteve sua esposa E filhos afastados e os colocou sozinhos no éden.

Fim do Flashback

Subaru: (Poderia ser ...)

Subaru: ( ele se atreveu a começara enrolar a mim e ás safras...?)

Subaru: .... tsc .....

-barulhos estranhos.-

Subaru: .... Muito chato! Eu te disse para calar a boca!

-barulhos estranhos.-

Subaru: ..... Tsc ......

Monologo do Subaru

O grito ecoou, e eu bloqueei meus ouvidos sem pensar

Eu não entendi.

Estou prestes a perder o velho que conheci, que odeio E devo superar.

Errado.

Errado. Errado. Errado.

Não achei que aquele fosse lamentável Eu não tive simpatia.

A emoção circulando na minha cabeça Me sacudiu violentamente ...

Fim do monologo.

??? : Há? Não é o subaru-kun? Há quanto tempo

Subaru: ..... Você! O que você está fazendo aqui!

Kino: Hmm .... É o chamado ... Declarar guerra?

Kino: Nós .... as quadro das águias e da igreja estamos unidas

Subaru: Hã ?!

Kino: .... Mas antes disso, há pessoas que não querem se envolver

Subaru: Quem não quer se envolver?

Kino: Correção. Existe o pai dessa criança em nossa igreja

Subaru: .... tsc!

Kino: Agora, essa garota está pronta para se refugiar em Sua consciência?

Subaru: .......

Kino: Se isso continuar, mesmo que não seja direto, também não colocaria A criança em perigo?

Kino: Embora eu não tenha parentes, não entendo. Essa é a coisa certa?

Subaru: .... Tsc ....

Kino: Então, amanhã à noite, traga essa garota para mim

Subaru: ... Hã ?!

Kino: Bem, isso pode ser feito sem proteção? Mas nesse caso, uma criança pode se tornar uma tragédia.

Subaru: .....

Kino: Aqui está um mapa do ponto de encontro.

Kino: Então, vamos fazer isso primeiro, estou ansioso por Um bom resultado.

Kino vai embora

Subaru: ..... !!

Subaru: Droga .... Droga! Droga! Droga!

-Barulhos estranhos

-> Desbotamento preto

Cena: Jardim / Lua vermelha

Yui: .... ugh

Yui: (Subaru e meu pai ... Não posso decidir qual caminho escolher ...)

Yui: (o que devo fazer ...)

Fim do prologo Ecstasy.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ecstasy Prologo

Monologue

- The vivoras annihilated the Adler and Lobo tribes. We gathered everyone in the hall to transmit the Information learned by Subaru family members.

End of monologue

Cena - Location: sakamaki castle corridor

Ruki: ... That's it. But it is usually impossible to destroy two races with A set of power.

Ruki: In other words, these guys have a joint strength.

Ruki: .... In that case, there is only one left.

Subaru: What? Don't come with this, hurry up and say

Reiji: - Humans in the lower kingdoms, forces of the church.

Yui: eh? ......

Yui: (Said it was the church ... the one where the father was ?!)

Shu: ... In fact, these guys have always been dominated by the old man, there are really reasons

They want to take the opportunity of my father's absence to repress the demons.

Ruki: No, it's not just about the degree of stress control

The eagles that cooperate with the church will now dominate the demonic world.

Ayato: Is that Zwick's thing?

Carla: ........... This is not the zwick movement, someone is leading this war.

Shin: Brother, what do you mean?

Carla: Zwick is a rational man. With this movement, the eagles can be manipulated by the church.

Shin: In other words ...

Carla: Well, it's only a matter of time before these guys attack here.

Yui: How ...

Reiji: To fight, we also need to prepare.

Ruki: Well, our brothers are going to determine the garden of Eden and understand the battle route

Carla: Ask shin to check the information available.

Shin: Got it, brother.

Reiji: Subaru, call the servants who stayed in Nijuan here

We will need to arrange to disperse the guards

Subaru: ...... Understood

Reiji: First, you are the king of vampires

Please give someone the order of the servant.

Subaru: So ....

Ayato and Kanato want to leave this to you guys can I?

Kanato: Hm, I get it

Because I am Subaru's brother, I will accept

Ayato: .... There's really no way

Reiji: The rest please follow me.

We will check the weapons stored in the warehouse

Everyone leaves the place

Yui: (It's incredible ... Everyone together in an instant)

Yui: (From then on, this place will become really A battlefield.)

Yui: (but me)

Yui: .......

Yui: (If it is the power of the church that cooperates with the eagle clan ... I will fight my father if this continues)

Yui: (dad .....)

Subaru: .......

Subaru approaches her

Yui: Subaru .....

Subaru: Do what you want

I ... I will not object

Yui: ......

Yui: (Subaru-kun ... You know my father works in the power of the church)

Yui: (I know it will hurt me If ... According to this, this matter becomes certain ...)

Yui: (So now, confirming like this ...)

Monologue

- But to be honest, I'm very confused,

There's nothing wrong with liking From subaru.

However, since then, In the situation where Humans and demons go to war ... S

End of the Monologue.

Yui: Worried about my thoughts ...

Yui: Thanks subaru ....

Yui: Because now I don't even know what the father's situation is, Even though there are many other people in the church.

Subaru: ...... I see.

Subaru: There is still time. Whatever you do, think about it.

Yui: .... I see

Yui: (Although it is natural to mix, but I am human)

Yui: (Unlike family members, even with the heart of cordelia, I I'm not a demon ...)

-> Black fade

Monologue

- It was the next day that the servants arrived in Eden From the sakamaki castle.

Now I’m dedicated to taking care of them and giving them guidance, And now I am grateful to spend a day without thinking about the difficult things.

End of the monologue.

Yui: (Subaru and my father)

Yui: (Which way to choose ... I can't choose ...)

-> Black fade

Subaru: ..... Ahh

Maid: Master subaru!

She runs up to him.

Maid: I finally see you! There is time now, how are you?

Subaru: Are you ... a maid who works with my mother? What is the problem?

Maid: Actually, there is something I always wanted to give To the subaru master

CG begins

Subaru: this is ......

Maid: It is a photo considered as a treasure For Christa-sama, she cared as if she were a treasure.

Maid: She wanted to deliver to the subaru master.

Maid: It's great to be delivered by me like this .... So, I'm going to retire first.

Subaru: ........

Subaru: (I took ... Father and mother ... And ... When I was a child)

Subaru: (Treasure ...)

Subaru: .... Tsc ....

Flashback

Carla: ... is that the voice of Eden? ...

When I was little, I heard that my father spoke From yota, saying you are drunk.

When my father wanted to be closed in Manmaden

When I visited him here, I heard a voice

The father scoffed at this like Karl Heinz's voice.

After that rumor, for some reason he kept his wife And separated children and placed them alone in Eden.

End of Flashback

Subaru: (Could be ...)

Subaru: .... tsc .....

-Strange noises.-

Subaru: .... Very annoying! I told you to shut up!

-Strange noises.-

Subaru: ..... Tsc ......

Subaru Monologue

The scream echoed, and I blocked my ears without thinking

I did not understand.

I'm about to lose the old man I met, who I hate And I must overcome.

Wrong.

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

I didn't think that was regrettable I had no sympathy.

The emotion circulating in my head It shook me violently ...

End of the monologue.

??? : There is? Isn't that subaru-kun How long

Subaru: ..... You! What are you doing here!

Kino: Hmm ... It's the so-called ... Declare war?

Kino: We ... the forces of eagles and the church are united

Subaru: Huh ?!

Kino: .... But before that, there are people who don't want to get involved

Subaru: Who doesn't want to get involved?

Kino: Correction. There is this child's father in our church

Subaru: .... tsc!

Kino: Now, this girl is ready to take refuge in Your conscience?

Subaru: .......

Kino: If this continues, even if it’s not direct, it wouldn’t put The child in danger?

Kino: Although I don't have any relatives, I don't understand. Is that the right thing?

Subaru: .... Tsc ....

Kino: So, tomorrow night, bring this girl to me

Subaru: ... Huh ?!

Kino: Well, can this be done without protection? But in that case, the child can become a tragedy.

Subaru: .....

Kino: Here is a map of the meeting place.

Kino: So, let's do this first, I'm looking forward to A good result.

Kino goes away

Subaru: ..... !!

Subaru: Damn it .... Damn it! Damn it! Damn it!

-Strange noises

-> Black fade

Scene: Garden / Red Moon

Yui: .... ugh

Yui: (Subaru and my father ... I can't decide which way to choose ...)

Yui: (what should I do ...)

End of the Ecstasy prologue.

[beyoncesdragon]

Dear to me too (Anakin x reader)

Requested: Nope

Warnings: none, I suppose. (mY pUns) 

Summary: You simply slipped with your words, really. And yet, he had somehow heard it. 

A/n: Uh hi? this is my first OS here on Tumblr so pls be nice? I don’t even know if there are more to come (probably) I am really just testing out the waters here. and yeah. all the love, nica :)

My Masterlist 

(Anie are you okay?)

I could still feel the energy of the force running through my body when I left the wide training room. Today’s lesson had been exhausting to say the least. Master Drallig had practiced Form IV of lightsaber combat, called Ataru today. It wasn’t exactly my kind of fighting style, due to its very aggressive and force dependent nature.

Those who used Form IV successfully could move at high speeds and could rain strong blows, jumping and attacking through the air. Powerful and quick spinning attacks could be utilized from all angles, either from ground or air. A master in Ataru combat could appear like a blur to their opponents, attacking from all directions—certainly not my future style of fighting. It wasn’t like I couldn’t afford using the force so intensely it was just that I just was not active and agile enough to practice it. Which was, of course, a shame some say. I however didn’t mind it, and I obviously still wouldn’t turn down a lesson in Ataru. I just preferred the more fluent style of fighting, Makashi called.

Movements were often elegant, precise, calm, making you feel confident with your blade and of course, using the force, though rarely used. Besides, looking at two Jedi’s fighting in Makashi was a wonderful spectacle, since they looked so relaxed when they were fighting, it even appeared as if they were dancing. Yet it was a very free form of fighting, since movement pattern and certain steps could (if you then were that good) turn out to be predictable somehow.

Long story short: the aggressive Ataru had worn me out and I almost wished for a calming bath and maybe a brief break for me to head over to the meditation wing. However, after Master Drallig had dismissed me from today’s training (not without a reminder not to get too comfortable in just a single form of combat) the day wasn’t entirely over for me just now. I still had to do two little things: one was request an intergalactic trip to Crait for research purposes. I really wanted to somehow catch a glimpse of the infamous crystal foxes. But since I was only a Padawan, I would have to propose my plans and intentions and get my Jedi master to come with me. But knowing Master Drallig would come with me anyways, the only thing I had to do now, was ask the council.

Oh and the other thing was eat. Since I had skipped lunch due to my own forgetfulness, I now felt my stomach grumble at every move. That was not really something I could left undone, so I had to somehow get something to eat before communal dinner. The question was only, where would I get something now and couldn’t it wait until I proposed my plans to the council. It wasn’t far to the towers, surely, but….my stomach grumbled again and I sighed, slowly turning towards the direction I’d go if it was lunch or dinner time: the huge dinning complex. Before I could start walking towards it though, I heard the forceful shut of sliding doors, as if someone would’ve helped them close with force. I turned around, almost immediately facing a fuming looking Anakin Skywalker stomping down the hallways.

“Anie! How have you…are you okay?” I couldn’t help the smile that appeared on my face, the second I spotted him. I liked Anakin a lot, he was a good friend to me and a marvellous combat partner. Not to mention his other praised talents…and he was two years above me, in training and rank. As far as I knew was he soon to be a Jedi Master himself. “Yeah I’m…good.” He pressed out, anger radiating from him. “What happened?” I asked carefully, placing my hand on his arm. He turned his eyes away from me, staring angrily into the misty sky. “I’ve been offered a place in the council.” He suddenly said, still not looking at me. I rose my eyebrows. “That is wonderful Anie, is it not? Didn’t you always wanted to get there?” he said nothing only gulped heavily. “I’ve been denied the rank of master however.” “What? Why?” I was seriously surprised: in my eyes, Anakin had proved often enough how worthy he was of that title. The fact that they would him serve in council but denied his deserved title was a great insult and he had any reason to be angry.

Anakin only shook his head, still staring out of the windows. “Oh Anie…” I sighed, carefully wrapping my arms around his tensed body. He flinched softly, eyes immediately snapping down to me. “Do you feel sorry for me now?” I tilted my head. I had to be careful now, because as much as I liked him, he could be like a fire storm when he was angry. And I did not plan on fuelling this fire. “Not…sorry. I feel angry for you. I don’t understand how they could insult you the way they did…but not pity, Anakin. You are worth more than that in my eyes.” I could almost feel how he relaxed at that answer, slowly raising his arms to embrace me as well. “What am I then?” he asked, curiosity clearly audible beneath a thin layer of amused sarcasm. “A great friend.” I replied simply, trying not to give too much of my feelings towards him away. As good of a friend he was to me, the longer I knew him the less I wanted to be only his friend…but preferably a bit more than that. “A great friend and a cocky twat at times.” He laughed surprised. “Only because I beat you at combat every time.” I huffed, stepping back from him before crossing my arms over my chest. “Oh yeah? Just so you know, I did have Atarulessons today again, so no easy win for you and your brute…Djem So slicer skills.” Obviously, I still was in disadvantage against him, Ataru or not. Djem So, or Form V required a higher level of physical strength than the other lightsaber forms, due to its focus on complete domination of its practitioners' opponents. Now, Anakin seemed to have mastered this very form to perfection even though it was considered the most physically demanding of all the forms. My deepened studies in Makashi couldn’t hold nothing against this brute and dominant style of fighting, my limited skills in Ataru would only do so much. Oh and he towered me, which was my go-to excuse for getting my ass kicked once again.

“Ataru you say? You think that’s going to help you?” I huffed, playfully grabbing my lightsaber. His eyes immediately sparked up. “Betting on getting flung across the combat arena once again Padawan?” I huffed, nodding at him quickly. “All bark no bite Jedi. Get it on!” Anakin grinned innocently before suddenly something pulled me towards him, he grabbed my waist and stormed towards the doors of the combat arena I just stepped out of about twenty minutes ago. “As you wish, youngling.” He taunted, a mocking smile on his face. “That was so unnecessary I could’ve walked. It was about ten steps at max. and I am not a youngling, you arrogant bastard.” He only laughed before his lightsaber gleamed in its blue light, immediately met by mine. “Eager to attack. Unlike you. Very like Drallig.”

It was almost scary how fast Anakin nit-picked every single of my moves apart, so that I soon had to switch back into Makashi in order to hold him off. Soon he had be pushed at the edge of the ring, a smug look on his face. “Giving up now, princess? This cannot end in a victory for you…again, might I add.” I huffed in annoyance, trying to shove him off but it just wouldn’t work. This bulky, smug and irritatingly attractive giant of a man just wouldn’t budge. “Dammit Skywalker.” I cursed before lowering my weapon in surrender. “Shh there are kids here.” He was right: a small crowd of youngling had gathered near our ring, watching with big eyes. Not far behind them stood Shaak Ti, a Jedi master which was part of the high council. I had only seen her a few times up close and not exchanged more than three words with her, but she had my greatest respect. “Master.” I bowed respectfully, before feeling Anakin’s amused eyes on me. “Suddenly so…tame.” He taunted quietly, lips curling up in a smirk. “Shut it, the children.” I hissed back, before turning back toward the bunch of kids. A little girl with blue skin and bright hazel eyes shuffled her feet nervously. I recognised her as a Twi’lek, a inhabitant of a planet called Ryloth. “Are you a Jedi, Master?” she suddenly asked, not being able to stay quiet. I laughed softly, carefully grabbing the thin braid that still hung in between my hair. “Padawan, youngling. I am yet to be knighted, actually. But it’s not long anymore. Maybe I’ll get you as my Padawan if the time comes.” That inflicted excited whispering among those little dwarfs and I chuckled. “Is he then a Jedi Master?” the girl whispered quietly, big eyes glimpsing over at Anakin. “The best.” I winked, lowering my voice to a whisper. Anakin didn’t needed to hear this, his ego was big enough. The girl made even bigger eyes. “Is he your master then?” I shook my head quickly. “No just…very dear to me. You don’t have to be Master and Padawan to use the training field. We just spend our time.” The girl nodded, looking back over her shoulders. The rest of the group had now gathered around Shaak Ti again. “What is your name?” I asked softly, reaching out my hand. “Aayala Secura.” She whispered almost shyly, carefully grabbing my hand. “Nice to meet you, Aayala. But you better go now, it’s been a pleasure to speak to you.” She beamed in joy before joining her group, looking over her shoulders again and again.

