#internet-marketing-ninjas

[digicloudm]

Internet Marketing Fundamental Tools

Corey might be gone but his internet marketing strategy system is still very viable for making money online, and I would suggest you take a serious look at it. The package included two hefty binders with over 1,300 pages, 4 guidebooks and 3 resource CDs. If you want to succeed, you have to do this Your about me section is going to be the most vital section in your whole myspace. But they might…

[leadvalets]

Web marketing Business - 5 Easy Ways To Promote On A Shoestring Budget plan

Focus on one niche market. A vital aspect of SEO and also perhaps the reason why lots of say that a web site needs to also select a PPC campaign, is that the outcomes of a Search Engine Optimization project can usually take months to be seen. It’s part of the process that aids in expanding your company and also establishing others ventures too. Numerous service or products on the marketplace you…

[booksncalm]

The Power Of Internet Marketing

Facebook, Twitter, LikedIn, etc. Zero-in on 3-4 of leading agencies and then, choose the one which fits your needs in the best manner possible. An experienced Internet Marketing India Agency will analyze the whole things, and make your website appear on top positions of search-engines, through a delicate combination of On-page SEO and Off-page SEO One of the tools that can help the prospect…

[catsmeow39]

The Power Of Internet Marketing

Facebook, Twitter, LikedIn, etc. Zero-in on 3-4 of leading agencies and then, choose the one which fits your needs in the best manner possible. An experienced Internet Marketing India Agency will analyze the whole things, and make your website appear on top positions of search-engines, through a delicate combination of On-page SEO and Off-page SEO One of the tools that can help the prospect…

[pdbrebbe]

Internet Marketing At Its Best

You will have costs for hosting, domain registration, web design and a few other small costs. The biggest investment that most people make when starting up is time. Myth: More traffic equals more sales. Fact: More traffic can sometimes mean more sales, but only when the traffic is quality targeted traffic. Getting your name out there is important, but traffic programs that simply send uninterested individuals to your site will get you no where. Build streams of traffic that are interested in what you have to offer and you will see profitability begin to build. Myth: The Internet is faceless. Fact: Many believe that since you do not have face-to-face contact with your customers, anything goes on the Internet. No one will find out if you use a few shady business practices, right? The Internet is smaller than you think and it has a long memory. Create a reputation for yourself as a spammer or scammer and it will follow you for a long, long time. You may fool a handful of people, but it will come back to haunt you at some point. Especially with networking sites like Twitter, you need to be careful what you do online, bad news spreads instantly. There are dozens more myths that can turn your business from a moneymaking machine into a losing battle. However, by studying business best practices and learning the ropes, you can avoid Internet marketing myths and make your website more profitable. Internet Marketing help you sell what you have to offer among a large mass of potential customers. Interconnectivity over the internet gives a higher probability of making sales on a regular basis. Not too long ago, the primary way that people were able to make money was through a regular job. They would travel to the job site, trade time for money, and come back home waiting to do it again. Once the Internet became something available for everyone, it began to change the landscape of how people were able to make money. Instead of having to travel to a certain destination in order to work, many people learned how to use the Internet in order to make a part-time or full-time income. Without having to travel anywhere, they were able to replace their regular income, or supplement it, by using the Internet. In this article, we will present several reasons why Internet marketing works and how you can tap into this very modern and unique way to earn a living on the web. Internet Marketing has come a long way since its early beginnings. If you want to succeed online, you must get your basics right. Learning the basics of internet marketing is your key to succeed online. You need to know how to properly market your products online and how to connect with prospects to increase your online income. In order to accelerate your online business, you need to firstly show your expertise online. More and more internet users are complaining that they pay for useless information online and that pose a challenge for you to earn money online. Even when you publish original and valuable information, your prospects might still doubt your credibility. If you are serious to make long term income from internet marketing, you can ask other experienced internet marketer to joint venture with you. Now, with other expert speaking for you, you will certainly increase your reputation online. As long as you are running a business, you will need to advertise for it. The beauty of online marketing is that you can choose paid advertising or free advertising. If you have extra money to spend, you can choose to advertise your online business with PPC or hire professionals to optimize your webpage. If you have a talent on writing, you can write "useful how to e-books" which relates to your business, and offer it online. Some of the e-books were downloaded even up to 7,000 times. It means that your investment cost per head is only 0.003 cents! That is way much cheaper than a PPC campaign. To furthermore add a viral element in it, you can give permission for other people to pass your e-book for free, or use it as a gift on their website as long as they don't change your content. Again, the important thing here is quality content, then only people will be willing to pass or recommend your e-book. Every marketer knows that networking is a very important aspect in business. The Internet had made it even easier with lots of social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, StumbleUpon and many other. There are many different social media sites, and each one has their own unique features. To use social media effectively, first clarify your purpose on why you want to use them. And then choose the most suitable social media site. Focus on it, and build your network which is based on trust and win-win situations. They have a problem that needs solving or they see something that they must have. This fits well into the online marketing plan of reselling information because those who want to succeed at internet marketing but have failed need to fill that emotion and impulse void. You do not have to be a teacher to resell this product. In fact, you do not have to know anything other than the program works. You know this because you used the videos, you created the website and used the sales letter. What better testimonials than your own. Take what you learned and create a video to add to your site. Let others know that they can learn from this program just as you have. Even if you do not have a product, use this information to create an online business because the master resale rights allows you to resell the material. If you did not have something to sell, now you do. Take what you learned, sell it to others, and profit. You know it works, so there are no worries about wondering if people will buy. You just show them how you got started and how it can work for them and there you have your online business. A one-time sale is worthless. A good relationship with loyal customers is worth a fortune in your internet marketing strategy. That's the most valuable thing any business can have. The key here is to build your large list of "lifetime customers who trust you." Achieve this and you're set for life. 4. You do this by selling your prospects something that solves their common problems and helps them achieve their dreams. It doesn't have to be a full-length book, it doesn't have to be complicated, but you must have your own product to build this relationship. Reselling someone else's stuff is not enough. Giving something away is not enough. By having your customers pay YOU for the solution, you will gain their trust right away and they will listen to you from there on. Your front-end product must make your customers extremely satisfied. 5. You need to create a proven, optimized sales process and automate as much as possible.

[patriotjunkie00]

If You Are Doing Online Marketing

But choosing the best course is somewhat challenging. It will also cover a little history of this field. No sign up fees, registration fees, or submission fees are required. Stop! Before you even consider dropping out of the online marketing "game", consider whether you have an action plan for success. SEM is a combination of paid or sponsored listing and organic results in search engines e. Along with this one has to monitor the apparent trends such as which pages are visited most frequently thus planning accordingly for the promotion of business. This highlights the product in the competitive world. The small business houses will find their own segment of consumers with the increased popularity of web clusters and widgets in the future. Gates points out precisely how in the future decade the companies who have the best and the most content could be the ones to reign over the online markets Many people are making very significant amounts of money from internet marketing so keep in your mind just what your success will mean to both you and your family. You will have tough days and exasperating failures at times but, if you are able to accept these and be prepared to learn from your mistakes, success will eventually come. You can only reap what you sow On the other hands, it will be more time and labor saving as well. If newspaper and TV are your Advertising tools, it may take a lot more steps to know how your customers think about your product. This could be a simple report, or you could actually have a physical product that you sell online He was in New York during a bitter cold spell and saw a long line of people ("the crowd") waiting for cabs at the airport. The foundations of success in any business lie in the mindset of the budding entrepreneur. You still have to learn how to sell. You wouldn't do that, now would you? I know I have, and the results were NOT pretty. There are a lot of internet marketing training programs these days that teach people to get started with affiliate marketing and just "share" their link on Facebook, forums, and search engines

[bobbinfire]

Transformers One - Animation Student Analysis

(Aka why TFHypeGuy is right and you need to make this a #TFWeekend)

Disclaimer: This is a Review by an animation student based on the first viewing alone. I will not be giving the same quality of analysis of a film like a seasoned animation professional. However, I still have tons of knowledge by the years I have spent personally studying animated films and the new information learned through my academics. If you are still here, with that out of the way let’s begin.

(As requested by @serotoninisheldinkiwis)

((Spoilers below- quick non spoiler version here))

Transformers one is the peak example of what a brand such as the transformers franchise could accomplish when fans and talented artists work together to make a piece of art. The phrase of “could accomplish” is even over written as they “have accomplished” this. Both seasoned and newly furnished transformers fans seem to concur this as a fact.

