Needles & Nilbogs

“there’s a restaurant two miles from my house called—” nope

“today I learned [celeb] went to my high school—” nope nope nope nope nope

these are all real posts I’ve seen on the internet that allowed me to identify a user’s hometown instantly. if it’s a small town, that’s doubly dangerous, because a bad actor could trace you just by a unique first name or selfie you once posted. in an age where doxxing and stalking are some of the worst I’ve ever seen it, you HAVE to think twice about what you’re posting online.

i once saw a 13-year old post an image they noted as being “a few miles from their house.” it had a theater in the shot with a unique enough name to be local. one google maps search, now everyone knew not only what city they lived in, but the possible neighborhoods in that radius too. and they had a HUGE following…who all knew this was a 13-year-old child.

so yeah. not to sound like a 90s internet safety PSA…but I’m gonna be that PSA for a minute.

if you’re posting an image, there is NO need to say that you live there. you could just be traveling. “saw this in Montana” is better than “saw this by my house!”

before you post about a venue, especially a restaurant or small store, check and see if it’s local—CRUCIALLY if it has only one or two locations. people might travel to arenas or convention centers, but they’re far less likely to be traveling to Bartleby’s Fish and Chips. if it’s an anecdote and you still live nearby, you can honestly just leave the name out entirely.

if you’re sharing a news story, it can just be a story you found and wanted to share. you don’t have to clarify “it happened in my town,” because even if you don’t mention your town name, an easily-googled news article will.

if you’re seeing a concert or meeting a celebrity on a tour that’s stopped locally, wait until they’ve hit a few more venues before you post about it, or at the very least wait until you get home. this is honestly a smart move for any event you attend: unless you’re marketing yourself, there’s no need to advertise your location in real time.

check your selfie backgrounds for anything identifying. this includes city names on venues, school names, street signs, and house numbers.

this stuff is flexible if you no longer live in your hometown, or if your city is particularly big, but there’s STILL no reason to tie yourself to your school, your workplace, or your street. you can call it paranoid, but as someone who’s seen my friends get literal death threats over fictional characters before, the last thing I want is someone willing to act on those threats finding out where they live.

I once had a friend post a photo while visiting me with both a unique local business and a set of street signs in the background, while they knew I was being stalked by someone who knew and potentially followed their account. I wasn't in that photo, but other posts from that weekend made it obvious they were staying with me. They hadn't yet been in a position where they regretted having that information publicly available, so it didn't occur to them to avoid sharing it.

It's the kind of thing I've seen people say doesn't happen. It does.

People on phone calls will be kind and respectful until you tell them you're on Medicaid - suddenly they will become strict and hostile. They'll correct your wording and pronunciations, sometimes even mocking you for them. Suddenly there's a wait list. Suddenly the program isn't for "people like you."

Medical offices (who say they accept Medicaid) are open to seeing you. You mention you're on Medicaid and suddenly they don't have any openings. No, not even a wait list. Try another office.

Landlords will find out you have subsidized rent and suddenly the apartment you toured has been filled by someone else, and actually, nowhere else is vacant.

Your meals in fast food joints are watched like a hawk. If you stay too long after finishing them, you're at risk of getting kicked out. Don't even get me started on department stores.

A lot of these are generally part of the poor experience, and also a lot of them are usually worse if you're unhoused (and even worse if you're visibly unhoused), worse if you're racialized, and worse if you're visibly disabled. Black and Brown poor people have all of the above issues and also a higher risk of the cops showing up, and God knows the cops won't listen to their side of the story.

A lot of these are illegal - some blatantly. But you don't have time to prosecute because you're at risk of eviction, you're at risk of losing benefits, losing your car, your medication access, your ID, your food stamps, your spot in a shelter, your name on a wait list... a permanent crisis, a socially engineered pressure cooker.

Where I live we are usually so preoccupied with cultural appropriation that I'm afraid to somehow cross the line.

Omg, thank you for asking this question, it's a really, really good one (I live in Canada and this is also an issue that pops up here).

In the daily life world, what I would recommend is do what feels safest for you. I know some people can take this sort of stuff to extremes, so protect yourself first. If you feel that wearing Hanfu as a non-Chinese person is going to get you attacked (in person, online, anywhere) then it might not be the best idea.

If you're just buying and not wearing out, buy away~!! No one knows what you have in your closet. Or you can always wear it around the house or in your backyard. You can also kind of..."take it apart". Like, wear a Hanfu top with some dress pants, or a Hanfu skirt with a regular blouse. You're less likely to attract attention that way.