“The best huh?” Anakin teased almost immediately and I rolled my eyes. “I knew I should’ve said that.” He grinned innocently. “No why, it was very flattering. Hungry?” I tilted my head. “Your ability to switch topic is outstanding. But yes, I am. Very much so actually, I skipped lunch.” He rose his eyebrow, leading out of the combat room by having his hand placed on my lower back. “How so?” I shrugged. “New A-Wings arrived today. I was not only smitten but also allowed to help.” Anakin laughed, a sound that made my heart skip. “Well then…let’s get something to eat for my exhausted Padawan.” There was it again. That smug, know it all, heard it all look. I could feel my cheeks grow hot and shook my head. He only smirked before placing an arm around my shoulders. “Thank you for this. Oh and by the way: you are very dear to me too.” That followed by one of his infamous winks and I wished a battledroid would blast me off the surface of this planet. 

But…it was good to know, at least.

[ajokeformur-ray]

Self Shipping Ask Game

I’m feeling self-indulgent as all hell so I did another one, with Patrick Verona this time!! 💙 I’m starting to lose track of my F/Os...

Tagging @jokershyena​ so she can see!

Word count: 2, 253 (lmao woops?)

Date you got together? April 24th 2020. We are... a very new couple and we’re still finding our way with what we have together. It feels like stepping into shoes you’ve worn a thousand times before, but the soles are different; there’s new marks left behind and we’re finding out what they mean slowly but surely. We have lots of love between us and we’re letting it guide us.

Favorite personality trait? I love Pat for all that he is, but if I have to pick just one thing then it’s his nature. He feels like... you know when you lay down outside on the grass or the beach and there’s a gentle breeze in your hair and the sun is warm on your face and your eyes are shut and you feel yourself smiling because this is why you’re alive, for moments like this? That’s how Pat feels to me, all the time. 

Favorite physical trait? His smile. I almost said his eyes but, oh... that smile makes flowers bloom in my heart. I would die to keep that smile on his face. He’s so beautiful and those dimples and his eyes, I... he’s so beautiful. 🥺 

Couple song We don’t have one yet. I’m still looking for the perfect one. I often listen to I want you to want me from the soundtrack when I want to feel him close by, just because it makes me think of him, so maybe that one? 

Pet peeves... He likes to leave his switchblade open and lying in random places and it freaks me out. I don’t even like kitchen knives near me and there he is, leaving it stabbed into the coffee table pinning a note for me to the surface. Sure, it’s convenient to just grab his knife out of his pocket and it’s a good way to get my attention, the silver glinting of the blade in the light of the room, but still.

Favorite outfit on them? As much as I adore those leather trousers, it has to be the dark grey shirt with the chain poking out... just him putting it on in the morning and the cold metal against his skin contrasted with the heat on my tongue... *ahem*

Favorite meal? Pat and I eat separately; I have coeliacs disease and Pat’s lucky enough to not have any food allergies so I always make us separate meals. I make his first, scrub down the kitchen and then I do my own food. Pat likes the tuna pasta bake I make; the golden crust of cheese on the top is his favourite and I always give him the corner bits; he likes the cronch. He always says I can just make one meal which is gluten free but I don’t feel right doing that to someone who doesn’t share my dietary requirements.

Early bird or night owl? Pat’s definitely a night owl, so long late night conversations where the two of us lay down in bed together are very common. I stay up every night for him to come home from the pub and then he showers (no dirty sweaty bodies in my bed, thank you) and we cuddle up in bed and just... talk. Sometimes we just lay there listening to music. Neither of us especially like mornings and it’s not unusual to wake up at noon or afterwards 😂

Snorer or sleep talker? Pat snores very lightly most of the time but when he’s deeply, deeply asleep, he sounds like a chainsaw lmao. I like that, though, because even though it makes the bed shake a bit, I know that he’s there with me and it eases my fears of the dark. I have my nightlights but I don’t need music because I know he’s there for me and he’ll keep me safe. Sometimes he’ll mutter unintelligibly as he rolls over and it’s always right in my ear and I have to try not to jump 😂

Do you have any pets together? Not yet! 💕 I wanna get some cats with him in the future; they’re such precious creatures. Pat wants a dog but between him and a dog I’d never get any free or alone time 😂 and I’m protective of both of those things.

Pet names! (Both from them and yours for them) I call him Pat mostly, but other times it’s “sunshine”, “baby boy” for when he needs comforting, “angel”, “darling”, “love” and he knows I’m angry/mad if I call him Patrick ksksksk it gets his attention so quickly. 

Pat calls me “sweetheart”, “angel”, “love” (saved for when he’s being sarcastic, it’s like a hint I need to Do Something Soon) “honey”, “girlie” and by my name when he thinks he has to.

How often do you fight? Not... very often. We have playful banter more than anything. We do fight, that’s normal and healthy, but we try to talk things out calmly rather than go at it and risk saying something we can’t take back. Words have greater power than people know, and where the sword cuts and forgets does the tree fall and remember.

What starts fights? For me, Pat gets angry at my blatant lack of self-care and it angers him to see me treat myself as I do (or don’t, more accurately) but to shower others in love. He doesn’t understand why and it frustrates him. I struggle to explain myself properly so then I get frustrated and it can lead into a whole thing lmao the tears start when he raises his voice so he usually calms down pretty quickly. And as I said, we prefer to speak it through calmly so we’ll go calm down separately and meet in the middle later on. He knows he’s forgiven when I throw myself at him and smother him in kisses.

For Pat, I don’t get angry very often or very easily but when I do, it’s because he was out for so long that I started thinking he’d died or was injured or something and he didn’t text me to let me know and though I don’t want to control him I also don’t enjoy staying up worrying he’s dying in an alley somewhere. So when he gets home I’m a bit... colder in how I greet him and then Pat gets defensive and eesh 😬 In the end, he’ll sigh and I’ll apologise and he’ll get irritated and we cuddle and talk it out. I’ll know I’m forgiven when he kisses my forehead.

Who apologizes first? Me. I will always apologise first, even if I was right. I cannot handle any kind of conflict or confrontation and due to things which have occured in the past I will always just... take it. I’ll just apologise, and get it over with, and hope it all smooths over quickly. Pat gently tells me off when I do this, “No, Erika. I’m the one apologising, not you.” and I usually get upset so we have some cuddle therapy - our touches speak louder and more concisely than we ever could. 

Big spoon or little spoon? asdfghjkl; we switch depending on who needs or wants what! Whomever needs comforting, the other is the big spoon and on the times we both need comforting or we just can’t decide who is either spoon, we lay facing each other so that we’re both the little and the big spoon at the same time! Problem solved! <3 

Dom or sub? Pat’s a switch; it depends on what either of us needs the most in any given moment. For the most part he’s dominant; I can be really shy sometimes and I have no idea what I’m doing with anything, so he tends to take the lead... before we realise that we’d rather walk into undiscovered territory together, hand in hand the way it should be.

What are their kisses like? They’re somehow comforting but intense. He kisses me so tenderly it can make me cry but it’s so passionate that it leaves me breathless. He commands my lips against his and he both takes and gives in equal measure. Pat is a passionate, compassionate soul and it comes through every time he kisses me; like he, too, is coming home.  He never kisses just once - just one sentence can hold a multitude of kisses. And the ghost of his lips against my skin lingers for hours after he’s gone home. He’s always with me, in one or another.

What do they smell like? Apples, leather, whiskey, stale cigarette smoke... and something spicy but so Patrick. If I concentrate, I can find it when I nuzzle into his neck.

What are their hugs like? Coming home. He always hugs me so tightly that I can feel those lost parts of me click back into place. I’m a known squeezer and he playfully grunts in my ear and it makes me smile and he squeezes back and it makes me giggle. Pat sighs happily and drops his head down into the crook of my neck and he rocks me from side to side... I’ve been known to fall asleep standing up in the safety of his embrace. He’s my home, nothing and no one make me feel as safe as he does. 

Who is more protective? I think we’re both as protective as each other. I have a mean streak when my loved ones are threatened or in any kind of danger and I’m not afraid to stand up for Pat against rumours, even if he’s not with me at the time. I hate confrontation but for my loved ones, I’d walk straight through fire if I had to. Similarly, Pat gets easily defensive and seems to have a bit of a temper as well so if anything happened to me, he’d get protective. I also... feel like we protect each other from our own selves, sometimes. I have some Bad Habits and so does Pat and neither of us are afraid to tell the other when we’re hurting ourselves and need to stop... like right now, it’s way past midnight and I’m yawning every few minutes but I’m pushing through to write this. Pat’s frowning and wanting to take my laptop away.

Interested in children? Pat might be... when he’s older. But he knows my stance on this topic and we never talk about it. 

Who needs the most TLC when sick? Pat. OMG he tries to work through it, to walk it off, but I can see. I do the same thing, I always pretend I’m not sick until it’s so obvious that I just can’t hide it. Pat’s a natural caregiver, he’s so used to taking care of others and that’s exactly why I deliberately go overboard when I take care of him. I buy every kind of medicine specific to his illness (and I dip into my savings but shush, don’t tell!), and I make him soup and I’m there for him and I make it known that I love him. I’m usually squeamish with sickness, even when it’s my own, but for Pat I push through and I try because he deserves nothing less than the best of everything I can give him.

Who says ‘I love you’ first? Mmm.... I think Pat said it first. He has more confidence in what we share together than I do and one day when I came through with his favourite meal and I had my own one, I sat down and he said, “I love you, d’you know that?” I just blinked at him a few times in shock and he said it again... and again... and again until I just had to put my food down so that I could grab that beautiful face and swallow his next words; he is... ethereal and I’ll never understand why he loves me but I’m so, so glad that he does! I said it back, of course I did, and his smile was brighter than the sun.

Which of you is more accident prone? Meeeee ~ omg lmao I always have bruises I don’t even remember getting. Pat gets frowny because I sit there poking them hoping the slight pain will trigger a memory of how I got the bruise, but I rarely remember. I’m forever bouncing off door frames, walking into tables, tripping over my own feet while I’m stood still... Pat finds it funny and sometimes when I actually trip he’ll say something like, “I know you fell for me, but, ah - did you have to show me, too?” or “How’s the world from down there?” and once... once, he laughed and laid down next to me on the floor and we just stared up at the ceiling and we just... were for a time. It’s a memory I cherish.

Bed hog? OMG me, hands down. Pat tends to lay on his back and I put my head on his chest so that I can listen to his heartbeat or I nuzzle into the crook of his neck, but it’s not unusual for me to wake up with my duvet on the floor and the sheets all over the place. I’ve been known to actually kick in my sleep and sometimes I wake up with bruises I don’t recall getting. Pat wraps himself around me like a koala when I move around too much because a) shitty mattress and b) I drink 18 coffees a day and in this way, I’m able to fall asleep quicker and in a more relaxed way. If I fall asleep relaxed, I move around far less when I’m asleep. I don’t know how Pat figured that out and he won’t tell me, either.

Who loves the other the most? We’re a very new couple and we’re finding our way with each other and our relationship, but I do think that I love Pat a little bit more than he loves me. But that’s okay; statistically, one is always loved a bit more than the other. I have trouble believing we’re even compatible because ??? look at him ??? and then look at me ??? and it drives Pat insane.

[arkus-rhapsode]

Fairy Tail 100 Years Quest Chapter 12 Review

Oh my god... What the heck is even going on?

So our cover page is Natsu and Lucy, and Natsu I hope you enjoy that brain freeze.

So we open on Jellal confronting Touka. We learn like how Avatar was devoted to black magic there was a group devoted to white magic. Now this is cool, but literally if you watch the anime recently, that arc was done in 5 episodes. So this feels really odd on how much effort is being put into it.

Like if there was like something tying into Tenrou or hell edolas, that make more sense, given all thee time on it.

So Jellal describes White magic as a philosophy of nothingness, which that doesn’t make sense. Fans of yugioh gx might compare this the darkness and light in that series and how darkness led to creation while light was subjugation. But Black magic is clearly about ending life or manipulating life. I guess you could dumb it down to all life, but literal Ankherseram black magic is portrayed as nothing but death. So wouldn’t white be about life? I guess nothingness as life without personality isn’t wrong,  but this feels like a stretch.

Also, Mashima said anyone could learn any type of magic. So why is that an abnormality? Like if this was Black Clover where you are assigned a single affinity that be one thing.

Suddenly Laxus steps in, and want to make this clear. I don’t exactly hate the idea behind this. That Laxus wants to defend someonew ho is a part of his family, given his new found view on FT, and its using the family aspect of FT on its head. Someone bad could be using FT’s family mentality for personal benefit. Which is interesting.

Okay, well Jellal has a reason, she is  suspect and as a guild master he has authority to take her in. However, Laxus you of all people know that people in your guild will still harm it.

On the one hand im torn, the shounen loving half of my brain wants to see this fight. But the logical half says that these two are mature adults with enough common sense to take this to the run knights. And confrontation is over after this page.

Yeah for a chapter named after the two, its got very little to do with theem. Instead.... The worst thing in the chapter happens. We cut to Diablos’ ship and we see this.

Yes you are seeing this right. For people who were saying I was to harsh, calling this a submissive Erza fetish that Mashima is putting out, I ask you read this chapter.

You know I can’t tell if Skullion means this is temporary as in terms of magic, or temporary as Kyria will grow bored, but I do know that this is nothing but sick and tastess. Also props to Madmorel for having some class to be disgusted by the perv in the group. Like that is becoming a rarity these days.

We are guided down to the lower deck where natsu and wendy are being held, the motion sickness keeping them in check.

I’ve been putting this off long enough, its time to rant. This is bull shit. People told me, i was too harsh on mashima, but at the least I thought this was some sort of temporary thing that was meant so Kyria could get a win in a fight, but this might be some permanent magic effect feels disgusting.

Now, people say that this happened cause people would rag on Erza, called Erza fights awful, and that now Mashima is going in the complete opposite dirction. You didn’t like strong erza, fine! Here’s weak Erza, you happy cynics?

But that’s not the case. People didn’t like Erza because she was “too strong” she was someoone who went from this amazing badass female character, to this static friendship speech spewing tool that never truly got any development. Its painful for people to see a character like Erza not grow after she had developed so much in ToH, but it just was never followed through. All the times she won just felt like a poor spectacle without any character behind it.

Now you could say an erza who needs to get her strength back could be character development. No. Cutting away a person’s strength with “magic” is not character development, its forced regression. Its the author literally creating an unrealistic situation bcause he has no idea what to do with her  after ToH, hell he can’t even fully commit to a love story between her and jellal.

When Erza came onto the scene, she was cool, in control, yet could over react at times. To see her be pushed to her lowest by ToH and then recover and face midnight in OS, is peak Erza character shining through. That this is how erza’s development deserved to be treated. But Watching Erza crawl on the ground, be spanked, and cry for mercy like a hentai doll, all because of plot convince magic is so gross to me. Its ejecting the Erza that we all love and stripping her of all that personality just for this.

So if you blame this development on people who were too hard on Mashima about how he was writing Erza, I, a critic and very judgemental person, find this worse than any of the nakama power or skimpy armors.

Erza being trapped in Kyoka’s sex dungeon was bad, but you know what, EErza actievly resisted it. She didn’t want to be there aand tried to fight back. It wasn’t handled well, but that t least felt like whatt her character would do in this situation. But this was forced upon her and this is nothing more than an Erza made for this arc.

Also, lets step out of this and look at this from the meta perspective that this is also extremely lazy. In Eden’s zero there’s a villain who is all about subjugating women right now, and Mashima couldn’t be bothered to not let that bleeed into his other work. If that doesn’t scream creately lazy, than I don’t know what will. Also that frog thing in Eden’s zero is actuaally better giveen the fact he’s not mind bending away personality, he’s forcibly turning them in statues to do with what he pleases against their will.

