#data privacy definition

[reallytoosublime]

Data privacy refers to the protection of personal and sensitive information collected, processed, and stored by individuals, organizations, or entities. It encompasses the set of practices, policies, regulations, and technologies designed to ensure that individuals have control over their personal data and that this data is handled in a way that respects their rights, maintains its confidentiality, integrity, and availability, and prevents unauthorized access, use, or disclosure.

Data privacy encompasses a range of concepts and principles that collectively aim to safeguard individuals' rights and interests in their personal information. It involves understanding and implementing measures to control who has access to your data, how it is used, and for what purposes. This extends to both online and offline contexts, as more and more of our activities and interactions occur in the digital realm.

Key aspects of data privacy include: Data Collection: Organizations collect various types of data from individuals, including names, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, and more. Data privacy emphasizes the need for transparent and informed consent before collecting personal data, ensuring individuals are aware of how their data will be used.

Data Storage and Security: Personal data should be securely stored to prevent unauthorized access, breaches, or leaks. Organizations are expected to implement robust cybersecurity measures to safeguard sensitive information.

Data Processing: When organizations process personal data, such as analyzing it to gain insights or using it for targeted advertising, they must do so within the bounds of applicable laws and regulations. Individuals have the right to know what processing is taking place and to object to certain types of processing.

Data Sharing: Personal data should not be shared with third parties without explicit consent from the individual. This includes sharing data with advertisers, marketers, or other businesses.

User Control: Individuals should have the ability to access their own data, correct inaccuracies, and, in some cases, request the deletion of their data. This principle is enshrined in regulations like the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

Understanding your digital rights in terms of data privacy empowers you to make informed decisions about sharing your personal information, using online services, and interacting in the digital world while maintaining a reasonable level of control over your own data.

What is Data Privacy? Understanding Your Digital Rights

[youtubemarketing1234]

Data privacy refers to the protection of personal and sensitive information collected, processed, and stored by individuals, organizations, or entities. It encompasses the set of practices, policies, regulations, and technologies designed to ensure that individuals have control over their personal data and that this data is handled in a way that respects their rights, maintains its confidentiality, integrity, and availability, and prevents unauthorized access, use, or disclosure.

Data privacy encompasses a range of concepts and principles that collectively aim to safeguard individuals' rights and interests in their personal information. It involves understanding and implementing measures to control who has access to your data, how it is used, and for what purposes. This extends to both online and offline contexts, as more and more of our activities and interactions occur in the digital realm.

Key aspects of data privacy include: Data Collection: Organizations collect various types of data from individuals, including names, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, and more. Data privacy emphasizes the need for transparent and informed consent before collecting personal data, ensuring individuals are aware of how their data will be used.

Data Storage and Security: Personal data should be securely stored to prevent unauthorized access, breaches, or leaks. Organizations are expected to implement robust cybersecurity measures to safeguard sensitive information.

Data Processing: When organizations process personal data, such as analyzing it to gain insights or using it for targeted advertising, they must do so within the bounds of applicable laws and regulations. Individuals have the right to know what processing is taking place and to object to certain types of processing.

Data Sharing: Personal data should not be shared with third parties without explicit consent from the individual. This includes sharing data with advertisers, marketers, or other businesses.

User Control: Individuals should have the ability to access their own data, correct inaccuracies, and, in some cases, request the deletion of their data. This principle is enshrined in regulations like the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

Laws and regulations related to data privacy vary by country, with some of the most prominent ones being the GDPR in Europe, the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) in the United States, and various other regional and national regulations.

Understanding your digital rights in terms of data privacy empowers you to make informed decisions about sharing your personal information, using online services, and interacting in the digital world while maintaining a reasonable level of control over your own data.

#dataprivacy#dataprotection#digitalrights#datasecurity#limitlesstech#dataprivacydefinition#onlineprivacy#internetprivacy#techprivacy#dataprivacyandsecurity#dataandprivacy#dataprivacyexplained#dataprivacypolicy#dataprivacyawarness

What is Data Privacy? Understanding Your Digital Rights

[icewindandboringhorror]

sneepy cozy....

[raskies456]

I keep seeing that post that’s like “everything should be open source, cars don’t weld the hoods shut so you can’t look at the engines” and while I get what the post is trying to say the metaphor always throws me bc cars def straight up have a bunch of embedded computer units in them w a lot of inaccessible source code

[specialagentartemis]

Reading an indie sci-fi book from 2011 and there’s an unpleasant self-serving weaselly character named Scalzi in it, and seeing as it’s sort of libertarian leaning in philosophy, casually sexist, and very clumsy about race, I’m wondering if this is an intentional dig at Those Lefties trying to Ruin Science Fiction or what

[gauntletqueen]

Hi Zoey. Asking from a place of ignorance, could you please explain why Threads is dogshit?

Threads is the Hot New Garbagedump by Certified Scum Of The Earth and Facebook/Meta owner Zuckerburg. It is like if twitter was even worse.

There is ONLY a For You page, meaning you can never just see the posts from your followed accounts who, yknow, you followed for the purpose of seeing their posts.You can't see those. you have to see the algorithm's posts ONLY. You also require an instagram to get full access to all the features like Posting Images. You need a separate social media account to properly access this new social media. And once you've done so, the only way to delete your Threads account, is to delete you instagram account. The Whole Thing. For Some Fucking Reason. Not to mention, obviously since it's zuckerburg, the thing syphons your personal information like crazy, worse still than twitter.

Like ALL your data. as much as it can get. (Love that it says "Other Data" btw. Nice subtle way of saying "whatever else we want") ALSO wouldn't you know it? It's fucking banned in the EU because it violates a bunch of fucking privacy laws!! So it's DEFINITELY not safe to use!

It is as predatory and exploitative as can be, created by someone that we collectively agreed Sucks Shit and Has No Empathy For Human Life and Individuality, and nobody should be touching it with a ten foot pole let alone sign up for it. Not even to test the waters or because it's where everyone is heading, or to see how bad it is for yourself. It doesn't matter if you're joining to get an account ready in case the platform ends up the new big thing. You're feeding the statistics. Even if you're not using that account, Zuckerburg can show the number of signups to shareholders and investors to prove to them that it's viable. Instead of jumping on the bandwagon in case it succeeds, inform people why they shouldn't join, to reduce its chance of success! It's like strikes and protests; The more of us get the word out, the more effective it'll be!

[myworldofcolorfultears]

at the core i don’t disagree with you wholly but i’m gonna be so real, this feels incredibly dramatic and one of the replies literally tells fb/ig/twt users to off themselves lmao.

everything steals data. google, apple, meta, twitter, tiktok, amazon, there’s literally not a single thing on the world wide web that is not tracking you in some capacity, big or small. even common every day websites track you…let’s not act like it makes a difference if you join threads or not since meta tracks you anyway if you have an existing instagram or facebook account 🤷🏽‍♀️ it isn’t a new concept.

i don’t even use the damn thing, i don’t have instagram or twitter or tiktok on my phone anymore, but like…

said this on tiwtter too but im seriously at my limit, people go and be all like "oh my god young people have no idea of basic internet security omggggg" and the same person will immediately make an account on t/hreads that is stealing so much data from you its basically one step away from straight up kidnapping

i get we are all desperate, i really do, but i WILL judge you if you go and sign up for the literally shittiest app on earth thats really just a flimsy disguise of a bunch of data suckers in a trench coat

use tumblr, cohost, pillowfort, (the latter two also allow nsfw) ANYTHING but that suckerberg leech i am BEGGING you

idk how accurate it is but i saw the numbers of 75 MILLION sign ups for the threads bs, what the hell are you doing, i feel like im in one of those old anti technology comics were young people just walk off a cliff en masse bc they only look at their phone and nothing else while im the old guy in a chair watching them do it

[ralfmaximus]

Recall is designed to use local AI models to screenshot everything you see or do on your computer and then give you the ability to search and retrieve anything in seconds. There’s even an explorable timeline you can scroll through. Everything in Recall is designed to remain local and private on-device, so no data is used to train Microsoft’s AI models. Despite Microsoft’s promises of a secure and encrypted Recall experience, cybersecurity expert Kevin Beaumont has found that the AI-powered feature has some potential security flaws. Beaumont, who briefly worked at Microsoft in 2020, has been testing out Recall over the past week and discovered that the feature stores data in a database in plain text.

