New Things to Beware on the Internet
On May 3rd, Google released 8 new top-level domains (TLDs) – these are new values like .com, .org, .biz, domain names. These new TLDs were made available for public registration via any domain registrar on May 10th.
Usually, this should be a cool info, move on with your life and largely ignore it moment.
Except a couple of these new domain names are common file type extensions: “.zip” and “.mov”.
This means typing out a file name could resolve into a link that takes you to one of these new URLs, whether it’s in an email, on your tumblr blog post, a tweet, or in file explorer on your desktop.
What was previously plain text could now resolve as link and go to a malicious website where people are expecting to go to a file and therefore download malware without realizing it.
Folk monitoring these new domain registrations are already seeing some clearly malicious actors registering and setting this up. Some are squatting the domain names trying to point out what a bad idea this was. Some already trying to steal your login in credentials and personal info.
This is what we’re seeing only 12 days into the domains being available. Only 5 days being publicly available.
What can you do? For now, be very careful where you type in .zip or .mov, watch what website URLs you’re on, don’t enable automatic downloads, be very careful when visiting any site on these new domains, and do not type in file names without spaces or other interrupters.
I’m seeing security officers for companies talking about wholesale blocking .zip and .mov domains from within the company’s internet, and that’s probably wise.
Be cautious out there.
I really want to reiterate how this can go wrong frequently and fast, folks.
A malicious actor sets up a page with an auto-downloader squatting on a domain name that matches a common zip file name like photos DOT zip. This website is set up to start an auto downloader upon being visited, downloading a zip file with the same name as the URL which contains malicious software (virus, worm, keylogger, etc).
Scenario.
Someone you know well sends you an email or text with promised photos attached. The email even reads something like this.
Because .zip is now a TLD, that plain text is automatically formatted into a link to malicious actor’s website without them having to send you anything.
Folk with family with iPhones or iPads that are sent multiple photos in one go might be familiar with iCloud’s tendency to automatically compile them into zip file for the sender and less savvy tech users have trouble NOT doing that.
These same less savvy users, or even just someone just not thinking in the moment, will click that .zip link, not realizing it isn’t the the same as clicking on the promised attachment.
They download a file that matches the name they expected. They open it because they were expecting that file and it’s from a trusted source. Except the file they downloaded isn’t the one that was sent by their trusted source and now they have malware.
Another Scenario.
An IT person tries to send you an email with instructions on how to resolve a problem with a commonly used filename like install-repair DOT zip or to install new software like microsoft-office DOT zip.
The email may start with instructions of where to go get the legitimate file to do the install or repair, but now a line later in the instructions is also has a link to a .zip URL. A user, already frazzled by IT problems, may click it to ensure they have the right file. Again, they download malicious code from a squatting website or it prompts them with a fake login and now the squatting website has stolen their login credentials for a legitimate site. All due to an expected email from a trusted source.
Above you can see microsoft-office DOT zip is already out there with a fake Microsoft login screen waiting to steal your credentials.
These risks are already out there now because the TLD has been activated.
Plain text on old post are already being resolved into links to the new websites.
Here you can see a tweet from 2021, long before .zip was a domain name, now resolves that plan text into a clickable link. You’ll start seeing this everywhere, and malicious actors do not have to lift a finger to send it to you.
Yes, a lot of users aren’t going to click that, but a lot of folk will. Whomever is squatting on photos DOT zip domain name has made a one time payment to have access to anyone that ever sees that file name typed out.
In an example of an existing squatter site, clientdocs DOT zip is exactly one such pre-setup .zip domain name that initiates an automatic download. This one may be harmless, but the set ups are already out there and waiting to catch folk.
It’s an unnecessary and risky can of worms that’s been opened up.
Holy Unforced Errors, Batman.
End OTW Racism: A Call To Action
A fan protest against the lack of action from the OTW on addressing issues of harassment and racism on AO3 and within the organization
This is a Call To Action for Fans of Color and Allies
AO3 has acknowledged that they have a harassment & racism problem that its parent organization, the Organization for Transformative Works (OTW), needs to address. Currently, people can use AO3 to harass others through fanworks, comments, and tags. Just a few examples include: racist Untamed “spitefic” that used anti-Indigenous slurs and was written specifically to lash out at fans of color; a Transformer fic that used its Black-coded character to reenact George Floyd’s murder in July 2020; someone naming a fandom scholar who criticized their Nazi omegaverse fic in the tags of the fic specifically to incite harassment to the scholar; writers using racial slurs against commenters who pointed out racism in their hockey fic; and so much more.
In June 2020, after the murder of George Floyd, the OTW committed to addressing these issues. It has been nearly three years and they have not yet implemented any of the changes they promised, other than a blocking/muting tool that was already in development before 2020. We need to hold the OTW accountable to their own promises. (See the section further down on “Why Are We Doing This” for even more detail.)
As fans, together, we are powerful. We are organizing to protest the lack of action on promises made by the Organization for Transformative works to deal with issues of racism and harassment on their platform, Archive of Our Own.
We call on fans to do any or all of the following actions any time between May 17 to 31, 2023 to send a message to AO3 and OTW that we will hold them to their promises.