All animation fans (you could even get the same from any of my fellow animation classmates) agree the Spider-Man Into/Across the Spider-verse movies are the best amongst the vast pool of the animated film medium. Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Movie (2022) was my favorite animated film, for both story and animation. But when compared to the artistry that is the Spider-verse, I knew that it still couldn’t compare in terms of mastery. No matter how much a film has your love, you are more likely than not to agree with the concept that Spider-verse saga is the best. And I used to agree. That was until the night of Friday September 20, when Transformers One single handily took the scepter of victory and waved it high for the awaiting crowds to see. The controversy I may get from this will probably be immense, but the statement I am willing to scream from the rooftops is that Transformers One has officially surpassed Spider-Verse movies as the top animated film. 

But what actually makes an animated film the “best” when compared to the variety of competitors flooding the market on a bi-monthly basis? What makes this film so better when it could be just the current hyper fixation coded bias of a long time transformers kid who just got handed a shiny new toy to play with and will eventually forget about once the next film releases. Well my friends…and random people of the internet, here is an analysis made by an animation student (me *cough *cough) that breaks down the answer to that question. 

Animation

As with any quality animated film, the animation itself will make or break a film as it is the core part of the film. Transformers One’s animation was handled by the company Industrial Lights and Magic. While not a large competitor in terms of feature film animation, they have produced films that have pushed past known boundaries of both animation and story as seen in their few animated feature films: Rango (2011), Strange Magic (2015), and Ultraman Rising (2024). Their work in the industry is primarily known in reference to their special effects work with Jurassic Park (1993) and Star Wars (1977). ILM’s animation in Transformers One manages to bring to life a world many have tried to do before, but not as elegantly or dare I say brilliant as this. The animation itself seems to stay on a constant frame rate, the beauty of special movements or actions being more defined by hard cuts or continuously moving shots. Each movement has purpose even ones that seem more throw away because it adds to the personality of the characters/environment. Specialty/new techniques are not as important for this film, which is perfectly okay considering they managed to hit each one of the 12 principles of animation when it counted most. An animation coming from a special effects studio in general is very good because they tend to pay major attention to any animation related to special effects, even if it’s just for a cartoon. Details can range from giant Quintesson ship slowly descending to the tiny sparks cause from a hit to a metal face. The animation in general is smooth as well as robotic only when it needs to be.

Environments

There have been a variety of environments in both animated and live action films that have help suck the audience into the story. When an animated pulls it off successfully it is even more noteworthy worthy. However, one must note the limited use of environments when it comes to how much we see past the establishing shots. Most times the best of environmental shots are primarily used to help set up a location or scene, then the rest of that is limited to a small corner (more often than not for budgetary reasons). Transformers One leans into the almost constant use of environments, not only for location, but for story as well. There is a variety of scenes that are carried through meticulously crafted sets and allow for you to not only finally get to know the world of Cybertron, but we travel through the environments almost fully as we progress the story alongside the characters. Minor details play a large role in the environment. Between the polished textures, the detailed individual blades of alien vegetation, the different background characters, and the hidden easter eggs within the framework of the designs themselves allow for a new thing for you eyes to feast upon with each viewing.

Textures

The use of textures in both environment and character design is on another level when compared to other 3D animated films. Speaking from experience the process of applying basic textures to a 3D model already requires hours of hard work, dedication, and patience that you will be very low on by the end of the whole ordeal. So when you analyze the detail and complexity of the work the team at ILM brought to the table it is truly extraordinary, even more so when you realize the time it would take to fight the UV layout and unwrap the mesh of a complicated figure like a cybertronian, especially one that has to transform. If you are confused on my alien language look up basic uv layout and texturing tutorial for maya on YouTube and generate a heart attack for yourself. Good luck sleeping tonight. Transformers one works itself down to the individual grains in the sand, the cracks in the ground, the glitter speckled plating on Elita-One’s head; even the length and deepness of scratches in armor can be measured. The effort put forth creates an effect of feeling you can touch the textures just by looking at them. Of course textures can only go so far without the correct use of the next subject. 

Lighting

When used to its fullest extent lighting not only lights the cast and their environment but it helps extend storytelling capabilities. Things such as mood, emotions, atmosphere, movement and location are brought out through simple artificial particles. The darkness of the mines contrast with the bright fantasy lighting of Iacon, which in its own way contrast the calm natural lighting of the surface. The carefully crafted textures of a surface could not be fully realized without the full use of directed light bouncing off it. During the final sequence of fights the change of D-16 to Megatron is not only conveyed through the change in the lighted color of his eyes but the waves of light flowing from them as he battles his way through opponents. The trail of light allows our eyes to not only follow Megaton’s movements but his descent into his dark path, with his blood red rage clouding his vision and being all that he can see.

And finally the most important point to cover with any animated film besides animation:

Story

Recently Dreamworks employee Rick  Rickdel gave a lecture on my campus. Out of all he talked about one of my major takeaways was when he said: “a story only connects with the felt needs of your audience”. Transformers fans have been wanting a movie like Transformers One for a long time. Even the smallest fans wanted to know what happens between Optimus and Megatron. And that’s the true beauty of this movie. We already know basically what happened between them, we know the overall story. Going into the theater we already knew how it was going to officially end and based on the lore we knew how it was going to start even. So the most important thing for Transformers One was how they connected the two and carried out the main part of the story. And what they did not only managed to meet expectations, but surprised us multiple points along the way. Voice actors poured their souls into these characters, leaving behind their celebrity personalities and bringing the characters to life. Each character themselves that had a relatively good chunk of screen time had a role in the story and were not just throw away side characters. With each one it’s set up for an almost domino like effect for the plot. Bee is not just a goofy side character, he assists in the journey, helps them get to new locations, and even provides relief from the typical dark undertones. Darkwing is a side character that ends through one quick mean spirited action kicks off the rising action at break neck speed. The quintessions show briefly, but provide enough of a threat without overstepping the plot’s boundaries that it is okay they are not there for long, but there may be a chance they can come again. Sentinel is at first glance a stereotypical egocentric villain, but take away his power and status and he will crumble in your hands (quite literally). He is not designed to be redeemable, but he is also not evil just for the sake of being evil. He has goals, he has factors that push him to evil things, but he very clearly has gone far enough that he no longer cares. His overall actions that are not super specifically targeted end up affecting what were originally minor threats to the point it results in his demise. And because of how his character was designed we rejoice even if actual justice wasn’t delivered. For a film have good storytelling it needs to have two factors: the story (the lore and information the audience receives in order to understand the film’s world) and plot (the events that play out in the films timeframe). The movie uses both of these to their proper extent allowing people like my friend was never watched any Transformers media before to watch it with understanding and enjoy it. It plays out what we expect of transformers media while taking on its own persona. What I find most enjoyable about the movies plot is the fact it is similar to a slow burn romance, but in reverse. We take this strongly built brotherly bond that can be shaken, yet once the match gets struck we can do nothing but watch as all these ties melt to heartache before our very eyes. And the audience’s vision eats it up without blinking once. We watch as D-16 goes to catch Orion, only to slowly realize he can’t undo what he’s done to the point of of diluting his mind to making it Orion’s’ on fault. We watch orions spark break through the emotions in his eyes as he begs D-16 not to…but it’s not about not dropping him, it’s about not becoming what he has watched him slowly come into to the point a flip is switch and D-16 is gone. @sephirose explained the summary of this movie best:

“D-16 reached out and caught Orion.

Megatron dropped him.

Orion Pax held onto D-16.

Optimus Prime let him go.”

Even the soundtrack tells a story. “The Fall” it only plays an emotional heartstrings of former Transformers Prime fans, but encapsulates “the actual physical fall of Orion and the metaphorical one of D-16 as he kills Sentinel” (@firebunnylover). Even if the end of the film is just a quick hit of Megatron being banished and forming the Deceptioncons while Orion ascends and becomes robot Jesus, it is what we were expecting. 

And that is the culmination of these factors. It manages to astound and amaze, but in the end it was a Transformers movie meant to be satisfactory. It is satisfying to the transformers soul, and in turn we should do our part like TFOneGuy says and give it the appreciation it deserves.

Anyways, sorry this took so long (I say to the single person who asked for this) to get out but in order to be able to give an in-depth animation student analysis I have to do well in my animation classes.