Holy cats, this is way worse than we were told.

Microsoft said that Recall stored its zillions of screenshots in an encrypted database hidden in a system folder. Turns out, they're using SQLite, a free (public domain) database to store unencrypted plain text in the user's home folder. Which is definitely NOT secure.

Further, Microsoft refers to Recall as an optional experience. But it's turned on by default, and turning it off is a chore. They buried it in a control panel setting.

They say certain URLs and websites can be blacklisted from Recall, but only if you're using Microsoft's Edge browser! But don't worry: DRM protected films & music will never get recorded. Ho ho ho.

This whole debacle feels like an Onion article but it's not.

Luckily(?) Recall is currently only available on Windows 11, but I fully expect Microsoft to try and shove this terrible thing onto unsuspecting Win10 users via Update.

Stay tuned...

[azen13]

I loved your recent Dan Heng posting so so much!!! I’m not the original requester however

Reading it made my mind wander into how Dan Heng would react to a darling who is just so smitten with him (even his more awkward habits) that they recognize his yandere behavior and tease him about it while also kind of playing into it?

My mind keeps running through ideas of a darling that shows up to hang out with him all the time and is just over the moon when he hovers around them in a possessive manner…

Plus I think darling might also be just a teeny tiny bit obsessed with Dan Heng as well (I know I am 🤭)

I’m cutting my ramblings off here because I could go on all day about the ideas this glorious man springs into my brain but I don’t wanna subject you to them all hehe

— Dan Heng Anon

CW: Yandere Themes, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Cuddling, Sleeping Together, Kissing

⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾⋆⁺₊⋆

Anon, I genuinely love this idea so much! I can definitely see the vibe. As I said in my other post about Dan Heng, I think he's relatively subtle in terms of how he expresses his possessive tendencies: a hand on your shoulder; a command clothed as a suggestion; a redirection of your attention back on him.

But when you start feeding into his behavior?

The first thing that happens to him is that he practically short-circuits. You show up to his room one night, pillow and blanket in hand, face dim with fatigue but eyes shining with mischief. Your room is too warm, you complain. He hasn't even processed what you've said before you slip through the doorway and plop your bedding near his, fluffing up your pillow and arranging your space how you like it.

You fall asleep almost instantly; the next morning, you proclaim you slept better on the hard flooring of Dan Heng's room than any night in your soft bed.

Dan Heng stays up the whole night, studying your face like an astronomer, trying to understand the way you seem to orbit around him. Maybe the forces of attraction have finally gone in his favor, drawing you close to him.

As the days pass, he begins to reciprocate your signals. When the Astral Express splits up on missions, he ensures you're always with him, regardless of how March and the Trailblazer pout. He'll send them a flat, unimpressed stare, your hand and his tightly intertwined. Himeko and Welt notice, but don't say anything. They underestimate Dan Heng's love, the true gravity of the situation is much stronger than they perceive it to be.

In public, Dan Heng manages to keep it together, though you make it difficult with how you cling to his side. He can't help but want to be protective of you when there are strangers sidling next to you. Any chance he can get, he makes sure he's walking closer to the center of the road.

In the privacy of his room, though, he becomes much more clingy. Night after night you arrive at his door and make yourself at home on the floor, and each night, you sleep a little closer to him. Soon enough, your hand is squeezing him as you dream; then his arm is looped around your shoulder; two pairs of legs tangled together beneath mismatched bedsheets; his face in the crook of your neck, breathing in the faintest traces of perfume.

Then you don't show up one night.

Dan Heng spends hours waiting. He's normally not very fidgety, but tonight his foot taps a frantic tempo against the floor, eyes glued to the door.

Eventually, he gets up and heads to your room. The lights are dim, but he can see a sly smile playing on your lips like Cupid readying another arrow to fire at his heart. You've done it on purpose, and it both amuses and annoys him.

With a huff, he walks over to your bed and hoists you up into his arms. You make no move to get out of his grip, eyes sparkling playfully; you're just as entranced with him as he is with you, two stars orbiting each other.

Unceremoniously, he plops you down on his makeshift bed in the data bank, settling beside you. His arms loop around your torso, pulling you close. "I don't appreciate your prank," he grumbles.

You can't help but laugh. "I'm sure you don't." It's amusing to see Dan Heng pouting. His expression is relatively neutral, but you can see sulkiness in his eyes, feel how he squeezes you a little tighter than most nights.

"I want you to stay with me."

You smile, pressing a kiss to his forehead. "I will."

[xylophonetangerine]

Cookie pop-ups are designed to be confusing and make you 'agree' to be tracked. This add-on automatically answers consent pop-ups for you, so you can't be manipulated. Set your preferences once, and let the technology do the rest!

This add-on is built and maintained by workers at Aarhus University in Denmark. We are privacy researchers that got tired of seeing how companies violate the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Because the organisations that enforce the GDPR do not have enough resources, we built this add-on to help them out.

We looked at 680 pop-ups and combined their data processing purposes into 5 categories that you can toggle on or off. Sometimes our categories don't perfectly match those on the website, so then we will choose the more privacy preserving option.

I've been using this since it came out in December 2019 (how time flies!) and definitely recommend it.

[tornado1992]

No one knows where Sonic lives.

Even in his so called world renowed hero status, there’s way too little that the general public knows about Sonic The Hedgehog, sure, they know what his favorite food is, they know the names of his friends, and they know when his birthday is, but they don’t know where is he from, how is he so fast, or what is his reason to fight.

They know about most of the times he has saved the world, but they don’t know why his shoes don’t get burned by his speed, they know he can turn into a god-like glowy golden being, but they don’t know how exactly the magical jewels that do that work, they know he’s unstoppable, but they don’t know why.

Most people don’t care that much about that kind of information, even if he’s a hero, that’s his own business, even heroes need privacy; but then there’s the curiosity, the enigma, the mystery, most of those questions will be left without a solid answer, but there’s a few that should have definitive one.

Where does someone who can run around the whole globe in a matter of hours live? There’s a lot of theories.

Sonic has enough fame to have several fan clubs all around the world, and between all those fan clubs there’s been a lingering interest in the enigma of where does sonic live, between all the other questions this one is the one that gets the most possible answers, considering factors like his speed, his well known crave for adventure, his love for nature, all of it could make the difference between the right answer and the wrong answer.

At certain point, the curiosity reaches to more general public apart from the fanatism prone, and when in opportunity to talk to him, a lot of people start asking him the same question: “where do you live?” the answers all equal and all different at the same time “right here in the same world as you” “it varies from time to time” “I don’t think you could visit me”

The vagueness, the confusing contradictions, the evasion of the subject; he’s doing this on purpose. They might not know a lot about the blue speedster, but now this sole data needs to be known.

They start asking Sonic’s acquaintances instead of the hedgehog himself, they know they’re not getting an answer out of him at this point, and if anyone could have one, his friends should know it. Turns out that they don’t know.