Im not saying this cause im anti ecchi or that im anti  mashima, im anti such a hack story writting device that weather you stuck it out as a fan of erza’s till the end of FT or liked her at first but than soured on her, I ask, would you tolerate this? I’m not claiming ownership of the character of Erza, but I am asking do you think that this is worth a character arc because our author couldn’t think of anything better to do with her. You know if you knew Erza was so strong,Ad that in actuality she would sweep away most threats, why did you bring her? I honestly would’ve preferred Jellal and Erza being out of the action cause they had a kid or something. Erza having to pick between biological family and her guild family seems like a better direction to take her character in than this.

To see Erza cry because someone’s magic made her into a slave is so lacking in power than say the sheer emotional weight of watching simon die. Like this is shit is just awful.

We cut to Luccy and here is where I get to credit thee art. Sure Lucy is in a bikini, but what matters in frame is the wounds on her legs. Which is a nice us of having aa skimpy dress and not sexualizing it.

We get a flashback of Lucy realizing Kyriaa took her friends and this is where I give Caramille a big fuck you. Oh sure, this did happen after they showed up, but Diabolos clearly was going to find the place eventually and more importantly, you did fuck all. Like, go screw cause you have contributed literally nothing.

We find out that there is another ship in the area and that Gray is okay because he was saved by you can guess who...

Okay on the one hand, this definitely seems like Brandish’s kind of entrance, but on the other. Fuck you, Hiro. Like she just passed by and saved Gray? Hw? The entire ocean was either freezing or evaporating, what is your range? Also, who is in charge of Alverez? Yajeel? Oi...

Post Chapter Follow up: Its easy to say why I don’t like this chapter. I feel so sick by the sheer amount of laziness and disgust in the slave Erza plot. Like, my god this is so wrong. Not because of the subject, human slavery makes sense in a series aimed at teenagers, but the sheer disrespect that Hiro treated this character, made my blood boil. At the very least in Alvarez, Erza still seemed like she was the same character from beginning of the series.

People who follow me weekly on this review series are probably going to ask when I will stop harping on this Erza thing. Well each week, it  somehow get worse and more gross.  First time it felt like a cheap win, second it was bad use of domination, now this is full blown fetish material.

As for the brandish thing, I know why she is here, Lucy is literally not strong enough to handle 3 DE’s by herself with a few exceeds, and I’d accept that Brandish reentering the series. But maybe leave out Gray? I guess you could say that this is a subversion of the Musica captured by Doryu, but this feels lazier. You could’ve just made this a big “step up Lucy plot,” but no, had to save Gray, even though Skullion should’ve notice when his magic didn’t actually ash up Gray. Plus think about, if they save save Natsu and Wendy this arc and beat these three dragon eaters, wouldn’t some added bit of tension to the quest be finding diablos’s hideout and saving Gray from the “dinner table?”And I was cool with the kidnapped gray thing, but no, we had to have kidnapped everyone else.Also if he was made small how did he survive the water? Like he’s the size of a pin, he’d drown.

Now the stuff with Laxus and Jellal is actually fairly good Its an interesting take on FTs standards vs the consequences of their past when we are suppose to be rooting for Touka to be extracted. And involving two characters that really have been in the moral gray spectrum make them the most qualified for this subject matter. While i definitely didn’t like the Touka plot at first from how disconnected it was from everything (and it really is kinda shoed in on this point) it still is the more interesting plot. It has more intresting ideas than, “more dragons” and is involving the characters that come off as the most interesting.

Final Verdict: 3/10

There is clearly some interesting idea at work here

However, the way the plotline for the dragon portion of this arc has become a mess

I don’t use this phrase lightly, “Erza literally deserves better than this”

Plot convince playhouse at its finest

[myriadimagines]

Messing Around

Gotham One Shot

Pairing: Reader x Oswald Cobblepot

Other Characters: —

Warnings: Violence and death

Request: “Can you do a one shot request on Oswald Cobblepot? Reader (male since Ozzy's gay) works at a bakery and as Oswald befriends (& falls for) Reader - his enemies try to go after him, BUT they never hurt him bc Reader is a mercenary. When one of Oswald's enemies tell him they're gonna kill Reader soon, he rushes to save him but find all the hitmen dead & Reader is cleaning up. Oswald confesses his feelings & Reader says he knows and asks Oswald on a date... I think I just wrote the story 😂😂 sorry” — @sociallyawkwardperi

Word Count: 1,721

A/N: No need to apologize for anything!!! I could totally picture Oswald getting super flustered by a really badass reader ashdgashdasd anyway I wrote this on a plane and my eyeballs feel like they’re about to burn out of my sockets and I don’t know if it’s jetlag or what but anyway but I hope it’s okay!!

please reblog/leave comments, they’re very much appreciated!

Your name: submit What is this?

You would be lying if you said you didn’t miss it.

The adrenaline rush. The power surging through your body. The violence, the fighting. Perhaps you really were a monster, through and though, but it was who you were — there was no point in fighting it. You had stopped trying to deny that dark part of yourself a long time ago.

Nevertheless, your life as a mercenary was one you left behind when you moved to Gotham. A new start, a new identity. You picked up a job at a local bakery, stirring batter, pulling cakes out of the oven. Less exciting, for sure, but there was something about the mundaneness, the routine, that you quickly adopted and found an odd sense of peace in.

However, your pace of life quickly took a turn the day you met Oswald Cobblepot.

The bakery was one his mother frequented in, and the mere aroma of baked goods was enough to stir up childhood memories for Oswald, memories of him tagging along with his mother as she bought various treats for the two of them to share. For a long time, Oswald had avoided the bakery after his mother’s death, the once sweet smell now sickening. However, as he walked down the street, he decided to visit, just this once. Perhaps this would be the last time, Oswald told himself, perhaps this would be closure.

You knew very well who Oswald was when he stepped inside the bakery. Who in Gotham hadn’t head of the infamous, self proclaimed King of Gotham? Nevertheless, despite your coworkers immediately cowering into the corners, you squared your shoulders and tilted your head up, looking Oswald straight into his eyes as you welcomed him inside.

An amused smile flickering onto Oswald’s face as he looked you up and down, sizing you up. He took a few steps deeper into the bakery, looking into the glass cases. If he narrowed his eyes, he could almost picture a reflection of his younger self in the glass, clutching his mother’s hand as he eagerly pointed at one of the croissants. They were always his favourite.

“I’d like two of those, please.” Oswald jammed a finger into the glass, looking at you. You nodded, grabbing a paper bag as you reached for the bread. Oswald watched as you approached the cash register, pressing a few buttons before looking back at him.

“That’ll be $4.60.” you responded, not a single sign of fear or intimidation in your voice or expression. Behind you, you could hear your boss fumble to push you aside as Oswald gaped at you, momentarily speechless, as he could’ve sworn a tiny, mischievous grin spread across your face.

“Excuse me?” Oswald spluttered. He couldn’t even remember the last time he had to pay for something, his presence being enough of a payment for anything he did. Your boss was quick to correct you, holding out the bag as he insisted it was on the house. Oswald held his hand up, refusing the bag momentarily as he reached into his pocket and fumbled for his cash. He couldn’t decide if he wanted to kill you for your disrespect or applaud it, but Oswald knew one thing — you had certainly made one hell of an impression.

“Thanks for your business, Mr. Cobblepot.” you smiled politely at Oswald as he handed you the money, and Oswald scoffed. Teasingly, you winked at him, and Oswald felt his heart skip a beat.

Oh, no. Oswald thought. He knew what that meant.

—

Maybe he really did have a type.

Oswald lay on his armchair, deep in thought as he stared at the flickering flames of his fireplace. Snarky and unapologetic, Oswald could see aspects of you that you shared with Ed — the Riddler side of Ed, obviously. It had been a week since Oswald had seen you, yet you were the only thing on Oswald’s mind. The rebellious young man, who Oswald could tell had some sort of dark hidden secret. Your cute little bakery apron wasn’t fooling him.

Eventually, Oswald couldn’t resist. He had to go back and see you. He could see your expression light up when he entered the bakery again, a smirk sliding across your lips. Oswald straightened, trying his best to maintain his sense of authority as he remarked, “I brought some money this time, in case you thought about charging me for my croissants again.”

You couldn’t help but laugh at his sarcastic comment, and Oswald blinked in surprise. You immediately seemed to loose up, your smile making you seem even friendlier. Oswald couldn’t help but grin slightly, before he quickly shook his head. As charming as he found you, he wasn’t really looking to develop feelings for anyone.

“I was just messing around.” you waved your hand, reaching for the same croissants Oswald had ordered before.

“Messing with me?” Oswald repeated, bewildered. Stepping up to the counter, Oswald pointed a finger at you as he demanded, “Do you know who I am? And what I can do to do if you disrespect me?”

“Yes.” you simply replied, flashing Oswald the same polite smile as last week, holding out the bag to him. Oswald raised his eyebrows at you, waiting for you to elaborate, but you nudged the bag towards him, indicating you had said all you wanted to say. Oswald gaped at you, completely out of his element. Such a simple response had sent him into a confused flurry.

“What exactly is your name, young man?” Oswald demanded, attempting to put you down to reestablish his dominance.

“y/n.” you replied curtly.

Snatching the bag from you, Oswald pointed his finger at you again. He didn’t know what you were playing at, but if it was a game you wanted to play, Oswald was happy to participate. Walking backwards towards the entrance, Oswald replied, “I’ll be back.”

“Oh, I’m sure you will be!” you called back in response, waving as Oswald simply scowled at you.

—

Oswald hated how he still returned to visit you every week. He hated that smug smile that was painted across your expression the minute he stepped inside the bakery, your sarcastic remarks, your intoxicating laugh.

And he absolutely hated how irresistible you were.

For the most part, Oswald kept a distance from you. Partly because he refused to accept he had fallen for you, ignoring the blossoming feelings he felt for you in the back of his brain. The other part of him feared what would happen to you if he let you in, let you too close. Oswald felt like he had already risked putting you in danger simply by visiting you so often, for purposes obviously other than work.

What Oswald didn’t know was that you had already been threatened by a handful of Oswald’s enemies, yet no one had actually moved to attack you. You had left your past behind, but it didn’t mean the whispers had disappeared. The tiny mentions of what you were capable spread amongst the crowds, warning them to stay away.

The whispers obviously didn’t reach one group, a gang leader who had butted heads with Oswald constantly. Word quickly spread of Oswald’s new companion, the young man in the local bakery, and the leader knew this could be used to his advantage. He sent a menacing note, threatening Oswald to hand over the territory he wanted or else he would kill you, and possibly deliver your head to Oswald’s doorstep.

All of Oswald’s current thoughts quickly melted away as he rushed over to the bakery. He couldn’t lose you. If anything, he couldn’t lose you when he hadn’t even confessed to you that maybe he didn’t hate you, but he actually liked you a lot. He had rounded up his best hitmen, armed with the biggest guns Oswald had stored, Oswald holding a massive shotgun himself. He burst into the bakery, gun cocked as he spun around, anger burning behind his eyes before he registered the scene.

“What… what?” Oswald spluttered, looking around the room which you were calmly cleaning. Three bodies were sprawled across the floor, with three guns neatly lined up on the countertop behind you. You sighed, wiping blood off your hands onto your apron as you continued to mop the bloodied floors. You looked up at Oswald in such a casual manner Oswald almost forgot about the bodies on the floor.

“Hey, Os.” you greeted, giving him a playful salute as Oswald’s hitmen looked amongst each other, clearly confused.

Stepping closer, Oswald pointed to the bodies as he slowly asked, “Did you kill them all yourself?”

Your gaze fell to the floor, before you shrugged. “Yeah. They’re just hired muscle, anyway, wasn’t hard to defeat them. The hard part is cleaning up all the damn blood. I’ve been mopping up for hou-”

“I care about you.” Oswald cut you off, hands balled into fists, unable to listen to your nonchalant ramblings without interjecting with his confession. The words came out clumsily, but Oswald didn’t know how else to express himself. You grinned, raising your eyebrows at Oswald as you bit your lip. Sucking in a sharp breath, Oswald stepped closer as he continued, “And when I say care, I don’t mean that in a-”

“It’s okay.” you raised your hand, saving Oswald from any further awkwardness as he tried to elaborate his feelings. “I know how you feel, because I feel the same way. Man, that sounds cheesy.”

Oswald’s mouth dropped agape, studying your expression to make sure you were sincere. He gulped, as you leaned closer and added, “So, what do you say? Can I take you out to dinner tonight?”

“You…” Oswald pointed a finger at you, laughing slightly as he shook his head. This whole situation seemed so ridiculous, and Oswald had a hard time comprehending you were asking him out on your first date at the scene of a murder. “Are infuriating. But yes, I will accept your offer for dinner.”

“Great.” you winked at Oswald, before leaning back and surveying the room. Sheepishly, you added, “Do you think you can help out? You know, before the GCPD arrive and all that.”

Nodding, Oswald gestured at his hitmen behind him. “Well? Don’t just stand around there, help y/n clean this mess up!”

tags: @purityimagines / @bohemian-nygma / @myfriendmagislit / @thefirst-galaxy ↳ want to be added to the tag list?

[orbemnews]

Insurance recovery lawyer lifts lid on COVID BI claims The launch of Cohen Ziffer Frenchman & McKenna coincides with a very active period in insurance recovery litigation, particularly concerning coverage for business interruption (BI)-related losses caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. “Our business has increased dramatically because of COVID-19. Tons of our clients have BI losses as a result of the pandemic, and they believe they should be compensated under the policies they purchased,” said McKenna. “That’s certainly going to be a significant part of our case load going forward, but by no means the dominant part. We deal with lots of big matters in lots of different areas, COVID-19 being just one of them, but it is a high-profile area in which I expect there’ll be a lot of lawsuits coming in the near future.”  Read next: Massive business interruption ruling and its impact on the global insurance industry So far, a lot of the early BI lawsuits have involved smaller companies (e.g. small restaurants and hotels) and they’ve been dealt with in the district courts. As we approach the year anniversary since COVID-19 was officially declared a global pandemic by the World Health Organization, McKenna expects the litigation landscape to evolve. “I think the bigger companies are now going to start filing claims,” McKenna told Insurance Business. “A lot of policies have a built-in statute of limitations which requires policyholders to bring a claim within a certain time period, which is often one or two years. Because of that, and the uncertainties created around that, some policyholders may be required to sue just so they’re not barred by the limitations in their policy. The World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic in March 2020, so we’re approaching that one-year mark. I would expect a lot of companies who have those limitations in their policies to start pulling the trigger on lawsuits if their carriers have not agreed to provide coverage.” McKenna also expects to see follow-on lawsuits related to the pandemic. For example, commercial general liability (CGL) policies could potentially be implicated by work-related mandates. If an employer demands their employees work from an office, and, as a result, an employee catches the coronavirus and falls sick, that employee could potentially bring a negligence claim against the employer, or a complaint based on the unreasonableness of requiring employees to work from an office during a pandemic. There are also some potential director and officer (D&O) liability issues that might arise, especially if someone claims the pandemic was a foreseeable event and the D&Os failed to properly obtain coverage. Read more: Retroactive business interruption measures could bankrupt US insurers in two months These issues could impact the insurance sector at a time when public opinion of the industry is somewhat damaged. The industry’s “bad rep,” hurt in 2020 by the arguments around BI coverage, could negatively impact court rulings and jury verdicts. “At the end of the day, you can’t divorce reality or people’s perceptions from the facts,” said McKenna. “To the extent that something goes to a court or a jury, the fact finders are going to review those facts through the lens of their own experience and their perceptions. And that’s a real issue for the carriers. In some instances, when they deny BI coverage, they may have debatable legitimate positions, but in others, I see them taking these ridiculous positions because it’s a nationwide position and they don’t want to budge an inch. If they budge an inch, they’ve got to give coverage to everybody, and so they take these hardline positions that sometimes are not dictated by the circumstances of the case. Policyholders and jurors are seeing that.” In January, the United Kingdom Supreme Court dismissed an appeal brought forth by some of the world’s largest commercial insurers, instead ruling in favor of policyholders, stating that the vast majority of policyholders with non-property damage BI cover can make valid claims for their BI losses caused by the national response of the UK Government to COVID-19. The move has captured the attention of insurers and insurance recovery lawyers worldwide.  “I feel pretty confident that there’s going to be a lot more policyholder-friendly decisions coming down the pike soon, especially because I think the big companies are going to start getting in the mix,” McKenna commented. “Their counsel is going to be much more prepared and able to fight the fight – and they can bring that fight up to an appellate level because they have the resources to do so. For the most part, I don’t think these issues are going to be determined at the trial level. Some of these big picture issues are going to go to appellate courts, and I feel pretty confident that, like the UK Supreme Court, that’s going to result in favorable rulings for the policyholders in many jurisdictions.”     Source link Orbem News #claims #Covid #insurance #Lawyer #lid #Lifts #recovery

[writer-and-artist27]

all the prime numbers >:)

Welp! Let’s do this! Thanks Os! :D

And Tomoko has seen quite a few asks. So…hm. Half will go to Tomoya, and then the other half Hikari. Mainly since these two haven’t gotten a lot of spotlight in asks. 