In my own, personal opinion, though, I honestly have no issues at all with anyone wearing Hanfu on 2 conditions: It's not worn to mock or bash the culture. It's not worn with the intention to claim ownership of the garment.

I don't care if you wear it solely because it's pretty clothes, I don't care if you love Chinese history and culture and have a PhD in it and Hanfu is part of the package, I don't even care if you just happen to want to wear it for Halloween, as long as there's no malicious intent behind it I personally have no problems at all.

If you actually come to China and wear Hanfu, I can guarantee (yes, guarantee) that NO Chinese person will attack you for cultural appropriation. In fact, the opposite is MUCH more likely to happen in that Chinese people (in China) will LOVE that you are wearing Hanfu. That you show interest in our culture and history, that's very exciting!

I lived in Japan for several years for work and I wore kimonos once in a while there. My Japanese friends and colleagues had no issues with it, in fact they LOVED it (one of them even gave me a kimono from her family's collection). While traveling around I saw lots of non-Japanese people going to professional kimono studios to get done up and then visit tourist sites for photos, no one gave them any issues, no whispers, no side eyes, nothing but excitement to see visitors enjoying and participating in their culture.

I also used to like Lolita fashion, which is inspired by European historical clothing. No one in Canada had an issue with me wearing that sort of thing, even though my physical appearance is clearly not from Europe. If I ever go to Versailles, I plan on a full Marie Antoinette dress and hair and I'll stomp anyone who tries to tell me I can't.

They have a Global Device Identifier (GDID) Tracker that functions as a fingerprint for your PC that can surpass VPNs, proxy servers and countries. Although it can't survive a clean reinstall of Windows (it can survive updates), because Microsoft forces you to go to the internet and log in into a Microsoft account, they will be able to get to you.

Microsoft kept it secret and it was only found out when the FBI tracked a hacker thanks to the information Microsoft gave them.

You should be paying attention to this, and possibly consider moving away from Windows. If a government, especially the US government, doesn't like you for some reason, this could be seriously concerning.

This article specifically notes:

For journalism, activism, or domestic abuse situations, skip Windows and use Linux routed through Tor instead of a commercial VPN. A GDID doesn’t care which VPN you use, only that it’s still the same Windows installation.

Other important quotes:

What has researchers uneasy is everything else the case reveals. Costin Raiu, a well-known malware researcher, asked on the Three Buddy Problem podcast how much of this exists on other platforms, and whether it is linked more permanently to hardware. Matthew Hickey, another security researcher, called Windows “surveillance software”.

Two things back that up:

There’s no consent screen. A GDID gets assigned when you sign into a Microsoft Account. Apple’s advertising identifier needs an App Tracking Transparency prompt and a visible reset; Android’s works the same way. GDID has neither, and a Windows reinstall only gets you a new number Microsoft can still get back to the same account.

Then there’s activation. Massgrave, the group behind Microsoft Activation Scripts, notes that Windows setup sends hardware info to Microsoft and gets identifiers back, the same tokens later used for Store access and licensing: “It’s impossible to prevent Windows from getting a GDID without breaking activation and UWP app[s].” Anyone who lost a license after swapping a motherboard has already met a smaller version of this.

Here's the complaint filed to the court, the primary source for the case mentioned in the article. You can find mentions of GDID on page 30 of the document or 34 of the PDF.

I also made a PDF version!!

If at all possible, I would NOT use the above method to remove and block the GDID.

Why? One of the first steps in this is permanently disabling Windows Update.

TL;DR if your threat model indicates that a government/nation-state could seriously go through the effort of working with outside companies to track you down, extradite you, hit you with felony charges, simply don't use windows.

Ok so:

The author calls this out and says that it's at least ok because you can still update Windows Defender, but this is a false equivalence. Disabling operating system updates is Fundamentally Dangerous, and antivirus measures like defender Cannot protect you from all the things that having an unpatched operating system can make you vulnerable to.

Windows Defender and other antivirus/anti-malware programs are designed to protect you against downloading and running malicious software or being hit by a drive-by download of malicious software. What it does Not do is protect you from unpatched flaws within the operating system. These flaws can open you to your computer being compromised via routes that aren't within the scope of Windows Defender, including Remote Code Execution and Privilege Escalation attacks.