Most of his friends being more annoyed with the fact that not even they know where he lives than about the people sticking their noses to his friend’s business was a surprise to the masses, and underwhelming, backtracking, frustrating surprise.

There’s an anonymous user online who affirms that not even the hedgehog’s arch nemesis knows where Sonic lives. Reliable sources support the statement.

The waters of nonsense gossip calm down after some time, but the question still remains, left to be more of general curiosity than lingering mystery.

A random day in a random town, a news program happens to be live outside when the speedster passes by and stops to smell the flowers around the area, the reporters ask him for a small interview, he says they have till he finishes picking up enough flowers for a crown.

They ask the same question everyone has asked for quite some time, just a different word, “Sonic, where is your home?”

Apparently the accidental rephrasing change is what finally gets it, as the speedster just says “right now? should be at mystic ruins”

He runs off immediately, the reporters left speechless, the program still on air on TV’s and the web, and the world going wild.

They finally got a straight, solid, specific answer. “That can’t be true” “but it can” “it’s logical” “it’s not” “he must’ve been joking” “he sounded serious” and more and more discussions take place around that single interview, the fan clubs are theorizing again, the general public is now more curious, and the official news from all over the globe need to confirm this by themselves.

So they ask again.

A full week later, a different city in a different country, different news reporters don’t even bother to ask him for an interview, they just run to him the moment they see the blue blur pass by and ask him again “Sonic, where is your home?!” He yells his answer without stopping:

“Last time I checked was in Central City”.

“It’s a contradiction” “then he was joking before” “he might change where he lives weekly” “we need more proof” “that was way too specific again”.

A different continent, two days later, a group of kids manage to record him when he greets them from the other side of a mountain, they ask “Where is your home?!” He yells back “I’m not sure at the moment!”

The confusion only grows, now no one knows if he’s genuinely giving true answers or full ass lying, it would be logical for him to do either. The curiosity becomes a mystery again, and people are legitimately trying to track all the locations he has mentioned to find out what is this all about. Some people even try to track him down. They try.

A whole month later, there’s a celebration near sunset city, a commemoration of some sorts, there’s been a lot of battles in way too little time so people just try to think about the party rather than the motive for it. Sonic attends the celebration along some of his friends.

A local news channel manages to reach him at the chili dog stand where he is waiting for his food while talking to the two tailed fox everyone knows is his best friend. They don’t mean to interrupt, but these opportunities are limited.

They ask the same question, the same word change that they know works: “Sonic, where is your home?”

The blue blur hangs an arm around the kit’s shoulder in a half hug as he grins widely, he says loudly: “right now, it’s right here!”

This time his home was with him.

[greenglowinspooks]

(DCxDP) The obligations of a rogue versus those of a parent (Pt. 3)

—

Tw: Vivisection mention, torture mention (GiW agent receiving), me not actually knowing how telegram works

Will be crossposted to AO3 eventually.

(Pt. 1 here) (Pt. 2 here) - (Pt. 4 here)

(Masterlist/subscription post)

—

It’s an average, ordinary afternoon in Gotham, and Jason is in hell.

Specifically, Jason is in hell because he’s been researching the GiW for the last week or so, ever since a cryptic message from Scarecrow of all people.

He still hasn’t gotten anything substantial out of it that Scarecrow hadn’t already provided. Most location data had been previously scrubbed from the database, weaponry details were apparently all stored physically, and the experiment logs seemed to be only accessible from within one of the bases, whose locations Jason did not have.

Apparently Babs and Tim were having similar issues with gathering information. He had sent a copy of the files over to them in a moment of weakness, but they were having the exact same results as him.

To make things worse, the GiW was more active than they had been previously, combing through Crime Alley and the rest of Gotham tirelessly. At least they weren’t harassing him anymore, he thought, but now he had even less of a clue what they wanted.

And to top it all off, the Joker had escaped Arkham a few days prior to Jason receiving Scarecrow’s note, and he still hadn’t done anything. That could only mean that he was planning something big, which meant more grief for Jason, because the clown was obsessed with him.

So yes, Jason wasn’t having the best week.

He got up from his computer, stretched, and walked over to the window.

The sky was Gotham’s usual grey, clouded with a toxic miasma made up of traditional pollutants and the aftermath of gas attacks both, which could generously be called ‘smog.’

The streets seemed busier than usual, or maybe that was just because Jason was having a hard time keeping his eyes focused.

With blurry vision and a dull ache in the back of his head, Jason paced through his apartment, going through everything he knew.

The GiW, or Ghost Investigation Ward, were part of a secret government project having to do with ‘ecto-entities,’ which were mostly made up of ghosts.

The GiW was able to kidnap and steal away anyone who was ‘ecto-contaminated’ to be dissected, and it was completely legal.

According to the non-censored patrol reports he was given, Jason himself was considered ecto-contaminated. So were Bruce, Damian, Steph, and Cass.

There were also several rogues that were in the same boat, but their names had been redacted, presumably by Scarecrow. He wasn’t entirely sure why, but he guessed it was either for leverage or privacy. Knowing Crane, it could be both.

Anything useful about the GiW seemed to be stored physically within their compounds, or on an operating system that couldn’t be accessed outside of certain areas.

Anything useful about ghosts was conveniently removed by Scarecrow.

And, lastly, he knew from capture logs that they had numerous captive ghosts which were definitely being experimented on. One of these ghosts was named Daniel, last name redacted, and had been turned over by his parents in return for allowing them to run their own experiments on the boy.

From what he could tell, it had been around fifty two days since he had been turned in.

Fifty two days of experimentation and dissection.

Jason had to find him.

But first, he had to find the locations of the GiW bases, and plan his entrance carefully. He couldn’t let them get away because of a simple mistake.

The only location data he had been able to find was on a picture of the boy, Daniel, a picture of a vigilante in a red suit, and a quick note left about Daniel which hadn’t been transferred into the main database.

The note was…

Jason had been around crime for a very, very long time. He understood it intimately, in a way most people would never hope to achieve.

He understood hatred, too.

And yet, the words in that note were almost incomprehensible to him.

They were mockery of a child in pain. A child that was not seen as human. A child that was seen as a threat, a monster.

The man had detailed the security surrounding the child being cut back. Apparently, the kid had some sort of sonic scream. They were removing the muzzle that inhibited it because he had screamed himself hoarse, and he couldn’t make a sound anymore.

He also mentioned that the kid was cut open at least once a day, sometimes multiple times. He was opened up, played with, and sewn back shut.

The man joked that they should just put a zipper on him, so they wouldn’t keep wasting their stitches.

Jason really, really wanted to kill that guy.

The metadata on the note traced back to a newly-bought building in Gotham’s financial district, while the photos both came from Amity Park, Illinois.

Amity Park, Illinois did not exist in any official capacity.

Tim, who had taken the Batplane to check the precise location listed in the metadata, had reported that there was a town there after all, and it was on complete media lockdown from the rest of the world. He hadn’t even been able to use Bat, Justice League, or Young Justice channels to message anyone outside of the city until he left.

Jason had checked the building in the financial district firsthand, and found that the man who had submitted the note had done so while resting on a patrol of the city. He seemed to go there often to avoid his superiors, and Jason found it easy enough to get the drop on him the third time around.

His advanced interrogation techniques hadn’t been enough to get the man to name any locations. Worse, the man definitely recognized Red Hood, and would definitely tell the rest of the GiW about what had happened as soon as he left.

So, Jason did something about that. He couldn’t kill him, unfortunately, so he did the next best thing.

The GiW sent him to a public hospital within a few hours of finding him with shattered hand bones, broken arms, and a throat with near-permanent damage. The man wouldn’t be able to speak for a month at least.