Put under the cut.

Hoshino Tomoya (Tomoko’s trans girl counterpart)

01. What does your character’s name mean? Did you pick it for the symbolism, or did you just like the way it sounded?

Now this has an interesting story, since some of the origins don’t fully come from me. When initially coming up with Tomoko, Tomoya’s original self, she was initially conceived to be a ninja that was to be in a team under Kushina with ninja versions of Leo and Josh. The story was scrapped, but I still kept the notes. Josh was the one who came up with her name, being a representation of her character and how he saw me as a bright friend, I guess. Hoshino being “in the star field” and Tomoko being “friendly child.”

I was the one who ended up coming up with Tomoya’s name, consulting with Josh, and ultimately sticking with it. Tomoya in some translations means “wise one,” and I thought it would be a nice contrast to Tomoko, since she unfortunately can’t be as open as Tomoko can be. 

02. What is one of your character’s biggest insecurities? Are they able to hide it easily or can others easily exploit this weakness?

Her loved ones and friends abandoning her for finding out about her reincarnation status and want to be a girl. I tried to convey that as much as I could in the initial oneshot where Tomoya met Tomoko, but the fear is more than even Tomoko’s own personal fear of being forgotten, because Tomoya has so much on her chest. Being a reincarnation with these memories of the Naruto world, knowing that in a previous life that she was happy, and the simple fact that she’s now a girl in a boy’s body, and it’s not the life she really wanted to begin with. And on hiding it, I’d like to think Tomoya does a much better job at hiding things in general than Tomoko, because there’s more than just memories on the line now.

03. What would be their favorite physical trait about themselves?

Unlike Tomoko, something that Tomoya adores is her hair. Despite inheriting most of Judai’s physical characteristics, such as angular face and eye shape, Tomoya still has Hikari’s silky hair, which she grows out to have in a ponytail, just to have that feminine flare and connection to her real self. Inwardly, Hisako is all the more proud.

05. Are they sexually confident or more of the shy type?

Shy. No question about that. Vy was sexually repulsed and awkward, Tomoko’s still awkward, and Tomoya? No doubt - she’s awkward too. 

07. Is there a catchphrase or sound that they tend to make a lot (likely without being aware of it)?

Tomoya never really caught on until Judai pointed it out, but she does have a habit of whistling softly, her tongue touching the roof of her mouth while doing so, when unsure or merely bored. Hikari was quite amused at the various noises Tomoya could make in times of silence, since it could range from high pitched solos to simple wind-blowing.

11. What is something that would make your character fly into a rage?

If someone misgendered her as a guy and kept doing so, even after she went on to correct them. Forget Kakashi being mad, Tomoya would be the one to sock the offender in the face first. 

Hell, if the offender tried to force her into a male-dominated role or wear male clothing, she’ll be pretty mad. Only Hikari or Judai could really calm her down at that point.

13. What are your character’s sleeping habits? Heavy or light sleeper? Blanket stealer? One that always rolls onto the floor? Pushes their lover onto the floor? Sleep talker or walker?

Tomoya, unlike Tomoko, wouldn’t be much of a Cuddle Bug, but rather a blanket stealer, taking up all the blankets in her sleep while shifting every now and then to make a burrito, snoring deeply all the while. While Tomoko inherited Judai’s penchant for drooling sometimes, Tomoya inherited the snores. 

The blanket thing though? It’s to make up for the lack of hugs that Vy got to do constantly back in her days.

17. Does your character have dreams of getting married and/or having children?

Tomoya never really thought about having children. If anything, like Tomoko, she kinda yearns for a simple life where her loved ones don’t have to deal with war or handle ridiculous alien-bullshit on the level Boruto goes on. So it’s an iffy subject.

Hoshino Hikari

19. Would your character be the kind to get into fights? (physical or verbal) Would they be a good fighter or cave in rather easily?

I’d like to think she could. If not for common sense and her own physical strength as a civilian wearing her down, I could easily imagine Hikari going on to deck people like the Third Hokage just because she can. Hiruzen kinda put Judai through the wringer, and with how he’s handling Team Minato and Tomoko, Hikari’s fists are raised. Nonetheless, she’s a civvie. So it probably won’t end well, and she knows it. So, she uses her words and voice instead. It’s had a much better effect.

23. What is your character like when it comes to school? What subjects are they good/bad at? Do they get in trouble a lot or are well behaved?

Hikari would be that one girl who gets everything done on time, but never really shows off on it. The best subjects for her are Dance and Art Design, because she’s able to improvise on moves while creating outfits that are practical to wear. I’d like to think she’s well behaved, but she would get on the bad side of someone without question if it means defending something or someone she cares about.

29. What is one of the most courageous things your character has ever done for a loved one?

Essentially do what a civilian might see as near suicide in marching up to the Hokage Tower, slamming open the door while in the middle of a debriefing, and verbally chewing Hiruzen out for his sending Judai on so many missions. It’s something that solidified the Hoshino name in many ninjas’ minds as something to be respected, because Judai was completely shocked speechless at the whole thing while the Hokage took it in without even threatening to take her out of the room or kill her. It takes guts to stand up to a military leader, and Hikari did it without a scratch. 

Judai couldn’t help but ask her out after his retirement right then and there. 

31. Would your character be the kind capable of killing? Would they enjoy killing or only use it when necessary or, perhaps, refuse to kill no matter what?

Hikari, despite her tough-as-nails personality when it comes to things she’s passionate about, would never be able to enjoy killing. Hell, I wouldn’t see her capable of killing. She may think of it, especially if she ever encountered Orochimaru, but The Sea and Stars showed how she couldn’t follow through with that sentiment. If anything, she’d rather let someone else do the killing if it’s really necessary, but she’s not going to like it no matter what. 

37. What are some of your character’s pet peeves? What are some things that annoy them or disgust them?

Blood getting everywhere. That’s it. It’s not hemophobia though - if anything, the pet peeve was born from the many times Judai, back when he was single and getting to know her, used her apartment as a getaway from the hospital when he was bored, and she still shrieks bloody murder when he does that these days. Tomoko usually has to duck away or cover her eyes first, because that’s one of the few times Judai has to deal with Hikari’s anger directly. 

41. Does your character’s family affect your character in any way?

I’ve mentioned this in an ask before, but Hikari’s parents are still alive, if not distant. Unlike Hikari, who chose to rebel from the usual unspoken civilian thought and befriend ninja, her parents were somewhat clean-cut in raising her, expecting her to at least marry a good husband and continue in the usual life. 

Hence when they heard of her friendship with Judai, they weren’t all that approving, and disapproved even more when she moved out of the house to go to her own apartment and raise money for her cafe dream. “You’re too naive and reckless,” they said. Once news got out about the whole Hikari-chewing-out-the-Third-Hokage situation, though, they cut ties so that they wouldn’t be caught up in what they saw as Hikari’s mess. 

Needless to say, Tomoko hasn’t exactly seen her maternal grandparents aside from the occasional picture, and with the situation with Sakumo and Kakashi, Hikari’s still debating. Judai does encourage her to reconcile with them, since they did care enough for her to leave on somewhat amicable terms, but it’s still up in the air.

43. Does your character have a switch that changes aspects of their personality whether they are around friends, family, etc. Is there someone who gets to see their true self?

Hm, it’s not exactly a “switch”, per say, but more of a small button that Hikari almost always has on the “ON” setting since getting to know Judai. He helped her open up first. 

A lot of her free, creative self has then been around more since marrying him and having Tomoko. Heck, this “true” self has gone on to be how Sakumo, Kakashi, Obito, RIn, and, bringing in The Sea and Stars, how Miyako, Wataru, Hayate, and Kei see her as. The fashion-designer, violinist, and overall awesome “Aunt Hikari.” And to Tomoko, she’s “Mama”, and since “Mama” was Tomoko’s first word, Hikari takes it all in stride. 

46. What is some random affectionate thing that your character always does to their lover?

Peck Judai on the lips whenever he’s caught thinking. Needless to say, it helps bring the innate ninja paranoia in him down when it’s her, and he’s left blushing and laughing because of it. 

[endenogatai]

Europe’s PEPP-PT COVID-19 contacts tracing standard push could be squaring up for a fight with Apple and Google

A coalition of EU scientists and technologists that’s developing what’s billed as a “privacy-preserving” standard for Bluetooth-based proximity tracking, as a proxy for COVID-19 infection risk, wants Apple and Google to make changes to an API they’re developing for the same overarching purpose.

The Pan-European Privacy-Preserving Proximity Tracing (PEPP-PT) uncloaked on April 1, calling for developers of contacts tracing apps to get behind a standardized approach to processing smartphone users’ data to co-ordinate digital interventions across borders and shrink the risk of overly intrusive location-tracking tools gaining momentum as a result of the pandemic.

PEPP-PT said today it has seven governments signed up to apply its approach to national apps, with a claimed pipeline of a further 40 in discussions about joining.

“We now have a lot of governments interacting,” said PEPP-PT’s Hans-Christian Boos, speaking during a webinar for journalists. “Some governments are publicly declaring that their local applications will be built on top of the principles of PEPP-PT and also the various protocols supplied inside this initiative.

“We know of seven countries that have already committed to do this — and we’re currently in conversation with 40 countries that are in various states of onboarding.”

Boos said a list of the governments would be shared with journalists, though at the time of writing we haven’t seen it. But we’ve asked PEPP-PT’s PR firm for the info and will update this report when we get it.

“The pan-European approach has worked,” he added. “Governments have decided at a speed previously unknown. But with 40 more countries in the queue of onboarding we definitely have outgrown just the European focus — and to us this shows that privacy as a model and as a discussion point… is a statement and it is something that we can export because we’re credible on it.”

Paolo de Rosa, the CTO at the Ministry of Innovation Technology and Digital Transformation for the Italian government, was also on the webinar — and confirmed its national app will be built on top of PEPP-PT.

“We will have an app soon and obviously it will be based on this model,” he said, offering no further details.

PEPP-PT’s core ‘privacy-preserving’ claim rests on the use of system architectures that do not require location data to be collected. Rather devices that come near each other would share pseudonymized IDs — which could later be used to send notifications to an individual if the system calculates an infection risk has occurred. An infected individual’s contacts would be uploaded at the point of diagnosis — allowing notifications to be sent to other devices they had come into contact with.

Boos, a spokesman for and coordinator of PEPP-PT, told TechCrunch earlier this month the project will support both centralized and decentralized approaches. The former meaning IDs are uploaded to a trusted server, such as one controlled by a health authority; the latter meaning IDs are held locally on devices, where the infection risk is also calculated — a backend server is only in the loop to relay info to devices.

It’s just such a decentralized contacts tracing system that Apple and Google are collaborating on supporting — fast-following PEPP-PT last week by announcing a plan for cross-platform COVID-19 contacts tracing via a forthcoming API and then a system-wide (opt-in) for Bluetooth-based proximity tracking.

That intervention, by the only two smartphone platforms that matter when the ambition is mainstream app adoption, is a major development — putting momentum in the Western world behind decentralized contacts tracing for responding digitally to the coronavirus crisis, certainly at the platform level.

In a resolution passed today the European parliament also called for a decentralized approach to COVID-19 proximity tracking. MEPs are pushing for the Commission and Member States to be “fully transparent on the functioning of contact tracing apps, so that people can verify both the underlying protocol for security and privacy, and check the code itself to see whether the application functions as the authorities are claiming”. (The Commission has previously signalled a preference for decentralization too.)

However backers of PEPP-PT, which include at least seven governments (and the claim of many more), aren’t giving up on the option of a “privacy-preserving” centralized option — which some in their camp are dubbing ‘pseudo-decentralized’ — with Boos claiming today that discussions are ongoing with Apple and Google about making changes to their approach.

As it stands, contacts tracing apps that don’t use a decentralized infrastructure won’t be able to carry out Bluetooth tracking in the background on Android or iOS — as the platforms limit how general apps can access Bluetooth. This means users of such apps would have to have the app open and active all the time for proximity tracking to function, with associated (negative) impacts on battery life and device usability.

There are also (intentional) restrictions on how contracts tracing data could be centralized, as a result of the relay server model being deployed in the joint Apple-Google model.

“We very much appreciate that Google and Apple are stepping up to making the operating system layer available — or putting what should be the OS actually there, which is the Bluetooth measurement and the handling of crypto and the background running of such tasks which have to keep running resiliently all the time — if you look at their protocols and if you look at whom they are provided by, the two dominant players in the mobile ecosystem, then I think that from a government perspective especially, or from lots of government perspectives, there is many open points to discuss,” said Boos today.

“From a PEPP-PT perspective there’s a few points to discuss because we want choice and implementing choice in terms of model — decentralized or centralized on top of their protocol creates actually the worst of both worlds — so there are many points to discuss. But contrary to the behavior that many of us who work with tech companies are used to Google and Apple are very open in these discussions and there’s no point in getting up in arms yet because these discussions are ongoing and it looks like agreement can be reached with them.”

It wasn’t clear what specific changes PEPP-PT wants from Apple and Google — we asked for more detail during the webinar but didn’t get a response. But the group and its government backers may be hoping to dilute the tech giants’ stance to make it easier to create centralized graphs of Bluetooth contacts to feed national coronavirus responses.

As it stands, Apple and Google’s API is designed to block contact matching on a server — though there might still be ways for governments (and others) to partially workaround the restrictions and centralize some data.

We reached out to Apple and Google with questions about the claimed discussions with PEPP-PT. At the time of writing neither had responded.

As well as Italy, the German and French governments are among those that have indicated they’re backing PEPP-PT for national apps — which suggests powerful EU Member States could be squaring up for a fight with the tech giants, along the lines of Apple vs the FBI, if pressure to tweak the API fails.

Another key strand to this story is that PEPP-PT continues to face strident criticism from privacy and security experts in its own backyard — including after it removed a reference to a decentralized protocol for COVID-19 contacts tracing that’s being developed by another European coalition, comprised of privacy and security experts, called DP-3T.

Coindesk reported on the silent edit to PEPP-PT’s website yesterday.

Backers of DP-3T have also repeatedly queried why PEPP-PT hasn’t published code or protocols for review to-date — and even gone so far as to dub the effort a ‘trojan horse’.

#DP3T entered as a candidate to so-called PEPP-PT in good faith, but it is now clear that powerful actors pushing centralised databases of Bluetooth contact tracing do not, and will not, act in good faith.

PEPP-PT is a Trojan horse.

— Michael Veale (@mikarv) April 16, 2020

ETH Zürich’s Dr. Kenneth Paterson, who is both a part of the PEPP-PT effort and a designer of DP-3T, couldn’t shed any light on the exact changes the coalition is hoping to extract from ‘Gapple’ when we asked.

“They’ve still not said exactly how their system would work, so I can’t say what they would need [in terms of changes to Apple and Google’s system],” he told us in an email exchange.

Today Boos couched the removal of the reference to DP-3T on PEPP-PT’s website as a mistake — which he blamed on “bad communication”. He also claimed the coalition is still interested in including the former’s decentralized protocol within its bundle of standardized technologies. So the already sometimes fuzzy lines between the camps continue to be redrawn. (It’s also interesting to note that press emails to Boos are now being triaged by Hering Schuppener; a communications firm that sells publicity services including crisis PR.)

“We’re really sorry for that,” Boos said of the DP-3T excision. “Actually we just wanted to put the various options on the same level that are out there. There are still all these options and we very much appreciate the work that colleagues and others are doing.

“You know there is a hot discussion in the crypto community about this and we actually encourage this discussion because it’s always good to improve on protocols. What we must not lose sight of is… that we’re not talking about crypto here, we’re talking about pandemic management and as long as an underlying transport layer can ensure privacy that’s good enough because governments can choose whatever they want.”

