Hello my good homies. I posted this elsewhere in a security thread, but figured I'd post it here too for awareness. Something I am passionate and somewhat knowledgeable about. Imagine going out into the internet is like walking home alone at night: there are safe routes you know, and you know it's a bad idea to walk down a dark, unfamiliar side street, but you're already out alone in the dark regardless. That doesn't mean it's impossible to explore safely.

Please join me for a crash course in security best practices.

Two-Factor Authentication

First, pick two: Something you know, something you have, something you are. Unless NG starts selling Tankman branded retinal scanners or blood analysis kits, you'll stick with the first two: Something you know (password) and something you have (e-mail account, phone) for 2FA. It's a good idea.

Password Hygiene

I know everyone is terrible at this but STOP using the same password for everything. Servers across the internet get compromised constantly. I've racked up many years of free identity-theft protection as a result of class action lawsuits.

Equally important, I recommend you stop using your browser to store all your passwords. We've encountered problems with this in my job, and it wasn't pretty. There are good password management tools out there. Personally, I like Bitwarden. It's free, open source, and widely regarded as a best-of-class tool.

It can be daunting to create new passwords for the dozens of logins most of us have gotten used to. Passphrases are a little easier to remember and tough for password crackers to beat. So a format like:

xxxx-XXXX-1234-xxxx-XXXX

can be pretty powerful.

new-GROUNDS-1234-tank-MAN is an example.

Everything Else

While I'm on my soapbox, open up a cmd line or powershell and run ipconfig /all. Look for your "default gateway" and copy/paste that IP address into your browser. It probably looks like 10.0.0.1

This will take you to the admin login portal for your router. If you can get in with "admin" and "password", it's time to change it. If you are using "password" or "password1" or "p455w0rd" or anything like that, it could potentially be a problem for you. If you see any password cracking software in action, they automatically run through all these common passwords. You'd be amazed at the terrible passwords attached to critical systems and infrastructure.

More tools for your safety and security (including the aforementioned Bitwarden) can be found here for the interested.

Part II is posted!

In the post I mentioned I couldn't remember how or why I thought about this, but it just dawned on me. I was thinking about cyberpunk as a genre and was trying to think of films that fall under that category. I found a list on imdb, something like top 100 cyberpunk films, and Wax was on that list.

When I started looking stuff up about this, the thing that really struck me was the article I had found from November '93 where he kind of casually predicted the future of entertainment on the internet. Besides that, it goes into some detail about the technology he used to make the film, mentioning in the article "Both the PC work, analog work, and the majority of the production material were fed through a real-time 2-D/3-D joystick controlled, key-frame based device called Impact, from Microtime." What on God's flat earth is he talking about? I don't know, and there are likely only a handful of people that remember: a niche technology used for what was at the time a niche field, but which possible serves as the "senile grandpa" (as I like to put it) of something essential today.

The vast gulf of technological power between the time I was born and the time that is now is absolutely incredible. The curve of progress and innovation in this realm only continues to bend upwards.

Well, it seems I'm back again.

Month after month as I stray away from NG I wonder to myself, should I just cut my supporter payments off? I'm not using it, I haven't been there in X months. But I always tell myself, "It's not that much. You spend more buying a taco. It's something you want to support." It is in this way that the moment passes and has passed for most of this year.

I began today, upon returning after many months, by noticing that I could no longer post in my beloved General forum, which had been locked some number of months ago in an effort at pest control: "Keep your shitposts to Reddit" seems to be the general consensus. I've recently left that platform when I began to realize just how inundated with bots and trolls it had become. Russia's state-sponsored "Internet Research Agency" is the most obvious example that comes to mind, but by this point I doubt they are the only ones: Unit 8200 in Israel and China's Unit 61398 are also likely culprits, and I'm sure CISA has some back-office doing the same sort of work. Such is the new world of cyber-geopolitics, and we're just living in it.