He might never write again.

Jason, having read the note over and over until the words stained the backs of his eyes, thought it was the least he deserved.

Jason sighed, stopping his pacing. He wasn’t getting anywhere with this. If anything, working himself up was only going to lower the chances of him magically coming to a realization about where the kid was or what in the hell was going on.

He walked into the kitchen, popped some leftovers into the microwave, and started them up.

Once they were done, he brought them out to his desk, intending to eat as he continued to work on the GiW case.

When he saw his screen, he froze.

Telegram had been opened to a new chat with someone he had never messaged before.

TooFine: who are you?

TooFine: why are you looking into the giw?

The messages were a couple of minutes old, probably sent while Jason was spiraling pacing. He just stared at the screen, dumbstruck.

Shakily, he responded.

RedDead: How the hell did you get my contact info

Whoever was on the other side of the screen paused for a second. Jason considered sending a quick text to Babs to tell her what was going on, but he decided that he could handle this by himself.

TooFine: got it from the backdoor I put into the giw system.

RedDead: Shit

TooFine: ok your turn

TooFine: why r u looking into the giw? seriously man

RedDead: I don’t have a single reason to tell you. Give me one and I might answer your questions

TooFine paused again. Clearly they both had issues trusting someone over the internet, and rightfully so. What they had both admitted to doing was incredibly illegal, and if someone turned them in, they would be in deep shit.

TooFine: ive been trying to take down the giw since it was created. I can help u if ur honest with me

RedDead: Oh yeah, because no one has ever lied to another person on the internet before

RedDead: But fine

RedDead: I’m looking into them because they’ve been shadowing me for over a month at this point, among other reasons

TooFine: other reasons?

Jason sighed. He shouldn’t have added that. He knew that the other guy would ask, but he said something anyways.

RedDead: They’ve got a kid. I don’t like it when people hurt kids

TooFine: Danny? he’s alive?

RedDead: From what I can tell

So he knew the kid. Or, at least, he was pretending to. It would make sense for him to be cagey about his intentions, and for him to be desperate enough to reach out.

TooFine: oh my god

TooFine: do you know what city? fuck

TooFine: fuck fuck fuck

TooFine: I need to find him man please

RedDead: He’s somewhere in Gotham

RedDead: I’ve been trying to find him for a week now but no dice. They keep everything important on separate servers

TooFine: listen man you’re a good hacker but you’re not as good as me. you need my help if we’re gonna find Danny

RedDead: Okay, what are you trying to get me to agree to?

TooFine: i’m coming to gotham and we’re going to meet up

RedDead: Hell no

RedDead: Stranger danger

TooFine: if I tell u who I am will you say yes

RedDead: ?? How am I supposed to verify if you’re telling the truth

TooFine then sent him what seemed to be a selfie. Jason’s jaw dropped at the kid’s sheer audacity.

RedDead: There’s something seriously wrong with you

TooFine: my name is Tucker Foley. i live in amity park. i’m in 10th grade

RedDead: ???????? WHAT THE HELL

TooFine: i can send u my address too

RedDead: PLEASE DON’T??

RedDead: WHAT’S YOUR FUCKING DAMAGE? DON’T DOXX YOURSELF TO ME

RedDead: WHAT IF I WANTED TO KILL YOU OR SOMETHING? WHAT IF I WAS A FED

TooFine: i have to take that chance.

TooFine: Danny is my best friend. they’ve had him for over a month and no one’s doing anything to help. mr. Lancer was the only one who cared and he gave up after they blackmailed him

TooFine: they’ve had him for OVER A MONTH. I THOUGHT HE WAS DEAD.

TooFine: Sam and Jazz and I are coming to gotham and we’re going to find him no matter what it takes

TooFine: you have to help us

Jason considered, for a second, the choices he’d made in his life that had led up to this moment. He also considered, if he was in this kid’s position at his age, if he would be doing the same.

He decided to throw the kid a bone.

RedDead: [4735.jpg]

TooFine: HUH

RedDead: I’m guessing you know me

TooFine: RED HOOD??????

RedDead: No I’m just a very dedicated LARPer

TooFine: am i gonna die for Danny right now

RedDead: If I were literally anyone else, probably

RedDead: But no, you’re not. I’m gonna help you find your friend

TooFine: your username is red dead and you’re. yeah ok

RedDead: Oh come on, it’s funny

TooFine: Danny would love you

RedDead: So Danny clearly has great taste in jokes

TooFine: nope. literally loves puns and wordplay

RedDead: Nevermind

They both paused for a second. Then, Jason had a thought.

RedDead: Wait you’re in the 10th grade and you’re hacking into government databases?

TooFine: please don’t tell my parents.

RedDead: And how are you supposed to explain a sudden vacation to Gotham to your parents?

TooFine: wait so you’ll help me?

RedDead: I really hate to say it but I’m not the best at hacking, and my usual help is busy trying to track down the Joker. So, yep, we’re teaming up

TooFine: LET’S GOOOOOO

RedDead: God. I’m asking a 16 year old to help me take down a government agency and save another 16 year old

RedDead: I feel like the bat

TooFine: oh my god this is awesome. Danny is gonna flip when the actual real-life Red Hood comes to save him.

RedDead: I already regret this

TooFine: too late.

TooFine: btw do u have any place for 2 teenagers and 1 adult teenager to stay in gotham? preferably without dying but yknow.

Jason groaned. He was really, really gonna regret this, and he knew it.

Still, the alternative was some overeager kid dragging two other idiots to Gotham to find their friend and getting themselves killed. At least this way he’d have help, and damn good help at that.

He really was turning into the Bat, wasn’t he?

—

[adventures-in-a-world-of-fiction]

I've seen a couple of comments from someone around paying Tumblr for stuff that I want to address. I'm not going to mention the person who made these comments because I'm not trying to pick a fight, but I think they're worth talking about. The comments in question are: "you think user money is anything compared to advertisers" and in a pinned post they tell people to not give money to Tumblr.

The thing is, user money can definitely be something compared to advertisers. There are multiple ways that an online company (in general, not just Tumblr) can make money, but let's break them down into three categories:

A. From the users - selling merchandise, subscriptions, premium packages, asking for donations, etc.

B. From advertisers - selling views and space on the platform to companies that use it to try and sell stuff to the users

C. From data - selling information about the user base to other companies that might use it in a whole bunch of dodgy and malicious ways, or just try to find better ways to sell stuff to us

All three of these are viable ways for a company to make money, and many companies use some combination of the above. What matters is what the company sees as their PRIMARY method of making money, because that is what drives their corporate decisions.

If none of the methods are making money, the company will shut down, and I don't want Tumblr to shut down - I like this hellsite. If option B is what makes them the most money, then they will make business decisions that make the platform look better to advertisers and this is likely to drive everything in a more algorithm-centric direction and give users fewer options to curate their own experience. If option C is what makes them the most money, then they will focus on features that enable privacy invasion and data harvesting. If option A is what makes them the most money, then they have to think about how to keep the users spending that money. Now, option A doesn't always lead to good outcomes - in mobile/online games it can end up as loot box gambling add-ins and pay-to-win options, but thankfully Tumblr isn't the sort of site where loot box mechanics would make a lot of sense. Which makes it more likely they'll go the other option: delivering the features that users want to keep them coming back and paying for subscriptions. 

I would much rather Tumblr goes for option A than options B or C because it means that Tumblr is more likely to put the user base first when making decisions instead of advertisers. We just need to show them that it's a viable option.