Boos also said PEPP-PT would finally be publishing some technical documents this afternoon — opting to release information some three weeks after its public unveiling and on a Friday evening (a 7-page ‘high level overview’ has since been put on their Github here — but still a far cry from code for review) — while making a simultaneous plea for journalists to focus on the ‘bigger picture’ of fighting the coronavirus rather than keep obsessing over technical details. 

During today’s webinar some of the scientists backing PEPP-PT talked about how they’re testing the efficacy of Bluetooth as a proxy for tracking infection risk.

“The algorithm that we’ve been working on looks at the cumulative amount of time that individuals spend in proximity with each other,” said Christophe Fraser, professor at the Nuffield Department of Medicine and Senior Group Leader in Pathogen Dynamics at the Big Data Institute, University of Oxford, offering a general primer on using Bluetooth proximity data for tracking viral transmission.

“The aim is to predict the probability of transmission from the phone proximity data. So the ideal system reduces the requested quarantine to those who are the most at risk of being infected and doesn’t give the notification — even though some proximity event was recorded — to those people who’re not at risk of being infected.”

“Obviously that’s going to be an imperfect process,” he went on. “But the key point is that in this innovative approach that we should be able to audit the extent to which that information and those notifications are correct — so we need to actually be seeing, of the people who have been sent the notification how many of them actually were infected. And of those people who were identified as contacts, how many weren’t.

“Auditing can be done in many different ways for each system but that step is crucial.”

Evaluating the effectiveness of the digital interventions will be vital, per Fraser — whose presentation could have been interpreted as making a case for public health authorities to have fuller access to contacts graphs. But it’s important to note that DP-3T’s decentralized protocol makes clear provision for app users to opt-in to voluntarily share data with epidemiologists and research groups to enable them to reconstruct the interaction graph among infected and at risk users (aka to get access to a proximity graph).

“It’s really important that if you’re going to do an intervention that is going to affect millions of people — in terms of these requests to [quarantine] — that that information be the best possible science or the best possible representation of the evidence at the point at which you give the notification,” added Fraser. “And therefore as we progress forwards that evidence — our understanding of the transmission of the virus — is going to improve. And in fact auditing of the app can allow that to improve, and therefore it seems essential that that information be fed back.”

None of the PEPP-PT aligned apps that are currently being used for testing or reference are interfacing with national health authority systems, per Boos — though he cited a test in Italy that’s been plugged into a company’s health system to run tests.

“We have supplied the application builders with the backend, we have supplied them with sample code, we have supplied them with protocols, we have supplied them with the science of measurement, and so on and so forth. We have a working application that simply has no integration into a country’s health system — on Android and on iOS,” he noted.

On its website PEPP-PT lists a number of corporate “members” as backing the effort — including the likes of Vodafone — alongside several research institutions including Germany’s Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute for telecoms (HHI) which has been reported as leading the effort.

The HHI’s executive director, Thomas Wiegand, was also on today’s call. Notably, his name initially appeared on the authorship list for the DP-3T’s White Paper. However on April 10 he was removed from the README and authorship list, per its Github document history. No explanation for the change was given.

During today’s press conference Wiegand made an intervention that seems unlikely to endear him to the wider crypto and digital rights community — describing the debate around which cryptography system to use for COVID-19 contacts tracing as a ‘side show’ and expressing concern that what he called Europe’s “open public discussion” might “destroy our ability to get ourselves as Europeans out of this”.

“I just wanted to make everyone aware of the difficulty of this problem,” he also said. “Cryptography is only one of 12 building blocks in the system. So I really would like to have everybody go back and reconsider what problem we are in here. We have to win against this virus… or we have another lockdown or we have a lot of big problems. I would like to have everybody to consider that and to think about it because we have a chance if we get our act together and really win against the virus.”

The press conference had an even more inauspicious start after the Zoom call was disrupted by racist spam in the chat. Right before this Boos had kicked off the call saying he had heard from “some more technically savvy people that we should not be using Zoom because it’s insecure — and for an initiative that wants security and privacy it’s the wrong tool”.

“Unfortunately we found out that many of our international colleagues only had this on their corporate PCs so over time either Zoom has to improve — or we need to get better installations out there. It’s certainly not our intention to leak the data on this Zoom,” he added.

from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8204425 https://ift.tt/3agrPwi via IFTTT

[magzoso-tech]

Europe’s PEPP-PT COVID-19 contacts tracing standard push could be squaring up for a fight with Apple and Google

New Post has been published on https://magzoso.com/tech/europes-pepp-pt-covid-19-contacts-tracing-standard-push-could-be-squaring-up-for-a-fight-with-apple-and-google/

Europe’s PEPP-PT COVID-19 contacts tracing standard push could be squaring up for a fight with Apple and Google

A coalition of EU scientists and technologists that’s developing what’s billed as a “privacy-preserving” standard for Bluetooth-based proximity tracking, as a proxy for COVID-19 infection risk, wants Apple and Google to make changes to an API they’re developing for the same overarching purpose.

The Pan-European Privacy-Preserving Proximity Tracing (PEPP-PT) uncloaked on April 1, calling for developers of contact tracing apps to get behind a standardized approach to processing smartphone users’ data to coordinate digital interventions across borders and shrink the risk of overly intrusive location-tracking tools gaining momentum as a result of the pandemic.

PEPP-PT said today it has seven governments signed up to apply its approach to national apps, with a claimed pipeline of a further 40 in discussions about joining.

“We now have a lot of governments interacting,” said PEPP-PT’s Hans-Christian Boos, speaking during a webinar for journalists. “Some governments are publicly declaring that their local applications will be built on top of the principles of PEPP-PT and also the various protocols supplied inside this initiative.

“We know of seven countries that have already committed to do this — and we’re currently in conversation with 40 countries that are in various states of onboarding.”

Boos said a list of the governments would be shared with journalists, though at the time of writing we haven’t seen it. But we’ve asked PEPP-PT’s PR firm for the info and will update this report when we get it.

“The pan-European approach has worked,” he added. “Governments have decided at a speed previously unknown. But with 40 more countries in the queue of onboarding we definitely have outgrown just the European focus — and to us this shows that privacy as a model and as a discussion point… is a statement and it is something that we can export because we’re credible on it.”

Paolo de Rosa, the CTO at the Ministry of Innovation Technology and Digital Transformation for the Italian government, was also on the webinar — and confirmed its national app will be built on top of PEPP-PT.

“We will have an app soon and obviously it will be based on this model,” he said, offering no further details.

PEPP-PT’s core “privacy-preserving” claim rests on the use of system architectures that do not require location data to be collected. Rather devices that come near each other would share pseudonymized IDs — which could later be used to send notifications to an individual if the system calculates an infection risk has occurred. An infected individual’s contacts would be uploaded at the point of diagnosis — allowing notifications to be sent to other devices with which had come into contact.

Boos, a spokesman for and coordinator of PEPP-PT, told TechCrunch earlier this month the project will support both centralized and decentralized approaches. The former meaning IDs are uploaded to a trusted server, such as one controlled by a health authority; the latter meaning IDs are held locally on devices, where the infection risk is also calculated — a backend server is only in the loop to relay info to devices.

It’s just such a decentralized contacts tracing system that Apple and Google are collaborating on supporting — fast-following PEPP-PT last week by announcing a plan for cross-platform COVID-19 contacts tracing via a forthcoming API and then a system-wide (opt-in) for Bluetooth-based proximity tracking.

That intervention, by the only two smartphone platforms that matter when the ambition is mainstream adoption, is a major development — putting momentum behind decentralized contacts tracing for responding digitally to the coronavirus crisis in the Western world, certainly at the platform level.

In a resolution passed today the European parliament also called for a decentralized approach to COVID-19 proximity tracking.

MEPs are pushing for the Commission and Member States to be “fully transparent on the functioning of contact tracing apps, so that people can verify both the underlying protocol for security and privacy and check the code itself to see whether the application functions as the authorities are claiming.” (The Commission has previously signaled a preference for decentralization too.)

However, backers of PEPP-PT, which include at least seven governments (and the claim of many more), aren’t giving up on the option of a “privacy-preserving” centralized option — which some in their camp are dubbing “pseudo-decentralized” — with Boos claiming today that discussions are ongoing with Apple and Google about making changes to their approach.

As it stands, contacts tracing apps that don’t use a decentralized infrastructure won’t be able to carry out Bluetooth tracking in the background on Android or iOS — as the platforms limit how general apps can access Bluetooth. This means users of such apps would have to have the app open and active all the time for proximity tracking to function, with associated (negative) impacts on battery life and device usability.

There are also (intentional) restrictions on how contacts tracing data could be centralized, as a result of the relay server model being deployed in the joint Apple-Google model.

“We very much appreciate that Google and Apple are stepping up to making the operating system layer available — or putting what should be the OS actually there, which is the Bluetooth measurement and the handling of crypto and the background running of such tasks which have to keep running resiliently all the time — if you look at their protocols and if you look at whom they are provided by, the two dominant players in the mobile ecosystem, then I think that from a government perspective especially, or from lots of government perspectives, there are many open points to discuss,” said Boos today.

“From a PEPP-PT perspective there are a few points to discuss because we want choice and implementing choice in terms of model — decentralized or centralized on top of their protocol creates actually the worst of both worlds — so there are many points to discuss. But contrary to the behavior that many of us who work with tech companies are used to Google and Apple are very open in these discussions and there’s no point in getting up in arms yet because these discussions are ongoing and it looks like agreement can be reached with them.”

It wasn’t clear what specific changes PEPP-PT wants from Apple and Google — we asked for more detail during the webinar but didn’t get a response. But the group and its government backers may be hoping to dilute the tech giants’ stance to make it easier to create centralized graphs of Bluetooth contacts to feed national coronavirus responses.

As it stands, Apple and Google’s API is designed to block contact matching on a server — though there might still be ways for governments (and others) to partially work around the restrictions and centralize some data.

We reached out to Apple and Google with questions about the claimed discussions with PEPP-PT. At the time of writing, neither had responded.

As well as Italy, the German and French governments are among those that have indicated they’re backing PEPP-PT for national apps — which suggests powerful EU Member States could be squaring up for a fight with the tech giants, along the lines of Apple versus the FBI, if pressure to tweak the API fails.

Another key strand to this story is that PEPP-PT continues to face strident criticism from privacy and security experts in its own backyard — including after it removed a reference to a decentralized protocol for COVID-19 contacts tracing that’s being developed by another European coalition, comprised of privacy and security experts, called DP-3T.

Coindesk reported on the silent edit to PEPP-PT’s website yesterday.

Backers of DP-3T have also repeatedly queried why PEPP-PT hasn’t published code or protocols for review to-date — and even gone so far as to dub the effort a “trojan horse.”

#DP3T entered as a candidate to so-called PEPP-PT in good faith, but it is now clear that powerful actors pushing centralised databases of Bluetooth contact tracing do not, and will not, act in good faith.

PEPP-PT is a Trojan horse.

— Michael Veale (@mikarv) April 16, 2020

ETH Zürich’s Dr. Kenneth Paterson, who is both a part of the PEPP-PT effort and a designer of DP-3T, couldn’t shed any light on the exact changes the coalition is hoping to extract from “Gapple” when we asked.

“They’ve still not said exactly how their system would work, so I can’t say what they would need [in terms of changes to Apple and Google’s system],” he told us in an email exchange.

Today Boos couched the removal of the reference to DP-3T on PEPP-PT’s website as a mistake — which he blamed on “bad communication.” He also claimed the coalition is still interested in including the former’s decentralized protocol within its bundle of standardized technologies. So the already sometimes fuzzy lines between the camps continue to be redrawn. (It’s also interesting to note that press emails to Boos are now being triaged by Hering Schuppener, a communications firm that sells publicity services, including crisis PR.)

“We’re really sorry for that,” Boos said of the DP-3T excision. “Actually we just wanted to put the various options on the same level that are out there. There are still all these options and we very much appreciate the work that colleagues and others are doing.

“You know there is a hot discussion in the crypto community about this and we actually encourage this discussion because it’s always good to improve on protocols. What we must not lose sight of is… that we’re not talking about crypto here, we’re talking about pandemic management and as long as an underlying transport layer can ensure privacy that’s good enough because governments can choose whatever they want.”

Boos also said PEPP-PT would finally be publishing some technical documents this afternoon — opting to release information some three weeks after its public unveiling and on a Friday evening (a seven-page ‘high level overview’ has since been put on their GitHub here [this link has since been deleted – Ed.] — but still a far cry from code for review) — while making a simultaneous plea for journalists to focus on the “bigger picture” of fighting the coronavirus rather than keep obsessing over technical details. 

During today’s webinar some of the scientists backing PEPP-PT talked about how they’re testing the efficacy of Bluetooth as a proxy for tracking infection risk.

“The algorithm that we’ve been working on looks at the cumulative amount of time that individuals spend in proximity with each other,” said Christophe Fraser, professor at the Nuffield Department of Medicine and Senior Group Leader in Pathogen Dynamics at the Big Data Institute, University of Oxford, offering a general primer on using Bluetooth proximity data for tracking viral transmission.

“The aim is to predict the probability of transmission from the phone proximity data. So the ideal system reduces the requested quarantine to those who are the most at risk of being infected and doesn’t give the notification — even though some proximity event was recorded — to those people who’re not at risk of being infected.”

“Obviously that’s going to be an imperfect process,” he went on. “But the key point is that in this innovative approach that we should be able to audit the extent to which that information and those notifications are correct — so we need to actually be seeing, of the people who have been sent the notification how many of them actually were infected. And of those people who were identified as contacts, how many weren’t.

“Auditing can be done in many different ways for each system but that step is crucial.”

Evaluating the effectiveness of the digital interventions will be vital, per Fraser — whose presentation could have been interpreted as making a case for public health authorities to have fuller access to contacts graphs. But it’s important to note that DP-3T’s decentralized protocol makes clear provision for app users to opt-in to voluntarily share data with epidemiologists and research groups to enable them to reconstruct the interaction graph among infected and at risk users (aka to get access to a proximity graph).

“It’s really important that if you’re going to do an intervention that is going to affect millions of people — in terms of these requests to [quarantine] — that that information be the best possible science or the best possible representation of the evidence at the point at which you give the notification,” added Fraser. “And therefore as we progress forwards that evidence — our understanding of the transmission of the virus — is going to improve. And in fact auditing of the app can allow that to improve, and therefore it seems essential that that information be fed back.”

None of the PEPP-PT-aligned apps that are currently being used for testing or reference are interfacing with national health authority systems, per Boos — though he cited a test in Italy that’s been plugged into a company’s health system to run tests.

“We have supplied the application builders with the backend, we have supplied them with sample code, we have supplied them with protocols, we have supplied them with the science of measurement, and so on and so forth. We have a working application that simply has no integration into a country’s health system — on Android and on iOS,” he noted.

On its website PEPP-PT lists a number of corporate “members” as backing the effort — including the likes of Vodafone — alongside several research institutions including Germany’s Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute for telecoms (HHI) which has been reported as leading the effort.

The HHI’s executive director, Thomas Wiegand, was also on today’s call. Notably, his name initially appeared on the authorship list for the DP-3T’s white paper. However, on April 10 he was removed from the README and authorship list, per its GitHub document history. No explanation for the change was given.

During today’s press conference Wiegand made an intervention that seems unlikely to endear him to the wider crypto and digital rights community — describing the debate around which cryptography system to use for COVID-19 contacts tracing as a ‘side show’ and expressing concern that what he called Europe’s “open public discussion” might “destroy our ability to get ourselves as Europeans out of this.”

“I just wanted to make everyone aware of the difficulty of this problem,” he also said. “Cryptography is only one of 12 building blocks in the system. So I really would like to have everybody go back and reconsider what problem we are in here. We have to win against this virus… or we have another lockdown or we have a lot of big problems. I would like to have everybody to consider that and to think about it because we have a chance if we get our act together and really win against the virus.”

The press conference had an even more inauspicious start after the Zoom call was disrupted by racist spam in the chat field. Right before that Boos had kicked off the call saying he had heard from “some more technically savvy people that we should not be using Zoom because it’s insecure — and for an initiative that wants security and privacy it’s the wrong tool.”

“Unfortunately we found out that many of our international colleagues only had this on their corporate PCs so over time either Zoom has to improve — or we need to get better installations out there. It’s certainly not our intention to leak the data on this Zoom,” he added.