[lisascorner]

omg omg omg another hc post?!?!?! in 2 days?!?!?! that's crazy

anyways here's the ninja and what tech they have!

nya

okay i think her battlestation would be like. slightly above average, but she most definitely uses linux since she's too annoyed by the mac price point and windows just didn't do it for her. BUT she has an iphone 13 in blue, duh

i don't think she'd have an ipad honestly...i feel like she just draws all her blueprints for the stuff she makes on paper then scans it because she likes the feeling on paper or sumn...

she probably only has wired earphones and trusts only wired earphones.

jay

jay has like three laptops all for different things and an ipad and a samsung tablet. no way he doesn't have allat to play games on their respective platforms frfr... (e.g. pjsk is region-locked and the japan and global versions of the game have some slight differences, so some people have to log out of their apple ids and change it to a jp one so that they can play the jp version. it was tedious, so jay just got 2 ipads.)

his iphone would be like the midnight blue 13 pro max or something. he'd probably have one of those stupid gaming phones too (he bought one off the market, found that it didn't run properly, and just made another one that actually worked himself. LMAO)

specifically has the apple wired earphones and airpods. i don't really think he's a headphone guy.

lloyd

the green ninja unfortunately does not have the option to buy a green macbook, so he settled with a space grey 13 inch air with the M1 chip and bought a green skin for it. 💀 fortunately, he could buy his phone in HIS green with the iphone 13 pro max once again!

he's not an ipad kid. he doesn't have one, and he doesn't need one. he might have a borgwatch though.

lloyd however IS a headphone boy and he wears sony XM4s like the elite he is. augh.

kai

latest iphone, latest mac, latest ipad, that has red options. nothing else needs to be said for this social media DIVA ❤️‍🔥

airpod pros for this boy. he has red headphones from beats by dre but uses it purely for aesthetic.

cole

the bare minimum. HOWEVER, his phone would be a galaxy S23 bc i said so. and he has nothing earbuds! don't be fooled by the non-apple name those are the same price as a base airpod model i think. yeah but cole mainly uses his phone to browse and listen to stuff, so he's alright. 🙏

zane

i don't really think i need to explain this

arin

he probably has one of those limited edition ninja x xiaomi collabs where there's a subtle design of lloyd's gi (like the armoured robes from s11) or something like that. this guy is too big a fanboy to not have purchased every single thing the ninja were remotely associated with.

he wears bose quietcomfort 45 headphones. HE'S JUST LIKE ME FR

sora

also kind of enough said?? iphone 10,000 or something. or at imperium's rate of technology advancement there won't even be phones anymore. but strictly speaking if we were to talk real world terms she'd probably have an oppo or a vivo (trust me some of these brands from china are ridiculously good and RIDICULOUSLY CHEAP so yeah)

wyldfyre

she would much rather lay in the grass and smell the air than look at a screen. but, in case of emergencies, she has a nokia indestructible.

riyu

he's the ipad kid. he's the one with the 2 terrabyte ipad pro 13 inch 2020 that stores all his shows or something.

OKAY THAT WILL BE ALL! thank you for your kind attention and i shall shrink back into my corner of the internet now

[zeravmeta]

Top 5 things you look for when choosing a new piece of media to engage with

5. Popularity

This is going to sound weird right off the bat but I think a solid initial litmus test for whether or not you want to get into a new piece of media is to take a look at the popularity surrounding it: Are people normal about it? Weird about it (good And bad way)? Is it mainstream? cult mainstream? cult cult mainstream where it has a dedicated army of hidden internet ninjas occupying the most remote forums of the internet for the past 20 years and if you ask a rando on the street they don't know about it despite it being a multi billion dollar franchise (cough cough nasuverse cough)? This is also partially important because this is the likeliest category from how you will find out about this hypothetical media: Maybe it trends, maybe you see someone comparing it to something you like/dislike, etc. Generally this is the least important thing to consider but it IS important to at least think about. You'll need to know if you have a group of people who enjoy it the same way you do, or if you need to blacklist every one of your tags about it and seclude yourself from everyone else whose ever touched it.

4. Engagement

Right off the bat, when you see something new, did it catch your attention? If, in reading that synopsis, you find yourself lingering, then that's that. You've already engaged with it, and it being in your head is not a simple matter of modern marketing practices (sort of): Something in that first impression spoke to you, something that you already feel you might want to enjoy more. This isn't truly all that complex, but a first impression truly does mean everything, and regardless of how someone else might sell it to you, you do need to have your own judgment about a piece of medias initial presentation, be it the summary, first episode/chapter, the whole shebang.

3. Thematics

Ah, the good ol "Why?" of the world. What is this work trying to say? What is the theme of this work? Are these themes things that I value? I pride myself on being able to eat words and then say what those words are (It's the whole damn reason there is a zeravMETA blog here in the first place [well that and. archival issues]), and it's something that I always encourage people to try and develop for themselves: Despite what you may have felt like as a teenager in school, Critical Thinking Is Fun. When entering something new, right off the bat you will be thinking "What does this mean?", and asking and theorizing that question is half the fun. Not only that, but this process also necessitates your actual big boy brain to think (scary) about the media as more than just "These are lines." There are all flavors of media out there, and absolutely not all of them will actually want you to engage with it in a deeply thematic level, but just the act of doing so is fun, and more than anything, being able to identify what exactly a work tries to say bleeds into basically everything else on this list. More than that, being able to identify how serious a work is about its themes also helps in determining how much YOU will care about it. Perhaps you'd want to watch something that does not require much thinking, or maybe you'd like to read something that does challenge you. Use that sponge in your head, I know it hurts sometimes like that scene in Akira but I promise you that it is there to help you.

2. Aesthetic

This may be a weird one to put above thematics, which would be the literal meat and potatoes of a media, but I think it's important to determine whether something vibes with you more than if it is entirely coherent. Of course, you should not blind yourself to the flaws in any work, and it's part of your responsibility as the audience to take the work on its own terms and actually think about it, but beyond that you need to be sure that you actually vibe with the media you will be trying out. Something can be masterfully made, horrifically grotesque, bring out emotions in you that you didn't even know you had... And all of it would go down the drain if it's just not your taste of work. This is incredibly subjective and everyone has their own internal criterion on what types of works they vibe with, and contrary to popular belief that is in fact a good thing: Not everything is made for the nebulous 'everyone.' Different works will speak to and appeal to different people and groups, and recognizing what it is that YOU vibe with in trying to find new media to enjoy is important. Don't make yourself sit through something that you could know, objectively, is good, but you will not like simply because it is not to your tastes.

1. Do you think you will enjoy it?

Throw out everything else on this list. This was the first thing I wrote on this ranking and for good reason: On first impression, do you think that you will enjoy whatever it is in any capacity? You're going into this hypothetical media completely blind, aside from maybe seeing the synopsis, a trailer or two or maybe you saw a mutual talking about it, or maybe you saw a review offhandedly. Right off the bat, you will make a judgment, you just will, we do it automatically as humans, and you'll need to train yourself to ask: Will I Enjoy This? There are so many fandoms and people nowadays who like, refuse to engage with media on its own terms, or give it the type of critical thinking it may need, or who still hold onto medias they hate but still watch it even if it causes acid to bile up into their skulls every time they so much as perceive it: You need to kill that demon. Above all else, you will be engaging with something new, and it is important that at least, in SOME capacity, even in the most double-faced cynical hate-watching way, you enjoy it. Otherwise you will be miserable, Sisyphus carving himself a new stone, and that is something we want to avoid. Maybe you will be engaging with this new piece in an intellectual way, or maybe you love eating the words, or maybe you'll be joke watching it, or hate-watching, or just pointing out all the shit that could have been better, LITERALLY ALL OF THAT hinges on whether or not you enjoy it, so ask yourself: Will I Enjoy This?

->0. Sex Appeal<-

Is there an exaggerated effigy of a human being, a parodied facsimile of reality which activates your neurons? A character of fiction which has spoken to your peculiar proclivities, something awakened deep within you that you yourself never realized? It is said that the ancient Greek Philosophers first identified and called attention to headaches, some theorizing that this is because this was a critical junction of human evolution, where the first ever utterance of "boobs in my mouth" haunted their twisted minds. Know that you shall be engaging in fiction, that which parodies, reflects, and ultimately enhances reality, and why would you not engage with some bitches while you're there?