Tumblr is trying what online games have done for years - crabs and checkmarks are the equivalent of horse armour DLCs and cosmetics. They're trying to make the business work through microtransactions. If enough people spend a small amount, it can add up to a large amount of money. The point of crab day is to send a message to Tumblr that option A is viable so that they make the choice to focus on that. If everyone goes, "No, don't spend money on Tumblr, you're nothing compared to advertisers," then it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy and Tumblr will have to go with options B or C if they want to keep making money.

I'm not giving Tumblr money out of naivety or because I think they're somehow deserving - I'm giving them my money because I would much rather they make money directly from me and give them an incentive to provide features I like, than by making the site worse so that they can exploit me.

[nyancrimew]

Hi maia! Would you mind if I made a layperson's explaination of some of the security vulnerabilities and techniques you mentioned in your new article? I want to have more people understand how utterly incompetent their security was. Your work here is downright incredible and I want more people to be able to understand just how little they cared for their users' data privacy.

as long as my work is probably credited i absolutely welcome any (respectful) secondary reporting and this definitely counts as that :)

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Apple to EU: “Go fuck yourself”

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/2024/02/06/spoil-the-bunch/#dma

There's a strain of anti-anti-monopolist that insists that they're not pro-monopoly – they're just realists who understand that global gigacorporations are too big to fail, too big to jail, and that governments can't hope to rein them in. Trying to regulate a tech giant, they say, is like trying to regulate the weather.

This ploy is cousins with Jay Rosen's idea of "savvying," defined as: "dismissing valid questions with the insider's, 'and this surprises you?'"

https://twitter.com/jayrosen_nyu/status/344825874362810369?lang=en

In both cases, an apologist for corruption masquerades as a pragmatist who understands the ways of the world, unlike you, a pathetic dreamer who foolishly hopes for a better world. In both cases, the apologist provides cover for corruption, painting it as an inevitability, not a choice. "Don't hate the player. Hate the game."

The reason this foolish nonsense flies is that we are living in an age of rampant corruption and utter impunity. Companies really do get away with both literal and figurative murder. Governments really do ignore horrible crimes by the rich and powerful, and fumble what rare, few enforcement efforts they assay.

Take the GDPR, Europe's landmark privacy law. The GDPR establishes strict limitations of data-collection and processing, and provides for brutal penalties for companies that violate its rules. The immediate impact of the GDPR was a mass-extinction event for Europe's data-brokerages and surveillance advertising companies, all of which were in obvious violation of the GDPR's rules.

But there was a curious pattern to GDPR enforcement: while smaller, EU-based companies were swiftly shuttered by its provisions, the US-based giants that conduct the most brazen, wide-ranging, illegal surveillance escaped unscathed for years and years, continuing to spy on Europeans.

One (erroneous) way to look at this is as a "compliance moat" story. In that story, GDPR requires a bunch of expensive systems that only gigantic companies like Facebook and Google can afford. These compliance costs are a "capital moat" – a way to exclude smaller companies from functioning in the market. Thus, the GDPR acted as an anticompetitive wrecking ball, clearing the field for the largest companies, who get to operate without having to contend with smaller companies nipping at their heels:

https://www.techdirt.com/2019/06/27/another-report-shows-gdpr-benefited-google-facebook-hurt-everyone-else/

This is wrong.

Oh, compliance moats are definitely real – think of the calls for AI companies to license their training data. AI companies can easily do this – they'll just buy training data from giant media companies – the very same companies that hope to use models to replace creative workers with algorithms. Create a new copyright over training data won't eliminate AI – it'll just confine AI to the largest, best capitalized companies, who will gladly provide tools to corporations hoping to fire their workforces:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/09/ai-monkeys-paw/#bullied-schoolkids

But just because some regulations can be compliance moats, that doesn't mean that all regulations are compliance moats. And just because some regulations are vigorously applied to small companies while leaving larger firms unscathed, it doesn't follow that the regulation in question is a compliance moat.

A harder look at what happened with the GDPR reveals a completely different dynamic at work. The reason the GDPR vaporized small surveillance companies and left the big companies untouched had nothing to do with compliance costs. The Big Tech companies don't comply with the GDPR – they just get away with violating the GDPR.

How do they get away with it? They fly Irish flags of convenience. Decades ago, Ireland started dabbling with offering tax-havens to the wealthy and mobile – they invented the duty-free store:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duty-free_shop#1947%E2%80%931990:_duty_free_establishment

Capturing pennies from the wealthy by helping them avoid fortunes they owed in taxes elsewhere was terribly seductive. In the years that followed, Ireland began aggressively courting the wealthy on an industrial scale, offering corporations the chance to duck their obligations to their host countries by flying an Irish flag of convenience.

There are other countries who've tried this gambit – the "treasure islands" of the Caribbean, the English channel, and elsewhere – but Ireland is part of the EU. In the global competition to help the rich to get richer, Ireland had a killer advantage: access to the EU, the common market, and 500m affluent potential customers. The Caymans can hide your money for you, and there's a few super-luxe stores and art-galleries in George Town where you can spend it, but it's no Champs Elysees or Ku-Damm.

But when you're competing with other countries for the pennies of trillion-dollar tax-dodgers, any wins can be turned into a loss in an instant. After all, any corporation that is footloose enough to establish a Potemkin Headquarters in Dublin and fly the trídhathach can easily up sticks and open another Big Store HQ in some other haven that offers it a sweeter deal.

This has created a global race to the bottom among tax-havens to also serve as regulatory havens – and there's a made-in-the-EU version that sees Ireland, Malta, Cyprus and sometimes the Netherlands competing to see who can offer the most impunity for the worst crimes to the most awful corporations in the world.

And that's why Google and Facebook haven't been extinguished by the GDPR while their rivals were. It's not compliance moats – it's impunity. Once a corporation attains a certain scale, it has the excess capital to spend on phony relocations that let it hop from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, chasing the loosest slots on the strip. Ireland is a made town, where the cops are all on the take, and two thirds of the data commissioner's rulings are eventually overturned by the federal court:

https://www.iccl.ie/digital-data/iccl-2023-gdpr-report/

This is a problem among many federations, not just the EU. The US has its onshore-offshore tax- and regulation-havens (Delaware, South Dakota, Texas, etc), and so does Canada (Alberta), and some Swiss cantons are, frankly, batshit:

https://lenews.ch/2017/11/25/swiss-fact-some-swiss-women-had-to-wait-until-1991-to-vote/

None of this is to condemn federations outright. Federations are (potentially) good! But federalism has a vulnerability: the autonomy of the federated states means that they can be played against each other by national or transnational entities, like corporations. This doesn't mean that it's impossible to regulate powerful entities within a federation – but it means that federal regulation needs to account for the risk of jurisdiction-shopping.

Enter the Digital Markets Act, a new Big Tech specific law that, among other things, bans monopoly app stores and payment processing, through which companies like Apple and Google have levied a 30% tax on the entire app market, while arrogating to themselves the right to decide which software their customers may run on their own devices:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/07/curatorial-vig/#app-tax

Apple has responded to this regulation with a gesture of contempt so naked and broad that it beggars belief. As Proton describes, Apple's DMA plan is the very definition of malicious compliance:

https://proton.me/blog/apple-dma-compliance-plan-trap

Recall that the DMA is intended to curtail monopoly software distribution through app stores and mobile platforms' insistence on using their payment processors, whose fees are sky-high. The law is intended to extinguish developer agreements that ban software creators from informing customers that they can get a better deal by initiating payments elsewhere, or by getting a service through the web instead of via an app.