On AO3
- Change the title of ten (or more!) of your most recent or most popular fanworks to include ‘End Racism in the OTW’ in the beginning, and provide a link to this post in your summary or first/top creator’s note
- Post a new fanwork any time between May 17th to 31st with “End Racism in the OTW” either as the title or at the beginning of the title. The fanwork does not have to be long - it can be a 100-word fic, a quick sketch, a podfic of a ficlet, a 20-second vid/edit, a short piece of meta, etc. In the summary or first/top creator’s note, provide a link to this post
- If updating any WIPs with a new chapter, add ‘End Racism in the OTW’ to the title and provide a link back to this post in your summary or first/top author’s note
- Update your AO3 icon using the profile pic graphic in our Social Media Toolkit
- Plan to maintain these changes until May 31, 2023, or longer if you wish
- Send a message to the OTW asking for an update on their 2020 commitments!
- For Readers: leave encouraging comments on fanworks with the “End Racism in the OTW” title to show your support of this initiative.
On tumblr
- Reblog this Call to Action with the tag #End OTW Racism
- Update your profile pics and banners using the graphics in our Social Media Toolkit
- Follow this account for updates and signal boost our posts
On Twitter
- Follow @/EndOTWRacism (remove the backslash) and signal boost our pinned tweet
- Update your profile pics and banners using our graphics, and change your display name to include #EndOTWRacism
- Use sample tweets and graphics from our Social Media Toolkit to tweet about your fanworks, and use the hashtag #EndOTWRacism
Help us make this a long-term campaign - sign up to help with other anti-racism projects and future actions!
What Do We Want?
Since their June 2020 statement, OTW has been working on updating their Terms of Service (TOS) to address racist and bigoted harassment, but with little transparency and only the vaguest of updates. It has been three years since their commitment to this update - we want to see the results of their work implemented in the next 6-12 months. Their TOS updates and complementary policies should include:
- Harassment policies that can be regularly updated to address both on-site harassment and off-site coordinated harassment of AO3 users, with updated protocols for the Policy & Abuse Team to ensure consistent and informed resolutions of abuse claims
- A content policy on abusive (extremely racist and extremely bigoted) content; by abusive, we are talking about fanworks that are intentionally used to spread hate and harassment, not those that accidentally invoke racist or other bigoted stereotypes
These points are not particularly new and are not our own innovation; please refer to Stitch’s article written over two years ago, asking for several of these very things.
OTW has also already committed to various process-based actions for longer-term works towards centering antiracism, including hiring a Diversity Consultant. The last update that OTW published said that the consultant would be hired within the next five years (after already having had three years to work on it since their original commitment). That is not soon enough. We want to see the following process-based actions implemented:
- Hiring a Diversity Consultant within the next 3-6 months
- Committing to a policy of transparency on this topic, with quarterly updates on the progress of these projects including challenges and their plan for overcoming those challenges. These quarterly updates should be published on OTW News page and newsletters, not solely discussed in Board meetings
Why Are We Doing This?
16 years ago, Astolat famously published her manifesto calling for a fandom Archive of One’s Own. In that time, AO3 has grown to be a central pillar of fandom, likely far outstripping its founders’ original vision. It is more than just an archive now; it is a central hub of the modern fannish experience. AO3 and the OTW must continue to grow and evolve with fandom over time to remain a healthy and functioning pillar of fandom. To that end, there are several areas in which the organization, as it admits itself, is lacking.
In June 2020, in the wake of the George Floyd protests and the uprising of the Black Lives Matter Movement, The OTW published a “This Week in Fandom” referencing the works of Dr. Rukmini Pande and Stitch, among others in which they discussed ‘making change for a better society’ through ‘conversations about race and racism’. In response, Dr. Pande and Stitch submitted a letter to the OTW calling for a more formal public statement than an offhand reference in a News Roundup that only served to call for thoughts and discussion without any indication the organization intended to do anything, policy wise, to address the issues being raised.
Eventually, the organization did remove the references to the works of Dr. Pande and Stitch and then made an official statement on the issue of racism within the organization and AO3. In it, they identified several things they would be prioritizing to combat harassment and benefit users. Some of those have been implemented (notably those that were already under development). However as of this writing, little else has been done especially in regards to:
- Improving admin tools for the Policy & Abuse team
- Reassessing the current mandatory archive warnings with the possibility of implementing others
- And, most importantly, reviewing the Terms of Service (TOS) to allow the Policy & Abuse team to address harassment that is currently not covered by the existing TOS
By their own admission, the current tools and policies of the OTW are not sufficient to deal with issues of harassment and racism.
Several people who were involved in the founding of the OTW, including previous OTW Board members and staff on the original OTW Content Policy Committee, acknowledge that the founding of the OTW in 2008 and early board iterations failed us as a fandom by not doing enough, and by not even considering the way racism is perpetuated in fannish spaces, despite a long history of racism in fandom.