[fandomsareforlife]

Ninjago DR Season 2 ep 1 reactions (Spoliers)

Also, note that I wrote this as I watched, so I wouldn't flood people's dashes with posts. Also, didn't comment on everything so just a heads up

I have absolutuely no memory of what happened to Imperium at the end of the last season, so I am watching the beginning with Ras and Jordanna like 'huh. Something happened. Let's hope they recap that later cause I don't remember anything"

I like the internet paradoies. You really can tell the writers are trying to either market towards a younger audience who grew up on social media or they grew up wiht social media

Tik Tok Existing in ninjago in canon is not a thing I realized I needed until now

Nor did I expect the MatPat conspiracty theoriest, who is sponsored by Borg (which implied he is alive)

Sora using her powers to bug Arin, and then reassuring him he is just as important to the team is. Hm

Reminder that people lie on the Internet!

Mr. Frohicky; Such a guy, I love him. Also, big Riyu is so so so cute

I have a feeling Lloyd had fallen asleep in the training course many many times beforehand, and was very confused why one of the OG ninja wasn't waking him up

Kai and Zane friendship my beloved :) I like how they're playing empire is it I believe? Also, just as a little thing, but Kai taking over Cole's job of explaining metaphors/figurative language stuff to Zane and failing cause he isn't used to it is just aaaaa

Also, Zane :) That's it, that's the post

Lloyd first sleepwalking and then pouring the tea into the pot is so in character for him

Zane and Kai telling Lloyd he needs to sleep and then Lloyd passing out immediately after, not even getting to the door is so so so fanfiction

Hmmm Lloyd's dream. I don't know why but the only word i can describe it is 'shiny'. Like it feels to bright for what's supposed to be at night, like it should be more shadowy and stuff with the red as a tint? I don't know how to explain it, but it didn't feel...nightmarish and I can't tell if it works

Yes, Lloyd using spinjitzu after the nightmare. We need more fic of this idea. Also, him going to Wu for advice

The feeling when your older sibling/mentor figure is having a rough time and you have very little idea how to approach the issue

"Aren't I supposed to be the teacher here?"

"Dreams can not hurt you, for they are not real" Wanna tell Zane that?

MASTER WU GHOST?

Hmmm the idea of a language being banned cause the speakers were supposedly evil is generating thoughts

Kreel smiling at Arin talking about the night ghost is so funny

The interent addiction, man, they really are trying to say the interent is bad for you.

"People throwing out perfectly good dragons. Shameful." Not sure why I'm surprised by this but I am

Is this Cinder? I am so mad about them getting rid of Ash

Them actually utilizing smoke is pretty cool, I'll give them that much

Alright, so it is Cinder, and apparently he is voiced by the same guy as Acornix, and I knew his voice sounded familiar

"You threw a party and didn't invite me? I'm offended."

Wow, Lloyd's dream being real. Who would have guessed?

Ras and Jordanna are giving me serious Chen and Skylor vibes for some reason. Maybe it't the hair?

Alright, that's my reactions. Don't know when I'll watch ep 2 so yeah

[mostlysignssomeportents]

This day in history

I'll be in Stratford, Ontario, appearing onstage with Vass Bednar as part of the CBC IDEAS Festival. I'm also doing an afternoon session for middle-schoolers at the Stratford Public Library.

#15yrsago The Manuscript: a technothriller written by someone who understands technology https://memex.craphound.com/2008/11/14/the-manuscript-a-technothriller-written-by-someone-who-understands-technology/

#10yrsago UK Conservative party tries to send all official speeches down the memory hole https://www.computerweekly.com/blog/Public-Sector-IT/Conservatives-erase-Internet-history

#10yrsago TSA blows a billion bucks on unscientific “behavioral detection” program, reinvents phrenology https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/11/despite-lack-of-science-tsa-spent-millions-on-behavioral-detection-officers/

#10yrsago Renault ships a brickable car with battery DRM that you’re not allowed to own https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/11/drm-cars-will-drive-consumers-crazy

#10yrsago Punk Freedom of Information Access ninja learns how to beat FBI obfuscation, so they shut him out https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/11/foia-ryan-shapiro-fbi-files-lawsuit/

#10yrsago Massive 1978 Las Vegas fallout shelter https://www.cultofweird.com/architecture/underground-home-las-vegas/

#10yrsago TPP’s worst evil: making all future copyright reform impossible https://www.techdirt.com/2013/11/14/most-nefarious-part-tpp-proposal-making-copyright-reform-impossible/

#10yrsago Rob Ford: $170K/year, 11-3 working day https://www.joeydevilla.com/2013/11/14/one-thing-to-remember-during-this-whole-toronto-mayoral-kerfuffle/

#10yrsago Rob Ford articulates official mayoral cunnilingus policy https://www.joeydevilla.com/2013/11/14/rob-ford-will-ahem-go-down-in-history-with-this-quote/

#10yrsago Toronto council turns their back to Rob Ford every time he speaks https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/11/the-acting-attorney-general-helped-an-alleged-scam-company-hawk-bizarre-products/

#5yrsago Trump’s Acting Attorney General was an active participant in a scam company that marketed “masculine toilets” https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/11/the-acting-attorney-general-helped-an-alleged-scam-company-hawk-bizarre-products/

#5yrsago The Florida of ballot-design mistakes is… https://freedom-to-tinker.com/2018/11/14/florida-is-the-florida-of-ballot-design-mistakes/

#5yrsago “Privacy Not Included”: Mozilla’s guide to insecure, surveillant gadgets to avoid https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotincluded/

#5yrsago Alex Jones blames “leftist stay-behind networks in US intelligence agencies” for malware on his site https://www.zdnet.com/article/card-skimming-malware-removed-from-infowars-online-store/

#5yrsago Coalition of small cable operators calls for antitrust investigation into Comcast (Trump agrees) https://www.theverge.com/2018/11/12/18088846/comcast-nbcuniversal-american-cable-doj-antitrust-investigation-letter-trump-tweet

#5yrsago Nigerian telco says it accidentally routed Google traffic through China https://www.reuters.com/article/us-alphabet-disruption/nigerian-firm-takes-blame-for-routing-google-traffic-through-china-idUSKCN1NI2D9

#5yrsago 70 of the world’s leading human rights groups ask Mark Zuckerberg to create due process for censored content https://santaclaraprinciples.org/open-letter/

#5yrsago Apple’s world-beating financial engineering is teaching the corporate world how to exploit Trump’s tax cuts https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/blog/apples-capital-return-program-where-are-the-patient-capitalists

#5yrsago Researchers keep finding Spectre-style bugs in processors https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/11/spectre-meltdown-researchers-unveil-7-more-speculative-execution-attacks/

#1yrago Even if you're paying for the product, you're still the product https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar

[444namesplus]

1* 2.6.2. 3 3B2 5.0i 5.1 5.53 7 15kg 17 20 22nd 26 50BMG 51 69 97 312 411 414 707 737 747 757 767 777 868 888 1071 1080H 1911 1984 1997 2600 3848 8182 $ & ^ ^? a ABC ACC Active ADIU advise advisors afsatcom AFSPC AHPCRC AIEWS AIMSX Aladdin Alica Alouette AMEMB Amherst AMW anarchy ANC Anonymous AOL ARC Archives Area51 argus Armani ARPA Artichoke ASIO ASIS ASLET assasinate Asset AT AT&T Atlas Audiotel Austin AVN b b9 B.D.M. Badger bank basement BATF BBE BECCA Becker beef Bess bet Beyond BfV BITNET black-bag Black-Ops Blackbird Blacklisted Blackmednet Blacknet Bletchley Blowfish Blowpipe BMDO BND Bob BOP BOSS botux BRLO Broadside Bubba bullion BVD BZ c Cable CANSLO Cap-Stun Capricorn card Case CATO CBM CBNRC CBOT CCC CCS CDA CDC CdC cdi Cell CESID CFC chaining chameleon Chan Chelsea Chicago Chobetsu chosen CIA CID CIDA CIM CIO CIS CISE Clandestine Class clone cocaine COCOT Coderpunks codes Cohiba Colonel Comirex Competitor Compsec Computer Connections Consul Consulting CONUS Cornflower Corporate Corporation COS COSMOS Counter counterintelligence Counterterrorism Covert Cowboy CQB CRA credit cryptanalysis crypto-anarchy CSE csystems CTP CTU CUD cybercash Cypherpunks d D-11 Daisy Data data data-haven DATTA DCJFTF Dead DEADBEEF debugging DefCon Defcon Defense Defensive Delta DERA DES DEVGRP DF DIA Dictionary Digicash disruption