In response, Apple, has instituted a junk fee it calls the "Core Technology Fee": EUR0.50/install for every installation over 1m. As Proton writes, as apps grow more popular, using third-party payment systems will grow less attractive. Apple has offered discounts on its eye-watering payment processing fees to a mere 20% for the first payment and 13% for renewals. Compare this with the normal – and far, far too high – payment processing fees the rest of the industry charges, which run 2-5%. On top of all this, Apple has lied about these new discounted rates, hiding a 3% "processing" fee in its headline figures.

As Proton explains, paying 17% fees and EUR0.50 for each subscriber's renewal makes most software businesses into money-losers. The only way to keep them afloat is to use Apple's old, default payment system. That choice is made more attractive by Apple's inclusion of a "scare screen" that warns you that demons will rend your soul for all eternity if you try to use an alternative payment scheme.

Apple defends this scare screen by saying that it will protect users from the intrinsic unreliability of third-party processors, but as Proton points out, there are plenty of giant corporations who get to use their own payment processors with their iOS apps, because Apple decided they were too big to fuck with. Somehow, Apple can let its customers spend money Uber, McDonald's, Airbnb, Doordash and Amazon without terrorizing them about existential security risks – but not mom-and-pop software vendors or publishers who don't want to hand 30% of their income over to a three-trillion-dollar company.

Apple has also reserved the right to cancel any alternative app store and nuke it from Apple customers' devices without warning, reason or liability. Those app stores also have to post a one-million euro line of credit in order to be considered for iOS. Given these terms, it's obvious that no one is going to offer a third-party app store for iOS and if they did, no one would list their apps in it.

The fuckery goes on and on. If an app developer opts into third-party payments, they can't use Apple's payment processing too – so any users who are scared off by the scare screen have no way to pay the app's creators. And once an app creator opts into third party payments, they can never go back – the decision is permanent.

Apple also reserves the right to change all of these policies later, for the worse ("I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it further" -D. Vader). They have warned developers that they might change the API for reporting external sales and revoke developers' right to use alternative app stores at its discretion, with no penalties if that screws the developer.

Apple's contempt extends beyond app marketplaces. The DMA also obliges Apple to open its platform to third party browsers and browser engines. Every browser on iOS is actually just Safari wrapped in a cosmetic skin, because Apple bans third-party browser-engines:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/13/kitbashed/#app-store-tax

But, as Mozilla puts it, Apple's plan for this is "as painful as possible":

https://www.theverge.com/2024/1/26/24052067/mozilla-apple-ios-browser-rules-firefox

For one thing, Apple will only allow European customers to run alternative browser engines. That means that Firefox will have to "build and maintain two separate browser implementations — a burden Apple themselves will not have to bear."

(One wonders how Apple will treat Americans living in the EU, whose Apple accounts still have US billing addresses – these people will still be entitled to the browser choice that Apple is grudgingly extending to Europeans.)

All of this sends a strong signal that Apple is planning to run the same playbook with the DMA that Google and Facebook used on the GDPR: ignore the law, use lawyerly bullshit to chaff regulators, and hope that European federalism has sufficiently deep cracks that it can hide in them when the enforcers come to call.

But Apple is about to get a nasty shock. For one thing, the DMA allows wronged parties to start their search for justice in the European federal court system – bypassing the Irish regulators and courts. For another, there is a global movement to check corporate power, and because the tech companies do the same kinds of fuckery in every territory, regulators are able to collaborate across borders to take them down.

Take Apple's app store monopoly. The best reference on this is the report published by the UK Competition and Markets Authority's Digital Markets Unit:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/63f61bc0d3bf7f62e8c34a02/Mobile_Ecosystems_Final_Report_amended_2.pdf

The devastating case that the DMU report was key to crafting the DMA – but it also inspired a US law aimed at forcing app markets open:

https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/senate-bill/2710

And a Japanese enforcement action:

https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Technology/Japan-to-crack-down-on-Apple-and-Google-app-store-monopolies

And action in South Korea:

https://www.reuters.com/technology/skorea-considers-505-mln-fine-against-google-apple-over-app-market-practices-2023-10-06/

These enforcers gather for annual meetings – I spoke at one in London, convened by the Competition and Markets Authority – where they compare notes, form coalitions, and plan strategy:

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/cma-data-technology-and-analytics-conference-2022-registration-308678625077

This is where the savvying breaks down. Yes, Apple is big enough to run circles around Japan, or South Korea, or the UK. But when those countries join forces with the EU, the USA and other countries that are fed up to the eyeballs with Apple's bullshit, the company is in serious danger.

It's true that Apple has convinced a bunch of its customers that buying a phone from a multi-trillion-dollar corporation makes you a member of an oppressed religious minority:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/12/youre-holding-it-wrong/#if-dishwashers-were-iphones

Some of those self-avowed members of the "Cult of Mac" are willing to take the company's pronouncements at face value and will dutifully repeat Apple's claims to be "protecting" its customers. But even that credulity has its breaking point – Apple can only poison the well so many times before people stop drinking from it. Remember when the company announced a miraculous reversal to its war on right to repair, later revealed to be a bald-faced lie?

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/22/vin-locking/#thought-differently

Or when Apple claimed to be protecting phone users' privacy, which was also a lie?

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar

The savvy will see Apple lying (again) and say, "this surprises you?" No, it doesn't surprise me, but it pisses me off – and I'm not the only one, and Apple's insulting lies are getting less effective by the day.

Image: Alex Popovkin, Bahia, Brazil from Brazil (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Annelid_worm,_Atlantic_forest,_northern_littoral_of_Bahia,_Brazil_%2816107326533%29.jpg

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en

--

Hubertl (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2015-03-04_Elstar_%28apple%29_starting_putrefying_IMG_9761_bis_9772.jpg

CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en

[macbethsymphony]

CHARLOU!!!!! BB!!!! I'm so glad you're doing this! As you know it's my bday in 2 days! Can I request something small, a drabble or something with my boy? You know the one, the prettiest scientist out there, my beautiful gas giant! THE ONE AND ONLY CAESAR CLOWN!!! Pretty please~ (Again, so fucking proud bb ily)

-M✨

MILLIE!!!!! BB!!! Anything for you my love! I'm a day late but you already knew that! Happy birthday 💕 It... ahem... evolved into a full fic, cause I love you like that. I know you hate y/n so 'little one' it is for you! Barely proofread and finished it high on Nyquil, so forgive the mistakes. Hope you enjoy, you horndog!!!

Choke

Caesar Clown x Female Reader

wc: 3.4k

warnings: NSFW, 18+, MDNI, pure smut, nonexistent plot, handjob, oral, face riding, choking, p in v intercourse, size difference, not proofread, no beta, just good old scientific brilliance and bad decisions

Summary: You knew your taste in men was questionable at best, downright bad most of the time. But Caesar fucking Clown, now that was an all-time low, even for you. Still, how could you resist the pretty scientist? It was truly an impossible task.

You knew your taste in men was questionable at best, downright bad most of the time. But Caesar fucking Clown, now that was an all-time low, even for you. You were willing to acknowledge your shoddy track record, unashamed of it really, but the unequivocal stares of disapproval Nami shot your way every time your eyes traveled to the scientist most definitely stung your ego.

You flipped a page of his research, trying your best to understand the complex jargon neatly written down. It surpassed your knowledge and not only by a small margin. The man was a genius, an overdramatic morally bankrupt asshole too, yes, but a genius nonetheless.

Scientist to scientist, you had to admit you understood the reasoning behind his actions, the incessant red tape of ethics was, after all, often a deterrent to progress. But still… those test subjects… children? You’d never stoop so low.

Or so you liked to think. Maybe you were putting yourself on a moral pedestal. Who knew, you guessed. After all, it was not like your research had ever been important enough for a warlord to hover over you. Who knew to what lengths you’d go to if that’d happen? Though you still hoped you would never go so far.