This is all to say that we are in the midst of a new era in the history of the global internet, one in which world governments vie for your data and aggressively drive public discourse, battles will be fought over the laying of submarine cables, and data (and privacy) become the new gold. It was in this spirit of historical prescience that I started a little club here in this corner of the internet. I've got a few ideas for topics, but I'm always open to suggestions if there is something you think I should research.

More than anything, I hope to be able to offer my modest skills to serve as a curator of a sort. I'm sure there are other people doing this too, elsewhere, but they aren't me and there isn't here.

s e e y o u o n t h e b o a r d s . . .

Done! Kaput! Finished!!

This has been a fun month of of brainstorming, creating, reading and writing. This has been my first time organizing something like this, and there were a lot more lessons to learn than I expected. While I did not quite hit my dream goal of 1,000 unique submissions in the last half of the month, my bank account has heaved a sigh of relief. There is less risk of Tom spending all the money on hookers and blackjack with a smaller sum, so that can't be discounted either.

To anyone reading: thanks you if you participated, through reading, writing, conversing. I would like the writing community on Newgrounds to be stronger and small events like these are an effort to make that dream a reality. Too many times I see people (and have been one of these people) "wish we had xyz community", "wish we could do this or that". All communities have this problem, we wait for someone else to make it happen. We are ready to engage and consume but not to create or lead. We have the power to just....do the things we want to do, to build the kinds of communities that we wished were there for us. I hope this encourages people to do so.

So that's it! Rant over! Thank you everyone for not being a wuss and putting yourself out there with your writing, and sharing what inspires you. I have to go to work but I will tallying up the results from the Jam and sending my love via wire to NG soon.

s e e y o u o n t h e b o a r d s . . .

It is time for November Poetry Jam Part 2: The Return of the Empire Strikes Judgement Day: The Reckoning!!

I started thinking, what if this gets a lot of traction? The barrier for entry is pretty low. Potentially, I have resigned myself to an existence of indentured servitude to Newgrounds, a life of toil in which my earnings are funneled to a monolith as I scrape, destitute, through the dirt. But, I can't put the genie back in the bottle. What is done is done, God help me. Really though, truly, I hope that it does get a lot of traction, and I hope it helps shake someone off the creative plateau they might be on, or inspires them out of their writer's block.

Newgrounds is like the internet equivalent of one of those punk rock shows that take place in someone's basement. A close community, unique, almost unknowable from the outside. Once you're in though, you get it. Maybe it's weird or goofy to some people, but that feeling of community is worth the errant looks.

So, please, put me in the poor house people. And if you have the grit, consider joining me for a matching/challenge contribution to help support this place we love!! Don't be a wuss!!

I am enormously pleased with the response to the November Poetry Jam and have been reading through everyone's submissions. There is still time for more, and choosing a winner will be tough, but I want to thank everyone for their submissions so far and just for taking the time to create something in general. It is so important to us as human beings to create, whether it be writing, music, visual art, reupholstering that chair for grandma cause the cat barfed on it, or the many amazing submissions that have passed through Newgrounds every week for over two decades. Hmm...I'm old.

Newgrounds has been and continues to be a remarkable place for creation, collaboration, and community, and I think I will definitely be setting up some more events in the future.

Now with all that sappy stuff out of the way: there is still time for submissions!! I will be choosing a winner tomorrow, November 11th, and likely late in the day as I will be traveling until fairly late. After that, I have another idea bouncing around in my head for the last half of the month.

Hey that reminds me, have you guys seen All Quiet on the Western Front? November 11th marks the end of WW1 and used to be called "Armistice Day". "The 11th day, of the 11th month, at the 11th hour" or something like that. It is really brutal but I think you should see it anyway. There are a lot of people even today that will try to sell you on nationalism and the glory of war, and it's all bullshit. That's a discussion for another time, go watch this movie.

s e e y o u o n t h e b o a r d s . . .

