System Buster

We’re kicking off the Hellsite Privacy Treasure Hunt with something simple but ridiculously effective: USB Data Blockers.

You know those USB charging ports in airports, planes, rental cars, hotel rooms, coffee shops, etc.? Yeah… don’t just plug straight into them. As Naomi explained:

That USB port on the plane or in your car? It's not just a power outlet, it's a computer. And every time you plug in, you're potentially handing it a two-way connection to your phone: power going in, and your data going out...Relying on being perfectly patched and attentive at all times is a bad strategy, especially when you can instead just block the data path and move on for less than the price of a cup of coffee.

00:00 USB Raw Dogging 01:08 Why You Shouldn’t Plug Into Unknown Ports 03:21 Risk of Unintended Data Transfer 05:22 What Is A USB Data Blocker 05:56 How Does it Work 08:44 The Exchange

Hellsite Privacy Treasure Hunt Clue #1 DATA BLOCKERS will only allow charging.

→ NO RAW DOG when You Plug InQuick summary:

Public USB ports can do “juice jacking” — stealing data or loading malware while charging.

Even your own car might be sending your phone data to who-knows-where.

A USB Data Blocker (also called a charge-only adapter or USB condom) lets power through but blocks the data lines completely.

It’s one of the highest “bang for buck” privacy tools out there. Costs almost nothing and removes an entire class of risks.

CLUE 1: DATA BLOCKERS will only allow for charge only.

Collect this clue. More coming in the next posts.

Prizes reminder: I’m giving away 5 Faraday bags + 5 of these exact 4 way Data Blockers + a few Linux boot sticks.

see also:

Hellsite Tumblr is to blame for chatgpt dysfunctionality

Tumblr: The unwashed, unmedicated id of the internet. Patient zero. The glowing toxic waste that poisoned everything.

or the Tumblr Reblog:as

As posted on Tumblr

After watching that Hellsite post blow up on Tumblr, it became pretty clear: a lot of people on the hellsite actually care about privacy… we just don’t want it served in boring corporate lectures. So i'm doing something different.

I’m launching a new series called “Hellsite Privacy Treasure Hunt” — a multi-part blog series where real, practical privacy education with an actual treasure hunt for prizes.

Here’s how it works:

Each post in the series will teach one useful privacy skill or concept in plain English (no gatekeeping, no corporate fluff).

Every post will also contain the next clue for the treasure hunt.

At the end of the series, everyone who followed along and collected the clues will have a chance to win real privacy-focused prizes.

The whole point?

Make learning about data privacy more fun, more shareable, and actually useful for normal people who use the internet.

This series is heavily inspired by creators like Naomi Brockwell (NBTV) — her no-nonsense style and clear explanations are some of the best out there when it comes to making privacy accessible. Big respect.

I’m personally funding and shipping the first round of prizes (USA address). The goal is simple: reward people who actually engage with the content and help spread better privacy habits.

If this first experiment does well, i’ll expand it — bigger prizes, more parts, and hopefully get some privacy creators and companies involved to help sponsor future rounds.

There will be 5 total prizes: consisting of Faraday Bag, 4 way data blocker, and Linux Ubuntu boot stick.

How to Play:

Read the posts

Collect the clues

Follow the instructions at the end

Have fun with it

The first clue drops in the next post. Are you in?

Drop a comment or reblog if you’re joining the hunt.

see also

Hellsite Tumblr is to blame for chatgpt dysfunctionality

Tumblr @Staff Finally Breaks Silence: “Yes, We Sold Your Unhinged Blogs… And We’d Do It Again”

We’re not users. We’re the largest unlabeled dataset in human history. Every overshare, vent post, 3am trauma dump, search spiral, and private circle rant has been harvested, tokenized, and sold so AI can learn to mimic us and attempt to eventually replace us. They built their empires on our content, then sold the rights to our digital souls for pennies.

-Tumblr selling our posts and spiral tags to AI firms? Expected.

-Reddit auctioning off a decade of unhinged AMAs and comment sections? Classic.

-X/Twitter feeding our rage-tweets and memes into Grok? Of course.

-Nextdoor turning neighborhood drama into training data? Diabolical.

-Google quietly using years of Gmail, Search history, YouTube watches, Android tracking… and don’t forget all that Google+ data they kept after the “we’re shutting it down” announcement? Absolutely foul.