Your tired stare left the complex equations for a second, looking at the man in question, sitting on the floor next to you. You leaned back in your chair, gaze studying the bored expression on his face.

Despite your better judgment, you couldn’t help but notice how pretty he was in the afternoon sun. The softness of his features was an interesting contrast to his usual boastful condescending smile. It was a rare moment where you could look at him in the eyes. He usually neck-breakingly towered over you. Hell, even sitting at your feet he was still considerably taller than you.

With a sigh, you went back to the incomprehensible data. You didn’t understand shit.

“Caesar.” You swallowed down your pride. “Care to explain this part to me?” You surveyed the deck, noting the incessant activity. “Perhaps away from this circus.”

You watched as he processed your words, his gaze shifting from boredom to mild interest as he considered. Then his manic laughter hit your ears softly.

“What is it?” He asked, cocking his head to the side, condescension thick in his voice. “Too complicated for you, little one?”

Your heart skipped a beat. Skipped a fucking beat.

You suddenly stood. Fucking beautiful bastard. You felt your cheeks heat up slightly at the sight. The way his hair flowed and framed his face, the easy smile on his lips, the amusement in his amber eyes. You quickly hit his head with the papers in your hands in reproach, an impulsive attempt to hide the pink plastering your face.

“You know damn well you’re smarter than I, Caesar Clown,” you shouted over your shoulder as you stomped to the privacy of the aquarium. “Are you coming or not?” You held open the door impatiently.

His laughter redoubled, but nonetheless, he stood up and followed. As he passed you, bending over to pass the doorframe, the floating fabric of his coat brushed against you, sending a shiver you desperately tried to suppress right to your core.

Caesar's towering frame dominated the small room as you headed to the hidden bar at its center. The soft ambient light from the aquarium’s large windows cast a serene glow over the glasses you retrieved, filling them with amber liquid. You downed the contents, letting the alcohol burn its way down your throat, washing away the chaos of your thoughts temporarily. You filled it back up before settling yourself on the banquette.

You observed the scientist as he leaned against the wall, crossing his arms with a smug grin, thinly veiling his excitement. "So, what part of my brilliant work is baffling you?" he asked, his tone dripping with self-satisfaction.

You rolled your eyes, but the corners of your mouth betrayed a hint of a smile. It was cute, how thrilled he was to talk about his research. "This section here," you said, pointing to the page filled with complex equations and chemical notations. "Your derivations seem to assume certain constants that I don't recognize. Care to enlighten me?"

Caesar's grin widened as he sauntered next to you, peering over at the page in your hands. You could sense the heat radiating from his body, he smelled like a laboratory, almost antiseptic. You liked it, it was somehow comforting and it took all your willpower to maintain your composure.

"Ah, I see," he murmured, his voice low and close. The seriousness of his tone surprised you. You’d expected condescending laughter, not an actual answer. It made your heart beat. Fast. You could feel his breath on your skin as he explained. "These constants are unique to the gas properties I've synthesized. They're not something you'd find in standard scientific literature."

You peered up at him, your gaze bright with a million questions. "And why is that? What makes them so special?"

Caesar's eyes sparkled with excitement. "Because, little one, they are the result of my own genius. A proprietary blend of compounds that I alone have perfected."

Despite yourself, you couldn't help but be drawn in by his passion for his work. It was clear that, beneath his arrogant exterior, Caesar was deeply committed to his research. And, in a way, you admired that.

Hours had dragged on, he was still speaking, lost in complex arrays of numbers that no longer meant anything to you. You were barely listening anymore. Hell, who were you kidding, you’d lost track of his explanations ages ago. He was so pretty, the excitement in his eyes made his whole face light up.

You downed the remnants of your glass, trying to come back to reality.

“Say, Caesar, do you like women?” The words left your mouth without your mind registering. Fucking liquid courage. Your heart sank as you awaited his teasing, the unsteady rhythm loud in your ears.

He froze.

Oh.

That was a nice expression on his face. Blushing and wide-eyed. You wondered if it would be the same if you made him cum. Would he whimper and beg as your fingers tightened around his cock? Gods, now you just HAD to know.

“M-me?” He stuttered instinctively slumping to the floor, the chains at his wrists rattling as he pointed to himself.

Your mouth curved into a sly smirk. You leaned forward, then stood up. For once you towered over him. You reached out to his jawline in a fleeting touch, tracing his chin, tilting his face so he looked at you. You stepped closer, feet between his legs, eyes blown by lust as you met his gaze, impulse taking over your very being. You knew this was a shitty idea, but who cared.

“I don’t see anyone else here, Caesar,” you were close now, your breath almost mingling with each other’s. “You can stop me if you want.” Your hand danced lower, his throat bobbing against cool fingers. “I won’t mind.”

But he didn’t stop you.

You placed a chaste kiss against his cheek, then his lips, giving him all the time in the world to oppose.

“What do you say, Caesar?” You cocked your head to the side, inviting him in.

His breath hitched, then his laughter started to nervously echo off the walls, gaining confidence with each chuckle. He leaned into you, his whispery laughter touching your mouth as the glint in his gaze slowly matched your hunger.

Your lips met his once again, silencing him with a yearning you hadn't realized was simmering beneath the surface. His laughter melted into a raspy moan as he responded eagerly, moving against you in a desperate dance of desire. Your tongue dragged along him, teeth sinking into the soft flesh of his lower lip, begging for more.

Your tongues tangled. You lost yourself in the heat of the moment, the taste of him intoxicating, a heady blend of scientific brilliance and bad decisions. Everything about him was massive in comparison to you, he was filling your mouth in ways that were unknown to you. It was nearly overwhelming, and it would be were he not so hesitant.

Your fingers tangled in his hair almost roughly as you leaned into him. The chains at his wrists rattled as his hands went to your waist, gloved digits inching up your shirt. That wouldn’t do. You wanted, no, needed, to feel his skin against yours. You pulled away, lidded gaze tracking the strand of saliva that connected the both of you for a moment.

“So pretty,” you whispered, your hands leaving his hair, traveling down his chest, pushing aside fabric, his coat dropping off of his shoulders, catching at the crease of his elbows. Your hands went to his, still at your side, and brought them to your face. They were so fucking big, long fingers dwarfing your own. You placed a soft kiss to his palm before biting on the tip of his glove and tugging it off.

His gaze never strayed from yours, his pupils blowing larger with each passing moment. You tugged off the second glove and settled them back to where they’d been, flesh finally meeting flesh. It made you want to roll your eyes in satisfaction, melt into him. But gods, you needed more. So much more.

The tips of your fingers slowly teased the hem of your shirt up before discarding it in a quick motion, your bra unashamedly following suit.

You dropped to your knees. You silently cursed the sea stone shackles preventing you from stripping him fully. Your hand traveled up his thigh, fabric bunching as your nails dug in slightly. He gasped, eyes blown with lust as you roamed closer to the extremely obvious tightness in his jumpsuit. Your other hand settled on his heart for a fleeting moment, savoring the subtle beat beneath your palm. Ever so slowly your fingers wrapped against the zipper tab, dragging it down and revealing pale skin.

You looked up at him through your lashes as you traced along his v-line, relishing the shudder in his breath as you palmed his hard-on through his underwear.

“Already so hard?” You teased, inching the elastic of his boxers down, freeing his cock. The hand you had on his thigh went to his hand and guided it to your breast, urging him to pinch and squeeze. “Who knew you were so desperate, Caesar Clown?” You brushed a bead of precum over his tip before wrapping your fingers around him.