(Now yes, there exist flaws in operating systems that are known by high-level, usually nation-state, actors that have Not been disclosed to operating system manufacturers. These are called zero-days, and if your threat model is such that a nation-state is willing to burn one or more zero-days to get your ass, I'm sorry, but I can't help you. And also, you should already know that your threat model is such and how to take appropriate actions to protect yourself.)

I don't blame you for wanting to avoid having your activities fingerprinted by a GDID, and it sounds like a fresh install of windows with a local account only does allow you to avoid this if using linux isn't an option. This does mean, at minimum, backing up all your data (not on OneDrive, using that defeats the purpose), wiping your computer completely, and then reinstalling windows and using a local account.

Do keep in mind, even without a GDID, that there are many ways that companies and nation-states can track a person, and take that into account when assessing your risk. If you are taking or planning radical actions against a government/nation-state or large corporation, your risk is going to be higher than if you're just trying to get by (which is not to say that it's good or acceptable to be tracked).

- Jewish-coding and Black-coding ignored and erased e.g., character’s experiences are intentional allegory for Jewishness or Blackness, but people insist it’s about queerness instead.

- The desire to see Black and Jewish characters humbled. This is usually in retaliation for some perceived wrong due to a white character. Gets worse if said characters are successful in their fields, then it’s portrayed as “punching up”.

- Ethnic features being erased (skin lightened, curly hair straightened, slimmer noses ect).

- Discussions about antiblack/antisemitic tropes in fandom spaces dismissed because “real bigotry is more important” (“real bigotry” is then never discussed).

- When the main characters are Black/Jewish and yet the fandom won’t stop talking about that fucking white guy.

- Black/Jewish characters made out to be mean, usually depicted as bullying the poor white character (bonus if the “agonisers” are men).

Making fun of a group of people that are privileged over you is one thing, but wishing non-cartoonish violence and death on them ("they should fall off a cliff" vs. "they should be wiped out"), wishing sexual violence on them, dehumanising them, claiming that they're less capable of creating art or living meaningful lives, saying that their relationships are inherently shallow and fake - these things are fucked up. I understand venting and saying extreme things when in pain, but when you find yourself regularly posting about wanting certain people tortured and killed, you need to examine that.

Ever heard of a Black Wedding held in a cemetery to ward off plagues? Or the Schulklopfer knocking on windows to wake the people for morning prayer?

Here’s a sneak peek at two work-in-progress illustrations from our "Jewish Folklore of Eastern Europe" zine! 📖 Help us bring these forgotten stories to life by supporting the project.

We are getting so close to our goal! 🎯 Remember: by backing a reward, you are actively pre-ordering your own physical or digital copy of the zine.

"Without a tub of wax for my ears – which Himesh Patel’s ever anxious Eurylochus, Odysseus’s doomed right-hand man, uses to sail safely past the Sirens – I was exposed to the full din of thumping sticks, staffs, swords and clashing armour, thunderbolts, crashing waves, grunts, screams, toppling palaces and burning temples. But unlike Matt Damon, the wax-free Odysseus who is tied to the mast as he is conveyed past the Sirens (naked ladies reclining on some uncomfortable-looking rocks), I gazed at the shipwrecks and bloodbaths without any agony of emotion."

and

"There are more female characters than in most Nolan movies, thanks to the source material. But none of them has much to say, in contrast to the characterisations in the poem."

Well, that tracks for a Nolan film -

"The couple have no chemistry and nothing in common. Throughout his wanderings, the uxorious Odysseus clings to a little doll figure, intended to represent his wife (like the spinning top clutched by Leonardo di Caprio in Inception); the real woman is barely more interesting."

Yikes -

"If you’re not going to compose a script in Homeric Greek, or even in metrical English verse, you might as well use something like conversational American English. But writing dialogue is not one of Nolan’s talents. The language is relentlessly expository, humourless and flat."

The lines she calls out in this section will probably make a least a couple of my friends laugh incredulously -

"I was humbled to learn that Nolan has read at least the first line of my translation of The Odyssey into iambic pentameter. In at least one interview, he cited my version of the first line of the poem: ‘Tell me about a complicated man.’ But I would be ashamed to have written any part of this script."

....oh my GOD, EMILY -

"The most troubling ethical problem with Nolan’s Odyssey concerns the decision to film part of the movie in the occupied territory of Western Sahara, thus normalising the ongoing violence against the indigenous Sahrawi people. It is particularly galling that Nolan used this land simply as a visually striking backdrop for a film that centres, aggrandises and redeems the hero of a territorial war on account of his belated and partial acknowledgment of his own guilt."