DITSA DJC DOE Dolch domestic Domination DRA DREC DREO DSD DSS Duress DynCorp E911 e-cash E.O.D. E.T. EADA eavesdropping Echelon EDI EG&G Egret Electronic ELF Elvis Embassy Encryption encryption enigma EO EOD ESN Espionage espionage ETA eternity EUB Evaluation Event executive Exon explicit Face fangs Fax FBI FBIS FCIC FDM Fetish FINCEN finks Firewalls FIS fish fissionable FKS FLAME Flame Flashbangs FLETC Flintlock FLiR Flu FMS Force force Fort Forte fraud freedom Freeh froglegs FSB Ft. FX FXR Gamma Gap garbage Gates Gatt GCHQ GEO GEODSS GEOS Geraldton GGL GIGN Gist Global Glock GOE Goodwin Gorelick gorilla Gorizont government GPMG Gray grom Grove GRU GSA GSG-9 GSS gun Guppy H&K H.N.P. Hackers HAHO Halcon Halibut HALO Harvard hate havens HIC High Hillal HoHoCon Hollyhock Hope House HPCC HRT HTCIA humint Hutsul IACIS IB ICE ID IDEA IDF IDP illuminati imagery IMF Indigo industrial Information INFOSEC InfoSec Infowar Infrastructure Ingram INR INS Intelligence intelligence interception Internet Intiso Investigation Ionosphere IRIDF Iris IRS IS ISA ISACA ISI ISN ISS IW jack JANET Jasmine JAVA JICC jihad JITEM Juile Juiliett Keyhole keywords Kh-11 Kilderkin Kilo Kiwi KLM l0ck LABLINK Lacrosse Lebed LEETAC Leitrim Lexis-Nexis LF LLC loch lock Locks Loin Love LRTS LUK Lynch M5 M72750 M-14 M.P.R.I. Mac-10 Mace Macintosh Magazine mailbomb man Mantis market Masuda Mavricks Mayfly MCI MD2 MD4 MD5 MDA Meade Medco mega Menwith Merlin Meta-hackers MF MI5 MI6 MI-17 Middleman Military Minox MIT MITM MOD MOIS mol Mole Morwenstow Mossberg MP5k MP5K-SD MSCJ MSEE MSNBC MSW MYK NACSI NATIA National NATOA NAVWAN NAVWCWPNS NB NCCS NCSA Nerd News niche NIJ Nike NIMA ninja nitrate nkvd NOCS noise NORAD NRC NRL NRO NSA NSCT NSG NSP NSWC NTIS NTT Nuclear nuclear NVD OAU Offensive Oratory Ortega orthodox Oscor OSS OTP package Panama Park passwd Passwords Patel PBX PCS Peering PEM penrep Perl-RSA PFS PGP Phon-e phones PI picking

Pine pink Pixar PLA Planet-1 Platform Playboy plutonium POCSAG Police Porno Pornstars Posse PPP PPS president press-release Pretoria Priavacy primacord PRIME Propaganda Protection PSAC Pseudonyms Psyops PTT quiche r00t racal RAID rail Rand Rapid RCMP Reaction rebels Recce Red redheads Reflection remailers ReMOB Reno replay Retinal RFI rhost rhosts RIT RL rogue Rolm Ronco Roswell RSA RSP RUOP RX-7 S.A.I.C. S.E.T. S/Key SABC SACLANT SADF SADMS Salsa SAP SAR Sardine sardine SAS SASP SASR Satellite SBI SBIRS SBS SCIF screws Scully SDI SEAL Sears Secert secret Secure secure Security SEL SEMTEX SERT server Service SETA Sex SGC SGDN SGI SHA SHAPE Shayet-13 Shell shell SHF SIG SIGDASYS SIGDEV sigvoice siliconpimp SIN SIRC SISDE SISMI Skytel SL-1 SLI SLIP smuggle sneakers sniper snuffle SONANGOL SORO Soros SORT Speakeasy speedbump Spetznaz Sphinx spies Spoke Sponge spook Spyderco squib SRI ssa SSCI SSL stakeout Standford STARLAN Stego STEP Stephanie Steve Submarine subversives Sugar SUKLO SUN Sundevil supercomputer Surveillance SURVIAC SUSLO SVR SWAT sweep sweeping SWS Talent TDM. TDR TDYC Team Telex TELINT Templeton TEMPSET Terrorism Texas TEXTA. THAAD the Ti TIE Tie-fighter Time toad Tools top TOS Tower transfer TRD Trump TRW TSCI TSCM TUSA TWA UDT UHF UKUSA unclassified UNCPCJ Undercover Underground Unix unix UOP USACIL USAFA USCG USCODE USCOI USDOJ USP USSS UT/RUS utopia UTU UXO Uzi V veggie Verisign VHF Video Vinnell VIP Virii virtual virus VLSI VNET W3 Wackendude Wackenhutt Waihopai WANK Warfare Weekly White white Whitewater William WINGS wire Wireless words World WORM X XS4ALL Yakima Yobie York Yukon Zen zip zone ~

[booksncalm]

Top Internet Marketing Techniques For Online!

Don’t stop just there, because a simple paragraph with a little innovation can bring you profits. True! you can make millions in a short time, provided that you know what what are the necessary internet marketing strategies to take. The bottom-line is, businesses that totally focus the majority of their functions within a determined topographical distance are losing out on potential individuals,…

[catsmeow39]

Top Internet Marketing Techniques For Online!

Don’t stop just there, because a simple paragraph with a little innovation can bring you profits. True! you can make millions in a short time, provided that you know what what are the necessary internet marketing strategies to take. The bottom-line is, businesses that totally focus the majority of their functions within a determined topographical distance are losing out on potential individuals,…

[pdbrebbe]

Internet Marketing Company For Increasing Targeted Traffic

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[mariacallous]

In a nondescript house on a quiet street in a middle-class suburb of Houston, Texas, Alaa Allawi hunched over his black and gold laptop. It was early 2017, and Allawi ranked among the top 10 vendors on AlphaBay, at the time the dark web’s biggest bazaar for all manner of illegal wares. Every week he moved dozens of packages of illegal narcotics: cocaine, counterfeit Xanax, and fake OxyContin.

An order came in from a young marine in North Carolina. He wanted Oxy. Allawi went about fulfilling the order, choosing from among the bags of powders and chemicals strewn about his attic and garage. He had precursor chemicals, binding agents, and colored dyes from eBay, as well as fentanyl—a synthetic opioid 50 times more potent than heroin—from China. “Man, you can order anything off the internet,” Allawi once told a friend. It was the secret to his success.

Allawi poured the ingredients into a Ninja blender, pulsed it until the contents seemed pretty well mixed, then went outside to the shed in his backyard. Inside were two steel pill presses, each the size of a small fridge and dusted with chalky residue. He tapped the potent mixture into a hopper atop the press, which came alive with the push of a button. Out shot the pills a few minutes later, stamped to look like their prescription counterparts. Soon, the fake OxyContin was ready to be shipped, sealed first in a bag and then stuffed into a parcel. A member of Allawi’s crew dropped the order off at the post office, along with a pile of other packages addressed to buyers all over the country.

If Allawi believed the dark web’s anonymity was enough to shield him from the prying eyes of law enforcement, he was wrong. Allawi’s work—slipping small amounts of fentanyl into counterfeit pills, making them effective but highly addictive and sometimes lethal—was fueling the latest deadly twist in a national opioid epidemic that has taken more than 230,000 lives since 2017. Allawi’s contribution to that crisis had made him a prime target for the US Drug Enforcement Administration, and federal agents were intercepting parcels containing his fentanyl-laced pills from Kansas to California. Allawi didn’t know it at the time, but shipping these pills to North Carolina would cement his downfall.

Today, Allawi sits in a federal prison in northern New York, where he’s serving a 30-year sentence. His case was the first prosecution for dealing fentanyl using the dark web and cryptocurrency in the American Southwest, and investigators described his operation as a bellwether for the growing counterfeit pill market in the US. Over the course of more than two years of email exchanges, he told me his story: a criminal odyssey whose seeds were planted thousands of miles away, on a US Army base in Iraq.