Fuck he was big. Your fingers couldn’t close around him. You brought your other hand to his cock, twisting in opposite directions as you worked him up and down tantalizingly slow.

“Fuck,” he moaned, arching his back and bucking his hips in a frantic attempt for more.

The blush on his cheeks, his parted lips, the way his body steadily unraveled beneath your touch, it all sent an intense desire between your legs. You smiled, squeezing a little harder as you traveled to his tip. A whimper escaped him and it tasted sweeter than honey to your ears. His hand dropped from your breast to your waist, then to your thigh and to your core. The tips of his fingers found your soaked underwear, pushing it to the side and meeting your slick.

You felt him trace your slit, the pad of his thumb circling your clit as he entered two fingers into you, pumping in and out slowly. For an instant your eyes rolled to the back of your skull, your breath catching in pleasure. They felt so different from yours, stretching you and reaching to places you couldn’t. Your hands stuttered in their movement.

His laughter touched your ears. “You’re quite desperate yourself, little one,” he stated between two grunts.

You smirked, your attention brought back to him. The cheeky bastard. You picked a faster pace, each stroke precise as you sought to make him eat his words.

He broke into a wanton moan, his fingers stopping inside of you at the overwhelming sensation. Your hips rolled in tandem, instinctively searching for your own release. It wasn’t enough to get you off but the way your clit grazed on his palm, smearing arousal all over his hand made your breath shudder along his.

“So good for me.” You brushed against his tip, gathering more precum still leaking from him, coating him, your palms slick as you continued with more fervor.

His hips thrust up, trying to match your pace, mewls and incomprehensible begs escaping his lips. His body convulsed as he came, thick ropes of cum spilling onto his abdomen. You didn’t stop, maintaining the strokes up and down his cock, prolonging his orgasm. One of your hands left him to rejoin his hand at your core, increasing the pressure of his palm against your clit as you rutted against him.

He was still in his high as you bent down, slowly licking the cum from his stomach, hips rolling against his hand, fucking yourself shamelessly. “You’re unusually silent, Caesar,” you said as you moved up, cleaning ever so thoroughly, cum salty on your tongue. “Who knew it was this easy to shut you up.”

It seemed to flip a switch in him as he finally came back to reality. His fingers picked up their work, his laughter strong as he rejoiced in the needy mewls escaping your lips. You didn’t mind, if it brought him the illusion of control, you’d let him indulge.

He was so big, and while you were already dripping you’d need to be wetter for this to work. You eyed the way his mouth twisted into a condescending smile, your walls twitching around his fingers at the sight. “Is that pretty mouth of yours good at something other than explaining your research?” You hinted none too subtly at what you wanted.

His laughter became manic at your suggestion. His tongue passed his lips and you mewled and bucked against him, desperately trying to chase your high. Two of your fingers joined his inside you, the stretch so divine that your other hand shot to his chest, nails digging into him looking for purchase.

“Why don’t you explain to me exactly what you want, little one.” He increased the pressure against your clit, fingers inside you working in a come-hither motion. You were so fucking close. You pushed against his chest, instructing him to lie down and he did, leaning back unto his elbow.

“I want your tongue, Caesar,” you panted, your vision feeling blown out from pleasure. “I want your face between my thighs as I ride that clever tongue of yours.”

The speed of his thumb against the bundle of nerves increased as he felt the rhythm of your hips stutter. “Is that all you want? How about you come on my fingers first, little one, then I’ll drink from that pretty cunt of yours.”

Oh gods, that sounded heavenly. You hadn’t expected such words out of him, his hesitation entirely gone. Your hand left his at your core, plastering itself on your mouth in an attempt to muffle the moans escaping you.

“Please,” you begged ever so close, hips stuttering. He laughed, the sound sending you over the edge. Your body went taut as you came, thighs closing tightly around his hand.

His fingers left your heat when it became too much. You looked at him as he picked you up by the waist, dragging you close to his face as he settled himself down on the wooden floor.

You took him on the invitation, quickly discarding your ruined panties to the side and straddling him, grip tangling in his hair as you eagerly awaited the feeling of his mouth. The metal of his cuffs was cold against your flushed skin as he wrapped his hands around your thighs, your skirt rising to your waist as he lowered you slowly to him.

His tongue circled your clit leisurely at first, the sensation slightly too sharp after your orgasm. Then his lips enveloped the bundle of nerves and he began to suck and the moan that you let out was so loud that you prayed that everyone on board was well and asleep in their bunks by now. Your hands shifted, looking for balance as your thighs trembled, fingers gripping the base of his horns.

The moan he let out at the sensation was just as loud and depraved as yours. You heard his hips buck into nothing as you started fucking his face brashly. His tongue darted in you and you felt so full. You hadn’t realized it was so long and thick. He was hitting all the right places, drinking you in desperately. His nose caught on your clit and your thighs instinctively sought to close at the overstimulation, but his hands held you steady and he redoubled his pace.

Everything seemed shaky and blurry around you, your breathing uneven and struggling between the mewls and begging flowing out of your lips.

“Caesar,” you chanted, your eyes rolling at the back of your head. Your toes curled as your high approached dangerously. “I’m going to come, please.”

And you came. Hard. He continued to lick and suck as your vision filled with white and you cried in ecstasy. As the movements of his tongue bordered into overstimulation you backed away, sitting on his heaving chest, his own pants matching yours.

Your gazes met and you smiled, satisfaction clear on your expression. “Are you going to be a good boy and let me fuck you, Caesar?” You asked, shifting down slowly. You grabbed his cock, lining yourself to him. His lips parted in a shaky exhale, thick with anticipation. “Caesar?” You demanded again when he didn’t answer.

“Gods, yes, little one,” he breathed out in a shaking voice.

You smirked, lowering yourself, the tip of his cock stretching you out. “So good,” you whimpered, your head rolling back, taking him further and further.

His hips twitched, and you pressed down on him, stopping the movement and giving him a warning look. “Be patient for me, Caesar,” you moaned as his hands found your thighs, nails digging into plush flesh in restraint.

He was so big, the stretch was almost painful but the ecstasy of having him sheathed inside you was addictive. “Fuck, Caesar,” you mewled as you rolled you hips. “I wish those shackles were off.” You found a steady rhythm, pace quickening in search of rapture. “I bet you could control so much, control the oxygen around,” you stuttered in pleasure. “Choke me just enough as you’d fuck me good, hm?”

He groaned at the idea, his moans matching yours, the heat in his gaze blazing hot at the words spilling out of your mouth. He brought his hands to your throat, answering your desperate pleas. He was speechless as he watched you fuck yourself on his cock, the sight divine as his fingers tightened perfectly around you.

You keened and mewled, lightheaded and oh so close to your release.

So good.

It was so fucking good.

“That’s right, little one,” you heard him encourage you through the curtains of pleasure dominating your mind. His hips met yours, chasing his own pleasure.

Your walls twitched around him and you sobbed out him name, tears staining your flushed cheeks as you came around him. The world was slowly disappearing, darkness on the edge of your vision as rapture took over your very being.

You distantly felt him come inside you, thick hot spurts against your womb. His thrusts became shallow and his hold on you slackened, letting you fall over his chest, damp skin meeting damp skin.

It took you a while to come back to reality, the steady rhythm of his heart almost bringing you to slumber. You slowly shifted, hot seed dripping down your thigh but his arms wrapped around you and brought you back against him.

You giggled, feeling giddy as his fingers gently traced the curve of your spine. His laughter mixed with yours and all seemed perfect in that moment.

Fuck that was good. You thanked the gods above that you had quite the voyage before you. There was no way you could ever get enough of this.

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