[helpless-words]

Klance Power bottom OS

The battle simulation room was tense as everyone in the room watched Keith fight, everyone already knowing he was easily one of the best fighters there. Sitting at one of the tables, Lance laid his head against the desk, hiding the harsh blush on his cheeks as he watched Keith move. Slowly throughout his fight, he could feel himself growing hot and tense, his chest constricting as he imagined what Keith could do to him.

Those hands…and that body…goddammit Keith, why do you have to be so perfect?

Keith continued to fight, Allura making the battle progressively harder and harder for him as it went on. The next training enemy he’d encountered took his bayard, using it against him. Thinking quickly, he pulled his second knife out of his pocket,  readying himself to battle with the robot again. Taking a breath, he waited for it to make the first move.

“Lance, you okay over there? You seem pretty sick, are you nervous for your turn?” Pidge asked, sitting beside Lance as she wondered what was wrong and why he wasn’t really watching the fight.

Biting his lip momentarily, Lance quickly nodded, deciding to go with the sick idea to try and get out of fighting and instead go to his room.

I can’t stay here much longer, or else I’m going to lose my mind.

“U-uh yeah, I’m just feeling a little under the weather, I’ll be okay but I don’t think I can fight today. I’m just gonna lay down in my room for a while, knock if you need me.” He answered quickly before standing, moving to grab his jacket before seeing Keith’s laying right beside his. Hr hesitated for a moment before quickly grabbing it and hiding it into his side. “I-I’ll see you guys later.”

Keith ignored what was happening, his focus on the battle at hand. Quickly, he wiped his face from sweat before going after went after the training bot again, and luckily, with a few moves had Shiro taught him, he was able to retrieve his bayard back from the robot, smirking knowing that he won the battle.

“Okay Keith, you can rest now, you’re on your fifth wave when you only had to do two.” Coran informed Keith, trying to make sure the paladin didn’t overwork himself.

“Yeah…” he responded breathlessly. “Probably a good idea. Have fun beating that Shiro!” He laughed, putting his knife and bayard away at his side. He moved to to the table, going to grab his jacket before stopping, realizing it wasn’t there

What the hell? Where did it go? That’s the third time this month.

As soon as he had reached his bedroom, Lance instantly shut his door, his hands moving to unbuckle his belt as he sat on his bed, his hand going to Keith’s jacket and wrapping the fabric around his hard shaft, moving it slowly as he bit back a moan, remembering how Keith moved during practice.

Keith…God so perfect… he groaned to himself, continuing to rub the  leather from Keith’s jacket against himself as he imagined Keith’s gloved hands.

Keith searched around the castle everywhere he knew he’d been that day, then he remembered who could’ve possibly been responsible- the only person who would deliberately fuck with him by taking his jacket. Lance. He stormed off furiously in the direction of Lances room, annoyed by his stupid games.

Moving his hand a bit faster, Lance could feel himself beginning to lose control, the fabric on his sensitive skin making him twist and groan. “Keith… Like that… Please…God, so good, so perfect…” He moaned softly, a piece of Keith’s jacket rubbing over a particularly sensitive part of his tip and making him cry out, his hips rocking against his hand as he fought off the urge to thrust into the jacket. “F-faster…shit, faster…”

Anger boiling inside if Keith as he went to Lances room, opening the door quickly without knocking. “Lance, what the fuck did you do with my-!” Keith cut himself off, completely speechless at what he seen before him.

“K-Keith! W-what are you doing in here?! Get out!“  Lance exclaimed, quickly using the jacket to cover himself, wincing as the fabric rubbed against his aching member. Humiliation filed his cheeks as he realized he’d been caught, flinching as he already thought about how Keith would use it against him.

“So you’re the one whose been taking my jacket, huh? You seriously get off to that?” Keith smirked, totally taking the opportunity to tease Lance as he crossed his arms across his chest, watching the other with amusement.

“Get. Out.” Lance growled, half tempted to stand and shove Keith out himself before realizing that’d mean losing the protection that was currently covering his modestly.

“Well if you want me to leave then you wouldn’t mind if I took my jacket back then, would you?” Keith asked cockily, grinning evilly. If he’s gonna take my jacket for this, he’s gonna have consequences.

Lance growled as he realized what Keith was doing, knowing that all he wanted was to humiliate him. “I’ll wash it and give it to you later. Just get out, Keith.” He said, the annoyance clear in his voice as he glared at the other. If only you weren’t an such an asshole..and if this damn jacket would stop rubbing against me …Just leave please…

“Do you really want me to Lance?” He asked, amusement apparent in his voice. “Based off what I walked in on… I believe you’re either attracted to me, or you reeeeally love my jacket.”

He climbed on the bed getting closer. “Which is it?” He asked in a soft teasing voic, his face inches away from Lance’s. He’s actually really cute when he’s embarrassed like this.

Seeing Keith’s face get closer, Lance began to pull away, only resulting in the jacket to slip lower down his body, rubbing against him and causing his hips to barely rise, a small whine leaving his lips at the friction. His cheeks immediately darkened, trying desperately to keep his gaze anywhere else but on Keith.

“Lance, I’m not angry- I’m just surprised.” Keith said slowly, moving his hand under the jacket as he spoke. “Not gonna lie, you are aggravating at times, but I secretly hoped something like this would happen. With you, being as perverted as you are, I guessed it was only a matter of time until I caught you in this situation.” he smirked, lightly running his fingers over Lance’s body under the jacket. “And you aren’t stopping me, so you must want more than just my clothing after all…”

A small moan escaped Lance’s lips as he felt Keith’s hand running over him, his hips immediately rutting into the action, demanding more. “K-Keith, you prick. Quit with the damn teasing, if you’re going to do something then do it.” He hissed, grabbing Keith’s gloved hand and making him grab his aching member, moaning lowly as he made the other begin to stroke him, his hips rocking against it.

Slowly, Keith stroked his hand over Keith’s hardend member, keeping his glove on to create more friction. Moving the jacket away, he moved his hand at a quicker pace, running his thumb across the sensitive tip oh his cock, the noises he tore from Lance encouraging him to keep going. He was determined to teach Lance a lesson and judging by the messy state Lance was in below him, he knew he was winning. “System Command. Doors: Lock and Do Not Disturb.” Keith said loud enough for the security system to hear, smirking when he heard the doors lock behind them.

“Now we can’t be interrupted. I’m going to make you remember this~” Keith growled in Lance’s ear, starting to show his dominant side as the other below him became more and more in his control.

Lance smirked at Keith���s attempts at being dominant, moving his hand a bit faster against himself as he moaned softly. “You want to know how I’m going to remember this? With you, on your knees, sucking me off, so I can finally shut you up.” He chuckled before pushing Keith down onto his knees in front of him, grabbing him by his hair and tugging him closer to him roughly.

“Is that what you think is gonna happen? You really think you can dominate over me?” Keith asked with a smirk, looking up at Lance. “You can’t force me to do anything.” he teased, enjoying how forceful the other was becoming with him, knowing that it wasn’t going to last for long.

Lance smirked, letting his finger run over Keith’s lips gently before letting it dip inside, causing Keith’s mouth to open. “I can’t, but you will. So I don’t have to force anything.” He answered before tugging Keith closer, his lips wrapping around his hardened member, making him moan softly. “Shit…that’s hot…” he panted lightly, dragging Keith’s head back and forth, the feeling surrounding him indescribable.

Keith hallowed his cheeks and let the other move his head at a slow easy pace while he used his still gloved hand at the base of Lance’s cock, paying attention to the tip and sensitive underside of it with his tongue. How did I get in this position? I’m not at all complaining but how did this happen so suddenly? He asked himself as he continued his actions. He looked up at Lance for a moment and he’d never forget the look on the others face. Pure bliss covered his facial features, the soft noises leaving his mouth unlike anything Keith had ever heard. God he’s fucking hot… I never thought I’d be able to see him this way.. never did I think I’d have this opportunity to have Lance McClain…. all to myself.

Lance groaned as he saw Keith look up at him, his grip tightening in the others hair as he forced him to speed up, pulling him closer with every thrust until he could feel himself hitting the back of his throat. “You look so good like that, Keith… What was that you were saying about you dominating me?” Lance panted, a smirk on his lips as he watched Keith swallow his cock, moaning softly at the sight.

Keith wanted to say something back but obviously couldn’t in his current state, instead just doing his best to ignore the comment. He moaned softly around him when he felt Lance pull at his hair, becoming more and more aroused by the second

Lance smirked, pulling Keith closer until he could feel him choking around him, the feeling pulling him closer and closer to the edge. “God-” he choked out before moaning, tugging him back and forth roughly, not even caring for how the other felt at the moment.

Keith gagged a couple times at Lances rough pace, unable to keep up with him. Holy shit he’s stronger than I thought- especially like this. He dug his nails into Lance’s side, moaning loudly around him as he hit the back of his throat repeatedly, sending vibrations through his body. I’m so glad these rooms are sound proofed…

Feeling himself getting close to the edge, Lance instantly pulled Keith off, panting lightly as he watched him, trying to calm himself down from his high. “U-up.” Lance demanded softly, pulling Keith up by his shirt until he laid on the bed, instantly climbing over to him and sitting so that he was straddling him, grinding down into him gently. “God I really wanna fuck you…” He grumbled softly, his voice full of need and eyes filled with lust as Keith looked up at him.

Holding Lance’s ass with one hand, a playful smirk creeped onto his lips. He tugged him down by his shirt with his free hand, their faces just inches apart and the sexual tension in the room almost unbearable for both of them “Well then, what’s stopping you?” He asked, his lips just barely brushing over Lance’s.

Lance smirked, leaning a bit closer so that he was just centimeters apart from him. “Maybe I want you to fuck me more..” he muttered softly against his lips, fumbling with his belt as he began to undo Keith’s pants, pulling them loose before grinding down into him roughly, a small moan leaving his lips.

Keith bite his lip, already excited by just the thought of dominating over the blue paladin, the man he’s been attracted to for years. Finally, he closed the gap between them pushing Lance back onto the bed, holding his hands above his head. The kiss was full of need and desperation as he bit Lance’s lip, grinding down on him. No more waiting. No more stalling. He wants this just as much as me, finally, I can claim what’s rightfully mine.

Lance moaned softly as he felt Keith grind against him, arching into him as he wrapped his legs around him, tugging his pants lower down his body until they barely left his hips, rubbing against him needily. “S-still thinking you’re gonna be dominating this one, Keith?” He purred gently, smirking as he bit Keith’s bottom lip teasingly.

“Damn right I am.” Keith mumbled moving his lips to Lance’s neck, leaving small bruises on the sensitive skin.

“How long have you been stealing my jacket Lance?” Keith asked breathing, hot air against Lance’s skin. “I want to know just how long you’ve been imagining this”

Lance smirked, moving to flip them around and grinding against him gently. “Long enough I’d say.” He chuckled softly before tugging his own shirt away, moving to pull Keith’s jeans off before crawling back on top of him, purposefully letting his hand brush against Keith’s hardened length. “Oops.” He snickered, a devilish grin on his lips.

Keith sucked in a sharp breath and at the gentle touch, his face heating up and heart racing at all the action. “Give me an answer, you ass.” He ordered, moving his hands to Lance’s hips and grinding against him roughly, biting his lip at the large amount of friction between the two of them. “Give me an answer or nothing’s happening.”

Lance bit his lip harshly at the action, refusing to show any real reaction to Keith before giving him a smug grin. “Oh really, are you sure you want that to happen?” He questioned, letting his hand drop to Keith’s hip, dragging his fingers across the fabric of his boxers slowly. “Even if I don’t answer, you wouldn’t stop, would you?” He purred lightly, letting his lips brush over the curve of his neck as he left marks along his collar, pressing his palm into him quickly before releasing it.

“I don’t see why you’re so confident in that statement, I could easily leave you this.” he tested stopping his actions and making Lance look back at him. No matter what the two were doing, it seemed to always turn into a competition of who was stronger, in a both literal and metaphorical sense. I don’t see how I’m so attracted to a prideful, conceited asshole like him.

Lance growled lowly, a part of him knowing that Keith would pull an asshole move like it, but another part saying he’d be too desperate to stop. Do I seriously want to test it? Especially when I have him like this? Lance thought for a moment, staying silent on top of Keith, glaring at him before he made his decision, grinding down into him painfully slow but keeping his lips shut. “Why don’t you just shut up and fuck me already? Unless, of course, you can’t.” He smirked, hoping that he could somehow distract him from the question, tugging down his own jeans until he managed to pull them off, throwing them to the side.

Keith grabbed Lance by his neck, pulling him back down and looking him right in his stupidly soft blue eyes as he spoke. “How about you ride me instead? I’m willing to bet that’s been one of the many fantasies you’ve had in that fucked up head of yours.”

“You enjoyed it.” Lance replied, grinning before grinding down into Keith once more, kissing down his chest to leave mark. Stopping at his V line, he looked up to Keith, hooking his finger into his boxers and tugging them down, panting against his hardened member.

“G-god…You’re so fucking slow at this..” Keith groaned, starting to grow impatient. “If you’re gonna do something then do it, otherwise I’m pinning your smartass to the damn mattress and doing you myself.”

Lance snickered at Keith’s frustration, knowing that the slow pace was beginning to effect him. Wrapping his lips around Keith, Lance sucked him off quickly before moving to crawl back onto him, sinking himself onto him slowly, hissing at the slight pain.

“Fucking finally…” he sighed laying his head back against the mattress. He laid still for a moment, waiting for Lance to get comfortable in the new position. As impatient as Keith was, he knew it would hurt Lance if he moved, especially since he was probably too full of himself to admit he needed the preparation. As he saw him get more comfortable, Keith began to move his hips slowly, rocking Lance against him gently. “You good?” He asked, looking up at him as he held his lips.

“Yeah, I’m good.” He moaned softly, feeling Keith moving beneath him. “M-more.”

Keith bit his lip and gripped Lance’s hips tightly, holding him as he thrust up into him, the feeling unlike anything he ever felt. “F-fuck, you’re tight… feels good..” Keith groaned softly, letting his hands roam over his skin lightly.

Lance moaned as he felt Keith thrusting into him, moving his hips to move against his thrusts, causing him to go deeper. “G-god, faster… feels so good…” Lance whimpered softly as he bounced against Keith, causing his thrust to become slightly faster.

He dug his fingers into Lance’s hips as he moved faster, doing his best to hold back a soft moan at the feeling. Moving one of his hands to Lance’s neck, he pulled him down for another deep kiss, continuing to thrust into him. This is great.. not only does it feel absolutely amazing, I can finally shut him up. Keith thought with a smirk pulling away from the kiss slowly. He seems like he’s in heaven right now, I’ll admit it’s actually really fucking hot to see him so vulnerable right now because of me.

Lance moaned as Keith sped up, meeting his every thrust as he moved his lips to Keith’s neck, biting roughly to leave various marks against his skin while he grinded into him roughly.

“What? No smart remarks anymore?” Keith smirked, rolling his hips, sudden confidence filling him at Lance’s vulnerability.

Lance let out a choked moan at the snap of one of Keith’s thrusts, growling lowly at Keith. “Why don’t you just shut up before I make you?” He growled, his cheeks dark as he panted lightly, his heart beating a thousand times a minute as he looked down at Keith.

“You’re really threatening me right now?” Keith chuckled, slowing down his pace a bit against Lance. “Didn’t know you could still be so tough with a dick up your-”

Lance smirked, lifting his hips and snapping them back down onto Keith’s hips roughly, biting his lip as he watched Keith’s reaction, gripping his hair and tugging his head back.

“F-fuck!” He gasped, the sudden feeling of Lance going down on him making him lose his train of thought, the hair pulling making him moan lightly. “Shit Lance….” He panted, arousal swimming in his stomach at how Lance was being so in control.

“You were saying?” Lance snickered, going faster momentarily before going slow again, knowing that the changing pace would be sure to drive him mad. “You sure you want to keep talking, Keith? Hasn’t helped you much so far….” Lance pointed out, a smug grin on his lips as he dragged his hips against Keith’s.

“I have half the mind to leave you like this” Keith growled, tightening his grip on Lance’s body to grind against him, hoping he’d go faster.

“Awe, getting frustrated Keith?” Lance replied smugly, dragging his hips out slowly, almost considering stopping just to mess with him before deciding against it, and speeding up instead. I think I’ve teased him enough, if I do anymore, he’ll most definitely try to kill me. he thought to himself, snapping his hips against Keith’s quickly, his back arching at the feeling and a small moan escaping his lips. “I guess I could quit, let you have a little fun.” He chuckled softly, keeping his thrusts quick and hard.