Trying to get something moving! Don't be a wuss, head over to the Poetry Jam thread and enter to win some supporter-ness and of course eternal bragging rights. All rules and regulations will be found there. Look, if you are the only one to enter you are GUARANTEED to win.

It's good to be back around. Anyway, what's everyone reading lately? Whatchu listening to? Saw Anti-Flag play recently so I'm kind of on a kick.

Hopping back on NG I was kind of shocked to see that 20 years with this community passed without fanfare. Like I kind of can't believe it. I've existed on the periphery for a long time, always stopping by the way you drive through your old stomping grounds when you visit home. If you have never left home, you will understand if you ever do.

I'm really, really glad NG is still here. It meant a lot to me when I was young, and lonely, and isolated. It was a time when a lot of kids were finding other weirdos like them for the first time. I think in some ways it was one of many catalysts that pushed me to leave home. I had to get out of my small town to meet the other people that I now knew were out there. I know there are other people on here that felt exactly that same way. It's kinda cool to be an Elder Weirdo able to throw some money to NG, something that gave me so much and really asked for nothing in return. And against all odds, through ups and downs they are still doing it. Absolutely remarkable.

I wonder where all the other old weirdos are. I wonder if they also drop by from time to time, standing across the street and trying to peer through the glass. I wonder how many are out there with families of their own, if they ever told their kids about their time here the way I talked to mine. I wonder how many of them aren't with us anymore at all, and the truth is I will never know.

But you know, lately, I've been coming back here more and more. For a while it was maybe once a year or so as I made the decisions in my life that pulled me this way and that. Then sometime in the mid 20-teens it started to become more frequent, with real bursts of activity. I don't think I'll ever rule the portal the way I dreamed of as a kid, but then again I didn't even create anything at all until I was closer to 30 than 13. But maybe this time I'll stick around a bit more. I want to.

So there I was.

Cruising the BBS.  When suddenly...

NG chat returned after a very long hiatus.

It was totally unexpected and I was kind of stoked.  I remember vaguely going and using the NG chat as a kid.  I jumped in, ready to interact with my fellow man.  What good times we would have!  What discussions!  This'll be great, right?!

Nope.  It's all memes and shitposting, people being crappy to each other, talking about masturbating and hentai.  In short: It's the internet, folks.  It stinks of desperation and jizz towels.  I still don't understand why folks act this way and probably never will.  Anonymity is the death of discussion.

BUT!  You know, there was probably a time when I was younger that I was much the same way.  I was an ugly kid in a tiny town, so fuck everyone, right?  Maybe someone else is going through this same struggle.  Probably closer to the sad truth than I'd like to imagine.

Anyway, I've said it before and I'll say it again:  NG allows you to be yourself, for better or for worse, whether I or anyone else likes it or not.  It positively reeks of freedom.  I don't have to interact with anyone, and I don't have to go to the chat, or the forums.  I don't have to go to Newgrounds at all, but I do it anyway.

That's the adventure we all choose, shitposts be damned.

That's a fine question, folks, and one I have the answer to.

Life happened to it.  I didn't have the time required to dedicate to the guild that it required. Rallying a lot of really great creative people together and keeping them motivated takes time that I just didn't have.  Do I have more time now?  A little.  Do I have more of a commitment than perhaps I did before?  I think so.  Do I have a plan?

Nah, not really.

Be that as it may, I am back.  Perhaps WNG will rise again, perhaps not.  Perhaps something else will take its place.  The only thing I can promise is that I am back and I intend to contribute more and more.

In the meantime, why not sink your teeth into the wonderful Haiku a Day thread started by creative juggernaut Elephly?  Started in June of 2014, and still going strong.  This is the one and only place to view my sad, apologetic Haikus!

It's great to be back.  Returning, I realize how much I enjoyed and missed this community in my abscence.  Now pick up that pen, grab some paper, smash some keys and get back to writing, ya ding dongs!

Much Support,

-Krash