It has been nearly three years since the original commitment by the organization with little visible, measurable progress on these three crucial issues and a complete lack of transparency on where they are in regards to even beginning to deal with these issues. In fact, in Q&As, it was heavily implied by a member of the board that those calling for OTW to deal with issues of racism (which OTW had already acknowledged as a problem!) were not really fans but outside agitators.
This has cast significant doubt on the organization’s sincerity and commitment to their stated goals, and on their position as leaders of a central fan tent-pole. Fans of color are not outsiders. They are right here, members of our community, and they are being harassed and targeted and driven out while space and platforms are being given to racists.
We, as fans of color and our allies, find the current state of fandom and current actions (and lack thereof) unacceptable. Fandom is our space, all of ours. We, as a fandom, have a right to a racism-free space and have a duty to our fellow fans to create that space. Unlike so much of the world, this is a space we can control and make better. It is a space we must make better.
To read even more about this movement, visit our FAQs.
just found out the “I don’t have enough money for chicken nuggets” guy from vine is married 6 years to a man and does research into HIV and AIDS…
This is the best AITA because on the actual matter at hand I’d say he’s kinda right (ish), $4900 for a week of work is really good money and they can always celebrate later. He should have obviously talked it over with her first but still. What makes him an asshole (or just like, a really really weird person) is every other detail that is tangentially mentioned.
kitten
man. what on earth.
Trigun fucking destroys me, okay.
It’s about persisting through the most horrific obstacles imaginable, and never losing hope for yourself and others. It’s about the fruit your efforts bear, but it doesn’t ignore the ugliness of the suffering you endure. It doesn’t sweep it under the rug to give you a happy ending.
As a jaded millennial, I get a bit tired of stories where everything turns out fine because the heroes tried hard. Most stories gloss over the repercussions of failure. They tell us it’s all simply a means to an end, and that end is what matters. Overcoming your obstacle matters. Winning matters.
Trigun doesn’t do this.
Vash gets hurt (gross understatement). He’s ostracized, bullied, threatened, haunted, forced to see the darkest underbelly of humanity. He’s subjected to the worst parts of life that are grotesquely ruthless, unforgiving, hopeless. He’s forced to reconcile a lot of his goals (like never killing anyone), but not the core of his beliefs.
Not once does he falter in his trust that people are capable of good, that we all deserve that chance to be. He never has a revelation that shakes his faith in humanity, despite constantly being given every reason to. He’s the irritatingly optimistic anime protagonist who looks at impossible odds and says “everything will be alright”, the way no one can in real life because it never works out that way for us.
And it doesn’t for him, either.
Vash does his best, believes in himself, and fails. over and over and over again. He loses everything–loved ones, memories, autonomy. He loses constantly. He’s your unrealistically positive hero, being dealt realistically unfavorable hands.
And still, he persists. He never truly wins. Because we never truly win. Life has no happy ending like a story does.
He never truly wins, and yet, he can still find happiness. He meets friends, enjoys good food, watches people love fiercely in both blessing and hardship. He hits unbelievable lows that don’t keep him from finding highs. Because he never stops trying to be the best of what he sees in humanity. Because every little bit counts. He never stops believing in humans–believing in you.
Trigun grabs you by the face and stares directly at you. It says “I see you, I see your pain, how much you struggle. I see how sometimes no matter how hard you try, things don’t work out. Life isn’t a fairy tale. I see how your kindness can come back to hurt you, hurt others. I see you, and I’m proud of you. Life is worth living with love in your heart not because we win, but because we try. We all try. Never stop trying to be kind.”
Trigun shows you the cruel reality of life, and leaves you feeling good about it.
I don’t know a single piece of media that’s able to do that.
tag yourself I’m ‘hyperactive and impulsive’
It’s Indie Animation Day over on Twitter so here’s a little trailer I put together for it. Have it here as well!
Precious man (not in black!) sighted ❤ (x,x)
Neil Gaiman: Hi, I’m Neil Gaiman. I’m wearing the first red T-shirt I’ve worn since 1987. Because I’m a member of the WGA. I’m on strike. I care so much for the things that I’ve written but I’m out here right now not working and here until we get a good contract because I care about the future of the WGA, the future of young writers. I want a world in which no AI writes scripts or attempts to. I want a world in which young writers get to learn how to make television. And I want a world in which we are fairly compensated for the things that we put up on streaming.
that post calling ppl “mentally slow” for using chatgpt was v weird. while i think u should be learning & not getting chatgpt to write ur papers (tbh it’s not even good at writing papers), i get that school is v demanding, esp when u have disabilities and/or a lot else going on. here’s a couple tools to help take off some mental burdens of studying:
goblin.tools -> excellent site full of tools
- magic to-do: AI breakdown of tasks into sub-steps
- formalizer: in the name! changes text to formal language
- judge: can tell u about the tone/subtext of ur writing
- estimator: judges the length of a task for u
- compiler: turns a braindump into a to-do list
researchrabbit: input a source u have already found to create connection webs (through citations) to other literatures -> ensures higher relevance in the sources u find vs digging thru ProQuest or JSTOR for hours
connectedpapers: same function as above, however it’s limited to only 2 free articles
in case the hyperlinks break, direct links are below the cut


