“You could shut up and I’ll be on cloud fucking nine” Keith mumbled, speeding his pace once again and feeling himself getting closer and closer to the edge, all the teasing and aggravation making him last a lot less longer than he originally thought he could. Lance chuckled, biting his lip as a small moan left his lip, sinking lower onto Keith to make him go deeper and groaning once he could felt himself getting pulled closer to his climax.

“K-Keith, I’m close…” he mumbled softly, grinding against him as he continued his bounce, small moans leaving his swollen lips. Keith nodded biting his lip to hold back another loud moan at the feeling of Lance riding him. Changing his angle, he tried to find a certain spot inside the man currently on top of him, trying send him completely over edge.

“So am I..” he mumbled breathlessly, groaning softly as he repeatedly thrust into the new spot he found, loving the noises it made fall Lance’s lips.

Upon feeling Keith hit a new spot in him, Lance immediately felt his limps turn to jell-o, his arms beside Keith’s head being the only thing keeping him from sinking onto Keith as their thrusts became fast and sloppy, his moans becoming panted and quick.

“G-god, K-Keith, I’m going to-” Lance panted out before moaning, hitting his climax and rocking against Keith as he spilled over, his cheeks dark against his skin.

A couple rough thrusts later,  Keith finished, spilling inside of Lance without warning. As be took a moment to catch his breathe, Lance got up, moving to lay beside him. Keith paused, looking over to him as the realization of what just happened hit him, and hard. He froze and looked at the door before back to Lance.

“Can we both agree to never speak of what just happened? Ever again?”

“Um, yeah. I think that’d be best. And I’ll have your jacket clean by tomorrow morning.” Lance responded, his voice ragged and low as he brushed hair from out of his face, his cheeks dark as he realized what’d happened, trying to make sense of it all.

“I’m considering just giving the damn thing to you, after knowing what you do with it, I don’t think I’ll ever see it the same way again.” After a moment of awkward silence, Keith spoke up again. “Can I just ask you something? Why would you do… that with me in your mind? I thought you hated me.” He asked, making the other tense up beside him.

“I don’t. I don’t hate you, that is. You can just be really annoying sometimes, but I don’t hate you.” Lance answered, turning away and moving so he could grab a cloth from his counter, cleaning himself quickly before tossing a new one to Keith.

“Well that’s clear considering the state we’re in right now” Keith said as he sat up, cleaning himself up and pulling his clothes back on.

Lance growled, rolling his eyes as he pulled on his clothes, staying silent momentarily. “Would just hurry up and get out, I need to burn these sheets…” he grumbled, running his fingers through his hair, his cheeks dark as he went through everything that happened, trying to get this going back to normal as soon as he possibly could.

“You sure you just won’t use them for your next session?” Keith smirked. It was almost too easy to mess with Lance after what had just happened, and he could resist not teasing the other boy.

“Can you shut up and get out of my room?”

“Whatever, fine.” Keith answered, rolling his eyes and moving to open the door to the room, letting it close behind him as he walked down the hall. I need a shower after that, wash this damn filth off me. He thought to himself, groaning softly in annoyance. What even are we? We aren’t enemies and we barely even consider each other as ‘friends’ … but after that- what the hell is he thinking?