When the United States invaded Iraq, Allawi was a 13-year-old living in a suburb of Baghdad. On his 18th birthday, he applied to become an interpreter for the US Army. His uncle, a doctor, had encouraged him to learn the language from a young age. Allawi’s English wasn’t great, but he had been a sharp student, the kind of kid who dreamed of going to medical school himself one day. He got the job.

He was quickly dispatched to Rasheed Airbase near Baghdad, where he bounced from one unit to the next. The job paid well by Iraqi standards at $1,350 a month, but it was dangerous. Al Qaeda didn’t look kindly on Iraqis who collaborated with the US. Allawi says that insurgents tied one of his friends, also an interpreter, to the back of a car and dragged him around the neighborhood until his limbs tore apart. They hung another from an electric pole and left his corpse up for days as a warning. Allawi took to wearing gloves and masks while on patrol in his neighborhood so he wouldn’t be recognized.

The work was also occasionally heart-wrenching. Allawi recalls one house raid where the Americans were searching for someone suspected of cooperating with al Qaeda. After they made an arrest, the soldiers realized their satellite phone was missing. An officer proceeded to question several women who were in the house. When he got to an elderly woman, he ordered Allawi out of the room. Minutes later, the woman ran out after him, tears streaming down her face. All the women there fell to their knees, begging Allawi to stop the search. The officer, they said, had frisked the older woman and reached for her private parts. Allawi was livid, but there wasn’t much he could do. “I felt not only enraged but also the feeling of a person that belongs to an invaded country and the humiliation that comes with it,” he says. Eventually, the soldiers found the phone on top of a fridge, where one of them had left it.

Most of the time, though, Allawi got along well with the Americans. Thanks to years of watching Hollywood movies, he had a good grasp on their culture and wouldn’t say anything when they crossed their legs or exposed their soles, which are considered insults in the Arab world. “Everyone liked Alaa,” says Daniel Robinson, who worked with Allawi as a contractor in Iraq. The two men spent a lot of time together on base, sharing meals and swapping stories about their lives and families. Robinson smoked his first hookah on the floor of Allawi’s barracks.

Steroids were prevalent on US bases. “As easy to buy as soda,” one military contractor told the Los Angeles Times in 2005. Allawi began selling them to American soldiers and was dismissed from the unit he’d been serving with. Within a few months, he got another translation job, this time with AGS-AECOM, a private contractor rebuilding maintenance depots at Camp Taji, near Baghdad.

Now Allawi spent his days sitting behind a computer in a cubicle, translating operation manuals for Humvees that the US was reselling to Iraq. Allawi had always loved being around computers. When he was 14, he’d purchased parts one by one—a hard drive here, a RAM module there—until he had assembled a functioning machine. At Camp Taji, he immediately dove in, probing the company’s internal networks like a deep-sea diver exploring an unknown world. “The depot job was a boring one,” he says. “Not much was happening, but I used half of my job time to learn coding and hacking.”

It was also at Camp Taji that Allawi met Eric Goss, an impish 25-year-old Texan who shared his love of hip hop and would become a friend. Goss recalls one day when the camp’s head of operations called a meeting with the translators and contractors on the base. Allawi, he announced, was now cut off from accessing the internet on his computer. According to Goss, Allawi had hacked their boss’s email, found messages he was sending to his mistress, and forwarded them to the boss’s wife. (Allawi denies that he did this.) But the new restrictions didn’t stop Allawi. He found a way to install a password recovery tool on his computer that he could use to crack his way into the company’s wireless network. Around Camp Taji, Robinson recalls, “the running joke was, don’t let Alaa on your computer.”

Allawi put his burgeoning tech skills to use off base, as well. He built a website called Iraqiaa.com, an online dating and chat platform aimed at young Iraqis. At least one guy ended up marrying a woman he met on the site, Allawi says. At Iraqiaa’s height, he was earning a cushy $5,000 a month from subscriptions. People started asking Allawi to design sites for them. He purchased a server from a cloud provider and started his own hosting company. For a time, it looked like he could put together a tech career in Iraq.

Many of Allawi’s fellow interpreters had chosen to leave Iraq for the US as part of a special visa program. Goss, who had returned home to Houston, kept probing Allawi on MySpace: “When are you getting your ass to the United States?” For a while, Allawi put him off, but his outlook on life in Iraq was changing. It dawned on him that his options for pursuing a full-fledged IT career there were limited. “I realized that I couldn’t go further in my country,” he says.

In 2012, Goss received a message from Allawi. He was coming to the US.

On September 12, Allawi landed in San Antonio.

He was ready to start a new life in Texas. Catholic Charities set him up with a driver’s license, food stamps, a $200 monthly stipend, and a free place to stay. He received an online high school diploma, then enrolled in a pre-nursing program at San Antonio College. He managed to complete four semesters, but eking out a living soon took priority. The food stamps were valid for only six months, as was the rent-free arrangement. Allawi found a job as a machine operator at a door manufacturer 45 minutes away. The pay barely covered his commute and college expenses.

Allawi moved in with another former translator named Mohamed Al Salihi, who had arrived in Texas more recently and was moonlighting as a bouncer. They had a spare room, which they advertised on Craigslist to earn extra money. Their first renter, Allawi says, was a young woman who liked to party with a group of weed-smoking friends. Soon enough, Allawi was hanging out with them.

Allawi was spending enough time with American college students to sense a business opportunity. He started selling weed at parties near the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA). “It was just for surviving,” he says. He was intent on furthering his education, he insists, and took on a student loan. The plan was simple: pay his bills, sell weed at parties, and go to school. But this new venture put him in contact with other drug dealers and harder substances. “There is American saying,” Allawi adds. “If you hang around the barber-shop too long, you will end up with haircut.”

In 2014, he was evicted for failing to pay $590 in rent. For a brief period, he slept in his car. He started selling cocaine on the street. On January 14, 2015, Allawi was arrested while driving with a small-time drug dealer who was known to local law enforcement. An officer searching the vehicle found less than a gram of cocaine, 10 Adderall pills, and about 100 Xanax pills, according to Allawi, who says the tablets belonged to the passenger. Allawi was charged with the manufacture and delivery of a controlled substance, but because he had no criminal record, he was sentenced to community service. His run-in with the law didn’t dissuade him from selling drugs. He was just getting started.

Allawi had reconnected with Goss by then. Sometime in 2015, Goss got him a job designing a website for a business in Austin. One of the employees confided to Allawi that he’d been buying drugs on the dark web. “It’s like an Amazon for drugs,” he said. Intrigued, Allawi did his own research. “I went and asked the wizard of all time, Mr. Google!” he says.

The introduction blew the doors of drugmaking wide open for the Iraqi. Allawi wasn’t content dealing on the street anymore. He was chasing a broader market than San Antonio—hell, a broader market than Texas. He bought a manual pill press on eBay for $600, eventually upgrading to a $5,000, 507-pound electric machine capable of spitting out 21,600 pills an hour. He also used eBay to purchase the inactive ingredients found in most oral medications, such as dyes. On May 23, 2015, Allawi created an account on AlphaBay. He named it Dopeboy210, most likely after the San Antonio area code, according to investigators. That fall, Allawi dropped out of school for good.

At the time, AlphaBay was one of a handful of would-be successors to Silk Road, the infamous dark-web market that had been shut down in 2013. If you had a Tor browser and some bitcoins, AlphaBay offered drugs by the kilo, guns, stolen credit card data, and more, all with complete anonymity—or at least that’s what many customers believed. Between 2015 and 2017, the site saw more than $1 billion in illegal cryptocurrency transactions, according to the FBI.

DopeBoy210 eventually offered no fewer than 80 different products. X50, a package of 50 Xanax pills, was one of Allawi’s flagship items and earned enthusiastic reviews. “Good shit,” one AlphaBay customer wrote, according to data provided by Carnegie Mellon professor Nicolas Christin. “Kick ass,” wrote another. The pills were fake.

At first, Allawi blended chemicals with methamphetamine and used his press to churn out tablets stamped as Adderall and Xanax. Students looking to pull an all-nighter or riddled with anxiety craved this stuff; UTSA made for a lucrative outlet. Allawi then moved on to fake OxyContin pills laced with fentanyl that he ordered from China on the dark web. (Allawi declined to say why he switched to fentanyl, but investigators told me that drug dealers like it because they can make thousands of pills using minute amounts.)