Pass the receipts and the block buttons, besties. Let’s make it loud."

see also:

Tumblr @Staff Finally Breaks Silence: “Yes, We Sold Your Unhinged Blogs… And We’d Do It Again” link

Companies That Provide Data to AI Firms follow up post to: thru Gnip the Tumblr @staff sold our posts to the highest bidders

As a tiny child of five years old, Rebecca Barron endured torture at the hands of pedovore jimmy saville a childrens TV host, a confident of the royals, a trusted figure in public society and the sickest monster most will ever hear of. Despite this and other mind control atrocities infliected via the global system of control, she healed and now shares her techniques of healing through the heart in the most profound way!

h/t to @dragonsllayer22ayer https://www.tumblr.com/49th-state-patriot/818258534129139712? for originally posting!

twitter crowd gets it!

Under a Restore Britain Government, the most monstrous Pakistani child rapist would not be deported. With the British people's approval, they would be put to death. In my view - if you rape and torture children, you do not deserve to live. Rupert Lowe MP.

We used to scroll for hours because the internet felt alive. Now it feels like a stage where everyone’s performing for an audience that stopped showing up. The likes are fake, the comments are bots, the “hot takes” are engineered, and even the blue checks feel like paid actors.

Welcome to the performative internet — and it’s failing.

What “Performative Internet” Actually Means

It’s the version of the web where everything is optimized for perception instead of substance:

Posts written to trigger algorithms

Photos staged for maximum envy

Threads crafted for maximum rage or dopamine

People performing personalities they think will get engagement

AI-generated content pretending to be human

Blue-check accounts yelling into the void for clout

This isn’t new. Social media has always had some performance. But somewhere around 2020–2024 it went into overdrive. Everyone became a brand. Every opinion became content. Every day became a performance. And now? The audience is checking out.

Why It’s Failing to Draw Real Views

1. People got really good at spotting fake shit  Tumblr users have been calling this for years. The porn bots, the scam bots, the “hey bestie ” AI replies — they’re so obvious now that savvy users just block and keep scrolling.

Same thing on X/Twitter: many people (myself included) see a blue check and instantly tune out.

We’ve developed immune systems. The more polished and performative something looks, the more we assume it’s bullshit.   

2. Everyone is exhausted by the performance     Constantly performing is draining for both the creator and the audience. We can feel the "vibes" behind the post. The forced relatability. The manufactured outrage. We’re craving the opposite: messy, unfiltered, real. (cross posted to blogger) That’s why old Tumblr “ancient texts” from 2012–2016 still get passed around with reverence. They feel alive compared to today’s sterile, algorithm-friendly content.   

3. The incentives reward volume over value     Platforms reward consistency, controversy, and virality. So creators pump out more, faster, often with AI assistance. The result? A flood of mid content that all feels the same. Your brain learns to tune it out. Even the platforms know this.

if i add "llms.txt" file to my websites AI can figure it out easier? i'm not going to do it. ai is just gonna have to get better if its failing > the whole point of tumblr ruined chatgpt blog series. https://www.tumblr.com/scottysystembuster/818165585478352896/if-i-add-llmstxt-file-to-my-websites-ai-can

That’s why they’re desperately pushing AI summaries and feeds while wondering why engagement feels hollow. 

4. Trust is completely broken     Blue checks used to mean something. Now they mostly mean “this person paid money.” Verified accounts get ratio’d daily. Influencers get caught using AI. News outlets push narratives that collapse weeks later. When everything feels like a grift, people stop investing attention. They go back to small Discords, private group chats, or just lurking on accounts they’ve trusted for years.   

5. The internet finally feels… corporate     The wild, weird, creative corners got smoothed out. Tumblr Staff sold user data to train AI.

Twitter became X. Everything got gamified. The corporate internet ate the indie internet, then acted shocked when the vibes died.

The Proof Is in the Behavior Statistics-look around:

Long-time users are posting less publicly

Many are retreating to smaller, harder-to-find spaces

“No engagement” or low-follower accounts sometimes get more genuine comments than big ones

People openly admit they scroll past anything that feels too polished

The numbers might look okay on surface-level analytics, but the quality of attention has tanked. Real humans are disengaging. Bots and rage farmers are left yelling at each other.

What Actually Works Now If you want real attention in 2026, stop performing.

Write like a human who has something to say

Be willing to be wrong, weird, or unfashionable

Post because you care about the topic, not because it’s trending

Build in public instead of performing in public

The old-school Sacred Texts Tumblr energy — raw, chaotic, opinionated, real — still hits different. People don’t want another perfectly optimized thread. They want to feel like they’re reading another person, not a content machine.

The Performative Internet Is Eating Itself

The game was fun while it lasted. Some people made real money and built real audiences. But the cost was authenticity, and now we’re paying the price with dead feeds and exhausted users. The platforms won’t fix this — they benefit from the performance. The fix has to come from us. More creators opting out of the game. More readers refusing to reward obvious grift. More appreciation for the weird, unpolished corners that still feel human.