Mads

Ok, it's finally done. Home is a place, home is a person.

This story is my first major piece after several years of art block, and I'm so glad I could finally get back to drawing.

[ FIREPOWER ]

the way fandoms are desperate to make all aroace characters romance and sex favorable but then dont do anything remotely similar to any other identity is astounding. hmm i wonder why

Hi. I made this sideblog out of necessity. I am a 26 year old queer person from Buffalo, NY. I've lived here my whole life. Politically, I am extremely left wing. For many years I called myself a communist/Marxist, and while I still am at my core, I have incorporated many anarchist ideas and methodologies into my practices recently.

Let me get to the point: For the past 6-12 months, and possibly more, I have been under increased state surveillance. A lot of it has to do with a close friend of mine, Kimalah, an anarchist who has been under extremely severe surveillance for 10-15 years now. Due to my proximity to her, and the fact that I am assisting her in spreading information about Buffalo being entirely run by a cabal of feds and tech fascists, I have now been experiencing many of the horrors that she does. I will get into the specifics of why she and I are under such surveillance on a later post. But it is mainly due to our wish to uncover corruption happening with politicians, police and corporations in the area, as well as our desire to help people.

Here are some of the ways that I have experienced surveillance:

Drone surveillance: The city has heavily invested in drones for surveillance and intimidation purposes. I have seen several different models both flying around town and directly following me. I have been unable to find the specific models for most of the drones I've seen on the websites of major weapons manufacturers during my research. However, all of the websites have the disclaimer that many of their products are being developed in secret, meaning the ones I've seen are most likely still in development and are going through test runs. Every night once it gets dark, the sky outside of my apartment is filled with drones, some hanging low and others up much higher. I know they are drones and not airplanes because the majority of them are completely silent. They all have distinct light flashing patterns that airplanes do not have, and most of them are shaped differently from one another. This is mostly an intimidation tactic so that I don't speak about what's happening to my friend, but they are also using AI to collect data about me and of course the rest of the regular people living here.

Helicopters: Like the drones, these are intimidation tactics. But given that they are helicopters, there are real people (most likely Homeland Security officers or some other type of feds) inside them. They send out helicopters when I've done something or told someone something that makes them especially nervous or mad. Last month, a helicopter waited outside my workplace for me to leave each day for a week. When I'd leave work, it would be hovering only ~30 feet above my car, and it would follow me home. Any time I took a new route, or stopped at the post office or pharmacy, it would swerve to follow me and then wait for me to finish my errand so it could continue to follow me home. Then once I entered my home, the helicopter (and often times there would be more than one) would circle my house for hours. They're extremely loud, distracting and unnerving. The helicopters have mostly ceased in the last few weeks, because many people in Buffalo began complaining about so many of them flying around town each day. They obviously realized they were being a bit too obvious, and they now mostly send out drones, save for a few helicopters here and there.

Phone hacking: My partner and I have both had our phones hacked and had messages deleted. We knew it was a hack because it was simultaneous and our batteries depleted extremely quickly. Also, we were able to send and view new messages to each other, but they did not show up as "Delivered". Those messages were then wiped completely. The screen and keyboard also glitched quite a bit, and my phone got very hot. This happened two days after Kimalah reached out to a journalist about everything that's been happening, and offered to have me speak with him as well. My upstairs neighbor is also under surveillance, probably because he is very outspoken against ICE. One day as he sat in his living room, his phone lit up without any notifications there, and a voice said "Wait, it's on?" and then got cut off.

Surveillance from neighbors, landlords, and random people: I am not entirely sure the degree to which this happens to me, although I know it occurs at least somewhat. This type of surveillance is extremely intense for Kimalah. Her entire street has been hired by police to surveil, terrorize and collect data about her. When we go out together, people follow us from place to place just to stare at us, and they're very obvious about it. I do not care whether or not you believe me about this part. I am fully secure in my knowledge and experiences and people calling me crazy cannot phase me.

Cameras: Police have set up AI police cams at every major intersection the city. Flock Surveillance has also made its way to Buffalo. Police are able to track our habits and routes through these cameras and send out drones/helicopters accordingly if we get too close to an area they don't want us to be in. Additionally, my neighbors set up AI cameras pointing into our backyard. These neighbors are tech fascists with DARPA connections. I have read some of their published studies, and they are interested in the field of developing ways of influencing human behavior through brain signals. Essentially, mind control. When Kimalah contacted the journalist, she specifically mentioned my neighbor, and even linked his LinkedIn account. Three days later, the camera directly pointing at my window (they have several around the property but only one is in direct contact of me) was taken down entirely. This is most likely because they found out a journalist may be looking into Kimalah's story, and by extension, them.

Typing this from Graphene now, in fact. But, both of those take the Android Open Source Project, without all the bloatware--and largely de-Google the whole thing. They give you much more control over privacy and what the apps you choose to install can do and access on your phone.

I know Graphene sandboxes everything, including the optionally installed Google Play Services which a lot of apps unfortunately require to run. (Lineage uses an alternative to Play Services instead.) So, you can install what would normally be unacceptably intrusive apps and just lock them away from pulling any funny shit with your data, or phoning home. Including the couple of Google things I do still keep around.

I also prefer running much more transparent, privacy-respecting open source apps where possible. Besides the transparency, I'd rather avoid the shitty tech corps entirely where I can. There are pretty good alternatives available for a lot of the usual suspects.

An alternative app store:

Ah, Amaterasu Origin of all that is good and mother to us all ☀️

Zoids Wild Hunter Wolf custom

And now I have to put on my big person panties and attempt it.

Goddamnit.

At least Ubuntu offers a tutorial with pictures. I guess.

I did not want to get this crunchy this fast. I was trying to ease myself into it. Just sorta heat up the bathwater slowly. My PTSD surrounding tech and how I've been treated is pretty damn sensitive.

Install Linux Mint, they said! It will be easy, they said! Easiest distro to use and install, they said!