After seeing the door close behind Keith, Lance groaned, falling to sit in a chair by his desk, his head spinning. “Well Lance, you really did it this time.” He mumbled to himself, letting his face hide in his hands.  I’m never masturbating again…

~~~~~~~~~~~~

AN; Aye, freaks. So I hope you enjoyed this, kind of a ‘birthday’ present for @theprincephantom even tho it’s who knows how late

But hey, I’ll just use the excuse that I was saving this for the premiere night of Season 3 of Voltron :D

Anyways, hope you enjoyed, if you did, don’t forget to vote.

Stalk me:

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Instagram: @trash_bin_for_fandoms

Bye ✌

[tellytantra]

Prerna ruffled through the cupboard in frustration, then stood still with her hands on her hip, frowning at the contents of her suitcase, now hanging neatly on the rails or folded into shelves. What was she thinking when she packed these things?? Really, why, why did she think these clothes were appropriate for the ocassion?? She had two fashion consultants at her disposal in the form of nivi di and tapur. And still, she had decided to take matters in her own hands and here was the result. Anurag would be out of the shower any minute, ready to go, and here she was still in her bathrobe, exactly where he had left her 30 minutes back.. She muttered under her breath, sighing ever so often in frustration, when suddenly she felt his arms go around her waist and he rested his chin on her shoulder. "what's the matter??", he asked softly, sniffing gently at the cream and roses scent of her just washed hair. "Anurag, I have nothing to wear", she whined turning around in his embrace to look at him. Anurag chuckled once but then subsided when he saw the expression on his wife's face. Having grown up in a household dominated by fashion conscious women, he was well aware of the perpetual "nothing to wear" ailment, that seemed to afflict women at regular intervals. He had always thought prerna to be different. Her apparent ignorance of her own beauty was something he found ridiculously attractive and her simplicity always beckoned to him like a siren's call. Still, he was thoroughly enjoying this very feminine and vain side of his wife. He thought for a second and grinned mischievously before moving a step closer to prerna. She put her hands on his chest to stop his advances and narrowed her eyes suspiciously when Anurag leaned closer to whisper in her ear. "I have the perfect solution for your clothing troubles", he whispered in her ear, as his hand tracked its way to the belt holding her bathrobe closed. She smartly slapped his hand away and stepped out of his embrace.. "oww", he muttered, his hand stinging from her slap and frowned at his wife standing with her arms tightly folded.. Anurag sighed in disappointment, realizing that the fantasy he had been building involving the changed evening activities were not to be. In his experience, the "I have nothing to wear" ailment could usually be treated with a dose of "let's go shopping", so he led with that suggestion. Prerna immediately brightened up but then her face fell again as she said, " no but we have an evening cruise planned today followed by that....". "I'm canceling it all", interrupted Anurag firmly. "We are on our honeymoon and my wife wants to go shopping, so that's what we are going to do. My wife says she has nothing to wear, so we are going to raid the shops in Zürich till you find what you want", he declared grandly as he closed the door of their hotel suite on the way out. Anurag dragged his feet as prerna walked ahead of him into yet another shop.. "how many shops does this city have", he wondered.. "surely we must've seen most of them by now.. Oh please, let this be the last", he begged silently as his feet cried inside his Nikes. He suddenly had new found respect for his father and anupam. Being a married man was hard work. He didn't give them enough credit. This was the last time he was ever going to suggest a shopping trip with prerna, he vowed to himself silently. If she wanted to shop in the future, she could go with her friends or shivi, nivi di or Tapur. He was out!! Oh no no no... He could fight the world for her and put up with any sort of hardships for her smile, but this?? This was a cruel form Of punishment designed to torture men and he could not take it anymore.. He stopped Prerna as she was about to step into the next shop and opened his mouth to begin complaining.. "kuch zyaada ho gaya na", she said and cuddled closer to him. "Sorry Anurag, I just got carried away. There are so many things here that we would not get back home and I'm sure nividi, Tapur and everyone else will love the things we've bought for them. Chalo, let's go, sit down and have a coffee. Your feet must be tired now". " Anurag smiled, his irritation vanishing. This was his thoughtful, caring girl. He was sure she had shopped much more for others than she had for herself. Her innate goodness and kindness had been that which had appealed to him even when they were friends and those were the qualities that he had fallen in love with first. He kissed her softly on her cheek as they walked hand in hand to the river side promenade and sat down at a Cafe. Anurag helped prerna down from the carriage, stroked the horse once and turned away.. He had always heard that Zurich was a beautiful city and the horse drawn carriage ride had  proven just how much. It was a different matter that he had probably enjoyed the ride more, much more because prerna was by his side. They walked under a bridge when he felt Prerna pull on his hand and he stopped and looked at her. " this has been the most magical 2 weeks of my life.", she said holding his hand between her 2 petite ones. " coming to Switzerland was my dream and coming her with you just made it perfect. Thank you so much Anurag", she said, her eyes shining with joy and love. Anurag pulled her closer to him and said " do you know what my dream is?, being here with you. Not just here. Anywhere. To be able to stop anytime and just look at you. To turn any time during the night and just hold you. To leave work at the end of the day and know I'm coming home to you. To just stop, in the middle of the day, and let the thought that you're my wife and I'm your husband fill me. These were and are my dreams and you've fulfilled them all.. The least I can do now is try to fulfill all of your dreams". Prerna looked at Anurag. Her friend, lover and husband. The father of her children, one day. She had known him her whole life, there was not a time she could remember when he was not a part of her life. She could still not tell how and when it had happened that she had fallen in love with him. And now they were married, their destinies intertwined together forever. " I'm so happy, I feel like I can fly", she said laughing, when suddenly she felt herself  lifted off her feel. "go for it then," anurag grinned as he held her up in his arms. She threw her hands out and threw back her head and laughed as he twirled her around in his arms. The sun began to set behind them, and the strains of street music filled the air as they just twirled around, lost in their own little world. Hope4u

http://jodifiction.blogspot.com/2020/08/anupre-os-magical-evening-kasautii.html

[sheminecrafts]

Europe’s PEPP-PT COVID-19 contacts tracing standard push could be squaring up for a fight with Apple and Google

A coalition of EU scientists and technologists that’s developing what’s billed as a “privacy-preserving” standard for Bluetooth-based proximity tracking, as a proxy for COVID-19 infection risk, wants Apple and Google to make changes to an API they’re developing for the same overarching purpose.

The Pan-European Privacy-Preserving Proximity Tracing (PEPP-PT) uncloaked on April 1, calling for developers of contact tracing apps to get behind a standardized approach to processing smartphone users’ data to coordinate digital interventions across borders and shrink the risk of overly intrusive location-tracking tools gaining momentum as a result of the pandemic.

PEPP-PT said today it has seven governments signed up to apply its approach to national apps, with a claimed pipeline of a further 40 in discussions about joining.

“We now have a lot of governments interacting,” said PEPP-PT’s Hans-Christian Boos, speaking during a webinar for journalists. “Some governments are publicly declaring that their local applications will be built on top of the principles of PEPP-PT and also the various protocols supplied inside this initiative.

“We know of seven countries that have already committed to do this — and we’re currently in conversation with 40 countries that are in various states of onboarding.”

Boos said a list of the governments would be shared with journalists, though at the time of writing we haven’t seen it. But we’ve asked PEPP-PT’s PR firm for the info and will update this report when we get it.

“The pan-European approach has worked,” he added. “Governments have decided at a speed previously unknown. But with 40 more countries in the queue of onboarding we definitely have outgrown just the European focus — and to us this shows that privacy as a model and as a discussion point… is a statement and it is something that we can export because we’re credible on it.”

Paolo de Rosa, the CTO at the Ministry of Innovation Technology and Digital Transformation for the Italian government, was also on the webinar — and confirmed its national app will be built on top of PEPP-PT.

“We will have an app soon and obviously it will be based on this model,” he said, offering no further details.

PEPP-PT’s core “privacy-preserving” claim rests on the use of system architectures that do not require location data to be collected. Rather devices that come near each other would share pseudonymized IDs — which could later be used to send notifications to an individual if the system calculates an infection risk has occurred. An infected individual’s contacts would be uploaded at the point of diagnosis — allowing notifications to be sent to other devices with which had come into contact.

Boos, a spokesman for and coordinator of PEPP-PT, told TechCrunch earlier this month the project will support both centralized and decentralized approaches. The former meaning IDs are uploaded to a trusted server, such as one controlled by a health authority; the latter meaning IDs are held locally on devices, where the infection risk is also calculated — a backend server is only in the loop to relay info to devices.

It’s just such a decentralized contacts tracing system that Apple and Google are collaborating on supporting — fast-following PEPP-PT last week by announcing a plan for cross-platform COVID-19 contacts tracing via a forthcoming API and then a system-wide (opt-in) for Bluetooth-based proximity tracking.

That intervention, by the only two smartphone platforms that matter when the ambition is mainstream adoption, is a major development — putting momentum behind decentralized contacts tracing for responding digitally to the coronavirus crisis in the Western world, certainly at the platform level.

In a resolution passed today the European parliament also called for a decentralized approach to COVID-19 proximity tracking.

MEPs are pushing for the Commission and Member States to be “fully transparent on the functioning of contact tracing apps, so that people can verify both the underlying protocol for security and privacy and check the code itself to see whether the application functions as the authorities are claiming.” (The Commission has previously signaled a preference for decentralization too.)

However, backers of PEPP-PT, which include at least seven governments (and the claim of many more), aren’t giving up on the option of a “privacy-preserving” centralized option — which some in their camp are dubbing “pseudo-decentralized” — with Boos claiming today that discussions are ongoing with Apple and Google about making changes to their approach.

As it stands, contacts tracing apps that don’t use a decentralized infrastructure won’t be able to carry out Bluetooth tracking in the background on Android or iOS — as the platforms limit how general apps can access Bluetooth. This means users of such apps would have to have the app open and active all the time for proximity tracking to function, with associated (negative) impacts on battery life and device usability.

There are also (intentional) restrictions on how contacts tracing data could be centralized, as a result of the relay server model being deployed in the joint Apple-Google model.

“We very much appreciate that Google and Apple are stepping up to making the operating system layer available — or putting what should be the OS actually there, which is the Bluetooth measurement and the handling of crypto and the background running of such tasks which have to keep running resiliently all the time — if you look at their protocols and if you look at whom they are provided by, the two dominant players in the mobile ecosystem, then I think that from a government perspective especially, or from lots of government perspectives, there are many open points to discuss,” said Boos today.

“From a PEPP-PT perspective there are a few points to discuss because we want choice and implementing choice in terms of model — decentralized or centralized on top of their protocol creates actually the worst of both worlds — so there are many points to discuss. But contrary to the behavior that many of us who work with tech companies are used to Google and Apple are very open in these discussions and there’s no point in getting up in arms yet because these discussions are ongoing and it looks like agreement can be reached with them.”

It wasn’t clear what specific changes PEPP-PT wants from Apple and Google — we asked for more detail during the webinar but didn’t get a response. But the group and its government backers may be hoping to dilute the tech giants’ stance to make it easier to create centralized graphs of Bluetooth contacts to feed national coronavirus responses.

As it stands, Apple and Google’s API is designed to block contact matching on a server — though there might still be ways for governments (and others) to partially work around the restrictions and centralize some data.

We reached out to Apple and Google with questions about the claimed discussions with PEPP-PT. At the time of writing, neither had responded.

As well as Italy, the German and French governments are among those that have indicated they’re backing PEPP-PT for national apps — which suggests powerful EU Member States could be squaring up for a fight with the tech giants, along the lines of Apple versus the FBI, if pressure to tweak the API fails.

Another key strand to this story is that PEPP-PT continues to face strident criticism from privacy and security experts in its own backyard — including after it removed a reference to a decentralized protocol for COVID-19 contacts tracing that’s being developed by another European coalition, comprised of privacy and security experts, called DP-3T.

Coindesk reported on the silent edit to PEPP-PT’s website yesterday.

Backers of DP-3T have also repeatedly queried why PEPP-PT hasn’t published code or protocols for review to-date — and even gone so far as to dub the effort a ��trojan horse.”

#DP3T entered as a candidate to so-called PEPP-PT in good faith, but it is now clear that powerful actors pushing centralised databases of Bluetooth contact tracing do not, and will not, act in good faith.

PEPP-PT is a Trojan horse.

— Michael Veale (@mikarv) April 16, 2020

ETH Zürich’s Dr. Kenneth Paterson, who is both a part of the PEPP-PT effort and a designer of DP-3T, couldn’t shed any light on the exact changes the coalition is hoping to extract from “Gapple” when we asked.

“They’ve still not said exactly how their system would work, so I can’t say what they would need [in terms of changes to Apple and Google’s system],” he told us in an email exchange.

Today Boos couched the removal of the reference to DP-3T on PEPP-PT’s website as a mistake — which he blamed on “bad communication.” He also claimed the coalition is still interested in including the former’s decentralized protocol within its bundle of standardized technologies. So the already sometimes fuzzy lines between the camps continue to be redrawn. (It’s also interesting to note that press emails to Boos are now being triaged by Hering Schuppener, a communications firm that sells publicity services, including crisis PR.)

“We’re really sorry for that,” Boos said of the DP-3T excision. “Actually we just wanted to put the various options on the same level that are out there. There are still all these options and we very much appreciate the work that colleagues and others are doing.

“You know there is a hot discussion in the crypto community about this and we actually encourage this discussion because it’s always good to improve on protocols. What we must not lose sight of is… that we’re not talking about crypto here, we’re talking about pandemic management and as long as an underlying transport layer can ensure privacy that’s good enough because governments can choose whatever they want.”

Boos also said PEPP-PT would finally be publishing some technical documents this afternoon — opting to release information some three weeks after its public unveiling and on a Friday evening (a seven-page ‘high level overview’ has since been put on their GitHub here [this link has since been deleted – Ed.] — but still a far cry from code for review) — while making a simultaneous plea for journalists to focus on the “bigger picture” of fighting the coronavirus rather than keep obsessing over technical details. 

During today’s webinar some of the scientists backing PEPP-PT talked about how they’re testing the efficacy of Bluetooth as a proxy for tracking infection risk.

“The algorithm that we’ve been working on looks at the cumulative amount of time that individuals spend in proximity with each other,” said Christophe Fraser, professor at the Nuffield Department of Medicine and Senior Group Leader in Pathogen Dynamics at the Big Data Institute, University of Oxford, offering a general primer on using Bluetooth proximity data for tracking viral transmission.

“The aim is to predict the probability of transmission from the phone proximity data. So the ideal system reduces the requested quarantine to those who are the most at risk of being infected and doesn’t give the notification — even though some proximity event was recorded — to those people who’re not at risk of being infected.”

“Obviously that’s going to be an imperfect process,” he went on. “But the key point is that in this innovative approach that we should be able to audit the extent to which that information and those notifications are correct — so we need to actually be seeing, of the people who have been sent the notification how many of them actually were infected. And of those people who were identified as contacts, how many weren’t.

“Auditing can be done in many different ways for each system but that step is crucial.”

Evaluating the effectiveness of the digital interventions will be vital, per Fraser — whose presentation could have been interpreted as making a case for public health authorities to have fuller access to contacts graphs. But it’s important to note that DP-3T’s decentralized protocol makes clear provision for app users to opt-in to voluntarily share data with epidemiologists and research groups to enable them to reconstruct the interaction graph among infected and at risk users (aka to get access to a proximity graph).

“It’s really important that if you’re going to do an intervention that is going to affect millions of people — in terms of these requests to [quarantine] — that that information be the best possible science or the best possible representation of the evidence at the point at which you give the notification,” added Fraser. “And therefore as we progress forwards that evidence — our understanding of the transmission of the virus — is going to improve. And in fact auditing of the app can allow that to improve, and therefore it seems essential that that information be fed back.”

None of the PEPP-PT-aligned apps that are currently being used for testing or reference are interfacing with national health authority systems, per Boos — though he cited a test in Italy that’s been plugged into a company’s health system to run tests.

“We have supplied the application builders with the backend, we have supplied them with sample code, we have supplied them with protocols, we have supplied them with the science of measurement, and so on and so forth. We have a working application that simply has no integration into a country’s health system — on Android and on iOS,” he noted.

On its website PEPP-PT lists a number of corporate “members” as backing the effort — including the likes of Vodafone — alongside several research institutions including Germany’s Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute for telecoms (HHI) which has been reported as leading the effort.

The HHI’s executive director, Thomas Wiegand, was also on today’s call. Notably, his name initially appeared on the authorship list for the DP-3T’s white paper. However, on April 10 he was removed from the README and authorship list, per its GitHub document history. No explanation for the change was given.

During today’s press conference Wiegand made an intervention that seems unlikely to endear him to the wider crypto and digital rights community — describing the debate around which cryptography system to use for COVID-19 contacts tracing as a ‘side show’ and expressing concern that what he called Europe’s “open public discussion” might “destroy our ability to get ourselves as Europeans out of this.”

“I just wanted to make everyone aware of the difficulty of this problem,” he also said. “Cryptography is only one of 12 building blocks in the system. So I really would like to have everybody go back and reconsider what problem we are in here. We have to win against this virus… or we have another lockdown or we have a lot of big problems. I would like to have everybody to consider that and to think about it because we have a chance if we get our act together and really win against the virus.”

The press conference had an even more inauspicious start after the Zoom call was disrupted by racist spam in the chat field. Right before that Boos had kicked off the call saying he had heard from “some more technically savvy people that we should not be using Zoom because it’s insecure — and for an initiative that wants security and privacy it’s the wrong tool.”

“Unfortunately we found out that many of our international colleagues only had this on their corporate PCs so over time either Zoom has to improve — or we need to get better installations out there. It’s certainly not our intention to leak the data on this Zoom,” he added.

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[technicalsolutions88]

A coalition of EU scientists and technologists that’s developing what’s billed as a “privacy-preserving” standard for Bluetooth-based proximity tracking, as a proxy for COVID-19 infection risk, wants Apple and Google to make changes to an API they’re developing for the same overarching purpose.

The Pan-European Privacy-Preserving Proximity Tracing (PEPP-PT) uncloaked on April 1, calling for developers of contacts tracing apps to get behind a standardized approach to processing smartphone users’ data to co-ordinate digital interventions across borders and shrink the risk of overly intrusive location-tracking tools gaining momentum as a result of the pandemic.

PEPP-PT said today it has seven governments signed up to apply its approach to national apps, with a claimed pipeline of a further 40 in discussions about joining.

“We now have a lot of governments interacting,” said PEPP-PT’s Hans-Christian Boos, speaking during a webinar for journalists. “Some governments are publicly declaring that their local applications will be built on top of the principles of PEPP-PT and also the various protocols supplied inside this initiative.

“We know of seven countries that have already committed to do this — and we’re currently in conversation with 40 countries that are in various states of onboarding.”

Boos said a list of the governments would be shared with journalists, though at the time of writing we haven’t seen it. But we’ve asked PEPP-PT’s PR firm for the info and will update this report when we get it.

“The pan-European approach has worked,” he added. “Governments have decided at a speed previously unknown. But with 40 more countries in the queue of onboarding we definitely have outgrown just the European focus — and to us this shows that privacy as a model and as a discussion point… is a statement and it is something that we can export because we’re credible on it.”

Paolo de Rosa, the CTO at the Ministry of Innovation Technology and Digital Transformation for the Italian government, was also on the webinar — and confirmed its national app will be built on top of PEPP-PT.

“We will have an app soon and obviously it will be based on this model,” he said, offering no further details.

PEPP-PT’s core ‘privacy-preserving’ claim rests on the use of system architectures that do not require location data to be collected. Rather devices that come near each other would share pseudonymized IDs — which could later be used to send notifications to an individual if the system calculates an infection risk has occurred. An infected individual’s contacts would be uploaded at the point of diagnosis — allowing notifications to be sent to other devices they had come into contact with.

Boos, a spokesman for and coordinator of PEPP-PT, told TechCrunch earlier this month the project will support both centralized and decentralized approaches. The former meaning IDs are uploaded to a trusted server, such as one controlled by a health authority; the latter meaning IDs are held locally on devices, where the infection risk is also calculated — a backend server is only in the loop to relay info to devices.

It’s just such a decentralized contacts tracing system that Apple and Google are collaborating on supporting — fast-following PEPP-PT last week by announcing a plan for cross-platform COVID-19 contacts tracing via a forthcoming API and then a system-wide (opt-in) for Bluetooth-based proximity tracking.

That intervention, by the only two smartphone platforms that matter when the ambition is mainstream app adoption, is a major development — putting momentum in the Western world behind decentralized contacts tracing for responding digitally to the coronavirus crisis, certainly at the platform level.

In a resolution passed today the European parliament also called for a decentralized approach to COVID-19 proximity tracking. MEPs are pushing for the Commission and Member States to be “fully transparent on the functioning of contact tracing apps, so that people can verify both the underlying protocol for security and privacy, and check the code itself to see whether the application functions as the authorities are claiming”. (The Commission has previously signalled a preference for decentralization too.)

However backers of PEPP-PT, which include at least seven governments (and the claim of many more), aren’t giving up on the option of a “privacy-preserving” centralized option — which some in their camp are dubbing ‘pseudo-decentralized’ — with Boos claiming today that discussions are ongoing with Apple and Google about making changes to their approach.

As it stands, contacts tracing apps that don’t use a decentralized infrastructure won’t be able to carry out Bluetooth tracking in the background on Android or iOS — as the platforms limit how general apps can access Bluetooth. This means users of such apps would have to have the app open and active all the time for proximity tracking to function, with associated (negative) impacts on battery life and device usability.

There are also (intentional) restrictions on how contracts tracing data could be centralized, as a result of the relay server model being deployed in the joint Apple-Google model.

“We very much appreciate that Google and Apple are stepping up to making the operating system layer available — or putting what should be the OS actually there, which is the Bluetooth measurement and the handling of crypto and the background running of such tasks which have to keep running resiliently all the time — if you look at their protocols and if you look at whom they are provided by, the two dominant players in the mobile ecosystem, then I think that from a government perspective especially, or from lots of government perspectives, there is many open points to discuss,” said Boos today.

“From a PEPP-PT perspective there’s a few points to discuss because we want choice and implementing choice in terms of model — decentralized or centralized on top of their protocol creates actually the worst of both worlds — so there are many points to discuss. But contrary to the behavior that many of us who work with tech companies are used to Google and Apple are very open in these discussions and there’s no point in getting up in arms yet because these discussions are ongoing and it looks like agreement can be reached with them.”

It wasn’t clear what specific changes PEPP-PT wants from Apple and Google — we asked for more detail during the webinar but didn’t get a response. But the group and its government backers may be hoping to dilute the tech giants’ stance to make it easier to create centralized graphs of Bluetooth contacts to feed national coronavirus responses.

As it stands, Apple and Google’s API is designed to block contact matching on a server — though there might still be ways for governments (and others) to partially workaround the restrictions and centralize some data.

We reached out to Apple and Google with questions about the claimed discussions with PEPP-PT. At the time of writing neither had responded.

As well as Italy, the German and French governments are among those that have indicated they’re backing PEPP-PT for national apps — which suggests powerful EU Member States could be squaring up for a fight with the tech giants, along the lines of Apple vs the FBI, if pressure to tweak the API fails.

Another key strand to this story is that PEPP-PT continues to face strident criticism from privacy and security experts in its own backyard — including after it removed a reference to a decentralized protocol for COVID-19 contacts tracing that’s being developed by another European coalition, comprised of privacy and security experts, called DP-3T.

Coindesk reported on the silent edit to PEPP-PT’s website yesterday.

Backers of DP-3T have also repeatedly queried why PEPP-PT hasn’t published code or protocols for review to-date — and even gone so far as to dub the effort a ‘trojan horse’.

#DP3T entered as a candidate to so-called PEPP-PT in good faith, but it is now clear that powerful actors pushing centralised databases of Bluetooth contact tracing do not, and will not, act in good faith.

PEPP-PT is a Trojan horse.

— Michael Veale (@mikarv) April 16, 2020

ETH Zürich’s Dr. Kenneth Paterson, who is both a part of the PEPP-PT effort and a designer of DP-3T, couldn’t shed any light on the exact changes the coalition is hoping to extract from ‘Gapple’ when we asked.

“They’ve still not said exactly how their system would work, so I can’t say what they would need [in terms of changes to Apple and Google’s system],” he told us in an email exchange.

Today Boos couched the removal of the reference to DP-3T on PEPP-PT’s website as a mistake — which he blamed on “bad communication”. He also claimed the coalition is still interested in including the former’s decentralized protocol within its bundle of standardized technologies. So the already sometimes fuzzy lines between the camps continue to be redrawn. (It’s also interesting to note that press emails to Boos are now being triaged by Hering Schuppener; a communications firm that sells publicity services including crisis PR.)

“We’re really sorry for that,” Boos said of the DP-3T excision. “Actually we just wanted to put the various options on the same level that are out there. There are still all these options and we very much appreciate the work that colleagues and others are doing.

“You know there is a hot discussion in the crypto community about this and we actually encourage this discussion because it’s always good to improve on protocols. What we must not lose sight of is… that we’re not talking about crypto here, we’re talking about pandemic management and as long as an underlying transport layer can ensure privacy that’s good enough because governments can choose whatever they want.”

Boos also said PEPP-PT would finally be publishing some technical documents this afternoon — opting to release information some three weeks after its public unveiling and on a Friday evening (a 7-page ‘high level overview’ has since been put on their Github here — but still a far cry from code for review) — while making a simultaneous plea for journalists to focus on the ‘bigger picture’ of fighting the coronavirus rather than keep obsessing over technical details. 

During today’s webinar some of the scientists backing PEPP-PT talked about how they’re testing the efficacy of Bluetooth as a proxy for tracking infection risk.

“The algorithm that we’ve been working on looks at the cumulative amount of time that individuals spend in proximity with each other,” said Christophe Fraser, professor at the Nuffield Department of Medicine and Senior Group Leader in Pathogen Dynamics at the Big Data Institute, University of Oxford, offering a general primer on using Bluetooth proximity data for tracking viral transmission.

“The aim is to predict the probability of transmission from the phone proximity data. So the ideal system reduces the requested quarantine to those who are the most at risk of being infected and doesn’t give the notification — even though some proximity event was recorded — to those people who’re not at risk of being infected.”

“Obviously that’s going to be an imperfect process,” he went on. “But the key point is that in this innovative approach that we should be able to audit the extent to which that information and those notifications are correct — so we need to actually be seeing, of the people who have been sent the notification how many of them actually were infected. And of those people who were identified as contacts, how many weren’t.

“Auditing can be done in many different ways for each system but that step is crucial.”

Evaluating the effectiveness of the digital interventions will be vital, per Fraser — whose presentation could have been interpreted as making a case for public health authorities to have fuller access to contacts graphs. But it’s important to note that DP-3T’s decentralized protocol makes clear provision for app users to opt-in to voluntarily share data with epidemiologists and research groups to enable them to reconstruct the interaction graph among infected and at risk users (aka to get access to a proximity graph).

“It’s really important that if you’re going to do an intervention that is going to affect millions of people — in terms of these requests to [quarantine] — that that information be the best possible science or the best possible representation of the evidence at the point at which you give the notification,” added Fraser. “And therefore as we progress forwards that evidence — our understanding of the transmission of the virus — is going to improve. And in fact auditing of the app can allow that to improve, and therefore it seems essential that that information be fed back.”

None of the PEPP-PT aligned apps that are currently being used for testing or reference are interfacing with national health authority systems, per Boos — though he cited a test in Italy that’s been plugged into a company’s health system to run tests.

“We have supplied the application builders with the backend, we have supplied them with sample code, we have supplied them with protocols, we have supplied them with the science of measurement, and so on and so forth. We have a working application that simply has no integration into a country’s health system — on Android and on iOS,” he noted.

On its website PEPP-PT lists a number of corporate “members” as backing the effort — including the likes of Vodafone — alongside several research institutions including Germany’s Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute for telecoms (HHI) which has been reported as leading the effort.

The HHI’s executive director, Thomas Wiegand, was also on today’s call. Notably, his name initially appeared on the authorship list for the DP-3T’s White Paper. However on April 10 he was removed from the README and authorship list, per its Github document history. No explanation for the change was given.

During today’s press conference Wiegand made an intervention that seems unlikely to endear him to the wider crypto and digital rights community — describing the debate around which cryptography system to use for COVID-19 contacts tracing as a ‘side show’ and expressing concern that what he called Europe’s “open public discussion” might “destroy our ability to get ourselves as Europeans out of this”.

“I just wanted to make everyone aware of the difficulty of this problem,” he also said. “Cryptography is only one of 12 building blocks in the system. So I really would like to have everybody go back and reconsider what problem we are in here. We have to win against this virus… or we have another lockdown or we have a lot of big problems. I would like to have everybody to consider that and to think about it because we have a chance if we get our act together and really win against the virus.”

The press conference had an even more inauspicious start after the Zoom call was disrupted by racist spam in the chat. Right before this Boos had kicked off the call saying he had heard from “some more technically savvy people that we should not be using Zoom because it’s insecure — and for an initiative that wants security and privacy it’s the wrong tool”.

“Unfortunately we found out that many of our international colleagues only had this on their corporate PCs so over time either Zoom has to improve — or we need to get better installations out there. It’s certainly not our intention to leak the data on this Zoom,” he added.

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