Allawi expanded his operation to a small circle of trusted associates. Some he had met at house parties, like Benjamin Uno, a twentysomething Dallas native whose promising basketball career was cut short by injury, and Trevor Robinson, a mustachioed fan of Malcolm X (with no relation to Daniel Robinson, the contractor). Uno helped Allawi manufacture the pills, and he and Robinson took charge of mailing out the merchandise. (Uno and Robinson didn’t respond to requests for comment.) Allawi also recruited Al Salihi, his old roommate, to guard drugs stashed at an apartment 10 minutes from UTSA.

Sporting a beard and a tattooed right arm, Hunter Westbrook had come to UTSA after toiling away in the oil fields of West Texas. The patrolman was used to dealing with the occasional marijuana trafficker on campus. But toward the end of 2015, something changed. Adderall pills, not just weed, flowed into dorms and parties. Then the overdoses began. When UTSA analyzed some of the pills in a lab, they were found to be laced with meth.

As a campus cop, Westbrook could do little more than stop cars for traffic violations, so he reached out to the San Antonio Police Department for help. In the spring of 2016, he sat in a coffee shop and compared notes with Janellen Valle, an SAPD narcotics officer who was on a joint task force with the DEA. The two cops realized that their findings lined up. A Middle Eastern guy was apparently flooding the campus with marijuana and counterfeit pills. Tips from students led to a name: Alaa Allawi.

Soon after, the DEA took over the case. Investigators say that some pills at UTSA contained fentanyl. (Allawi says he never sold fentanyl on campus, only online.) The country was drowning in the opioid, and stanching the flow was a priority for the agency. The number of overdose deaths attributed to it had skyrocketed, from 1,663 in 2011 to 18,335 in 2016, surpassing those from prescription painkillers and heroin.

The DEA’s San Antonio office was used to handling street dealers and Mexican cartels. But in July, an informant tipped off the DEA about Allawi’s AlphaBay shop and sent the investigation spinning in a whole new direction.

The San Antonio office didn’t do cybercrime. Sure, they had heard of Silk Road. But to the DEA agents in Texas, the dark web might as well have been Baghdad—a faraway land “out of sight, out of mind,” in the words of one investigator.

Westbrook became the office’s de facto guide, largely because he was one of the few people there to have a vague understanding of what the dark web was. He met with cybersecurity professors at UTSA on how to access Allawi’s account. He was by far the youngest member of the task force; around the office, he was known as “the millennial.”

The agents purchased a MacBook and a VPN subscription to access the dark web. They were floored when they saw DopeBoy210’s shop. Based on the hundreds of comments left by satisfied customers, Allawi was a massive retailer.

Getting a peek at Allawi’s online operations was relatively easy. To arrest him for it, the DEA would need to definitively link Allawi to his AlphaBay account, which meant they’d need to buy drugs from him. And to do that, they’d need bitcoins.

This had daunting implications for a governmental office, Westbrook realized. The task force might buy $1,000 worth of the volatile currency, only to wake up the next day and find their wallet’s value down to $900 or up to $1,100. Agency bigwigs didn’t love schemes deviating from tradition, investigators say. They certainly were reluctant to become bitcoin speculators. “It was a headache,” Westbrook says. (But not unheard of: As part of a parallel investigation into AlphaBay, DEA agents in 2016 bought drugs using bitcoin. Before that, they purchased crypto as they sought to shut down Silk Road.)

In the meantime, the agents kept pounding away at the work they knew how to do: tailing suspects and working informants. As the new year began, the task force persuaded a judge to authorize the GPS tracking and tapping of Uno’s and Allawi’s phones, and later Al Salihi’s. In March, Westbrook followed Uno from Allawi’s house to a post office, where Uno delivered three boxes and a trash bag stuffed with what appeared to be envelopes. After that, postal inspectors would periodically intercept mail and packages intended for Allawi.

When he wasn’t tailing members of Allawi’s crew, Westbrook worked at a DEA desk that was unofficially assigned to rookies due to its awkward position in the middle of the open room. During the investigation, someone hung a handwritten sign that read MILLENNIAL ISLAND.

Westbrook usually sat alone, but on March 17 the rest of the task force was peering over his shoulder as he logged in to AlphaBay. The team had gotten the green light from DC: They could buy bitcoins and purchase drugs from Allawi. Navigating to the DopeBoy210 page, Westbrook bought 500 Adderall pills for $1,400 worth of bitcoins, and an ounce of cocaine for $1,200. He listed a mailbox at UTSA and finished the order.

About a week later, he drove to the campus to retrieve the package. Looking giddy under a beige ball cap, he inserted a key into mailbox number 825. The drugs were inside. There were only 447 pills and no cocaine, so Westbrook initiated a dispute with AlphaBay (which ended in favor of Allawi). But this was a detail. What mattered was that the agents had conducted an undercover buy on the dark web. The San Antonio DEA had entered a world its agents barely knew existed a year before.

Allawi’s profits were rolling in, but they were still in the form of bitcoins, and he needed to convert them to cash. On LocalBitcoins.com, a bitcoin exchange platform, he met Kunal Kalra, a cheerful Californian who favored Mao collar shirts and a gold bitcoin pendant—a sign of his unwavering dedication to cryptocurrency. Kalra ran a bitcoin ATM out of a cigar shop in Los Angeles. Allawi began visiting the shop to exchange his bitcoin earnings for cash, and paid Kalra a fee for his help. By the fall of 2016, the two men moved their arrangement online. They transferred more than half a million dollars in total.

With plenty of cash, Allawi went on a buying spree. He made a $30,000 down payment for a two-story slab house in a residential San Antonio neighborhood just south of UTSA. “I didn’t know how much money he was making until he came to Houston,” Goss says. The Texas native accompanied his friend on multiple trips to luxury car dealerships in the city that fall. In October 2016, Allawi set his sights on a white 2013 Maserati GranTurismo, which cost $49,000. He began pulling wads of bills from a Louis Vuitton backpack and handing them to a salesman. Goss worried that paying cash would attract attention, but his friend refused to take a loan and owe interest. “Why am I gonna fucking pay?” Allawi said.

A few months later, Allawi took one of his cars in for an oil change. When mechanics lifted the car on a hoist, they found a curious black box affixed to the undercarriage. It was a tracking device. Allawi had it promptly removed. He was disturbed by the discovery, but not enough to stop. “I needed money, and things had to keep going,” he says.

Otherwise, though, Allawi was on top of the world. By spring of 2017, he had the cars, the luxury sneakers, and the bottle service. He was even in talks to open a local franchise for a juice bar chain. Ever the party guy, on March 23 he flew his crew out on a trip to Las Vegas. Allawi, Uno, Robinson, and Goss walked into Drai’s, a gigantic nightclub known as one of the most expensive in town. Lil Wayne was performing as the group huddled in the VIP area. Allawi was wearing a $2,000 suit that he’d nabbed on a whim at Caesars Palace—they all were, courtesy again of the boss. Allawi passed around an enormous bottle of Veuve Clicquot, a flashy move that didn’t go unnoticed by the rapper onstage. “I don’t know who these n––––s is, but I need to be partying with them,” Wayne shouted, according to Goss.

The four men snapped selfies, sticking out their tongues like a bunch of eager teenagers. They were having the time of their lives.

While Allawi’s crew partied in Vegas, a man in the Midwest named Vincent Jordahl was recovering from a close brush with death. He’d snorted a blue powder—fentanyl—and collapsed on his living room floor. His mother found him and performed CPR before medics revived him with Narcan, a fentanyl antidote. He was taken to a hospital in Grand Forks, North Dakota. On March 25, city medics would rush to the home of another man, named Orlando Flores, who’d also overdosed on fentanyl-laced pills and also survived. The tablets originated in the same package, sent by Allawi sometime in March.

Less than a month later, on the East Coast, two other young men readied for a party of their own. Mark Mambulao and Marcos Villegas were marines stationed at Camp Lejeune, in North Carolina. It was Friday, April 14, and the duo were starting their weekend with some gin and tonics at a friend’s house in Richlands, about 32 miles north of the base. Around 9:30 pm, Mambulao sent a girlfriend a photo on Snapchat of a friend’s dog chewing his hat.

Then, Villegas pulled some pills out of a small black plastic bag and passed them around. Mambulao had experimented with drugs before, including LSD, mushrooms, ecstasy, and oxycodone, which he would either gobble up or crush and snort. These pills were advertised as OxyContin. Villegas had purchased them directly from an AlphaBay vendor named DopeBoy210. The friends all swallowed the pills at the same time.

About two hours later, Mambulao started to feel sick and passed out on the living room couch, so his friends laid him down in a spare bedroom, making sure he was on his side. When they checked on him later, he wasn’t breathing. The men called 911 and started to perform CPR, but it was too late. In the early hours of April 15, Mambulao died in a Jacksonville hospital. He was just 20 years old.

It turned out that the pill Mambulao ingested contained a lethal dose of fentanyl. The Naval Criminal Investigative Service began looking into his death. Cooperating with the Postal Inspection Service and DEA, the NCIS traced the drugs to Allawi. (Villegas pleaded guilty in 2019 to distributing oxycodone and fentanyl and was sentenced to 10 years in prison; a second marine was also charged in connection with the case.) Why did Mambulao overdose and not the other revelers that night? There was “no real science” informing Allawi’s pill-manufacturing, says Dante Sorianello, then the head of the DEA’s San Antonio office. “Some of these pills probably got very little fentanyl, and some got too much.”

On May 17, a utility worker in a neon-yellow vest and hard hat walked up the driveway to Allawi’s house in Richmond and knocked on the door. “Sorry, power’s out,” he told the occupants. “We’re going to be working on it for a while.” Anyone who’s been in Houston on the cusp of summer knows what these words mean: Without AC, your home is going to turn into a furnace in no time.

Westbrook and Valle, clad in black bulletproof vests, watched from their cars as Uno and Robinson left the house. The utility guy was a DEA agent, and the whole thing was a ruse so they could raid the house without risking any lives. Law enforcement saw fentanyl as a threat to eliminate at all cost, which meant shutting down the drug manufacturing before moving to arrest Allawi.

At 1:38 pm, men sweating profusely in hazmat suits swarmed the house, lending an otherworldly look to this ordinarily quiet neighborhood. The suits were meant to protect the agents from fentanyl, which they thought could incapacitate or even kill them if they simply touched it. They knocked on the door and got no response. They went in.

The search was fruitful. The agents placed their bounty in front of the garage in a spot demarcated by yellow cones. Among other drug paraphernalia, there were two pill presses, cardboard boxes from China containing ingredients, and enough drugs to put Allawi away for a long time: 500 grams of fentanyl powder, 500 grams of meth, 500 grams of cocaine, 10 kilos of fake oxycodone tablets laced with fentanyl, 4 kilos of fake Adderall laced with meth, and 5 kilos of counterfeit Xanax tablets. Agents found a Ruger revolver and a Sig Sauer pistol hidden in a couch in the living room. They walked out of Allawi’s bedroom carrying an AR-15-style assault rifle and a loaded Glock pistol.

As the agents worked, Uno and Robinson drove by the house and realized what was happening. Far from being scared off by the raid, they returned to the scene with Allawi, Westbrook says. As they drove away one last time, all three men tossed their phones out the car window. Soon after, Allawi called Goss from a new number and asked to meet him at a ritzy house he was renting east of Houston. There, he retrieved a bag stuffed with $50,000 in cash, Goss says, and asked his friend to drive him to the airport. The ringleader had decided to hole up in LA, where he had a condo—and an extravagant collection of sneakers—in the upscale Westwood neighborhood.

His operation was unraveling fast. “I’m fucked. It’s over,” he kept repeating in the car. Like any good drug boss, Allawi started planning his escape. He considered hiding in Dallas or California, according to Goss. When things settled, he could go back to Iraq, where the money he’d sent over the years had allowed his family to start a strip mall. He could flee to Mexico and fly out from there.

But for weeks after the raid, there were no cops in sight. Allawi wondered whether he’d dodged a bullet. Eventually he felt secure enough to return to Texas. One evening at the end of June, he and Goss went to a club. The two men sat in the VIP area, a $500 bottle of champagne on the table. But Allawi wasn’t his usual gregarious self. He remained quiet, his glass untouched. The two men drove back from the club in silence. “I feel like I’m a martyr,” Allawi suddenly said. “All my family’s taken care of. If I die tomorrow, it wasn’t in vain.”

Just a few days later, the DEA moved to apprehend Allawi’s team in simultaneous takedowns across Dallas, San Antonio, and Houston; Uno, Robinson, Al Salihi, and Goss were all arrested. So was Kalra, Allawi’s bitcoin guy. Valle was with a SWAT team at Allawi’s gargantuan rental home in the suburbs of Houston. They tried ramming the door down, but Allawi had splurged on a $10,000 reinforced model, Valle says. The team had to break in through a window.

Inside, they found Allawi clad in black pants and a white polo. He told agents they had nothing on him, even as investigators seized a bitcoin wallet, two money counters, 12 burner phones, four small bags of blue chemical binder, and a .45 Colt.

After the DEA agents made clear that they had more than enough evidence, Allawi quieted down. Sitting on the driveway, handcuffed, cross-legged, and slightly disheveled, he looked more like the young Iraqi who’d smoked hookah alongside US contractors than the leader of a drug ring. He rolled onto his left side, curled into a ball on the pavement, and closed his eyes.

In June 2017, a grand jury indicted Allawi for conspiring to distribute fentanyl, meth, and cocaine; possession of a firearm during a drug trafficking crime; and conspiracy to launder monetary instruments, among other charges.

The mountain of evidence against Allawi was overwhelming—so overwhelming, in fact, that Anthony Cantrell, his court-appointed lawyer, said a trial would take months and put a strain on his practice. Instead, Allawi pleaded guilty to conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute 400 grams or more of fentanyl resulting in death or serious bodily injury, and to using a gun during a drug crime. Investigators estimated that Allawi had made at least $14 million off his criminal activities, and had sold at least 850,000 counterfeit pills in 38 states. Sorianello says that Allawi saw the growing market for pills and capitalized on it with his operation. “He was one of the first we saw doing this at large scale,” he says. “He was a pioneer.”

At his sentencing, Allawi adopted a contrite tone. “I messed up. It was a great mistake.” He concluded by asking for mercy, for the US to give him a second chance. But the court showed no such clemency: As part of his plea deal, Allawi was sentenced to 30 years in a federal prison in northern Louisiana; he has since been transferred to a medium-security facility in New York. After that, he will be deported back to Iraq. Uno, Robinson, Al Salihi, and Kalra, meanwhile, all pleaded guilty and received prison sentences ranging from 18 months to 10 years. The judge was more lenient with Goss, who pleaded guilty to conspiracy to posses with intent to distribute cocaine, and was sentenced to five years’ probation.

Allawi maintained that if the US had been in the throes of a devastating opioid epidemic while he was running his drug ring, he’d never heard about it, “never heard about overdoses or the damage it can cause.” But it was operations like his—dealers selling counterfeit pills laced with illicitly produced fentanyl—that authorities say contributed to so much death and destruction.

Roughly a month after Allawi’s arrest, authorities took down AlphaBay. But it didn’t do much to relieve the opioid epidemic in the US. More than 106,000 people died of a drug overdose in 2021, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention—a record high. Dark-web markets, meanwhile, logged $3.1 billion in revenue that year, according to Chainalysis, a research firm that tracks cryptocurrency activity. Revenue dropped last year, thanks in large part to the takedown of another major dark-web bazaar called Hydra, but illegal marketplaces still raked in $1.5 billion.

China provided most of the fentanyl present in the US before 2019, with traffickers shipping the powder through international mail and private package delivery. But controls that China has since imposed have disrupted the flow. Today, Mexican cartels lead the charge, procuring precursor chemicals from China, which can be legally exported, and churning out enough fentanyl to drown the US. The DEA seized the equivalent of 379 million potentially deadly doses of fentanyl last year, more than the population of the entire country. Distributors are active everywhere. The agency’s Rocky Mountain office, for example, which covers Colorado, Montana, Utah, and Wyoming, seized nearly 2 million fentanyl pills.

Sitting in a hip coffee place in Houston last summer, Westbrook pulled out his phone and flipped through pictures of recent fentanyl busts he’d participated in. In mirror images of the takedown of Allawi’s drug house, federal agents in flashy hazmat suits prowl the driveways of nondescript homes. Industrial pill presses sit on the suburban concrete. DEA offices across the country are establishing groups focused on fentanyl investigations, he says. “It’s weird times,” he later told me, reflecting on the destruction that tiny amounts of fentanyl can wreak. “I went from chasing kilos to grams.”